Glen Cook - Wicked Bronze Ambition

I foresee possible complications in regard to lifeguarding .

“Well, of course it can’t be simple, like we just hire Saucerhead Tharpe and a few thugs and the baddies will leave us be. How will it get complicated?” Both of us denying Singe time to slap on another coat of fiscal doom.

Strafa. Did your grandmother explain about the Dread Companions?

My eyebrows leapt up. Singe’s would have done the same if she’d had eyebrows to set a-leaping. Old Bones hadn’t winkled out every foul little whiff that Strafa had gotten from Shadowslinger already? His levels of consideration and courtesy were unprecedented.

“She mentioned them without giving a clear explanation. I know they’re supernatural allies but not much more.”

How could he not have churned up the mental mud by trampling through the gardens of Strafa’s mind? What was going on with the old psychic hooligan?

“She went on a lot more about plain old Companions. It’s apparently critical to pick someone who can stand up against any pressure. Wouldn’t a Dread Companion sort of be the same thing, only supernatural?”

Not quite. Mortal Companions are chosen by Family Champions. Friends, as you say. And it would be useful if they were trustworthy. However, they are not that critical, overall. Dread Companions are, usually, what the tournaments come to be about .

“Wow,” I said, applying my best verbal, sarcastic sneer. “Them old-timers went to a lot of trouble to make semiorganized mayhem sound all important.”

They did indeed. That would have to do with legitimization and easing of associated guilt.

I am not clear on the complete mechanism. Perhaps no one is. In the earlier tournaments some truly baleful entities, demons, if you prefer, became involved, one Dread Companion for each Mortal Champion. They protected the Champions and did most of the murder. They carried their Champions’ powers and, most times, their lives. A few Champions did not perish when they were defeated, but what was left was never worth keeping alive. The results were always final for the Dread Companions. Their powers were collected, too. I never heard of a definitive reason for their having gotten drawn in. Compulsion must have been central, but the how and why remain mysterious, as does the potential payoff for the demonic victor.

I grumbled, “Come on. This is too freaky.”

“Grandmother did warn me to watch for demons around Kevans. She didn’t think they would be a major threat, though. She says the demon realm is fed up with human incompetence and that any demons who do turn up are likely to be petty gold diggers. Demonic equivalents of purse snatchers, as stupid as your average street thug.”

I asked, “Did I just hear some good news?”

Very much to be hoped. It could be true. The tournament that included Shadowslinger, Bonegrinder, and Moonblight was sufficiently low-key that I was unaware of it until now. Demonic manifestations and supernatural combats, by their nature, tend to be flashy.

“The way I see it, we have tons of information that probably isn’t the right information. We need to figure out what to expect today.”

We could infer that quickly had I access to your grandmother’s mind, Strafa .

“I can ask her. You can guess how likely she is to volunteer to come here.”

Old Bones has tasted and smelled plenty of wickedness in his time, but I wasn’t sure he was ready for Shadowslinger.

Fear not, Garrett. Shadowslinger is more bark and urban legend than she is bite and ugly history. She worked hard to create her legend .

Experience suggested that I trust his judgment. But wow! Grandma was so creepy.

“What do you think, Chuckles? Is it even appropriate for us to get involved? It’s sorted itself out without us every time before.”

He inserted visions of faces into my consciousness, starting with Kip Prose and Kevans Algarda. He followed up with a real-time look at Strafa glaring at me in disbelief.

“Are you deaf as well as dim, love? There isn’t any free will involved. We’re in whether we like it or not. We were in before Grandmother asked you to poke around. Please think.”

Wow.

You see?

“I see. So, what do you think our course should be?”

Not entirely what your future family seems to be hoping. This would be my personal suggestion, given four centuries of experience.

He did not include Strafa in what followed.

Old Bones thought I ought to take it outside the family.

He went back to a point he had made earlier, now in more detail.

I told you we have resources unique to the modern age. I posit that, as such, they have not been taken into account by the Operators.

“Huh?” Whatever he was on about, it hadn’t come clear to me, either.

The Unpublished Committee. This is the sort of thing that it was created to handle .

“Yes! Ha!” I laughed out loud. He was absolutely correct. I might be able to abort the entire tournament horror show with one office visit, if I could be convincing. “Deal Relway will jump all over this!”

The evening started out rainy, not in any driving, windy form. Then it became a drizzle of the sort that is more depressing than soaking, a halfhearted weather episode that leaves the world feeling colder than it is and you wanting nothing more than to get inside, close to a fire. It got better later on.

After a nice evening at the Macunado place, Strafa and I split up. She wanted to go flying, then to drop by her grandmother’s house to try to arrange for the folks we had met there to visit the Dead Man. She promised to see me back at her house in the afternoon.

After a massive breakfast devoured at a ridiculously early hour, I headed for the Al-Khar. It was raining again. I hunched down deep inside my canvas coat. What breeze there was came from behind. I dedicated my attention to wishing that I had a hat with a more generous brim, especially in back. The beast riding my scalp just then did not keep the rain from running down the back of my neck.

People were out doing make-a-living stuff despite the hour and weather. I spent some pity on them for having to work, then some more on me for getting rained on when I ought not to have to lift a pinkie again.

The great dirty yellow ugliness of the Al-Khar, TunFaire’s Civil Guard headquarters, hove up out of the mist. They should paint it, or something. Anything to make it less of an eyesore.

I lumbered past a rank of transplanted poplars that would, once they grew and leafed out, slap a layer of pancake over the ugly, then hove to just in out of the rain, in a tunnel-like ancillary entrance. I considered those trees. They said a lot about the Civil Guard. They declared the age of law and order solidly begun. They dared anyone to be bold enough to try converting Guard property into firewood.

The city had been stripped of almost every stick outside the Royal Arboretum, for conversion to warmth, by the impoverished and refugees, before the law and order affliction commenced with a vengeance and became a full-fledged, citywide pandemic.

“May I help you, sir?”

The voice came from behind a small barred window on the left side of the tunnel, just before it was blocked by massive, antique wooden doors. An attractive brunette looked out from behind the bars. Not so long ago I would have been enthusiastic about letting her know that, indeedy-do, she certainly could, in several interesting ways. Instead, I deployed some of the gentlemanly skills I have been polishing since Strafa staked a claim backed by the full faith and terror of the Algarda clan.

“Yes, ma’am. My name is Garrett. I have private intelligence I need to pass on to the General personally.”