Harvest Moon

by Mercedes Lackey, Michelle Sagara

  He nodded. “But as I said, it’s the visualization of a paradigm—it is not exact. Your visualization adds information to mine, and I would say your visualization implies that the exact location of the magical connection was, in fact, her eyes. But mine—” He frowned. “Are you certain you have no desire to study the magical arts?”

  Kaylin stared at him, and he reddened slightly. “One day,” he said, “you’ll have the privilege of doing something you love for a living.” His face fell. “And I hope when you do, you are never in a position where you are forced to betray it.”

  Kaylin, who had been so angry, also lowered her head. “You were trying to save your granddaughter,” she whispered. “I think—I think I’d do the same.”

  “Then do that now.” His reply was firmer and stronger. “I will…experiment. I can’t help but notice that the Corporal failed to mention your part in uncovering my duplicity to Lord Sanabalis. Even now she fails to mention it to young Farris. Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “I will attempt a similar discretion. Cough if you think I’m casting…too quickly.” He started to speak, looked down at her, and shook his head. “You are not so much older than she is.”

  “I’m not your blood.”

  “No, you are not that.” He made his way back to the argument in progress, because it had become an argument, and like the previous argument-with-mages, had shifted into a language that Kaylin couldn’t understand. It frustrated her. But Teela didn’t pull a weapon, and the mage didn’t call down lightning or fire—if they even could. She realized she didn’t know a lot about either Hawks or mages.

  Ceridath’s presence dumped figurative water on the heat. He looked old, forbidding, and unamused; Kaylin could practically feel the disgust he radiated. She almost couldn’t believe he was the same man who had come to talk to her—the man who loved his magic and his theories just a little bit less than he loved his granddaughter.

  Teela and Tain withdrew, exchanging a glance that was both chagrined and amused. “I don’t know what you said to him,” Teela whispered, “but don’t say it again.”

  “He’s going to try it.”

  “I didn’t get that impression from what he said.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Never mind. Do you need to get closer to the ground?”

  Kaylin shook her head. Her skin was beginning its unpleasant tingle, and as far as she could tell, Ceridath hadn’t even started to cast. But the marks on the walls began to glow again. She leaned over the edge of the planking and looked toward the floor, where she saw a similar mark; it was squarer in shape and it was the same pale blue. Shaking her head, she said, “I think we’re going to need to go downstairs.”

  Downstairs in this case meant ladders. Teela didn’t trust the look of the main floor; Kaylin did—she was certain it would collapse if she tried to walk across it. The ladders, on the other hand, were solid. She made her way down into a darkness alleviated by lamplight. A lot of lamplight. They weren’t the only people in the basement, but the other three were Hawks, not mages. They didn’t wear the tabards that Teela and Tain wore, but their jackets had the same Hawk embroidered across either shoulder.

  “Teela,” one of the men said.

  “You talked to the neighbors?”

  He nodded. “They didn’t see anything unusual. The house was apparently being rented.”

  “Did they see or speak with the tenant?”

  “Not often. He was apparently friendly and not particularly suspicious.”

  “Age, height?”

  “Thirty-five to forty, about six-three. Reasonably well dressed, apparently well educated, although not in Elantra.”

  “Human?”

  “What else in this part of town?”

  Teela frowned, and the man grimaced. “Yes, sir. He apparently went out during the day, came back around dinnertime. He wasn’t covered in blood, didn’t entertain any obvious mages, and had the usual number of friends.”

  “Which would be?”

  “A few couples who would arrive around dinner and leave afterward. That’s it. He wasn’t fat, wasn’t fit, wasn’t bald, wasn’t striking—very, very nondescript.”

  “Name?”

  “Luivide.”

  “Is that his first name or his family name?”

  “Family name. Garron is his first name.”

  “You ran a check?”

  The man nodded. “We’ve got nothing in Records.”

  “How surprising. Has he been seen since?”

  “No. They assume he died in the, er, fire.”

  Kaylin peered around Teela. She’d been listening to the conversation and looking at everything that the lamplight touched, her brow furrowed. “Is that the same description of the guys at the other places? Teela said this was the third.”

  The man raised both brows. “What’s this, Teela? You’ve got a trainee? Seems a little on the young side.”

  “Shut up and answer her question.”

  The man chuckled. “No. All of the buildings were rented, but one of them was rented by a woman, the other by an older man. Hey, don’t touch anything—Teela, keep an eye on her!”

  “Kaylin, listen to him. We haven’t finished sifting through the wreckage yet.”

  But Kaylin barely heard her. The glowing blue runes that dominated the floor above had worked their way down to the basement, but they were fainter and more diffuse; they lay not across the walls, but across the packed dirt of the floor itself. She edged through them, searching.

  Teela followed quietly, moving like a cat, her steps light and deliberate. After a moment, she said, “This way.”

  Kaylin allowed herself to be led. Ceridath had started to speak—when, she wasn’t certain—and his voice was now a steady, slow drone. The large runes began to shift in place, their patterns blurring—but they didn’t get any brighter.

  Teela led her to what remained of a small room. Here, of all the space in the basement so far, the blue light from the large runes was strongest; it lay pulsing against the three walls that didn’t contain what was left of a door. Kaylin squinted, frowned, and began to cough. She’d never been a good liar, and her cough—while loud—was so badly staged it wouldn’t have passed as a cough to anyone who wasn’t listening for it.

  Teela stared at her when she’d finished, one brow lifted. “Are you quite finished?”

  Kaylin mumbled something that she hoped would pass as an apology and waited to see if Ceridath had heard. The light from the runes softened slowly—although it might have been her imagination. She wondered, if he saw this light as something textile, if he could lift it to see what might be underneath.

  She couldn’t. And what was underneath the light at the moment was a lot of porous rock that sat above more packed dirt. The ground was scorched, but even scorched, the smell of rotting flesh was strong. Kaylin started to kneel, but Teela caught her shoulders. “Not here,” she said firmly. “We’re not done here yet.”

  “There’s nothing to touch,” Kaylin pointed out.

  Teela didn’t reply.

  Kaylin coughed again. This time, Teela cuffed the side of her head.

  “What are you doing?”

  Kaylin squinted. “It’s too—it’s too bright. I think there’s something—” She pointed at the ground.

  The Barrani Hawk was at her elbow instantly.

  Kaylin knelt. She placed her palm against the porous stone, aware that as she did she was probably touching layers of dried blood.

  “I told you not to touch anything,” the Barrani said in a chilly whisper.

  “There’s something here, Teela,” she whispered. “I can almost see a smudge of different color. It’s not like the last time. I think it’s a wider area, almost like a circle.”

  Teela stiffened, and Kaylin looked up.

  “A circle.” The Hawk’s eyes were sapphire-blue; Kaylin rocked back on her heels. She did not, however, reach for her daggers. Or breathe.

  “Are
you absolutely certain?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll get the mages.”

  It took longer to bring the mages down than it had to get any of the Hawks to the basement. Ceridath was slow to stop his casting, and Farris was clearly used to being in charge when he was brought into an “ongoing investigation.” Being told how and where to work irritated him.

  His irritation clearly amused Teela, which also irritated him; Kaylin half suspected that the Barrani was doing it on purpose. But they did come down the ladders, something their very fine robes didn’t help, and Teela led them to the room. Ceridath looked slightly queasy; Farris, clearly, had spent more time on-site.

  “Corporal,” he said coldly, “they were children. I hardly think magic was necessary to either contain or confine them.”

  “I’m not implying that that was the point of the magic,” was the cold reply. “You’re not here to deduce on our behalf, you’re here to provide information.”

  Farris slipped into what Kaylin could now recognize as High Barrani. She had to admire his courage—or his insanity—because he appeared to be unleashing it on a visibly annoyed Barrani. If he’d been just a little more friendly, she’d’ve tried to warn him. As it was, she sucked air through her teeth as Ceridath once again started to cast. This time, the spell was different, the focus different; Kaylin couldn’t see the spell itself, but she could see the effects of it.

  She coughed, but this time she coughed quietly. Ceridath’s head snapped up in obvious annoyance—but not at her.

  “If,” he said in Elantran, “the two of you wouldn’t mind, some of us are trying to do work that requires concentration.” He offered the brunt of his icy glare to Teela, stopped casting, and folded his arms.

  Teela grimaced, but took the hint; she moved the argument. Farris came with it as if attached by chains. Frowning, Ceridath then waved Kaylin over.

  His tone was curt and condescending—but his expression was not; she understood that he was once again attempting to hear what she had to say without looking like he was listening or asking. His knees bent slowly, and he grimaced, shifting his robes to avoid as much of the debris as it was possible to while kneeling in it.

  “Farris is right,” he murmured. “It makes no sense for magic to be used here, not directly on the children. But…it was. It undoubtedly was.” He looked at her. “You saw something here?”

  “Yes. But not very clearly—it was like a smudge of different color.”

  He grimaced. “The entire floor is polluted.”

  She nodded. “I was thinking—if you see things as textiles, can you, you know, lift them to see what might be underneath?”

  He raised one brow and then his lips curved in a very faint smile. But he didn’t say she was wasted where she was, and he didn’t ask her to study magic. “Let me look now. Farris will come when he’s finished arguing with the Corporal. I have no idea why he does it—or where he gets the energy…it doesn’t matter if she’s only a lowly Hawk. She’s Barrani. The Barrani could clean garbage off the street convinced of their innate superiority to mortals.”

  Kaylin, on the other hand, suddenly thought she understood why Teela was deliberately trying to annoy the younger mage, and she felt grateful. She also felt her skin begin to tingle. It wasn’t as immediately painful as it had been the first time, which meant he was using a different spell or she was getting used to his magic.

  She watched as the blue marks began to emerge. They weren’t runic in the way they had been across the walls; it was as if the runes or sigils were so large they couldn’t be contained in shape and form by something as small as the patch of floor.

  She coughed gently; he grimaced. “I am trying,” was the curt reply. It was strained, and if she looked carefully, she could see sweat beading his forehead. The blue didn’t get any brighter, but it didn’t dim. She began to examine the floor as carefully as he appeared to be examining it. “There,” she said.

  “I see it. I’m surprised you could. Well, more surprised.”

  “Does it look like cloth to you?”

  “Very much, but fine, fine cloth. Its color?”

  “The same color as—as the magic on the dead girl. But it looks like it’s circular.”

  “Keep watching. Watch closely. You will not have much time.”

  She nodded. The blue light moved. It rose. As it rose, she could see that it was attached by threads, or trails of sharp light, to the floor itself. But beneath it she could see her golden smudge: it was not as bright as the blue light—she thought, when cast, it had never been as bright—but it was infinitely more complicated: it had the shape of the runes on her skin, but the lines, the strokes, the rounded curves, were finer and more dense. She recognized it, although it seemed more solid: it was the same mark as those that had risen from a dead girl’s eyes in the morgue, but written over and over again until it comprised a closed circle, surrounding the blackened rock.

  Looking up, she met Ceridath’s eyes; he was watching her intently.

  “It’s the same,” she said softly.

  He nodded, and then said, “Corporal?”

  Teela crossed the damp floor. Farris was behind her, and behind Farris, Tain. “Well?”

  “I find evidence of the Arcane bomb here. It’s likely that at least one was detonated in the holding cell. It obviates any possibility of any other magic. This was not unexpected,” he added. “Farris?”

  “I do not feel it is a good use of either our time or our power,” was the clipped, curt reply.

  “Then please, feel free to tell the Emperor that,” Teela snapped.

  Farris was silent; he met and held her gaze. Her gaze was now very blue, with very little green in it.

  “You are the only person in the Imperial Order who is likely to find something I cannot,” Ceridath pointed out. “And the Magister made clear that the Emperor is now almost…angry…with the lack of progress in this case.” Farris nodded.

  Kaylin waited for the familiar bite of magic. She kept her expression neutral and concentrated on keeping her breathing even, but she didn’t move to stand behind either Teela or Ceridath; instead, she watched Farris. His casting was not the slow, steady cast of the older mage; it was quick and sharp. The effects were instant; the blue light that adorned the ground grew by degrees, and the quality of it looked different, to Kaylin’s eye. She glanced at Ceridath, who was absorbed in the manifestation of the spell’s progress. This time, Kaylin could see the faint smudge that marred the otherwise solid blue, distorting its edges. She watched, waiting for Farris’s reaction.

  It was a long time in coming, but the smudge never got any clearer; it was lost entirely to the blue light at the end. Farris turned to Teela. “There is nothing here that I can detect. The magic from the Arcane bomb is too strong. Ceridath?”

  Ceridath hesitated for just a fraction of a second, and then nodded. “If that will satisfy you, Corporal, our work here is done.”

  Teela didn’t look satisfied. But she nodded. “Do you gentlemen require an escort, or can you find your own way home to the ivory tower?”

  “Oh, given Imperial concern and the amount of work you’ll no doubt have to do here, I’m sure we can find our own way,” Farris replied coldly. “Ceridath?”

  “I am fatigued, and I would like to leave this place as soon as possible.”

  “Good. Have a good day, Corporal.”

  Teela waited in silence for five minutes after the mages had departed. It was exactly the wrong kind of silence, and Kaylin backed away from it as if it were an unsheathed sword. Tain, who knew her better, did the same.

  “She’s not fond of mages,” he told Kaylin.

  “Is anyone? I don’t think the Sergeant likes them much either.”

  “He doesn’t. Our line of work is seldom as interesting—to mages—as their own. It is also work they feel any undereducated idiot could manage. Being put under our command annoys them, as it devalues their time. I don’t care one way or the other,” he added.
“Teela doesn’t appreciate it.”

  No kidding.

  “But that’s not what’s made her angry at the moment.”

  “No?”

  “No. Come on, we’re heading back to the office.”

  Teela was angry enough that she didn’t go to the office by way of the locker room, which meant Kaylin was still wearing two daggers—and a layer of dirt and dust—when they marched past the board with the Hawks’ duty roster toward the Sergeant, who was still sitting behind two large stacks of paper looking like an embattled, giant cat. Caitlin raised her head when Teela stormed by. She quietly did something to the mirror on her desk, and then rose; no one else appeared stupid enough to dare.

  The Sergeant looked up as Teela reached the business end of his desk. Something about the Barrani caused his golden eyes to shade to an instant orange. “You found something.”

  “Yes and no,” Teela replied. “We’re about to head up to the Tower. I thought you might as well join us because you’re going to get called there anyway, and it gives you a break from the paperwork.”

  “Hawklord?”

  She nodded.

  “How serious is this?”

  “Very.”

  The Sergeant left his desk. When he joined Teela he stopped and looked at Kaylin, who’d been quietly standing behind Tain. “Wait with Caitlin,” he told her.

  Teela, however, shook her head. “We’ll need her upstairs.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’ll have enough to worry about after the meeting. You won’t remember that you didn’t want her there later.”

  Lord Grammayre was in the Tower. Kaylin had seen the inside of the Tower once, and once was enough; she approached it with dread. Dread, however, didn’t make her walk slowly; she couldn’t. Teela all but flew up the stairs, setting the pace. Teela also pressed her hand against the door ward—if you could call pounding it so hard they could probably hear it a Tower away “pressing.” The doors rolled open immediately.

  The man everyone called the Hawklord was standing in the center of his Tower, facing a tall, oval mirror. Kaylin had never seen so many mirrors in her life, but even if she had, she would never have seen so many that offered no reflection to the person standing—or sitting—in front of it.