Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

Rivas had his knife out now and was tapping the blade along the wall as he walked, to let the dwellers within earshot know that he was armed, but after turning west near Arbor Vitae and winding his way down another hundred yards of alleys and ladders and half-roofed courts he stopped doing it, for it was assumed that everyone here was armed, or else so horribly diseased that their mere proximity was dangerous.

The pavement had been getting muddier, and when one of his feet sank to the ankle he knew that there was now no pavement at all, though the walls crowded in just as closely on either side. At the frequent cross alleys he looked both ways, but the few lights he could see were dim and far away. Somewhere behind him human conversation had stopped being an element of this dark city scape. The only voice sounds he heard now were occasional shouts, screams, curses and insane laughter, and he couldn't decide whether he was being paced by someone who paused frequently to vomit or if there were simply a lot of upset Venetian stomachs tonight.

Finally he came to a section where the mud was uncomfortably warm and the walls were a soft claylike stuff that would hold the tracks of fingers dragged along it, and some fluid was bubbling out of the cracks between the soggy bricks. There were hundreds of little shelled animals like barnacles on the walls and underfoot, waving cilia that stung when they touched his skin. The entire tunnel—for a flexing, fibrous roof had been put up over the alleys here– was dimly glowing, and the wet breeze kept changing direction at regular intervals, blowing into his face for several seconds and then fumbling at the hair on the back of his head.

There was a collage of smells—hot metal, mildew, bad teeth—and then the tunnel narrowed to a small ragged opening that he had to scramble up a slope to get to, and then he'd squeezed through it and leaped clear and was rolling on cold, gritty, normal pavement.

He scrambled to his feet and for a moment he was tempted to bless himself as his mother had taught him decades ago, for here, separated from him by only one high-arching canal bridge, and beyond that an ascending flight of steps, was Deviant's Palace itself.

tall rides whirled out front, glaringly lit, as was the building itself, by apparently genuine electric lights that cast a multicolored noon radiance over the waterfront. A big incandescent orange sign crawled across the front of the edifice, and even as Rivas read it, dizzy with incredulity, he wondered if it could have been put up solely for his own benefit, for the words were in the complicated old-time spelling:

DEVIANT'S PALACE

Steaks, Unconventional Seafood, Progressive Cocktails Meditation Chapel! Petting Zoo! Souvenir Shop!

GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! Explicit Scenes & Offensive Sounds

A million big flying bugs were battering themselves against the glowing glass tubes.

The stories he'd heard had prepared him for the size of the place—it was huge, stretching away out of sight in either direction, and six or seven stories tall in some places– but had not quite prepared him for the lunacy of the architecture. Everything was rounded or tapering out to spiny points; there were no planes or right angles, and the lavishly applied stucco had the appearance of leathery hide. The many unsymmetrical windows and doors were inset, in arches so ragged and so randomly placed that they seemed to have been made by firing cannons at the walls from within– though each window was covered by an intricately worked grille; a profusion of apparently ornamental arches gave the place a morbidly skeletal appearance, which was not entirely relieved by the hundreds of banners and giant pinwheels and weathervanes. Most of the windows glowed with colored light, and the big front doors were wide open and spilling out a loud two-toned singing, not unlike the Jaybirds' mind-blurring hum.

Rivas ran trembling fingers through his hair and took the invitation out of his pocket. This must be the place, he thought, and started forward. He walked slowly, for each step required an individual choice between continuing and fleeing.

At the top of the bridge he paused to look around. Deviant's Palace, he saw, was the hub of a dozen canals, which all disappeared inside the place through high arches. He descended the far side of the bridge and approached the stairs.

A fat, hooded person scrambled out of a manhole in front of him and blocked his way. In glowing letters on the person's robe front was spelled out: I GOT MY ASHES HAULED AT DEVIANT'S PALACE. «Sorry, sir, invitation only tonight,» piped up a sexless voice.

Rivas held up his invitation^

The hooded figure peered at it in the bright electric light. «Well, excuse me, the guest of honor! Just head right on in—you're expected.»

The situation had already had a fever-dream unreality to it, but this grotesque courtesy totally disoriented Rivas. «Thank you,» he said, and as he went up the steps he actually caught himself wishing he'd shaved.

From overhead he heard a windy sighing, and looking up he saw the wooden gargoyles he'd once heard described. They were writhing and stretching out splintery arms and rolling their heads. Rivas had been told that when the things cried out it was with human voices, but tonight it was just a whispery roaring that he heard, like the voices of the trash men in Irvine.

Through the open doors he could see a carpeted hallway. He shrugged and stepped inside.

In a loop of a canal a few hundred feet from the structure, ripples spread as a corpse drained of blood floated to the surface.

That's a little better, thought the thing under the water. I can think a little more clearly now. So he thinks he can lose me by going into that place, does he? Think again, Gregorio.

It swam closer, already faintly uncomfortable with the burning and itching, in spite of the shielding water around it. He knows I hate these places, it thought. That's why he keeps going to them. But once I've got him, we'll go where I want to go.

It looked back and up at the floating corpse, wishing the old drunk had had more vitality. That's what I need, it thought. If I could drain somebody strong, then I could become so strong myself, and solid, that I could simply beat Rivas into submission.

The thing shivered with pleasure at the thought.

Well, it told itself, get moving. You don't want Rivas to die before you can catch up to him. It kicked its froggy feet and swam toward one of the arches in the wall of Deviant's Palace.

Another hooded figure approached Rivas as soon as he'd entered the low hall.

«We meet again, Mister Rivas!» came a woman's voice from inside the cowl. «The Lord will be pleased that you could attend on such short notice.» The hood was flung back and Sister Sue smiled crazily at him. «You should be flattered,» she said. «He nearly never troubles himself to invite anyone. Generally he just lets them drift west.»

Rivas had managed to control, and, he hoped, conceal, his instant impulse to run. Right at the moment, he told himself firmly, there are many more dire things to fear than this girl. «Well hello, Sister Sue,» he said, deciding he might as well enter into the spirit of the evening. «Uh . . . what an unexpected pleasure.»

With a clever but completely unconvincing imitation of vivacity she took his arm and led him up the hall. «During our brief acquaintance,» she said, «I've gathered that you're fond of music and drink. The former, as you perceive, is provided.» Evidently she meant the two-tone hum. «Might we furnish you with some of the latter?»

All at once the whole awkwardly stilted pretense, from the calligraphic invitation to Sister Sue's nearly impenetrable imitation of high society speech, made Rivas vaguely sick. «Yes, thanks,» he said tiredly. «Tequila neat, please.» At least the offer of a drink was an indication that they didn't intend to hit him with the sacrament. The smell of the sea seemed to be even stronger inside the building.