Red Iron Nights

60

Dean let me in through the new door. His arm wasn't broken after all, and our disaster hit the spot for a busybody like him. He'd had workmen in, and was nagging them green, as soon as the sun rose. When I'd been able to sleep through the end-of-the-world racket no longer, I'd gotten up and gotten out, pursuing the Dead Man's suggestion that I double-check on Block and his boys.

"What they did," I told the Dead Man when I got back, "was stuff them in cells while they were unconscious. Then they bricked up the doors. The cells don't have windows. There's a slot in the door so food can be passed through."

That may be enough. Or a sewage chute...

I jumped in smugly. "All taken care of, Smiley. Taken care of. I noticed the business about the rope belts."

The what?

"Rope belts. All our villains wore them. And then Winchell turned up at Hullar's with his belt partly unbraided. The guy that tore up our place had on what looked like it was what was missing from Winchell's rope. I knew what was happening, then. The rope carries the curse."

You failed to mention that.

I snickered. "So I cheated a little so I wouldn't get all the glory hogged away."

What glory? There will be none for you. The public is going to believe that the triumph over the curse is all Captain Block's fault. He will see to it.

Killjoy. "Block has the ropes locked up in a box stashed inside a sealed coffin in another bricked-up cell."

The Dead Man remained dubious, given the ineptitude of the Watch. I was worried too. I concealed it. "Got some final translations on my research. I was right. The whole thing started over a woman. They even found me a portrait of Drachir... "

Who was a ringer for the old man in the coach, I presume.

"Yeah." You can't hold out on a determined mind reader. "And he wore butterfly earrings."

He had a strong interest in butterflies.

"Apparently."

And a stronger interest in outliving his rival.

He was stealing my thunder. Here I'd come home chock-full of news and he was stealing it out of my head or he'd figured it out already. "Yeah. He'd figured out how to become immortal the hard way. When he set up the curse thing, he put an extra twist on it so the Candide woman, who'd spurned him, would be sure to get got. Then he let himself get killed. Didn't matter to him. He would come back to life through his curse. Except his curse always gets stopped just before it finishes recreating the man who created it."

You have to wonder about people like Drachir, who are willing to sacrifice hundreds on the off chance they might whip death for a while themselves. There are people out there, masquerading as human beings, who never see you and me as having any more value than a beetle. It's a pity they aren't content to devour each other.

I expected either prisoner to kill himself at the curse's behest. The Dead Man disagreed. That would serve no purpose now. Suppose one of them did bite through the veins in his wrists? What then? Not even Block is stupid enough to enter the cell without a first-line wizard backing him up.

"Assuming any ever shows up."

Indeed. They may never. They may never leave the Cantard.

"And meantime we got a corpse rotting. Someday somebody gets sick of the stink, opens the cell... " The Dead Man had stopped listening. Vaguely, he admitted there might be something to my concern. But I'd made the mistake of nudging his thoughts toward the Cantard. Suddenly he was preoccupied by the south.

There'd been a flood of news. I'd been picking it up all morning, but he'd gotten a big dose from Saucerhead already. That was my buddy Tharpe, rush right in with anything newsworthy—if it was going to make Garrett's life a little more miserable. I love the guy, but he doesn't know from consequences. If brains were glazier's putty, he couldn't weatherproof a windowless room.

Word out of the Cantard made it look like we were in for a Karentine triumph. We could look forward to endless parades and countless mind-numbing speeches.

Karentine losses were as heavy as I'd predicted, but the morCartha had rewritten the Cantard equation completely. The Venageti were done for. They'd collapsed. Quarache was their northernmost outpost now. That was so far to the south, even our long-range commandos hadn't reached it till recently.

And Glory Mooncalled's republican armies, while still motivated and courageous, couldn't overcome the combination of numbers, sorcery, and vastly superior intelligence now ranged against them. These days our commanders knew what the republicans planned before they started doing it.

Didn't take any military genius to see that they'd soon be on the run and the morCartha would be employed to hunt them down.

Hardly anyone believed the news. Many didn't want to believe it. But it was hard to deny evidence that said three generations of warfare would end within a year, that all-out peace might erupt at any time. And all because of some flying things that everybody considered vermin when they were visiting TunFaire.

Goes to show you, as Saucerhead says. You never know. A real philosopher of the street, Saucerhead Tharpe.

The future was becoming scary territory.

Belinda never got the Dead Man down to Morley's place. She did manage to see all the underworld heavyweights and most of her father's nominally legitimate associates. First thing I knew, she was headed home.

Crask and Sadler had slipped away from Chodo's place. But they were still around somewhere, biding their time.

Candy faded from my life. She returned to the Hill, probably to escape Barking Dog, who was not welcome up there. Amato kept making a pest of himself, wanting things from me that were beyond my capacity to provide. I could not force open a door into a family that did not want to let him in. I could feel sorry for the guy, maybe, but not much more. I could continue delivering periodic reports to Hullar, without telling Barking Dog, so Candy could keep track. But I couldn't give him what he thought he wanted. I wouldn't give him Candy's adopted family name.

Belinda sent a letter inviting me out. I rented a buggy from Playmate and dragged my bones out to see her. She knew me better than I thought. She waited till after playtime to roll her dad out.

Same old Chodo. Frisky as a wedge, alert as a potato. She was using him exactly the way Crask and Sadler had. I was repelled. I left as soon as I could without leaving anyone angry.

I was disappointed. Belinda was no better than the men she'd ousted. She'd become the new kingpin by climbing over her father's still-warm flesh.

Must you? the Dead Man whined. I was about to doze off. About to abandon this vale of sorrow for the land of sweet dreams.

"Come on! That's really laying it on thick."

Report, then. Get it over. I need my sleep.

He couldn't have been too depressed, regardless of the war situation. He didn't threaten to close up shop for good.

I have suffered countless disappointments at the hands of your feckless race. One more will not nudge me over the edge. Get on with the report.

I described my visit to the Contague establishment. Most of it. Being a gentleman, I did employ some discretion.

Just to drive me crazy, he observed, It might be interesting to have Mr. Contague visit sometime. I suspect that all may not be what it seems there.

"What do you mean by... ? Hey!" He'd drifted off. At a very fast drift. And wasn't interested in awaking to explain himself.

Leaving me hanging was the root of his plan, of course.

No more Belinda, no more Candy, and Tinnie still hadn't come around to tell me I didn't need to apologize for what I hadn't done. "You and me again, lady," I told Eleanor. ‘"Alone at last. Maybe. Fingers crossed?" The Dead Man was really working out on his napping, and there was a chance Dean would be getting back out of the house—for a while, anyway. One of his horde of ugly nieces had sold her soul or something and found a blind man to propose. Though I'm not religious, I was praying. No atheists on the battlefield. I wanted the engagement to take. I wanted Dean to travel to the wedding, which would take place out of town if it happened at all. I would get rid of the cat. I would burn a thousand sulfur candles. Or I might sell the place and contents and disappear before the one woke up and the other returned. Simplify my life. Move across town and change my name and get me an honest job.

I did learn that I have the second sight. My prophecy was correct. The next fad was revolution. It stumbled out of the cafes and failed abysmally. Peopled by the very young, the revolution neither asked nor accepted anything from the old and experienced and wise. Westman Block and his secret police, directed by Relway Sencer, ate them alive. The rebellion collapsed without having stirred any dust. Afterward, Block bragged that five members of the seven-man Joint Revolutionary Direction had been Relway's agents.

Need any more convincing that those fools were fools of the first water? In the real world Block had to pay me to save his bacon when he ran into real troubles.

He hasn't been around lately. Happily. Word is, a whole cabal of wizards has agreed to research and unravel the Candide Curse (how come it isn't called the Drachir Curse?) and keep their eyes on one another so nobody gets any advantage from the spell. Just as soon as they catch Glory Mooncalled.

Might be a while.

The Dead Man's hero hasn't given up. Neither the morCartha overhead nor the Venageti proposal of an armistice has daunted him.

Life was good. Life was normal. I could sit back and do some serious thinking and beer tasting.

Then Morley's nephew Spud showed up with the parrot. Supposedly a present from my leg-breaker friend. The parrot could talk. Morley figured I could use it to drive Dean crazy and get rid of his cat. The bird hated cats. It swooped on them, clawed at their ears and eyes.

Word of advice. Word to the wise. Voice of experience. Don't ever bring a talking parrot within thinking range of a dead Loghyr. Not ever.