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because he
is the kind of man he is. Block would take an extra step to protect
him.
    Relway, being what he is, might take a few steps more if The
Call was involved.
    “Maybe that’s all I really need to do. Get the Guard
on the case. Block has more resources.”
    There is more going on.
    “Why am I not surprised to hear that?”
    Because you are, at last, becoming somewhat adept at reading
people
—
though not yet at a conscious level. At that
same shadow level both Miss Weider and Miss Nicholas fear that Ty
Weider was not the recipient of the threat but its source.
    “I don’t like the guy but I could be wrong about
him. Nicks thinks he’s got something going.”
    Miss Nicholas is torn in many directions. I feel for that
child. She does indeed think some good things, though. She has
known Ty Weider as long as she has known Miss Alyx. She makes
allowances because she knew the Ty Weider who existed before the Ty
Weider who returned from the Cantard missing a leg. Have lunch,
then see Captain Block.
    “Yes, Mom.”
    Dumb move, Garrett.
    The Dead Man took the mental muzzle off the Goddamn Parrot. That
freaking jungle chicken just stores it up when he’s under
control. It gushed.
     
----

----

9
    Block’s headquarters were inside the Al-Khar,
TunFaire’s city prison. Handy, what with criminals being
rounded up in gaggles lately. The place is huge, stark, cold, ugly,
and badly in need of maintenance. It’s a wonder prisoners
don’t escape by walking through the walls. Or by powdering
the rusty bars in the infrequent windows. Ages ago some Hill family
fattened up by cutting corners on construction, particularly in the
choice of stone. Instead of a good Karentine limestone, available
from quarries within a day’s barge travel, somebody had
supplied a soft snotty yellow-green stone that sucks up crud from
the air, darkens, streaks, then flakes, leaving the exterior acned.
The streets alongside the Al-Khar always boast a layer of
detritus.
    The mortar is in worse shape than the stone. Luckily, the walls
are real thick.
    I stopped, stunned, when I rounded a corner and saw the
prison.
    Scaffolding was up. Some tuckpointing was under way. Some
chemical cleansing was restoring the youth of the stone.
    Even clean that stone was butt-ugly.
    How were they financing the face-lift? Till recently TunFaire
jailed hardly anybody so no provision had been made to help
maintain the seldom-used prison.
    They’d had to evict squatters when Block moved in.
    Captain Block not only was in, he was willing to see me.
Immediately.
    “You’re a bureaucrat now, Block. Even if you
haven’t opened your eyes for fifteen years, you’re
supposed to be too busy to see somebody without an appointment.
You’ll set a precedent. You really live here? In
jail?”
    “I’m single. I don’t need much
room.”
    He seemed a little sad and a lot weary. He had shown fair
political acumen getting the Guard created but, perhaps,
didn’t have the moral stamina to keep diverting frequent
attempts to scuttle the rule of law.
    “You look more relaxed these days.” Block’s
quarters definitely didn’t match his standing in the
community. Neither did his dress. He should have been decked out
like an admiral with two hundred years of service, but he just
didn’t care.
    Block told me, “That business with the serial-killer spell
that kept recasting itself made the prince love me. I’m
almost untouchable. Almost. My cynical side says that’s
because nobody else wants the job. It certainly is thankless. But
business is good. New villains jump up as fast as we harvest the
old ones. They’re like the dragon’s teeth in that old
myth. I’m endlessly amazed that so many of them survived the
war.”
    I shrugged. I didn’t know the one about the dragon’s
teeth.
    Block is a compact, thin man with short brown hair quickly going
gray. He needed a shave. He’d make a fair spy because there
was nothing remarkable about him. You wouldn’t notice him
unless he