Dreams and Shadows - By C. Robert Cargill Page 0,116
traveling the world and all, writing all those books.”
Colby’s eyes shot wide, his expression ghostly white. “I, well, I don’t—”
“Son, don’t. Everybody knows you been writin’ those books, just ain’t nobody been able to do nothin’ about it. Who the hell names themselves Thaddeus, anyway? Really?”
Colby swallowed hard. “Everyone knows?”
“Everyone that matters. Most are plenty pissed. The rest think you’re just foolish and will regret the whole thing in a few years anyway. Most do.”
“Most what? Most men who have seen what I have?”
Mimring smiled and laughed a bit. “Shit, ain’t no one’s seen half the shit you have. You’re one of a kind.”
“So, what? Am I supposed to stop writing them?”
“I couldn’t care less. Just do me a favor and make sure I don’t ever show up in one of them books.”
“Is that your favor?”
“Hell no. That’s the favor you’re gonna do me for tellin’ you what I’m about to tell you.”
“Which is?”
“Your boy out there has done imprinted.”
“Imprinted? What is that supposed to mean?”
“You ain’t noticed his color? How he used to be all pale and sickly, but now he’s all pink and robust? Or how he’s suddenly sprouting gray stubble?”
“I . . . I didn’t, actually,” stuttered Colby.
“Or how he walked in here like it was a day spa? I mean, you’re sweatin’ off a stink so bad that you’re about to stop sweatin’. That’s how bad you’re about to git. He didn’t even notice.”
“What is that supposed to mean? You don’t become a redcap just by wearing their caps.”
“Nope,” said Mimring. “Normal people don’t, anyhow.”
“He’s normal.”
“No, he’s a fairy. Got done turned into one the night of the Tithe.”
“But he never fully changed.”
Mimring paused, staring at Colby long enough to let the words he’d spoken sink in. “That’s right. Those boys don’t bother to take a child through the whole process; just get him right enough with the Devil to be able to take their place. Feed ’em on fairy milk till the point at which their body lives offa glamour and then they put ’em to the knife. Won’t let ’em imprint. So your boy has been a blank slate for a decade and a half now, waitin’ for someone to come along and take him down the final steps of fairyhood, and then he done takes the cap off a redcap, pops his head off like it were a melon, and gets blood on the cap. The cap he’s wearing. All that pent-up glamour finally found an outlet. And he became what he’s always been waiting to become. A full-on fairy.”
“But he’s not turned yet,” said Colby.
“Oh, he’s turned. He just ain’t done turnin’. No going back, though. He’s done for. He’s gonna be a redcap for the rest of his life, however short that may be.” Mimring looked over his shoulder at the forge behind him. “So I say to you again, are you sure he wouldn’t be more comfortable with a pike?”
“You have something in mind?” asked Colby.
Mimring smiled, his yellow teeth glinting in the firelight. He nodded proudly. “I actually happen to have an honest-to-god John Brown pike in my possession.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“John Brown. The civil war abolitionist who commissioned a thousand pikes from a local blacksmith that he planned to give to a bunch of freed slaves, and as there weren’t nothin’ more that frightened southern slave owners like a Negro uprising, well, they sent Robert E. Lee after him and then they hanged old John Brown for treason till he was dead. Never used the pikes, but they got his blood on ’em. Spiritually, anyhow.”
“And you’ve got one.”
“And I got one. I figure I could reforge the blade with a few drops of blood squeezed from your old boy’s cap—to capture his strength—and a few hairs of a sorcerer . . .” He gave a knowing glance to Colby. “And I reckon I could make something that would feel like an extension of his own arm. I mean, if you’re fixin’ to leave him alone at any point, and you want him to be able to hold his own, this’ll do the trick just fine.”
“It’ll take the head off an eight-point buck at ten paces?”
Mimring nodded. “Yup. Just about.” There was a brief quiet between the two. “You know you’re gonna have to keep a good eye on him from here on out, don’t ya?”
“Yeah,” said Colby, the weight of everything sinking in.
“He’s gonna become more aggressive. He’ll be someone you won’t wanna argue with. And