The deity spoke in his mind again. I studied his plans for the apparatus, it said. If you carefully unscrew the lid, the prisoners will be released.
The thief said, “They are liable to be angry, and perhaps indiscriminate in how they express themselves.”
I will see that they do you no harm. Indeed, I believe they will see that they owe the two of you whatever rewards are in their power.
Raffalon relayed this information to Erminia and suggested that she come and stand close to him. When she had done so, he reached for the cylinder’s top and slowly rotated it. Fine threads showed, and the white gold squeaked faintly as it unwound.
Then came the last turn, and the top of the cylinder flew into the air, knocking the man’s hand aside. A coruscating fount of force, in several colors and of an intensity too bright to be even squinted at, shot up to the ceiling. The air of the room was filled with overpowering scents, rushing winds, claps of near thunder, and waves of pressure that made the thief’s ears hurt.
Invisible hands seized Raffalon and Erminia in a crushing grip and raised them high above the floor. The thief had but a moment to think that he was about to be dashed against the flagstones. Then as quickly as they had been taken up, they were gently lowered again.
I regret, said a different voice. Potho has explained that you have been our deliverers, not our captors.
“Potho?” Raffalon and Erminia said together.
It is my name, said the voice the thief recognized as the luck god’s. But now he sounded delighted. Mithron recognized me, as I did him. We are the divine equivalent of cousins.
“Mithron?”
Now the other voice spoke. A god of those who race horses, it said. Potho and I were often invoked together.
The luck god made other introductions: Iteran, who presided over crossroads; Belseren, whose province was health and vigor; Samiravi, a goddess of erotic fulfillment; Fhazzant, who looked after license inspectors and tax collectors; Tewks, who, if properly propitiated, could fulfill heart’s desire.
We are all grateful to you, said Potho. And each of us has bestowed upon you both what blessings are within our purview, now that we all know our names and our powers are restored.
“You mean I can count on a good day at the races?”
Always, said Mithron.
Raffalon mentally itemized his other gains. He would never be ambushed at street corners. He would never sicken or tire, nor be embarrassed or unfulfilled in moments of intimacy. What benefits he would accrue from the patron of tax collectors he could not at first imagine.
They will leave you unmolested, said a new voice he assumed to be Fhazzant’s.
“I thank you all,” he said and made a formal gesture of gratitude.
“As do I,” said Erminia, although at first Raffalon did not recognize the musical voice as hers. He turned to her and saw that Samiravi had been at work. The young woman’s eyes were now not quite so close together, nor her nose so long and pointed. Her lips had become fuller and a hairy mole on her chin was gone. Her upper and lower garments had filled out. She glowed with health and erotic promise.
From the way she was looking at him, it seemed that he, too, had been reordered and improved. He felt his nose and found it handsomely reshaped, while a surreptitious hand slipped into a pants pocket quietly determined that his initial inquiry about prodigiousness had been remembered and fully answered as well.
“I thank Tewks, most particularly,” he said.
Now, said Potho, we will say farewell. We have business with this prideful sorcerer.
Mithron added, We have dismissed all his familiars and frighteners. If, on the way out, you see anything you like, feel free to take it with you.
Fhazzant’s voice said, He will have no further need of his goods.
Raffalon repeated the gesture of gratitude. Erminia offered a graceful curtsy, then said with a ravishing smile, “I’ve never been able to do that right before.”
Together, they left the thaumaturge’s workroom, where the winds had once more begun to roar. Throughout the mansion, doors slammed open, locked coffers popped their lids, and cupboard doors swung wide.
Sometime later, their pockets full, bearing between them a densely packed trunk, they were making their way down one of Port Thayes’s better boulevards, seeking a place to stay. Erminia said, “I have been thinking. If we built an inn at a crossroads, near a good racecourse …” She paused for thought, then went on, “And if I served the customers and you ran a few games of chance, perhaps set up a tote …”
Raffalon said, “We would have no troubles with overzealous officials.”
“It could work,” she said. “Of course, you and I would have to be personally compatible.”
“There is a hotel across the way,” the thief said. “We could take a room for the night and see.”
He was surprised, but pleased, when she forthrightly expressed approval of his proposal.
Later that night, having discovered that they were indeed wonderfully compatible, she threw a sated arm across his chest, and said, “To be a success, an inn needs a good name.”
He said, “With luck, I’m sure I’ll think of one.”
Joe R. Lansdale
Prolific Texas writer Joe R. Lansdale has won the Edgar Award, the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, the American Mystery Award, the International Crime Writer’s Award, and nine Bram Stoker Awards. Although perhaps best known for horror/thrillers such as The Nightrunners, Bubba Ho-Tep, The Bottoms, The God of the Razor, and The Drive-In, he also writes the popular Hap Collins and Leonard Pine mystery series—Savage Season, Mucho Mojo, The Two-Bear Mambo, Bad Chili, Rumble Tumble, Captains Outrageous—as well as Western novels such as The Magic Wagon, and totally unclassifiable cross-genre novels such as Zeppelins West, The Drive-In, and The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels. His other novels include Dead in the West, The Big Blow, Sunset and Sawdust, Act of Love, Freezer Burn, Waltz of Shadows, and Leather Maiden. He has also contributed novels to series such as Batman and Tarzan. His many short stories have been collected in By Bizarre Hands, Sanctified and Chicken-Fried, The Best of Joe R. Lansdale, The Shadows, Kith and Kin, The Long Ones, Stories by Mama Lansdale’s Youngest Boy, Bestsellers Guaranteed, On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks, Electric Gumbo, Writer of the Purple Rage, Fist Full of Stories, Bumper Crop, The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent, Selected Stories by Joe R. Lansdale, For a Few Stories More, Mad Dog Summer: And Other Stories, The King and Other Stories, Deadman’s Road, High Cotton: The Collected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale, and an omnibus, Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal. As editor, he has produced the anthologies The Best of the West, Retro Pulp Tales, Son of Retro Pulp Tales (with Keith Lansdale), Razored Saddles (with Pat Lo-Brutto), Dark at Heart: All New Tales of Dark Suspense (with wife, Karen Lansdale), The Horror Hall of Fame: The Stoker Winners, and the Robert E. Howard tribute anthology, Cross Plains Universe (with Scott A. Cupp). An anthology in tribute to Lansdale’s work is Lords of the Razor. His most recent books are two new Hap and Leonard novels, Vanilla Ride and Devil Red, as well as the short novels Hyenas and Dead Aim, the novels Edge of Dark Water and The Thicket, two new anthologies—The Urban Fantasy Anthology (edited with Peter S. Beagle), and Crucified Dreams—and three new collections, Shadows West (with John L. Lansdale), Trapped in the Saturday Matinee, and Bleeding Shadows. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.