Eight -
Not all that surprisingly, the Avalon bar turned out to be situated in a really sleazy area, even for the Nightside. The lighting was bad, the streets were filthy, and so were the people. There were bodies lying everywhere, dead or drunk or demonically possessed, with a fight on every street corner and couples humping in doorways. The sixth century was a particularly unselfconscious age, when it came to sin. I saw one preacher getting a blow job, even as he pontificated on the evils of the Gnostic heresies. No-one bothered us, though. It seemed word of our exploits and notoriously short tempers had got around. Whatever century you're in, nothing travels faster in the Nightside than gossip and bad news.
I still couldn't get used to having to step over lepers, though. Even if they were always very polite about it.
Avalon itself turned out to be a large and chunky tower constructed entirely of stained and discoloured bones, held together by some unseen but not entirely unfelt force. Just looking at the tower put a chill in my heart, and in my bones. Not least because I'd seen it once before, when it manifested briefly in Strangefellows, during my previous case. Just before everything went to hell, and the future Suzie turned up to kill me. I couldn't stop myself from glancing at her, and she caught my gaze.
'What's wrong, John?' she said quietly. 'You've been looking at me strangely ever since we started this case. Do you know something I don't?'
'Always,' I said, forcing a smile. 'But nothing you need to worry about.'
We headed for the base of the bone tower. It stood out against the night sky like the tomb of a dead god, unnatural and ill-omened. Approaching it felt like stepping down into an open grave. The door was a simple dark opening, with nothing beyond but silence and an impenetrable darkness. Anywhen else I would probably have been worried, but I was more concerned with Suzie. She knew I was hiding something from her, but how could I tell her? What good could it do? And I couldn't escape the feeling that simply by talking about it aloud, by accepting it, I might make that future more possible, more probable. I strode straight into the dark opening, while guilt twisted in my gut like a living thing, and Suzie and Tommy followed right after me.
The darkness quickly gave way to a friendly amber glow, the bar itself just a sprawling, smoke-filled room, roughly the same size as the bar back in my time. There were no windows, and the oil-lamps and torches filled the hot sweaty air with a thick, defusing smoke, but the general effect was not unpleasant. Once I was inside, it was clear the bone tower exterior was a glamour, designed to scare off unwanted visitors. I wandered unhurriedly between the packed long wooden tables, and everyone else ostentatiously minded their own business. Just as in my time, this was not a bar where you went for company and good fellowship.
Over in one corner, a number of musical instruments were playing themselves, providing basic but pleasant background music.
The customers were the usual unusual suspects, the men and women wearing a collection of clothing from all kinds of cultures and backgrounds. Anywhere else they would have been fighting each other to the death over religion or customs or plain foreignness, but not in Avalon. Humans stuck together in the face of so many other alternate threats. Three witches in embroidered saris sat huddled together, giggling like nasty children as they animated a number of stick figures and made them dance madly on the tabletop before them. Two seriously ugly Redcap goblins were knife-fighting, while a circle of onlookers cheered them on and laid bets on the outcome. Two lepers were playing knucklebones with their own fingers. Two heretical priests were arm-wrestling each other over the true nature of the Holy Ghost, and spitting obscenities at each other through clenched teeth. And in the middle of the bar-room floor, two smoke ghosts were dancing together sadly and elegantly, their smoke bodies blown apart by every passing breeze, but always re-forming.
And sitting very much alone in a corner, with his back to two walls, that mighty and renowned sorcerer, Merlin Satanspawn. The greatest magus of this or any other age. Who was born to be the Antichrist but declined the honour. You couldn't miss him. His sheer presence dominated the whole bar, even sitting there quietly, staring into his drink. Having him around was like sharing the room with a bloody street accident, or a man slowly hanging himself.
He didn't look much like the Merlin I knew, the dead man with a ragged hole in his chest where his heart used to be. Who had been buried for centuries in the cellars under Strangefellows but occasionally deigned to manifest through his unhappy descendant, Alex Morrisey. This man was whole and hale and bloody scary with it. He was a big man in an age of small men, easily six feet tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in a long scarlet robe with golden collar trimmings. Under a thick and tangled mane of bright red hair, stiffened here and there with clay, his face was heavy-boned and almost aggressively ugly. Two fires burned brightly in his eye sockets, leaping crimson flames that licked up past his heavy eyebrows. They say he has his father's eyes... Most of his face and bare hands were covered with curling Druidic tattoos in dark blue hues. His long, thick fingernails looked a whole lot like claws. And I realised that the Merlin I'd known before had only been a pale shadow of the real thing, this huge and vital man crackling with power and awful presence.
I'd meant to walk up to him, introduce myself, and demand his help; but suddenly I didn't feel at all like doing that. I felt much more like slinking away before he noticed me, and maybe hiding under a table for a while until I got my confidence back. The man was dangerous. You only had to look at him to know he could blast the soul right out of your body with a single Word. A quick glance at Suzie and Tommy showed they were having serious second thoughts, too, and that immediately put some backbone back into me. Gods or sorcerers or Things from Elsewhere, you couldn't show fear in front of them or they'd walk right over you. You had to find their weak spot...
'Let's buy the man a drink,' I said.
'Couldn't hurt,' said Suzie.
'Let's buy him lots of drinks,' said Tommy. 'And I think I could force down a few myself.'
We made our way to the bar at the back of the room. It was the exact same long wooden bar from our time, though the assortment of drinks set out behind it looked to be far more limited. And the nearest thing they had to bar snacks were rats impaled on sticks. A few of them were still twitching, even though they'd been doused in melted cheese. Serving behind the bar was a sweet dreamy girl in a faded Roman-style dress. She had long dark hair, huge eyes, and a winning smile.
'That's a really first-class glamour you're wearing,' she said cheerfully. 'Would probably have fooled anybody else, but I've been touched by divinity. Frequently. Not from around here, are you, dears?'
'No,' I said. 'We've travellers, from the future.'
'Gosh,' said the barmaid. 'How exciting! What's it like?'
'Noisy,' I said. 'And a bit faster paced, but otherwise pretty much the same.'
'Well there's a relief,' said the barmaid. 'Why not have a whole bunch of drinks? Don't worry if you're supposed to be in disguise; I only saw through your glamour because I'm sort of godly. I'm Hebe. I used to be cup-bearer to the old Roman gods, until their faith base declined along with the Empire, and they decided to move on to pastures new. Didn't offer to take me with them, the ungrateful bastards. I decided I was too young to retire from the booze-slinging business, so I took over this place, and now I dispense good cheer to one and all. Go on, dears, get a little bit that way. Good booze is good for the soul. Trust me; I know these things.'
I glanced around and confirmed that all three of us were willing enough to experiment in that direction, but unfortunately it turned out that the bar's stock consisted almost entirely of various forms of wine and mead. We sampled a fair selection of both, in the spirit of scientific enquiry, but the wines were all thin and bitter, and the meads were all thick and sweet. Often with bits floating in them. We pulled various faces and made thoughtful noises, but Hebe wasn't fooled.
'Booze is better in the future?'
'Let's say... more extreme. Is this really all you have?'
'Well,' said Hebe, 'I do stock a few special items, for the discerning customer with an educated palate and more money than sense. Winter Wine, Bacchus's Old Peculier, and Angel's Tears. Merlin's really fond of that one.'
'The very stuff,' I said. 'One bottle of Angel's Tears, if you please.'
