Black Point Clan

by Pam Uphoff

  And outside this city . . . this town there's nothing, no one.

  Director Efge was nodding. "Thank you One Imha. I'll make sure you and the ambassador both get a report on this meeting."

  The priest led the young man off to the first vehicle. They drove around a corner of the block and through another gate. A paved and landscaped space, that happened to have two angled walls placed for defense. A quarter mile down the road they passed through a gap in a fence, crash gates open. The guards waved them through. Two turns, a broad boulevard lined with widely spaced corridor arches.

  Very tidy, outbound on this side of the road and inbound on the other.

  They turned into one labeled “Crossroads” and emerged on a road running between grassy low hills, scant snow on top of winter killed grass. The only building in sight was a steep roofed, wooden, and quite small, place. As they approached, two men in blue and gold uniforms stood and stepped off the porch.

  She recognized Xen Wolfson, of course. The other man was not quite as tall, but broader. Sandy brownish hair and grey eyes. She recognized him as well. One of the other spies. At first glance, no magic and not much intelligence, either. Major Easterly is a wizard . . . the lower frequencies are showing a faint gleam around solid, habitual shields. So solid his eyes look shallow. Probably smarter than hell. You can hide a lot behind shields and eyes like that.

  Teamers slipped in to check out the premises. Introductions made the rounds. One of the five guards who had gone in stepped back out and nodded.

  Wolfson waved them toward the door. "Come in. We're taking you at your word, that you seek a means to quiet down this low level picking away at us. We're delighted that you can finally contemplate peaceful coexistence. Who knows? Even Earth may find some basic manners, one of these decades."

  The interior was warm, wood and stone. A bent old man of African heritage was polishing glasses behind a bar made of a split trunk of wood, the smooth top gleaming in the light of oil lamps on the wall behind. The embers of a fire in the huge fireplace glinted and radiated warmth. Wolfson sat on the far side of the big round table, Easterly sat beside him. Xiat followed the Director's cue and they all sat just a bit clumped, wider gaps on either side separating them from the Fallen.

  Efge put his elbows on the table and laced his fingers. Izzo was beside him, and Ajki beyond, across the table from her. Xen Wolfson was within arms reach of her. The hair was standing up on the back of her neck and arms.

  She remembered the man from guarding the President's daughter while he was her riding coach. From an attempt to assassinate the President. Knew too damn much about the most successful spy the One had ever been the victim of. Being this close, in an adversarial meeting, was doing horrible things to her fight vs. flight instincts.

  She told herself he looked like Pajamas, but he didn't. He didn't glow, but somehow the eye still sought him, the breath caught. His eyes didn't reflect the shields within, instead they showed incredible depths, terrifying depths. She shivered.

  He's letting a lot more show than he reveals in Paris, at those dinners at Government House he regularly gets invited to.

  She pulled her eyes away and swept the room for the location of other threats.

  The Fallen Lieutenant settled against the bar, at the end away from the front door. One of the Directorate teamers stood so as to have him and the old bartender under observation. The rest focused on Wolfson and Easterly. There was a door in the side wall beyond him, a door in the back wall. A door under the stairs. Stairs that led to a balcony and two corridors running back . . . They must use dimensional bubbles in construction, the inside of the Inn is larger than the outside by at least a factor of three.

  "So, Director of Interior Relations Efge, how do you think we should settle the legal matters left between us?" Xen opened the negotiations.

  "I wish to address some personal matters, not the espionage, which President Orde pardoned unconditionally yesterday. You interfered with eighteen marriages. The men are mortally affronted, the women, cast out, with their bastard children."

  "To starve in the freezing snow?" Wolfson put in quickly. He received the return glares with a faint smile. "Sorry, do go on."

  "We have a group judicial decree, for one hundred thousand rials for each child. As there are twenty-five of them, impounding all your property and auctioning it didn't come close to covering the judgment. We recognize that you settled that debt a few years ago. But the women's genetic reputation was badly damaged. Additionally there is the matter of thirteen husbands who wish satisfaction."

  "Thirteen still alive? I thought you'd executed more than that. And I'd heard a report of one of them dying just the other day. Uzga, Third Minister or some such? These names, I get so confused, was that some other poor sod who ran afoul of your 'Game' as you call it?" Xen shook his head.

  "You lot marry and divorce damn near at random, not a single one of the women I allowed to seduce me was on less than her third husband, they all had considerable personal property and were perfectly able to raise their children themselves. They were all miserable in their marriages, else they'd not have pursued me.

  “The men? They got to divorce this round of wives on the cheap. If there was a single one who loved his wife, and grieved for the poor quality of his marriage, I extend my regrets to have magnified his failure to win his wife's regard. Although, I must warn you, those women talked. Lots. Especially about their relationships with their husbands. If any of them was trying to woo his wife, it was going right over her head."

  "Third Minister Uzga died accidentally. Nothing to do with politics." Efge unlaced his fingers and leaned back. "You seem lacking in sympathy for the women you wronged."

  "I pitied the women who sought me out. And I used them. As their husbands, and ex-husbands, and indeed the whole society uses them. Social prizes, fields of play for random genetics testing, political conduits, given money but little power and less respect. Well, we have some odd societies of our own. Our witches, for example, have done away with husbands altogether. And sons, for the most part.

  Xen shrugged. “Sorry, that was way off topic. Where were we?"

  Major Easterly looked like he was falling asleep. Izzo hadn't relaxed though. A girl with auburn hair walked out of the door in the side wall. She bore a tray of cups and saucers, and a pot emitting coffee odors. The teamers shifted to block her.

  "If any of you would like coffee, it's fresh." She turned bright green eyes from the table to the nearest of the blocking guards. "If you would prefer to serve them yourself, please do. If you are the official taster, start tasting." She rocked back on her heels and waited for the man to make up his mind.

  He glanced toward Efge, then grabbed her arm. Cups slid as the tray tilted. The flick of power was fast and expert. The waitress stepped out of the way, steadying her tray. The teamer collapsed.

  The waitress stood there, toe tapping impatiently as spells from the other guards bounced, fizzed or just died against her shields. Two of them moved toward her, stopped to feel what must have been solid, grounded shields.

  "If you don't want coffee, just say so. You don't have to be nasty about it."

  "Enough. Let her serve the coffee." Ajki glared at the team commander, glowered at Egfe.

  The girl handed the cups around with experienced reach and balance, poured coffee without spilling a drop, and stepped back with a smile. "Would anyone prefer tea?"

  A second girl emerged with a tray of her own. Munchies, little plates. Cookies. The guards eyed her, but didn't interfere. She walked around the man on the floor, and set them in the center of the table. She was tall, looked about sixteen. Straight mid-brown hair, brown eyes. Xiat looked back at Wolfson.

  "Relatives of yours?"

  "My cousin Eclipse. And Deimos, the daughter of a good friend. The witches used the index of an Astronomy text for their naming scheme that year." He leaned to snag a cookie. "Now, we both know that you're looking for an excuse to start a war and we're looking fo
r a reason to not have one. If, somehow, my coming to the One World and slaughtering thirteen members of the War Party will stop your warmongering, then I'll grit my teeth and do it. If two and a half million rials, given to the women who have raised my children, doubling the standard child support, will stop a war, then I'll import more gold, sell it, and pay the women.

  "But you'll be right back, with other complaints, won't you? Or perhaps slaughtering bureaucrats by the dozens will be the excuse you want. What I'm not getting, from our constant monitoring—spying, if you prefer—is any desire for peace nor recognition that we can, and have, individually and as a whole, beat the crap out of you every time you attacked. Why is that?" He nibbled at the cookie.

  Director Efge looked him straight in the eye. "Because you have less than a thousand trained magicians, and we have a million. We have an elite of a hundred thousand people, and any one of us can beat your best. Even one of your Gods."

  Major Easterly leaned forward. "Do you lot still want a war? Haven't you noticed that we fight according t'our strengths, not yours?"

  "Your strengths? You are nothing, compared to us." Efge pointed at the front door. "I can kill the next person who walks in here. At a much greater distance and with greater ease than your baby witch drained that soldier. The One World can crush you."

  Director? Threats are not actually useful . . . for anything except playing to the home crowd. Are you recording this?

  "The One World can try. We have a much smaller population, but we're quite amazingly tricky. We can open—and close—gates any time we want to."

  Slid right into a nasty threat, there, didn't you, Xen?

  "And as for killing random people who walk through doors, I really recommend you don't. Sounds like breaking a truce, act of war, that sort of thing. And since I've got the troops keeping civilians away, anyone who walks in is likely to be a magician, and able to protect him or herself. It could get messy fast." Wolfson nodded at the teamers. "Take pity on your poor security detail and don't threaten to start the war with them as your only troops."

  Director Efge bristled. “I am of the One. I do as I please.”

  In unfortunate timing, footsteps crossed the porch. The Director stood up and turned to the door as it swung open. An old man stepped in, tall and thin, not a hint of infirmity in his lean, muscular build. Brown eyes flicked to them, scanned the array of guards, flicked back as the Director threw a spell.

  The old man's fingers twitched. A fog, a fine net, a swarm of spells . . . Efge bent over with a painful bleat. The teamers leaped into action. Major Easterly thrust out a foot and tripped one. Xiat leaped for the action, saw the spell coming, not a single spell, but a flood, dropped and rolled . . . The major had the tripped guard in hand. Both his arms appeared to be broken. The last guard, outside with the cars, flew through the door, weapons ready. The old man reached for the bottle the barman extended, and applied it to his head. The fight was over.

  The old man turned the bottle around. "Just what I was looking for. Hot date with Justice tonight." He ignored the bodies writhing on the floor.

  Xiat glanced down at Efge. The director's hands twisted, deformed, fingernails growing thick and heavy, fingers short and fat as his hand elongated. He pawed at his face as it seemed to project and grow outward, a dark beard, no, he had hair everywhere. Knobs on his scalp burst around ivory . . . horns. Growing longer as she watched.

  "Worst case of Instant Karma I've ever seen."

  She turned her head just enough to get Wolfson in her peripheral vision. He hadn't even bothered to stand up. He stuffed the last of the cookie into his mouth.

  The old man cocked his head.

  Xiat stood very still, and she noticed that both Ajki and Izzo were likewise unmoving. They'd barely stood up before it was all done.

  "Is Lord Hell around?" Wolfson shrugged. "No? He'll be jealous. Would you mind changing a couple of the guards back so they can drive away?"

  Easterly chuckled. "It'll also show them that a bit of goatiness is neither deadly nor irreversible."

  "You could change them all back, and avoid the consequences." Ajki straightened and met the old man's gaze directly.

  Wolfson snickered. "What's this? You can't undo a few Fallen spells yourself? Don't you want to take them back home and work out all the lovely little intricacies? Analyze them and try to duplicate them? Why, this could be the secret to our multi-dimensional abilities."

  Ajki shot a glare toward Wolfson, then returned to studying the old man. "I saw Xen change people into purple rabbits. I've heard of Q and Xen changing people into goats. I hadn't realized the practice was widespread. You don't fit the descriptions I've had of the Old Gods. Who are you?"

  Goats? Xiat looked down. Yes. A goat. The Director struggled free of his suit coat, and ripped out of his shirt. He was a very pissed off goat. Large, black, with his horns now spiraling out to the sides.

  The old man leaned back on the bar. The menace in his hooded eyes belied any appearance of indolence. "My name is Nil. If we had such a thing, I'd be called the Archwizard. As it is, I operate a School of Magic. The one from which Nighthawk was kidnapped. Did any of you have anything to do with that?"

  They all got very still.

  "I believe the Director of Internal Relations was the one who instigated that action." Xen indicated the first black goat. The Director was bleating at the other goats, at Izzo, then trotted over to Ajki, reared up and bleated demandingly in his face.

  The old man's fingers twitched a bit. Xiat jerked forward, but she was too far away to intercept anything from the old man. Ajki had gotten a hand up, and shook himself uncertainly. Nil chuckled nastily.

  "You're going to regret getting a piece of that. The goat spells will finish up in a minute, then I'll pop it off a couple of them." The old man strolled over to the director. Izzo tensed. Wicked brown eyes swung his way, amused. Confident. Izzo sank back.

  "Why did you attack me?"

  The black goat maaahed. The old man snorted. "Trying to get Xen to kill some of your guards over a show off sleep spell? At least you had enough sense to realize that if you'd actually killed anyone you'd be the one facing a trial and execution. If that had been anything except a sleep spell, you'd be a barbequed goat." The old wizard looked over the small herd of goats with a smirk. Pointed at two, who immediately convulsed again. Horns shrunk, faces writhed . . .

  Xiat looked away, sick. "I don't suppose there's any of that Joy Juice around? The filtered variety? For the injured?"

  Three women had been surveying the battle site, if such a one-sided affair could be called a battle. One ducked away and returned with a wine bottle.

  Wolfson stepped over and took it, producing a corkscrew from thin air. "May I recommend that you separate the goats once you get them back home? Goats tend to be sexually aggressive, and there will be enough rancor without them, err."

  Izzo's poker face slipped a bit. "Quite. Now if you don't mind, perhaps we should get these . . . people in the cars."

  Major Easterly murmured something about " . . . full retreat, tails between legs . . . "

  Xiat eased out and around the goats, keeping an eye on the old man.

  He eyed her in return. "You're very fast. I hope your boss appreciates you."

  She smiled stiffly. "Just at the moment, I seriously doubt it."

  He chuckled, a nasty menacing edge to it.

  I'm really, really glad I dodged that net of spells. But I wish I'd had time to study it. She glanced worriedly at the goats. And the two shocked and naked guards who were scrambling back into their clothing. "Do the utes have room for . . . goats?"

  "Yes. We'll, uh, we'll go fold all the seats down, then come back for the . . . goats." They hobbled stiffly past Nil who grinned after them.

  Pulled muscles? Aching bones?

  "Funny isn't it. Can't remember the last time I had to fight someone twice."

  Wolfson popped the cork of the wine bottle and handed it to her. Major Easterly assisted
with his victim, who whimpered as the big man pulled the rapidly healing bones straight. The one with the knot on his head was blinking and trying to fight his way back to consciousness. She dribbled just a bit into his mouth. The third man was limp, and a bit blue around the lips. Xiat drew in power from the air around her, then knelt and poured it into the guard. His pulse leaped, then settled, his breathing deepened. He got a few drips of wine, just on the strength of its reputation.

  She looked around at Ajki. He was still studying Nil, and she left him to it, grabbing her patient by the coat and dragging him toward the door. One of the retransformed guards stepped in and helped. She looked over at him. "Are you two all right to drive?"

  "Yes, Ma'am. And the sooner the better."

  The other one held the door, while nodding agreement.

  "Right then, let’s put this fellow in the back of the limo, the other two injured as well. Collect the loose clothing. We'll load the goats, the directors and get the hell out of here." She stepped back into the tavern.

  Ajki and Izzo were still facing off with the old wizard. Wolfson, Easterly and the young soldier were watching from the opposite end of the bar from the wizard. The old bar keeper was looking a bit amused. Xiat caught his eyes and jerked to a halt. Deep, powerful, old . . . How old? Surely this isn't one of their Old Gods. His eye crinkled in amusement and he nodded.

  She pulled her gaze away and tried to watch them all from the corner of her eye while she collected the Director's case, bracer and clothes. Set her own case on the table and eyed the bottle of wine, now corked. She looked for anything else she ought to remove, slipped the wine into her own case and handed the lot off to the drivers. "Limo, front seat. Guards, all of you who are transformed, get in the back of the utes. Director, perhaps you would prefer the limo?"

  The goats jumped in the utes readily, looking panicked and definitely ready to go home. The one who was Efge climbed into the limo, giving the moaning and barely conscious guard a disgusted look and leaped up onto the seat.