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  Erminia was more forthright. She delivered a substantial kick to Fulferin’s ribs. To Raffalon, she said, “Let us go.”

  The bound man was making facial signs that he wished to tell them something. Raffalon stooped, removed the gag, but held his knife to the betrayer’s throat. The thaumaturge’s assistant said, “My master will pay you well if you help me deliver what I am bringing him.” When his captors made no particular response, he went on: “This item will complete a project of great importance to him.”

  Raffalon hefted the man’s satchel. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you were thinking of him till the end,” he said.

  A sly look occupied Fulferin’s face. “But you do not know who he is!”

  “I didn’t,” said the thief, then nodded at the woman. “Until she told me.” He reapplied the gag, then turned and looked back along the curve of the ridge, where mottled green shapes were bustling along the trail. “We’ll be on our way now.”

  The house of Bolbek the Potence was in the upper reaches of Port Thayes, which occupied a hillside that ran down to the river port. It was built of an unlikely combination of black iron panels and hemispheres of cerulean blue crystal. To discourage the uninvited, it was fenced by a tall hedge of semisentient ravenous vine, the plant’s thorn-bedecked catch-creepers constantly probing for flesh scent.

  Raffalon and Erminia approached the single entrance, a narrow, wooden archway that pierced the hedge. As they neared the opening, the air turned cold and something vaporous hovered indistinctly in the gap. “My master,” it said, “expects no visitors.”

  “Say to your master,” Raffalon said, holding up the carved box, “that something he is expecting has arrived.”

  The apparition issued a sigh and faded in the direction of the manse. The man and woman waited, batting away the hedge’s mindless inquiries, until the gatekeeper once more semicoalesced in the air before them. “Follow,” it said.

  The vines shrank back and the ghost led them along a path of luminous flagstones to a pair of tall double doors in each of which was carved a great contorted face. It was only when they reached the portals that Raffalon, seeing the wooden features move as the faces turned his way, realized that the panels were a pair of forest elementals enthralled by the thaumaturge to guard his entrance.

  The doors opened at the ghost’s further approach; the man and woman stepped into the foyer, a place clearly intended to disorient the senses. The thief closed his eyes against the onset of dizziness, and said, “We will not endure ill treatment. We will leave now.” He turned and groped blindly toward the doors, finding Erminia’s hand and leading her behind him. Eyes downcast, she demurely followed.

  “Wait,” said a commanding voice. The thief’s giddiness abruptly ceased. Raffalon reopened his eyes and saw that they had been joined by a short, wide-bellied man clad in a blood-red robe figured in black runes and a tall hat of complexly folded cloth and leather. His expression was impassive. He said, “What have you brought me?”

  Raffalon reached into his wallet and brought forth the puzzle box.

  Bolbek’s eyes showed a glint of avarice. “What of Fulferin?” he said.

  “He accepted an invitation to dinner,” said the thief. “In Vandaayoland.”

  The thaumaturge’s face showed a brief reaction that might have been regret. Then he said, “And in the box?”

  “Fulferin said it was a god of small luck,” said Raffalon. He smiled a knowing smile and added, “so to speak.”

  The greedy glint in Bolbek’s eyes became a steady gleam. “Bring it to my workroom,” he said.

  Raffalon stood still. “First, we must settle the issue of price.”

  Bolbek named a number. Raffalon doubled it. The mage gestured to show that chaffering was beneath him, and said, “Agreed. Bring it.” He turned and exited by a door that appeared in the wall as he approached it.

  The thief was concerned. Sometimes those who agreed too easily to an extortionate price did so because they had no expectation of having to pay it. As he and Erminia followed the thaumaturge, he was alert for sudden departures from his plan.

  The room they entered was of indeterminate size and shape. The walls appeared to recede or advance depending on whether they were viewed directly or peripherally, nor could the angles where they met floor or ceiling be depended on to remain static. Raffalon saw shelves and sideboards on which stood several items he would have liked to examine more closely. Indeed, he would have liked to take them away for a leisurely valuation, followed by a quick resale.

  But Bolbek gave him no time. The thaumaturge bustled his way across the stone floor to a curtained alcove. He pulled back the heavy brocaded cloth to reveal a work in progress in two parts. One was a cylindrical container of white gold, on whose sides were drawn in shining metal a string of characters the thief could not decipher though he had the sense that one of them replicated the unreadable symbol on the puzzle box. The ideograms must be a cantrip of considerable power, he thought, seeing them glow rhythmically against the gold, like a slowly beating heart.

  The second part of the project was man-shaped—indeed, shaped very much like the man who had made it. It was a wire framework fashioned from gold and electrum, connected to the cylinder by thick, braided cables of silver. The framework was made in two halves, hinged so that the thaumaturge could open it and then stand within, completely enclosed by whatever energies the cylinder would presumably generate.

  Bolbek cast an eye over the double apparatus. Apparently satisfied, he turned to Raffalon. “The box,” he said.

  “The price,” said the thief.

  A flash of irritation animated the mage’s bland features, then he spoke two words and made a complex motion of one hand. A leather pouch appeared in the air before the thief, then fell to the floor with a sound that said it was well filled with Port Thayes double mools.

  Raffalon handed over the box and stooped to pick up the purse. Then he turned away, as if to examine the contents in private. As he did so, he reached into a fold of his garment, out of Bolbek’s line of sight. His hand closed on something concealed there. Now he tucked the coins away while sending a meaningful glance Erminia’s way.

  The woman, who had so far been at pains not to draw attention to herself, began to drift toward one of the sideboards. She fixed her eyes on a glass-topped jar full of blue liquid in which swam a short-limbed homunculus with enormous eyes of lambent yellow.

  Meanwhile, the thaumaturge had set the box on a small table next to the cylinder of white gold. He moved briskly to take from a drawer in the table a pair of gloves that he now pulled on up to his elbows. They were of a shimmering, scaly leather, iridescent in the room’s diffuse light, as if they contained rainbows.

  With clear evidence of excitement, Bolbek now turned to the box. He found the entry point on one end and slid aside the little piece of worn wood. Then he took a pin from the drawer and inserted it into the hole. His former lifeless expression had transformed into a mask of intensity and his breath came sharp and fast.

  Raffalon heard the click as the box unlocked. He looked to Erminia. The woman had reached the sideboard. She now turned so that her elbow struck the jar. It wobbled and almost toppled, the lid coming free and blue ichor splashing out, with a harsh sound of glass on glass.

  Bolbek’s head snapped her way. “Idiot! Get away from—” he began, but at that moment, Raffalon swiftly brought the little effigy of the luck god from concealment and touched it to the bare flesh of the thaumaturge’s neck. Instantly, the mage stiffened. Cords stood out in his throat and his eyes bulged. His lips writhed as he struggled to speak a syllable. To be sure he didn’t, Raffalon pinched the man’s lips together.

  The thief was impressed at how long the spell-slinger was able to resist the god’s power; his own enthrallment had been almost instantaneous. But finally the struggle ended. Bolbek’s body relaxed though his eyes spoke of inner misery.

  “All well?” the thief said. He kept the idol pressed against
the man’s neck.

  “I am still examining the contents of the memory,” said the god through the thaumaturge’s vocal apparatus. “Remarkable.”

  Erminia came forward. “What would this have done to you?” she said, indicating the apparatus.

  “Dissolved me, taken my power, infused it into Bolbek.” A moment’s pause. “The cylinder already contains six imprisoned deities. My entry would have allowed this fellow to take the final step to leach us of our energies. Then the mana would have been transferred to the cage, to be incorporated into his own being.”

  “He would have become a god?” said the thief.

  “No. The procedure would have failed. They always do. But he would have had a very interesting few moments before the cataclysm obliterated him, his house, and the neighborhood.”

  Raffalon examined Bolbek’s eyes, saw rage and despair. “And yet, somehow,” he said, “I do not think that he would thank us for intervening.”

  “He would not,” said the god within the thaumaturge. “You had better bind him well, including his fingers. And gag him thoroughly. He knows spells that need only a single syllable, and he is resolved to use them on you.”

  “There’s a wizard’s gratitude for you,” said Erminia. She went and found cords, chains, and cloth, then set about rendering Bolbek harmless. She even tied his toes together. When he was comprehensively immobilized, Raffalon removed the effigy from contact with the mage’s skin and set the little god on the table. “Now what?” he said.

  The deity spoke in his mind again. I studied his plans for the apparatus, it said. If you carefully unscrew the lid, the prisoners will be released.

  The thief said, “They are liable to be angry, and perhaps indiscriminate in how they express themselves.”

  I will see that they do you no harm. Indeed, I believe they will see that they owe the two of you whatever rewards are in their power.

  Raffalon relayed this information to Erminia and suggested that she come and stand close to him. When she had done so, he reached for the cylinder’s top and slowly rotated it. Fine threads showed, and the white gold squeaked faintly as it unwound.

  Then came the last turn, and the top of the cylinder flew into the air, knocking the man’s hand aside. A coruscating fount of force, in several colors and of an intensity too bright to be even squinted at, shot up to the ceiling. The air of the room was filled with overpowering scents, rushing winds, claps of near thunder, and waves of pressure that made the thief’s ears hurt.

  Invisible hands seized Raffalon and Erminia in a crushing grip and raised them high above the floor. The thief had but a moment to think that he was about to be dashed against the flagstones. Then as quickly as they had been taken up they were gently lowered again.

  I regret, said a different voice. Potho has explained that you have been our deliverers, not our captors.

  “Potho?” Raffalon and Erminia said, together.

  It is my name, said the voice the thief recognized as the luck god’s. But now he sounded delighted. Mithron recognized me, as I did him. We are the divine equivalent of cousins.

  “Mithron?”

  Now the other voice spoke. A god of those who race horses, it said. Potho and I were often invoked together.

  The luck god made other introductions: Iteran, who presided over crossroads; Belseren, whose province was health and vigor; Samiravi, a goddess of erotic fulfillment; Fhazzant, who looked after license inspectors and tax collectors; Tewks, who, if properly propitiated, could fulfill heart’s desire.

  We are all grateful to you, said Potho. And each of us has bestowed upon you both what blessings are within our purview, now that we all know our names and our powers are restored.

  “You mean I can count on a good day at the races?”

  Always, said Mithron.

  Raffalon mentally itemized his other gains. He would never be ambushed at street corners. He would never sicken or tire, nor be embarrassed or unfulfilled in moments of intimacy. What benefits he would accrue from the patron of tax collectors he could not at first imagine.

  They will leave you unmolested, said a new voice he assumed to be Fhazzant’s.

  “I thank you all,” he said and made a formal gesture of gratitude.

  “As do I,” said Erminia, although at first Raffalon did not recognize the musical voice as hers. He turned to her and saw that Samiravi had been at work. The young woman’s eyes were now not quite so close together, nor her nose so long and pointed. Her lips had become fuller and a hairy mole on her chin was gone. Her upper and lower garments had filled out. She glowed with health and erotic promise.

  From the way she was looking at him, it seemed that he, too, had been reordered and improved. He felt his nose and found it handsomely reshaped, while a surreptitious hand slipped into a pants pocket quietly determined that his initial inquiry about prodigiousness had been remembered and fully answered as well.

  “I thank Tewks, most particularly,” he said.

  Now, said Potho, we will say farewell. We have business with this prideful sorcerer.

  Mithron added, We have dismissed all his familiars and frighteners. If, on the way out, you see anything you like, feel free to take it with you.

  Fhazzant’s voice said, He will have no further need of his goods.

  Raffalon repeated the gesture of gratitude. Erminia offered a graceful curtsy, then said with a ravishing smile, “I’ve never been able to do that right before.”

  Together, they left the thaumaturge’s workroom, where the winds had once more begun to roar. Throughout the mansion, doors slammed open, locked coffers popped their lids, and cupboard doors swung wide.

  Sometime later, their pockets full, bearing between them a densely packed trunk, they were making their way down one of Port Thayes’s better boulevards, seeking a place to stay. Erminia said, “I have been thinking. If we built an inn at a crossroads, near a good racecourse …” She paused for thought, then went on, “And if I served the customers and you ran a few games of chance, perhaps set up a tote …”

  Raffalon said, “We would have no troubles with overzealous officials.”

  “It could work,” she said. “Of course, you and I would have to be personally compatible.”

  “There is a hotel across the way,” the thief said. “We could take a room for the night and see.”

  He was surprised, but pleased, when she forthrightly expressed approval of his proposal.

  Later that night, having discovered that they were indeed wonderfully compatible, she threw a sated arm across his chest, and said, “To be a success, an inn needs a good name.”

  He said, “With luck, I’m sure I’ll think of one.”

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Prolific Texas writer Joe R. Lansdale has won the Edgar Award, the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, the American Mystery Award, the International Crime Writer’s Award, and nine Bram Stoker Awards. Although perhaps best known for horror/thrillers such as The Nightrunners, Bubba Ho-Tep, The Bottoms, The God of the Razor, and The Drive-In, he also writes the popular Hap Collins and Leonard Pine mystery series—Savage Season, Mucho Mojo, The Two-Bear Mambo, Bad Chili, Rumble Tumble, Captains Outrageous—as well as Western novels such as The Magic Wagon, and totally unclassifiable cross-genre novels such as Zeppelins West, The Drive In, and The Drive In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels. His other novels include Dead in the West, The Big Blow, Sunset and Sawdust, Acts of Love, Freezer Burn, Waltz of Shadows, and Leather Maiden. He has also contributed novels to series such as Batman and Tarzan. His many short stories have been collected in By Bizarre Hands, Sanctified and Chicken Fried, The Best of Joe R. Lansdale, The Shadows Kith and Kin, The Long Ones, Stories by Mama Lansdale’s Youngest Boy, Bestsellers Guaranteed, On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with the Dead Folks, Electric Gumbo, Writer of the Purple Rage, Fist Full of Stories, Bumper Crop, The Good, the Bad and the Indifferent, Selected Stories by Joe R. Lansdale, For a Few Stories More, Mad Dog Summer: And Other Stories,
The King and Other Stories, Deadman’s Road, High Cotton: the Collected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale, and an omnibus, Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal. As editor, he has produced the anthologies The Best of the West, Retro Pulp Tales, Son of Retro Pulp Tales (with Keith Lansdale), Razored Saddles (with Pat LoBrutto), Dark At Heart: All New Tales of Dark Suspense (with wife Karen Lansdale), The Horror Hall of Fame: The Stoker Winners, and the Robert E. Howard tribute anthology, Cross Plains Universe (with Scott A. Cupp). An anthology in tribute to Lansdale’s work is Lords of the Razor. His most recent books are two new Hap and Leonard novels, Vanilla Ride and Devil Red, as well as the short novels Hyenas and Dead Aim, the novels Edge of Dark Water and The Thicket, two new anthologies—The Urban Fantasy Anthology (edited with Peter S. Beagle), and Crucified Dreams—and three new collections, Shadows West (with John L. Lansdale), Trapped in the Sunday Matinee, and Bleeding Shadows. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.

  Here he sends two of his most popular characters, Hap and Leonard, on a gritty, perilous quest to rescue a Damsel In Distress—although not the kind you usually meet in fairy tales.

  BENT TWIG

  A Hap and Leonard Adventure

  Joe R. Lansdale

  When I got in from work that night, Brett, my redhead, was sitting at the kitchen table. She didn’t have a shift that week at the hospital, so I was surprised to see her up and about. It was 2:00 A.M. I had finished up being a night watchman at the dog-food plant, hoping soon my buddy Leonard would be back from Michigan, where he had gone after someone in some case he had hired out to do for our friend Marvin and the detective agency Marvin owned. We did freelance work like that from time to time.

  There was no job for me in this one, and since Leonard was without a job at all and needed the money more than I did, he hired on. I had a temporary at the dog-food plant. It was okay, but mostly boring. The most exciting thing I had done was chase some rats I had caught in the feed-storage room, nibbling on some bags of dog food, stealing chow out of some hound’s mouth, so to speak. Those rats knew not to mess with me.