The entire square was filled with villagers, young and old, all decked out in medieval dress. It looked like a renaissance fair, only without the funnel cakes and ATM machines labeled Queen’s Treasury. Only about half of them carried magic staffs with lit lux crystals, but that didn’t mean the other half were harmless. Even the smallest child here was capable of casting at least some rudimentary spells. Both Devona and Lazlo were strong enough to break free from the ropes binding them if they wished, but they knew they couldn’t hope to escape from this many Arcane, and so they simply remained where they were while the children stacked the fuel for a good old-fashioned stake-burning at their feet.
The Elders stood at the base of the dais, and I caught the portly one’s eye.
“Why don’t I get any wood? You people have something against the smell of burning zombies?”
“Don’t answer him, Zorian,” said the Elder standing to the portly man’s right, a tall middle-aged woman with her graying brunette hair tied up in a bun. “He’s not worth the breath it would take to speak to him.”
I almost fired off a witty comeback, but I noticed something odd about the woman’s face. I looked at her more closely, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what was bothering me about her. I examined her fellow Elders, and then I turned my head as far as I could-given that I was tied to a stake-and gazed upon asmany of the good folk of Merrowvale as I could. And when I was finished, I smiled to myself. These people had a secret, and they weren’t hiding it very well. But I decided to keep that to myself for the moment.
“Hush, Gizane,” said the third Elder, a tall beefy man with a neatly trimmed brown beard who looked as if he would have made a hell of a quarterback on Earth. “Let Zorian have some fun. After all, it is Descension Day.” He grinned at me, a savage gleam in his eyes. He reminded me of a mean little boy who’d caught a trio of insects and couldn’t wait to start tearing their legs off.
Zorian nodded to the other man. “Thank you, Ortzi.” Then the warlock turned to me. “We have no intention of burning you, Mr. Richter. Our Lady wants you all for herself, and we’d be poor subjects indeed if we kept the pleasure of destroying you for ourselves.”
A scattering of laughter passed through the crowd, but it was more dutiful than enthusiastic.
“She’s en route now,” Ortizi said. “She’s coming here personally to claim you, though to be honest we’re not sure whether she’ll destroy you on the spot or take you back to Woodhome and save you for after the Renewal Ceremony. Me, I’m hoping for on the spot. I’d love to see the Lady in action.”
“That would be a treat,” Gizane admitted.
“Once her avatar forced the three of you off the road, she mentally contacted the three of us,” Zorian said, “and we-along with a few of the more powerful members of our village-went out to find you and escort you back to Merrowvale. Our orders are to hold you here until Talaith arrives, Mr. Richter.”
Ortzi grinned. “But she told as that as a reward for our service, we can do anything we like to your two friends. So we’re going to burn them alive at the stake-while you watch, helpless to save them. Won’t that be just awful?”
The children finished piling up the wood, and they stepped off the dais and returned to their parents. Ortzi’s lux crystal began to glow orange and flames flickered to life around it. The warlock made no move to step forward and touch the flaming tip of his staff to the wood yet. He wanted to make this last as long as he could.
“Uh, Matt?” Lazlo said, his bulbous demon eyes transfixed by the fire atop Ortzi’s staff. “If you have any brilliant ideas, now would be an excellent time to implement them.”
“Don’t worry,” Devona said. “He’ll think of something.”
The simple confidence in her voice was both heartwarming and heart-breaking. I did have an idea, but if it was going to have any chance of working, I had to stall just a bit longer, to give Talaith time to get closer to Merrowvale.
“Out of curiosity,” I said, “how’s Talaith traveling here? Broom? Magic carpet? A pair of ruby slippers?”
The three Elders only glared at me, and someone in the crowd shouted out, “Quit talking and light the goddamned fires!”
I decided I’d better move on to something else, and quickly. “All right, forget that. But tell me this: just how close to the Bridge of Lost Souls were we when Talaith’s avatar knocked us off the Obsidian Way?” When none of the Elders responded right away, I added, “Come on…you’ll just make us more miserable by telling us.” When they continued to hesitate, I said, “You know, if Talaith were here she’d tell me…Now there’s a woman who really knows how to torment a man-and not in the good way.”
“Very well,” Zorian said. “You were less than a mile and a half from the Bridge.”
“You might have made it, too,” Gizane said, nodding toward Lazlo. “If that idiot demon was a better driver.”
“Too bad ugly-or body odor-doesn’t equate with driving skill,” Ortzi said. “Otherwise, he’d be qualified for the Grand Prix back on Earth.”
Lazlo ground his teeth, sending small sparks shooting out of the corners of his mouth. He glared at Ortzi, and from the way his muscles were bunched up, I knew my demonic friend was getting ready to burst his bonds and show the Elders what happens when someone insults his driving.
I couldn’t afford to stall any longer.
“Tell me something, Gizane. Where do you get your make-up?”
Gizane drew up the hood of her robe as if to hide her face and gave her fellow Elders a sideways glance.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, zombie.”
“I’m not criticizing,” I said. “It’s nicely understated-the eye shadow, the eyeliner, the rouge, the lipstick…all very natural-looking. And you, Ortzi. Your beard is a deep, rich brown, but the color is a slightly different shade than your hair, and you’ve got a significant amount of gray at your temples. A man’s beard usually goes gray before his hair. I suppose you imported the stuff you use to color it from Earth.”
Ortiz started to cover his beard with his hand, but then he must have realized he was only drawing attention to it and lowered his hand once more-though it looked like it took an effort for him to do so.
I turned to Zorian then. “And unless my dead eyes deceive me, I see a small flesh-colored hearing aid nestled in your right ear, Zorian. Another import, I take it?
Zorian glanced at his fellow Elders, and all three of them looked nervous as hell.
“I don’t understand, Matt,” Devona said. “Now that you’ve pointed out those things about them, I can see them all, but why would Arcane bother using mundane items like that? Wouldn’t they just use their magic to improve their appearance or repair their hearing?”
“I’m sure that’s what Talaith would prefer. But these three aren’t the only ones who prefer non-magical ways of solving problems-or just enjoying life. Take a good look at the crowd. You’ll see people wearing wrist-watches, talking on cell phones-the real thing, not handvoxes-texting on BlackBerrys, taking digital pictures and video of us…More than a few folks are listening to music on their iPods, and a number of the children are playing handheld videogames. And if you’ll look really close at that alley over there, you’ll see someone sitting on the ground typing furiously on a laptop. Probably blogging about our imminent demises. All of them are trying to hide their toys, but they’re doing a crappy job of it.”
Now the assembled villagers were starting to look nervous too.
“I still don’t get it, Matt,” Devona said. “Lots of people in Nekropolis use imported Earth technology, whether in its pure form or adapted somehow by dark magic. What’s the big deal?”