Rift in the Races (46 page)

“I trust you slept well,” he said, helping himself to bread from a freshly baked loaf, a favorite of his—as with everyone who ate Kettle’s famous recipe.

“I did. I still laugh every time I get into one of your straw-filled mattresses and find it the height of comfort and luxury.”

“A good E-class enchanter with a practical book of spells is worth far more than a court dandy trying to impress the Queen with P-level parlor tricks and painted ceilings playing pictures all day.”

“We need a few of those practical ones to go aboard our ships and enchant all the pathetic mats they call mattresses up there. It’s criminal what they make us sleep on.” She tilted her head back, looking toward the ceiling as she spoke, noting there were no paintings up there. Only the dingy stain of eight centuries of oily smoke and soot.

“That can be arranged. Sailors need a good night’s rest better than most,” he said. “Especially those who sail amongst the stars.”

She smiled. Space sailors. She loved this place.

“So, how do you feel? Are you ready to get to work on our little project?”

“Just tell me what to do.”

“You’re going to help me finish combing through the encampment outside. We have to find out if anyone has seen the missing item of which we spoke yesterday. I am hoping they will be more candid with you than they are with me. They may not, but even so, two will cover more ground than one.”

“All right. But won’t asking about it draw attention to the problem?”

“Yes, it will. But we won’t be telling them what it is. It’s just a spell component if anyone asks, which they will. You can tell them it’s a rare one, and we’re willing to pay to get it back. It seems most of them care only about reward.”

“How much should I offer them?”

“Offer them five gold pieces if they ask. If they show it to you, let them haggle you as high as ten. That’s more color than they’ll see in five years service to the Queen. Offering more will only get them to thinking they’ve really found something to shop around.”

“All right. And then what, tell them to come collect from you, here?”

“Yes. And watch for those who aren’t interested in the reward at all. If you find one who seems too disinterested, conspicuously so, mark him out, and I will look to it myself.”

She blanched at the way his face darkened when he said that. He noticed and asked, “Will this be a problem for you?”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. What if I am wrong?”

“Wrong about what?”

“Wrong that they are hiding something or whatever. You’re not going to, you know, zap them or mess with their minds or anything, are you?”

“Of course not,” he snapped. He took a bite from his bread with rather more zeal than the fluffy stuff required. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that. I just, well, you understand. I don’t want to be wrong and cause someone problems. I come from a place where commanders tend to come down very heavily for the least offense. At least some do, in my personal experience.”

He nodded as he chewed up another bite. “Yes, I suppose you do. But I am not your captain. And I do need to know if you even suspect. You must promise. I will determine if you are incorrect, and I will be as kind as the task requires.” There remained a glint in his eyes that told Orli how serious this mission was and hinted at what he would be willing to do to see it done, but she believed him. He would not be hasty, nor would he be cruel.

“All right. So, what am I supposed to say?”

He reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out a very large locket, nearly as big around as a petri dish, though not quite so deep. It was made of silver and had a filigree pattern etched into its tarnished outer shell. “I’m sorry this was the best I had handy. But it will do.”

He depressed the catch, and the locket popped open, revealing a compact mirror inside. “Open it all the way,” he instructed as he spread it nearly flat, “and you will see the stone appear inside.” He tipped it forward so she could see, and sure enough, there was an image of a Liquefying Stone slowly turning in the air just above the mirror’s surface, which Orli thought of as a magic hologram. “Show them this, and ask them if they’ve seen a stone like it.”

“What if they want to know why?”

“As I said before, a spell component. Nothing more. Being from Earth, you can get away with pretending ignorance.”

“Hardly pretend,” she said.

“My hope is they will be too preoccupied with your alien nature, your lovely figure or your weaponry. You have a variety of persuasive magic that I do not, and we must hope it serves to coax the truth out of one of them.”

She was surprised he was so direct. Altin would never have been able to say such a thing without turning purple as a beet. It further proved the urgency of the task. “I think item number two on that list would work better if I wore something besides this.” She crinkled up her face as she looked down at her uniform, complete with flour handprints imprinted at the knees.

“That will serve perfectly. If you go as a lady, you will need a chaperone, which is hardly convenient given what we are about. As you are, you have the distinct advantage of being able to walk in both worlds, so to speak. For today, you are a space sailor from the vessel
Aspect
first, and a woman second.”

“Fair enough.”

He looked at her, studied her a long while, absently finishing off his bread. Crumbs fell into his beard, some tumbling down like little crusty snowballs marking the beginnings of an avalanche. Though she tried not to, Orli couldn’t help but watch them fall. She was so terrible at severity. She could only conclude it had everything to do with men, that unmitigated focus and ever-present concentration on a single task. Or maybe it was just her. She knew perfectly well the dire nature of the missing stone. Tytamon had made it clear enough, and what Altin had told her previously served as the eyepiece for what should have been the scope of her concern. But the crumbs were funny; and her belly was full; and she was actually in the middle of making a berry pie. Who would have ever imagined such a thing, even a year ago? She tried to be serious, tried not to smile and not to keep watching the crumbs accumulating in his beard, but the hailstones of Kettle’s crust now struck her like little bugs caught in a web, to all of which he remained oblivious.

He continued to work on his breakfast, his beard wagging stiffly with each movement of his jaw, and then one crumb here, another crumb there, would manage to escape, leap out and fall to the safety of his lap or the floor. This caused the corners of her mouth to twitch while humor glinted unbeckoned in her eyes.

Tytamon watched her, followed the line of her gaze, and saw the accumulated crumbs enmeshed in the growth beneath his chin, the sprinkle of others in his lap and around his feet. He realized the tremors at the boundaries of her laughter marked mirth at the brink of breaking free. He laughed. A full-bodied one, heartfelt, and for the first time in a long time.

“I suppose Kettle barely puts up with me,” he said. “Grumpy old dinosaur that I am.”

“I can imagine,” she replied gleefully merciless.

He watched her for a while, watched her dabbling with the pie crust she’d been working on. “You truly are fearless, aren’t you?”

“I’m what?” Her expression was a question mark.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just think I may see why you are the one that Mercy chose.”

Orli had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed happy enough, and that was good enough for her, so she laughed a little as she pressed the pie crust into place. “So when do we leave?”

“Right after you finish that.”

Tytamon had not been wrong about the three ways Orli would be received. As she passed through the parts of the camp she’d been assigned to, sure enough they’d either gawk at her, gawk at her gun or just generally fawn over the idea of her being an alien from outer space. The largest portion, martial beasts that they were, were obsessed with her blaster. “It’s a Colt M-7XR,” she’d say. “One-point-five megajoule laser and seven millimeter explosive rounds in a twenty-round clip. State of the art when we left Earth.” They’d repeat this back to her in awe, despite having no idea what they were saying; then, without fail, they’d ask to see it in action, and, ultimately, for a chance to shoot it themselves. By sunset, her blaster’s battery was down to half, and there lay in the wake of her passing a trail of exploded fire logs, burning fire logs, decimated fruit, melted bits of spare armor and one brutalized camp dog for which Orli’s subsequent and highly vocal fury brought a grizzled old sergeant by the name of Haft to investigate. In the end, the soldier’s canine cruelty earned him five lashes and a week on latrine duty, and Orli had been respectfully but firmly asked not to let the troops fire her weapon any more.

But despite flirting, shooting and telling stories about the Hostiles, Earth or outer space, no matter how enthralled the soldiery might have been, no one over the course of the day had said they’d seen the yellow stone, nor had any of them seemed anything but entirely on the up-and-up. There were no shifty eyes—other than those that darted toward her chest or backside—and no conspicuous stammering or obvious attempts to evade. Not once. Without exception, each soldier, male or female, had at some point given off on their own questions about Orli and space and taken the time to look at the image that hovered above her enchanted locket, and to the last of them, none of them made the least suspicious blink. She was sure none of them had seen it.

Just as she was slipping the locket back into her belt and preparing to report back to Tytamon, the sergeant who’d punished the soldier for shooting the dog caught Orli and called her aside.

“Listen, missy,” he said, “I don’t have to see the corpse to know when somethin’s been dead awhile. I been watchin’ you and Master Tytamon marchin’ up and down all day, and the ancient one been at it for more than a pair before that. Now I ain’t tryin’ to climb higher ‘n my stripes or go sniffin’ round your chicken coop, but I can tell well enough there’s more ta your problem than five gold worth a’ spell trinkets. This ain’t my first skirmish, as it were.”

Orli’s poker face only failed for the briefest instant before she got it back. “Your point?”

“Listen here. These boys ain’t the bad sort. They just prone to throwin’ dice and chasin’ whores. See, the Queen, she ain’t as liberal with the salaries as she used to be. Or so rumors tell. And, well, if’n a man were to come upon an item of seemin’ worth, well … I expect you get the rest, you bein’ a sailor on them sky ships and all.”

She nodded, understanding well enough but not sure where he was going with the seemingly candid remarks.

“I don’t know if’n nobody seen your yellow rock,” he said. “But I know where they’d take it if’n they did and weren’t disposed to return it to Master Tytamon.”

There it was. She nodded. “All right, so where would they go?”

“First, you swear you won’t never tell a soul where you heard this. And I’m trustin’ you, one soldier to the next, because you don’t need to be ate by a buzzard to know what they is circlin’ for. There’s somethin’ foul afoot, and I expect I can help you some. So, swear it,” he said. “Blood oath.”

She nodded. “Of course I won’t.”

“Not even Tytamon.”

She frowned at that. “I’m not sure I could keep it from him,” she confessed. “You know, if he really wanted to find out.” She wriggled her fingers in the air in that way Roberto always did when he was having fun with the idea of wizardry.

“Aye, that’s a fact,” he agreed. “And I won’t hold you to it, if’n it come to that. Us blanks is up for it if’n they figure to get after us for real.”

She nodded, knowing it was true.

“Just don’t be blabbin’ out. I got no need of being cursed.”

“Tytamon would never curse you.”

“Maybe not Tytamon, but Black Sander would. A devil soul he is.”

“Black Sander?”

“He’s what they call a ‘procurement specialist.’ A fancy way of sayin’ he can getcha anything you need. He’s a ruthless feller, works out of Crown and, of course, Murdoc Bay. Some say he’s the best there is, them what frequent that sort of thing on one side or t’other. He’s got fronts in every city on Kurr as I heard it, includin’ one in Blanks Quarter—a pawnshop as I heard—’ceptin’ he ain’t no blank, and he ain’t no pawn dealer, least not of the conventional type, if you take my meanin’.”

“So, are you saying someone might have taken it to him to sell?”

He nodded and spit into the mud. “I heard his name whispered for the third time last night. Weren’t nothin’ ‘bout no yellow stones, but it’s clear enough the boys is, some of them anyway, gone and sold a few of Sir Altin’s belongin’s there in town. Gettin’ paid heavy, too, by the bets them boys is makin’.”

“Well, that’s no big deal. We’ll just go and buy it back. Tytamon has lots of money. I doubt a little price-gouging is going to bother him much.”

“Missy, I expect I didn’t explain proper. Black Sander is
in
town. That’s what I heard. And if’n these boys was to be sellin’ anything magical on the underground, it’s Black Sander what come for it personally. I don’t figure you’ll be buyin’ anythin’ what you didn’t requisition, so to speak.”