The Prophecy Machine

mountains like everyone else? Why did we have to get a boat and come here, will you explain that?

“No, don't. Don't even try. Miz Elaina Bloc, who's married to Ollie, who runs the Sweet Store? They had a perfectly lovely time in the mountains. They saw a cave and a little waterfall. Elaina even bought a pot from ancient times.

“Finn, if I don't get something to eat I'm going to die right here, are you aware of that? Do you even care?”

Finn turned to face her, partially appalled. “How can you even think such a thing, much less say it aloud?”

“It's easy, I'm sorry to say. I hope, for your sake and mine, I feel different sometime. But that's how I'm feeling now.”

He thought his heart would break. He didn't know what to do next. He wanted to hold her, but he knew this was not the time for that. She looked so lovely, so delicate and fine, perched cross-legged on the bed, totally bare and sleepy-eyed, unaware of how the sight of her filled him with love, with overwhelming desire. The morning sun painted her downy skin, the colors muted by the window's dirty glass and a veil of spiderwebs.

“I'm going right now,” Finn told her. “I'll get you something to eat if I have to flatten Squeen William and fix it myself. If there's nothing edible here, I'll-go and find something in town.”

“No. No you won't.” Letitia sat up straight. “You think I'm going to sit here and let something awful come up those stairs the minute you're out of sight? I'm bedamned if I will. Just get that out of your head.”

“Yes, but-”

Letitia was up in an instant, slipping into the garments she'd worn from the ship, which looked as if they'd been wadded up in a ball somewhere.

Finn was startled and alarmed, and though he thought it most peculiar, quite charmed at the sudden, fierce resolution in the wife he thought he knew. She was fury un-chained, and he was certain he could live with that. He was also certain if she guessed his thoughts then, he'd wish they'd never popped into his head.

Finn blinked as a blurry flash of lizard darted across the floor and vanished beneath the bed.

“Get out of there,” he said. “We're all going down for breakfast. Nobody's staying up here.”

“If you're mad at me, Finn, it'll just have to be,” Letitia said, patting down her frizzled hair. “That's the way I am right now.”

“What?” Finn tried to look terribly pained. “I'm not mad at you, Letitia. You must know I could never do that …”

“I dearly love the morning,” Calabus said, spraying bits of breakfast through his beard. “There's something about a new day dawning, like the world's starting over, fresh and pure again-Brruuch! Sorry, miss. I expect you've heard a man belch before, it's quite a common event. May I say, you're looking most comely, my dear?”

The old man reached over and patted her hand. Letitia drew it quickly away.

“No offense, now. A compliment's what it is, nothing more than that.”

Calabus winked at Finn as if they shared some base and lecherous thought. Finn didn't bother to complain. There was clearly no way to stop the man. He'd say what he liked, whatever popped into his head. This morning, he was wearing a shabby robe. Food from meals past formed a crusty path down the front. As ever, he didn't seem to care.

Breakfast was a horror. Deep-fried turnips. Turnip bread. Some kind of jelly, possibly made of dirt. Something hot and gray in a cup. Finn wouldn't drink it on a bet. Nucci and son seemed to like the stuff quite a bit. Finn took a bite of this and that. Letitia ate everything she could, and finished off Finn's plate as well. Finn tried not to think of Squeen William, who had fixed all this with his damp and furry hands. He wondered what the kitchen looked like, and pushed the thought quickly aside.

“I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you are my guest, Master Finn. That contraption of yours is a wonder, a fine mechanical feat. You simply must take it apart and show me how it works.”

Julia gave a frightful croak, and dug her iron claws in Finn's back.

Calabus laughed, and pounded the table with his fist. “By damn, the little bugger understands me, does it not? How on earth did you manage that?”

He leaned in closer, bread crumbs drifting like snow from his beard. “What you got in its head, little wheels and such? A little magic too, I'd guess. I'm a fair crafter myself, but I couldn't do that.”

“It knows a few elementary words,” Finn said, “nothing more than that.”

“A great deal more than that,” Sabatino said, raising a wicked brow. It was the first time he'd spoken. He had spent his time leering at Letitia, taking some perverted form of pleasure watching her eat. He was dressed in slightly better fashion than his father, clad in faded lilac from head to toe.

“You forget, Finn, that we shared a great adventure yesterday. Your lizard is quite extraordinary, in a number of ways.”

“My invention, now,” Calabus put in, waving his son aside, “is most unusual as well, if I do say so myself. What I have not accomplished, sir, is cramming so much complexity into such a tiny space. I fear that damned thing of mine simply gets bigger. I cannot contain it. It sprawls all over the place.”

“That's a bloody understatement,” Sabatino muttered to himself.

“You think I didn't hear that?” Calabus clenched his fists and glared. “You think I'm deaf? What have you done with your miserable life, boy, except go through my money like soup through a sieve? That, and father every squealing mutt in town. At least I've accomplished something. I've given something back to the world!”

“A pile of crap clogging up the cellar. The world's got plenty of that …”

Finn looked at Calabus with alarm. The old man's face was purple as a grape. His eyes began to bulge, and Finn feared they might pop out and severely injure someone. Even Letitia was stunned by the sight, and stopped eating long enough to watch.

Half a second shy of a stroke, Calabus' features faded to a splotched and dissipated red. Moments later, his wits slipped back in place.

“You will, I hope, accept my son's apology for his behavior. It shames me to say he's my own flesh and blood, this vile, repulsive excuse for a man.”

“I think I resent that, Father.” Sabatino picked up his plate and dashed it to the floor. “That is a hurtful thing to say, and quite unfair. I fear I must demand satisfaction, unless you take your words back.”

Finn couldn't help it. He burst out laughing, which drew a startled glance from Letitia, and angered Sabatino all the more.

“Are you challenging your own father to a duel? Is that what I heard you say?” Finn covered his mouth in an effort to restrain himself. “I thought you a blustering fool, but I fear I am way off the mark. You're clearly a flaming lunatic! Great Tails and Snails, man, you ought to be locked up somewhere …”

Sabatino sprang out of his chair. Before Finn could blink, the man was on the table coming at him on all fours, scattering dishes, saucers and cups. Spoons without handles, knives without blades. Platters and handicapped forks. Letitia cried out, ducking turnips and flying bits of bread.

Finn scarcely had time to bring up his arms and fend the man off before Sabatino's big hands closed about his throat.

Finn's chair collapsed, shattered into scrap. Finn hit the floor, flat on his back. Sabatino held on like a vise. Finn pounded the fellow's face, struck him on the nose, hit him in the mouth. Even in the fury of battle, he noticed Sabatino had a missing upper molar, and extremely bad breath.

Sabatino cursed him, howled like a loon, pummeled his head against the floor. Finn began to see stars. Not simply stars, but whole constellations. The Chicken, the Wand, the Three-Legged Witch. He had never been able to spot the other leg, but he saw it clearly now.

Letitia broke a plate over Sabatino's head. The plate, from three different races, blue and green and red, could never be mended again. Sabatino hardly noticed. Julia bit him on the foot, but he didn't seem to feel that.

Suddenly, his face disappeared behind short stubby wings, wings that were furry, scabby and black. Squeen