Whispering Nickel Idols

44

The rain started in the afternoon. It began gently, but cold. After a round of thunder, it turned to freezing rain. Lucky me, I didn’t have to hazard streets gone foul and treacherous.

I was in with the Dead Man, halfway napping, feeling restless. Like I never would have if I’d been free to go out. The Dead Man was having fun needling me about my sudden surge of ambition.

Somebody came to the door.

Dean clumped on up there. He was tired of playing with kittens and trying to manage an intelligent conversation with Singe. He can’t ignore what she is for long.

Voices rattled but got lost in the clatter of the rain. Which fell with great enthusiasm, coating everything with ice. Morley came in looking as bedraggled as ever I’ve seen. He had ice on his head and shoulders. I said, “I’m speechless.”

“If only that were true.”

“What’s a dog like you doing out on a night like this?”

“It wasn’t bad when I started. I was two-thirds of the way here when it turned awful. I huddled in a doorway with refugees until it was obvious it wasn’t just weather god whimsy. Here was closer than home, so I came ahead. I fell several times. I may have sprained my wrist.”

I chuckled, picturing him huddled up with a bunch of street folk. “I suppose I ought to sit on my mirth until you tell us what you’re up to.”

Morley told the Dead Man, “Your little boy is finally beginning to develop social skills.”

Enough contusions and abrasions eventually wear the corners off even the roughest blockheads, given time.

“I can’t argue with that,” I confessed. I started to lever myself out of my chair.

Never mind. Dean and Singe are coming. They are eager for something to do that does not require them to be good company to one another.

Dean arrived carrying a chair. Singe was equipped to dry Morley out and wrap him in a comforter. Dean said, “We’ll get something warm inside you as soon as can be.”

“I’ll be fine,” Morley said. “I just hope those idiots at The Palms don’t burn it down while I’m gone.”

Morley is a micromanager. He isn’t comfortable giving his people an assignment and letting them run. I said, “You went off to the Cantard with me one time and it was still there when we got back.”

“That was in the old days. You couldn’t hurt the place when it was the Joy House.”

He went on, but I listened with only half an ear. I was marveling at the Dead Man. He’d dropped “Miss Pular” in favor of the informal “Singe.” He had accepted her into the family.

Such as it is. Strange as it is.

Maybe I ought to recruit a dwarf now.

I asked, “What’s become of all the dwarfs?”

Which question garnered bewildered looks.

I said, “It just hit me. I don’t see dwarfs anymore. Come to think, there aren’t many trolls around anymore, either. Even elves aren’t as common as they used to be.”

“Members of the Other Races are leaving TunFaire,” Morley said.

I gulped me some water. I couldn’t tell if it was all in my head, but I seemed thirstier all the time. “You saying all that human rights racialist stuff is working?”

“It is. Though not quite the way you’re thinking.”

“Eh?”

“You don’t really think a bunch of drunken yahoos with ax handles would intimidate a troll, do you?”

I had to admit it. That didn’t seem likely. “We’re getting old.”

“Speak for yourself. What brought that on?”

“We’re sitting around a fire talking instead of being out in the weather having adventures.”

“And I’m just as happy. If I’m careful, I’ll last for centuries.”

“Then how come you’re out when even the mad dogs have crawled under the porch?”

“I didn’t plan it.”

“I got that much. Thanks, Singe. Pull up a chair. Listen to the master tell tall tales.”

“I wish,” Dotes said. “What did you do to Teacher White?”

“Nothing. Just chatted him up. What you’d expect. Why?”

“He’s gone insane. He hit Merry Sculdyte. You don’t mess with Merry-unless you catch him with his pants down. Which is what Teacher must have done. Rory will have smoke coming out his ears.”

“So Teacher did something stupid. Is that a major departure? You got any more details?”

“No.”

I noted the Dead Man’s absence from the conversation.

“What got into Teacher?” I mused rhetorically. “He was pissed off because two heavies he borrowed from Merry croaked Spider Webb and Original Dick on him. But he didn’t seem suicidal when he left.”

The Dead Man said nothing. I’m sure he wasn’t feeling guilty, though.

I admitted, “We did ask him to get a couple people to come by. I didn’t think he’d go start a war.”

Dotes mistook me. “Your name isn’t in it. Yet.”

“Not entirely reassuring. But good to know.”

Dean seldom takes an interest. But he had no work and it was too early for bed. He brought a chair in and nurtured the fire while he listened. He kept quiet.

I told Morley, “Interesting stuff, but why come out in this?”

“I was concerned that Rory might think you had something to do with his brother’s misfortune.” Friendship and the showmanship involved in being a manly man lead us through dumb contortions, sometimes.

“What do you think, Old Bones?”

Nothing.

“Come on. I know you’re not asleep.”

Indeed not. I am monitoring the approach of the grand villain Teacher White and his merry men. Including a man named Merry, whose appellation seems singularly inappropriate.

“Headed here?”

Five minutes. Teacher White knows the truth, but Merry Sculdyte will come in blind.

I felt him get busy telling everybody else what to do.

He’s a take-charge kind of guy.