by John Daulton
Part of her thought Djoveeve was a liar. Just like Fortie Nomstacker had been a liar back at the wizard’s school. Making up stuff just to make her mad. Djoveeve liked to make her mad. She did it all the time. Sometimes she was nice, but sometimes she was mean.
And for the last of her magic, the illusion part, well, Pernie didn’t see the use. She couldn’t even turn invisible like the elves all could. All of them. Her illusion shimmered like a heat wave when she tried. She was weak and her magic was lame and all her dreams were stupid and would never come true. And Seawind would just keep hitting her between the eyes.
She rubbed her head where the butt of his spear had struck her. The thump resounded still in memory, even if the lump was gone. Seawind had, as always, healed the damage that he had done.
“I am not your enemy, little Sava,” Seawind said after a time.
“I know,” she said. She scooted forward and put her legs over the edge of the cliff, reaching her hands out to feel the cold, damp air blowing up the sheer stone face.
“But you would kill me if you could. You still haven’t told me why.”
“You won’t take me home,” she said without the least delay. There was no point in hiding it. She was actually surprised that he didn’t already know.
“But who will take you home if I die? Djoveeve hasn’t got the magic for it.”
“I will find a way,” she said. “That’s what you told me the day I first ran with the hunt. That’s what you said. So I will.”
“If you can get yourself home, then I am not keeping you here. So I ask again, why kill me? Is that not a waste? You learn from me, do you not?”
Pernie let her lips wriggle on that for a time, then nodded. “I do.”
“Then there is no value in killing me. There is nothing to be gained.”
More wriggling took place beneath her little, slightly upturned nose, as the wind blew the long strands of her dirty blonde hair across her face. She thought he might be right about that. But if she went home, she wouldn’t need him anymore.
Except that she also knew she’d never be Master Altin’s apprentice either. Never get to spend that kind of time with him now. Not with weakling magic like she had.
“Do you know the difference between dealing death and murder?” he asked. “Has Djoveeve spoken to you of this?”
Pernie shook her head, staring out beyond the waves, ready to tune out another lecture as she defaulted to her favorite pastime these last few months: looking for the right creature to ride right out of here. Right off of the stupid Island of Hunters and all the way gone from the stupid elven lands of String.
“It is the job of the Sava’an’Lansom to know when it is time to kill. When you are ready, you will be able to do it easily. You will become the master of death. And you must deal it out justly.”
Pernie yawned on purpose so that he would know that she was bored. She didn’t even know what justly was. Maybe it meant evenly. Or maybe it meant quick. Gimmel, the groundskeeper at Calico Castle, always told her to be neat about killing things. When he took her out to hunt, he was always very respectful about that. He said, “You can’t make them suffer or the Goddess gets mad.” Which just went to prove these elves weren’t so smart as everybody thought they were. Gimmel already taught her that when she was only a little girl. Now she was almost ten. Kettle told her she’d be a big girl when she finally had two numbers in her age. And now she did, or almost did. Only a few more days. And it was true. Here she was, with an elf telling her things she already knew.
And it was Orli Pewter’s fault.
Everything was. If it hadn’t been for her, Pernie would never be here. She’d still be at home with Kettle and Gimmel and Nipper and all the rest. She would see Master Altin every day. And so what if she was too weak to be his apprentice? So what about all that? She could protect him with her spear now anyway. And if the orcs came again, she’d carve out all their hearts and give them to Kettle to make into a stew. Master Altin would love her then. Or at least when she was a little older anyway. When her bosom grew. Then he would. Pernie knew.
But first she’d have to put a spear right through Orli Pewter’s heart. See what good her bosom did her then.
She thought about that for some time, imagining it, imagining jamming it straight through Orli’s chest. She knew now how hard the cartilage was, the strength of the breastbone. Djoveeve had shown her. Made her practice thrusting hard enough to pierce a mannequin made of boiled leather and tree bark, merged together with transmutation spells and made as solid as any man. Djoveeve said it was just as hard as a warrior in leather armor, and Pernie practiced killing it with glee over these last eighteen weeks, ever since she’d gotten the spear. Every time, she imagined the look on Orli Pewter’s face, just like it had been when she’d nearly shot Orli on her wedding day. The wedding Orli never got. That made Pernie smile. At least she’d prevented that. Or she sort of had. She hoped she had. She had no way to know.
She might not have scored a killing shot, but there was still reason to believe the wedding had not gone off: Kettle had told her that being the flower girl was the most important part of the wedding. She’d said it the day she and that fussy man, Master Needlesprig, had been trying to force Pernie to try on a big fluffy dress. At first Pernie thought Kettle had only said that to trick her into trying on the dress, but now that she thought about it, it was probably true. Master Needlesprig had agreed, and he worked directly for the Queen, so he couldn’t lie. So, if it was true, then they had to wait. But how long? Orli Pewter would be in a big fat hurry and want to find another flower girl. Pernie wasn’t sure if that was legal or not, but she just knew in her heart that Orli Pewter would try. Which was why Pernie had to get back and finish what she’d started before it was too late.
Master Altin would be mad at her when she did it, though. He’d never marry her after that. So she’d have to make it look like an accident. Which she wasn’t quite sure how to do. Which meant she probably should be listening to what Seawind was saying as he squatted there on the ledge. She would listen, but only for a little while.
Chapter 21
Black Sander squeezed into the tiny clean room at the TGS depot in Murdoc Bay, stuffed in with eleven other miners—or at least, with eleven others who were miners. Black Sander was simply dressed as one, magically dressed, of course, draped in the exquisite detail that W-class illusionists are capable of. His lean body and long nose were made squat and broad, his black eyes were brown, his slender fingers, so deft at locks and delicate thievery, made thick as fat sausages. He cast into his illusion the smell of whiskey and rum and set it to emanate outward for nearly a full pace, and he added to that just the right hint of stale sweat and other bodily odors that could be expected from the sort of man who hasn’t bathed in a month.
As he stood among the working men in the small teleportation room, he took a careful whiff around him, checking to see if he’d gotten the scent just right. He thought perhaps he was no worse than most and marginally better than a few.
He looked around at his compatriots, all men, all weathered and sturdy-looking folk. A few peered out of bleary, red-rimmed eyes, and the vapors of their liquor-laden breath carried much farther than his illusion did. He smiled inwardly to himself and knew that he would blend in perfectly.
He fingered a topaz in his pocket that was as large as an avocado pit as he watched the TGS teleporter close the door. A small window, a cabinet-like opening cut clear through the wall, held a pair of small shelves upon which sat two blocks of carved wood and a pair of hourglasses. He waited patiently, nodding a bit too late and forcing a smile at some crude joke he hadn’t heard, as the attendant outside swapped out the block of wood with the sailing ship signet of Murdoc Bay for a newly emblazoned block, which depicted a great round planet surrounded by seven orbiting moons. It was the signet for Tinpoa Base depot, serving the mines and the spaceport the Earth men were putting up on the moon as it orbited the green gas giant, Naotatica. The attendan
t then turned over one of the hourglasses, one that corresponded to the new block and had the planet and seven moons etched into its base. Soon after, the little cabinet door outside the teleportation chamber snapped shut, at which point a few of the miners began shifting nervously.
“Hope we don’t show up dead,” one of them said. His smile lacked the conviction suggested by the cavalier nature of his words. His eyes gave it away.
“That ain’t funny, Hoke,” said one of the others. “Don’t joke around.”
“You boys oughta consider sproutin’ a pair,” said another. “My wee girl don’t even get fearful teleportin’ nowhere.”
“Yer wee girl is only six years old. She don’t know what’s happenin’ ta her in here.”
“All of ya shut yer traps,” said another, this one with something like authority. “We’re likely already there.”
Sure enough, the little cabinet door opened immediately after he spoke, and the white glare of the Earth people’s artificial light poured in through the opening.
The door opened right after, and soon the lot of them were shuffling out into a square room made of an all-white material like nothing found on Prosperion. Small, narrow windows looked out into the black night beyond, and through the farthest left of these could be seen the partial green curve of the giant planet Naotatica, believed by many to be the origin of the elves.
Black Sander had heard that Sir Altin Meade had disproved that, but he hadn’t enough friends who knew the Galactic Mage personally to verify it, and he was not typically one to spend time with priests. Still, he took a moment to move to the window while the other miners were clogging the entrance to the long hallway. The corridor would take them to the checkpoint where they could be recorded in the Earth people’s log. He stared out, looking up into the bright green mass of the giant world, a great swirling ball of varying tones, mainly a bright lime green, but tiered and stratified with darker shades, all swirling around it, whirling in some places into spots, the whole of it like a bucket of green-hued paints that’s only been stirred once or twice and hasn’t yet mixed properly.
This was his first time up here, though he had seen it in the scrying bowl spell of the marchioness’ seer, Kalafrand. He knew the layout of the base well enough, but the sight of the planet in person was enough to give even Black Sander pause.
He glanced back into the bright light of the room, and saw that the TGS teleporter was busy setting the hourglass for the next load, a group of three Earth people who, by the signet the woman had on the table near her, would be going to Crown City. No one was paying any attention to him.
While the Earth people crowded into the teleportation chamber and the Prosperion miners crowded down the hall, Black Sander quietly hid his incantation in their noise. A moment after, he vanished, his invisibility illusion cast. He dropped the illusion of his dirty miner self, and let go the stink he’d cast with it as well. He replaced that with absolute odorlessness.
When there was room to slip past the Earth people, he made his way down the hall, pausing briefly in the silence between them and the miners to add silence to his spell. It was an afterthought, and he could be silent with the careful placement of his practiced feet, but there was no point taking any risks. He muttered the spell under his breath. He had to do it quickly, for he knew, once he was past the range of the teleportation area, he could not add anything new to his spell. They were watching for magic here. On that point the marchioness had been very clear. The Earth people could see magic in the twitter of their electricity, and they would know. That was Lord Vorvington’s latest discovery.
He came up behind the last of the miners in the line. They were waiting to be let into the main part of the moon-based mining camp.
“Name?” said the fleet soldier standing before a low desk made of the same white material as the walls. He wore a helmet with a single round bit of glass mounted on it, swung down over his right eye somewhat like a monocle. A second fleet soldier, a woman, sat at the desk and looked into what appeared to Black Sander to be a black picture frame from which radiated a pale blue glow. Black Sander could not see the images in it from where he stood, but he knew from the scrying spell Kalafrand had cast that she was checking to see if the man’s name matched his face in her electricity-powered record-keeping device.
“Hoke Rockraker,” the man said gruffly. “I been here often enough you people ought to recognize me.”
“We know your face,” said the woman at the glowing picture frame, “but we still have to make sure it fits your biometric profile.”
“I know,” he grumbled, but he held out his hand without being asked, and the soldier standing before the desk ran a long, slender object up and down his hand and forearm. When he’d finished the pass, he flipped it around and ordered the miner not to blink. There came a brief movement of green light, and then it was done. The soldier placed the butt end of the device onto a square black pad, and after a moment, the woman nodded and said, “Welcome back, Hoke. Be safe down there.”
“Bet I will, missy,” he said. “And don’t hold up the boys too long in here.”
“I’ll try,” she promised with a smile. The other soldier stepped aside and let the stocky miner pass through the narrow space between the desk and the wall.
Black Sander smiled behind the mask of his invisibility, the nervousness in his guts ramping up his energy. There were few things he loved more than breaking in. And breaking into the first interplanetary spaceport was shaping up to be one of the most entertaining clandestine entries he’d managed so far.
Assuming he managed it, of course.
Slowly the line made its way through, one by one, some of them joking casually with the woman, none of them with the man. But each in turn passed through the line without incident or fuss. Soon there were only three miners left before Black Sander would be able to pass. He was going to need the man with the helmet monocle and the detection wand to step aside, but he hoped that he would as soon as the visible miners passed.
The woman chatted with the next miner in line while the soldier passed his device over the fellow’s arm and face. As they scanned the worker, Black Sander moved to the desk and chanced a glance over the top of the picture frame. To his horror, he could see himself peering over it.
The discovery jolted him, but his reflexes were those of a thief. In the time it took the woman to look from the soldier to the miner and back to her screen, Black Sander had, by the grace of Sobrei the Swift, patron deity of crime, managed to dart back into line behind the rest. It was an act of conscious effort to still his breathing, so unexpected had his surprise been. How could they see him?
Suddenly the bright lights in that white hallway seemed blinding. It was as if he stood naked beneath a bloated sun, the whole world watching him. He felt entirely exposed. He could not fathom how it was possible. His cast had been flawless. He’d been casting illusions since he was thirteen. His ability was W ranked. He did not make mistakes, and there were no holes in his illusions. Ever. Not once in all his life.
He looked down at his hands. Of course he could see them.
He backed away down the hall some, not so far as to be suspicious, but trying to get back as close as he could to the teleportation room, to the place where twitters in the electricity were expected and ignored by security.
He gently rechecked his spell, pushing his mind into the mana and carefully watching his weave. It was intact, a perfect core of sensory magic and a great radius of groping strings, all those threadlike ends reaching far and near, searching like twitching roots for minds to touch and to deceive. He could see them all, and there were many where the guards at the table were, many, many of those strands, each reaching into the minds of the others and painting the waking dream, coating their own ideas with his contrived reality. They should not see him without having reason to disbelieve. They could not. And yet there he’d been, in that woman’s image machine, as plain as if he’d simply walked up to her with no magic at all. Some
thing was terribly wrong. And now there was nothing he could do.
The last miner was being waved through.
The woman looked up at him and beckoned him. “Come on,” she said. “You’re next.”
His mind spun, whirled, as he groped for what next to do.
“Don’t be shy. It’s just a formality. You’re new, aren’t you?” She glanced up at her fellow soldier, who nodded, not recognizing Black Sander either.
“Yes, I am,” he said, quelling the urge to run back into the teleportation room. It was still an option, though. He could simply tell them he’d changed his mind. By treaty, the space between that checkpoint and the TGS depot behind him was still the territory of the Kingdom of Kurr.
“Well, don’t worry. None of this stuff hurts. It’s all safe. Our people have been using these for centuries.”
Black Sander walked as casually as possible back up to the desk. The situation wasn’t entirely alien to him, despite it being, well, entirely alien. This wasn’t the first security check he’d had to lie his way through. But still, it was with some effort that he had to put down the shock of discovering his illusion had completely failed.
“What’s your name?” she asked. It seemed as if she was making an extra effort to be nice. He let go a long, calming breath as he heard it. He would be fine here.
“I am Stamon Farplain,” he said. “Jeweler to Lord Gideon Dovenstake of Dae.”
She looked up, her eyes bright and curious. “Jeweler, eh? I didn’t think you were dressed for digging down there. Did they find something valuable in that hole besides iron and titanium?”
With practiced stoicism, and equally practiced conviviality, he kept himself from frowning during the moment of his confusion. Then he laughed. “Oh, hah hah, don’t we all wish, my dear? No, I’m afraid there’s no such luck as that.” He glanced up at the man standing there, as if about to share a great secret, then leaned down to the woman. In a low yet jovial voice, he said, “At least not as we know, but who’s to say what these fellows are sneaking out in the bottoms of their boots, you see?”