Cruel Zinc Melodies (32 page)

I had no real plan. My hanging around belonged to the category “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I settled against a wall not far from the main entrance and thought about clunky music.

I dozed.

Somebody called, “Garrett? You in here?” Then, in a softer voice, “You’re sure he didn’t go home, Tharpe?”

“No, sir, Mr. Gilbey. No, sir. He never would’ve gone off and left the doors unlocked.”

“Over here.” I went to work getting my feet under me. It was hard. I’d stiffened up. “I fell asleep.”

Hand on the wall, I looked around. I saw three ghosts, little stronger than heat shimmers, uninterested in the new-comers. The air was warmer now.

Gilbey and his niece stood just inside the main entrance. A nervous Saucerhead Tharpe filled the doorway behind, reluctant to come any farther. Gilbey said, “I stopped by to see what headway you made today. Looks like some work did get done.”

“There'll be a full crew tomorrow. They don’t show, they lose their jobs to the breeds who tossed up that guard shack out front.”

“We had a complaint about you pushing the workmen around.”

“And?”

“I see some work got done today.”

I took time out to be smug.

Gilbey asked, “What about the other problems? I see some things that might be ghosts.”

I explained that we did seem to have dealt with the giant bugs. “For now. I'll be amazed if more don’t hatch out. You know how hard it is to get rid of roaches.”

“And the ghosts?”

I talked about that, too.

“Interesting. Answer me this. How do we make it so cold down there that we don’t hear from this thing anymore?”

Heather Soames drifted off in pursuit of a shimmer that appeared to prefer to avoid her.

“I think we just need to keep the bugs off. It’s been content to hibernate for the gods know how long. I figure, keep the bugs away and the cold run down, it'll fall asleep for another thousand years.”

“No idea what it is yet?”

“My partner took over that research. I had a couple Hill types in here earlier. They weren’t excited so it can’t be something sorcerers whisper about or shop for behind our backs.”

Heather caught up with a ghost. She poked it with a silver hat pin.

I swear, vague, pus-colored shimmer that it was, it began to sweat. Fine drops rained down on the floor planking, speckling briefly before evaporating. The ghost fled.

Then the music started. The zinc orchestral maneuvers. Bill had done a good job describing that clunky sound. What he had failed to capture was the ferocious volume.

It was
loud!
this time. The building shook. Despite the fact that the World was so new that it was still only half-finished, dust and dirt drifted down from overhead.

Saucerhead called from the doorway, “What’s up, Garrett?”

“I think it’s under control.” I had to yell.

Meantime, Gilbey caught Heather and told her, “Maybe you shouldn’t do that.”

“You think?” Though she was stalking a second ghost at the time.

The music changed. A children’s game song became pounding jungle rhythm. And got louder.

Its mood I could not discern.

I’d started to sweat. The place was heating up.

I got busy opening things up again.

Outside temperatures had plunged since sundown. The barking wind was bitter.

The music did not falter.

Finished opening up, I rejoined Gilbey and his niece. Beautiful woman, Heather Soames. Bright. But solidly equipped with a taste for self-destruction.

Saucerhead remained in the doorway. He wouldn’t come inside but he wanted to keep track. He had his hands over his ears. For what good that did.

Then he moved, pushed aside. Barate Algarda and Furious Tide of Light had returned.

66

Algarda looked drained. The Windwalker could not have gotten paler without going albino. There was no guessing her mental state. She moved like she was ready to collapse.

The beat of the music picked up. I’m not a religious sort, except maybe in the trenches, but I spun off a poorly remembered childhood singsong prayer. By the time I finished Algarda and daughter were up close. Algarda made a megaphone of his hands. “What happened?”

I explained. He scowled at Heather but didn’t put much power behind it. Beautiful women always get that extra edge.

The Windwalker poked him exactly the way Tinnie would have poked me.

There are a hundred thousand stories in the city. Most of them will boggle or baffle the shit out of you. That one boggled me. I saw what I saw but rejected it after a moment’s reflection. Some things you just don’t want to believe.

Algarda shouted, “Let’s move outside!”

“Sure couldn’t hurt.”

Everybody headed toward Saucerhead, still standing in for the angel with the sword blocking the gateway to heaven.

Several ghosts wanted to stay close to Furious Tide of Light. But they couldn’t get past her big ugly protector.

It was cooler outside. Also less noisy.

The music remained, hammering away without a touch of silver to it. Yet with my new advantage against loud I was able to pick out a few nuances and chords.

It really was music, from a genius whose natural instrument was rocks.

Xylophone. That was the thing Belle Chimes and I hadn’t been able to remember. A lot of that racket did sound like a big old clunky pot metal xylophone.

Barate Algarda said, “We can hear ourselves think now.”

“But do we have to?” I asked. Twenty minutes ago I was planning to spend the night in order to live the whole experience.

My weariness was not unique. Exhaustion had a hold on everyone. Algarda and the Windwalker in particular, since they had started already worn out.

“Possibly not, in your case. However, I rather enjoy my thoughts.”

“So. What did you learn from your adventure today?”

The Windwalker startled me, her voice strong for someone so slight. This wasn’t the squeaky little girl voice from before. “We learned that nearly adult children require closer supervision than we thought.”

I hoisted an inquiring eyebrow.

Algarda said, “They were up to all kinds of mischief down there.” He shrugged. “When I was that age girls were the only experiments that interested me.”

“And he hasn’t changed much since. Which is why he’s a running footman instead of a Man of Standing.” Which was someone considered an insider by the community of sorcerers.

Algarda looked like he’d bitten into an alum-crusted lemon. This would be an old argument being dealt up fresh.

He swallowed. And let it go. “The oversize insects are a product of their experiments. There may have been other experiments potentially as embarrassing. We may have to twist their arms. They’ve done a lot to clean up and cover up.”

The Windwalker said, “I blame the Prose boy. He’s filled their heads with crazy ideas.”

Kip wasn’t my kid but I defended him. Obliquely. “To understand the Faction you need to consult my associate. He discovered some interesting facts about those kids.”

The Windwalker didn’t listen. She was too tired. Algarda would have to carry her home if they stayed much longer.

He told me, “We wore ourselves out over there, making sure their experiments don’t create any more trouble. Tomorrow, we'll come help with the thing they wakened.”

The clunky music shifted tempo, coincidentally but disconcertingly.

“Are they likely to go back down there?”

“They might,” he said. “It’s perfect. It’s a good place for young people to get together.”

“You want to keep them out? I could bring back Rindt Grinblatt.”

“There’s no need to banish them. So long as they aren’t doing things that they shouldn’t.”

The Windwalker nodded emphatic agreement. Her eyes, I noted, were an intimidating shade of steel gray.

Algarda added, “No. We'll do some research in the morning.
She
can maybe consult a few of her...” He stopped. He’d been about to take a bite of the same sour apple his daughter had chomped a moment ago. “I doubt that it’s some forgotten god who dozed off a thousand years ago and got buried in the mud when the river changed course.” That was more sniping, but subtler.

The Windwalker may have presented that hypothesis.

Gilbey liked the notion. “It couldn’t be a human god. The river wandered, back when, but its course hasn’t run through here in human history.”

In recent centuries TunFairens have taken care to keep the big muddy confined to the same channel. It'll flood a couple times a century, but...

Furious Tide of Light collapsed. It wasn’t a faint for effect, as practiced by some young ladies of spoiled and self-centered status. Algarda caught her before she hit the planks.

Heather Soames said, “I’m about to pass out myself, Manvil.” She sounded puzzled, though. Like she thought she shouldn’t be so tired.

I suggested, “Let’s all get some shut-eye.” Which clever turn of phrase earned me several vaguely worried looks. But nobody had the energy to comment.

Saucerhead took hold and steered me toward his guard shack. He should’ve been more worn out than anybody, having been awake a lot longer. But he hadn’t spent much time inside the World.

New problem rising, then, maybe.

A theater that naturally puts people to sleep. Not so good for people in the entertainment racket.

Not so good at all.

67

In the Corps they told us you can get used to anything. Which they proceeded to prove by sending us to the islands, where everything, from bugs no bigger than a pin-prick to forty-foot crocodiles, and the snakes who ate the crocs, had people on the menu. While we hunted and were hunted by the Venageti who sometimes had the same taste. So a little remote midnight mood music from down in the ground didn’t keep me awake longer than about eight seconds.

I had some remarkable dreams. I remember that. But I don’t recall what they were. Not even the Dead Man could winkle them out later. Which he found more irksome than troubling.

Sunshine was sneaking through cracks in the guard shack’s wall when Saucerhead shook me awake. Bent-nose types snored around me. The place was crowded. But that wasn’t keeping Figgie Joe from cooking breakfast. “How you like your eggs, Mr. Garrett?”

“Just scramble them up. It’s iron rations time. Something up, Saucerhead?”

“Me. The sun. And now you. You got work to do. I figured you might ought to get on it.”

I listened. I heard hammering, sawing, cussing, and a lot more hammering. What I didn’t hear was any indignant heavy metal music from way down deep in the ground. “I take it the whole crew showed up today.”

Saucerhead grunted. He sipped from a mug of tea so potent I could smell it over the stinks of cooking and sleeping thugs. “You got your bluff in on them, Garrett.”

I asked, “You guys have any dreams?”

“Everybody has dreams,” Figgie Joe said as he splatted my eggs onto a tin plate. “You’re gonna wanna eat fast. We only got four plates and four mugs.”

“I mean really weird dreams. I had some classics but I can’t remember them now.”

“I get them kind all the time.”

“Me too,” Tharpe said. “But I’d say, it feels like last night they was more potent than usual.”

I ate scrambled eggs that hadn’t come out half bad. “You got a new girlfriend, Head?”

“When would I have found time for that?”

“Graziella, then?” Wasn’t that the name that Singe mentioned? Something like that? “Somebody’s been civilizing you. Figgie Joe. Decent job on the eggs, brother.”

“My short hitch I was a cook. Division headquarters.”

I raised an eyebrow. Figgie Joe didn’t look like a lifer. And wasn’t, of course. Not old enough.

The “short hitch” was your first voluntary re-up after you survived your obligated five. It lasted two more years. You gained all kinds of perks on account of you were there by choice now. It was a mutual tryout. If you completed your short hitch and still favored the soldier’s life, then you re-upped for the long hitch. Twenty years. For the rest of your life, in effect. Troopers who survived the long hitch are only slightly more common than frog fur coats.

I never figured it out but definitely don’t recall any shortage of lifer noncoms during my five. Of course, all the stupid and stubborn guys got weeded out by the Invincible early on. After that it was plain dumb bad luck that ended an individual story. That or getting too close to, or caring too much about, the new fish in your keeping.

I asked, “How’d you get into this racket?”

“You take work where you find it, slick. Ain’t a lot of jobs for mess cooks.”

Ain’t a lot of jobs. Period. It will take years for the Karentine economy to adjust to the sudden outbreak of peace.

The Venageti, having lost the war, have it worse than we do here. The battles that settled it all gobbled up most of their nobles and sorcerers. The peace dividend down there has produced a crop of “flayers,” unemployed soldiers who survive by plunder and rapine practiced on their own people.

I told Figgie Joe, “You surprised me. You like cooking?” He went all shifty-eyed.

“I'll take that as a yes.”

He didn’t think his pals would consider cooking fit work for a manly man. I told him, “I know a restaurant guy who'll be looking for cooks pretty soon. I'll drop your name. Hey, Head. Are you on a mission for Dean Creech or my athletically challenged sidekick?”

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s awful early to drag me out.”

“Tough. I told you. There’s work to do. Sooner you get on it, the sooner it gets done. And the sooner I got me a spot for one of my night guys to lie down.”

I began to retail some routine protest. He cut me off. “Don’t matter if you are the guy what handles the payroll. There’s stuff that’s got to be done. Sharing my guard shack with management ain’t one of them. It’s just a courtesy.”

I started to hand my plate and utensils back to brother Figgie Joe. He gave me a hard look. “There’s a couple barrels outside. The one with the yellow paint splash is for washing. Don’t use the other one. That’s for drinking.”