Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [119]
The reconstitution of all those things happened so quickly that I hadn't had time to be surprised at these revelations before I was being surprised at the reappearance of the gold and pearls and jewels.
…/so worm that hides a hook.
There's a point in every case gone sour when the finder knows he's being had. I'd reached that point. A pearl with the magical might of an ancient wyrm… a woman known to use magic to make her look younger… to use magic to make an impossible lagoon in the heart of a blizzard… cow pies for tenderloin and goblins for chefs… Oh, yes, it was all coming far too clear now. In a flash, I saw through the whole charade, saw why a woman would use a dragon-enchanted emerald to create a magical pleasure dome atop the most forbidding of mountains.
"C'mon, Filson," I said, gesturing him to follow me. "This is the point when we go grille the boss."
The urchin's hands closed over the jewels, and they disappeared into his pockets. I didn't care. Not about his petty larcenyrnor about our explosive emergence out the in-door, which startled back a crew of servers who'd come to check out the commotion. My young charge and I shoved past them, bold and self-righteous, and strode out into the wide dining hall. All around us, patrons chattered nervously, trying to cover a multitude of social blunders caused by the lapse of their magical enhancements. It was no use: they were all about to be embarrassed all over again.
Another lapse. Suddenly, the huge, elegant room was gone, replaced in a flash by a cold, breezy barn backed up against a yawning cave mouth. The tables had become long troughs; the delicacies straw and dung and dirt clods; the guests scabby old hags, grotesquely fat men with rashes around their mouths, acne-pocked wretches, greasy-haired baboons, toad-people covered in oozy boils, haggard and hairy and naked cavemen, filthy-jowled pigs… The menagerie-the best of which belonged in a barn and the worst of which belonged in a priest-sealed grave-chattered on with its same squawking gossip. Now, though, the salacious words and chuckles and winks were animalistic yawps and grunts and scratchings.
It was over, again. I reeled, feeling as delirious as before, though knowing now it was not I but the Stranded Tern that was deluded. I only hoped that the pleasant illusory surroundings would remain in 'place until I found Olivia. I had no desire to stumble through breezy barns and black cave mouths and cold snow and ramshackle shacks. Yes, shacks-I now understood what I was dealing with.
I didn't have to look long for Olivia; I literally ran into her on a blind corner of the soaring great room. Apparently, she had been looking for me. Her lovely face was red, whether with exertion or anger.
"There you are!" she shouted. "What am I paying you for? Find the culprit!"
I had reached a pique myself, and it felt delicious to indulge it. "I have. You are the first among many culprits."
"What?" she barked, enraged.
"Yes, madam. You are serving those guests of yours cow droppings instead of tenderloin, algae instead of caviar, worms instead of noodles. Your hammer-beamed dining hall is a drafty, stinky barn, and your pearlescent great room is a filthy, awful cavern."
"And whose fault is that?" shrieked Olivia. I'd not expected that tack, and the shock of it shut me up. "I have promised them the finest accommodations, and that is what I have magically provided. Yes, magically. And cow pies transformed by the pearl are tenderloins. These temporary shortfalls are your problem. The feces laid before my guests are your responsibility."
I was surprised, yes, but guilty? No. "So you thought that one magic rock could transform an isolated mountain village of goblins into an opulent spa for the wealthy and powerful…?"