After going up and down the ladders for a while I gave up. Thanking the fox politely, I kept the pencils and paper and wrote down what had happened since I’d left home. I didn’t know it then, but I was starting what became a journal and the basis of this account. While it didn’t take my mind off my problems, it did help me focus on the situation and put it in some perspective.
Lord Renyard prepared to leave after a while, begging me to remain, as he put it, under his protection. I promised, though I longed for a telephone just so I could reassure my parents that I was okay. He told me that he was doing his best to get a message to them somehow. “But I would guess your grandparents’ friends are here looking for you. I mentioned the rumors.” He picked up his elaborate feathered hat, took a firm grip on his long cane, and bent to pass through the low door, closing it behind him.
While he was gone I heard a lot of activity in the tavern below, and a few words, and these sounded like nonsense. I heard a great deal of high-pitched laughter from the women. They scared me. Again I found myself wondering whether Lord Renyard was on Klosterheim’s side or Monsieur Zodiac’s.
When the fox came back he was in good humor. He hadn’t heard that newcomers were looking for me. It was thought they were in audience with the Sebastocrater, the city’s ruler. What they intended to do when they left his palace, Lord Renyard didn’t know, but he had men watching the palace, and they would contact my friends (if that was who they were) as soon as they could. Meanwhile someone else wished to see me. She might be able to help.
Who else could know I was here? I was baffled. She?
Lord Renyard bowed, offering me his arm. “Would you mind coming with me, mademoiselle? It is only a short way from here.”
My head filled with questions I couldn’t voice. I replied lamely. “I’ll be glad to,” I said, “thanks.” Hand on paw, we left the tavern and went out into the pleasant evening air. As we walked, Lord Renyard tried to tell me something of the history of the City in the Autumn Stars, why it was called what it was, who had founded it, who now ruled it and so on. It was a huge city, very well ordered in the main. “The center alone is reserved for the criminal and bohemian classes and all those associated with us. I am the acknowledged chief of those classes. Nowhere else is wickedness allowed to thrive.” He seemed faintly embarrassed. “You should know that I am a monster but never had any choice in my calling.”
We went down another alley, emerging into a wide courtyard.
On the far side of the courtyard stood a small, picturesque house with two windows and a door. The roof was thatched, and a white lattice supported a huge mass of pink and white roses, which gave the cottage a resemblance to a human face. I had never seen anything quite like it and wasn’t even surprised when the windows opened suddenly to reveal two huge blue eyes. Then the door creaked and the house began to speak.
My instinct was to run. I seemed to be able to take a talking fox in my stride, but not a house which behaved like a human head.
“Good evening, child,” said the house in a severe feminine voice.
Lord Renyard’s paw steadied me, but my voice was shaking when I replied. “G-good evening—um— ma’am.”
“I heard you were in the city. Did your friend the fox explain who I am?”
“N-no, ma’am, h-he d-didn’t.”
“You are not dreaming, at least no more than the rest of us dream, there being no such thing as one particular reality. We pass through the multiverse as best we can, using whatever logic we can, understanding what is possible for us to understand. You are surprised that a house can speak. I would be surprised, for instance, by a box which showed me events on the far side of the world as they happened, yet you take such a phenomenon for granted, if I am not mistaken.”
“You’re not mistaken, ma’am. That’s television.”
“I have spoken of them with other visitors. But I did not ask my friend Lord Renyard to bring you here to discuss the nature of realities. I wanted to tell you that you are in considerable danger.”
“Klosterheim? Is he close?”
“You have been in danger since the day you were born. You carry fated blood, you see. You carry a power. Have you ever heard of the Graal Staff?”
“No—um—Miss …”
“You may call me Mrs. House. I am famous locally as an oracle and have occupied this spot, off and on, for five or six thousand years, though I think the time is coming due when I must move again.” Her windows closed for a moment, as if in thought. “I might have to found my own city…”
“Thank you, Mrs. House.”
“You have not heard of the Blood, yet you are the virgin your enemies believe is destined to carry it. Whether you keep it or not is not yet decided.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. House. You’ll have to explain a bit more.”
“Oracles aren’t especially adept at explanations,” she said almost apologetically. “We are best at large predictions, especially if we are bound to one place, as I am so frequently bound.”
“Why should I be singled out to take charge of some blood?” I asked.
She seemed almost impatient with me. “If you find the Blood, you or someone you decide upon must take it home and keep it safe forever.”
“But I can’t find my home. That’s the problem!”
“Solving one problem will solve both. The Blood is the blind boy. One will reveal the other.”
“Can I find my home first?”
“You will find it eventually, of that I am certain. Unless they put you and the blind boy together. If that happens, you could easily die in terrible circumstances. You must make it your business for them not to catch you.”
“Catch me? Who do you mean …?”
“Those who know only the secret of the Blood and the Stone but not their function.”
My heart was beating so hard that I was short of breath. I think I had begun to cry. “Tell me who wants to hurt me,” I begged.
Her expression quickly became sympathetic. Her roses rustled quietly.
“One, as you know, is called Klosterheim,” she declared. “He is here already. But the other is more fearsome. The creature with whom Klosterheim habitually travels. Yes, I see him. Once the greatest Knight of the Balance, now a Prince of Chaos. Paul von Minct.” Again her window eyes closed as if in pain. “Ah! He has no face! He has too many faces! Beware of him. Seek your uncle in the fires of industry!”
And suddenly her eyes closed, and I was looking at an ordinary little country house again, with a rather shaken fox motioning for us to leave. I took his offered paw.
“Sometimes, my dear,” he said as he led me out of the courtyard, “this world of mine defeats all logic. Its terrors make me speculate whether or not I should believe in a deity, for it seems I am consigned to Hades. I am so sorry you were frightened.” We were again in the bustle of the city. “I had only her message. She is known to be very accurate. Yet this time she was also mysterious. Do you have a brother here?”
“No,” I said. “Nor an uncle. Not even a cousin I know about.”
“Are you by any chance adopted?”
“Of course not! I was just a bit of an afterthought, Mum said. Besides, there was the blood test we did before we went to India, which showed we were all related. Why?”
“Just a foolish idea,” he apologized. He was still thinking hard. “The fires of industry she sees are no doubt the many factories on the far side of the river. It is possible that your friends also journey there.”
“She said something about getting home. Could there be a way home on the other side of the river? Might it be safer for us there?”
“I doubt it, my dear.”
In deep thought we returned to Lord Renyard’s apartments.
It seemed to me we were more confused than before we had left.
I was beginning to get used to the miraculous, but it took a while for what I had just experienced to sink in. Lord Renyard wore an air of faint pride as we headed towards Raspazian’
s. Mrs. House did not send for just anyone, he said. Although she had warned me, she hadn’t really told me much that I didn’t already know. I was curious, of course, about what she’d called “the Graal Staff,” and asked the fox several questions about it on the way back. He had heard of the Holy Grail, he said, and knew of the Black Sword, but he wasn’t sure he’d read more than a reference to a staff.
“It could be that it has yet to be found, that you are the one destined to discover it. After all, powerful blood flows in your veins, eh?”
This mystified me even more. When I tried to quiz him about it further, he merely put a paw to his snout in a knowing gesture and winked at me.
To be honest, I was a bit alarmed by Mrs. House’s predictions, wondering if I hadn’t entered some kind of grand loony bin. It had to be a strain, as Lord Renyard had hinted, being so strange. I wondered if I wouldn’t be better off in what they called the “Shallow City,” where people seemed more normal.
As we approached Raspazian’s faded sign, one of the swaggering, befeathered rogues who served the fox came towards us and, leering at me in a disturbing way, bowed to his master.
“Well, Kushy?” said Lord Renyard.
“Ye’ve a visitor, my lord. We’ve seen him before, if I’m not mistaken. Pale cove. Looks like death. Has a cold.”
“His name?”
“Didn’t mean much to me, your worship.” Kushy lapsed into the language I’d heard before.
A brief conversation, and we were on our way again, with the fox frowning and looking down at me. Before we reached the tavern, he had further words with Kushy, who was off like a shot, coming back with a sizable hemp sack.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“For you, my dear. I want you to climb into it.”
“I’m not sure that seems like a good idea.”
“I don’t want this Klosterheim to see you. This way I can get you past him and into my quarters without revealing your presence.”
Reluctantly I agreed. The sack didn’t smell as bad as I expected it to. In fact it was rather sweet. It must have contained sugar or something similar. Kushy hoisted me onto his shoulders, groaning that I seemed precious heavy for a little girl, and I felt him carrying me into the tavern and setting me down inside the door while a voice I recognized announced itself as Klosterheim.
“I remember you,” I heard Lord Renyard say. “You are a friend of Tom Rakehell’s—Manfred von Bek.”
“The same, sir.” Klosterheim’s cold tones were also familiar to me. He was the man from the common, all right. “I trust you are well.”
“Well enough, after all the damage you and your party caused here. I hope you found what you sought. Too many died in that pursuit. I was forced to take sanctuary in another city for a while.”
“Aha! You have been in Tanelorn!”
“That’s my business, Herr Klosterheim. What’s yours?”
“I fear I call upon you again for help, sir.”
Lying still as a corpse in the sack, I managed to get an eyehole parted but, even so, couldn’t see much of either Lord Renyard or Herr Klosterheim. But I knew for certain it was the same man I had been warned against.
“I believe you have taken the young countess, Oonagh von Bek, under your protection,” Klosterheim said, cutting to the chase. “The granddaughter of Count Ulric and Oona, the Dreamthief.”
I’d never heard Grandma described like that, and I strained to listen.
“I was privileged to be of some small service to the child when she became lost in Mu-Ooria. A confusing country for those who do not know it.”
“As is the whole world of underground.”
“Quite so.”
“She journeyed on, I take it.”
“You may take it, sit.”
“Would you oblige me by telling me where she has gone?”
“I would not, sir.” I heard ice in the fox’s voice. Plainly he didn’t like Klosterheim one bit. Which made me feel a little better since at least he shared this with my grandparents’ friends.
“I need to speak to her urgently. She is in considerable danger.”
“From whom, sir? From you?”
“I am not her enemy.”
“Your allies are not her friends, from what I hear.”
“You refer to Paul von Minct, otherwise known as Gaynor the Damned. Why should he and I be allies now?”
“Perhaps I have news that you came to our city in his company.”
“Where I learned his true plans. Where, I should tell you, sir, we quarreled and went our separate ways.”
“Yet you both seek the girl?”
“I need to get her to safety.”
“Where would that safety be?”
“I refer to the city of Tanelorn.”
“Until recent times there was no certainty the city was a place of safety. And I seem to recall that Gaynor had something to do with putting Tanelorn in jeopardy.”
“Be that as it may, I had nothing to do with that attack. Neither do I mean the child harm. If you could arrange for me to speak to her…”
“I must ask her that question. I promise she shall know all that passed between us.”
I smiled at Lord Renyard’s foxy joke, which he knew I would appreciate.
“She’s a high-strung creature with an overactive imagination,” said Herr Klosterheim portentously. “We must do our best to protect her from herself.”
“Quite so,” said Lord Renyard.
Eventually Herr Klosterheim left, and Lord Renyard opened the sack. “Well, mademoiselle? What do you think of that?”
“I was warned not to believe him, no matter what he said.”
“And I’d be inclined to follow that warning,” he agreed. “Still, it suggests he or his spies will be looking out for you. We must be careful.”
“I agree, Lord Renyard. But how can I hide from him and try to do what Mrs. House told me to?”
“She gave you no specific instructions, mademoiselle. She is not a mistress but an oracle!”
I nodded. “But if Herr Lobkowitz can’t be found soon, I’ll have to do something, don’t you think?”
“I understand your frustration, my child.” He sighed. “But we should not keep Klosterheim far from our consideration. He has a determined air to him, and I suspect he’ll not go far away, even if it’s true and he has fallen out with his partner, von Minct. Those two are more than common rogues. They both possess a will towards evil. I sensed it the first time I met him, when he came here with your ancestor.”
I wanted to satisfy a question which had been nagging at me. “You speak of the time you met my ancestor, yet he lived two hundred years ago. When did you actually meet him?”
“Perhaps some fifteen or twenty years since. As I said, mademoiselle, time in our city passes at a different pace to the time you experience. I do not know why this is so, though I have heard more than one man attempt to explain it, and I myself once kept an orrery and all manner of astrological instruments until they were stolen from me in one of the wars which occasionally shake our city. It coincides with some cycle of the planes which make up our universes moving at a different rate, much as planets go about the sun according to their own pace. I am not an unlearned being, yet I have been unable to discover any treatise which sets out to explain this phenomenon satisfactorily. Be assured, however, that you are not the first visitor to observe it. It could mean your parents have not even noticed you are missing.”
This seemed to cheer him up. It was only then that I realized how my kindly captain of rogues had been as anxious as I about my parents’ fears for me. I moved forward and embraced him. His nose twitched; he made a gulping sound deep in his throat, and I thought I saw something like a tear in his big vulpine eye.
The next few days were very frustrating. Lord Renyard’s men reported that Messrs. Lobkowitz and Fro-mental had indeed presented themselves at the palace and had even met Klosterheim and von Minct, though the encounter hadn’t been friendly.
Whenever one of the rogues of the Deep City had tried to contact my friends, they had failed for a variety of reasons. Lord Renyard wanted to hand me into their safekeeping but thought it unwise to risk a journey across town. We must wait until they come looking for us, he thought.
“They do not know where to search for you. Klosterheim has clearly not shared any of his knowledge with them.”
Meanwhile I tried to puzzle out what Mrs. House could have meant in her reference to the one with no face, the Graal Staff and so on. I wondered if the strange oracle was in her right mind. Maybe she was a bit senile. As Lord Renyard had hinted, being a monster, being cut off from common experience, was inclined to make you lose your grip on ordinary reality. I was getting very bored at Raspazian’s even though I had now made friends with Kushy and some of the other “tobymen” and “divers” and had begun to pick up a bit of their language.
Lord Renyard eventually, reluctantly allowed them to take me out with them as long as I was disguised, usually as a boy. They showed me their secret routes through the city, even taught me a way of crossing bridges underneath the general traffic.
Kushy called me his rum doxy, which was a compliment, meaning I was a pretty girl, and Kushy’s lady friend Winnie said she thought I was a sweet lathy of a girl with a fine little knowledge box, who she wished her own daughter might be. Within a week I became a bit of a mascot to those vagabonds and footpads and felt honored to be liked by them, even though I’m not sure my mum and dad would have approved of my spending so much time in their company. Since I wasn’t allowed to leave Raspazian’s, my new friends brought their own children to play with me. To pass the time, I let them teach me their tricks, including how to pick a pocket or shoplift without being spotted!
Lord Renyard was gone more frequently, on mysterious business. I guessed he was looking for my friends. Kushy, Winnie and the other denizens of Raspazian’s were careful to look after me, and I knew that although I was in perfect hands, I couldn’t bear to stay there for much longer, no matter how slowly time was passing on my own plane of the multiverse.
Then one morning the decision was taken out of all our hands when, without warning, the tavern door burst open and there stood Klosterheim, his pale eyes glaring in his skull-like face topped by a black, wide-brimmed hat. The rest of his clothes were of the same Puritan cut as before, with a wide, white collar and cuffs. A big belt supported a sword and two pistols, which he drew as he entered, flanked by soldiers with drawn swords, wearing the archaic armor of the ancient Greeks but with necklaces of what I first took to be onions around their throats. They were tall, dark men with glistening black beards. Kushy and company regarded them with some nervousness until, with a sweeping bow, Kushy took off his feathered hat and said with that whining, mocking courtesy his kind always adopted to authority: