"Let me finish getting dressed," I said. Damn, Crask gave me the creeps. I never met anybody who reeks of menace the way he does, except his sidekick Sadler, who has a soul struck from the same cold mold.

Five minutes later I clambered into Chodo Contague's personal coach. Chodo wasn't aboard. Morley Dotes was. I wasn't surprised. He looked as sour as I felt.

Not much was said during the trip. Crask is no conversationalist. His presence tends to put the damper on a party.

Chodo's estate is a few miles north of TunFaire's northernmost gate, in a manor that would do any duke proud. The grounds are extensive, manicured, and surrounded by a wall meant more to keep in than to keep out. Several hundred thunder lizards cruise the grounds and provide protection more certain than any moat or castle wall. I've heard that Chodo has survived assassination attempts he knows nothing about because his guardians ate everything but the assassins' names.

I looked out the window. "Chodo's pets seem frisky tonight." It was cold out. The colder it gets the more sluggish thunder lizards become.

"He had them warmed up," Crask said. "He thought there might be trouble."

"That why we're here?"

"Maybe."

There must be two guys living inside Crask's skin. One is the stiffly formal butler character that Chodo turns loose on diplomatic errands, and the other is the Crask who grew up on the waterfront, whose hobby is biting the heads off cobras. I hope I never have to deal with that Crask, though I expect it's inevitable. He's a completely casual and remorseless killer and he's smart. If he got the word to get me, he'd have me before I knew he was coming.

The coach stopped at the foot of steps leading to Chodo's front door. There was light enough to read by, lanterns by the dozen burning, like Chodo was throwing a party and we were the first to arrive. Crask said, "Don't get out." Like Morley or I might be dumb enough to step outside and pet the monsters snuffling around the coach. He got out and went up the steps. The beasts didn't bother him.

Morley employs profanity sparingly so when he spat, "Shit!" I knew he was rattled. I looked around.

A thunder lizard with a head the size of a five-gallon bucket and breath that would gag a maggot was peeking in on Morley's side. It had about a thousand teeth, every one like a four-inch knife. When it stood back up to claw at the door with its silly little hands, it stood about twelve feet tall. Its scales were a lovely shade of putrescent gray-green. The coach driver whacked it across the snout with the haft of his whip. It made a noise like twenty jackasses singing and stomped away.

Morley said, "Reminds me of a woman I knew once. Only this one had better breath."

"I always knew you'd plook anything that moved. What did you do with her tail?"

"You got room to talk, don't you? I've seen the woolly mammoths you go around with."

"They still have their own teeth."

"I noticed the other night. Snappy dresser, too, with an amazing concept of what constitutes good grooming. You going to dump her when she loses her baby teeth?"

I was saved having to defend Maya by Crask's return. He got into the coach. He handed us each a stone pendant on an iron chain. "Wear these while you're here. They'll keep the lizards off. Come on."

I put my gizmo on and got out behind him. A shoulder-high lizard muzzled me but didn't nibble. I managed to keep from drizzling down my leg.

The inside of Chodo's place is plush. The King himself should live so good. It was quieter than the last time I'd visited, though there were more hoods around. Last time the place had been overrun with naked women, part of the decor. There were no girls tonight.

Chodo awaited us beside the indoor lake of a pool where the cuties liked to congregate. I resisted an urge to chide him for disappointing me.

Chodo was a hairless, colorless, ugly lump confined to a wheelchair. People wonder how a cripple can be so feared. They haven't gotten close enough to look into Chodo's eyes. What Crask and Sadler have, Chodo has squared. And he has them to be his hands and legs. In some ways they have no independent existence. But they seem content.

Sadler was there behind Chodo's chair. So were several lesser lieutenants I didn't know by name. I stopped six feet from the old man, didn't offer to shake. He doesn't like to be touched.

"Mr. Garrett. Thank you for responding so promptly." His voice wasn't much more than a raspy wheeze.

"Crask said it was important. He implied some urgency."

Chodo smiled thinly. He knew the smell of crap. We understood one another, which was maybe more to his advantage than to mine.

"There's something strange afoot, Mr. Garrett." So much for the amenities. "Because of that, because I've striven to keep you alive, I've been drawn into it and have, perhaps, fallen deeper into your debt."

I opened my mouth to deny that. He lifted one white hand an inch off the drab brown blanket covering his lap. For Chodo that was an impassioned gesture. I kept silent.

"Earlier today I learned that the people chasing you had the temerity to invade a building owned by the organization. They killed a man there. I find this intolerable."

I didn't look at Morley, though he had to be Chodo's source. And he'd had the nerve to get indignant when I wouldn't give him Peridont's name.

"Still, I might have overlooked that, crediting it to youthful high spirits, had they not, tonight, offended me again in an inexcusable manner."

Now I saw it. He was hot. He was so angry smoke should have been pouring out his ears.

"Sadler. Tell Mr. Garrett." The old man wanted to gather his energy.

Sadler had a voice like winter. "Shortly after sunset three men, representing someone they called the Master, came to the gate. Their manners were so offensive that Chodo asked to see them himself.''

The kingpin's indignation bubbled over. "In fine, Mr. Garrett, this Master has ordered me to stop interfering in his business. He threatened me."

I call that a stupid move. Not even the King dares make a direct threat against the prince of the underworld. Whatever else he lacks, Chodo has an ego. It wouldn't let something like that slide. I pitied the guys who brought the message. They would've paid the first installment on the tribute Chodo was going to extract.

Sadler smiled thinly, divining my thoughts. "One survived to carry the heads of the others back to the fool who sent them."

I said, "These people are raving amateurs. They don't bother finding out what they're jumping into before they leap."

Chodo growled. "Nevertheless, their confidence may not be misplaced. They don't mind wasting men. Maybe they have them to throw away."

He paused to gather his strength again, signing that we were to wait.

Finally, he said, "I suggest we join forces, Mr. Garrett, to the extent that we have a common interest." He was a realist, that old thug. He knew I had no love for him or his. "You haven't the resources to battle an organization. It would take you an age to do the footwork. I have those kinds of resources. On the other hand, you have your network of friends and contacts, your knowledge in hand, your access in places where my men have no entree." He ran out of energy again.

I surprised myself. "I wouldn't mind that. But I don't have much to kick in. I don't have any idea what's going on. I think that way back in the shadows there's a nasty dragon waking up, that has religious overtones, and the guys involved don't have any qualms."

"Why don't we pool what we know?" Sadler said. I'm sure Chodo fed him that line before I got there. He started talking.

He gave me everything they had, which wasn't diddly. For them the thing had been a triviality until Chodo got his feelings bruised. There had been no special significance to the coins he'd sent me, for instance, except he'd thought they'd point me toward the temple that had put them out.