Terrin gave him a c.o.c.keyed look. "I like you, blondie, you think like me."
Debreban offered a weak smile, perhaps unsure whether or not to take that as a compliment. Terrin was still in his wrinkled Hawaiian shirt, holed jeans, and purple high-tops. By no stretch of imagination on any world we"d ever been to did he look like a wizard.
"Okay, gang, I gotta work," he said. "You guys beat it and have the horses ready. Soon as I"m downstairs we go and don"t stop. How far away is this place?"
"About a mile," I said. "But with the street traffic it might take us a bit to get there."
"So long as I don"t have to walk I should be able to make it."
I grabbed up our backpacks, stuffing them with scattered odds and ends from the room. "See you when you show. I gotta talk with Clem before we split."
Zipping the packs shut, I herded Shankey and Debreban down to the common room.
"Lady Filima said she could reimburse the landlord here for me leaving before my run was over," I said to Shankey.
"Yeah, I remember."
"Can you help square things with him so he"s not sore with me?"
"No problem."
Shankey and I told Clem about our need to whisk away a sick Terrin while Debreban went for the horses. Before venturing forth, he folded his distinctively colored cloak under one arm and looked both ways on the street. When he came back we"d settled everything with the easy-going Clem, who accepted Shankey"s offer of Darmo money in place of my show. I let him do the bargaining since he was more familiar with the currency values.
"I"ll return when I can, if I can," I promised Clem.
He continued polishing a mug. "Fine by me. I don"t hold with people being sick in my place. Business"ll be better for a bit, though. Crowd here has some new songs to sing and that belching contest is going to be a regular tavern event now. You done me a favor."
It was good to know that I"d left behind a fresh cultural tradition they could enjoy for years to come.
Beatles and belching. Who would have thought it?
"Shankey?" Debreban called us over to one side, fidgeting with his bundled cloak. "I should get back to Burkus House. Lord Cadmus has been waiting all day. Maybe he even came looking for me here."
"He washere ?" I asked. I thought he"d only been pa.s.sing in the street.
"Saw him coming out." "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all this world, why did he come into mine?"
He shrugged. "He"ll probably tell me once I"m back. I was supposed to be following Shankey; gawd knows what I"m going to report about today. I went well outside the bounds of my orders. That sort of thing annoys him."
"Well, if he dismisses you," said Shankey, "come over to Darmo House and I"ll see that you get into my guards. It"s regular pay, you know."
"Shank, you are a true friend and anyone who says otherwise will have to deal with me."
I"d have gone all misty-eyed, but Terrin was coming downstairs. He looked almost normal.
"Horses," he said, tossing me the black candle as he zoomed past. I hastily put it away. We were on the clock, now, and I didn"t know for how long.
Elsewhere, NOT in Rumpock, in h.e.l.l "You"renot getting results," the demon said to Botello Darmo. It wasn"t the one who looked like Great Aunt Matilda. Instead, it bore an equally disturbing resemblance to Uncle Fraddlip, who was still alive in a mental hospice somewhere.
"These things take time," said Botello.
"That runs differently here. You should have results by now."
"I am limited by how time is reckoned on Otherside." Keep your manner nice and even, Botello. Don"t let it see you sweat.
Sweat was a major by-product in certain segments of h.e.l.l. Botello presently stood in the center of one of them. He felt heat, but not at the same intensity as some of the souls being roasted only yards away.
The demon who had summoned him for a conference had temporarily removed their voice boxes, so the only sounds they could produce were of the breathy variety. It was like being in a room full of leaky bellows. Botello made a point of not looking at their faces. They all bore an uncanny likeness to his own and he knew d.a.m.ned well the demon had done that to make a point.
"Nonetheless, we want a show of results now."
"I will have some shortly. It is nearly sunset on Otherside. The river will vanish. I believe I understand what needs to be done to restore its flow here."
"Sunset or dawn, it"s all the same," the demon stated.
Very true in a place where there was no sleep and the light-if it was light-remained the same throughout, except in those places where they had none. Lots of those.
"I understand that, but I am limited to Otherside reckoning," Botello said patiently. "Iwill make progress tonight, though." "What sort of progress?"
"It"s an experiment. I won"t know until after it"s done. What happens then will give me a direction,then I will be better able to provide results."
"You didn"t answer the question."
"I did as best I could within the language. What is up here"-he pointed to his head-"is not easy to express. Much of it is very abstract, intuition-oriented."
The demon frowned. It had a permanent frown, but this one was deeper than usual. "You will make progress, you will achieve results," it said. Unmistakable orders. "If not . . ." It waved a very long talon at all the soundlessly screaming Botello Darmos around them. "But worse. Far, far worse."
The original Botello nodded, feeling pale and hoping it wouldn"t show in the low light.
The demon quietly vanished, taking the audience chamber and the wheezing floor show with it, leaving Botello alone by the dim banks of the h.e.l.l-river.
He did not sag in relief. His guardian demon was presently out of sight, but probably looking on. It wasn"t smart, but good at its job, like reporting Botello"s "excessive use" of scrying with an Otherside human under the guise of getting information. A few extra, quite necessary contacts and everyone goes into a spasm. Typical. Just typical. They wanted things fixed, but begrudged every step he took toward achieving that goal. Perhaps they suspected-no, make that they must be certain-he had something else planned. Which he did, but how could they know about it? He"d been extremely careful. They must be watching him more closely than he suspected.
Making his boots, socks, and lower pant legs vanish, Botello sat on the edge of the bank, thrusting his feet into the black stream to feed. It took longer than usual; the magical energy was thinning. Or his appet.i.te was growing. What he"d fed on earlier from that wizard had been wonderful, even if most of it had been squandered in the attempt to materialize. He wanted more ofthat energy.
If only Cadmus hadn"t given out. And that business with the cat interrupting. Botello had thought there was something odd about it, but dismissed its apparent great size to a distortion produced by the mirror.
Could it have indeed been man-sized and man-shaped as Cadmus insisted? Where would Filima have found such a creature and what was its purpose? Or was it one of her old traveling show mummers done up in a mask?
He would ask her later himself. When the time came. He would ask her about a lot of things.
The one mistake Botello could accept as his own fault had been trying to materialize by recreating his old body. Obviously it was far too difficult and costly in terms of magical power. The conversion of ephemeral energy into something solid was always a tricky calculation, especially when emotions were involved. Though magic worked better with the inclusion of strong emotional energies, those were the most difficult to control. One could get too easily diverted.
Using Filima"s mirror might also have been a touch misjudged, too. If only the b.i.t.c.h hadn"t been present.
The mere sight of her had infuriated him. Though it added to his strength, the anger disrupted his concentration just the tiniest bit. Add that to Cadmus"s weakening and of course the whole structure collapsed, closely followed by one of the overlords of h.e.l.l appearing to ply a number of unanswerable questions. Why couldn"t they mind their own b.l.o.o.d.y business and let him get on with things? Botello had covered the small disaster well from this side. Even his personal demon had noticed nothing.
So how had the overlord found out?
Scrying, perhaps, or something like it. They had tremendous powers, but strange limitations he was still trying to identify.
But later. Botello stood, willed his clothing back into place, then conjured up a scrying mirror. That idiot Cadmus was taking too b.l.o.o.d.y long.
Elsewhere in h.e.l.l The overlord demon dismissed the image of the silently screaming Darmos and waved in the image of the real one, who was sitting on the riverbank again, laving his feet in the river"s black stream. That creature was always hungry. Much more feeding and he"d become a real problem.
He didn"t belong here like the rest of the souls, not in the usual sense. He"d not come in the proper way through the gates. The Outer Guardians hadn"t found out about him yet, but there would be h.e.l.l to pay-in the absolute, most literal sense-if they did. It was part of the Great Balance that all souls had to enter h.e.l.l through the gates. How Darmo managed to get around the judgmental process had been the main perplexity occupying the overlords for what seemed like ages now. They were all impatient for an answer and even more impatient to get rid of Darmo.
As he wasn"t doing anything but sitting, the demon waved his image off and focused on a different plane, shifting time backwards to see if more dreams had come in.
No, nothing new. The little spheres of dream and thought floated about undisturbed, meaning the human in the Otherside city gifted with the visions was probably awake. Why they spent so much of their pathetically small ration of time conscious was a mystery. Why be up and about when they should be asleep and dreaming? It was much more rewarding than playing their incomprehensible social games.
Few of them ever put their dreams to use, either, and this fellow was no exception. He accepted his gift, but was unwilling to understand and exploit it. Was even afraid of it at times. His dreams were Outer Guardian warnings, of course, vague and full of portents as usual, though lately they"d all been clear enough. The dreamer didn"t seem to know what to do about them.
Little matter. The overlord demon found the visions of the future a ripe feast, a wonderful view of better things to come. It reached forth, again relishing the one of that frail city in flames, with demon hordes feasting on the remaining souls. Here were no rancid leavings thrust through the gates, but fresh, sweet innocence and complacency, still alive, and all ripped to glorious, b.l.o.o.d.y shreds. The Guardians would hate that, try to stop it, but after such a feasting the demonic overlords would be strong enough to fight them off this time.
"What are you doing?" asked another demon. It was much larger, uglier, and more powerful, appearing out of nowhere, of course.
The overlord shut down its viewing. "Nothing."
"So you"re all done with your work?" It dared not reply to that one. Work was never finished here and they all knew it. In reply, it waved the images of the screaming Darmos back into being again, this time with their voice boxes restored. The awful chorus drowned out all possibility of further conversation.
The other demon nodded and vanished, one of its more annoying traits. You never knew where or when it would show up. The overlord demon wished it could do that, too, travel anywhere, commanding beings as strong as itself.
After Darmo sorted things out, perhaps that would be possible. But he had to be watched. He was up to something else. And it was connected with the h.e.l.l-river. He had told the truth, but not all of it.
The demon brought back the image of Darmo, who had conjured a scrying mirror. Again? Was he aware of just how much power it cost to use those things?
Back in Rumpock, at Burkus House Cadmus decided against wearing his usual clan colors for his visit to Filima. Better that she see him as himself, not a household, though the peac.o.c.k mix of purple and green looked remarkably well with his coloring. He"d heard every joke there was about the combination and had learned to reply with wit and good humor, backed by his absolute certainty that of all people,he could carry them off.
Instead, he chose to wear a somber red so dark as to nearly be black. He"d been told it was a rather rare dye to achieve, and it was almost hypnotically eye-catching. He did a turn or two before his dressing room mirror and struck a pose; casual, yet manly. Yes, this would suit just fine. Sober enough to be appropriate for visiting a recent widow, yet festive enough for dinner at the overduke"s palace. A light-colored under-shirting would set it off nicely, showing just the smallest bands of cream at the throat and wrists. Now, how did the whole ensemble look with his clan honors?
He draped the thick gold chain around his shoulders, centering the medallion on his breast. No, that didn"t work at all. Far too pretentious. Save that thing for public appearances when one was expected to make a bit of show for the cheering throngs. He hurriedly stripped it off and replaced it with a thinner, more subtle piece that had a small, teardrop-shaped black pearl attached.Much better.
Cadmus thanked the gawds for the wisdom to have invested in so much gentleman"s training, else he"d be putting his foot into things all over the place, like Lord Wattle, always overdressed and ill-prepared for the rigors of Rumpock"s social whirl, poor fellow. He was stinking rich, so few minded his ways; some even liked him, too. Filima once mentioned she found the man"s clumsy quirks a touch endearing, like a sad-faced clown.
No accounting for a woman"s taste in men, though on second thought Cadmus considered he might have dismissed Wattle too swiftly. The fellow was never without female companionship, after all. His money had seemed the best reason for that, but equally wealthy women often sought him out.
Perhaps if I tripped and looked sheepish once in a while, Filima would warm up to me. Cadmus disliked the idea of appearing the least bit maladroit, not after all his sword-fighting and dancing masters had drilled a near-perfect sense of balance into him. But theappearance of vulnerability . . . there might be something to it. He"d seen a play once about a handsome man who couldn"t get a lady"s attention until he was injured, then she nursed him to health, falling in love at the same time. But the idea of allowinghimself to be skewered in a duel held little appeal for Cadmus.
"I could fall down her stairs and pretend to twist my ankle," he said to the image in his dressing room mirror. The image looked thoughtful and interested. "Then I could be very grateful to her as she helped me. Perhaps I could even fake a touch of fever, confessing my love to her in my delirium so she"d know my sincerity."
Oh, my.That was ever somuch better than a love spell. Why hadn"t he thought of it before?
Because he"d only been at this courting business for two weeks. To charm, to seduce, those he was very good at, but to truly get a woman to fall in love with him . . . oh, the complexities, but he was positive he could work through them all. The man in the mirror looked back with bright, beaming confidence. What woman could resist all that?
This staged accident would take a bit of planning. He couldn"t fit it in tonight; his dinner with Anton precluded that, but later this week . . . yes, while he was at Darmo House he"d wrangle an invitation from her or could make a light-hearted promise to call on her later in the week-as a concerned friend, of course.
The only snag Cadmus foresaw was the need to avoid actuallyfalling down any stairs. He should be discovered already at the bottom, artistically sprawled and groaning with bravely suppressed agony. He knew a small illusion spell that caused a show of redness and swelling good enough to fool a healer. The hard part would be achieving enough privacy to get away with the ruse. Her servants were always about.
He couldn"t just lie down, they"d see that and the spell-casting. d.a.m.n, he might have to fall after all. At least he"d be realistically bruised, but what a price to pay.
His thoughtful reflection in the mirror began to warp and churn, as though in disagreement. What in the world . . . ?
Botello Darmo"s distorted form suddenly appeared, nearly filling the frame.
Cadmus jumped back, startled.
"Stay where you are, you idiot!" Botello ordered. His voice was as uneven as his swimming image.
"How is it you"re here?" Cadmus demanded. His heart thumped violently at this new and unpleasant show of magical power. It should have been impossible. What was Botello up to in h.e.l.l that allowed him such an awful freedom? "This isn"t my Black Room, and I"m not scrying."
"I know that! You should be there now telling me why you"ve not found that magician yet."
"I found him, but he"s at your house. Lady-"
"Myhouse?"
"Lady Filima seems to have found him first. I"m told he runs about wearing a cat mask, or it might be his real face-"
"What!?" Botello roared.
Cadmus flinched. "I was just going over there to track him down." "Shutup, shutup, shutup!"
The image spun about, highly agitated. Cadmus had never seen this wide a view of Botello; until now only his face had been visible. How odd that he still wore his working clothes, the ones he used to put on when engaging in spells, which included his long robe. It seemed more likely that he should have been in a nightshirt, since that"s how he"d been dressed when his body was found. Legends ran that one spent some portion of the afterlife wearing the memory of one"s last outfit. Because of that, Cadmus made a point of always being well turned out; even his night clothes were beautifully tailored.
Botello settled down. He almost looked sane. "Listen closely to me, Cadmus."
Cadmus gave him his guarded attention, hoping this wouldn"t involve another jolt of pain. It wouldn"t do to turn up on Filima"s doorstep all shaking and pale, though that might be better than throwing himself down her grand staircase.
"Listen to me," Botello whispered. "Come closer. I can"t let anyone else hear this."
"I"m alone."
"Anyone onthis side! Press your ear against the mirror. Hurry!"
d.a.m.n Botello for doing thisnow . Cadmus wouldn"t have any time at all with Filima. A brief, dropping-in visit was exactly right for the desired effect, but a flying stop was just plain insulting. Besides, a man in a hurry gave the impression of disorganization, not busyness.
"Couldn"t this wait until tomorrow? I"m to dine at the overduke"s palace tonight and I"ve got to get there before curfew."
"The overduke? Perfect. What I have to say involves him. Something you need to know."
Gossip? Gossip from h.e.l.l? Cadmus wanted no part of it, but the enticing lure of truly interesting information tugged at him. Anyway, the sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could depart. "Oh, very well." He pressed his ear to the chill surface of the mirror.