“That makes one of us,” I said glumly.
Zinka fed the toast to the quacks, who accepted it with grave pleasure. Will said, “You could forestall Dakros by putting a geas on Nick.”
“Ah, come on, Will!” Zinka said. “That’s how to have the Upper Room hopping mad at him.”
Privately, I thought Will had hit on the best idea yet. But I said, “Dakros has got to have someone, you know.”
“He can have himself,” Will said. “He’s had a lot of practice by now. If you leave him no alternative—”
“He’d never deal with me again,” I said.
Zinka laughed. “Oh, the secret relief on your face when you said that! Poor Rupert. No one wants Koryfos. But Koryfos wants Janine and Gram and I vote they should have them. Let’s plan.”
We spent the next half hour planning. We hatched what seemed to us a perfect, foolproof way to deliver the two of them to Dakros by six that evening. Then Zinka said she would get some sleep. Will said he would go down to his Land Rover: he needed to phone through to Carina to let her know he was going to be here for the rest of today. I was left alone. I sat in the frilly chair with a quack roosting companionably on each shoe and waited. I don’t think I thought any more. I don’t think I expected anything any more. I simply stared into that increasingly fogged landscape at the end of the burnt-out rows of candles. And waited.
Will took his time. He tells me he suddenly felt an overwhelming need for some exercise and took a walk by the river. He was still away when the eighth pair of candles began to near their ends. I watched them anxiously. The slight draught from the door meant that one was burning ahead of the other whatever I did. I was going to have to light the seventeenth candle well before the last one, and the Lord knows what effect that was going to have! In an effort to preserve the fast-burning one, I leant forward and cupped my hand round the flame and tried with everything I knew to slow it down. I worked on it so furiously that I never heard footsteps. I didn’t hear a thing. I simply looked up and saw Maree coming over the brow of the hill.
She was the old Maree in every way. She was the right colour again, though pale, and her hair was once more brownish and possibly even bushier. Anyway it seemed to frame her small serious face in quantities, in tendrils and in fine frizz, as she bent earnestly over the tiny lighted stub of candle she carried. And she was the old Maree in another way. For some reason, she was now wearing the woefully ragbag skirt and top in which I had first seen her, and large soft shoes that put me in mind of the children on the hill. Even her fingernails had grown long and spiked again. She was using them to grip the candle with, by its very end.
With all this, she was a whole new Maree. It was hard to say how, but I knew immediately that the same change that had overtaken the quacks had overtaken Maree too. It was not that she was older. It was not that she was more, or larger. It was as if she had not been filling her proper outlines before this. Now she did. A small, small measure of the change was that she now looked good in her woeful old garments. She looked astonishingly good.
As I saw all this, Maree looked up and saw me. A look I had not seen before – one of pure delight – filled her face. I don’t think she had ever been truly happy in her life before. Now she was, because she had seen me.
I forgot prudence. I forgot the danger of intruding in one’s own workings. The quacks spilled off my feet with indignant honks as I took off like a sprinter and raced down the road of candles. I picked Maree up in both arms, hugging her crazily tight, and swung her round and round. Her candle went out and went flying. I heard her laugh. Nothing mattered. The dark landscape went away in a blink, between one mad rotation and the next. When I put Maree down, there was nothing there but two rows of wax-filled holders. The candles by the door were out too.
Maree’s face was a glowing heart-shape of pleasure. She looked up at me and said, “Really?”
“Yes,” I said. “Really.”
At this, she stepped back a bit and pushed at her glasses in her combat-manner. “I’m not a very good investment,” she said, with that sob in her voice. I had missed that sob. “I warn you.”
“Neither am I,” I said. “Wait till I tell you.”
“That’s all right then,” she said. “But you’ll have to wait. I’m out on my feet. I have to go to sleep.” She folded over as she said this and I only just put my arm out in time to catch her. “Need sleep,” she said.
“Here,” I said, and guided her over to the bed where Nick was.
Maree threw herself on it. Her fist pounded at Nick’s shoulder. “Move over, lump!” This Nick, without waking, instantly did. Maree was at her most irresistible. I thought that, like Nick before, she was asleep at once. I was just turning away, with a lightness of mind I could not have imagined five minutes before – Nick had not lied, all would be well, all problems solved – when Maree’s arm shot up, holding her glasses. “Put them somewhere,” she said. “And please wake me in time for Uncle Ted’s speech. I promised him.”
Rupert Venables continued
We woke Nick and Maree just before two. Maree, looking at Nick’s still-unopened eyes, was inclined to think we had left it too late. “There’s no way he’ll be alive by three – and I must go and get changed. These clothes are frightful,” she said.
Zinka said quickly that she would fetch Maree some clothes. We did not want Maree going into her room yet. I had spent the morning trying to delouse her computer and Nick’s. Nick’s was easy – only a matter of cleaning out an enslavement programme – but Maree’s computer was woven through and through with thorny, sterile growths from that wretched bush-goddess. I was thinking of junking it and offering her one of my own computers instead, except that, so far, I could not see a way to do it without Maree knowing that I had looked at her files. There was quite a lot in the latest ones about me, none of it complimentary.
Nick surprised Maree by opening both eyes and eating the lunch we had brought. Then he too said he needed to change. I looked at him properly for the first time and saw that he was wearing clothes as ragged as Maree’s, very short and tight, as if he had grown out of them, and shoes through which his toes showed. Something to do with Babylon, evidently, although neither Nick nor Maree said so. In fact, they both behaved as if there was an embargo on them talking about their time in the dark landscape. When I tried to discover why Maree had been so far behind Nick, she and he looked at one another, sharing some knowledge, and did not say anything.
Will, Zinka and I exchanged glances and tried not to ask any more.
Before we left to hear Ted Mallory’s speech, Maree asked if she could use my telephone to get news of Derek Mallory. She referred to him as her “little fat dad” and her manner made me wonder if she even knew he was not her father, let alone knowing who her real father was and what had happened to her because of him. I really do not think she remembered being stripped. But some of the rest she must have known. She turned from the phone with her face a heart-shape of delight and looked at Nick, full of meanings.
“It’s gone down almost to nothing already!” she said.
Nick, understandably, looked a little dour. He had made a genuine sacrifice and, whatever it had been, it clearly still hurt. I was sorry about that. I almost wish he had been selfish enough to ask for what he wanted. Whatever it had been, I was certain it would have been in direct conflict with the plans of Dakros and, since this was the Babylon secret, Dakros would not have got his way. Now I was going to have to do something. While I worked on the computers, I had come to the conclusion that Will’s idea of laying a geas on Nick was probably the only way to stop Dakros. But only as a last resort, I thought. There must be some other way.
Just before three, we were all smartened up, except Will, who is uncomfortable in any but the oldest clothes. I had got round to shaving at last. Zinka, when she fetched Maree some clothes, had changed into a flowing green velvet gown, which made her by far the most striking member of the group. We left my room in a body. And, I
see in retrospect, that was the last moment when events were in any way within my control.
In the corridor outside my room was a large crowd of people, all of them concerned and agitated. Mr Alfred Douglas, the hotel manager, was prominent among them and so was Rick Corrie. The rest seemed to be the entire convention committee, with the exception of Maxim Hough. As we came out of my room, Mr Douglas was pointing to the large brown pebbly area in the ceiling where Gram White’s bullet, deflected by my shield, had brought down the plaster. One of the committee was saying huffily, “Yes, of course we’ll pay for it, if you can prove it was a convention member who did it. Frankly, I don’t see how—”
“Uh-oh!” said Zinka. “Let me handle this. You go. I’ll catch you up.” She took hold of Rick Corrie’s arm. As we edged past towards the lift, she was saying to him, “You’d better send the bill for this to Gram White. He loosed off with a gun. I saw him do it. Want me to speak to the manager for you?”
And Corrie replied frantically, “Well, don’t tell him that! He’d never let us hold the convention here again!”
“Trust me,” Zinka said and walked demurely up to Mr Douglas. Goodness knows what story she was preparing to spin, but I felt I could trust her to say something convincing. We went on without her.
Zinka had still not caught up with us when we reached the main function room. It was largely full already. The seats on the far side of the aisle were packed. I saw fat Wendy over there and one or two people I knew, but a surprising number of them were either concealed in grey capes or wearing armour. Chain mail and horned helmets predominated, but plate armour was in there too, from every conceivable era of history. I heard Nick explaining to Will – both of them looking rather wistfully at the costumes – that a lot of people arrived on the Sunday specially for the tournament. New arrivals or not, these people were certainly having fun. Most of them had tankards or bottles to hand and, from time to time, a sort of clanking Mexican wave was in progress, accompanied by huge shouts and much waving of a long white banner with SWORDS AND SORCERY painted on it.
The nearer side was nearly as full, mostly with people I had come to know over the first day or so. I saw the lady with OOOK on her, my world-sharing American friends, the singers who had interrupted my tête-à-tête with Thurless, and the three folk with the baby, now dressed quite normally in jeans. In fact, almost the only empty seats were in the front row on this side. It is curious the way nobody likes to sit in the front row. The only people in it were Tina Gianetti and her boyfriend, near the centre aisle. It seemed that Gianetti was keeping to her vow never to chair anything involving Ted Mallory.
I saw Kornelius Punt rise from his seat somewhere in the centre in order to stare at us avidly as we filed into the empty front row, but this was so much his usual behaviour that I thought nothing of it. I could sense also that the crowd in the armour were raising power, but this is something an excited crowd does anyway. I thought little of that either, except to make sure that we had the usual protections around us. Most of my attention was on the half-laughing argument I was having with Maree. Both of us were enjoying the sense that so much more was going on between us, behind the argument.
As we were sitting down, most of the men in horned helmets broke into low, lilting song. One of the three ladies-and-gentlemen with the baby remarked, “They will keep doing that. I suppose it keeps them happy.”
I grinned at him-or-her and said to Maree, “But I’ve got a big yard at the back. They’ll have lots of exercise.”
“They’ll need to swim,” Maree said. “It’s bad for aquatic birds not to.”
“I tell you what,” I said. “Andrew, my neighbour’s, got a pond in his garden just up the road. I know he’ll let the quacks use it.”
“They’ll probably find it anyway,” she said. “Is it clean?”
“Good question,” I said. “As Andrew is an inventor and the most absent-minded man I ever knew, probably not. I’ll make him have it dredged. Or perhaps I should change houses with him.”
“I still think you should dig a pond in your kitchen,” Maree said. “People who keep pets have to make sacrifices.”
“Wouldn’t it do,” I asked, “if I simply went and stood in Andrew’s pond? Day and night, of course.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “In your nice suit and Will’s green wellies.”
We were laughing at this image when we looked up to find Janine standing over us, in a new jumper that looked as if she was being eaten by a lettuce. Little green beads like caterpillars danced on her left shoulder. “How did you get here?” she said to Maree.
Maree looked up at her, and pushed at her glasses. All the expression went out of her face. “I went,” she said, in a calm and level voice, “to Babylon. And don’t think you can try anything like that with me again.”
“All right,” Janine said. “There are other ways. And don’t you think you can spoil Nick’s chances, because I’m not going to let you.”
“I never did want to spoil his chances,” Maree said. “I just want to make sure that you don’t.”
While Will and I stared, frankly appalled by how naked it was between them, Janine turned away from Maree, smiling sweetly, and said to Nick, “Come along, dear. Mother wants you sitting beside her for once. It’s your father’s finest hour and we don’t want to let him down, do we?”
“In a moment,” Nick said placidly. “I just need to finish asking Rupert about my computer games first.”
Janine’s eyes passed across me like a scythe. “Then don’t be long, dear,” she said and walked gracefully away to the front row on the other side of the aisle, with the little beads chittering on her shoulder as she went.
Nick leant to me across Maree. “You did look at the games, didn’t you?” I nodded. They had been prominent in the files I had cleansed that morning. “Then talk about them,” Nick said. “Spin it out.”
“Well, actually, they do have possibilities,” I began. “What I liked about the Bristolia game…”
Here Maxim Hough, followed by Ted Mallory, climbed on to the platform in front of us. The Viking song, which had been beginning to irritate me, died away and everyone clapped. Nick sank back in his chair, exuding satisfaction. He had avoided Janine and he knew I would not have praised his game unless I meant it. He caught Ted Mallory’s eye and they grinned at one another.
Ted Mallory was looking jovial and composed. I would not have believed he was as nervous as Maree said he was. But I saw his eyes search for Maree. Maree leant earnestly forward in her seat until her uncle saw her. She gave a slight nod as his eyes found her. Mallory seemed to sigh with relief. He smiled at Maree and shuffled composedly at the papers in front of him. All was now well.
And all seemed well still while Maxim Hough pushed his blond Egyptian hairstyle behind his ears, coughed into the microphone and introduced the Guest of Honour, “…who needs no introduction from me as the best living writer of serious comic horror…”
All seemed well, but I could sense growing hostile magic. It was coming in cold waves, stronger and stronger, and each wave seemed to lap round me, squeezing at my heart, compressing my lungs and turning my kidneys to blocks of ice. It was so powerful, and its aim was so astutely disguised that, for a minute or so, I actually wondered if I was being egotistical in thinking it was aimed chiefly at me. By this time I was having a struggle to breathe. I glanced at Will and found him giving me a glare of concern. No, I was not being egotistical then: it was aimed at me.
I pushed it back sharply and began to wish that Zinka would hurry up and get here. This was strong. The sending, or whatever, was being done by that block of folk in hooded robes. Now I looked, I could see them swaying gently to it. But they were using power that had unwittingly been built up by the guys in armour – at least, I hoped it was unwitting. Damn it! The whole thing was orchestrated! I looked searchingly that way. Gram White was leaning smugly against the far door beyond the cowled figures. He saw me look. As Ted Mallory stood up to speak, White
blandly spread both hands out, empty. Look, no hands. He had simply organised a good hundred people to do his dirty work for him.
I fear I heard little of what Ted Mallory said. I was struggling with more and stronger cold waves and thinking, But White can’t be doing this! The terms of the geas would mean he was dead if he even organised something like this! What’s going on? I vaguely heard Mallory starting with his favourite premise that writing a book was “just a job like any other job”, at which Maree sighed sharply and clicked her teeth in annoyance, and some of his first remarks must have been amusing, because I remember people behind me laughing and clapping. But nobody was laughing on the other side of the hall, not even the men in armour. The robed ones swayed gently – including fat Wendy, to my sorrow – and waves of binding, choking malevolence poured over me. Will had joined in to help me by then, which helped me hold it off a little, enough to think what I could do.
Damn it, White must be delegating! I thought. He has told someone lies about me and got this person to organise this for him. The best thing seemed to be to get that person. I tried aiming a massive stasis that way.
That was truly terrifying. Something promptly drank the stasis. It had no effect at all. Or worse, the stronger I applied it the faster it, and my own strength with it, vanished. Like water down a plughole. I was nearly completely thrown by that. Stasis is one of my great skills. In nearly total panic, with no Stan to tell me to stay calm, I found myself being sucked towards whatever was drinking my strength. Will put a hand on my arm then, and thank God he did. It calmed me enough to show me that I could use the sucking to divine what it was.
It was Tansy-Ann Fisk. Or rather, it was that grey psychic blanket she accused everyone else of bearing. It was a great pall of negative power, and it could go on drinking as long as I cared to go on throwing stasis at it. Now I had it tagged, I could even divine what Fisk thought she was at. Someone had told her I had ambitions to be secret ruler of the world. Well, that figured. As Maree had realised earlier, Magids can seem to want just that if you don’t know enough to know better.