8 Gone is the Witch (8 page)

Tony st
ole a glimpse at his watch. It had stopped keeping time. Carlos saw him and did the same. His also had stopped.

“
They’re not working, are they?” I asked.

“
No.”

“That’s because of the perpetual variance in the electromagnet pulse surrounding the Eighth Sphere.”

“My watch is a wind-up,” said Carlos.

“
Doesn’t matter. A strong sub-force feeds the wave particle duality effect here. It screws with the spatial distribution of inconstant matter, allowing it to travel at speeds faster than light.”

“
Faster... Lilith, nothing travels faster than light.”

“Early matter does.”

“What’s that?”

“
It’s a dark matter variant containing sub-atomic neutrinos with negative mass and positive drift. Particles traveling on early matter waves move so fast, they often reach their destination even before they depart.”

“
That’s impossible. You’re making that up.”

“Carlos, in this universe, nothing is impossible. Early matter constitutes
the building blocks of the particle partitions responsible for the constant shift in the time-space continuance. Things that haven’t happened yet have already happened, and things that have, haven’t.”

“
That makes no sense.”

“
Think of it like watching an old movie on TV. You’re seeing it for the first time, though it happened years before you ever turned the set on. Events unfold as you see them, yet they are mere footnotes in history. That’s why it’s impossible for simple clockwork consisting of gears and springs to track time. It’s an invalid concept here. I thought I explained all that already.”

“You
can explain it a hundred times,” said Tony. “I’ll never wrap my mind around it. It’s got my head spinning so fast, I can’t tell up from down.”

“Yeah
well, join the club. It’s just as well, though. I’m not sure the Eighth Sphere has an up or down, anyway.”

“
So what do we do now?”

I looked at him and Carlos. It seemed obvious.
We had to find them some clothes so that they wouldn’t stand out too conspicuously.

On
the corner across the field, stood a couple of street vendors bartering their wares. I brushed my hand across Tony’s bare chest as I passed him. “Come. I have an idea.”

We
stayed together in a tight group across the field and then scooted in a crouch from the side of one building to the next until we were within earshot of the merchants.

They st
ood under a gas-lit lamp post, talking and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Both were clad in short sleeve pullover robes. Rawhide strips around their waists served as belts. Strapped to those were sword-like blades, sheathed in leather up to their bone-colored hilts.

They looked like monks,
but for their unshaven faces, filthy hands, rat nest hair and the foul language they used, I guessed they weren’t. One of them talked about a score he made on a drop-in, a phrase apparently referring to a newcomer to the ES. He told the other how he traded a Rolex for the man’s sneakers. They both laughed at that.

Tony
said to me, “Now what?”

“I’m thinking we make a whisper box
. We’ll unleash a will-chill on them suggesting they give us their robes.”

“
We don’t have a box.”

“Not yet.”
I looked around, not seeing anything suitable.

“There,” said Ursula, pointing
to a cantaloupe-size snail slithering along the side of the building. “`Tis a vessel as worthy as any, I should think.”

“A snail?” Carlos laughed. “It’ll take him a week just to crawl over there. Maybe you should look for a turtle. We could cut the wait time
in half.”

Tony
hit him. “She means use the snail’s shell as a vessel to hold the spell.”

“
Doesn’t the shell have to be empty?”

“
It does.” I turned to Ursula. “Good idea, hon, but we have no way of boiling the snail out. We’ll have to think of something else.”

S
he shook her head. “Mayhaps not.”

She picked up the
shell, rolled it over on its back and held it to her lips. She whispered something, but I couldn’t imagine what it was. When finished, she rolled it over again and set it on the ground.

The rest of us
watched in amazement as the snail oozed out and slithered away, leaving a thin silvery trail of slime in its path. Ursula retrieved the shell and handed it to me.

“Methinks this will do, will it not?”

I took it from her and smiled. “You cheeky little monkey. Did you cast a whisper spell on that snail?”

“Aye. That I did.”

“Nice going.”

Tony, seeing a fault with our approach, tapped his finger on the shell.
“You have a vessel now, but no lid. If you put a spell in it, won’t it just float out?”

“
You might think, seeing that a whisper spell is lighter than air. But once it’s in there, I need only to hold the shell with the opening facedown. The spell will rise into the shell’s upper chambers and stay put until we need to use it.”

“I get it.
Then you simply turn it upside down.”

“That’s awfully clever,” Carlos remarked.

“It is,” I said. “Ursula, that was good thinking.”

She
turned her eyes away in a modest blush. “`Twas a thought is all. Thou wouldst have thought it too, in time.”

“Maybe.
Maybe not.”

Tony nudged the shell towards me. “Okay, let’s get on with this,
please? I’m starting to feel stupid standing out here in my skivvies like this.”

“
I don’t know,” I teased. “I’m beginning to like you this way. Maybe we should reconsider.”

“Lilith!”

“All right. Fine. Stand back. Give me room.”

I flipped the shell over, wiped the thin film of slime off the rim
with my hand and brought it to my lips. I then closed my eyes, whispered a spell into the vessel and quickly flipped it over again.

“It’
s done.” I held the shell up for Tony. “One whisper box, the first of its kind, I should think.”

“
Will it work?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because we’re in a bazaaro world where time doesn’t exist and reality is rooted in dream matter.”

“Good point. I guess there’s
only one way to find out.” I poked my head around the corner. The two merchants were still standing under the streetlamp.

“Look
. Maybe Ursula and I should do this.” I tucked the shell to my body like a football. “You guys go wait up the street somewhere. We’ll find you. Just keep low and don’t raise suspicions.”

Carlos
mumbled, “No arguments here.”

“Are you sure you
’ll be all right?” asked Tony.

“Pah-l
eeese.” I palmed his cheek and slapped it lightly. “Piece of cake. Ursula. You ready to do this?”

“Aye, but for want of staying, I am ready.”

“Okay. Come on.”

We sashayed out of the alley in exaggerated struts
designed to turn heads. The two street vendors spotted us immediately. They stomped out their smokes and assumed peacock postures, bloating their chests and sucking in their stomachs.

N
ot to be outdone, Ursula and I cranked up the swank by a factor of ten. I unbuttoned my blouse to my navel, pulled my collar up and peeled back my lapels. For added effect, I shook my hair loose and let it cascade down the front of my breasts in silky black waves. Ursula, perhaps wanting to do me one better, rolled her shoulder cuffs down her arms to the bends of her elbows.

“Ursula!” I
nudged her as we walked. “What are you doing?”

She looked at me
, puzzled. “I am making sexy like you. Am I not?”

“
Why are the girls out?” I nodded at her perky peaks.

She
glanced down and gasped in embarrassment. “My stars!” She stretched her dress sleeves back over her shoulders. “I have no bra!”

“
Yeee-ah. I noticed.”

The poor thing turned
three shades of red.

She nodded toward the merchants
. Both were smiling like fools. “Doth thou thinks they noticed?”

What could I say
? “No. You got lucky this time. They didn’t notice.”

“
Thanks be goodness. What do we do now?”

“
We
don’t do anything. You just leave the sexy to me. Now zip it and smile like you know something they don’t.”

She ran her pinched fingers across her mouth and
threaded a thin smile. It looked synthetic, but cute, so we went with it.

The two merchants fell in line shoulder-to-shoulder to greet us. I could tell they thought they had a chance to score something
by the way they both plastered their greasy hair back with their dirty palms and tugged at the wrinkles in their robes.

“Ladies,” said the shortest and ugliest of the two.
His face was horribly scarred. One ear tip was gone and his nose looked like someone had hacked it off, ground it up and sewed it back on. But what the little punk lacked in looks and height, he made up for in confidence.

“Well
ain’t dis ya lucky day?” he boasted.

“
Oh?” I said.

He
waved his hand over his cart, and I swear the stench he stirred in the air nearly knocked me over. “Yes, because today, and only for you two ladies, I have a spectacular fifty percent off sale on everything in my inventory.”

I leaned over
the cart and offered a glancing inspection. Most of what I saw was junk: shiny trinkets, watches, sunglasses, cheap electronics and assorted costume jewelry. All stuff that he and his friend had no doubt confiscated from the fresh drop-ins they had shaken down.

“
Crap,” I said. “What do you take us for, chumps?”

He
shrank back, faking his insult. “Whatever do you mean?”

“
I mean this is shit. It has no value. Watches and electronics don’t work here. And sunglasses? Are you serious?”

“
This is all quality merchandise.”

“
No, it’s all bullshit. And what the hell happened to your face. Did you fall into a wood chipper?”

He looked up at his friend
.

“Him
,” I said. “He did that to you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We had
a… disagreement.”

The
other one bellied up to the cart. “He tried to steal one of my customers, but you don’t need to hear nothin’ ‘bout that.” He pointed to his wagon. “Why don’t you mosey over? See what I got. I have the primo goods. Something you really need in this godforsaken hellhole. Come. See for yourself.”

“Oh, so
now you’re going to steal his customer. Is that it?”

“Please. We’re all friends here. Check this out.”

Ursula and I came around the sides of his cart to pick through his wares. Though unimpressive, at least his stuff held potential.

“You’re an arms dealer,” I said,
gesturing at his assortment of knives, machetes, swords and switchblades.

He threw his shoulders back proudly.
“I am. And I noticed you two aren’t carrying. You know, two unescorted beauties such as yourselves don’t generally fare so well around these parts without means of protection.”

“We do all right,” I said.

“You’d do better with this.” He picked up a fourteen-inch bolo knife and held it up to the glow of the streetlamp. “I’ll even throw in the sheave.”

“No,
thanks. I prefer fluted blades.”

He smiled through crooked black teeth. “Of course you do.
Smart girl. I should have known, a woman with your tastes.” He set the bolo down and picked up a pearl-handled bayonet. “How about this? She’s a real beauty. Civil War vintage.”

“Let’s see.”
I handed the shell to Ursula and took the bayonet. I then stepped back from the cart and began twirling it like a baton, switching hands in a blur of pearl and steal, tossing it in the air and catching it behind my back. When I finished showing off, I simply nodded my approval half-heartedly and handed it back. “Yeah, it’s all right.”

“
All right? It’s priceless, but you can have it for just fifty difermium pellets.”

“Sorry, dude, just spent my last pellet.”

“I see. Perhaps I misjudged you.” He tossed the bayonet back in his cart. “Go away then. You’re wasting my time.”