I decided to stay where I was and drip over the drain for the time being. Under the circumstances, I thought it might be better not to take off my clothes and ring them out. “I got a client this morning,” I said. “He was some magician I’d never seen before who’d been in the city on business and now was having a problem in getting out. According to him, the problem wasn’t the Guard. There was some kind of magical barrier around the city that hadn’t been there when he’d arrived. He wanted me to find out who’d put it up and get them to take it down.”
“You’re not a magician. You hate magic. Why would you get involved in something like that?”
“The guy was amazingly persuasive,” I said sarcastically. “I didn’t like the idea of him turning me into a toad. I took the job and went to see Carl. When I asked him about the barrier he tried to act surprised but it sounded like it wasn’t big news to him.”
“What kind of barrier are you talking about?”
“Magical quarantine, supposedly, also to keep people from looking in across it. Magicians, I mean, not regular people.”
“It couldn’t have been Carl. Carl couldn’t establish that kind of barrier, no one in Roosing Oolvaya could … except maybe for the new guy.”
“New guy? What new guy?”
She had seated herself in a chair pulled out from the desk. I followed her lead and lowered myself to a more comfortable position on the floor next to the grate. “I’ve only heard rumors,” Flora said. “Some new guy in a rented house somewhere near the north wall, supposedly very powerful.”
“Hmm,” I said, “a big-leaguer? Just in from out of town? Interesting. I didn’t think Carl had built this barrier thing himself, either, but I thought he might have known who did. He had been acting like he knew more than he was telling. Carl usually does, but this was different. Anyway, he said he might call a magicians’ meeting and check things out himself. Maybe, I thought, and maybe not. I left his house, went around the block, and came back just in time to see Carl leaving. He was going north. I followed him and walked into a Guard ambush.”
“You, an ambush?”
“Yeah, me. The situation was a little peculiar, but I was still sloppy. They threw me in a cell, I managed to get out, and I headed over here to see you.”
Flora’s earlier nastiness had faded. “So,” she said thoughtfully, “what do you think now?”
“What I know and what I suspect are different. I’ve got a feeling that Carl’s up to something that’s not healthy. He has called a meeting, obviously, but I’m suspicious about what’s really going to happen there. Maybe Carl’s got some new friends, like maybe this new guy by the north wall, and maybe he’s telling Carl what to do; and maybe what he’s telling Carl to do isn’t real positive for the rest of us. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the larger situation in Roosing Oolvaya, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it did.
“So why did I come to see you? I’ve got a lot of suspicions and real few facts. I do know enough about these things to know that by the time you have hard facts it’s usually too late. I thought you’d be interested in the suspicions, and I wanted to warn you about this meeting.”
“You’re right, it is interesting,” Flora said, “but I still want to know what’s on Carl’s mind. I can take care of myself. I’m going to that meeting, and I’d better leave soon, too.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you shouldn’t go. I just wanted you to be as suspicious as me. And I wanted to know when and where it’s going to take place.”
“All right, you warned me. The meeting is at Carl’s place, in about an hour, seven o’clock. Carl’s boy said everybody of any magical consequence in town would be there.” She got to her feet. “I’m not going to ask you what you’re going to do now,” she said pointedly, staring sharply at me, “because I don’t want to know and you wouldn’t tell me, anyway. I think we’re even on this one. But you might think about being careful, for a change.”
I stood up and brushed the last water off my pants. I knew I’d gotten one thing out of the visit, at least; I wouldn’t have to throw out my clothes. “You want me to ruin my reputation, do you?” I said. “Well, I’ll do what I have to do, and you’ll do what you have to do, we’ll all do what we have to do. That’s how the world’s supposed to work, isn’t it?” Hopefully we’d all be doing whatever it was we were doing for a long time yet to come, too. There wasn’t much more to say, so Flora let me out the large barn door in the back and I went off down the street. She hadn’t had a spare sword sitting around, either, so I was trying to figure out where I could come up with one in the time remaining before I had to be at Carl’s when I passed the opening to an alley.
Nothing about the alley was distinctive, but for some reason I pulled to a halt a half-dozen paces beyond it, turned around, and went back to have a second look. The alley ran back from the street between two leaning buildings, its only apparent features a few piles of assorted trash. I eased carefully down it, whatever had drawn me back in the first place pulling me on further. All I saw was trash. Then I got to the end, saw how the alley turned there at an angle to proceed behind one of the leaning buildings, and spotted a figure with a human shape resting in the shadows against the wall. “Hi there,” I said. “I’d been wondering when you’d show up again.”
Gashanatantra got to his feet, leaning on his walking stick, and brushed off the back of his tweed cape. “You have not discovered information of use to me,” he said, rather ominously.
“You don’t like what I’m doing? Then fire me, and take your retainer back too. I’ve found out plenty. I’ve been in and out of jail once today already on account of you, the Guard confiscated a perfectly good sword, and if nobody’s tried to beat me into the ground yet it’s probably because they were waiting in line for their turn to come up.”
“Your outrage at having your professional competency questioned is not of concern to me,” Gash said dryly. “Results are.”
“I know,” I said, “I know. You told me as much before. Give me some more time. I’ve got a good lead.”
“This Carl Lake person?”
“Yeah, him, that’s right. He may or may not be the one you’re after, but either way he knows who is. If you really wanted to be helpful, you could go over and drag it out of him yourself.”
He chuckled. “‘Front man’, I believe the term is? That is you.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot. Let’s get serious. Tracking this barrier person down isn’t going to be the problem. The problem’s going to be what to do when I find them. Just what do you expect me to do? Capture them? Kill them? Have a nice talk with them and convince them to raise the barrier because I’ve got a client who doesn’t like it?”
“I don’t know how much guidance I can give you,” he said musingly. “You will be there, so you must use your own instincts.”
“Great. My instincts tell me not to be there in the first place. But suppose I am, suppose I do what looks right to me and then you decide that isn’t what you wanted. It’ll be a lot harder to go back and try again.”
“I want the barrier raised,” Gash said. “I want to know who established it, and why. I want to know if they were aware of my presence and whether this is an attack directed at me, and, if so, the perpetrator must die. That is all. The details are your business. Now, you must go or you will miss your appointment.”
“Thanks for the help,” I said, and turned to go.
“There is one more thing.” I felt something strange happen just behind me, something that pulled at my back and gently tried to twist it in a couple of directions at once like a silent baby tornado. I peeked cautiously over my shoulder.