by John Daulton
Finally they got around to paying attention to Pernie. Seawind and Djoveeve parted just enough to allow her to squeeze through. The old woman reached back and guided her forward unnecessarily. When Seawind said, “The future Sava’an’Lansom, your own Pernie Grayborn,” even Tytamon looked surprised.
Pernie, of course, ignored him, and instead smiled at the Queen. “Hello, Your Majesty. You are very golden, and your sword is the best one ev—”
Djoveeve hushed her, hissing, “Curtsy, child. And be silent. You are before the Queen.”
Pernie glowered at her, but she did remember that she had forgotten to curtsy. Kettle had taught her how to curtsy on many occasions—“Just in case,” she’d say—so Pernie executed one perfectly.
The Queen smiled and looked down at her as if she were someone’s mildly amusing new kitten. Pernie saw it right away. It was the same look most grown-ups gave children they had only passing interest in. The War Queen looked back to Seawind and nodded, then to Tytamon. “Well, she is as impertinent as all the rest raised at Calico Castle, Master Tytamon. Why am I not the least surprised?”
“I do what I can, Your Majesty,” said the ancient wizard. “But the old castle does seem to draw the most independent sorts.”
“Indeed,” the Queen agreed.
Pernie didn’t like when people talked about her as if she weren’t in the room. She frowned at Tytamon, but Roberto was bent forward and looking at her with a warm expression on his face. He saw her. He winked at her, and he had the look of mischief on his face, though it passed very quickly. Pernie thought he looked kind of scared. She wondered what could make a man like that look that way. She wondered if that was why he was wearing the bulky Earth suit he had on. It seemed like only bad things happened to people when they were wearing one of those.
“So what is it that you require of me this time, friend Seawind?” asked the Queen. “I’ve given you my subject to be trained as bodyguard to your High Seat. Has Miss Grayborn proven inadequate? I can give you any other subject as you and the treaty require. Simply say the word, and they will serve.”
“She is quite adequate, friend Karroll,” Seawind said. Pernie thought she saw the War Queen flinch at that, as if she’d been bitten by an ant somewhere deep in her armored pants. But it passed quickly. “The time of Tidalwrath is near. The prophecy requires that we send this child to the new world for a time.”
The Queen looked startled by that. It was only a flash of it, but Pernie saw it. She’d felt exactly the way Her Majesty had just looked many times, especially whenever Kettle caught her sneaking cakes, or when Nipper caught her trying to get one of the big crossbows out of the Calico Castle armory again. There’d been so many times where Pernie had worn such an expression over the brief course of her ten and a half years that recognizing it on someone else’s face was like looking in a mirror.
It was gone as quickly as it appeared, however, and the royal countenance was once again as placid as the surface of a mountain pond. “And which new world would that be, friend Seawind?”
“Earth,” he announced.
The placid pond became more so.
“Why, of course,” she said, her tone light and, to Pernie’s ear, relieved. “And your timing is excellent. We were just this morning talking about that very thing.” She pointed with her golden scepter into the crowd. “You, there, what’s your name again? Come hither.”
A man in his middle years came forward. He was tall, well dressed. His hair was black with wisps of white at the temples, brushed back over his head and shiny just like his boots. Pernie thought he was very handsome, although not as handsome as Master Altin.
The man bowed and answered as asked. “Ivan Gangue, Your Majesty. Third seat on the Transportation Guild Service council.”
“Yes, that’s right. Ivan Gangue.” She looked back to Seawind. “Councilman Gangue here came this morning with a petition for a thousand … what do you call them again?” She looked impatient as she waited for Gangue to answer her.
“Visas, Your Majesty. The Northern Trade Alliance refers to them as visas.”
“Yes, of course, visas. The TGS feels that the NTA has been too stingy for too long, and my people have finally got that skittish planet full of blanks to get over their fear of magicians long enough to allow a few Prosperions access to their world. Frankly, it’s about time, as the whole thing is entirely insulting. So, friend Seawind, as I said: your timing could not be better.” She paused and looked to Pernie for a moment, then back at the elf. “Might I inquire as to why she must go?”
“Yes, friend Karroll, you may inquire.” Seawind put on a smile, but everyone in attendance could tell he did so as a formality.
Her Majesty regarded him for a time, expectant, and when nothing followed, she prompted first with a raising of her eyebrows, then a few moments after with a circular on-with-it-then movement of her scepter. Neither of those worked, however, so she had to say it aloud. “And the reason would be …?”
“Because it suits the prophecy.”
“Oh, dear Mercy, friend Seawind, of course it does. It always suits the prophecy. If not this one, then some other. But what I’m after is the reason for why it suits the prophecy.” She propped up a smile much as he had done.
“I cannot say, friend Karroll.”
“Cannot as in you are unable for reasons of ignorance, or cannot as in you are compelled by some power to keep secrets from me?”
“We all have our secrets, friend Karroll.”
She actually laughed. Pernie thought it was likely a real laugh too, because the Queen looked up at the ceiling for a time and her golden breastplate actually moved up and down upon the royal bosom for a while, making the lights reflecting in it shift around. When she looked back, her gaze was steady, the humor in it fading like a spark that’s fallen to the ground.
“Councilman Gangue, do you anticipate complications with the NTA officials on this little deviation from your list?”
“They asked specifically that half the thousand be blanks, Your Majesty. And the other half, who may be wizards, must be enchanters willing to take full-time positions casting Greater Common Tongues enchantments throughout NTA facilities for the period of one year. They also require that no teleporters be sent to the planet yet, enchanting school or not.”
“Yes, yes, I am well aware of their fear about our people blinking into their banks and their bedrooms for their gold and for the love of watching blanks fornicate.”
“Yes, My Queen.”
She looked back to Pernie. She frowned. “You’re the little one who teleported into the tower the afternoon we took back Calico Castle, aren’t you?”
Finally the Queen was paying attention to her. “Yes,” Pernie said. “I am. Master Altin said it was my animal magic coming out, and I—”
“Is that going to be a problem, Councilman Gangue?”
He looked uncomfortable. Pernie glowered at her.
“Councilman, you see that I have an emissary of the elves standing here asking me this favor, do you not?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“So I’ll tell you what. I will agree to another year having our people treated like sneak thieves and Peeping Toms in the name of appeasing the fearful nature of the Earth people if you can convince the NTA immigration folks of the value of helping me deal with my … obligations to elven prophecy. If you cannot arrange it, I will find a way to have the entire council replaced, repercussions or no, and your successor can get this done.” She finished with a smile that required far more architecture to hold it up than the previous few.
He still looked uncomfortable, but he agreed. “I will arrange a place for the girl among the thousand, Your Majesty. We will include her in the student exchange. I’m sure the NTA will agree to one teleporter once I explain the circumstances. They may require particular conditions, but I shall appeal to Director Bahri personally if I must.”
“Good. You do that.” She looked to Seawind then. “Satisfied?”
The elf nodded, an inclination of his head that was more subtle bow than affirmative.
“Very well, it is settled.” To Ivan Gangue the monarch said, “Off with you, then. You’ve won your suit.” To the elf, “Will there be anything else, friend Seawind?”
“No, friend Karroll. You have the appreciation of my people.”
“A great reward, I am sure.”
Seawind began backing out of the room. Djoveeve did likewise, placing a hand on Pernie’s chest and propelling Pernie back as well.
Pernie didn’t want to leave, but she could tell she was supposed to. “Goodbye,” she said to the Queen, but Her Majesty had already turned back to Tytamon and Roberto standing there.
“So, Master Tytamon, this is what I can do for you and Captain Levi about our missing friends …” the Queen began.
Djoveeve was saying something to Pernie, making it hard to hear the Queen. The crowd was murmuring all around. Pernie really wanted the Queen to at least say goodbye to her, but Djoveeve dragged her along. The last thing Pernie heard as she was pushed out of the throne room was Roberto’s voice, raised above the crowd. “Are you serious? How the hell am I supposed to give a crap about gold and Goblin Tea at a time like this?”
He said it very loud, and Pernie didn’t think you were supposed to talk to the Queen that way. Which made her smile as she went out.
Chapter 7
The trouble with capturing wizards—beyond the fact that they were wizards—was that they tended to be well connected. Even those of lowly ranks and single schools of magic were popular amongst their friends. If they were wealthy, they were connected, and if they were poor and of ranks low enough as to keep them that way, they were still likely to be earning wages by their paltry skills. Snatching a wizard who would not leave a noticeable absence was akin to stealing expensive art. A clever thief had to understand that it would be missed, and there had to be a discreet buyer somewhere waiting to take it forever away. Art, however, did not call for help telepathically.
Black Sander would hardly count his three captives as art. Two were orphans, a local boy of nine years who had just begun manifesting a talent for healing and another boy of fourteen, a D-class enchanter from Solydae. The younger of those two was a lucky find, and Black Sander had spotted him by chance only yesterday. Black Sander had been returning from a visit to the marchioness and had barely gotten into Murdoc Bay when he came upon the lad.
Some reckless teamster had run down a dog on the street, and the boy had found the animal where it had dragged itself off to die in the shadows of an alley. Black Sander heard the boy crying and peered around the rubbish heap to find the filthy lad holding the dog in his lap. As often happens with young sorcerers of that age, the emotions in him triggered his magic, and just like that, the dog was healed. Black Sander counted it a stroke of luck, a blessing from the god of thieves, Sobrei the Swift, and he snatched up the boy and brought him to the tannery.
Black Sander bought the older boy from a crooked orphanage director in Dae, a fellow who was a regular provider of such things for the black market and slave trade. Black Sander promised the man double bounties on any other fledgling magicians he found for the period of ninety days. He just needed them to be without telepathic gifts, or at very least, before they were sent off to be trained in magic and learned how to use their telepathy. A tall order, but quite possible for a man in the position of orphanage director.
The third wizard captive was hardly a wizard at all. Black Sander was almost embarrassed to send her. She was old, and looked far older than her years. Bathilda Hornblower, a sanza-sap addict—when she could afford magical highs—and an opium user when she couldn’t, which was all the more pathetic. She was the only one of the three he was shipping to Earth that he was confident nobody would miss. She lay at the back of the large wooden crate, slumped in the corner like a corpse. Her breathing was a leaky bellows rasp. She was a sad sight, but she was an A-ranked seer, which the marchioness’ diviner had verified. El Segador had explained quite clearly that, at least for now, his employer was interested in anyone with a mythothalamus. Jefe, said employer, was fixated on the organ of magic, which was unique to humans from Prosperion, and it was based on that fixation that Black Sander had suggested they might include a few animals as well. Study was study, after all.
Animal magic was not as refined as human magic, but it worked on the same principles for the most part. And it was the purpose of Jefe’s scientists on Earth to discern the nature of how that organ worked. It had been agreed that animal samples would be welcome as well.
And so it was that the three humans were being pushed toward the back to make room for smaller animals in cages that Black Sander’s doughy henchman, Belor, and the burly sailor Twane were carrying in.
“That’s got it all,” Twane was saying as Black Sander watched. The brawny man set a wire cage with two yellow birds in it on top of a box containing a Zergot’s marmoset. The latter had a nasty bite and a gift for invisibility, and the former were capable of regenerating themselves after injuries. There were others as well, nothing dangerous, none capable of doing much damage if they got away, and all in all, Black Sander was sure that for the first shipment of magic users going off to Earth, Jefe and El Segador would be pleased.
“If that’s all of it, then let’s get it nailed shut. I want a canvas wrap on it too, just like we would if we were really shipping hides. Seal that box up tight. We don’t want any accidents.”
It was true, too. With the two orphans in there next to the unconscious whore, weeping and whining, eyes wide and lips trembling with fear, there was a real danger of the teleport going wrong without a properly sealed box. Teleportation magic worked best if the teleporters were sending an object rather than individuals. A body inclined not to be teleported could resist a teleport in the same way one resists wetting the bed while sleeping or resists breathing while submerged. Some reflexes happen on their own, and the terrified were impossible to teleport. Anger wasn’t much better. But, in a box, well, a person could tremble and wet themselves all they wanted. The box would not resist at all.
So Black Sander’s men set about the work of closing it up tight, making sure it would make it to its destination without incident. Black Sander turned to the group behind him while the others worked. These were his teleportation crew. Three teleporters, a seer, and a conduit.
The conduit was hardly in better shape than the prostitute in the box. He wore the traditional red of a conduit, an old set of robes, faded and filthy. He could afford to buy all the sanza-sap he wanted, and he clearly did. His tongue was permanently gray for it, as if he were dead.
“All right,” Black Sander said. “Let’s not make a carnival out of this. It’s one box and one teleport. Kalafrand, have you given Conduit Wanderfrond the location?”
Kalafrand turned a blank look up at Black Sander, his wide face and wide eyes the physical expression of the open spaces in his mind. He’d heard the question but hadn’t processed it. Z-class wizardry resided within that thick skull, if only as a seer. He was brilliant with sight magic, it was true, but so dull witted in every other way, he could apply no creativity to his gift on his own. It was akin to tragedy.
“The basement,” Black Sander said patiently. “In San Francisco. The compound on planet Earth. You remember the room where the man Annison, Thadius Thoroughgood’s old cast-master, lies with his brain all pulled apart and soaking in buckets?”
“Oh, yes,” Kalafrand said, the lamps all lighting up in the vacant house of his head. “I remember.”
Black Sander suppressed a sigh. “So have you given that location to the conduit?”
“Oh. No. I haven’t.”
“Then let’s get it going, shall we?”
“Right,” said the Z-class seer.
The red-clad conduit got up lazily from the chair he’d been sitting in and moved it out from the wall. Black Sander took other chairs and arranged them roughly in a circle.
�
��You,” he said, pointing to the T-class teleporter they had “on loan” from the marchioness’ contact in the TGS. “Help me. You’ve done this before. Let’s go. You’re the lead teleporter anyway. It’s your head that will pop if it doesn’t go right.”
The man left his place leaning against the wall and sulked his way to the nearest chair, which he set in the rough circle pattern Black Sander had under way around the conduit’s seat. The conduit was already seated, his elbows on his knees as he ran his fingers through the remnant wisps of hair on his blotchy bald head.
“You’re sure you are up to this?” Black Sander asked for the second time since bringing the conduit in.
“I’m fine. Stop asking me or I’m going home. I don’t care how much gold you have.”
“It’s a long way,” Black Sander said. “And a lot of mass in there. You said yourself we’ve only just got enough teleporters in this concert to pull it off, and barely enough mana draw. I can’t afford to have this shipment get lost.”
The conduit got up and teetered a little, but straightened right away. “I said I’m fine. Ask me one more time, and I leave. That’s no idle threat. Do you know who you are talking to?”
Black Sander closed his eyes and let the wave of impatience pass. Conduits were notoriously conceited, a rare breed of people, whose usefulness for bringing multiple magicians together was invaluable. They had no natural magic of their own. They were simply oddities of nature. But they were useful oddities. They were also renowned as drunks and liars, yet there wasn’t much to be done about attitude. Especially for a clandestine enterprise such as this.
“It’s ready,” Belor called across the room to him. “You can send it now.”