Stephen Brust - The Gypsy

"Durand!" he yelled, even as Daniel said, "Shush!"and the Coachman said, "Timmy!"

"Get out ta the door!" Ed warned as Stepovich shouted, "One side!"

But Daniel had already pushed the door open. Durand drew his gun and stepped to one side as the Coachman sagged to the other. They all heard the shot, the dull wang of lead against cast iron, and the whine of the ricochet. A bullet burst from the wall in a whuff of plaster, traveling so slowly that Stepovich would later tell Ed that he saw it as it spent the last of its energy burrowing into the biceps of Durand's right arm. The kid cried out, a man's short hoarse cry,but he did not drop his gun. He brought it to level,steadying it with his good hand, and went around the corner into the room as if he'd been doing it for years. Ed and Stepovich were half a second behind him. past the Coachman, propelling Daniel into the room with the force of their rush.

For a brief yellow instant, Stepovich saw it all like a cheap Polaroid shot: The injured man on the couch reaching after someone, yes, the scarred old Gypsy,fluttering scarf in hands that were closing on, yes, it had to be little Timmy, not so little, but Timmy just the same, and Madam Moria clutching her castiron teakettle; the kettle now had a clean star of almost shorn iron in its side. Like a photograph, it was detail perfect but still, and he had a sense of falling into it,carrying Durand and Ed and Daniel with him.

Towards dawn I saw the ashes

Of birches long since dead

Woah, lannan sidhe let me be.

I left them clutching shadows:

Left my curse unsaid.

Woah. lannan sidhe come to me.

"LANNAN SIDHE"

The gun exploded in the small room, so loud a sound that it seemed to be a flash of light as well. Csucskari was stunned by it; his sight blurred and cleared, and in the high ringing that sang in his ears was another voice, familiar in its warmth and accent. The Coachman had returned.

"Timmy."

That was the word he had said, the word the gun tried to swallow. Csucskari struggled to make sense of it. Who was Timmy? The gunman, of course. This realization drowned out any other significance in a flood of memory so powerful Csucskari was almost swept away. He stared at the gunman, frozen in time.Voices and shadows, juxtaposed in truth and in memory, beat at his consciousness. Then and now merged and swirled. They call him Timmy Dee, and I don't know what I can do. All the grocery money's gone. Dad's gonna kill me. He cheated. I know he did. Well,all right, my friend, I will go speak with this Timmy Dee, and see if things can't be put right… Timmy. Little Timmy. Timmy Dee.

Csucskari felt jolted as time caught him up again.A young man-a policeman-weasled into the room.There was blood on his sleeve, his two hands gripped a pistol, his face was calm, tension in his shoulders,his elbows relaxed. The gun went sniffing, found Timmy and held on him, and the young policeman's fingers began the steady squeeze of the trigger, oh so purposefully, oh so calmly, oh so righteously, to put an end to Little Timmy. Timmy would stagger backwards from the knife wound, hold his throat as if he could stop the torrent that laves his fingers, the red that drenches his clothes so swiftly. He'd fall to the ground, gurgling in amazement, eyes still going from Csucskari to the knife to Csucskari, no, no, from the gun to the policeman, no-

Csucskari flung the scarf like a net, keeping his grip on one corner, and for an instant, one golden instant, no one moved and the world held its breath,waiting.

Voices came, from nowhere, from everywhere,from the walls of the room and from inside his head.Raven's voice, saying, "He can lead us back," and Owl speaking behind him, saying, "Then listen to your own fiddle, brother," and Raven replying,"Then play your tambourine, brother." The Coachman was there, come back for them all as he had to,and with him a great shaggy old Wolf and a bright-eyed Badger. They all looked to him, to Csucskari,like the spokes of a wheel suddenly recognizing the hub. The burden dragged at him and for a moment the spell wavered. The young policeman should have pulled the trigger then indeed, but the music of the fiddle swept through the room like a wind of sound.Csucskari laughed aloud to be together with his brothers, for this moment, and all of them alive. He flung the scarf into the air once more, like a blessing,crying, "Well, then, Luci, we'll come to you, and see how you like it."

The scarf spun and grew larger, warp and woof becoming a fine mesh, a painted picture, a target, and then a net of glowing threads. None of them could move as the weave grew and enveloped them in a pattern that filled each mind with the textures of the fiddle's sliding high notes, and Raymond was playing the tambourine off in the distance now, shaking it like a spice box, fingers flying against the brass zils.Somewhere else, far, far away, the Coachman muttered, "Damn gypsies. I'm getting too old for their nonsense." Then they all vanished in a swirl of yarn and music.

He said, "My business is dead on the floor.

Though my business ain't often in bars.

I kill beasts when I just can't take 'em anymore;

Between times, I look for the stars."

"THE GYPSY"

The Fair Lady has been plucking a sparrow and throwing its feathers into the flames. The stench of their burning and the crying of the bird have made a pleasant harmony, but now She casts it aside and rises angrily, scowling at the smoldering yarn. Unnoticed, the sparrow hops away into the darkness. The Fair Lady turns Her head, but the music gets louder and louder, the ringing and thumping of the tambourine in the unrelenting rhythm of the csardas with the fiddle playing like wildfire around its edges. The Fair Lady summons the midwife and the nora and the liderc.The nora scampers wildly about on its hands and feet, its teeth chattering wildly, frantic to please Her, grimace after grimace washing over its young old face. The liderc sways from side to side, one arm held high like a club, threatening nothing and everything. The midwife has brought her knitting, and the needles rattle against each other, clattering like steel instruments in a cold tray.

But the music gets louder, sweeping past them like an angry broom. A piece of thread dangles down into the fireplace from above. Another follows it, and another, and see how they knit themselves together, even there in the fire?The cloth that forms is impervious to the licking flames, it only grows fuller, until it seems to be a scarf with a peculiar pattern.

"Soon," warns the Fair Lady. She nods, and Her chair turns to face the door. The nora chitters and approaches the doorway, jumping and skittering about in front of it like a gargoyle coffee table come to life. The others face the doorway as well, even the midwife standing, her knitting needles poised. The cloth drapes the fire, which smolders. One pleading tendril of smoke escapes but withers as it flees. The darkness is almost total. Two doors fly open at once.

One instant, Daniel was leaping into a tapes tried and carpeted room, flinging himself to his brother's aid. Then, in midbreath, he was falling. "Coachman! Lead us back!" he cried out, pleading. But no one answered.

He fell into darkness, and following the gun's roar;he thought he had been hit, struck blind, and was falling to the floor. But there was no pain, and there was no floor, there was nothing, only the darkness and the falling. I should be frightened, he thought,but he wasn't. He'd been through too much in the last twenty-four hours, perhaps all his fear was used up. He sensed the finality of the confrontation to come. He had waited for it, lived for it for so long that the anticipation had eroded his feelings. Nothing was there but numbness and a small sense of relief in knowing it had begun; no matter how it ended, it would now, at least for a time, end.