by Kage Baker
The very last page was a list of five names, none of them Sunbolt, with four of them crossed out. The remaining name was underlined. It was Teeba Burnbright.
Under that was written: Present employment: house messenger, Hotel Grandview, 4 Front Street, Salesh-by-the-Sea.
“I didn’t know her first name was Teeba,” said Smith distractedly.
“Burnbright?” Mrs. Smith scowled at him. “What’s she got to do with it?”
Smith waved the handful of papers, thinking hard.
“The first thing he asked when he got here was if he could see our house runner,” he said. “I sent Burnbright up to him as soon as she got back. I haven’t seen her since. Crucible said she’d run off crying about something. Oh, hell—”
“She’s asleep in her room,” Mrs. Smith informed him. “I went into the cellar for some apricot preserves for the Festival Cake, and she was hiding down there, sniveling. She’d opened a bottle of orchid extract and gotten herself into a state of messy intoxication. I gave her a dose of Rattlerail’s Powders and a thorough telling-off, and sent her to bed. Smith, that child’s far too scatterbrained to pull off a murder!”
“But she knows something,” said Smith.
“Well, you’re going to have to wait until morning to question her,” said Mrs. Smith, “with the condition she was in.”
“I guess so.” Smith stuffed the papers back in the scribe’s case and set them aside. Suddenly he felt bone-tired and very old. “All this and Lord Ermenwyr under the roof, too. I’ve had enough of Festival.”
“Two days yet to go of exquisite orgiastic fun,” said Mrs. Smith grimly.
Far too early the next morning, Smith was crouched at his desk in the lobby, warming his hands on a mug of tea. Most of the hotel’s guests were either passed out in their rooms or in the shrubbery, and it would be at least an hour before anyone was likely to ring for breakfast. He had already spotted Burnbright. She was sitting in the deserted bar, deep in quiet conversation with the young Yendri doctor. He was holding both her hands and speaking at length. Smith was only waiting for Willowspear to leave so he could have a word with her in private.
While they were still cloistered together, however, Lord Ermenwyr and his bodyguards came down the staircase.
“Smith.” Lord Ermenwyr looked from side to side and caught his sleeve. “Are you aware you’ve got a … er … deceased person in Room 2?”
“Not anymore,” Smith told him. “We carried him down into the cold storage cellar an hour ago.”
“Oh, good,” said the lordling. “The smell was making the boys restless, and there was a soul raging around in there half the night. Came through my wall at one point and started throwing things about, until I appeared to him in my true form. He turned tail at that, but I was looking forward to a bit of fun tonight and don’t want any apparitions interrupting me. Who was it?”
Smith explained, rubbing his grainy eyes.
“Really!” Lord Ermenwyr looked shocked. “Well, I wish I’d been the one to send him to his deserved reward! Coppercut was a real stinker, you know. No wonder Burnbright’s in need of spiritual comfort.”
“Is that what they’re doing in there?” Smith peered over at the bar.
“She and Willowspear? Of course. He’s a Disciple, you know. Has all the sex drive of a grain of rice, so skittish young ladies in need of a sympathetic shoulder to cry on find him irresistible.” Lord Ermenwyr sneered in the direction of the bar. “Perhaps she’d like a bit of slightly more robust consolation later, do you think? I’ll listen to her problems and give her advice she can use next time she has to kill somebody.”
“You don’t think she did it?” Smith scowled.
“Oh, I suppose not. Say, did you have plans for the body?” Lord Ermenwyr turned back and looked at him hopefully.
“Yes. The City Warden is coming for it after Festival.”
“Damn. In that case, what about sending out for a sheep?” The lordling dug in his purse and dropped a silver piece on the desk. “That ought to take care of it. Just have the porter lead it straight up to my suite. I’m going back to bed now. Would the divine Mrs. Smith be so kind as to send up a tray of tea and clear broth?”
“I’ll see it done, lord,” said Smith, eyeing the silver piece and wondering where he was going to get a live sheep during Festival.
“Thanks. Come along, boys.” Lord Ermenwyr turned on his heel and headed back toward the stairs, with his bodyguards following closely. At the door of the bar he leaned in and yelled: “If you’ve quite finished, Willowspear, I believe my heartbeat’s developing an alarming irregularity. You might want to come along and pray over me or something. Assuming you’ve no objection, Burnbright dearest?”
There was a murmur from the bar, and Willowspear hurried out, looking back over his shoulder. “Remember that mantra, child,” he said, and turned to follow his master up the stairs.
“Burnbright,” Smith called.
A moment later she came through the doorway, reluctant to look at him. Burnbright was in as bad a shape as a young person can be after a night of tears and orchid extract, which was a lot better than Smith himself would have been under the same circumstances. She dug a knuckle into one slightly swollen eye, and asked, “What?”
“What happened, up there with Mr. Coppercut?” Her mouth trembled. She kept her gaze on the floor as she said; “I thought he wanted me to run him a message. He didn’t have any messages. He told me he knew who I really was. Told me all this story about these people who got themselves killed when I was a baby, or something. Said he knew who fostered me out to my mother house. Said I had guilty blood and some big noise House Smeltmetal or somebody would pay a lot of money for my head. Said he could set bounty hunters after me with a snap of his fingers!”
She looked up at Smith in still-simmering outrage. “I told him it was a lot of lies. He said he could prove it, and he said he was going to write about me being one of the survivors, so everybody’d know who I am and where I live. Unless I paid him. And I said I didn’t have any money. And he said that wasn’t what he wanted.”
“Bastard,” said Smith. “And…?
“What d’you think he wanted?” Burnbright clenched her little fists. “And … and he said there were other things he wanted me to do. I got up to run at that, and he couldn’t stop me, but he told me to think it over. He said to come back when I’d calmed down. Said he’d be waiting. So I ran away.”
“You went downstairs to hide?”
“I needed to think,” said Burnbright, blushing. “And Mrs. Smith caught me and gave me what for because I was drinking. So I went upstairs, but I’d been thinking, well, it’s Festival after all and maybe it’s not so wrong. But it seemed awfully unfair, now of all times! But then I thought maybe he’d leave me alone after—and nobody’d ever know if I… well anyway, I went in to see him. But—” She paused, gulped.
“He was dead?”
Burnbright nodded quickly, giving him a furtive look of relief. “Sitting there in the firelight, just like in a ghost story. So I left.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with getting him killed? Didn’t put drain cleaner in his food?” asked Smith, just to have it said and done with. Burnbright shook her head.
“Though that would have been a really good idea,” she admitted. Her eyes widened. “Did somebody do that? Eeeew!! It must have eaten through him like—”
“We don’t know how he died,” said Smith. “I’m trying to find out.”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Burnbright maintained. “As mean as he was, he probably had lots of enemies. And now he can’t hurt anybody else!” she added brightly.
“Did you touch anything in the room when you were there?”
“Nothing,” Burnbright said. “You’re not supposed to, are you, at a murder scene? There were lots of murders in Mount Flame City; everyone there knows what to do when you stumble on a body. Leave fast and keep your mouth shut!”
“All right. So you haven’
t told anybody?”
Burnbright flushed and looked away. “Just that… doctor. Because I… he asked me what was the matter. But he won’t tell. He’s very spiritual.”
“For a greenie, eh?”
“I never met one like him,” said Burnbright earnestly. “And he’s beautiful. Don’t you think? I could just stare at that face for hours.”
“Well, don’t,” Smith told her, too weary to be amused. “Go help the porters cleaning up the terrace.”
“Okay!” Burnbright hurried off. Smith watched her go, pressing his tea mug to the spot on his left temple where his headache was worst. The heat felt good.
He was still sitting like that, mulling over what he’d just learned, when a man came running in from the street.
Smith straightened up and blinked at him suspiciously, not because of the stranger’s precipitate appearance but because he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. There was a blurred quality to the man’s outline, an evanescent play of uncertain colors. For a moment Smith wondered whether Coppercut’s ghost wasn’t on the loose, perhaps objecting to his body being laid out on three blocks of ice between a barrel of pickled oysters and a double flitch of bacon.
But as he neared the desk, stumbling slightly, the stranger seemed to solidify and focus. Tall and slender, he wore nothing but an elaborately worked silver collar and a matching ornament of a sheathlike nature over his loins. It being the middle of Festival, this was nothing to attract attention; but there was something unsettlingly familiar about the young man’s face.
His features were smooth and regular, handsome to the point of prettiness. His hair was thickly curling, and there was a lot of it. His wide eyes were cold, glittering, and utterly mad.
“Hello,” he said, wafting wine fumes at Smith. “I understand this is a, er, friendly hotel. Can I see your thing you write people’s names in?”
His voice was familiar too. Smith peered at him.
“You mean the registration book?”
“Of course,” said the youth, just as three more strangers ran through the doorway and Smith placed the likeness. If Lord Ermenwyr were taller, and clean-shaven, and had more hair, and didn’t squint so much—
“There he is!” roared one of the men.
“Die, cheating filth!” roared another.
“Vengeance!” roared the third.
The youth said something unprintable and vanished. Smith found himself holding two mugs of tea.
The three men halted in their advance across the lobby.
“He’s done it again!” said the first stranger.
“There he is!” The second pointed at the tea mug in Smith’s left hand.
“Vengeance!” repeated the third man, and they resumed their headlong rush. But they were now rushing at Smith.
They were unaware of Smith’s past, however, or his particular talent, and so, ten seconds later, they were all dead.
One had Smith’s left boot knife embedded in his right eye to the hilt. One had Smith’s right boot knife embedded in his left eye, also to the hilt. The third had Smith’s tea mug protruding from a depression in his forehead. Looking very surprised, they stood swaying a moment before tottering backward and collapsing on the lobby carpet. No less surprised, Smith groaned and, getting to his feet, came around the side of the desk to examine the bodies. Quite dead.
“That was amazing! Thanks,” said the youth, who had reappeared beside him.
Smith’s headache was very bad by then, and for a moment the pounding was so loud he thought he might be having a stroke; but it was only the thunder of eight feet in iron-soled boots descending the stairs, and behind them the rapid patter of two feet more elegantly shod.
“Master!” shouted Lord Ermenwyr’s bodyguards, prostrating themselves at the youth’s feet.
“Forgive us our slowness!” implored Cutt.
“What in the Nine Hells are you doing here?” hissed Lord Ermenwyr furiously, staring at the youth as though his eyes were about to leap right out of his head.
“Hiding,” said the youth, beginning to grin.
“Well, you can’t hide here, because I’m hiding here, so go away!” said Lord Ermenwyr, stamping his feet in his agitation. Willowspear, who had come up silently behind him, stared at the newcomer in amazement.
“My lord! Are you unhurt?” he asked.
The youth ignored him, widening his grin at Lord Ermenwyr. “Ooo! Is the baby throwing a tantrum? Is the poor little stoat scared he’s going to be dug out of his hole? Here comes the scary monster to catch him!”
“Stop it!” Lord Ermenwyr screamed, as the youth shambled toward him giggling, and as the youth’s graceful form began to run and alter into a horrible-looking melting mess. “You idiot, we’re in a city! There are people around!”
Smith drew a deep breath and leaped forward, grabbing the thing that had been a youth around its neck and doing his best to get it in a chokehold. To his amazement, Curt, Crish, Stabb, and Strangel were instantly on their feet, snarling at him, and Willowspear had seized his arm with surprisingly strong hands.
“No! No! Smith, stop!” cried Lord Ermenwyr.
“Then … this isn’t the mage Blichbiss?” Smith inquired, as the thing in his grip oozed unpleasantly.
“Who?” bubbled the thing.
“This is the Lord Eyrdway,” Willowspear explained. “The Variable Magnificent, firstborn of the Unwearied Mother, heir to the Black Halls.”
“He’s my damned brother,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “You’d better let him go, Smith.”
Smith let go. “A thousand apologies, my lord,” he said cautiously.
“Oh, that’s all right,” gurgled the thing, re-forming itself into the handsome youth. “You did just save my life, after all.”
This brought Smith’s attention back to the three dead men lying in front of the desk. Lord Ermenwyr followed his gaze.
“Dear, dear, and I promised you there wouldn’t be any bodies lying around your nice hotel, didn’t I? Boys, let’s get rid of the evidence. Who were they?” He turned a gimlet eye on Lord Eyrdway, as the bodyguards moved at once to gather up the dead. They carried them quickly up the stairs, chuckling amongst themselves.
“Who were they? Just some people,” said Lord Eyrdway, a little uncomfortably. “Can I have a drink?”
“What do you mean, ‘just some people’?” demanded Lord Ermenwyr.
“Just some people I… cheated, and sort of insulted their mothers,” said Lord Eyrdway. “And killed one of their brothers. Or cousins. Or something.” His gaze slid sideways to Smith. “Hey, mortal man, want to see something funny?”
He lunged forward and grabbed Lord Ermenwyr’s beard, and gave it a mighty yank.
“Ow!” Lord Ermenwyr struck his hand away and danced back. Lord Eyrdway looked confused.
“It’s a real beard now, you cretin!” Lord Ermenwyr said, rubbing his chin.
“Oh.” Lord Eyrdway was nonplussed for a moment before turning to Smith. “See, he’s got this ugly baby face and he was worried he’d never grow a real mage’s beard like Daddy’s, so he—”
“Shut up!” raged Lord Ermenwyr.
“Or maybe it was to hide his pimples,” Lord Eyrdway continued gloatingly, at which Lord Ermenwyr sprang forward and grabbed him by the throat. Willowspear and Smith managed to pry them apart, and managed only because Lord Eyrdway had made a ridge of thorns project out of the sinews of his neck, causing his brother to pull back with a yelp of pain. He stood back, nursing his hands and glaring at Lord Eyrdway.
“Those had better not be venomous,” he said.
“Curl up and die, shorty,” Lord Eyrdway told him cheerfully. He looked around. “Is there a bar in here?”
“Maybe we should all go upstairs, lord?” Smith suggested.
“Er—no,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “I don’t think you want to go into my rooms for the next little while.” He looked at the entrance to the bar. “It’s private in there.”
It would be hours yet before Rivet came
in to work, so Willowspear obligingly went behind the bar and fetched out a couple of bottles of wine and glasses for them.
“Is anybody else likely to come bursting in here in pursuit of you?” Lord Ermenwyr inquired irritably, accepting a glass of wine from Willowspear.
“I don’t think so,” said Lord Eyrdway. “I’m pretty sure I scared off the rest of them when I turned into a giant wolf a few streets back. You should have seen me! Eyes shooting fire, fangs as long as your arm—”
“Oh, save it. I’m not impressed.”
“Are you a mage also, lord?” Smith inquired, before they could come to blows again.
“Me, a mage?” Lord Eyrdway looked scornful. “Gods, no. I don’t need to do magic. I am magic.” He drained his wine at a gulp and held out his glass to be refilled. “More, Willowspear. What are you doing down here, anyway?”
“Attending on your lord brother,” Willowspear replied, bowing and refilling his glass. “And—”
“That’s right, because Nursie’s busy with the new brat!” Lord Eyrdway grinned again. “So poor little Wormenwyr needs somebody else to start up his heart when it stops beating. Did you know my brother is practically one of the undead, mortal? What was your name?”
“Smith, lord.”
“The good Smith knows all about me,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “But I never told him about you.”
“Oh, you must have heard of me!” Lord Eyrdway looked at Smith in real surprise.
“Well—”
“Hear, mortal, the lamentable tragedy of my house,” Lord Ermenwyr intoned gloomily. “For it came to pass that the dread Master of the Mountain, in all his inky and infernal glory, did capture a celestial Saint to be his bride, under the foolish impression he was insulting Heaven thereby. But, lo! Scarce had he clasped her in his big evil arms when waves of radiant benignity and divine something-or-other suffused his demonic nastiness, permanently reforming him; for, as he was later to discover to his dismay, the Compassionate One had actually let him capture her with that very goal in mind. But that’s the power of Love, isn’t it? It never plays fair.