1 State of Grace (11 page)

“Richie!” Hoag cried. He raced down the gangplank.

Wolf called for buckets and water, and then went to the edge of the ship and looked down for any trace of his would-be assassin. There were burning chunks of flesh and bones but nothing more. Richie was gone too.

“No!” Hoag said when he reached the spot where they fell. The big man fell to his knees and wept, despite the danger of his proximity to the fire.

A second later, water rose up from the harbor, arced around
The Shimmering Veil
and settled gently on the fire, extinguishing it in short order. Stunned, Wolf looked for the source and saw Quincy holding a wand and waving fervently at Wolf to join him.

Years of training and well honed instincts overrode Wolf’s desire to comfort his friend in his grief. He ran down the gangplank and was by Quincy’s side in seconds.

“Let’s go,” Quincy said.

“But Captain Hoag—” Wolf started.

“There’s no time!” Quincy barked. “There may be other assassins; we need to get you to safety. We’ll send for your things. Now come on, Shadow Six! We’ve got to move.”

Something about hearing his service codename snapped Wolf out of his thoughts for Hoag and Richie and into mission mode. He hated just abandoning the man, but the mission took priority. Quincy was right. It was time to go.

Quincy waved his wand and Wolf saw magic descend upon the two of them. When they started running, they moved at superhuman speeds. He had to focus to keep Quincy in sight and to avoid running into slower moving people and animals.

After what seemed like only a few seconds, Quincy came to a stop at a brownstone wall. Wolf nearly ran him over in his attempt to stop. Quincy waved his wand again, and a door appeared on the wall.

“This way,” he said, opening it and slipping inside.

Wolf followed, vowing to make the person responsible for Richie’s death pay. He owed Hoag and Richie both that much.

Chapter 12: More Dangerous than Mensch

(Two Days before Revelation Day)

Wolf spent the next few hours enduring debriefing. Quincy left him almost immediately after dropping him off and explaining there had been an assassination attempt. Moments later, Wolf was whisked to a nondescript room with a couple of chairs and a table and left alone.

He barely had time to consider what happened when the door opened and an Urlish soldier in an immaculately pressed uniform came in. His blonde hair was cut short, and he wore a serious expression.

“I am Lieutenant Smith,” he said. “I’m the duty officer in charge of security. Are you injured at all?”

“No,” Wolf answered. At least not physically.

“Good,” Smith said. “Please describe the sequence of events for me.”

Wolf spent an interminable amount of time going over every detail of his arrival in El-Amin. He told and retold the story of the assassination attempt, of Richie’s heroism, of Quincy’s rescue. He was forced to vouch for Hoag not being a security risk. He explained the protocols for his arrival.

When he was weary and angry and frustrated, Smith relented and left him in peace. But only a few minutes later, he was interviewed a second time, this time by Shadow Twenty-Seven, the Shadow assigned to El-Amin. Wolf didn’t know him personally. He’d read his file and knew the young man had the ability to see and hear things from hundreds of yards away. It was a useful trait for a spy, and that no doubt made him very handy in Alfar. Shadow Twenty-Seven had a small frame and was soft-spoken. His black hair looked like a mop sitting on top of his head.

Wolf spent another half an hour describing the assassin, trying to recall what the elf looked like exactly, and where he had come from. Wolf couldn’t be sure of the last. He hadn’t noticed him until he was on the gangplank. Shadow Twenty-Seven conceded it was all probably a lost cause, but he was compelled to learn whatever they could about the assassin’s operations.

“It was most likely the Sons of Frey,” he said.

“They’re the principal insurgents, right?” Wolf said, trying to sort through all of the information he’d read and heard over the last week.

“Correct,” Shadow Twenty-Seven replied. “They’re the largest Shendali terrorist cell operating in this area. Their goal is to effect a fundamentalist
coup
similar to the one in Jifan. They attack our soldiers and outposts to try to get us to go home. They also bomb any establishment too closely associated with the coalition government, and they have been known to kidnap and torture Freyalans. You don’t see that as much in Al-Adan or even here in El-Amin. Our forces, along with the Alfari Elite Guard and Central Police, are pretty effective at discouraging that sort of sectarian violence. But out in the rural areas and the cities closer to Jifan, it’s still pretty common.”

“Who’s running this?” Wolf asked.

“The Sons of Frey? The head man is reputed to be a guy by the name of Starfellow. He’s unreliably described, and neither Her Majesty’s Shadow Service nor the Elite Guard has a good fix on his background or his base of operations. Most reports indicate he’s controlling things from Al-Adan, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest he moves around a lot.

“He sends regular communiqués, though. Most of it is what you’d expect. He demands all foreigners leave Alfar immediately, and he wants the government to install more conservative, fundamentalist policies. He promises violence and retribution for failure to comply with his terms, and every time some of his people are caught, he attacks civilians to try to terrorize the government into laying off. So far, he’s only steeled their resolve to catch him, but they have no idea how to do it or where he is.”

Wolf nodded. He’d read a lot of this in his security briefs, and Hoag had touched briefly on the fanaticism of the insurgents.

“You said most of his communiqués are what I’d expect,” Wolf said. “What’s the rest of it?”

“Well, lately he’s been promising a calamity of epic proportions if our forces don’t withdraw by Revelation Day. That’s only two days away. I don’t see it happening, but he hasn’t given any real clue what this calamity might be.”

Wolf leaned back and rubbed the back of his head. Despite the anger and confusion he felt at the interrogation and the assassination attempt that had cost the life of a friend, he found himself drawn in by the problem of the Sons of Frey. He knew Silverleaf was up to something. The ambassador was Shendali. Could he be involved with Starfellow? Wolf didn’t think that made a lot of sense. Whatever his religious leanings and his stance toward Urlanders, he was an avowed patriot and a hater of Jifan. According to the dossier Wolf read, he’d fought vehemently against the upstart theocracy in the Elfin Civil War. It just didn’t add up for Silverleaf and Starfellow to be working together. More likely, both fiends were plotting separate conspiracies.

Regardless, Wolf was tired of theorizing. He was anxious to get to work. He hadn’t been in Alfar five minutes when someone tried to kill him. For the moment, the Sons of Frey were someone else’s problem. He wanted to get his hands on Silverleaf. And he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten for hours.

“I’m sorry, Shadow Twenty-Seven,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“No, Shadow Six,” he replied. “That’s all.”

“Then is there anything to eat? I’m famished, and I need to get moving on my assignment.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll have some food sent in and inform Dr. Quincy you’re ready for his briefing.”

Wolf thanked him, and the other Shadow went out. A few minutes later, a soldier arrived with a tray of bread and cheese and a jug of wine. The cheese was surprisingly good; the wine only passable. So far, Wolf hadn’t seen any of the excellent cuisine he was promised by Hoag and the culture reports. On the other hand, this was Urlish food. He supposed he needed to be a little more patient.

Fifteen minutes later, Shadow Twenty-Seven returned and said, “Dr. Quincy will see you now, Shadow Six.”

Wolf got up wordlessly and followed his colleague down the hall. After a quick turn they came to a cavern. Wolf thought it had been enlarged from its original composition. Some of the stone was obviously worked.

Inside, there were a number of tables and benches covered in what Wolf presumed were magical experiments. Quincy never liked to be far from his work, and, when he was forced to travel, he often brought a makeshift workshop and several staffers with him. Wolf wasn’t sure how he did it. He presumed it was magic. In the back of the cavern was a large hansom carriage. It looked out of place amongst all the other work.

Quincy stood in the middle of the room bent over a table. He had an excited, almost childlike look on his face as he poured a bright pink liquid out of a vial and onto the table. Wolf’s Shadow sight detected magic emanating from the potion. Rather than spill over the sides of the table, though, the mysterious liquid seemed to pile up and take form. Within a few seconds, it had transformed itself into a golden statue of an owl. Quincy cackled with pleasure and clapped his hands. The sight was hilarious. He was the stereotypical wizard – an old man with a long beard in a robe and a tall cap. Seeing him celebrate his success like an excited child tickled Wolf.

“Birthday present for an ornithologist?” Wolf quipped.

Quincy’s face lost its good humor, and he glared at Wolf.

“Need I remind you, Shadow Six, you’re in the presence of a junior officer, and you might think about setting a
good
example for a change?”

Wolf looked at Shadow Twenty-Seven. The two exchanged a smirk.

“What is it, then?” Wolf asked.

“If you must know, it’s a highly advanced spying device,” Quincy answered.

“But how—” Shadow Twenty-Seven began.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Quincy said, the smile returning to his face. “It comes in liquid form, which makes it easy to conceal. When you pour it out, it transforms into this innocuous statue, which can be placed easily in a room without notice. The statue then observes everything until it is removed, and then it tells you what you want to know.”

“How does it tell you?” Wolf asked.

The bird’s head suddenly turned completely around. It fixed Wolf with a glare.

“How do you think I tell you, Moron? I open my beak and speak, just like you do. What? Do you think I’m stupid or something? And you,” it said, turning its attention to Quincy. “What’s with calling me innocuous? I oughta peck your nose off for that.”

Quincy produced a wand quickly and tapped the bird on the head. It dissolved instantly into the pink liquid. Quincy gave them an embarrassed laugh.

“It might need a little fine tuning,” he said.

“You took the words right out of his beak,” Wolf quipped. Quincy glared at him again, but he didn’t make a comment this time.

“Here now,” he said instead, “follow me.”

He led the two Shadows over to a table that contained a file, a gold medallion, and a bottle made from what looked to be a gourd. He handed the file to Wolf.

“Here’s the postmortem on Shadow Five’s death,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s not much to go on. As you know, she was mauled by some sort of animal. The unusual thing is there were no claw marks or any sign of blunt-force trauma on the body, aside from the broken bones and bruises from her fall from the horse she was riding. Her wounds appear to have been made only by teeth. Her back wasn’t broken, and we know from her sending her message to Kenderbrick she wasn’t unconscious at the time of the attack. Thus, it’s strange she should only have been torn apart by an animal’s mouth.”

“Control mentioned you were looking into magical and Shadow angles,” Wolf said.

“Yes,” Quincy replied. “I detected no evidence of magic having been used on her. There were residual traces of Shadow energy among all the wounds.”

“You’re saying some sort of Shadow animal did this?” Shadow Twenty-Seven said.

“We know of no such beings,” Quincy answered, “especially not in Alfar or Jifan. So far as we and the elves know, the only Shadow power that has made it across the Gleaming Sea is brought here by human Shadows. The Rift’s energies have not been able to penetrate either elfin country.”

“Which means she was killed by a Shadow,” Wolf put in.

“Not only that,” Quincy said. “She was killed by a human. No elf is known to possess Shadow powers. That seems to be a uniquely human trait.”

Wolf pondered that. Why would Sara name Silverleaf if she was murdered by a human Shadow? It only made sense if Silverleaf was working with a human. He hated Urlanders, so it made no sense for him to be working with an Urlish Shadow. Could he be working in concert with a Phrygian? Wolf supposed that was possible, but what was the Phrygians’ angle on this? They could be trying to destabilize the region in their favor, but Wolf couldn’t see how they might accomplish that.

For the moment, he let it go. There was too much to consider. He needed to focus on what he could know at the moment.

“Here now,” Quincy said, “I’ve got some equipment for you.” He lifted the medallion off the table and passed it to Wolf.

“This is a universal translator,” he said. “When you’re wearing it around your neck, it gives you the ability to speak and understand any language. You’ll automatically understand anything you hear. To speak, you simply think what language you want to converse in.”

“What if I don’t know what language I’m hearing,” Wolf asked.

“You’ll have to use your brain for a change and make an educated guess,” came the sharp reply. “I’ve engraved the medallion with your family crest, so it will look proper for you to be wearing it.”

“How nice,” Wolf said, grimacing at the thought of again impersonating a recognized member of his family. He studied the medallion for a moment, and then put it around his neck. It was extremely light, but it still made him uncomfortable.

“Now pay attention,” Quincy said, grabbing the gourd. “Due to the change in the ... climate here in Alfar, the sun has become poisonous to humans.”

“Poisonous?” Wolf said.

“Yes,” Quincy replied. “If you stay exposed to it too long you’ll get sick.”

“Many of the fundamentalists claim this is a sign from God that humans are not welcome here and should leave,” Shadow Twenty-Seven commented. Wolf nodded.

“Whether that’s true or not,” Quincy said, acting irritated by the interruption, “you need to protect yourself. This is a healing salve. You spread a small amount over your exposed skin. It will keep you from developing any symptoms.”

“What are the symptoms?” Wolf was getting nervous.

“Blistering, oozing sores, and severe nausea,” Shadow Twenty-Seven said. “My controller got it. You don’t want it. Nasty stuff.”

“And you won’t get it if you apply this salve to your exposed skin once a day – twice if you’re going to be outdoors more than four hours. But don’t use too much. It’s very strong, and it can lead to intoxication and other mind-altering effects if you over-apply it. This jug should last you quite awhile, but if you need more, let Kenderbrick know.”

“So the cure is almost worse than the disease, eh?” Wolf said. He was making a joke, but there was no humor in it. This mission was sounding worse by the second.

“Oh, stop whining,” Quincy scolded. “Our soldiers use it with no ill effects. I’m sure you’ll manage just fine.