A Rose-Red City

Two

A walk through Mera was normally a leisurely sequence of conversations. The streets were mostly walkways paved in red granite, liberally furnished with benches and shade trees and planters. They wound casually among stores and houses and outdoor cafes, between walls of the same granite or red brick or pink marble. They jogged unexpectedly up or down staircases and they constantly offered up familiar faces as a mountain stream throws out logs.

Although Killer was a head shorter than Jerry, he now chose to set a murderous pace— obviously to demonstrate that there was nothing wrong with his ankle— and the other pedestrians, observing the speed, the wand which Jerry carried, and the sweat which Killer’s agony was pouring down his face, all contrived to reduce their greetings. They nodded or smiled to Jerry, grinned or frowned at Killer.

In the bright sunshine, Killer’s curls were unmistakably midnight-blue. Taking him on as an assistant, Jerry discovered, was like hiring a hurricane to clean a fireplace. He behaved himself moderately well in the haberdashers’, not interfering as Jerry obtained a middle-size suit of clothes from the loquacious, gracious Madame Chi— preferring, rather, to corner the little Hittite assistant with the unpronounceable name, reduce her to brilliant blushes and shrill giggles by reminiscing loudly on what the two of them had been doing three nights back, and extract a promise that they would do it all again, and more, as soon as he returned.

But then their path led down Jeweler’s Lane to West Gate and the stables, and that was another matter. He began by enrolling the farrier and two grooms for his mayhem team, which would surely leave the place shorthanded for several days afterward. He rejected with obscenities several geldings suggested by Wat the Hostler, insisting that they had all been overworked that morning, and without consulting Jerry at all, he demanded to see a certain little bay mare which he well knew was Wat’s current favorite.

“That one’s reserved!” Wat snapped. Killer pointed at the horse trough.

Wat glanced around in the vain hope that his men would interfere. “You take good care of her, then,” he growled— rumor claimed that Killer had once held him underwater for fifteen minutes.

Killer ordered Rab the stableboy to lead out the mare and went over her like an art expert examining a suspect da Vinci, from teeth to tail, from ears to shoes, ending by feeling her legs very carefully, also fondling Rab’s legs in passing. Finally he announced that the mare would pass and he would take the mare then, and Rab when he got back. Rab smirked as though that were an honor.

Killer then turned his attention to the problem of transport, mocking Jerry’s choice, insulting Wat’s, and making a halfhearted, semihumorous attempt to convince Jerry that a Roman racing chariot would qualify as a wagon. He quickly made his own selection and attended to the harnessing himself. Jerry had only to jump aboard as Killer drove the vehicle out of the yard, with the best wishes of the hands ringing in their ears.

All along Wall Road pedestrians leaped to safety, and obviously the next stop would be the armories. “You get guns, and I’ll get blades,” Killer said. “What else do you need?” He hated firearms with a passion, but that had not prevented him from becoming one of the best marksmen in Mera.

Jerry was hanging on to the backrest with one hand and his cap with the other. “You’re the expert. You make me feel like a first-timer.”

Killer scowled and shook his head. “This is your war, friend. The Oracle picked you. You know why, don’t you?”

“My century, I expect,” Jerry said. “Or because I speak English.”

“Maybe,” Killer said, steering between two scampering old ladies. “But you know what I want when I ask you along on my treats?”

“Someone who speaks Greek?”

“Sometimes,” Killer admitted. “But it’s usually because I want brains. Sven and Aku and the others— and me— we’re muscle men. You’re a thinker. You read books. You mix with the philosophers. So maybe the Oracle wants brains this time? I say again— what have we forgotten?”

Jerry was annoyed to discover that praise from Killer was an enjoyable sensation. Between that self-analysis and the hectic jiggling of the journey, he failed to achieve any world-shattering insights into their needs before the wagon came shuddering to a halt before the doors of the twin armories. “Weapons should do it,” he said.

The Armorer (Firearms) was one of the very few people in Mera whom Jerry disliked— an intimidating, taciturn, mysterious man from somewhere uptime from him. He scowled on hearing the Oracle’s vague instructions and handed over a couple of Lee Enfields. The British Army, he said, had spread them all over the world, and they had stayed in use in some places for a century— they would fit almost anywhere or anytime. Unconvinced and unsatisfied, Jerry took them back down to the wagon.

Killer was pulling a tarpaulin over swords, bows, arrows, javelins, shields, and daggers, but at the sight of the Lee Enfields he exploded. The improbable things weighed more than he did, he said, and couldn’t hit a charging dragon at ten paces, and what sort of ammunition? They hadn’t given him the new stuff with expanding silver bullets? Wait there, he commanded, and hobbled off into the Armory (Firearms).

Jerry climbed up on the bench and prepared to feel inadequate, but he was hailed at once by Grace Evans, who had noticed the wand and wanted to touch it, because she had never had a chance to handle a wand before. Given that opportunity, Killer certainly would have contrived an obscene misunderstanding. Joe LeFarge and Gary came over to offer best wishes, then others. By the time Jerry had disposed of them all, twenty minutes had gone by, and he realized he had better be checking on his deputy’s progress. At that moment a one-man arsenal came shuffling out the door and proceeded to load the wagon with two laser pistols, two Uzi submachine guns, a Gatling, and showers of ammunition— an incredible burden for one pair of arms.

About to throw the Lee Enfields in the gutter, Killer changed his mind, secured the tarpaulin, and climbed up beside his friend. He wiped his forehead with the hem of his cape and licked blood off his knuckles.

“You’re loaded,” he said. He laid his leg on the splashboard and pulled up his pants. The ankle was purple and swollen like a great fungus— it was a miracle he could walk at all. “You’d better find another helper, Jerry,” he said.

Jerry was stunned. “When did you do that?”

“This morning,” Killer said. “I took a shortcut out a window.”

There might have been an outraged husband blocking the doorway, of course, but that was unlikely— the husbands were part of the fun. An outraged wife was another possibility, but probably he had merely wanted to speak to some passer-by and had not bothered with stairs.

This morning? “Then the Oracle knew of it,” Jerry said. “If it had said a cautious friend, or sensible… but it said staunch, so it knew I would ask you.”

Killer smiled very briefly and boyishly. “I thought I could manage, but I see I’m not fit for duty, Jerry.”

“What happened to the armorer?” Killer grinned and licked his knuckles again. “Not too much,” he said innocently. “But he got to the bayonet rack before I could catch him. I had to disarm him first. It slows me, Jerry.” Jerry spared a sympathetic thought for any man unfortunate enough to annoy Killer when he wanted to test himself; probably the armorer had received injuries which would have crippled him anywhere but Mera.

“If there was going to be fighting,” Jerry suggested, “then the Oracle would not be sending me, certainly not me and only one other. If you’ll risk it, then I will.”

Killer thumped a hand down on his companion’s knee. “I bring danger, Jerry. The legions have it in for me now. We’ve counted; there are always a hell of a lot more around if I’m there. I’ve won too often; they smell me and they flock. You’ve got a lot better chance of sneaking Out and back quietly if you don’t have me with you.” That was news, and lip-biting news, too, but it would be cruel to let Killer talk himself out of this now. It must be hurting him to try, and he would hurt deep if he succeeded. The Oracle had known of the ankle. There was one problem about Killer… but one did not impose conditions on him, so it must wait.

Jerry was about to snap a curt, “Let’s move,” because that was his style, but then he remembered that Greeks liked speeches. He said, “I would face Asterios himself and all the legions of Hell with you at my side, Achilles, son of Crion, rather than one solitary demon with anyone else. Now move your baby buns out of here.”

Killer smiled shyly and wavered, then shook his head. “I shouldn’t,” he said. “I just wanted to see you well fitted out. Let’s go and get Sven… or Ali?”

Jerry was surprised, but he decided to have one more try. If Killer truly believed he was incapacitated, then nothing would change his mind. If he was merely being extra cautious out of loyalty to a more cautious friend, then there was one sure persuasion.

He said thoughtfully, “Well, I understand. Going Outside with only an amateur like me must be pretty scary…”

“Giddyap!” Killer roared, and the wagon lurched forward.

Good! That was settled. Now for the other problem.

“Killer?”

“Yes, Jerry?”

“Keep it Platonic?”

The fragmented teeth flashed, and the hand was withdrawn from Jerry’s knee. “Spoilsport,” said Killer.

They rattled out through North Gate, and instantly the hoof and wheel noises were lost in the grass of the wide meadow that fronted it. The land dipped gently before them and then rose again into scattered clumps of trees. Killer drove straight forward, heading for those long shadows, knowing that he would find a road. The little mare pricked her ears and trotted as eagerly as a puppy on an outing.

Killer mumbled a short prayer to Hermes.

There were four ways out of Mera. North Gate was for danger— the Oracle had not needed to specify.

Jerry twisted round to admire the view— the pink granite walls and above them the rose-red little town, flowing gently up its hill to the house of the Oracle at the crest. The strange and unworldly collection of variegated buildings with walls of wood, red brick, and warm stone, roofs of shiny copper or matte-red tiles, somehow contrived to blend together into a friendly and beautiful place. Westward, the evening sky was golden as the sun prepared to depart and do its duty elsewhere.

Jerry tossed Killer’s discarded shoe into the back and found a scrap of twine in his bag. He bent over and fastened the wand loosely across Killer’s ankle, and Killer muttered thanks.

The wagon swung around a copse, down a glade between two others, and soon there was bare earth beneath their wheels and a narrow road winding through trees.

“You want to drive?” Killer asked.

Crazy! Killer knew horses inside and backwards, and he did not. So it was a hint, Killer trying very hard to play the unfamiliar role of loyal subordinate instead of giving orders. Jerry should have thought of it on his own.

“No,” he said, and clambered over the backrest to sit on the bench behind it, facing the rear.

The road had twisted— or reality had— and the sun was on their right. The trees grew thicker and became a spruce forest, thick and black as sable. A layer of needles muffled the sounds, and the air grew heavy with gummy scent— cool, moist, and dark. Jerry dug out one of the Uzis and loaded it with a clip of Mera’s own ammunition, silver-coated bullets. He himself was not convinced that silver was necessary, but Killer and many of the other swore by it.

Then the surface had changed imperceptibly, and the light. The temperature had fallen; the trees ended without warning. Jerry found that he was gripping the backrest as though it were a dangerous snake, and his head was swinging around constantly. Gravel beneath the wheels, grasslands in all directions…

“Dawn or dusk?” he asked, and hoped that it was the bouncing of the wagon that made his voice shaky. Let it be dawn!

“Dusk, I think.” Killer flicked the reins lightly, and they began to move faster. “Dusk and bad weather.” A gravel road winding gently across moorland— it could be anywhere or anytime, except that this much gravel must have come in trucks, so twentieth or later. No fences, no trees— indeed, no vegetation except grass, thistles, and low scrub waving eerily in a rising wind. Clouds hung low and ominous. The land rolled gently, and the road wound around in the bottoms, never providing a view. Jerry began to feel claustrophobic. Why couldn’t it have been a nice, cheerful dawn?

“Jerry?” Killer said, leaning his head back. “You don’t have to play mayhem if you’d rather not.”

Now what? “I know that,” Jerry said cautiously.

“You could be referee,” Killer said.

Jerry laughed; that was a trap for newcomers. He said. “Never! I’ll play for you and hope for a quick concussion.” Killer chuckled and did not reply.

Jerry pulled out the other Uzi and loaded that also, found the javelins— hopefully an entirely unnecessary precaution, but there could be several legions of demons behind those hills. More and more he was conscious of how much an amateur he was at this. Killer was the expert, and the band that had been at Sven’s house was the nucleus, the regulars. People like him were enlisted now and again for special cases. Why, this time, had the Oracle chosen to send the wand to him?

The landscape was bleak, unfriendly, and sinister. Killer was whistling happily.

Dusk certainly; the light was fading into an inflamed sore in the west, the sky turning black, the wind getting stronger. Puffs of dust watered his eyes, and his cloak flapped. He should have brought some warmer clothes; Killer reveled in discomfort. A few spots of rain…

“White,” Killer said. “Still tingles.”

Jerry glanced at the back of Killer’s head, but the light was too poor to see if his hair was still blue. No white and no black in Mera— to the regulars, the wands’ turning white was the first sign of being Outside. “How’s the ankle?” Killer said it was better, but even a wand would have needed longer than that to cure it.

More bouncing and shaking… flatter country…

“We’re here,” Killer said at his right ear, and Jerry twisted round to look.

The land was flat as ice, but now the light was too poor to make out distance. Straight ahead along the roadway, a solitary brilliance beckoned. There were no other lights anywhere; one light in a world of darkness. Jerry swung back to being rear gunner.

Then Killer pulled up, bringing stillness and silence. Only the wind moved. The light was ten minutes’ walk ahead, a blue-white glare from a high pole— some sort of fluorescent from after Jerry’s time— shining down on a cottage and a barn surrounded by hedge. The road ran straight to the gate— no arguments about destination— and Killer was untying the wand from his ankle and would be asking for orders.

Inside the yard the road led directly to the barn, the cottage set on the left side, a small outhouse between them. The whole yard was bright as day, but no lights shone in the windows. The wagon might be heard, even in this wind, and they would be walking ducks for watchers in the cottage. Steps leading up to the porch meant a raised floor inside and sightlines higher than the top of the hedge. They could leave the wagon and walk— but not on Killer’s ankle. He could have Killer cover him from behind the hedge as he went to the door— but there was nowhere to tether the mare except perhaps to a gatepost. She surely was not gun trained and on this pool-table landscape she could be gone for ever.

Killer passed back the wand, and there was still a slight tingle in it. Jerry scrabbled for a laser pistol and checked the charge— no reading. That meant no later than early twenty-first, and electric lights meant the guns would run. Good; swords were a bloody business.

“Where to, boss?” Killer asked.

“Straight down their throats,” Jerry said. “Or am I being stupid?” Killer’s reply was directed to the mare.

At the gate Jerry jumped down and opened it, then stepped aside as Killer ran the wagon in, flashed past the cottage door, and wheeled around like the expert charioteer he was, so that he was facing out again; and nobody had opened fire… Jerry walked up the steps and hammered on the door with the wand, stood to one side as he had been taught, and felt every pore tighten up, making his skin feel as if it had shrunk on him. He waited. There was firewood stacked on the porch and more nearby. Then he turned the handle at arm’s length and pushed the door away into blackness.

“Anyone home?”

He had a flashlight in his bag to use— if the battery was still good— but he had left it in the wagon. He reached round the jamb and found a light switch. The room was empty. He crossed it in quick strides, checked the two doors beyond, and found two bedrooms. Unless there were old ladies under the beds, the cottage was deserted. He went back and told Killer, who jumped off the wagon, stumbled, cursed, and then went in a fast half hop, half skip to check the outhouse and then the barn.

Rain began to splatter on the porch roof.

The piano was a surprise— a battered walnut upright. He hadn’t seen an upright piano in… more years than he wanted to think about.

This was more a vacation cottage than someone’s home; half of it a living room-kitchen, the other half split into two bedrooms, one large and one small, a dresser and bed in each. The main room held the piano, a table with four chairs around it, a sofa, and an armchair in front of a black iron range that would double for cooking and heat. The light came from a naked light bulb, but two oil lamps suggested that the power was unreliable, and he wondered where it came from— he had seen no power poles. The rain was getting louder, and he ought to be helping Killer. The icebox held three large steaks, six eggs, about a pound of bacon, milk… He was not expected to stay here for long.

The wagon rumbled forward until it was level with the porch. Jerry ran out, told Killer to stay where he was, and started to unload the weapons. Killer climbed into the back and passed the swords and javelins across to him. Jerry carried them in and heaped them on the sofa. He went back out, and Killer threw him a wadded bundle which was obviously his own clothes— he was standing naked in the growing deluge. Then he passed the Lee Enfields and the Uzis; the Gatling and the lasers stayed where they were, obsolete and premature, respectively. Killer handed over the Gatling ammunition and, after a second’s analysis, Jerry took it— the Gatling was still deadly and it would be lying in the wagon in the barn.

Then Killer drove the wagon to the barn. Jerry started tossing more firewood up from the main pile onto the porch, his Meran clothes shielding him from the downpour. Killer had not stripped to keep his clothes dry— he was enjoying a cold shower, which was fairly typical. A true Greek, he was never really happy with his clothes on. He was also a show-off.

Jerry went back into the cottage and gave it a thorough inspection. The furniture was all old and secondhand, the upholstery shabby, with the flowers long faded on the chintz. The sofa was lumpy. One bed, obviously, would be for the person they had come to meet, the potential eater of that third steak. The second bed… well, probably Killer and he would be taking turns at guard duty anyway, but he could survive on that sofa if he had to. Both bedrooms had bolts on the doors. He tried a few keys on the piano, and it was in tune. He found a bucket, a tin basin, and a stack of three large towels, so the Oracle had even foreseen the rain.

When Killer came limping in, Jerry was busying himself with the stove and pointed to the towels. Killer was shivering, but he shook his head and picked up the bucket.

“I’ll get that,” Jerry protested, angry at his oversight. “Where’s the well?” But Killer had already gone.

He returned with a full bucket of water, bolted the front door behind him, and surveyed the room carefully as he dried himself. Rain was thundering on the roof now, dribbling noisily from the eaves— a hell of a night.

Before he got dressed, Killer made his own inspection of the cottage— and it made Jerry’s effort look like a quick glance. He even crawled under the beds. He peered in, behind, and under the icebox. He poked in all the drawers and cupboards and under the rugs. He glared suspiciously at the piano and asked what the devil that was.

Jerry told him, and he pulled a face— Killer disliked anything more complicated than pan pipes. He sniffed at the oil can and hefted it for quantity; he tried all the switches and grinned childishly as the lights went on and off. Then he frowned at a small box standing on a shelf over the table, beside the lamps, matches, soap dish, and two empty cooking pots.

“That’s a wireless!” said Jerry, who had missed it. He turned a knob, and it came to life at once, surprising him; but he could find nothing but static.

Killer grinned and picked up the wand from the table and walked across the room. The static grew quieter.

“How did you know about that?” Jerry demanded.

Killer chuckled, pleased at catching him out in his own time frame. “I’ve seen them before, but smaller. Besides, a lot of that technical stuff gets fouled up by the wands.” Of course Killer had been Outside hundreds of times, not a half-dozen like Jerry. After some knob-twisting, Jerry found a badly garbled voice gabbling quickly, something about a President addressing a Congress. So it was not a wireless, it was a radio, and he knew which continent he was on. He turned it off.

Killer pulled on his pants.

“It’s all fake,” he remarked casually. “There’s never— ever— been horses in that barn. I tasted the floor to be sure. The biffy has never been used. There’s no junk lying around the yard or under the cottage, and, even in my day, peasants collected junk. In your century, they’re nutty about it. This place has been created for us, specially.” The room was shabby, and the furniture old— but there was no dust on anything. Jerry should have noticed that at least.

Cool shivers danced along his spine. So they were in the borderlands. Technology would work, if it was not downtime, but faerie would work also, at least near the wand. Jerry had discussed this situation many times with Gervasse and the other philosophers, and none of them knew what to expect. Either the wands created bubbles of their own power within the reality of Outside, or this was a transitional condition on the outer limits of Mera’s influence. Only the Oracle knew and it would never say. The worst of both worlds, then, an unholy mixture. The enemy might come as flesh and blood, armed with firearms or with claws and fangs; the guns would hold them off, if they were not too many. The wand was still tingling, so it would have power against the disembodied legions of hell if they came— unless, again, they were too many or too strong or clever— but what of the in-between, Asterios himself, or his equals or senior deputies? Jerry almost wished that he were back in Mera, playing a nice game of mayhem.

“Well?” he asked. “Are we ready for whoever is going to come calling? Anything I’ve forgotten?” Killer tugged the cloak over his head and gave his curls a final rub with the towel. “How do you turn that high light off?” Jerry thought, then looked around for a circuit box, but the master switch did not turn off the yard light. “You don’t,” he said.

Killer shrugged. “You shoot it, then, if you have to, but we’ll probably want it on, not off. Need to get more wood in. Close the drapes. Move the sofa over there and the chair there. All the windows look good and solid. I found no gaps in the hedge, and it has prickles. We can see the gate from that window. Hide the weapons around the place so we can lay our hands on them. There’s enough oil to keep one lamp lit just in case; we’ll keep it down in that corner and sit in the dark so it’s safe to open the drapes— ” Killer scowled. “What are you grinning at, Jeremy, scion of Howard?” He was grinning at the transformation in his companion. Jerry himself was very conscious of the stress, of the cold, naked feeling of Outside, the vulnerability. The skin on his face felt tight, and he kept wanting to twitch. Perhaps he did twitch. But in Killer the stress was coming through as a cool professionalism, a vastly more adult approach to the world than the juvenile posturing and rowdyism he affected in Mera. What mercenary leader would not jump at a chance to hire Killer? He was the enlistment officer’s dream, the ideal recruit: a twenty-year-old with four hundred years’ experience.

But the concept of measuring a man by the length of his service was totally foreign to Killer’s thinking, so there was no way to explain that.

“I was just musing, Achilles, son of Crion,” said Jerry, “that I’m proud to be your friend. Mera would be a duller place without you… but I like you even better when you’re mortal.” Far away in the grasslands, barely audible over the rain, something howled, lonely, haunted, and unworldly.