Eric Flint's Blog, page 225

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 31

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 31

CHAPTER 11

Before I could raise my weapon or ward myself, a second footstep, this one heavier than the first, made the floor creak. That was followed by the unmistakable clack of a round being chambered in a pump-action rifle.

“I think you should put your pistol on the floor and raise your hands.” A girl’s voice, with the faint lilt I was used to hearing in the speech of American Indians.

I did as she said, then straightened, my back still to the door, my eyes fixed on the shattered window that looked out over the sloping desert behind the shack. “Can I turn around?”

“Not yet. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I’m Jay Fearsson, and I’m a private investigator. I was hoping to speak with, Lucas Quinn. I have reason to believe he might know something about an item I’m trying to find. Who are you?”

“Who sent you here?”

“No one sent me. A man named Barry Crowseye told me how to find the place.”

“You know Barry?”

“For a long time now.”

Another growl made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

“Who’s that with you?” I asked.

“You can turn around. Very slowly. I’m feeling a little twitchy, and so is my grandmother.”

I stepped around, taking care not to make any sudden moves. The girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She was a bit heavy, with long black hair, dark eyes, and a face that was angelic, despite being partially obscured by the sights on her rifle. Next to her, its teeth bared, its ears lying flat, stood an enormous pale gray wolf with amber eyes.

“That’s your grandmother?” I asked.

“Yep. And you’re in her house.”

That I hadn’t expected.

“You’re a weremyste,” she said.

“If you can tell that, you’re a were.”

“That’s right. I’m a wolf like her.” She said it as “woof,” but I had no doubt as to what she meant.

“I didn’t mean to trespass. I came to talk to your grandfather. You can ask Barry if you want to.”

“My grandfather’s dead.”

Again, a deep growl rumbled through the shack.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, breathing the words. “Murdered?”

She nodded.

“By the people who destroyed this house.”

“By weremystes,” she said.

“Not by me, I promise you. But I’m sure they were interested in the same item I’m after.”

“Whatever that is, it’s not here. If they didn’t find it, it never was.”

I glanced around, noticing what I had missed before. There was nothing left in the shack of any value. Whatever remained of Lucas Quinn’s collection had been taken.

“They stole it all? Everything he had?”

For the first time, the girl hesitated. “Yes.” She said it forcefully, but I could tell she was lying.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. You and your grandmother removed what was left, isn’t that right? But then why leave the shack this way?”

Her mouth twisted, making her appear even younger than she had. My guess of eighteen might have been too high.

“I took it all away,” she said after some time. “Grandmother hasn’t changed back from wolf since the night he died. I’m not sure she ever will.”

I grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

“I left the shack this way,” she went on, not responding in any way to my words of sympathy, “because I thought they might come back. People loot stuff all the time, so they wouldn’t wonder about that. But if I cleaned it up, they might come looking for us.”

“That was good thinking,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not sure I want to tell you that.”

“All right. Would you be willing to let me see the items they left behind? The stuff you took away?”

“I’m not sure about that either.”

I gave a self-conscious smile. “I can’t say that I blame you. Truth is, you have no reason to trust me, and I can’t make you answer any of my questions. But I’m going to ask anyway. Do you ever remember seeing, among all the things your grandfather had in his collection, a stone knife? It would have been a pale, warm beige, the color of creamed coffee, with a red streak in the blade.”

The girl frowned, and I could tell she was thinking about it, which was as much as I could ask. But it was the wolf who answered, with a sound that was half yelp and half chuff.

I regarded the wolf and then the girl, a question in my eyes.

“She says he had it.”

“You’re sure that’s what she was saying?” I asked, trying not to sound too skeptical. But grandma, with her big teeth and big claws responded by making the sound again, which was almost enough to convince me. “But you don’t have it now, do you? It wasn’t here after your grandfather died.”

“No, it was gone by then. I don’t remember seeing anything like it.”

“How long ago did all this happen? When was he killed?”

“It was early September, so it’s been more than a month.”

Something didn’t make sense. If the grandmother was to be believed, and if we were interpreting her yelps correctly, Lucas had the knife at one point. But if Silver-hair stole it weeks ago, why would he still be searching for it? Why would he have ransacked Burt Kendall’s pawn shop? Unless a different weremyste huffed and puffed and blew down Lucas’s house in order to take the blade. Too many questions, and too many fairy tales about wolves.

“Did you or your grandmother see the people who attacked the house?

“No, we were away at a pow-wow. Grandfather didn’t come.”

Had Lucas’s attackers planned it that well, or had the girl and her grandmother been lucky?

“I’m sorry for all you’ve been through,” I said. “And I’m grateful to you for answering my questions. What you’ve told me has been helpful.”

“So why do you look so confused?”

I laughed. “That’s part of being a PI. Sometimes it takes me a while to sort through everything I’ve learned. But you’ve told me a lot.”

She didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t help noticing that she still had her rifle pointed at my chest, though she was no longer sighting me and her finger was not behind the trigger.

“So are you going to let me go, or are you going to shoot me?”

Grandma yelped a third time.

The girl lowered her weapon. “I guess I’m going to let you go.”

She grinned, and so did I. I nodded to grandma. “Thank you.”

“What will you do when you find the knife?”

“I don’t know yet. I’d like to destroy it. Failing that . . .” I raised my shoulders, dropped them.

“All right.” She sounded vaguely disappointed. “You can go now.”

I glanced down at the Glock. “I’m going to pick that up. Don’t blow my head off, all right?”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, which was a good answer.

I knelt, picked up the pistol by the barrel and returned it to my shoulder holster. The girl and wolf watched everything I did, and when I eased toward the broken doorway, they backed out of my way.

The sun sat balanced on the western horizon, huge and orange, its glow touching the wolf’s fur so that she appeared almost red.

“Be well,” I said, walking to the pick-up. “Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

They watched me, but neither of them made a sound. I got in, backed the truck around, and started down the dirt road.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 22

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 22

CHAPTER 8

DaSaenz Estate, Jardin

“There may be another way out,” said Miranda. Her voice was perfectly calm, but the fact that she’d spoken at all showed that she must think they were doomed.

“Oh, I think we’re all right,” Daniel said. He walked back to her, keeping his voice low. “You can stand on my shoulders, can’t you? Though I think we should wait a few minutes in case he’s waiting at the top.”

“Oh,” said Miranda. She hugged him fiercely. “I’m sorry I panicked. Yes, of course I can stand on your shoulders. Actually, with a boost I could probably jump through the opening; enough to get a hold, I mean.”

“I’d rather you just climbed up on me,” Daniel said. “I’ll worry less.”

It would be very easy for someone trying to jump through a hole in a stone ceiling to smash her elbow in this uncertain light. Several glowworms were on the rim of the opening, but even so it would be a tricky target.

After what he’d decided was a safe delay, Daniel walked with Miranda to the edge beneath the opening. He heard nothing from the level above.

The glowworms were softly attractive when he thought about them, but for the most part they were of no more interest than the curtains in a woman’s bedroom. He was smiling as he cupped his hands and said, “I’ve made a step.”

Miranda, facing him, put her left foot in the stirrup and raised her right onto his shoulder in the same motion. Daniel had expected her to steady herself by dabbing her hands against the wall behind him, but she hadn’t needed to do that.

Miranda brought her left foot up. For a moment Daniel was supporting her weight on both shoulders; then it was gone. The loose cuffs of her trousers brushed his ears as she lifted herself through the opening by her arms.

“The ladder’s still here,” she called. “I’m letting it down.”

Daniel stepped back with his hand up to catch the ladder when it dropped. Miranda let it down smoothly instead of just tossing it over to potentially whack him on the head. She was a girl in a thousand.

Daniel smiled. And I ought to know. Well, not a thousand.

Daniel pulled the ladder tight to be sure that it was still firmly attached, then mounted quickly. He didn’t like the way he swayed, but he wasn’t on the ladder long enough for that to matter.

When Daniel squirmed through the opening, he breathed a sigh of relief. “I kept thinking that daSaenz was really waiting up here and was going to clout me one as I put my head up,” he said. “Now all we have to worry about is a hike, and not so very long a hike either.”

“But Daniel?” Miranda said. “How will we find our way out?”

“The first thing Hogg taught me when we started going into the woods…” Daniel said. “Was how not to get lost. I was about three at the time.”

“But it’s dark?”

“Right,” Daniel said as he squirmed out of his tunic. “But it’s not pissing down rain, and we don’t have to worry about a million vine-wrapped trees which all look the same even in daylight. Which it usually wasn’t when we were checking the trap lines. Hogg being a poacher when he wasn’t giving me fatherly advice.”

He held out the tunic to her. “Here, take one sleeve and I’ll have the other,” he said. “That’s easier than holding hands.”

“I…” Miranda said. Then, obviously changing what she had intended to say, she said, “I’m very glad you can do that. I thought we were lost.”

“DaSaenz apparently didn’t expect it either,” Daniel said. “I suppose it’s not a skill which many Academy graduates share.”

He touched the rock wall with his outstretched hand. “I’ll wiggle through the hole here and take the tunic again on the other side,” he said. “There’s not much chance of you wandering off inside, is there?”

The passage through the rock was shorter and easier than Daniel remembered it being when he came the other way. Maybe he’d sweated off a few pounds. More likely it was just familiarity and the fact that going in this direction he had a clearly defined mission: to get out, and to settle accounts with Timothy daSaenz.

Daniel reached the end and waited in a hunching posture for Miranda to rejoin him. His fingers were spread at the edge of the opening to make contact.

Miranda’s fist came out, thrusting the tunic ahead. Daniel took the trailing sleeve and sidled down the passage, straightening as the height of the rock permitted him to.

“I’m not concerned about finding our way to the entrance,” Daniel said. “I haven’t figured out yet how we’ll open the door there, though. I didn’t see a way of opening it from the inside, but there must be one. DaSaenz didn’t intend to die here himself.”

He was talking so that Miranda wouldn’t be left with only her thoughts for company. He was used to moving in darkness — and a rainy night in the forest really was as dark as the interior of the caves — but she wasn’t. She trusted him, but chattering to her in positive fashion cost nothing.

“There was a call button at the elevator,” Miranda said. “DaSaenz told the guard that we’d be going up by that to the manor house.”

“We can try that,” Daniel said. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll go to the main entrance — careful here.”

His right little finger reached a branching; he was feeling his way along by very light contact with the wall, holding his hand high enough that a sudden dip in the ceiling wouldn’t take him by surprise.

They turned right and shortly turned left again. This put them in the great multi-lobed chamber Daniel remembered from when daSaenz brought them into the cave.

“As I said, we’ll go to the entrance and see what we find there,” he said. He was keeping to a normal walk — strolling, not trying to cover distance. The floor was smooth and clear of obstructions, and a purposeful pace would do as much to calm Miranda as his voice would.

Daniel wasn’t altogether comfortable either, to tell the truth. He’d seen his share of danger, but this was a new one.

“Worst case — here’s where we turn. It’s going to get narrow again, but we know where we’re going. Worst case, as I say, is that we’ll wait for a rescue party from the ship. In fact they may be waiting for us when we get to the anteroom.”

Daniel was being brightly cheerful, but it was true that he expected Hogg and the Sissies to come for them. That might not have helped if he and Miranda had been deep in the bowels of a labyrinth, though Daniel was pretty sure that if daSaenz’ mapping had been entrusted to a computer, Adele would eventually find it.

“We may get a little hungry, is all,” he added.

“I wonder if the glowworms are edible?” Miranda said. “At least gathering them will keep us busy.”

The sulfur will make our urine stink, Daniel thought. He didn’t say that aloud. Like eating asparagus.

“Of course we don’t have any water, so the sulfur won’t be much of a problem,” said Miranda in the same matter of fact voice as before.

“Are you reading my mind? Daniel said.

“Umm,” said Miranda. “We know each other pretty well, darling.”

Daniel reached the narrow crack which led to the elevator chamber and from there to the anteroom. He felt a rush of pleasure: they’re reached their goal, or almost. Though he’d never consciously doubted that he could lead them back, his present relief proved that his subconscious hadn’t been quite as certain.

“We’ve made it, love,” Daniel said. “I’m letting go of the tunic again.”

He got down on his belly and squirmed into the passage. The grit on the floor scraped him, and he was pretty sure that he’d rubbed through the skin on his right shoulder blade.

Cheap at the price. We’re getting out.

Daniel reached the square-cut section that acted as a foyer for the elevator and stood. He knew that was where he was, but for the first time he felt the darkness.

“I’m clear,” he called to Miranda, and he heard her rustle through the opening. He wondered how much blood from his shoulders was lubricating the rock by now.

Daniel found the elevator door and explored the smooth metal with the flat of his hands. He wondered in which direction it slid to open.

“It helps to remember it’s beige,” Miranda said from beside him. “It helps me.”

Then she said, “Here’s the call plate. There isn’t a button, that is, a mechanical one. I saw a black dot when we went by, but it must be painted.”

“Push the center,” Daniel said, leaning his ear against the door panel. “I’ll listen to see if I hear anything.”

“I’m pushing,” Miranda whispered.

The metal door gave no sign of anything. It was slightly cooler than the rock wall. Daniel couldn’t hear either mechanical noises or the possible sighing of air in the shaft beyond.

He straightened. “Well, I guess we’d better try the main entrance,” he said. “Nothing seems to be happening here. I’ll take the sleeve again.”

“I thought I heard something from that direction,” Miranda said. “A humming?”

“It could have been the hydraulic door,” Daniel said in sudden hope. “DaSaenz might not be very far ahead of us, you know.”

If DaSaenz hadn’t closed the door behind him, this was going to end more quickly than Daniel had dared to hope. Regardless, it meant that there was some way of getting out by the way they had come in. DaSaenz’ aircar was parked at this level, after all.

“Daniel, why do you suppose he did it?” Miranda said quietly.

“He could be crazy,” Daniel said. “It might be that simple. But…Miranda, it might have something to do with your father.”

“Yes, I thought that,” Miranda said. “But Daniel, he really did love Jardin. I can’t believe that he, well…that he had anything on his conscience.”

“Well, DaSaenz may tell us something himself in a little bit,” Daniel said as he sidled through the final narrow passage. “I certainly plan to have a discussion with him. Until then we don’t have enough information.”

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 13

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 13

Alberto sent out another batch of instructions before turning back to Phillip. “How can I help?” he asked.

Phillip thought back to when he treated Paulus. He’d only been a twelve year old boy and until he fainted it’d still taken Claus and Dietrich to hold him. The youth on the other hand was probably about his own age, and a lot bigger. He paused in the act of removing his medical kit from his pack. “Just keep a firm hold on him. I don’t want him thrashing about.”

“Babbo,” the patient said, reaching out a beseeching hand.

“Everything will be all right, Carlo.” Alberto glanced at Phillip. “He will be okay?” he asked.

Phillip was saved having to answer by a bucket being laid down beside him. “Thank you,” he said before dipping a finger into the water. It was cold. He hadn’t expected hot water, but this water was only a short step away from ice. He scooped up a handful and splashed it over Carlo’s leg. He reacted to the icy cold water by trying to jerk his leg away. “Can someone hold Carlo’s leg for me,” he asked.

Alberto called out to a man who dropped down and took a firm grip on Carlo’s leg. With the leg held securely Phillip was able to splash water over the gash with one hand while he wiped away the mud and blood with the other, giving him his first real glimpse of the injury. It was worse than he’d feared.

He looked up at Alberto. “Babbo, Carlo’s injury needs to be stitched, but I can’t do it here. If I bandage it, can he be carried to the nearest shelter?”

There were giggles and smiles all round. Even Alberto allowed a smile to form momentarily. “Did I say something wrong?” Phillip asked.

Alberto shook his head. “My name is Alberto. Alberto Rovarini. Carlo is my son, and I am his babbo, his father. And yes, Carlo can ride on one of the wagons.”

“Right.” Phillip felt a proper fool, but he couldn’t let his mind linger on that. The wind was getting up and the rain wasn’t getting any lighter. He grabbed a roll of linen from his medical kit and wrapped it tightly around Carlo’s thigh.

Even in the protective circle of the Rovarinis the wind had been able to reach Phillip. His whole body was chilled and he needed the help of one of Rovarinis to get back to his feet. He was handed his hiking stave, but when he bent to retrieve his pack he was pushed away as another picked it up and carried to one of the wagons. Phillip must have looked dumbfounded, because Alberto came up beside him. “You have helped Carlo, so we help you.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Phillip protested.

“You stopped and did your best while everyone else just looked on or walked past,” Alberto said. He bowed his head. “I am ashamed that I didn’t immediately attend to Carlo’s injuries. My only excuse is my relief that he was still alive.”

****

The moment the Rovarinis arrived at the traveler’s inn an unconscious Carlo was unloaded from the wagon and carried in. A table was cleared and he was laid down on it. He’d barely been laid out on the table before someone deposited Phillip’s pack at his feet.

Phillip started to take off his oilskins and winter coat. It was a struggle until helping hands divested him of his oilskins and coat and carried them away. It was clear that he was going to be provided with any assistance he required, so he put the situation to good use. “I need good light, and hot water.”

Within minutes he had a good candle and a jug of steaming hot water and a wash basin. He’d spent the time waiting for the hot water removing his jacket and rolling up his shirt sleeves. When the water arrived he indicated that he’d like some of it poured into the basin and when that was done he lowered his hands into it. It was painful, but it was the quickest way to warm them.

With his hands functioning again Phillip unwound the bandage and used it to wipe the inside of the wound clean. Then, under the light of a candle, he made a close examination of the injury. It was bad. The first thing he had to do was tidy up the edges. He had a chunk of Obsidian in his medical kit and a large flake from that served as an excellent scalpel which he used to cut away the torn and ragged skin. He checked how well the two edges met and discovered that he’d cut away too much skin. He needed to cut away some of the tissue under the skin to ensure the edges of the skin met.

Once the wound was trimmed to his satisfaction Phillip smeared his special honey based ointment liberally into the cut. Now he was ready to close the wound. Unlike when he stitched up Paulus’ injury, this time Phillip had some idea what he was supposed to be doing and better yet, he now had a couple of more suitable needles, a palm guard to help force the needle through flesh, and some better thread.

Phillip pushed the needle through the skin and deep into the flesh, so that it was barely visible at the bottom of the wound when it emerged, and then back out through the skin. That formed the basis of the first stitch. He tied the ends together and repeated the procedure as he worked his way along the length of the wound. When he got to the end he wiped the wound clean before smearing it with some of his ointment. Then he reached for the bandage and started to roll it up so that it could easily be wound around Carlo’s thigh once more.

At this point he was interrupted by the innkeeper’s wife. She grabbed the dirty bandages from Phillip’s hands while berating him for thinking to do something so foolish as use them to bind Carlo’s injury. She pushed Phillip away so she could examine his handiwork. She touched a finger to the traces of ointment and tasted it, rewarding him with a grudging nod of approval before she pulled Carlo’s pants down and efficiently wrapped his injury with a clean bandage.

“You did well,” Alberto said, offering Phillip a mug of hot spiced wine. “Here, drink this.”

“Thank you,” Phillip said as he wrapped his hands around the steaming mug. He gestured with his head towards the innkeeper’s wife. “She looks like she thinks she could have done better.”

Alberto glanced in the woman’s direction. “She has a lot of experience. And you . . .” He paused. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Phillip. Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz.” He held out a hand, noticed that it was blood covered, and quickly withdrew it.

“Wash your hands and come and join us for supper.”

****

Supper was an enlightening meal. Over a hot, mostly vegetable, stew Phillip and the Rovarinis exchanged their stories, although most of Phillip’s conversation had to go through Alberto. He realized that Padua was going to be full of foreigners who didn’t speak German or Latin and that he was going to have to learn the local vernacular if he was going to live in the city any length of time. He admitted as much to Alberto.

“How can we be foreigners in our own country?” Alberto demanded good-naturedly.

Phillip apologized for the way it must have sound, and asked about the availability of Venetian lessons, and most importantly, how much did Alberto think they would cost.

“You are a student?” Alberto asked.

“Of medicine.”

“Doctors are worthless,” one of the Rovarinis said. “Give me a good apothecary or barber-surgeon any day. They are both safer and cheaper.”

“Let the lad alone, Pietro,” Alberto said. “If he wants to be a doctor, it’s his choice.” He looked over to Phillip. “University is expensive. How will you fund your studies?”

“I trained as an assayist and metallurgist at Fugger’s assay office in Augsburg. If necessary I can earn a living doing assays and making acids.”

“For an assayist and metallurgist, you seem to know a thing or two about treating injuries.”

Phillip nodded. “My stepfather was an apothecary and I used to help him compound remedies.”

“And the sewing together of the gash in Carlo’s leg, did he teach you to do that too?”

Phillip related the story of Paulus and his cut, and how he’d realized how lucky he’d been and found someone willing to teach him how to do it properly.

“It was lucky for Carlo that you are here, Phillip,” Alberto said.

Phillip blushed. “I haven’t done anything the innkeeper’s wife couldn’t have done.”

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 21

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 21

Daniel bent to the mass without speaking. He touched it, finding metal which was too thick to bend under the pressure of his hand.

He felt lower to get to the edge from which he could lift a piece and feel the bottom. He expected to find bits of rock which had spalled off the wall when supporting pyrites had been eaten away.

Daniel lifted a glove.

He stood holding it. “DaSaenz, turn your light on!” he said. “I’ve found something!”

DaSaenz didn’t reply. A moment later Daniel heard the click of battens knocking together. He ran back to where they had left their guide but as he feared, he was too late.

“Daniel?” said Miranda.

“The bastard’s pulled the ladder up behind him!” Daniel said.

Cuvier Harbor, Jardin

Adele was lost in her work, pretty much as always. Some of the material in the files which Major Grozhinski had provided duplicated or at least supplemented Mistress Sand’s files, but Cinnabar could only guess at what the 5th Bureau was doing in the Tarbell Stars — let alone what they intended.

The plural in speaking of the 5th Bureau was necessary here. Storn had laid out in detail the cluster assets both of his diocese and that of his rival Krychek. Storn’s activities had been limited to observation and to increasing his ability to observe — particularly on the worlds overseen by Krychek’s diocese.

The First Diocese had been encouraging separatist movements on the more important worlds of his sector. That hadn’t been quite as useful as Krychek might have hoped when rebellion against the Tarbell Government had broken out on Ithaca.

There was a great deal of hostility to President for Life Menandros throughout the sector, but the planetary leaders didn’t care for one another much either. The rebels formed a Council of the Upholders of the Freedom of the Tarbell Stars, but it was a talking shop which spent its time in ill-natured squabbles. The Council could not have successfully maintained a rebellion even against a foolish coxcomb like Menandros if Krychek had not provided personnel for administrative positions among the Upholders.

Does Krychek think they won’t be noticed if they’re not officially in command? Adele wondered. Another possibility was the one which concerned General Storn: that Krychek had Guarantor Porra’s support, so that he didn’t have to be concerned about Pleasaunce learning of his plot.

Under other circumstances Adele would have been sharing her task with Cory and Cazelet, not so much to reduce her workload as to bring them up to speed about the situation. This was the first night of the landfall, however, and both her deputies — their position unofficial but beyond any question — were sampling the entertainments of Cuvier City.

Both men would be working beside Adele if she had asked, and their companions, Hale and Vesey respectively, would have been uncomplaining if disappointed. They all felt they owed Adele more than she thought they did, and they trusted her judgment implicitly.

Her lips quirked. Adele was demonstrating her good judgment by not calling them away from their fun. She didn’t believe she had ever been young in the sense that people seemed to mean it, but she had observed humanity closely enough that she understood the concept.

The watch officer was Chief Engineer Pasternak. He was competent for any question involving the Power Room or the propulsion system. Astrogation was a closed book to him, and Adele would probably be as useful as Pasternak if the Princess Cecile had to leave the planet.

There would be plenty of time for Cory and Cazelet to study the Tarbell Stars on the twenty-day voyage from Jardin. And if there wasn’t, then Adele herself would be enough as she had always been enough in the past.

I have flaws. I don’t have the flaw of false modesty.

She was looking at the military and particularly naval strength of the Upholders, since that was probably the most significant factor. It would certainly be the first concern of her colleagues.

For the most part the Upholder fleet was the collection of scraps and antiques which Adele had learned to expect in hinterlands like the Tarbell Stars, but there were exceptions. The three destroyers were of recent Alliance construction, and the officers and crew of one of them were ex-Fleet. That didn’t prove Krychek’s connivance as there was a considerable number of Fleet and RCN spacers freed by the Treaty of Amiens. Some of them preferred naval duties to those of the merchant service.

There was also a modern heavy cruiser. That —

Adele’s holographic screen blurred. She came awake to her present surroundings, blinking in surprised anger. Tovera, standing beside the signals console, had just slid her hand through the display.

“Yes?” Adele said. She was still angry at having been dragged out of her studies, but she knew Tovera wouldn’t have interrupted her without a good reason.

“Hogg wants to talk to you,” Tovera said with her usual lack of expression. She stepped aside, though Hogg didn’t move closer.

Is Hogg afraid of me? Adele thought. Or is he simply deferring to Tovera’s ownership interest?

“Ma’am,” Hogg said. His arms were at his sides, and he was standing as straight as Adele had ever seen him. “The master’s not back and he hasn’t called in neither. I know, you’re not his mother and I don’t worry about him normal like, but I been talking in some of the bars.”

“Go on,” Adele said. She had no idea of what time it was. She called up a real-time image on top of her screen and viewed Cuvier Harbor at dusk, much later than she had expected it to be.

“You see the thing is, the cave wasn’t open to strangers till seven years back when the current lady took over when her husband died,” Hogg said. “It was daSaenz family and maybe friends after a big dinner or the like. Not something a junior officer from a supply ship gets invited to. Dorst was lying about being there, and that means I don’t know what’s going on. And the master’s not back.”

Adele began searching. She used the control wands through her personal data unit to access her console and through that the thirty-odd databases in Cuvier City which she had coupled during the time the Princess Cecile had been here.

Hogg said something. From the corner of Adele’s eye she saw Tovera move him back so that he wouldn’t again try to interrupt. When Adele was searching, she ignored the people around her. If they thought that she should give them a running account of the process, they were going to be disappointed.

Adele grimaced. She wasn’t sure there was a definitive answer, but she had what was probably good enough for current requirements.

“I can’t at present prove that the caves were not open to the public thirty years ago when Midshipman Dorst landed here in the Orangeleaf…” Adele said to Hogg and Tovera. Pasternak was in his office in the Power Room; only she and the servants were on the bridge. “But there are ample references to them being opened one day a week when Carlotta daSaenz became head of the family seven years ago. At her father’s death, by the way; her husband wasn’t a daSaenz, she was.”

As she spoke, she shifted the material from Major Grozhinski into a separate cache, then threw the mechanical switch under her saddle to cut it off completely. It could not be accessed on line; even Adele herself would have to snap the switch before she could get to the data.

“What’s that mean?” Hogg said. He seemed bewildered as well as being angry.

“It could be nothing,” Adele said, getting to her feet. She paused; she had been sitting in the same position for long enough that her circulation took a moment to respond to movement. “Dorst may have gotten a special dispensation, just as Daniel did. But we’ll visit the caves and ask. Hogg, can you line up transportation?”

“I’ve got a truck up on the street,” he said. “Six wheels, a lot like we used for hauling at Bantry. Do you want something fancy?”

“That will be fine,” Adele said. Hogg wasn’t a good driver, but a familiar vehicle was a safe enough choice under the circumstances. She strode off the bridge, heading for the Down companionway. “Oh, and Hogg? Bring a long gun. I’m not expecting trouble, but it’s as well to be prepared.”

“There’s an impeller in the back already,” Hogg said. “And I’ve got a pistol.”

Tovera laughed. The sound echoed in the armored companionway like the chittering of bats.

“If it’s pistol range,” Tovera said, “leave it in your pocket. That’s for me and the mistress.”

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 12

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 12

Ulrich brought up a mental image of his schedule. “Wednesday,” he said.

“That’ll hardly give the apprentices time to arrange the party,” Wilhelm said.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Ulrich said. “We will be providing the alcohol for this party.”

Late April 1613, Neuburg

It had taken two days to walk from Augsburg to Neuburg, and Phillip was feeling the strain of the long walk with a heavy pack on his back. He had made the trip to Neuburg to visit his mother, whom he hadn’t seen for over six years, and he was in the middle of the main street trying to decide where to start looking for her when he spotted a woman who painted her face with white lead just like his mother did. He watched her for a while, until it dawned on him that the woman was his mother. He walked towards her.

“Mother, is that you?”

His mother stared at him with dawning horror. “Who are you? I don’t know you.”

“It’s me, Phillip, your son.”

Maria Elisabeth Bombast von Neuburg looked nervously to her left and to her right. “You shouldn’t be here, Theophrastus. You’ll ruin everything.”

“Ruin what?” Phillip demanded even as he ignored her use of his hated middle name.

“My life, just like you ruined it when you were born.” Maria Elisabeth was growing more agitated the longer the meeting with Phillip went on. “You have to leave.” She dipped into her bag and pulled out a drawstring purse. She shook out a handful of coins into her hand and thrust them at Phillip. “Here, this is what you want. Take it and go. Go away.”

Phillip caught the coins in his hands without thinking. He was so dumbfounded at what had happened that he just stood there while his mother hurried away. What had brought on that reaction? All he’d wanted to do was say hello and ask how she was doing. He watched his mother until she disappeared around a street corner. Only then did he think to look at the coins she’d trust into his hands. It was a mixture of copper and silver which, as he discovered when he quickly added it up, came to just over three gulden. That was the better part of a week’s wages, which seemed a lot to pay just to get rid of him.

Phillip felt very disillusioned with his mother. For some reason she didn’t want him in Neuburg. He wondered about that. What possible reason could she have for not wanting to acknowledge him? He thought about chasing after her, but she was already long gone. He decided to find a tavern and have something to eat and drink while he took the weight off his feet and considered his options.

He decided over a meal of sausage, cheese, bread, and raw onion that his options were limited. His mother had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. He could force the issue, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk alienating the only real family he had. It was probably better left alone, he decided. Besides, he had more important things to worry about. Like how to get to Padua where, like his great grandfather before him, he hoped to study medicine. The great university was in the Republic of Venice, which was on the other side of the Alps. He was going to have to cross them, but April was not a good time to attempt the journey. It was time to find employment until the season was more favorable.

****

It took Phillip eight days to get to Innsbruck, but less than an hour to secure employment as an assayer with the local branch of Fugger’s bank once he got there. The job was ideal. Innsbruck was the last major town before the Brenner Pass, and he was doing what he’d been trained to do. Over the next three weeks he not only earned more than enough money to cover his expenses for the nearly two hundred and thirty mile trip to Padua, he also added over forty flecks to his collection of nobilis auri. Phillip was feeling good when on a bright May morning he set off south.

May, 1613, the Brenner Pass

Phillip was cold, wet, and miserable. His brain had shut down all but the most essential operations, like dreaming of the hot food and warm bed waiting for him at the travelers’ inn on the other side of the Brenner Pass. He was operating on auto-pilot as he continued to put one foot in front of the other on the muddy road.

He was brought back to the real world only when he crested the saddle and felt the full force of the southerly blowing up the valley for the first time. It had been cold before, but as long as he’d kept moving he’d felt quite warm in his heavy woolen coat and oilskin outer layer. The strong southerly changed that immediately. It was as if it was going straight through him, chilling him almost instantly. He stared into the distance. Somewhere further down the road was the next traveler’s inn. He set off again, one foot in front of the other.

He didn’t see the accident. In fact he was so blind to anything other than where he was placing his feet that he all but bumped into the group of men gathered around something on the ground. That was when he became aware of men trying to prevent an ox drawn wagon slipping off the road. Any student of human behavior would immediately recognize the tight grouping of men as the sign that something interesting or gruesome was lying at the center of the group. Phillip, quite naturally, stopped to have a look.

One man was trying to comfort a youth who was writhing on the ground with a pretty selection of injuries. Starting at the top, there were multiple lacerations to the head and face. Naturally, these were bleeding spectacularly, but Phillip didn’t think they were too bad — probably nothing worse than a few minor cuts. Then there was the right arm. The youth’s oilskin was torn, so there were probably lacerations to the arm. Phillip couldn’t be sure about the hand, because it was covered in mud and blood, just like the youth’s right thigh. Judging by the way he was grimacing and holding the thigh with both hands, that injury was probably quite serious. What disturbed Phillip was the fact no one was attending to the youth’s injuries. “Isn’t someone going to do something about his injuries?” he demanded. He got a ring of blank stares in response.

It looked like no one was going to do anything, which meant Phillip had to act. “Let me through,” he demanded as he used his hiking stave to force a way inside the circle. There were a few protests about his pushing, but soon he was beside the youth. He dropped his back-pack to the ground and knelt down to examine him. He quickly determined that in spite of all the blood, the head wounds were as superficial as he’d suspected, and while the scratches in his arm were deep, none of them needed immediate attention. That left the thigh.

Phillip had to force the youth’s hands away from the injury they were trying to protect, and he could see why. It looked nasty. This was no nice and simple clean cut from a knife or sheet of copper such as Paulus Rauner had suffered. It was a messy tear caused by who knew what. Phillip just knew this was going to go bad no matter what he did. Still, it wasn’t going to get better if he didn’t do anything. He searched the surrounding faces for someone who might be able to enforce authority, finally coming to rest on the man supporting the injured youth. “I need a bucket of water.”

Alberto Rovarini stared blankly at Phillip. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Never mind who I am. If I’m to be any help here I need to wash this man’s injury before I can treat it.”

Alberto thrust his face close to Phillip’s. “Are you a barber-surgeon?” he demanded.

“No, but I know what to do,” Phillip said. It wasn’t really a lie. He knew he’d been very lucky with Paulus Rauner’s injury, so while he was in Innsbruck he’d found someone willing to show him how it was supposed to be done. He hadn’t worked on a human since Paulus, but he had practiced on numerous pork bellies.

Phillip’s apparent confidence seemed to satisfy Alberto, who started screaming out instructions in a language that seemed similar to Latin, but which Phillip couldn’t follow. “Make sure it’s clean water,” Phillip called out.

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 30

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 30

I’d long been aware of the black market in magical goods, and I knew as well of several collectors in the Phoenix area. Strictly speaking, the market wasn’t illegal; there were no established laws governing the sale and ownership of such things. But those of us in the runecrafting community tried to keep track of these transactions for this very reason. Among the thousands of old books, carved amulets, ritual blades, and cursed or blessed gems, medallions, and baubles that filtered through this elusive marketplace, one might occasionally find items of true power, items that had no business gathering dust in someone’s collection. I had a hard time imagining that an object as powerful, important, and deadly as this knife could have been on display for all these years in the living room or study of some rich magical dilettante.

Because it probably wasn’t.

“No,” I said.

Namid swung his bright gaze to me, his watery brow creasing in surprise. “No? I do not understand.”

“I don’t think it’s with a collector. At least not the type you’re talking about. The man who’s after it didn’t go to the home of a wealthy collector in North Scottsdale or Paradise Valley. He went to a pawnshop in Glendale.”

“Do you believe he found it there?”

“I’m reasonably sure he didn’t. But this guy knows what he’s doing. He wouldn’t be wasting his time, or Saorla’s.”

Another idea came to me, not necessarily one I liked. It had already been a long day, and if I followed through on what I had in mind, I was going to be racing the sun into the evening.

“I’ll do my best to find this blade, Namid, but I might need to summon you again.”

“You have my permission to do so,” he said without hesitation. “You must tread like the fox, Ohanko. Those who would wield the Sgian-Bán will not scruple to kill any who oppose them.”

That much I knew already. Namid vanished from the truck, and I started the long, slow drive from the outskirts of Maryvale to a small park on the east side of Mesa.

The park itself wasn’t anything special. But at this time of the moon cycle, in the days leading up to the phasing, it was home to what weremystes and magical wannabes called the Moon Market, a gathering of vendors, mystes, and craftsmen who catered to runecrafters eager to ease or avoid entirely the worst effects of the full moon. Much of what was sold at the market was junk: knock-offs of Zuni fetishes, New Age books on Wicca and Shamanism, herbs that smelled great but did little else, carved and polished crystals that had been so over-processed as to rob them of any powers they might otherwise have offered. But occasionally I had found hidden in among the worthless stuff books of real value, raw crystals with palpable power, and herb sachets put together by people who knew what they were doing.

I didn’t expect to find the knife here. I was searching for a person, not a thing, and I found him where I thought I would, sitting behind a table covered with genuinely beautiful and potent gemstones. Barry Crowseye was a Navajo who owned a small gem shop in Tolleson. He was tall, with long silver-white hair that he wore tied back in a ponytail. He had skin the color of cherry wood, dark, penetrating eyes, and a chiseled face, that could have come off a coin. In other words, he was the sum of everyone’s notion of how a Native American should look. He wore jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and a leather vest.

Seeing me, he smiled and stood, extending a hand across his table of wares.

“How’s it going, Jay?” he said, his voice deep. “I haven’t seen you since you brought down the Blind Angel. Nice piece of work.”

“Thanks, Barry.”

Many in Phoenix’s runecrafting community had resented me for insisting that the Blind Angel Killings had a magical purpose, and for a while I hadn’t exactly been welcome in the market. Barry had been as skeptical as the rest, but he’d always treated me well.

He folded himself back into the canvas chair behind his table. “So what case are you working on now?”

I grinned. “You do that every time I see you.”

“Do what?”

“Assume — correctly, of course — that I’m here for information instead of something else.”

He made a vague gesture that somehow encompassed the entire market. “You don’t believe in this stuff, Jay. I can’t say as I blame you, but the fact is, you don’t think herbs and crystals are going to keep the moon from crushing your mind in a few nights. So when I see you here, I expect to be answering some questions.”

“I’ve said it before. You’d make a good PI.”

“I think I’m better off selling rocks. How can I help you?”

I trusted Barry. I’d known him a long time, and he had never steered me wrong, or given me any reason to doubt his word or his motives. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask him about the knife directly.

“Have you heard people around here talking about a magical weapon of some kind? Something old and seriously dark that’s only been rediscovered recently?”

He gave a slow shake of his head. “I haven’t, and it sounds like I’m glad.”

“No kidding. To be honest, I would have been surprised if folks were talking about it in the open. The people who want it aren’t exactly advertising the fact, and whoever has it is probably lying low. It was worth a shot though. The reason I came was to ask you about a person, a collector of artifacts, Pueblo culture mostly. I think you mentioned him to me once, years ago, when I was still on the force. Old guy, Akimel O’odham, I think,” I said, giving the preferred name used by the tribe formerly known as the Pima Indians.

“You’re thinking of Lucas Quinn,” he said. “He made jewelry for a while and went by Lucas Twofeather, because he thought the tourists would be more likely to remember him.” He grinned, exposing a gleaming golden tooth.

“Is he still alive?”

“As far as I know. Last I heard he was still living in the Gila River Community, a few miles north and west of Komatke. He has a place at the end of a dirt road off of Seventy-fifth. It’s not much more than a shack at the top of a small rise, but it’s his.”

He pulled out a piece of scrap paper and a pencil, and drew a rough map.

“He’s not real fond of strangers,” he said, handing me the paper. “And he doesn’t like white people. The truth is, he’s odd and a loner, and he’s not some high-powered collector, like some of the rich white people who hire you.”

I nodded. This was why I had come in the first place. “I’m not interested in talking to rich white people.”

Barry cocked an eyebrow.

“All right,” I said. “I’m not interested in talking to them about this.”

“You really think Lucas could be sitting on an ancient magical weapon?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s something that vanished a long time ago. It’s only recently resurfaced. People seem to think it’s in the Phoenix area. And I think that if it had fallen in the lap of one of those rich collectors, he or she would have been bragging about it. But if a loner had it, someone odd, someone who didn’t particularly like those other collectors . . .”

“I suppose it’s possible. Of course if somebody’s trying to find it now –”

“He could be in trouble. Thanks, Barry. I owe you one.”

I left the park, got back in the truck, and headed west, toward Komatke. Traffic had started to build on and off the highways, and the sun hung low enough in the western sky to make driving in that direction a battle. But given where I was headed, the freeways weren’t going to help me much, and sticking to the surface roads did make the drive a bit easier.

Still, it was after four when I finally turned onto Seventy-fifth Avenue in the Gila River Community. Barry’s map proved to be a lifesaver. Without it, I never would have known Lucas Quinn’s road was anything more than a track carved into the desert by dirt bikes and ATVs. Whispering an apology to my father, I steered his truck up the road, bouncing over potholes and jutting rocks, a cloud of brown dust billowing behind me.

I crested the small rise Barry had mentioned, muttered a curse, and stopped to survey the scene waiting for me there.

The shack lay in ruin, its roof caved in, its windows shattered, the wooden planks of its walls twisted and splintered. The front door hung from its bent hinges, swaying in the wind.

I eased the truck forward stopping beside a beat-up white pickup that made my dad’s truck look like a marvel of modern technology. It had probably been days, if not weeks, since the damage had been done, but that didn’t stop me from pulling out my Glock before leaving the truck. I approached what was left of the shack, my pistol held before me, my eyes sweeping over the structure and the surrounding land.

I pushed open the battered door with my foot and peered inside. The interior was in no better shape than the rest. Shards of broken plates and glasses covered the dusty wooden floor, along with a few books, their pages torn, and the broken remains of a wood table and several chairs.

I had expected to find a body, but I didn’t see or smell anything to indicate that Lucas’s corpse was here.

But with my back still to the door, I did hear a light footfall behind me, and then the menacing growl of something large and very much alive.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 20

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 20

“Daniel, I’m through,” Miranda called. “It opens up when you get through.”

“I’m coming,” said Daniel. He was already sorry for feeling so angry a moment before. He hadn’t said the things he’d been thinking, but Miranda knew him well enough to have heard them in his tone.

She knows me well enough that it won’t have surprised her either. Well, if she’d wanted a saint, she’d been looking in the wrong direction. He was still embarrassed.

The triangular passage narrowed side to side, and the peak lowered also. Daniel thrust at the rock with his toes, squirming forward almost as though he were swimming.

It was definitely getting tighter. He pulled his left arm back along his body and twisted slightly to make his body as slim as he could. He didn’t think about it, just kept thrusting ahead. There was a way out, maybe not for him, but he’d keep going forward until he got there or died. Going forward…

Fingers touched his outstretched wrist. Daniel squirmed a little further and he could get his left arm free also. He opened his eyes — he didn’t remember closing them — and the lantern made the wide chamber a yellow ambiance. DaSaenz and Miranda were waiting, she with a concerned expression. With another wriggling push Daniel was out.

He got to his feet. Miranda hugged him, probably from affection. It was a good thing regardless, because otherwise Daniel would have toppled backward.

“I’m all right,” he wheezed, and in a moment he was.

“How did you find this place, Master daSaenz?” Miranda said, holding Daniel firmly. The ceiling was flat and much lower than that of the conical antechamber, but the floor had at least three large lobes. Its total area was considerable.

“I’ve been studying the caves all my life,” their guide said. “I’ve had robotic mappers for the past fifteen years. I’ve explored every passage I’ve found and mapped them to the end, then built up a three-dimensional image.”

DaSaenz made a broad gesture. “There are forty caves opening off this chamber,” he said, “and I know them all. I’ve seen things that no one has seen for hundreds of years, and I know the caves as no one else ever has.”

“That’s very impressive,” Daniel said. He was breathing normally again.

“It’s my life!” said daSaenz. “These caves are the daSaenz heritage. No one but a daSaenz really has a right to be here! Ah, though you, you’re my mother’s guests. That’s why I’m about to show you the greatest wonder of all.”

“What would that be, Master daSaenz?” Miranda asked quietly. Her fingers were massaging the point of Daniel’s right shoulder.

“I found a room which is alive with glowworms,” daSaenz said. “When I was last there a year ago, more of the rock was covered by them than was clear. You noticed that the tunnel we came through to get here didn’t have any glowworms in it?”

Miranda nodded; Daniel grunted. He probably wouldn’t have noticed anything even if he’d kept his eyes open. He hadn’t been panicked, but squeezing through the passage had been an extremely unpleasant experience.

“Because that stratum had no pyrites in it,” daSaenz said, nodding enthusiastically. “And there are very few in the present chamber, see?”

He turned off the lantern. Daniel felt Miranda’s body shift as she turned to scan the whole chamber. He saw a pink blur on the floor in the middle distance. There seemed to be prickles and sparkles of light all around them, though they were too faint for him to be sure that he wasn’t seeing ghost images within his retinas.

“But if you have the courage to come with me,” daSaenz said, “I’ll show you a hollow which must have been a huge pyrites crystal before the glowworms began to devour it. Huge.”

“We’ll follow,” Daniel said. “Go on, then.”

Miranda squeezed his hand again and stepped slightly away. DaSaenz turned on the lantern and led the way into a left branching…though when they were well within it, Daniel saw that what he’d thought was a solid wall to the right seemed rather to be a massive pillar standing in a single large bay rather than a divider between two. He couldn’t be sure in the side-scatter from the lantern.

Their guide led them into a series of passages, some wider than others, but none really narrow. The ceiling remained high enough to clear their heads, though from caution Daniel put his left hand on his forehead. A scraped knuckle could be ignored, but a whack on the scalp was apt to be bloody and distracting.

There were multiple branchings, but daSaenz never hesitated. He really did know the caves.

“We’re coming to the wonder,” daSaenz called back over his shoulder. He got down on all fours and led into a branching to the left which was only about three feet high. Miranda hesitated; Daniel sent her in ahead of him, but he followed on her heels.

“Here,” said daSaenz. He stopped and shifted in the passage. It gleamed when brushed by lantern-light: the rock was metal plated.

DaSaenz shifted again and slipped waist deep into the rock: there was a hole in the floor of the passage. The remainder of his body and finally his head disappeared also. The lantern from below lit not only the opening but also the rope ladder hanging down into it.

“Come, if you will,” daSaenz called. “I’ll turn out the lantern when you’re here.”

“Wait,” said Daniel. He turned onto his left side to edge by Miranda as she shrank herself against the opposite wall.

The ladder hung from a wooden bar. Daniel felt the ends and found they were held securely by U-bolts hammered into the rock. The fasteners and the rock were both glass-smooth with iron deposited by the glowworms, but the bar hadn’t been touched: wood must contain some sulfur, though not enough to tempt the creatures when pyrites was available.

There were glowworms — a violet one and a red one, both more vivid and filled with bright sparks than those Daniel had seen farther back in the caves. He ignored them as he tested with his bare hands both the bolts and their grip on the crossbar. He had to be sure that the structure was solid before he trusted Miranda’s life and his own to it.

Daniel couldn’t feel the creatures, though the vivid glow beneath his thumbs proved he was touching them. He shifted his grip onto the bar and let himself down into the opening. He kicked his feet until one boot found a rung; he settled his weight onto it, then walked himself down the rest of the way on the ladder. The rungs were wooden battens; the rope stringers seemed to be woven from some slick synthetic fiber.

DaSaenz kept the lantern aimed at Daniel’s shoulders on the way down. The floor of the lower chamber was about ten feet below that of the passage from which they had dropped.

Daniel gripped the ladder to hold it steady. “I’m clear!” he called up to Miranda. She descended with the supple quickness he had noticed in all her movements.

DaSaenz swept his light around the chamber. It was an irregular polygon almost thirty feet across at its widest point. There were patches of bare rock in the floor, but the walls had a metallic luster deeper than the shimmer of deposited iron nearer the anteroom of the cave.

“I suggest you keep very quiet after I turn the light off,” daSaenz said. “I’m going to move against the wall behind me, but you’ll get the best view if you move to the other end of the chamber.”

Daniel nodded and walked away from their guide. Miranda was half a step ahead of him.

“Are you ready?” said daSaenz.

“Yes/yes.” Daniel’s voice was curt, Miranda’s musical.

The lantern went off.

The darkness was alive. The glowworms were not only brighter than those Daniel had seen before, they were larger — some of these were two hands across — and the concentration of bright points in the glow was greater. All the colors of the rainbow mingled, and the violet ones hinted that their light extended deeper into the spectrum than human eyes could follow.

“Oh, Daniel,” Miranda said. “Oh, Daniel. Oh, this is so wonderful.”

As daSaenz had said, glowworms covered more than half the surface of the chamber. They did not quite touch one another except in a humped mass along the edge near where Daniel and Miranda stood. There the glowworms had concentrated like an oil slick on the surface of a harbor.

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 29

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 29

“If this thing is as old as you say, why are people suddenly after it now?”

“Q don’t know the answer to that either, but it’s a good question. A knife like this doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Somebody found it again, or decided now was th’ time t’ use it.”

I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. An ancient blade, with what looked like blood embedded in the stone. I had no doubt that the “somebody” Q referred to was Saorla, and that she had Fitzwater and his buddies scouring the city for this knife. Even having no idea what the weapon could do, or what kind of magic it possessed, I was certain I didn’t want it falling into her hands.

“Brother J?”

“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head to clear my thoughts. “Sorry.” I took out my wallet and pulled a crisp twenty from the billfold. “Here you go.”

He took it and slipped it into his pocket. “Thanks.”

His brow had furrowed, and I sensed that he was wrestling with something. I watched him, saying nothing.

“You might want to ask yourself,” he said after some time, “how it came to be here in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“From what Q’s heard, this isn’t an Indian knife. It doesn’t belong here.”

“Do you know where it’s from?”

“No idea. But not Phoenix, not even the Southwest. Q heard that a long time, back when he did want to find it an’ sell it, back before he knew the dark ones were after it. Understand?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, Q.” I started toward the door.

“You going after this thing?”

I pulled the door open but paused to face him once more. “I’m not sure I have much choice. I don’t know who else is trying to track it down. But even if Fitzwater is the only one, I have to find it before he does.”

“Q doesn’t know what it takes to use it, but that kind of power . . .”

“I’m not sure I’d want to use it. Can it be destroyed?”

“It might be a thousand years old. In all that time, it seems likely somebody’s tried. Don’t you think?”

It was worth considering.

“Take care, Q.”

I stepped back out into the afternoon sunlight and checked the street. A part of me expected to see weres and weremancers coming at me from every direction, led by the silver-haired gentleman. But the sidewalks were empty. I slid into the pickup, started her up, and pulled away from the curb.

“Namid, I need to speak with you.”

The last word had barely crossed my lips when he materialized in the passenger seat of the truck, his waters roughened, so that the sunlight shining through the windshield made him sparkle like a tropical sea.

“Ohanko, the glamour your father put on you still protects you. I would not have found you but for your summons.”

“That’s good to know.”

“And yet, you have summoned me again, something you and your father do with entirely too much frequency. I have told you this before.”

“What do you know about a magical stone blade?” I asked, ignoring the reprimand.

He stared back at me, his eyes shining, his translucent features conveying enough surprise to tell me that he knew of the knife.

“I would ask the same question of you,” he said, his voice like waves pounding a rocky shore. “What do you know of it?”

I trusted Namid as much as I did any person or creature I’d ever encountered, but I had given Q my word that I wouldn’t tell anyone where I got my information. Not even Namid. “I know that dark sorcerers are searching for it. They killed a pawn broker, a man I knew, and wrecked his shop. I don’t know where their search will take them next, but they’re after it.” Something occurred to me then, something I should have considered earlier.

“They cannot be allowed to find it.”

I put that other thought aside for now.

“Why not? What is it?”

I wasn’t sure he would answer me. Namid wasn’t always forthcoming with this sort of information. He usually preferred to handle matters of magical intrigue on his own, rather than to involve me. He surprised me, though, and that scared me.

“It is a weapon of unparalleled magical power.”

“I get that. But what is it, Namid? What can it do?”

“It is the Sgian-Bán, the Pale Knife.” He pronounced it as Skee-an bawn.

“That sounds Celtic,” I said.

“Very good. It is.”

“So I take it this belongs to Saorla.”

He faced forward, his expression hardening. “It would be more precise to say that she belongs to it.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

His waters were growing more roiled by the moment. He might have been confiding in me, but he wasn’t happy about it. “The Sgian-Bán is the blade that was used to sacrifice the necromancers. This blade made Saorla and her kind centuries ago. It is infused with the blood of every necromancer empowered at that time. And just as it preserves their blood, it preserves as well an element of their power. It is a blade of awesome might, of magic you can scarcely comprehend, all of it dark, perverted by their avarice and malevolence.”

He faced me once more. “It is the one weapon in your world that can be used to kill runemystes, and as far as we know, it cannot be destroyed.”

I had long since learned to expect the worst where Saorla was concerned, and yet, as dangerous as I had thought this knife might be, I hadn’t imagined it could be this bad.

“Why haven’t I heard of this before now?” I asked. “During the summer, Saorla and her friends went to great lengths to kill another of your kind. Patty Hesslan and Regina Witcombe put me through that elaborate ritual so that they could use me to kill you. We both almost died. Why didn’t they use this Pale Knife instead?”

“It was lost,” he said, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Until this moment I assumed it would remain so. You are sure that the weapon is here, in this city?”

“I’m not sure of anything. I’m trying to piece together a story I was told and a murder I all but witnessed. Tell me more about the knife.”

“I would not know where to begin. I have told you in the past that Saorla and her fellow necromancers sought to set themselves against the runemystes. They did not approve of the Runeclave’s attempts to protect your world against dark magic, and they opposed its decision to sanction the sacrifice that created my kind.”

“Was a weapon used to kill you as well? Is there a blade that can counter theirs?”

He shook his head. “Our sacrifice was a ritual of magic. No blood was spilled, which is why we can take the form we do, without the hint of corruption that lies at the core of Saorla’s being. But theirs was no sacrifice, not in any true sense. They used their magic and their blood to imbue the knife with unnatural power, and they transformed themselves into demons, powerful, fell, and all but immortal.”

“And then?”

A small shrug rippled his waters. “And then the knife was hidden away. It remained an object of power, and they wished to keep it secret from the runemystes and the Runeclave. We learned of it, but only hundreds of years later, as the true nature of what they had done became clear. By then the knife had nearly passed out of knowledge, to become little more than lore. Rumors of it floated on the air, as insubstantial as smoke. It was in the land you know now as Germany. It was in Eire. Some claimed that it found its way to the New World before your nation gained its independence. But all of this was said in whispers. We knew not what to believe and what to dismiss as hearsay.”

“But we know now it was more than rumor,” I said. “It turns out it was here in America, and we know that the necromancers didn’t have it, because they would have tried to use it long ago. So if it wasn’t them, who would have brought it here, who would have kept it for all this time?”

“There are those who collect such items,” the myste said. “There is a lucrative market for such magical artifacts. Some of these collectors are weremystes, some are not. But all of them would recognize the value of this knife. It is beautiful as well as powerful, and its hilt and blade are marked with carved runes, so that even those who cannot sense the magic in it would know that they held an object of power.”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 29

This book should be available now, so this is the last snippet.

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 29

* * *

For Tim, Christmas day might have been a different day from any other day. But to the cow it was still a day on which she needed milking. By ten o’clock, when his mother called, he’d been up for more than four hours, and had done all sorts of tasks, had breakfast, and had just come in for morning tea. As a sign that it was not just any other day, there were little gingery star-shaped biscuits. Nan believed in lots of ginger. Tim had read that it was good for keeping off zombies, and it must work because there had been no sign of even one so far on the farm. Until his mother phoned he would have said they hadn’t even got to Melbourne, but obviously they’d eaten the part of her brain that was arranging his trip home. She prattled on about her holidays, like his being here was normal.

Eventually he just had to ask.

There was a brief silence. “Oh, Tim. Your father is being awkward about it. I asked him to organize it. He hasn’t even gotten back to me.”

Tim knew she wasn’t telling the truth. Or not entirely. In the messy bit of his life where he’d realized that Dad just wasn’t coming back, he’d learned to spot his mother’s not quite revealing everything. Well, that was how she might put it. Lying was how he put it. “You didn’t tell him, did you?” he said, crossly.

“I did, Tim. I did. You e-mail him. He sometimes listens to you.”

Like “not unless he thought it would make you mad,” thought Tim, glumly. He hadn’t spoken to his father for months, even before he came to the island. But what he said was, “I haven’t got the Internet here. That’s just one of the other things you did to me. It’s not fair.”

“You did it to yourself, Tim Ryan.”

The call didn’t get any better. It didn’t quite get to shouting and screaming, but when it got down to “you’re ungrateful and didn’t even say thank you for your Christmas present” Tim was actually quite able to say “well, I haven’t got one.” He hadn’t got her anything either…actually, hadn’t even thought of it.

That did stop the rise in temperature. “I posted it.”

“We only get the post about every two or three weeks.”

There was another silence. “Then it’s waiting for you.”

“Well, thank you, anyway,” still resentful. At least she hadn’t forgotten.

“Yes, um, I am sorry it didn’t get there. And contact your father. Now, love, I really must go, I’m going out to lunch with…with Mark. Goodbye, be good and take care.”

Tim was left holding the sound of long-distance silence before he could ask just how he was supposed to contact his dad. He couldn’t phone on Nan’s phone. And who was Mark? It looked like Nan was right about the boyfriend. No wonder she didn’t want him home.

His grandmother put a hand on his shoulder. “Just so yer know, I asked Dicky to check the post for us yesterday. He said there was nothing, but yer can’t always rely on him.” She took a deep breath. “I got nothing for yer, really. Just some chocolate. There’s not a lot of spare money. But I’m hoping we’re going to do better with those steers at the next sale. Prices have been bad.”

That was puzzling. “People at school were saying the price was up. They talk about it. And Gran…I got my present early from you. You let me use the fishing stuff, and…and I enjoyed that so much.” He knew he was being a little devious, but he wanted the freedom. “If I got hold of Molly, and she and her dog met me at the beach paddock…could I go fishing again? She’s older than me. I wouldn’t go down alone.” He felt like a baby saying that.

“Hmph. I’ll see.” With his mother, that meant she was giving in. With Nan it seemed to mean “no.” “Now I got to finish our dinner. You check the sheep near the road for me. My little helper is worried about the water.”

Tim was glad to go out to walk through the bush and tussocky paddocks, to be alone with his head for a bit. Just walking along, barefoot, because he was too hot to put boots on, did seem to make things seem well, less unbeatable. If neither his mother or father were going to lift a finger to get him out of here, he’d just have to get out himself. He just needed somewhere to go. He was thinking about that when a big copperhead slithered across his path. By now, he knew better than to jump or run. He stood quietly and watched it slide away.

* * *

The dancing and feasting continued here beneath the hollow hills, with the Aos Sí lords and ladies on a wide and a level place, where the sun never shone but somehow the grass grew green and long nights followed long warm days. There was a tenuous connection with the world above, and the things that moved and changed there, but this place did not change with them. The great lords of the Fae seldom walked or rode the lands of mortal men anymore. The tracery of steel spread across the land with the railways had set bounds on them, and they did not like to be reminded of the loss of their dominions.

Humans came to Faerie — but far fewer now — and were bound to Faerie lands, with the eating or drinking of the produce of Faerie. The Fae knew how food and drink were a part of the land and place, and that by consuming them, those who ate and drank became part of the place.

Most humans seemed willing to be thus entrapped, and loved the life of Faerie.

But they did not flourish there.

The selkie, Maeve, did not know or care how well they did. But she herself was entrapped and needed to free herself from the ancient obligation, the geas laid on her. The king under the hollow hill at Cnoc Meadha needed to be repaid before she could be free.

The young man had proved stronger than the last one she’d hunted. The bloodline had always been hard to catch, with the magic of the Aos Sí helping them and the spirits of the land binding them. Her last prey, this one’s father, had escaped her by chance and luck, a piece of scrap iron from an old mooring that his desperate hand found as she’d held him down. It had been a bad mischance. She’d planned to frighten him witless and get him to agree, and instead he’d never come near enough to the water to be caught again.

The first changeling and his lesser spirit had fled Ireland long before she had been summoned to the court of King Finvarra. It had taken her some years to track him down, across the wide and wasteful oceans…to find him dead. Killed in a fight over an Aboriginal woman, his half-Aos Sí blood soaked into the sand, leaching down into the water, to the sea, to her.

The key remained, somewhere, hidden on the island where he had died. Not easily found, either, to one who had no claim to it.

There was, however, an heir to the changeling’s birthright. A child carried by the woman. Maeve had planned to search for the key, or at least steal the heir-child…until she slid out onto the beach.

And found that this land had its own hold on the child.

If she was going to catch one of those who had a claim to the key, she needed them in the salt sea.

She’d tried, when the changeling’s heir moved to the bigger island. There, the child had had defenders, besides the land. She still carried the scar.

But she was nothing if not patient. Long generations passed, and still she hunted the changeling-heirs.

This one…she hadn’t gotten him into the water, but her spell-hooks would at least draw him back. She’d felt the lust in him. Humans were like that, and her kind were good at using it against them.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 11

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 11

“Are you still trying to prove those bits of dust from the cupels are some new wonder element?”

Phillip jerked in surprise, but he managed not to drop anything. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I didn’t sneak up. I walked right up to you as nosily as I could. You were just so intent of saving every last fleck of worthless dirt that you didn’t notice.”

Phillip smiled at his supervisor. There was a difference of opinion as to what the remnants were that were sometimes found at the end of a fire assay after they dissolved the small buttons of gold with aqua regia. “It isn’t just dirt, and one day I’ll make you eat your words.”

Wilhelm snorted good-naturedly. “In the meantime, we need to get started on today’s assays.”

“I’m ready,” Phillip said eagerly. The remnants he was trying to test weren’t present after every assay, and even when they were, they never amounted to more than a few flecks. After a hundred and twenty-seven assays his total sample of nobilis auri weighed no more than three grains by the apothecaries’ system of weights. Every assay he did was an opportunity to add to his sample.

“You just want more of your bits of dirt,” Wilhelm said.

“They aren’t dirt,” Phillip insisted. “The more I have the easier it will be to test it. What I really need is a chance to do a fire assay on a sample of a hundred grains of gold, or better yet, a thousand grains.” He looked hopefully at Wilhelm. “I don’t suppose . . .”

“You haven’t got a hope,” Wilhelm said. “It’s one thing to let you keep the remnants of an assay. After all, it’s just worthless dust. But if you want to experiment with gold, you’re going to have to use your own.”

Phillip sighed. A hundred grains of gold cost about six gulden, and he just didn’t have that kind of money. It wasn’t that the gold would be lost, because it wouldn’t. There were ways of precipitating the gold out of the solution. It was just that he couldn’t afford the gold in the first place.

Dinner

Phillip was late arriving to dinner, as usual. He grabbed his dinner and hurried to his seat beside two of his oldest friends at the assay office.

“What kept you this time?” Christoph Baer asked.

“Just collecting more nobilis auri from an assay,” Phillip explained as he sat down.

“You’re wasting your time, Phillip,” Frederik Bechler said. “Those flecks are just bits of dirt. If they were anything special someone would have found that out by now.”

Phillip begged to differ, and he said so. “If the flecks are just dirt, then surely something would dissolve them. I’ve tried my best Oil of Vitriol, aqua fortis, acidum salis, and fresh aqua regia, all without success.”

“What’s “nobilis auri“?” Dietrich asked.

Phillip and the others turned their attention to the fourth person at their table. “You haven’t started doing fire assays yet, have you?” Frederik asked.

Dietrich shook his head. “We’ve just started doing touchstone assaying.”

“Well, when you start doing fire assays, you’ll discover that after you dissolve the resulting little bead of gold with aqua regia you’re sometimes left with a few flecks of something in the beaker. Those flecks are Phillip’s nobilis auri.”

“Of course,” Christoph said, “anybody with any sense knows that they are just flecks of dirt, but Phillip thinks they’re something special.”

“Of course they’re something special,” Phillip protested. “Everyone knows that only precious metals remain after cupellation. That means nobilis auri must be a precious metal. And as even aqua regia can’t dissolve it, it must be more noble than gold.”

“Hence the name, nobilis auri,” Christoph said as an aside to Dietrich.

“It’s just a pretty name for dirt,” Frederick said.

“I’m right,” Phillip insisted. “And one day I’ll prove it.”

“Well that day isn’t today.” Christoph leaned closer to the others. “Is everything set up for the Twelfth Night party?”

“I’ve got the food lined up,” Dietrich said. He glanced Phillip’s way. “Have you been able to make enough you-know-what?”

“A dozen bottles,” Phillip confirmed.

“How’d you manage that?” Christoph asked. You haven’t been on the distilling furnace for months.”

“That happens when you’re about to be elevated to journeyman,” Frederik said.

Phillip struggled not to blush. Rumors had been circulating since July last year that they were going to elevate him to journeyman status early this year. It wasn’t unheard of for someone to achieve journeyman status as an assayist and metallurgist in just over six years, but it was rare. Most apprentices took closer to eight years. “I made it when I made the high purity saltpetre for the Schützenfest.”

“But that was back in July,” Christoph said. “Do you mean you’ve had a dozen bottles of you-know-what sitting around all this time?”

Phillip’s smile was smug. Keeping a dozen bottles of high proof alcohol hidden not just from the staff at the assay office, but also the apprentices for over six months had to rank as a major achievement.

Friday evening, January 11th, 1613

Ulrich Hechstetter, the head of the Augsburg assay office sipped from the glass of strong liquor and sighed. “Another good tipple.” He looked around the gathered staff. “I thought we found the still this time.”

“We found a still,” Wilhelm Neuffer confirmed. He sipped his drink and licked his lips. “But they must have had others.”

“But where?” Master Paul Paler asked. “We looked everywhere.”

Ulrich took another sip. “Well, we’ll just have to do better next year. Now, to the real reason for this meeting. Do I hear any objections to elevating Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz to the rank of journeyman?”

“He’s a very gifted technician,” Jakob Reihing said. “And he makes a good teacher.”

“You’ve been letting an apprentice teach fellow apprentices?” Hieronymus Kiffhaber demanded.

Ulrich studied the assay office’s newest journeyman over the top of his glass. He hadn’t been trained in-house, so he probably hadn’t come across Gribbleflotz yet. “As Jakob said, Hieronymus, Phillip Gribbleflotz is a very gifted technician. We would be failing in our duty to the other apprentices not to afford them the best possible teachers. If that means letting an apprentice teach them certain techniques, under proper supervision naturally, then we are quite prepared to do that.”

“Hieronymus,” Paul called out. “Phillip Gribbleflotz taught me how he makes such good acids. I’m quite happy to teach you, but surely you’d rather learn from my teacher?”

“But you’re a master. What can an apprentice teach you?” Hieronymus asked, his voice shooting up several octaves.

“Quite a lot,” Paul said. “I’m now able to make acids almost as good as Phillip’s, which is considerably better than the best I used to make. With practice, I expect I could match his level of competence.”

Hieronymus looked bewildered. “But how is that possible?” he asked.

“Speaking for myself,” Wilhelm said, “I was never taught to be half as finicky and meticulous as Phillip is naturally.”

“Unfortunately,” Jakob said. “Although we can teach people what small changes to look for during a distillation, we can’t teach them how to monitor a whole furnace worth of distillations the way Phillip can. That’s a natural talent.”

Hieronymus slowly nodded his head. “But how long will Herr Gribbleflotz stay here if he is elevated to the rank of journeyman?”

“I’m sure he’ll stay on as a journeyman for a while,” Ulrich said.

“This is Gribbleflotz we’re talking about,” Jakob warned. “You know, the boy who wants to follow in his great grandfather’s footsteps.”

“Ahhh!” Ulrich had forgotten about Phillip’s claim to be the great grandson of the great Paracelsus. He took another sip of his drink, savoring the bite of the strong alcohol as it hit his tongue. “We could always delay his elevation to the rank of journeyman,” he suggested. He didn’t expect the idea to get any traction amongst the others, and it didn’t.

“We can’t do that,” Paul insisted. “Everyone is in hourly expectation of the announcement of his elevation.”

“It was just a suggestion,” Ulrich said. “If Hieronymus here wants to learn the subtleties of distilling acids, then we have to hold onto him for a while.”

“Phillip hasn’t finished copying Ercker’s treatise on ores and assaying,” Wilhelm said. “I think it’ll take him another couple of months to finish it.”

That made Ulrich happy. “There you are, Paul. Hieronymus will have until early spring to learn from the master how we make our high quality acids.” He glanced around the room. “So, there having been no objections, I will advise Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz that he may consider himself to be a journeyman Assayist and Metallurgist. Are we all in agreement?”

“When do you plan to make the announcement?” Paul asked.