Johannes Cabal The Necromancer (9 page)

Horst yawned, displaying exaggerated eye-teeth.

“We’ve been through this a thousand times before.”

“Twelve.”

“Whatever. Yes, we can set up in six hours and be ready for sundown easily.” He grinned broadly. “The poor rubes won’t know what hit them.”

On the shelf, the hourglass dribbled sand into the lower bulb. The rolling motion of the train never perturbed the flow so much as an iota.

The stationmaster looked hard at the train and then harder at Cabal.

“You can’t park that there,” he said finally, and started to walk back to his office. Cabal walked quickly after him.

“Well, we have to stop somewhere. We’ve got a carnival to set up,” he said, and smiled. The stationmaster stopped, saw his expression, and shied away.

“Look, mate, you have to have permissions. You can’t just bung your train up somebody else’s siding and expect to get away with it.”

“Why not? Nobody else is using it.”

“Aaaah, but they might.”

Cabal knew then that he was dealing with the kind of official that he always lost his temper with. He lost his temper.

“Don’t be ridiculous. The grass on that spur is hip-deep. It hasn’t seen a train in years. If you want some sort of, I don’t know, berthing fee or something, say so, but kindly stop being so damnably obtuse.”

“Berthing fees? Are you trying to bribe me?” cried the stationmaster in a manner just a little too melodramatic to be insincere. “I’ve worked for the company man and boy for nigh on thirty years. If you think you can buy off that sort of loyalty for some dirty little bribe, you’ve got another thing coming!” He stormed into his office. Cabal followed him.

“How about a dirty big bribe, then?” he asked experimentally.

“I, sir, am a loyal employee of the company. Take your offensive offers of baksheesh and get out of here! And take that bloody train with you!”

Cabal could tell that subtle diplomacy wasn’t working. The two men glared at each other for a moment, until the stationmaster decided he could do his in comfort and sank into his big leather swivel chair. As he did so, his eyes flickered to a drawer he’d left open in his desk. Cabal saw his expression become momentarily stricken as he quickly slammed the drawer shut. Not quite quickly enough to stop Cabal getting an idea what was in there, though. He drew his smoked-glass spectacles down far enough to let the stationmaster know that he was looking narrowly at him, slid them back into place, turned, and left.

Back at the train, Bones sat waiting on the caboose step.

“Is that guy goin’ be the kind of trouble he looks, chief?” he asked as Cabal approached, stepping easily over the disused railway tracks concealed in the long grass. “You want me and some of the boys maybe pay him a visit, if you know what I mean?”

Cabal looked back at the station over his shoulder as he pulled out his black kid gloves and drew them on. “I really don’t think that will be necessary, Mr. Bones. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. The stationmaster has some … interesting magazines in his desk. I think he has an itch that he can’t really scratch.”

Bones rested a bony elbow on a bony knee and placed his bony chin in the bony palm. He hated it when the boss thought he was being clever. “What kind of magazines? Dermatology Today or somethin’?” he asked blandly.

“Not that kind of itch. Get Layla and send her over. And make sure she’s wearing an overcoat.”

“Layla? Rubber girl Layla? For why, boss?”

“She’s going to make him an offer he really can’t refuse,” replied Cabal with a smile so malevolent that Bones was glad he had no hair to stand on end. “Meanwhile,” Cabal continued, “start to unload. We’ll use that meadow over there to set up on.”

“You got permission?”

“I don’t need permission.” Again, the smile. “If anybody complains, send them to me.”

Somebody did complain: a florid farmer in his fifties who stormed up the steps and into Cabal’s office with some boringly incoherent speech about agriculture and laws of the land. Cabal listened to him attentively, or, more accurately, he watched him attentively; the farmer had an interesting supra-orbital ridge of a type that wasn’t common in humans. Quite unconsciously, Cabal started making a sketch of it while the farmer stormed. When the farmer saw the pencil moving, his fury went up a notch, and he demanded to know what Cabal was scribbling.

“The percentage deal for allowing us to use your land,” said Cabal. “I was thinking of twenty-five per cent.”

“Gross or net?” asked the farmer suspiciously.

“Net.”

“Thirty per cent.”

“Let’s skip the finagling. Twenty-seven.”

“Thirty,” said the farmer, growing enthusiastic.

“But this is fallow land, you said so yourself. You’re not even using it.” The farmer creased his eyes and looked firm. Cabal shrugged in good-natured defeat. “I can see I’m not going to be able to shift you on this. Very well, thirty per cent it is.” He leaned over the table and shook hands with the farmer, who settled himself down into the chair with complacent smugness. Cabal unlocked a drawer in his desk and drew out a densely written contract. “I’m afraid I’ll need your signature. It’s all right,” he said, seeing the farmer’s expression. “The tax man will never know about our little arrangement. The form’s just for my own records and head office.” The farmer took the piece of parchment and examined it. Cabal affected disinterest but was glad that Arthur Trubshaw had discovered the illegible delights of four-point bold italic copperplate.

He himself had been over the contracts with a jeweller’s loupe and was satisfied that the signatory did not need to know precisely what he was signing to make it binding. This had led him to consider more … direct methods of getting the forms signed, but he had discarded such schemes as both inelegant and dangerous. The last thing he needed was to spend this vital, unrepeatable year being pursued from pillar to post by the forces of justice and order and perhaps even the police. No, he would play Satan’s game by the rules, although he wouldn’t be above bending them slightly if the situation, as now, allowed.

“What’s this bit, ‘To be filled in by the damnee’?” The farmer looked suspiciously at Cabal again. “Damnee? What’s one of them, eh?”

“Just some anachronistic legal term. Probably left over from medieval common law. Drink?” He stepped towards the tantalus.

“Aye, whisky and water. Don’t drown it,” said the farmer as he signed. Cabal handed over the drink, took the form, and locked it safely away in the desk again.

One down, ninety-nine to go, he thought.

The carnival limbered up rapidly; without the human need for frequent tea and smoke breaks, things went quickly. Tents and temporary wooden buildings grew across the meadow like giant mushrooms—the type that come with guide ropes and gaudy billboards designed to excite and entice.

Through the feverish activity walked Cabal with Bones at his elbow. None of it made much sense to him, but, nevertheless, he had slavishly followed the ground plan drawn up by Horst, who seemed pretty sure he knew the way to go. “It’s a first site. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll learn from them.” Horst was full of galling truisms, thought Cabal.

They arrived at the steam calliope. It was a huge and ornate piece of machinery that had a car all to itself when they were travelling. Great organ pipes thrust out of the top like Baroque mortars rising from the curling confusion of brightly painted wood. Across the front was a representation of a bandstand filled with gaudy automata holding almost accurate little model instruments. At the front stood a bandmaster with a baton. He was more heavily articulated than the band members and was currently caught in the midst of a cheerful wink to the audience. At least, guessed Cabal, it might have been intended as a cheerful wink, but it looked more like a knowing leer to him. A small mob of riggers were around the back, arguing.

“What seems to be the problem?” asked Cabal. “Sunset’s in less than an hour. This thing must be running by then.”

One of the riggers came to him, wringing his cloth cap. “We can’t get the music loaded up,” he admitted, shamefaced. “It just don’t want to seem to go. And even if we manage to, they still won’t let us draw steam from the engine.”

“Who won’t?” asked Cabal. The rigger pointed at the great locomotive. Dennis and Denzil were leaning out of the cab and grinning maniacally, as if it were their job to be nuisances. Denzil waved cheerfully, and Cabal noticed that bits of his left forearm were coming off. He’d have to do something about that, or else the fool would scare the customers. Rubes, he corrected himself.

Cabal walked over and looked up at them with crossed arms. “What do you two think you’re playing at?” Denzil stopped waving and grinning. Dennis didn’t until he was elbowed with enough force to break a rib. Possibly two. He toppled out of sight, and there was the sound of a head hitting iron sheeting with a loud crack. Dennis said his first word since dying. This wasn’t a nice one, either. Cabal pointed at Denzil’s chargrilled arm. “You’re a disgrace. Look at the state you’re in.” Denzil hid the offending limb behind his back and looked misty, his lower lip wobbling. Cabal went very, very pale. “Don’t you dare get emotional with me! Get down here this instant.”

Denzil climbed down and stood before him, his head hanging. Cabal snapped his fingers: a nasty, perfunctory sound through the leather of his gloves. “Show me.” Denzil slowly lifted his arm. Cabal studied it closely, doffing a glove and replacing it with a surgical one. Bones watched the swap with unconcealed disbelief.

“Why’re you carryin’ rubber gloves, boss?”

Cabal looked levelly at him. Then he thrust his finger into Denzil’s forearm up to the second joint. The flesh squelched out of the way like unset blancmange. Denzil made a horrible, shrill, shrieking intake of breath that Cabal ignored. “That’s why.” He drew the glove off with a snap that sent beads of liquescent meat flying off in most directions except over Cabal. He threw it to a rigger, who caught it without thinking. “Get rid of that, there’s a good chap.” Cabal turned back to Denzil.

“I should have left you face-down on the road, you blubbering fool. You were a waste of protein when you were alive, and now you’re dead you’re denying some tree sustenance.” He slapped the offending arm with the back of his hand and suddenly remembered he’d just that minute removed his rubber glove. He wiped the muck off on Denzil’s overalls. “This damage is irreparable. D’you understand that? There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s either going to have to come off or … or …” He considered carefully. “I can render it down, seal the stump, and attempt to animate the bones. Interesting problem. Report to my office at nine-thirty tomorrow. That’s all.” He noticed the riggers and recalled why he’d come over there in the first place. “And give the riggers every assistance in connecting the steam calliope with the engine’s boiler. Understand?”

A caw made Cabal look up. The crow had landed on the tallest organ pipe of the calliope and was looking down on him with an unwarranted air of superiority. “And you,” said Cabal, pointing at it. “If you do anything down one of those pipes, I will personally wring your neck. Understand?”

The crow moved its head in a very human “Oh, heck, you never let me have any fun” sort of way and flew down to settle on a tent peg.

Cabal had turned on his heel to walk away when he heard a sound that made him turn back. A bloodied tatterdemalion of a figure was leaning out of the train’s cab. With clumsy fingers it tried to get its scalp to stay in place, but this kept flopping forward like the brim of a particularly unappealing novelty hat. It looked at Cabal and held its hands out, dark with congealing blood. It groaned shudderingly. With the exception of Cabal, everybody took a step back.

“All right, that’s enough overacting,” snapped Cabal. “You turn up at ten.”

The music roll still needed installing. Cabal turned his logical eye upon the mechanism. Moving quickly, he reached in, pulled a lever back that brought a cross-arm with it, flipped up two side guards, took the music roll from one of the fascinated riggers, studied the arrows printed on it for a moment, flipped it over, drew off some loose sheet, thrust it into an unimportant-looking slot, aligned sprocket holes with teeth, slapped the bulk of the roll into a recess, held it in place while he closed the guards with his free hand, and finally pushed the lever home.

“I fail to see the difficulty. I trust you memorised all that.”

The rigger smiled uncertainly. Cabal stood up and worked a cramp out of his shoulder. “Do we have steam pressure yet?” Bones rapped a dial with one knuckle, squinted at the flickering needle, and gave the thumbs-up. Cabal opened a valve and engaged the clutch.

For a moment the calliope did nothing but make unsettled huffing and clicking noises as the steam ran throughout its plumbing. A governor started to rotate slowly as the paper music was drawn with painful slowness into the reader. The punched holes started to process by, and a moment later a pipe gave a doleful hoot. The bass drum thumped. Some other pipes blew in ragged succession, to be punctuated by the bass drum again, a strike of a triangle, and the most dolorous paradiddle on the snare drum. The wooden bandleader finished winking with the utmost difficulty and twisted back to face the automaton band in a strange movement that suggested he was an avant-garde dancer with a spinal injury.

“Look and learn,” said Cabal to the riggers. “Open the valve first.” He pointed. “Wait till that gets up to speed”—he pointed at the governor— “and then engage the clutch.” He tapped the lever. “This slow start-up sounds dreadful.”

The balls on the tips of the governor arms were barely visible now as the assembly spun faster and faster, a glittering band of ghostly brass. Slowly, the ring widened and rose as the governor reached its operating speed. Then a thin wisp of steam started to expel from the collar, and Cabal turned his attention to the music.

He didn’t know much about music, but he knew what he liked. The clear corollary was that he also knew what he didn’t like, but this, it turned out, was untrue. The music was a curious piece in waltz time, full of odd cadences and deliberate discords. Cabal watched the bandmaster automaton wave its baton in approximate time and leer over its shoulder once every twenty-one and a bit bars while he tried to make up his mind. He picked up the tube in which the paper roll had been stored and read the label. “Manège” par J. Lasry. He put it down again, his mind still uncertain.