Whispering Nickel Idols

59

We used the doorway the plundering ratpeople were running in and out of. Who stole all that in the first place? The crew from Ymber wouldn’t waste the time.

John Stretch led us up a dusty, rickety stair slick with bat droppings. The bat smell was potent. He led on through a maze of ups and downs. The granary had been built in stages, over generations. The army had wanted everything connected. The ratman said, “I am sorry. I have not yet seen this myself. There must be a more direct route. I believe we are close now. Be silent.”

Silence it was. We’re good at silence. All of our lives have depended on silence at some point. And we’re all still here.

We got around by light that leaked through gaps in roofs and walls. There were plenty of those. Unfortunately, they also let in critters and the weather. Eventually, Singe smelled smoke. Flickering light appeared ahead and below. “Looks like firelight.”

We entered the loft of what once had been a vast stable. Moldy hay still lay here and there, inhabited by Singe’s unimproved cousins.

The flickering light came from an indoor campfire. We advanced carefully. Everybody wanted to see. And what we saw was half a dozen people trying to keep warm around a fire being fed wood torn from nearby horse stalls. There were tents around the fire, four of them, facing the warmth.

The camp had been there awhile. There wasn’t much lumber left. There was trash. Laundry hung on lines. That included green plaid pants. Which I noted only in passing. I concentrated on Harvester Temisk and the old man in a wheelchair. Who looked more lively than a man in a coma ought.

I got down on my belly, at the edge of the loft. Morley dropped beside me. Chodo wasn’t talking, nor was he moving. Still, he was farther into our world than when last I’d seen him.

John Stretch settled to my right. Ordinary brown rats collected around him, worshipful.

Were Temisk and Chodo prisoners? Guests? Or in charge?

The unrelated things were converging, suggesting potential cause and effect relationships.

Chodo had an arrangement with the A-Laf cult. It went back a long time. A-Laf’s thugs came to town to charge their nickel dogs with misery. Before Temisk got in touch with me. Before Penny Dreadful turned up with her spooky kittens.

The appearance of the Green Pants Gang must have emboldened Harvester Temisk. He decided to rescue his boss. Powerful old allies had arrived. And they owed Chodo.

But that left plenty of questions. How had Temisk meant to use me? Surely, Teacher White, Rory Sculdyte, and others hadn’t been factored in fully. They hadn’t been expected to survive the Whitefield Hall fire. Then there was Penny Dreadful. Her kittens had been a jinx on everybody.

Was Penny the straight goods? Was she getting up all our noses for a reason? Was most of what she’d told Dean true?

Her presence certainly excited the Green Pants Gang. My front door was proof.

And the human combustions? I had only hints.

And now a new question arose. How the Tersize family fit. Warehousing stolen goods and housing out-of-town religious gangsters wouldn’t happen without them noticing. Hell, they were using A-Laf’s Ugly Pants sextons for security.

And why had that stone been slung my way? I couldn’t make that fit. It had gem-plus value because of its dark capabilities.

Had Colonel Block and Director Relway taken stones off the Ymberians they’d arrested? Would they guess what they had?

Something to think about.