The Skaar Invasion

  But her brother wasn’t having any part of it. He attacked again, his magic coalescing into a barbed whirlwind that would have torn her apart had it been able to reach her. Yet it still came close enough to leave the exposed skin of her hands and face torn and bloodied and her body bruised. She broke his attack once more, but now she was nearly played out. She still hadn’t recovered from her journey; she was still in need of rest. He was too strong for her. If the attack continued, he would destroy her.

  Which, she realized for the first time, was precisely what he wanted. He was far beyond reason. Like her parents and her uncle, she was going to die.

  So she had to find a way to bring him under control physically, to stop the attacks and make him listen to her. Looking into his eyes as he prepared to come at her one more time, she found no hint of the brother she had known as a child, no indication of affection or trust. He was a soulless monster consumed by rage and hate and driven by a mindless need for revenge.

  She felt herself lose hope.

  Tavo’s voice rose to a crescendo and hammered into her. It struck her with such force that it effortlessly broke apart her defenses, throwing her a dozen feet into the air, holding her in place three feet off the ground, and then slamming her down. The air went out of her, her vision wavered in a wash of pain and sadness, and everything went black.

  * * *

  —

  From where she crouched at the corner of the porch, Clizia Porse watched Tavo Kaynin walk forward to stare down at his fallen sister. She was probably already dead—and if she weren’t, she soon would be. Tavo wasn’t looking at his sister with anything that even approached compassion. He was clearly trying to determine whether she really was dead or if more was needed to make her so.

  So Clizia acted, knowing that if she let him end Tarsha’s life, it would ruin everything she needed to accomplish with Drisker Arc. And she wasn’t about to let that happen just to satisfy some half-mad sibling’s insane compulsion.

  At the same time, she was wondering if perhaps there might be a use for him. After all, he did possess the most powerful magic she had seen in many a moon. If it wasn’t the wishsong itself, it was a close approximation. And if it was the wishsong, that meant both brother and sister were descendants of the Ohmsford bloodline—perhaps the only ones left in all the Four Lands. Which would explain Drisker Arc’s decision to accept Tarsha as his student.

  But whatever she was going to do about Tavo Kaynin, she had to do it fast and she had to handle it in the right way. No ordinary approach would work with someone this irrational.

  She rose, watching for any threatening movements from him, but he just stood staring down at his sister, seemingly oblivious.

  “Tavo!” she called.

  “Go away!”

  “Step away from Tarsha. Let your sister be.”

  “I’ll let her be when she’s dead! And she’s not quite dead yet.”

  Clizia exhaled. Good news, if so. “Why don’t you hear me out first? I have a use for Tarsha. An important use, which might be good for you, as well. So perhaps you would consider waiting a bit longer to kill her? I know she deserves to die, but why not let her live awhile in expectation of what might happen? If you kill her while she is unconscious, it will mean nothing. She won’t have a chance to regret the way she hurt you. Tavo! Look at me.”

  Tavo looked, his gaze blank, his face expressionless once more. The anger was gone, and he no longer seemed to be interested in talking to whatever ghosts accompanied him. Whoever Fluken was, he seemed to have faded from his consciousness for the moment.

  “You and I are not so different.” She spoke quietly, her voice modulated to be persuasive and calming. She knew how to do this, and during the long years of her life it had served her well. “We have both suffered grave hurt at the hands of others, our lives tortured and twisted by those who wanted us gone. We have both endured injustice and misunderstanding through no fault of our own. You have great magic. So do I. You have suffered because of how you have struggled with it. So have I. We are so much more alike than we are different. Give me a chance to tell you more.”

  She was pleading with him as an equal, a fellow sufferer at the hands of an amorphous, faceless array of enemies. Ingratiating herself by identifying with him and letting him identify with her.

  Tavo stared at her a minute and then nodded.

  “Your sister said she would try to help you master your magic, to find a way to bring it under control. I will do much more than that. I will teach you how to use it, so that it will serve your purposes. I will give you a way to vent your hatred and gain revenge over those who would make your life miserable. I will give you access to a power you have not even begun to dream of! You have power in your voice, granted—but you don’t yet understand all the ways that power can be used. Even more to the point, you don’t have all the tools you need to accomplish the great things you were born to do.”

  His brow knit and his face darkened. “Why would you do this?”

  “Why not, if you can help me in return? If it allows us to help each other? Do we not need to band together, we who are the victims of uncaring parents and neighbors and friends? We do not deserve to be victims; we should be victors!”

  He was nodding with her now, agreeing with her assessment, even though she was doubtful he really understood what she was saying. She resisted the urge to step closer to him, standing hunched over in her dark robes to make herself appear less threatening, more innocuous.

  “Here is what I promise you,” she continued, now that she had his undivided attention. “Stand with me, Tavo, and I will give you power that will allow you to punish all those who might hurt you! I will give you a chance to discover how you might change the very world you live in! No one will ever lock you away again. No one will ever threaten you again. Others will stand back from you in awe, and they will fear you. They will treat you with respect! This is what I will give you if you will let me make use of your sister for a short time.”

  She had no intention of doing any of this, but her plans were not fully formed as yet, so mostly she was buying time for herself and Tarsha. This brother of hers was clearly insane and incredibly dangerous. That she could bend him to her will, persuade him to her cause, was a risk she must take for now. She must lead him to believe she would do all the things she had promised. But in the end, he was expendable and must be eliminated if for no other reason than to assure her personal safety.

  “You could be lying,” he said, as if reading her mind.

  “There would be no point in lying.” She came forward a few steps now, hands held out as if in supplication. “You are too powerful to be lied to, and I would be a fool to trifle with such power. Your magic is familiar to me, and there is no limit to what it can do. If I help you to master it, you must agree to help me. This is the way things should be, Tavo. Now step back from your sister and let me see to her.”

  He did so, arms hanging limply at his sides, head lowered as his eyes fixed on her. There was still something there between them, Clizia judged—still a hint of caring that transcended the madness that otherwise ruled his existence. “Fluken” would attempt to change this, and she must be careful to see that this other self, this imaginary friend, did not interfere with her plans.

  But there were ways to do this, and no one knew them better. “Pick her up and carry her inside,” she told him. She had walked over, bent down, and found a pulse. Weak, but there. “Gently, Tavo. She is the key to everything. I will explain it all to you once we are inside. There will be a bed for you in which to rest and sleep. There will be food to eat and ale to drink. And medicine, Tavo. Medicine to help calm you and keep your thoughts directed as they should be. Come now, pick her up.”

  Tavo did so, cradling her in his arms and lifting her effortlessly from where she lay on the ground. “Tarsha,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for what I did.”


  He started for the porch, walked up the steps, and disappeared through the open door. Clizia Porse followed, allowing herself a surreptitious smile. He was hers now, and she would make certain he remained so.

  SEVENTEEN

  Later that evening, in the city of Varfleet, a boy of capable skills but limited means was watching a game of Pickroll. The game was taking place in the gambling room of the Sticky Wicked Hall of Chance, a popular gaming palace down near the docks, where men of hard lives and questionable morals gathered nightly to find new ways to part with their money and their patience. Because the loss of the first frequently led to the loss of the second, big men with scars and frowns stood against the walls of the room at regular intervals in spaces specifically designated for them, each providing a clear view of and a short path to the gaming tables should trouble arise.

  All of which provided Shea Ohmsford with a small financial opportunity he was quick to recognize.

  It worked like this. Servers employed by the Sticky Wicked were there to provide food and drink to the patrons, and it did not do to get underfoot when they were on the floor. On the other hand, they were not required to perform other types of fetch and carry, so they made it a hard-and-fast rule not to—and signs above the serving counter and on each of the walls of the room said as much. They also described in graphic terms what could happen to you if you made the mistake of trying to sidestep the rule.

  But sometimes other forms of fetch and carry were necessary, and young Shea Ohmsford was quick to recognize an opportunity. Messages needed to be conveyed to friends and family, offering reassurance that long hours of absence did not signal permanent abandonment. Or pleas for help needed to be speedily dispatched for players who found themselves suddenly short of credits. Or excuses needed to be proffered for failure to appear for work. Then there were the items to be fetched: medicines to sharpen the mind and quicken the hand—none of which were on the gaming hall menu of food and drink—or fresh clothing to replace that damaged in a brawl.

  And so on and so forth.

  Shea Ohmsford—small and slender and wiry and easily able to navigate the sea of larger bodies—was there to provide any of those services, circling the room with catlike ease to respond to a beckoning hand raised by an eager customer. And all for a coin or two—though sometimes more since the market was fluid and the law of supply and demand reigned supreme.

  The boy worked at the sufferance of the establishment, but the owner liked him and knew him to be dependable. She understood the need for the services he offered, yet preferred that it be Shea who carried them out, since the boy represented no threat and was well known about the quarter to be honest and circumspect about what he saw or heard—all good qualities for anyone who worked in a place like the Sticky Wicked.

  Shea Ohmsford was not particularly fond of the work. It was mostly boring, payment was spotty, and the gaming room’s players were frequently unpleasant. Nor did he need the credits. The black-cloaked grandfather he had encountered a few weeks back had paid him handsomely, and he had squirreled that money away against a future that was always uncertain. But he did not want to use those credits to live off because they were his stakes in a larger future that waited a few years farther down the road. So he worked both to make enough to survive from day to day and because he knew that if you expected to find opportunities you had to make space for them in your life. Better to keep your hand in even when things were going well, at a place where keeping your eyes and ears open might present you with such opportunities. He had grander plans for his life than spending the rest of it in Varfleet, and whether those plans came to fruition or not it was better to avail himself of the chance that they might.

  Tonight was an ordinary sort of night—the number of players about average and the number of tables in use about the same. Shea was watching with half an eye for a raised hand, but for now they were few and far between. He could have spent the night in bored disinterest, but instead he had found something to help him pass the time.

  At a table not ten feet away, a game of which he knew almost nothing was under way. Pickroll, it was called. Only men and women with credits to burn played it. The stakes were high and the odds against winning long. The game involved the use of both cards and dice, along with expenditures of large numbers of credits during the course of play. Three of the four men sitting at the table were Sticky Wicked regulars—men of questionable practices in their ordinary lives (some of those practices legal and some not). All three were well known for their skill at games of chance, and each possessed the experience to know and anticipate how other players might react in any given situation. None were men Shea Ohmsford much cared for, although all of them, at one time or another, had enriched the boy with credits in return for services rendered.

  The fourth man was the wild card, a newcomer to the gaming hall and perhaps to Varfleet, as well. Shea knew he had never seen the man before, nor seen the fetching creature that clung to him as if to imprint herself upon his body. She slid over and around him as if she were oiled, and draped herself about him like a second skin. She was stunningly beautiful—long and lithe, with the most flawless white skin and catlike golden eyes Shea Ohmsford had ever seen. She laughed and whispered and winked at her companion in a teasing fashion, but never with anything that suggested an attempt to distract him.

  Still, the dock marshal sitting directly to the newcomer’s right had apparently begun to grow weary of her. Leaning back, he coughed loudly and looked the newcomer directly in the eye. “Your pretty cloak appears to need its drawstrings tightened,” he growled. “Better straighten her up before she falls on the table.”

  The dock marshal was a lean, rawboned man of considerable size—fully six and a half feet and 270 pounds at a minimum. When he spoke, his voice rumbled out of his belly like the low growl of a furnace burning hot. His glower was deep and threatening, and his big hands were knotted before him in fists.

  The newcomer nodded but did not otherwise respond. He was not a big man, but he was a commanding presence nevertheless. He wore his dark hair long and tied back and sported a closely shaved beard and mustache. He was a cool one, the boy thought. He had been winning steadily, never taking his eyes off the dice or the cards, humming softly now and again, giving the astonishingly fetching woman who hung on him little more than the occasional glance and wink. He did so now from beneath his heavy brow, his eyes the color of storm-clouded skies. The silken creature that clung to him went instantly still, fixing herself in place and staring directly at the dock marshal.

  The dock marshal returned her look with a baleful stare and went back to his cards. “Shouldn’t allow her at the table, in any case. She’s not a player. She’s nothing but a bit of pretty fluff. You want to play the game, you should play it alone.”

  The newcomer shrugged. “I can quit now, if you wish. All right with everyone if I cash out and leave you to it?”

  He glanced casually about the table. Heads remained lowered, but the disgruntled murmuring was unmistakable. None of them would be happy if he left now, carrying away almost all of their credits. And the other two men were no better to cross than the dock marshal—one thought to be a successful assassin attached to one of the guilds, and the other a high-placed member of the city’s governing body of Ministers and a member of the Federation military.

  The dock marshal glanced at his companions and made a dismissive gesture. “Never mind. Leave it for now. But as for you…” He looked again at the newcomer’s sinuous companion momentarily and then at the newcomer. “Don’t bring her back tomorrow. You hear?”

  The newcomer glanced at the woman draped across his shoulders. “Hear that, Seelah? My friend the dock marshal doesn’t much like you, I’m afraid.”

  Seelah’s features tightened, and her strange slanted eyes found the dock marshal’s. For the first time, the boy noticed them change color, from golden to a smoky crimson. He
watched in fascination as her lips parted with a soft hiss, revealing wickedly long and razor-sharp teeth—better suited to a Parkasian wolf than a sensuous girl.

  The dock marshal hesitated, then looked away quickly.

  What is she? the boy wondered.

  The newcomer cleared his throat. “Regardless of who does or doesn’t return tomorrow, it’s one more round tonight for me, and then I’m through. Make your best play, friends.”

  The other three glared even harder, their expressions bitter and their eyes filled with malice. No one spoke. The dock marshal had the deal and the roll, and so he commenced the round. All of them turned their attention back to the game. The dock marshal won the first hand and began to smile, sensing that things were turning his way at last, while the other two men continued to fume. The newcomer seemed almost disinterested.

  “Boy!” he called suddenly, turning to Shea, his hand beckoning.

  Shea hesitated, not sure for a moment if he had heard right. Then, seeing the other continue to make impatient gestures, he hurried over. When he was beside the newcomer, the woman with the cat eyes slid close to him and placed a slender white hand on his shoulder.

  “Your name?” the newcomer asked softly.

  “Shea Ohmsford.”

  A long stare. “You wouldn’t be having me on, would you?”

  The boy shook his head. “That’s my name.”

  “Well, well. Small world, it seems.” He laughed softly. “So, Shea Ohmsford, are you for hire this evening?”

  “Of course,” the boy answered, growing marginally bolder. “What’s your wish?”

  The cards were being dealt, the dice placed in front of the military man. The newcomer bent close, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “How would you like to engage in a bit of excitement? Something you’ve not been asked to do before?”