Romney Balvance and the Katarin Stone

by J Jordan

  “Balvance got you good, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he did,” said Rella

  She took another deep breath.

  “I would say I am the luckier of us,” said Rikka. “I get to take the brace off tomorrow, assuming everything checks out.”

  “But we digress, Ms. Kinsey. Back to the matter at hand.”

  Rella’s shadowy demeanor had just fallen flat on its face the moment she started fidgeting with eye drops, but it was gaining traction with surprising agility. Kinsey decided to play along, returning to her defensive posture by leaning back in her chair. These two elves were troopers.

  Rella slid the photograph of a gaudy-looking necklace across the table, probably some kind of new age art piece. Just a large, round stone with a length of leather string through the middle. It probably had something to do with artifice. Most modern art did.

  “This is a Katarin stone,” said Rella, tapping the photo with her fingernail.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “They’re prayer stones, used mostly in Katresean ceremonies. But this one is of particular worth to us.”

  “It’s made entirely of Katarin,” whispered Rikka from the across the table. “A genuine Katarin stone.”

  Kinsey nodded. She had heard of the material before. It was found mainly in mountainous regions, like Monterna and southern ranges of Andrea’s Course. Katarin was difficult to mine to say the least, even with modern equipment. The cost to mine an ounce of Katarin was astronomical, making it too much of a hassle to mine in earnest. It had too much in common with granite, except for its mysterious blue flecks. And Katarin was just as common in those areas, meaning it had the same value as granite at tenfold the cost to mine it. Katarin was effectively useless. But Kinsey had never drawn the connection to religion.

  Everything Kinsey knew about Katresean beliefs stemmed from books like La Katarina Voca. As far as she knew, the words Katrese and Katarin were interchangeable. And, to her credit, the many books and religious texts on the subject said the same thing. The belief was that Katarin was Katrese, a physical manifestation of the Goddess of Creation. That explained its incredible durability. It would also explain why a Katarin stone made from actual Katarin would be valuable to a believer. Rella and Rikka were probably devout followers of Katrese.

  Kinsey never took much stock in Katrese. It never bothered her to see people praying to the goddess, and she never huffed at the many Katresean temples throughout Lanvale. Kinsey was never one to ask for help.

  Kinsey looked up from the photograph to see her reflection in Rella’s dark shades.

  “Balvance took your prayer stone, and you want it back.”

  “It is vitally important.”

  “Then why didn’t you report it as missing? We could have pursued Balvance in earnest, if we had known he had something like this in his possession. It must be valuable.”

  Rella leaned across the table. Her face was grim, her cheeks still flush.

  “There are two things you must know about the Katarin stone,” she murmured. “The first is that this stone is important beyond value. Second, and I must stress this, no one must learn that the stone exists. Balvance and his associates know, and now so do you. No one else must know.”

  Kinsey couldn’t hide her surprise. She flinched at the conundrum.

  “Hang on. You want me to get this back from Balvance, but you don’t want anyone else knowing about it.”

  She leaned to the side of her chair to avoid Rella’s approaching face. The elf was nodding slowly. Kinsey could only imagine the bloodshot eyes staring beneath the shades.

  “Then I can’t help you,” she said. “I’m sorry, ladies, but this is all about resources. I can only do so much with what I’ve got. Sure, an OIB agent can chase bad guys through crowded streets in the movies. But this is the real world. I have a boss who doesn’t like me engaging perps without probable cause. I need a good reason. And this Katarin stone sounds like a great reason. But if I can’t take it to my boss, and tell him that Balvance stole it, then I have nothing to go on.”

  “We can’t trust your boss,” said Rikka. “We barely trust you with this knowledge.”

  “That doesn’t help me. I’m trying to work with you here. Right now, my hunch is that Balvance is onto something bigger. This Katarin stone is only the start. I just know it. But I can’t take a hunch to my boss. I tried that, believe me. That’s why I’m on vacation right now.”

  “What if you had a reason?”

  This came from Rella. She had returned to her seat. Now she was drumming her fingers on the table. Her grin was in full.

  “If I had a reason to go after Balvance, something I could take to my boss, then I would hunt him to the end of world. And I would personally hand this stone back to you. But I can only do that if I have a good reason, backed by evidence of wrongdoing.”

  Rella turned to Rikka. They shared a knowing glance.

  “We are quite good at finding reasons, Ms. Kinsey,” said Rikka.

  “Let us work on our end. As long as you keep up your end of the bargain, Balvance will be yours.”

  They both reached across and placed their hands at the center of the table. Rella looked to Kinsey.

  “Do we have a deal?”

  Kinsey shifted in her chair. The proposition was good. One prayer stone for one career criminal. It was almost too good. What else did they know? They had the resources to stalk him around Cresdale. And they seemed to know much more than they let on. Had Romney Balvance disrespected the Tambridesian mafia by stealing their Katarin stone? Who were these two elves sitting at her table? They certainly weren’t bank tellers. But if they could get Balvance, then she could find their prayer stone.

  She returned Rella’s gaze and nodded.

  “You get Balvance and I’ll get your stone. You have my word.”

  She reached across the table and took Rella’s hand. Her handshake was firm. With the deal struck, the two elves quietly gathered up their things and excused themselves from the table. Before leaving, Rella turned to Kinsey and smiled one more time.

  “We will be in touch, Ms. Kinsey. Remember, we work toward the same ends.”

  After dinner, Kinsey returned to her room for the evening. She tried the Jacuzzi in the bathroom and stayed in for ten minutes before turning it off.

  By 7:00, Kinsey was in bed, her face buried in memory foam and Tambridesian silk. She was asleep by 8:30.

  ◆◆◆

  She had been running through the thick forest, her crude iron spear in one hand, her free hand pushing away stray branches. It only took a moment for her to remember why. The deer was almost in striking range, but it took everything in her to keep the pace. Each kill, however small, was a boon for Clan Kinsey. They were a small clan, always in need. They needed this deer. She just needed to get within range.

  Ingrid dashed between two oaks and charged on. She could see the beast galloping into a clearing. There was the opportunity. She continued on, dodging over thick roots and around another large oak. She sprinted out into the clearing. The deer was gaining ground, each mighty gallop adding feet between them. She had to take the shot now or she would never hit it. Ingrid came to a stop, raised the spear, and aimed. Her heart thudded in her chest and her legs trembled with fatigue as she lined everything up. Each hammer beat brought the deer, the next meal farther away. Ingrid sucked in her breath, reeled back, and launched the spear. It sailed up, passed gloriously through the air, a thin, dark line among the trees. The spear arced downward. It struck the beast square between its shoulders. But the deer kept running.

  Ingrid charged after it, cursing the old gods and goddesses under her breath. It was too scared now. It would keep running with the last of its life trying to get away. She couldn’t lose this one. Not with her spear in its back. She was sprinting again, unevenly, spouting curses at the fatigue that crushed her heart with each thunderous beat. Her legs wobbled with each step. The beast was gaining distance with every gallop.

/>   The streak of blue cut across the forest, a single blue line of incredible light. It passed through the deer and continued on, unimpeded. The deer’s legs gave out and it tumbled onto the sodden earth.

  The world cried out in pain. Ingrid fell.

  She tried in vain to stand again, but the quaking earth kept her pinned to the ground. She crawled on hands and knees to the closest tree and wrapped her arms around the trunk. She closed her eyes. The terrible vibrations rattled everything around her and inside of her. And above it all, the sounds of mountains grinding into dust, of greater unknowns screeching beneath the tremendous pressure of the stillness.

  Ingrid never listened to the old tales of magic, of the glory days of humanity and elfkind, and of the mythical races that once prowled the earth. They were only stories. Magic never could die, because there was never such a thing.

  What was this sensation?

  The world stopped and all the screaming was silenced. Ingrid rose to her feet, still leaning on the tree for support, her ragged breath the only sound in the clearing. The deer was still. From Ingrid’s position, she could only see her spear jutting up from its back. The bright-blue line had vanished. She approached the body slowly, placing each foot softly on the ground. As she came upon the beast, she could see the wound that had felled it. It was a clean stab at the base of the head, the fur burned around the edges of the bloodless wound. She reached down and lifted the head, feeling the small cut on the other side. The blue streak had pierced it completely.

  Her musing was interrupted by a shape in the woods. Ingrid had only noticed as it moved in her periphery. She charged after it. She could make out the shape as she gained ground. It was a small man, thin as a twig, wearing a small leather vest and trousers. His feet were bare, save for the little tufts of hair on the bridges.

  Before she could reach him, the little man wheeled around on his feet and brandished a sliver of moonlight from his belt. It was a short, glowing blade with a simple hilt. Its light was too bright to look at directly. Ingrid raised a hand to cover her face, and another to show she was unarmed, but the little man had no intention of lowering his blade. Would he speak Camerran? There was no time to ponder the question.

  “Who are you?”

  The little man backed away, the brilliant sword still pointed at her. He spoke briefly and used deep-throated speech in a dialect Ingrid had never heard before. But it became easier to understand as the sound of it reached her ear.

  “Take the deer,” the little man snapped. “Do not follow me.”

  With that, he sheathed his blade and continued running. Ingrid wanted to give chase, but she couldn’t lose the clan’s next meal.

  She turned to where the deer had fallen and saw her alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 4:51 in the morning.

  ◆◆◆

  Kinsey was up and at ’em by 5:00. She started her day at the hotel gym with a cardio circuit, which transitioned neatly into legs and core. By 7:30, she was eating breakfast and reading the morning news on her phone. The older couple sitting behind her made note of her demeanor. She was too sweaty for such a nice place. Kids these days. She could have at least put on some deodorant, one would later remark. Kinsey was back upstairs by 8:00 a.m. She was showered, dressed, and utterly bored by 8:25. At 8:30, there was a knock at the door.

  It was Agent Dirk Salinger, his arms overburdened with case files. He sidled in past her and dropped his burden onto the glass-top coffee table, displacing her laptop onto the floor.

  “There have been some new developments in the Balvance case,” he said, sifting through the new pile of folders. “You know that commuter flight that went down just south of the city?”

  “It’s not his plane,” said Kinsey.

  Salinger found what he was looking for. He plucked a photo from one of the folders and presented it.

  “It is,” said Salinger. “He must have known we were tailing him, so he took a private flight into Andar.”

  The three people in the photo were unmistakable. They stood beside the wreckage of the plane, two of them with their hands up and the third with her hands to her eyes like binoculars.

  “What are they doing?”

  “They are surrendering to the Partisans of the People. That plane belonged to Lucco Darro, premier smuggler for Andar’s prestigious inner circles. The Partisans thought they were snatching up another haul of weapons and contraband. But this isn’t even the best part. He had company on the plane.”

  He dove into the folders, in search of another photo. Kinsey wondered why he would need to dig through them if they were properly organized. She knew they probably weren’t. He snatched up another and held it out. She scowled at the grin on his face, then examined the picture in his hands.

  This one was taken much closer. Balvance was captured from behind, his well-groomed hair and ridiculously stylish sideburns clear in the shot. His hand was extended toward a woman in a black leather vest, a stomach-turning grin on her face.

  “Who is she?”

  “Guess.”

  There was something in the woman’s gaze that spoke volumes without saying anything. Volumes on carnage. Her eyes were hard to look at, even in a picture. Kinsey couldn’t make out any of the tattoos that snaked up the woman’s arm, nor could she read much detail into her biker vest. Salinger couldn’t contain himself.

  “Here’s a hint. She goes by Wyvern.”

  “Never heard of her,” said Kinsey.

  Salinger explained.

  Wyvern was many things. An assassin, a mercenary, a tall tale. Wyvern had a trail of bodies leading into and out of every country in the world, with matching war crimes to boot. That is, if you believe the stories. She had an international list of crimes longer than any known combatant in any war ever. Intelligence officers estimated her kill count to be somewhere in the tens of thousands. If only they knew the real number.

  They say she dismantled upstart regimes in her spare time. It wasn’t hard to believe these stories. There was enough evidence—pictures, debris, survivors—to substantiate the claims. Wyvern was the most wanted criminal in the world. And she was shaking hands with Romney Balvance in the picture. Salinger was still grinning.

  “Balvance has ties to the most dangerous person alive,” said Kinsey, “and you’re about to tell me we don’t have clearance to go after him.”

  “No,” said Salinger, “Mr. Balvance is now officially public enemy 21. Your vacation is over.”

  Romney Balvance and the Water Mirror

  The armored personnel carrier, or APC, was first devised on the chilly plains of northwestern Azerra in 1961 ME. Its first journey carried seven passengers, uncomfortably, down one frosted hill and up another. The first APC looked more like a long truck with six wheels. Its engine was an unmodified diesel, only tested for a truck half its size. The vehicle was heavy and slow even without its passengers. Despite this, the APC rolled down the first hill and, after ten excruciating minutes, crested the second. All seven occupants arrived safely at their destination and only two of them were sick. The engine died of exhaustion.

  The first design was impractical, one engineer would later remark. They would need to build a new kind of engine that could carry greater weight and move the vehicle at a greater speed. It was a lot of work, making a new engine—designing it, building it, testing it over and over and over again. Trucks could carry people just fine. Okay, said another engineer, great idea, except that they had been paid a tremendous sum of money by the Azerran Ministry of Defense to devise a way to transport troops safely across the battlefield. Trucks, fine, but the defense minister would probably expect something large yet agile and heavily armored. A third engineer agreed with the second, and a fourth decided that both solutions had their own merits and that perhaps they needed to explore each solution individually to come up with “a sum total comprehensive solution.” The fifth engineer was already at work on the new engine. She had seen this play out before, many times over.

  Over the years,
the APC gained many features: a stronger engine, capacity for more personnel, heavier armor plating, and cup holders. But there was one thing the APC had never perfected, even to this day. Comfort.

  ◆◆◆

  Romney smacked his head against the inner wall of the APC, making a dull metallic sound. He had tried using a life preserver, a duffel bag, his balled-up coat, and, very briefly, Cora’s shoulder. But their APC would invariably run across more uneven terrain and send his head clanging into the reinforced metal wall. And in the last instance, Cora punched him in the ribs. He never regained his composure from this. They had been driving all night, slowly making their way up a winding path made for two people walking side by side, in a machine the size of four people walking side by side. And now Romney could see the light-blue of morning light filtering into the sky. The sun had begun its own ascent over the horizon, though it was blocked by the mountain on this particular path. No one was in the mood for morning. Everyone looked miserable.

  Everyone except Lorna. She insisted on taking the mounted turret, in case of an ambush. She would swivel in one direction and remain there for a time, then swivel to another, always stopping to watch her surroundings. And each time, it made a loud whirring noise as the apparatus spun the pod around. Lorna looked downright content, even in her hawklike concentration. The loud swiveling of the turret, coupled with the monotonous roar of the engine and the banging of the head against the wall, and the aching of the ribs, made for a long and terrible night for everyone else. No one was in the mood for a late dinner of prepackaged dry meals or the stale energy bars for an early breakfast. No one wanted to talk. They just wanted to sit in the goddess-forsaken metal monster and wait for their trip to be over.

  Tykeso came in a close second for most miserable, since he had to maneuver the large vehicle up a path meant for hiking. Driving an APC was entirely different from driving a standard four-wheel vehicle, but Tykeso was a quick learner. His head never drooped, but each passing hour seemed to deepen his scowl until he was gargoylesque. At one point, Lorna said something about the beautiful scenery, in an effort to start a conversation. And Tykeso did the unthinkable, a characteristically un-Tykeso thing. He grumbled curses under his breath and didn’t give an answer. At that point, Romney had decided he might have been in a worse mood than Cora.