20

"Will you quit stomping around?" The Goddamn Parrot kept getting more and more restless. I hoped that didn't mean he wanted to exploit me the way pigeons traditionally do statues of forgotten generals. I'd seen enough animal by-product for one day.

Weider's personal sitting room was in a corner of the front of his mansion, on what was called the second floor despite being only slightly above street level. The ground on which the mansion stood sloped. In back you could walk straight out but in front you climbed fifteen steps to reach the front door, then descended half a dozen back to street level. So the first floor lies below actual ground level almost everywhere. Only the rear of the house, including the kitchen, family dining room, and back stairs sees daily use. Most of it is reserved for entertainment.

Even the second floor mainly serves business and entertainment purposes. Weider rules his empire from there. The family lives higher still, on the third and fourth floors. Servants who live on the premises do so in nooks and crannies and under the eaves.

I didn't envy them.

I was about to head down the grand staircase to the first floor when a remote scream stopped me. I glanced back. Gilbey stood in the doorway of Weider's study, silhouetted. He shrugged, pointed upward.

I clomped downstairs muttering, "Tom is still with us." I took several deep breaths crossing the pink-marble floor so when I got to the steps I could bound up to the front door with the spring of a misspent youth. The Goddamn Parrot never stopped prancing on my shoulder.

Max had three sons: Tad, Tom, and Ty. Tom and Ty made it back from the Cantard but Tom left his mind and soul behind.

Rich or poor, we have that in common. We've been to the Cantard. And we've lost somebody. And none of us who survived came home unchanged.

But the war is over. Karenta has triumphed. The Cantard's fabulous mines now serve the sorcerers, who are our real masters. Karenta is the most powerful kingdom in the world. We should be proud.

This month, for the first time in three generations, the Crown conscripted no one.

We won. And because we did our world is falling apart.

Boy, am I glad we didn't lose.

It seemed like a mile to the door. My heels clacked hollowly. Their sound echoed off the walls. Preparations were under way for the party but so far only to the extent that the hall had been stripped of clutter like carpets, furniture, portraits of imaginary forbears, old armor, crossed swords and pikes, and most anything that could become a weapon after the weather turned drunken.

There was no one watching the front door. The old man's paranoia couldn't run too deep. I clomped up and let myself out while making a mental note to suggest a less relaxed security posture.

I surveyed the neighborhood from the porch. Daylight was a ghost of its former gaudy self. "You got to dump, you'd better go do it now, you runt turkey."

The bird squawked, said, "I wanted you outside so I could talk."

The Dead Man. Of course. I knew we were headed this direction as soon as he started insisting that I take the little vulture everywhere. Not only would he use that ugly feather duster to spy on me, he meant to nag me like he was my mother.

I muttered, "Bird, you are doomed! Doomed!"

"What?"

"You've got me talking to myself. What do you want?"

"You need to come home. We have company only you can handle."

"Damn." What did that mean? I didn't ask because he wouldn't tell me. His excuse would be that the bird could talk only so much before he injured his throat, a limitation I've never witnessed when that vulture—or the Dead Man—had something to say that I didn't want to hear. "Want to name names?"

"No. Don't waste time."

I'll strangle them both. It's got to take more effort to deny me than to say a name.

I took the direct route, which turned out to be a poor choice.

Grand Avenue from the Landing south to the Dream Quarter was choked with prohuman demonstrators. They were mostly younger than me. It didn't seem possible that there could be so many, that they could all belong right here instead of scattered amongst a hundred towns and cities and a hundred thousand farms. But, of course, resentment of nonhumans is an ancient exercise. We had great and vicious wars in ages past. And today plenty of men older than me, secure in their trade or employment, are as intolerant as any youngster with no prospects.

I hit Grand where six hundred guys from The Call were marching back and forth practicing their manuals at arms using quarterstaves and wooden swords instead of pikes and sharp steel. Their apparel was moderately uniform. Their shields matched. Most wore light leather helmets. They were true believers in the highest cause and they had faced deadly enemies on the plains of war. This night would turn nasty if some genius on the Hill decided the army should disperse the demonstrators.

Any troops sent in faced demobilization themselves. An interesting complication.

I relaxed, awaited a chance to cross when I wouldn't inconvenience any nut. You don't want to irritate somebody who has several thousand of his best friends handy. Not unless you're armed with the headbone of an ass.

A nice gap opened. Me and fifty other apolitical types decided to go for it.

"Hey! Garrett! Wait up!"

I knew that voice. Unfortunately. "Damn!" Maybe I could outrun her.

21

"Garrett!" That was my pal Winger doing the hollering. Winger is a big old country girl as tall as me, a good-looker, who abandoned her husband and kids to chase her fortune in the city. "Dammit! You stop right there, Garrett!"

"Wait," the Goddamn Parrot squawked in my ear. I stopped. I was well trained. Several people nearby stopped, too, all startled by the bird's having spoken.

A kid asked, "Does your bird really talk, Mister?" She was maybe five with blond hair in ringlets and the biggest innocent blue eyes ever invented. I wanted to make a date for about fifteen years but her dad looked like a guy who thought too much like a father. "Yes, he does. But it's hard to get him started."

"Awk! Pretty baby! Pretty girl!"

"Unless you're someone special."

The bird spotted Winger. "Awk! Holy hooters! Look at them gazoombies!" Nature had been generous to Winger.

I squeezed the bird's beak before he got me assassinated.

"I love you, too, Mr. Big," Winger said, hustling up. She ignored kid and dad completely. The father decided he wanted nothing to do with lowlifes like us. He took off across the street. Winger demanded, "Where do you think you're going, Garrett?"

"I was seriously contemplating crossing the street while the goofballs don't have it blocked, Hawkeye."

"He was trying to get away from you, genius," said a voice from behind me.

"Saucerhead!" I turned. Saucerhead Tharpe is a mountain of a man whose face has been rearranged several times too often. He grinned down at me. His teeth were stunted, black, and broken.

Between them Saucerhead and Winger have about enough sense to get out of the rain. After a lively debate obese with irrelevance. But you can count on their friendship. Well, all right, you can count on Saucerhead's friendship. Winger's tends to get slippery if money is involved.

"Hello, Winger my love. Hello, Saucerhead. How are you? I'm just fine myself, thank you. Nice to see you. I can't chat right now. I've got to run."

"We'll run with you," Winger told me.

"Why?"

"Because your sidekick isn't athletic enough to do it hisself so he hired us. He figures you might need your diaper changed."