"Perhaps I was insufficiently generous. Should I throw in some silage? I've got excellent connections for some prime alfalfa mixed with clover."
Esme tugged Will's sleeve and, when he bent down to the level of her mouth, whispered. "I smell something burning."
Now Will did. too. Craning his neck about, he saw a wisp of smoke rising from the mound of papers on the table. "Um..." The others were arguing furiously. He waved his hand in the air. "I think we've got a problem, here." With a whoosh, the papers burst into flames.
The man bulls reared up in alarm. Simultaneously, Nat shouted, "Look out!" and lunged at the table, whacking at the fire with his hat. His wild efforts, however, managed only to knock the burning papers onto the file-crammed cardboard boxes behind the table.
The fire spread.
A smoke alarm went off. The apes screeched and leaped from table to filing cabinet and back, kicking piles of forms onto the floor in their animal panic. The man-bulls stumbled blindly about the room, flapping their wings noisily. In the sudden confusion, Will almost missed seeing Nat slip out the rear.
Will snatched up his passport, seized Esme's hand, and followed after, unobserved. Only at the last instant did he remember to close the door softly behind him.
Nat was already down to the end of the hall, where two bronze doors were sliding open. He ducked into a freight elevator and hit a button. "Wait for us!" Will cried—but softly. Lest he be heard back in room 102. He and Esme jumped into the elevator, the doors closed, and they began to descend. Nat reached out to hug them both. "Oh, children!" he gasped. "Was that fun or what?"
"You're completely mad," Will said angrily. "There was no reason to travel on forged papers—they were giving them away at Oberon. Now we're illegal, undocumented, and guilty of who knows how many crimes?"
"We had a good laugh. That's worth a lot."
"To say nothing of losing our luggage."
Nat flung out his arms. "And what a relief to not have all that baggage to carry around!"
The elevator opened into a drab foyer. They pushed through the swinging doors and stood outside on the sidewalk, blinking at a street paved with blue glazed bricks as mastodons in red-and-orange livery lumbered past, followed by camels, bagpipers, kettle drummers, and a brace of serpent blowers playing a Sousa march. Esme clapped her hands. "It's a parade!" Nymphs danced naked behind the musicians, ivy woven through their hair and about their horns, short goat tails bobbing. Poldies, haints, and hytersprites darted from sidewalk to sidewalk waving long silk pennants, and swan-mays turned somersaults in the air above. Here was splendor greater than anything Will had ever imagined, and it extended down the street in either direction as far as the eye could see. "What's all this about?" he asked.
Nat shrugged. "It's always something. A festival or an election campaign, it hardly matters. When you live in the big city, you just have to put up with it." He seized Esme's hand and began striding briskly down the avenue.
The city dazzled Will. It was in equal measures exhilarating and terrifying. Forget the stilt walkers, bell ringers, and sprites with hair aflame tumbling past — he didn't recognize half the races he saw watching the parade from the sidewalk. Also, there were costumed paraders, their part already done, returning down the sidewalk with painted faces and cans of beer in their hands, and viewers who had daubed themselves with blood or dressed for the occasion in seven-league hats and pink feather boas, so that he could not make out who properly belonged to the procession and who did not. It was as if all Babel were one great celebration.
Will wanted to be a part of that celebration — without, he was beginning to think, the inconvenient and troublesome presence of Nat Whilk.
"Why is your hand twitching?" Esme asked.
Will looked down in surprise. His hand was moving with a life of its own. Now both his hands rose up before his face, and the one urgently traced out letters on the palm of the other. There was a T, an H, an E, a Y, and an R and an E... "They're coming." Will read.
"Who's coming?" Nat said.
L - A - N - C... 'Lancers."
A company of mounted soldiers burst through the double doors of the building they themselves had earlier emerged from. They had to duck to get through, and once out they straightened and clattered to a halt. Their high-elven leader stared up and down the street. Will felt an almost tangible thrill when their eyes met. Then the commander gestured with his saber — straight at Will.
"Soldiers!" Esme said happily. "Shit." Will added.
The soldiers formed ranks, then lowered their lances to clear the walk before them. At a barked order from their commander, they started forward at a light canter. The crowds parted with alacrity. Their leader, who alone among them did not carry a lance, lifted his hand. A bright light shone from his palm and his lips moved in incantation. Will felt his limbs growing heavy, the air thickening about him.
"Don't panic." Nat said. "I have a cantrip worth two of his."
His hand darted into his jacket and emerged with a wad of dollar bills held together with a rubber band. He cocked his arm as if he were holding a hand grenade, and then, snapping the rubber band with his thumb, flung the lot into the air.
At the top of his voice, he yelled. "Money!"
Pandemonium.
The parade broke up as the marchers converged to snatch at the bills floating down upon them. Those already on the sidewalk fought for space. Dwarves scurried about on all fours, scavenging the bills that had evaded capture on their way down. And the lancers came to a disorganized halt as the mob surged around them. Some, indeed, had to struggle to keep from being pulled from their mounts.
"Follow me." Nat sped down an alley and ran to its end. A trolley rattled by with a clang of its bell and a blue spark of electricity, and he raced across the tracks. Puffing, because he carried Esme on his back, Will managed to catch up just as Nat ducked down a stairway. He set Esme on her feet and they clattered down in his wake.
At the bottom of the stairs was a public elevator platform. They vaulted the turnstiles and squeezed into the Downtown express.
They emerged in the Lower East Side, a neighborhood that was sunken in a twilight gloom, though outside it was brightest midday. Its streetlights were on, and if they were on now, then surely they were never turned off. The buildings to one side of the street were conventional brownstones but those on the other looked to have been carved from raw stone. "In here," Nat said, and ducked down a dingy stairway under a neon sign reading THE DUCHESS'S HOLE.
The saloon smelled of stale beer. Two video poker machines sat unattended in the empty room, flashing and chuckling to themselves. The walls were roughly dressed stone painted black and hung with neon beer signs and framed posters of Jack Dempsey and Muhammad Ali. A silent TV hung in one comer.
Behind the bar — indeed, tilling up almost the entire space behind the bar — sat an enormous toad. She was heavy lidded and thick lipped, with vast, soft, waggling chins, bulging eyes, and an expression that went beyond mere skepticism into outright disdain. One corner of her tremendous mouth twisted upward and she said. "Help you, gents?"