Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,75
growled Murk, “and, for your own sake, make it good.”
A’marie and I laid it out for him. And when we finished, I said, “So that’s the plan. We came to you first because we don’t have much time, and, like she said, everybody respects you. If you get onboard, others will, too.”
Tentacles waving—some still too close to A’marie and me for comfort—Murk floated and thought for a few seconds. Then he said, “You’re either very brave or a very great fool.”
I shrugged. “Can’t I be both?”
“Do you know why Timon inspires such fear?”
“I told you, he gave me a taste of what he can do.”
“That’s only part of it. Most beings die because of things that happen here in the waking world. We can suffer and find ourselves inconvenienced in a dream, but it can only kill us if magic is involved.”
“Okay, but so what?”
“By all accounts, Timon is the opposite. It would take sorcery to kill him in the waking world, and no one knows the spell. Whereas in the dream realm, he holds every advantage.”
“That’s interesting, but I don’t want to kill him anyway. I just want to… deal with him.”
“I’m trying to warn you just what a powerful, uncanny creature he really is. I’ve seldom met his like, and I’m old enough to remember when your kind first dared to sail beyond sight of land.”
“I get it. He’s a badass. But somebody isn’t afraid to mess with him. Whoever sicced the brownwings on him.”
“A fellow lord, who was able to act anonymously, and who will soon go home to some fortified place beyond Timon’s reach in both the waking and dreaming worlds.”
“I thought you Old People were supposed to be gamblers. How come you won’t take a chance when there’s something really worth winning?”
“For one thing, you haven’t convinced me you’re worth betting on.”
“Even working together,” said A’marie, “Leticia and Gimble couldn’t take him out of the game.”
“I also escaped from a trap the Pharaoh set for me,” I said. The damn bubbles were still tickling my mouth. “And, like I said, I slapped your watchdog around. Plus, I’m smart enough to know you vassals were tipped off that brownwings were going to attack Timon. It’s just that nobody warned him.”
Murk hesitated. “How could you know that?”
“If you didn’t know he was going to get hurt, why would you all make an agreement that nobody would stand in for him?”
“Perhaps we made it afterward.”
I shook my head. “I know you guys are all supernatural and everything, but even if somebody saw him get his eyes popped, there just wasn’t time for the word to go around and everybody to palaver before he called you up out of the water. But don’t worry. I didn’t tell him you all let him walk into an ambush, and as far as I know, he hasn’t figured it out. Not yet. Things could get ugly if he does.”
“Is that a threat?” asked Murk. The ends of his tentacles flexed.
“No,” I said. “I’m not like that. What it is, is another good reason to deal with him now.”
Murk made a short bass-fiddle noise that might have been a kraken grunt. “I admit, the horned girl has a point. You evidently have some power, and some intelligence to go with it. Unless you’re simply lucky. But sometimes luck trumps strength and cunning both.”
“Amen to that,” I said. “So does that mean you’re with us?”
“Not necessarily,” said Murk. “What’s in it for me personally?”
I glanced at A’marie. “‘Wise and honorable,’ huh?” I said.
“Neither wisdom nor honor preclude looking after your own best interests,” said Murk. “If you don’t understand that, you really are a fool, and perhaps I should eat you after all.”
“Whatever,” I said. “What’s your price?”
“The bay.”
“That’s what Timon already offered you.”
“Yes, Timon, whom I mistrust and despise.”
I turned back to A’marie. “What kind of a boss would he make?”
She hesitated. “Everyone respects him. That doesn’t mean they love him. Still, I think they could do worse.”
I looked at Murk. “No eating the rest of the fish people?”
He made another short, low-pitched sound. “Fish people… I wouldn’t eat anyone except to administer justice.”
That could mean anything. But something made me want to trust Murk. Maybe I had a soft spot for gigantic man-eating monsters with nothing even a little bit human about them. Or maybe it was just that I was short on options.
“To hell with it,” I said. “If the plan works, you get the bay.”