Dinner at Deviant's Palace (35 page)

Again McAn was staring incredulously at Rivas.

Montecruz was at a loss. “You’re a coward,” he said, loudly but without conviction.

“No, he’s not,” said McAn. Night insects sang in the darkness.

“No,” echoed Irwin Barrows tiredly, “he’s not.” To Rivas he added, “Please go.”

“Adios,”
said Rivas. “Goodbye, Uri.”

There was no reply. McAn urged the horses forward and around, awkwardly because of the other wagon. Lamps were lit in the house but the curtains were gone, and Rivas looked in at the dining hall as they inched past, the front window. All the furniture was gone, and nothing looked familiar.

At last McAn had the old wagon facing downhill, and, leaning on the brake, began to guide it down the sloping driveway.

“See those bushes there, to the right?” Rivas remarked to him quietly. “Before the night’s out, have me tell you what I once did behind them.”

A
T NOON THE NEXT
day, Rivas was sitting on the roof of his apartment, gripping the neck of his new pelican and skating the bow across the strings to produce various chords.

It was sounding better. At first he’d produced only squawks that had raised protesting howls from the dogs in the street below, but now he was getting his maimed hand to hold the bow properly… though he still didn’t have the heart to try any strumming.

Gripping the instrument with his chin to free his right hand, he reached down, snagged his jug of beer, raised it—and then paused, baffled.

“What shall I take?” asked Barbara drily.

“Uh… the pelican.”

She stood up from the shaded wicker chair, reached out and took the instrument by the neck.

“Thanks,” he said. Free now to tip his head back, he took a long sip of the beer, which had stayed fairly cool in the shadow of his chair. He put the jug down and took the pelican back.

He took a deep breath and then sawed out the opening of
Peter and the Wolf
. Doesn’t sound half bad, he thought.

“That’s what you whistled, isn’t it?” Barbara asked. “That night.”

“Sure is,” said Rivas. He could feel the sun-heated weight of the leaden pendant resting on his chest, and he remembered yesterday’s dawn when, once Urania was safely tied up in the wagon’s bunk, he’d made Barbara go out and pry the lead balancing weights off the wheel rims of a dozen of the ubiquitous old car shells; when she’d returned with a handful he had helped her heat them and watched critically as she had hammered them into a sheet to wrap the crystal in.

“Uri
was
quieter after we wrapped the crystal up,” said Barbara now. “Did the lead stop his… influence?”

Rivas shrugged. “Maybe. I mainly wanted to block out any radiation that might strengthen him.” He squinted at the sun. “Even warmth is something. I’ll have to dunk him in cold water later.”

Barbara shuddered. “I wish you could ditch him.”

“You don’t wish it any more than I do.” He supposed that whatever was left of the hemogoblin was in there too.

Barbara shifted in her chair. “You said the quality of food inside the city is going to be dropping pretty quickly,” she reminded him. “What time is it?”

Rivas grinned and lowered the instrument. “Not till we’re actually besieged,” he told her. “In fact they’re stripping the fields now and crowding cattle into the whole South Gate area, so for a couple of days, at least until the perishables perish, we’ll be eating better than usual. But you’re right, it is lunchtime.” He stood up—almost lithely!—and shut the pelican up in its case, slipped the bow under the strap he’d had made for it, and picked up the case by the handle.

“What, are you bringing that along?”

He started to put it down, then straightened again. He could feel his face reddening. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “you never know. They might ask me to play.”

After a moment she grinned, and if her eyes were a little brighter than usual, at least no tears brimmed over. “Oh, I suppose,” she said derisively. “And you’ll have had so many beers by then that you won’t be able to get a single note right.”

“And then I’ll fall off the stage,” he agreed, “confirming everything they say about me.”

“Maybe we should sell tickets.”

They went down the stairs—Rivas vowing to himself that within a week he’d take the steps two at a time, and that
tomorrow
he’d stop this hobbling, both feet on one step before going on to the next routine—and then started walking toward Spink’s.

She glanced at him. “You going to keep the beard?”

Rivas felt his furred chin. “As long as the siege lasts, I guess. Hot water and sharp blades won’t be wasted on whiskers for a while.”

“No hardship for old Joe Montecruz,” observed Barbara.

Rivas laughed. “That’s right. For a while the baldy-sports will be the only really aristocratic-looking citizens. I’m sure that’ll be a consolation to Uri.”

“How long do you think the siege will last?”

“I don’t know. The San Berdoo guys have to be banking on a quick victory, ’cause they sure couldn’t have set up any useful supply lines in that roundabout route they took. Frankly, I think they’re crazy.”

After several blocks they rounded the corner onto Woolshirt, and Spink’s was visible ahead. Rivas peered at the place through the wavering mirages. “They’ve got a window broken,” he said. “No, two windows! Christ,” he said, trying to walk faster. “They can’t be outside the walls already, can they? With a catapult?”

“I don’t know,” said Barbara tensely, obviously restraining herself from running on ahead of him. “Can they?”

“No, no,” Rivas said, more calmly, “we’d have heard the bells. When the San Berdoo army is sighted, every bell in the city is going to be rung like crazy. No, there must just have been a fight.”

When they got to the restaurant they saw that a long board had been nailed across the doorway. A man Rivas had never seen before leaned against the wall and shook his head at them. “Sorry, folks,” he said. “Closed for repairs.”

“I w—” Rivas began. “I used to work here.”

“Sorry. Big mess inside.”

“Oh hell,” said Rivas, stepping forward and putting his hands on the board. Someone inside was sweeping with slow strokes. “Mojo! Hey, Mojo, it’s Greg. Tell this guy to let us in.”

The sweeping stopped, and in a few moments Mojo appeared in the doorway. “Hi, Greg. Sure, Tony, they can come in. What do you think of this, eh, Greg?”

Rivas and Barbara ducked under the board and peered around the dim room. Chairs were overturned and broken, glass shards crunched underfoot, and on the floor by the stage there was a tangle of strings and wood strips that Rivas eventually recognized as having once been a pelican.

“What the hell
happened
?” he asked.

“Some ladies objected to the music,” said Mojo.

Rivas and Barbara exchanged a frightened look. “What do you mean?” Rivas asked quickly.

“Well, they were—but wait, you used to live in Venice, Greg, maybe you’ve seen ’em. A guy said they’ve had ’em in Venice for years. They just arrived here this morning, and by bad luck musta just made it inside before the gates were closed to general traffic. They’re all crazy and dirty and wild-eyed, marching like they got God’s own orders to carry out, and they purely kick the living crap out of whoever they please. That new pelicanist lost some teeth.”

“Pocalocas,” said Rivas.

“Yeah!” exclaimed Mojo. “That’s what this guy said they were called. He said they hate music.”

“They sure do. How did they look? The trip from Venice seem to have worn them down at all?” Suddenly Rivas looked much frailer.

“Oh sure, they were all dusty, hair like greasy old yarn, but God, they got energy! One of them was real thin-faced and sick-looking, but she busted Jeff’s pelican with her bare hands, smiling all the while like a big mean cat.”

Rivas touched his leaden pendant. “Which way did they go from here?”

“North. Matter of fact, Greg, they were headed your way. How’d you come here?”

“Straight down Flower and then west on Woolshirt.”

“Oh, well, you must have passed ’em, two blocks west of ’em. They went up Grand. Man, I hope never to see nothing like that again. But say, you don’t think they’re
here
now, do you, like them big ants that just appeared half a dozen summers ago and now can’t be got rid of?”

Rivas looked out through the broken window at the street. A dog was asleep under an awning across the way, and a couple of children clattered past on low wooden tricycles, raising a cloud of dust that hung nearly motionless in the air.

“No,” Rivas grated wearily, almost in a whisper. “No… I imagine they’ll be… moving on.” He looked around the room, as if to fix it in his memory. “How late can first-class citizens leave the city, Mojo?”

“Well… you know, Greg. Until the bells. Until they see the enemy. And after that,
nobody
can leave.”

“I’ve got time for one more beer.”

“Always, Greg,” said Mojo, glancing at him in mild surprise. “Hey, and this afternoon it’s on the house. I mean, it’s gonna go flat otherwise, right?”

The swish and rattle of Mojo’s broom in the debris started up again, and then there was also the echoing
click click
,
click click
of Rivas working the beer pump; and the next sound was booted footsteps approaching from the office.

Steve Spink’s grin relaxed when he saw Rivas sitting cross-legged on the bar. He walked over, nodded curtly to Barbara, and then said, “Howdy, Greg.”

“Hullo, Steve,” said Rivas, lowering his glass and wiping foam from his moustache. “Sorry your place got busted up.”

“We’ll live. Two weeks ago we lost our Venetian pelicanist, but at least now we got genuine Venetian madwomen.” He looked from Rivas’s pelican case to his leaned and bearded face. “I found out who that old guy was, who was in here a week ago, remember? The guy that told me you were latently birdy. And now I hear he’s got his daughter back from that gang.”

Rivas nodded over the rim of his glass.

“Well—assuming the Berdoos don’t take us—any time you want your job back, just say.” He turned and walked back toward the office.

“Thanks, Steve!” Rivas called.

Spink waved over his shoulder without looking around.

Rivas finished his beer and lowered himself down from the bar. “You know why I’d better get moving,” he told Barbara. “Luckily the spirit bank is south of here. Reckon I’ll get a bank draft and then see how far respect for Ellay money extends. A horse, food, liquor, a weapon—I should be out of the city in under an hour. Come to the bank with me and I’ll loan you some money to get settled with, and then when you do, leave your address with, say, Mojo over there, and when I can—”

“You’re sure leaving is the only way?” Barbara asked, stretching her long legs to keep up with him as he strode across the littered floor. “It is just a gang of crazy women.”

“Led by Sister Sue, of fond memory.” He ducked under the board across the doorway, and she followed. “No, Barbara, I can’t spend the siege locked up in the same city with them; I’d rather run than have to slingshot every birdy-eyed lady I see… and of course if one of them
got
me and was to swallow this,” he touched the crumpled gray pendant, “Jaybush would be back. And, hell, this is just the gang that followed us most
closely
. If I hang around, they’ll
all
drift here, and even after the Berdoos go home nobody’ll dare open the gates.”

“Are you
sure
you can’t destroy the crystal?”

They were moving energetically south on Grand, Rivas forcing himself to maintain a brisk pace. “I’m pretty sure. Remember when you laid it on the pavement and took a hammer to it? The pavement broke. And I happen to know that, short of shooting it into the heart of the sun, heat’s no problem to it. If I could find a really
deep
, really
cold
well, I might risk dropping it in and then devoting the rest of my life to filling the well with the heaviest rocks I could find… but even then I’d worry. He obviously wasn’t ready to become… discorporated… when he did—he weakened himself drastically ten years ago, and way too much of what energy he had was externally invested, like a millionaire who’s a pauper if you time the audit just right, and so he can’t do his fly away into outer space trick—but I think with years to work he could
move
a pile of stones.” They rounded a corner, and the white pillars of the spirit bank wavered in the sunlight ahead. “No, I think I have to just carry it, and try to keep it cold, and if I should ever have any children, pass the duty on to them.”

Barbara grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. “You want company?”

He squinted at her. “Company. Do you mean you’d—”

“Like to come with you. Yes.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “No,” he said gently. “Thank you, I appreciate it, but no, Barbara. Get yourself a nice place and a good job, and keep some extra blankets and liquor for when I pass through, okay? Dammit, girl, you’ve
had
your stroll through hell.”

“You haven’t? Anyway, what’s so safe about staying here?”

“It’s better than what I’ll be doing. Until the last pocaloca dies, I’ll be hiding, running, hunting, going hungry—making only furtive, hurried visits to civilization—and even after they all die, I’ll still have
him
.” He touched the pendant.

“To pass on to your children,” said Barbara sarcastically. “Where are you going to find
them
? I guess you’ll just have to dally with one of the pocalocas, huh?”

Rivas blinked. His chest was hollow, and though the light didn’t change, he felt as if he’d just stepped out of a dark stuffy room into breezy sunshine. He opened his mouth to speak….

And a bell began ringing on the east wall, and a moment later bells were ringing everywhere, church bells, wagon bells, chimes like excited parakeets, even just randomly snatched up pieces of metal banged clangorously together. Up on the wall soldiers were shouting orders, and a number of people in the streets were just screaming wordlessly. Rivas felt the dark stuffy room close in on him again.

There was no point in trying to talk over the racket. Rivas took Barbara’s hand so that together they could make their way through the surging crowd toward the Dogtown section of the city wall.