The Silver spike (15 page)

“They can be healed,” Bomanz said before Raven could
start fussing, “If we get them away from here before the
grass fires get us.”

That and me heading out without waiting around for him got Raven
moving. He followed me, leading the horse with Darling on it.
Bomanz did not wait for either of us.

He headed around one end of the nearest grass fire, which the
breeze was pushing toward the sleepy, humpbacked hills.

Raven went to muttering and cursing again. Bomanz was headed
north, cradling the manta kit, which squeaked cheerfully at
creatures that glided invisibly above our heads. Raven still wanted
to catch his old crony, but I guess he decided it would not be
smart to challenge the sorcerer right off, when he was in a bad
mood, too.

I kept glancing back at the burning windwhale till we got too
far into the woods to see it. It seemed to me there had to be some
kind of lesson there, some kind of symbolism, but I couldn’t
unravel it.

Smeds walked into the Skull and Crossbones out of bright morning
sunshine. When his eyes adjusted he spotted Timmy Locan in a dark
corner at a tiny table for two. At first it looked like Timmy was
just sitting there staring down at his bundled hand. When he got
closer, though, Smeds saw Timmy’s eyes were tight shut.
Moisture glittered on his cheeks.

Smeds sat down across from Timmy. “You go to a doc like I
said?”

“Yeah.”

“Well?”

“He charged me two obols to tell me he didn’t know
what was wrong and he didn’t know what to do about it unless
I want him to cut it off. He couldn’t even help with the
pain.”

“You need a wizard, then.”

“Point me at the best one in town and turn me loose. I can
afford him.”

“That ain’t a him, Timmy. It’s two hers.
Gossamer and Spidersilk. Top blades from Charm that just took
over.”

Timmy wasn’t listening. “You hear what I said,
Timmy? We got two bitches here straight from the Tower. Came in
last night. Bad mojo. They’re supposed to find out what
happened up to the Barrowland. Tomorrow or the next day
they’re going to borrow a battalion of Nightstalkers and head
up there. It’s all over town.”

Timmy still did not listen close enough to suit.

“You get it? They’re going to get up there and find
out that somebody messed with that tree. They’re going to be
out for blood, then.”

Timmy ground his teeth a moment, said, “Be good
advertising.”

“What?”

“Fish says he don’t think there’s any way they
can trace us as long as we just sit tight and keep our mouths shut.
Meantime word gets around to all the wizards. Them that’s
interested will get here and start looking for the spike. Then we
put it up for bids.”

Smeds was less fond of that idea all the time. Too damned
dangerous. But the rest of them, even Fish, were convinced that a
sale could be made safely. They didn’t believe that all
wizards were crazy-mean and liked to screw people and hurt them
just for the fun of it.

“It’s just a business deal,” Tully kept
saying. “We sell. They pay off and get the spike.
Everybody’s happy.”

Dumb shit. Everybody would not be happy. There were a skillion
wizards and only one silver spike. Every damned one of them was not
only going to be trying for it for himself, they were going to be
out to make sure nobody else got it first. Whoever did get it might
want to cover his tracks so nobody came looking to take it away
from him.

Tully kept saying bullshit whenever Smeds started worrying. Even
when Smeds reminded him that that was the way wizards carried on in
every story you ever heard.

“I think I know where’s a guy who can work on your
hand, Timmy.” Smeds recalled one of his aunts talking about a
wizard down on the South Side who was mostly pretty honest and
decent as long as you paid him what you owed him.

The street door opened. Light spilled inside. Smeds glanced
around, saw the Nightstalker corporal and a couple of his buddies.
The corporal raised a friendly hand. Smeds had to reciprocate or
look like a shit. Then he had to stay there talking awhile so it
didn’t look like he was walking out because a bunch of gray
boys had walked in. He used the time to tell Timmy about the wizard
his aunt knew.

“So you want to try him?”

“I’m ready to
try anything.”

“Let’s go, then.”

The wizard was a smiling, tubby, apple-cheeked little dork with
thin white hair that stuck out every which way. He came on like
he’d spent his whole life waiting just for them. Smeds
understood why his aunt liked the man. She was so sour and ugly
that a blind dog would not wait for her except to go away.

Smeds did most of the talking because he did not trust Timmy not
to blurt out more than he needed to in his eagerness to get rid of
his pain. “Some kind of infection that’s turning his
hand all black,” Smeds said.

“And making it ache,” Timmy said. There was a hint
of a whine in his voice. Timmy Locan wasn’t a whiner.

The wizard said, “Let’s open her up and look at it,
then.” He pulled Timmy’s hand down onto his worktable,
went after the bandage with a thin, sharp knife. He smiled and
chattered as he worked and when he laid the bandage open he said,
“It does look a bit nasty, doesn’t it?”

It looked a lot nasty to Smeds. He had not seen Timmy’s
hand unwrapped in a week. The area of blackness had tripled in
size. It now covered Timmy’s whole palm and had begun to
creep round to the back. The blackened flesh had a puffy look.

The wizard leaned down, sniffed. “Funny. Infected flesh
usually smells. Close your eyes tight, son.” Timmy did and
the pudgy man started poking his hand with a needle. “What do
you feel when I do this?”

“Just a little pressure. Ouch!” The needle had
pricked unblackened flesh.

“Strange. Very strange. I’ve never seen anything
like it, son. Try to relax.” The wizard went to a shelf and
took down a baroque brass doohickey that was not much more than a
one-foot empty circle supported by six eight-inch legs. This he
placed astraddle Timmy’s hand. He pinched powders and
dribbled drops into pockets in the brass gizmo, made with some
mumbo jumbo. There was a flash and a puff of noisome smoke. A
shimmer like heat off pavement appeared within the confines of the
circle. The wizard stared into that. Smeds could not see that it
made any difference. But the wizard’s smile went away. The
color left his cheeks. In a squeaky voice he asked, “What
have you boys been into?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Smeds asked.

“Surprised I didn’t see it sooner. The mystic stench is
there. But who would have thought it? The boy has had his hand on
something polluted with the essence of evil. Something pregnant
with the blood of darkness. A powerful amulet, perhaps. Some
periapt lost in ancient times and just now resurfacing. Something
very extraordinary and hitherto unknown in these parts. Have you
boys been grave robbing?”

Timmy stared at his hand. Smeds met the wizard’s eye but
did not say anything.

“You wouldn’t have been breaking any laws digging
wherever you ran into whatever caused this. But you could get in
deep if you don’t report it to the imperial legates.”

“Can you do anything for him?”

“They pay good
rewards.”

“Can you do anything for him?” Smeds demanded.

“No. Whatever caused this was created by someone far greater
than I am. Assuming it to have been an amulet, the burn can be
cured only by someone greater than the man or woman who created the
amulet. And that someone would have to have the amulet itself to
study before trying to effect a cure.”

Shit, Smeds thought. Where were you going to find somebody big
enough to undo the Dominator?

You weren’t. “What else can you do? If you
can’t just fix him up?”

“I can remove the tainted flesh. That’s all.”

“What’s that mean in plain language?”

“I
can amputate his hand. Here. At the wrist would do it today. If
that’s the way you decide to go you’d better do it
soon. Once the darkness works its way into the larger bones there
won’t be any way to tell how far or how fast it’s
spreading.”

“What about it, Timmy?”

“It’s my hand, man!”

“You heard what he said.”

“I heard. Look, wiz, you got something that will stop the
pain long enough for me to think straight?”

The pudgy man said, “I could put a blocking spell on that
would help for a while, but it would hurt worse than ever when that
wore off. And that’s an idea you’d better get into your
head. The longer you stall, the worse the pain is going to get. In
another ten days you’re not going to be able to stop
screaming.”

Smeds scowled. “Thanks for just not a whole lot. Do the
painkiller thing for him and let us go talk it over.”

The wizard sprinkled powders, mumbled, made mystic passes. Smeds
watched Timmy relax a little, then even manage a feeble smile.

Smeds asked, “That it? Come on, Timmy. Let’s hit the
road.”

The wizard said, “I need to wrap that again. I don’t
know that it would, but it if came in contact with someone else it
might communicate itself. If the original evil was potent
enough.”

Smeds’s insides knotted and curled as he tried to recall
if he had ever touched Timmy’s hand. He didn’t think he
had.

He barely waited to get Timmy outside before he asked,
“Old Fish ever touch that when he was taking care of
you?”

“No. Nobody did. Except that doc I had look at it. He
poked it a couple times with his finger.”

“Unh.” Smeds did not like it. It was getting
complicated. He did not like things complicated. Trying to untangle
them usually made things worse.

They had to have a sitdown with Tully and Fish. He knew what
Tully would want to do: drag Timmy out in the country somewhere,
cut his throat, and bury him.

Tully had the soul of a snake. He had to break loose.

The sooner the better. Right now probably wouldn’t hurt.
Except then how would he get his cut of whatever the spike went
for? Shit.

“Timmy, I want you should go get drunk, have a good time,
but do some serious thinking and get your mind made up. Whatever
you want to do, I’ll back you up, but you got to remember it
affects all of us. And keep an eye on Tully. Tully ain’t a
guy you want to turn your back on when he’s
nervous.”

“I’m not stupid, Smeds. Tully ain’t a guy
I’d turn my back on when he wasn’t nervous. He ever
tries anything cute he’s got a nasty surprise
coming.”

Interesting.

Smeds figured he had some deciding to do himself. Like, with the
town up to the gutters in gray boys and their bosses about to find
out the spike was gone from the Barrowland, was it time to hit the
road and get lost someplace they’d never think to look? Was
it time to do something with the spike so it would be safer than it
was in his pack back at the Skull and Crossbones? He’d
already had a cute idea how to handle that. An idea that might turn
into a kind of life insurance if he went ahead and did it before he
told the others what he had done.

Damn, he hated it when things got complicated.

There was a hell of a row with Tully when they all got together.
Tully seemed a little shorter on sense every day.

“You think you’re some goddamned kind of
immortal?” Smeds demanded. “You think you’re
untouchable? There’s the goddamned grays out there, Tully.
They decide to get excited, they’ll take you apart one piece
at a time. Then they’ll give the pieces to Gossamer and
Spidersilk to put back together so they can make you tell them what
they want to know. And whatever you tell them then, it won’t
be enough. Or do you think you’re some kind of hero that
would hold out against the kind of people that learned to ask
questions in the Tower?”

“They got to find me before they can ask me anything,
Smeds.”

“I think we’re finally getting somewhere.
That’s what I’ve been saying for the last ten
minutes.”

“The hell. You’ve been jacking your jaw about
running off to some ass-wipe place like
Lords. . . . ”

“You really think you could stay out of their way here?
Once they knew what they were looking for?”

“How they gonna . . . ?”

“How the hell should I know? What I do know is, these
ain’t no half-moron bozos from the North Side. These are
people from Charm. They eat guys like us for snacks. The best way
to stay out of their way is not to be around where they’re
at.”

“We ain’t going nowhere, Smeds.” Tully was
turning plain stubborn.

“You want to stand around waiting for the hammer to hit
you between the eyes that’s fine with me. But I ain’t
getting killed because you got ego problems. Selling that spike off
and getting rich would be nice, but not nice enough to die for or
go to the rack for. All these heavies turning up here before we
even start trying to find a buyer, I’m tempted to let it go
to the first bidder just to get out from under.”

The argument raged on, bitterly, inconclusively, with Fish and
Timmy refereeing. Smeds was as angry with himself as he was with
Tully. He had a nasty suspicion he was just blowing a lot of hot
air, that he would not be able to walk out on his cousin if it came
to a decision. Tully was not much, but he was family.

Toadkiller Dog lay in the shade of an acacia tree gnawing on a
shinbone that had belonged to one of the wicker man’s
soldiers.

Only a dozen of those had survived that grisly night when they
had taken the monastery. Half of those had died since. When the
breeze blew from the north the stench of death was
overpowering.

Only two of the witch doctors had gotten through alive. Barely.
Till they recovered, he and the wicker man were in little better
shape than they had been in the beginning, back in the
Barrowland.