Wicked Bronze Ambition

56

We were coming up on Flubber Ducky. I kept fighting the snickers. We had no shadows at the moment. Tara Chayne was not feeling talky. I was positively chatty. For me.

Moonblight pulled up, eyed the costume and props shop, finally spoke. “That was fun, pulling the little man’s ears.”

“It was,” I admitted. “But don’t make a habit of it. Deal Relway is the most dangerous man in Karenta because he’s one of those guys who knows he’s right. The gods themselves are behind him. He is the anointed voice and fist of justice. He has no reservations and doesn’t care who gets in his way, except tactically.”

“Stipulated. He could be dangerous. But I suspect you exaggerate that danger as much as you do everything else. This is the shop, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll look inside.” She swung her mount in to the horse trough and hitching post. “Did anyone touch you while we were inside the Al-Khar?”

She had been insultingly reluctant to allow anyone near her.

“I don’t think so.”

“It could be important. You had two tracers on you when we started. You picked up another passing through the Al-Khar. We’ll tamper with that one so it looks like it doesn’t always work right. That might be handy later.”

I chewed some air, surprised. “Helenia touched me a few times. Light brushes. I didn’t pay attention.”

“Because you’re used to women touching you during a conversation.”

Well, yes. That happened. Tara Chayne had done it herself sometimes when there wasn’t room for me to increase my personal space.

“They have a good book on you at the Al-Khar.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about that before, but it exactly fit Relway’s character, tracking the habits and foibles of people of interest.

I dismounted without embarrassing myself, to the amusement of the sorceress. She had a book on me herself, inside her head. “We’ll have you cavalry-qualified in no time.”

Oh my gods! I suffered a horrified flashback. What if they had put me in the cavalry when they called me up? What a nightmare, that would be rolling along still because I would still be down there slumbering under the cacti right now if I hadn’t been lucky enough to have become a Marine.

“Get it together, Garrett. I’m beginning to see why Strafa fell so hard. You’re as distracted and flaky as she was. How have you stayed alive so long?”

“You aren’t the first to ask. I don’t know. I wasn’t always this way.”

She shrugged, indicated the shop door. We waited as a party of eight came out, stage crew folk from the World led by Heather Soames-Gilbey. Heather eyeballed me, Tara Chayne, the mutts, and the horses. “Garrett.” And that was it. She focused on the horses, stifled a grin. She knew about my horse allergy.

The World gang moved along, Heather shaking her head.

Tara Chayne and I seized the opportunity to operate the otherwise unoccupied door.

The first native we encountered was the little baldish guy I’d nicknamed Feisty, real name Pindlefix, that Belinda had sent to party with the Dead Man. “Welcome to Flubber Ducky, sir and madam.” He pronounced “madam” old-fashioned, so it sounded like “my lady,” from ages past. Pretense was part of the Flubber Ducky ambience. “How might we be of service?” He recognized Tara Chayne’s status. But then he decided to see what her man-toy looked like, recognized me, and became all attitude. He sputtered instructions to me to get my ugly butt out while trying to summon some security thug to chuck said homely delectation into the nearest horse apple pile. Somebody hunt one of those up if none was readily available.

Moonblight extended a delicate, timeworn hand to Feisty’s throat, as though to make sure that nub really was an Adam’s apple. Pindlefix continued his rant in silence. People gathering for some flash entertainment suddenly lost interest.

It took Pindlefix a few seconds to realize that his voice box was hoarse de combat. “Frog in your throat, buddy?”

He was fresh out of interest in me. Life was all about the dread in front of him: a Hill creature who could silence him with a touch.

A mercurial sort, Feisty adjusted, becoming deeply obsequious in just a few heartbeats.

Moonblight told him, “Gently, sir. Gently. A good customer service attitude is critical to business success. Don’t you agree?”

Feisty mouthed, “Yes, ma’am!” and bobbed his upper torso as if she were a foreign dignitary, or he was from one of those countries where their heads are always wobbling up and down.

“Much better.” She touched his throat again. He regained the power of speech, sagged in relief. “I can make that permanent.”

Feisty stopped trying to suck up by expressing his gratitude.

I let him know, “We just want to browse.”

“As you will, sir. As you will. Summon me if I can help. I will be close by.”

I told Tara Chayne, “I wish I could do that trick.” Hoping my envy wasn’t totally obvious.

“It takes a special talent. Otherwise every husband would do it.” Grinning, she began to wander, pushing her fingers and nose in everywhere. Pindlefix stuck close, usually staying ahead to warn everyone to look out, till someone came in talking a sizable order. With Feisty distracted, Tara Chayne invited us into a back room normally closed to the punters. Teams of seamsters were building costumes. Tara Chayne found one little man stitching a long, heavy, hooded robe, vaguely clerical, in dark umber with planned embroidery rough-sketched in yellow chalk. She asked nothing and touched nothing but made the little man intensely aware of her presence. She got scary close, maybe shedding girl cooties.

He worked slower and slower. She watched for several minutes, then told me, “I’ve seen enough. Almost time to go. But first.” She snagged a seam ripper, pushed me against a wall, and began to pat me down. I remained polite and tolerant on the assumption that she wouldn’t make an unwelcome move in public. Though she might not be able to resist the absurdity of trying in the middle of this particular crowd.

“Turn. The other way. Stop.” She poked around behind and above my right hipbone, used the seam ripper. The tailors stopped work to watch. She showed me a small canvas patch. “Tracer One, gone.”

“I saw that but never thought anything about it. Singe is always fixing stuff without telling me.”

“Turn a little more. Did that Helenia creature put her hand in your pants?”

“No.”

“The Guard tracer got in there somehow.” She tugged at the top of my trousers.

“We were going to keep that one, remember?”

“Spoilsport. I wanted to go fishing. Another quarter turn, please. Perfect.” She patted my left calf down, down, and down. “Weird. Where did it get to? Hey. Pull your pants leg up.”

I did that. She frowned some, thought some. “Lift your foot but keep your toe on the floor. And here the devil is!” Then, puzzled, “But how did they manage this?” Using fingernails and the seam ripper, she worked on something on the top center back of my shoe, above and behind my ankle. “Did you have some bimbo hanging on your leg while you were fighting the zombies? This one has been there awhile.”

I no longer bothered arguing that they hadn’t been zombies. “You told me to wear comfortable shoes. But I didn’t.”

“What?”

“I didn’t. I forgot. These are the ones I always wear. That patch is really clever. I don’t know when or how the damned thing. . you wouldn’t notice it even if you were looking.”

“Not with untrained eyes. Besides tracer elements, there are spells making it hard to see. Which didn’t work against me.”

“They do say it ain’t bragging if you can do it.”

She gave me the fish-eye. “I’ll let that opportunity slide.” She held both tracer patches to the light. It looked like the clouds might be thinning outside. “These are first-rate.”

“Same craftsman made both?”

“I think so. Someone compelled to engage in commerce.”

Behind that lay prejudices seldom encountered anymore. Times are tough and even the gentry likes to eat.

Moonblight did something quiet and clever that stopped work while the tailoring crew boggled. She summoned a rat, a big bull that didn’t want to play. He fought her. He lost. He responded to her will. He came to her.

She had just finished working a tracer into the rat’s back fur when Feisty arrived with smoke streaming out his ears. He bellowed, “What the hell do you people think you’re doing?” Bellow being relative, considering his limitations. “Enough is enough. . ”

Moonblight’s fingers wove patterns in her lap. Pindlefix approached her showing the same ferocious reluctance that the bull rat had.

Tara Chayne welcomed him with love talk he’d never heard from a girl, so deftly that I failed to mark the transaction when she fixed him up with his own inherited tracer.

Scary, scary, scary once I got to brood on it.

The woman might be able to manipulate anyone that way.

Maybe I should have Kevans Algarda rig me a custom anti-Moonblight hair net.

She told me, “Don’t worry your pretty head. You’re special to me. Well, look here. It’s time to go.”