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.