Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  The place itself followed the now-familiar pattern. The intruders had found the least overlooked part of the property and simply walked past the disabled wards.

  Zachary joined them, white around his mouth, when they were coming back towards the house.

  “Councillor, thank you. If we find anything out, the muster will let you know.”

  “Of course.” The woman managed a small, polite smile for them both as they left.

  “Trouble?” Arrow asked as they got back into the vehicle.

  “The Collegia appealed the court order and got it overturned. They’re claiming jurisdiction.”

  “Over the workspace as well?”

  “Indeed.”

  No wonder Zachary was furious, Arrow thought, fastening her seat belt quickly as he drove away at speed. He slowed down moments later, fingers tense on the steering wheel.

  “The Collegia are worried we will find something,” Arrow pointed out, mind turning over possibilities. She shared her mental calculation with Zachary. The possibility of seven stones, then went on. “The lady said that there were other sculptures on display. Public display?”

  Zachary turned brilliant green eyes towards her, blinking once, a small, hard smile crossing his mouth.

  “The Collegia can’t stop us being tourists.”

  ~

  The city’s principal museum, a vast structure that took up a whole city block, housed a waist-high sculpture as part of an exhibit devoted to religion and philosophy. Arrow had visited the museum a few times before, fascinated by human history, but had not ventured to the top floor where the exhibit was held before now.

  The pale stone sculpture stood in its own room, standing on a circle of fake flagstones, immediately recognisable as the same craftsman by its fluid lines. Zachary managed to persuade the museum curators to let them past the red rope barrier and approach the stone itself, even though the curators warned them not to touch. Arrow pulled gloves out of her bag in answer, finely made silk that would avoid soiling the object but let her handle it if need be.

  A few moments’ observation and she had learned enough to make her truly uneasy. The human artist who had created this piece was not, in fact, human. There were strong undercurrents of Erith magic. The stone was full of magic that resonated just at the edge of her senses, power twisted into a recognisable shape. It was the fragment of a spell.

  She relayed the information to Zachary, crouching beside her. The curators were far enough away to be out of hearing range.

  “There’s a spell built in?”

  “I speculate that the pieces all together form a spell.”

  “Would you need all the parts?”

  “Perhaps not. It depends. There is a lot of power in this stone. A lot.” Arrow blew out a breath, stripping her gloves off and putting them away, the movement a cover for her own twisting stomach.

  Zachary was still, doubtless having similar uneasy thoughts. “The humans do not know.”

  “I do not believe so. There are no special wards or protections on this room.” Arrow tilted her head, eyes on the unresponsive stone. “Some Erith use focal points when learning magic. Something external. The objects themselves do not have power built in. This is something different. I have not seen anything like it before.”

  “And you are sure the maker was Erith?”

  “At least partly. Trained in Erith magic as well. It has a different texture in the second world. Do we know anything about the sculptor?”

  “He founded the Sanctuary,” Zachary answered dryly, as though that was a complete response in itself. Arrow lifted a brow, not sure what that meant among humans. “His life is well-documented,” Zachary confirmed as he rose to his feet, eyes glinting. “In fact, I am sure there is a display somewhere here about him.”

  There was, in fact, an entire room devoted to the founder and sculptor at the other side of the floor. The curators did not want to let them in as the display was under review. Zachary simply lifted an eyebrow, and the humans let them in.

  The air was stale, the room badly lit by a few overhead bulbs, and clearly not tended for a while, dust on some of the exhibits. Photographs, mostly black and white and grainy, artifacts from his life including his sculpting tools, and typewritten cards of information, the corners curling with age, the pages yellowing, providing more information. Most of it false. A human mother and father. Carefully documented parentage. No formal training in magic or sculpture.

  She turned to share her observations with Zachary, finding him absorbed in examining a life size mannequin clothed in ancient, dusty fabric.

  A shadow caught the corner of her eye. She must have made a sound, Zachary turning at once, immediately alert.

  The flat crack of gunfire broke the quiet, followed by the roar of enraged shifkin.

  Arrow ran towards Zachary, wards flaring brilliant in the gloomy room, wards extending to cover him as another shot snapped through the air. The bullet slid across her wards, leaving a blinding silver streak and the searing trace of another magician’s power against her own.

  “Magic bullets,” she spat out, disgusted. “Ethtar.” The Erith curse word came more easily to her tongue than any human equivalent.

  “Such language,” Zachary murmured. His eyes were brilliant, near-feral smile tugging his mouth, gaze searching the shadows of the room.

  “You like being shot at?” Arrow hissed.

  “I like it when my enemies make a mistake and show themselves,” he answered, laughter undercutting his voice. “Stay safe.”

  He burst out of her wards, moving faster than her eyes could track, across the room to a doorway she had not seen before. A muffled sound of surprise betrayed their attacker’s presence, then a clattering that sounded like someone tripping and falling. A scramble of feet followed, human footsteps running away. Zachary made no sound.

  Arrow went after them, gathering power as she moved. She did not even try and keep up, confident that Zachary would catch whoever it was. Nothing she knew could outrun an angry ‘kin.

  The door opened onto a stairwell, the opening blocked by an odd-looking plastic and metal contraption that she identified after a moment as a janitor’s cleaning trolley, murky water pooling around it from the overturned bucket. Arrow saw a trail of damp footprints heading down. Two sets. She followed.

  The human must be far more fleet of foot than she had imagined possible. Or Zachary was letting him stay ahead. The footsteps descended four flights, drying rapidly until she had no more traces to follow apart from running feet ahead as the stairwell opened into dimly lit corridors in either direction. They were back at ground level, she thought. She listened for a moment then went after the running feet, the sound interrupted by a muffled cry and the sound of something hitting a wall, hard.

  She came around a corner in the corridor to find Zachary holding a wriggling human male against the wall. The Prime was not even breathing hard, using only one hand on the human’s chest, the human’s eyes bulging with fright, pale skin red with exertion. The human was dressed in plain, dark clothing. Not a janitor’s uniform. With a discreet insignia at his sleeve cuffs, visible as he clawed at the Prime’s wrist, trying in vain to free himself.

  “D-don’t k-kill me!” The human’s voice was high and Arrow wondered for a moment if she had got the gender wrong. Then realised the human was just frightened.

  “Why would I kill you when you’re being so helpful?” Zachary asked, voice silky.

  “Helpful? What?”

  “Arrow, would you like to tell this helpful human just how useful he has been?”

  “By all means. He has confirmed that we were being followed. He is wearing Collegia insignia, confirming that the Collegia is very interested in the sculptor. He has also broken about a half-dozen laws and the tri-party treaty by opening fire without warning in a public space. He is therefore under the jurisdiction of the shifkin nation. So the Collegia and the human authorities have no claim on him. Did I miss anything?” Arrow tilted her h
ead, voice mild.

  “Did you hear that?” Zachary closed the distance to the human. The human’s eyes widened, apparently unable to look away from the brilliant ‘kin gaze. “You belong to me now. And you will tell me everything you know.”

  “I-”

  The human’s words were cut off abruptly, a spray of dark liquid coating the Prime.

  Crack.

  A single shot. Echoing in the corridor.

  Zachary roared, and ran. Along the corridor to a fast-closing door, the sliver of bright daylight silhouetting the Prime for a moment before it closed.

  Arrow stared down at the human. Half his head was gone. Bits of bone and brain matter coated the wall, ceiling and floor. She looked down, breath catching, the spatter ending in a neat semi-circle of clean floor showing where her wards had protected her.

  Her knees were not quite steady as she walked along the corridor to where Zachary was wrestling with the door.

  “They’ve locked it and barred it from the other side.”

  “Let me,” Arrow suggested, her voice sounding higher than normal. Nothing was normal. They were in the human world, where public violence was rare. The head shot had been a hand’s width from the Prime. He had been outside her wards.

  He turned to her, one side of his head and shoulder coated in remnants of dead human. She dug a cloth from her bag, glanced back at him, and pulled more out of her bag. Several cloths. Handed them to him in silence, then put her hand on the door, focusing the power she had gathered.

  The door imploded, lifting her hair, contained explosion disintegrating the wood and metal to fine dust that fell in a thick line to the floor.

  “No fingerprints, then,” Zachary commented. He was smiling, though, and had much less blood on him, the cloths she had handed to him, sticky with gore, piled at his feet.

  “I did not think of that.”

  “Pretty sure they were wearing gloves. Come, let’s see if we can get the trail.”

  ~

  The now-disintegrated door opened onto a narrow side street that connected to main roads at the front and back of the museum. Opposite the museum’s enormous bulk was a warren of four and five storey apartment buildings, connected by alleys and walkways above ground.

  Zachary moved unerringly across the street to the warren, Arrow almost tripping over her feet to keep up with him, extending her wards to cover him. He glanced across, glint of humour in his eyes.

  “I am not that easy to kill.”

  “I know. But.” Arrow had to pause, draw a breath. “The human’s head was-”

  “Close. Yes. A skilled shooter. If they had wanted me dead, I would be dead.”

  The casual acceptance made Arrow shiver again. She had lived with the possibility of violence and death her entire life, but the ease and suddenness of the human’s murder had shaken her. Just one shot. In a public building.

  They were in the shadows of the buildings now, the hush of the museum replaced with the bustle of daily life. Conversation. Radios playing. Doors banging. Steps creaking. The sounds of pots clanging together in a kitchen above them. The smells of cooking were all around cut through with the acrid smell of cleaning products and body odour.

  They had barely set foot between the first two buildings when the relative peace was shattered by the loud, unwelcome sound of sirens.

  Zachary stopped, heaved a sigh.

  “We need to go back,” Arrow observed. “The human authorities will want to question us.”

  “Yes. And we’ll lose the trail.”

  “Would you know his scent again?”

  “Perhaps. There’s not much here. Used something to disguise his trail, I think.” Zachary was abstracted, pulling his mobile from a pocket again and dialling a preset number. “Tony. Yes. We’ll need you at the museum. Side entrance next to the warrens. No, we’ve not done anything.” Laughter shaded his voice for a moment before he sobered. “Someone shot a suspect I was holding.” He listened a moment more. “No, we’re fine.” He ended the call and dialled another preset number. “Con. Meet us at the warrens’ side entrance to the museum.” He hung up and turned to Arrow. “Something wrong?”

  “I was just wondering why Con and not Matthias,” Arrow said honestly. The Prime had been shot at. Matthias was the nation’s chief enforcer.

  “He’s busy on another project.” Shadows crossed Zachary’s face. “One we’ll need your help with, too. I’ll explain later, but let’s get this out of the way first.”

  They walked back towards the gathered human authorities who were milling about in what, to Arrow’s eyes, looked like disorganised panic. Snippets of conversations drifted to her on the slight breeze.

  “Half his head gone. I mean, just, gone …”

  “…shifkin in the museum …”

  “… shots fired inside …”

  Silence gathered as Zachary and Arrow came towards them, more than a few hands twitching towards weapons. None landed, humans keeping themselves still and quiet. Arrow was not sure what they saw when they looked at Zachary. She could have told them he was not truly angry, no matter what was on his face. There was no sound of anger, and he had his power and presence neatly coiled, a tight wrap around his person.

  “Zachary Farraway.” A human officer, with a pair of shiny stars at her collar, approached them, swallowed hard, and then bravely met the Prime’s eyes. “You were in the building when the shots were fired?” Her eyes widened, white brilliant against the dark tone of her skin. “Is that blood?”

  “And brain matter. Yes. I was standing next to the man when he was shot,” Zachary answered, his voice easy and relaxed. As though it were an everyday occurrence. “This is Arrow. Arrow, this is Deputy Chief Lisa Summerland. Did the mayor call you, Lisa?”

  Lisa’s face twisted in an unprofessional grimace and she nodded, once, a slight jerk of her head. Arrow’s interest spiked. Not a friend of the Erith-hating mayor. And someone the Prime felt comfortable with. Not a friend, but someone he respected.

  “Tony on her way?” Lisa asked.

  “Yes.” There was a smile in Zachary’s voice. “I am sure she’s looking forward to crossing paths with you again.”

  “She’s a pain in my-”

  “Lisa. How lovely.” Tony’s voice, cool and overlaid with false charm, cut off whatever the Deputy Chief had been about to say. She must have run most of the way to get here so quickly, Arrow knew, and yet she was as immaculate as ever, hair sleek, breathing steady and even. “Zach. What have you been getting up to now?” The ‘kin’s nose wrinkled. “Is that brain matter and bone on your shoulder?”

  “Probably. We should talk inside.”

  Zachary led the way, Lisa matching him stride for stride, shoulders tense. A difficult position to be in, Arrow sympathised. Caught between human laws and the absolute ruler of his people.

  “We did not shoot anyone,” Arrow told Tony as they walked in Zachary’s wake. The ‘kin made a choking sound that might have been a cut-off laugh. Arrow glanced across and found Tony’s eyes on the pile of bloodied cloths the Prime had used to clean up, and the dust pile that had once been a door. Heat gathered across Arrow’s face. “The spell was perfectly contained.”

  Tony just lifted an eyebrow and took an unnecessarily large step over the dust. Arrow followed. An already long day was about to get longer.

  CHAPTER 5

  Arrow’s eyes were sore with effort from focusing under the poor lighting and through the dust of the museum’s exhibit room. The human authorities had set up a watch over the sculpture, more because the Deputy Chief believed Zachary’s concerns than because they believed that there was any actual risk to the sculpture. It said something about the Prime’s influence that the Deputy Chief had faced down her sceptical junior colleagues to ensure the watch was set up.

  Zachary had sent his people, the same team that had been looking after Arrow, to search the warrens end to end to trace the shooter. He had answered the humans’ questions as briefly as possible, and then wa
shed the worst of the mess from his face and hair before demanding access to all of the museum’s information about the sculptor and founder of the Sanctuary.

  As a result, Arrow and Zachary had spent hours in the dusty, stale room. The curators had brought out all the items the museum held in relation to the man, including those not on display. Thousands of bits and pieces. Oliver Anderson had led a full life before his untimely death, not long after Sanctuary was finished, and seemed to have recorded it meticulously. There were letters and journals as well as news articles, on fragile sheets of newsprint, and an astonishing array of artifacts.

  As with the public display they had looked at earlier, the journals recorded an ordinary, human life, full of ordinary concerns. The letters were the same.

  Arrow was growing increasingly frustrated with the whole process. The magic bound into the sculpture had been unmistakably Erith. And yet this man had, on the basis of the information here, apparently been entirely human and unaware of his Erith heritage.

  She set aside the last of the letters from one box and turned to the next box of items, knowing as soon as she lifted the lid that this was the real prize.

  “Here,” she said, her voice rusty with dust and lack of use. Zachary left aside the journal he was reading and came over at once. “This is mostly Erith.”

  The Prime did not ask if she was sure, taking a deep breath in over the contents of the box.

  “Yes. That scent. Definitely Erith.”

  Arrow set the letters aside, clearing a space to unload the box. A crackling bundle of fabric, brocade stiff with age, unfolded to a plain over robe, and tucked into the ageing cloth was a familiar shape.

  “A mage’s kri-syang.” Zachary recognised it. He picked up the sheath and drew the blade. Still bright and untarnished after two hundred years. Arrow’s stomach twisted as she looked at it.