Epitaph in Rust

by Tim Powers

  Thomas saw the trap immediately; he had last fallen for it before he was ten. Negri hoped Thomas would advance his king’s knight’s pawn one square in an attempt to drive the enemy queen away. If he did, of course, Negri’s queen would leap three spaces to her left, taking Thomas’ first-moved pawn and, inevitably with the next move, would dart invulnerably in and capture Thomas’ rook.

  Thomas automatically reached forward to move his knight to his kings bishop’s third—and paused. What if, he wondered, I let him have the rook? I could move my queen’s knight up to the bishop’s third when he takes the pawn, as if I’m threatening his queen; and then when he takes the rook I could hop the knight back down in front of my king, which would bar his queen from decimating my ranks any further. And it would leave him with a tumbler and a shot glass worth of dark rum in him.

  Thomas withdrew his hand and looked closely at Negri. How much can he put away, I wonder? He’s already had a good amount of alcohol this evening—and his mouth is tending to sag, and his eyes aren’t focusing perfectly. By God, I’ll try it.

  Thomas advanced the knights pawn.

  “Hah!” barked Negri as he slid the queen over and tapped the shot glass that was Thomas’ first-moved pawn. He snatched it up and tossed it off, smacking his lips, “Not bad.” he announced, setting the glass aside. “I believe I’ll have some more.”

  Thomas obligingly brought his queen’s knight forward, allowing Negri’s queen to take his king’s rook. A mutter of dismay and approval passed over the spectators as Negri drained Thomas’ rook-glass. “Ahh!” he exclaimed. “How does your queen taste, Pennick? I mean to find out.”

  Thomas moved his queen’s knight to his king’s second square. Negri made as if to take Thomas’ king’s knight, then noticed that it was protected by its twin.

  “You can’t stop me, Pennick,” he said, and took instead Thomas’ rook’s pawn. He drank it in one gulp, but set the empty shot glass too close to the edge of the table, and it fell when he let go of it.

  A few people in the crowd giggled, and he shot a venomous look in their direction. “Go to hell, Jeff,” he barked.

  “Take it easy, Robert,” Gladhand spoke up. “You know better than to yell at an audience.”

  Thomas now moved his king’s knight to his bishop’s third, threatening Negri’s queen; she withdrew, and the tension was relaxed for the moment. Thomas had lost two pawns and a rook—but his men were opening out fairly well, and he had his unmolested queen’s side to castle into if need and opportunity should arise. And Negri, to Thomas’ well-concealed satisfaction, was beginning to look really drunk—frowning at the board in a passion of concentration, and pushing the curly hair back from his forehead with rubbery fingers.

  A stray gust of the warm wind flickered the lanterns and, for a moment, blew the heavy rum fumes away from Thomas’ face. He looked up, caught Pat’s eye and winked. She winked back, and he felt suddenly proud and brave, as if he was facing Negri at misty dawn somewhere, settling the question with sabres.

  The game progressed slowly, with Thomas drinking a piece—slowly, and in several swallows—only to avert direct danger or to press a certain advantage. Every few moves he tried to sacrifice a pawn, or an occasional bishop or knight, to increase the watery, fuddled look in Negri’s eyes.

  “He’s trying to get you drunk, Bob!” came a call at one point. Negri’s derisive laughter at that sounded genuine, but he glanced furtively at the tally of empty glasses along the sides of the table; and then smirked confidently to see how many more of Thomas’ glasses had been emptied than his own.

  Despite Thomas’ stay-sober strategy, he found himself having to work at keeping all the threats, protections and potential lines of attack clear in his mind. I’ve got to mount that checking attack with my bishop and queen, he thought a little dizzily. I’d like to get my rook into position to back them up, though. Can I? Sure, but it’ll take … three moves. Can I count on Negri not to put me in check—or interfere with my queen and bishop—for three moves?

  He regarded Negri suspiciously. What if he’s pretending to be drunker than he really is? I’ve got to chance it, he thought, and moved his rook.

  Negri moved a pawn out of its home row.

  Thomas moved his rook the second time.

  A bishop-full of light rum advanced from Negri’s ranks and came to rest, threatening Thomas’ beer-schooner queen, on a square that was protected by a pawn and a knight.

  Thomas’ heart sank. There goes my whole plan, he thought. With my queen moved I won’t be able to salvage any part of it. Did he do that simply to foul me up, or is there another purpose? He stared carefully at the board—and it was all he could do to stifle a gasp of horror.

  Negri’s bishop was now in a position to take the pawn behind which stood Thomas’ modest wooden king—and a forgotten white knight stood by to back the move up. He’s going to do that next, Thomas realized. It won’t quite be checkmate, but that probably won’t be long in following.

  The silence was absolute, and Thomas fancied he could hear the sweat running down his neck into his collar.

  There’s only one slim hope, he thought. If it doesn’t work, all I’ll have done is hand him the game. And Pat, too, he reminded himself.

  He moved his rook the third time.

  There were a few gasps and groans from the crowd, and Negri looked both surprised and pleased. “You’re drunker than I thought, Pennick,” he said slowly. Thomas watched him closely, almost able to read the sluggish thoughts that reeled through the narrow spotlight of Negri’s consciousness. He’s puzzled, Thomas thought, that I ignored his threat to my queen; and he’s wondering whether to take her or pursue his planned attack. Negri looked up sharply, and Thomas crossed his eyes slightly and hiccupped. I’ve got to make him think I’m drunk, he thought—that I didn’t even see the threat. Come on, Negri. Take a certain queen instead of an uncertain checkmate.

  “I said I’d taste your queen, Pennick,” Negri said finally, tapping her with his bishop. Thomas tried to look surprised and dismayed.

  The queen was heavy, and Negri lifted her with both hands. He peered dazedly for a moment into the amber depths of the glass, then took a deep breath and set it to his lips.

  Everyone on the roof watched tensely as Negri’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down and the bottom of the glass slowly rose. The color had drained from his face, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, but still he kept methodically gulping the heady brown liquor. Finally he drained it—flung the empty glass away—shuddered—and slid unconscious from his chair to the tarpapered floor.

  Spencer hopped up and, with an upraised hand, silenced the quick rush of cheers and boos. “Rufus,” he said, “you’ve lost your queen. Do you choose to resign?”

  “No,” Thomas said.

  “Then since your opponent is unconscious, you are clearly the winner.”

  There was more cheering and booing, and a brief scramble for the remaining glasses on the board, and then Thomas got up and walked out of the ring of light to gulp some fresh air.

  “Rufus.”

  He turned around and saw that Pat had followed him. “Thank you,” she said, and kissed him, a little awkwardly. As far as he could recall, it was the first time anyone had ever kissed him, but he was drunk enough not to get flustered.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “I didn’t really do anything, though. Just fed him rum until he passed out.”

  “No, no,” she protested. “I was watching closely. You calculated just how much alcohol you could let him have without losing the game yourself. It was fascinating. What does alcohol do to your brain, anyway?”

  “Haven’t you ever had any?”

  “No. My family was—what’s the word?”

  “Teetotalers,” he supplied, and she nodded. “Well,” he said, “alcohol, enough of it, wrecks your ability to concentrate. It’s like trying to run down a familiar hallway that’s suddenly dark, and cluttered with a lot of boxes and old bicycles and
fishing poles. Or like the first day of a cold, when you’re dizzy and light-headed and can’t remember what the correct answer to ‘Good morning’ is.”

  “I hear every drink destroys ten thousand brain cells. Why do … why do people get drunk, anyway?”

  “Well, not everybody drinks to get drunk. Just a little every now and then is very pleasant. And, hell, the loss of a few thousand brain cells here and there—who counts?”

  She stared at him with a total, undisguised lack of comprehension. “I don’t understand people,” she said. “It’s late; I’m going to turn in. See you tomorrow.” She turned toward the stairs. “Oh, and thanks again for … rescuing me.”

  “You’re welcome again. Good night.”

  Now what, he asked himself when she’d disappeared, happened there? She obviously doesn’t approve of drinking; but she doesn’t quite disapprove, either—she simply can’t understand it. Oh well, he thought, she seems to like me. After all, I risked a whole truckload of brain cells to save her from being Negri’s Sugar-Pie.

  With a shiver of blended surprise, pleasure and apprehension he realized that he was, as the saying goes, falling in love with her.

  BOOK TWO

  Nathan Gladhand

  CHAPTER 7

  A Bad Dinner at the Gallomo

  Late in the afternoon of the next day, rumors began to reach the city—the merchants on the long coast run from La Jolla and Oceanside told of hundreds of campfire lights glimpsed in the valleys south of El Cajon, and of streaks of smoke and raised dust on the southern horizon during the day. At sunset the inevitable suspicion was confirmed by the Escondido mail rider: General Alvarez of San Diego had mobilized his army and was marching north.

  During the next two days details trickled in—agreed, contradicted and amplified each other—until the full situation was clear. Alvarez was advancing up route five with a force of a thousand men and eight siege-mortars.

  Los Angeles’ buffer states Santa Ana and Orange sent ambassadors racing to the city to beg troops for the defense of their borders—and were reluctantly denied aid by major-domo Lloyd, who was said to have turned them away with tears in his eyes. Souveraine of Santa Ana declared that he couldn’t, unsupported, defend his unwalled city, and that he’d side with Alvarez when the time came. Smith of Orange came to the same decision, with, as he put it in the letter he sent to Lloyd, “incalculable reluctance.”

  Thursday morning dawned clear and warm, for the Santa Ana wind was still surging in off the desert. One week exactly had passed since the bombing of Mayor Pelias’ chambers; and the crowds that gathered around the news-loudspeakers sent despairing groans up into the cloudless blue sky when it was announced, once again, that the mayor was still unconscious.

  Blaine Albers glanced contemptuously down at the clamoring crowd twenty storeys below him and, pushing open the window, flicked the ash of his cigar out at them. “You haven’t answered my question, Lloyd,” he said quietly, turning back to the room.

  Across the table an old man sweated and stared hopelessly at the litter of ashtrays and scattered papers. “I can’t tell you,” he whispered.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “No. He’s under a … doctor’s care, and he might—honestly—recover any day. Any hour.”

  The four other men in the room shifted impatiently in their seats, and one stubbed out a cigarette.

  “Listen,” said Albers, “even if he’d come out of it an hour ago it might have been too late.” He struck his fist on the table. “Aside from the police, we have no army! Had you realized that? Our draft program is impossible to enforce. The few men we get desert the first time you take your eyes off them. We can’t afford mercenaries. What, Lloyd, do you have to suggest?” His voice had risen during this speech to a harsh yell.

  “Find …” the old man quavered, “find Brother Thomas.”

  “Why? What the hell is the connection between Pelias and this delinquent monk?”

  Lloyd sagged. “I can’t tell you.”

  Several of the other men sighed and shook their heads grimly.

  Albers spoke softly. “Lloyd, I’m sorry to have to say this. Tell me, now, where Pelias is, and what this monk Thomas has to do with the situation; or we’ll question you with the same methods we’d use on any criminal.”

  Lloyd was sobbing now. “All right,” he said finally. “You win.” He stood up slowly and crossed to the window. “God help us all,” he said, and quietly rolled over the sill and disappeared.

  For a full ten seconds no one spoke; then Albers went to the window and looked out. The section of the crowd directly below was churning about with, perhaps, more energy than it had shown before. Aside from that, the view had not changed.

  “That,” he said to the others, “is the second time one of our majordomos has killed himself. His predecessor, Hancock, you know, hanged himself in his bedroom six years ago.”

  The others nodded dumbly. “What can we do now,” one asked, “besides grab some ready cash and run for Bakersfield?”

  “Idiot,” Albers said. “It’s not time to run yet. Alvarez couldn’t get here before Sunday even if he was already across the Santa Margarita River, and he isn’t.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “But our hold on the city just went out the window. We’ve got no authority at all, now.”

  “Maybe we could claim to know where Pelias is hidden?” suggested one of the others.

  “No. Tabasco, damn his android eyes, almost certainly does know. He probably knows whatever the secret about this monk is, too.”

  “What could that monk have or know that they could want so badly?” wondered the one he’d called an idiot.

  “I don’t know,” Albers answered softly. “But I’d say if we want to keep any hand at all in this game, we’d better find him before Tabasco’s police do.” He flung himself into a chair. “We’ll worry about that a little later,” he said. “Right now, show that gun dealer in, Harper.”

  Harper stood up and went to the door. “Come in here,” he said when he opened it.

  A moment later a tall old man with a white beard and mane strode into the room. He was dressed in sun-faded dungarees, and puffed furiously on a battered corncob pipe. “Look here, boys,” he growled, “if you want to make a deal, then let’s talk. If not, I’ll be on my way. But I’m not going to wait one more—”

  “I apologize, Mr. St. Coutras,” Albers said. “It was not our intention to keep you waiting. Sit down, please.”

  St. Coutras took a seat and rapped the still-smoking tobacco out of his pipe onto the floor. “All right,” he said. “Do you want the hundred Brownings or not?”

  “We do,” Albers said. “We’ve decided we can pay you a hundred solis per rifle.”

  “Goddamnit, I said a hundred and fifty. I can’t go below that and make a living.”

  “What kind of living do you think you’ll make if Alvarez takes this city?” hissed Harper.

  “The same as now,” the old man replied. “Everybody needs guns.”

  “He’s right, Harper,” Albers said. “Shut up.” He looked intently at St. Coutras. “Would you take the difference in bonds?”

  The old man considered it for a full minute. “I’ll take a hundred in cash and a hundred in bonds per rifle. That way, you’ll be sure of getting good merchandise from me, since I’ll have a ten-thousand-soli stake on your side of the table. If Alvarez takes the city, he’s sure not going to honor any bonds issued by his predecessors.”

  “Good point,” Albers nodded. “Okay. Hastings, draw up the papers. And Harper, you get busy on tracking down that damned runaway monk. Get some details on why he left the monastery. It occurs to me to doubt old Lloyd’s story that the kid stole the season’s wine-money.”

  “Runaway monk?” St. Coutras repeated curiously.

  Albers frowned. “Yes. He … uh, has some information we need.”

  “His name isn’t … Thomas, is it?”

  Hastings’ pen halted in mid-air; Harper froz
e halfway out of his chair. Albers slowly lit another cigar. “Why?” he asked. “Have you met a runaway monk named Thomas?”

  “Yeah. A week ago. Last Friday morning. Gave him a ride into town.”

  “That’d be our boy, all right,” Albers said.

  “Have you seen him since?” Harper asked quickly.

  “Nope.”

  “Where did you drop him off?” Albers asked.

  “The north gate,” St. Coutras answered. “On Western Avenue. Why, what’s he done?”

  “We have no idea. But somehow he’s the key to a lot of desperately important questions. Would he remember you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Kindly?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Good.” Albers took a long, contemplative pull on his cigar. “Do you have an apprentice or partner or somebody, who could bring the guns in without you?”

  “Maybe. Why?”

  “I want you to stay here and smoke this blasted monk out of whatever hole he’s hiding in. We’re pretty sure he hasn’t left the city, but the police haven’t been able to get any leads on him at all. What we’ll do is check with the monastery and find out what his interests and skills are, and then send you to places where he’s likely to show up. And when you see him, grab him. We’ll give you as many men as you like to help.”

  “I’d be working with the police?” St. Coutras asked doubtfully.

  “No; as a matter of fact,” Albers said, “you will, practically speaking, be working against the police. We don’t want Tabasco to get hold of the monk.”

  “Hmm. This post pays well, of course?”

  “Of course. And carries a five-thousand-soli—cash!—bonus if you bring him in.”

  “Well, I’ll give it a try,” the old man said. “I’ve done weirder things.”

  “Good,” Albers said, with his first smile of the day. “We’ll have a rider to the Merignac monastery and back by three this afternoon, and you’ll be able to start searching before sundown. You’ll—”