84
"What happened?" I mumbled. I was the last one to wake up. The delouser's effects were cumulative for sure.
"How about you tell me," Block growled, dragging me into a seated position with my back against a wall.
"I've got a notion I don't have a lot of fleas anymore. Gods, my head is killing me! Hit me and put me out again." I meant it at the moment.
"No. I want you to get up. I want you hurting while you explain what just happened. You won't be able to concentrate enough to bullshit me."
"I don't know what just happened. You were here. You were paying attention. You probably got a better look than I did."
"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. I can't shake the feeling that there wasn't a pea under any of the shells."
Nausea overcame me as I tried to stand. Beer and my last meal beat me to the floor.
"Godsdammit! That just tops my whole day off, Garrett!"
I tried to climb the nearest chair. It was occupied. I gasped, "Get me some water. Wasn't somebody supposed to go after water?" And, "What happened to him?"
The man in the chair was one of the sorcerers. His eyes were open but nobody seemed to be at home behind them.
The look was worse than the thousand-yard stare. With that you knew your guy would probably come back someday. Seeing this, you knew he wouldn't, ever.
"I don't know, Garrett. He seems to have turned into a vegetable. They all have. But nobody else was hurt." He stepped carefully, avoiding my mess.
Wow. Casey must've done that deliberately. He wasn't a nice guy after all. Unless he hadn't been aware what they were and this was a by-product of them owning their talent in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Block declared, "I think their intelligence was deliberately and systematically destroyed."
"That would make our Casey a vindictive little bastard, wouldn't it? Completely without a sense of humor about being misused. Why do you suppose he let you and me and the rest of these guys slide? Because we're like him, just battling the darkness the best we know how?"
"Gift horses, eh? You could be right." He didn't say anything for a while. I seized the opportunity to concentrate on feeling sorry for myself. I wondered if Lastyr and Noodiss had gotten away before they gave Kip an idea for a miracle headache cure. I'd better check. Then Block told me, "I'd better have you taken home. I want you to stay inside your house until I get this sorted out. There'll be questions. Some of you men want to get this mess cleaned up? Can't anybody around here do something without waiting to be told?"
It didn't seem likely. Not when everybody was preoccupied with a killer headache.
"This is bad shit, Garrett," Block whined. "This's real bad shit. I'll be lucky to get out of this just losing my job."
"Aren't you being a little too pessimistic?" I clamped down and pushed the pain back. But not very far. "Man, you let yourself get way too impressed by people off the Hill. Did Hill people give you your job? I thought Prince Rupert did that. And what were these guys trying to pull, anyway? They were trying to cut the rest of those witch doctors up there out of the jackpot. You watch. The rest of their kind will take one quick look at the facts and figure they had it coming."
"You do have a knack for looking on the bright side, Garrett. I sure hope it's as easy as all that."
First I'd heard of me being a brightside kind of guy. But what the hell, eh? If I played to that maybe Block would forget to nag me about Casey's getaway.
I reminded the good colonel of his obligations. "I thought you were going to take me home."
85
Colonel Block's coach was still a block from my house when it bogged down in traffic. Macunado Street was clogged with bodies, most of them human and only remotely acquainted with personal hygiene, but with plenty of odds and ends and mixtures in the crowd, too. Everybody wanted to see the glowing blob in the sky that seemed so interested in our neighborhood.
This blob wasn't a flying disk. Nor was it like those things that Evas and her friends had flown. This was more of a cylinder with gently tapered ends, with nothing protruding outside. To hear the crowd tell it, the cylinder had descended to ground level several times but was now just hovering, like it was confused. Or just waiting.
I told Block, "I'm telling you right now, flying around up in the air isn't one-tenth as much fun as you might think."
"And you'd know what you're talking about?"
"Hasn't been that long since I took a few rides on a pegasus."
"Garrett, you ought to write all your adventures down. Being mindful not to leave out any of the bullshit you're always laying on people you know."
"I'd do that if there was any way to make a few coppers out of it. But even I have trouble believing some of the stuff that's happened to me."
"You're right. You'd have a credibility problem. I don't believe some of it—and I was there when it happened."
The crowd oohed and aahed as the skyship suddenly dropped down almost to touching level, just about where the Garrett homestead stood. It hovered there only briefly. Colonel Block was looking out the other side of the coach at the time. He might not have noticed.
He did say, "All these weird things going on in the sky lately have had their positive side effects."
"For instance?" I wasn't paying close attention. I was worrying about Casey's stubborn streak. Was he going to get after Kip again, now?
"Such as the political shenanigans have quieted down for a while. We haven't had anybody march for days. And it's been at least a week since there was a significant race riot."
"People get tired of the same old entertainment."
Casey's skyship rose up against the backdrop of the night, dwindled till it was a point lost among the stars. I wondered just how strange his home country could really be. Presumably those of his people that I'd met were amongst the most bizarre specimens. The normal people would stay home, content to do normal things.
Colonel Block dropped me in front of the house, the street having emptied quickly once the show came to an end. "Hang on, Garrett." He made me wait. "What do you intend to do about Bic Gonlit?"
I hadn't given that much thought. It didn't need much. "Ignore him and hope he goes away, I suppose. He's just been doing his job. He can go on doing it. I don't see how that could involve me anymore."
Block grunted, said, "I do want to know which stormwarden he's running with, if you happen to stumble across that bit of information."
"You got it." I started up the steps to the house.
A moment later I was surrounded by a cloud of pixies, every one of them squeaking, all of them determined to have me adjudicate countless disputes and quarrels. I was rude to them all, whether or not I knew them.
Singe opened the front door. She held a big, cold mug of beer. Ah, the little woman, welcoming me home.
As I started to extend my drinking hand Singe tossed back half the mug. Then she told me, "The Dead Man said you were coming."
"He's awake again?"
"That Casey woke him up. He said."
"Damn! That's a trick I wish he'd taught me before he went away."
Garrett.
"All present and accounted for, near as I can tell. Headache and everything. What's up, Big Guy? What'd the Visitor have to say?"
Just no hard feelings and farewell and thank you and do not be too concerned about reactions to his report. He does not believe that his superiors will insist upon any follow-up. The damage done by the Brotherhood of Light was slight and should damp itself out within a generation. Apparently it did the same last time around.