The Prophecy Machine

23

Answers,it seemed, did not come easy in this queer, uncommon land-not as autumn leaves that fall in plenty from the tree, but tardy and slow like the lazy sap of spring. And, worse still, answers and questions looked strangely alike, the same as two dust balls, the same as two peas:

As far as Finn could tell, nearly everyone here was a Hatter or a Hooter. Hatters ruled the day, and Hooters ruled the night.

Hatters carried sharp pointy sticks.

Hooters liked to burn things down.

Torture and murder lead to spiritual growth.

There were inter-faith rules to the game.

The food was awful and the people smelled bad.

Bad manners were the rule, hospitality was a sin.

Questions had no answers, and answers were questionable at best.

Still, Finn felt he had gained real insight into the ways of this land. Everyone lived according to his creed, and everyone was totally mad.

Leaving the tavern called TAVERN, Finn passed a similar place called BAR. Reason said there was no use stopping there, so he made his way toward the broad market square.

The clouds had blown away and the sun had appeared to warm the dreary day. The square was crowded with booths, stands, and stalls of every sort. Stalls made of blankets on a pole. Stalls that sold melons, magic and simple card tricks. Big shops, little shops, shops no more than a stool or a bench. Each one squeezed, packed against the next. Finn could scarcely tell where one left off and another one began.

Working his way through the drab and odorous crowd, he found it hard to forget he was at the very site where Fate had slapped him silly and shown him what for. That too familiar tingle at the back of his neck was present there again.

After a bit of searching, he found the stall where he'd bought some tin scraps and a roll of silver wire. With a sigh of relief, he saw the same merchant was there.

“Good day,” Finn said, offering a smile to a fellow he'd met before, “it's quite nice to see you again.”

“I don't do returns,” the man said, wary, as ever, of a pleasant attitude. “You bought it, it's yours, don't come whining back here.”

“I'm very satisfied with my wares,” Finn said. “I have a question, is all.”

“I can sell you brass, bronze, nickel, or lead, copper, iron or tin. I can get you gold, I can get you gilt. The gilt's so good you could fool eight people out of ten.”

“My question's not about that.”

“Then you're in the wrong stall, friend.”

The merchant, a wiry man with a buzzard's nose, spat on the ground close to Finn's boot. Finn noticed he had a tattoo of a fish with a woman's head and breasts, ranging from the bald pate of his head to the base of his scrawny neck. He wondered how he'd possibly overlooked this striking image before.

“I'm willing to pay,” Finn said, reaching in his jacket and showing the man a silver coin. “This is yours if you tell me what I want to know.”

“Be still my beatin' heart. How can I resist such a fortune as that?”

“Right. Two silver pieces, then.”

“Three. And they'd better be silver 'stead of plate of some sort. This is what I do all day, friend.”

“I'm looking for Mycer folk. I haven't seen any, but I'm certain they're around. One Rubinella, I believe. If you could just-”

Finn stopped at once. The merchant, a man of a light copper shade, went suddenly pale. As pale, in truth, as the man at the tavern, who would make three or four of the fellow here.

“Are you daft,” he said, his gaze shifting wildly about the marketplace, “are you possessed, brother, soft in the head, looking for a noose? Would you care to be cut into ribbons, roasted on a spit? Is there some kind of pain that you desire?”

“None of that at all,” Finn said, “Why do you ask?”

“Gata-watta-bool,” the man muttered, or words to that effect. His fingers clutched an amulet dangling from a chain about his neck. A quarter-moon, Finn noted, carved from adder stone, with a single opal eye.

“I meant no offense. All I asked was where could I find a-”

“I heard what you said. For the life of me, don't go sayin' it again.”

Rolling his eyes in a most peculiar way, he quickly tossed a cloth across his goods and loosed a cord that dangled overhead. At once a slatted curtain rattled past Finn to the ground.

“We're closed,” the merchant said, from behind his shabby blind. “All day, and tomorrow as well. Don't come back anytime. I won't be here the day after that.”

“What's wrong with you?” Finn said. “What did I do? Is there anyone sane in this place?”

He thrust the blinds aside, ready to give the fellow a piece of his mind. The stall was quite empty, the merchant had fled. Finn was disgusted, totally dashed. It was plain, he decided, that it wasn't the Mycers that set the locals foaming at the mouth. They'd all seen Letitia the day before, and doubtless there were other Mycers here.

It had to be the name, then: the Rubinella. Clearly, that bothered them a lot.

“I shall have to approach this some other way,” he told himself. “Rubinella is not too popular here …”

While no one offered him a smile or bothered to be polite, no one else went out of business when he offered to buy their wares. Finn bought long loaves of bread, overripe tomatoes, hot roasted corn on a stick. Cherries, berries, a crock of pickled cabbage, and a jar of plum jam. Oatcakes, sweetcakes, and sugary treats. Apples so brown and wizened, they all had faces like little old men.

He didn't buy a single turnip, and he didn't buy a fish. He did buy a straw basket to put his goods in. He didn't buy a thing they'd have to cook. Letitia would surely be delighted. The food would lift her spirits, and she wouldn't be angry for a while.

Finn was so hungry himself, he ate two loaves of the bread, a great deal of cabbage and most of the jam. He didn't feel bad about eating before he got back. Certainly, Letitia wouldn't fault him for that.

It was pleasant to see foods of different colors again. Nothing in the market was gray. Nothing looked at all like the horrors that Squeen William served. Neither of the Nuccis seemed aware they ate glop, slop, gunk and toxic swill three times a day.

If the Hatters and the Hooters and folk who didn't go to church at all had any bias toward Newlies, it was nowhere in evidence here. Finn saw them everywhere. Stout, broad-shouldered Bullies who seldom showed expression beyond a blank stare. Snouters strutting lazily about. No Yowlies so far, and he was thankful for that. Bowsers a-plenty, though, yapping and marching about, wearing those ridiculous boaters Bowsers wore everywhere, getting in everyone's way.

Even a pair of Dobbins, tall and handsome creatures, with their outsize noses and kindly brown eyes. If there was any station, any rank among the Newlies, the Dobbins would surely be near the top. With the Yowlies at the bottom, by damn, as far as Finn was concerned.

Of the Favored Nine, those animals the outlaw magicians, Shar and Dankermain, had changed into beings very much like Man, Finn had seen all but one, even the shy elusive Badgie, known for its stealth and criminal enterprise. He had never, ever seen a Grizz, and hoped he never did. They were fierce, antisocial creatures who kept to themselves, mostly in the North. Finn had seen an etching of some, sitting in a forest by a fire. Everyone said that a Grizz loved fire, but no one said why.

“Now, if I could only find a Mycer, I could leave this odorous place and get back to Letitia, alone in that hideous house …”

First, though, he knew he'd best purchase another jar of jam and some more oatcakes, as there was little of either left. That, and a gown she could wear, though where he'd find that, he couldn't say. The females here, Newlie and human alike, seemed to favor ill-fashioned garments made of scraps, patches, and snatches of straw.

Letitia wouldn't care for that. Letitia didn't dote on clothing, but she wasn't fond of sacks. If he could ask someone, if someone had the courtesy to talk instead of sneer …

“Ah, looking at who is here, looking who is out to see the sights in our most lovely town.”

Finn stopped, pulling up short as the Foxer stepped right in his path. One, and then another, and another after that, all arriving quickly without the appearance of intent, yet clearly designed to box him in.

“I fear you're in my way,” Finn said, “I ask you to kindly step aside.”

The Foxer closest by showed Finn a toothy grin. “He askits we are stepping aside. He fears wes in his way.”

“In his way,” said the second, who was shorter than the rest.

“Steps aside,” said the third, who walked with a limp. His voice was a rasp, much like that of his companions, voices that were scratchy and dry.

Finn had seldom been around Foxers, except for a few at home. Foxers didn't care for the west, they'd mostly settled south. To him, these three looked much alike. Gaunt with red eyes, amber hair and tufted ears, and mean little mouths. Still, the bloody slash across a brow, the scar above an eye, a limp and a twitch, told him he had met this trio before.

“That's a wicked cut indeed,” Finn said, addressing himself to Short, yet taking in the rest. “I'd get a stitch or two, drink lots of water, and get plenty of rest.”

Short reached up to touch his scar, thought better of it, and simply glared at Finn.

“We wishes to tell you,” said Limp, “you listen real good.”

“No harm will be coming,” Toothy said. “You gets far aways from here.”

“Far aways,” Short said, “far aways from here.”

“A most excellent idea,” Finn said. “I've considered that myself. As soon as possible, I'll be gone from here, far across the Misty Sea. Until that time, I've something to say to you.

“Last night you woke me from a dream of melon pie. One of your lot is quite good with a blade, and the other two are not. None of you are nearly as good as I. Come at me again, by damn, and I'll slice your hairy ears off and have them for lunch.”

None of the three moved. Limp shook his head. “You might be besting us we have a fight. I'm not believing you eat ourselves, though. We are not foods.”

“Most clearly we are not,” Short said.

“What I'm thinking is, that was not a true,” Toothy said. “That was a humor, was it not?”

“I don't ever do a humor. It was nothing of the sort.”

“Ah, I see.” Toothy looked at the others. They came to him at once, speaking in low and rusty tones.

Finn wondered what they'd do if he simply walked away. Still, just because they couldn't tell jokes didn't mean they weren't agile, fast on their feet, cunning and sly. He'd learned that much the night before. They were dressed in ordinary clothes now, shabby vests and pantaloons instead of black. Except for the blades at their sides, they looked harmless and benign. They didn't even smell as they had when he'd fought them in the hall, an odor that was rank, alien and foul.

All Newlies smelled, some good and some vile. Bullies smelled like grass and sweat. Vampies, Squeen William's kind, had an odor like meat, like mold, like the sickly smell of death.

Letitia, on the other hand, smelled like musk, like old attic dust. Sometimes she smelled like clover, like brittle winter leaves, like earth turned in the spring.

Human folk had odors too, odors that offended, or attracted, others of their kind. And what did the Newlies think of human smell? Letitia Louise said Finn smelled nice, or most of the time, and he hoped that this was so.

“We has come to a decide,” Toothy said, turning to Finn once again. “Our decide is this. We doesn't think you contend against our kind. We doesn't think you do a quarrel. We believes you had a hostile because you was there.”

Finn felt a sense of relief, but he didn't let it show.

“What you say is true. I am pleased you understand. It was dark, and there was little time to reason things out. I had no idea who you were, or what you were doing there. It is clear now, you did — you had a quarrel with the Nuccis. I'm not too surprised, but there's no need to go into that. After I'm gone, do feel free to break in anytime.”

Toothy looked at Short. Short looked at Limp.

“You are a gone? We thinking you are here.”

“Gone from there,” Finn explained. “Gone from the Nuccis when a ship arrives again.”

“That is not a gone …”

“No, that is like a then …”

“This calls for a change of our decide …”

“This is not a pleasant,” Short said, “but this is how things is. If you be not a gone when we is coming, you be there again. Best thing to do, wes thinking, is us be sticking you now.”

“What?”

“Will you journeys to the alleyway, please? It is plenty darker there …”