Wine of the Gods 03: The Black Goats (24 page)

"When I didn't want to bring myself to the notice of whatever is down there."

"Oh my." Dydit let the sarcasm show, "Common sense after all these centuries!"

"I could try the sewers."

"Or we could join the militia and get sworn in, in the Council Hall next month."

Nil spun around. "You're kidding me."

"Not a bit."

They filed the paperwork (paid the fee), bought the uniforms (with tax), and
waited impatiently for the official swearing in.

***

". . . I'm sure you care enough about your son to purchase insurance for your shop."

Dydit paused, pastry halfway to his mouth. Yes, it was worst of the three big men who'd wanted to buy the wine shop. "Insurance? How much paperwork is involved in selling insurance?"
He tried for a dumb and innocent look.

The big man loomed suddenly over him. "In compliance with the paperwork reduction act, I've filed all the appropriate forms. Mister and Mistress Shady won't have to sign a thing."

"Oh, how convenient!" Dydit exclaimed, and popped the last of his pastry into his mouth.
I'll bet he worships Ba'al.
The bully turned away and Dydit pulled out his coin purse and settled his account. He slunk around the corner and started divesting himself of clothing. The baker's delivery boy was still off on his rounds so the stable in the back was empty.

The black goat trotted back around the corned just in time to see the bully leaving the shop. He lowered his head and charged.

"Motherless goat! Get away from me!"

Three passes stripped the, err, person below the waist.

"Oh my goodness! That's a woman!" the man across the street exclaimed.

"I'll have you for dinner, you filthy, smelly
, oww!" Stupid sod had grabbed his horn and cut his fingers, hopefully badly.

"Look, dear! No, don't look! How could a woman do such things?"

"Stop looking at me!" the bully screamed, trying to collect his or her shreds of clothing.

"What about his, I mean her, brothers? Are they all women?"

Every shop keeper on the street was out now. Most of them laughing.

Dydit made a last pass and tumbled the bully in the street. As the man
, err, woman, shoved back up his butt was just too tempting.

He took a round-about path back to the stable, and changed back into his human self and his clothing.

Everyone was still out on the street, exclaiming and talking at the top of their voices. Dydit was chilled to see the Militia had been called out.

". . . rabid goat, clearly a public danger." Mister Shady was telling them.

"They shouldn't allow people to keep male goats in the City," one woman exclaimed. "I had
No Idea
a goat would
do
something like
that
!"

Hmm, as far as embarrassing and un-empowering the bully, he might have gone a bit too far. He hadn't thought anyone would be sympathetic.

"It may have been bespelled, Mistress." The leader of the Militia had an ornate uniform, "Or, it may have been a wizard itself. You know what they say about the ancient evil wizards."

"But," Dydit s
cratched his head as if puzzled. "This goat was definitely not a Eunuch."

Heads nodded around the crowd.

"Definitely not!"

"Biggest goat I ever saw!"

"Was it really a goat? The horns were awfully long and perfectly straight, they didn't curve back like goat horns."

"Well, they twisted, a really tight twisted spiral, and the spiral was straight."

"Like a unicorn, but with two horns."

The Militia man was listening carefully, and two of his men were taking note. Not good. Dydit slunk off home, wondering if the enquiry would go far enough for Nihility to be questioned. He sincerely hoped not.

***

At least the Council Hall was built to last. Dydit refrained from picking at the loose threads of his ridiculous uniform and stared up at the old Palace.

"Huh. Guess there wasn't enough wood in it to burn properly." Nil muttered.

Because it was, despite paint and some additions, unmistakably the seat of the Tyrant Wizards. Dydit had seen it often as a teenager, after his apprenticeship to Maleth.
I should have stayed in Hightop.
He wondered if his own childhood home still stood, or if time or the glacier of the north had destroyed it.

Hesto Biny, in a slightly faded version of the same uniform marched up and down the ranks of her new recruits. Both of them. The City as a whole appeared to be gaining about a hundred new militia members today.

"Just stand up tall and proud. We'll all march in single file, touch the People's Sword of Justice, line up and take the oath. Nothing to it."

They nodded in unison, although Dydit hoped he looked less cynical than Nil.

"There. Everyone is forming up now. Get in line." She hustled off to her own spot among the officers.

Nil and Dydit got themselves into the middle of the line and followed the first half into the rotunda. An amazing assortment of Militia officers awaited them. The majority were overweight, a couple in wheeled c
hairs, and about three-quarters women. Dydit had seen too many archery demonstrations from witches to discount female warriors. But somehow this lot didn't seem to be up to Ash standards just in mental attitude. Not surprising really, if their duties involved mostly burning the occasional eccentric old man or woman at the stake.

The line was winding passed an elaborately uniformed man holding up a black velvet pillow holding an u
nsheathed sword lying beside its ridiculously over decorated scabbard.

Dydit choked, and poked the old man. Nodded at the sword.
People's Sword of Justice my ass. That's the enchanted sword of the Archwizard.
He gulped faintly
. That glows when touched by the magically talented.
It had been a long time since his own chubby hand had touched that hilt and received a bright flash of confirmation of a powerful future ahead of him, once he got past the short term pain . . . He looked around suddenly, where had Nil. . .

Nil hadn't gone anywhere; he'd pulled all of his magical senses and left nothing at all showing. Dydit did likewise, sucking it all in tight, giving himself a blazing headache. His hand touched the hilt and he shuffled onward after the old woman in front of him. He relaxed slowly, started looking around magically. Nothing else of a magical nature that he could spot.

He mouthed the words of the oath. "To protect the People of Scoone from the pernicious influence of Magic and Religion." No problem. If he ever saw a
pernicious
influence . . .

H
etso congratulated them and then turned back to her fellow officers, and the last living Tyrant Wizard warped the light around himself to disappear from sight, with a lesser Wizard Lord following his example.

They followed the sword back to its display case, and strolled invisibly through the little basement museum until they were left alone there.

Nil quickly dug through the cupboards and found piles of swords that hadn't been considered good enough to display.

"It doesn't have to actually match." Dydit pointed out.

"The closer it is, the easier it will be to put a long term illusion on it."

Dydit sniffed, and slipped over to another case, and the cupboards beneath. "Crystal balls
! Incredible." He found a purple one and with careful slices reduced it to the size and shape of the gem on the Archwizard's sword.

"Excellent." Nil
pried a flawed garnet from the sword hilt and replaced it with the purple crystal. He dropped the red garnet from the sword hilt into Dydit's hand and walked to central display case.

"In fact it hardly needs an illusion." The old man laid the swords side by side and nodded his satisfaction. The Archwizard's sword blazed at his touch now, and threw violet reflections around the room. Dydit shifted the fake into the correct position and shut the case. King Nihility was just staring at the sword, so Dydit explored more cupboards and found a scabbard and belt for him.

Nil was still standing there.

He explored further, caught sight of a flicker of something that wasn't there, and hunted it down. Opened a door hidden both physically and magically. A cupboard packed with books. Dydit picked up the first. The relationship between chanting and the mind. He found a large canvas sack and managed to get them all in.

The old wizard was still staring at the sword.

Dydit c
leared his throat. Nil started, and blushed as if caught doing something shameful. He took the scabbard, sheathed the sword and they made their way out, warping light about themselves until they were out and unobserved.

"I think you'd better hide
that
, or we'll really be in trouble." Dydit snorted as the old man made an illusion of nothing there, with an illusion of a short heavy knife over it.

"It has such an incredible collection of spells on it. Layer after layer, and some of the magic goes where I can't even see it. I used to study it for days." Nil sighed, and Dydit figured he'd probably
be
studying it for days. "What's in the sack?"

"Bunch of old books. Thought it would be better to look them over after we were out of there, not before."

"Oh, yes, of course." The Old Man was quiet all the way home. Until Dydit unpacked and piled the most rare and dangerous books from the Tyrant's library on their kitchen table.

"These were kept locked away from human gaze. Old Gods, you've even got the genie charts! Not that we know what to do with them any more.
Hell, I didn't know what to do with them six hundred years ago. Haven't ever seen a genie, myself, and how they could chant these so-called-names . . . I can't believe they didn't burn. That the spells of concealment lasted six hundred years."

Dydit snorted and built book shelves in the old man's room. "Gods know how you're going to keep Weg out of these."

***

Only two big scary guys showed up, this time. "We heard you were interested in selling your store."

"Oh, yes, my Father-in-law is finding it a bit much for him, at his age. Are you interested?" Dydit looked them over carefully. They both appeared to have something stuffed down the front of their pants. They certainly hadn't waited until spring to return. Had they worked their way through Nil's spells? It had only been, what, two months? A bit less?

"Our, er, widowed sister is interested in investing her late husband's insurance money in a shop in a nice part of town."

Dydit nodded. "Let me give you some advise to pass on to your sister. I'm a widower, myself, three children. Does your sister have children?" he asked, babbling along and trying to irritate them while looking naive and innocent.

"Poor thing is expecting her first."

Dydit choked faintly.

The big scary guy narrowed his eyes, ready to avenge any slight to his, ah, sister's honor.

"Well, let me tell you, it's hard to raise children and mind the shop properly," Dydit felt a bit faint. Nil's spell was so strong the 'man' was fertile? He scrambled his brains back into order. "I have my Father-in-law to help me, he does all the wine making and deliveries. Unless you two gentlemen are going to help your sister, or she's planning on finding another husband quickly . . . No?" Both men looked horrified at the idea. "Well, I'd recommend she give up making her own wine and the deliveries. That would keep the business down to a size she could handle."

The bigger scary man frowned around the shop. "But, what do you do then? Everyone says you make tons of money?"

"Oh, that's easy. See, I buy wine by the barrel, and bottle it myself. I can get a fifty gallon barrel of a nice red for seventy marks. Then I sell the two hundred bottles for a mark apiece. If my Father-in-law's wine works out, I could double the profit."

"All that for just rebottling the wine?" the big scary man looked indignant.

"Well, you've got to put on a bit of a show," Dydit waved around the store, with its artsy decor. "Work at selling the wine, because you have to sell a lot to make enough to live on. And of course you have to buy the recycled bottles, and the corks, and so forth."

The men were looking around the shop thoughtfully, and Dydit half closed his eyes and studied them through his wizard's senses. Nil's spell had run its course, and was just lying there. Dydit reordered the steps, and started it all in motion again.

The men nodded at each other. "Yeah, Johnny definitely needs this place."

The bigger scary man cracked his knuckles. "Let's talk price."

"Oh, for that you need to talk to my Father-in-law," Dydit glanced out the front windows. "He should be back anytime now . . . in fact I think I hear the wagon. Why don't you come back and see the rest of the premises?"