Page 117 of Confounding Oaths
On this, however, the elder Mr. Caesar remained firm. “Wishing is her choice. She’s not racing after a gang of armed cultists.”
“Time’s wasting,” Jackson complained. “If they’ve not cut his throat already they might while we’re standing here arguing. Make the fucking wish.”
Miss Anne didn’t quite stamp her foot, but she rallied to her sister’s defence anyway. “Don’t rush her.”
Sal lowered his head. “I’m sorry, sweet thing, but we may not have much time.”
With a decisiveness that I hoped would spill into foolishness, Miss Caesar turned back to me. “I wish,” she began, and what a promising beginning it was, “that you would guide all those people here—”
“And at the Folly,” added the captain.
“—and at the Folly who want to rescue Boy William to wherever it is he’s being held.”
I bowed. “Done.”
And then I disappeared. I had been commanded, after all, to guide two separate groups of people beginning at different locations to a single place the location of which I did not actually know.
Fortunately, as I believe I may have pointed out once or twice, I am exceptional.
I found Boy William himself quickly enough. There were onlyone or two places in the city that one could appropriately make a sacrifice to Artemis, and it was not hard to check all of them.
It might have been slightly more difficult to guide the rescuers to the appropriate place before the boy was eaten by a bear, but that was not remotely my concern.
In order to actually guide the parties to their destination, I conjured each group a classic will-o’-the-wisp and hoped the mortals would have the wit to follow them. I will confess that it was not thebestimage to call up, given its association with being lured to a murky death in a swamp. But it seemed to work. The band at the house were already expecting something, while the ones at the Folly were at least somewhat willing to track a witch-light through the night on a hunch and a hope.
Because I am atleastas skilled in my area of expertise as the Lady is in hers, the scheme worked perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that both sets of mortals arrived at the exact same time despite leaving from radically different parts of the city. Of course, even if they hadnotarrived simultaneously and the closer party had been required to spend a half hour standing around bickering about whether this whole affair was a windup, I could simply have lied and told you otherwise.
But that, reader, would be quite beneath me.
I had led the rescue party to the gates of the Tower of London and when I appeared once more before them, I was getting some very suspicious looks.
“He’s in there?” asked Captain James, only too willing to believe his ill fortune.
“I fear so,” I told him. “But that should be no difficulty for such a fine body of men, surely.”
The elder Mr. Caesar, who had been quite unwilling to be left behind, looked at Captain James, who still moved a little stifflyfrom the glass bayonet. “He is injured,” he said. “And I am old, and my son takes too little exercise.”
“Excuse me,” the younger Mr. Caesar protested, “I walk quite regularly.”
“Can you not just”—Callaghan waved his hands in a gesture indicating magic—“hop us over the walls?”
“Ican,” I told him. “Ichoosenot to.”
Captain James scowled. “Barryson, can you make this fucker be less of a fucker?”
“Sorry”—Barryson gave an apologetic grin—“don’t know the right words. Everything’s worse in the south, elves included.”
Kumar rested his chin on two fingertips and pursed his lips contemplatively. “If the men in red reallyarein there then they must have got in somehow, and they might not have closed the door behind them.”
“And they’ll have left it unguarded?” asked the captain in his most expecting-the-negative tone.
“Guards,” said Jackson, “we can deal with.”
“What about bears?” asked Barryson.
The younger Mr. Caesar raised a hand in a just-a-moment gesture. “I don’t believe anybody mentioned bears.”
“As I see it,” Barryson explained, “they’ll be here for two reasons: because it’s a symbolic place for a sacrifice, and because bears are sacred to Artemis and this is the only place in London you’ll find one.”
