Glen Cook - Petty Pewter Gods

I then noted that the ledge was not a ledge as such. It was the top side of some kind of decorative gingerbread I could not make out because I wasn't out there in the moonlight. I drew a deep breath, meaning to tell the young lady that I preferred my adventures at low altitudes with solid footing. Somebody behind me spoke up first. "Here, now! You! Who are you? What are you doing there?"

The speaker was a real live human old man, possibly of the butler calling. He wore only nightclothes but was armed with one truly wicked-looking meat cleaver. A door stood ajar behind him. Feeble light leaked into the hallway. If he had pests in his room the way I'd had them in mine that might explain why he slept with kitchen utensils.

The old man didn't look like he was interested in conversation. He began slicing the air. I considered using my magical cord to climb down. But there was no time to stretch it. Nor did I see any handy place to tie it off.

Why not just jump? Falling would be less unpleasant than an encounter with a slab of sharp steel. The ground wasn't more than a mile down.

That bumblebee buzz whirred off the roof and dropped down behind me. "Why you want to waste your time on this candyass pug, sweetheart?" I caught a strong whiff of weed smoke.

I looked back. Floating behind me was a pudgy baby with a thousand-year-old midget's head. The critter wore what looked like a diaper but was actually a loincloth. "What you gawking at, Jake?" it snapped. And, "Get your lard ass moving." He yelled upward, "Hey, babe, this one's a fourteen-karat dud."

The critter carried a teeny little bow and a quiver of little arrows and had the world's biggest weed banger drooping from the corner of his mouth, smouldering. Here was the source of the buzz. And of the weed stink.

I managed to stand myself up on that ledge. A dud, huh? Look here. Sometimes a military education is useful in civilian life. Watch me now.

The old man leaned out the window and took a swipe at me. Rusty iron dealt the air a deep, bitter wound entirely too close to my nose. For a moment it looked like pappy was going to come outside after me.

The buzz changed pitch. I glanced back but kept my feet moving. The little guy doing the floating and cussing slapped a little arrow across his little bow and plinked the old man in the back of his meat-chopping hand. "Get moving, ya drooling moron!" he growled at me. "If you'd hauled your ass from the start they'd never have seen me."

"I wouldn't have missed you."

Sometimes it's wonderful to be young and dumb. A stunt like this would not have bothered me ten years ago.

About twenty feet from the window a bit of rope hung over the edge of the roof, which at that point descended to within eight feet of our footing. However, the roof did overhang us by several feet. Young and dumb, my new friend just leaped, grabbed the rope, clambered right up, skirt flying. Although he was busy cursing his wound, the old man caught that action. His eyes bugged more than mine did.

As the girl's feet vanished, the flying critter soared up after her with the same sort of ponderous grace you see in large flying insects, the sort of stately defiance of gravity of a thing that don't look like it ought to get off the ground at all. He filed various verbal complaints as he went. What a team the girl and I would make, her with her chattering whatisit and me with the Goddamn Parrot.

I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, considered the racket the old man was raising now, opened my eyes, offered the old boy a salute, took the plunge.

That sort of thing was all very well when I was nineteen and only one of a bunch of lunatics who tried to outdo one another in the face of an implacable enemy and almost certain premature death, but I was thirty now. I had a reasonably ordered and comfortable life. Well, sort of. Why the hell couldn't I remember the moments like this when Old Man Weider made one of his pitches aimed at getting me to work the brewery full time?

I grabbed the rope, found arm strength I had feared was not there anymore, scrambled toward the roof. No longer did I possess the liquid grace of youth, but I did manage to get the job done.

"Can ya believe it, toots? The wuss actually dragged his lead ass up here."

"Hurry!" The girl beckoned from the top of a slope of slate. "The alarm is spreading."

Wouldn't you know. I hurried. After bellying up twenty feet of steep and treacherously dew-slick slate, I dragged myself onto the flat part of the roof, which was large enough for a battalion's drill ground. You could farm there if you wanted to haul the soil up first. I got to my feet. The girl beckoned anxiously. Beckoning had to be her top skill. I got the notion this was going slower than she'd planned.

The flying baby with the hallucinogenic stogie watched sourly from the back of a horse big enough to haul ogre knights around. The little guy had wings sprouting out of his shoulder blades. They looked just about big enough to lug a pigeon around. I guess he had to work hard when he flew.

There were two horses. "Oh no," I said. "No. I've done all the riding I want for today." Me and horses never get along. My ribs informed me that Black Mona's mount had made every effort to ensure that my immediate future was one filled with misery. And that thing was only related to horses. Did I really want to escape badly enough to put myself at the mercy of these monsters?

"Look at this clown, babe. He don't... "

"Please stop horsing around, Mr. Garrett." The girl was exasperated.

"You don't understand. They have you fooled."

The house shuddered underfoot. Somebody big had begun to stir downstairs.

"See ya later, Sweet Buns." The little thing's wings turned into a blur. He buzzed off into the night.

I started climbing the one horse that didn't already have a blonde on top. It was a monster the color of old ivory, maybe even big enough to haul a troll into battle. For a while there I thought I would need ropes and pitons to make it to the top.

I completed the long climb. I swung my right leg over, was pleased to discover that the horse and I both had our heads facing the same direction. The extra altitude gave me a fine view of the roof.

The roof?

It occurred to me that I was about make my getaway on horseback from a rooftop. How far could I get? Was I the victim of an all-time practical joke? I do have friends who would consider this kind of situation a real howler.

I didn't see anybody standing around snickering behind his dirty elven hand.

I didn't have any friends who would, or for that matter could, spring for the cash a setup like this would cost.

The girl howled like a merry banshee. The child was happy. She kicked her horse in the ribs. It took off down the roof, chasing the baby whatisit. My horse was exactly as treacherous as I expect every equine to be. He took off, chasing his pal, without ever consulting me.

Those goddamned horses were stupider than I thought. They decided to race. The girl's mount had shorter legs but a head start. When mine got up to speed it started to gain. All I could do was howl and hang on as my brave but terminally stupid steed pulled even. The girl grinned at me and waved.

We ran out of roof.

Neither horse blinked. Neither horse slowed down either, though they did angle away from one another at the last second.

The shapeshifting started well before the leap into space, but it was only as we ran out of roof that I noticed it. In scant seconds huge wings burst from my mount's shoulders. Those broad shoulders narrowed dramatically. The beast's whole back slimmed down until it was barely wider than a trim woman's waist. All that bulk turned into wings. Those great wings hammered the air.

I hoped my whimpering wasn't loud enough to hear.