“No!” Lord Ermenwyr screamed, spitting fire. “I am a man, and my tongue is supple, alive and flameless, no tallow to block my loud pronouncement that you are no man at all but a hanging effigy of old clothes stuffed with paper, your face a painted sack, your mouth a mere painted line, incapable of utterance!”
“Gurk!” exclaimed Blichbiss, as a noose appeared from nowhere and hoisted him up by the neck. “No! I am not hanging and—” He ripped his sealing mouth open again. “I am a mage whose curses are swift and always deadly, with a quick mouth to pronounce that you,"—and a terrible gleam came into his eyes—"are a pusillanimous little half-breed nouveau-arcane psychopath who richly deserves the inescapable blast of witchfire that is about to electrocute him where he stands!”
“Hey!” said Smith in dismay, and Lord Eyrdway looked confused as he played the spell back in his head; but Lord Ermenwyr, his eyes bugging from their sockets, stared up at the crackling circle of white-hot energy that had just begun to circle his head. He shrieked the first thing that came to mind: “I know you are, but what am I?”
With his last syllable the witchfire reached critical mass and shot out a ravening tongue of lightning, hitting Blichbiss square in the middle of his waistcoat. That gentleman had just time to look outraged before he made a sizzling noise, his sinuses discharged copiously, and the fire engulfed him in a crackling blaze for the space of three seconds before vanishing with a loud popping sound.
Blichbiss fell backward with a crash, smoke and steam rising from his slightly charred mustache. He had been felled by the deadliest of counterspells, the one against which there is no appeal. So simple is its operative principle, even little children grasp it instinctively; so puissant is it in its demoralizing effect, grown men have been driven to inadvertent self-destruction, as Blichbiss now was evidence. Oddly enough, his clothes were almost untouched.
“That was cheating, that last one,” said Lord Eyrdway. “Wasn’t it? I thought you said no incendiary spells.”
Lord Ermenwyr turned on him in fury. “Of course he cheated, you dunce! But it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d managed to kill me.”
“Of course it would have,” Lord Eyrdway said reasonably. “Then Smith could have appealed his victory to the Black Council, as your second.”
“A lot of good that would have done me, wouldn’t it?” Lord Ermenwyr said, trembling in every limb as the reaction set in. He staggered backward and, like a landslide, his bodyguards surrounded him and caught him before he fell. Cutt set him gently into an armchair.
“Master is drained,” he said solicitously. “Master is exhausted. What Master needs now, to restore his strength, is to eat his enemy’s liver fresh-torn from his miserably defeated body, while it’s still warm. Shall I tear out the liver for you, Master?”
“Gods, no!” cried Lord Ermenwyr in disgust.
“But it’s good for you,” said Cutt gently, “and you need it. It’s full of arcane energies. It will replenish you with the life force of your enemy. Your lord father—” pause for group genuflection—"always consumes the livers of those so rash as to assail him. If they have been particularly offensive, he eats their hearts as well. Come now, little Master, won’t you even try it?”
“He’s right, you know,” Lord Eyrdway said. “And think of the publicity! Nobody’s ever going to challenge your right to be guild treasurer again. I wouldn’t mind a bit of the bastard’s heart, myself.”
“Can I get it cooked?” asked Lord Ermenwyr.
“No!” said all the guards and Lord Eyrdway together.
“That would destroy much of its arcane wholesomeness,” Cutt explained.
“Then I’m damned well having condiments,” Lord Ermenwyr decided. “Smith, can you get me pepper and salt and a lemon?”
“Right,” said Smith, and fled.
At least the sorcerous duel seemed to have passed unnoticed by anyone else, though Bellows gave him an inquiring look as he raced back from the kitchen with the condiments Lord Ermenwyr had requested. He just rolled his eyes in reply and hurried back upstairs.
When he reentered the suite, Blichbiss’s body had been laid out on the dissecting table, and Lord Ermenwyr was attempting to wrench open the waistcoat and dress shirt.
“He shouldn’t be exhibiting rigor mortis this early,” he was complaining. “Unless that’s the effect of the spell. Hello, Smith, just set those down anywhere. Damn him, these buttons have melted!”
“Rip it open,” Lord Eyrdway suggested.
“Tear apart your vanquished enemy,” Cutt counseled. “Slash into his flesh and seize the smoking liver in your mighty teeth! Wrest it forth and devour it, as his soul wails and wrings its hands, and let his blood run from your beard!”
“I don’t think I’m quite up to that, actually,” said Lord Ermenwyr, sweating. He cut the garments apart, laid open Blichbiss with a quick swipe of a knife, and peered at the liver in question. “Oh, gods, it looks vile.”
“You didn’t mind slicing up Coppercut,” Smith remarked.
“Autopsying people is one thing. Eating them’s quite another,” said Lord Ermenwyr, gingerly cutting the liver out. “Eek, damn—look, now it’s got on my shirt, that stain’ll never come out. Hand me that plate, Smith.”
Smith, deciding he would never understand demons, obliged. Lord Ermenwyr laid Blichbiss’s liver out on the plate and began cutting it up, turning his face away. “Oh, the smell—Did you bring a juicer with that lemon, Smith? I’ll never be able to keep this down—”
“What are you doing?” said Lord Eyrdway, looking on scandalized.
“I’m fixing Liver Tartare, or I’m not eating this thing at all,” his brother snarled. “And the rest of you can just get those offended looks off your faces. Smith, you’d better go before you pass out.”
Smith left gratefully.
He went downstairs, where Old Smith and New Smith were dozing in a booth, and woke them and sent them off to bed. Then he fixed himself a drink and sat alone in the darkened bar, sipping his drink slowly, reviewing the events of the last two days.
When he heard Mrs. Smith returning with Crucible and Pinion, he emerged from the bar. “How did it go?” he inquired.
Crucible and Pinion, who were staggering slightly, threw their fists into the air and gave warrior grunts of victory. Mrs. Smith held up her gold medal.
“A triumph,” she said quietly. She looked into Smith’s eyes. “Boys, I think you’d best go to bed.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Pinion thickly, and he and Crucible staggered away.
“Why don’t we go talk in the kitchen?” Mrs. Smith suggested. She started down the passageway, and Smith followed, carrying his drink.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Smith removed her medal and hung it above the stove. She considered it a moment before turning and drawing out a chair. She draped her gown’s train over one arm and sat down; and, with leisurely movements, took out and filled her smoking tube.
“A light, please, Smith,” she requested.
He lit a straw at the stove, digging in the banked coals, and held it out for her. She puffed until the amberleaf lit and sat back.
“Well?” she said.
“How would I get hold of a bloatfish liver, if I wanted one?” Smith asked her.
“Simple,” said Mrs. Smith. “You’d just walk down to the waterfront when the fishermen were sorting through their catches, before the fish-market dealers got there. You’d find a fisherman and ask if he had any nice live bloatfish. You might play the foolish old woman, a bit. And you’d listen very carefully when the fisherman told you how to filet the fish once you’d got it home, and thank him for his warning about the nasty liver. Then you’d carry the bloatfish home in a pail.