A Long Spoon (5 page)

A guard stepped on a pen, and immediately a longsword sprang up through his sandalled foot. His cry was cut short as he tripped forwards and the tip of the blade caught in the flesh of his throat and then drove through with the force of his tumble. The body clattered towards Cabal, who reflexively stepped back, stood on a ball decorated with stars in concentric circles that had moments before been a spleen, and himself fell.

As he turned his attention from the possibility of being killed by a bunch of men with swords to being killed by bouncing down several hundred stone steps and revised his defensive options accordingly, Cabal caught a glimpse of something multi-limbed and almost egregiously jolly descending from the upper reaches of the high ceiling on a silken cable.

Zarenyia plucked one of the soldiers from his feet with her forelegs and threw him offhandedly up into the shadows from whence she had come. He didn't come down again. Her further actions were lost as Cabal continued his fall.

Happily, he came down on another ball (the former head) that took the sting from impact, and ended up sliding down the steps for some distance rather than going fragile head over shatterable heels.

He brought himself to a halt after some twenty steps or so, and clambered awkwardly to his feet, bruised but unbroken. The guards, but for four who had stepped on the fatal pens and now stood or lay impaled, were all gone. Cabal blinked without comprehension. He walked painfully up a little way, recovered his dropped wand, and then continued to the top landing, cautiously avoiding any of the remaining pens.

Once clear of immediate danger, he looked up into the shadows and braced himself for what he might see there.

He needn't have worried; Zarenyia descended the wall leaving behind her a large and ragged web, clearly put together in great haste. Scattered about it were cocooned forms. A guard's foot stuck out of one.

“Won't they suffocate?” asked Cabal out of curiosity rather than concern.

“Never have in the past. They don't breathe much once I've given them one of my special kisses, anyway.”

“Special?” said Cabal, and then regretted it as Zarenyia smiled broadly, and a single white translucent fang extended from within her palate to jut from her mouth.

“Special,” she confirmed, the fang sliding back. “They're in comas, having pleasant, priapic dreams. Useful if I want a snack later. Shall we proceed, Johannes?”

*   *   *

The great double doors of the topmost chamber were unlocked, which spoke to Cabal of their quarry's overweening arrogance, which in turn was a misreading, although they weren't to know that just yet.

Certainly the doors slammed open with a satisfying crash when Zarenyia put her forelegs against them and shoved. Cabal advanced, the wand tucked back into its pocket, held ready for a rapid draw by the guise of Cabal nonchalantly wandering in with both hands in his trouser pockets.

“Luan Da,” said Cabal in his best Hokkien dialectical Chinese, “we have come to parley with you. Please stop sending your men against us. It is becoming tiresome.”

Luan Da stood before them, dressed in the style of a noble of the Wu Dynasty. He seemed to be in his forties or fifties, sleek and smooth in a manner that troubled Cabal. It reminded him of some experience or some image he had once seen. He could not quite place it and, while it was not a half memory redolent with danger, it still irked him.

“You,” said Luan Da in a surprisingly youthful tone, probably a side-effect of his longevity, thought Cabal. He was more impressed that he said it in modern German. “You speak the language of my ancestors like my arse chews gum.” He folded his arms. “Unconvincingly.”

Cabal was not sure what to say to that.

“That's a bit harsh,” said Zarenyia in faultless Hokkien. “I thought he made a good fist of it. Well, decent, anyway.”

“Could we discuss my linguistic shortcomings on some other occasion, please?” said Cabal, lapsing into German himself. “Sir, our journey here has been the product of much trouble taken and many difficulties circumvented. I come to you simply as a fellow seeker of deep secrets, and the occult academia. If you would stop trying to kill me, it would be greatly appreciated.”

“You are a fool,” said Luan Da. “You came here to steal my secrets. You will find only your death.”

Cabal sighed. “Just once, I would like to meet a traveller upon the same paths of research as myself who doesn't instantly wish me dead on sight.”

“Get a lot of this, then?” asked Zarenyia.

“You have no idea.” He addressed Luan Da once more. “I can understand your prior attempts to kill me. The crows and the acid bath. You simply wished to be left alone. I can sympathise with that. I have done similar things myself. I understand and forgive them. Now, however, I am here, and we can perhaps help one another.”

Here Luan Da looked down his nose at Cabal, and said many hurtful things, primarily matters of race and lineage that stated in so many words a rich seam of bestiality in Cabal's ancestors, and some career choices for his mother that Cabal knew to be untrue.

It took a while, but only when Cabal's family tree dating back four generations was thoroughly dripping with vitriol and wreathed with effluvium was Luan Da finally convinced that Cabal had been sufficiently insulted.

Cabal pursed his lips. “And,” he said, “that is your final word?”

Luan Da sneered unbecomingly, a curved and sleek sneer upon an unbecoming face.

“Very well. I see you have your laboratory here. Your writings shall have to suffice. I am more than done with you. Zarenyia, be so kind as to suck the soul from this …
shit
in human form.”

“Sounds so appetising when you put it like that, but, yes, I doubt anyone will miss him.” Then to Luan Da, she said, “Pucker up, lover. You're about to get the doing of your life.”

Luan Da's sneer not only failed to vanish, but deepened.

“I know what you are, monster. A succubine devil. A poor sort of parasite.”

Zarenyia was possibly the most astonished she had ever been in her extraordinarily long life. She looked at Cabal. “Did you hear that? He insulted me! To my face! I'm about to off him in all manner of ways, and he insults me!” She looked back at the wizard, her eyes narrowing and a snarl growing on her face. “I was going to make it quick and pleasant, but you are going to linger, little man. I am going to drag the life from you, a fibre at a time, and you will beg me to finish you. And when you have pleaded for the thousandth time … you will still have nine thousand more to go before I first say ‘No.'”

It was an impressive threat, although the terrors it promised were a little time-consuming for Cabal's schedule. Luan Da, however, seemed splendidly unconcerned. Somehow, he managed to deepen the sneer yet further. It was just as well that his complexion was so very sleek, thought Cabal, or he would have torn his face by now.

Then he remembered where he had seen somebody quite
that
plump and smooth before.

“You are helpless to harm me,” said Luan Da. “Behold!”

And, somewhat unexpectedly, he drew up his robes to expose himself. Cabal found himself beholding that which, on balance, he would much rather not have been beholding.

“The energies that you feed upon were sacrificed long ago to give me my magic!”

Zarenyia's anger abated in surprise. “Well, poo tinky. That's just rude.”

“A eunuch,” said Cabal. Of course Luan Da was a eunuch; it was written right there in the histories. He had read it and disregarded it as irrelevant.

Luan Da mercifully dropped the edge of his robe, and snapped an incantation, the high tone of his voice now making perfect sense. Everything grew dark.

*   *   *

“Well, this is just embarrassing,” said Zarenyia, “and I say that as somebody who once gang-banged a college of cardinals.”

She and Cabal were prisoners. Whatever incantation Luan Da had incantated at them had laid them both out, and he had awoken to find he and the devil in a great cage, his belongings taken from him and his wrists in manacles. Zarenyia too was manacled and her legs hobbled in a series of chains until they formed a cage of their own. She lay on her side in what looked like a very uncomfortable position and even Cabal, a man unused to sympathy, felt a little sorry for her. It was all thoroughly discourteous of their host.

Cabal was just considering the relative metrics of Zarenyia's embarrassment—albeit much against his will—when the door to the dungeon opened and, preceded by guards, Luan Da entered to examine his prisoners.

He didn't get around to it at once, however. First he found time to walk to the cage, regard its inhabitants for a full three minutes in total silence, then sneer extravagantly. Cabal was convinced the three minutes had been necessary for Luan Da to prepare himself for the sneer, a thing of splenetic perfection.

Then, without further comment somatic or otherwise, he walked to a table in the corner where Cabal's effects were ranged. He sneered his way along the display of surgical instruments, syringes, notebook, binoculars, and other useful items for the necromancer at large, although the sneer did waver when he encountered Cabal's erstwhile pistol.

“What … is
this
?” he demanded.

“It's a Webley .577 fishcake,” said Cabal, irked and truculent. “What did you think it was?”

He was especially peeved because, before being a fishcake, it had been a brand spanking new example of the gunsmith's art, and now it was a savoury. Cabal got through weapons like other men did handkerchiefs, but the reasons for the loss of the weapons were usually something quite sensible. This poor hapless revolver, however, had suffered a fate more ridiculous than death, and was barely out of the box when it happened. Not for the first time, Cabal considered buying shares in Webley, more from a view of any dividends acting as a discount for his profligate pistol purchasing than anything else.

“Fishcake…” said the Chinese wizard, prodding the breadcrumbs with the lengthy nail of one extended finger. “Ridiculous. You came here to destroy me with such apparatus?”

“I came here to ask you to stop trying to destroy me, and perhaps share our researches. I see now the latter part at least was a waste of time. You have no great power other than that you have derived from the Abyss. The historical records are incorrect. You may have been sentenced to be sawn in half, but it was never carried out. Instead, you made your escape to here, they were never able to find you, and so they claimed to have executed you to save the Emperor's embarrassment. This was an ingenious bolthole, I grant you. I don't underestimate the difficulty of purifying its energies to a state where they may be focussed and used, and I applaud you on your success. But it is a useless discipline outside the Abyss. You are trapped here, because if you were ever to leave, your powers would dwindle away. Am I correct?”

“I am not trapped,” said Luan Da. “I may leave at any time, and have done so. My powers are greater than you surmise, barbarian. But you are correct that here, I am unassailable. Even the Great Devil that built this palace would be nothing before me if he dared confront me here.”

“Why don't you say that to his face?” said Zarenyia from the floor. “See how that works out for you? He has a frightful temper, you know. I'm all agog to know what he'd do to you, you silly little ball-less wonder.”

“I am invulnerable here, demon,” repeated Luan Da slowly.

“Demon!” cried Zarenyia, filled with outrage. “Did you hear that, Johannes? Defend my honour!”

Cabal looked over his shoulder at her, considered for a moment, and turned back to Luan Da.

“You have insulted the lady. I suggest you apologise.”

The wizard laughed, a shrill unlovely sound, much like a hyaena in a helium-rich atmosphere.

“Or what? Even if you were free, you could do nothing to harm me. In this my palace, no harm may befall me. No weapon my spill my blood. No poison work in my liver. No magic may cause me hurt. All would be humbled before me.”

Luan Da swept out, tittering unattractively. The door slammed shut behind him, and Cabal and Zarenyia were left alone.

“What an arse than man is,” said Cabal.

“You were so sweet, defending my honour like that,” said Zarenyia. “A
demon
he called me. So hurtful. Assuming that fixed expression of yours means that you're busily coming up with a dreadfully clever escape plan, then when we're free and clear I shall have to give you a proper thank you. I'll try ever so hard not to kill you with it.”

Cabal regarded her dryly. “I notice you're not dibbing.”

She held up her wrists. “Manacles. They impede my dibbiness.” She lowered them again and looked seriously at him. “Do you have a plan, Johannes? The awful little man was telling the truth. I'm not sure Lucifer himself would be able to lay a glove upon him.”

“I wasn't intending to box with him,” said Cabal. “To the contrary, I want to help him.” Johannes Cabal smiled, and it had all the warmth and fellowship of a cut throat.

*   *   *

“And so we see the cost of failing to search somebody properly.”

It had taken a little time and a great deal of concentration, but Cabal was making headway with the wand. It had been lying snugly in the special long pocket in his trousers throughout their initial encounter with Luan Da and had remained undiscovered in their subsequent defeat and incarceration. While undoubtedly an artefact of great power, it was also profoundly unpredictable. The first hour of attempts to escape their cell had produced enough bric-a-brac to supply a church jumble sale, but none of it was proving very helpful for their purpose. Rubber ducks, nesting bowls, unsuitable hats, and a collection of old magazines littered the cell along with many other items of varying uselessness.

Zarenyia had been distracted from her supportive early comments first by the appearance of an angora sweater that she “bagsied” on sight, as if there was much chance of Cabal wanting it. Unhappily, she was unable to put it on due to her manacles, and it dangled from its hanger on the bars by her while she consoled herself by reading ancient agony aunt columns in the magazines.