The Dragons of Winter (7 page)

He didn’t rise to greet them, but waved them over . . .

C
HAPTER
F
OUR
The Ruby Armor of T’ai Shan

Following the directions
in the cream-colored envelope, Quixote and Uncas drove northward from the Kilns and Oxford, to the gray, industrial town of Northampton. It took more than two hours to make the trip, and another two once they’d gotten there to find the address they were seeking. At first they had argued a bit as to whether they were reading the map properly—but when they found the actual building, both realized that they would have been hard-pressed to find it even if they’d been there a hundred times before.

It was a low, sloping edifice, which was tucked away on an alley off a side street near a seldom-used thoroughfare, and it looked as if it had been built at least three centuries earlier, and had not been repaired since just after that.

A dimly lit speakeasy was housed on the ground floor, and none of the windows on the two floors above showed any evidence of occupancy. Quixote was about to declare the whole adventure a misfire when Uncas tugged on his sleeve and pointed at the narrow stairs leading down to an apartment below street level.

“There,” the badger said softly. “I think that’s where we’re supposed t’ go.”

Cautiously they made their way down the steps and were debating using the half-attached door knocker when a gruff, scratchy voice within called out, “Well, come on in! No sense standing out there waiting for the plaster to peel.”

The knight and the badger entered the apartment, which was one large room, divided only by the struts and braces that supported the structure above. On the far side were greasy windows, framed with ramshackle blinds that let in bands of light from the street outside.

There were filing cabinets of various sizes scattered around the room, which formed rough, concentric circles around the gravity of a massive, dark desk, at which was seated a large, heavyset man who wore a hat and a tattered trench coat. He didn’t rise to greet them, but waved them over to stand in front of the desk.

“I’m Steve, the Zen Detective,” the man said without offering his hand or asking his visitors to sit. “But if you knew how to find me, then you probably already knew that.”

“Zen Detective?” asked Uncas. “What do you detect?”

“I help people to find themselves, among other services,” the detective replied, giving no sign that he cared that the question was asked by a badger, “although most don’t actually like what I find, so I’ve learned the hard way to ask for my fee up front, cash on the barrel.”

“How do you lose yourself?” Uncas asked, patting himself on his stomach. “I’d a’ thunk that’d be hard t’ do.”

“It’s easier than you think,” said the detective. “Mostly it happens through inattention, but sometimes it’s deliberate.” He snorted. “Those are always the ones who have the most urgent need, and are always just as reluctant to pay.”

“Hmm,” Uncas mused, looking around at the shabby office. “Do you really make a living doing this, uh, ‘Zen detecting,’ um . . . Steve?”

“His name,” said Quixote, “is Aristophanes.”

“I prefer Steve,” the detective replied, sniffing, “but yes, you speak the truth.”

“That’s awfully familiar to me,” said Uncas. “How is it that I would know you?”

“Well,” the detective replied, “I was once a noted philosopher. Perhaps you read—”

“Naw,” said Uncas. “I’m not a big reader—you’re thinking of my son. Say,” he added, leaning closer. “Are you, uh, purple?”

“It’s a birthmark,” the detective replied testily.

“Over your whole body?” said Uncas.

“Don’t you have any birthmarks?” Aristophanes shot back. “Or doesn’t your species have such a thing?”

“Of course we do!” said Uncas. “In fact, I myself have a birthmark around a mole on my—”

“Decorum, Uncas,” Quixote interrupted, waggling a finger. “Decorum.”

“Heh.” Aristophanes chuckled. “A badger with a mole. That’s funny.”

“How does a philosopher end up becoming a detective?” asked Uncas. “That seems like two very opposite perfessions.”

“All philosophical inquiry,” said the detective, “can be boiled down into just two questions. The first”—he counted off on his fingers—“is ‘Am I Important?’ And the second is ‘Can I Survive?’ There’s nothing in philosophy that isn’t somehow covered by those questions. And every case I take as a detective ends up asking them as well.”

“Hmm,” Uncas said, tugging on his ear and squinting. “I don’t recognize it. It is from Aristotle?”

“No, it isn’t from Aristotle!” the detective shot back. “It’s from one of my own teachers, who was relatively unknown, but a great philosopher still.”

“What was his name?” asked Quixote.

“He didn’t have one,” Aristophanes replied. “He preferred to be known by an unpronounceable symbol, so most of his less imaginative students just called him ‘the Philosopher.’ That’s part of how Johnny-come-latelies like Aristotle got credit for some of the stuff he actually thought of.”

“What did
you
call him?” asked Uncas.

“He started all his dialogues by making this glottal sound with his throat,” said Aristophanes, “so I called him ‘Larynx.’”

“A great Greek philosopher named, erm,
Larry
?” Quixote asked, confused. “That sounds very, ah, improbable.”

Uncas shrugged. “Detectives named Steve could have teachers named Larry,” he theorized. “It could happen.”

“Not Larry,
Larynx
!” Aristophanes retorted angrily. “And it was only a nickname, anyway. Besides, it doesn’t matter what he was called—the quality of the thinking is what is important to a philosopher. The rest is just advertising.”

“And yet you became a detective,” said Quixote. “Interesting.”

Steve scowled. This wasn’t going the way it was supposed to have gone. He had assumed that a lanky, out-of-sorts knight and a talking badger would be pushovers, but somehow, this unlikely duo had managed to get him talking about himself—which simply wouldn’t do. Not at all.

“So,” Aristophanes said gruffly, tapping the desk. “Enough talk. Time is money. Let’s see your dough, and then we’ll find your Zen, or whatever.”

“Is this really the right feller?” Uncas asked behind his paw. “He seems a little . . . off t’ me.”

“He’s the right fellow, all right,” Quixote said as he rummaged around in his duffel. “I know I had it here somewhere . . . ,” he muttered.

“Aha!” Quixote finally exclaimed as he found what he’d been searching for. “Here you go,” he said, dropping a small drawstring bag on the detective’s desk. “Thirty pieces of silver—your traditional price for this kind of job.”

The Zen detective made no move to retrieve the bag, but simply sat, staring at it with a passive expression on his face. At length, he inhaled deeply, then exhaled the air in a long, melancholy sigh. “Silver,” he said at last, eyeing Quixote. “Verne sent you, didn’t he?”

The knight nodded. “He did, yes.”

“And whom is it you would like me to find?”

“It in’t a whom, it’s a what,” said Uncas.

“We’ve been instructed,” Quixote said with all the formality of an official request, “to ask you to locate the Ruby Opera Glasses.”

Aristophanes fell backward over his chair and crashed to the floor. He rose in an instant, cursing under his breath, then more loudly as he set his chair back on its legs and took his seat.

“You don’t ask for much, do you?” he said, squinting suspiciously at the knight and the badger. “Why not ask for the Cloak of the Paladin, or a shard of the true cross, or the Spear of Destiny while you’re at it?”

“Actually,” Uncas said, brightening, “what happened with the spear was this, see . . . .”

“Never mind that,” Quixote said as he scowled at the badger. “We really do just need the Ruby Opera Glasses.”

“If I
could
locate them,” said the detective, “I would require an additional fee. And then there might be an additional cost to acquire them. How much is Master Verne . . .”

In response to the unfinished question, Quixote reached back into his duffel and removed a second bag of silver. Then a third. And a fourth.

Uncas let out a slow whistle of appreciation. “That’s a lotta nuts,” he said, looking from Quixote to the detective and back again. “What’s so special about these glasses anyhoo?”

“The glasses are the only object in all of the Summer Country that can detect the presence of an Echthroi,” said Aristophanes.

“Is this sufficient?” Quixote asked, indicating the bags on the desk. “I’m not authorized to pay more, but I could ask if needed.”

“To locate them, yes. But it won’t be nearly enough,” the detective answered, “for what we’re actually going to propose to the Frenchman.”

“And what is that?”

“The rest of the armor,” Aristophanes said simply. “It still exists. And what’s more, I know where to find it.”

It was a credit to Quixote’s self-control that he did not react to this news, but kept his expression steady; and it was a credit to Uncas’s self-control that all he did was whoop with excitement.

“Th’ scowlers will be so excited to know that!” Uncas exclaimed. “Th’ rest of the armor! Imagine that!”

“Do you even know what the armor is?” asked the detective.

“Not at all!” Uncas admitted. “But it sounds right stellar!”

“What do you ask of us?” said Quixote.

“Simple,” Aristophanes replied as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet on top of his desk. “I want to be dealt back in.”

The old knight looked confused. “Dealt back in? You want to play cards?”

Aristophanes groaned. “No, you idiot. Dealt back into the
game
. The Great Game. I want my seat at the table. I want to rejoin the flow of the world.”

“That’s for the Prime Caretaker to decide,” Quixote said after a moment, “and I daren’t even consult him with such a request, when we don’t even know if you’re capable . . .”

Aristophanes ignored the knight’s comments and opened up a drawer on the left side of his desk. He reached in, removed an object, and placed it on the desktop.

“There,” he said. “The Ruby Opera Glasses. That alone should convince Master Verne that I can find the rest of the armor.”

The knight and the badger peered curiously at the glasses, which, other than the thick red lenses, looked like any other pair of antique opera glasses. “Tell us about this armor,” Quixote said, gingerly touching the glasses. “To whom did it belong?”

“A great warrior named T’ai Shan,” Aristophanes answered, “who lived many, many thousands of years ago. She was the Imago of this world, which made her the mistress of time and space, and she was respected and feared by all. Even,” he added darkly, “the Echthroi.”

Uncas frowned. “So this, Inag . . . Imuh . . . This person lived thousands of years ago, did she?” he said as he examined the opera
glasses. “Beggin’ y’r pardon, but these seem t’ be a bit too muchly on th’ contemporary side t’ be real.”

“Master, uh, mistress of time and space, remember?” said Quixote. “Perhaps she acquired them during the dispatching of her duties as Imago—whatever those entailed.”