Trapped

"Then I'm close already. Within a few hundred klicks. Meet you there?"

"No, I have other business." Dreamsinger glanced at me. "Tracking down a boy who may be infected."

"If there's somebody sick wandering in public-" Rashid began.

"I know," Dreamsinger interrupted. "First, you tell me if it's really a bioweapon, and if it's contagious. I'll handle the sterilization."

Rashid didn't reply immediately. Finally, he sighed. "You're first on the scene-it's your call. I'll radio back as soon as I check the academy."

The pearl necklace whistled once more. Dreamsinger turned straight to the Caryatid. "Dear sister, this boy who's missing… do you have some belonging of his so we can do a Seeking?"

The Caryatid shook her head, shame-faced. "I tried a Seeking but got nowhere. The boy's a powerful psychic. At least," she added hastily, "too powerful for me to find. So there was no point bringing his possessions with us. Besides, we thought Spark Royal would be annoyed if we removed anything of Sebastian's from the premises. That might be seen as tampering with evidence."

"True." Dreamsinger smiled: a sweet dimpled Hafsah smile. "This Sebastian is a powerful psychic? That's…" Her voice trailed off. Judging by the look on her face, I guessed some worrisome possibility had crossed her mind; but after a few seconds, she turned to the Caryatid and said, "Dear sister, you'd better tell me everything you know."

It didn't take long-we didn't know much. Several times the Caryatid looked to me for help, but Dreamsinger glared me into silence: only the Sorcery-Lord's "dear sister" was allowed to speak.

The Caryatid went through the facts (the dog tongue, the harp, the missing sword) and wisely omitted conjectures (the possibility of a doppelgänger Rosalind) until she reached the explosion at Death Hotel. I could see she was aching to ask if Dreamsinger had caused the kaboom, but didn't want to seem insolent. Therefore, the Caryatid tried leading statements such as, "The thread was sorcerer's crimson… like your cape," in the hope Dreamsinger would say, "That was me." No such luck. The Sorcery-Lord stayed silent to the very end of the tale.

And the silence continued long after the Caryatid said, "So that's everything." Five seconds. Ten. Thirty. Dreamsinger appeared lost in thought, eyes lowered, brow furrowed. The Caryatid met my gaze with a puzzled lift of her eyebrows, but one does not disturb a pensive Spark Lord… not even when she looks like a teenaged girl and a teacher's instinct is to ask such girls, "Would you like to talk about it?"

But I longed to know what was churning in Dreamsinger's brain. What did she know that we didn't? After all, she'd arrived in the neighborhood before she learned about the bioweapon… so she'd come here for some other reason. If this was a woman who got out so rarely she couldn't remember the last time she left Spark Royal, why had she suddenly left home to come to this turd of a village?

But I didn't dare ask. Grandma Khadija had drilled into our family the only way to deal with Spark Lords: never question, always obey. Anything else was suicide… or worse. And if you can't picture anything worse than dying, you don't know much about the Sparks.

With time on my hands, I stole a glance at Impervia. She'd been trapped in solidified air for several minutes; how well was she breathing? I remembered the sensation, like sucking air through a blanket… and Impervia had built up an unhealthy oxygen debt in her exertions during the fight. Now her eyes had an unfocused look, not turning to meet my gaze. She might have passed out inside her invisible cocoon-either that, or she'd deliberately forced herself to slide into some semimystic martial arts trance.

I hoped that was it. I hoped she hadn't completely suffocated.

Perhaps Dreamsinger saw me staring in Impervia's direction. With a sudden, "Aha!" the Sorcery-Lord snapped out of her reverie and strode toward the bar. Her goal, however, was not Impervia; she moved to the spike-armed Hump and clapped her hand in front of his mouth. "Speech only," she murmured. "Neck up, release."

Her words must have been a command to the nanites who held the enforcer in place. While Hump's body remained frozen, a breath exploded from his mouth followed by a great and grateful inhalation. Apparently the spell had let go of his head, allowing him to breathe freely. Dreamsinger gave him five seconds to guzzle oxygen, then squatted beside his shoulder. "Now," she said softly, "tell me about this town's Smuggler Chief. Name. Headquarters. Any defenses I might encounter on a visit."

Hump gave a snort he probably thought was a haughty laugh. "If you think I'll tell you shit, you're crazy."