telltale density-signature of precious metal.
Gold.
Her harsh joy-cry echoed from the Aven cliffs. She plummeted, coming out of the dive just above the leaden water, and poised motionless with great ebony wings outspread. Then a small woman with a cloud of fair hair appeared in place of the raven; a woman dressed in a cuirass, greaves, and gauntlets of gleaming black. Felice laughed out loud and was abruptly naked, pale as salt-rime except for her wide dark eyes.
She pierced the water as cleanly as an arrow of flesh. A single torpedotike movement took her through the sea-tunnel and into the cave. Shining like a wan bluish corposant, she walked over the water to a narrow ledge where the body lay. She laughed again at the sight of the dead enemy, until she realized that the dingy glass armor was not amethyst, as her deceiving blue light made it seem, but ruby-red. Redactor Guild red.
"No!" she shrieked, dropping to her knees beside the corpse of the Tanu knight. His jaw hung slack and his wrinkled eyelids were closed. He wore no helmet. Lank fair hair still clung to his half-exposed skull. His golden torc was befouled in adipocere from the decomposing head and neck.
"Oh, no," she wept. "Not yet."
She scratched away the moldy matter hiding the breastplate's heraldic motif, gasping and whimpering until the design was fully visible. It was a stylized tree laden with jeweled fruits, not the transfixed caput mortuum of Culluket the Interrogator.
Peal after peal of laughter rang in the dank cave. What a fool she was. Of course it wasn't him.
Felice jumped to her feet, grasped the hinged gorget plates of the ruby armor, and ripped them from place. They fell to the rock floor with a loud chiming sound. And then the severed head fell, for she pulled away the torc so violently that the vertebrae were disarticulated.
She held the torc high. It blazed incandescent and was clean. She plunged back into the water and in a moment the raven was rocketing skyward, gripping a golden circlet in powerful talons. Her mind's voice shouted triumph and profound reliefShe called out to her Beloved as she had done so often, using the declamatory mode of mental speech that could span continents and oceans and reverberate around the world like the sonorities of dying thunder.
Culluket!
She called. High in the featureless gray above drowned Aven she called.
The devils answered. Felice's exaltation changed to terror. She shrank within an opaque thought-screen and sent the bird body hurtling in the direction of the Spanish mainland, protected from friction-bum by a subconical psychocreative shield. Only when she reached the vicinity of Mount Mulhacen did she slacken the furious dash and venture a cautious peep to see whether or not the devils had tracked her They had not. Once again, she had eluded them. She dropped all the screens and voiced a raucous, defiant croak. Then she flew home, the newest bit of treasure secure in her claws.
2
MORE THAN EIGHT THOUSAND KILOMETERS WEST OF EUROPE,
the great bulldog tarpon of the Pliocene Epoch had once again begun their spring migration to the spawning grounds around Ocala Island and the Still-Vexed Bennoothes. It was time for the saint's elder brother to suspend his weary star-search in favor of his sole form of relaxation, hunting the silvery monsters.
The man in the skiff watched the fish come with his farsense He was motionless and made no sound, hidden behind a mass of mangroves and flowering epiphytes in the Suwanee estuary on the west side of the island. He deliberately limited his mind's stupendous vision to the river channel within a few hundred meters of his hiding place, for he had his rules in the stalking of the big tarpon and he would not violate them. Not consciouslyIn the manner of their kind, the fish surfaced and rolled in the sparkling blue water, taking gulps of air. Scales larger than a handspan reflected the tropical sun like mirrors. With their undershot jaws, glaring black eyes.
Gold.
Her harsh joy-cry echoed from the Aven cliffs. She plummeted, coming out of the dive just above the leaden water, and poised motionless with great ebony wings outspread. Then a small woman with a cloud of fair hair appeared in place of the raven; a woman dressed in a cuirass, greaves, and gauntlets of gleaming black. Felice laughed out loud and was abruptly naked, pale as salt-rime except for her wide dark eyes.
She pierced the water as cleanly as an arrow of flesh. A single torpedotike movement took her through the sea-tunnel and into the cave. Shining like a wan bluish corposant, she walked over the water to a narrow ledge where the body lay. She laughed again at the sight of the dead enemy, until she realized that the dingy glass armor was not amethyst, as her deceiving blue light made it seem, but ruby-red. Redactor Guild red.
"No!" she shrieked, dropping to her knees beside the corpse of the Tanu knight. His jaw hung slack and his wrinkled eyelids were closed. He wore no helmet. Lank fair hair still clung to his half-exposed skull. His golden torc was befouled in adipocere from the decomposing head and neck.
"Oh, no," she wept. "Not yet."
She scratched away the moldy matter hiding the breastplate's heraldic motif, gasping and whimpering until the design was fully visible. It was a stylized tree laden with jeweled fruits, not the transfixed caput mortuum of Culluket the Interrogator.
Peal after peal of laughter rang in the dank cave. What a fool she was. Of course it wasn't him.
Felice jumped to her feet, grasped the hinged gorget plates of the ruby armor, and ripped them from place. They fell to the rock floor with a loud chiming sound. And then the severed head fell, for she pulled away the torc so violently that the vertebrae were disarticulated.
She held the torc high. It blazed incandescent and was clean. She plunged back into the water and in a moment the raven was rocketing skyward, gripping a golden circlet in powerful talons. Her mind's voice shouted triumph and profound reliefShe called out to her Beloved as she had done so often, using the declamatory mode of mental speech that could span continents and oceans and reverberate around the world like the sonorities of dying thunder.
Culluket!
She called. High in the featureless gray above drowned Aven she called.
The devils answered. Felice's exaltation changed to terror. She shrank within an opaque thought-screen and sent the bird body hurtling in the direction of the Spanish mainland, protected from friction-bum by a subconical psychocreative shield. Only when she reached the vicinity of Mount Mulhacen did she slacken the furious dash and venture a cautious peep to see whether or not the devils had tracked her They had not. Once again, she had eluded them. She dropped all the screens and voiced a raucous, defiant croak. Then she flew home, the newest bit of treasure secure in her claws.
2
MORE THAN EIGHT THOUSAND KILOMETERS WEST OF EUROPE,
the great bulldog tarpon of the Pliocene Epoch had once again begun their spring migration to the spawning grounds around Ocala Island and the Still-Vexed Bennoothes. It was time for the saint's elder brother to suspend his weary star-search in favor of his sole form of relaxation, hunting the silvery monsters.
The man in the skiff watched the fish come with his farsense He was motionless and made no sound, hidden behind a mass of mangroves and flowering epiphytes in the Suwanee estuary on the west side of the island. He deliberately limited his mind's stupendous vision to the river channel within a few hundred meters of his hiding place, for he had his rules in the stalking of the big tarpon and he would not violate them. Not consciouslyIn the manner of their kind, the fish surfaced and rolled in the sparkling blue water, taking gulps of air. Scales larger than a handspan reflected the tropical sun like mirrors. With their undershot jaws, glaring black eyes.
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