by John Daulton
Seawind’s spear struck the wall in the fraction of a second after Pernie ducked, sparks glowing briefly as it did. Pernie pitched herself forward, rolling away but muttering the teleport that put her right behind Seawind again.
He teleported himself out of the space where Pernie’s spear tip was, putting himself three paces behind her, where he snatched up his weapon and hurled it again. She sprang backward, a twisting flip over the flight of his spear, and tried to kick him in the head. He vanished again as she came down. She dove for the floor the moment her feet hit the ground, knowing already that she couldn’t avoid the strike that was about to come. The sharp point of his knife pierced the leather jerkin she wore. Only a nick, though.
She spun in time to see Djoveeve throwing the spear that Seawind had thrown, and she slapped it aside with her forearm. Seawind vanished from his place in the middle of the room. Pernie flipped her spear in her hand and jammed it behind her, into the place she knew he would have gone.
Her spear shaft thwacked against his as he blocked it, and she muttered the two-word teleport and jumped across the room. But he was there before her, and she only just ducked a two-handed jab with the center of his weapon’s haft that would have blunt-force bashed her in the forehead. She punched for his groin, but he was gone again, and she dove forward anyway. Djoveeve was there, anticipating it, and made to kick her in the face. Pernie flipped over on her back, grabbed Djoveeve’s ankle, and yanked, pulling the woman off balance and dropping her hard upon her back.
Pernie whipped out her little knife and leapt on the woman, but Seawind kicked her off and set her rolling across the gritty cave floor.
She teleported out of that roll as well, this time into the empty space above his head, and she fell toward him with spear tip down, intent on skewering him cranium to crotch. He vanished before she could.
Djoveeve wasn’t moving, so Pernie wheeled back looking for where Seawind went. She muttered her own illusion and became invisible, just as he surely had. She knew her illusion was gauzy in daylight, but it worked well enough in dim caves like this. She moved as silently as settling dew as she worked her way around the room.
Seawind had a knack for finding her, even down here in the caves, and she had to resist the urge to thrust blindly about with her spear.
The blow struck hard, dazing her, and it knocked her right out of her illusion spell and down to her knees. She shook her head, trying to clear it, but it was already too late. Seawind’s knife was at her throat.
“I can hear your heartbeat, little Sava. Silence is how quiet you are not to your own ears, but to those of creatures listening for you. Most creatures have better hearing than you do.”
Her head drooped, her long hair flowing like silken sunlight into the grit. She sniffled once, then a second time, then filled the cave with the sound of her crying, the echoes of a tantrum, of frustration and rage.
Seawind withdrew his knife and shook his head. “That is disappointing; I’d thought—” he began to say, but her spear butt caught him in the stomach even as she leapt away.
He laughed, actual laughter from the chest, as she crouched halfway across the room, glaring at him with animal ferocity, not the least stain of a tear striping the grit and grime upon her cheeks. “Oh, clever little creature you are,” he said. “And with a trick human females have been fooling their men with since the dawn of time.”
Djoveeve was just sitting up, rubbing her head and the back of her neck. “It seems that it works perfectly well on elves.”
“So it does.” He looked very pleased.
Djoveeve turned to Pernie and smiled warmly. “You see, child. You have the advantage of your gender, and are wise to use it when you need. But don’t lean on it too heavily. Few of your enemies will have compassionate hearts.”
“I won’t,” Pernie said, also pleased with herself, but not willing to lower her defenses.
“Your magic is still too slow,” Seawind said, right back to business. “You’re fast enough for the aging Sava’an’Lansom, but not for one who hasn’t lost a step.”
Djoveeve couldn’t hide the impact of that efficient remark, and her old shoulders drooped a little then. Pernie threw her spear at Seawind for it, and the elf only barely teleported out of the way. “You’re a mean old pointy-eared latakasokis,” she snarled at him, then went to Djoveeve and helped the woman to her feet.
“You’ve gotten very fast, little Sava,” Djoveeve said, already beyond having been confronted with her age. “But he is right about your magic. You’ve got to learn to see.”
Pernie turned and glared at Seawind, but looked back at her human mentor and asked, “What do you mean? I don’t have sight magic. I can’t just ‘learn’ it.”
“No, Sava. Like the sugar shrimp. Do you remember how patiently you had to see?”
Pernie nodded.
“In much the same way, you have to start watching the mana as you fight. You, as I once had to, must learn to fight with creatures whose magic comes naturally. Which means they need no words at all, not even just two. So you have to see it coming before it’s cast.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You have to look.”
“Look at what? The mana? It’s all just waves and choppy pink stuff.”
“What were you looking at with the sugar shrimp? There was nothing to look at there either, was there? You had to look at what they weren’t. They seem to be seawater and rocks. But they aren’t. Their patterns shift, no matter how slightly, and you learned to see it. And now you must do it with the mana too. You must learn to watch the currents as you fight. You must open your mind to them even while you are in combat.”
“Well, how can I do that? I can’t watch two things at once. Seawind said as much hisself.”
“He said you can only focus on one thing at a time. But you can be aware of many things. Power comes from choosing the right thing to focus on at any given time. Shifting from one instant to the next.”
“I can only barely focus on two of you. How am I supposed to do that and watch the mana too? Much less look for sugar shrimp in it.”
“In time you will see. I did. It will take practice and lots of work, like anything worth knowing does, but you’ll get it in the end. But you must start. You must learn to watch for the movement of mana toward a source. The first movements of it, like the twitch of muscle or flick of the eyes that indicates the blow about to come.”
Pernie’s eyes narrowed, and it sounded like another boring thing to learn. She’d only just begun to think she might actually be able to beat both of them together, and now Djoveeve was telling her to do the impossible, to find the first movement of mana in a tempest of nothing but motion all around.
“I don’t want to,” she said, thrusting out her chin. “I’m tired of learning now.”
“You must,” Seawind said. “You’re nearly to the test. This is the last thing you will need to try the orc. It is difficult, but I will show you how.”
“I don’t care about the stupid orc,” she said. “Let him go for all I care.”
“He’s got magic, little Sava, and unlike Djoveeve and me, he will use it on you when you fight.”
“Then I will cut his throat and pull his heart out through his neck,” she said with such savagery that Seawind actually smiled again, twice in one day.
Pernie’s eyes narrowed when she saw it, and the way she cocked her head gave her the aspect of a snake about to strike. “You’ll never let me go home,” she said. “You’re just tricking me again.” She turned and stormed out, already calling to Knot to unroll himself and meet her at the mouth of the cave.
Chapter 37
In a time not so long ago, Black Sander would have thought the bright light he watched was a meteor, a daylight shooting star, rare and interesting but nothing more. But not now. In these times, especially here, he knew exactly what that streak of fire was, and he’d been waiting for it for quite a while.
It had been several mon
ths since the glimmering silver Earth ship had last settled down outside of Murdoc Bay, and he knew what had kept it away. He’d spent those intervening months rooting out the origins of attempts to board the ship last time it arrived. Someone had tried for it, and he’d heard about a body being found.
Of course he should have known that others would have the same ideas he had, as surely others had tried to get onto Tinpoa Base and aboard ships as well. Already there were thirty-five men in the Crown City jails at last report, eleven in Leekant, and twelve in Hast, plus the three who had been jailed in Murdoc Bay, though of course two of them had escaped and the other bribed his way free. He’d heard it was the same on the west coast as well, though he hadn’t gotten any numbers from Dae, Pompost, or Norvingtown, much less any of the smaller port cities or farming towns. Regardless, it was obvious that the Queen’s efforts to stifle attempts by the underground to reach any trade or travel arrangements with like-minded people on Earth were going splendidly for the War Queen. And those efforts had the complete cooperation of the NTA as far as all the information Black Sander could gather confirmed. When it came to locking down access, Crown City was in complete control.
Despite the time and frustration he’d put in, and the badgering from the marchioness, he was more determined than ever now. Chinks in the armor were beginning to suggest themselves, and he thought he might finally have found one that he could exploit.
If there was anything that he had learned in the time he’d spent trying to get aboard Earth spaceships, it was that they could sense magic to an increasingly large degree, and they could absolutely see right through illusions—or at least they could with their technology. In a way, that fact simplified things because it seemed to make boarding a ship a basic matter of brute force. If deception couldn’t get it done, then brawn would have to do.
He’d had a group of men waiting on standby for well over a month, and the cost of their silence, not to mention their room, board, and booze, was beginning to infuriate the marchioness. But at last, there it was, a ball of fire entering the atmosphere, and with it, finally, an opportunity for a ship that he knew for certain was headed all the way to Earth. He was going to get on it, and subtlety was no longer the goal.
He rose from his seat, tossing back the last of a warm glass of wine, its contents having sat in the sun untouched for the last hour. He strode across the boards and back into the little tavern that stood at the end of the pier. A greasy little man with a dirty apron worked behind the bar as Black Sander came through. The barkeep reached up with nervous hands and combed back the wet mess of his tar-black hair. “Seen it coming yet?” he asked. “Or need a splash more wine?”
“Send a homing lizard to Belor. Tell him to bring the rest of them. It’s time.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, a serpentine smile drawing itself tightly on lips that were stained red by wine.
Black Sander left a silver piece behind him as he passed by the bar and made his way through the sparse crowd, a murmuring bunch of criminals, the lot of them, each too well acquainted with the courtesies of their respective trades to look up at a fellow passing through. This was the End, a place for the best in Murdoc Bay, and only those who knew well the value of silence came in more than twice.
Black Sander made a point of not looking up and over his shoulder at the descent of the bright ship, now no longer a burning streak of light, but instead a blinding, starlike reflection of the sun. His black boots sounded hollowly on the pier as he made his way toward shore, and by the time he’d reached the cobblestones of the waterfront street that ran the length of the seawall, Belor was already arriving with the men.
Belor was by far the most conspicuous of the group, not for his size, his mass, or even the sinister aspect of his countenance, for had he had any of those, he might have fit in quite well. No, Belor was the softest one of the lot, slightly round of belly, round of shoulder in a sloping sort of way, and with a furtive and rather fearful element to the way he moved. The rabble behind him seemed as if Belor might be some wayward innocent from the merchant parts of downtown Crown who’d gotten a gang of thieves on his tail, neighborhood ruffians and brutish deckhands on shore leave for a while.
But Belor walked before them without fear, and they followed immediately behind, quiet but for the sound of their feet on the low boardwalk. Black Sander joined them, falling in beside Belor silently as they passed together along the waterfront and then up a street that took them through the food district and then upwards through neighborhoods heading toward the Decline.
Their passing became conspicuous after a time, and whores peeked out from brothels, and drunkards raised their heads from where they sat against walls or upon street corners. The few riders who passed by on horseback reined in their mounts as the group strode purposefully past, silent while the group was near, but then leaning together to speculate where the little troop might be headed to. Sometimes trouble was obvious, even in that part of Kurr.
Hits and large-scale beatings were not uncommon in Murdoc Bay, and a small army of thugs sent from one crime lord to another was familiar enough, but Black Sander’s presence lent the circumstance something extra sinister. Men wealthy enough and connected enough to ride horses into town with an expectation of keeping them would recognize him immediately. They also knew well enough to turn and ride away if he looked back, despite nagging curiosity urging otherwise. But Black Sander did not bother with them. He had work to do.
“How’s your Earth tongue coming?” Black Sander asked, looking to Belor as the group began its ascent up the Decline. He said it in the language of that world, the language they called English.
“Mine’s coming, Master. I’ve worked on it as you said.”
“Me too,” said one of the ruffians in the pack, their leader in an undisciplined kind of way. Leader by way of being the biggest and meanest of them, and perhaps a tad smarter too. “That bitch you stole from Crown school teached us good.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s quite how you say it,” Belor corrected, “but you do have it better than the rest.” He glanced sideways at Black Sander to confirm it, though not for long, as his effort was mainly bent on enduring the climb. His round, fat cheeks were already red and huffing, and they’d hardly made it a quarter way up the slope.
“The three of us will be adequate,” Black Sander said. “You are called Twane, are you not?” he asked of the man whose Earth English was passing, if not good.
“Yes, sir. Twane, sir,” he replied. “’Cuz me mum was twain one husband an’ the next.” He laughed aloud at that, as if it was the first time he’d said it, and the men with him laughed too, as if it were the first time they’d heard it as well—all but Belor and Black Sander, of course. Black Sander only closed his eyes for a moment, letting a rise of irritation pass. They were who they were, and the mnemonic was how he had recalled the brigand’s name.
He turned back and looked skyward, seeing that the ship was now low enough that he could make out its long, graceful lines, the gentle sweep of modest wings lying back along its body like an eagle in a dive, though perhaps a very slender one, for the craft seemed a long sliver of mercury as it swooped down from the sky.
“Listen up, Twane,” Black Sander said. “You will be taking three of these men with you in one of the crates. You’re going to keep them all quiet. You will keep them that way the entire time. You’ll relieve yourselves in the jars we’ve put in the boxes for that purpose, and you’ll keep them corked when you are done. You’ll eat quietly and not make one peep no matter how long you sit in there or how dark it gets. You keep them calm if they get antsy or start feeling too confined, and if any of these gentlemen sniffles in such a way that might be overheard, you are to break his neck. And I mean break his neck. Not cut his throat, not gut him like a fish or anything else. I don’t want blood running out and giving us away.”
He nodded that he understood. Belor had explained it to them several times.
“Good,” said Bla
ck Sander. “Do any of them have anything enchanted on them? Any weapons, any armor, any lockets, trinkets, or amusement devices? Even a sunscreen enchantment will get us all killed.” Black Sander watched as Twane processed the Earth words, watched him grapple with the gaps in diction that he surely was suffering. “Say it back to me, in common,” he demanded as he watched.
To his credit, the burly sailor had the essence of it right. Black Sander repeated the last part in the common tongue of Kurr, the part about any last bit of magic spelling doom for them all, or at least, spelling the likely ruin of the plan. If the crew of that spaceship found out there were stowaways packed into three crates of Goblin Tea, they surely wouldn’t go straight to Earth. Not without stopping first at a TGS depot and getting the group sent straight to Crown City and the guillotine. Twane nodded that he understood and confirmed that everyone had been checked and double-checked. There was no magic on any of them.
“Good,” Black Sander said, once again in English. “And you understand how to work the bellows pump and how to get out when it is time?”
Again the man nodded.
“Good. Then let’s be quick, and get this under way. The time for talking is done.”
They stopped about halfway up the Decline at a small shop, the front of which was made of faded planks, the rest of which was cut deep into the cliff. The sign above the door read “Gevender’s Candle and Lamp.”
Black Sander went in, ordering all but Belor to wait in the street and Belor to wait just inside the door. He had to blink into the ironic darkness of the place. It seemed the shopkeeper was stingy about burning down inventory—as well he should be, for his employer was a master of accounts, and the least drop of candle wax unaccounted for would cost the man a finger if not a hand.
“Is the teleporter here?” Black Sander asked the man working in the back, bent over a box of sand into which he’d shaped a mold for a tabletop candle to be poured.
