Deadly Quicksilver Lies

36

The Wixon and White street door was locked. The closed sign stood in the window, supported by drawn shades. I had a feeling the boys wouldn't answer if I knocked.

I said, "We'll check back after those characters start thinking we've forgotten them. Right now, we'll find the weather friendlier in another part of town." I could see several butternut outfits. They weren't easily overlooked since all normal traffic had deserted the street. Way it goes in TunFaire.

We moved out as fast as Ivy would travel with that idiot bird. The butternut brunos were content to let us take our trouble elsewhere.

After a while, I asked, "Slither, you know why I like working alone?"

"Huh? No. How come?"

"On account of when I'm working alone, there's nobody around to call me by name in front of people I don't want to know. Not even one time, let alone four."

He thought about that and eventually concluded that I was peeved. "Say! That was pretty dumb, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Why shield the man's feelings? That kind of mistake can be fatal.

On the other hand, the butternuts had no reason to keep after me. They had run me off before my pockets filled with doodads they doubtless felt only they had the right to pilfer. They could beat their chests and tell the merchants association they were mighty hunters and protectors.

I couldn't see the swashbucklers pursuing the matter. All they cared about was that book. I growled, "Shut up, you mutant pigeon."

I wondered about the book. I'd read all three volumes of No Ravens Went Hungry, waiting around at the library. What set the story in motion was a dynastic squabble among mobs of people who were all related somehow. The prize was an almost nominal kingship over a loose association of barbarian clans. Not one person in the whole saga was the sort you'd ask into your home. This hero, this thug Eagle, murdered more than forty people during his life.

No Ravens Went Hungry was based on actual events that marinated in the oral tradition a few centuries before being recorded.

I hadn't enjoyed it, partly because no likable people were involved, but more because the author had felt a duty to name every player's antecedents and cousins and offspring and, likewise, those of everyone they ever murdered or married. After a while, it got hard to keep track of all the Thoras, Thoralfs, Thorolfs, Thorolds, Thords, Thordises, Thorids, Thorirs, Thorins, Thorarins, Thorgirs, Thorgyers, Thorgils, Thorbalds, Thorvalds, Thorfinns, and Thorsteins, not to mention the numerous Odds and Eiriks and Haralds—any one of whom could change his name any time the notion hit him.

"What now?" Slither asked, prodding me out of my thoughts.

Ivy looked over his shoulder, expectant. He seemed more disappointed than Slither about having missed a brawl. But he did stifle the Goddamn Parrot whenever that stupid harlequin hen started propositioning passersby.

"I'm going to go home, get me something to eat. That's what now."

"What good will that do?"

"It'll keep me from getting hungry." And it would set me up to get shut of him and Ivy and the parade that stretched out behind us.

I had plans.