Chapter 5: The Fiery Wrath of Asmodeus

I was feeling like I was in the middle of one of those bad dreams that aren’t quite nightmares, but that still make no sense at all. There was a troop of bloodthirsty Indians on their way. These guys were like the Wizard’s enforcers, only they weren’t flying monkeys. They were also his executioners. They were expected to arrive at mid-day. They were going to murder not only my pretty hostess, but also her half dozen friends, and display their heads on stakes. Probably mine too, if they caught me. I took that very personally.

Why the officially sanctioned bloody murder?

For conjuring me.

I knew damned well that I was no threat to anyone. I wasn’t really a demon. I sold sea shells by the sea shore.

True, I had once been a shooter in Afghanistan, but this was a world without guns. How can you have gunpowder with no guns? Same reason the Chinese had invented it: They liked fireworks, and they used the stuff in making magic. When they actually went to war, they shot arrows at each other, hacked at each other with swords, threw spears and big rocks, and trampled each other with horses. Usually they talked until they couldn’t stand hearing themselves drone anymore, when the head of one side would have the head of the other side poisoned. Sometimes the idea would occur to both of them at the same time and then peace would reign throughout the land for two or three days, until this legion or that proclaimed their general Imperator. Often the idea would occur to several legions at the same time and they’d shoot arrows at each other, hack each other with swords, ride over each other with horses, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. At least by now, after all this time, the Imperator had to have a blood claim, or at least a claim by marriage.

I wasn’t really worried. I was pissed off. Remember, I could pop from reality stream to reality stream. I’d been doing it since I was eight years old, that I’d noticed. One stream of reality looks much like the one next to it, whichever direction you go, unless you get the kind of enormous jolt I had. This little coven could all join hands and the bunch of us would find ourselves someplace much like where we were, maybe a few dozen Planck’s lengths away and out of danger. If they were touching me, they’d come along when I left. The ladies would wonder what happened to the bloodthirsty savages that were going to hack their heads off. The head choppers would wonder where everybody went. All would be peace and love and all that other hippy stuff, until we ran into another set of problems. I’d get to know ye faire Nevianne better – I was hoping for a lot better – and eventually I’d either find my way back to where I’d started or to someplace that was at least congenial. As long as it held seashore, sea shells, and tourists I’d be happy and maybe even prosperous.

The fly in that ointment was that I’m a real dumbass when I’m pissed. When “fight or flight” comes up, at least half the time I go with “fight.” The vision of even homely Blæda’s head on a stake really pissed me off. I won’t tell what the image of Nevianne’s head did for me. I will say it was worse, a waste of the worst sort. Being a sensible kind of fellow (I know, I’m contradicting myself) I was pissed not so much at the bloodthirsty Nannakussi, but at his boss, Palégos, and even more was I pissed at his boss, Governor Rægan.

“Call the rest of your friends to join us,” I ordered, interrupting Nevianne’s and Blæda’s exchange of ligatures and thorns and wynnes and umlauts and other Germanic-sounding stuff. I’d have had to concentrate too hard to understand them anyway.

They looked at me and thought briefly of going on with their conversation. Then Blæda meekly trotted off to retrieve them, after recalling that I denied being a demon but might be a liar. I watched her as she went, still thinking. Each of her butt cheeks was about the size of both of Nevianne’s.

“If I can’t come up with anything better,” I explained, “I’m going to pull the bunch of you to safety.” I spoke slowly and clearly so there wasn’t a chance of her misunderstanding. The language barrier was an impediment to coherent planning. “I haven’t decided where yet, but it’ll get you out of immediate danger.”

“Not to thy realm?” she asked nervously. I think she had images of high levels of heat and little red fellows with arrowhead tails and pitchforks. It had gradually occurred to me over the course of the morning’s conversation that she hadn’t quite believed me when I told her she had gotten the wrong Asmodeus. She was polite about it, but she was sure I really was a demon, even if I preferred going incognito.

“I told you,” I snapped, as I sometimes do when a thought process is being interrupted. “I can’t find my realm!”

“I beg thy pardon, Lord,” she squeaked submissively, frighted by my snappishness.

“Oh, stop it! I’m not your lord! I’ve got more than one name. Call me John or Johnny or Jack or Jonesy or something!”

“Aye, Lord.”

I put my hands behind my back and stomped back and forth across the little room, trying to think. I probably looked like Captain Hornblower on his quarterdeck.

Quarterdeck...

Sailing ship...

Trafalgar? No, no. Hornblower wasn’t at Trafalgar.

There was a clatter and a splash and the sound of someone falling outside. It was quickly followed by what I took to be some pretty sulfurous language.

Sulphur...

Explosives...

Gunpowder.

Blæda entered with two other women, rubbing her shins and hobbling. “Ic trippèd over thy barrow,” she explained lamely (so to speak) to Nevianne.

“Sounded like you did,” I told her. “Thanks.”

“‘Thanks?’, lord?” she asked, sitting on one of the stools so she could tug up her dress and examine a pair of now-skinless shins. “Falling übber en barrow?”

“For jogging my memory,” I responded. She didn’t look like she had ever heard the expression before, but I ignored it, along with the “lord.” She introduced the old woman as Mildrith, and the other, a cheerful-looking young woman with a pug, pink-tipped nose, who was maybe a couple years past Nevy’s age, as Ælflæda.

Before she could get comfortable, I asked Ælflæda to go and retrieve the remaining members of the coven since Blæda had managed to injure herself walking through the gate. “And move the wheelbarrow,” I added, just so we didn’t lose another one.

“How much gunpowder do you have, Nevy?” I asked when she was gone.

“What ist ‘gunpowder,’ Lor ... Jonesy ... Jack?” she asked.

“Mixed sulphur, charcoal, and niter,” I explained. “I don’t know what you call it here. ‘Fuerwerkenstoeffe‘ or something, maybe. You use it in making magic. You used some last night.”

“Ic hæbbe næ much left,” she said doubtfully.

“How about you two?” I asked.

“At miner hutte,” said Mildrith. “How to describe? Æn quartarius? Æn hemina?“

A quartarius was a Roman unit of liquid measure. A hemina was the equivalent dry measure. Nevy showed me one of her containers. They worked out to about a half pint. “May I borrow a cup of gunpowder?” I asked her, trying not to laugh. None of them would get the joke anyway, so I’d just feel foolish. They didn’t use sugar.

Nevy had almost a hemina. Blæda had just mixed up a fresh batch, almost three heminae. Usually it was best to keep the ingredients unmixed, but Blæda was a “Wit,” which was a seeress. She hadn’t known why she would need more, but she’d followed her instincts, or her Sight, or whatever it was. I didn’t believe in the Wit, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. What the hell? If I could have a sixth sense, why couldn’t she? Maybe I did believe.

Blæda headed out to retrieve her stash and Mildrith’s. On the way she ran into the others. When she returned she had the other women in tow and about eight or nine cups of gunpowder, plus some raw materials. Less the raw materials, that would make about two quarts of gunpowder. It was lighter than I wanted, but it would have to do.

“Which way will they come?” I asked.

“From ye crossroad,” Blæda assured me while Ælflæda dressed her battered leg. That meant the front door. There were only two, and Nevy’s front door faced the road, such as it was. Blæda’s leg was being treated with a length of cloth and what looked like petroleum jelly. It was a long, nasty scrape with nothing much left on it but the shreds of skin over bone.