Under Cover of Darkness

Table of Contents

 

 

 

Easing the clip back into the grip, I gently worked the slide to chanber a round and leaned back in my chair. Might be pure coincidence that a visitor came exactly at midnight and fog blanketed the city. Hey, anything was possible. I tightened my grip on the Glock, disengaging the safety.
Then again
. . .

The footsteps thumping along the hallway stopped right outside my door. There was a short pause, and then somebody politely knocked twice.

“Excuse me, I saw the light under your door,” a soft feminine voice said. “May I use your bathroom?” She sounded sweet and southern. Pure corn pone and hominy grits. A delicate flower of the South. “The one in the lobby is broken, and I really have to pee something fierce. Please?”

“Just a sec,” I answered cheerfully, aiming at chest level where the heart would be on a human being.
Yeah, she was from the South, all right. Straight down south. Near the core of the planet.
Hell.

 

—From “Falling like Gentle Rain” by Nick Pollotta

From hags and harpies to sorceresses and sirens, this volume features twenty all-new tales that prove women are far from the weaker sex—in all their alluring magical, and monstrous roles. With stories by C.S. Friedman, Rosemary Edghill, Lisa Silverthorne, Jean Rabe, and Laura Resnick.

 

Isn't it always more fun to be the “bad guy”? Some of fantasy's finest, such as Esther Friesner, Tanya Huff, Donald J. Bingle, David Bischoff, Fiona Patton and Dean Wesley Smith, have risen to the editors' evil challenge with stories ranging from a man given ultimate power by fortune cookie fortunes, to a tyrant's daughter bent on avenging her fahter's untimely demise—and by the way, rising to power herself—to a fellow who takes his cutthroat business savvy and turns his expertise to the creation of a new career as an Evil Overlord, to a youth forced to play through game level after game level to fulfill someone else's schemes for conquest. . . .

 

Thirteen all-new tales about the magic of childhood by Jean Rabe, Esther Friesner, David Bischoff, Mel Odom, Peter Morwood, and others. In this exciting short story collection, toys come to life through the love and belief of the children who play with them. A tiny Mr. Magoo yearns to escape the Old Things Roadshow and get home to the woman he'd been stolen from. A child slave in Rome dreams of owning a wooden gladiator—could an act of magic fulfill his dream? Can a ghost who's found refuge in a what-not doll solve a case of unrequited love?

eISBN : 978-1-101-04206-9

Copyright © 2007 by Tekno Books, Julie E. Czerneda, and Jana Paniccia.

All Rights Reserved
DAW Book Collectors No. 1392.
DAW Books is distributed by Penguin Group (USA).
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

 

 

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

First Printing, February 2007

 

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.

 

 

S. A.

Introduction
© 2007 by Julie E. Czerneda and Jana Paniccia

The Scoria
© 2007 by Doranna Durgin
The Gatherers' Guild
© 2007 by Larry Niven
Kyri's Gauntlet
© 2007 by Darwin A. Garrison
Falling Like the Gentle Rain
© 2007 by Nick Pollotta
The Things Everyone Knows
© 2007 by Tanya Huff
The Invisible Order
© 2007 by Paul Crilley
Borrowed Time
© 2007 by Stephen Kotowych
Shadow of the Scimitar
© 2007 by Janet Deaver-Pack
The Good Samaritan
© 2007 by Amanda Bloss Maloney
Seeking the Master
© 2007 by Esther M. Friesner
When I Look to the Sky
© 2007 by Russell Davis
The Sundering Star
© 2007 by Janny Wurts
The Exile's Path
© 2007 by Jihane Noskateb
The Dancer at the Red Door
© 2007 by Douglas Smith

Julie E. Czerneda and Jana Paniccia

 

 

T
HERE IS A world beyond the one we know.

T Whispers reveal paths to its location. Symbols decorate its lintels. Handshakes gain entry into its domain.

A domain of power—where oath-bound men and women hold the keys to tantalizing knowledge, astonishing magic, and unparalleled authority. Under cover of darkness they live out their lives as reflections of ordinary citizens, even while working to shape the course of human destiny.

We debate their motives. We debate their influence. We debate their
very
existence. Yet what do we really know without belonging ourselves?

What of those few who
do
step through the veil shrouding our world from that hidden one? What cause sparks their desire, leads them to knock on that unseen door, to accept the responsibility of knowing the truths most of us can only imagine?

This is the premise we gave our talented group of authors: journey beyond the whispers, the rumors, and the hearsay . . . delve into the realities of those who become a part of the secrets and those who live and die to keep them.

We hope you enjoy the results as much as we have.

Doranna Durgin

 

 

 

‘
A
LLEKSA! ALLEKSA!”

Voices raised in joy, in a rare daring.

Galetia twisted from her sentry spot and raised her own hands high, flashing fingers open and closed in the approval of their kind. “
Alleksa!
” she shouted down into the bowl of the arena ruin, a midnight darkness spotted with tiny ground fires and fire spinners on the move. A spontaneous, whirling circle closed around the central dark spot that held Alleksa.

Hidden here outside the city, only the Scoria celebrated the night.

And only the Scoria celebrated surviving the coming of age that the citties took for granted. Alleksa proved more blessed yet . . . she would not only survive, she would thrive. Everyone saw the signs—the flashes of change without fever, without shakes, without chills. The ripples of ethereal
otherness
across her face, without the rash that so often came with such a strong turning.

She would be one of their strongest.

She might even live through to adulthood, protected by this secret gathering of the abandoned, the discarded . . . those both lost and found. Each year, more infants were plucked to the safety of loving arms. Each year, more youngsters lived through the change.

But, oh, the authorities had begun to suspect. There were too many of them now—too many who survived exposure on the rugged ceremonial hillside so steep, so treacherous, even those who left vulnerable infants to perish sometimes fell to their own deaths. For all Galetia knew, her own father had met that fate. She felt no regret at the thought. He'd seen those brief, newborn signs of who she was—of
what
she was—and he'd abandoned her. In spite of him, she'd lived. In spite of them all, she'd grown. And now, with barely eighteen years claimed, she was one of the elders of the Scoria, almost ready to attempt full integration into the copper-spawned city.

From within the city she could observe . . . she could send warnings to the Scoria. They had to be more careful than ever these days if they even hoped to survive. For it was the Scoria come-of-age that those in city had feared all along.

Galetia had come of age a handful of years earlier, and had exchanged her hunter-gatherer duties for those of the watch, employing her new facilities to protect those younger. Thanks to the change and new affinities with the animals of her world . . . she could see in the dark, perceive an amazing range of sounds, manage a sense of smell above all others . . . and more. Owl, bat, fierce iron-hided rhino . . . her instant ability to connect with the animals she encountered, to borrow from them, had outmatched any of the other Scoria before her. Her ability to connect with her fellow elders had created a level of communication the Scoria had never before experienced.

Until Alleksa. Alleksa would certainly surpass her . . . Alleksa, if she gained wisdom to match her innate ability, would almost certainly lead the Scoria into a new era. All the elders spoke of it, having seen the signs in the gangly young woman. All the elders were determined to lead Alleksa to that wisdom.

Galetia hadn't yet decided if Alleksa herself had that same determination.

Didn't matter, not tonight. Tonight was for the celebration—the certainty of the younger's survival. The Scoria filled the arena, lithe, immature bodies whirling fire pots on pilfered chains, dancing in a frenzy only the constant fear of annihilation could so freely bring to the surface. The crumbling arena held them in safety, hiding them . . . nurturing them.

This old arena, long abandoned, held a deep warren of burrows beneath the stone structure of the steep seating rows. Half the oval arena lay destroyed by a long-ago mud slide. The other half had withstood the onslaught of mud and trees, and the debris piled high against the outer wall. Over the years the Scoria had extended their burrows through that architecture of trees and natural mortar; they'd dug deep into the hill, stealing stone bones from the crumbled arena to shore up their dwellings. They kept vigil on the hillsides, they ran a nursery as efficiently as any city nanny, and they made daring nighttime raids for supplies the rugged, spare surrounding hills and ridges couldn't provide. They stayed hidden from city eyes, their outrunners and elders always alert.