I chuckled on the inside, but outwardly I played the part of a hero whose only concern was the security of the realm. I stood up, scanned the horizon with a narrow-eyed glare, and dared the Ferret and his men to test us.
I secretly hoped that the Queen would take a peek at her jewel and then go into hysterics when she found it missing. I imagined her screams as she tumbled from her carriage to search for the thief. Perhaps I would flaunt the jewel in front of her before making my getaway.
But the Queen did not find her jewel missing, nor did she give me the pleasure of hearing her anguished cries. We arrived at the gates in perfect peace.
A mechanism inside the walls churned and the gates swung open. I fully expected a welcoming committee of Vijale’s finest soldiers to escort the Queen to her plush lodgings, but what came out was a glorious knight trotting on a splendid white steed.
My heart beat like a fist in my chest as I took full measure of the man.
Barrett the Golden, the true Golden, was a full six feet five inches tall, and he weighed twice as much as me easily. His chainmail armor was all silver and gold, and his golden sword hung from his hip. His yellow hair hung in feathered waves around his head, and his chin was bold and strong.
The Captain and his soldiers split to let him pass, and many looked between the two of us with expressions of confusion. A division of King Edmund’s own Vijale soldiers rose from their hidden positions along the side of the road and fixed their arrows upon me.
I was double surrounded, but I gulped down a tremor of fear and held my smile.
“Hello there, Barrett.” Barrett the Golden waved and stared at me with eyes as blue as the sea. “Or should I say, hello Ferret?”
There were gasps as everyone around me realized what must be the truth. I was not Barrett the Golden at all, but some imposter with nefarious intentions. I was possibly even the Ferret himself.
“Hey, we trusted you,” I heard Mart shout from somewhere behind me, and my heart broke a little at that. But Mart did not know how cruel Queen Gruna was, and it was up to me to ensure that people like her got what they deserved.
“You have me dead to rights,” I said to the big blond man on the horse. “I am indeed Hanser the Ferret, and I have stolen your Queen’s jewel.”
A scream shook the carriage, and the Queen slammed the door open and stumbled out. Then she spun and fixed me with a wicked glare. Her face was so red and bloated with rage that she could not utter a single word, and I closed my eyes and sighed as the pure moment washed over me.
“Hanser the Ferret.” Barrett broke me from my reverie with a flip of his golden hair. “Hand over the jewel, and I’ll ask the King to go easy on you. Perhaps a dozen years in the dungeon would suffice.”
“I’ll not be going to any dungeon today,” I said with a glorious toss of my own golden locks. “But I do have a question. How did you find me out?”
“I’m good friends with King Edmund.” Barrett shrugged. “I was here when the advance riders came to report that the Queen was less than a day’s ride away and in the good hands of Barrett the Golden.”
I blinked at him.
“I should have planned this better,” I admitted. “I had no idea you would be in Vijale. But maybe it’s good that you’re here. I want you to witness me pull off the greatest theft of this century.”
“Give back the jewel,” Barrett growled.
“Yes,” the Queen hissed as she made grasping motions with her hands. “My jewel. Give it back.”
“I think not,” I said, and I shook the black sash loose from an inner pocket and started to wrap it around my hand. “For it is time to bid you farewell.”
I held up my hand and whispered the magic words the swamp witch had taught me, then I waited for the magic sash to make me disappear, just like it had done to the coin back in the Bald Stallion. I had tested it a hundred times before, and it never failed me.
Yet I remained perfectly visible. The magic had failed, and my stomach sank as the danger around me grew all too real.
“I… I don’t understand,” I sputtered.
“See this necklace?” Barrett laughed and tapped on a gem that hung around his neck. The jewelry clicked against his chainmail collar. “This negates all magic within a hundred yards. You won’t be disappearing today, Ferret.”
“Well, that’s inconvenient,” I said with a frown. “And hardly fair. There’s all of you and just one of me.”
“Speaking of fair.” Barrett dismounted from his horse, tore his sword free from its sheath, and pointed it at me. “You have another option. Come down off that carriage and face me like a man.”
“That seems dangerous,” I said, “compared to simply disappearing like a ghost.”
“I’m tired of this banter,” Barrett strode boldly toward the carriage as he gestured to the archers on my right. “Come face me, Ferret, or be riddled with arrows like the coward you are.”
Someone ushered Queen Gruna out of the way as a dozen soldiers pulled their bowstrings tight. Their arrows were nocked and ready, and I was in their sights.
It was at times like these I could not afford to give two shits about my own safety. To second guess myself would only amount to a quick death. I had learned long ago to act upon my instincts and not be intimidated by large, well-muscled men with flouncy yellow hair. Especially when my own hair was just as flouncy.
I drew my sword and leaped from my seat onto the back of a carriage horse. An arrow sprang towards me, but I swatted it away with the flat of my blade. Then I leaped over the horse’s head to land in a crouch before Barrett.
Barrett swung his massive blade in my direction. I parried his sword high and launched into a dazzling flurry of sweeps and stabs. I was faster than him, but he was flexible and patient. Our swords clanged in the settling light, and my shoulder jolted every time our steel clashed.
Try as I might, I could not score a hit.
He dodged my sweeping blade and brushed off my lightning quick attacks. He used his armor to deflect my much weaker weapon and forced me to move in a wide circle. Sweat stung my eyes, and my heart pounded like mad in my chest.
Barrett was sweating and panting, too, but not half as much as me. And I had not put a single scratch on his armor. I stepped back to catch my breath as the soldiers around us chuckled and grinned.
“Not bad,” Barrett laughed as he swung his sword back and forth with easy grace. “But not the unbeatable Ferret we’re all so used to hearing about.”
“Well, you’re every bit as handsome as I’d heard,” I replied, simply because I could think of nothing else say. “And I’m honestly a bit jealous.”
The golden knight laughed and pressed my guard.
I shifted my feet and sidestepped to my right as I delivered a series of low thrusts at his gut. He parried each one easily, but he crouched a bit more each time, and his guard fell lower and lower. I continued to work at his body until our swordplay grew hypnotizing and my weapon was whittled down a worn-out chunk of steel.
Then I saw my opportunity.
I sprung high and stabbed the magical gem hanging from Barrett’s neck. The stone shattered against his hard chainmail, and chips flew in every direction.
Barrett the Golden bellowed as I vanished into thin air.
It was not easy to get away from the soldiers, even when they could not see me. Barrett swept his big sword in every direction, and the soldiers stumbled and reached around like blind mice trying to find a piece of cheese. Queen Gruna wailed like a mad ghost on a windy night.
I wove my way through the throng of grasping hands. I walked away from Queen Gruna and her sobbing. I left behind the “hero” who called himself Barrett the Golden. I walked to the edge of the woods without looking back and then stepped into the peaceful trees.
I took easy strides along deer trails and through open fields. The effects of the sash wore off with every step I took. I lifted my hand and saw parts of myself become visible again, even as the sash fell to pieces,
and then to dust.
Soon, I came upon a stream where three weary men washed their faces in the cool water. I hid behind a tree and listened to their conversation.
“Why did our friends turn on us?” Mart asked in a hurt tone that made me bite my lip with regret.
“They think we were part of it,” Thoms said. “They think we were working with the Ferret.”
“Yeah, bloody Mick tried to hack my head off,” Mart said. “And he’s been my mate for years.”
“That’s what we get for trusting people,” Thoms said.
“But why would he do that to us?” Mart asked. “Why would he trick us that way?”
“Because people are evil, Mart,” Thoms said. “If you haven’t learned that by now, you never will.”
“I should have seen through his ruse,” Jansford said with a disgusted look. “I’m supposed to be the sneakiest bastard alive, not that weasley Ferret.”
“Ferrets and weasels really are the same thing.” Mart frowned.
“Never mind, you big oaf.” Jansford patted Mart on the shoulder affectionately. “Just fill your skin so we can be off.”
“But where should we go?” Mart asked. “My whole family is here in Slithora.”
“I’m not sure,” Thoms said as he filled up his own skin. “But Queen Gruna won’t stop until she’s got our heads on spikes.”
I thought about walking away, but something in my heart broke for these unfortunate men. I was the scoundrel. I was the one who had caused them this trouble. I was the one who had changed their lives forever. All they had done was try to be good soldiers.
I let out a long sigh and stepped out from behind the tree.
“Good men of the Gray Watch,” I called with a wave of my hand. “I am Hanser the Ferret, and it seems that I owe you an apology.”
ALL MINE
Mercedes Lackey & Dennis Lee
THE GIRL WAS very young and thin. She could have been any age from eleven to fourteen. She might have been biracial, but her dark, straight, short hair gave no clues, and her coloring could have been due to Mediterranean descent, Greek or Italian, or even Spanish. Dr. Marcus Dufresne only knew her as “Subject 0067.” The hospital scrubs all the subjects in the Program wore were baggy on her slender frame. From here, he could not see her eyes.
She stared fixedly at a small, foam ball resting between hands flat on the surface of the table where she sat. Every visible line of her radiated tension and effort. Watching her was, frankly, boring. Finally, she let out her breath in a sigh. “I can’t,” she said, or rather, whispered, apologetically.
“Yes, you can Sixty-seven,” came from a speaker in the room; a stern, harsh voice. “Two hours ago, you threw a pitcher full of water at Eighty-eight’s head. Now you claim you can’t lift a tiny foam ball. You aren’t trying.”
In another child, that might have elicited an angry response. Not from this one. The girl looked up at the speaker, and a slow tear trickled down her face. Now Marcus could see that her eyes were a sad, deep dark brown, like the eyes of a beaten puppy. “I am trying,” she whispered. “My head hurts, I’m trying so hard.”
“No, you’re not!” the voice snapped. “You’re useless! Worthless!”
Instead of rebelling, the girl shrank into herself, and her features froze into a mask of terror. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged.
Through the one-way mirror, Marcus watched as another slow tear ran down the girl’s face. There was something there. Something familiar. It sparked a brief twinge of despair, a distant memory. He pushed the thought away and glanced back at his tablet, intent on recording the brain wave activity that blipped steadily from the device attached to Subject 0067’s cranium.
“There you have it,” said the Project Lead, Dr. Joseph Garvey. He was an ugly man, and his looks were not improved by facial and cranial scarring. He had clearly had some cosmetic surgery, but the ropy keloid scars that remained testified he had at one point been severely burned. The injury had to have been substantial; enough that his left arm was either completely cybernetic or in a cybernetic sheathe. The arm hummed at times, and when Garvey lifted something heavy, it whined. Hydraulics, perhaps. It threw Garvey off-balance when he walked, but it was strong enough Marcus had once seen Garvey crush the edge of a metal table during a heated discussion with another of his underlings. “She’s perfectly capable of throwing cinder-blocks at people when she’s frightened enough, but she can’t seem to lift a grain of rice otherwise. And her psychometry is erratic and weaker than we’d like. She can only backtrack about a week before it becomes useless. Think you can do anything with her? You did wonders with Fifty-nine and Seventy-two.”
“I’ll have her up to speed by your deadline,” Marcus murmured, still studying the oscillating waves on his tablet. “This one is different, to be sure. Look here.” He turned the tablet towards Garvey and pointed. “There’s a strong undercurrent to her efforts. She might not have the baseline strength others have, but she’s still developing. Still, look at the regularity of it. She’s displaying a resonance that no one else has before. It’s solid. I can work with this.”
Garvey studied the tablet. “That resonance may be the problem. Something’s holding her back. Can you turn it off ?”
“I suppose I could,” Marcus said. “Not the first thing I would propose though.”
“And why’s that?”
“It might play havoc with her natural development. You run the risk of it strengthening her ability now, only to have it burn out.” Marcus paused. “Oh, and it might kill her.”
“What’s your point?” Garvey said. “If she dies, we can get more.”
“It just seems a waste of a perfectly good subject. Call it instinct. I think there may be much more to this one than a common foot soldier. I’m thinking of the long game here.”
Garvey sniffed at Marcus’s objections. “When has that ever been an issue? We need working operatives now, not at some nebulous point in the future. Besides, children obey; teenagers rebel. They’re better for our purposes when either young or old enough to be trained to respond to commands by a superior.”
“This one might be different,” Marcus argued, although he kept his tone flat and uninflected. “There’s potential there for more. Her behavior suggests you might mold her well into adulthood as the perfect operative. If you play this right, she’ll follow your orders until her dying breath.”
Garvey waved that away. “Operatives now, Doctor. Not in the future. Invisible, obedient operatives. No one ever pays a damn bit of attention to children. No one thinks of them as metas.”
Marcus shrugged. “As you wish. I can start her on the cocktail immediately.” He swiped at his tablet a few times and began to input notes.
“Test Subject 0067,” Marcus said, as the tablet dutifully began to record his voice. “Note vitals and tailor the usual cocktail to her specifications. Standard monitoring apparatus.” He paused, and shrugged again. “Ignore elevated risks of compromising her immune system, shock, and death. Subject 0067 is expendable.”
VIRTUE HUDDLED IN the corner of her bed farthest from the door. The room was scarcely big enough to hold the bed and a tiny bedside table with a tablet. She had wrapped herself in her blanket and was hugging her pillow, knees to her chest. They never allowed her any tissues unless she was actually sick, because they had discovered the little fairies she’d made from them hidden under her mattress. So her sleeve had to do for her sniffles and her pillow to dry her tears.
A gentle tap on her door made her stiffen. “Querida, it’s me,” said a soft, accented voice, and she relaxed, relief flooding through her.
“Ramon!” she exclaimed. “It’s okay—”
She didn’t need to go any further. The door opened long enough for a lean, tall, Hispanic man in a janitor’s coverall to slip inside. He was carrying a teddy bear and a box of tissues.
She reached for the bear first, as he sat down on her bunk, slipped his arm around her shoulders, and held her,
pulling out a tissue for her. “Were they very terrible today, chiquita?”
“They keep saying I don’t try,” she said plaintively into his shoulder. “But I am! I am trying!”
“You do not need to convince me. I know you are,” Ramon replied. “I wish I knew how to help you,” he added, in frustration. “But I do not. I wish I could take you away. You could be a sister to my little Maria.”
“I’d like to have a sister,” Virtue said, for what was probably the millionth time.
“Well, you know I am taking night classes to make my English better, and I have just read a story in my English class about sisters,” Ramon replied, drying her eyes gently with a tissue. “Once upon a time, there was a beautiful queen. She wanted a child very badly. One day, while a fairy was listening, she stuck her finger while she was embroidering—”
“What’s embroidering?” Virtue interrupted.
“It is making pictures on clothing with colored threads and a needle,” Ramon said patiently. “It makes clothing prettier.”
Virtue examined the hem of her scrub sleeve and sighed. She would never have pretty clothing…
“So she was embroidering, and stuck her finger, and before the blood could soil the sleeve, she held her hand outside the window, so the drop of blood fell on the snow outside instead.”
Virtue did not ask what “snow” was. Ramon had explained that to her, and she had looked up pictures on her tablet.
“Oh, the queen said. I wish I could have a little daughter with lips and cheeks as red as blood, and another with skin as white as snow, she said, and the good fairy, who was listening, and knew she was a good and virtuous queen, nodded, and said, Let it be so…”
MARCUS LET THE cold water run over his hands and felt that familiar surge of numbing clarity as the chill set in. He wondered if it was enough, and considered the prospect of a good long shower in freezing water. It had been another bad day, but numbing it away was hardly going to solve his problems. He had just spent hours fruitlessly trying to stimulate Test Subject 0067’s brain activity with a diverse barrage of challenges, ranging through electrical, chemical, and even emotional triggers. Nothing seemed to elicit more than a passive blip on his monitors. The remnant spikes he observed in her brain activity after her rare episodes of explosive power suggested she was on the cusp of something unprecedented. There was something in that subject that defied prediction, as if she was on the verge of actually evolving into something entirely new. Maybe not homo superior, but certainly no longer mere homo sapiens. The sharp, staccato spikes that streamed across the screen of his tablet suggested something more to him than neuronal synapses dutifully firing off. They seemed to cry out in a muted rage, shackled and tethered mere inches away from a satisfying and violent release.
Knaves Page 3