Most of his money was gone before ten
When he smiled, and took out his knife.
"All right," he said, "we'll just try once again.
But this time, we'll play for your life."
"THE GYPSY"
The fog still rested on the city like a coachman's blanket,and the Gypsy decided that there was something at work beyond the capricious ways of the weather. Yet he smelled nothing of evil in it, nor of good for that matter.Smatter. Sohat could lead him to the Wolf, and at the right time? What could lead him to his brothers?His hands twitched, and he thought he could remember a time when he would have been able to learn such a thing easily, and perhaps another time when he would simply have known. He felt a slight desire to escape, to run away, to walk by paths that only he knew. The desire wasn't strong, but it was familiar. He knew, then, that he had not only felt it before, but had acted upon it. He had turned away and run, and-
His head hurt. He took out the piece of paper,which he understood at last, and crumpled it up and threw it away. To clear his head, he breathed deeply of the fog. Even as he did so, he heard the siren-the siren that had followed him for all this time, and seemed to warn of danger impending rather than to call him toward it.
He turned in the opposite direction and began walking. The fog swirled before him, making patterns that amused him although he knew-he knew they were meaningless. What an odd thing to know, he thought.thought.Are there patterns in the fog that do have meaning?
Then he nodded to himself. Yes. This is the magic of the day, and this is a day of magic. He reached out his hands, to take hold of the power that floated in the air around him, and-"You must do this no more…use the skills of another world in this one."
Very well, then. But this world must have its own power and skills. He could find and use them, and he would, because he was-
He was-
No.
He gathered his memories as a child gathers spilled marbles. No distractions, not now, when he had, perhaps, the chance to do something.
He was here, in the city, in the forest of walls, the ocean of lights, the wilderness of sounds, meadows of currents and tides of forces beyond the imaginings of the old gods. Light? Moving, twin beams stabbing through the streets, eyes to peer and a voice to warn,Walls? Endless, one leading to another, all of them high and eternal and shimmering. Sound? The siren was gone now, but something rumbled under his feet,and music came from nowhere and everywhere, and it was the voice of the Beast. And the streets which linked them, forming a mosaic as intricate as the veins on an oak leaf, each different, each the same.
Pick one.
Light, then, to guide him through the eternal day.
This one, the glow of a storefront office that advertised daily employment, led to that one, the eyes of a panel truck, which pointed to that one, the neon of a barbecue lunch counter.
And on and on, and faster and faster, as beautiful and terrible as the Fair Lady's kiss, which he had known once, as well.
All your hungers there to sate
All your thirsts to slake
Look what you've been given,
You can't see what she'll take.
"THE FAIR LADY"
The sound of the spinning wheel in the next room is constant,and has been for a timeless time when the Fair Lady puts down Her knitting and removes Her feet from the fire. The liderc,which has been chewing on its goose leg, looks up. The midwife stops her song, which she sings to her own newborn babe that she killed, and she also looks up. The nora, which has been playing with its genitals in the corner, hobbles over as well.
"The Wolf is on the scent, " She announces. "And the Dove is taking to the air."
"What shall we do. Mistress?" says the liderc, in a voice that sounds like the hiss and pop of the fire in which the Fair Lady has been roasting Her feet.
"Well, you must get onto the track of the Wolf and sour the trail. You may let him follow you back here if you wish,but don't let him catch you or you'll be eaten."
"Yes, Mistress," and it leaves through the door.
"You," She continues to the nora, "must see to it that the Wolf is kept busy with other things. Go fetch me its cub."
"Yes, Mistress," and the nora leaves through the window.
"What about me. Mistress?" says the midwife.
"You must sing a song to catch a Dove by the wing."
"Yes, Mistress. Of what shall I sing?"
"Sing of cages that look like feather beds, and blood that smells like apple blossoms."
"Yes, Mistress. How loud shall I sing?"
"Sing so loud the nests shake in their trees, but not so loud the wolves howl in the hills."
"Yes, Mistress. How long shall I sing?"
"Sing until the snow falls up from the ground, but stop before the first note reaches your ear."
"Yes, Mistress," says the midwife, and she puts her face near the fireplace flue and begins to sing.
Keep them hounds off my trail,
And them jailers off my back.
Get these bracelets off of me,
A little rain to hide my track.
"HIDE MY TRACK"
He was very comfortable, except that something was jabbing him in the back of the head. He was warm,cuddled up in a blanket tucked all the way up to his chin, but a cool breeze was blowing against his face. He shifted, trying to move his head away from whatever was poking him, and remembered that he'd been hit; then he sat up, struggling to get his gun out of the holster he was half sitting on.
"Sit still!" hissed Madam Moria. "Do you think this is easy?"
Stepovich ignored her, twisting to stare wildly around him. He shook his head, trying to clear it of fogs, but the mist swirling and eddying around the coach and in through the open windows was real. So was the good calfskin upholstery under him, and the bright brass catches and handles and trims of the coach, and the brocaded lining of the coach's ceiling.ceiling.Aed coach blanket was tucked around him,with a large M embroidered in one corner. Nothing remained of the small park carriage he had jumped into. Nothing.
There was a small window facing forward, with a leather cover flap undone, and through it he could get a glimpse of the Coachman up on his box. Stepovich swayed with a sudden wooziness that was only part pain. He gripped the sill of the open window beside him, thrust his head out. Forward, he could see the dim shapes of dark horses, four perhaps,shrouded in fog. Around the coach, nothing. He could see no buildings, no lampposts, no parking meters, nothing. Stepovich had a sensation of movement, but it was a nasty, queasy sort of movement,as if the coach wobbled forward on wheels of Jell-O.There O. Theresound of hooves hitting pavement, no sound of wheels on asphalt. No normal sound at all,only the wind and Madam Moria's muttering, and other voices, giggling and gibbering at the very limits of Stepovich's hearing. "Stop the coach!" Stepovich roared, but the fog gulped his voice down whole, reducing his command to a pitiful plea.
"We're nearly there," Madam Moria said comfortingly.
"Nearly where?" Stepovich demanded. She ignored him, and went on with her muttering as she fingered something he could not see, for all the world like an old woman telling her rosary beads. He reached up to feel the lump on the back of his head.Wethead. Wet lump. It made him feel sick. Serve her right if he puked all over both of them. He knew he should be taking control of the situation; a good cop would have this situation completely under control.control.Heed the strap on his holster, but Madam Moria shot him a fierce glare.