The Anvil of the World (18 page)

"Though that would have been a really good idea," she admitted. Her eyes widened. "Did somebody do that? Eeeew!! It must have eaten through him like--"

"We don't know how he died," said Smith. "I'm trying to find out."

"Well, it wasn't me," Burnbright maintained. "As mean as he was, he probably had lots of enemies. And now he can't hurt anybody else!" she added brightly.

"Did you touch anything in the room when you were there?"

"Nothing," Burnbright said. "You're not supposed to, are you, at a murder scene? There were lots of murders in Mount Flame City; everyone there knows what to do when you stumble on a body. Leave fast and keep your mouth shut!"

"All right. So you haven't told anybody?"

Burnbright flushed and looked away. "Just that... doctor. Because I... he asked me what was the matter. But he won't tell. He's very spiritual."

"For a greenie, eh?"

"I never met one like him," said Burnbright earnestly. "And he's
beautiful.
Don't you think? I could just stare at that face for hours."

"Well, don't," Smith told her, too weary to be amused. "Go help the porters cleaning up the terrace."

"Okay!" Burnbright hurried off. Smith watched her go, pressing his tea mug to the spot on his left temple where his headache was worst. The heat felt good.

He was still sitting like that, mulling over what he'd just learned, when a man came running in from the street.

Smith straightened up and blinked at him suspiciously, not because of the stranger's precipitate appearance but because he wasn't sure what he was seeing. There was a blurred quality to the man's outline, an evanescent play of uncertain colors. For a moment Smith wondered whether Coppercut's ghost wasn't on the loose, perhaps objecting to his body being laid out on three blocks of ice between a barrel of pickled oysters and a double flitch of bacon.

But as he neared the desk, stumbling slightly, the stranger seemed to solidify and focus. Tall and slender, he wore nothing but an elaborately worked silver collar and a matching ornament of a sheathlike nature over his loins. It being the middle of Festival, this was nothing to attract attention; but there was something unsettlingly familiar about the young man's face.

His features were smooth and regular, handsome to the point of prettiness. His hair was thickly curling, and there was a lot of it. His wide eyes were cold, glittering, and utterly mad.

"Hello," he said, wafting wine fumes at Smith. "I understand this is a, er, friendly hotel. Can I see your thing you write people's names in?"

His voice was familiar too. Smith peered at him.

"You mean the registration book?"

"Of course," said the youth, just as three more strangers ran through the doorway and Smith placed the likeness. If Lord Ermenwyr were taller, and clean-shaven, and had more hair, and didn't squint so much--

"There he is!" roared one of the men.

"Die, cheating filth!" roared another.

"Vengeance!" roared the third.

The youth said something unprintable and vanished. Smith found himself holding two mugs of tea.

The three men halted in their advance across the lobby.

"He's done it again!" said the first stranger.

"There he is!" The second pointed at the tea mug in Smith's left hand.

"Vengeance!" repeated the third man, and they resumed their headlong rush. But they were now rushing at Smith.

They were unaware of Smith's past, however, or his particular talent, and so, ten seconds later, they were all dead.

One had Smith's left boot knife embedded in his right eye to the hilt. One had Smith's right boot knife embedded in his left eye, also to the hilt. The third had Smith's tea mug protruding from a depression in his forehead. Looking very surprised, they stood swaying a moment before tottering backward and collapsing on the lobby carpet. No less surprised, Smith groaned and, getting to his feet, came around the side of the desk to examine the bodies. Quite dead.

"That was amazing! Thanks," said the youth, who had reappeared beside him.

Smith's headache was very bad by then, and for a moment the pounding was so loud he thought he might be having a stroke; but it was only the thunder of eight feet in iron-soled boots descending the stairs, and behind them the rapid patter of two feet more elegantly shod.

"Master!"
shouted Lord Ermenwyr's bodyguards, prostrating themselves at the youth's feet.

"Forgive us our slowness!" implored Cutt.

"What in the Nine Hells are you doing here?" hissed Lord Ermenwyr furiously, staring at the youth as though his eyes were about to leap right out of his head.

"Hiding," said the youth, beginning to grin.

"Well, you can't hide here, because
I'm
hiding here, so go away!" said Lord Ermenwyr, stamping his feet in his agitation. Willowspear, who had come up silently behind him, stared at the newcomer in amazement.

"My lord! Are you unhurt?" he asked.

The youth ignored him, widening his grin at Lord Ermenwyr. "Ooo! Is the baby throwing a tantrum? Is the poor little stoat scared he's going to be dug out of his hole? Here comes the scary monster to catch him!"

"Stop it!" Lord Ermenwyr screamed, as the youth shambled toward him giggling, and as the youth's graceful form began to run and alter into a horrible-looking melting mess. "You idiot, we're in a city! There are
people
around!"

Smith drew a deep breath and leaped forward, grabbing the thing that had been a youth around its neck and doing his best to get it in a chokehold. To his amazement, Curt, Crish, Stabb, and Strangel were instantly on their feet, snarling at him, and Willowspear had seized his arm with surprisingly strong hands.

"No! No! Smith, stop!" cried Lord Ermenwyr.

"Then ... this isn't the mage Blichbiss?" Smith inquired, as the thing in his grip oozed unpleasantly.

"Who?" bubbled the thing.

"This is the Lord Eyrdway," Willowspear explained. "The Variable Magnificent, firstborn of the Unwearied Mother, heir to the Black Halls."

"He's my damned brother," said Lord Ermenwyr. "You'd better let him go, Smith."

Smith let go. "A thousand apologies, my lord," he said cautiously.

"Oh, that's all right," gurgled the thing, re-forming itself into the handsome youth. "You did just save my life, after all."

This brought Smith's attention back to the three dead men lying in front of the desk. Lord Ermenwyr followed his gaze.

"Dear, dear, and I promised you there wouldn't be any bodies lying around your nice hotel, didn't I? Boys, let's get rid of the evidence. Who were they?" He turned a gimlet eye on Lord Eyrdway, as the bodyguards moved at once to gather up the dead. They carried them quickly up the stairs, chuckling amongst themselves.

"Who were they? Just some people," said Lord Eyrdway, a little uncomfortably. "Can I have a drink?"

"What do you mean,
'just some people'?"
demanded Lord Ermenwyr.

"Just some people I... cheated, and sort of insulted their mothers," said Lord Eyrdway. "And killed one of their brothers. Or cousins. Or something." His gaze slid sideways to Smith. "Hey, mortal man, want to see something funny?"

He lunged forward and grabbed Lord Ermenwyr's beard, and gave it a mighty yank.

"Ow!"
Lord Ermenwyr struck his hand away and danced back. Lord Eyrdway looked confused.

"It's a
real
beard now, you cretin!" Lord Ermenwyr said, rubbing his chin.

"Oh." Lord Eyrdway was nonplussed for a moment before turning to Smith. "See, he's got this ugly baby face and he was worried he'd never grow a real mage's beard like Daddy's, so he--"

"Shut up!" raged Lord Ermenwyr.

"Or maybe it was to hide his pimples," Lord Eyrdway continued gloatingly, at which Lord Ermenwyr sprang forward and grabbed him by the throat. Willowspear and Smith managed to pry them apart, and managed only because Lord Eyrdway had made a ridge of thorns project out of the sinews of his neck, causing his brother to pull back with a yelp of pain. He stood back, nursing his hands and glaring at Lord Eyrdway.

"Those had better not be venomous," he said.

"Curl up and die, shorty," Lord Eyrdway told him cheerfully. He looked around. "Is there a bar in here?"

"Maybe we should all go upstairs, lord?" Smith suggested.

"Er--no," said Lord Ermenwyr. "I don't think you want to go into my rooms for the next little while." He looked at the entrance to the bar. "It's private in there."

It would be hours yet before Rivet came in to work, so Willowspear obligingly went behind the bar and fetched out a couple of bottles of wine and glasses for them.

"Is anybody else likely to come bursting in here in pursuit of you?" Lord Ermenwyr inquired irritably, accepting a glass of wine from Willowspear.

"I don't think so," said Lord Eyrdway. "I'm pretty sure I scared off the rest of them when I turned into a giant wolf a few streets back. You should have seen me! Eyes shooting fire, fangs as long as your arm--"

"Oh, save it. I'm not impressed."

"Are you a mage also, lord?" Smith inquired, before they could come to blows again.

"Me, a mage?" Lord Eyrdway looked scornful. "Gods, no. I don't need to do magic. I
am
magic." He drained his wine at a gulp and held out his glass to be refilled. "More, Willowspear. What are you doing down here, anyway?"

"Attending on your lord brother," Willowspear replied, bowing and refilling his glass. "And--"

"That's right, because Nursie's busy with the new brat!" Lord Eyrdway grinned again. "So poor little Wormenwyr needs somebody else to start up his heart when it stops beating. Did you know my brother is practically one of the undead, mortal? What was your name?"

"Smith, lord."

"The good Smith knows all about
me,"
said Lord Ermenwyr. "But I never told him about you."

"Oh, you must have heard of me!" Lord Eyrdway looked at Smith in real surprise.

"Well--"

"Hear, mortal, the lamentable tragedy of my house," Lord Ermenwyr intoned gloomily. "For it came to pass that the dread Master of the Mountain, in all his inky and infernal glory, did capture a celestial Saint to be his bride, under the foolish impression he was insulting Heaven thereby. But, lo! Scarce had he clasped her in his big evil arms when waves of radiant benignity and divine something-or-other suffused his demonic nastiness, permanently reforming him; for, as he was later to discover to his dismay, the Compassionate One had actually
let
him capture her with that very goal in mind. But that's the power of Love, isn't it? It never plays fair.

"And, in the first earthshaking union of their marital bliss, so violent and so acute was the discord across the planes that a hideous cosmic mistake was made, and forth through the Gates of Life issued a concentrated gob of Chaos, and nine months later it sort of oozed out of Mother and assumed the shape of a baby."

"My lord!" Willowspear looked anguished. "You blaspheme!"

"Stuff it," Lord Eyrdway told his brother. "It's all lies, mortal. Smith? Yes. I was a beautiful baby, Mother's always said so. And I could change shape when I was still in the cradle, unlike you, you miserable little vampire. You know how he came into the world, Smith?"

"Shut up!" Lord Ermenwyr shouted.

"Ha, ha--it seems Mother and Daddy were making love in a hammock in a gazebo in the garden, and because they were neither on the earth, nor in the sky, nor under earth or in the sea, nor indoors nor out, but suspended--"

"Don't tell that story!"

"I forget exactly what went wrong, but seven months later, Mother noticed this wretched screaming little thing that had fallen out under her skirt, and she had pity on it, even though
I
told her she ought to give it away because we didn't need any more babies, but I guess being the Compassionate One she had to keep it, and unfortunately it grew up, though it never got very big." Lord Eyrdway smiled serenely at his brother.

"You pus-bucket," Lord Ermenwyr growled.

"Midget."

"Imbecile!"

"Dwarf."

"You big walking string of shapeless snot from the nose of a diseased--"

"I know you are, but what am I?"

"You--!" Lord Ermenwyr was on the point of launching himself across the table at his brother when Smith rose in his seat, and thundered,
"Shut up, both of you!"

The brothers sat back abruptly and stared at him, shocked.

"You can't tell us to shut up," said Lord Eyrdway in wonderment. "We're
demons."

"Quarter demons," Willowspear corrected him.

"But I killed three men for you, so you owe me," said Smith. "Don't you? No more fighting as long as you're both here."

"Whatever you like," said Lord Eyrdway amiably enough, taking a sip of his wine. "I always honor a debt of blood."

"I still want to know what you're doing off the mountain," said Lord Ermenwyr sullenly. "To say nothing of why you chose to bolt into my favorite hotel."

"Oh," said Eyrdway, looking uneasy. "That. Well, I made a little mistake. It wasn't my fault."

"Really?" Lord Ermenwyr smiled at him, narrowing his eyes. "Whatever did you do, might one ask?"

"I just raided a caravan," said Lord Eyrdway.

"Hmmm. And?" Lord Ermenwyr's smile showed a few sharp teeth.

"Well--you know, when caravans are insured, they really ought to be required to carry signs or something saying who insured them, so everybody will know," said Lord Eyrdway self-righteously.

Lord Ermenwyr began to snicker.

"You raided a caravan that was insured by Daddy's company," he stated gleefully. "And Daddy had to pay the claim?"

"Your father runs an insurance company?" Smith inquired.

"And makes a lot more money than by being a brigand," Lord Ermenwyr replied. "There are only so many ways you can keep your self-respect as a Lord of Evil when you can't break any laws."

"And there wasn't even any nice loot," complained Lord Eyrdway. "Nothing but a lot of stupid bags of flour. So I cut them all open in case there was anything valuable inside, which there wasn't, so we just threw the stuff around and danced in it and came home white as ghosts, and then it turned out the flour had been going to a village where the people were starving, so that got Mother mad at me too."