Gilded Latten Bones

103

Morley told me, "I have to be in on this. I won't contribute, but. . It will be historic."

This was next day. Mr. Mulclar had finished fixing the door but it remained open in honor of the man's special faculty. He has a digestive disorder. It doesn't improve if he eats gravel. His leave-behind here suggested a diet exclusively of fermented beans and thousand-day eggs.

Over the past twenty-plus hours the principals dealt with personal issues, political issues, squabbled over turf, and behaved like a pack of four-year-olds. The Director and General Block got heads together with some senior military people and talked them into staying out of the way unless there were disorders the Civil Guard could not manage.

The people inside the Knodical remained stubborn. Strafa's peers on the Hill made excuses for doing nothing, though they did agree to deal with any villains who came their way.

I was convinced that a witch hunt was a sure thing, but the peace held.

Block and Relway had every man helping keep the lid on.

Belinda was in the woodwork somewhere, licking her wounds, sulking, scheming bloody retribution-and helping keep the peace.

She had all her troops called up, too.

The battle at Fire and Ice had gone her way. Some good guys had survived. Everyone from the sporting house escaped. Belinda owed her own continued existence to the superhuman efforts of Joel, who had proven his love.

Joel was alive but not expected to stay that way.

I suffered mild episodes of grogginess and was unsure of the boundary between reality and fantasy. Still, I boarded a coach hired by the Guard and rode it down to the Landing. The Landing is called that because some old-time explorer first set foot in the city there. The city already existed, but was savage, pagan, and uncivilized. Its people neither spoke the explorer's language nor worshipped his god.

The neighborhood swarmed with Civil Guards and Outfit soldiers.

I told Singe, "I don't think this is the smart thing to do."

"Then call it off."

"You're kidding. You think I'm in charge? Besides, it's too late."

"You could stop this cold by presenting a reasoned argument for holding off till better evidence is collected."

Me deliver a solid argument for restraint? Hopeless. Besides, a lot of people wanted to make something happen. It didn't have to be a good something so long as some fur flew.

Singe stayed close, on my left. So did Strafa, to my right. She snuggled up close enough to make me regret having left the house.Then she gave herself some space and became the Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light. The change was impressive.

General Block, Director Relway, and Belinda Contague all were in sight. Morley was close by, surrounded by his old crew. John Stretch had brought a dozen of his hardest men, three of who screened Singe and me. The rest were out sniffing, which was unnecessary. The air was still and heavy. I could smell it myself.

The Windwalker drifted upward. Singe and I caught up with General Block. He said, "The guards have done a runner."

"Think the villains have cleared out, too?"

Morley squeaked something from a few yards away. "What's up?" I asked Sarge.

"He's remembering something."

"The smell," Dotes said. "And that place straight ahead. Made with the odd color bricks. That was the place."

The bricks in question were gray. Most bricks used in TunFaire are some shade of red.

The scouts agreed. The gray brick building was the place. The smell increased as we got closer. There was a taint of death in it overridden by the stenches of urine and feces.

The Guards, Outfit thugs, and the rest collapsed inward till we established a cordon round three and a half sides. The rest of one side faced the river and consisted of a pair of concrete-walled, silted channels where once upon a time army barges had been loaded from the warehouse. Someone had begun making an effort to clear the silt.

I said, "That's what you do with your thread men when you aren't using them to set fire to people's houses."

"There," Morley said, indicating a small, broken, wooden door that opened on the divider between channels. A wooden ladder in a dangerous state of disrepair clung to the side of the warehouse nearby, leading to the roof. "That's where I got out."

Singe asked, "You climbed that ladder?"

"I did. All the way. In the rain. I stayed on the roof for a day and a half. I should have stayed longer. They heard me coming back down because I said something too loud when I slipped. I got a head start but it didn't do me any good."

Directing Guards by gesture, General Block asked, "And how did you get in there in the first place?"

Relway announced, "We're set at all the entrances. Say when."

"When."

Morley said, "I don't remember that part yet."

I asked, "How are you doing now? You able to keep going?"

"I'll have Puddle piggyback me when I can't manage anymore."

Puddle expressed his opinion about that rather pithily.

Civil Guards broke down doors. Outfit bone breakers rushed inside. Somebody yelled something about idiots not forgetting the godsdamned colored lanterns so friends wouldn't bust the skulls of friends in the dark.

I looked up.

Strafa was way up there, watching the whole neighborhood. Her clothes faded into the background overcast. She was hard to spot.

Singe gagged.

"What?"

"They opened something in there. I have to move back. It's too much." She headed toward the coaches. Most of the ratmen were doing the same. John Stretch went a few seconds after Singe. "It's too foul."

Too foul for a rat?

I smelled it. It was everything that had been there before, but a hundred times worse.

Guards stumbled out of the nearest doorway, desperate for clean air. One headed toward Block. He had thrown up on himself.

Block asked, "Is it really that bad?"

"Worse than you can imagine, sir. Way worse." He threw up again.

I said, "I suggest we don't send anybody in that we don't have to."

Morley, using a stick for a cane, asked, "Remember the smell when we raided that vampire nest?"

"Yeah. This may be worse."

Ten minutes later a pair of red tops emerged with a limp figure between them. The man screamed when they brought him into the light.

"More stuff like that nest," Morley said.

There wasn't much light for those of us used to the surface world. The overcast was growing heavier. It would rain again soon.

The Windwalker plunged like a striking hawk. A bolt of actinic light preceded her.