by Frank Morin
Connor spotted him jostling toward the front of the crowd. He did seem motivated to get a glimpse inside, but even knowing his target, he couldn’t see anything special about him. Then he tapped chert and opened himself to the crowd.
He kept the connection loose, not looking for specific thoughts, but just feelings. Most of the people gathered were curious or slightly concerned. Their emotions flowed over him like faint warm breezes against his skin.
One part of the breeze was hot, like a wisp of air from a burning candle. It came from the worker, and as Connor centered his focus on the man, his thoughts became clear. “Curse that filthy brute. Why does he have to conceal my moment of glory? Come on, just one glimpse and I can get out of this Tallan-cursed cesspit of a town and return to my queen.”
“Is that how you ferret them out, by their emotions?” Connor asked. It made sense, but he’d always thought there was something more to her unerring ability to detect enemy spies.
“It’s part of what I do. Some of them are skilled at concealing their true intent, but this one doesn’t ever seem to bother.”
“Why did you leave him for last, then?” Connor asked.
“Because he’s also convinced he’s the best spy in the seven kingdoms. That kind of pride serves as wonderful leverage.”
“So what do we do? He’ll see we’re not all dead in a minute,” Connor said uneasily. He’d fought many battles and had killed more than once, but what was Aifric planning?
He loved the gaggle of women in her head, but some of what they were called upon to do made him queasy. He didn’t think he was strong enough to step into the darkness like she had to do with any confidence he could return and still remain whole.
She flashed a predatory grin. “We give him a show, of course.”
“I thought we didn’t want the queen learning much about us.”
“We can’t stop her from gathering some intelligence. I wasn’t able to confide in you earlier, but there’s a method to how we manage enemy spies. I’ve worked it all out with Wolfram and Ilse. This one’s special, though.”
“Because he’ll see we defeated her mind bomb.”
“On the contrary, Connor. We need to make sure he sees you kill Builders, maybe even Shona too.”
Of course. Connor grinned as the idea caught hold and possibilities began flooding in. If the spy witnessed success, he could report that to the queen and . . .
“Wait, if we show him that we succeed, the queen will expect us to report back to her. I don’t think sneaking into Donleavy again is a good idea.”
“You’re right. That would be suicide. No, we’re going to show him success, but then you and Ivor need to die. Make it spectacular.”
That was such a good idea. He’d nearly died for the cause a few times, and had even been executed once. He hadn’t enjoyed the experience, but he found himself growing excited by the prospect of mirage-dying to trick the queen.
She added, “I’ll work the emotional pushing part. I’m better at that than you, but you need to handle the mirage.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve got this,” Connor said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. He couldn’t fight Queen Dreokt directly, but he could pass misinformation. First he needed materials to work with.
“I’ll be right back.”
He hurried back to where the others were still gathered around Nicklaus. Kilian raised an eyebrow and asked, “What are you waiting for? Aifric said the spy is in position.”
“He is. I need some voices to make it convincing. Can you each say something?”
He tapped serpentinite, and sounds came to life around him. The rustle of small branches triggered little bursts of faint, yellow light. The murmur of the growing crowds outside was like a glow on the horizon.
“Like what?” Verena asked, and the words erupted from her mouth like green butterflies. Connor seized them and set them hovering around his head.
He was going to say, “Anything,” but it would be easier if he got them to say the words instead of building them from the shards he captured. Why not tap into their creative brilliance? “Imagine Ivor and I are going crazy again and that you’re losing. Hamish, how about some pain? Shona, a good death scream would be amazing.”
They rolled with the request with exceptional gusto. Hamish lifted into the air, thrusters roaring, bursts of light exploding off of him as he shouted with rage and then pain, as if he’d seen someone steal an entire tray of fresh sweetbreads, then got clobbered by a hot cast-iron pan. Shona screamed, her rich voice rising into a crescendo of terror and mortal injury. She really knew how to scream. The sound made Connor shiver, even though he knew she was acting.
Not to be outdone, Verena screamed, “Connor, no!” then broke down into such a wrenching cry of despair, Connor almost forgot to capture the sounds. She held his gaze the entire time, and his heart nearly broke, imagining how nearly he’d hurt her just moments ago.
Kilian shouted battle orders, and Ivor raged like a rampager. Even Evander shouted, his deep voice like a mountain preparing to erupt.
Connor gleefully captured everything. Soon words and sounds and screams buzzed around his head like a swarm of really colorful hornets. He fed them enough energy so they didn’t fade.
“How about an elemental show to reinforce the mirage I’m building?” he asked.
Kilian and Ivor complied with explosions of varied-colored flames, shooting them high into the air above the earthen walls. Evander shook the ground, and both Verena and Hamish activated mechanicals.
Hamish got a little carried away and fired a diorite missile into one of the apple trees. It exploded, shattering into thousands of deadly shards of wood. Verena blocked the shrapnel with a shieldstone and gave him a disgusted look.
“It’s for the revolution,” Hamish reminded her, trying to look innocent. It didn’t quite work.
“Thanks. Keep it up for a few more seconds,” Connor told them, then rushed back to Aifric, who was grinning and slowly shaking her head.
“I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m the one who asked you for a spectacular show, but I’m still impressed.”
“That’s just the opening act,” he assured her as he again crouched beside her in the soft ground and peeked through their concealment toward the crowd.
Most of the onlookers had retreated from the fresh sound of fighting. The emotions were growing in intensity and turning more toward fear. They felt like a cold breeze against his arms. Excellent.
The spy alone was creeping closer, daring the dangerous exposure for a chance to witness events for the queen. His thoughts were easy to pick out.
“Just a few more seconds. Everyone else is gone, probably from that infernal Mhortair. I have to get away before she finds me too.”
“He knows about you, suspects you’ve been targeting the other spies. The queen must have warned him,” Connor said.
“Good. We can work with that fear,” she said.
“Now for the main event.”
Connor tapped limestone, and the bright late morning sunlight suddenly sharpened into tangible form around the park. Connor seized the light and twisted it, focusing on the spy and unleashing mirage.
The park exploded. A firestorm blasted in every direction, shredding trees and scorching the grass. Connor mixed in the sounds from the tree Hamish had sacrificed, magnifying them a hundred times. He added in screaming, and Verena’s cry for mercy.
The spy stopped, frozen in his tracks, mouth open in terror. It was working! Connor began to smile.
Then the other spectators began to scream and flee.
Tallan blast it all to bacon bits. He hadn’t planned on being quite that effective. Aifric glanced at him, and he shrugged. He couldn’t stop now.
Within the fiery mirage, he caused Hamish to swoop into the air, protected by a shieldstone. Then mirage-Connor swept through the flames, wielding water and earth like living serpents. He caught Hamish and pierced his battle suit a dozen times. Hamish howled as the elements consumed
him and smashed his broken body into the ground.
Verena and Ivor appeared next, fighting a desperate battle, mechanicals against living elements. Ivor burned her face, but Kilian intercepted him, and the two launched into an epic elemental dual.
Verena stumbled away, but mirage-Connor landed right on her head like a thunderclap, smashing her into the ground and seizing her limbs with earth. She screamed, “Connor, no!”, but the cry cut off as earth poured down her throat and the ground swallowed her convulsing form.
Even though he was the one controlling the mirage, Connor blanched at the sight of the horrific carnage. He felt tears welling in his eyes, and chided himself for getting too caught up in the show. He had to make it real for the spy in order to keep Verena safe, but his hands started to tremble, and his stomach roiled, as if he was going to throw up. He couldn’t spare the time to pace off a line to measure distance either.
So he swallowed down the rising bile, reminding himself that he was doing it to protect Verena. Focusing on that purpose helped, and he released the rest of it. Evander and Ilse circled around Connor on both sides, unleashing an earthen barrage in tandem that momentarily overwhelmed him. Kilian closed on Ivor, diving right through his defensive curtain of mixed fire and water and punched him in the face.
Ivor exploded. Diorite fists seemed the most epic way to finish off a Dawnus out of control, and the spray of gore did Ivor justice.
The few remaining spectators broke and fled, screaming in fear. The spy alone remained in the entrance, eyes wide, so startled by the brutal fight that he couldn’t seem to move.
Mirage-Connor burst out of the earthen prison, but Kilian joined in the attack. Between them all, they held Connor down until Evander punched him so hard in the head that his skull cracked and he fell unmoving on the broken, scorched earth.
Silence settled over the park, as if the entire world was stunned by the brutal deaths of the Builders.
“Wow,” Student Eighteen whispered. “Now, we make it personal. We need him to run as if death is hot on his heels.”
She rose and ran around the bush to join the mirage characters gathered around mirage-Connor. She glanced at the spy and said, “You there, hold!”
His face paled as if someone had hit him with a cream pie. His thoughts shrieked with terror. “Assassin!”
He turned and fled, moving with Strider speed. She shouted and gave chase, moving almost as fast. Connor figured she’d stay just close enough to keep him fracked and panicked until she arranged for him to escape in a way that no doubt would convince him he had bested her.
After the spy disappeared, Connor released mirage. He suddenly felt exhausted. The mind bomb battle had taken a lot out of him, and he’d never crafted such a complex mirage. Besides, the sight of Hamish and Verena and Ivor dying had affected him deeply.
When he turned, he found the entire group approaching. They looked impressed, but he ran to Verena and held her tight, savoring the feel of her alive and healthy in his arms.
Hamish pounded him on the back, laughing. “That was amazing, Connor, although I think you killed me off a little too fast to be really convincing.”
Ivor wasn’t smiling. He gave Connor a disappointed look. “Why did I have to die?”
“The diorite punch was a nice touch. Made it memorable,” Kilian commented.
“But Connor only got captured,” Ivor pointed out.
“We can’t have the queen thinking we’ll be showing up in Donleavy soon,” Connor explained.
“So why not kill you too?” Ivor asked.
Connor shrugged. “It was my mirage. Someone had to sacrifice for the team.”
“I need to make sure no one else sacrifices for the cause,” Verena said, pushing away from Connor. “You started a panic.”
She activated a speakstone, connecting with Gisela, who was in one of the command centers. She relayed orders to deploy forces to intercept the panicking people and assure them all was well.
“Hold,” Ilse said. “I don’t like scaring people either, but that spy is still in town. We can’t risk him hearing those orders.”
Verena sighed. “Well, come on. If we catch them, we can calm them down individually.”
“Not you. You’re dead,” Connor reminded her.
“I’ll take care of it,” Ilse said, and sped away, sliding over the earth toward the outer wall.
Jean hugged Hamish and handed him a breadstick. “Here. This always cheers you up after you get fake-murdered by Connor.”
Hamish laughed and took a big bite. “Yeah, but we used to do it to try to get a kiss from you.”
She kissed him, grinning. Verena looked from them to Connor, a question in her eye.
“It’s an old tradition from Alasdair,” he explained. “Never worked.”
“Only won us extra tonic from old Mhairi,” Hamish said with a grimace.
26
Dessert Magic Is the Best
Connor took a huge bite of Hamish’s strange, frozen dessert, made of cream, whipped as smooth as honey glaze. Small chunks of Althin chocolate and chopped nuts were scattered through it, adding bursts of flavor that seemed magnified by the cream. Connor sighed and let it melt against his tongue as he savored the remarkable delicacy.
But then the cold seemed to freeze his brain. It was a startling, but not unpleasant sensation. Definitely better than the effects from some of the food Hamish offered. He sucked in a long breath, trying to bring some warmth into his mouth as the cold seized the top of his palate. He was impatient to get onto the next bite, so he tapped a little marble to ease the cold.
The group were gathered in Jean’s private dining room, adjacent to her sitting room. Nobility definitely came with perks. The long room was mostly filled with a gleaming oak table, long enough to seat twenty. A delicate blue runner covered the center of the table, holding the insulated bowl of dessert.
The entire group involved in the mind-bomb fight were gathered around the table. They’d all been so ecstatic they hadn’t even hesitated before accepting Hamish’s offer to share a new dessert.
Hamish was walking up and down the table to read everyone’s reaction to his re-creation of one of Schwinkendorf’s lost masterpieces. He chuckled when he spotted Connor with his mouth half open, eyes wide, dealing with the brain freeze.
“Connor, you look like you’ve frozen your will to live.”
“At least for once he doesn’t look like he’s about to spew whatever it is you just fed him,” Aifric chuckled.
Connor grinned. “I’ve got this. Don’t worry about me.” He took another frozen bite. Delicious. Schwinkendorf had dubbed it Winter’s Heart, but Hamish preferred calling it Kiss of the Dessert Fairy.
“I’ve never tasted anything like this,” Verena exclaimed. For a girl who had died a grisly death by mirage just hours ago, she had a great appetite.
Jean said, “I’m still amazed you were already experimenting with chilling cream, Hamish.”
Verena chuckled. “Hamish loves experimenting with mechanicals to produce new foods. One of his first projects in the Builder compound was a fantastic jellied pudding mechanical.”
Hamish sighed wistfully. “That mountain of pudding was a spectacular moment.”
Aifric, who sat on the other side of Connor, had already emptied one bowl. While the others joked about some of Hamish’s less spectacular attempts at food crafting, she snuck a second bowl and saluted Hamish’s back with her spoon. She seemed to be enjoying the dessert enough that every one of her personalities wanted a bowl of their own. Connor wasn’t sure Hamish had made enough.
Ivor sat across from Aifric, beside Shona, engrossed in a hushed discussion with her. She was wearing a stylish green hat with a wide brim that concealed her missing hair, and for a moment seemed to be enjoying herself.
General Wolfram had joined them for the celebration, sitting next to Evander, directly across from Kilian and Aifric. She had reported the spy hadn’t stopped running until he leaped aboard a windrid
er heading south. Even though they didn’t expect any other attacks from the queen, Ilse had insisted on remaining on watch.
Hamish was clearly thrilled they all loved Kiss of the Dessert Fairy. “I was experimenting with chilling cream, but wasn’t whipping it while it cooled. That’s the key.”
It was a key that worked wonders. They’d easily consume the rest of his supply. They’d have to arrange a way to make more. A lot more.
Shona gestured with her spoon. “In Merkland we’ve experimented with chilling juices in the summer, but I’ve never tried anything like this.”
Hamish’s eyes widened and he gushed, “Fruit juices. That’s a brilliant idea.”
Verena sighed. “I don’t want to hear about you exploding vats of juice in your workroom, Hamish.”
Connor enjoyed the happy banter. That battle of the minds could have easily turned out very differently. Even better, they’d just sent a windrider full of autonomous sculpted scones in a sneak attack against Donleavy. A tiny portion of his mind flew with the tiny creations, but they were so small, they barely distracted him.
He couldn’t wait to hear Ailsa’s report. They’d sent her a cryptic warning, and he hoped she understood it. If she swallowed one of those deadly little scones, Connor grimaced to think what she might do to them in revenge.
“I want some answers about what happened to Nicklaus,” Kilian said firmly.
Connor felt ashamed to realize he’d allowed the little boy’s plight to fade to the back of his mind.
“I still barely believe he could have lost his affinities,” Verena added softly.
Connor wished he could give them better news. “I can’t say for sure either way yet. I’m pretty sure the problem wasn’t tied to the mind bomb. It was that soapstone sculpted stone. He had quickened it and was also trying to tap it, but somehow it rebounded against him. I haven’t been able to figure out how to prove if he’s really lost all of his affinities, or if he’s suffering some kind of temporary blockage.”
