Prize of Night
Page 1
At Plains University, they are graduate students.
But when they enter Wascana Park after midnight, they become something much more.
SHELBY is MORGAN,
a sagittarius, expert with bow and arrow.
INGRID is FEL,
a miles—a sword-wielding gladiator.
CARL is BABIECA,
a trovador, skilled at music—and theft.
ANDREW is ALEO,
an oculus who sees spirits.
At the university, their lives are dull and predictable. In the city of Anfractus, they use their wits, their skills, and their imaginations to live other exciting and sometimes dangerous lives.
And now that danger has followed them home. . . .
PRAISE FOR
PATH OF SMOKE
“Cunningham’s expert storytelling, inventive plot, and fascinating characters will hook readers right away, engaging them until the very last page.”
—RT Book Reviews
PILE OF BONES
“An absorbing tale of role-playing, magic, and the danger that can ensue when boundaries between the real and the make-believe disappear . . . Intelligent storytelling and compelling characters add to this fascinating read.”
—RT Book Reviews
Ace Books by Bailey Cunningham
PILE OF BONES
PATH OF SMOKE
PRIZE OF NIGHT
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
PRIZE OF NIGHT
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2015 by Jes Battis.
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
For more information, visit penguin.com.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-18697-2
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / July 2015
Cover art by Gene Mollica.
Cover design by Lesley Worrell.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
To the city of Regina, and the park in its center, on borrowed land
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s difficult to end a series—difficult to know what is owed to the story, and how to let go of these people, who have occupied my life for the past three years. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help and presence of several individuals. Rebecca Brewer offered insightful advice along the way, and her assistance in streamlining the manuscript was invaluable. Lauren Abramo remained patient and responsive to all of my queries. Alexis McQuigge allowed me to steal her chair (and her living room), and together we discovered just how many episodes of House Hunters International we could view in a single sitting. Medrie Purdham and Mark Lajoie calmed my nerves with grog and conversation. Rowan Lajoie provided several informative lectures on dragons, space, and poetry. Bea listened to a five-minute song that I left on her answering machine, and still consents to take my calls. My dad suggested that I include a glossary, which was probably the most practical piece of advice that I’ve ever received on a manuscript in progress. My mom sent me precious books and chocolate—the hat that she knit me while I was working on Pile of Bones is still keeping me warm. Jeet Heer gave me the initial idea to write about Wascana Park, and Garry Sherbert convinced me to read The Satyricon by Petronius, which has influenced this series more than any other text. My creative writing students inspired me with their work and reminded me why I love what I do.
CONTENTS
Praise for Bailey Cunningham
Ace Books by Bailey Cunningham
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Pronunciation
PART ONE • SAGITTARIUS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
PART TWO • TROVADOR
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
PART THREE • MILES
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
PART FOUR • OCULUS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Glossary of Terms
There is a glossary of terms at the back of the book.
PRONUNCIATION
Most of the terminology in the book comes from ancient Latin. We have scant knowledge about how people in first-century Rome may have actually sounded, but classical linguists have done their best to reconstruct this. I base my own pronunciation on the recordings of Wakefield Foster and Stephen G. Daitz, which can be streamed here: www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Latin.htm.
The vowels a and o are generally long, while the short vowel i sounds like EE. The consonants c and g are always hard, as in cat or gold. The modern-day term Sagittarius would sound more like sag-ee-TARR-ee-us. The consonant r is rolled slightly when singular, and more strongly when doubled, like the Spanish or French r. The word Anfractus has a slight growl to it: an-FRRAC-tus. The um ending is nasal, resembling the French u. French would elide the final syllable, but in Latin, it’s voiced. The consonant j more closely resembles y, so Julia becomes Yulia. The consonant v is never pronounced as a hard v, but rather as w or iu, which means that impluvium would sound like im-PLOO-wee-um. The only exception is trovador, which comes from Occitan rather than Latin.
I’ve tried to obey rules of grammatical gender and plurality, except in the case of nemones, an invented plural form of nemo.
PART ONE
SAGITTARIUS
1
The Plains University campus was locked in snow. This wasn’t unusual, save for the fact that the snow was on the inside. Shelby made her way carefully along the ice-locked linoleum, trying to avoid the drifts that covered everything in silence. This wasn’t right. Winter couldn’t get through the doors. Weren’t there protocols and storm glass? In a province where the cold lasted for seven months, the one thing you could count on was the weight of doors, the barriers that people formed against the wind. How was this possible?
Shelby saw Ingrid walking calmly across a snowbank. She wore slippers.
Shelby blinked, and crystals flared against the white. Sparks that might have been eyes, bleached bones, or flashing LEDs.
She was willing to admit that this might be a dream.
Ingrid grabbed her hand. They’d been together for a few months, but touch was still a miraculous circuit. Plus, she always smelled like pomegranates.
“You’re late for registration,” Ingrid said.
“What? When did that start?” Shelby blinked once more. “And why is it snowing in the Innovation Centre?”
Ingrid sighed. “That’s been happening for centuries. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To get you the proper forms.”
&nbs
p; Now they were in skates, dancing across the ice floes. Ingrid casually executed a triple Lutz jump. Now Shelby was certain that she was dreaming. They reached the main office, and the ice turned into hard-packed snow. Her skates were gone, and so was Ingrid.
“Tansi, dear.”
Shelby turned. Her grandmother was sitting behind the desk. Her hair was plaited in two silver braids, and she wore turquoise earrings. The phone began to ring.
“Nokohm?” Shelby looked at her uncertainly. “Are you going to answer that?”
“Answers are overrated.” Her grandmother looked at the phone. “This is my first day on the job, though. I could be going about it the wrong way.”
Shelby picked up the phone. She heard a voice. It was the cold of bleached roots and silt beds, a growl rising from Precambrian basalt. She hung up.
“You’d better register,” her grandmother said. “If you wait too long, there won’t be any uncolonized space left.”
“I know. Ingrid was—” She looked behind her, but Ingrid was gone. The only light came from her grandmother’s Tiffany lamp.
“She left, of course. She has far more important things than you.”
“That’s not true. I’m part of the collection. I’ve got my own shelf.”
Her grandmother approached the faculty mailboxes, holding a wet cloth. “You should go. I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“Is that blood?”
The cloth had become a dagger.
“There’s blood on everything. Now go, or you’ll miss it.”
Shelby left the office. She punched the down button on the elevator. The cables groaned, reminding her of the dark voice. She’d recognized a word. She knew that she could remember, if it would only stop snowing. But the flakes continued to gather in her hair as the drifts swallowed her feet. She should have bought those boots at Cabela’s, the ones with the rivets. Her toes were starting to go numb.
The elevator doors opened. Her supervisor, Dr. Trish Marsden, emerged.
“I need your help—”
Trish grabbed her arm. Shelby felt winter in her blood. Claws brushed the surface of her skin, waiting to dig deeper. “You’re not going to pass. We can’t find anyone willing to examine your thesis. None of the usual sacrifices have worked.”
“But I’m nearly finished.”
“No.” Her eyes were yellow. “You haven’t even started.”
Shelby sat up, breathing hard. It took a moment for the room around her to resolve itself. She wasn’t in a blizzard. The sheets were familiar. Down the hallway, she could smell waffles.
A boy in dragon pajamas looked up at her, expectantly.
“Neil.” She rubbed her eyes. “Morning. What did you say?”
Ingrid’s five-year-old son held out a picture. “I have brought you whispering death.”
“What?” For a moment, she went pale. Then she saw the drawing. It was of a dragon, smaller than average, with several rows of teeth.
“Whispering death,” she said.
He climbed onto the bed. “Can I tell you something? They are like little saw blades, when they are born. Then they start to burrow.”
“That’s nice and unsettling.”
“Don’t worry. They are quite rare.”
“And you’ll protect me, right?”
He looked nervous. “Don’t you carry a shield?”
“I’ve already got a lot of textbooks. It won’t really fit.”
“Your bow fits.”
She stared at him. “What did you say?”
Shelby thought about Anfractus—the city beyond the city. She’d discovered it two years ago, while walking through Wascana Park in downtown Regina. She’d taken a wrong turn, and suddenly, she was standing naked in an ancient metropolis. No bow then, just burning feet. She’d earned the bow later, as a sagittarius patrolling the battlements. In Anfractus, Ingrid carried a sword. They were shadows of themselves, distinct, yet never wholly different. They rolled with living dice that unleashed dangerous possibilities, guided by the fickle turn of Fortuna’s wheel. Shelby could almost feel the bow in her hand, the name that came with it. Morgan.
Was it a character that she played, or was Morgan the real one?
More importantly: what did a five-year-old know about any of this?
But it was too late to ask. He was already heading toward the kitchen. She let him pull her down the hallway, bouncing. His small feet pounded against the hardwood floors.
“Mum! Shelby is awake and ready for burrowing class!”
“Waffles first,” she said. “Then . . . maybe some light burrowing.”
The kitchen was full of light and smells that brought her back to her own childhood. She expected to see Ingrid’s brother, Paul, in the thick of it, fingers slick with yolk, but it was Ingrid who stood at the sink. The blast radius around her was considerable and included a spray of eggshells, glass bowls, and an upturned bottle of vanilla extract. She smiled as she caught sight of them.
“I see the dragonrider woke you up.”
“I did it gently, Mum,” Neil said. “Like you asked.”
“That’s good, my sweet. Your waffles are at the small table.”
“Where’s your brother?” Shelby asked.
Paul didn’t know about Anfractus. When Ingrid returned home in the middle of the night, he assumed that she was studying for her comprehensive exams. They were all academics, tripping over themselves from lack of sleep, and the image worked to conceal their dangerous extracurriculars. They’d fought a homicidal satyr, rescued an empress, and chased a dragon made of smoke, all while Paul was asleep. Ingrid refused to tell him. Neil was also in the dark, though Shelby often suspected that he knew something. His comment about the bow only served to confirm this. She watched him spear a waffle. Maybe he knew more than all of them.
Ingrid dried her hands on a tea towel. “He’s out with Sam. This is one of the four meals that I can cook without supervision. Impressed?”
Sam also knew about Anfractus. In that other city, she crafted devices that were beautiful and dangerous. Here she was an engineering student. Ingrid, who moonlighted as a warrior named Fel, hadn’t quite come to a decision about their relationship. Whenever she mentioned her brother and his new girlfriend in the same sentence, Sam’s name had a certain intonation—as if her existence hadn’t yet been confirmed. Paul’s out with “Sam.” They’re dating. Allegedly.
Shelby wanted to touch her, but she was wary of Neil’s presence. Ingrid had never laid down any rules about public affection. Shelby sensed that she didn’t want to answer certain questions, and Neil was a question factory. He accepted their occasional sleepovers, because Shelby would always read him extra stories before bed, and she had a passable talent for doing animal voices. But how to explain what this was becoming? And was it becoming anything at all? It felt both comfortable and fragile. Loads of laundry, stolen kisses, breakfasts on the run, limbs tangled in pomegranate sheets.
Neil sometimes slept between them, when neither felt like carrying him down the hall. What surprised her was how natural it felt. Was she becoming some kind of stepmother? A fairy godmother with a quarrel full of arrows? She’d always had ideas about settling down. Plans and scenarios with illustrations. But they all dissolved when she crossed the street, hand in hand, with Neil and Ingrid. Parking lot rules, she’d find herself shouting as he burst forward. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to yell in public. And nobody gave them a second glance, because they might have been sisters, or friends. The more complicated questions remained forever on the horizon.
Her phone buzzed. She checked it and saw that it was Carl, but the text was just a string of characters. In Anfractus, Carl was a musician named Babieca with a knack for screwing himself into corners. He was drifting on the other side. Not just graduate student malaise, but something more fundamental. She didn’t know how
to talk about it.
“Who’s that?” Ingrid asked.
“Butt-text from Carl.”
“Ah. So nothing out of the ordinary.”
She texted him back: To Carl’s left butt-cheek. Are you hosting the game tonight?
He answered a few seconds later: My place is too small and smells like cheese.
Shelby sighed. “How would you feel about gaming here tonight?”
“After the dragonrider’s in bed.”
“So, around eleven?”
Ingrid made a face. “Let’s be optimistic and say ten thirty.”
“That doesn’t leave us much time, but we can make it a quick session.”
“I’m under the thrall of a five-year-old. We’ll have to take what we can get.”
She sent Carl a message: 10:30 at Ingrid’s. Bring chips.
“I remember when I first discovered the park,” Shelby said. “I wanted to be there all the time. To be part of that impossible magic. It seemed to have all of the answers. Now I just want a break.”
“I would like a break.”
She suddenly realized that Neil was standing next to her, holding out his plate. She handed it to Ingrid. “A break from what, sprout?”
“From the many demands of whispering death. And I am no sprout.”
“My mistake. Your dragon sounds pretty high-maintenance.”
“And I thought that he was low-maney-ance.” Neil sighed. “On the plus side, he has new rotating teeth. Can you believe it?”
Ingrid handed her a plate of waffles. “Eat fast.”
They finished breakfast in record time. Neil didn’t want to get dressed but ultimately agreed to wearing sweatpants and an oversized fleece shirt. Shelby glanced at her own outfit—jeans with a staple in the knee, an unwashed blue top that smelled like stale bread—and realized that she wasn’t doing much better. She was supposed to meet with her thesis supervisor, but the dream had shaken her. It felt best to avoid the campus.