The Rearing Eagle was crowded and there was noticeable tension in the air. As Slide and Gibson had earlier sat drinking on the hillside, Gibson had noticed that a major influx seemed to be taking place, with large numbers of demons coming to the refuge from the dimensions beyond. Every few minutes, a new vehicle and even individuals on foot would materialize in the soft spot at the opposite end of the valley from the collection of buildings.
It didn't take long to find out why the idimmu were coming to this place in such large numbers. Even as they made their way up to the bar for yet another jug, Gibson caught snatches of conversation that seemed to indicate things were bad all over. He didn't know whether the upheavals that were being experienced in numerous dimensions were a result of the print-throughs caused by the nuclear attack on Luxor or merely unrelated events, but it did seem that large areas of the multidimensional universe were going to hell on the high-speed elevator. He caught a number of conversations that placed the blame for the current troubles squarely on the streamheat.
"I'm telling you, those bastards are out to get rid of the whole bunch of us. When I got to Xodd, they were all over the goddamned town, thicker than flies on fresh shit. I ain't kidding- they were practically running the fucking City Senate. They had the local cops toss me in jail as a political undesirable. I mean, do I look undesirable? I didn't have no alternative, I blew a hole in the wall of the jail and lammed it out of there and back here as fast as I could. Without a word of a lie, they think they're lowering the net on us and no mistake."
The speaker was a short, squat idimmu, dark-skinned and wearing a stained leather jerkin, and although to Gibson's eye he looked pretty undesirable, he was nothing unusual by the standards of the Rearing Eagle. When he had finished talking there was a lot of nodded agreement. Clearly, his was no isolated case.
Gibson and Slide gratefully made it through the crowd to the bar and, armed with a fresh jug, retired to a booth beside the big open fireplace. Despite the strangeness of its location, the Rearing Eagle was actually quite a comforting, cozy place, with its low, smoke-blackened, wood-beamed ceiling, roaring fire, and dense boozy atmosphere, and Gibson could see why, out of all the gin joints in all the dimensions, so many idimmu should look on it as the watering hole of last resort. It really only existed because of the burly, red-faced landlord, Long Tom Enni-Ya, who ran the place much more for his own satisfaction than as a service to his fellow demons. Like Slide, he cultivated a strong human image, and his fantasy of choice seemed to be to live the life of some Dickensian publican. It was only his glowing demon eyes that revealed that he was something more than the bluff affable host of an English country inn.
Once installed in the booth with a drink in front of him, Gibson had a chance to look around the place. Most of the tables were taken and groups of demons sat hunched in muted conversation over jugs of corn and earthenware pots of Tom Enni-Ya's beer. The group that stood clustered around the bar was arguing, sometimes passionately, about the current political situation, the inroads that were being made into what they saw as the traditional idimmu freedoms, and what needed to be done about them. A number of the suggested solutions were spectacularly violent.
A swarthy woman with gold earrings and a leather coat was hunched over an instrument akin to a guitar, playing something that might have had its start in Delta blues but had gone a long way in a direction that Gibson had never heard or experienced. Long and drawn-out notes echoed mournfully around the room, calling to the ghosts of Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix.
Gibson wasn't sure it was the music or just the general atmosphere but he had a sudden insight into the idimmu. Despite their swagger, their bizarre looks and bravado, they were an old and frightened race. They didn't really live, just existed on the periphery of the real world. They had been around for thousands of years, but only as parasites on the stream of history. They had been made almost indestructible but they were also sterile, eternal but without offspring or progress. A wave of truly maudlin sadness washed over Gibson until he caught himself. He was being ridiculous. Sympathy for the demons? Feeling sorry for the idimmu because they didn't have any kids was about on a level with feeling sorry for Attila the Hun because his daddy had never taken him fishing.
The similarities between the world of the idimmu and that of Attila the Hun were forcibly brought back when, partway through the arbitrary evening, a figure came into the place who stopped conversation dead. He was one of the idimmu who looked part man, part beast, having the bumpy armored skin of an alligator and the same flat shovel head, the mouthful of exaggerated teeth, and small cunning eyes that blazed like the glowing coals in the fireplace. The fearsome pair of long, single saber-shape antlers that protruded from the top of his head lent him a close resemblance to the traditional devil of the Middle Ages, although these later turned put to be a part of a strange iron headdress rather than an integral part of his skull. As he came through the door, backed up by a gang of five others, who, although not as fearsome as their leader, still looked like some of the baddest demons in the place, Gibson went through an instant of primitive devil shock. Then he saw that the figure was headed straight for the booth where he and Slide were sitting, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the low ceiling beams, and supernatural dread gave way to a much more instant and rational fear.
Slide had also spotted the man-beast coming toward them through the crowd, and he cursed under his breath. "Shit, Rayx."
" Who's Rayx?"
"You'll find out."
The creature halted in front of their booth and leered down at Slide. "Well, well, well, look who we have here, I thought you'd gotten yourself nuked to hell inside of Luxor. How did you get out of there, Yancey my love? Still got that knack for running away."
Hie thing's voice was a mixture of croaking rasp and hissing sibilance.
Slide regarded him calmly. "You still here, Rayx?"
"Where else should I be, Yancey?"
"Thought you might have crept off to play Prince of Darkness in some dimension where the inhabitants are real dumb and gullible."
Rayx picked at his teeth with a talon. "You know I gave up that shit eons ago. These days I just lay back and amuse myself. How about you?"
Slide shrugged. "I get by."
Rayx turned his attention to Gibson. "Is this the human?"
Slide nodded. "That's him."
"He don't look like much. You sure he fits the Four Requirements?"
"He seems to."
Rayx was shaking his head. "He sure don't look like much. You tried him at the Portal yet?"
"He ain't sure if he wants to get involved,"
Rayx looked at Slide in amazement and wisps of steam issued from his cavernous nostrils. "He ain't sure if he wants to get involved? Since when did a human have a choice in the matter, Yancey Slide? Put him at the damn Portal and see if it takes him, and if he doesn't want to go, drag him there. We got too much riding on this to let the whim of some goddamned human get in the way."
Gibson raised a hand. "Does anyone mind if the goddamned human has something to say about this?"
Rayx snorted and the wisps of steam turned to twin billows. "Feisty little fuck, isn't he?"
Gibson was becoming exceedingly angry. He thought he had moved on from situations where people talked about him as though he was an object with no free will of his own. "That's right, he's a feisty little fuck, and he isn't about to allow himself to be dragged off to any portal against his will without putting up one hell of a fight." He turned to Slide. "And what is it that you all have riding on this?"