Angry Lead Skies



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83

My interview with Casey took place in the same big room where
I’d gotten interviewed earlier. The same main players seemed
to be on hand. Block was there. Three quiet wizards were there,
none in costume, and none of them the one who ran with Bic Gonlit.
I’m confident that Director Relway was there as well, back in
the shadows, though I never actually heard or saw him.

Casey was there, seated in a hard chair at a bare table when I
arrived. They hadn’t bothered to restrain him. He was no
physical threat. As I settled opposite him one of Colonel
Black’s men dumped a sack of nine fetish devices in front of
me. I said, “Casey, old buddy, we’re in the really deep
shit here, now. You’ve been around TunFaire long enough to
have a pretty good idea of the kind of people who have hold of you.
You have a pretty good idea what they want. And you know
they’re not real good at taking no for an answer. You have to
understand that some things are inevitable and that all you can do
is make it easier on all of us.” Lines of a sort everyone in
that room, probably including Casey himself, would have used
numerous times. I took out the fetish I’d brought from home,
added it to the pile while staring straight into Casey’s
strange eyes.

Could he read me at all?

“What’s that?” Block demanded.

“One of those amulet boxes of theirs. Singe found it
today. When things were blowing up on the Embankment. Figured I
ought to bring it over. Casey. Do you understand anything
I’ve said? Do you know what these people want?”

After a long, long pause Casey nodded.

Of course he knew. It was his mission to make sure they
didn’t get it, from him or the Maskers or, especially, the
Brotherhood of Light. I hoped he would keep his mission in mind.
Because I was counting on him to get us all out of this mess.

“All right. Look here, Colonel. We’re getting
somewhere already. Told you I could get through to him. Whoa there,
Casey. Slowly and carefully. We aren’t sure which ones of
those things are weapons.”

Casey took such offense that his indignance was plain to
everyone. “We do not . . . make
weapons!”

That caused a stir, more because he’d spoken than because
of what he’d said.

“Is that true? But I’ve been knocked unconscious
over and over again by something that left me with the worst
headaches of my life.”

I believe Casey would have laughed if Visitors had the capacity
for laughter. “What you
experienced . . . was an
effect . . . of a device
used . . . for the removal
of . . . the parasites common
to . . . the bodies of
most . . . of your
animals . . . and races. Lice
and . . . fleas in particular. With the device
set . . . at its
strongest . . . power. We do
not . . . make weapons.”

“I’ll take your word for that. Which one of these
doohickeys is a flea getter ridder ofer?”

Casey extended one spider leg finger slowly.

“Good. Sergeant, you want to take that one
away?”

Excellent. Now I knew that Casey could tell these devices apart.
Hopefully. Which would mean that he should know what kind of fetish
I had placed on the table.

Maybe he was smart enough to understand what needed doing.

“So. Let’s go over the rest of these, one by one.
Tell me what they’re supposed to do. Start with this one
here.”

Casey did that. And after we’d reviewed a couple of
fetishes I realized that he couldn’t really make me
understand what he was talking about. I didn’t have the
vocabulary. Then his voice gave out.

I asked Block, “Can we get him some water in here?
He’s obviously not used to talking.”

Block said something. One of his men moved. I glanced over. And
when I looked back Casey wasn’t there anymore. Neither were
any of the fetishes. An instant later, as the shouting began, the
hammer of darkness fell. Again.



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