- Chapter 9

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# CHAPTER NINE

Although she had every sense at her command locked onto her quarry, Aurilia "lost" the pair to everything but sight the moment they entered Tannim's car—and she lost the vehicle itself to President Street traffic soon after. The protections on the vehicle might have been set by Keighvin Silverhair, but Aurilia doubted it. Whatever other powers the boy had, he certainly drove like a demon. Once again she found herself forced to admit to a kind of grudging admiration for one of the enemy. . . .

But not for long. The aggravation of losing quickly overwhelmed the admiration. Damn him, anyway. Crafty little monster. Where did he learn all that? Surely not from Silverhair. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect they'd managed to find some devil actually interested in buying his skinny little soul. . . .

Still, Aurilia hadn't practiced her own particular brand of subterfuge for so many centuries without learning patience. She found herself an out-of-the-way spot in one of the little "pocket parks" and sat in her Mercedes. Tannim could cloak himself, and even his car—but once the girl left his presence, she would register to Aurilia's mage-senses. And the girl was really what Aurilia was after at the moment.

It took longer than Aurilia had thought it would, but towards sunset, the girl finally "appeared" to Aurilia's inner eye. She quickly triangulated with a mental map of the town, and determined that the girl was at the corner of Bee and Wheaton streets.

She reached out in thought, and seized mentally on the nearest pigeon, taking over what little mind it had with her own. Pigeons were possibly the stupidest creatures on the planet, but that stupidity made them remarkably easy to enslave. When she was done with it, it would drop dead of shock, of course, but that didn't matter. One more dead pigeon on the sidewalk would excite no one except a feral cat or dog.

She sent the bird winging in a direct line to the area where the girl loitered. With sunset coming, a pigeon was perhaps not the best choice of slave-eyes, but it would do. A grackle would have been better, but like all the corbies, it would have fought back too much, wasting time and energy before she could take it. An owl was the best, but Silverhair used those, the bastard. And frequently owls were not what they appeared to be.

She caught only glimpses of what the pigeon saw; just enough to guide it to her target. Fortunately, the girl was fairly conspicuous with her bleached-blond hair, even from above. Though darkness had fallen, the shock of pale straw made a kind of beacon for the bird's dimmed eyesight. So although the pigeon was not much good at flying by street-lamps, once the bird had the girl in sight, Aurilia had it land on a rooftop, and follow her in short flights, from tree to phone-line, to rooftop again.

Even by daylight the pigeon's eyesight wasn't particularly good, as birds went, but Aurilia made out enough detail that she was forced to wonder what on earth Tannim saw in this appalling little creature. It certainly wasn't her looks. She was scrawny, underfed, a modern version of one of Aurilia's own Victorian Street-Sparrow constructs. Clean—well, Aurilia would give her that much. She was clean. And young, if your taste ran to children. But cheap, tacky—tasteless. Perhaps that was why her glamorie at the pub hadn't worked—maybe Tannim was only attracted to cheap tarts. Maybe he only enjoyed sex with hookers, children, or both. . . . But that didn't fit his profile, didn't fit anything she'd been able to learn about him.

Peculiar. Once she'd seen him, he hadn't struck her that way; in fact, his attitude towards the girl, so far as she had been able to make out, was positively chaste. In any case, the girl's parents had to know what she was doing, unless they were even stupider than the pigeon.

The girl wound her way farther and deeper into one of the bad areas off Wheaton. Well, now it wasn't much of a surprise that she'd had Tannim drop her back there on the corner. Aurilia didn't wonder now why the girl hadn't wanted Tannim to see where she lived; she was probably ashamed of her home. If she lived here, her parents couldn't be much better than what was locally termed "poor white trash." That might be why they didn't put any restrictions on her dress, her movement, or her behavior—they probably didn't care.

The girl suddenly dashed across a street and up an enclosed staircase, catching Aurilia by surprise. She sent the pigeon to perch in a tree outside the first lighted window she saw.

She peered short-sightedly at the window, trying to determine if the bird could get any closer, and discovered that luck was with her. The girl passed in front of it, showing it was the right one; and not only that, it was open, with no screen to keep her from perching on the ledge.

She moved the pigeon in a fluttering hop from branch to ledge, and poked the bird's head cautiously inside. The place was appalling: filthy, bug-ridden, falling to pieces, with the only furniture being pallets on the floor. There were two rooms to the place; the girl and two other youngsters were in this one, and voices from the door beyond proved that there were at least two more in the other room. There were no parents, no adults of any kind, anywhere in sight. Within moments of listening to the conversation between the children, it was clear to her that there were no adults in residence in the tiny apartment at all. There were perhaps a half dozen children living there, and now Aurilia knew exactly why the girl had looked and acted the way she did—for she recognized one of the other children. There was a girlishly-pretty young boy on a pallet at the side of the room, sleeping the profound sleep of the drugged with his face turned towards the window. Aurilia knew him very well indeed; she had just spent the past week editing film that had his face—and other parts—all over it.

It had been the "bondage-party" film (now called "Birthday Boy" and with three thousand copies already on order) that had featured five of their customers and one "pickup." The boy, called "Jamie," if she recalled correctly, was a free-lance hooker and a runaway.

Suddenly, given Tannim's notorious do-gooder impulses, many things fell into place. That was the attraction, then. Tannim wants to save the girl if he can—and that fits right in with his profile. Meddling fool. Typical hero-wishing. Save her for what? A life of food-service? Well, if he wanted to waste his time and resources on dead-end losers, Aurilia wasn't going to stop him. Particularly not when his little hobby fit right in with Aurilia's own plans. Not only her plans, but the current projects for Studio Two.

She withdrew her power in a burst of triumph, abruptly, allowing the pigeon to tumble unnoticed to the ground.

* * *

Tannim had expected Keighvin to jump all over him when he got back to the Fairgrove complex. After all, he had been scheduled to run test laps at Roebling, not spend the afternoon watching container ships and lolling around on the grass, however noble his motives.

Maybe if I just tell him the truth . . . edited. Emphasizing the need the child's in, and leaving out the lolling on the grass and the picnic dinner.

But as he wound his way through the offices, a change in the schedule posted beside the machine-shop door caught his eye. It would have been hard not to notice it; under the track schedule was a red-circled "canceled" notice.

When he read it, he had to grin. The old luck comes through again. Excellent. Some time between when he'd left for lunch and when he was supposed to return, Keighvin had changed the scheduling. The track had been closed this afternoon for repairs after some damage from a tire-test this morning.

A tire-test? What the hey?

He grabbed the first person he saw when he got into the shops. "What happened at the track this morning?" he asked.

The mechanic, Donal—one of Keighvin's Sidhe, and Tannim's oldest friend Underhill except for Keighvin—grinned wryly. "Hard to believe, eh? Wouldn't have believed it meself if I hadna seen it. We had a series of new tires for the GTP test mule—same mule you were supposed to check brake mods and suspension geometry on. Well, seems our mods or the tires or both were a little too good." Tannim watched the elven man rock back on his heels, eyes glittering.

"So what happened?" he asked, since Donal was obviously waiting for him to make some kind of response.

"Well, the lateral gees put a three-inch ripple in the asphalt on one of the turns." Donal's grin got even wider, and Tannim didn't blame him; Donal was part of the crew responsible for the handling. This was something of a coup—for a mule to hug the track that hard on the turns said a lot.

But—a three-inch ripple? That was a lot of lateral. His expression must have said something of his surprise, as Donal held up a hand as if he was swearing to the fact.

"I promise; I measured it meself. We all saw it—a three-inch lump, plain as Danaa's light, ten feet long. We had to hire a steamroller to flatten the track. Took us the rest of the day. Keighvin figured you'd see the posting and take off."

Now Donal raised an eyebrow, because Tannim should have known what had happened, since it had undoubtedly been all over the shop; Tannim just shrugged. He wasn't good enough to lie to a Sidhe, so he simply told part of the truth. "You know there's never anyone to answer questions around here in the afternoon. I had a picnic out at the Fort. So, where's Keighvin?"

"With Sam Kelly, at the forge-shop." Donal grinned again, showing gleaming white teeth, teeth that were a little feral-looking. "Now 'tis a `forge' in more ways than one. Sam seems to have concocted a process that will pass muster, and he's moved that molten-metal equipment we kenned out to the other shop. Says we'll be ready for a cast of thousands."

"Ech, that's awful. `Forged' engine blocks, hmm?" Tannim indulged the Sidhe; Donal was fond of puns. "And a `forged' process. Well, I'd better get out there and see what Keighvin wants me to do now."

He wound his way through metal and machinery to the roofed passage that joined this shop to the formerly-empty forge building. He noticed along the way that a lot of the computer-driven equipment was missing; presumably it had been moved to its new home.

Keighvin should have been glowing with cheer; the mods that had warped the track had certainly proved successful, and now he had a "process" that would explain where his engine blocks and other cast-aluminum pieces were coming from. But when Tannim found him, supervising the set-up and activation of some arcane-looking machine by that insanely cheerful human tech-genius Skippy-Rob, he didn't look particularly happy.

Tannim wondered if something more had gone wrong than he'd been told, but it wasn't that kind of expression. He'd seen the Sidhe display all kinds of moods, and it was the "unreadable" ones that he feared the most. Keighvin was a gentleman by any creatures' standards, but he had his breaking points, and when he was near one . . . Keighvin looked up and saw him lurking out of the way, then beckoned the young mage over.

"What's cooking?" Tannim asked casually. "Anything wrong with Sam's phony process?"

"With the process—nothing," Keighvin replied, rubbing one temple distractedly. "But—Vidal Dhu showed up at Sam's this morning. Not inside the house, but he blocked Sam's driveway long enough to deliver a message."

"I think I can guess the message," Tannim said slowly.

Keighvin nodded, grimly. "A threat, of course. At least he didn't say, `And your little dog, too.' The worrisome thing is that he's managed to recruit a corps of lesser nasties, and they're putting pressure on our boundaries. Nothing like overt warfare, but—don't go into the woods after dark."

"Any things we haven't taken out before?"

"Nothing any worse, so far as we can tell. I don't like it. And I don't like Sam being outside our hardened boundaries. I'm setting up our spare rooms here as sleeping-quarters for anyone who can't protect themselves, including Sam."

The man in question had come around the corner during Silverhair's little speech, and waited until he had finished before leaving the work crew and joining them.

"You're worrying too much, Keighvin," the old man said comfortably. "I've been going over my old gran's stories. I think I can hold off the boggles; enough to permit the cavalry to come over the hill to rescue me, anyway."

Tannim noticed that the old man was wearing what looked like an Uzi holstered at his hip; Sam patted it as he finished his statement.

Tannim frowned, rubbing his eyes. "Sam, I don't mean to rain on your parade, but plain old bullets aren't going to stop Vidal, and they certainly aren't going to do anything to a creature like a troll that can heal itself—"

Sam pulled the gun from the holster and handed it to him, wordlessly. Tannim took it—and it sloshed. It was one of the old Uzi-replica water-pistols, and not a real gun at all.

"One of your local geniuses prepared this for me," the old man said. "That's salt and holy water. That should take care of a fair number of yon blackguard's friends. I've got rosemary, rue, and salt in my pocket, and a horseshoe nail with them. There's an iron plate across every door and windowsill of the house, horse-shoes nailed up over every door and the fireplace, and sprigs of oak, ash, and thorn up there with them. A lass here is preparing iron-filled .357 hollowtips for me Colt, and meanwhile, there's this—"

He touched the sheath on his other side, and Tannim saw the hilt of a crudely-forged knife. He had no doubt that it was of good Cold Iron. Sam wasn't taking chances on a steel blade.

"That's all very well," Keighvin warned, "but it won't hold them for long. They'll find ways around your protections and mine, eventually."

Sam holstered his water-pistol. "Doesn't have to keep them busy for long," he countered. "It'll hold them baffled for long enough. All I have to do now is supervise your setup, put my John Hancock to everything and write up my part in this deal. That's a matter of a couple of weeks at most. The rude bastard can bluster all he wants. Once I'm finished, you don't need me anymore. You just need my name."

"But what if something goes wrong?" Keighvin asked. "There's nobody here that knows the language—"

"But this Vidal character doesn't know that," Sam replied. "He's like some of the really old execs at Gulfstream, the ones who didn't understand tech. He may even be a technophobe, for all we know. That kind thinks that once something technological is set in place, it sits and glowers and runs itself with no further help."

Both Keighvin and Tannim snorted; Sam shrugged. "I know it makes no sense, but that's the way these people think. All he'll see is me sitting back in my chair, and letting you run the show. He'll figure going after me is a waste of effort."

Keighvin shook his head doubtfully, and Tannim had to agree with the Sidhe. He wasn't convinced that Sam was right, either.

But Sam was an adult, and perfectly capable of making his own decisions. Besides, Tannim had other problems.

"Keighvin, I know this is coming at the worst possible time," he said, reluctantly, "but we've got another problem, too." Briefly he outlined Tania's situation, and the plight of the underage hookers she lived with. He hoped to catch Keighvin's interest, but the Sidhe-mage shook his head regretfully.

"Damn ye, Tannim, your timing sucks. I can't do anything for them right now," he said, plainly unhappy with the situation. "I'm sorry, but we're up to our pointy ears in alligators at the moment. I can't do anything for them out there—and you can't bring them here. I can't have a single non-mage mortal inside the boundary right now," he continued, frankly, laying the whole situation on the table so Tannim could see it. "And I'm stretching things to include Sam, because he believes and he's got a bit of the Sight himself. Who knows what these children would do if they saw a skirmish with one of Vidal Dhu's little friends out there? If they panicked, they could breach the shields. If they were taken in by appearances, they could actually bring Vidal inside."

Tannim had to admit, reluctantly, that Keighvin was right. He didn't want to say it out loud, though. Maybe, just maybe, I can talk him into changing his mind.

"If I let you bring them here, they'd at best be targets and weak spots," Keighvin continued. "Can't do that, no matter how desperate their situation seems to be, my friend. Keep siphoning them money; that's easy enough. They've kept their necks above water this long, Tannim, they can keep a little longer. When we've finished with Vidal Dhu, you can coax them in to us, but right now they'd just be in more danger with us than they are now."

Tannim grimaced. He didn't like it—but Keighvin was the boss at Fairgrove. This was his territory, and he knew the strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else.

So be it, Keighvin. I've got more to call on than spells. There's always the magic of folding green.

Keighvin eyed Tannim with a very readable expression—one of tired worry. He could read moods as well as minds. Tannim figured that Keighvin knew what his current expression meant. He met Keighvin's eyes squarely, and a little defiantly.

Yes, I am up to something.

But it was too late tonight to do anything about the situation. Tania was safe for the rest of the night, at least, and with any luck at all, that hundred would keep her off the streets for another couple of days. That would be long enough for Tannim to get Plan B into gear.

Assuming nothing happens between then and now. Like one of her friends getting tangled up with a pimp, or on the wrong side of a dealer, or—

He cut the thoughts short. There was no use worrying about the kids right now; he'd do what he could, when he could.

"Look," he said, running his hand through his hair, catching on more snags than usual, "I'm beat. If there isn't anything you need me for, I'm going home to get some shut-eye. Are we rescheduling those tests for tomorr—I mean, today? Or is it tomorrow?" He rubbed his eyes, wishing in a way that he could run them now. Although he was tired, he was also full of nervous energy, and he wished he had somewhere to go with it.

"No, Goodyear has the track," Keighvin said, his expression one of mingled relief and apprehension. Tannim had a shrewd idea of why the Sidhe wore the latter. Keighvin had to be wondering now just what it was Tannim had in mind to do about the kids.

Keep wondering.

"We have it after Goodyear," Keighvin added. "You are going to be fit to drive, I hope? And you don't plan on going anywhere tonight, do you? Sam should be safe enough here." The statement indicated that he wasn't necessarily worried about Tannim's involvement with the kids.

He thinks I'm going to go spend the rest of the night guarding Sam, or trying to hunt down Unseleighe creatures or something. Does he really think I'm that foolhardy?

"Don't worry, I don't plan on running out and hunting the kids—or Vidal Dhu—down tonight," Tannim replied with irritation. "I've got a little more sense than that. If the kids can wait, so can Vidal. He's not going anywhere. If he comes after us here, he's a fool, but you don't need me here to face him down."

Now the relief was so palpable on Keighvin's face that Tannim restrained himself from a sharp retort only by reminding himself that Keighvin didn't deserve it.

It's not his fault that you can't hit the broad side of a barn when you're tired. And it's not being paranoid on his part to worry about having you around when you're wonky. Conal may forgive you in a couple of hundred years, but what if you'd gotten more than his hair?

It was something Tannim didn't like to think about. And he hated being reminded of this new weakness of his. If only there was something he could do about it—

But Keighvin was waiting for him to say something; he managed a tight smile, and flexed his shoulders. "I'm heading straight for bed," he said. "You know where to find me if you need me."

Keighvin was too aware of his own dignity to give him a comradely slap on the back, but Sam wasn't. "We'll be seeing you some time in the afternoon, then?" the old man asked, as Tannim staggered a little beneath Sam's heavy hand.

Keighvin lifted an ironic eyebrow. "Aye, do check in some time, won't you? So we can let you know what the schedule is."

Tannim controlled his expression carefully, so that none of his guilt would leak through. He's got a suspicion I played hooky. It's a good thing this isn't your normal business. . . . "I'll call when I wake up, but I'd like to come in after dark, if that's all right with you," he said. "It may take that long to get recharged."

This time he wasn't quite so irritated with Keighvin's reaction to his implied exhaustion, since it was working in his favor.

"Take all the time you need," the Sidhe replied quickly. "I'd rather have you take a couple more hours to get into top form than to come in at less than full strength."

Tannim nodded, trying his best to keep it from looking curt. "See you later, then."

He turned and walked out, back through the darkened office complex, back to the safe haven of the Mustang. It would take more than Vidal Dhu to get through the protections on the Mach 1, and he relaxed a little as he slid into the seat and shut the door.

There were times he wished that he'd taken Keighvin's offer of an elvensteed to replace the Mustang, especially when he was tired. It was a great honor for a mortal to be offered an elvensteed, and it would have been really nice to have a car that could find its own way home.

On the other hand, there was enough Cold Iron in the Mach 1 to give any Unseleighe Court critter more than it cared to handle. Keighvin couldn't even ride in it without pain. Tannim was glad of the new "plastic cars" for the sake of his friends, but when it came to keeping his own hide safe, arcanely and mundanely—he'd take good American sheet metal every time.

He thought, as he drove through the gates, that he sensed a lurking nastiness in the woods. But it was too dark to see much, even with mage-sight, and he was too tired to really want to risk a confrontation with anything. That nervous energy that had filled him was draining away a lot faster than he'd thought it would.

He drove carefully—and slowly, for him—back down the dark, near-deserted highway to his little rented house on the outskirts of Savannah. Normally he wouldn't have bothered renting anything as large as a house—but this place had some advantages that outweighed every other consideration. For one thing, it had a three-car garage almost as big as the house itself; whoever had built it must have been a real car-nut, or needed a hell of a workshop. The Mustang and all the gear Tannim needed to keep it in pristine condition no matter what he put it through fit comfortably inside.

But there were even more important considerations. The house and yard were hidden from the road by a thick ring of tall evergreens—which themselves were planted far enough from the house that while someone could have used them for cover, to get to the buildings an intruder would have had to cross a good-sized expanse of bare, weedy lawn, mowed short every week by the rental company.

The ring of evergreens was perfectly circular. It was, in fact, a Circle of the protective variety, and had been that way before Tannim moved in. Possibly even long before; the trees were old, fifty, maybe as much as a hundred years old. Had they been ensorceled that long? It was certainly possible. Sorcery invested in living things, unlike that invested in nonliving things, tended to stick around long after the caster was dust—and could even grow and flourish on its own.

The house itself was much younger, but it had been built on an old foundation. Who had built the place this way, Tannim had no idea. The rental agency simply administered it, kept things repaired, collected his rent. There had been protections on the house and garage, too, but since they had been based on dead wood rather than living, and the electricity had been off so that the protections cast into the circuitry had drained away, those shields had been faded by the time he rented the place. The agency had been pathetically grateful; evidently they'd had a hard time finding a tenant.

Maybe the trees themselves kept out people they didn't like. It was possible; there was the same feeling of semi-awareness about the trees as there was to the Mustang. Odd how he didn't even react to such things anymore.

Still, with the privacy and all, it was kind of odd that no one had come along that wanted to rent it before he saw it. On the other hand, for a house, the place was kind of small; too small for a family, and yet the rent was a little too steep for most single people. It was worth it—in an effort to find a tenant, the agency had installed new appliances. But the rent was still a little steep, even so.

For whatever reason, the place had stayed vacant for a couple of years until Tannim came along. The little one-bedroom cottage was perfect for him. The only other thing he wished he had was a Jacuzzi—and if he stayed, he could always install that in the garage.

He thumbed the garage-opener as he drove up the drive; his electronics weren't quite as fancy as Sam's, but then again, he wasn't as much of an engineer as Sam was. Twin floodlights came on over the garage door, two more went on inside, and the door rose majestically on a miniature equivalent of the Fairgrove shops.

The Mustang rolled inside, and the door descended again, noisily. It was a little noisier than most, because it was heavier than most: five joined slabs of steel. Bombproof, he would have said. The door predated his occupancy, too.

Every so often he wondered what on earth the owner had been into that he needed a garage door that would withstand a B-52 strike.

He opened the Mustang's door, then paused, as all of the strain of the past week came down on him with a rush. Up until today, the test runs out at Roebling Road had alternated with sessions on the mods, all day and into the night. And when he hadn't been working on the mods, he'd been working, magically, on Sam's defenses. They weren't as good as the ones here, and he wasn't going to stop until they were—

Or until they buried Vidal Dhu and his friends.

He dragged himself up out of the bucket seat, and stumbled towards the door into the house. Fortunately, it led straight into the kitchen, and temporary salvation.

He leaned up against the fridge door for a moment, until the hum of the compressor starting up jarred him out of his tired daze. He pulled the door open and reached inside, blindly taking out a brand-new, unopened bottle of Gatorade with one hand. The other hand groped on top of the fridge and encountered crackling plastic. He brought down what he had found, and looked at it blearily as he shoved the fridge door shut with his hip.

Corn chips. Close enough to food.

He got as far as the tiny kitchen table, dropping down into the chair like a sack of deer antlers. There was an entire row of brown bottles and jars on the back edge of the table against the wall; vitamins, minerals, amino acids. He opened the bottle of Gatorade, ripped open the sack of chips, and began opening each of the bottles in turn, spilling out a couple of each until he had a little heap of pills in front of him. Then he began popping them into his mouth, methodically, washing them down with swigs from the bottle of Gatorade, alternating pills with a handful of chips until pills, chips, and Gatorade were all gone.

Well, that takes care of the IOU to my body.

He thought about a hot bath, stood up, and decided, when he went lightheaded, that the bath could wait. He turned off the kitchen light and stumbled into the bedroom, past the stark living room. The living room always depressed him, anyway—it looked so empty. There were two armchairs that had come with the house, a floor-lamp, and his old stereo. The good rig was in the bedroom; anyone who broke in would probably figure Tannim didn't have anything worth stealing. Which was mostly true; he hadn't accumulated much in his years of traveling. Moving fast keeps you from hanging on to much.

He flipped on the bedroom light; and there was The Bed—the single piece of furniture he had acquired and held onto through so many changes of address that he'd forgotten half of them.

It was the size of two king-size beds put together, and completely filled the bedroom. The basis for construction had been two orthopedic hospital beds, complete with controls, with a flat section in between. The bookcase-headboard behind it went up to the ceiling, and held mirrors, speakers, a lot of his audio gear, bed controls, and remotes for the TV and VCRs across the room on the shabby bureau. Plus a tiny bar-fridge and microwave. It had padded rails, and one section of the padding on each side flipped up like the armrests on a first-class airline seat; inside were tray-tables. When he was really hurt or sick, he didn't even have to leave The Bed except to hit the bathroom.

He'd found it (sans electronic gear, but wired with four power-strips and its own pair of breaker-boxes) in a Goodwill store in Dallas. It had been made in Germany, and he'd always figured its previous owner was one of the victims of the slump in oil prices. Occasionally he looked at it, and wondered why he'd hung onto it with such tenacity. It was a stone bitch to move, and holding onto any piece of furniture was so completely unlike him that keeping this monster was insane. But then he'd get hurt, or he'd have one of his days when he'd wake up after a race or a fight hardly able to move, and he'd know why he kept it. He'd never find another like it. And it at least gave him one constant in all of his changes of address.

Too bad that he seldom had anyone to share it with.

He edged into the clear slot at the foot, and peeled off his shirt. Beneath it was his body-armor; one of the other reasons he hadn't been overly worried about an ambush by Vidal Dhu. It looked like a unitard, but it was composed of thousands of tiny hexagonal scales, enameled in emerald green. As he slid his pants off, the cool scales slipped smoothly, silkily, under his hands. It had been a project he and Chinthliss had worked on for three months, to the exclusion of everything else.

There were no seams. That was because every scale was joined magically to every other scale, and it could be opened where and when he chose. Though if he was ever unconscious, it would take someone like Keighvin to get it off him. . . .

So he just wouldn't get in any accidents.

Right.

He crooked one finger, which was the only component of the set-spell to open the suit, and ran the fingernail up the front. The armor opened and he shrugged it off, exactly like a dancer squirming out of a costume.

Beneath the armor were the scars.

Starting from the first, a knife-scar on the forearm he got protecting a potential mage, to the latest, teeth-marks that marked his leg from hip to ankle, his body was criss-crossed with a network of lines. They ranged from the thin white lines of old wounds, to the red of the newly healed.

I'm certainly not going to win any bikini contests.

Without the added support of the body-armor, his leg ached distantly, his shoulders felt like knotted wire ropes, and The Bed looked more inviting than ever.

But there was one more thing to do before he collapsed for the night.

He reached to the nearest shelf, and took out the tiny jar of Tiger Balm he kept there. Actually, he kept more than one in there—there was nothing worse than reaching for the only thing that could ease those constant aches only to find the jar empty.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, on the padded rail. With habit that had become ritualized, he applied the salve over every aching muscle. Before he had finished rubbing it into his shoulders, the heat had begun to soothe his aching leg.

He sighed, put the jar back, and crawled into the bed's embrace, fumbling for the light-switch and dropping the room into total blackness, without even a hint of outside light. The electronic clocks of the VCRs bothered him though, enough that he briefly considered flinging a towel over them before deciding he could just bury his head instead. His last conscious thought was to pull the blankets up over himself and burrow into them, before the exhaustion he had been holding off with both hands won the battle and flung him into sleep.

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