by Dan Koboldt
“What are those?” Quinn whispered.
“Three-toed ridgebacks,” Alethea said. “Highly venomous.”
They retreated forty yards back into the muck to confer.
“Please tell me they scare easily,” Quinn said.
“They don’t have any natural predators in Tion, so what do you think?”
Why must there always be a problem? “Wish I’d brought my bow.”
“Unless you can shoot six of them in under thirty seconds, it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“I could probably do that.”
Bita snorted. “Men.”
“A shame that we’ll never know,” Alethea said.
“How well do you know these creatures?” Jillaine asked.
“We have the nonvenomous version on Tukalu. Even they are dangerous,” Alethea said.
“What are their weaknesses?”
“Outside of mating season? None that I know.”
“You said they don’t have any natural predators in Tion,” Jillaine said. “Do they have any predators at all?”
“Mountain wyverns consider them prey.”
“Mountain wyverns consider everything prey,” Quinn said.
“Maybe you should have kept the one from Felara.”
“I don’t think a hatchling would have helped much. We need an adult, and good luck getting one here.”
“Tell me what they’re like,” Jillaine said.
“Kind of like those things over there, but longer and thinner,” Quinn said. “Triangular head, big wings, and a scream that can wake the dead.”
“Like this?” Jillaine held out her hand, and conjured an image of a winged lizard. It was only the size of a shoebox, but looked astonishingly real. Even with the proportions off.
Quinn fought the urge to ask her how she’d done it. “The neck should be longer.”
She wiggled her fingers and stretched the image out.
“Better,” Quinn said. “The eyes should be scarier.”
Jillaine snorted. “Scarier?”
“Narrow at the top and bottom, you know. Like it’s a great big bird that thinks you’re a worm.”
“I think I can manage that.” She didn’t move, but the eyes grew tall and narrower.
“Just like that,” Quinn said. “Now, I need you to make this two hundred times bigger.”
“Oh, is that all?” She laughed. “I could probably pull that off.”
“This is fantastic, but it’s probably not enough,” Quinn said. “The thing that really terrifies you is the scream. Like the world’s biggest bird of prey.”
“How does it sound?”
“Well, I’m not sure I can do it justice, but it’s like this.” Quinn made a half-hiss, half-scream that sounded nothing like a wyvern.
All three women burst out laughing.
“If you make that again when the ridgebacks can hear, they’re more likely to try mating with you than running away,” Alethea said.
I’ll give it another shot. “All right, it’s more like . . .” and he tried a deeper scream with a curdling quality. It choked him up and ended up putting him in a coughing fit. Not so much that he couldn’t hear the laughter, though. He cleared his throat. “I can’t get my voice high enough.”
“That was pretty high.” Jillaine looked to the other women. “Was he even close?”
“I doubt it,” Alethea said. “Bita?”
The other woman took a deep breath and unleashed an earsplitting shriek that made Quinn cover his ears. Sweet Jesus, it sounds just like the real thing.
“Now that is terrifying,” Jillaine said.
Quinn laughed. “You said it. That, with your image, might do the trick.”
“We will not have long,” Alethea said. “Even spooked by a predator, the ridgebacks will look to reclaim their sunning grounds, and there isn’t another solid place for miles.”
“If we do this right, there won’t be anything to return to,” Quinn said. “Let’s get a look at the second location.” Maybe it wouldn’t prove as challenging.
They joined hands in a sweaty, muddy circle. Jillaine closed her eyes, spoke a word, and took them away.
Ten leagues southeast of Bayport in New Kestani, a ghost village looked out upon the ocean. Twenty wood-and-clay houses with thatch roofs, give or take, clustered around a few common buildings. A mill, an old forge, a two-story stone inn with a small stable attached. It held the promise of a burgeoning new settlement in a prime location, overlooking one of the calmest stretches of ocean on the western coast. Or did, once upon a time. Quinn kept watching it for signs of life as they approached, and saw nothing.
“Is that it?” Jillaine asked.
“Has to be.”
“It feels . . . off, somehow. Muted.”
More like haunted. “I know what you mean.”
Other telling details revealed themselves—doors left open to the elements, drifts of fine-powder sand that blocked the paths between the cottages. Not a wisp of smoke curled up from any of the chimneys. The numb silence in the area spoke loudest of all, though. No birds, no insects. Not even the sound of waves hitting the shoreline could be heard as Quinn, Jillaine, and their Tukalu guards approached the settlement.
Alethea jogged back toward them, her face stonier than usual. “I didn’t see anyone, but it would be the perfect place to set an ambush. Wait here.”
Quinn and Jillaine halted while she and her sister ran ahead. Bita took up a position outside the nearest cottage door. Alethea drew her long knife and crept inside, keeping low against the wall. Bita followed three seconds later, but backed in, watching the entryway. They emerged a moment later and moved to the next cottage, clearing it in similar fashion.
“Oh, man.” Quinn shook his head. “They’re methodical, aren’t they?”
“They’re a lot of things,” Jillaine said.
Oh, look, an invitation to poke the bear. No thanks. Quinn closed his mouth and kept it that way.
Ten minutes later, Alethea and Bita jogged back to where they waited.
“Anything?” Quinn asked.
Alethea shook her head, and then a circular gesture with an open hand, almost like she was crossing herself against some hidden evil. “This place makes me want to take a bath.”
“We might as well get it over with, then,” Quinn said.
“Where do you want to start looking?”
“The inn.” It was the tallest structure, offering the best protection against the elements. And the only one with a familiar-looking weather vane on the roof.
They had to pass several cottages to reach the inn, and it made Quinn glad that the Tukalu had checked them already. Their doors and windows hung open like wounds, and the air around them held an odd stillness. He checked his sword again to make sure it wouldn’t stick in the scabbard.
They entered the inn by the front door, which opened into a sort of dining room with three round tables. Five stools per table. Everyone had a place setting—tin plate, two-tined fork, round glass tankard—beneath a light coating of cobwebs. Maybe it was Quinn’s imagination, but he could have sworn there was still ale in one of the tankards. Curiosity got the better of him, and he lifted one of them up. It was half-full of amber liquid, but somehow lighter than he’d expected. Softer, too. “What the hell?”
He inverted the mug and nothing spilled out. He righted it, and tried to dip his fingers, but met only the soft, yielding surface of a plastic seal. “I’ll be damned. It’s a prop.”
“What’s a prop?” Jillaine asked.
“A stage prop. Fake.” He gestured out at the place settings and the tankards.
Alethea used her knife to tip over another tankard. It clunked softly against the table, but nothing spilled out. She took a step back and repeated the warding gesture.
“It’s all fake,” Quinn said.
Jillaine edged back from the tables. “Why would someone do this?”
“Because we’re in the right place. Come on.” He walked beyond the t
ables and through the door on the far wall. The room beyond had a rectangular prep table, a hearth, and two stone ovens. A smaller door led into a narrow storeroom stocked with barrels and sacks of grain. Fake grain, probably, or else rodents would have eaten it long ago.
“Do you see what you’re looking for?” Jillaine tiptoed up behind him. The Tukalu seemed content to stay in the common room near the door, as far away from the tables as possible.
“Not yet, but I’m sure it’s in here somewhere. It’ll be a door with a rectangular plate on it.” How the hell do I describe a keypad? “Little buttons you can push, with symbols on them. But don’t push any.”
He checked the storeroom first. The grain sacks were light as pillows, probably filled with one of CASE Global’s many synthetic foam products. The barrels looked real, but were made of some kind of plastic resin. He shoved it all out of the way to reach the back wall, which was plain. Featureless. He knocked on the wood, and it sounded solid. “Well, crap.”
“I think I found something,” Jillaine called.
She stood in front of the hearth, peering into one of the stone ovens above the hearth. The smaller one, about one foot tall and two feet wide. It was too shallow to be practically useful, which was the first clue. But the rectangular keypad against the back wall was the dead giveaway. Quinn inspected the hearth itself. A vertical seam ran right down the middle of it, as if the stone had been cut in half and put back together. He followed it around to the side where the hearthstone met the wall, and found three large steel hinges. “Bingo. It’s a hidden door.”
“This is it, then?”
“Absolutely. There should be a panel just like it inside that structure in the marsh.”
“What if we can’t find it?”
“Just ask the ridgebacks where it is.”
She rolled her eyes. “Always helpful.”
“I do what I can.”
He started to head back to common room.
“Quinn.” She caught his arm and pulled him back around.
“What?”
She stood on her toes and kissed him quickly. Surprisingly. Right on the lips, but she pulled away before he could kiss her back. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” He treasured the soft impression her lips left behind. “You, too.”
They walked out and reclaimed their guards. Bita, having the more effective wyvern cry, would go with Jillaine back to the Tioni marshes.
“Once you push the wrong buttons enough, you’ll hear a loud noise. Then you have half a minute to get clear.” The CASE Global fail-safe would do the rest.
“What about the timing?” Jillaine asked. “The Prime said to disable them both at the same time.”
“Try and do it the moment the sun disappears below the horizon.” Not exactly synchronized watches, but it’ll have to do.
“We will.” She looked to Bita. “Are you ready?”
The woman gave a nod, touched Alethea’s shoulder in farewell, and stepped up beside Jillaine.
“Be careful,” Quinn said.
“You be careful.”
Alethea sidled up next to Quinn and took his arm. “Don’t worry, Jillaine. I’ll keep a very close eye on him.”
Lord help me. Quinn brushed her hand off his arm, but she only laughed.
Jillaine gave her a cold stare. “Not too close. I’d hate to forget your sister in the marshes.” She took hold of Bita’s wrist and closed her eyes. They both vanished.
Quinn gave Alethea a side look. “You just love getting me into trouble, don’t you?”
“What trouble? I only said I’d keep an eye on you.”
“A close eye,” he said. “I think she read something into that.”
“We still have an hour until the sun sets.” She took his arm again, and leaned in close. “Whatever will we do to pass the time?”
Thunder rumbled off in the distance, a fitting omen for Jillaine’s inevitable fury. Somehow this is going to be my fault, too. The thunder didn’t fade, but grew louder. “Do you hear that?”
The mischievous grin fell away from Alethea’s face. She hissed.
“I was afraid of that.”
Hoofbeats. Someone’s coming.
Chapter 25
Complications
“Even in our modern world, magic has its true believers. Or, as I like to call them, easy marks.”
—Art of Illusion, February 11
Quinn eased his head over the ridge to sneak a glance at the approaching horsemen. “I count six,” he whispered.
Alethea looked up at him from where she lay prone against the sandy slope. They’d hidden just below the crest of a sand dune between the village and the water. Behind them, the ground plunged downward into the churning surf.
“Are they armed?”
“Probably.”
The riders wore light cloaks, but the ocean breeze brushed the lead one’s back enough to show the hilt of a sword beneath. And above that, something even more disconcerting: the coal-black glint of flexsteel armor. “Make that definitely.”
“Maybe they’ll pass through.”
“Maybe.” Quinn tried not to let his doubtfulness show. CASE Global mercenaries showing up at one of their communications relays could not be a coincidence. Sure enough, they reined in right in front of the inn with the weather vane on its roof. They didn’t search the houses around it, which meant they were either in a rush, or were confident they had nothing to fear. Two men dismounted and walked inside.
I hope they don’t notice someone’s been in there.
No such luck. A shout came from within, a summons. The other four dismounted; two ran inside while the other two stayed with the horses.
Quinn pounded a fist into the sand. “Damn it!”
“The sun will go down in half an hour,” Alethea said.
“What are we going to do?”
She crept up to the ridge and peered over it. “Those are the biggest horses I’ve ever seen.”
“Arabians, I’m pretty sure. Our adversaries spare no expense,” Quinn said.
“They’re not hitched to anything, though.”
“No. Why, what are you thinking?”
She eased back, crouched, and crept down the slope to where it was rockier. There, she began flipping over stones. “Help me!”
Quinn scrambled down after her. “Want to tell me what we’re looking for?”
“Here.” She’d gotten her hands under the edge of a flat boulder the size of a trash can lid. He moved next to her, and they heaved it over. “There you are!” She hoisted a snake that had to be three feet long.
“Jesus!” Quinn fell over backward trying to get away from it. “Is that thing poisonous?”
“Only a little.” She held it by the neck, and the thing wrapped its tail around her arm like a boa constrictor. “Cute, isn’t he?”
She’s crazy. “If you’re going to kill me, I’d prefer something faster.”
“Don’t worry, tenderfoot. This is for the horses.”
Once Quinn understood it, he had to admit that it was a clever idea. They climbed back up the dune and worked their way along it to put some houses between them and the inn’s entrance. The sun moved inexorably toward the horizon. Quinn checked it and gritted his teeth together. Twenty minutes left. At best.
“You want to toss this under the horses, or watch from here?” Alethea asked.
“What do you think?”
“Keep out of sight then, and be ready.” She climbed up the last few feet of the dune and sprinted across the hard-packed sand to the edge of the nearest cottage. She pressed her back against it and went absolutely still. Quinn strained his ears, but heard no sound of alarm. He edged back to where he could see around the cottage to the inn’s entrance. Both mercenaries milled in the open space outside the inn, talking low while they waited for the others to return.
He gave Alethea a thumbs-up. She skirted the cottage and moved up to the next one, keeping the structure between her and the guards. Her dun-leather g
arb blended perfectly with the clay walls. Then she sprinted up to the inn, melting into the shadows beside it. Which only served to remind Quinn how little time they had left—nearly half of the sun had disappeared beneath the horizon.
Alethea edged up to the corner and stole a glance around it. Probably to gauge the distance, because she began twirling the snake by its tail. Then she foxtailed it around the corner, right into the feet of the nearest horses.
Their reaction was immediate.
The animals snorted and stamped in alarm. Quinn seized at his magic and made little pokes at their ankles, just to help sell it. A horse reared back, churning its legs. The two mercenaries fought to settle them, but as Alethea pointed out, these were big, strong horses in a full-blown panic. They took the bits in their teeth and bolted in three different directions.
One man was dragged a good thirty yards before he managed to let go. He found his feet after that and ran after them. His companion ran to the inn’s door, shouted something, and took off after them. Mercenaries came flying out to help with the chase. One, two, three . . . where’s the fourth? Hell, one of them stayed inside for whatever reason. It didn’t matter. The minute the other three were out of view, Quinn jumped up and started running. He followed the route Alethea had taken, using the buildings for cover. It felt a lot slower, louder, and more awkward than she had been.
He threw himself into the wall of the inn, panting. “Made it.”
“About time.”
“How many came out?”
“I counted three.”
He cursed. “I was afraid of that.”
“What’s the problem? We can handle one.”
“Not if he raises the alarm.” Lost horses would be a much lower priority than a security intrusion, and those men could be back here in seconds.
“We can take him by surprise.”
“What if it’s someone I know?” Causing trouble for CASE Global was one thing; you could argue that he’d been doing that even before he switched sides. But killing mercenaries in cold blood . . . I don’t think I’m hard enough for this.