The World Awakening

by Dan Koboldt

  “They’re asking to speak to you, sir.”

  What the hell for? There was only one way to find out. “Put them in briefing room two. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  He hustled up two flights of stairs and down the corridor, arriving just a moment after them. Two knocks on the door, and then he let himself in. A middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit sat in the chair facing the door. Late forties, receding hairline, half-moon glasses. He had a nice face, though, and he was smiling. Most lawyers Logan knew never smiled.

  “Hello,” Logan said. “I’m—”

  He got a look at the woman on the right, and his words faltered. She looked so much like Kiara. Same hawk-like features, same dun-brown hair. Maybe a little rounder and softer in the face, but the resemblance was startling. It’s like seeing a goddamn ghost. He coughed and found his voice again. “Paul Logan.”

  “I’m Eva,” She shook his hand. A soft handshake, and warm. Definitely not military. “This is my husband, Stephen.”

  Logan shook the man’s hand, which was, above all things, sweaty. “I’m sorry. They said you were attorneys.”

  Eva waved at her husband. “Stephen is the attorney of record for Lynn’s affairs.”

  Lynn Kiara. Logan hadn’t heard her called that in years. “And you . . .”

  She smiled, though it was sad. “I’m her sister.”

  He remembered himself then, and his duty. “I can’t begin to say how sorry I am for your loss. She was a great officer.”

  “Thank you,” Eva said. “Were you with her when she . . .”

  Logan already had the cover story memorized. The execs cautioned him not to stray from the script, but he already liked these people and felt it deserved a special touch. He nodded. “She put herself in harm’s way, to try and protect the rest of her team. It’s what she did.”

  “That sounds like something she’d say about you.”

  “Oh, she mentioned me, did she?”

  “All the time. She loved working with you.”

  He laughed. “Now I know you’re lying.”

  “I’m serious. Every phone call was Logan this, Logan that.”

  “Only good stories, I’m sure.”

  “For the most part.” Something flickered across her face. “I think she felt bad about some of the things you had to do. It weighed on her.” She brightened. “Well, I don’t need to tell you this. You knew her well.”

  Not as well as I thought. “She had a hard job. I’m appreciating that more and more every day.”

  “You’ve taken over her post then?”

  He waved it off. “Only temporarily.”

  “She would like that.”

  “They’re big shoes to fill,” Logan said. “She left quite a legacy behind.”

  Eva looked at Stephen, who cleared his throat. “That’s part of why we’re here. Eva and I are the executors of Lynn’s estate.”

  “Of course.” They’d need the paperwork to get things through probate. “Happy to help. Let us know what you need, and we’ll take care of it.”

  “It’s the other way around, really. My sister left something to you, in her estate.” Eva slid an envelope across. Business size, with SERGEANT MAJOR PAUL LOGAN typed across the front.

  Orders. Logan knew the minute he saw it. How very like Kiara to have a contingency plan for anything. “Thank you.” He took the envelope and slid it in front of him.

  “Go ahead, you can open it,” Eva said.

  “Right. Of course.” He felt an awkward moment coming. Hopefully they wouldn’t complain when he told them it was private, whatever it was. Top secret, eyes only.

  The envelope felt a little light. At least there wouldn’t be a ton of orders. He slit the side with his finger and unfolded a single sheet of paper. But there were no code names, no ciphered messages. It was simply a check from Grand Cayman Bank. Made out to Paul Logan. For a very, very large amount. “I—I don’t understand.”

  “She had a sizable estate, even before your company made good on the death benefits.”

  Logan shook his head. “This should stay with you.”

  “Don’t worry, she took very good care of us.” Eva harrumphed. “I don’t think she ever spent a dime on herself.”

  “But you’re her family.”

  “So were you, Logan.” Eva put a hand on top of his. “She always said it was an honor to serve with you.”

  No, Lieutenant. The honor was mine.

  Logan planned to call it a day after Kiara’s sister left, but the message indicator was blinking red in his office when he returned. Damn, so close. He pulled it up on one of the monitors. Apparently a development company had approached CASE Global’s real estate division to make an offer to buy the island. Normally the executives would have laughed this away, but with the wall in the gateway room fixed into stone, the island was basically a hole in the water into which the company had poured a lot of money.

  Even more interestingly, CASE Global’s forensic accounting division had traced the development company back to a shell corporation controlled by none other than Raptor Tech. Their curiosity about what was hidden on this island knew no limits. Hell, they’d even put up millions to find out.

  “You know what? They can have it.” No one deserved this rock more than Raptor Tech.

  It wouldn’t put the Gateway Project in the black, but it helped salve the wound. He wrote up a memo with his recommendation, sent it off, then slipped out before more work could catch him. He jogged up the stairs, saluted the guards at the security entrance, and walked out into the breezy warmth of a pretty decent afternoon. With the weather this fine, they’d probably still be at the beach.

  He took the shell road that started at the stables, meandered underneath the cliffs where CASE Global tested siege equipment, and eventually wound its way to the beach on the western shore.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” His girls came flying out of the main cabana to greet him. He took a knee to catch them, hugged them tight, and hoisted them up in the air. They screamed and giggled.

  Sharon slinked over in that dark orange dress that made her look like a goddess. “Hi, baby! How was your day?”

  Logan leaned down to kiss her. Damn, I love getting to do this every day. “Good,” he said. “Weird, but good.”

  “When do you think you’ll be done? It’s kind of lonely around here without the Mendez clan.”

  Julio’s forty-one-member family had all been granted permanent visas, and been shipped off to start a new life in the States. Yet another part of the deal with CASE Global’s executives. It felt good to do right by Mendez. Logan sure hoped he’d found what he was looking for. “How does tomorrow sound?”

  “Do you mean it?” She pointed a threatening finger at him. “Don’t toy with me, Paul Logan.”

  “I mean it, babe. Let’s get off this rock.”

  He set down the girls and put his arm around her for the walk back to the cabana. “And that’s Lieutenant Paul Logan, to you.” Soon to be retired.

  Chapter 38

  Beginnings and Ends

  “The truly magical things in life don’t use magic at all.”

  —Art of Illusion, final entry

  Quinn Bradley had cheated at cards and dice and virtually every form of gambling he’d ever tried. None of that compared to cheating death one more time. As grateful as he was to have survived, there were many others who hadn’t been so lucky. Too many others. Good people on both sides. But the battle for Alissia had robbed the world of two of its greatest champions. Moric, who alone had managed to destroy something that took three of the greatest magicians ever to create. And Richard Holt, who arguably understood the world better than anyone else.

  Jillaine softened the pain of losing them. She’d been there when he woke, a week after the battle of northern Felara, with eyes still red from crying. He felt her through the magic bond that joined them now. He knew she was there before he opened his eyes, in the same way that he knew Moric was gone.

  The Enclave he
ld no funeral for Moric. Pireans didn’t believe in them, apparently. They sent the departed out to sea in a floating funeral pyre, and afterward referred to them as “out fishing.” In Moric’s case, they couldn’t even do that. Instead, there was a feast in his honor in the Pirean common room. No expenses spared. They roasted mutton, of course—the intoxicating smell of that specialty permeated the tower even before Quinn got out of bed. And they threw open their doors to anyone who wanted to come celebrate Moric’s life. Or tell stories about him. Quinn learned more about Moric in three hours than he’d picked up over the course of several months.

  But he’d mainly come to sit by Jillaine and try to lighten her spirits. She probably thought he didn’t hear her crying at night, even though they had rooms right next to one another in the Pirean tower. But this world had done the impossible: it made Quinn Bradley a light sleeper. He didn’t bring it up, but he tried to ease her pain in a hundred tiny ways every day.

  Everyone came to pay their respects. Even Sella, who’d oscillated between serving as Moric’s staunchest ally and his most vocal critic.

  She plunked down on the bench beside Quinn and sighed. “I keep expecting him to walk through that door as if nothing ever happened.”

  Jillaine glanced up at the door, but wistfully.

  Quinn gave her hand a little squeeze. “That would be nice.”

  “He was always up to something. Hatching a plan of some kind.”

  “I kind of liked that about him.”

  “Ha!” She gripped her walking stick as if she might use it on him. “You would. Only the gods know how many of them we’ll unravel before it’s all said and done.”

  “I just hope he didn’t have any books on loan from the library. Old Mags will go nuts.”

  “That reminds me,” Sella said. “I’ve begun a little project, and I’d like help from both of you.”

  “What kind of project?” Quinn asked, with some hesitation. Sella’s idea of fun often put him a hair’s breadth from bodily harm.

  “The story of Moric’s life, including his role in breaking the third great enchantment.”

  “What a great idea,” Quinn said.

  Jillaine wiped her eyes with dainty fingers. “It does sound nice. A tribute.”

  “He’ll be a legend among our kind for generations no matter what,” Sella said. “We might as well make sure they get it right.”

  “So, would this be a book?” Quinn asked.

  Sella gestured to the crowded room. “I’m sure there’s enough material.”

  “And you’d put a copy in the Enclave library?”

  “Certainly.”

  “The story of Moric, in the keeping of Old Mags,” Quinn said. Just saying it made him feel warm inside. “I can’t imagine anything he’d love more than that.”

  They’d just finished breakfast in the Pirean common room when Anton found them. He was dressed for travel, in a flawless crimson jacket beneath a gray riding cloak. He paused on the threshold, then took three steps inside the door. Whatever he saw made him decidedly uncomfortable, to Quinn’s great amusement.

  “Anton!” He waved the man over. “You hungry?”

  Anton approached the table, eyed the selection of breads and berries—a traditional Pirean light breakfast—and frowned. “No, thank you.”

  “It’s going to be a long day.”

  “Yes,” Jillaine said. “We’d hate to see you faint in the heat.”

  “Valteron has nothing on Caralis when it comes to heat,” Anton said. “That being said, we should be on our way.”

  Quinn stood and tugged on his riding cloak, which now seemed dingy by comparison. I need to meet Anton’s tailor. They went outside before traveling. It seemed to help, to be outside. He still didn’t quite understand why that was. Sella had told him he had to be “perfectly in tune” with his surroundings and “seriously focused” on the destination before he tried to move somewhere. It remained a work in progress.

  “You want me to try taking us there?” Quinn asked.

  Anton shook his head. “It’s a long way to Valteron.”

  “I’m ninety percent sure I can get it right this time.”

  “As tempting as that is, I think I will handle the necessary magic,” Anton said. “Stand ready.”

  Fine. At least I won’t wear myself out.

  He put a hand on their shoulders and closed his eyes. Quinn sensed the magic building in him, from a gentle rain to a tempest. Then the cold darkness yanked him sideways. They emerged in the sweltering heat. The air was thick enough to taste the salt in it. They stood at the mouth of an alley overlooking the city square. Mourners packed it to the gills.

  “Gods,” Jillaine breathed. “I’ve never seen so many people in one place.”

  “It looks like half the world turned out for this,” Quinn said. The only time he’d seen it nearly as crowded was the day Holt had come into power. The same day Moric had discovered him and whisked him off to the Enclave. It feels like so long ago. And they were gone now, both of them, leaving a hollow part inside of Quinn that he knew he’d never fill.

  “More than half, I’d say.” Anton pointed to the closest corner. “Those are Tioni banners. And over there, Landorians. I see every nation but Felara.”

  “They still have a lot to figure out.” Like where to resettle hundreds of displaced mercenaries. Thank the gods that Veena had contacts almost everywhere in Felara. How she’d gotten them, he didn’t know. She and Sella had begun the difficult tasks of integrating modern soldiers into a medieval world.

  Valteron City’s normally vibrant avenues waited in muted silence. Black cloths draped every window, and the banners that normally fluttered over the palace of the Prime were bound tightly against their poles. Quinn was grateful for the back entrance to the palace of the Prime, because they’d never have made it through the massive throng of people to the front steps. Bita let them in the side-gate and took them straight to the wide balcony. The same balcony where Richard Holt had brought so many disparate groups together. That feels like ages ago.

  “Quinn!” Veena excused herself from a cluster of dusty-looking bureaucrats and ran over to hug him tight.

  “Hey, Veena.” He hugged her, then drew back. “Or should I say . . . Your Eminence?”

  She slapped his arm in a playful way. “Hush, you. It’s not official yet.”

  She embraced Jillaine, and even hugged Anton, to his visible consternation. “Thank you both for coming.”

  Anton cleared his throat and made several unnecessary adjustments to his cloak. “It’s an honor to be here.”

  “I’d like to introduce you to my new minister of security,” Veena said.

  Quinn didn’t notice someone coming up behind him, but suddenly felt the pressure of something sharp against his back. Right over the left kidney. He froze. “Um—”

  "Got you again, rookie,” a man said.

  I know that voice. “No way!” He turned and laughed, because it sure as hell was Julio Mendez. “Well, well. Rico Suave.”

  “I heard a rumor you were still alive.” Mendez offered his hand and gave him a bro-hug. He introduced himself to Jillaine and Anton. Then he came back to Quinn. “You got a minute?” He gave the hand signal for private.

  “Sure.” Quinn followed him over to a quiet spot along the rail. Which brought the full extent of mourners into view. There had to be thousands of them. “Man, that’s a lot of people.” He looked at Mendez and grinned. “So, what happened? You get lost on the way home?”

  “I never got lost, man. That’s your thing.”

  “Hey, I can’t help it. I’ve been kidnapped more times than I can count.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got the record. That’s for sure.” The smile faded from Mendez’s face. “I was wondering if you ran into our mutual friend. Big black guy, likes to hit things?”

  “Hm.” Quinn put on a pensive expression. “That does sound like someone I encountered recently.”

  “So where is he? He’s not on the lis
t of in-world personnel. Last I heard, he was headed for the gateway.”

  Quinn laughed. “Oh, he got there. Right when we were trying to destroy the damn thing. I had to hold him off myself.”

  “Oh, man. How are you still standing here?”

  Quinn gave a casual shrug. “We fought, I won, and then I shoved him through the gateway.”

  Mendez gave him a flat look. “You beat Logan.”

  “Yep.” Quinn kept his face still.

  “In a real fight.”

  “With swords and everything.”

  Mendez pursed his lips and pondered this for a moment. “You cheated, didn’t you?”

  Quinn laughed. “For all I was worth!”

  “That sounds more like it.” Mendez paused. “So he got back, huh?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good.”

  Quinn gave him a serious look. “I’m surprised you didn’t want to go back, too.”

  “I had a pretty good reason to stay.” He looked over at Veena.

  “Didn’t she kind of . . . leave you in the lurch?” For another man, he didn’t add.

  “She did what she had to. And she got away clean. Not even you can make that claim.”

  “It was a hell of a performance, I’ll give her that.” And her defection was just the warm-up. Everyone had played a role in defeating CASE Global, but Veena’s was bigger than most.

  “She was worth coming back for,” Mendez said.

  “Good for you, man.” Quinn nudged him in the shoulder. “Got to be honest, though. You might’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”

  Mendez smirked. “I hear that’s going around.”

  Quinn followed his gaze, and saw he was looking at Jillaine. Gods, she was as lovely as the day he’d first met her, atop that pile of boulders at the Enclave. Being with her was like riding a ship into the eye of a hurricane. And he wouldn’t want it any other way.

  “Veena told me something else about you,” Mendez said. “I’m not sure I believe it.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “She said you’re a magician now. Like, a real one.”