The Art of Stealing Time t-2

by Katie MacAlister

  “Machines?”

  “What kind of machines?” I asked, tucking the cat more firmly in place as Aaron strode to the door, obviously expecting us to follow him. “I know a little about computers.”

  “Such things are unreliable. They are always breaking down.” He must have noticed Gregory pulling out his cell phone, because he added, “I believe you’ll find that your mobile device will not work here. It’s something to do with the static in the air. Now, about your experience with machinery . . .”

  “I’m a Traveller, Your Maj—er—”

  “Aaron.”

  “I’m a Traveller, Aaron,” Gregory said as we left the hall and blinked at the bright sunlight flooding the grass bailey before us.

  “Ah? Oh, I see what you mean. Your kind does not do well with machinery. Just so,” Aaron said, nodding, then cocked an eyebrow at me. “Are you a Traveller, too?”

  “No, I’m an alchemist.”

  “Hmm. Alchemist. Hmm. No, my newest weapon, the Piranha, has no use for that. Now, if you had some way to smooth out a balky gearshift, I could put you to work. But as it is—oh, lord. This is all I need.”

  Irritation flitted across his face as a woman strolled out of a small outbuilding. She was dressed in a Victorian artist’s idea of medieval wear, a long silken white gown known as a kirtle, touched with gold shimmering in the slight breeze. Her hair, the same color as the gold trim, hung down to her waist in waves that would have made a shampoo-commercial producer fall over in a swoon. Two orderly lines of mostly white cats followed her, tails standing tall like so many furry staves.

  “What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?” Aaron snapped before the woman and her feline escort stopped before us.

  “No, I do not see that you’re busy. You’re never busy. You simply amuse yourself with a variety of toys and pretend it’s work.”

  Aaron bristled. “I am the king of the Underworld! The king of the Underworld does not have toys! He has vitally important machinery of war.”

  The woman pursed her lips and tapped her chin. “So that thing you’re always hunched over on that computing device wherein you construct villages and towns isn’t a game?”

  “SimCity is a highly intelligent computer simulation. It is a tool, woman, not a game. With it, I can plan out the next stages of development of Anwyn to ascertain the best allocation of funds and labor without having any negative impact on the indigenous population, souls in transit, or the wildlife native herein.”

  She smirked. “Which explains why you have statues of yourself dotted about the simulated town and cackle loudly when you send a giant lizard monster to destroy the townspeople?”

  “They are virtual townspeople. They aren’t real.”

  “But you enjoy destroying them with monsters and tornadoes and virulent venereal diseases.”

  Aaron made a disgusted noise. “There are no venereal diseases in SimAnwyn, virtual or otherwise. That’s another program.”

  “The fact remains that you enjoy destroying the people of your town.”

  “Your facts are erroneous. I reject them. Begone. I am busy talking with these fine people.”

  The woman turned lovely, if cold, greenish-gray eyes upon us. “Who are they?”

  “I have no idea. Someone that one of the mages at the front sent out. It matters not.”

  “It matters to us,” I said, smiling politely when the woman glanced at me. “I’m Gwen. This is Gregory.”

  “You are not dead,” she said, as if making a profound judgment.

  “No. Although I did die earlier in the week if that makes you feel any better.”

  “Hmm,” she said, then turned to consider Gregory. She seemed to like him better than me, a thought that made me narrow my eyes. Did she have to ogle him so obviously? We weren’t a couple, but she didn’t know that. What if we had been?

  I glared at Gregory when he smiled in a friendly fashion at her. He caught the edge of my glare and raised his eyebrows. I resisted the urge to kick him in the shins.

  “Introduce us, Arawn,” she said, pronouncing his name with a heavy Welsh flourish.

  “This is my ex-wife, Constance,” he said with a martyred sigh. He gestured toward the double line of cats behind her. “And her hell-spawn creatures.”

  “My cats are beguiling furry little beasts of wonder and delight, although technically they are hell-spawned, but only because this is what many mortals think of as hell. And I am not your ex-wife. I do not recognize your divorce proceedings; thus we are still very much married.” She bit off the last few words in a manner that reminded me of the piranha that Aaron had mentioned earlier.

  “Only because you live in your own little fantasy world that in no way resembles any form of reality. No, no,” he said, raising a hand to stop her even though she hadn’t responded to his comment. “Far be it from me to interrupt you on your daily torment of the poor, hapless souls who reside here. Stay and talk to the strangers all you like. I have important things to do. The Piranha calls.” And with a curl of his lip (and the slightest hint of an obscene gesture to the feline honor guard), he left.

  “You really do have piranha here?” I asked, glancing at the cats. “Isn’t that kind of dangerous for them?”

  “It isn’t a real piranha,” she answered with another assessing ogle at Gregory. “It’s what Arawn calls his Velociphant.”

  “Do we want to know what a Velociphant is?” Gregory asked.

  “No,” she said, then pinned me back with a look that had me straightening my shoulders. “Why did the mage send you to us?”

  I slid a look to Gregory. He slid it right back to me, leaving me to stammer, “Uh . . . well . . . you see . . . that is . . .”

  She turned to Gregory. I could see that he was struggling with an answer that wasn’t an outright lie, and yet shielded the truth a bit.

  “I see,” she said after a few seconds of silence. She waved imperiously at a couple of men who were hauling in giant bags of what appeared to be kitty litter. “You there. Take these two to the captain of the guard and ask that they imprison them in the deepest, darkest part of the dungeon.”

  “What?” I shrieked.

  “I should inform you that I am a member of the Watch—” Gregory started to say, but the woman said nothing as the two men dropped the bag of kitty litter and approached us. She simply lifted the hem of her gorgeous dress and delicately moved away, the double line of cats following her.

  “No,” I told Gregory. “I’m not doing this again. I’m simply not doing this.”

  The fight that followed wasn’t pretty, nor was it even fair. Just about the time Gregory declared, “Touch one hair on her head, and I’ll pound you into the ground, Watch or no Watch,” a handful of other men appeared from the depths of the nearest outbuilding and joined the fray, the bulk of which was centered on Gregory.

  And when I say “on Gregory,” I mean just that. He started swinging the second that one of the men grabbed my arm in the same familiar, “imprisoning innocent women is my middle name” sort of manner that I had experienced the day before, and it only took a couple of heartbeats before Gregory went down under the onslaught of several pissed-off cat-litter toters, or whatever their respective job titles were.

  Naturally, I did what I could. I screamed, I bit, I kicked, and I punched. I tried to flip several men over my hip this time, too, but in the end I was ignominiously hauled off yet again to forced imprisonment.

  The men had a harder time with Gregory. Once the bulk of them peeled off the pig pile, he came up fighting again. I winced in sympathy when, as I glanced over my shoulder to where he was being carried by six men, I caught sight of not only an eye that was quickly swelling and turning a deep crimson purple but also a fine spray of blood across his dark blue shirt.

  We were hauled down smooth-cut stone steps into what I assumed was going to be a dark, dank, rat-infested dungeon.

  “I have to say that this is the cleanest, most pleasant dungeon I’ve ever been
forced to visit,” I told the man who was attached to my left side. “It’s well lit, it smells good, there’s no garbage or people’s bones lying around, and I don’t hear so much as even one little scream of torment.”

  “Lord Aaron believes that a healthful dungeon is a productive dungeon,” the guard said.

  “That’s quite forward-thinking of him.”

  “Aye, but to be honest, he had them cleaned up when the tourists started coming through,” the man on my right commented.

  “Tourists?” Gregory asked from behind me. His voice sounded hoarse and muffled. “Did he just say ‘tourists’?”

  “He did. That’s probably what that sign upstairs was all about.”

  “What sign?”

  “The one that mentioned tours.”

  “Why,” I heard Gregory ask one of his attendants, “does Aaron run tourists through the afterlife?”

  “Why not?” the man said.

  “I have to admit,” Gregory called up to me, “that he has me there. Literally as well as figuratively.”

  “We wouldn’t be havin’ to carry ye iff’n ye didn’t fight us,” one of his guards answered. “Ye fair on crippled poor ’Erbert.”

  “Aye, he did. I may never walk again,” said the man on my left.

  I looked at him. He immediately started to limp.

  “Poor Herbert, indeed. He tried to kidney punch me,” Gregory pointed out.

  “Then there’s what you did to Maltravers,” my right guard said.

  “Who’s Maltravers, and what did Gregory do to him?” I asked.

  “’E’s the ’ead litter cleaner, and yer boyfriend ’ere broke his thumb. The one ’e uses to scoop!”

  “Christos, not the scooping thumb!” Gregory muttered. “Was Maltravers the one who broke my nose?”

  “Nay, that’d be Jones, there on yer left calf.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” said Jones. I assumed it was him, but I couldn’t actually see behind me.

  I giggled, but felt obligated to say, “Gregory isn’t my boyfriend.”

  “And then there’s Wenceslaus,” another man behind me said.

  “OK, now you’re just getting silly,” I protested. “This is Anwyn. We’re in Wales. I’m willing to let ‘Herbert’ and ‘Maltravers’ pass, but ‘Wenceslaus’ isn’t even remotely Welsh.”

  “Nay, ’e isn’t, and now ’e can’t talk what with the beating your boyfriend ’ere gave him about the throat. Got a clean left in the Adam’s apple, ’e did.”

  “He got me in the bollocks.” A thin, reedy voice drifted up from the back. “With his elbow! I may never have children again!”

  “You ain’t had them to begin with,” called my chatty guard. “So don’t you be going on about something what isn’t likely to happen to begin with, Ned Bundy. Not that I’m saying getting a man in the bollocks is right,” he added to me. “A man’s bollocks ought not to be touched excepting by him. And possibly his missus, if she has a light hand to her.”

  “In general, I agree, with the firm exception of self-defense. What did Ned do to Gregory?”

  “Nothing,” Gregory answered. “He just got in my way when I was trying to keep from having any more of my teeth knocked out.”

  “There, you see? Self-defense.”

  “Aye,” the guard said, sucking on his teeth as he thought. “That’s as might be.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Me mum named me Aloysius, but the lads ’ere call me Al. I’m by way of bein’ the ’ead of his lordship’s guards. When ’e has need of ’em. Othertimes, I does a bit of light tanning.”

  “I don’t suppose we could convince you to let us go?” I asked without much hope.

  The look he gave me was pitying. “Now, then, what sort of a ’ead guard would I be if I was to be lettin’ you and ’im go?”

  “A nice one?”

  Al scratched his neck. “That’s as might be, but I can’t see my way clear to it without word from my lord or ’is lady.”

  “This really sucks,” I said somewhat pettishly. “I don’t want to sit in a cell by myself, twitching at every sound, and with no one to talk to.”

  “Well, as to that, I’m afraid accommodations are what you would call a wee bit tight at the moment.” Al stopped before a solid-looking wooden door. One that I couldn’t help notice was fitted with a small cat door. “What with the tourists and all.”

  “You imprison tourists, too?”

  “Only those that pay for it,” Herbert the guard said, leaning in to add, “It costs extra.”

  “Wow,” was all I could think of to say, and say it I did. A few seconds later, that pithy exclamation was joined by “Holy carp!” and “Oh, you poor thing. Is your nose broken?” when the guards summarily dropped Gregory on the floor and closed the door firmly behind them.

  I knelt next to him as he rolled over and sat up. His eye was swelling even as I watched it, and a trickle of blood from a split lip dripped sluggishly down his chin.

  “You look,” I said, pulling out the end of my shirt and using it to dab at the blood, “like a man who’s gone five rounds with a Velociphant.”

  “What on earth do you suppose that is?”

  “Love child of a velociraptor and an elephant? That or some sort of elephant on wheels? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that I’m getting sick and tired of being imprisoned. First it was the Watch, then it was that Holly woman, and now it’s the queen of the Underworld.”

  “We imprisoned you? For what crime?”

  “Nothing that I did. They thought I was my mom, and later released me because they couldn’t prove I was her.”

  “Ah, I recall hearing something about that.”

  “Now you know why I’m so tired of this shtick. Does this hurt?”

  I grabbed his nose and gave it a sharp snap, causing him to jerk back and howl. “Bloody hell! What are you doing? Oh.” He took a stuffy-sounding breath. “I guess it was broken.”

  “You’re welcome.” I stood up and looked around, wondering what we were doing there, and more to the point, how we were to get out. “This really is the nicest dungeon. Those cots have memory foam mattresses. And look, I think that walled-off area is a bathroom.” I went behind a closeted section of the dungeon, noting with approval the clean toilet and sink. “Yup, that’s what it is. No shower, though.”

  Gregory was gingerly feeling his mouth when I emerged from the toilet area, pulling away his fingers to glare at them. “How bad is it?” he asked, and grimaced.

  “Not bad at all. The toilet is clean, and the sink means they must have running water—”

  “No, not how bad is the privy. How bad is my mouth?”

  I tried very hard not to notice how enticing his lips were. The man had just fought off at least ten attackers and had the battle scars to show for it. I would not embarrass myself by staring with blatant lust at his mouth. “Not bad at all,” I said nonchalantly. “It’s very nice and all, especially when you smile, but I wouldn’t give up ice cream for it. Not unless, you know, I had to.”

  He stared at me as if the ice cream in question was coming out of my ears. “What are you talking about?”

  “You asked me if I liked your mouth. I said I do. What’s the big deal?”

  He showed me the tips of his fingers, then bared his lips at me. Just to the right of his upper two front teeth, a dark gap showed. “I meant how bad was the damage? Does the missing tooth make me look dashing and dangerous, like a pirate, or creepy and disturbing, like a crack addict who lives under a bridge?”

  “Dashing,” I reassured him. “Definitely dashing.”

  He eyed me. “You’re lying.”

  “Just a little. You’re not quite a sexy pirate, but also not a bridge-dwelling crack addict. More . . .”

  “A swashbuckler?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “More someone who was in a bar fight and lost a tooth.”

  “Lovely.” He made a face that turned to a frown when I wandered o
ver to bounce on one of the three cots in the cell. “What are you doing?”

  “Testing out the mattress to see if it’s soft or hard memory foam. Seems pretty decent.” I stretched out on it, feeling myself sink into it. “Ahhh. Nice.”

  “What about me?”

  I gestured toward the other two beds. “Take your pick.”

  “You’re not going to tend me anymore? That dab at my lip and the vicious jerk on my nose was the sum total of you nursing the wounded?”

  There was outrage in his voice, righteous outrage. I sat up, unable to hold back a little giggle. “You don’t need tending, do you? I mean, you’re immortal. The bleeding has already stopped on your mouth, the swelling around your eye will go down in probably less than an hour, and I’m willing to bet you that the bones in your nose are already knitting back together.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a little sympathetic care,” he said sulkily.

  That just made me giggle more.

  “I would remind you that I suffered these grievous wounds when a full score of men descended upon me as I attempted to protect you from them!”

  “A full score? Ha! It was a dozen at most.” I didn’t let on that I was impressed he had handled himself so well with all those guards. I suspected he’d just get a fat head if I did. It would be far better to turn his attention. “I didn’t need protecting, anyway. I just objected to being imprisoned a second time in so many days.”

  He maintained an injured silence for about a minute, then rose and stumbled over to one of the comfy cots, saying, “No doubt you were imprisoned for some illegal act your mother performed.”

  I glared at him. “No cracks about my moms, either of them. And for your information, Mr. ‘I’m the Watch and I Know Everything,’ neither my moms, Mrs. Vanilla, nor I did anything deserving of imprisonment. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Mrs. Vanilla?” He lay back on the cot, groaning in relief as he did so.

  I sat up to assess whether or not he really was hurt to the point where he needed healing. Most people of the immortal persuasion had self-healing abilities, some more powerful than others. Perhaps Travellers had a harder time healing up their wounds? “She’s a mortal, one of my mothers’ clients evidently.”