Glen Cook - Angry Lead Skies

"We're working on that. That can't be much fun. We're going to drill a hole down the center of a flat piece of hardwood... "

I got the hang of the three-wheel quickly. But there wasn't enough room to enjoy it properly in there. "How about I take it out in the street?"

"I'd really rather you didn't. I'm sure that's why we've had the trouble we've had. Kip took it out there, racing around, and before he got back he had several people try to take it away from him. And right afterward the strange people started coming around."

I scooted around the stable for a few minutes more, then gave up because I couldn't enjoy the machine's full potential under such constrained circumstances. "Are you planning to make three-wheels, too? Because if you are, I want one. If I can afford it."

Playmate's eyes lighted up as he saw the possibility of paying my fees without having to part with any actual money. "I might. But honesty compels me to admit that we're having problems with it. Especially with getting the wheels and the steering bar to move freely. Lard doesn't seem to be the ideal lubricant."

"And it draws flies." Plenty of those were around. But the place was a stable, after all.

"That, too. And the kinds of hardwoods we need to make the parts aren't common. Not to mention that we'd have to come up with whole teams of woodworking craftsmen if we were to build even a fraction of the number of them we think we'd need to satisfy the demand there'd be once people started seeing them in the streets."

"Hire some of those out-of-work veterans to make them."

"How many of them, you figure, are likely to be skilled joiners and cabinetmakers?"

"Uhn. Not to mention wheelwrights." I walked around the three-wheel. "That geekoid kid over there actually thought this up?"

"This thing and a whole lot more, Garrett. It'll be a mechanical revolution if we ever figure out how to build all of the things he can imagine."

I slid down off the three-wheeler. "What do you call this?"

"Like I told you. Just three-wheel."

There had to be something that sounded more dramatic. "Here's a notion. You could train your veterans just to do what it takes to manufacture three-wheels. That wouldn't be like them having to learn all about making cabinets and furniture."

"And then I'd have guild trouble."

I stared at the three-wheel, sighed, told Playmate, "I guarantee you, somebody's going to get rich off this thing." My knack for prophecy is limited but that was a prediction I made with complete conviction. I had no trouble picturing the streets of the better neighborhoods overrun with three-wheels.

"Someone with fewer ethical disadvantages than I have, you mean?"

"That wasn't what I was getting at, but it's a fact. As soon as you get some of those things out there you're going to have people trying to build knockoffs." I had a thought. Lest it get lonely I sent it out into the world. "You said Kip took this one out and somebody tried to take it away from him?"

Playmate nodded.

"Could it be that Kip's having problems because somebody wants to steal his ideas?" I'm sure that I'm not the only royal subject bright enough to see the potential of Kip's inventions.

Playmate nodded. "That could be going on, too. But there's definitely something to the trouble with the weird elves. And right now I'm more worried about them. Stay here and keep an eye on Kip while I make us all a pot of tea."

Ever civilized, my friend Playmate. In the midst of chaos he'll take time for amenities, all with the appropriate service.

Kip tired of filing his metal wheel. He put it aside and started fiddling with something wooden. I watched from the corner of one eye while I thumbed through Playmate's drawings and sketches. The man really was good. More so than with portraits, he had a talent for translating Kip's ideas into visual images. There was a lot of written information on some of the sheets, inscribed in a hand that was not Playmate's.

"How do you come up with this stuff?" I asked Kip. I didn't expect an answer. If he heard it at all the question was sure to irritate him. Creative people get it all the time. They get tired of questions that imply that the artist couldn't possibly produce something out of the whole cloth of the mind. It was a question I wouldn't have asked a painter or poet.

Kip surprised me by responding, "I don't know, Mr. Garrett. They just come to me. Sometimes in my dreams. I've always had ideas and a head full of stories. But lately those have been getting better than they ever were before." He did not look up from the piece of wood he was shaping.

He had become a different person now that he was settled in the sanctuary of his workshop. He was calm and he was confident.

I wondered how much puberty had to do with his problems and creativity.

Tucked into the back of Playmate's folio, folded so I nearly overlooked them, were four smaller sketches of strange "elves."

"Would these be some of the people who're giving you a hard time?"

The boy looked up from his work. "Those two are Noodiss and Lastyr. Left and right. They're the good ones. I don't know the other two. They may be some of the ones Play ran off."

Playmate arrived with the tea. "They are."

"I told you your talent would be a wonderful tool in the war against evil. See? We have two villains identified already."

"Do we, then?"

No, we doedn't, doed we? We had sketches of a couple of likely baddies about whom we knew nothing whatsoever. I wasn't even sure they were the same kind of elves as the other two. They didn't look like the same breed in the sketches.

I changed the subject. "I have an idea, too."

Man and boy looked at me skeptically.

"It can happen!" I insisted. "Look. You see how much work it was making the steering handles for your three-wheel? You could use ox horns instead. You could get them from the slaughterhouses." Though the two of them began to look aghast I warmed to greater possibilities. "You could get them to save you the whole skull with the horns still attached. You could produce a special death's-head model three-wheel for customers from the Hill."

Playmate shook his head. "Drink your tea, Garrett. And plan to go to bed early tonight. You need the rest." I offered him a hard glower.

Guess I need to practice up. He wasn't impressed. He just smiled and told me, "You're starting to hallucinate."

"And I should leave that to the experts. All right. Why don't I do some work? What can you tell me about these maybe elves that you haven't told me already?"

"They eat a lot of ugly soup," Playmate told me. "My drawings don't do them justice."

None of them appeared particularly repulsive to me. And I said so. Those homely boys didn't know it but I was looking out for them.

"Call it an inner glow kind of thing. You'll see what I mean when you meet one." He sounded confident that I'd do so.

"Kip? Anything you can say to help out here? It's really your ass that's on the line."

Playmate advised, "Despite earlier events Kip still isn't quite convinced that he's in any trouble himself."

Most people are that way. They just can't believe that all this crap is raining down on them. Not even when somebody is using a hammer to beat them over the head. And they particularly can't believe that it's because of them.

We talked while we enjoyed our tea. I asked more questions. Lots of questions, most of them not too pointed. I didn't get many useful answers. Kip never said so, of course, but now that he was where he felt safe himself his main concern was his friends with the absurd names. He had decided that not telling me anything was the best way to shield them.

"It's not me you need to protect them from," I grumbled. "It's not me that's looking for them." He might not know exactly where they were hiding but I was willing to bet he had a good idea where to start looking.