Xan wondered if he could climb the stairs, find Garland, and trust the would-be pseudo-demon to wait. Probably the creature would go paddling off. Tired of mocking, Attorney scrambled along the lake’s edge and began to lick the walls. The soul was crammed in his fist, though one wisp feebly moved between his fingers. An image of Eva, handkerchief upraised, gathered in his thoughts — held itself whole for an instant and then shattered.
A blessed silence overshadowed the lake. The gaffer listened for the whip of wings but heard nothing; he felt that the hush wanted to tell him something. Slipping hand into pocket, his fingers closed over Garland’s apple.
“What kind of pie did you say?”
“Blackberry, gallberry, apricot — no, not a nasty apricot — but I loved my mother’s apple pie best of all. She was a cruel old witch, yet she knew how to pinch the pastry and roast the pies in her ovens. Bash my poor fingers with the rolling pin if I tried to snitch a little dangle of crust or a bead of hot syrup.” His face crumpled, as if he would cry, but the future Metacarrious shook off the urge with a quiver. He began to sing in a piping falsetto:
When he slavered, greenish strings of saliva splashed hissing into the waves, giving off an odor of rotten eggs.
The apple seemed strangely soft. Pulling it forth, Xan realized that the fruit had cooked in his pocket. So the lake’s temperature was definitely hotter than it seemed. All at once the Arkansas Black split, tears of sap sliding down the dark cheek onto his palm.
“Roasted apple. Would you swap your soul for an apple?”
Attorney blinked. “Adam a pock-picketing magician, is it? Is that the game? The demons put you up to playing tricks.”
“No, nothing like that. I just had the apple in my pocket. I got it from a friend.”
“A friend.” Attorney pondered. “Oh, yes, a friend. I remember friend. A rack with spikes for the broiler, was it?”
Xan didn’t answer. The spear point of pain under his shoulder blade widened. “I can put it back in my pocket.” He brought the apple to his nose and sniffed its fragrance. Nausea brushed up against him. “Or I can eat it myself. Maybe I should. Maybe you should keep your soul.”
“No, no — never that. I’ll trade. An unencumbered exchange of goods, mind.” He thrust the damaged soul into Xan’s free hand and reached for the apple.
“You’re sure, absolutely sure?” The gaffer wanted the struggling remnant but felt uneasy; perhaps such a swap might leave an inward scar.
“Yes, yes. This and not the ugly, ugly pants,” he caroled.
Xan let the piece of fruit fall into the long-nailed hands. Attorney glided onto the steep bank and began worrying the apple, licking and rolling and biting.
The game was finished. It was time to be gone.
Until the fire lapped neck deep, Xan walked in the waves. All the time he was tugging at his prize as he might a bit of glass reheated in the glory hole. As blue fire seared away the blackened frill, the soul began to expand under his fingers. The floor of the cave dropped away, and Xan began swimming swiftly toward the stone. When he reached the far side, he found that Attorney had not lied. His salamander girl was lashed to the rock, a torn strip of curtain between her lips. He tugged away the ropes and unstopped her mouth.
“What took you so long?” Hair flooded her pale shoulders; crackles of gold and saffron shone in the penny-colored eyes.
“You can talk!”
“The demon put words in my mouth.” Flinging her arms around Xan’s neck, she laughed with a sound like glass bells.
“Did he do anything — to hurt you?” He cradled her, the coppery hair spilling over his chest.
“Only the words, so much, all at once. that stung me. And Mullygrubbious will come flying back, lickety-cut, with a gang of demons. That’s what he said.”
They floated in the blue fire, and before he taught her how to swim, Xan gave her one long kiss — and something else.
“Open your mouth,” he said. When she did so, he pushed the gauzy soul inside and barred the way out with his fingers.
The first tears pooled in her eyes. She held on tight, and they rolled over the waves and the simple faces of the dead. Afterward Xan swam toward shore, towing the salamander girl while she fluttered her arms and legs to some little effect. When the surface fell to waist level, they began to wade. Soon they were skimming along in the shallows. As they fled up the steps, Attorney bellowed for the demons to come quickly and see his plumule of a tail. Xan flung the girl through the slit at the top of the stairs. They tumbled onto an island of ramps and bellwort, with curled sprouts of black cohosh snapping under their bodies.
“I’ll be.” There was the farmer, his sack almost full.
“Garland,” cried the girl. A single clear note of laughter sprang from her lips.
“Let’s go home,” Xan said, casting a backward glance at the rocks. “My lovely Salamandra needs a trout from the stream and some just-picked ramps for dinner.”
“She can talk!”
“Demon’s work. He forced words in her mouth.”
“You’re barefoot and half-naked.” Garland surveyed them and smiled. “The sun’s going down, so my wife will be worried. But I’ve got ramps.” He hoisted the fragrant bag to show his pickings. His sleeves were rolled up, the trousers stained green at the knees. With a flick of the wrist, he cast a handful of ramps into the crack in the earth.
“That’ll hold your sky blue friend a while — a whiff of the sweet incense of creation. And your Salamandra’s got a laugh that’s as sweet as a bell. It’ll make their ears itch.”
More than ever, Xan felt a liking for the older man, seeing him there in the dusk with a ramp tucked behind his ear.
“Garland, take a look at something, will you? Below the left shoulder blade. It feels as if an arrow point struck me there.” Ripples from a stone lobbed in a pool of flame, pain washed across his back.
The farmer touched him tentatively. “Hard to make out in this light, but it looks like a raggedy splotch of metal. Or a silver flame.”
“Or it might even be a curled salamander,” the girl offered, stroking the offending spot.
Xan shivered at the caress. “If that’s all,” he said, “let’s go.”
I must’ve missed a half inch of skin. A chink in the armor. He would find out soon enough whether the hurt was going to stay. If so, the goal had been worth the price. She was worth it. He knew how to live with a burn, because he had taken one often enough in his apprenticeship. “Chasing after beauty has a cost,” Russ had said, bringing an ice pack to hold against his skin.
Xan and Salamandra followed Garland’s footsteps to the road, where all three stopped to peer into the valley. The blue of day had been swallowed up. Night lamps in rural yards were already burning like fallen stars as the sunset flung up veils of persimmon and ruby. Here and there, clusters of silvery tin roofs on houses and country churches softly reflected the colors back. Slowly the sky became shadowy as strands of color altered to purple and green and cobalt with streaks and spatterings of gold. Spires and houses stood like a dream kingdom of glass in the valley.
The pain dimmed like a flame seen through a smoked lens.
“I want to learn the glass and the colors like you, Xan.” Salamandra slipped her hand in his. “And I want to see things that go with the words inside.”
“You’ll make a marvelous gaffer. We’ll make glass that no one’s ever seen before. Because the salamander’s blood is on me and in you.”