Megan felt just slightly inclined to squirm. At the same time, she also felt that they might really be onto something here. “Look, let’s just run with this for a day or two more,” Leif said. “We’re so close, I know it. And with no new battles really imminent…”
“I agree with you about following up on this for another day or so,” Megan said, “but not on the false premise that there are no battles coming right away. We can’t assume that those are going to have anything to do with our ‘bouncer’ attacking anyone or refraining from attacking them. I think he’s going to bounce anybody he likes, now, whenever he’s good and ready, and I’d like to do as much work on this as I can tonight. After we talk to Wayland, we should get right in touch with Fettick, and then our next time in here, with Duchess Morn. We’ve got to make sure they’re warned, and that they believe the warning.”
“Yeah. Then we need to start talking to those six generals,” said Leif, “or talking to people about them. It’s going to use a lot of transit, but…” He shrugged.
“Yeah, well, you can split some of the footwork with me,” Megan said. “I’ve got some transit — not as much as you have, maybe, but this is important. But we need to get our butts in gear. It may take time to gather enough information about these six to find out which of them is the most likely to be the bouncer.”
“And then what do we do? If we’re sure we’ve found the right person, that is?”
“Call Net Force,” Megan said. “Hand them everything we’ve got, and tell them to go get that bouncer.”
“I would very much want to insist on being in at the ‘kill’,” Leif said.
“Insist? To whom? Winters?” Megan gave him a skeptical look. “You want an estimate of your chances at getting away with that?”
“Uh. Well…I’d real strongly suggest it, anyway. Just for satisfaction’s sake.”
“It would be nice to be there, or here, when it happens,” Megan said. “I wouldn’t count on it myself. I think the ‘grownups’ may want us safely out of the way. But satisfaction? There’ll be plenty of that when they throw the ‘bouncer’ in the can.” The image of Elblai’s face as she was taken into the hospital, her violet eyes closed, her face covered with bruising, was very much with Megan. “And either way, we’ll get the glory. Net Force’ll know who did the legwork.”
“Fair enough. Come on,” Leif said, and got up, stretching. “Let’s get out of here and go see Wayland.”
They made their way to the Scrag End slowly and carefully. The streets were very dark, and the moon, though already up, had not yet risen high enough to shed much light over the walls. Leif and Megan walked cautiously over the cobblestones, listening as they went. It was not that Errint was an unsafe city, as Sarxos went. But any town might have its occasional footpad hiding in the shadows, someone who might like to relieve you of your purse or any goods you were carrying. In fact, there was a substantial thieves’ guild in Sarxos, people who led utterly respectable lives in the real world, but who spent their recreational time skulking in alleys, dressing in rags, gibbering to each other in thievish cant, and generally doing things that, in their normal lives, would be terribly unsocial, but in Sarxos were just plain fun, and considered part of the landscape, like dog droppings on a New York sidewalk.
A nasty snicker of laughter down an alley brought Megan’s head up. Leif paused, looking down into the darkness, and Megan said a word under her breath. “Very interesting,” she said after a moment.
Leif couldn’t see anything, but the voice was familiar. “Who was that?” he asked.
“Our little friend again,” Megan said. “Gobbo, the singing dwarf.”
“Oh, really,” Leif said.
“Would have thought he’d be up in the castle, doing whatever jesters do for his boss,” Megan said.
“He might be doing an errand. I think that kind of thing is in the job description.”
“Huh,” said Megan, not sounding particularly convinced. “Well, come on.”
They walked on, went through a gate between two walls, and headed down yet another dark curve of narrow street. Leif paused. Megan kept on going.
“Whoa,” he said. “This is it.”
Megan stopped, and looked up and down the street. “What is it?”
“This.”
Leif remembered Megan referring to the Pheasant and Firkin as a dive. As they paused outside the front of the Scrag End, with the moon very gradually looking over the top of the outermost wall, Megan stared at the structure sticking out into the street, with its cracked wooden shingles and iron-bound, axe-pocked door.
“This looks like somebody’s shed!” she said.
“It might have been, once,” Leif said. “Come on in.”
He banged on the door. A little rectangular iron slit at about eye height slid aside on the inside of the door, and a ray of dim light, blocked by the shadow of a head, sprang out of it into the dark street. Two narrowed eyes peered through the slit at Leif.
“Wayland,” Leif said.
The little door slid shut, and there was a sound inside of a wooden bolt being slid aside and lifted out of its cradle. “High tech,” Megan said under her breath.
Leif chuckled. The door swung ponderously outward, and first Leif, then Megan, slipped through the opening.
Leif watched Megan look around, and thought he saw her finish the thought,
The man who had opened the door for them, a strikingly tall and handsome young man in a grubby smock and breeches, incongruously balding on top, with long hair tied neatly back behind, finished shutting and rebolting the door, looked them up and down, and vanished behind that curtained door. At a table at the very back of the room, near that door, sat Wayland. He had a mug in front of him, and two mugs waiting on the table.
They sat down at Wayland’s table. Leif nodded at him, then glanced at the two mugs.
“Saw you in Attila’s,” said Wayland. Then he glanced over at Megan. “I think we’ve met, though.”
“I think so too,” Megan said, reaching out to touch hands with him, the accepted greeting. “Summer festival in Lidios, wasn’t it? The market.”
“That’s right, Brown Meg. My usual stand. Two years ago?”
“Yeah.”
“You were in Lidios?” Leif said to Megan, slightly surprised. “What were you doing there?”
“Slumming,” Megan said, smiling slightly. “I wanted to take a look at the place. But once was enough.”
“Anyway, be welcome,” Wayland said. They lifted the mugs and drank the thin pale Errint beer, more like nearbeer than anything else.
“I just came up from down that way,” Wayland said. “Place is stirred-up as a hornet’s nest.”
“What for?”
“News about what’s going on up here,” Wayland said, and took another drink, as if to get rid of a bad taste. “This whole business with the Duke descending on us from out of the blue, trying to pressure poor Fettick into an alliance with Argath.” Wayland shook his head. “A lot of other countries up this way, six or seven of the little ones, have been getting a lot of pressure all of a sudden to make alliances. Somebody seems to be in a big hurry about it.”
“Why?” Megan said. “Who do you think he’s afraid of?”
“Don’t know that it’s afraid,” Wayland said. “More like angry, I think.”
He leaned back on the bench, against the splintery wall, and studied his drink. “I was down Arstan and Lidios way, as I said, and I stopped on the way up to do some post work—”
“Post?” Megan said.
“Oh, aye,” Wayland said. “The Swift-Post system has an eastern spur that runs up from the Lidians to Orxen and out around the Daimish Peninsula. Their dispatch hub is at Gallev, about — what would it be? A hundred leagues south of here. Sometimes, if I’m between jobs, or I need a little extra hard silver, I stop there and shoe the post-horses. It’s steady work. There are always post-riders coming in and out, special couriers, and the like.”
He took another swig of beer. “This time out, though, I was there ’bout midsummer. They like to take
