Chapter 5
The hum of tires on pavement was pleasantly familiar, rumbling through my bike and into me to make the chill, dry air feel even colder.
My smile widened with the memory of trying to wake Benedict this morning, giving up after he hit the snooze button one too many times.
Chances were good that the sudden silence I’d left my apartment in would wake him and he’d beat me to the sweepers’ morning meeting.
I was taking the bike path, and his go-faster sports car was parked at my curb.
But for now, I could enjoy the quiet with most of the a.m. commute several streets away. November was perfect weather in St. Unoc to be on two wheels, and with Pluck loping along beside me and therefore not in my mind, the low sun didn’t bother me. Much.
The early hour meant lots of shadows for Pluck, and he had no trouble keeping up as he raced alongside me like, well, a shadow.
And whereas I couldn’t feel his joy unless he was touching me, I could see it.
I’d never dared to ride alongside his namesake like this.
The big black lab Pluck had patterned himself on was too gregarious to risk him cutting in front of me or going after a squirrel and yanking me off my bike.
Shadow Pluck, though…I thought as he kept pace beside me, his misty feet never really touching the ground.
Streamers of gray billowed from him like strands of knotted hair when the sun hit him, reducing his mass as it flashed between the buildings.
Obviously he could be in the light, but it left him weak even when he was in a more complex form and had bothered to make “skin.” Dark matter couldn’t exist within direct light, but Pluck could make a mostly impervious layer.
Mostly—which was why I wanted a new chunk of moldavite for him to take refuge in.
As luck would have it, the rock and gem show was in Tucson this month.
I was willing to bet I could get Benedict to come out with me, pick up a few nice pieces of the rare glass for Pluck to tune to replace the one Fawn had broken.
If I could get Ryan to pay for it, even better.
That the tuned crystal could elevate a sweeper to Spinner status was probably half the reason ancient mages had slandered shadows and weavers to begin with.
Though fewer in number, Spinners were just as powerful as mages.
More, really, as they could safely handle dross without it breaking on them.
Coasting, I slowed as the light changed to red at the intersection, angling to the curb and using it to keep myself upright.
My long-stick shifted on my back, and I caught it before it slipped off.
I hadn’t bothered to put the single stick in a caddy, instead opting to tie my old long-cord to either end and use that to sling it over my shoulder.
Pluck hung in my shadow, fidgeting. “Sun too high?” I asked, and he flicked an ear to send a drift of gray splatting against the pavement, where it dissolved in a spot of light.
The cool air was beginning to warm. It might hit seventy today.
Not bad for November, and I put on my sunglasses, shoulders easing in the relief.
Not yet, fizzed and bubbled up through me when a strand of icy gray twined about my ankle. Like an especially obedient dog, he sat at my heel, ears swiveling when a truck eased to a halt behind us. South Main will have less dross.
“More sun, though,” I whispered aloud.
Palo Verde it is.
The light changed, and I pushed off and into motion.
The truck stuck tight behind me, making me nervous as it hung too close, breathing exhaust and engine noise.
Twenty feet up, a glittering drift of dross lay in the gutter like a heat distortion.
I couldn’t risk swerving out of the way with the truck this close.
I could touch dross with impunity, but my bike couldn’t, and if I hit it, it would likely pop my tire or bust my chain or work its way into my brake lines and soften them up.
Pluck saw it, of course, and the shadow dog shifted up onto the sidewalk.
I couldn’t bunny-hop sideways, so I inhaled to make a field, mentally flinging the class-two energy field out to wrap itself around the dross and turn it inert an instant before I biked through it.
It worked, and inert dross splashed to either side of my bike like rainwater, glittering drops of heat waves scattering.
Black specks glistened on Pluck before he shook himself and ribbons of dark matter splattered harmlessly against the ornamental rocks and cacti.
Someone else could pick it up, and until then, the now-inert dross wouldn’t break anything.
Finally the truck passed me. Relieved, I lifted my hand in a wave only to grimace when someone shouted, “Filthy dross-eater!” out the window, and hit the accelerator to leave me in a cloud of black smoke.
It wasn’t anything that hadn’t happened before, though “filthy dross-eater” was not only new but risky, and I held my breath until I biked out of it, shoulders hunched as anger fought with frustration.
The toxic smoke was legally considered an assault and they could be fined for it.
Not that anyone ever was. Which was why they had done it.
You okay?
Fine, I thought as a tendril tightened around my ankle. I’m going to cut through the quad, I added as I saw the truck waiting at the next light.
Pluck’s grip on me unwound in a surge of tingles and he loped into the park as if chasing a squirrel.
I coasted after him, appreciating the open space under the trees.
Things had changed in the last five months, and not entirely in a good way.
I’d once been able to bike through campus and the surrounding university town in relative anonymity.
Or at least, if I was recognized, it was as one of the university’s best sweepers.
Not so anymore. Everyone not a mundane knew me, with or without my usual stick caddy, though now that I thought about it, it might be Pluck.
Being ignored or looked down on wasn’t new.
I’d grown up under the assumption I was a sweeper, the unspoken second-class citizens in mage society.
Having become a weaver, I’d found even my sweeper peers treating me with anything from a new wariness to a frightened distance.
The elitist mages, though, were by far the worst, and their usual disdain had been creeping closer to outright hatred as city dross levels rose.
Wheels ticking, I coasted to the opposite end of the quad and the wide gate that opened up to a busy intersection.
The university lay to my right, St. Unoc’s limited industry sector to the left, and the desert by way of a city park in front of me.
I wished I could just push forward and take the path out into the desert.
Ride. Forget everything. But not only was I wearing black jeans instead of a spandex cycling kit, my water bottle cages were empty and I had that mandatory meeting with the marshal.
Which I’m almost late for, I mused as I swung onto the quad’s walking path—only to slow in surprise.
Put simply, the quad was a mess. Oh, the watered turf was green and trim, and the colored gravel raked.
Lacing through it, though, was enough dross to fill a water tote, the glittering heat distortions puddling in the low places and clinging to the spines of cacti.
Pluck was slinking back to me, ears flat as he dodged the burning haze.
I’d never seen it this bad apart from a postgraduation cleanup, and I slowed to a halt.
“Was there a protest?” I whispered. Everyone was supposed to try to keep dross levels low until we had a functioning vault, but clearly a significant part of everyone thought they were exempt.
It was a good bet that with the cost of dross disposal rising, people were dumping it en masse.
Pluck trotted to my heel, his whiplike tail low. “Is it like this all the way to the gate?” I asked, and the dog sighed, huffing out stardust as he sat on his haunches, looking so much like his namesake that it made my heart ache.
The truck is gone. Perhaps the road is a better choice, he thought, and I stood, bike under me as I did a shuffle-hop to turn myself a hundred and eighty degrees.
And then I stopped, staring at the young woman in jeans and blue hoodie standing ten feet behind me. Her eyes flicked from me to Pluck with a knowing fear.
“I thought I could do this,” she said as she retreated a step. “I can’t. I…I have to go.”
What the shadow spit…I thought, my breath catching when she spun around and walked right through a puddle of dross—and it went inert.
Pluck dissolved in a sparking of surprise. His grip on my ankle went bone-numbing cold. She fixed it inert, he thought as the latent energy rolling from her feet hazed brighter, then dulled. Petra, she’s a weaver! She’s a weaver! bubbled up through me.
I froze as she walked away, a hundred thoughts falling through me: Pluck’s elation, my hope…and then the sudden realization in both of us that she was almost to the road and we had no idea who she was.
“Hey!” I shouted, and she quickened her pace.
Pluck’s cohesion utterly dissolved. As a serpent, he wove shadow to shadow, chasing her.
“Pluck? Don’t scare her!” I called, remembering her fear, my body swaying as I stomped on the pedals.
She was heading for the viaduct converted to an under-the-road bike path.
It would likely be full of dross. Grimacing, I angled onto the grass to try to cut her off.
Pluck got to her first, and she shrieked, darting past him and into the tunnel.
“Hey! Wait!” I called. “I have to talk to you!” I quickened my pace. The handlebars vibrated, hard to hold until I reached the sidewalk and coasted down the ramp to the tunnel.