by DD Barant
Back to Tair. He looks up at me and whines, clearly in agony—and then he transforms, back into human.
That’s what thropes do before they die.
NINE
But he’s not dead, not yet.
Shifting shape while severely injured is not a good idea. Broken bones trying to re-form themselves can heal at the wrong angles, meaning they have to be broken all over again to heal correctly. Plus, it must hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.
But he manages. He looks up at me, breathing heavily, and says, “You called me Tair.”
“What?”
“Thought for sure you’d call me Dr. Pete—” He winces as he tries to push himself into a sitting position.
“Don’t move, for God’s sake. Your spine probably looks like a candy cane that’s been stepped on.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He gives me a grin. “Thanks for coming back, though. Nice to have someone looking out for me.”
“I’m not. I’m … why the hell did you jump, anyway?”
“Jumping was the easy part. The landing was tricky.”
“Consider yourself lucky.” I glance back through the gate, where the battle is still raging. “From what I saw, the wolves are taking heavy casualties. If you’d managed to join them, you’d probably have been slaughtered.”
“I know. That’s why I jumped instead of trying to climb down.”
“You mean you did this to yourself on purpose?”
“Yeah. See, I know how this myth ends, Valchek: The Wolf Nation fights to the last survivor. The thing is, every time one of them dies the others get stronger; the last wolf standing gets all the mojo. And that’s going to be me.”
He hunches forward, straightening his spine with an audible crack. “Ah, that’s better.” He examines his left forearm critically where it’s bent at an unnatural angle.
“But—you’re just an observer, like us. You can’t—”
“Can’t I? Magic is about will, Valchek, and I’ve got plenty of that. A little knowledge doesn’t hurt, either.” He grabs his left arm with his right hand—and rebreaks the bone where it’s started to set. Both bones, actually—radius and ulna. Well, he does have medical training.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “You’d have to be part of the spell for that to happen. And if that were true, you’d be charging into the battle as soon as you could stand.”
He chuckles, holding his arm in place while he waits for the bones to reset properly. “It’s taking a lot of effort not to. But all I have to do is hold off long enough for the fight to finish.”
“Except that every time a soldier bites the dust, the spell gets a little stronger. You’re healing at an incredible rate—but the urge to rush in must be getting more and more powerful, too.”
“That’s why I changed into human form. Makes it easier to resist…”
And then I’m gone again, back to the northern pass, just in time to see another mirror get smashed into shiny pieces. A little too shiny; the sky to the east is rosy with a predawn light, and the bamboo castle has giant-spidered its way all the way to the end of the pass.
When the first rays of the sun hit it, it cracks and splinters under its own weight. The magic that lent it both strength and mobility evaporates in the morning sun, and the Palace Verdant crashes to the ground. I’m guessing that’s the end of the reign of Bloodsong the Second.
Back to the southern pass, where the battle has reached its own inevitable conclusion. Dead bodies litter the ground, Pharjee soldiers who have been ripped apart by fangs or claws, wolf-weres that have been decapitated or impaled by silvered blades. A single huge wolf stands outlined against the dawn, its eyes glowing with a fierce golden light, the only apparent survivor. I look around for Azura and spot her on top of a boulder at the edge of the battlefield, watching the wolf intently.
And then I see Tair. He’s in human form, striding across the battlefield toward the wolf. He has a battle-ax with a silver head in one hand.
The wolf leaps for him. Tair splits his skull with the ax, right between the eyes.
I guess I expect some sort of fireworks, but nothing else happens. Azura leaps down from the boulder, lands lightly, and walks up to me. “Your friend doesn’t believe in staying on the sidelines, does he?”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Hey, I’m standing right here,” Tair says. He tosses the ax away casually, his body language relaxed. There’s a spray of blood across his face.
“So now what?” I ask. “You’re some kind of über-wolf now? Going to sprout a cape and fly away?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” says Azura. “He injected himself into the myth, but he didn’t really change anything. This is always how it ends.”
“Yeah, except usually the guy who does the chopping isn’t a thrope,” says Tair. “The king’s son is going to show up any minute, all sad and resolute because now that the wolves have helped save the kingdom, the last one is too dangerous to let live. He kills it for the good of everyone—well, everyone except the wolves, obviously. I think he’s going to be a little confused this time.”
“So that’s how this ends? Everyone dies?”
“All the wolves do,” says Azura. “That’s the point of this myth: sacrifice. And in Nightshadow, it’s more than a story—it’s an explanation. No wolves have existed there for thousands of years; only the oldest Lyrastoi even remember seeing one in the flesh.”
Tair looks around the battlefield. “Well, plenty of thrope flesh where I come from. Guess we’re a hardier breed.” He kicks the head of a soldier out of his way. “Or maybe we’re just not stupid enough to die for somebody’s else’s survival.”
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
“Came to see you,” he says with a smile. “That, and skim off a little of the power floating around. I may not have absorbed the collective spiritual energy of an entire race—after all, this is just a myth, not the real thing—but I did grab some of it. Feels good, too.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ve always been curious about the parasite’s point of view. Now I know.”
“This myth is almost at its end,” says Azura. “At which point it will begin again. Jace and I are prepared for that—are you?”
“No,” he admits. “But I think it’d be smarter to take me with you than leave me here. After all, a few more run-throughs and I’ll probably have enough power to break out on my own—and then I’ll be even harder to deal with, won’t I?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe you’ll just get stuck in a loop and I won’t have to worry about you at all.”
He shakes his head in amusement. “Come on, Valchek—you know I’m not that easy to get rid of. Anyway, I’m not asking for a free ride; I’ve got something to offer.”
“Besides an attractive target for bullets?”
“You know who I’m working for. The deal you messed up ended with his property in someone else’s hands, and he’d like it back. Considering the fact that it’s being used to turn Vegas into a city-state for lems, I thought you and I might be able to work together to restore the status quo.”
“This is all being caused by something Silver Blue sold Asher?” I ask.
“Not sold—it was stolen. The transaction was interrupted before payment could be made, and Asher took off with the artifact in question.”
“And you’re supposed to retrieve it. Just which artifact are we talking about?”
“You don’t know? Guess your intelligence isn’t as good as I’d thought … it’s a little accessory I liberated from its previous owner when he came down with a sudden case of silveritis. You know, when that cowboy lem stuck a knife between his eyes.”
“The Balancer gem, bonded to the Midnight Sword last I saw. That’s a big-ticket item to trade for an errand-boy job; guess you aren’t as ambitious as I thought—”
Azura interrupts. “The Balancer gem? Asher has the Balancer gem?” Her voice holds both disbelief and horror.
“For now,
” Tair says. “But I’m sure the three of us could get it back—”
“We accept,” says Azura.
“What?” I say. “Hang on a minute—”
A man carrying a spear walks through the gate and pauses. He clearly belongs to the same race the king does, what Azura called a Lyrastoi. He looks around with a resolute expression on his face.
“Time to go,” Azura says, and grabs Tair by one arm and me by the other. I never do get to see what happens when the prince can’t find the wolf he’s supposed to kill; we exit the myth before it ends. Maybe he just decides to stab a corpse and call it a day.
All three of us reappear in the alley behind the Singing Fortune casino. I yank my arm out of Azura’s grip. “Okay. A few ground rules if we’re going to be partners: One, you refrain from killing anyone. Two, I’m in charge; I tell you what the plan is, and you follow it. Three, if you fail to follow rules one or two, I get to shoot you. All right?”
Tair gives me another of those easy grins he’s so generous with. “Fine by me. What’s the plan, boss?”
“We check in with my boss,” I say. “And if he’s not happy with this arrangement, you go straight into custody.”
* * *
We make it back to the house we left Cassius at without any trouble. Cassius regards Tair with a cold, stony look when we bring him inside, but doesn’t say anything to him until I’ve given him a quick rundown of what’s happened.
“An alliance,” he says to Tair when I’m done. “You’ll help us get to Asher and take the gem, which then goes to an international arms dealer?”
“Better him than who has it now,” says Tair. He’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, staring back at Cassius coolly. “But hey, Silver Blue won’t be around forever—he’s only human, right?”
And somebody’s got to step into his shoes when he eventually dies. Guess Tair has more ambition than I gave him credit for—he’s jockeying for a permanent kind of alliance, one where he can stab his current employer in the back and replace him when the time is right. If he’s got Cassius in his corner, I have no doubt he’ll succeed, too.
“The Balancer is too dangerous to wind up in the wrong hands,” Cassius says. “When the time comes, you’ll arrange to get it to me—or I’ll tell Blue you’re a mole in my employ and always have been. Clear?”
The grin fades from Tair’s face. “Yeah,” he says. “If that’s how you want to play it.”
“I don’t play,” says Cassius. “I don’t make threats, either, they’re usually a waste of time. Double-cross me and I’ll eliminate you. Azura.”
“Yes?” she says, practically snapping to attention.
“Are you familiar with the Balancer gem?”
“I … am, yes.” She doesn’t elaborate.
“You understand what it can do?”
“I do.”
“Give me your assessment on this spell in light of the fact that Asher’s using it.”
She clears her throat before starting. “From what I understand, the Balancer works by moving energy around—shifting magical forces by increasing one thing while decreasing another or vice versa. You can use it to amplify or nullify the power of a spell, as long as you have someplace to draw energy from and someplace else to put energy into.
“The first site we visited embodied a creation myth. The site we just came from was about the sacrifice of an entire race. Creation and sacrifice are two of the keystones of the spell, but all that tells me is he’s trying to create as opposed to destroy, and he’s willing to kill a great many people to do so.”
“He seems to be in the process of creating his own city.”
“I don’t think that’s his ultimate goal. But I need the third keystone—and possibly the fourth—to fully unravel his intent. A two-legged stool will not stand on its own.”
“And neither will we. We’ll split into two teams, take one site apiece.”
“Don’t fight, ladies,” says Tair. “Only one of you gets to have me at your side—”
“You’re going with me,” says Cassius. “I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”
Tair shrugs. “If you insist.”
“But first, you’re going to tell me about Silver Blue and where he’s holed up.”
“Not just yet,” Tair says. “I prefer to stay as indispensable as possible, don’t you?”
Cassius doesn’t bother to reply. He sits down on the living room couch and taps a finger on the map spread out on the coffee table. “Here are the other two sites. We’ll take this one; Jace, you and Azura take the other. We’ll regroup back here.”
There isn’t a lot more to be said. I take a minute to raid the kitchen before we leave; I stuff a few apples, some crackers, and a jar of peanut butter into a knapsack.
“Good idea,” says Azura. She opens the fridge, rummages around, and hands me a stick of pepperoni. I hesitate—I’m a vegetarian, more or less—then take it and add it to the other supplies. “Thanks. No telling when we’ll get to eat again.”
“Or where,” she says. “This Tair—you and he have history together?”
“Oh, yeah. History, psychology, and almost some biology. But it’s a long story, and not the one we should be concentrating on.”
“Fair enough. You ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s hit the road.”
And hope it doesn’t hit back …
* * *
Site number three is apparently a theater, one housed in a gigantic, circular tent of bright yellow with blue stripes. It’s on the Strip, situated appropriately enough where Circus Circus usually is.
“No convenient second-story windows,” I note from the alley where we’re lurking. “But I should be able to cut our way in through the fabric. We’ll head around back—”
“I doubt if that’ll work,” says Azura. “There’s a wind blowing, but do you see even the faintest ripple of fabric? The cloth has been stiffened with underdead magics—an ordinary blade won’t cut it, not with any ease. And once the sun’s rays strike it, this entire structure will no doubt collapse.”
“Stiff magic?” I say. “If I thought you had any idea what Viagra was, I could make about eleven different jokes right now.”
“I know what Viagra is. It’s what men take when they can’t get tickets to see me.”
“Tickets? Last I saw you were giving it away for onion rings and dollar tips.”
“Don’t forget the tequila.” She grins.
I can’t help but grin back. “Right. Guess I owe you a drink.”
“You can buy me one inside. Come on, I’ve got an idea.”
There’s a vacant lot lined with trees right next door. We use them as cover to head around back, both of us careful not to be spotted by the lems guarding the front entrance.
The tent takes up as much space as the whole Circus Circus casino did, but the area that the hotel occupied now holds a thicket full of plants I’ve never seen before, pale blue mushrooms as tall as me with multiple stalks branching out from the main stem like a tree. There’s a crow sitting on one, pecking chunks out of it and eating them. He seems to think they’re pretty good, and eyes us suspiciously when we duck into the thicket for cover. It smells like apricots.
“Are these—you know, safe?” I ask nervously. They’re spaced just close together enough that it’s hard to crouch there without touching them.
“No, they’re highly poisonous.” Azura breaks a delicate-looking cap off and pops it in her mouth. “Fortunately, I’m hard to kill … they’re fine, Jace. Delicious, in fact—they grow these out back for the casino crowd. Like peanuts, but less fatty.”
“I’ll take your word for it. How are we getting in?”
“See that laced-up flap over there? That’s a knotlock. Same deal as the fabric, very difficult to cut. But if you know the right spell, you can just tell it to untie itself.”
“And you know that spell?”
“No—but I have friends who will.” She inspects the stalk of the mushroom next
to us, finds a small hole in it, and leans in close. She whispers something I can’t quite make out, other than the fact that it has a lot of clicks in it.
A few seconds later two long, feathery feelers poke out of the hole. They’re followed by a bulbous pink head, and then a segmented pink body that flows sinuously out of the hole and wraps around the ’shroom’s stalk. It’s a centipede, made less creepy by the intricate markings on its back, electric-blue patterns that remind me of Celtic knotwork.
She’s talking to it softly, in that same clickety language. It doesn’t talk back—though that wouldn’t have surprised me—but its feelers are bobbing up and down and side-to-side furiously. Azura puts her hand out, palm up, and moves it close enough so the feelers just brush her skin. She closes her eyes, brow slightly furrowed, clearly concentrating.
When she opens them, she nods once, then taps the centipede lightly on the head with her forefinger. It slithers back into its hole.
“What was that all about?”
“Sensipede. We use them as spies, plant a specimen in a grove like this, then place a simple enchantment on it to observe and remember one very specific thing—like the unlocking spell used on a door.”
“Yeah? What happens if your creepy-crawly informant gets eaten or stepped on?”
“Oh, we don’t use just one. The enchantment is passed on, generation to generation. There’s essentially an entire species with just one job—as long as any of them survive, we can retrieve the information we need at any time.”
I try to wrap my head around that one. A bug that lives only to discover one very basic piece of information, which is then passed on genetically for who-knows-how-many generations. Azura showing up and getting that data right now is like God dropping in and asking for the Ten Commandments back. I almost feel sorry for the poor little guy.
“So,” I say, “you just happen to have a spy—sorry, a race of spies—living behind a place we need to break into?”
Azura grins. “I’m an Astonisher. I’ve got them behind every casino in town, and a few other places besides.”