Wizard of the Pigeons Read online

  The walls of the staircase began to show cracks. Some were as wide as his fist. He caught glimpses of cold stars through them and felt the icy breath of night. He no longer dared to rest his hand against the wall. Once a whole step was missing. In the semi-darkness, he nearly didn’t notice. His heart clutched at his throat as he stepped over a black eternity. He glanced back the way he had come. Behind him the lights were snuffed; the staircase down was a black tunnel.

  He climbed on. Just as his calves hopelessly cramped, he reached a tiny landing. A door upholstered in red velvet was lit by a small bayberry candle guttering in a yellow glass globe.

  Wizard took a deep breath and lifted an ornate brass knocker. He let it fall twice. The door was opened instantly, and he stumbled in to sink onto low fat cushions.

  “No wind,” Cassie chided him. “I keep telling you to get more exercise. You could be a Sunday jogger.”

  “I don’t have the wardrobe,” he panted. Slowly his breathing steadied. He looked around an unfamiliar chamber furnished with a multitude of red and yellow cushions. Tall windows framed In sumptuous drapes let in the night and the constellations. The ceiling rose in a dome whose interior was calligraphied with gilt characters. Light came from various choirs of candles grouped around the chamber, and from a small bright fire in a squat brazier in the center of the room.

  He took the tall glass she handed him and sipped from it.

  Clear, cold spring water, icy as a glacier, revived him. He smiled at her gratefully, beseechingly. “Cassie,” he ventured. “I think I’m in terrible trouble.”

  “I know you are,” she replied succinctly. She parted some draperies and disappeared. He stared at the banked candles until she returned, clad now in a white gown kirtled with green, and bearing a large tray. Tray and woman sank down gracefully beside Wizard. The tray had short legs that put it at kneeling height. The brazier warmed them both. She did not wait for him, but plunged ravenously into the meal.

  Wizard picked up a thick meat sandwich on homemade bread and eyed it suspiciously. “You attacked one of my pigeons today,” he accused her gravely.

  “So what?” Cassie asked around a mouthful. “We all have to eat. Besides, I just rumpled his feathers. This meat isn’t squab, if that’s what you’re worried about. Eat now, talk later. You’re as skinny as a pile of kindling.”

  Wizard ate. He never asked her where she got things from. Beside the sandwiches were slivers of smoked salmon poked into cream cheese balls, crisp sour tiny pickles, cashews and almonds, and small pastry rolls with a mysterious spicy filling.

  As he ate, he felt his strength and calmness expanding to fill him. His fear had hidden inside him all day, nibbling away at his power. But at Cassie’s he was safe, and the food she fed him gave him back his mind. With a sigh, he finished and leaned back to look at her.

  Tonight she was young, perhaps in her early twenties. Her hair was caught back in a loose roll at the nape of her neck, but tendrils of it had pulled free to soften her grave features.

  She lapped cream cheese off a fingertip, and caught his eyes on her. “So?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at him.

  “So,” he agreed. The weight of his worry pressed down on him again. “I had a visitor last night, Cassie. An unpleasant one. It calls itself Mir.”

  “I know.” She stopped his voice with a look. “I overheard it. Anyone with a shred of Power must have felt it last night. I imagine people had nightmares for blocks around here.”

  “Sorry,” he murmured, feeling guilty about the overflow.

  “Don’t be. They should consider it fair warning. If you fall to it, not a street in the Ride Free Area will be safe. So it concerns them as much as it does you. What you are going to do about it?”

  He shook his head slowly, having no answer. The Pimp entered, slipping between the drapes like perfume, strolling across the room with his orange tail held high. He glanced with green eyes at the ravaged tray and leaped to Wizard’s lap, purring loudly. Wizard stroked his sleek sides, and the big cat stood up against him to rub cheeks with him. Sitting down fat on his lap. The Pimp gave a quick scrub at his face with one paw and uttered a questioning meow.

  “Sorry,” Wizard laughed gently. “We ate it all.”

  The Pimp was not slow. He sank his claws into Wizard’s thighs and burned out across his chest, leaving clawmarks instead of smoking rubber. Wizard gave a yell and fell away from him as the angry cat vanished. Cassie only laughed. “You see where he got his name. Bring him something home and he’s your sugar man. But greet him empty-handed… That’s The Pimp.”

  “Black Thomas lost a paw last night.”

  Cassie flinched. “I didn’t pick up on that. Do you think he’ll be all right?”

  “I did what I could for him. That’s how Mir got me; reached after Thomas past my own shield, and couldn’t pull back fast enough.”

  “I had wondered what made you go out there naked. Well. I suppose you want me to look into it?”

  “Would you?”

  “Why do you think I changed? I wasn’t about to play seer in a sweatsuit. It would be akin to a priest granting absolution without a stole. I guess there’s no sense in putting it off. Come on,then.”

  Cassie wiped her fingertips and mouth with a napkin and dropped it on the tray. Wizard rose slowly to follow her. As he picked up the bag and his coat. she focused on the bag.

  “What’s that?”

  “I found it in a dumpster, with my name on it.” He held it out to her. As quickly as she had put out her hand, she drew it back. Wonder and dread mingled in her voice.

  “There’s power there, but not for me to touch, nor use. It’s harmless right now, but the right spark…”

  “Just like plastic explosive.”

  “If I were one to give advice on things that aren’t in my realm, I’d tell you to leave it in that bag until the moment comes. Don’t touch it until then. Don’t mantle yourself with its power until you are ready to pick up the gauntlet.”

  “Is this a Seeing?”

  “Don’t tease. No, it’s just my opinion.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you knew what was in the bag.”

  “Well, I don’t. And I don’t want to. Not any more than I want to ask you this. But I don’t dare do a Seeing without knowing. Have you broken faith with the magic?”

  Wizard stared at her, feeling slashed that she would even ask him such a thing. Did she suppose that he had forgotten the rules, unique to himself, that he must obey to retain his own special powers? He shook his head numbly.

  “Are you sure? Not even by accident? Have you spoken the Truth when it was on you? When people ask, and you Know, have you always answered? Have you kept your pigeons safe and secure?”

  He bobbed a nod at each question, but as she pressed on, he felt his control break. When she paused, he asked in a cold, uncertain voice, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’ve carried more than a dollar in change? If I’ve turned my strength loose upon others? If I’ve been with a woman?”

  An abyss of dread opened in Cassie’s eyes and was as quickly masked. “Do I need to ask those things?” she inquired evenly.

  “No! Because you know I haven’t. Can’t we get on with this? That damn thing up in my den… I know it’s from gray Mir. I Know it.”

  Cassie’s calm held. “Then if you Know it, it must be so. Tell me: What do you remember of this Mir, from before?”

  He shrugged heavily. “Nothing, I guess. Sometimes I feel like my life rolls itself up behind me as I live it. I try to look back, but it’s all hidden inside itself. I see my yesterdays, but only so many at a time. Before that, there’s nothing.”

  Cassie nodded quickly, seeming eager to stop his words.

  “Let’s find out the worst, then. Come on.”

  “Cassie?” His anxious tone swung her eyes back to him.

  “It was a while back. Estrella the Gypsy gave me a tarot card. It said ‘A Warning’ and showed a man dangling upside down by one hee
l. But then it was gone, so I—”

  “The Hanged Man.” The silence that followed her words had a chilling eloquence. She swept across the room.

  Wizard tucked the bag securely under his arm and followed.

  She parted the hanging drapes and waved him through. The next room was in darkness. Wizard smelled dust and mildew and heard the chitter and scuttling of mice alarmed by his approach. Cassie came behind him, bearing a candelabra. The flames of the candles didn’t waver with her movement; they didn’t light much more than her path, either. He trailed along behind her through a maze of rooms and corridors. Most of the chambers they passed through were dusty and abandoned, but some were strangely and sumptuously furnished, twined and draped with Cassie’s ever-present plants, and lit by a pale yellow light that blinded Wizard until he passed into the darkened chambers beyond.

  When they entered a carpeted room with many gilt-framed portraits on the wall, Cassie set her candles down on a low table. Wizard put his bag and coat on a loveseat beside it.

  Cassie was silent, so he watched her quietly as she went to a scarred roll-top desk. She wound her hair into a black scarf.

  A black cloak from a peg by the desk quenched her white robe.

  She began to take objects from the drawers. Stepping a little closer, he watched her arrange them on a little lacquered tray.

  There was a round mirror in a red frame with no handle; a thin ring of shining silver; four cats-eye marbles; a little pile of popcorn; five pennies polished copper bright; and white tail feathers from a pigeon.

  “One never knows what they’ll fancy,” she murmured without looking at him. Taking the tray, she crossed the room to slide open a heavy wooden door on tracks. Beyond was a dizzying view. The lights of Seattle were impossibly small and spread out below them. But tree limbs reached up past the tiny rickety balcony which Cassie stepped onto. Wizard crept to the door and peered out. He longed to go to the edge and catch some glimpse of what supported them up here, but dared not.

  The gray wood of the railing was splintering and twisting away from its supports. The deck creaked under Cassie’s weight. He followed her gaze up to the full moon and felt his heart squeeze. The moon had been only a quarter full last night; Wizard was sure of it. He swallowed drily.

  Cassie’s hair and body had vanished, dark cloth into dark night. Her pale face was full and shining as the moon herself.

  She set the tray down at her feet and straightened with the mirror cupped in her hand. Slowly she twisted and angled the mirror until the white moonlight filled it. She stared into it and began:

  “Light of the sun, reflected in the moon’s face:

  Light of the moon, reflected in my hand;

  Hear me now, and bring to me at this place

  Those I would consult, those I would command.”

  As simple as a jump rope song, but Wizard’s knees shook.

  The whole front of his body tingled as if painted with a sudden frost. He backed stealthily away from the open door and fled back to the candelabra. He put on his coat and held his bag on his lap before him like a shield. The brush of woman’s power left his skin, but he seated himself firmly on the small couch to wait.

  He sat watching-the candle flames. He longed suddenly for coffee with an unsurpassed desire, but knew that Cassie never kept any. He shifted restlessly. Any company, even The Pimp’s, would have been welcome, but he was alone. Cassie was singing softly on the balcony; he resisted hearing her. He passed the time by making the candle flames flare up tall and thin, until the tips of the flames broke off and winked out in the dark room. When he noticed the tapers melting low, he calmed the flames, reducing them to tiny tongues on the tips of the wicks.

  “Mental masturbation,” she scoffed.

  He turned to find Cassie unwinding the cloth from her hair.

  Her hair fell in damp tendrils past her shoulders. As she swung the cloak free of herself and onto the hook, he caught the musk of her efforts. There was a hint of a tremble in her iron control as she sank onto the loveseat beside him.

  “There are more candles in the lefthand cubbyhole of the desk,” she told him.

  As he fetched them, he glanced at her tray. The mirror was blackened as if by fire. The pigeon feathers were gone. He took the candles to her, and she kindled them to replace the softening stumps in the holder. Her lips looked chapped, her face windburned. ‘“Give me space,” she requested gently. Hastily he cleared his bag from the seat and moved to sit on the floor near her feet. She looked down at him almost fondly.

  “Why did you have to come to Seattle?” she wondered in soft rebuke.

  “Was I someplace else before I was here?” he asked in reply.

  “Never mind. You are in Seattle, and it is here you will face it. Your battles with this grayness go back past your memories. In some, you have done well. From others, you bear the scars. We won’t prod them now. I have only paltry things that I may tell you outright. There will be a final confrontation. Very soon. You must guard the weapons you have forged. If you guard them well, they may be just enough to defeat this Mir. Your edge will be a small one; if you do win, it will be by a tiny margin. This grayness is too clever to let you hone your weapons long. It will come for you soon. If it wins, it keeps you. If it loses, it leaves you alone.”

  ‘“Can I not vanquish it completely, destroy it all?”

  “Listen to him!” Cassie hooted. “Vanquish it! Have you any idea what you ask to do? No man may do that for any other. You can win yourself free, and no more than that.”

  “Then, if I lose, I will be the only loser.”

  “You know better.” Cassie’s voice went deadly soft. “Through you, the grayness could rout us all, as easily as shoving a hose down a molehill. There’d be no escaping for any of us. But if it comes to that, it would no longer be you, nor any of your doing. You’d only be the tool. Let’s see.” She sighed heavily. “What else was there?”

  “Cassie. you’re not telling me anything new.”

  “I know that. I’m telling you what you knew and were afraid to admit to yourself. Listen. I can give you a story. Would you like a story?”

  “‘Go ahead,” Wizard said grumpily. Cassie’s stories usually obscured more than they illuminated.

  “Good. Because I have a good one for you. No, two. This is the first. Once upon a time. a long, long time ago, in France during World War Two, not that it matters, there were some people being shelled. Among them were a young French woman and her two small children. The two children were very, very frightened. So the mother, to distract them from their terror, began to make silly faces for them, and funny noises. It worked. The children paid attention to her and were no longer afraid. But suddenly a shell exploded very near them, and a tiny fragment of shrapnel struck the woman in the throat. She choked and gurgled in her own blood, making terrible grimaces of pain, but unable to call aloud for help. How the children laughed to see the funny faces Mama made, and hear the silly noises. She died to the sound of her children’s laughter.”

  Cassie paused expectantly. Wizard just stared, his face gone white. “I didn’t say the stories wouldn’t hurt,” she said softly. “But they may help, too. Once upon a time, in England, during World War Two, a bomb fell on an old folks’ home. After the raid was over, rescuers came to dig them out and see if there were any survivors. They found one old man sitting on a toilet, still holding the pull chain in his hand, and laughing uproariously. ‘I pulled the chain,’ he said. ‘And the ’ole bloody building came down on me ‘ead.’

  “There’s one more I’ll throw in for free,” Cassie added quickly before Wizard could speak, “it was the first bombing raid over Norwich in World War Two. We were all running for the shelters, when I saw one man come dashing up with an armload of white lilies. ‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘If they get you, at least you’ll have your lilies ready.’ He threw down the flowers with a look of horror and dashed down the shelter steps.”

  Cassie stopped and looked at Wizard ex
pectantly.

  “Were you really there? In Norwich, the first time it was bombed?”

  She looked disgusted. “That story is always told in the first person. Well. Do you understand now?”

  “Understand what?”

  “Everything. Why the grayness came to you to test you last night and what weapons you must keep safe and keen.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to ponder your stories a bit more before it all comes clear,” he extemporized. Never call Cassie obscure to her face. “But there is one more thing that I have to ask. Something that has troubled me. Cassie, do you know what Mir showed me? About the boys and the chickens, I mean?”

  Cassie nodded, turning her head away. “I couldn’t help but overhear, my friend. I’m sorry to intrude.”

  “I don’t mind. Perhaps I would mind more if I understood more. It seemed so monstrous a task for young boys to do.”

  “Some say it’s the root of all domestic violence.”

  Wizard looked befuddled, so she continued.

  “Don’t you see? Teach a child that it’s fine, even necessary, to gently raise an animal, seeing to its every need, protecting its well-being. Of course, along the way, you cut off the end of the chicken’s beak, so it can’t peck other chickens. The same for the rooster’s spurs. Then you make a couple of incisions, and reach in and cut his balls out so he’ll get nice and fat. Then, after he’s nice and fat, you whack off his head and devour him. Now, how far is it from that logic to loving your wife, but beating her into submission if she goes against your wishes. Or feed, clothe, and shelter your kids, but kick the crap out of them for their own good when it suits you? Answer me that.”

  Wizard considered the connection a bit far-fetched. “I’ve never heard that theory before. Who did you say advanced it?”