Glen Cook - Deadly Quicksilver Lies

I gave the big guy a knife. "Carve me some kindling out of anything wooden. If we get a decent fire going, we can burn our way through those doors."

He grinned but without the wild eagerness he'd shown before. He was winding down.

The notion of arson did excite some of the others. We all got to work ripping the stuffing out of pallets and whittling on the ward door.

Then I suffered another brainstorm, way late, unlike the hero of an adventure story. I claim genius only because nobody else thought of the obvious first. The adventure boys would have planned it from the start. It's one of their old tricks.

The Bledsoe staff wore uniforms, scruffy though those were.

I got my fires burning at both ends of the hall. Ivy tended them. His vocabulary didn't improve, but he became more animated. He liked fires. He even paid attention when I said, "Use plenty of horsehair. We want plenty of smoke." The horsehair came out of the pallets.

Ivy grinned from ear to ear. He was one fulfilled lunatic.

The people outside would have to make a move. They couldn't wait us out once we had fires burning. Fires had to be fought.

I had to have a guy follow Ivy and make sure his fires didn't grow too fast. Already they seemed likely to burn through the floor before they ate through the doors.

Once the smoke was thick enough, I picked an attendant my size and started trading clothes. He got the best of the deal.

My companions caught on. Soon they were squabbling over the available uniforms. I made sure Ivy and the big guy got theirs. I wanted one for the little breed who'd body-blocked the ward door, but he'd have gotten lost in a shirt.

Interesting that I had so many supporters now that it looked like I had prospects.

The smoke almost got too thick before somebody outside decided action had to be taken now .

They brought almost every warm body they had left. They burst through both doors at once, behind thrown buckets of water. They concentrated on the fires to begin, taking what lumps they must until those were extinguished, then they started whipping on anybody in arm's reach. When they got into the ward, they started hauling fallen comrades away.

It was real exciting for a while. The issue was definitely in doubt.

The smoke got to me more than I expected. After they dragged me out and I decided it was time I made a run for it, I found that my legs were saying no way.

"Don't. You aren't ready yet."

I didn't look up and give myself away. Around me, impelled by the cunning of madness, my buddies did the same. What a team!

There were better than twelve men scattered along the hallway, many from the ward. The rest had gone down in the current invasion.

The speaker was a woman, the owner of the legs. She added, "Get the smoke out before you do anything."

I coughed and made noises and kept my face hidden. She moved on, evidently to tend someone else who was stirring. A female doctor? How about that? I never heard of such a thing, but why not?

I scooted back till my spine found a wall, raised myself up against that, lifted my head to scope out an escape route. I kept seeing two of things when I could see through the water in my eyes. I got my feet under me again and practiced standing up till I could do it with no hands.

My chosen escape route did not become overgrown while I was catching my breath. I shoved off the wall and started staggering. There was a stairwell door straight ahead, out in the remote distance, on the far horizon, about twenty feet away. All kinds of racket came from behind it, as though thunder-lizards were mating in the stairwell. I didn't pay the racket any mind. I didn't have any mind left over. What I had was busy thinking "out."

I was chugging right along, hardly ever falling down, when she of the glorious gams intercepted me. "What are you trying to do? I told you... Oh!"

I grinned my winningest grin. "Oh-oh."

"Oh, my god!"

"Hey, no. I'm just a regular guy."

Maybe she had trouble hearing over the racket from the stairwell. Or maybe she had trouble hearing over the uproar from the hall and ward. She sure didn't get my message. She whooped and hollered like she thought she was going to get carried off by a lunatic or something.

I grabbed a wrist, mostly to keep from falling down. I noticed that she was blond and recalled that that was one of my favorites but I didn't have oomph enough to let her know. The bleeding had stopped a long time ago, but my head wasn't much better. The smoke hadn't done me any good, either.

I hacked out, "Pipe down! We're going for a walk, sister. I don't want anybody should get hurt, but that ain't my top priority. You get the drift? You keep on wailing—"

She shut up. Blue eyes big and beautiful, she bobbed her head.

"I'll cut you loose at the front door. Maybe. If you're good and I don't get no more trouble." Snappy rhetoric, Garrett. Your roots are showing.

I was getting the edge on the smoke, though. I was ready to bet myself she would be good. A figure like that, it burned. No. Forget fire. Fire means smoke. I just swallowed enough smoke to last forever.

I leaned on the lady like she was my sweetie. "I need your help." Rotten to the heart, I am. But this would be our only date.

She nodded again.

Then she tripped me, the naughty girl.

And then my friend Winger blasted through that stairwell door, flinging battered orderlies ahead of her. "Goddamn, Garrett! I bust in here fixing to save your ass and what do I find? You trying to bop some bimbo in front of the whole damned world." She grabbed my collar, hoisted me away from my latest daydream, who had gone down when I had. Winger set me on my feet, then proceeded to whip the pudding out of a burly, hirsute attendant who meant to object to the irregularity of the way she was checking me out. Between punches she grunted, "You got to get your priorities straight, Garrett."

No point mentioning who tripped who. You don't explain to Winger. She creates her own realities.

While she was amusing herself with the hairy orderly, I asked the lady doctor, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

She wouldn't answer even after I apologized for playing so rough.

"For heaven's sake, Garrett, give it a rest," Winger snapped. "And come on."

I went along because she grabbed hold and took off. I grabbed the blonde as we went past. Down those stairs we went, stepping over the occasional moaning attendant. Winger had come through like a natural disaster. I bubbled, "I do hope I haven't been too much trouble. Unfortunately, I can't hang around just because somebody out there wants me in here instead of stomping on his toes." I put on my grim face. "When I catch up with him, I'll make sure he gives you a big donation. Big enough to cover damages."

Winger rolled her eyes. She didn't slow down and she didn't let go.

The lady of the legs said, "You're serious, aren't you?"

Winger grumbled, "As serious as he can get when he's in rut."

My new friend and I ignored her. I said, "That's right. I find things for people. Just this morning, a lady from the Hill asked me to find her daughter. I'd barely started looking when a band of ruffians set upon me. Next thing I knew, I was coming to and there you were and I thought I'd died and gone to one of those afterlives where they have angels, only my head hurt too much."

"I risked life and limb for this," Winger muttered. "Your head is about to hurt a whole lot more."

The lady doc looked at me like she really wanted to believe. She said, "He does spread it thick, doesn't he?"

"With a manure rake," Winger growled, reverting to uncultured country ways. You can take the girl out of the sticks, and so forth.