Tricksters Touch

Woman soon rounded the corner of Park and Shepard. As she did so, Trickster jumped out at her from behind a maple tree. He was dressed just like the skateboarder from downtown, his black hair sticking straight up, garish earrings swinging from his right ear. Grinning, Trickster said, «This more real to you, girlie?» «Go away,» said the Obstinate Woman. «And phew, what is that smell—» «Week-old sweat. Like it?» «Get out of my way!» Trickster looped his arm in hers. «Come on, girlie. We're going for some coffee at the Downer Cafe.» «Not dressed like that, you're not—» «Relax, will you? There. Smell's gone. Happy?» «I would hardly call it that,» she grumbled, slinging her purse over her shoulder and turning back the way she had just come. Miserable and certain that this meeting with Trickster would end in disaster, the Obstinate Woman walked toward Downer Avenue, Trickster jabbering merrily in her ear. Greatkin Rimble and the Obstinate Woman took a window table for two at the restaurant. Airy fans rotated above their heads while the espresso machine bubbled and frothed behind the hardwood bar. Trickster ordered iced coffee. The Obstinate Woman ordered a tall iced tea. She dumped cream into it. Trickster watched her and grimaced. Seeing his expression of disapproval, the Obstinate Woman began to laugh. «Don't say a word about my table manners, Rimble. I know all about yours at the Panthe'kinarok.» Trickster dabbed his lips primly with his paper napkin and said nothing. «So what's this about? Why do you want to see me?» Rimble took a deep sigh, his expression unexpectedly tired. «I want you to put my name on the cover of your books. Doesn't have to be in the title. See, the more my name is known, the more the myth will change reality. And the more I will matter.» Rimble snorted haughtily. «Nobody knows it here. And nobody remembers it there.» «You exaggerate,» replied the Obstinate Woman, clearly unimpressed. «Of course, I exaggerate!» said Rimble. «Nobody pays any attention unless I exaggerate. Watch, I'll show you.» Before the Obstinate Woman could stop Rimble, he flagged down the wait- person for their table. Scanning the menu, Rimble ordered a certain breakfast item that was only served between seven and eleven. It was now three o'clock in the afternoon. As expected, the wait-person told Trickster he couldn't have Benedict Oscar at this hour. Trickster nodded and let her go on to the next table. «So?» said the Obstinate Woman. «So watch this,» said Trickster. Flagging down a different wait-person, he repeated his request all over again. The wait-person started to tell Trickster that he couldn't have Benedict Oscar. Before she had gotten the sentence out of her mouth, Trickster's lower lip began to tremble. His eyes went mournful. Great crocodile tears dripped from his nose. He bawled loudly. Heads turned in the restaurant. «They won't give me my Benedict Oscar. They won't serve me because I'm a punk. Boo-hooooo,» he added in perfect mimicry of Greatkin Phebene. Both the wait-person and the Obstinate Woman were mortified and scandalized by Trickster's performance. The wait-person tried to assure Rimble that she liked him just fine as a skateboarding punk and was happy to serve him. «No, you're not. I know you don't like me one bit. Boo-hoooo.» «Rimble—good God. Shut up!» hissed the Obstinate Woman. «Prove you like punks,» cried Trickster, his voice growing louder by the moment. «Make me a Benedict Oscar. Please?» he asked, now smiling in his most friendly manner. Licking her lips nervously, the girl went to the kitchen. Within minutes the cooks prepared the most scrumptious Benedict Oscar imaginable, the eggs fluffy, the crab meat delectable. As the wait-person set the steaming plate on the table, Rimble leaned toward the Obstinate Woman and said, «See? Just asking for what you want doesn't carry any punch. Now I've made a splendid scene. I've exaggerated the wait-person's fears as well as the problem. And look what happened. I got Benedict Oscar at the wrong time of day.» «You also got the Downer Cafe manager,» said the Obstinate Woman, as a thin, officious- looking man approached their table, his expression far from pleased. Rimble-Rimble. *11* Although it was a searing summer's day in Milwaukee, it was a brutally cold night in Speakinghast, the wind chill bringing the temperature to well below zero. Cold of such caliber was expected this time of year. At least the physical cold was. However, no one in the city, including Zendrak, expected the emotional freeze that accompanied the gusting winds. Enter Elder Hennin's wasp-keeper, the perversion of Suxonli's draw—gray-robed, shuffling Akindo. Horses shied and bolted when Akindo passed them. Children woke crying fitfully in their beds. Lovers broke off lovemaking. Politicians had nightmares. In short, the whole city of Speakinghast was affected by the monster. Wherever Akindo walked, he brought despair of the worst kind. Hope shattered in his presence, love fled. No one was immune to Akindo except one person: young Yafatah. The univer'silsila wasps had done their job well. They had immunized the Tammirring child from Akindo and the deadly holovespa hive he carried on his back. She alone would remain unharmed through the next few days. Rimble had followed the mythmaking orders of the Mythrrim; he had created an antidote to despair—the univer'silsila. As much part of nature as Akindo was part of the cursed draw of Suxonli, the univer'silsila preyed on the feelings that Akindo inspired. Where Akindo brought pain, the univer' silsila brought pardon and healing. Unfortunately for the city of Speakinghast, however, the wasps under Akindo's control had a wasp queen, Elder Hennin. The univer'silsila were as yet without a queen, and were therefore unorganized, the good they did random and occasional. Akindo's holovespa were directed—powerfully. Akindo made his way to the Jinnjirri Quarter. He did not head in the direction of the Kaleidicopia at this time. Instead, Akindo passed the playhouse belonging to the all-Jinnjirri acting troupe called the Merry Pricksters. He shuffled and drooled down Renegade Road toward Rhu's house. Until his death the previous fall, Cobeth had lived at this residence with Rhu. Cobeth and Rhu had been lovers. Rhu was Jinnjirri-born and was employed as the stage manager for the Merry Pricksters when Cobeth directed and acted for them. After Cobeth's death, the troupe seemingly lost a lot of its political momentum. This had made Guildmaster Gadorian happy, as he had perceived the Pricksters as a potential hotbed of radicals and dissidents. Like the rest of the Pricksters, Rhu kept a low profile during the scant three months following Cobeth's drug overdose at the Kaleidicopia; no one wanted the Guild to investigate the Pricksters. If the Saambolin Guild had done so, it would have discovered that the Pricksters were a front for some of the most notorious dope dealers in all Speakinghast, the props and powders used by the special-effects personnel in the troupe cut with holovespa and royal sabbanac from the north. Tree was blissfully unaware of this side of the Pricksters while he worked for them, the pushers always opening the shipments before he did. Cobeth had been a master of trickery and stealth. As long as Cobeth lived, he had never been caught. Rhu, his second-in-command, wanted to keep it that way, so she had cleared every drug out of the playhouse. Now the guild could search all it wished; it would find nothing. Akindo stood outside Rhu's house, the bitter cold not affecting his skin. He made sure the holovespa swarm on his back stayed covered. He could hear the wasps buzzing angrily inside. These wasps acted this way all the time, their level of activity agitated and somewhat ferocious. The winter should have killed them. However, Elder Hennin's poison had raised their metabolic rate, giving them a nastier temper and making them more difficult to destroy. Akindo let one worker-wasp free from the hive. It flew into the house. Tracking Rhu's body scent like a bloodhound, the wasp found its intended target sound asleep in her bed. The holovespa worker- wasp stung Rhu on the neck. Unlike Aunt, Rhu did not have an allergic reaction to the wasp. Aunt had been a person who rejected the kind of despair these wasps inflicted on their victims. In rejecting the despair, Aunt had also rejected Elder Hennin's bid for control over her. When the holovespa stung someone, the wasp opened a psychic back door to the wasp queen of Suxonli. From that moment on, the victim was expected to do the bidding of the queen. If you were not working for Hennin's cause and part of her growing hive-mind, then you were a drone— dispensable. Aunt's will had put her in this latter category. She had resisted Hennin to the last, her Mayanabi loyalties preventing Aunt from falling to Hennin's designs. Rhu woke from her sleep with a start. Feeling the sting on her neck, she was incredulous. The poison began to work in her system almost instantly. Rhu got out of bed, feeling more and more depressed by the moment. She took an artist's rendering of Cobeth down from the wall. Seeing his face, she wept tears of longing for him. Rhu walked over to her desk. She pulled open a desk drawer, her expression angry. Rhu reached for a piece of folded paper. She opened the paper and read the words printed on it: Cobeth, you bastard— We've taken Mab back to the Kaleidicopia. Used your bathrobe. You want it back? Come and get it if you dare. Doogat'll be waiting for you—not to mention the whole house. See you at the Hallows. Love and kisses, your ex-housemate, Timmer Rhu reread the note several times. As far as she could make out, Timmer, Mab, and Doogat had all been present the night of a Saambolin drug raid on her house last autumn. Cobeth had made nothing of this at the time; he hadn't wanted the Guild authorities to close the Kaleidicopia on suspicion of drug dealings before he had a chance to get even with the Kaleidicopians—his way. His way entailed dropping a hefty dose of hallucinogenic holovespa into the punch at the Rimble's Revel, which the house sponsored annually. After everyone was thoroughly dosed and flying, then he would go get the Guild. But Cobeth's plans had failed that night; Rimble himself had killed the scrawny Jinn actor through the touch of his famous «chaos thumb.» So the Guild had never figured out that anyone at the «K» knew Cobeth, much less had ever lived with him. Rhu would fix that now. Smiling, Rhu climbed back into bed to wait until sunrise. *12* The guildmaster and his wife, Sirrefene, had been arguing since dawn. Gadorian had waked with the conviction that he should and would close down the Kaleidiscopia Boarding House. He was suddenly certain that this house was the root of all civil unrest in the city. United under one roof, the residents could meet whenever they wished and hatch plots to overthrow his governance in Speakinghast. Worse, the house rested in the Jinnjirri Quarter, a section of the city famous for its politically