His
appearance and his attitude reminded Terrence of a bantam
rooster.
“’ Dja bring a friend with you
Dechantagne?” he asked in his thick brogue.
“ A fellow I picked up on the
street.”
“ Would’ja mind lettin’m
go?”
Terrence pulled the barrel of his forty five
from the man’s mouth and, wiping it on the fellow’s shirt, he
tucked it back into his belt.
“ You’re dead mister.”
“ Shut your damn mouth, Mika. Don’t
go thinkin’ that because Dechantagne here is a pretty boy he won’t
kill you dead. He will. On the other hand, if you give him any
trouble, I’ll kill you and your whole family.”
The man—Mika went white.
“ Now get on outa’ here.”
“ Thanks,” said Terrence blandly,
after the other man had hurried out the door.
“ You know I’m not sentimental,
Dechantagne. You’re just worth a lot more alive to me than he is.
That changes; you’ll be the first to know. Now what can I do for
you, as if I didn’t know.”
“ Ten bottles.”
“ Ten bottles. Kafira, you’re gon’ta
kill yourself.” Blackwood chuckled. “It’s still a hundred a
bottle.”
Terrence growled but nodded.
“ I know you can get if for twenty
out in the wilderness from some savage in a loin-cloth, but this is
the good stuff, ya know.”
Terrence pulled a roll of bills from his tunic
and peeled off a thousand marks. It was about a third of his pocket
cash. He shoved it into Blackwood’s hand.
“ Ya know I’ve got other
products—things that will actually make you feel good. Ya might
want ta give them a try sometime.”
“ Just get the spice.”
“ I’ll be down in a
minute.”
Blackwood headed up the stairs in the back,
while his muscle took his position once again at the door. Suddenly
Terrence felt a tugging at his pants leg. Looking down he found a
pale faced man with bloodshot eyes looking up. He couldn’t have
been more than thirty, but he looked far older than
that.
“ I see a castle,” said the man.
“She’s in a castle. What do you see? Is she in a castle for
you?”
Terrence kicked the hands free of this
clothing. The man looked up resentfully.
“ You don’t see a castle, do you?
You live in a castle here. You don’t need to see a castle there.
She probably comes to you in a shack in the middle of
nowhere.”
“ Bugger off,” said
Terrence.
“ You see the purple flowers though,
don’t you? You see those.”
Blackwood returned with a small wooden box,
which Terrence opened. Inside were ten tiny cylindrical bottles,
made of dark indigo glass. Each was filled with a milky white
liquid and topped with a cork stopper. There it was—White
Opthalium. Visio, as it was sometimes called, or See Spice, was
made from rare enchanted lotus blossoms and blue fungus from
Southern Enclep, whipped together with magic. Just looking at it
made Terrence’s mouth and eyes water.
“ Ya sure there’s nothin’
else?”
Terrence shook his head and left. The street
punks were gone, though he hardly noticed. His attention was fixed
only on the small box now in his possession. It was a quick drive
back to the Old City and back to Avenue Dragon. He parked the car
in the motor shed, but walked around to the west side of the house
and went in through an almost never used entrance. This was part of
the house that Iolanthe had closed off. He found a bedroom and
locked himself in. Then he pulled aside the drop cloth that covered
the bed and sat down with his back against the headboard. Opening
the box, he pulled out one of the small indigo bottles and pulled
off the stopper. He could just detect its florid smell.
Placing a finger on the tiny open mouth, he
overturned the bottle to moisten his finger with the milky white
liquid inside. Then he reached up and rubbed it directly onto his
left eyeball, and then his right, quickly recapping the bottle and
tossing it next to him on the bed as the room around him suddenly
drained of color. He was seeing it.
No longer on the bed in an unused