Wicked Bronze Ambition

39

I eased into the Dead Man’s room. “So, did you get anything out of those guys I sent you?”

Belinda yowled loudly enough to be heard from across the hallway. Dean had her planted with her feet up and was working on her blisters. She had raised a fine crop. The man was a saint, working that harvest.

They knew nothing useful immediately. However, they had picked up several small clues that will help pick those old men out of a crowd. Faces appeared in my mind. One was a generic old man, but the other had wild white hair almost a foot long, plus a nasty wen inside his hairline, above his left eye.

“They might be brothers.”

One of the visitors had the same thought.

I started to ask if he thought it would be useful to interview Trivias. .

Of course. Arrange it. Relax for a moment. I need all my attention elsewhere.

I chewed some air.

Well. These people are quite careful about not coming too close. But there is too far to be caught or read and there is too far to be detected. They have failed to stay back that far.

Well, duh! He wouldn’t know about the ones who were smart enough to stay far enough away, would he?

You are correct, sir. And you can forget those ambitions immediately. I will have Singe do whatever tracking needs to be done. Your task will be to return to the Hill, both for your own safety and because that is where the crime took place. You have reports to make and tracers to be created for the smith’s employ.

He was scheming something. I wasn’t sure what. He was too preoccupied to break it down. But he did get back to me eventually.

Our heart-line task must be to unravel and requite what was done to Strafa. The Tournament of Swords is an interesting abomination, of course. It must be stopped. But it is of secondary import to us right now. Do you understand?

“In a personal, emotional sense, of course I do. But I don’t see how we can separate the one from the other.”

That argument does have some odor.

Huh? “It will have a big, fat stinky-cheese smell to any Operators or players who get into the game seriously.”

Even so, we should try to separate, or at least distinguish, the two, till we are given no other choice.

Odd. He made it sound like he’d had a hunch and wanted to chase it without sharing it or even admitting its existence. He didn’t like having to confess when he guessed wrong.

I was vaguely aware of the front door closing. “Where is Singe headed?” She, I assumed, because I hadn’t heard Penny blundering around like a mastodon on crutches.

The girl has trouble being quiet.

In fact, that was Miss Contague departing. However, Singe did leave the house earlier. He did not elaborate.

I didn’t think about that much. Singe did the shopping because Dean no longer had the stamina.

“Have we gained any ground other than where I stuck my nose in? Did you see Race and Dex?”

I did. They were of less value than I had hoped. They merely confirmed my speculation about Strafa having gone out of the house to deal with Min. Ah yes. The point whence the killing bolt was launched has been determined, adding nothing to our knowledge.

Information washed into my head, in no good order. He seemed distracted. I glimpsed the city through Singe’s eyes and nostrils. She was involved in an exchange with one of the Specials outside. The vision slipped away. Old Bones got me involved in a hypothetical reconstruction of what had happened with Strafa.

His scenario hinged on the known facts. Two women had been injured, one severely, the other fatally. One broken bolt had been discovered. The engine necessary to cast that bolt would take a minute to crank to full draw.

Both women must have been injured by the same bolt.

Footnote question: Could there have been a second engine?

“I call ‘miracle shenanigans’ because somebody moved one engine without being seen.” “One bolt takes everybody” is one of those implausible things that seldom happen anywhere but in a war zone.

Old Bones had decided that a bolt meant for Min had ricocheted off bone, breaking as it did, the tip half then going on to bring Strafa down.

The plausibility factor was weak, but he could not come up with a hypothesis that fit the facts better. And, as noted, more absurd stuff had happened in the Cantard every day.

I made sure. “Vicious Min was the target?” No way Strafa could have been that at fifteen feet up in a one-missile theory. “I’m confused.”

Nor are you alone. Your problem, however, is that you are determined to force a pattern onto an inadequate information array.

“I know. Do the outside pieces first. Did somebody say that the red tops found the other half of the bolt?”

I do not recall that. If so I have not been so informed.

I mused, “I need to take a closer look at Vicious Min.” Again we faced the fact that our only witness to murder was someone who might be vested in avoiding the truth.

The Dead Man put nothing in concrete form, but he was thinking the moral equivalent of “Don’t teach Grandma to suck eggs.”

He offered a scenario in which Vicious Min was the assassin and the sniper was there to protect Strafa.

“Logically absurd,” I said. “Anyone trying to cover Strafa would have started making excuses before she hit the ground. Speaking of grandmothers. .”

As he sent, Speaking of Vicious Min. . Be careful out there!

I needed a moment to get that he meant that for Penny.

“You sure you want to let her go out?”

She will be at less risk than you would be. She will pay attention to her surroundings.

I stomped my pride down. “Yeah. About that. .”