Eric Flint's Blog, page 232

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 12

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 12

CHAPTER 5

Back when I was on the police force, first working in Narcotics, and then later in Homicide, Jacinto Amaya was the Holy Grail. There was no one Kona and I were as eager to bust. And there was no one who frustrated us more.

As the most notorious drug kingpin in the American Southwest, Amaya bore responsibility, either directly or indirectly, for the trafficking of pot, cocaine, heroin, peyote, LSD, crack, MDMA, roofies, and just about every other illegal drug I could name. All the evidence we could find suggested that he had a financial stake in prostitution, illegal gambling, and human trafficking, and that he’d had a hand in literally dozens of murders, including more than twenty committed right here in Phoenix.

The problem was, we’d never been able to prove any of this. He was smart, ruthless, cunning, and willing to use his wealth, his power, and the threat of violence to get his way. Kona and I were convinced that he had moles in the police departments of Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, San Diego, and at least a dozen smaller cities. And he had developed close friendships with some of the most powerful politicians in the country. That was how he stayed out of jail. Or so I had thought.

He and I finally met in person during the summer, and upon entering his home and seeing the way magic blurred his handsome features, I realized that he was also a powerful weremyste.

He had sought me out not only to hire me, but also to enlist me as a potential ally in his own personal war against Phoenix’s weremancers. I soon learned that he had as much contempt for dark magic and its practitioners as did Namid. At first I was surprised by this. I had thought that a man like Amaya, who lived his entire adult life outside the law, would have been drawn to the darker side of runecrafting. But as he explained to me, with a candor that was oddly refreshing, dark conjurers needed blood for their spells, and they tended to prey on the young, the disadvantaged and disaffected: the same people who fueled his drug sales, and who kept his prostitution businesses going. He didn’t want the competition, and he didn’t want to lose his clientele to blood sacrifices. Hardly admirable, I know. But he was sincere in his desire to defeat Saorla and the weremancers working with her, and at the time I was short on allies. I had some sense now of how Roosevelt and Churchill felt when they agreed to fight alongside Stalin.

If our association had ended there, I would have chalked up the interaction to experience and gladly moved on. But it didn’t. After our fight with Saorla and the others out in Wofford, which left my father’s trailer in shambles and most of his possessions ruined, Amaya offered me $10,000.00. He presented the check as an expression of his friendship and made clear that to reject either one would be a grave misstep, pun fully intended. I had no choice but to take the money. He swore that it was a gift, one that came with no strings attached. He wanted to help with the repairs on Dad’s trailer, and he wanted to thank me for work well done. But I knew better and so did he. He had meant that ten grand to serve as a sort of permanent retainer, and he was calling now because he had something he wanted me to do.

It occurred to me that Amaya still waited for me to say something and to offer him assurances that I wasn’t as horrified to hear from him as, in truth, I was.

“I wasn’t expecting your call,” I made myself say, knowing how ridiculous I sounded. I glanced at Billie. “I’m . . . I’m with a friend right now and –”

“Ah, of course,” Amaya broke in. “How is Miss Castle?”

I hated it when he did that. It was bad enough that he knew how to contact me and that he and his men had been to my home and to my father’s trailer. But every time he mentioned Billie’s name, reminding me in no uncertain terms that he knew everything about my personal life, it felt like he had aimed a nine millimeter pistol at her heart. Too many of my magical enemies were using my love of Billie as a weapon; it was starting to piss me off.

“That’s none of your damn business,” I said, none too wisely.

“Careful, Jay,” he said, his voice silken. “No one speaks to me that way. Besides, you were the one who brought her up.”

“I assume you have business you wish to discuss with me, sir.”

I could imagine him smiling at my attempt to change the subject. “More than that. I have a client for you. Be at my home in forty-five minutes.”

He hung up before I could make an excuse or tell him to go to hell. I stared at my phone for a few seconds before snapping it shut and shoving it back into my pocket.

“Who was that?” Billie asked.

No secrets. Sometimes lying to her would have been so much easier.

“Jacinto Amaya. Apparently he has a client for me, and he wants me to meet this person tonight.”

“Your job really sucks, Fearsson.”

My laugh was as dry as dust. “So you’ve told me.”

“What isn’t his business?” she asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“You kind of snapped at him, which, given that it was Amaya, probably wasn’t such a great idea.”

“Right. He asked how you were doing.”

She blinked, sat back in her chair. “Great. Why are all of your friends so interested in me?”

“You mean Amaya and Saorla?”

“I’m using the word ‘friends’ loosely.”

“I’ll say.” I lifted a shoulder. “They’re trying to find ways to get at me, to control me. And they know I’m in love with you.” I said it without thinking, without hesitating. I didn’t consider exactly what I’d said until I saw the warm blush seep back into her cheeks.

We had yet to declare our love for each other. It had been there for a while now, smoldering beneath the surface. But until this moment, neither of us had spoken the words. I guess I owed Amaya a thank you.

“You’re in love with me?” she said.

“Does that surprise you?”

She shook her head. “You know I’m in love with you, too, right?”

For all my talk of how she would be safer without me, hearing those words made my heart do a little Snoopy dance. Yeah, I was totally hooked on her.

“I do now,” I said, taking her hand again.

Her smile promised a very nice end to our evening together. Unfortunately, I had an appointment at Jacinto Amaya’s house.

“I have to go.”

She canted her head to the side. “I don’t suppose you can call Amaya back and tell him to go screw himself, can you?”

“Not really, no. But I’ll be back.”

The smile deepened. “Good.”

I stood and began to clear the table. “In the meantime, don’t you dare do any of these dishes. That was an amazing dinner, and you have the rest of the evening off.”

She followed me into the kitchen, carrying plates as well, and when we both had set them on the counter, she stepped close to me, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me, her body leaning into mine, her back arching.

“What was that for?” I asked when we came up for air.

She kept her eyes closed. “To make sure you’re coming back later.”

She kissed me again.

“I think that should do the trick,” I whispered, my breath stirring her hair. “But if I don’t leave now, I’m not going to leave at all.”

I pulled away before she could kiss me a third time. She blew a raspberry at me. I strapped on my shoulder holster, knowing that Billie was watching me, trying not to look her way. She didn’t like any sort of firearm, and she really didn’t like that, working as a PI, I had no choice but to carry one. When the holster was in place, I grabbed my bomber from the chair, gave her a wink, and headed out to my car. I almost doubled back to tell her to lock her door, but I didn’t. This was a safe neighborhood; the only threat to her came from weremystes and beings like Saorla, none of whom would be stopped by a door lock. Besides, she didn’t need me scaring her by being overprotective.

Even at night, without traffic, the drive from Billie’s place in Tempe to Amaya’s mansion in the Ocotillo Winds Estates subdivision of North Scottsdale normally took close to half an hour. Amaya had given me barely enough time to say my goodbyes and get to his house; for all I knew, he had calculated the time and distance using an online map.

Ocotillo Winds was a gated community filled with new Spanish Mission-style homes, all of them huge, all of them protected by adobe walls and wrought-iron gates. Amaya’s house sat at the end of a short cul-de-sac. It might have been larger than the houses flanking it, but not by much. On the other hand, the walls surrounding the property were thicker, the paired gates blocking the driveway appeared sturdier. A guardhouse stood beside the gates and security guards armed with modified MP5s patrolled the driveway itself.

The first few times I’d come to the mansion, including one time after the explosion at Solana’s when I arrived unannounced and angry, the guards had been a bit rough with me. But I’d been to the house enough times now that they recognized the car and greeted me like an old friend.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 03

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 03

Adele looked up again, frowning; she’d been searching to learn the Smiths’ relation to the bridal couple, not from any need but rather for her usual reason: she liked to learn things. Miriam hadn’t seated herself. She looked stern and very possibly angry, which was puzzling.

“It’s none of my business where you ride, Miriam,” Adele said. They had been on a first name basis in the past, Adele far preferred to remain informal with Daniel’s mother-in-law. “It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder.”

Adele’s mouth twitched in the vague direction of a smile. She suddenly realized that if she had been watching imagery of this scene, she would find it interesting. She needed an interface between herself and information before it really touched her.

Miriam looked puzzled, as Adele had found people often did when she answered their questions. In order to ease the situation further, she said, “I was glad that you requested that the Smiths leave. I haven’t found any connection between them and Daniel yet. I suppose you would know if they were friends of your family?”

“What?” said Miriam. The tram jounced between connectors hard enough to rattle the suspension against the overhead railing. She grabbed a support pole, then lowered herself onto the seat across from Adele.

“Oh, Ethyl Smith was an admiral’s widow before she remarried,” Miriam resumed. “Quite full of herself when she was Mistress Admiral Colfax. I suppose Daniel might have served under him at some point. If so, I sympathize. Timothy did, and it wasn’t a happy posting.”

“Daniel did not serve under Admiral Colfax,” Adele said with satisfaction. She shrank the holographic display of the data unit and transferred both control wands to her right hand, then looked Miriam directly in the face. “What was it you wanted to discuss, Miriam?”

“Oh,” the older woman said. She swallowed. “What I was going to say is that Daniel, that Captain Leary, has been very supportive of, well, his friendship for you. He’s having the initial ceremony here in Xenos. He’s even taking his bride to the Mundy townhouse, your house, ah, Adele. Instead of at the Leary estate, Bantry.”

“Yes,” said Adele. She didn’t add, “Of course,” because she found that just as silly as stating the obvious in the first place. Miriam Dorst wasn’t stupid, so there would be a point coming sometime.

“Well, why then did you refuse my daughter’s request that you be her maid of honor?” Miriam said. She grimaced and said, “Are you angry because Miranda married your friend?”

Adele started to bring the data unit’s display up again. There was nothing she wanted to check on it, but it would be a normal thing for her to do. When faced with an absurd situation, she very much wanted to return to normalcy.

Retreating into the data unit would be a better choice than drawing the pistol in the pocket of her tunic, the other tool that experience sent her to when reality seemed to be coming apart. Nonetheless, the best choice was the usual one, to answer the question calmly — and to be ready to deal with whatever the reaction might be.

“No,” Adele said aloud. “I’m pleased that Daniel is marrying someone whom I like and respect, unlike the bubbleheads whom he favored before he met Miranda. Though if he had married a bubblehead or a dozen bubbleheads, it wouldn’t have been either my business or a matter of concern to me.”

“Why, then?” Miriam said. She was gripping her own hands fiercely; her knuckles were white as her fingers writhed together. “Why did you refuse to be Miranda’s maid of honor?”

“I didn’t have any feelings about the matter,” Adele said. “I thought it would be more politic for Miranda to involve Daniel’s sister. I believe Deirdre thinks well of your daughter, but the honor would mean something to her.”

Tovera was smiling from a third corner as she watched them. I’m glad somebody’s finding this funny, Adele thought; but Tovera’s expression wasn’t necessarily connected with humor.

Miriam sagged. “I’m sorry,” she muttered to her hands. “Miranda said that you weren’t insulting her, but…I feel very foolish now.”

You should, Adele thought. It was as though Miriam had told her she believed Adele dined on murdered children.

“Miranda has had more opportunity to get to know me,” she said aloud. “In another instance” — which I sincerely hope will never occur — “you might reasonably be guided by her judgment.”

The older woman straightened in her seat. “Well…” she said. Then, more briskly, “Well. I’m very glad we had a chance to talk. I feel much better now. I was very much afraid that you felt that Miranda was your enemy and, well, you’re Captain Leary’s closest friend. That would have been terrible.”

“Yes,” Adele said, rising to her feet. She slipped her personal data unit away in the cargo pocket in the right thigh of this dress suit. She had a similar pocket in every pair of trousers she owned. “That would have been terrible.”

It would also have been terrible if a giant invisible asteroid struck Xenos. To Adele the one seemed as likely as the other, but she had learned long ago that her world view differed from that of most people.

The car slowed as it neared their stop. Adele had wondered whether the crowd would overflow onto the tram line, but Deirdre had planned for that with a human barrier which —

“Those people are wearing liberty suits,” Miriam said, peering through the forward window. “They’re RCN?”

“Yes,” said Adele. “Instead of hiring civilians to control the crowd, Deirdre — ” or possibly Daniel himself ” — seems to be using spacers. I hope they’re not carrying batons.” Or wrenches and mallets.

“The people who’re most likely to get pushy are other spacers,” Tovera said. “They’re not going to complain about getting their heads thumped at a party. They’re used to it.”

As Miriam had said, the spacers were in liberty suits: RCN utilities tricked out with ribbons and patches commemorating every landfall the spacers had made and every ship they’d served aboard. Senior personnel wore rigs whose mottled gray base fabric was almost completely hidden.

Woetjans was in charge. She had been Daniel’s bosun from before he captured his first command, the Princess Cecile. Well over six feet tall and strong even for her size, Woetjans was the perfect person for the job, but she could have been among the wedding witnesses in the temple had she wished. This was what she preferred. Pasternak, the Chief Engineer, and two bosun’s mates had helped Cory advise the civilian ushers at the temple.

The tram’s door opened automatically when it stopped. Adele gestured Miriam out and followed with Tovera. The joyous roar echoed from the building fronts, amazingly loud. The transit computer shunted their car out of the way to make room for the vehicles following.

“Miranda has married a great man,” Miriam said. She was looking back, so that Adele as much read the words on her lips as heard them over the cheering. “I only hope he is also the husband who suits her.”

Adele nodded. “Yes, I hope that too,” she said. It didn’t really matter to her, of course: Daniel was her friend regardless of his private life. He would be happier if his marriage went well, and Adele genuinely did like Miranda.

She stood facing the close, viewing the sea of faces past the wall of gorgeously beribboned spacers. She had seen similar scenes from the window of her bedroom when she was a child and her father was addressing an election rally of Popular Party supporters from his fourth-floor balcony. That had been the same sound, the same mass of people so enthusiastic that they seemed to blend into a single organism.

Those cheers had ended a matter of days after sixteen-year-old Adele left Cinnabar to continue her studies at the Academic Collections on Bryce, a member world of the Alliance of Free Stars. The Speaker of the Senate, Corder Leary, had accused Lucas Mundy and his closest supporters of plotting against the Republic. He had moved quickly to crush the conspiracy by summary executions and the confiscation of property.

Now the close below Chatsworth Minor was rocking with similar enthusiasm for Speaker Leary’s son, Daniel, and his new bride.

Adele turned to face the tram which immediately followed her own. She smiled as the bride and groom got out to redoubled cheers.

I don’t believe in omens, she thought.

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 12

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 12

“Hmm. I’ll take you out sometime. We’ll go and catch a few flathead. It’s a part of your heritage. I reckon you’ll see enough of the beach here. You can get down to Marshall Bay from Mary Ryan’s place. There’s a track through the scrub.”

They’d arrived at the old gate. “I can walk from here. Really. It’s not far.”

“Hop out and open it. It’ll be easier for me to turn around down at the house, if I remember it right. I came down with my uncle Giles when I was about your age to go netting off the beach.”

So Tim did as he was told. Letting the ute and the boat go past before he closed the gate, Tim got a really good look at the boat on the trailer for the first time. It was obviously rugged and cool looking, metal underneath, with long, sleek blown-up pontoons on the sides.

They bumped down to the farmhouse. “Stock looks in fair shape,” said McKay, sounding faintly surprised. “I don’t suppose you know much about sheep or cattle either.”

“No. I have to milk a cow this afternoon,” said Tim.

That got a snort of laughter. “You’re going to have some fun out here, youngster.”

Tim hadn’t quite thought of it as “fun.” They arrived at the house, and his grandmother was striding towards them, garden fork under one arm. McKay got out of the ute. “Mrs. Ryan. I’m Jon McKay. You probably don’t remember me, but I used to come along with my Uncle Giles to net garfish about, oh, fifteen years back.”

Something about the way the old woman walked changed. That might almost have been a smile on that severe face of hers. “You want to net some more fish?”

“No, I’m diving abalone these days. I just brought your boy home. I was stuck at the side of the road and he gave me a hand to fix the ute.”

“Ah. Not in trouble, is he?”

“No. He was a real help,” said McKay. “I said I’d take him to catch some flathead someday.”

“I haven’t had a good feed of flathead for a while,” said Tim’s grandmother. “If he’ll go, he can.”

“If we have some decent weather on the weekend, I’ll take him. He’s got some adventures ahead of him. I hear he’s learning to milk a cow this afternoon. And he says he’s never been to the beach or the sea.”

His grandmother snorted. “That’s the trouble with city people. They can’t do much.”

“Yes,” said McKay cheerfully. “I came from Lonnie for holidays. Best time of my life was learning stuff from Uncle Giles. Anyway, I have to get these fish packed and down to the airport, and my deckie has taken off again. Would you like a few abalone for your tea, Mrs. Ryan?”

That was almost definitely a smile. “That’d be good. Yer want some spuds?” asked Tim’s gran.

McKay nodded. “Please, if you can spare some. Mine aren’t doing as well as yours. I’ve got a place up towards Boat Harbour. The soil is pretty sandy.”

“This was too, but it’s had fifty years of manure in it. Here, Tim, run and get a carrier bag from behind the door in the kitchen, and you can take the fork and dig up some potatoes.”

Tim fetched the bag, was handed the fork — his grandmother and McKay having walked over to the vegetable garden, talking — and realized he had a problem. There were a lot of plants there. None of them had a sign on them that said “potatoes.”

* * *

Áed could see the fenodree, lurking among the broad beans, scowling. The woman of the place might regard this as her domain, but the fenodree regarded it as his. If he took offense, well, he could do mischief. Or worse, he could just lope off. Áed realized the little one did a lot of the farm work, and enjoyed it. “He’s still young. Like a new puppy. You will have to teach him.”

The fenodree blinked. “You teach him. The potatoes are nearly ready, but he’s about to stick the fork into the asparagus bed.”

Áed leapt and pushed the shaft of the fork, wooden and easy to push, so it swung down away from the thick feathery leaves.

The master looked puzzled, and narrowly missed his own foot.

But at least the fenodree laughed.

* * *

“Put it in the edge of the earthed up bit, that mound,” said McKay. “And then stand on the fork and lean it back. I bet you have never dug spuds before.”

Tim looked down at where he turned the earth up. It was quite loose and easy to lift. He could see the round shapes of potatoes in the dirt, and he reached down his hands to lift them out. The soil was slightly warm around them. It was kind of neat hauling them out. If only they came out as crisps, he could do this all day.

* * *

“The old ones like him,” said Áed, for he and the fenodree could see what the master could not, in the lines of force and strength that ran through this land and crackled with its lightnings into the boy. Ochre patterns that ran all the way to the mountain, had run the length of the land for always and always, still ran down into the water where the sea had tried to eat them away, from times when the land had been much wider.

The fenodree nodded. “We’d better see to the teaching of him. He will be good for this place.”

* * *

Feeling good about digging up potatoes had lasted a few minutes, until McKay took off and Tim found out that digging, and worse, was more or less what the afternoon held for him.

“Where’d yer think yer going?” his grandmother asked as Tim walked toward the house, and McKay and his boat bounced off up the road.

“To put my lunchbox and things away.”

She’d nodded, still not looking at him, but at the space to the right of him. It really felt creepy. “Yes. Put yer old clothes on, and yer’ll find a hat on the stand. We need to turn the compost.”

“I thought I might relax. I, I’ve had a hard day. I might watch some TV, and, and, I’ve got to check Facebook.” Somehow he hoped there might be a message from Hailey. Or something.

His grandmother gave a cackle of laughter. “Yer out of luck. No TV. And I don’t know what this face book thing is, but yer can keep your face out of a book while we’ve got light. This garden is what feeds us, boy.”

Tim swallowed. “You’ve got to have the Internet? I can’t not go online.”

“I’m not sure what line you’re talking about, but you can’t use the phone all the time. I can’t afford it. Yer can write letters.”

Tim felt as if his whole face was going to crumple up. He went in to his room, and plugged the laptop in to charge. He wasn’t going to garden. No way.

Only…it didn’t switch on. It kept starting up and shutting down.

He wanted to scream. And scream.

He could sit and look at the wall. But he wouldn’t bet she would give him any food if he didn’t go and work.

So he changed out of the school clothes, and went out, still angry. It would serve her right if poltergeist stuff happened to her!

Only it didn’t.

 

The Seer – Snippet 66

The Seer – Snippet 66

But beyond the glinting Yarpin palace dwarfed them all, rising beyond the palace walls. At the gates to the palace grounds they were waved through.

What, she wondered again, was she doing here, atop this fine horse, contracted to the very monarchy she abhorred?

It seemed that while Yarpin had not changed, she herself had. When she was done here, she promised herself, she would go home to Perripur.

Of course, memory waited there as well. Perripin faces swam in her mind’s eye, those she had not been able to save, from her parents to friends to countless strangers. The few who had cursed her across the years were bad enough, but worse yet were the many who should have cursed her but who, instead, praised her with their last breath.

Even working for the Arun monarchy was better than that.

#

She was escorted through high-ceilinged halls lined with lavish tapestries depicting mining towns joyously celebrating beside Arun soldiers, or tribes expressing of gratitude for Anandynar rule. History was written by those who owned the looms.

And now those she passed were well-fed and well-dressed. None missed limbs or were ill. She felt an ease come over her, and something like self-loathing followed close behind.

At a room with doors higher than anyone could need, with windows that looked out into the gardens of red tulips, stood the man she had met in the Ill Wind, whom she now knew to be the Royal Consort and Lord Commander.

“Marisel al Perripur,” he said, dismissing the scribes and soldiers who filled the room. “On behalf of my queen, Cern esse Arunkel, welcome to Yarpin palace.”

He was impressive in his uniform, the black collar glinting with royal gold, mixed-metal buttons down the front atop rust-colored amardide fabric. Maris realized that she had not truly met him before. These were his colors, not the nondescript clothes he’d worn at their meeting at the Ill Wind. Had he dressed thus in that meeting, would she have agreed to this contract?

“Please,” he said, inviting her to sit at a table with him.

At the center of the table was a bowl of fruit. She picked out a green lilikoi, grown in southern Perripur, far distant. Such wealth.

“Our gratitude, Marisel, for coming to us here.”

So very polite. With a mage, respect first. Reason later.

She had agreed to this obscene contract, she could say. She regretted it now and would return his money and go, she could say.

Instead she bit into the lilikoi, sucking out the pulp through the hole she’d made with her teeth, as she had when she’d been a child. Tart and sweet, it brought her memories of bright, hot summers full of ease and childhood delights. Before Keyretura. “And so I am here,” she said, hearing the weight in her tone. “What do you want of me?”

“What can you do?”

“I have many skills,” she answered, putting the lilikoi aside to pick out a ripe peach. “Among them arithmetics, high-elevation farming, circular harp, and birthing babies. Shall I give you a complete list?”

It smelled marvelous, the peach.

“We can discuss something else, then. News of Perripur, perhaps?”

This was how one caught an animal in a trap, with bait like the fruit she held in her hand. She frowned, put it back on the table. “Are you so badly in need of company that you must hire a mage to find it?”

His smile froze for a moment. “I meant no insult.”

She waved the apology away. “We’ll both be happier if you simply tell me what it is you want of me.”

“I want to know who is loyal to the new queen.”

“Ah. That is not on the list.”

“No? You can’t tell a lie from the truth?”

“No better than someone with good eyes. No better than someone who knows the person well, that’s certain.”

It often played out this way, explaining the limits of her abilities to those who had such high hopes. The impoverished and destitute, for all their misery, asked for simple things. To ease the pain. To live another day.

“It is said that magic can help find magic.”

“Ah, you want something found?”

“Someone. Can you find a person?”

“In a house, perhaps,” she answered.

“Across the empire?”

“That is another matter. It would be like touching each stone in the Sennant river to find the single one made of iron instead of rock.”

“What if the person is a mage?”

Now she was on alert. To be hired to search for another of your kind was never a good sign.

“A Sensitive can find a mage in a small village if you give him time, but he must still know which village to search. Magic isn’t like a blocked sewer that you can find by stink. More like the wind — you see its effects where it ripples the high grasses or bends back the trees. If a mage has done magic somewhere, I may be able to sense it, like a footprint in mud. The mage may be long gone but I could point at where they once stood.”

“So if I were to tell you where someone was, could you” — he considered — “stop them from performing any magic?”

“You want me to fight another mage?” she asked, feeling her body and senses tighten.

“Perhaps.”

Maris tried to hold her anger in check, then wondered why she bothered. She let it course through her and out her hand, slamming her palm against the peach, breaking it open, the hard pit all that remained between herself and the table. Juice oozed around the squashed fruit. “Don’t you study history in that fine library of yours? When mages fight, everyone dies but the mages. How can you make the same mistakes, generation after generation, then — your cities flattened — bemoan your ill-fortune yet do it again? You are idiots, all of you.”

At least there was this advantage to being a mage: she could insult the powerful and merely be, ever so politely, asked to leave. She stood.

“Marisel –” Innel began, standing also. Apology or rebuke, she didn’t care.

“If you want to set mages against each other, find someone else.”

“Good,” Innel said.

“Good?” She glared up at him. “What’s good about it?”

“This is why I asked you to come. To help me understand. To advise. Stay, and I’ll take what you offer.”

Suddenly she saw that he hadn’t been reluctant to push her at all. He’d been probing her to see what she could and would do. She had missed the obvious. She was rusty at these games.

On edge, being here, she admitted to herself. Too much wealth bought with blood.

She could leave. Give aid to those with real need. The injured, the ill, the pregnant. But no; she could not face it again, not so soon.

And she had taken his coin.

Anger drained into weariness. She wondered if he guessed how much she craved this respite. She exhaled, felt herself become subdued. “So be it.”

He smiled at this, the smile of someone who had scored a point. “Join us for the evening meal, Marisel. The queen is –” a small pause. “wary of mages, but she’ll change her mind once she’s met you. Until then, perhaps a bath? A visit to the library? And…” he picked out another ripe peach, held it out to her.

Trap or no, she wanted the fruit. She took it.

The bath was hot, the scented soap lush with Perripin spices — no accident, that. Even so, she made long and delighted use of the luxury.

The peach tasted marvelous.

#

To her vague disgust, Maris found she had quickly become accustomed to soft beds and splendid food.

And then there was the library.

“Tea, Marisel?”

Innel poured from a cylinder, a stream of pink liquid mingling with steam as it filled a clear glass mug. It was not the spiced, bitter tea Arunkin drank — out of embarrassment for their wealth, went the Perripin joke — but a smoked fruit and bark tea, imported from Perripur, no doubt at some expense. A gesture not lost on her.

“I have some items once owned by the person I am looking for.” On the table between them he put a bundle wrapped in heavy black silk, tied with black cord. He slid it across to her.

She touched it. “You know something about magic, Lord Commander.”

“Less than I might,” he said with a twitch of a smile. “The old king was of the strong opinion that magic brings disaster to all it touches.”

“He was right in that.”

“That seems untrue to me, Marisel. You have prevented a number of disasters these last months.”

At his direction, Maris had been keeping watch on him and the queen and a few others, one of whom was unimportant to palace politics but even so had been attacked five times in five different ways over the months she had been here. The poor man was only a servant, bringing stacks of bedding into the palace from the laundry. Slow attacks, all of them. Plenty of time to warn Innel and have him calmly send soldiers to take care of the matter.

 

The Seer – Snippet 65

The Seer – Snippet 65

Chapter Seventeen

Maris wandered the coast and its many harbor towns, spending some of the money that Innel delivered monthly to her, listening to the news of the approaching coronation. When it arrived in midsummer, festivals unfolded across the land, turning into boisterous and inebriated revelries that Maris knew were mere echoes of the extravaganzas occurring in the capital.

It had been over half a century since a monarch had been crowned. Despite her cynicism Maris found herself caught up in the optimism embedded in the celebrations. She wondered if the queen might bring more than a new face to her coins.

But Maris did not enjoy the festivities for long, making camp in a deserted collection of lightly wooded hills at the edge of a beach, sleeping on the dunes. With the rise and fall of the surf, roar of the waves, scent of brine, and cry of gulls, she could feel the tug of the salt water and had very nearly decided to contract as crew and return to the ocean again.

Of course, she already had a contract. With the crown. For which she had taken coin.

She stayed.

She felt the man riding along the beach toward her before she saw him. Young, trim, clean-shaven, his rust-red and black surcoat hemmed with a messenger’s white. Another horse followed along.

He rode up to her. “Marisel dua mage?”

She nodded affirmation, wondering how long he had been searching the countryside and beaches for her. From the way his throat tightened and his heart sped at her nod, she guessed this was the first time he had met one of her kind. No surprise, his reaction, in this land where a loathing for magic was as common as poverty. Odd, she had always thought, when the Shentarat glass plains in her homeland should have served as a more terrifying reminder. Perhaps rumor was more compelling than evidence.

They were beautiful mounts, the horses. Large and brown, happy and healthy. It cheered Maris to draw herself up onto the saddle of this powerful animal that was well cared for and wanted no more from the day than the chance to run and to eat.

“Nalas,” he answered as they rode north, when she asked his name.

“And you are…?” she asked, prompting for more.

“Confused,” he admitted with a rueful smile. At her look, he continued. “A half-year ago I was honor guard to the princess’s intended. His second, I suppose. Now he’s Lord Commander as well as Royal Consort, and all the other things he takes care of. So am I second? To which? I rather doubt I’m second as consort to the princess — the queen,” he quickly corrected, then shrugged. “Things have been a bit confused since the coronation. Forgive me for the lengthy explanation, High One –”

“Don’t call me that.”

He winced and fell silent. “My apologies,” he said at last.

She nodded, the touch of regret at her sharp words tempered by the realization that this was probably why Innel had sent him, to be charming while escorting a potentially touchy mage to the capital. His manner was easy and kind and she found herself relaxing somewhat. Credit to the Lord Commander for thinking ahead.

Her mood soured when they reached the crowded outskirts of the capital, the crowds thick, a morass of struggles and impulses, of maladies and miseries. She felt them pressing in, their ills palpable.

She reached focus down through her horse’s legs and into the earth, borrowing his animal ease, finding some measure of calm in each hoof step. Solidifying her ethereal shield muffled somewhat the increasing splashes of pain and hunger but did not block them out altogether.

Yarpin’s city gates were twisted wrought iron, stretching upward, cumulating in high, sharp pikes, as if to claim even the sky.

What will Arunkel not eat?

When last she had been here, the Grandmother Queen was a handful of years dead and Restarn had finally produced his heir. These events seemed to spark a frenzy in Restarn who had then set in motion another massive Anandynar expansion. As his armies spread across the land, stomping flat tribes and towns and city-states that had previously thought to rule themselves, Maris had gone deep into the countryside. Inspired by those with the temerity to resist Arun rule, she helped the many who needed her, applying skills she had herself only recently come to own.

She found herself at a village deep in disputed territory and advised them on how to resist the avaricious Arun army, only to watch helplessly as the village elders decided they would instead pay the tribute the new rulers demanded, even though it was obvious it would smash them into poverty and starvation. Her warnings fell on deaf ears; they simply refused to fight.

She moved on, giving what she could, but too many needed too much. She could not help them all.

The ocean of suffering Iliban.

When exhaustion finally drove her into retreat, she went back to Perripur, where unification fever had sparked to flame, the confederated states finally willing to put aside their differences to organize an army to against the encroaching Anandynars. A united Perripur would have been undefeatable.

But it never came to pass. Restarn proved too canny to tangle with his southern neighbor, keeping his forces well north of the border states.

She was bitterly disappointed. A conflict with Arun would have taken Perripin attention from domestic squabbles, put it north, where it belonged. But lacking a credible Anandynar threat, the states were content to stay independent and bickering. As long as Restarn did not cross the border, they would not bother to resist him.

While, above the border line, the Anandynar king simply took what he wanted.

As their two horses passed through the gates, people surged out of their way, and they watched those who watched them. Here Maris’s foreign looks brought curiosity; it was Nalas’s uniform that attracted fearful, suspicious glares. The king’s soldiers — now the queen’s — had not been well-liked. That had not changed.

Was Yarpin, she wondered, truly worse than the other Arun cities, like Munasee or Garaya? Or was she letting the disturbing memory of Keyretura color her assessment?

It was worse, she decided: there was a keenness to Yarpin’s heaviness, as if somehow the avarice of the empire burned hottest here, using the potency of human suffering as fuel, producing a dark smoke of agony that spread outward in all directions.

The actual stench was impressive as well, coming from the sewers and the corners of city walls that served as both trash heaps and scavenger piles.

As they passed, a ragged woman stood to watch, one side of her face intact, the other melted, the monarchy’s sigil branded on her face atop where her other eye used to be.

The king’s justice. The queen’s now, Maris supposed. Before she quite realized it she had sent a bit of herself into the woman’s body. Hunger, injury, pain. What had she expected? She withdrew quickly.

At the edge of an alleyway three men crouched in a circle. One threw dice across the stones, his other hand tight around the arm of a small boy. As the dice came to rest he held up the boy’s arm with a triumphant yell, drawing the terrified child deeper into the alleyway, leaving little doubt as to his fate. A sense of sick despair came to her.

She could make it otherwise. Dismount, follow them into the alley. Take the boy away from him. No one could stop her. But would she be anything more than his new captor? She could imagine the look of horror in his eyes as he realized what she was. To release him again only meant he would be back in someone else’s grasp before long. There was no winning that game.

For a moment a man paced them, hopping along on one leg, hand trailing a brick wall for balance. Then he stopped, shook his cloak off to reveal a wrist stump, which he jerked up and toward them. Nalas looked straight ahead as if he had not seen it, though Maris suspected otherwise. The man wouldn’t have dared the gesture, Maris knew, if not for the messenger’s white that meant they were unlikely to stop. Maris had seen Arun soldiers dismount for milder offenses, and the offender had not even limped away.

What had the man done to lose two limbs? Touched an expensive item in the marketplace, perhaps. Or hopped too slowly out of the way of some aristo out for a ride.

Fingers extended, she reached her focus downward below the stones and dirt and basements under the buildings, deep beneath the layers of human remains and debris, farther past all touch of humankind, taking stability from the earth itself, bringing it back into her body and mind to keep the cacophony at bay.

The more of Yarpin she saw, the better she remembered why she didn’t want to be here. It had not changed much since the last time.

As their mounts ascended the steepening main road, eager to reach home, they passed merchant mansions. The lanes to either side widened. First the Lesser Houses, then the Greater Houses — estates of dual-color splendor, towers reaching high, sigils snapping in the ocean breeze.

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 11

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 11

“For today. Sorry you wound up doing the cooking.”

She shook her head. “It was my turn. You’ve cooked all week.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m all right,” she said. But she wouldn’t meet my gaze.

Billie had recovered from the worst of the injuries she suffered when Saorla blew up our favorite restaurant. The compound fracture of her arm had healed, though she was still going to physical therapy, trying to work back to full mobility. And the symptoms of the concussion had vanished for the most part, though she still had occasional headaches and brief bouts of dizziness. The rest of her bruises and cuts were nothing but a memory. But memories were the hardest part of what remained.

We had both been watching for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, and we’d seen a few. She wasn’t sleeping well. When she did sleep, she had terrible dreams, many of them of the explosion itself. And we hadn’t eaten out since the attack. We’d gotten food to go, but she admitted to me that she felt vulnerable in restaurants. At my urging, she had started talking to a therapist, but she was struggling still.

I was, too, but in a different way. The explosion wasn’t my fault. I knew that. Saorla had used it as a warning, as intimidation. She wanted me to help her kill Namid, and she was willing to resort to threats and torture in order to bend me to her will.

But even knowing this, I blamed myself for Billie’s injuries. If she hadn’t been with me, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Plain and simple. The logic of it was as immutable as anything Namid had ever said to me. I had been selfish. She was funny and smart and beautiful and I wanted her in my life. The problem was, my life was dangerous, and for someone like Billie, who didn’t possess magic, spending time with me could well prove fatal.

I probably should have told her as much and ended our relationship. Doing so would have broken my heart, but it would have been the best thing for her. Problem was, I loved her. Talk about addictions. I’m not sure I could have given up Billie Castle even if someone developed a twelve-step plan for me.

I crossed to where she stood, took the spoon from her hand and rested it on the edge of the pot, and took her in my arms. “How are you feeling?” I asked again.

She answered with a self-conscious smile and put her head on my shoulder. “It’s been a hard day,” she said, her voice low. “There was a loud boom earlier — I don’t know what it was. And then a few minutes later I heard a bunch of sirens as the fire trucks drove by over on Southern. I haven’t been able to do much of anything since. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t read. I didn’t want to leave the house.” She pulled back to look me in the eye. “That’s why I started cooking. It was the only thing I could do with myself. It was either cook, or curl up in a ball and hide under the covers.”

“I’m –”

She held up a hand, silencing me.

I’d made a habit of apologizing for her symptoms, which Billie found annoying and her therapist called inappropriate.

“I was going to say that I’m famished,” I told her, “and whatever you’re making smells great.”

That coaxed a smile. “Liar.”

I kissed her. “Best I could do on the spur of the moment. And whatever you’re making really does smell amazing.”

“I know. Enchilada suizas. They’ll be done soon, so make yourself useful and open a bottle of wine.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We ate a quiet meal: good food, nice white wine, candlelight. Billie didn’t have much to say about her day beyond what she had already told me, and so I wound up describing for her in some detail what I’d seen at the Casa del Oro and then later at the burger place. There had been a time when I tried to hide from her the more distasteful aspects of my job. Not anymore. She wanted to know about all of it, and the truth was, I enjoyed being able to talk about my work without fear of saying too much. We had placed only one condition on these conversations: Unless we agreed explicitly that what I was telling her was fair game for her blog, all that we discussed remained off the record.

Billie had grown quiet when I mentioned Saorla and her minions, but now, after a lengthy silence, she asked, “Why would Saorla keep sending weremystes after you? She’s not allowed to hurt you; Namid is still protecting you, right?”

“She and Namid have an agreement. I don’t know exactly what he’d do to her if she went back on her word, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be gentle in whatever it was.”

“So then why?”

I hesitated. I had done my best to stop keeping secrets from her, but this was one I’d yet to reveal.

“Fearsson?”

“She’s convinced that Namid won’t always be so vigilant, and that eventually she’ll be able to have her revenge. And until then, I guess she likes to remind me that she’s out there and that I shouldn’t get too comfortable.”

I took a sip of my wine, watching her over the rim of my glass, wondering if this would satisfy her.

It didn’t.

“Does Namid know about these attacks?”

Not from me. “I’m not sure how much he knows. He senses a lot of what happens to me.”

“But you haven’t told him.”

I traced a finger along the stem of my glass. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t run to Namid every time some magical kid steals my lunch money.” Which was true, as far as it went. “He’s not supposed to intervene in our world. The only reason he was willing to step in with Saorla was that she has no more right to mess with us than he does. I can’t depend on him. I have to deal with her myself.”

“That’s not very convincing.”

“But it’s the truth.”

“It’s true, but it’s not everything,” she said, eyes flashing in the light of the candle. “And you know it.”

This was the problem with falling in love with someone as smart as Billie. She missed nothing, and she didn’t tolerate bull. More than that, she didn’t like it when I tried to protect her. She regarded me now, her cheeks bright red, but the rest of her face pale, her lips pressed thin.

I tried to hold her gaze, but I couldn’t for more than a few seconds.

“I think Saorla keeps sending her weremancers after me because she wants to make certain I don’t forget about . . . an arrangement that she and I have.”

“An arrangement? What the hell does that mean?”

“She would say that I owe her a boon.”

“A boon,” she repeated. “You mean you owe Saorla a favor of some sort?”

“Yes.”

She glared at me. “I don’t understand. Why would you promise her anything? She’s insane. She tried to kill you!”

“More than once. I was there, remember?”

“Then why –?”

She broke off, her eyes still fixed on me. I saw understanding wash over her. Blood drained from her cheeks and her anger sluiced away, leaving her wide-eyed with fear and guilt.

“You did it for me, didn’t you? That day she came to my hospital room.”

I reached across the table and took her hand. Her fingers were frigid.

Saorla had appeared in Billie’s room in Banner Desert Medical Center only a few days after the explosion at Solana’s Taqueria, and had threatened to kill Billie if I didn’t join her there. I managed to fight the necromancer to a stalemate, but the threat to Billie remained. I begged her to spare Billie’s life, and she agreed, but only after I promised that I would owe her a favor as payment for her mercy. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but at the time I didn’t see any other way to keep Billie safe.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry, or to feel responsible.”

“What will you do?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’ll ask for something benign. Maybe she’ll want me to pick up her dry cleaning or something like that.”

She laughed. “You’re a clown, you know that?”

“So you’ve told me.”

“Seriously, Fearsson, what are you going to do when Saorla calls in her chit?

“I’m going to find some way to fulfill my end of our bargain without doing anything illegal or immoral. And failing that . . .” I shrugged again. I had been planning to say, Failing that, I’ll refuse to do what she wants, but that would leave me back where I was during the summer, with Billie’s life hanging in the balance.

Fortunately, before I could say more, my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket, expecting to see Kona’s name on the screen. Instead, there was only a number, though one that struck me as vaguely familiar.

I opened the phone and said, “Fearsson.”

“Jay.”

At the sound of the voice, my heart seemed to stop beating. The only thing worse would have been a call from Saorla.

“This is Jacinto Amaya.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, my mouth dry. “I recognized your voice.”

“Really? You don’t sound glad to hear from me.”

To which I had nothing to say at all.

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 11

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 11

“Would you like a lift?” asked Molly’s father. He couldn’t be anyone else. He looked just like her when he held his head like that and had that half-smile on his face.

“Thank you, but I’d like to walk,” said Tim, lying, but embarrassed. “It’s not far, and, um, I need the exercise.” It was better than facing any more curiosity.

“Well, we’re going past,” said Molly’s father.

“No, really,” said Tim digging deep in memories of things people said about the country. “It’s…it’s just nice to enjoy the fresh air. And, um, the sounds of nature.”

His parroting of this load of bull seemed to go down well with the guy though. “Exactly what I’d do on a day like today. Too nice to be stuck in a car. Come on, Molly…Unless you want to walk too?”

“It’s about five kays along the road, Daddy. And I’ve got a ton of homework to do,” said Molly, shaking her head at him. “See you tomorrow, Tim.”

And with that, she got into the car, and they left, and Tim looked into the dust-trail at the walk ahead of him for a while. Well. He couldn’t just stand here, so he started walking. It was a lot farther on foot than it was by car, and the “fresh air” was hot and the “sounds of nature” could have been made a lot better with an iPod. It was hot and still and the only sounds were the flies. The roadkill was buzzing with it.

He trudged on. A car came past. It was Hailey’s father, but he didn’t stop. Probably heard all about me, thought Tim, gloomily. He wondered what Hailey had said. “Loser,” probably. It still hurt, thinking about her.

He was so deep in thought about this, so hot, and tired of walking, that he didn’t actually notice the white Land Rover ute with the inflatable boat on a trailer behind it. The pickup truck’s bonnet was up, and it was parked at the side of the road as he walked around the corner. It took the man working on it to swear before Tim suddenly became aware of it.

The guy under the bonnet must have heard something, because he turned. He was a lean, suntanned-to-old-leather-faced guy, with a neat little clipped beard, no moustache, and very blue eyes. “g’day,” he said, like he hadn’t been swearing ten seconds before.

“Hi. Can I help?” said Tim, knowing he couldn’t. He didn’t know much about cars, and didn’t even have a working mobile. That still galled him. How could the place be so…basic?

The stranger looked Tim up and down, thoughtfully. And nodded. “Maybe you can, sonny. My hands just don’t fit down there. It’s pretty hot though. I just burned myself.”

“I could try, I suppose,” said Tim, looking at the gap that the man was pointing down into.

“That pipe there has to go onto that flange on the other side. But be careful, it’s hot.”

Gingerly, because he could feel the heat, Tim reached down, trying not to touch anything, and got hold of the pipe. The problem was there was just no space. While trying to be careful not to touch anything, it was very hard to push sideways at near-full stretch. It was the sort of job someone with strong hands and arms could do in ten seconds…if the engine was cool.

“I just, ouch, can’t push it on,” admitted Tim after a minute or two.

* * *

Heat meant little to Áed as he clambered down his master’s sleeve to avoid the nasty iron in the steel. That could and would burn him in a different way. He was quite strong, and, once the Master let go, it took all the time of the blinking of an eye to push the rubber pipe in place and slip the clip back on.

* * *

“Oh, well. Don’t burn yourself trying. I’ll walk up the road and see if I get mobile reception,” said the man in a resigned tone of voice. “I’ve got a load of fish and it won’t do them any good sitting in this heat. Hello…” he said, looking down and then having a closer look. “You’ve done it, youngster! Well done. You even got the circlip on. Good lad!”

Tim looked down into the heat of the engine. The pipe was on, and a little brass clip around it. He’d swear he hadn’t done that. “I didn’t think I had gotten it on,” he said, doubtfully.

“It looks pretty solidly on to me,” said the man, looking at it, then grinning at Tim. He wiped his oily hand on his jeans and stuck out the hand. “Didn’t introduce myself. I’m Jonno. Jon McKay. One of the local ab divers. You must be the new kid at the school. Ryan, I think.”

“Uh. Yes, I’m Tim Ryan. How do you know who I am?” he blurted out.

The diver laughed. “This is Flinders, mate. Get used to it. You can’t keep anything a secret here. My deckie’s girlfriend works up at the school. The headmistress was celebrating having a new student. Now, can I give you a lift? It’s a scorcher for walking, and old Mary Ryan’s place is a good couple of kilometers still. I imagine that’s where you’re going.”

“I’ll be fine. Really,” said Tim, wondering just how much of his past had already not been kept secret.

Obviously his voice betrayed him. “Don’t be such a martyr,” said McKay. “It won’t take me five minutes, and you just saved me a long walk, and my fish from getting too hot. I owe you.”

“It’s not the way you’re going.”

“Even towing a boat, I can turn around,” said McKay cheerfully. “Get in, will you? I’ll go up to the corner and turn around. It’ll be easier.”

So Tim got into the truck with him. It was obviously a working ute, with the foot-well full of spare parts and jumper cables. More to make conversation than anything else, because he knew nothing about boats or fish, Tim asked, “So what kind of fish have you been catching?”

McKay chuckled again. “Muttonfish. Or that’s what they call them here. I dive for abalone. Have you ever dived?”

“No. I’ve never actually been into the sea.”

The diver looked at him, his mouth open, and then hastily back at the road as the tires bit the soft gravel on the road margin. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No. I guess…my dad didn’t like the beach. He hated the sea, I remember him telling me when I asked him to take me.”

“But you were in Melbourne. Didn’t your mother like it either, then?”

“I think my mom only likes shopping malls and theaters and stuff. She used to take me to the pool quite often. I can swim pretty well, just not in the sea. I might have gone to the beach to play in the sand when I was, like, really little, I think. I suppose we were quite close to the sea really, but, well, we never went. But I used to go swimming quite a lot. I can swim well,” he said defensively, feeling, somehow, that he’d moved down in McKay’s estimation of him.

“I suppose you’ve never been on a boat either?” asked the man, a smile twitching his lips.

“No, I haven’t,” admitted Tim, feeling like he was saying he hadn’t done his homework, and thinking just how unfair that was. Something about this man made Tim want to be liked by him, want to be respected.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 02

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 02

Deirdre — or more likely, one of the businesses which she controlled — had provided the ushers who were loading the trams, but Lieutenant Cory and three long-service warrant officers were overseeing the work. Some of the spacers who had attended the wedding of Captain Leary were too ragged to pass the scrutiny of a doorman borrowed from the Shippers’ and Merchants Treasury, but if they’d served with Six — Daniel’s call-sign aboard the Princess Cecile — there’d be places in the wedding for them.

Perhaps thinking the same thing, Deirdre said, “Daniel, how do you know that some of those spacers claiming to have served with you aren’t just bums looking for a free drink? Not that I care, of course.”

“You can’t fool a veteran, Deirdre,” Daniel said. He felt suddenly saddened. “I don’t remember the name of every tech who’s served under me and I doubt my engineering warrant officers do either, but the phonies are all heroes. They don’t say, “I was an engine wiper on the Milton and I haven’t shipped again since that missile took everything off from three frames astern of the power room.”

Thirty-three of his crew had died that day. Daniel didn’t remember anything after the impact, because flying debris had knocked him silly. If the jump-seat had struck an inch lower, it would have broken his neck and there would have been thirty-four dead.

And I wouldn’t have gotten married today, which I would regret. He squeezed Miranda’s fingers and said aloud, “I think we can board now. If board is the correct word for a tram?”

Daniel handed his bride into the car. Mon offered Deirdre his arm. She accepted it with a bemused look. Deirdre was used to toadies, but meeting a gentleman was probably a new experience for her. The RCN was old-school in many ways, which Daniel — grinning — thought was just as it ought to be.

Daniel also wore a 1st Class uniform, his Dress Whites. He was far more splendid than Mon, however. Daniel’s rig included flashy foreign honors which he would have been embarrassed to wear in a strictly RCN gathering. Deirdre touched the scarlet and gold sash over his left shoulder and said, “What in the world is this, brother?”

“That indicates I’m a Royal Companion of Novy Sverdlovsk,” he said. “I have the right to wear a scimitar in the presence of the monarch.”

“Do you have a scimitar?” Mon asked.

“I’m sure Hogg could find him one if Daniel ever visits Novy Sverdlovsk,” Miranda said primly.

“Speaking of Hogg –” said Deirdre.

She paused as the tram rocked to a start a moment after the lead car. The monorail vehicles weren’t coupled, but the central computer was moving the procession as a unit. Ordinarily it directed the trams to call boxes and then by the most efficient route to the riders’ destination.

“– why is he riding on top of the car? And there’s someone on the lead car also.”

She gestured through the front windscreen. A Xenos tram with unscratched windows was at least as remarkable as one with wood inlays.

“Ah,” said Daniel. He coughed into his hand. “That’s Midshipman Hale, who served with me on two recent voyages. She and Hogg — ” Daniel’s servant, mentor, and father figure since his earliest days on the Bantry Estate ” — thought they’d have a better view from up there in case of trouble. A needless precaution, but if it pleases them to do it…”

He shrugged. He didn’t mention that the long blanket-wrapped bundle Hogg had beside him was a stocked impeller, nor that the slightly built Hale’s shorter bundle was a carbine. Within her range, Hale was as good a shot as the countryman who had been poaching game all his life.

Above them the tram’s magnetic suspension rattled over junctions. The streets were still lined with cheering citizens.

“I wonder if they’ll stretch all the way to the townhouse?” Deirdre said. “You’re a famous man, brother.”

“It’s just the spectacle that draws them,” Daniel said uncomfortably. “There’d be as many people if I were being carried in the other direction to have my head cut off and nailed to Speaker’s Rock.”

“Don’t you believe it!” said Mon. “Listen — they’re shouting, ‘Cacique! Cacique!’ They’re cheering the man who beat the Alliance above Cacique and brought peace after decades of war.”

“Daniel?” Miranda said, scanning the lines of shouting, happy faces along the route. “How will they all fit in Chatsworth? It’s a big house for the center of Xenos, but…?”

Deirdre smiled. Daniel gestured toward her with an upturned palm and said, “I’ll let my sister answer that. She was in charge of the arrangements.”

“Mistress Sand, Lady Mundy’s colleague, had as much to do with it as I did,” Deirdre said in a nonchalant voice. Bernis Sand was the Republic’s spymaster. She wasn’t precisely Adele’s other employer, because Adele didn’t take money for the work she did on Sand’s behalf. “In addition to Chatsworth Minor, all six houses on the close have opened their ground floors to the reception, and refreshments will be served in the street itself.”

“How the bloody hell did you do that?” Mon blurted. “Kidnap their children?”

Daniel felt his lips purse. He’d had the same thought, but he hadn’t asked because he’d been afraid that he wouldn’t want to have heard the answer.

“No, no, no strong-arm,” Deirdre said.

Her easy smile implied that the notion was absurd. It wasn’t absurd.

“One of the owners was kin to Lady Mundy on her mother’s side,” Deirdre continued. “Distantly enough that he survived the Proscriptions, but happy to do her ladyship a favor. Another neighbor was enthusiastic to help the Hero of Cacique. You may get a dinner invitation, brother. You’re not obliged to accept it, of course.”

“I will,” said Daniel. Miranda nodded crisply.

“Apart from those, there was a little extra time on a mortgage, help with a client’s legal problems, and an invitation to a party at which neither you nor I would be caught dead, brother. It will be the achievement of a life’s social ambition, however.”

Deirdre coughed. “Finally,” she said, “Mistress Sand arranged for the suppression of certain information. I don’t know precisely what the information was, but we were suddenly offered free use of the house on the south corner for as long as we wanted.”

The tram slowed for the stop at the head of the cul-de-sac on which Chatsworth Minor was located. Three passengers were getting out of the leading car. The pavement within the close was packed with people, all shouting.

Miranda leaned closer. “Welcome home, darling,” she said into Daniel’s ear. “Welcome home, hero.”

* * *

Adele took a front-facing corner seat in the lead tram. She wasn’t surprised when Miriam Dorst followed her and Tovera: Miranda’s mother had to ride somewhere, after all. Two middle-aged couples, dressed in up-to-the-minute fashion with ruffs at their wrists and necks, started to get on.

Miriam blocked them. Miranda played field hockey; her mother was fit and had the same stocky strength. “The bride’s family has reserved this car,” she said in a sharp tone. “Please find other places.”

“We’re friends of Captain Leary!” said the leading woman. She wore a striped top and a stiffly conical skirt, a combination that made Adele think of a shuttlecock.

“No, you are not,” Adele said, looking up from the display of the personal data unit in her lap. “Mistress Dorst has requested politely that you find other places. Please do.”

“Would you like me to shoot them, mistress?” Tovera said. She gave the intruders a bright smile.

“I’ll call an usher if necessary, Tovera,” Adele said. The question was an example of Tovera’s sense of humor: if she had really thought that shooting the civilians was a good idea, she wouldn’t have bothered asking.

Tovera would shoot them if asked, of course. She was a sociopath who rather liked killing people, to the extent that she had any emotional involvement at all with people.

The woman who had spoken froze. Her husband tugged her backward; the second couple had already backed away. As the speaker — Mistress Ethyl Smith with her husband the Honorable Edward Smith, according to image recognition software in the data unit — left the car, she snarled, “You’re sick!”

Miriam closed the door. Tovera giggled and said, “If she only knew.”

The tram started off. Miriam said, “I suppose you wonder why I’m here. I decided it was the best way to have a private conversation with you, Lady Mundy.”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 10

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 10

CHAPTER 5

Tim had been…well, terrified, when he went to the headmistress’s office. Almost inevitably, just as he went in, a whole pile of paper sprayed across the room, and the lightbulb exploded with a loud pop.

“Goodness! What an entrance.” The woman shifted her glasses back on her nose, and smiled at him. She didn’t blame him! That was different. “You must be Timothy Ryan. I’m so glad to see you. Give me a hand to pick these up, will you?”

It was said in such a calm, easygoing way, and she really did seem happy to have him here. She talked while they picked up papers. She spoke so quickly that it was hard to get a word in edgeways, but she was also very good at asking the right sort of questions. And she wasn’t in the least troubled by his lack of uniform. “I’ll get you a shirt from the lost property box for now. Come to me at break and I’ll take you down to town.

She never mentioned knowing anything about why he’d come. Neither did anyone else. The day, like any first day, rushed around him in a confused welter of newness. He was introduced to a lot of people. He couldn’t remember any of them. He was ahead in some areas, far behind in others. As for the place, he felt as if everything was moving around him, just as soon as he got his bearings. He was whisked away to a small shop in the little town, and paid over his grandmother’s money, and left with a carrier bag and what passed for a uniform here. St. Dominic’s would have sneered, but then he’d hated those clothes anyway.

And no one said, right out to his face, “Why are you here?”

Somebody had to know. Someone had to tell. And then…yeah, well. Shoplifting wasn’t that big a deal, was it? But he’d worked out pretty quickly that here it probably was a very big deal. The kids had left lunchboxes, some transparent with chocolates visible sticking out of their bags. You couldn’t have done that at his junior school back in Melbourne without someone nicking something. St. Dominic’s had been, if anything, worse. Here…they didn’t even lock their cars. Or have burglar bars or security guys at the shop. Someone told a story in class about some stupid visitor locking a guest cottage, and the owner having to break a window to get in because of it. Tim had asked if the owner had lost his key. He’d got one of those looks, a look that said “gee, you’re dumb.” “No one’s keys. We don’t lock things up here. Why would you?”

Tim knew why. And from that he could figure exactly how they’d feel about a thief. He’d been in a school where he’d been the kicking-boy before. He didn’t want to be there again, even if these country hicks weren’t his kind of people.

Tim’s mother had often used the expression “waiting for the other shoe to drop” and never quite explained why one was waiting, or just what shoes had to do with it. When he was much younger, he’d asked why you didn’t just run away when you heard the first shoe.

“Because you can’t. And you don’t know if it will.”

Tim’s understood the feeling now. His stomach was in a bit of a knot all day, just waiting. And he couldn’t run away. He was stuck out on an island with no way off that didn’t cost a lot. And he had no money, nothing, not even a working phone. It was just like a prison, really. He might as well have been charged and been sent to jail, as to this place. It would take hours and hours to walk to this town from his grandmother’s house, if you could call the town a “town.” It was more like a pub, a little supermarket, and a post office, and a few houses. No mall. No movies, no…no nothing. Nothing for a guy to do. No place to hang out.

Just a granite mountain that seemed to be looking at him.

* * *

Áed liked the school-place. He liked laughter and noise, and he liked the opportunity the place gave him to serve. He liked to work with things like wood and paper, rather than metals, and there was plenty of that here.

There were little twists of hot air rising above the road, and Áed swirled with one. He was not strong enough to make it into a true whirlwind, to tear roofs and break walls, but he could spin it faster and direct it. His master was upset and worried about these humans. Best to distract them from him. Give them something else to think about. He headed the spinning vortex of air toward a group of children who were talking about his master.

* * *

“Look!” yelled someone as Tim mooched along towards the bus, thinking. Trying to ignore everyone. Look like he wasn’t there. They were talking about him, he was sure.

He looked up as a column of dust whirled towards the other kids. He was not in its way…

Not again! It would be his fault. It always ended up being his fault.

This time he got angry. He just had half a chance to start again, even in this dump! Instead of running away like the rest of the kids, Tim turned and faced down the willy-willy. “Stop it, now. I don’t need any more of this here!” he screamed at it.

“Tim!” shouted someone. “Come away. You can’t just yell at a whirlwind.”

The air was full of grit, dust, sticks and leaves. The wind raged, lifting his hair.

“I won’t give you any beer!” Tim had no idea why he said that. Just his crazy grandmother and her beer story last night had been playing with his mind all day.

“Tim!” Two of the others had reached him. Grabbing his arms…It was Molly and the big, rather slow-seeming Henry. “Come…”

“It’s stopping.” Henry said, as the dust tower turned abruptly and collapsed, bits of leaf and stick falling. Seconds later it was gone, and there was just a little dust in the warm spring air.

“That was lucky!” said Molly.

“It listened to him, see,” said Henry, cheerfully. “Next time Dad wants to set cray pots and it’s blowing, I’m going to tell him to offer the Beastly-Easterly wind a beer to make it go away, instead of drinking it himself.” Quite a few of the kids laughed.

“Where did you get that idea from, Tim?” asked someone.

“Um. Something my nan said.”

“My nan only ever says ‘have you washed yer hands?'” said someone else.

“Come on,” said Molly. “Killikrankie bus has to go. That’s us, Tim.”

Tim found he’d accidentally broken a few of the rules that morning. The older ones were supposed to sit at the back, and there were a few extra littlies for the trip back who told him so. Not very politely, in the case of one little boy.

“Oh, shut up, Troy. He’s new. He doesn’t know yet,” said Molly.

Several people asked how his first day had been. Tim didn’t say anything about being trapped with zombies on the island of the living dead, but made polite “yeah, great” noises.

They all seemed to be happy with that, and he had survived all the way out to the lonely turnoff. Only it wasn’t so lonely now. A new Subaru whisked two of the kids away — Troy and a younger one who had to be his sister — in a spurt of gravel and cloud of dust. The elderly Nissan SUV didn’t have a dog with a moustache, but did have a smiling man with a retreating hairline and a ponytail leaning on it.

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 10

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 10

An instant later, my situation grew far more serious. Even as I started to grow light-headed with blood loss, Namid hit me with a second casting, this one a fire spell. I was not only bleeding, I was burning, too. I didn’t know if the flames were real enough to threaten Billie’s house, but they were hot enough to sear my skin and to scorch my lungs every time I inhaled.

Panic gripped me. Which was the greater threat: flame or blood loss?

I couldn’t think of a single spell to combat both attacks, and so I went for the flames first. Me, the fire, and a dousing of water.

The flames sputtered and went out.

But another spell struck at my chest. It felt as though the blaze had rekindled inside my body, charring my heart, heating my blood to a rolling boil. This was all too familiar, though not because Namid had ever used the spell against me. Back in the spring, Etienne de Cahors had tortured me with a similar attack; he had very nearly killed me with it.

I tried to sheath my chest in a magical shield that would block the pain, but it didn’t work. I was growing dizzy and weak. The flow of blood from my wrists was slowing, not because I had done anything to heal the wounds, but because I was dying. I sat in a pool of my own blood. If Billie had come out into the dining room at that moment she would have screamed.

The blood.

I tried the spell again, but with a twist this time, and seven elements rather than three. Namid, me, my heart, his attack, the pain, a magical warding within my chest, and all that blood to fuel the casting. The room seemed to hum with power. Namid’s eyes widened. But the pain stopped. Relief flooded me, brought tears to my eyes. It was several seconds before I realized that the blood around me had vanished. I cast another spell. In recent months, Namid had taught me some healing magic, and I used it now to repair the arteries and close the gashes on my arms. When I finished I raised my gaze to meet Namid’s. His features seemed to have turned to glass.

“You cast with blood,” he said, an accusation in the words.

“Yes, I did. And I’d do it again if it meant saving my life, or Billie’s, or my dad’s. Or yours, for that matter.”

“That is dark magic, Ohanko.”

“Why? Because my intent was evil?”

He blinked. I couldn’t keep a small smile from my lips. It wasn’t often that I managed to render the runemyste speechless.

“I was protecting myself by using every magical tool at my disposal. Including my own blood. I didn’t take it from someone else; you know I would never commit a murder to strengthen my magic. I didn’t even have to cut myself. The blood was there, a consequence of your attack on me. How can my use of it be dark?”

“Because it is,” he said. He had recovered from his surprise at my initial question. “Blood magic is dark magic. This has always been true.”

“But –”

He held up a finger, stopping me. “I cannot argue with what you have said. Neither your intent nor your means of harvesting the blood was evil in any way. And I will even admit that as an act of desperation a blood spell might be forgiven. But the fact remains that blood magic has always been the province of the dark ones.”

“I used blood to fight Saorla and her weremancers. That day when we fought them on my father’s land.”

“I remember.”

I stared hard at him, trying to read the thoughts lurking behind that impassive clear face.

“This is why you cut my wrists. That wasn’t some random choice. You were trying to tempt me with all that blood and those other attacks.”

“We should have spoken of this long ago,” he said. An admission. “Weremystes who use blood for spells soon find themselves relying on blood. It strengthens their runecrafting, and so spells cast without blood begin to feel weak. With time it becomes like a drug, something they cannot do without.”

“An addiction,” I said, my voice low.

“Just so.”

I started to say that I hadn’t used blood to strengthen a spell since that evening out in Wofford, when my father and I, joined by Jacinto Amaya and his men, fought Saorla and a number of her dark sorcerers. But I stopped myself. Because I had used blood in a spell only a few hours ago, when I fought the weremancers outside the Casa del Oro motel.

“You have used blood to cast recently,” Namid said, perhaps sensing my hesitation or reading the doubt in my eyes.

I considered denying it, but I knew about addiction. In addition to being well on his way to madness by the time I was fifteen, my dad was also an alcoholic. These things were genetic. I’d been well on my way to becoming a drunk myself before Namid came into my life and took responsibility for my training. And I had the sense that addiction to drugs or booze couldn’t have been so different from an addiction to blood magic. More to the point, I knew that lying about problems like these made matters worse.

“Yes,” I said. “I did earlier today. I could tell you that this was the first time since our fight with Saorla, but I don’t know if that’s true. To be honest, I can’t remember if I’ve done it other times or not.”

“It is good that you did not lie to me.”

“I guess I’m not that far gone down the path to hell. Not yet at least.”

Namid frowned.

“Blood spells are more powerful,” I went on. “They allow me to do things my magic might not otherwise do.”

“Then you must continue to train, and thus refine your runecrafting. A true runecrafter does not require blood to cast. He knows that power resides in all things. Blood is a crude source.”

I thought of what Kona had said at the restaurant, about the mom drawing power from the building’s electricity. “When you say power resides in everything –”

“I mean precisely that. For a long time now, I have wanted you to cast without reciting elements, without having to put your purpose to words. When you cast by instinct, you are more apt to draw upon the energy around us, and, as a result, less apt to rely on other sources of power for your runecrafting.”

“Like blood.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never suggested that blood spells can replace training,” I said. “I even understand what you’re asking of me, what you want for me to do. I’d like to be able to cast that way. But I’m not there yet. And if I’m up against a dark sorcerer, and he’s my equal in terms of skill and power, he’ll beat me every time, because he’s willing to use blood in his castings, and I’m supposed to resist the temptation.”

The runemyste considered this. At length he lifted his liquid shoulders in a small shrug. “I cannot argue with this logic. I do not believe you will often find yourself in a battle with a conjurer who is your exact equal in ability, but if you do, then yes, until you learn to harness other sources of power, you will be at a disadvantage. That is the price of adhering to the laws of the Runeclave.”

“And you don’t see a problem with that?”

“The problem is irrelevant,” Namid said. “When you served on the police force you were bound by a set of regulations and laws, were you not?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice flat. I knew where he was going with this. I really hated arguing with Namid when he was right, which was most of the time.

“Breaking those laws might have helped you catch the criminals you sought, but still you did not break them. Why?”

“Because to break the law in pursuit of criminals makes me no better than they are,” I said, as dutiful as a school boy.

“This is no different.”

“All right.”

Of all the things I had said this afternoon, this seemed to surprise him most.

“That is all? You do not intend to argue further?”

“Would I have any chance of changing your mind?”

“No.”

“Then if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to lose this argument and get on with my evening.”

“Very well. I will leave you. You trained well today. Each day, I see the improvement in your runecrafting.”

“Thanks, Namid.”

He inclined his head and faded from view.

I climbed to my feet, my back and chest and legs aching, from my fall, from my confrontation with the fashion models, and from sitting for too long. I noticed that there was no sign of blood or burn marks on Billie’s floor. Moreover, my arms were completely healed; there weren’t even any scars. No one who saw them would ever guess that I had nearly bled to death a short time before. If I had. Either Namid had healed me and repaired the damage to the floor before leaving, or the magic he had used on me had been nothing more than an illusion. I couldn’t decide which option I found more reassuring.

I stumbled into Billie’s kitchen, my stomach making enough noise to rouse the dead. I was famished, and whatever she was making smelled great.

Billie stood at the stove stirring a pot of deliciousness. “You’re done?” she said, glancing my way.