Nosferatu

12

The sound of a troll lumbering around the bathroom woke Serrin just after eight. Tom wasn't the quietest being on the planet. His gargling could easily have been taken for a major plumbing disaster.

Michael was knee-deep in paper by the time Serrin had finished the coffee-making ritual. The Englishman was almost oblivious to his presence until he sniffed liquid breakfast. Seeming almost to snap back into the real world, he looked around him with some distaste.

"That's the problem with three males in an apartment," he observed. "Men get so damn untidy."

Serrin decided to ignore that in favor of more important matters. "How's it going?" he asked. Tom had joined them now, bearing the remains of the fridge's contents in various assortments on plates. The waffles looked unappetizing despite the last of the preserves the troll had heaped on them. He munched cheerfully on several as Michael ran down what his long night's work had yielded.

"Well, the girl's list has names that I didn't have, and not just the bugger who got snatched in Cape Town. That's not so surprising because obviously I can't search the entire damned globe. What is crucial are the three names that I did find. Two of them were kidnappings, in Slovakia and Greece. Both elven mages, no corporate ties. No data on the kidnappers, no witnesses of any value, both vanished without trace. The third is Shakala, and he's still alive. Reason one for going to Azania: he's the best first-hand witness we're going to get.

"Now it gets more difficult," the Englishman sighed. Leaning back a little, he fiddled with his blue silk tie. "Of

the names I didn't have, I learned that one was an elf mage from Finland and the other two human mages, one from Vienna and one from Munich. So if these people are linked, they're not linked by being elves. The link, so far, seems to be that they're all mages. Right?"

Serrin and Tom nodded. So far, so good.

"But the other two; they're a problem. Both German. One from Dresden, one from Koblenz."

"Our kidnapper likes Germany, it seems," Serrin observed drily.

"Yes, but neither of them has been kidnapped."

"Maybe the kidnappers haven't got around to them yet," Tom suggested.

"Right. Absolutely," Michael said, really getting warmed up now. "That's the first thing that occurred to me. But there's one simple problem with that."

"Which is?" Serrin asked.

"Neither of them is a mage. One is a very ordinary medical technician working for BuMoNa, the state medical system in Germany, and the other is a blue-collar worker for IFM. That's Internationale Fahrzeug Und Machinenbau Union Ag, to you and me."

"Ah," Serrin said limply. He couldn't think of any snappy rejoinders, not at this time of day.

"Have you tried to warn any of these people?" Tom asked the Englishman.

"I didn't want to do anything until I'd talked to you two."

"I think we should contact them at once. They're in danger," the troll said.

"Wait a minute. We don't know that for sure. The only kidnap cases among the names on this list are mages. These others aren't mages. We can't just go around phoning people up and telling them that some crazed kidnapper may be hunting them down on the basis of a piece of paper we've never seen."

"We can't just leave them in danger either," the troll smarted.

"We don't know they're in danger. We can't be sure the girl even got the names right she can't read, after all. Anyway, what if we're wrong? We'd be frightening these

people for nothing. And besides, what could they do? Go to the police and tell them that some Englishman in New York has told them, on the basis of a phone call from a girl in Azania to an American she's never seen and doesn't know, that they're in mortal danger? Don't be ridiculous."

"Which means that if they were rich enough not to need the police, you'd tell them because they could afford to take care of themselves," Tom said angrily. He glared at Michael.

"Tom, we really can't be sure," Serrin said gently. "And Michael is right about one thing. The police wouldn't take any of this seriously." Not to be mollified, the troll stalked into the kitchen, his exit soon followed by some loud noises of cleaning up. At first it sounded more like he was breaking dishes and throwing silverware, but the noises gradually reverted to a more normal clatter while Michael and Serrin pondered what to do next. By the time the troll was back, still glowering, they had the beginnings of a plan.

"Tom, if we're going to warn these people, we'll need a whole lot more to go on," Michael said. The troll didn't argue; he just crossed his arms and waited for more. "We should go to Azania. We can find this girl, and maybe talk to the Zulu mage. If we could find out more, we'd be in a much better position to do something. We might get descriptions, more data from the computer the girl found. Who knows?

"For me to just keep searching the world's systems might only muddy the picture further. For the first time, we've got some clear leads to follow up. I know it seems wild to go flying off to the other side of the world, but we've got two witnesses and a computer that might produce something important. Far-fetched as it seems, I think we should go."

Tom thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. He wasn't as yet ready to forget that Michael had dismissed his concern as ridiculous, but the Englishman's reasoning made sense.

"Do you know the girl's race?" Michael asked.

"She's not white," Serrin said. "At least, I don't think so."

"Does it matter that much?" Tom asked.

"You haven't been to the Cape Republic before, have you?" Michael retorted rather sarcastically. "It's about the last place on earth where a person's metatype doesn't matter much, Tom. Well, not unless you're a Boer, but then everyone hates those fraggers anyway. What counts there is whether you're Anglo-white, Euro-white, Xhosa, Indian, or Zulu, though there aren't many of those. If you're Xhosa, depends which tribe you're from. And God help you if you're mixed race."

"Why?" Tom persisted. As a troll he'd encountered his own share of racism, and kn'ew that most of his ork and troll chummers had suffered the same. The relevance of this different, older, discrimination wasn't clear to him.

"If she's black, odds are she's a Xhosa. If we go on to Umfolozi, we wouldn't be able to use her as a native guide. Drek! Sorry," Michael cursed himself, "that was patronizing. You know what I mean, though. This stuff is a time bomb down there. It's not like metatype doesn't count. The Humanis line goes down big with the Boers, and the Zulu elves are just as fierce in ruling their domains. We'll have to be careful.

"That said, there's a direct flight later today into Cape Town. Do we want bookings?"

"He's making no moves, though?" Jenna said anxiously. Serrin was a complication she hadn't banked on.

"Apparently not," the ginger-haired male said calmly. "But the company he's keeping is a little unexpected. The troll, well, he's a big dumb lump of meat. No surprises there. He's a hired bodyguard. They knew each other in Seattle some years back; ran the shadows together. But the man, Sutherland, is an exceptional decker. I think one of your own Princes might be able to confirm that," he smirked.

At that, Jenna gave him one of her icy stares. It wasn't Magellan's job to know more about the politics of Tir Tairngire than she thought prudent. But he used an ace in the hole to cover himself.

"It's the surveillance that's surprising," he said, playing with his fingernails. He didn't say any more, not yet. In their old game, he wanted her to ask for what he had and she wanted him to tell her without being asked. It was their little ritual of seeing who would break the silence first. This time, for once, he won.

"What surveillance?" she asked sharply.

"Someone is conducting astral surveillance. At a very safe distance. Sutherland's apartment has some pretty good hermetic protection; he wouldn't pay that kind of rent without getting magical security that's good and tight. Really tight. So, our snooper is keeping well away. He's damn clever."

"How do you know the surveillance is of Serrin?" she asked.

"I don't. But it wasn't there a week ago. As it happens, an associate happened to scan the area on an entirely unconnected matter. It seems rather a coincidence if it isn't aimed at him," Magellan replied.

Jenna knew he was lying, or skirting the truth. Magellan had no associates, but must have been personally snooping the area on some mission about which she knew nothing. But duplicity and dissimulation were such a core part of their relationship that as long as he dared not refuse her demands, she didn't care what other mistresses or masters he served.

"I would hazard a guess that he's trying to find out who was behind the attempt to kidnap him," Magellan said.

"What are his chances?"

"Impossible to say. Frankly, I don't see what he's got to go on. Without knowing about the other cases, he couldn't begin to find out. But perhaps, if one started by checking on kidnappings of other elven mages, he might get an accurate list. Surely, though, one or two must have disappeared without Luther being responsible," he grinned. "No, I don't think anyone could figure it out. Not unless they had an edge somewhere along the line." "And we don't know if he has," she said, staring out over Crater Lake. Crystalline light gleamed off the water.

"Not unless you want me to arrange for a break-in," he laughed.

"Hardly your most intelligent suggestion," she said irritably.

"A jest. If I were given to such things I wouldn't be sitting talking with you now. No, I think we wait. If he moves, then I follow. If he doesn't move, it means he doesn't plan to do anything. If he doesn't do anything, we have no problem. QED."

"The logic is watertight. Unfortunately, logic is unlikely to dictate his behavior," Jenna observed drily.

"But you agree?" he asked, probing for what she wanted.

She considered, silently and at length. Finally her answer came.

"Yes, I think I do. It's more important that we give our attentions to Luther. This elf mage is only a fly. We need not concern ourselves with him."

"Unless he spreads his wings and flies like the wind," Magellan said, absurdly pleased with stretching her metaphor.

"Unless he moves. Yes." She didn't stoop to humor. "If he does, go after him. And without being seen. I'll deal with Luther."

He didn't bother to tell her that he had his own ways of following Luther's activities.

The courier appeared within an hour after Michael's frantic calls, made from the privacy of his bedroom. When the package of fake IDs arrived, Tom and Serrin weren't pleased.

"What's this? I don't like fake IDs," Serrin complained. "Not to a country 1 don't even know."

"Look, term, if there's someone trying to snatch you, do you really want to travel under your own name? On a flight schedule even a seven-year-old with a Radio Shack could deck into? No, chummer. I know Cape Town. This will pass just fine. Hell, a monkey could get through with this, but it's up to you. You want to travel as a sitting duck, be my guest. I'll travel separately under one of my usual fakes."

"One of them?" Serrin said, astonished.

"False identification is not the exclusive province of professional criminals and company men, you know. Not that there's much difference between the two anyway. I have some truly excellent fake IDs courtesy of a couple of megacorps I could mention," Michael said proudly.

"Is this chill, Serrin?" Tom asked uncertainly, looking at the papers and plastic before him. He'd never been outside Seattle, and he hadn't a clue what to think about all of this.

Serrin examined the IDs, the passports and visas and medical chits and all the rest of it. "Looks pretty good," he said grudgingly.

"It's the best," Michael said. "Trust me. There's a sub-orbital flight at nineteen hundred. Gives us plenty of time. I assume you'll want to take some magical precautions against anyone discovering our departure, Serrin. That should give you enough time. With the time difference, we get in just around dawn local time. But that's still not too late to get a taste of the night life; it goes on well past then. I don't know what's your fancy, but whatever it is, you can find it in the Cape."

"Yeah, I bet," the troll said sadly. "Kids dying for a handful of chips or a bagful of white. Women half-dead at twenty on the streets. The kind of thing I guess you don't see up here."

"You won't find me in those places," Michael shot back instantly. "The only bad habits I've got are spending too much on clothes and computers. Go and find someone else to blame. I didn't know about you two, that's all."

"Hey, let's keep the bickering down to sensible limits," Serrin pleaded. "We've got our hands full trying to find out who's going after all these people, right? Let's keep that in mind." Then he left the room, saying he was going to pack his bags.

Tom tried a last glower at Michael, but he knew he'd been unfair to him and the other man wasn't about to back down. Making more noise than was necessary, he followed Serrin out. Michael considered packing one of the Fairlights, then settled for the Fuchi instead. He wasn't given to taking million-nuyen risks on the road.

Dusk had long fallen when the elf's watcher spirits informed him of the little group's departure. Though Serrin had his usual masking engaged to magically disguise their exit, Niall saw through the subterfuge. The very cleverness of it told him the elf had guessed that it was a mage who'd tried to kidnap him. It didn't take long to discover where Serrin and his two companions were headed.

"It's probably the first step along the path," Niall said to his companion. For a moment, the ghost of a smile played over Niall's face at the pun, a play on words that Serrin, like most elves from beyond the shores of Tfr na n6g, would not have understood. The elven form at his side said nothing at all.

"He is gone to Azania, then," Niall said almost sadly, even knowing that he couldn't have hoped for anything better. Serrin would have not found his quarry yet; he would still be struggling. He might need some help. Niall considered his options, and decided to let it be. His pawn seemed, at least, not to be making any false moves.

"Rindown?" he asked his companion. It was almost rhetorical; Niall knew where he had to go now. The blasphemy had gone far enough. Now he needed the help of the one being he could turn to to cover his tracks for the final stages. They would be some time in coming, the elf knew, but the Fool was never one to consider things in haste. Niall wouldn't be able to cajole, to plead, even to beg. All he could do was be himself and trust in his sense of lightness.

The spirit knew, as it always did, what was going through his mind.

"You weren't given this life for it to be easy," it said simply.

The elf smiled at that. Then he looked away, and the lines of pain were visible around his eyes. They were always his betrayal.

"It's just that I wish I didn't feel the beauty of things so much," he sighed, the wind ruffling his hair as he stared out at the moonlight shining on the waters. "That's what makes it difficult at times."

"You are rather self-pitying today," the spirit said in a very matter-of-fact way.

Niall laughed, his mouth curled in a wry smile. He got to his feet and glanced around himself in a wide circle. Maybe it was, after all, just water against stone, the endless struggle of the irresistible sea against the immovable rocks below, nothing more. If he hadn't known that he'd seen the same scene for so very long, in ages before he had been called to the Center, it would have been easier to believe it. It was the sea calling him back to those happier, easier times that he could not ignore.

"I must go," he said quietly. "Protect me. Hide my trail from my enemies."

The spirit nodded assent. Niall drew his cloak around him and bowed his head against the promise of rain from the darkening clouds the eastern Atlantic brought in its airstream. He still had many preparations to make.

"Look," Michael told the troll. Serrin had fallen into a restless doze induced by the wine served to the suborbit-al's passengers; Tom had expressed disbelief at the poor excuse for food served up with it, and unable to take refuge in the alcohol, had stayed awake. His excitement was obvious. As the aircraft descended, Michael saw the first promise of the sun, and knew what Torn would see.

"This is beautiful," he said simply. "I don't care what any scientist says. You don't see this anywhere else in the world. Not like this."

The red orb insinuated itself into view, but almost as a hint, a suggestion rather than a reality. The edge of the sun was there, but it as yet was only a phantasm in the sky. Then the ring hit the horizon.

Light flashed around the world like the inspiration of hope to the desperate. The gentle blue of a new day rose in the thinnest of lines, traced out in a yellow-red shadowing, resolute and irresistible. The troll was stunned by it; no sunrise seen from the surface of the earth had ever looked like this, no matter how glorious.

"Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus, through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?"

Tom looked at Michael; he hadn't understood a word. Michael grinned at him.

"An old English poet, dear boy. Can't help remembering the lines when I see the sun like that."

Tom leaned back in his seat, contemplating the Englishman. His eyes bored into him, but Michael just sat casually toying with his plastic mug of old, cold soykaf. The sounds of deceleration and imminent landing jerked Serrin into wakefulness, breaking the silence between his fellow passengers.

"Looks like we may have avoided the winter rains this morning," Michael said cheerfully. Serrin grunted and rubbed his eyes, despising people who were cheerful at this hour of the day. The aircraft's huge tires hit the runway with a disagreeable bump.

"Let me talk us through immigration," Michael said earnestly.

"I hadn't planned on anything else," the elf said drily.

The cab got them to Indra's just about the time almost everyone else was leaving. The ork bouncers told them the place was closing, but the combination of Michael's clothes, accent, and money persuaded them otherwise. Swathed in cinnamon and silvered yellow, Indra herself appeared to check them out personally, half-smiling at their appearance.

"I know this is rather unusual, madam, but we'd be very grateful if we could stay here for, say, two days," Michael said politely after introducing himself.

Indra was just turning away when he mentioned the willingness to pay. She changed her mind swiftly.

"I don't know why gentlemen like you would want to stay here instead of an expensive hotel," she said, addressing Michael and Serrin while pointedly ignoring Tom. "The rooms are clean, but nothing flash."

"Precisely," Michael said, a smile insinuating itself at the corners of his mouth. "However, we aren't here to sample the delights of your, er, employees. There's someone we want to see, who told us we could find her here. If you could send someone to fetch her, quietly and discreetly, of course, we would naturally pay well for such a service."

"Yes?" Indra prompted, meanwhile gesturing to the orks to begin carrying the bags up the stairs. In moments the squeals of girls unwillingly being turned out of their rooms filtered down after them.

"Kristen. Kristen Makibo. She's an, er, friend of ours. She called us from here," Michael explained.

Indra looked them up and down. "That girl has friends like you?" she said disbelievingly.

"Most certainly. Mr. Shamandar here is her godfather," Michael said quite seriously.

Indra burst into laughter and patted him on the shoulder as she ushered the group in.

"Godfather? Mr. Sutherland, you shouldn't tell such wicked lies to an old woman. That girl ain't got no ordinary father, nor mother, and sure as anything there aren't any gods holding cards for her."

Michael raised his hat to her, smiled mischievously, and headed up the stairs.

"She's over at the doc. I'll have her here within the hour," Indra said determinedly. Michael guessed she'd give the girl a grilling before turning her over, and said it was urgent.

"Say fifteen minutes," the woman agreed as he passed her a wad of bills. Having spent less than expected to grease the eager palms at the airport, he was feeling generous.

"And a gin and tonic, I think," he said finally.

"It's an act, Tom," he whispered to the troll as they headed up the creaky, uncarpeted stairs. "She expects it. I know how to play my part. It's just the way things are done sometimes."

"I don't understand you," the troll said by the time they got upstairs.

"You haven't spent much time with Brits, have you?" Michael didn't waste a minute waiting for an answer. He was eager to unpack and hang up his clothes, and he just knew there wouldn't be a trouser press in the place.