Codespell (17 page)
Authors: Kelly Mccullough
Tags: #Computer Hackers, #Magic, #Fantasy Fiction, #Computers, #Contemporary, #General, #Fantasy, #Wizards, #Fiction
“Huh,” I said, noticing something else. “That’s funny.”
“What is?” asked Melchior.
“The ruffled-feathers feeling is gone.”
“Ruffled feathers?”
I nodded. “I felt it for the first time in Hades, a sensation like my feathers were all amuss, and they wanted to stand on end. I’ve felt it again a couple of times since, most recently while we were in the mweb server before Nemesis showed up.”
“You do know that you didn’t have feathers then, right?”
“Of course I do. I think that’s part of why it feels so strange.”
“Having imaginary feelings about imaginary feathers, and that’s only part of the strange. . . . You feeling all right, Boss?”
“When you put it that way, it does sound kind of nuts.”
“Kind of. Uh-huh.” He rolled his eyes in opposite directions and made a “crazy” gesture beside his ear.
It was only in that instant that I realized he was trying to distract me and jolly me up. The realization sent me right back to thinking about Cerice.
“Oh, go to hell, Mel.” I paused after I said it. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hades the place is not Hell, and Hades the god is not Satan, but I can’t help seeing a lot of overlap. Especially at times like this, standing on the outer shore of the Styx and looking across the black water to the kingdom of the dead.
Hades is a walled island surrounded by the endless loop of river that is the Styx. Both lie within a giant cave somewhere under Mount Olympus. The island’s sheer stone walls climb from the water’s edge like a gray granite curtain. Above the visible walls rises a second set built of enchantment, and those reach all the way to the roof of the cavern.
There is only one break in the barrier, a narrow gate in a place where the wall bends in away from the river to expose a black stone beach. I could just see it from where I stood. Velvet ropes led from Charon’s dock to the place where Hades Security Administration employees—the living dead— operated a checkpoint. You have to stand in line and go through a life detector to get into Hades, though at least they don’t make you put all of your belongings on the belt to be x-rayed. Other than that, imagine the worst airport experience you’ve ever had, then double it, then remind yourself that you won’t be catching an outgoing flight. Of course, that last has its plusses if you hate flying as much as I do.
Not far from the checkpoint, a cave within the cave burrows deep into the rock of that bleak shore—Cerberus’s den. I eyed its dark maw askance. Where the heck was the old dog? Usually when I arrived on the banks of the Styx, he knew it within seconds and came across the water to greet me. Today, I’d already waited a good fifteen minutes without any sign of him.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “It’s not like he gets vacation days. Do you suppose he’s sick?”
“Is that even possible?” asked Mel. “He’s one of the true immortals, a great power, if not one of the poles. Maybe we should Vtp him?”
I certainly couldn’t knock on his front door. As long as I stayed on this side of the water, I stood on Olympian ground, the domain of Zeus. If I so much as touched a toe to the water, I entered the realm of Hades, and the god had promised me I would die if I ever did so again—die and belong to him, forever.
“Maybe we
should
try a Vtp,” I said. “Melchior, Vlink; [email protected] to [email protected]. Please.”
should
try a Vtp,” I said. “Melchior, Vlink; [email protected] to [email protected]. Please.”
“On it. Searching . . .”
I kind of tuned out the normal routine of electronic call and response. At least I did until Melchior tugged on my pant leg.
“He won’t answer.”
“Won’t?” I said, instantly worried, “or, can’t?”
“Won’t,” said a new voice, raspy and rough but female. “He’s bein’ a big dummy.”
“Hello, Kira,” I said. The webpixie had just flown across the river to join us.
“Hello back, and ter yer as well, blue boy.” She bobbed once in the air to each of us.
I don’t know many webpixies, but I do know Kira is not like the other children. The Fates invented webpixies as lightweight computer substitutes for the nontechnical members of the family.
Unlike webtrolls and webgoblins, they’re supposed to come across as light and fluffy visually as they do on the programming front. They all stand around six inches tall with dainty dragonfly wings, little pointed ears, and waist-length hair—the classic storybook fairy. Mostly they wear Tinker Bell dresses or miniature Robin Hood suits and wander around acting all glitter glam.
Not Kira. Kira goes naked, and her wings are tattered and torn. The effect is something like a miniature punk-rock Fury, which suits her character perfectly—call her style “death pixie,” or perhaps pixigoth. I’m not sure whether something went horribly wrong with her basic personality programming or whether it was something else—the influence of her former master maybe. Dairn was never much fun, even before he became Nemesis. Whatever the reason, the hovering pixie had more of the angry bumblebee about her than the faerie butterfly.
“What’s up with Cerberus?” I asked.
“The big dummy’s moping something fierce.”
“Still broken up about Persephone?” asked Melchior.
“Dave is. Bob’s upset because Hades hasn’t been playin’ fetch all the time now that
she’s
finally gone or somesuch. I think he figured that with Persephone off ter the races, it’d all be beer and skittles and Hades rompin’ with the doggies. Silly beast. Personally, I’m just as glad himself hasn’t been around much. He’s a chilly one, he is. Makes my gizzard cold, if yer know what I mean. Brrr. Just Brrr.”
she’s
finally gone or somesuch. I think he figured that with Persephone off ter the races, it’d all be beer and skittles and Hades rompin’ with the doggies. Silly beast. Personally, I’m just as glad himself hasn’t been around much. He’s a chilly one, he is. Makes my gizzard cold, if yer know what I mean. Brrr. Just Brrr.”
“Right there with you,” I said. “But that’s only two of three.” Or four. It depended on how you counted the collective entity that governed the body. “How’s Mort?”
“Hangin’ in there, I guess, but it’s hard fer a dog to keep his chin up with the rest o’ his pack’s all lyin’ about makin’ boo-hoo noises. Doubly so for Mort, as he’s pretty much stapled ter his pack mates.”
“Maybe we should come back another time,” said Melchior.
I nodded. Considering my own less-than-cheery state, it might not be the best idea in the world to hang around with a depressed dog pack.
“Don’t yer think it,” said Kira, flitting forward to hover in front of my nose. “The great doofus needs ter get out o’ the kennel and into the light.” She gave me a shrewd look. “I’m thinkin’ you could maybe use a mood booster as well, from the long face yer wearin’. Stay right here.”
She turned and warbled something at Melchior in hex—way too fast for me to get the details—then took off for the far shore.
“What’s up?” I asked Mel.
“I’m supposed to get the beer and pizza. You’re in charge of cards.” He screwed his face into a pretty good likeness of Kira’s, and intoned, “And no arguin’ neither.” Then he shrugged and started whistling a codespell called Order Out.
Not too long after that, I was sitting cross-legged on the ground with a big tablelike slab of basalt between me and the world’s scariest guard dog, while drinking good, dark beer and gnawing on an oversize slice of the meat fanatic’s delight. We started with seven pizzas and four kegs, of which I got about three pieces and a pitcher. Not bad when you considered the competition.
Cerberus is a
big
dog. His bulldog’s body isn’t quite as tall as an elephant’s, but it’s probably twice as wide. His heads from left to right are a Doberman, a rottweiler, and a mastiff—respectively, Bob, Mort, and Dave. Any of the three could bite me in half without stretching. Currently, all three were wearing identical silly doggy grins.
big
dog. His bulldog’s body isn’t quite as tall as an elephant’s, but it’s probably twice as wide. His heads from left to right are a Doberman, a rottweiler, and a mastiff—respectively, Bob, Mort, and Dave. Any of the three could bite me in half without stretching. Currently, all three were wearing identical silly doggy grins.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had anything quite like this beer stuff before,” said Bob. “Is it supposed to make my lips tingle? ”
“You don’t have lips,” said Mort. “You’re a dog.”
“Then what’s tingling?” asked Bob, looking confusedly triumphant.
“He’s got you there,” said Dave. “Because mine are tingling, too.”
“Tingling, hmph!” Mort shook his massive head in disgust, then surreptitiously touched his tongue to the edges of his mouth. “More numbish if you ask me.”
“You’ve really never had beer before?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Dave, “not a drop. Not sure why either. It’s good shtuff . . . stuff. Stuff.” He ran his tongue around the edge of his mouth as well. “Funny old feeling really.”
I made a quick mental guesstimate of the amount of alcohol in the three and a half empty kegs compared to Cerberus’s size and decided I had just found the world’s biggest lightweight.
“Isn’t it though?” I reached forward and pushed the empty pizza boxes aside. “I know we normally play bridge and that you’re all pretty fond of it, but how about if we try a new game?”
“All right,” said Mort. “What did you haf . . . have in mind?”
“It’s called seven-card stud.” I pulled out the deck and did a fancy cascade pass. “We can start with a small ante while I show you the ropes. That is, if you’re not afraid to try something new?”
“Good enough,” said Bob. Then he giggled.
For the next couple of hours I put aside all my worries and regrets and concentrated on my cards. I lost big, and I lost consistently. It was like playing against Eris. I’d almost decided to give up when I won my first serious pot of the night. As I was raking in my chips, Mort let out a huge sigh and started scratching behind his ear with a back paw.
“Ooh, much better,” he said after a moment, shaking his head and sounding quite sober. “Maybe we can go back to bridge now that’s over.”
“Now what’s over?” I asked.
“The buzz and that awful triple-vision thing,” said Dave.
“Triple vision?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Bob with a wicked doggy grin. “Anytime we drink alcohol it messes with the cross-linking, and we all start seeing out of each other’s eyes whether we want to or not.”
“Normally that only happens when we’re acting as Cerberus, ” said Dave, also grinning.
“Wait a second. All this time we’ve been playing, you’ve been able to look at each other’s cards? That’s unethical!”
“What would you call getting a poor dumb pack of doggies drunk and fleecing them at poker?” asked Mort, winking.
“You set me up. You . . . you dogs!”
“Oh, yeah,” said Bob. “You don’t really think you’re the first soul who’s brought old Cerberus a drink, do you? Heck, that was the first thing Orpheus tried when he wanted to get past us. Way before he pulled out the harp.”
“Of course, it didn’t make it into the legends,” said Mort, “on account of it not working out so hot and all. He limped for a good long while after that one.”
Dave chuckled. “Silly plan that. Good thing he didn’t try in on the Hecatonchires, or he’d have gotten through the gates of the dead all too quick.”
“Hecatonchires?” I asked. The name tickled a memory in the back of my brain, but no more than that.
“Hundred-handed ones,” said Mort, “giants and colleagues. ”
“Still not ringing any bells,” I said.
“The guardians of Tartarus?” asked Bob, in a boy-are-you -an-idiot voice. “The very big men with fifty heads each? Help keep the Titans in line?”
“Oh, got it.” I’d forgotten them. The Titans had been locked away so long and so deep that the details never seemed terribly important to me. “Fifty heads, huh? Do they cheat at cards, too?”
“Come on, Ravirn,” said Dave. “Don’t take it so hard. You deserved everything you got after you suggested switching to a betting game.”
Maybe I did at that. But I was never going to hear the end of this if it got back to Eris. I was the Raven, a power of chaos. I was supposed to be the trickster, not the trickee, and I’d just been taken to the cleaners by a trio of old hound dogs.
“Point taken,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t let it ruffle my feathers so, but—that’s odd.”
“What’s odd?” asked Mel, but I waved him off.
I didn’t want to talk about the whole feathers thing in front of Cerberus, even if Dave and Mort were good friends. Especially not now, when I’d suddenly developed that standing-on-end feeling again.
“Well, do you want to switch to bridge or what?” asked Dave.
“I think maybe I’d better be packing up,” I said. “I’ve been in one place too long already, all things considered.”
Mort nodded. “Not a bad idea actually. Nemesis is a nasty enemy and hella relentless.”
I’d told them about my troubles over the course of the evening, hoping they might have some useful insight based on their centuries of experience with the pantheon. No such luck. With a sigh, I collected the cards and slid them back into their case.
“I don’t suppose . . .” began Dave. “No, probably not.”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Really.”
“Oh, just spit it out,” said Mort. “You know you want to ask.”
“I’m not listening,” said Bob, turning his face away from the other two. “Not listening at all.”
Other books
The End by Salvatore Scibona
A Good Man by Guy Vanderhaeghe
Dragonstar Destiny by David Bischoff, Thomas F. Monteleone
El loro de Flaubert by Julian Barnes
The Inheritance by Tilly Bagshawe
The Castaways by Hilderbrand, Elin
The Dead Season by Donna Ball
The Super 4 : Dark Death by Harrison Wallace
Battlecruiser Alamo: Not One Step Back by Richard Tongue