“She’s hells-bent on infuriating those people, and between her clandestine colonies and the fact that she’s pointedly dragging her feet on the TGS platforms, their governance is going to be furious.”
Black Sander nodded. “They’ll send all those gleaming war machines at us this time. All of us.” He thought of the unbridled carnage the fleet ships and the mechanized warriors had done, and how quickly. Magic was too slow to defend against such an onslaught. At least one that came in force or by surprise.
She nodded, though it was barely perceptible. “There’s little to keep them from planting a flag right in the center of Crown City and all the other duchies and marks. That was the threat they made when they first landed, just before the great battle began. That was General Pewter’s message, straight from the NTA director, albeit the one they’ve since deposed. But they had the thought once, and they’ll have it again if it conveniences them.”
“Perhaps that is why Her Majesty seeks to plant colonies on other worlds. Her diviners may have seen something yours have not.”
That put a frown upon her face. She regarded him for a time, something dark in her eyes, then paced back to her mirror again. “I’ve got to stop her before she ruins us all.”
Black Sander had a hard time believing that was what this was all about. “Why not simply tell the new director of the Northern Trade Alliance? Even just get a message to a ship captain at Tinpoa Base? Why the secrecy?”
“It’s not enough. It needs to be handled here. Her reign has gone on long enough. She’s vain and reckless. It’s time to take matters into my own hands. I should have done it forty years ago when I had the chance.”
“The Earth people may send their machines to help her if you attempt a coup.”
“They won’t. They don’t want another war either. And this is a domestic feud.” She glared at him, her icy eyes narrowing as if she’d just caught him spying on her. “You’ll do best to do your job. Get me a stone on that silver ship the next time it comes to Murdoc Bay. Or on another one leaving from here, or from Tinpoa, bound for Earth. Send a damned homing lizard for all I care, but get around the damn blocks and wards, or I’ll find someone else who can. It’s a planet full of blanks, for Hestra’s sake. Get it done.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” He left with one last glance at the mirror and Altin Meade’s precious fiancée. Surely there was something he was missing. Something he’d overlooked. There was always a way around everything. But what?
He climbed down several flights of stairs and made his way back outside, all the while ruminating on what he could have missed. What angle of their defenses had he passed right over for its obviousness? It was always the way. The simple answers were usually best and, with painful frequency, also the most difficult to find. Simplicity was, like clarity, often a matter of hindsight.
He was still thinking about it all as he climbed back onto his horse, his cloak sweeping over the horse’s rump as he swung into the saddle, irritating the animal and causing it to flick its tail. He thought back over everything the marchioness had said, everything they’d covered, time and time again. But he’d done all that. The wards were everywhere. The electronics on everything were monitored; the least flicker set off alarms. And even the homing lizard trick was no good. He’d tried that too. There simply weren’t enough of the fleet captains set in the network for them to be of any use, and none that were on Earth.
And then it struck him, an idea, the one thing she had mentioned that might still be of some use: Thadius Thoroughgood. Thadius was dead, that much was true. Altin Meade had killed him, that’s what the rumors said. But his man wasn’t dead, his teleporter, a Northfork Manor magician by the name of Annison.
Chapter 27
A
nnison bent over the bar near the wall farthest from everyone. A red-and-green light above him kept flashing the unpronounceable name of some beer from some country the blanks called Germany. They called the things that bring disease
germs
too, and why they’d name a country after many of them was hard to say. It sounded like the name of an old-fashioned disease spell from Prosperion history, something Korgon the Beast would have cast with his perversion of growth magic and a subtle transmute. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he let it go. These people had no such history. He was sure it meant something entirely different, but didn’t care enough to ask. Nor enough to try the beverage, which he was sure was hideous.
The beers in the place were unspeakably bad, or at least those that Rue’s Bar and Grill served. Although they did have one spirit that he counted spectacular. They called it
vodka
, and it was clear delight. The top-shelf varieties, as Rue herself referred to them, were the best, and Annison had taken to pouring this libation down in copious amounts these days. It was the only thing that kept him from losing his mind.
He leaned heavily on his elbows as he stared into his drink, the light from the blinking sign hypnotically shaping arced lines around the lip of the glass. He watched the two ice cubes in it melting slowly, until they were eventually all but toothpick-sized versions of an ice lance. Frost. He’d never had frost spells. Or fire. Conjurers were the popular ones. The mighty ones. There was little enough use for an illusionist that didn’t become a thief or a stagehand. Oh, the Queen had plenty of counter-mages too, but that was boring work. Tedious and time consuming. And teleporting was just as bad. He couldn’t imagine sitting in a TGS depot all day, sending scads of nervous travelers all around Kurr. What a ridiculous way to waste your life. He laughed as soon as he thought it. It was hardly worse than being The Incredible Spectacularo. Could that simpleton Slick Danny have conceived a more idiotic name? If Annison had had a better grasp of the Earth language English back then, he would have insisted on something less insipid.
He threw back the whole of his drink and put the glass down loudly enough that the bartender heard. Annison nodded at the middle-aged woman, who nodded back. “One sec,” she said in her rustic Earth way. “Same?” she asked as an afterthought.
He rolled his eyes. He’d ordered the same thing twelve times a night every night for something approaching two hundred days. It was hard to imagine that the blanks on Earth might be more vapid than those on Prosperion, but they seemed hells-bent on taking the prize for dullest in all the galaxy.
“Hey, look,” called a voice from a table near the center of the small room. “It’s The Great Spectacularo!”
A few other patrons turned to see where the young man was pointing.
“It is,” confirmed one of the youth’s compatriots. Annison recognized the third and only silent member of the group, though he couldn’t place him or recall a name.
“You see that, Reggie. That’s the ‘real-life Prosperion’ that freaked you out, bro.” They laughed and prodded him, and it was clear from the derisive way they spoke the planet’s name that they had no thought in their heads that it might actually be true.
Annison turned away from them and stared in the direction of his empty glass, wishing the barkeep, Rue, would hurry up with his drink.
“Hey, Spectacularo,” called one of the noisy youths. “Why don’t you show us another magic trick? Reggie here swears you really are one of them magic aliens. He’s been taking crap for months. Help him out, would ya? Just one little trick.”
“Yeah,” agreed the other boisterous one. “Let the Great Spectacularo amaze the crowd. And maybe tell us why he’s working in such a shithole like Slick Danny’s dump.”
“All right, boys,” said Rue, coming around from behind the bar. “First off, his stage name is The
Incredible
Spectacularo, not the
great
one. So get it right. And second off, he’s my customer, and his money is as good as yours. So leave him alone, and I’ll buy you all a round and a game of pool just to keep it nice.”
The bigger of the two loudmouths started to protest, but Reggie put a hand on his arm, and shut him down with a look. “Let’s just play, all right?”
The aggressive one shot Annison a long, taunting look, but Annison was still ignoring him, or at least trying to. “Fine. Wouldn’t want him to get mad and send us super far back in time. We could get, like, eaten by cavemen and their pet dinosaurs.”
“
You’re
a caveman,” Rue said as she gently pushed them all toward the pool tables far across the room. She pulled a wooden cue from a rack on the wall. “Here’s your club, stud. Now what do you want to drink?”
Annison glanced over at them, observing mainly out of the corner of his eye. They’d already forgotten about him. Which was good. He didn’t need attention. He just needed to be left alone.
A short time after, a man came and sat down on the barstool to Annison’s right. The Prosperion turned from his vodka long enough to look at the newcomer and shake his head. There were five empty barstools between him and the closest patron at the bar.
He drew in a long breath and waited for whatever the man had to say.
“I’ve been following you for a week,” the newcomer said at length. “I’ve watched your show.”
Annison tried to place the man in his memory of any of the recent crowds, but couldn’t. He made a point of watching, but there were places in the theater he couldn’t see. The stage lights were too bright.
“Yeah, well, I don’t sign autographs,” Annison said.
“That’s a strange accent you have there,” the man remarked. “I’m sure I’ve never heard it before.”
Annison had gotten sloppy in recent months. He often forgot to cast the illusion on his voice. It didn’t seem to matter much here in the dregs. None of them had ever traveled out of this flea-ridden neighborhood, so they wouldn’t know one accent from the next. He could tell them he was from Germany, and they couldn’t care less. In fact he had. Nobody gave an Earthly shit down here.
“It’s German,” he said, making sure to make his tone as conspicuously irritated as possible.
“Really? My mother is from Germany. What part?”
“Piss off,” Annison said. “If I wanted company, I’d have gone to a brothel.”
“Hmm, interesting,” said the man. “I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone use that word to describe anything around these parts before.”
Annison glanced sideways at the man again. Blond hair, short cropped. Pale eyebrows on a broad brow. A rather large, bulbous nose below wide blue eyes, and narrow, emotionless lips. His expression lacked that dull vacancy that seemed to fog the countenance of most of the people around here. “Piss off,” Annison said again.
“I’m not here to turn you in. I have less love for the NTA than you do.”
Annison wasn’t taking the bait.
“You don’t have to live like this, you know. There are other places you can go. Safe places.”
“Why don’t you go home to your mother in Germany,” said Annison. “Like I said: piss off.”
“I have friends in Mexico who are interested in meeting you. Who want to protect you from the NTA.”
“I have no issues with the NTA,” he said. He waved his empty glass impatiently in the direction of Rue behind the bar.
The man shook his head. “The people I work for don’t like it when their hospitality is turned down. A couple of days at a nice villa on the bay is all they ask. Hear them out. They just want to buy some DNA. Maybe a little time at the lab. It will be no big deal. Easy money, like when women go donating eggs. Just come listen. Enjoy the scenery. San Francisco has some of the best seafood and highest culture in all of Mexico. You’ll have fun. And you will find people there who can, shall we say, sympathize with your plight.”
“And what plight is that?”
“Banishment.”
Annison couldn’t hide the widening of his eyes. He nearly did; it was only barely noticeable. He hoped the man wouldn’t see it in the dark. But the man did. He smiled.
“Yes. We know a lot. We don’t have to belong to the NTA to find out what happens on its ships. Bureaucracies always have leaks, and our people have been being overlooked for centuries.”
Annison took the fresh glass of iced liquor from Rue and whirled it slowly while his mind raced. The ice cubes clinked against the glass. He missed having a decent place to live. He lived in a box that was little more than an old shipping crate, one in a stack of them in a place called the Junction, ironically of course, for it was a junction of nowhere.
But if the NTA found him, they’d want him back. They’d want to put the secret tracker in him again, and they’d want to poke him with needles and suck out more of his blood. They’d want to do the tests they’d threatened him with. They’d offered him money too. For all he knew, these people in this man’s
Mexico
would do the same. Or, then again, perhaps they just wanted him to do private magic shows. Or perhaps teleport them into bank vaults or something equally mundane like everyone on the damn planet was afraid Prosperions would do.
He sipped his drink slowly. The man sat patiently at his side.
Finally he shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t help you.”
“Well, you have a week to change your mind,” the man said. He slid him a small piece of paper with a little square of scrambled ink on it: a net signature. “You can find me here. They call me
El Segador
. Just ask for me when you arrive. I hope we can come to an arrangement that benefits us all, as I’d prefer not to come looking for you again.” And then he left. Leaving The Incredible Spectacularo to his drink, his vodka, with its melting ice cubes, reminding him of magic he couldn’t cast.