I chuckled, picturing him huddled up with a bunch of street folk. “I suppose I ought to sit on my mirth until you tell us what you’re up to.”
Morley told the Dead Man, “Your little boy is finally beginning to develop social skills.”
Enough contusions and abrasions eventually wear the corners off even the roughest blockheads, given time.
“I can’t argue with that,” I confessed. I started to lever myself out of my chair.
Never mind. Dean and Singe are coming. They are eager for something to do that does not require them to be good company to one another.
Dean arrived carrying a chair. Singe was equipped to dry Morley out and wrap him in a comforter. Dean said, “We’ll get something warm inside you as soon as can be.”
“I’ll be fine,” Morley said. “I just hope those idiots at The Palms don’t burn it down while I’m gone.”
Morley is a micromanager. He isn’t comfortable giving his people an assignment and letting them run. I said, “You went off to the Cantard with me one time and it was still there when we got back.”
“That was in the old days. You couldn’t hurt the place when it was the Joy House.”
He went on, but I listened with only half an ear. I was marveling at the Dead Man. He’d dropped “Miss Pular” in favor of the informal “Singe.” He had accepted her into the family.
Such as it is. Strange as it is.
Maybe I ought to recruit a dwarf now.
I asked, “What’s become of all the dwarfs?”
Which question garnered bewildered looks.
I said, “It just hit me. I don’t see dwarfs anymore. Come to think, there aren’t many trolls around anymore, either. Even elves aren’t as common as they used to be.”
“Members of the Other Races are leaving TunFaire,” Morley said.
I gulped me some water. I couldn’t tell if it was all in my head, but I seemed thirstier all the time. “You saying all that human rights racialist stuff is working?”
“It is. Though not quite the way you’re thinking.”
“Eh?”
“You don’t really think a bunch of drunken yahoos with ax handles would intimidate a troll, do you?”
I had to admit it. That didn’t seem likely. “We’re getting old.”
“Speak for yourself. What brought that on?”
“We’re sitting around a fire talking instead of being out in the weather having adventures.”
“And I’m just as happy. If I’m careful, I’ll last for centuries.”
“Then how come you’re out when even the mad dogs have crawled under the porch?”
“I didn’t plan it.”
“I got that much. Thanks, Singe. Pull up a chair. Listen to the master tell tall tales.”
“I wish,” Dotes said. “What did you do to Teacher White?”
“Nothing. Just chatted him up. What you’d expect. Why?”
“He’s gone insane. He hit Merry Sculdyte. You don’t mess with Merry-unless you catch him with his pants down. Which is what Teacher must have done. Rory will have smoke coming out his ears.”
“So Teacher did something stupid. Is that a major departure? You got any more details?”
“No.”
I noted the Dead Man’s absence from the conversation.
“What got into Teacher?” I mused rhetorically. “He was pissed off because two heavies he borrowed from Merry croaked Spider Webb and Original Dick on him. But he didn’t seem suicidal when he left.”
The Dead Man said nothing. I’m sure he wasn’t feeling guilty, though.
I admitted, “We did ask him to get a couple people to come by. I didn’t think he’d go start a war.”
Dotes mistook me. “Your name isn’t in it. Yet.”
“Not entirely reassuring. But good to know.”
Dean seldom takes an interest. But he had no work and it was too early for bed. He brought a chair in and nurtured the fire while he listened. He kept quiet.
I told Morley, “Interesting stuff, but why come out in this?”
“I was concerned that Rory might think you had something to do with his brother’s misfortune.” Friendship and the showmanship involved in being a manly man lead us through dumb contortions, sometimes.
“What do you think, Old Bones?”
Nothing.
“Come on. I know you’re not asleep.”
Indeed not. I am monitoring the approach of the grand villain Teacher White and his merry men. Including a man named Merry, whose appellation seems singularly inappropriate.
“Headed here?”
Five minutes. Teacher White knows the truth, but Merry Sculdyte will come in blind.
I felt him get busy telling everybody else what to do.
He’s a take-charge kind of guy.
45
Though Morley was bedraggled, he was his old svelte self compared to Teacher White, his crew, and their prisoners. That whole gaggle was on the far marches of the drowned-rat category. Though Singe would have bristled at the cliche.
Teacher told me, “Here you go, asshole. Green Bean, Squint, Brett Batt, and Merry Sculdyte. This’ll probably get me killed. And here’s what Kolda told me was your friggin’ antidote when I bought the samsom weed. Now have your monster get this nightmare outta my head.”
I stood around gaping like a yokel while Teacher’s henchmen piled bodies in the hallway, and halfway wished my monster would get the whispering nightmares out of mine. The black murmurs just wouldn’t go away. Dean sputtered about the water being tracked in. The captives were bound. They were all bloody. Some were still leaking. That did nothing to make Dean happy, either. I couldn’t imagine what White’s bunch must have done to pull this off. I had more difficulty imagining what the Dead Man could’ve done to Teacher to get him so motivated.
Excellent. Most excellent. You have performed prodigies, Mr. White. I am sure that, at this point, you would like to disappear for a while.
“No shit.”
Go quickly, then. The watchers are paying no attention because of the weather. Go quietly.
“What about the mindworm thing?”
I have removed it already.
“That fast?”
That fast. That easily. You will begin to feel much better soon. Go. Watch your footing. Move that coach away from here, even if it is stolen.
Just what we needed. Another stolen vehicle abandoned in front of the house.
The White crew went away, fast.
“Did you get anything new from them before they left?”
Nothing useful. Though Mr. White certainly had himself an adventure. It will become an underworld saga if he survives.
“Interesting.” I checked the pile of twitching, battered bodies delivered by my once and future enemy. “What about this lot?”
Where to start?
I gave Brett Batt a huge kick in the ribs. “Right here. Put in two of those mindworms.”
Garrett.
“All right. I’ll be civilized.”
Morley opined, “I was beginning to wonder.”
“Meaning?”
“I was beginning to wonder if you hadn’t developed sense enough to bust a moose like that up when the chance was there instead of waiting till it’s fair.”
Move Mr. Vrolet out into the weather. Leave him under someone’s stoop. He knows nothing.
There was an edge to his thought that left me mildly suspicious. “It’s freezing out there.”
The chill will wake him up.
“Everything’s covered with ice.”
Then you will have to make sure of your footing. No one will see you. Those tasked with watching us have chosen to do so in warm, dry places.