Gilded Latten Bones

17

I did write a letter. It seemed futile once I finished. I didn't have it delivered. Tinnie knew what was going on. Anything I said wouldn't change her mind.

My dearly beloved had become fixed in her attitudes. She didn't let facts get in the way of her making up her mind. My friends thought that was my fault. Tinnie and I had a long history. When I stood up on my hind legs she would pack the attitude in. But I did let stuff slide because it was easier to go along.

I was supposed to be guarding someone, not known to be alive, in a hideout where nobody would think to look. The engineer of the hidery hadn't been successful. Somebody had tried the window already. A guard had lost his life. Then, scarcely an hour after Belinda went away, the last person I expected to see ambled into the room.

DeeDee and Crush were with me, DeeDee worshipping Morley with her too-young eyes, while Crush plotted some means of getting the best of her mother once Morley came around.

I got into weird stuff but not this kind of weird, where a mother looks younger than her daughter and acts it, both of them being professional ladies, fiercely competitive, and desperately eager for positive feedback from a man claimed by a bad woman from far above them in the food chain.

I finished nailing the window shut. "Most excellent, Garrett. A job well-done." I heard the soft scrape of a foot on hallway carpet. I turned.

Deal Relway came in. The Director himself. The terrible swift sword of the law, older and more worn than when last I saw him. I had heard that he never left the Al-Khar anymore. Too many outsiders wanted to break his bones.

He was a little guy, and ugly. Sometime way back an impudent dwarf had taken a climb through the family tree, plucking forbidden fruit. Additional members of the Other Races had contributed over the generations.

Relway's minions were too efficient. He had arrived with no more warning than his shoe brushing the nap of the carpet. He looked around, said, "About what I expected. You ladies finish what you're doing and go."

They had no idea who he was. I told them, "It's all right. He's no enemy."

Frowning, unsure, they drifted out into a house saturated with red tops.

Relway studied Morley. "Hard to believe."

"Bad luck can catch up with anybody. What brings you in out of the smoke?"

"The hope that I might learn something helpful in dealing with a problem that's been nagging me almost since you dropped out." His tone and mannerisms were casual. He was more comfortable than when last I had seen him.

"You do understand where you are? Whose place you've entered without invitation?"

"Not something that concerns me. Her interests and mine coincide right now. Down the road I'll probably shut her down."

"It's good to be confident. But you, sir, are going to die young. And when you do you'll refuse to believe that it could happen to you."

Relway was neither devastated nor confused. I kind of felt sorry for him. I didn't know what I was talking about, either.

"You've been out of action for a while, Garrett. The paradigms have shifted."

"Many casualties? Much property damage?" I wasn't sure what a paradigm was. He didn't look likely to explain. "Good for you. But what about right here, right now?"

"Let us readjust and reassess. At the moment I have no interest in what Mr. Dotes may be doing with his life. I'm even disinterested in the fell Miss Contague. I am interested in making contact with whoever or whatever was responsible for Mr. Dotes' condition."

"Why is that?"

"I am pledged to protect King and Crown. Something out there means to attack both. Your friend may have stumbled into it."

So. He felt threatened because he wasn't on top of everything happening in our marvelous city.

We talked, though not about much of consequence. Half an hour later we parted, me thinking that neither of us had profited, till I realized just how far out of trim I was.

He had learned plenty by listening to what I didn't say. As in not asking what he had learned from Jimmy Two Steps. I must know already, despite being holed up here, seeing no outsider but Belinda.

The runt had peeked through the curtains of my dreams.

Given time, I relaxed enough to realize that Relway had come fishing. He hungered for information on something that troubled him deeply-and I hadn't helped despite my honesty.

Relway's crew left Fire and Ice in stages, careful to protect the Director. So Crush said when she brought lunch, once the scary little man was gone. I loathed myself for my idiot response to a girl her age-while aching because a girl her age considered a guy my age a bad joke.

But she could go cow-eyed over Morley Dotes, thinking it somehow wondrous that she had gotten to change the diaper of a bad boy dark elf a whole lot older than me.

Crush was indifferent to Garrett the man. Our basis for interaction was Morley. She admitted that she had no idea who he really was. DeeDee might know him, though. The whiny guy inside asked, "So why are you drooling all over him?"

She rose dramatically in my estimation. She gave my question some thought. "I don't know. Not when I try to logic it out. Is he a sorcerer?"

"Your guess would be better than mine. You're female. I've never figured it out. Maybe he gives off a smell because he's a vegetarian."

"I doubt that. Anyway, with me it's probably about competition with DeeDee. And he has an exciting reputation. He's bad, he's beautiful, and he has been connected with some famous women. Strip everything else away, there's still bare-naked curiosity. What did those other women find so special?"

I considered Morley sourly. He had told me once that he had worked hard crafting his reputation. By building it and broadcasting it, he guaranteed himself a bottomless pool of ladies wondering what the excitement was all about. He had insisted that there was no trickery involved. He was providing excuses so women could pursue their own wicked desires.

Crush finished her work. She had no excuse for hanging around. She left without an apology, a farewell, or a broken heart.

I shut the door, pushed my cot against it. I lay down for a nap that didn't last but two or three hours. Then I was wide awake again. I took advantage of the chamber pot, then checked the window.

It was still nailed shut.

On the other hand, it was glass. Glass could be broken.