Relway is predictable some ways. For example, you can count on him to bring out the melodrama in any situation. He did that at the Lamp brewery, where he had guys with torches creeping around the interior ruins generating wonderfully creepy, dancing, slithering shadows. “It’s in worse shape than I thought it would be,” I told the little guy. The brick exterior remained sound but the inside walls and floors were falling down and caving in.
“Smells odd, too,” Morley said. He drifted over and through rubble and ruin without attracting a speck of dust.
Relway grumbled, “The smell comes from what we’re here to see.” He wasn’t pleased with his pal Garrett. Garrett had let Morley Dotes and Pular Singe tag along. Deal Relway wasn’t dim. He knew Morley would try to memorize some identifying detail about him and that Singe, without even realizing it, would accumulate a battery of olfactory clues. I hoped he didn’t feel threatened enough to consider some unpleasant form of rectification later.
“Through here.” Relway ducked under a sagging floor joist. I had to duckwalk in order to follow him. The dust showed that there had been a lot of traffic before us. “What a glamorous life they lead.”
Relway grunted. Block made a small speech about evil always seeming glamorous from a distance but being squalid and ugly when you saw it up close. It was hard to argue with that. I saw proof every day.
On the other hand, the wicked do prosper while the upright perform hopelessly in the theater of their own despair.
“Kind of like my shoulder ornament, you mean?”
The Goddamn Parrot, who hadn’t wanted to miss this adventure, made a sneering noise—really! And Morley announced, “I resent that. That avian gem was a gift from me.”
“For which you’ll never be forgiven. Yech!” The smell was getting stronger fast. Though repellent, it had a familiar edge, a malty—
“Here,” Relway said, indicating a couple of old copper fermenting kettles that should’ve been stolen for their scrap value ages ago. “Take a torch and climb up there.” He indicated a crude platform fashioned from old crates. “You too, Wes.”
I borrowed a torch from a Guardsman. Colonel Block snagged another. We accomplished the climb with a minimum of injuries, though the wonder buzzard also lost some tail feathers to a waving torch.
The kettles were full of stuff. A big bubble broached the surface of the one nearest me. “Oh! That’s foul. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to brew their own.” That’s what they were doing. Badly. That’s why the stench seemed familiar.
Relway said, “That’s right. Take that paddle and push the scum out of the way.”
A six-foot pole with a wide, square end lay across the top of the pot. I followed instructions.
“Shit!” Block exclaimed. “What the hell is that?”
I had to keep pushing the surface gunk aside to see it.
It was a slug olive drab thing four feet long and human-shaped. No. Monkey-shaped caught it better. Its limbs were long and skinny and it had a tail. It had a round head with large, round, lidless, lemurlike eyes. And no ears.
There was another in the other kettle, not as completely developed.
“What do you think?” Relway asked. “Think what’s in them pots maybe’s got something to do with why they’d want to grab control of TunFaire’s biggest brewery?”
“They’re cooking up baby changers. Damn! Makes you understand their behavior. Some. Makes you kind of sympathize—if that’s how they have to reproduce.” I smelled ancient sorcery of the same sort that had created Singe’s people. “But they’re still dangerous monsters from where we stand. I wonder if it’d make any difference to Max that his family didn’t die just because of somebody’s greed.”
“Grief ain’t big on caring about why,” Block observed.
Singe suddenly squeaked, “Garrett! Danger!” and scooted into the darkness like…Well, like a scared rat. Something stirred back the way we’d come. Somebody barked something. Relway started to drag out a black knife. That started everybody else grabbing for weapons.
“Deal!” Block snapped. “Relax.”
Relway froze instead.
A wicked vision seemed to materialize slowly from the uncanny shadows, like that mythical breed of vampire that spends part of its unlife as a mist capable of passing through the finest fissure. As it moved into the torchlight I saw that it was someone in black robes with golden lightning bolts embroidered on them, his face concealed behind a silver mask. Clearly the aforementioned Stormwarden Perilous Spite, clinging to the traditions of his kind, which have spooky behavior and bad clothes as their foundations.
But people off the Hill dress like they’re expected to dress. I sometimes wonder where they find their tailors. I also wondered if I really wanted this guy to turn up after all. Already he felt like clabbered bad humor.
The Goddamn Parrot decided he wanted to go for a fly with Pular Singe. Probably a good idea. I didn’t want him attracting attention.
Block caught my eye. He jerked his head. I stepped down. He followed. His pal the wizard took our place. He stirred the kettles and examined their contents.
I call him he for convenience. There was a one in three chance that a woman lurked behind that mask. Not that sex made much difference. Those people are all misery on the hoof.
Block tugged my sleeve, gestured with his head. It was time us grunts made ourselves scarce.
I departed still reflecting upon whether or not it was a good thing to have the stormwarden join us. His presence might be enough to guarantee the continued sinister shyness of the specter general from the Cantard, whose appearance would be much preferable to me.
• • •
As we strode toward the Weider mansion Relway asked, “You gotten anywhere finding out anything for me, Garrett?”
“Nope. And I’m not going to, either. They’ve flat out told me I’m not getting inside anything, nor am I getting anywhere near any information they don’t already want the whole world to share.”
“But you’re the perfect recruit.”
“I think I was the perfect recruit until I started talking to you.”
“Hmm?”
“Just a hunch. But if I was you and Block, I’d keep an eye out for one of your guys who maybe feels as strong about human rights as he does about law and order.”
The ugly little man’s face turned to cold iron.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.