Spell Games

by T. A. Pratt

  B limped through Ernesto's gates, which were festooned with bits of scrap metal and decorated with old hubcaps. “The guy collapsed a tower of cars on top of me.”

  Marla whistled. “I'm guessing you passed that test, seeing as you aren't squashed like a bug.”

  “I made the whole cascade of cars roll around me, walked out without a scratch. Would he have let me die?”

  “I can't say for sure. He knows your death would've led to his own, and it's possible he has a death wish. But I doubt it. There were probably safeguards in place. I asked him to teach you, not test you to destruction. That's my prerogative.”

  “That's reassuring.” He groaned. “This was a lot more physical than I'm used to. With Sanford Cole, we mostly sat around talking, reading, thinking.”

  “Playing canasta, talking about the good old days when men were men and fire hadn't been invented yet? There's a different vibe out here. You bothered by that?”

  “No, ma'am. I always wanted to be an action hero. I'm just achy.”

  “I've got some stuff at home that makes tiger balm look like applesauce. Langford whipped it up for me, so I wouldn't ask too many questions about what it's made of, but it does wonders for muscle soreness.”

  “I won't say no to medical intervention.” He went around to the driver's side and opened the door. “Where to?”

  Marla squinted at the twilight sky. “I guess I'll feed you. Then I'm going to make you work some more. Then, around midnight, we're going to have some fun.”

  B groaned. “Sleeping is fun. How about sleeping?”

  “No, we're going to help my brother run his con. It'll be a blast.”

  B climbed into the car, and Marla followed. “So you're helping your brother?”

  “Well, why not? Maybe I've been unnecessarily paranoid. Not that ‘unnecessary’ and ‘paranoid’ are two words I ever expected to put together. I figure I'll extend the hand of sisterly love by giving him some help with his latest gig. We'll see what develops.”

  B grunted and pulled the car from the lot. “And you don't have any… moral qualms about ripping off this guy?”

  “Cam-Cam? You ever heard of blood diamonds?”

  “Sure, the mines in Africa that fund warlords.”

  “That's his family business. One of 'em anyway. The Campions have been into the Earth-pillaging business for a long time, from back in the silver and gold rush days out west, and their interests range a lot further than that now. Cam-Cam never met a wildlife refuge he didn't want to drill.” She paused. “Well, okay, maybe not Cam-Cam personally. His family's company is a machine that runs without him paying much attention, I suspect, which is damning in its own way, mind you. Cam-Cam's only interest is his obsession with magic, and he's made a nuisance of himself in the city for years. Take away enough of his money, and he'll stop being a nuisance anymore, right? Maybe we can even scare him away from the supernatural entirely”

  “Okay,” B said. “I didn't realize we were grifters, but okay”

  Marla sighed. “You don't have to help. You want to take a moral stand, I'm totally okay with that. But believe me, if you met this guy, you'd know he's a fool who needs to be parted from his money, posthaste. And be aware, this isn't the only shady business I've got a hand in. Mostly those businesses are based on giving people things they want that society deems illegal or inappropriate, and not so much on outright stealing, but down at the lower levels things go on that I don't question too carefully. If you're not comfortable with that…”

  B shook his head. “No, no, it's okay. I know all that. I've always had too much empathy, I guess.”

  “Part of what makes you a good seer, B. Me, I'm an ass-kicker, and if you have too much empathy when it comes to kicking ass, you wind up with a sore ass of your own. I'm sure me and you will figure out how to strike the right balance. You're an actor—think of tonight as a chance to do a little acting, you know?”

  “Well, when you put it that way…”

  After they finished eating dinner, B said, “Did you still want me to find an oracle and ask about Jason?”

  Marla stirred her postmeal coffee and looked thoughtful. They were in a little café where the only notable décor was a vast quantity of towering ferns in giant pots, so it was a bit like eating steak and fries in the late Cretaceous. “I know I did earlier, but now it feels… unkind, I guess, to supernaturally spy on him. Like a family should have trust, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ah, screw it, let's find an oracle.”

  B grinned. He felt a lot better having replenished some calories, and now the muscle ache felt almost pleasant, proof he'd done an honest day's work. He was looking forward to the chance to use his magic to call up another oracle. He liked doing that stuff, now that it worked again. It was awesome.

  They went out the front of the restaurant, and then Marla immediately led him to an alley around the back, where the Dumpsters were overflowing. “Garbage again, I'm guessing? Will this do?”

  “I'm not sure, let me think—ah. Right there.” He could feel the presence of an oracle, a tug like he was iron and the oracle was magnetic. B flung open the plastic lid of a trash bin and stood on tiptoe to look inside. “Hello in there?”

  “THIEF!” the garbage can screamed, and a towering figure of reeking refuse loomed out of the bin. B caught a glimpse of a mouth lined with teeth of broken glass and eyes made of cantaloupe halves, and then the gar bage thing snatched him up in rotten-meat arms. He opened his mouth to shout, and the stinking thing from the can jammed a wad of moldy bread between his jaws. It was still screaming, calling him a thief, an oath-breaker, a liar, and B thought clearly, This is how I die, eaten by leftovers.

  Naturally, Marla saved him. He wasn't sure what she did, but the thing in the garbage screamed in pain and Marla dragged B back, well away from the Dumpster, and propped him against the brick wall across the alley B spat moldy bread out of his mouth. Marla stood, legs wide, a dagger in each hand, a pile of garbage—maybe they'd once been the thing's arms?—scattered before her. “Bring it, little god. I've cut up bigger deities than you.”

  “I am Shakpana. I will make your flesh eat itself.”

  “Now that the mutual threats are out of the way, what's your grievance? We can work this out.”

  “He did not pay,” Shakpana hissed, swaying like some improbable serpent. “He asked a question, terms were set, an answer given, and he did not pay. There is no balance. Thief! THIEF!”

  “Enough already!” Marla shouted. Without looking back, she said, “B, help me out here. I'm a little hazy on the care and feeding of psychotic oracles.”

  B rose shakily to his feet. Shakpana rippled and seethed and hissed. “Crap. It's the oracle I asked about Jason, when that voice started up and drowned it out. I was so shaky then, so out of it, I never paid.”

  “Looks like this is your past-due notice.”

  B cleared his throat. “Oh, oracle, please accept my apologies for my failure to follow the forms. When I summoned you before, we were interrupted, and—”

  “You asked, I answered, it is of no consequence to me if you did not hear the answer.”

  “What was the answer again?” Marla said.

  Shakpana ignored her. “You promised to dispose of my temporary body, to make sure it was returned to the earth, and you lied.”

  “I accept full responsibility for my error. It was unforgivable.” And it was. B knew the rules. You had to balance the books. He'd just been too freaked out by the voice of doom. “I present myself now to make amends. Only tell me what I should do.”

  Shakpana swayed. “You are truly contrite?”

  “I am.”

  “Then… this garbage. All this garbage in the alley It is wasted. It should be returned to the cycle, to make plants grow, to nourish beasts.”

  “You want me to compost… all this?” B looked up and down the length of the alley. They were on a restaurant row, and there were a lot of Dumpsters there.

 
; “Yes.”

  “It will be done,” B said.

  “Then our business is finished.”

  “Damn it, what's the answer?” Marla said. “We never heard you, do I need to worry about my brother?”

  Shakpana began sinking down into the Dumpster. “Jason Mason,” it wheezed.

  “Yes?”

  “He is…”

  “Yeah?”

  “He is a liar.” And with that, Shakpana was nothing but a bin full of garbage again.

  “No shit!” Marla yelled. No response. “That was informative.”

  “Sorry,” B said. “If it had gone right before, we could have asked follow-up questions, maybe, but the oracle isn't willing to cut me a lot of slack. I can't believe I didn't do what I promised before. That was so careless.”

  “Eh, I figured the connection was broken, too. I didn't realize the oracle went on talking when its voice was drowned out by that other mystery vision. Shit. So Jason's still an unknown quantity. Knowing he's a liar doesn't help much. Tonight I'm going to help him lie.”

  “Maybe that's all the oracle means, that he lies for a living. Jason's a liar, you're tactless, and I'm beautiful but unlucky.”

  “You really have to sort all this crap and compost it? Want me to scare up some apprentices to give you a hand? I can tell Viscarro I heard there was an artifact in one of these bins; he'd have all his people down here in a snap.”

  B shook his head. “I should do it on my own. That's the way it works. I don't want to risk pissing off the oracle further. But…where the fuck can I compost all this stuff?”

  “Let me call Granger.” She borrowed his phone again. “You haven't met him yet, though you will soon, for a magic lesson. He's the sorcerer who runs Fludd Park, nature magic, shit like that. He's got a giant compost heap there for the gardens, I'm sure you can contribute to it. I'll get him to send a guy with a wheelbarrow.” She looked up and down the alley “Actually, make that a truck. There's a lot of organic nastiness back here, B.”

  “The life of a sorcerer is a glamorous one. At least if I'm going to be neck-deep in garbage all night, I can hold my breath indefinitely What time was that thing with your brother?”

  “Midnight, but I have to get out to the island before that. I'm thinking you won't be done by then.”

  “I'm sorry, Marla, I wish I could help—”

  “Forget about it. It's extra-curricular. Besides, I'm the one who asked you to call up the garbage oracle again; I'm not going to bust your chops for dealing with the consequences. I'll see you in the morning, all right?”

  “Bright and early, I'm sure. Give me a hand climbing into this Dumpster?”

  Cam-Cam opened the door in his pajamas, and found Jason and Rondeau on his doorstep, each dressed all in black. “Come with us, Mr. Campion,” Jason said. “Marla will see you now.”

  “Now? But it's after eleven.” His mouth was running on autopilot. He knew sorcerers didn't keep banker's hours, but he hadn't expected them to come here now.

  “And if we aren't on the island by midnight, she won't wait a minute longer,” Rondeau said. “Grab a coat. Even in summertime, it's cold out on the bay”

  “I—what island?”

  “Shrove Island. She doesn't want to have this meeting in the city proper.” Jason looked around warily. “Too many potential spies.”

  “I understand. Let me get dressed.”

  “Quickly,” Rondeau said, and so Cam-Cam hurried. When he came back downstairs—dressed in black himself, because it seemed best to fit in, adorned only with a few of his more potent protective amulets—they were standing by the French doors that led to his terraced backyard, with its bay view. “This way,” Rondeau said. “She sent a boatman.” Cam-Cam thought he saw him shudder, and felt a cold knot grow in his belly Was this a trap? Were they going to send him to a watery grave? But—why? He was just being paranoid.

  They led him down through the back gardens, past the swimming pool, to the little dock where he kept his smallest boat—the big yacht was berthed at the marina.

  But they didn't go to his boat. There was a little boat tied up on the other side of the dock, with a figure in a voluminous hooded robe sitting by the tiller. As Cam-Cam drew closer, the figure in the boat looked up. A pair of huge glowing green eyes, set inhumanly far apart, regarded him balefully from the black depths of the hood, then vanished when the figure turned his head away.

  Cam-Cam balked. “What—what is this? Who is that?”

  “One of my sister's creatures.” Jason put a hand on Cam-Cam's arm. “Nothing to worry about. He's…under her control.” Jason stepped into the boat, followed by Rondeau, but Cam-Cam noticed they sat as far away from the boatman as they could. Cam-Cam followed, legs shaky, and sat down upon the hard wooden bench.

  Rondeau untied the boat from the dock. The tiller-man—if he was a man at all—started the boat's engine, and they puttered off into the darkness. The bay had never seemed so vast and dark and empty before. The sky was clear, the stars hard and bright, the moon nowhere visible—was it new, or under the horizon? Shouldn't he know that? Shouldn't anyone who wished to know the ways of sorcery also know the current disposition of the moon?

  Nervous with the silence and the buzz of the engine, Cam-Cam said, “I went to Shrove Island once, when I was a child, before they started building the prison—”

  “Be quiet,” Rondeau whispered. “Don't you know how voices carry on the water? You have no idea what things live out here. Bad enough we're running the engine.”

  Jason nodded solemnly, and Cam-Cam hunched down, silent. No, he didn't have any idea. He wanted to, though, and this was his chance, if he didn't screw it up.

  After about twenty minutes Shrove Island loomed into view, a dark shape over the water, blotting out stars behind. The island was an unlovely lump of rock covered in straggly trees. The boat pulled up to the sagging remnants of the old dock, which decades ago had welcomed construction crews and equipment. The federal government still owned the island, technically, though they didn't show any interest in doing anything with it, and neither did anyone else.

  Rondeau climbed out of the boat and tied the rope. “Walk carefully,” he whispered as Jason and Cam-Cam disembarked. The boatman didn't move. “There are things living in the caves under the island that don't like visitors, and while they're afraid of Marla, I doubt they're afraid of you, champ. Stay close.” Rondeau switched on a flashlight and led the way along a barely visible path, toward the ruins of what would have been the prison's administrative building. The structure was roofless and exposed to the elements, but there were still tall unadorned walls, covered in climbing vines. “Watch your step.” Rondeau pointed out a set of concrete steps leading up to a walled space about the size of Cam-Cam's living room. “Here we are.” He switched off his flashlight.

  “Now what?” Cam-Cam whispered.

  “We wait for midnight, and for Marla,” Jason said.

  Suddenly a dozen torches jammed into crevices and cracks around the room burst into flaming life, illuminating the space with flickering light. Cam-Cam jumped and instinctively huddled toward his new associates. He looked around frightfully. “Where's Marla?”

  “Up here, Cam-Cam,” a voice said.

  Cam-Cam looked up.

  Marla Mason, the greatest sorcerer in Felport, reputedly one of the greatest in the world, stood before him, arms crossed, wearing a flowing black cloak trimmed in a glistening silver. Which would have been impressive enough.

  Even more impressive was the fact that she was standing sideways ten feet up a stone wall, with no visible means of support, utterly indifferent to gravity, staring down at him.

  And she was grinning.

  “We're here.” The messenger stepped on the brakes and eased the van to a stop on the side of the road. Bulliard stirred behind him. “This is Felport?” “That's what it says on the sign we just passed.” The van was parked in a grim district, nothing but dark warehouses and empty lots, though the lights of tall
buildings twinkled off in the distance.

  Bulliard grunted. “I am unaccustomed to cities.” He climbed into the passenger seat… and the cloud of darkness that had shrouded him for the entire journey dissolved like black fog blowing away. Bulliard was revealed to the messenger as a giant of a man, dressed in what seemed to be nothing but mosses and lichen, hair a forest of matted dirt, beard vast and unkempt. He turned to look at the messenger directly Bulliard had a plastic pig snout attached to his face with a dirty rubber band, covering his nose. It was so ridiculous the messenger wanted to burst out laughing, but he stifled the impulse as best he could—he'd pushed his luck already with the mockery, and this seemed like a bad time to get snarky.

  The mushroom sorcerer tapped the side of his snout. “I cannot smell the spores. I can find anything… but I suppose something as powerful as the spores would be disguised.”

  “Drat the luck. Guess we should call it a lost cause then, huh? You can catch a Greyhound back to the forest tomorrow morning.”

  “If I cannot find the spores, I will need to search. But I do not know the city well. Which means I will need allies, willing or otherwise.”

  The messenger yawned. “That's great. Good luck with that.”

  Bulliard sniffed, a deep snuffling inhalation. “Drive. Drive straight. I have found someone who can help us.”

  The messenger sighed and put the van in gear. “Would this someone be a replacement for me?”

  “The Mycelium has let you look upon me directly” Bulliard sounded almost aggrieved. “In recognition for your swift travel and steadfast service. Do you not feel honored?”

  “Honored? Is that what this feeling is? And here all these years I've been calling it revulsion.”

  “Drive,” Bulliard growled, so the messenger drove.

  arla stood on the wall gazing down at Cam-Cam's upturned, distinctly sheeplike face, confident that gravity and the bay breeze were doing impressively flappy things to her cloak. She'd emptied her pockets before activating the gecko boots and walking up the wall—having her spare change and keys fall out and land on Cam-Cam's nose would rather have spoiled the effect.