Rift in the Races (64 page)

Pingermash, the lesser of the two in power, began chanting very hard, and the cadence of his chant seemed to go beyond urgent to stressed. His forehead wrinkled with the effort of what he was trying to do. Mason was little better off, though he clearly struggled with what was supposed to be a simple spell as well.

Then both men toppled to the deck as if they’d been shot dead.

Envette, still standing, managed to catch Pingermash and break his fall, but Mason went down like a broken beam and hit his head violently on the deck. Blood began to run almost immediately. Roberto ran for the first-aid kit bolted to the bulkhead.

“What is it?” demanded the captain. “What’s going on? Are the Hostiles attacking them?”

“I have no idea,” confessed the conduit. “Perhaps they were too weak. I should have gone with the whole concert. This is my fault.”

“Find fault later,” said Captain Asad. “Figure out what happened. Fast! If we have to get out of here, we need to do it quick.”

“Envette, you stay out,” said the conduit. “If we have to go back, you can do it alone.”

“But sir, it may take me longer to take the ship back than it will take them to start it up.”

“My dear, they need two ships to kill a Hostile. It won’t matter if they start it up. So, just be ready. I can’t speak for the captain, but my suggestion is that if anything happens to us right now, you should start casting immediately.” He fixed Captain Asad with a grave expression that found itself mirrored in the other man’s eyes. The captain nodded. For once they agreed.

The young woman looked nervous, and her hands brushed her robes unconsciously to dry the sweat that had suddenly appeared. She hadn’t expected to have all these lives suddenly dependent on her alone. A small shuttle was one thing. A whole starship, and that distance, by herself, was something else entirely.

“It’s easier going back,” the conduit reminded her.

That was true. She nodded. “Yes, Conduit.”

The conduit moved toward the captain’s chair, which Captain Asad gave up without a snarl this time.

The conduit sat down. “Mages,” he said. “Let’s see what we can see.”

The wizards began channeling mana, the most powerful of them in this concert, Kindlemet, assigned to lead the casting. The conduit waited for the first thread of mana to come, eyes staring blankly at the blank monitor. All he saw was the inside of his mind. He waited some more. The rhythms of the magicians raised. Kindlemet got very loud, and elderly Thistleblat seemed as if he were going hoarse. Then, as if on a sequence timer, the magicians fell from their chairs, one after the next. First Kindlemet, then Hotblood, then Thistleblat.
Thump, thump, thump
onto the deck.

Conduit Huzzledorf might have heard them but didn’t dare lose his focus lest they channel the mana with no receptacle and risk injuring themselves.

Roberto’s “What the hell …?” is what convinced him he could let concentration go.

He stared at the four mages lying on the floor and ran his hand through the spasmodic fringes that remained of his hair. Everyone on the bridge was staring at him.

He returned their curiosity with a blank look and an arch of his lips. “I have no idea,” he said. “But I suspect you people ought to hurry getting this ship underway.”

Chapter 46

I
lbei didn’t need the black flags hanging lifeless from poles along Calico Castle’s walls to tell him the keep was in mourning, for there was a sobriety in the air that lay across the meadow heavier than dirt heaped upon a grave. Even the wind had died, as if out of respect for the great man who had passed. The gray sky wept warm tears down upon him as he rode through the gates, and the guards greeted him silently with nods of recognition as he rode past, the beads of rainwater sluicing down the gray metal of their helmets to fall, at last, to the ground.

Kettle greeted him warmly, hostess by reflex, but neither had the same enthusiasm as before. She brought him into the kitchens and made him a sandwich with cold cuts left over from the funeral roast as he set his things on the floor against a wall. “‘Twas a magnificent celebration,” she said, though there was no light in her eyes as she set the pewter dish before her guest. “Even the Queen’s eyes leaked, though she made fair well that no one saw.”

“Eight hundred years is a good run,” said Ilbei, unwilling to eat just yet. “We should all have such favor from the gods.”

Kettle pressed the back of her hand to her left cheek, the knuckles just over the corner of her mouth. She kissed the back of her hand and placed it over her heart, completing the gesture to the goddess, Mercy. “May Mercy keep him,” she muttered.

“Mercy keep him,” echoed Ilbei, repeating the gesture with his own hand. He bowed his head and said a silent prayer for Tytamon’s soul.

Kettle watched him praying, stared wistfully, absently at the bald spot atop his head where the tangle of gray and white hair had, reluctantly, given way to the press of time. Old, like she was. And blank. They’d never make it eight hundred years. She’d be lucky if she got another sixty. From the looks of the weather-worn old miner sitting there, he’d be lucky to get another thirty-five. He had to be pushing a hundred and fifty now. And likely didn’t spend much time checking in with a doctor.

She sighed. She’d seen her share of death in her century and some, but she hadn’t felt a loss so keenly as this since her husband and only son had been taken in a terrible wagon accident. Tytamon had been nothing but kind to her since then. Took her in, fed her, let her make a family of everyone in the keep, a batch of misfits, odd-wads and suiciding Sixes. He hadn’t even batted an eye when she’d asked to take in orphaned Pernie, now nearly on nine years ago. He could have refused, could have said, “No,” to the imposition of chaos that a small child brings, but he hadn’t. Nor had he once complained about the noise, the disruptions, the occasional destruction that came with the curious creature that Pernie had turned out to be. Not Tytamon. He’d been nothing but kind, welcoming and loving to them all, a gentle man, far more than might be expected from Kurr’s greatest mage, mentor of Sixes, and keeper of the last outpost on the orc frontier.

And who would keep it now? Who would stand as owner, protector and rightful lord? Especially now. Now that the Orc Wars had seemingly restarted themselves, the vanquished now confident and strong again. Who would be Calico Castle’s master?

Altin? Surely not. He was certainly powerful enough to command the respect it required. And a Seven. He was the only living choice that made any sense for the keeping of the Sixes that might still be expected of Calico Castle’s master, especially given that the old castle had served that purpose for so long. But Altin wouldn’t want that chore. Altin wouldn’t want to sit here and guard the passes of the Daggerspines. He wouldn’t. Not the Galactic Mage. His destiny was out in the stars. Everyone on Kurr knew that by now. So who? Who would keep it safe? Some arrogant stranger? Some favored cousin of the Queen?

Ilbei looked up from his prayer and saw her staring at him, saw the absent expression on her face. He didn’t interrupt her thoughts. He took a bite of the sandwich she’d made and chewed it thoughtfully. He could not help the upward tick that twitched the corners of his mouth. This was damnable good bread, even a day old. He tried to keep his appreciation muffled in the tangle of his tatty beard, however, for he felt any such enjoyment showed disrespect.

Kettle straightened herself and returned to the great stone chest near the wall and lifted up the lid, the stone slab atop it enchanted to become feather light at human touch. She looked inside, waving away the plumes of frosted air that wafted up and poured over the edges and down to the floor like foggy waterfalls. “I ha’na got much else ta feed ya,” Kettle apologized. “Not what’s ready anyway. As ya might imagine, I got little energy fer cookin’ just now.”

He waved that away as if it were a bit of mist, shaking his head and smiling through the bristles of his overgrown mustache. “Mistress Kettle, this here is far more ‘n I expect or deserve. And I’m grateful, true.”

Just then Pernie came skipping in. She saw Ilbei sitting there and cocked her little head at him. She turned back to Kettle and asked, “Who’s that?”

“Pernie,” scolded Kettle. “Be polite.”

“Oh, it’s a fair question,” said Ilbei. “Curiosity is as fine a trait as boldness in a child.” He leaned forward and reached out a hand for Pernie to shake. “Hi there, little one. I am Ilbei. I dig mines fer Castles, Inc. in Crown.”

“You have a messy beard,” said Pernie, eyeballing the man, deciding whether she was going to trust him or not.

He looked down into it and saw that it was full of breadcrumbs and a bit of congealed fat from the meat. He frowned for a moment, but followed it with a nod. “Oh, that,” he said. “I left that there on purpose.” He made a show of eating the rest of his sandwich and dropping more meat into his beard. “I have a saber-toothed badger I keep in there. A miniature one. Only comes out at night. Got ta feed it or it gets grumpy.”

Pernie turned back to Kettle, eyebrows raised expectantly, waiting for Kettle to verify the lie. Kettle shrugged, a tired smile almost able to form upon her lips, but failing beneath the gravity of sorrow’s mass.

Ilbei was every bit the gambler and said not another word. He simply smiled at the girl between bites.

She couldn’t stand the silence long. She was old enough now not to believe the sorts of things old men had a tendency to say, but he wasn’t confessing either. And she supposed there could be some element of truth to it. She certainly had seen stranger things in her eight and a half years living here.

She was mostly convinced he was teasing. But she didn’t want to ask. If she did, he’d probably just conjure an illusion of one like Tytamon or even Altin sometimes did. The more she thought about it, the more she knew it wasn’t true. She strode right up to him and gripped his beard in her hand, giving it a squeeze as if it were a dish towel in need of ringing out. No miniature saber-toothed badger came out.

“I knew there wasn’t one,” she said. She spun back to Kettle. “See, I knew.”

Ilbei threw back his head and laughed even as he rubbed his stinging chin. “That’s a fine brave lass ya got there, Mistress Kettle. More fight in that one than any saber-toothed badger ever had.”

“You don’ know the half of it, Master Ilbei. Not the half.”

Ilbei looked the girl up and down, his eyes cheery and his expression kind. “So, are ya gonna tell me yer name, or do I have ta guess.”

She was still sizing him up, measuring him in ways she would not have done before the death of Tytamon, before the orcs, before so much that had come of late. Her eyes narrowed, the line of her mouth uncommitted, but clamped tight.

“Raptorlips,” Ilbei guessed, speaking the name slowly. “Fierce like a monster, pouty like a little girl.”

She sneered at him, crossing her arms and shaking her head.

“Curfleflurgle?”

Definitely not. She shook her head again.

“Megglesnorp? Catsbubble?”

Nope.

“Oh, I know, how ‘bout Ogrepoop?”

She’d been fine for the first three thrusts, although Catsbubble had been close to breaking her resolve, but Ogrepoop was simply too funny for stoicism to withstand. She immediately envisioned huge mounds of ogre excrement, and for a child of Pernie’s sensibilities, this was simply the height of humor and the epitome of wit. The vestige of a smile trembled like the first signs of an earthquake in her cheeks as she struggled to stay stern.

“Aha!” pronounced Ilbei standing straight and raising a triumphant fist. “Ogrepoop. I knew I’d guess it. They call ya Ogrepoop of Calico Keep.”

Pernie’s lips pressed inward, warping the tight line of her determination as her teeth threatened to show through. Muffled sounds came from her throat and chest, shushed tremors of humor like convicts attempting to break out of jail.

“Mistress Kettle, I must ask,” Ilbei went on, glaring theatrically at Kettle then, “what sort a’ woman names a child Ogrepoop? That name, madam, simply
stinks
!” He held his nose between two fingers and looked back at Pernie with wide, round stink eyes.

Down went the prison gates and out poured the giggles in fits and waves. “My name’s not Ogrepoop!” she protested, doing her best look of outrage. “And you know it’s not.” She put her hands on her hips in her most Kettle-like display of agitation.

“I don’t know,” said Ilbei speculatively. “I think it might be … and since I ain’t got no other name ta use, I have ta go with what seems most like to be true.”

“It’s Pernie,” she finally gave in. “My name is Pernie. Not Ogrepoop.” She started giggling again, and muttered the name a few times under her breath, in fear that Kettle might get tired of the fun. That was not the sort of language Kettle allowed in the kitchens, except for when nice old men came in. Pernie decided she liked old gray-bearded gentlemen in general. They seemed to like to have lots of fun, when they weren’t being so serious, which they also had a tendency to be. Old men were always the first to throw out the rules, which struck her strange because it also seemed like they were the ones that must have made them to begin.

“Well, all right then, young Miss Pernie-who-ain’t-called-Ogrepoop, it’s nice to meet ya.” He held out his hand again, and this time Pernie took his wrist as he took hers and shook it firmly. “And what is it that ya do ‘round here ta help Mistress Kettle out?”