The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [54]
There was a clatter of horses' hooves outside the window. Urkhan peered down. He gave a little jump and whooped with delight.
"I'm coming! I'm coming, my love! Where shall we honeymoon? The Blue Mist Mountains or the Elysian coast? Oh, let it be the coast! We shall run barefoot across the bay and press our cheeks close to share the ocean-whisper of conch-shells! We shall tongue whelks drenched in lemon mouth-to-mouth as the sun draws down the jewelled night!" Urkhan performed a little dance, forgot about the shoes again and plummeted to the floor in a cacophony of jewellery. "Bugger!"
"Quick!" Paragrat cried, and leapt to his feet, dragging Ashura with him. "We mustn't be found here!" They scrambled down the stairs and out the back way, through the yard and into the alley.
"We'll meet at the Walking Eye," said Paragrat, "and plot our campaign. You go on. I have things to see to first."
Ashura nodded, still breathless from their flight, and set off down the road.
By mid-evening, half the district was packed into the inn. Master Paragrat sat by the serving hatch. A sympathetic serving wench kept a pewter tankard filled with mead for him. He drank in quick, desperate gulps, without pleasure. His great, tousled head was hung in shame. "Nothing," he slurred. "Not one cursed thing I can do." At his feet were the books he had brought with him to study ― manuals of arcane lore from which he had learned his craft ― fine books scribed by wise men, but all of them inadequate to the task of ridding the city of a psychokine.
Earlier that evening, Paragrat had explained to Ashura and Mother Runnell what had proved to be an insurmountable problem.
"It's easy enough saying, 'spell Trimghoul,' but no spell is instantaneous. Think: he can move things at will, can make them vanish ― pfut! ― or change them. As soon as he knows there's something up, he can rid himself of the source of enchantment. Meaning me. No, thank you. If on the other hand we use brute force, then I think we're all agreed Trimghoul is a spiteful shit. If you attacked him in sufficient numbers, and he knew he was finished, he wouldn't waste his limited powers on himself, oh no, he'd take those responsible with him to hell. He'd kill the city's oracles, most probably. And he may kill you, too," he said turning to Ashura, "or someone close to you. Foxtongue, say. Think about it."
Ashura thought about it. He didn't stop thinking about it.
Hours had passed since then. The inn was filled with disgruntled men and women. More and more of those women had to be helped into the back room, faint and ill from the attentions of Urkhan's chaffinch wards, and the men's tempers grew hot.
Mother Runnell sat atop the oak bar, turning her head this way and that, holding down the ugly mood of the place with an imperious frown.
At last, the events of the day ― and most of all this senseless, brooding inaction ― broke Ashura's patience. He left the inn, and while he walked towards his garret he racked his brains for some stratagem. Paragrat was right. Conventional magic was out of the question. And you couldn't attack Trimghoul with brute force, either ― he'd only kill innocents in his spite. Nor could you exactly sneak in to his house with a thin blade; at the first sight, or even snick, of a blade or wire or poison or anything else, he could remove it with barely conscious effort. Then woe betide the assassin!
Ashura glanced in at the shop windows as he walked. They were gaily decorated for Jape Day; it slowly dawned upon him that the yearly festival of tricks