by Kage Baker
“Coppercut?” A small scowling man appeared out of nowhere, twisting his mustaches. “You’re late for our interview. I was going to give you all kinds of trashy details about the life of my late father, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right!” exclaimed Coppercut, as the small man grabbed his elbow and steered him out of the bar. “How stupid of me—but I get like this, you know, when I’ve just waked up after a catatonic fit, very disorganized—nice meeting you, City Warden, sir!”
“So you got your Safety Certificate,” said Lord Ermenwyr with satisfaction, exhaling green smoke. “And the Variable Magnificent is safely on his way home.”
He was sitting with Smith and Mrs. Smith at their best terrace table, as they watched the first stars pinpricking out of the twilight. Like an earthbound echo, Crucible and Pinion moved from table to table lighting the lamps and oil heaters.
“I thought he couldn’t go home until he’d got enough money to pay back your lord father,” said Smith, dodging an elbow as Lord Ermenwyr’s bodyguards genuflected.
Lord Ermenwyr snickered.
“Much as he was looking forward to joining the Boys’ Own Street Corner Brigade, it doesn’t look as though it’ll be necessary. The late unlamented Mr. Coppercut carried his private accounts book with him, as it turns out. Had more gold socked away in the First Bank of Mount Flame than Freskin the Dictator! Eyrdway’s quite taken with pretending to be a famous scandalmonger. Plans to masquerade as Coppercut a bit longer.”
“Is that safe?” Mrs. Smith inquired. “Given the enemies Mr. Coppercut had?”
“Probably not,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “If he’s sensible, he’ll hit the bank first, pay back Daddy, then party the rest of the fortune away before anyone suspects he’s an imposter. That’s what I told him to do. Will he listen? Or will I run into him in some low bar in six months’ time, ragged and grotesquely daubed with cosmetics, vainly attempting to interest potential buyers? I can but hope.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke and smiled at it beatifically, as though he beheld a vision of fraternal degradation therein.
“You must have been horrible little children,” said Mrs. Smith, shaking her head.
“Utterly, dear Mrs. Smith.”
“Did your lord brother clean out your bathroom before he left?” Smith inquired cautiously.
“Of course he didn’t,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “He never cleans up any mess. That’s for law-abiding little shrimps like me, or so I was informed when I attempted to get him to at least take a sponge to the ring in the tub. I just smiled and offered him the contents of Mr. Coppercut’s traveling medicine chest. He was delighted, assuming it was full of recreational drugs. Since bothering to read labels is also only for law-abiding little shrimps, he’ll be unpleasantly surprised to learn that Mr. Coppercut suffered from chronic constipation.”
“So your bathroom…”
“Oh, don’t worry; I had the boys scrub down the walls. Only a medium could detect that anything unpleasant happened there now,” Lord Ermenwyr said.
“And the…”
“Got rid of them last night. We collected all the, er, odds and ends and crept down to your back area drain under cover of darkness. Dumped them in and pitched most of a barrel of Scourbrass’s Foaming Wonder in after them. Poof!” Lord Ermenwyr blew smoke to emphasize his point. “All gone, except for a couple of indignant shades, and I gave them directions to the closest resort in Paradise, with my profound apologies and a coupon for two free massages at the gym. But, Smith, I meant to ask you—where does that drain empty out?”
“Oh, not on the beach,” Smith assured him. “It goes straight into the sea.”
“You’re dumping sewage and caustic chemicals into the sea?” Lord Ermenwyr frowned.
“Everybody does,” said Smith.
“But… your people swim in that water. They catch fish in it.”
Smith shrugged. “The sea’s a big place. Maybe all the bad stuff sinks to the bottom? It’s never caused a problem for anybody.”
“And maybe you’re all being slowly poisoned, and you don’t realize it,” said Lord Ermenwyr. He looked panicked. “Nine Hells! I’ve been drinking oyster broth here!”
“Oh, it’s perfectly wholesome,” said Mrs. Smith.
“But don’t you see—” Lord Ermenwyr looked into their uncomprehending faces. He groaned. “No; no, you don’t. This is one of those cultural blind spots, isn’t it? Mother’s always on about this. She says you’ll all destroy yourselves one of these days with just this sort of heedlessness, and then Daddy says ‘Well, let them, and good riddance,’ and then they start to quarrel and everyone runs for cover. Look, you can’t just keep pouring poison into your ocean!”
“Well, where else can we put it?” Smith asked.
“Good question.” Lord Ermenwyr tapped ash from his smoking tube. “Hmm. I could ensorcel your sewage pipes so they dumped into another plane. Yes! Though, to do any real good, I’d need to put the same hocus on all the sewer pipes in town…”
“But then the sewage would just back up in somebody else’s plane,” Mrs. Smith pointed out.
“Unless I found a plane where the inhabitants liked sewage,” said Lord Ermenwyr, packing fresh weed into the tube and lighting it with a fireball. He puffed furiously, eyes narrowed in speculation. “This is going to take some planning.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” said Mrs. Smith. “I’d imagine your lady mother will be very proud of you.”
Lord Ermenwyr looked disconcerted at the idea.
Across the terrace, picking their way between the tables with some awkwardness because they seemed unable to let go of each other, came Willowspear and Burnbright.
“We need something,” said Burnbright.
“That is—with your permission, sir—” said Willowspear.
“What he wants to know is, there’s a dirt lot on the other side of the area where we keep the dustbins, and it’s got nothing but weeds on it now, so couldn’t we make a garden there?” said Burnbright. “To grow useful herbs and things? Him and me’d do all the work. I don’t know anything about gardening, but he does, so he’ll teach me, and that way we could have medicines without having to go to the shops in—in the quarter where Yendri live. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“I guess so,” said Smith.
“Ha! Just try it,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “The minute passersby spot a greenie planting exotic herbs here, there’ll be rampant rumors you’re growing poisons to kill off the good citizens of Salesh as part of a fiendish Yendri plot. You’ll get lynched.”
“No, we won’t!” said Burnbright. “You’re only saying that because I wouldn’t sleep with you, you nasty little man. If people come to Willowspear when they’re sick and his medicine makes them feel better, they won’t be afraid of him!”
“Of course they will, you delectable idiot. They’ll be intimidated by the idea that he has secret knowledge,” Lord Ermenwyr explained. “Evil mystic powers! Scary mumbo jumbo!”
“Not if they get used to him,” said Burnbright. Her eyes went wide with revelation. “That’s the whole problem, is that nobody ever really gets to know anybody else, but if they did, they’d see that other people aren’t so bad after all and a lot more like us than we thought and … and … sometimes everything you’ve been told your whole life is wrong!”
“You can’t change the world, child,” said Mrs. Smith.
“I’ll bet we can change some of it,” said Burnbright defiantly. “That bit with the weeds, anyway.”
“If we don’t try, how will anyone know whether it can be done?” said Willowspear to Mrs. Smith. She said nothing, watching as Burnbright gazed up at him in adoration.
“I’ll have Crucible get you some gardening tools,” said Smith.
“Thank you!” Burnbright threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“You won’t regret it, sir,” Willowspear assured him, terribly earnest. He took Burnbright’s hand again.
They walked off together,
into the fragrant twilight.
“A light, Mrs. Smith?” Lord Ermenwyr offered.
“Please.” She angled her smoking tube, and he caused a bright fireball to flash at its tip. Smith waved away multicolored smoke.
“The boy seems to have turned out well. I’m very much obliged to your lady mother,” Mrs. Smith told Lord Ermenwyr. He puffed and nodded, leaning back in his chair.
“You might have managed it yourself, you know, after all,” he replied. “You’ve practically raised Burnbright, wretched little guttersnipe that she is. Why?”
She gave him a hard level stare.
“Because it’s hard to let go of the past,” she said. “You keep hoping you can make the story turn out with a happier ending, even when you’ve learned better. If those two children can escape the doom in their blood, maybe all that death and agony wasn’t suffered for nothing. And…”
“And what?” Smith inquired.
Mrs. Smith set her hand on Smith’s. “She’s Kalyon Sunbolt’s daughter, Smith. If I had it to do all over again tomorrow, I’d die at his side. Gods don’t walk this earth very often, but one walked in him. I can’t explain it any better than that.”
She glanced across the terrace. Willowspear and Burnbright were poking around in the weeds behind the dustbin. The sound of their young voices floated back through the dusk as they made plans for their garden.
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Spacious residential quarters situated conveniently near business and shopping arcades will enable our latter-day pioneers to enjoy all the blessings of an unspoiled rural paradise without giving up any of the civilized comforts to which they are accustomed. A fully armed militia is already in place to guarantee that forest denizens keep a respectful distance from this new beachhead of our race.
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Inquire at the Sign of the Three Hammers, Chain Avenue, Port Ward’b.
“ ‘FOREST denizens,’ ” says an angry voice.
“ ‘Beachhead of their race?’ ” says another.
“Their birthright!” says a third voice.
There is more muttered conversation in the darkness.
The stars wheel through the hours; the bright sun rises at last, and its slanting bars strike the wall where the real estate sign was pasted up only the day before. A city Night Warden, trudging home at last, stops and stares at the wall. From a crack in the pavement a green vine has sprouted and scaled the red stones with supernatural speed. It has thrust tendrils under the poster, spread and ripped and crumpled its fragments; and small green snails are crawling over what remains, greedily consuming the paper and its bright inks.
Smith looked broodingly through his guest ledger.
No question about it; bookings were down since the Month of the Sardine Runs. Business at the restaurant was better, but still less than what it had been formerly.
There were a lot of good reasons why, of course. Deliantiba and Blackrock were engaged in a civil war, which put something of a crimp in travel and trade along the coast; not many pleasure boats set out for vacation destinations when a warship was likely to attack first and sort out survivors later.
Also, the price of fish had skyrocketed lately, which drove up prices in the restaurants; and though it was common knowledge that there was no fish shortage, that it was all a plot by the fishermen to drive prices up, still the fish didn’t seem to have heard that and stayed out of their customary waters. And now the new trouble…
As if on cue, Crossbrace of the City Wardens walked into the lobby, accompanied by two of his lieutenants. He assumed a stiff formal stance and avoided Smith’s eyes as he said; “Citizen! In accordance with Salesh City Statute 1,135.75, all members of alien races are required to swear an oath of allegiance and obedience to Salesh City Law. They have within two days of notification to comply or file an appeal with the—”
“He already took the oath, Crossbrace, you know that—” began Smith in real annoyance. Crossbrace, still keeping his eyes averted, held up an admonitory finger.
“Ah! That was Salesh City Statute .63, you see?” he said in a normal tone of voice. “There’s a new oath they have to rake saying they won’t vandalize our property.”
“Oh.” Smith was still annoyed. “Well, did you have to bring an arrest squad with you?”
“It’s not an arrest squad,” Crossbrace protested, looking hurt. “We thought we’d give him an escort. In case there’s trouble. There has been trouble, you know.”
Smith knew, but he muttered to himself as he slid from behind the front desk and led the way out onto the hotel’s back terrace.
It was a nice place, a shaded garden with a dramatic view of the sea. Strange and gorgeous flowers bloomed in one area set apart by low stone balustrades. There six people stood with their faces turned to the sky, in various postures of rapture. They were all Children of the Sun. The seventh was not; and he was speaking to them, softly and encouragingly.
“…and think of your own mothers, or any woman who was ever kind to you: some part of Her was in their hearts. Focus your prayers on that ideal of love and reach out to Her—”
He noticed Smith and the wardens.
“—and She must hear you, and She will help you. Now, we’ll conclude for this afternoon; go home and continue the meditation exercise on Compassion.”
Willowspear walked quickly toward Smith, murmuring “What is it?” as his students moved like sleepers waking.
“You have to—”
“It’s my duty to inform you that—”
“What are the Wardens doing here?” demanded one of the students, shooting from Bliss to Righteous Indignation like a pistol bolt.
“You can’t harass our trevani!” cried another student, grabbing up a gardening tool, and Willowspear grimaced and held out his hands to them in a placatory gesture.
“Please! Consider the First Principle of Patience in the Face of Aggression!” he cried. Somebody muttered something about a Trowel in the Face of Oppression, but in the trembling moment of peace that followed Smith said quickly, “It’s just a new oath you have to take, saying you won’t commit any acts of vandalism. All right?”
“I’ll be glad to swear the oath,” said Willowspear at once.
“What in the Nine Hells is a trevani?” demanded one of the Wardens, scowling.
“Shut up,” Crossbrace told him.
“He’s teaching ’em to worship the Green Witch,” said the other Warden.
“The Green Saint! He’s teaching us the Way of the Unwearied Mother, you unenlightened dog!” shouted another student.
“Not very successfully, either!” Willowspear cried, turning to face his students. “Put the shovel down, Mr. Carbon. Don’t shame me, please. Go to your homes and meditate on the First Principle.”
His students filed from the garden, glaring at the Wardens, who glared back, and Willowspear sighed and pressed his slender hands to his temples.
“Forgive them,” he said. “May I take the oath here, Mr. Crossbrace?”
“We have to escort you to the Temple of Law for it,” said Crossbrace, shifting from foot to foot. “Because of the trouble, see?”
“All right.”
“And a couple of mine will go with you, how about that?” said Smith. The porters Crucible and Pinion, who had been watching in silence from the lobby doorway, stepped forward and flexed their big arms.
“That’d be capital!” said Crossbrace, with a ghastly attempt at heartiness. “Let’s a
ll go now and get it over with, eh?”
“Right,” growled Pinion.
Smith saw them off, then went into the restaurant’s kitchen. Mrs. Smith was pounding spices in a mortar, and Burnbright was peeling apples. She was perched on a tall stool, rather precariously given her present condition, and there were shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.
“So I said to him, ‘Eight crowns for that puny thing? At that price it had bloody well better to be able to jump up and grant three wishes—’ ” Mrs. Smith paused to tip ash from her smoking tube into the sink, and saw Smith. In the moment of silence that followed, Burnbright looked up, looked from one to the other of them, and began to cry.
“Oh, oh, what’s happened now?” she wailed.
“He’s had to go down to the Temple of Law again,” Smith told her. “He won’t be long, though.”
“But he hasn’t done anything!” Burnbright wept. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”
“It’s just the way life is sometimes, child,” said Mrs. Smith, mechanically going to a cabinet and fetching out a bottle of Calming Syrup. She poured a spoonful, slipped it into Burnbright’s mouth between sobs, and had a gulp straight from the bottle herself. Having done that, she renewed her efforts with the mortar so forcefully that a bit of clove went shooting up and killed a fly on the ceiling.
“One goes through these dismal patches, now and again,” she continued grimly. “War. Economic disaster. Bestial stupidity on the part of one’s fellow creatures. Impertinent little men charging eight crowns for a week-old sardine. One learns to endure with grace.” Another particularly violent whack with the mortar sent a peppercorn flying. It hit the bottle of Calming Syrup with a ping, ricocheted off and narrowly missed Smith’s nose before vanishing out the doorway into the darkness of the hotel bar.
“He’ll be all right,” said Smith, patting Burnbright’s shoulder. “You’ll see. Everyone in this street will vouch for him—and after all, he’s married to you! So it’s not as though he could be ordered to leave the city or anything.”