“Trouble, mistress,” said Knocks.
The crone smiled, her wrinkles forming deep chasms of age. She set her comb down beside her. The wrinkles upon her forehead surrounding her knobby, gnarled horns began to smooth out. Rhiamon so loved misfortune that the very thought of it made her feel and become younger. Her eyes brightened and she instantly shed five years. “Go on,” she prodded.
“It is the boy Ewan. He still lives.”
“Of course he does,” she said. “He has powerful friends.”
“It was just him,” said Knocks bitterly.
“Who did this to all of you?” She looked at them incredulously.
“Yes, mistress.” The redcaps nodded in unison behind Knocks.
“And how did he accomplish such a feat?”
“He stole the cap off Karl’s head and put it on.”
The crone smiled broader still. Her hair began to untangle, turning from a frazzled white mess into a fine, silky, distinguished gray. The wrinkles around her eyes gave way to loose bags of skin—not yet smooth, but well on their way. “So he wears the cap?”
“Yes,” said Knocks.
She cackled, alarming the goats nearest her who pattered in place.
“This isn’t funny,” said Knocks, his voice dripping with restrained anger.
“Oh, but were that true. If you knew what it is you’ve actually done, you too would be laughing.”
“What have we done?” asked one of the redcaps.
“Perhaps it is best that you not know,” she said with a wicked simper, the years now cascading off her a decade at a time. “Perhaps you should enjoy the pleasant surprise.” Her hair shaded from gray to blond, gaining a lustrous vibrancy that shone more brightly with each passing moment; it now toppled upon her shoulders rather than nesting atop them. Her wrinkles were all but gone now, her skin becoming smooth and delicate, her eyes radiant and sparkling. Sagging flesh grew taut, firm with supple muscle. Rhiamon looked no older than thirty-five now, a very beautiful woman revealed beneath the sixty-five or so years that she’d lost—albeit one adorned with a single knobby goat horn.
“I don’t understand,” said Knocks. “How could not knowing be in our best interests?”
“Because you might try to stop the inevitable,” she answered. “And that should not happen.”
“Well, what do we do?” asked Reinhardt.
The crone, now a twenty-five-year-old knockout with curves that could stop a city bus, narrowed her eyes. “You do exactly what I tell you—step by step.” She retrieved her comb from the ground and returned to working out the knots in the beard of the nearest goat.
“There are three things you must do,” she said. “First you must separate the wizard from his djinn. He must not be able to simply wish his problems away this time.” She reached into a bag beside her, drawing from it an ornate glass bottle, intricately carved, with fine gold inlay and words in ancient Persian: May you rest undisturbed for one and one thousand years. “Without the djinn, he is but a wizard. And a wizard can be bested by using his own magic and arrogance against him.
“Next you must separate the wizard from his friend. If he has done this to you alone, then I can only imagine what the two of them will be able to manage together. For this, I must teach you to use the one gift given you that you do not yet fully understand—a technique as old as the Devil himself. We must bind you together nice and tight with the hatred that makes you whole. Finally, you must use the boy’s own weakness against him.”
“What is that, mistress crone?” asked Knocks.
“That depends; how did you find him before?”
“The girl. The Leanan Sidhe Mallaidh; the two are in love.”
Rhiamon smiled so wide that her face itself began to shed and shrink. Her curves tightened and vanished, she dwindled in size, and her eyes sat large and luminous upon her fifteen-year-old face, filled with unholy joy. “Then you must use his love for the girl. No man has ever known love that he would not foolishly walk into death for.”
“How do we do that?”
“You’re a changeling. You’ll figure it out.” She continued to smile, effervescent and now all of eight years old. “Come, if this is to work I have many things to teach you. But first, we must comb out the beard of each and every goat. Hurry, sunrise approaches.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE DWARVEN FORGE
Colby hummed to himself, occasionally mouthing silent lyrics to a song with which Ewan was entirely unfamiliar. The two walked the streets together, heading west, Colby mumbling, taking all manner of turn and side street. At first, it felt as if the two were lost, but Colby walked with purpose, each step determined to get to the next. He knew where he was going, even if he didn’t look it.
“What are you doing?” asked Ewan.
Colby stopped humming. “What?”
“What are you doing? The humming. What is it?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s a long walk.”
“I’m trying to remember where this place is.”
“And the humming?”
Colby looked around, speaking as if from rote memory rather than really listening to what he was saying, his attention focused on finding a nearby landmark. “Space and time aren’t so much expanding as they are unfolding. And if you know where the wrinkles and creases in the fabric of the universe are, you can slide down them from one thread to another. People”—he looked squarely at Ewan, paying more attention to what he was saying—“well, fairies mostly, write songs about them. If you know the words and the melody, you can find things that are otherwise hidden to the naked eye. Places like where we’re going now.”
“And where are we going now?” asked Ewan.
“To speak to a man about a sword.”
“What?”
“So to speak,” he said. “A dwarf. A kind of wood spirit. He’s a man, and I wouldn’t really call him anything else.”
“I guess it would be rude to say I’m going to see a dwarf about a sword.”
“You’d think,” said Colby, hinting otherwise.
“It’s not?”
“Dwarves have it easy. They can go out into the world, live a life like anyone else, and disregard any jokes with a withering glance and a comment about insensitivity. Most people won’t ask and try very hard not to stare; even when they’re acting just a little peculiar, they won’t notice that a dwarf’s feet are bent the wrong way or that they have a few too many thumbs. It’s easy to mask the magical behind a veil of politeness. The power of shame is a handy trick in this modern world.”
“So we’re going to see a dwarf.”
“About a sword, yes.”
The two turned a corner, past a thicket of trees, wandering down a long, winding gravel road seemingly leading directly into the middle of nowhere. Trees and brush grew thicker here, as did the light buzzing of cicadas in the air. They were no longer in Austin, a seeping darkness creeping in as the lights of the city faded into the faint orange glow of the clouds.
Half a mile farther up the road, a metal gate wrapped end to end in barbed wire greeted them. NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT. Ewan gave Colby a cold but worried look—Should we? Colby nodded—Yes, we should.
The main house wasn’t much farther; just beyond it was a blacksmith’s workshop, a wood-and-steel open-air structure blackened and charred from heavy use. The air smelled thick of smelted metals, and as they walked closer, the two were blasted with blistering heat billowing out from the building. Black smoke choked the air above them, blotting out the night. But the fires were bright and the entire yard behind the house was lit as if by flickering daylight.
In the doorway stood a diminutive, stocky man, covered neck to toe in a leather apron and goat-fur leggings. His skin itself was like the apron—leathery, cauterized, cracked by constant exposure to the heat. He smoked a cigarette lazily, peering suspiciously at the visitors before stabbing out his smoke on a timber beside him. He frowned, furrowing
his brow.
“Colby,” said the dwarf.
“Mimring,” said Colby.
“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” he said in a gruff, gravel-hewn voice. “Not in his condition.”
“And what condition would that be?” asked Colby.
“Fucked.” He waved the two over. “Come on in.”
Inside the temperature was almost unbearable, a sweltering stream of heat pouring out of a raging furnace. Colby felt as if the sweat would sizzle from his brow, but Ewan was entirely at home, and didn’t so much as glisten. Instead, he scratched the scruff of his chin, grimacing at the sandpaper he found there. He looked down at his hand, sure that he’d taken off a layer or two of skin, but he hadn’t.
The oddest thing about Mimring wasn’t his size; his thick, calloused skin; or his hobbies, it was that he spoke in a slow Texas drawl. While hundreds of years old and hailing originally from Germany, he’d spent the last century in and around these parts. He had grown to love it, becoming not only acquainted with the culture, but one with it, so much so that he’d become a stereotype. He took a deep breath, putting both hands on his hips, nodding with puckered displeasure.
“Whelp,” he said with a sigh. “You’re in for some rough times there, son. Y’all got yourselves in a heap o’ trouble.”
“Word travels fast,” said Colby.
“I reckon it does when you’re the guy everyone comes to for a good weapon.”
Colby narrowed his gaze. Mimring shrugged.
“Who else were they gonna git? I’m the best smith on the plateau.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“Well, I told the other ones that I weren’t gettin’ involved.”
“Is that true?” asked Colby. “You’re gonna sit this one out?”
Mimring spit onto the dirt floor and made a clicking noise with his tongue, thinking long and hard as he stared at Colby. “Naw,” he said, drawing the syllable to its inevitable, but protracted conclusion. “Redcaps are good for business, but bad customers. The fewer there are around, the happier I’ll be.”
“In other words, you like them less than you like me.”
“That and them redcaps wouldn’t owe me a big favor if I made ’em up somethin’ special.” He paused. “You will.”
“You got something in mind or is this more of a blank check sort of thing?”
Mimring nodded. “Blank check.”
Colby traded looks with Mimring for a moment. Mimring stood like a statue, not so much as a piece of dirt or sweat moving on him. Then Colby nodded. “I’ll take that deal.”
“Good. I’ve a feeling it’s the only one you’re gonna git in this town ’bout now.”
“A sorcerer is a good thing to have in your pocket, I suppose.”
Mimring shrugged. “Yeah, you scare the shit outta me, son. And frankly, as much trouble as you are, I’d much rather have you in my debt than be the guy that wouldn’t help you when you came a callin’. Now, what’ya need?”
“A sword,” said Ewan.
“Will you be needin’ just the one?”
Colby nodded. “Yeah.”
“Sized for you or him?”
“Him,” said Colby.
“You sure you won’t be wantin’ a pike instead? I can make a pike that’ll take the head clean off an eight-point buck at ten paces.”
“A pike?” asked Colby.
“Yeah, a pike.” He looked at Ewan.
Colby looked over at Ewan, not understanding at all what Mimring was getting at, and watched as Ewan fiddled with a blacksmithing tool he’d found hanging on the wall. He looked him up and down, noting the red cap atop his head. Colby returned his gaze to Mimring, shaking his head. “No, he won’t need a pike.”
“I think he’ll find it more comfortable in his condition.”
“His condi . . . what the hell are you getting at?”
Mimring looked up at Ewan, who wasn’t paying attention at all. “Son? Son?” He cleared his throat and spoke louder. “Son!” Ewan looked up and immediately put the tool back where he’d found it. “Would you mind stepping outside for a moment? I need to have a word with your boy here.”
Ewan nodded, meandering hesitantly outside, leaving the two alone.
“You don’t see what’s goin’ on?” asked Mimring.
“No, what is going on?”
“And here I’d heard you were the smart one, what with you traveling the world and all, writing all those books.”
Colby’s eyes shot wide, his expression ghostly white. “I, well, I don’t—”
“Son, don’t. Everybody knows you been writin’ those books, just ain’t nobody been able to do nothin’ about it. Who the hell names themselves Thaddeus, anyway? Really?”
Colby swallowed hard. “Everyone knows?”
“Everyone that matters. Most are plenty pissed. The rest think you’re just foolish and will regret the whole thing in a few years anyway. Most do.”
“Most what? Most men who have seen what I have?”
Mimring smiled and laughed a bit. “Shit, ain’t no one’s seen half the shit you have. You’re one of a kind.”
“So, what? Am I supposed to stop writing them?”
“I couldn’t care less. Just do me a favor and make sure I don’t ever show up in one of them books.”
“Is that your favor?”
“Hell no. That’s the favor you’re gonna do me for tellin’ you what I’m about to tell you.”
“Which is?”
“Your boy out there has done imprinted.”
“Imprinted? What is that supposed to mean?”
“You ain’t noticed his color? How he used to be all pale and sickly, but now he’s all pink and robust? Or how he’s suddenly sprouting gray stubble?”
“I . . . I didn’t, actually,” stuttered Colby.
“Or how he walked in here like it was a day spa? I mean, you’re sweatin’ off a stink so bad that you’re about to stop sweatin’. That’s how bad you’re about to git. He didn’t even notice.”
“What is that supposed to mean? You don’t become a redcap just by wearing their caps.”
“Nope,” said Mimring. “Normal people don’t, anyhow.”
“He’s normal.”
“No, he’s a fairy. Got done turned into one the night of the Tithe.”
“But he never fully changed.”
Mimring paused, staring at Colby long enough to let the words he’d spoken sink in. “That’s right. Those boys don’t bother to take a child through the whole process; just get him right enough with the Devil to be able to take their place. Feed ’em on fairy milk till the point at which their body lives offa glamour and then they put ’em to the knife. Won’t let ’em imprint. So your boy has been a blank slate for a decade and a half now, waitin’ for someone to come along and take him down the final steps of fairyhood, and then he done takes the cap off a redcap, pops his head off like it were a melon, and gets blood on the cap. The cap he’s wearing. All that pent-up glamour finally found an outlet. And he became what he’s always been waiting to become. A full-on fairy.”
“But he’s not turned yet,” said Colby.
“Oh, he’s turned. He just ain’t done turnin’. No going back, though. He’s done for. He’s gonna be a redcap for the rest of his life, however short that may be.” Mimring looked over his shoulder at the forge behind him. “So I say to you again, are you sure he wouldn’t be more comfortable with a pike?”
“You have something in mind?” asked Colby.
Mimring smiled, his yellow teeth glinting in the firelight. He nodded proudly. “I actually happen to have an honest-to-god John Brown pike in my possession.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“John Brown. The civil war abolitionist who commissioned a thousand pikes from a local blacksmith that he planned to give to a bunch of freed slaves, and as there weren’t nothin’ more that frightened southern slave owners like a Negro uprising, well, they sent Robert E. Lee after him
and then they hanged old John Brown for treason till he was dead. Never used the pikes, but they got his blood on ’em. Spiritually, anyhow.”
“And you’ve got one.”
“And I got one. I figure I could reforge the blade with a few drops of blood squeezed from your old boy’s cap—to capture his strength—and a few hairs of a sorcerer . . .” He gave a knowing glance to Colby. “And I reckon I could make something that would feel like an extension of his own arm. I mean, if you’re fixin’ to leave him alone at any point, and you want him to be able to hold his own, this’ll do the trick just fine.”
“It’ll take the head off an eight-point buck at ten paces?”
Mimring nodded. “Yup. Just about.” There was a brief quiet between the two. “You know you’re gonna have to keep a good eye on him from here on out, don’t ya?”
“Yeah,” said Colby, the weight of everything sinking in.
“He’s gonna become more aggressive. He’ll be someone you won’t wanna argue with. And once that cap starts drying out, well, animals are only gonna slake that thirst for so long.”
“I figured.” Colby slumped against the wall, shaking his head and staring off into the dirt floor.
“Well, it was about time that curse kicked in. We’ve all been waiting for that shoe to drop for an awful long time.”
Colby looked up, confused. “Ewan wasn’t cursed.”
“No, Yashar was. Ages ago.”
“Yeah, he was cursed to walk the earth or something.”
Mimring gave Colby a dark, somber look that read: you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me. “You don’t even know the curse on your own genie?”
“We don’t talk about it. That’s his cross to bear.”
Dreams and Shadows: A Novel Page 29