Wicked Bronze Ambition

89

Shadowslinger’s new message said CHECk HalL. for EAVEsdrop. MAKE It Go.

“Got it.” I looked. Sure enough, a herd of villains lurked there, ears cocked. I borrowed Shadowslinger’s pad to show them what she had to say. They moved on surlily.

I told Barate, “She’ll know if you sneak back.” Warning delivered while hoping that someone, preferably him, would be there to rescue me if Shadowslinger became overheated.

“I understand.”

He slunk away. And I understood that he wouldn’t be back. I was on my own. I would have no cover whatsoever.

I squared my handsome broad shoulders, put a smile on my handsome rugged face, turned to face the dread symphony.

With precision timing a gust flipped one leaf of the window open and flung rainy cold air inside. I scooted round the bed to deal with that.

Slowly, in words only slightly slurred, so softly it was unlikely that an eavesdropper might hear, Shadowslinger said, “Leave it. I need the noise.”

Mouth arrayed to catch horseflies and other small game, I ceased all efforts to do a good deed.

Speaking slowly and straining to make each word understandable, she said, “As you have begun to suspect, my health issue is not as debilitating as I have pretended.”

I closed my mouth so I could open it to ask a question. Several questions, actually. Or maybe a book full. That’s the kind of guy I am. I have an inquiring mind.

Shadowslinger cut me off with a look. “This seemed a good idea at one time. It no longer is. Time has flown. There isn’t much left. No more than forty hours.”

I had no idea what that meant. She didn’t explain. She refused to waste time on explanations. She was down to her deep reserve.

“You must end the tournament threat before time runs out.”

“But Strafa-”

“Your wife will be there. She will always be there. The Operators must be handled before that can be.”

I sighed. This meant a lot to her, in a strategic sense, not just personally.

I didn’t get it.

As is the case most all the time in my world, something was going on and I wasn’t being clued in.

She showed me a strained smile. “Break the Operators in the next forty hours. I promise you, you will be glad that you did.”

Another hefty Marine Corps sigh. “I can but do my damnedest, madame.” Then I had an idea. An unpleasant recollection that might be part premonition. “No one told you before. The Black Orchid has come out of retirement. She has become involved.”

Nothing for five or six seconds, followed by a whole-body shudder, as though the incoming air had just added a sudden arctic chill. Several more seconds slipped away. She regained control. “Orchidia Hedley-Farfoul? Involved? How? And why?”

I told her about Orchidia’s twins.

“Damn me, I should have anticipated that. The Operators should have taken her into account, too. This could be a disaster.”

Wow! The Black Orchid had an impact on Constance Algarda as big as Shadowslinger had on regular people.

Orchidia Hedley-Farfoul’s talent for murder must be all-time world-class.

Constance pulled herself together. “Orchidia is not incapable of reason. She is, in fact, coldly intellectual. Assuming she has sense enough to consult family, Bonegrinder will tell her the Breakers had nothing to do with her twins.”

Her condition had improved dramatically again.

Funny, that.

I kept my thoughts off my face, which I can do occasionally, in a desperate moment. “Breakers?”

“It’s what we called our gang when we were rebels. A weak inside joke. I use the name to include anybody interested in wrecking the Operators and tournament.”

The Orchidia thing truly had her stressed. She was giving stuff away left and right.

She made another effort. “This means nothing to you. It changes nothing for you. Though you will have to move fast if you want to question Meyness Stornes without the assistance of a necromancer. I am too weak to reach him once he goes toe-to-toe with Orchidia and loses-despite the season.”

Huh? “Maybe she doesn’t know about. .”

“What she doesn’t know she soon will. Nothing stops the Black Orchid once she. . Understand this. Orchidia Hedley-Farfoul might actually be the avatar of Death. Enma Ai. Death made manifest by faith.”

She had lost me.

“Some believe that. Their belief may not be just fearful superstition. Divine possession is uncommon but not unknown.”

No. It was not. I had seen it. It seemed improbable here, but. . Most anything that the mind can imagine can happen in TunFaire, and certainly will in time.

Constance was wobbly from effort, and ready to collapse.

She said, “You must. . resolve the tournament situation. . before sunrise day after tomorrow.”

“Sunrise? Day after. .? What? Why?” Tomorrow, come to think, was Day of the Dead, a holy day important in some of our more successful religions. Sundown tomorrow would start All-Souls Night, significant to those who believed that it was possible to communicate with the dead.

The believers include me, though I don’t put much stock in All-Souls. I have dealt with ghosts. I had a relationship with the shade of a woman who was murdered before I was born. During All-Souls Night the membrane between worlds is so thin that anyone willing to work at it can reach the dead-if the dead are inclined to be reached.

Those that aren’t too lost to respond usually don’t want to. Those who do are the sort most likely to become haunts anyway.

Only a few really strange folks do try to peek into the next world.

I frowned at that grim old woman. “What are you planning?”

She wasn’t listening. She was slipping away. She asked the air, “Oh, what have I done?” I think. She was mumbling and facing away. “It may be too late.” Seconds fled. “Nothing went the way it was supposed to.” And then, fifteen seconds later, “I guessed wrong. He is too dim and too lazy to get it done in time.” Then she was out completely and that looked real.

I wasn’t happy. I had a powerful notion that somebody, name of Garrett, was the “he” that had her muttering about dim and lazy. Which was not even a little fair because she, like everyone else, hadn’t given me any explanation of what was going on, what I was supposed to do, or why.

Stipulated, she could be right. I might be too dim. I was less flexible in my readiness to concede being too lazy.

Damn, did I wish that the Dead Man hadn’t gone south for the winter! He might be able to say why a holiday that hitherto had had no mention would, according to Constance Algarda, loom large as a deadline in which the dead part might play a big role.

I wasn’t going to find out anything leaning over an unconscious, stinky old sorceress while rain-laden air whipped my face through a window long overdue for closing.

I closed it.

I went down to the kitchen. The crowd eyed me expectantly.