by John Daulton
“They’ve got cameras,” Annison rasped.
“They’ve got what?” Black Sander asked, then turned to the window as another man was crawling through. “Cover the door,” he ordered, then leaned down nearer to Annison’s mouth. “Speak up.”
Annison repeated what he’d said, his voice like crushing old, dry leaves.
“Well, I can’t understand a thing you are saying,” Black Sander said. “And you look like all nine hells. I take it they haven’t bothered to feed you since you arrived.” He glanced around the room before his eyes came to rest on Annison’s brain, all neatly quartered and most of it in dishes placed on the tray. “And what have they done to your head? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this.” He had seen it in the images from Kalafrand, but the reality of it was significant.
He walked to where the women were, and glanced past them into the row of monitors along the back wall. Several of them depicted three-dimensional models of the parts of Annison’s brain. The most frequently graphed and illustrated among them was the mythothalamus, which Black Sander had seen on occasion in drawings in books or doctors’ offices back on Prosperion. He turned to the two doctors, who were surprisingly calm despite their situation. “What’s all this?” he asked. “What are you doing to him?”
“Studying him,” the woman said in English, though she had something of an accent in the way she pronounced the words. It sounded different in her mouth than it did in those of the Earth people Black Sander had dealt with in the city called Des Moines.
Annison struggled to wet his lips and called out again. “They have cameras,” he said again, more clearly now. “They’re going to come.”
To suggest his claim might be true, there were two loud reports from outside, short pops of noise that echoed off the walls. There followed a few shouts, some in English, some in the common tongue of Kurr.
Black Sander went to the window and looked down the rope up which he had climbed. Two of his men lay dead, and there was a dead Earth man on the lawn with an arrow in his face. Two of the men from Murdoc Bay were already dragging that fellow into the bushes, though.
“Well, that’s done it,” Black Sander said. He went to the flat, boxlike object on the counter between a pair of monitors and pulled out the thin wires in the back. He tossed it to the man with the crossbow, who caught it one-handed and stuffed it into the back of his pants.
That’s when the door into the room burst open and three men came charging in. A bright streak of red light cut through the space between the first of the men and Black Sander, even as the attacker was running for the left corner of the room.
Black Sander muttered four short words for an illusion, casting a block of blackness around the man and locking him in absolute darkness. The second through the door had a longer weapon, one made of wood and black metal, like a crossbow without the bow. From it spouted flashes of white fire and loud, concussive reports. It was a weapon the Earth men called a gun. All the gunfire was directed at Twane, standing near the window.
This was hardly the first time the burly Prosperion had been in a room being raided by a group of armed men, and he was already diving for cover when the first shots rang out. He fired his crossbow as he rolled, and his first shot, aimed through the legs and rods of the tables and monitoring equipment around Annison’s chair, shot the gun-wielding man right through his ankle, which sent him sprawling to the ground.
The third Prosperion, who had been in wait beside the door, stepped out from behind it and silently slit the throat of the third Earth man through the door. Then he leapt upon the man with the long gun and plunged his knife into the man’s heart. He took the gun, and, finding a smaller handheld gun in the man’s belt, he took that too. He immediately tossed the smaller one to Twane, who had just regained his feet.
Blasts of red light sprayed out from the black block of the illusion spell Black Sander had cast. The random fire caused everyone to dive for the floor, even the two doctors, who huddled together in a corner where rows of low cabinets met, looking scared but not remotely hysterical.
Annison let out a cry as one blast of laser fire blew off his left kneecap, and another burnt away part of his shoulder, sending him into absolute agony.
“Stay at the door,” Black Sander barked, and he crawled across the floor to where the man in the darkness spell was. When he was near enough, he snatched the man’s ankles out from under him with a hooking swipe of his arm. The man fell like a rock, his head hitting the wall first, then the corner of a counter before he landed with a thump. Black Sander dismissed the spell as he drew his dagger, and the man had just enough time to stare up wide-eyed at his killer before Black Sander’s knife was in his throat.
Black Sander took the man’s weapon and stood up, studying it for a time. It was much smaller than those the fleet soldiers he’d seen on Prosperion had carried. This was a remarkably concealable device. He smiled as he tucked it into his belt.
He turned back in time to see three more men arriving, though these came slowly, and looked warily through the doorframe. One of them turned back and said something to someone out of sight, and perhaps just coming up the hall. Black Sander could not tell what they were saying, but he quickly cast a spell of invisibility on himself and his two men.
When the man looked back, he saw that they were gone. He took the time to look quickly around the room to confirm it, then ducked back behind the doorframe again.
There followed more talking. It was a language Black Sander did not know. Then came a loud voice speaking in one he did: English, clear and audible. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the man outside the room called in. “I had no idea you were from Prosperion. Why didn’t you just come in through the front gate?”
Black Sander didn’t answer.
Annison moaned. Black Sander figured he was in agony. Blood ran freely from his leg and shoulder both. The emaciated magician was twitching his finger up toward the roof. Or toward the monitor near where he lay. He was pointing. Black Sander followed the direction of the skeletal finger, looked into the monitor there. It was the monitor that showed the room and the table behind Annison. The one showing Black Sander as plain as day.
“They can still see you,” Annison rasped. “In the cameras.” His hand trembled as he tried to point again.
Black Sander saw it and realized his mistake. From that angle, the men in the hallway couldn’t see the monitor. He didn’t believe there were any monitors like it outside the room either. He’d been through this whole complex in his mind; he’d had Kalafrand run him through in the memories from his seeing spell.
“Gentlemen,” continued the voice. “You cannot escape. Put down your weapons. No one else needs to die.”
Several loud gunshots followed, and the Prosperion guarding the door fell forward, his blood leaking out onto the floor, tracing the shape of his body despite the invisibility spell. There were three smoking holes in the wall behind where he had stood.
Clearly the men outside the room had some kind of monitors after all.
“There’s no reason for everyone in there to die,” said the voice in the hallway. “And I’d rather not have to throw grenades into the lab. We’ve got a lot of nice equipment in there that would be a shame to waste. Jefe will be upset.”
Black Sander muttered the words to a seeing spell; for this situation his D-class sight was more than adequate. In moments he’d assessed the threat.
Gunfire sounded from outside, below the window, along with the hiss of laser fire cutting through moisture in the air. He hoped he’d brought enough men. They weren’t magicians, but they were streetwise and experienced. As if in answer, he heard Belor shouting at one of them to get the weapons off the dead Earth men. He sent his magic vision out through the wall, and confirmed what he had hoped: the men arranged around the side of the house had worked efficiently. Four more of the locals now lay dead.
He let the seeing spell go, and looked back at the monitor where he was clearly visible.
Invisibility would be pointless within most Earth buildings; that much was becoming obvious. He glanced to Annison, lying there with his brain all carved out, and shook his head. It was also obvious that the Earth people wanted magic for themselves. His hunch had turned out absolutely true.
He wondered how much they’d learned, how much was in that little box he’d tossed to Twane.
“Break it, Twane,” he called across the room. “The box I gave you. Stomp it into a thousand bits. Shoot it with that gun.”
Twane did as he was told. Black Sander’s black brows knit together, his mind ticking through possibilities.
“Do you seek the secret of magic?” he called out to the man behind the wall.
“I do,” said the man.
“You’re going to need more than one mage to figure it out, you know. Different schools. Different powers. Combinations change what they can do.”
“Yes,” said the man. “We’ve learned that much from your friend there.”
Annison began to squirm. It was as if he recognized something familiar, something terrible in the lilt in Black Sander’s tone, a silky smoothness that the procurement specialist used when negotiating things—things like the price for Orli’s capture, for example, and things like more than a few of the ingredients he’d needed for the siren’s blood elixir Lord Thoroughgood had ordered Annison to make. “Black Sander, don’t,” he said.
Black Sander dropped the illusion and came toward the chair where Annison lay. The illusion would have failed them anyway. The men had tablets. They would see him and his men, and they would disbelieve. But he didn’t need to hide from them anyway.
He grinned. He drew his knife out again, placing it at Annison’s throat. “They’re not encouraging travel between the two worlds yet. You understand that, yes?” He spoke it loudly so the man in the hall could hear.
“Yes,” the man called back. “We are aware of that. It’s very … inconvenient.”
“It is,” Black Sander agreed.
“May I come in?” asked the man in the hallway, this time sounding entirely polite. “I’d prefer not to be shot if we are going to negotiate.”
“Just you,” said Black Sander. “And call off your men downstairs.”
There was a brief jumble of voices from beyond, muttering and words in a melodic language Black Sander did not recognize, all of which ended in the negotiator yelling at someone to be still and get it done. That last he understood clearly enough.
“All right,” said the man. “I’m coming in. I have no weapons.”
Black Sander cast his seeing spell once more, and studied the speaker carefully. He was a heavyset man, with blond hair and a bulbous nose. He wore expensive clothing in the style of the affluent class on Earth. “Yes, I see you,” Black Sander said. “What’s that lump near your ankle? Lift your pant leg and let me see.”
The blond man actually grinned at that. “Yes, I forgot about that,” he said, then reached down and pulled a very small version of the laser pistol Black Sander had acquired from the man he’d stabbed in the throat.
“Now you can come in,” Black Sander said.
The man moved between the group of his fellows, which had now swelled to five, and came inside, his hands held up near the level of his head, palms out and fingers splayed wide. “They call me El Segador,” he said. “If you are not familiar with the local tongue, that means ‘the harvester.’”
Black Sander nodded. “And is it your job to harvest magicians from Prosperion?”
The man nodded. “Nothing personal, of course, and certainly not for any ill will toward your people or your government. Think of it more in the cause of curiosity. And understanding, of course.”
Black Sander smiled. “Of course.”
“And who are you, my friend? What brings you to our humble estate with all your … medieval Prosperion weaponry? It seems a long way to come, and a risky trip, given the measures the NTA is going to. Is our guest here so important to you that you would risk angering the power structure of two planets? Or are you here on the orders of someone else?”
Black Sander smiled and shook his head. “He is a traitor and nothing more. My reasons, and those of an employer, were I to have one, are none of your business. Yet. But I had hoped to arrange some, shall we say, mutual harvesting. I’d planned to start with this one, since he has managed to fall through the NTA cracks from the start.” He looked down at Annison again and shook his head. “But it seems you people have beaten me to it. Honestly, you’ve rather ruined him for my purposes anyway.”
“Yes, I am sorry about that. Curiosity makes people do crazy things, you know? Especially when specimens are in such short supply. But we’ve gone to great lengths to keep him alive, as you can see?”
Black Sander laughed. “Indeed.” He pulled the handheld laser from his belt, which caused El Segador to take a step back.
“I thought we were being civil here,” El Segador said, lifting his hands higher still.
Black Sander smiled again, though his eyes held a predatory gleam. “I believe we may well be. For you see, from where I stand, where my employer stands, objects like this are in far shorter supply than chaps like him.” He lifted the weapon slightly, then tipped his head in the direction of Annison lying there, a sequence of movements like tipping scales.
El Segador’s eyes glinted too. “It’s interesting that you say that,” he said. “Because we have the exact opposite problem here.”
Both men were laughing as Black Sander put his knife and his new laser away.
Chapter 44
Pernie streaked across the ridgeline, balanced easily atop Knot’s smooth, slightly rounded back. She rode with her knees slightly bent to absorb the undulations that ran through his body in waves whenever his sinuous length scrambled over some stone or stump or mound. She did it reflexively now, and she did it at full speed. Her hair blew behind her, and her loose silk tunic snapped in the wind of his motion as they scuttled along faster than any horse could run. She ran because today was the day she needed to get away. Tomorrow would be a whole year on String. Tomorrow they were going to make her fight the orc. So today, she had to leave.
She didn’t dare turn her head back, for she knew Djoveeve was following her; she’d seen the shift in the mana when the old woman had turned from her jaguar form to that of a flying squirrel. Pernie was much better at noting the shifts now, and she could see them with the least dip into the mana stream. Doing so was not quite so easy as spotting sugar shrimp, but she’d learned to trust her instincts when it came to deciding what was a pattern shift and what was merely a natural eddy, drift, or roil. And so, knowing full well that Djoveeve was chasing her through the underbrush, Pernie had directed Knot up a ridgeline. In places, it was as sharp as a razor’s edge, so narrow that Knot had to scramble along the sides. Pernie shifted easily and hooked her heels over the edges of his shell, her back parallel to the stone rushing by. The shift came to her as naturally as if she’d been born with the insect beneath her instead of her own feet.
But the veteran assassin wasn’t thrown off her tail just yet, not so easily as by a run along a narrow ridge. No, the downside of Pernie’s plan was that she was highly visible up there. It was true Djoveeve’s cat form wouldn’t work on the cliff, but the squirrel form would get her high enough to jump to the trees once Pernie was down to the canopy.
She nudged Knot down the cliff face then, straight down, requiring that she slide all the way to his rounded rump and stand upon that, leaning into the rock face, which whistled past her so closely that she could not have put her hand between her shoulder and the rock. There was only room for one of her feet to stand upon him when he went perpendicular in that way, so she stood on one and held the other out for balance. She tapped the cliff from time to time with the butt of her spear as well, leaning on it like a rudder, using it to compensate for the shifts Knot made as he went down, S-curving around cracks or brambles or sometimes predators, any of which could come upon them suddenly
when traveling at such meteoric speed.
They plunged toward the canopy so fast it felt like free fall. Every second counted. Pernie knew that Djoveeve would struggle to find her once she got beneath the leaves, if she could just get far enough ahead. She was gaining time now. And the squirrel form would take time to glide down too, even be subject to air currents along the way.
Soon they were down far enough that they came level with the canopy, something of a shoreline where the uppermost foliage pressed against the cliff. The moment they were in the shadows of it, Pernie teleported both herself and Knot some fifteen paces away, across an open space between the cliff face and a long kapok bough that thrust even deeper into the sea of leaves. They shot along its length until it narrowed and began to bend beneath their weight. She spied the dangling length of a vine some twenty spans away, the long, sturdy variety preferred by the spider-apes.
She stabbed the end of her spear out in front of Knot, who recoiled from the unexpected sight, curling back on himself as he tried to stop. Pernie dropped to her bottom and slid along his back with the momentum she still had, right up the curve of his recoil. She wrapped her legs around his middle as she hit the upturned part, and she gripped him tightly just before she teleported them both to the vine.
Knot, in terror, curled up into a ball, wrapping himself around her feet and shins. She could feel all his legs twitching like so many spiny bristles of a brush.
She grabbed the vine as they reappeared, and they fell together toward the jungle floor, plunging in free fall for five full seconds before the vine began to draw tight. Pernie knew she likely would lose her grip when she and Knot hit the length of it, so she began the teleport spell again, right as the jolt of the fall tore her hands loose from the vine. She spoke the last word with the precision she learned from jumping off cliffs, and in that barest blink of time, she put them back on the vine again.