Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

The side road they were following soon met up with a larger one. They turned right at the intersection, clearly aiming toward the outskirts of Oolsmouth across the gently sloping land. It had been a number of years since the last time Karlini had visited Oolsmouth, and with the continuing pace of the local pastime, public works projects, he wasn’t sure he’d know his way around. If he remembered correctly, though, they were heading toward what had been the shantytown area on the northwestern edge of town. Wandering around in the post-midnight gloom, even with a good moon still up, was not exactly the best way to renew a connection with unfamiliar geography, but Haddo still seemed to know where he was going, sure enough.

“Uh, Haddo? Is this side of the city still the, uh -”

“See you will,” said Haddo. “Quiet now be.”

“If that’s where we’re going,” Karlini muttered, “I’m glad I’m with you.”

“Glad should you be.”

Ahead of them, a clutter of ramshackle buildings, some little more than lean-tos, marked the edge of Oolsmouth. Don’t look like a victim , Karlini reminded himself. That’s what they always say . But you weren’t supposed to call attention to yourself by being too forthright, either. There was a spell-sequence for turning yourself invisible, but it would have taken a several-hour session to set up even if Karlini had the right references at hand, and in any case it was most effective against straightforward humans. The street was still deserted as they passed the first buildings. Down the block on the right, however, he could see a fairly solid-looking two-story timber-frame structure with open glassless windows on the second floor. Something drifted past one window, something luminous and wispy, like a person-shaped cloud or a gauze mannequin. It didn’t look tough, and things wrapped in gauze usually had a hard time being menacing, but then it could have just been a lookout.

On the other side of the street, protruding from a deep pool of shadow between two houses, Karlini spotted a pair of legs. The feet, clad in old ratty sandals, were resting in the rubbish-heaped gutter, and the bare legs stretched back away into the darkness, disappearing from sight just above the knee. Each of the two legs was as thick at its calf as Karlini’s waist and their length from knee to ankle would have measured Karlini from floor to hip. A rumbly snore rasped from the alley. Karlini was not relieved to see that Haddo gave the legs a wide berth, but he locked his jaw shut and followed Haddo’s path. It doesn’t matter , he thought. They’re still pretty basically like us.

At the next corner, though, the figure sitting on a flat perch nailed halfway up that building and leaning backward against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, appeared human in all particulars, at least to the limit of visibility provided by the moon and the few firelit windows. The head swiveled to follow them down the street, the silver color of moonlight glinting in its eyes. Karlini kept himself from rushing his pace as they moved past. There were some people who had extensive congress with their more outré cousins, whether for reasons of business, philosophy, or various emotional hang-ups, but since cross-species fraternization was more of a vice than a mainstream activity, and a tawdry vice at that, those folks didn’t advertise it around too loudly; they were in a sense as much of a silent population as the nonhumans themselves, the kind of people whom one saw standing on a street corner shouting hoarse-voiced manifestos from beneath a mane of scraggly hair, or giving lectures on “My Life with the Folk of the Field.” Rather tedious, really , thought Karlini. On the other hand, anyone who spent the night perched on an outer wall watching a street might be more than odd, he could be downright dangerous. You’re a sorcerer , Karlini told himself, and a leading one, too. You can certainly deal with a single weirdo . It wasn’t reassuring. The guy could have friends. The guy could know the whole district. And the only backup Karlini had was – Haddo?

Where he had gone?

A sharp hiss came from the right, where another narrow alley wound off between the buildings. Karlini tried to steady his breathing and walked into it. Haddo’s glowing-coal eyes glared up at him. “Attention pay,” Haddo snapped. “Lost get become.”

“How much farther are we going?”

“Until get there we.” The eyes disappeared as Haddo swung around. Karlini heard the small sound of feet crunching through the usual ground-garbage. The sound began to retreat again from him so he followed once more.

It was much darker in the alley, which wasn’t a real surprise. He didn’t like using spells in this gods-forsaken place, but did he remember anything for night vision? What about -

Gods-forsaken?

“Haddo,” Karlini said in a low voice, “do you folks have any gods?”

The crunching ahead of him stopped. “What mean you?”

“All the gods I’ve ever heard about have been human, in appearance I mean, and temperament, too. Are there any gods like you ?”

Haddo said nothing. Maybe it was a sore subject: he probably should have thought more before bringing it up in the first place. The answer could have significance, though, to someone at sometime somewhere if not obviously so at the moment. “Personal, question is,” Haddo said slowly.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s more -”

“My word, take.”

“Well,” Karlini said, “don’t you have gods leaning on you and looking over your shoulder the way we do?”

“Without representation, taxation still is.”

“I’m not sure I -”

“Maximillian, ask should you. Expert on gods is he.”

Haddo turned and crunched hurriedly away. Was Haddo just trying to distract him with misdirection? He knew Max wasn’t anywhere Karlini could reach him for a question at the moment. No, it probably wasn’t misdirection at all; it would be just like Max to have wormed something interesting out of Haddo and not have mentioned it to anybody. Around the next bend, his thoughts still churning queasily, Karlini almost tripped over Haddo. Haddo for once didn’t bother to mention this. He was scrutinizing the apparently blank wall of a building, hands on what were presumably hips. “Haddo izney tu,” he said to the building.

Nothing happened. After a moment, he said, in a louder and more aggrieved voice, “Haddo izney halatu !” Then he kicked the wall for good measure.

A concealed door separated itself from the wall and opened inward. Haddo, abandoning his usual scuttling gait, strode into a dark hall. Karlini squared up his shoulders and trailed him in. The door closed after them. “With doors tricks more,” muttered Haddo. “Always with doors tricks. Think you up with something new come they would.”

A voice spoke out of the gloom deeper down in the hall and from a higher level, as though the speaker was hanging from the ceiling; the character of the voice was a sort of contralto buzzing whine, the kind of sound a person with a few bees caught in their throat might make. “Nobody said you had to come here,” the voice said,.

“Haddo am I,” said Haddo.

“Are you now?” buzzed the voice. “And who is this - person?”

“With games stop,” Haddo snapped. “Door open.”

“You can go in,” the voice said reluctantly, “but your man waits outside.”

A sudden glare of red slashed across Karlini’s dark-adapted vision. His own barely stifled yelp went totally unheard under the twin sounds of an electric-arc zapping and the frantic buzz of a beehive abruptly kicked off its tree branch. In the seared-white afterimage Karlini could see the figure of Haddo just ahead of him, one arm at shoulder level, backlit in silhouette by the core of the light-burst pouring out from his hand. The buzzing ran down the scale with a gulp and a pant. Without another word, though, a new door opened ahead and to the right. A staircase led down. “Word say not,” Haddo muttered back over his shoulder. “Cool be.” He headed down the stairs.