Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts 10: “Men will pay much to remember that they were once brutes.”

Jake pulled out yet another gizmo and held it out. It looked like a compass, but I knew that compasses don't work in Nightmare. No magnetic fields. Whatever Jake's gizmo detected, it pointed down the hallway to the right. Jake put it back and headed down that way.

“How many pockets you got in that coat, anyway?” I asked him.

“Enough,” he said quietly. “Less chatter, okay?”

I shrugged and followed him. He was slinking down the hallway like a burglar in a cheap melodrama—if there had been a piano available I would have played him a mysterioso. Me, I just walked normally. If there were morauxe down here they would smell us.

We hit two cross corridors and both times Jake checked his not-compass and we kept going straight. There was light from ahead, flickering like firelight. Jake slowed even more and he had his gun out again, held down beside his leg. It was a big pistol, I saw. I didn't know anything about guns, but it certainly looked dangerous. I hoped that Jake knew how to use it and wouldn't shoot me by accident.

The walls had changed from bone to rock, I saw, and wasn't surprised that the hallway we were in opened into a large, torch-lit cavern. In the middle of the space was the iron cage that I had seen on my last visit. I couldn't see if Karin was still in it because there were four morauxe in the room, standing front of the cage.

The one in front was a big ugly thing, some kind of a reptile. He was wearing an absurd suit, trousers and vest of black with pale blue pinstripes, no shirt, knee-high riding boots, and carried a gold-handled walking stick.

The three behind him were mammals. To the left was a tiger-woman, lean and lethal looking, in a complicated suit of leather armor studded with metal spikes. Her face and body were both very human, but covered with sleek orange and black fur. She wore thin short swords on each hip.

The one in the middle was grossly fat, with a pig's head, and dressed in farmer's overalls and a butcher's apron.

To the right was a bent, thin figure, wrapped in layers of cloth, shawls and scarfs and over it all a cloak of a deep, muddy red, like it had been dyed in blood. Her hands were withered and wrinkled, like an old woman's, and she had the head of a wolf, her muzzle gray with age.

Jake strode into the room, gun in hand, and announced, “I don't want any trouble. Stand aside.”

The lizard turned his pointed snout to regard Jake through one very human looking eye. He paused for a long moment, then took a few steps to one side. Behind him the big pig did likewise.

Karin was in the cage, lying still. It looked as if she hadn't moved at all since I'd seen her last.

Jake stood another step. “She's coming with me.”

From the back the old wolf-woman cackled.

The lizard shook his head. “She stays.”

Jake lifted his gun. He wasn't pointing it anyone directly, just drawing attention to it.

The tiger-woman spoke. “We will grant your danegeld to depart. Yet the child stays.”

Jake looked over at her. “What is your price for letting her go?”

All four morauxe stared at him then.

I sighed. Jake really didn't know anything. “That's not what she's saying,” I explained. “She's offering to pay you to leave without violence.”

Jake shook his head. “I don't care—”

I cut him off, raising my voice. “Yes, you do.”

He spared me a sharp glance, then looked quickly back to the lizard, who hadn't moved.

“Jake, listen to me,” I went on quickly. “You entered their city, with a weapon. That makes you the aggressor here. They are willing to negotiate. You have to listen. You don't have to take anything that they offer, but if you take it you have to leave peacefully.”

“I'm not leaving without Karin,” Jake insisted.

He wasn't getting it. “Right,” I said slowly. “And Karin's off the table—she just said so. But you still have to hear them out. If you refuse an offer of danegeld you're insulting the Grimm.”

A wry look. “A worse insult than stealing from him?”

“Yes,” I hissed. “A lot worse. Breaking the laws of engagement could be considered an act of terrorism. You could start a war between Nivose and the Midwold.”

That earned me another look. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” I told him. “Relax. Neither side will engage in hostilities until the danegeld is offered and refused. Put your gun away.”

Jake still looked doubtful, but he holstered his pistol and turned back to the lizard-man. “Make your offer, Sir. I will listen and judge it on its merits.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was almost diplomatic.

The old wolf-woman came forward first. She had produced a small wicker basket from somewhere inside her robes and she reached inside and came up with package wrapped in a handkerchief. She unwrapped it and held it up. There was a brick of something dark, like a bar of chocolate the size of a paperback book. I recognized the thick, musky odor at once, although I'd never seen so much of it at once before.

“Do you know what this is, magus?” the wolf asked.

“Suppose you tell me,” Jake replied, making no move to touch the brick.

“It is savagery,” the wolf said. “It is the essence of the beast. A sliver of this will make a man forget that he is a man and remember the night and the forest and the hunt. It gives you the eyes of a hawk and the nose of a fox and the ears of a hare. It awakens the blood and sharpens the mind. Men will pay much to remember that they were once brutes.”

That part was true enough. That much tigerberry had to be worth at least a couple of grand on the streets. It was darker that the stuff I usually saw, and I suspected it was uncut. Not a fortune, but not an insignificant chunk of change, either.

Jake bowed. “I thank you for the thought, Madam, but I must decline.”

The old wolf nodded back, as if she had expected that answer, wrapped the brick and pit it back in her basket. Before she stepped back she gave me a curious look, like she knew me and was trying to remember where she had seen me before. I gave her a bland smile in return.

The pig came up next. He pulled something metallic out from under his apron and Jake flinched, but didn't draw his pistol. The thing that the pig displayed didn't look like a weapon. It looked like three pocket-watches chained together. He held it out to Jake, looking like a merchant in the bazaar.

“See what I have here?” the pig said, his voice wheedling, like he was talking to a child. “This is from Ferose, from the workshop of Xor the Silent One. The first dial measures—” the pig spoke haltingly, as if reciting words he'd memorized from an old book “—omnivalent thaumic flux. The second dial indicates the direction and strength of lines of energy flow, color coded by type. And the third is set to show the presence of all primary alchemical elements. Quite the tool for a wizard such as yourself, good sir, and far more sensitive and accurate than any device you'll find in the Midworld.”

The pig folded the three dials into a single package not much larger than a regular watch. “And quite compact as well. You cannot purchase such a wondrous device for mere money—the Lord of Ferose grants such things as gifts for his favored own, as I am sure a man like you knows.”

Jake shook his head. “Thank you, but no. I'll stick with the tools of my own world.”

The pig stashed the gizmo back under his apron and shrugged, like huckster admitting that his pitch wasn't working.

The tigress stalked forward next. She was long and lean and moved with a sensual grace, slowly, looking Jake up and down as she came. Her eyes were large and dark and she smoldered.

“Have you ever been to Verdemaire, traveler?” she asked. Her voice was husky.

Without giving Jake time to answer she went on. “I have. I have spent long hours in the Garden called Heart's Desire, learning from the subjects of Queen Heget the Voluptuous. Shall I show you what I have learned, traveler? There need not be strife between us. Come, let us set aside our weapons, our—” she breathed deeply and toyed with the laces of her bodice, “—armor.”

She smiled. Her teeth were very white and very sharp. A cat's teeth. “I assure you that while I am not human I am—in all ways—a woman. Surely you have wondered what it would be like to know the touch of wild and untamed thing? Let me satisfy—” she drew the word out and licked her lips, “—your curiosity.”

Jake just stared at her. He was blushing. At last he said, “My dear lady, I am a married man, and as lovely as you are, I must decline.”

She gave Jake one last lingering smokey glance, then stepped back, her hips swaying.

“A married man,” the cold voice was mocking. Then, “Perhaps something for the little lady?”

Jake snapped his attention back to the reptile who was leaning on his cane and grinning with far too many teeth. He reached a long spidery hand into his vest pocket and came out with two items. One was a pair of eyeglasses, pince-nez style, with lenses that shown with an odd rainbow refraction. The other was a tiny statuette, scarcely the size of the lizard-man's thumb, of a golden grasshopper.

“This is the work of the clever chigoes of far, exotic Ventose. One wears the glasses, of course, and then one can see through these tiny crystal eyes of the grasshopper. I'm sure that you can imagine the, uh,” again that wide grin, “...domestic applications.”

“I decline,” Jake snapped.

“Oh, but hear me out, good magus,” the lizard continued. “observe how small the trinket is. Why, one could place it on any shelf and have no worries that it would be, uh, detected. And unlike your—I speak of Midworlders, you understand—spells of remote viewing, these devices require no effort on the part of the viewer.”

Jake raised his gun, pointed it at the lizard's head. “I said that I decline.”

The lizard went on as if Jake hadn't spoken. “Which, of course, means that the viewer is free to direct all of his attention to, uh, enjoying the view.”

“Shut up,” Jake said.

“Ohhhh,” the lizard said, mockingly, with a glance to me. “He doesn't know, does he? He doesn't know that you always observed when he and Marji were—”

“Not another word,” Jake shouted.

“—fucking,” the lizard finished, his eyes locked on Jake's.

Jake shot him in the face.

Well. Thus concluded the negotiations.

The pig was ready and he launched himself at Jake, the two of them going down in a heap, Jake's gun going off clattering away into the corner of the cavern. I headed towards it and the tiger-woman leapt and landed in front of me, drawing both swords. I stopped and raised my hands.

“Hey,” I said, “remember 'there need not be strife between us'?”

“You are free to run,” she said contemptuously. She didn't look nearly as attractive as she had a few minutes ago.

Behind me Jake and the pig were rolling on the floor and grunting. I wasn't sure where the old wolf-woman was.

“Can't do that,” I said. “Jake's my friend, and I don't want you sticking him with those things.”

She swung both blades through some flashy kind of move. “Then I'll stick you first, and then him.”

I backed up a step and saw the lizard's cane lying on the ground. I got one foot under it, kicked it up, and caught it. It wasn't as impressive as her bit with the knives, but I had a stick in my hands now. Felt like good, stout wood, and there was a heavy metal ball on the end.

“I'd really rather you didn't,” I said, “Let's keep calm and—”

She lunged, extending the sword in her right hand and holding the other close to her side, like it was a very skinny shield. I knocked her thrust away with the cane and tried to smack her hand, but she dodged my swing and got her sword back in line and sliced at my head and I just barely deflected the cut. The damned cane was heavy and slow. A solid hit with the end might break bones, but against the tiger's blades I wasn't likely to get a solid hit in.

She cut with her left, which I figured was a feint so I swung for her right hand, but the left wasn't a feint and she stuck me good, on my side, about midway between my hip and my ribs, where there isn't any bone in the way.

It hurt like a son of a bitch. I really didn't like her now.

She grinned nastily and flicked the blade so that my blood splattered on the floor. While she was gloating I gave her a backhand swing with the cane which made her jerk back, surprised, but didn't connect.

She whipped a shaky right in my direction that I was able to dodge fairly easily. Her eyes narrowed. She thrust with her left, I knocked that down with the cane, then she thrust with her right and got me again, in the leg. She leaned on the blade and I felt it go deep and grate against the bone. I swung the cane up and actually connected this time, a weak blow on the rib cage, but it was a hit. She jerked the blade out of my leg—which hurt worse than when it went in—and hopped back to hold both blades up in some kind of defensive position, watching me.

My pants were now soaked with blood on both sides. I lifted the cane and swung it at her face, then dropped my swing and caught her nice and solid in the chest. She reacted in anger, jumping forward and swinging with both blades. I got out of the way of her right, but her left got me on the shoulder. Those blades weren't heavy enough to chop through bone, but it tore my muscle up good. Now my whole left side was covered with blood.

I grinned at her and twirled the cane. I didn't want to do anything too fancy because my left hand was bloody and I didn't want to drop the cane, but I got my message across. She retreated a step.

“Who are you?” she asked softly.

“My name's Sam,” I said. “What's yours?”

Then I jumped her, fast and hard. I felt one of her blades go straight into my belly but I kept moving, the little sword sharp enough that my guts offered it almost no resistance. I got her on the side of the head with the ball on the end of the cane, hard enough that I felt her skull bones crack and she went limp, dropping her swords. I pulled the one out of my stomach, slicing my palm in the process, and dropped it next to her body.

It takes more than a couple of cuts to stop a Knight of Hell.

Jake was still wrestling with the big pig man. Neither of them looked badly injured, they were both beefy enough to soak up a lot of punches. I looked around. The old wolf-woman was gone. She'd probably left as soon as the shooting started. I walked over to look for Jake's gun.

By the time I found it I was healed up, except for some soreness in my guts, but I knew I looked like someone had used me to mop a slaughterhouse. The tiger was lying still but breathing. I gave her room when I walked past, just in case she was playing possum.

Jake was on top and pounding the pig's head on the stone floor.

“Let's get Karin and get out of here,” I suggested.

Jake seemed to realize that the pig wasn't fighting back any more. He got up slowly and painfully. He was going to have some spectacular bruises, I could tell. I held out my hand to help him up and he froze, staring at me.

“Sam...” he breathed.

“I'm fine,” told him. “It looks worse than it is.”

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “You need a hospital.”

I didn't need a hospital, but as long as it got him moving I was willing to let him keep believing that.

“Come on,” I said, pulling him to his feet and pushing him in the direction of Karin's cage. He was limping a little, but still trying to get me to lean on him, which was touching, if misguided. I was just fine, he was the one who would take weeks to heal.

We got to the cage. I hadn't gotten a good look at it when I was here before and I was happy to see that it wasn't locked. I lifted the latch and climbed inside, Jake grunting a bit as he bent to follow me. Karin slept on. Jake didn't try to wake her, he just reached into one of his pockets and fumbled around.

There was a brilliant flash of red light and we were standing back in the lab at the power plant.