by Kage Baker
“My lord—” he gasped.
“All together again!” Lord Ermenwyr landed with a crash and skittered across the lobby. His pupils had gone to pinpoints. “Good old Smith! You’ve had the drains cleaned since I was here last, haven’t you? And Mrs. Smith, how charming to see you! Nursie sends her best, she’d have been here but Mother had another damned baby"—here the giants and the Yendri doctor bowed involuntarily—"and Nursie adores babies, obsessed with the horrible little things in all their lace and woolies and whatnot—I keep warning everyone that they’ll find a cradle full of tiny gnawed bones one of these days, but nobody listens. Smith! Good to see you! Have I checked in yet?”
“No, Master,” one of the giants reminded him, in a terrifyingly deep voice with slightly odd enunciation. Smith looked at him sharply and exchanged a glance with Mrs. Smith.
“How careless of me.” Lord Ermenwyr took out his seal and stamped HOUSE KINGFISHER in five places on the register’s page. “And I haven’t done introductions yet, have I? Smith, Mrs. Smith, these are my bodyguards: Cutt, Crish, Stabb, and Strangel. Aren’t those great names? And this is my personal physician.” He waved a hand at the Yendri. “Agliavv Willowspear. A man who knows his antidepressants!”
Willowspear bowed.
“Yes, yes, I know he’s a greenie, but he’s utterly trustworthy,” said Lord Ermenwyr in a stage whisper. “Known him all my life. Mother’s always succoring defenseless orphans, alas. Anyway, I had to bring him; he’s one of Mother’s disciples and he’s on a vision quest or something, isn’t that right, Willowspear?”
“In a manner of speaking, my lord,” said Willowspear.
“A vision quest to Salesh at festival time?” said Mrs. Smith, regarding him keenly.
“Yes, lady.” Willowspear drew himself up and met her gaze. “My father, Hladderin Willowspear—”
Burnbright entered clutching a small bag presumably containing yellow plums, and, seeing Lord Ermenwyr at the desk, did her best to tiptoe through to the kitchen unobserved. About three paces on, however, her gaze riveted on Willowspear. Her mouth fell open, but she made no sound and kept moving forward, though her gaze remained on the Yendri. The result was that she walked straight into a chair and fell over it with a crash.
Everyone turned to stare at her.
“And it’s little Burnbright!” yodeled Lord Ermenwyr, vaulting the back of a sofa to land beside her and pull her to her feet. “Nine Hells, you’ve grown tits! When did that happen?”
“Girls grow up overnight, they say,” Smith explained, moving between them quickly, closely followed by Willowspear.
“Don’t they, just? Burnbright, runner dearest, you’ll have to come recite the latest news for me tomorrow, eh?” Lord Ermenwyr leered around Smith at her. “Private little tete-a-tete in my chamber? I like the morning report over my tea and pastry. I have breakfast in bed, too. Wouldn’t you like—”
“Her knee is bleeding,” Willowspear pointed out. Burnbright took her eyes from him for the first time and peered down at her leg dazedly. “Oh,” she said. “It is.”
“Well!” Lord Ermenwyr cried. “I’ll allot you the services of my personal physician to tend to it, how about that? Off to the kitchen with her, Willowspear, and plaster up that gorgeous leg, and make sure the other one’s undamaged, while you’re at it. She earns her living with those, after all.” “That would be beautiful—I mean—nice,” said Burnbright. “And as soon as he’s done, you’ve got a customer in Room 2,” Smith told her.
“Right,” she said, wide-eyed, as Willowspear took her hand and led her away.
“I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” said Lord Ermenwyr, looking around with an abrupt change of mood. “Oh, God, I need to get laid. Not safe, though. Smith, might we have a cozy chat in the bar? Just you and I and the bodyguards? There are a few little things you need to know.”
Mrs. Smith rolled her eyes. Smith muttered a silent prayer to his ancestors, but said, “Right away, lord.”
At that moment another guest arrived with some fanfare, a well-to-do lady who had apparently donned her festival costume early and seemed to be going as the Spirit of the Waters, to judge from the blue body paint and strategically placed sequins. Two goggle-eyed city porters followed her, with trunks that presumably contained the clothes she was not wearing.
Smith braced himself, expecting Lord Ermenwyr to engage in another display of sofa-vaulting; to his immense relief, instead the lordling gave the woman an oddly furtive look and plucked at Smith’s sleeve.
“I’ll just step into the bar now, if you don’t mind,” he muttered. “Pray join me when you’ve got a minute.”
He slunk away, with the bodyguards bumping into one another somewhat as they attempted to follow closely.
Smith stepped behind his desk to register the Spirit of the Waters, or Lady Shanriana of House Goldspur as she was known when in her clothes. Mrs. Smith lingered, seemingly loath to go back to the kitchen just yet.
When Lady Shanriana was safely on her way upstairs to her room, Mrs. Smith leaned close and said quietly, “Those are demons the lordling’s got with him.”
“That’s what I thought,” Smith replied. “With a glamour on them, I guess.”
“I can always tell when somebody’s talking around a pair of tusks, no matter how well they’re hidden. The accent’s unmistakable,” said Mrs. Smith. “But perhaps they’ll mind their manners. Nurse Balnshik was capable of civilized behavior, as I recall.”
Smith shivered pleasurably, remembering the kind of behavior of which Nurse Balnshik had been capable.
“She didn’t have tusks, of course,” he said irrelevantly.
At that moment Burnbright and Willowspear returned from the kitchen. She seemed to be leaning on his arm to a degree disproportionate to the tininess of the sticking plaster on her knee.
“I’ve never heard of using hot water and soap on a cut,” she was saying breathlessly. “It seems so simple! But then, you probably said some sort of spell over it too, didn’t you? Because there’s really no pain at all—”
“There you are, Willowspear,” said Lord Ermenwyr edgily, popping out of the bar. “I need you to check my pulse. Where’s Smith?”
“Just coming, lord,” said Smith, stepping from behind the counter. “And, Burnbright? You need to step up to Room 2.”
“Oh. All right,” she said, and climbed the stair unsteadily.
Smith and Willowspear followed Lord Ermenwyr into the bar, where he retreated to the farthest darkest booth and sat looking pointedly back and forth between Smith and the barman. Smith took the hint.
“Seven pints of Black Ship Stout, Rivet, then go mind the front desk for a bit,” he said. Rivet looked bewildered, but complied.
When they were settled in the booth (all but the bodyguards, who would never have fit in there anyway but made a solid wall in front of it) Lord Ermenwyr had a gulp of his pint, leaned forward in the gloom, and said, “I’m afraid I’m in certain difficulties, Smith.”
Smith groaned inwardly, but had a bracing quaff of his own pint, and said merely, “Difficulties, you say.”
“Yes, and it’s necessary I…hem… lie low for a while. That’s why I’m here.”
Smith thought to himself that his lordship could scarcely have chosen a more public place to go to ground than a resort hotel at Festival time, but he raised an eyebrow and said, “Really?”
“Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking, but I have my reasons!” Lord Ermenwyr snapped. “I’d better explain. I belong to certain, shall we say, professional organizations? Hereditary membership, thanks to Daddy. The AFA, the WWF, NPNS, BSS—”
“And those would be?”
“Ancient Fraternity of Archmagi,” Lord Ermenwyr explained impatiently. “World Warlocks’ Federation. Ninth Plane Necromancers’ Society. Brotherhood of Sages and Seers. To name but a few. And I, er, seem to have made an enemy.
“It all started when I attended this banquet and wore all my regalia from all the groups of
which I’m a member. Well, apparently that wasn’t considered quite in good taste, as some of the societies aren’t on the best of terms, but I’m new at this so how was I supposed to know? And several people took offense that I was wearing the Order of the Bonestar on the same side of my chest as the Infernal Topaz Cross and carrying the Obsidian Rod in my left hand.
“Just a silly little misunderstanding, you see? But one gentleman was rather more vocal than the rest of them. He’d been drinking, and I’d been, mmm, self-medicating, and I might have been clever at his expense or something, because he seems to have developed a dislike for me quite out of all proportion to anything I may or may not have said.”
Smith drank the rest of his pint in a gulp. “Go on,” he said, feeling doomed already.
“And then we ran for the same guild office, and I won,” Lord Ermenwyr. “I even won fairly. Well, reasonably fairly. But evidently this gentleman had wanted all his life to be the Glorious Slave of Scharathrion, and that I of all people should have dashed his hopes was too much. Rather silly, considering that all the title amounts to is being treasurer to a fraternity of pompous idiots obsessed with power; but there it is, and he’s decided to kill me.”
“All right,” said Smith patiently. “And that’s not against the club rules?”
Lord Ermenwyr squirmed in his seat. “Not as such, because he’s filed a formal declaration of intent to challenge me to a duel. Out of all the interminable number of fraternal bylaws, he got hold of one that’ll permit him to take my office if he defeats me in formal combat.
“Of course, he’s got to find me to do that,” he added, snickering.
“And so you’re hiding out here?”
“Exactly,” Lord Ermenwyr replied. “Perfect place for it! Magi are an antisocial lot, because they think they’re cleverer than everyone else, so what better place for me to dodge him than in the midst of the mundane mob he so detests? These duels always take place on a blasted heath or a mountaintop or somewhere equally dramatic. He won’t want to stoop to showing off his wizardly prowess in Salesh High Street, not he!”
“You haven’t touched that beer,” Smith said to Willowspear. “Don’t you drink?”
“No, sir, not alcohol,” Willowspear replied, pushing the glass toward him. “Please, help yourself.”
“Thanks.” Smith took the stout and drank deep before asking Lord Ermenwyr, “You haven’t tried to buy your enemy off?”
“That was the first thing I did, when I saw how he was taking it,” Lord Ermenwyr admitted, his gleam of glee fading somewhat. “ ‘Here,’ I said, ‘you can take your old staff of office, I don’t want it. Be the Glorious Slave of Scharathrion, if it means that much to you!’ But he insists it has to be bought in blood. Mine, I need hardly add. So I took to my heels.”
“What about—” Smith looked around furtively. “What about your lord father?”
All four of the bodyguards genuflected, slopping their drinks somewhat.
“He’s no use at all,” said Lord Ermenwyr bitterly. “He said that any son of his ought to be able to make mincemeat of a third-rate philtermonger like Blichbiss, and it was high time I learned to stand on my own and be a man, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum, and I said, ‘I hate you, Daddy,’ and ran like hell. And here I am.”
“Master, you mustn’t speak of the Master of Masters that way,” Cutt growled gently. “He is confident his noble offspring will bring swift and hideous death to his enemies, followed by an eternity of exquisite torment.”
“Oh, shut up and watch the door,” Lord Ermenwyr told him.
“So—you didn’t come here because you want me to kill this man for you,” Smith ventured.
“You?” Lord Ermenwyr gave a brief bark of laughter. “Oh, no no no! Dear old Smith, you’re the best at your trade (I mean, your former trade) I’ve ever seen, but Blichbiss is a mage! Way out of your league. No, all I need you to do is keep my visit here a secret. I’m just going to lurk in my suite until the problem goes away. I’ll have my meals sent up, and a courtesan or two, and if the luscious little Burnbright will keep me posted on local news and go out for my prescriptions now and then, I ought to get along famously. And … er … if you could manage to find a sheep for the boys to kill every couple of days, that would be nice too,” he added.
“When you do you think it’ll blow over?” Smith asked. “I’d always heard magi had long memories.”
“He’ll have to give up eventually,” Lord Ermenwyr assured him. “Don’t look so worried! It’s not as though there’s going to be a battle, with bodies scattered all over your nice clean hotel.”
“And you can keep him healthy?” Smith asked Willowspear.
“As healthy as I ever am,” said Lord Ermenwyr.
“I do the will of the Unwearied Mother,” said Willowspear, bowing his head. “And I will die, if necessary, to protect Her child.”
“I am not a child, I’m a slightly underage playboy, and there’s no need to get histrionic about it,” said Lord Ermenwyr testily. “We’re simply going to have a pleasant and very low-profile holiday by the sea.”
“Good, then,” said Smith, draining the second stout. “Because the hotel’s up for having its first safety inspection soon. It would be nice if nothing happened to queer things.”
“Oh, what could happen?” said Lord Ermenwyr breezily, lifting his glass.
Smith just shook his head, watching the lordling drink. He supposed that benign heavenly beings who incarnated into the flesh with the purpose of defeating worldly evil knew best how to go about their divine jobs; but surely there had been a better way to do it than singling out a Lord of Evil, marrying him, and forcing him to behave himself? Let alone bringing a lot of highly unstable and conflicted children into the world.
At least Lord Ermenwyr was only half a demon. Maybe only a quarter.
By evening the hotel was full and so was the restaurant, especially the outdoor terrace overlooking the bay, for Festival was scheduled to begin with a grand fireworks extravaganza. In keeping with the theme of unbridled sexual license to celebrate the primordial union of the First Ancestors, the fireworks really should have come at the end of Festival; but by that time the populace of Salesh was generally too sore and hungover to pay proper attention to further pyrotechnics.
The guests, resplendent in their body paint and masks, whooped and applauded as the bright rockets soared upward with a thrilling hiss, exploded into flowers of scarlet and emerald fire, and drifted down into the afterglow of sunset. Ships in the harbor ran colored lanterns up into their riggings and fired charges of colored paper from their cannons, so that streamers and confetti littered the tideline for days afterward. Partygoers rowed back and forth on the black water, occasionally colliding with other little boats and exchanging interesting passengers.
Barely audible all the way out on Salesh Municipal Pier, musicians played songs of love and longing to entice those who had not already paired off into the Pleasure Houses. The night was warm for spring, and the white waxen blossoms of Deathvine perfumed the air wherever they opened; so there were few who resisted the call to yield up their souls to delight.
“Where the hell are all our servers?” demanded Smith, struggling out to the center buffet with an immense tray that bore the magnificent Ballotine of Sea Dragon. Diners exclaimed in delight and pointed at its egg-gilded scales, its balefully staring golden eyes.
“The servers? Whanging their little brains out in the bushes, what do you think?” Crucible replied sourly. He took the ballotine from Smith and held it aloft with the artificial smile of a professional wrestler, acknowledging the diners’ cheers a moment, before setting it down and going to work on it with the carving knife.
“We’ve got to get more people out here! Where’s Burnbright?”
“She ran off crying,” said Crucible, sotto voce, producing the first perfectly stratified slice of dragon-goose-duck-hen-quail-egg and plopping it down on the plate of a lady who wore nothing but glitter and three large
artificial sapphires.
“What?”
“Asked her what was the matter. She wouldn’t tell me. But I saw her talking to that doctor,” muttered Crucible, sawing away at another slice. He gave Smith a sidelong sullen glare. “If that bloody greenie’s been and done something to our girl, me and the boys will pitch him down the cliff. You tell his lordship so.”
“Hell—” Smith turned wildly to look up at the lit windows of the hotel. Lord Ermenwyr, like most of the other guests, was seated on his balcony enjoying the view of the fireworks. Cutt and Crish were ranged on one side of him, Stabb and Strangel on the other, and behind his chair Agliavv Willowspear stood. Willowspear was gazing down onto the terrace with an expression of concern, apparently searching through the crowd.
“Smith!” trumpeted Mrs. Smith, bearing a five-tiered cake across the terrace with the majesty of a ship under full sail. “Your presence is requested in the lobby, Smith.” As she drew near she added, “It’s Crossbrace from the City Wardens. I’ve already seen to it he’s got a drink.”
Smith felt a wave of mingled irritation and relief, for though this was probably the worst time possible to have to pass an inspection, Crossbrace was easygoing and amenable to bribes. Dodging around Bellows, who was carrying out a dish of something involving flames and fruit sauce, Smith paused just long enough to threaten a young pair of servers with immediate death if they didn’t crawl out from under the gazebo and get back to work. Then he straightened his tunic, ran his hands through his hair, and strode into the hotel, doing his best to look confident and cheerful.
“Smith!” Crossbrace toasted him with his drink, turning from an offhand examination of the hotel’s register. “Joyous couplings. Thought I’d find you joyously coupling with some sylph!”
“Joyous couplings to you, too,” said Smith heartily, noting that Crossbrace was in uniform rather than Festival undress. “Who has time to joyously couple when you’re catering the orgy? You’ve got a drink? Have you dined? We’ve got a Sea Dragon Ballotine out on the terrace that’s going fast!”