Faded Steel Heat

25

"What is this?" I demanded as I blew into the Dead Man's room. "Are you determined to get me lynched?"

I reiterate. Miss Tate is not irrational. Enough of that. There are larger issues at hand.

"Larger to who, Old Bones?"

Thousands. Even tens of thousands. Name for me, if you will, just five nonhumans murdered today who considered Miss Tate's potential ill will an eventuality more dire than the catastrophe which actually afflicted them.

"Unfair. Unfair." He was deft at carving holes in the thickest smoke when the mood took him. "None of them knew Tinnie like I—"

Garrett.

"All right. How is taking Belinda along going to be useful?"

We want to situate you so that you become a recognized intermediary between as many interests as possible. So you can dip into the information flows. This will position you to take advantage of anyone wishing to communicate with the Syndicate. Particularly as regards those with little sympathy for The Call and its ilk.

Ilk? What kind of word is ilk? "Relway?"

An excellent example. With Max Weider and his moderate friends, perhaps, as another spoke to that wheel. With effective guidance I can even see you situating yourself on the axis between the radical parties and Glory Mooncalled's people.

Guess who would do the guiding.

He was feeling smug about his genius. His true plan drifted too near the surface of his thoughts. "Hang on there, Old Bones. There ain't no way I can sell me to all those folks as the hero of their prophecies."

You do not have to sell yourself to Mr. Weider or Mr. Relway. You serve their interests already. No effort is needed to bring Miss Contague along, either. She wants to come aboard. That leaves only the rightsists and the rebels. The former are after you already.

Aw, hell. Why not link up with the nonhumans and all those wannabe revolutionaries who have been lying low since the explosion of rightsist terrorism? The rightsists have no use for those guys, either. Rightsists don't like anybody very much.

"Nothing to it, Big Guy. Apiece of cake."

The rightsists should be fish in a barrel, to use your vernacular. You are exactly what they want. A certified war hero.

"I'm a war hero who lives with a Loghyr and a psychotic talking bird and my best friend is part elf."

All faults that are correctable. A man can come to the truth late. You can sell the rightsists because they want to be sold. Glory Mooncalled's is the organization I am concerned about cracking.

"Why bother? I don't share your infatuation with Glory Mooncalled."

Truth be told, Garrett, I no longer share that infatuation with my younger self. When Mooncalled was a distant gadfly yanking the beards of the lords and ladies we love to hate it was easy to cheer him on. But he is among us now and the glimmers of purpose I catch are depressingly sinister. Perhaps the Mooncalled I treasured perished along with his dream of an independent Cantard. Or he may have elected to become Karenta ‘s great foe because we no longer have serious enemies but deserve them.

"There's that damned word again, Smiley."

Which word?

‘We.' I find nonhumans fond of reminding the rest of us that Karenta is a human construct. They make big shows of negotiating exemptions from human law and rule.

Excellent. Maintain that capacity for dredging up irrelevant sophistries and The Call will clutch you to its bosom. You may be promoted directly into their Inner Council.

"I don't want to do this."

There is little choice, Garrett. These are pivotal times. Everyone must take a stand before it ends. Who refuses will be devoured because he will be out there alone. But we who recognize the signs and portents have the opportunity to deflect or defeat the gathering darkness.

"I know where I stand, Windy. But I'd rather be noble and honorable and defend true justice and the divine right of Karenta's kings while I'm sitting in my office with a mug in my hand, chatting with Eleanor."

And you insist that I am lazy.

"Only because you have no more ambition than a bone that's been buried for twenty years. You don't have to go out there and try to run between the raindrops, partner."

That is another matter which warrants future discussion.