Nightside 05 - Paths Not Taken

looked at Tommy.
    "You made him see something that wasn't there."
    "Of course," said Tommy. "It's my gift to be convincing. Besides, in some alternate time-line we probably are Members. Or at least, I am."
    I sniffed. "I still didn't get to do anything."
    "You will, you will," Suzie said soothingly. 'This place is bound to be packed with all the kinds of people you detest the most. I'm sure you'll find someone worth upsetting in some thoroughly appalling and vindictive way."
    I sniffed again, unconvinced, and looked around the Club lobby. It still had some of the old Roman magnificence I remembered from my last visit, with gleaming tiled walls and marble pillars, but instead of thick carpeting on the floor there were only trampled rushes, strewn here and there in clumps, and the high ceiling had been covered in thick Druidic designs that looked like they'd been daubed with woad. The only lighting came from oversized oil-lamps, and the perfumed air was hot and flat and a little stale. There was a sense that the Club had declined somewhat from its original glory days in Roman times and had yet to develop its own style. Certainly the Romans would never have put up with this much mess. The rushes on the floor looked like they hadn't been changed in days, and there were smoke and soot streaks on the walls above the oil-lamps. Stains here and there suggested spillages of all kinds.
    A servant, or more probably a slave, given the iron collar bolted around his neck, came forward hesitantly to greet us. Something about us clearly upset him because he stopped dead in his tracks, and yelled Security! at the top of his lungs. A panel slammed open in one of the walls, revealing a hidden alcove, from whose dark depths a hideous crone emerged, spitting and cackling. She was clearly some kind of witch, with stray magics sputtering and discharging around her clawed hands. She was a twisted figure in rags and tatters, with a heavy iron chain leading back into the alcove from the slave collar around her scrawny throat. She lurched towards us, her eyes wide with madness and thwarted rage. I could feel the power building around her as she muttered ancient words in a deep guttural voice, and I knew that as soon as she oriented on us, we'd be in deep shit.
    So I raised my gift only long enough to find the spell that kept her from breaking her chain and slave collar, and removed it. The collar snapped open, and the chain fell away from her. The witch broke off in mid spell, and lurched to a halt. She kicked tentatively at the chain on the floor, and it rattled helplessly. The witch grinned slowly, revealing a handful of yellowed teeth, then she turned to look at the slave who'd called her out of the alcove. He turned and ran, but he was a grease spot on the floor before he'd made half a dozen steps.
    The witch raised her clawed hands and howled a ululating shriek of triumph and vengeance long desired. Vicious spells detonated on the air all around her, blasting holes in the walls and floor. Armed men came running from all directions, and the witch turned to face them with vindictive glee on her shrivelled face. Fires started, gale winds blew, and the armed men started exploding, blowing apart in showers of bloody gobbets.
    "Happy now you've done something?" said Suzie.
    "Very," I said.
    Unnoticed in the general chaos, we strolled across the lobby and let ourselves into the dining room. We shut the door firmly behind us, and the din of the pandemonium shut off immediately. No-one looked up as we came in. Whatever the noise was, that was slaves' business and nothing to do with the Members. Most of them were reclining on couches to eat, in the old Roman style, giving their full attention to excellent food and drink, and good company. And probably paying more for that one meal than most people in the sixth century made in their entire lives.
    Some of the diners still wore the old-fashioned Roman toga, but most wore simple tunics, with or without leather armour and trappings. The majority of the diners were human, but there were also quite a few elves, looking studiedly disdainful of their surroundings even as they gorged themselves on human delicacies, and a handful of gargoyles eating live mice and playing with their food in a quite distressing manner. The diners were being served by male and female slaves, some barely more than children, all of them wearing fixed, empty expressions. They were naked save for the iron collars round their