I looked at Morley. He explained, "You gave her the paper upside down. She didn't turn it. She couldn't read. It's reasonable to assume that your Kayean could."

"She could. You're right. That wasn't her. Didn't begin to resemble her. They just plain didn't know I knew her."

Zeck Zack looked upset. I didn't bother to ask. I did say, "One question, old horse. When you bought that house, was it your idea, theirs, or the priest's?"

"The priest's."

"One cycle of coincidence unmasked. Did he find what he was afraid might be hidden there?"

"No."

"Did you? I'm sure you looked."

He was regaining his balance. He grinned. "I took that place apart. I needed some back leverage."

"I can take that as a no?"

"Right."

"Garrett," Morley said, "is that paper going to satisfy you? It'll get you your ten percent."

"That's not what I said I'd do. I haven't found her yet."

He grunted. I couldn't be sure in that light, but thought he seemed relieved and pleased. "Then we have plans to make, things to do, and our butts to cover." He rose. "Your pal there jacked us around, but maybe he didn't have any choice. I say we deliver our half. Maybe he'll suffer a fit of gratitude. Come on."

There was an edge to his voice I didn't like.

I'm not sure Zeck Zack followed Morley. Maybe he just didn't want to go back down to that house. Or maybe he thought he would get to watch the priest die.

Morley hiked straight to the mausoleum we'd visited earlier. "Open it up, Marsha." Marsha obliged.

Zeck Zack noted the little giveaway details that said the tomb was in use. "You already did it? Before... you dumped him here?"

Morley gave him the lucifer stone. "See for yourself. Pardon us if we don't join you. We've been in there once already tonight. We don't have your iron stomach."

Their gazes locked. Right then Zeck Zack would have murdered him cheerfully. The odds didn't favor him. He spun, raised the stone, stamped inside.

Morley said something in grollish.

Marsha slammed the door.

"Morley!"

"A little night trading, I told you the first time I reported on him. Like a little innocent smuggling, I thought. What do you want to bet he procures for them?"

I had known Morley a long time, though not well. I'd seen him angry, but never out of control. And never eaten up with hatred.

"You know what we walked into down there, don't you, Garrett?"

"I know." And Father Rhyne's last message and Kayean's excommunication made sense. Of a sort. So did the attacks and rumors of attacks.

Morley calmed down. "Something had to be done. He could have trotted straight down there and told them we weren't taken in. He'll be all right for a while. We already know he has a strong stomach. We can turn him loose later, if you want. Anyway, a few days in there might incline him to tell us how to find her."

"I'll know how to reach her soon enough." Though Morley gave me the fisheye, I didn't elucidate.

"You sure you know what you're doing? There wasn't anything in your deal about digging her out of a nest of the night people."

"I know." I knew only too well. And I am cursed with an imagination capable of conjuring up the worst possibilities.

"If we blow it and get taken, me and the triplets are just dead. We don't have enough human blood to be any use to them. But you... "

"I said I know, Morley. Back off. We have the major to worry about. He knows we were in touch with the centaur. I expect he knows the priest was blackmailing Zeck Zack. With the priest gone that leverage is gone. So are we. Meaning we might have learned something that made us run for cover. He's going to tear this town apart. He's going to have guys sitting on every way out. We can't stay here. When the sun comes up the sextons will start planting the day's crop of stiffs. They'll wonder what we're doing hanging around. We can't go back to the inn. Everybody will be watching that."

"Don't get yourself in an uproar. We've got the woods to hide in. We've got ourselves a night trader who knows ways to get people and things in and out of town. I say let's worry about our friends of the nest and let your major worry about himself."

Morley had a point of sorts, though he didn't realize it. The more the major scurried around looking for us, the more likely he was to draw the attention of superiors who might want to know what was going on. And few if any of the men he commanded would be Venageti operatives. Their suspicions dared not be aroused.

He had to juggle carefully.

39

I wakened to an itchy nose, tittering, and the harumph-harumph of grollish laughter. I opened my eyes. Something brown and fuzzy waved in my face. Behind it was one of the little folk, seated in the crotch of a bush. I controlled my temper and got my forequarters upright, leaning against a tree. I was stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground.

No doubt Morley would argue that it was good for me.

"Where the hell are Morley and Dojango?"

The only answer I got was some big grollish grins and titters from the undergrowth.

"All right. Be that way."

"Sugar?" A tiny voice piped.

"If I'd had any, you would have swiped it while I was sleeping."

"With those great beasties watching over you?" the one in the bush asked.

I didn't feel like arguing. Morning is always too early for anything but self-pity, and even that's usually too much trouble. "Is there anyone in or around the centaur's house?" You have to strive for precision with those folk. "Human or otherwise?"

"Sugar?"

"No sugar."

"Bye, now."

So. No pay, no play. Little mercenaries. I considered going down and burglarizing the centaur's kitchen. But I wasn't hungry enough to bet that Zeck Zack's masters had done the rational thing and gotten the hell out the minute my affidavit and I departed. Besides, I didn't feel like getting up and doing anything.

I sat there trying to reconcile the Kayean who dwelt among the nightmares with the Kayean I had known. I shuffled through what I remembered from her letters to Denny. Nothing there but the occasional hint that she was not happy. Never a word about her whereabouts or circumstances. She hadn't been proud of herself.

No sense worrying about it. That would give me nothing but a headache and the heebie-jeebies. She could explain when I got to her.

Morley showed up around noon, staggering under a load of junk. "What's all that?" I demanded. "You planning an invasion? Where's Dojango? What the hell have you been up to?"

"Taking bids on your butt from Vasco, Rose, and your major. It was hot going till they got up to a quarter mark. Here." He dumped half his load beside me. I noted a sack that looked like it might contain comestibles. I hit it first.

"What is all this stuff?"

"Raw materials. For the arsenal we'll need if we're going into a nest after your lady. They'd smell metal hardware ten miles off. You any good at flaking stone arrow points?"

"I don't know. I've never tried."

He looked exasperated. "Didn't they teach you anything practical in that Marine Corps of yours?"

"Three thousand ways to kill Venageti. I'm a tool user, not a toolmaker."

"I guess the load falls on Doris and Marsha again." He gobbled grollish, and gave the big guys a bunch of stuff. Two minutes later, snarling and rumbling, they were chipping out arrowheads with a touch as delicate as a mouse's. They were good, and they were fast.

Morley said, "They're put out. They say it's dwarf's work. They want to know why they can't just make themselves some ten-foot clubs and go in and break skulls. Grolls are slow sometimes."

I could whittle a bit so I set to making myself a sword from an ironwood lath. It's a good hard wood that will almost take an edge, but won't hold one the way steel will. So I gave myself only one. The backstroke side I channeled and set with waste from the arrowhead flaking. That gave me a vicious tool.