The Prophecy Machine (Investments) (34 page)

“We need to talk about this. It's clear there's been a misunderstanding here. We've had our differences, Father, but we're family. There's no stronger tie than that. I suppose some of what's happened is my fault, but most of it's yours. Nevertheless, I'm willing to forget and start anew.”

“Start a new what?”

“You ignorant old bastard, I'm giving you a chance to make this right. I don't intend to sit here all day!”

“Why not?”

Sabatino frowned, giving thought to that. Finn shook his head. He couldn't think of anything to say.

“I have a casualty here. He's gravely injured, I fear. He's going to need help or he'll perish right away …”

As if in answer, Calabus loosed a high, piercing laugh,
more like a cackle, more like a shriek, not like a laugh you might hear every day.

Sabatino took a deep breath. He seemed to sag, he seemed to wilt, seemed to go into decline. Finn felt he might simply fade before his eyes.

“Father is over the hill. There's nothing else for it.”

“No offense, but he's been over the hill for some time.”

“I know. But this is worse than that.”

Sabatino crawled to the edge of the brush and risked a look.

“This man is hurt, Father. Just let me come in there and get a glass of wine, perhaps a damp cloth of some kind.”

“It's that lizard fellow we're talking about.”

“Yes it is, Father. It's Master Finn. You remember him.”

“He's hurt real bad?”

“Extremely badly, Father. It's his leg.”

“One leg, you mean. Not two.”

“No, just one.”

“Tell him to limp the hell out of here, then. I'd just as soon shoot him too.”

Sabatino turned to Finn. “I'm doing my best. It's impossible to reason with the man.”

“I can see that.”

“Father—”

“That's no way for a son to do, boy. Locking me up like that. That hurt a lot. You've been breaking my heart since your mother passed on. I wish she'd stayed around to suffer, see what I had to go through.”

“You locked
me
up, Father, don't forget that.”

“Damn you, boy, you did it first. Whoever does it first, that's the one started it all, you ought to know that.”

“Grandfather's gone berserk again,” Sabatino said quietly, “He's worse than he's ever been before. I think he might have the Newlie girl. You've got to destroy that
device of yours, Father. It's bulging all over the place, it's getting out of hand.”

Calabus was silent for a while. “He's got Miss Letitia, you think?”

“I think he likely does.”

“That's what people get for playing in the walls. I told you that when you were six. Tell that lizard fellow, tell him if she's still all right, I'll go and get her out. If I do, though, he's got to give her to me.”

“Like hell I will!”

Finn tried to get up. Pain pushed him back down.

“Stay out of this,” Sabatino said. “You think you're going to
reason
with him now?”

“Just help me up. Get me a stick, anything you can find …”

“He'll agree to that if he has to, Father,” Sabatino called out. “He loves the lady, but he'll give her up to save her life.”

“I want that lizard, too.”

“He'll go for that.”

Finn opened his mouth to protest, but Sabatino shook his head.

“Can I come in now? I'd like to get that wine and a cloth of some kind. Tell Squeen to find something clean—”

The shot clipped the plume off Sabatino's hat. Sabatino hit the ground. Lilac feathers filled the air.

“Damn you, boy,” Calabus shouted, “you think I'm deaf and blind? I know your intentions, I've got 'em right here!”

Calabus raised a tangle of paper and shook it in the air, endless loops and snarls, ravels and curls, whorls and kinks and coils. Finn swallowed his pain and stretched his neck to see. There, on the porch, was a man in a rage, a man with a musket, a man with severe disorders of the mind.

“It's all right here, you damn fools! The works!
Everything!
What's going to happen, everything that has! You can't trifle with me, I can
read
this stuff now!”

Calabus crowed again and spread his arms wide, tossing paper to the wind. “Don't try an' put something over on me. I know what you're up to before you know yoursel—”

The house began to shake, began to roll, began to twitch, began to rock, began to quake. To the left and to the right, to the bottom and the top, wood began to squeal, began to creak, squeak and groan.

Finn saw it, then, felt it in his belly, felt it in his toes. A window cracked, timber snapped, and dust began to fall. A spot near the roof began to swell. It bulged, oozed, festered like a boil, like a horrid open sore. A foul and awful corruption throbbing with dark bits of matter that tumbled through its grime-encrusted coils.

Finn couldn't breathe, couldn't draw a breath.

“It needs more room,” Sabatino said, “the damned thing's coming outside …”

S
HE HAD NEVER FELT SO WONDERFUL AND WARM
, so full of energy and life. She knew, as she had never known before, that this was what life was really like, that she'd only thought she was truly alive before …

Then, she'd been only one, only a single lost and lonely soul, a creature looking at the world through a single, lonely pair of eyes. Now, she was everywhere there was, everywhere at once, everywhere she'd ever be …

She laughed, laughter she couldn't hear. She could almost remember now, remember the long, long before; before she'd worn the form she wore now. She could almost see herself then, see beyond the blur, beyond the veil before her eyes. And something within her said,
No, don't look before, don't look back, you don't want to see that now …

I
T ONLY HURT FOR AN INSTANT.
T
HEN EVERYTHING
was gone and it didn't hurt at all. When he opened his eyes, the pain was still there and he wasn't where he'd been.

“Ah, you are with us, I am happy to see. You are feeling fine again?”

Finn scowled up at Sabatino through the sharp and screaming pain. “No, I am not feeling fine. Why did you pick me up, you damn fool, don't you know any better than that? You don't pick up a man who's broken several bones, you could kill him like that.”

“I take offense,” Sabatino said. “From a brother in arms, I expected more gratitude than this.”

“Oh, well, now I understand.”

“I felt we should distance ourselves from the house. I didn't think it was safe to leave you there.”

“You did this for me?”

“Well, no, that's not quite true. You see how close we are? You can see right through me, Finn. When your leg feels better, you and I together, we'll retrieve the house. Which is rightfully mine, of course. Father's in no
condition to make decisions of any sort. And, of course, you'll want to try and get Letitia out. I feel there's little hope, but of course you must try.”

“I think I worry when you
don't
lie,” Finn said. “And don't say I won't get her out, because I will.”

“You should try and stand now,” Sabatino said, leaning down to help, “get used to moving a bit.”

“Don't come any closer—get away from me …”

He turned, then, as he felt the tremor moving through the earth, felt the rumble, felt the beat, like some gigantic heart. Sabatino had carried him a hundred paces or more, but it was clearly not enough. The power, the terrible tug of the thing was weaker here, but it was there. And how far would it go, what would it do when it grew beyond the house?

Finn felt a chill as the words of the seer came to mind. There was more to that dark device than a madman's dream. Calabus' father had created the thing, but there was magic there as well, a spell of such power that it struck out at anyone who threatened the machine.

And what has it done to you, Letitia? Has it stolen your soul, has it taken your mind? If I find you, my dear, what then will you be … ?

“Finn, look. Over there.”

Finn started, then followed Sabatino's eyes. Someone was coming down the road. Not just someone, more like everyone—everyone who lived in that foul, odorous, unfriendly village was apparently on the march, coming their way.

“Damn them all,” Sabatino muttered, “just what I need, a bunch of interfering fools. They've got no right coming here.”

“Maybe they want to help,” Finn said. “You could use a little right now.”

“Help? That herd of idiots?” Sabatino laughed, or possibly
sneered. “They're more pitifully inept than you are, Finn. And you're scarcely any use at all.”

Sabatino muttered beneath his breath. Clenched his fists and ground his teeth. He didn't like anyone at all, and surely didn't like them more than one at a time.

It was indeed, Finn thought, a curious caravan. Most of the folk were on foot, but in their wake were several carts, carts with outlandish high wooden wheels. Pulling the carts were teams of Bullies with ropes about their chests, tugging their burdens in step.

Whoever the people in the carts might be, they were far more comfortable than the struggling teams. Each wagon was covered with a canopy shade held aloft by wooden poles. There might, Finn thought, be drink and fresh cakes inside.

He felt the carts looked familiar, felt, with a touch of apprehension, he had seen them before, and of a sudden, knew exactly where. Just such a cart had delivered Sabatino's father in a cage to Market Square.

“Who are they?” Finn asked, for Sabatino was scowling at the caravan as well. “What are they doing here?”

“What they always do,” Sabatino said. “Mind other people's business, stick their big noses in everyone's affairs, snoop around where they aren't welcome, turn up where they don't belong.”

“Oh, I see,” Finn said.

“And that one, the one with the red and purple top and the vile yellow wheels; that is my dear, dear uncle, the foul and loathsome Nicoretti himself.”

“Him? Coming here? Bees and Trees, you don't see a bunch of Bowsers with him, do you?”

Sabatino showed a curious eye. “Now where did you hear about them?”

“I don't know, in town somewhere, I really don't recall.”

He hadn't shared these adventures, and didn't intend to start now.

“Huuuh …” Sabatino said, in a tone that said he didn't accept this explanation at all.

The horde on foot, a hundred, maybe more, stopped just short of the line of dead grass beyond Sabatino and Finn. They stood in such a neat and even line that Finn thought there might have been a sign, a fence, a stripe painted boldly on the ground. Everyone knew where to stand, exactly how far from the house they ought to be.

No one smiled, everybody scowled. Now and then they muttered, whispered, mumbled among themselves.

“These people don't look content,” Finn said. “Are we in danger here?”

“Not yet, but you never can tell.”

As if in answer, someone began to throw fruit. A very old peach landed close to Sabatino, splattering his boots. A pear and a melon after that, but both fell rather short.

Sabatino's hand went instinctively to his belt where his weapon ought to be, if his mad grandfather hadn't taken it away.

“Be on your guard, Master Finn, there could be trouble on the way.”

“Have you noticed? I'm on the ground here, I can't stand up.”

Sabatino didn't answer. All at once, the crowd began to part. From somewhere farther back, brilliant red plumes began to bob up and down. From Finn's rather limited view it seemed a curious sight, as if a flock of very tall birds were engaging in a dance, or possibly a fight.

This illusion vanished when the first feathered figure appeared. They were men, not birds, no more or less shabby, odorous and worn, than their peers in the crowd, except for the bright scarlet crests upon their heads.

“Birds and Turds,” Finn said, taken aback by the sight, “how many churches do you
have
in this town?”

“Don't be a fool,” Sabatino said, without a glance at Finn. “It's not a church at all, it's the Crimson Lancers Volunteers.”

“I don't see a lance anywhere.”

“They're not allowed to carry arms. We won't put up with that.”