Eric Flint's Blog, page 234

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 07

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 07

“Dark hair, dark eyes, most agree that she appears to be Latina. About five feet, five inches and one-hundred and twenty pounds. Witnesses say she’s attractive. And every one of them confirms that she has two little kids with her: a girl of about eight, and a boy of four or five.”

I straightened, my eyes never leaving Kona’s face. “A mom did this?”

“A magical mom, from what you’re telling me.”

“Damn.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “You called this guy John Doe. He had no ID on him?”

“None. And neither did his companion.”

I gazed down at the body again, taking in the expensive clothes and shoes, the nondescript features. “Well, this is a little weird.”

“This is nothing,” Kevin said. “Wait until you see the woman outside.”

We left the restaurant and walked to where the second body lay.

“Accounts of what happened out here are a little sketchier,” Kona said. “Apparently our magical mom brought her kids out of the restaurant and they were confronted by two people. One was young, blonde, about five-ten. The other was older — mid-sixties, maybe — silver haired with a trim beard and mustache. From what we were told, it seems he’s our second killer.”

Kona bent and pulled back the sheet covering this second corpse. The woman on the pavement was perhaps in her mid-thirties. She was heavy, with light brown curls and a wedding band on her left hand. She wore jeans and a Diamondbacks t-shirt. I could see no obvious cause of death, no marks on her face and neck, no tears or cuts in her clothing, no blood trail from a wound on her back or head. Her facial expression was as different from that of the first victim as one could imagine. Her eyes were closed, her features so composed she could have been sleeping.

One mark on her t-shirt did catch my eye: a stain on her left shoulder, about the size of a fist and located at the seam where the sleeve began. The shirt was red, so I couldn’t be certain, but it might have been dried blood. Not a lot — not enough to have killed her — but enough to draw my attention.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the spot.

“That’s what we want to know, too,” Kona said. “It’s the only wound on her.”

“So there is a wound under there.”

She nodded. “But not like one I’ve ever found at a murder scene.”

“Can I look?”

Kona glanced at Kevin, who was already watching her. He shrugged.

“Knock yourself out,” she said. “But don’t do anything stupid to my crime scene.”

Right.

I didn’t have gloves, but I did have a pencil — the one I used to take notes when questioning clients and witnesses. I took it from my pocket and gently slipped it under the dead woman’s sleeve. Using the pencil as a lever, I lifted the sleeve and peered beneath it. I couldn’t see the entire wound this way, at least not without allowing the pencil to touch the victim’s skin. But I could see enough.

The skin hadn’t been broken, but it was discolored. At first glance I thought it nothing more than a simple contusion, darker than most, but not strange enough to draw my notice. If Kona hadn’t mentioned how unusual it was, I wouldn’t have given it a second glance. But as I examined it, I saw that she was right. The skin on and around the “bruise,” for want of a better term, was raised and puckered, and the subcutaneous darkening was uneven, almost dotted, as if . . . Well, I didn’t quite know how to finish that thought.

“Witnesses?” I asked, still examining the injury.

“Several, but their accounts don’t help much. Our silver-haired perp laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder, kept it there for maybe half a minute, and then let go of her. When he did, she fell to the pavement and didn’t move again.”

I frowned. “He did this with his hand?”

“That’s what they say. I’m assuming there was magic involved,” she said, dropping her voice.

“None that I can find.”

“Say that again.”

I eased the pencil out of the sleeve and straightened once more. “There isn’t any magical residue on the woman at all. If the perp was a weremyste, he didn’t use a spell to kill her or direct any magic her way.”

“Well, damn,” Kona said, staring down at the body. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“Do you have any idea what the cause of death was?”

She shook her head. “That’s what I wanted you to tell me. Now we’re going to have to wait for the coroner’s report.”

I didn’t answer at first. I faced the restaurant and surveyed the parking lot and sidewalk, trying to reconcile what I had seen inside with the wound on this corpse lying at my feet. The restaurant grounds were as much a mess as the interior. Two large trash containers had been overturned, strewing garbage everywhere. I walked to the nearer of the containers and squatted beside it. Rust-colored magic danced along the edge of the faux-stone plastic, bleached by the afternoon sun, but obvious now that I knew to look for it. The same magic shimmered on the other container as well.

“The woman with the kids was trying to get away,” I said.

“She did get away.”

I faced Kona. “I get that. What I mean is, these other guys came after her. The dead guy inside and his friend, the silver-haired man out here. They were after her for some reason. She attacked the two inside directly. Out here . . .” I gestured at the mess. “For some reason she didn’t go after the older man and his partner in the same way.”

“You know this, or are you guessing?”

“I’m guessing,” I said. “But there’s magic on these trash cans.”

Kona’s eyebrows went up. “All right. So why wouldn’t she use the same mojo here? It worked well enough the first time.”

I considered the question. “There are a number of possible reasons. Maybe she didn’t want to hurt or kill the guys outside. Maybe she knew them, cared about them, and so she held back.”

“That’s one possibility. What’s the other?”

“I can think of two others. The first is that the casting she used inside wouldn’t work out here. It seems like she found some way to tap into the restaurant’s electrical system, and she might not have been able to replicate the spell once she was outside. But that reasoning breaks down pretty quickly. A sorcerer powerful enough to use magic like that inside would be able to come up with some other attack.”

“All right, then what about third?”

“Well,” I said, “if I found myself face-to-face with a sorcerer I knew I couldn’t beat, someone so powerful that any attack spell I tried was bound to fail, I’d go to a different sort of attack, something that a normal warding might not stop.”

“Like dropping a garbage can on him,” Kevin said.

“Exactly.”

My eyes met Kevin’s, and apparently Kona didn’t like what she saw pass between us.

“The woman killed a man,” she said. “At least that’s what my witnesses are telling me. For now at least, she’s as much a murder suspect as the guy with silver hair.”

“Even if she was protecting herself and her kids,” I said.

“Even if. And what’s more, you know I’m right. You haven’t been off the job that long.”

She was right. For the most part.

“Not that long, no. But the fact is, I don’t have a badge anymore.”

“Aside from the PPD, you don’t have a client, either.”

“The PPD isn’t a client, and you know it. I do this to help you out, and because, sick as it is, I still love working a crime scene. But I’m not bound by the same rules.”

“Justis,” she said, a warning in her tone.

I stepped closer to her. “Think about it, Kona,” I said, my voice low. “Procedure might be telling you one thing, but your head and your heart are telling you another. The woman had kids with her, little kids. She wouldn’t have gotten into a magical battle unless she had no choice.”

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 06

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 06

CHAPTER 3

The Interstate was already filling up with end-of-work traffic, but I made decent time through the city. The burger place wasn’t too far from where I lived in Chandler. I felt a little like a yo-yo, driving up and down I-10.

Even before I left the freeway, I saw the crime scene. There must have been a dozen police cruisers in the restaurant parking lot, all of them with their lights flashing. I exited and crawled through the crowded roadways until I reached the lot. One of the cops there tried to stop me from pulling in. I took out my wallet and opened it to my PI license. But once the cop got a good look at my face, he waved me in without bothering to check the license.

Fame had its perks.

Since late spring, when I killed Etienne de Cahors, the reanimated spirit of a medieval druid from Gaul, who had been responsible for the infamous Blind Angel Killings, I had been something of a celebrity here in Phoenix. My role in solving a second set of murders this summer only served to cement that status. A part of me wondered if at this point I could have gotten myself reinstated as a detective in Homicide. But the problems that first convinced the higher-ups in the PPD to fire me — the phasings, and the fact that I lose my mind for three days out of every month — hadn’t gone away. I was still a weremyste, and thus still subject to the moon’s influence on my mind and my magic. Plus, I had come to enjoy my work as a PI, despite its many drawbacks. Mostly I liked being my own boss, and with wealthy clients like Helen Barr now seeking me out, I was starting to make decent money.

I parked and soon spotted Kona and her new partner, Kevin Glass, standing by the doors to the restaurant. Kona raised a hand in greeting and then beckoned me over with a waggle of her fingers.

No matter where she was, Kona stood out in a crowd. She was tall and thin, with skin the color of roast coffee, the cheekbones of a fashion model, and tightly curled black hair that she wore short. With her thousand watt smile and her tasteful fashion sense, she might well have been the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Predictably, though, she wasn’t smiling now. Neither was Kevin, who was also African-American and attractive. Together, they were every bit as stunning as the weremancers who had attacked me earlier.

I passed a body as I walked to where they waited for me. It was covered with a white sheet, and a pair of uniformed officers were keeping people at a distance. I slowed as I walked by. A woman’s hand, with nails painted bright pink, peeked out from beneath the sheet. I continued to where Kona and Kevin were waiting.

“Thanks for coming, partner,” she said, her expression grim, her voice flat. “I’m sorry if I pulled you away from something important.”

“I can’t even begin to tell you how you didn’t. Hey, Kevin.” I held out my hand and Kevin gripped it.

“Good to see you, Jay.”

I glanced around the parking lot and then tried to see inside past the reflective glare of the restaurant’s glass doors. “What have you got?”

“Two dead, three more wounded, one of them critically, and a whole lot of frightened people who can’t make up their minds as to what it is they saw.”

“What do you mean?”

Kona scanned the lot before tipping her head toward the door. “Come inside and we’ll talk.”

“You don’t want me to take a look at the body over there?”

“Oh, you will. But I want you to see the one in here first.”

That didn’t sound good at all.

I followed Kona and Kevin inside, and halted, taking in the damage. The place was a mess, the floor littered with half-eaten burgers and torn ketchup packets, french fries and plastic utensils, paper wrappers and brightly colored cardboard, all of them soaking in spilled sodas and shakes. I took a step and heard something crunch beneath my shoe.

“Careful,” Kona said. “There’s glass everywhere.”

I examined the windows, frowning. None was broken. “From what?”

She pointed at the ceiling.

Craning my neck, I saw that the recessed light bulbs above us had been blown out. All of them.

“Geez,” I whispered.

“No kidding. Any idea what might do that?”

I shook my head. “None.”

“I was afraid of that. Follow me. There’s something else I want you to see.”

We walked around a condiment station and a trash can, placing our feet with care. I was wearing tennis shoes, and didn’t much care that I was walking through a shallow lake of cola, lemonade, and root beer. But I could tell that this was killing Kona, whose love of nice shoes was exceeded only by her love of bright, dangly earrings.

She led me to a table that was as much a wreck as the floor. A body lay beside the table and its fixed chairs, the sheet covering it soaking up the spilled drinks.

“They wanted to move him,” Kona said, reaching down to pull the sheet away and wrinkling her nose. “But I insisted they keep him as he was until you could see.”

“Thanks, I think.”

I squatted to examine the corpse more closely. He was a big man, tall and broad, with nondescript features. His eyes remained open, and his teeth were bared. Forced to guess, I’d have said he died in pain. He might have been a runecrafter in life, but I couldn’t be sure. The blurring effect that I could see in the faces of weremystes died with the sorcerer.

I could tell, though, that magic had killed him.

The front of his shirt was blackened and there was a hole in the cloth where the spell had hit him. The skin beneath was scorched as well. And a sheen of glowing magic clung to his shirt and blistered flesh, warm reddish brown, like the color of the full moon as it creeps above the desert horizon.

All spells left a residue of magic that manifested itself in this way, allowing a trained weremyste like me to do a bit of magical forensic work. Every sorcerer’s power expressed itself in a different color, and faded at a different rate. The more powerful the runecrafter the richer the magic and the faster it vanished. The russet I saw on this corpse was a powerful hue; having not seen the spell when it was first cast, I couldn’t determine how much it had faded, but I was guessing that it had been a good deal brighter an hour ago.

“Well?” Kona asked, watching me.

“Yeah, he was killed with magic.” I pointed to his chest. “It hit him there.”

“I could have told you that,” Kevin said.

“I don’t know what kind of spell it was.”

“People described it as bolts of lightning,” Kona said. “They say it flew from her hands, like in the movies. That’s what one guy told the uniforms who took his statement. ‘It looked like something out of the movies.'” She chuckled, dry and humorless, and shook her head. “That’s not all, either. When she attacked them –”

“Them?”

“Yeah,” Kona said. “John Doe here had a partner. The second guy was hit by the same magic, but somehow he survived, at least so far. The EMTs couldn’t say why. He was in bad shape when they took him; they said the odds of him recovering were no better than fifty-fifty.”

I nodded. “Okay. You were going to tell me something else — something that happened when he was attacked?”

“Right,” Kona said. “That was when the lights blew. They flickered and then popped. People said there were sparks everywhere.”

I eyed the broken light bulbs again. I’d never heard of magic drawing upon electricity, but there was a first for everything, right? “Tell me about the woman.”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 06

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 06

CHAPTER 3

Molly sank back into the slightly saggy seat of the Nissan and drank in the comforting familiarity of it all as they trundled along. Dad was never going to be a speed-freak, and, as usual, after a trip into Whitemark, the boot was so full that Bunce had to share the backseat with her case and the bags. Bunce didn’t mind as long as he could put his hairy head over the back of her seat and drool onto her shoulder, in between sticking his big nose out of the window.

“So, how was Melbourne?” her father asked as they drove past the old, burned-out gum trunk where some joker had hung a “the black stump” sign.

“Busy. Full of traffic. Full of people. Full of shops and shopping,” answered Molly, looking at the empty landscape.

“Just like this!” he said, cheerfully waving at a handful of hairy highland cows in a paddock. “And look, there is another car on our road.” He greeted the driver with a wave, as everyone did here.

“Well, it is kind of nice to have shops, but Auntie Helen dragged me through a lot of them.”

“She would. So how was the flight, Molly?” He knew how much she hated being in the air. He was fishing.

Molly found herself blushing. Dad was a pain. He read her far too well, and noticed little things. He’d noticed the boy when she’d said ‘bye to him. And he was as nosy as a bloodhound. It would be easier just to tell him. “Not as bad as sometimes. I talked to someone quite a lot of the way. A boy in the seat in front of me.”

“We’ll just have to see that there’s always a boy on the flight for you to pick up then.”

“Oh, pul-leeze, Daddy. He’s far too young. He was just a nice kid.”

“Practice makes perfect. Is he coming over on holiday or something?”

“He didn’t say. And I didn’t ask him what his parents did or where he was from, or what he wanted to do with his life, either,” she said tartly. “So you can stop asking.”

Her father grinned. “Name? Mobile number?”

“He said his name was Tim Ryan, and if I ever got anyone’s mobile’s number I’d never tell you, Dad. Anyway, I’m not likely to ever see him again. Now stop it. You’re worse than Mom.”

“Couldn’t be!” he said as they drove over the ridge and looked out over Marshall Bay. He always took that downhill slowly to enjoy the view for longer. They talked of other things. Of bookings for the B&B and of the problems he was having with white cabbage moths. Being entirely organic in their gardening meant they got caterpillars in their salad.

Soon after they’d turned into the West End road, he jerked his thumb at a tired, saggy farm gate. “I think the name of the old duck who lives down there is Ryan.”

* * *

Tim looked at his watch again. It was three minutes since he’d last looked at it. And that was four minutes from the time before. He was starving, a little afraid, and not at all sure what to do next.

He took out his mobile. It was a hand-me-down of his mother’s. Not the latest and poshest ear-ornament. He’d been too embarrassed to use it at school. He wasn’t too keen on phoning his mother now either. He really didn’t want to talk to her at the moment. He’d just had the bright idea of sending her a text, when he looked at the screen and found out that wouldn’t be happening either. No signal. But he was right next to the airport! This place sucked!

He got up. Paced around. He didn’t even know where his grandmother lived; otherwise, he’d have walked. It was an island. It couldn’t be that far. He could go inside again and ask someone for help, just like some lost kid. But he wasn’t going to…not just yet, anyway. That determination lasted all of ten minutes. He was feeling mixed up and angry and scared again. He walked to the door and opened it, still out of sight of the desk.

“Dammit!” yelled someone. “My computer just crashed. Have we had a power failure?”

Tim froze in the doorway.

“The lights are still on,” answered a female voice.

A few seconds’ pause.

“Who the hell unplugged the computers?”

Tim oozed his way back out of the doorway. He knew that somehow it would be his fault. Besides, there was a car driving in. They parked, took out suitcases…well, they weren’t fetching him. But that explained it all. His grandmother must think he was on a later flight. No need for him to go and ask for help. It was only twenty past four. Not near sundown yet. No need to panic. He’d get a book out.

More cars arrived, with people getting out without luggage…none of whom looked remotely grandmother-ish. Several of them waved as if they knew him, and a couple even said “hi” and “g’day,” but no one stopped to talk to him. A plane came in from the south. Not from Melbourne. More people with bags and cases arrived in a hurry. The passengers came out and collected their bags…and left.

Tim steeled himself. He was starving. And the sun was definitely getting lower. He had to go and ask for help. He’d just stood up when a shiny new green Jeep Cherokee came in, a little too fast on the corners, and screeched to a halt next to him. The window slid down and a cloud of air-conditioned smoke and loud music came out, along with the words “You Tim Ryan? The ol’ woman asked me to pick you up.”

Tim nodded, relief making him feel weak, and not ready to care if this was the devil in person fetching him.

“Put your bag on the backseat, and let’s go,” said the man. He was old. Like, about forty, and half-bald with a gold earring, and a bigger moustache than Molly’s dog.

Tim did as he was told, got in, and, before he even had a seat belt on, found himself pushed back in the seat by acceleration.

“Sorry I’m late,” said the driver in an offhand manner. “Island time,” he said, beerily.

“Um,” said Tim, “That’s okay,” which was just as true as the “sorry” had been. Nearly three hours of worrying did seem like kind of a lot, but what could he do about it? The air in the SUV was making Tim’s chest tight. He wondered if he dared open the window a little. He decided he had to. The driver didn’t even notice, and then it was better. They were out in the country — even the airport seemed to have no town around it, and Tim looked at trees and emptiness and the occasional house, most of them looking just as empty as the countryside.

“So the old woman tells me you comin’ to the school here?”

“Um. Yes.”

“It’s useless. She should have kept you at St. Dominic’s in Melbourne. My kid Hailey’s there.”

If Tim had been able to find a black hole to dive into right then, he would have. So this was Hailey’s father. It didn’t look like escaping his past was going to work out that well. He didn’t know what to say. He certainly wasn’t going to say “I was caught shoplifting while I was with her, which is why I’ve been sent here.” While he was trying to think of what to say, they looped up the hill, crested it, and began heading down towards a vast perfect curve of bay fringed with distant islands, the glassy sea sparkling and shading from azure to deep blue under the westering sun. It looked like the cover of a fantasy novel, too perfect to be real. “It’s supposed to be a good school,” said Tim, warily.

“Yeah. I made a lot of valuable connections while I was there. Old school ties count for a lot.” The driver didn’t seem to notice the view and just kept driving, past a few houses and onto the gravel road. Tim’s alarm grew. This was just…bush. They lost sight of the sea. There was nobody. No houses. It wasn’t even farmed. At least most of it wasn’t. They passed a windmill, some planted rows of cropland, a few sheep, and raced onward…more bush. The only signs of life were crows on the roadkill. There were plenty of crows. Plenty of food for them too.

They swung off the main gravel road and onto a smaller one…and skidded to a halt at a rusty gate tied with a piece of old rope. The dust caught up and swirled around them. “It’s just down there,” said the driver. “I’m late, so I won’t take you in.”

So Tim found himself with his bag and laptop, standing in the dust as the SUV turned and roared off. He took a deep breath, opened the gate, and set off down the rutted track winding between the she-oaks, walking into the setting sun.

 

The Seer – Snippet 60

The Seer – Snippet 60

“I will, and closely. Okay, you can argue, but I’ll win.” At that he stopped suddenly, putting the lantern behind himself while he pulled her close with the other hand. Before she quite realized it, he had kissed her on the lips. She felt herself warm all over.

“See? I’m winning the argument already,” he said, pulling her along to the gardens as if nothing unusual had happened. “Up we go, to see the sun.”

The kiss had left her wordless. At the end of the tunnel, the garden Keeper, a tall, slender man with a blond beard, nodded his permission to them to go out. The ferret following them jumped into his lap.

The two of them stepped outside, standing and blinking in the bright day. In the small, flat garden, tiny green seedlings poked up. They walked the small path under the blue sky and overhead sun.

Emendi caution told her she was safe here, that she would not be seen. But she felt exposed.

“Look at my hair, Amarta. Look closely. Can you tell?”

He looked as if he had always had dark hair. Even his eyebrows had been dyed.

“No, but –”

He brought himself very close to her. For a moment she thought he might kiss her again. His blue eyes were on hers, searching. She felt herself warm again.

“Where did you come from, Amarta?” he asked. “And will you go back there?”

“No, no. This is our home now.”

He stroked her face with his fingertips, the touch sending chills down her spine. She wanted him to never stop. “But your eyes,” she finished.

He laughed lightly and petted her head slowly. It was the most marvelous sensation she’d ever felt.

“You worry so much. Trust me, we know what we’re doing. We’ve been doing this a very long time. Truly, I will be fine.”

#

He was right, she decided at last. As the days and weeks leading up to him leaving on the out-trip went by, she looked into the future as often as she could. There was something odd coming, something to do with Darad, but it was after he got back. He would return safe and sound. She was reassured.

Amarta could give every one of their kisses a name. “First kiss” or “washroom kiss” or “the tossing-ferrets-joke kiss.” Sometimes she named them for what he said before or after. A simple, “Hey, dark-hair” or “There, I think you won that argument after all,” or “You taste sweet.”

When she was not sneaking off somewhere alone with him, she replayed every word he said. She felt as if she were floating. While she ached to tell someone, she knew it would not be Dirina, who, she was somehow sure, would not quite approve, despite that Amarta was pretty certain she was doing something similar when she snuck off in the night with Kosal.

Nidem, though, she might tell. She wasn’t sure she would approve, so for a time she stayed silent, but finally she could bear it no longer and whispered to the girl all that had happened, and how she felt. Nidem seemed uncertain for a moment, then nodded.

“It is good that you keep it secret, though,” she said. “Some would not be so happy to see Emendi and Arunkin close. I am pleased for your joy, Ama.”

Maybe, Amarta thought, this really was their home now.

The day of the out-trip arrived. Amarta went to see them off at the staging area, the same entranceway through which they had first come with the Teva, which she now knew had stables to one side and another huge room for wagons off to the other.

A tencount of Emendi loaded barrels and sacks onto the wagon, then water and food for the three days out and back. Astru and Vatti stood by, directing.

Darad came to her and took her hand, drawing her close. Then, despite all those standing near and watching, he kissed her again, longer than ever before, as if to make a point. As he drew back, Astru and Vatti looked on with unreadable expressions.

Well, it was no secret now.

Then, with one last look at her, he said, “I’ll be back for more.” He squeezed her hand one last time and smiled.

The huge stones were rolled back from the cave entrance and the wagons set out into the sunlight, carthorse hitched. From the front of the wagon, Darad waved at her as they went.

A handful of days. Practically no time at all. She was not worried; vision had told her he would come back whole. She waved back.

#

Some seven days later, right on schedule, Darad came back. They group was well, returning with sacks of grain, dried fruits, seeds and nuts, bolts of burlap. Even some casks of wine. There were celebrations that night.

But something had changed. From the moment he returned, Darad acted as if the last kiss and all the kisses before had never occurred. She tried to catch him alone, to ask him what had happened, but somehow he was always busy, always walking away or talking to someone else. The next day and the next she tried again.

In despair she went to Nidem.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” Nidem told her.

Her stomach went leaden. “But why not?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He won’t tell me.” Seeing Amarta’s expression, she did not even make it into a joke.

“Did someone tell him not to? Because I’m not Emendi?”

“Maybe that,” Nidem said, nodding slowly. “But just as likely it is that he is fickle.”

“But…” He had said things to her, things that did not go away so fast. “I said or did something to upset him, perhaps?” Her throat hurt. Her chest was tight.

“He went out into the world, Ama. It is not easy for us to do that, to be in the day, all day. To see the freedom your kind has so easily, that we can never have. Sometimes it changes us. Perhaps it changed him.”

“That much? I don’t believe it.”

Surprising Amarta, Nidem took her in a hug and held her a long moment, then pulled back to look into her eyes. “You are not the first to be bruised by Darad’s changing affections. He is a fickle boy. Someday he will be a fickle man. Be glad you discovered so early, so easily.”

It didn’t feel easy at all. She shook her head wordlessly.

“It will get better in time, Ama. Your heart will heal. Trust me on this.”

She did not believe it. She felt ripped apart.

Darad’s inexplicable cold distance continued. Finally she gave up trying to reach him, throwing herself into all the work that was possible to do in Kusan, from sewing to cleaning to leatherwork. The harder the work, the more demanding, the more she preferred it. She even volunteered to go to the bat caves to collected guano, a job always in need of doing.

Be useful, she told herself. Busy enough to keep away the painful thoughts.

One night she woke crying, and realized that the ache she felt for her dead parents, for leaving Enana and her sons, and the tearing pain she now felt for Darad were all kin to each other.

It had not occurred to her before that she could lose someone and still have them be so close by.

#

At meals Darad sat with another group, no longer inviting her to his table, no longer coming to hers. His hands flew with humor, his silent laugh and smile tugging at her emotions even now, just watching him. It felt as she imagined a knife through her chest must feel.

She expected Nidem and the others she had befriended to sit with him, and they did, clustering tightly around him as they had before. Like moths to a lantern, how he drew people to him, making the world bright and full of warmth.

But only when the light was on you. Now that it was not, she felt a desolate chill.

A few days later at the meal, to her surprise, Nidem sat down next to her.

Fickle as a child, Nidem signed, gesturing toward Darad.

Amarta’s spirits rose.

You are no child. she signed back enthusiastically. Nor fickle.

Friends last longer than pretty boys, Nidem quipped. They laughed silently together.

Across the room, Darad’s gaze flickered to them, then away again when she looked back.

Good. Let him wonder what they were saying about him. Let him wonder where his favorite cousin had gone to.

To her continued surprise, Nidem sat with her again the next day, and the next, then began bringing her along to gatherings after meals.

 

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 05

Shadow’s Blade – Snippet 05

I backed out of the spot, taking care — against my better judgment — not to run over either weremancers, and pulled out onto the street. The wolf ran after me, but I accelerated, leaving him behind. The last I saw of him in my rearview mirror, he was loping off the street, vanishing between two buildings. I exhaled and rolled down my window, my pulse pounding and my hand slick with sweat. Autumn air flooded the car and I savored the caress of the wind on my face.

One of these times, my luck would run out and Saorla’s weremancers would get the better of me. But not today.

I steered onto Interstate 10 and headed back to Chandler, where I have my office and home.

***

My office is on the second floor of a small shopping complex. It’s nice as offices go: wood floors, windows overlooking the street, and an espresso machine that cost way, way more than it should have. The computer, in contrast, is ancient, which I suppose says something about my priorities.

I switched it on and while I was waiting for it to start up, I also fired up the coffee machine.

When the computer was functional, I removed the memory card from the camera and downloaded the photos I’d taken. They were as clear as I would have expected from such fine equipment. I chose the best dozen or so and copied them onto three compact discs. One copy I hid in my desk. The other two I intended to take with me: one to keep at home and one to give to Helen Barr.

Once the discs were burned and I had a cup of espresso in me, I called Missus Barr and asked if I could come by. She agreed, and I left the office once more and drove up to Scottsdale, fighting traffic all the way. It wasn’t yet what I used to think of as rush hour, but in Phoenix these days “rush hour” began at dawn and continued past dusk. It took way too long, but I reached the Barr home, a Spanish Mission style mansion in the Scottsdale Ranch Park area. The front lawn was perfectly manicured and along both sides of the house were rocky gardens filled with ocotillos, prickly pears, chollas, and golden barrel cacti. A cactus wren sang from atop an ocotillo stalk, and a pair of thrashers chased each other around the base of one of the chollas.

I followed a winding flagstone path to the front door and rang the bell. Within the house, a small dog began to yap, its claws scratching on the floor on the other side of the door.

A moment later the door opened, revealing Missus Barr. I had met her in person once before. She looked younger than I remembered, perhaps because she had her hair down. She was petite and tanned, with dark blue eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair.

“Mister Fearsson,” she said, a tight smile on her face.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

“Of course. Come in.” She waved me into the house and closed the door behind us. “I was about to have a glass of wine,” she said, leading me through the living room. “Can I pour one for you?”

I followed her into an enormous kitchen, complete with granite countertops, cherry cabinets, and every small appliance I could name, plus a few that I couldn’t. The kitchen alone was probably worth more than my entire house.

“Water would be fine.”

She filled a glass with ice and water from the refrigerator door and handed it to me. Then she poured herself a massive glass of white wine and led me over to a breakfast nook that offered a view of the back lawn — also flawless — and yet another rock and cactus garden.

“So, you have news for me,” she said, fixing a smile on her lips.

I pulled out one of the discs I’d burned. “I have photos.”

Her face fell. She stared at the disc for a few seconds, then got up and walked out of the room, only to return moments later with a laptop computer. She set it on the table and held out her hand for the disc, which I handed to her. She inserted it in the slot and, after a few clicks of the touchpad, began to scroll through the photos I’d taken.

“She’s pretty,” she said, after the second or third picture. “What do you know about her?”

“Her name is Amanda Wagner.” I kept my voice low, my tone devoid of inflection. And I kept my eyes on the screen, not on her. “She works for a temp agency, and was assigned to your husband’s office for a few weeks back in February.”

Missus Barr had continued to work her way through the images, but at that she glanced in my direction. “February? That’s when this started?”

“I haven’t been able to determine exactly when their affair began. The earliest date I’ve been able to confirm is in the first week of April, but it’s possible that they started meeting before then.”

“How old is she?”

I lifted a shoulder. “I’m not sure of her exact –”

“Of course you are. How old?”

I hated this part of my job. “Twenty-seven.”

Her nod was jerky. “Tom has always been a handsome man. And I suppose the money helps.”

I said nothing.

She clicked through a few more images, stopping at the shot of her husband with his hand on the young woman’s rear.

“Damn,” she whispered.

I chanced a peek at her, and regretted it right away. Tears ran down her cheeks from eyes that were red-rimmed and swollen.

“I’m sorry, Missus Barr.”

She swiped at her cheeks, the gesture impatient, angry. “It’s not your fault, it’s his. And mine. I told you to find out everything, didn’t I? I thought it wouldn’t bother me, that I’d sue the bastard for divorce, take him to the cleaners, and be happy to walk away. It’s not that easy, is it?”

“In my experience, it never is.”

A small breathless laugh escaped her. “Am I that much of a cliché, Mister Fearsson?”

I dropped my gaze, cringing on the inside. “Forgive me. That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s all right. That was an attempt at humor.” She closed out of the program she was using to view the photos and ejected the disc. “You have more copies of this?” she asked, holding it up.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s yours to keep, and if by some chance you lose it, or he finds it and destroys it, I can make a new one. And I’ll see to it that the photos are available for the divorce proceedings.”

“Good. What do I owe you?”

“I can send you a bill.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re here now. Let me pay you. Or rather, let Tom pay you. I like the irony of that, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, grinning. “But I had some expenses that I need to tally up. And I was wondering if you might want to keep me on retainer in case you should need more information.”

She hesitated. “I suppose that might be a good idea. How does that work?”

“It’s very easy. We’ve already signed an agreement, and it remains in place until we both agree to terminate it. The difference is, I’ll be taking on other clients and will only charge you for those days when I work on your case a minimum of three hours. And in the meantime, I’ll bill you for those days I’ve worked thus far.”

“Yes, all right. Thank you, that’s . . . I find it reassuring knowing that I’ll have your services if I need them.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She led me back to the front foyer, seeming more composed than she had when looking through the pictures.

“I’m sorry to have been the bearer of bad news,” I told her as she opened the door.

“You weren’t, not really. I hired you because I suspected Tom was up to something. Now I know beyond a doubt. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mister Fearsson. I’m fine. Or if not, I will be soon.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m going to call my lawyer, then I’m going to take a nice hot bath, and then I’m going to go out and get laid.”

I laughed.

“You didn’t expect that, did you?”

“No,” I said, and meant it.

“Tom won’t expect it either.”

My cell phone rang before I could respond. I glanced at the screen. The call was from Kona Shaw, my former partner on the Phoenix police force.

“I’m sorry, Missus Barr –”

“No apologies. Go answer your phone. And be sure to bill me soon. That’s one check I’m going to enjoy writing.”

I shook her hand and started back up the path to my car. As I walked, I flipped open my phone. Yes, I’m still the somewhat-less-than-proud owner of a flip phone; I try to keep away from gadgets that are smarter than I am, which these days is almost all of them.

“What’s up, partner?” I said. “Please tell me you have work for me.”

“Private investigating business slow these days?” Kona asked, her voice sounding paper thin through the phone. Our connection buzzed with all the noise in the background, not only the din of voices one hears at any crime scene, but also a prominent hum. It sounded like she was standing by a race track.

“Yeah, a little. Where are you?”

“Just off the interstate. Feel like eyeballing a couple of corpses, maybe telling me if you see magic on them?”

“Sick as it might sound, I can’t think of anything better right now. As long as the case has nothing to do with broken marriages or cheating spouses.”

Silence.

“Kona?”

“Sorry, Justis. Meet me at the burger place, exit 162 off of Interstate 10. I’ll explain everything.”

 

Phoenix Ascendant – Chapter 26

This is the “real” last snippet (I think).

Phoenix Ascendant – Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Poplock stared at her, as did Tobimar; Poplock hopped to her shoulder to talk to her more directly. “Um, that’s what we’ve been trying to do for the last couple of weeks, Kyri. With all the magic I’ve got, all of Sasha’s, and even Kelsley’s.”

He could feel her pulse, sense it hammering far faster than it should be. “Magic–at least the magic we have–can’t do it,” she said quietly, still striding towards the south. “The Arbiter can’t. Even the power of Myrionar I command can’t, because I can’t manage to keep the power going once I’m hurt enough.”

“So?” Poplock asked. “You have another idea?”

“A crazy idea, yes. But it’s really the only choice we have. The Watchland’s gone. Our friends…if they didn’t get caught, they must be almost to the Black City by now. Our enemy must be ready to make his move. If I’m gone…Tobimar, I know you and Poplock won’t leave Evanwyl, you’ll stay for my sake…but can the two of you beat him by yourselves?”

Poplock couldn’t even try to claim they could. Together, the three of them were deadly. But take away any of them, they weren’t nearly as dangerous. He saw Tobimar shake his head. “No. No, we probably can’t. And he’s got at least three False Justiciars that we know of–Skyharrier, Bolthawk, and Condor.” He looked at her again. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a hill a little ways outside of town–you must have passed it when you first came here?”

Poplock thought back to the day–which seemed about a thousand years ago now–they’d first arrived in Evanwyl. “Oh, yeah. Over on the left…well, on the right the way we’re going now. Nice smooth meadowed slope facing the east, and the river spreading out across from it.”

“That’s it. Called Trader’s Rest.”

“What’s there?”

“My cure…I hope.”

Poplock eyed the stars. “Hope you’re right. That knoll’s about eight, nine miles down the road. Assuming nothing gets in our way, that’s still a few hours travel. Be well past midnight, and the sun won’t wait.”

Kyri nodded. “I know.”

They walked in silence for a few moments. “What is the cure you think is there?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” she said quickly. “Tobimar…tell me about Skysand?”

“But…”

Even in the darkness, Poplock could see the momentary wide, terrified look in her eyes, a look that silenced Tobimar instantly. “Please, Tobimar; tell me about Skysand.”

The exiled Prince of Skysand looked at Poplock with a worried, confused expression, but then shrugged, and began to talk.

“Well, it’s…it’s a big country, we cover a large part of the northeast corner of the continent. But…no, you don’t want dry description. Of course not.” His smile was forced, but the way he caught and held Kyri’s hand was not. “When I stood in my bedroom and looked out, I could see the sun’s light slant across the city, the shadows of the Seven and the One stretching towards the horizon, over sand shadowed gray and violet, with nodding green of the trees at the springs just becoming visible in the light of dawn. The roofs would go from a gray to rosy pink and white and light green as the sun sprang up from the sea, and you could look down and see into the central courtyards of most of the houses, squares of deeper shadow with people just starting to move. The Temple of Terian would sound the Dawn Chimes to greet the day, and there would be a whisper of movement, as thought the whole city were stretching, rising from its bed. The light would catch the dunes and turn them to molten gold and ruby, sparkling in the sun, and the caravan trails cut through them, lanes still touched with shade in the early morning…”

Tobimar spoke on, telling how he would usually begin his day, describing the great curved sweep of the bay and its blue water, with the wisps of black smoke and ash rising across the endless blue of the sky from the volcanic cone that brooded nearby, naming his sisters and brothers and the people of his household, outlining the city itself in detail–the streets, the sounds, the people. As they walked, Poplock found he was getting a clearer vision of Skysand now than he ever had before. Many of the facts he had known already–it wasn’t as though he and Tobimar hadn’t talked about their homelands before–but Tobimar was now weaving a complete picture, talking for hours without pause, and without letting go of Kyri’s hand.

And–at least at times–he could feel that her terror faded, was forgotten as Tobimar spoke, as she focused on distant shores and the love that her companion had for his homeland.

Finally, Poplock could see a dark outline, a curve of blackness against the night that cut through the stars. “I think we’re here, Kyri.”

He could feel her pulse quicken again. “Yes…yes, we are.”

She turned, walked swiftly–almost ran–up the slope, stopping midway, in the center of a broad meadow, barely visible in frosted starlight. She paused, looking outward.

The view to the east was very nice, Poplock had to admit. The river, as he remembered, broadened here, flattening to a shallow ford three-quarters of a mile across. The rippling chuckle of the water over countless stones was soothing, and Poplock’s eyes could make out the motion of flow and ripple all the way across. Low bushes dominated the far shore, a flat area that Poplock suspected flooded regularly; trees didn’t seem to reappear until near the horizon, a darker darkness in the distance. The horizon itself was a slightly brighter black. Dawn isn’t all that far away.

“Yes,” Kyri murmured. “This is how I remembered it.”

Tobimar looked at her. “Now…what?”

Kyri took off her pack and searched through it. “Here we go.”

“That’s our climbing gear. What do you–”

Her swallow was audible. “Tobimar, I want you to take the stakes and ropes and bind me down. Hard. This is shadespider silk, it should hold just about anything, but still, don’t take chances.”

“Bind you down–” Realization struck Tobimar and Poplock simultaneously.

“Terian and Chromaias…Kyri, you’re not–”

“Yes,” she said, and her voice shook. “I am.”

“That’s suicide!”

“Maybe…maybe not, Tobimar.”

“If Kelsley’s right,” Poplock says, “it is. When the sun rises, you go up in smoke.”

“It hasn’t got a complete hold on me. Not yet.” Kyri put the rope and spikes into Tobimar’s hands. “I can’t burn it out of myself with Myrionar’s power because the pain makes me focus on it. I have to stop. But the Sun symbolizes purity. I know it will burn me–and from my trying to use Myrionar’s power I know how much it will hurt.” Her voice was still unsteady. “Tobimar, Poplock, I know how crazy this is. But it’s the only thing I can think of, and I have to have faith in Myrionar that I’m right. I will accept the purification of the Sun and hope that the power of…of the Phoenix,” she managed a smile, “will let me somehow pass through that trial alive.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” Poplock asked bluntly.

“Then I die myself, not a monster. And that’s a happier ending than any other I see before me now.”

Tobimar stood stock-still for long moments. Then his head bowed. “As you ask, Kyri.”

Her voice was filled with relief. “Thank you, Tobimar.” She reached up and removed Poplock gently. “I…need to be exposed to the sun for this to work.”

“What? Oh. Got it.”

The Raiment of the Phoenix flowed off her–all but her helm, the symbolic profile of the bird of prey clear even in the predawn gloom. “Keeping that on?” asked Tobimar, in the most unconvincingly casual tones that Poplock had ever heard, as he began hammering stakes into the ground.

“I do this as Phoenix, not as Kyri Vantage,” she said. “The helm…won’t make any difference otherwise.”

Poplock couldn’t argue that. Aside from simple travel support for her breasts and brief underclothes for her lower body, all of her was now completely exposed to the night…and soon to the light. I feel so completely useless here. All I can do is advise Tobimar on how to make sure the bindings will hold her even if she struggles hard. Which she will. No way that she won’t when she’s burning alive, even with Myrionar’s power to keep the pain down.

Sound of hammer striking metal, looping of rope, more hammering, and the grim, grim look on Tobimar’s face deepened. Poplock didn’t want to look. But he also couldn’t look away. If this didn’t work…this would be the last time they ever saw Kyri alive.

Finally, Tobimar straightened. “It…it’s done.” Multiple stakes surrounded each of Kyri’s limbs, but even with many strands of rope, very little of her skin was covered. “Try to break free.”

Kyri threw her strength against the bonds. Poplock heard a faint grunt that showed more fear and desperation than Kyri would want to admit. But that does mean she’ll be giving them a fair test.

But the bindings held firm. Even the Vantage strength could not overcome all of the many loops of spidersilk rope and multiple spikes buried deep in the earth.

Tobimar sighed. “All right. Looks like it will…hold.”

The faintest ghost of a smile. “Yes. You…did that well.” Suddenly her eyes went wide. “Oh, no, I forgot!”

“Forgot what?”

Poplock found it amusing–and heartbreaking–to see that even in this circumstance Kyri was able to look embarrassed. “Um…could you go into my pack and find…” She hesitated, then plunged forward, “find the phoenix and dragon figurines that I have in there?”

“I’ll do it. I couldn’t do any of the real work.” Poplock bounced to Kyri’s pack. He remembered the figures she was talking about, and what they meant to her. The ones she and her brother played with. The figurine she got the name “Phoenix” from, really.

It only took a few moments. He came back and put one figure in each hand. Kyri smiled at him, though her face was visibly pale in the slowly growing light. “Thank you, Poplock.”

“At least it’s something.” He leapt back to Tobimar’s shoulder; there was nothing left to do on the ground, nothing really at all left to do but wait.

He glanced backward. The horizon was lighter. Kyri was now easily visible, bound immovably to Trader’s Rest, facing the east. “A few minutes now.”

“Yes.” She shifted slightly, though the ropes did not allow much movement. “Tobimar…I–”

“Survive this,” Tobimar said. “No farewells!”

She was quiet, but in the predawn light Poplock saw two tears flowing down her cheeks from beneath the helm.

But then he heard movement behind them, fast movement.

Tobimar heard it too, started to turn, but something smashed into both of them, an impact like a Dragon’s claw. Tobimar tumbled away like a broken doll, striking a tree so hard that the trunk shattered, continued on; Poplock leapt clear, tried to roll, but another tree was right there in his path–

The pain was accompanied by the high-pitched greenstick splintering sound of his own bones breaking, despite the defensive wards he’d painstakingly woven into his harness over the last months. Poplock slid from the dented treetrunk, falling limply onto his back. Something was still moving near Kyri, and he tried to rise, to roll to his feet, but he could barely manage to raise one leg before red-tinged pain caught up with him and pushed him down into darkness.

 

The Seer – Snippet 59

The Seer – Snippet 59

Chapter Fifteen

At the meal, Amarta looked for Darad, but he had slipped out some time ago, to where she did not know. Without even signing good-bye to her.

There had been a conversation the previous evening between the handful of them, the subject turning to the upcoming trip. Someone had pointed out that she and Dirina already looked like Arunkin, because they were Arunkin, and why, he wondered, couldn’t they be sent on the out-trips instead of sending Emendi?

“That’s a dumb idea,” Darad had said. “They don’t know what we need to get.”

“So give them a list. They can read, can’t they?”

“Not really,” Amarta admitted.

“Why not?” asked a younger boy.

“I just never had to learn, I guess.”

“I mean why can’t you go on these trips instead of us?”

Another girl spoke up. “We risk our lives on the trips. It’s no risk for you at all.”

Amarta could not — would not — tell her how wrong she was. But at this Nidem and Darad exchanged quick looks, making Amarta wonder how much they suspected about why she and Dirina and Pas were in Kusan in the first place.

“No,” Nidem said adamantly. She gave Amarta a brief, unfriendly stare. “I’ve worked hard for my place in the out-trip. She hasn’t done anything to earn it at all.”

Amarta nodded her agreement at this, feeling both relief and gratitude to Nidem. Darad gave her a thoughtful, unreadable look.

Which was why, now, with him gone early from the meal, she worried that she had said or done something he didn’t like.

The meal was finishing and Emendi were leaving. Some to the baths, some to the nursery, some to the music room, some to the coops.

Nidem caught her eye from the door. Come with, she signed.

Clean-up duty, Amarta signed back with one hand, holding a stack of bowls with the other, hoping she was properly conveying with the abruptness of her movements the frustration she felt at being stuck here. She desperately wanted to get Nidem alone so she could ask her where Darad had gone.

But no, it was beyond important that they be reliable here. To be worth the sanctuary and food the Emendi generously gave them.

Washroom Three Nidem signed back. Come soon.

Maybe she could get Dirina to take her clean-up duty, she thought, looking for her sister. She was with Kosal, a young man she had been spending a lot of time with. Judging by her happy look, her sister wouldn’t be in a mood to wash dishes for Amarta.

Again Kosal was trying to teach Dirina hand signs by holding her hand and moving her fingers. It seemed to Amarta that her sister was taking a very long time to learn. But no real mystery there; Dirina grinned foolishly as he slowly manipulated her fingers.

It was good that they were making friends among the Emendi. Still, many Emendi would not even speak to them, despite how diligently she and Dirina had worked these last months to find a place here in Kusan, to make themselves valuable and trusted to the suspicious Emendi.

After the Teva left, Nidem had warmed to Amarta, joking that it was best to keep enemies as close as possible. At Amarta’s hurt look, Nidem had rolled her eyes and cuffed her lightly. Joking, she signed.

Not long after, Nidem had taken Amarta on a night-rabbit hunt, the two of them standing well to the back of the group of adults who released the hunting ferrets to find and flush the rabbit warrens, where two of the hugest ferrets Amarta had seen waited. As the rabbits exited their holes, the ferrets clamped onto their necks, rolling hard to break them.

The rabbit stew had been delicious.

When conversation after that meal turned to Arun slavers, Nidem defended them, explaining adamantly that they had never owned slaves. Never even been to Munasee, let alone Yarpin.

Now Nidem flashed her a final sign: Hurry! and left the eating hall.

Amarta took dirty plates to the kitchen, passing by Dirina laughing with Kosal. She felt oddly uneasy. At the waterway where she soaped dishes beside others she wondered if it were premonition.

She had not looked for the visions these last months, nor had they come to her unbidden. She was not pushing them away — she had learned not to do that from her escape in the Nesmar forest — but also she did not ask for them.

No, she decided after a time, her unease did not have the feel of that other sort of knowing, the future scratching like tiny beetles in the back of her head, slipping in through the cracks. It was more that time was passing, and they were some kind of happy here. The happier they were, the more it hurt to leave.

And surely they would have to leave.

But if not vision, then perhaps it was not even true. Nothing bad had happened. The hunter had not found them. No one had suffered from her visions.

Yet.

As soon as she felt she could leave the kitchen, she grabbed a lantern and ran to the washroom two levels down. There a crowd had gathered at the far end of the room, by the waterway. Nidem saw her and motioned her over, leading her close in. On the floor lay a boy, his head tilted back in one of the basins, Astru and another man kneeling over him.

“What –” Amarta whispered, but Nidem hushed her with hand squeezes.

The boy grinned at her, and with a shock she realized it was Darad, his hair dyed black.

“He goes on the out-trip next month,” Nidem said. “This is the first time for the dye, to test his hair to see how it takes. So — a ceremony, you see. He is more an adult today than yesterday.”

Was that pride in Nidem’s voice? Amarta looked at the other girl, and decided it was.

That the Emendi studied for this, she knew, but she hadn’t really understood how much it meant to them, this opportunity to leave Kusan for the world outside, even for a few days.

Darad sat up. The men surrounding him toweled his hair dry with a cloth already darkly stained.

“Enough,” said Astru, waving at the various watchers standing around. “The rest is for Darad only.”

Out in the corridor Nidem’s eyes were wide and bright, her look at Amarta intense. “I will go in the next out-group. The month after.”

“If you do well in the exams,” the elder Vatti said, standing near by, running her hands through Nidem’s hair, inspecting it.

“Your tests are harder than Astru’s,” Nidem said. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair is what you take,” Vatti said. “You’ll be glad of the extra study if you ever get caught.”

“Why?” Amarta asked.

“Because what Arunkin do to blond girls they do not do to blond boys,” Vatti said.

“None of us have been caught out in years,” Nidem said. “A decade and more. Maybe we need less preparation for a few days outside to the market than you think.”

At this Vatti said nothing, but she signed, once, sharply, a sign that Amarta didn’t know, and walked away.

Nidem lost her smile.

“What?” Amarta asked her when Vatti had gone. “What did that mean?”

Nidem shook her head.

“Come on, tell me.”

Nidem looked subdued as her eyes traced around the empty hall and back to Amarta.

“It is the sign for ‘slave.'”

#

“You didn’t recognize me,” Darad said to her.

“No, not at first.”

“I’m going on the out-trip next month. I look like Arunkin now, don’t I?”

“Not your blue eyes.”

“We look down,” he said. “Part of the training. No one will notice. You worry too much.”

“Be careful,” she said, now suddenly truly worried.

He laughed. “I’ll be fine.”

Would he? She tried to foresee the out-trip to the market and back. Would Darad be sound through all that, and return unharmed?

“When were you last up in the gardens?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer he took her hand, pulling her along to the stairs and up the levels. A black and white ferret followed them curiously. Amarta didn’t much like going outside, despite being encouraged to see the sun regularly, despite how hidden the gardens were, nestled among high rocks. It reminded here that there was a world beyond Kusan. A world in which she was not safe.

“It’s spring,” he said. “You have to, now.”

“What? No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. And now that I have dark hair, you can’t argue with me.”

At this she laughed. “Watch me argue with you.”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 05

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 05

* * *

The plane banked steeply, giving the passengers a glorious view into the clear sea. Through the azure water, Tim could see patches of white sand in between the reefs and the weed-banks.

Molly went pale again, lost her smile. “You’d better belt up. We’re coming in to land.”

Hastily, Tim did, and looked out at the curve of the coastline — a strip of dark trees just inside the white sand. He noticed she’d stuck her hand up the narrow gap onto the window-side armrest. She must be lying forward on her knees. Her knuckles were whiter than the beach sand they were approaching. He tentatively reached across with his other hand, trying for the reassuring squeeze…only she grabbed his hand and held on, as, with a very slight bump, they touched down. It gave him an odd sort of inner satisfaction, being something of a comfort. She pulled her hand back as the plane slowed, propellers roaring. It swung round and taxied over to a tiny building in front of a car park…and stopped.

Tim blinked as the seat belts began their clacking. A sign on the building read “Flinders Island Airport.” And he’d thought Essenden small?

The girl was standing up already. She wasn’t pale anymore. Actually, she was blushing furiously through the freckle cover. “Sorry,” she whispered, awkwardly.

“Um. Like, no problem. Just thought you were worried. I…I won’t tell anyone,” he said, because he knew he would almost rather have died than admit he’d been scared enough to clutch a stranger’s hand. The hand of someone he didn’t know, and younger than he was too.

By the look he got, he also got that right. “Thanks,” she said, as she bent down and grubbed for her bags. “You’re a nice guy.” That was plainly embarrassing too, and, with haste, she grabbed her kit and joined the outflow.

Tim waited. He suddenly realized he had no idea what his grandmother looked like. He wasn’t sure how to deal with meeting her. But he was still riding on a little high. “Nice guy.” Not “nice kid.”

He was the last out of the plane, looking around at the scenery from the top step assessing his new prison-to-be.

It had a mountain. A mountain that seemed to be looking back at him, over the buildings and the trees, its distant bare-rock top lipped with cloud. It was really weird: part of his mind said, “I know that mountain, I’ve seen it so often.” But he hadn’t, he knew that. He was still looking at it as he clutched his laptop case and stepped down to the ground.

There must have been a static charge or something on the plane, because he got a weird sort of shock when his foot touched the tarmac. It was nearly strong enough to make his knees buckle, and he tripped and fell forward, only just stopping himself from face-planting onto the runway with one hand, and that gave him a shock too. He stood up hastily.

Everyone else was obviously over the static, walking cheerfully to the door of the curved-roofed airport building. Maybe it was something that always happened when you flew in little planes, and they were all used to it?

Whatever. He squared his shoulders and walked after the rest of the passengers. He could sort of remember what his grandmother sounded like, and maybe this island wasn’t going to be that bad. It was strange. He’d never been here, but it felt sort of…familiar. Like putting on a pair of his old shoes.

He stepped through the door, into a crowd of people meeting, hugging, talking and laughing. It was a crowd, but not a big crowd. There had only been about fifteen people on the plane, and it seemed that all of them, except him, had at least two people who had come to meet them.

But there was no one there waiting patiently, stepping forward to meet him. There were several old women, but they were all meeting someone else. No one was paying him a blind bit of attention. Molly — the only person whose name he even knew — was heading out of the door, towing behind her a tall man with a retreating hairline and a ponytail, who was carrying all her parcels. She was in some kind of hurry. And then he heard a loud, deep bark-storm from outside, followed by little yelps of what was obviously delight. Tim grinned, despite no one being there to meet him. He hoped he’d get outside the terminus in time to see the dog with a moustache. He looked around for a carousel. It wouldn’t take long to unload those few bags, surely?

Only there was no carousel. Not anything that could be one. Everyone was starting to drift out of the door…so Tim, not wanting to be left there standing alone, followed them out into the October sunshine. Everyone was heading for a lean-to roof next to the building, where a solitary, sturdy black-wheeled trolley was being pushed into place, piled with the luggage. Tim could see his Spiderman II bag near the top. He cringed inside a bit as people helped themselves to their suitcases and parcels and bags. Molly’s father hauled a battered pink one off the pile, and she lifted out another bag from on top of his. She gave him a rather wary half-smile. “See you,” she said, and set off for an elderly SUV — which had some mud, a few dents, and a huge, hairy brown dog panting out of the window. He did have a moustache — and about a mile of pink tongue too.

Tim’s bag was the last one left on the trolley, so he took it. Everyone was heading for cars, and he really didn’t know what to do now. He didn’t want to go back into the airport building and look spare. There was an aluminum bench outside the door. He’d sit there. She couldn’t miss him surely? There was no way to walk in without walking past him. He still had a few minutes of battery life in the laptop.

So he sat. Cars and utes — passenger vehicles with a cargo tray in the rear — left. Silence came down over the little airport. A kookaburra laughed at him sitting there, but no one else did, because there was no one else to see him. He couldn’t even see any other buildings from here, just stark forested hills spiked with rock, and the mountain looking at him over the trees. He took out the laptop, started on Starcraft II. But the battery died before he did. So he just sat. Sat and felt hungry.

There was a vending machine inside, and a Lions’ mints honesty box on the counter. But he realized that he literally didn’t have any money at all. He’d spent almost the last of it with Hailey on buying the two of them milkshakes before his venture into being a shoplifter. The store security guy had taken Tim’s wallet out of his pocket…and hadn’t given it back. So it had probably burned with the store.

Time did not pass quickly or easily, or without everything coming back to plague his mind, while he was just sitting.

It was too easy to play “if only I had…”

* * *

Áed saw the place they had come to as it was, not as mere geography. It was a place of power. A place of sorrows and a place of gladness. A place of refuge. A place that had once been very much part of the magic of this ancient land. Forgotten magic now, but still as strong as ever it was. The creature of air and darkness was a little afraid of it. Of the big green and gray mountain to the south, of the spirit voices in the rocks themselves, singing songs in their own tongue. But he was strengthened by it too. This was his master’s place, and therefore Áed had a place here too. They were owned by this land, a part of its slow dance, just as it was a part of them.

It accepted them. But Áed could see that his young master did not accept it. Not yet. He might never. Humans were like that, sometimes. His master’s ancestor had had the key to Faerie in his hand, and had still turned his back on a life of endless plenty and feasting, dancing, riding and womanizing with Finvarra’s host, for the hardships and privations of this distant land.

Áed sat at his master’s feet and kicked his heels, drinking in the strangeness, the beauty and the power of the place he found himself in. Time meant little to him.

 

The Seer – Snippet 58

The Seer – Snippet 58

“Sit down.”

Startled at this, she obeyed, taking the chair across from him. The manner in which people sat in chairs told Innel a great deal about them, soldiers especially. They were accustomed to being watched when they stood; sitting was what they did off-duty, drinking or eating, their defenses lowered.

“You have a lover,” he said. “Bintal.”

Her eyes widened. She stuttered in her reply. “Yes, Lord Commander.”

“He spoke to you before you left Yarpin on campaign last year. About me and my brother, Pohut sev Restarn. Is that so?” He was guessing. Satisfyingly, the blood drained from her face and her stark expression made reply unnecessary. “What was said?”

“Some sort of plan,” she said, her voice low. “Against you. By Lieutenant Pohut.”

“Give me details, Sergeant.”

“The lieutenant was asking someone questions.”

“Who? Where?”

“In the mountains south? Some fortune-teller.” She laughed a little, uneasily.

Innel’s stomach clenched. “Who did you tell this to?”

“No one, ser.”

“No one? Not one person in your company?”

“No, Lord Commander.”

He leaned forward. “No talk about the lieutenant’s funeral? No rumors about how he might have been killed? No late-night speculations about the new Lord Commander? I find this hard to believe. I can have you interviewed at length by someone who can tell the truth of your words if I have any doubt about your sincerity. You are far better off telling me. Now.”

Her face went even paler, her voice barely a whisper. “I might have said something, Lord Commander. In jest. Once.”

“How many might have heard you, had you said this something?”

Her mouth opened and closed and then again. “We were out. Drinking and smoking, Lord Commander. Truly, I don’t recall.”

She was too easy to read: she wanted anything but to recall.

“Guess,” he urged.

“A tencount, perhaps, my lord.”

“Just one?”

She swallowed. Her mouth fished open again. “Perhaps a few more than that.”

There it was, then: a rumor based in fact, with plenty of time for it to have found life across the public houses of the cities and the fire pits of the camps. It would sound like typical aristo dalliance and excess, consulting a fortune-teller, but Pohut’s death might give it more credence than he could afford.

Innel would start his own rumors to combat it, of course, far more outrageous. Pigs that snorted predictions, dogs that burped tomorrow’s weather. This would help confuse anyone looking for a kernel of truth. He hoped.

The woman before him was slumped in her chair, face a mask of despair, gaze on the floor.

“You’ll want to go back to your company,” he said after a moment’s consideration.

“Yes, ser,” she said, her tone flat.

She did not expect to survive this interview. In Restarn and Lason’s time, she might not have. Might have quietly disappeared, family and friends acting as if she had never existed at all. No funeral, no gift ceremony, no body. Innel had seen it countless times.

“I can’t let you go back,” he said, letting that sink in, watching her face collapse, giving her another moment to consider her mortality. “So I will post you here, on the palace grounds. Something modest, perhaps the cavalry inventory staff. Would you like that?”

She blinked a few times, doubt warring with hope, then nodded with fragile enthusiasm.

“You can keep seeing Bintal; indeed, I encourage it. But you will tell me anything that is said around you, about me or anyone in my family. My own people will be feeding you some of those rumors, just to keep you in practice. Understand?”

“Lord Commander, thank you, I –”

He waved it away. “You’ll tell me you’re loyal, that you owe me your life.” He leaned forward, caught her gaze. “I advise you to make sure I never question having let you keep it. Yes?”

“Yes, Lord Commander.”

#

Getting away from the palace was harder than it had ever been, taking hours to arrange. Again he made his way to the toilet room of the Frosted Rose.

“Where in the hells have you been?” Innel demanded of the vent overhead.

“Finding your girl, Lord Commander.”

“And?”

“You were right: she sees the future.”

“You have her?”

“No. And I will need more funds to continue my search.”

Innel’s fist trembled as he touched white knuckles to the wall of the small toilet room. Softly. “Hiring you, first and most expensively, was intended to resolve this matter quickly. Yet I see no resolution.”

“Commander, this no a simple girl. In each moment she knew what I was about to do next. A seer. Truly, this is extraordinary.”

“It took you a year to come to the conclusion that I was right? And you are supposed to be the best?”

“Few escape me, even once. I doubt anyone will get closer to her than I have.”

“We can celebrate that at least,” Innel said, “because rumors of the girl are now everywhere. Let’s hope your competition is even less competent than you are.”

“Lord Commander, I urge you to allow me to kill her. She will be far easier to control when she is dead.”

“Absolutely not. I need her alive.” Cern’s rule was yet weak, his own command under hers consequently tenuous. Innel needed the girl’s answers far more than he needed her silence. “So you come to me with nothing?”

“Not quite. I have some items that once belonged to her. A small seashell, some blue cloth. You may wish to ask your mage about these.”

His mage. Tayre was surely guessing. That Innel had every intention of doing just this as soon as he could bring Marisel dua Mage to the palace did not change the fact that it was still against both law and custom. He wondered if he should pretend to be offended for the sake of appearances. “Explain your meaning.”

“You are an insightful man, not given to common superstitions during your uncommon rise.” Mutt to Royal Consort to Lord Commander, he meant. Innel frowned a little at this, wondering if Tayre was flattering him. “You would have a mage.”

Innel made a noncommittal sound.

“Though,” Tayre continued, “I suspect the girl’s ability to anticipate danger will work equally well against magical forces.”

“Is that intended to reassure me?”

“If you want reassurance, ser, you’ll find it for far less coin than what you’ve been paying me. But coin is the least of your costs if someone else finds her first.”

The very thought that kept Innel awake at night. “This is neither news nor does it put her in my hands. If you cannot find her –”

“I know where she is.”

“What? Why didn’t you say that before?”

“Because finding her is not the problem.”

Again his hand was clenched into a fist. “And yet it seems to have thwarted you repeatedly.”

“Lord Commander, your other hires — have any of them reported finding her?” He paused. “Or reported finding me?”

“No,” he admitted.

“I’ve threatened her life twice. If any of your other hounds had done that much, I doubt you would be here.”

“Damn this. Can you apprehend her or not?”

“Her foresight has limitations or she wouldn’t be fleeing from me in the first place. I will keep pursuing, but I can offer no promises.”

Unlike the others Innel had hired, all of whom had been quite willing to give promises. That it would be easily accomplished. That they would have the girl to him shortly.

“She is still on the run,” Tayre said. “No one else has her, either.”

“Someone will.”

A doubtful sound. “Perhaps.”

So many ways to use the girl if he could only get his hands on her. He thought of the mountain regions, where towns thought taxes and House Charters didn’t apply to them, or the Greater and Lesser Houses and their squabbles. Trade boats that had been lost in bad weather, costing the crown astonishing amounts. The shifting metals markets.

For whoever held her, the potential advantages were boundless. He exhaled in a long stream.

“If capture is not possible…” It would be a great shame to lose her. But far worse to let someone else have her. “Bring me her head.”

“A prudent decision, Lord Commander. And the woman and the boy?”

For all Innel knew, the girl’s exceptional ability ran in the family. It made no sense to remove the girl and leave alive two other potential and similar threats. It was time to finish this.

“Yes. If you cannot capture, kill them. All of them.”

 

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 04

Changeling’s Island – Snippet 04

CHAPTER 2

He must have been running on autopilot, getting onto that plane, Tim realized later. He hadn’t walked out the door when he had a chance at home. He hadn’t gone to the gents’ at the airport and not come back. He’d walked across the runway, and hadn’t run off among the other planes. Just walked like a sheep, following all the other sheep.

The plane was tiny inside. Just two rows of seats, A and C. He had to duck his head to walk down the corridor between them.

There was someone in the seat he’d been allocated.

The girl gave him a nervous smile. She had braces on her teeth, and freckles, so many freckles that her skin was just about one big freckle. It might have been a bit more obvious than usual, because her face was very white between them. “I’m supposed to be sitting there.” She pointed to the seat in front of her. “But, do you mind, I…I’d rather sit over the wing. Do…do you mind sitting one forward instead? I asked them to give me a seat over the wing, but I guess, like, they thought everyone wants one with a view. But I hate sitting next to such a long way down.”

She was speaking too fast. And she was plainly even more afraid than he was. That was kind of a shock to Tim. He wondered what sort of trouble she was in. “No worries. I don’t mind.” She’d stood up to talk to him. She was taller than he was. Skinny. But those were designer label jeans she was wearing. That brought back to Tim the misery of being an outcast in among posh kids, and made him feel awkward. She didn’t seem to see it that way, though, as she leaned over his seat to talk to him. He looked about, trying to figure out where the overhead lockers were.

“I hate flying. But I had to go for my teeth. And Auntie Helen is paying, so it has to be Melbourne.” She saw him looking about for a place to store the elderly laptop. “You have to put it at your feet. I’m sorry…some of my stuff is in there. Can you fit your bag in? My aunt bought half of Melbourne for me. She didn’t think much of my clothes. I don’t know anything about clothes. But I couldn’t really tell her I don’t care. I mean, she wants me to wear white trousers. Bunce, he’s my dog, he’d just cover them in mud, like, instantly. He’s a cross Irish wolfhound-Great Dane.”

* * *

Molly knew she was babbling. At any other time, she would have been embarrassed. She didn’t really know how to talk to people she didn’t know, let alone strange guys. But right now she was too scared to care. She really was scared of flying. And she was scared of flying in small planes even more. So what made her parents go and live on an island? At the moment, talking was better than thinking. “Mom and Dad and I moved to the island a few years ago. And you can only really get on and off by flying. Well, it’s that or a boat, and the ferry only runs once a week, and it doesn’t take passengers unless you’ve got a car, and I’ve only got my P-plates. And I hate flying, but I had to. And we had a bumpy trip over. Do you fly often? I suppose you know all this, and you come from Flinders?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never been there. Well, not since I can remember. But I’ve flown overseas. To Ireland.”

“Wow. I’ve never been overseas.”

That got the first sign of a real smile from him. He’d looked like a bit of scary storm a few moments before, when she’d seen him looking at the seat number. He had very black hair, and his dark eyes had been all crinkled up. She’d seen that look before. She did a lot of babysitting, not that he was exactly a baby. When he smiled, and it wasn’t much of a smile, you could see his eyes were blue, actually. “It’s kinda different from this.”

“Everything is different about Flinders. My dad says it’s like going back fifty years. We’ve got a B&B over there. We only moved a couple of years ago, and I’m still getting used to it. Are you going on holiday?”

* * *

Tim was saved from having to answer by the captain giving them a talk about the life jackets, now sharing the space under his seat with his laptop. If he had to jump into the sea he’d better make sure to take the right thing. Not the life jacket! He could swim pretty well. Dad had liked taking him to the pool, back before he’d left. It was probably so he could look at the girls in bikinis, or that was what his mother said, but Tim got to go swimming.

Then it was seat belts and taxiing out onto the runway, taking off and flying above the city and out to sea. At any other time and place he would have been loving it. Now…his thoughts were interrupted by a little whimpery noise behind him. He looked back, twisting himself around in the seat to kneel on it. She was staring blindly at the book in front of her. Tim knew she wasn’t reading it, because she had it upside down. He could read it: George R.R. Martin…she read good books. He managed not to say anything stupid like “is something wrong?” Instead he said, “Do you want to talk to me? Keep your mind off it.”

She nodded. Didn’t say anything.

Tim had zero skilz at talking to girls at the best of times, but she needed his help. He groped around for something intelligent to say. The best he could manage was “So, what’s your name?” It was noisy in the plane. She was leaning forward to hear. They were all of ten centimeters apart.

“Molly. Molly Symons. And yours?”

“Tim Ryan.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Grasping at straws, Tim said, “So…you said you had a dog called Bonce?”

It was an inspired, or at least a lucky choice. She smiled. “My Bunce. ‘Cause he’s, like, halfway between a bounce and dunce, my dad said. I love him to bits. He’s got a moustache.”

“A moustache? Way cool! You mean like Adolf Hitler? Or one of those long ones with curly ends?” The image was enough to make Tim smile, and to make the girl start giggling, in little snorts of the sort of laughing you do when it’s laugh or panic, but that was better than straight panic. “And a beard?” asked Tim, following up while he was winning. “Like one of those goatees, maybe? Or a Lord of the Rings type plaited dwarf one? Maybe with a bone in it?”

That got still more laughter. “Poor Bunce. He’d be, like, trying to eat his own chin, and when he couldn’t eat it, he’d try and bury it.”

The talk flowed easily from there, with the Irish wolfhound-Great Dane cross getting more ridiculous costumes and hairdos, and curlers, and gel and bows on his tail. They drifted on to other things — books, the smell of dead wallaby, the school. Panic had been beaten, and so had some of Tim’s own misery. It was still there, of course, but it had been pushed away to be resentful and nag in the background.

* * *

Outside the human flying machine, where the air was cold and delightfully sharp, Áed danced on the wing, enjoying himself. Far below, the sea, hungry and restless, moved and surged about isolated islands, drowned mountains of a long-ago that Áed could dimly sense, like an echo that one could see, with the old magics still walking there, deep and strong. There were traces too, far more recent traces, mere hundreds of years old, of Fae-work and the creatures from hidden realms, in the shipwrecks and the buildings on the islands.

Áed saw there was at least one of the Fae, an old, strong one, swimming far below him. It was almost as if she were chasing the flying-machine he perched on.

The little spirit of air and darkness did not see as humans saw. If they could have seen her from such a height at all, they would have seen a gray seal arching through the waves. To Áed, her true form was obvious, and her long wavy auburn hair washed across her naked breasts as she half-turned in the swell, looking up at the airplane.

What did the seal-woman seek here, so far from the cold coasts of Ireland or Scotland?