Glen Cook - Angry Lead Skies

That blow should've busted a hole in the thing's skull. No such luck, though. The impact just caused it to fling forward and sprawl across the creature that was down already.

These were Playmate's elves, it was obvious, but equally obvious was the truth of his contention that his sketches did not capture their real nature.

The one who had downed Playmate closed in on me. The other one chased Kip. Kip demonstrated the sort of character I expected. He had great faith in the patron saint of every man for himself. He made a valiant effort to get the hell out of there.

Kip's pursuer extended something shiny in his direction. The kid followed Playmate's example. He demonstrated substantially less style in his collapse.

I avoided the same fate for seconds on end by staying light on my feet and putting great enthusiasm into an effort to saturate the air with flying tools. But, too soon, I began feeling like I had been drinking a whole lot of something more potent than beer. I slowed down.

The dizziness didn't last long.

I do not recall the darkness coming. My next clear memory is of Morley Dotes with his pretty little nose only inches from mine. He's reminding me that to stay alive one must remember to breathe. From the corner of my eye I see Saucerhead Tharpe trying to sell the same idea to Playmate while the ratgirl Pular Singe scuttles around nervously, sniffing and whining.

The disorientation faded faster than the effects of alcohol ever do. Without leaving much hangover. But none of those clowns were willing to believe that high-potency libations hadn't been involved in my destruction. When people go on a nag they aren't the least bit interested in evidence that might contradict their prejudices.

Pular Singe, ratgirl genius, was my principal advocate.

What can you do? "You two are a couple of frigid old ladies," I told Morley and Saucerhead. "Thank you for your faith, Singe. Oh, my head!" I didn't have a hangover from this but I did have one from last night. The latest headache powder wasn't helping.

"And you'd like us to believe that you don't have a hangover," Morley sneered. Weakly. One side of his face wasn't working so good.

Not a lot of time had passed since the advent of the silvery people. Smoke still wisped off the cut ends of some of the wall planks. I suppose it was a near miracle that no fire had gotten going. Perhaps, less miraculously, that was due to the sudden appearance of Dotes, Tharpe, and Pular.

"Singe!" I barked at the ratgirl. "Where did you guys come from?" She was likely to give me a straight answer. "Why're you here?" Bellows that Morley and Saucerhead would accept indifferently could rattle Singe deeply. Ratfolk are timid by nature and Singe was trying to make her own way outside her native society. Ratfolk males don't yell and threaten and promise massive bloodshed unless they intend to deliver. They don't banter.

When Singe is around I usually tread on larks' eggs because I don't want to upset her. It's like working with your mom wearing a rat suit.

She didn't get a chance to answer. Morley cracked, "This one's all right. He woke up cranking."

"What're you guys doing here, Morley?"

"Thank you, Mr. Dotes, for scaring off the baddies."

"Thank you, Mr. Dotes, for scaring off the baddies."

"See? You can learn if you put your mind to it."

"I was doing pretty good there on my own." The side of his face that wasn't working well had a sizable young bruise developing. "That's gonna be a brute when it grows up. What happened?" Morley's stylish clothing was torn and filthy, too. Which would hurt him more than mere physical damage could.

"I had a special request from the Dead Man. Round up Singe and a squad of heavyweights, come over here and keep an eye on you. You're a major trouble magnet, my friend. We're not even in place yet and we find the excitement already happening. What were those things?"

With more help from Singe than from Morley I made it to a standing position. "Where's the kid?"

"There was a kid? Maybe that's who your silvery friends were hauling away. Who were they, Garrett?"

"I don't know. You didn't stop them?"

"Let me see. No. I was too busy being bounced off walls and rolled through horse excrement. You couldn't hurt those guys." He looked as sour as he could manage with only half a face cooperating. "I broke my swordcane on one of them."

I couldn't resist a snicker. Morley is a lethally handsome half-breed, partly human but mostly dark elf. He's the guy fathers of young women wake up screaming about in the wee hours of the night. His vanity is substantial. His dress is always impeccable and at the forefront of fashion. He considers disarray a horror and dirt of any sort an abomination.

Dirt seems to feel the same way about him. It avoids him religiously.

I snickered again.

"It must be the concussion," Morley grumped. "I know my good friend Garrett would never mock me in my misfortune."

"Mockery." I couldn't resist another snicker. "Heh-heh. Misfortune." I glanced around. "Damn! Where'd he go? I only looked away for a second. Too bad. You're stuck with his evil twin instead of a friend."

"I hate it when that happens."

Singe had seen us in action often enough to discount most of what she heard but she still couldn't quite grasp what was going on. She watched us now, long fingers entwined so she could keep her hands from flying around. Her myopic eyes squinted. Her snout twitched. Her whiskers waggled. She drew more information from the world through her sense of smell than with any other.

She tended to be emotional and excitable but now remained collected. If she had learned anything from me it was better self-control. I felt it to be a cruel miscarriage of propriety that my companionship hadn't had a similar impact on the rest of my friends.

She took advantage of a lull to inquire, "What is this situation, Garrett? I did not understand the message I received from the Dead Man."

And yet she had come out of hiding. Because she had a chance to help me.

Morley smirked. I would hear about that as soon as Singe wasn't around to get her feelings hurt. She had an adolescent crush on me. And Morley, known to have broken the bones of persons having thrown ethnic slurs his way, thought it was great fun to torment me about being mooned over by a ratgirl.

He could commit every crime of prejudice he hated when they were directed toward him, yet would never, ever, recognize any inconsistency. Because ratpeople were a created race, products of the malificent sorcerous investigations of some of our lords of the Hill during the heyday of the last century, most people don't even consider them people. Morley Dotes included.

I told her, "Anything you heard from His Nibs makes you better informed than I am, Singe." Her particular line of ratpeople place their personal names second. Just to confuse things, other lines do the opposite, in imitation of local humans. "He didn't tell me anything. Not that he was interested in what's happening here nor even that he was planning to make you a part of things."

"What is happening here?" Morley asked. "Can you handle that one, Playmate?" Saucerhead had the big stablekeeper up on his hind legs now.

"I don' t'ink," Playmate mumbled.

I tried to tell everybody what I knew, not holding back anything, the way my partner would. Well, some little details, maybe, like about how good the Dead Man was at sneaking peeks into unprepared minds. Nobody needs to know that but me.

"You sure you ain't been jobbed?" Saucerhead wanted to know. "That sure ain't much. Play, you runnin' a game on my man Garrett?"

I waved him off. "It's not that." Chances were good the Dead Man would've clued me in if that were the case. My concern was more that Kip and Playmate were being manipulated. "But I do wonder if someone isn't running a game on Kip. Play, you ever met Lastyr or Noodiss?"