The Other by Matthew Hughes

Author:Matthew Hughes [Hughes, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780982663967
Publisher: Underland Press
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

They had wrapped the girl’s body in a coarse cloth, but when the provost’s men lifted her with gloved hands from the cargo compartment at the rear of the roller, one small, fur-covered arm dangled from beneath the edge of the covering. The bare palm had turned pale as blood had drained from the extremities. The sight troubled Imbry. He did not mind death in the abstract, nor in the concrete when it was necessary to further his goals—but this seemed a waste.

He believed that whoever had killed Shan-Pei had done so to make life difficult for Luff Imbry. The girl had been a pawn. Or perhaps she had seen something that the killer did not want revealed. Either way, the business smacked of a callousness that angered him.

He sat now in the carriage, the corpse-bundle bound to its back shelf. One of the provost’s men kept an eye on him, a weapon in his hand. They had put Shvarden in the rear seat of the roller and the other junior officer sat in the operator’s position, though turned so that he could keep the black-hat under observation. But the black-hat offered no more resistance, sitting slumped and silent.

Breeth came out of the hut, his weapon in one hand and the ceramic box tucked under one arm. Shvarden looked up as the investigator approached and held out his hands for the object. But the brown-hat gave him only a look of amused contempt and stowed the box in the cargo hold. Then he went back to the hut and aimed the metal tube through the doorway, adjusting some control on its wooden stock. A burst of light sprang from the end, and a moment later there came a crackle and a roar from within. The doorway belched white smoke and yellow fire. For a moment, Breeth stood and watched the small inferno, and Imbry saw on his face an expression so like that of Shvarden when he’d seen the gray lens that, for that moment, the two Ideals were identical. Then the provost’s man’s aspect became businesslike again. He slung the weapon over his shoulder and climbed into the front seat of the roller next to the operator. He signaled the other provost’s man to get in beside the black-hat. “And keep an eye on the fat oddy,” he said.

The vehicle started up and inched forward. As the slack of the reins tightened, the barbarel followed and the carriage began to roll. Fulda’s sun was near the horizon when they started, and they moved at a moderate pace through the long twilight back toward Pilger’s Corners. Imbry found it a nuisance not to have his hands free as the carriage swayed, but he appreciated the opportunity to think about what he had learned.

He was not a profound student of history. Indeed, on Old Earth it was a peculiar sort who bothered with a close study of the past. Humankind had by now been in existence over a vast span

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