Sweet Silver Blues

37

Zeck Zack led us down the trail to his house. The peacocks raised twelve kinds of hell. "I'm going to roast the lot someday," the centaur said. "Every damn night they wake me up with that whooping."

He took us in through the tradesman's entrance Kayean used to sneak out. Then it was through servants' corridors to the front antechamber.

"Dark as hell in here," Morley complained. "What have you got against light, centaur?"

If it was bad for him and the triplets, it was worse for Zeck Zack and me. We had no night eyes at all.

There was a ghost of light in the antechamber. It leaked in from the ballroom. It was just enough to betray the form of a man awaiting us.

The centaur said, "At this point you must shed all your weapons. Indeed, everything you're carrying that is made of metal. Past this point you may go armed only with the weapons given you by nature."

I started shucking. I could smell the end of the chase. I would give Zeck Zack the benefit of the doubt.

"Damn, it's cold in here," Dojango muttered.

He was right. And here I'd thought my teeth were chattering because I had to go in there armed only with the weapons given me by nature. I announced, "I'm ready."

Zeck Zack said, "Step up and let the man double-check, Mr. Garrett." He made no apologies.

I stepped forward. A pasty face the color of grubs appeared before me for a moment. Eyes of no color stared into mine. They were filled with an old hopelessness.

He patted me down smoothly and efficiently. Professionally. He did only one thing unprofessional.

He slipped something into my pocket.

It was done slickly. He touched me just heavily enough to make sure I noticed. Then he went to frisk Morley.

One lone candle illuminated the ballroom. It sat, with a quill and inkwell, on an otherwise barren table at the chamber's geographical center. The table was four feet wide and eight feet long, long side toward me. Two chairs faced one another across it. I went and stood behind the one on my side, dropped my credentials and all the legal stuff on the table. Shivering, I shoved my hands into my pockets and waited.

I hadn't imagined anything. I palmed a folded piece of paper.

I checked the disposition of my troops. Morley was to my left, my weak side, two steps out and one back. Dojango was the same to my right. The grolls were behind me. Morley's nose twitched and pointed three times. Three beings shared the room with us, all in front.

One came floating out of the darkness.

She was beautiful. And something else. Ethereal, a poet might have said. Spooky is good enough for me.

She moved so lightly she seemed to float. Her gown whispered around her. Gauzy and voluminous, it was as white as any white ever was. Her skin was so colorless it almost matched her apparel. Her hair was the blond called platinum. Her eyes were ice blue and without expression, except they narrowed as she neared the light, as though it was too bright. Her lips were a thin wound vaguely purpled by the cold. She wore no makeup.

"You're Kayean Kronk?" I asked when she halted behind her chair.

She inclined her head in a barely perceptible nod.

"Let's sit, then. Let's get it over with."

She pulled her chair back and drifted into it.

I glanced at Morley and Dojango as I settled. They were staring into the darkness, as rigid and fierce as trained wolves on point. I didn't know Dojango had it in him.

I looked across the table. She waited, her hands folded.

I gave her the whole thing, Denny dying, leaving his bundle, her having to come to TunFaire with me if she wanted to claim the legacy, or having to execute a sworn and sealed affidavit that would renounce and abjure, in perpetuity, all claims upon the estate of Denny Tate.

While I tried to talk what Morley called dirty-lawyer talk I shuffled and referred to my papers and used that to cover unfolding the thing that had been deposited in my pocket. It was a note of course.

It said:

Come take her out. Soon. Please. While there is still a chance for her redemption.

I shivered and tried to convince myself that it was the cold.

I read on, and under the guise of jotting notes jotted a note:

Open the enclosure only in her presence. Do so elsewhere and all hope dies.

I folded in one of the charms I had obtained from the Old Witch. Hands-at-the-door had not removed those, if he had detected them at all. I got the paper into a pocket and concentrated on concentrating on that spooky woman.

I tried to sound incredulous. "Are you honestly rejecting one hundred thousand marks? Less fees, of course. In silver!"

A ghost of a hint of revulsion feather-touched her eyes as she nodded. It was the only emotion she betrayed during the interview.

"Very well. I won't pretend to understand, but I'll draw up the affidavit." I began scratching slowly on a piece of paper. "One of my associates will witness my signature. One of your companions will have to witness yours."

Again she nodded.

I completed the thing, signed. "Morley. I need your chop."

He came and gave me it. He was still as taut as a drawn bowstring.

I pushed the paper, ink, and pen across. "Is that satisfactory?"

She considered the paper just long enough, then nodded, collected everything, floated up, and drifted away into the darkness.

I put my papers and such together, rose, waited behind my chair. Soon enough the apparition drifted back. She placed the signed affidavit on the table, just beside the candle. Thus there was no possibility of physical contact, as there might be if she offered it to me directly. I gathered it up and tucked it away.

"I thank you for your time and courtesy, madame. I will trouble you no more." I headed for the anteroom.

I noted that neither Morley, Dojango, nor the grolls turned around to retreat. There are times when not having night eyes can be a blessing.

Slipping my counternote to my correspondent was easy. Zeck Zack was so anxious to get us out of his house, and so eager to get himself out, too, that he was blind. In half a minute he was fussing unmercifully, trying to get us moving down the dark halls before we had recovered half of our hardware.