Night Season

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE chancellor's barge was way different from the one they'd been on before. They were headed downriver now, and the river had narrowed some, so the current was strong and fast. The barge was hitched to a pair of sea oxen, but they were as much for steering as for propulsion.

It was a luxurious vessel compared to the other one. The wood was dark and polished to a fare-thee-well, with intricate carving everywhere some gnome had found a spot to stick a knife. There were cabins, too, thank God, though even the ones supposedly sized for non-gnomes were tiny. Cynna had one to herself. Most of the others had to double up, and some slept out on the deck.

They were a large party. Tash led a small squad of the guard—always referred to in the singular for some reason—for their protection. Wen was along to keep the Ekiba comm channel open, and Bilbo had brought three more gnomes along. Cynna didn't know who or what they were. She'd been given titles to address them by, but what did "Third Assistant of the Red Jasper Collar" mean? Privately, she thought of them as Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Her father was here, too.

That had come as a shock. Daniel Weaver said he wanted to be with her, get to know her. He hoped he would be useful; he was fluent in Common Tongue and had some understanding of three more of the languages here. He knew the customs and the politics. He worked for the chancellor, yes, but at the moment that office was vacant—though that was a deep, dark secret from the rest of their world.

At the moment, he was in the stateroom he shared with Wen. It was late, so they were probably sleeping. Timms was on the other side of the superstructure housing the staterooms. He was teaching Gan to play poker. Every so often she heard Gan yell in triumph or anger. The former demon was not a good loser.

Tash and three of the guard were bedded down on the deck—no cushy bunks for the guard, it seemed. The other four were looking alert and menacing in their medieval-meets-goth garb. Bilbo and Louie had retired, leaving Huey and Dewey still talking at the big table at the aft—or was it the stern? Anyway, the back of the boat. Everyone had eaten at a big table there earlier, then spread out maps to discuss their route.

Not that Cynna knew their route beyond "thataway." The medallion had gone at least fifty miles farther downriver than they were now, but she'd have to check again and again, resetting her "dial," to follow it. Still, the session with the maps had been useful; she knew more about Edge geography now.

She really ought to go catch some sleep herself. Instead she stood at the rail near the bow, staring out at the heavy darkness. Clouds had wiped out the sky, leaving them only their running lights, the personal mage lights of those who, like her, didn't see well in darkness, and the occasional sparkle form other river craft.

"I still had my pants on," Cullen said from behind her.

Her hands clenched into fists. She jammed them into the pockets of her duster. Hadn't she known she should go to bed? She really should start listening to herself.

"I know you don't want to talk to me," he said, moving up beside her, "but you can damned well listen."

He could talk. Didn't mean she'd listen. She kept her gaze fixed on the invisible shoreline.

"I didn't have sex with her."

Cynna practiced breathing. She was pretty good at breathing, and it paid to concentrate on your pluses.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him ran a hand through his hair. "I told you why she was in my room."

Yeah. Elf-woman could do the language spell. For Cullen, spellcasting topped pretty much everything else. "I believe you," she said without looking at him. "You wanted her spell, so you agreed to give her what she wanted."

"You didn't hear anything I said earlier, did you? She didn't agree to trade the spell for sex." His lips quirked. "I'm good, but I'm not that good."

It took Cynna a moment to suppress the urge to bloody that amused smile, but she'd been humiliated enough by her impulses for one day. "You're beautiful and you're new to her. Her first lupus. I imagine she doesn't get a 'first' very often."

He shook his head. "Let me be more specific. I did not agree to have sex with her."

"Then you were leading her on something awful."

"She agreed to give me the Common Tongue. To receive it, I had to lower my shields. When I did, she glammed me."

"She what?" Cynna's lips twisted on the question, but it was too late. Dammit, she was listening to him. "That's not a word."

"You've heard of faerie glamour."

She looked directly at him, disgusted. "Why do you think I was aiming for her, not you?"

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

She found room among the emotional bruises for a thread of satisfaction. It wasn't often she'd rendered Cullen speechless. "What did you think, that I'd blame her and not you for consensual hanky-panky? The door opened. You didn't react. You saw me and still didn't react. You're an idiot, but not that much of an idiot. Just what were you supposed to give her if it didn't involve your cock?"

"Information," he said dryly. "Theera is a spy, so that's what she trades in."

"That's the elf-woman's name? Theera?"

"Her use-name." He shook his head, rueful. "I didn't think she could glam me. She's only half-elven, and I thought… well, I was wrong, wasn't I? Anyway, she acts as agent for her half sister—business agent at times, but the double-o type as well."

He'd learned quite a bit about the lovely Theera, hadn't he? "You'd better tell Ruben about her, then."

"I did. You were busy avoiding me."

The sorry lump of feeling in Cynna's gut reminded her of when she was twenty. She'd had an abscessed tooth and no money. Rather than borrow from her aunt, who didn't have much, either, she'd tried to ride it out.

You could do that with some things. Not with an abscessed tooth, it turned out. She didn't know how it would work with the muddled ache inside her, but since there weren't any emotional dentists, she guessed she'd find out. "What kind of information did you give her?"

"She wanted to know what we'd agreed to do, what the gnomes had offered, how we planned to locate the medallion. I gave her two out of three."

"Meaning?"

"I didn't see any harm in her knowing what we'd agreed to, since that's basically nothing, aside from hunting the medallion. Or what the gnomes are offering—also nothing. We find their medallion and we get to survive and maybe go home. She made me an offer on behalf of her sister."

And what might that have been—a threesome? The words almost slipped out, but Cynna caught them in time. Her priorities sucked. She had to get her damned unruly mind to pay attention to the life-or-death stuff. "What kind of offer?"

"She claims the medallion doesn't have to be held by the gnomes to keep Edge stable. The gnomes warned us we might hear that, of course, but their warning doesn't make it automatically false. Theera's argument boils down to the inherent superiority of the sidhe at everything, especially all things magical, which makes them the proper custodians for the medallion."

"She doesn't object to the way it eats brains?"

"Sidhe do haughty better than a cat. I asked. She gave me to understand it was none of my business." Cullen paused. "If I tell her where the medallion is before it bonds with a holder, I get all sorts of goodies. Spells. Knowledge."

"She has your number."

"Actually, I've got hers. Or her call-me." He held out a hand. A small topaz rested in his palm. "This summons her."

In spite of everything, curiosity pricked at her. "How does it work?"

"I haven't figured that out yet." His fingers closed, and he slid the topaz into the pocket of the loose jacket he wore. "Haven't figured out how she vanished, either."

Cynna's heart kicked up into her throat. She swallowed. After failing to pummel the elf-woman, she hadn't stuck around for explanations. Once the faerie bitch vanished, so had Cynna—more prosaically, however, by running out into the hall. Gan had inadvertently helped by showing up just then, full of chatter. Then Steve had arrived, then their servants, then Ruben, and they'd been busy ever since, getting ready to travel the river again.

Cynna steadied her voice. "She must have faked disappearing. That's probably one type of glamour—disappearing."

"Glamour is illusion. She can probably make herself invisible, and maybe she could even fool my sense of smell, but she vanished to my sorcerous vision, too. I don't think that's possible unless she literally, physically wasn't there anymore."

"Translocation?" That was a mythical ability, one only adepts were supposed to be able to use, "We are so out of our league. If sidhe can do stuff like that, why can't they find the medallion themselves?"

"I don't know."

She caught herself heaving a great, huge, pity-party sigh. But if ever she was entitled to throw one, this would be the time. "I'm going to turn in," she said abruptly and turned to go, her personal mage light obediently tagging along.

He caught her arm. "Cynna—"

"Look, I'm not up to a heart-to-heart tonight. I know better, okay? You're lupus, and I understand what that means. I shouldn't have expected… well, anything. I know that. It doesn't help."

His voice was tight, frustrated. "She glammed me."

"Yeah. But you wouldn't see anything wrong with having sex with her. Only you've got it in your head you need legal standing over the little rider, so you're trying to convince me—"

"I won't be with anyone else. You've my word on it."

"You're not listening to me! I don't want you to squeeze yourself into some other shape. That won't work. It'll make you unhappy and you'll resent it and then we won't be friends any—"

He blurred and she went flying. Flying backward, courtesy of him tossing her through the air. Before she landed, he'd spun back around and sent reality whirling.

Cynna had seen lupi Change. She'd never seen Cullen do it, but she recognized the process. Still, what with landing hard on her ass and watching impossibility take slices out of Cullen's shape and whirl it into something new, it took her a second to see why he'd Changed.

Something—two somethings—were climbing over the rail, silent as ghosts and blacker than the night around them.

"Incoming!" she yelled and shot her mage light higher, slapping it with enough power to make it split into five spots of light.

Slugs. That's what they looked like, though they were man-shaped with the usual arrangement of limbs. They were tall and moist in a way that had nothing to do with the river, and their faces were strictly ugh—lumpy and misshapen, noseless, with no chins below the puckered sphincters that had to be mouths, though they looked more as if someone had gotten confused during assembly and put assholes in their heads instead of their butts.

Cynna took all that in while scrambling to her feet. She had a split second to glimpse some kind of harnesses on their chests before a huge red wolf launched himself at them.

Cullen was unbelievably fast in man-form. He was even faster as a wolf. The slugs were fast, too—just not fast enough. One of them had time to draw a sword from the harness she'd glimpsed. The other didn't. The wolf ripped out its throat.

A wordless shout went up behind her. She turned—and saw a pair of slimy black hands gripping the rail, drawing another slug up—but not yet over the rail.

Her body knew what to do. She turned sideways, drew her right knee up to her chest, and snapped that leg out. Her foot slammed into the thing's head and she felt the impact all the way up.

Slug-man felt the impact even more. With an ear-splitting shriek it fell backward into the river. The splash was drowned out by another yell. Cynna pivoted and saw another slug-man heading for her at an oddly gaited lope, a mean-looking blade in his hand, pursued by one of the guard. The guard—one of the two humans—shouted at her.

Her charm whispered blandly, "Don't touch them. They exude poison."

Now he tells her!

Boots. She was wearing boots, so the poison hadn't gotten on her skin, but Cullen—"Hey!" she shouted at the guard. "Behind you!" Two more slug-men were racing at the guard's back. He whirled, leaving Tall, Dark, and Slimy free to swing his oversize knife at her.

Cynna skipped back. Couldn't spare a second to see what was happening with Cullen and the other slug—this guy was fast. He lunged, making a weird cluttering noise with his misplaced anus, his blade weaving.

Shouts. A shot—Steve must have joined the fray. Her own gun was in her stateroom, but it didn't matter. She'd used up her ammo on the dondredii.

The slug-man lunged, and she hopped hack. Don't look at the blade. Look at the eyes. That's what she'd been taught, but this guy's eyes were solid black. She couldn't tell where he was looking, couldn't read him at all.

The sword swished through the air where her gut had been. She leaned left just enough—but it had been a feint. The blade came back, and she almost overbalanced, dodging again—and tripped. On his dead buddy's foot.

Cynna went down. Three feet of sharp steel flashed through the space where she'd been. And a wolf went sailing over her and over the sword, twisting in midair to close his jaws around the slug-man's throat, sending out a geyser of blood as the two of them hit the deck.

She landed on her side, one arm pinned, the other searching for a piece of deck not covered by dead slug, slime, or blood to place her hand. Something grabbed that arm, flipped her onto her back, A dark body loomed over her, reaching for her face with one glistening hand. Blood ran from a gaping wound on the thing's arm.

An arrow suddenly appeared in its throat—feathered shaft poking out in front, pointy part sticking out in back. Hot blood speckled Cynna's face. The hand that had been reaching for her fluttered up as if to adjust the fit of the arrow decorating the creature's neck. Cynna scooted back, clearing the way for that body to fall.

It landed across her left calf. She jerked her leg out, panting.

Cullen-wolf stood over the one he'd just dispatched. His fur was heavily spattered with blood. It dripped from his muzzle. His lips were pulled back, baring his teeth, and a deep growl rumbled up from his chest.

There was no one left to kill.

Not all of the lumps Cynna saw on the deck belonged to slug-men. Two guards were down. As she watched, Steve Timms leaped over one of those motionless forms, racing toward her. Tash stood about thirty feet away, a bow in her hand. She was barking out orders that the remaining guard scrambled to obey—Get leather to protect your hand, fool, whispered Cynna's charm. Get those bodies overboard—fetch ash and salt—see what the hell happened to the tritons.

Cynna wasn't listening. The huge wolf shook his head once, looked right at her, and his tongue lolled out in a doggy grin. Then he collapsed.