Eric Flint's Blog, page 231

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 15

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 15

CHAPTER 6

I left Amaya’s house a short time later, once we had worked out the details of our business arrangement. He didn’t like my new rates, but we both knew that with all the high profile cases I had solved in recent months, I could charge pretty much anything I wanted. And it wasn’t as though Jacinto could plead poverty.

Once I was outside, one of his guards gave me back my Glock. I walked to my car, slowing as I gazed up at the moon. A week until it waxed full, six days until the phasing began, and already I sensed it pulling at my thoughts, like a cat unravelling a ball of yarn.

I opened the car door, but continued to stand there, staring up at the face of the quarter moon. Something about that silver-haired man had bothered me since the moment Kona first mentioned him to me. Something other than the ease with which he could kill. But only now, bathed in moon glow did I realize what it was.

He was that rarest of magical beings: an old weremyste who seemed to be functioning and sane. How could that be?

I knew that Saorla had protected the weremancers who worked for her from the monthly effects of the phasings, and I wondered if she had been guarding this man from the moon’s influence for enough years to preserve his sanity. I had also learned from Namid that the more skilled and powerful a weremyste became, the more he or she could resist the worst of what the runemyste called “the moontimes.” Perhaps the sheer might of the magic this man wielded was enough to keep him from losing his mind. Either way, I wasn’t looking forward to meeting him, particularly if that encounter didn’t happen until the phasing began.

I climbed into the car and started back toward Billie’s house.

I was about halfway to Highway 101 when I figured out I was being followed. Whoever was behind me didn’t have much experience tailing people. I could tell, because I had a ton of experience. He was following too closely, maintaining a short distance between us.

No doubt it was another of Saorla’s friends.

I continued past the on-ramp to the highway, figuring I would be safer on surface roads if my shadow decided to attack. I steered myself onto Scottsdale Road, and followed it through the heart of the town. It made for slower going, but I was fine with that. I even took a few extra detours onto side streets, each time making my way back to the main road, so that I could be certain the guy in the trailing car really was following me.

He made every turn with me, sometimes idling at red lights right on my rear bumper. Eyeing him in my rearview mirror, I could nearly make out his features. I knew he was alone, and though I suppose it was possible that this was the silver-haired weremancer, I somehow doubted that such a dangerous enemy would prove to be this much of an idiot. Whoever it was drove a Hyundai sedan, late model, metallic green. Not exactly a muscle car. I probably could have shaken him if I tried. But I wanted to talk to him.

At the next side street, I made a sharp right, accelerating through the curve and speeding down a narrow residential lane. The Hyundai came after me. I made a second right onto another residential street. It was empty except for a few parked cars. I hit the brakes and spun the wheel so that I came to a stop blocking both lanes of the road. Moments later, my shadow slung around the corner and, seeing me, slammed on the brakes. He threw his car into reverse, but I’d had enough of this.

Three elements. His tire, my hand, and a long, sharp knife. I heard the tire blow, watched as the car swerved and slowed. When it came to a complete stop, the driver’s side door opened and the man inside got out. Despite the dim light, I could make out the smudge of magic across his face.

I warded myself and climbed out of the Z-ster. For the moment, I kept my Glock holstered.

“You were interested in speaking with me?” I asked. “Or do you just tail strange cars at night as a hobby?”

He was about my height, light brown hair, handsome in a non-descript way. He might once have been an athlete, but he had developed a small paunch that his flannel shirt couldn’t quite hide.

“I want to know where my wife and kids are.”

I nodded, knowing that I should have expected this. “Neil Davett.”

“That’s right. Who the hell are you?”

“You followed me without having any idea of who I was. That’s pretty dumb, Neil.”

“Screw you! I can take care of myself. Now where are they?”

“I had been planning to look you up and ask the same question,” I said.

He scowled. “I don’t believe you.”

I took a few steps in his direction, muttering an attack spell to myself, in case he threw a casting my way. He had some power; I could tell that much from the amount of blurring on his features. And clearly he didn’t lack for confidence. But I didn’t believe he was much of a threat. Unless, of course, I managed to tick him off.

“So first you follow me, not knowing who I am, and then you call me a liar. You’re not the brightest bulb on the marquee, are you?”

“And that’s the second time you’ve called me dumb. Now, I’m going to give you one more chance to answer my questions. Who are you, and where the hell is my wife?”

“My name is Jay Fearsson. I’m a private investigator, and I’ve been hired by Eduardo and Marisol Trejo to find your wife and children.”

He had been coiled, readying himself for a fight. But he straightened at that, his brow furrowing. “They don’t have the money to hire a PI.”

“No, they don’t. But they have a friend who does.”

“Amaya.”

Maybe he wasn’t quite as dumb as I’d thought. “That’s right. They say that you’ve been abusing Gracie. They think that’s why she ran away.”

His jaw bunched, and I thought for sure he’d throw a spell at me. But he kept his temper in check. “That’s between Gracie and me.”

“All right, then tell me this: Do you have any idea why dark sorcerers might be after her?”

“What makes you think they are?”

I stared back at him, keeping my expression neutral. If he didn’t know about the confrontation at the burger place I wasn’t going to tell him. But his bearing had changed, becoming guarded, wary. He wasn’t bristling with testosterone anymore. If anything, he appeared scared. Talking about Gracie and the kids was one thing; he didn’t like the turn our conversation had taken.

“Answer me!” he said, sounding more whiny than threatening.

“I have my reasons,” I said. “You been playing with blood magic? Maybe getting Gracie involved in stuff she shouldn’t be doing?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. And you don’t know anything about Gracie. She doesn’t –” He stopped himself and leveled a finger at me. “I don’t care what you’ve been hired to do. You keep away from my family, and you stay the hell out of my way.”

I’d had enough. I released the attack spell I’d allowed to build inside of me. I figured that Neil had warded himself, but I also thought that my crafting would be more than enough to get his attention, even though his magical shield. I was right on both scores.

The spell I cast was the equivalent of a fist to the gut. If that fist happened to belong to a magical Rocky Balboa. Neil doubled over with an audible grunt. A moment later he dropped to the ground, landing on his butt.

He raised his eyes to mine and gritted his teeth, giving me warning enough to brace myself. Magic charged the air and his spell hit me full in the chest, knocking me back on my heels. I had hit him in the gut rather than the face because I didn’t want to risk drawing blood that he could then use to enhance his casting. Even so, his crafting was more potent than I had expected.

A second spell hit me, much like the first. But though the impact staggered me, my warding held.

“All right,” I said. “We’ve proven to each other that we can cast, and that our wardings work. What now?”

He reached around to his back and the next thing I knew, something in his hand flashed with the cool glow of a nearby streetlight. I grabbed for my weapon and leveled it at him.

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 15

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 15

CHAPTER 7

Tim found himself cramming into the front of the ute with another plump man. “Mally, this is Tim,” said McKay. “Tim is coming along to show you how to fish.”

“Last time you tried to do that,” said the other man, offering a sideways hand to Tim, and grinning like an overexcited kid. “And I remember the score was ten: three, even if you don’t.”

“This time,” said McKay loftily, “it will be different.”

“Ha ha. We’ll see,” said Mally, with a wink to Tim.

“Seriously, this is Tim’s first fishing trip, and the first time he’s been to sea,” said McKay.

“I bet he still catches more than you do,” said Mally. “You’ll have to get the gate, Tim.”

Tim didn’t say much on the trip to West End, but McKay’s friend Mally made up for it. He made them all laugh quite a lot. They turned off the main road next to a lovely old colonial house, and bounced down to the coast on a bush track. In front of them lay the rocks and the crystal-clear, turquoise sea, and across the water stood an island that looked just like something out of Treasure Island. “Roydon. It’s pretty,” said McKay, turning the ute and reversing the boat toward the sheetrock at the end of the track.

“You live in paradise, mate,” said Mally reverently.

It did look like a travel brochure for some tropical island holiday.

“Yeah. But wait until you try it in winter with the westerly pumping, rain coming down, and you have an abalone order to fill. Come on, we need to take off the ties and get the bungs in. The fish are waiting and the tide doesn’t.”

So they got out, and Tim tasted the breeze off the sparkling water. He learned what bungs were, and Mally took great pleasure in telling him how his friend had, when they were at Uni in Melbourne together, omitted to put them in once.

Tim had mostly forgotten about being miserable for now. The mention of Melbourne brought it back, but then McKay was expertly reversing the boat down the curving rock into the water, and, two minutes later, Tim was out on the sea for the first time in his life, catching the spray from the bow in his face and heading away from land, and then seeing his first ever wild dolphins swimming past.

“There goes the fishing,” said McKay, as Mally tried to photograph them.

“Ah, but they’re a beaut sight. And I’ll swear I saw a seal too,” said Mally.

“They’re even worse for fish. We’ll run to the eighteen-fathom line. Leave them behind, with any luck.”

They did, and then McKay cut the outboard, and they were bobbing silently a long way out from the island. Tim looked around for fishing rods. He didn’t see any. He was handed a big plastic spool with a thick green cord wound on it, with two hooks and a heavy weight on the end. McKay had a bait-board and was cutting strips off what looked like thick, semi-see-through plastic. “Here, Tim, weave a strip of squid onto your hooks like this,” said McKay, “and then you let out the line until it hits the bottom.”

Tim joined in doing as the others were, and let the line down. The boat was drifting and the line didn’t go straight down, and he wondered how he’d ever know if the weight was on the bottom. He felt it bump, and then something began jerking the line. “Uh, what do I do…? Something’s pulling my line.”

“Wow! You’re in! Just pull the line up, hand-over-hand, like this.”

Tim hauled. He could feel the line thrum and wriggle, and he kept pulling. It was a lot of line, and a heavy weight to pull.

“Don’t slow down!” yelled Mally.

“Keep it coming. Keep it coming!” shouted McKay, looking down into the blue water at the white and brown shapes. “It’s a double hookup. Here, hold my line. Let me swing it over for you. If you bump the hull with the fish, they’ll get off.”

Moments later two enormous, ugly, mottled flat-headed fish, with eyes that looked to Tim like something out of a fantasy novel, were in the plastic bin, thrashing and flapping. McKay grabbed a cloth. “You got to watch it. They have big spines on their gill-covers. Ouch. Makes you bleed like a stuck pig, they’ve got some anticoagulant on them. You stick the knife through the head here, on this pattern that looks like a map of Tassie, to kill them, quick and clean.”

“I think I have a fish on yours too,” said Tim.

* * *

Áed could see the selkie, down in the depths. He wondered if the seal-woman would tip the boat or stir up the sea. Or drive off the fish. But she was playing a long game. She was making sure that if he would wish to fish, he could catch fish, and come to the sea to do it. She’d get him that way, eventually. He’d go fishing alone…and she would work her magic on him, get she wanted, or maybe hurt or kill him if she couldn’t.

Áed would just have to see that it didn’t happen.

* * *

The fishing was fast and furious for a time, and all of them bled and laughed, and cheered and hauled fish into the bin, tangled lines, baited hooks, and got teased by Mally, who was always the one to have his fish tangle in the lines or miss the box and go slithering around the bottom of the boat, putting feet and the inflatable pontoons at risk with the spines. Tim got spiked getting his fifth fish off the hook, and it hurt and bled a lot. But no one else seemed to care about their wounds, and he didn’t want to make a fuss, so he went on fishing. He forgot about it when the next fish pulled like a train.

“I think we’ve just about bagged out,” said McKay a little later, looking at the fish bin.

“Last cast,” said Mally. “I’m still in the lead. Well, I would be if you hadn’t brought your secret weapon along.” He pointed at Tim. “And you told me he’d never been fishing before. Ha. He’s an islander, born and bred, I bet.”

“That’s because we had to untangle the mess you made dropping your fish in our lines,” said McKay. “Okay, last cast. Then we’ll go over to the island and clean fish and have some grub.”

“Hmm, division of labor!” said Mally cheerfully. “I’ll eat and you clean the fish…Whoa…Tim, that thing is pulling the boat!”

“Shark. Get your line up, Mally, or it’ll cross our lines and get off,” yelled McKay, pulling his own in hastily. Tim was too busy fighting the fish to pay attention. The cord cut at his hands, and it fought much harder than the flathead had. He could see the gray and white shape surging through the clear water.

* * *

Áed could see the selkie coming up, pulling at the line, working her magics. Was this her plan? To get on the little boat, perhaps set them all to fighting? Or had she really been caught? Áed doubted it. She was too old and too cunning and too used to fishermen for that. He prepared himself to break the line, just as what the humans saw as a fish surfaced.

And then she let go.

Hearing the cries and watching the master and the other two humans on the boat, Áed realized that the selkie understood fishermen very well indeed.

* * *

It had been a bit of a letdown to not get the shark into the boat, but McKay had been adamant. “No more. We’ve got fish to clean, tide to make for getting the boat out easily. Besides, the sea is picking up. There’ll be another time. And we’ve got more than enough fish. Leave some for next time.”

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 14

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 14

Marisol said something to Eduardo in Spanish. He replied, his voice low, his words coming in a jumble. They spoke for several moments. I caught fragments of what they said, but couldn’t make out most of it. Amaya listened closely, and I guessed that he understood all of what they said. I wondered, if I asked him later, if he would be willing to tell me what had passed between them.

At last the Trejos turned back to me.

“The best we are hoping for,” Marisol said, “is that Engracia decided the children needed some time away from Phoenix. Leaving their father was hard on them. Perhaps she took them camping. They like to camp. Or maybe she would like to find a new place to live. She has spoken of moving to Tucson. Our other daughter is there. Rosa. We have spoken with her, and she has heard nothing from Engracia.”

Eduardo said something else, but Marisol merely glanced at him and shook her head.

Facing me again, she said, “Our worst fear is that Neil has them and is . . . is hurting her as revenge for leaving him.” Her voice broke, and a tear slipped from her eye.

“Neil is her husband.”

She nodded. “Neil Davett. Engracia took his name, as did the children.”

“And where does he live?”

Marisol gave me a street address in the North Mountain section of Phoenix.

I wrote that down, along with Neil’s full name and a few other things I wanted to remember from our conversation.

“Is Neil a weremyste, too?”

She hesitated before nodding. “I think that’s how they met.”

“Is it possible that any of this has something to do with magic?”

Marisol frowned, clearly puzzled by the question. “I don’t understand. Do you mean did someone use magic to make her disappear?”

“No, I — ” I shook my head, unsure myself of what I was trying to say. I didn’t want to alarm her or her husband by bringing up the murders by the interstate. I caught Amaya watching me. He shifted his gaze back to Missus Trejo, but I had the distinct impression that he knew exactly what was on my mind. In the past, I had been shocked, and more than a little bit appalled, by his knowledge of what went on inside the PPD. Chances were he had known about the killings at the burger place before I did.

“What I’m trying — ”

“Jay wants to know if your daughter has felt threatened by her husband’s magical abilities, or perhaps those of his friends.”

Actually, that wasn’t what I wanted to know, though it was an interesting thought. It made me wonder how much Amaya already knew about Neil Davett.

“Not that I know of,” Marisol said. “I suppose it’s possible.”

Amaya stood. “I think Jay probably has enough to start his investigation. Don’t you, Jay?”

His tone carried another warning. Standing as well, I said, “Yes, I believe so. Does your daughter have a cell phone?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Marisol asked, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “We’ve tried the number all day, but she hasn’t answered. I believe she has it turned off.”

As I would, if I were running away and didn’t want anyone to find me. “Can I have the number anyway, it might come in handy at some point.”

She gave it to me and I added it to my notes. “Does she have a passport, and more to the point, do the children have passports?”

Marisol’s cheeks blanched. “I don’t know. I don’t believe so, but . . . I’m sorry.”

I chanced another quick look Amaya’s way. He didn’t appear pleased. “It’s all right,” I said. “Thank you both. If I have additional questions I’ll be in touch.” To Amaya I said, “I take it I can reach the Trejos through you.”

Marisol and Eduardo got to their feet, both of them frowning, perhaps at the abrupt ending of the conversation.

“Mister Amaya, you know that we don’t have enough money to pay Mister Fearsson. We can’t even — ”

Jacinto took her hand, the kind smile on his face completely at odds with the glower he’d given me moments before. “It is my expense, Señora,” he said. “Jay has worked for me in the past.” His gaze flicked in my direction. “And no doubt will again in the future.”

“But we couldn’t — ”

“Of course you can. You are in need; Engracia may be in trouble. It’s the least I can do for you.”

She smiled, though she seemed to be on the verge of tears. “Thank you, Mister Amaya. God bless you.”

He kissed her cheek, then shook hands with Eduardo and wished him a good night in Spanish. “Paco,” he called.

Paco loomed in the arched entrance to the living room. He could have been Rolon’s twin — in size as well as appearance — except for the goatee and mustache he had grown since last I saw him. He nodded once to me before turning his attention back to his boss.

“Will you see the Trejos home?”

“Of course.”

“Use one of the SUVs. Take Rolon and check the house before you leave them. Understand?”

“You got it.” He smiled at the Trejos and led them out of the house.

Even after they had left the living room, Amaya said nothing to me. Only when the thump of the front door’s close echoed through the house did he remove his suit jacket and say, “Drink?”

“A beer, please.”

He walked to the wet bar near the bank of windows, took two bottles of Bohemia Stout from the refrigerator, and opened them both. Returning to where I stood, he handed me one and clinked the top of his against the top of mine.

“Sit,” he said, lowering himself into the leather chair once more.

I sat as well.

He sipped his beer and loosened his necktie. “I would have preferred that you not frighten her quite so much.”

“There were questions I had to ask. Otherwise I can’t do the job you’ve hired me to do.”

His expression soured, but he didn’t argue the point. “So, what do you think?”

“I think you know a lot more about what happened to Engracia than you’re letting on.”

Amaya glared at me, offering no reply for several seconds. “Gracie,” he said at last.

“Excuse me?”

“Her parents still call her Engracia, but she goes by Gracie. Gracie Davett.”

“That doesn’t sound very Latina.”

“How about that?” he said without a trace of humor. “Now answer my question.”

“How much do you know about the husband?”

“Very little. I’ve met Gracie once, and that was a few years ago. Marisol teaches Spanish at the school my daughter attends. She’s one of Chofi’s favorite teachers — that’s how I know her. I saw the magic on her and was interested to know more. I learned that she uses blockers and hasn’t cast a spell in years. I don’t think Eduardo approves of magic, although he and I have never spoken of it.”

“But Gracie casts, doesn’t she?”

He drank more of his beer. “You tell me.”

“She’s wanted for murder.”

His eyes widened enough to tell me that he hadn’t known this. “Thank you for not mentioning this in front of her parents.”

“Why would dark sorcerers be after her?”

“Because she’s not one of them. That’s all the excuse they need.”

“Is her husband one of them?”

“An interesting question. One you should check into as part of your investigation.”

I took a swig of beer. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was richer than most Mexican beers, and Amaya seemed to like it a lot. It was the only beer he had ever served me.

“I was wondering when we’d get to that. I take it you want me to find Gracie Davett.”

“And her children,” Jacinto said. “You’re to bring them here.”

“That might not be possible. If she’s wanted for murder –”

“Who did she kill?”

“The police don’t know yet. He wasn’t carrying any ID.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “In your experience, is that often true of the virtuous and blameless?”

“That’s not the point, and you know it. I can’t get in the way of a murder investigation without making myself an accessory.”

“Do you really think that a mother — at least any sane mother — would commit a murder in front of her young children?”

I’d been arguing the same point with Kona only a few hours before. So why did I resist agreeing with the man? Probably because he already felt like he controlled me, and because I felt that he did, too. And I didn’t like it. Still, I couldn’t deny that he had a point. “No,” I said. “But the fact remains, she’s wanted for murder, and the Phoenix police are going to be searching for her. Anything I do to get in their way is going to land me in a lot of trouble.”

“Then I’d suggest you prove her innocent.”

I should have known he’d say something like that.

Another thought occurred to me.

“What do you know about an older weremyste?” I asked. “Silver-haired with a trim goatee?”

“He and I have never met, but I’ve heard others speak of him.”

“Do you know his name?”

Amaya glanced down at his beer. “I don’t.”

I tried to decide if I believed him, not that it mattered at the moment. I wasn’t about to call him a liar to his face. “Did these others happen to mention that he could kill simply by laying a hand on someone?”

He raised his gaze to mine. “Yes, they did. You might want to avoid letting him touch you.”

 

The Seer – Snippet 68

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

The Seer – Snippet 68

“We’ve waited long enough,” the man said urgently. “Restarn promised us –”

“It doesn’t matter what Restarn promised.”

A frustrated sound. “Yes. All right. But look at how the price of metals rises, Oleane. We could make a profit now, one that would fund everything. If Restarn were on the throne, we’d have some liberty in our operations, and privacy, too, but now –”

“No, no, no,” the woman called Oleane said, cutting him off. “Things are different now.”

“Damn it, I want what I was promised.”

“Keep your voice down, boy. My books are under audit. No more slop. We must be very careful. You must be very careful.”

“I am, I am.”

“You are not.” Her voice dropped. “It’s not Restarn any more. It’s not even Cern. It’s Innel you need to be concerned with. The sooner you get fixed with that, the better.”

“It doesn’t have to be Innel.”

“I don’t want to hear it. You stink of treason.”

“He’s sending the city into the sewer, Oleane. No one is following the old agreements. He has shaken the table, and game pieces are everywhere. The queen only watches. We must to do something.”

“When things are settled, perhaps –”

“Old woman, if we wait for things to settle, you will be cold in your grave and I will be too old to act. Cern turns whatever way the wind blows, and now the wind is called Innel. Let’s change the wind’s name.”

“Hush!”

“There are others who think as I do, Oleane. Don’t hide behind your hands like a child, or when the wind changes next you will be left behind.”

“Don’t threaten me. I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Best you leave these battles to those young enough imagine what might yet be.”

“Idiot. Leave war to the young and you repeat the same mistakes we made when we were young. That’s why we have generals. Have you learned nothing in your short life?”

“Innel is not much older than I am. Look at what he has managed.”

“He was in the Cohort, you fool.”

“You are wise, Oleane. Will you be our general?”

“Ah.” The woman’s voice held a smile. “I see. You and your ‘others.’ Not a general among you.”

“Truly, we need you. Will you stand with us?”

“Innel is clever. His people are everywhere.”

“That could be a different name on your tongue soon, if you’re with us. Maybe even yours.”

“Don’t flatter me, boy. I know who could take over from Innel, and it isn’t me.”

The man’s whisper held sudden passion. “Then you could be the one to choose. We’ve waited long enough. This is the time, Oleane.”

“I’m not convinced. You can’t just –”

“We are ready. Are you with us or not?”

A pause. “Do you know what you’re suggesting, boy? How dangerous this is? Do you see who squirms in Execution Square this week?”

“I am not afraid. It is time to act. Yes or no.”

A longer pause. At last: “Yes.”

Maris chuckled at the drama, withdrew, wondering if she should relay this to Innel or not. As she walked the hallways, a window afforded her a view of the aforementioned square where two men hung by their feet, heads a hand’s width above the ground, coated with some sticky substance that Maris guessed was honey. They had lasted two days thus far, despite the rats, but she did not give them much longer.

Yes, she decided, she must tell Innel. While her contract did not require it, it seemed to her that to take his money meant to tell him when his life was in danger.

The woman named Oleane and the young man with her were spiders. They had made their choices.

She went to find the Lord Commander.

#

The winter passed more comfortably than Maris would have thought possible so far north. Stoves and fireplaces were always warm.

And the library. She could live in it for a hundred years and still not exhaust her interest.

As for the search, as long as she continued to report various corruptions and treasonous plots to Innel, he seemed happy for her to put off leaving the palace grounds. When the ice began to melt and spring came, though, he reminded her, ever so gently, that he still needed the girl.

So Maris took the search out of the palace with its warm halls onto the palace grounds, searching laundry and garrison, pig and goat pens. At the kennels and stables, she took her time with the dichu, the large Arunkel dogs, their black and tan brindled faces looking up at her eagerly, tails wagging, ears forward. Then the horses, strong and happy and eager to run. It was a pleasure to her.

The girl was not there, though.

When she could put it off no longer, she left the place grounds. Above, a clear night sky showed the constellation of archer chasing the world-snake, a battle that surely would satisfy no one. She brushed herself with a touch of shadow and illusion, enough that anyone who looked at her would see someone paler, in poorer clothes, less interesting than a Perripin woman wandering alone at night in Yarpin.

As she walked past the Great Houses, she trailed her fingers across walls and iron gates, her attention raking through those within to see if they were the owner of the small seashell. When she had passed across every resident of the Eight Great Houses, she moved downhill and to the Lesser Houses.

None of this took as long as Maris had hoped. There were simply not that many girls, and none of them the one the Lord Commander sought. Reluctantly she expanded her search outward, lane by lane. Merchant houses. Inns. Public houses. Storefronts. Apartments.

And who was this girl on whom Innel was sufficiently intent to hire a mage at exorbitant cost to execute a fruitless search? She felt a twinge of sympathy for her, not wishing Innel’s attention on anyone but spiders.

It seemed too much coincidence, the many rumors on the streets about fortune-tellers. Not only rumors, either — as the weather turned mild, girl children and young women flocked to street corners, shouting and calling, promising to reveal the future for a pittance and indeed a much lower price than the charlatan girl down the lane.

Some used stones or ointments or bits of metal to aid with the prophecy. One even insisted on first obtaining a drop of blood from the inquirer; a clever trick to get the quarry invested, to stretch credibility before a word of supposed prophecy had even been spoken.

Even so, Innel was too smart to believe such foolishness, and she could not imagine these tales at the heart of his motivation. More likely he had created the rumors himself to serve some intrigue or another. Perhaps the girl was some runaway aristo child, or the daughter of an enemy who could provide him some leverage once he had her in hand.

As she walked the streets and watched the displays, Maris found herself saddened at how credulous people could be. Accounts of prophecy swept villages and cities as would a catchy tune, belief cresting and crashing with rumor, only to rise again years later when people forgot. They were good at forgetting, Iliban were.

Or perhaps they remembered perfectly well, and these girls with their small pigs and dogs and buckets of bloody entrails were merely entertainment now that the coronation was over and life had returned to a bleak misery.

In any case, if the new queen’s Royal Consort and Lord Commander wanted the girl, one way or another, with or without Maris’s help, he would have her.

At last the search took her into the poorest sections, down-city. Now when she slipped her awareness into the inhabitants of the apartment buildings, she found sluggish blood, chronic illness, searing pain. When she found such need, she might sometimes take a moment. Open a slow channel here, shift the balance of blood there. Smooth the working of an organ, remove a pinpoint tumor. Small things, things that surely she had the time to do as she went by.

Her search slowed. She tired more quickly. It left her aching, body and spirit, sparking images she thought buried, memories of those who had trusted her when they had nothing left. For them, she decided, she could give a little more, especially when so little was desperately needed.

One night she sat, her back to a dilapidated wall, working on twins, a boy and a girl, who had eaten some corrupted food. She eased the tightening of their throats, shifted the fire in their veins, and watched as they slept to be sure they kept breathing. Hours later, when she was confident they would live, she stood slowly, stretching her stiffness, walking back to the palace where she lay on top of her soft palace bed.

When at last she drifted off, the faces of the dead accompanied her into dream.

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 14

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 14

“Look, Tim, you’ll just have to get used to it. Maybe next year…”

“A year! You can’t. You can’t!” he yelled his voice cracking.

“You brought it on yourself. Now try and…”

Tim slammed the phone down. He looked at the bare, empty dining room, with its single globe. At the darkness outside the curtainless windows. It still frightened him. He wanted to go off and…and just go. But where? How?

He walked to his bedroom, slammed the door, and threw himself on the bed and lay there.

He didn’t even answer when Gran called him for supper.

He just lay there, wishing it would all go away. Wishing he could make all of them as miserable as he was.

Gran didn’t call him again. And somehow he slept, a sleep full of troubled, angry dreams of burning stores, a weeping mother, and tall people on horses, with lances and pennants, riding across the night sky.

He woke once, enough to think the last part of the dream was weird, but then burrowed back into sleep; even if it was odd in his dreams, at least it was escape from here.

* * *

When the woman phoned, Mary Ryan had been half tempted to give her an earful. Now, after sitting in the kitchen, listening…she really wished she had.

She hadn’t thought how unhappy the boy must be. He kept his feelings in, and she couldn’t see his face well. He didn’t say much at all. Well, she didn’t either. But she’d heard those cries from the heart. It had not occurred to her that her grandson might not think of this place as “home.”

She sighed. He’d also sounded just like her son, his father. Using words he’d used, later, when he’d suddenly decided he had to go out into the wide world, and that anything was better than Flinders Island.

She’d always taken on the knock-downs by getting up and fighting on, even that worst knock-down, when her husband John had been killed. She’d had to, for her boy. Well, she had to now, for this boy. She wouldn’t take help for herself, but, well, that fellow seemed good with Tim. She went to the telephone, wondering just how she’d get the number. She could call Dickie Burke…The phone burred under her hand and she picked it up before it could ring. If it was that woman again…

But it wasn’t. It was young McKay, the very person she’d been planning to call, to remind of what he’d said, and feeling very uncomfortable to do so. “Hello, Mrs. Ryan,” he said. “I’m going to get a few flathead with a mate of mine tomorrow. Would your boy like to come along?” he’d asked.

That he’d remembered impressed her, warmed her. This McKay was like his Uncle Giles, a good man. He’d been one of the few who had never looked down on her, and had done…little things she hadn’t appreciated much at the time, when John had died. He’d also always remembered what he’d said, and kept to it. “It’d be good for him,” she said gruffly. “Tell you the truth, I was goin’ to ask yer. He’s a bit low. Missing home. He’s in bed now, but…where are yer launching from?” That could be very awkward. Driving was not easy or safe, really.

“West End. We’re coming right past. I’ll pick him up if you like. Easier. I’ll give you a buzz in the morning when I leave here, I should be there in twenty minutes. Probably about sevenish for the tide.”

That was a relief! “I’ll try to have him at the gate for yer. I don’t drive much so I’d be grateful.”

“Not to worry. I’ll come down to the house, that way it won’t matter if I’m a few minutes out. I’ll have Malcolm with me — a friend of mine from away — to open the gates.”

“‘Preciate it. The boy needs to have a good time.”

There was a brief silence. “He should be having one. I did when I was his age here. I lived for coming over to Uncle Giles. And if he likes catching fish, we’ll see what we can do.”

“He was a good man, yer Uncle. He’d be proud of yer.”

“He’d give me a thick ear for the state my boat is in, but I’m going fishing tomorrow anyway. I’ll call, unless the weather turns bad.”

* * *

Gran shook him awake. Tim had heard her coming with the cup and teaspoon clatter, and simply burrowed himself deeper into the pillow. He was not going to get up. Not going to dig or weed or carry hay or muck out the milking shed. Not!

“Yer friend McKay will be here in less than half an hour. You need some tucker in you if you’re going to be out at sea all day,” she said. “Porridge will be ready in a few minutes. Better look sharp or he’ll go without you.”

Tim sat up. “What?”

“I said porridge will be ready in a few minutes. And Mr. McKay is on his way. He phoned about ten minutes ago. Not a lazy beggar like you. I said I’d wake yer to talk to him, and he says no, just tell him to have his lunch and hat ready to go fishing. Yer better take a coat too. The weather could come in.” She turned and walked out. Tim could hear her opening the oven in the kitchen. Stirring something.

Tim took a deep breath, and without thinking about it, reached out and took the cup and drank most of it in a gulp. It was half cold. That really wasn’t normal. He usually had to blow on it to not have his mouth scalded. Had…had it been sitting in the kitchen? Had his gran not planned to wake him or something?

That thought got him out of bed and scrambling into clothes. In the kitchen the porridge was ready, along with the smell of new-baked something. Spicy, yeasty and rich, it had been calling him from halfway down the passage. “I made yer some cinnamon buns to take to sea. There’s hot tea in the flask,” she said, pointing to a bag. “Yer take care of it, see. It was yer…grandfather’s flask.” She looked, for once, straight at him. “I’m trusting yer with a lot.”

Gran sounded really a little odd when she said that. Like she was giving him a Blackberry and an Xbox together, and they were made of thin glass. And like she didn’t want to, but still did it. “Thank you. I’ll try my best.”

“You do that, and I’ll be well pleased, I reckon. Now you be polite to young McKay. And make yerself useful on the boat. Don’t wait for him to tell yer what to do; ask and watch. Then he’ll maybe take yer again.”

Tim nodded. “I thought he said he’d take me…just to be polite.”

“His Uncle Giles was a decent feller. Kept his word. Seems like this young feller is like him. I made extra porridge, as I reckon you’ll be hungry after last night.”

He was. Starving, actually. He had three platefuls, and was just finished when his grandmother cocked her head. “I reckon I hear yer ride coming.” She didn’t seem to see too well, but his gran could hear a mouse tiptoe across the barn from inside the house.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 05

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 05

She set the decanter back on the serving table, then slid the glass toward Adele without picking it up. The decanter was down by about a third, but it might not have been full when it was brought here.

She looks older every time I see her, Adele thought as she sipped the drink; as expected, it was very good whiskey. But then, I suppose I do too.

Sand stared at her own glass. “I’m cutting back,” she said — to the glass rather than to Adele. She raised her eyes and went on, “I decided I’d been putting away more than was good for me. It’s…”

Sand smiled, looking more like the woman who had recruited Adele not so many years ago. She leaned back in her chair: stocky and solid in a dark suit for the occasion rather than the tweeds she had favored most of the other times Adele had met with her.

“You’d think that with the Republic at peace things would be easier,” Sand said. Her hand touched the poured drink, then snatched back. “That’s not…not what I feel. Before the Treaty of Amiens, you knew where you stood with the Alliance. Now I’m certainly not ready to consider Guarantor Porra our friend, but in some cases the policies of his government may be aligned with the interests of the Republic…”

“Yes,” said Adele, sipping more of her whiskey.

Mistress Sand knew that she and Daniel had worked with Alliance officials in the past; she probably realized that they would do so again if circumstances required it. Daniel was better about following orders than she was, but neither of them cared much about the judgment of a fool in authority.

“You’ve made it clear in the past…” Sand said, keeping her eyes on Adele by sheer determination when she obviously wanted to look away. “That you don’t work for me or for the Republic. Nothing you do has to be taken as an expression of Cinnabar policy. You have a long history of acting on your own.”

Adele’s personal data unit wouldn’t tell her any more about what was going on than her pistol would. Instead she squeezed the whiskey glass and wished she were somewhere else.

Aloud she said, “Mistress, if there’s something you’d like me to do, tell me. As you say, I’ve never felt a great respect for Cinnabar policy in the abstract.”

She pursed her lips as she considered her next words, then said, “To be honest, if the Republic has ever had a consistent policy, I’ve missed it in my reading of history.”

“You’re consistent,” Sand said. She touched her glass again but she didn’t raise it. “Someone who didn’t know you would think that consistency would make you easier to deal with.”

“Mistress, tell me what you want,” Adele repeated. She wasn’t sure she knew the person she was talking to any more. “I need information. When you give me that information, I will make my decision.”

“I don’t want you to do anything,” Sand said fiercely. “I want you to know that if someone makes you a proposition which in your opinion would be to the benefit of the Republic, I hope you will follow your own judgment in the matter.”

“I see,” Adele said, sipping a little more of the whiskey.

She did see. Her friend, Bernis Sand, had told her what Mistress Sand, the head of intelligence for the Republic of Cinnabar, could not have said. A task would shortly be offered to Adele, and Bernis Sand hoped that Adele would accept that task.

“You realize…” Sand said, speaking to her drink again. “I won’t be holding my present position forever.”

She looked up and met Adele’s eyes. “I would like to believe,” Sand said, “that I would be succeeded by an experienced person whose judgment I trust.”

Adele put down her empty glass and rose to her feet. “I hope matters go well for you, mistress,” she said. “Speaking for myself –”

She was turning to the door as she spoke.

“– I hope I’m not around when that question has to be decided.”

Adele closed the door behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mistress Sand raising her glass.

* * *

Daniel and three officers he knew from the Academy — Commander Vondrian and Lieutenants Pennyroyal and Ames — linked arms and bellowed, “Then he kissed her on the lips, and the crew began to roar.…”

Though Daniel had lived at Chatsworth Minor for several years, whenever he was in Xenos, he didn’t recall ever having been in the kitchen at the back of the ground floor in the past. Servants had guided him and his friends here where the cabinets had been converted to sideboards for the reception.

It would have been churlish not to join old friends when they wanted something harder than ale to drink. They’d started with Oriel County rye — Pennyroyal’s choice; she came from Oriel County — and proceeded according to the whim of whoever’s turn it was to pick.

“Oh! Oh! Up she goes! We’re bound for Baltimore!”

Vondrian commanded a destroyer flotilla with Ames as his flag lieutenant and Pennyroyal the first officer of his flagship. They were attached to the Cinnabar Squadron, the portion of the RCN still in commission after the Treaty of Amiens. Vondrian had family money. Going on half pay wouldn’t have seriously affected him, but he also had enough influence to secure an active commission. His friends Ames and Pennyroyal would have been up against it if they’d been landed on the beach for any length of time.

“So then his kissed her on the nose…”

Daniel hadn’t partied like this in years. When he’d happened to share a landfall with his friends on Tattersall, they’d hoisted a few — more than a few — drinks together, but they were in the presence of their direct superiors and a number of admirals. Here on Xenos they were friends attending the wedding of one of them, and nothing that happened would be seen as adversely affecting the good name of the RCN.

“– and the crew began to roar!”

Hogg came into the room from the back, the door onto the alley. He was dressed like a Bantry tenant, which is how he’d been raised, with an enormous budget to buy finery for the Squire’s wedding. His blue pantaloons and loose green shirt were bright and of thin, hard fabric, and his high leather boots and belt were dyed the same shade of red.

The same was true of the brimless leather cap which he took off and waved to catch Daniel’s eye.

“Oh! Oh! Up she goes! We’re bound for Baltimore!”

Daniel squeezed his friends’ shoulders — he stood between Vondrian and Pennyroyal — and muttered, “Duty calls!” as he disengaged himself. He felt younger than he had since, since —

Since I was given my first command, he realized. A road had forked then, and Daniel Leary had been very fortunate in the direction his branch had taken him; but…But. There was always a ‘but’ in life.

His friends closed together and resumed singing. The dozen or so others in the kitchen made way for Daniel, but nobody paid particular attention. He bent close so that Hogg could speak without raising his voice.

Hogg spoke loudly enough to be heard by anybody on this side of the room anyway: “There’s a fellow out back wants to see you, master. Name’s Huxford, and if it was just him he could get his ass gone. He says he’s from Lord Anston, though, and I know that’s different.”

“Ah,” said Daniel, nodding. He wished he’d gone a little lighter on the spirits, but he was glad he had old friends. “Yes, that’s different. Let’s see Commander Huxford.”

Admiral Anston had been in frail health since the heart attack which had forced his retirement as Chief of the Navy Board. Daniel had been pleased to see him on a wheelchair in the temple, but he hadn’t expected the older man to attend the reception.

He tugged his uniform tunic down and settled his bright sash. Well, Anston had seen a half-drunk officer before. Like as not he’d been one a time or two.

“I saw Forbes here too,” Hogg said. He blocked the door with the side of his foot and straightened the aiguillette of feathers and tiny diamonds on Daniel’s right shoulder. “Nice to see that she hasn’t forgotten who put her where she is.”

Forbes had lost the Speakership of the Senate and had been sent — had been exiled — as envoy to Karst to greet the new Headman who had just succeeded his uncle. The embassy had not gone well through no fault of Forbes — or of Daniel, who was captain of the ship which carried her to Karst.

“We were very fortunate to have the ambassador with us when things went belly up, Hogg,” Daniel said mildly. “The good result was as much political as naval, you know.”

“That’s not how I remember what happened at Cacique,” Hogg growled. He put his hand on the doorknob, then paused and met Daniel’s eyes. “There’s one thing I’ll give her, master,” he said. “Forbes put the mistress in charge when you got knocked silly, made her an admiral. She knew to do that, at least.”

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 13

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 13

Which is not to say that they didn’t order me out of the car, frisk me, and take my Glock. But they did it all with smiles on their faces, and though they didn’t lay their weapons down, they also didn’t have them aimed at the back of my head.

When the guards were convinced that I was unarmed and posed no threat to Jacinto, they pointed me toward the front door. It was open already, and a burly Latino man waited for me there, his black hair pulled back in a ponytail, a smile on his lips.

“Amigo,” he said, greeting me with a handshake and a slap on the back.

“Hey, Rolon. How’s it going?”

He shrugged, ushering me into the house. “Can’t complain. Got a new car. Lowrider, like Paco’s.” He flashed a toothy grin. “But faster, you know?”

I had to smile. Rolon and Paco were Amaya’s . . . Well, I wasn’t exactly sure what they were. Henchmen? Bodyguards? Trained attack dogs? Whatever Amaya called them, they were built like NFL linebackers, and I had no doubt that they would kill their grandmothers if Amaya ordered them to. But though they worked for the devil, I couldn’t help but like them. The truth was, I liked Amaya, as well. I feared him, and I didn’t trust him, and if there was a way I could have handed him over to Kona with enough evidence to put him away for life, I would have done it in a heartbeat. He was, however, a difficult man to hate.

Rolon steered me through the foyer into a grand living room with polished wood floors, exposed beams, and a bank of windows that was incandescent with the glow of downtown Scottsdale. Oaxacan folk art covered the walls and shelves of the room and the air carried the faint, sweet smell of burning sage and cedar, as if someone in another room had lit one of the smudge sticks used by the Southwest’s Pueblo people.

A lean man with perfectly styled silver and black hair turned at the sound of our footsteps and strode in our direction, his arms spread wide. He was dressed with elegance in a light gray fitted suit, a black dress shirt, and a sapphire silk tie. I had the vague impression of an olive complexion and dark, almond-shaped eyes, a winning smile and bold features, but until my eyes adjusted, I couldn’t make out anything with confidence. The blur of magic across his face was too strong.

“Jay,” he said, gripping my shoulder with one hand and proffering the other for me to grip. “I’m glad you could make it.”

I shook his hand, hiding my amusement. He had all but ordered me to his house, and now he was treating me like an old friend. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted two other people in the room, an older couple, who had gotten to their feet when Rolon and I entered. I wanted to dismiss Amaya’s greeting as something he did for show, to impress these other guests. But he was more complicated than that. The enthusiasm of his greeting, I knew, was as genuine as the menace that had shaded his voice on the phone. They were two sides of the same honed blade.

“It’s good to see you again, Mister Amaya.”

He nodded, his hand still on my shoulder, and steered me to his other guests.

“I’d like you to meet Eduardo and Marisol Trejo. They’re friends of mine, and they need your help. Eduardo, Marisol, this is Jay Fearsson. He’s the private detective I told you about.”

My first thought upon seeing them was that Missus Trejo was a weremyste. She wasn’t nearly as strong as Amaya — the smudge of magic on her face was subtle, though unmistakable. My second impression was that they appeared even more out of place amid the luxury of Amaya’s home than I did. Mister Trejo had nut-brown skin and hair as white and soft as a cloud. He was short, barrel-chested, and he wore a rumpled brown suit that fit him poorly. His wife was thin and had probably been a beauty as a young woman. Her eyes were a rich earthy brown, and her features were as delicate as his were heavy. Her hair was steel gray, and she wore what must have been her Sunday dress. It had a floral pattern, and it looked like it had been made for a larger woman. I wondered if Missus Trejo had been ill.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” I said, shaking his hand and then hers.

Amaya sat in a leather arm chair, indicating that I should do the same. The Trejos lowered themselves onto the couch once more.

“Tell Jay what you told me.”

“It’s our daughter,” Missus Trejo said, her voice devoid of any accent and stronger than I had expected. “Engracia. She has . . .” She shrugged. “I suppose you would say, she has run off.”

“I’m sorry. This must be a difficult time for you.” I pulled my pencil and notepad from my jacket pocket.

“We’re concerned for her, as you would expect. But this is particularly worrisome because she has her children with her. No one has seen either Engracia or the children since early this morning.”

I sat forward at her mention of the kids, and I searched Marisol’s face once more, taking in that soft blur of magic.

“Is she a weremyste?” I asked.

Missus Trejo glanced back at her husband before facing me again and nodding.

“This is why I called you,” Amaya said.

“How old are the children?” I asked, ignoring him for the moment.

“Emily is eight, Zachary is five.”

Mister Trejo pulled something from within his suit jacket and held it out to me. I hesitated before taking it from him. It was a photograph. The image was grainy — it had been printed on regular paper rather than photo stock — but I could make out the three faces. Engracia, the mom, was as fine featured as her mother, with dark eyes, dark hair, and a complexion somewhere between her mother’s and father’s. The little girl was the image of Engracia, though unlike her mother she wasn’t smiling. The boy had lighter skin, paler eyes, and a grin that could have charmed a hired assassin.

Naturally, my thoughts had already pivoted to Kona’s murder scene: a mom who was a weremyste, with two kids the same age as those of the woman who killed John Doe and sent his companion to the hospital. But I had no proof that this was the same family, and every reason to be skeptical of such a coincidence.

“You say they’ve been gone since this morning?”

“Yes,” Marisol said.

I chanced a quick look at Jacinto. He watched me, something akin to a warning in his eyes.

“Please understand,” I said, facing Missus Trejo again. “I sympathize. Naturally they’re dear to you, and it probably seems that they’ve been gone a long time. But –”

“You don’t understand, Mister Fearsson. Engracia and the children live with us now. They . . . they had to leave Engracia’s husband. She left our house this morning with the children, as she always does. We thought she was taking them to school and then going to work. She’s a physical therapist at Tempe Saint Luke’s Hospital, and Emmy and Zach go to Carminati Elementary. But later in the day the school called to ask why the children hadn’t come in today. And when we called Engracia at work, they told us she hadn’t been in either.”

“Are any of their belongings missing?”

Missus Trejo nodded. “Yes. After calling the hospital, I went and checked the room they’ve been staying in. Most of their things are gone.”

“Is it possible your daughter has gone back to her husband?”

“No!”

We all turned to Mister Trejo, who shrank back from our gazes, his cheeks coloring. But he shook his head and said, “No,” a second time. Even from that single syllable, I could hear the heaviness of his accent. “She no go back to him,” he said, eyeing me, his expression fierce. “He . . . he beat her. He’s no good, and she know that now. Finally.”

I shared a glance with Jacinto before facing the Trejos again. “Were the children beaten, too?”

“Not that we know of,” Marisol said. “It’s possible, though.”

I nodded, saying nothing. An expectant silence settled over the room, broken only by the ticking of a nearby clock. I knew that the others were waiting for me to speak, but I tried to ignore them. How many young mothers disappeared with their children each day in the Phoenix metropolitan area? Probably more than any of us cared to know. But how many of them were weremystes? And how many of those few had a daughter and son of the exact ages given by Kona’s witnesses? I wanted this to be coincidence. I had only just met Mister and Missus Trejo, but already I didn’t want to have to tell them that their daughter was the primary suspect in a murder investigation.

“What do you think has happened to them?” I asked Marisol.

“They don’t know,” Jacinto said, his tone derisive. You’d have thought I’d asked the dumbest question he could imagine. “That’s why I called you.”

I held up a hand, hoping to silence him in a way that wouldn’t tick him off too much. But I kept my eyes on Engracia’s parents. “What are you afraid has happened? And what do you hope has happened?”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 13

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 13

CHAPTER 6

The week was one long drift of confusion, every waking hour. Tim was as careful as he could be at school not to draw any attention to himself. They were the living dead, but he was stuck here. And at least they had computers and a school library. He didn’t want to do the stuff he had to on the farm. He resented it. Why should he? Only…it was so difficult not to. His grandmother worked at everything next to him. He’d gotten used to looking to see what she was doing, so he could learn how to do it, as most of it he had no idea just how to manage. And, well, she must have eyes in the back of her head. Or the little people she talked to must be telling on him, which was just as crazy.

About the only good thing he could say was walking eight kilometers a day, four there and four back, having to get up far too early, mostly because he wasn’t going to be embarrassed by a lift again — he didn’t want them seeing that he had to walk — and then digging, or sawing, or hauling poles around, well, he was so tired he nearly fell asleep into his food every night.

He was locked down into “survive” mode. He could handle it for a few weeks until his mum sorted things out.

* * *

Áed, now with the little fenodree helping, steered the master past disasters. He would have cut his foot half off, and been kicked by the cow, otherwise, as well as gotten lost. They’d had their hands full that week.

Áed realized he’d better brave finding out what the selkie was after. When the master was safe asleep, and the fenodree was out cutting hay for the beasts, Áed went down to the wide and wasteful ocean. It was, as the sea always was, hungry. It frightened him, but unlike the great ones in the hollow hills, for Áed the sea itself was not accursed and deadly. He could cross it by boat or plane, or even fly above it himself, quite cheerfully.

The selkie must have been watching, because she came. But the fenodree was right: when Áed backed off she would not follow him onto the dune. Well, he’d seen the powers of the land here. “What do you want?” he asked in his own tongue, as she crooned. He felt her drawing spell, but it had little effect on him. That, too, was good to know. This place must protect him too.

“I want the key, little one.”

“What key?” Áed asked, warily, knowing a little, but fishing to find out as much as he could.

“The key to the door into the hollow hill, where King Finvarra feasts with his host,” she answered.

“And what would that be doing here?” asked Áed, doing his best at innocence. Such a precious thing would not be given to mortals, but only those of the blood.

The selkie looked at him and put on the appearance of a teacher. Such things amused the seal-people. “It was given, as such always are, to the royal halfling child which was put out as a changeling to live among humans, so he can return to the hollow hills when he is grown. Only this child did not return. Neither did the key. It was taken away, beyond the reach of the king. He wants it back.”

Áed knew that the blood of the Aos Sí kings ran in his master. That was why Áed himself had been drawn from the hollow hill, to the boy. The master had been a boy then, and not a man, as the people of the hollow hills and old country called being of age. Humans and indeed the Aos Sí were of age when they could father children, not before. It had only been when the master had begun to change from a boy to a man that he had become Áed’s master.

The Aos Sí lords and kings got bored sometimes, and mixed with mortal men…or rather, with the women, with inevitable results: children.

The hollow hills were not good for those children of mixed blood though. They seemed to need sunlight. Áed liked sunlight himself. The half-bloods were exchanged for human babes, and fostered in human homes. When they came of age…they came home. The human children stayed among the Aos Sí, and did not return to the sunlight. They died in the hollow hills.

Humans lived such short lives, in exchange for souls.

Áed had never heard of a changeling who had not gone back. Sometimes they left children of their own behind, under the sun. The green land of Ireland was full of such traces of Aos Sí. Áed knew that others of his kind were sometimes drawn to such, until they were banished again.

The selkie spoke again. “King Finvarra wants his key. He wants it back with or without the one whose birthright it is. It has passed through too many generations unclaimed. It should never have left the old country. I have searched for a long time to find it again.”

“Then why don’t you collect it and be on your way?” asked Áed, knowing the answer was important, and suspecting that he knew the answer already, but wanting it confirmed.

The selkie smiled, a nasty smile, all teeth and no humor. “This place. The land. It binds, little one. It will bind you too. If I leave the ocean, it would bind me. I don’t want to age and die, trapped here. So bring it to me. Bring me the key, and I will free you too. I do not wish to do you, or your master, ill. I just want the key. But if I don’t get it, I will hurt him. Kill him, if need be.”

She was lying. Only the master could send Áed away, and that would be in disgrace and back to the hollow hills, rather than freedom. “You will have to fetch it yourself. Or ask my master. It is his birthright.”

The selkie had tried to splash him. That was pure spite, Áed knew. So were the names she called him as he left her sitting in the salt water.

* * *

For Tim the week came to a final low on Friday night. He was tired. Well, he had been tired every night, but he’d been coping pretty well, he thought. But then the phone rang.

His grandmother answered it. “Yes,” she said. “Yer can talk to him.”

Hearing his mother’s voice on the phone tore Tim up inside. In the background he could hear the sound of traffic. The sounds of Melbourne. “When can I come home? Please?”

There was a long silence down the phone. A sigh. “I shouldn’t have called. My friend Melanie said to let you have a month just to settle. Look, you’re not coming back to Melbourne for now, Tim. I…I just called to let you know the police were here today. They’re investigating a case of arson at that store. I had to tell them where you were. Someone may want to talk to you.”

“I didn’t do anything. I want to come home!”

“You can’t. Look, it’s for your own good, Tim. You’re there to keep you away from…from that stuff.”

“I told you I didn’t. I didn’t, I didn’t! I need to come home. I hate it here!”

 

The Seer – Snippet 67

The Seer – Snippet 67

Clearly Innel was arranging these. It was the next step after fear, testing, and only mildly insulting.

In truth she was barely annoyed. He was paying her astonishingly well to eat magnificently, bathe often, and keep track of a few people.

And there was the library. Truly as astonishing a collection as Gallelon had promised.

One day as Maris had come into the book-filled rooms she found an elderly woman there, dressed in the gray and brown of House Nital. Yliae was her name, and she was warm and well-spoken, engaging Maris in a fascinating discussion of the architecture of stone bridges and the challenges of harvesting amardide forests. Hours slipped pleasantly by.

The following week a man in Helata’s green and blue proved eager to talk with her about the various ships on which she’d sailed. He was happy to tell her stories of the far side of Arapur, which he had been to and she had not yet. More hours slipped by.

Gallelon was right. Some of the cleverest of the Iliban.

Of course Innel was arranging these visits. But she could hardly complain when week after week, she was kept engaged, engrossed, delighted.

One day Yliae offered to take Maris into the city by carriage to hunt rare books from small, private collections. Now Maris had begun to amass another small set of tomes, one that would be hard to transport when she left. It was a pleasant problem to have. Innel was working hard to keep her happy.

“Surely the old king had mages of his own,” she said to Innel.

His eyes flickered, ever so slightly. “If he did, he has them no longer.”

Maris had come across the old king as she had explored the palace. He lay in his bed, sick with something in his blood that should not be there. Something that, with some effort, she might be able to clean. “I could look in on him.”

Innel shook his head. “The queen wouldn’t allow it. And rightly so; if he gets better under your care, they’ll say you had no part in it, but if he gets worse, they’ll blame you.” He smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid Arunkin have a ways to go to accept your kind.”

“I don’t need to be in the room,” she said, suspecting he knew this. “Simply nearby. No one need ever know.”

“No,” he said firmly. “That is not where I want your attention.”

It was obvious that Innel knew perfectly well what was causing the old king’s illness. Whether it was Innel or the queen or someone else feeding Restarn something to keep him sick didn’t matter; Innel did not want him to get better.

So be it. Not her concern.

But Innel was watching her keenly now.

Very well; he was paying her enough to have earned a bit of reassurance.

“The great halls are full of spiders, best left to do their work without interference,” she said, borrowing a saying from Perripur. Innel’s eyes narrowed slightly. He knew the saying, knew what it meant. Knew what she suspected.

“In Arunkel we honor spiders,” he said. “They ensure appropriate behavior from lesser insects.” By eating them, he meant. “You are wise, Marisel.”

Wise enough to know who provided her with sumptuous meals, insightful conversation, and a library that rivaled any she had ever seen before.

Thus reassured, Innel unrolled the black silk, revealing a pale blue and white seashell, a strip of blue cloth, and a few strands of brown hair.

Maris put her fingertips on the shell, sorting out her impressions, separating out the taste of human presence from the vast backdrop that was the shell’s many years prior in the ocean. She subtracted out the most recent and fleeting touches of whoever delivered these items to Innel. Few others had touched the shell since it had been parted from the great salt seas, so this did not take long. She let the impressions settle inside her, like tea leaves falling into patterns at the bottom of a cup. It was important not to rush, a lesson that Keyretura had drilled into her repeatedly.

One strong presence remained. An odd mix of terror and assurance and grief. “She is young,” Maris said. “Still a child. There is the taste of knowing about her that most do not have so early in life. Is this the one you seek?”

“Yes.” In his voice she heard the force of desire and a touch of surprise.

Well, that was unavoidable. Half her work to the wealthy was proving herself.

“Is there more?” he asked.

“Often tired. Hungry. Afraid. Cold.”

“When?”

“I can’t tell. Across many years.”

“And the cloth and hairs?”

Maris shook her head. “They tell me nothing.” Some parts of the body could say a great deal about the spirit who lived in them. A bone, even a bit of flesh. Maris saw no reason to tell him that.

“Can you find her?”

Maris focused on the man before her. “If she is where I happen to be looking, I will know her. But to find her in the world at large is another matter. You would do better to have your many informants search for her.”

“I am already doing that. I want you to search for her as well.”

“Perhaps you don’t understand my meaning. I would need to search tile by tile through the palace. Each brick of each building. Every step along the Great Road.”

“I understand. Start in Yarpin and expand outward. I don’t believe she is in-city, but she might be. I need to be sure.”

She looked at him in astonishment. “You cannot be serious. That could take a very long time.”

“How long?”

“Years. Decades. Centuries. I don’t know.”

He nodded, stood. “Then best you begin soon.”

“Finding her this way is impossible, Lord Commander. That’s certain.”

“It’s only impossible until someone does it. All I ask is that you try, Marisel.”

#

Maris walked the halls, tasting those in every room she passed, searching for the girl. She suspected it would be faster to knock on doors and ask if she were there, but she doubted Innel would appreciate such a direct approach.

It occurred to Maris to wonder if this were another test. But no; there was an intensity and urgency about Innel’s tone.

An absurd way to search, but so be it; as long as she took Innel’s coin and enjoyed the palace’s extravagances, she would uphold her end of the contract.

So she strolled along polished wood floors, trailed her fingers along painted walls, and sent bits of herself into each room, questing for the one taste that would match the owner of the shell. Despite not wearing the black robes, she gathered curious stares.

Not her problem. Innel could explain her as he wished. After enough hours, she would tire, and return to the library.

Weeks passed this way. She did not find the girl in the palace. But she found other interesting people.

Like the old king, whom she looked in on despite Innel’s objection. She dipped into his body as he lay there in the bed, sweating and coughing, then into the body of the slave who slept in his room, and the doctor who came to treat him. A taste of what the doctor brought to him told Maris that this was the source of his illness.

That did not surprise her. What did surprised her was that every time the doctor rubbed the ointment into his gums, right before she did, the old king’s body tightened and his heart sped.

He knew.

She thought of telling Innel but decided that it was best to stay out of the matter. He had made clear he didn’t want her attention on the old king.

So be it.

#

Maris knew she would eventually need to take her search outside to the palace grounds, then into the city at large, but as the weather turned cold and wet, she found herself far more interested in staying warm and dry inside.

So instead she took the search deeper, into kitchen corners, back rooms, servant dormitories, underground storage areas, tunnels that led to garrison and dungeon. She touched on each person, passing quickly over the ones she already knew, telling herself that she was being thorough, that the girl might have somehow slipped into the palace while she wasn’t looking. It was a weak justification.

The truth was that she had grown accustomed to being around those who were not suffering and in need. She delayed through autumn as the land slid into dark winter. With rains and then snows outside, she wandered the now-familiar palace halls, delving into basements, toilet rooms, deep closets. The deep, sealed tunnels. The spaces above and between floors.

Which was how she had come across a man and a woman sitting together a small cellar room disguised as root storage on one side and a closet on the other. She knew them: the older woman was the minister of finance, the young man an administrator.

Both were afraid. Very afraid.

Usually she did not listen in on such things, wanting to stay as far from Arun politics as Innel’s coin would allow, but she was intrigued to find people where they should not be, where no room was supposed to be, and in such a state of agitation. She moved her consciousness fully into the room, curling bits of air on itself to give herself the equivalent of ears inside.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 04

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 04

CHAPTER 2

Xenos on Cinnabar

Adele would rather have been in her library with the door shut, but today she was a hostess. Lady Mundy therefore stood on the steps of Chatsworth Minor where she could be seen.

A rigger named Chabat lurched out of the scrum at the nearest refreshment tables. She had a mug of ale in one hand and the other arm around a civilian youth who would probably look better after a few more drinks.

“Hey, Mistress!” Chabat called. “Anything I can bring you? So you don’t get your dress mussed, you know?”

“Thank you, Chabat,” Adele said. She waved, since she wasn’t sure the rigger could hear her even though she was — by her standards — shouting. “I’m all right.”

Chabat turned away. The young man seemed bored but willing.

Even better than being in her own room would be to be transported to the Academic Collections and her carrel on the top floor of the Old Stacks. Nobody came there.…

Deirdre approached, escorted by a much more impressive man — but also a professional. The blue of her dress complemented her reddish hair. Like Daniel she fought a tendency to plumpness; which was odd, Adele realized, because Corder Leary was a lean, craggy man and considerably taller than his children as well.

“I hope my brother doesn’t do this again for a long while,” she said. “I’ve merged three trading houses with less effort.”

She climbed the three steps to stand beside Adele. Tovera moved to the sidewalk to make more room.

A group of people — three couples, none of the six familiar to Adele — came out of the building and moved past, talking brightly without apparently listening to one another. Spirits were available on the ground floor for those who chose to ask, and these folk had clearly been sampling them.

“I was surprised when Daniel asked that only beer be served in the open and that he’d direct his spacers not to go into the houses,” Deirdre said. “Don’t spacers drink?”

“RCN ships use ninety percent ethanol as a working fluid in the Power Rooms,” Adele said, allowing herself another slight smile. “It’s ethanol because the crews are going to drink it anyway, so it may as well be a poison to which the human species has acquired a degree of resistance.”

“But?” said Deirdre.

“Mixing drunken spacers with drunken civilians is a separate problem,” Adele said. “As a matter of loyalty I would bet on the RCN, of course; but it wasn’t the sort of entertainment Daniel wanted for his wedding. His only wedding, I hope and believe.”

A young man approached but waited politely on the sidewalk until Adele noticed him and met his eyes. He moved to the bottom of the steps, nodded to Tovera and then to Deirdre, and said, “Lady Mundy? A friend said she hopes to talk with you today if you have a moment.”

“Ah?” Adele said, glancing at Deirdre.

Deirdre gestured her toward the messenger and said, “By all means. I’m sure I’ll manage to occupy myself.”

“You’re to guide me?” Adele said as she joined the young man.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, turning toward the head of the close. Adele didn’t know his name but she had seen him working as the doorman of Oriel House, the Sand residence. He had been a very good doorman, but she doubted that he considered that his primary occupation.

Behind them two men and a very mannish woman converged on Deirdre. Lady Mundy’s presence had kept others at a distance, but as soon as Daniel’s sister was free they moved in with their Very Important Questions. Presumably Deirdre really liked that sort of environment or she would live a different life, but Adele found the fact hard to fathom.

Aloud to her guide, she said, “Deirdre probably wouldn’t be happy researching pre-Hiatus texts.”

“Probably not,” he said equably. “But judging from Mistress Leary’s performance in other lines, I expect she would be good at it.”

He gestured toward the steps of middle house of the three on the right of the close. The entrance was on the side rather than facing the street. A young civilian — another of the “servants” at Oriel House — and Midshipman (Passed Lieutenant) Cazelet stood on opposite sides of the doorway.

The civilian — if he was one — bowed to Adele, and Cazelet drew himself to attention with a grin. He was the grandson of Adele’s mentor and protector when she arrived on Bryce as an orphan, though she didn’t realize her status until the news from Cinnabar arrived by the next ship. Cazelet’s parents had incurred the wrath — or possibly just the greed — of Guarantor Porra, which was as fatal a condition as plotting against a government led by Speaker Leary.

Adele had gained a protégé, and the RCN had gained a very useful junior officer.

“I’ll leave you on your own, your ladyship,” Adele’s guide said. “She’s waiting on the top floor.” He bowed and was gone into the crowd.

Cazelet pulled open the door to the house for Adele. “Good to see you, ma’am,” he said.

She nodded. If Cazelet had a fault as an officer, it was that his training had come from working his way up in the family shipping business. He treated Adele with the respect he owed a skilled colleague, not as a person of a particular rank in the RCN. Since Adele was of a similar mindset, they meshed well.

There were a number of people sitting in the entrance hall, including two RCN officers in their Whites who were drinking spirits and talking to the much younger women seated to either side of them. Bottles clinked down the hall to the right, and voices came from the drawing room directly ahead.

A plush rope closed the staircase beside the hall, but the servant waiting there unhooked it when Adele entered. She didn’t recognize him, but he was cut from the same polite, well-born cloth as her guide and the man outside with Cazelet. When she and Tovera had started up the stairs, the servant dropped the loop back over the newel post behind them.

This house was three floors rather than the four of Chatsworth Minor, though there may have been a windowless garret under the high peak. Adele rather liked climbing stairs. They reminded her of her youth in the Old Stacks when she had no responsibilities except to learn, and — because warships had companionways rather than elevators — of the Princess Cecile where for the first time in her life she was part of a family.

Another servant, a trim young woman this time instead of an athletic young man, stood by the closed door to the left of the stairhead. She bowed to Adele and walked down the hall into an open room.

“I’ll go chat with her,” Tovera said, nodding after the servant. “Maybe we have friends in common.”

“All right,” said Adele. She tapped on the closed door.

Tovera was not a spy. She had been trained by the 5th Bureau as a bodyguard and killer, support staff for the spy she had accompanied to Kostroma. When her previous principal died, she had attached herself to Adele.

This wasn’t a change in allegiance: Tovera had been a tool of the Alliance when she worked for the 5th Bureau, and she was a tool of Adele Mundy now. She had no more patriotism than the pistol in Adele’s tunic pocket, and she was just as willing to kill whoever Adele pointed her at.

Tovera did have a degree of self-preservation, though; she had become Adele’s retainer because she saw a familiar ruthlessness in Adele. Adele would supply the direction which would keep Tovera within social norms: an external conscience for a killer with no conscience of her own.

Adele’s smile was cold. She had a perfectly good conscience, one which regularly awakened her in the small hours of darkness with a parade of faces she had last seen over her pistol sights as her trigger finger took up the final pressure. Tovera’s character flaw allowed her to sleep soundly.

“Come in and sit down,” called a familiar voice.

Adele entered what had probably been meant as a servant’s room. The original furnishings had been replaced with a table, two straight chairs, and a side table with a decanter, siphon, and glasses. Mistress Sand was in the chair across the table from the door; a half full glass sat on the table in front of her.

“I ought to get up,” Sand said with a lopsided smile, but she made no attempt to move. “Will you have one yourself?”

If I drink, she’ll drink with me, Adele thought. And she really doesn’t need more.

“I’ll have a short one,” she said aloud and sat down. I’m not responsible for Mistress Sand’s private life. “I saw your husband earlier to nod to, but I wasn’t surprised to see him — either of you — at Daniel’s wedding.”

Mistress Sand took a second glass and poured into it a more than the two fingers which Adele had meant by a short one. “If this hadn’t come up,” she said, “I would’ve arranged to see you anyway. Just to talk.”