The Artifact of Foex (6 page)

Fenimore’s free hand instinctively tried to
scratch at the IV needle the nurse had taped to his forearm. He
jerked in surprise, then eyeballed it. “What slow torture on Uos or
the God Plain is this?”

Answer his questions about this
century,
Knife had said. Chet licked his lips. “It’s a needle
designed to put liquid into your body," he began.

“I
know
that, you slit-eyed, red
haired bastard. Are you poisoning me with poppy vapors? You fail. I
do not feel... weakened.” Fenimore’s roving eyes had now caught
sight of passing traffic out the windows. “Where are the ceroses
for those carriages? Are they... they’re holy contraptions, aren’t
they? I’m
surrounded
by holy contraptions. Is this the God
Plain? Are you the servant of some god?”

Chet found himself bristling at both the
racial epithets and Fenimore’s assumption that he was a mere
servant. Just about everyone in Wetshul was flaxen. His race was no
longer so despised and poor as they had once been. Well... it made
sense, too, given the time period in question. Fenimore was from a
Tache high court, for Pantheon’s sake. He’d assume almost every
other race was beneath him, except perhaps the bistre-colored
people of the Jantrael Straight.

Chet decided it was time to assert himself.
“We’re in Wetshul. You fell into lucid mud, Fenimore LaDaven. Don’t
you remember?”

“I...” Fenimore gulped, suddenly less fierce.
“It’s a blur. I remember rain, and a fight. I was being... hounded
down. My servant betrayed me; he was following me in a stolen
carriage. He couldn’t shoot me because of the dark and wet powder.
But I don’t remember
why
.”

“The lucid mud is just dust now. I’m a, a
scholar, a student with a Literati university. We were digging for
artifacts and found you.”

Fenimore grunted and eyed Chet with rather
more curiosity than before. Then his expression grew horrified, as
if Chet had sprouted a second head. “Oh, Pantheon.
You
again. I thought... but no.”

“What?” Chet blinked, totally lost.

Fenimore’s expression grew reserved, almost
pleasant. “So, you are a student up the mountain at Semaphore this
time around?”

This time what? Chet nodded, grateful
Fenimore was making sense—if only a little bit—and that there were
some
cultural commonalities between them. Belatedly, he
realized they’d both been speaking in the Tache language. He hadn’t
noticed when his life had been threatened. “It’s been a long time
since you were enveloped by lucid mud.”

“How long?” Fenimore seemed to hold his
breath, his whole being focused on Chet.

“Three-hundred years.”

Fenimore sank back in the gurney, letting it
take his whole weight. “...Oh.”

“Rather a lot has changed since your
time.”

“
My
time?” Fenimore gave him a wild
eyed look. “My
time?
Pantheon. Everyone’s dead or they’ve
forgotten, haven’t they? Except... except Knife. Reincarnating
bastard.” He shook his head, his sensuous lips turning up at the
corner. “Where is Knife, anyway?”

“Back at the dig site," Chet took a deep
breath and was about to go on when Fenimore sat bolt upright.

“Where is the—oh, Pantheon.” Fenimore clawed
at the IV and clumsily withdrew the needle. He clearly didn’t care
about blood, his expression grim, eyes filled with intent will.

Chet hissed, “What are you doing?”

“Hey! What’s going on?” The nurse twisted
around to see them.

Now
she noticed something amiss.
Chet ignored her, focusing on Fenimore. The man was frantically
clawing at the closed windows like a trapped animal, but he
couldn’t escape, not unless he figured out the window or door
latches. Chet’s smugness faded as Fenimore drew back his knife
pommel and shattered the glass of the nearest window.

Chet yelped, arms raised to protect against
flying glass. Fenimore began grimly punching away the remaining
shards with the pommel. The techs and nurse were yelling and
cursing. Chet suddenly realized that Fenimore was about to climb
through the small window with its remaining glass shards poking out
like teeth.

“No, not that way,” Chet cried out.

He scrambled to the backdoor and pulled on
the latch. The door swung outwards, then slammed shut again as the
ambulance came to a screeching halt, catching Chet’s fingers. He
swore and cradled his hand. Fenimore pushed through the hanging
door like a panicked animal, not even looking for traffic. Chet
followed reluctantly.

It was rush hour in Wetshul, and they were
blocks away from downtown.

Oh, shit.

They were surrounded by vehicles of every
description, stopping for the light. At least, they
had
been stopped for the light. Drivers were inching forward and
leaning on their horns to clear the traffic snarl of two men in the
street. Chet scrambled over to grab Fenimore—who seemed to be
frozen with shock—but his hands met air. Fenimore had lightly
jumped onto the hood of a car. Chet watched, horrified, as Fenimore
raced up the curved frame to the top. The metal buckled under
Fenimore’s weight. Apparently reacting to the sinking feeling,
Fenimore leapt from the top of the car to another. Then another. He
left dents—even holes in convertibles—wherever he landed. Drivers
came boiling out of their vehicles, yelling and swearing, fists
shaking. Behind Chet, the nurse and medical techs were arguing
loudly with one another. One was complaining that he didn’t have a
tranquilizer
gun, for Pantheon’s sake.

“Fenimore, what are you
doing?
” Chet
said, zipping around the stalled traffic to follow him.

“It’s just like wrangling a herd of
doedicus,” Fenimore replied in a cheerful tone, “only without the
spiked tails!”

Chet stifled hysterical laughter. He could
see the connection: the stylish, curved tops of the cars certainly
did
look like the hump-backed creatures that had once
roamed most of rural Uos. Fenimore, apparently spotting the
sidewalk, took a running leap. Pedestrians—mostly men wearing suits
and carrying briefcases—dove out of his way. Fenimore didn’t stop
but began plowing through the crowded sidewalk like a, well, like
the razor-sharp blade he still held in hand.

Chet raced after Fenimore, as if sucked into
the void left in his wake. He was the only one. Most people ran—or
careened, or waddled—
out
of the armed man’s way. Fenimore
seemed like a wild-eyed madman with his reams of puffy hair and old
fashioned clothes. He
was
a wild-eyed madman. Fenimore
even took to yelling at the top of his lungs, brandishing his
weapon to clear the path in front of him. The crazy act—if it was
an act—didn’t account for his sheer speed. After a time, Chet
stopped trying to offer calming words or apologies in Fenimore’s
wake. He simply put his head down and ran, determined to keep
up.

They broke through the crowd at the edge of
the Shining Futures District, with its industrial warehouses and
gritty, potholed streets. Rush-hour traffic thinned and died as
Fenimore sprinted on. Chet gulped for air like a fish, a stitch at
his side. He’d
thought
he was in shape. Apparently
not.

“Fenimore! Fen!” he called futilely, gasping
for breath as he finally gave up the chase, bending over his
knees.

To Chet’s surprise, Fenimore slowed, then
stopped. He strutted back to where Chet was crumpled over. Fenimore
wasn’t even breathing hard.

“You’re a moist little cream puff, aren’t
you? What has become of men these days? You’re more fit for an
embroidery circle of dotardly ladies.”

Chet shot him a horrified look but couldn’t
reply, beset by the need to breathe. His hand was throbbing: no
broken fingers, but his knuckle was starting to swell.
Wonderful, just what I need,
he thought. Digging would be
so much fun now. The sky overhead had thickened with
bruised-looking clouds, the air hotter and more humid than ever. At
least the street was quiet.

Chet leaned against a large van parked
against the curb. Then he jerked back; the van was gently rocking.
It had been moving before, he realized, but he hadn’t noticed until
he’d touched it. Blue and nondescript, it blended into the dour
industrial surroundings. Except that it was bouncing up and down on
its shocks. Chet realized with a start that it was a prostitution
van, one of the mobile brothels.

Fenimore blinked. He walked around the van,
then pressed his face against the windows, covered by sheer
curtains from the inside. Though he couldn’t have seen much, he
grinned. It was a saucy, knowing grin.

“Ah, yes. Things have not changed
too
much in these distant times. I wonder what her rates
are.”

Chet felt his face growing hot. “Come on,
let’s keep going?” Why had his words twisted into a question? He
really was a cream puff compared to Fenimore, who was lean, whip
sinewy and filled with the vitality of ancient men. Or did he just
exhibit more testosterone? Chet didn’t know and abruptly didn’t
care.

Fenimore ignored him. He sheathed his knife
and hummed tunelessly under his breath, face pressed against the
window far longer than Chet felt comfortable with. In fact, Chet
felt humiliated, lingering here like this, so near the undeniable
intercourse taking place only feet away. The look in Fenimore’s eye
was willful and lusty, as if he were imagining exactly what he
wanted to do to the prostitute within.

Turning away from the window, Fenimore
glanced at Chet, about to make some comment. Then Fenimore studied
him more closely. “Ah, your virginal cheeks betray you, my flaxen
cherry pie. You are like a girl before her wedding night.”

Chet jerked away from him, angry and
confused. Fenimore’s racial taunting, hard as it was to take, was
nothing compared to this—baiting. Hadn’t Knife warned him?
Hadn’t...

Chet was brought short by Fenimore’s hands on
his lapels. What was Fenimore
doing?

Fenimore seemed to know exactly what he was
doing. Chet fought, mumbling inarticulate uncertainties, eyes wide.
Fenimore drew him in as if reeling a particularly feisty fish. He
slammed Chet against the van and kissed him on the mouth. Chet
froze, bewildered and targeted. Fenimore penetrated his lips and
thrust his tongue inside Chet’s mouth, his leverage excellent.
Oh. But... oh.
Chet’s cock rose like a flag, his muscles
contracting and releasing. He should, he should...
what?
The kiss continued unabated as Chet struggled weakly.

Fenimore released him slowly—ever so
slowly—and stepped away, grinning. His control was appalling. “Oh,
how sweet your bum will be; I look forward to its sundering. But
I’m afraid there is business at hand first. Come, my virginal
catamite, let us be off.”

Chet noticed the dig site was less populated
than before, mostly because graduate students were milling inside
the processing pavilion. The students were apparently taking a
break with the professors gone. A refreshing breeze cut through the
stifling humidity as ugly, bruised clouds roiled overhead. A few
graduate students were covering half-unearthed items up with tarps.
Chet wasn’t worried. The dust had the tendency of only absorbing
half an inch of water—if that—before the rest rolled off. Lucid
dust did not soak through like soil because it was not a
water-based medium. Complex chemical reactions of lucid mud, so
important for his last final, flitted through Chet’s brain as he
followed Fenimore down the steep grade.

“What
is
this barren wasteland? The
work of your university?” Fenimore seemed taken aback. “This was
all swamp. Trees and swamp, nothing more.”

“Oh, that’s long gone. They’re building a new
highway nearby," Chet said absently, wiping his sweating
forehead.

Ah, there were the Flame. He’d been expecting
them to seek shelter, but they were still out on the dig site, same
pit as before. Both were digging frantically. Chet saw Journey
glance upwards at the coming thunderstorm with panicked eyes, her
expression terrified.

“Knife!” Fenimore cried out as they drew
closer. “You old cynodict, you look exactly the same. Why am I not
surprised?”

Chet blinked at Fenimore’s words, and it
wasn’t because he had just compared Knife to a skinny, hairless
canine with a whip-like tail. Chet hadn’t realized that a
shapeshifter would use their infinite flexibility to remain the
same
for three-hundred years. Or more.

Knife glanced up with a grin but didn’t stop
digging. “Hello, Fenimore. I had a feeling those misguided doedicus
couldn’t hold you long.”

“Why aren’t you two in the pavilion?” Chet
said. Didn’t they realize rain would burn them? It was a stupid
question, of course they knew. They must know. Lightning arced
overhead.