Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more

by C. M. Simpson

  “Does it matter?” Tamlin asked as Mordan darted back to him. “Aisha! Get going! We’re going to call the lightning!”

  The little brat started running, but not in the direction or for the reason Marsh had hoped.

  “We are?” Aisha’s face was alight with excitement as she approached. “I’ll help!”

  “Not—”

  “Fine!” Tamlin cut across Marsh’s denial. “You help, but we need to back up until we reach Uncle Roeglin and Brigitte, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  Having successfully convinced the little girl to come back with them, Marsh and Tamlin reversed slowly back, the mantid moving with them.

  “You see what we’re going to do?” Marsh asked, hoping the mantid had been his usual selective self about intruding on her mind.

  I see it, but you will have to be quick.

  Just make sure Roeglin and Brigitte make it back.

  And the child?

  Mordan will take Aisha.

  As if to confirm that, the kat circled around the little girl, pushing her with her head until the child relented and turned to her shoulder.

  “Fine, Dan! Down!”

  It was a new command for Marsh, but the kat knew exactly what the little girl wanted. She bowed, lowering her forequarters to make it easier for Aisha to mount. As soon as she was aboard, Mordan straightened and came to stand beside Marsh.

  “Now?” Tamlin asked, and the air close to the courtyard’s ceiling crackled.

  “Now!” Marsh agreed, reaching for the lightning in the shadows along the walls.

  “Now!” Aisha shrieked, and the wall sheeted white with power, setting alight every Ooken touching it and then arcing to the other Ooken touching them, and arcing again.

  “Sons of the Deep,” Tamlin whispered, his voice soft with awe.

  “Tamlin!” Marsh yelled, reminding him there were still more Ooken to deal with.

  He started as though he’d been slapped and the light along the ceiling flared, falling in sparkling droplets. Marsh swept a hand in a wide arc. Neither of the children had called the lightning that lurked in the air between the ceiling and the floor.

  Marsh focused on that, barely hearing the sudden soft “Oh” that came from Brigitte. She felt what the shadow mage did, though. As Marsh drew the lightning from the air surrounding them and Aisha pulled it from the wall and Tamlin took it from the ceiling, Brigitte gave it direction.

  The front rank of Ookens reached them, and the lightning fell or coalesced into giant balls that spun and then sharded into horizontal bolts that devastated the Ooken ranks.

  Etk’k’s blades sang.

  Silence abruptly fell.

  The smell of singed fur and flesh rose around them, and Roeglin spoke.

  “Marsh, we…can’t hold this much…longer.”

  “Tamlin, Etk’k, Aisha, and Mordan, go through.” She forestalled their protests, watching as the lightning swirled around the courtyard, slowly coalescing into a massive energy storm in the center of where the prisoners had been held.

  Keeping half an eye on that and half an eye on the children, mantid, and kat, Marsh backed up to where Roeglin and Brigitte stood. “Go!” she urged when Tamlin hesitated. “We can’t do this until you’re through, okay?”

  The boy gave her a doubtful look, but Etk’k laid a clawed hand on his shoulder.

  She speaks the truth, the mantid told him. The sooner we go, the sooner she will follow.

  The boy’s reply was full of fear and pending hurt. “What if she doesn’t?”

  Then we will return for her, the mantid assured him.

  Until that point, Marsh hadn’t known it was possible to lie in mental speech, but she was pretty sure that Etk’k knew as well as she did that if she did not follow, there would be no point in returning for her. The energy building in the middle of the space the prisoners had occupied would see to that.

  Whatever she knew, the mantid’s words had the desired effect. The mantid, both children and the kat stepped into the portal, leaving Marsh, Brigitte, and Roeglin alone.

  “Are you ready?” Marsh asked, reaching for the shadows holding the portal, and Roeglin and Brigitte gave her pale-face nods. She focused on the shadow mistress, well aware that she had called the lightning, but Brigitte was the one controlling it now.

  “Are you sure?”

  “On three,” Brigitte replied, her ebon face paling to a very dark gray.

  “On three,” Marsh agreed.

  Roeglin nodded, tightlipped, pale, and sweating as he kept his hands raised toward the portal.

  “One, two…three!”

  She slid her arm through Roeglin’s, feeling for the shadows he held and lending him more of her control. At the same time, she reached out and snagged Brigitte by the bicep and yanked her through after them.

  The shadow mistress gave a startled yelp, losing control of the energy she’d held in the center of the courtyard as she was hauled through the portal. The three of them hit the ground together.

  “Close the portal!” Brigitte shouted. “Close it! Close it! Close it!”

  There was a single oath from Master Envermet, then the gate to the prison closed. Shortly afterward, the ground trembled beneath them.

  “Go!” Marsh shouted, pointing at the portal leading to the Devastation. “Get out of here!”

  Looking back through the red-stained ruins, she was sure she could see dark smoke rising beyond them, but Roeglin didn’t give her the chance to make sure. He and Master Envermet looped their arms around her and pulled her through the portal.

  “But…” she protested.

  “We don’t have time!” Roeglin snarled as they raced into the tunnel on the other side. Marsh started running with him.

  None of them stopped until they were halfway to the junction.

  25

  Preparation

  “What now?” Marsh asked after they’d stopped running.

  The three of them turned to face the still-gleaming portal.

  They will be coming. Tok’s voice replied out of nowhere. There is no way they will leave this insult unavenged or the threat you have become unanswered.

  Roeglin groaned. “How much time do we have?”

  We need to short-circuit the portal as soon as you are able.

  “Like tonight?”

  If by that you mean as soon as you reach the surface, then that is correct.

  They started down the tunnel, and the mantid joined them as they passed the passage leading to his nest. It wasn’t until they’d crossed the junction and reached the stairs that they realized the tunnel was empty.

  “What happened to everyone?” Marsh asked.

  Fortunately, Tok could see who she meant.

  I sent them back to the nest. They will be safer there since the Others will attack the source of the greatest threat.

  “The Library,” Marsh concluded.

  That is correct. Tok hesitated as though unsure of how she would react to what he wanted to say next.

  “What is it?” Marsh demanded.

  The nest can provide shelter for the people of the Library, the mantid offered. For those who cannot or do not know how to fight.

  Marsh exchanged glances with Roeglin, taking his arm as his eyes gleamed white. She guided him up the stairs to the guard post and through it into the Library. By the time she reached the front steps, Obasi and Master Envermet were there, the other settlement leaders hurrying to join them.

  “What’s this about an attack?” Xavier demanded, mounting the steps as the wind gusted around him.

  Marsh glanced up at the sky, and Evan followed her gaze. “Druids have been working on calling a storm ever since this morning’s meeting. I told them we needed another two days for the crops to be ready. They said we needed the storm sooner.”

  He glared at Marsh. “Why do I think you have something to do with this?”

  “Only because you know I’d do anything to save your asses,” Marsh snapped back, ignoring Etk’
k’s worried whistle and clicks.

  Be gentle. He is very afraid.

  Thunder rumbled overhead and Alain looked up, studying the ripples of light flaring through the clouds. The frown on his face grew deeper, and he scowled as he came to a stop in front of Marsh.

  “The lightning in the stones not enough for you?”

  Marsh snorted with bitter laughter. “There’s a portal leading into the Below that we need to close, and you want to fight about how much lightning your children get to play with?”

  Alain’s anger turned to alarm, and he glanced at the growing storm again. “You’re not expecting them to play with that?”

  “Not on their own,” Marsh told him, all humor disappearing, “but yes. Roeglin will explain why.”

  She looked around, finding the person she needed and moving away before Alain could stop her. Roeglin moved to block his path as Marsh turned her attention to the leader of the Grotto’s warriors and druids.

  “Obasi, I need Brin and Sylvie.”

  Behind her, she heard Roeglin begin telling the leaders about the pending attack from Below. Exclamations of disbelief followed his brief explanation, and she almost turned back.

  Trust your mate, Mordan admonished her. He shows them the images of what you faced.

  He doesn’t!

  He does. He shows them pictures of the foe and of the lightning your cubs called.

  They are not my cubs!

  They are as much your cubs as they are the cubs of their parents, the kat told her and sent her a mental image of her stalking away, her tail straight up in the air.

  “Nice,” Marsh muttered. “Real nice, kat.”

  “Anything I should know about?” Obasi asked, breaking into her thoughts. Marsh started.

  She hadn’t realized he’d come to meet her. “The kat says I should leave Roeglin to do what he does best,” she admitted, glancing back to where Roeglin and the town leaders now stood in a huddle that included Etk’k.

  The mantid’s antennae waved, and his clicks, chitters, and rasps were no doubt accompanied by a mental translation she couldn’t hear. She almost wished she could, but was glad to be able to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  “What happened?” Obasi asked.

  “We started a fight we weren’t ready for,” Marsh admitted.

  “Why?” Obasi looked puzzled. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  For a moment, Marsh wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or if he meant that.

  Obasi noticed the look on her face, or perhaps he skimmed it from her thoughts, and he laughed.

  “I meant that as it came out. You and Roeglin would never do something to deliberately place this settlement in jeopardy. You’ve worked too hard to make us all safe.’ He paused and then asked again, “What happened?”

  “The team that went to check the portal was taken,” Marsh admitted. “I went to get them back. Now I need to close the portal before the Ookens get through it.”

  She stopped, her eyes wide with the memory of how many of the tentacled monsters there were. “There are too many for us to defeat any other way.”

  Obasi stared at her, absorbing the news, then he plucked her sleeve, drawing her after him. “Brin and Sylvie are this way,” he explained. “You can tell your story while we walk.”

  She followed him down the Library stairs and out the front gate.

  “We got lucky,” he said when he saw the confusion on her face. “They’re waiting above the gate, and it’s outside the walls.”

  “What about remnant?” Marsh asked, noticing how much darker the day had become with the gathering storm. It was perfect weather for the once-men to be on the move.

  “Any remnant with half a sense of self-preservation will be holed up and hiding,” Obasi told her. “I didn’t know the druids could call a storm…and neither did they until they tried.”

  They picked their way around the base of the wall, the rocky ground shifting underfoot.

  “How did they manage it?” Marsh asked when Obasi stopped to scan their surroundings, his eyes shading white.

  “Well, they couldn’t call a storm by itself, if that’s what you’re asking,” Obasi admitted, his eyes returning to normal, “but they did work out they could call the wind, and they figured if they called enough wind, a storm was sure to come.”

  “But that could have taken days!” Marsh exclaimed.

  Obasi shook his head and struck out toward one of the nearby ruins. “You felt the wind this morning?”

  Marsh nodded. “It was cold. I thought…I thought there might be rain.”

  “Exactly,” Obasi told her. “There were all the signs of weather coming, so when I came out of that meeting this morning and asked the druids when the next storm might come, they said the signs were for one in the next day or so. I asked them if they could make it come faster.”

  “And?” Marsh asked when he hesitated.

  “They called me crazy, said I was taking your example too seriously, and then decided they’d try to bring the storm, given they knew which direction it would come from. Some called the wind, and some called the sky for moisture the same way they would draw water from the earth to water the crops.”

  “And that worked?”

  He shrugged and gestured toward the sky. “It was a matter of expressing need and desire,” he explained. “This is the result.”

  “How did they know it would stay for me to use it?”

  Obasi’s teeth flashed white in the semi-dark. “They asked the clouds and the wind to gather above us.”

  He glanced up as a particularly loud rumble filled the air. ‘I don’t think that was such a good idea. I think this storm is going to be worse than any we’ve seen so far.”

  The storm rumbled again as if to punctuate his words. This time the lightning turned the sky white, and the distinct scent of ozone filled the air.

  Obasi looked even more worried. “We cannot hold it here much longer. It will be our destruction if we do.”

  Marsh agreed, and then she realized she’d come alone. “I need Aisha, Tamlin, and Brigitte,” she said.

  She started to turn back, but Obasi laid a hand on her arm.

  “I will call them. Tok or one of the mantids will bring them.” His teeth flashed as he smiled without mirth. “No doubt the kat will carry the little one.”

  When he started moving again, Marsh followed. They ducked under an overhanging floor and found Brin and Sylvie already at work.

  The woman looked up as their steps crunched over the stone.

  “It’s a good thing you let us know you were coming,” she scolded Obasi, “or you’d have had a hammer to the head.”

  She frowned, catching sight of Marsh beside him. “Don’t you need to be at the portal to direct the lightning into it?”

  “A la putain!” Marsh cursed, realizing she was right. “Putain a merde! Deep’s-spawned, shroom-cursed…”

  She pivoted on her heel.

  “Obasi, send Brigitte and the kids to the portal!” she called, flinging the words over her shoulder as she started to run.

  26

  The Enemy at the Gate

  Marsh didn’t wait for the children. She ran straight back to the library, tearing through the gate and up the Library stairs, aware of the stares as she passed but only vaguely aware of the curses rising in her wake.

  “Marsh! Wait!” Tamlin’s youthful cry rang out behind her, but she didn’t stop.

  She felt a terrible foreboding with every step she took, as if a storm was coming—and one that had nothing to do with the clouds boiling outside. If she didn’t get back…

  An all-too-familiar scream echoed up from the depths as she took the sharp left into the hidden stairwell. Behind her, Tamlin’s voice rang out again.

  “Roeglin, they’re coming!”

  Marsh took the stairs as fast as she could. She heard footsteps behind her and the sounds of suckers slapping stone ahead. The screeches had died to quieter keens of inquiry as the Ooke
ns searched the dark, and she was glad she hadn’t thought to light the tunnels.

  Let the Deeps-spawned shroom-shaggers search.

  She hit the bottom of the stairs, racing into the arena and across it. It was a relief to see nothing in the space beneath the grate, and she hoped she could reach the junction before any of the invaders got there.

  Almost… Her eyes caught the flash of movement at the edges of the tunnel leading out of the junction as she got there.

  Marsh didn’t hesitate; she launched a handful of shadow darts at the space ahead of where the movement had disturbed the dark and was rewarded with a scream of outrage and pain. The corridor beyond erupted into a cacophony of fury, and she slammed a shield up in front of her.

  She didn’t care how many of them were ahead—she had to reach the portal. A large furred form leapt past her: Perdemor. His brother ran alongside him, and his sister, with Scruffknuckle on her flank. A bigger form bounded in front of her and stopped, forcing her to come to a halt also.

  “Dan!” Aisha wailed. “They’re that way!”

  Marsh didn’t need the kat’s impatient look to know what she wanted. As badly as she didn’t want to, she pulled Aisha from the hoshkat’s back. Mordan was gone before the child was clear.

  Marsh set Aisha down beside her. “Armor!” she snapped, even as stone began flowing up the girl’s limbs.

  “Well, duh!” Aisha retorted. “Where’s yours?”

  The kid had a point, and Marsh took the time to pull the shadows around her as Mordan’s roar shook the tunnel.

  “Dan!” Aisha didn’t wait. She jerked a shield from the floor and charged toward the kat, a spear forming in her hand.

  “Aysh!” Tamlin’s shadow-clad form followed, and Marsh was relieved to see he’d learned from Brigitte’s example and his armor rippled with spikes.

  Marsh ran after them, not stopping when she heard Roeglin’s call.

  “Marsh, wait!”

  “Find me the Ookens!” she commanded the threads connecting her to the corridor beyond. “Find me the children and the cubs!”