by Carl Sargent
“I spent three months in Joburg when I was nine years old because my parents were working there,” Serrin told him. “I can’t remember much about it except that it was as thoroughly unpleasant as any big UCAS city.”
“And nothing like Cape Town. Or Umfolozi, for that matter. Oh well. But what about Tom? Would he go?” Michael’s tone of voice changed a little. Serrin didn’t think the Englishman regarded the troll as anything but an accessory.
“We can only ask,” Serrin replied. “Let’s sleep on it and decide in the morning.”
“After I’ve done some more homework,” Michael grinned. “Lots of lovely databases to rifle.” He prepared to jack in, rubbing his hands at the prospect. “Come to me, my little data packets. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Just don’t get brain fried,” Serrin said lightly, though it was no jest.
“Zero sweat. If I get into anything unpleasant, I’ll call,” Michael assured him. As the Englishman tuned into the chatter and imagery of the matrix, Serrin returned to his dreamless sleep. In the corner, Tom snored on.
* * *
While Serrin was dropping into sleep again on one side of the Atlantic, another elf gazed out at the gray eastern waters of the same ocean on a beautiful morning. The long grass, the slate rocks and hard stone, the trees struggling to survive the whipping winds, glowed with life under the brilliant sun on such a day. He lay back to luxuriate in it.
He could not risk putting any watcher spirits close to the mage even though he wanted to know if Serrin had been actively pursuing the people who’d tried to kidnap him. He had other priorities. The mage’s flight to New York, and the company he was keeping, said that he intended to do something. Niall guessed that he’d found the right pawn after all. Having Mathanas leave the message had been crude, but perhaps effective.
What he did learn from his watchers was that Luther was not pursuing his quarry any further. He’d done the same thing in Azania. Once things got botched, he simply-disposed of his own pawns. Niall didn’t know exactly how Luther was seiecting his victims, but he could make an educated guess. Protecting the next in line wasn’t something he could concern himself with, painful though it was to think of what would happen to them. Luther’s hunger had grown to extreme levels, and that was simply unknown for one of his kind. It meant he was almost burning up with the intensity of what he was doing.
It was the thought of what Luther was doing that suddenly made Niall shiver even on such a warm and magnificent morning as this—that, and the fact that if he revealed his interest by making any overt moves he’d be destroyed out of hand by his own flesh and blood. Almost all his magical energies, and those of his allies, were directed at keeping him hidden. To turn against the will of the Danaan-mor, the real power in the land of Tir na nOg, was heresy, treason, a betrayal of infinite and eternal proportions. It just happened to be the only right thing to do.
12
The sound of a troll lumbering around the bathroom woke Serrin just after eight. Tom wasn’t the quietest being on the planet. His gargling could easily have been taken for a major plumbing disaster.
Michael was knee-deep in paper by the time Serrin had finished the coffee-making ritual. The Englishman was almost oblivious to his presence until he sniffed liquid breakfast. Seeming almost to snap back into the real world, he looked around him with some distaste.
“That’s the problem with three males in an apartment,” he observed. “Men get so damn untidy.”
Serrin decided to ignore that in favor of more important matters. “How’s it going?” he asked. Tom had joined them now, bearing the remains of the fridge’s contents in various assortments on plates. The waffles looked unappetizing despite the last of the preserves the troll had heaped on them. He munched cheerfully on several as Michael ran down what his long night’s work had yielded.
“Well, the girl’s list has names that I didn’t have, and not just the bugger who got snatched in Cape Town. That’s not so surprising because obviously I can’t search the entire damned globe. What is crucial are the three names that I did find. Two of them were kidnappings, in Slovakia and Greece. Both elven mages, no corporate ties. No data on the kidnappers, no witnesses of any value, both vanished without trace. The third is Shakala, and he’s still alive. Reason one for going to Azania: he’s the best first-hand witness we’re going to get.
“Now it gets more difficult,” the Englishman sighed. Leaning back a little, he fiddled with his blue silk tie. “Of the names I didn’t have, I learned that one was an elf mage from Finland and the other two human mages, one from Vienna and one from Munich. So if these people are linked, they’re not linked by being elves. The link, so far, seems to be that they’re all mages. Right?”
Serrin and Tom nodded. So far, so good.
“But the other two; they’re a problem. Both German. One from Dresden, one from Koblenz.”
“Our kidnapper likes Germany, it seems,” Serrin observed drily.
“Yes, but neither of them has been kidnapped.”
“Maybe the kidnappers haven’t got around to them yet,” Tom suggested.
“Right. Absolutely,” Michael said, really getting warmed up now. “That’s the first thing that occurred to me. But there’s one simple problem with that.”
“Which is?” Serrin asked.
“Neither of them is a mage. One is a very ordinary medical technician working for BuMoNa, the state medical system in Germany, and the other is a blue-collar worker for IFM. That’s Internationale Fahrzeug—Und Machinenbau—Union Ag, to you and me."
“Ah,” Serrin said limply. He couldn’t think of any snappy rejoinders, not at this time of day.
“Have you tried to warn any of these people?” Tom asked the Englishman.
“I didn’t want to do anything until I’d talked to you two.”
“I think we should contact them at once. They’re in danger,” the troll said.
“Wait a minute. We don’t know that for sure. The only kidnap cases among the names on this list are mages. These others aren’t mages. We can’t just go around phoning people up and telling them that some crazed kidnapper may be hunting them down on the basis of a piece of paper we’ve never seen.”
“We can’t just leave them in danger either,” the troll smarted.
“We don’t know they’re in danger. We can’t be sure the girl even got the names right—she can’t read, after all. Anyway, what if we’re wrong? We’d be frightening these people for nothing. And besides, what could they do? Go to the police and tell them that some Englishman in New York has told them, on the basis of a phone call from a girl in Azania to an American she’s never seen and doesn’t know, that they’re in mortal danger? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Which means that if they were rich enough not to need the police, you’d tell them because they could afford to take care of themselves,” Tom said angrily. He glared at Michael.
“Tom, we really can’t be sure,” Serrin said gently. “And Michael is right about one thing. The police wouldn’t take any of this seriously.” Not to be mollified, the troll stalked into the kitchen, his exit soon followed by some loud noises of cleaning up. At first it sounded more like he was breaking dishes and throwing silverware, but the noises gradually reverted to a more normal clatter while Michael and Serrin pondered what to do next. By the time the troll was back, still glowering, they had the beginnings of a plan.
“Tom, if we’re going to warn these people, we’ll need a whole lot more to go on,” Michael said. The troll didn’t argue; he just crossed his arms and waited for more. “We should go to Azania. We can find this girl, and maybe talk to the Zulu mage. If we could find out more, we’d be in a much better position to do something. We might get descriptions, more data from the computer the girl found. Who knows?
“For me to just keep searching the world’s systems might only muddy the picture further. For the first time, we’ve got some clear leads to follow up. I know it seems wild to go flying off to the
other side of the world, but we’ve got two witnesses and a computer that might produce something important. Far-fetched as it seems, I think we should go.”
Tom thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. He wasn’t as yet ready to forget that Michael had dismissed his concern as ridiculous, but the Englishman’s reasoning made sense.
“Do you know the girl’s race?” Michael asked.
“She’s not white,” Serrin said. “At least, I don't think so.”
“Does it matter that much?” Tom asked.
“You haven’t been to the Cape Republic before, have you?” Michael retorted rather sarcastically. “It’s about the last place on earth where a person’s metatype doesn't matter much, Tom. Well, not unless you’re a Boer, but then everyone hates those fraggers anyway. What counts there is whether you’re Anglo-white, Euro-white, Xhosa, Indian, or Zulu, though there aren’t many of those. If you’re Xhosa, depends which tribe you’re from. And God help you if you’re mixed race.”
“Why?” Tom persisted. As a troll he’d encountered his own share of racism, and knew that most of his ork and troll chummers had suffered the same. The relevance of this different, older, discrimination wasn’t clear to him.
“If she’s black, odds are she’s a Xhosa. If we go on to Umfolozi, we wouldn’t be able to use her as a native guide. Drek! Sorry,” Michael cursed himself, “that was patronizing. You know what I mean, though. This stuff is a time bomb down there. It’s not like metatype doesn’t count. The Humanis line goes down big with the Boers, and the Zulu elves are just as fierce in ruling their domains. We’ll have to be careful.
“That said, there’s a direct flight later today into Cape Town. Do we want bookings?”
* * *
“He’s making no moves, though?” Jenna said anxiously. Serrin was a complication she hadn’t banked on.
“Apparently not,” the ginger-haired male said calmly. “But the company he’s keeping is a little unexpected. The troll, well, he’s a big dumb lump of meat. No surprises there. He’s a hired bodyguard. They knew each other in Seattle some years back; ran the shadows together. But the man, Sutherland, is an exceptional decker. I think one of your own Princes might be able to confirm that,” he smirked.
At that, Jenna gave him one of her icy stares. It wasn’t Magellan’s job to know more about the politics of Tir Taimgire than she thought prudent. But he used an ace in the hole to cover himself.
“It’s the surveillance that’s surprising,” he said, playing with his fingernails. He didn’t say any more, not yet. In their old game, he wanted her to ask for what he had and she wanted him to tell her without being asked. It was their little ritual of seeing who would break the silence first. This time, for once, he won.
“What surveillance?” she asked sharply.
“Someone is conducting astral surveillance. At a very safe distance. Sutherland’s apartment has some pretty good hermetic protection; he wouldn’t pay that kind of rent without getting magical security that’s good and tight. Really tight. So, our snooper is keeping well away. He’s damn clever.”
“How do you know the surveillance is of Serrin?” she asked.
“I don't But it wasn’t there a week ago. As it happens, an associate happened to scan the area on an entirely unconnected matter. It seems rather a coincidence if it isn’t aimed at him,” Magellan replied.
Jenna knew he was iying, or skirting the truth. Magellan had no associates, but must have been personally snooping the area on some mission about which she knew nothing. But duplicity and dissimulation were such a core part of their relationship that as long as he dared not refuse her demands, she didn’t care what other mistresses or masters he served.
“I would hazard a guess that he’s trying to find out who was behind the attempt to kidnap him,” Magellan said.
“What are his chances?”
“Impossible to say. Frankly, I don’t see what he’s got to go on. Without knowing about the other cases, he couldn’t begin to find out. But perhaps, if one started by-checking on kidnappings of other elven mages, he might get an accurate list. Surely, though, one or two must have disappeared without Luther being responsible,” he grinned. “No, I don’t think anyone could figure it out. Not unless they had an edge somewhere along the line.”
“And we don’t know if he has,” she said, staring out over Crater Lake. Crystalline light gleamed off the water.
“Not unless you want me to arrange for a break-in,” he laughed.
“Hardly your most intelligent suggestion,” she said irritably.
“A jest. If I were given to such things I wouldn’t be sitting talking with you now. No, I think we wait. If he moves, then I follow. If he doesn’t move, it means he doesn’t plan to do anything. If he doesn’t do anything, we have no problem. QED.”
“The logic is watertight. Unfortunately, logic is unlikely to dictate his behavior,” Jenna observed drily.
“But you agree?” he asked, probing for what she wanted.
She considered, silently and at length. Finally her answer came.
“Yes, I think I do. It’s more important that we give our attentions to Luther. This elf mage is only a fly. We need not concern ourselves with him.”
“Unless he spreads his wings and flies like the wind,” Magellan said, absurdly pleased with stretching her metaphor.
“Unless he moves. Yes.” She didn’t stoop to humor. “If he does, go after him. And without being seen. I’ll deal with Luther.”
He didn’t bother to tell her that he had his own ways of following Luther’s activities.
* * *
The courier appeared within an hour after Michael’s frantic calls, made from the privacy of his bedroom. When the package of fake IDs arrived, Tom and Serrin weren’t pleased.
“What’s this? I don’t like fake IDs,” Serrin complained. “Not to a country I don’t even know.”
“Look, term, if there’s someone trying to snatch you, do you really want to travel under your own name? On a flight schedule even a seven-year-old with a Radio Shack could deck into? No, chummer. I know Cape Town. This will pass just fine. Hell, a monkey could get through with this, but it’s up to you. You want to travel as a sitting duck, be my guest. I’ll travel separately under one of my usual fakes.”
“One of them?” Serrin said, astonished.
“False identification is not the exclusive province of professional criminals and company men, you know. Not that there’s much difference between the two anyway. I have some truly excellent fake IDs courtesy of a couple of megacorps I could mention,” Michael said proudly.
“Is this chill, Serrin?” Tom asked uncertainly, looking at the papers and plastic before him. He’d never been outside Seattle, and he hadn’t a clue what to think about all of this.
Serrin examined the IDs, the passports and visas and medical chits and all the rest of it. “Looks pretty good,” he said grudgingly.
“It’s the best,” Michael said. “Trust me. There’s a suborbital flight at nineteen hundred. Gives us plenty of time. I assume you’ll want to take some magical precautions against anyone discovering our departure, Serrin. That should give you enough time. With the time difference, we get in just around dawn local time. But that’s still not too late to get a taste of the night life; it goes on well past then. I don’t know what’s your fancy, but whatever it is, you can find it in the Cape.”
“Yeah, I bet,” the troll said sadly. “Kids dying for a handful of chips or a bagful of white. Women half-dead at twenty on the streets. The kind of thing I guess you don’t see up here.”
“You won’t find me in those places,” Michael shot back instantly. “The only bad habits I’ve got are spending too much on clothes and computers. Go and find someone else to blame. I didn’t know about you two, that’s all.”
“Hey, let’s keep the bickering down to sensible limits,” Serrin pleaded. “We’ve got our hands full trying to find out who’s going after all these people, right? Let’s
keep that in mind.” Then he left the room, saying he was going to pack his bags.
Tom tried a last glower at Michael, but he knew he’d been unfair to him and the other man wasn’t about to back down. Making more noise than was necessary, he followed Serrin out. Michael considered packing one of the Fairlights, then settled for the Fuchi instead. He wasn’t given to taking million-nuyen risks on the road.
* * *
Dusk had long fallen when the elf’s watcher spirits informed him of the little group’s departure. Though Serrin had his usual masking engaged to magically disguise their exit, Niall saw through the subterfuge. The very cleverness of it told him the elf had guessed that it was a mage who’d tried to kidnap him. It didn’t take long to discover where Serrin and his two companions were headed.
“It’s probably the first step along the path,” Niall said to his companion. For a moment, the ghost of a smile played over Niall’s face at the pun, a play on words that Serrin, like most elves from beyond the shores of Tir na nOg, would not have understood. The elven form at his side said nothing at all.
“He is gone to Azania, then,” Niall said almost sadly, even knowing that he couldn’t have hoped for anything better. Serrin would have not found his quarry yet; he would still be struggling. He might need some help. Niall considered his options, and decided to let it be. His pawn seemed, at least, not to be making any false moves.
“Rindown?” he asked his companion. It was almost rhetorical; Niall knew where he had to go now. The blasphemy had gone far enough. Now he needed the help of the one being he could turn to to cover his tracks for the final stages. They would be some time in coming, the elf knew, but the Fool was never one to consider things in haste. Niall wouldn’t be able to cajole, to plead, even to beg. All he could do was be himself and trust in his sense of rightness.
The spirit knew, as it always did, what was going through his mind.
“You weren’t given this life for it to be easy,” it said simply.