Authors: S. Andrew Swann
Dragons & Dwarves (53 page)
The taxi came to a stop in the center of the circle, and the passenger door popped open for me. I didn’t need a cue from my driver, Mr. Thégharin, to know what was expected of me. Despite my contrary streak, I am not completely self-destructive. I hadn’t time to count, but there was a ring of about twenty dwarves circling this taxi. And, given the reputation they had for strength and martial ability—back home they didn’t just
make
swords, after all—I doubted I could overpower any one of them.
make
swords, after all—I doubted I could overpower any one of them.
Whatever was going on, I had a much better chance of talking my way out of it.
I stepped out of the taxi, and closed the door behind me. The taxi moved quickly enough that it almost knocked me over. It was through the circle, and the circle had closed behind it all before I had completely regained my equilibrium.
The glow from the headlights receded as the taxi continued on its journey toward the west side of the Cuyahoga. As the artificial light receded, it allowed my eyes to register the flickering orange light of candles surrounding me. Heavy black candles as thick as my forearm, and about half again as long, placed around the inner circumference of the ring of dwarves surrounding me.
I turned slowly until I faced the odd dwarf out. This guy was dressed the same, but he wasn’t part of the group ringing me. He was bent over, backing around the inner circumference of the circle, chanting something quiet and guttural to himself as he poured something white out of a small canvas bag. He was completing a circle that separated me from the others, and he was just now walking across the space where the taxi had left.
I glanced behind me and saw that he had already passed the half of the circle where the taxi had entered.
The bastard has good timing.
I walked toward the one spot where the circle was incomplete. I didn’t know a lot about magic, but I knew breaking a circle was a bad thing. If I wanted out of this, I needed to step out before this little ritual was completed.
The dwarf in the ring directly in front of me reached for his tool belt and took out a small mini-sledge and hefted it while looking at me. I stopped, looked around at my four-and-a-half-foot-tall audience, and asked, “Someone tell me what is going on here.”
The only audible answer was the continued chant of the dwarf pouring the circle, who took a few steps across my path to complete it.
The hair rose on my arms and the back of my neck. I could smell the energy released into the air.
Like hell dwarves don’t do magic.
A solid blue arc whipped around the perimeter of the circle, close enough that the force threw me backward. I stumbled and fell on my ass, roughly in the center of the circle. All around me, the air crackled as arcs leaped up from the circle, forming a blue hemisphere of energy about twenty feet in diameter—ending just short of the ceiling above me.
My pulse raced. I couldn’t see this ending well.
“Mr. Maxwell,” spoke a vaguely familiar voice.
I lowered my gaze to confront the dwarf who had completed the circle. Apparently, he was on my side of the circle when he finished. He took off his mask and I could recognize him.
“Teaghue Parthalán.”
He walked toward me, his face grim. “Abandon the path you follow, Mr. Maxwell.”
I pushed myself upright. We both now stood on a disk of concrete that seemed to hover in a universe of hazy blue. Nothing was visible beyond the barrier.
“Exactly what path is that?” I tried to keep my voice from shaking, and I wiped my palms on my trousers. I was still apprehensive, but the fact that Teaghue decided to talk to me was a little reassuring.
“The path the former brother of my clan had mind to set you on.”
“It happens to be my job,” I told him. It was my ornery streak speaking, and I counted it a victory of self-preservation that I didn’t say the first five things that came to mind.
Teaghue shook his head and I had the odd impression that, wholly by accident, I had actually said the right thing. “You believe we do this lightly? But it has come to this. We must ask you to cease, for your sake as much as ours.”
His attitude was not quite what I had expected.
“Is this a threat?”
The creases in Teaghue’s face made his expression deep and impenetrable. His voice was cold. “It is a warning. A warning undertaken at great risk and no little expense. Ossian’s misstep has drawn too much attention already. Should you suffer the same fate, the resulting chaos would be impossible to undo.”
“Who killed Ossian?”
Teaghue stepped back and shook his head. “Do not ask that question.”
I stepped forward. “Why?”
“You will draw
his
attention.”
his
attention.”
“Who?”
I was leaning over to talk to him, and with no warning, Teaghue struck me. His leatherwork glove hit the side of my face hard enough to knock me over. I fell back, spitting blood and cradling a broken lip.
“
Do not ask that question!
” Teaghue was obviously pissed, but there was an undercurrent there, one of very deep fear. I began to understand something—the dwarves were shilling for someone. It wasn’t the dwarves who killed off Ossian, it was the Mr. Big who was running things. Ossian’s attempt at contacting me made sense then; he wasn’t turning against his clan so much as trying to get at Mr. Big.
Do not ask that question!
” Teaghue was obviously pissed, but there was an undercurrent there, one of very deep fear. I began to understand something—the dwarves were shilling for someone. It wasn’t the dwarves who killed off Ossian, it was the Mr. Big who was running things. Ossian’s attempt at contacting me made sense then; he wasn’t turning against his clan so much as trying to get at Mr. Big.
I rubbed my mouth and looked at Teaghue. “If you tell me what’s going on, I might be able to help.”
Teaghue just shook his head.
I kept prodding. “Ossian must have thought so . . .”
“Ossian was a fool. Mazurich was a fool.” Teaghue stepped up to me and grabbed my collar, and for the first time since we started the dialogue, I feared for my life. “And you are a fool, Mr. Maxwell. There are forces here you cannot contain and you would loose them on you and yours. The clans chose their path long ago, and turning back now would only destroy everything. Leave the authors of the Thesarch in the shadows.”
“What do you mean?”
Teaghue backed to the edge of the circle. “We have done what good by you we can. Any further would do you ill.” He muttered something and the blue around us dissolved, leaving me nearly blind in sudden darkness.
“Wait!” I said, getting to my feet again.
From a distance I heard Teaghue respond, “Abandon your path, Mr. Maxwell, it will only bring you sorrow.”
Afterward, everything was quiet.
I stood and let my eyes adjust to the gloom. For a while it seemed that the rest of the world was reluctant to reveal itself. Slowly, as I listened, I started to hear the wind and blowing snow around the bridge, a distant siren, a lone car crossing the bridge on the deck above me.
When I could see well enough to feel safe taking a step, everyone was gone. The only sign of my strange interview was a white circle on the concrete, and a quintet of black candles outside its perimeter.
I looked at the circle on the ground and knelt by it. It echoed, on a larger scale, the circle drawn around the body of Ossian Parthalán. It was probably a stupid thing to do, but I ran my finger through the white crystals marking the circle, and touched it to my tongue.
Salt.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I
TAKE a step forward, naked, bleeding, and sliding on my own blood.
TAKE a step forward, naked, bleeding, and sliding on my own blood.
I am thrown back as a quartet of horsemen erupt from the Portal. Upon the pale horse that tramples me, I see a skeleton wrapped with raw flesh stitched together with steel wire.
The figure of Death leans toward me, opens its mouth, and in it I hear the death rattle of Ossian the dwarf.
I turn and see the dwarf, spread-eagled and mutilated, lying on a vast mountain of salt. The dwarf ’s blood seeps into the grayish white crystals, turning them orange, then crimson.
Live dwarves work at the base of the mountain, shoveling the bloodstained crystals into ore carts. They are all shackled to a large chain that is bolted to the base of a massive throne. I grab one and see the face of Teaghue.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“It must be fed!” he says.
“What must be fed?”
The dwarf points his shovel at the throne.
I look, and the goat-faced Devil looks directly at me. Reaching out with a clawed fist, he says,
“Behold the cost of defying me!”
“Behold the cost of defying me!”
The Devil opens his fist and I see . . .
I sat bolt upright in my bed, my whole body clammy from the sweats, my heart racing. I didn’t remember what I had seen. I didn’t want to remember.
I think I knew . . .
My phone rang.
I turned and looked at the handset, sitting in its cradle. It was still dark outside, and the little red LED cast an infernal glow over the whole bedroom. It blinked slowly with the insectile buzz, giving me intermittent views of my apartment, still devastated by the law enforcement invasion last night.
I don’t get premonitions, but I didn’t want to answer the phone. I sat in my bed and stared at it as the clock next to it blinked 6:01 AM at me.
It stopped. I don’t know why, but I’d been holding my breath.
I slowly exhaled. If it were important, they’d leave a message.
The way my heart was racing, there was no way I was getting back to sleep. I got up and stretched.
The phone rang again.
“Oh, hell,”
I reached down and grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Kline? Thank the Goddess. I’ve been trying to reach you—”
She sounded severely stressed out, but I wasn’t in a very forgiving mood. “Nina, it’s six in the morning and I’ve only had three hours of sleep. Can this wait?”
“No, you’re in danger. You can’t let your daughter come to Cleveland.”
“Look, me and my ex have dealt with that—”
“I’ve found out . . .” She trailed off.
“Found out what?”
“I can’t over the phone. It’s too dangerous.”
“What’s too dangerous?”
“Don’t ask me any questions. Come to my house, where it’s safe to talk.”
“Nina, you have to tell me—” The receiver clicked and I was talking to a dial tone.
I rubbed my chin where Teaghue had hit me. I still tasted blood when I sucked on my lip. In Nina’s protests, I had heard an echo of the dwarf:
“Do not ask that question.”
“Do not ask that question.”
What could be so dangerous that to even ask about it was threatening?
Given the past three days, I couldn’t readily dismiss Nina’s warning. I just thanked God that Sarah wasn’t going to be showing up today.
However, I almost called Margaret just to make sure. The only thing that stopped me was the fact it was three in the morning on the coast. Calling now would take concerned parenting to a passive-aggressive extreme.
So I didn’t call.
I should have.
Instead, I turned on the light and surveyed the damage. “
Real
glad you’re staying home, baby,” I whispered.
Real
glad you’re staying home, baby,” I whispered.
Between the Feds and the local cops, the place had been devastated. Every drawer and closet had been opened, the contents piled at random on the furniture and the floor. The furniture had all been pulled away from the walls, cushions removed and stripped, and the less said of the kitchen the better.
I was in as bad shape as my condo. I had slept in my clothes, which were dotted with dime-sized splatters of blood from my busted lip. I stood up and went into the wreckage of my bathroom, hoping for enough unmolested toiletries to clean myself up.
West 25th and Vega was probably a decent neighborhood before the Depression. Now it was just one of those odd urban corners of Cleveland that gentrification and economic recovery had yet to reach. Vega itself was easy to miss—it was a one-way street that sat right on top of the I-90 on-ramp. Nina’s house faced the Interstate.
I would have thought a full-time staffer would have been able to afford better.
Nina’s address wasn’t as run-down as its neighbors. The windows had glass, the paint had been done in the last quarter century or so, and the wrought-iron fence around the property was intact and relatively new.
Squinting through the blowing snow, you could almost ignore its neighbors and imagine how it looked when this area was upper middle class.
She met me at the door and pulled me inside. She looked as bad as she’d sounded on the phone. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, her eyes were red, her hair frizzy and yanked back in a severe ponytail. She looked more strung out than I felt, and I wondered if she’d had any sleep at all last night.
“I need to talk to you,” she said as she pulled me into the house. I didn’t get much of a look at the place. Victorian decor, lots of hanging fabric, lots of plants, the smell of incense.
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