Rift in the Races (48 page)

Captain Asad seemed to spend some time working on a different conclusion, but he allowed his young pilot the freedom of his own thoughts. Obligingly, he offered, “On a human level, you’re probably right, Lieutenant. But it’s not our job to have faith in anything, and we definitely don’t operate on it. Our job is to have the facts and make the hard decisions if necessary.”

“Yes, Captain.” As usual, Captain Asad was right in his own particular way.

“So, Lieutenant, is there anything else you can tell us about the flight test?” asked the admiral. “Anything at all. Nothing is too small or insignificant.”

“No, sir. That’s all I can think of right now. I’m pretty tired, though, so, maybe after I get some sleep.”

He nodded. “Do that, Lieutenant. Get something to eat and hit the rack. Maybe by the time you wake up, they’ll have your ship’s systems back up, and we can check the logs.”

“All right. Thank you, sir.” He tossed back the rest of his drink and rose to leave. He stopped at the door, acknowledging one last point. “For what it’s worth,
we
would have been the babies getting punched out there, whether it was them or the Hostiles that showed up. We were totally helpless, with literally nothing I could do.” His expression was grim, but he added before he walked out, “But I still don’t think it’s them.”

In the end, it wouldn’t matter anyway, he thought as he headed to his quarters for some well needed sleep. Whether it was the wizards or the Hostiles that decided to destroy the fleet, they were going to do it if they wanted to. The only real difference would be the let down, the loss of hope if it turned out to be the Prosperions. And hope wouldn’t matter much once they were all dead. If the Prosperions turned on them, if the wizards got a preemptive strike, well, it would be too late. The game would be over before it began. He knew that instinctively. The Hostiles, however, that was different. That fight could be won. They just had to work out the details.

Chapter 32

T
ytamon was not as keen to exploit Orli’s various tactical advantages in Blanks Quarter as he had been to deploy them in the army camp. In fact he had quite the opposite in mind as the search for the Liquefying Stone moved into town.

A torrential downpour shrouded the day following Orli’s discovery that the dreaded “procurement specialist” known as Black Sander might be in Leekant. And it was Tytamon’s opinion that they should also shroud the Earth woman and her highly recognizable, un-commonly short hair as well as the blatantly alien weaponry she wore. He had hopes that they would not be needing the latter and a strong desire to prevent the former from drawing any more attention to their presence in Leekant than was absolutely necessary.

Tytamon himself was conspicuous enough, but at least when it counted, that meant fear in just the right amounts. He did not draw crowds of spectators like she did. He was familiar and imposing. She was an alien celebrity.

They entered the city via conventional Transportation Guild Services teleportation, a new experience for Orli—she’d always had a personal teleporter to take her everywhere. It began at what Orli could not stop thinking of as Tytamon’s teleportation shower, where she’d first arrived at Calico Castle earlier in the week.

She learned that the rack cut into the wall of the chamber held a pair of hourglasses and two wooden blocks. The blocks both had an image of a broken tower carved into them, the symbol of Calico Castle as claimed by its history with Sixes over the centuries, and one of them was plain where the other had a coat of bright red paint. Corresponding with each block was an hourglass, each about five inches tall, one made of brass to pair with the unpainted block, and the other enameled in red at the top and the bottom to match the painted one. Orli could see that both of these had the broken-tower emblem etched into them as well.

When Tytamon was ready to go to Leekant, he’d taken the red-painted block in his hand and cast a brief spell on it. He put it back on the shelf and after a few moments it disappeared. Orli’s fascination was easy enough to spot, so he’d explained each step as they went along.

“I’m letting them know we’d like to come,” he told her before she had to ask. “The red ones are for when the destination is doing the teleport, the unpainted ones are for when the traveler’s side will be making the cast.” The question was clear enough in her eyes for him to add, “We’re going to let them do all the work.” He smiled through the white storm of his beard while he retrieved his pipe from a fold of his robes. He lit it with a candle from the table nearby and then stood patiently waiting, his eyes on the empty spot where the red block had been.

A moment later, in its place appeared a tall, silver hourglass with a pair of fir trees etched into its base. The sands in its upper half were already running and, in fact, were all but a fraction gone.

“Oh, good,” said Tytamon. “Hardly any wait.” He saw her staring at it. “That is the timer for the TGS depot in Leekant. The fir trees are the symbol of Leekant’s lumber wealth. An accurately chosen icon to be sure.”

It only took her a moment to put it together, then she clapped her hands excitedly, childlike with discovery. “So you mean, that’s it?” she exclaimed. “That’s all you have to do to travel here? Send someone a block of wood, go into one of these rooms and then, presto, they bring you to them?”

“Well, you have to be at a Transportation Guild Services depot, or one of their field offices, a designation which this chamber has—or at least, I’ve been given something of a special case that works like I have an official designation here. But yes, that’s it. Simple and quick.”

She looked to the small chamber and recalled the small vault that Altin had used to take the fleet captains into
Citadel
, remembering the empty room they’d stepped into, and suddenly it began to make nearly perfect sense. “It’s amazing,” she said. “How efficient.”

“Well, don’t let that timer fool you. Try getting to Crown at Harvest Festival or Mercy’s Feast. You can wait for hours if they get backed up.”

She wasn’t sure how you could wait for hours on a single hourglass, but she didn’t put it past these amazing people to have a way to speed them up or slow them down. It really did seem as if they could do anything, and she thought it was marvelous. It was all so much fun. “It’s still wonderful,” she said. “Waiting or not.”

“That, my dear, is one of the things I enjoy about you most.”

She smiled as wide as physics would allow.

“Let’s go,” he said, directing her into the chamber. “The sands are nearly gone.”

He closed a door on the rack of shelves as if it were a medicine cabinet, and then he followed her inside. He closed the door behind him, locking it tight.

“Why the lock?” she asked.

“We must seal the box,” he explained. “This isn’t the sort of spell you are used to. TGS uses an object movement spell rather than a personal teleportation spell like Altin and I use when we teleport ourselves and, on occasion, you or other friends. It allows the guild teleporters to move frightened folks around without having to calm everybody down.”

“Frightened folks? Why would they be frightened?”

“Well, you can’t teleport people around willy-nilly just because you want to. They have to want to go. Some people are afraid of it, especially blanks. So, rather than do it that way, they just seal them in a box, like this, and teleport the box rather than the people inside. It’s really pretty elementary, sort of like putting blinders on a horse, or perhaps more like crating cargo for shipping. You don’t want your fruit rolling about and falling overboard.”

She nodded happily, and felt confident that she understood most of what it meant, even if it was all simply magic to her.

“Look, there it goes,” he said as the timer ran out. A moment later someone opened the cabinet door from the outside and swapped out the red hourglass with the symbol of Leekant on it for the red wooden block with the broken tower.

A woman’s narrow face peeked through and smiled between the shelves at them. “Welcome back, Master Tytamon. It’s been a while.”

As they exited, Tytamon returned the woman’s smile and tossed her a silver coin. “Thank you, Zephanie. Finely done as usual.”

“My pleasure, Master Tytamon. Always nice to see your signet come through.”

He winked at her and then led Orli toward the doors.

“Why didn’t you just take us to the edge of town like Altin does?” she asked innocently.

He shushed her with a low hiss. “Don’t say that, here of all places, or he’ll lose his membership.”

She stared up at him, a little startled by the unexpected abruptness.

When they were outside, Tytamon clarified. “First of all, Altin is reckless and is going to teleport himself, or you, into the path of a low-flying bird or even a bug. It doesn’t take anything more than a mosquito in the right place at the wrong time to cause a stroke or worse. Altin is too cock-sure of himself, and since you brought it up, you play with fire letting him port the two of you about so cavalierly.”

She looked horrified. “I had no idea. He never said a thing.”

“Of course he didn’t. He leads with a blast of air that he thinks is good enough. I think it’s reckless.”

She frowned. She would have to speak to him about that.

“Secondly, it is strictly against the law to teleport into town, and they count a pretty wide stretch of land as
town
when it comes to the legal definition they enforce. He’d be jailed, fined and kicked out of TGS, which would amount to a lifelong fine really, and worse, his reaction would probably cause him to be even more reckless than he already is.”

She wanted to laugh as she watched the protectiveness of the old wizard turn into something of a rant. It made her think of her own father, far off with the fleet ships heading back toward the repair rendezvous. Thinking about him brought a surge of worry, but she pushed it down. Her father was doing what he wanted to do. Like he always did. He reminded her of Altin in some ways. She’d held it against him often enough for bringing her on the fleet mission but couldn’t just then. Not now, not here on Prosperion, teleporting around with the greatest wizard of all time. She smiled. Her father would be fine. She had to believe he would.

“Put your hood up,” Tytamon ordered even as he complied with his own command. “And leave it up. We don’t want attention.”

She did as instructed, pulling the thick woolen hood of the cloak he’d given her over her head. He grabbed the leading edge and tugged it down even lower over her eyes. “There,” he said. “Now, keep your eyes open, and let me do the talking.”

“Well, talk away, but you’ve yanked this down so far, I’m not sure open eyes make much difference.”

“You’ll figure something out,” he said. His mustache rose, buoyant on the levity tweaking the corners of his mouth.

Tytamon had a few regular contacts he wanted to speak to first, but none of them were any help. He then asked around at a few places nearby, but in the end nobody in Guilds Quarter had heard of Black Sander, and none had any experience with pawnshops in general, at least not that they would admit aloud. They were simply in the wrong part of town.

“We’re looking for mermaids in the trees,” Tytamon said at length. “Let us go to Blanks Quarter and be done with it.”

“Isn’t that rude?” she said as they walked through the rain. The covered sidewalks of Guilds Quarter had given way to tattered canvas awnings, and eventually to nothing at all, as they made their way into the less prosperous part of town. She couldn’t help notice the boards beneath their feet got creakier the farther along they went, and the gaps between them grew to uncomfortable spans in places, requiring her to step over them or risk catching a boot heel.

“Isn’t what rude?” he asked. His gray eyes scanned the street as they went, darting side to side like a wary bird of prey.

“Blanks Quarter. Altin always apologizes when he calls me that. Others do too, even you. When you call
me
blank, I mean. Like you all know you shouldn’t say it but it just keeps popping out anyway. It’s like a secret nobody really tries to keep.”

“It’s no secret. Blanks know they are blank.”

“But is it a bad thing?”

“No. Not really. But you know how people are.” He stopped and stared down through the spaces in the walkway. Orli followed his gaze. A pair of bright blue eyes stared up out of a dirty young face for the barest moment before the boy darted off. Orli could trace his passage for a few steps through the cracks, but soon he was gone, lost in the shadows and curtains of rain.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Probably a cutpurse,” he said. “He likely saw your uniform from down there.”

Orli’s brows only drooped for a moment. “Oops. I suppose I could have asked Kettle to find me a dress, something more in keeping with local fashion.” She blushed for a moment. “I’m not sure that would have been better, actually.”

“Let’s keep moving.”

In the depths of Blanks Quarter, on a side street that sported walkways so rickety Orli was certain they were going to fall through at any moment, they finally came across a dilapidated old shop with a sign hanging above its door by one bit of weathered rope, the other end long ago frayed and broken. It spun wildly in the storm winds, and it was only after Tytamon reached up and stopped it that he determined they’d finally found a pawnshop.
Gevender’s Thrift Emporium
, it read.