Morley headed for the door. "I'm not big on being talked around and over. Obviously, I'm not needed here anymore."

Not entirely true, Mr. Dotes. Exercise patience, if you will, while Garrett and I discuss threats more immediate than any you yourself can help us avert.

That was sufficiently obscure. Morley donned an air of put-upon patience.

I told him, "You want to break away from The Palms and meet me someplace in keeping with my station, I'll tell you about the whole mess. After we figure out how to keep from getting gobbled up by the loose ends."

Dotes eyed me briefly, some secret smile stirring the corners of his mouth. "It's always the loose ends that get you, Garrett. You particularly because you refuse to take the pragmatic step when you can. You love this grand pretense of cynicism, but whenever you face what you consider a moral choice you inevitably opt for belief in the essential goodness of humanity—however often humanity grinds your nose in the fact that it is garbage on the hoof."

"We all need a moral polestar, Morley. That's how we convince ourselves that we're the good guys. Garbage on the hoof is garbage because somewhere somebody told it it's garbage on the hoof."

"Which, of course, absolves those guys of all responsibility for their own behavior. They don't have to stop and decide before they do something."

Wait a minute. How come the professional bad guy was dishing up the law-and-order arguments? "What's this devil's advocate stuff?"

"Because you try to complicate everything with peripheral issues."

"I can't help that. It's my mother's fault. She could bitch for an hour about anybody, but she found the good in everybody, too. No matter how bad somebody screwed up, she could find an excuse for them."

This discussion, in one form or another, has been going on for years. Neither of you has done more than entertain the other with it. I suggest we not waste time on it. Mr. Dotes. Unless you would like to assist Mr. Tharpe and Miss Winger...

I lost him there, except for an echo that included Glory Mooncalled's name. I wished he would forget Glory Mooncalled, the Cantard war, and all his other hobbies. I wished he would stick to business, just for a while. Maybe a couple of weeks. Maybe till we got everything squared away and he could snooze to his heart's desire while I loafed and experimented with new strains of beer. Till Dean could spend his days just being inventive in the kitchen, with no need to distress himself answering the door.

Idly, I wondered how expensive it would be to have a spell cast so people couldn't find any particular address when they came looking.

Nog is inescapable, the Dead Man reminded me.

"I know. I know. Morley, take your ill-gotten gains and scoot. Go con the rich johns so they'll pay big money to suck down carrot juice cocktails while gobbling turnip steaks."

Dotes took that opportunity to explain to me, at some length, how my health and disposition would improve dramatically if I would just let him set up a dietary plan customized to my peculiar lifestyle.

"But I like being just plain old crabby Garrett who gorges on bloody steaks and leaves the rabbit food for rabbits so they get nice and plump before we roast them."

" ‘Crabby' is the key word here, Garrett. You take most of your vegetable input in liquid form. I'm sorry, beer just doesn't contain enough essential fiber, which you have to have to... "

"Yeah. I know you get plenty of fiber because you're full of it up to your ears."

He offered a mock two-finger salute and a thin smile. "Like I said. Crabby." He asked the Dead Man, "Did you have something for me? Or not?"

Old Chuckles did, in fact, have a lot to talk over with Morley, but it had no bearing on the problem at hand. I would not have stayed around at all if it hadn't had to do with my future, too.

61

Morley was gone. After five thoughtful minutes I asked, "You really think the troubles might get that bad?"

They are barely into their infancy now and people are dying every day. Glory Mooncalled appears to be contributing by neglect, if not by plan.

"You're determined to have him here in town, aren't you?"

There is no doubt whatsoever that he is either in the city or somewhere close by. You came close to him last week.

"Why?"

He could see my thoughts. He understood the question.

Glory Mooncalled has betrayed no lack of confidence in his own abilities. About that all respondents always agree. Nor do they disagree that he has only disdain and contempt for the various persons who manage the Karentine state. He knows only those he encountered in the Cantard. And in the Cantard he did learn to respect the overwhelming force that lords and wizards could bring to bear—by direct experience. He believes it will be an entirely different game in TunFaire.

"I got a feeling maybe friend Mooncalled is gonna run into a couple of surprises here." Here at home not all our functionaries are people who inherited their jobs, nor are all of them so enchanted with their own importance that they do nothing but polish their images.

Exactly. The Dead Man was still tapped into my mind. And there is every possibility that someone like Relway may be the real best hope for averting complete chaos.

"You think Glory Mooncalled might want to precipitate such a state?"

Perhaps. As I observed, he suffers from no lack of confidence. And he is aware that he has been something of a folk hero here, in the past. He might believe that ordinary Karentines will proclaim him their savior if things turn bad enough.

Which is really what happened in the Cantard during the war. The native tribes, tired of generations of being caught between two vicious, corrupt, inept empires, had fallen in behind Glory Mooncalled.

Hell, Glory had been a hero of mine because he had bucked the ruling classes and had shown no tolerance for corruption or incompetence. Without Mooncalled there would have been no victory in the Cantard. No one, from the King to the least trooper, would deny that—though different interpretations can be placed upon the exact nature of his role in the triumph. He has no friends on high. And guess who pays the salaries of the guys who are going to write the histories of the great war?

"I wouldn't like to think that he would be that coldbloodedly, blatantly manipulative."

He has little more love for the Karentine aristocracy than he did for the Venageti.

Coldly and systematically, practically from the moment he had come over to our side, Glory Mooncalled had embarrassed, humiliated, and eliminated a parade of Venageti generals, wizards, and lords who had abused his dignity.

"Could it be that this man who never guesses wrong has, just marginally, misinterpreted the Karentine character?"

He has, without a doubt. Karentines are inordinately fond of their Royals and aristocrats—although you murder them with alarming frequency.

Actually, they murder one another. We have some outrageously bizarre revolutionaries on the streets these days, but I have never heard even the most deranged suggest that we dispense with the monarchy.

I have heard the suggestion, though. Only from non-humans. And guess who is the one big lump really sticking in the craw of the mob already?

Miss Winger and Mr. Tharpe are due here soon, should you be interested in an update on Glory Mooncalled's latest efforts.

"Tell you the truth, I'm a whole lot more interested in the activities of certain gods and goddesses who may save us the trouble of having to survive your coming troubles."

Reluctantly, the Dead Man admitted that that might be a more immediate concern.