Lisa Shearin - Armed & Magical

“Excuse me?”

Tanik raised his hands defensively. “Just looking like one. Your glamour will include a uniform; it’s not like you have to make yourself anatomically correct or anything. Embassy guards have been coming and going at all hours to Balmorlan’s yacht. I’ll just have my boys borrow one for a while so you can get a good look at him.” He paused and grinned. “And of course keep him occupied until you get back with Piaras.” He chuckled. “It’d suck to almost get out of the embassy and run into your double.”

I gave him a flat look. “Yes, it would.” I didn’t like the idea of a glamour, but I had to admit it was inspired.

“Though you have to ask yourself something, girl,” Tanik said. “And you have to be honest about it. Do you have the brass to walk through those front gates and into that embassy? The ambassador has some nasty mages on his staff. I think those bastards can smell fear.”

“I’ve got the brass to get in and the brains to get out,” I said quietly. “I’m a Benares, remember?”

Tanik laughed. “Just wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to have your death on my conscience.”

It was my turn to laugh. “You don’t have one.”

He leaned forward eagerly. “Well then, before I have my boys deplete the embassy guard population by one, why don’t you do a test run on Phaelan here?”

My cousin tensed in his chair. “Wait a minute. I don’t like magic. I especially don’t like magic done on me.”

I sighed in exasperation. “I won’t do anything to you. You’re just a model. I’m the one who’ll be doing the work. Stand up.”

He hesitated, then stood slowly.

I knew the mechanics of doing a glamour, but I’d never tried one before. I’d seen someone get stuck halfway through their transformation. It wasn’t pretty. That had put a damper on any curiosity I had. I walked around Phaelan, committing to memory how he looked, internalizing the smallest detail and then releasing the slightest touch of power into the image in my mind, projecting it outward.

I hesitantly looked down at myself. Tanik whistled and applauded. Phaelan turned and took one look, and his mouth fell open.

It looked like I owed the Saghred another thank-you.

Phaelan shook his head in wonder. “I never realized what a devastatingly handsome devil I am.”

“Nice work,” Tanik said. “How long can you hold it?”

“As long as necessary,” I told him. I gasped. I had Phaelan’s voice.

My cousin’s eyes went wide. So did mine.

“Are you supposed to be able to do that?” he asked me.

“No.” I stopped again at Phaelan’s voice coming out of my—I mean his—mouth. “A glamour is just an illusion to trick the eye. I’ve never heard of one being this thorough.”

Apparently the Saghred didn’t do anything halfway.

Phaelan’s grin was wicked. “How thorough is it?”

I looked down, way down. Now my mouth fell open.

I definitely felt different. I mean I was still me, but I now had things dangling where things had never dangled before. I resisted the urge to reach down and touch.

I was horrified. “How the hell do you walk with these things?”

Phaelan’s grin turned wolfish. “Proudly.”

Tanik Ozal was red in the face from laughing so hard.

“Oh, shut up!”

“I’m sorry, girl… Captain… whatever.”

“Okay, so I can do a glamour,” I told them both. “That’s all well and good to get through the front doors, but I can’t just walk out of there with Piaras.”

Tanik’s laughter had subsided to chuckles. He grinned and raised a finger, indicating that I wait. He went to a chest in the corner and started rummaging through it. He pulled out a pendant on the end of a long chain.

“Oh shit,” Phaelan said, saving me the trouble.

A pendant linked to the Saghred was what got me into this entire mess. I was less than enthused about wearing another one.

“My son’s majoring in magical instrument design,” Tanik told us. “This little gadget was his summer school project. And unlike some of his other efforts, this one actually works.” He paused and looked embarrassed. “Well, for about fifteen minutes. It makes the wearer invisible, so you can get in as an embassy guard, free Piaras, have him wear the pendant, and stroll out.”

I just looked at him. “In less than fifteen minutes.”

“You’ll get to find out how good you really are.”

“I’d rather not have to find that out. Can Piaras take it off and then put it right back on for another fifteen minutes?”

Tanik grimaced. “Unfortunately, no. It takes about an hour to recharge after it’s been used. My boy only got a C on this project.”

I blew out my breath and took the pendant. “Then I’ll work with what I have. Okay, have your crew get me an embassy guard. And make him an officer. I don’t want to get stuck cleaning latrines.”

It took Tanik’s boys nearly two hours to get what I needed, but what they brought me didn’t disappoint. An elf lay trussed and mostly unconscious at my feet. An embassy guard captain. Perfect. High enough of a rank to get respect, low enough not to attract too much attention. Plus he was good-looking. If I had to be a man, at least I got to be a handsome one.

“I need his name,” I told Tanik’s first mate.

The man grinned and pulled a disk and chain out of the guard’s tunic and over his head.

Dog tags. Excellent.

Captain Baran Ratharil. Serial number 847364. My identity for the evening. I hung the tags around my neck. Captain Ratharil was about to take Taltek Balmorlan’s newest prized possession out of the embassy right under his nose.

At least that was the plan. It was my plan, I liked it, and I was going to do everything in my ability and power to make certain that it happened.

I was going into the embassy alone. Phaelan didn’t like that.

“I’ll be waiting across the street,” he said, his expression as dark as his mood.

“With six of my best men,” Tanik added.

“If something goes wrong, there’ll be nothing you can do to help,” I told them both. “You won’t even know I’m in trouble.”

Phaelan almost smiled. “If you and Piaras get into trouble, everyone within a ten-mile radius is going to know about it.”

He was probably right.

“Phaelan, if anything happens to me—”

“Nothing is going to happen to you.” He said it like he personally dared Fate to defy him.

“Okay then, in the unlikely event that a mishap should befall me…”

Phaelan scowled.

“I want you and Tanik to promise me that you’ll do everything you can to keep Balmorlan from taking Piaras off of this island.” I looked from one of them to the other. “And if he does, you will find Piaras, regardless of where he is—or how long it takes. Promise me.”

Phaelan’s dark eyes were solemn. “I swear to you that Piaras will not leave this island without me—and Taltek Balmorlan will not leave this island alive.”

“That’s all I could possibly ask for. Thank you.”

I looked down at the embassy captain. Tanik’s boys had done clean work, but they hadn’t been gentle.

“Captain Ratharil is going to have one hell of a headache when he comes around,” I noted.

Tanik grinned. “By the time that happens, he’ll be blindfolded and kept literally in the dark about where he is. I’m not a coward, but I don’t go around asking for trouble in the cities where I do business. When we’re finished with him, the boys will dump him in an alley, loosen his knots, and run like hell.”

I knelt behind the guard and lifted one of his eyelids. Dark green eyes, a few freckles, strong features, slight stubble on his face. He hadn’t shaved today. I hoped that didn’t violate some kind of embassy guard rule. With my luck, it would.