Harvest Moon

by Mercedes Lackey, Michelle Sagara

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t his mirror—”

  “The Arcanist seemed fascinated by it.”

  “There were other spells on the mirror—just not one cast by the mage who enchanted the child.” Kaylin shrugged. “I don’t know more than Ceridath told me. I don’t even know if I understood it all.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  Kaylin decided then and there that she didn’t like the man. “The mirror didn’t have the enchantment we were looking for—or maybe you couldn’t see that for yourself?”

  Captain Neall raised one brow. “Indeed, I cannot. Nor have I made any claim of competence in that area.”

  “Neither have I.”

  Tain cleared his throat. “Kaylin.”

  She turned, flushed, to glare, and he said, “The children will die soon. Any chance we have to save them is slipping by as minutes pass. Decide how much this display of ego is worth to you.” He spoke so mildly and so carelessly he might have been talking about a midday snack—on a day when she wasn’t almost starving.

  The anger left her in a rush. She swallowed, thinking of the one corpse she’d briefly glimpsed. Of the empty holding cell, and the blood on the floor. Lifting her chin, meeting the gaze of the Captain—which hadn’t changed at all, the heartless bastard—she said, “Farris’s books, like Ceridath’s books, were enchanted. Not all of them, only a few—but on Farris’s books, the signature matched the signature on the corpses and on the site. They matched the spell on Ceridath’s mirror as well.” She frowned. “Ceridath said that he only made one attempt to investigate—”

  Words fled and she turned in a panic toward his inner office. She slid between both Hawks and Wolves in a desperate attempt to reach the mirror. Only when she saw its flat, lifeless surface did she begin to breathe again.

  “Kaylin,” Captain Neall said, more of an edge to his voice.

  She turned to him almost wildly. “Ceridath said—he tried to find out who was communicating with him, and how—and it went badly. I think they must have hurt his granddaughter. He stopped. But we don’t know how they know or what they detected, and if he—”

  The door to the outer office slammed open. There wasn’t any need to find out who had entered because whoever it was ran straight from the entrance of the outer office to the door of the inner sanctum.

  In it, hair slightly wild and eyes very wide, chest heaving as if from a great exertion, stood Ceridath.

  They hadn’t been close to two hours; even Kaylin, caught up in her observations, knew that. But Ceridath was here, regardless. She wondered if anyone had noticed his absence, and wondered what it would cost him if they had. But he seemed to feel he’d already lost everything, so maybe it didn’t matter to him anymore.

  He made it to the mirror, just as Kaylin had done, and saw its flat surface. Only then did his shoulders and brows fall. She looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He glanced at Captain Neall, the other two Wolves, and Tain. “I hardly think you have anything to apologize for,” he told her. “Given that the Captain of the Wolves is undoubtedly in charge here. Captain?”

  “As you surmise, we are investigating you. We are almost done,” he added. “But our investigations also encompass a colleague.”

  “Farris?”

  The Captain nodded. “Our expert has identified—”

  Ceridath turned to Kaylin, which obviously surprised the Captain. Kaylin said, “Unless someone else was enchanting his books, the mage who cast the magic on the girl and the one who cast the magic on the floor was Farris. He also did something to your mirror,” she added.

  “My granddaughter—”

  “We’ll find out,” Captain Neall replied. His smile—the first he’d offered—made Kaylin take a step back. It also made her wonder what the Wolves did in the service of the Emperor’s Law. “We have enough information now to confront Farris directly. Lord Sanabalis will be on his way shortly, as will the Interrogators.”

  “Tha’alani?”

  Captain Neall nodded. He started to say something else, when they were interrupted by a very loud bang. Neall lifted his head and said something extremely rude about Arcanists before he gestured and everyone filed out of the room toward where they’d left Teela.

  All professional calm had left the Captain’s face, and although it was petty, Kaylin felt a little satisfaction at seeing him behave like a human being. He moved, dragging his Wolves, a Hawk, and a mage in his wake, until he reached Farris’s rooms. The door to Farris’s outer office was shut. Kaylin looked at the door ward that adorned its center and grimaced; it was glowing very brightly.

  “Do not touch the door,” Ceridath said as the Captain lifted his palm. “The chamber was initially opened by Farris?”

  “By the Magister,” the Captain replied.

  “The Magister will not easily be able to open the door again.” He began to gesture, and Kaylin watched as the door’s rune slowly transformed itself into a now-familiar sigil. “Who did you leave in the room?” Ceridath asked softly, his forehead creased, his brows slightly gathered in concentration.

  “A Barrani Hawk,” the Captain replied. Then, after a pause, “And a Barrani Arcanist.”

  The spell faltered a moment—or at least the brightness of Farris’s signature did. Ceridath’s eyes rounded so much it was a wonder they stayed in his head. “You led an Arcanist here?”

  “The Magister was aware of his presence, and while he did not fully approve, he acceded to the request. Why is the door closed?”

  “You would mostly likely have to ask Farris if you want an exact answer—but it is not at all uncommon for contingency spells to be placed upon the doors of any experienced mage. If something has triggered a contingency, the doors often lock. Sometimes they…resist…attempts to open them. If, however, you are not attached to your hand, you may attempt to use the ward.”

  “If I do?”

  “In the very best case, it will merely alert Farris of your presence, as I was alerted.”

  “And in the worst?”

  “It will still alert Farris to your presence. The likelihood of his ignorance, given the activation, is small, however.”

  Kaylin could see an argument brewing—or at least a lengthy and heated discussion—and she started to tell them both that they didn’t have the time for it. But the door came to her rescue, in a fashion: it disintegrated.

  Both the mage and the Captain seemed to forget how to speak as the Barrani Arcanist stepped into the hall, dusting ash off his robes. “Gentlemen.” He turned back toward the empty frame and offered Teela a hand. She glanced at it, and then offered the Captain of the Wolves a very sharp salute.

  The Arcanist snorted.

  “Captain,” Teela said without preamble, “we have a problem.”

  The Captain looked past her shoulder into the room. So did Kaylin; the outer office—at least—seemed to be untouched. Except for the now-absent door.

  “Is it a problem that involves the political fury of the Magister?”

  “No, sir.”

  His eyes narrowed into slits. “Is it a problem that involves the political ire of the Barrani?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Does it matter?” Kaylin finally demanded. Everyone in the hall looked down at her, in more ways than one. “The children—”

  The Arcanist glanced at Teela. “I leave this in your hands,” he told her. “In order to fulfill the terms of a very tedious contract, I must now retire to write—and submit—a report to the Captain.”

  As the Captain turned, Teela caught his arm. “Captain Neall,” she said, voice low, “we have two important pieces of information. The first, the location of the current intended victims. The second, very little time.”

  “How did you obtain that information?”

  “I did not obtain it. The Arcanist did. It will no doubt be costly, but it amused him. Unfortunately, it did not amuse the source of the information—the mirror was destroyed in the midst of
the discussion.”

  “The Arcanist destroyed—”

  “No. The person on the other end.”

  Ceridath’s brows rose. “That would be impossible—” He stopped.

  “Yes. If the person on the other end were not in some part responsible for the creation of the mirror itself, it would be. The mirror was not created by mortals, or even mortal mages.”

  Captain Neall wanted to say more; that was clear. What he did say, however, was, “The location, Corporal.”

  “It’s on Vaturcroft. The fourth house.”

  Captain Neall grimaced. “I’ll mirror the Wolflord.”

  “Not from Farris’s office you won’t,” Teela replied in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice. “Tain.”

  “Where are you going?” the Captain asked.

  “To Vaturcroft. We’re under your orders while we investigate within the Imperial Order’s confines. We’re beholden to no such thing now, and we can’t afford to wait. Farris, should he still be here, is your problem.” Turning, she began to jog down the long hall. Tain followed on her heels, and so did Kaylin. She wasn’t surprised to see Ceridath join her as well.

  “We’ll take a carriage,” he said when they were almost at the exit. He was breathing heavily, and it hadn’t been that much of a run. Teela and Tain had been stopped by the guards, which allowed Ceridath the chance to catch up.

  He looked at one of those guards and said, “We need a carriage now.”

  Kaylin didn’t even notice how uncomfortable the carriage was. She didn’t notice the buildings that passed by the windows, and only briefly noticed the people scrambling to get out of the way. What she noticed was the silence in the cabin; the silence and the sense that everything—everything—was taking too damn long.

  Teela glanced once at Ceridath and opened her mouth; she closed it again before words could escape.

  When the carriage lurched to a stop, she checked to see that Kaylin still had the daggers she’d been given. “We’re one building down from where we’ll need to be. I have no idea how many children they have, but that’s the house. There are guards. They’re not visible, and there shouldn’t be many.”

  The house was far larger than the previous house had been, and it was separated from its neighbors by a lot more land and a stretch of fence.

  “Farris won’t be there, not yet. We don’t know whether or not he sent a message, or if his contingency did we might be too late. If we’re not, there’ll be fighting. We can’t afford to keep an eye on you and an eye out for their victims—you’re not chained, you’re not hobbled. You can use those,” she added. No question. “Use them.” She looked up at the mage. “I don’t know much about your specialty—”

  “I can get you in safely. I can—unless Farris was exceptionally cautious—get you in quietly. I am not remaining behind,” he added.

  Teela took a deep breath, nodded, expelled. “Good. We’ll head to the back and hope the neighbors gape from the windows for a while before they think of doing anything sensible.”

  The back door—which was really a small side door—had a mark on its upper center which clearly indicated a door ward. Ceridath grimaced briefly and began to cast; Teela and Tain waited. “Simple ward,” the mage finally said. “Hold.” He cast again, and this time when he was done, he told them, “Now.”

  Kaylin assumed they meant to pick the lock.

  They broke through the door instead; she wasn’t certain it wasn’t faster. But if she’d wondered what Ceridath was doing, she understood it then: they made no noise at all. But noisy or no, Ceridath continued to cast the minute he cleared the door’s frame, yanking his robes free of splintered wood. Kaylin knew why: the other children had been hidden, probably with the aid of magic, from view. If it was there, he’d find it.

  So would she.

  Teela and Tain paid no attention to either mage or trainee; they were alert and focused. Since nothing made any sound, everything was visual. It was eerie, to Kaylin. Teela didn’t appear to like it much either, but if she cursed, none of it reached Kaylin’s ears. Ceridath motioned them forward into what looked like a long galley; it was mostly counter, and mostly clean. It was also empty.

  There were stairs leading down almost across from the entrance. Teela looked to the mage, and he frowned. Kaylin felt no magic that wasn’t his, and she saw nothing at all that implied magic had been done anywhere near this room.

  Down, Ceridath mouthed, as if remembering something suddenly.

  They nodded; they didn’t have to break the door down.

  They did have to deal with the men coming up the stairs. The men weren’t dressed for fighting; if they were the type of thugs the fieflords kept, the thugs here dressed better.

  Maybe the law was different, Kaylin thought. Maybe there were rules that weren’t meant to be broken, and the Hawks had to follow those because they also upheld them. But one of the men’s hands were red with blood; his clothing was spotted with it. Kaylin screamed in the silence as part of the floor fell out from under her feet.

  It wasn’t the literal floor; she knew this because Teela and Tain were already in motion. She drew her own daggers and as the men fell down the stairs—being kicked suddenly in the midsection helped—she leapt down the stairs as if she were their shadow.

  Too late too late toolatetoolate.

  Sound did not return. In silence, they moved into the basement. It wasn’t well lit, but light was here—Ceridath’s light, and the lights on the walls in tarnished sconces. The shadows they cast flickered, warped and stretched or thickened as they moved. They came across two more men, but these men were armed.

  Not for long, though. They were human, and they obviously weren’t trained to deal with a faceful of deadly Barrani. They went down, again in silence. The Barrani were already on the move. There were doors here, solid doors, not cell doors; nothing from the outside could see in, and nothing from the inside could look out. Here, though, the Barrani stopped; one door was ajar.

  Kaylin ran toward it; Teela caught her shoulder. Sound returned to the world in an ugly rush although magic didn’t leave it; her arms and legs hurt so much she thought her skin was peeling off. And she didn’t care. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the door. The blood on the floor, visible in the crappy light.

  She reached the door before Teela—a feat she could never manage to repeat—and threw it open as the men on the floor began to groan. She heard steel against stone, but didn’t move, didn’t look, didn’t even try to draw her own daggers. There was a child on the floor, facedown; blood pooled around her upper body, but it was wet, red; it wasn’t sticky yet.

  Someone was screaming and screaming and screaming—a child, a high voice, a terrible voice. She couldn’t stop. But she moved. “Kaylin, no!” Teela shouted.

  Kaylin ran to the side of the girl, knelt, and pulled her off the ground.

  As she did, the floor began to burn.

  It burned in a thin circle, a barrier of flickering light. Although it had taken the shape and the form of fire, it was cold. Its flame was the color of silver moon washed in a red that, no matter how pale it became, would never be pink. Coral? Kaylin thought, but it was brief, a flash of Caitlin. Through the flames, she rolled the girl over onto her lap and saw that the child’s throat had been cut. She screamed for them both, and her cheeks were hot and wet. The child’s face bore cuts.

  But these cuts, unlike the cuts on the corpse in the morgue, were precise strokes, like…writing. Her face was the color of wax, this child. Her blood was still running, and Kaylin’s tabard absorbed it. She drew the child into her arms, and her voice died at last into a raw silence.

  “Kaylin!”

  She didn’t even look. Her arms, her legs, her back—they were burning, yes. But…it wasn’t the burn that Ceridath’s magic, or Farris’s, or even the unnamed Arcanist had caused. She knew this warmth, this heat, this burning, even if she had never ever felt it so strongly. Her arms, what little of them were exposed, given her chosen bur
den, were so incandescent a white that they could easily be seen through her sleeves.

  Through Caitlin’s sleeves.

  Fear hit. Relief. Terror. Hope. They tore at her, but they held her aloft at the same time. She reached out, palm against the gaping wound as if by one hand she could hold the child’s throat together. She didn’t know if this girl was Ceridath’s granddaughter; she didn’t care. She could do something. She could banish some memories. She could—at last—arrive in time.

  She felt the heat in her hands, and she felt it leave; she felt the girl’s throat, and she felt—as she held breath, in silence—the faintest of pulses. She touched the girl’s cheeks with her palms, which was difficult given the difference in their sizes and their positions; she touched the girl’s eyes, her forehead, the brief gashes in her stomach.

  The girl’s eyes opened.

  They were the wrong shade of green.

  What is this? a voice said. It was neither young nor female. The flames in the circle rose higher, lapping at her feet.

  Kaylin looked through them to meet the very blue eyes of Teela. “Teela!” she shouted.

  Teela took a step toward her and went down as Tain tackled her, full on. Behind them, jaw slack, stood Ceridath, his expression heartbreaking.

  Teela rose. She kicked one of the groaning men in the face; it was vicious but short. She would have kicked Tain, but Tain was too fast for her; he got out of the way.

  “Kitling!” she shouted.

  Kaylin nodded. “It’s—something’s wrong with her—”

  “It’s a Harvest Circle.” Teela actually punched the wall closest to the doorway. Kaylin heard it, but didn’t see it. “If we’d waited until it was dark, you’d—”

  “I got here in time. I—she’s speaking,” Kaylin said. “But—in a man’s voice.”

  Teela said a whole lot of what sounded like Leontine, then, and turned to the mage. She spoke in Barrani. The mage’s eyes widened and he answered—in Barrani. If it was the last thing she ever did on this earth, Kaylin was going to learn how to speak that damn language like a native.