similar. I recognized some of the artists, masters from across the world, and was impressed with the Dwarf’s resources, if not his taste. An original Finkelman must cost a damn fortune.
Near the front of the room, a huge staircase swept upward in a graceful arc around the foyer’s entire perimeter. This puzzled me, until I saw that a smooth ramp ran alongside the steps, and explained the need for such a gradual slope. The Dwarf, unable to use steps, would need something like this to reach the upper floors.
I took the steps silently, listening for any movement around me. The house was deathly quiet; I could even hear the pool rippling outside, and the occasional crackle of the torches. The staircase did not creak, but I felt it shift under my weight, and knew it might give me away. It made me, if possible, even tenser.
I reached the second floor landing. To my right, the hallway stretched away into darkness, but down the opposite hall I saw the same faint glow I’d observed from outside. It came from under a door halfway down the corridor. No other goal presented itself, so I crept toward it. I passed several other closed, silent rooms before I reached the lit one.
I paused. I had no idea what to expect, so I could really prepare for nothing. I could only hope that the clues and hints that led me here would see me through whatever happened, for the sake of my best friend and his wife. I put my hand on the knob, opened the door and stepped into the room.
TWENTY-FIVE
The smell of incense surged over me the moment the door opened. I slipped in and closed it behind me, wincing at the hinges’ faint protest in the silence. Then I looked around.
The dim light came from a dozen small candles on a tiny altar. It reminded me of the little girl praying in the mines below Poy Sippi. The place was filled with bizarre objects, some displayed on tables and shelves, some propped against the walls. Each had a vaguely equine theme, although there were as many winged stallions and unicorns as there were depictions of everyday horses. Some, I suspected, were parts of actual animals, preserved in all the arcane ways people use to hang on to the dead.
I methodically scanned the room. The Dwarf was so small he could have found a dozen easy hiding places in the flickering shadows. I saw no sign of him, so I walked over to the altar. I wondered what sort of things he would offer to his apparent horse deity.
I should’ve known. The central icon was a horse skull impaled by a golden spike. Vicious spur wheels covered in dried horse blood marked the four cardinal directions. A riding crop lay where a ceremonial knife normally rested. The Dwarf’s hatred of horses extended even to his religion. Hell, apparently it was his religion.
As I stood by the altar, the door creaked open behind me. I froze. The polished side of a ceremonial bowl reflected a squat, furry shape about waist high. It had a peaked head, wide shoulders and long arms.
I had a knife up my sleeve, probably my easiest weapon to draw in a hurry. But I didn’t. I slowly turned, careful not to make any abrupt motions. Whatever this creature was, I didn’t want to startle it.
The light was too dim to make out any details, but the general shape was unmistakable. It was an ape, standing very still just outside the door. I could hear its breathing in the silence. I didn’t know much about these animals, so I had no idea whether I should be quiet, make noise, bluff an attack or fall to the ground and cover my head. So I just stood there.
A long moment passed. Then the ape shuffled forward into the room. I may not have been an expert on gorillas and such, but I’d seen a lot of animals move, and this was all wrong. I crossed my arms and said, “Very funny.”
The Dwarf laughed. The costume allowed most of his face to peek through, so I saw his big smile. “I couldn’t help it, I love wearing this thing. People never worry about what the monkey might hear.” He pulled back the furry hood and bent his head far to the side so his hands could smooth down his hair.
In the candlelight, he looked younger than he had from a distance. His features seemed normal, even friendly. I knew better. He said, “Tried having a suit like this built to give me normal human proportions, but the technology just isn’t there yet. I have to settle for a chimp. It’s actually more useful than you might think.”
“So you wear it around the house a lot?”
“Nah. I just put it on to light the candles. My hands aren’t really good with fire.” I heard the slight squeak of wires and cables as the fake hands closed around a taper, lit it from one of the burning candles and then touched the flame to some others that had gone out.
“So, here you are in my house,” he continued. “You trespassed onto my property and, if you got this far, killed two of my friends outside. I’m guessing that you’re not here collecting for charity.”
“I only killed one of your friends. And I can really only take half the credit for that.”
He waved one of the monkey-suit arms dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. Canino was useful, but they all go quick eventually. There’ll be another one along.” Apparently satisfied with the number of lit candles, he snuffed the taper and wriggled out of the costume. Its framework kept it upright, so he resembled a molting insect. He wore a tunic cut to his odd proportions. I recalled Epona Gray’s description of the damage she’d wrought on the unfortunate sailor Andrew Reese: I snapped every bone in his arms and legs, then pushed them up into his torso. I twisted him into human jetsam, Eddie, and cast him back to the sea. This man certainly looked as if such a thing had happened to him. “Who knows? Maybe even you. Need a job?”
“I prefer being self-employed.”
He shrugged. The gesture made his whole body wobble. “Then I can assume you’re here on business?”
“Yeah.”
I watched his every move. I sensed he was dangerous far out of proportion to his appearance. “Buying or selling?” he asked.
“Neither.”
“What else is there?”
“Insurance. I’m taking out a policy on a friend’s life.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re a smart guy to get this far. Don’t turn stupid by threatening me. You think I’d be able to live here all alone if I didn’t know how to protect myself?”
“I’m sure you can. I’m no slouch myself. I took out Stan Carnahan once, too.”
It was small, but I saw the muscles in his cheek tremble as he clenched his teeth. “Who?”
“Let’s move this along. Once upon a time, you washed up on an island and, like most sailors, behaved very badly to the lady who lived there. Bad luck for you that she turned out to be a goddess. She made you into what you are now, and I’m betting you’ve been waiting for your chance to get her back for it ever since. You knew she’d reappear somehow, somewhere, so you kept your eyes and ears open. Maybe that was the whole reason you developed this underground criminal network of yours. You eventually caught wind of her little experiment in the Ogachic Mountains, and paid a bad man a lot of money to insinuate himself into the group. Then you sent a nice girl named Cathy to deliver your little ‘gotcha’ present. And you did get them, all of them, including the goddess who let herself be human enough to die.”
In the candlelight, his expression changed from amusement through anger until, at last, he seemed about to cry. “How do you know all this?” he asked, his voice raspy with emotion.
“Because I was there, too, on the night it happened. And I made sure your bad man didn’t walk away.”
“But she died, didn’t she?” he whispered. “She did die?”
I nodded.
He sighed with relief. “For a minute I thought… well, it doesn’t matter. She died.”
I shook my head a little. “You’re a freak in more ways than one. One lethal revenge wasn’t enough for you. Because the lady really was a goddess, she showed up again, as the queen of Arentia. You weren’t going to trust proxies like Stan Carnahan this time, so you wangled an invitation to a state function in Arentia City. I know how it works, with enough money and a couple of connections it wouldn’t have been too hard. Canino was the actual guest, though; he took you along in your monkey suit.” Blond man with the ugly chimpanzee, Vogel had written in his report. “When the queen left the banquet, you slipped away after her. You confronted her somewhere between the main hall and the nursery.” You’re right, though, it couldn’t possibly take that long, Rhiannon had said. “But after all that time, all that effort, she didn’t even remember you, did she? She saw the same thing I do right now:
