by Pam Uphoff
It was late, when they drove back through the gate from Embassy to One World. The combination of her Interior Directorate ID and Fean's double Exterior Directorate and Third Philosopher of the One ID intimidated the customs people into just waving them on. They didn't have far to go. The goats were still in isolation. Even the two who'd managed to break their goat spells.
The doctor on duty there frowned at them.
Xiat raised her eyebrows. "I've gotten some information on the spells, and advice. And potions. Now, where's the doctor who was transformed?"
The goat doctor was easy. No further traps were detectable; she cast spells aimed at the two weak spots in the goat spell. He started reverting immediately.
More people crowded into the area. Theoretical magicians, wanting to study the spells.
Fean brought out the goat spell for their delectation. And wound up demonstrating the pony and cat transformation spells, and the spell that hurried the return transformation along.
Xiat stopped and watched the demonstration. Scary as hell. No wonder they call her The Fiend.
Fean's deep brown eyes glinted. :: No, I picked that up by verbally beating up everyone I've ever met, until I met Ajha.:: She turned back to the magicians. "This retransformation spell is personalized to me. I'd need to pick it apart a bit to use on these guys. Just as well they take their time. Now, I need a volunteer to check for traps. They ought to be pretty well evaporated by now." Fean looked around at the collection of . . . men staring at her chest. One! A couple of the women were staring too. She shook her head and dressed.
Xiat kept her face straight with difficulty. The Fiend may have dropped out of Princess School, but she had absorbed the basics. She could cover her skin, but she wasn't going to close down her glow until she'd finished all the magical manipulations she needed to show them.
Xiat stepped in and took over. "Ahem. Now. A volunteer?"
One man stepped out. Bracing his shoulders. She pulled out the goat spell, and showed him the weak spots. How to make a spell that would hit those spots, specifically.
"I don't actually need lessons . . . " He looked over the spell and blushed. "Well, maybe in this I do. I'm Wflo. Call me Fowl." His eyes drifted back and forth between the Princesses, and settled on Fean. "Where do you teach?"
"I don't. I just put my PhD dissertation on hold in order to work for the Third Philosopher. You will find me on the west coast of Noram, should you have further questions. Now zap the nearest damn goat, please."
"Yes, Princess." He wafted the spell at the nearest goat. It flopped and started transforming. Emboldened, he walked through the room, changing all of them. "I hope to One they don't keep acting like, well, male goats. They all got out and had quite a nasty little orgy last night. Humping each other, and half the nurses and guards who showed up to, well, split them back up into their pens."
Xiat snorted. "The behavior is part of the spell. Analyze it, it's quite seriously nasty. That explains how those two broke the spell. Deflowering a virgin releases a burst of power. Brute force and lacking direction, but it does work." She rummaged in her bag and pulled out the two potions to counteract the fear and panic spells, the Joy Juice to stop the addiction spells. She poured a bit into ten paper cups, and started handing them out, starting with the four already retransformed guards. "Everything left except the Chain spell will wear off in a year or two, or we can work on force breaking them." She turned over delivering the potions to some nurses, who were being very very watchful around the goats. Male and female alike, the nurses weren't turning their backs on the bespelled goats, even as they starting looking more human. I wonder how many people the goats managed to rape over the last week? I was rather hoping those two deflowered each other, but most likely not.
Xiat formed the unmaking of the Chain in her mind. :: Tall Essence.:: she stooped and touched the chain around the Director's neck. Felt the faint shock of null.
"One. That didn't work. Sorry, sir. It's going to take a bit more work." She shook her fingers and shuddered at the thought of wearing that for a week.
Director Efge flailed a hand around and growled what was probably a curse. He took a cup from a nurse and swallowed it, a goatish tongue swiping out the cup before it whipped back into a shrinking muzzle.
Xiat stepped back and faced the Brains, letting the nurses deal with preserving the modesty of creatures that weren't quite human yet. "Now the Chain spell. This is an example of one. It has a gap in it, patterned according to a phrase. The phrase for this one is 'One Rules.' See how using the phrase lets you grasp it and place it?" Eldon had showed her all about them, and now she showed it off to all of the Brains. She got them working with it, freed a couple of them from it . . .
Fowl looked over at the guards. "So, what is the phrase for those Chains, eh?"
"Now that is the problem. I caught a glimpse when the spells were flying around, which Eldon tried to interpret. The phrase is something like tall and essence or essential. You are going to have to experiment, using phrases around those words or similar words. Because I haven't gotten them exactly right. So . . . have fun working away at it." The goats were all mostly human now. A few still had horns, or hooves. Or oversized and oozing penises.
Xiat hunched her shoulders. "That is such a disgusting spell. I'm going to report in to my boss. This is my number if you need to reach me before I return." She nodded politely at the men still playing with the Chain spells and walked out. She suppressed a gleeful smile. Managed to get out without talking about Director Efge's male-to-female spell. He can damn well ask nicely, once he can talk again.
The smirk almost broke through. With that little bit of joy juice, he should be female by next week. If that doesn't take him down a few pegs, I don't know my Withiones.
***
Ajha sighed as the first person he knew recognized him.
Maiv had seen him in various states of hair during her frequent visits to Black Point, and his mother's house. "Ajha? What are you doing?"
As the train pulled out of the Freeport station, he sat down beside her. "Uncle Ajki told me to hide, so I'm visiting my mother."
She frowned at him.
"Well, that and I thought I should check and see if her buddies were still around, and see if I can find out who killed Udzi."
"Do the police still think you did it?" Maiv was the youngest of Maij's kids, sixteen years old if he remembered correctly. "That's stupid. And everyone in Black Point will recognize you, it's only three years since you were going bald. Anyhow, I thought Lord Udzi's murder was political. You're above that, now."
"I wish. And I've just barely started on my disguise. By the time I get to the Enclave, I'll be unrecognizable. Honest. Why are you going to Black Point?"
"Your Mother still has house guests, and the dailies she hired don't know her routine very well. Plus the decontamination people threw out everything edible." She tapped the bag at her feet. "I'm bringing in all the spices my mom uses, plus other stuff. This way, she won't have to worry that someone will poison food in the local stores, in hopes of killing you." She sighed. "But Whipper and Mushy won't be there."
"Err. . . "
"I know, I know. They're Withiones and won't marry us. And anyway, my big sisters all said I was too young and monopolized them. I barely got kissed."
"Don't you think you'd be happier just tossing these silly genetic games and just marrying some nice guy right off?"
She wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure."
"Perhaps you should be sure, before starting down either path, eh? And there might be a few other directions you could head as well."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mother."
He grinned, and concentrated on his illusion spell. Black hair. Blue eyes. A noticeable bump on the nose.
Maiv's eyes were wide and impressed. "That is total! They didn't teach things like that in school. How strong do you have to be, to do that?"
"Not very. Now I'm following up the illusions with a bit of bone mold
ing and creating actual pigments in the hair, but just the illusions takes very little power."
The rest of trip turned into a basic magic school. He hadn't really remembered, but the schools only taught self control, and the beginnings of manufacturing processes. Out of school, everyone learned to play stones—and the Servaones always lost at that, as brute force was a major factor. All the good stuff, the subtle things, he'd learned later. In Directorate College or from various Fallen. Maiv followed him off the train, still trying out a basic illusion. Then she headed up hill, and Ajha turned to the local Inn. Midnight here, it would be nine in the morning in Paris.
He could call Xiat, then sleep in.
***
"This looks like a very top power play, determining who will be the War Party candidate for President. I think in this instance all the Players are advancing themselves behind the main two or three candidates. It is three, isn't it? What did Director Efge have planned?"
Xiat huffed in irritation. "I'm not sure if Efge should be considered. I was just bumping him a bit to see what happened. But he escalated the situation ridiculously, making it all a power play, One Magic vs. Fallen Magic. I'm beginning to wonder if he just wants to start a war. Otherwise, the confrontation was poorly planned, poorly thought out and quite deliberately used as a provocation. Efge may be playing a game, but I'm not at all sure it has anything to do with Udzi's murder. Except . . . I have some evidence that he gigged Udzi into reaching for the Patriarchy. Which is important because he was so well located for implicating Axti through you."
"Well, I have personal knowledge that I didn't kill him, so I'm a step ahead of you there. If my father is the Principal, he didn't use me. If he used Arja, it would have been for the purpose of implicating me. This is both contrary to my understanding of his feelings toward me, and dangerous to him. If we accept that Arja checked on me, saw I was going to be seriously lacking an alibi and called the hit man—probably Bo—then we have to conclude that my father has the lowest likelihood of being the Principal."
Xiat's voice growled her reluctance through the connection. "All right. Now Arlw. Actually, he's the most opaque of the three. At least to me. As far as the investigator has been able to discover, he never made a step outside what would have been expected."
"So is he innocent, or did he simply have an agent whom he trusted? Can we find out if he and Arja have ever spent enough time together to have created such trust? Ditto, Arja and Efge."
Xiat huffed uncertainly. "Look, you managed to keep yourself alive against Bo. But do you realize that Ewmo, Orc, Yukky, Ask Me and Halleluiah are all looking like Blind errand runners? Poppy, too, for that matter. And Uzga is dead. Same poison he gave to Poppy to kill you with. Possibly the other half of the pill Poppy took. You are going to have to be very careful, in Black Point."
He blinked at her tiny picture on the phone. "I didn't think anyone but Mother and her buddies would still be here."
"Tomorrow Imgo and Arja are coming in. Unusual devotion to their wives, don't you think?"
Ajha eyed her. "Do they have Princesses?"
Xiat blinked. "Oh. How stupid of me. Of course. The One's beautiful spies, assassins, and lovers. They've left them behind. They can do whatever they want without hindrance. Then go home and plan nothing for the future. The One doesn't punish past crime or trespass, it stops things it sees coming. So long as it ends there, they'll survive."
"So, what are they planning? That they have cause to think the One might prevent, if it could?"
"Killing you is the most obvious. The War Party has to be throwing fits—in private—over a pacifist philosopher. There aren't any other loose ends here other than Arja himself."
"That you know of. Blind errand runners have been known to peek. And I’m not at all sure that Ewmo was blind."
Xiat glared. "Right. So you’d better be One damned careful. Did you remember to turn off your ID as you left the train?"
He grinned. "I'm afraid I used a forgery. First practical use for this philosopher nonsense so far."
"Where did you get a forgery? At least I know you've got the money to pay for one." She scowled at him.
"I made it myself. Several Fallen, who had previously infiltrated, showed me how to do it. The manufacture of the blanks is easy enough, the programming is a bit harder. All right. I won't stay at my mother's. I'm not about to go to my grandfather's house . . . actually . . . One! Grandfather's opinions might be useful to me, and he'll know all about what's going on at Mother's house."
"Just be careful. All we'd need is an Alternate Philosopher killed accidentally."
He grinned. "As opposed to on purpose? Which happens regularly?"
***
In Paris, Xiat drummed her fingernails for a moment, then headed for the street. There was a temple three blocks away. The resident priest was a bit taken aback by her request, but provided a comm which he assured her was not tapped or traced.
The lost looking secretary who answered the comm at Ajha's office didn't have to do a thing when she asked for Ajha's security Captain. He swooped into view and glared.
"Do you know where he is?"
"Hmm, I figured he must have escaped. Now, be subtle when you go there, else someone will comm ahead and have an hour clear to find him before you're off the train. Understand?"
His teeth gritted audibly.
"And on the way to Black Point, read Ajha's bio. He can deal with mere murderers. I believe he's staying at the Sea View Inn." She hung up, thanked the Priest and walked back. It doesn't feel like the case is winding down. Is that just because of the disastrous trip to Comet Fall, or is the Principal is still in action? Or an agent, acting very independently.
Well, no better place to dig up dirt than with an ex-wife. She downloaded everyone's publicly accessible files when this started. She could hunt through for connections without leaving a trail that would be reported to Efge.
And then talk to the girls, who knew all about Jain's relationship with Arja, and more to the point, quite a bit about his relationship to what sounded like a total Ice Princess.
Xiat called and made an appointment.
Like all trained Princesses, Syas sat beautifully, poured tea gracefully, and for anyone else, would have glowed.
Xiat sat gracefully, smiled beautifully and accepted her tea. "Have you become fond of Arja? It must be nerve wracking when he runs off to plot in what he thinks is safety."
"Oh, no. Not at all. It would be foolish to allow myself to care, at his level of Play." Syas took a dainty sip.
Technically speaking, there were probably somewhere around sixty thousand female Withiones who had two hundred or more of the magic genes and, of course, two copies of the One power gene. They were sometimes called Princess, but what most people meant when they said "Princess" was one of the graduates of the Princess School, employed as an agent by the One itself. They were the One's second line of control. The first being religious devotion. But through thirty thousand women, placed as high society hostesses, mistresses or secretaries of the most powerful and most dangerous men, the One insured the power of the theocratic bureaucracy. Princesses were trained to spy—and kill.
Xiat had not been assigned, due to a psychological problem. Fean had walked out at the outrageous thought of bedding whomever the One assigned her to. This Princess was a graduate and long term agent. Do not underestimate her.
"Is he devoted to his wife, or is she just an excuse for him to return to Black Point?"
A tiny smile enhanced the beauty of the woman even further. "The One doesn't interfere with internal Party Politics. With three leaders, the War Party has been floundering and unpredictable. With a clear Alpha, they will settle down and be easier to track and control."
"Yes. I understand the One's wishes in this. My duties revolve around individuals and criminal actions. When Arja married Jain, I thought he was seeking a tie to the Ax. But perhaps he was already tight with Arlw and was watching for an opportunity to act against the Ax
."
Syas's smile broadened. "They have so much fun, mapping out their moves in the Game. Aren't they amusing?"
Princess Precious wants me to play her little Game too. Jump through hoops for her entertainment. I cannot trust any answers she gives me.
"Apparently he's just interested in Party Politics, since he wasn't stopped. I'm surprised Director Efge wasn't stopped before he went to Comet Fall."
An elegant brow rose. "With four competing Philosophies? The One does not have an opinion on Comet Fall."
"Director Efge moved quickly, while The Third Alternate Philosopher was in Makkah. Perhaps he feared his Princess would stop him."
Elegant shrug. "Wasn't it interesting, how he failed to even recognize, let alone adapt, to changing circumstances? That was quite a failure on his part. I think the One will leave him to his well-earned repercussions."
Xiat thought carefully about allowing failures. Was the One testing the leadership? If Efge was out permanently, then Izzo had just arrived in a seat of power. I've spent too much time worrying about him gaining a wife. I'd better start worrying about a Princess being assigned.
Chapter Twenty
28 Shawwal 1407yp
Black Point Enclave, West Coast of North America
The enclave was eerily deserted, with all the convention visitors gone. No one was watching when Ajha cut across on the riding path and walked up to the back of his mother's house. A bit early for lunch, he could check on her, then go talk to his father either before or after lunch, depending on his reception. He hastily swapped his IDs around, so the House Computer would recognize him, and unlock the patio door to his bedroom. He smiled to see his bed back in place, the bunks gone. He opened the door to the hallway.
The house was quiet and still and reeked of gas.
He stepped back and slid the glass patio doors wide. "House . . . " Is there a trigger for a fire or explosion? Like raising an alarm or shutting off the gas? "How many occupants right now?"