"I'm trying to keep my life from getting infested with parasitic wizards. I've had run-ins with Casey before. If it's him you've got and not some other elf none of us knows about, I might be able to communicate with him. I managed once before. But he's stubborn. And he isn't afraid of anything."
Block's suspicions were allayed only slightly. I don't know why. I'm a trustworthy kind of guy.
"I'm going to go help Singe. If Dean's not there to do it for her she gets beer all over drawing it out of the cold well." I went to the kitchen. "Singe, I need the invisibility fetish."
Somebody trusted me. She handed the thing over without a question.
"You know if we have any more of these things squirreled away anywhere?"
She shook her head. "You gave all the rest back to the women or to that man in there. He's afraid of me, isn't he?"
"In a way. Yes. He'll get over it. Say a prayer for me to the gods of the ratfolk."
"Or maybe I will not. Our gods are all cruel and treacherous. Reflecting the world itself. We just try to trick them into looking the other way."
A philosophy I could embrace wholeheartedly.
83
My interview with Casey took place in the same big room where I'd gotten interviewed earlier. The same main players seemed to be on hand. Block was there. Three quiet wizards were there, none in costume, and none of them the one who ran with Bic Gonlit. I'm confident that Director Relway was there as well, back in the shadows, though I never actually heard or saw him.
Casey was there, seated in a hard chair at a bare table when I arrived. They hadn't bothered to restrain him. He was no physical threat. As I settled opposite him one of Colonel Black's men dumped a sack of nine fetish devices in front of me. I said, "Casey, old buddy, we're in the really deep shit here, now. You've been around TunFaire long enough to have a pretty good idea of the kind of people who have hold of you. You have a pretty good idea what they want. And you know they're not real good at taking no for an answer. You have to understand that some things are inevitable and that all you can do is make it easier on all of us." Lines of a sort everyone in that room, probably including Casey himself, would have used numerous times. I took out the fetish I'd brought from home, added it to the pile while staring straight into Casey's strange eyes.
Could he read me at all?
"What's that?" Block demanded.
"One of those amulet boxes of theirs. Singe found it today. When things were blowing up on the Embankment. Figured I ought to bring it over. Casey. Do you understand anything I've said? Do you know what these people want?"
After a long, long pause Casey nodded.
Of course he knew. It was his mission to make sure they didn't get it, from him or the Maskers or, especially, the Brotherhood of Light. I hoped he would keep his mission in mind. Because I was counting on him to get us all out of this mess.
"All right. Look here, Colonel. We're getting somewhere already. Told you I could get through to him. Whoa there, Casey. Slowly and carefully. We aren't sure which ones of those things are weapons."
Casey took such offense that his indignance was plain to everyone. "We do not... make weapons!"
That caused a stir, more because he'd spoken than because of what he'd said.
"Is that true? But I've been knocked unconscious over and over again by something that left me with the worst headaches of my life."
I believe Casey would have laughed if Visitors had the capacity for laughter. "What you experienced... was an effect... of a device used... for the removal of... the parasites common to... the bodies of most... of your animals... and races. Lice and... fleas in particular. With the device set... at its strongest... power. We do not... make weapons."
"I'll take your word for that. Which one of these doohickeys is a flea getter ridder ofer?"
Casey extended one spider leg finger slowly.
"Good. Sergeant, you want to take that one away?"
Excellent. Now I knew that Casey could tell these devices apart. Hopefully. Which would mean that he should know what kind of fetish I had placed on the table.
Maybe he was smart enough to understand what needed doing.
"So. Let's go over the rest of these, one by one. Tell me what they're supposed to do. Start with this one here."
Casey did that. And after we'd reviewed a couple of fetishes I realized that he couldn't really make me understand what he was talking about. I didn't have the vocabulary. Then his voice gave out.
I asked Block, "Can we get him some water in here? He's obviously not used to talking."
Block said something. One of his men moved. I glanced over. And when I looked back Casey wasn't there anymore. Neither were any of the fetishes. An instant later, as the shouting began, the hammer of darkness fell. Again.
84
"What happened?" I mumbled. I was the last one to wake up. The delouser's effects were cumulative for sure.
"How about you tell me," Block growled, dragging me into a seated position with my back against a wall.
"I've got a notion I don't have a lot of fleas anymore. Gods, my head is killing me! Hit me and put me out again." I meant it at the moment.
"No. I want you to get up. I want you hurting while you explain what just happened. You won't be able to concentrate enough to bullshit me."
"I don't know what just happened. You were here. You were paying attention. You probably got a better look than I did."
"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. I can't shake the feeling that there wasn't a pea under any of the shells."
Nausea overcame me as I tried to stand. Beer and my last meal beat me to the floor.
"Godsdammit! That just tops my whole day off, Garrett!"
I tried to climb the nearest chair. It was occupied. I gasped, "Get me some water. Wasn't somebody supposed to go after water?" And, "What happened to him?"
The man in the chair was one of the sorcerers. His eyes were open but nobody seemed to be at home behind them.
The look was worse than the thousand-yard stare. With that you knew your guy would probably come back someday. Seeing this, you knew he wouldn't, ever.
"I don't know, Garrett. He seems to have turned into a vegetable. They all have. But nobody else was hurt." He stepped carefully, avoiding my mess.
Wow. Casey must've done that deliberately. He wasn't a nice guy after all. Unless he hadn't been aware what they were and this was a by-product of them owning their talent in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Block declared, "I think their intelligence was deliberately and systematically destroyed."
"That would make our Casey a vindictive little bastard, wouldn't it? Completely without a sense of humor about being misused. Why do you suppose he let you and me and the rest of these guys slide? Because we're like him, just battling the darkness the best we know how?"
"Gift horses, eh? You could be right." He didn't say anything for a while. I seized the opportunity to concentrate on feeling sorry for myself. I wondered if Lastyr and Noodiss had gotten away before they gave Kip an idea for a miracle headache cure. I'd better check. Then Block told me, "I'd better have you taken home. I want you to stay inside your house until I get this sorted out. There'll be questions. Some of you men want to get this mess cleaned up? Can't anybody around here do something without waiting to be told?"
It didn't seem likely. Not when everybody was preoccupied with a killer headache.
"This is bad shit, Garrett," Block whined. "This's real bad shit. I'll be lucky to get out of this just losing my job."