The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company) (84 page)

Raven went to muttering and cursing again. Bomanz was headed north, cradling the manta kit, which squeaked cheerfully at creatures that glided invisibly above our heads. Raven still wanted to catch his old crony, but I guess he decided it would not be smart to challenge the sorcerer right off, when he was in a bad mood, too.

I kept glancing back at the burning windwhale till we got too far into the woods to see it. It seemed to me there had to be some kind of lesson there, some kind of symbolism, but I couldn’t unravel it.

28

Smeds walked into the Skull and Crossbones out of bright morning sunshine. When his eyes adjusted he spotted Timmy Locan in a dark corner at a tiny table for two. At first it looked like Timmy was just sitting there staring down at his bundled hand. When he got closer, though, Smeds saw Timmy’s eyes were tight shut. Moisture glittered on his cheeks.

Smeds sat down across from Timmy. “You go to a doc like I said?”

“Yeah.”

“Well?”

“He charged me two obols to tell me he didn’t know what was wrong and he didn’t know what to do about it unless I want him to cut it off. He couldn’t even help with the pain.”

“You need a wizard, then.”

“Point me at the best one in town and turn me loose. I can afford him.”

“That ain’t a him, Timmy. It’s two hers. Gossamer and Spidersilk. Top blades from Charm that just took over.”

Timmy wasn’t listening. “You hear what I said, Timmy? We got two bitches here straight from the Tower. Came in last night. Bad mojo. They’re supposed to find out what happened up to the Barrowland. Tomorrow or the next day they’re going to borrow a battalion of Nightstalkers and head up there. It’s all over town.”

Timmy still did not listen close enough to suit.

“You get it? They’re going to get up there and find out that somebody messed with that tree. They’re going to be out for blood, then.”

Timmy ground his teeth a moment, said, “Be good advertising.”

“What?”

“Fish says he don’t think there’s any way they can trace us as long as we just sit tight and keep our mouths shut. Meantime word gets around to all the wizards. Them that’s interested will get here and start looking for the spike. Then we put it up for bids.”

Smeds was less fond of that idea all the time. Too damned dangerous. But the rest of them, even Fish, were convinced that a sale could be made safely. They didn’t believe that all wizards were crazy-mean and liked to screw people and hurt them just for the fun of it.

“It’s just a business deal,” Tully kept saying. “We sell. They pay off and get the spike. Everybody’s happy.”

Dumb shit. Everybody would
not
be happy. There were a skillion wizards and only one silver spike. Every damned one of them was not only going to be trying for it for himself, they were going to be out to make sure nobody else got it first. Whoever did get it might want to cover his tracks so nobody came looking to take it away from him.

Tully kept saying bullshit whenever Smeds started worrying. Even when Smeds reminded him that that was the way wizards carried on in every story you ever heard.

“I think I know where’s a guy who can work on your hand, Timmy.” Smeds recalled one of his aunts talking about a wizard down on the South Side who was mostly pretty honest and decent as long as you paid him what you owed him.

The street door opened. Light spilled inside. Smeds glanced around, saw the Nightstalker corporal and a couple of his buddies. The corporal raised a friendly hand. Smeds had to reciprocate or look like a shit. Then he had to stay there talking awhile so it didn’t look like he was walking out because a bunch of gray boys had walked in. He used the time to tell Timmy about the wizard his aunt knew.

“So you want to try him?”

“I’m ready to try anything.”

“Let’s go, then.”

*   *   *

The wizard was a smiling, tubby, apple-cheeked little dork with thin white hair that stuck out every which way. He came on like he’d spent his whole life waiting just for them. Smeds understood why his aunt liked the man. She was so sour and ugly that a blind dog would not wait for her except to go away.

Smeds did most of the talking because he did not trust Timmy not to blurt out more than he needed to in his eagerness to get rid of his pain. “Some kind of infection that’s turning his hand all black,” Smeds said.

“And making it ache,” Timmy said. There was a hint of a whine in his voice. Timmy Locan wasn’t a whiner.

The wizard said, “Let’s open her up and look at it, then.” He pulled Timmy’s hand down onto his worktable, went after the bandage with a thin, sharp knife. He smiled and chattered as he worked and when he laid the bandage open he said, “It does look a bit nasty, doesn’t it?”

It looked a lot nasty to Smeds. He had not seen Timmy’s hand unwrapped in a week. The area of blackness had tripled in size. It now covered Timmy’s whole palm and had begun to creep round to the back. The blackened flesh had a puffy look.

The wizard leaned down, sniffed. “Funny. Infected flesh usually smells. Close your eyes tight, son.” Timmy did and the pudgy man started poking his hand with a needle. “What do you feel when I do this?”

“Just a little pressure. Ouch!” The needle had pricked unblackened flesh.

“Strange. Very strange. I’ve never seen anything like it, son. Try to relax.” The wizard went to a shelf and took down a baroque brass doohickey that was not much more than a one-foot empty circle supported by six eight-inch legs. This he placed astraddle Timmy’s hand. He pinched powders and dribbled drops into pockets in the brass gizmo, made with some mumbo jumbo. There was a flash and a puff of noisome smoke. A shimmer like heat off pavement appeared within the confines of the circle.

The wizard stared into that.

Smeds could not see that it made any difference.

But the wizard’s smile went away. The color left his cheeks. In a squeaky voice he asked, “What have you boys been into?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Smeds asked.

“Surprised I didn’t see it sooner. The mystic stench is there. But who would have thought it? The boy has had his hand on something polluted with the essence of evil. Something pregnant with the blood of darkness. A powerful amulet, perhaps. Some periapt lost in ancient times and just now resurfacing. Something very extraordinary and hitherto unknown in these parts. Have you boys been grave robbing?”

Timmy stared at his hand. Smeds met the wizard’s eye but did not say anything.

“You wouldn’t have been breaking any laws digging wherever you ran into whatever caused this. But you could get in deep if you don’t report it to the imperial legates.”

“Can you do anything for him?”

“They pay good rewards.”

“Can you do anything for him?” Smeds demanded.

“No. Whatever caused this was created by someone far greater than I am. Assuming it to have been an amulet, the burn can be cured only by someone greater than the man or woman who created the amulet. And that someone would have to have the amulet itself to study before trying to effect a cure.”

Shit, Smeds thought. Where were you going to find somebody big enough to undo the Dominator?

You weren’t. “What else can you do? If you can’t just fix him up?”

“I can remove the tainted flesh. That’s all.”

“What’s that mean in plain language?”

“I can amputate his hand. Here. At the wrist would do it today. If that’s the way you decide to go you’d better do it soon. Once the darkness works its way into the larger bones there won’t be any way to tell how far or how fast it’s spreading.”

“What about it, Timmy?”

“It’s my
hand,
man!”

“You heard what he said.”

“I heard. Look, wiz, you got something that will stop the pain long enough for me to think straight?”

The pudgy man said, “I could put a blocking spell on that would help for a while, but it would hurt worse than ever when that wore off. And that’s an idea you’d better get into your head. The longer you stall, the worse the pain is going to get. In another ten days you’re not going to be able to stop screaming.”

Smeds scowled. “Thanks for just not a whole lot. Do the painkiller thing for him and let us go talk it over.”

The wizard sprinkled powders, mumbled, made mystic passes. Smeds watched Timmy relax a little, then even manage a feeble smile.

Smeds asked, “That it? Come on, Timmy. Let’s hit the road.”

The wizard said, “I need to wrap that again. I don’t
know
that it would, but it if came in contact with someone else it
might
communicate itself. If the original evil was potent enough.”

Smeds’s insides knotted and curled as he tried to recall if he had ever touched Timmy’s hand. He didn’t think he had.

He barely waited to get Timmy outside before he asked, “Old Fish ever touch that when he was taking care of you?”

“No. Nobody did. Except that doc I had look at it. He poked it a couple times with his finger.”

“Unh.” Smeds did not like it. It was getting complicated. He did not like things complicated. Trying to untangle them usually made things worse.

They had to have a sitdown with Tully and Fish. He knew what Tully would want to do: drag Timmy out in the country somewhere, cut his throat, and bury him.

Tully had the soul of a snake. He had to break loose. The sooner the better. Right now probably wouldn’t hurt. Except then how would he get his cut of whatever the spike went for? Shit.

“Timmy, I want you should go get drunk, have a good time, but do some serious thinking and get your mind made up. Whatever you want to do, I’ll back you up, but you got to remember it affects all of us. And keep an eye on Tully. Tully ain’t a guy you want to turn your back on when he’s nervous.”

“I’m not stupid, Smeds. Tully ain’t a guy I’d turn my back on when he wasn’t nervous. He ever tries anything cute he’s got a nasty surprise coming.”

Interesting.

Smeds figured he had some deciding to do himself. Like, with the town up to the gutters in gray boys and their bosses about to find out the spike was gone from the Barrowland, was it time to hit the road and get lost someplace they’d never think to look? Was it time to do something with the spike so it would be safer than it was in his pack back at the Skull and Crossbones? He’d already had a cute idea how to handle that. An idea that might turn into a kind of life insurance if he went ahead and did it before he told the others what he had done.

Damn, he hated it when things got complicated.

*   *   *

There was a hell of a row with Tully when they all got together. Tully seemed a little shorter on sense every day.

“You think you’re some goddamned kind of immortal?” Smeds demanded. “You think you’re untouchable? There’s the goddamned grays out there, Tully. They decide to get excited, they’ll take you apart one piece at a time. Then they’ll give the pieces to Gossamer and Spidersilk to put back together so they can make you tell them what they want to know. And whatever you tell them then, it won’t be enough. Or do you think you’re some kind of hero that would hold out against the kind of people that learned to ask questions in the Tower?”

“They got to find me before they can ask me anything, Smeds.”

“I think we’re finally getting somewhere. That’s what I’ve been saying for the last ten minutes.”

“The hell. You’ve been jacking your jaw about running off to some ass-wipe place like Lords.…”

“You really think you could stay out of their way here? Once they knew what they were looking for?”

“How they gonna…?”

“How the hell should I know? What I do know is, these ain’t no half-moron bozos from the North Side. These are people from
Charm
. They eat guys like us for snacks. The best way to stay out of their way is not to be around where they’re at.”

“We ain’t going nowhere, Smeds.” Tully was turning plain stubborn.

“You want to stand around waiting for the hammer to hit you between the eyes, that’s fine with me. But I ain’t getting killed because you got ego problems. Selling that spike off and getting rich would be nice, but not nice enough to die for or go to the rack for. All these heavies turning up here before we even start trying to find a buyer, I’m tempted to let it go to the first bidder just to get out from under.”

The argument raged on, bitterly, inconclusively, with Fish and Timmy refereeing. Smeds was as angry with himself as he was with Tully. He had a nasty suspicion he was just blowing a lot of hot air, that he would not be able to walk out on his cousin if it came to a decision. Tully was not much, but he was family.

29

Toadkiller Dog lay in the shade of an acacia tree, gnawing on a shinbone that had belonged to one of the wicker man’s soldiers.

Only a dozen of those had survived that grisly night when they had taken the monastery. Half of those had died since. When the breeze blew from the north the stench of death was overpowering.

Only two of the witch doctors had gotten through alive. Barely. Till they recovered, he and the wicker man were in little better shape than they had been in the beginning, back in the Barrowland.

Toadkiller Dog kept one eye on the mantas gliding overhead and around the monastery, eternally probing for soft spots in the shell of magic shielding the place. Bolts ripped through any they found. Only one in a hundred did any damage, but that was enough to guarantee eventual destruction.

The wicker man’s triumph over the windwhale had given a respite of two hours. Then another windwhale had appeared and had resumed the struggle. There were four of them out there now, at the points of the compass, and they were determined to avenge their fallen brother.

Toadkiller Dog rose, bones creaking and aching, and zigzagged his way between dangerous spots to the low, thin wall that surrounded the remains of the monastery. He limped badly. His wicker leg had gone in the conflagration that had come when the Limper’s firedrake had turned back upon him.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that the Limper was worse off than he was. The Limper had no body at all.