The Universe Twister (32 page)

"Well, look who's here," a lean fellow with a yellowish complexion said, picking up a bedraggled quill and pulling a blank form toward him. "You made a mistake coming back, smart guy."

"Coming back wh—" A sharp jab in the back cut off O'Leary's objections. His captors grabbed his arms, hustled him through an iron-barred door and along a dark passage ending in a flight of steps that led downward into an odor like the gorilla house at the St. Louis zoo.

"Oh, no," Lafayette protested, digging in his heels. "You're not taking me down there!"

"Right," Yockwell confirmed. "See you later, joker!" A foot in the seat propelled Lafayette forward; he half-leaped, half-fell down the steps, landed in a heap in a low-ceilinged chamber lit by a single tallow candle and lined with barred cages from which shaggy, animal-like faces leered. At one side of the room a man wider than his height sat on a three-legged stool paring his nails with a sixteen-inch Bowie knife.

"Welcome to the group," the attendant called in a tone like a meat grinder gnawing through gristle. "Lucky fer you, we got a vacancy."

Lafayette leaped to his feet and made three steps before an iron grille crashed down across the steps, barely missing his toes.

"Close," the receptionist said. "Another six inches and I'd of been mopping brains off the floor."

"What's this all about?" Lafayette inquired in a broken voice.

"Easy," the jailer said, jangling keys. "You're back in stir, and this time you don't sneak out when I ain't looking."

"I demand a lawyer. I don't know what I'm accused of, but whatever it is, I'm innocent!"

"You never hit no guys over the head?" The jailer wrinkled his forehead in mock surprise.

"Well, as to that—"

"You never croaked nobody?"

"Not intentionally. You see—"

"Never conspired at a little larceny? Never wandered into the wrong bedroom by mistake?"

"I can explain—" Lafayette cried.

"Skip it," the turnkey yawned, selecting a key from the ring. "We already had the trial. You're guilty on all counts. Better relax and grab a few hours' sleep, so's you'll be in shape for the big day tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? What happens tomorrow?"

"Nothing much." The jailer grabbed Lafayette by the collar of his bedraggled plum coat and hustled him into a cell. "Just a small beheading at dawn, with you as the main attraction."

Lafayette huddled in the corner of the cramped cell, doing his best to ignore his various aches and pains, the itching occasioned by the insect life that shared his accommodations, the mice that ran across his feet, the thick, fudgy odor, and the deep, glottal snores of the other inmates. He also tried, with less success, to keep his mind off the grisly event scheduled for the next morning.

"Poor Swinehild," he muttered to his knees. "She'll think I ran off and deserted her. She'll never trust another ladies' room as long as she lives. Poor kid, alone in this miserable imitation of a medieval hell-town, with no money, no friends, no place to lay her head . . ."

"Hey, Lafe," a familiar voice hissed from the murk behind him. "This way. We got about six minutes to make it back up to the postern gate before the night watchman makes his next round!"

"Swinehild," Lafayette mumbled, gaping at the tousled blond head poking through the rectangular aperture in the back wall of the cell. "Where did you—how—what—?"

"Shh! You'll wake up the screw!" Lafayette glanced across toward the guard. He sat slumped on his stool like a dreaming Buddha, his fingers interlaced across his paunch, his head resting comfortably against the wall.

"I'll hafta back out," Swinehild said. "Come on; it's a long crawl." Her face disappeared. Lafayette tottered to his feet, started into the hole head first. It was a roughly mortared tunnel barely big enough to admit him. A cold draft blew through it.

"Put the stone back," Swinehild hissed.

"How? With my feet?"

"Well—let it go. Maybe nobody'll notice it for a while in that light."

His face bumped hers in the darkness; her lips nibbled his cheek. She giggled.

"If you don't beat all, Lafe, grabbing a smooch at a time like this. Anybody else'd be thinking o' nothing but putting distance between hisself and that basket party."

"How did you find out where I was?" Lafayette inquired, scrambling after her as she retreated.

"The tapman told me they'd put the sneeze on you. I followed along to the gate and made friends with the boys there. One of 'em let slip about this back way in. Seems like another feller escaped the same way, just a couple days back."

"They told you all that, on such short acquaintance?"

"Well, look at it their way, Lafe: low pay, long hours—and what's it to them if some poor sucker Rodolpho's got it in for cheats the headsman?"

"Well, that was certainly friendly of them."

"Yeah, but it was kinda tough on my back. Boy, them cold stone floors them boys has to stand on!"

"Swinehild—you don't mean—but never mind," Lafayette hurried on. "I'd rather not have it confirmed."

"Careful, now," Swinehild cautioned. "We go up a steep slant here and come out under a juniper bush. Just outside there's a guy pounding a beat."

Using elbows, toes, and fingernails, Lafayette crept up the incline. At the top, he waited while Swinehild listened.

"Here goes," she said. There was a soft creak, and dim light filtered in, along with a wisp of fog. A moment later, they were across the alley and over a low wall into a small park. They picked their way among trees and shrubs to a secluded spot in the center of a dense clump of myrtle.

"And I was worried about you," Lafayette said, flopping down on the ground. "Swinehild, it's a miracle; I still don't believe it. If it weren't for you, in another three hours I'd have been shorter by a head."

"And if it wasn't for you, I'd still be playing ring-around-the-rosy with them five deck-apes, Lafe." She snuggled close to him on the carpet of fragrant leaves.

"Yes, but it was me that got you into the situation in the first place, dragging you off in the middle of the night—"

"Yeah, but I was the one got you in bad with Hulk. He ain't really such a bad guy, but he ain't long on brains, always jumping to conclusions. Why, if he was to come along now, I bet the dummy'd try to make something of you and me here in the bushes together!"

"Er, yes." Lafayette edged away from the warm body beside him. "But right now we have to give some thought to our next move. I can't show my face around this place; either they've mistaken me for someone else, or those sailors we ditched are the world's fastest swimmers."

"We never did get nothing to eat," Swinehild said. "Or did they feed you in jail?"

"It must have been the caterer's day off," O'Leary said sadly. "I'd even welcome another slice of that leatherwurst we had in our lunch basket."

"You peeked," Swinehild said, and produced the sausage from a capacious reticule, along with the paring knife and the villainous-looking vintage Lafayette had last seen sliding about the bilge of the sailboat.

"Clever girl," Lafayette breathed. He used the knife to cut thick slices of the garlicky sausage, halved the apple, and dug the cork from the bottle.

"Nothing like a picnic under the stars," he said, chewing doggedly at the tough meat.

"Gee, this is the kind o' life I always pictured," Swinehild said, closing the distance between them and sliding her hand inside his shirt. "On the loose in the big town, meeting interesting people, seeing the sights . . ."

"A tour of the local dungeons isn't my idea of high living," Lafayette objected. "We can't stay here under this bush; it'll be dawn soon. Our best bet is to try to make it back down to the wharf and sneak aboard our boat, if it's still there."

"You mean you want to leave Port Miasma already? But we ain't even been through the wax museum yet!"

"A regrettable omission; but in view of the habit of the local cops to hang first and look at ID's later, I think I'll have to try to survive without it."

"Well—I guess you got a point there, Lafe. But I heard they got a statue o' Pavingale slaying the gore-worm that's so lifelike you could swear you heard the blood drip."

"It's tempting," O'Leary conceded, "but not quite as tempting as staying alive."

"Hulk ain't going to be glad to see us back," Swinehild predicted.

"You don't have to go," Lafayette said. "You seem to manage quite well here. I'm the one they want to hang on sight. Anyway, I have no intention of going back. What's on the other side of the lake?"

"Not much. Wastelands, the Chantspel Mountains, a bunch o' wild men, the Endless Forest, monsters. And the Glass Tree. You know."

"How about cities?"

"They say the Erl-king's got some kind o' layout under the mountains. Why?"

"I won't find the kind of help I need in an underground burrow," Lafayette said doubtfully. "Central wouldn't bother posting a representative anywhere but in a large population center."

"Then I guess you're stuck, Lafe. Port Miasma's the only town in this part o' Melange, as far as I know."

"That's ridiculous," Lafayette scoffed. "There has to be more than one city."

"Why?"

"Well—now that you mention it, I guess there doesn't." He sighed. "And I suppose that means I have to stay and make another try to see the duke. What I need is a disguise: different clothes, a false beard, maybe an eye patch . . ."

"Too bad I didn't pick up a soldier's uniform for you while I had the chance," Swinehild said. "There it was, laying right there on the chair . . ."

"All I need is something to get me through the gate. Once I gained the duke's ear and explained how vital it is I get back to Artesia, my troubles would be over."

"Better take it slow, Lafe. I heard Rodolpho's kind of careful who gets near him these days, ever since some intruder hit him over the head with a chair while he was sitting in it."

"I'll deal with that problem when I get to it," O'Leary said. "But this is all just a lot of air castle. Without a disguise, it's hopeless." He pared another slice from the sausage, chewed at it morosely.

"Don't be downhearted, Lafe," Swinehild cajoled. "Who knows what might turn up? Heck, you might just find what you need hanging on a bush; you never know."

"I wish it was that easy. It
used
to be that easy. All I had to do was focus the psychic energies and arrange matters as I pleased. Of course, there were limitations. I could only change things that hadn't happened yet, things I hadn't seen—like what was around the next corner."

"Sounds like a swell trick, Lafe," Swinehild said dreamily, joining in the mood. "You could conjure up jewels and black-satin pillers with MOTHER on 'em and Gorp knows what-all."

"I'd settle for a putty nose complete with spectacles, buck teeth, and a toothbrush moustache," Lafayette said. "And maybe a bushy red wig—and a monk's outfit, with a pillow for padding. It would just be lying there under the bushes where somebody lost it, and—" He broke off, his eyes wide open.

"Did you feel that?"

"Uh-uh. Do it again."

"Wasn't there a . . . a sort of . . . thump? As if the world went over a bump in the road?"

"Naw. Now, you was just saying, about the three wishes and all: I wish I had a pair o' them black-lace step-ins with a little pink ribbon—"

"Swinehild—shhh!" Lafayette interrupted abruptly. He cocked his head, listening. There was a muffled giggle from nearby, accompanied by threshings and puffings as of a friendly wrestling match.

"Wait here." Lafayette crept under the encircling boughs, skirted a stand of dwarf cedar. The sounds were coming from the deep shadows ahead. A dry twig snapped sharply under his hand.

"Hark, Pudelia—what's that?" a jowly voice whispered. The bushes trembled and a pouch-eyed face with a fringe of mouse-colored hair poked forth. For an instant the bulging blue eyes stared directly into O'Leary's paralyzed gaze. Then, with a muffled gobbling sound, it disappeared.

"Your husband!" the voice strangled. "Every man for himself!" There was a squeal, followed by the sound of rapid departures. Lafayette let out a long breath and turned away.

Something caught his eye, draped on the bush. It was a capacious gray robe of coarse wool, well matted with leaves on the underside. Beside it lay a black-satin cushion, lettered INCHON in pink and yellow.

"Great heavens," Lafayette breathed. "Do you suppose . . .?" He scouted farther, encountered what felt like a small, furry animal. He held it up to the moonlight.

"A . . . a red wig!"

"Lafe—what's going on?" Swinehild whispered from behind him. "Where'd you get that?"

"It was—just lying here."

"And a monk's robe—and my piller!" Swinehild caught up the latter and hugged it. "Lafe—you seen all this stuff before! You was funning me about wishing for it!"

"There ought to be one more item," Lafayette said, scanning the ground. "Ah!" He plucked a false nose with attached spectacles, teeth, and moustache from under the bush.

"And my fancy underdrawers just like I always wanted!" Swinehild yelped in delight, catching a wispy garment. "Lafe, you old tease!" She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him warmly.

"Oh boy," Lafayette said, disengaging himself from her embrace. "I've got my old stuff back. I don't know why, or how, but—" He closed his eyes. "Right behind that tree," he murmured. "A Harley-Davidson, fire-engine-red." He paused expectantly, opened one eye, then walked over and looked behind the tree.

"That's funny." He tried again:

"Behind the bench: a Mauser seven-six-five automatic in a black-leather holster, with a spare clip—loaded." He hurried over and rooted unsuccessfully among the leaves.

"I don't get it—first it works and then it doesn't!"

"Aw, never mind, Lafe, it was a good joke, but now, like you said, we got to shake a leg. Lucky for you that local sport tricked hisself out in a friar's costume to meet his doxy. That get-up's better'n a soldier suit."

"Could it have been just coincidence?" O'Leary muttered as he tucked the pillow inside his belt, pulled on the robe, donned the wig and the nose. Swinehild snickered.