Street Magicks (2016) Anthology by Paula Guran

Author:Paula Guran [Guran, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magic, Fantasy, Short Stories, Anthology
ISBN: 9781607014751
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2016-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

An immortal duke is dead—at least for now, perhaps for good—and the magic power he stole centuries ago is released into the many labyrinthine streets of exotic Copper Downs.

A Water Matter

Jay Lake

The Duke of Copper Downs had stayed dead.

So far.

That thought prompted the Dancing Mistress to glance around her at the deserted street. Something in the corner of her eye or the lantern of her dreams was crying out a message. Just as with any of her kind, it was difficult to take her by surprise. Her sense of the world around her was very strong. Even in sleep, her folk did not become so inert and vulnerable as humans or most animals did. And her people had lived among men for generations, after all. Some instincts never passed out of worth.

His Grace is not going to come clawing up through the stones at my feet, she told herself firmly. Her tail remained stiff and prickly, trailing gracelessly behind her in a parody of alarm.

The city continued to be restive. A pall of smoke hung low in the sky, and the reek of burning buildings dogged every breath. The harbor had virtually emptied, its shipping steering away from the riots and the uncontrolled militias were all that remained of the Ducal Guard after the recent assassination. The streets were an odd alternation of deserted and crowded. Folk seemed unwilling to come out except in packs. If chance emptied a square or a cobbled city block, it stayed empty for hours. The hot, heavy damp did nothing to ease tempers.

At the moment, she strode alone across the purple-and-black flagstones of the Greenmarket area. The smell of rotting vegetables was strong. The little warehouses were all shuttered. Even the ever-present cats had found business elsewhere.

She hurried onward. The message that had drawn her onto the open streets had been quite specific as to time and place. Her sense of purpose was so strong she could feel the blurring tug of the hunt in her mind. A trap, that; the hunt was always a trap for her people, especially when they walked among men.

Wings whirred overhead in a beat far too fast for any bird save the bright tiny hummers that haunted the flowering vines of the temple district. She did not even look up.

The Dancing Mistress found at a little gateway set in the middle of a long stucco wall that bordered close on Dropnail Lane in the Ivory Quarter. It was the boundary of some decaying manse, a perimeter wall marking out a compound that had long been cut up into a maze of tiny gardens and hovels. A village of sorts flourished under the silent oaks, amid which the great house rotted, resplendent and abandoned. She’d been here a few times to see a woman of her people whose soul path was the knowledge of herbs and simples. But always, she’d come through the servants’ gate, a little humped arch next to the main entrance that faced onto Whitetop Street.

This gateway was different.

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