Hot Times in Magma City, 1990-95

by Robert Silverberg

  Mulreany gets a blank look of nonrecognition from the man who opens the slitted door of the familiar shop for him. The Suleimanyis all look more or less alike—slender, swarthy hawk-nosed men with impressive curling mustachios—and Mulreany isn’t sure, as he enters, which one he’s encountering today. This one has the standard Suleimanyi features and appears to be about thirty. Mulreany assumes, pending further information, that it’s Mehmet the First or his son Ali, the main Suleimanyis of Basil’s reign, but perhaps he has showed up on this trip some point in time at which neither of them has met him before. So for all intents and purposes he is facing an absolute stranger. You get a lot of mismatches of this sort when you move back and forth across the time interface.

  A tricky business. He has to decide whether to identify himself for what he really is or to fold his cards and try someplace else that seems safer. It calls for an act of faith: there’s always the chance that the man he approaches may figure that there’s more profit to be had in selling him out to the police as a sorcerer than in doing business with him. But the Suleimanyis have always been on the up-and-up and Mulreany has no reason to mistrust this one. So he takes a deep breath and offers a sweeping salaam and says, in classier Greek than he had used with the innkeeper, “I am Mulreany of Chicago, who once more returns bringing treasure from afar to offer my friend the inestimable master Suleimanyi.”

  This is the moment of maximum danger. He searches Suleimanyi’s face for hints of incipient treachery.

  But what he sees is a quick warm smile with nothing more sinister than balance-sheet calculations behind it: a flash of genuine mercantile pleasure. The jeweler eagerly beckons him into the shop, which is dark and musty, lit only by two immense wax tapers. Anderson and Schmidt come in behind him, Schmidt taking care to bolt the door. Suleimanyi snaps his fingers, and a small solemn boy of about ten appears out of the shadows, bearing an ornate flask and four shallow crystal bowls. The jeweler pours some sort of yellowish green brandy for them. “My late father often spoke of you, O Mulreany, and his father before him. It gives me great joy that you have returned to us. I am Selim, son of Ali.”

  If Ali is dead, this must be very late in the long reign of Basil III. The little boy is probably Mehmet the Second, whom Mulreany will meet twenty or thirty years down the line in the time of Emperor Simeon. It makes him a little edgy to discover that he has landed here in the great Emperor Basil’s final years, because the Emperor apparently went a little crazy when he was very old, turning into something of a despot, and a lot of peculiar things were known to have occurred. But what the hell: they don’t plan to be dropping in for tea at the imperial palace.

  Before any transactions can take place an elaborate ritual of sipping the fiery brandy and exchanging bland snippets of conversation must occur. Selim Suleimanyi politely inquires after the health of the monarch of Mulreany’s country and asks if it has been the case that unruly barbarians have been causing problems for them lately along their borders. Mulreany assures him that all is well in and around Chicago and that the Mayor is fine. He expresses the hope that the Empire’s far-flung armies are meeting with success in the distant lands where they currently campaign. This goes on and on, an interminable spinning of trivial talk. Mulreany has learned to be patient. There is no hurrying these bazaar guys. But finally Suleimanyi says, “Perhaps now you will show me the things you have brought with you.”

  Mulreany has his own ritual for this. Schmidt opens one of the big burlap bags and holds it stolidly out; Mulreany gives instructions in English to Anderson; Anderson pulls items out of the bag and lays them out for Suleimanyi’s inspection.

  Five Swiss Army knives come forth first. Then two nice pairs of Bausch & Lomb binoculars, and three cans of Coca-Cola.

  “All right,” Mulreany orders. “Hold it there.”

  He waits. Suleimanyi opens a chest beneath the table and draws out a beautiful ivory hunting horn encircled by three intricately engraved silver bands showing dogs, stags, and hunters. He rests it expectantly on his open palm and smiles.

  “A couple of more Cokes,” Mulreany says. “And three bottles of Giorgio.” Suleimanyi’s smile grows broader. But still he doesn’t hand over the hunting horn.

  “Plus two of the cigarette lighters,” says Mulreany.

  Even that doesn’t seem to be enough. There is a long tense pause. “Take away one of the Swiss Army knives and pull out six ball point pens.”

  The subtraction of the knife is intended as a signal to Suleimanyi that Mulreany is starting to reach the limits of his price. Suleimanyi understands. He picks up one of the binoculars, twiddles with its focus, peers through it. Binoculars have long been one of the most popular trading items for Mulreany, the magical tubes that bring far things close. “Another of these?” Suleimanyi says.

  “In place of two knives, yes.”

  “Done,” says Suleimanyi.

  Now it’s the Turk’s turn. He produces an exquisite pendant of gold filigree inlaid with cloisonné enamel and hands it to Mulreany to be admired. Mulreany tells Anderson to bring out the Chanel No. 5, a bottle of Chivas, two more pairs of binoculars, and a packet of sewing needles. Suleimanyi appears pleased, but not pleased enough. “Give him a compass,” Mulreany orders.

  Obviously Suleimanyi has never seen a compass before. He fingers the shiny steel case and says, “What is this?”

  Mulreany indicates the needle. “This points north. Now turn toward the door. Do you see? The needle still points north.”

  The jeweler grasps the principle, and its commercial value in a maritime nation, instantly. His eyes light up and he says, “One more of these and we have a deal.”

  “Alas,” says Mulreany. “Compasses are great rarities. I can spare only one.” He signals Anderson to begin putting things away.

  But Suleimanyi, grinning, pulls back his hand when Mulreany reaches for the compass. “It is sufficient, then, the one,” he says. “The pendant is yours.” He leans close. “This is witchcraft, this north-pointing device?”

  “Not at all. A simple natural law at work.”

  “Ah. Of course. You will bring me more of these?”

  “On my very next visit,” Mulreany promises.

  They move along, after Suleimanyi has treated them to the spicy tea that concludes every business transaction in the Empire. Mulreany doesn’t like to do all his trading at a single shop. He goes looking now for a place he remembers near the intersection of Baghdad Way and the Street of Thieves, a dealer in precious stones, but it isn’t there; what he finds instead, though, is even better, a Persian goldsmith’s place where—after more brandy, more chitchat—he warily lets it be known that he has unusual merchandise from far-off lands for sale, meets with a reassuring response, and exchanges some Swiss Army knives, binoculars, various sorts of perfume, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and a pair of roller skates for a fantastic necklace of interwoven gold chains studded with pearls, amethysts, and emeralds. Even at that the Persian evidently feels guilty about the one-sidedness of the deal, and while they are sipping the inevitable wrapping-up tea he presses a pair of exquisite earrings set with gaudy rubies on Mulreany as an unsolicited sweetener. “You will come back to me the next time,” he declares intensely. “I will have even finer things for you—you will see!”

  “And we’ll have some gorgeous pruning shears for you,” Mulreany tells him. “Maybe even a sewing machine or two.”

  “I await them with extraordinary zeal,” declares the Persian ebulliently, just as though he understands what Mulreany is talking about. “Such miraculous things have long been desired by me!”

  The sincerity of his greed is obvious and comforting. Mulreany always counts on the cheerful self-interest of the bazaar dealers—and the covetousness of the local aristocrats to whom the bazaaris sell the merchandise that they buy from the sorcerers from Chicago—to preserve his neck. Sorcery is a capital offense here, sure, but the allure of big profits for the bazaaris and the insatiable hunger among the wealthy for exo
tic toys like Swiss Army knives and cigarette lighters causes everybody to wink at the laws. Almost everybody, anyway.

  As they emerge from the Persian’s shop Schmidt says, “Hey, isn’t that our innkeeper down the block?”

  “That son of a bitch,” Mulreany mutters. “Let’s hope not.” He follows Schmidt’s pointing finger and sees a burly red-haired man heading off in the opposite direction. The last thing he needs is for the innkeeper to spot the purported dealers in pots and pans doing business in the jewelry bazaar. But red hair isn’t all that uncommon in this city and in all likelihood the innkeeper is busy banging one of the chambermaids at this very moment. He’s glad Schmidt is on his toes, anyway.

  They go onward now down the Street of Thieves and back past the Baths of Amozyas and the Obelisk of Suplicides into a district thick with astrologers and fortune-tellers, where they pause at a kebab stand for a late lunch of sausages and beer, and then, as the afternoon winds down, they go back into the bazaar quarter. Mulreany succeeds in locating, after following a couple of false trails, the shop of a bookseller he remembers, where a staff of shaven-headed Byzantine scribes produces illuminated manuscripts for sale to the nobility. The place doesn’t normally do off-the-shelf business, but Mulreany has been able on previous trips to persuade them to sell books that were awaiting pickup by the duke or prince who had commissioned them, and he turns the trick again this time too. He comes away with a gloriously illustrated vellum codex of the Iliad, with an astonishing binding of tooled ebony inlaid with gold and three rows of rubies, in exchange for some of their remaining knives, Coca-Cola, cigarette lighters, sunglasses, and whiskey, and another of the little pocket compasses. This is shaping up into one of the best buying trips in years.

  “We ought to have brought a lot more compasses,” Anderson says, when they’re outside and looking around for their last deal of the day before heading back to the inn. “They don’t take up much space in the bag and they really turn everybody on.”

  “Next trip,” says Mulreany. “I agree: they’re a natural.”

  “I still can’t get over this entire business,” Schmidt says wonderingly. This is only his third time across. “That they’re willing to swap fabulous museum masterpieces like these for pocketknives and cans of Coke. And they’d go out of their minds over potato chips too, I bet.”

  “But those things aren’t fabulous museum masterpieces to them,” Mulreany says. “They’re just routine luxury goods that it’s their everyday business to make and sell. Look at it from their point of view. We come in here with a sackful of miracles that they couldn’t duplicate in a hundred years. Five hundred. They can always take some more gold and some more emeralds and whack out another dozen necklaces. But where the hell are they going to get a pair of binoculars except from us? And Coke probably tastes like ambrosia to them. So it’s just as sweet a deal for them as it is for us, and—Hello, look who’s here!”

  A stocky bearded man with coarse froggy features is waving at them from the other side of the street. He’s wearing a brocaded crimson robe worthy of an archbishop and a spectacular green tiara of stunning princely style, but the flat gap-toothed face looking out at them is pure Milwaukee. A taller man dressed in a porter’s simple costume stands behind him with a bag of merchandise slung over his shoulder. “Hey, Leo!” Mulreany calls. “How’s it going?” To Schmidt he explains, “That’s Leo Waxman. Used to carry the merchandise bags for me, five, six years ago. Now he’s a trader on his own account.” And, loudly, again, “Come on over, say hello, Leo! Meet the boys!”

  Waxman, as he crosses the street, puts one finger to his lips. “Ixnay on the English, Mike,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Let’s stick to the Grik, okay, man? And not so much yelling.” He casts a shifty look down toward the end of the block, where a couple of the ubiquitous Bulgarian Guardsmen are lolling against the wall of a mosque.

  “Something wrong?” Mulreany asks.

  “Plenty. Don’t you know? The word is out that the Emperor has ordered a crackdown. He’s just told the imperial gendarmerie to pull in anybody caught dealing in sorcery-goods.”

  “You sure about that? Why would he want to rock the boat?”

  “Well, the old man’s crazy, isn’t he? Maybe he woke up this morning and decided it was time finally to enforce his own goddamned laws. All I know is that I’ve done a very nice day’s business and I’m going to call it a trip right here and now.”

  “Sure,” Mulreany says. “If that’s what you want. But not me. The Emperor can issue any cockeyed order he likes, but that doesn’t mean anyone will pay attention. Too many people in this town get big benefits out of the trade we bring.”

  “You’re going to stay?”

  “Right. Till sundown tomorrow. There’s business to do here.”

  “You’re welcome to it,” Waxman says. “I wish you a lot of joy of it. Me, I’m for dinner at Charlie Trotter’s tonight, and to hell with turning any more tricks here just now, thank you. Not if there’s a chance I’ll miss the last bus back to the Loop.” Waxman blows Mulreany a kiss, beckons to his porter, and starts off up the street.

  “We really going to stay?” Schmidt asks, when Waxman has moved along.

  Mulreany gives him a scornful look. “We’ve still got almost a bag and a half of goods to trade, don’t we?”

  “But if this Waxman thinks that—”

  “He was always a chicken-shit wimp,” Mulreany says. “Look, if they were really serious about their sorcery laws here, they’d have ways of reaching out and picking us up just like that. Go into the bazaar, ask the dealers who they got their Swiss Army knives from, and give them the old bamboo on the soles of the feet until they cough up our full descriptions. But that doesn’t happen. Nobody in his right mind would want to cut off the supply of magical nifties that we bring to town.”

  “This Emperor isn’t in his right mind,” Anderson points out.

  “But everybody else is. Let Waxman panic if he wants to. We finish our business and we clear out tomorrow afternoon as scheduled. You want to go home now, either of you, then go home, but if you do, this’ll be the last trip across you ever make.” It’s a point of pride for Mulreany to max out his trading opportunities, even if it means running along the edge occasionally. He has long since become a rich man just on the twelve and a half percent he gets from Duplessis and Kulikowski’s placements of the artifacts he supplies them with, but nevertheless he isn’t going to abort the trip simply because Leo Waxman has picked up some goofy rumor. He detests Waxman’s cowardice. The risks haven’t changed at all, so far as he can see. This job was always dangerous. But the merchants will protect him. It’s in their own best interest not to sell the golden geese to the imperial cops.

  When they get back to the hotel, the innkeeper grins smarmily at them out of his cubicle next to the stable. “You sell a lot of pots and pans today?”

  “Pretty good business, yes,” Mulreany allows.

  An avid gleam shines in the lone eye. “Look, you sell me something, hear? I give you a dozen girls, I give you a barrel of fine wine, I give you any damn thing you want, but you let me have one of the magic things, you know what I mean?”

  “Gods be my witness, we are but ordinary merchants and let there be an end on this foolishness!” Mulreany says testily, thickening his yokel accent almost to the point of incoherence. “Why do you plague us this way? Would you raise a false charge of sorcery down on innocent men?” The innkeeper raises his hands placatingly, but Mulreany sails right on: “By the gods, I will bring action against you for defaming us, do you not stop this! I will take you to the courts for these slanders! I will say that you knowingly give lodging to men you think are sorcerers, hoping to gain evil goods from them! I will—I will—”

  He halts, huffing and puffing. The innkeeper, retreating fast, begs Mulreany’s forgiveness and vows never to suggest again that they are anything but what they claim to be. Would the good merchants care for some pleasant entertainment in their room tonight, v
ery reasonable price? Yes, the good merchants would, as a matter of fact. For a single silver argenteus the size of a dime Mulreany is able to arrange a feast of apples and figs and melons, grilled fish, roasted lamb stuffed with minced doves and artichokes, and tangy resinated wine from Crete, along with a trio of Circassian dancing girls to serve them during the meal and service them afterward. It’s very late by the time he finally gets to sleep, and very early when half a dozen huge shaggy Bulgarian Guardsmen come bashing into his room and pounce on him.

  The bastard has sold him to the Emperor, it seems. That must have been him in the bazaar at lunchtime, then, watching them go in and out of the fancy shops. Thwarted in his dreams of wangling a nice Swiss Army knife for himself, or at least a fifth of Courvoisier, he has whistled up the constables by way of getting even.

  There’s no sign of Anderson and Schmidt. They must have wriggled through their windows at the first sound of intruders and scrambled down the drainpipe and at this moment are hightailing it for the interface, Chicago-bound. But for Mulreany there’s a cell waiting in the dungeon of the imperial palace.

  He doesn’t get a very good look at the palace, just one awesome glimpse in the moment of his arrival: white marble walls inlaid with medallions of onyx and porphyry, delicate many-windowed towers of dizzying height, two vast courtyards lined by strips of immaculately tended shrubbery stretching off to left and right, with crystalline reflecting pools, narrow as daggers, running down their middles.

  Then a thick smelly hood is pulled down over his head and for a long while he sees nothing further. They pick him up and haul him away down some long corridor. Eventually he hears the sound of a great door being swung back; and then he feels the bruising impact of being dropped like a sack of potatoes onto a stone floor. Mulreany remains weirdly calm. He’s furious, of course, but what good is getting into a lather? He’s too upset to let himself get upset. He’s a gone goose, and he knows it, and it pisses him off immensely, but there isn’t a damned thing he can do to save himself. Maybe they’ll burn him or maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll be beheaded, but either way they can only do it to him once. And there’s no lawyer in town who can get him off and no court of appeals to complain to. His only salvation now is a miracle. But he doesn’t believe in miracles. The main thing he regrets is that a schmuck like Waxman is home free in Chicago right now, and he’s not.