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.