Wizard and Glass

'Don't like the way I look, do'ee?' she asked. 'Makes yer heart cold, don't it?'

'N-No,' Sheemie said, and then, because that didn't sound right: 'I mean yes!' But gods, that sounded even worse. 'You're beautiful, sai!' he blurted.

She chuffed nearly soundless laughter and thrust the empty tun into his arms almost hard enough to knock him on his ass. The touch of her fingers was brief, but long enough to make his flesh crawl.

'Well-a-day. They say handsome is as handsome does, don't they?

And that suits me. Aye, right down to the ground. Bring me my graf, idiot child.'

'Y-yes, sai! Right away, sai!' He took the empty tun back to the mule, set it down, then fumbled loose the cordage holding the little barrel of graf . He was very aware of her watching him, and it made him clumsy, hut finally he got the barrel loose. It almost slid through his grasp, and there was a nightmarish moment when he thought it would fall to the stony ground and smash, but he caught his grip again at the last second. He took it to her, had just a second to realize she was no longer wearing the snake, then felt it crawling on his boots. Ermot looked up at him, hissing and baring a double set of fangs in an eerie grin.

'Don't move too fast, my boy. 'Twouldn't be wise—Ermot's grumpy today. Set the barrel just inside the door, here. It's too heavy for me. Missed a few meals of late, I have.'

Sheemie bent from the waist (bow yer best bow, Sai Thorin had said, and here he was, doing just that), grimacing, not daring to ease the pressure on his back by moving his feet because the snake was still on them. When he straightened, Rhea was holding out an old and stained envelope. The flap had been sealed with a blob of red wax. Sheemie dreaded to think what might have been rendered down to make wax such as that.

'Take this and give it to Cordelia Delgado. Do ye know her?'

'A-Aye,' Sheemie managed. 'Susan-sai's auntie.'

'That's right.' Sheemie reached tentatively for the envelope, but she held it back a moment. 'Can't read, can ye, idiot boy?'

'Nay. Words 'n letters go right out of my head.'

'Good. Mind ye show this to no one who can, or some night ye'll find Ermot waiting under yer pillow. I see far, Sheemie, d'ye mark me? I see far'

It was just an envelope, but it felt heavy and somehow dreadful in Sheemie's fingers, as if it were made out of human skin instead of paper. And what sort of letter could Rhea be sending Cordelia Delgado, anyway? Sheemie thought back to the day he'd seen sai Delgado's face all covered with cobwebbies, and shivered. The horrid creature lurking before him in the doorway of her hut could have been the very creature who'd spun those webs.

'Lose it and I'll know,' Rhea whispered. 'Show my business to another, and I'll know. Remember, son of Stanley, I see far.'

'I'll be careful, sai.' It might be better if he did lose the envelope, but he wouldn't. Sheemie was dim in the head, everyone said so, but not so dim that he didn't understand why he had been called up here: not to deliver a barrel ofgraf, but to receive this letter and pass it on.

'Would ye care to come in for a bit?' she whispered, and then pointed a ringer at his crotch. 'If I give ye a little bit of mushroom to eat—special to me, it is—I can look like anyone ye fancy.'

'Oh, I can't,' he said, clutching his trousers and smiling a huge broad smile that felt like a scream trying to get out of his skin. 'That pesky thing fell off last week, that did.'

For a moment Rhea only gawped at him, genuinely surprised for one of the few times in her life, and then she once more broke out in chuffing bursts of laughter. She held her stomach in her waxy hands and rocked back and forth with glee. Ermot, startled, streaked into the house on his lengthy green belly. From somewhere in its depths, her cat hissed at it.

'Go on,' Rhea said, still laughing. She leaned forward and dropped three or four pennies into his shirt pocket. 'Get out of here, ye great galoophus! Don't ye linger, either, looking at flowers!'

'No, sai—'

Before he could say more, the door clapped to so hard that dust puffed out of the cracks between the boards.

7

Roland surprised Cuthbert by suggesting at two o' the clock that they go back to the Bar K. When Bert asked why, Roland only shrugged and would say nothing more. Bert looked at Alain and saw a queer, musing expression on the boy's face.

As they drew closer to the bunkhouse, a sense of foreboding filled Cuthbert. They topped a rise, and looked down at the Bar K. The bunk-house door stood open.

'Roland!' Alain cried. He was pointing to the cottonwood grove where the ranch's spring was. Their clothes, neatly hung to dry when they left, were now scattered hell-to-breakfast.

Cuthbert dismounted and ran to them. Picked up a shirt, sniffed it, flung it away. 'Pissed on!' he cried indignantly.

'Come on,' Roland said. 'Let's look at the damage.'

8

There was a lot of damage to look at. As you expected, Cuthbert thought, gazing at Roland. Then he turned to Alain, who appeared gloomy but not really surprised. As you both expected.

Roland bent toward one of the dead pigeons, and plucked at something so fine Cuthbert at first couldn't see what it was. Then he straightened up and held it out to his friends. A single hair. Very long, very white. He opened the pinch of his thumb and forefinger and let it waft to the floor. There it lay amid the shredded remains of Cuthbert Allgood's mother and father.

'If you knew that old corbie was here, why didn't we come back and end his breath?' Cuthbert heard himself ask.

'Because the time was wrong,' Roland said mildly.

'He would have done it, had it been one of us in his place, destroying his things.'

'We're not like him,' Roland said mildly.

'I'm going to find him and blow his teeth out the back of his head.'

'Not at all,' Roland said mildly.

If Bert had to listen to one more mild word from Roland's mouth, he would run mad. All thoughts of fellowship and ka-tet left his mind, which sank back into his body and was at once obliterated by simple red fury. Jonas had been here. Jonas had pissed on their clothes, called Alain's mother a cunt, torn up their most treasured pictures, painted childish obscenities on their walls, killed their pigeons. Roland had known . . . done nothing . . . intended to continue doing nothing. Except fuck his gilly-girl. He would do plenty of that, aye, because now that was all he cared about.

But she won't like the look of your face the next time you climb into the saddle, Cuthbert thought. I'll see to that.

He drew back his fist. Alain caught his wrist. Roland turned away and began picking up scattered blankets, as if Cuthbert's furious face and cocked fist were simply of no account to him.

Cuthbert balled up his other fist, meaning to make Alain let go of him, one way or the other, but the sight of his friend's round and honest face, so guileless and dismayed, quieted his rage a little. His argument wasn't with Alain. Cuthbert was sure the other boy had known something bad was happening here, but he was also sure that Roland had insisted Alain do nothing until Jonas was gone.

'Come with me,' Alain muttered, slinging an arm around Bert's shoulders. 'Outside. For your father's sake, come. You have to cool off. This is no time to be fighting among ourselves.'

'It's no time for our leader's brains to drain down into his prick, either,' Cuthbert said, making no effort to lower his voice. But the second time Alain tugged him, Bert allowed himself to be led toward the door.