Paths Not Taken
“If we could persuade him,” said Suzie. “Right now, he doesn’t know us from a hole in the ground. He has no reason to help us. What could we offer him in return for his services?”
“News of the future,” I said. “Like, for example, that someone is going to steal his heart.”
“Hold everything,” Suzie said immediately. “We’re not supposed to make changes, remember?”
“Telling him things we know are going to happen would only help to reinforce our Present,” I said. “We don’t actually have to tell him about the witch Nimue.”
“Does that mean we get to go to Camelot after all?” Tommy said hopefully. “I’ve read all the books and seen all the films. I love those stories! There must be something to the legends, or they wouldn’t have survived so long.”
“Camelot is a long way from the Nightside,” I said. “Geographically and spiritually. If there really are knights of the Round Table, they wouldn’t come to a place like this on a bet. Merlin, however, probably feels right at home here. I think we need to visit the Londinium Club, the oldest private members’ club in the world. Merlin used to be a Member.”
“You’re packed with useful information, aren’t you?” said Suzie.
I grinned. “How do you think I’ve stayed alive this long?”
And so we left the safety of the alleyway, and stepped out into the street. The air was thick with greasy smoke from all the burning torches in their iron holders, standing in for the hot neon of our time. We all braced ourselves, ready to react swiftly and violently if we were recognised and set on as obvious strangers who didn’t belong, but no-one paid us any attention at all. Old Father Time’s glamour was clearly working, making us look like everyone else. And the roar of voices around us sounded like perfectly normal colloquial English, even though it patently wasn’t.
We barged through the crowds, showing them the same lack of respect they showed us. We didn’t want to stand out. The street was packed with people, though a large percentage of them weren’t human. There were elves in long, shimmering gowns, arrogant and disdainful. Demons out of Hell, scarlet imps with stubby horns and lashing tails, laughing nastily at things only they would find funny. A pack of tall bipedal lizards stalked through the crowd, wearing cured leather hides and brightly coloured scarves. The back of their jackets bore the legend Dagon Rules spelled out in silver studs. And even the humans were a pretty mixed bunch, representing races and cultures from all across the sixth-century world: Chinese, Indians, Persians, Romans, and Turks. It seemed like even here, the Nightside was still the place to be, to buy and sell all the dubious delights you couldn’t get anywhere else. There were even a few obvious anomalies, people and others who clearly didn’t belong in the sixth century. Since they didn’t have Old Father Time’s protecting glamour, they were probably dimensional travelers, or people who’d arrived accidentally, via Timeslips.
“Why are all the people here so much shorter, and well… ill-looking?” said Tommy.
“Poor diet,” Suzie said briskly. “Vitamin deficiencies, never enough meat, or the money to buy it when there was. Plus no real medicines, and hard grinding work every day of your life, until finally you dropped in your tracks. I thought you said you were an expert on this period?”
“Only on the bits that interested me,” Tommy admitted. “The romantic bits.”
We carried on, sticking very close together. Everyone seemed to be carrying some kind of weapon. The smell was still appalling, and there was shit everywhere. There was no way of avoiding it, so we strode through it and tried not to think about the condition of our shoes. There were no drains, never mind sewers. And then everyone ducked as the whole street shook, and a massive dragon roared by overhead, like a low-flying jumbo jet. Most people didn’t even look up. Just business as usual, in the sixth-century Nightside. I didn’t like it. The streets seemed much darker here, without the usual gaudy neon. There were the torches, and oil-lamps, lanterns, foxfire moss, and more burning bodies in their hanging iron cages, but still the night seemed darker here, the shadows deeper.
There was none of the passion, none of the sardonic joie de vivre, of my time. Most of the people around us seemed to slouch along, as though afraid of being noticed. Perhaps with good reason. Things that weren’t at all human lurked watchfully in most of the alley mouths we passed. I looked down one and saw a circle of possessed babies, fiery halos burning over their soft heads, drawing complex mathematical figures in the dirt at their feet and laughing in coarse adult voices. I looked away before they could notice me. A hooded monk stepped out into the road, gesturing angrily for the traffic to get out of his way. He disappeared abruptly as a hidden hole opened up beneath his feet and swallowed him up before he even had time to scream. Across the road, a dead woman in brightly coloured silks caught my eye and bumped a hip suggestively. Her eyes were very bright in her cracked grey face. No. I really didn’t like this Nightside.
The dead woman was fronting a brothel, where women of all kinds, and some things that were only nominally female, called out to the passing trade with loud, carrying voices, coarse and raucous. Some of them were offering services even I hadn’t heard of. I didn’t feel inclined to investigate. Tommy was staring straight ahead and actually blushing, so of course the whores concentrated on him. He hunched his shoulders, and tried to pretend he wasn’t there, which should have been easy enough for an existentialist. Next door to the brothel was a dark and spooky little shop selling reliquaries—the bones of saints, fragments of the True Cross, and the like. Special offer that week was apparently the skull of John the Baptist. Next to it was a smaller skull, labelled john the baptist as a child. People weren’t all that bright, back in the sixth century. The shop also boasted a large collection of furniture and wood carvings, supposedly produced by Jesus, or his father Joseph, or the rest of the carpenter’s family.
Even in the sixth century, it seemed the Nightside traders knew the only rule that mattered, that there’s one born every minute.
Inns and taverns of varying quality abounded everywhere, probably because you needed a lot of booze to get you through the strain of living in the sixth century. I’d been there less than an hour, and already I felt like biting the neck off a bottle. There were also lots of churches everywhere I looked, probably for much the same reason. Apart from the many already fragmenting Christian churches, there were also temples dedicated to Dagon, the Madonna of the Martyrs, the Carrion in Tears, and Lucifer Rising. (This last usually known as the Hedge Your Bets church.) There were also any number of Pagan and Druidic shrines, based around grotesque wood carvings and distressingly large phallic symbols. Religion was very up front and in your face in the sixth century, with preachers of every stripe haranguing, the crowds from every street corner, preaching fire and brimstone and any number of variations on My god will be back any time now, and then you’ll be sorry! The better speakers got listened to respectfully, and everyone else got pelted with… well, shit, mostly.
“Jesus is coming back a week this Saturday!” bellowed one preacher as we passed. “Repent now and avoid the rush!”
There were other, darker, forces abroad in the Nightside. Beings and Forces hadn’t been forcibly segregated to the Street of the Gods yet. And so they walked in glory down the same streets as the rest of us, often surrounded by unearthly glows, radiating power and otherness. People hurried to get out of their way, and the slower-moving ones were often transfixed and sometimes physically transformed, just from sheer proximity to the Beings. One figure, a huge blocky shape with a great insect head, headed straight for us, only to turn aside at the last moment, actually stepping out into the road to avoid getting too close to me. It regarded me solemnly with its complex eyes, the intricate mouth parts moving slowly in what might have been a prayer.
“It sensed something about you,” said Tommy.
“Probably that I’m in a really bad mood,” I said. “I could have sworn the Londinium Club was around here somewhere, but it seems we??
?re not necessarily where I thought we were.”
“You mean we’re lost?” said Tommy.
“Not lost, as such,” I said. “Just… misplaced.”
“We can’t keep walking at random,” Suzie said quietly. “Even with Old Father Time’s glamour protecting us, you’re still attracting attention, Taylor. Use your gift. Find the Londinium Club.”
“You know I don’t like to use my gift unless I have to,” I said, just as quietly.
“Your Enemies aren’t going to be looking for you in the sixth century,” Suzie said sternly.
“We could ask people for directions,” said Tommy.
“No we couldn’t,” said Suzie. “We want our arrival there to have the element of surprise. Use your gift, Taylor.”
I thought about it. My Enemies had no reason to suspect I was here, sixteen hundred years in the Past, unless the future Suzie had told them about this little trip… but I couldn’t keep thinking that way, or I’d go mad. So, I powered up my gift, opening the third eye deep in my mind, and Saw the world around me. There were ghosts everywhere, walking through the crowds and the buildings, pale, faded figures trapped in their temporal fugues, repeating the same endless circle of action and mourning. There were huge spirit forms, bigger than houses, striding through the material world as though they were all that was real and the rest of us only phantoms. Massive, winged things that were neither angels nor demons flapped overhead in great clouds, holding rigid formations. Unknowable forces moving on unguessable missions. I pulled my drifting thoughts together, concentrated on the Londinium Club, and found it in a moment. We weren’t as far from it as I’d thought, only a few minutes’ walk. Which made me think: did Lilith know that? Had she chosen where as well as when to drop me back into the world? Was I supposed to go to the Club, to meet someone or learn something? More questions with no answer.
I shut down my gift, carefully pulling my mental defences back into place. Just at the end there, I’d felt… Something, starting to take notice of my presence. Not my Enemies. Something of this time, big and dark and brutally powerful. Just possibly … Merlin Satanspawn.
I didn’t mention this to the others. Just led them down the street, heading for the Londinium Club. But almost immediately our way was blocked by a ragged bunch of street thugs who appeared out of nowhere and had us surrounded in a moment. Ten of them, big and bulky swords for hire in scrappy chain mail and battered leather armor, with scarred faces and nasty smiles. They carried short-swords and axes, and long knives with blades so notched they were practically serrated. None of them topped five feet, but they all had barrel chests and arms bigger than my thighs. None of this lot had ever gone hungry. They were, however, filthy dirty, and they smelled awful. The leader was a swarthy man with a roughly cut mane of black hair. He smiled nastily, revealing several missing teeth.
“Well, well,” he said easily. “Not often we gets nobility in our part of town, do we, lads? So… clean, and well dressed. Slumming, are we, gents and lady? Looking for a bit of rough trade, perhaps? Well, they don’t come much rougher than us, and that’s a fact.” His fellow thugs all laughed unpleasantly, some of them already looking at Suzie in a way I didn’t like. If she killed them all, it would be bound to attract unwelcome attention. At least she hadn’t drawn her shotgun yet.
“What do you want?” asked Suzie, and the leader looked at her uncertainly, taken aback by the cold, almost bored tone in her voice.
“What do we want, lady? What have you got? Just a toll, a little local taxation, for the privilege of passing through our territory.”
“Your territory?” I said.
“Our territory, because we control it,” said the leader. “Nothing and no-one moves through here, without paying us tribute.”
“But…”
“Don’t you argue with me, you tosser,” said the thug, prodding me hard in the chest with a filthy finger. “Give us what we want, and we’ll let you walk away. Piss us about, and we’ll mess you up so bad people will puke just to look at you.”
“How much is this going to cost us?” said Tommy, already reaching for his purse.
“Whatever coin you’ve got on you. Any goods we happen to take a liking to. And some quality time with this lady.” The chief thug leered at Suzie. “I likes them big.”
I winced on his behalf. I could feel Suzie’s icy presence beside me, like the ticking of an activated bomb.
“That is a really bad idea,” I said, in my best cold and dangerous voice. I relaxed a little as the thug turned his attention back to me. I could handle scumbags like him. I gave him my best hard stare. “You don’t know who we are. What we can do. So do the sensible thing and step aside, before we have to show you.”
He laughed in my face, and his fellow thugs laughed with him. I was a bit taken aback. It had been a long time since anyone dared laugh in my face.
“Nice try, Taylor,” said Suzie. “But they don’t know your legend here. Let me deal with them.”
“You can’t kill them all,” Tommy said immediately. “Kill them, and you kill all their potential future descendants. Who knows how many cumulative changes that could cause, back in our Present? Let me try my gift on them.” He gave the leader his best winning smile. “Come, let us reason together.”
“Shut your face, pretty boy,” said the leader. He spat right into Tommy’s face, and Tommy recoiled with a cry of disgust, his concentration shattered.
“So much for diplomacy,” said Suzie, and she drew her shotgun with one easy movement.
The leader regarded the gun interestedly. “Whatever that thing is, it won’t do you any good, lady. Me and the lads are protected, against all edged weapons and magical attacks. None of them can touch us.”
Suzie shot the man in the face, blowing his head right off his shoulders. The body staggered back a few steps and collapsed. The other thugs looked at the body twitching on the ground, then slowly and reluctantly looked back at Suzie.
“Run away,” I suggested, and they did. Suzie looked after them thoughtfully for a moment, then put her shotgun away again.
“There really wasn’t any need for that,” I said. “I could have dealt with them.”
“Of course you could,” said Suzie.
“I could!”
“You can deal with the next ones,” said Suzie, as she set off down the street.
“I never get to have any fun,” I said, following after. “He’s going to sulk now, isn’t he?” said Tommy, hurrying to catch up.
“Oh, big time,” said Suzie Shooter.
Chapter Seven
Some Unpleasantness At The
Londinium Club
Only those personages of extreme power, prestige, or parentage can hope to gain admittance to the oldest private members’ club in the world. Just fame, wealth, or knowing the right people won’t do it. The Londinium Club was and is extremely exclusive, and the merely heroic or significant need not apply. There are those who say Camelot operated on a pretty similar principle. All I know for sure is that neither establishment would let me in without a fight.
We found the Londinium Club easily enough. It was a large, dignified building in a much more salubrious area of the Nightside. The traffic was quieter, the pedestrians were of a much-better-dressed class, and there wasn’t a brothel anywhere in sight. Still a hell of a lot of shit in the street, mind. I stopped before the front door of the Club, and looked the place over. The exterior looked pretty much the same as the last time I’d seen it, back in my Present. Old, old stone decorated with sexually explicit Roman bas-reliefs, surrounding a large and very solid oak door. And when I say sexually explicit, I’m talking about the kind of images that would have made Caligula blush, and maybe dash for the vomitorium. Suzie regarded the designs calmly, while Tommy started searching his pockets for a paper and pencil, to make notes.
Standing in front of the main entrance was the Doorman, a solid and immovable presence whose function and delight it was to keep out the unworthy. He was prote
cted against any form of attack, by Powers known and unknown, was strong enough to tear a bull in half, and was, supposedly, immortal. Certainly he was still around in my time, large as life and twice as obnoxious. The Doorman was a snob’s snob, and he gloried in it. He was currently a short, stocky man in a purple Roman toga, with bare muscular arms folded firmly across an imposing chest. I half expected him to be wearing a sash saying they shall not pass. He stood proudly erect, nose in the air, but his eyes missed nothing. He’d already noticed us.
“I could shoot him,” said Suzie.
“Don’t even think it,” I said quickly. “The Doorman is seriously protected. And besides, we already know you didn’t kill him, because I already met him, back in the Present, during my last case.”
“I hate circular reasoning like that,” said Suzie. “Let’s shoot him anyway and see what happens.”
“Let’s not,” I said, very firmly. “This is the kind of place where they have you impaled for being late with your membership dues. For once, our usual tactics of brute force and ignorance will not win the day. We’re going to have to talk our way past him.”
“Get to the front, Tommy,” said Suzie. “You’re on.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” said Tommy.
We approached the front door, and the Doorman actually stepped forward to block our way, one meaty hand held out in warning.
“All right, that’s as far as you go. You three are not at all welcome here. Ever. I still remember you from the trouble you caused the last time you were here, some two hundred years ago.”
“Guess where we’re going next,” murmured Tommy.
“Shut up,” I hinted.
“We must have made a pretty big impression on the man,” said Suzie.
“You always do, Suzie,” I said generously. I smiled at the Doorman. “Look, I know we’re not actually Members, but we only want to pop in for a moment and maybe ask a few questions. Then we’ll be gone and out of your life. Won’t that be nice?”