Glen Cook - Bitter Gold Hearts

"What now?" Sadler asked again.

I looked at the witch. "Your stuff came in handy."

"I guessed it might." She looked like she might lose her most recent meal.

"What're you doing here?"

"Shaggoth came upon this child on the road, in hysterics. He brought her to me. I wheedled some of her story out of her and guessed some more and thought you might be in trouble. We've been on the hill behind you for the past hour."

"Ran into Amber just by chance, eh?"

She smiled. "We like to keep track." She glanced around. "Your associate has asked twice what you want to do now."

"It isn't a matter of what I want to do. It's what I have to do to stay healthy. I was planning to dump them down the well and fill it. By the time anyone digs them up they won't be identifiable."

"You tend to think as grimly as those you oppose today, Garrett. You're the knight in the knighted land, remember? A rage for justice? That's what you brought with you when you visited me. Not kill or be killed."

"Show me the way. My head's locked in. It's gotten too bloody and too brutal."

"Amber. Come here."

Amber left Willa Dount, who had begun to show some color. "Yes?"

"Explain to Garrett what we discussed while we waited on the hillside."

"Discussed? You told me... Garrett, all we have to do now is get some people from the High Council to come and see what's happened. Nobody else has to get killed. We can just sit tight and keep things the way they are. Answer questions honestly. My mother has overstepped her rights. They'll take appropriate steps. Including making certain Mother never hurts anybody again. You and your friends included."

I thought about it. I thought about it some more. Maybe they were too damned idealistic. But if the right bunch came out, some of the Stormwarden's enemies, we might come up smelling like roses. They could tie it in a knot and make a good show, get what they wanted, and come out looking like champions of justice themselves. "It's worth a think. Let's take a walk." I grabbed her hand and went outside.

"What is it?" she asked.

"The gold?"

"It's gone. Isn't it? Anyway, if it turns out the way the witch said, it won't matter. I'll get everything that belonged to my mother and father and she won't be there to—"

"The gold isn't gone. Not most of it. Willa Dount hid it somewhere. Skredli's bunch weren't after two hundred thousand. They asked for twenty thousand. Domina forged an extra cipher into all those letters."

"Oh. I see. You want your half."

"Not really. I never counted on getting it. I just want you to keep it in mind if you bring in a tribunal. They get a sniff of that, they could get itchy to grab."

"It's all right with you? To do it this way?"

"It's fine with me. It's you I'm asking about."

"She said it would be."

"The witch?"

"Yes. She knows you better than I do, I guess."

"Let's go inside." We went. I told Crask and Sadler, "You guys got any reason to hang around?"

Crask was leaning against a wall, watching the witch. He said, "Yeah." He pointed. "Her." He meant Donni Pell. "Chodo wants her. When you're done with her. If she's still breathing."

"What for?"

"An ornament. Like the broads that hang around the pool. He thinks she'd be interesting, all he's heard."

"I see." I liked an aspect of the idea. I examined my conscience. Better than killing her. Maybe. "It's all right with me. Take her now."

The witch gave me an unreadable look. Then she stepped over and did something to Donni Pell. The girl began breathing easier. Saucerhead came strolling in. He saw the witch and looked sheepish immediately. I got the distinct impression the world would be plagued by an ogre breed named Skredli no more. Morley said nothing. In fact, he did one of the fanciest fades ever. I paid no attention while Crask and Sadler started out with Donni Pell on a crude stretcher. And when I looked, Morley was nowhere in sight.

The investigators came in a body of eight. They were painfully thorough, yet there was never any doubt of their ruling. The final decision found Lord Gameleon, Baronet daPena, and the Stormwarden Raver Styx all guilty of murder. Amiranda's death they ascribed to person or persons unknown. On the Hill they don't hang each other. Raver Styx was sentenced to be stripped of her property and sorcerous powers and ejected from the Hill, to make her way alone in the world. Except she didn't exactly go alone. Willa Dount vanished, and the last I heard Raver Styx was trying to hunt her down. One hundred eighty thousand marks gold!

I wonder if Raver Styx will have any luck. I never managed to locate Willa Dount or the gold, despite months of searching whenever I had free time. I did figure out that she had kept it with her all the time. She hadn't been late to the payoff meet because she'd stopped on the way, but, as Skredli had thought, she'd miscalculated the speed a heavily loaded wagon could make. The cut she'd forged for herself had been concealed under a false bottom. I found the very wagon and the man who had modified it for her. Whatever she did with the gold, she did it after the payoff.

I did all right, though. I found ways to recover most of the rest, and Amber made sure I got ten percent. I've had no direct contact with Amber since we got back to TunFaire. She's been too busy muscling into her mother's place in the scheme of the Hill to visit me. I haven't dared go there. I looked like I'd spent six weeks in the wild islands when I got home. Dean took one look and rolled up his nose. He said, "I'll put some water on to heat, Mr. Garrett,"

I heard a woman say something in the kitchen. I was not up to coping with one of his nieces. "What have I told you about ..."

Tinnie stepped into the hallway, an angry red-haired vision. "I'm going to give you one chance to explain, Garrett," she said, and went back into the kitchen.

"What the hell is that?"

"She saw you coming out of Lettie Faren's place with a woman the afternoon she got back to town." Dean looked smug.

"And you, knowing who I was with and why, didn't bother to explain because you figured it would serve me right to get on her shit list. Eh?"

He refused to look abashed. The rat. Tinnie took my word. More or less. After I explained everything six times and showed her that, yes, I'd even made money on this one. But it took some doing, and some of the money had to be spent in fancy eating places and whatnot, before she decided to forgive me for whatever it was she imagined I might have done.

She finally relented when I started muttering about marrying one of Dean's nieces. She wanted to save me from a fate worse than death. A week had passed when Crask came to the door. I wasn't in a good mood. Dean and the Dead Man and Tinnie were all riding me for one reason or another. Saucerhead was avoiding me because of what he'd gone through during the investigation. Morley's boys wouldn't let me get anywhere near his place. Every time I left the house, Pokey Pigotta followed me. For no special reason, just because he wanted to hone his skills to the point where he could do it without me getting wise. I wasn't in a good mood.

"Yeah?" I saved my nastiest tone. I'm not so stupid I'd lay that on one of Chodo Contague's head-breakers. The next one that came around might not be somebody I recognized—and he might play a few drum rolls on my skull with pieces of lead pipe.

"Chodo wants to see you."

Wonderful. I didn't want to see Chodo. Not unless I got into a pinch so bad it was time to collect my favor. "Social?"

Crask smiled. "You could say that."

I didn't like it. I hadn't seen Crask smile since he'd turned up in my life.

He said, "He has a gift for you."

Oh boy. A gift from the kingpin. The ways those boys operate, that could mean anything. With my imagination it couldn't mean anything good. But what could I do? I'd been summoned. I have enough enemies without adding the kingpin just to snub him. "Let me tell my man. So he can lock up."