Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

“Goblin said to hang on to them till you arrested the person the Taken is here to collect.”

The little wizard and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“Oh. It’s not really the cards.” He spread the deck across the bar, hand shaking. He watched the door like he expected doom to thunder through any second.

Goblin asked, “You haven’t sold us out to somebody, have you?”

“Huh? Oh! No! Never!”

“Then how come this place is so empty? How come you’re so nervous?”

I said, “The place is empty because everybody is back at the compound. Hello.” I plucked a piece of parchment from amongst the scattered cards.

I unfolded it.

I stared.

I started shaking. Memories buried monstrously deep gurgled to the surface. “Goblin. Check this out.”

Goblin started shaking, too.

Zhorab asked, “I did it right?”

I pushed a silver piece across. “You did it perfectly.” I had found the copy now, too. “Just one more step. You had the letter writer make an extra copy. We’ll want that one, too.”

Zhorab wanted to lie but desisted after a look into Goblin’s eyes. “It will take a few minutes.”

I put another coin on the bar, with an ugly black knife for a companion. The knife was not special but looked like it ought to be.

Zhorab gulped, nodded, vanished.

Goblin observed, “He gave that up pretty easy.”

“Probably has more than one copy.”

“You want them all?”

“I don’t mind there being a few extras floating around, maybe getting back to the Tower someday.”

“Your honey would run our smelly friend through the reeducation process again.”

I shuddered. I had had my own brush with the Eye. Everything inside me had been exposed had the Lady cared to look. It had been her way of getting to know me. What the Limper would endure would be a hundred times worse, but not fatal. He was much too useful—when he confined himself to being an extension of the Lady’s will.

Zhorab returned. He gave me another folded parchment. I sheathed my knife. “We have to go. Be ready for a big rush later on.”

We encountered Hagop halfway to the compound. “There you are. The Captain sent me to get you guys. He wants Goblin to connect with the Tower so the Lady will know we got the girl, in perfect shape, before the Limper takes her and heads out.”

“Shit.” Goblin looked back, considering making a run for it.

It had been a while since he had made direct contact. He did not want to endure that again. Not voluntarily.

I said, “It must be damned important if he’s willing to put you through that.”

Hagop said, “He really wants to make sure she knows. He doesn’t trust the Limper.”

“Who would?” And, “The temple girl really is Tides Elba?”

“Yes. She doesn’t deny it. She claims she’s no Rebel or Resurrectionist, either. But she’s got some girl magic.”

Goblin asked, “Croaker, it ever feel like everybody knows more than you do?”

“Every damned day since I joined this chicken-shit outfit. Hagop. Take this. First chance you get, plant it right back where you found it.”

He took the folded parchment. “This isn’t the one I gave you.”

The Captain was behind his table. Tides Elba sat on one of his rude chairs, wrists and ankles in light fetters. She looked to have gone numb, emotionally beyond the point where she could not believe this was happening. A torc had been placed around her neck, the sort used to manage captured sorcerers. If she tried to use sorcery, it would deliver terrible pain.

The Lady must have probed far into the future. The child was sitting on the only magic she controlled right now.

The Captain scowled. “You’ve been drinking.”

“One mug, in celebration of a job well done,” Goblin replied.

“It’s not done yet. Contact the Lady. Let her know. Before the Limper finds out we have her.”

Goblin told me, “Welcome to the mushroom club.”

The Captain said, “I don’t need you here, Croaker.”

“Of course you do. How else am I going to get it into the Annals right?”

He shrugged. “Move it, Goblin. You’re wasting valuable time.”

Goblin could make contact on the spur of the moment because he had made the connection so often before. But familiarity did not ease the pain. He shrieked. He fell down, gripped by a seizure. Startled, concerned, the Captain came out from behind his table, dropped to a knee beside Goblin, back to the girl. “Will he be all right?”

“Make sure he doesn’t swallow his tongue.” I took the opportunity to cop a feel of a firm, fresh breast and to slip a square of parchment in with the sweet young jubblies. The girl met my eye but said nothing. “My guess is, he’s having trouble getting through.”

The Lady heard Goblin but chose another means of response. Just as the Limper burst in through an exploding door.

A circle of embers two feet across appeared above Goblin, almost tangled in the Captain’s hair. The Lady’s beautiful face came into focus inside. Her gaze met mine. She smiled. My legs turned to gelatin.

Goblin’s seizure ended. As did the Limper’s charge.

A voice like a whisper from everywhere asked, “Is this her?”

The Captain said, “So we believe, ma’am. She fits all the particulars.”