by Unknown
"Kansillaydra," Tallain said with just the smallest touch of irony. "What's that quote? 'Her towers are tall and stately, full of grace'—well, once upon a time, maybe."
Now, the city was just another trading stop, slightly crumbling, populated by sturdy olive-skinned people who were related to the desert nomads with whom they traded.
The hound grunted, not impressed.
"I agree," Tallain said dryly. "But the report said that this is the place, so..." She prodded the horse forward.
Even in these less glamorous days, the city was still supposed to be pretty prosperous. "Prosperous" was hardly the word that came to Tallain's mind as she approached what had probably once been quite an elegant stone gate but was now just another time- and weather-worn relic. Funny. There were no other travelers, no caravans, and there should be at least someone taking advantage of the relative coolness of morning...
"Halt! State your name and reason for being here."
It was a guard. Guards, Tallain corrected silently, watching them move forward in a line to bar her entrance. Their uniforms were... adequate, the sort of well-worn mail that looked as though it had been passed down through several generations. The outfits of folks used to peace.
Formerly used to peace, she corrected silently. Noting their uneasy glances and the too-tight way they were gripping the hilts of their swords, Tallain thought, All right, show time.
"Oh my, I am so glad to see civilization again!" she all but twittered. "I am the Lady Tallain, and it's been, oh, one long nightmare out there."
"You are alone?" one guard asked.
No, you idiot, there's an invisible army with me. "Well, yes, of course I am. That's been part of the nightmare. When those ruffians attacked—why, I thought I was going to just faint from the horror. I do believe they slew everyone but me. And my wonderful Serein, that is, my hound here." Serein shot her a wry look. "Why, if it wasn't for him," Tallain continued, ignoring him, "who knows what might have happened to me! Do you know, I shiver when I think of it? But I'm here now, and safe. So if you gentlemen will please just step aside...?"
"Our apologies, lady." The guard didn't sound particularly apologetic. "Before you may enter our city, you must pass a test."
"A test? What sort of test?" If they meant to try searching her to see if she bore some enemy tribe's tattoos, the hell with the lady disguise. "Gentlemen, I've been out in the desert a long, long time. I really would like to rest."
"The test is neither painful nor time-consuming," the guard assured her, and held out something that glinted-
Tallain bit back a laugh just in time. What he was holding as though it were all-Powerful was nothing more than one of those worthless Iratni amulets, marketplace stuff, silver so thin she could bite through it. The guards couldn't really believe it could ever hurt anything with any real Power—yes, come to think of it, they could. What did they know about magic, after all?
And what, I wonder, are you trying to hurt?
You didn't interrogate a group of uneasy men holding swords. Tallain took the amulet from the guard with a flourish, touching it to head and heart—might as well make a production out of it—then wryly touched Serein and even the horse with the useless thing. "Satisfied?"
Evidently they were. The guard took back the amulet without a word, and the men stood aside just far enough for her to ride through. "You test all your visitors this way?" she tested.
"It's—needed."
Tallain tried her most innocent, 'I am so puzzled' frown. "But why? Is there something I should be worrying about while I'm here?"
One guard said gruffly, "Just don't go out alone. Especially not after dark. Not safe-"
"Not safe for a lady like you," another guard amended hastily.
Uh-huh. As if you mean there's nothing to fear than honor in peril.
But it really had been a long journey here. "I don't suppose you could recommend an inn?" she asked.
"The Travelers' Ease might be open," a guard suggested. "Down that street, right-hand side of the road.
"'Might?'"
He shrugged.
Tallain rode on down a dusty, empty street, eying locked doors and barred windows. Serein growled, deep in his throat. "I agree," she said. "Looks like the report was accurate as far as it went."
There were people in the streets, but not as many as might be in a trading city. And they all had the hangdog looks of those in a city under enemy occupation.
"What enemy?" Tallain murmured. "Where? I don't feel anything unusual. Serein?"
He whined: No.
Tallain tried her most charming smile on the locals, but received only glares or nervous glances in return, and even a few warding-off-evil gestures.
"They're scared all right," Tallain said. "I don't know about you, but I'm just too worn out to go interview the local equivalent of a mayor."
A grunt of agreement from Serein. While they'd gotten most of the way by other than ordinary methods, the last stretch of the journey had been by most mundane means so as to attract no unwanted arcane attention.
"Exactly. Hah, but there's the inn."
She assumed that it was the inn, although the sign had been taken down. It had the general shape of one: a wall with a gate that would, Tallain saw, open onto a central courtyard and the inn itself. But the place wasn't exactly alive with commerce, either: Not a guest, or even a worker, in sight in there. She glanced down at Serein, who gave her a canine equivalent of a shrug.
"At least the windows aren't barred," Tallain said, and rapped on the side of the gate, delicately, as a lady would do.
Nothing.
She rapped again, more forcefully, then gave up being lady-like as a lost cause and banged on the gate with one booted foot. The sound rang out like a flattened bell, and after a moment, a worried-looking fellow came scurrying. He made the mistake of opening the gate a crack, and Tallain kicked her horse through, Serein closely following, before he could stop them.
"My lady—no—you mustn't-"
Dismounting, Tallain tossed him the reins. "See to it that your boy gives him a good rubdown and the best grain."
"But—my lady-"
"What? Have I made some mistake? Is this not an inn?"
"Uh, yes." At his frantic gesture, a boy came running to take the horse from him. "Yes, but, uh—please, lady, wait!" He caught up with Tallain at the door to the inn. "We're closed."
"Really? I seem to see tables set up in the common room."
"W-we have no available guest rooms."
"Odd. I don't see any other guests."
"That's because we're...we're under renovation."
Lord, he was clutching another of those silly amulets. Someone in the market must be cleaning up with them. Yes, and granted, innkeepers were often superstitious, but they rarely let that fact stand in the way of a profit.
"That," Tallain said flatly, "is the most ridiculous excuse yet. I passed that stupid test at the town gate, my dog and I have been on the road a long time-"
"We don't allow war dogs!"
"Oh, Serein here is just an overgrown puppy. Aren't you, boy?"
Serein gave her a long-suffering look, but he grudgingly let her scratch him behind the ears, even (when she pinched one ear in warning) giving his tail a perfunctory wag.
"Now," Tallain continued, "as I was saying, we have been on the road a long time. You are either going to explain what's frightening you-"
"Nothing!"
"Then you are going to give us a room. Now!"
* * * *
The room actually wasn't that bad, plain but clean, with a bed that looked (and smelled) like it actually held fresh straw and a chest for clothes. The nervous stable boy brought the saddlebags then left, not even waiting for Tallain's thanks.
"Great," she said.
Dumping the saddlebags on the chest, she began rummaging. Behind her, she heard a sigh of relief, and tossed a cloak over her shoulder, then turned in time to see Serein finish shifting out of dog-shape
back into his tall, rangy, yellow-haired self, wrapping the cloak about himself.
"Next time," he said, "you do the shifting."
Tallain grinned. "But you make such a cute puppy."
"Hah."
It was said without heat. They'd already agreed that in this land of dark-haired people of average height, a tall blond man would have been a little too memorable.
As her fellow agent slipped into his trousers and tunic, Tallain murmured the proper spell-code over the gem in her ring, and then said into the gem, "Code 545. Special Agents Tallain and Serein reporting—HQ? Come in, HQ. Repeat: code 545. Anyone home?"
"Well?"
Tallain shook her head. "You try it."
He did, but then frowned. "Interference. Much too much for what we've seen so far."
"Or not seen. Or, for that matter, sensed." She didn't need to add that just because they hadn't sensed anything arcane didn't mean that it wasn't here.
Serein stretched wearily, and then let himself fall back onto the bed. "Might have known it wasn't going to be anything so simple as a would-be warlord or marauding bandits."
"Something that only comes out after dark," Tallain commented. "Bet me. Something that, as a result, can only be detected after dark."
"No bet. It's going to be an interesting night."
"There's an understatement." Tallain hunted in the saddlebags for a fresh outfit, one that didn't smell so strongly of horse. It really, truly was too bad the inn didn't come with bathing facilities.
As she pulled out a tunic, her hand closed about a familiar insignia. OMS agent: Special Field Operative. She and Serein had to carry ID, of course, even if they were undercover—and even if Tallain and Serein, equally of course, weren't their real names. Acting across boundaries and authorized to use all necessary force, the Organization of Magical Sovereignties hunted down illegal spell-casters, eliminated demons, and in short, worked to keep the everyday world safe from the Dark—at the same time, without letting the everyday world know what they did.
Sounded dramatic, Tallain thought wryly, the stuff of ballads. More often than not the cases boiled down to this, long treks over dusty roads or stakeouts in boring villages. And the job wasn't made any easier by the need to keep their missions secret from the ordinary citizens.
She and Serein had been agents together too long to worry about niceties. It would be full night all too soon, and a wise agent snatched rest whenever she could. Tallain flopped down beside him and closed her eyes.
* * * *
They both woke with a start to find the night nearly fully there. In one smooth leap, Serein was at the window—then backed off, remembering in time that he wasn't in dog-form. Tallain joined him—ah. The innkeeper's boy, balanced precariously on a ladder.
"What, pray tell, are you doing?" she asked.
"Nothing, nothing, lady. Just, well, you know. Putting up the barricade. For, uh, your protection."
Uh-huh. Silver bars. Silver-plated, her senses corrected.
"Wouldn't hold off even a thirtieth ranked imp," Serein muttered.
"Or in," Tallain corrected wryly. "Come on, Serein, walkies."
He raised a wry yellow brow. "And maybe the innkeeper will actually let us back in afterwards."
"Just change, all right? You can change back once we're away from the inn."
"Next time, you are definitely doing the shifting," he said, and shrank back into dog-form. Tallain gathered up his discarded clothing, and they headed out into the night. They stopped at the stable: only one horse, theirs. It whinnied at them, as if glad of the company. Tallain couldn't resist scratching it under the jaw for a moment. "Sucker," Serein's dog mouth managed.
"Yeah. Soft touch. That's me. Nothing arcane in here."
They headed on out into the quiet streets. Serein took only a few moments to shed the dog-form and dress, stretching in relief. The city seemed utterly asleep, its citizens safe—or at least thinking themselves safe—behind their barricaded windows and doors. Not a sound.
A hot, savage wind swept down the streets from out of nowhere tearing at Tallain and Serein's hair and clothes and stinging their eyes with dust. Suddenly the dark night was ablaze with reddish light.
"What the hell-"
Then they heard the voices. Faint, insidious, they were part of the wind itself. They murmured words too soft to be clearly heard and they laughed, and there was no doubt to either agent that they were evil.
"Class Four Phenomenon," Serein noted tersely. "Sounds and voices. Nothing tangible visible."
"Doesn't feel right," Tallain said. "True Class Four shouldn't have that weird lighting. Come on."
They headed straight into the weirdness. A turn up ahead brought them out onto the wide main marketplace.
"Ah. Definitely not Class Four."
They had come upon a scene from some disordered dream. Dust swirling up in endless clouds, swept by the fierce, hot wind, filled the air with a reddish haze. Through the haze, the marketplace was filled with a milling, terrified crowd, shrieking and running. And through the crowd moved dimly seen figures, like so many thin, inhuman shadows.
"Overlap," Tallain said after a moment. "Some of it past illusion, some of it real stuff."
"And which is which?"
For a few moments neither she nor Serein, trained investigators though they were, could have answered that. Then Tallain snapped, "Look."
Some of the shadowy beings were vanishing into houses, finding openings that had not been completely barricaded, shrinking and slipping through cracks that would have blocked a rat.
"If they get out again... yes."
One of the figures had broken open a locked door, another a flimsy barricade.
"Spirits don't need to do that," Serein drawled. "Illusions don't, either."
"Not unless they're carrying off stolen goods that can't shift shape with them," Tallain added. "Great. We've got supernatural thieves."
One of the creatures, still shadowy and undefined of form, came swooping towards them, carrying a pack, and Tallain cried out a quick Spell of Binding. With an angry, wailing cry, the thing dropped the pack, raced right through the two agents, making them shiver with its chill, and vanished.
"Well," Serein said. "That was... interesting."
"One way of putting it. But you don't get so much fear in a city from mere thieves, no matter how weird. There has to be more-"
"Hell. There is."
Tallain rushed a being that was bearing a shrieking child, tried the Spell of Binding again—ha, yes, that made the thing drop its burden. Instantly, the other things swarmed them. Tallain grabbed the child and Serein shouted out a Word of Power that opened up a clear circle around them.
"Dammit," Tallain snapped, "where are the parents?"
"Too scared to leave their homes?"
"Or... oh hell, it's a sacrifice: take our gold, take our child, but let us live."
She knew, with a Special Agent's keen psychic senses that this was the truth, and knew that Serein felt it, too. How long had this been going on? How many kids sent off to who knew what-
It ends here. Now.
"Serein. Look. Up there on that rooftop."
It—he—was a weirdly romantic figure, tall and wild, apparently human, with robes and long dark reddish hair swirling in the wind. Human-like, at any rate: His eyes glinted with flashes of red like those of a wild thing.
"There's the source."
"He's not aware of us."
"Not yet."
Tallain shoved the child into a shadow and whispered a quick Concealment about it to keep it safe. Serein shouted out his Word again to get the shadow-things out of their way, and Tallain and he forced their way through the dust and wind to the building on which the figure stood. He still didn't seem to be aware of them: probably casting too much Power himself to sense them. Just the same, the two agents climbed up the side of the building without using magic. Mud brick wall, fortunately, with plenty of handholds worn by time. They stepped
out onto the roof-
And stopped, hit by the unbelievably strong wave of Power surging from the figure. He whirled to stare at them, revealing a sharp-planed, triangular face and those savage red-glinting eyes. Human? Not human? Hell, a hybrid. No way knowing what powers he wielded. He shouted, and the red haze of dust swept down over them, choking them, hiding him. A sudden roar of wind made Tallain stagger, and a sudden emptiness warned her-
Whoa, where was Serein?
"Watch out!" she yelled. "Open Portal!"
No textbook spell, nothing balanced, no clean edges or shape to it, no way to judge where the distortion between realms began or ended-
She heard Serein's surprised shout, instantly cut off. "Oh hell," Tallain said, and sprang after him.
It wasn't the textbook jump between realms, either. Instead of a clean transition to another place, a red haze suddenly surrounded her, and she couldn't get through the cursed stuff no matter how hard she tried.
Dammit! She couldn't back out to reality, either. And no way in hell was she going to abandon her partner. Risky to work magic in a Portal, but Tallain couldn't figure out what else to do, so she called out a Transfer Spell—
Whoa! She'd done something. The red haze swirled back into black and gold shards, then vanished into a blaze of golden light and—
—she was through, colliding with something that felt like flesh, bouncing off and landing with a grunt on something hard with a force that bruised her rump. Enough light for her to realized that she was in a room with stone walls and floor. She'd just collided with Serein—but his head had collided with greater force against the floor. He was out cold. Concussion? Tallain put a hand on him, willing Shift! Shapeshifting, for some reason the OMS techs had never established, restored the body's pattern, which meant that wounds got instantly healed. Shift, dammit!
No time. Tallain turned sharply to find herself facing a tall, hooded figure... ah, the fellow from the rooftop, and she wasn't going to worry about how he'd gotten into a closed room. Seen up this close, he no longer had that wild splendor, but he was decidedly still worth seeing, with the sharp lines of that intriguing face.
