The Anvil of the World

Mrs. Smith had retired when he went to her, and was sitting up in bed smoking, calmly reading a broadside. The staff inhabited the long attic that ran the length of the hotel, divided into several rooms, far enough above the garden for the sounds of massed passion to be a little less evident as it filtered up through the one narrow gabled window.

“Not going out, Smith?” she inquired. Her gaze fell on the case he carried, and she looked up at him in sharp inquiry. “Dear, dear, have we had a contretemps of some kind?”

“You said Sharplin Coppercut isn’t a food critic,” said Smith. “What kind of journalist is he, then?”

“He’s a scandalmonger,” Mrs. Smith replied. “Writes a column that runs in all the broadsides. A master of dirty innuendo and shocking revelation. He’s done some unauthorized biographies of assorted famous persons, too, instant best-sellers if I recall correctly. I’ve read one or two. Racy stuff. Mean-spirited, however.”

“He dressed pretty well, for somebody living on a writer’s salary,” said Smith.

“You’re speaking of him in the past tense,” observed Mrs. Smith.

“Well, he’s dead.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Mrs. Smith, taking a drag and exhaling smoke. “I assume you mean he’s been murdered?”

“It looks that way.” Smith sagged into a chair.

“Hmph.” Mrs. Smith regarded the scribe’s case. “My guess would be, he blackmailed the wrong person. They do say he made more money being paid not to write, if you understand me. Had a network of spies in every city digging up dirt for him. Did his research, too. It was what made his stuff so entertaining, you see—never indulged in empty insinuation. When that man threw mud, it stuck.”

“Why would he have been writing about the House Spell-metal scandal?” Smith wondered. Mrs. Smith’s eyes widened.

“He was fool enough to blackmail those people? They’re still angry about it, and they’ve got a long reach. How d’you know that was who did for him?”

Smith explained how the body had been found and about the scroll fragments that had survived the fire. “I’ve been trying to remember what the scandal was all about,” he said. “I was working on a long-run freighter back then, and we didn’t put into port much, so I don’t think I ever heard the whole story.”

Mrs. Smith made a face. “I believe it requires a stiff drink, Smith,” she said.

Getting out of bed, she pulled a dressing gown on over her voluminous shift and poured herself an impromptu cocktail from the bottles on her dresser. She poured one for Smith too, and when they were both settled again said, “I’ll tell you as much as I know. It was in all the broadsides at the time; there were ballads, and somebody even attempted to mount a play on the subject, but House Spellmetal had it suppressed with breathtaking speed. D’you remember a self-proclaimed prophet, called himself the Sunborn?”

“Vaguely,” said Smith. “Came to a bad end, didn’t he?”

“Very. That was at the end of the story, however. It all started out in wine and roses, as they used to say. He was a charismatic. Could charm the birds down out of the trees and anyone’s clothes off. Preached deliverance through excess; with him it was Festival all year long, every day. If he’d confined himself to having a good time, he might still be with us.

“Unfortunately, he really believed what he taught.” Mrs. Smith shook her head.

“He was the one House Spellmetal went after,” Smith recalled.

“So he was.”

“And there was a massacre, wasn’t there? Why?”

Mrs. Smith had a long sip of her drink before answering.

“He had a band of followers,” she said at last. “Like any charismatic. One of the things he advocated was free love between the races, so he had quite a mixed bag of people at his, ahem, services. They were driven out of every place they settled in. At last the Sunborn had a vision that he and his lovers were to found a holy city where all might live according to his creed, greenies included.

“And then, somehow or other, the heir to House Spell-metal fell under his influence.”

“That was it,” Smith said. “And the Spellmetals disapproved.”

“Of course they did. The boy was young and thick as two planks, but he adored the Sunborn and he was, of course, rich. So he offered the Sunborn and his followers a huge estate House Spellmetal owned, up near their marble quarries, to be the site of the new holy city. Away they all went and moved into the family mansion there. The boy’s father was beside himself.

“You can guess the rest. House Spellmetal raised an army and went up there to get the boy back and forcibly evict the rest of them, with the exception of the Sunborn, whom they intended to skin alive. They didn’t get him alive, however. They didn’t get anybody alive. There was an armed standoff and finally a massacre.”

Smith shook his head. Mrs. Smith finished her drink.

“I have heard,” she said, “that Konderon Spellmetal strode in through the broken wall and found his son dead in the arms of an equally dead Yendri girl, pierced with one arrow in the very act itself. I’ve heard he swore eternal vengeance on any follower of the Sunborn, and hasn’t thought of another thing since that hour.”

“But they all died,” said Smith.

“Apparently there were a few who fled out through the back, just before the massacre.” Mrs. Smith shrugged and stared into her empty glass before setting it aside. “Women and children, mostly. The Spellmetals had a body they said was the Sunborn’s skinned, but there have always been rumors it wasn’t really him, and he’s supposed to have been sighted over the years here and there. One couple, a man and his wife and baby, went straight to the law and turned themselves in. They weren’t mixed-race, and it turned out they hadn’t really been part of the cult; they’d just been the Sunborn’s cousins or something like that.

“They were acquitted. They hadn’t got five steps out of the Temple of the Law when an assassin hired by House Spellmetal put a pair of bolts right through their hearts. Needless to say, any remaining survivors stayed well underground after that.”

“So they must have fabulous prices on their heads,” Smith mused.

“I imagine so. Konderon Spellmetal’s still alive.”

“So Coppercut might have tracked one of them down and threatened him or her with exposure,” said Smith. “Or he might have been proposing to rake it all up again in a book, against House Spellmetal’s wishes.”

“Occasionally the broadsheets like to do Where-Are-They-Now retrospectives,” said Mrs. Smith.

“But whoever killed him went through his papers and burned anything to do with the scandal,” Smith theorized. “I wonder if they got it all?”

He opened the scribe’s case and drew out those papers that remained inside. Mrs. Smith watched him as he shuffled through them.

“They must have been interrupted before they could finish. Anything of note?”

Smith blinked at the pages. They were notes taken in the hasty backhand, apparently copied from city files, and they appeared to trace adoption records for an infant girl, of the house name Sunbolt. She’d been made a ward of the court of the city of Karkateen. There were brief summaries of depositions from persons involved, and then the note that the venue for the child’s case had been changed to Mount Flame. There, after medical certification that she was likely to grow up into the necessary physical type for such work, the infant had been placed in the Mount Flame Mother House for Runners.

The next few pages were all notes of interviews with various persons, concerning the five young runners who had entered active service in the twelfth year of the reign of Chairman Giltbrand.

The very last page was a list of five names, none of them Sunbolt, with four of them crossed out. The remaining name was underlined. It was Teeba Burnbright.

Under that was written: Present employment: house messenger, Hotel Grandview, 4 Front Street, Salesh-by-the-Sea.

“I didn’t know her first name was Teeba,” said Smith distractedly.

“Burnbright?” Mrs. Smith scowled at him. “What’s she got to do with it?”

Smith waved the handful of papers, thinking hard.

“The first thing he asked when he got here was if he could see our house runner,” he said. “I sent Burnbright up to him as soon as she got back. I haven’t seen her since. Crucible said she’d run off crying about something. Oh, hell—”

“She’s asleep in her room,” Mrs. Smith informed him. “I went into the cellar for some apricot preserves for the Festival Cake, and she was hiding down there, sniveling. She’d opened a bottle of orchid extract and gotten herself into a state of messy intoxication. I gave her a dose of Rattlerail’s Powders and a thorough telling-off, and sent her to bed. Smith, that child’s far too scatterbrained to pull off a murder!”

“But she knows something,” said Smith.

“Well, you’re going to have to wait until morning to question her,” said Mrs. Smith, “with the condition she was in.”

“I guess so.” Smith stuffed the papers back in the scribe’s case and set them aside. Suddenly he felt bone-tired and very old. “All this and Lord Ermenwyr under the roof, too. I’ve had enough of Festival.”

“Two days yet to go of exquisite orgiastic fun,” said Mrs. Smith grimly.



Far too early the next morning, Smith was crouched at his desk in the lobby, warming his hands on a mug of tea. Most of the hotel’s guests were either passed out in their rooms or in the shrubbery, and it would be at least an hour before anyone was likely to ring for breakfast. He had already spotted Burnbright. She was sitting in the deserted bar, deep in quiet conversation with the young Yendri doctor. He was holding both her hands and speaking at length. Smith was only waiting for Willowspear to leave so he could have a word with her in private.

While they were still cloistered together, however, Lord Ermenwyr and his bodyguards came down the staircase.

“Smith.” Lord Ermenwyr looked from side to side and caught his sleeve. “Are you aware you’ve got a … er … deceased person in Room 2?”

“Not anymore,” Smith told him. “We carried him down into the cold storage cellar an hour ago.”

“Oh, good,” said the lordling. “The smell was making the boys restless, and there was a soul raging around in there half the night. Came through my wall at one point and started throwing things about, until I appeared to him in my true form. He turned tail at that, but I was looking forward to a bit of fun tonight and don’t want any apparitions interrupting me. Who was it?”

Smith explained, rubbing his grainy eyes.

“Really!” Lord Ermenwyr looked shocked. “Well, I wish I’d been the one to send him to his deserved reward! Coppercut was a real stinker, you know. No wonder Burnbright’s in need of spiritual comfort.”

“Is that what they’re doing in there?” Smith peered over at the bar.

“She and Willowspear? Of course. He’s a Disciple, you know. Has all the sex drive of a grain of rice, so skittish young ladies in need of a sympathetic shoulder to cry on find him irresistible.” Lord Ermenwyr sneered in the direction of the bar. “Perhaps she’d like a bit of slightly more robust consolation later, do you think? I’ll listen to her problems and give her advice she can use next time she has to kill somebody.”

“You don’t think she did it?” Smith scowled.

“Oh, I suppose not. Say, did you have plans for the body?” Lord Ermenwyr turned back and looked at him hopefully.

“Yes. The City Warden is coming for it after Festival.”

“Damn. In that case, what about sending out for a sheep?” The lordling dug in his purse and dropped a silver piece on the desk. “That ought to take care of it. Just have the porter lead it straight up to my suite. I’m going back to bed now. Would the divine Mrs. Smith be so kind as to send up a tray of tea and clear broth?”

“I’ll see it done, lord,” said Smith, eyeing the silver piece and wondering where he was going to get a live sheep during Festival.

“Thanks. Come along, boys.” Lord Ermenwyr turned on his heel and headed back toward the stairs, with his bodyguards following closely. At the door of the bar he leaned in and yelled: “If you’ve quite finished, Willowspear, I believe my heartbeat’s developing an alarming irregularity. You might want to come along and pray over me or something. Assuming you’ve no objection, Burnbright dearest?”

There was a murmur from the bar, and Willowspear hurried out, looking back over his shoulder. “Remember that mantra, child,” he said, and turned to follow his master up the stairs.

“Burnbright,” Smith called.

A moment later she came through the doorway, reluctant to look at him. Burnbright was in as bad a shape as a young person can be after a night of tears and orchid extract, which was a lot better than Smith himself would have been under the same circumstances. She dug a knuckle into one slightly swollen eye, and asked, “What?”

“What happened, up there with Mr. Coppercut?” Her mouth trembled. She kept her gaze on the floor as she said; “I thought he wanted me to run him a message. He didn’t have any messages. He told me he knew who I really was. Told me all this story about these people who got themselves killed when I was a baby, or something. Said he knew who fostered me out to my mother house. Said I had guilty blood and some big noise House Smeltmetal or somebody would pay a lot of money for my head. Said he could set bounty hunters after me with a snap of his fingers!”

She looked up at Smith in still-simmering outrage. “I told him it was a lot of lies. He said he could prove it, and he said he was going to write about me being one of the survivors, so everybody’d know who I am and where I live. Unless I paid him. And I said I didn’t have any money. And he said that wasn’t what he wanted.”

“Bastard,” said Smith. “And…?

“What d’you think he wanted?” Burnbright clenched her little fists. “And … and he said there were other things he wanted me to do. I got up to run at that, and he couldn’t stop me, but he told me to think it over. He said to come back when I’d calmed down. Said he’d be waiting. So I ran away.”

“You went downstairs to hide?”

“I needed to think,” said Burnbright, blushing. “And Mrs. Smith caught me and gave me what for because I was drinking. So I went upstairs, but I’d been thinking, well, it’s Festival after all and maybe it’s not so wrong. But it seemed awfully unfair, now of all times! But then I thought maybe he’d leave me alone after—and nobody’d ever know if I… well anyway, I went in to see him. But—” She paused, gulped.

“He was dead?”

Burnbright nodded quickly, giving him a furtive look of relief. “Sitting there in the firelight, just like in a ghost story. So I left.”

“You didn’t have anything to do with getting him killed? Didn’t put drain cleaner in his food?” asked Smith, just to have it said and done with. Burnbright shook her head.

“Though that would have been a really good idea,” she admitted. Her eyes widened. “Did somebody do that? Eeeew!! It must have eaten through him like—”

“We don’t know how he died,” said Smith. “I’m trying to find out.”

“Well, it wasn’t me,” Burnbright maintained. “As mean as he was, he probably had lots of enemies. And now he can’t hurt anybody else!” she added brightly.

“Did you touch anything in the room when you were there?”

“Nothing,” Burnbright said. “You’re not supposed to, are you, at a murder scene? There were lots of murders in Mount Flame City; everyone there knows what to do when you stumble on a body. Leave fast and keep your mouth shut!”

“All right. So you haven’t told anybody?”

Burnbright flushed and looked away. “Just that… doctor. Because I… he asked me what was the matter. But he won’t tell. He’s very spiritual.”

“For a greenie, eh?”

“I never met one like him,” said Burnbright earnestly. “And he’s beautiful. Don’t you think? I could just stare at that face for hours.”

“Well, don’t,” Smith told her, too weary to be amused. “Go help the porters cleaning up the terrace.”

“Okay!” Burnbright hurried off. Smith watched her go, pressing his tea mug to the spot on his left temple where his headache was worst. The heat felt good.

He was still sitting like that, mulling over what he’d just learned, when a man came running in from the street.

Smith straightened up and blinked at him suspiciously, not because of the stranger’s precipitate appearance but because he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. There was a blurred quality to the man’s outline, an evanescent play of uncertain colors. For a moment Smith wondered whether Coppercut’s ghost wasn’t on the loose, perhaps objecting to his body being laid out on three blocks of ice between a barrel of pickled oysters and a double flitch of bacon.

But as he neared the desk, stumbling slightly, the stranger seemed to solidify and focus. Tall and slender, he wore nothing but an elaborately worked silver collar and a matching ornament of a sheathlike nature over his loins. It being the middle of Festival, this was nothing to attract attention; but there was something unsettlingly familiar about the young man’s face.

His features were smooth and regular, handsome to the point of prettiness. His hair was thickly curling, and there was a lot of it. His wide eyes were cold, glittering, and utterly mad.

“Hello,” he said, wafting wine fumes at Smith. “I understand this is a, er, friendly hotel. Can I see your thing you write people’s names in?”

His voice was familiar too. Smith peered at him.

“You mean the registration book?”

“Of course,” said the youth, just as three more strangers ran through the doorway and Smith placed the likeness. If Lord Ermenwyr were taller, and clean-shaven, and had more hair, and didn’t squint so much—

“There he is!” roared one of the men.

“Die, cheating filth!” roared another.

“Vengeance!” roared the third.

The youth said something unprintable and vanished. Smith found himself holding two mugs of tea.

The three men halted in their advance across the lobby.

“He’s done it again!” said the first stranger.

“There he is!” The second pointed at the tea mug in Smith’s left hand.

“Vengeance!” repeated the third man, and they resumed their headlong rush. But they were now rushing at Smith.

They were unaware of Smith’s past, however, or his particular talent, and so, ten seconds later, they were all dead.

One had Smith’s left boot knife embedded in his right eye to the hilt. One had Smith’s right boot knife embedded in his left eye, also to the hilt. The third had Smith’s tea mug protruding from a depression in his forehead. Looking very surprised, they stood swaying a moment before tottering backward and collapsing on the lobby carpet. No less surprised, Smith groaned and, getting to his feet, came around the side of the desk to examine the bodies. Quite dead.

“That was amazing! Thanks,” said the youth, who had reappeared beside him.

Smith’s headache was very bad by then, and for a moment the pounding was so loud he thought he might be having a stroke; but it was only the thunder of eight feet in iron-soled boots descending the stairs, and behind them the rapid patter of two feet more elegantly shod.

“Master!” shouted Lord Ermenwyr’s bodyguards, prostrating themselves at the youth’s feet.

“Forgive us our slowness!” implored Cutt.

“What in the Nine Hells are you doing here?” hissed Lord Ermenwyr furiously, staring at the youth as though his eyes were about to leap right out of his head.

“Hiding,” said the youth, beginning to grin.

“Well, you can’t hide here, because I’m hiding here, so go away!” said Lord Ermenwyr, stamping his feet in his agitation. Willowspear, who had come up silently behind him, stared at the newcomer in amazement.

“My lord! Are you unhurt?” he asked.

The youth ignored him, widening his grin at Lord Ermenwyr. “Ooo! Is the baby throwing a tantrum? Is the poor little stoat scared he’s going to be dug out of his hole? Here comes the scary monster to catch him!”

“Stop it!” Lord Ermenwyr screamed, as the youth shambled toward him giggling, and as the youth’s graceful form began to run and alter into a horrible-looking melting mess. “You idiot, we’re in a city! There are people around!”

Smith drew a deep breath and leaped forward, grabbing the thing that had been a youth around its neck and doing his best to get it in a chokehold. To his amazement, Curt, Crish, Stabb, and Strangel were instantly on their feet, snarling at him, and Willowspear had seized his arm with surprisingly strong hands.

“No! No! Smith, stop!” cried Lord Ermenwyr.

“Then … this isn’t the mage Blichbiss?” Smith inquired, as the thing in his grip oozed unpleasantly.

“Who?” bubbled the thing.

“This is the Lord Eyrdway,” Willowspear explained. “The Variable Magnificent, firstborn of the Unwearied Mother, heir to the Black Halls.”

“He’s my damned brother,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “You’d better let him go, Smith.”

Smith let go. “A thousand apologies, my lord,” he said cautiously.

“Oh, that’s all right,” gurgled the thing, re-forming itself into the handsome youth. “You did just save my life, after all.”

This brought Smith’s attention back to the three dead men lying in front of the desk. Lord Ermenwyr followed his gaze.

“Dear, dear, and I promised you there wouldn’t be any bodies lying around your nice hotel, didn’t I? Boys, let’s get rid of the evidence. Who were they?” He turned a gimlet eye on Lord Eyrdway, as the bodyguards moved at once to gather up the dead. They carried them quickly up the stairs, chuckling amongst themselves.

“Who were they? Just some people,” said Lord Eyrdway, a little uncomfortably. “Can I have a drink?”

“What do you mean, ‘just some people’?” demanded Lord Ermenwyr.

“Just some people I… cheated, and sort of insulted their mothers,” said Lord Eyrdway. “And killed one of their brothers. Or cousins. Or something.” His gaze slid sideways to Smith. “Hey, mortal man, want to see something funny?”

He lunged forward and grabbed Lord Ermenwyr’s beard, and gave it a mighty yank.

“Ow!” Lord Ermenwyr struck his hand away and danced back. Lord Eyrdway looked confused.

“It’s a real beard now, you cretin!” Lord Ermenwyr said, rubbing his chin.

“Oh.” Lord Eyrdway was nonplussed for a moment before turning to Smith. “See, he’s got this ugly baby face and he was worried he’d never grow a real mage’s beard like Daddy’s, so he—”

“Shut up!” raged Lord Ermenwyr.

“Or maybe it was to hide his pimples,” Lord Eyrdway continued gloatingly, at which Lord Ermenwyr sprang forward and grabbed him by the throat. Willowspear and Smith managed to pry them apart, and managed only because Lord Eyrdway had made a ridge of thorns project out of the sinews of his neck, causing his brother to pull back with a yelp of pain. He stood back, nursing his hands and glaring at Lord Eyrdway.

“Those had better not be venomous,” he said.

“Curl up and die, shorty,” Lord Eyrdway told him cheerfully. He looked around. “Is there a bar in here?”

“Maybe we should all go upstairs, lord?” Smith suggested.

“Er—no,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “I don’t think you want to go into my rooms for the next little while.” He looked at the entrance to the bar. “It’s private in there.”

It would be hours yet before Rivet came in to work, so Willowspear obligingly went behind the bar and fetched out a couple of bottles of wine and glasses for them.

“Is anybody else likely to come bursting in here in pursuit of you?” Lord Ermenwyr inquired irritably, accepting a glass of wine from Willowspear.

“I don’t think so,” said Lord Eyrdway. “I’m pretty sure I scared off the rest of them when I turned into a giant wolf a few streets back. You should have seen me! Eyes shooting fire, fangs as long as your arm—”

“Oh, save it. I’m not impressed.”

“Are you a mage also, lord?” Smith inquired, before they could come to blows again.

“Me, a mage?” Lord Eyrdway looked scornful. “Gods, no. I don’t need to do magic. I am magic.” He drained his wine at a gulp and held out his glass to be refilled. “More, Willowspear. What are you doing down here, anyway?”

“Attending on your lord brother,” Willowspear replied, bowing and refilling his glass. “And—”

“That’s right, because Nursie’s busy with the new brat!” Lord Eyrdway grinned again. “So poor little Wormenwyr needs somebody else to start up his heart when it stops beating. Did you know my brother is practically one of the undead, mortal? What was your name?”

“Smith, lord.”

“The good Smith knows all about me,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “But I never told him about you.”

“Oh, you must have heard of me!” Lord Eyrdway looked at Smith in real surprise.

“Well—”

“Hear, mortal, the lamentable tragedy of my house,” Lord Ermenwyr intoned gloomily. “For it came to pass that the dread Master of the Mountain, in all his inky and infernal glory, did capture a celestial Saint to be his bride, under the foolish impression he was insulting Heaven thereby. But, lo! Scarce had he clasped her in his big evil arms when waves of radiant benignity and divine something-or-other suffused his demonic nastiness, permanently reforming him; for, as he was later to discover to his dismay, the Compassionate One had actually let him capture her with that very goal in mind. But that’s the power of Love, isn’t it? It never plays fair.

“And, in the first earthshaking union of their marital bliss, so violent and so acute was the discord across the planes that a hideous cosmic mistake was made, and forth through the Gates of Life issued a concentrated gob of Chaos, and nine months later it sort of oozed out of Mother and assumed the shape of a baby.”

“My lord!” Willowspear looked anguished. “You blaspheme!”

“Stuff it,” Lord Eyrdway told his brother. “It’s all lies, mortal. Smith? Yes. I was a beautiful baby, Mother’s always said so. And I could change shape when I was still in the cradle, unlike you, you miserable little vampire. You know how he came into the world, Smith?”

“Shut up!” Lord Ermenwyr shouted.

“Ha, ha—it seems Mother and Daddy were making love in a hammock in a gazebo in the garden, and because they were neither on the earth, nor in the sky, nor under earth or in the sea, nor indoors nor out, but suspended—”

“Don’t tell that story!”

“I forget exactly what went wrong, but seven months later, Mother noticed this wretched screaming little thing that had fallen out under her skirt, and she had pity on it, even though I told her she ought to give it away because we didn’t need any more babies, but I guess being the Compassionate One she had to keep it, and unfortunately it grew up, though it never got very big.” Lord Eyrdway smiled serenely at his brother.

“You pus-bucket,” Lord Ermenwyr growled.

“Midget.”

“Imbecile!”

“Dwarf.”

“You big walking string of shapeless snot from the nose of a diseased—”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“You—!” Lord Ermenwyr was on the point of launching himself across the table at his brother when Smith rose in his seat, and thundered, “Shut up, both of you!”

The brothers sat back abruptly and stared at him, shocked.

“You can’t tell us to shut up,” said Lord Eyrdway in wonderment. “We’re demons.”

“Quarter demons,” Willowspear corrected him.

“But I killed three men for you, so you owe me,” said Smith. “Don’t you? No more fighting as long as you’re both here.”

“Whatever you like,” said Lord Eyrdway amiably enough, taking a sip of his wine. “I always honor a debt of blood.”

“I still want to know what you’re doing off the mountain,” said Lord Ermenwyr sullenly. “To say nothing of why you chose to bolt into my favorite hotel.”

“Oh,” said Eyrdway, looking uneasy. “That. Well, I made a little mistake. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Really?” Lord Ermenwyr smiled at him, narrowing his eyes. “Whatever did you do, might one ask?”

“I just raided a caravan,” said Lord Eyrdway.

“Hmmm. And?” Lord Ermenwyr’s smile showed a few sharp teeth.

“Well—you know, when caravans are insured, they really ought to be required to carry signs or something saying who insured them, so everybody will know,” said Lord Eyrdway self-righteously.

Lord Ermenwyr began to snicker.

“You raided a caravan that was insured by Daddy’s company,” he stated gleefully. “And Daddy had to pay the claim?”

“Your father runs an insurance company?” Smith inquired.

“And makes a lot more money than by being a brigand,” Lord Ermenwyr replied. “There are only so many ways you can keep your self-respect as a Lord of Evil when you can’t break any laws.”

“And there wasn’t even any nice loot,” complained Lord Eyrdway. “Nothing but a lot of stupid bags of flour. So I cut them all open in case there was anything valuable inside, which there wasn’t, so we just threw the stuff around and danced in it and came home white as ghosts, and then it turned out the flour had been going to a village where the people were starving, so that got Mother mad at me too.”

“You sublime blockhead!” Lord Ermenwyr rocked to and fro, hugging himself.

“So Daddy told me I was banished until I could repay him the value of the caravan,” said Lord Eyrdway. “And Mother reproached me.”

“Ooh.” Lord Ermenwyr winced. “That’s serious. And you haven’t a clue how to get money, have you?”

“I do so!” snarled Lord Eyrdway. “I stole some from a traveler when I was coming down the mountain. But he didn’t have nearly enough, so I asked the next traveler I robbed where there was a good gambling house, and he said there were a lot of them in Salesh-by-the-Sea.”

“Oh, gods.”

“Well, you’re always on about how much fun you have here! So I got over the city wall and found a nice gambling house, and at first I won lots of money,” Lord Eyrdway said. “And they served me a lot of free drinks. So I drank a little more than I should have, maybe. So some of what happened I don’t remember too well. But there was a lot of shouting.”

“You must have killed somebody,” said Smith.

“Yes, I think I did,” Lord Eyrdway agreed. “Not only did I not win any more money, they wanted money from me! And so I left, and changed into a few things to throw them off the chase. But they figured out I was changing, somehow, and kept after me. So I ran down to the harbor and turned myself into a seagull. Wasn’t that clever of me?” He turned to his brother, bright-eyed. “Nobody can pick one seagull out of a crowd!”

“You’re brilliant,” drawled Lord Ermenwyr. “Go on.”

“So I spent the night like that, and all the lady seagulls fell in love with me. But I was thirsty by this morning, so I turned back into me and went walking along the harbor looking for a place to get a drink. Then I heard a yell, and when I turned around, there were those people again, and they had other people with them, and they were all coming after me with weapons drawn.”

“You booby, they’d had time to circulate your description,” Lord Ermenwyr told him.

“Really?” Lord Eyrdway looked dismayed. “What are they so upset about? I thought nothing was forbidden in Salesh in Festival time.”

“They’re talking about sins of the flesh, not manslaughter,” Smith pointed out.

“Oh. Well, it ought to say so on those brochures, then! Anyway I remembered you had a safe house somewhere hereabouts, so I went looking for it, but—”

“You were coming to me for protection?” Lord Ermenwyr smiled, showing all his teeth.

“No, I wasn’t!” said Lord Eyrdway at once. “I don’t need your protection! I just thought, you know…” He opened and shut his mouth a few times, seeking words.

“Well, that’s done it; his brain’s seized up with the effort,” Lord Ermenwyr said to Smith. “While we’re waiting, let me apologize for this unsightly complication. As for you, brother dearest, I shall be happy to offer you refuge. It’s what Mother would want me to do, I’m sure.”

“Go explode yourself,” said Lord Eyrdway pettishly. “I just thought I could borrow enough money from you to pay Daddy back.”

“Ah, but then you’d miss the instructive discipline Daddy was meting out by your temporary banishment, wouldn’t you?” said Lord Ermenwyr. “And I’m certain Mother was hoping you’d learn some sort of moral lesson from the experience, as well.”

“Does that mean you won’t lend me the money?”

“You fool, it’s ridiculously easy to get money from mortals without stealing it from them,” Lord Ermenwyr said.

“It is?” Large brass wheels and gears appeared in the air above Lord Eyrdway’s head, turning slowly. “People do that, don’t they?”

“Quite. For example, Smith, here, used to kill people for money,” said Lord Ermenwyr.

“Used to,” Smith said. “I keep a hotel now. I don’t recommend the assassin game, lord. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.”

“Well, I don’t want to do anything hard,” said Lord Eyrdway, frowning. The gears above his head metamorphosed into a glowing lamp, and he turned to his brother. “I know! Haven’t you been peddling your ass to the mortals?”

“I’m a junior gigolo,” Lord Ermenwyr corrected him. “And it’s much more subtle than mere peddling. You have to romance them. You have to wheedle presents. You have to know the best places to unload presents for cash. But, yes, you can get mortals to pay you ever so much for having sex with them, if you’re young and beautiful.”

“How’d you manage it, then?” Lord Eyrdway chortled.

“Smith, shall I tell you about the time Eyrdway here was beaten up by our sister?”

“Don’t tell him that story!”

“Then watch your mouth, you oaf. A male prostitute has to be charming.” Lord Ermenwyr stroked his beard and considered his brother through half-closed eyes. “There are certain streets where one goes to linger. You make yourself look young and vulnerable, and I always found it helped to let a little of my glamour down, so mortals could just get the tiniest glimpse of my true form.”

“I can do that,” Lord Eyrdway decided.

“Then you wait for someone to notice you. You want somebody older, somebody well dressed. Usually they offer to buy you a drink.”

“Got it.”

“And then you go to bed with them and make them as happy as you possibly can. The customer is always right, remember.”

“Are you sure this is what you used to do?” Lord Eyrdway looked dubious as he ran back over the details.

“Why, of course,” said Lord Ermenwyr silkily. He had a sip of his wine.

“And you can really get money this way?”

“Heaps,” Lord Ermenwyr assured his brother.

“Well, then, I ought to be a famous success!” said Lord Eyrdway happily. “Because I’m lots more attractive than you. I think I’ll start today.”

“You won’t get anybody to pay for sex during Festival,” said Smith.

“That’s true,” Lord Ermenwyr agreed. “You’ll have to start next week. You can stay with me until then. You can’t practice here in Smith’s hotel, because he’s having a bit of trouble already. But there are public orgies scheduled all over town tonight.” He looked his brother up and down. “I’d recommend going in a different shape. You’re still wanted by the City Wardens, remember.”

“Right,” said Lord Eyrdway. “Thanks.”

“What are brothers for?” said Lord Ermenwyr.

“Bail,” said Lord Eyrdway. He looked curiously at Smith. “You’re having trouble? Anything I can help with? You did save my life, after all.”

Smith explained the circumstances, so far as he knew them, surrounding the murder of Sharplin Coppercut.

“Well, if things turn nasty, I’ll let little Burnbright hide in my room until she can be smuggled out,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Is she really one of the massacre survivors?”

“Coppercut thought so,” said Smith. “And he’d gone to a lot of trouble to dig up evidence. But she can’t have been much more than a newborn when it all happened.”

“Mother took in somebody’s orphan from the Spellmetal thing, didn’t she?” said Lord Eyrdway. He pointed at Willowspear. “In fact, it was you, wasn’t it?”

Lord Ermenwyr grimaced. Smith looked at Willowspear.

“Is that true?”

“You’ve just implicated him, you moron,” Lord Ermenwyr told his brother.

“Yes, sir, it’s true,” Willowspear replied. “I lost my parents in the massacre.”

“But he can’t kill anybody, Smith,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “He’s one of Mother’s disciples. They don’t do that kind of thing.”

“He was on the same floor as Coppercut at the time the murder happened,” Smith explained patiently. “He’s connected to the Spellmetal massacre. He’s a doctor, so he knows herbs and presumably poisons. Wasn’t he in the kitchen at one point? When he fixed up Burnbright’s knee? And he was standing behind your chair on the balcony during the fireworks display; I saw him. He might have slipped away without you noticing.”

“Smith, I give you my word as my father’s son—” protested Lord Ermenwyr.

“What about it?” Smith asked Willowspear. “Coppercut was a damned bad man. He was using his knowledge to hurt innocents. A lot of people would have considered it a moral act to take him out. Did you?”

“No,” said Willowspear. “As a servant of the Compassionate One, I may not judge others, nor may I kill.”

“Coppercut couldn’t have had anything on him, anyway,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “No records to trace. Yendri adoptions aren’t done through your courts.”

“Somebody in rags showed up one day at the front battlement, carrying a baby,” Lord Eyrdway affirmed. “Which was you, Willowspear. Mother took the baby in, the beggar went away. End of story.”

“It’s a coincidence,” stated Lord Ermenwyr. “It could have been anybody here.”

Smith nodded, not taking his eyes from Willowspear’s face. The young man met his gaze unflinchingly. “I’ll interview the guests, then, as they become conscious.”

Lord Eyrdway remembered his drink and emptied it in a gulp. “By the way, Ermenwyr, somebody else came round to the front gate asking for you. Just before Daddy threw me out.”

“What?” Lord Ermenwyr started. “Who?”

“Said his name was … oh! That funny name you said.” Lord Eyrdway gestured at Smith. “Bitchbliss?”

“Blichbiss!”

“Whatever. The gate guards told him you’d gone abroad and weren’t expected back for a while. You’d better get in touch with him.”

“I’m not about to get in touch with him!” said Lord Ermenwyr, and explained why. Eyrdway listened, puzzled at first, then frowning.

When his brother had finished, he said, “You mean this man wants to challenge you, and you’re ducking him?”

“Of course I’m ducking him, you half-wit!”

“What are you, a coward?” Lord Eyrdway looked outraged.

“Yes! And if you’d died as often as I have, you’d be a coward too!” said Lord Ermenwyr.

“But you can’t refuse a challenge,” said Lord Eyrdway. “What about the honor of our house?”

“Honor? Hello! Eyrdway, are you in there? Remember who Daddy is?” Lord Ermenwyr yelled in exasperation. “And anyway, you ran like a rabbit yourself when those mortals were after you.”

“Oh, that. Well, they were nobodies, weren’t they? Just some people who wanted to kill me, for some reason. But you have to accept a challenge,” said Lord Eyrdway reasonably.

“No, I don’t, and I won’t,” announced Lord Ermenwyr, tugging at his beard. Hands trembling with vexation, he drew out his smoking tube and packed it full of weed from a small pouch. “Look at me, look what you’ve done to my nerves!”

“Poor baby,” jeered Lord Eyrdway, and then his manner changed. “Oo. Is that pinkweed? Can I have a hit?”

“No.” Lord Ermenwyr lit the tube with a small fireball.

“Not in here!” Smith cautioned.

“Sorry.” Lord Ermenwyr ostentatiously pantomimed waving out a nonexistent straw and setting it down, as he puffed out aromatic fumes in a thick cloud. “I’m going to go upstairs now and have my breakfast, which I never got because you arrived right in the middle of it, and if you promise not to bring a certain subject up again, I’ll share some of this.”

“What subject?” asked Lord Eyrdway.

“Oh, and Smith?” Lord Ermenwyr stood and edged out of the booth. “The sheep won’t be necessary.”



The first of the hotel guests to appear, wandering in with a bewildered expression from the shrubbery, was Lady Shanriana of House Goldspur. She had lost several rather necessary sequins and her blue body paint needed strategic touching up.

Smith hastened forward with a complimentary robe and wrapped it around her, inquiring, “Lady, will you be pleased to take breakfast in the room or in the indoor dining area?”

“In my room, I suppose,” she said. “I’m not sure I recall checking in here last night. Did I have servants with me?”

“No, lady, you came alone.” Smith escorted her up the stairs, for she was wobbling slightly as she walked. “You’re in Room 3. May I suggest hot tea and a sweet roll?”

“Three or four of them,” she replied. “And send someone up to draw me a hot bath. Someone handsome.”

“We’ll send our most attractive porter, madam,” said Smith, mentally noting that New Smith was slightly less weather-beaten than his fellow porters. “Though all our porters are more noted for their strength than their handsomeness, I must warn you.”

“Hmm.” Lady Shanriana dimpled in several locations. “Strength is nice. I like strength.”

“I hope you weren’t disturbed at any time last night,” Smith went on. “We had a mild vendetta problem, it appears.”

“Oh, well, that happens,” said Lady Shanriana, waving a dismissive hand as she wandered past Room 3. Smith, on pretext of leaning close to whisper in her ear, caught her shoulder and steered her gently back around to her door.

“But it’s rather a scandal, I’m afraid, though of course they do say a scandal is good for business,” Smith murmured, watching Lady Shanriana’s face. A gleam of avid interest came into her eyes.

“Who got killed?” she inquired.

“Well—I’ve been asked to keep it quiet, but—” Smith leaned closer still. “It was Sharplin Coppercut, the writer.”

He watched her face closely. The gleam vanished at once, to be followed by a look of disappointment and chagrin. “Oh, no, really? I never missed his columns! He did that wonderfully steamy unauthorized biography of Lady What’s-her-name, the shipping heiress, didn’t he? The Imaginary Virgin? Oh, how awful!”

“Was he a personal acquaintance of yours?”

“Heavens, no. One doesn’t associate with writers,” said Lady Shanriana, looking even more dismayed. She fumbled with the latch on her door. Smith opened it for her and bowed her in.

“On the other hand, once the news is made public, you’ll be able to tell people you had the room across from the one Sharplin Coppercut was in when he died,” Smith pointed out. She seemed distinctly pleased at that. “I hope you weren’t inconvenienced when it happened?”

“No; I was out on the terrace all night. At least, I think I was. Yes, I’m sure I must have been, because there was a whole party of officers from somebody’s war galleon, and they all claimed me because they serve the Spirit of the Waters, don’t they, you see? So we had a lovely time all evening. I must have missed the killing. I suppose it was a dreadfully bloody affair? Assassins all in black leather, hooded?” Her eyes glazed with a private fantasy.

“Something like that,” Smith said.

“Ooh. Send up that porter quickly, please. And a plate of sausage.” Lady Shanriana rubbed her hands together.

Descending the staircase, Smith crossed her off his mental list of suspects. In his previous line of work, he had developed the knack of reading people’s expressions fairly well. Lady Shanriana might have a kink for bloodshed, but she had been genuinely startled to hear of Coppercut’s death.

He caught New Smith in the lobby and gave him Lady Shanriana’s breakfast order, just as a naval officer came stumbling in from the terrace, struggling into his tunic.

“What time is it?” he demanded wildly, as his face emerged from the collar.

“First Prayer Interval was an hour ago,” Smith told him. He calmed down somewhat.

“Where’s the nearest bathhouse?” he inquired. “I’ve got blue stuff all over me.”

“The Spirit of the Waters…?” Smith prompted him, mentally adding the word alibi next to Lady Shanriana’s name.

“Oh! That’s right.” The officer grinned as memory returned to him. “Gods! She started with the midshipmen at sundown and worked her way through to the admiral by midnight. Drowned us all. Joyous couplings! Great food here, too.”

“We get a lot of celebrity clientele,” Smith said. “Sharplin Coppercut, for example.”

“Who’s that?” The officer dug a sequin out of an unlikely place.

“The writer.”

“Really? Never heard of him. Say, did I ask you where there was a bathhouse?”

“There’s one around the corner on Cable Street,” Smith said. “Joyous couplings.”

“You too,” said the officer, striding across the lobby. At the door he turned back, a look of inquiry on his face.

“It has a prophylaxis station, also,” Smith assured him. Beaming, he saluted and left.

In the course of the next hour, Smith worked his way through the surviving hotel guests as they became conscious. The occupants of Room 4 were an elderly married couple from Port Blackrock who were in their room all evening, except for a foray onto the balcony to watch the fireworks. They had only vaguely heard of Sharplin Coppercut, being under the impression he was somebody who’d run for dictator of their city three terms ago, or was it four? They bickered about whether it was three or four terms ago for several minutes, until abruptly deciding they were both wrong and that Sharplin Coppercut had been the name of their grandson’s first rhetoric tutor, the one who’d had such bad teeth.

“You didn’t happen to hear anything unusual last night, did you?” Smith inquired, whereupon they got into a debate over what could be considered unusual in a hotel like this at Festival, with a lengthy reminiscence on how Festival had been celebrated in the old days, followed by a rumination on hotels both general and specific. Half an hour later, Smith thanked them and left. He was fairly confident they were not Coppercut’s killers.

The occupant of Room 5 was a thickset, sullen businessman who had to be retrieved from under a table on the terrace and revived with a dose of hangover powders. He was profoundly surly even after the powders had taken effect, was missing his purse and sandals and threatened to beat Smith to a pulp if they’d been stolen, and was barely more gracious when Crucible located them safely tucked away under the chair he’d been sitting in the night previous. He ostentatiously checked the contents of the purse, threatening to fracture Crucible’s jaw if anything had gone missing.

When it proved that nothing had been stolen, he ordered breakfast and threatened to break Smith’s legs if it wasn’t delivered to his room in fifteen minutes.

Not the sort of man to employ poison as a means of killing someone.

Returning down the corridor, Smith saw pink smoke curling out from under the door of Lord Ermenwyr’s suite and heard terrifying laughter coming from the room beyond. Shuddering, he walked on and went back to the kitchen.

“…much more digestible,” Mrs. Smith was saying as he walked in. She and Burnbright were bending over another sea dragon, but this one was a dessert with a fruit bombe forming its body and a curved neck and head of marzipan. Lined up on trays on the table were row upon row of sugar scales, like disks of green glass, and Mrs. Smith was carefully applying them to the sea dragon’s back with a pair of kitchen tweezers.

“Hello, Smith,” she said, glancing up at him. “Any progress?”

“Some,” said Smith. He pulled out a kitchen stool and sat down, staring glumly at the sea dragon. “This is our entry for the Festival cooking contest?”

“The Pageant of Lascivious Cuisine for the Prolongation of Ecstasy’,” Mrs. Smith informed him. “I’ve got a good chance of winning, or so my spies tell me. The chef over at the Sea Garden failed to get in a special shipment of liqueurs he was counting on, and the chef at the spa’s entry is simply an immense jam roll frosted to look like a penis. Ought to be quite a subliminal qualm of horror amongst the judges when it’s sliced up and served out, wouldn’t you think?”

“Yes,” said Smith, wincing and crossing his legs.

“We’ll do the wings next,” Mrs. Smith told Burnbright. “Melon sugar, pomegranate dye, and rum, boiled to a hard syrup the same way. I’ll show you the shapes I want it cut once it’s cooled. How’s our little mystery going?” she inquired of Smith.

“None of the other guests did the murder,” said Smith, rubbing his temples.

“It still wasn’t me,” said Burnbright, clouding up.

“Silly child, nobody ever thought it was you for a minute. You know, Smith, anyone might have wandered in from the street and done for Coppercut, in all that pullulating frenzy of lust going on last night,” Mrs. Smith remarked, setting scales in a ring around the dragon’s eye. “And it’s not as though there’s any shortage of people with motives. After the way he told all about the scandalous lives of the well-to-do? Especially Lady Quartzhammer, who, as I believe, was depicted in the best-selling The Imaginary Virgin as having a passionate affair with a dwarf.”

“And a bunch of goats,” added Burnbright, stirring pomegranate dye into sugar syrup.

“Something dreadfully unsavory, in any case. To say nothing of the expose he did on House Steelsmoke! I shouldn’t think they particularly cared to have it known that Lord Pankin’s mother was also his sister, and a werewolf into the bargain.” Mrs. Smith turned the sea dragon carefully and started another row of scales.

“Didn’t he say that all the Steelsmoke girls are born with tails, too? That was what I heard!” said Burnbright.

“He interviewed the doctor who did the postnatal amputations,” Mrs. Smith said. “Thoroughly ruthless, Sharplin Coppercut, and ruthlessly thorough. When his demise is made public, I imagine a number of highborn people will drink the health of his murderer in sparkling wine.”

“But he went after lowborn people too,” Burnbright quavered.

“Quite so. It seems unlikely you’ll solve this, Smith.”

Mrs. Smith leaned back and lit her smoking tube. She blew twin jets of smoke from her nostrils and considered him. “Perhaps Crossbrace could be persuaded with a bribe, instead of a likely suspect? Unlimited access to the bar? Or I’d be happy to cater a private supper for him.”

“It all depends on how—” Smith looked up as he heard a cautious knock at the kitchen door.

“Come in,” said Mrs. Smith.

Willowspear entered the kitchen and stopped, seeing Smith. “I beg your pardon,” he said, a little hoarsely. His eyes were watering and inflamed.

“Was the pinkweed getting to you?” Smith inquired.

Willowspear nodded, coughing into his fist. Burnbright, who had spun about the moment she heard his voice, came at once to his side.

“Would you like to sit down?” she asked, in a tone of concern Smith had never heard her use. “Can I get you a cup of water?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Willowspear. Smith and Mrs. Smith exchanged glances.

“Are their lordships getting along?” Smith inquired.

“Reasonably well,” Willowspear replied, sinking onto the stool Burnbright brought for him. “My lord Ermenwyr is reclining on his bed, tossing fireballs into the hearth. My lord Eyrdway is reclining on a couch and has transformed himself into a small fishing boat, complete with oars. They are past speech at the present time, and so are unlikely to quarrel, but are still in fair control of their nervous systems. Thank you, child.” He accepted a cup of water from Burnbright, smiling at her.

“You’re awfully welcome,” said Burnbright, continuing to hover by him.

“It’s very kind of you,” he said.

“Not at all!” she chirped anxiously. “I just—I mean— you’re not like them. I mean, you looked like you needed— er—”

“A drink of water?” prompted Mrs. Smith.

“That’s right,” said Burnbright.

“I did,” said Willowspear. He took a careful sip. “I’m not accustomed to pinkweed smoke in such concentration. I don’t indulge in it, myself.”

“Well, but it’s full of nasty fumes in here!” said Burnbright, pointing at Mrs. Smith’s smoking tube.

“Nothing but harmless amberleaf,” said Mrs. Smith in mild affront. Burnbright ignored her.

“Would you like to step out in our back area until you feel better?” she asked Willowspear. “There’s lovely fresh air, and—and a really nice view!”

“Perhaps I—”

“Would you like me to show you?”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.

“I—yes,” said Willowspear, and Burnbright led him out the back door.

Mrs. Smith blew a smoke ring.

“Well, well,” she remarked.

“I didn’t think she had a sex drive,” said Smith wonderingly.

“It’s Festival, Smith,” Mrs. Smith replied.

“I guess she had to fall in love sooner or later,” said Smith. “I just never thought it’d be with a Yendri.”

Mrs. Smith shrugged.

“They taught her to despise greenies at the mother house, from the time she was old enough to stagger around on her little legs. That would only make the attraction more powerful, once it hit,” she said. “The thrill of the forbidden, and all that.”

She paused a long moment, her gaze unreadable, and took another drag on her smoking tube. “Besides,” she added, exhaling smoke, “it’s in her blood.”

At that moment a small pan on the hearth hissed as its contents foamed up, and Mrs. Smith leaped to her feet. “Hell! She’s gone and left that syrup on the fire!” Muttering imprecations, she snatched it off and dumped its molten contents on the marble countertop, where the red stuff ran and spread like a sheet of gore.

“What on earth?” Smith scrambled to his feet, staring.

“It’s the candy glass for the dragon’s wings,” Mrs. Smith explained, glaring at the door through which Burnbright and Willowspear had disappeared. “Grab a spatula and help me. If we don’t pull this mess into wing shapes before it hardens, it’ll be wasted. Gods and goddesses, I could wring that child’s neck sometimes!”

Smith, being a wise man, grabbed a spatula.