Mercedes Lackey - The Wizard of Karres

They stepped through the door into a second little room, with more expensive knickknacks on the crowded shelves.

"This place is about as well shielded as possible," said the lady proprietor, looking worried. "What brings you here, Illa? We haven't had any consignments moved through here for months. I haven't seen you for years." Hulik was not surprised at the assumed name Vezzarn was known by. She had several herself.

Vezzarn shrugged. "I'm on another run these days, Thora. I just need some information in a hurry."

Thora raised an eyebrow. Hulik knew that they were on dangerous ground.

"I just need to know who some people are and where to find them," said Vezzarn reassuringly. "You know I'm trusted. I won't bring any trouble to you. That would be more than my life's worth."

"Ask, then," the gift-shop proprietress said, guardedly.

Vezzarn described the groundcars that had taken part in the snatch of the captain, Goth and the Leewit.

"Fullbricht," she said. "The second vehicle is pretty distinctive. But you really don't want to find him, Illa. He runs most of the crime in this town these days. He started off as an informer for someone, but he's moved up. He's got control over several of the other small towns. You really don't want to cross him."

Vezzarn grimaced. "He's bad news, huh?"

The gift-shop proprietress pulled a face. "No. It's worse. He wants to be bad news. He's a small-time operator who wants to be thought big. He'll go too far one day, but at the moment he's like a kill-mad miffel. His trademark is making statues."

Hulik blinked. "Statues?"

Thora regarded her with a jaundiced eye. "That's what they're called around here. Statues . . . humans cast in ferroplast," she said dryly. "Then they get dropped into the lake."

Hulik took a deep breath. "We need to find him anyway, Thora."

The woman looked at the two of them. "Well, the fake ISS uniform might help," she conceded. "His headquarters are in the Myamosa building, but that's just the front office. The place where they do most of their business is in an old hazardous materials warehouse off Thirteenth Street."

Pausert awoke with a stunning headache. When he tried to cradle his head in his hands . . . he very rapidly realized that a headache was the very least of his problems. He was in a barrel that came to just below head height. The barrel had been filled up to his chest with fast-setting ferroplast. The stuff was already in the thick and glutinous stage. And his hands were tied behind his back.

Inevitably, his nose began to itch.

Twitching his nose desperately, he looked around the cavernous room. The twitching did nothing to alleviate the irritation of his nasal membranes. He realized that the sensation wasn't entirely psychological. The smell in here would make any self-respecting nose itch. The air was ammoniacal. That could be why the people standing between him and the two other barrels were wearing rebreather masks.

The masks hid most of their faces, but Pausert didn't think that they were worried about being identified. They were carrying, between the seven of them, enough heavy weaponry for a regiment . . . well, a platoon anyway. One of the biggest men Pausert had ever seen was carrying a Mark 20 blaster cannon—the kind of weapon normally mounted on sand-scouts. This man had it slung across his back as if it were an ordinary rifle.

Two of their captors were busy cutting one of the other barrels shorter with a steel-grinder, with the metal screaming. If that was the level of noise accepted around here, then shouting for help was not going to do any good.

One of the masked men noticed that Pausert was starting to look around. "He's stirring, Captain Elin."

Pausert had expected the big man with the Mark 20 to turn, but instead a short, stocky woman did. She had one of the most perfect gambler's faces that Pausert had ever seen. Absolutely and totally expressionless. Pausert realized that that could be even more frightening than someone who looked either threatening or mad.

"Captain Pausert." Her tone too was nearly expressionless; a casual, greet-you-without-pleasure-in-the-street tone of voice—not "I-have-you-bound-and-up-to-the-chest-in-ferroplast" nasty. Somehow, that was even more intimidating.

And she knew who he was, obviously. "We need some information out of you. You are going to tell us."

Another figure bustled up, a wristphone pressed to his ear. A big, plump, sloppy-looking man, but nothing like the size of the giant with the Mark 20.

"The prison is crawling with cops. I've got two of my men monitoring the ISS channels. They're planning to set the launching of his ship forward. It'll be in space as a target hulk within two hours. If the information is on the ship, it'll be space dust soon. You've got to get it out of him. We've got to get out of here." There was both fear and greed in the whiny voice.

"Shut up, Fullbricht. You're a penny-ante bungler. Don't let your delusions of local importance let you think that you can give orders to me."

"It's all very well for you, Captain Elin," he said sullenly. "You'll be out of here. I'll be left to carry the can. Your men used my vehicles. Someone is bound to have seen them."

"Then you'll have to leave your comfortable little nest here, Fullbricht. How likely are they to know of this place? Should we move the captives to our ship?"

"No one comes here. It was a radioactive materials store, before the mines played out. Then they used it for guano, until that was exhausted."

Well, that explained the ammonia smell, thought Pausert. But a radioactives store would be built like a fortress. No wonder they weren't worried about noise. The men who had been cutting the drum hauled the cut section off to reveal a tousled blond head sticking out above the ferroplast. The Leewit was obviously still unconscious. And Pausert was pretty certain that the third barrel contained Goth.

The woman referred to as Captain Elin turned back to Pausert. Her eyes were inhumanly cold, Pausert thought. "How fond are you of the two children, Captain?" A vibro-knife appeared in her hand. She walked over to the unconscious Leewit. "Do you want her to have a quick death or a slow and painful one? It's your choice. We want the Agandar's codes. And we want them now."

"Codes?" Pausert tried to sound less dumbfounded than he felt.

She slapped the unconscious Leewit, hard. "Access codes to his vaults in the Daal's bank on Uldune."

Fury boiled up in Captain Pausert. Incandescent anger. It was all the worse for being helpless. "She's a child! I'll . . ."

"You'll tell us what we wish to know. We know you have drawn funds from his accounts."

Pausert forced himself to be calm. He hadn't done anything of the kind! He had to think his way out of this dilemma. Someone had set this up. Someone who was out to destroy the Venture and her crew or passengers.

"Stubborn, eh?" she said. "Well, you have that reputation, Captain." She slowly raised the vibro-knife. The blade glittered and shimmered in the harsh factory lighting of the storehouse.

Pausert wished, desperately, for some way to protect the unconscious Leewit. If only she was conscious! If only there was some kind of klatha shield he could raise around her. Olimy, the top Karres witch they'd transported from Uldune to Emris had been protected like that. Olimy had disminded himself, protected himself from the horror of the Worm World with a kind of stasis. If only . . .

A complex klatha pattern came to his mind, unbidden. What was it that Goth's Toll pattern had said? When you need it, not when you want it.

But what would it do? Dismind him? That could only be reversed with difficulty on Karres. Or dismind the Leewit? The glittering knife drew closer to the Leewit's face. There was no time for doubts now. The captain traced the klatha pattern with his mind. It was an intricate one, full of strange dimension-turning twists which made him feel both giddy and cold. He directed it at the Leewit and had the satisfaction of seeing the pirate captain pull her knife hand back as if stung.