Kage Baker - The Anvil of the World

“Just you lean there, darling, rest your arms,” she told him. She kissed his throat, kissed his chest, kissed her way down to the waterline. Then she went below the waterline.

Moaning happily, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. In addition to Balnshik’s other talents, she was evidently able to breathe underwater.

Though not to hear underwater, apparently; which was why Smith was the only one to notice the struggle taking place outside the nearest stained-glass window.

Dragging his attention back from sweet delight with profound reluctance, he opened his eyes. Yes. Even stoned as he was, he could tell that was unmistakably a fight out there. Blade clanging on blade, scuffling boots, a muffled curse. He was gazing up at the stars in the roof and wondering if he ought to do anything about it when the question became academic.

Something blocked the stars and then the glass dome shattered inward, as two hooded figures dropped through on ropes like a pair of spiders. Before Smith could react, something else crashed through the window behind him, sending blue and green and violet glass panes everywhere. Smith gulped, aware that he had no weapons of any kind.

But it seemed he didn’t need any.

There was a new roiling in the water, and something rose roaring to the surface. It was not a toy mermaid. It was gigantic, serpentine, scaled, writhing, monstrous, and it was the color of a thundercloud. Its teeth were a foot long. It snarled up at the men who had come through the ceiling, regarding them with eyes like glowing coals. They screamed.

Smith swam for his life to the shallow end of the pool, where Lord Ermenwyr still drifted unconscious.

“Up! Up! Out!” he shouted incoherently, grabbing for the first thing he could reach, which happened to be the lordling’s beard. It came off in his hand, loosened by its long immersion in custard sauce and bathwater. He stood, staring at it stupidly. Lord Ermenwyr opened outraged eyes. Then he saw what was happening over Smith’s shoulder, and his little naked punk’s face registered horror.

“You wear a fake beard,” said Smith in wonder.

“It’s a facial toupee,” Lord Ermenwyr told him furiously, rolling to the side as something hissed through the air from behind them. It smacked into one of the mermaid’s breasts, which began to deflate. Smith looked down and saw a feathered dart.

Turning, he beheld Ronrishim Flowering Reed in the act of drawing breath for another shot. A wounded man was dragging himself along the coping after Flowering Reed, stabbing at the Yendri’s ankles.

Smith acted without thinking. He had a false beard instead of a knife in his hand, so the effect wasn’t as drastic as it usually was, but satisfying all the same. The sodden mess slapped full into Flowering Reed’s face with such force it knocked the little blowpipe down his throat. He choked and fell backward. The man on the coping grabbed him and pulled him close, running the dagger into him several times. A wave broke over the coping and obscured them in bloody foam. Smith tried not to look at what was happening in the deep end of the pool.

Lord Ermenwyr had splashed out and was running for the dining room, and Smith raced after him. He barely made it through before the double doors slammed. Lord Ermenwyr leaned against them, gasping for breath.

“Better to leave Nursie alone when she’s working,” he told Smith.

“What are you, ten?” Smith inquired. Lord Ermenwyr just looked at him indignantly.

After a while the horrible noises stopped, and they opened the door far enough to see Balnshik lifting the wounded man in her arms. There was no sign of Flowering Reed or the other intruders.

“Bandages NOW,” she panted, and Smith grabbed napkins from the table. She carried Mr. Amook (for it was he) into the bedroom and bound up his side. Lord Ermenwyr stood by, wringing his hands.

“Please don’t die!” he begged Mr. Amook. “I can’t bring you back if you die!”

Mr. Amook attempted to say something reassuring and passed out instead.

There came a thunderous hammering and shouts from the front door. Lord Ermenwyr wailed and ran to stick on a fresh beard. Smith, in the act of pulling on his trousers, stumbled into the hall to face the clerk and several members of the City Guard.

“About time you got here,” he improvised. “We just chased off the thieves. What kind of hotel is this, anyway?”

After profuse apologies had been made, after crime scene reports had been filed, after Lord Ermenwyr’s baggage had been transferred to another suite and a Yendri doctor in Anchor Street sent for to see to Mr. Amook—

Smith, Balnshik, and Lord Ermenwyr sat around a small table in varying degrees of comedown and hangover.

“You promise you won’t tell anybody about the beard?” Lord Ermenwyr asked for the tenth time.

“I swear by all the gods,” repeated Smith wearily.

“It will grow in one of these days, you know, and it’ll be just as impressive as Daddy’s,” Lord Ermenwyr assured him. “You haven’t seen Daddy’s, of course, but—anyway, what’s a mage without a beard? Who’d respect me anymore?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Fortunately, the witnesses aren’t likely to blab. Horrible Flowering Reed is finally dead, and what a consolation that is! And those other two probably didn’t see me, and if they did, they’re dead anyway. You’re certain they’re dead, Nursie?”

“Oh, yes.” She closed her eyes and smiled blissfully. “Quite dead.”

“So that just leaves you, Caravan Master, and of course you won’t tell.”

“Uh-uh.”

“I’ll make it worth your while. Honestly. Anything you’ve always wanted but never had? Any personal problems you’d like some assistance with? You should have explained about your ‘special talents’ sooner! Daddy always needs skilled assassins, he’d give you a job in a second,” chattered Lord Ermenwyr, whose mind was racing like a rat in a trap.

Smith’s mind, however, suddenly woke to calm clarity.

“Actually,” he said, “there is something you can help me with. I need a lot of money and a good lawyer to defend me against the Transport Authorities.”

Lord Ermenwyr whooped and bounced in his chair. “Is that all? Daddy owns the Transport Authorities! There are more ways of making money off caravans than robbing them, you see, even when you’re forced to become law-abiding. Mostly law-abiding anyway. Name the charges, and they’re dropped.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Smith. Settling himself comfortably in his chair, he began to tell the long story of everything that had happened since they bade him good-bye at the caravan depot.

“Terrace dining with a splendid view of the sea,” said Mrs. Smith thoughtfully, waving a hand at a bare expanse of concrete. She had a drag at her smoking tube and exhaled. “We shall deck it over quaintly, and put up latticework with trumpet vines to make it gracious. Tables and striped umbrellas.” She turned and regarded the old brick building behind them. “And, of course, an interior dining room for when the weather’s horrid, with suitably nautical themes in its decor.”

“Are you sure you want this property?” inquired Lord Ermenwyr. Behind him, the keymen were methodically pacing out room dimensions.

Burnbright stuck her head out an upstairs window and screamed, “You should see the view from up here! If we fix the holes in the roof and put in some walls, it’ll be great!” She waved a small dead dragon, mummified flat. “And look what I found in a corner! We could hang it over the street door and call ourselves the Dead Dragon!”

Lord Ermenwyr shuddered.

“No, silly child, it’ll be the Hotel Grandview: Fried Eel Dinners A Specialty,” decided Mrs. Smith.