Still, a commission was a commission, and Britlin Cavendish never peeled his clients. Carefully, bashfully, I handed it to Yasmin. She never said a word; she simply stared at it a long long time.
After that, we both shied away from each other's company for a while – it felt too awkward. I decided to ask Hezekiah to take the next day's watch with Yasmin; his Clueless questions would irritate her, but she might be more at ease being annoyed than handling whatever emotions she felt the day before.
With the other four team members on watch, Brother Kiripao and I had little to do. After two days in the tenement, I had endured enough of its quaking stairs and musty smell; so I found myself on the ground floor, staring out at the street and wondering how risky it would be to go for a walk in Sigil's version of fresh air. Brother Kiripao may have been thinking the same thing, for he wandered down to join me, gazing out the glassless window.
We could hear the giant's approach several minutes before the corpse actually came into view: the sound of overloaded carts groaning along the cobblestones, mingled with the grunts of people lugging a heavy burden. Then, around the corner came a haycart supporting the giant's head and shoulders, his long wild hair tumbling over the sides of the cart and trailing along the street. The hair was green, and his skin sulphur yellow – a jungle giant, if I correctly remembered Kreepatch's Guide to the Multiverse. Sigil didn't have a large population of giants, but a few happened into the city from time to time, and they naturally stood out in the crowd. Jungle giants were one of the more civilized species, smart and self-disciplined enough to stay out of trouble.
The giant in front of us, however, had not been quite smart enough. His throat sported a long red gash, still dribbling blood onto the pavement… enough blood to satisfy a string of dogs who trotted along beside the corpse to lick up the spillage. For a moment, I thought the deceased must have been killed by one of his fellow giants – who else is tall enough to slit a giant's throat? But then, a random breeze blew in through the window and filled my nostrils with an overpowering stink of cheap whiskey.
Whiskey had soaked into the giant's hair… whiskey clung to his beard and his meagre clothing… whiskey formed a visibly sticky coat on his bare skin. The giant must have bathed in the stuff, or poured a dozen bottles over his head. The obvious conclusion was that he'd been celebrating something; a marriage perhaps, or one of his people's religious festivals. I could picture him drenching himself liberally with whiskey, externally and internally, then bumbling off into the city and passing out in some alley. If a robber wandered by, the thief might well do a slice-job on the giant's throat before picking his pockets – you wouldn't want a drunken giant to wake up while you were bobbing his money pouch.
The breeze blew in at me again. Stale rotgut whiskey: I knew the aroma well, just as I knew the bouquets of the finest wines. And yet, there was something slightly odd…
«Warn the others to stay on their toes,» I told Brother Kiripao. «I have to check something out.»
Tossing off my jacket, I rumpled my hair and pulled out my shirt tails to bring my appearance more into line with street fashion in the Hive. Then with a drunken swagger, I stumbled out the door and up to the passing giant. «Sure is a big piking basher!» I called out to the nearest Collector.
«He's a heavy sod, all right,» the Collector replied. Sweat poured down her face as she helped push her cart, but the woman seemed cheerful enough. «I like the heavy ones,» she went on. «When the Dustmen hand out jink for collecting stiffs, they pay by the pound.»
«You'll be rich, you rotten berk!» She and I both laughed loudly. I let the laugh break into a cough and staggered up against the corpse to steady myself. With a little squirming, I managed to change position so my nose was flush against the giant's skin. One good whiff, and I backed away a few paces.
«Where'd you find this big old jumbo?» I asked the Collector.
«Lying in an alley,» she said. «Where else? He got drunk, he got sliced… simple as that.»
Yes, someone wants us to believe that story, I thought to myself – someone who hadn't taken into account a Sensate's sensitive nose. On the giant's skin, beneath the stink of cheap whiskey, lurked the more subtle fragrance of Phlegistol: an ultrahigh-grade fuel oil, said to be mined by gray dwarves in the caverns of Carceri. Nobles in The Lady's Ward liked to burn Phlegistol to heat water for baths; they claimed it burned cleaner than coal and very very hot.
«Sure is a big basher,» I said again and whacked the corpse's side heartily. A load of liquid in the giant's gut sloshed loudly in response to my blow; and I had no doubts what that liquid was. Our fire-loving enemies had somehow killed this giant and used the slit in his throat to top him full of flammable oil. Afterward, they had soaked him in a few gallons of whiskey to hide the Phlegistol smell. Now the corpse was an eighteen-foot-long bomb, left in an alley for unsuspecting Collectors who'd deliver it straight to the Mortuary.
I wondered how the arsonists intended to set this off. A single fire-arrow would do the trick. You'd want to shoot from a long distance away, but the giant was a huge target. A hit anywhere should be good enough to touch off the payload – whiskey fumes were flammable enough, but the Phlegistol was positively explosive. For maximum effect, the enemy would probably wait till most of the body was inside the doors of the Mortuary; then boom.
As quickly as I could while maintaining my drunken act, I waved cheery-bye to the Collectors and wobbled my way back to the tenement. Brother Kiripao was waiting inside the door. «The corpse is a bomb,» I said in a low voice, as I slipped back into my jacket.
«A large bomb?» he asked.
«I'd guess more than a ton of Phlegistol.»
He glanced at the giant, now being heaved off the carts and hauled slowly up the Mortuary's front steps. «We must leave this building,» he said. «It cannot withstand a sizable explosion at such close range.»
«Then you get around to the rear of the dome,» I told him, «and keep an eye on people escaping that way. I'll warn the others.»
He nodded in agreement and dashed out at once. Three seconds later, it occurred to me that he really didn't know what to look for – only a few of us had the proper dark about the githyanki and githzerai thieves. I should have been the one to watch the back, and let Brother Kiripao clear the building; but something inside of me wanted to save Yasmin personally.
The moment I finished putting on my jacket, I ran for the stairs. They squealed and wavered under my feet, but I kept my balance and made my way upward as fast as possible. Oonah was looking over the stair railing at the fourth floor level, and called down to me, «What's going on? I saw you in the street.»
«The giant's filled with Phlegistol,» I gasped, panting from running up the steps. «If it goes boom, this building will too.»
«Damned right it will,» she nodded. «I've seen Phlegistol explosions before. Gray dwarves love the stuff – they fill up wine bottles, jam in cloth fuses, and toss them at people they don't like. Good way to burn a whole sodding village.»
«You and Wheezle clear out of here,» I told her. «I'll get the others.»
«Just shout,» she said. «They'll hear you.»
«So will the enemy,» I replied. «Best not give ourselves away.» And I hurried up the stairs again before she could argue.
My heart was pounding loudly in my ears when I finally reached the top. Of course, Hezekiah had heard the racket of the creaking stairs and come to investigate. «We have…» I wheezed, «…we have… to get out. Bomb.»
«What's a bomb?» he asked, perky as ever.