by R S Penney
“Rest,” Desa said. “We must get an early start tomorrow.”
She floated in the sense the sense of calm that came whenever her mind touched the Ether. To her eyes, everything was different. The trees and the grass were spiraling bits of matter held together in a loose configuration. Her companions were close enough that she could sense them effortlessly. She was aware of almost everything within about a hundred paces of her body.
She focused on the duster that she had left folded over a rock, not so much a coat but a galaxy of particles all buzzing like busy bees. The box in her pocket still contained bullets she had taken from the farmhouse. She directed tendrils of the Ether toward it and gasped. There was no box.
Moving her body when her mind was in this state was next to impossible, but she forced herself to do so anyway. She nudged the coat with her foot and felt the box in her pocket. It was there, but she could not sense it with the Ether.
That should have been impossible.
Nothing was beyond the reach of the Ether!
She fed those tendrils of energy into the space where the box should have been, searching for the bullets inside, but they were gone too! So far as the Ether was concerned, neither box nor bullets existed. Was that a consequence of the Grayness?
Desa came back to her waking self.
Her vision snapped back to normal and she saw the branches of a massive elm tree extending over her head, barely visible in the light of the fire. Her duster was there on the rock. She nudged it again with her foot.
Dropping to a crouch next to it, Desa closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. “So, how did you do this, Bendarian?” she wondered aloud. “What can separate an object from the Ether?”
She retrieved the box from her pocket and opened it to find gray bullets inside. All perfectly normal except for their lack of colour. What to do now? Could she still use them as ordinary bullets?”
Lifting one between her thumb and forefinger, Desa squinted at it. “Did Bendarian do this?” she whispered. “Or was it that thing at the farmhouse?”
She pulled her revolver, popped open the cylinder and fed the bullet into an empty slot. That done, she spun the cylinder so that the gray round was next in line, closed it and thumbed the hammer.
She chose a thin tree about fifty feet away.
CRACK!
“Almighty have mercy!” Tommy shouted, sitting up and clutching his blanket to his body. The poor lad was frightened, glancing this way and that, probably expecting to find himself under attack.
The shot landed true, leaving a big hole of splintered wood in the tree trunk. These bullets still obeyed the laws of physics – so far as Desa could tell, anyway – but they did not respond to the Ether. Well, normal ammunition was better than no ammunition, but not by much in her estimation.
“Will it never end?” Tommy groaned.
Desa strode toward him. “I'm sorry for waking you,” she said. “I had to find out if the bullets I took from the farmhouse were usable.”
The young man looked up at her with an expression that said his patience was wearing thin. “And are they?” he asked. “I bloody well hope so, since you decided to test them in the middle of the night.”
“They can be used as ordinary ammunition.”
“But...”
Desa folded her arms and hunched over. She puckered her lips and blew air through them. “But they will not accept an Infusion,” she said reluctantly. “In fact, the Ether does not seem to recognize them. I cannot use them to Field Bind.”
“Lovely,” Sebastian grumbled. The young man was turned away on his side with a blanket pulled up over his head. “At least there is something in this world that is immune to your witchcraft.”
“It occurs to me that perhaps you will take the gray bullets, Sebastian,” Desa said. “And give me some of yours instead.” Exactly when did the fool get his hands on a pistol anyway? Both boys had been unarmed when she took them from Sorla, which meant that Sebastian must have purchased a weapon after they were separated in Glad Meadows. Or perhaps...perhaps Miri had given it to him.
Miri.
That woman was dangerous.
Pursing her lips, Desa looked up toward the heavens and blinked. “After all,” she went on. “It's of no difference to you. The gray bullets will fire as readily as any other.”
“Cursed bullets,” Sebastian muttered. “Just what I need.”
From the corner of her eye, Desa saw Miri lying on her back with her eyes closed, seemingly asleep. That one was trouble. And it was past time that Desa dealt with her.
Desa's eyes popped open.
She was lying on her back with hands folded over her chest, gazing up at a predawn sky. Carefully, she sat up and noted the dark figure of Miri moving off toward some trees by the roadside.
Desa stood slowly with one hand on her holstered weapon and pursued her strange new companion. The grass was soft and moist from recent rainfall, but it still made more noise underfoot than she would have liked. Not that there was any chance of Miri hearing it at this distance, but years as a bounty hunter had taught her the value of silence.
Her companions had made their campsite in an open field that was dotted with trees here and there. It was a wise enough choice; there was little chance that anyone would be able to sneak up on them unnoticed. That said, there were copses thick enough to hide at least two or three people. Miri had chosen one of those.
As Desa neared, she became painfully aware of the silence. Miri was around here somewhere, and anyone struggling to avoid roots and branches in the dark would make a fair bit of noise. The only people who didn't were-
Desa spun around in time to see a shadowy figure looming over her, the silhouette of a tall, slender woman in a duster. Before she could even speak, that silhouette tried to punch her.
Desa ducked and felt a closed fist pass over her head. She threw a pair of jabs into Miri's stomach, then rose to slug the fool woman's nose. That had an effect. Miri gasped and stumbled away.
The woman was surprisingly quick, moving with lightning speed as she drew one of her throwing knives and flung it at Desa. Instinct pushed all thought aside.
With a ferocious growl, Desa raised her left forearm and used her bracelet to drain kinetic energy. The knife froze in place mere inches away from her, hanging in midair. A spike of alarm went through Desa when she realized that Miri had just tried to kill her.
She drew her gun and pointed it at Miri's chest. “Why?” she demanded. “Why are you trying to kill me?”
Miri backed away.
“Why?”
“You frightened me!”
Desa let her arm drop to glare at the other woman. Her face was burning, her brow slick with sweat, and she was in no mood for games. “I frightened you? No, I don't think so. People with your skills don't frighten easily.”
The silhouette shook her head, then backed up with her hands in the air. “I thought it might have been a bandit,” Miri said in that same twangy accent. “Or one of those gray things come to kill us.”
Yes, the accent remained, but Miri's speech was more formal than it should have been. Her mask was slipping. “I'm disappointed,” Desa said. “Your lies aren't usually so transparent. Tell me why I shouldn't end you now.”
“Mrs. Kincaid-”
Thrusting her pistol forward, Desa cocked the hammer with the distinctive click. If that frightened Miri, the woman showed no sign of it. But her presence in the group was becoming a problem.
Desa had been living with a fear of betrayal ever since this woman showed up with Sebastian on her heels. Enough was enough. Sebastian, she could deal with – that fool of a boy was harmless – but Miri? Miri was trained and deadly. “Who are you?” she asked. “You have one chance to answer, and if I don't like what I hear, I will pull this trigger.”
“She is Miri Nin Valia,” a man said, emerging from the trees. “One of the Ka'adri and a servant of Synod.”
Tall and broad-shouldered, this newcomer would h
ave been imposing in his long coat, but Desa had met more than her fair share of imposing men, and whatever smidge of respect she might have felt once upon a time was long gone. Besides, she would know that voice anyway.
Her lips writhed, showing clenched teeth as she turned her gaze on him. “Marcus,” she said. “What brings you all the way out here? I didn't think anything could make you leave Aladar.”
Marcus reached up and tipped his hat to her. “A pleasure to see you as well,” he said. “You are, after all, the reason why I'm here.”
“I am?” A thought occurred to her. “Wait...Isn't Valia your mother's name? Are you telling me that Miri is your sister?”
The other woman stalked off toward the campsite where Tommy and Sebastian had been roused by all the noise. Desa could only imagine the questions that she would have to answer after this. Perhaps it was for the best.
“The Synod will no longer tolerate your...escapades,” Marcus replied in a voice dripping with disdain. “You are ordered to return to Aladar at once.”
Holstering her revolver with a sigh, Desa shook her head. “I can't do that, and you know why,” she said. “If Miri has been sneaking off to meet with you, it stands to reason you've been following us. Which means you saw what happened back there.”
Marcus crossed his arms and thrust his chin out. The approaching dawn provided just enough light for her to see his scowl. “Yes, I saw,” he spat. “All the more reason for you to return.”
“And how have you come to that conclusion.”
He began to pace a circle around Desa, grunting as he stamped one foot down in the grass. “You must have felt the Ether in that place,” he said. “The wrongness. Aladar needs its best Field Binders.”
“What we need,” Desa insisted, “is to catch Bendarian before he repeats whatever he did on that farm.”
“What makes you so certain this is Bendarian's doing?”
Desa blew out a breath, strode forward and put herself right in front of the man. She looked up to meet his eyes. “You know what happened,” she said firmly. “Bendarian tried to directly Infuse the Ether into living people.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Those creatures that I fought,” Desa began. “They were possessed by something. An intelligence of some kind.”
“And you think Bendarian put it there?”
Craning her neck to hold his gaze, Desa felt her eyebrows rise. “That makes more sense to me than any other explanation,” she said. “If you're here, you can help me. Two Field Binders will stand a better chance against Bendarian than one alone.”
Marcus grimaced, turning his face away from her. For a brief moment, he stiffened. “That is not my mission,” he mumbled. “I was sent to bring you home.”
“Then set aside your mission for the time being.”
His eyes fell upon her like bullets trying to pierce her flesh, and his cheeks flushed to a deep crimson. “Who do you think I am?” Marcus snarled. “I cannot simply abandon a mission without the blessing of the Synod.”
“We don't have time for that,” Desa groaned. “Even if you penned a letter today, it would take months to reach Aladar.”
To her surprise, Marcus answered that with a wry grin that almost made her want to punch him. The fool of a man had always known how to rile her. “You have lived among primitives too long,” he said. “There are other options. When was the last time you even bothered to make an Electric-Source?”
It had been years. Electricity was a dangerous form of energy to harness. Trigger an Electric-Source, and it would lash out at anything that got too close. Electric-Sinks could be even worse, condemning those caught in their fields to a painful death of convulsions. “Why?” Desa asked. “Are you planning to kill someone with lightning?”
“I have a radio.”
“You what?”
Had the technology improved so much in just a decade? When Desa had left Aladar eleven years ago, radios were heavy and bulky contraptions with circuitry that would not do well when exposed to the elements. Not the sort of thing that one could easily take on a long journey, especially if travel by horseback was required.
Marcus raised his hands to forestall her and took a careful step backward. “I don't have it with me,” he said. “I left it in safekeeping at a bank in Ofalla. We could journey there and learn the will of the Synod in less than two days.”
“I suppose that's something,” Desa said. “Perhaps someone will get a good look at the device and learn a thing or two.”
Marcus grimaced at that. “You know we don't share technology,” he countered. “It would invite invasion.”
“And you know I've never agreed with that policy. We were already on our way to Ofalla. If you wish to accompany us, I have no objections.” It would make things easier. She could be fairly certain that Miri would not try to kill her again so long as Marcus was intent on bringing her home. Mercy knew there was no getting rid of the woman.
“We will go,” Marcus said, “and speak to the Synod. After that, it will be a simple matter of booking passage on a ship.”
“We'll see...” Desa muttered.
Chapter 9
It took another day and a half of riding to reach Ofalla, and by the end of it, Tommy was worn out. He would have expected to see something grandiose upon their arrival – a large, stone wall encircling the city, perhaps – but there was nothing like that.
The city seemed to almost grow naturally out of the surrounding countryside. Small buildings appeared almost haphazardly on the roadside, growing more and more frequent the closer they got to the centre of town.
Eventually, dirt roads became cobblestone streets with tall, black lampposts on each raised sidewalk. Narrow townhouses with black-tiled rooftops were packed so closely together that there wasn't an inch of space between them. And the noise! Oh, the noise! Every street was bustling with people.
They traveled side by side on horseback with Desa and Miri riding Midnight while Tommy and Sebastian shared his father's gelding. Mrs. Kincaid had been eager to reclaim her mount, and she had insisted that they switch places this morning.
Marcus, the newcomer to their group, rode his own horse, a proud beast the colour of a summer storm cloud. How fitting that he had named the creature “Thunder.” Tommy thought it fit well, but Desa snorted every time Marcus called the horse by name.
At one point, they were shouldered out of the way by a horse-drawn carriage that came up behind them and rumbled past without so much as an apology from the driver. Some aristocrat was late to some function, or so Tommy reckoned. No time to spare any notice for the little people.
“So, this is city life,” Sebastian muttered behind him. “I could do without it.”
Tommy frowned into his lap and gripped the reins a little tighter. He felt no desire to engage in more verbal sparring with the man he loved. Best to just leave Sebastian to his endless litany of complaints.
They rounded a corner...
And Tommy gasped.
Before him, a massive stone bridge stretched over a river that must have been at least a mile across. “The Vinrella,” Desa said when she caught him gaping. “It flows all the way from the Molarin Mountains to the eastern coast.”
Tommy forced his mouth shut with a click, then gave his head a shake. “Why, it's magnificent,” he whispered. “Mrs. Kincaid, I must thank you for bringing us with you on this journey.”
Sebastian snorted.
To his delight, Desa turned her head and favoured him with a smile. “You may call me Desa, Tommy,” she said. “My husband is dead, and I've never felt much claim to his family's name.”
They started across the bridge with Marcus in the lead, riding his tall, lean gray and occasionally looking back to cast a glare at the rest of the group. Tommy wasn't sure what made the man so cantankerous, but he suspected it was something between Marcus and Desa, and so he wanted no part of it.
It occurred to him that the bridge was not high enough to
let tall ships pass beneath it, which meant...Which meant that the Ofallans had created a wonderful trading port for themselves. Ships from upriver would have to unload their cargo and transfer it to other vessels. The crews who did the work almost certainly made a tidy profit, and Tommy was willing to bet that the city put tariffs on cargo that changed hands. Yes, a wonderful, little trading port, indeed.
On the other side of the river, Ofalla looked much the same: tall townhouses and cobblestone streets, fruit carts on the roadside where men promised the best peaches and plums in the county. Tommy could do with a peach himself. It had been a steady diet of rabbit and duck the whole way down, munching on leftovers in the saddle and going hungry as often as not.
Soon, they turned up a side street and stopped in front of a building that stood three stories high with black tiles on its slanted roof. The sign out front named it the Golden Horseshoe Hotel.
Marcus swung one leg over the back of his horse and dropped to the ground with a grunt. “Mr. Jackson offered me a discount rate the last time I stayed at his place,” he said. “I'm sure he'll do the same again.”
Pressing his lips into a frown, Tommy looked up toward the sky. He blinked as he considered their predicament. Everything here is so big, he thought to himself. Why, there must be at least ten thousand people in this city. How can we find this Bendarian in all of that bustle?
Sebastian poked him.
Tommy forced his eyes shut, trembling as the spike of alarm that made him want to jump out of the saddle faded away. That didn't seem right. Why was he uncomfortable around the man he loved. “Please don't do that.”
“Lighten up,” Sebastian muttered, dropping out of the saddle. He dusted his hands and turned his attention to the Golden Horseshoe. “Finally, a decent night's sleep in a real bed. I didn't think we'd ever manage that again.”
Desa was sitting atop Midnight and glowering at Marcus. “I trust we can rely on Mr. Jackson's discretion?” she asked. “If Bendarian is still in this city, I would prefer not to alert him to our presence.”
