"What was that?"
He rattled off a jawbreaker. "I'd give you the Karentine, but it wouldn't make any sense."
"Try it anyway. Karentine is all I speak."
"There're two possible translations. Dawn of Night's Mercy. Or Dawn of Night's Madness."
"That doesn't make sense."
"I told you it wouldn't."
"What language uses the same word for mercy and madness?"
"Dark elfin."
"Oh," I glanced toward the centaur's house. Not a thing had happened since our departure. I looked at the witch's place. A light burned in an upper-story window. It hadn't been burning when we'd come down the path. "Why don't you guys head on up to the cemetery? I'll catch up in a few minutes. There's something I want to check out."
I expected Morley to give me an argument. He didn't. He just grunted, got to his feet, got the triplets moving, and vanished into the night.
Somebody small with a man-sized grin had passed out leaning against me. I tilted him over gently, patted his shoulder when he mumbled something, rose, and headed for the house. I prowled around looking into windows.
"I'm up here, Private Garrett."
"Good. I was hoping to see you. But I was a little leery of waking you." I couldn't see her.
She laughed. Her laughter was mostly merriment, but it also carried a trace of mockery. She didn't believe me. But she knew I didn't expect her to.
"How can I help you, Private Garrett?"
"You could start by not calling me Private Garrett. I'm out of the Marines. I'd just as soon forget them. Then you can tell me if you know anything about somebody named Dawn of Night's Mercy or Dawn of Night's Madness."
She was silent so long I feared she had deserted me. Then she threw down the dark elvish gobblewhat Morley had used, applying a distinctly interrogative inflection.
"That's right."
"Gobblewhat is not a person, Mr. Garrett. It is a prophecy, and an unpleasant one from your point of view. The name Gobblewhat is dark elfin, but the prophecy is not. It is an echo, a rumor, an aspiration, out of a deeper night."
Being what she was, she naturally stoked the drama on her declamation, then clammed up, leaving her answer obscure.
I tried asking questions. That was a waste of time. She was done talking about gobblewhat. She closed the subject by saying, "That was spur of the moment. What did you really want?"
There was no point playing games. "Are you still in business? I'd like to buy a few of your special tools."
She ripped off a first-class witch's cackle. It was hilarious. I grinned. The peafowl even got into the act, though their mirth was confused and sleepy. "Go around to the front door," she told me. "You'll find it unlocked."
When I rejoined Morley and the triplets, I carried five tiny, folded pieces of paper. I had hidden each carefully. Each bore a potent and potentially useful spell. I was still repeating the witch's instructions to myself. Basically, all I had to remember was to unfold the papers at the appropriate moment, though a couple required a whispered word at the right time.
Morley said, "So. You survived the trail. I was about to go looking for you. What now?"
"We go back and get what sleep we can. Then early tomorrow we hit the road for Fort Caprice."
"I thought you were going to let the centaur do the finding for you."
"Contrary to the false notion formed earlier, I don't trust him to do anything. If he comes through, fine. Meantime, I go on looking. He expects us to hide from him. I can't think of a better place than out in the Cantard. Two birds, one stone."
Morley was as thrilled as I might have expected. "I had to ask, didn't I?"
32
Fort Caprice was a bust.
It was four days out of Full Harbor, pushing hard all the way, shielded every step by more luck than any five fools deserved. Not only did we not encounter one of our own Karentine patrols, but we didn't fall in with Venageti rangers or representatives of any of the nonhuman races of the Cantard, most of which are at least marginally involved in the war. Their loyalties shift like a chameleon's color, according to where they think the most profit lies.
Fort Caprice was not in the heart of the caldron, though. The richest silver country lay a hundred miles farther south.
Major Kayeth Kronk proved to be brevet-Colonel Kronk now, at the tender age of twenty-six. I did not remind him that we had met before, though I'm sure he remembered me before we reached the end of our short interview. I told him I was looking for his sister Kayean, and told him why. And he told me that he didn't have a sister Kayean.
And that was all he would say about it. When I kept after him he got stubborn. Then he got mad and had a couple of soldiers show me the street.
We poked around among the hangers-on Fort Caprice had acquired—like fleas, ticks, and worms to a hound—and found out nothing more interesting than which men were watering their wine and which women would send you away with something you hadn't had when you arrived. So we made the four-day journey back to Full Harbor, with fool's luck cleansing the way ahead of us again.
It was a lovely time to visit the Cantard.
I hoped the centaur would come through so I wouldn't have to do it again.
That would be tempting fate a bit too far We were out of Full Harbor nine days, all told.
33
The major from the military city hall was waiting at the gate through the Narrows Wall. There was nothing magical about it once I realized that without sorcery, a trip to Fort Caprice takes a predictable amount of time. He cut me out of my herd.
"Any luck?" he asked.
"Zip. Zero. Zilch. What can I do for you?"
"I have another list of names."
"And getting my reaction is important enough for you to lay in wait for me out here?"
"Maybe."
"Fire away."
He did.
I knew five of the twelve names this time. Father Mike. Father Rhyne. Sair Lojda. Martello Quinn and Aben Kurts, of Denny's old crowd. I admitted knowing the latter two only as friends of a friend, saying I thought they were in shipping. Then I asked, "What ties this together? What's up?"
"All these people, and three more for whom we have no names, have died or disappeared during the last eleven days. I'm certain you would recognize more if you saw them. Imelo Clark was a guard at the civil city hall. Egan Rust was a clerk there. You interviewed them. I was not sure you had any connection with Kurts and Quinn, but since you did, then I assume there's also one with Laught and the three unknowns, all of whom seem to have come off a yacht from TunFaire."
"What the hell are you trying to say?"
"Don't get your hackles up, Garrett. You're safe. You were out of town during the excitement. In fact, the only time I place you or yours near anyone at a critical time is Father Rhyne. I'm satisfied your associate found him dead."
I didn't say anything. My thoughts were pounding off in twenty directions. What the hell was going on?
"It seems apparent that, in most of these cases, someone is cleaning up after you. It's a wonder you haven't been turned invisible yourself."
Thoughtlessly, I admitted, "It's been tried a couple times."
He wanted details. He demanded details. I gave him some without mentioning centaurs or dead men or much else that would do him any real good. He thought it was crafty of us, setting the one group up for a career in the mines.
He observed, "I have a feeling that there are a lot of things you wouldn't tell me no matter how nicely I ask. Like where the others from TunFaire fit in."
"I wouldn't be even a little shy about telling you that if I knew. What's the story on them, anyway?"