TOM

by Dave Freer

  She looked at him, her head slightly askance, lip held between her white teeth. Shook her head and said. “You really don’t know, do you? Salt. Hold this wedge of lime between your teeth. And don’t look so nervous. I’m not going to bite you…” she smiled mischievously. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Tom looked around for an exit. He couldn’t see one. But when ‘yet’ came, he was going to be outside it, running. He watched as she leaned in to him. It was all he could do not to leap like a startled buck. She was licking his neck! His jugular wasn’t there… Then she leaned away again. Took the glass and drained it. And then kissed him. He felt her teeth bite into the lime, and the spurt of its juice. Her lips were very warm, and up this close… it looked as if she had something rubbed into her skin to make it undead-white.

  He swallowed. The lime didn’t make his mouth any less dry. She smelled alive… which should be preferable. Only he hadn’t really dealt with any live women before.

  “Your turn,” she said, her violet eyes dancing with mischief.

  Tom looked desperately for the exit again. She took her finger and wet her neck. “Salt,” she said.

  Like a hypnotized rabbit he obeyed. She handed him the glass.

  “I can’t drink that…”

  “It won’t kill you,” she said as she put the lemon between her teeth.

  Tom wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t be preferable. Besides, what was a live person doing in this place? “Let me take you away from here,” he said desperately.

  She laughed. “Maybe later. Maybe another evening.” She touched her neck…

  Tom, who had met more demons than he had real live born-human women, took a deep breath and licked. It was salty.

  She gestured at the glass in his hand. She had drunk the stuff… and she appeared to be alive. It had come out of the same bottle. He raised it to his lips. And three large men came barreling out of the arch - accompanied by the fellow in mulberry vest, now with a towel around his waist. Mulberry vest pointed at him “He did it. He’s the bastard who set me on fire.”

  Distracted, Tom unwarily drained the glass in his hand…

  And sprayed tequila out across the room. It burned his mouth and throat. He’d expected it to be some kind of wine or strong ale at worst. This was liquid… “FIRE!” he screamed.

  Which was possibly not the right thing to say when he hadn’t yet undone his earlier elemental summonsing. Flames whoomphed into existence under his gaze. As soon as Tom realised what he’d done, he quelled the elementals banishing them. In most cases they went out. However, he must have sprayed across the black boxes in front of the man in the corner. The strange music stopped abruptly with a cat-like yowl… The boxes spat a shower of pyrotechnic sparks. Doubtless the demons within had escaped.

  The Zombie-dancers stopped too. And of course some things that had caught fire continued to burn. The tequila he’d sprayed onto the counter for starters. Two of the burly men (and they were men, he was sure. They did not appear to be pale and wan at all) grabbed him.

  “Let go of him, you bastards,” screamed Maya.

  Tom was, for a moment, shocked to the core. Too shocked to react. Ordinary people did not meddle in the affairs of magicians, lightly. Not even by contact with their famulus. They got turned into newts! The third large man - not one of the two holding his arms, swung a large fist at Tom’s solar plexus.

  It never reached him however, because Maya, yowling like a very angry cat, grabbed it, and clung to him, and bit him.

  The fellow grabbed her and attempted to pull her loose.

  Tom’s tail went straight and his back arched. Words tripped off his tongue. The spell was for a staff, but the broom would do.

  The broom — a good solid oak-shafted broom — leaped into the air and gave the bullyboy holding her a crack over the head. It was audible even over the pandemonium of the panicked zombies and undead. The bullyboy eyes crossed and he fell, letting go of Maya. She landed on her feet, remarkably catlike herself. She bounded forward and stood on one of the two gaping bully-boy’s feet — with a long spiked heel. “Let him go, you son-of-”

  The broom belabored the man’s head. He was lucky. It was only birch-twig end. He was obviously less lucky with Maya’s weight in that boot… He let go of Tom to grab hold of her. Plainly, by where she put her knee, that was a mistake. The broom had shifted its attention to the last bullyboy, as Tom finished his next cantrip.

  The fellow shrank and turned green, giving an alarmed “ribbit?…” before hopping out of his clothes. Tom could have sworn that he had merely made mice materialize in the man’s underwear, but his attempts at magic did have some odd results from time to time. The spell lacked the chemical components for a permanent change, so the fellow would be back to normal in a few hours, wondering why his mouth tasted of spill-bugs and why flies made him hungry.

  Maya, however, seemed to be having the worst of her battle. So, without thinking, Tom hit her assailant with what was to hand. A crook necked flask snatched from the counter.

  It broke on the bullyboy’s bullet head, and the powder scattered over him… and through him. Tom had a brief view of the pantry cupboard and the cheese glowering there, before it, and the man, vanished, leaving Tom looking at the broken flask and wondering just how he was going to get home, and how he would explain the missing flask if he did.

  He offered Maya a hand up. “I was dealing with him,” she said. “He’d have had a problem in another minute, except that he had mice in his clothes. One of the mice ended up as a frog.”

  She was obviously a little confused. Just then water began spraying down from the ceiling.

  One thing Tom liked even less than being trapped in a strange world, was being wet. Baths were all very well, but indoor rain, wasn’t. He shook his head in distaste and lifted his cloak over his tail. He offered a corner of the cloak to her - she looked equally taken aback by this cave-rain. “Let us go somewhere drier. This place” — he sniffed at the smoky air and looked at the panicky undead and zombies — “is a mess. And I dislike that.”

  She slipped under the cloak. “You’re an original,” she said, with amusement in her voice. “We’d better go. The management are going to be rather upset about their bouncers.”

  That was a little puzzling, like much of her terminology, but he’d have to get used to it. He wasn’t going to be able to get back to Master Hargarthius now — which, considering the broken flask, might be a good thing. The frog, he supposed, might be considered a bouncer.

  She guided him through an archway and up a crowded flight of stairs. It appeared that many of the undead were leaving too. In a hurry. For their sakes Tom just hoped it wasn’t daylight outside. Fortunately, the broom seemed determined to make sure they were not too crowded, and swept aside the people who didn’t get out of the way fast enough. Tom finally had to tell it to stop.

  Outside was even stranger than inside. It was dark… well, it would have been if there had not been so many lights. Witchlight clung to poles above the street. More light shone from the windows of towers that seemed to reach to the sky. Light gleamed from the vicious eyes of snorting, growling, braying beasts in the roadway. She waved at a yellow one. It galloped past. She sighed and leaned against him. “I suppose it is late. Let’s walk a bit away from the club. There may be trouble and we’re more likely to get a cab. By tomorrow they’ll probably decide that it’s best not to call the cops. The story might get them unwanted attention from the narcs,” she said with a gurgle of laughter. “Anyway, there was no real damage done.”

  They walked. It was a terrifying place, a great citadel with more people — people awake at night — than in all Ambyria. She seemed quite relaxed about it. He put an arm and tail around her. It was more for his comfort than hers, but perhaps she didn’t realize that. She smiled up at him. “You’re cute, even if you’re trouble. This is a great place for clubbing, isn’t it? Goth clubs are the best. A bit of pancake makeup and we fit right in. You’d better lose the broom next ti
me, though. It’s just so 16th century.”

  Tom thought the broom had been quite good for clubbing, but if she said it was too futurist he would be pleased to ‘lose’ it. This was her environment, after all. He nodded. “Sure,” he said.

  She smiled and sighed. “I think I’d better get myself home. It’s been fun, but lack of sleep plays hell with my concentration. I’ve got a heavy day tomorrow. The old woman keeps me studying hard, and Laney will probably be in a panic by now, and telling my God-mama.”

  The idea of suddenly being alone in this place terrified him. “I don’t know how to get home,” he blurted. “All the hyper-dimensional powder I had was in the flask…”

  She gave a little of snort laughter. “I’d forgotten that. Well, a New York cab driver will find any place… if you pay them right.” She unhooked a small black purse from her belt. “How about one of those coppers of yours?”

  Wordlessly, he dug out his second last zoe and gave it to her. She breathed on it, and muttered something. It became green and grew into a piece of paper with strange arcane symbols and pictures on it. Then she took out a small vial from her purse… and sprinkled a little powder onto the note… a light, iridescent powder. She handed it to him. “Give that to the cabbie. He’ll take you home. It’s a better system than just making holes in the fabric of reality.” She dug in her purse again and came out with a gold stylus and a small square of paper. She wrote on it, and handed it to him. “Give me a summons sometime. You really are cute even if you are ignorant and don’t yet know how to make your tail invisible.” She whistled shrilly and waved to one of the yellow monsters. It stopped, and she opened a door. “Get in, do, and give him the green paper.”

  So Tom got in, with his broom.

  The human inside, sitting on the front seat, looked back, and surveyed him with some amusement. “Where to, Count Dracula?”

  Tom didn’t like being laughed at, or mistaken for a Nembutolian noble, but mindful of her instructions he gave the driver the green note.

  The man took it, twitched and jerked slightly, and turned around and set off into the herd of other road beasts.

  Only when the strange city began to blur did he think to look at the other note the girl had given him.

  It read “Maya Tindrell” and below was a summons-spell in Ambyrian script — not the strange letters of this place. Now some of her statements made a little more sense. And Tindrell… The queen of cats… no wonder she’d understood how to headbutt against Tom’s chin! The pendant between her breasts should have been a clue, if he hadn’t been so distracted by the breasts. A bat with a black rose. An alchemist’s symbol.

  The cab stopped at the gate-house of Master Hargarthius’s Tower. It was pale-predawn as Tom alighted. There was of course the issue of, what had she called him? The…. leaper… jumper? Ah… bouncer. Tom could only hope that he’d got away from the cheese, and, of course, from Master Hargarthius. The fellow might end up as privy or worse, a junior famulus. He’d have to get him back to his home somehow, and deal with the issue of the missing crook-neck flask.

  But mostly he was thinking about Maya, and her soft curves, and her ability to transform people into frogs. They could go clubbing again. He would take a nice knobbly blackthorn stick next time instead of the broom.

  Alamaya should have expected God-mama Emerelda to be waiting for her. But she’d been somewhat wrapped up in thought. So when she finally arrived at the home of cousins that she’d never met, even known existed, before God-mama brought her here, and let herself in, she was somewhat taken aback to see the witch sitting there, feet up, with a very large glass of wine and a sardonic expression on her face.

  “I hear you have found some of the trouble I sent you to look for,” said the wickedest witch in the west. “You wouldn’t happen to have snabbled any token I can use to find out just who he was?”

  Alamaya considered, briefly, lying. But only very very briefly. She took a coin out of her purse. “I swapped it for a ten dollar bill. I… I really don’t think he had any idea who I was, God-mama.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “That seems unlikely.”

  “Well, he had lots of chances to try to kidnap me, or to do me some harm. He put a lot of effort into protecting me instead. Not that I need it,” she said hastily. “And, um, he was cute.”

  “Oh?”

  “In a sort of raffish way,” said Alamaya airily. “There’s a sort of kittenish charm to him. Besides the tail.”

  “Ah. ‘Besides the tail’. Really,” said Emerelda, eyes narrowing. “Well, well, well. This could be opportune.”

  “He is generally held to be a suspect. He’s been very secretive for years, Duke Karst. Un-cooperative, not part of the association of magic workers.”

  Duke Karst tugged his spade-beard. “I don’t like the man. No-one like a traitor, even if his master had attacked against the Royal house of Corvin. But, Chief Wizard Kolumnus, it seems rather too obvious. He’d hide his tracks carefully.”

  “That’s why it has taken us so long,” said Kolumnus smoothly. “And we may not find her, my lord Duke. But it may frighten him into a precipitous move. And we’ll be watching.”

  CHAPTER 13

  TROUBLE AND THE QUEEN OF CATS

  Tom let himself in with the opening-spell via the hidden back door, the one that led out to the midden. Surely that would be less obvious than the front door…

  That was wishful thinking of course. They were waiting for him by the time the latch clicked closed.

  Within a remarkably few seconds he wished he was outside it again, and had in fact not decided to come back at all. He said so, but no one actually heard him, seeing as they were all too busy yelling at him.

  Tom gave up, and waited for the storm to subside. Eventually it did.

  “You’re forbidden to leave the Tower again. The miscreant must have sneaked in through the door that you left open,” said Master Hargarthius.

  “You’re going to be scrubbing pots and floors for a year,” said the Skull — as if that was something different.

  Tom yawned.

  “And you’ll be cleaning up the pantry right now. No rest for you! Wicked boy.”

  The raven said… “Nevermore.”

  “Quite,” agreed the Skull of Mrs Drellson crossly.

  “Take the prisoner down to the dungeon,” said Master Hargarthius. “Let him stew for a bit before I question him.”

  Tom sighed. It had been a great evening. And strictly speaking he’d got there without going out of the tower. “Where is he?”

  “In the pantry. The cheese is sitting on him.”

  So Tom went to the pantry, and cautiously opened the door.

  It was indeed a bit of a mess, with several broken jars of preserves and some flour on the floor, with a big shaven-headed goon lying in their midst. The cheese was on his back, growling in a menacing way that would have made the fellow’s hair stand on end, if he had any.

  “Ah,” said Tom. “The leaper. I mean, bouncer.” The cheese stopped growling at Tom’s voice, and he absent-mindedly petted it. It let him. Tiredness could be the death of him, Tom reflected.

  “This criminal, this… this pantry raider is your associate?” said Master Hargarthius in a voice that Tom knew, from experience meant trouble. Possibly newts.

  “No, Master. He was trying to beat me up, in the place I fell into.”

  “What?” demanded the Master, shocked.

  “I didn’t leave the tower,” explained Tom. “I fell through a hole into somewhere else. Your Hyper-dimensional fluid worked.” Tom yawned again. “Sorry. It took me a long time to get back.” He didn’t point out that he’d been having a good time not getting back. He felt he’d been in trouble about that already.

  At this point, possibly because the cheese had stopped growling, the bouncer tried to get up. The cheese bit him on the neck and shook him, hissing like a kettle that was about to explode. Tom realized he didn’t understand a word the fellow was whimpering. His trans
lation spell must have worn off, so he repeated it.

  “I’ll never buy from that street corner again. Ever,” said the leaper…bouncer.

  Maybe the spell wasn’t working properly. Or maybe the hyper-dimensional powder had left part of the fellow’s brains elsewhere, thought Tom. “Lie still, and it will stop biting you,” he said, not at all sure that was true.

  The man obviously recognised him. “I was just doing my job,” he protested weakly.

  “Miscreant. Pantry robber,” snapped the skull, having lowered her empty glowing orbs to his eye-level, but carefully staying outside the pantry. “You’re going to suffer.” And she gave him a jolt of the green lightning… which changed to purple sparks as it entered the pantry, Tom noticed. It still made the bouncer groan, and begin to understand suffering.

  “I’m never going to touch it again, I swear. I’ll be good,” promised the bouncer, miserably.

  The cheese did not seem to believe him. Tom was inclined to accept its judgement of character. Master Hargarthius didn’t seem too impressed either. “Take him to the dungeon, boy. And then come back and tell me about it. Hmph. I might as well eat something, seeing as I am awake.”

  Tom was aware that the last thing he’d had to eat was some salt, a long time back, but for the moment he had the problem of persuading the cheese to release its captive. Finally, Tom had the idea of bribing it with a saucer of milk, and telling it it was very good boy, well, cheese, and hastily getting the man out of the pantry, and closing the door.

  The bouncer got up off his knees and looked at the magician sitting at the kitchen table, warming his slippered toes at the hearth, in his tasselled nightcap and star-spangled night-gown, with a glowing-eyed skull hovering next to him and the raven glowering from a wall-sconce. The fellow shook his head. “I’m crazy, or this is a movie set. I’m getting out of here…” He tried to bolt for the door. Master Hargarthius was not much amused at the cheese being correct, and turned him into a newt. A newt still trying to push through the door.