Eric Flint's Blog, page 233

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 01

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 01

Death’s Bright Day

David Drake

AUTHOR’S NOTE

As always in this series, Cinnabar weights and measures are given in English units while those of the Alliance are metric. I use them merely to hint at the variation I expect would occur in a future in which humans have spread across the stars.

Despite my saying this, I will probably get a note from someone telling me that the metric system is much better. For scientific purposes I agree, but logic isn’t going to rule our distant descendents any more than it does us. (And for weather information, Fahrenheit beats Celsius all hollow.)

The historical incidents on which I based Death’s Bright Day come largely from the Greek world at the close of the 3rd century BC. The empire of Alexander the Great had broken into three parts within a few years of his death in 323 BC. Now the large fragments were shrinking or crumbling. There were new players — Sparta, the Kingdom of Pergamum, and, overwhelmingly, Rome — and a world of opportunists at the edges and in the spaces between.

People at that time made short-term decisions based on short-term urges, among which pride, greed, and envy were prominent. And also fear; fear was a big one.

Perhaps this is the only way things ever happen in human societies. Current events seem to me to support that view. It’s a milieu which creates many backgrounds for action-adventure. (I used only a few of these. My original plot had nearly twice the number of incidents, some of them quite dramatic, but I trimmed it for length.)

Speaking as a writer, this is a wonderful milieu. Viewing it as a member of humanity, though, I often wish that we were better as a species at taking a long view. The Greek world of 200 BC wasn’t a safe place for anyone or a happy place for most, and things very rapidly became worse.

I would prefer that the reality my son and grandson will face were a better one, but my field is history. I don’t find much hope there.

Dave Drake

david-drake.com

They have forgotten all that vanished away

When life’s dark night died into death’s bright day

— Alfred Noyes

The Progress of Love, Canto III

CHAPTER 1

Xenos on Cinnabar

Daniel Leary waited to board the rented tramcar which would carry him from the Pentacrest to Chatsworth Minor, the townhouse which had been his home in Xenos ever since he became friends with its owner, Lady Adele Mundy. He didn’t spend much time in Cinnabar’s capital city — or anywhere on his home planet, for that matter — but it was good for his state of mind to know that there was a comfortable, convenient burrow whenever he needed it.

Because of the crowd noise he bent slightly toward Miranda, his bride of approximately five minutes, and said into her ear, “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a car this fancy. What isn’t wood inlays –” he recognized the tigerwood, but some of the exotics were beyond even his naturalist’s eye “– is gilt.”

He pursed his lips and corrected himself: “Or possibly solid gold, I suppose.”

Miranda hugged herself even closer without turning toward Daniel. “I’ve never been so happy,” she said. “I’ve never dreamed of being so happy.”

She turned then and kissed him, which made the crowd cheer even louder; try to cheer louder, at any rate. “I’ll try not to disappoint you, love,” said Daniel. Or disappoint myself or the Republic of Cinnabar Navy or Adele or the crew of whatever ship I command at the moment. Or anyone else I care about.

Which included the Republic itself, he supposed, though Daniel didn’t often think in political terms. The Learys had been involved in Cinnabar politics from before the thousand year Hiatus in interstellar travel, if the family records were to be believed. Daniel had always been drawn toward the stars instead, and any urge he might have had toward a political career had ended when he was 16 and had broken violently with Corder Leary — Speaker Leary; one of the Republic’s most powerful politicians, and Daniel’s father.

“The car doesn’t have the Bantry crest,” said Mon, his best man, splendid in his dress uniform. For years Mon — though still a half-pay lieutenant in the RCN — had been managing the Bergen and Associates shipyard for Daniel, who had inherited a half interest from his Uncle Stacey. “We could have knocked out the three fishes for you in the yard, easy enough.”

Mon grinned. “In gold, if you like. A gift from me and the crew.”

Not only had Daniel given Mon a 10% stake in the shipyard but also a free hand in hiring his personnel. Most of them were ex-RCN, and many had lost limbs in the service. There wasn’t another yard on Cinnabar which could match the staff of Bergen and Associates for skill or loyalty, and Mon had become very wealthy on his share.

Uncle Stacey’s silent partner — and now Daniel’s — was Corder Leary. The elder Leary earned the most from the yard, but for him that income was too small for notice.

“I directed that the car not carry any crest,” Daniel said mildly. “We’re going to Chatsworth Minor now, after all. When we have a second ceremony at Bantry, there’ll be plenty of fish present. A few of them will be symbolic, I suppose, but I suspect that my tenants will be more interested in the wedding banquet.” And the wedding ale, of course.

Adele, Lady Mundy, had boarded the lead car of the procession with her bodyguard Tovera and with Miriam Dorst, Miranda’s mother. No one else had gotten on, and the usher stationed at the door had turned several would-be riders away. Something was going on, which made Daniel uncomfortable; but he would learn about it in good time.

He liked his new mother-in-law and got along well with her; as for Adele — Daniel had no closer friend. Whatever Adele was doing was for his benefit, or at worst not to his detriment…but he liked to know what was going on, and he didn’t this time.

Daniel glanced toward the line of trams waiting behind his own. It was a very long procession.

As though Miranda were reading his mind, she said, “How many cars are there, Deirdre?”

Her maid of honor, Daniel’s sister, shrugged. “I told the transit authorities to be sure there were enough to carry all those attending the ceremony to the reception,” she said. “Only the first forty will be new, but I’m confident that there will be a sufficient number. Service in the suburbs may be delayed, but–”

She smiled, though there was very little humor in the expression.

“– after all, how often does a daughter of the late Captain Timothy Dorst get married?”

The four of them laughed, Miranda as brightly as ever. “Only once, I expect. And since I don’t have a sister, I suppose our neighbors in the suburbs can accept the delays for one afternoon.”

Daniel realized that his sister had been testing Miranda to see how she reacted to what was at best black humor. Captain Dorst had been a respected RCN officer who had died of a stroke not long after his last promotion. Perhaps if he had lived longer he would have plodded his way to admiral rank and modest wealth; as it was, his widow and children had a social position without enough money to sustain it.

The son, also Timothy, became a midshipman in the RCN and served under Captain Leary. Midshipman Dorst was a model of a fighting officer: brave, active, and as thick as a brick. He was also unlucky: his cutter had taken a direct hit from a 20-cm plasma cannon which would have vaporized most of a corvette.

Timothy’s bad luck had turned out to be very good luck for his mother and sister, because his former commanding officer had visited them to convey his personal regrets. Meeting Miranda Dorst had been good luck for Daniel Leary, also.

He hugged Miranda closer without looking at her.

“Looks like they got ’em loaded,” Mon said, giving the crowd a practiced eye. He added with a grin, “Though nobody’s going anywhere till you’re ready to start, of course.”

 

The Seer – Snippet 64

The Seer – Snippet 64

“Wait, wait –” the man said, stumbling back, his other arm raised to block the next shot.

“Turn her over,” Tayre ordered, motioning to the girl on the ground, face down.

Clutching his wrist, giving an agonized look at his bow lying feet away in the dirt, the man lurched to the girl and pushed onto her back with his foot.

She was not Amarta al Botaros. Disappointing, but not surprising. He doubted any of the other Kusani were still alive to tell him anything. Maybe the attackers knew something.

“Why kill them?” he asked. “Any of these could have led you to the girl.”

Swallowing hard with pain, he said, “We only need the head.”

“You do know it has to be the right head, don’t you?”

“It is the right head.”

“What makes you think so?”

“She’s wearing the cloak. The one we were told she wears.”

Hunting the cloak. Not the girl.

Idiots. These two clearly knew nothing of the hidden city or the whereabouts of the seer.

“Who hired you?” he asked.

“No one. I –”

The next bolt went through his shoulder. The man screamed.

Tayre dismounted. “Who hired you?” he asked again.

“The Lord Commander. No, no, please don’t, I –”

It was, alas, the answer he had expected, so he sent the third bolt through the man’s throat to keep him quiet for a bit but alive in case Tayre wanted more answers. The man’s mouth moved silently as he slipped to his knees, hands clawing at his throat.

Tayre bent down to touch the girl’s neck. Dead. The cloak was definitely the seer’s — he remembered the unusual strip of blue on the hem, now bloodied.

What did all this mean? That someone had taken the cloak from her was the simplest and thus most likely explanation. But she could see into the future, making this far from a typical situation. He had to assume what he was looking at now was no accident.

Did she know he would be standing here right now, watching this girl’s blood seep out of her into the cloak, this garment that used to be hers? Had she predicted his intent here today and acted to thwart him? Or was this all instinct to her, as a horse knew to snap at a fly, or a cat to kill a mouse?

He confirmed that each of the Kusani was dead. As clumsy as the attackers were, they were competent enough in surprise against the Kusani; not a pulse remained to question.

Too bad all around, he thought, standing, gaze sweeping the land from the road leading west to the deadlands to the eastward hills that went to the market towns that were the wagon’s original destination.

While the road was rarely traveled, it would be in time. The Kusani might even come to investigate when their people failed to return. Best to clean up and move on.

He put his knife blade up and through the heart of the attacker still gurgling and clutching his throat on the ground, and inspected the second attacker, a man so young he could barely grow a beard. He lay keening, curled around his stomach, the bolt having sliced through his kidney as Tayre had intended, accounting for the obvious discomfort. A few more questions of the young man gained Tayre no new insights, so he twisted the man’s head sharply and let him die.

As he stripped the cloak off the dead girl for closer inspection he came to the conclusion that the seer was no longer here. Not in the deadlands, not in Kusan. Her cloak on this girl, so close in age, could be no accident.

An intriguing mystery, Kusan, but for now one best left hidden. By the time he returned with force sufficient to take the underground city, he was confident she would be long gone, the trail again cold. He could not, with that level of expenditure and visibility, afford to be wrong again; it would exhaust what little credibility he still had with the Lord Commander.

So it seemed this event had changed his mind after all.

Had she foreseen all this? Was she clever enough to have engineered it? If he had decided to apprehend her alive, before he had the Lord Commander’s permission to kill her, would she have acted otherwise?

How many moves ahead could she see?

He stopped himself from this line of supposition. Guessing at what she might foresee based on his intent would get him nowhere. Short of examining her up close and with sufficient time, this was no more than circles of speculation and excessive conjecture, a trap as surely as his previous underestimation of her had been.

He must reason from immediate evidence. He turned slowly, looking for any other clues in the scene of slaughter before him.

Another thought occurred to him, born of another set of rumors entirely. He knelt down and made a second, closer examination of the fallen Kusani, looking at their eyes, scalps, brows and arms. They were all blond.

Even more interesting: Kusan, it seemed, was at least in part a slave refuge. It did not change his plans; while a city of Emendi was a prize of significant worth and something the Lord Commander might even be interested in, making slaves had nothing to do with this contract nor his determination to find the girl.

The seer had turned into a potent adversary. Acquiring her, breathing or not, was all that concerned him now.

He had to admit that it might not be possible. His uncle, the man who had raised him and taught him his craft, had also shown him how to find the edge of the possible and go beyond it. That meant finding the place where what you knew wasn’t enough, where your very conception of the world kept you from understanding the next step.

Find the unknown. Make it known to you.

He would find her, study her, and complete his contract. However long it took.

With that thought he rode the dead bodies up into the high hills, putting them deep in the ground. The wagon and carthorse he would take to one of the small towns where those he knew would make it vanish for him.

Then he would search the deadland roads again for the girl, her sister, and the now-walking boy-child. Most likely she would continue southward, heading toward one of the coastal port towns or cities. Possibly even Munasee.

The trail was there. He would find it.

 

The Seer – Snippet 63

The Seer – Snippet 63

Chapter Sixteen

Tayre was impressed with the residents of the hidden enclave and the lengths they went through to hide their existence here in the deadlands. But was the Botaros girl still there?

Judging by the many places he had been that she was not, he was fairly certain she had come this way, down the Great Road, into the deadland flats, and had not emerged. He had circled the area a good number of times, all sixty and some miles of it, watching riders and wagons come and go, noting tracks, keeping count. Almost all the wagons, riders, and those on foot who had entered the deadlands also exited the other side.

Almost.

One wagon had clearly originated in the deadland expanse itself without having come from elsewhere, and had headed east to the markets in the small towns, returning days later, and failing to emerge elsewhere.

He was becoming fairly certain he had stumbled onto the fabled hidden city of Kusan, an excellent place to hide. If half the rumors about it were true, also uncommonly well-defended. He could not simply ride in and start asking questions.

So he scouted the area, looking for clues as to the people who lived in this, it turned out, not-mythical underground city. He made a methodical survey of the area, avoiding the deadlands themselves, staying well out of sight.

The Kusani, it turned out, were clever enough not to keep a schedule. Wagons left sometime during the waxing or full moon, when the skies were clear enough at night to light their way, so he expected another wagon to emerge from the deadlands soon, at which point he would have someone to question.

Such a community would be keenly aware of newcomers. If she were there, they would know. If he got his hands on any of them, he would also know.

Which he would shortly.

The wagons came eastward from the deadlands via a windswept rocky shelf of land, clearly intending to avoid the kind of tracking he was now doing. As careful as they were at hiding their location and travel, every human alive needed food and water. They could only do so much to hide from someone observant and patient.

So he waited.

When it came, the small covered wagon rolled slowly toward him, one cart horse, two people sitting at the front, he would guess another two inside. They would pass directly under where he now stood, on a hillside in brush and trees.

Then he would ride down from his vantage point and have a conversation. With a bit of care, he could not only find out that the girl was there in the warrens below, but also induce them to bring her out to him, willingly.

He could think of a number of compelling stories that might make the underground residents grateful to him for taking her off their hands, and he had enough coin to back any such story. This would be the tidiest of solutions: fast, direct, with least risk. He might even be able to take her alive.

But if he could not command Kusani cooperation, he would take them off the road into the woods where he could ask questions at length and see what other solutions presented themselves. Then, at least, he would know the girl was there.

As he watched the wagon roll closer he performed his usual checks: saddle, pack bindings secure, knives in place, close-in bow ready, arrows likewise.

Once he knew the girl was here, if his ideal solution of Kusani cooperation was not obtainable, he would go back to the capital and convince the Lord Commander to give him a small army. With enough soldiers he could surround and overwhelm the underground warrens, blocking every exit she might take, then thoroughly search every inch of tunnel. With sufficient eyes and hands and weapons, he felt sure her foresight could be overwhelmed.

Rumor said that Kusan was impregnable. That was not reason enough to take it, but it did make it intriguing.

And no one lived underground without reason. They were hiding something, or hiding from someone. Whatever that was would likely be valuable and further inducement to the Lord Commander to give Tayre the forces necessary. Another thing he would find out from the Kusani.

He swung himself up on his horse, eyes still on the approaching wagon, checking and double-checking that everything on himself and his horse was where he expected it to be.

He heard sounds from the hill west, another vantage point he had considered and dismissed as both too open and likely noisy, which it was now, as two horses came crashing down through the brush, half-sliding down the steep hillside on a fast approach to the wagon, which they now circled, the two riders shouting orders to those inside, to stop, to get out.

Tayre was already riding down the hill as fast as his horse would take him, watching as the two Kusani sitting up front dropped the reins to put their hands up in surrender, facing the first attacker as he let fly an arrow that sank into the chest of the first wagoner. The wagoner clutched at his chest, gasping and slipping off the wagon to the ground. Another shot and the second wagoner, a woman, screamed, and crumpled.

Tayre urged his horse to speed.

At the back of the wagon the second attacker was yelling at those inside to come out, to get onto their knees, which they did rather more quickly than Tayre had hoped. The attacker then pulled a short sword and clumsily but effectively ran it through the first of those. The figure went prone.

The other figure, a girl, lurched to her feet and began to run. The attacker’s arrow caught her in the calf. She stumbled to the ground.

A girl about the age the seer would be now, wearing a cloak with blue trim.

Tayre’s horse was on the road proper, forward at a full gallop, but in the seconds it took him to arrive, the other attacker had put a bolt into the girl’s back. She went flat.

If it were indeed the seer, they had saved him a good deal of trouble. Somehow he doubted it would be that easy.

As he rode up the two attackers turned to face him, the points of their notched arrows aimed at him. One seemed ready to speak, the one he had judged as the more competent of the two, when Tayre shot him through the stomach with his crossbow. He crumpled. The other man’s attempt to shoot Tayre went far wide as he sacrificed accuracy for speed, which was what Tayre had expected him to do, providing plenty of time to put a bolt through his wrist to a loud grunt of pain and a dropped bow.

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 09

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 09

CHAPTER 4

My “friend,” as she put it, was Namid, the runemyste. And it was a measure of how much time Billie and I had been spending together that Namid would choose to wait for me here as opposed to at my home or office.

I walked the rest of the way up the path and halted in front of her. The sun shone in her eyes, making them gleam like gem-cut emeralds. I kissed her, drawing a reluctant grin.

“Hi.”

“You should have told me you had a pet before we got involved.”

I laughed. “I don’t think Namid would like being called a pet any more than he likes being called a ghost.”

“Like I care. He should have thought of that before he started sitting like a statue in the middle of my dining room.”

“At least he doesn’t eat much.”

She smiled again, even as she shook her head. “Get inside, and get him out of my house.”

“That might take a while.”

“The sooner he’s gone, the sooner you have me to yourself.”

Well, there you go. That’s called motivation.

She pulled the screen door open and I stepped past her into the house. As she’d said, Namid was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her dining room, as still as ice.

Namid and his fellow runemystes were created by the Runeclave, an assembly of powerful sorcerers, centuries ago, in an act of sacrifice and self-abnegation so profound I can barely comprehend it. Namid and the others were weremystes, like me, but far more skilled. At the time, the magical community was split between those who believed runecrafting ought to serve the greater good, and those who saw in their talents a path to domination of the non-magical world. Thirty-nine weremystes were put to death and then brought back in spirit form to be eternal guardians against practitioners of dark sorcery.

Namid, who had been a Zuni shaman, was one of them. He had once been my dad’s mentor; now he was mine. On some level he believed he had failed my father, and that his failure had led to my dad’s early descent into insanity. That, it seemed to me, more than any inherent promise I possessed as a runecrafter, explained why Namid had taken such an interest in me.

He could be an exasperating teacher. He was terse to the point of rudeness, he expected me to master with ease spells that I knew were beyond my meager talents, and he was reluctant to answer questions that weren’t relevant to what we were doing at any given moment. But he was powerful and wise, and on more than one occasion he had saved my life.

He was also the most beautiful being I had ever seen. No doubt because he had been in life a member of the K’ya’na-Kwe clan, the water people, his spirit had taken a form appropriate to that ancestry. He stood as tall as a warrior, muscular and broad in the shoulders and chest. But he was composed entirely of faintly luminous waters. Often, as now, he appeared clear and placid, like a mountain lake at dawn; at other times his surface roughened, leaving him roiled, impenetrable, and steel gray, like the sea in a storm. Always, though, his eyes shone from his chiseled face, as bright and clear as winter stars.

He peered up at me now as I crossed into Billie’s dining room, his expression unfathomable. “You are late in getting here. Where have you been?”

Let me tell you, it was a little disconcerting having a centuries-old watery ghost talk to you like he was your mother.

Billie had followed me into the room and was watching me, expectant, also waiting for an answer.

“Kona called me,” I said, more to her than to the runemyste. “She needed me to swing by a crime scene over near the interstate.”

“Needed you. As in, someone used magic?”

“Yes. Two people were killed at a fast-food burger place. The restaurant wound up looking like a magical battlefield.”

I could tell she wanted to ask me more, but Namid cut in with his usual charm and social aplomb.

“These matters can wait. Ohanko needs to train.”

Ohanko was a name he had given me years ago. In his language it meant something akin to “reckless one.” I didn’t mind it; in his own way, I think Namid used it with affection. And I could hardly argue with what it said about me and my behavior over the years.

“Fine,” Billie said, turning her back on us and seeking sanctuary in her kitchen. “Train as much as you like. But try not to make a mess of my house this time.”

“Have we made a mess?” Namid asked, his liquid brow furrowing.

I pulled off my leather bomber jacket, and the shoulder holster I wore beneath it. “You have a tendency to throw things at me: books, silverware, CDs.” I took my Glock from my bomber pocket and secured it in the holster. Then I lowered myself to the floor opposite him.

“I am trying to teach you to defend yourself from a variety of assaults.”

“I know. But they’re Billie’s books and silverware and CDs, and this is Billie’s house.”

The runemyste stared after her, seeming to contemplate this. “I see. I will try to make my attacks less . . . disruptive.”

“I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”

“Clear yourself,” he said.

Clearing was a technique runecrafters used to focus their thoughts and enhance their spellcasting. In truth, the most skilled of my kind didn’t need to work on such things, and even I didn’t take the time to clear when I was out on the street, casting to save my life or to attack an enemy. But Namid tended to push me hard in our training sessions, and the act of clearing had become a ritual of sorts, one that allowed me to set aside possible distractions — Billie, my father, whatever work I was doing for clients, and, on days like this one, whatever investigations I had taken on at Kona’s request — and concentrate on my runecrafting.

I closed my eyes and summoned a memory from my childhood of a camping trip my parents and I took to the Superstition Wilderness. This was when I was no more than ten or eleven, before my dad’s phasings got so bad that his mind started to quit on him, and before my mother died in a scandal that poisoned my youth and left me essentially orphaned. It was the happiest I could remember being. One afternoon we hiked out to a high promontory, and while we were there, I spotted an eagle circling above the desert, the sunlight reflecting off the golden feathers on its neck, its wing tips splayed. Whenever I needed to clear myself, I focused on that image of the eagle until the rest of the world fell away.

This was what I did now, and when I felt ready to cast, I opened my eyes again, meeting the runemyste’s bright gaze.

“Defend yourself,” Namid said, his voice rumbling like distant floodwaters.

Namid had never been one to ease into a training session, and true to form, he started me off with a wicked attack spell. I flew off the floor and slammed into Billie’s ceiling, my arms and legs spread wide. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and had no idea how to get down. It was as if he had strapped me to the ceiling with invisible steel cables, including one that constricted my chest.

Billie emerged from the kitchen holding a towel and damp bowl, no doubt drawn by the noise I’d made when I hit. Spotting me suspended above her dining room, she rolled her eyes and walked back into the other room.

I had learned that the images I called to mind when envisioning Namid’s attacks often held the secret to defeating them. I’d thought of myself being strapped to the ceiling with cables, and so that was how I conceived of my warding. Me, the steel ropes holding me in place, and a magical cable cutter to slice through them.

It was only when I felt the spell tickle my skin that I remembered one crucial detail. And before I could do anything about it, I was falling.

I landed on my stomach in front of Namid and let out a grunt and then a groan.

“Your predicament required a more nuanced solution,” the myste said, so calmly he might have been talking about the weather. “If you had been held one hundred feet above the street rather than nine feet above this floor, you would be dead now.”

“In my defense, I realized that right after I cast the spell.”

He lifted an eyebrow but offered no other response.

I sat up, my movements stiff and painful, not only from the fall, but also from my earlier battle with GQ and Vogue. But I repositioned myself so that I was facing the myste again, sitting cross-legged as he was, and I waited for his next assault.

“Defend yourself.”

For the next hour, Namid attacked me with an array of spells, some of them familiar, some of them new and terrifying, including one that ripped gashes in my wrists, so that abruptly blood was gushing onto Billie’s oak floors. I didn’t think that she would be any happier about massive bloodstains on the polished wood than she was about the scattering of her books across her living room, but I also didn’t think Namid would want me fixating on that while I bled out.

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 09

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 09

“Tim? It’s me, Molly. From the plane,” the girl with the braces on her teeth said from the passenger seat.

“I would have recognized you even without Bunce and his moustache,” said Tim, quite proud of that line. It made him smile. It made her flush red, which wasn’t what he’d meant it to do.

“Can we give you a lift somewhere?” asked the driver. She was a middle-aged woman, who looked like an older, shorter-haired version of Molly, only with glasses, and a few creases between her eyes. “Only we have to rush for the school bus. We’re running late.”

“That’s where I am supposed to be going.”

Molly spilled out of the car. “I’ll sit next to Bunce. He’ll drool on you, otherwise. Hop in the front.”

Tim did so. Clicked in his seat belt.

“Are you going to school here?” asked the driver, accelerating fast enough to push him back in the seat.

“Um. Yes.” Tim was worried they might ask why. They had to wonder.

“The headmistress will be doing her happy dance,” said the driver, focusing on the road, not looking at him.

“We need numbers,” explained Molly. “There are too few kids in the senior grades. It’s, like, just a handful of us.”

Great, thought Tim. And I wanted to be invisible in the crowd.

“What on earth are you sniffing at, Buncy?” asked Molly.

Tim was grateful for the distraction provided by the dog, head cocked on one side and great big black nose and moustache twitching as if he’d smelled a really bad fart.

“Don’t bark! You’ll send Mum off the road,” said Molly, grabbing him.

“Fortunately, we’re here,” said Molly’s mother, pulling off the road and onto the broad verge. “And we’ve beaten the bus. Let the big moo out, Molly. He can have a run around.”

Molly leaned across and opened the door, but Bunce wasn’t going anywhere. Just sat there, staring cross-eyed at something, and giving a little wary burr of a growl.

“Goodness! I hope he’s not sickening. We really can’t afford vet bills now!” said Molly’s mother, only, it seemed to Tim, half jokingly.

“He was fine ten minutes ago!”

“I think he’s defending you, Molly,” said her mother, suddenly, chuckling. “Tim, hop out, and let’s see what he does then. Oh, how funny!”

By the look on Molly’s face, she did not find it so funny at all. But Tim got out. “Thank you for the lift,” he said awkwardly. In the distance he could hear the bus, and, now that he was out, Bunce bounced out too, and ran around like a mad thing, barking and leaping over bushes. His mistress had to run after him and drag him back to the car, and then grab her bag while Tim got onto the bus, feeling slightly awkward.

The bus driver gave him a lopsided grin. “Ah. You’ll be Tim Ryan. I was expecting you.” Molly also got on, her face as red as her hair, and promptly got called to “come here, Molly” by the two younger children in uniform. She did. Tim had already sat down near the front. He’d been hoping to find out a bit more about what he was in for, but he never got a chance. The driver did chat with him, however. “So old Mary Ryan’s your nan, is she?”

“Yes.”

“So your parents are in Melbourne, then? I remember your father. Hasn’t been back for a long time.”

He felt like it was a police questioning or something. “Mom’s back in Melbourne. My dad” — his voice shook briefly and he was ashamed of it — “is in Oman. In the Middle East.”

“Ah,” said the driver, nodding. “Explains it.”

He said no more, and Tim wasn’t too sure what it explained. They drove on over the hill and past the airport and some scattered houses, set in fields with sheep, and cows…and a flock of turkeys wandering around as if they owned the place. Onwards towards the mountain. And then they arrived at a cluster of red-roofed buildings.

“Well. Here you are,” said the driver. “Better go and see the headmistress, son. She’s expectin’ you.”

Inwardly Tim groaned. What had his grandmother said about him?

* * *

Áed had been amused by the dog. It hadn’t known what to do with him, or quite what he was. He’d been tempted to tease it, just for the mayhem he could cause. He’d been a lot less pleased to see the selkie, when he’d explored and his master slept. The seal-woman was still in her natural place, the sea. She sat on a rock sticking out of the water, and combed her long wavy hair in the moonlight. She’d seen him too. She’d smiled. It was not a nice smile. Predatory…and pleased.

It was the same fae he’d glimpsed from the flying device. Áed knew there could only be one reason the selkie was here. She was following him, or perhaps his master. In the water the seal shape-changers were dangerous. On land, less so, but they were not confined to the water, the way the lords of the hollow hills were confined to the land by the salt water. Like Áed’s kind, the selkies could go anywhere, even if they did not enjoy it.

She’d beckoned to him. “Come here, little one.”

Áed, sensibly, had fled as fast as he could from even the sight of the sea. He’d sought out the other creature of air and shadow, the one living around the farm, one whose scent he’d recognized. The one who came to the kitchen and the barns and sheds, but no further.

The hairy creature was at work in the barn, no longer moving the beasts, as he had been earlier. It was a small fenodree, as suited the agricultural nature of the place. Hardworking, and not very bright, and a little wary about Áed. “You make trouble, I hurt you,” he said slowly, nervously fondling the wooden shaft of an old two-handed scythe.

In the hierarchy of those of the hollow hills, of the creatures of air and shadow, the fenodree was low, below Áed. But they were strong and determined. “I don’t wish to fight,” said Áed. “I just saw a selkie.”

“She’s back, then.” The fenodree seemed unsurprised and relatively unworried. He’d stopped clutching the scythe and was back to untangling his long fur with his blunt fingers. “She won’t come out of the sea.”

That was a comfort. “Why not?”

“She’s afraid of the others. The old ones.”

Áed had sensed them, caught the shimmer of them. But they had kept their distance. “What does she want here?” he asked. If the fenodree could live with these others, so could he.

The fenodree shrugged. “The boy. The key.”

“What key?” asked Áed. The word in the old tongue they spoke had many meanings.

The fenodree shrugged again. “I do not know. She has looked for it for a long time. She is from Finvarra.”

That was enough to frighten Áed even more. Finvarra was a king of the Shee and a great power still, in the hollow hills.

Áed would have to guard his master carefully.

* * *

Alicia Symons drove home slowly, thinking about the youngster they’d picked up. She’d not, at first glance, been too impressed. Actually she felt sorry for him. He was small and looked defeated and rather lost walking along the road with a lunchbox.

And then he’d smiled and confused her daughter. And it seemed Molly’s dog had caught that confusion. It was something for a mother to think about!

She drove down through the she-oaks toward the house on the promontory. Not, for once, looking at the view from their hill and losing herself in the rapture of it. From the minute they’d seen the view, she and Michael had loved the place. They’d known they couldn’t really afford it, and had gone ahead and done it anyway, because they couldn’t bear to lose their chance. They should have looked at the school issues first. It wasn’t that the school wasn’t trying. It was just dying for lack of children. She should have been delighted that there was another child. But…well. Perhaps she was being overprotective.

Her husband was out working on the turbine. It was all very well being self-sufficient, and saying there was lots of wind for power, except the wild wind here was forever breaking something.

“We picked up a boy on the road today,” she said, looking up at him.

“Ah. Molly picked up one yesterday, on the plane,” he said, coming down and wiping his hands on his jeans. “Remember, I told you last night. She’s growing up.”

“It’s the same one. He was on his way to school.”

He knew her well enough to need no further explanation. “I’ll phone a few people. This is Flinders. Everyone knows everything in twenty-four hours.”

A few minutes later he came back. “Seems his parents have got divorced. He’s staying with his grandmother. She’s apparently an old tartar. They’re ‘real islanders.’ Old family.”

She smiled at the “real islanders” — you had to be here for fifty years to get considered more than temporary flotsam by some of the islanders. “That…might explain the look. Poor kid.”

“The look?”

“He looked like the whole world was on his shoulders. And Bunce growled at him.”

“Good grief. Well, if he gives Molly any trouble I’ll growl at him too.”

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 08

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 08

“That a new magic you’ve learned?” she asked. “You can listen in to what’s going in my head and my heart?”

I held her gaze, saying nothing. After a few seconds of this, she rolled her eyes.

“Fine, it might have been self-defense. Be that as it may –”

“You invited me in,” I said, “but I have no official role here. So wouldn’t it be helpful to you if I dug around a little bit?”

“That depends.”

“It’s not like I’m going to help her slip out of the country. But the magic is pointing me in a clear direction: she’s a victim, or would have been if she hadn’t gotten away. So let me work that angle. Maybe I can find her. And maybe through her I can find your silver-haired killer.” I pointed at the second corpse. “And figure out how he killed that woman.”

For a long time, Kona didn’t respond. She pursed her lips, her eyes trained on the ground in front of her, and after a while she began to shake her head, which told me that I had won.

“She’s driving a minivan, silver, late model. We have conflicting reports on whether it’s a Toyota, a Mazda, or a Honda. She was last seen turning onto the southbound entrance ramp.” I thought she might say more, but after a moment she closed her notepad.

“What else, Kona?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“Probably?”

She raised her eyes to mine. “A couple of witnesses said that her van nearly tipped over as she sped away. And one of them was convinced he saw the silver-haired guy hold his hand up, like he was pointing at the van. This was before the woman he was holding died.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. I went back to the corpse and again used the pencil to uncover the wound on her shoulder. There was one possibility that explained the wound and what the silver-haired man might have been doing. It might even have explained why there was no trace of magic on the dead woman. The problem was, I didn’t believe what I was contemplating could be possible. Didn’t believe it, and didn’t want to.

“What’s on your mind, Justis?” Kona asked from behind me.

I shook my head, and stood once more. “Nothing. I’m . . . nothing.”

“Uh huh.” No one could pack more sarcasm into two syllables than Kona.

“I’ll let you know what I find out,” I said. “You’ll do the same?”

“As much as I can.”

It was, I knew, the best she could offer.

“All right. See you around, partner. Kevin, take care.”

“Later, Jay.”

I made my way back to the Z-ster, got in, and started her up. After idling for a few seconds, I pulled out of the parking lot and steered onto the interstate. But rather than heading back north into the city, I drove south. I couldn’t say why. I didn’t think I could track the woman by her magic, though to make sure I cast a spell that, at least in theory, might have worked.

Seven elements: the woman, her minivan, her kids, her red-brown magic, the freeway, me, and a magical trail connecting all of us. I felt the power of my spell dance along my skin as I drove, but I saw nothing.

Still, I drove for a while, emerging from the sprawl of Phoenix into the flat open desert of the Gila River Indian Community. The reservation covered close to six hundred square miles, and had been, since the middle of the nineteenth century, home to the Akimel O’odham and Pee-Posh tribes, also known as the Pimas and the Maricopas. As with so much Indian territory in the state, there wasn’t much to look at on this land. Even back in 1859, the Federal Government had already gotten very good at picking out the least valuable lands for the tribal nations. There were few landmarks along this stretch of highway beyond a small airfield about three miles south of the restaurant.

I tried the tracking spell a second time, but was no more successful than I’d been before. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to turn around. I drove forty miles through the heart of the territory and beyond its southern boundary, until I reached the outskirts of Casa Grande. There, finally, I took the exit and reentered the freeway heading north.

I’d wasted some gas and some time, but I didn’t mind that. What bothered me was the sense I had after starting back toward Phoenix that I was now heading in the wrong direction. My spell hadn’t worked, and I couldn’t explain what I was feeling. But I had been a cop and a weremyste for too long to dismiss it.

I resisted the urge to head south again, and made my way back into the city. The one blessing in all of this was that I was driving against the worst of the traffic. Before long I had pulled up in front of Billie Castle’s house in Tempe.

Billie and I met during my investigation into the last of the Blind Angel murders. The killer’s final victim, a girl named Claudia Deegan, was the daughter of Arizona’s senior U.S. Senator, Randolph Deegan, who had established himself as the most powerful politician in the state. He was about to be elected governor in what everyone, including his opponent, knew would be a landslide, and many believed he had Presidential ambitions. Among those who believed this was my girlfriend. Billie was a journalist. To be more precise, she was what many in the business call an opinion shaper. She maintained a blog called “Castle’s Village,” which attracted a wide readership throughout the Southwest.

When we met, she was digging up information on Claudia’s murder, and I was less than forthcoming with what I knew. Eight years on the Phoenix police force had left me with a healthy aversion to the press.

But in addition to being tenacious and smart as hell, she was also charming and beautiful, and for some reason surpassing understanding, she wound up being drawn to me as powerfully as I was to her.

Notwithstanding a few preliminary bumps, our relationship had been developing steadily ever since. It took her a little while to believe in the magic I wield, and a bit longer to accept that my ability to cast spells was worth the cost of the phasings. To be honest, I’m not sure that she’s convinced of this yet. There are drugs that a weremyste can take — they’re called blockers — that would blunt the effects of the full moon and probably keep me from going insane later in life. But they do this at the expense of my runecrafting, and that’s not a trade I’m willing to make. At least not yet. But I was convinced that if Billie had her way, I’d be taking them.

Aside from that, though, things have been great.

Well, mostly. Being involved with me did almost get her killed during the summer, when Saorla threw the magical equivalent of a bomb at a Mexican place in which we were having lunch. Billie’s injuries were severe: broken bones, concussion, a collapsed lung. But she’s better now.

Yeah.

I have no idea why she is still with me. If I had been in her position, I would have run screaming from this relationship months ago. I was a lucky man.

I parked out front, pulled the Glock from beneath the seat and slipped it into my jacket pocket, and approached her front door. Before I was halfway up the path, the door opened and she came outside looking none-too-happy.

“Thank God,” she said. “I’ve been calling you, texting you; I even tried email.”

“I was driving. What’s up?”

“Your friend’s here. He’s doing that silent immovable thing and it’s driving me nuts.”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 08

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 08

CHAPTER 4

Tim made his way back to the kitchen. It was a bit smoky in there, lit by a single bare bulb. Two places were laid on the scrubbed boards of the big, rickety table. A plate full of food — a generous plateful — stood steaming at one of them. His grandmother was dishing a second, much smaller plate of food from pots on the stove. Tim hovered, uncertain if he should sit and where. She turned from the stove. Gestured with an elbow at the plate at the table. “Yer making the place look untidy. Sit down and eat up. It’s getting cold.” As he moved to pull the chair out, she said. “Wait. Yer’d better give it a welcome.”

She put her plate down at her place, went to an old rounded refrigerator in the corner, rummaged in it, and pulled out a bottle…of beer. Well, it was a beer bottle. She handed it to him. “Here. For your little friend.”

Tim looked uncertainly at the stubby bottle. It had a cork shoved into it. Not a new cork, either. The bottle was about half full. Not quite knowing what he should do, he pulled the cork out.

“It’s flat, but they don’t mind,” said his grandmother.

“Er. What is it?” he said, sniffing it from a distance.

“Beer. Not for you to drink, boy! Get a bowl from the dresser and put it in the corner where I won’t kick it.”

Tim did as he was told and came to the table. He was hungry, and it smelled good, even if she was crazy enough to have him pour stale beer in bowls.

“You’re supposed to say ‘Be welcome to the house and hearth,’ when you put it down. My nan taught me that. They behave then,” said his grandmother.

“Who behaves?” he asked warily.

“The little people,” said his grandmother. “Go say it, boy. He’s waiting.”

She was crazy. But what could he do? It was dark out there, and he was hungry and tired. So he did it. “Be welcome to the house and hearth,” he said awkwardly. Then he came and sat.

The food was good. More vegetables than he would have chosen to put on his plate, but the gravy was thick and herby and rich to disguise it, and the stewed meat was fall-apart tender. And there was lots of potato. Later he would say that was how he knew his gran’s cooking, there was always lots of potato.

“You like it?”

He nodded. “It’s great. What is it?”

“Roo-tail stew. They’re a pest here. What you’ll eat most of.”

Tim thought of the little hoppers on the track. It wasn’t exactly pizza or Chinese, which had been what they ate pretty often at home. But he supposed it was the nearest you’d get to delivery here.

When he got up from the table…he noticed the bowl in the corner was empty too.

But he was too exhausted to think much about it that night. He’d barely coped with being shown to a painfully neat bedroom and wooden frame bed with a patchwork quilt on it. He must have gotten his bag, brushed his teeth and collapsed to sleep in it, because he was in the bed the next morning, and his toothbrush was in the bathroom.

* * *

Áed took the welcome as both a comfort and a threat. A comfort: she knew the old ways and words, a pleasure in the tasting of the beer, as was his rightful reward. A threat: if she knew the words of welcome, it might be that she also knew the words of punishment or banishment. Áed did not sleep. Rest has a different meaning to the spirits of air and darkness, and he didn’t need much. He was wary about leaving his charge, but he made several brief forays to explore.

There was another of his kind about. His kind weren’t gregarious, and it was busy working on the farm.

* * *

Mary Ryan went to bed too, not even listening to the radio as she usually did in the evening. She had a lot on her mind. Mostly, money. She scowled to herself. There was probably money to be had from the Social Welfare at the Centerlink office. She wouldn’t take the dole for herself; it went against everything she believed in. She was damned if she’d demean herself to ask, anyway. She had her pride, and if she lost that, she had nothing. For the boy, well, it was different. But…once they started sticking their beaks in, they’d find out about her eyes. They’d say she couldn’t live here, let alone look after the boy.

She did the sums in her head again. Food, well, the basics, fruit, meat and vegetables anyway, were not going to be a problem. She couldn’t see to shoot anymore, but her father, and his father before him, had snared wallaby. The garden provided. But it was the rest: sugar, vinegar — or there’d be pretty few vegetables and no fruit in the winter. Tea, cooking oil, clothes, boots, soap, the extra electricity. She tended to sit at home in the dark most evenings, just to save that bit. You could listen to the radio perfectly well in the dark. The farm needed more work than she and her little helper could do these days, and the scrawny boy wasn’t really up to it yet either. It needed work and money, and the stock just wasn’t fetching what it used to on the sales. Dicky took her beasts in, and he said she was lucky to be getting what she got back for them.

Eventually she got up, opened the tin box, and took out the thin fold of money. It was so awkward having to turn the light on to see the value of the notes. There wasn’t much there, as she’d known. But there was nothing else. The only other things in the ditty box were worthless to anyone but her, and too precious for her to ever part with. She couldn’t see to read them anymore, either, but she knew all the words on those letters by heart anyway.

Her fallback money would just have to be enough, or she’d have to sell something. Heaven knew what.

* * *

Tim woke to the sound of a teaspoon being clattered around a cup, looked up from the pillow to see the spare figure of his grandmother pushing open the door. She put the cup down on the little bedside table. “Yer better get yourself to the kitchen pretty quick or I’ll feed your breakfast to the chooks.”

He didn’t want to be awake. He really resented being woken, but there was no suggestion that she was not dead serious. Tim felt himself simmering with the feeling of being unfairly used…and she turned to the corner of the room. “And don’t you even think of it, or there’ll be no beer.” And she walked out.

His stomach said it was hungry, and a hungry day had no appeal, even if he had no idea what the day held. Boredom here, he supposed.

There was a pot of porridge on the table. No cereal. Just a bowl, a spoon, a jug of milk, and an old sugar bowl.

“Go easy on the sugar. It doesn’t grow on trees,” said the old lady. “I cut yer lunch.” She pointed at the plastic lunchbox on the corner of the dresser. She reached into the apron pocket of her pinafore. Pulled out an envelope. “Here. That’s for the uniform. I spoke to them at Bowman’s yesterday. Look after it.”

“What?” he asked, feeling as if he were being spoken to in Japanese, for all that he understood. Uniform? Bowman’s?

“Yer got to be waiting for the school bus at half past, at the corner. Eat up, or you’ll be late. Have some more milk; it’ll cool it down. We got lots of milk.”

It tasted odd though. It had yellow stuff floating on the top of it…it wasn’t actually sour or anything. Just not normal, like milk from the Coles around the block back home.

“Is this milk all right?” he asked.

His grandmother’s hand wavered across the table. Tim noticed she didn’t look directly at the table either, but side on. She picked up the jug, held it to her nose and sniffed. “Smells fine. Fresh out the cow this morning. You can learn how to milk her this evening.”

As a reason to rush back to his grandmother’s, that wasn’t on the top of Tim’s list. As a reason to go in a hurry, it wasn’t bad. It was brisk and windy out, scudding clouds ripping across the tops of the old twisted pines. The place didn’t look so frightening in daylight. It did look run down. The fences were rusty. The wire sagged, had been mended here and there.

He walked along to the main gravel road and looked about. He wasn’t sure which way it was to the corner where he had to meet the bus. Probably back toward the airport. He’d had time now to start dreading it all. What did they know about him? About what he’d done?

A car came past in a flurry of dust…and stopped. It reversed, and a huge hairy head, with a windswept moustache, stuck itself out of the window and barked loudly.

 

The Seer – Snippet 62

The Seer – Snippet 62

“No more. You will not speak of this again.”

Amarta considered leaving Dirina and Pas here while she took the hunter’s attention away. That would be best for everyone. But in her visions, the only futures in which Emendi stayed in Kusan included the ones in which the three of them left together. Somehow that mattered.

“If you stay,” she stuttered, “I think you and Pas — Diri, you might die with the others.”

“Then I will die with the others!”

At last Amarta’s resolve broke. She began to sob. If she could not even convince her sister, she was done with the attempt. She, too, would stay and die. At least now they wouldn’t have to leave Kusan.

Maybe the Emendi really did have a plan that would save them. Maybe she really was wrong.

“No, no, no.” Dirina said, taking Amarta in her arms, hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe. Then softly in her ear: “Of course we must go, Ama. Forgive my selfishness and foolishness. There are too many here who have lives yet to live, who have given us so much. If we must go to save Kusan, then of course we must go. Tell me what to do.”

#

It was not hard to smuggle food from meals, from the kitchen, and hide it in their blankets and packs.

More difficult by far was to pretend nothing was amiss.

With Nidem, who knew her better than anyone, she could pretend to still be sorrowing for Darad. Nidem, so elated to have been chosen for the next out-trip, was herself distracted.

When Amarta saw Dirina sitting with Kosal, laughing, touching the young man’s face, she was furious. How dare her sister engage thus, knowing they were leaving? How dare she be happy while Amarta suffered?

Then she realized that Dirina, too, was pretending. Acting as if nothing had changed. Better than Amarta had. Convincingly enough to fool her. Dirina must hurt, as well.

Amarta’s resentment melted.

At night she would go up to the gardens to see the summer stars and moon and track the days. She could not afford to make a mistake about when they were to leave, which she now knew must, for some reason, follow the next Emendi out-trip, yet come before the full moon. Somewhere in that handful of days they would leave.

She relied on vision to tell her when, but on her own eyes to know the day in which it might say so.

So many pieces. Often they made no sense. She might, if she were lucky, know the what, but rarely the why.

They must, for example, include in their packs scraps of yarn of certain colors, which she smuggled out of the mending room. She must give away her cloak, the one with scraps of her mother’s blue dress sewn into the hem. They must leave at exactly the right hour, and take the right set of stairs.

Whatever they had to do, they would do. She and Dirina were agreed: more important than anything was to keep Kusan whole.

#

Nidem laughed at her reaction. “You didn’t know me, did you?”

With the dark hair and tinted eyebrows, Amarta had walked right past Nidem before the girl had snickered and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her around.

“I look Arunkin, now, don’t I?”

So very, Amarta signed. No Emendi here.

We hide in the walls.

Like the ferrets.

“I’ve never been out past the gardens before.” Nidem was vibrating with eagerness.

A flash of vision: Horse pulling wagon, a winding road on limestone turning to grassland.

We’re going farther this time,” Nidem said. “To a larger market. So many things there, they say. Tools, ink, spices –”

Amarta felt the present shift and the future follow; a puzzle piece was only now forming, just falling into place.

A body on the ground wore her cloak. By the blue trim was a dark, spreading stain.

Nidem saw her face change. “Listen to me, going on and on. I didn’t mean to brag, Ama. Do you wish you could come, too? We could ask.”

Amarta’s stomach turned over. Her response stuck in her throat as if the words were spiked. She forced a smile anyway.

Nidem. It was Nidem.

She swallowed hard, pretending as fiercely as she could, pretending joy for her friend.

Kusan, she reminded herself.

“I’m only worried about you.”

Nidem hugged her. “I want to go. Be happy for me instead.”

At this Amarta managed a nod, her stomach going leaden as she forced herself to say the words that made her feel sick, the words she knew she had to say.

“I have something for you, for your trip. A gift.”

#

The three of them made their way quietly from their sleeping room. This staircase, Amarta insisted, gesturing, not the other.

Even Pas was quiet. Young he might be, Amarta realized, but they had been leaving places for all his life, and he knew when to be silent.

They climbed stairs, walked corridors, and stepped into the chamber that led to the outside door.

“I knew you would do this. Sneak off in the night like cowards.”

Darad stood in front of the door that was their exit.

How had she not foreseen this? She had seen what she had to, in order to save the city. She could not see everything.

“We must,” she said. It’s…” Her explanation shriveled at the revulsion on Darad face.

“For everyone’s benefit,” Dirina finished for her, holding Pas’s hand tight. Pas wanted to run to Darad, as he always had. He pressed his small lips together in sorrow, somehow understanding.

“Without even saying good-bye,” Darad spat. “After all my people have done for you.”

“You didn’t seem to care very much what I said,” Amarta shot back, finding her own anger painfully aflame again.

“Why should I care? I knew you were only going to leave.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Amarta felt a new idea cut through her anger. Could Darad share her ability to see into the future? For a dizzying moment she realized she should have confided in long ago. They could have shared everything, and whatever it was that had torn them apart could have been overcome. If he saw the future, too —

“Because I heard. At the market. Who you are.”

“What?” Amarta said, confused.

“What did you hear about us?” Dirina demanded.

“A man offered me coin for information about a girl, a woman, and a small boy. You three,” he pointed, his finger trembling. “Runaways from one of the Great Houses, he said, on some grand adventure. They want you home, you know. Offering a reward for your return.”

“No!” Amarta said, outraged. “That’s not true. We’ve never even been to Yarpin. We have no House. We have nothing.”

“So you’ve said, again and again,” he responded with an ugly smile.

“It’s true,” Dirina insisted.

He sneered. “Don’t worry. I’ve told no one your precious little secret, despite how tempted I was to make some good coin on you.”

“It’s easy to tell lies about people,” Amarta said hotly.

“I agree with you there,” he said. “So easy to lie. You ought to know.”

“I never lied, never. I –”

“Hush,” Dirina warned at the increasing volume between them.

In a way he was right: she had lied. To him, to everyone. About what she was. About why they had come to Kusan. About the danger she brought with her.

But not this accusation. This wretched story.

“You don’t know,” Amarta said. “There’s so much you don’t know.”

“I know plenty.”

“Ama,” Dirina again, urgently. “The time.”

He stood aside from the exit, gave a mocking, inviting gesture to the opening. “Have your fun little adventure, you wretched slavers.”

“What an awful thing to say. We were friends to you. We –”

“We must go,” Dirina said sharply.

“You were never one of us, Amarta al Arunkel. I am filled with joy to see you leave.”

Amarta shook off Dirina’s warning touch, facing him, wanting to say more, one last thing, something cutting and witty, or even sweet, something he would never forget, that one day he would think back on and somehow understand what had really happened here and how wrong he had been.

But no words came. Instead she simply stared, and he stared back, his smile carved as if from stone.

Dirina took Amarta’s arm and squeezed until it hurt, finally breaking through her anguish and fury. “Ama,” she said. “The moon. If we don’t go now, none of this will matter.”

 

The Seer – Snippet 61

The Seer – Snippet 61

When Amarta saw Darad, as she must now and then, it still hurt, but perhaps a little less today than yesterday. He spoke to her occasionally, when he had to, a word or two, but it was cool and told her nothing.

Whatever she had done to push him away remained a mystery.

Bit by bit she felt herself heal. Nidem was right, though it seemed to Amarta that the girl’s companionship had helped make the prediction true.

Dirina, on the other hand, shone like a buttercup in the sun in the constant company of Kosal. Pas, too, was happily learning words and signs, charming the Emendi with his fast grin and sweet disposition.

Truly, they could not complain. They were warm. They had more than enough to eat. They slept on beds. One fickle boy did not change that.

Most of all, they were safe.

Or so she told herself, firmly and repeatedly, when she woke from snatches of dreams of fire and smoke, keening cries from the dark recesses of tunnels. Only dreams, she told herself, again and again, and nearly believed it. Until the day the flashes came to her when she was awake.

Arunkin soldiers, torches in hand, striding the corridors of Kusan.

No, that was impossible. Kusan had held fast and hidden for centuries. What could change that?

She knew the answer: she could change that. As she had changed the lives of others.

Hands grabbed the Emendi by hair and arms, dragged them up the levels, out into the sunlight.

No, no, no. It could not be.

She stood by the door to the gardens. The keeper nodded his permission for her to go out. There in the sunlight, blinking at the brightness, pushing away the memory of the last time she was here with Darad, she tried to think.

Around her small green plants were bright and tall, red and yellow buds starting to swell.

Amarta, do not bring it here.

She closed her eyes, the sun hot and red through her eyelids, and pushed herself to follow the trail of the horrific images.

Outside Kusan, soldiers hauled weeping Emendi into wagons. One grabbed at Ksava’s long, ropy hair. Another plucked strands from her baby’s head. They laughed, holding Ksava, pulling her baby away. Ksava howled. The baby wailed.

Amarta bent her over the seedlings, forehead to the ground, sobbing.

“No, no! Not to crush the seedlings!” The keeper knelt down next to her, lifting her hands and head gently off the young plants. He looked into her eyes. “Perhaps you’ve had enough sun for now.”

Wordlessly she nodded and went back inside to the dark halls.

Certainty settled inside her: Kusan would be invaded. If she did not do something, the Emendi would all be made into slaves.

She took her lantern and descended the stairs, one level and then the next, down the full nine levels, to the opening of the caverns where Darad had so long ago warned her to never go alone, where Nidem had taken her to watch the rabbit hunt. For a time she sat at the edge of the opening to the cavern, listening to the sounds of the night forest, owls calling, rodents scrabbling, and distant sounds that might be brush trod by huge nightswine.

If she climbed down the rope ladder and walked into the deepest part of the forest, where the nightswine ran, if she gave herself over to them to rend and tear and eat, would Kusan then be safe? If she were the cause of the trouble, could she save Kusan with her life?

The truth was that she did not want to die to save Kusan, not even if it were the only way.

But if it were…?

Perhaps they could leave, she and Dirina and Pas. Let the city fall, if fall it must. Knowing the threat existed, knowing this horror was coming, did that make her responsible for fixing it?

Do not bring it here.

I won’t. I promise.

But maybe the invasion wasn’t about her at all. Maybe the Arunkin soldiers had been coming all along, and she being here was only a coincidence.

She knew better. It was her doing. All her denial would not change that.

Brave. She must be brave.

She turned her thoughts to the night forest, imagining her own death. Would it save the city?

She put the question in her mind but held the answer firmly at bay while she filled out the image of what it would be like to go step by step into the vast caverns, down into the night forest with the tall, black trees and their spindly, pale leaves, the white lichen dripping down in thick strands. To call loudly in the dark for the nightswine to come.

To let them come. To stand as they ran at her. To die wretchedly. Painfully. Alone.

Because if she were not truly willing, there was no point to asking the future for an answer. That was what children did: ask questions they did not really want answers to, make grand gestures that were only for show.

Make promises they wouldn’t keep.

When she was as sure as she could be that she would do this awful thing if the answer were yes — when her breath came hard, heart pounded, and she was as sickened by her imaginings of her own violent death as she could make herself be — she threw the question into that place inside her where the future breathed back.

The answer, when it came, sent a wave of relief through her, followed in equal measure by shame. She gulped air.

No. Her death would not prevent the invasion. It would happen anyway.

She would not have to die.

But — Kusan. She had brought disaster to the city. Could she somehow prevent it?

Putting the lamp on the ground beside her at the edge of the cavern she thought of Jolon, his map in the dirt. With her fingers began to draw. She would not, she promised herself, leave here, not until she had a plan to keep safe the many Emendi who had sheltered them when they needed it most. For hours she sat there, making sketches.

By the time she climbed back up the stairs, she was hungrier than she had been in some time, but it felt good. It felt right.

She went to the kitchens.

Then she went to Dirina.

#

“No,” Dirina said.

“We must collect food, all this month and next. Hide it for the trip. Then, before the night of the following full moon –”

“No!”

“– when everyone is asleep — I think I will know the time when it comes. I hope so. Then we –”

“Be silent. Your words are wrong.” Dirina said, and Amarta could hear the pain and fear twisted through her anger. “We are safe here. This is Kusan. Secure for a thousand years. It will not fall.”

“He tracks us here, even now.”

“You can’t know that. Nothing can be seen from outside Kusan. There are more protections and precautions here than you know. This time you are wrong.”

“Diri, he will find the city. He will come with an army.”

“An army! What grand things you foresee,” Dirina said harshly. “How is he to afford such a thing, this army?”

“The wealth of slaves,” Amarta breathed, hating the words she was saying.

“What a child you are to imagine such things.”

Amarta dropped her gaze to her feet. Her turnshoes were uneven where she had resewn them to make them a little larger for her growing feet.

Growing feet did not mean adulthood, did not mean understanding. If her own sister doubted her, the one person who understood her, who knew what she was, then maybe she really was wrong. “Diri, I –”

Dirina’s eyes narrowed. “You are not privy to all the elder’s plans, Amarta. Even if there is an attack, Kusan knows how to withstand such things. We go deep. We seal and lock the tunnels. In centuries past, Kusan has repelled armies. You are wrong.”

Amarta could barely whisper her reply. “He will find where the water comes in to Kusan and do something to turn it dark. It will sicken us. Some Emendi will say it is better to live in bondage than die in thirst. They will fight the others to leave and surrender. When enough Emendi have died from fighting or drinking black water, the rest will open the doors above.”

“How can you say such wretched things?”

She could not bear Dirina’s look, so she stared at her shoes.

Some of the pieces of the future were clear, but many were not. Some had yet to form. Many were still moving. Her head ached, trying to fit them together. She had been drawing in the dirt a great deal. “I think we still have time, Diri, but we must do certain things. Soon, if we are to –”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 07

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 07

* * *

They’d come to a place of old sadness and ghosts. A haunted place. A strong place too, in its own right. Áed could feel that Aos Sí blood had been spilled here long ago. And others of his own kind had left their marks, rather like dogs marking the edges of their territory. But the signs were old.

He was glad to be out of the cold-iron chariot. He hadn’t liked it, and he hadn’t liked the other human in it either. Ghosts or not, this place was open to the sky and the wind. It had a freedom about it.

Besides, the ghosts here were not inimical. Just present, and watching.

* * *

The rattling wheels on his Spiderman II bag were no use at all on the sandy track. And fifteen kilos had seemed like very little to fit your life into, but it got heavy, trudging towards…well, towards what? He had no idea.

The silence was frightening in itself. Partly because it wasn’t silence. Just quiet, with none of the ever-present background noise of the city. It made small noises seem louder and…well, more worrying. There were snakes out here. And he felt as if he were being watched. But there couldn’t be anyone out here…

The bushes rustled. Something was moving. Tim stood dead still, ready to run, his tiredness forgotten.

The terror stepped out onto the track and spread its tail. Tim was so startled he fell over his case. He lay there, hands in the dirt, feeling stronger, laughing with relief and just the sheer craziness of it all. A peacock? Here? In the middle of the bush?

The peacock didn’t like its tail being laughed at and stalked off. Tim got up and started walking again. It must be a pet, surely. He must be close to the house now? Three small wallaby came out of a patch of paper-bark trees. They didn’t give him quite the fright that the peacock had, and they were plainly wary of him too. He stood watching. He could see their nostrils whiffle as they tasted the air, turning their heads. They seemed to take it in turns to graze, with him being watched, as he watched them, with the sun slowly sinking into the trees.

He had to get on. He didn’t want to be here in the dark. You can’t be afraid of a wallaby, he snarked at himself. But he was. Would they kick him? He took a step towards them and they bounded off, and he trudged on. He was a lot less close to his grandmother’s house than he’d imagined when he saw the peacock. Maybe he should have taken that first faint track? This one didn’t look like it had been driven down lately either. What…what if he was lost? What if he had to spend the night out here? It was long, long walk back to the last house he’d seen from the speeding car.

The sight of a light was a very welcome one. He walked a little faster, down the curve and toward the house. There was only one light on, the house itself a dark bulk against the garden. As if it were some kind of beast waiting to leap.

Someone stood up from next to a garden bed as he approached. A small, slight woman who somehow managed to look about two meters taller than he was. The first thing Tim noticed about his grandmother’s face was her eyes. They were fierce, staring. And then she turned her head sideways, like she didn’t want to see him. But he could see that she was still staring, just not directly at him.

“You took yer own sweet time, boy,” she said, gruffly. He recognized the voice from the telephone. She never said much. Just “Happy Birthday” or “Merry Christmas.” Never sent him anything either.

“No one picked me up until just before five!”

“That bloody Dicky Burke. He’s no good,” said his grandmother dismissively. “Well. I see you’ve got one of them trailing you around. You tell him he’s not to make any trouble around here, or I’ll give him what for. Put your bag on the verandah and come give me a hand.”

Tim didn’t know quite what to make of that statement. Hailey’s surname was Burke, so that, he assumed, was “Dicky Burke,” but was she talking about the bag trailing him around? Was she mad or something? Was he stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with a crazy old woman who wouldn’t even look at him? He soon found out that, whatever else she did, she meant to make him work. Principally at pushing a heavy wheelbarrow. First it was weeds to the compost heap. Then it was hauling wood for the kitchen from the woodpile. She fed the chickens, and then told him to bring over two more loads of wood, as she went inside.

* * *

Áed knew she could see him. That was enough to worry him, without adding this place to it. Sadness and the murder hung about the building. Not the whole building, just the old part, built with salted timbers drawn from the sea.

* * *

Mary Ryan did not need to see anything much in her kitchen. It hadn’t changed a great deal in the last fifty years, and she could put her hand to anything she needed in the pitch dark. With the way her sight was, these days, it was just as well. And right now her eyes were also full of tears. She couldn’t see him well enough. But he sounded…and moved so like her Tom had, when he was young, before…before he’d gotten angry inside, before he’d left the island. Before he’d pushed away all that his people came from, pretending he was something he wasn’t. Before he’d gotten involved with that Irish woman. It hurt. Heaven knew it hurt still. Having the boy here…was like a sore tooth that had been a mere niggle until one had a cup of coffee.

And yet…she’d desperately wanted him to hug her.

This youngster wasn’t her Tom. That boy had grown up and rejected everything she’d fought for, worked for. This boy was like him…but not like him. And this boy had one of the shivery little people with him. Funny, she couldn’t see the boy’s face except out of the side of her vision, but she could see the little people just fine. They looked like the air over a hot road, but you could sometimes make out their faces.

She sighed and turned back to the wood-burning range. She pushed the pot onto the heat. It was bad enough that she couldn’t really drive anymore, which made life difficult on the farm, but the boy would be expensive too. It was an expense that would have to be met.

After all, all of this was for him, eventually.

She’d promised her John, faithfully, when he’d gone off to war, that she’d look after the land. That there would always be a Ryan on it. Sometimes…sometimes she’d had the second sight. The inner eye that saw the future, and places far away. That always saw fragments…of truth. She’d seen her John die, her big, solid, beloved man, the only man who’d had the courage to come and dance with the black girls, and damn what anyone said. She’d seen him bleeding in the mud, three thousand miles away. She had known he was dead, long, long before they came to tell her. They’d said she was a hard woman. But she’d done her weeping by the time they brought the news. She was cried out by then.

She stirred the pot fiercely. She’d been strong then, and strong when Tom had wanted her to sell the farm. She’d be strong now.

When Tom had called to ask if she’d have the boy, she’d had a moment of the second sight again. Her eyesight was failing, but that inner eye still saw clearly. That inner eye showed her a vision, briefly, of a taller, broader boy than the one who had just crept into her yard. A boy with a straight back, in a red jacket, out on a boat with a stormy sky, and Roydon Island disappearing into the rain behind him, riding the wild waves, as if they were children’s tame ponies, and him with a broad smile on his face.

It was a smile that took her back fifty years to a man she’d loved, and still did.

After the seeing, after that vision, she couldn’t have said no, although she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage.

The boy came into the kitchen from the yard. Didn’t even take his shoes off by the sounds of it. He had a lot to learn. But he was her grandson. “Welcome home, boy,” she said evenly, trying to hide the emotions he’d boiled up in her. “Now go wash yer hands. The bathroom’s up there, to yer left. Yer tea will be ready in a few minutes. And next time leave your boots outside, see. We don’t wear boots in the house.”

* * *

Tim walked up the dark passage to the bathroom. The worn wooden floorboards creaked underfoot. The smell of food had reminded him just how long ago, and in what a different world, his last bowl of cornflakes had been. He was still tired, wary, and deeply unhappy inside. But it was kind of odd what someone saying “Welcome home” did to him inside.

It was almost as if, strange as the place was, it was home. Weird, he thought as he washed his hands. Home was Melbourne. It didn’t have a wood fire in the kitchen and had hot water in the hand-basin. It wasn’t a million miles out into the bush with a crazy old woman.