Rune Service Read online

  Our stare down was brief and I can’t tell you who backed down first. “I need some time to call up the knowledge and untangle all the memories swirling in my head. I won’t give you an answer either way until I know for certain I can do as you ask.”

  Sinclair turned away from me, walking towards one of the treasure-laden shelves. “Very well. You have until noon tomorrow to make your decision.” Was there some sadness, some longing in his voice? “Please choose wisely, for all of our sakes.”

  Chapter 16

  I SAT IN MY suite, staring at the faint glow of my cell phone screen. Like everything else I owned, it was a cheapo, prepaid deal with a correspondingly poor battery and I knew I shouldn’t be letting it run down, but I couldn’t help myself. It represented the only safe outlet to the world beyond the walls of Sinclair Computing Industries and so it was a comfort.

  I considered calling Officer Howard who had left another four messages over the day. I doubted Sinclair wanted attention, being a governor or baron or whatever the hell he was in the Dragons’ hierarchy. Besides, it was quite likely those hidden treaties and laws between the Figments and mundane authorities would kick in. It’s not like I was being held against my will, not in any way that could be actionable, while Aelfread was a bona fide criminal by any normal definition.

  With a sigh, I turned off the phone and tossed it down next to my open notebook. Sinclair wanted a miracle and wasn’t going to wait that long for it, even if I did say ‘yes’ to stall him longer. What he called a philosopher’s stone my ancestral hindbrain called the Cornerstone, at least in the best translation to English I could muster, and a full two hours of wracking my brain brought painfully few insights. What was pure fantasy to most of the world was only an incredibly rare and powerful bit of rune magic to the Dwarves, magic I still had about zero handle on.

  Not that I would deliver it even if I could. It’s not that I didn’t want to be a good little citizen, even if it was for a country I didn’t even know I had belonged to until, uh, that afternoon. Sure, I was raised in a sideshow with the insular, in-house sense of justice that comes along with the carnie culture but I was still a good, little American at the end of the day. I wanted to keep my nose clean and follow the laws, well, the good ones at least.

  Which was why I wasn’t going to cough up a Cornerstone for Sinclair. Sure, he insinuated that he had an altruistic reason for wanting it, with all his talk about cultural mobility and Figments becoming other Figments. What made me bristle at his request was how he was going about it. I don’t take kindly to threats and I don’t take kindly to people of any sort that abuse their power over others to get what they want.

  And while I bought some of what Sinclair was selling, I wasn’t buying the full truckload. Bunny had already hinted that Mr. Sinclair didn’t like what he was, so all his flowery talk about cultures and what-not dovetailed neatly with it, but that didn’t mean that he would share the transformational wealth, at least for free. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I was being too harsh, but Aelfread convinced me otherwise.

  Why did I put stock in Aelfie’s concerns now when I wasn’t sure before? Excellent question. Putting aside that kernel of feeling still roasting in the base fire of lust, the facts that pushed me over to his side where ironically provided by the Drake himself. It may not have been obvious, but it was simple with what I already knew about Aelfie.

  Let’s run it down. Aelfie was a con artist, a wheeler-dealer, a little light in the scruples department, and more than a little bit of a coward. His con on Sinclair was working wonderfully, even better than he could have expected. After all, the best con is one that winds up delivering exactly what the con artist intended. You make all the money and don’t have to worry about your exit strategy.

  And yet, Aelfread cut and ran. He skipped out on piles of money, cushy living quarters, free food (at least no one had tried to charge me for the meal I’d wolfed down), and a direct line to a powerful government official. Not only did he skip out, he stole something of incalculable value, something that put a dozen crosshairs on his head.

  It made absolutely no sense … unless Aelfread was right and Sinclair’s ultimate plans for the Cornerstone (if he got one) were more dreadful than simply turning a few people into different kinds of people to make them feel better (something I would have jumped at most days). I had no idea what it was, though. To me, the worst thing I could see was Sinclair making a pile of money while getting himself a new form. With all his apparent love of humanity, maybe he just wanted to be a mundane human?

  I rubbed my hands over my face and stroked my beard. Picking my side was fine and dandy but what was I going to do about it? My priority was still to keep Aelfie safe, that’s what I’d signed on for, but I had a small but growing desire to keep Sinclair as far away from my people’s rune magic and stones and everything else as I could.

  And that’s the thought that started my breakdown. No, I didn’t collapse in tears or fall to my knees and clutch my pearls but that was the moment when it hit me for true. I wasn’t a freak, some random twist of DNA for ‘normal’ folks to point and laugh at. I had a people, a past, something to cling to. There were songs to sing, recipes to cook, crafts to restore. And through Dwarven eyes, heck, any Figment’s eyes, I was normal. Maybe even better than normal.

  That’s what Aelfread had been trying to get across to me in his own way.

  Even that, while certainly a roundhouse kick to the status quo of Mary Stone’s psyche, wasn’t the final blow that made me stagger to the bathroom and stare in the mirror. No, it was the feeling of utter stupidity that came to me with the realization that I could have always had that sense of belonging. Everything I had just run through that came from those ancient Dwarven memories bouncing around were there on the road with the carnival as well.

  In the sideshow or under the big top, we had special songs, a secret language of slang and inside chatter, our own foods, our secret crafts, and trades with which we put on our shows or pulled the wool over the rube's eyes. There were traditions, laws, and etiquette that was just as real as any memories of kingdoms under a mountain to me, if not more so.

  And I had been too proud and too stupid to realize it.

  Heck, you could argue that I even had that sort of thing at the Easy-E-Mart. I could name all my thirteen regular customers by sight. We gossiped, we talked, we had our in-jokes, our odd preferences. They had accepted me, four-foot bearded lady that I am, and I accepted them, despite each of their individual faults and foibles.

  And there came the tears, which I felt were completely appropriate given the circumstances.

  It was a bad time to realize I had been a sulky, pouty jerk for a decade or so, what with all the potential danger looming and a deadline attached, but we rarely get to choose when our preconceptions about ourselves are shattered. Beats me why I decided the best way to do that was hunched over the sink, standing on the stool there, staring like a fool into the mirror.

  Fortunately, I wasn’t allowed to wallow for very long. A polite knocking echoed from the main room and broke through my tearful introspection, followed immediately by Siofra’s musical voice calling, “Lady Stone, hello?”

  “One minute!” I called back. Even if the Elven attendant probably couldn’t help me at all with the big problem, some friendly company would do me wonders in other ways. I grabbed a washcloth with one hand and flipped on the hot water with the other, taking my minute to scrub the tears away.

  Siofra was still standing there when I finally got out of the bathroom and got the door open. In the short time she had been left waiting, the beautiful Elf had become engrossed with her phone, the bright, candy-colored lights of some mobile game reflected in her big eyes.

  “Hello there, Siofra.” I tried to sound as upbeat as I could manage. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you again before nightfall.”

  Her ruby lips frowned in frustration as her phone let out a discordant chirp. “Hellfire, lost again!” My observation must have percolat
ed through at that point as she looked past her device. “Ah, Lady Stone, hello! We Elves do not sleep quite like most Figments do.” She focused on me at that point and gasped. “Have you been crying?”

  I made a face and stepped back. “Why don’t you come in so we can talk?” I know I was already starting to blush in embarrassment and I didn’t want to have a personal chat about my feelings out in the open. It was late afternoon at least and the halls were getting busy with Figment workers coming home. I think I even saw what had to be a centaur at the far end of the hall.

  The Elf looked a bit confused but nodded slightly, stepping inside my room as I closed the door behind her. “I only came be to see if you needed anything else to help you settle in.” She turned to face me, sitting ungainly (as ungainly as a preternaturally graceful Elf could) on the bed as she stepped back against it. “But now that I am here, what has you so upset?”

  I didn’t want to involve her, especially as she was one of Sinclair’s employees and thus circumspect, but her sincerity was shining through. She wouldn’t leave without something and I didn’t want her to go either. “I, well, there are a lot of things coming down on me all at once.” Siofra’s gaze was unwavering so I added, “You know, being an orphan. I have only known about all” – I gesticulated wildly around me – “this for, well, not even a day yet!”

  “I cannot imagine how hard it is for you,” she nodded sympathetically. “You must be having to come to grip with so many things!” Though her choice of seat had been accidental, it only took a moment of subtle shifting for her to go from ungainly to elegant.

  I pulled the tall stool over from the desk and mounted it. “You are right, of course, and I guess it just hit me all at once a little while ago. When you are in the moment and things are rushing past, it’s easy to roll with it, but once you stop …”

  The Elf slapped her hands together and drew them apart, twiddling her fingers in imitation of an explosion. “Crash!” she supplied with a smile. I nodded as she continued, “Still, I am certain you will come through it fine. While there are not many orphans these days, both the Drachenreich and the Spaces have excellent programs to assist found Figs, not to mention Master Sinclair’s great generosity to the community.”

  Fidgeting on top the stool, I tried to arrange myself and my skirt to be as effortlessly beautiful as Siofra and failed miserably. “I will admit that Master Sinclair has been quick to offer his support to mend some difficulties in my mundane life.” Considering the considerable goodwill Sinclair had, I figured it was best to be delicate. How likely was it that a housing attendant had any idea of what the boss was up to? “I am a bit nervous about a possible position he’s offered me, though.”

  Siofra’s eyes lit up (figuratively … and I feel odd that I must clarify that from time to time) alongside her smile. “That is wonderful! Well, the offer of employment, not the nervousness. Anxiety is natural in that position. Simply try to think of it as if it were any mundane job; you must have had plenty of those before now if I have any understanding of how the mundane world works.”

  Her enthusiasm wasn’t quite infectious but her high spirits were helping pick mine out of the gutter. “You’re obviously right. Why does this work need to be any different?” Well, outside of the obvious funny business involved, which I felt would be inappropriate to bring up with Siofra. “But at the same time, it is very different than anything I’ve been asked to do before.”

  That must have lassoed her curiosity. She leaned in, thoughts of anything else seeming to fly out of her impressively tall ears. “Oh? How so?”

  I had been eager to talk to Siofra for the sole reason of having a shoulder to lean on but I realized that maybe she could be of more help than that. “Well, it involves magic, for one. That’s not exactly something that has come up at the workplace before, you understand.”

  Covering her mouth with one hand, she let out a laugh that had more in common with chiming bells than human tones. “You know, I would never have considered that. I grew up around magic and it’s everywhere in our world. I have always wondered how the mundanes can be so ignorant of its existence.”

  “Be that as it may,” – I certainly didn’t understand what she meant by that but I rolled with it. – “I don’t want to let Master Sinclair down but I’m not sure I can do the tasks he wants me to do. The knowledge, the magic feels like it is right at the edge of my memories, like – “

  “A scene viewed through a misty fog,” Siofra concluded, taking the words out of my mouth. “A fleeting dream of impressions and feelings that leave a trail to follow but a disturbing lack of clarity. In the end, you feel confused and frustrated, not sure where to go from there.”

  “Exactly!” My hands tugged on the two largest braids in my beard. “Do all Figments have these ancestral memories?”

  Siofra put a finger to her sharp chin and tilted her head a hair. “I am no expert but I know Elves and Dwarves do. Drakes, well, they are too guarded to talk about that to outsiders and there are too many kinds of Goblins, Garou, and Faeries to really know for sure unless you happen to be an expert of course.” Another musical laugh came out as she shook her head. “I am just a hostess after all. And that doesn’t even begin to cover all the less common Figments, which number in the thousands of species …”

  “So how do you deal with all the things rattling around in your brain?”

  Her delicate shoulders shrugged slightly. “I was born and raised among my kind in the Spaces Under The Lake so it was no major issue. It was much like puberty.” She paused a moment as her brow crinkled in thought. “Well, puberty if Elven puberty is like Dwarven puberty which is like human puberty? From what I have been told, they are all similar. We can crossbreed so on the sexual side of things they must somewhat match up, yes?”

  I coughed. “That is a bit more information than I asked for but I’ll file that away for later reference.” Yes, I did find my thoughts drifting toward Aelfread, for your information. I shook my head slightly to force my brain to surface from the depths it was going down to. “To stay on task, knowing this is easier to figure out with a support structure doesn’t help much. There does seem to be a lack of Dwarves around.”

  Siofra’s eyebrow arched at my cough and her smile grew. “Oh, now I wish to pry but I will not!” I glowered, she laughed, and we moved on. “If magic is your primary concern right now, with this impending position hovering over your head, I could try to help you. We Elves all have a bit of a flair for high magic.” She twirled her hand and emerald sparkles traced in the air behind her fingers.

  If she could help me tap into the magic I knew I could work, I might just be able to work out a plan to get Aelfie and I out of this. “Siofra, I would love any help you think you can give. When do we begin?”

  She smiled, obviously thrilled to be of help. “Right away, of course!”

  Chapter 17

  SIOFRA SMILED FROM behind the attendant’s counter, her delicate fingers splayed out as she leaned against it. “Now, there are four core principles behind all forms of magic.”

  I stood on the steps, leaning sideways against the wood and scratching at my cheek. “I don’t mean to interrupt or be insulting, Siofra, but is this really the best place for this sort of thing?”

  Even now, there was a steady flow of people through the room. Even as fresh as this brave new world was, I was already starting to get used to the variety of sizes, shapes, and colors parading around me.

  “Oh, it’s completely fine,” she assured me, waving after a gangly-looking, green-skinned figure in a Sinclair Computing jumpsuit. “Most days, I have very little real work to do. Your arrival and the subsequent gossiping about it all has been the most excitement we have seen in a while.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your work.”

  Siofra waggled her fingers dismissively. “Really, Mary, you need not worry so much. These are simple things we speak of, the basic building blocks of magic.” She giggled. “I learned this in my second year of s
chooling; these are no great secrets.”

  I grumbled and shook my head. “That’s a fine way to make me feel better.” With a sigh, I forced a smile. “Okay, I apologize. Please continue.”

  If the Elf cared about my bitching, she didn’t show it. “So right, four core principles.” She counted off on her delicate, long-nailed fingers. “One, talent. Two, motion. Three, intention. Four, release.”

  Turning fully towards the counter now, I took up my pen and began taking notes. Again, I kept my writing to rune letters, just in case anyone was peeking over my shoulder. “Those are all quite cryptic, you know.”

  “Patience, please. We are only beginning!” Siofra’s posture and attitude reminded me of your stereotypical kindergarten teacher, right down to that faintly condescending-yet-still-kindly smile. “So, what do you think these words might mean in the process of magic?”

  I stowed the instinct to smart off; I understood what she was trying to do here. “Well, the talent part seems obvious. You have to have the right amount of talent to do the magic, right?”

  She nodded gently. “Precisely. While anyone can learn how to use various styles of magic, one can have various degrees of aptitude with them. Many Figment species have certain innate abilities in this regard, but each individual can vary widely within those abilities. There are a very rare few that can’t work magic among us, we call them ‘deadspells’, but even humans with the right inborn potentials can work magic.”

  I had heard enough so far about talents and aptitudes that it was easy enough to understand. “So, number two.” I tapped the page with my pen. “Well, every bit of magic I have seen first-hand has always involved finger-wiggling and hand-waving. That’s motion, correct?”

  A blue-scaled Drake in some ill-fitting shirt, tie, and slacks gave me the hairy eyeball as he or she (it was hard to tell with the whole reptile thing) signed in as Siofra nodded. “Yes, at the most basic level, the gestures used in high magic and holomancy make up the motion component. I really don’t know how that principle applies to other kinds of magic like Garou shapeshifting or Dwarven rune magic but I cannot say I have ever seen Reba make hand signs before shifting forms.”