Glen Cook - Shadow Games

He put on a show of being hurt. He squeaked, “I thought I saw your girlfriend sneaking off. I just went to check.”

“Judging by your smugness, you did see her.”

“Sure did. And I saw her meet up with your old man and his fluff.”

“Yeah? Let’s go inside and give it a think.”

I checked around in there just to make sure Goblin was not seeing things. Lady was gone, sure enough.

What the hell?

One-Eye and his crew came strutting in late that afternoon. One-Eye smirked like a cat with feathers in his whiskers. Geek and Freak lugged a big closed basket between them. Wheezer hacked and chewed and smiled like there was big mischief afoot and he maybe had a big hand in it.

Goblin jumped up from a nap with a squawk of protest before One-Eye got started. “You get right on back out that door with that whatever-it-is, Buzzard Breath. Before I turn that spider’s nest you call a brain into toys for tumblebugs.”

One-Eye did not give him a look. “Check this out, Croaker. You ain’t going to believe what I found.”

The boys set the basket down and popped the lid.

“I probably won’t,” I agreed. I snuck up on that basket, expecting a gross of cobras, or something such. What I saw was a pint-sized ringer for Goblin... Better say demitasse-sized, since Goblin is not much more than a half-pint himself. “What the hell is it? Where’d it come from?”

One-Eye stared at Goblin. “I been asking myself that for years.” He had the biggest “Gottcha!” grin I ever saw.

Goblin howled like a leopardess in heat, started making mystical passes. His fingers raked furrows of fire out of the air.

Even I ignored him. “What is it?”

“It’s an imp, Croaker. An honest-to-god imp. Don’t you know an imp when you see one?”

“No. Where’d it come from?” I was not sure I wanted to know, knowing One-Eye.

“Heading down to the river we come on this little bunch of shops around an outdoor bazaar where they got all kinds of neat stuff for wizards, fortune-tellers, spirit talkers, Ouija workers, and such. And right there in the window of this dinky hole-in-the-wall shop, just begging for a new home, was this little guy. I couldn’t resist. Say hello to the Captain, Frogface.”

The imp piped, “Hello to the Captain, Frogface.” It giggled just like Goblin, in a higher voice.

“Jump on out of there, bitty buddy,” One-Eye said. The imp popped into the air as if shot up. One-Eye chortled. He caught it by a foot and stood there with it dangling head down like a toddler with a doll. He eyeballed Goblin, who was positively apoplectic, so fussed he could not go on with the magical funny business he had started.

One-Eye dropped the imp. It flipped and landed on its feet, sped across and stared up at Goblin like a young bastard having a sudden epiphany about the identity of its sire. It did cartwheels back to One-Eye, said, “I’m going to like it here with you guys.”

I snagged One-Eye by the collar and lifted him off the floor. “What about the damned boat?” I shook him a little. “I sent you out to hire a goddamned boat, not to buy talking knick-knacks.” It was one of those flashes of rage that last about three seconds, rare for me but usually strong enough to let me make an ass of myself.

My father had them a lot. When I was little I would hide under the table for the minute or so they took to pass.

I set One-Eye down. Looking amazed, he told me, “I found one, all right? Pulls out day after tomorrow, at first light. I couldn’t get an exclusive charter because we couldn’t afford anything big enough to haul us and the animals and coaches if that was all the barge would be carrying. I ended up making a deal.”

The imp Frogface was behind Wheezer, clinging to and peeking around his leg like a frightened child- though I got the feeling it was laughing at us. “All right. I apologize for blowing up. Tell me about the deal.”

“This is only good to what they call the Third Cataract, understand. That’s a place eight hundred sixty miles down that a boat can’t get past. There’s about an eight-mile portage, then you have to hire passage again.”

“To the Second Cataract, no doubt.”

“Sure. Anyway, we can get the long first leg free, with food and fodder provided, if we serve as guards on this commercial barge.”

“Ah. Guards. What do they need guards for? And why so many?”

“Pirates.”

“I see. Meaning we’d end up fighting even if we did pay for our passage.”

“Probably.”

“Did you get a good look at the boat? Is it defensible?”

“Yeah. We could turn it into a floating fort in a couple days. It’s the biggest damned barge I ever seen.”

A tinkle of alarm began nagging in the back of my thoughts. “We’ll give it another look in the morning. All of us. The deal sounds too good to be true, which probably means it is.”

“I figured. That was one of the reasons I bought Frogface. I can send him sneaking around to check things out.” He grinned and glanced at Goblin, who had gone into a corner to plot and pout. “Also, with Frogface along we don’t have to waste no coin on guides and interpreters. He can do all that for us.”

That sent my eyebrows up. “Really?”

“That’s right. See? I do do something useful once in a while.”

“You’re threatening to. You say the imp is ready to use?”

“As ready as he can be.”

“Come on outside where it’s private. I got about ten jobs for it.”

I took the outfit to the waterfront before the sun got its rump over the hills beyond the river. The city remained somnolent, except for traffic headed the way we were. The nearer the river the worse it got. And the waterfront was a frenzied hive.

There were crows.

“Looks like they’ve been at it all night,” I said. “Which one is it, One-Eye?”

“That big one over there.”

I headed the direction he pointed. The barge was a monster, all right. It was a giant wooden shoe of a thing meant mainly to drift with the current. Travel would be slow on a fat, sluggish river like this. “It looks new.”

We moved in an island of silence and stares. I tried to read the faces of the laborers we passed. I saw little but a slight wariness. I noted a few armed men, as big as my visitors of yesterday, boarding some of the lesser barges. I eyed the stevedores marching aboard our craft. “Why the lumber, do you suppose?”

“My idea,” One-Eye said. “It’s to build mantlets. The only protection from missile fire they had was wicker screens. I’m surprised they listened and went to the bother and expense. Maybe they took me up on all my suggestions. We’re set if they did.”

“I’m not surprised.” I was now sure that not only had our arrival been foreseen, it had been calculated into the schemes of an entire city. That pirate infestation was more than a nuisance. These folks meant to hammer it down using a band of expendable adventurers.

I did not understand why they thought they had to run a game on us. That was our trade. And we had to go down that river anyway.

Maybe it was the way the society worked. Maybe they could not believe the truth.

With Frogface’s help it took about six minutes to straighten put the bargemaster and the committee of bigwigs waiting with him. I wrangled the promise of a huge fee on top of our passage. “We go to work as soon as we see the money,” I told them. Lo. It appeared almost magically.

One-Eye told me, “You could have held them up.” “They’re desperate,” I agreed. “Must be something they have to get through. Let’s get to work.” “Don’t you want to know what?” “It doesn’t matter. We’re going anyway.” “Maybe. But I’ll have Frogface look around.” “Whatever.” I toured the main deck. Otto and Hagop tagged along. We talked upgraded defensibility. “We need a better idea of what we’re up against. We want to be prepared for pirate tactics. For example, we might set up engines behind the mantlets if they attack from small boats.”