The Rogue Retrieval (19 page)

There was a certain understanding among the ­people who braved this side of the gateway. Everyone got to return home, one way or another.

Kiara set a pulse-­transponder on top of the pile. The company would send a retrieval team here, disguised as priests who cared for the dead.

They picked up the trail and followed it northwest. An hour later, Kiara tried her isotope scanner out again. “We're getting a ­couple of signals. I think they're together, and moving.”

Jackpot.

“Bravo Team,” Logan said. “We find them, and we'll find the infiltrators.”

“Let's finish this.”

They remounted and rode north, not pushing the horses any more than they had to. The isotope scanner gave a decent signal, but they were in unfamiliar terrain, with possible hostiles waiting in ambush. Logan made a number of forays to scout ahead, and to check their backtrail. When they made camp at night, they did so under a full security protocol. Decoy tents, proximity sensors, hobbles on the horses, everything. Logan wasn't taking any chances.

The isotope signals for Bravo Team grew stronger. Two days later, they found two more of its members. Their position hadn't changed at all, based on the isotope scanner's readout. The signal led them away from the road to the lip of a narrow defile. Kiara and Chaudri held a covering position between it and the road, along with Logan's mount, while he crept forward to investigate. There was some risk of an ambush here, so he kept his eyes up.

The sky was overcast; dark clouds and lightning threatened on the western horizon. Between that and the late-­afternoon hour, twilight shrouded the bottom of the defile. Logan crawled up to the edge to hazard a glance down. Once his eyes adjusted, he could make out the bodies. Four of them, and not a one moving. One was on a shelf perhaps twenty feet below; the rest were at the bottom.

“I've got four bodies,” he said over the comm unit.

“Only two on the scanner,” Kiara replied. “Any sign of the raiders?”

“It looks clear. I'm going to climb down.”

“I want your safety harness on,” Kiara said.

He made a face but complied; the last thing he needed was a broken bone. He wished he'd thought to test the new paracord the tech team had put together under happier circumstances.

He secured one end to a large tree trunk and clipped the carabiner to an alusteel ring at the waist of his custom armor. The sides of the defile were some kind of porous rock, possibly volcanic. It allowed a good grip, so he reached the shelf without incident.

“Status, Logan,” Kiara said. There was tension in her voice.

“I'm at the first body,” Logan replied. “It's Keene.” The man's tar-­black hair and thick beard were unmistakable. Kiara made a noise over the comm unit; it sounded like a muffled curse. Keene was the Bravo leader. He and Logan had served together on a ­couple of tours. Logan had recruited him once he got out. He'd have been with the first retrieval team, if the executives hadn't sent Bradley. Keene's crossbow lay in two pieces on the rocky shelf; his quiver was empty. His body was riddled with bullets.

“More gunshot wounds,” Logan said. “I'll check the others.”

He left the man to belay to the floor of the defile. He reached the nearest body, facedown in a puddle of blood. He rolled it over and recognized another Bravo Team member, Hank Magrini. He was the weapons specialist, an ex-­tank-­gunner. “It's Hank the Tank.”

Hank's body had numerous wounds. His combat knife was nearby. It was bloody.

Logan stepped over him to the others. These appeared different from the others; they didn't have Alissian clothing. They wore black tactical vests over dark fatigues, and both were strapped with MP5 machine guns.

“You're not Bravo,” he said, and that explained the lack of an isotope signal. They
were
dead, though. Each man had a company-­issue crossbow bolt in his chest.

“Who are they?” Kiara demanded over the comm unit.

“Two of the hostiles,” he said.

“Good,” Kiara said.

He searched them, but found no identification. Just ammunition and tactical gear. He hadn't really expected to find anything, but he was trying to be thorough. The men had the short hair favored by ex-­military, but he didn't recognize them. He cut the straps of the MP5s and tied them to his pack. He took the clips as well. The rest of it might seem strange to an Alissian, but didn't represent an advance in technology. He snapped their photos and scanned fingerprints.

He climbed out to give Kiara the good news. Two of the MP5s were in hand.

More importantly, the last member of Bravo Team might still be alive.

T
hey buried Keene and Magrini as the sun set on the Landorian plateau. Logan tried to say a few words about the fallen men, but his tongue felt numb. He took only a little bit of solace in the fact that they'd managed to surprise the raiders, and kill two of their number, with the very weapons he'd trained them to use.

He made them a silent promise that he'd finish the job.

It was a better prayer than anything he could have said aloud anyway.

They walked the horses for a bit, until the rim of the defile was out of view. No one had the energy to press on in full darkness. They made a quiet camp without a fire and slept ten hours.

Logan woke just after sunrise, feeling strangely rested. These past few days had been draining on all of them, but they seemed to have bounced back. The horses, too—­and now they snorted, their breaths making frost in the chill air. Logan strapped on their feed bags of grain while they stamped impatiently. They were eager to get moving. Kiara was awake already, fiddling with the isotope scanner. Even Chaudri was stirring, and before the coffee was made.

I bet Bradley would still be asleep.

“I've got the signal,” Kiara said. She frowned. “It's strong. Almost looks like two signals.”

Logan hurried over for a look. The fourth member of Bravo Team was Julio Mendez, their scout. He was a young kid, twenty-­seven, but tough as alligator skin. He'd come over from Cuba at age five, on a raft his family made out of inner tubes and plywood. They had to
swim
the last half mile . . . something little Julio had had to figure out in the moment. He was a survivor.

Mendez had gone into the foster care system, a childhood only marginally better than what he'd have had in Cuba. At eighteen he signed up for the Marines. Company recruiters had lured him away only after promising to help get the rest of his family out. Apparently they thought it might be a handful of aunts and uncles. The last Logan heard, it was forty-­one Mendezes and counting. There were jokes that CASE was one of the biggest lobbyers in getting the US to normalize relations with the island country—­it would be cheaper than bringing over more of Julio's family.

The signal from the isotope was unmistakable: north across the plateau. And close. Chaudri had made coffee—­she might have woken up before it was made, but she wasn't going to function without it. She brought Logan and Kiara each a cup.

“I feel like I slept for two days,” she said.

“For once, that's not true,” Logan said. “I do feel strangely rested, though.”

She pursed her lips. “Dr. Holt used to talk about stumbling upon anomalies like this. Where wounds heal faster, and sleep counts more. He called them ‘rejuvenation zones.' ”

“That's exactly how I feel. Rejuvenated.”

“Let's hope we were the only ones to get this advantage,” Kiara said.

There was a natural spring nearby; the water looked clear. Logan took a sample and ran it through their chemical/microbe test kit. The readouts were almost too good to be true; the water was incredibly pure. He refilled their canteens, and then let Chaudri bring the horses down. They drank heavily. Saddles were tightened; weapons were checked.

“Ready, Lieutenant,” Logan said.

Kiara hadn't moved her eyes from the isotope scanner. “Mount up,” she said.

 

“I want the same thing anyone else in entertainment does. I want access.”

—­
A
RT OF
I
L
LUSION,
J
UNE 8

CHAPTER 17

OLD MAGS

Q
uinn hadn't been executed yet, which he took for a good sign. The council meeting that had featured his trial had dissolved into an impromptu social gathering. Magicians lounged in their seats, mingled with one another. He took that time to work the crowd, a part of the business that Vegas magicians had to learn early. Something felt different about the way the islanders spoke to him now. They shared a common bond, accepted him as one of their own.

He had the distinct feeling that life here would be a lot more tolerable.

Moric had conferred quietly with the magicians, tolerated Quinn's schmoozing with the islanders, but was plainly waiting for him. Once the crowd thinned out, he ambled over.

“Well done, Quinn,” he said. “I'll walk you back to your quarters, if you don't mind.”

“Wow. You make it sound as if I have a choice in the matter.”

Moric smiled. “You've always had a choice. You could tell me to go jump in the ocean.”

Quinn looked at him sidelong. “Something tells me I shouldn't do that.”

“Well, I would advise caution when it comes to council members. I'm told we can be a bit on the grouchy side.”

“Duly noted.”

“Besides, you're likely to need rest. Magic takes a toll on the body.”

“I am rather tired,” he said, remembering Moric's nap when they first arrived. It wasn't exactly true—­he was tired, but it was more the exhaustion of coming down from the high of a show, and not because he used up some sort of internal reserve of power. Knowing he'd need to keep up the charade, though, he asked, “How much sleep are we talking about?”

“An hour or two, for most enchantments. You'll need to pace yourself, though. The more powerful the spell, the more rest you'll require.”

Quinn noticed a pack of giggling children had swept much of his foam-­snow into a large pile. Moric looked upon them fondly, smiled with a sort of indulgent pride. They built it up to about waist-­high, and then took turns running and jumping in the stuff. The best part about this foam was that it was biodegradable. The next significant rainstorm would wash it all away.

“I grew up with a lot of snow, in Pirea,” Moric said. “I remember it being heavier. And colder, too.”

“I did the best I could,” Quinn said.

“It wasn't bad, for a novice. Our art is much harder than it looks.”

You have no idea.

They strolled away from the amphitheater and the tower that loomed above it, back in the general direction of Quinn's guest quarters—­which was starting to feel a bit less like going back to prison. The breeze had picked up into a steady wind; it looked as though they might have a storm. Idly he wondered how well the islanders could withstand a typhoon, if it happened to come to that. Hadn't Moric said something about a threshold? Perhaps that shielded the island from the worst of it.

“Strange that you were so adamant about not having the gift, only to use it so compellingly, when pressed,” Moric said.

“I suppose I just got lucky.” He felt a little guilty for pulling one over on this crowd. Magic was clearly a precious thing to them.

Moric pursed his lips. “Perhaps. But I believe I may understand what's going on here.”

That worried him. “Oh, yeah?”

“Some magicians who are just learning their art aren't able to call upon it easily. Often it requires a desperate situation.”

“I tend to do well under pressure. That much is true.”

“You're an unusual man, Quinn. And I certainly hope that won't change, now that you're a member of our society.”

“It's official, then?”

Moric nodded. “You'll no longer be locked in your guest quarters, and we won't have someone shadowing you at all times.”

“I didn't think there was. I spent a lot of time alone, if memory serves.”

Moric shrugged. “You were never truly alone. In any case, you may go where you wish on the island.”

“Can I leave the island if I want?” Quinn asked.

Moric's lips curled, as if made unhappy by the question. “Yes,” he said. “We have means of getting back to the continent. Nothing so disorienting as the way you were brought here, either. You need only say the word, and we'll get you on a ship to the mainland.”

Back to Valteron. He wondered what the others would be doing now. Surely the mission had continued, even after he was taken. He seriously doubted they'd drop everything to track down their missing entertainer. Then again, the fact that he wasn't able to use his comm unit had probably made them fear the worst. They might even have left, and headed back north without him. If he got back on the main continent, he'd
probably
be able to make contact. There was no way to know for certain—­and he definitely couldn't ask Moric about it.

It occurred to Quinn that he had little to contribute to the primary mission, now that Richard Holt was the Valteroni Prime. No doubt Logan and Kiara would still try to haul him back to the gateway, but they didn't need a magician for that.

They needed a miracle.

Besides, wasn't the company's principal goal to learn as much about Alissia as possible? Chaudri had admitted that they knew very little about the magic here. None of his briefings had mentioned the guild or the island or anything.

Here he was, right in the thick of it. Surrounded by ­people who were capable of
real
magic, and accepted as one of their own. Free rein of the island might even let him get down to the shipyard for a better look at that ship.

“I'd like to remain in the Landorian tower, if possible,” Quinn said.

Moric smiled; he seemed genuinely pleased. “Excellent. I'm sure you'll enjoy staying here a while longer.”

“I want to learn everything that I can,” Quinn said.

“I know just the place to start,” Moric said.

T
he guild of magicians kept its library in the central spire. More accurately, its library
was
the central spire. It contained, if Moric was to be believed, the most extensive collection of scrolls, books, and written documents in Alissia. The magician had offered to accompany Quinn for his first visit; he seemed unusually excited about it.

“How long has it been here?” Quinn asked. Maybe that would give him some idea of how long the island community had been around.

“Two hundred years, give or take,” Moric said. “It's grown considerably since my time here.”

“I'm surprised it all isn't crumbling into dust,” Quinn said. Alissian paper was rather primitive, made from the fiber of a cotton-­like plant grown mostly in Valteron.

“Ordinarily they would be, were it not for our arts. Old Mags has a particular knack for the preservation spells.”

“What's Old Mags?” Quinn asked. It sounded like the name of a tavern, which he really hoped it was.

“She's the head librarian, and a fellow council member.”

“How old did she have to be to get that nickname?”

“You should ask her,” Moric said. His face was carefully neutral.

“Maybe I will,” Quinn said. Granted, asking any woman about her age seemed unwise in Earth
or
Alissia. “If I do, I'll be sure to tell her it was your idea.”

Moric folded like a card table. “Don't do that! I'm in enough trouble with her as it is.”

“Romantic trouble?”

“Ha! Don't be foolish.” Moric looked around, as if he feared Old Mags might be lurking somewhere nearby. “I may have borrowed a few parchments. Old treatises on a topic dear to my heart: the art of forced disappearance.”

“That sounds a lot like what you did to me in Valteron.”

“What? Oh, not exactly. I'm talking about causing things to disappear. To cease their existence entirely.”

“I've done that, actually. Made things disappear,” Quinn said.

Moric's eyebrows went up. “Permanently?”

“Not quite.” Just long enough to be convincing.

“That's the tricky part. I had made some progress on it, though I'm sorry to say that it came at the tangible expense of the scrolls themselves.”

“Is there any way to get them back?” Quinn asked.

“Yes. Unfortunately, the instructions for that particular bit of magic were, well . . .”

“On the scrolls, too?”

“Exactly.”

They skirted around the amphitheater, where remnants of Quinn's performance danced and whirled in the gusting wind. The base of the central tower was massive, probably fifty or sixty yards in diameter. Despite its size, there was only a single entryway not much wider than a man. The iron-­banded wooden door was shut firmly from the inside, too. The tower itself was supposedly stuffed with papers and other flammable items.

These ­people clearly didn't understand much about fire codes.

Moric didn't try the door. Instead, he pulled on a rope cord dangling beside it. There came a faint sound of bells ringing from somewhere inside, muffled by the thick wood of the door. Quinn stole a glance at the tower wall; it seemed to be of brick-­and-­mortar construction, but polished nearly as smooth as glass. He brushed his fingers along it and could barely feel the edges of the bricks. The building itself felt cold, almost icy.

“Feels cold, doesn't it?” Moric asked as if reading his mind. His voice sounded an octave higher than usual. “It's a side effect of the preservation spells.” He was fidgeting while they waited.

He's nervous . . . and he can
fly
.

Quinn couldn't
wait
to meet this librarian.

A grating noise came from the far side of the door. Someone was unbarring it. The door opened wide enough to reveal an ancient woman with a graying bun. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Hello, Mags,” Moric said.

She grunted at him.

“This is Quinn, the newest member of the Enclave.”

“I know who he is.” She looked Quinn up and down. “I'm still picking your snow out of my hair.”

“Now, Mags,” Moric said.

“Don't you even start,” said Mags. “I'm missing three parchments. Some of the same ones you were asking after, just last week.”

“I'm sure they'll turn up,” Moric said. A bit too quickly.

She stared at him, unblinking. Almost like a fish.

Moric cleared his throat. “In the meantime, I was hoping to show young Quinn here what it looks like.”

Quinn jumped in to help. “I'm told you've done wonders with the place.” He flourished with both arms and produced a white-­and-­yellow flower out of nowhere. This he offered to her with a bow. “For you.”

She looked at it like it was a dead animal. “I've got a lot of work to do. No time for foolishness.”

He let the flower tumble from his fingers. It disappeared in a puff of smoke, just before hitting the ground. No reaction.

Tough crowd.

“Moric, I'll be needing to search you on your way out, so keep that in mind.”

“I'm sure we'll both enjoy that.”

She turned to shuffle with agonizing slowness down a narrow hallway just as wide as the door.

“I think she likes you,” Moric whispered.

“I think she likes you, too.”

Moric smiled ruefully. He gestured, so Quinn followed.

The hall led to an open chamber several stories tall. Lamplight shone on a great spiraling staircase that wound up the core of the tower. The walls around it were lined with shelves, and every shelf crammed with books or papers. There were thousands in view, and likely even more in the floors above. A dusty but faintly sweet smell permeated the air. The smell of old books. Here was a wealth of knowledge about Alissia and its history. Chaudri would have been salivating over it.

“I don't suppose there are any maps?” Quinn ventured.

“Fourth floor,” Moric said. He gestured at the staircase in a mock imitation of Quinn's bow. “After you.”

Quinn ascended without hurry, still marveling at how much the library contained. He'd always had the impression that there simply wasn't a lot written down in this world. Yet the first three floors alone contained more parchments, more stacks of papers, and even more leather-­bound books than he imagined could exist in Alissia.

The fourth floor, the map room, was even more impressive. The map of Alissia was a hand-­painted mural that dominated the entire fourth-­floor wall. The mountains and forests and coastlines were sketched in painstaking detail. The company's map of Alissia had ports and capital cities, as well as a few dozen other settlements.

This mural had
hundreds
.

And the details! Even down to simple hamlets represented by a cluster of tiny cottages. Without thinking about it, Quinn's eyes flew to the area in north Felara where the gateway was located. This, to his great relief, was one thing the map was missing.

There was something else, too, that the map might have contained. He searched the waters and the coasts for it, but came up empty. His disappointment must have been obvious.

“You were hoping to see something here,” Moric said. “Perhaps the very island on which we stand?”

Quinn shrugged. “I know you said I could leave, but I'd still like to have some idea of where we are.”

“You won't find the Enclave marked on any maps, I'm afraid,” Moric said. “Revealing its location might bring unwelcome visitors, of the sort who would try to exploit our arts for personal gain. Or worse.”

“I can't imagine that you'd let anyone catch you by surprise here,” Quinn said.

“Oh, we wouldn't make it easy. But should one of Alissia's more powerful nations take an interest, we could be in trouble.”