"Coming? Here? A visitor?"
"Indeed, yes, mistress."
"Well, who can it be?"
"A mortal, fair mistress. A Gypsy."
"But his name," She says gently. "Don't you know his name?"
"I do not, for he knows it not."
"Ah, well he may attend me then. "
"It shall be as you wish, most precious one, " says the liderc, and rushes to admit the visitor.
He stands before Her, and his black eyes reflect the firelight too, so that for a moment they seem to be kin, and She says, "Well, little boy, what is it you want of me?"
He says, "You have my memories, Luci, and I will have them back."
"Your memories? What would I do with them?"
"Keep me from completing my task," he says.
"But what is your task, little boy?"
"I don't know, for you have taken my memories. And my knife, Luci, return me my knife. "
"How is it you know to come here without your memories? And how is it you dare without your knife?" The nora thinks this very funny and begins to laugh. The Fair Lady cuffs him without rancor, and he scampers away on his arms and legs, like an ape.
"If I do have these things, little boy," says the Fair Lady, "why should I return them?"
"Because if you don't, I shall find the calk from a Coachman's whip and send you back to your home below the earth."
The Fair Lady laughs, "Well, little boy, you have found your task. But I fear it is too late to find your knife, for it has killed the only one who could have set you on the path. And it is far, far too late for a calk to help you. And since you have come here unguarded, there is no reason to let you leave at all." With that, she lifts the bellows and begins to work them, and he suddenly finds that he cannot breathe.He struggles, but to no avail, until, at last, he pulls from his pocket an oddly formed lump of grey metal, which was made by pouring molten lead into holy water, and he throws this at Her, and She cries out, and-
–Cigany fell backward against the building, taking many deep breaths. For several minutes he stood there, wondering if the dream had been real. He checked his pocket, but the lead was gone, although he still had his key, and a scrap of paper which he now remembered had something to do with his headaches, although he couldn't remember the spell nor understand the symbols. But, hadn't the police taken these things before? He couldn't remember. He shrugged. He hoped he could do without it. His headache seemed to be receding.
Whatever had happened, it had taken a long time;it was now fully dark. When he felt strong enough,he pushed away from the wall, not sure where he was going, but needing to walk. Somewhere, not too far off, a siren wailed. He winced and continued through the back streets. The night brought with it a slight chill, but he scarcely noticed.
After a while he realized that he had been here before. Yes. The cemetery. Why have my feet brought me this way? he wondered. He remembered the ghost,and wondered if someone else had died yet, allowing her to rest- Poor child. So young. But she had died of the wasting disease, and that was the work of a liderc if anything was, and the liderc was a creature of Luci, the Fair Lady, who dwelt below the world, with the dark sun and the dark moon to light Her dark ways.
What had allowed Her to reach the middle world,with the half sun and the half moon? And how had it become his, Cigany's, job to return Her to where She belonged?
He stopped in his tracks. Suddenly there was a Wolf before him, blocking his path, bristling- He shook his head to clear it, and saw that it was only a man. The man was staring at him, shocked. Cigany wondered if he were the last to die, who had released the girl.
But another step closer and he recognized him,even without his uniform, and his mouth became dry and his heart beat very fast within his breast.
Someone knifed a granny,
someone shot a clerk.
I'm sick of seeing bodies,
but it's just a day at work.
"STEPDOWN"
Three beers. No, maybe four. Hell, even if it had been six, that was still no excuse for this. Stepovich swayed slightly, in rhythm with the big oak that rustled softly from its side of the high wrought-iron fence. Hell, maybe it had been six. He was almost hoping it was six, and,that as the man came closer, his features would resolve into the face of someone Stepovich had never seen before.
The Gypsy halted, no more than a step and a lunge away. His dusky face seemed pale in the gloom, and Stepovich wondered how that could be. His eyes were dark in his face, darker than the night around them,and that, too, made him wonder. They stood facing each other on the quiet street. Neither spoke. Neither wanted to offer the other an opening.
The knife in his jacket pocket dragged, seemed to weigh twice what it should. He could feel the pull on the fabric at his shoulder, could feel the shape resting against his hip. His hand reached into his pocket,gripped the sensible leather sheath. The Gypsy did not move as Stepovich reached for the knife, but he sensed the change in the Gypsy, the activated stillness that was really a readiness to move in any direction, to attack or flee or defend. Stepovich's eyes didn't leave him as he drew the knife from his pocket.
He'd expected some reaction. But the Gypsy's dark eyes only flicked once to the knife, and then back up to Stepovich's face. Like a cornered animal, he waited. Stepovich shifted the knife through his fingers, felt his fingers brush the raised stars on the hilt before he turned it so that the hilt extended toward the Gypsy.Stepovich held it out, waiting. Got nothing. The Gypsy offered him only stillness and carefully empty eyes. Not even the phony innocence that most suspects tried for. Not a blank face, either. This was more like a mask to trick authority.
A red-hot wire of anger speared down his backbone, raced along his nerves. The Gypsy's impassive face was like a challenge. No. Like an insult. The careful mask was classifying Stepovich as not human, as a blue uniform with shiny buttons, filled with rules and laws and legal technicalities. During the day, he would have expected it. But somehow, by night, out of uniform, on this deserted street, for the reason he had come here, it was the worst kind of insult.
Anger won, or perhaps humiliation. He flipped the knife, a hard practiced movement, so that it struck the Gypsy's breast hilt first and then clattered to the pavement- And still the Gypsy moved not at all,though Stepovich would have sworn that he could have caught the knife in midair and returned it blade first if he had chosen to do so. So Stepovich spoke,broke the silence with hard cutting words, as cold and callous as he could make them. "We found a dead gypsy granny today. Stabbed to death in a cheap hotel. Don't suppose you'd know anything about something like that."
For a long time the Gypsy didn't speak. Stepovich listened to his own words hang in the air between them, the vocalization of the law-thing the Gypsy's mask had invoked.
"With this knife," the Gypsy said at last.
Music in the voice, accent of a homeland whose existence was lost in the shadows of time. And accusation, it seemed to Stepovich.
"You asking if I offed her," said Stepovich, "the answer is no. But I suspect you'd have a line on whoever did. Not that you'd tell me anything. But maybe you won't have to. Whoever did it left behind plenty of sign. Before noon tomorrow, we'll know the size and shape of the weapon, and a hell of a lot about the man who used it, right down to his blood type."Bluff, you're bluffing, Stepovich, and that Gypsy knows it. Look into his black, black eyes and see how he despises you.
"You find the one who held the knife," and again the accent left Stepovich wondering if the words were a request, a command, or merely a question, a comment.
"Damn right we will," he growled, and felt himself grow smaller with the lie. "With or without any help from you," and he tried not to let the last sound like a plea.