Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts 05: “I should like to help you, my son, but there are protocols to be observed.”

After thirty or forty feet the ape stopped and indicated one of the doors. It looked exactly the same as all of the others, but it opened as I approached it. I walked to the threshold.

“My Lord,” I said formally, and waited.

My father looked up. Well, he lifted his head. My father has no face, the front of his skull is as smooth, white, and featureless as the marble of his home. He does wear a pair of spectacles, the lenses of which are small circles of steel rather than glass. Which makes sense, since there are no eyes behind them.

“Sam,” he said, and his voice conveyed the warmth and affection that his featureless head could not. “Come in.”

Twin rows of tables topped with white porcelain marched down the length of the space, each equipped with gleaming steel chains. I walked down the aisle between them to my father's massive wooden desk and the single stool set before it.

He was still speaking, his voice emanating from his head without the need of a mouth. “How fares the Midworld, my son? What news of the Mayor's health?”

“The Midworld fares well, my father, and the Mayor was of strong health and good humor when last I saw him,” I replied, sitting in front of his polished desk.

“Excellent,” he nodded his blank head. “And of your own prospects? You know that your mother longs to see you wed ere your most fertile years are gone.”

I forced myself to smile. “None right now, I fear. My social calendar is, at the moment, empty.”

He cocked his head and raised a hand to touch his chin. The hand was jointed steel, each finger tipped with a gleaming curved blade. “Still romancing other men's wives?” There was just a touch of reproof in his tone.

That was a sore spot between us. Some years ago I realized that my heritage had certain strings attached, and that those strings would entangle anyone that I developed a strong connection to. A sexual connection, for example. However, there was a loophole—a woman who was already lawfully wed to another was immune to that connection. Hence my membership at the Pearl & Feather club.

I could answer him honestly, though, and say, “Neither a wife of my own nor any other man's. I live as a hermit in the City.”

“And yet you visit at the behest of a woman,” he pointed out.

That was another problem with being the child of a Lord of Nightmare. It's hard to keep secrets from him.

“Yes,” I said. “I seek information regarding Karin...” I tried to remember her last name, “Zver—”

“Karin Svetlana Myraine Zverocovitch, yes,” he interrupted me. “A most intriguing child. Why do you seek her?”

“She is precious to someone whom I loved,” I said. “Someone whom I still love. Marji is sick with worry and wants Karin to come back home.”

My father stood. Standing, he is nearly seven feet tall and skeletally gaunt under his white coat and trousers. He walked around his desk and reached a hand down to gently touch my shoulder. I could feel it, and what I felt was warm flesh instead of cold steel.

“I should like to help you, my son, but there are protocols to be observed,” he said kindly.

I nodded. He was telling me that there were some questions that he wouldn't be able to answer.

“I have reason to suspect,” I said carefully, “that Karin may be in the domain of the Grimm.”

“Indeed she is,” my father agreed. “The eldest counts her as among his household.”

“His household?” I asked. “Isn't she human?”

“She is of human blood,” he said. “Unmixed.”

That gave me pause. “How is that even possible?”

My father sat back against his desk and tapped his fingertips on the lower part of his blank face, making a little tinkling noise that reminded me of a dentist's office.

“One who makes an oath of fealty may be adopted into one of the Deep Houses,” he said slowly, “and oaths are transferable.”

I had to chew that over for a minute. “Are you saying that Karin made an oath to someone who then transferred that oath to Lord Grimm?”

“I am not saying that,” my father was quick to point out. “You are.”

“Right,” I agreed. “If a human were to be adopted into one of the Deep Houses by the transfer of an oath of fealty I would assume that the conventions of protection and support would apply?”

“Of course,” my father said.

That was reassuring. Or was it? Lord Grimm couldn't actively kill Karin, or starve her to death, but that didn't mean that he would keep her comfortable. Nightmare could be, well, nightmarish, for humans.

“I suppose,” I mused, “that there are conditions under which one would cease to be a member of a household?”

My father bobbed his featureless head. “Naturally. If, for example, the one who transferred the oath of fealty should happen to revoke it.”

I frowned. “One would have to know who that was...”

“Indeed.” My father stood straight and clasped his hands behind his back. “If there is nothing else, I regret that I have duties that I must preform.”

I stood. “Thank you for your time, my Lord,” I said. “I will go to speak to Lord Grimm of this matter then myself.”

“If you must,” my father sounded sad.

“I must,” I said, then bowed.

“He'll not speak to you like that,” my father observed.

Startled, I looked back up at him. It was tradition for the inhabitants of Nightmare to receive humans in spirit form.

“Yes,” my father agreed, reading my thoughts, “but you are not human, my son. Tradition also allows that the Lords require the children of Nightmare to petition them in the flesh, and I feel quite certain that in this instance he shall.”

That would prove awkward. “Can you grant me passage, father?” I asked, without much hope.

He shook his head. “Not for this matter.”

“Well,” I said. “Perhaps he will receive me like this. It harms nothing to make the attempt.”

My father shook his head. “This is a subtle business, my son.”

I nodded. “Thank you for your counsel, my father.”

“Of course,” my father crossed back to his desk, “it may be that you will that find assistance in making the crossing is close by.”

I opened my mouth to ask him to explain, but he interrupted me.

“Depart me now with my blessing.” It was a formal dismissal.

I bowed deeply and left the room, finding myself back in the long corridor. The half-sized ape was waiting, and he at once began to walk down the hallway, away from the stairs that we had taken from the lobby. We went past a half dozen doors, all identical, until the ape reached up and opened one, then gestured to it.

I opened it. It led straight outside, a sixty foot drop to the narrow lawn between the wall of the citadel and the beginning of the thorn forest. I nodded to the ape and stepped out.

I fell as fast as I would have in the flesh, but landed softly. My spirit form does not follow the same laws of inertia as physical objects. I trotted around the building, looking for a memory. There were other paths than the one that led to the front door. Around here someplace...

There. A narrow path between great thorn trees. If I remembered rightly—and if my father hadn't altered the plan of the forest—it led to an alley off Ravening street. I hurried down the narrow passage as quick as I dared, thinking of my father's words.

I hadn't really expected him to know anything about Karin. Of course he would know about any human within his own domain, but information was not usually freely shared between the Lords. If he knew about a member of the Grimm's household, it was because the Grimm had let him know—probably through an intermediary who was a member of neither house. An undine, perhaps, they were great gossips, traveling widely across all the seas of Nightmare.

Did that mean that the Grimm expected the information to get to me? Oneiroi walked unseen throughout the Midworld in their spirit forms. If Karin had been an outlaw mage with ties to Nivose it made sense that the Grimm would have something keeping an eye on her. He could know that Karin was involved with Marji and that Marji had been involved with me, but why make the assumption that she—through Jake—would come to me for help?

Because an aefrit had told Jake of my true identity. Which would imply that contacts in Thermidore were also involved in whatever was going on. But Jake said that it had been months since the aefrit had talked to him.

Nightmare. Wheels within wheels, plots within plots.

My father knew more than he was telling. He'd admitted that much to me. I had no way of getting more information from him, though, and the members of his household, if they knew anything, would be just as reticent.

Then why tell me anything at all? Because that's the way that Nightmare was. The Grimm wanted me to do something, and he wouldn't ask straight out. That was too simple. Instead he let me learn just enough to make me come to him for the rest of the story. Would he seriously not see me in spirit form? I couldn't see any advantage for him forcing me to come in the flesh.

Well, I could try, anyway.

The path did lead to the alley I remembered, a narrow twisting passageway between a pair of misshapen monoliths of buildings. I exited the end of the alley onto a major street, busy with the gaunt figures of norns wrapped in their yards of silk, nothing showing but their long gray spidery fingers. There were a scattering of others in the crowd, a carriage drawn by great cats rumbled by, an undine watching the streets through the glass sides of its tank, a handful of chittering chigoes walking pressed close together, one of the forged striding through the crowd on gleaming copper limbs, a lean robed figure who could have been a rashling or might even have been a human sorceress.

I was still attracting attention, though, too much attention. Norns don't stare, of course, they wouldn't even if they had eyes to stare with. But I could feel that I was the focus of polite curiosity. Some no doubt recognized me, this close to the citadel.

I kept my head down and hurried through the streets, hoping I could remember the way to the shop I sought, and that it would still be there.

Yes on both counts. I saw the sign that I remembered, a length of gleaming steel chain curled into a spiral. I ducked inside, passing through the closed door.

The shop was empty except for the norn behind the counter. His wrappings were neat and clean, a pale yellow silk embroidered with pictographs of flowers. Flip had always been a snappy dresser. I couldn't have told you—aside from its sense of style—how I recognized him. All norns look more or less identical, like human skeletons covered from head to toe in bandages. But growing up around them I learned to tell them apart. Maybe it was the way they moved.

The shop was just as neat as the proprietor. Behind the counter racks held spools of chain and a tidy workbench where Flip sat on a high stool, making links from brilliantly shining gold wire. He raised his head to me when I entered—a needless courtesy, since norns' sense organs aren't on their faces.

“Master Samhain,” Flip's voice was a thin whisper, nearly toneless, yet I could hear affection in it. “I'd heard you were in town.”

I walked to the counter. “Flip,” I said, “I need a favor.”

Flip put down his tool and cocked his head to the side. “The heir presumptive to the empty tomb needs a favor from a humble chainsmith? There must be a tale for the ages in that.”

“I need to borrow your malk,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm.

“Why?” he asked.

“To get to Nivose,” I said.

He gestured to the street outside the window of his shop. “Take Ravening down to the Street of Weavers, then across Cynosure Plaza to Tidewater. You'll find a dozen ships that will call upon Nivose.”

I shook my head. “I need to get there quick.”

He folded his hands and regarded me steadily for a while. I could feel his scrutiny. Then, “Word is that you've called upon the Citadel.”

Word from whom? I wanted to ask, but I knew better. Rumor in Nightmare spread with the speed of lightning. “I don't want my father involved,” I said in what I hoped was an imposing tone of voice.

That faceless head cocked the other way. “So you're going behind his back,” he stated flatly.

I gave up on the tough guy act. “Flip,” I said imploringly, “all I need is your malk. I'll send her right back, as soon as I get there.”

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“I called up a landspirit from the Midworld, but I sent it back already,” I explained.

“Unwise,” Flip observed.

I sighed. “I didn't know I was going to have to go to Nivose. I figured I'd just call up something here to take me back to the Midworld, but things got more complicated. I need to get to Nivose now, and I need something that knows the way. I'm no navigator.”

Flip flexed his fingers, then turned back to his workbench, picking up tools and setting them down with a fussy precision.

I waited.

After a time he said, “How will you get back home?”

“Getting to the Midworld is no problem, Flip, you know that. My body's there,” I said. “I promise you, I'll release your malk as soon as I reach the Grimm's city.”

“Her name's Andora,” he said absently.

“Andora,” I agreed. “I'll release Andora as soon as I reach Nivose. I promise you that nothing will happen to her.”

Flip raised both hands towards the door, holding them palm out for a moment. Then, satisfied that there was nothing paying undue attention to the shop, he turned back to me. “What's the story, Sam?”

I sighed and considered how much I would have to tell him to get what I wanted. I wasn't any good at playing this game of shadows, trading vague hints and half-truths back and forth. I decided just to level with him. I had known Flip my whole life. Well, half of my whole life. The dreaming half.

“There's a human woman who has been taken from the Midworld,” I said softly. “She's in Nivose. My father says that she has been adopted into the Grimm's household. I want to try to get her back.”

Flip stood very still for a time, then said, “You know that I try to stay out of politics—”

“Oh, come on!” I objected. “You're a norn. No offense, but you are incapable of staying out of politics by your nature.”

Flip's spidery hand came up to stroke the center of his face—a gesture equivalent to a belly laugh. “Granted,” he said.

“Let us say rather that I try to keep my political involvement to a level that doesn't threaten my livelihood.”

That sobered me. “Okay,” I said, “if you think it's too dangerous to get involved, I can't blame you.”

“I haven't said that yet,” he raised his palms again, this time mimicking a human gesture.

“Flip,” I said, “if you do this for me, I'll owe you one. A big one. Whatever I can do.”

A sudden decisive nod. “Yes, you will,” Flip said. “A favor to be named later. On those terms I agree.”

He bounded silently over the counter to stand beside me. “She's in the yard out back,” he said, leading me to a side door. We went out into a narrow passage, the white brick of the shop on one side, a hedge of black thorns on the other. We followed it down to a small yard, bounded by hedges with soft dark moss underfoot. A wrought iron table and a pair of wrought iron chairs took up most of the space. It was a quiet, peaceful place to sit and think, or talk with a friend, or bask in the red light of the unchanging sky. On the table a small black kitten napped.

Flip made a “tsk, tsk, tsk” noise and then called softly, “Andora, wake up kittie. Want to go for a walk?”

The malk opened eyes of a brilliant emerald green and yawned, showing a mouthful of needle fangs. Flip waved to indicate me. “You remember Sam, don't you kittie?”

Andora cocked her head to the side and regarded me soberly. Then she stretched, and as she stretched her legs lengthened and her torso swelled. In a moment the Malk was the size of a large dog, filling the whole of the tabletop.

“Good kittie,” Flip whispered. He held out a hand and made as if to stroke the malk's fur. She was, like me, an insubstantial spirit, but responded to Flip's outstretched hand with a deep purr.

“I want you to take Sam for a ride, okay?” Flip said softly. “You take him to Novose and then you come right back here, okay?”

Andora hopped off the table and in the air she grew some more, so that she was the size of a pony when her paws touched lightly down on the moss. She made a mewing sound, her eyes on Flip's face.

“A treat when you get back,” Flip promised the spirit beast. “I'll mix up a nice treat for my good kittie.”

The malk considered that and then looked to me. I reached to pet her head and she rubbed against my palm, purring now in a deeper register, like a lazy tiger. She stretched again and her head was level with my own.

Flip nodded and turned his faceless head to me. “She'll take you. Get on.”

I moved around the malk and pulled myself up onto her back. I gripped her sides with my legs and rubbed my hands through the sleek fur of her neck.

“Thank you,” I said to Flip, and to Andora, “Let's go.”

The malk leaped over the hedge and we were off, racing through the streets of my father's city towards the docks.