by Rob Summers
Chapter 6: Miscounting Your Guests
They were seven Dwarfs, who dug and delved for ore in the mountains. They first lighted seven little lamps…
-from Little Snow White
Because a crowd of inn guests had been predicted that evening of Tuesday, July third, Julie traded an evening work shift and made herself available to join Bob. By eight o’clock they were waiting on the porch, nervously watching the Ghastly Path and listening to the pops of distant fireworks. At first their talk was dispirited because there was so much to worry about. Only two days remained until the Bernards would claim the house. They were low on breakfast food for guests, but both were too broke to buy any more. The inn might be attacked. The inn might be burned. They discussed all these things and also whether the Mercury police, if called, would arrive in time and in sufficient strength to be of any use.
Gradually, the good effect they always had on each other took hold, and the conversation turned to movies, books, college, and all other things pleasant. They even discussed what they called their ‘relationship,’ now nine days old, often using the word like but never love. They agreed that things were going swimmingly and should be continued. They talked about how relationships should be and decided that so far theirs had been handled exactly right. They talked of Bob’s prospects for full time work in the area and of where he might live after Thursday. Neither said a thing about Bis’ prediction that they would grow old together, but each was secretly glad of it. Bob was pretty sure Julie was in love with him, and Julie pretty sure Bob was in love with her. Bob was completely sure he was in love with Julie, and Julie was absolutely sure she was in love with Bob. Life, each thought, was good, and if not for the threat of gangs of time-traveling murderers, ought to have been very good indeed.
When dusk turned to dark and they found that their guests, if coming, were later than usual, Bob left Julie on the porch and, taking a flashlight, walked down the Ghastly Path in the hope of meeting some Magi on their way. He was mindful of the possibility of their arriving injured and wanted to be ready to help. Deep in the Wandering Wood he turned on the flashlight and shone it around without seeing anything of interest. So he turned it off and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Supposedly, an open portal would glow slightly at night and he wanted to see that.
After several minutes he drew in his breath sharply and stared his eyes out. A faintly lit arch had appeared not far from him, twelve feet high and ten wide, its left and right edges coinciding with rope-thick vines hanging from tree limbs and its lower edge with the ground. With a happy thrill, he felt a cold wind coming from no explainable source, heard it shrieking, and smelled pines—though there were no pines here. Fog poured out from the portal, turning the air clammy. In the dim illumination of the arch, he could see something like white ashes falling at a steep slant through its opening. Then he heard a sound of muffled thuds, of creaking, and of metal glancing against metal. He spread his feet, steadied his legs, and turning the flashlight on again, directed it toward the ground, preparing himself to welcome a guest or guests.
He was not prepared.
From the pale arch a great horse’s head protruded, seen only as a silhouette; then the neck, covered with what seemed to be a white mound of mane; then the huge chest and forelegs. In a moment the whole horse was striding nearer to him, its back covered with a layer of white. The beast was harnessed, pulling something still beyond the portal. Little figures, robed and hooded, emerged behind it. They were just in the act of uncovering lanterns the glow of which was amplified by the fog. Between them came a great stiff rectangle being pulled along the ground, shedding in every direction what seemed to be snow. On this dragged bed lay a human figure, part buried in this snow. More people appeared, some dwarfish, some of average height. One was a woman holding a bundle. A large dog trotted forward, shaking snow off itself. The horse halted so close to Bob that he could have touched it. He could hear it breathing enormously.
One of the little folk approached him with lantern in hand and, jerking out a small sword, threatened him with it. “Lan dal be?” he said fiercely in a grim voice.
Bob looked down at his face, every bit of which that was not bearded was stained a vivid blue. Snow was melting off the top of his hood and his little shoulders. Guessing that he had been ordered to identify himself, he answered as strongly as he could, “I’m the innkeeper.”
The dwarf nodded. “Innkeeper!” he shouted. “Veli ette mijen, Cradelment.”
“Just a minute, Cradelment!” replied a man who, with other dwarfs, was scraping snow off the figure lying on the ground. “As soon as we’ve checked the master, I want you to get that innkeeper to lead the horse.”
“Paman radan?” Cradelment replied to him.
The man sighed and responded with a few sentences unintelligible to Bob, who gathered that the dwarf had not understood the English but spoke Kreenspam. This was confirmed as Cradelment made a sign to Bob that he should take hold of the horse’s bridle.
Bob, however, was curious to see what the man was doing, so he began to warily step around Cradelment. In doing so, he noticed that two more dwarfs had somehow gotten behind him to the left and the right. All three had swords drawn, oddly shaped little blades with jeweled hilts. Moving very slowly so as not to alarm them, he approached the rectangle on the ground, which proved to be a litter made of stiff, tooled leather stretched on a rude frame. The man and dwarfs had brushed away almost all the melting snow, revealing a man lying on his back and wrapped in blankets. A dwarf held up a lamp over him. He was an old man with a beard, his eyes closed, lying as still as if dead. He wore one large, gold earring that was cast as a dragon’s head. From under the blankets extended the ornate sheath of his sword, covered with twisted designs and inlaid with ivory.
The robed younger man bending over him was gripping his wrist. By the young man’s side was the dog, its long fur golden, and over his arm was folded a cloak which he had for some reason neglected to put on over his robe. When this man looked up, Bob was surprised to see that he was wearing modern eyeglasses. He was perhaps thirty.
“There’s a pulse,” he said. “We need to get him indoors. You’re the innkeeper?”
“Yes. Who is he?”
“Merlin,” the man said almost casually. “My name’s Clark.” He extended a hand and Bob shook it. “I’m afraid I’m the only one in this bunch who can presently speak English to you. I’m Canadian. I don’t suppose you speak Kreenspam? Or Korean? No, I wouldn’t have thought so.” He stood. “We must move on right away. One of those devils injured Kim, and we have her child with us too. Is the inn far? Lead the horse, won’t you? I’ll admit to you that I’m not in much shape to….” For some reason he did not finish his sentence but, half turning from Bob, motioned for him to lead on.
The hardest part for Bob and Julie was determining the number of their guests, in order to assign them rooms. Two men, one woman, and a babe in arms: that was clear enough. But the number of the dwarfs seemed to change from moment to moment, and no amount of recounting could settle the matter. Once Bob was sure he had counted twenty, and yet Julie only minutes later could find only four of them.
Giving it up, they directed the dwarfs in easing Merlin up the stairs on his litter and into a bed. The horse, at Clark’s advice, had been left to chomp the grass outside, and Bob made a mental note to get it some water at the first opportunity. He and Julie next approached the young mother, looked blankly back at her after her somber “Anyunghaseyo,” and guided her to a second upstairs bedroom. There, with her baby laid beside her on the bed, she began to cry. Pulling back her hood for her, Julie discovered a deep cut hidden in her black hair and went for first aid supplies.
Bob left them and returned to the ground floor. He quickly counted fourteen dwarfs, then tried again and it came to eight. However many there were of them, they were now uncloaked and so were revealed in the full,
bizarre splendor of their blue-painted faces, plaited dark hair, and rich, silken inner robes. They were exploring every corner of the ground floor, each with his ornate sword, the size of a long knife, drawn and ready. It suddenly occurred to him that these little barbarians could hardly be Magi, and yet he felt no sense of alarm about them, and so he tried to put aside his concern.
“Damned nuisance, aren’t they?” Clark said suddenly.
Bob turned and found that the Canadian had removed his robe and collapsed in an armchair. His short red hair was pressed back into the old cushion. He was now wearing only jeans, a t-shirt, and loafers but had for some reason retained his unused cloak, still folded over his right arm. The dog, apparently his, had settled beside him, and with his left hand he absently stroked its head. His face was taut. His eyes, behind his glasses, had the hunted look Bob was beginning to expect.
Bob sat down near him. “How many dwarfs are there?” he asked. “I’m not sure we have enough beds.”
The man turned his head to look at him without lifting it. “Seven, seven. They’ll fool you because they’re triplers. They’re Kabiri, you know. Friends of Merlin.”
“What’s a tripler?”
“Oh, don’t you know that?” Clark stared at him and did not go on.
“No, I’m new to innkeeping. May I take your cloak?” Bob said.
Clark held it closer to him and answered waspishly. “No, I’ll keep it, thank you. I only wish I could travel like he does. I don’t mind telling you it’s been sheer hell. Merlin should have been in charge, but one of them got to him.” He stared at the ceiling and took a few deep breaths. “A tripler,” he said, reverting to Bob’s question, “is a kind of Mage. He’s one man, or in this case dwarf, but he can manufacture doubles of himself at will. Each of these fellows can be three of him…or two…or one.”
Bob tried to take this in. “So how many beds should I prepare?” He was all too aware that he only had three empty, counting his own.
“For the Kabiri? None. They sleep standing up like, well, like horses. They’re completely cheerful about it. No need to worry about them.”
“OK.” Bob grinned. With the bed problem solved, he felt free to enjoy the thrill of hosting non-humans. “Where do they come from?”
“Eh? Somewhere in the Forest. I don’t know exactly where. Merlin could answer that, if he could answer anything. Which he can’t. They got to him.”
“I didn’t think anybody could get Merlin.”
“You wouldn’t think so, would you!” Clark said shrilly and almost angrily, raising his head for a moment. “My God, they can get anybody. It’s the most incredible luck that we got away from them. Who would have thought that a blizzard….? We abandoned all our luggage, but we’re still going so slow that they’re sure to catch us.”
The mirror now spoke, “Despair is a luxury one cannot afford.”
While Clark was pretending not to hear this, one of the dwarfs approached him and chattered something to him that was unintelligible to Bob.
“Oh, all right. Innkeeper? What is your name? Bob, then. My little friend here says he lost an armband out there in your woods. Says he’s sure he had it after we came through the portal because he felt for it then. It’s his prized possession. He wants my dog to go fetch it for him, since he wouldn’t be able to find it himself in the dark. Would you let Looper out your front door? He’ll scratch at the door when he gets back.”
Bob rose agreeably and let the dog out, thinking to himself that this would have to be quite a dog to find something without knowing what it was he was looking for. When he returned he asked if Clark or the dwarfs wanted any tea or snacks. Clark declined for himself and the others, saying that they were much too exhausted and would sleep soon.
Bob asked worriedly about Merlin’s condition.
Clark leaned forward with half closed eyes. “Who knows? The dwarfs say he’s under a terrific sleep spell. Maybe it won’t hurt him, but he probably won’t be chatting with anyone for a few hundred years or so. But if you want to know how they got to him, it was a woman. A great beauty.” He waved his hand around his head. “Thick blond hair, face like a goddess.”
“Vivien?” asked Bob, for he had heard from Bis about such a woman among the Rebels. “Oh, of course!” he said, answering himself before Clark could. “It says it in Tennyson. Merlin was betrayed by a Lady named Vivien, one of the Ladies of the Lake.”
“Got it. She insinuated herself as his pupil when she was still a Mage. But when her heart turned to evil and her powers evaporated, which they always do when a Mage goes bad….” He trailed off again.
“What?” Bob asked.
“What what? Vivien? Merlin was besotted with her and let her stay on as a servant, but really as a mistress. She hated him all the more now that she wasn’t a Mage anymore and he still was. He was trying to persuade her to return to the fold. Ever try that with someone thoroughly evil? Might as well try to make a pet of a scorpion. She had the run of his tower and knew from him about everything in it that was conjured, which was just about everything. Say, do you have anything to drink here?”
Bob said that he did not and re-offered the tea, which was re-declined. The dog named Looper scratched at the front door.
“He gave up the search quick,” Bob said. “I hope he didn’t run into any Rebels coming our way.”
“He didn’t give up, he’s got it,” Clark snapped.
Bob smiled and went to the door. When he had followed the dog back into the living room, he found that it had in its mouth a bronze armband, dusky and spiraled. Looper presented it to its owner.
Bob sat down again, impressed. “How did he do that? He hardly had time to run to the woods and back, and you didn’t even tell him what to do.”
“He’s a Mage dog, what do you expect? He understands almost everything we say. As for finding things, he’s never failed. I guess he uses his nose too, but mostly he relies on Mage powers.”
Bob felt that he might be confused. “He’s not a changeling?”
“No, he’s just a dog.”
“I just wondered because, you know, I had a cat in here that I think wasn’t a cat.”
“Well, Looper’s always just a dog. Now, where was I?”
“Vivien knew all about the conjured stuff in the tower.”
“Right. There was an oak growing up right through the middle of it and out the top, and I guess it was about as conjured as all the rest put together. I don’t know how she did it, but she got him into a split in the side of that tree, and he was caught in his own enchantment. Went all limp, as you’ve seen him. The Kabiri got him out of the tree, which was more than I could do, and we’re just carrying him along with us, hoping he’ll revive. Every once in a while, he’ll mumble a few words, usually something about Arthur.”
Bob could think of nothing to say. Arthur and Merlin. Wow.
“I’ve got to get to bed,” Clark said. He paused a long time. “Vivien is a beautiful woman and could have trapped me if she had wanted to. But she wanted a bigger prize. Since this Merlin thing, she’s calling herself by an extra name: it’s Vivien Wizardbane now. Everyone but Junior calls her that.”
“Who’s Junior?”
“Nineveh’s son. He must be a Fred like his father, but he just goes by Junior. It’s him and Viv and their little army that are on our track. I wonder…if they even know we slipped by them in the blizzard? Or that I can find my way to a portal even if I’m blinded by snow? Gotta hope they’re confused, because otherwise we don’t stand a chance of living through the night. It’s not late enough yet for your portal’s dusk gate to delay them until tomorrow evening.”
Julie came down the stairs and joined them.
“That baby’s sick,” she said to Bob. “I think it’s something serious. They’re both sleeping now, but I’m worried. Mr. Clark?”
“It’s Mr. Devon, sw
eetheart. Clark Devon.”
“Well, don’t you think we should get them both, Kim and her baby, to a hospital?”
“No, I don’t think so one bit. The Rebels will have a scout or two in this area, people who know the culture, and they’d sneak into the hospital room and kill them. They go for the loners and the wounded just like wolves do. We’ve got to keep moving through the portals for as long as we can. Kim’s got to have some rest and then….”
Bob waited long seconds and then said for him, “Then maybe they can help her at Mount Baldy?”
“Right,” Clark said, as if his mind had not strayed. “There will be Mage healers there. That’s what she needs.” He rose with the cloak still over his arm. “Show me a bed.”
“OK, but where are the dwarfs?” Bob asked, suddenly wondering about them.
“Probably asleep. They’ve been pushing themselves for days, like we all have. Poor little guys.”
“But where are they?”
“They like the south sides of houses. Which way is south here?” Bob pointed it for him. “Look for them over there then, but don’t bother them. Let them rest.”
Bob showed Clark to his room, and then came back down and compared notes with Julie. They agreed that, given how frightened these travelers were, the only reason they had stopped here was because they were physically unable to stagger on. So thank God for an inn for them to stagger into. Kim, Julie said, had touched things in her room caressingly, as if unable to believe that she had made it through alive to a sheltered place. But clearly the inn was in danger. They talked of calling the police, and sadly concluded that any lies they told to get them to come would just backfire on them unless the Rebels were obliging enough to come at the same time. Otherwise, a call from 16024 Grantham would be less likely to be answered promptly next time. And how would they explain the dwarfs? No, it was no use.
The only thing they decided was that Julie would stay the night, sleeping in the remaining vacant room upstairs, close to Kim and the baby. She used her cell phone to call her parents, who agreed to this without a qualm and without hearing any more than that Bob’s bed-and-breakfast had a Korean lady visitor who needed help with her baby. Julie’s parents seemed to have the same absolute trust in her that Bob did.
Julie went upstairs but returned immediately as Bob was just ready to turn out the lights in the living room. She carried the tightly wrapped cloak that Clark had taken up with him.
“I found this on the bed in the room I’m going to use,” she said. “I didn’t want to disturb Clark or just leave it in the hall up there, so I brought it down.” She laid it on the couch. “He’ll surely see it there if he comes looking for it. Good night.”
Bob had moved near her and, on the inspiration of the moment, kissed her. “Good golly,” she said with a giggle, “you can do that again. I wasn’t ready the first time.”
So they kissed several more times before she went upstairs. When she was gone, Bob straightened the folds of the cloak while wondering if he might, just might, be justified in luring her down again.
“Purity in love makes it ten times better,” said the mirror.
“Yeah, thanks, I already knew that,” Bob said, laughing.
He made sure that all the doors and windows were locked and then went to his room.
Bob was first up in the morning. The dwarfs were still asleep, standing up in the laundry room on the south side that connected the kitchen with his ground floor bedroom. One was snoring. When asleep they were indeed countable as seven, and he wondered idly if the Korean woman’s name might be translated as Snow White.
He stood at the kitchen sink and looked out the window to the east. The night had been quiet, and it occurred to him that, if he could get this crowd of Magi out of bed, fed, and safely out the west portal, then he would have finished his job, probably forever, as an innkeeper, without violating any of Herr Stringer’s rules. He shifted to in front of the refrigerator and, reviewing the list, mentally checked them off. Yes, he had kept them all, even the one about no guest sleeping on the floor, as long as you interpreted it freely. The dwarfs had not lain on the floor and had not wanted to lie down anywhere. Good enough.
He was a little troubled by the thought that yet more wizards might arrive on the evening of this, his last full day as an innkeeper; but it seemed highly unlikely. According to Clark, it was little less than miraculous that his band had made it here, so what hope was there for others behind them? And hadn’t Bis Boland said that Merlin’s group would be the last to escape? He would see them off this morning and drink a toast with Julie to the brief but successful two-week revival of Wizards’ Inn.
The toast would be made with tea of course, or perhaps water. They were running out of everything in the way of drink and food. He would have to ask Julie to make the pancakes smaller that morning, which was perhaps fitting for dwarfs anyway.
He wandered into the living room and straightened a few things up. The cloak was still where Julie had placed it, and he left it there. But what was this? In the act of turning away, out of the corner of his eye he had seen a fold of the cloak fall down over the edge of the couch. He whirled around and looked at it. A man’s disembodied arm, very much alive and moving had thrown back the fold.
For a fraction of a second he believed that Clark, and then Julie, had been carrying around in the cloak a living, severed arm, rather like Thing in The Addams Family. However another fold was thrown back toward the couch’s back and another arm appeared with a man’s chest between them. The chest and arms were wearing a suit jacket with white shirt and tie. The two hands moved to pull away more of the cloak from above the chest. Now his head was uncovered. Bob was looking at a gentleman in his fifties, with receding hairline, sunken eyes, and a mustache. And no legs.
“Oh, hello,” the man said in a Latino accent. “This is another inn, I think? And you’re the innkeeper, no?”
Bob barely had the presence of mind to nod.
The man stretched out his legs like extendable antennas, and suddenly the cloak was gone. He sat up and rubbed a calf.
“I do not sleep well. Are the others all right?”
“As well as can be expected,” Bob answered. “You’re a changeling?”
“Of course. I’m too old and arthritic for pushing through snowstorms, so I ask young Mr. Clark to carry me. When I’m folded, I weigh very little. Merlin, he’s awake?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t last night.”
The man shook his head mournfully. “A bad business. My name, by the way, is Professor Juan Carlos.”
Bob introduced himself and said that breakfast preparations had not yet begun.
“No, no, of course not. It is early.” He looked up at Bob with the same hurt animal look that he had seen on the faces of so many other Magi lately. “Maybe we skip breakfast and go straight through the next portal. It’s safer.”
“You’ll need your strength, though,” Bob answered and was conscious that he sounded like his mother. “I’ll get Julie up. She’s the cook.”
“As you wish,” Professor Carlos answered in something like a sigh. “Oh, it is so wonderfully warm here. Not like where we have been lately.”
Bob sat down and asked eagerly, “Your group looks like you’ve really been through the mill. What happened?”
“You want to know our story? Our troubles begin four inns back. We are in a good place then, an inn in Madagascar, and due to go on to Mount Baldy rather comfortably by way of Marseilles and Pandora.”
“Pandora!” Bob said, nearly jumping from his chair. “Isn’t that a moon of, of….”
“Of Saturn, yes. Its inn is in the future. But nothing goes right.” He waved his hands about. “The Rebels cut our road ahead to Marseilles, and we take ship to the coast of Africa to find an old, abandoned portal in Nacala. That isn’t so bad. We have enough money for the passage, and the portal is e
asily found, so we think it is just a detour. No problem.”
Concerned for his guest in the heat, Bob interrupted to invite him to remove his jacket. When the professor did so, Bob saw blood stains on his white shirt. He asked him if he was hurt.
“No, no. A few scratches. Maniac with a knife, the same one who hurt Kim. I’m not seriously hurt. Let me tell you what happened. Leaving Nacala, we travel to the next inn in a valley in the Himalayan Mountains of long ago, maybe the twelfth century. This is the only inn I ever visited that is on an island in a lake and its portals, both of them, are on the shore of the lake, on opposite sides, of course. We come out of the portal, we have to signal to the inn out there in the lake to send a ferry boat across for us. Mind you, it is freezing cold, and we have to cross in a little boat with water turning to ice all around. Two sailors are breaking ice with oars to get us to the island, and finally, when we get close, they put us out on ice to go the last yards. Kim, she almost slips getting out of the boat. It’s impossible, but we do it.”
“Wow. Even the horse?”
“No, Master Merlin’s horse one of the inn servants takes around the lake during the night. It is a well-trained war horse from the dark ages.”
“Wow,” Bob said again.
“Yes, wow. The innkeeper is a young Indian woman. No Kreenspam, no English, no Spanish, nothing. Her father, he was a speaker of Kreenspam, and it was him that Herr Stringer persuaded to be the innkeeper, but he has fallen ill and has been taken away somewhere, likely to die.
“This girl Harsha, she puts us to bed in ice cold rooms, and we try to sleep. She wakes us up in the night! The Rebels are coming! Ice is now solid all the way across from the portal, and they are walking across to us without a ferry. We hastily gather on the far side of the island, and on that side ice is not formed yet. The inn servants have moved the ferry boat over there, so we put Master Merlin in and they take us across.”
Professor Carlos shakily stood and shouted toward the ceiling, “When will Ulrumman move his hand? Are we rats to be cornered and killed?” He sat down again. “Anger is no good. Nothing is no good.”
“You went out the far portal?” Bob prompted.
“Yes, and then we are in England of around 1800, out in a great big woods in winter. Can you believe it? Even colder than the Himalayas. Deep snow and more falling. The road is difficult but we walk to the inn, the horse pulling the litter as you must have seen last night. The innkeeper is a girl, Miss Jane Farrington, and too young for this work.” The older man glanced at Bob and smiled. “I am sorry. You too are young. It’s just that in better times we are used to more mature innkeepers. Miss Farrington is distracted, maybe because of the pressure of too many guests and fear of Rebels. Tears always on her face.”
“On the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Bob ventured. He himself had strong nerves but had felt a bit stretched lately.
“Probably,” Professor Carlos agreed. “And she has no servants. She stables the horse by herself. Then can you guess what happens in the night?”
“Up and out again,” Bob said.
“Si! Miss Farrington wakes us all screaming. A Rebel has gained the second story, even in snow, and comes in through a window to Mrs. Cohen’s room. It is a climb for a gymnast, and that is why, so we think, only one entered. I should explain that there are stout wooden shutters, locked tight, on all windows of the ground floor. One of us, Mrs. Cohen, he stabs to death in her bed while she sleeps. His plan is to kill us all quietly, one at a time. He moves on to my room where I am sleeping exhausted. I had neglected to bolt my door. I am saved by Miss Farrington, who, though exhausted herself, cannot sleep and is wandering the inn. She is carrying a flintlock pistol, loaded and cocked. She screams when she sees a man entering, and I am able to half rise and struggle with him, receiving these small wounds.
“With everyone in the inn being roused, he must consider the danger too great even for a bold devil such as himself. He runs back out my door, encounters Miss Kim and fells her with a knife stroke to the head. Miss Farrington shoots him in the back and he staggers back into my room and then jumps out the window. He dies in the snow below, though of course we do not know that until somewhat later. We find on him a revolver, which I think Mr. Devon has in his possession.
“Everyone is in an uproar and no one sleeps anymore. Before dawn, we slip away from the inn under cover of a great snowstorm, and by way of an obscure path to which Miss Farrington directs us. To travel more quickly, we leave behind our luggage. We try to persuade Miss Farrington to come with us, for she is all alone, but she refuses.”
“Now there’s an innkeeper,” Bob said with admiration.
“Yes, I should not have spoke of her youth. She is brave.”
“But why was she alone? Shouldn’t she have had servants?”
“They had all run away from fear. There had been other incidents, you see, and one of them had been murdered. I think that by now she herself will be dead.”
Bob was too affected to ask any more questions. He could only think, This is what’s coming our way, to this inn.
Julie came yawning into the room, and he had to try to explain to her how an extra guest had apparently arrived in the night. Soon they went to the kitchen and he helped her to fix enough breakfast for four adult-size Magi (hoping Merlin might be able to eat), seven dwarfs, and a dog.
They learned that morning that dwarfs are mighty at the table. When all the breakfast food was gone, Julie went to the refrigerator and the cabinets and pulled out and offered the little fellows anything she could find. They accepted it all with thanks in Kreenspam (Angfetal dalen) and ate the place out of house and home. In the end nothing remained that was remotely edible except soap and candles.
While Bob and Julie cleaned up afterward, the guests went to the living room to discuss their traveling plans. Bob politely shut the kitchen door to give them privacy. After not many minutes, Clark came to them, Looper padding gently after him, and sat down heavily at the table.
“We ought to move on quickly,” he said, “but we can’t go yet. Merlin’s pulse is down, so he shouldn’t be moved, and Kim and Prof. Carlos have gone to bed, both with fever. We had to help them up the stairs. There’s something wrong with the baby too.” He slumped over, looking beaten. “If those Rebels want us, they’ve got us now on a platter. We can’t run. We can’t even hobble. Do you believe in Ulrumman?”
Bob and Julie looked at each other.
“Never heard of him,” Julie answered.
“I wish I hadn’t. He’s the one who supposedly saves the good folk when evil is about to get them. Only he doesn’t. Ruth Cohen—she was traveling with us—is dead. The baby doesn’t stand much chance either if I know anything about respiration.”
“But you will get through,” Julie said spiritedly. “It’s written down in future Mage history. Merlin’s party will be the last to make it to safety.”
Clark looked up with curiosity. “Where did you hear that?”
“From Bis, a Mage from the twenty-third century. So don’t be glum. Something will stop the Rebels. Bis wasn’t sure what it would be, but something will come along.”
Clark stood with purpose. “I have to go tell them this. If Merlin had been conscious, he would have told us, but of course…. I never studied much Mage history myself. Few do to any extent. It’s so hard to get reliable texts from far enough in the future, and then if you do, they always leave out the key information you want. We should keep better histories, but we have so much else to be thinking about and doing.” He sank into his chair again. “But that means…well, I never gave them much chance anyway.”
“What’s that?” Bob asked, tensing.
“At least one more group was to come through. They’re somewhere behind us, I don’t know how many inns back.”
“How many Magi?” Julie asked, ready to cry.
“More than
our group.”
“Oh, God, they’ll be slaughtered!”
Clark heaved a sigh. “Maybe they already have been. Now take it easy, Julie. If that’s the case then it will have happened far away. They don’t have much chance now of making it through to here.” He stood again. “I’ll go tell the others what you just told me. They need the encouragement.”
When he had left the room, Julie turned to Bob. “If another group does come tonight, we won’t have anything to feed them.”
Bob nodded, thinking of how he had not yet violated any Innkeeper’s Rule, and that feeding every guest was on the list. “We need to be ready just in case,” he said.
“So what should we do, I mean, sell my car? Or I could ask my parents for a loan.”
“No,” Bob said. “I’ll take care of it this afternoon. I’ve got something I can sell. I’ll go to Viola while they’re resting.”
“Well, take my cell phone with you. I want to keep in touch with you.”
Mr. Elton of Elton’s Fine Jewelry, Mercury, Indiana, removed the small magnifying lens from his eye. “This,” he said, “is easily the most valuable and the most curious gem I have ever examined. I feel privileged to have seen it.”
He handed the great yellow gem back to Bob.
“What about buying it?” Bob asked shyly.
“Out of the question.” The old man looked up sharply at Bob. “I am not going to ask questions, but one would like to know how you came into possession of something worth a fortune and yet plainly don’t even know what it is you have.”
“Right, let’s just skip on by that. The point is, I’ll sell it to you cheap.”
“No, you won’t. I don’t cheat customers; I don’t have enough money to buy this at anything like a fair price; and most of all, I don’t risk buying stolen merchandise.”
Bob looked at his watch. “But I need to be getting back, and actually, I’m not sure I have enough gas in my car to make it.”
“I’m sorry. I advise you to tell me no more about it and to leave. Otherwise, I might feel obligated to call the police.”
Bob regretfully put the gem back in his pocket. “Thank you, Mr. Elton. At least I know where I stand now.”
He went back out into the glaring July sunlight and walked slowly toward City Hall.
Portly, graying Mrs. Kemp of the Treasurer’s Office worked at her computer for a minute and then answered, “That’s right, the redemption period for 16024 Grantham Road is over at five o’clock on Thursday. If it isn’t redeemed, it’ll be owned by the highest bidder.”
“But isn’t there some way to get a reprieve or a waiver or…?”
Mrs. Kemp was shaking her head vigorously. “No exceptions. That’s the deadline.”
Bob nodded sadly. “So it’s all over tomorrow, huh?”
“Yes.” She looked at him over her glasses. “You should know that it doesn’t have to be your grandfather to redeem the property. Anyone can. Do you want to redeem it?”
Bob laughed. “I think I’ve got fifteen cents.”
Mrs. Kemp did not think this was funny. “The redemption amount is $5256.”
Bob knew he didn’t even have a dollar, but he opened his wallet anyway to show her. Actually, he found, he did have a buck. Sticking out from under his driver’s license was the 1935 bill Mr. Peterbridge had given him. He took it out and looked at it.
“That’s an old bill. Can I look at it?” Mrs. Kemp held her hand out for it, and he gave it to her. She looked at the bill. “Son, this is a silver certificate.”
“Is that OK?”
“It’s fine, it’s money. My husband collects these.”
“Sounds like a fun hobby,” said Bob with a grin. “Maybe you could trade it out for another bill, and he can add it to his collection. Uh, is it worth anything?”
“Most of them are worth about a dollar.”
“Oh, well, go ahead and take it if you want.”
Mrs. Kemp gave him two dollars from her purse. “That should more than cover it,” she said. “Just write down your name and phone number here in case it's worth more and I need to get back with you.”
Once back on the baking July sidewalk, Bob moved to the shade under an awning and dialed the inn on Julie’s cell phone.
“Hi,” Julie said tautly. “I was just about to call you.”
“Really? What’s up?”
“Your Uncle just called and said they’re coming over this evening. He didn’t ask, he just said they’re coming.”
“To take charge of the property, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But he told me I could have until tomorrow.”
“That’s what I said, and first he told me it was none of my business, and then he said they could have you evicted.”
“Not true—yet. We’ve got one more day. Say, and I just made a dollar in trade.”
She gurgled. “Where did you get a dollar?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there. Julie, we can’t have them coming to the inn if there’s guests tonight. I mean, if there aren’t, I might as well give Uncle Dave the keys and move out. It makes no difference if it’s a day early. But if we have guests…”
“I think you better get back here,” Julie said.
“Right. Have Clark and the others gone through the portal yet?”
“No, they’re still trying to pull themselves together. I’m really worried about that baby.”
“OK, look, I’m coming right back. Does a car get better mileage driving fast or slow?”
“I don’t know. Is this more than a theoretical question?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“So buy a dollar’s worth of gas.”
“No, I think I can make it without stopping for that.”
“OK, so drive fast and hope you can coast the last mile.”
“I’m on my way.”