by Dave Duncan
"I like getting my belly rubbed. We'll be back before dawn." He hoped.
"Good spirits be with you."
They were more likely to be against him tonight, if one included the guardians of Siena. Hamish turned quickly and strode off along the gloomy path toward the ghostly chink of light that marked his destination. Why, why, why had he made that crass remark about belly rubbing? No girl would ever rub Toby's.
Only the adept himself willingly went near the adytum, which crouched like a hunting cat among gloomy cypresses. Some parts were of Roman brick, others of massively thick stonework, all with squinty little window slits, but whatever the building's long history, it had recently been refurbished, and the tiled roof was solid and weatherproof. Even in summer it would stay cool; at midnight in February it had no trouble raising gooseflesh all over Master Hamish Campbell. So did the two horses tethered near the door. He gave them a wide berth.
He clattered the latch instead of knocking, and the hinges screamed like a witness on the rack. The only light inside was a solitary candle on the worktable at the far end, where Maestro Fischart stood, bent over a thick tome. He looked up with a scowl as his visitor approached.
"So the scholar turns hero? Rescuing the girl herself wasn't enough for you. Now you want to rescue her mother as well? Overcome with gratitude, she'll swoon helpless into your manly arms."
"She can swoon into yours all she wants, if you mean the countess. Lisa's enough of an armful for me." Hamish did not care for Maestro Fischart, essential though he was to the Company. He was undoubtedly crazy to some extent, the only question being how much.
Tugging his cloak tighter around him, Hamish looked around for a place to sit. His teeth very much wanted to chatter, and although he could blame the cold for that, chattering did not suit the role of knight-errant. The two spindly chairs bore teetering towers of books, and the plank bed was so piled with scrolls, boxes, anonymous bundles, and old clothes that its owner must be presumed to sleep on the floor. More litter lay on the two ironbound chests that contained the hexer's equipment and accompanied him everywhere he went. Glass vials and alembics cluttered a third, which was larger and stronger, the Company's strongbox.
The hexer squawked with derision and slammed the book closed, swirling dust up like smoke from the littered table. "You're mad, boy! You lust after the rightful Queen of England!"
That slash drew blood. Of course any thought of romance with Lisa was unthinkable, but that wasn't keeping Hamish from thinking about it. He'd been in love before, but this time felt different. Didn't every time feel different? Even more different. He had never met a girl like Lisa—haughty, learned, and courageous, and yet witty, naive, and appallingly vulnerable. Two days with her had set his wits so a-spin that the jeer made his temper boil.
"You were never young, were you? That dramatic ride to Highcross you told us about was prompted by nothing more than concern for the public weal? And tonight—hose, doublet, jerkin, cloak? My! What inspired you to discard that stinking robe at last? Want to look presentable to a lady, do you? Renewing an old romance? Playing gentleman? Haven't seen you wear a sword since Spain."
Fischart straightened. "Your ill temper is a sure sign of nervousness. Are you having second thoughts about this madcap escapade?"
Sudden caution. "Should I have second thoughts? What did you learn?"
The earlier divinations had given ambiguous results, and the hexer had promised to make further tests. Augury was always inexact, because no demon or spirit could foresee the future, but a skilled adept could learn whether his personal aspect was in positive or negative mode. Only an idiot would undertake a dangerous venture when the currents were set against him.
Fischart sighed. "The answers were no clearer. If anything less clear." He eyed Hamish for a moment, then dropped his gaze to the table and began shuffling objects around aimlessly. "Shadow. All I find is shadow."
"What shadow? Whose shadow?"
"The thief's. Longdirk tell you about the missing gold?"
"Of course."
"He hid himself with gramarye," the hexer mumbled. "My watchers didn't see him, but they saw his shadow." His hands continued to fidget as if playing a dozen chess games.
"You're sure it was a man's shadow?"
"No, but tonight my aura has that same shadow across it!"
Because it was his own shadow. He had contrived the theft himself for no sane reason. Lots of hexers went crazy. Consort with demons long enough and sooner or later you wouldn't know your armpit from an anthill. Fischart's gnawing guilt made him an obvious candidate for the chaos chorus.
"Across mine, too?"
"No, not yours."
"Then you stay here, and I'll go alone." That was sheer braggadocio. Hamish could not possibly handle the powers required. His new and untried agents in Siena had almost no chance of finding the countess by material means. In fact their bumbling inquiries were more likely to attract the signory's attention and thus drag her farther into danger. If the Fiend's minions had not already located her, the only practical way to find her was with gramarye. Coursing was tricky enough with dogs and with demons would be a roll in a snake pit. So he needed the hexer, and there could be no delay, for the propinquity of the severed kerchief must be fading fast.
"No. I'll come." The old man held out a hand. "Give me back Corte."
Hamish removed his ring. "Why can't I keep it for tonight?"
"Because it is conjured to whip you out of the way of any serious danger. Tonight you have to stay and enjoy it." Fischart dropped the guarddemon in a small casket of ivory and closed the lid. That box was familiar. Toby and the don had worked some real wonders with it once, including saving Hamish's life. He saw several things he recognized in the dust-coated litter on the table, but others were disturbingly strange—a furred hand with too many fingers, a lump of rock crystal containing what looked like golden feathers, a tortoise in a bottle, a basket holding embers that still glowed with worms of red fire and yet did not burn the basket, a small, brownish skull with teeth that were definitely not human...
"Have you ever considered becoming a hexer?"
Hamish looked up with an angry retort ready on his lips and was taken aback by the Fischart's pasty smile. The adept's humor was usually mocking, but this time he seemed almost wistful, and something like sincerity might be lurking in the rheumy eyes. That smile and the question were equally disconcerting.
Of course he had. Anyone who enjoyed books and learning as much as he did must at some time consider taking up the spiritual arts, and that was especially true in Italy, for almost every adept in Europe had spent time at the Cardinal College in Rome. Hexers, acolytes serving the spirits in shrines or tutelaries in sanctuaries—almost all were graduates of the College, and so were many of the Khan's shamans. The College would not willingly train a hexer, so only members of religious orders were accepted as students, and only by swearing fearful oaths could anyone join such an order, whatever he or she might do with the learning in later life.
"Too dangerous for me," Hamish said. "I'd rather keep on following Toby around and watching him rattle the world." Besides, the training took years, and its requirements included poverty, chastity, and obedience. Nothing much wrong with poverty or obedience, but chastity was altogether too plentiful already. No wonder adepts went crazy. Who would ever want to become anything like this cobwebby, memory-tortured old mummy?
"I see," said the mummy drily. "I have demonized the horses. Yours is named Westlea."
"It understands English?"
"It understands my English. What you call English is not what the English do. It knows Latin. I have also prepared two rings for you. Lupus will bring you back here the moment you utter the word 'Panoply.'"
"One word? Is that safe?"
The hexer's customary sneer returned. "No. And be warned—I have worded my edicts as carefully as I know how, but Lupus has a sense of humor. If you happen to be clutching a doorframe when you pronounce the word, it ma
y rip your hand off. Or bring the house, too, and drop it on top of you."
"Charming! Is that possible? A house?"
"Perhaps not, but Lupus is an exceptionally powerful demon."
Gulp! Exceptionally powerful and a one-word leash? Dangerous! But if gramarye could flash him back here from Siena with one word, why did he have to endure a demon ride to get there? The mummy was waiting for him to ask. Hamish rummaged through his knowledge of gramarye in search of an answer and saw that Lupus could be assigned a specific target for the return—here—but there was no way to define an equally safe destination in Siena. Given any leeway at all, a demon would drop him in fire, open water, a cesspool, anything to cause pain and adversity.
"Tell me about the other one."
"The other is Zangliveri, and you must wear it on your sword hand. If we meet with any trouble, point your blade at it and say, 'Vestige.' The target will be destroyed."
"Destroyed? People, too?"
"Certainly."
The ethics of murder were troubling enough without wondering how the tutelary would react to strangers slaughtering people with gramarye. It might let them get away with killing other strangers, as long as they left its flock alone—or it might not. "You play for high stakes, Maestro."
"There can be no higher stakes than these."
"Is Zangliveri as strong as Lupus?"
"Stronger. You should be able to open paths through stone walls with Zangliveri."
Hamish nodded and cleared his throat, which felt strangely dry, as if he were starting a cold. "Panoply for a fast getaway, Vestige to strike dead."
Fischart stared at him sourly. "You need to practice them again, or may I open the casket now?"
"I think I've got it."
"Good. I'd hate Zangliveri to turn the floor under your feet into an inferno." He opened the box and lifted out two rings of gold. One bore a blue stone, and the other a black. "Zangliveri. And Lupus."
"Pleased to meet you, Your Maleficences." Hamish slid them onto fingers of his right hand. They went on readily enough, then became painfully tight, but that was just the demons playing tricks. A demon would vent its hatred in any evil it could get away with, which might be plenty when it was held by a mere one-word conjuration. "What's the plan?"
Toby defined a plan as "The least likely sequence of events."
Fischart came around the end of the table. "You ride to Siena, and I follow. We release the steeds, locate Her Maj... the countess... if we can, and thereafter proceed according to our judgment and the turn of events." He had at least a dozen rings sparkling on his fingers—how many of them had been pre-conjured to react to a single word like Zangliveri and Lupus? The man was a walking powder keg.
Panoply, Hamish thought. Panoply. Vestige and panoply. What are we waiting for?
The adept wrung his hands. "I am very reluctant to use my skills against innocent men, Master Campbell. I am not as agile as I was, either. So, while I believe I can handle any gramarye Gonzaga is capable of applying against us and can probably distract the tutelary long enough for our purposes, I shall rely on your reflexes and keen eye if we meet with mortal resistance."
It was a nasty shock to realize that the celebrated hexer was as scared as he was. "Fear not!" Hamish proclaimed. "I am dauntless as a cornered rat unless I have time to think. Let's go." He headed for the door. The nauseating knot of apprehension in his belly went with him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hamish untethered the first demon steed and held its head while Fischart mounted. The brutes looked wrong for horses, acted wrong, smelled wrong, and their hate-filled eyes glowed faintly in the dark. He approached the other carefully, alert for iron-shod hooves and demon teeth that could rip chunks out of a man's flesh, but the hexer must have bound the Westlea demon well, for he was able to mount without trouble. Then he let go the reins and folded his arms. That was a point of honor for a demon rider, because in his terror he might seriously injure the horse's mouth. It was also rank bravado, but only a maniac would attempt this anyway.
"Ready, Maestro?"
"Ready, lad." The hexer's voice was a croak—comforting! "Pivkas, I bid you bear me after Westlea, going unseen."
Hamish wet his lips. "Westlea, I bid you bear me southward, passing east of Florence, going unseen. Go!"
The horse leaped into a place of demons, taking him with it. The first time he had ridden a demon steed, he had screamed for what felt like a solid hour, although in fact he had returned to reality after only a few minutes. Men had been known to go crazy, or faint and fall off, forever lost. One never knew what to expect, except that it would be torment and nightmare. In this case he rode beneath a sky of liquid black, devoid of sun, moon, or stars, and yet there was light of a sort, for the earth was visible from horizon to horizon, barren rock and ash bereft of shadows or color. Buildings were ruined, roofless, and tumbledown. People? There were no people as people, but vague glows writhed here and there like tormented wraiths trying to crawl up out of the soil, wailing appeals as the demon steeds thundered by them. If that was speech they were attempting, it was drowned by the discordant howl of a wind that stirred eye-nipping clouds of dust and once in a while peppered his face with sand. Blasts of feverish heat alternated with skin-freezing cold, both of them bringing rank, repulsive stenches.
He risked a glance behind him and shuddered. All he could see of the hexer was a skeleton astride a skeleton horse. Bones and metal—horseshoes and dagger, boot buckles and coins in a belt pouch. Conversation was impossible in the shrieking wind, but he decided that the old man was coping. His arm bones hung down in front of him, so he must be hanging on to the pommel of his saddle. That seemed like a good idea. Hamish could not see his own saddle, but he could feel it and cling to it. He tried not to look at his own bones or the sword dangling unsupported at his side. The gale tugged at his invisible cloak.
Florence was a ruin and an ancient one, as it might look a hundred years after the Fiend had sacked it, all crumbling walls and hills of rubble. He reminded himself that demons could not prophesy, and it was obvious that a pillar of light marked the sanctuary and lesser glows shone from the many shrines, defying the demonic illusion. To look at them hurt Hamish's eyes. He was not in a state of grace at the moment.
He could not, would not, stand this torment for very long. Coughing at the grit and filth in his mouth, he shouted, "Westlea, I bid you go faster!" A few moments later he repeated the command. Now the demon steed hurtled over the nightmare landscape like a stooping hawk. It crossed the dry bed of the Arno in three or four leaps and raced up the hills beyond. Had the demon world been ruled by the same laws as the world of mankind, it would have left a dust cloud a league long.
The baron was still with him. Either the old mummy was tougher than he looked or he had reinforced himself with some gramarye that he had not offered to Hamish. Either way—
"Westlea, I bid you go faster!"
Now the drum of hooves blended into a roar, like rain. The eldritch scenery rushed by in a blur. Southward he flew over the Chianti Hills, past Impruneta, Greve, and Castellina, retracing his journey of the last two days in a tiny fraction of that time. It just felt longer.
He came at last to a demonized vision of Siena, but the spirits burned there as bright as in Florence and would not take kindly to demons within their domain. Hamish halted Westlea in a field just outside the city wall. Then the air was sweet again, the stars shone above living trees. He bade his steed stand absolutely still and leaped to the ground. He shouted the same command to Pivkas—glad that he had remembered its name—and caught Fischart as he tumbled from the saddle.
A few minutes' rest on the grass, and the old man had recovered enough to start being unpleasant again, berating Hamish for the pace he had set.
"You may enjoy that; I don't," Hamish retorted. "You could have made the cursed thing go more slowly if you wanted. Now get rid of these incarnates before the tutelary blasts all of us!"
Muttering, the hexer clam
bered to his feet and spoke his commands, immuring the demons back in their jewels. Then the horses were only horses, whinnying with alarm at finding themselves where they had not been before. Hamish tied their reins up out of harm's way, loosened their saddle girths, and left them as a pleasant surprise for some lucky Sienese. His hands had almost stopped shaking. Whatever happened now, the worst of the night was over.
"The scarf," said the hexer. "You hold one end, let me have the other."
Hamish pulled out Lisa's kerchief, felt the maestro grip it also, heard a single guttural word, Halstuch!... and waited, shuffling from one foot to the other.
"What's happening?"
"El Bayahd's looking for the rest of it."
Searching the whole city? Every cesspit, every slop bucket? And what, pray, were the tutelary and its kindred spirits up to while these intruders disturbed the peace with exhibitions of gr—
The night exploded around him as the demon snatched him away.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Silence. Gasp for breath...
He stood beside Fischart, with his feet on mud and his nose almost touching the back of a coach. Beetling eaves showed high overhead against a sky just starting to think about dawn. A horse whinnied shrilly and jangled harness, as if it sensed the demon's passage, but no human voice was raised in alarm. Hooves stamped impatiently, clumping and clopping on stone. A man cursed, making Hamish's hand tighten on the hilt of his sword.
Someone very rich must be arriving or departing, for the carriage was no dainty gig for a jaunt to market but a lumbering shed on wheels that almost filled the roadway and would need a full team of eight. The voice had come from the side, probably a flunky waiting by the footboard. He must have been speaking to someone and there might well be another man holding the horses, possibly a driver on the box as well. Hamish abandoned his hopes that this escapade would involve nothing more vigorous than a tap on a lady's chamber door and a graceful bow as he was presented by her old friend Karl Fischart. Activities more strenuous now seemed imminent.
