Chapter Twelve
“The bottle,” Fix said.
He and Indrajit both backed slowly away from the demon.
“Yes,” Indrajit said. “I’m pointing the bottle at the monster right now. Sword in the right hand, bottle in the left. If you have any ideas about how to make the demon actually go into the bottle, now is the time to share.”
“Enter bottle!” Fix shouted.
Nothing happened.
“The blood of magicians is spilled.” Indrajit pointed with Vacho at Bolt’s corpse. “Right there. That’s a dead magician, still full of blood. Have at him, eat him up. Blood all over the floor, too, it’s all yours.”
“Do you take me for a carrion-eater, Fish Head?”
“I’m no magician,” Indrajit said. “The magicians are all gone. So . . . if you were promised a magician, I’m sorry, that person just broke his promise to you. Good luck to you, I hope you find a tasty sorcerer. This being Kish, it seems that there must be a few.”
“You promised me the magician,” the demon said, “when you freed me.”
The Protagonists continued to back away. Fix held the pointless Dagger of Slaying in one hand and his ax in the other. The demon continued to advance.
“There being no magicians to eat,” Indrajit said, “perhaps you’d like to go back into the bottle and wait until there is one.”
The demon leaped. It soared above Indrajit’s head, wings wide, front and back legs extended so that Indrajit could see its underbelly and its massive size. It emitted an enormous snarling bellow as it jumped.
Light struck the demon. Indrajit smelled sulfur. His visual perception distorted, and for a moment it seemed to him that the bottle was larger than he was, and he stood beside it, looking through the glass at a landscape of rugged mountains, scorched deserts, thundering waters, and virgin forests. Then he spun about the flask, arcing over its wide mouth even as he reached out, trying to fix his grip on the neck. The marble ceiling was distant, Fix was a bronze giant standing on a faraway horizon, the demon was a mass of muscle bigger than the night sky and orbiting faster.
Then the ceiling collapsed, Fix disappeared, and the demon fell into the bottle. He dropped the flask and it hit the marble floor standing, then spun slowly about as if considering whether it should topple. Yellowish smoke billowed from the wide mouth, and the stink of sulfur clogged Indrajit’s nostrils.
“Shut it!” Thoat cried. “Use the grip Adunummu taught you! Shut the bottle now!”
Indrajit was stunned to hear Thoat’s voice, and froze. Fix reacted more quickly; he scooped up the bottle in both hands, catching it before it tipped over, and presented it to Indrajit.
Indrajit gripped the bottle as instructed and corked it.
Through the glass, a face mouthed silent curses and shot him angry looks. Indrajit had a strong desire to heave the bottle right over the platform and let it disappear into the Kish night, but instead he carefully set the bottle down and stepped away.
“Thoat,” Indrajit said. “You can speak.”
“That’s not nearly the most interesting thing,” Fix pointed out. “How did you know how to bottle the imp?”
“Thoat is a wizard,” Indrajit said.
Both the senior Protagonists stood considering the import of that statement. Munahim put away his bow and sat down on the floor. Indrajit considered his options, then put Vacho up and folded his arms.
“Well,” Fix said. “I knew we were being lied to and manipulated by magicians. Now I see the lying and manipulation started much earlier than I realized.”
Thoat shrugged. The Wixit looked completely lucid and relaxed. Adakles slapped his father on the shoulder and grinned, looking for all the world like a coconspirator, someone who was on the inside of an excellent joke.
“Are you going to explain?” Indrajit asked.
“I don’t see why I should,” Thoat said. “But I will pay you.”
“For starters,” Fix said, “you’re Megistos. That grass-person was some sort of creation, not unlike Bolt’s projection or Adunummu’s synthetic.”
“The grass-person was in fact a blade of grass,” Adakles said. “Imbued with just enough mirroring capabilities to be able to fool men into believing it was a man, too.”
“And you’re not some hapless child entering the Collegium,” Indrajit said. “You’re your father’s apprentice.”
The Wixits nodded together.
“And all this had something to do with settling scores or ending a rivalry,” Indrajit said. “Do you care to tell us more about that?”
“The politics of wizards are too complex to recount to others,” Thoat said. “Our lives are long and our grudges are notorious. I may as well recite the Blaatshi Epic to you as try to explain all that has passed under the bridge between me and Adunummu and between me and Theophilus Bolt.”
“But they didn’t recognize you,” Fix said.
“I prefer to be discreet.” Thoat shrugged. “Perhaps because I’m a Wixit.”
“I’ve known a lot of Wixits,” Indrajit said. “I wouldn’t have identified discretion as a signal Wixit virtue. Ferocity, maybe. Business acumen. Persistence.”
“How do we know you two are even Wixits?” Fix asked. “We’ve seen all manner of fake-men and imitation-men. You might be more of the same. Maybe the real wizard and his apprentice are a couple of scab-eyed Gunds sitting on a boat on the Sea of Rains and laughing at us.”
“How picturesque your imagination is,” Adakles said. “Maybe you should be the poet.”
“Easy,” Indrajit said.
“You manipulated your competitors,” Fix said. “Feeding them false information, I suppose. And then you hired us—why?”
“You have a reputation,” Thoat said.
“For gullibility,” Indrajit said.
“For being men of honor,” Thoat said. “For being decent. I entered this contest with every expectation of winning, but I knew I needed men I could trust to be loyal. Men of principle.”
“We’re not priests,” Indrajit mumbled.
“You’re sort of a priest,” Fix said. “I was almost a priest.”
“Men of action who care for the weak and vulnerable,” Thoat said. “Men who would stick to a client, even when someone else came along and made a better offer.”
“Heroes,” Adakles said.
“In a town full of jobbers,” Thoat said, “that’s no small thing.”
“Flattery won’t get you a discount,” Indrajit said.
“I don’t want a discount,” Thoat told him. “On the contrary, when you get back to the nameless inn you live in, there on the Crooked Mile above the camel-yard and behind the bakery, you’ll find a hundred Imperials in a red purse, waiting on your table beside Fix’s inkpot.”
Indrajit felt convinced. He nodded his acquiescence and gratitude.
“Do you really own a tea shop?” Fix asked.
“Go to the shop tomorrow and find out,” Thoat suggested with a smile.
“Are you in fact the tyrant of the Collegium Arcanum?” Indrajit asked.
“I’m trying to change things,” Thoat said. “To those who want to resist, I’m sure I seem like a tyrant.”
“I hope one of the things you can change is to give us wings,” Indrajit said. “Because it’s a long way down, and my only other plan is to let the demon out of the bottle again, and try to ride it to the ground.”
“Who needs wings?” Thoat pointed. “The stairs are right over there.”
The End