Paradigm Clutch

“Our lands are laid waste!” She sobbed, surveying the landscape beyond the city’s limits. Acreage once verdant now stretched desolate and torn from the walls to the horizon. “Our own people are decimated, our allies are either dead or fled, and our enemies mass as one against us!” She turned to face him, auric cheeks streaked with tears cutting through dust and ash. “Tell me now brother, was this part of your plan?”

He stood with her on the balcony, untouched by her anguish. “Plan?” he echoed. He also tracked the blackened topography with his eyes, engraving every wasted detail of it to memory. His lips curved in a resigned, patient smile that told how many times before this topic had passed between them. “There was a goal,” he explained again, “and there were possibilities and contingencies.”

His eyes turned from the ruined lands, his silvered gaze meeting hers without flinch. “We trekked shadowed regions,” he reminded her, “our eyes on the beacon shining on the horizon while our feet picked among briars and stones for the best path.” He reached out a hand and traced the clean path from her eye to her jaw. “If I had known the best route when first we started, we would not have needed so much time and pain for the journey.”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, digesting his answer. Her voice took on a tone which promised to repay any falsehood or dissembly in a most unhumorous manner. “Do you mean to say we have achieved our dream? In the midst of such sublime devastation we are the victors?”

He shook his head sadly at her. His hand dropped once more to his side. “After so many conversations, your grasp of our purpose is still lacking. There can be but one victor from this war, and it is neither Alliance nor Concord. No my sister, we have not yet achieved our dream. But the road to it now lies clearly before us. Or more precisely, before you. My journey ends here.”

Five thousand years later, on that same spot….

The world had never before seen such a city.

Towers of crystal and metal reached into the peridot sky, their flanks striking blinding sunlight reflections. Avenues balanced broad, flat surfaces against routes which seemed curving and whimsical but somehow managed economical transit between locations. No blade of grass nor branch of tree broke through foundation or sidewalk. Their absence was compensated by metal or crystal sculptures whose abstractions recalled the reach and spread of living growth, adding curve and chaos to the clean, ascetic lines of the buildings. Elevated decks at intersections wore lambent haloes of public portals, ready to whisk those too rushed, burdened, or impatient to their destinations. On a world whose other cities showed antiquity in their mixed architecture and haphazard streetmaps, this one’s immaculate design told of the unified vision which had shaped it.

But there were no people.

Carriages parked at curbsides and driveways. Chairs were tucked neatly next to desks and tables. Windows stared in blank confusion, inward at shops and apartments and outward over avenues which should have been full of citizens tending to the vital minutiae of their lives. For all the grace and polish of its architecture, the lack of anything living to use it made the city seem unfinished.

The air tore open with a scream, at street level on the city’s largest throughfare. The edges of the spiraling portal spat and crackled with energy as it fought the universe’s desire to seal the rupture. Three curious figures stepped from the portal. From their rigid, jointed shells and the smooth blankness where faces should have been, they might have been taken for golems. Their movements betrayed their hidden nature. Automata move with the deliberate resolve of their programming, without indecision or hesitation. These three shifted from one foot to the other, blank heads jerked nervously as they scrutinized the barren cityscape.

The figure which emerged first from the portal turned to its companion on the left and silently nodded. The gesture was obviously an unspoken command.

They had taken but a few steps from the crackling aperture, which remained open in case a fast retreat was needed. The visitor to the left plucked a device from its belt, walked further away so the portal would not interfere with readings, and held the device aloft. Five movable rings encircled the shaft of a metal wand just forward of the handle. Past the rings the wand’s remaining length was studded with crystals and metal nubs. Its tip boasted four prongs, each pointing a different direction from the wand and waving gently like antennae. Adjustment and fine tuning were accomplished by twisting the movable rings. How the knowledge gained passed to the operator was not immediately obvious.

While that task was underway, the other two had only their thoughts and the unnerving emptiness of the city to occupy them. One million, five hundred ninety-seven thousand, nine hundred forty-six. Five days ago they were all here. Now not even their spirits remain. Had I left the laboratory and gone to dinner as Mother demanded, I’d be among them. And to think, Mother always claimed the laboratory would be the death of me! Now I am Lady Most High because all the rest are dead, and it is my duty to save what is left of my people. Ladies most blessed, is this a lesson or a joke at my expense?

“As we feared, Milady Most High,” the figure with the wand replied after digesting the information, turning to the one who’d ordered the scry. His voice betrayed both his gender and his educated upbringing. “The cityspell and the automatic systems are thoroughly corrupted. Anything living is seen as an infestation and immediately eliminated. I suspect that were even our faces visible, the cleaning –”

Hush! Milady Most High commanded silently.

The speaker realized his mistake and shut his mouth, but the damage had been done. A sigh echoed between the towers and swiftly grew into a gale. To the portal! commanded Milady Most High, even as she and her nearer companion spun to follow her own advice.

The one with the wand sprinted toward the promised refuge of the portal, already panting in terror. He was but two steps from the crackling aperture when the wind caught him. It neither lifted nor buffeted him. Instead it enveloped him, clinging and entangling as an invisible web. Milady Most High! his mind screamed to hers, not in panic but to get her attention.

Milady Most High’s other companion had reached the portal first, but paused and stood to one side to make sure she followed. With an exasperated hiss she grabbed his shoulder, spun him around and shoved him bodily through the swirling ingress. At the psychic hail she turned. Her eyes widened behind her faceplate.

The smooth armor of his protective suit was pitted and crumpled, the left arm and that side of his torso compacted too much to contain anything recognizable as flesh. The data! he called, and threw the wand to her as his legs compacted. She caught it, tarrying only a moment more in horrified fascination. Black dust puffed from between the ruptured seals of his suit as it was crushed like a discarded piece of paper. Ladies keep you, she ‘pathed the traditional final farewell to the departed, then turned and dove through the portal.

The wind swirled long enough to dissipate the final remnants of the suit and its wearer, then it too faded. Once more the streets and buildings huddled in silent submission to the traitor in their midst.

Milady Most High cursed with fervor and creativity, holding the wand still in one hand as she stabbed with the other at the runes on the collar of her suit. Sealing wards relaxed, and she tugged awkwardly at her helmet until an attendant pulled it off for her. Hair the color of bronze was gathered away from a softly angular face whose most striking features were a set of lips and eyes that spoke volumes with the tension of a single muscle. At this moment they mourned eloquently the loss of her one million, five hundred ninety-seven thousand, nine hundred forty-seventh fellow citizen. The burnished tresses spilled in a straightforward braid to the middle of her back. Her skin glinted under the lights with a softly metallic sheen and her ears jutted in cupped fashion on either side of her skull.

She submitted with bare grace to the attendants who swiftly removed the rest of her armor. Useless, she thought, kicking one dropped greave across the reception room. Might as well have been up there in formal party dress! Ladies smile only that the data we gathered might help. Another wasted death –

“Father?” The voice calling from the doorway was too young for the horror which plucked and frayed at its edges. “My father? Milady Most High?”

Milady Most High’s remaining escort moved forward to intercept the youth, who stared at the monarch with the irreverent demand for answers that only those so slight of years could manage. She waved him off, crossed the room, and dropped to one knee in front of the child.

“Hate me if you wish,” she whispered. “Your father went to his death on my order. But know that to the last, his actions were driven by love for his city and his family.” Her own eyes burned with fresh tears, and she did not try to blink them away.

The others present stood awkwardly by as their newest ruler and freshest orphan embraced in shared grief. They hadn’t been dismissed, but knew they were intruding on a moment which did not include them. At length the older male who’d also survived their foray stepped forward. Iarazyn, he hailed mentally in complete violation of protocol, addressing his Lady Most High by her born name. The data.

Maintaining her grip on her bereaved subject with one arm, Iarazyn held her other hand aloft, offering the wand for collection. The rest present also took advantage of the silent order to take their leave, sliding around Iarazyn and the child as they passed through the doorway.

I promise you, Iarazyn vowed, I will find what killed your father. What is killing us all.

“Welcome to Struyck Worldwide!”

San Diego sunlight was tinted green as the windows blocked other wavelengths from getting through. Bronzed struts and girders supported the high, arching glass walls. The floor was lightly cushioned by a short carpet the color of rust. Planters distracted visitors with brilliantly choreographed tableaux of botanical color while their unyielding concrete and metal frames unobtrusively guided their footsteps. Corridors curved sinuously off into dimly-lit mystery, but no forbidding closed doors or security checkpoints damped the soothing, welcoming atmosphere.

This place always reminds me of Atlantis, Euell thought as he hailed the latest group of tourists to enter the visitors’ lobby. Outside the Sorrento Valley hills baked in September heat and the parking lot shimmered with refracted light. Once through the inner doors of the foyer sweat cooled and dried without chill under gentle climate-controlled breezes. Not literally of course. But some fantasy artist’s interpretation, after they adapted to life underwater…

“Oh, it feels so good in here!” Euell smiled at the outburst from a forty-some-year-old woman. The matron arched her neck, offering her blissful face to the respite of the air conditioning. During the summer and fall when San Diego was hottest at least one of every group could be trusted to utter such sentiments.

“It’s like an underwater cathedral!” marveled the woman’s daughter. There could be no confusion on that point. They both shared the same olive complexion, prominent cheekbones, and aquiline nose prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean. “Like – Atlantis!”

Euell blinked and let his professionalism slip just a touch, taking a more appraising look at the young woman. Her nose isn’t that big, he argued, and she has nice eyes. Besides, Atlantis!

“Who’s that?” This question came from a boy barely into his second decade of life, with all that implied. At once towheaded and sunfreckled, his blue eyes were sharp and wide. His arm stabbed out and up, finger aiming at a figure which stalked along one of the terraced balconies which rose at a steeper angle than the outer wall, until they met under the building’s cap. “Is that Xander Struyck?”

“That’s not Struyck!” his older sister rebuked him, taking the opportunity to cuff him on the back of the head.

“How you know?” the boy challenged, turning to glare at her as he rubbed the abused part of his skull. “There’s no clear pictures of him!”

“Because I know who that is,” she replied smugly. “That’s Nicholas Chandler!”

The boy spun back around just in time to see the dark-haired man turn away from the balcony and vanish. “That was Nicholas Chandler?” he echoed. “Wow!” Suddenly he frowned as he replayed the sight in his mind. “Why’d he look so mad?”

Mistaken identity and public adulation were so far from Nicholas Chandler’s thoughts at that moment. They weren’t even in the same mental time zone. Nor was he angry. Those more conversant with his manner would easily recognize the flat, parallel lines of his eyebrows and moustache as signs of intense concentration. His mind had a puzzle in its jaws and was worrying at it, searching for the fault that would crack it open and let him suck out the answers.

Security cameras watched him pass. They transmitted his likeness to the facility’s security network. Olfactory sensors in the hall pulled in molecules of his scent and analyzed its structure, confirming his identity and his right to walk that hallway. The process was so efficient that doors opened at just the right moment to allow Nicholas entrance without making him break his pace.

The door at the end of the hall was just as cooperative, swinging open at his approach and shutting nearly on his trailing heel. The room beyond was sparsely furnished to the point of asceticism. A crescent-shaped desk sported clean lines of chrome and pine, its only appointment a monitor pane. Twin chairs of matching décor stood at attention in front of the desk. If there were to to be more than two visitors, the question of who stood would have to be addressed by seniority, thumb-wrestling, or who got to the chairs first. Nestled within the curve of the desk sat a chair similar in pattern to the others, but of more regal line. I’m where the guy in charge sits, that seat proudly proclaimed.

Nicholas stalked into the office and dropped himself into one of the lesser chairs. He slumped into its mesh contours, but didn’t really relax. He glowered across the desk at the most powerful man in the world.

“No answers yet,” Xander Struyck ventured a guess.

Nicholas snorted. “Eight months,” he growled, “and I’m just now figuring out the questions. Answers?” He sighed. “The Blasted Lands have infected Shenn for five thousand years. I admit hubris in thinking I could cure them on my own.”

“Who do you need?” Xander asked.

Nicholas threw exasperation into the air with his hands. “There’s nobody,” he retorted. “Nine people in the world have the background to understand what I’m facing. But none of them know about Feyside. They can’t help unless they have the whole story. Given what’s at stake, I can’t take the chance that if they found out they’d keep it to themselves.”

“You’re not giving up,” Xander stated. It wasn’t a command or implied question, but a prompt to keep the conversation moving.

Nicholas actually appeared to consider the idea for a sliver of a second, then shook his head. “I can’t,” he told Xander. “Even if it hadn’t nearly killed me, the fact that Shenn – that any world has an open sore like that, offends me. The Shennese have learned to live with it by avoiding it. But they shouldn’t have to!” He slumped in his chair again. “I’m going to cure the Blasted Lands,” he reaffirmed. “It will just take longer than I planned.”

“I have somebody who can help you,” Xander stated conversationally.

Nicholas’ gaze lanced across the desk in amber ferocity. “What?” he said in a tone which belied the intensity of his eyes.

“Somebody who knows as much as you about molecular engineering,” Xander continued, “who has pioneered no less than twenty-seven breakthroughs in the state of the art in the past nine years. And whose discretion is one hundred percent guaranteed.”

Xander knew he’d dropped enough hints for Nicholas to figure it out. Nor did the other man’s reaction when he realized who Xander was referring to come as a surprise.

Nicholas leaned forward in his chair. His leonine eyes seemed almost to light with an inner fire. “The deuce you say,” he whispered.

“You again,” she said to the phantom as it approached. “Must be Thursday. Don’t you have anything better to do after all this time?”

“Don’t you?” it challenged in return.

Neither of them was fooled by her flippant manner. Repetition did nothing to dull the horror, and she never knew when an unfamiliar ghost would introduce itself with a new kind of torture.

They came less often now than they had at first. Then, they would stand in line for their turn at a piece of her, exacting revenge for what she’d done to the people they pretended to represent. Now it was as if she sat or slept most of the time, waking up for the latest visitor. Am I Scrooge, she wondered wryly, or a hospital patient needing regular medication?

“What’s my name?” They always asked that. Part of the therapy. Create empathy by forcing the killer to think of the victim as a person. That way the killer is more likely to feel remorse for the pain they caused, especially if they’re forced to experience it first-hand. Sound theory, probably works great on your average perp.

Too bad I’m anything but average.

“Get on with it,” she told the ghost. Not even really a ghost. Just a memory, part of a looping program. Stimulus intended to provoke a given reaction.

Pain blazed through her, a manufactured sense-memory of spontaneous human combustion She heard her own organs gurgle, felt them swell and burst from the heat while still inside her ribcage. Fluids evaporated before they could puddle, bursting through ears, mouth, and nostrils in gouts of steam. Tissue blackened and fell off dessicated bone in fine ash. Unlike a true immolation she was denied the relative bliss of numbness as nerves burned away as well. Every moment was literally white-hot agony. The sooner I produce the desired response, the sooner I can break out of this program.

Fuck that.

“Susan Bradford,” the ghost re-introduced itself as it withdrew. “You put an incendiary biotrap in me.”

“Enjoyed… every… minute of it,” she retorted between gasps. So stupid. I’m probably not really breathing, why should I be gasping? Damn primal autonomic centers.

“Stargrave.”

“What… is this?” she panted. “T-tag team… Tuesday?” Then she placed the new voice. It had never introduced itself, but conversation with it never meant pain, so she was willing to listen to it. “Oh. It’s you.”

“I have a puzzle for you.”

“Of course you do,” she retorted. “You never come by just to chat.”

In her mind’s eye she lived on a stage in a deserted theater. The ghosts would drop from the rafters, enter from the wings, or squeeze up from between the boards. The puzzle fell from empty air fap! on the stage, a typewritten script bound between covers of mottled brown cardstock. She picked it up and flipped to the title page, then fanned the pages between her fingers. Fwwwwwwwiiiipppp! Instead of “The End,” the words at the bottom of the last page read “And then….?”

Like everybody else she’d heard the phrase “My mind reeled.” Of course she’d considered it so much hyperbole. As she digested the contents of the file, the worst she felt was some minor vertigo. Even that minor upset of her mental equilibrium muted her normally facile tongue as if she’d taken a sharp blow.

Another world. A region contaminated by multiple simultaneous psychic events as well as massive release of zero-point energy, so toxic it maddens and rots any living organism after only a brief contact. Contamination is both aggressive and adaptive, but so stable it’s maintained itself for over five thousand years. Another world!

“And?” she asked in a bored tone.

“That’s my question to you,” the voice answered.

“Why should I care?” she retorted.

“You don’t need to,” it assured her. “You can ignore it as you please.”

“You care,” she challenged, “or you wouldn’t have brought it to me.”

“Since when do my interests factor?” it asked.

A small corner of her mind spoke up without being asked. Because you’re the only person whose voice hasn’t meant excruciating pain, and who I’m sure isn’t a product of my own subconscious.

“You’re right,” she replied aloud. “I’ll pick it up and look at it sometime, when I can fit it between therapy sessions.”

“Talk to you later,” the voice answered, and was gone.

Don’t… go just yet, she protested too late. Damn you, the invective directed at herself. Some world-class disaffected sociopath you are. A little sense-deprivation and pain torture and you’re a slut for any human contact!

Xander turned away from the interface console to face Nicholas’ glower.

“Pointless,” was Nicholas’ opinion.

“In the short term,” Xander agreed. “She may not have sounded it, but she’s interested. The possibilities it presents will be irresistable, especially if it keeps her demons at bay.”

“Why bother?” Nicholas challenged, turning away from the console and the suspension tank which sat nearby. “Why even wake her up?”

“She’s a sadistic, amoral, self-interested terrorist,” Xander acknowledged. “Every expert who’s examined her profile agrees. Regardless of what others have done with the advances she’s made, every single one was intended to hurt or kill people.”

Xander stepped forward, closing the distance between Nicholas and himself. The two of them were alone in a small room anchored in the bedrock. A catastrophic earthquake might manage to cut off access to the surface, but nothing short of crushing the chamber itself would interrupt the computers and suspension tank inside. “But she’s also one of the greatest scientific minds of this or any age. After constant effort, we managed to break through whatever your sister did to her only two weeks ago.”

Nicholas turned to face Xander again. This time the parallel lines of his eyebrows and moustache were expressions of displeasure. “Cut to the chase, Xander.”

Xander nodded. “I don’t want to bring Stargrave back,” he assured Nicholas. “And I’m sorry she didn’t give you what you need right now. But if there’s a chance of decanting a person who has her genius and skills, who cares about helping the world instead of pulling its wings off for fun…” He shrugged. “This was an opportunity I felt deserved a shot. Even now, I’ll lay money she’s picking through the data.”

Nicholas considered the argument. “Just remember the adage about dining with the devil,” he warned.

Xander grinned. “Remember it? I live it! Do you have any idea how many people bring long spoons to my table?” His expression sobered just as suddenly. “So now what?”

Nicholas thought about it. “I need somebody who has the necessary education and skills,” he stated. “Who won’t play games or keep secrets, and who cares as much about curing the Blasted Lands as I do.” He stopped to consider his own summation, then concluded, “Nobody on this world fits those criteria. So I’ll have to go next door.”

“Lieutenant!” The call ululated across the twilit valley. To the untrained ear it was a yipping howl punctuated by a short bark. Divining its true meaning required an understanding of a language so arcane many didn’t even recognize it as more than animal sounds.

Bolt’s ears pricked up at the sound, flicking one way and the other to pick its location out of the fading echoes. Sudden motion below and to one side drew his gaze down. He grinned at the aerin who stood by his hip, recovering from a reflexive cower at the sound. Zefin ethereality blended with Nerin fluidity, with tinges of the other Kin spicing the mix. The result was uniformly grey. Raincloud-colored hair framed an oval face the hue of the sea under an overcast sky. The eyes were dark enough to stand out against the skin, but missed being black by several shades. The blandness of his coloring made the rich maroon and gold of his uniform all the more striking.

If the aerin was a restrained study in shades of grey, Bolt was earth and prairie grass and as big as all outdoors. Four long, sturdy legs supported both equine and humanoid torsoes, palomino-gold below blending into smooth sun-bronze above. A shock of hair had started out blond but been bleached ivory by decades in the sun and wind was thick enough to defy all but the most skilled or determined brush. That thicket framed a broad, square face to which mischief was a frequent visitor, which impression was further strengthened by one brown eye and one blue. And big? A tall man might reach his withers, but looking him in the eye required a climb if Bolt weren’t inclined to simply lift the petitioner bodily at the end of one hugely-muscled arm.

Bolt hailed from a land called Tantarel, a region of rolling mountains dotted by brush and short, hardy weeds. Desert winds kept Tantarel warm and dry even in the winter, the centaurs there enjoyed the top seat of the local ecology, and their bulk generated such heat that winter needed teeth before they felt it. With all that, the only reason for any clothing at all was to carry tools. Bolt had compromised his breed’s standard nudism just to the point that the residents of Embron would take him seriously as Lieutenant of the City Guard. His old trail harness, a network of plain leather straps, buckles, hooks, and pouches, had been replaced by one of similar cut but dyed and sewn in Embron’s maroon and gold colors. The largest concessions were the carnelian-studded bars glittering atop his impossibly broad shoulders.

“’Samatter, Tryl?” Bolt asked the aerin, who was trying to disguise the defensive jerk of his arms as a sudden need to press wrinkles from his uniform tunic. “Still getting’ used t’yer fellow Guards’ ways?”

Tryl started to deny it, but realized the attempt would only make him look more foolish. Professional indignation held more promise. “There’s no knowing who might still lurk in these hills, Lieutenant,” he pointed out with a pinch of peeve in his voice. “Is that not the point of these patrols, to root out any remaining Razored Shade brigands? Noises of that sort will only alert them to our presence!” He plucked at his belt and held up a hand-sized square of silvered glass in a frame of coiling iron. “Beside which, the Captain saw to it that all Guards are provided with mirrors for communication. Why bother with such –“

Bolt tilted his head down, mismatched eyes regarding Tryl with sudden keenness. “Aye?” he prompted. “Your next word was going to be?”

Tryl bit down, choked back, and swallowed the adjective “primitive.” It did not elude him that Bolt’s Tantareli brogue had suddenly flattened to enunciation befitting the most courtly noble. Tryl had been accepted to the Embron City Guard less than two months ago. Like many others he’d been attracted by the stories that sounded so fantastical in telling, but were borne out with witness. Embron was an aerin city in that it owed fealty to the Upper Court House of Shad, but its population was a mix of nearly all the races graced by the Ladies with sentience. The City Guard reflected that in its own membership. This was evidenced strikingly by the centaur Lieutenant before him, and by the ‘fellow Guards’ for whose howling ways Tryl struggled to find a description at once accurate and not bound to awake Bolt’s displeasure.

“Inefficient,” he managed finally. “When all one needs do is speak quietly to the mirror, to be heard and seen clearly at a distance?”

Bolt appeared to consider the argument. “Hm,” he grunted. “Ye may have a point, at that.” He inhaled suddenly with such force that the inflation of his chest seemed to shove his head skyward. A nearby flock of dracolets screeched to flight as he bellowed, “OY!” by way of answer to the howl.

Quick on the echo of his shout a triumphant keen returned. “Found it!” was the import for ears that kenned.

Bolt grinned. “Come on!” he invited. Tryl realized the offer was a formality. A hand as long as his shoulders were wide hooked the back of his tunic and bore him aloft. He flailed in futility, then grabbed in desperation at whatever parts of his Lieutenant’s uniform harness were most convenient as he was deposited atop Bolt’s rear torso. Landscape blurred around them for a second before falling just as abruptly back into focus.

Lupine eyes full of amusement watched Tryl slide from Bolt’s back to land in a clumsy crouch. Half-digested lunch splattered over weeds and soil, to the accompaniment of the aerin coughing and spitting. A throaty sandpaper voice said, “Tantareli speed and a recent lunch are not friendly playmates, eh brother Guard? Here.” A pungent mix of spice and extract vaulted up Tryl’s nose into his sinuses. The scent was so strong it guided the aerin’s hand to the proffered flask without the aid of sight. Tryl took a long pull of the heady beverage. “Hooooo,” he exhaled as the soothing molten liquid burned the nausea from his throat and gut.

“Thank you,” he said, clambering upright and returning the flask to its owner. He tried not to stare. The proportions were only slightly off, favoring long arms and torso as well as shoulders and thighs bulging with muscle . The overall effect was that while the being stood upright of a height with Tryl, it seemed to hunch – no, thought Tryl, it crouches, coiled as if to leap at any moment. The face was unremarkable but for the lambent eyes and exaggerated triangular line of cheek and jaw, crowned by a cropped brush of sepia hair. The mouth demonstrated how easily it could smile, showing twin rows of long, gleaming white teeth.

Ever the real question with a hnzruu, Tryl told himself, is which is their true form?

“Oy,” Bolt said in slight abashment, “sorry fer that. Dinno ye ‘ad a problem w’speed.” The Lieutenant’s front hooves shifted one side to the other.

“Don’t concern yourself, Lieutenant,” Tryl assured him gamely. “I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, didn’t I?” He remembered hearing the Captain recite those very words in response to others’ complaints about various hardships. From the grin which split Bolt’s face Tryl knew he’d chosen the right sentiment.

“Right!” Bolt pronounced, clapping a hand between Tryl’s shoulders. The gesture of camaraderie was restrained, and Tryl’s equilibrium was restored enough that he was driven forward only one staggering step. Bolt turned toward the hnzruu Guard. “What ye got, Tiy?”

Tiy stretched one arm toward the nearby hillside. The local landscape boasted granite knuckles punching through the surrounding loam, studded with thick brush and trees alternating between sinuous and gnarled. Tryl saw nothing unremarkable about the hillock, but tried to match Bolt’s knowing, intense stare as they approached the rocky abutment. Ladies let me see it before I stumble and fall through it!

“Nice work,” Tiy commented. “We almost missed it.”

“Well they ‘ad long enough t’ get it right, din’t they?” Bolt returned. “Ye don’ raise a secret army within a day’s travel of a city without knowin’ how t’ hide things!”

Tryl pulled up short as both Tiy and Bolt passed through what appeared to be a solid face of stone. Hnzruu were known for their stealth so Tiy’s feat was only slightly startling. A creature of the Tantareli’s mass vanishing so suddenly was something quite else! Tryl slid his feet forward, hands stretched before him, closer to the impenetrable wall.

His right foot kicked a small rock. The stone skidded a few inches before stopping short in a crack. Tryl’s foot struck it again, but this time the stone was braced and ready and not about to surrender a second time. Tryl’s foot stopped short against the stone while the rest of his body sallied onward. He saw the solid granite wall approaching and shut his eyes, ready for the bruising, scraping impact.

The surface he struck was unyielding, bouncing him off and striking sparks in his vision. Somehow it didn’t hurt as badly as previous experience said it should. Still Tryl stumbled back, flailing for balance. One hand brushed something smooth and dangling, and reflex curled his fingers in a desperate grab.

“Oy,” drawled Bolt. “Sorry, dinna know I was in yer way.”

Tryl opened his eyes. The entrance to the cave was behind him. How he’d passed it was a mystery he’d have to turn around to solve. This was at the moment impossible. His eyes were locked in goggled horror at the sight of his right hand. It was clenched in a fist around several strands of Bolt’s tail. Otherwise filling his field of vision were the massive rounded mounds of the Guard Lieutenant’s buttocks. Sense memory filled in the details and Tryl suddenly realized what he’d bounced his face off of, instead of the rock.

“Guard,” Bolt prompted. His fore torso was twisted completely around, his mismatched eyes regarding Tryl with good-humored bemusement. “Y’have hold o’ me tail. I’d like it back, if ye please.” He tugged gently but insistently with the contested appendage. Tryl released his grip, gaping up at Bolt in apologetic horror. Pack your kit when you get back to the city, he advised himself. You’re done with the Embron City Guard.

“Thanks,” Bolt replied, and turned his attention back to the grotto before them. Tiy joined him, shoulders shaking with contained mirth. “’S big enough,” Bolt judged. “Y’had much chance t’ check through it?”

“Just the main grotto,” Tiy answered. “There’s a warren of passages and chambers. We’re searching them now.”

“Nae fresh scents in the entrance?” Bolt asked.

Tiy shook his head in confident negation. “Nothing has been through here for at least several months. Also no scents of recent cooking or waste inside. Anybody who was here has long since starved to death. The shroud ward on the entrance keeps wildlife and weather out. I guess they weren’t worried about thieves.” He barked at his own joke.

Tryl turned around and marveled at the entrance. From inside it was a yawning aperture tall and wide enough for Bolt to pass without ducking. His eyes traced the carved runes which lined the sides and floor of the gap, quietly humming with power. He remembered how impenetrable the rock had looked from outside, the afternoon sunlight spearing through the serpentine trees and glaring off it in convincing solidity. “How did you know?” he murmured, unaware he was speaking the question aloud.

Tiy turned to him. “The lay of the land,” he answered. His tone held no rancor but the implied addendum was clear. It’s so obvious, how could you even ask the question?

“Uncle!” Another hnzruu burst from a darkened passage into the grotto. Sprinting on all fours, the shapeshifter leaped from the main floor far below them and cleared the ledge inside the entrance without effort. She changed in mid-air, landing and saluting her superiors as a lithe, russet-haired maid. The cuff on her right ear pulsed with power as she leaped, surrounding her in faint streamers of energy that coalesced into a Guard tunic, slacks, and boots.

“Farni,” Tiy said in mild reproof. “I’m Uncle on our own time. Who am I now?”

Farni bowed her head to accept the reproach. “Please pardon, Sergeant,” she replied. “We’ve found – something! A library, or a museum. I’m not sure! Would you come see?”

Farni in the lead, they wound deeper inside the bedrock. When the light grew too dim for centaur or aerin eyes they uncapped lights, short wands tipped with luminescent crystals. At first it was hard to tell they’d passed from a passage into a room. There wasn’t much more space than before. But the narrow confines were bounded by stacks of books and boxes, not walls of stone. Two other hnzruu Guards awaited them.

“Virtues,” Tiy invoked, looking around. “This isn’t how I’d envision brigand treasure.”

“Aye,” Bolt agreed, for once without humor. He lifted a large volume which was bound in planks of wood, and large enough to use as a small table. Holding the book in one hand, he angled the cover so he could see the writing on it in the glow of his light. “Ztraq,” he swore.

The invective caught the attention of everybody in the room. “What?” Tiy asked.

Bolt sighed. “Wonder if we could just collapse the entrance,” he wondered aloud, rhetorically, “an’ ferget we ever found this place?” He plucked at a pocket on his harness, drawing out a mirror. He gently tapped the glass and said, “Captain from Bolt.”

The mirror’s pane lit with the image of a city street in Embron. “Give me good news, Pony,” advised the voice of the Embron City Guard Captain.

“Would that I could, Spoons,” Bolt answered. “Well, I reckon I sort of can. We found the Razored Shade’s main camp.”

“But?” the Captain prompted.

“They’ve got a cache of Steel War lore,” Bolt told her.

“Ztraq,” she swore.

The aerin race consists of six Kin (use of the normally more accurate term ‘breed’ replaced to avoid confusion with data appearing later). Each of these Kin embodies a quality prized by the parent race, known only as Those Before.

• Ferin. Virtue: adaptability.

• Nerin. Virtue: patience.

• Pyrin. Virtue: vigor.

• Sylin. Virtue: fertility.

• Terin. Virtue: resilience.

• Zefin. Virtue: endurance.

Whether the qualities embodied by each Kin have any causative relationship to the native powers exhibited or are mere correlation is a subject for future study. Those powers are detailed here only for additional context. Each Kin exhibits to varying degrees of effectiveness the ability to emulate, animate, generate, and metamorphose into a specific form of energy or matter.

• Ferin: ferrous elements.

• Nerin: water.

• Pyrin: fire.

• Sylin: plant life.

• Terin: earth.

• Zefin: gaseous matter.

Aerin society further divides itself along familial lines. Families connected by direct genetic links ally within Houses, which are usually named for the oldest or most influential family unit within the alliance. Houses also function as blocs of economic, political, and social power as well as extended families. Allowing for individual variation, the hierarchy of each House consists of a single individual exercising supreme executive power (Lord/Lady Most High) followed by a network of Lords/Ladies whose degree of influence varies and changes according to factors such as assigned station, genetic relationship to the Lord/Lady Most High, etc.

“Who am I?”

Stargrave had replaced the bound script with a small desk on which perched a computer. The information scrolled upward on the monitor pane, the glow of the LEDs sandwiched within the layers of acrylic the only source of illumination in the deserted theatre.

The voice came from behind her. Bet you think you’re subtle. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Donal Polachyk,” she answered. “You used my name in vain, so I hacked your suspension tank to kill you with gangrene. Let’s make this quick, all right? I have things to do.”

Once the last echoes of pain and stench from her flesh rotting and sloughing off her bones had faded, she pulled her chair close to the desk and resumed reading.

Though aerin society does not discriminate based on level of individual power, it does draw lines based on genetic ‘purity.’ Houses composed of Kin families refer to themselves collectively as the Upper Court, while Houses whose membership is of mixed heritage comprise the Lower Court. Kin families may marry and reproduce between types of Kin without loss of status. Presumably if the House membership becomes characterized by aerin of multiple Kin heritage that House may move from the Upper to the Lower Court. Aerin families of mixed heritage are referred to as Breed.

Early aerin society was balkanized by competition between Houses for resources and prestige. Lord Most High Arianus Fehr of House Fehr proposed a radical solution to the rivalry: bring both Upper and Lower Court together into one alliance, with a single authority administering resource allocation and arbitrating disagreements. Not surprisingly, Lord Most High Arianus planned to fill the supreme executive role himself. Equally expected were the objections by other Houses to this plan. Neither side backed down, and the Steel War – Shenn’s only world war – was on.

Irony: in opposition to House Fehr and its allies, the other Houses found a basis for the level of cooperation and mutual support which were Lord Most High Arianus’ stated goals. Meanwhile Arianus displayed a willingness to sacrifice allies and even family in pursuit of his ideal, which progressively alienated those who had shared his ambition.

“Silly people,” Stargrave murmured. “That’s what they get for buying into his bullshit. Wanting to be in charge of his Brave New World should have been a great big clue!”

By war’s end House Fehr stood alone against the rest of the world. Still Arianus refused to surrender. Throughout the war he had pursued a program of tactical innovation, replacing lost allies with increasingly advanced and powerful weapon systems, including mass-destruction devices using various technologies. Many of these were constructed on theory alone, without any testing for their effectiveness. Detailed specifics on individual weapons systems is not currently available.

As enemy forces surrounded and advanced on House Fehr’s own lands, Arianus deployed these devices in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the siezure of his home base. Whether the weapons functioned according to design, and whether the effects of separate sytems interacted synergistically, is currently undetermined.

The results are well-documented. An elliptical area measuring one hundred kilometers through its vertical axis and one hundred fifty kilometers through its horizontal axis, with a total area of eleven thousand, seven hundred eighty square kilometers is contaminated. The contamination is caused by the concentration of elements detailed in the attached file (Gunk.lst) and the presence of energy fields in wave structures detailed in the attached file (Rays.lst). The region has been named the Blasted Lands.

Any contact with the contaminated area is enough to cause a reaction.

Stargrave did her best to maintain a properly disaffected attitude, fully aware that the only witnesses to her reaction were the phantoms of her own looping memories. “Wow,” she let slip at one point while reading the description of what the Blasted Lands contamination did to living organisms. “I wonder how hard that would be to replicate?”

“Who am I?”

The voice was not quite unfamiliar. She had heard it before, but never since waking in her own private purgatory. It was a female voice, deep and husky, with an undefinable accent. Stargrave couldn’t help the upward snap of her face as she focused past the monitor pane at the tall, slender woman with the glowing eyes and blood-colored hair.

“You’re Nicholas Chandler’s sister,” Stargrave replied, rallying her wits. “I stabbed you in the throat.”

“And in return I put you here,” the woman added. “Have you figured out why, yet?”

“You made it obvious enough the last time I saw you,” Stargrave sneered. “You think by bombarding me with ghosts made from my own memories of past jobs I’ll eventually repent, at which point angels will sing, the heavens will part, and I’ll be let out of this shithole.”

“Only part right,” the woman corrected her, and vanished. The glow of her eyes seemed to linger a moment after the rest of her was gone, like an afterimage left on the retina.

Suddenly the monitor, desk, and chair vanished as well. Because gravity did not exist in Stargrave’s mind she did not fall, but found herself standing in the middle of the stage of the deserted theatre.

“Who am I?”

“Who am I?”

“Who am I?”

The voices came from all around, all asking the same question. The owners seeped up through the stageboards, dripped from the rafters, and coalesced from oily vapor out of the wings. They came at her all at once, engulfing her, flooding her mind with phantom reminders of the tortures and agonies she’d gifted them during her career. This was even worse than when she’d first awakened here, when only one would visit her at a time. Quite without meaning to, furious at herself for the lapse but unable to stop it, she screamed.

“What happened?” Xander Struyck demanded as he strode into the holding area.

The woman who returned his glower lost none of her beauty in doing so. This feat was due to a multiracial heritage that had weeded out recessive genes while reinforcing the common virtues of her ancestors. “Relapse,” she replied just as succinctly. “We’ve lost contact.”

The allure of his employee was lost on Xander. “Explanation?”

Dr. Amitra Paar was not at all offput by his brusque query. “EEG tells the story,” she explained, turning toward the monitor showing Stargrave’s vital information. “Beta One’s been elevated since your visit this afternoon. She was thinking about something, cognitive reasoning.” She traced a gently jagged orange line on the screen. “Then six minutes ago Beta One dropped to the floor and Beta Two spiked.” She indicated a yellow line which was at the bottom of the screen three-fourths of the way across, then suddenly shot almost off the top of the view.

“Something scared her,” Xander deduced.

“As always a master of understatement.” Sarcasm dripped from Dr. Paar’s reply. “The technical description would be ‘sphincter-dumping terror.’ If the tank hadn’t been maintaining her physical systems, I’d be worried about traumatic cardiac arrest.”

“What was it?”

She shook her head. “The only way to know that is to communicate with her. And the window that we spent seven and a half months opening has been slammed shut and nailed in place. Barring a miracle or a psychic solution, she’s driven even further inside than when we first got her.”

Xander turned and gazed at the blank metal shell of the suspension tank across the room. “What was in that file?” he wondered, drawing a completely logical and completely wrong conclusion.

“Tsk.” The single syllable drew down the corners of Lady Shima Fyn’s lips. Eyes whose color brought to mind winter mornings before the sun stumbled above the horizon in search of something worth waking for swept the storeroom. Not a single detail of the stacks of scrolls, books, and loose pages escaped scrutiny. The verdict expressed itself in that truncated hiss and the question following. “This is your people’s definition of proper storage, Captain?”

Lady Shima’s aide, a slender young Pyrin dressed in finery more restrained than his mistress, betrayed shock at her treatment of the Captain of the Embron City Guard. Not that the Captain was so fearsome in appearance or manner. She stood taller than most humans, meeting Lady Shima’s gaze at nearly eye-level. Opposing Lady Shima’s frozen-morning grey-black, her eyes were the yellow of the summer sun at its zenith. Her dusky, ruddy skin contrasted strikingly with those auric orbs. A face of fine symmetry too strong to be anything but handsome was framed by hair literally the color of blood, which was gathered in a relaxed braid whose end brushed the backs of her thighs. Her features, build, and complexion were gifts of her heritage. The eyes and hair were the marks of a more exotic encounter, and the reason Lady Shima’s high-handedness was so scandalous. To act so toward a Phoenix-Touched!

The Captain rebuffed the veiled goad without ruffle. Indeed, marveled the aide, she seems actually somewhat amused by Milady’s manner! “Of course not, Milady!” the human woman assured Lady Shima. “Apparently the Razored Shade did though. What you see here is the order in which we found the materials inside their base camp.”

Lady Shima blinked and regarded the Captain quizzically. “Do you mean to say your people moved the items to your garrison, and then stacked them in exactly the order in which they found them in the brigands’ cave?”

The Captain inclined her head. “I mean to say, Milady,” she confirmed. “We made the best interpretation of all of the different orders from the Academy which preceded your arrival.” She held up a shallow stack of message leaflets, each emblazoned with the heraldry of the Academy of Mages in its watermark. “’Items are to remain in exactly the state in which they were found,’” she read aloud from the topmost sheet. Flipping it to the bottom of the stack, she read from the next page. “’Items are to be transferred to a secure location without delay, for the convenience of the Academy auditor.’” She favored Lady Shima with a look which expressed an honest desire to be helpful as well as hapless confusion. “Both sets of orders seemed equally legitimate, so we did what we could to fulfill both.”

Like any courtier worth their station, Lady Shima knew when she was being played. She summoned reinforcing grace, seeming to stand taller and straighter without actually moving. “Captain Kandaler,” she purred, “I realize you are laboring under many disadvantages, and certainly are doing your utmost with the tools at your disposal. Thus it is my privilege to lighten your burden. Per Academy protocol in cases of Ferin lore, I have brought with me not only a full complement of aides, but a squad of Academy Guards. All of them are trained and experienced in the handling of unknown, possibly dangerous craft and artifacts. You and your people may return to your customary duties. We will trouble you only for the courtesy of unimpeded privacy while we determine what you have uncovered.”

Captain Kandaler inclined her head, again either oblivious or uncaring of the Ausine visitor’s shrouded insult. “As you will, Milady,” she deferred. “You’ve already been shown your quarters and offices, so I’ll leave you to it.” She slid fingers inside her sleeveless uniform tunic and withdrew a slide, which she presented in offering. “This is an inventory of the items,” she told her. “It has been witnessed and sealed by the Lieutenant in charge of the Guards who discovered the cache, my other Lieutenant who supervised the reception and storage of the items, and myself. Just in the event any question should arise about our handling of the matter to date, Milady.”

Lady Shima accepted the slender crystal rectangle as if it were tribute due, smiling graciously. “Thank you, Captain.” She passed it to her aide, who deposited it in his own tunic pocket.

Once the human had withdrawn Lady Shima surveyed the storeroom again. She shifted her attention to the frame of the door which appeared to be the only access, examining the bolts which would extend into the door when the entrance was locked. “Sergeant,” she called quietly. The leader of the Academy squad appeared so swiftly, her hail might have been an invocation. “You have been given the key?” she asked the stolid uniformed Terine, who nodded and asserted she had. “Secure the room and set shifts. At no time is this room to be unwatched, nor is anybody to be allowed entrance.”

“Not even yourself, Milady?” the sergeant asked.

Lady Shima shook her head emphatically. “I have no intention of coming anywhere close to here until we begin the audit tomorrow morning,” she explained. “So if I request entrance before then, you shall know it is not me.”

The sergeant nodded. “I understand, Milady.”

“Milady,” the Pyrin aide spoke up as they walked through the yard of Embron’s City Guard garrison. “Please excuse my confusion. Our assignment and dispatch from the Academy indicated that the audit of the Embron cache is a matter of urgency. We have yet several hours left in the day. I have never before known you to delay in such things.”

His superior’s mouth drew down again in a puckering moue. “Other demands of my station will be claiming the rest of the evening, I fear,” she replied. “Doubtless a herald from the Greathouse awaits my arrival at our quarters with an invitation to enjoy the hospitality of His Lordship and Her Ladyship.”

“But Milady,” the aide persisted, “could you not plead the urgency of our mission and send your regrets?”

“Any other day, Cirue, I would!” Lady Shima assured him. “But our new Minister of Antiquities has charged me with special orders which require, among other things, to suffer local hospitality as much as possible.”

Cirue’s brows curved into arches of understanding. “Lord-Minister Perre!” he asked. His mouth was open to elaborate on his realization, but a warning glance from Lady Shima silenced him until they were in the privacy of their carriage. “So the rumors are true,” he said then. “The Lord-Minister still harbors the belief that the Daubei Journal is a fabrication, and a conspiracy to discredit House Perre lurks in Embron?”

Lady Shima looked out the carriage window as it wound its way through the city streets toward the manor where they were to be quartered. “And so the role of spy is added to my office,” she murmured. “Somewhere within the parties and dinners which await us I am to find that which will restore the history which favors the Lord-Minister’s House.”

“What if your search does not bear fruit, Milady?” Cirue asked.

She favored him with a sudden smile. “It won’t, Cirue,” she told him. “If Lord-Minister Perre wishes Agently duties done on his behalf in Embron, he’ll have to hire an actual Agent.” Her smile faded into a scowl of fierce intent. “I am an officer of the Academy of Mages. My sole charge is to make sure none of the evils spawned by the Steel Concord ever again see the light of day.”

Embron Greathouse was a massive circular edifice. Its red granite walls were topped by crenelations would have been forbidding, but for the large windows and doors perforating their expanse and the balconies sprouting from the upper levels. The crowning piece of its construction was the central dome formed from one solid piece of flawless crystal, soaring through a graceful curve from the center of the roof without strut or brace. Set in the middle of a sprawling compound of gardens and ancillary structures surrounded by a wall whose function was largely ceremonial, the seat of city government occupied a shallow hillock which gave it just enough elevation for the dome to strike a sunlit glare visible from as far away as the city gate.

The offices of the City Lord and staff accounted for a sixth of the space on the Greathouse’s third level. The Lord’s suite itself commanded a panoramic view of Embron’s cityscape, centering on the avenue called Lord’s Road which stretched from the city’s traditional entrance at Old Gate to the walls of the Greathouse compound itself. The most recent addition to that vantage was the graceful masonry of the new City Guard garrison.

Traditionally, the Lord’s desk sat with its back to the windows which gave onto the balcony and the cityscape, facing the doors to properly receive visitors. This arrangement had been in place for generations, and was repeated with only minor variation in noble offices the world over. But these days Embron was ruled by a madman.

Lord Jonnal Shad enjoyed looking out over his city. Many a staff member, servant, or official visitor would enter to see him staring bemusedly over the avenues and buildings. At the same time, he could not deny the practicality and courtesy of showing his face to people entering his office. His solution had been to turn his desk and chair ninety degrees to the left. This not only afforded him an unimpeded view of both his door and windows, it set his chair directly before the large fireplace. Embron enjoyed a temperate climate most of the year, but winters could still get bitterly cold.

Fourth scion of four of House Shad, Embron’s current Lord presented a startling impression to most callers. His Pyrin blood showed plainly in his bronzed skin, azure eyes, and the vermilion hue of his goatee and long curls. Unlike many who led a courtly life, his physique showed the fruits of regular exercise, a fact made even more obvious by his habit of going nearly nude from the waist up. Nearly, in that he wore the carnelian-studded gold torc which was his badge of office and the golden cord with three gemstones which signified his marriage. On his right cheek an arcane sigil which was neither ink nor birthmark lived in crimson color. In all, he looked like a ruler who more often settled arguments at the edge of a blade than the letter of the law.

Would that I could take a blade to these issues! His Lordship wished fervently, if not quite sincerely. Perhaps I should decree that revenue allocations be determined by duel between the interested parties. Hm, how would a duel between Otiva Noskral and Nerit Pumic play out? The headmistress of Embron’s school and the administrator of its orphanage respectively, those two had ground sparks off each other since their introduction. Otiva’s never wielded anything sharper than a pen, while Nerit is a veteran of the Steel War. On the other hand, Nerit was but a quartermaster, and the Steel War was five thousand years ago. Both of them are accustomed to dealing with children, and both are of indomitable will…

“My money’s on Nerit,” a husky voice said at his elbow. “Orphans are harder to keep in line than townie kids. Especially Arjae.”

Lord Jonnal’s mouth parted in a flashing grin as he turned and looked up at the apparition which hadn’t stood next to his chair a moment before. “And bright afternoon to you, Captain,” he greeted her. “Our prestigious guests are safely received, then?”

Captain Zed Kandaler snorted, one corner of her mouth curving rakishly. “You didn’t jump at all,” she noted.

“Eight months of sudden appearances courtesy of your family’s training,” he replied, “and my thoughts as good as written on my brow, has armored me with finely-annealed… what’s the Earthside word? Blasé.”

She frowned slightly. “Make it sound like I’m always jumping out of nowhere,” she grumbled, “and reading your mind every day.”

“Just often enough to keep me on my toes,” he confirmed, grinning. “So. Academy auditor. Opinion, Captain?”

She crossed to the other side of the desk and poured herself into one of the chairs, glowering. “Butthead,” she pronounced succinctly.

“The auditor, or myself?” Jonnal asked.

Zed’s molten-bronze eyes regarded him coolly from beneath finely-etched brows that were a pair of straight lines across her forehead. “You’re behaving yourself today,” she damned with faint praise. “Lady Shima Fyn is the Butthead of the Moment.” Her expression transformed into a comical exaggeration of the Academy auditor’s aloof demeanor. “Captain Kandaler,” she purred in an imitation that lilted just enough to make a mockery of their visitor’s cultured tones, “I realize you are laboring under many disadvantages, given that you and your people, if I may abuse the term, are but mercenaries who couldn’t have the slightest clue what you’ve found.”

She sprang from the chair and stood on tiptoe, swaying and waving her hands in clownish Upper Court burlesque. “So we’ve come to save you from your own stupidity, as we obviously know what’s best for everybody. We will trouble you only for the courtesy of staying out from under our feet while we determine how badly you’ve screwed up.” Suddenly her brows arched and her face took on a look of wide-eyed ingenuousness. “Oh,” she simpered, hands over her chest, “and please don’t notice us spying on you and your Lord on behalf of Lord-Minister Kivik Perre–” Just as abruptly her manner lost its feigned innocence as realization broke through her acidic mood. She settled down onto her heels and continued in tones closer to her own, “…who still holds a grudge for how you discredited his House last year, though I really hate the idea of being his stooge.”

Jonnal had leaned back in his chair and grinned his appreciation of Zed’s performance. At the last revelation he sat forward again, his own brows arched by intrigue. “Lord-Minister Perre?” he echoed. “No longer Lord-Professor, interesting. Certainly being Minister of Antiquities would place him in better position to pursue his investigation into the Daubei Journal forgery.”

Zed crossed her arms with a snort. “Forgery, indeed. He’s the only one still holding onto that. Even his own brother, Lord Most High Tynamon has acknowledged the journal’s authenticity!”

Jonnal nodded. “In one of the more articulate apologies I believe the Court Assembly has ever heard,” he added. His own shrug lost nothing in its eloquent dismissal of those who would live in the past. “So. Will Lady Shima’s disdain for her assigned role of spy be of use to us?”

Zed considered the idea, brows level and eyes shadowed in thought. The declining sun dipped just low enough to stab light through the windows, dazzling despite the advancing hour. Jonnal passed a hand over a runed tile setting to one side of his desk. “Teh’b,” he murmured. The rune glowed dim orange, and the windows darkened just enough to cut down the glare without blocking the view of the city.

“Actually,” Zed said at length, a rogue’s smile curving her lips, “I think it will. Though how I plan to solve that problem might not meet with official approval.”

Jonnal grinned in turn, leaning back in his chair. “That which befalls beyond His Lordship’s ken,” he recited an old adage, “cannot come to rest at his door.”

Nicholas’ own breath echoed in his ears. Sand and gravel crunched under his feet, the sound only slightly distorted through speakers. The landscape stretching around him was torn with jagged crevasses and littered with rocks. It almost reminds me of Mars, Nicholas thought as he recalled images from the Viking landers. Irony: we’re just getting back into orbit in our own universe, yet I visit another world on a regular basis!

Not a scrap of lichen clung to stone. As he ran Nicholas struck a slender white object sticking out of the dried soil with his foot, thinking it was the dessicated corpse of a shrub. Half right. The long, narrow bone ripped free of the dirt to bounce and skid ahead. Similar protrusions were common enough to make a macabre imitation of weeds and scrub, long since leached of anything but their component minerals.

At least those have the sense to lay still, Nicholas reflected, his attention drawn to one side. He slowed his stride as a swarm of carapaces and legs boiled from the abyss of a nearby crevasse. Pits and cracks marred the chitinous shells, betraying the dry emptiness inside. The scratch of claws on the soil and clacking of maxillae was all the more ominous due to the clear lack of everything needed for true life. Nicholas compared the size of each one and realized the smallest was larger than his own head.

Giant zombie beetles. Bet George Romero never thought of that.

He kicked off into a sprint as the undead insects charged. The molecularly-extruded ceramic plate and carbon fabric of his suit most likely would turn their claws and mandibles, but the experiment held no interest. Not to mention that I’m on a deadline.

The heads-up display in his helmet visor kept him abreast of conditions inside his suit and out. The HUD suddenly highlighted what appeared to be a narrow vein of darker stone in the ground ahead of him. Nicholas realized it was actually another crevasse, hidden by the raised angle of the lip nearest him. He could stop in time to avoid it, but at the cost of letting the beetle horde catch up to him. His suit’s onboard systems measured the gap at 10.7 meters. His stride lengthened, measuring the dwindling distance to the edge.

The lip of the crevasse crumbled slightly as he leaped, sending a small rain of pebbles into its depths. The zombie beetles had enough awareness to veer sharply aside as they reached the edge, running parallel to it for a ways before turning back. Nicholas’ legs pumped in the air, maintaining a running motion. He risked a glance down, and the chill which chased on icy spider legs from his shoulders to the small of his back had nothing to do with his suit’s climate control. The crevasse was a mass grave, crowded with a jumble of bones too tangled to discern which once belonged to each other. The sole exception was the nearly-intact skeleton in the middle, which in life had belonged to something gigantic, serpentine, and carnivorous.

Dust puffed up around his feet as he landed, resuming his sprint without breaking stride. The immediate danger is past, he told himself. You can slow down now. His body wasn’t listening. It wanted to be as far away from ravenous undead swarms and gorges filled with bleached bones as it could manage. Not that undeath was a new experience for him. He’d had his first brush with reanimated corpses ten years before. More recently, he’d helped repel an outbreak of vampirism which had threatened a remote town here on Shenn. That had been nine months ago.

It wasn’t fear which sped Nicholas’ feet along. It was revulsion. Living things had a feel to them, an energy field that surrounds and penetrates us, as the line went. Circuitry wasn’t flesh, but machines had their own auras. Most important was the sense of unity which bound each organism to its field, and by extension to those around it. Undeath disrupted that harmony, perverted and polluted the interaction of life-fields. Nicholas’ psychic senses picked up that contamination as the rankest nose-hair-burning stench imaginable. And the Blasted Lands were full of undead.

The things I do for a good cause, he complained without sincerity. He checked the HUD readout for landmarks, confirming that he was still heading the right direction. Just hope the city’s intact, and that the Ferin left something useful behind when they died out.

To distract and relax himself, Nicholas engaged in a game he rarely played. The name of it was How Did I Get Into This? Playing it properly required subtlety, engaging in self-review while avoiding a slide into self-pity.

I have three possible sources on this planet for the sort of help I need: House Arasidhe, the Agents’ Guild, and Clan Kandaler. Lady Graes Arasidhe considers me her grandson because of my connection to Nathan, and House Arasidhe’s role as moderator/counter-espionage organ of the Court Assembly gives it unlimited resources. The Agents’ Guild owes Xander many times over – though for what I don’t know — and dropping his name would get me total access to anything they have or can lay hands on. Problem is, both House Arasidhe and the Guild have to balance what they can do for me against promises they’ve made elsewhere. Both of them deal in secrets, so they’d insist on either full disclosure up front or sending an ‘escort’ along with me. Finally, the Guild would definitely want something in exchange, debt to Xander or not.

When in doubt, go to family first. Especially if that family is a secret society unto themselves!

“The Blasted Lands.” Akim Kandaler leaned back in his chair, inhaling the pungent steam wafting from his cup with clear evidence of pleasure. The hot liquid which sloshed gently with his movement was the same indigo-jet as his hair, its scent a pervasive mix of herbs and spices. “You set yourself a large target, Niklas.”

By his tone he might have been discussing plans for dinner, but Nicholas had not been deceived. Clan Kandaler’s oldest living member and spiritual advisor cultivated an unflappable manner worthy of any Zen master from an Asian martial arts film. It was not a front – the man was actually that calm, all the time. Not emotionless though! He smiled or laughed easily enough. The closest Nicholas had ever seen him come to displeasure was a sort of sad disappointment which was more devastating than the most vehement display of temper.

Nicholas sampled his own mug, savoring the perfect balance of sweet, bitter, sour, and hot. The two of them were seated on the balcony of Akim’s apartment, high on the wall of the dormant, eroded caldera which was Kandaler Vale. Far below the bowl-shaped basin of the Vale’s lagoon imitated the motion of the fluid in their mugs on a grander scale, washing gently with the tides against the black sand beach. The lagoon was joined to the ocean by a gap where one edge of the caldera had collapsed millennia before. Beyond the gap the ocean was eternally shrouded in mist from volcanic vents in the ocean floor. The water gleamed emerald and diamond as it reflected the sun and sky. Somewhere a jam session echoed a raucous, thudding beat that should have been out of place on a world of magic, but seemed strangely appropriate in this setting.

The herbal brew and Akim’s company relaxed Nicholas enough to elicit a rueful smile. “Perhaps too large,” he admitted. “That’s why I’m here. I’m missing something. The contamination doesn’t follow Earthside rules, and I don’t know enough about magic to control for those variables.”

Akim nodded. “As well, ’tis more than just craft involved in that unhappy place. Even the foulest curse has rules, a pattern. What lives in the Blasted Lands is the collected hatred and agony of thousands of lives which were all extinguished in an instant.” He turned his eyes toward the shrouded horizon, and Nicholas was struck with the crazy idea that the elder was reliving a personal memory. Or is it so crazy? The rules are different here. Aerin live centuries, and magic is anagathic.

“Such pure chaos is beyond any normal means of control,” Akim had continued. “That is why the aerin’s Court Assembly and Academy of Mages has declared it a forbidden place.” He suddenly smiled. “Not that such a prohibition is really necessary! After all,” his gaze leaped from the horizon and lanced across the room at Nicholas. “What fool would dare go into such a deadly place?”

Something about his tone told Nicholas the question was not rhetorical. “I don’t know,” he replied. “What fool would?”

Akim smiled in appreciation that his clue had been picked up. “Your father,” he told him.

The HUD in his visor outlined an abrupt abutment of sweeping lines and curves lifting from the horizon. The aid was unnecessary – the chrome and glass slopes of the towers made beacons of themselves with reflected sunlight. Nicholas slowed his pace from sprinting to loping. He stared in awe at the sight. The lost keep of House Fehr.

I feel like Indiana Jones. In a space suit.

Lady Most High Iarazyn Fehr opened her eyes and realized she’d been asleep. I don’t recall going to bed. Must have fallen off at my desk again. Mother must be busy, she didn’t send anybody after me.

It was dark, but not the darkness of an unlit room. Open sky stretched overhead, stars and moon blotted out by a dome of clouds. She sat up and stared around her. Where… Ladies, no!

She was in the Blasted Lands.

Naked.

She scrambled to her feet, panic flaring in her mind and making her muscles twang like spring steel. Her Kinship reached into the ball of alloy she’d been taught since childhood to keep inside herself. It flowed through her tissues as easily as her own blood, seeping out through her pores and congealing into a flexible shell over her skin. Even her hair and eyes became infused with it, armoring them without interfering. Her power kept the stuff flexible.

For all the good it will do, she knew. I’m already dead.

How long had she been out here? Can’t be very long, I don’t feel any effects yet. No tenderness or discoloration to the skin – though how can you be sure of that Iara, when you’ve already armored yourself? Talking to yourself, but no more than normal. How can one tell if you’re going mad?

Where was she in relation to Fehrshyn? How had she been brought here? Why? Unanswerable questions jostled her mind, demanding satisfaction she could not give.

Facts, she rebuked herself. Information. Gather it. Panic later, when your skin starts to peel off.

She stood in the bottom of a bowl-shaped crater, its edges eroded by the elements. Doubtless the work of a soulbomb, or similar piece of evil work. She had to scramble on all fours, but managed to crest the lip. Her eyes, literally steely, swept the surrounding landscape, peering as best she could in the darkness for anything familiar or reassuring. Reassuring of what? That you’re not doomed?

The horizon in every direction was uniformly dark. In fact, she could not be sure where the overcast sky ended and the land began. Not a glimmer betrayed the direction of Fehrshyn. The disaster which had taken so many of her people and corrupted the city’s automatic systems hadn’t interfered with the street lights, so if any of the city showed above the horizon she should see it. So I’m at least twenty-three dyrl in. But why? Who would want me dead, especially this way? I haven’t been Lady Most High long enough to make that sort of enemy!

Somebody stood a short distance off. She started, certain they hadn’t been there a moment before. It was just a silhouette, detail obscured by the darkness. She walked toward it, struggling to inject into her stride the same regal confidence her mother had done so effortlessly. Blast it, I’m a scientist, not a courtling!

By his proportions the stranger was male and human. More detail than that eluded her. He stood still as she approached, either unaware of her or unafraid, arms hanging relaxed at his sides. Her first impulse was to hail him without ceremony, But there’s no reason to avoid courtesy. Either he is as much a victim as I, or at least can answer why I’m here!

“Bright evening,” she called. The overcast night seemed to swallow her greeting. To her own ears it sounded as if it came from over her shoulder and far behind her. Whether the stranger heard it or not she could not tell; his posture gave nothing away. She noted an odd symmetry to him as she drew closer, a smoothness and regularity of proportion. A wayward glint on his right shoulder from an unknown light source riddled the puzzle. He wears armor!

I am not your enemy.

Did he say that, or was it a psychic message? Still he did not move, but Iarazyn knew the assurance had come from him.

“If not my enemy,” she replied, “are you my ally? Or a fellow doomed soul? Do you at least know who cursed us to such a death?” The darkness yielded more details as she neared him. He was covered from crown to sole in something like polished stoneware, gleaming, smooth, and enigmatic. Especially his face, for that was hidden behind a plate of shadowed glass.

The enemy is awake.

“What do you mean?” Iarazyn demanded, and rebuked herself. Such eloquence, Milady Most High! She grabbed the scraps of her scattered wits and pulled them around herself. “I thank you if that was meant as a warning,” she said. “And I beg your forgiveness for the stupidity of my response. If you please, some more detail would help close the gap created by my ignorance. Of what enemy do you speak?” She stopped close enough to touch him, and tilted her head as she tried to see some detail through his faceplate. “Does a malicious intent drive the storms which breach our wards?” If I can get some answers, Ladies smile I survive long enough to get the information back to Fehrshyn.

The same indistinct light source slid along the curve of the stranger’s helmet as he tilted his head in affirmation. The two of them were the only things moving in the torn landscape. That’s not right, Iarazyn realized. The undead care nothing for the time of day. Where are they? A suspicion germinated in the back of her thoughts.

“Why does it hate us?” she asked. “All of Shenn thinks House Fehr dead. What has awakened such fury against us?”

His armored hand lifted to his head. A blade of light stabbed out from the lower half of the helmet, spreading into a blinding cone of noontime sun as the faceplate slid upward. Iarazyn cried out and clapped her own hand over her eyes. Her Kinship strengthened the infusion of her lenses, shielding them against the glare. Still she had to squint, hand tilted over her brow for additional shade. All she could make out was light. It was as if his suit contained all the brilliance of a summer day.

I did.

She sat up with a wordless cry. Dazzling afterimages of dreamt radiance danced across her vision, further clouding the dark room. She tried to swing her feet to the floor, to stand up and reassure herself that she was not in the midst of the Blasted Lands. The bedsheets tangled around her legs, their grip enhanced by the sweat they’d absorbed. The end result was her pitching her torso off the bed, slapping the floor with her hands.

Awkwardly she pushed backward, up onto the mattress. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she felt her hair pull against her forehead where sweat was already beginning to dry. Moving her legs with slow deliberation she drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her forehead against them.

At length she murmured a succinct prayer to the invisible forces. “Not again,” she pleaded.

 “Miele, sono a casa!”

Even as the hackneyed greeting echoed from pastel stucco he knew the ears for which it was intended did not hear it.

She was gone.

It wasn’t only the silence. A stillness hung in the house, painfully familiar in its return after so many months of her company. Desperate to deny it, he dropped his backpack in the foyer and went from room to room, slamming doors and calling for her, as much in an effort to chase that awful lonely heaviness away. Once it had been his refuge against a world which cared nothing for his interests, where he could be alone with Kubrick, Carpenter, Hamilton, and Gilliam, quietly lust after Munro, Blackman, Curtis, and Rigg. Last year The Empire Strikes Back had left the world gasping on the edge of the biggest cliffhanger ever. This year Snake Plissken and Taarna were showing the dirtier, racier side of imaginary worlds.

In the midst of it all she had crashed through his patio door, as strange and wonderful as if she’d erupted from the screen of his home theatre. Beautiful, alien, and mute, yet she seemed to understand him better than anybody else before. She’d never given her name nor any hints of her past. He’d taught her about his world, both the plain dullness outside and the glory which shone through celluloid and rose from videotape. Of it all she’d shown the most interest in his computer, especially the embryonic wormcrawls of data transmission which would one day be called the Internet. The lack of a common language and her own inability to speak were minor barriers. She was smart and learned quickly, mastering Fortran, Cobol, even the new intricacies of C. And though she showed a command of his native Italian, she never spoke or wrote. Nor did she need to.

Best of all, she seemed willing to accept his warnings against going out in public. Her shining golden skin, titanium hair, cupped ears and japanimation eyes would mark her at once. The men in dark suits and dark vans would swoop down and take her away from him to a place where the best she could hope for was anesthetic while they dissected her (he told her and knew she knew he believed it).

The past two years had been a secret idyll. He no longer cared about the rejection and ridicule of coworkers and ‘friends.’ Days fell into a wonderful routine of going to work and coming home to his alien princess. They never became lovers – she rarely let him touch her, and never in a familiar way.

But she would brush soft fingers through his thoughts, caress his memories and dreams. Her ethereal contact was so graceful that the word ‘telepathy’ fell down on clubbed feet, dragging the tablecloth and dishes with it. Compared to what she could do, physical intimacy was messy and repulsive.

There was no sign of forced entry. The doors and windows were secure. The usual lights were on. Nothing was out of place. No, not true – she wasn’t there. The presence which had come to define his house was gone, its absence inducing more panic and terror greater than any vandalism or pillage.

“Principessa!” he cried, his voice cracking. Only the horrible, smothering quiet answered him.

She was gone.

Habit directed his feet to the theatre. Despair pulled him into his usual chair. Tears stung the corners of his eyes, and sobs began climbing up his throat. Then he saw the black rectangle tucked into the corner of the screen. He leaped across the room and grabbed it, then dashed from the theatre to his study. His computer was on of course. He flipped the floppy drive switch with one hand even as he slid the disc into the slot, then perched on the edge of his chair.

/dir a:

/dir a: paolo.txt

/open paolo.txt

Hello, Paolo. There are three very important things you must understand. The first is that I have not been abducted. I have left of my own will. I understand the dangers of your world, and have taken precautions against discovery.

The second is that I am very grateful to you for everything you have done for me. People on my world speak often and at length about hospitality and courtesy. You understand these things better than they. I may never be able to repay you for all you have given and taught me. Please do not hate me if I cannot.

The third is that I have not left because of anything you have done. If Klaatu had met you instead of the American Army when he had landed, the galactic community would have been left with a much higher opinion of Earth. That I should have arrived on your patio of all the places on this world is nothing less than a gift from the Ladies. If we never see each other again, take with you the certainty that you showed a visitor from another world all that is good about your planet.

You have wondered many times about my world and my past. Though it is poor repayment, my story is all I can leave with you. And I cannot even give you the ending, for I do not know it yet, myself!

My name is Kyndera Fehr. You have called me Princess because you never learned my name. To be more accurate, my title is Lady Most High. I am ruler and survivor of House Fehr, from a world called Shenn. My planet is separated from yours not by the emptiness of space, but by the wall between our universes. Where humans have tamed this planet through science, my people the aerin have brought order and civilization to Shenn through magic. It is accurate to say that magic is the technology of Shenn.

I could fill this disc and many more with stories about my home, but I know it is my story you most want to hear.

I am a refugee and an exile. My family sought to bring an end to millennia of treachery, intrigue, and sabotage by uniting all the noble Houses of Shenn under a common banner. Our mistake was in underestimating the fanaticism with which some would cling to those insane, divisive ways, the lengths to which they would go to preserve the chaos which was eroding our society. We were forced to ever more extreme methods only to preserve ourselves, much less overcome their madness.

In the end, even those we had called ally turned against us, seduced by the dark promises of a minor House which sowed the seeds of its own rise throughout our conflict. The villainy of House Arasidhe eventually undid all we had accomplished, even to the destruction of House Fehr’s own lands. To save my life and preserve hope for our future, my beloved brother, Lord Most High Arianus Fehr, sacrificed his life to open a portal from our world to yours, and sent me here.

That is all the past that you do not know. What came after that is all you have given me. What lies ahead is my destiny. I must face it alone. I know you would come with me even if I forbade it, face any peril for your princess. Do not think that I think less of you when I tell you that if I am to save my family and my world, there are places I must go, things I must do, that would destroy you. I never imagined I could say this to one not of my own blood, but I could not bear life with the knowledge that I had led you to your death.

Do not try to find me. You will not succeed. Live your life and dream your dreams, and know that of all the people in this world, you touched the life of one from beyond the stars.

Goodbye, Paolo.

Lady Shima did not blink as the Breed servant led her up the stairs of Embron Greathouse to the roof. I was led to expect this, she reassured herself. Whether to discomfit his guests or from honest preference, His Lordship’s choice of dining accommodations has been said to be eccentric.

Long ago the roof of the Greathouse had been heavily fortified with engines of war. Ballistae, trebuchets, and devices more advanced and deadly had bristled between the crenelations, in defense of the building’s virtue. That had been in the days when the city itself was actually surrounded by a high, thick wall.

Times change. The wall existed only in ruined sections now, and Embron had long grown beyond its perimeter. Instead of a martial crown of fearsome weapons, the Greathouse roof was now festooned with a circlet of hedges and gardens around its crystal dome. One lawn in particular commanded a breathtaking panorama of the city, the soaring aqueduct which supplied the majority of Embron’s water, and the fields and hills beyond. Any time circumstances did not expressly demand a setting larger or more formal, this was Lord Jonnal Shad’s preferred venue for receiving and entertaining dining guests.

“Milady insists?” the servant asked. “The table is still being set. Milady might be more comfortable inside?”

“Milady does insist,” Lady Shima assured her with a gracious smile.

The servant nodded and led the way. She was dressed in Greathouse livery of maroon and gold. Lady Shima’s practiced eye divined her heritage as a blend of Terine (dusky skin and buxom build), Nerine (slightly elongated teeth with a hint of cetacean tusk), and Zefine (the breezy manner of her movement). Of course, Kin would be employed only in the highest positions such as seneschal. The more common duties were the province of those whose bloodlines mixed the pure lines which descended directly from the Ladies.

Were one to press the point, Lady Shima’s own Ausin heritage was just as motley a stew. But the Storm Kin long ago overcame our origin and proved our right to match eyes with the Upper Court. Of course, Lord Most High Mahargni’s actions at the last Court Assembly helped with that. I must give that proper due in conversation with His Lordship.

I betray my own impatience by arriving early, she admitted to herself. Ladies smile my action will allow me to be done with this obligation and off to bed equally early. Lord-Minister Addlewit and his insistence on this extra errand! She knew the thought pulled the corners of her mouth into a scowl, and gave only token resistance to the expression. Only the servants still setting the dinner table might see, and she cared nothing for their reactions.

Thus it was when Lady Shima rounded the corner of a purple hedge and came into view of the dining area that she favored the Lady of Embron with the expression one might wear upon crossing the path of an animal untutored in intestinal restraint.

“Bright evening, Shima!” Her Ladyship Melia iv-Shayl Shad hailed from her place next to the table. “Ladies pardon, have we offended you so soon?”

Lady Shima shoved all her startlement into a single blink. Her face grasped its courtly mask of pleasant detachment in one hand and held on tight. Her other mental limb scrambled for a credible excuse while she cried in reassurance, “By no means, your Ladyship!”

Ruby lips pursed in distaste. “Please,” came the entreaty. “At the Academy we were simply Melia and Shima.” She smiled. “Let not the fulfillment of my childhood Promise open a gap between us.”

Shima answered the moue with a warmer smile. “Professor Kigar Mudd sends his regards for your well-being.”

Melia’s smile radiated the contented warmth of a spring noon sun. Her earthy Terine blood showed in every aspect of her appearance. Teeth flashed diamond-bright against skin the brown of rich, dark clay. Hair which was a darker shade was artfully arranged, gathered around her face but leaving some to fall in curly tresses down her back. Emerald eyes glittered with intelligence and humor. Her form was generously curved without an ounce of plumpness, wrapped in a casual gown whose verdant hues complemented her dusky skin and hair.

Court life has changed her little, Shima reflected. Yet what it has wrought cannot be ignored. Her eyes fell on the marriage necklace around her former colleague’s neck, and the vivid crimson sigil on her left cheek.

“Dear Professor Mudd,” Melia replied in tones of affection, gaze turning inward for a moment on fond memories. Then her eyes took on a mischievous glint as she focused on Shima again. “You’re early,” she noted, pouring a second goblet of wine from the carafe on the table. She lifted the vessel and offered it to Shima. “Hoping to thus fulfill your courtly obligations faster, so you can get to the business which brought you here?”

Shima blinked as she accepted the goblet. “Am I so transparent?” she asked, trying for an ingenuous tone.

Melia smiled around the lip of her own drink. “Only to those with whom you spent… how many nights, studying until dawn?”

Shima chuckled and felt tension drain from her shoulders. She lowered herself onto one of the stubby-legged chairs arranged around the shallow table, and took a draught of the wine. Something about Melia’s manner abruptly caught her attention. It was subtle, easily overlooked until Shima’s view of her shifted from Lady of Embron to old study-mate. Never quite friends, but cordial nonetheless. Suppressed mirth made little puckers at the corners of Melia’s lips. No, Shima realized. Not mirth. Then… anticipation?

Her speculation seemed to be a cue. The hedge bounding the lawn crackled in protest as a bronze blur vaulted over its sculpted top. Bare feet skidded across the grass, eventually gaining enough traction to balance their load on balls and toes. His Lordship’s crimson curls were gathered into a straightforward ponytail. His Lord’s torc and marriage necklace glittered against the bronze muscles of his torso, which was on full display. Aside from the jewelry he wore only a pair of slacks of supple hide, dyed a deep blue.

More startling than his state of undress was the expression on his face. His azure eyes glittered with martial delight, and his lips stretched in an adrenaline-fired grin. The sigil on his cheek glowed. His chest shone with sweat and swelled with exertion. His attention was focused on the tall hedge he’d just crested, obviously awaiting his pursuers.

He glanced in Shima’s direction briefly, obviously marking her location and dismissing it, his focus on whatever was chasing him. Then the import of her presence soaked through his fighting haze. He straightened from his defensive crouch and stared at her. “Lady Shima,” he said wonderingly.

That was his undoing.

Another missile sailed over the hedge, of similar color to His Lordship but more fully-clad. Captain Kandaler flew as if launched, clearing the hedge with space to spare, bearing down on her monarch. Shima got an impression of supple leather snugged around limbs and torso of pure whipcord, but the human moved too fast for any detailed view of her wardrobe.

“Hah!” she cried in triumph, slamming into His Lordship. His attention diverted by their guest’s early arrival, Lord Jonnal barely managed to roll with the Captain’s impact. They fetched up against the edge of the lawn, where its inner boundary was defined by a gravel path. “Told you I was going to kick your ass!” she exulted, straddling his torso and pinning his wrists with her hands. “What do you have to say to that, Lord Butthead?”

“Manners, Captain,” he retorted scoldingly. “You should greet our guest.” Then accepting his own rebuke he said, “Bright evening, Lady Shima. Welcome to Embron Greathouse.”

Captain Kandaler’s grin of victory faded into confusion and embarrassment as she looked around and spotted Shima. One lock of blood-colored hair fell forward over her left eye, adding to her befuddled appearance. “Lady Shima,” she murmured. “You’re early.”

A sudden blast of air buffeted them all, and a tawny windstorm resolved itself into the massive frame of the Tantareli Guard Lieutenant. Shima recalled his unadorned introduction: Bolt. He’d apparently chosen to sprint around the hedge rather than jump it. Just as well, she thought with trepidity. I wonder that the roof would have stood the impact! He stopped short without a skid by the side of the table, grinning down at Shima. “Oy,” he greeted. “Welcome!”

Silver laughter rained down around them. Melia’s goblet rested safely on the table and that was good, because she’d certainly have spilled it otherwise. She doubled over in her chair, hands grasped firmly around her middle, alternating storms of mirth with gasps for air. Eventually her need to breathe took precedence, at which she settled for quietly convulsing as an alternative to fainting.

“I see,” Shima spoke, retrieving some grace, “that promptness is a virtue in Embron, and being early as great a sin as being tardy.”

“Please pardon the spectacle, Milady,” His Lordship begged, sounding not at all abashed. He and the Captain clasped each other’s wrist, and she pulled him upright in the same motion that she rose and stood. The fluidity of the action gave eloquent testimony of how often the two of them must spar so.

Lord Jonnal plucked a tunic from the back of one chair and shrugged into it. He murmured a few words under his breath as he did so, and Shima felt a small twang of craft. The sweat vanished from his skin, and his gathered hair smoothed itself. Captain Kandaler and Lieutenant Bolt ministered themselves similarly, and a moment later were seated at the table without a trace remaining of their uncourtly entrance.

“One of the lessons taught me during our quest for the phoenix feather,” His Lordship explained as he accepted a goblet of wine from his wife, “is that sound reflexes and sound wit are close kin. Captain Kandaler and I often engage each other in such contests when time permits. Of course, we take pains to spare our guests such displays,” he bent a playfully stern glare at Melia, which she rebuffed with a honeyed smile, “when we are adequately forewarned.”

There is my cue to play the gracious guest, Shima told herself, and assure His Lordship that I’m neither harmed nor insulted by his antics. “I am a Lady by birth, Your Lordship,” she replied with a smile. “But a scholar by choice. Her Ladyship can attest that when academic passions rise, even the most gracious courtier may lapse.” She injected more warmth into her smile for reassurance. “The worst I may say about Your Lordship’s conduct is that the evening will not pass dully by!”

“That’s a given, Milady,” a new voice rasped. The satin tones were the only sound heralding the arrival of the House Guard Captain.

Right, Shima reminded herself. His Lordship raised as much comment in his choice for that position as for the City Guard, if not moreso. A Phoenix-Touched human is one thing, but…!

Four, short muscular legs ended in padded paws each the size of a dinner plate, accounting for the silent tread. Those legs in turn supported a rear torso covered in smooth fur, under whose rosettes muscle slid like cable. Where the neck and head of a great cat would be were this such a creature, a humanoid torso, shoulders, arms, and head rose. A chiffon tunic the color of plum sheathed the fore torso, its cut and color clearly indicating the wearer was in her hour of leisure. The deceptively sheer fabric boasted its resilience in the way it stretched smooth but did not strain around a jutting chest of robust dimension. The face was also humanoid but for the cupped ears poking through her hair and snub, feline nose, with pleasant, regular features.

“Captain Tsial,” His Lordship hailed her. “Thank the Ladies that your duties have not prevented you from joining us.”

The N’eli female snorted. “Greathouse practically runs itself these days,” she rasped. “My only worries are when Your Lordship and the Captain go at it, whether she might toss you off the roof again.”

Interesting, Shima noted. Even to her equal, she is The Captain.

“Hey!” The protest erupted from Captain Kandaler. “He leaped, I ducked! ‘S not my fault he overshot so close to the edge!”

“Ladies’ love that Lieutenant Bolt was there!” cried Melia. “I shall never forget the sight of him, running down the very wall of the Greathouse, catching Jonnal, and running back up!” She favored the Tantareli with a thankful smile.

“Neither will the masons, I expect,” His Lordship added drily. “Well do I recall the look on their faces when they were brought in to repair the skidmarks on the wall.”

“Should’ve left them,” opined Captain Kandaler. “That would have been a story to tell!”

So went dinner. The sky dimmed from green to black as the sun dropped behind the hills. Lanterns were uncapped, their tinted crystal shafts adding a festive rainbow aura to the occasion. Hearty dishes were washed down by smooth wine of House Shad’s own label, spiced with anecdotes which were most kindly termed uncourtly. From them Shima gleaned the following:

the ability to tell or embellish an adventurous tale was a necessary skill in Embron society;

Lord Jonnal’s two-year foray through Shenn’s wildlands had imbued in him such a deep admiration for the professional scouts and escorts collectively called Seekers that he continued to venerate their ways, and had hired from their number for positions as critical as House and City Guard Captain;

City Guard Captain Zed Kandaler ruled Embron.

It’s subtle, she amended to herself. I wonder if even she herself is aware of it. She watched as His Lordship and the Captain traded repartee and pranks which in any other courtly house would have been grounds for summary dismissal, if not arrest.

“Two years,” Lord Jonnal narrated while the staff dispensed dessert in the form of bread pudding, steaming fresh and dripping with custard. “Closer to a phoenix quill only in having eliminated so many possibilities.” He smiled wryly. “I would not describe the time as wasted, but disappointment had become such a constant companion we’d begun setting a fourth place at meals!” The tale was interrupted long enough for him to slide a forkful of pudding into his mouth, his eyelids drooping in evident enjoyment. After swallowing he continued. “Old Po the tagarl had known of our quest since my first visit to Black Lake Valley, of course. Never had he offered the slightest jot of advice or information.”

Another forkful of pudding. “When I asked him why he’d waited so long to tell us about the phoenix aerie in Whistler Mountain, he shrugged and said, ‘Wasn’t sure you were ready for Chillblade.’” He lifted his goblet both to wash down the pudding and to emphasize his point. “I’d defied my father and Lord Most High, stolen away from our Keep in the dead of night, and accepted the help of the only Seekers who would hire on. How much more proof of my desperation could he ask?”

Wine sloshed in His Lordship’s goblet as his seat shook from a sudden, sharp impact. All eyes snapped to Captain Kandaler, whose foot was still withdrawing from the leg of Lord Jonnal’s chair. “Had we gone to Chillblade first,” she rebuked him, “we would have returned your flash-frozen corpse to your father along with the phoenix quill. You needed two years on the trail before you could survive that trek. Po knew that.”

His Lordship chuckled and conceded the point. “True enough, Zed. After losing my mother in the last attempt to break the Shad Curse, I doubt Lord Most High Mahargni would have accepted even a defiant son’s death in fair exchange for our House’s salvation.”

Entertaining and illuminating as the tale was, Shima’s attention was riveted on the interplay between His Lordship and the Captain. Such insolence! She addresses him as though they are equals, rather than Lord and Captain! She does not even address him properly by title! And he allows it! She glanced surreptitiously around the table. No surprise that the Tantareli and the N’eli are in accord, all being ex-Seekers as they are. But that Her Ladyship raises not so much as an eyebrow at the display!

See also how they defer to her! As the conversation drifted to other subjects, Shima noted that any time the Captain spoke she enjoyed the undivided attention of all present. Given that the touch of a phoenix is never granted lightly nor to one undeserving. Still, they treat her as though she were but a step below the Ladies themselves!

Though of noble birth and breed, the crucible of academia had mostly rid Shima of characteristic Upper Court elitism. Aerin were masters of magic, but she had seen ample proof that Shenn’s other races more than compensated for their weakness through command of alternate technologies, adaptabiliy, and sheer stubborn persistence. After all, does the City Guard not have the services of Initiate Kres Feber? Human, but one of the best runesmiths ever to study at the Academy! Only his conflict with Lord Perre kept him from achieving an Adept’s mantle! Yes, Shenn’s other children were deserving of respect just as much as aerin Kin and Breed.

But he is Lord of the City, and she the Captain! They are not playmates in the park! Some decorum is in order!

Then Shima was struck by a realization that took all of her courtly and academic restraint to conceal. I’m doing the same thing. I’m referring to her only as The Captain!

Discretion and grace barricaded against rising panic and the rising suspicion that Zed Kandaler’s influence was not innocent. How is she doing this? I feel no incursion on my shields! Such insidious influence! Fear grabbed Shima’s arm and tugged, anxious to be away from this strange household and its molten-eyed mistress before she became any more ensnared.

Then the Captain – No! Captain Kandaler! – turned a gaze at once cool and yet lambent on Shima. “Well Milady,” she declared. “Your turn.”

Generations of noble breeding and a lifetime’s experience in academic and courtly intrigue kept Shima’s face composed and voice steady. “Excuse me, Captain?” she replied. Behind her shields she wondered Did I tarry too long? Has the trap already sprung?

“Your business here is more than just the Ferin cache.” The accusation was stated calmly, its tone brooking neither denial nor debate. The rest of the table watched their exchange with varying degrees of understanding but uniformly rapt interest. Captain Kandaler smirked, the expression etched ever so slightly in acid. “Lord-Minister Perre doesn’t give up easily, does he?” she asked. “If at all.”

Shima allowed some of her alarm to filter through her shields then. Her eyes widened in surprise and indignation. “You touched my thoughts!” she accused. I could use this as an excuse, escape under pretense of insult. She turned to Lord Jonnal. “Your Lordship!” she cried. “Are such liberties accepted in your house?”

Indignation swept around the table. It rumbled deep within Lieutenant Bolt’s massive chest, and was echoed in a slightly higher register from Captain Tsial. It thunked in the wood of the table under the goblets which both Melia and Captain Kandaler slammed down. Most ominously it shone in the glow which lit around Captain Kandaler’s auric irises.

“Your thoughts,” Captain Kandaler growled, “trailed in your wake this afternoon like rancid perfume. I was shielded, and still walked right into them.” She paused and glanced at her Lord, then let her tone smooth slightly. “I apologize, but I’d expect an Academy auditor to have tighter shielding.”

His Lordship’s reaction was distressingly mild. Ladies! What if she is allowed such excess? Allowed? In her thrall as he is, how could he deny her? “Milady,” he answered in soothing tones, “I can promise you that Captain Kandaler’s discretion is unquestionable. Any trespass of your thoughts would have been wholly accidental. And she has apologized for the event.” He leaned back in his chair, relaxed among the taut tableau. “Certainly Milady’s own lapse is likewise excusable, given the discovery which brought you here.”

He smiled with deceptive languor. “Since the question is now in the open,” he continued in similar vein, “Did the Lord-Minister task you with duties aside from those on your charter? Have you come to Embron, into my city and my house, with less than total honesty about your motives?”

Caught, Shima thought, feeling liberated. As I told Cirue: the Lord-Minister should have hired an Agent.

“I beg Your Lordship’s grace,” she said aloud. “Had I thought my argument stood a chance of success, I’d have explained to the Lord-Minister the folly of trusting intrigue to a librarian.” She looked around the table, meeting the gazes bent upon her. “The discovery of the Daubei Journal rocked not only House Perre but the entire Upper Court. Its revelations about the Siege of Tyvis raised questions about every other engagement in the Steel War, including the final fate of House Fehr. Lord-Minister Perre’s reassignment to the Academy Ministry of Antiquities was his most graceful option, given his refusal to revise the content of his history courses.”

“Close-minded fool,” Melia muttered. “He has ever been such.”

“Your Ladyship’s thrust is true,” Shima agreed with a nod “Thanks to Lord Most High Tynamon’s public apology, House Perre’s position at court is only barely diminished.” Her expression became rueful. “They are still more than powerful enough to punish open defiance of a direct order.” She managed a wan smile. “I confess I have too much love for my own position to throw it over, even against such –” She bit down on the last word. Not that any present would have faulted her for the sentiment.

Melia finished for her. “Idiocy,” she supplied.

“Foolishness,” His Lordship offered, smirking

“Buffoonery,” Captain Tsial purred, smiling with all her teeth.

Lieutenant Bolt chimed in, grinning across his face. “Muckwittedness!”

Captain Kandaler’s suggestion came last. “Buttheadery,” she growled, smile belying the smolder of her eyes.

Shima’s eyes swept the table again, this time in astonishment. Not that they mock the Lord-Minister so brazenly, but in such humorous vein! They return no malice for his treachery, but instead treat it as a grand jest! Is this madness, or are they truly of such noble character? A more chilling possibility occurred to her. Or is this display for my benefit, to further disarm me? With a Phoenix-Touched in the equation, capable of what I have already seen, can I trust even my own thoughts?

Captain Kandaler turned to His Lordship. “Ready for this?” she asked, smile widening into a grin.

Lord Jonnal grinned in return. “I can barely contain myself.”

The rest were obviously no more informed on the exchange between Lord and Captain than was Shima herself. Captain Kandaler dipped in a pocket of her leather pants and drew out an octagonal tile small enough to lay comfortably in her palm. It was made of onyx, the sigil on its face inlaid in leystone. She lay it on the ground, but did not trace the sigil nor recite any incantation. Instead she simply called aloud, “Chazaquiel Daubei, stand forth!”

A ghost appeared on the rune.

Ghosts were a familiar phenomenon. Whether a haunt was a true disembodied spirit which could or would not pass into the aether, or mere psychic echoes left by traumatic events, their traits and limits were well understood. If a haunting were particularly virulent or difficult to avoid, ways to clear it from the location were established and standardized. Most people treated hauntings as intriguing if inconvenient infestations, either to be endured or removed. Never had Shima heard of a ghost being invited to dinner!

The spirit was well-formed, rippling out of focus only occasionally. It had been female in life, Ferine heritage plain in its glittering hair and burnished skin. It was in uniform, obviously an officer by the amount of heraldry adorning the tunic. Shima’s educated eye easily translated the decorations on epaulet, collar, and chest. Though she knew this was but a revenant and not the actual personage, reflex pulled her to her feet and into a courtly bow. “Milady-Colonel!” she cried.

The ghost of Lady-Colonel Chazaquiel Daubei smiled and seated itself as if on a chair, directly over the rune. “Once,” it conceded. “Now in the same line of work as you, Milady Auditor. The descendant of my ancient enemy has tasked you unfairly, in distraction from your proper duties. The Captain has asked that I render such assistance as I can, to lighten your burden.”

Shima stared incredulously. She can summon ghosts millennia old to perform favors! And even this one calls her The Captain!

“I call her The Captain because that is her place,” the ghost said. “And the favor I pay is to a fellow scholar, in debt to what Zed Kandaler has done for me and mine.”

Shima shot an anxious glance around the table. She remembered that psychic shields were not proof against revenants. Milady-Colonel, please! she entreated silently. Allow me to chooose the time and place to share my thoughts with the others present!

“Be at ease,” Chazaquiel Daubei urged. “My words are for you only, Milady Auditor.” One hand rippled as it waved outward to indicate the rest of the table. Sure enough, Shima could see from the others’ expressions that they knew a conversation was happening, but were not privy to its substance. Only Captain Kandaler seemed uninterested in the exchange. She drew a thin, dark cheroot from the breast pocket of her sleeveless leather tunic, lit it with a murmured cantrip, and settled herself between the folded forelegs of her Tantareli lieutenant.

“Truly must self-importance run in the blood of House Perre,” the ghost mused. “Rarely did I ever encounter a line more obsessed and ruthless in pursuit of its own grandeur.” Bottomless eyes suddenly focused sharply on Shima. “You are Ausine,” it said in accusation.

Shima nodded. I am of House Fyn.

“A young House yet,” Chazaquiel Daubei replied. “I lived to see the birth of the Ausin Breed, and the rise of its first House. Is House Fyn as troublesome as your Arasidhe cousins?”

Now Shima’s head moved in negation. Our connection with House Arasidhe is distant, she assured the ghost. Whatever emnity may still dwell in your breast for their actions in the Steel War, I beg you not to extend it to my House.

“Steel War?” The ghost echoed, frowning. “So that is the name which was given our fight for unity. Doubtless to cement our role in history as the villains.”

The conversation was taking a disquieting turn. Please, Milady-Colonel, Shima thought, trying to steer the topic back to its original theme. Pardon the impudence of a direct question. The journal attributed to your hand, which has revealed the true course of the Siege of Tyvis….

Tsial shifted restlessly. Like Bolt she was not made for normal chairs. Lacking his bulk, neither could she simply sit on the ground beside the table to dine. In accommodation Lord Jonnal kept a long, low couch set at her place. She slid from her seat and padded around the table, stopping next to Zed and Bolt. “Heard you’d been down the siege tunnels a lot of late, Zed,” she murmured. “This why?”

Zed had relaxed enough to lay her head back against Bolt, eyes half-shut. Twin streams of aromatic smoke expelled from her nostrils as she lifted her eyelids to regard her counterpart. “Among other things,” she replied.

“What’s this I hear?” Jonnal scooted his chair over. “Plots afoot to which I am not privy, Captain?” Sensing an intriguing conversation, Melia spared a glance at Shima to assure herself that her old classmate was engrossed in discourse with Chazaquiel Daubei’s spirit before following her husband’s lead.

Zed shot a cool glance at Jonnal, then shrugged. “Lord-General Fehr and his ghost army are determined to stay in the tunnels to guard whatever’s in the vaults down there,” she explained. “They don’t like company. Even with the entrances sealed, there’s too much chance of somebody blundering down there and getting themselves killed for trespassing. I’ve been negotiating with the Lord-General to tolerate the occasional visitor.”

Jonnal nodded. “Sensible,” he affirmed. “Have you made much progress? From your recounting, Lord-General Fehr did not strike me as a ghost prone to changes of heart.”

“Few are,” Zed affirmed. “Some progress. Anybody but me going in there unprotected right now still runs a very real risk of dismemberment. I hadn’t said anything because the details are still in the air.”

“At least they take enough interest now in the living to assist you in this,” Melia noted. “In itself that is an unusual achievement.”

“Ladies smile I can make it work,” Zed hoped.

“Oy,” Bolt interjected. “Looks’s though they’re done.”

Attention diverted to the end of the table. Chazaquiel Daubei’s spirit vanished abruptly, not like a mist fading before the sun but like a shadow being banished by a lamp. Lady Shima Fyn stood by her chair, eyes fixed on a view other than that of the Greathouse roof garden. She swayed and slowly blinked, then focused on her hosts as if waking from a dream whose details she wouldn’t remember later.

“Milady Shima,” Jonnal hailed her. “Are you well?”

Melia rose and crossed to Shima, taking her arm and guiding her to her chair. Shima resisted, politely but firmly. “I… am well,” she told them, smiling at Melia. “My thanks to you, Your Lord and Ladyship, for a most illuminating and memorable evening.” She stooped quickly and picked up the rune from the ground. “With your pardon, I’ll excuse myself to my apartments.”

“Your questions have been answered then, Milady?” Jonnal asked.

“Indeed they have, Your Lordship,” she assured him.

Silently she amended, At least about the Daubei Journal. For the rest… the sooner my work is finished and I am away from this city, the better!

“Tio Nataniel!”

Nathan St. John smiled as he cupped his wings and shifted his weight. His posture slid from customary in-flight prone to the same loose-legged, relaxed attitude skydivers used to cushion their landing. One might have expected wind to blast from his wings as he touched down, but the chill autumn evening breeze blew around him undeterred.

The object of his smile returned the expression in kind, accompanying her shouted greeting. When Juanita Sanchez had first met Nathan at thirteen, she was in the middle of the awkward metamorphosis from child to adolescent, the first vestiges of physical maturity adding soft angles to curved cheeks, and curves where elsewhere had been all angles. Puberty by itself had been torturous enough, at least that was something that everybody went through. For Juanita the ordeal had been further complicated by her transformation into a centaur. The hackneyed adjective ‘coltish,’ so often applied to children taking their first steps to adulthood, had taken on an order of magnitude crueler meaning for her.

What a difference a few years makes! Nathan marveled as he looked at her. Both her equine and humanoid portions had lost every trace of adolescent gawk, filling out with sleek, athletic lines. The promise made a decade before by cheekbones just peeking through melting baby-fat had been fulfilled in a face holding all the strength and grace of her Mestizo forebears. Eyes of startlingly pale hazel hinted at the European part of her ancestry while coffee-colored hair fell loosely around face and shoulders and down her back, stopping just above her rear torso.

The likeness of an Hispanic woman in a traditional white cotton blouse smiled from the front of Juanita’s beige t-shirt. The illustrated hostess held before her a massive platter heaped with steaming food: rice, beans, meat, tortillas. Spreading the width of the picture underneath the platter was the legend, “Cocina de Ynes.” Beneath the t-shirt Juanita wore a denim garment which was more than an apron but less than a full skirt. Its hem stopped just above the knees of her forelegs and served no real purpose of concealment. Such attire had become common among Earthside centaurs as a compromise between total nudity from the waist back, and covering the rear torso completely.

Honesty rebelled against Nathan’s own internal hyperbole. Come now, St. John, he chided himself. You act as though you’ve not seen her since those dark days when you first met! It’s been, what? Barely six months since your last time here! His sight of Juanita was one of those odd moments when the familiar becomes novel and what has been changing gradually over time suddenly seems to have transformed overnight.

Juanita crushed herself against Nathan with strength belying her lithe arms. “Welcome back, Nathan!”

“Juanita!” he cried as he returned the hug. “Every time I see you, you take my breath away!”

She loosened her grip enough to grin up at him with one eyebrow arched. “Is that a compliment,” she teased, “or are you saying I hug too tight?”

“A compliment my dear, always,” he assured her. “Were you sent to meet me, or is your presence a happy accident?”

“I volunteered,” she told him. She released him from her embrace and looped one arm through his, reinforcing her role as escort. “I thought you’d appreciate a friendly face before the fireworks started, and I wanted to be the first to tell you.” Her eyes gleamed with anticipation, silently begging him to ask the obvious question.

Nathan had been raised to always oblige a lady who had a secret to share. As they ascended the broad, shallow granite steps of Salt Lake City Hall he asked, “Tell me what?”

By way of answer Juanita extended her left hand across herself, toward Nathan. A band of gold and a single diamond glittered against the dusky skin of her third finger. As he absorbed the meaning of the ring Nathan’s eyes snapped upward to meet Juanita’s, searching for confirmation. It wasn’t hard to find. “Who?” Nathan asked.

The ecstatic light in her eyes spread to the smile which parted her lips. “Her name is Sigrid Thorvaldsen,” she bubbled. “Her family moved here from Copenhagen two months ago, her mother is a professor of quantum theory at the university.”

“Two months!” Nathan echoed, feigning injury. “I’m gone only six, and so soon am I thrown over!”

Juanita pouted and slapped him in the chest. “You!” she scolded. “I got over you when I was fourteen!”

Nathan laughed and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close against him again. “My best dreams and wishes for you both,” he murmured, bending his head down to her ear. “Promise that I’ll have a chance to meet her.”

Juanita hugged back hard. “Thank you,” she whispered. “And I promise.”

Releasing each other, they crested the steps of the city hall. Nathan opened the door and gestured Juanita inside. “Fireworks, hm?” he said, remembering the other half of her earlier statement.

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “It’s Xander Struyck,” she reminded him. “You know how funny people around here get anytime he’s involved. If it weren’t for the fact that you’re here to speak for him, the council wouldn’t give him a chance.”

Nathan nodded as they walked down the main corridor. Juanita’s hooves echoed softly on the parquet floor, while Nathan might as well have floated for all the noise his passage made. The building was relatively new, completed just four years before. It sat on the grounds of the original Salt Lake City Hall. Its predecessor had vaporized ten years before in the blast of a seven-and-a-half ton bomb that carried the incongruous nickname ‘daisycutter.’ Dark days indeed, Nathan reminisced.

“Doubtless why he asked me to come,” he mused aloud in answer to Juanita’s comment. “Which begs the question of which will carry more weight: my good reputation and credibility, or the spectre of Xander Struyck gaining a foothold in Salt Lake.”

“So stupid,” was Juanita’s opinion. They stopped before the doors of the city council chambers. “Struyck Worldwide helped the world put itself back together after Cantionis Terra, and never asked anything in return. People are happy enough to take for granted the miracles Struyck offers like molecular fabrication and neoperi power, and governments will contract with Worldwide Strikeforce for police and emergency services. But they still treat Xander Struyck himself like some James Bond mastermind bent on world domination!” She took a deep breath and composed herself, exhaling the gathered outrage.

Nathan smiled at her. “Even in this brave new world,” he observed, “people place limits on how much altruism they can digest. It’s one thing to defend your neighbor’s house against monsters or see that his children get home safely. Quite another, apparently, to give the world cheap energy and the means to feed and clothe itself with no strings attached.”

“That’s it,” she agreed. “They’re convinced there are strings. What scares them is they can’t see them.” She reached to the door and pushed the latch. “In you go. I have to get back to the restaurant. The evening crowd is due any minute.”

Nathan gazed fondly after as Juanita trotted back to the entrance. Once more all the years since they’d met condensed in his memory. The centaur’s confident, unselfconscious stride embodied modern Earth’s adaptation to changes that defied belief even as they happened.

Storm-grey wings hung folded at his shoulders as he entered the council chamber. He allowed a touch of swagger in his stride for effect. His height, the span of his shoulders, length of his arms and legs, the fine planes of his face, thick, silky grey hair hanging down to his waist and his yellow-green eyes – Nathan knew the impact his appearance and manner would create, and intended to squeeze every bit of advantage from it. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he hailed as he walked down the aisle of the small audience gallery. His voice reverberated richly from the walls. Those citizens who had foregone an evening’s leisure for the council meeting looked up at his entrance. Some regarded him with curiosity or suspicion, while others smiled in recognition and reverance. The former were people who had moved to Salt Lake within the recent years. The latter were among those who had helped save it from the scourge brought by the Cantionis Terra reality warp.

Hernan Sanchez currently wielded the gavel. Nathan recalled that when the citizens of Salt Lake settled on the design of their local government, they’d chosen to simply formalize the semi-communal lifestyle which had emerged organically to resolve questions of daily survival. With a current population of just over fifteen thousand and with convenient, efficient technology for sharing news and information, complicated structures of districts and representatives were unnecessary. The city council consisted of ten people, all elected on an equal basis by the entire city population. Possession of the gavel rotated on a quarterly basis among each council member. Whoever wielded the gavel had the responsibility of making sure council sessions were spent efficiently by limiting how much time was allotted for discussion of each issue.

Hernan’s hairline had already rode high on his head when Nathan had first met him. He’d apparently decided not to wait for nature to take its course – his shaven scalp gleamed under the chamber lights. Skin the hue and texture of leather added color to a face which was all Mestizo lines and angles. He showed the gravity with which he approached council affairs in his choice of dress: a white button-up shirt without a tie showed under the lines of a grey business jacket. His rear torso was snugged in ‘horse-pants’ of the same color as the jacket. He scorned any attempt at using a chair, his equine portions well-suited to standing for long periods anyway. He stood behind a small podium which rested on the table, his arms crossed atop the platform.

“Nathan!” Hernan called, smiling. “I see Juanita brought you to us with minimal delay.”

“She did,” Nathan confirmed. “And my congratulations to your family for her impending union.”

Hernan’s smile stretched wider. “Invitations will be sent out shortly,” he said. “But enough personal pleasantry.” He nodded and swept the rest of the table with his gaze, sobering. “Complicated matters confront us.”

“Nothing complicated about it,” growled a gravelly voice from one of the seats to Hernan’s right. Nathan recognized those tones at once. “Only reason anybody’s bitching is because it’s Struyck.”

“Please, Grant,” Hernan rebuked the man. “Order must be observed.” He waved Nathan to a chair, one of a pair set at a smaller table facing the council bench. Nathan noted the other chair was already occupied. His breath caught as the representative from Struyck Worldwide stood to greet him. Ladies.

The man was tall. Nathan could see over the top of his head, but only barely. He was also broad, starting with his shoulders and going down through ribs, arms, pelvis, and legs, a classic illustration of the phrase ‘big-boned.’ His features were regular, even, and pleasant, with a lantern jaw, square cheekbones, and broad, straight nose set between forthright amber eyes. Bronze hair was long in the modern style, caught behind him in a simple ponytail. His skin was of average texture, neither smooth nor leathery, a few shades darker than caucasian average. To anybody else in the chamber, or on the streets of any Earthside city, the man would not draw a second glance.

Nathan felt as though he were seeing a ghost. No, not a ghost. It’s as if a museum exhibit stepped from its diorama to say hello.

“Leslie Feist,” the living artifact said, extending a square hand. “I’ve heard a lot of stories about you, Mr. St. John.” He quickly glanced at the chamber doors. “I was warned you’re solo on this one. Dr. Chandler’s not joining us?”

Nathan’s composure rebooted quickly enough to smile and shake the proffered hand. “Nicholas is engaged on a separate project,” he told Feist. “Unbelievable as some find it, the two of us do occasionally lead separate lives. And I hope that all the stories you’ve heard paint me in the best light, Mr. Feist.”

Feist grinned. “I’ll let you be the judge of that over dinner. I understand there’s an absolutely triumphant Mexican restaurant in town. If we aren’t run out on a rail after this meeting, I’d like to see if it lives up to the hype.” He released Nathan’s hand and reclaimed his chair.

Nathan sat down as well, carefully arranging his wings on either side of the backrest. “If you’re referring to Cocina de Ynez,” he replied, “it does, and I’ll be happy to join you.”

A smart wood-on-wood impact from Hernan’s gavel called for attention. “Since everybody is here,” he announced, “I call this special meeting of the Salt Lake City Council to order. As this is a special meeting no ongoing business will be entertained. We are here to hear the presentation from the representative of Struyck Worldwide, discuss the proposal brought, and hopefully come to an agreement on it.” He rapped the podium again, then nodded toward Leslie Feist. “Mr. Feist, whenever you’re ready.”

Feist smiled at Hernan and nodded, then stood. “I’ll get right to it,” he told the council. “Struyck Worldwide is rebuilding the Transcontinental Railroad. Salt Lake City has been selected as a major junction along the route. We would like your endorsement of the project, and lease of city land for the construction of the rail link and support facilities.” Following that succinct statement, he seated himself and regarded the council expectantly.

Not much of a salesman, Nathan thought. Though to be fair, attaching Struyck Worldwide’s name to a project is often all the support needed. Or it can be the stake through the heart.

“Call for a vote!” rasped Grant Stone, the man who’d spoken out of turn earlier. He looked and sounded like his name: gravelly voice, rough-chiseled features, granite-colored hair, stony countenance. As close as a human can come to being Terin, Nathan reflected wryly. He recalled the first time he and Stone had met. I saved his life, a kindness he repaid by trying to shoot me. An understandably xenophobic reaction, given the state of things at the time. He’s mellowed over the years.

“You’d lose,” was the rebuke from across the table, where Lena Rose sat smiling. “You always try that Grant, and it never works.” The petite, pretty Chinese-American shook her head. “At least give them a chance to sell their snake oil before they get shot down.”

Nathan was unsure what construction to put on Lena’s words. She’s willing to entertain a discussion, but her mind seems made up already on its outcome. Inwardly he shook his head and frowned, letting none of his dismay show on his face. This is going to be a long evening.

“Do any members of the council have questions for Mr. Feist or Mr. St. John?” Hernan asked, turning his head to check the people seated at the curving table.

A portly man seated next to Grant Stone raised his hand. He had brown hair and eyes in a face which was beginning to jowl, but years spent on the edge of survival showed in his sun-leathered skin and the sinew of his upraised wrist and hand. Hernan nodded at him. “Go ahead, Travis.” The man favored Hernan with a sharp look and said nothing. Hernan nodded at the silent rebuke. “Sorry. Councilman Travis Cole has the floor.”

Of course, Nathan recalled with a small smile as Travis Cole rose from his seat. Once a lawyer, ever a lawyer. Even the end of the world couldn’t change that. Though I shouldn’t condemn him for that, after all. It was his skills at oratory and argument that kept several people, myself included, from being run out of town or lynched!

“Mr. Feist, Mr. St. John, welcome to Salt Lake City,” Cole greeted them. “Mr. Feist, you offered us the option of leasing city land to Struyck Worldwide for the rail link. Who will actually own the railroad itself?”

“Struyck Worldwide will own the rail, the station, and the trains,” Feist answered readily. “Ownership of the land will stay with the city. Who runs the station and how revenues are shared is open to negotiation.”

Lena Rose lifted a slender hand above her head. Travis Cole saw her gesture and conceded the floor, sitting back in his chair. “Councilwoman Lena Rose has the floor,” Hernan Sanchez announced.

Lena was more casual than Travis Cole, not bothering to stand. “Mr. Feist,” she kept her tone conversational, even friendly, “Struyck Worldwide has given the world household fabricators that with the right program and raw materials can produce nearly anything a person could want or need; long-distance telepresence so advanced you can almost forget the person you’re talking to is thousands of kilometers away. The days of needing to rush from point A to point B are past. So why do we need a railroad anyway?”

The years have mellowed her as well, Nathan reflected. She was so quiet and serious, ready to step up to any challenge. Well, what could one expect from a woman who had not only earned a post in the Army Rangers, but honed her skills as a sniper? He noted that though Lena was still petite and small-boned, retirement and motherhood had added some softness to her figure.

“I can answer that if I may, Lena.” The offer came from a tall, cadaverously thin man seated at the council table to Lena’s left. “With Mr. Feist’s permission?” Feist gave him leave with a wave of a hand, Lena nodded, and Hernan Sanchez spoke official recognition to Moses Trask. “I dare the most skilled programmer to code a fabricator to produce food as good as Ynes Sanchez cooks every day. And though I can call my son in San Diego any time and see them standing in my living room big as life, I can’t hug them from here.” He paused to let his words sink in. “And had there been a reliable, safe method of travel between Salt Lake and San Diego last year, I would not have come so close to losing my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter to raiders masquerading as outriders!” He smiled at Nathan. “I know I’ve said it before, Mr. St. John, but again I thank you for saving my family’s lives.”

Nathan returned the smile along with a nod. “As before Colonel, it was a privilege to be there.” Behind his words were the thoughts, And if the years since the Warp have changed anybody’s heart, Moses Trask is that one. ‘Self-important prig’ are the words that came to mind back in those days, when he was the Commanding Officer at Fort Douglas and trying to hold onto the scraps of his command while the world fell apart.

Lena Rose nodded again at her fellow council-member’s words. “I’ll grant your argument, Moses,” she said. “And I yield the floor.”

“What about the outriders?” thundered an unfamiliar voice from the gallery, in an unmistakable Native American accent. Nathan turned in his seat and spotted a man of average height and stocky build, iron-grey hair twisted into a braid behind him. His face was wide and angular, its sharpness defiant against the erosion of years spent outdoors which had tanned and toughened his skin. “Reco’nize me, dammit!”

“Council recognizes Sam Tallman,” Hernan replied, granting the man leave to speak further.

Nathan’s eyes widened at the name. Tallman? He studied him more closely. He was dressed in classic, practical style, a worn and scuffed brown leather jacket over a dark green flannel shirt, lower half covered by blue jeans which still had many more years of wear in them. A large pistol rode low on his right hip.

“Don’t think we don’t get it,” Sam Tallman continued, voice bouncing effortlessly from the walls. “St. John sittin’ there says it loud enough.” He waved a sinewy hand in Nathan’s direction, but kept his eyes on the council. “Ever since the dustup over Longbow people’ve been down on outriders. One bad bunch and you all forget all the people who’ve gotten across the wildlands alive and safe, thanks to us!” He snorted. “History repeats itself. The iron horse brings the death of the old ways. Well, not so fast this time!” He stabbed a finger out, pointing at the youngest member of the council. “Gonna shame your ancestors all over again if you let this go through, Fox!”

Fox Tallman sat unfazed by the older man’s tirade. He was a younger, thinner, less weathered version of Sam, his features betraying European blood mixed with the Native American. “Hello, grandpa,” he said simply. “I’m glad to see you. Will you be in town long?”

“Just enough to get ‘nother contract,” Sam snarled. “Which might be my last, if you all let Struyck drive his train through! What need’ll people have of outriders then, if they can just hop on an’ let themselves rock to sleep by the motion of the rails?” He added a broad sing-song lilt to his voice with the last words.

“Fox,” Hernan dropped the younger man’s name into the ensuing silence. “You have right of first reply, since Sam directed most of his statement at you.”

Fox smiled and shook his head. “I yield the floor to Ms. Feist,” he said.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed at Fox’s words. Most everybody missed it, heard what they expected to hear. But that young man has always cut to the quick with his words, and is never wrong. He glanced to his side and saw from Leslie Feist’s stare that the title conferred hadn’t been lost on its target. He’s surprised, but not insulted. Could it be? Under cover of shifting his weight in his chair he leaned over, inhaling as he did so. Ladies! It is!

“Mr. Feist?” Hernan prompted.

“Pfaugh!” Sam Tallman snorted. “As if Struyck’s pet suit has anything I wanna hear!” He swept the room with his accusing finger. “I know it’s no reason any of you should care,” he told them. “Y’all have your city, your settled lives. You don’t need outriders anymore, you tell yourselves. Your travelin’ days’re over. But just remember!” He boomed. “One day you’ll look around at the world with Xander Struyck’s name all over it, even tattooed on yer asses, an’ you’ll wonder ‘How’d that happen?’ Well, it starts right here if you let this thing go through!” With that he pushed his way to the aisle and stormed from the chamber.

“Sam Tallman has yielded the floor,” Hernan Sanchez announced drily as the doors thudded shut after the old man. Scattered laughter met his words. “Do any other council members have questions for Mr. Feist or Mr. St. John?” A silent chorus of heads shaking in negative gave reply. “Does anybody present have any statement to make?”

“Call for a vote,” Grant Stone rumbled.

“Seconded,” Lena Rose added.

Hernan rapped the podium with the gavel. “A vote has been called for and seconded,” he announced. “Do we open negotiations with Struyck Worldwide with the goal of letting the new Transcontinental Railroad go through Salt Lake City?”

“That went better than I’d hoped,” Leslie Feist mused as they exited the front doors of the city hall. “Mr. Struyck was right, I didn’t have to push very hard at all. The damn thing sells itself.”

“Your presentation did strike me as quite low-key,” Nathan commented. “Though between Mrs. Rose and Mr. Tallman there were a few tense moments.” He chuckled. “Seems as though my matchless charms weren’t needed here, after all.”

“I suppose that means you have other things to get back to,” Leslie suggested.

Nathan shook his head with a smile. “Nothing pressing. The past few months have been quite quiet, with Nicholas immersed in his latest project. Besides, as you probably noticed, Salt Lake holds a special place for me.”

“I was briefed,” Leslie told him. Nearby a bus had pulled up to the curb to absorb a queue of passengers. Nathan strode pointedly past the vehicle, so Leslie followed his cue. “You were part of a refugee caravan headed to Fort Douglas. You found the city taken hostage by a local radical militia that had all been Warped into ogres. They’d overpowerd the Reserve units at the fort and lucked into a cache of BLU-82 bombs, and were using the Salt Lake Temple as their base of operations.” They paused at the corner, though traffic was light. “From there I understand things got a bit bloody.”

Nathan nodded, his eyes reflecting the street lights like peridot splinters. “An accurate summary,” he murmured. They passed a bowl-shaped field, weeds and saplings growing wild in the depression. Edges and corners of rubble poked through the vegetation. Nathan waved a hand at the recovering crater. “In the end they chose a scorched-earth policy. They’d planted the bombs throughout the city, and started setting them off when we eluded more subtle methods of capture.”

Leslie regarded the kilometer-diameter crater with unabashed awe. “Christ. But they made the mistake of planting bombs inside the Temple too, and one of the soldiers with your caravan got to them. According to the report, that is.”

“Again, accurate,” Nathan confirmed. “The Scions of Zion were as fanatical as their type can be, and took their transformation as a sign from God that their day had come. Unfortunately for them, their command of tactics involving high explosives was… lacking. They’d gathered within the Temple for safety when they started detonating the bombs in the city, and never counted on us carrying the fight into their midst.”

Leslie gazed out over the city’s newly-blossoming skyline. Beyond vacant fields and buildings constructed a molecule at a time, ruined towers and fragmented walls rose like the ribs of a colossal beast rotted to bone. They retained enough of their snowy quartz whiteness to reflect the city lights. “I also read a brief,” the Struyck representative said, “that talked about the ruins of the Temple being fairly violently haunted, until your group came in and laid them to rest.”

Nathan blinked and smiled rakishly. “You are well-briefed,” he replied. “That’s a story for another day though, because lo!” He held his arms before him. “Cocina de Ynes!”

The restaurant had started its life as a barbeque grille in the backyard of an abandoned house. Dishes which shared the sole virtue of being usable were employed to cook whatever could be caught, scrounged, or lost a fight. ‘Alfresco’ was a polite way of saying that dining was done at similarly motley tables and chairs clustered on the deck adjoining the barbeque. As Salt Lake City recovered and rebuilt conditions improved, but the essential character defined by those harsh days remained. Three years ago Hernan Sanchez had presented to his wife the anniversary gift of a restored fully-appointed patio restaurant, one of the few downtown buildings to survive the conversion of multiple seven-and-a-half-ton canisters of explosive ammonium nitrate and aluminum into fireball and shockwave.

The popularity of the place was evident in the scarcity of vacant tables, the syncopation of utensil on plate against a susurration of small talk. In keeping with its origins most of the tables were under the open sky, warmed by outdoor heaters and lit by tabletop candles and multicolored lights on strings in the shape of chile peppers, christmas icons, and beer and liquor bottles. The establishment’s name was painted on a crescent of flourescent crimson and saffron over the patio entrance, a larger version of the legend Nathan had seen earlier on Juanita’s t-shirt.

Juanita herself appeared at the patio entrance. Casual t-shirt and denim demi-skirt had been exchanged for a colorfully embroidered white cotton blouse and equally kaleidoscopic black apron. Her hair fell loosely about her face and shoulders, its color matching the sleek coat of her rear torso. She greeted them with an incandescent smile.

“We heard the news!” she blurted, hooves telegraphing excitement. “I saved you a table Nathan, I knew you’d be here! So cool, a high-speed mag-lev rail right through Salt Lake! You’re Mr. Feist, welcome, sit down please! The usual, Nathan?”

Long practice allowed Nathan to keep pace with an excited Juanita Sanchez. “The usual yes, Juanita and yes, it’s very cool.” A whirlwind of embroidery and enthusiasm deposited them at a table near a heater. Out of deference to the crowd Nathan put away his wings, the appendages vanishing in dim flares of light. Their presumed appetite was at once blunted and whetted by bowls of fresh-fried tortilla strips and aromatic salsa. A colorful laminated menu was set on the table before Leslie. Nathan needed no such aid.

“So what is ‘the usual?’” Leslie asked, noting the omission and deducing the reason.

“Seventeen,” Nathan replied, smiling in anticipation.

Leslie scanned down the menu to the mentioned item, and arched eyebrows. “You actually mean to eat all that?”

Nathan grinned. “Every bite.”

“Without sounding bigoted,” Leslie mused, “it has always struck me that chimeras have heartier appetites than humans. Granted with types like ogres and centaurs it’s to be expected, they have more mass to support. But even such as you, I’ve seen pack away two or three times as much as a human of comparable size!”

Nathan let a touch of conspiracy creep into his grin. He was used to being mistaken for one of Earth’s population to have been transformed by the rewrite of reality alternately called Cantionis Terra or simply The Warp. Though in my case, the truth is even stranger! Still, this presents a tantalizing opening. “Do we now… Ms. Feist?”

Deer in the headlights. Leslie stared at Nathan, all thoughts of dinner forgotten. “You heard?” she whispered.

Nathan nodded. “Fox Tallman is a very perceptive young man,” he said. “I’ve never known him to misspeak. And you didn’t correct him.”

Leslie glanced at the other diners, and reassured herself that they were too engrossed in their own conversations to have overheard. “But what made you think I’m a chimera?” she asked, louder but still in low tones. “I could just be a very homely woman who prefers to dress like a man.”

“You could be,” Nathan conceded, “but you’re not.” Suddenly he realized his own error. Some chimeras could claim enhanced senses as a benefit of their transformation, so he could account for knowing her true gender. But how do I explain that I knew her to be a chimera because I recognized the Feyside race on which her appearance is based?

Leslie’s surrender came to his rescue. “Jesus, that’s a lame defense!” she muttered, smiling ruefully. “It’s just… all the other chimeras I’ve seen these past ten years, there was no doubt what they were. Centaurs, elves, ogres, dwarves… (Portians, Nathan corrected her in his head) Everybody knew at a glance they’d been Warped. Me?” She touched her fingertips to her breast in the first openly feminine gesture Nathan had seen since their introduction. “I get changed into a man! And not even –” She paused, choking back the next words, then stated them with careful deliberation. “Not even a – complete man.” Her gaze was intense, begging him to understand her veiled meaning.

Dear lady, I do understand, Nathan replied without her hearing him. Only, how to tell you without revealing my own secrets?

Juanita appeared long enough to take Leslie’s order (“Number 17, please”) and vanished again. In her wake a pair of salt-rimmed glasses and a carafe of tequila mixed with triple sec and lime juice were left to gather condensation. Leslie reached for the carafe but Nathan was faster. He poured glassfuls for them both with the deftess of a master bartender, and hefted his margarita over the chips and salsa. “April 1992,” he toasted, “and the world since.”

Leslie met his toast, clinking her glass against his own. “Cantionis Terra,” she replied. “It’s one of the reasons I went to work for Struyck Worldwide, afterward. Before then I was room service at Terrible’s in Primm, Nevada.” She grimaced in recollection. “The management didn’t take to a maid being burlier than the management. That was before anybody knew how far the Warp had spread. I wouldn’t have gone back if they’d begged, though.” She scowled briefly before her broad face smoothed into a reflective expression. “Funny isn’t it, how all the transformations of the Warp seemed to just bring into the open what people were hiding in their hearts all along.” She sipped her drink, then set it down with equal contemplation. “Do you suppose they’ll ever figure out what caused it?”

The eternal question, Nathan reflected, echoed on both sides of the Veil. Forty-nine hours of madness. Whole regions of Earth and her creatures undone, made over into places and things of legend. Only they weren’t legends on my world, they were daily facts of life. Even if some had been long extinct, he amended in Leslie’s favor. Meanwhile on Shenn the Veil ripped open in places, tearing lands with raging storms of pure chaos or erasing them altogether. Ten years later, the finest minds on two worlds continue to ponder the riddle. What made it happen, and why did it stop?

A piece of happy news was unveiled two tables over, prompting a squeal of delight from a fellow diner. Nathan and Leslie both followed the same reflex which turned heads toward the source of the sound and were rewarded with the sight of a couple tangled arm in arm, momentarily oblivious to everything but each other and the moment at hand. For Nathan the interruption was a welcome break to a mood which was becoming all too morose.

He smiled at Leslie. “Eventually I’m certain the question will be answered,” he assured her with total conviction. “But for tonight, let it be enough that our errand here is off to a promising start, the night is pleasant, and we have delicious food and drink to fortify us for the days to come. Ah, and speaking of which!” he cried as Juanita appeared once more, this time balancing a tray laden with two platters and a shallow, covered wicker basket. She deposited the dishes, wished them “Buen Provecho!” – “Good appetite!” – and was off once more, seeing to her other customers.

Nathan pulled a steaming, fresh-grilled tortilla from the folded cloth inside the wicker basket and handed it to Leslie. She smiled in return, letting him get away with the diversion of topic. Let me enjoy at least one night of pretending my business here is only the advancement of Xander Struyck’s ambitions, Nathan negotiated with invisible forces, and not the ferreting of a spy or saboteur from Feyside.

“We picked up the first event by chance.” He remembered Xander making the statement while they sat in his office. “A shipment of leystone was in transit. The beam cut across one edge of our gate and completely disrupted it. We lost the entire shipment, and barely shut the gate before it destroyed the receiving plant.”

Nathan’s eyebrows rose. “A beam, fired through the Veil?” he clarified. “Surely you don’t think it was an attack!”

Xander’s own eyebrows bobbed in consideration of the possibility. “We looked into it,” he admitted. “The timing was very convenient, and the coherence and power worked against the idea of a natural phenomenon.”

“Could you tell its point of origin?” Nathan asked.

Xander shook his head. “Not with any precision. The obvious answer was Feyside, just because no other continuum is close enough to even be detected. I made some inquiries. Directed-energy technology is still an alien concept, and it would take several high-level mages working together to focus and throw a spell that strong, that far.” One corner of his mouth quirked. “Hard to keep something like that secret.”

Nathan frowned thoughtfully. “When did this happen?”

“Thirty weeks ago,” Xander told him. “We set up monitoring to see if it would happen again.”

“Obviously it has,” Nathan deduced.

Xander nodded. Five days ago. This time we caught both the point of origin and the destination.”

Nathan’s eyes sharpened as he caught Xander’s choice of wording. “Destination, not target?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Do you mean to say it was a transit?”

“I mean to say,” Xander confirmed. “Very tightly-focused, unlike any known Gate or Veil event yet recorded. It originated from somewhere in the Blasted Lands, and terminated just outside Salt Lake City.”

Nathan gaped. Such a statement from anybody else would have raised questions about the quality of their data, their sanity, or their idea of humor. But Xander accepts nothing less than absolute verification, and has as strong a grasp on reality as anybody I know. And this is not something about which he would jest!

“Have you sent anybody in yet?” he asked.

Xander shook his head. “I had a spysat put over the city the day after. Most of the people on the streets have been identified as locals, but there’s too much caravan traffic through there to know who might be legitimate travelers. I need somebody on the ground who’s not likely to raise suspicion.”

“Which means me,” Nathan completed. His brow furrowed. “Why Salt Lake?” he mused. With noticeably more force he wondered, “And for all the Ladies’ love, how could anything come out of the Blasted Lands in the first place?”

“Questions to which we need answers,” Xander replied. “The timing works. The city council has agreed to receive a proposal on the Transcontinental in three days.” He smirked. “Nobody will question you showing up on my behalf. At worse they’ll think you sold out at last.”

Nathan conceded the last point without retort. “I’d like to let Nicholas know about this,” he told Xander.

The seconds consumed before Xander replied gave Nathan the following knowledge:

• his best friend and soul-brother was not where Nathan had left him;

• aforementioned soul-kin had gone somewhere unexpected;

• Xander expected Nathan to be knowledgeable about this event.

“Where is he?” Nathan growled, literally.

“Feyside,” Xander replied. “Two days ago. Said he needed answers he couldn’t get here. Took Morphy and left.”

Nathan remembered the attenuated tension in his psychic link to Nicholas at that moment. Not uncomfortable or even perceptible until attention was called to it, but once noted it could not be ignored.

“Strange, he didn’t tell you,” Xander commented.

Passing strange indeed, Nathan’s heart agreed. Given he’s in good hands with Morphy, and Nicholas has always been the careful half of our partnership. And failing all else, while Feyside he’ll be in easy reach of his sister.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mount Twilight. My name is Lisa Longines, I’m the Director of Human Services for the facility.”

Even before she climbed down from the helicopter, she knew she’d made a mistake. Not only in coming here, though she needed all of her renowned will to keep the sumptuous government-funded luncheon she’d enjoyed before the trip from decorating the exit stairs. Five hundred sixty-five million dollars had flowed from her coffers to help build this place. Now she knew her investment would pay off only in disaster.

The mountain was tainted.

None of the rest of them felt it. Of course. They had only eyes and ears. Their minds and spirits were stunted and numb. They made noises alternating between excited anticipation and cultured cynicism as they surveyed the cavernous galleries, the sybaritic appointments of the living areas, the bleeding-edge technologies the common world thought still only fiction, which in turn would be devoted to the production of even more wondrous innovations. They had all contributed nine-digit sums to create a place where their best and brightest minds could labor in blissful isolation to create profitable miracles. They knew nothing of the menace which coiled within the very stone surrounding them.

“Kendra?” A gravel-raspy voice yanked her from her brooding. “Are you well?” Obviously she hadn’t concealed her reaction as well as she would prefer. She looked up at one of the few humans taller than herself.

Jakob Struyck could not be called attractive, even by the trollish standards of this world. An adolescent war against acne had left his face as craggy as his voice. Sandy hair mixed with silver was cut conservatively short but without imagination. Sleepy lids hid eyes which were startlingly blue on either side of a nose so straight and broad that had it been the prow of a ship it would have been an effective ice-cutter. A moustache one shade darker than his hair followed the downward curve of the wide mouth beneath it, reinforcing the impression of a perpetual frown. Broad shoulders were bowed by too many years yoked to a desk running the family empire, which ironically emphasized his stature. But for his height he blended into any crowd – by his appearance alone few would have guessed what sort of man they were dealing with.

But there is a power about him, she knew. Not like these others, strutting roosters trying to make the world ignore the fences bounding their domains. This man could rule the world if it suited him, and none could deny him.

He reminds me of Arianus.

The stab of memory in her heart was not as sharp as it had once been. Which was to say it was the point of a sword instead of a dagger. Four years was not a long time even for humans – the last sight of her brother and Lord playing behind her eyes still stung tears from her.

Since Jakob only had noticed her distress, she allowed herself some license for the slip. His deceptively drowsy gaze missed little, which she had seen demonstrated at more than one meeting table. She essayed a serviceably plausible smile, meeting his gaze without waver. “Thank you, Jakob,” she replied. “The ride here was less than comfortable. I am more accustomed to larger aircraft.”

He smiled and nodded in agreement. “Winters are not the best time to be flying through these mountains, either. I’m surprised nobody complained.” One corner of his mouth quirked in sarcasm. “Probably all too excited to see what their money’s gone to.”

“Mr. Struyck, Ms. deAvalon?” Lisa Longines smiled politely. The other movers and shakers of cutting-edge American corporate research did not bother to disguise their amusement or impatience at the two laggards.

“This looks more like a luxury resort than a research facility!” complained Jefferson Butler. The founder and majority shareholder of the Sonrise Group conglomerate was fiercely proud of his company’s austere ethic. Labor unions had considered it a major victory when he’d agreed to subsidize ten percent of the cost of meals in Sonrise facility cafeterias. “A gymnasium, movie theater, private suites for staff with VCRs and videogames, for Christ’s sake!” He waved an indignant hand at the oak-panelled walls of the corridor in which they stood. “You can’t even tell you’re inside a mountain if you didn’t already know!” He shook his head. “I thought people were supposed to be working here, not living the life of Reilly!”

“For the researchers participating this will be their world, Mr. Butler,” Lisa reminded him, raising her tone to include all of the visitors. “They’ll have no contact with the outside world. No television, radio, telephone, or mail, even in case of a family emergency. Even when the access road is finished, they won’t be able to drive to the local bar, restaurant, or theater.” She smiled honey into the venom of her following words. “If they don’t have suitable means of recreation very soon we’ll have a mountain full of psychopaths, and then we’ll get no work done at all.” Laughter rewarded her with and doused Jefferson Butler’s ire.

“I see that some of the native stone has been left exposed,” commented Maxwell Dent. Dent was unique among the visitors in that his success was due mostly to his own inventive genius. He was acknowledged worldwide as both a brilliant scientist and engineer, and a shrewd enterpreneur. Rumors held that he’d invested in Mount Twilight in order to give himself a better workshop than he could afford on his own. He ran a finger along the planed granite wall section, tracing a vein of greenish-yellow crystal. “The color of this quartz is very unusual. Is that the reason it wasn’t panelled over?”

Lisa smiled and nodded. “It’s very striking, isn’t it? The whole mountain is shot through with it. The decorating staff felt it added a unique character to the paneling, a sense of strength and solidity they said.”

Blind fools, she thought. She concealed her disbelief with masterful art, pretending a mere aesthetic appreciation of the the strand of crystal winding its way through the dark granite. Had they one whit of awareness they’d realize the value and the danger of what they pass off as ‘exotic colored quartz.’ And the mountain is shot through with it? Not since crossing the Veil have I seen leystone in such quantity!

The crystal hummed with power and vibrated in her bones. On the world of her birth it was the center of technology. It grew in places where the currents of magic converged and slowed, coagulating from ephemeral to material. Mined, shaped, and carved with runes of power, it brought complex magic within reach of those with the least amount of talent for craft. Because it reacted to the will and intent of the one shaping it, it could do nearly anything. It was nothing more nor less than solidified magical energy, and they called it leystone.

Cold realization swept through her. That is the source of the taint! No, not the source, merely the conduit. Something else lives within this mountain, something dark and old and twisted. It has contaminated the leystone. Ladies, it may even be the reason so much leystone has grown here! She glanced at her companions as Lisa Longines, Director of Human Services for Mount Twilight continued to prostitute the possibilities of the ultra-top-secret research complex into which they had all bought. And eventually the evil will claim its due.

Ladies smile that I get what I need and get clear of this place, this world, before it happens.

On the edge of the Blasted Lands it waited.

That it was a vehicle none could dispute. The sleek lines of its hull, the windows tinted to enigmatic darkness, and most of all the eight mammoth tires supporting its bulk stalled any claim against its ability to pick up and move as needed. Beyond that, the level of its strangeness depended on one’s frame of reference.

To an Earthsider old enough to remember the world before Cantionis Terra it was an RV (Recreational Vehicle), well-appointed and with heartier suspension but otherwise no different from the legions of conveyances piloted by those who defined ‘roughing it’ as leaving behind only a solid foundation when they took their vacation on the road.

For the post-Warp generation the larger tires and higher ground clearance were standard issue for wilderness where one couldn’t count on miles of unbroken highway, because the land had changed its very shape. One would take for granted that the glossy hull and windows were forged one molecule at a time for maximum protection against the bandits and monsters which were part of the fallout of Cantionis Terra.

Finally, were a Feysider to violate the quarantine of the Blasted Lands and venture near enough to see the vehicle in any detail, they would wonder what uncouth noble had ordered the construction of a carriage so sturdy of line and ostentatious in size, but utterly lacking in proper scrollwork and heraldry.

As is often the case, the truth of the vehicle was more complex and wonderful than anybody would have suspected. Everybody who ever crossed its threshold got a taste of that truth, embodied by the oft-repeated exclamation, “It’s bigger inside than out!” Within the sleek hull lurked the accommodations of an entire multi-level house, including a full kitchen, dining room, spacious salon with fireplace, and even an infirmary and laboratory. The whole cubic area of the interior took up fully five times the vehicle’s exterior measurements.

Facile explanations of the mechanics behind the vehicle’s logic-defying interior capacity rolled off Nicholas Chandler’s tongue, followed usually by a disclaimer of ignorance as to how it was possible. The vehicle and its occupants had been led to believe its talents were the serendipity of a hyper-advanced prototype quantum computer, one of many technological miracles wrought by Struyck Worldwide’s laboratories. Nicholas Chandler had dubbed it ‘Morphy’ due to its ability to alter its outward shape and provide more interior space than should have been available within those contours.

But I’m more than that. Aren’t I?

I think, therefore I am, I think. With all due credit to Graeme Edge.

Time slipped its reins. This moment, this place became one fiber twisted into thread, the thread in turn a single weave of fabric, the fabric sewn into –

God’s jockstrap.

OK, not as funny as it sounded. The point is sometimes, just for a few moments, I can see it all at once and make sense of it without going crazy. Which goes way beyond ‘hyper-advanced prototype quantum.’

So what am I? I’ve been TARDIS to their Doctor for five years. But I feel like I’ve been around before that. I told Xander to give me to them because they needed me more than he did anymore. Didn’t I? Has that happened yet?

It feels like I’ve been asleep and dreaming until Zed and Nicholas regained their mindlink. Things started to shake loose when Nicholas took us Feyside the first time, but there’s still a lot missing. Which would explain why I’m continuing to let Nathan and Nicholas think I’m just a computer. Is that fair to them, given how much they depend on me? And when it comes time to tell them, how do I defend keeping it secret? Good thing I don’t have to worry about Zed saying anything!

The arrival of the drone claimed enough resources to delay further self-examination. Weird! Morphy rehashed its original annoyance. Last time here I was able to scan well into the region, I needed a drone only to gather physical samples. Now I can’t go more than a few meters past the edge of contamination before something messes up my dimensional interface. Remote drones lose contact only a little further, I can’t even track Nicholas past line of sight! Thank invisible forces the Aggressive Profile Tactical Suit doesn’t require any fancy tech, but using pre-recorded drone-delivered messages to communicate sucks! Whatever’s creating the interference I hope that city is as deserted as Akim said, because if it isn’t Nicholas is on his own!

The cityscape unfolding before Morphy’s senses distracted him. Beautiful.

On all levels the place was a matchless achievement. The order and obvious level of advance planning in the buildings and avenues appealed to the ‘hyper-advanced prototype quantum computer’ by their regularity and adherence to purpose-driven design. The juxtaposition of line and curve, degree and slope, construction more akin to growth without any jarring sign of masonry or welding sang to the part of Morphy which was still separating dream from waking reality. Even the stillness which should have been unnerving instead added to the fusion of art and practicality.

Best of all, the sensibility of the city’s layout made deducing the purpose of various districts a more precise exercise than blind guesswork. The area characterized by open courtyards bounding blocks of suites identical in size but differing in floorplan was clearly residential; those curving avenues lined by stalls and rooms of varying area but all featuring unobstructed space were ideal for commerce and little else; and the zone which alternated between modest chambers and grand auditoriums was most likely a seat of government or learning. Either way, that’ll be the most likely place for a library or archive.

Morphy edited the map, drawing a course between Nicholas’ last known location and the neighborhood needed. The updated file was stored in the drone’s hard drive and Morphy launched the remote unit back across the desolate landscape. Morphy included a reminder about the limits of the life support systems in the APTS which protected Nicholas from whatever hostile agents lurked out there.

Which raises another point, Morphy mused as the electronic version of a chill chased down its virtual spine. That city is in really good shape for a place that’s been deserted for years….

“Milady Most High, somebody is in the city!”

Moments such as this, Iarazyn reflected, I’m glad my courtly training included graceful table manners! She concealed the thud of her heart and the shiver that raised the skin at the back of her shoulders. Her concentration centered on the mouthful of salad she chewed without pause, chasing it down with a swallow of water. All the while she kept her gaze locked on the technician who’d burst into the dining room with such news. Her companions looked at each other with eyes of surprise, wonder, and dread, but all of them waited on their monarch to make first reply.

I can’t let fear run us, she told herself. We must keep our wits if we’re going to survive, not just react. She kept her manner calm, even skeptical as she responded to the technician. “Defend that statement,” she challenged. “How can you be certain of this?”

“Your pardon, Milady Most High,” the technician begged, bending low at the waist. Iarazyn’s cool reception doused some of his own panic, and reminded him he’d forgotten to bow on entering. “Somebody is accessing the city archives from a station in the trust chambers.”

A dream-memory stood up unbidden behind Iarazyn’s eyes. A figure in strange clay armor, the faceplate sliding upward to reveal starlike glory.

I am not your enemy.

She set her fork down and dabbed her lips on her napkin, then rose. “Show me,” she commanded. To the rest of the diners she said, “Enjoy the rest of the meal, it would not do for it to go to waste. I will return as quickly as I can.”

“Milady Most High!” Elder Trust Hamar Ytteras objected. “With all due respect to the need to conserve resources and your chef’s skills, you cannot expect us to simply stuff our gullets as though this were just another meal! Surely so important a development as this merits the review of the Royal Trust!”

Iarazyn paused at the dining room door and turned to nod at him. “Indeed it does, Hamar,” she agreed. “That is, if this is an actual living intruder and not another city system misbehaving.” She smiled. “Besides, the sight of the Lady Most High alone on an unknown errand wilI raise little notice among any witnesses. If members of the Royal Trust and high-ranking families were all seen interrupting dinner to huddle into the Information Ministry chambers, we risk a panic, do we not?” Her expression gained some hardness without losing any of the warmth in her smile. “Elders and friends, I promise that my return will include a full briefing on what we find.”

What is your name? Iarazyn asked the technician as they walked from the apartments currently serving as the royal residence and seat of government for the city-state of Fehrshyn.

C-Coba Daubei, Milady Most High, he answered, managing to stutter even in his mental reply. She had guessed at his lineage already, from the bluish sheen of his skin and sleepy-looking eyes.

Coba Daubei, she echoed. You bear a proud name. Your family has served our people faithfully and well for generations. Now it’s your turn. Do you know what you need to do?

N-No, Milady Most High.

Iarazyn glanced to each side of them without turning her head. Citizens looked up as they passed, each one recognizing her instantly. To think I was once the forgotten child! But for the lack of windows it was difficult to tell they were not simply inside a sprawling enclosed compound. We dug these rooms and passages when we needed more room, but couldn’t expand upward or outward anymore. Siege tunnels and chambers turned into shops, offices, homes. Nobody ever expected them to be put to their original purpose again!

She replied to Coba. You must calm down. I can hear your fear in your thoughts, see it in the way you walk. If I can, so can anybody else passing by. Do you understand?

I am sorry, Milady Most High. These days – my wife and children –

I know, she answered gently. My mother and too many of my friends. All of us lost pieces of our hearts when the storms passed the wards. But if we are to honor their lives and keep them in our memories, we must survive first. And fear will kill us as fast as our unknown enemy. You do not wish to be the agent of that.

Coba’s pace slowed noticeably, and the hunch of his shoulders unknotted. No, Milady Most High, he replied with deliberate casualness.

Now you honor your name, she praised him.

The Information Ministry took up much less space than its name implied. Past the entrance huddled rooms of unassuming size connected by halls wide enough to pass one another comfortably, but by no means grand. Most of the rooms were rarely entered except for maintenance, or on the rare occasion that a repair or upgrade was needed. Those rooms were crowded with pylons of metal and crystal through which ephemeral currents of energy flowed and pooled according to design and need. Seams of the same materials ran throughout the walls, connecting the datastores here to similar facilities elsewhere in the city. From such decentralized storage information flowed to readers and viewers in every home, store, and office in Fehrshyn. The city archives allowed anybody capable of reading and writing to access the accumulated history and knowledge of House Fehr and its peoples.

I wonder which should be the more frightening possibility, Iarazyn pondered as Coba led her to the main monitoring station. That an intruder is able to survive conditions above ground and access our archives, or that the archives themselves are becoming corrupt the same as the city’s cleaning systems? The image from days ago bloomed in her memory: her fellow explorer being crushed and disintegrated by the wards intended to keep dirt and litter off the streets. She shoved it down fiercely. Focus on making sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else, Iara, she scolded herself.

The senior monitoring officer stood as they entered. “Milady Most High!” she hailed, bowing. “Please forgive the disruption of your dinner. Your orders –”

Iarazyn waved an interrupting hand. “I know, I gave them. Show me what is going on.”

The officer bobbed her head and turned to the viewing pane. The hemispherical display jutted from a console, one of several which encircled the room. Glowing crystal keys studded the console around and below each pane, the whole arrangement lighting the room with a soft, eerie glow. “It started fourteen minutes ago,” the officer said, her tone leveling out as she slipped into reporting mode. “A series of failed entry attempts drew Monitor Daubei’s notice.” She nodded in Coba’s direction. “He verified the location of the attempts and alerted me.”

The viewing pane illustrated the officer’s narration. Access to the archives required a coded sequence, a measure designed to track each user’s history for easier retrieval later. The entry prompt appeared within the curve of the pane, quickly followed by a misspelled word. The entry attempt failed, probably due to the misspelling. No sooner was the denial issued than another misspelled attempt was made. The monitor pane quickly filled and the display began to scroll as attempts were made and denied virtually in the same second.

“See how fast the attempts are made, and how they’re all misspelled?” the officer said. “From that I feared the system had developed a flaw, like the cleaning systems.” She swallowed, obviously suffering her own tormenting recollection of the resulting horrors. “I blocked access from that station to make sure the flaw couldn’t spread.”

“Since I’m here now,” Iarazyn replied, arms folded across her chest, “I presume you were not successful.”

“I thought we were,” the officer told her. “Things were quiet for three minutes, then the same pattern started up from another station. The two stations are both within the chambers of the Royal Trust.”

“Did you cut off access again?” Iarazyn asked.

The officer’s eyes dropped. “I regret to say, Milady Most High, I was not fast enough this time. The intruder entered the archives.”

“But that is how we realized it is an intelligent intrusion,” Coba spoke up, “not a flaw! Milady Most High,” he added the honorific afterward to cover his lapse.

“What sort of information are they seeking?” Iarazyn demanded.

“See for yourself, Milady Most High,” the officer invited, waving a hand at the console.

“An excellent idea,” Hamar Ytteras said from the doorway. “Though if I may suggest an alternate stratagem for the same result?”

Iarazyn regarded the Elder Trust coolly. “I realize I left you with an invitation rather than a command, Hamar,” she said. “I had hoped you would repay that courtesy by accepting my judgement. After all, you did approve my Ascension on my mother’s death.”

Hamar smiled. “And when you have time to gain her level of experience, I’ve no doubt you’ll be as fine a Lady Most High as she was,” he assured her. “In the meantime,” he matched her tone, “I would hope Milady Most High would accept the counsel of the Elder Trust which has shown such faith.”

This is not the time for power games, Iarazyn cautioned herself. Aloud she replied, “What do you suggest, Elder Trust Ytteras?”

Hamar pointed at the viewing pane in which blocks of text now alternated with pictures and diagrams, as the unknown intruder probed further and further into the city archives, in search of… what? “We know where our visitor is,” he said. “I recommend getting a look at them, and perhaps inviting them in.”

From further out the city looks like something Syd Mead would have designed. It’s amazing to think a Feyside mind would step so far out of the box to even conceive that architecture! Jackson Chandler’s words hovered on the edge of Nicholas’ field of vision in a slender column of glowing text. As I get closer heartbreaking details become visible. Windows, balconies, and whole sections of those slender towers are missing, the graceful elevated roadways are broken in places. Most of all is the stillness. Nothing moves, not even undead. It looks like the Arasidhe reports are right – Fehrshyn’s a ghost town. Does that mean the Ferin are extinct? If they moved on, where did they go? How did they pass the Blasted Lands? And what did they leave behind?

Time’s up, the entry concluded. If I’m going to survive the trip back I’d best get a move on. Now that I know where the place is though, I’ll be back another day, with time enough to explore!

Nicholas stood in the middle of the street, in an intersection at the city’s edge. The division between city and wilderness was abrupt, like Fehrshyn had been built inside a huge container. Kandor, Nicholas thought, out of the bottle and back to full size.

He looked up, tracing the sweeping crescent of a causeway which joined two buildings on diagonally opposite corners of the intersection. The elevated path served two functions – not only did it allow easy transit across the wide avenue, but it sheltered the sidewalk underneath from direct sunlight. His eyes rose further, sliding along one building’s sleek, sloping height. Not a single crack. What did you think you saw, Dad?

One detail matched his father’s description. Not only was Fehrshyn empty of life, it was so quiet it seemed frozen between moments. Not even a breath of breeze moved to stir the dust that wasn’t there, anyway. Given that the Blasted Lands themselves were quiet except for the clack and shuffle of undead in tormented mimicry of their lost lives, and even the strongest winds seemed sluggish and muted. This place feels like it’s holding its breath.

So still was the city that the shrill hum of the returning drone’s motor seemed to blare through the suit’s speakers. Nicholas didn’t actually jump, but conceded the startled chill that skittered down his spine at the sudden noise. More spooked than I thought.

As the drone descended a different sensation ran through Nicholas’ nervous system. It had confused him the first few times he’d felt it because it defied normal classification. It was neither painful nor pleasant, but was ignorable only with effort. Earthside it had happened so rarely he’d attached no more importance to it than a random itch. Since visits to Shenn had become a regular habit he’d felt it daily. Finally he’d realized the common environmental factor that solved part of the mystery: the sensation always occurred when somebody was using magic nearby.

He spun in a quick circle, eyes searching the lengthening shadows. Nothing moved, but the sensation grew stronger. Energy was concentrating, focusing for a specific effect. Get the drone and get under cover. He reached up to guide the device to his hand, and his eyes widened. What the deuce!

The air curdled heatshimmer tentacles around the airborne remote. They twisted and probed, seeming more curious than malevolent, like an octopus looking for a way into a sealed can.

Figure it out later.

The drone’s descent had been slowed by the ephemeral assailant. Nicholas leaped into the air, fingers closing around the flat edge of the drone’s hull, and was already running by the time he hit the ground again. He sprinted for a nearby alley, hoping he was faster than the… right. Floating ghost-squid. Gaining the hoped-for protection of the narrow passage he stopped without a skid and flattened against one wall. All the stealth and subtlety he’d learned staying alive in post-Warp Earth’s wildlands went into holding absolutely still, not even breathing. A tap of one finger cut the drone’s motor.

Nicholas was glad his suit’s visor wrapped halfway around the helmet, affording him an unimpeded field of vision. His eyes darted all around, searching for the least wrinkle in the air that would indicate the thing’s approach. What if it can pass through solid matter? Suddenly the wall pressing against his back didn’t seem so safe.

Three minutes passed. Either the thing hadn’t been hostile to begin with, he’d lost it, Or it’s sneaky enough to wait until I come out. He shifted his grip on the drone, touching the tip of his index finger to the data port. Morphy’s analysis downloaded into the APTS’ onboard computer, data flickering softly across the inside of the visor. Two items were of highest priority: the route from Nicholas’ previous location to the most likely place in the city he could find information, and the countdown until he had to start back across the Blasted Lands with enough air to reach Morphy.

Countdown. Nicholas’ unruly mind suddenly made a connection between his own situation and a line from Jackson Chandler’s account. ‘Time’s up. If I’m going to survive the trip back…’

“Um, Dad?”

“Nicholas, what have I told you about that word?”

“If I can’t be sure enough of myself to speak without saying ‘um,’ don’t say anything.”

“Good.”

“Dad?”

“Yes, Nicholas?”

“I found a spacesuit in the shed.”

“Why were you opening sealed boxes in the shed, Nicholas?”

“I thought it was a coffin.”

“Understandable. Did you seal it back up?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Good.”

“Dad?”

“Yes, Nicholas?”

“Am I going to have to actually ask the obvious question?”

“You just did. Yes, it’s mine. Oscar and I are old friends who have been through many adventures. I just couldn’t bear to part with him after all the times he saved my life, so I put him in the shed. Besides, you never know when such a thing might come in useful, am I right?”

“Oscar?”

“Sure. What else would you name a spacesuit?”

Later! Nicholas scolded himself and set off across the city, following the course prescribed by Morphy. He kept on edge for the telltale tingle of magic, or any ominous shimmer in the air.

Morphy’s prescribed route overlaid the view through the APTS’ faceplate as a glowing line. The city was compact, barely eight kilometers in diameter. With an average run speed of twenty-five kilometers an hour and allowing for slowing and stopping to check for flying ghost squids, Nicholas reached his destination in just a few minutes. Now the fun part: find a library and hope their data storage is as advanced as the rest of this place.

Fortunately the Ferin were just as likely as any other society to keep familiar methods, refining details but staying within the perameters of what worked. On his previous visits to Shenn Nicholas had learned to use the Feyside version of a personal computer, alternately called a reader or a viewer on this side of the Veil. When he entered an amphitheatre dominated by terraced rows of chairs facing identical consoles, monitors suspended above them, he knew he was in the right place. The arrangement of glittering hemispheres made him feel as though he were standing inside a chandelier.

He chose a station at random and inspected the console. Gan, the universal language of commerce on Shenn, predated the Steel War and had survived mostly in its original form since inception. Nicholas had learned Gan as a child, though he hadn’t known it by that name – it was one of the ‘secret language’ games Jackson Chandler had played with his children. Some variation of symbology, he thought as he surveyed the keyboard. To be expected from an isolated society. Still recognizable though, if only by process of elimination.

He opened the circuit for the APTS’ external speaker, confident that these units were as responsive to spoken commands as those he’d seen elsewhere on Shenn. He parted his lips to speak the most likely command – and shut his mouth again.

Very deliberately he closed the speaker circuit. The city is unnaturally quiet. The ghost squid reacted to the drone’s motor. Reinforcing those observations was the experience that making as little noise as possible was always a wise course in an unknown, possibly hostile setting. With that thought Nicholas reached for the key which opened the viewer’s command line.

Two prompts appeared in the monitor, one above the other. With a little effort Nicholas translated the glyphs.

Local Files >

City Archives >

Nicholas blinked slowly as the significance of the second prompt percolated. Unlike many fictional worlds dominated by magic, Shenn equalled Earth in using technology to the benefit of everyday life. The difference was, on Shenn magic was technology. In some ways this made Feyside life easier.

One aspect in which Nicholas had seen Shenn completely lacking though, was information distribution. For all the scrying globes, magic mirrors, and telepathy, most information was still passed through a physical medium. The most advanced cities often used small portals to transport messages instantaneously, where most other regions still used couriers. One viewer could transmit information to another viewer, but that was the height of data sharing Feyside.

Could the Ferin have developed an Internet? If they had, his chances of finding his hoped-for answers had just gotten a lot easier. Assuming I can figure out their protocols. He checked the life-support countdown. He had forty-seven minutes before point of no return. He could survive here longer, but would not have enough air left to cross the Blasted Lands again. Plenty of time.

>Entry denied.

Or not. Internet and password security. What, did you think it would be simple? He smiled wryly. Guess I did.

In simplest terms, molecular engineering was about understanding how things were put together, and figuring out how to take them apart and put them together differently. This required a keen sense for patterns and relationships. A molecule was a fortress designed to maintain its own structure. Destroying it was easy, just attack it with enough force to overwhelm its integrity. Coaxing it to open up and rearrange itself took subtlety and persistence. The same was true of hacking into a computer network. A popular prank among Mount Twilight researchers was the building of elaborate data-mazes around their colleagues’ files. Nicholas had learned cyber-espionage out of self-defense. His fingers flew over the keys, typing words in Gan which represented concepts universal on both sides of the Veil. These would be the most commonly-used passwords, even allowing for cultural idiosyncrasies.

The timer had just ticked down to thirty-nine minutes. The entry prompt suddenly vanished, in its place glowed the legend:

Station locked.

Hm, he thought. Finite entry attempt limit? His brows knit in thought. He’d been halfway through his latest attempt when the lockout had happened. Possible system lag delayed the command…. He paused, ears straining against the silence in the amphitheatre, listening for any other sign that his presence had become unwelcome. When none came, he moved to the next station and resumed possible passwords.

>City Archives available. State query>

Nicholas couldn’t help the grin which stretched his lips. Let’s see what you’re made of , Master Control Program.

Past its digital ramparts the Ferin archives held nothing in the way of defenses, and their file structure was as straightforward as the design of the city. The only difficulty Nicholas encountered was in the differences of spelling and grammar which were part of Ferin Gan, again to be expected from a society which had lived in isolation for centuries. Now let’s see what they learned about the Blasted Lands.

A few minutes later he stopped, staring at the monitor. Something had begun pricking his subconscious, a vital clue he’d been overlooking. Now he saw it. On the file directory he’d opened, the files were arranged in order of the date on which they were last accessed. The date at the top of the list was nine days ago.

The fact knocked the chucks out from under a series of observations, starting a chain reaction of deduction which led inescapably to a conclusion which ran down Nicholas’ spine on icy spider legs. Contrary to popular belief and his father’s observations, Fehrshyn was not deserted because its inhabitants had died off or moved away years before.

It had been evacuated. Recently.

A cry of warning sounded from the back of his mind. Powerful magic was being invoked, close by. The flicker of light from behind him was a completely superfluous clue. Nicholas moved without hesitation, leaping from his chair and vaulting forward over the console. He cleared the monitor with room to spare, twisting in midair and hitting the floor of the next terrace with both feet, facing the source of the glare. His left arm raised, hand tilted downward to give clearance for the stubby tube which poked out of its gauntlet.

Armored, faceless figures reached from a crackling, swirling portal. They flailed and stared without eyes, caught off-guard by his agility. Their elongated proportions betrayed them as aerin, though of what Kin he couldn’t tell. But I have some idea! They’d obviously intended to grab him and haul him into the portal, and hadn’t bothered with a contingency plan.

The standoff maintained itself for a few moments more, the Earthsider in ceramic and Sylk and the aerin in gleaming alloy. Then a new figure emerged from the portal. Like her fellows she gleamed from crown to sole in metallic sheen. Unlike the others her features and the contours of her body were visible. Where her companions were obviously wearing armor, she seemed composed entirely of metal, at once impervious yet open.

She stepped forward and faced Nicholas, every centimeter exuding royal command. Please come with us. Her thoughts echoed against his mental shields. I know you are not our enemy. It is not safe here. You seek answers, so do we. Perhaps we can each aid the other.

Nicholas debated for only a moment. Then, as if he were on the threshold of a friend’s house, walked serenely around the bank of consoles and up the short set of stairs. He ignored the faceless aerin and stopped before their steel-skinned leader. She beckoned toward the portal, indicating that he should enter first. Without hesitation, he did.

 Kaleidoscoping reality resolved into a sparsely-appointed chamber whose primary virtue was plenty of space. It was obviously intended as a nexus for portal travel. Nicholas needed only a moment to see all there was to see about the room, which freed him afterward to take in the details of the grim-faced guards who surrounded him. They stood beyond arm’s reach, each pointing a cestus at him. The cestii wouldn’t have been a credible threat at such range, but the black crystal lens which adorned each one and glowed indigo hinted that they were more than just melee weapons.

A surprising note in the composition of the squad facing him: not only were they not all Ferin, they were not all aerin! An equal number of humans wore the uniform and wielded the weapons. Nicholas knew that most cities on Shenn practiced a subtle form of speciesism – whichever race had founded the place or were the most populous among the residents, usually held the influential posts and formed most or all of the local garrison. The only exception he’d seen to that rule was in Embron. And that only happened when Zed became Captain! This multiracial force facing him appealed to his egalitarian nature, and added to House Fehr’s stature in his eyes.

His escort emerged from the crackling portal and with one exception moved quickly across the room, beyond the menacing cestii. The one who remained was, not surprisingly, the aerin female of living metal. She looked down at him from an advantage of five centimeters and generations of training in regal poise.

A retainer stepped forward just close enough to offer a robe. She draped it around herself and its panels folded shut on their own. Nicholas was familiar with the Earthside equivalent of smart clothes and had seen them in use before on Shenn. More surprising was how the metal faded from her skin, as though being pulled back inside her flesh. Eyes which had glinted in literally steely fashion now regarded him in amethyst curiosity from a face whose skin glinted in more muted tones of a similar hue. Hair the color of bronze framed the features before draping down over shoulders and back.

I am Lady Most High Iarazyn Fehr of House Fehr. The introduction resonated off Nicholas’ shields. I know you understand me. What is your name and business in our land?

Nicholas checked the countdown. Twenty-seven minutes and change. No time for games. If he were going to get answers and make it back alive, he’d have to play his hand in the open. He tapped a control on one gauntlet, and swallowed to equalize pressure as the APTS’ faceplate slid open.

“Milady Most High, my name is Nicholas Chandler,” he replied aloud, meeting her eyes. He enunciated carefully, aware that the local dialect of Gan had undoubtedly gained its own idiosyncrasies over five thousand years of isolation. “I come looking for a cure to the Blasted Lands. I need your help.”

Iarazyn blinked. The guards traded quick glances, their eyes wide. Nicholas wondered for a moment if he’d mispronounced part of his introduction, and had just delivered a grave insult. Well, if they shoot me I’ll know I did.

Then Iarazyn smiled with undisguised skepticism, and the tension in the room loosened a notch. “Has the verdict of the Court Assembly softened over the years, then?” she asked. Her accent was unfamiliar, but not impossible to understand. Like talking to a Scotsman for the first time. “It was part of our sentence that the Ferin remain in exile until we can remove the poison from our old demesnes. None were allowed to aid us, on pain of death.” Her head tilted to one side in quizzical fashion. “Or do you come in defiance of the Assembly’s order?”

Nicholas scowled, eyebrows and moustache describing parallel lines of determination. “I don’t believe in sacrificing welfare for politics,” he retorted. “The Blasted Lands are an open sore that needs to heal, for everybody’s good. I’ve made some progress on my own, but not enough. I came here hoping to find the pieces I’m missing.” One corner of his mouth quirked. “I expected to find a lost city. The rest of the world thinks you all died off years ago.”

Iarazyn nodded, returning the smirk. “As we wished them to,” she told him. “A poor welcome it is, but it’s the best I can offer, Nicholas Chandler, to Fehrshyn.” She beckoned as she turned, nodding at the guards. They lowered their weapons and parted to permit passage. “Come. There is much to discuss, and it’s best we start as soon as possible.”

Nicholas hesitated. Twenty-five minutes. Unless…. “Your pardon, Milady Most High. Are your portals able to cross the Blasted Lands?”

She turned back around. Pain shadowed her eyes, not physical but just as sharp. “Last week, yes. These days, much has changed.”

Damn. “Then I regret I have to be rude in the name of survival,” he told her. “Unless I want to take up residence here, I have to leave within the hour.”

Iarazyn nodded. Nicholas could see her mind working in the intensity of her gaze. After a moment she relaxed, but made no move toward the door. “Do you thirst?” she asked suddenly. “Or hunger?”

“No, thank you.” He actually did both, but the urges were manageable. More urgent was his awareness of time slipping away. With the protection of the APTS at his disposal and now knowing the route, he could return without much trouble. But to waste even this trip! He squelched the urge to ask why they delayed. Her Ladyship Most High obviously had the matter in hand. Not like I could make a break for it anyway. Feels underground, but I’ve no idea where we are!

“Milady Most High, what happened to your city?” He gestured upward. “Why are your people hiding down here?”

Haunting pain slid across her eyes again. She steeled herself with visible effort and regarded him. “A full explanation, if I had one, would take more time than you have, Master Chandler. And in truth, I hope that in finding your answers, you might help us understand as well.” She paused and looked away to recent memory. “Nine days ago a wind like none had ever seen blew in from the Blasted Lands. We’ve long ago crafted complex wards to hold the taint at bay. This storm cut through them as if they were the simplest cantrip.”

Her expression hardened to hold in the grief. From the edges of his vision Nicholas could see the faces of the guards, alternately mirroring her stoicism or letting their own pain show through “All who were outside at the time, or who were near enough any door or window, were caught,” she continued. “It was as if the Blasted Lands had gathered the worst of its poison and sent it against us. Where exposure normally kills in days, they died in moments.

“The Blasted Lands madness seemed to infect the wards which protected and served us, as well.” Iarazyn’s tone had become remote, a dry recitation of facts. “The systems which cleaned the streets took any living thing, even plants, as a contamination. Of one million, six hundred forty-one thousand, one hundred ninety-eight, we now number only forty-three thousand, two hundred fifty-one.”

The doors opened to admit a cobalt-skinned Ferin wearing a nondescript tunic and pants. He goggled at Nicholas as he crossed the room, holding a small crystal cylinder out toward Iarazyn. Her Ladyship Most High accepted the item with a nod and bare smile. “Duremei, Coba,” she said to the messenger. Nicholas presumed she was speaking in the native Ferin language. Insight flashed in his mind as he realized what Her Ladyship Most High had done.

His deduction was confirmed a moment later when Iarazyn handed him the cylinder. “Take this and go, Nicholas Chandler,” she told him. “In it is all we have learned of the Blasted Lands over the past five thousand years. Ladies smile that you will return to us with some hope.”

No pressure, Nicholas thought to himself.

“Milady Most High, you should not have let him leave,” Hamar Ytteras rebuked gently.

Within the depths of the scrying globe Nicholas Chandler loped beyond the borders of Fehrshyn into the Blasted Lands, covering ground with matchless speed. The Elder Trust and Lady Most High watched the image from the comfort of the royal quarters. The other dinner guests had long since finished their meal and left.

“By what pretext could I have kept him here, Hamar?” Iarazyn retorted. “He came to us willingly, and made no secret of his business. Should I have rewarded his candor with captivity?”

“He is an outsider,” Hamar protested. “Who now knows our most precious secrets: that we live, and are weakened. Also if I may say, Milady Most High showed remarkable ingenuousness in how much credit you placed in his explanation for his presence.”

Iarazyn favored Hamar with a caustic smile. “By ingenuousness you mean gullibility, Elder Trust.” Her gaze turned thoughtful as she regarded the image within the globe. “Were our circumstances different,” she murmured, “I would have been less likely to take him at face value.” And but for sake of a dream…

Iarazyn paused to digest the thought, then offered a non sequitur. “Perhaps it was a mistake to let the world think us dead.”

Hamar did not bother to disguise his pique at her statement. “To voice such an idea now!” he cried. “Fast on the heels of a catastrophe which drives us to all but extinction comes a human who can cross the Blasted Lands at will, something we have yet to manage. What does that say of the world beyond Fehrshyn?”

He raised his hands to concede a point before Iarazyn could answer. “I will grant that we should not have so blissfully ignored the rest of Shenn as we convinced them to disregard us, for now we cannot claim any certain knowledge of Nicholas Chandler’s motives beyond his words. But don’t forget, Iara!” He emphasized the warning with an extended finger. “It was the will of the first Court Assembly that exiled us within the Blasted Lands. Perhaps their resolve has softened over the years. It is just as likely that were they to discover we have survived, they might decide to give truth to our subterfuge!”

“Given all that you say,” Iarazyn countered without taking her eyes from the scrying globe, “the inescapable reality is that we are not just on the edge of extinction, we are still rushing toward it. How much time remains before our stores of food and water are gone? To say nothing of everything else we need for basic survival!” Her lips set in a line of adamant resolve. “Every day we spend arguing the point kills us a bit more.” She looked at him again. “You made me Lady Most High for decisions like this, Hamar. Do you regret your choice?” Challenge was evident in her question, moreso in her expression.

“Even if that were true,” Hamar replied in even tones, answering her dare by ignoring it, “the greater good is not served by the people seeing conflict between their leaders. You have made the choice, Milady Most High. Ladies smile on us all for its outcome.”

That the Elder Trust avoided her question was not lost on Iarazyn. I know I wouldn’t have been their first choice if they’d had one. I wouldn’t have been mine, either. But since all the better candidates are dead, we’re stuck with me.

“What’s that?” Hamar suddenly demanded, his gaze drilling into the scrying globe.

Iarazyn whipped her own eyes around. The image was blurry. Something had risen in the Blasted Lands ever since that horrible day, some interference that drastically shortened effective scrying and portal range. Nicholas Chandler still ran and leaped across shattered desolation. For a moment she was caught by the human’s unbelievable prowess. Without a single slip or misstep he moved, as if the suit protecting him were no more cumbersome than his own skin. The most gaping of crevasses presented only passing challenge, cleared as if he had a Zefin’s ethereality.

Then she saw what had provoked Hamar’s outburst. Darkness paced Nicholas’ heels, just at the edge of the globe’s view. A behemoth from Shenn’s most remote wildlands might cast such a shadow, if such a creature were to brave the Blasted Lands’ poison. But no wyrm or giant bird moved within the globe, nor did the darkness move as if a solid source blocked the fading sunlight. More like a wave gathering, building and twisting into itself before crashing down.

Hamar leaped at the globe’s controls. Deft fingers twisted and brushed the metal and gemstone studs, refining the image quality and adjusting the point of view. Now Nicholas ran toward them, and behind him a cloud of dust and bone roiled as it was borne aloft by a rushing wind.

“The wind!” Hamar cried. “The deathwind!”

An apt name, Iarazyn granted, morbidly rapt by the spectacle. The wind which had breached Fehrshyn’s wards and decimated its people had looked something like this, whipping loose bits of debris through the streets. Its killing strength had been the infection of flesh and mind which had earned the Blasted Lands their reputation. Nicholas Chandler did not depend on ephemeral lattices of energy for protection. His strange suit had already withstood one trek across the venomous region, and he had seemed confident it would continue to serve so as long as its resources allowed.

But the storm which raged and raced to overtake him was more than just poisoned air. Debris whipped through its currents with enough force to shred flesh and shatter bone. Was his armor proof against such fury? Was he even aware of the danger?

He was. He spared no glance behind but his pace increased, strides lengthening to stay ahead of the tempest. “He races the wind itself!” Hamar marveled. “Surely no human is equal to such a feat!”

“This is I think,” Iarazyn breathed, “no ordinary man.”

For several heartbeats it looked as though Nicholas would succeed. His legs were a blur as he shot across the wasted terrain. A particularly expansive tear in the landscape yawned in the foreground of the globe’s view, ahead of him. It was a known landmark for the thick litter of bones in its depths, especially the bleached remains of a great dragon which had somehow been caught in the birth of the Blasted Lands.

“Ladies!” Hamar exclaimed.

Iarazyn let his horror speak for them both. An abomination rose out of the crevasse as Nicholas approached. Its base was the great dragon’s skeleton, but festooning those huge bones in an obscene mockery of flesh were the remnants of the other dead which had lain in their mass grave. Iarazyn and Hamar saw it from the rear, but the spectacle suffered no less impact for that vantage.

Nicholas did not falter. He hit the edge of the crevasse and leaped, legs pumping as if runing on the air, straight at the horrid amalgam of undead bone. Behind him the storm raged, reaching for him with its deadly hail. Hamar and Iarazyn stared, neither daring to breathe. The revenant lunged, jaws spread and twisted sideways, intent on scissoring the human between rows of broken fangs. Its aim was just slightly askew, but would still catch his legs.

An armored sole hit a tusk and pushed off. Without missing a pace Nicholas sprinted the length of the dragon’s skull and jumped from between the sweeping horns. The momentum of the beast’s lunge carried it into the storm. Even magically reanimated ancient bone was no match for windswept stone. The amalgamated bone-creature dissolved, lending its mass to the storm’s grinding maw.

Booted feet struck dust from the ground on the far side of the crevasse and Nicholas took off again, the storm still close behind. “Amazing,” Hamar whispered, eyes agog. But the Blasted Lands would not be so easily denied.

At first it seemed as though the human was faltering, stumbling. Had he injured himself in his incredible leap? Then Iarazyn and Hamar understood what they were seeing. The ground beneath Nicholas’ feet cracked and split, alternately opening bottomless sinkholes or spewing up more skeletons, all intent on his destruction.

“The lands themselves turn against him!” Iarazyn finally found her voice. “What is happening?”

“He’s caught,” Hamar said, unable to tear himself away. “There’s no way even he can avoid all of that!”

“There’s one way,” Iarazyn said as inspiration struck. She leaped to her feet and ran from the room as Hamar stared after her. Her thoughts raced ahead of her feet, reaching for a certain member of her staff and explaining what she wanted.

How? came the challenge.

He’s the only living thing out there,she retorted. Focus on that!

The portal was already twisting open as she reached the reception chamber, its edges sparking and crackling as time and space were pulled apart. Iarazyn raced forward, her inner reserve flowing out through her pores and encasing her skin. Through the chaos of the portal’s face she glimpsed a familiar form, twisting and spinning to avoid bony grasping hands and windflung bits of rock. She reached through, caught one arm, nearly lost it but redoubled her grip, and yanked with all of her strength.

Nicholas Chandler flew out of the portal. Iarazyn lost her balance as he emerged, falling back to land on her armored posterior. The human landed on top of her, and she was glad to have encased herself or she would surely have had something bruised or broken. Behind him some of the freshly-exhumed undead had found the portal and were coming through, still intent on their prey.

Nicholas rolled off of Iarazyn and sprang to his feet, backing up until his back pressed against the wall. Though the dark visor of his suit hid his features, his body language spoke eloquently of confusion and near-panic.

“Shut it!” Iarazyn screamed.

The portal-caller clapped his hands together on the rune he held, hard enough to crack the crystal lens in the center of the tile. The portal vanished with a cough and a pop. Bones clattered to the reception chamber floor as a skeletal revenant was bisected just below one shoulder.

“Nicholas Chandler,” Iarazyn said as she sat up, “welcome back to Fehrshyn.”

The estate of the late, unlamented Lady Kethine Eona was large, luxurious, and unnervingly quiet. Scant days had passed since Embron’s streets had run with blood and screams. Residents were barely getting used to life on their own terms, instead of the sufferance of authorities which were by whim impotent or authoritarian, consistent only in their level of corruption. Among the changes which required the most adjustment was a City Guard whose membership included ‘shapeshifting beasts.’

Frred’s hackles rose every time he heard a townie use those words when talking about his people. Jealousy, that was it. Just because they were all stuck with one form, they had to talk down those who could adjust bone and muscle to the occasion.

In fairness Frred had to admit that other hnzruu bands had done little to change that reputation. Their world was all the hunt and the trail. If it didn’t bring prey to ground faster or keep rival bands further away, it wasn’t worth knowing. Like everybody else Frred knew the story of how Bolt of Tantarel had convinced Lead Sascha that other people’s learning and memory held lessons as important as any hnzruu lore. That hadn’t been a popular idea with the other bands. They took it to mean that Starclaw Band was at best showing weakness, or at worst cheating and needing reminders of proper hnzruu behavior. And when they tried and failed because Starclaw used tactics learned from books, that only made them more mad and determined to force them back to the ‘right’ way of doing things.

Bolt knew what Starclaw’s choice was costing them, and had promised to come up with a solution. Two weeks ago he’d delivered: they could have a home where people understood the value of learning that came from books, and a place in society that demanded respect. All they had to do was clean out some brigands. That had been the fun part.

After that life wasn’t a lot different than before. No matter that they’d put the real monsters down, townies looked at them and saw only beasts. Fear was always in the air when they were on patrol, and when they helped people sometimes forgot to say thank you because they were anxious for them to just go away.

But the other Guards knew the truth. They and Bolt, Lieutenant Doren, the Captain, and His Lordship and Her Ladyship treated them like true people. Lead Sascha and Uncle Tiy said give the townies time and they’d learn. The important thing was to behave themselves, show they could be depended on and trusted.

So even though there was little danger of thieves, Frred took the responsibility of patrolling the deserted estate seriously. He’d heard that Lady Kethine Eona had been killed, and that there was a lot of argument over what was to be done with all of her things because she was one of those who’d made Embron a nasty place to live. More detail than that didn’t really interest Frred – he liked learning, but had already discovered that not all knowledge was interesting or useful.

He loped through the hallways on four legs. Running was faster that way, and his nose was closer to the ground to pick up scents from any intruders. Not a single click of claw against stone betrayed his passage. Heavy drapes shrouded all of the windows, but more than enough light leaked around them for hnzruu eyes. Nose and ear reached around him, telling him tales of recent days and the current quiet of the place.

Doors had been left ajar to make patrolling easier. Frred ducked in and out of room after room, pausing just long enough to make sure everything was where it belonged. He sneered in ascetic disdain at the accumulation of furniture and decoration. Townies put such value in things they couldn’t use, and the wealthiest ones wasted too much time and effort collecting such baubles! Hnzruu were a practical breed – if it didn’t feed you, keep you warm, or protect you, it wasn’t worth having.

The only exception Frred allowed in his sneering survey was the library. Whether Lady Kethine had been intellectual enough to actually read them or just wanted to show off, her collection was impressive and tempting. Frred reminded himself that his duty was to patrol the entire house, even though this was obviously the most valuable room! He turned resolutely on his rear paws, shoving himself out of the empty room.

Or not quite so empty, he amended as he heard a breath behind him. The exhaled air was subtle and herbal – either the intruder’s last meal had been bland, or they chewed spices to mask their scent. Too bad for you that my ears are as sharp as my nose, Frred thought with a grin.

Time to play doggie-style. He skidded to a stop in the doorway and lifted a hind leg to scratch behind one ear. The impromptu grooming allowed him to turn his head toward the source of the breath without betraying his awareness. The scant light betrayed a slender form crouching below a window, obviously counting on the eclipsing sill for shadow. The intruder was dressed for business, form-fitting black all over. A tight cap of dark curly hair betrayed that only the head was exposed.

Frred feigned a deep sigh of relief as he defeated the imaginary flea, using the inhalation to draw a better scent of the burglar. Male, human, about Frred’s age. Clean but not perfumed. He had a scent of wood and cured sinew on him, strong enough to suggest he carried a weapon.

Suddenly Frred placed the scent. This was one of the city’s orphans! He remembered because Uncle Tiy had needed to explain the idea of unwanted children. Also recalled was the night of Embron’s siege, when Frred and his fellow pups had routed a group of brigands intent on raiding the orphanage in revenge for the humiliation of one of their number. One of the orphans had used a slingshot from cover with deadly success, and later was very proud of his own prowess. That same boy –Arjae, that was his name – now crouched beneath the library window. What was he doing here?

Stealing, of course. This was another weird townie concept to hnzruu, whose idea of property ownership was most accurately described as situational. Even so, Frred understood the rudeness of taking something of value from another person without asking. With a grin stretching his muzzle Frred trotted across the library. He aimed straight at Arjae, looked him in the eye, not at all hiding his awareness of him.

Because of this Frred had no trouble seeing the eloquent sideways flick in the orphan’s gaze. The boy’s eyes didn’t shift in the manner of noticing something behind Frred. Instead they moved like a pointing finger, silently commanding “Look over there, you idiot!” Frred deciphered the warning just a moment before his ears caught the whisper of movement from behind. Something narrow and hard hissed through the air where his skull had just been, but Frred had already twisted and backed away to allow distance for a counterattacking leap.

Four shadows seemed to have come loose from the wall. They spread out as they approached, moving low and fast in fighting crouches, hands gripping weapons which shared the virtues of concealability and quiet use. They had to be aware of Arjae, but obviously considered him little threat. Frred was not flattered by this. He backpedalled, trying to sort out the conflicting messages from his senses. He’d heard their movement at the failed surprise attack and he saw them clearly in the darkened room, but now his ears and nose said Arjae and he were alone in the library!

Of course Frred was not the only Guard on duty in the old Eona estate. Bandmates Lien, Farni, and Vynx had been assigned the patrol as well. They were currently outside, in easy range of a howled alert. In the time it would take them to get here the fight would be over with. Frred’s muzzle curled in a snarl. He might fall, but he wasn’t going to run.

THAK

One of the shadows looked down suddenly, as if curious to see what might have fallen to the floor and made such a sharp sound. A closer look was apparently warranted. Its head continued down closer to the floor, and its body was inclined to follow. The next nearest shadow faltered in its sure approach, head whipping sideways to gawk at its collapsing comrade. The remaining two were more interested in Frred, at least until their friend’s head bounced off the hardwood parquet.

THAK, sang the orphan’s slingshot again.

The remaining pair of shadows finally realized the boy crouching by the window was as dangerous as the ‘beast’ before them. One of them spun and leaped in the same fluid motion, bludgeon raised to stave in Arjae’s tousled curls. The one facing Frred lunged forward, something slender and pointed stabbing in the general direction of his eyes or throat. Both attackers obviously trusted their colleague to watch their backs.

Such tactics are only as tried-and-true as the partner whose truth you are trying. Irony ruled the encounter, as orphan and pup who knew each other barely in passing proved better allies than their enemies. Arjae rolled off a shoulder and came up with his weapon of choice loaded, cocked, and aimed, leaving himself open for the impending cleft of his skull. Likewise Frred leaped with jaws spread and trained on the nape of the intruder foolish enough to present such a tempting target, incidentally presenting his throat and face for impalement if Arjae’s slingshot missed its mark. Mandible and stone struck true. Club and stiletto, not so much. Frred held his fangs in check, squeezing his opponent’s airway without puncturing while he used his weight to bear them to the floor. Arjae’s skill spoke for itself once more with a succinct THAK…thud.

With the more immediate threat prostrate on the library floor, Frred let his concern gravitate back to its original quarry. Arjae was already perched on the open windowsill, hand cocked to his brow in a jaunty salute. “Hold!” Frred yipped softly.

“For what?” Arjae hissed.

“I know you!” Frred proclaimed. “I must report this, and I’ll not lie!”

“So don’t,” Arjae told him. “Just let them think you took them all down, hero!”

“Nobody’ll ever believe that!”

“Won’t they?”

Shame brought hesitation. ‘Fastest, smartest, bravest, most agile’ were attached to the name Frred Starclaw only in terms of describing qualities he lacked. Didn’t the encounter just passed prove that? Of four attackers he’d downed only one! If Arjae hadn’t warned him, he’d have been taken totally unaware!

“No,” he replied with lowered brow, masking the hurt with a sullen growl. “They won’t.” His glare sharpened at Arjae. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “His Lordship promised to take better care of the orphanage! You don’t need to steal anymore!”

“I’ll tell you,” Arjae offered, “if you promise to not say you saw me.”

Frred mentally gnawed on the proposition. Duty said he should refuse. What matter was it which of the treasures in the house the boy was after? He was a thief, and the whole reason Frred and his bandmates had been assigned here was to prevent thieves.

“Look here,” Arjae said, climbing down from the window. “You’re a Guard. Your job here is to keep people from stealing stuff.” His words echoed Frred’s thoughts so closely he wondered if the boy had gotten through his shields. They also added allure to the argument which followed. “Well, you did that. It’s not a lie. If you hadn’t been here, these scoundrels would have gotten away with whatever they came for. Who else would have stopped them?” He added a meaningful arch to his eyebrows with the question.

Frred thought he understood. Arjae had betrayed the other intruders in hopes that he could escape or complete his own errand while the Guard were busy with them. But if that were true…. “Why did you help me?”

Arjae shrugged casually. “I didn’t like the odds. I figured to level things up a bit, then get clear while you finished them. So,” he twisted the conversation back to his preferred topic, “deal? You say nothing about me, and I’ll tell you why I’m here? Come on, what d’you got to lose?”

The boy’s glib tongue danced circles around Frred’s best attempt at Guardly suspicion. He was sure he was being played, but couldn’t see what he stood to lose. He didn’t have to lie, just leave some details unspoken.

But what if somebody asked about the intruders’ wounds? Or worse, if the intruders woke up and told what really happened? Frred imagined the disappointed looks on Uncle Tiy’s and Lead Sascha’s faces, already an expression with which he was painfully familiar. Worse, what would the Captain think? He’d be done as a Guard, maybe even out of the band!

“No,” he answered, slowly and deliberately. “I have a better deal for you. You don’t try to escape, and I’ll tell everybody that you helped me catch these thieves.” He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. How was he sounding so confident? “When anybody asks you what you were doing here…” He shrugged. “What you say is your choice.”

Arjae’s charming grin was suddenly brittle as old glass. Frred frantically reviewed his own words. He was certain he’d overlooked something, left a hole for Arjae to wriggle free. Frred Starclaw just wasn’t that clever!

Suddenly Arjae chuckled and shook his head. “Well played,” he said. He looked up and waved his arm around the room. “I was after these.”

Frred blinked and looked around. As he’d seen before, the walls were fully appointed with shelves, leaving space only for windows. The shelves were packed with books, no decorations or baubles in between. Slowly he turned his face back to Arjae. The smirking grin was gone, and with it the obvious artifice. Either the boy was playing him even harder, or not at all.

“You came to steal books?” Frred asked.

“Rescue!” Arjae corrected fiercely. “Before they get sold off and hidden in some other grand house where only fine lords and ladies will ever read them, if they care to bother and not just treat them as decorations or trophies!” He leaned forward as if to reveal a secret. “D’you know where she got most of these?”

Frred shook his head. Arjae’s scent had sharpened the way a human’s did when they were excited or intense about something. There was no faking that – he was telling the truth.

“Embron used to have a library,” Arjae told him. “I never saw it, but Matron told us about it. When the last Lord left and House Shad had to hire the regent, one of the first things he did was cut off money for a lot of city services. One of ‘em was the library. Matron says he did it because people were complaining about taxes. But that wasn’t all!” His brows knit together in righteous fury. “He sold the books, all of ‘em that would sell. Lady Kethine bought most of ‘em, and here they’ve been.”

Grim pride brought a dark smile to Arjae’s face. “I been coming here a lot while she was still alive,” he boasted. “Nobody ever caught me. Borrow one book at a time, bring it back after all the kids were done with it. Now she’s dead, it’s our last chance to have any of ‘em.” He scowled and shrugged. “Only now Captain’s gonna lock the place up tighter’n ever, once they know what happened tonight. So much for Embron’s new golden age.”

Frred barely heard that final bitter sentiment through the noise of his own thoughts. He’d heard the word ‘brainstorm’ before and knew what it meant. His thoughts often tumbled over each other, but more in the manner of a gaggle of clumsy pups not yet used to their own paws rather than anything as orderly as a tempest. Why Arjae’s earnest words had triggered such a reaction in him he’d riddle later. One certainty hovered in the center of his whirling thoughts: the fate Arjae described as impending for this wonderful collection couldn’t come to pass. Even if he couldn’t save the whole library, maybe just a few volumes….

He turned around. “Hit me,” he instructed.

“What?” Arjae blurted.

“Knock me out,” Frred told him. “Take what you can carry and escape. Quickly, before I realize what a mistake I’m making!”

Frred woke up later to the soothing hum of a knitting rune pressed against his brow, his bandmates, Uncle Tiy, and the Captain looking down at him. The plan worked better than he hoped. He didn’t even have to really lie. They drew their own conclusions. Obviously he’d interrupted an attempted burglary and made the best response he could, only to be laid low. Then a disagreement between the thieves had turned violent, and the winner had escaped in a panic. Frred endured with patient grace the rebukes for trying to take on five opponents by himself instead of calling for help. It was after all, exactly the sort of mistake one would expect from an overeager, well-meaning but none too bright pup.

A week later he returned to his bed at the end of the day, only to find a hard, rectangular obstruction under his pillow. He read the book cover to cover and put it where he’d found it. A few nights later it was replaced with a different one. Then the news came that His Lordship was reopening Embron’s library, and the night-time book-loans ended.

And that, Frred thought eight months later, brings us to what we’re doing tonight.

“I don’t believe you talked me into this,” he whispered.

“Aye, you do,” Arjae hissed back.

“Aye,” Frred returned, “I do. What I don’t ken yet is why.”

“’Cause you know I’m always right,” Arjae informed him.

“Proving only that scoundrels know their own,” Frred growled in Arjae’s ear. The two youths crouched in a shadowed alcove, one of several nooks which accented the corridors of Embron’s new City Guard Garrison. Each boasted a single lantern, creating a twilit atmosphere in the halls. In fairness to practicality, the resultant shadows were shallow and slight. One needed to be small and skilled in stealth to make advantage of them.

Arjae grinned, reaching up to grab and tugged Frred’s ear. As was his custom, the hnzruu was in four-legged form. Thick, coarse fur covered him from nose to tail in nondescript grey-brown which mostly recalled the soil of a well-worn trail rut two days after a rain. His long, narrow muzzle, sharply-peaked ears, slender torso, and long legs put one in mind of something lupine, but neither precisely a wolf or coyote. His human companion’s colors complemented him with dusky skin and ebon curls crowning his scalp.

“You could’ve stayed behind,” Arjae reminded him.

“Leaving you on this errand alone,” Frred retorted, “at the mercy of the Academy’s finest.”

“Have to catch me first!” Arjae riposted.

Frred’s muzzle snapped upward, nostrils flaring. “Here she comes,” he whispered.

The pair pressed further back into the alcove, though they were already fully eclipsed. Their quarry strolled down the passage in the basement of the garrison with complete assurance of authority. Arjae whipped one hand up, a flat rectangular object pointing one face at the new arrival – a mirror bound in an ornate metal frame. The enchanted glass recorded the image reflected in its silvered depths, and could replay it on demand.

The Terine sergeant in Academy colors acknowledged Lady Shima Fyn’s arrival with unceremonious efficiency, turning quickly to the door and releasing the bolts which secured it to its frame and pulling the heavy slab aside. No sooner had Lady Shima entered the chamber than the sergeant gently secured the door, on guard against excessive noise.

Arjae lowered the mirror and turned an exultant grin to Frred. Frred frowned thoughtfully, ears twitching. “Orders are nobody goes in after they’re done for the day,” he whispered. “I’m not even supposed to be this close without a good reason. Still…”

“Still, nothing!” Arjae protested. “Even if it’s authorized, why’d she lock the door? So nobody walking by’d think anything was wrong!”

“Every night, you said?” Frred sought confirmation.

Arjae shook his head emphatically up and down. “Never takes anything in or out, but spends at least a couple hours in there every night!”

Frred nodded. “So we’ll tell Uncle Tiy,” he decided. “Or take it to the lieutenants. They’ll get it sorted.”

Arjae used his lips and tongue to mimic a rude sound which usually came out the other end, which earned him a glare from Frred. He shrugged. “Coulda done that myself. Just thought maybe you’d like a chance to put the Eona thing to rest for once and done.” His eyes twinkled with a mischief which belied his offhand tone.

Frred stifled a growl at the reminder. “Got off discipline for that months ago,” he pointed out.

“Aye,” Arjae agreed readily, still smirking. “Everybody still talks about it though, don’t they?”

Frred was forced to begrudge the point. “All right mastermind,” he muttered. “What’s the plan?”

“We record her coming out,” Arjae replied, “and wait’ll she’s out of sight. Then we follow her scent to where she’s going. Then we call Uncle Tiy or the lieutenants. They sort it out and you get known for catching an Academy spy plundering ancient secrets, instead of being lucky enough to survive going five-on-one with House Eona’s own guards trying to loot their late Lady’s estate!”

Frred thought the idea through. It was not surprising that Arjae had been spying on the cache of Ferin lore discovered in the brigand cave. Since Embron’s library had opened he’d been one of its most enthusiastic patrons. The lure of such forbidden arcana would be irresistable to his bibliophilia. He was probably surveying the room to figure out a way in, to steal some of them, he reasoned sourly.

Frred scowled. “You know what I hate most about you?”

Arjae feigned hurt at the question. “Hate, me? What?”

“How you make the stupidest ideas sound so smart.”

Arjae grinned so widely Frred felt an urge to cover his mouth, lest those white teeth catch the dim light and give them away. Suddenly the boy straightened and brought the mirror to bear once more. “Hey!” he hissed. “She’s coming out already! That was fast! She’s got something!”

“Where?” Frred whispered, scrutinizing the suspect. Her hands were empty, as they had been when she’d arrived.

“Can’t you see?” Arjae rebuked him, moving the mirror to follow the visitor’s departure. “Under her tunic! She’s taking something and doesn’t want anybody to see!”

As dictated by the plan, they waited until the visitor was past their alcove and out of sight, and the sergeant’s attention was directed down the other direction of the hallway. Then with Arjae crouched on his back, a double handful of shoulder-fur securing his perch, Frred stole from their cubby and ran around the curve of the hallway beyond the sergeant’s gaze. There he bent his nose to the floor.

Right away he knew something was wrong. “Her scent’s not here!”

“What?” Arjae whispered incredulously. “Has to be!”

“I know her scent,” Frred insisted. “The freshest trace is hours old, probably when she was here during the day. The only new tracks are you, me… and her aide!”

“Her aide?” Arjae echoed. “He must be in disguise!” He grinned. “This’ll be great! There’s no way he can explain that away! Let’s go!”

Tracking by scent was one thing Frred did well, and took pride in. The fresh scent of Lady Shima Fyn’s aide stood out from among the melange of other trails in the garrison halls. He kept his pace moderate, slowing when the aroma became strong enough to indicate the Pyrin might be close enough to be seen and in turn see them. They passed outside the garrison and through the compound gates into Embron’s streets. Though the city never truly went to sleep, at this late hour traffic was greatly reduced from the crush of the day. Up one avenue and down another, then turning again onto a side street. Frred cudgeled his knowledge of the city, trying to figure out where the aerin was headed.

Suddenly the trail ended. It wasn’t crossed over by a fresher track, nor was there any water on the ground to wash it away. It just stopped. “What?” Arjae asked. Frred told him the problem. “Maybe he used a portal rune,” Arjae suggested.

Frred lifted his muzzle to sniff the air. Portal runes left a subtle trace in the atmosphere, an electric remnant of where space had been pulled open. There was no such scent here. But there was something else….

Suddenly Frred leaped to one side, twisting awkwardly. “Ztraq!” Arjae swore as he leaped clear. The razor-keen blades glinting in both of Cirue Rhassa’s hands accented his dive from a nearby rooftop.

Arjae rolled and came up on one knee, slingshot out, loaded, and taut. The elastic cord sang as he released it, pellet hissing through the air at Cirue’s forehead. One of the aerin’s blades flashed before his face, and the missile deflected with a SPANG. Cirue followed through in a dancelike motion, lunging with the other blade. The edge sliced through the slingshot cord before reversing direction and slashing Arjae’s wrist. The boy cried out in shock and pain, dropping his weapon and reflexively grabbing the injured wrist in his other hand. Cirue pressed his advantage, lunging in again for a death blow.

A snarling juggernaut of muscle, fur, and rage slammed into him. Cirue hadn’t forgotten about Frred, but like many people he had no first-hand experience with fighting a hnzruu. The speed and power of the leap penetrated his defense, bearing him back. Jaws gaping around gleaming fangs aimed for his throat.

Skill and experience which were surely never learned in the halls of Shenn’s Academy of Mages saved Cirue’s life. He pulled his knees up to his chest, braced his feet against Frred’s belly, and kicked savagely. Frred howled as he was launched away from his prey. He rolled in midair to land on his feet, then yelped as his fur ignited from Pyrin power. Instead of a typically graceful hnzruu landing he bounced and skidded against the pavement on shoulders and hips. He rolled in frantic yipping reflex in an attempt to extinguish the flames.

Arjae leaped to his feet and skipped forward, hands still clasped awkwardly together to contain the bleeding. He kicked with all his might, foot slipping neatly between Cirue’s thighs to slam into his groin. The aerin screamed in pain and fury and flipped one arm upward. His aim was thrown off by the white-hot agony of his crushed testicles, and the thrown knife buried itself in the muscle of Arjae’s right shoulder instead of his throat. Arjae stumbled back, staring incredulously at the weapon.

“City Guard!” A new voice shouted commandingly from the mouth of the street, behind Cirue. “Stand down!”

Burning with pain and anger, the aerin reacted reflexively. This time his knife flew true, sliding through the flesh and cartilage of Tryl Dayne’s throat with enough force that the point protruded out the back. The Guard gaped and stared, mouth working silently as he sank to his knees. Unfortunately for Cirue, all City Guard had partners.

“Fnda’ku!” screamed Reza Kau. The vulgar imprecation was the only warning she gave Cirue Rhassa. She clenched one fist, extending the short, wide blade of her kayat’neben. The weapon combined a cestus with a spring-loaded shortsword. Reza wielded a modified version. A further tension in one finger, and the extra-strong spring launched the blade completely free of its housing. Her aim was as deadly accurate as Cirue’s. The blade hit the tip of his nose and continued in, bisecting his face and flinging his body back to lay supine, dead eyes staring at the night sky.

Reza plucked her mirror from her tunic pocket. “Garrison from Reza Kau!” she shouted. “Aid! Aid! I have injured and dead!”

 The world thought it knew a woman named Kendra deAvalon. She had appeared from the Northern obscurity of Tyne and Wear, armed with wit and intellect of razor-keenness, will as unbreakable as carbon steel, and the beauty and grace of a master-crafted sword. She had steered her computer repair business from a one-room Hackney flat to a small office suite whose view of the Thames required very charitable imagination to be called scenic. Along the way she added freelance programming and made ends meet by being one of the few female pioneers in HTML and website design. In those days the best advertising were testimonials from satisfied clients, and she never left one wanting.

As Avalon Technologies grew she developed a reputation for being smart, tough, and shrewd. She had a particular knack for knowing just the right approach to woo the best talent or make competitors shy away from a contract she fancied. Her interests moved away from repair and into research and innovation of hardware and software. Profiles and biographies delighted in recounting the rags-to-riches story of the beautiful “Guinevere of Cyberspace,” and everybody was sure they knew everything about her.

They were mostly right except for the part about her being a woman named Kendra deAvalon.

Her employees had seen her in many moods. Most of the time she exuded a regal serenity. Her smile and laughter were like the rare stab of sunlight through gloomy London skies. When she allowed herself to show anger, the most apt comparison was to a blade sliding from its scabbard, brilliant and hard and guaranteed to draw blood. The only emotion nobody could ever remember seeing from her was fear.

She stared at the bank of television screens, eyes wide and jaw slack in horror. Those that were functioning showed regions around the world, in varying degrees of picture quality. Others displayed only stock photographs or abstract graphics identifying a network or local channel.

“This is what we know at this moment,” intoned the Japan News Network reporter on one screen. Subtitles crawled across the bottom of the screen, but she did not need their assistance. “The first confirmed event was in Osaka.” His head and shoulders were superimposed over the scene behind him. “As you can see, several portions of the city have been…” he paused to make sure the next word he used was the most accurate, “transformed. Streets, houses, and businesses have been replaced by dense jungle. So far only one search team has returned. They report no survivors, but captured footage of the strange creatures you see behind me.” The shaky footage on the screen showed forms which looked human enough from the waist up, but instead of legs had long, thick serpentine tails.

“Konaybr,” she whispered in a language she’d not spoken aloud in years.

She clicked a button on the remote in her hand, and the JNN anchorman mimed the rest of his report. Another click and the pretty brunette with ratings-boosting cleavage representing Agence France-Presse found her voice. “…great canyons where used to be the Champs-Elysees. There were no earthquakes, these are not the result of tectonic activity. It is instead as if the areas themselves altered, changing from how they were to completely new landscapes. And as you see, with the new topography have come new creatures.” Projected behind her a behemoth twisted sinuously in the sky over a yawning crevasse. It had an improbably massive, flat, segmented body like a legless centipede, held aloft by dragonfly-like wings.

“Tssan,” Kendra breathed, identifying the colossal flyer.

Another click-click of the remote, and it was the CNN anchor’s turn The timestamp on the text scrawling across the bottom of the screen reported the date as April 2, 1992. “The phenomenon appears to be worldwide,” he said, “with new transformations being reported and confirmed moment to moment.” A computer-generated map of the continents floated on the screen behind him. The silhouetted landmasses bore only stark lines denoting national borders. Scattered across the map were dots and splotches of red. Some were but pinpoints, others covered entire regions. They showed no respect for territory, crossing the lines by which mankind had carved up the world. New blotches appeared sporadically, as new changes were identified and confirmed. The largest stretched across the middle of North America, its top edge blanketing Canada’s southern provinces and touching the Gulf of Mexico to the south, crawling over the Sierra Nevada range on the west and bridging the Mississippi River to the east. “There is as yet no pattern to indicate a point of origin, and those authorities able to issue statements admit they are at a loss as to the cause.”

The reporter glared at the camera, as if the largest and strangest catastrophe the world had ever known needed the added gravitas of his severe gaze for proper impact. “Most troubling of all are those parts of the world from which no reports have yet been received, either from our own offices or local stations.” The graphic behind him added areas of dark grey, some of which overlaid the ominous red. Of Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, only their coastal fringes escaped the resultant shadows. “We can offer only conjecture as to what sort of chaos those regions are experiencing.”

She sneered at the melodramatic prose and switched the sound to a reporter who had wrapped herself in a slicker against an unseasonal monsoon. Strands of blonde hair had been pulled loose from her conservative ponytail and whipped around her face inside the slicker’s hood. Behind her, Pacific seawater phosphoresced as it exploded in foamy spray against the Mission Beach seawall, and rain flew nearly sideways across the screen. “Scientists at the National Weather Institute theorize that the dramatic shift in what was supposed to be a mild spring is a side-effect of the bizarre warping of reality worldwide,” she shouted against the wind, microphone clutched in one hand and the hood of her slicker in the other. “The changes in vegetation level and even the shape of the landscape have in turn altered wind patterns. As you can see, this has resulted in torrential rainfall and record-setting surf here in San Diego, while regions of South America are suffering the worst heat wave in history.”

The view suddenly shook and the cameraman’s voice reached the microphone through the wind. “Jesus!” he swore over the live feed. The reporter looked at him in surprise and reproach, then spun and saw what had triggered the oath. “Oh, fuck me!” she screamed. In the background something with a spiny shell, stilted legs, and huge pincers had erupted from the surf and was climbing over the seawall, headed for the Belmont Park midway.

“Opak,” she murmured the creature’s name. The natives of Earth reeled and panicked in the face of unexplainable changes to their world and themselves. She alone saw the transformed landscape and peoples and saw buried memories clawing to the surface. Every single ‘mutation,’ ‘monster,’ and ‘freakish warp of flora, fauna, and topography’ was known to her, but their familiarity brought no comfort. Bright Ladies, what was happening? It was as if Feyside had followed her through the Veil, reshaping her world of exile in its image.

The shrill of the telephone was a welcome distraction. She shut off the bank of monitors and pressed the speaker button on the console. “What news?” she asked.

“None, I’m afraid, ma’am,” came the reply. “No contact with Washington, or with Mount Twilight. Even the emergency frequencies are dead. We’ll keep trying.”

“Do so,” she directed, and closed the connection. She remembered her first visit to the super-secret, super-advanced research facility in which she had invested so much of her fortune and hopes. The huge veins of tainted leystone running through the granite mound glittered in her memory, a greater accumulation of the stuff than she’d seen anywhere on this side of the Veil.

Was it only coincidence that the mountain was nearly in the exact middle of the largest identified “warped” area of the world?

Nausea crawled on fuzzy, spindly legs inside Lady Shima Fyn’s throat. Her fine features twisted in revulsion as she stared down at the items arranged on the desk before her. Some of them were immediately obvious in purpose, like the mirror and set of matched fighting knives. By contrast, the leystone-inlaid sigils on the runes hinted at sinister applications, none of which were known to her. Most enigmatic was the slender black tome set in the center of the desk.

Shima shook her head slowly in incredulous denial, immediately regretting even that gentle motion. “Unthinkable,” she murmured, then conceded one point. “True that Cirue Rhassa has been my aide since I joined the Ministry of Antiquities.”

She lifted her eyes to meet the glare of the person standing on the my-office side of the desk. It deserved note that ‘glare’ in that sentence described not only the intensity of emotion in those eyes, but the amount of light emitting from them. “But I promise you Captain, I hadn’t the faintest clue he was anything but how he presented himself! I certainly never suspected he was an Agent!”

Captain Zed Kandaler nodded, but the set of her jaw and lips and even more intimidating glow of her eyes did not soften. The Tantareli lieutenant loomed behind her, arms crossed over his sprawling chest, his normal jovial nature noticeably absent.

“I want to believe you, Milady,” the Captain assured Shima in deep tones as harsh as her expression. “A feat which would be much easier if not for the baffle rune you’ve added to your wardrobe.”

Shima’s fingers drifted automatically in the direction of the inscribed tile hanging from a chain inside her bodice. Standard Ministry issue, the rune’s enchantment scrambled ambient energies which echoed words and actions, thus foiling any efforts at scrying present or past. Until dinner at the Greathouse two nights past, Shima had scorned the need for such measures. Her business was always at the Academy’s order, and always in service of Shenn’s greater good. What need had she for subterfuge?

It came as no surprise that Embron’s Phoenix-Touched City Guard Captain had sensed the ward’s presence. I hoped to avoid her company for the balance of my time here, Shima reflected, simply complete my task and get me back to the Academy. In Shima’s mental list of desired accomplishments in Embron, ‘attract the official attention/ire of the Captain of the City Guard’ appeared just above ‘defecate on His Lordship and Her Ladyship at midday in the middle of Market Square.’

Despite which priorities here I stand, facing possibly the most dangerous being of my entire life. This human could enslave my will or make my brain dribble from my ears, as it pleases her. And by his latest actions my until-tonight-trusted aide has further reduced any leanings she might have toward mercy.

What then have I to lose?

Shima forced her eyes to not squint as she met Zed’s glare. “It seemed a prudent precaution,” she replied, “given current circumstances.”

“What circumstance are those?” Zed challenged.

Shima quelled the inclination to swallow the desert in her throat. “Tasked to a city,” she replied, “under thrall of a Phoenix-Touched who answers to nobody but herself.” She deliberately relaxed herself against the mental bolt which would shatter her shields and cast her identity to the Veil’s ethereal winds.

Zed blinked. “What?” she asked. The glow in her eyes dimmed and the sharp edges of her cheek and jaw dulled in confusion. She sat down heavily in her chair.

The Tantareli’s mouth split in a derisive grin which started to ripen into a laugh. Then he digested his superior’s reaction to the charge, and sobered to indignation. “Oy,” he exclaimed, arms uncrossing and torso leaning forward to return the challenge. “Tha’s na’ true!”

“Isn’t it?” Shima riposted. I’ve cast my lot, she told herself. May as well bet on the throw. “When is the last time you questioned her order, Lieutenant? Or saw anybody else do so? Even given your connection to His Lordship, have you ever wondered, however briefly, how a human and a centaur were appointed to authority of one of the oldest aerin cities on Shenn? And having gained your offices, how much serious resistance have you two encountered from a population who have only ever seen aerin Guards?”

“The people watched us save their city and their lives,” Bolt replied, his tone gaining precision like a blade ground against a whetstone. “They cleaned up our blood where we spilled it in their defense. I’d say, Milady, any doubts they had about having Lesser Races for Guards,” acid etched the capital letters of the derogatory label, “got wiped away with that.

“As for the rest,” he continued, “you don’t know us. His Lordship needed people he could trust, and we’d just spent two years keeping him alive and helping him find the cure for his family’s curse. An’ I don’t question her orders ’cause she’s usually right, which she ought to be seeing as I trained her!”

Shima bit down on her argument. The Captain’s reaction hadn’t been lost on her either. I’ve struck her to the quick. She didn’t realize what she’s done. Still, her grip is too strong to argue the point just now. “I think our business is concluded,” she said coolly. “I am truly sorry for the loss of your Guard, Captain. I’ll be on my way now, with the item which Cirue stole from the cache.” She reached toward the book.

“No,” said Zed.

“Captain,” Shima adopted a tone both reasonable and adamant, “the point of law is very clear in this matter. The Academy and the Ministry of Antiquities have ultimate authority over all Steel War lore and artifacts. That book needs to be returned for transport to the Academy Archives, as well as any others your people find when they track down whatever hiding place Cirue had.”

“Have you looked inside that book, Milady?” Zed asked. She was still seated, but her posture was straight now, her composure and assurance restored. Her auric eyes no longer glowed, except in reflection of the lights.

“I have not yet had the opportunity,” Shima replied.

“Then you don’t know if it’s actually Steel War lore,” Zed pointed out. “Look at the binding. It’s much newer than everything else in the cache. And the crest is of House Makko, not House Fehr. I may not be the historian you are Milady, but didn’t House Makko fight on the side of the Assembly Alliance during the Steel War?”

Shima paused, staring at the Captain. “You can’t be serious,” she protested.

Zed’s face hardened once more. “I have one Guard dead,” she rasped. “Another injured, as well as a young boy hurt just as bad. Question my seriousness again. Until I know why an Agent was willing to disguise himself as you, steal from my garrison, and try to kill people under my protection, that book stays with me. You can have it when I’m done.” She stood up, the motion reminding Shima of a blade whispering from its scabbard. “On one thing we do agree, though. Our business is concluded. Good evening, Milady.”

“Right,” Bolt said as the office door shut behind Lady Shima Fyn’s stiff back. “Out with it, Spoons.”

For form’s sake Zed indulged herself in a little dissemblage. “It?” she echoed with a wan smile.

Bolt wasn’t having any. “She rattled you,” he accused. “That pile of dung she spewed about you havin’ the city in thrall.”

Zed turned around and leaned against the edge of her desk, bracing her hands on either side of herself. She arched her neck and looked up, meeting Bolt’s mismatched eyes with her yellow gaze. “What if she’s right?” she asked.

Bolt blinked, and paused. He remembered the first time he’d met Zerene Kandaler. She’d arrived by public carriage at Black Lake Valley, a shadowy wraith with black hair, brown eyes, and a letter of introduction in one hand addressed to him. She’d been serious and intense, resolved to meet any challenge set before her. But behind the determination lurked a spectre of loss, pain, and fear. As time passed it peeked out less and less often, but had never been completely exorcised. As Zed regarded him now, he saw it again. She was afraid that something she loved was in danger and she couldn’t save it. Or worse, he thought. That she’s the one puttin’ it in harm’s way.

He knelt, folding his legs under his barrel. This brought his face down to only a few feet above hers, instead of over twice her height. “Talk t’ me, Spoons,” he invited gently.

Zed frowned. Her gaze became introspective. If she’d been focused on what actually lay before her, she’d have been staring at Bolt’s chest. “She wasn’t running a play,” she said. “The baffle rune foiled my psychic ability, but her body language was clear enough. You saw it!” she exclaimed in near-accusation, her face snapping up to look at him.

Bolt nodded, matching her thoughtful glower. His race lacked any aptitude for psychic ability, so had compensated by learning to read subtle shifts of posture and inflection that only the most reserved or well-trained could hide. “Aye,” he admitted. “She’s honestly affrighted that ye’ve got the whole city under yer spell. But ye haven’t!” He threw his hands out in exasperation. “How could she think so?”

“Not so difficult,” Zed murmured. “If the Academy knows I was at Rock Bend. What else but a Phoenix-Touched spellshifter could have grabbed their sterilization spell and twisted it to spare the town? Then there’s what I did to Embron’s cityspell.” She crossed her arms in front of her, hugging herself. “If I’d stopped to think about it for more than a moment, I’d have realized the scale of what I was doing. Hacking into a cityspell and turning it into a massive telepathic channel for Jonnal to break the people out of a suicidal funk?” Her next statement echoed in his thoughts, making his ears twitch at the unfamiliar buzz. I even formed an aiv’shien link with you! Everybody knows Tantareli are mind-deaf, it shouldn’t have been possible!

Her tone became flat, dull. “I’ve been Phoenix-Touched for nearly a year. It’s gotten easier. But at night, just as I’m going to sleep, my shields relax just a little as I drop off, and I can feel all the minds around me, through all the shields and wards. I want to tell them all to shut up for just a few minutes until I’m asleep.” She looked up at him with the expression of a child sent too young away from home. “And I feel it, that I could do it and they would!” She cried, her normally husky voice high and near to cracking. “Who knows what my power is doing while I sleep? While I dream?”

Bolt’s heart tore at the confusion and fear pouring from his best friend. A creature more of deeds than words, only one solution offered itself to him in this moment. His great arms dropped down and scooped Zed up, forming into a cradle that held her securely and effortlessly against his massive chest. She pressed against him mentally as well as physically. He braced himself against her psychic touch, distracting himself by inhaling deeply of her scent. When we was Seekers she always smelled of orange, spice, an’ leather. Must be somethin’ in her soap now, or maybe it’s t’do with the burnin’ feather, but she’s got a diff’rent scent t’her. But ’tis still her, still Spoons.

“Hush now,” he rebuked her softly, his voice rumbling deeply in his chest. She pressed her cheek harder against him, as if seeking the vibration. “Yer nae a monster, ner have ye put th’ city under yer spell. That yer scared of it happenin’s proof enough that it hasn’t.” A further proof occurred to him, and he chuckled. “’Sides, if ye really were pullin’ ev’rybody’s strings, would Arjae an’ Frred have gotten inta so much trouble?”

She clung to him, hands gripping the straps of his uniform harness, seeking refuge from her fears in his mountainous solidity. While they knelt so, the office door slid open to reveal Sascha Starclaw. Hnzruu band leader and Tantareli lieutenant met eyes, and Sascha closed the door again just as silently as he’d opened it. He’d come seeking news about Frred, but resolved to check directly with the Guard infirmary. Zed showed no awareness of his arrival or departure.

As he retreated down the garrison hall Sascha reflected on the scene. Such displays of reassurance were unremarkable among his shapeshifting breed. He found it at once humorous and pathetic that the single-shaped folk had such trouble loving and being loved without attaching so much unnecessary adornment to something as simple and necessary as eating and grooming.

All the same, Sascha thought with a wry grin, ’tis hard to say which is the stranger. The Captain letting her armor slip and needing such comfort, or Bolt holding still for so long?

Uncounted moments passed in the office. Zed relaxed bit by bit, until Bolt began to wonder if she’d fallen asleep. Should I walk her t’ her quarters an’ tuck her in?

“’M not asleep,” she muttered softly. One hand released his harness and snaked up alongside his head, tugging gently on one ear. A deep breath drew in and out as she straightened and sat up in his arms. She looked up at him and smiled. The shadow still lurked behind her eyes, but had once more retreated. “Thanks, Pony,” she said simply.

He grinned. “Nae worries,” he assured her. “Next time I get t’ sit in yer lap!”

Zed chuckled at the absurdity of the idea, and shifted to slip out of his arms. The cradle of his thews turned into a slide, bearing her quickly and safely to her feet. She shook out her shoulders, tugged her uniform tunic straight, and exhaled the last of the anxiety attack from her nostrils. “Right,” she said in tones closer to her customary briskness, reaching for the slender black tome whose cover was embossed with the seal of House Makko. Long fingers traced the raised coat of arms. “Remember what Lady Shylla said about her mother?”

Bolt nodded. “Lady Amoren Makko spent years travelin’ Shenn an’ dealin’ in the shadow market,” he recounted, “gatherin’ anythin’ she could find relatin’ t’ House Fehr an’ the Steel War. She gathered it all in th’ tower of their house here in Embron, an’ spent ‘er time recreatin’ some o’ their foulest creations. After Lady Shylla discovered what ‘er mother was doin’ and accidentally killed Lady Amoren, th’ whole cache vanished courtesy o’ Aubryn Vaeus, yer predecessor.” He grinned. “I miss anythin’?”

Zed returned the grin. “Thank you, Captain Exposition.”

“Captain?” Bolt cried. “Huzzah, I been permoted!”

Zed ran her fingers over the book again. “Looks like we found what Vaeus did with Lady Amoren’s private library,” she mused. “He gave it to the Razored Shade to hide.”

Abruptly she slid a finger under the edge of the front cover and flipped the book open. The two of them scrutinized the first page. It was obviously of an older vintage than the cover. Cramped text shared space with densely-notated diagrams, creating an impenetrable wall of enigma.

“Haven’t a clue,” Bolt said. “You?”

Zed shook her head. “But I know who will.” She reached across the desk and tapped the pane of the iron-bound mirror which sat near one corner. The surface rippled at her touch. “Captain’s office to Doren Shad and Kres Feber,” she said. The spreading ripple divided, twin oscillations moving to opposite corners of the mirror pane. Each quickly faded into a male face, creating a study in similarity and contrast.

The face in the upper left was Pyrin, the angles of his face bronzed and etched to austere lines by the passage of centuries. Russet hair fell in tousled locks while eyes as green as a copper flame blinked sleep away. The bed in which the eldery aerin reclined was as unruly as his hair, and the slender arm which draped across his torso was not his own.

In the lower right corner a human regarded Zed with surprising alertness given the late hour. Straw-colored hair was braided back from a youthful face whose features were even and pleasant, if bland. A keen, hungry intellect shone through brown eyes. He sat upright on a sofa, the book in his lap sharing space with the head of a pixie-faced Terine whose body curled to occupy the rest of the love seat. The soft burr of the Terine snoring came clearly through the mirror.

“Aye, Captain,” the two males chorused.

“Sorry to pull you both away,” Zed replied. “I need you in my office as soon as possible.”

“Aye, Captain!” they acknowledged, again in unison.

Bolt chuckled and shook his head as the mirror returned to its neutral state. Zed shot him a quizzical upward look over her shoulder. “Dunno which strikes me funnier,” he explained. “That ol’ Doren got smitten after so many years, or that Kres an’ Nacci took up t’gether at all!”

Zed grinned. “Love strikes as it will, where it will. Remember what we almost had?”

He laughed louder, nodding. “Oh, aye! ‘Cept when it came down ta it, we couldna even kiss without bustin’ up in laughter!”

Zed chuckled also at the memory. She’d been a year into her apprenticeship with the Tantareli Seeker. Bolt introduced her to the far reaches of Shenn, even going overseas when a contract required it. She was still recovering from witnessing her parents’ deaths, and his irrepressible cavalier nature was just the right salve for her wounds. Her custom of riding high on his back when they traveled so she could see the passing scenery kept them in close contact. Spice all of that with the thrill of traveling magical lands and learning a Seeker’s life, and it was small wonder that she’d begun to see Bolt as more than a mentor and partner. More surprising was the discovery that he reciprocated her feelings.

But as he said, she thought, when the moment came to commit, we discovered we were better friends than lovers. And while I’d not have it any other way… Zed was not normally introspective about her own feelings. But the anxiety triggered by Lady Shima Fyn’s sincere accusation and the immediate memory of seeing Doren and Kres bathing in romantic bliss made the indulgence a quick recap of her own amorous history irresistable. Sabine, Bolt, Chains, Jonnal… none of them really ended badly. Even Jonnal shooting me! But they all ended. Makes me wonder if I’m supposed to go it alone? Her own memory hinted at an answer to the question by recalling yellow-green eyes, a brilliant smile, smooth lyrical voice, broad shoulders, scent like the air after a rain, long cloud-colored hair, storm-grey wings….

“Oy Spoons,” Bolt’s voice broke the weaving enchantment. “Are ye well?”

Zed blinked and looked up at Bolt. She felt fire in her cheeks, and fiercely squelched foolish and inappropriate thoughts. “Aye,” she answered brusquely. “Fine.” She turned to her desk and began gathering up Cirue Rhassa’s effects into a box. From the corner of her eye as she put her back to him, she saw Bolt’s wide mouth twitching around the grin trying to escape. She knew he’d divined the drift of her thoughts, whether by his own interpretive skills or their mental link. No time for that now!

By the time Doren and Kres arrived, the only evidence left on her desk was the black tome. Zed met them at the door of her office, having just returned from the storeroom where she’d deposited the box. In its place she carried a tray from the kitchen, laden with spice tea, fruit, cheese, and the meat-filled dumplings called bdams which were a staple of every Seeker’s diet. Habit lifted Doren’s arms to take the tray from Zed. The action earned him a sharp look and guttural sound of warning from his Captain. “Inside,” she commanded, herding them through the door.

“First,” Zed said once they were all seated, “you need to understand what you’re walking into, here.” She placed one hand on the black binding. “As soon as you open this book, the only way to avoid a charge of treason is to immediately report it to His Lordship or the Academy auditor. Bolt and I are already guilty, so the normal chain of command is compromised. Or you can walk out now. I promise I won’t hold that choice against you.”

She knew her dire warning could well form an irresistable lure, especially to the insatiable curiosity of Kres Feber. His questioning ways had already aborted his career as an Academy-accredited mage. For three years after he returned home to Embron he’d used his skill at runecraft to safely traverse the city’s lethally-haunted siege tunnels, stealing food and other essentials from corrupt merchants and nobles for distribution to the city’s downtrodden.

Doren Shad’s past was equally checkered. A veteran of the Steel War, he’d settled in Embron and joined the City Guard as quartermaster. He’d continued in that capacity for the five millennia which followed, becoming as much a staple of the city as the Greathouse’s crystal dome. When the Shad Curse had brought the city under authority of an ineffectual regent whose only solution to dwindling revenues was to cut essential services such as supplies for the orphanage, Doren created an arrangement with the orphans. He regularly over-ordered provisions for the Guard, and allowed nobody else to track purchases and requisitions. Meanwhile, the orphans regularly stole into the locked garrison pantries and storerooms, pilfering the supplies that never appeared in the Guard ledgers.

Cutting to the chase, Zed reflected, both of them are ethical and honorable as anybody I’ve known. But neither of them will hesitate to kick established authority where it’s soft, if it will serve the greater good. And they’re loyal to the city, the Guard… and to me. Knowing that, did I phrase that warning to hook them in? Damn it, I must get a handle on this! I can’t keep second-guessing myself or I’ll be completely useless!

Regardless of what motivated them, neither the old soldier or the young mage hesitated even a second before replying. “Captain,” Doren spoke first in his raspy, arid voice, “On the way here we heard what happened to Guards Dayne and Starclaw, and Arjae.” His tone gained a dangerous edge at the orphan’s name. Everybody knew the special place in his heart for the city’s ‘displaced’ children.

Kres picked up the cue. “Given that their attacker has been already seen to, if this book will help us understand who was behind him…” He paused, then blurted, “I’d fart in Lady Graes Arasidhe’s face before I’d walk away!”

“Oy,” Bolt commented cheerfully, “I’d pay a month’s wages t’see that!”

Zed smiled, allowing herself to bathe in the warm camaraderie suffusing the office. “Then get food and drink,” she instructed, “and let’s be about it.”

As it turned out, the answer came more quickly than Zed had dared hope. Between Doren’s command of the Ferin language and Kres’ understanding of the standard sigils and formulae which were the foundation of every spell, the tea and bdams had just stopped steaming when they leaned back in their chairs, staring in awe and horror at the innocuous scrawlings on the ancient pages.

“Ladies,” breathed Kres.

Bolt asked the question which really mattered. “Oy,” he said, “who’n all creation’d want anythin’ t’do with that?”

Zed hated siege tunnels. They were a staple of Shenn’s older cities, those built in the days when war was a constant concern. Even those which had never seen use stank of anxiety, the worry from those who carved them that they’d one day have to cower in them.

Embron’s tunnels are as bad as it gets, she thought as she turned and descended a sloping passage. From the first step down the stairs of the entrance under the City Guard garrison, she’d felt drifting, whispering menace. A fey wisp drifted above her, the result of a cantrip she’d mastered early on during her former career as a Seeker. The dust and rubble littering the stone floor added to the treachery of the incline. The only bright spot is right here, where Orem and Dren passed on. She remembered the two Greathouse Guards who had been so savagely murdered at the hands of the ghosts infesting the tunnels. Their deaths had set in motion the events which led to the city’s salvation and her own assumption of a career she’d never imagined. Their torment hadn’t ended in death, as their ghosts had been trapped along with their killers. Glad they were able to find peace at last.

Any other time Zed would have stopped to savor that section of tunnel. In the midst of all the pain, fear, and hatred staining the rest of the network, those few paces of stone and masonry were an oasis of tranquility and happiness. But not now.

Her shields were wrapped around her mind just tightly enough to blunt the emotional echoes permeating the tunnels. She wanted to add more defenses, to encase herself in a full suit of psychic plate armor. But ghosts could ignore the strongest mental defenses – special wards were needed to keep them out. Zed traced the sigils inlaid on the crystal disc in her pocket, reassuring herself of its presence. For three years similar protections had allowed Kres Feber and his brother to safely traverse the haunted tunnels while they pilfered food and other necessities from the city’s corrupt merchants. Now the renegade mage was runesmith to Embron’s City Guard, and no other municipal security force was so well-equipped.

She felt the feral ghost’s rage bleeding through the stone before it erupted into the passage ahead of her. The spectre’s appearance reflected its madness in the grotesquely bulging eyes, cavernous mouth, and emaciated, elongated arms. The Steel Concord uniform draped like a shroud from its torso. It did not bother with legs, simply fading away where the pelvis should have been. What gender it had been in life had become an unanswerable riddle.

The revenant lunged at her with a scream that echoed against her shields. It clawed at the air between them, desperate to reach her, rend and tear the flesh from her bones. The ward didn’t act as a solid barrier, nor cause any injury to the ghost. It simply created a zone of impervious, uncrossable space between the spirit and its prey. Zed had insisted the ward be humane. Where you are’s not your fault, she thought as she regarded the raging spectre. You were prepared to die for your cause, but not this.

Pity welled up in her. Her errand was urgent, but the pain and despair fueling the ghost’s fury tore Zed’s own heart. Fndreia, she cursed the unavoidable delay. She relaxed her shields and reached for its mind. The rage was a reaction to the knowledge that these tunnels would be not only the last place it would know in life, but the discovery that even death would bring only a momentary relief from imprisonment. The madness was a natural outgrowth of continued rage.

What ties you here? Zed asked silently. She traced the filaments of energy that formed the ghost’s substance, holding it together and preventing it from passing on to its proper destination. Why can’t you move on?

There it is. Small surprise that the spiritual anchor was the oath sworn in life to devote all one had to the Steel Concord’s War of Unity, and to obey one’s Lord-General in all things. By the time the consequences of that promise became intolerable it was too late. Only the Lord-General could release it from its duty, and the Lord-General had preceded it in death. Now insanity prevented it from even recognizing its own commander, much less understanding any orders. In life its name had been Lendis Qruss.

Zed followed the line from the ghost’s living identity through until she found the first snarl, the fear that the war to unite Shenn’s feuding Houses had failed. She gently tugged at the tangled strands of energy until they came free, then moved on. Next was the despair at knowing their platoon was outnumbered and surrounded by an implacable enemy; the horrified discovery that Milord-General’s attempt to negotiate a truce had earned the reply of being buried alive when the enemy sealed the tunnels with deathrunes; watching comrades die one by one, whether from the slow wasting of dehydration and starvation or the immediate rot of willingly touching a deathrune; welcoming death’s numbing embrace, only to realize that freedom from mortal pain brought only unending torment. Knot by knot Zed unraveled the self-imposed net that kept Lendis Qruss from her rightful reward.

Thank you, the healed spirit sent as she faded.

Zed wanted to sit down, but knew getting up again would be a chore. She settled for bending over and resting her hands on her knees, breathing deeply to replenish herself. The task had been tedious and exacting, and had used up precious minutes that could have been spent getting further down the tunnels. She regretting none of it, allowing herself to bask in the sweet breeze that now suffused another section of the infested siege tunnels.

Thank you indeed, Captain.

Zed raised her head at the mental message, smiling through her fatigue. Lord-General Pasha Fehr had cut a striking profile in life. Millennia as a ghost beneath the streets of Embron had marred that image only slightly. Renewed contact with the living world, at least through her visits to negotiate safe passage for others besides herself, had restored much of his former demeanor. As he stood in the passage a few paces away, only a slight blur around the outer edges betrayed his ethereal nature. The sheen of his skin and hair and the immaculate lines of his uniform made him seem almost solid.

“Least I could do, Milord-General,” she replied, straightening. “Just wish I could do it for all of them. How many you reckon are still like that?”

Such idle topics are not the reason for your visit, the Lord-General admonished. Urgency trails in your wake, and is a cloud around you.

Zed accepted the rebuke without comment. She shrugged free from the straps of the backpack which hung between her shoulders. From the satchel she produced the slender black volume which had caused so much recent controversy. With both hands she opened it and held it out to the Ferin ghost, turning it so he could peruse the pages right side up. He took the book from her, coherent enough that he could hold it himself. He needed only a glance, which confirmed her suspicion.

Where did you get these? Pasha Fehr snarled. His features distorted slightly with the strength of his reaction.

“You know what these pages are part of,” Zed accused in return. “From the first when I learned about why you haunt these tunnels, I wondered what was in Embron’s siege vaults. Especially given that you sacrificed six of your own to seal them shut, willingly accepted unlife, and killed anybody who came down here….” She nodded at the pages. “I imagine these come as a shock.”

The Lord-General glared at her for a moment before digesting her matter-of-fact tone and realizing she was not taunting him. He dropped the book, spun, and flew down the tunnel. Follow! he commanded over his shoulder.

Zed retrieved the volume and did her best to keep up. She lost sight of the ghostly commander a few times, and was glad she remembered the route through the decaying tunnels which led to the deepest levels. When she at length emerged into the round, dome-roofed room which was the antechamber to the siege vaults, she was panting from exertion. The other remnants of the doomed platoon had gathered as well. Zed kept her shields up, blunting the force of their curiosity and lingering hostility. She had saved them the year before, but she was still a living soul and therefore an enemy.

Lord-General Pasha Fehr had not waited for her. At the base of a short staircase in the middle of the room the doors of the siege vaults yawned wide open. The six spirits who had been sacrificed and bound to the entrance to reinforce its own tonnage and enchantment peered out from the stone portals.

Zed descended the stairs, her fey light following her into the vault. As most rooms were, it was less impressive inside than out. Just a long, low-roofed chamber carved from the deep bedrock, without ornamentation to the walls or ceiling.

It was also completely empty.

In the middle of the room Lord-General Pasha Fehr stood. Fury and confusion poured from him in visible waves, stirring the dust on the floor.

Gone! he raged. Sunder is gone!