The Archimage's Fourth Daughter Read online

  The card table wobbled uncertainly as Oscar reached out to steady himself. “Careful,” the old man said. “The monitor probably will break if it falls.” He hesitated and then blurted. “I still get to keep the computer, right? After all, I bought it with the dust I earned from you. That you asked I do so had no bearing on who is the rightful owner.”

  “You will not need it any longer,” Angus growled. “I am displeased, and you must pay the price.”

  Oscar backed away from the table, looking for his cane. He spotted it against the wall, limped to retrieve it, and then pointed it at Angus with a trembling hand as best he could.

  “I have taught you much,” the old man said. “Computers, the internet, Wi-Fi, money, commerce, the stock market, factories, entertainment, business…”

  Angus bared his fangs in irritation. “Yes, yes,” he said. “But that took so many years.”

  “Because of the problems with the words. Because first of all, you had to learn the basic concepts of how we live.”

  “And now, all of that I do understand… understand enough that your use to me has diminished to that of gnat needing to be swatted.”

  “You don’t know everything,” Oscar said. He glanced quickly at a notebook on the card table next to the keyboard. “There are still the user names, passwords, and such. Subscription bills to pay. Online banking. You cannot type with any speed.”

  Angus did not answer. Instead, he continued his survey of the room and spotted what he wanted. Near the door leading to a small garden in back were a rake, hoe, and other instruments for taming the lush vegetation outside. He walked past Oscar’s cane to the wall and picked one of them up.

  “I believe you have taught me the name of this one,” he said. “A machete, is it not?”

  Oscar dropped his cane and slumped to his knees. He closed his eyes and placed his hands together as if he were praying. “Please,” he said. “Let me be.”

  Oscar started to say more, but Angus did not hesitate, moving surprisingly fast even though he was completely swathed. The blade sliced through the air and then Oscar’s neck as if it had never even been present. With a dull thunk like that of a melon rolling off a wagon, the old man’s head fell to the ground.

  The body crumpled, and Angus pushed it aside. He went into the kitchen for some towels and returned to mop up the blood that had sprayed the computing machinery. When he was done, he tested the air again, and it still did not hurt. He would have more time than he thought.

  He recognized the thick notebook that had fallen to the floor. Oscar had brought it with him after all the things to remember became too much. Angus thumbed through the page and stroked where his long hair would be if it were exposed. As he had thought, the instructions, the passwords, everything was there.

  The urge to place the order welled up within him, but he pushed it away. Tidying up should come first. He found a shovel, dug a shallow grave outside, and disposed of the head and body.

  The electric bill was paid automatically from Oscar’s bank account, the old man had told him, and with a little study, he would figure out how to access it and compute how much more time the power would continue to flow to the house. The newspaper delivery was handled in the same way, but now he would have to come periodically to take them back to their prison, so no one would suspect Oscar was no longer there. Dinton would still want them in any case. No matter. Now that the access was directly his, he would not need to smelter the gold and go through the tedious communication process to get things done.

  Angus relaxed and allowed himself a moment of reflection. Oscar’s grandfather had been a young boy exploring the cave when they had first met. The lad had been more curious than afraid, and by a long process of grunts had worked out the beginnings of communication. Angus had given him a nugget of gold to get him to return, and although it took several years and pointing at picture books, the exile had learned enough to communicate in English at a higher level.

  The boy was eager for the gold. In exchange for more nuggets, the tables, clocks, candles and other small sundries were procured. Eventually, the lad grew into a man and then tottered into old age. Before he could come no more, he brought his own grandson, Oscar, to the cave, and the barter continued.

  After many years, all of the gold nuggets were gone, at least those that easily could be pried from the alcove walls. Angus smiled. He had dared to use alchemy almost as an act of defiance to his brothers, but in the end, it served his purposes well. And along the way, Angus had learned from the old man much of the native’s culture that proved to be so useful. But now, the deed was done. He should have done this long ago.

  Angus broke out of his reverie. He opened the notebook and began to read.

  THE INSTRUCTIONS were simple enough. Despite his drunkenness, Oscar’s mind had been precise. Every step the old man documented clearly. The original list of 128 names and email addresses was still there. Lucky number seventeen still circled. Angus turned on the computer and slowly, a single letter at a time, began typing the email to the broker in New York.

  ‘Purchase the rights to any and all salt domes in the Gulf of Mexico region, abandoned or not. Price is no object. Use the funds in the trading account. Conduct yourself as you have been instructed before.’

  The Noose

  BRIANA LOOKED up from the screen, focused on the red-bricked buildings below the Janss steps, and stretched. She had had no more trouble at the café in the last seven days. Zero had not yet reappeared. Refreshed, she was looking for more clues with her laptop.

  The culture of the natives was not based on magic as it was back on Murdina, she had concluded. Of that, she was now convinced. And therefore, if she discovered even a hint of the use of craft, then the exiles must be the ones involved.

  But there were only some seven hundred of them among who knew how many millions of humans. Any indications of such use would be faint. Her searches had to be focused sharper than the finest needle to find what she was looking for. Despite everything contained on the internet, general queries on ‘thaumaturgy,’ ‘magic,’ ‘sympathy’… would not succeed.

  But, just as for her, Briana reasoned, the human culture also would be intimidating to the exiles. Free of their confinement and then discovered, they would be powerless against the onslaught of Earth’s knowledge and vibrant energy — perhaps even stripped of the shrouds that hid their hideousness and put on display at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

  Powerless that is except for what they could accomplish by exercising the crafts — skills unknown throughout the Earth by any human. That then was the question: of all the incantations, rituals, and charms that the exiles had knowledge, which were the ones that they would exercise?

  Suppose she were a lady newly awakened after centuries of sleep back on her own orb and unaccustomed to the protocols and intricacies of court — what would happen?

  She would be instant prey to the charlatans and schemers at court, unless… unless she could buy protection from men-at-arms, advice from counselors, and the security of a fortress of her own. Yes, that was it. She would need wealth and a vast one at that — so large that by doling it out, she could buy the time needed to learn how to survive.

  Briana started typing rapidly. Gold was the key! The exiles would use the crafts to accumulate and horde gold. And then, when they had enough to insure safety, they would effect their escape.

  AFTER SEVERAL hours, Briana stopped looking. She could find no indication of new discoveries of gold, of sudden disappearances from fortresses, or unexpected changes in price. For a few moments, she tried to consider alternatives, but none satisfied the need for portability and easy division into small parts as needed. She slumped, trying to reason what to explore next.

  “I see you almost every day here on the slope with your pretty brow wrinkled in thought,” a voice broke through Briana’s concentration.

  It was Carl again. She reached to shut the top of her computer, but then realized that there was no
thing showing that would hint on why she was on Earth.

  “Hmmm, gold,” Carl said. “Are you a geology major? No, that can’t be right. You aren’t even enrolled.

  “From ancient times, gold was the primary basis of wealth upon which everything else depended,” he continued without waiting for an answer. “Originally, all the other forms of money, like paper, derived their value from it. They were mere tokens representing what was safely stored away. But with the advent of banking, now almost all wealth is merely entries in balance sheets. There is no one-to-one relationship to precious metals behind it.”

  “How can that be?” Briana asked. “You mean that I cannot take the little slips of paper I get for my tips and go somewhere to trade them for precious metals and gems?”

  “Yep. That’s right,” Carl said. “The supply of money is far greater than the supply of gold.” He shrugged. “Believe me; the whole thing is rather complicated. I am an accounting major and I should know.”

  “But if there is more paper than gold, most of it must be… be worthless,” Briana began.

  Carl rolled on. “Most money is intangible. You cannot touch the gold that is behind it. And there are other things like that as well — stock and bond certificates, good will, brand names, copyrights… But no matter, at the bottom line, they are all components of wealth.”

  Briana’s interest perked up. “So wealth can be in different forms than land, jewels, and gold?”

  “Absolutely. And they can be traded in markets, merely by changing totals on the appropriate lists.”

  Briana gave Carl a big smile and patted the ground beside her. “It would have taken me many days to understand all of that,” she said. “Sit awhile and tell me more about intangibles and markets.” As he sat, she reached out and gently squeezed his upper arm. “After that, maybe I would be interested in some coffee — and perhaps a piece of pie.”

  BRIANA CAUGHT Zero’s eye as he lumbered into the café several nights later. It was fortunate that she had had the time to prepare. But she was not sure if her plan would work, and if it did not…

  Zero caught her glance and smiled. Briana smiled back. She motioned for him to follow and ducked into the passageway toward the restrooms and then to the lot out back. Outside, only a single bulb pushed feeble light into the dimness. The smell from the rotting food made her cough as she looked around in the litter for a relatively smooth place on which to lie.

  A moment later, Zero pushed open the door and spotted where Briana now stood. Slowly, as if to heighten the anticipation, he shuffled up to her. She held her ground. There was no turning back now.

  Zero noticed her clenched fists and laughed. “What are you going to do, little one? Beat against my chest in protest when things start getting a little rough?”

  Briana did not answer. She shuddered as she pushed herself against him and threw her arms around his neck, hoping that he would not react too quickly. She gagged at the foul smell. How many weeks had it been since he last bathed? Closing her eyes, she kissed him as hard as she could.

  “Well, this is more like it,” Zero pulled her tighter. He ran one of his hands down her back and tugged her even closer. “You want a little bit of foreplay? Okay, I’ll give it to you.”

  Briana opened her left hand. It contained one of the bars of metal she had brought with her from Murdina — the king. A trip to what was called a hardware store had produced the little hook and chain to which it was now attached. While Zero began gyrating against her, she slipped the hook into one of the chain links that circled his neck and started whispering the incantation.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” he grunted after a moment. “Let’s get to the main event.” He reached up, slapped Briana’s arms aside from around his neck, and thrust her onto the ground. Briana’s hands flew over her head as she finished the incantation that connected the king and the queen thaumaturgically together — The Principle of Contagion —  ‘Once together, always together.’ Then, as she had learned from her computer searching for how it was done, she began twirling the bar in her right hand as she had seen one of the performers do on the boulevard. What one of the metal bars did the other would follow — The Principle of Sympathy — ’Like produces like.’

  The queen twirled in her hand. The king, attached to a link in one of Zero’s chains did likewise. And as it did, it began to kink the links, intertwining them together, each revolution of the queen making the chain shorter and shorter.

  Zero paid no attention. Pressing his bulk against her, he began pulling at her slacks, trying to wiggle them off her hips. So far, everything was going according to plan. Briana had taken in the waist as tight as she could with a few stitches of thread and had been barely able to squeeze them on. Hopefully, that would give her the time she needed. She concentrated on keeping the queen twirling. To drop the bar now would be a disaster.

  “Damn! How do you women manage to wear these things?” Zero cried in frustration. He tensed his arms, put his hands into the waistband of the pants, and with a grunt burst apart the sewing that had taken up the extra room at the waist. Briana felt her trousers begin to slip downward. Zero’s unclipped nails gouged flesh on her hips.

  For more than a minute, nothing different happened. Zero struggled to lower the barrier to what he was after, and Briana continued the manipulation of the queen with her fingers. Each full revolution became harder than the one immediately before. It took more and more energy to complete a single rotation. The pace slowed, and her hand began to ache. Relentlessly, inch by inch Briana felt her slacks continue to slip downward.

  Too fast, too fast: the thoughts raced through her head. It was going to be too late. She squirmed as much as she could from side to side, but that did not help. In seconds, her pants were down to her knees.

  Then, as Zero fumbled to unzip his fly, he stopped for a moment, puzzled. He reached up to his neck and felt the tightness of his iron necklace. He tried to slip a finger between it and his throat but could not do so. Briana kept twirling. As she had hoped, the king coupled to one of the links at the back of his neck was twisting the same as the queen in her hand. And as it did, the chain coiled about itself until there was no more freedom. Each additional turn was tightening the noose around his neck.

  Zero pulled his other hand from his crotch. He sat up on his knees and pulled at the chain. Even though the effort was getting harder since Briana had not coupled an external source of energy in the incantation — relying instead on what her own body could produce, she continued to tighten.

  Zero’s attention now was entirely on the noose that was cutting off his air, and Briana wiggled out from underneath the brute and stood facing him with her hands behind her back. For another minute, he looked at her, eyes bulging wide, and gasped to speak. Briana stared at him without moving, and then finally, Zero passed out and fell with a satisfying splat on his face to where she had been on her back.

  With some reluctance, Briana twirled the queen in the opposite direction so that the chain around Zero’s neck relinquished its strangling grip. After a moment, he coughed and struggled to his feet. There was confusion in his eyes, but he managed to lumber forward toward Briana a second time all the same.

  Backing up out of Zero’s reach, Briana again twirled the noose tight and waited. Again, the giant fell unconscious to the ground.

  Now for the tricky part, she thought. There was the risk that Zero was not yet convinced. She stooped beside his unconscious form, removed the king that was hooked to the chain around his neck, and unwound the tangled links. After a few seconds more, Zero began to come to for a second time, and Briana bent down and placed her face directly in front of his.

  “You try something like this with me again,” she said, yanking the chain about his neck for emphasis, “this is what is going to happen. Only next time, wearing a chain or not, I will not stop choking you until I am sure. Sure that you are not going to bother me anymore ever again.”

  Briana warily w
aited for a reaction as Zero rose to sitting. He could decide to try again and she was not sure she could go through the ordeal a second time. But the giant did not say another word. He looked at her in wonder, not fully able to comprehend what had happened, what she was able to do to him. He rose, massaging his neck. Without a word, he lumbered to the rear gate of the lot and vanished into the alley beyond.

  She had defeated him! A sense of relief poured through her body, and then after that a growing sense of… a sense of self-worth. Yes, she had defeated him. And if she had to, she would do so again. All of the anxiety leading up to the encounter had been wasted. A heroine did not spend energy speculating about what might happen. Instead, she focused on the moment, the problem immediately at hand.

  It was the same way she should regard the passage of time, Briana suddenly realized. Yes, the days were ticking away until her wedding. But that was not tomorrow. Finding out about the exiles was the only thing to be concerned about now. Focus on the task at hand. She could do no better than that.

  As these thoughts formed, she felt a sudden release in tension. The rising tide of discomfort that had haunted her since she had first learned of her betrothal retreated into the background. It was still there but not something that would grow and grow with each passing day.

  Partners in Crime

  ANGUS SHIFTED uncomfortably in the folding chair. Holding the native device near his ear felt strange, like listening to the roar of the ocean with a shell. He looked about the interior of Oscar’s shack yet another time. It looked the same. No one had disturbed it since his last visit.

  “I am a stockbroker, Mr. Angus,” the voice over the phone said. “Not a business manager. I purchased the abandoned salt domes as you directed, but doing so is not part of my usual duties.”