by Eileen Wilks
Cullen was very warm along her back. His arms wrapped her loosely; one hand rested on her hip, the other on her belly. She liked the feel of him, and it wasn't all hormones. She admitted that. She wouldn't get too attached to this sort of thing, but it was okay to enjoy a friend's company, wasn't it? She wasn't mistaking this for anything more.
He'd damned near died.
Memory hit, cruel and breath-stealing. During the attack, she'd held together fine. She was good at crises. She'd done what she needed to do, deferring the emotions for later.
It was later. She'd dreamt of the dondredii last sleep, only in her dream they'd won through and eaten everyone. She'd probably dream again. And again.
Cynna had had close calls before. She knew how it felt afterward, the way her heart could start pounding when memory ghosted by. She knew the need to grab at life, prove she'd survived and life still raged inside her in all its heat and confusion. If there had been even a smidgeon of privacy on this damned barge, she'd have done her best to celebrate their survival with Cullen.
Only this time was different. It had hit her when those monsters swarmed out of the forest: she wasn't alone in this body now. A tiny rider needed the air she breathed, the food she ate, her very heartbeat to survive. If she died, so did the little rider.
Cullen's hand slid up to cup her breast.
"Hey!" She moved it. "I thought you weren't seducing me right now."
"I'm weak, and your breasts are temptation enough to trouble a eunuch."
"Pretty talk." He smelled familiar. She hadn't realized she knew his scent. It was disconcerting. Maybe that's why she blurted out the question that had kept her awake for a long time after she woke from the nightmare. "Does it look like a baby yet? Are there arms or fingers?"
"You're eight weeks along, so the fetus is about the size of a pinto bean."
"God. That's… I knew it was little, but that's tiny."
"But the heart has divided into two chambers, and there are buds that will become arms and legs. The arm buds have little elbows."
Cynna absorbed that for a moment. "Sometimes it's annoying, the way you seem to know everything. Sometimes it's handy. If I were at home, I could look it up on the Internet. Here…"
"Here you ask me?" His mouth crooked up. "The tip of the nose is present, and folds for the eyelids, but it doesn't yet have what we'd recognize as a face. The head is very large. The brain's developing and other organs are starting to, and in another week or so it should start moving."
She stared at him. "Moving! I thought it didn't do that until lots later."
"Women don't feel the movement until the baby is bigger and more active. That's called the quickening, and it's usually between three and four months."
"You really did go to medical school."
"I really did."
That, she decided, was extremely reassuring, under the circumstances. "We'll be home a long time before it's born."
"Before he is born. Yes, I trust so. Long before."
"You said you couldn't—"
"Achoo!" someone called out. Or something like that. Cynna had picked up a few words in what they called the Common Tongue, but mostly it still sounded like gargling to her.
All four sea oxen rolled to the surface at once, each with its scaly rider. One of the smaller boats—long and narrow, with people rowing it—was coming straight at them. The two crew members who'd stayed on board the barge were suddenly very busy with ropes and things. They'd reached the City.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Getting off the barge took a while. First an old man in a green robe arrived to take charge of Marilyn Wright. He was a healer, but not the VIP healer who'd eventually care for her. He was just supposed to keep her going until the chancellor's own healer could see her.
At least, Cynna thought the healer was a man. His hair was long and stringy, his face narrow and pointy with tiny scales where she'd expect to see whiskers. He didn't speak, not at all, and the robe hid his body. But he moved like a man.
The little gnome with him did all the talking. She didn't speak English, but she'd brought some of the translation disks with her, which were supposed to be standard for all newcomers to the City.
What was supposed to be true didn't always match with reality, especially with Bilbo in charge. Cullen accepted the disks for all of them. His shields would protect him from any tampering.
"Weird," he said after a moment of holding one in his hand. "A little voice is whispering in my ear, giving the English translation of every word spoken nearby. But it's the same voice for everyone. The lack of directional or volume cues makes it hard to sort out who's saying what."
"You detect nothing else at work?" Ruben asked.
Cullen shook his head. "Nothing's tickling my shields."
The gnomish woman said something to him. Cullen smiled one of his more charming smiles and thanked her for the advice.
Things got confusing after that.
Cynna's job had taken her all over the U.S. She'd been to Canada once and Mexico twice. Shit, she'd even been to the demon realm. She was an experienced traveler, or thought she was. But nothing could have prepared her for the sheer foreignness of the City.
Cullen said it reminded him of Cairo. Cynna felt more as if she'd walked onto a huge movie set that inexplicably mixed Star Wars with Camelot and a heavy dash of some old Sherlock Holmes movie. Take the horse-drawn carriage she sat in right now, with Ruben and Cullen. It seemed like something Holmes might have used.
The street itself was filled with Star Wars extras. She recognized some of the species—the three Ekiba on their ponies, for example. Also the phalanx of brownies giggling their way through the pedestrians and the gnome climbing out of his litter. Others were new to her. Some looked human, but that didn't tell her much. So did Cullen, but he was lupus.
The sky might be dark, but the street wasn't. There were so many mage lights bouncing along or clinging to the buildings that the entire street was brighter than a mall parking lot. This was a broad avenue, paved with stone and crowded with horses, carts, litters, and people. Mostly people. Horses and vehicles kept to the right, though their carriage, like Bilbo's ahead of them, rode smartly down the middle of the street. Maybe the middle was for government use?
Most of the streets they passed weren't broad, paved, and nearly daylight-bright. Some were more like twisty sidewalks, too narrow for any but foot traffic.
The architecture was Art Deco meets the Arabian Nights. These people liked curves and domes and color; they liked their geometry both crisp and sinuous. There were arches and arabesques and tiles. Lots of tiles, large and small, arranged in intricate patterns, simple stripes, or a single emblem. Some buildings were covered entirely with mosaics. Cynna stared at the black-and-white harlequin design on a three-story structure that was flanked by buildings dressed up in purple, pink, green, and orange.
Their escort stood out for its sheer lack of color. A troupe of guards on horseback, wearing stiff gray jackets and black leather pants, had met them at the pier. If Cynna had thought that Daniel Weaver, so eager to meet his daughter, would be there, too, she'd been wrong. He was at the Chancellery.
So was Marilyn Wright, or she would be soon. Ruben had sent Steve Timms ahead with her in the ambulance—a gaily painted wagon that looked more like a gypsy caravan to Cynna than an emergency vehicle, though its four horses had moved off at a good clip.
Unlike the pair pulling this carriage. They never got above a sedate trot. Neither did the horses pulling the carriage ahead of them, of course, which meant she was free to blame their slow pace on Bilbo. He rode in that carriage with McClosky and Gan.
Once they finally reached the Chancellery, they'd meet the other councilors but not the chancellor. He was ill, they were told. Cynna wondered if the Council had tossed him in the dungeon for losing the medallion. They probably could. Ruben thought the chancellor's position was mainly titular—a ten-dollar word that meant he handled ceremonial stuff, but lacked re
al authority. Kind of like the Queen of England.
All the varied architecture, body shapes, and other sights might have been easier to process if Cynna hadn't been dealing with the damned translator charm. The street was noisy. Hawkers cried their wares, riders yelled at pedestrians who didn't move out of the way, pedestrians yelled back. Everyone was talking to someone, and the charm gave all of it to her at once.
Bilbo had assured them in his version of English that their brains would learn how to sort the translations they received in such a jumbled stream. But at the moment it was overwhelming, and this damned carriage was too slow. Much too slow.
Cullen leaned closer and murmured in the ear the translator charm wasn't using, "You know, your father probably won't drop dead before we get there."
Her head swung so she could scowl at him. "That isn't funny."
"… Agent Weaver?"
That was Ruben, seated across from her with his splinted leg stretched out, his foot resting on a cushion. Unlike her and Cullen, he faced forward.
Cynna flushed. "Sorry. I wasn't listening—or was trying to listen to too many tilings at once."
"I asked if you were having trouble with the translator charm," Ruben said dryly. "I take it the answer is yes. Perhaps you could leave it outside your clothing for a moment."
The translation charm was a heavily scribed silver disk about the size of a half dollar, strung on a leather cord. It needed physical contact to work, so as soon as Cynna pulled it out from beneath her shirt, the whispering voice stopped.
Ruben was still talking. "Tash was just explaining that our charms will need periodic recharging. The spell is good for nine or ten sleeps."
Tash rode next to the carriage on a horse was much larger than the ponies the Ekiba used. "Usually," she said, "the charm is supplied for a fee, and each renewal also has a fee. The councilor has said yours are free, however."
"Good of him," Cynna muttered.
If Tash heard, she ignored it. "Most people use the charm as a tool to help them learn the Common Tongue and then dispense with them."
Cynna looked at her. "Did you learn English that way? You speak it really well." Unbelievably well for someone who'd been exposed to it on Earth for only two days.
"We, ah… there is another spell to impart a language. This was done to Wen and myself—the Councilor had already learned your tongue from Daniel Weaver. But the spell is… there are difficulties. Most humans do not tolerate it well."
"I'm not human," Cullen pointed out pleasantly. "I might tolerate such a spell."
"I know little about lupi. Perhaps. You would have to open your shields."
"Ah. Well, we have many things to talk about, don't we? Obviously the Ekiba tolerate the spell's effects. And you…" He let his voice drift away, inviting her to explain.
"I am a half-half. Mixed breeds, you would call us. Some half-halfs are accepted into their mother's people. Most are not. I do not have a people."
"You clearly have status. Our escort saluted you. They gave you some title, but the charm burped. I heard reckon or recka or something like that."
"Rekka is my rank, which does not translate well. I am in charge of the City's guards."
Cullen had heard more than she had at the pier, hadn't he? She'd been too busy looking for someone who resembled that old photo, however old, fat, or bald he might be now. Or married. He might have remarried. Oh, God. He probably had, once he realized he couldn't go home. He could have had more children. She could have half siblings.
Please, God, don't let them be waiting for me at the Chancellery, too.
"Why didn't the councilor ever address you that way?" Cullen asked Tash.
"He does, when we speak among ourselves in Common Tongue."
But not when he introduced her to them. Was that because he habitually hogged the spotlight? Or had he had another reason to want them to think Tash was unimportant?
Ruben, as usual, spoke politely, "Perhaps you can explain something, Rekka Tash. Do I have the address correct?" He paused for her to nod. A nod meant yes to everyone here, just like back home, Cynna had learned. No doubt anthropologists would find that fascinating. "Why did the councilor insist from the start that he needed a shield spell that didn't exist? Why was he determined to trick us into coming rather attempting first to obtain our willing cooperation?"
"You would need to ask the councilor that question."
"I have, but his answers fail to satisfy me. To be blunt, they fail to make sense. Obviously he'd planned from the start to trick us into creating a gate. I don't understand his reasoning."
"The councilor does not confide in me." Tash's words were stiff, but her voice wasn't. She gave Ruben a long look, then added, "We, too, have seers, Mr. Brooks. And now perhaps you would like to look ahead. Awkward for those facing backward, but your first sight of the Chancellery is worth a strained neck."
Cynna twisted around. And gawked.
The wide street ended by making a circle around a huge building. It had to be a building, though it looked more like an enormous, sleeping beast sunk partly into the ground, or perhaps ready to rise from it… a beast its tenders had decorated lavishly.
All their love of curves and tile and color was here. Mirrored tiles, colored tiles, and colored stones or gems were inset in the patterns that swirled and clawed and climbed everywhere. There were no right angles, no clear delineation between wall and ground—the tilework spilled from wall onto earth, reaching delicate fingers across a stone courtyard.
The place easily covered three city blocks. Probably more. Parts of it reached higher than others, maybe three or four stories. It took Cynna a minute to notice how few windows interrupted the designs covering the structure. There were no plants. No flowers or grass or bushes in the courtyard, flanking any of the entrance, or sitting in pots on the three staircases she could see.
The Chancellery was a stunning, even overwhelming, work of art. Ruben and Cullen made complimentary noises. Cynna couldn't bring herself to. The place gave her the creeps.
There were several entrances. They rode past the biggest one, where a line of people snaked out through two huge, open doors. They continued to the side of the structure, where a long, narrow porch ten feet above the ground gave access to another entrance. Bilbo's carriage had stopped at the foot of those steps. McClosky was getting out. A small group of people were descending the steps—two gnomes and a man. A human man.
Cynna's heart began to pound.
The horses stopped. Someone took her hand. "You okay?" Cullen asked softly.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
"You won't," he told her firmly. "But if you absolutely have to prove me wrong—and I know you like doing that—aim for Bilbo's shoes."
"Good plan."
The man following the two gnomes wore the same kind of long dress Cullen had been given, only his was made of much nicer fabric—something with a sheen. It was a golden brown. Over that he wore a long, sleeveless robe or vest in a plush material the color of dirty snow. No hat. His hair was sandy brown; his complexion, fair; his features, pleasant but unremarkable.
He wasn't fat, wrinkled, or bald. A bit stocky, but otherwise he looked like his picture. Just like his picture.
Cynna didn't see what the others did. She did notice, barely, Cullen's hand at her elbow, supporting her when she climbed out of the carnage, as if she might have forgotten how to do that. She heard voices, but they were a mere buzzing, like insects.
The man moved up to stand in front of her. "Cynna?" His voice wobbled. He looked like he was trying to smile and couldn't quite bring it off. "You're my little Cynna?"
She nodded slowly. Her head might fall off if she weren't careful. "You're Daniel?"
"No!" His voice went loud and gruff, and he grabbed her. "No, not Daniel—I'm Daddy! Or Da, or Father, or Dad…" His arms closed tight around her. "Don't call me Daniel," he said, and there was a hint of tears mixed with the touch of brogue in his voice. "To everyone else I can be
Daniel. Not to you. Not to you."
He was her height exactly. Five-ten. He smelled strange—smoky, with some spicy cologne mixed in. He was holding on too tight. She didn't think she could breathe. She pushed away. "Too fast," she said, almost panting, as if he'd sucked up all the air when he grabbed her. "You're going too fast for me. Until a couple days ago I thought you'd run out on us. Now…"
"Of course. Of course." He ran a hand over his head, smoothing back the sandy hair… hair she realized was different from her old photo, because it started farther back on his forehead. "I'm tripping over my own feet, aren't I, now? But you look so much like her… ha." He smiled, and mischief twinkled in eyes the color of whisky—eyes she recognized, having seen them in the mirror all her life.
He put his hands on her shoulders, beaming at her. "Now you're thinking, who is this man? He can't be my dad, who would know his sweet Mary is a small, round woman with dark hair and eyes. But you've her nose, you know, if not her build." He touched the tip of that nose with one finger. "And her generous mouth, as I can see in spite of all that fancy work you've put on your pretty face. And something of her stubborn chin, too, I think. Though I flatter myself it's my eyes you've got, aren't they, now?"
Cynna felt herself nodding. Yes, those were her eyes in his face. Though he saw his eyes in her face, and wasn't that funny? Because they each had their own eyes, after all.
He heaved a great, meaningful, gusty sigh. "We've much to say to each other, but not, I suppose, all at once, or while standing out here in the cold. And my lord councilors wish to meet you."
One of the gnomes—not Bilbo—said something unintelligible, reminding Cynna of her charm. She closed her hand around it, and the whisper told her the gnome wanted Daniel to let their guests come inside and rest before some big meeting, and he could escort his daughter to her chambers.
Daniel glanced down at the gnome, nodded, and said something in the other language that the charm translated as polite agreement, then switched back to English. "Come, come inside. We will talk while we can, before you must… ha! It's hard, but you're here for more than the easing of my heart."
