Chapter Ten
Sure enough, a brass band had been tacked into the tea-shop door, at about the level of Indrajit’s knees.
“You see, it’s things like these.” Fix pointed at the band. “And the dagger and the lamp. Why always the physical things? The fist-guard Adunummu used to launch heat rays, that’s another. These things make me think we’re seeing an unknown craft, rather than magic.”
“Magic is an unknown craft.” Indrajit shrugged.
“We chase our tail again. Let’s go in.” Fix pushed the door and it opened inward. He entered and Indrajit followed.
Indrajit wanted to draw his sword, but that would have broken their disguise. They were jobbers, hired by Theophilus Bolt of the Collegium Arcanum to retrieve an artifact from a rogue magician. Now they brought their spoils to the head of the Collegium, a magician named Megistos.
Indrajit had the bottle and its imp. Fix had the Dagger of Slaying, but that was only the backup plan.
Behind the door was no tea shop, but a room with marble walls and a thick carpet. Light came from lamps sitting in niches in the walls; the marble seemed to sparkle and reflect back all the radiance that struck it. A Zalapting in a black robe stood facing them at the bottom of a flight of stairs. He held a silver tray in both hands, extending it toward the jobbers.
“Would my lords care to present themselves?”
Indrajit looked at the tray. “Is there an invisible drink here?” he whispered to Fix.
“He’s offering to carry a calling card to his master,” Fix whispered back. “This is how the lords and ladies do it. The merchants you and I work with mostly can’t be bothered with this stuff, except in extremely formal occasions. Occasions in which they aspire to be more than mere merchants.”
“Right.” Indrajit drew himself to his full height, barely noticing the weight of the catatonic Wixit on his shoulder. “I’m Indrajit Twang, four hundred twenty-seventh Recital Thane of the Blaatshi and a principal of the Protagonists.”
“I’m Fix,” Fix said, “also a principal of the Protagonists. We’re here to see the Lord Dean Megistos.”
“Just Fix, my lord?” the Zalapting asked.
“He used to go by Fiximon Nasoprominentus Fascicular,” Indrajit said, “but he calculated that a one-syllable name would save him three hours a day, so he abbreviated himself.”
“Just Fix,” Fix said.
The Zalapting stepped to one side and pulled a thin cord Indrajit hadn’t noticed. He whispered to a stone column, then returned to address the Protagonists. “Follow me.”
They followed the lavender-faced, long-snouted man up two flights of stairs. The third floor of the building was a pavilion, with open walls and columns in the shape of giant serpents, holding up a marble roof. A lacquered red handrail ran all around the floor. Beyond the handrail, city lights winked in the darkness. At the far end stood a throne between two ponderous braziers. Flames the height of a tall man rose from the braziers, licking at the stone of the ceiling. To one side of the throne stood a mechanism that resembled Adunummu’s viewing device.
A tall, thin man sat on the throne.
He waved them closer.
They set the Wixits down to one side and proceeded.
“Where do you think we are?” Indrajit took slow steps. No need to rush. “Bat? Xiba’alb?”
“Kish,” Fix whispered. “Look at the skyline.”
“Kish?”
“Disappointed?” Fix asked. “Or just surprised?”
Indrajit stepped to the rail and looked. “It’s Kish,” he reported, coming back. “We’re somewhere in the Crown, I think, though it might be a really tall building in the Lee. The walls aren’t always well lit, but I can see where the Spike is, and the five temples.”
“You can’t tell where we are in the Crown?” Fix continued to pace forward.
Indrajit shook his head. “There’s something slippery about the ground. As if it might move at any moment, or as if it were already moving.”
“Craft,” Fix said. “Strange devices. Magic.”
“Well,” Indrajit said, “I hope it’s not the gods. If this is a god we’re about to face, we’re in trouble.”
“Not necessarily,” Munahim said. “My people don’t fear the gods.”
“Because you never had any,” Indrajit said. “Brave-hearted Kyones, honest but godless.”
“No,” Munahim said. “We had them once.”
The bottle and its imp felt very heavy around Indrajit’s neck. He smiled, and walked toward the throne.
The man sitting on the throne looked like a blade of grass five cubits tall. His arms were blades sprouting from the same pith, and rather than legs, he had a lower end that was stained brown and split into tendrils like roots. At its middle, the magician’s body was not as thick as Indrajit’s thigh. Black-dot eyes and a black-slit mouth broke the monotony of the upper half of the stalk, and at its topmost tips, the green man frayed into multiple strands, like a head of bearded wheat.
“The longer I stay in this city,” Indrajit said, “the stranger the races of man get.”
“Don’t tell the wizard that,” Fix murmured. “You might hurt his feelings.”
They stopped a few paces from the grass-man.
“I am Megistos.” The grass-man’s voice sounded like the rustle of the wind in a bank of reeds. “Lord Dean of the Collegium Arcanum. You believe you are entering my realm, but the truth is that you have always been in my realm. Welcome, bold Fix. Welcome, Indrajit. Welcome, faithful Munahim.”
“Why didn’t I get an adjective?” Indrajit murmured.
“Welcome, mouthy Indrajit,” Megistos said.
“A palpable hit, O Megistos,” Indrajit said. “You honor us with your acknowledgment. We bring you the fruits of our labors in the vineyard of your competitors.”
“I have no competitors,” Megistos said. “I have no peers. I am the Lord Dean.”
“Allow me to clarify,” Indrajit said. “We stole a bottle, at the request of one of your subordinates. A Theophilus Bolt.”
“Recondite second class,” Megistos said.
“That sounds right,” Indrajit said. “As directed by Bolt, we’re bringing the bottle to you.”
“What a sycophant Bolt is,” Megistos said. “He hopes that I have no apprentice, and will favor him with the position.”
“I am unfamiliar with the politics of the Collegium,” Indrajit said.
“Present Bolt’s gift.”
Indrajit took two long steps forward, trying to appear ceremonious about it. He knelt and removed the flask from his neck. “For you, Lord Dean.” He pointed its mouth toward the grass-man, placed his fingers in the grip taught to him by Adunummu, and opened the bottle.
The thing that sprang from the flask’s wide mouth could not possibly fit inside the bottle. It began as a mist, but despite being a mist, it didn’t slip from the bottle, or ooze or sidle its way out, and once out, it didn’t dissipate. The mist sprang out, and when it touched down on the marble, it had a manlike shape. In size it rivaled a Gund or a Luzzazza, and bat-like wings spread out behind it.
“I was promised a magician’s blood!” the mist-demon howled.
Megistos the grass-man broke into hysterical giggling. The demon, mist solidifying quickly into sinew, bone, and warty, leatherlike hide, lunged toward the throne.
“I am Megistos!” the grass-man cried. “I am Lord Dean of the Collegium Arcanum! I am the King of Secrets! All Kish is mine!”
Then the demon landed on the throne, and Megistos was promptly shredded into a thousand tiny green strands.
Indrajit stood and backed away. He found Fix and Munahim by his side as the demon, still standing on the seat of the throne, pivoted slowly to face them.
“I was promised a magician’s blood!” the demon shrieked. “Such oaths as must be kept, if the universe is not to be ground to dust by the breaking of them!”
“Yes,” Indrajit said. “Now you may go.”
Just to be on the safe side, he drew his sword. Fix armed himself with falchion and ax, and Munahim took his bow in his hands and put an arrow to the string.
BOOM!
To the right of the throne, just beyond the brazier, a glittering streak of gold light appeared. It looked like lightning, but lightning that struck and then remained in place, shining and twisting, a vertical streak from the marble of the ceiling to the marble of the floor, and thunder rolled from it in a continuous, juddering wave.
Adunummu stepped out of the light, in his blue robe. With him came Shafi, also wearing a blue robe, and holding a large crossbow.
“I am the Lord Dean now!” Adunummu roared. “I defy all to challenge me.”
“No one here wants to defy you,” Indrajit said slowly. “You remember us. We just want you to restore our client to his wits. Like you did for his son Adakles, you remember. And then we’ll get right out of your way.”
Adunummu laughed.
“I don’t like this,” Fix muttered.
“I was promised the blood of a magician!” the demon shrieked. It leaped through the air toward Adunummu.
“Down!” Adunummu bellowed.
Munahim loosed an arrow at the demon, but it struck the creature’s shoulder and glanced off. Adunummu swung his enormous flipper. He struck the demon in the face and sent it bowling across the floor.
“You have fed, demon!” Adunummu cried. “Back into the bottle!”
“Liar!” The demon charged again, its maw gaping wide.
Was the demon getting bigger?
The monster put a claw on the throne, scattering green fiber in all directions. It leaped and spread its wings, hurtling through the air toward Adunummu. Shafi stepped to one side, raised his crossbow, and fired. The demon dissipated again into mist, still rocketing through the air.
The bolt passed through the demon.
The demon became flesh again and fell on Adunummu.
“Keep an eye on the Wixits!” Indrajit shouted to Munahim. Then he and Fix charged the demon, weapons raised.
Munahim dropped back two paces. Before the other Protagonists blocked his aim, he sent another arrow into the demon. The beast again vaporized, and Munahim’s arrow sank into the flesh of Adunummu’s thigh.
Adunummu grunted in pain, but when the demon reappeared, it had lost its grip on the walrus-faced wizard. Adunummu slapped the monster with his flipper again, hurling it against the railing at the edge of the throne room.
“I am here!”
In his wide peripheral vision, Indrajit saw a cloud of smoke burst from the brazier to the left of the throne. Theophilus Bolt dropped from the cloud, landing and flexing his knees to keep his feet. His right forearm was wrapped in the golden bracer; what had been a bracelet for Adunummu ran from Bolt’s wrist to his elbow.
“The throne is mine!” Bolt shrieked.
Indrajit struck the demon across the back of its wings, but it didn’t even turn its head. Instead, it leaped toward Bolt. He heard a shrill whining sound from the direction of Theophilus Bolt and saw a short white rod in the wizard’s hands. Was this Bolt a projection? But he wasn’t floating.
“Watch out!” Fix plowed into Indrajit. They tumbled over the legs of Adunummu as the wizard tried to stand. Adunummu went stumbling sideways, upright but off balance. Indrajit and Fix fell against the handrailing. The upright supports of the railing caught them, but Indrajit almost lost his grip on his sword, and had to catch his breath as a wave of vertigo swept over him. He struggled not to look down.
Fire burst across the throne. It came from Bolt, or from the space around him. Adunummu bellowed and his whiskers evaporated. The clumps of fur around Shafi’s shoulders flared into light, and the thief rolled away across the floor, dropping his crossbow and slapping at the flames.
But had he been a thief, after all?
If Adunummu had lied about that, what else had he lied about?
Indrajit took a deep breath and yanked himself to his feet, sword in hand.