The Prophecy Machine

25

“Vat dey smellit like,” said the one, “Is s on yons. Vile onyons un' leeks.”

“Garlig,” said the other, “thas the wursof awl. Garlig getting in da poors an' dond efer goes avay.”

“I won say it iss or it's nod. To me, iss nod a simble thing, it's the mix dat make a scent I kant abide. You takes a radich. A radich un a kabach-ain't so fensive as it iss ven dey kook da damn ting, I'll say dat. Now der is un odor dat'll drife you up da vall.

“But I vas sayin radich, radich un kabach, dey won be zatisfy wid dat. A Hooman bein's goda grind dem peppah on it and stir in zum sprout. Bad enuf ven dey ead da filty stuf, the wurst iss in da varts. May I die if it's nod da holy truth, der is nuttin' like the badd smellin vind from a Hooman's goda gutt fulla green an' yellah plants. Vhatcha gotten now? I'm showin' pair of fivezies, and a prince. You goda tree twos, the bet's to you …”

Finn could smell them …

He could smell them in his dreams, smell them when he woke, didn't even have to look. Bowsers always smelled the same, like they'd come in from the rain. He'd known a few at home. A couple lived on Garpenny Street and did good business selling meat and bones. Rabbit and gopher, possum and coon. Beaver, goat and porcupine, wrens, hens and hawks. Carcasses hanging on hooks out front, bloody and swarming with flies.

The folk who ran the shop were decent folk, but Letitia wouldn't speak to them at all. Some of the meat they sold were related, she said, squirrels and voles and such. Besides, Yowlies shopped there; even if they didn't care for Bowsers, they hungered for the dead things they sold.

“I goda tree Vitches,” said one, “that'll beat your twos.”

“You're a tamn cheet is vat you are,” said the other, “you didn haff no Vitches before.”

“I god you both,” said the third, “I god a pair of nines un tree Seers.”

“Shid,” said one.

“I'm oud,” said the other, and tossed in his cards.

Finn risked a look and opened one eye. When he did, a terrible pain shot through his head. For the very first time, he remembered the rooftops, remembered the Foxers, wondered just how he'd gotten here.

He could see the three across the room. They sat at a table under an oily lamp. One was rather pug-nosed and fat. One was very small, with very large ears. One, Finn saw, was bigger than the rest, with close-cropped hair and mean eyes. All three wore straw boaters, stiff collars and dirty white shirts. Two, Pugnose and Mean-eyes, wore monocles pinned to their vests. Some sort of thing they did, Finn decided, for the butchers at home dressed exactly like that.

Skipo, for that was the butcher's name, had an accent as heavy as these fellows did, though he'd lived all his life in Ulster-East. Newlies had a thing about that, or some of them did. Even if they worked with humans, or had human friends, they took great pride in retaining their strange variant of the local tongue. The Bowsers did it here, and the Foxers as well, and likely most all the Newlie kind.

Squeen William, Finn decided, was probably an exception, and could do no better than he did.

On the other side of the coin, Newlies like Letitia, who had no trace of Mycer accent in her speech, were often reviled by Newlies who did.

This is often the way, Finn thought. If you do something right, someone will take affront, and try to bring you down …

“It's avake,” said the big one, “I zaw im move his eyes.”

“It's been avake,” said the smallest of them all. “Hoomans vill do dat, dey are wery sly.”

Finn was startled, suddenly aware they were clearly discussing him.

“Don get up,” Mean-eyes warned him, pushing back his chair. “Shtay vere you are.”

“I'm staying,” Finn said, “all right? Look, what's going on, what am I doing here? All I remember …”

“You fallin' off a roof. You hittin your head,” Pugnose said.

“Foxers isn't liken' you a lot,” Mean-eyes added with a grin.

“Tell me something I don't know. Whoever you are, thanks for your help. I see you've got some ale there, I could certainly use a drink.”

“He could use a trink,” Mean-eyes said.

“Give him a trink,” the little fellow said.

Pugnose got up, grabbed a jug of ale and squatted at Finn's side.

“You vant a trink, Hooman? You like zum ale?”

“If it's no bother,” Finn said.

“No pother, my friend,” the Bowser said, and Finn, with utter disbelief, saw the jug coming down at his head …

“They can be quite decent, most of their kind, but this is quite a callous bunch. I'm sorry they struck you in the head. I want you to know, I don't approve of that.”

“They struck me twice,” Finn said, “in the very same spot.”

Dr. Nicoretti frowned and shook his head as if he was truly alarmed. “No, they did not. You fell, on your merry chase across the roofs. If they hadn't been there, the Foxers would have surely run you through and dumped you in an alley somewhere. I put a gauze on your chest. Lost a little blood, no big thing. I expect you were somewhat over-wrought, more than anything else.”

“And I owe my life to you, yes? For that, and sending those louts to save me? So who put the Foxers on me, then? I don't suppose I can thank you for that as well?”

Nicoretti rolled his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, the one where Mean-eyes had sat before. Finn was not greatly surprised that he had woken to find Sabatino's uncle there. After the past few days, little shocked him now.

“That is a most ridiculous thing to say,” Nicoretti told him. “Why would I bother with such a charade- send those crazies after you, and rescue you as well? You've got more sense than that, lad. Don't play the fool with me.”

Finn forced himself to sit up. His head throbbed and his throat was quite dry. Nicoretti had given him some ale, but the stuff was warm and sour and only made him thirsty for more.

“If I'm a fool, then I guess I've got reason to be. I don't know what's happening here. I don't trust the Nuccis, and I surely don't trust you. If I'm not mistaken, it was you who asked the old man to give Letitia away. For spiritual rites?”

Finn made a face. “Hooters and Hatters. You people aren't civilized here. Decent people don't go to churches like that. You're all mad is what you are!”

“I'll overlook that,” Nicoretti said. “You're clearly a bigot and you've been shaken up, you're not thinking straight. Besides, that business of you and the Newlie, that was just a joke. You two wouldn't do me any good, you're not from here. The Pastor wouldn't go for that.”

“Huh! Didn't sound like a joke to me.”

Nicoretti leaned forward, his hands on his knees. His eyes seemed to bore through the back of Finn's skull. In the flickering light of the lamp his features were shadowed, and somber as the grave.

“You call me mad, Master Finn, yet it's you that's acting less than sane. May the demons take me, what do you think you're mixing in here? Do you think you're safe up there with those two? Do you think they'll let that pretty of yours walk out of there?”

Nicoretti threw up his hands in despair. “Why did I bother? Why did I take the trouble to save your hide? You're too dense to listen, too full of pride. I should have let those idiots have their way, let them punch you full of holes. You're no good to yourself, and you're surely no good to me!”

Finn ignored the man's theatrics. The more he waved his arms about, the broader the deception, the bigger the lie, or so it appeared to Finn.

“If you did truly save me, then you had some reason, and you'll not mind telling me why.”

“I can't stand by and see a man do himself in just because he's a fool. And you've got a talent for it, Finn. You've angered the Foxers because you put yourself in their quarrel. They won't let go of that.”

Nicoretti raised a restraining hand before Finn could break in.

“They're hard-headed creatures, and your intentions mean not a whit to them. In their minds, you're an enemy as well as the Nuccis themselves.”

The doctor unwound his skinny frame, stood, and stalked about the cramped room.

“It's true you're taking blame for sins you couldn't likely help. My church has got its hats on crooked because you helped the Nuccis get away. The whole damn town's up in arms because you're staying there. Hospitality is the Fourth Deadly Sin in our religion and seventh in theirs. Sabatino and Cal are flaunting that in our face, and we're all wondering why.”

Nicoretti stopped his pacing, turned toward Finn with a questioning brow. “Maybe you could help me, Master Finn. I expect you have a guess at what's going on up there. It'd help me and others understand if you could shed a little light on that. Could you be of some aid in this?”

All this was delivered in calm and easy tones with a reassuring smile, an actor switching roles without a single change of scene, setting off alarms of every sort in Finn's head. Was this a trap of some kind? Did Nicoretti know about the madness Calabus was brewing in the depths below his house? And if he did, why then would he care? It was all a lunatic's obsession anyhow.

“I'll be honest with you,” Finn said. “I may be wrong, but I think you're trying to be straight with me. If the Nuccis are up to anything, as you say, I don't know what it is. I don't know why they took us in, except we helped Sabatino save the old man from your yellow-hatted maniacs. No offense meant.”

“Oh, I assure you, none taken, sir.”

“I must admit, I find it hard to believe they're the sort that's easily overcome with gratitude.”

“I'd agree heartily with that.” “I'd guess there are two factors here, Dr. Nicoretti. One, they take pleasure in flaunting custom, shocking the locals who clearly have no love for them. Two, I suppose you're aware Sabatino's a hopeless lecher, obsessed with my- companion, Letitia Louise. I cannot tell you how difficult it was to leave her there with him.”

“Ah, but you did, though. In spite of those fears …”

The sudden flare of interest in Nicoretti's eyes, the way his body tensed as if he might spring from a branch upon his prey, told Finn this was a topic that had best go astray.

“The Nuccis,” he said, with an irritation that was real, “have no perception of decent food. Squeen William's dishes are horrors in gray. I had to risk a visit to get us something we could eat.”

“I see you've done a shoddy job at that,” Nicoretti said, nodding at the nearly empty basket on the floor.

“Food doesn't fare too well if one has to stop and fight. I intend to replenish my supplies, if it's any concern of yours.”

Nicoretti spread his hands and smiled. “It is not my concern, as you say. And if it were the only reason you were here …”

“I said it was, did I not? I would be gone if those louts hadn't tried to do me in.” Finn answered Nicoretti's virtuous smile with one of his own. “How lucky for me your Bowser boys were about. Nearby and ready to save out-of-towners who might come to harm in some way.”

“Fortunate, indeed. I'm delighted they could help.”

Nicoretti curled his lips as if he'd tasted something foul.

“Their manners are impossible, of course. Nasty types, I'm sorry to say. Stiff-necked bastards. Do a lot of marching and strutting about, that sort of thing. Where did you get the idea for your lidard, Master Finn? Do you mind if I ask?”

“Lizard, you mean to say. People have asked me this before. I fear my answer won't suffice. When I made the very first one, ‘lizard’ was the word that came to mind. As the word ‘stone’ might well have occurred when a man first saw one lying in his path. It simply seemed to fit.”

“Well, then …” Nicoretti brought the jug of ale out again and filled Finn's cup. The stuff was still flat, warm and unpleasant to the taste, but there was clearly nothing else around.

Still, Nicoretti downed his drink with great delight.

“I will not delay you further, Master Finn. By my reckoning, you should just make it back before market closes down. Our Hatter folk have no service planned till tomorrow afternoon. However, I'd advise you to get back to your companion and your lidard before it gets dark. The Hooters, I believe, have choir tonight, and that can get rowdy sometimes.

“One more thought before we part, if I may. Let's put aside the foolery, lad. We've been lying to one another since our talk began. There is something going on in that wretched house, and it's not impossible that you know what it is. You'd be wise to tell me, but you won't. You'll play the fool until it's much too late to ask for help.

“Now, would you tell me why you're looking for a Mycer called Rubinella? A fact every farmer, every bumpkin, every clown in town knows now? I would strongly advise you to tell me, sir, before you get in something completely over your head!”

Finn was not surprised to learn his search had reached Nicoretti's ears. The man was a meddler, that was plain to see. Why, though, what was he up to? That was the mystery here.

And no matter how well he masked his emotions, he had clearly betrayed, along with open anger, a slight hint of fear-and that bothered Finn a great deal.

“I see no reason to tell you,” Finn said. “If it's true we're both liars, my answer would do you little good. I could ask, though, why you care who I'm looking for, but then you'd lie too. So what's the point here?”

The sudden flush of color in Nicoretti's face let Finn know the doctor didn't care for that.

“You'd best not be too clever, friend. A man's been known to laugh himself to death, chuckle to his coffin, giggle to his grave.”

“Sir, I have no idea what that means.”

“Of course you do, don't play the fool. Now, what do you know about that filthy old man? The one they keep hidden up there, the one who's goofy as a loon?”

“What do you know about him? You tell me.”

Nicoretti shook his head, his patience at an end.

“There's nothing else I have to say to you. If you come to your senses, we might talk again.”

Dr. Nicoretti stood, a clear invitation for Finn to leave.

“I suppose I should thank you,” Finn said, coming to his feet, making his way to the door. “But I don't know what for.”

“Of course you don't, you're quite an ignorant boy. I'm surprised you've managed to survive.”

Finn didn't have to hide his anger. He truly felt nothing at all.

“I did mean to ask, but you're so full of questions, Doctor, I didn't have the time. You're Sabatino's uncle, so you're kin to the family some way. Might I ask why you loathe the Nuccis, and why they feel the same? What happened to cause such a rift, one I assume goes back many years?”

Nicoretti's eyes went wide. His mouth began to move, but no words came out, only strangled noises in his throat.

“I'm sorry if I caused you alarm,” Finn said, “but you, sir, have done your very best to humiliate me, so perhaps we're even now. And Calabus' wife, I meant to ask- Sabatino's mother. Is she deceased now? I wondered, as no one's spoken of her at all-”

“Get-get-out-of-my-sight!”

Nicoretti's gaunt, aged frame began to tremble, his face turned black with rage. Finn stepped back. If the man fell rigid with a stroke, Finn was in the way.

“I surely will, sir. I fear I've overstayed my welcome, I do regret that. One thing more. I'd like to get a cool mug of ale somewhere, yours isn't good at all. Do you know someone who might let me in?”

Nicoretti looked appalled, as if Finn had hinted at some immoral act. Again, he tried to mutter, tried to mumble, tried to speak, but Finn didn't wait to see the end of that …