The Prophecy Machine

24

Finn had no time to think, no time at all to blink. All three Foxers drew their blades at once. Finn ducked as Limp shaved the hairs atop his head. Toothy came at him from the left. Finn stepped on his toes and sent him reeling into Short.

“Lunatics, crazies!” Finn shouted. “I'm stranded in a madhouse here!”

And, with a solid kick that impaired Toothy's very vital parts, Finn was off and running through the horde, through the rabble, through the packed marketplace.

The crowd cleared before him, parting like water before a schooner's bow, parting, as any crowd would, before a man howling, growling, shouting out curses in some unholy tongue, clutching his blade and waving it about.

Bold, short-tempered men, men who liked to have a drink without a lot of noise, hastened to find a brick or a sharp-pointed stick, hastened to stop this brazen oaf. Hastened, then paused, paused and hesitated, mindful of the rage, of the fierce determination in the man's clearly homicidal gaze, mindful of the yelpers and the yappers, of the barking berserkers on his tail. Thinking it wise to stay out of this mess, the stout and burly men shook their fists, dropped their bricks and sticks, and let their anger chase the man instead.

Finn knew that a man with any sense would let a madman have his way. Especially a loony who came from out of town. Everyone knew they were a dangerous lot, even when they seemed to be sane.

Turning a corner into a narrow, murky way, Finn stopped in his tracks, stopped and felt his heart beat fast against his chest. A team of worker Bullies, seven, eight, or maybe ten, were dragging an enormous building stone down the cobbled street. Each was a giant among his kind, great ponderous creatures with broad massive chests, and scarcely any necks at all. Each grasped a rope across his shoulder, grasped it in two chunky hands, strained so hard against the burden of the stone that a deep and awesome thrum resounded from their lungs with every step. Their thighs were as big as the torso of an ordinary man, and the veins in their arms were as thick as killer vines curled about a mighty tree.

Each of the brutes looked solemn and grave, and each wore a heavy ring through his nose, some lost tradition from the past, some rite now centuries old.

Finn knew he couldn't get through, knew the narrow street could scarcely contain these fellows now. Knew the manic Foxers were howling on his trail. Knew he could beat them one and all if they'd only fight him fair. He paused, took a breath and plunged into the fray …

He ducked, weaved, scrambled through columns of meat, under crotches, under legs, over bare and smelly feet. The fleshy hulks kicked him, cursed him and growled. Finn gagged and choked, staggered under body odors foul, under flatulent attack.

Finally, gasping for breath, stumbling to his feet, he came out the other side. The air was still vile, a near visible cloud.

The streets were close to empty, everyone at market, Finn supposed, leaving their doors and windows open wide. Trusting their neighbors, no doubt, for their goods were so shabby no one wanted whatever lay about.

The lane here was narrow, narrow and cramped. The stories from one side leaned out drunkenly to meet shaky structures tipping the other way. The street was a tunnel shut off from the sun, a place too wretched to live, Finn thought, unless everyone wore gray.

The Foxers, he guessed, wouldn't be fool enough to come the way he had. They'd go around and try to cut him off, and they'd know the town better than he.

Which way, then-left, right, the street that smelled of cabbage, or the one more like a sewer? The sewer, he decided, for a bit more light leaked down through the arches overhead.

Three more byways, and three dead ends. Finn wished he'd gone the other way-he couldn't keep going, couldn't go back the way he'd come.

An old woman passed with a bundle of wood, a child strapped tightly to her back. The child stared at Finn in wonder. The woman didn't bother to look his way.

Finn studied the shop behind him, the building overhead. The shop had a sign that read TALLOWS amp; LAMPS. The one across the street read CLUB. Another place that wouldn't let him in. Only the people at CLUB could drink there. He was, it seemed, beginning to understand these alien ways.

He plunged his hand into the basket, coming up with half a loaf of bread. He ate half of that, and put the quarter back. All of the tomatoes were squashed. Getting through the Bullies had ruined all the cherries and the berries, and the sweetcakes had crumbled into shreds.

He heard the sound of his foes before he saw them, the yipping and the yowling and the stomp of heavy boots, the clatter of buckles and swords.

He looked to his front, to his left and to his right. Finally, he looked at the arches that loomed up above.

“Up it is, then,” he said aloud, chiding himself for pausing to eat, “up is the only way there is …”

The first story up was chunky stone with plenty of handy holds for hands and feet. The second was ancient wood, which rotted and crumbled, and nearly spilled him to the ground.

Once at the top, he could see a small corner of the market, a blue slice of the sea.

“The sea would be west. When we were still in open water, the sun always set behind the stern. Except, I think, when we went through Blue Butter Strait. Unless I'm mistaken, the sun on that occasion came up in the south. I knew that couldn't be, and meant to ask about it at the time …”

Not for the first time, Finn had to sadly confess that he scarcely knew his left foot from his right. That sort of thing was not required for a man in the lizard trade. He surely didn't know his way back to Julia and Letitia Louise. Back to Squeen William and the Nucci maniacs. What he knew was the sound of his pursuers was growing much closer all the time.

Leaping from one roof to the next was as simple as could be. The thatched, patched, tiled and slatted shops were hardly a quarter inch apart, and often closer still. The clatter of the Foxers was fading with every step he took. Finn, however, knew that he was fading too. His throat was dry as sand. He'd had a little food, but not a thing to drink. If you can't get in BAR or TAVERN or CLUB, there's little one can do.

He jumped from a roof made of shingles to a roof made of pebbles to a roof made of plaster and sticks. Some roofs were steep, and others were flat. One had a hole that he nearly fell through. A man down below looked up at Finn and stared, said, “What the hell you doin' up there?”

“Pardon,” Finn said, and noticed the man was cooking an ugly fish.

Someone shouted and told him to stop. Finn thought it was the man, then saw it was a Foxer running straight at him across the rooftops. Another appeared, then another after that. Then, worse still, three more, and that added up to six.

“They've brought in help,” Finn muttered. “That doesn't seem right.”

With a leap and a yell, the nearest foe came at him, twisting his sword in a high and fearsome arc. Finn met him with the flat of his blade, pushed him aside, broke into a run and didn't stop.

This appeared to anger his pursuers. They jeered and called him names. Finn didn't care. Honor was scarcely an issue here. The Foxers were no great fencers, but six of them would surely bring him down.

One came at him from the left, two closed in from the right. Finn feinted toward the loner, then surprised them all by going for the pair.

A moment's hesitation, an instant of surprise gave Finn a small advantage and he took his foe out, blooding him deeply from his knee down to his thigh. The Foxer gave a cry and stumbled back. Before he hit the roof, Finn turned on his companion-whom he recognized as Toothy-and drove him savagely away.

Step, slash-step and slash again-

— and then he was aware of the loner at his back, aware with a start, that his single enemy had turned into four. It struck him, again, this was not the vacation he'd bargained for.

“Standin' and fight,” said Foxer number one, “face me if yous dare!”

“We'll not bes harmin' if you do,” said number two.

“Yes we will,” said three, formerly known as Limp, “that bes what we're here for!”

“I'm afraid I have to go,” Finn said, “I'm expected somewhere.”

With a bark and a shout, Limp came at him, driving Finn up the steep slate at his back.

“What yous gotten in the basket?” Limp said, slashing at Finn's head. “When I bes makin' you deads, I takin' a look inside.”

“There's not as much as you'd think, but you're welcome to it if I fail.”

“Hey, failin' you will, for we doesn't welcome strangers to our shores.”

“If you'd not taken up with Nucci scums, we'd maybe lettin' yous go,” said a Foxer approaching from the right, one he didn't know. “You dids, though, an' we gots to stick you for that.”

Finn turned from Limp for an instant to drive the newcomer back. The Newlie was better than he'd thought. Instead of retreating, he lunged in quickly and ripped Finn's shirt at the chest, leaving a painful stripe of red.

“Hah! You'd best bes givin' in,” the Foxer grinned, licking his pointy nose, glaring at Finn with his hateful red eyes. “Yous no match for me, yous only a man!”

“A lucky hit,” Finn said, “don't count on doing that again.”

He forced a smile to match his foe's, but the cut hurt him more than he wanted the fellow to know. Without looking back, he retreated up the steep slope, praying he didn't slip on a slat some lazy roofer had failed to nail down.

“Is it bein' true what wes heard,” Lump said, edging up on Finn's right, “is it trues in your land you got a place where strangers stop and sleep?”

“Spend the whole night?” someone added.

“And eats there too?”

“With peoples you don't even know?”

“Where yous can see them, and theys can see you?”

Limp made a face. “Humans is nasty everywhere, but I never heards anything sicker as that.”

“What is it you have against the Nuccis?” Finn asked, hopping to the right, and then the left again. “I'd simply like to know.”

He was nearing the peak of the roof. Another step or two, and he could risk a look down the other side …

“If it's that lad on the ship-is that it? I stopped Sabatino, I'd like to mention that. Weren't aware of that, right? To tell you the truth, I don't care for the Nuccis myself. Fate tossed us together, I assure you, I didn't have a great deal of choice.

“But attacking people in their beds, in the dark of night-that's a coward's path, there's little pride in that. Far better if you'd face them in the open, work out your quarrel in an honest, straightforward way-”

The Foxers came at him as if they were all of one mind, as if some sign, some gesture, had passed between them unseen. Their teeth were bared and their eyes were bright with rage. Their blades flashed in the sun, and they raised a terrible din.

“Something I said to offend, I'll wager,” Finn muttered to himself, hastily backing toward the peak. “I fear I've set you fellows off again.”

He reached the top, then, one foot braced on the near side, one against the other, neither too secure, for he felt a bit light in the head. He'd ignored the wound thus far, knew he should have left before the weakness took him down.

The Foxers could sense his confusion, read the hesitation in his stance, smell the blood, perhaps, as their kind had done before the Change.

Every action, now, seemed to move faster for Finn, everything but the limbs at his command. While the Foxers were a blur, moving with a speed uncanny to the eye, his legs, his arms, the weapon in his hand, dragged through a thickening mire, moved with all the fervor and dash of a tortoise in a syrupy sea …

Color faded from the sky, simply cracked and peeled like dry and weary paint that's seen its day. Then there was nothing, nothing there at all, only the sense that he was falling, tumbling, giddy and muddled, out of control, drifting, drifting far away …