Eric Flint's Blog, page 266

Eric Flint Newsletter – 25 JUNE 2015

There have been some modifications in my publication schedule from what it looked like in March. Here’s how it looks now:

1636: The Cardinal Virtues will be coming out in a week, at the beginning of July. It’s probably already showing up in some bookstores.
In October, Baen is publishing an anthology in honor of David Drake titled Onward, Drake! (Which has a really, really ridiculous cover which I am really, really, really looking forward to teasing David about when I see him this coming weekend at Libertycon. Oh, chortle…) I have a story in the anthology titled “A Flat Affect.”
In November, the mass market edition of Cauldron of Ghosts will be coming out. That’s a novel I co-authored with David Weber set in his Honor Harrington universe.
In December, the mass market edition of 1636: The Viennese Waltz is coming out.
1635: A Parcel of Rogues will be coming out in January, 2016.
Ring of Fire IV will be coming out in May, 2016. The lead story in that volume will be a novelette by David Brin.
The Span of Empire will be coming out in late summer or early fall of 2016.
1636: The Ottoman Onslaught will be coming out in January, 2017.

The big modification in my schedule is that we swapped places between The Span of Empire and 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught. We decided to do that for several reasons.

First, I didn’t particularly want to have four Ring of Fire volumes coming out in a row without anything else in the mix. Yes, I know the Ring of Fire series is what I’m best known for, but I write lots of other stuff as well. In fact—harrumph—of the fifty novels I will have published when 1635: A Parcel of Rogues comes out in January, only fifteen of them are Ring of Fire volumes. So there.

Second, my co-author on The Span of Empire is David Carrico, and he’s been waiting an awful long time to see this novel come out. By making the switch, I was able to shorten his wait by almost half a year. When you have dozens of novels in print, as I do, you get pretty blasé about your publication schedule. But when you only have two volumes published, as David does—one of which is only available electronically—it’s a lot harder to wait. Those days are pretty far back for me now, but I still remember them.

Finally, making the switch gives me a few more months to work on Ottoman Onslaught. That will be helpful because as the old and politically incorrect expression has it, this book’s going to be a bitch to write. I’ve got a gazillion subplots I need to juggle in addition to the (relatively) straight-forward task of writing a sequel to 1636: The Saxon Uprising. The problem is that Ottoman Onslaught also has to serve as the sequel for 1636: The Viennese Waltz as well as my short novel in Ring of Fire III, “Four Days on the Danube.”

 

In other news of the day, I’ll be attending Sasquan, the World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane in August. Here’s the URL, for anyone interested: http://sasquan.org/.

I hadn’t intended to go to Worldcon this year, but given the rather prominent role I wound up playing in the Hugo controversy, I eventually decided I ought to show up.

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 45

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 45

Just like Dorrie was gone, and Gloria too.

Joe Tillman stood in the middle of the great open hall of the edifice, alone in a crowd. He wondered to himself what the hell he was doing there.

“Waiting for the train, Joey?”

He spun around to see his brother Frank standing a few feet away, his hat in his hand.

“What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I expect.”

“Train.”

Frank walked over and took his brother’s hand. “Quite a building they put up here, Joe. Not quite the U.S. Capitol, but it’s still pretty grand.”

Joe didn’t have any answer to that, but said again, “what are you doing here?”

“Like I said, Joey. Same as you.”

“You mean?”

“When Rebecca Stearns sends you a letter and tells you she wants to meet with you in her office, you come runnin’. I certainly wasn’t going to argue.”

“Huh. She asked for me too.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Clarence told me. I was off in Saalfeld doing that offsite job, and when I got back he told me you’d left for Magdeburg. When I got home Lana had a letter for me. Clarence near hit the roof when I told him I was coming up here too. ‘Has the woman gone plumb crazy?'” It was a pretty fair impression of Clarence Dobbs, and they both laughed.

“Maybe she has.”

“Has what?”

“Gone plumb crazy.” Joe looked around. “Both of us have an audience with the wife of the so-called Prince of Germany. Damn. Do you think she’s going to want to see us together, or . . .”

“I don’t know, Joey. Maybe we should go ask her.”

“Lead the way,” Joe said, gesturing toward the long hall of offices ahead.

****

The wife of the Prince of Germany, as Joe Tillman had called her — but not to her face — was more gracious and pleasant than he could have expected. He and his brother had stood in the outer office while her secretary checked whether she was busy, and then beckoned them to come in.

Rebecca Abrabanel had married Mike Stearns not long after the Ring of Fire, and now was almost as recognizable a public figure as her husband. She had been in the middle of all of the recent political intrigue — stuff that happened way above Joe and Frank’s pay grades — but she still seemed genuinely excited to see them. She led them into her inner office, which was crowded and small, but very organized — everything in its place, Joe thought, and lots of places. They sat in two straight chairs facing the desk, and she armed each of them with a sturdy coffee-mug bearing the USE flag before sitting in her comfortable chair behind it.

“Thank you for responding so promptly,” she said. “I suppose you’re wondering what this is all about.”

Joe didn’t answer; Frank smiled and said, “Yes, Ma’am, we were a little curious.”

“And you should be. Do you read the newspapers regularly?”

“Is this some sort of test?” Joe finally blurted out. Frank looked at him, wondering how to follow that up.

“He didn’t mean anything by that,” Frank managed. “No offense.”

“None taken. No, Mr. Tillman, this is not a test, but rather an invitation. I’d like the two of you to be a part of a . . . delegation.”

“A what, now?”

“A delegation. I have been asked to travel on behalf of the government of the USE, to represent it at a rather significant event. The crowning of a new king.”

“The king of France,” Joe Tillman said. “Gaston.”

“You do read the papers.”

“I keep up,” he said. “The old king was killed, right? Some sort of ambush. And his brother is going to take his place.”

“That’s right. He is to be crowned in Reims on the twenty-first of May. I will be accompanied by Colonel Hand, who will represent his cousin the Emperor, and who will present diplomatic credentials to King Gaston as our permanent representative. I am taking some of my staff with me, and I’d like to have the two of you along as well.”

“You would,” Joe said. “For what? Do you need some plumbing done at the consulate? There must be Frenchmen you could hire for that.”

“Joey –”

Joe held his hand up. “No, this is important, Frank. Mrs. Stearns has decided that two pipefitters from Grantville are going to be a part of some diplomatic delegation so we can watch a king be crowned. All I can think is: why? And I bet I know the answer.”

Rebecca sat patiently as the two brothers stared each other down. Frank looked uncomfortable — he didn’t seem to like the idea that his brother was speaking so bluntly. Joe was more defiant.

“I think we should let the lady tell us,” Frank said.

“No,” Rebecca Stearns said. “Please, Mr. Tillman.” They both looked at her. “I’m sorry. Mr. Joe Tillman. Tell me why you think I’ve invited two pipefitters to travel with me.”

“It’s about Terrye Jo.”

“Joe –”

“Yes,” Rebecca said, leaning forward. “That’s right. It’s about your daughter. For the past several months she has been working for the duke of Savoy and for the king-designate of France. There are things she knows that may be of vital importance.”

“Things she might tell her Dad that she won’t tell a government minister.”

“Just so,” Rebecca said.

“Well,” Joe said, “I hate to be the person to break it to you, ma’am, but my daughter and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms right now. I had to bury her aunt and her mother while she was working hard for this duke. I don’t think she’ll be curling up on my lap and telling me secrets.”

“I understand.”

“You do. So . . .” Joe looked at Frank and then back at Rebecca, who didn’t seem too surprised at Joe’s answer. “So I still don’t see what’s the point.”

“You act as if you haven’t communicated with her at all since she left Grantville, Mr. Tillman. She came home after her tour of duty, before she went with the team that installed Duke Victor Amadeus’ radio tower, and hasn’t been home since — but you’ve received letters from her.”

Joe’s face reddened. “How the hell do you know that? Did you open ’em too and read what she said?”

“No. Of course not. But we do know that letters to you arrived in the Grantville post office. Savoy is a . . . place of interest for the USE at the moment, due to the duke’s relationship with Monsieur Gaston. So any correspondence with anyone in Savoy is of interest to the government.”

“So I got a few letters from Terrye Jo. All right. I confess. That doesn’t mean we’re talking.”

Rebecca leaned back again and looked away. “Mr. Tillman,” she said, without looking directly at him. “Do you know how Michael and I met?”

“What does that –”

“Better answer the lady’s question, Joey,” Frank Tillman said. Joe looked at his brother, who was smiling very slightly, as if he saw where this was going.

“He brought you into town the day of the Ring of Fire,” Joe said. “You and your father.”

“That’s correct,” Rebecca said. “He rescued us from a band of mercenaries. My father was afraid for my life — and for my honour, but Michael and his friends treated us courteously and respectfully. Both of us. My father’s heart was failing, but Doctor Nichols saved his life. Your people saved both of our lives.

“Fathers and daughters never truly stop talking to each other, Mr. Tillman,” she said, turning back to face him. “Sometimes words fail, but the conversation persists. If you believe otherwise, then you are deceiving yourself. I offer you the opportunity to reunite with your daughter; I have my own motives, yes, but I do hope that your own self-interest will motivate you to agree.”

Joe nodded, his anger draining out of him, replaced with an expression of sadness.

“What about me?” Frank said. “Why am I here?”

Rebecca smiled. “In case my arguments aren’t strong enough, sir, I am counting on you to convince your brother that this is a good idea.”

 

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 24

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 24

Chapter 9

I stopped at home to put on fresh clothes before going to my office and firing up the computer and my seven hundred dollar Saeco espresso machine. What can I say? I really, really like coffee, especially Sumatran. I’ll eat cold pizza for breakfast and store-brand ice cream instead of the fancy kinds that come in pint containers costing seven bucks a pop. But try to sneak cheap coffee by me and I’ll know it from the smell.

Once I had a bit of caffeine in me, I searched online for everything I could find on Regina Witcombe. Most of what I read focused on her philanthropic activities; finding detailed information about her business dealings proved frustrating. Apparently, she didn’t like to shine a spotlight on that part of her life. But I kept digging and over the next hour, managed to piece together a rough portrait of her rise to corporate power.

Her husband, Michael, had died while yachting — alone — off the Malibu Coast about ten years before. She had been in Belize, traveling with friends. The story was he drank a bit too much wine and wasn’t prepared when his vessel encountered high winds and rough seas. The Coast Guard believed that he fell off the boat and drowned; the yacht, the Regina, of course, was discovered a day later, drifting near Santa Catalina Island. Regina and her two daughters inherited everything, and after a brief power struggle with the corporate board of Witcombe Financial, she was named its new CEO. She possessed a business degree from the Wharton School, and a degree in law from Georgetown, and she had been active in the company as a Vice President and in-house counsel. It wasn’t like she was unqualified, but she leap-frogged several senior execs to take the position, and a few of them were pretty unhappy about it. In the wake of her elevation to CEO, three of Witcombe’s top executives left the company.

The controversy didn’t last long, however, because the board of directors and the rest of her executive team closed ranks behind her, and because the company continued to do well under her leadership.

Nevertheless, reading about Michael Witcombe’s death and all that followed set off alarm bells in my head. A tragic accident, a perfect alibi, an inheritance worth more than a billion dollars. It all struck me as too convenient, too easy. Add in rumors of dark magic, and I was ready to call Kona and tell her to have the case reopened. Never mind that it was a few hundred miles outside her jurisdiction.

There was no shortage of photographs of her online. She was an attractive woman; auburn hair, blue eyes, brilliant smile, always impeccably dressed. She had been in her early forties when Michael died, and so was in her early fifties now, but you wouldn’t have known it to look at her. I found a video of her as well, speaking to stockholders at Witcombe’s annual meeting. She spoke in a warm alto, her manner easy, charming even. But I couldn’t tell for certain, from either the clip I watched or the photos I found, whether she was really a weremyste. The blurring of features that I experienced when face to face with another sorcerer didn’t translate to these media. I had no idea how I might get close enough to this woman to see for myself if she was a myste. And I wasn’t yet ready to take Jacinto Amaya’s word for it.

My perusal of the roster of Witcombe’s corporate officers didn’t produce much, although I jotted down the names of the highest ranking executives to run by Kona and Billie.

I kept digging, collecting tidbits about Regina Witcombe’s life like a mouse hoarding crumbs. It seemed that two years ago she had sold her estate in Scottsdale, and bought a place in Paradise Valley for a cool eleven million and change. Must be nice to have options like that.

Something in my mind clicked again. I picked up the phone and called a friend of mine, an ex-girlfriend as it happened, who had helped me find the office in which I was sitting.

“This is Sally Peters.”

“Hey, Sally. It’s Jay Fearsson.”

“Hey there, stranger. How’s the PI biz?”

“It’s keeping me busy, paying some bills.”

“Getting you in the paper, too. I saw that you got shot.”

“Yeah, I’m better now.”

“Well, good. Wanna take me out for dinner? Maybe get lucky?”

“I thought you were engaged.”

“I was,” she said. “Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Sal. But I’m going to have to pass on the getting lucky thing.”

“Jay Fearsson, do you have a girlfriend?”

A big, fat, stupid grin split my face. Billie and I had been together for a couple of months, but the novelty of being in a serious relationship hadn’t worn off yet. “Yep. Pretty crazy, right?”

“Wow, yeah. Pretty crazy. So if you’re not calling for me for a night on the town, are you calling for business?”

“Sort of. I need a little information. If a house was sold a couple of years ago, can you still pull up the listing on your system, maybe tell me some of the details?”

“Hmmm,” she said. “A couple of years? I dunno. But I can try. Where was the house?”

“Scottsdale. It belonged to Regina Witcombe.”

She laughed. “The Witcombe estate? I don’t have to do a search. Every agent in the greater Phoenix area was drooling over those commissions — one agency got both the sale of the Scottsdale house and the purchase of the mansion in Paradise Valley. Both were handled by Sonoran Winds Realty.”

Bingo.

“You don’t happen to know who the listing agent was, do you?”

“For which one?”

I wasn’t sure it mattered, but I said, “The Scottsdale sale.” I held my breath, hoping against hope that she would remember that name as well.

“Oh, God. I should remember. She was the toast of the town for weeks afterward.”

“It was a woman.”

“Yes. Both agents were; that much I’m sure of. Hold on, Jay.” It sounded like she put her hand over the receiver, though I could still hear her voice as she said, “Hey do any of you remember the name of the listing agent for Regina Witcombe’s house in Scottsdale?”

Someone answered her, but I couldn’t make out the name.

“No,” Sally said. “She handled the sale in Paradise Valley.”

“Who did, Sal?” I asked. I don’t think she heard me.

She and her colleagues batted around a couple of other names before she removed her hand from the receiver.

“We’re drawing a blank on the Scottsdale agent, Jay. Sorry.”

“Who was the agent on the one in Paradise Valley?”

“What was the first name again?” Sally asked her coworkers. “Right, right.” To me she said, “Patricia Hesslan-Fine.”

“That’s the name I was hoping to hear, Sal. Thank you.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously, I owe you one.”

“Cool. If this thing with your new girlfriend works out, and you need to find a new place, you’ll come to me, right?”

“I promise. Gotta go.”

We hung up, but for a moment I remained frozen in place, staring at my computer and the image of Regina Witcombe that lingered on the screen.

Patty Hesslan had been Regina Witcombe’s real estate agent, or at least one of them. And yesterday they had been traveling together. Sort of. Patty had been listed as a party of one. Checking the list again, I saw that Regina was listed the same way. Random chance? It was possible. But in the past day and a half I had encountered enough coincidences to last a lifetime, and this last one was a doozy.

I had few leads and no idea where to start digging around for more. This one, as tenuous as it was, seemed like my best bet. And I’ll admit as well that a part of me was curious about Patty Hesslan and what she remembered about the horrible events that had bound our families together for a few months back when we were teenagers.

 

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 44

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 44

Chapter 26

Evreux

The Marquis de Montausier seemed almost obsessed with his own gallantry. After a night at Maintenon, he went out of his way to assist in guiding the queen and her entourage toward Evreux, arranging discreet lodging and assuring that the widow and child be left alone. Mazarin was reasonably sure that Montausier was keeping her identity secret; Achille was not quite as sure, making some effort to keep close to the Marquis, scarcely letting him leave his sight.

“We cannot avoid trusting some that we meet,” Mazarin told him.

“We shall endeavour to keep the number to a minimum,” was Achille’s reply; and then he launched into an extended tale of his service aboard Mediterranean corsairs against the Turks.

It took three days to reach Evreux, just prior to which they parted company from Montausier, who swore a personal vow of silence to Queen Anne. She received it with dignified courtesy, but insisted that she accepted it on behalf of her infant son — the king of France.

They reached the ancient town, located in a bend of the River Eure, in the late afternoon. As they came upon it, Mazarin halted their procession and drew Achille aside.

“You have some specific destination, I presume.”

“Yes, Monseigneur. Arrangements will have been made.”

“Arrangements? By whom?”

“A friend.”

“Ah,” Mazarin said. “We are enlarging the circle of those we trust. Who is this friend?”

“I . . . am not at liberty to say.”

“I find that less than reassuring. Does our queen have some loyal servant in Evreux? Perhaps I should inquire, as she has made no representation to me.”

“You do not trust me.”

“I didn’t say that. I . . . Monsieur Achille.” Mazarin sighed, taking his time to reply. “I assure you that I am just as careful, just as suspicious, and just as tentative as you are about any step we take on behalf of the queen and the child.”

“Our king.”

“Yes. Our king, the child of two weeks that we are trying to protect. I want the same outcome you do. Yet when I ask for your trust, you are suspicious — but when you ask my trust, you expect me to accept it on its face and ask no questions. That may be well and good in the Order of Malta; but those rules do not apply here.

Mazarin frowned. “Are you prepared to include me in your deliberations? We all want the same outcome, Achille. All of us.”

“Are you accusing me of –”

“I am accusing you of nothing.”

Mazarin looked aside, holding the reins of his horse tightly; if he was not wearing riding gloves, certainly Achille would have noticed his white knuckles. He silently recited a Pater Noster, calming himself.

“It is necessary that you take me into your confidence, Monsieur. At once, if you please.”

“It is better that you do not know.”

“No, it is not. Achille, I accept that I may be placing you in an uncomfortable position; but even so, for the sake of all we hope to accomplish, we must work together and keep as few secrets as possible. Either apprise me of our situation, Monsieur, or prepare to part company from the king and Queen Mother. I shall not jeopardize their lives by the want of this information.”

There was a short, tense silence, during which Mazarin tried to determine just what the Knight of Malta might be thinking. The man was prideful and impulsive to a fault. Might he draw a weapon? Might he ride away — back to his brother, off to Gaston, or somewhere else? Or might he actually back down and tell Mazarin what was happening?

“How well do you know Cardinal de Tremblay, Monseigneur?”

“Cardinal . . . you mean, Père Joseph? The Capuchin, Richelieu’s eminence grise?”

“The same. How well do you know him?”

“He is a rather private man,” Mazarin answered. “He kept his master’s secrets, and I assume he has kept some of his own. I also assume that becoming a cardinal in pectore has changed none of that.”

“It was Cardinal de Tremblay’s direction that I accompany my brother Léonore to Beville-le-Comte when he came to witness the birth of our new king. He further indicated that I should take it as my personal responsibility to protect Her Majesty and the child.”

“From . . .”

“Anything and anyone. My personal responsibility, Monseigneur. He made it most clear to me.”

“This was before the murder of the king.”

“It was three months ago, Monseigneur Mazarin.”

Mazarin considered himself a fairly good judge of character. In addition to his religious vocation, the last year or two had taught him a great deal about human nature. But here was Achille, looking at him squarely and telling him this.

“Does this mean that Cardinal de Tremblay anticipated that event? Did he expect His Majesty and Cardinal Richelieu to be killed?”

“He planned for whatever contingency might present itself. He planned for the worst — and how to avoid it. That we are here, and not dead, means that the worst has not happened.”

“Hosanna in the highest,” Mazarin said.

“You mock me once again, Monseigneur. Do you doubt the truth of my account? Are you suggesting –”

“I suggest nothing. Pray continue.”

Achille settled himself in his seat; his horse pawed the ground and shook its head.

“Cardinal de Tremblay was devoted — devoted — to the king and to the crown. You are well aware of the scope and depth of the precautions taken to protect Queen Anne and the child. Since that child is the heir, those precautions seem exceptionally well-founded. I am continuing to act in accordance with my last instructions.”

“By guiding us here?”

“And other safe places, depending on our ultimate destination. The Queen has more friends than she realizes.”

“And the . . . how shall I put it? Quid pro quo for these favours?”

Achille’s eyes flashed angrily, and once again Mazarin wondered whether he would attack or depart in a huff.

“The help is freely offered. It is true that some who would assist Her Majesty do so more out of enmity to Gaston than love for the queen.”

“Or the king.”

“Or the king,” Achille agreed. “In the case of Evreux, it is a close associate of Cardinal de Tremblay. He will have been thoroughly briefed on recent events, and is ready to help protect and assist our party.”

“Who briefed him?”

“I don’t know. You may ask him yourself. That is, if you are sufficiently informed that you are willing to accompany me.”

Mazarin intentionally hesitated long enough to make Achille frown in consternation. He had already made his decision, but wanted to keep the other man waiting. It was a sin of pride, for which he would say appropriate prayers. . . later.

“Please lead on,” he said at last.

Magdeburg

Joe Tillman hadn’t spent much time in government buildings up-time, and didn’t make a habit of it down-time. If it hadn’t been by invitation, he wouldn’t be doing it now. The capital city’s Government House was a busy place: lots of people going back and forth on errands lots more important than anything Clarence had for him to do.

He’d told his boss that he had to go up to Magdeburg for a few days to meet with Rebecca Stearns. Clarence had been working on a weld, and had lifted up his hood and given him a look that he might have used if Joe had told him he’d won the lottery and was quitting this crappy job: a nice mix of annoyance and disbelief — annoyance that he would want to take time off work, and disbelief that Rebecca Stearns would want to see Joe Tillman. Then he growled something, nodded, and dropped the welding hood back down and went back to work.

Magdeburg was a pretty amazing place, at least by down-time standards. It wasn’t even Wheeling: not that Wheeling had been a great world-class city, but it was the big time compared to Grantville. When the Ring of Fire had brought his town back to this century, though, Wheeling — and everything else outside of Grantville — was gone.

 

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 23

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 23

He went on and on in the same vein, while I pulled out the steaks, cut into one, and seeing that it was done, shut off the oven. I cut up my Dad’s steak for him, something I only did when he was in bad shape, and filled two glasses with ice water, which had seemed to help him earlier in the day.

“They don’t like this,” he had said about the ice cream and the water.

Who didn’t?

Returning to my Dad, I put the plate with his steak on his lap and handed him the water glass. He took a long drink.

It had been a strange day, and it had seemed endless. Which may be why my mind was making connections it wouldn’t have otherwise.

“Are they dark sorcerers, Dad? Is that who’s doing this to you?”

He considered me, a spark of recognition in his pale eyes.

“I don’t know. Could be.”

Except for the fact that there were no weremystes here. I was sure of that. But to set my mind at ease, I cast a spell similar to the one I’d attempted in the airport. This time, though, I tried to keep it simple. Three elements instead of seven: me, a concealed myste, and my eyes.

Nothing.

“What was that?”

“You felt it?” I asked him.

“You cast a spell.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“What kind?”

“I wanted to see if there was a weremyste here, someone camouflaged, who might be doing these things to you.”

He shook his head. “There isn’t. These are powers that go far beyond you and me and other weres.”

“You’re talking to me again.”

“Did I stop?” He glanced down at the plate and frowned. “You just started those.”

“No,” I said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been muttering to yourself for fifteen minutes.”

“Damn.”

“What else can you tell me? Before you slip away again.”

“I don’t know what they are. They’re hurting me, testing me, trying to craft their way past my wardings.”

“I heard you say something about ‘her,’ and you also mentioned a boy.”

He nodded, his face falling. “The boy is you,” he said, voice thick. “They want you for something. And . . . and sometimes they make me see your mother. She looks so fine, so much like . . . like she did. Young and beautiful. Before all the rest, when it went bad. It’s Dara as I like to remember her.” He shook his head. There were tears on his face.

I gripped his arm, not knowing what else to do. “I’m sorry.”

He cleared his throat, swiped at the tears. “I try to stop them. But that’s what they want. That’s the test.”

“You mentioned wardings a minute ago. Have you been warding yourself?”

He frowned again, squeezed his eyes shut. “No. Not the way you mean. But I try to make them go away, and I think they learn from that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. I’m in and out. I’ll be here, and then . . .” He shook his head and drank the rest of his water. “I know what it seems like. I mean, I know. I know! But it’s not– There’s something real here. You’ve been good to . . . You take care of me. And you’ve seen . . . I know what you see when you look at me, what you’re afraid of. But this is real. It’s . . .” He winced. “Damnit! They’re hurting me again. I’m slipping, burning.” His eyes closed and he shuddered. “Listen to me.” His voice had fallen to a whisper. “Justis?”

“I’m here.”

“This is real. Okay? This is real.”

“I believe you.”

“No, you don’t. But when belief is gone, all that’s left is trust. And I need you to trust me.”

“All right. I do.”

He flinched. “Brands. Burning, damnit. I hate you bastards.”

I took the empty glass from him, ran inside to fill it, and brought it back out to him. He drank deeply, and after a while he ate a few pieces of steak. But he was mumbling to himself again — more about burning and not mattering and the rest — and all the while flinching and whimpering in pain. I listened for more mentions of my mother and me, and heard what might have been a few. But there was little coherence to what he said, and I couldn’t make much sense of it.

His doctor had prescribed sleeping pills for those really bad nights when the delusions kept him up. After a while I got him to take one — no small feat — and then sat with him until he fell asleep in his chair. Once he had been out for a few minutes, I lifted him and carried him to his bed.

I sat up with him for a while, watching him as he lay there. He seemed to have aged ten years in the past few days; he looked like an old man, which scared the crap out of me. It shouldn’t have; he was old, and the phasings and his drinking had taken a toll on his body, so that he was older than his years. But sitting beside his bed, seeing the way he continued to flinch, even in a deep sleep, I realized that in the greater scheme of things, I didn’t have much time left with him. Who knew how many years he’d stick around? Tears welled, and before I knew it I was crying like a little kid, terrified by the simple truth that my father was mortal, and his mortality was exposed to me now in ways it never had been before.

After a little while, I pulled myself together, but I remained by his bed, thinking about the last thing he had said to me that made any sense. When belief is gone, all that’s left is trust . . . There was a time, in the years after my Mom died — I was an angry, lonely teenager, and he was a drunk well on his way to losing his job on the force — when I hadn’t trusted him at all, when I would sooner have trusted a stranger than my own father. But those days were long gone. Crazy as he was, I did trust him. He flinched again, confirming my faith. What kind of hallucination would have followed him into a medication-induced sleep? Strange as it seemed, I was forced to consider the possibility that something or someone really was hurting him. Except that I had no idea how it was possible. I sensed no magic in the room, no ripple of power in the air around me. Maybe it was one of those “old powers” Namid mentioned earlier.

Dad cried out and on instinct I grabbed his hand. At my touch, he appeared to relax, the tension draining from his haggard face.

“I’m here,” I said.

He shifted, began to snore.

After another fifteen minutes or so, satisfied that he was doing a little better, I pulled a spare blanket and pillow from his linen closet and lay on the floor next to his bed. There wasn’t a lot of room, but I didn’t expect that I’d sleep much no matter where I bedded down.

I surprised myself. My head had barely hit the pillow before I woke up to a bright morning and the song of a Cactus Wren drifting in through the open window. I sat up and peered over the edge of my Dad’s bed. He was still asleep, soundly, peacefully. No flinching that I could see.

Relieved, I gathered up the blanket and pillow and padded out of the room, making as little noise as possible. I hated to leave him alone after the night he’d had, but I had work to do, and my Dad’s trailer didn’t even have internet. I hoped that he would remember to eat today, and I wrote him a quick note promising to come back in the next day or two. I had no idea if he would find it or read it or be able to make sense of it. But I put it on the counter in his small kitchen, where it was most likely to catch his eye.

I went out to my car and opened the door to climb in. But then I paused, gazing back at the trailer. I’d learned a long time ago to trust my magical instincts. And they told me that there was a common thread running through all that had happened in recent days: My Dad’s pain, the killing of James Howell and the disabling of flight 595, even the odd burst of magic that had saved my life the night I confronted Mark Darby. I couldn’t make sense of it, not yet. But I was sure it was right there in front of me. All I needed to do was connect the dots.

I got in the car and started back toward the city, a cloud of dust rising behind me, blood red in the early morning sun.

 

A DISCUSSION WITH JOHN SCALZI ABOUT THE PROPOSED “SAGA” AWARD

John Scalzi has raised some objections to and reservations about the proposal that will be coming out of Sasquan for making some changes in the structure of the Hugo awards. I thought his comments were worth taking up and I’ll be doing so here. I had a friendly private exchange with John on the subject, and I want to emphasize that I view this as a discussion more than a debate.

You can find John’s remarks here:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/06/21/note-to-wsfs-members-killing-the-best-novelette-hugo-is-a-terrible-idea/

Since he put up this post and he and I had our private exchange, John’s major objection seems to have become a moot point. It now seems that the proposed amendment to the Hugo rules that would have eliminated the category of “Best Novelette” has been withdrawn.

But he also registered a disagreement, if not as strong a one, to the idea of adding a category for “Best Saga.” (I.e., a best series award.) And that’s what I want to address in this essay.

I want to start indirectly, though, by taking up some comments that were made by other people in response to John’s post. I was particularly struck by comments that expressed either indifference or even hostility to a series award because it would mostly benefit male authors.

A series award wouldn’t be helpful to female authors?

Let’s consider some authors active today in fantasy and science fiction:

Ilona Andrews
Kelley Armstrong
Elizabeth Bear
Patricia Briggs
Jacqueline Carey
Julie Czerneda
Kate Elliott
Diana Gabaldon
Barbara Hambly
Laurell K. Hamilton
Charlaine Harris
Tanya Huff
Kim Harrison
Robin Hobb
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Mercedes Lackey
Elizabeth Moon
Naomi Novik
Jody Lynn Nye
Tamora Pierce
Melanie Rawn
Laura Resnick
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Nalini Singh
Judith Tarr
Sherri Tepper
Margaret Weis
Janny Wurtz
Jane Yolen
Sarah Zettel

Of the thirty authors listed above:

All are popular and have published many books.

All of them work heavily and in some cases exclusively in series.

Twenty-nine and a half are female. (Ilona Andrews is a wife-and-husband team.)

Twenty-four have never been nominated for a Hugo award.

Four were nominated once for fiction, but didn’t win (Robin Hobb as Megan Lindholm, Elizabeth Moon, Naomi Novik and Sherri Tepper).

Only two, Elizabeth Bear and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, have ever won a Hugo—twice, in Bear’s case—but neither of them won for best novel. (Rusch was nominated frequently for a Hugo as best professional editor and won once, but I’m only discussing awards for writing.)

My apologies beforehand, by the way, for any author I overlooked who ought to be in the list above. I’m working from memory and I don’t have a major bookstore nearby where I could double-check my list against the authors on the shelves. I’m sure I’m overlooking several people.

But I’ve listed more than enough to make my point, which is that the idea that female authors wouldn’t benefit from having a series award is just….

Well. Silly. Of course they would.

Would they benefit as much as men? I have no idea. That depends entirely on the literary preferences of Hugo voters. Having a category of awards devoted to series would simply expand the possibilities, that’s all. It’s neither intrinsically male nor female.

I can say one thing for sure and certain. If Hugo voters change their current indifference to paranormal romance—a sub-genre of F&SF that has become so popular it now often gets its own section in bookstores—then you’re likely to see women winning a series/saga award year after year after year. The problem here, from the standpoint of gender diversity, is not the presence or absence of a series/saga award. It’s the tastes and opinions of people who vote on Hugo awards.

If you want to expand the range of those tastes and opinions, you’d do it far more effectively by adding a series/saga award that might draw the attention of the millions of people who read paranormal romance and completely ignore the Hugos, than you would by deliberately restricting the range of awards on the grounds that male authors might benefit disproportionately. Which is an ass-backwards way of dealing with the issue of diversity in any event.

Of the many paranormal romance authors listed above, my own tastes and opinions on the subject lead me to prefer Ilona Andrews, followed by Patricia Briggs. My wife Lucille’s tastes are broader than mine when it comes to paranormal romance—possibly because she’s female, but who knows?—and while she’s very fond of Andrews and Briggs she’d probably favor Nalini Singh over any of the others.

But leaving aside the fact that Lucille’s tastes and mine overlap a lot but aren’t identical, one thing is for damn sure: We both prefer the work of several paranormal romance authors over many of the works that have been nominated for the Hugo award for the last decade or two. I doubt very much if we’re alone in that assessment. But given that almost all paranormal romance authors work in series—exclusively so, for the majority of them—it’s difficult for any of them to even get nominated for a Hugo, much less win one.

Just how difficult is it? That leads me to one of John Scalzi’s major points, which is the following. (It’s in his comments on the post, not the post itself.)

          “First, books in series get nominated for the Hugo all the time. Two of my own Best Novel nominations were for books in series — The Last Colony, which was book three of the Old Man’s War series, and Zoe’s Tale, which was the fourth. Excluding first novels in a series, sequel novels and series installments made the ballot in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Additionally, numerous sequels/series installments have won the Best Novel award: Ask Bujold, Robinson, Card, Vinge, Brin or Cherryh about that.

“The current proposal (in my opinion) complains that sequels/series not getting nominated just isn’t enough, they have to win, too, and recently they haven’t. And, I don’t know. I see that as a weird bit of entitlement. There’s no structural barrier to sequels/series installment winning — it’s been done numerous times — so perhaps it’s simply the actual voters who currently favor stand-alones to sequels/series installments. There’s no reason why the award has to follow market trends (which is an argument pulled into the proposal), so griping about the recent lack of wins for sequels really feels like these proposers are saying to the voters “No, you’re voting all wrong.” Which they are not. In any event, there’s no reason why the pendulum couldn’t suddenly swing back towards series installments winning.”

I have two disagreements with this argument, the first of which is a disagreement in detail. (So to speak.)

That’s this: Most of the winners he names—he himself is the only exception, in fact—date back to a very different period in our genre as well as the awards. David Brin last won a Hugo for a series novel almost thirty years ago. The same is true for C. J. Cherryh and Orson Scott Card. Kim Stanley Robinson won for Blue Mars almost twenty years ago. Vernor Vinge last won for a series novel fifteen years ago. Lois McMaster Bujold won for Paladin of Souls over a decade ago.

I think it’s a bad mistake to conflate two quite different periods in F&SF. One of the main points I tried to make in my first essay on the subject is that when the genre of F&SF was much smaller—as it was thirty and even twenty years ago—it was a lot easier for readers to keep track of the various authors and their work. Today, it’s simply impossible.

Secondly, except for Bujold, all of the winners have won with hard SF novels. (And most of Bujold’s Hugo awards came for SF also—Paladin of Souls is something of an outlier, being a fantasy novel.) Granted, I’m defining “hard SF” a little more loosely that many people would. But it’s still true that fantasy in all its forms including urban fantasy and paranormal romance is almost entirely absent from John’s list. That, despite the fact that traditional SF is today much less popular than fantasy, especially when you include paranormal romance and urban fantasy.

But my biggest difference with John’s approach has to do with something very general—about as general as it gets, in fact.

What are the goals of literary awards in the first place? And what’s the best way to achieve those goals?

There are two ways to look at this. The first is the way John is looking at it, which runs throughout his entire argument, not just in the two paragraphs I quoted above. For John, awards should not only be a recognition for excellence, they should be designed to encourage the development of new talent by being concentrated in those areas where new talent is most likely to emerge.

Hence, he champions short fiction awards. Please note that John is not disagreeing with a point I made in my first essay and have repeated many times since—to wit, that short fiction represents only a very small slice of F&SF whether you measure that either in terms of readers or (especially) the income of authors. He simply feels that’s not very relevant because what he sees as most important is the following:

It [a “Best Saga” award] privileges the established writer over the newer writer. Almost by definition, the authors who are eligible for the “Best Saga” award are very likely be writers who are already successful enough to have a long-running series and the ability to publish in those series on a recurring basis. It’s theoretically possible to have someone toiling away on a series in utter obscurity and suddenly emerge with a knockout installment that would pop that writer up into “Best Saga” consideration, but as a practical matter, it’s almost certainly more likely than not that the nominees in the category would be those authors with perennially popular series — people, to be blunt, like me and a relatively few other folks, who are already more likely to have won the “genre success” lottery than others.

I don’t disagree with the point John makes when he says that “the authors who are eligible for the ‘Best Saga’ award are very likely to be writers who are already successful enough to have a long-running series and the ability to publish in those series on a recurring basis.”

He’s absolutely right about that. But where he sees that as a problem, I see it as an essential feature of any award structure that’s designed to attract the attention of its (supposed) audience. In fact, it was exactly the way the Hugo awards looked in their heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.

          Who were the winners of the Hugo awards for Best Novel back in those days? I’ll start with 1958, since that’s the first year following which an award was always handed out for best novel:

          1958: Fritz Leiber, The Big Time
          1959: James Blish, A Case of Conscience
          1960: Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
          1961: Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle For Leibowitz
          1962: Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
          1963: Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
          1964: Clifford Simak, Way Station
          1965: Fritz Leiber, The Wanderer
          1966: Frank Herbert, Dune
                   Roger Zelazny, Call Me Conrad (tie)
          1967: Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
          1968: Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
          1969: John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar
          1970: Ursula Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness
          1971: Larry Niven, Ringworld
          1972: Philip José Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go
          1973: Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves
          1974: Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous With Rama
          1975: Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed
          1976: Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
          1977: Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
          1978: Frederick Pohl, Gateway
          1979: Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake
          1980: Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

Reads exactly like “the establishment” that John decries, doesn’t it? And there’s a reason for it, which is that in those days it wasn’t easy for an author to get a novel published. F&SF was still mostly a short form genre at least until the mid-late 70s. Today, new writers take it for granted that they can start their careers with a novel—as I did myself. Not “take it for granted” in the sense that it’s easy, which it’s certainly isn’t. But nobody today thinks it odd that a publisher would publish a new author’s first novel despite that author having no significant history as a writer.

That just wasn’t true in the 60s and 70s. With very, very few exceptions, an author had to demonstrate that they had a successful history as a short fiction writer before a publisher would be willing to gamble on them with a novel.

In other words, the very same situation that John (quite accurately) depicts with series today—[it] privileges the established writer over the newer writer—was the situation with stand-alone novels several decades ago.

But what that also meant was that when a young F&SF reader—like me—looked at the Hugo awards, they instantly recognized the authors and in many cases had either already read the novel awarded or went right out and got hold of a copy of it. And what also happened because youngsters like me paid attention to the Hugos—mostly because of the best novel award—was that they also got exposed to other writers who were winning awards for short fiction. And most of those writers were getting published in magazines which I also got exposed to because of the Hugo awards. Like most fourteen-year-olds, I couldn’t possibly have afforded a magazine subscription and my high school library—which is where I found most of the F&SF that I read—didn’t have a subscription either. Most libraries didn’t.

By the way, if you think the Hugo awards for short fiction were all that much different from the novel awards, think again. Here were the winners for the Hugo for novella from 1968 (when it was first given out) to 1980:

Philip José Farmer, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, Fritz Leiber (1970 and 1971), Poul Anderson, Ursula Le Guin, James Tiptree, Jr. (1974 and 1977), George R.R. Martin, Roger Zelazny, Spider Robinson (1977 and again in 1978 with his wife Jeanne), John Varley and Barry Longyear. The only little-known author in the list (at the time he won the award) was Barry Longyear. All the others were already well established.

The award for best novelette wasn’t much different either. Here are the winners from 1967 (when it was first given out regularly) to 1980:

Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson (1969, 1973 and 1979), Harlan Ellison (1974 and 1975), Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Joan Vinge and George R.R. Martin. Again, there was only one author in the group who was little-known at the time, Joan Vinge.

It was only with the short story award that you saw more than one “non-establishment” author winning the Hugo. And there weren’t that many of those even in this category. From the inception of the short story award in 1955 to 1980, the winners were:

Eric Frank Russell, Arthur C. Clarke, Avram Davidson, Robert Bloch, Daniel Keyes, Poul Anderson (1961 and 1964), Brian Aldiss, Jack Vance, Gordon Dickson, Harlan Ellison (1966, 1968, 1969 and 1978), Larry Niven (1967, 1972 and 1975), Samuel R. Delaney, Theodore Sturgeon, R.A. Lafferty, Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, Ursula Le Guin, Joe Haldeman, Fritz Leiber, C.J. Cherryh and George R.R. Martin.

The reason I call those days “the heyday” of the Hugo Award is because those were the days when a really big percentage of the mass audience—probably even the majority of readers—paid attention to the Hugos. And the main reason they paid attention was because most of the authors receiving the awards were people they’d heard of and in many cases already read.

Today, they don’t. That’s just a fact, whether fans who regularly attend Worldcons and vote on the Hugos like it or not. In the modern era, the Hugo awards are only of interest to a very small percentage of the F&SF audience and for the great majority of readers do not serve any longer as a guide to what they read (much less buy).

And here’s where I part company with John. I don’t disagree with him that one of the functions of a good literary award—as is true also of good literary reviews—is to boost the careers of promising new writers. But you don’t do that by narrowing the awards—or the reviews—to focus entirely or even mostly on such writers. Because if you do that, you start losing the very audience you’re presumably trying to expose those promising new writers to.

This is something the people behind the Oscar Awards have always been quite aware of. Whenever the Oscar nominees start drifting too far away from popular tastes—which any award will always tend to do for the reasons I laid out in a previous essay [see “TRYING TO KEEP LITERARY AWARDS FROM FAVORING LITERARY CRITERIA IS AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY. GET OVER IT”]—then the number of people who watch the Academy Awards or buy movie tickets in response to the Oscars starts dropping, and before long it’s dropping like a stone. At that point, because unlike the Hugos there is a lot of money at stake, the Powers-That-Be in the movie industry use their muscle to get more popular films nominated. I know it will sound crude for me to say it, but it’s just a cold fact of life that handing out a certain number of awards to movies or books that lots of people have actually heard of is what makes them pay attention to the other nominees and winners.

An even better analogy than the Oscars is to look at how really good movie reviewers operate. Reviewing movies, unlike most forms of reviewing, is something that a person can actually make a living at—even a very good living, in the case of the top reviewers.

Take Roger Ebert, as an example. (But you could use almost any other well-known professional movie reviewer over the past half-century.) Every week, Ebert would run several reviews in his newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times. Later in his life, he also worked through his own web site. But whatever venue he used, Ebert would always do the following:

Most of his reviews would focus on the popular new movies coming out. He did that because that was his profession. That’s what brought him an income—because new movies aimed at a popular audience were what most of his readers were interested in. That’s why they opened the pages of his review section or went to his web site in the first place.

Having done that, as all good reviewers do, Ebert would also champion one or two less well-known movies, or bring the reader/viewer’s attention to some older movie that had for one reason or another gotten overlooked. And for him to do so would provide a tremendous boost to such little-known movies. But that was only true because a huge audience was reading him in the first place. Whereas if he’d restricted his reviews to only those little-known movies, he never would have gotten those readers. In fact, he never would have been able to make a living as a full-time movie reviewer to begin with.

There will always be a tug-of-war when it comes to awards for literary or other artistic achievement between the interests and tastes of the relatively small number of people who decide who gets the award and the interests and tastes of the mass audience. That’s inevitable. At any given time, an award may swing too far in one direction or the other. If it swings too far in favor of popular taste, with no other consideration taken, then it runs the risk of becoming indistinguishable from sales—in which case, why have the award at all? But if it swings too far the other way, the tastes and opinions of the group which makes the decision becomes increasingly esoteric to the mass audience, which stops paying attention to the award. In which case also, what’s the point of having it?

At the moment, and for some time now, the “pendulum” of the Hugo awards has swung too far away from the mass audience. Where I differ from John is that I don’t see any way to reverse the increasing irrelevance of the Hugo awards to most F&SF readers unless the Hugos adopt one or another version of an award for series (i.e., the “Saga” award that’s being proposed). When most popular authors are working exclusively or almost exclusively in series and most of the awards are given for short fiction you will inevitably have a situation where the major awards in F&SF become irrelevant to most of the reading audience. Which, in turn, means that winning an award becomes less and less valuable in any terms beyond personal satisfaction.

If the idea of modifying an award structure to better match the interests of the mass audience really bothers you, grit your teeth and call it Danegeld. But it works.

(for the other posts on the Hugo controversy, visit the Hugo Controversy category.)

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 43

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 43

The comte de Soissons and Archbishop Gondi were talking in hushed tones as they arrived, with the comte de Montrésor trailing like a little pet hound. Soissons was beaming as he spoke, oblivious to everything else: Vendôme knew that he had been waiting for moments like this.

A few others entered — all in advance of the king-to-be. The last to arrive was Épernon’s brother-in-law, Vendôme’s half-brother Gaston-Henri, légitimé by Vendôme’s mother’s successor, Catherine Henriette de Balzac. Though he carried the name Gaston he went by Henri, their father’s name; he had been Bishop of Metz since he was eleven — a few years after King Henry IV was murdered by the mad monk Ravillac.

As the councilors gathered in groups and settled into seats, the two half-brothers remained separate, acknowledging each other’s presence with polite nods. None of the others thought it worthwhile to approach them.

“I think we’re scaring them off,” the bishop said at last. “None of them want to talk to us, César.”

“I sometimes have that effect on people. You?”

“I move in many circles.” Henri began to extend his right hand, on which he wore a beautiful episcopal ring; but he thought better of it and let the hand fall to his side.

“Including this one. Our brother –”

“Half-brother.”

“Thank you for reminding me of the obvious. Gaston has chosen to add you to his council, then?”

“He’s adding you, isn’t he? He brought you back out of exile to serve him. He didn’t have to send so far to bring me.”

“And you came running.”

“There may be a Cardinal’s hat in it, César. And you? What did he promise you? Or did he just have something for you to do?”

The comment sounded innocent and unassuming, but it caught Vendôme by surprise. His first thought was that it was that Gaston had put him up to this — to see what he’d say.

“Eh, César, ne vous mettez pas dans tous vos états,” the bishop said, smiling, folding his hands in front of his soutane.

“I’ll get as exercised as I please, Henri,” Vendôme said, trying to keep a snarl from his voice. “My relations with our new King are none of your business.”

“Everyone is everyone’s business in Gaston’s Paris, César.”

“When I wish to share my private affairs with you,” Vendôme answered, “I shall assign one of my servants to give you whatever trivialities that are of no consequence. Until then — ”

He turned away, but Gaston-Henri grabbed his arm. Vendôme shook it loose with a jerk abrupt enough to make his half-brother stumble backward. He grabbed Gaston-Henri’s shoulder and steadied him.

“You really must be more careful, Your Grace,” he said. Then he hissed in his younger half-brother’s ear, “What do you want?”

“I told you. A cardinal’s hat.”

“From me,” Vendôme said. “What do you want from me?”

Gaston-Henri, the bishop of Metz, straightened his clothes, disengaging himself from Vendôme’s grasp.

“Nothing,” he said quietly. “Like most of the people in this room, César, I want nothing from you.”

Whether Gaston’s arrival was intentionally late, or if he simply felt that he had a more important place to be, Vendôme wasn’t sure — but it was clear that his half-brother, soon to be the king of France, liked to make an entrance.

The members of the Conseil turned their attention at once to Monsieur Gaston, offering polite bows or making a leg. Gaston caught his eye; Vendôme inclined his head but made no further indication or gesture.

Gaston’s smile never wavered as he acknowledged the obeisances of his councilors, but Vendôme could see that he was a bit annoyed at his own lack of deference.

“My lords,” Gaston said at last. “We offer our apologies for being tardy. Matters of state,” he added, allowing his smile to extend even further than usual.

Matters of state, my ass, Vendôme thought to himself. One more toss with Marguerite, I’ll wager.

Pierre Séguier, the duc de Villemor, stepped forward and offered an additional bow. His chain of office, which marked him as the king’s chancellor and Keeper of the Seals, jingled as he lowered his head and then raised it.

“Your Majesty’s Council awaits your pleasure, Sire.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Gaston said, and walked to the great oblong table. He took his seat at its head, and the others gathered, taking various places. Vendôme took a seat at the other end, directly opposite Gaston, with Gaston-Henri to his left, much to the other’s annoyance.

“There is much for us to discuss, Monsieurs,” Gaston began. “We will progress to Saint-Denis tomorrow to visit the grave of our dear brother.” He stopped for a moment and looked down, placing his hand on his forehead in a gesture of grief. “But there are matters we must address immediately.

“Monsieur de Bullion,” he began, addressing the Minister of Finance. “We have read your report on our exchequer with interest. It is certain that there are many areas that you address that have fallen short in their obligations to the Crown. Effective at once, you are to direct that these omissions be corrected, by force if necessary.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Bullion said. “It shall be done.”

“In particular,” Gaston added, “those of our subjects who derive profit from the paulette and the lettre de maîtresse should be informed that if they wish to continue under our patronage, they should . . . encourage their clients to live up to these modest requirements. Is that clear?”

“Abundantly,” the minister said, smiling. “It will be as you command, Sire.”

Both the paulette — a ‘voluntary’ tax upon office holders — and the lettre de maîtresse, by which the crown derived revenue from craft guilds by recognition of mastership, were intrusive and much disliked (and often avoided). Such impositions were hardly uncommon: King Charles of England had been funding his royal government with such things since he dismissed his last Parliament eight years earlier. Richelieu had regulated them desultorily, depending on whether the affected party was a client or not.

“We are most grateful,” Gaston said. “Now to the next item. Monsieur le Márechal,” he said, addressing Bassompierre. To Vendôme’s eyes, the man perked up like a bantam rooster with free rein in the hen-house.

“Sire,” Bassompierre said. “If I may take a moment to extend my gratitude to your royal favor in freeing me from unjust imprisonment –”

“Yes, yes, a small matter,” Gaston said, waving it away as if freeing him from prison after five years were simply a small matter. “Monsieur, we have a particular charge for you. A military force presently under the command of the comte d’Auvergne — Marshal Turenne — ” he added the last almost as if with distaste — “has chosen to re-deploy to the south without strict royal order. As it took place after my brother’s death and before my return to the kingdom, it might be argued that this was a matter of military necessity. But now that the coronation is at hand, this force will need to be in the charge of someone with demonstrated loyalty to the Crown. What is more, he employs up-timers — and their loyalty is completely unpredictable.

“You will gather whatever staff you need and depart at once to take command.”

“Does Your Majesty have any notion of its present location?”

“What information is thus far available indicates that it is in or on its way to Gascony or Béarn — somewhere near the Spanish border. We consider this very provocative, and ultimately contrary to France’s interests.”

“The Spanish border, Sire?”

“Yes. In the south, near a range of mountains called the Pyrenees. Perhaps you are acquainted with them, Monsieur.”

There was the slightest titter of amusement among the councilors; Bassompierre reddened very slightly.

“I believe I can locate them on a map, Sire,” he managed to retort. “But surely the Spanish cannot be considered friends — so the presence of an army close to our border, provocative or not, is of no moment to them.”

“Why do you say that the Spanish cannot be considered friends, Bassompierre? Have they insulted you personally in some way?”

“I . . . do not understand. The Spanish –”

“The Spanish,” Gaston interrupted, “are an upright Catholic nation. Our sister is married to its King, while his sister was married to our late brother. Surely there are many other nations that might hold greater enmity to France than Spain.”

“That . . . was not the opinion of your late brother, Sire.”

There was silence from everyone else at the table. Bassompierre looked around at the other councilors; no one said a word, or betrayed any emotion — except Gaston himself, whose smile had vanished. He placed his hands on the table in front of him, palms down, the rings on his fingers catching the light from the candles in their sconces.

“Our brother is dead,” Gaston said, and with a glance up the table at Vendôme, added, “as is his chief minister. What policies and positions they held are a matter of history. The crown rests — or soon will rest — upon our brow. It is we who will occupy the royal throne. It is our policies and positions which will govern.

“You may believe as you wish, Bassompierre; but if you wish to sit in this Conseil, and if you wish to continue to enjoy our royal favor, you will endorse them. You will carry out your direction without question, and without objection. Is that clear?”

There was a short, tense silence and then Bassompierre said, “Very clear, Sire. Very clear indeed.”

Gaston looked down at his hands for several moments; when he looked up again, his smile had returned. “There is one other matter that we would choose to lay before you at this time, my lords. Since the ambush that occasioned our brother’s death, nothing has been heard of the queen. It is difficult to believe that this is coincidence.

“Monsieur de Villemor,” he said to the Chancellor, “it is our wish that a proclamation be drawn up regarding our sister-in-law, commanding her to appear at Reims two weeks hence when we take upon ourselves the crown of this realm. There she shall be received with all honors due a grieving widow and Queen. It is our royal wish — no, as we said, our royal command — that she be present.

“What is more,” he added, lifting his hands from the table and extending them in front of him, “if she chooses to absent herself from this august ceremony, it will be taken as an affront and a sign not only of our disfavor — but a clear indication of her complicity in the death of King Louis.”

Once again, the table was silent. Gaston folded his hands before him and looked directly at Villemor.

“When can the proclamation of our royal will be ready?”

“A day or two, Sire,” Villemor said. “It will take some time to be distributed beyond Paris, but that can begin as soon as it receives the seal.”

“You may begin at once,” Gaston said. Again he looked up the table at Vendôme; clearly most of the councilors noticed this. Some seemed merely curious, but a few had expressions of scarcely-concealed malice, as if they perceived a sign of royal favor.

If you only knew, Vendôme thought.

 

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 22

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 22

“That includes your reporter friend.”

My hackles went up. He was talking about Billie. Who the hell was he to be dragging my personal life into our professional arrangement?

“My friend is none of your damn business,” I said, none too wisely. “And when I say I won’t tell anyone, I mean just that. Discretion is part of my job, and I’m here because you know how good I am at what I do.”

“Your confidence pleases me, Jay,” Amaya said, looking and sounding more pissed than pleased. “Because I’m counting on you to get me the information I want. I’m paying you a good deal of money, and I expect results from that investment. As Luis will tell you, I don’t take disappointment well.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not you alone. Your father, your girlfriend, your ex-partner.”

At least he was honest.

“On the other hand, if you meet or, better yet, exceed my expectations, you’ll find that I can be a valuable friend.”

I held out my hand. He stared back at me, holding my gaze for several seconds before setting the check on my palm. I folded it and tucked it in my wallet.

“Anything else?”

“I’d like regular progress reports.”

“I’ll be in touch when I have information for you.”

His smile was reflexive. “Fine.” He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and wrote a number on the back of it. “That’s my private cell number. You can always reach me that way.”

I slipped the card into my wallet beside the check and crossed the room back toward the front door. “Thanks for the beer,” I said over my shoulder.

Luis, Rolon, and Paco scrambled to their feet as I passed them and followed me to the door.

I didn’t say a word until we were back in the lowrider and pulling out of the driveway.

“He’s a piece of work, Luis.”

He swivelled in the front seat with a rustle of cloth on leather. “And you’re fucking loco talking to him like that. You think you’re invincible or something? You think you’re fucking superman?”

“I didn’t say anything that would make him want to kill me,” I said, hoping it was true. “But he’s got some nerve threatening Billie and my Dad that way. And threatening a cop? That’s pretty loco, too, don’t you think?”

“It’s only loco if you can’t back it up.”

It was a point worth considering.

“Seriously, Jay. Amaya went easy on you today, and he’s not the evil bastard that he’s made out to be in the media. But he’ll kill you if you cross him. He does business with the Mexican and Colombian cartels. All of them. You don’t screw around with somebody like that.”

I nodded and stared out the window. Luis was right. I needed to be more careful, for Billie and my Dad if not for myself.

“You ever played around with dark magic?” I asked.

Luis glanced at Paco and then at Rolon before turning his dark eyes back on me. “Yeah, a little. A long time ago. You?”

I shook my head. “I was always afraid to. Watching my Dad go nuts was bad enough; I always figured that the dark stuff would send me over the edge sooner.”

Luis gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. Seems to me that part of the attraction is that some of the rules don’t hold for the darker stuff. It might be that they can find a way around the phasings, and keep themselves sane.”

“Jacinto wouldn’t like that you were talking that way, mi amigo,” Paco said.

“Well, Jacinto isn’t going to hear, is he?”

Paco grinned.

They dropped me back at my place a short time later, and to my surprise gave me back both my Glock and the magazine they’d taken from it. The fire in the Western sky had nearly burned itself out, and the first stars shone brightly in a velvet sky.

I still planned to go out to Wofford again. I couldn’t remember the last time I had arrived at my father’s trailer so late in the evening, but I had promised him that I would be back, and on the off chance that he remembered, I didn’t want to worry him. More to the point, I wanted to make sure he was all right, especially now after speaking to Amaya.

I grabbed a change of clothes and some toiletries, hopped in the Z-ster, and started out toward his trailer. Along the way, I called Billie, so that she wouldn’t worry either.

“You’re alive,” she said upon answering.

“So far.”

“It sounds like you’re driving.”

“I am. I’ll be spending the night at my Dad’s. But if you’ve got time tomorrow, I’d like to see you. We can try lunch again, maybe.”

“I’d like that,” she said, her voice warming.

We made our plans and said goodnight, and I drove the rest of the way to the trailer in silence, thinking about Jacinto Amaya, Mando Rafael Vargas, and Regina Witcombe, and wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. A part of me would have liked the chance to question Vargas. I didn’t expect that he knew much about dark magic, but I was an admirer of his work, and I knew that Billie would be impressed. I also knew, though, that the Feds and the PPD were not about to let a PI anywhere near the man. And Amaya would have told me to concentrate on Witcombe.

Upon reaching my father’s place, these other thoughts fled my mind. My Dad was still outside, sitting where I’d left him, his damn binoculars still resting in his lap. The trailer was dark; the only light came from the dull orange glow of the distant city lights and the gibbous moon hanging in the eastern sky.

As soon as I got out of the car, I heard him muttering to himself. I was able to see his outline in the dim light, but not his face. I could tell, though, that he was still flinching.

“Dad?”

No answer.

I walked to where he sat and kissed his forehead. His skin was as cool as the desert night air. He fell silent and looked up at me.

“It’s me. Justis.”

“I told you if you came you’d make it easier for them to find you.”

“Yeah I remember. You should be inside.” I took hold of his arm, intending to help him up. But he jerked it out of my grasp with a motion that was quicker and more powerful than I would have thought possible.

“I don’t want to go inside. It’s too damn hot in there. It’s cooler out here. The burning doesn’t bother me so much. The rest is as bad. But it’s cool.”

“All right,” I said. I grabbed the other chair, unfolded it, and set it next to his. “Do you want anything?” I asked before sitting. “Are you hungry?”

“Ice cream.”

I laughed. “You had ice cream for lunch. You need some real food.”

A smile crossed his face and I knew a moment of relief so profound it brought tears to my eyes.

“Did I really?” Recognition glimmered in his eyes. “You were here today.”

“Right. That was when you warned me not to come back.”

He nodded, the smile slipping. “I remember. It’s not Tuesday.”

“No. What can I fix you? Are those steaks still in there? The ones I brought the other day?”

“Steak sounds good.”

The increasingly rare moments when my Dad was cogent were to be treasured. These past few weeks had made that much clear to me. I needed to treat each lucid moment as if it might be the last; I was glad I’d made the drive out here this evening.

I went inside and pulled from the refrigerator the New York strips I’d brought him on Tuesday. I rubbed them with salt, pepper, and garlic and poured some Worcestershire over them, then stuck them in the broiler. I also sliced up a tomato and put salt and pepper on that. I brought the tomato out to him, along with a beer, and settled down next to him.

He ate the tomato in about a minute — I managed to salvage one slice for myself. He didn’t argue when I took the plate and went back inside to slice another for him. Whatever was going on with him was making him ravenous. Either that, or he was eating so infrequently that he was starving himself. After a few minutes I flipped the steaks. When I came back out, he was sipping his beer.

“Can you tell me more about what’s been happening to you?” I asked him, sitting once more.

“It’s the damn brands. Burning, burning, burning, burning, burning, burning. So many burns.” He held out his arms again, spilling a little beer, wincing once, twice, a third time. “They won’t stop. And then they do, but they start up again, and I can’t make them go away. They won’t listen when I tell them that I don’t matter.”

I let out a breath through my teeth, taking care to do it silently, so that he wouldn’t hear. Two clear minutes. And now he was gone again.

I got up without a word and went back in to check on the steaks again. Even inside, I could hear him and I could make out what he was muttering to himself.

“. . . You’re wasting time with me, damnit. I’m nothing. Ow. I’m not a stone or a mirror or clear water for you to see your goddamned portents. I’m nothing. I’m husk.

“You leave her alone, you hear me? Just leave her be. She did nothing to you. And the boy is not for you either, no matter what you might think. So go away. Ow. Go! Go, damn you! You can take me down to the Cottonwoods, and you can light every damn one of them on fire, and you can leave me in the middle of it, let me burn until my skin peels away, but it’s not going to do you a damn bit of good. You won’t have her or him, and you won’t kill me. You won’t. Ow! Shit! No you goddamn will not!” He paused, and after a few seconds I heard the beer bottle clink lightly on his chair. “You don’t like that, do you, you little fuckers? Well, good. I’m not as helpless as you thought, and I’m not here for you to play your little games. I might not matter, but I’m not helpless, not yet.”

 

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 42

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 42

Chapter 25

Paris

Terrye Jo’s initial accommodations were in a townhouse on the Rue Saint-Antoine, several hundred yards from the Louvre, near a big church that was under construction. When the traveling party from Turin was first settled, she was worried that construction noise was going to be a problem — there was a lot of hammering and sawing going on; but the workers seemed to knock off for lunch and dinner early, and didn’t get to the job site until late in the morning and were gone well before vespers. They’d evidently been working on this church for a long time and didn’t seem terribly interested in finishing the job.

The day after Gaston’s grand entrance into the city, she received a visitor. She hadn’t realized that anyone knew she was there — as far as she was concerned she was lost in the crowd that had followed the royal carriage into the capital. She asked the manservant who had been assigned to them if, in fact, the visitor was meant for her: yes, she was told: he asked for you personally, Mademoiselle.

The apartment had a sleeping chamber and a receiving room — evidently it was meant for someone more important; but it was there and she was there. She didn’t have the time (or the inclination) to dress up in any way for the interview: the duchess would have been scandalized. What the hell, she thought, and settled for jeans and flannel.

The servant admitted the man. He was not an impressive fellow — he was dressed like a minor functionary, like a clerk or a scribe — but he seemed very nervous. He bowed and swept off his hat.

“Mademoiselle Tillman?”

“That’s me,” she said. “And you are –”

“You do not know me by name, Mademoiselle. But I am . . . GJBF.”

The penny dropped at last. This was the man she’d communicated with by telegraph over the last several months while she was in Turin. This was Gaston’s telegrapher in residence.

“Forgive me for not recognizing you.”

He smiled. “I cannot see how you could have,” he said. “I confess that I look nothing like my ‘fist’.”

Somehow the comment — which, for all Terrye Jo knew, could have been meant completely in earnest — broke the ice, and they both burst into laughter.

“I’m Terrye Jo Tillman,” she said, extending her hand. He returned the handshake. She gestured to the window bench, where there was room for them to sit.

“My name is Cordonnier,” he said. “Georges Cordonnier. My father — and grandfather — are shoemakers,” he added, smiling. “Only when I came to Paris was the surname truly necessary.”

“Where are you from?”

“Soissons,” he answered.

“What brought you to Paris?”

“I suspect, Mademoiselle –”

“Terrye Jo,” she said. “Or Teresa: that’s what the Italian speakers call me.”

“Teresa,” Georges said. He smiled as he said her name. “I suspect that I am in Paris for the same reason you were in Turin. To be a telegrapher. I was . . . dexterous, and a test was conducted. I was one of several who were chosen to be trained.”

“I was wondering. There aren’t very many up-timers in Paris, and overall there aren’t too many of us who have telegraphy skill. I assumed you weren’t from Grantville.”

“No, Mad– . . . Teresa,” he said. “I am not. But I hope to visit the city of wonders someday.”

“It’s not all that wonderful.”

“To you,” he answered. “It is hard for you to imagine, Teresa, what those of us ‘down-timers’ think of your home. What might have been commonplace for you in your future is often wondrous to us.”

“No, I get that. But it’s been, what, four and a half years. I assumed that nothing surprised anyone anymore. You’re a telegrapher, Georges, and a good one.” Well, she thought, a fairly good one.

“I fear that you must speak in the past tense now, Teresa.”

“Why?”

“With your arrival, my services will no longer be needed. I have come merely because I wanted to meet SPAR, before I am sent back to Soissons and my father’s workshop.”

“Wait. You’re going to resign?”

“I do not think I am resigning. Merely being reassigned.”

“No.” Terrye Jo stood up and walked away from the window; Georges stood up as well. “No. You’re not being ‘reassigned’, and you’re not resigning. I didn’t sign up to take your job.”

“Then why are you here, Mademoiselle? Teresa?”

“I — ” She thought for a moment. “The prince — the king — wanted me to be in his service, as an expert.” She turned to face Georges. “I can’t fault his logic — no offense, Georges, but I’m a little bit more skilled, and I bet you don’t know how to fix the equipment if it goes wrong.”

“Fix it? You mean — open up the apparatus? On pain of my life I would not dare.”

She smiled. “Yeah, I thought so. But you should understand this, and the king should get the message too. I’ll tell him what I told Duke Amadeus; this isn’t a job for one person on duty all the time. He needs a team — people to staff the radio at different times, or around the clock if he needs it. I’m happy to be the resident expert, as I said. But he’d be a fool to get rid of the best person he has on site.”

He seemed even more nervous when she said the word ‘fool’, and she realized that this was enough of a protocol violation to scare him.

“I would not go against the Count’s wishes, Teresa. Or the king’s.”

“Did he actually say that you were fired?”

“No, he didn’t. He didn’t actually say anything. But your arrival . . . I assumed . . .” His face brightened. Clearly he had resigned himself to something that he really didn’t want to do — to go back to Soissons and make shoes.

“I’d assume otherwise,” Terrye Jo said. “Georges,” she added, extending her hand. “Welcome to the team.”

****

Well before Monsieur Gaston was to receive the members of the Court, the Conseil du Roi began to gather in the great Receiving Room. César de Vendôme arrived early; no one else had chosen to rise at Lauds for the meeting, and he was just as happy to review the battleground alone. The comparison was not a bad one, actually — the advisors to the soon-to-be-King were a mixed lot: councilors who had served his brother; returnees like himself; and others chosen from among the many capable men whom Richelieu had dismissed, marginalized or ignored. The Conseil would not be peaceful, he thought — better to understand the terrain before the battle was joined.

The room was broad and long, but dim: great damask curtains had been pulled to cover the large windows that overlooked the inner gardens. The place was clean and free of dust: Vendôme knew that Louis had been meticulous about such things. It was also musty and airless, for it had been used far less often than in former years. Richelieu was meticulous about that.

The cardinal-Duke de Richelieu had much to answer for — wherever the hell he was, Vendôme added to himself.

He had been in the room for only a few minutes when another man came through the wide doors — someone Vendôme had not seen in a long time, longer than the time of his exile from France. The other looked pale and somewhat thin, as if he had been out of the sun for quite a while.

“My lord de Bassompierre,” he said, offering a gracious nod of his head, enough courtesy for the newcomer.

“Your Grace.” François de Bassompierre, fifteen years elder than Vendôme, looked very well, actually, considering where he had been for a half-dozen years: the Bastille, for his minor role in the so-called ‘Day of the Dupes’, when King Louis had chosen his minister in preference to his mother. Bassompierre was no common criminal, of course: but prison was prison, just as exile was exile — hard to forget, and harder to forgive.

“You look well, Bassompierre.”

“I look terrible, my lord of Vendôme,” he said. “But no matter. I received my parole and my invitation to wait upon the prince yesterday, and it cost no small sum of livres tournois to my tailor, my wigmaker and a half-dozen other parasites to become presentable for the king’s lever. But I would not miss it for any weight in coin.”

“I don’t think any of us would.”

Bassompierre shrugged. He walked to a side-table, where crystal flagons of wine and exquisite glasses were placed. He poured himself a glass and took a long drink.

“You don’t want to wait for the prince.”

“I shall drink His Highness’ health when he arrives,” Bassompierre said, setting the glass down. “Whenever that is.”

“So you are to be a member of the Conseil.”

“You find that surprising.”

“I do. But our new King has surprised us in many ways.”

“As in his decision to invite you to return to France, Your Grace. A . . . pleasant surprise, to be sure, but a surprise nonetheless. There is much talk of it.”

“I had not heard.”

Bassompierre shrugged, as if he could care less whether Vendôme had heard of it or not.

As a légitimé and Prince of the Blood, César de Vendôme — exiled or not — outranked Bassompierre, a mere gentilhomme, a courtier and second-rate diplomat who had whiled away the last five years of his life in prison. But Vendôme’s illegitimate birth allowed liberties that would never have been permitted otherwise. His indifference was a sign of that, and it irked Vendôme — but he refused to show his irritation.

“Perhaps this is merely a consultation, Bassompierre, and the new King will place you in the field once more.”

“I rather think he could use my military advice, Your Grace. It would be good to have someone at hand with actual experience leading troops.”

Vendôme’s polite expression never left his face, but inside he seethed: all things being equal he wanted to walk over and strangle the older man — but of course all things were not equal. Before he could either respond (politely or otherwise), others began to arrive.

Claude de Bullion, the aged, portly Minister of Finance, came in alone. He looked around the room as if he were determining the cost of the drapes, the furniture, and the inhabitants. Vendôme despised him — but then everyone despised him: He had a courtier since Vendôme was a child as a Maître des Requêtes — one of the royal officials who determined which petitions received the king’s attention, and had been Minister of Finance for the last few years, keeping the exchequer afloat while Louis fought wars in Mantua, Lorraine and elsewhere. Both offices had made him absurdly wealthy and even more disliked.

Noyers and Épernon arrived together. François Sublet de Noyers, one of Richelieu’s former créatures, was in charge of royal constructions — the Bâtements du Roi — and the duke of Épernon, a now aged soldier, had been decorated extensively by both Vendôme’s father Henry IV and his predecessor. Épernon had been dismissed and exiled for some affair of honor a few years ago; Vendôme was a little surprised to see him back. Bassompierre saw the two men enter and immediately busied himself in conversation with the prince of Condé, who had come into the chamber unnoticed.

 

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 21

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 21

Chapter 8

I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly. “You want to hire me?”

“That’s right.”

I craned my neck to see Luis and his friends over the high back of my chair. “Luis works for you already, and he’s every bit the runecrafter I am.”

“More,” Luis said, and grinned.

I faced Amaya again. “You don’t need me.”

The crime lord’s expression had darkened in a way that made my blood turn cold. “Are you refusing to work for me?”

“No. But I don’t understand why you want me.”

“Luis is not an investigator. No one who works for me is. And you bring certain . . . unique attributes to the job: your connections within both the local magical community and the police department, not to mention your enhanced reputation.”

“You’d pay me?”

“Of course. We’re both businessmen. I believe you charge two hundred and fifty dollars a day, plus expenses.”

“That’s right, though I was thinking of charging you more.”

His eyebrows went up. “And why is that?”

“Because fairly or not, you have a reputation, too, and I’m not sure I want to associate myself with it.”

Anger flickered in his dark eyes, but after a moment he inclined his head, conceding the point. “Three hundred per day.”

“Done. Can you give me some idea of what you expect me to find?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Right. Forget that I asked.” I drank the rest of my beer, set it on the table by my water glass, and stood. “I take it I’m free to go?”

“Of course. Luis will see you back to your home, or wherever else you care to go.”

I nodded, but didn’t move. There was something missing, something that Amaya was holding back. We both knew it, and I think he was waiting to see if I’d let it go and leave or challenge him. If he’d known me at all, he wouldn’t have wondered: I’d always had more guts than smarts.

“There’s more to this than you’re telling me,” I said. “I’d like to know what it is.”

“With what I’m paying you, I’d have thought that you could learn what you need to on your own time.”

“Do you want to play games, Mister Amaya, or do you want me to find out what happened to flight 595?”

Amusement flitted across his handsome face, though it never touched his eyes. “What do you know about dark magic?”

“Not a lot. I know that I killed Cahors, and that he was probably the most important and most powerful dark myste this city’s seen in some time.”

“If that’s what you believe, you know next to nothing. Only someone ignorant of the breadth and reach of Phoenix’s dark magic cabal could make such a claim.”

I blinked. “You’re saying that there are other dark sorcerers in Phoenix who are as powerful as he was, as dangerous as he was?”

Amaya stared back at me.

“And you truly believe Howell was killed by dark magic?”

It made some sense, I suppose. Perhaps it explained the odd magical residue I’d seen on the body and the plane.

“I believe it’s possible,” he said, the admission seeming to come at some cost.

“There are some who would assume that a man like you, a man of your profession who’s also a weremyste, would be a practitioner of dark magic.”

“And they’d be wrong,” he said, his voice as hard and sharp as a knife blade. “Dark magic is not . . .” He broke off shaking his head. “Crime and dark sorcery are not the same thing. You judge my worst deeds — most people do. That’s fine; I can live with that. But dark magic is something else entirely. The mystes I’m talking about engage in ritual killings, they cast blood spells, and use magic to control the thoughts and actions of others. They . . .” He gave another shake of his head and pressed his lips thin. When he began again, it was in a softer voice. “And they do much, much worse. I promise you, I’m not one of them. I want no part of them. In fact, I’m hiring you because I want to find and destroy them.”

Puzzle pieces clicked into place: information from earlier in the day fitting all too well with Amaya’s words. For now, though, I kept this thought to myself. I’d have time to confirm my theory tomorrow. “If these dark mystes are all that you say they are, and if there are as many of them around here as you imply, I’m not sure I want any part of this investigation. I’m not looking to be a foot soldier in a runecrafters’ war.”

I thought he might threaten me again, remind me of that virtual gun he had pointed at my heart. But he was more circumspect than that. At least a little.

“Nobody wants this war,” he said. “I certainly don’t. It may seem like my war now, but it’s going to affect all of us who craft, and it’s going to do so sooner than you might think. You can’t avoid it forever, and we can’t rely on an all volunteer army, as it were.”

“So you’re drafting me?”

“I’m hiring you, which is a good deal more than the other side is apt to do.”

“Why am I just hearing of this war now?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps your sources within the magical world aren’t as informed as mine, or perhaps they aren’t as willing to tell you what they know.”

I was thinking of Namid, of course. I wasn’t about to reveal to Amaya that I was being trained by a runemyste. There were thirty-eight of them left in the world, and the fact that one had taken such an interest in my life and my casting marked me as a runecrafter of some importance. Admitting as much to Amaya struck me as potentially dangerous, though at that moment I couldn’t say whether I was more afraid that he might see me as a rival or as a prize to be taken.

But I didn’t believe that anyone Amaya knew could be better informed about the magical world than Namid. On the other hand, I could imagine with ease the runemyste telling me a fraction of what he knew. Abruptly, my recent conversations with the myste, including those about my Dad, took on added meaning. I needed to ask Namid some pointed questions.

“Who?” I asked Amaya. “Give me a name.”

“Are you going to work for me?”

“Yes. With most jobs I take two days’ pay up front, but you can start me off with an even thousand.”

I was starting to like Amaya’s laugh. It was the most sincere thing about him. “You’re bold, Fearsson. I like that. Will you take a check?” When I hesitated, he said, “It would be drawn on the Chofi account; my name will be on the signature line, but nobody can read my scrawl anyway.”

“Sure, a check is fine. The name?” I pulled out my spiral notepad and pen.

“Regina Witcombe,” Amaya said, dropping his voice.

“Regina Witcombe,” I repeated. “I know that name.”

“I would have been surprised if you didn’t. She’s a woman of some importance in this town.”

“No, it’s not . . .”

“She owns Witcombe Financial, which she inherited when her husband died. And she’s on the board of directors of several institutions here in Phoenix: a hospital, one of the local universities, the business roundtable, the arts council.” His mouth twitched. “She’s everything I’m not. They’ll probably make her Phoenix’s Woman of the Year. But trust me, she’s a weremyste, like you and me, and she’s up to her neck in dark crafting.”

I had heard of her, though I didn’t know as much about her as Amaya did. But I also knew that it wasn’t her financial career or her community activities that I’d been thinking of. I had encountered her name recently, within the last day.

“The plane,” I whispered. Then louder, “She was on the passenger manifest.”

“Well, of course,” Amaya said. “I told you this was all about dark magic.”

“Which means that you already know the answer to your question. You don’t need me. Regina Witcombe was the person worth saving. She’s the reason Howell is dead.”

“But why was she worth saving? And who saved her?”

“Maybe she saved herself.”

“Perhaps, in which case this will be the easiest money you’ve earned in a long time. But I think there’s more going on here than just Regina keeping herself from being blown up. I want to know what it is. I want to know why she was headed to Washington.”

It wasn’t the sort of investigation I usually took on. But I suspected that Amaya wouldn’t take kindly to my telling him as much. And truth be told, if this woman really was using dark magic, I wanted to know about it. Amaya was right: dark crafting was nothing to sneeze at. The lingering twinges of pain in my arm and leg, mementos of my confrontation with Cahors, were all the reminders I needed of that.

He cut me a check on the spot: a thousand dollars, as I’d asked. There were benefits to working for the rich and infamous. But even after he signed it, he didn’t hand it to me right away.

“You’re going to want to ask around about Regina Witcombe,” he said. “I know that. But understand this: you are strictly forbidden to tell anyone that I told you she’s a weremyste and that she has a history of using dark magic.”

I wasn’t used to being forbidden to do anything, and I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I understood what he meant.

“I have no intention of telling anyone.”