Dance of Destinies (The Galactic Mage Series Book 5) Page 27

  “Right. That was me. I apologize.” He turned and winked at Deeqa as the rest of his crew was filing past, greeting Tytamon and being introduced all around. The two of them joined right after, with Roberto and Deeqa sitting across from each other. Roberto sat between the now slim Doctor Leopold and Liu Chun, whom the doctor had brought back with him from the hospital in Leekant, finally recuperated from injuries caused by a broken coolant tank. Deeqa sat between General Pewter and Tytamon’s exchange student, Angela Hayworth.

  “Sorry we’re late, everyone,” Roberto said after giving Liu Chun a hug. He sat down and dragged the heavy chair in behind him with a grunt. “I’m telling you, the TGS has a real stick up their ass. We sat there for nine hours getting back, and our teleport for this trip was booked before we came here last time.”

  Kettle sent a grunt of displeasure and a sour look at him before scuttling off toward the kitchens again.

  “It’s only going to get worse,” said General Pewter. “There’s been another death on the council.”

  Roberto grabbed his goblet and drained it. A girl in her early teens swept out of the shadows beyond the candlelight and refilled it almost immediately. “I didn’t know there’d been a first one,” he admitted. He looked to the girl and thanked her. “You guys sure have better service than any restaurant back on Earth.” She smiled and, seeing that half his crew had already emptied theirs as well, set herself to work.

  “Interesting that you should mention it,” the general said. “Councilman Stropleather choked to death on a spinach salad two weeks ago during his first visit to Earth. That raised a few eyebrows, but nobody said much. Bad luck, maybe. But now, they are locking everything down with the death of the new first councilman who replaced Stropleather, Councilman Spinnaker.”

  “Yes,” agreed Tytamon. “The death of them both, two weeks apart, suggest not only a conspiracy, but arrogance.”

  “Or stupidity,” suggested Roberto.

  “I think not. That is a bold move, and a statement.”

  “Who is the next in line?” Deeqa asked. “Are they suspect or trembling, new number one?”

  “Both, I imagine,” said the general. “The new guy’s name is Ivan Gangue. I’ve never met him, but he looks like a typical bureaucrat.”

  “We’ve met him,” Roberto said, pointing with his fork to Deeqa across from him. He swung the fork toward Angela Hayworth then. “He was the one who set up your coming to Prosperion, and he didn’t look too happy about it when that elf dropped the bomb about Pernie going to Earth.”

  “He wasn’t,” Angela said. “And it was the big stink it raised that put it on my uncle’s radar in Fort Reno. That’s the only reason I got to come here. I know there was some trouble with her here—I’ve heard the whole story about that”—she paused and cringed as she glanced to Tytamon—“but I’m glad I got out of there. The NTA just isn’t what I thought it would be. I mean, it did start out not so bad, but the longer I was there, the more it changed. Slow at first, but that was like the first bits of snow tumbling down the slope before the avalanche. Maybe I was just naïve, but now it’s crazy there. Nothing they say is true, or at least not exactly.”

  “It’s hardly better here, my dear,” said Tytamon. “Which is why I’ve asked you all to come. There are things afoot that, as Miss Hayworth suggests, portend an avalanche. A large one. I haven’t felt such tremors in over two hundred years.”

  Roberto snorted. “Well, I thought the whole Hostiles-and-demons-from-hell thing was kind of an avalanche-sized cluster fu—” Kettle had just come in with a tray of the very same duck-stuffed swan she’d promised him. The woman had a gift for that sort of timing, and her glare shot across the flicker of the candles like a thrown knife to cut off the epithet. “That was bad enough,” he finished. “You’re saying it’s going to get worse?”

  “The priests are saying that was how it began.”

  “Damn. You guys need to get some better priests. The ones you got are major downers.” Roberto looked to Kettle and shrugged.

  That got a few chuckles from his crew, but Doctor Leopold was deadly serious when he spoke.

  “I looked into what some of the Church gossip has been putting out. In particular, the Church of Anvilwrath, who seem determined that the time of Tidalwrath’s return is imminent. The Grand Maul’s last statement was over nine months ago, and no one has seen him since.”

  Roberto cringed, but he wasn’t so bothered by it to be prevented from stabbing several slices of swan and duck together. “I thought he came back already, that Tidalwrath one. Wasn’t he the one that pissed off the giant rock monster with the long arm that the orcs brought?”

  Doctor Leopold shook his head. “Anvilwrath’s return was prophesied. His judgment would fall upon the people. If the pleas of Feydore could sway him to spare them—us—then the sacrifice of love would be complete. The gods would once more protect Prosperion, and Tidalwrath would be allowed to return and once more rule the seas. All would be whole again. Even the priests of Mercy agreed, which is rare. They say that she will intercede when time comes to bring love back.”

  “Yeah, that’s a hell of a story, I’ll give you that,” Roberto said, despite his mouth being stuffed with duck meat. “I definitely like having just one God to worry about.”

  “Well,” said Tytamon, “however much of that is accurate divination, and how much is story to fill in the gaps, is a matter aside. The real issue is still as it has been. We must first find a way to get Altin and Orli free. We must also learn the nature of the aliens and their intentions on Yellow Fire.”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I’m going to,” the general said. “I’m going to because I’m tired of being strapped to the deck in all of this. Command is planning to blow Yellow Fire straight to hell the moment those aliens get to the heart chamber. There’s a hundred-megaton nuke sitting in one of those crates down there.” He looked straight to Roberto. “That wasn’t all simple mining charges you put down there, regardless of how they labeled the crates.”

  Roberto nodded. “I figured as much. And I knew that’s what they were going to do. If that was supposed to be a secret, it’s a pretty obvious one.”

  “Yes, but now it’s not a secret you all don’t have. And I’m damn sure not going to push the button.”

  “Who else has one to push?” Roberto held his goblet up for the serving girl, who was refilling the general’s cup just then.

  “Director Bahri, of course. And Admiral Putin.”

  “Putin? Are you serious? He’s one of Asad’s cronies. How could they have given access to that guy?”

  “It’s the fleet, Roberto. You more than anyone should know how it works.”

  Roberto looked to his empty goblet as he shook his head. Maybe he should just get his own pitcher if this was how the night was going to go.

  “Regardless of which of them plans to push the button,” Tytamon said, looking to the general, “we must get my apprentice and that sweet girl of yours before they do.”

  “Well, you said you can’t look through the hull of that alien ship,” Roberto said. “So they got a block on your magic somehow. At least defending the ship. Like maybe that anti-magic stuff you guys were casting on our nukes, right? Or some of that warding stuff like Altin put on my ship?”

  Tytamon nodded as he leaned aside and allowed Kettle to change out his plate for a clean one.

  “Which means I need to go,” Roberto said. “Like, now. If magic isn’t going to work, then we just need to handle this old-school style with an ass whipping. So I need a way to get back here after, in case Altin is jacked up somehow after I get him out. So you have to come with me, or I need some harbor stones. Both would be better.”

  “I can send you there,” Tytamon conceded, “but as I said, Doctor Leopold and I have work to do. Brute force is not enough. At least not until we know what we are dealing with.”

  “He’s got a thousand mechs and a handful of fighters,” Roberto said, pointing at the
general. “I think you underestimate what brute force is capable of.”

  “Yes, but the ships are large, and we don’t know what they are capable of in terms of brute force on their own.” Tytamon forked meat onto his plate, though the portion suggested he hadn’t much of an appetite. “And as I understand it, the fleet has no intention of sending ships. We haven’t finished our little platform out there … and the reality is that we aren’t in a position to wage war out of Calico Castle just yet. The outcome of our collaboration on such an operation would be seen as an act of war by the people of three worlds at bare minimum. We need to know more.”

  “Man, no offense, but it seems like the older people get, the more they want to think about stuff. The clock is ticking on this shit. Yellow Fire’s heart stone was only a three-week dig. Orli did the math. I’m telling you, those spaghetti-bastard aliens are right there. They have to be. We need to go. Tonight.”

  “Well, I can make you a harbor stone,” Tytamon said. “But it will take many hours to complete. I haven’t got a Liquefying Stone to speed it up, and getting one would take longer than we have, for reasons too numerous to relate. But I can have one ready by tomorrow night.”

  Roberto grunted and speared another slab of duck. “They might not have until tomorrow night.” Kettle set a tray of some kind of root on the table, long and fat tubers with small hairs that had curled up from the heat. She cut one down the middle with a wooden knife, sending filaments of honey-colored light crackling around its surface like lightning. A heavenly sweet aroma wafted up on a cloud of steam. She set it on Roberto’s plate and set to doing the same for Liu Chun.

  Tytamon’s expression conveyed that he clearly understood Roberto’s impatience, and shared it. But it changed little. “I’m afraid the work of finding out how to get them out is more essential than getting you there and back just yet. Chariots before chargers and all that rot. The doctor and I will be all night at the divining spell first.”

  “Fine, then just send me and the general and as many mechs as my cargo bays can hold,” Roberto said. “That is, if the general wants to come along.”

  “I do,” he said. “I’ll need some time to get the mechs and pilots together.”

  Roberto nodded and looked to Tytamon. “You can send me, then send the general and whoever he can round up when they are ready, and when it’s done, send me the harbor stone too. And if you can’t get it done before we could use it, well, we will just up and get the hell out of there the old-fashioned way, and that’s how it will be. The Lady is fast enough.”

  “And if you run into a problem before you have that opportunity?” Tytamon asked.

  “Sometimes you just have to improvise, Tytamon, trust your instincts. Those are my friends up there, and I don’t have time for … for the crystal ball treatment. No offense. This shit is on, you know?”

  Tytamon sighed and nodded. “It is. I agree. I worry about how we will communicate. You have no mages on your ship. You must have a way to communicate telepathically at least. You have other crewmembers to think of.”

  “Do you have anyone you can recommend?”

  “Her Majesty has tapped the entire nation, I’m afraid. With the losses from the war, the TGS efforts, and whatever Her Majesty is up to, there’s hardly a B-class illusionist to be found for the start of summer festivals.”

  “Then I’ll get one of those homing lizards you guys use. How many have you got around here?”

  Tytamon huffed at that. “None. The world teeters on the brink of something spectacular—or terrible—and an entire generation of blanks wastes the first magical access those creatures gave them in sending short notes and silly drawings back and forth. I abstain on principle.”

  Roberto turned to see if the doctor had a homing lizard to spare, but the old fellow was nodding right along with Tytamon. Roberto shook his head. Old people. Always crapping on change. Some things never changed.

  “Fine,” he said. “Where can I get one this late at night? Is there someplace close? In Leekant?”

  “Murdoc Bay,” Tytamon and Doctor Leopold said together. Tytamon continued, “Everything in Leekant will be closed, but down there, well, they shutter more businesses during the day.”

  Roberto nodded. Not his first choice, but any spaceport is better than none in a meteor storm. “Fine. I’ll go after dinner. You happen to know the name of any shops?”

  “I don’t. Be careful if you go. It’s not a safe place during the day, and the danger there multiplies the longer the sun has been gone.”

  “I know. I’ll bring my people,” Roberto said. “We’ve done that run before.”

  “After dark?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll be better off with less of you, not more. And I’d cover those Earth weapons of yours.”

  “I’m a big boy, Tytamon. And Deeqa grew up in a place that makes Murdoc Bay look like a pirate-themed kiddie park.”

  Tytamon nodded. “Very well. I’ll send you along before the doctor and I start the divination. Sooner is better. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “We’ll take ourselves,” Roberto said. He jammed the last of the duck into his mouth as he stood. He scooped up a fork load of the lightning root and stuffed that in as well, then snatched the uncut half of a loaf of Kettle’s now galaxy-famous bread. “I’ll go now.” He didn’t have to say anything and Deeqa was pushing out her chair, the rest of his crew only a few movements behind. He nearly made it to the doors, then came back and wrapped up the rest of the root on his plate in the napkin he’d dropped beside it when he got up. “Damn,” he mouthed around the food he was still working on getting down. “That’s freaking amazing.” He grinned so wide that his stuffed cheeks nearly closed his eyes. “I love this planet. I really do. Can’t wait until we can cut the crap and just get to having fun.” Then he was off after the rest of them. A couple of homing lizards from Murdoc Bay and then he was going back to Yellow Fire to get Orli and Altin. Her Majesty had had her chance. Way more chance than he should have given her. Now was the time for action.

  Chapter 37

  Black Sander watched through the window as the poplars beyond Galbrun Hall’s eastern garden wall swayed in the night breeze. The uppermost branches, black silhouettes, swept lazily across the sky, masking and unmasking the star that sailors called Hope. He watched it blinking in and out as the black clouds of the leafy poplar limbs blew over it, on and off, over and over again. There was hope, and there was not. Hope was a coin toss, about the same odds Jefe was looking at in his suit to get the royal armor from the marchioness as a prize.

  Black Sander glanced to the water clock on a table in the corner and saw that they’d been waiting for almost an hour. He knew she was doing it on purpose. He looked to where Jefe sat, a pleasant smile on his face as if he were some young boy about to watch an enchanted puppet show. That was good. Black Sander didn’t want to be in the room if two colossal egos were going to collide.

  As if reading his thoughts, El Segador, seated next to his boss, looked to the clock as well. Black Sander could tell the Earth man didn’t know how to read it. El Segador’s gaze slid to Black Sander. He gave the slightest movement of one shoulder and even less movement in the tilting of his head, a question. Black Sander made no movement, nothing at all to serve as response.

  When a full hour had passed and one minute more, the door opened to the marchioness’ sitting room. The Earl of Vorvington stuck his fat face out and announced, “My Lady will see you now.”

  Jefe sprang up with youthful energy and strode right in. El Segador and Black Sander followed less eagerly.

  “Buenas noches, Mi Señora. I am—” he began, addressing the marchioness with utmost courtesy.

  “I know who you are,” she cut him off. “Do you think I am an idiot?” She did not look at him. She stared into the mirror instead.

  Black Sander cringed and started running through his mental list of contacts back on Earth. It wasn’t a long list, but he’d likely have to start w
orking it now. They were going to be back to square one.

  “Do you see here?” the marchioness said, stepping back from the mirror enough to grant the others in the room a look. “The aliens are moving them now. It’s most interesting.”

  Shockingly, she looked to Black Sander as she pointed to the mirror. He knew why she was doing it. She wanted Jefe to understand his place. She would address her own kind, those with magic in particular, first.

  Black Sander went to the mirror and looked into it. The image that had been there for weeks was different now. There were long, ropy things, grayish-white strands, dangling around the Galactic Mage and his bride, and they were moving, although Black Sander could not say how. There was a bright light shining on them, and they seemed to be traveling through mist.

  “It started twenty minutes ago,” the marchioness said. “Those tendrils came down and pulled one of the tubes out of the amber. Then the light came on. They’ve been moving along like this since.”

  Black Sander leaned forward and looked into the faces of each, Altin, then Orli, in turn. They were still in the gelatinous ochre material, and it was hard to make out if they were moving inside of their spacesuits. “I still can’t tell if they are alive.”

  “We may be on the brink of finding out. Perhaps they have been in cold storage all this time, little more than slabs of meat on ice.”

  “It would explain the mist. It’s likely frost, though it looks a little heavy in this view.”

  She nodded, and they stood watching for a time.

  “She’ll be right with you,” the earl muttered to Jefe and El Segador nervously. Black Sander knew how badly the nobleman wanted to get the mechs. The idea had surprised him at first, but the earl knew an advantage when he saw one. His palpable eagerness was going to up the cost.

  Black Sander was himself a bit uncomfortable with standing there as long as they did. It was rude, and grossly so, and with each minute that passed, he became more aware of it. He could not look away, however, for this was the marchioness’ game to play now. She’d not been happy to have her hand forced like it had been.