Wine of the Gods 05: Spy Wars (17 page)

1362 Summer Solstice

Witches Pyramid on Mount Frost

Rustle hiked along at the tag end of the column of witches. It was great being in the back with Ask and Ultra, who, technically speaking, were her half-aunt and half-great-aunt. She'd always treated them like her little sisters, and defended them from bullies. Especially Ask, who was small. She'd been steamed last winter when Answer had called up Tromp, Zenith and Cost, the trio of bullies, to the New Moon, but it was great at the Major Ceremonies.

The three nasties were walking up there, and weren't supposed to come back here where the little girls walked. So, no bullying on the walk to the mountain.

They reached the peak just before sundown. Answer, Blissful and Curious climbed all the way to the top, the Dark Crescent. Not much room up there, Rustle thought, wondering how the other witches were going to fit when they paused for sure. Delight, Elegant and Furious were already well up on the academics of the level.

The level of the Wan
ing Half was larger, but still crowded, with two triads and two extra witches.

They didn't have any Full Moon sisters. Once the girls were a little older and started grasping power, their mothers would advance. Until then, the
Waxing Half Moons had two triads and an extra. Mother was the extra, she spent so much time with the explorers they didn't even try to fit her into a triad any more.

The Crescent Moon tier was also empty. It too would stay that way until all the girls her age, now eight years old, started grasping power. Two holes, awaiting time and maturity to fill them up.

Tromp and her pals gleefully monopolized the New Moon's position at the base of the spire, sneering down at the younger girls, who were keeping a respectful distance but still watching and singing.

"There's nineteen of us, if you count the six year olds," Bid muttered. "We should do something."

Rustle shook her head. "Nope. Let them be the ones to get into trouble. They always do."

They fell quiet as the singing started. Tromp, Zenith and Cost got to sing their advancement songs, lifting their hands theatrically. Empty, too, Rustle thought, smugly. Then dropped her head, ashamed. She took a deep breath and exhaled it, sending away her pettiness. She joined in the song of Summer, and the rest of the children did too. The Sun was down and the sky deepest blue and the stars brilliant. The gibbous moon would rise later.

A shooting star flashed across the sky, horizon to horizon. The Auld Wulf had said that they were rocks, falling to Earth, heated to burning by the atmosphere. As two more flashed by, she raised her hands as if to grasp them, to add to the pull of gravity. Light flickered, danced between her fingers, and she looked at them in surprise. Gathered the light into a ball. She could suddenly
see
how she was taking the Gravity and twisting the power around to make this firefly light.

She blinked in startlement as she was pushed forward.

"Go up, Rustle!" Ask sounded gleeful. "Up to the Crescent Moon."

She looked up, and could hear her mother's voice singing the Daughter Song as she stepped up to the Full Moon tier. Rustle climbed past the glaring Zenith and started singing the Song of Power. She looked at her hands again, twisted the gravity . . . She felt some vast change within her, and knew her life had just gotten even more complicated than before.

1 Shaban 1664/Summer 1362

Karista, Kingdom of the West, Target World Forty-two

Ajha skulked around the government buildings, ate in any number of over priced restaurants frequented by members of the Council and the palace staff, and collected genetic samples at all levels of government. Some distant relatives of the king had another new power gene on their Y chromosome. The number of the genetic insertions any of the Western natives possessed was wildly unpredictable. Obviously magical potential had nothing to do with anyone's position in government, here.

The few samples they'd collected in
that mountain village had had unusually high numbers of the insertions, but no power genes at all.

Ajha scowled at his results. "We ought to have explored further, around that area. This village is
far above normal, the other villages around might be even higher. We should have collected hundreds of samples."

Usse looked cynical.
"And perhaps the most powerful prefer something other than life in a bucolic village. However, I have an appointment with a client. So to speak. He thinks I work for him, when I actually manipulate him and garner information from his gossiping and complaining. You can sit in and listen, as it is slightly relevant. I'm going to steer him toward that village of yours."

Ajha nodded. Was he being mentored in spy craft? Deep post minding?

"Havener Discol is rich. But it is control that truly matters to the man, showing his essential insecurity. He's fixated on diamonds, wants to control the diamond market, and in truth he's got his fingers in every gem brokerage and quite a lot of control. I have hunted down information the man wants, and now I'm going to aim him at this Ash, and see what happens." At the knock on the door, Usse reached and opened it. A short broad figure hustled in.

"Mr. Discol, please come in, sit." Usse's manner was so meek he nearly disappeared from the man's consideration. "I have the information you seek, and a possible location."

"Tell me."

"The packages are always sent from Wallenton. Always by a woman, but not always the same one. There are a dozen or so women, but they only come one or two at a time, and generally with teenage girls al
ong. They stay at one of three inns, and there they are associated with several men, one selling wool and one selling wine. The group comes in several times a year from the Village of Ash, up in the mountains."

Discol frowned. "Never saw it on a map. It's too far north. Diamonds are found down in the volcanic lands
northeast of Farofo."

"Isn't Mount Frost a volcano?"

Discol frowned. "Ash. Ash. That's it. They've hid their diamond mine from me. It's probably a big strike, if known it could pull miners, prospectors into the area, start a rush, so they hid it. Hoarded the diamonds." He nodded. Reached into his pocket and tossed over a slip of paper. A bank draft. "Thank you so much for your special handling of the shipment. Much appreciated." He heaved himself to his feet and walked out.

Ajha closed the door against the push of a ho
t dry wind, and the clink of the prancing hooves of Discol's carriage horses faded away.

"He'll return, dissatisfied, and I'll have to listen to him complain for an hour to mine the bits of information I want.
Specifically, we'll find out how they treat obnoxious, nosy, visitors. So you three will know what you are facing. Hopefully he won't get snowed in, I'd prefer the information earlier." He waved his dismissal, and Ajha left.

30
September 3479/Early Fall 1362

Karista, Kingdom of the West, Comet Fall

"Contact!" Allie sounded excited. "It was a burst transmission, low level, but I got a direction!"

Mike and Richie hopped into the wagon, the rest gathered at the door.

"Ten to one compression . . . let's see
if we can decrypt it, if it's in English we ought . . . Okay, play it."

"The Earther Native Affairs Office is still empty. If those fools are still infuriating everyone they speak to, perhaps the Scooners burned them at the stake. Still no further action in the Temple of Ba'al."

"Nice. A direction, and jam packed with information." Mike's finger traced the line through the city. "Definitely east side, goes out to sea about the middle of the sea docks. So, they've got an information collector in Karista. And they've been keeping tabs on the diplomatic types. Excellent. Damien, can you take the Bear wagon a nice slow amble from there to the river docks?"

"
Da. Will do."

"Why don't you think about how to find out why the interest in Ba'al. No further action, they said. What was the first action?"

But the sweep along the bay and river front yielded nothing, nor the sweeps two and four blocks inward.

They stopped for lunch at a tavern on the upriver side of the River docks. Joe had been running the instruments in the wagon, and stretched, happy to be out. "Hard to believe you didn't stop at your favorite dive."

"This one is a bit upscale for us, so mind your manners." Damien tried, and failed, to keep a straight face.

Joe looked around the dim interior and grinned. "Less grease, more dust, and a pretty thin crowd." He flashed a smile at an over aged waitress and took his first sip of beer. Choked. "Just found out why."

Damien wince
d at the harsh green brew and glanced out the dusty window at a clatter of hooves and raised voices.

Three men nearly fell off their horses in front of the tavern. Laughing, and most likely half drunk. They were dressed in the lacy shirts and embroidered quilted vests favored by the set that tended to duel at the drop of a hat.

"I can't believe you took Rufi's colt!" The first one through the door was grinning.

The second one swaggered. "He was too damn handsome to resist. Uncle Rufi won't grudge me a bit of a ride."

"Oh yes he will, the colt's not yet three, you shouldn't have run him. Damn fast though." The third noble looked around like he was smelling something bad. But some crashing and squealing from outside interrupted anything he might have to say about the place.

Damien glanced out and leaped to join the cursing group rushing outside. 'Rufi's colt' had broken the rein he'd been tied with and despite all the harness and the wagon in the way, was doing his damnedest to breed Blue. The nobles laughed about it, cheered him on, and sliced harness when the colt put a foot through the traces dismounting. They flung Damien a coin, like he was a serf, nearly beneath their notice, and managed to produce a sturdy rope to tie the
young stallion to a tree. They went back inside and appearing to find the whores suddenly interesting, disappeared into the back.

"One! Turned themselves on watching, didn't they?" Another patron was snickering.

Damien removed the cut strap and took it inside to deal with, sitting so he could see the man who'd just spoken. He made a key hole splice, and wrapped the overlap with a leather thong. "That should get me home to replace it." He dropped his voice. "Joe check those three men at the far table. Remember them."

Joe walked over to the
bar for another beer, nodded amiably to the trio. "I wish the fall rains would start. I'm tired of driving down to the river docks and finding nothing."

"Yeah, should be any day now, and the kitty will be delighted. We really ought to run both wagons for awhile. I've been thinking we should buy that house next door to us, so we could spread out a bit next winter, not get on each other's nerves."

"That's not a house, it's a pile of rotted wood." Joe dropped his voice.

Damien eyed his trace. "Well, I reckon it's time to see if this will hold." He led the way out, and buckled the strap in place. Blue didn't help any, nickering at the black horse, who was throwing a fit from across the yard. "And you behave yourself, old lady. No foals, you're a working girl of a different sort."

They were turning out into the street, when he glanced back. The man who'd sworn by the One staring after them.

"Okay, who were those guys?" Joe asked

"Oners, I think."

Joe looked around. "We're out of sight. Let me off. I'll see if I can follow them. Go tell the
lieutenant."

The trace held long enough to get him home. Code swapped the team while he dashed inside to report.
They grabbed comm gear and Mike led all the guys out to help with the tracking. Allie groused at staying to mind comm central. Damien let the horses trot all the way back. The guys started dropping off along the way. Damien stopped at the end of the wharfs, and Mike and Carl walked the rest of the way.

He could hear them subvocalizing over the comm net.

<>

Damien hauled freight all afternoon, taking only short local hauls, keeping his eyes open. No sign of the Oners, nor Joe.

They stayed out until dark, then met for a hasty dinner and headed out on foot again. In the morning Damien drove past the tavern to the northwest gate and asked about his 'cousin'. The guards hadn't seen him. He turned back and worked the area again all day.

Code joined him for the afternoon's labor. They stopped once at a leatherworker’s shop for a replacement strap, and kept going until the light was gone.

They ate dinner alone; Allie was in the basement monitoring, and the others still gone.

A city guard knocked on the door about dusk. "You the Damien that hauls freight for Master Halse?"

"Yes, well, I haul for anyone, but . . . "

"We've got a body the Master thinks is a relative of yours."

Damien closed his eyes in pain. "Joe. I've been worried . . . " he choked down an inappropriate curse. "Where?" He snatched his jacket and followed the guard down to the docks. The body was not pretty, after a day in the water. But the cut throat was quite obvious.

"Oh, Joe. Yeah, that's my cousin Joe Hertz."

The guard who had fetched him nodded. "When did you see him last?"

"We had lunch together yesterday at the End of the Wharf. He said he had something to do—I figured one of the whores down there—but when he didn't show back up I started worrying. I asked around a bit this morning, but Joe wasn't a very noticeable fellow. Damn."

"He have any enemies? Girlfriends?"

"Nah, ask Master Halse, Joe was a hard worker, got on with people. No steady girls, well, maybe some regular whores, you know, but nothing to get into a fight over."

"You left him at the tavern?"

"Nah, couple blocks this way, he upped and decided he had business. Ther
e was this stupid to-do at the tavern, nobleman's stallion got loose and bred one of my mares, there was a lot of joking about it, but it sure seemed to get a bunch of the fellows in the mood. I figured Joe'd go back and get a quickie and find me at the docks, so I went back home and swapped to my fresh team, and then came back down here. I took short hauls so I'd be easy to find–it really speeds things up, having two of us to unload."

The guard shook his head. "So a whore, or her pimp or a footpad cut his throat and tossed him in the river. Well, we'll see what we can find, but I 'spect we'll never find out who did it."

Damien nodded, feeling sick.
We can't even send him home.

He was buried early the next morning in a nearly silent ceremony. The whores from the Sooty Duck came and cried. The guard spoke briefly to them and left.

***

Lefty
could hear the voice from the general's room.

"It looks like an ordinary cutthroat. There no indication that any of the royals were involved at all. If they had been, it would be a sword thrust we'd have found."

"Good. Not that we need a murderer at large, but I really hate it when the family, however distantly related, is involved. Bad enough they stole my horse and raced him."

The other man chuckled. "Right, you impress all of the kids with your tall tales, and then you expect them to be able to resist a colt you tell t
hem was sired by the War God's stallion?"

"These lads were about ten years too old to be that silly. Thanks
, Jer."

Lefty eyed the unobtrusive man who walked by. Moderately tall, balding, average.
On a first name basis with the general. One of the Emperor's Own intelligence officers, no doubt, regardless of the City Guard uniform. Which looked a bit padded, the heels of his boots badly worn on the outside edge. Anyone seeing him in a guard's beret probably wouldn't recognize him two minutes later in street cloths, which he probably wore with shoes worn down a bit on the inside.

"So, Lefty, what are the Earther's up to now?"

"Getting bored. It's been a year since the Oners tried to provoke them with that raid . . . The Auld Wulf bred that mythical black horse to a mare of yours?"

"Jet's pretty big and solid for a myth. And you know the Ash Tradition! Every time he comes here, a mare or two just happens to get together with that horse. This is the old
est colt, just over two. There are a couple of younger ones down at the Royal Stud farm."

"Huh. Well, don't let Master Nil find out or he'll be horribly jealous. In the mean time,
it looks like the Earther's science camp is packing up and ready to head home. Hopefully that's a sign that they're going to give up altogether, and just leave."

"Excellent. Now we need to work on the Oners, and try to break up their love fest with Auralia."

"Before they murder any more city guardsmen." Lefty scowled. "I really hope we have an opportunity to do something nasty to that Action Team Oscar and Bran met up with."