Wine of the Gods 05: Spy Wars (29 page)

24 Rajab, 1367 / 1365
Early Summer

Ash
, Kingdom of the West, Target Forty-two

Ajha savored the delicate fish, the delicious sauce . . . "I would object to being sent back here on a native's imaginary evidence, except for the cook they have here."

Egto nodded, his mouth full of lamb.

Idre snorted and poked at his.

"I think we should stay an extra day and be sure." Egto smiled over at the young girl walking around with a pitcher of water filling glasses. "Do you know what they're going to serve tomorrow?"

"Oh, everything. There's always a bit of a party when, umm, about a week after the Solstice. They're going to start roasting the pigs at midnight. You should stay, it'll be great." She looked wistful, one of three identical triplets, as far as Ajha could tell, who worked here. Maybe thirteen, and mouthwateringly good looking, with her long black hair. If she'd been just a few years older Ajha would have been seriously tempted to spread some of the One genes around.

As it was he confined his ravishing to the big juicy slice of apple pie and vanilla ice cream. He'd heard so many complaints from older agents about the horrors of eating unpasturized, unsprayed, uninspected, poorly preserved foods he'd expected to die horribly on his first
brief field assignment. Instead he'd had to lengthen his exercise periods to avoid gaining weight. And this world was even better. He was going to hate returning to over processed half-chemical glop. This stuff had texture, color, flavor . . . he refrained from licking his plate and they adjourned to the porch to watch the sunset. This World had enough active volcanoes to keep it solidly in an ice age, and also provide colorful sunsets.

One different thing about this village, the whole country actually, but especially evident here, was the mixing and near equality of the classes. Auralia was as segregated as The One World, but this place, despite having a nobility, was mind bogglingly egalitarian. Take that Lord Kell Rivolte, as an extreme example. He herded sheep. Not hired people to herd his sheep. He did it himself. He'd been quite apologetic about the sheep that invaded their campground last night.

The mayor of the village was a woman, not unheard of at this level of civilization, but it was fairly common on this World. She operated some sort of orphanage out of her house—she had charge of a pack of unruly teenagers. All of the local teachers were unwed mothers, two of them possibly lesbian. No one seemed the least bothered by it.

He settled down again, and as lights came on here and there, he again noticed the dark houses. Six of the oldest in the village, they hadn't shown any lights all week, and they were dark again tonight, no one coming or going. Well the owners weren't off on a tropical cruise, but perhaps they had gone to one of the larger towns or even Karista, the capital city. He didn't want to appear nosy, so he kept his questions to himself, and just blended into the woodwork and watched and listened while some men dug a huge pit and started a bonfire in it. When he'd first heard of eating meat from entire dead animals, that looked like dead animals he'd been repulsed. Now he watched two whole pigs being stuffed and seasoned and swallowed saliva and vowed to remain for at least tomorrow's feast.
I'm turning into a savage. Is appreciation of good food a sign that one has gone native?
He slept late, and with the pig roast in mind stuck to pastries for breakfast.

"You know we're out of money to buy more goods." Egto walked in the front door and frowned at him. "We should range wider, check out any other villages."

"Don't worry, I won't drink any of that excellent wine, well, not the crates we've bought, and the semi-precious stones will show a tidy profit for the trip. But. I stayed up late last night and saw what they put in the roasting pit and I'm not budging."

He looked a
round at a dry chuckle. The old man who owned the Inn had overheard him and nodded. "Now there's a sensible attitude. How'd you ever wind up where you are?"

Ajha looked at his last bite of hot buttery pastry. "Just lucky, I guess."

Egto rolled his eyes. "Tomorrow morning. Early."

Ajha nodded. "Certainly. Now though, I think I'll waddle down to that harness maker's shop. Everyone says he's got really fine leather."

Egto looked to make sure everyone was out of sight. "Animal skin! By the One, you've gone native. You're a disgrace."

Ajha ignored him and walked down to admire the workmanship but restrained himself and only bought a belt with an interlocking geometric pattern and a brass buckle shaped like a leaping deer. And a couple of nice wallets, a little purse. After all he'd be getting home again, sooner or later. Presents for his mother and father, and the uncle that practically raised him, as his father had dumped both him and his mother after he was tested a mere Clostuone at birth. He put one of the wallets back.

"The witches make the buckles. Crescent Moon learning exercises." Mr. Leaman was a jolly-looking heavyset man.

Ajha laughed uncertainly, and the harness maker laughed with him.

"Well, you're not from here, so you probably don't believe in magic. No matter, they're nice buckles, with the best leather around."

Walking back toward the t
avern, Ajha noticed a group of children up on the hill, laughing and running down toward the village. Some more children, girls, crested the hill and started down.

He slowed his steps. This World had so many children . . . he'd thought the village full of them . . . but these were new children, children he didn't recognize. Eleven, all girls, then fifteen teenagers, all girls again. A group of women, he counted eighteen from a distance and six were carrying babies.

He closed his eyes and opened his shields. They glowed. The whole cluster of women glowed so brightly he closed all of his shields and walked hastily back to the Tavern.

"Egto, Idre?" He looked around hastily, so shaken he almost didn't care if anyone had heard those very foreign names. "Keep your privacy shields up and take a look at the women coming down from the east hills. Passive detection only, don't call attention to yourselves."

They looked at him curiously, but folded their cards and followed him outside. A trio of girls ran by, giggling. Twelve years old, at a guess. Idre staggered back and looked at Ajha.

"By the One! I think. . . " He broke off as more women came around the corner, crossing the street or turning aside, they started opening up the empty houses he'd noted earlier.

Ajha elbowed his comrades back to the chairs that lined the patio. "Stop gawping. Sit back and pretend to be wall paper."

Somehow they had completely missed all these magically powerful women. What had the waitress said? Something about always a party a week or so after the Solstice? Three years ago they'd arrived a day before the Solstice and left immediately. It appeared to have been a massive miscalculation on their part. They'd assumed that any power users here would have a big celebration on the solstice. And apparently they did – somewhere so far away they hadn't felt anything here in town.

"We should leave, right now." Egto breathed.

"No, we'll need a good head count." Idre pulled out a note book.

Ajha gave him the count he'd gotten of women coming down the hill, and they combined to come up with an estimate of the farmers, the school children that had stayed in town, the miscellaneous adults, the teenagers working in the Tavern. It was still under two hundred, with roughly fifty powerful women.

"Easy to contain and destroy." Egto looked relieved.

Ajha shook his head. "We ought to recruit. Gain allies that really do understand us, instead of those blanks in Fascia and Discordia."

Idre blinked at him in disbelief. "Leave these powerful competitors alive!"

Ajha scowled. "We are not genocidal tyrants like Earth. We may be collecting a multidimensional Empire, but mass murder of civilians has been conspicuously absent from our tool kit. You're both carrying on like little old ladies who've seen a mouse."

They glowered at him, then they sat back and watched the women washing and hanging laundry to dry.

"The Action Teams don't treat natives delicately, like allies. Toughen up."

Ajha scowled at Egto.

Idre gave them both a silencing glare. "The One desires to spread the Prophets' genes widely at first, so that there is a selection of Halfers available for the transitional government." Right out of the text books. It sounded a lot cleaner than what the Action Teams had been doing in Fascia.

The teenagers finished their chores quickly. They all gathered in the tavern to chatter with their friends about who had advanced and who hadn't. Of course they never explained what advancing was, but two young women with the odd names of Xanthic and Zenith were being feted for doing so. Two girls who looked the same age were in a competition with each other to roast them, with eleven more looking on enviously. The three black haired girls and five with hair from reddish blonde to deepest red looked on, friends but not part of the magical society of the others.

"I swear, if they were just a little older." Idre echoed his thoughts.

"If I wasn't trying to not garner any notice." Egto pulled his eyes away from the girls inside to eye the women outside. "Actually I think I'd give the babies a pass. Look at the glow on that blonde!" He practically drooled, and received a chilly look from the tall muscular man talking to her.

"Tuck it all in, Egto. Passive." Ajha jerked his eyes away from a black haired slant eyed beauty. "Do you think they advance when they first feel the power of One? Well, the power of their own magical genes? They're about the right age."

Egto eyed the teenagers, nodded. "I think you've got it. Those two new girls were just touched by the Power. The two giving the speeches were the first of the cohort to advance, and the rest are wishing and hoping. Damn our timing, they'd have been much easier to . . . re-educate a few years ago."

"We have to get back to Usse as quickly as possible." Idre started grinning. "We've finally found his magical concentration. We can get out of here well before the comets hit, and the One will decide whether to keep or kill this native magic."

Ajha gulped. "Surely the One wouldn't waste all this talent? In fact if you'll recall the Mysteries, this is nearly a confirmation of Those Left Behind."

"Do not go there, Ajha. That is a matter for the Priests of the One."

"Of course."

Three women walked by, serious expressions on all their faces. "They're going to come to blows. We've never before had enough children for gangs, but the rivalry is getting pointed."

"The dragon girls still
have very poor impulse control. Maybe in another five years they'll settle down." That was the Mayor talking. "I don't recall being so insufferable as a child. Or being so randy. At any age."

"Yes, they do seem to be maturing physically rather quickly. And then there's Tromp. She won't back down, and I'd call her a bully except she usually tackles the strongest opponents. She and Rustle worry me, sometimes." They strolled on.

"Dragon girls?" Egto whispered.

"Gang name, probably." Idre murmured. "Sounds like my prep school. Fights out behind the Gym after hours all the time."

As the evening darkened there seemed to be more, not less women around. The smells from the roasting pit were driving him mad with hunger.

Idre was squirming too. "All right. Let's just stroll around, make sure nothing else is going to slap us in the face."

"You mean, like where are all the husbands, fathers and brothers?" Ajha looked around. "No sign of them yet, but with the party on, they may be showing up soon."

"Good point. Stay closed up, but listen passively. Get your sticky pads out and collect some skin samples for genetic analysis." Idre looked relieved to be back into an information gathering mode.

Ajha strolled past the fire pit, just to torture himself with the odors, then kept walking to clear his lungs of what he ought to think of as pollution. Two young women, in their early twenties, at a guess, a chubby brunette and a slinky blonde were chatting in the street. They both winked at him. A child of perhaps four ran up and clutched at the brunette.

"I haven't seen many men here. Are all your husbands away?" Ajha asked, a bit nervously.

They giggled, the little girl laughing out loud, a happy wholesome sound. The
child
was glowing.

"Who needs a husband?" The brunette scooped up the five year old and brushed past Ajha. "The ones I've seen seem to think they can order their wives around like slaves. No thanks!"

The blonde giggled. "You look shocked. We're not really that different, are we?"

Ajha grinned. "You've got to be the largest collection of good looking women I've ever laid eyes on. And no husbands to dodge?"

The blonde grinned. "Let me show you what we do with men."

Ajha was quite late to dinner, but was able to confirm that there were no husbands coming home anytime soon, nor in fact, at all.

Idre informed him that the so-called God of War had shown up at the feast, and they'd tracked him back to a winery a kilometer to the east. "We've got everything we needed. Now it's up to the Action Team."