Glen Cook - Petty Pewter Gods

"Cat. You know something about Adeth. You'd better let us know." I watched Magodor. Near as I could tell, she was unaware of what the Dead Man had sent me.

She cannot read me at all. I cannot get through to her. Presumably the dibbuk is blocking me.

Cat did not respond immediately.

I relayed the Dead Man's observations. The owl girls developed cases of the sniffles. Magodor considered Adeth. "Interesting. You were trying to get rid of her?"

"Yeah."

Magodor seemed to vibrate. A baby thunderclap announced Adeth's departure. "She is in the street again."

"Do you know anything about Adeth?"

"She was someone Imara knew. I never heard of her before Imara organized the plot to rid us of Imar and Lang and the others. She had no trouble making herself visible to mortals and could change her appearance quickly. Her only direct part was supposed to be to bring you to us, making Abyss, Daiged, and those think she might be one of the Shayir."

Cat said, "Mother got the whole plot idea from Adeth."

Did that make Maggie sit up? You betcha. Me, too.

"How long ago?" I asked. "Cat, I don't think you were any accident. You were created deliberately so your mother could assume... "

"Stop."

"I'm sorry. But... "

"Just stop."

"Plausible," Magodor observed. "Very plausible. Assuming she feared someone very powerful, a mortal identity would be a good place to hide."

"Please stop."

Adeth.

"Who or what is Adeth? It's very important."

"She was my mother's friend. I don't know. Maybe even her lover. She had a lot. When Imar wasn't looking. Adeth was just always around, ever since I was little. She never even noticed me."

Magodor snapped, "Where is your mother now? Where is the real Adeth?"

"I don't know. I've been here."

I heard Dean scoot along the hallway. The front door opened, then slammed. "What the hell?"

The bird. I had him put out.

"Good. Find him a cat to play with." I asked Magodor, "What do you know about Adeth?"

"Nothing. The name was new to me when Imara said we would use her to manage you. Her plot had many friends."

"How many of you are there? You really don't know everyone in your racket?"

"No, I don't. No one has any idea how many thousands or what kinds of us came across in the great migration. There's never been any reason to know. Do you know everyone in this great sump of a city?"

No. Of course not. I don't even know everybody on my block. People come and go. But that was different. Wasn't it? I wasn't in the Three-O racket. Nobody expected omniscience, omnipotence, or omnipresence from me.

Petty pewter, No-Neck. Petty pewter. All of them.

The more I had contact with them, the smaller the gods seemed. Maybe the poet was right about familiarity breeding contempt.

Garrett. The dibbuk has decided to return. Or has been instructed to do so.

Whichever, a tremendous crash came from the front of the house. A moment later Dean and the Goddamn Parrot both started exercising their voices in protest.

I told Magodor, "It came back."

Magodor tossed the goddess-golem back into the street. "I'm not strong enough to push it any farther." She was surprised.

The dibbuk headed for the house again.

People were aware that something weird was happening. The street was clearing fast.

I whimpered about the damage to my door until I saw smug Mrs. Cardonlos staring, grinning because she'd just found fresh ammunition to use in her campaign to condemn me.

"What do you think, Old Bones?"

Wholly on an intuitional level, I suspect we would find no Adeth — not this Adeth — on any roll of gods.

Intuition, for him, is filling gaps in already chancy information webs by applying his several minds. He is very good at filling gaps with plausible and possible gossamers. But he won't betray his thinking until he has everything nailed down, beyond dispute. He hates being wrong way more than he hates being dead.

"You're that sure? That you'll tell me now?"

No. There is a matter of probabilities and risks and their comparative magnitude. If I am correct, time wasted filling the remaining gaps is time we can ill afford to waste. Particularly now that the villains must face the possibility that I suspect the truth.

Only the Dead Man would think enough of himself to fancy himself a threat to the gods.

"Better come out with it, then."

Relay this. I cannot reach the others all at once.

"Listen up, folks. His Nibs has a big story coming out."

The Adeth dibbuk was created specifically as an instrument by which you could be manipulated, Garrett. You were chosen because you were certain to become a focus for conflict. You were intended and expected to become a continuous provocation.

"Little old me? Broke their hearts, didn't I?"

Enough, Garrett. Listen. You can do your tongue exercises later.

The reprimand seemed to get through to everyone else.

Behind the contest for the last place on the Street of the Gods, behind the feminist schemes of Imara and her allies in several pantheons, beyond even Magodor's secret ambition to anoint herself the senior power of a grim new all-female religion, there has been a manipulator whose sole mission has been to provoke clashes like those at the Haunted Circle.

Wait! he snapped as Magodor started to snarl something in reply.

The ultimate cause behind the conflict is not that animating Imara and her sisters. Garrett. You told me that numerous gods not of Godoroth or Shayir provenance joined the fighting. But there is no reason they should have favored one cause above another. Revenge amidst confusion, of course, makes sense. But they would have needed to be primed and ready for sudden opportunity. Having followed the road this far, the questions I come up against are Who? and Why? And the why comes easier than the who.

"I'll bite," I told him. Magodor and the owl girls, even Cat and Fourteen, were intrigued, too.

Your dream, in which Magodor showed you the home of the gods, indicates that at some level it is possible to communicate between this world and that. I am going to strut out onto a limb now. I am going to postulate that the Great Old Ones over there have seduced someone here into opening the way. He or she has failed a few times. Another effort will be imminent. Even the dullest conspirator would have to be concerned that enough random evidence is loose to suggest the truth to anyone interested enough to put the pieces together.

Add the fact that I am known to be involved, and desperate measures are sure to follow.

The Dead Man lacks nothing in his confidence in his own significance.

I thought maybe he was reaching a little, but I couldn't think of any reason to reject his big picture. It did not contradict any known facts, nor did I notice any left over. That wasn't the case with any of my theories.

"Maggie?"

"Garrett, I weary of your familiarities. But I will restrain my ire. There may be substance to what you say. It illuminates many strangenesses of recent times." She became introspective. Her appearance deteriorated. She developed a bad case of too many arms and fangs. Body odor began to be a problem, too.

I started to say something. She raised a hand. "Wait." She thought some more. "I cannot guess who is at the center. But I am sure that someone knows or soon will know whatever the Adeth thing learned here. There will be an effort to silence us."

Oh boy. What a promotion. I always wanted to be the dot at the center of a really big target. "Ah... "

"Word must be spread, even if it isn't believed. Fast. Everywhere, like a tree spreading a million seeds. So that one takes root somewhere. You. You. You." She seized the owl girls and Fourteen. She glared into their eyes. They shuddered, whimpered, disappeared. For an instant I feared Magodor herself might be the mole of darkness.