by Pam Uphoff
Idre hugged himself as if he were cold. "About half of the girls turned into dragons. They raped the team, then killed them and ate them. That's when we ran for it. When everyone was dead. I saw some dragons flying, and ducked into the thickest forest I could find."
Usse bit his knuckles in frustration. "Could you see anything from there?"
"Yes, people from the village were arriving, armed to the teeth. That man we traced, in armor, on the biggest horse I've ever seen. Popped out of nowhere. The rest of them came running over the hill, but there wasn't anything left for them to do. I waited until everyone had gone, then we got back here as fast as possible." Idre was alternating between flushed and pale, sweating in fear. "We took the two fastest horses and left the rest, so maybe they'd think no one escaped."
Usse stood up, paced around in a little circle, and sat back down.
"Quite apart from the obvious hallucinatory overlay, which the experts will no doubt have fun analyzing, all we know is that Ash is an enclave of magic users. Discol's previous report spoke of a 'witches school' and a 'wizard's tower'. Heretical ceremonies at the tops of volcanoes and sexual licentiousness."
Ajha shifted uncertainly. "There's a perfectly ordinary school in town, and the horse farm to the south has a sort of stumpy fat tower. But it's right on the road to the nearest town." One Damn it, it didn't need to come to this. Damn Usse for that spell . . . I've been sleep walking for three weeks . . . One damn it all, they could have been allies, friends. He leaned his head back and stared at the overhead. I am of the One. I am the eyes and ears of the One. But by the same logic, my brains are also at the service of the One. So I had better go home and report my thoughts to the One, and argue my position. Otherwise I have failed to serve the One to the best of my abilities.
Usse snorted. "Discol had few morals, the witches probably led him around by his male parts. Obviously they were expecting some sort of attack. The Action Team—the natives found their weakest point. They were all apparently distracted by bunch of young women, open to a hallucinatory spell." His glare fell on Ajha this time. "And we obviously underestimated the strength of the local magic. Again."
And I'm starting now. Ajha crossed his arms and glared back. "I've been arguing about them being similar to the One for years. Would you send twenty men to slaughter a Oner Enclave of several hundred people, some quite old and experienced?"
Usse's eyes narrowed.
"Will you radio in a report?" Idre shivered.
"No. I don't dare break radio silence, especially to announce that we're completely unprotected. You three will go to Fascia with a report, and if those idiots left in Fascia can manage a gate location signal, they may send you to HQ for in-depth questioning. They have a crisis of their own, down there. Ajha, in view of the obviously compromised condition of the rest of your team, you are in command until relieved by a superior."
"Yes, sir." And so we'll see really soon whether anyone will actually listen to me.
"The end of this world is getting close." Egto looked hopeful. "Maybe we don't need to do anything, and maybe it would be wise to leave early. Maybe they'll all die."
Usse snorted. "If the first comet hits, those magicians will be frantic to get off this World. The Earth will not be allowed to recruit these dangerous magicians. If I have to risk dying with them when the comet hits, I will die knowing I have served the One."
Ajha bowed his head, hearing the iron determination in the old man's voice. Why do I keep trying? Because I'm right, that's why. Silence is the wrong way to serve the One.
Idre nodded jerkily. "Yes, the risk is necessary. This magic is too dangerous to be allowed to survive."
Ajha huffed out a breath. "I'll walk down to the sea docks and look for ships departing for Panama. Soon."
Chapter Seventy-one
1 September 3483 / Late Summer 1366 Local
Karista, Kingdom of the West, Comet Fall
"Psst! Code! You guys wanna buy some horses, cheap?"
Damien looked over at the kid who was hiding halfway behind Code. Scrawny twelve year old, ragged clothing.
"Where'd you get horses, Eddy? How many, and who from?" Code turned to face the younger kid. Probably reminded him of himself.
"Two, these guys with weird names, Egg Toast and Idiot or something, rode them half to death, so I figured they didn't deserve to keep them. And one of them's a pinto, so I figured you guys . . . " The boy was pulling Code out the door as he talked.
Damien frowned. Egg toast? Egto was one of the Oner names they'd caught in radio intercepts, and Idre another.
"Solstice!" Code sounded shocked, and Damien was halfway out the door before he realized he was moving.
The big bay and white pinto was salt crusted with days of sweat, flanks tucked up, dull eyed. He was standing with his weight off one foreleg. He blew wearily and laid his head on Code's shoulder. The second horse was glassy eyed, in pain. Leaning backwards as if trying to take weight off his front feet. Foundering. I'm surprised the kid could get them three blocks.
Damien glanced back at Barto, who was crowding out to see what was going on. "So, what's that Temple Water do for done-in, lamed horses?"
Barto snickered. "Five royals and a new bottle of wine, and I'll show you."
"In a bucket of warm water." Damien passed over the money, and walked over to the boy. "So, where'd this Egg Toast live, anyway?"
The boy eyed the pouch he was still holding. "They all went inside that old green warehouse on Rock Fish. It's right across the alley from your place." He looked a bit dismayed suddenly, as it occurred to him that they might not want to be driving in and out with the neighbor's horses.
Right across the alley. Good. Grief. Proximity would explain how they'd been able to get so many RF intercepts.
"Bunch of them, were there? I'm surprised you could cut two horses out."
"Nah, there were only two of them. They said dragons ate everyone else."
Damien hauled him inside and bought him lunch. While Code and Barto ministered to the horses, Damien got the brief exchange the boy had heard, pretty much verbatim. Then he paid him a ridiculous sum for returning Solstice, and suggested that if he kept the other horse he could hire out to run small packages all over town. "Any horse that could keep up with Solstice is damn good. If he recovers from what they've done to him." He braced himself. "I've got some space in the new barn, you could keep him there."
The wary child finished every crumb and said he'd think about it.
Then Code walked Solstice carefully home while Damien drove. Time to write a report while it was still fresh in his mind. And talk to Andrai and Max about how to get an optic cable under the alley with a passive pickup on the other end.
It was an all night job, but they got a cable through the hole they drilled. It stopped just at the floor level, in a crack between boards, about the middle of the back wall. It had a panoramic view, with good line of sight to the front of the warehouse, and a row of rooms upstairs across half the front. They couldn't see the other half of the upstairs, because of the angle, but they had a clear view of the high glass windows. With a bit of fine tuning, the vibrations of the glass were reconstituted back into the sounds that had caused the vibrations.
"I swear by the One, Ajha, it was not an illusion. They turned into dragons. One minute they were a bunch of obnoxious teenage girls, then suddenly they were crawling all over the team. They choked them into, look you're pretty young you wouldn't understand what suffocation does to the . . . Oh One. I can't sleep. I just see it over and over."
Damien nodded thoughtfully. So that is what the purple bunny girl does to attackers. Well, maybe her older friends, she's a bit young to be raping men. We need to somehow get a line on that village. Do business with them regularly, become part of their background. Somehow.
Chapter Seventy-two
Fall 1365
Karista, Kingdom of the West
Lefty bit his knuckle and tried not to laugh. The news was too appalli
ng to laugh about. And even after so many years, the memories of his own capture by Auralian slavers were still painful and horrifying. He sobered suddenly. "So by the time you left town this Princess of the One had been sent off to the Amma's cousin in the west. Her Oner staff had been sold in the slave market. The Oner Commander of the Amma's army who had been training them in Oner weaponry had been executed. The Ambassador had been emasculated and publicly gang raped. And some 'Priest' showed up and is trying to smooth things over? Good Luck. Poor sod will probably wind up displacing the Ambassador as the Amma's favorite play toy."
The Sooty Duck was busy, so there was nothing the least bit surprising in how close the men behind him were. Of course he was careful to not look around at them. He might not be able to pull off non-recognition. The Earther's were certainly getting an earful.
"Yep." Oscar looked indecently smug. "One trusts they'll be too busy to pull another stunt like the raid on the Gate Camp."
Lefty nodded. "We confirmed the identification of the three men the Oners murdered. They went missing here in Karista, all on the same day. I'd certainly like to find that so-called 'Action Team' and demonstrate the penalty for murder. Of course, that may have been them, in Ash. Good riddance." He took a swallow of the home brew. Good stuff, no wonder the Earthers were regulars. "Anyway, Rufi isn't inclined to take issue with the Earthers over their attack, despite Coo Hasenski's death. So maybe we can actually get some leave. I've got a four year old son who needs his daddy around. Not that you two would understand anything about proper parenting."
"Selano wants us back for more lessons, and we really ought to see how much trouble the Navy's gotten into without us to take care of them."
Lefty nodded. "Yes, we do need a good coastline map. Have you seen the maps the Earther's made from the Oners' satellite data? Oh, of course, you're the ones who stole half of them. That might be a good place to start. Add your data on currents and soundings, locate some harbors . . . " They got so deep into planning the exploration of what both the Earther's and the Oners called Asia, he forgot all about the Earthers at his back.
Chapter Seventy-three
30 September 3462 / Early Fall 1365
Karista, Kingdom of the West, Comet Fall
There was frost on the grass in the morning. Another month and it would be time to send all his extra horses to the farm for the winter. The bays had worked awfully hard this summer, and were getting thin. If they could listen in on the Oners he'd find out if they were still looking for white and dark gray horses, alone or in a team. If he could work Sombrero and Blue, he could let Blackie and Macy take the winter off, too.
Damien clicked off the recorder, encrypted the message and then compressed it. This was important enough to report immediately. They dare not break radio silence, and let the Oners know what the Earthers knew. But the boat was due any day now, so they would each have a copy of the whole mess of reports. Hand it over and send the boat off immediately, with as small a chance of the Oners intercepting it as possible. All those wonderfully chaotic intercepts they'd caught, in the unlikely case the Science Camp had missed them. The Westerner's explanation of how their agent had seduced the Oner Princess. The relationship between the Oners and the Amma must be nasty, about now. The Oners had refused to supply bullets for the Amma's fancy new rifles, put their vehicle order on hold and refused to fuel the vehicles already handed over. The One's ability to take over this World had been flushed down the toilet.
And the Action Team had been eaten by dragons.
He wasn't quite sure what his superiors would make of it, but then they hadn't seen a man turn into a goat.
Along with the intel, it also had all their messages home, instructions to the pay division, updated wills.
He was whistling happily as he walked out to the yard, Andrai on his heels.
"I don't like it when you sound so cheerful! I expect you to behave."
"Da, Auntie, I'll behave." Damien climbed up onto the seat of the bear wagon.
"I mean behave properly! And speak properly, too. That's yes, not da, like some backwoods . . . Veronian."
Vani and Code had their wagon in motion, escaping the morning lecture. Code was still grinning, even though Solstice wasn't well enough to work. He'd send Code to keep an eye on the mares and yearlings at the farm, and send Solstice with him to recuperate. He'd been gelded so there was no worry about the mares all getting bred again. Umm, better geld the roan colt soon too, or he'd be up to his eyebrows in foals before he knew it.
Jeinah and Max were talking about marrying. 'Auntie' was making her displeasure clear.
"Yes, Auntie. I'll be very proper, Auntie."
"Humph. I'll believe it when I see it. I think it's the effect of all those Traveler's nags. You should sell them and get some more nice brown horses." Andrai turned and headed back to the house, pausing to nod politely to the neighbor out on the street. "Good morning, Mr. Howard."
Max climbed up beside him and he clicked to Macy and Blackie, steering them out to the alley. "What do you think? The way Bert's hanging around, I think he's sweet on her. Maybe the old biddy will loosen up?"
"Now there's an idea. What can we do to help True Love along?"
"Has Vani still got some of that Temple Water?"
"That would be cheating."
Chapter Seventy-four
22 Ramadan/1365 late fall
Fascia, Auralian Empire, Target World Forty-two
Ajha stood outside the Embassy medical section and looked the priest right in the eyes. "Yes, One Ygti, I do realize that I am the most junior of the Directorate staff on this world. I do realize that I am a Clostuone, not a Priest. But I also realize that pointing out that the local magicians are sufficiently similar to the Prophets to raise the question of whether they might be the descendants of some of Those Left Behind is sensible and logical. Avoiding the question will not change the answer. It will not make them less dangerous. It will not reduce the potential for friendly relations, if we have not destroyed that possibility forever, already."
Priest and acting Ambassador Ygti held out a computer card. "Take your team home. Give this to your Subdirector." His lip curled a bit. "He's young for the position, and new to it. He chose poorly in sending you here. But then I suppose you're a close relative. All those As and Js. I think Black Point is getting a bit too inbred."
Down the hall, a door opened, and a Medgician escorted Idre and Egto out. "As I suspected, the imprint is too deep for me to remove. They need to be treated by a specialist, at home."
"Thank you, Doctor." Ajha inclined his head to the Medgician, bowed to the Priest. "We'll be aboard the next train out."
The Priest sighed. "And still arguing with everyone?"
"Stating possibilities, sir."
Chapter Seventy-five
1366 Winter Solstice
Karista, Kingdom of the West
"I think we actually did it." Lefty took the chair the General pointed at.
"So the Earthers are just hunkering down doing nothing and expecting nothing for a couple of years?"
"Yes, sir. Apparently they elect a President just like Scoone does, and this is election year, during which no one is going to commit to anything major. And their intercepts of Oner radio communications confirms that the One are in complete disarray in Auralia. The execution of their military commander and the . . . treatment of their Ambassador, followed by the loss of the Action Team, they're spooked. And they are quite sure the two who got away were mentally influenced. They're being sent home for evaluation. So we just have the Post Head here in Karista. We can watch the three Earthers, and try to find the Post Head, who is probably Cuffi's 'Mousey' and hopefully have plenty of warning before they try something again."
"And if all else fails, I'll send Oscar and Bran back to Fascia. Excellent. Why don't you take some leave? You won't even have to spend time in transit, any more. I'm going to have to talk to the Auld Wulf about making more of these corridors. They'd be an amazing advance
in transportation. They’d change the whole world."
About the Author
I was born and raised in California, and have lived more than half my life, now, in Texas.
Wonderful place. I caught almost the first bachelor I met here, and we’re coming up on our thirty-third anniversary.
My degree's in Geology. After working for an oil company for almost ten years as a geophysicist, I “retired” to raise children. As they grew, I added oil painting, sculpting and throwing clay, breeding horses, volunteering in libraries and for the Boy Scouts, and treasurer for a friend’s political campaign. Sometime in those busy years, I turned a love of science fiction into a part time job reading slush (Mom? Someone is paying you to read??!!)
I've always written, published a few short stories. But now that the kids have flown the nest, I'm calling writing a full time job.
Other Titles by Pam Uphoff
Wine of the Gods Series:
Outcasts and Gods
Exiles and Gods (Three Novellas)
The Black Goats
Explorers
Spy Wars
Comet Fall
A Taste of Wine (Seven Tales)
Dark Lady
Growing Up Magic (Four Stories)
Short Stories:
Lost Boy
Mall Santa
Writing as Zoey Ivers
The Barton Street Gym
Chicago
