Empire Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 18)

by E. M. Foner

  “I’ll bite,” Kevin said. “Why would the calendar be with the dried fruit?”

  “Dates and calendars go together. I’m trying to get more organized. Besides, I think we stopped in the chandlery on the way back from bowling that last time.”

  “Found it,” Kevin said, pulling out the Frunge device and powering it on. “Tonight at quarter past seven we’re Live Action Role Playing. I wonder why it counts as a date? I thought Flazint and Tzachan could get away with treating LARPs as work-related activity.”

  “She doesn’t want their matchmaker getting suspicious, and they just used the work excuse for that lunch we had after moving the office,” Dorothy explained. “Kiss Margie for me if you can find her. She’s way too young for LARPing so we’ll leave her with my parents. I have to get back to work if I’m going to finish these swag bags today.”

  “See you in a few hours.”

  The EarthCent ambassador’s daughter checked the tension screw of the metal embroidery hoop SBJ Fashions had standardized on in deference to Flazint’s sensitivity about wood. She quickly finished the gold part of the observer’s name, and then began outlining the alien characters with small stitches in royal blue. She didn’t hear the Terragram mage return.

  “Vishmiat,” Baa read over Dorothy’s shoulder. “There should be an accent over the ‘shmi.’”

  “If it’s not on the pattern, it doesn’t go on the bag. These spellings are all from Libby.”

  “Your Stryx librarian doesn’t know everything. The Binderfall always add an accent over the ‘shmi’ unless…”

  “Unless the bearer of the name carries the Winter Stigma,” Libby completed the sentence. “Going by the length of her tail, it’s obvious Vishmiat has had a run-in with frostbite.”

  “Why would the Binderfall have any interest in whether or not the Humans choose to establish an empire?” Baa demanded. “Inviting unaffiliated species with no vested interest in the tunnel network to observe the diplomatic process just creates headaches for the hosts.”

  “I don’t mind the embroidery,” Dorothy said. “I was getting out of practice.”

  “But while you’re busy producing bespoke swag bags nothing else is getting done around here. What happened to Flazint?”

  “It’s already early evening on her clock and she went home to mist her hair vines for a couple of hours before her date.”

  “A love-sick Frunge, a Vergallian royal who’s busy substitute queening for the Alts, and a Human who spends more time playing with her toddler than working on new designs. It’s no wonder your team hasn’t produced a new lineup in over a year.”

  “Every time I have a great idea, Jeeves says it’s too expensive,” Dorothy protested. “Besides, Stick has everybody convinced that the catalog is unbalanced and we need to add male fashions. Personally, I don’t see the point.”

  “So we finally agree on something,” the mage said. “I refuse to put my Baa’s Bags logo on the military rucksacks Stick keeps bringing me to enchant as bags of holding. I don’t know why males even bother picking up treasure in LARPs if they’re just going to stuff it in some shapeless sack. It’s a waste of my magic.”

  “I wish I could do magic. Not any of the fighting stuff,” the EarthCent ambassador’s daughter qualified her statement, “but if I’m going to go on a quest, I want my seamstress character to be able to do something special.”

  “You chose to pursue crafting in a league that’s based on combat,” Baa pointed out. “I can teach you magic, but the only—”

  “You can teach me magic?” Dorothy interrupted.

  “I can teach anybody magic in a LARP. Out here in what you call the real world, a modicum of aptitude is required. The Verlocks are the only tunnel network species in which the trait is widespread, and even then, just one in a hundred thousand has what it takes to become even a poor excuse for a mage.”

  “And you’re saying I don’t have any aptitude.”

  “I would have noticed by now,” Baa said. “Do you think I would spend twelve hours a day enchanting purses if I could train you to do it?”

  “I guess not. But what if you taught me how to create bags of holding inside a LARPing studio?”

  “Ah, now you’re getting into game mechanics. The magic I can teach you to cast inside a LARP will only work in that instance.”

  “Instance?”

  “For example, a season of the professional LARPing league that SBJ Fashions sponsors is a single instance for the players in that league. But if you enchanted a cloak to be arrow-proof in that instance and then wore it in a LARPing studio for any other action, it would just be a piece of cloth.”

  “I thought that the magical weapons players can win or buy work everywhere,” Dorothy said. “And how about all of the bonus rings and scrolls?”

  “You have to read the fine print,” Baa told her. “My bags-of-holding work in all LARPing studios, as do items and weapons enchanted by other mages or generated by the game engine, which on Stryx stations means you-know-who. But if I taught you magic during a LARP, your enchantments would only work in that instance because you aren’t a real mage.”

  “I’d still like to try it.”

  “You’ll get your chance tonight,” Baa said. “I made Stick invite me to his party.”

  “Oh,” Dorothy said. “Are you going to force us all to buy stuff from you again?”

  “A modest fee will help you take your magical studies seriously. Just bring what you have.”

  “Baa, Dorothy,” Stick called from the door. “Do you have a minute?”

  “We’re busy,” the mage answered irritably. “What do you want?”

  “I’ve got a few ideas for men’s suits that we should talk about. Jeeves told me to push you while he’s gone.”

  “If Jeeves wants to push me, he’ll have to show up and do it himself,” Dorothy said. “If you ask me, men’s fashion is an oxymoron.”

  “So work up some designs that will get people to take men’s fashion seriously,” Stick said. “I’ll expect to see something before the tradeshow is over.”

  “Look who’s acting like he’s in charge,” the mage grumbled after the Vergallian ducked back out of the room.

  “Speaking of being in charge, Flazint wanted me to ask you to turn up the heat, plus she says it’s a little dry in here.”

  “One more thing,” Stick said, leaning back into the room. “Turn down the heat. It’s too hot in here, and some of us have to wear suits when we have clients.”

  Five hours later, against the advice of all and sundry, Stick and Baa agreed to split the party. The sales manager took most of the group on a raid, while the mage set up school next to a broken fountain in the courtyard of a tumbled-down castle.

  “Tuition will be one gold,” she announced. “Each.”

  “I’ve got this,” Dorothy told her friends, handing over half of the coins her seamstress character had earned in years of repairing garments for other players in LARPs. “Put your gold away, Affie.”

  “But you never play, and I’m loaded from going on raids with Dietro,” the Vergallian girl said. Her friends looked over in surprise on hearing her use Stick’s real name. “There’s something about working in the embassy all the time that makes me feel funny about dating a guy called Stick. Besides, he stopped selling Kraaken sticks, and he doesn’t even burn it himself anymore.”

  “I knew there was something different about him,” Baa said. “He’s getting more motivated and proactive with each passing cycle. Next thing you know he’ll be going into business for himself.”

  “I can’t believe he talked Tzachan into going on the raid,” Flazint complained to Dorothy. “You and Kevin better agree to chaperone us out for ice cream later or this date will be a complete waste.”

  “You could have gone with them,” the EarthCent ambassador’s daughter pointed out.

  “I thought Affie would go on the raid and I didn’t want to abandon you with Baa.”

  “And I was sure Flazint wo
uld go with Tzachan,” Affie said.

  “You realize I’m standing right here and I can do magic,” Baa growled at them, putting an end to the discussion. “Now, I can guess what Dorothy wants to learn, but how about the two of you?”

  “Can you teach me to cast fireballs?” the Vergallian asked.

  “Do Stryx like math?”

  “And I’d like to be able to put spells on my arrows,” Flazint said. “Something so I could shoot the monsters without having to look them in the eye.”

  “Tell me again why you LARP?” the mage asked, and then launched into her lesson without waiting for an answer. “There are three ways you can acquire magic in this space. The first way is through instruction and practice, the second way is by acquiring and reading a spellbook, and the third way is to be gifted a spell. It’s your gold, Dorothy, so you choose.”

  “I guess being gifted a spell would be the quickest,” Dorothy said, thinking that the other two girls would still have time to catch up with their boyfriends for the raid.

  “Unfortunately, since the ‘Rain of Toads’ incident, the station management has requested that I no longer gift magic to unprepared recipients.”

  “How about spellbooks, then?”

  “Don’t happen to have any with me. Do you?”

  “Why did you say I have three choices if you knew all along that two of them weren’t options?”

  “If you were better at choosing, it never would have come up,” Baa said. “Let’s see. Flazint, your lesson is easiest. Do you see that tree over there with the sign nailed to it?”

  “The ‘no archery’ sign?”

  “Exactly. I want you to meditate on that sign to fix the image in your mind while I take care of these two. Affie?”

  “I don’t have a lighter if that’s what you were going to ask.”

  “Very funny,” the mage said. “Casting fire is just like casting ice, but you twist the flow to the right rather than the left.”

  “You know I can’t cast ice.”

  “You girls have excuses for everything. Do you have a lighter?”

  “We already covered that,” Affie gritted out between her teeth.

  “No sense of humor,” Baa said. “All right then, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way. Try to imagine a candle burning in the dark with nothing else around. You’ll have to close your eyes to start. When you can see the flame with your eyes open, tell me.”

  “Give me a second,” the Vergallian girl said. She sat cross-legged on the ground, closed her eyes, and then frowned as the task turned out to be harder than she imagined.

  “That will take care of those two for a few minutes,” Baa told Dorothy. “Now what will it be? Do you want to cast protective spells on clothing, or magically produce new materials to work with?”

  “I can make my own fabric? Like turning cotton into gold?”

  “Transmuting elements is an advanced spell that is beyond your capacity to learn. What I can teach you is how to magically craft new materials, like this.” The mage waved her hand at a tall clump of grass, and the blades wove themselves into a crude mat. “No, that didn’t come out very well,” Baa critiqued her own work. She gestured again, and the mat reformed itself into a broad-brimmed hat. “There. Would that spell be worth a gold to you?”

  “Making grass hats?” Dorothy asked doubtfully. “It’s kind of limited, and most players already have hats. Besides, I’d rather have a new fabric than the ability to create finished products.”

  “Really? But then you’re just making more work for yourself.”

  “I like work. I mean, I’d get bored sewing the same thing over and over again all day, but I love designing new clothes, and working with my hands makes me feel good.”

  “And what do you call what I’m doing?” Baa demanded, performing an intricate spell casting that reminded the ambassador’s daughter of the hand motions from a dance move she’d seen in a Grenouthian documentary about the history of human mating rituals.

  “I’m not sure. Is something happening that I can’t see?”

  “I’m weaving with invisible thread. Here,” the mage told her, and then made a tossing motion in Dorothy’s direction. The ambassador’s daughter felt something as light as a silk veil settle over her head and hang down to her shoulders.

  “It feels nice, but if it’s invisible, nobody can see it,” Dorothy pointed out.

  “Obviously.”

  “But I’m a designer and I want people to see my creations.”

  “You don’t want to learn the spell?”

  “Could you teach me, but without the invisible part?”

  “Ready,” Affie declared and opened her eyes. She looked around and let out a shriek. “Where’s Dorothy’s head?”

  “Right on her shoulders beneath the shawl of invisibility,” the Terragram mage said. “I offered to teach her to weave the invisible fabric and she turned me down.”

  “Wait!” Dorothy cried. She pulled the piece of fabric off her head by feel and then stared at where her forearm now ended in an invisible wrist and hand. “You didn’t tell me the cloth could make clothing that granted invisibility. I thought you meant it was see-through.”

  “What would the point of that be?” Baa asked. “Just hold onto it while I finish teaching the substitute queen here how to cast fire, because if you drop that shawl, we’ll never find it. You isolated the candle flame, Affie?”

  “It got easier the longer I tried. Now I can do it with my eyes open.”

  “Perfect. Now blow the candle out.”

  Affie pursed her lips to blow out the flame that only she could see. A stream of fire shot from her mouth and dissipated over the mage’s magical shield.

  “Not at me,” Baa said in irritation. “Try casting up in the air to see how far you can reach.”

  “The flames are coming out of my mouth,” the Vergallian complained. “I wanted to cast from my hands.”

  “That comes with the next level. First, you have to master Dragon’s Breath.”

  “But I must look like a carnival performer. Everybody will laugh at me!”

  “Not the monsters you incinerate. Go and practice behind those rocks or you might get an arrow in the back,” Baa instructed her. “Flazint? Do you have the sign firmly fixed in your mind?”

  “I think I’m ready,” the Frunge girl said.

  “Now shoot an arrow directly at me.”

  “How about if I aim over your shoulder?”

  “Aim wherever you want, just keep that sign in mind. And you better stand behind me, Dorothy.”

  The ambassador’s daughter didn’t need a second invitation, and she resisted peeking over the mage’s shoulder to watch Flazint nock and fire the arrow. The projectile whizzed past the pair and thunked into a sapling.

  “You let the image of the sign slip from your mind,” Baa accused Flazint.

  “It’s my training,” the Frunge girl apologized. “I did archery in school and they were very stringent about picking a target and keeping your eyes on it. I thought this was going to work like the magic bow and arrows you gave me to use in our booth exhibition that time.”

  “I was directly controlling your arrows with my magic during the noodle weapon demonstration. And there’s nothing wrong with your training to keep your eye on the target, but the whole point of this exercise is to see that target through your mind’s eye. This time, close your eyes before you release, and concentrate on that sign.”

  Flazint nocked another arrow, pointed in the general direction of the tree line, closed her eyes, and released. The arrow flew in a straight line for about half the distance, and then it made a hard turn and buried itself in the ‘No archery’ sign.

  “Good,” Baa said. “Keep practicing, but point in the other direction if you don’t mind. Have you lost that shawl yet, Dorothy?”

  “No, I’ve got it right here. But if I had dropped it, wouldn’t we be able to see it because the ground would become invisible?”

  “It only works on pl
ayers,” the mage said. “Players and their mounts, if you weave a big enough piece. Are you ready to learn?”

  “It’s not really what I had in mind,” Dorothy said. “I mean, I can tell that it’s powerful magic, and garments of invisibility would be valuable in LARPing, but part of being a fashion designer, maybe most of it, is seeing the clothes I make. Invisible fabric is kind of self-defeating.”

  “Then you tell me what you want,” Baa said, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. “You’re on the clock.”

  “I guess I have the Gem nanofabric stuck in my head. It’s such a brilliant idea. Programmable cloth that can take on different forms and fill different functions is a designer’s dream. Can I learn something like that?”

  “Spells don’t work for complex mechanisms,” the mage said. “You can do this or you can do that, but you can’t do everything at the same time. I could work a number of enchantments on a piece of cloth that would layer together to give it similar properties to the Gem nanofabric, but the amount of my time involved would make it prohibitively expensive, even in LARPing space. It’s unlikely you’d ever find a single player with enough gold to purchase whatever you made from it.”

  Dorothy’s eyes began to shine so brightly that for a moment the mage thought they were going to shoot out beams of light. “Baa!” the EarthCent ambassador’s daughter shouted, distracting both Flazint and Affie in the midst of their releases, and forcing the mage to intercept the arrow and the ball of fire that headed her direction as a result. “You just gave me the greatest idea ever. The only question is how to manipulate Jeeves into going along.”

  Nine

  “I know I said we would convene this meeting of the ad hoc committee exactly on the hour, but maybe we should wait a few more minutes to give the alien observers a chance to find the embassy,” Daniel said. “Shaina? Are you sure you pinged them all?”

  “More than once, thanks to our back-office support,” his wife replied. “Libby?”

  “The alien observers who are already on Union Station were alerted to this meeting when it was scheduled,” the Stryx librarian replied. “I sent updates this morning, and again ten minutes ago.”