skata clan. Is this a nightmare? Zeus’s wandering prick, let it be a nightmare.” Goodfellow, as a puck, trickster, and used car salesman, had been put in charge of the previous bargaining with Abelia- Roo down in Florida. He claimed he was mentally scarred for life. I’d been there. I believed him.
“She wants us to find an iron coffin they seem to have ‘misplaced,’ ” Niko said dryly. “Perhaps they left it at a rest stop.”
“An iron coffin ... an iron coffin? No. Suyolak? You’ve lost Suyolak ? You have lost the Plague of the World?” Robin hissed. “You did not. You couldn’t have. You have one responsibility: to guard the evil you spawned, and you’ve let him escape?”
I looked curiously at Niko. He might not speak Rom, but if there was a monster, Rom or otherwise, he knew about it. He began speaking as casually as if he were telling a story about a well-known relative. The facts were at his fingertips and he did love to share those facts. “Suyolak, as legend goes, was a gypsy born almost a thousand years ago, one with a special gift. He had the knowledge of the cure for any illness, but he was chained to a rock. It was said should he break free, he would destroy the entire world. The Sarzo Clan wasn’t mentioned.”
“So he’s a healer. Why would a healer destroy the world? Why lock him up?” Admittedly, however, the coffin was more practical than a big rock; you never knew where the next condos would be going up.
Robin’s mouth curled with disgust. “The reason he has the knowledge of every cure is that he has the knowledge of every disease. Had, in his day, caused every disease. He’s an antihealer. You do recall something called the Black Death, do you not? Fleas may have spread it, but he was ground zero for the outbreak.”
Abelia-Roo’s black eyes didn’t blink as the truth came out. “It is so. He was a walking plague. Wherever he would go, people would sicken and die. He himself will not die; that cure he saves for himself. Age itself he tosses away.”
“And I’ll bet that was useful,” I said with scorn. “Send him to a town, make a couple of people sick, then come and cure them . . . for a price. I’m thinking like a Sarzo now, hey, Nik? Maybe I’m not Vayash after all.”
They still didn’t blink—like black marbles, those eyes. “It is said Suyolak grew to prefer killing over money or loyalty to the clan. He cured no longer. So, while he slept, exhausted by several of the prettiest girls of that day and drunk beyond oblivion, he was locked away beyond iron and zinc that his powers could not pass through. We carried him with us through the years, from country to country. He was our burden. All clans have one . . . a duty . . . a watch to carry out.”
I wondered if that made me the Vayash’s burden. Not that I was sure putting me in an iron box would do them any good. Healing was based on psychic talents, which were blocked by iron. Niko would be proud I remembered that. I didn’t have any idea if my traveling was based in the psychic realm, but I did know trying to put me in any kind of box was only going to end in my seeing how many Rom I could stuff in there . . . like clowns in a clown car—only with no way out.
“He is ours,” she went on, tucking the defensive bags away back under her shawl, “and now after all these years, hundreds, more, of bearing our burden without complaint, someone has taken him. Men with guns. Sarzo died to protect our duty. And if those who have taken him turn him loose . . . then Sara-la-Kali help us.” Her eyes pinned us. “Now, you, who owe us for the help we gave you in the past, must return him to us.”
Goodfellow protested immediately, his mobile face outraged, “We paid for that help and about ten times more than it was worth. I can’t hold my head up among the other tricksters for that.” Then, as inquisitive as he was angry, he asked, “How do you know he’s not dead? He could be bones in there. You
“She wants us to find an iron coffin they seem to have ‘misplaced,’ ” Niko said dryly. “Perhaps they left it at a rest stop.”
“An iron coffin ... an iron coffin? No. Suyolak? You’ve lost Suyolak ? You have lost the Plague of the World?” Robin hissed. “You did not. You couldn’t have. You have one responsibility: to guard the evil you spawned, and you’ve let him escape?”
I looked curiously at Niko. He might not speak Rom, but if there was a monster, Rom or otherwise, he knew about it. He began speaking as casually as if he were telling a story about a well-known relative. The facts were at his fingertips and he did love to share those facts. “Suyolak, as legend goes, was a gypsy born almost a thousand years ago, one with a special gift. He had the knowledge of the cure for any illness, but he was chained to a rock. It was said should he break free, he would destroy the entire world. The Sarzo Clan wasn’t mentioned.”
“So he’s a healer. Why would a healer destroy the world? Why lock him up?” Admittedly, however, the coffin was more practical than a big rock; you never knew where the next condos would be going up.
Robin’s mouth curled with disgust. “The reason he has the knowledge of every cure is that he has the knowledge of every disease. Had, in his day, caused every disease. He’s an antihealer. You do recall something called the Black Death, do you not? Fleas may have spread it, but he was ground zero for the outbreak.”
Abelia-Roo’s black eyes didn’t blink as the truth came out. “It is so. He was a walking plague. Wherever he would go, people would sicken and die. He himself will not die; that cure he saves for himself. Age itself he tosses away.”
“And I’ll bet that was useful,” I said with scorn. “Send him to a town, make a couple of people sick, then come and cure them . . . for a price. I’m thinking like a Sarzo now, hey, Nik? Maybe I’m not Vayash after all.”
They still didn’t blink—like black marbles, those eyes. “It is said Suyolak grew to prefer killing over money or loyalty to the clan. He cured no longer. So, while he slept, exhausted by several of the prettiest girls of that day and drunk beyond oblivion, he was locked away beyond iron and zinc that his powers could not pass through. We carried him with us through the years, from country to country. He was our burden. All clans have one . . . a duty . . . a watch to carry out.”
I wondered if that made me the Vayash’s burden. Not that I was sure putting me in an iron box would do them any good. Healing was based on psychic talents, which were blocked by iron. Niko would be proud I remembered that. I didn’t have any idea if my traveling was based in the psychic realm, but I did know trying to put me in any kind of box was only going to end in my seeing how many Rom I could stuff in there . . . like clowns in a clown car—only with no way out.
“He is ours,” she went on, tucking the defensive bags away back under her shawl, “and now after all these years, hundreds, more, of bearing our burden without complaint, someone has taken him. Men with guns. Sarzo died to protect our duty. And if those who have taken him turn him loose . . . then Sara-la-Kali help us.” Her eyes pinned us. “Now, you, who owe us for the help we gave you in the past, must return him to us.”
Goodfellow protested immediately, his mobile face outraged, “We paid for that help and about ten times more than it was worth. I can’t hold my head up among the other tricksters for that.” Then, as inquisitive as he was angry, he asked, “How do you know he’s not dead? He could be bones in there. You