Free The Long Hunt: Mageworlds #5 by Debra Doyle, James D. MacDonald

ordinary, unterrifying features. His thick black hair was streaked liberally with iron-grey. After a moment, Klea realized that she knew him.
    “Mael Taleion,” she said. “Second of the Circles.”
    “As you, too, are Second,” he said. “After the Adepts’ fashion. Now, please, let us go each to our own business.”
    A suspicion stirred in Klea’s mind. “Your business wouldn’t happen to concern a pair of young men from Maraghai, would it?”
    “And if it does?”
    “Mine does as well. The Master of the Guild wants to see them kept away from danger.”
    “If that’s the case,” Taleion said, “you appear to have had little success. But I dare not chide you for it—I have similar orders from the First of the Mage-Circles. And, like you, I tracked the young men from the spaceport to here. Where, trust me, they currently are not.”
    “This part of the trail is cold,” Klea said. She nodded toward the tea shop, where two members of the Civil Guard were talking with a straight-backed, grey-haired woman. A smudge of soot marked the woman’s forehead where she had wiped away the sweat, and blaster-fire had scorched the gold-embroidered fabric of her vest and skirt. “We need to talk to that one over there sometime soon. Maybe she knows where our birds have flown.”
     
    In the plush and paneled offices of the Green Sun Cooperative, a man stood at uneasy attention before the desk of Nilifer Jehavi—the son of the organization’s founder, and currently in charge of its day-to-day operations.
    “Well?” Jehavi said.
    “There were … complications,” the man said. His name badge, clipped to his left breast pocket, said that his name was Kolpag Garbazon, that his serial number was 13tq4908y, that he was an Operative First Class, and that he was cleared for Upmost-level secrets. He had over a dozen years of experience in the service of the Cooperative.
    “I know there were complications,” Jehavi said. “If there hadn’t been complications, we wouldn’t have had to refund the deposit. You don’t know how we hate doing that.”
    In fact, Kolpag had a fairly good idea how much the head man—and his son—hated to give back a customer’s money. Not to mention how much they hated seeing any lowering of the firm’s reputation. Now, however, was not the time for a prudent man to talk about such things.
    “I know there were complications,” Jehavi repeated, more quietly, and in a kinder tone. “You had orders that the packages were not to be damaged in any way, and you walked into an ambush.”
    He paused a moment. Then: “Please, sit down.”
    Kolpag sat, and tried not to show his relief. The young boss wasn’t as dangerous or as unpredictable as his father had been, but he still wasn’t a man whose wrath anyone could take lightly.
    Jehavi leaned back in his chair and looked at Kolpag. “Well, then,” he said. “You are still my best field operative, regardless of what our recent contractors expressed to me in some exceedingly colorful language just now. Leaving all that aside—you lost your partner. Will you be able to work?”
    “Yes,” Kolpag said. For a simple snatch-and-go on a couple of tourists, this afternoon had turned into a complete disaster. He knew intellectually that Freppys wouldn’t be waiting in the employees’ lounge cracking jokes when he walked out of Jehavi’s office, but the emotional reality hadn’t yet sunk in.
    “Good. These are your new orders. You are still to pick up the packages. Previous rules of engagement remain in effect: the packages are not to be harmed in any way. The difference is that this time, instead of delivering the packages anywhere else, you are to bring them here to me. Clear?”
    “Clear.” Kolpag allowed himself to wonder, briefly, what new enterprise Jehavi had in mind. Then he laid the question aside: he was an employee, not an executive, and the Green Sun did not pay him to think about such things.
    “Excellent,” said Jehavi. “And