Eric Flint's Blog, page 163

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 25

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 25

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Lovers

“Tradition is very important to us,” Ahorn continued. “I even agree with it, most of the time.”

“There’s got to be someone else Syrinks can marry.”

“I have only sisters. My cousin has only brothers. I could take you through all of it. She and I are the only cousins who can mate.”

“And if you were to marry her–”

“Her parents are rich. She has a large dowry,” Ahorn said. “Cassis and Flaum have gotten wealthy running the Apfelwein. They’ll settle a hundred thousand thalers on her. He told me that this afternoon. Upping the price because of my stubbornness, he calls it.”

“So you’d be rich.”

“Yes, and it would help the Krisselwissers in Barangath.”

“Krisselwissers?”

“Krisselwisser is my surname. We don’t use them much, but everyone knows them. We Krisselwissers are gentry. Ancient nobility going back to the first migration. That’s how I have my title. But I’m earl of nothing much, let me tell you. Over the years, the family fortune has gone downhill, especially in my grandfather and his father’s time. And we have more and more mouths to feed.”

“But no eligible cousins to marry Syrinks.”

“Except for me.”

“So the fact that you are actually in love with Puidenlehdet really messes with everyone’s plans.”

“They don’t understand it. They think I’m trying to deliberately sabotage the family.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. But love is love.”

“Try telling that to my cousin. He practically challenged me to a duel today. He is offended for his daughter. For the family name–part of the reason he moved to Tjark and worked so hard to build this grand inn is to be able to give it back to the family. Restore our fortune. By not marrying his daughter, he says I’m spitting on his dreams.”

“Wow. Those are fighting words.”

“I am a one-hundred-and-seven-year-old centaur. I know my own heart. I will spit on more than his dreams if he says one more word about Puidenlehdet rooming with me tonight,” Ahorn said, grinding his tobacco ash deeper into the floor board.

“But how is it going to work with you two? Puidenlehdet already has sons, right? I’ve met Dirty Coat.”

“She’s a widow,” Ahorn said. “Her husband Metsanhoitaja was one of the few buffalo people who ever came to the university. Metsan, we called him. He was a good friend to me and to Albrec Tolas when we were students there. The three of us were very close. I was best man at Metsan and Puidenlehdet’s wedding. She was so lovely that day. I was jealous, even then.”

Wulf had given up trying to understand the attraction between the centaur and the buffalo woman. But that it was strong and mutual, he had no doubt.

“She was apprenticed to be a wise woman, and she became one–and a great one. She is sought by people from all over.”

“She saved my father.”

“Yes. So you see why Metsan was attracted. She understood the ways of nature, the body. Metsan was interested in living things. His family members are mostly foresters. They tend the land, clear ground when more grazing pasture or fodder fields are needed. They barter the wood to river traders for the clan. Metsan’s specialty was the diseases of trees.”

“I didn’t even know they could get diseases.”

“Oh yes. They do,” said Abendar. “Mold, mildew, root wilt, heart-rot, canker, leaf plague. Not to mention the different sorts of bore bug infestation. And the tree people get all the same illnesses as trees themselves. So he was a physician to them.”

“After Metsan died, Puidenlehdet was left in a terrible way. Five sons to raise, and people needing her skills constantly. So I came to help.”

“Wait,” put in Wulf. “You skipped something. When did Metsan die?”

“About twenty years ago,” Ahorn said.

“And how did he die?”

“A tree fell on him. A regular tree.”

“Oh.”

“At first I was only there to help her. It was hard for a centaur to make a living as a loremaster among the buffalo people, which was what I was trained for. So I collected crystals from the Dragonbacks. I sold them to traders in Barangath to earn my keep. My people prize crystals of all kinds for soothsaying, healing, stargazing. Lots of other things. I unearthed some really good ones, too. Cassis has a couple of my finds on display over by the entrance, if you get a chance to look.”

“How long did you stay?”

“Five years I lived with her. Like I said, at first there was only friendship between us, and our shared love for Metsan’s memory. But it became something deeper.”

“So why didn’t you get married then?”

“We would have. But my father died, and I had to go home. I was the heir, after all. And like I said, the Krisselwissers are poor. Poor but proud gentry, that’s us. It was true that they needed me. I’ve managed to make us a little better off in the past few years, to pay off some of our debts. Not much, but a little. I eventually became Master of Lore at the Barangath Library. The position comes with an annuity.” He shook his head sadly “But ‘Earl Ahorn Krisselwisser.’ Every time I hear that title, it makes me depressed.”

“Puidenlehdet stayed with her people?”

“She had her sons to look after, and many sick people to help. She still does. But the time is coming when we can finally be together permanently. I feel it. We’ll find a way.”

“I truly hope so, Friend Ahorn,” Abendar said.

“Me, too,” said Wulf. “Do you want me to talk to the innkeeper? Tell him I need you at court or something so you can’t take on the inn? I do. You and Tolas–you’re two of the wisest people I know.”

“Thank you, Lord Wulf. But it wouldn’t do any good. After all, he’ll say I could just as well marry Syrinks and take her to court with me but spend her money building up House Krisselwisser in Barangath.”

“All right, I give up for now,” Wulf said. “I hope you work it out. And no dueling. That’s an order.” Wulf got up from the rocker. “I really am going to look in on Saeunn now.”

Abendar also rose. “There is a lovely half-moon, and it is a clear night,” he said. “I think I will take a walk in the moonlight. Would you like join me, Friend Ahorn?”

“Rather than stew in my own juices and scratch up Cassis’s floor? Yes. Yes, I’ll come along with you, Abendar.”

“Good.”

“Well, goodnight, gentlemen,” Wulf said, bowing tightly, his back still stiff from the day of riding.

“Goodnight, m’lord,” said Ahorn.

Abendar bowed more deeply. “Lord Wulf,” he said.

The centaur and elf headed for the entrance. Wulf realized he had confused which hallway held Saeunn’s room. He must have looked as if he were wandering aimlessly, because Syrinks the centaur came up to him and asked if she could help.

Up close she was even more lovely. And her naked breasts also tended to rivet his attention.

There are human and centaur pairings mentioned in the sagas of Heilin’s and Brotinn’s, Wulf thought. Then he aimed his eyes upward and shook the idea from his head.

“I’m looking for the room where Lady Saeunn Amberstone rests,” he said.

“I will show you there, m’lord,” Syrinks said. She bowed slightly to Wulf, then clopped past him and he followed after. He watched her swaying horse’s hips and swishing tail.

Yep. Pretty in a disturbing way.

 

 

Chain of Command – Snippet 24

Chain of Command – Snippet 24

Chapter Eleven

19 December 2133 (twelve day later) (two days from K’tok orbit)

“They’re gone,” Delacroix said, her eyes on the sensor repeaters.

“Looks that way to me,” Robinette agreed.

Petty Officer Second Elise Delacroix sat Tac Three and Ensign Jerry Robinette sat Tac One on the bridge, with Sam in the command chair. They’d been at Readiness Condition Two–half of the crew on watch–for the last day. An hour ago Sam had taken over for Ensign Barb Lee as OOD to give her a breather.

They were coming up on K’tok. The transports and fleet auxiliaries had already begun their deceleration burns preparatory for entering orbit. The warships had more powerful drives and so could put off the burn longer, then make it short and hard. They’d go to general quarters then, but not until they had to. They could only keep everyone at their battle stations so long before performance went into the toilet.

Sam looked at his own sensor repeaters, showing the radar return echoes from the sensor probe far out ahead of the task force, far enough to have cleared K’Tok’s orbital track and look “behind” it, into the space the planet occluded. Nothing there.

“Those two uBakai cruisers only disappeared two days ago,” Sam said, as much to himself as the others. “Where did they go?”

“Hiding with the asteroids behind them, like the Red Duchess said about the other one?” Robinette said. “And how come we don’t have a decent data map of the asteroid belt in this star system? All our stellar occlusion detection routines freak out as soon as we dump any data in with the asteroids in the frame. A million bogies, maybe more.”

The “Red Duchess” had become Commander Atwater-Jones’s nickname throughout the boat, and apparently throughout the task force.  Red came from the color of her hair. They called her a duchess partly because she was English, but also because she had an Oxford accent and money, judging by the fact her Royal Navy shipsuit was not standard issue but tailored, apparently by some famous “Old Bespoke” designer on Saville Row, if you believed all the scuttlebutt, which also required you to believe she had had sex with most of the male and half the female admirals in the Royal Navy, and possibly several members of the royal family. Sam’s state of mind, particularly concerning Jules’s death, had been such that he had not taken much notice of the British officer’s looks in their first encounter, but everyone else had.

This all confirmed Sam in his belief that mariners on long deployment were like old men and women with nothing to do but make up gossip. Atwater-Jones was certainly attractive, but he wouldn’t call her vid-star beautiful. She did have an interesting attitude. He wondered if Jules would have liked her. Atwater-Jones was almost old enough to have been Jules’s mother–was old enough if she’d been naughty very early, and of course the gossips suggested exactly that. He saw a familiar flicker in the corner of his eye, turned to ask Jules, but of course she wasn’t there.

Focus: cruisers and asteroids …

“I think Survey is working on a data set of the asteroids,” he said, “but that’s not the problem here, Ensign. We’re coming down on K’tok from straight above the plane, galactic north, so they can’t be hiding in the background clutter. Only direction for those two cruisers to run and keep K’tok between us and them is straight down, below the plane, and there’s no asteroids down there to hide in–nothing but stars and hard vacuum. Your stellar occlusion routines are working fine.”

So where the hell had they gone?

Sam closed his eyes and concentrated on the problem. To keep K’tok between them and the task force left a very narrow cone where they could be. The uBakai could have gone cold, turned their thermal shrouds toward K’tok, and coasted away once they’d made their burn, but the probe was pumping active radar energy down that cone and getting no bounce-back. A thermal shroud didn’t stop radar echoes and there were no known means of defeating the multi-wavelength variable-pulse radar mounted on the US Navy sensor probes. Even if the uBakai had some new stealth trick up their sleeves, these cruisers were both from a familiar class of uBakai warships that ground-based radar had tracked with no trouble earlier. They couldn’t just have turned invisible.

“Maybe they jumped out-system,” Robinette said. “I mean, we outnumber them–what–five to one in combatants? I’d sure get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Smartest thing you’ve said so far, Ensign. I’m just reluctant to assume all our problems are over and they jumped back to Akaampta or someplace else. Would they give up the system that easily? Why start a war and then run away?”

His commlink vibrated and when he squinted he saw the ID tag for the engineering officer, Rose Hennessey.

“Yeah, Hennessey, what’s up?”

“Mr. Bitka, we have a situation in the wardroom and we need you here, right away.”

“I’m standing watch for Ensign Lee.”

“She’s here, and I’ll send her forward, but you need to get here as soon as you can.”

She sounded frightened, or maybe just out of her depth, off-balance. Sam couldn’t remember ever hearing her sound quite like that.

“On my way,” he said and cut the connection. He turned to Ensign Robinette, who had still never stood a watch as Officer of the Deck.

“Big day for you, Ensign. The boat is at Readiness Condition Two, Material Condition Bravo, on task force course for K’tok. Power ring is fully charged, reactor on standby, shroud deployed, sensors passive. Expect your relief by Ensign Lee shortly, but until then it’s your boat.”

“I … I relieve you, sir,” Robinette said, his eyes larger than a moment before.

I’m turning the boat over to The Jughead, Sam thought to himself as he unbuckled his harness. What could possibly go wrong?

*****

Sam passed Lieutenant Barb Lee going in opposite directions in the central trunk, her normally pinched features looking even more distressed.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“If I say, you’ll probably arrest me for conduct unbecoming,” she answered as she glided by, avoiding eye contact.

Maybe he had overdone it in telling Filipenko to come down hard on her. Lee hadn’t spoken to him much since then, come to think of it. He should have noticed, but everyone had been busy getting ready to enter K’tok orbit and almost certainly fight a major ship-to-ship action. Well, angry with him or not, it sounded like the problem was with Huhn.

A minute later Sam pulled himself through the door of the wardroom and saw a tableau which would not have been all that unusual were it not for the awkward and distressed expressions on the participants’ faces–that and the fact Captain Huhn was in his dress whites complete with all decorations. Dress whites weren’t really made for zero gee and Sam noticed the trouser cuffs floating up high enough to show a band of pale hairy leg above the socks. Huhn floated at the head of the wardroom table with Goldjune to his right and Rose Hennessey and Moe Rice, to his left. Chief Navarro and Tamblinson the Med Tech floated near the end of the table as well. Actually, the presence of two enlisted crew in the wardroom was unusual.

 

Iron Angels – Snippet 32

Iron Angels – Snippet 32

“Right.”

The train clacked, and eased to a stop.

“I hate when they do this. We definitely have time to sort through things.” Jasper rubbed his chin. “They kidnapped a girl, me and Pete thwarted the sacrifice and they offed themselves in a bizarre manner. When you and Vance examined the basement, he found what appeared to be an alien element.”

“Alien as in foreign. You don’t think he meant from an actual alien, do you?” Temple had one eyebrow raised.

“Well, I took his comment as alien, little green men kind of alien, even if I don’t believe in them, but you on the other hand, you think we have demons flying about like evil harbingers of an unknown apocalypse — ”

“You make my beliefs sound infantile,” Temple said. “I think the demon angle makes a lot of sense.”

“All right, moving on — and I’m not dismissing you or your luna — ”

Temple poked him.

“Kidding. Totally kidding. If we can’t call each other lunatics and have a little fun during all this, what’s the point?”

“Go on.”

The train’s boxcars in front of them, labeled Santa Fe, edged forward and squealed and screeched once again as they halted. Temple put the windows down and turned off the car.

“Aw, come on,” Jasper said, “and I’m not just talking about the behemoth of a train — I’m talking about why turn the air off? It’s sweltering out.”

“Being bitchy again, the malady comes and goes. As you were saying before the train stopped?” The old woman’s negroid comment and her beliefs being ridiculed had edged her into bad mood territory.

Jasper sighed. “Vance found a foreign material amidst the detritus, both human and otherwise, in the basement. Next up: we find a mangled corpse near animal control.”

“Don’t forget the vehicle racing away from animal control yesterday,” Temple said.

“Oh yeah, we’re still figuring the vehicle out, aren’t we? The plates came back as belonging to a rental company. Figuring out who rented the vehicle is a matter of liaison with the rental company. And the victim of the first mauling near Animal Control appears to be circumstance.”

“Yes,” Temple said. “Wrong place, wrong time. Blah, blah, blah.”

“And later another kidnapping, but this time the driver of the vehicle, and possible cult member, was snatched and subsequently mauled in the crotchety old man’s backyard. Anything else?” Jasper stared at the car’s headliner, his face blank — and was he keeping something from her?

“You forgot one or two items there, chief.”

“Such as?”

Temple started the engine, rolled up the windows, and hit the air.

“Bitchiness subsided?” Jasper grinned.

She put her hand back on the keys. “Don’t make me.”

“All right. All right. What did I forget?”

“For starters, you forgot the absence of blood the mangled bodies displayed. A pinkish substance coated them. Not to mention the strange animal-like haze materializing, or perhaps a demon like the one you’re raking me over the coals over.”

He swallowed, and took a deep breath.

“What?” Temple asked. “You’re withholding something from me.”

“Wow. My ex, Lucy, used to accuse me of not telling her everything all the time.”

“Did you withhold?” She raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t be the first time a male agent used the title to score pretty young things.”

“You’re not quoting Michael Jackson, are you?”

“What if I were? And you know what you’re doing? You’re evading both questions now.”

“Damn it.”

“I have to say,” Temple said, “your casual blasphemies aren’t attractive. Maybe that’s your problem. You toss around a sacrilegious attitude like confetti.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular Rip Taylor, but enough about me, let’s talk about you.”

“Nice confetti reference, but no. Let’s get back on point here,” Temple said. “We have work to do.”

A squeal got their attention.

“The train moving?”

“Don’t think so.” They both bobbed back and forth attempting to peek between the cars, to the other side of the tracks.

Jasper’s cell went off, generic beeps. “Ah, saved by the phone.”

“Mmm hmmm.” Temple rolled her eyes.

“This is Wilde.”

Temple imagined he loved saying that when he picked up the phone.

“Right, thank you very much. I’ll have to think on that a bit. Hold on, I’ll put Temple on.”

“What is it?” Temple asked.

“Tomorrow we’ll be attending a few autopsies,” Jasper rubbed the bridge of his nose, “but there are problems.”

“Like what?”

“Well, they may not have the resources or forensic abilities to provide us with any answers, well, useful ones at least.” Jasper shrugged, and passed her his cell.  “Here, speak with Vance.”

“What’s going on?” Temple asked Vance, and after a few seconds, must have cut him off, “Fine. You know what to do. Uh huh. Great. That will work just fine then. Thank you.” She handed the cell back to Jasper.

“What did you have Vance take care of?” Jasper raised an eyebrow.

“I asked him to secure assistance, nothing big.”

“Right. Anyway. I’m going to have to inform my boss, you know. Hopefully he doesn’t make a big deal about the autopsies.”

“Do what you have to do, Agent Wilde, but you’re TDY’ed to SAG.” She looked him in the eye and said, “Now, back to my questions you thought you had escaped — ”

A sick rumble followed a high-pitched whine, like an engine winding down after being revved hit them. Had to be one of those rice burners with an overly large tailpipe. Temple hated those things.

“I think we’re a little jumpy is all,” Temple said. “Look, the train’s moving again, but I’m not letting you off the hook so to speak. Spill it.”

“Fine. You know why Pete isn’t working with us on this? He’s spooked.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

The loosely spaced clacking picked up in speed and the train rattled by, car after car and the end was in sight.

“The Asian style dragon appeared the night of the first kidnapping. After we’d rescued the girl.”

“In the basement?” Temple’s mouth hung open.

“No. We’d pretty much buttoned the place up and we’re standing curbside outside the Euclid when Pete and I both see a giant mist. I perceived the haze as an Asian dragon, but when I turned, Pete had collapsed to his knees. The encounter, the vision, was religious to him, and you’re approaching this as he did.”

“Oh my,” Temple said. “You witnessed a demon outside the hotel.”

“So?”

“Well,” Temple said, “and this is a theory of course, what if the demon went looking for food?”

“What if it did?” Jasper asked. His eyes and demeanor told her he understood where she was headed with this line of thought, but wanted her explanation, from her lips.

“You found the first pile of dead human near animal control, not far from the Euclid Hotel. The mauling took place some time during the night, right?”

“As far as we can tell. Vance’s assessment too, right?”

“Yes,” Temple said. “So, this thing went and found the guy in the SUV on the side of the road, and carried him over to animal control.”

“How? This thing we’re talking about is mist or gas or haze or something.”

“What makes you think I have the answers? I’m just tossing ideas out so we can play with around with them a bit, that all right with you?”

The train passed and the arms rose, granting them passage across the tracks.

“The Euclid Hotel’s just up ahead. Animal control, as well as the old codger’s residence, is nearby. Park after you get through the intersection and we’ll walk back.”

Traffic had piled up behind them while they waited on the train. Temple pulled over in front of a non-descript house with a meager, rough-looking front yard. She felt uncomfortable with a stack of cars behind her.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get to the hotel,” she said. “Wait, that sounded bad. We’ll get to the scene.”

“I didn’t take offense, besides, you’re acting like you have warm feelings toward my friend Lando at the university.”

“He ever get cross with you on account of the ribbing?”

“You kidding? He eats it up. No doubt.” After a pause, he added: “If you’re wondering, he’s not married. Used to be, but he got divorced… what’s it been? About four years ago, now.”

Temple felt a little edgy, partly because she wasn’t certain yet of her own interest in Ed White and partly because Jasper could be more astute than she expected. “We should move on, get off this topic. I just met the man, you know?”

“We’re running out of time,” Jasper glanced at his watch. “We should meet Carlos over at the diner. I think we dallied too long. Maybe we’ll have another shot at the hotel after the meeting.”

 

The Spark – Snippet 11

The Spark – Snippet 11

The woman had brought everybody’s attention to me. One lounger got up and walked out through the door to the courtyard, and the pairs that had been chattering now watched silently.

“I want to apply to the Company of Champions,” I said. My voice was firm and clear; I’d been afraid that I was going to squeak.

She looked at me. She was probably about fifty, but she could’ve been anywhere from thirty to sixty; not pretty, never pretty, but with a calm assurance that I found comforting. It reminded me of my mother’s.

“Master Guntram?” she called past me. “Are you his sponsor?”

“No he’s not!” I said. “My name’s Pal, I’m from Beune and I’m here on my own.”

“All right,” said the woman. “Lay your equipment on the counter.”

I put my shield before her, then found I had to use both hands with the weapon: my right hand alone didn’t quite lift it off the belt hook. That was good, because otherwise it would’ve fallen to the floor. I hoped my right arm would be all right in the morning, but it sure wasn’t now.

“Are you sick?” the woman said, her hands on the shield.

“Just banged up a little,” I said. “Nothing a night’s sleep won’t cure.”

It’d take more than a night, but nothing was broken. The woman reminded me of mom again; she’d have asked with just that tone. I put the weapon beside the shield and said, “I built them myself. I’m going to work more on them before the next time I go out in the field, I hope.”

The woman turned to the blank wall to her left–and switched on the weapon, moving it from minimum to its sparkling, spitting maximum. She shut down and laid it on the counter where the discharge point burned another scar on the wood.

She picked up the shield, again using her right hand. I was amazed. I’d heard there were women who could operate weapons, but I’d never seen it done before. Well, most people hadn’t seen a Maker who could handle weapons either.

She switched on the shield and brought it up gradually to full power. Her face, impassive when she tried the weapon, lost its stern lines for a moment.

Then she tried to swing the shield around to face me. For an instant she looked incredulous; then she shut down and put the shield back on the counter.

“That’s the problem I have to work on,” I said to her stony silence. “The inertia. Well, the main problem.”

“Be that as it may…,” the woman said. “Your application is rejected.”

“Ma’am!” I said. I didn’t know how I was going to go on, so I stopped.

“There’s no appeal from my decisions,” the woman said. “If you want to go two doors west–” she pointed to her right “–there’s an enlistment office for the army, though the barracks aren’t here in the castle. I don’t give you much chance there either, to be honest, but that’s none of my business.”

“I don’t want the bloody army!” I said, hanging my equipment back on my belt. The weapon wasn’t hot enough to really burn me, though the point against my thigh reminded me that it’d been run at maximum recently.

“Since you’re a Maker…,” she said, not quite so harshly this time. “The Commonwealth has much work for your skills. I can direct you, or perhaps Master Guntram would introduce you to Louis himself?”

I felt my lips work and wished that I’d turned away. “Ma’am,” I said, “I came to Dun Add to be a Champion. If I can’t be a Champion, then I’ll go back to Beune. I can be a Maker there, just like I have been these twenty years–”

More like ten that I’d really been a Maker.

“–and I can live with folks I like and who like me. But thank you for your time.”

I turned and started out. At least the gush of anger had swathed my aches and pains. They’d be back with a vengeance after I cooled down, but at least it’d get me out of the building and heading with Buck down to the landing place.

“Pal?” said a voice beside me, and I remembered that Guntram was holding my pack. I’d been blind with my thoughts and the hint of tears behind them.

“Sorry, sir,” I said, standing straight and meeting the old man’s eyes. I reached for the pack.

He swung it aside. “I told you my quarters are above this hall,” he said. “I’d be pleased to have your company overnight. I have a device which might help your bruises as well.”

I was going to refuse and go on out the door, but another wave of dizziness hit me. I closed my eyes, then opened them fast. I was going to topple onto the stone floor if I wasn’t careful. My sense of balance was fouled up; just for a day or two, I hoped.

“That’s very good of you,” I said. I wondered if it was the old man’s kindness that had brought on the dizzy spell. I hadn’t earned it, that I knew.” I guess it’d be best if I didn’t go back on the Road today like I’d figured to do. And if you can do something about the bruises, that would be really good.”

“This way,” Guntram said and led me through a side door that turned out to be a staircase.

I worried a bit about Buck, but he wasn’t a pampered lapdog. He’d been hard places before–if that thing from Not-Here had come for me instead of flowing back into the Waste, Buck would’ve joined me and the sixty square yards of Jimsey’s brush in the creature’s gut.

Right now, my biggest problem was climbing three flights of stairs. Which I managed, thank God.

***

“I’m sorry it’s such a climb,” Guntram said, “but I wanted to be out of the way. Sometimes I make noises or lights that would disturb people.”

“Nobody lives very close on Beune,” I said, trying not to gasp as I spoke. “Except family, you know. I didn’t start really working with things till after dad had died. As a Maker, I mean. Mom and I never talked about it. I think she was sort of proud, but she walked away whenever she found me in a trance.”

Once I’d come out of working with a piece I never did get to do anything and found a pasty and a mug of ale on the floor beside where I was lying. From the slant of the sunlight, I’d been three or four hours at it. Mom must’ve tip-toed in and left the food for whenever I was ready to eat it.

I smiled at the memory. Guntram was looking back at me from the top of the stairs. He’d stopped at a door.

“You’re feeling better?” he said as he pulled the latch and pushed the door open.

“I am,” I said. Just chatting with somebody about being a Maker was a wonderful thing, the first time in my life that I’d done it. “But what I was thinking about was a piece that I’m sure is something but I could never get it to do anything. I added every element I could think of–it took a lot of carbon and some silica, but not even a whiff of iron. It never even hinted at coming live. If it had, I could maybe have figured out what was missing.”

“Do you still have it?” Guntram said, leading me in. He moved his left hand; panels of light bloomed in the walls, just like downstairs in the lobby. Here I was looking out over a huge forest with the top of a stone building rising through the green like an upturned thumb. Our viewpoint might be from a building like that one or just a very high tree.

“It’s somewhere back at the house in Beune,” I said. “In the barn, I guess. Unless Gervaise’s done something with it, but I don’t figure he would.”

I’d be living there again shortly, working for Gervaise, I guess. He’d let me live there anyhow–he didn’t need the house, it just came with the land. Besides, he and his family were friends.

“Ah, sir?” I said. “I wonder…?”

“Call me Guntram,” he said firmly. “Yes, what do you wonder about?”

 

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 02

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 02

Chapter 2.

Steve goggled down at the slightly oversized rat with its overly-shiny white fur, tiny golden crown, sitting on his hind legs and regarding Steve with a far too knowing look. “Become what?”

“Mystic Galaxy Defender, Princess Holy Aura,” Silvertail repeated calmly.

The repetition of the ridiculous phrase left Steve speechless. He would have laughed, but the situation was not, in fact, funny; instead, he stood there, rubbing his broad face and feeling the never-quite-eradicated five o’clock shadow rasping on his palm, looking around at the monstrous, eyeless corpses scattering the alleyway around him, trying to grasp everything that had happened.

As the ebony bodies began to evaporate like dry ice in the slanting sunlight breaking through the clouds, the ludicrous words finally bounced back into his consciousness. “ARE YOU COMPLETELY BLIND?”

“While ordinary white rats do often have vision problems,” Silvertail replied primly, “I can see far better than you — into the soul, in fact, as well as more mundane spectra.”

“Then perhaps you can see why the word ‘Princess’ isn’t exactly appropriate,” Steve said sarcastically. “Let alone the rest of that hackneyed Magical Girl word salad you spewed.”

“You need to have a little more respect for an ancient tradition, Stephen Russ, especially as it is now your destiny to take the Star Nebula Brooch and the name of Holy Aura.”

“You have got to be kidding me, furball. Go find a nice klutzy junior-high or high-school girl — this Holy Aura is like fourteen, isn’t she?” Steve had watched more than enough magical girl or mahou shoujo anime to know the outline of any plot involving a magical girl and a cute furry animal.

“Well, yes, roughly fourteen in physical –”

“Exactly. Or if you want to avoid the stereotype, find the most awesomely competent schoolgirl you can and give her this . . . brooch.”

“So, you want me to send a fourteen-year-old child up against the beings who sent those?” Silvertail asked quietly.

That stopped him like a sledgehammer. The melting monsters were now night-crystal skeletons of claws and fangs and graveyard wings, and the memory of their savagery had not faded. “You just told me that’s how old, um, Magical Defender –”

“Mystic Galaxy Defender Princess Holy Aura,” corrected Silvertail.

“Fine, Mystic Galaxy Defender Princess Holy Aura,” he repeated, trying not to laugh at the ridiculous name. “That’s how old you said she was.”

“That is the necessity of the magical girl or mahou shoujo manifestation of the power, yes.”

“Look, I could, I guess, kinda take it if I was King Holy Weapon or something.”

“The matrix was determined thousands of years ago, Stephen Russ. It can no more be changed than you could shift the mountains in their courses, and even if it could, I have good reasons not to do so.”

“But why me?”

“Because,” Silvertail said, and suddenly he was not supercilious at all, but tired and grim, “I have a conscience, and because there are some very practical limitations of the power.”

“A conscience?” He remembered the earlier exchange. “Oh. You don’t want to send a little girl out against your enemies.”

“No. I have done so before, and each time it has gnawed at me, eaten at my resolve, no matter what the reasons or the stakes. And even if I felt no such remorse, the requirements are extreme. Can a girl of that age, in this civilization, truly understand what we are asking of her? What would you do to someone who recruited your fourteen-year-old daughter, if you had one, to become the main warrior in a battle against forces that could destroy your world?”

“I think I’d kill you.”

“Yes. And you would be right to do so. What would it do to such a girl to be placed in that situation? Even if she survived, what would she be like after fighting in a shadow war against such enemies — ones that make those you just defeated look like gnats?” Silvertail sighed. “I have tried many options through the eras, Stephen. I have seen so many die. I have seen so much that was wrong.”

“What are the practical limitations of the power you mentioned?” Steve was starting to realize that, if this wasn’t the most bizarre dream he’d ever had, he was on the verge of the most important decision . . . well, maybe in the world.

Silvertail opened his mouth, but there was a slight stirring nearby. Emmanuel was starting to come around.

Steve grimaced. Dammit. I’d forgotten about the kid in this insanity. “We’ll pick up on this later, okay?”

Silvertail nodded. “I will pretend to be nothing but a pet until you say otherwise.” He scrambled nimbly up Steve’s pants and worn leather jacket and settled himself comfortably on Steve’s shoulder.

“Hey, Emmanuel, you okay?” Steve asked.

Emmanuel sat up, shakily, looking around. Following his gaze, Steve could see that there was barely a trace of the monsters, and nothing that would draw the boy’s attention. “The cats! They turned into monsters!”

Steve put his best “concerned adult” face on. “What? No, though they did puff themselves up and fight back. Scary as heck. But they’re gone now.”

Emmanuel was pale under his dark skin tone, and was wobbling on his feet. Steve caught him. “Hey, take it easy.” Picking up the little boy, Steve could feel him shivering, and there were still many scratches and bites visible. “I’ve got you. It’s just a little way to your house. Just relax.”

Shaking, the little boy gripped Steve’s arms tight as he headed out of the alley. Good that he’s a skinny little thing; wouldn’t want to carry someone much bigger very far.

In a few minutes he’d reached the door to the Ochoas’ apartment and knocked. The door was quickly pulled open; Emmanuel’s mother stepped back with her hand to her mouth, saying what Steve thought was “My God!” in Spanish. His father shoved his chair away from their dinner table and ran to join her, leaving two other boys and three girls staring with worried eyes.

“It’s all right, um . . .” — he ransacked his memory, dredged the name up — “Luciana, I don’t think he’s been hurt too bad.”

He let Luciana take the boy as Alex — short for Alejandro, if Steve remembered right — looked at both of them. “What happened, Mr. Russ?”

He’d already decided how to tell the story on the walk here. “Bunch of feral cats; never seen so many in my life. I heard him crying in the alley, ran down, and chased ’em off. They didn’t want to go right away, as I guess you can see.”

“Jesus.” Alex frowned. “Some of those cuts are . . .”

Steve knew exactly what the other man was thinking. Animals might be rabid, certainly might cause infections, he should take the boy to the hospital, but the cost . . .

Steve sighed, dug into his pants and pulled out his wallet. “Here. I know you’ve got basic insurance, but the co-pay’s what, a hundred for the ER?”

“A hundred and fifty.”

Ugh. Well, ramen isn’t that bad, I can survive on that and what Barron’s Bagels will let me skeeve off them. “Here’s two hundred. That should also get any meds they give him — ”

“What? No, no, Steve, I can’t — ”

“Take it. I want the kid taken care of right, and so do you. Maybe you’ll be able to pay me back someday, or just do something for someone else, okay? No big deal.”

The Ochoas both tried to argue, but he refused to take no for an answer, and they did, after all, really want to have the doctors look at their son. He got out finally, evading the too-effusive thanks with an excuse that he was late for an appointment.

He looked somewhat forlornly at the McDonald’s that he usually passed on the way from work. He’d been planning on treating himself to a cheap dinner, but that wasn’t happening now. He muttered a small curse as he realized that he’d lost, and completely forgotten about, the small sack of bagels he’d been bringing home from work. Thinking back he now could remember the bag falling and breaking open. Total loss. “Ugh. Well, there is ramen. And maybe the gang will bring some snacks tonight.”

Finally he got to his house — or rather, the house he rented an apartment from. It was a third-floor apartment, which from his point of view was pretty swanky; at least he didn’t have to deal with people trampling over his head at random hours, other people had to deal with him.

Have to remember to pay Lydia the rent tomorrow. Which will leave me like thirty bucks. Ascending the stairs, he got to his apartment and shut the door behind him, locking it and putting the chain on. “All right, Silvertail,” he said. “You can stop the act.”

“Thank you, Stephen.” Hearing the refined accent was actually something of a relief; the events of an hour past had been so bizarre that they had started to acquire a dreamlike quality. “I must say, you conducted yourself in a fashion truly worthy of a — ”

“Do not go there, not yet.”

“As you will.” Despite the straightforward reply, Steve got the impression that Silvertail would have been grinning broadly in vindication, if rats could have grinned at all.

“Emmanuel’s family never noticed you.”

“No. I thought it best that I was unremarked, and I have had long practice at that over the years.”

Steve busied himself with digging out some ramen; to his minor gratification, he found that there was still a bag of frozen vegetables in the freezer, so he broke that open and put some into the broth as it was cooking. “You hungry, Silvertail? And if so, what do you eat?”

“Famished, in fact; I used a considerable amount of power to heal you.”

Not without a wince at the small but now significant cost, he added a second ramen packet. “Okay, I’ll have food for us both in a minute.”

Time to focus on this . . . ludicrous situation. I’ve got guests coming soon. “Now . . . I was asking about the ‘practical limitations’ that you mentioned?”

“The power you call ‘magic,’ and that we might as well keep calling that, has the ability to . . . not violate, precisely, but to trick reality, to make the laws of reality in effect look the other way, to negate reality in specific ways. But that takes energy. A great deal of energy to negate the very foundations of reality. And one rule we cannot violate is that energy cannot be created from nothing. Thus the energy to perform all magic comes from the magical being itself.”

Steve untangled that after a moment. “You mean that this Princess Holy Aura burns her own mass to get the energy to do her stuff?”

“Exactly. Why do you think your depictions of magical girls tends to show many of them with astounding appetites? We’ve worked hard to disseminate the meme, so that it can be recognized, perhaps accepted, because support and belief are also powerful forces for magic to draw upon. But the energy itself can only be drawn from the actual body of the mahou shoujo.”

Steve looked down at himself and grinned wryly. “Well, it’s not like I don’t have a few pounds to spare, I’ll give you that. Why else?”

“Mindset. You came into that alley determined to protect others, and with the willingness to face pain and injury in combat if necessary. How many fourteen-year-old girls, or boys for that matter, as opposed to adult men, have that mindset? Oh, they can learn it, of course, just as young people of all ages have been turned into soldiers, but an adult who has developed it naturally is more stable.”

“Plus, if this . . . Princess keeps even part of my knowledge, she’s got a lot different perspective on the world than someone who’s less than half my age.”

“Correct. Yet . . . you have a certain . . . idealism, Steve, a belief in the general rightness and justice that is, or should be, in the world, and that, also, fits my needs. Am I correct?”

A part of him wanted to deny it, because it was becoming more clear that the impossible talking animal was making sense in a certain twisted way. But . . . “Yeah. I guess. I want to believe that people are good, that the world is a good place.”

“And if you have a chance to make it a good place?”

“Damn you. Look, don’t you see this is all kinds of wrong? If I have to be this . . . Princess Holy Aura. Well, okay. Maybe. If I just have to be her when fighting. But . . . Jesus! It’s not like I have anything against girls, but this is just . . .”

“I understand your reservations, Stephen Russ. But you may have to wear that form and seek both allies and enemies, for our enemies also understand the same weapons as we.”

“Why in the world did you guys choose this . . . particular shape for your superweapon?” he demanded, even as he took dinner off the stove and served it into two bowls.

“Thank you,” Silvertail Heartseeker said as the bowl was placed before him. “To answer your question . . . psychological warfare,” Silvertail Heartseeker said. “Firstly, such a girl will be underestimated in nearly all cultures and times. They will not be seen as the formidable force they are, and even those who should know better will subconsciously underestimate her. Secondly, that age is often a representation of innocence and purity on the edge of adulthood. She stands at the border of light and dark, of child and adult, of weakness and strength. Princess Holy Aura stands between the innocence and purity of the world and those who would corrupt it.”

Steve thought about that. It made sense, again, in a strangely twisted fashion. If you accepted the existence of magic, the idea that symbolism was part of its power couldn’t be dismissed. “So . . . what are our enemies, then?” There had been something almost eerily familiar about those eyeless winged . . . things, a familiarity that gave him the creeps.

Silvertail eyed him. “I think a part of you has already guessed. You recognized the nightgaunts, did you not?” At Steve’s unwilling nod, he went on. “Some of your authors knew or touched upon the truth — Robert Howard and H. P. Lovecraft, among others.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He suspected that this might become a catchphrase if he kept hanging around with Silvertail. “Nightgaunts? Lovecraft? Cthulhu? Wait a minute, let me see that brooch again.” Silvertail proffered the jeweled item without comment. “Damn. That’s an Elder Sign, isn’t it?”

“The broken-pointed star, yes. Though ‘broken’ is not quite correct. It represents . . . but we are getting ahead of ourselves. Our adversaries are a . . . not race, but assemblage of beings, some of them unique individuals, others various species, who hail from a mystically separate reality that is, unfortunately, compatible with ours in a manner that is inimical to our survival.

“Periodically — ‘when the stars are right,’ as your authors have put it — their agents here can begin the arrangements to open the gateway and let their ruler through; if she were to manifest completely, she would become . . . a catalyst and an anchor, transforming the Earth to something like their own world and providing an almost unbreakable beachhead for their people to enter our world with.

“They first attempted this when I was young; fortunately for our world, that was also when our ancient civilization was at its peak, and we were able to fight them off, restrain them, until at last we created our ultimate weapon.”

“This Princess Holy Aura.”

“And her four companions, yes.”

“You mean you’re going to have to find four other guys who will even consider this insanity?”

Instead of looking amused or defiant, Silvertail seemed to wilt. “If it were only so easy.”

“Easy?!”

“Oh, not in the sense you mean. In that sense, yes, it would be hard enough to find men with the same basic decency and courage as yourself, let alone ones willing to risk their own personal identity in such a drastic fashion. But that is in fact an irrelevant question . . . if there is no Princess Holy Aura first. The other Apocalypse Maidens, as they are called, will not be able to be located and awakened unless Holy Aura is already there and active, if I have not already fired the opening shot, so to speak, in this era’s war against darkness.”

He rose on his hind legs again and proffered the brooch. “Take the Star Nebula Brooch, Stephen Russ, and become the shield of light, the vanguard of good against ancient evil. Become Mystic Galaxy Defender Princess Holy Aura, and learn the truth of your soul and the power of the innocence you have always sought.”

Steve looked down and took a deep breath. Then he heard footsteps climbing the stairs. “Damn. I have other questions, a lot of other questions. But . . . I’ll think about it, okay?”

Silvertail gazed at him for a long moment, then gave an audible, tiny sigh. “I suppose I can expect no more. But,” he said, as a knock came at the apartment door, “the time for that decision is not unlimited. We have defeated the first scouts of the enemy; their troops will not be long in coming.”

 

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 24

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 24

Chapter Twenty-One: The Cousin Trap

The fire in the Apfelwein common room had burned down to coals. Wulf had thought about going to bed, but the rockers were so comfortable. And the company was good. Besides, they had been talking about Saeunn.

“I have never heard of an elf living long who has lost her star,” Abendar said. “Death is usually quick. Instant. But the lady lives on.”

He gazed upward, and Wulf suspected he was in communion with his own star. As Saeunn and the sagas had always told him, “Elves are stars and stars are elves.” Each elf had a star for a soul. When the elf died, the star went out.

“She has the star-stone.”

“A fragment of Brennan Temeldar,” Abendar said, shaking his head in wonder. “It’s a tale that’s old even to elves.” He turned his gaze back to the fire. “But for Saeunn Eberethen to have given her star so that Wuten of the Draug could be killed–well, she helped put to rights one of the greatest troubles my people ever let loose on the world.” He bowed to Wulf again. “And so did you, Lord Wulf. And Mr. Stope, also.”

“We had to. No choice. The draugar was going to kill us. Rainer and I had to fight him. And we couldn’t have gotten rid of him without Ravenelle either. Or, really, all of Shenandoah.”

“It’s a very good thing you’ve done and my folk will never forget it,” said Abendar. “I’ll never forget it.”

Wulf didn’t want to like Abendar. Abendar had as much as admitted he’d considered courting Saeunn once she was old enough. Which was now. But the elf was hard not to respect.

“I appreciate that,” Wulf replied. “I ought to go see her, I think.”

He started to get up from the rocker.

“You’ve looked in on her twice already. She should settle in and rest, m’lord,” said Ahorn. He put a soft hand on Wulf’s shoulder. “The princess is with her. And so is Puidenlehdet.”

“I guess you’re right,” Wulf replied. “But I’m going to check on her later.”

Ahorn nodded. “Yes, you should. And spell my dear wise woman. Puidenlehdet has to sleep, even if she does think she’s indestructible.”

“I’ll make sure that she gets some rest,” Wulf said. “We’re going to need her more than ever.”

Ahorn didn’t seem to be listening to Wulf’s reply. He shook his head and stamped a forefoot down hard. It resounded against the floor, causing several people to glance in their direction.

“And that cursed cousin of mine had the gall to tell me she couldn’t have a pallet in my stable,” Ahorn said. He gave a dismissive snort. “He doesn’t approve of our relationship.”

“Lots of people don’t approve of a centaur and a buffalo person match. You know that. People say that’s where were-beasts come from.”

“It is where were-beasts come from,” Ahorn said. “If the child is unloved and treated like an outcast. Which we would never do.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t, my friend,” Wulf said with a smile. “But you two aren’t married yet. Are you?”

“No,” the centaur said. “That’s not the point, m’lord. You don’t understand the family politics that can go on with my kind. And hers.”

“There aren’t a lot of centaurs in Raukenrose,” Wulf admitted.

“Tawdry, sordid stuff,” Ahorn replied. “Stupid stuff.”

“Okay, now you have to explain,” Wulf said. He nodded toward Abendar, peacefully smoking. “He wants to know, too.”

“It’s always amusing to find that somebody else’s family is as peculiar as your own,” Abendar said with a chuckle. “But, Lord Ahorn–your people listen to the stars and use crystal vibrations to sense the movement of the dragons. Are you telling me that you don’t spend all your time stargazing and talking about deep philosophical things?”

Ahorn huffed a dry laugh. “I wish.” He took his pipe from his mouth and knocked the tobacco onto the floor. There were a few bits of burning weed left. These he stamped out with his foot. He held the pipe in one hand, using it like a baton to emphasize his points. “Cassis, the innkeeper, is the son of my mother’s sister, Cyrene. So, he is not my cousin, but my brother.”

“But that makes him exactly your cousin,” Wulf said. “Doesn’t it?”

“In the human way of reckoning, yes. In our way, no,” Ahorn went on. “The brother or sister of a parent is not always an aunt or an uncle. In fact, they are only half the time.”

“What?”

“The sister of our mother, we also call ‘mother.’ But her brother we call ‘uncle.’ The brother of a father we also call ‘father,’ but his sister we call ‘aunt.'”

“That is . . . incredibly confusing.”

“Not to us, m’lord. The rule is simple,” Ahorn said. “The same-sex sibling of a parent is a blood relative. The different-sex sibling is considered a more distant relative. The same with the children. The children of my father’s brother, I call ‘brother’ and ‘sister.’ The children of my mother’s sister, I also call ‘brother’ and ‘sister.’ But the children of my father’s sister or my mother’s brother I call ‘cousin.'”

“I know some about centaur ways, but I’ve never understood this,” Abendar put in. “Frankly, it seems . . . pointless.”

“It has to do with how our bloodlines work and how traits are passed down. We are insular, so we have to keep these things mixed.”

“If you say so.”

“Here’s the thing: you can marry your cousin. But you can’t marry a sister or a brother.”

“A sister or brother who is really a cousin,” Wulf said.

“Right, m’lord,” said Ahorn, gesturing at Wulf with his pipe as if he was an apt student who had answered correctly. “Or they might be your actual brother and sister, in which case you can’t marry them either.”

“I hope not.”

“But cousins–now cousins you want to marry. That is the tradition.”

“Why, for Sturmer’s sake?”

“Because they are distant enough relatives to keep the bloodline sturdy, but close enough to keep the family wealth together.”

“So Cassis is your brother? That is, your cousin?”

“Yes,” Ahorn says. “But he is married to Flaum, my mother’s brother’s daughter.”

“So she’s an actual cousin, the way I would think of it,” Wulf said.

“Cross-cousin, yes. Cassis and Flaum have a daughter. Her name is Syrinks. That’s her over there.” Ahorn nodded toward a young centaur woman holding a serving tray. She was delivering mugs of mead and wine to the diners.

“She’s pretty,” Wulf said.

The centaur woman noticed them looking at her. Particularly, Wulf guessed, Ahorn. She shook her long brown hair and threw back her head slightly.

As usual, centaurs only wore functional clothing, such as satchels for carrying items. The centaur woman’s human-looking upper half was bare naked, including her breasts.

“She seems like she’s got a lot of personality, too,” Wulf added lamely.

As swiftly as she’d reacted to the male glances, Syrinks turned up her nose and looked away. She went back to waiting on the guests.

“Yes, she does,” Ahorn replied with a doleful look. “I like her. I just do not want to marry her. I don’t really think she wants to marry me, either.”

“Why should you?”

“Because I don’t have any other cousins to marry. And neither does Syrinks.”

“I don’t get it . . . you mean centaurs have to marry their cousins?”

“When you think about it, m’lord,” Ahorn said with a smile, “it does make a lot of horse sense.”

 

The Spark – Snippet 10

The Spark – Snippet 10

CHAPTER 4: Making Everything Official

I was hearing blurred voices; I’d been hearing them since it went dark. I was pretty sure that I could understand the words if I concentrated on them, but I didn’t have the energy to do that. I just wanted to lie where I was.

I wondered if Easton had destroyed my eyes. I didn’t remember being hit again after the one that got me in the back, but maybe I wouldn’t.

The blackness vanished. I was lying same as I had been when Easton first knocked me down. Boots were standing around me.

“Don’t move, kid,” Morseth said. He gripped my forehead with his left hand to keep me from jerking away when he probed my scalp with his right thumb and forefinger.

“If you want to know if it hurts,” I said, “I can tell you: it hurts.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t break the bone,” Morseth said, straightening. “You’ll be okay. At 20% there’s no burns.”

My hearing was coming back. My ears rang a bit, but I figured that’d go away. I hoped so, anyhow.

I put both palms on the ground and raised my torso very slowly. I was going to have bad bruises on both arms, but nothing was broken. I wasn’t as sure about my ribs after the jab they’d taken, but at least I wasn’t coughing blood.

“What happened?” I said, staring at the ground as I got myself ready to put my knees under me. “I mean, it seemed to me that everything went black.”

I didn’t want anybody to think I didn’t know what’d happened in the fight. Easton had well and truly whipped me.

“The fight was over,” said Guntram. The two Champions and their attendants were standing close around me, but the old Maker was a little farther back. “I called on Easton to stop, but he continued beating you. I therefore caused the light at the place you were fighting to be refracted. When Easton stumbled out of the zone, your seconds directed him away.”

“By all the saints,” muttered Rikard and turned his head. Morseth and Reaves had stiffened also. They were used to shields and weapons, but an Ancient device of unusual kind disturbed them.

There were people back home who thought that anything unfamiliar came from Not-Here and was made by the Adversary. I didn’t understand that, but I’d learned that it was a waste of time to argue with them.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you all.”

I eased myself back to where I was kneeling with my body upright. Easton and his crew were walking up the broad path toward the castle. I hadn’t touched him, hadn’t even had a chance to try. Other than bruises front and back, my torso seemed to have come through pretty well.

“I left you concealed until Easton had gone well away,” Guntram said apologetically. “I was afraid that if he saw you within reach, he would have hit you again.”

“He’d have wished he hadn’t,” Morseth growled.

Which was likely true, but I’d seen how Easton behaved when he was angry. Another whack on the wrong place might’ve been all she wrote for me.

Aloud I said, “I was glad just to lie there a little longer. Now, I’m going to try to stand up.”

I said that last thing because somebody might have to grab me suddenly if I’d misjudged how ready my left leg was to hold me. I felt sick to my stomach for a moment, but I didn’t bring up my pork and collards. After that first wash of dizzy sickness, I was all right.

“You going to be all right now?” Morseth said. “I can leave Rikard to help you get to your room if you think you might need a hand.”

I bent over and picked up first my weapon, then my shield. By holding my torso stiff I was able to do that without screaming, but I stood with my eyes shut for a moment after hooking them onto my belt.

“I’ll be all right,” I said, working at a smile. “I could use a guide to wherever I go to apply to join the Company of Champions, though.”

Morseth and Reaves went blank-faced. Rikard smiled, then got a horrified look and turned away again.

Very carefully, Morseth said, “You sure you want to do that right now, fellow?”

“I’m sure,” I said, a bit too loud. I heard what wasn’t in his words too. I probably wouldn’t have felt so angry if I didn’t pretty much agree with Morseth. “That’s what I came to Dun Add to do, the only reason I came here, and I’m going to do it.”

“He knows his own mind,” Reaves said. He was repeating the comment he’d made when he saw the equipment I was taking against Easton.

“Sure, Rikard’ll guide you,” Morseth said with a shrug.

“If you don’t mind, Morseth?” Guntram said. “My quarters are directly above the Aspirants’ Hall, so I can take Pal there on my way back.”

“Well, if you’re willing to do that, sir,” the Champion said. “Though I’m happy to loan Rikard out for an hour, too.”

“I have some things I’d like to discuss with Master Guntram,” I said. “I’d be pleased to have his company.”

“Well, the two of you have a good time, then,” said Reaves. The Champions with their servants set off briskly toward the castle.

“Everyone is very respectful to me,” Guntram said quietly as he watched their backs. “They don’t like to be reminded that I’m a Maker, though, and using the Sphere of Darkness did that.”

“I get along fine with my neighbors on Beune,” I said. “But they don’t like to walk in on me when I’m trying to fix something. I’ve seen them standing at the end of my lane, waiting till I come out of the house, rather than take the risk that I’ll be in a trance.”

Guntram laughed. “I tell them that it’s no different from fighting,” he said. “Both involve merging your mind with the structure of Ancient equipment. What we Makers do it more subtle, perhaps, but it isn’t different.”

He met my eyes. “Speaking of equipment,” he added, “would you mind if I carried yours?”

“Your help would be a godsend,” I said, unbuckling the belt and handing it over. My pack didn’t weigh anything by now, but the hardware did. Besides, the stroke I’d taken across the back was already burning from the strain of the belt pulling down on my torso.

We started up the paved path. Guntram let me set the pace, but I found that if I gritted my teeth I could do pretty well. It was probably good for me, not to let the bruised muscles stiffen up.

I didn’t talk much on the way up, though. Breathing was hard, and I kept feeling where Easton had jabbed me in the ribs. Maybe I’d been wrong about nothing being broken.

When we reached another of the doors on this side of the building, Guntram took off the belt and returned it to me. “Here’s where you go in,” he said, “I’ll hold your pack. And if you don’t mind, I’ll come in also.”

“I’d be honored, sir,” I said. I took a deep breath. I didn’t expect this was going to be a pleasant interview, given the rest of what had happened since I reached Dun Add, but it had to be done. I opened the door and entered a large room.

The light came through panels about six feet in each direction on the wall facing me. Windows, I thought, but they showed a sparse woodland instead of the courtyard and the part of the castle across from it. The light came from the panels, not through them.

A woman wearing a turban of bright magenta stood behind the counter to the right. The rest of the room was a narrow lobby reaching to the outside door in the far wall. There were sturdy wooden benches and doors in both sidewalls.

The half-dozen loungers didn’t notice us, but the woman got a look of amazement and dipped into a curtsey. “Yes, Master?” she said.

She was talking to Guntram, behind me. “I’m just passing through, thank you,” he said. This gentleman has business with you, however.”

I walked carefully to the counter. My left leg was going to throw me if I didn’t concentrate on what I was doing.

 

Iron Angels – Snippet 31

Iron Angels – Snippet 31

“All right, you got me,” Jasper said, and held up his hands. “While I am a fan of the roaring twenties, the truth was that I had an investigation once that led me to this very hospital and I asked a lot of questions.”

“You have a good memory,” Temple said.

“That might be the only thing that got me through college.”

Temple laughed.

Jasper approached the reception area and smiled at the youngish woman behind the glass.

“May I help you?” Her voice and demeanor were pleasant.

Jasper displayed his FBI credentials and badge, pressing them against the window.

“I’m Special Agent Jasper Wilde, and this is my partner, Temple Black.”

“Oh.” Her chair glided back, as if Jasper had informed her he’d contracted a horrible communicable disease. “What — what can I do for you?” She swallowed. “How can I be of assistance?”

“A stolen vehicle involved in an accident last night,” Jasper withdrew his credentials, “is registered to a patient of yours, a Mrs. Hazel Thomas. We learned she’d been hospitalized recently.”

“Of course,” the young woman said, “I’ll check for you. Though, I’m somewhat taken aback.”

“Why is that?” Temple asked, stepping forward, eyebrow cocked.

“Don’t FBI Agents wear suits? Black ones? You know, white shirts, ties, and a hat? What are those called?”

“Fedoras?”

“Yes, fedoras.” The young woman tapped away at a keyboard, the light of the monitor reflecting in her eyes.

“Told you.” Temple said. “You look like a bum.”

“Why are you interested in a stolen vehicle?” asked the receptionist. That seems, well, I’m not sure how to put it, small potatoes for the FBI.”

“There’s more to the investigation, Miss,” Jasper said. “Much more, but I’m not really at liberty to discuss the details. But I can assure you, the hospital is in no danger.”

The young lady nodded. “Well, she is here. Go to the second floor and visit the nurse’s station. I’ll inform them you’re on your way.”

“Thank you.”

A nurse on the second floor escorted them to the old woman’s room. Two beds stood side by side, one of which was empty, while the other held Hazel Thomas, frail and withered.

“Had to be my lazy nephew who took my minivan,” she croaked. If dust had flown from her mouth, Temple would not have been surprised. She did, however, remind Temple of her own grandmother, even if this woman was white; the thought warmed her heart.

“How can you be sure?” Jasper stood at the side of the bed. “And what is his name?”

“Alan Smith, lazy little bastard,” she said, “and you know, he came right out and asked me if he could borrow the van for a while. I told him no, I needed my minivan to get around. He asked the very night I was admitted to the hospital.”

Temple stood beside Jasper and leaned over. “Oh?” Temple placed on a hand on her arm.

The old woman patted her hand. “I nearly fell. Breaking a hip at my age would likely be the end for me. I had grown dizzy and weak. Thought I was going to die, I did.” She licked, then smacked her lips, but they remained cracked and dry save for a bit of thick white moisture tucked into the corners.

“You think he did something to cause your admittance here?” Temple asked.

“Not sure. Awfully coincidental, don’t you think?”

“He ever hang around with questionable or undesirable types?” Temple squeezed her arm gently.

“Like attracts like. Oh, who am I kidding? He was, pardon my language, a shit magnet.”

Temple snorted and covered her mouth. She glanced at Jasper, whose eyes had widened.

The old woman chuckled. “That boy never done good by anyone. He lived in his mother’s, my sister’s, basement all the way up until last year. One day he comes home and says he’s moving out. My sister had always coddled him — ”

“Where did he go?”

“He never moved out. My sister died before he could get his carcass out of her house.”

“Ah. What was the cause of death, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“She broke not only her neck, but just about everything in a fall. Going down into the basement of all things to get him up for work.”

“How do you know?”

“I was there.”

“So, no foul play then?”

“Not unless you count the fact he lived in his mother’s basement, a grown man, lazy and not getting up for his so-called job.”

“Which was?”

“What, his job? Hell if I know. Tell me, what happened to my van and where is that no good bastard?”

Temple released two cheeks full of air through parted lips.

“Your van is totaled and we’re not entirely sure where your nephew is.” Temple didn’t want to get into the gory details of the pile of meat that quite likely had been her “bastard” nephew.

“Serve him right if he’d been thrown from the van and broke his neck.” The woman’s eyes watered and her cracked lips trembled. “My sister didn’t deserve a lousy son like him.”

“Of course not,” Temple kept her hand on her arm. “Did you ever meet any of his associates?”

“Pfft. Associates.” She certainly recovered from her sadness in an instant. “You make him sound like some kind of businessman or attorney. Ha. Alan hung around with a bunch of degenerates.”

“But can you describe any of them?”

“Odd looking. Ridiculous looking.” She looked up and to the right, and pursed her dry lips, deep vertical lines carved above her top lip like the ground splitting under the strain of an earthquake. “Their appearance — too similar, like they were all part of some weird rock group. Damn kids.”

“Similar?” Jasper cocked his head slightly.

“Generic, that the right word?” The old woman’s cloudy eyes gazed up at him.

“No distinguishing features — ”

“Pale and plain. Their heads were all shaped the same way and their faces cut in the same manner.” She shivered noticeably beneath the blankets and the hand atop Temple’s trembled.

“You don’t mean cut by a knife or blade — ”

“Oh, heavens no,” she said. “Like their heads, their faces were angled, yes, angled the same way. Sunken cheeks and bald.”

“Alan was bald or he shaved his head?” Jasper asked.

“He must have shaved, that boy had the most beautiful head of hair. People do the darndest things to themselves these days, it’s beyond my understanding.”

Temple squeezed her gently. “There are many things about all of this we still don’t understand ourselves. But you’ve been a big help. You have anything you’d like to add or ask, Agent Wilde?”

Jasper’s eyes narrowed and he bit his lower lip.

“Do me a favor,” the old woman said. “Would you hold the cup to my lips? I’m so thirsty.”

Jasper reached for the cup.

“No. Her,” the old woman said.

Jasper shrugged and stepped back.

Temple held the cup to Hazel’s lips, leaning close. The old woman whispered in Temple’s ear.

Temple straightened and sat the cup on the bedside table.

“Let’s go,” Temple said. “Don’t we have another stop before we’re supposed to meet your source?”

****

Once back in the car, Temple sat for a moment in silence, as did Jasper, but she knew what was coming:

“What was the whispering all about?” Jasper turned to Temple.

Temple drummed the steering wheel. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

“Go ahead. Try me.”

“It’s nothing really, just took me by surprise.”

“You seemed a little gruff after she whispered in your ear.”

Temple made a face. “Apparently, Alan hates negroes.”

“What?”

“Direct quote.”

“Well, I’m sure we can put the quote in the category of hated — past tense. We’re pretty sure the pile of meat behind the shed was Alan, right?” Jasper asked.

“That explains the dead black woman at the accident scene — or at least why he chose to kidnap a black woman,” Temple said. “Hey, I think a search of Alan’s house would do us good, perhaps tell us more about him, perhaps he left something useful behind. You think Pete could score a search warrant?”

“Maybe, I’ll ask him later on.”

“All right, let’s go. Point me in the right direction.”

Jasper directed her over to Euclid, then south, but just before East Chicago Avenue an excruciatingly slow train impeded their progress.

“Look familiar?”

“A little,” Temple said.

“We’re near the Euclid Hotel. We have a few minutes before this thing crawls past, how about we go over what we know for certain.” Jasper faced her. “Sound good?”

“Sure. You start.”

“We have the first kidnapping — ”

“How do we know the cult didn’t kidnap and sacrifice before?” Temple asked.

“Good point, the basement, the stone slab, and the wall appeared used, as if they’d performed rituals below the hotel before.”

 

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 23

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 23

Chapter Twenty: The Brush

The Skraelings could move quickly through the forest. Not as quickly as she could. They were basically townies, even if they had grown up hunting. At least Wannas had. It was pretty clear that he’d not only been raised rich, he’d always been treated as the golden boy of his family. She could also see he was constantly striving to live up to it.

There may not be any royal titles allowed in the Skraeling city-states, but Wannas behaved like he was some kind of merchant prince. He also pounded on the fact that nothing was more important than his mission to Wulf. Ursel was getting tired of the repetition. Even if they found Wulf, even if Shenandoah sent an army, could it really defend Potomak from Sandhaven? Plus, according to Wannas, there were Romans, too.

And now there had been that aborted attempt to kiss her.

Wannas was handsome enough, she had to give him that. Raven-black hair. His face bronze with high, angular cheeks. His eyes light brown, almost clear.

And he was very intense. Every day. All the time.

But whenever she found herself softening to him, he tried to order her to go faster, or asked whether she’d lost the trail. He really didn’t like it when she took time near sunset to hunt up a rabbit or squirrel for their dinner–all of their dinners. Because she was good at it, she’d found herself feeding the whole group for many nights in a row. They all now acted as if they expected her to do it, too, which was very annoying.

I’m not some paid hunting guide, Ursel thought. And I’m sure as cold hell not your mothers.

But it wasn’t courteous to eat fresh meat in front of them while they gnawed on their pitiful dried pemmican. Ursel believed in courtesy. In courtliness.

Unlike Potomak, Shenandoah had a duke. And her father was an earl, even if she herself was a commoner.

So she put up with the attitude from the Skraeling men as a lady would.

Which didn’t mean she was going along with their plans.

She’d heard at Bear Hall that Wulf had left on a quest to save Saeunn Amberstone. In fact, she’d half decided to go in search of what she suspected was a changeling band partly in order to get away from everyone at Bear Hall talking about the “foolishness” the young heir was up to.

It wasn’t foolishness.

It was love.

It just wasn’t love for her.

Not again! Blood and bones, I’m more pathetic than those men chewing and spitting tobacco by the fire.

It was late in the evening. Wannas had set a watch, and the rest of his band was settling down to sleep around the small fire Ursel had started. Every night the Powhatans went through the same ritual.

A cup of yaupon tea.

A long chew on a knot of tobacco they placed in one cheek until it bulged.

Another cup of tea, then to bed.

They each carried a woolen point blanket–white wool with blue, red, and yellow stripes. The blanket was to wrap up in, and to sleep under when it rained.

She herself liked to sleep on the outskirts of her fires, usually with her back to a tree or rock. Fire drew too many curious visitors in the night, and it ruined night vision. Besides, she was hardly ever cold, even in the dead of winter. It was a trait she’d been born with.

When traveling, she carried a satchel over her shoulder with a wax wool rain jacket in it and her own bedroll blanket. Also inside the pouch was her fire-making kit, her bow repair tools, a small looking glass, some cake soap, a tiny tin of cheek rouge–she had to admit she was vain about having rosy cheeks to match her red hair–and a brush for that red hair. Most nights, she built a one-person shelter with her bow stave and the rain jacket. She covered this with leaves.

Her ritual at night by the fire was brushing her hair. It was long and thick. It could get oily between washings, too. To keep it from becoming a tangled mess while camping, she gave it one hundred strokes every night. Then she would plait it up for sleeping and brush it out with fifty more strokes every morning.

Wannas seemed fascinated by this. He had watched her make every stroke for many nights.

Tonight his stare was starting to irritate her as much as his other behavior.

“Are you not allowed to look at women brushing their hair back home?”

Wannas seemed to start out of a daydream.

“No,” he answered. “I mean . . . yes. Men can watch women brush their hair. Put on makeup. Whatever.” He placed a hand to his chin, and kept gazing at her. Then his eyes seemed to grow troubled as a thought occurred to him. “Is it wrong here? Have I offended you?”

“No. Not at all”

“Good.”

“What I’m wondering is: Why do you keep staring at me like you’ve never seen a girl brush her hair before?”

“I’ve never seen . . . there are not many red-haired women in Potomak. I’ve hardly ever seen it. And none with hair as red as yours. Or eyes so blue.”

“So I’m a curiosity to you?”

“Just your hair,” he said. “I mean, yes, I find you interesting in other ways. But–”

“But it’s mainly the hair,” she said, cutting him off before he said something even more awkward.

“Do you . . . are you going to remain in your foster-father’s service for your whole life?”

“I don’t know the future. Do you?”

“No,” he replied. “I mean . . . I do not wish to offend you or be indelicate . . . but I was wondering if you are . . . actually going to get married?”

“Not your business really,” Ursel said sharply.

“I don’t mean to imply . . . that you are . . . forbidden . . . by some tyrant of a father. I just wondered if . . .” Wannas didn’t finish the thought.

“Mr. Kittamaquand, I’m expected to.”

“But with your dowry, where could you find a good enough match?”

Ursel hesitated with her stroke. “Oh, there might be a boy or two around,” Ursel answered.

“And I was wondering if you . . . wanted to tell me about him? About whoever it is who is constantly on your mind?”

“I do not.”

“But there is somebody?”

“You have to stop this, Wannas.”

“Yes. You’re right, of course.”

Where was I? Oh yes, sixty-three.

She resumed brushing.

Sixty-four.

“All right. Even though it’s really none of your business, the truth is that I probably won’t get married.”

Wannas looked surprise. “Why not?”

“Because, I can’t marry the one I’m expected to marry.”

Because I was raised to think of myself as a little princess by my father. I was raised with the expectation that I would one day meet one of the duke’s sons, it didn’t matter which, and that he would fall helplessly in love with me–or at least with the fact I’m inheriting a large chunk of the western Shwartzwald Forest. I would be the final, bodily union between the Keilers and the von Dunstigs, the two greatest families in the land.

Then Wulf von Dunstig came along and I fell in love with him. Not just who he was, but him.

I even saved his life.

Not enough.

She’s still immortal. And beautiful. And with hair like sunlight. And eyes the color of the sky. And cute pointy ears that stick out a little.

And she’s filled with elven magic.

And she’s kind. And thoughtful.

And loves him.

And I am apparently somehow supposed to help her.

The dreams of the star-song and dying had not stopped. They’d gotten more intense.

“Let’s just say that I’ve won a lot of competitions in my life,” Ursel said. “But I’m not going to win this one. I’m outclassed.”

“I doubt that.”

Ursel considered. Should I tell him? Share my misery? Give him a glimpse at the pathetic love-fool I really am?

Blood and bones, no!

“It doesn’t matter,” Ursel said. “Now where was I?”

“Sixty-five,” Wannas replied softly. “I count along with you.”

“Why, for Regen’s sake?”

“Because it helps me to get to sleep, Mistress,” he said. He shrugged. “Nothing more.”

Wannas smiled wanly in his infuriating, arrogant way. At least she supposed it was arrogance. Maybe he was just uncomfortable with this sort of conversation.

Marriage. Dowries.

She knew very little about Skraeling manners. They were democrats. In Potomak, anybody could marry, well . . . anybody. This all must seem strange to him. Confusing.

For the first time, she actually felt the smallest bit sorry for him.

“Mr. Kittamaquand, you have my leave to count away,” Ursel said. She smiled her own pale smile. She pulled the brush through her hair.

Sixty-five.

And again.

“Sixty-six,” he whispered.

 

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 01

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 01

Princess Holy Aura

First volume in The Ethical Magical Girl

By Ryk E. Spoor

Part I: The Princess and the Rat

Chapter 1.

The screaming came from the alley to Steve’s right; it was high-pitched, the voice of a child in terror and pain. Steve found himself sprinting down the alley before he’d even consciously realized what he was going to do. This sure wasn’t what I expected after leaving work. Most days he walked home from Barron’s Bagels after cleaning up and making sure the shop was set up for the morning crew, and either prepared for an evening of gaming, or just watched whatever happened to appeal to him.

It seemed that tonight wasn’t going to be quite so quiet.

There were a lot of shapes moving at the end of the evening-shadowed alley, he realized as he shoved his way past a dumpster. He skidded to a halt, frozen for an instant by the macabre nature of the scene.

A little boy — Emmanuel, a boy who lived in the apartment a few doors down from his — was backed into the far corner of the dead-end alley, eyes wide with fear, face bleeding, beating at dozens of feral cats that had surrounded the kid. A large white rat — a pet? — was clinging precariously to Emmanuel’s shoulder, balancing as far away from the hissing creatures as possible.

Jesus, that looks like a Halloween diorama. Steve knew that feral cats could be dangerous in packs, but he’d never seen such a mob around here; one or two, yeah, but nothing like this. Still, it was one thing to attack a little kid, another to deal with a full-grown man. Steve didn’t like fighting, but he’d found that being six foot three and slightly over three hundred pounds with a good deal of muscle could convince most things to not even try.

“HEY!” he bellowed. “SCAT! Get out of here!” He grabbed up a two-by-four from the ground and whacked one of the animals aside. “Go on, get!”

All of the cats turned their heads to look at him, an eerily synchronized action that sent gooseflesh rising in chilling waves across his body. Their eyes glinted a uniform green that seemed, impossibly, to be brighter than the light in the alley, almost as though they really were glowing. As one, the entire pack hissed venomously at him and then turned back to their prey.

What the hell? Steve was taken momentarily aback. Even the one he’d struck was returning to the attack, leaping up a set of crates for a better position. He’d expected the animals to scatter, at least, and really he’d pretty much expected them to run; now that he had a better look, there were only about a dozen of the animals, which meant that he still outweighed all of them put together by more than three to one, maybe four to one. But as Emmanuel threw a panic-stricken gaze toward him, Steve adjusted his grip on the board and struck hard. “I said SCAT!”

He connected well and truly this time, sending the animal flipping end over end across the alley, caught another on the backswing, and bored in to start flinging the creatures aside and get to the boy.

The hisses suddenly took on a furious screeching note, and then they deepened.

Steve fell back, horrified, as the furry little animals swelled to twice their prior size, eyes shrinking to nothing but faint ridges on a black, flat head with a mouth filled with ebony needle-teeth, body distorting to something semi-bipedal, wrinkled batlike wings extending from the shoulders. Blind the things might have been, but they still all faced Steve now, and he had no doubt they could sense him.

His stomach churned with fear, his knees shook, and he wanted to run. But there was a little boy in there, in among those monsters, and a tiny furry creature desperately trying to find shelter, and he was not going to leave them.

On the positive side . . . the monsters were now all focused on him.

One of them lunged, catching the board and ripping it out of his hands with terrifying strength; two more grabbed the board and broke it apart. Holy crap, they’re strong as hell! I need something tougher!

He saw it almost instantly: a lovely thick steel pipe, probably torn out of some nearby house, leaning against the wall just past one of the things. Got to try.

As the creatures started to slowly encircle him, he jumped forward — with a speed that had surprised a lot of people, thinking that his bulk was mostly fat and not merely an overlay of fat on heavy muscle. He raised his iron-toed workboot and stomped as hard as he could on the one in front of him; something crunched and he heard a pained shriek, a quick scuttling to get away that gratified him. Whatever they are, they can feel pain. He hadn’t been sure until now.

Something leapt onto him from behind, sinking what felt like a hundred burning needles into his shoulder and back, narrowly missing his spine. He cried out but finished the charge, caught up the pipe, and then spun around without slowing; his attacker absorbed the impact of his entire weight against the brick wall.

Two more flew at him — literally, flapping those leathery wings swiftly and powerfully to propel themselves through the air. Steve swung the pipe around like a baseball bat and a double impact shuddered down the steel shaft; the two monsters were sent smashing into the far wall.

But now the others, clearly realizing that Steve was a far more formidable opponent than they had taken him for, attacked in earnest. Teeth and claws slashed at his legs, two of them lunged for his arms and gripped, pulling, trying to disarm him, take him down to the ground where he would be dead in a moment.

Steve heard his own scream of pain and fear and it galvanized him; he shoved himself up against the tearing, wriggling mass and forced his body into another charge, ramming into the steel dumpster a little ways up the alley, bouncing back and forth between the walls, using his mass and strength and the hard city itself as a weapon to stun or crush his opponents. He spun the steel pipe around, brought it down in a piledriver blow that impaled one of the night-black monsters completely through, tore another from his arm and hurled it into the wall, hammered his fist into another yawning needle-filled mouth — feeling skin tear and rip — and then spun about like a top, hurling the stunned and disoriented things away.

The steel shaft felt right somehow, balanced in a good way like a fine quarterstaff, and its extra weight was comforting, helping firm his resolve and courage against these living nightmares. A lot of them were down now, but there were still more, six of them, and they were stalking, coordinating — remember they can fly — two of them gone, flanking him in the air, the other four trying to hem him in!

The four in the clear space ahead gave him an idea; instead of retreating, he dove at them, dropping his weight on two of them, a falling anvil, then rolling to his feet before the others quite caught him. The steel pipe whipped around as he rose, and he nailed one of the flying ones, the heavy strike sending it sailing thirty feet almost straight up before plummeting back down to land, limply, on the filthy ground. Steve ignored the aching agony in his arms and back and set the steel staff to whirling up, down, right, left, smashing at anything and everything that moved, the slightest sign of beetle-black motion drawing his wrath and the hard, cold vengeance of steel.

Suddenly it was still in the alley; nothing moved but Steve and his shaking, bleeding arms. He looked around, wary, fearful, but no attack came. Everywhere he looked, there were twisted, monstrous bodies . . . but there was not a hint of motion from any of them.

Emmanuel had fallen to the ground, and for a moment Steve had the horrific thought that one of the monsters had killed the boy while Steve was fighting them. But after checking his pulse, Steve decided Emmanuel had just passed out from shock and fear. No wonder; wouldn’t be surprised if I do, myself.

But the thought of being unconscious in an alley with those monsters — some of whom might not be quite dead — kept him quite focused on staying alert.

From behind Emmanuel crawled what Steve could now definitely see was a large white rat, fur gleaming slivery in the dim glow from distant streetlamps and the skyglow overhead. Oddly, it was wearing a tiny crown of some sort. Kids do put all sorts of strange things on their pets, that’s for sure.

The animal sniffed at Emmanuel, then stood up on its hind legs, surveying the area, sniffing at Steve and the air around. Steve, who had had a pet rat himself some years back, gave an exhausted grin. “‘Sokay, fella. I think I got them all.”

“That you did,” the rat said, with a dignified almost English accent. “Well done, Mr. . . . ?”

Steve blinked, then shook his head. “What the . . . did you just talk?”

“I did. Perhaps it would be better if I introduced myself first, and then you can provide me with your name. I am Silvertail Heartseeker. And you are . . . ?”

Am I nuts now? Did I just snap from boredom or whatever and imagine I was fighting monsters instead of cats? Talking rats? What the hell, Steve? You write better RPG scenarios than this!

He decided, after a split second, that if he wasn’t going to assume insanity, then dream was the more likely explanation, and therefore, being rude to the talking rat — Silvertail Heartseeker — was pointless. “Um, I’m Stephen. Stephen Russ.”

He tried to stand, found that it was really hard; screaming pain from uncountable lacerations echoed through him. I’ve never hurt like that in a dream. Tiny pains, referred pain from something that happened during the day, but nothing like that. It’s clear pain. Not muffled, not dreamed . . .

“. . . is this real?”

Silvertail Heartseeker nodded in a satisfied way. “The natural question, of course. Yes, Stephen Russ, I am afraid this is all too real. You answered calls of the innocent and helpless and risked your life to protect young Emmanuel from things far worse than you imagined existed. For that, I must first thank you. Many there are in the world who would have ignored those cries, and far more who would have fled when mundanity turned monstrous before their eyes.”

Silvertail bounced up and laid a pink paw on Steve’s hand.

Instantly a white shimmer of light flowed out from the tiny hand-shaped paw, light that was cool and soothing and that surged outward through Steve’s body. He saw the narrow rodent face wrinkle in concentration, the whiskers quiver, as the light erased pain, eased tension. Silvertail sagged down, looking as though he had just spent an hour running on an exercise wheel.

Steve flexed his muscles experimentally. There was still pain, but it felt superficial — more like the cat scratches he’d initially expected, not the deep, possibly dangerous wounds the monsters had left. “Wow. Um, thanks.”

“On the contrary, as I said, I thank you. I could not cure all of your injuries, but you will suffer no lasting ill effects from this battle.”  He glanced at the boy. “Emmanuel will also recover, though he should receive appropriate mundane care shortly.”

He drew himself to his full height — which, standing, was probably all of eight or nine inches — and bowed. “I must formally greet you, who have passed a test that few in your world would have passed — a test of empathy, a test of attention, a test of reaction, a test of courage, a test of endurance, all compressed into this single battle. You are the one, the Heart I have been Seeking.”

Steve felt a chill of awe and anticipation, sensing that the tiny figure before him was far, far more than it appeared, and that it was speaking a ritual, a destiny, not merely ordinary words.

From apparently nowhere, Silvertail Heartseeker produced a glittering brooch, three inches across, of gold and silvery metal, covered with an elaborate pattern in gems. Even to Steve’s untutored eye, it was exquisitely made, the main body in the shape of a strangely broken-pointed star with a jeweled galaxy across it. Silvertail lifted the brooch in both tiny hands and said solemnly,

“Stephen Russ, you are the Heart that was Sought, the Courage that is needed, the Will that is eternal. It is for you, and you alone, to take up this burden and defend the world against the darkness that now rises to swallow the light. Take you up the Star Nebula Brooch, and become that which is your destiny. Take it, and become your true self — Mystic Galaxy Defender, Princess Holy Aura!”