Bared Blade, page 1
Praise for Kelly McCullough
SPELLCRASH
“Simple and elegant …McCullough is the true demigod of Web magic. Brilliant!”
—Huntress Book Reviews
“The book is filled with action and suspense. The world-building is awesome, the plot intense, and there is plenty of pathos and humor.”
—Three Crow Press
“Entertaining and rapid-fire.”
—San Francisco Book Review
MYTHOS
“A smooth, flowing tale that entices the imagination.”
—Huntress Book Reviews (4½ stars)
CODESPELL
“A hint of cyberpunk, a dollop of Greek mythology, and a sprinkle of techno-magic bake up into an airy genre mashup. Lots of fast-paced action and romantic angst up the ante as Ravirn faces down his formidable foes.”
—Publishers Weekly
“One long adrenaline rush, with a few small pauses for Ravirn to heal from his near-fatal brushes with the movers and shakers of the universe, all while trying to figure out how to survive the next inevitable encounter.”
—SFRevu
“Imaginative, fascinating, with a lot of adventure thrown in …Mr. McCullough has followed his first two books with a worthy sequel. CodeSpell will keep the reader on edge.”
—Fresh Fiction
“This third book featuring hacker extraordinaire Ravirn is every bit [as much] of a fast-paced energetic page-turner as its predecessors. Ravirn continues to be a fascinating protagonist, and the chaotic twists of the plot carry the reader through to the end.”
—RT Book Reviews
CYBERMANCY
“McCullough has true world-building skills, a great sense of Greek mythology, and the eye of a thriller writer. The blend of technology and magic is absolutely amazing, and I’m surprised no one has thought to do it quite like this before.”
—Blogcritics.org
“This is the second book in McCullough’s series that fuses hacking culture with ancient gods, and it’s every bit as charming, clever, and readable as its predecessor.”
—RT Book Reviews
“It’s smoothly readable, vivid, and fun …highly recommended.”
—MyShelf.com
“McCullough has the most remarkable writing talent I have ever read …Not satisfied to write a single genre or to use a subgenre already made, he has created a new template that others will build stories upon in later years. But know this: McCullough is the original and unparalleled.”
—Huntress Book Reviews
WEBMAGE
“The most enjoyable science fantasy book I’ve read in the last four years …Its blending of magic and coding is inspired …WebMage has all the qualities I look for in a book—a wonderfully subdued sense of humor, nonstop action, and romantic relief. It’s a wonderful debut novel.”
—Christopher Stasheff, author of Saint Vidicon to the Rescue
“Inventive, irreverent, and fast-paced, strong on both action and humor.”
—The Green Man Review
“[An] original and outstanding debut …McCullough handles his plot with unfailing invention, orchestrating a mixture of humor, philosophy, and programming insights that give new meaning to terms as commonplace as ‘spell-checker’ and [as] esoteric as ‘programming in hex.’”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A unique first novel, this has a charming, fresh combination of mythological, magical, and computer elements …that will enchant many types of readers.”
—KLIATT
“McCullough’s first novel, written very much in the style of Roger Zelazny’s classic Amber novels, is a rollicking combination of verbal humor, wild adventures, and just plain fun.”
—VOYA
“WebMage contains a lot of humor and a highly inventive new way of looking at the universe, which combines the magic of old with the computer structures of today.”
—SFRevu
“Complex, well paced, highly creative, and, overall, an auspicious debut for McCullough …well worth reading for fans of light fantasy.”
—Sci Fi Weekly
“[A] fascinating world, somewhat redolent of Zelazny’s Amber universe …The interface between magical and computer technology definitely tickles my inner geek.”
—MIT Science Fiction Society
“This fast-paced, action-packed yarn is a lot of fun …weaving myth, magic, IT jargon …into a bang-up story.”
—Booklist
“McCullough has done a fantastic job integrating technology and mythology, and Ravirn is a wonderfully sympathetic protagonist.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Kelly McCullough has the hacker ethic and the hacker mindset down pat …The combination of mythos, magic, and technology is great fun …Ravirn is the literary grand nephew of Corwin of Amber …If you like the Amber books, you will certainly enjoy WebMage.”
—Bewildering Stories
“It has finally happened. Someone crossed the genres of sci-fi and fantasy to create a magical world that has modern (futuristic) computer hackers …McCullough has taken characters out from the darkness of mythology and brought them into the light of this modern digital age …out-freaking-standing.”
—Huntress Book Reviews
“The action kept me reading way past my bedtime …gripping and imaginative.”
—Blogcritics.org
“This is a wild, fun ride. It is perfect reading for any time.”
—Rambles.net
Ace Books by Kelly McCullough
The WebMage Series
WEBMAGE
CYBERMANCY
CODESPELL
MYTHOS
SPELLCRASH
The Fallen Blade Series
BROKEN BLADE
BARED BLADE
BARED
BLADE
Kelly McCullough
ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over
and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
BARED BLADE
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / July 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Kelly McCullough.
Excerpt from Crossed Blades by Kelly McCullough © 2012 by Kelly McCullough.
Maps by Matthew A. Kuchta.
Cover art by John Jude Palencar.
Cover design by Judith Lagerman.
Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-58098-1
ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is
stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the
author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
For Laura,
the bright star at the center of my universe
Acknowledgments
First and foremost I want to thank Laura McCullough; Jack Byrne; Anne Sowards; my mapmaker, Matt Kuchta; Neil Gaiman for the loan of the dogs; cover artist John Jude Palencar; and cover designer Judith Lagerman.
I also owe many thanks to the active Wyrdsmiths: Lyda, Doug, Naomi, Eleanor, and Sean. My Web guru, Ben. Beta readers: Steph, Ben, Dave, Sari, Karl, Angie, Sean, Laura R., Matt, Mandy, Becky, April, Mike, Jason, Jonna, and Benjamin. My family: Carol, Paul and Jane, Lockwood and Darlene, Judy, Lee C., Kat, Jean, Lee P., and all the rest. Lorraine, because she’s fabulous. My extended support structure: Bill and Nancy, Sara, James, Tom, Ann, Mike, Sandy, Mandy, and so many more. Also, a hearty woof for Cabal and Lola.
I’d also like to thank the many people at Penguin who do so much to make me look good: Kat Sherbo, Anne Sowards’s fabulous assistant; production editor Michelle Kasper; assistant production editor Andromeda Macri; interior text designer Laura K. Corless; publicist Brady McReynolds, and my copy editor, Mary Pell.
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Epilogue
Terms and Characters
Currency
Calendar
Days of the Week
Crossed Blades
1
Every story has to start someplace, though it’s rarely at the beginning. I came into this one when it came into my office. I had two sips of good Aveni whiskey left in my glass when the woman walked into the taproom at the Gryphon’s Head. Women, really …or, well, it’s complicated. I believed there were two of them at the time, so we’ll go with that for now—two women walk into a tavern. My tavern.
The place I work out of is named after the skull the owner nailed up behind the bar. Jerik used to hunt monsters for a living. Poach monsters, really, but it’s not the kind of poaching that gets you arrested, because the royal game wardens don’t want the damned things around either. He retired when the one behind the bar nearly bit off his head. What the Gryphon lacks in elegance it more than makes up in character, every one of them dangerous and most of them wanted by the Crown. My silent partner and I fit right in, though no one ever sees him.
They call me Aral these days, or shadow jack. The one is my name, though not quite as it appears on all the warrants and wanted posters. The other is my new job. I’ve become a jack of the shadow trades, a fixer of problems that you’d rather not bring to the attention of the law.
Anyone who knew me in the old days would call it a huge step down. But only if they missed the place in the middle where my world shattered. I may be nowhere near the man I used to be, but I’m infinitely more than the wreck I was a year ago. Someday I might even figure out how to bridge that gulf and get back in touch with the old me. There are some pieces that I’d like to collect for future use.
In the meantime, I work out of the Gryphon because it’s the kind of tavern that attracts people with shadowside problems. Well, that, and because my partner, Triss, likes the ambiance—it’s always dark in the Gryphon and he lives in the shadows. Quite literally.
He’s a Shade, a creature of living darkness and a legacy of the days before my fall. Triss is my partner, my friend, my familiar. Yeah, I was a sorcerer once upon a time. A sorcerer and what some would call an assassin, though I don’t much like that word. I never killed anyone for money.
But back to the women. I was trying hard to make sure my second drink didn’t turn into a third—I’d followed that road all the way to the bottom. The eighth hour bells had just rung when the first of the pair stepped into the Gryphon, briefly occluding the red gold light of the westering sun. The doors and windows were all open to help with the heat of high summer, which put me in a chair next to the empty hearth. It was the only windowless wall and it offered me a perch where I could keep an eye on front and back doors while staying as much in shadow as possible.
The first one came in fast and immediately stepped to one side, getting out of the light and putting her back to the wall while she waited for her eyes to adjust to the tavern’s gloom. Add in the way the woman moved—smooth and quiet, balanced on the balls of her feet amidst the dirty straw on the floor—and I marked her down as some sort of trained killer. Though whether that meant hunter, mercenary, black jack, or something more exotic, I couldn’t say without the closer study I proceeded to give her.
She was tall and broad shouldered, built like a farm girl or a soldier. Wide hipped and busty, she had thick muscle showing on her bare arms along with a number of interesting, if minor, scars. She had black hair and dark eyes, which was common enough in Tien, and golden brown skin almost as pale as mine, which wasn’t.
Her clothes were foreign, too, tight green breeches and knee-high brown walking boots below, with a short sleeveless cotton tunic the color of rust above. Over that she wore a heavy leather vest that hung to midthigh—too warm for this weather and closer to armor than clothing, though not as close to armor as she would have liked, if I was any judge. Her stance wanted chain mail or possibly plate. She had a pair of short iron-tipped rods hanging where another might have carried daggers, an interesting choice.
The woman who followed her in a few moments later was short and lean with almost no breasts or hips to speak of and the whipcord muscles of a dancer or acrobat. Her outfit matched the larger woman’s in style, though she wore blues and grays instead of greens and browns. She headed straight across the bar to a little table right in the center of the room, moving fast and without any of the hesitancy you’d expect of someone suddenly crossing from light into darkness. She even managed to avoid stumbling over a stray chair that had been left between tables, deftly stepping around it without actually appearing to see it.
When she got to the table, she took a seat facing back toward the front door and started idly tapping her foot. Between the dancer’s build and the nervous energy she reminded me of my fellow assassin and onetime fiancée, Jax. A lot. That would have been enough to focus my attention even without the sudden pressure Triss exerted on my back as he slid up to peer at the two of them over my right shoulder. A surprise, since he’s normally not that interested in strangers. Once she was in her chair, the larger woman headed across the bar to join her.
Like her companion, the little dancer type wore her black hair short—cut just above the collar on the sides and back with bangs in front. Her skin was darker than the taller woman’s, though still light for Tien, and her eyes were a shockingly pale blue. Really, she looked nothing like Jax, and yet there was something about her bearing that made me think back to soft lips and whispered words of …I shook my head. Those days were gone. Focus on the now and the woman in front of me. From the way she kept rolling her shoulders and neck I didn’t think she liked the heavy leather vest any more than the bigger woman did, though for reasons I guessed to be pretty much the opposite of her friend.
Or, should I say bodyguard? Because that’s what I made them initially—some foreign noble and her minder. Which meant I could safely ignore them. And I tried, really I did. But Triss kept peering over my shoulder, and somehow I found I couldn’t take my eyes off them either. Oh, I didn’t make it obvious—the priests who raised me had taught me better than that. But I did watch them as close as I’d have watched one of my goddess-assigned targets back in the old days.
A lot of that was Triss, of course. What he cares about, I care about. He’s all I’ve got left of the old me and these days he has to spend the vast majority of his time hiding in my shadow and pretending he doesn’t exist. When the Emperor of Heaven murders your goddess, orders his head priest to burn your temple to the ground, and then declares your entire order anathema, it kind of puts a cramp in your social life.
It didn’t help that the goddess Namara had made herself and her followers deeply unpopular with the world’s secular authorities. Seeing to it that justice applies to kings as well as to commoners is not a recipe for making those kings love you. Quite the contrary. But that was my life once upon a time: a Blade of Namara, bringing the Unblinking Eye of Justice to those too powerful to find it in the courts.
Torture the innocent? Foment wars of aggression? Murder your way to the throne? Namara would send me or one of my fellows to have a few words with you. Usually “rest in peace.” Occasionally “burn in hell.” In either case, we arranged an immediate interview with the lords of judgment and a chance to ride the wheel of rebirth. For that, some lumped us in with paid assassins, mostly the sort of people with guilty consciences and high titles attached to their names—king, general, Son of Heaven.…
