Trading to the Deeps, page 1
part #8 of The Magic Below Paris Series
Trading to the Deeps
The Magic Below Paris™ Book Eight
C. M. Simpson
Michael Anderle
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2020 C.M. Simpson & Michael Anderle
Cover by Mihaela Voicu http://www.mihaelavoicu.com/
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
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LMBPN Publishing
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First US edition, April 2020
ebook ISBN: 978-1-64202-907-9
Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-908-6
The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2020 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.
Contents
1. A Morning Rendezvous
2. Meeting Adjourned
3. Missing Items
4. Borrowed Items and Disrupted Plans
5. A Matter of Trust
6. An Offer of Sanctuary
7. New Faces
8. De-Bugging
9. Medical Procedures
10. Unorthodox Training
11. A Long-Awaited Meeting
12. An Unfortunate Greeting
13. Forewarned
14. Shadows from the Past
15. The Delivery Point
16. The Threat from Below
17. Forearmed
18. Keeping it Clean
19. Friends in Need
20. Too Little for Lightning
21. Missing Mantids
22. Practice Makes…for Mayhem
23. Infiltration
24. Exfiltration
25. Preparation
26. The Enemy at the Gate
27. Aftermath
Author Notes - CM Simpson
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Other Books from C.M. Simpson
Books by Michael Anderle
Trading to the Deeps Team
Thanks to our JIT Readers
Veronica Stephan-Miller
James Caplan
Diane L. Smith
Dorothy Lloyd
Kerry Mortimer
Larry Omans
Editor
SkyHunter Editing Team
Dedication
This is for all those who believed in me enough that, eventually, I had the courage to believe in myself.
Thank you.
—C.M. Simpson
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
to Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
to Live the Life We Are
Called.
— Michael
1
A Morning Rendezvous
Marsh stood on the wall above the gate, watching the sunrise. Day came slowly, touching the craggy spires of the long-dead ruins with faint outlines of gold and pink. It was a spectacular sight, but it wasn’t what she’d come for.
Somewhere to the south-east, her brother and his wife were already at work, and in the cavern above them, her uncle would be cursing his troops through their morning drill. The patrols from Ariella’s Grotto would be securing the surface above their home, and the druids they’d lent would be working double-time to speed the growth of one last crop for Briar’s Ridge.
In the fields beneath the castle wall, she could see their druids doing the same. Winter was coming, they said, and she had no reason to doubt it.
Beyond them, Mordan and her cubs were hunting. The kat was inordinately pleased to have her children back, even if they were mostly grown, and the kits were adjusting to having a mother again, which reminded her…
Aisha? Where are you? she asked, sending the thought through the link between them.
Nooowhere? The reply came back full of false innocence and carefully shielded so as not to give a single clue to the girl’s whereabouts.
Don’t make me come out there to find you! Marsh warned.
Couldn’t! came back as fast as light and still shielded.
Merde, but the girl was getting good at controlling her mental abilities.
Wanta make a bet? Marsh asked, and proved she could put the sound of gritted teeth in mind-to-mind communication.
Silence followed.
”Ugh!”
A smothered giggle came through the link, followed by an all-too audible yelp of surprise…from the direction of the ruins.
“Dan! You put me down! Put me down, NOW!” Aisha’s piercing shriek bounced off the ruined buildings and echoed through the rubble.
“That little rat!” Marsh exclaimed, picking a patch of shadow a hundred meters from the wall and stepping into it.
I’m coming, Mordan.
Aisha wailed again. “You are a bad kitty, and I don’t…I don’t like you anymore!”
Marsh could feel Mordan’s amusement. She bolted in the direction of the kat’s presence. How was your hunt?
There will be food for the winter, was the kat’s satisfied reply, and the cubs’ skills are improving.
The kat was standing in the hollowed-out lower floor of a ruined building. Rubble formed small towers and a low barricade to the rest of the Desolation, except for the rear, where some of the upper floor remained. There were multiple exits leading to faint paths, and Marsh’s heart beat faster. It wasn’t the most defensible of positions.
Aisha dangled from Mordan’s mouth. The little girl’s arms were crossed, and fury filled her face.
When Marsh came to a halt before her, the kat dropped Aisha at her feet.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Marsh grabbed her as the little brat tried to bounce away.
“But, I promised…” Aisha began and froze.
“Promised what?” Marsh demanded.
“Not to tell?”
“Uh-huh…but if you don’t tell me, it’s not going to happen,” Marsh insisted.
Aisha frowned, and Marsh sensed a wisp of conversation she couldn’t quite grasp.
“Aisha, you know that isn’t fair, right?”
The child stuck out her tongue and shrugged Marsh’s hand off her collar. When the woman reached for her again, she knocked the hand away, smirking.
“All’s fair in love and war,” she said, repeating one of Gustav’s favorite sayings and stepping away.
Marsh lunged after her and ended up on the ground. Mordan fell beside her.
“Aisha!”
The child’s giggle drifted back to them as Aisha scurried through a gap between two piles of rubble and disappeared.
She has learned much. Mordan’s disgruntled tones echoed through Marsh’s skull.
Roeglin? Marsh sent and was rewarded by his immediate response.
Yes?
I really need a druid who can manipulate stone.
Aisha? he asked, and Marsh was grateful for the concern in his voice.
She’s fine for now, but she won’t be when I get my hands on her.
Laughter sputtered along the link between them. I’ll be right there.
And the druid?
I’ll bring Brigitte.
The thought of what the shadow mistress would say made Marsh groan. Do you have to?
“Already done,” Roeglin replied, and Marsh twisted her body to look back the way she’d come.
“Shadow-stepped,” he explained.
“How’d you know where to look?”
“It wasn’t hard to figure out,” Roeglin explained, then relented. “I climbed to the top of the gate and looked for Mordan. I guessed if she wasn’t out there chasing Aisha down, then she was in just as much trouble as you were.”
As he spoke, Brigitte stepped out of a patch of shadow at the edge of the ruins. At first, her appearance made Marsh tense, but then she recognized the woman’s sapphire eyes. They were the one thing that made it obvious she wasn’t a shadow monster, despite her midnight skin and hair.
“Good morning, Marsh,” she greeted her, crossing to Mordan and laying a fingertip against the stone circling the kat’s ankles. “She’s getting sneakier.”
“She did it without taking her eyes off my face,” Marsh told her.
Brigitte finished what she was doing with the kat and approached Marsh.
“Ooh, that really is nice work,” she observed. “I wonder if…”
Marsh groaned, and Brigitte chuckled.
“All right. Give me a moment, and I’ll get you out of there.”
Marsh waited, then felt the pressure of stone against her shins ease.
“So, how did she manage to do that without either of you noticing?” Roeglin wanted to know.
Marsh shook her head and scrambled to her feet, scanning the surrounding ruins. “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out. She was just talking to us.”
“So, she didn’t do anything to your mind to prevent you from feeling it?”
The kat lashed her tail. I do not think so, but the stone did not touch me until I moved.
“It was the same with me,” Marsh confirmed, and Brigitte nodded.
“She circled their feet with stone, but the stone did not touch their feet or ankles until they went after her,” she confirmed.
Roeglin snickered. “That little wretch.” His face sobered. “Do we know why she was out here?”
Marsh shook her head. “She would not tell me, and I couldn’t get a glimpse of what was going on inside her head. You’ve really helped her improve her shielding.”
“But I haven’t,” Roeglin protested. “We’ve been focusing on drawing memories and turning them into pictures…”
Marsh stared at him. “You haven’t been teaching her to shield?”
He shook his head.
“How about how to communicate with more than one person so one can’t hear what she’s saying to the other?”
His eyes widened. “That’s an advanced skill!”
“So that wasn’t you, either?”
“No,” Roeglin replied, but the crunch of several pairs of boots on stone alerted them to the approach of others, and they turned.
Gustav came into the clearing and stopped. Izmay and Henri were not far behind him. He took in the situation with a sweep of his eyes and then scanned the perimeter. “Which way did she go?”
“Who?” Henri asked, then saw the remains of the stone shackles around Marsh’s feet. “Oh.” His brow furrowed with concern. “Is she okay?”
Marsh rolled her eyes. “Of course, she’s okay. She gave us the slip and went that way.”
“So, are we going after her?”
Mordan let out a rumbling growl and padded toward the exit Aisha had taken. When she reached it, she stopped and looked back at them over her shoulder. Her tail flicked with impatience, her ears flattened, and then she snuffed the air and stalked in the direction Aisha had taken.
Henri looked uncertainly from the kat to Marsh and then at Gustav. “So, are we going after her? I mean, she’s too little to be wandering out here all by herself.”
Marsh stared at him.
Izmay snickered. “Oh, sure she is, and you can tell her that, ‘kay, sweetie?” She patted his armored shoulder and trotted after the kat.
Gustav, Zeb, and Brigitte moved out after her. Henri hesitated, staring open-mouthed after them. He turned to Marsh.
“What did I do to deserve that?”
Marsh shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe you should ask her.”
He gave an exasperated groan and followed Izmay and the others, leaving Marsh alone with Roeglin.
They exchanged glances.
“You coming?” Marsh asked, and Roeglin reached for her hand.
It wasn’t hard to find the rest because Bristlebear and Silvermoth emerged from the bushes at the clearing’s edge to show them the way.
That kat thinks of everything, Roeglin muttered, his words coming clearly over the link between them.
Mordan snorted, sending the impression of a disgusted tail twitch through their minds.
They chuckled, releasing each other’s hands as they moved from a walk to a trot.
Aisha’s trail led from where Marsh had found her and into a thicker cluster of ruined buildings.
I’ll murder the little brat, Marsh muttered, slowing to duck through a ground-floor entry that was mostly intact but covered with vines.
I’ll help, Roeglin offered, but his eyes were on the narrow passage ahead of them, and he sniffed the air in much the same way the kat or a wolf would.
Marsh did the same. If there was one thing she’d learned, it was that ruins were like caverns. Each had their own distinct scent, indicating when a ruin was something’s home or undermined by water and rot. This one smelled musty and abandoned, but otherwise okay.
Or as okay as any of these ruins were.
Marsh shuddered. The things that had happened in some of them had left echoes. She hurried forward until the tunnel gave way to a larger space. Enough sunlight filtered through holes in a distant ceiling to reveal a large inner chamber.
“Whoa,” Roeglin breathed, turning his head to inspect it. “I wonder what this used to be.”
“Who cares?” Marsh muttered, heading for the room’s center. “She’s over there.”
Aisha stood at the end of the room, her small face screwed up in concentration as she called rivers of stone from the ground, dragging them over the existing walls and filling the myriad cracks and gaps she found along the way. The only exceptions were the windows—those she left clear.
Mordan and the kits were stalking the perimeter, ears twitching, as they snuffed at the myriad scents they found. The child was pointedly ignoring them, making smoothing motions with her hands as she repaired the walls.
Gustav, Brigitte, and the shadow guards had fanned out around her, covering the cats and the two remaining exits. Henri stood back, crossbow unslung as he eyed the darkened entrances coming off the balcony running several meters above the floor. Vines crept over the walls, but the floor remained clear of vegetation. Rubble was another matter.
“You couldn’t have tidied up in here, could you?” Henri demanded, and Aisha flinched.
“Walls first,” she told him, her small voice serious. “I like it here.”
“Uh-huh. You gonna ask Roeglin what he thinks?” Henri wanted to know.
“Maybe.” It was as good as a no, but the guard didn’t argue. He looked around as Marsh and Roeglin stepped into the room. “You two took your sweet time.”
Roeglin and Marsh ignored him as they picked their way through the fallen pieces of concrete and strewn rock.
“What are you doing out here, Aysh?” Marsh asked.
“Practicing,” Aisha told her, and Roeglin snorted.
“Are too!” the child insisted, gesturing toward the wall. “See?”
“Sure, you are,” Marsh replied, and put her hands on her hips, carefully surveying the area. “Now, tell me. What are you really doing?”
“Practicing!” Aisha repeated in a determined voice. She turned to the stairs. “See?”
Without waiting for an answer, she drew more stone from the ground, this time pulling the rubble into her construction. She kept one eye on what she was doing while warily regarding Marsh with the other.
Dan? Marsh asked, reaching along their link.
Others have been, was the hunter’s short reply. Human, a small pride… She paused. And Tok.
At the mention of the mantid’s name, Marsh stilled. Is he still here?
No. The kat looked around. But he is not far.
“Search the area,” Marsh ordered. “We are being watched.”
“Wanna give us a clue what we’re looking for?” Henri made it sound like she was being deliberately obtuse.
“Wanna see what you can turn up?” Marsh snapped back.
2
Meeting Adjourned
The wolves slipped around the crumbled staircase, finding another opening behind it and plunging deeper into the ruin. The kits and Scruffknuckle made a quick circuit of the chamber and its perimeter before vanishing back through the entrance.
The shadow guards made their own check of the chamber and then looked up. Mordan followed their gazes.
“You want to fix those stairs for me, Aysh?” she asked.
The little girl crossed her arms and scowled. “Noooo.”
“Well, will you do it anyway?” Marsh pressed.
