Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune

Malediction Jeff Grubb

Here’s what Little Minx did right before she went to hell:

She picked up four heavy ceramic mugs, two in each hand, and with a minimum of sloshing delivered the watered ale intact to one of the booths in the back. She dropped the ale and retired quickly as one of the drunks made a half-hearted lunge for her. She managed a false smile in recognition of the attention but would rather have had a few padpols by way of a tip instead.

Crossing the main floor, Little Minx nodded as a barrel-maker tried to flag her down to order the same rot-gut ale he always ordered these days. She dodged out of the way of another groper along the back aisle and pulled a meat pie of dubious provenance from the cook’s counter, delivering it to the third table on the right, where a group of dark-haired men stopped talking the moment she arrived.

Dropping the meat pie, she retreated, hearing the conversation kick in again in sharp whispers behind her. She orbited out of the range of a ham-handed swat at her backside and pointed to a bleary red-haired drinker two tables up who had clearly had enough. She announced his bar tab, padding it for a tip, and left him to sort through his change as she wound her way back to the bar. She stepped neatly out of the way of Big Minx, who was herself loaded with a heavy tray for the Ilsig party in the back room.

A firm hand grabbed a good section of her posterior, squeezing a full cheek. She wheeled, smacking the offending paw away, the worn smile on her face turning suddenly feral. She let out a string of curses sufficient to blister the tattered wallpaper and spun back out into the main aisle, heading for the bar, still snarling a blue streak.

Two steps later the floor opened up beneath her feet in a wide hole, perfectly circular. The pit within glowed with the light of burning embers, and smoke billowed upward in an acrid puff. Everyone in the Vulgar Unicorn who could look up did.

Little Minx had enough time to hurl one more epithet, then plunged straight into hell.

I’m in hell, thought Heliz Yunz.

The Linguist of Lirt blinked and tried to force himself awake as the merchant continued to elaborate on the wide variety of stock that had been broken, lost, or obviously stolen from his most recent caravan. Heliz bridled against the fact that he should be researching but instead was parked in the marketplace writing letters for padpols and the cost of paper. Across the way, a street conjurer cadged for loose change by presenting wilted flowers out of thin air and appearing to drive nails through her hands—simple tricks that would fool no child over five. Yet the street conjurer was doing better business than Heliz.

Indeed, Heliz looked like an object of pity as opposed to commerce. His hair was a black bowl-cut tilted at a slight but noticeable angle, the result of self-inflicted barbering. His faded and patched robe was now even more faded and patched than it had been when he had arrived at this godsforsaken town, and of the thirty silver buttons that once closed it, not a single one remained—all had been replaced with wooden disks.

In truth, Heliz had a newer robe, no fancier than the one he wore but of similar cut and more contiguous material, given to him by the youth called Lone as payment, but felt that the merchants he had to deal with deserved no better than pure poverty-stricken Heliz Yunz. They prattled their petty concerns into the ears of a man who was no mere scribe, but a true researcher, a man who sought out the words of power that created the universe itself, and had mastered a few such words along the way: A verb that softened the earth for plowing. An adjective that created a small flame. A turn of phrase that would ease a lamb’s birth.

And a particular noun that was very, very powerful indeed. No, these merchants and mendicants had no idea of the true power of such words.

This particular merchant, a weasel-faced Rankan, was no better or worse than the rest of Heliz’s clients. Just from the cadence of his voice Heliz could tell what claims were valid and which were false. There was a catch in his throat just before declaring some crate of his had gone missing, a slight vagueness in the description of the damage to a particular piece of statuary. Heliz had no doubt the missing crate was resting comfortably in the merchant’s back room, and from the way the merchant circumspectly described it, the damaged statue itself was of an extremely erotic nature.

Through it all, Heliz felt the heavy lump of bronze in his breast pocket of his worn and over-patched robe. He would rather turn his attention to the tablet than to Weasel-face, but the current path of his life led in this less-appetizing direction.

A shadow appeared at the corner of his eye, a shadow both large and dull. Heliz didn’t need to know who it was and had no desire to show that he recognized it. Instead he narrowed his eyes and tried to look like he was listening more intently to the Rankan merchant. Perhaps the bulky shadow would take the hint.

The shadow did not, but Weasel-face, suddenly aware he had an audience, did. The Rankan stopped, stumbled over a word or two, and finished up his dictation with a crusty demand for reimbursement from the letter’s recipient that Heliz had no doubt would be ignored. A few coins ransomed the official-looking letter from the Heliz’s hands, and the merchant was gone.

The linguist-turned-scribe sighed deeply, gathering his strength. The monotonous drone of the merchant had left him more tired and petty than normal. He tried to remember a time when he didn’t feel so, but he came up empty.

He looked at the looming shadow and tried to conjure a suitably nasty greeting. Nothing came to mind, so he settled on, “What are you doing here, besides chasing away my clientele?”

Lumm the staver cleared his throat and said, “It looked like he was wrapping up. I didn’t want to intrude.”

Heliz managed another hopefully obvious sigh. “He was wrapping up because the weight of your shadow was enough to drive him away. It’s hard to prevaricate effectively when a barrel-maker’s shade is resting athwart one’s shoulder blades.”

Lumm didn’t respond. Heliz wondered what words the big man was having trouble with.

The linguist took advantage of the silence to press on. He shook his head. “Bad enough I have to sit here in the marketplace, in the blistering sun like some relic of a bygone age, writing letters for any fool that passes by because I have to get you a new house.”

“A new business,” said Lumm quietly. “You destroyed the old one. I mean, it was destroyed because you were there.”

“A new house that includes space for a business,” snapped Heliz. “One that has a hearth large enough for small iron-smithing, a source of water for shaping the staves, an anvil, of course, and all manner of space for storage of staves, hoops, and finished barrels. No, it’s not bad enough that I beach myself on this barren expanse to pay off a debt of my life (not that I forget such things, I want you to know), but now you come into what can laughingly be called my place of business and scare away my patrons, patrons I need to pay for the new house with the et cetera and so forth. So forgive my effrontery when I ask, what are you doing here?”

The side of the large man’s mouth twitched, and Heliz knew the cooper was trying to phrase a response in a manner that would prevent, or at least minimize another tirade. For a brief moment, a moment shorter than the orgasm of a moth, he felt sympathy for Lumm. To be saddled with a set of slow thought processes and trapped in a ponderous form would be more than Heliz could bear. That was another breed of hell entirely.

But the moment, like the moth, came and went Heliz scowled at the barrel-maker.

“There’s a problem,” said the cooper at last.

Heliz grunted. “Linking verb, missing the proper pronoun. Not ‘I have a problem,’ nor ‘You have a problem,’ nor even ‘We have a problem.’ Merely a recognition that a problem exists. You’re next going to tell me what the problem is and why it is going to become my problem.”

“I was at the Vulgar Unicorn last night,” said Lumm.

“And you didn’t come home before I left this morning,” noted the linguist. “Not that I am your mother. I thought you could not get blotto on rot-gut ale and cabinet wine, but I am no barfly and have been wrong on such matters before.”

“I was consoling …” The cooper’s words failed him, and he reddened. Then he shook his head and said, “Let me start at the beginning.”

Start he did, laying out in plodding detail his evening af ter their late supper (hard cheese and bread eaten in their current quarters: an upper-room flat with a communal well in the atrium, a communal privy, too). A short walking tour to collect debts and seek orders, then an evening at the ’Unicorn, watching the lowlifes in their natural habitat. Heliz noted that Lumm apparently spent a lot of time watching two of the staff, the Minxes (Big and Little), because their actions wove through the commentary regularly, right up to the point where the floor opened up beneath the smaller, fox-faced one and plunged her into hell.

“And then what?” said the linguist.

“And then everyone left,” said Lumm. “I mean mostly everyone. Some of the staff stayed, and me, and few of the curious. But most cut and ran. You don’t smell brimstone and hang about. Some left quickly, and some left slowly, but most just left and haven’t come back. There were attempts to pound on the floor looking for a hollow spot. There are tunnels everywhere else, it seems, but where Little Minx disappeared, the floorboards rest on solider-than-solid rock. And some of the staff was afraid, and I spent the night …” His face reddened again.

“Consoling,” finished Heliz. Lumm nodded, and a moment of silence passed between the two. Finally the linguist said, “So?”

“So, what?” said the cooper.

“Exactly,” said Heliz. “So what? Why does this pyrotechnic disappearance have anything to do with me and my life, penurious as it seems?”

“Well, people are saying it’s very strange.”

Heliz snorted. “Strange? This rattletrap of a town occupies the corner of Odd and Weird. I don’t doubt that it already has half a foot in four separate dimensions, so a mere flaming chasm opening shouldn’t surprise anyone.”

Lumm regrouped, “Well, there’s an idea that it was because of a curse.”

“Curses are three-a-padpol here,” said Heliz, his mind wandering. He felt the weight of the bronze tablet again over his heart, the tablet set with lines of five languages, two of which he had never seen before, all threatening dire curses on the one who violated the tablet’s sanctity. He could take a rubbing of the tablet, of course, but it seemed a pity to have to give it back to the young man who asked for the translation.

“No,” said Lumm. “It was because of her curse. I mean, her cursing. She was cursing like the devil’s dam right before, and suddenly the- ground opens up beneath her.”

Heliz looked hard at the cooper. “And you think it’s because of her cursing that she disappeared?”

“Not me,” said the big man. “But others are talking, and when they talked, the idea sort of evolved, if there are powerful words …”

“And there are,” said Heliz.

“Then there’s a chance that someone might stumble onto them, and … you know, work a spell.”

Heliz looked out across the marketplace, then took a deep breath. “That,” he said, “is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

“Hold on,” said Lumm. “You work with words. I mean, those type of words. You know what I mean. And I’ve seen what you do with them.”

“Do you think that’s it?” said Heliz. “That if you utter a few choice phrases, suddenly you’re a magician? The words of power, the words the gods used to build the world, are slippery things. The human mind isn’t made for them. Indeed, you can look right at one without seeing it, you can hear it spoken and not remember it a moment later, because your mind doesn’t want to recognize it. Words of power aren’t something that a cursing doxie would suddenly stumble upon in mid-tirade. And even if she did, without recognizing what they were, without some base understanding, she couldn’t work an effect that large. That is stupid beyond belief. Even for the crowd at the ’Unicorn.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Lumm, “I didn’t say anything at the time, because I could be wrong, but that’s what I thought. What you just said.”

“Were that true, a combination of common words, the most common words usually uttered in this town, would cause such damage,” continued Heliz, shaking his head, “that the entire Maze would be filled with fiery chasms, and every bar and tavern from here to the docks would be in flames. Who would be dull enough to put forward such an idea?”

“There was this Irrune warrior that told me,” said Lumm. “Ravadar, his name was.”

“I wonder who told him,” muttered Heliz. The linguist shook his head and took a deep breath. “No. No. You have an odd occurrence. You have a bizarre theory that I have now thoroughly debunked. Why is this still my problem?”

Lumm was quiet for a moment, such that to someone other than Heliz, he would look deep in thought. At last he said, “I thought you would be curious.”

“Curious, yes!” said Heliz, now packing up his pens, stylus, inks, and tablet. There would be no more writing this day. “Curious enough to get involved, no! The curious do not survive here, in case you haven’t noticed!”

“And I thought you’d be able to help,” said Lumm, “because you always seem to be asking the questions that no one else thinks of.”

“Flattery is not your strong suit,” said Heliz. “And you ended that bit of praise with a preposition. But your words ring true. However, regardless of my abilities in the matter, why is this your problem? And by this I mean to ask, why is it my problem?”

Lumm was quiet for a moment, and Heliz knew that now the cooper would speak the truth. “There is talk that this particular curse is one that only worked in a specific place. In the tap room of the Vulgar Unicorn.”

“And?” pried the linguist.

“Well, people are now a little wary of cursing in the ’Unicorn. You know, in case it happens again.”

“And … ?”

“No one likes to go to a bar and not be able to curse,” said Lumm.

“And once more: Why is this … ?”

“It’s my problem,” said Lumm, “because people are staying away from the ’Unicorn now. And if people stay away, they don’t spend money.”

Heliz’s eyes lit up. After the long night, understanding finally dawned like the morning thunder. “And they owe you money,” he said, simply.

Lumm the staver nodded. “They need barrels, and it’s good steady work until we have a place of our own.”

“And that Talulahs Thunder swill you quaff is gratis, I’ll bet,” said the linguist with a grin. “Part of the deal. You wouldn’t drink that swill if you had to pay for it.”

The cooper shrugged.

“So,” said Heliz, “bad things at the ‘Unicorn equals no money at the ’Unicorn equals no money for us equals me sitting here for an even longer period of time writing other people’s letters. Have I finally got that clear?”

“Clear enough,” said Lumm the staver.

“And should I make this my problem,” said Heliz, “you will forgive my remaining debt to you?”

The cooper was quiet, then said, “Half—”

“Two-thirds.”

“Done.”

“Done.” Heliz rose. “Then we should go.”

“To the ’Unicorn?” said Lumm.

“To our temporary digs first,” said Heliz. “If you want me to play a professional investigator, you should let me look the part. And you should bring something that looks like a weapon. You salvaged something sufficiently wicked from the wreckage of your old shop, am I correct?”

“A hand adze has a good, tempered blade.”

“Too small to impress,” said Heliz. “Didn’t I see a big mallet in your collection?”

“The long-handled bung hammer?” said Lumm. “It’s hardly a real weapon, heavy headed and all. It has no balance.”

“I didn’t say you should bring a weapon,” said Heliz, “I said you should bring something that looks like a weapon. Let’s go.”

As they left the market, Heliz’s brow furrowed. “So why is ’Unicorn hiring you to make barrels? They serve ale and wine. And those horrible little dry fish. They should be codpiece-deep in barrels!”

“You see!” said Lumm the staver, smiling. “That’s why I came to you. You ask questions that no one else thinks of!”

“Nice robes, by the way,” said Lumm as they paused at the main door to the Vulgar Unicorn, as though he hadn’t noticed that Heliz had changed his garments until they were lit by light from the tavern’s reeking interior.

“A payment,” said Heliz, already preoccupied. “Possibly a bribe. From a lone youth who confuses literacy with power. I hope that there are a few others like that in the common room tonight. I don’t know what’s going to happen, if anything, but if I tell you to do something, do it No questions. Pretend that you believe I know what I’m doing.”

Lumm nodded grimly, as if the cooper had been summoned to some higher calling. Heliz touched the bronze tablet in his breast pocket for luck, and they entered.

The common room was mostly empty, a testament to the barrel-maker’s concerns. Usually at this time of day there would be a brace of bravos whooping it up in one corner, and at least three plots unspooling in the back booths, not to mention a regular clientele of sailors, fishermen, pickpockets, snatch-purses, grafters, grifters, bilkers, smugglers, con-artists, tin changers, coin biters, ladies of easy virtue, and lords of no virtue at all. Now the majority of the previously listed had decamped to less-auspicious climes, leaving a double-handful of individuals gathered around a clear spot where the tables had been pushed back and a large chalk circle scribed. Along one side of the circle a list of foul words and phrases had been chalked and crossed out.

The air smelled of stale beer, wood smoke, pine dust, and vomit. And just a touch of brimstone.

Someone shouted Lumm’s name as they entered, and Heliz was almost knocked over by a charging water buffalo. In this case the buffalo wore a low-cut gown, copious bracelets, and enough perfume to gag a minor devil. Other than that, the comparison was accurate. The water buffalo embraced Lumm tightly, and the big man peeled her off as delicately as he could.

“I said I would bring help,” said Lumm, his face blushing furiously. He held out a large hand to steady the teetering linguist. “This is Heliz Yunz, of Lirt. He knows about these things.”

The buffalo wheeled on Heliz, and for a moment the linguist feared that she would embrace him as well. Instead she said, “Oh yes, your little friend.” She smiled and Heliz noted that her heavily kohled eyes were red from crying and lack of sleep.

The towering bar wench had stressed the word “little,” and despite himself Heliz stiffened his spine, which did him no good—his chin barely cleared the tattered lace decking of her bodice. Irritated, he turned toward the circle and the motley collection gathered around it.

He pretended to examine the chalk circle, but cast glances as well at the surrounding group. There were other employees—two of the kitchen servers and one of the cooks. Everyone else apparently had been sent home. No sign of anyone who looked like an owner. A gray-robed man sat calmly to one side; his very demeanor screamed bureaucrat. To the left of the bureaucrat was the Irrune warrior Lumm had mentioned, Ravadar, flanked by two bored-looking mates of similar tribal origins. (Heliz wondered why he never saw such a warrior alone—did they travel in flocks?) Across from them perched a dark-haired young person of indeterminate gender, playing with a long, delicate knife.

S‘danzo, or at least S’danzo blood, Heliz thought A people known for their curses.

Two drunks were splayed forward on tables, who might have been sober when the incident first happened but now were no longer conscious. One drunk was blond, while the other one had brilliant red hair. Big Minx, Heliz, and Lumm finished out the numbers of those in the not-quite-empty common room.

“Who’s the ‘little friend’?” said the warrior Ravadar with a challenging chuckle. “Not a frogging spell-caster, I hope.”

“Hardly,” said Heliz, trying not to rise to the bait. “I just know a lot about words. Someone told me that words were involved here.”

“Aye, cursed words,” snarled the Irrune, punctuating his comment with a hawking spit that missed the spittoon by a good foot and a half. “She stumbled into a spell and damned herself.”

“Evil eye,” muttered the S’danzo, apparently re-engaging a conversation their entrance had interrupted.

“Cursed words,” the warrior huffed. “She damned herself.”

“She had the evil eye put upon her,” said the dark-haired youth. “My mother’s brother, he had the evil eye put upon him, and he fell down a well. A well that had not been there the night before.”

“Your uncle got drunk and lost his way,” said Ravadar, and his allies laughed. The S’danzo-blooded youth gripped the knife more tightly but said nothing.

“What’s this?” said Heliz, toeing the list of phrases.

One of the kitchen staff, a blond girl with blackened streaks in her hair, said, “Those are the curses Little Minx used, best as we can remember them. One of them may have done this.”

“So you spoke the words?” said Heliz.

“Do we look like fools?” thundered Ravadar. “We described them and wrote them down so we could all agree with them. Words have power. Curse words most of all.”

“Who told you that?” asked Heliz, trying to keep his voice as neutral as he could for the moment.

The big warrior’s eyes flickered. “I always heard it was so.” Heliz remained silent. “It’s common knowledge,” the Irrune warrior added after a moment.

“Evil eye,” repeated the dark-haired youth.

“And you are?” said Heliz to the youth.

“I am …” Feminine features twisted beneath hard, masculine brows. “Merely curious.”

Ravadar let out a chuckle, “S’danzo won’t tell you it’s raining out even if they come in soaking wet.” His companions laughed in agreement.

Heliz ignored the comment, and instead looked at the scrawled list. “The first one reads …” He tried to sound it out. “Puh-ed-knawk … ?”

The Irrune leaped back as if burned, along with his two companions and the kitchen staff as well. Big Minx let out a squeal. It was the S’danzo’s turn to let out a laugh, harsh as a northern winter and sharp as a knife blade.

“Don’t say it!” bellowed the Irrune. “You would call down ruin on us all!”

“So what do you refer to it as?” said Heliz dryly. “This first epithet?”

The gray bureaucrat said, “We’re calling it Engaging with a Ilsigi Woman.” His voice was whisper-quiet. “An ill-kempt Ilsigi woman.”

“And the second?” Heliz looked around.

“A S’danzo not of her father’s issue,” said the youth in a flat voice.

“And the third?” said the linguist. He looked hard at the Irrune.

“Eating one’s dinner a second time,” said the big warrior. When Heliz said nothing, he added, “It’s a common curse in the north.”

“I do not doubt that it is,” said the linguist. He scowled at the writing, and said, “They’re not very readable.”

“Best that could be done,” said the gray man, “under the circumstances”

“So you are the scrivener of this list?” said Heliz.

“I am.”

Heliz squinted at the list. “You’re not very good at it.”

The gray man’s tone grew sharper. “A workman is only as good as his tools.”

“A poor workman blames his tools,” said Heliz, pulling his tablet and writing kit from one of the new robe’s deep pockets. He opened it on the table and produced a quartersheet of papyrus and a charcoal stylus. “Show me.”

“Show you what?”

“That you can write.” The linguist nodded toward the phrases.

“Write what?” said the bureaucrat, his brows knitted.

“Anything you like,” said Heliz. “Recopy this mess.” He tapped his toe against the eighth epithet, which involved unwilling engagement with a barnyard animal. “Or just write ‘I know how to write,’ in the language of your choice. Don’t worry, I can read any language you put down. If your penmanship is up to snuff, that is. I need to know whether this mess on the floor is accurate.”

The gray little bureaucrat glared at Heliz, looked briefly at Lumm, then picked up both the stylus and the challenge. As he scratched the papyrus, the linguist said to the others, “Have you all been in Sanctuary long?”

“Three, four weeks,” said Ravadar, looking at the others. They nodded.

“Just passing through,” said the gray man, not looking up.

“I live here,” said the youth. The kitchen staff nodded in agreement, though it was unclear if the youth was claiming Sanctuary or the Vulgar Unicorn as his home address.

“And you all saw the same thing?”

The Irrune recapped the points, similar to what Lumm had told him before, and the S’danzo put in a few comments, but there was nothing that Heliz has not heard before arriving.

“Here,” said the gray bureaucrat, shoving the bit of reed paper toward him.

“I know how to write,” read Heliz aloud. “Not horribly original, but a good hand. I apologize for my impeachment of your ability, Master … Gobble, it says here?”

“Gothal,” said the gray man frostily.

“Close enough.”

Heliz lifted the piece of paper and spoke a word, an adjective of power that he knew. The word was strange and arcane and those that heard it would not be able to repeat it if they tried, so slippery was it in their mind. He felt the forces of the universe twist around him, and despite himself, he allowed himself a small grin.

The piece of papyrus burst into flames.

Big Minx and the staff leaned away, frightened. Lumm and the gray man both scowled. The dark-haired youth’s eyes brightened.

The Irrune warrior’s hand dropped to his sword, “You are a frogging wizard!”

“Hardly,” lied Heliz. “That’s a street-corner trick, a bit of rough-treated paper that ignites when rubbed against itself. And that’s what I think all this is, a bit of street-corner mummery.”

“Nonsense!” snapped Ravadar. “She spoke cursed words!”

“Evil eye,” said the youth.

“She cursed,” said Heliz, color coming to his face. “So has every man and woman that’s ever come into this nasty little hellhole.” He saw Big Minx bridle at the description, her brows knitting. “There’s nothing here,” he tapped the chalked words with a boot, “that hasn’t been said within these walls at least a thousand times, and probably by the little round-heeled trollop herself.”

The knitted brows of the large tavern wench deepened, but Heliz pressed on. “These words on the floor are harmless, a bit of misdirection. Street-corner stuff. Only a fool would believe them dangerous.”

Heliz would have gone on, but Big Minx interrupted. “If you think they’re harmless, then you speak them.”

Heliz looked up, stunned by the challenge.

“Go on!” The buffalo was in full-charge mode now. “If you think they’re harmless, do it!”

The others around the room nodded, and the red-haired drunk shifted in his chair.

Heliz stammered for a moment, “Well … I … That is …”

“Here!” She shoved him out of the circle and pointed at the top of the list. In a loud, clear voice, she announced, “Pudknocking bastard!”

Half the group leaned back, the other half leaned forward. Lumm took a step forward, but Heliz lifted a hand and the larger man froze. The cooper’s brow was furrowed in concern as well.

Big Minx would not be denied. She rattled off curse after curse, her voice rising. She used the fifth word three times, and the sixth term in a rattle of different tenses. She took a deep breath for the seventh.

And the ground opened up beneath her feet as she opened her mouth. It was a circular hole, limned in flame, that suddenly yawned underneath her heavy feet. With the seventh curse on her lips, she vanished into the hole.

Lumm let out a cry himself and took two steps forward, but Heliz held him back, watching the others. The Irrune, Ravadar, was wide-eyed but nodding, his two comrades rising to their feet and craning their necks to see if they could get a better view. Gothal the Gray shook his head. The curious youth looked suddenly ashen. One of the drunks snorted.

“What did you do?” shouted Lumm, his face now twisted in anger.

“Told you!” said Ravadar. “told you that it was a cursed word. This word! This place! I told you! This place is cursed now, for sure! You should burn the building and let no one build upon the ashes!”

“I trusted you!” said Lumm. “I trusted you, and now Big Minx is gone as well!”

“Hush,” hissed Heliz. “Act like I know what I’m doing. And be ready with your hammer.”

To the others the linguist said, “What did you see?”

“What did we see?” said the Irrune warrior. “We saw that poor woman use the cursed words, and fall into hell!”

“You goaded her,” said the gray man, softly.

“Goaded,” picked up the warrior. “You goaded her into using the cursed words! And now she’s lost as well.”

“She’s not lost,” said Heliz, “merely misplaced.” He turned toward the man in gray. “You can bring her back now.”

Gothal scowled, “What do you mean?”

“Misdirection,” said Heliz. “Street-corner magic. Everyone was watching Big Minx, but I was watching the rest of you. And your lips were moving.”

The others were silent. Lumm hefted his bung-hammer. The warriors’ hands trailed toward their blades. The ashenfaced S’danzo gripped the knife tightly. The gray bureaucrat kept one hand on the table, the other in the pocket of his own robes. The man was too calm, Heliz thought, and with that realization, all the pieces fit into place.

“Words were involved,” said Heliz. “But not hers. Yours. A spell? A trigger word? A mantra? It doesn’t matter. Here’s what happened: I think you made a grab for her, and one or more of her insults struck a little too close to home. So you decided to get vengeance. That was very stupid.”

The gray-robed man gripped something tightly in his pocket and shouted his words this time. His phrases were alien and mystic, but Heliz had heard worse, and he threw himself to one side as the pit to hell opened beneath his feet.

Before he hit the ground, Heliz shouted, “Lumm! Keep the hole open!”

Heliz twisted as he fell, slamming a chair aside as he landed. The linguist’s shin and thigh rang from the impact, but he stood up quickly, and saw that the barrel-maker had been ready. His long-handled bung-hammer reached across the width of the sudden pit and hooked against the far end. Lumm strained to keep the pit from snapping shut on him. Ravadar, the big Irrune warrior, joined him, leaning onto the hammer, which was already starting to bend under the force trying to shut the pit again.

The other two Irrune swordsmen were at the sides of the pit, reaching down into it.

The gray man pulled something golden and roughly spheroid from his pocket, and held it before him. The object had runes carved on it. Only Heliz would notice the runes at a time like this; they displayed fluid curves, intriguingly similar to the ancient Yenizedi alphabet.

Gothal snarled the alien words again, and Heliz danced to one side, almost tangling himself up in another heavy chair. The linguist pushed it aside, and the chair fell into a brimstone-scented pit and disappeared when the hole closed over it a half-second later.

The Irrune were pulling the two Minxes out of the pit. Lumm and the big warrior leaned into the hammer, the haft of which now arched like a bow from the pressure.

“What was it?” said Heliz, taunting the spell-caster, his words gasping. His chest was tight and his leg throbbing, but he needed to keep Gothal’s attention on him and not the others. “Which of the insults got under your skin? Pudknocking bastard? Toading shitesucker? Misbegotten foulsnatch ? Which one is most accurate?”

Heliz gave a false laugh. “I know—small-codded frograper! That was it, correct?”

The gray man snarled inhuman words, and Heliz took three steps backward. The table in front of him disappeared, taking a platter of ceramic mugs into the abyss.

There was nothing else between him and the gray spell-caster. The cluttered tavern floor had been cleared by suddenly appearing, suddenly disappearing chasms. The women were almost out of the first pit. The force trying to close it had bent the haft of the hammer almost double.

Heliz needed a weapon. Anything would do. He remembered the heavy bronze tablet in his breast pocket. He smiled and casually reached his hand into the pocket over his heart—

His fingers closed on empty space.

The linguist looked around furiously. The bronze tablet must have fallen from his pocket in all the dancing around. It could be anywhere by now, including at the bottom of one of the vanished pits.

Gothal the Gray smiled. Sweat streamed down the side of the bureaucrat’s face in broad rivulets. Whatever magic he was using strained him. His face was in a rictus grin, but he knew he had Heliz trapped.

Heliz started to say, “Before you do anything rash …”

The gray man opened his mouth to conjure, but for a second nothing came out. Then a trickle of blood appeared at one corner of his mouth, and his eyes went glassy and as gray as the rest of him.

Then, slowly, Gothal started to deflate, his knees going and his body falling backward. He twisted as he fell, and Heliz saw a thin S’danzo knife sticking out between his shoulder blades. He gripped the golden spheroid tightly as he collapsed—

And toppled over the edge of the first and last pit. He descended into hell.

Lumm let out a warning shout and the haft of the bung-hammer finally snapped under the eldritch pressure. Pieces of kiln-dried wood shot across the common room and imbedded themselves in the far wall. The head of the hammer was lost with the gray mage when the hole snapped shut. The entire floor roiled like an oil-filled wineskin, and then stabilized again.

Heliz let out a sigh, this time of relief, and dropped down onto a chair. Unfortunately, the chair he thought was there wasn’t, and he fell, ass over shoulders against the wall, and knocked himself out cold.

Much of the room had been restored, minus a few tables and chairs, when Heliz came to. The images of the Minxes’ faces, one wide and bovine, the other thin and vulpine, swam in front him.

He raised a hand to swat them off like bats, and they retreated a few steps. Lumm was nearby, as was the young S’danzo. Heliz still could not discern the youth’s gender, but he/she seemed greatly shaken by the events.

Lumm the staver gave a weary smile and said, “How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” said the linguist weakly. “I figured that if it was a one-time thing, there would be no hope for her. Things like that do happen around here, you know. But if it were something that could happen again, there would be three types of people who would still be here. The first were those who hadn’t seen it and wanted to see if it would happen.” He looked at the youth and received a hesitant nod in return.

“The second were people who thought they had the answers.” Heliz waved a hand toward the warriors, who had already opened the bar and were celebrating. “That lot picked up the story about the curse early, helping to clear everyone out But then they liked being experts so much, they hung around to tell anyone they could. The third group that would hang about …”

“Would be those responsible,” said Lumm.

Heliz nodded. “I think it was a magical amulet or something. Foreign, probably from Yenized, though it used an older language. Needed a phrase to activate it Such a device would be like a spell but with one word missing. When the word was in place, it opened the hole. A hole into another place, warmer, but not nearly as warm as the various hells are supposed to be. The little one angered him, so he opened a pit under her. Then he had to do it a second time to the big one to keep his story intact. He was waiting for everyone to leave so he could open the hole and probably pull them out, hungry and tired and maybe unconscious. You knew him?” Heliz asked the women.

Little Minx gave a shrug. Big Minx shook her head. Lumm said, “So the amulet was like a key?”

Heliz ran a hand along his head, trying to dispel the fuzziness in his mind. “If it was, we’ve locked the key in with him. That means he’s going to get hungry and thirsty and unconscious fairly quickly, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Least of all him.”

“Then you knew it was him,” said Lumm.

“I knew that your Irrune warrior could not think up something like this on his own,” said the linguist. “His eyes moved toward the gray man when I pressed him for details. And I knew that Gothal was hiding something—he wrote exactly what I told him, but his handwriting was much more careful than what he had scrawled on the floor. But other than that, no, I was just throwing accusations around and hoping that something hit.”

To Big Minx he added, “Sorry to have put you in danger.” Heliz knew he didn’t mean it and thought she knew it as well.

Big Minx held out something. “This is yours, right?” she said. “Onoe the kitchen girl found it.”

It was the bronze tablet. It was an execration text, heaping curse upon curse to the wicked in five languages. Yet none of the curses were as colorful as those the Minxes had used earlier. And one of the scripts he hadn’t quite recognized looked very much like these curving runes on the Gray Mage’s amulet …

Heliz allowed himself a smile. At least something worthwhile came out of dueling with a sorcerer in the Vulgar Unicorn.

“More good news,” said Lumm. “The young ladies are most appreciative of what we did, what you did, for them.”

The two women were back, flanking the linguist.

“We have a place,” said Little Minx, leaning forward.

“Belonged to a friend,” said Big Minx, leaning forward as well.

“He had to leave town,” said Little Minx, giggling.

“We could use a man around,” said Big Minx, smirking.

“And you’re welcome to stay as well,” said Little Minx, brushing against one side.

“You might be cute to have around,” said Big Minx, brushing against the other.

“If you put a little muscle on,” said Little Minx, pressing tighter.

“And started dressing like a real man,” said Big Minx, pressing tighter still.

Crushed between the two women, Heliz thought, I’m in hell. But given a choice, it is one of the more pleasant hells.