"Let me get myself organized. I wouldn't want your reputation bruised because of the company you keep."

"If that could hurt me, I'd have been exiled ages ago."

"You got a point. I won't be long. Go settle in my office. Try not to poke around."

I knew the Dead Man couldn't keep an eye on Block but Block didn't.

60

I was beginning to like Tad Weider's sense of style. I selected an outfit that he might have worn to the horse races. It included a lot of yellow and red and brown. There were ruffles at wrist and throat. I spiffied myself, considered the result in my little mirror. "Oh! The elf girls are gonna carry me off and make me their love slave." I stepped back. "But if I'm going to dress like this, I'd better get a new pair of shoes."

My ragged old cobblehoppers sported memorabilia of a thousand city adventures. They didn't complement the look.

"What happened to you?" Block demanded when I got back. He looked me up and down.

"The Weiders felt I should upgrade my wardrobe."

"People been telling you that for years. But... You really need new shoes. Those clogs look like you wore them in the service."

"That's on my list. I thought we had a riot to attend. I'm ready," I said.

"New door?" Block asked as I locked up.

"Yeah. Somebody busted the old one."

"There's still snow piled up here and there. You sure you didn't have anything to do with that? I hear rumors with your name in them."

"How could I make it snow in the summertime? Even if, according to Tinnie, everything is my fault."

"You put in a key lock? You must be doing pretty well."

I'd been doing very well lately but he didn't need to know that. He might let something slip around crooks or tax collectors. Or crooked tax collectors. Or is that redundant? Doesn't it take a unique breed of pyschopath to prey upon his fellows that way?

The street was quiet except for the moans of stragglers nursing injuries sustained during the earlier debate. "This is better," I said. "You should've seen it here a while ago."

"I did. I'd have been here an hour ago if it wasn't for that damned parade."

We walked. I didn't like the direction he chose. If he kept on, we would stroll right into the Bustee, the ultimate slum and the most dangerous neighborhood in a city famous for bad neighborhoods. The only law in the Bustee is the law you make yourself. Outsiders won't go in except in big gangs. "I hope we aren't headed where I think we're headed."

"North side of the Bustee."

"I was afraid of that. Another reason to make a show?"

"Yes. To show that the Guard won't back off."

Relway I could see playing to the Bustee audience. Relway doesn't have sense enough to be scared. I was surprised he got anybody to go in with him, though, let alone the sort of highlifes he and Block would want to impress. Maybe I was out of touch.

When we arrived it was evident immediately that the Guard had impressed both the locals and the observers already. They had a dozen prisoners in chains, none of them the great villains Crask or Sadler.

I'd expected troops or something. But Relway had brought only the dozen Guards he would have assembled for the same job anywhere else. Observers outnumbered working lawmen even after we arrived. Block introduced me around. I knew several of the witnesses, though none well. You run into people in my racket. Some are friendly. Some aren't. You rub some the wrong way if you're determined to do your job.

I was overdressed. The most foppish dude there wasn't showing any lace. They all wore grubbies.

I faded away from the Names, joining Relway. Sullen neighborhood brats watched from a safe distance, as friendly as feral cats, waiting to spring their friends in chains. Or maybe to murder somebody from a rival gang. They were filthy. None wore clothing fancier than a loincloth. Several weren't that dressy.

In the Bustee sanitation is the exception rather than the rule. The quarter doesn't have even the rudimentary street-center sewage channels found elsewhere. There are few streets as we know them, just stringers of space where there are no buildings. The Bustee has its own unique aroma, and plenty of it.

"Figure Crask and Sadler know something's up?"

Relway glanced at his prisoners, then at me like he'd suddenly discovered that I was retarded. "Probably. We've been standing around here way too long, waiting to get started."

"I'm sorry. But—"

"This's going to be a blow, I know. But, as important as you are, we weren't waiting on your account."

"I'm crushed. So what is the holdup?"

"A dashing young gentleman sorcerer who uses the business name Dreamstalker Doomscrye. Or maybe Doomstalker Dreamscrye. He wants in. We don't tell those people no. He was supposed to be here hours ago. Evidently as an apprentice he wasn't taught to tell time."

Relway's sarcasm was quite daring. I was beginning to think the man had no sense. In TunFaire we restrain our opinions concerning the lords and ladies of the Hill. They can do worse than turn you into a frog if you irritate them.

"Ulp!"

"What?" Relway asked.

"I forgot my bird."

"Then go fetch the prima donna chicken."

"Too late. Might as well enjoy myself." I didn't miss the fancy-pants crow at all.

Relway's man Ritter was headed our way. A kid maybe fourteen blistered out of a dark chink between tenements. He held a rusty knife extended ahead. I knew the tactic. He was a cutpurse. He just wanted to steal and run before his victim could react. It happened every day, everywhere in TunFaire, though elsewhere cutpurses usually selected more promising targets. This kid had to be counting coup.

His pals were all set to cheer when Ritter sidestepped, snagged the thief's long hair, slashed him several times with a knife that appeared as though by magic. The whimpering boy collapsed into the muck. Ritter came on as though he'd done nothing more significant than stomp a bug.

That kind of cold demonstration was why the Guard was becoming feared.

They were nasty, these new lawmen.

Believers so often are.

"Doomscrye is here," Ritter announced. "What a jerk. He's already complaining about us wasting his valuable time."

These secret policemen were too daring.

"He's young," Relway told me. "He'll learn."

Did he mean Doomscrye or Ritter?

61

As a place to squat the object of our interest was a long slide downhill from a tomb. It was an ugly little lean-to shanty hugging the hip of a three-story frame tenement that tilted ten degrees sideways while twisting around its own waist. "Good thing we don't have to go in there," I observed. "Our weight would bring it down."

"It's tougher than it looks," Ritter told me. "Ninety-two people live there."

That was probably a short estimate. The occupants might use the place in shifts. I asked Relway, "If the manpower shortage was so awful we let whole tribes of nonhumans immigrate, how come people down here didn't take advantage?"

"Some did. And some are unemployable in any circumstance." Relway's bitterness sounded personal.

He hailed from the underbelly of society. He had been able to get somewhere. He was outraged because so many people wouldn't even try.

Plenty willingly made the effort to be unpleasant, though. We were attracting more watchers the age of the kid Ritter had hurt. I saw sticks and chains and broken bricks, the weapons of the very poor.

My companions remained unconcerned.

Ritter pretended to be in charge so Relway wouldn't attract attention. A donkey cart appeared, headed our way.

The observers were getting nervous. Doomscrye complained incessantly. He was very young for a sorcerer. He hadn't seen military service. He might be the harbinger of a generation never to get its rough edges knocked off where nobody was special when the Reaper was on the prowl.