Trapped lop-6

by James Alan Gardner

  She whispered, "Boom."

  The window exploded at Dreamsinger's touch, blasting shards of glass into the room. It was a big window; it had lots of glass.

  The shards slashed like shrapnel into two brawny men who stood just inside. The men didn't have a chance: they went down under the barrage, blown off their feet, sliced by glass splinters. One man collided with a heavy chair, drove it forward half a meter, then toppled off sideways… striking the floor at an angle that shoved crystal daggers deeper into his flesh. Blood gushed from a severed artery — a fountain that lasted several seconds, then subsided to a pressureless drip.

  The other man landed facedown on the carpet, slivers of glass protruding from his back like needles on a porcupine. He lifted his arm feebly, reaching blindly for nothing. Beneath his tattered clothes, bony spurs pushed weakly from the raised arm, then retracted again in defeat.

  The spurs showed that Hump wasn't the only smuggler with pointy augmentation. Not that the spikes seemed to do much good. The man in front of us slumped unconscious and continued to bleed from a dozen lacerations.

  Suddenly, I was grabbed from behind and thrown onto the muddy soil. "Idiot," Impervia whispered, pressing her body against my spine. I opened my mouth to protest but was drowned out by an eruption of gunfire from inside the house. Oops. I'd been so busy watching men die near the window, I'd never looked farther into the room. There must have been more guards inside, beyond the blast radius of the glass. Now they were shooting in our direction: shooting at Dreamsinger alone, since the Caryatid had hit the dirt beside Impervia and me.

  The Sorcery-Lord made no effort to remove herself from the fire zone. As the shots continued, she stepped over the low windowsill and into the room itself. Bullets zinged through the air; a few passed through Dreamsinger's crimson cloak, tearing several holes in it before the cloak was ripped to rags… but the majority of shots were directly on target, plowing straight into Dreamsinger's body.

  The bullets had no effect; they never quite made contact.

  A violet glow had sprung up around the Spark Lord's outline, like a fringe of indigo fire. Each time a shot hit the glow, the bullet was met with violet flame — a blazing hot flame that dissolved the chunk of lead into spittles of molten metal. Stinking smoke filled the air as drops of liquefied lead fell to the floor… but none of it touched Dreamsinger. She just stood with a placid smile, waiting for the barrage to end.

  Lying on top of me, Impervia whispered, "That glow around her… is it sorcery?"

  "No," the Caryatid replied. "I've heard it called a force field. Projected by her armor."

  "She's wearing armor?" I asked.

  "What do you think she's wearing, idiot?" That was Impervia again.

  "She's wearing Kaylan's Chameleon. Total coverage. I can't see a square millimeter of who she really is."

  "Vanity, vanity," Impervia murmured. She shifted her body slightly against my back. "So, uhh, Phil… what do you see?"

  I didn't answer.

  The shooting dwindled to an anticlimax of prissy little clicks: firing pins hitting on empty chambers. A woman inside the house growled, "For God's sake, assholes, give it up. Xavier, will you please call off your dogs?"

  A grunting sigh. "You heard her." An old man's gristly voice. "Stand down… but reload."

  Both the man and the woman spoke with accents: something Central European. Teaching at the academy, I'd heard lots of accents from my students — but those accents were all upper class. The people in Nanticook House sounded rougher… more ragged and throaty.

  "Warwick Xavier?" Dreamsinger asked.

  "You know who I am," the man answered. A statement, not a question.

  "She's a Spark," said the unknown woman inside. "She knows everyone." A pause. "Judging by the crimson armor, you're the female Sorcery-Lord. Serpent's Kiss."

  "Serpent's Kiss was my predecessor. I'm Dreamsinger."

  "Ach, such a fancy name," said Xavier. "Fine women, always so pretentious."

  Impervia slid off me. On hands and knees she peered over the windowsill, into the room beyond. The Caryatid and I joined her — like the comic relief in a Shakespeare play, the three of us poking our noses up in the background while more important characters played the main action downstage.

  Xavier stood beside the unknown woman at the far end of the room. He was white-haired, big-eared, stoop-shouldered, an imposing jowly man who might be as old as seventy, dressed in formal black-and-white; she was black-haired, fierce-eyed, sharp-boned, an imposing skeleton-thin woman in her early thirties, wearing gray silk pants and shirt, cut so loosely they seemed tailored for someone four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. If Warwick Xavier was the Smuggler King, this woman might be his Queen or Crown Princess… either a wife half his age or his daughter. Maybe even granddaughter. Or perhaps she was his heir-apparent, ruthless in her own right and ready to take over as soon as the king showed weakness.

  Before Dreamsinger's entrance, Xavier and the woman had been examining papers spread on a table — records, I assumed, of ill-gotten gains. Two gunsels stood nearby: big men who'd now holstered their pistols and stood with razor spikes bristling along their arms, ready to slash anyone who got too close. The sort of men who didn't know when they were out of their depth.

  Dreamsinger ignored the enforcers. She gazed only at Xavier and the woman… smiling in what I thought might be recognition.

  "You're a long way from home," Dreamsinger said.

  It was the woman who replied. "I have many homes."

  "And home is where the heart is," Dreamsinger observed. "Or within a few kilometers. Which came first, dear sister? This operation or Feliss Academy?"

  "This operation, of course. I chose Feliss Academy only because I had an outpost nearby."

  "Did your daughter know?"

  The woman beside Xavier shook her head. "Rosalind is happier thinking she's not completely under my wing. But I don't send her to a school unless it's close to my holdings… and wherever she goes, I follow."

  Dreamsinger smiled. "Dear sister, she's gone somewhere you can't follow. Your daughter died several hours ago."

  The thin woman — Elizabeth Tzekich, Knife-Hand Liz — caught her breath. That was all. Then she clamped her jaw tight.

  I saw no tears.

  Where Elizabeth Tzekich was gaunt, Rosalind had been plump — possibly in rebellion, the daughter fattening herself to look as little like her mother as possible. Yet the mother's tight face, the way she suppressed all grief, reminded me of Rosalind concealing her own emotions: the careful hiding-behind-walls of a girl who'd given up making friends.

  Like mother, like daughter. And the fierce woman in front of us must have been Rosalind's age when she gave birth to her child. How had that happened? A passionate elopement the way Rosalind had planned to run off with Sebastian? It wouldn't surprise me. Then pregnancy, and who knows? I couldn't imagine how a woman that young could create the Ring of Knives, but Elizabeth Tzekich had managed it. Not only spreading through Europe, but all around the world.

  Rosalind had moved from school to school and Knife-Hand Liz had moved from one Ring outpost to another. I wondered who led whom. Was the mother following the daughter just to be close to her? Or was Elizabeth Tzekich touring her assets, inspecting her lieutenants, streamlining operations, spending a few months in every branch office… and whenever she moved on, forcing her daughter to move too, shunting the girl into any school that was handy at the next port of call?

  Maybe a little of both.

  But she had kept her daughter near her. When Rosalind came to Feliss Academy, Mother Tzekich must have moved in with Warwick Xavier — Xavier, who was district manager for the Ring, in charge of smuggling and miscellaneous skullduggery. Had Knife-Hand Liz crept near the academy from time to time in hope of catching sight of her daughter? Or had she stayed away, never trying to see the girl but staying close in case something happened?

  In case the girl got in trouble. A mother wants to be ther
e.

  But she hadn't been.

  Tzekich asked, "How did Rosalind die?"

  Dreamsinger shrugged. "Perhaps an OldTech bioweapon. My brother is investigating."

  "But it was murder?"

  "That seems likely."

  "Who was responsible?"

  Dreamsinger cocked her head to one side. "That's my question for you. Do any of your enemies have bioweapons hidden in their vaults?"

  "Not that I know of — otherwise, I'd report the bastards for possessing banned substances. I'm a loyal subject of the Spark Protectorate."

  Dreamsinger smiled. "Of course. Dear sister."

  "So why are you here? Just to tell me my daughter's dead?"

  "Oh no. That was an unexpected pleasure." Dreamsinger smiled again. Such a sweet smile. "I came to ask Mr. Xavier about a boy who's gone missing."

  "I don't know any boy," Xavier said. His voice was tired; I suspected it wasn't Xavier's idea to be awake at this hour. Knife-Hand Liz had to be the one simmering with nervous energy, perusing papers long into the night.

  "Who is this boy?" Tzekich asked. Her voice was sharp; she obviously had guessed this was connected to Rosalind's death.

  "The boy intended to elope tonight. These people…" Dreamsinger waved toward the three of us at the window. "They believe he chartered a fishing boat to go somewhere. I believe the boat's crew would let you know what they were doing."

  "Why would they?" Xavier asked. "It's no business of mine if some brat runs away."

  Dreamsinger waggled a finger in his direction. "But it is your business if a boat goes smuggling without permission. I'm sure you deal harshly with those who try to turn independent. To avoid such suspicions, any captain leaving port after dark likely sends you a note. Gentle master, I'm just taking a passenger somewhere, so please don't break my knees when I get back."

  Xavier looked surly, as if he wanted to deny Dreamsinger's words. Tzekich slapped him hard on the arm. "For God's sake, tell her anything you know!"

  The old man's expression didn't change… but he turned his scowl on Tzekich. "In the old days, we didn't let outsiders deal with our problems. Your daughter is murdered? That's our business, not the Sparks."

  Tzekich slapped him again. "Spark business is what they say it is."

  Dreamsinger chuckled. "Despotism is nice that way."

  "Besides," Tzekich continued to Xavier, "we can't deal with anything if a Spark kills us for being uncooperative. Stop stonewalling!"

  Xavier paused another long moment, making sure no one missed his disgust. A man of the old school, I thought: responding to every obstacle with brute force, and if something didn't fall down, he'd just hit it harder. It explained why a man Xavier's age was still just a minor lieutenant, living in a backwater like Dover-on-Sea; he could be trusted to keep people in line and maintain a basic revenue stream, but he'd botch any job that called for finesse.

  After one last glower, the old man turned and shuffled across the room to a grand piano shoved against the wall. The piano was placed wrong-side-out: if you opened the lid above the strings, the sound would be deflected into the wall rather than to the room at large. Perhaps Xavier had seen pianos in other people's houses and decided to buy the most expensive one he could find. Clearly he didn't care about music — the cover was closed over the keys, and stacked with piles of paper, mostly unopened envelopes. Xavier's filing system: toss incoming mail onto the piano, and deal with it whenever.

  The message Dreamsinger wanted had just arrived that night, so it must be on top of a pile. Xavier realized that we all would know that — otherwise, I could imagine him shuffling through papers with sullen slowness, while Tzekich grew more and more livid. But he found the note soon enough; then the only delay was the time he took unfolding the page and moving the paper back and forth until he established a distance where he could read the words.

  "It's from Ian Nicoll of the Hoosegow," Xavier said. "Nice little boat, the Hoosegow. Ian gave it the name because he says it feels like a prison, but if you ask me—"

  Tzekich snapped, "Just read the damned note!"

  Xavier tried to hide a smile, clearly pleased he'd got under her skin. "All right, let me see. Let me see. Let me see." He squinted and shifted the paper a little closer to his eyes. Then a little farther away. Then back to its original position. "Got some passengers tonight," he finally read. "Two kids from that school in Simka. Eloping, the idiots. Going to Niagara Falls, to get married then fuck their brains out. Pathetic. But I get paid, so who cares? I'll be back in time for…" Xavier stopped reading and folded the page. "The rest is just private."

  Dreamsinger held out her hand for the note. Xavier only stared at her until Tzekich heaved an exasperated sigh. "Either you give it to her or she takes it from your cold dead fingers."

  "If you want me to kill him, dear sister," Dreamsinger said, "just say the word."

  Tzekich gave a humorless laugh. "No thanks, milady. That might sound as if I was giving an order to a Spark Lord… or asking for a favor, which is possibly more dangerous."

  "Spoilsport," Dreamsinger pouted. She looked back at Xavier, her hand still held out for the message. With a grumpy look, he plodded across the room and gave her the page. Dreamsinger unfolded it and studied the message briefly. "What time did you receive this?"

  Xavier said, "A few hours ago. From my man Ripsaw."

  "When did Ripsaw receive it?"

  "He walks around the port every night after supper. Between six and midnight."

  "I want the exact time."

  Xavier smiled as if he'd been hoping she'd say that. "Ask Ripsaw yourself." He pointed at one of the men who'd been standing too close to the windows when Dreamsinger blew them in — a man with more blood on his clothes than in his veins. Dreamsinger peered at the corpse with calculation in her eye; perhaps debating whether it was too late to try a Twinning, whether the brain was still intact or just soggy sweetmeats. After a moment, she sighed with regret.

  "So," she said, "we don't know whether this note got written before or after passengers arrived at the Hoosegow. If it was before, the captain simply expected 'two kids from that school' — which doesn't tell how many really showed up. If it was after, and the captain was looking right at the two teenagers as he wrote his message… that would make things more interesting." She looked at Xavier. "Do you know if Hoosegow actually left port?"

  The old man made a sour face. I suspected he did know, but disliked providing information that might actually be useful. Before he could vacillate on an answer, one of the two surviving enforcers spoke up. "I was on harbor watch tonight. Hoosegow left its slip at 11:05."

  Xavier gave the man a dirty look; the enforcer ignored it, keeping his gaze on Tzekich. Obviously, the bully-boy had decided that pleasing the top boss helped one's career far more than humoring a surly deputy.

  "So," Dreamsinger murmured, "the boat is on its way. No reason for that if it didn't have passengers; so Sebastian must have showed up and said, 'Let's go.' He wouldn't do that unless Rosalind was with him."

  "Rosalind?" Knife-Hand Liz repeated. "I thought you said…" Her voice trailed off.

  "Dear sister," Dreamsinger said, "one version of your daughter is dead. Another may be sailing to Niagara Falls; and now I'll have to follow." She shuddered. "Pity me, friends. Such a dreary place. So conventional and crowded. Why do people come from around the world to see water falling over a cliff? And all the hideous 'attractions'; they should be called dis tractions, built to prevent newlyweds from realizing the banality of what they've just done. I hate it all. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it…" She stopped herself with an effort. "But, I suppose while I'm there, I can check—"

  Her voice choked silent. Her face froze — as if some inner reflex held her expression immobile so we couldn't guess what was going through her mind. An instant later, she whirled to face the three of us at the window. "This Sebastian was a powerful psychic?"

  We all nodded.

  "
What was his power?"

  Impervia and the Caryatid looked at me to answer. I chose my words carefully. "Our psionics teacher says Sebastian can talk to the world: as if land, sea, and air are full of happy puppies, eager to fulfill the boy's tiniest wish. So his powers cover the whole spectrum."

  "The boy talks directly to nanites? And he's headed for Niagara Falls?" Dreamsinger's voice had gone shrill. "With a creature that can make itself look like Rosalind?"

  Mother Tzekich stirred at her daughter's name, but didn't have a chance to speak. Dreamsinger surged toward the window where Impervia, the Caryatid, and I still crouched. The Spark Lord grabbed me by the jacket and heaved me up as if I weighed no more than a rag doll. "Fool!" she whispered, so softly no one else could hear. "Those curds weren't a bioweapon. They were cast-off cellules from a Lucifer."

  "But I thought…" Opal had said the flake-away bits of Lucifer were like grains of black gunpowder. Dark and dry. I suddenly remembered that both Dreamsinger and her brother had asked if I was sure the curds I'd seen were white and wet, not dark and dry. They both must have suspected there was a Lucifer in our neighborhood, but my talk of a bioweapon had made it seem like something else. "It looked like cottage cheese," I said. "Honestly…"

  "The Lucifer mutated," Dreamsinger told me in another furious whisper. "It's been trying to do that for decades. It knows Spark Royal can track its life-signs… so the blasted thing finally managed to change its metabolism. And now it's going to Niagara Falls with a psychic?"

  She tossed me aside in disgust. Pure luck let me grab a corner of the window frame and catch my balance; otherwise, I would have fallen onto the broken glass that littered the floor. Dreamsinger didn't care — she was already stepping over the sill, out onto the dark lawn. At the same time, she tapped her pearl necklace: the one that was actually a radio transmitter. "Spark Royal, attend," she snapped. "I need immediate pick-up, this location."