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  Petty Pewter Gods

  ( Garrett Files - 8 )

  Glen Cook

  Glen Cook

  Petty Pewter Gods

  1

  I greeted the morning the only way that makes sense. I groaned. I groaned some more as I pried me off the sheet. Several thousand maniacs were raising hell out in the street. I muttered dreadful threats, dropped my feet into the abyss beside my bed. My threats didn't scare up any peace.

  Pain blazed from my right temple to my left, ricocheted, clattered around inside my skull. I must have had a great time. I told me, "You got to quit drinking that cheap beer."

  The guy jacking his jaw was yakking way too loud. I clapped a hand over his mouth. He shut up. I used my other hand to open a curtain a peek. I had some morning-mad notion that by looking I could grab a clue about all that racket.

  A club of sunshine whacked me right between the eyes. Like to laid me out. Gah! An ill omen for sure. These bright days are never kind. Everybody I ran into would be just like the weather: warm and sunny. Argh! I was in the mood for low overcast and light drizzle, maybe with a frigid south wind.

  I peeled layers of fried skin off my eyeballs, took another look. Where there is life there is hope.

  "Well." Across Macunado, standing out like she might be the source of the brightness, was a trim piece of work who would have no trouble making the short list for girl of my dreams. She looked right at me, like she knew I was watching. My toes curled. Wow!

  I didn't notice the human rights guys and their ugly banners shoving dwarves and elves aside as they chased a gang of centaur refugees, flinging bricks and stones. I didn't chuckle when some fool bounced a rock off a fourteen-foot troll's beak and took up a brief career as a human club. Just another day of political dialogue in my hometown.

  I was focused. Maybe I was in love. Again.

  She had all the right stuff in all the right places in absolutely perfect proportion. She was a small thing, not a rat's whisker over five feet, and of the redheaded tribe. I would have bet the deed that she had green eyes. I drooled. I wondered what madness was loose upon the earth, that all those lunatics down there weren't dropping their sticks and stones and surrounding her, panting gales of garlicky breath.

  "Whoa, Garrett," I muttered, after the curtain slipped from numb fingers and broke the crackling magic connecting my eyes with hers. "Where have we heard all this before?" Female is my weakness. Pretty redhead will do me in every time.

  Oh, but what a delicious failing!

  I wrestled with my clothes for a minute before daring another look. She was gone. Where she had stood, a drunken one-armed war veteran was trying to assault an even drunker centaur. The centaur was getting the best of it because he had more legs to keep him off the ground.

  That troll must have been in a bad mood anyway. He bellowed his intention of clearing the street of anyone who didn't have green skin. He had a good work ethic, too.

  Down the way Mrs. Cardonlos and her broom vigorously defended the stoop of her rooming house from fugitives. How would she blame this on me? I was confident that she could find a way. Too bad she couldn't saddle that broom and fly away.

  Some dreams arrive stillborn. There wasn't a sign of that redhead anywhere.

  But nightmares always come true.

  Instead of young and gorgeous I spied old and homely and not even female.

  Old Dean, my resident cook, housekeeper, and professional nag, was home from his journey north to make sure one of his numerous ugly duckling nieces didn't weasel out of her wedding plans. He was standing at the foot of the front steps. He stared up at the house with pinch-lip disapproval.

  I shambled toward the stairs. Somebody had to let him in.

  Dean's knock set the Goddamn Parrot to squawking obscenities.

  Garrett! Oh, boy. That was my sidekick, the Dead Man, only recently awakened for the first time in months. He had a lot of vinegar stored up. Kindly set aside your sensual maunderings and still that horrible thumping.

  It was, for sure, going to be one of those days.

  2

  T. G. Parrot—whose given name is Mr. Big—started whooping as I worked the latch. "Help! On, please, Mister, don't hurt me no more." He sounded like a terrified child. He thought it was great fun trying to get me lynched.

  Mr. Big was a practical joke that had been played upon me by my alleged friend Morley Dotes, who must have spent years teaching that bird bad manners and worse language.

  Dean wrinkled his nose as he pushed inside. "Is that thing still here? And what is that dreadful odor?"

  By "thing" he meant the bird. I pretended to misunderstand. "He was too heavy for me to move by myself." The Dead Man goes somewhat over four hundred pounds. "Maybe he's getting ripe. You better work on his room first thing." Dean hates the Dead Man's room. He doesn't like being in the presence of a corpse, possibly because that rubs his nose in his own mortality.

  Your sense of humor has putrefied.

  Dean, of course, didn't receive the Dead Man's mind message. Wouldn't have been fun for His Nibs if he caused a reaction that the old man understood.

  I didn't pay him any mind. That always irks him. I was preoccupied, anyway. Still looking outside, I noticed that the redhead was back, watching from across the street. Our gazes met. That energy crackled. Down the block my favorite neighbor, the widow Cardonlos, spotted my open doorway. She pointed, jabbered, probably telling one of her tenants that I was the linchpin of all the evils plaguing our street.

  Her mind would not stretch any farther.

  Other than making herself a boil on the bottom of my happiness, she did not much matter in my life.

  Dean expelled one of his mighty, put-upon sighs. He dropped his duffel, stood there shaking his head. He wasn't three steps inside, but he had to assure me that his absence had been a domestic disaster. As had been inevitable.

  I looked for the girl again. Redheads are trouble. Always. But that kind of trouble looked real appetizing.

  Gone again, damn it. A mob of street rowdies had come between us, pursuing the ethnic debate with club and brickbat. Enterprising folk of several tribes tagged along, hawking sausages and sweetmeats and souvenirs to the participants. Never is there an event so wild, so dire or disgusting but what some entrepreneur can create collectible memorabilia.

  Story of my life. Find my true love and lose her in a matter of minutes, while being tormented by a hangover and a carping housekeeper.

  What were you gawking at?

  "Huh?" You don't usually get much expression out of the Dead Man's mind messages. This time he seemed puzzled. "A girl." He ought to be able to figure that just because I was drooling.

  More puzzled. I see nothing but chaos.

  Neither did I, now. "That's the way it is these days. You didn't spend all your time napping, you'd know we're getting into the hell times." Damn! Me and my mouth. Now he would insist I spend another day bringing him up to date. A lot had been happening.

  The Goddamn Parrot was squawking with a vengeance now. He had discovered that I had not put out birdseed before I'd hit the sack. Hell, I'd barely remembered to lock the door. I'd only just survived a near terminal case of redheaditis complicated by psychopathic killer transvestites and I had wanted to unwind.

  Dean got to the kitchen before I could head him off. His howl stilled hearts for miles. Mr. Big squawked in fear. The Dead Man offered some mind racket meant as commiseration. Fetishist household order is not a priority with him, either.

  Dean had started through the kitchen doorway. He froze there. He posed, the most put-upon old boy who ever lived. "Mister Garrett. Will you please come here and explain?"

  "Well, I did kind of get behind on the dishes." I headed for the stairs.
He wanted to give me a few choice pieces of advice, but the words all tried to come out at once. He began shaking in frustration when he could not get them untangled. I made my escape.

  Sort of. I headed for his room upstairs, which I had not gotten straightened up after having stashed a fugitive girl there while he was away. He would get really excited if he saw the mess she had left.

  I could feel the Dead Man's thoughts riding with me, amused, looking forward to the explosion. To him the world is one grand, enduring passion play, going on without end. He is settled comfortably in the wings enjoying it at little risk because he has been safely dead for four hundred years already.

  Somebody clever and really fast stuck a knife into him way back then. That or some ordinary dumbbell caught him taking one of his naps. Did Loghyr take those long naps when they were alive? I'd never seen a living Loghyr. I knew nobody who had, save the Dead Man himself. He hadn't been born dead. Hell, I've only ever run into one other dead Loghyr.

  A rare breed, they. And major pains in the social fundament, generally, which probably has something to do with why they are so rare.

  One is compelled to support your earlier remark concerning the quality of the beer you imbibe. Those cheap barley squeezings have poisoned your mind with premature bitterness and cynicism.

  "That's on account of my environment and evil companions. How come you're following me around the house?"

  I hurled things around in Dean's room as fast as I could, but I knew I was fighting another losing battle.

  Maybe the stress of the kitchen mess would burst his heart before he decided to put his stuff away.

  It was unusual for the Dead Man to extend himself beyond the walls of his room, though he could reach a long way when he wanted. He claims he limits himself out of respect for others' privacy. I have never believed a thought of that. Laziness has got to be involved somewhere.

  I am sure that even were he alive he would not move an ounce or an inch out of his room for years at a time. My guess is he died because it would have been too much trouble to get out of the way of the assassin.

  Not only bitter and cynical, but uncharitable.

  "You didn't answer the question."

  The deterioration has progressed faster than I anticipated. The city is at the brink. I have wakened to imminent chaos.

  "Yeah. We're beating up on each other instead of the Venageti."

  After so many of your mayfly generations. Loghyr live for ages, apparently. And they do take their sweet time dying. Peace. Can you stand the strain?

  Us humans are a hobby with him, by his estimation created exclusively for his amusement. He likes to study bugs, too.

  I had gotten distracted from my mission. A sound like that of a strangling crow startled me. Dean stood in the doorway, duffel at his feet, mouth open. The noises came from behind his teeth but maybe started out in a dimension where people didn't let undisciplined young ladies invade your quarters in your absence.

  "I had to hide... "

  "Another of your bimbos. I understand completely." He articulated each word in isolation. "No doubt you had another already installed in your own bedroom."

  "Hey! It wasn't that way at all."

  "It never is, Mr. Garrett."

  "What the hell does that mean?" Downstairs, the Goddamn Parrot went crazy. And the Dead Man insisted, Come to my room, Garrett. You must tell me more. So much more. I sense so many wonderful possibilities. Glory Mooncalled is here in TunFaire? Oh, the marvel of it! The wonder! The insane potential!

  "Glory Mooncalled here? Where did you get that idea?" Mooncalled was a legend. He started as a mercenary general during the recent generations-long disturbance between Karenta and Venageta. He fought for the Venageti at first, but their arrogance offended him so he came over to our side. Where he was treated about the same despite his being the only skilled field commander in the theater. So somewhere along the way he got together with the sentient natives of the Cantard and the whole crazy bunch declared the war zone an independent republic. That led to some intriguing triangular headbutting.

  In the end, though, Karenta triumphed, our generals and sorcerers having been marginally less incompetent than those of Venageta while outnumbering anything Mooncalled could muster.

  The tribes were on the run. And every refugee seemed determined to immigrate to TunFaire—at the very time when returning soldiers were coming home to find most jobs already taken by nonhumans and most businesses now owned or operated by dwarves or elves. Thus the permanent floating riots in our streets.

  Is it not self-evident? He must be here.

  Actually, I had begun to suspect that weeks ago. So had the secret police.

  The Goddamn Parrot grew louder and more vile of beak. Dean became more articulate with every word, nagging in double time. And the Dead Man grew increasingly insistent.

  My hangover didn't bother me nearly as much as those three did.

  It was time to go somewhere where I could be alone with my misery.

  3

  They didn't turn loose willingly. In fact, as I descended to the street, Dean wished me bon voyage in words I had not realized he knew. The Goddamn Parrot fluttered past him and chased me up the street. That flashy little garbage beak did tone it down because the Dead Man shut him up. I mean, if they hang me on the testimony of a bird, who's going to keep a roof over his head?

  He would have no trouble finding somebody to take him in, but he wouldn't find anyone as undemanding. Most folks would expect him to stay awake and devote his multiple-brained genius to their enrichment.

  Oh, yes, the Loghyr is a genius. His intellect dwarfs that of anyone else I have ever met. He just don't want to use it.

  I was barely a block from the house, contemplating selling the Dead Man into slavery, when I glimpsed red hair. Since I was glancing over my shoulder at the time, it seemed possible the girl with the goodies was following me.

  This did not excite me as much as you might think. Like the Dead Man, I am not big on work. Still... that was one tender morsel.

  She wasn't much of a sneak. Her good looks weren't a handicap, though. You'd think every guy on the street would drop whatever throat he was throttling or would close the lid on his display tray so he could look without becoming vulnerable to shoplifters, or whatever, but hardly anyone noticed the girl. The few who did were nonhumans who shuddered as in a sudden draft and looked befuddled.

  Of course you wouldn't expect a normal dwarf to get excited about a sweet slip like that, but... It was weird. And I don't like weird. Weird comes at me like I am a lightning rod for the bizarre.

  I left the house considering a visit to Morley Dotes' Joy House, to see how he was doing at turning that vegetarian thug's harbor into an upscale hangout called The Palms. But there was no way I was going to drag this redheaded sweetmeat across Morley's bow. He had dark elf good looks and charm to waste and was not a bit shy about taking unfair advantage of them.

  I bustled down Macunado till I reached the mouth of Barley Close, a tight, dark alley no longer used to make back door deliveries because all the mom-and-pop businesses had been scared away. Buildings leaned together overhead. The alley was dark and dirty and stank of rotting vegetation despite recent heavy rains that should have sluiced it out. I stepped over the outstretched legs of a drunken ratman and tried to stay near the centerline of the Close, where the footing was least treacherous. I disturbed a family of rats making a holiday feast of a dead dog. They showed their teeth and dared me to try stealing their dinner. I gave the biggest rat a quick toe in the slats. My new honey might be scared of rats.

  I drifted deep into the gloom, past sleepers of various tribes and sexes, careful to disturb no one. I'm a Golden Rule kind of guy. I don't like it when people bother me in my home.

  I paused at a cross alley eighty feet in. The sunlight blazing in from the street dry-roasted my eyeballs.

  I waited. I waited a little more. Then I waited some. Then, after I had done some waiting and was ab
out to say oh well and give it up, a woman did come to the mouth of the Close. She was the right size, but her age was off by four generations. She was a slow, raggedy street granny propped up by a crooked cane. She peered out from under a yellow straw hat with devilish concentration, like she was sure some evil was afoot inside the Close. A woman her age could not have survived the streets without becoming constitutionally paranoid.

  I like to think I'm a nice guy. I did nothing to frighten her. I just waited till she decided not to enter the alley.

  To my utter astonishment the Goddamn Parrot never said a word. The Dead Man really had the muzzle on him.

  Looked like my ploy had failed. A girl amateur had outwitted me.

  I would keep that to myself. My friends ride me hard enough as it is. I did not need to pass out ammunition.

  I eased back into the street. My luck turned no worse. No traveling brawl tried to suck me in. I went to a watering trough, used some green fluid to swab the muck off my shoes. I didn't mind making the liquid thicker. Provision of public horse troughs encourages the public to harbor horses. And horses are nature's favorite weapon when it comes time to tormenting guys named Garrett.

  I had cleaned my left shoe and was trying to get the right off without getting anything on my hand when I spotted the redhead through a sudden parting in the crowd. Our eyes met. I gave her my biggest, most charming grin and a look at my raised right eyebrow. That combination gets them every time.

  She took off.

  I took off after her. Now I was in my element. This is what I live for. I would have called for foxhounds and a horn, but they would have brought horses along.

  The Goddamn Parrot made some kind of interrogatory noise. I didn't catch it and he didn't repeat himself.

  4

  Again I noticed that curious phenomenon: guys didn't pay the girl any mind. Maybe my eyes were going. Maybe my run of bad luck was giving me a case of wishful thinking. Maybe those other guys were so happily married they never looked at pretty girls. Maybe the sun came up in the west this morning.