"I don't rightly care where he came from—he's one more person to keep watch on." Gwen nudged Corwyn toward the stairs that led belowdecks. Her voice was dark as she added, quietly, "I am not fond of new wrinkles on a job."

JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright! Early?WHITLOCK: (aside) An identical response! Perhaps free will is a mere illusion. On the other hand, she's an automaton.(JACQUENETTE slaps him.)JACQUENETTE: How dare you employ such a term for a lady!WHITLOCK : How dare you eavesdrop on an obvious aside!

The soldier shrugged. His look was almost sympathetic. They turned back toward the fields. I would have liked to tell them to take the road, to stop trampling our remaining crops, but I knew better than to rile them. The soldier's horse dropped the chewed flower stalk as they disappeared back between the rows.

This half-life dragged at her. She felt weary all the time, a chilled-bone sluggishness of motion that belied the quickness of her thoughts. It was not painful to breathe, but it was tiring, and she began to eschew it when alone and unworried about frightening the living.

After that it became an act of defiance, growing out her hair. Every morning she lay in her cell amid the mass of it she had strained to produce over the course of the night, feeling herself drawn thinner, tighter, counting the sweet hay smell surrounding her a victory.

Today her sleeves are sewn with opals and moonstones and within their glimmer here and there on the left sleeve, glitters another precious stone, set in no particular order, random as the stars. Her skirt and bodice are aluminum fish-scales, armored though she expects no fight. Her only weapon is her own considerable wit.

The body couldn't have been there long; washers and cooks had been coming in, and there were deliveries. Sometimes waitstaff came in early, to pick up a little extra cash working in the kitchen. Or she could have been killed after closing the night before, and just dumped in the morning, or... or anything, really.

There was nothing Ierois could say; he made his way back to his house and took up the book he had been given. But there was something stale in the words. Over his years on the island, he had been given nine other books, but they had become outworn, nothing in them to distract him.

The spider's poison was already taking hold. Rahami's heart raced. Breathing became as difficult as pumping air through damaged bellows. Be calm. Be calm. Her consciousness seeped through Morshimon's skin, into his spine. Breathe, she thought. Breathe with this man. See with this man.

They ran through the tumbles and bumps, grips and leaps, Buzzard tossing and turning with Razor as she barely noticed, thrashing about to make it look real. And as they tussled on the ground, Buzzard snaking his python choke around Razor’s mighty furred neck, he spied the balcony. All the children were leaning over, pointing and laughing, ignoring Lady Astra, who smiled and nodded, then shoved Konrad hard through the stone rail—

The sack swung in his hand as he walked away. “I would take her with me to the guts of the earth. I sought death in the battlefield, and saw it in all but my fate. I was spared a warrior’s clean end. Now, the campaigns are ashes and lies. If you cannot help me find peace for Baysha, I will find someone to end me.”

To catch a bug, you must burn him out. That had been our experience with Macti spies and rebels. Under the authority of the Wayfaring House we came with black fire and warned all that if the Spider known as Heriz was not returned, we would decree the island corrupted and purify by shot and flame. It had worked in Jani, Uurun, and it would work here.

What that profession might be, I would hesitate to explain had you not explicitly stated that you are unconcerned with my history. Pietro is what the many travelers through Harkuma refer to as a facilis or, commonly, "greaser." He makes his living by arranging contact between the various human merchants and the automata of Akkuma. If a person wishes to visit Akkuma, he must do so in the company of one of these faciles who will vouch for him, undertake the shipment of water, even make business connections, as well as make certain the entrepreneur adheres to all standards of conduct.

Meat for a blanket was no proper trade. Netta turned away from the fire, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She could make out a few of the other groups of refugees—and yes, they were watching her. Waiting for just such a sign of weakness as this.

We all looked up at the high, piping voice; none of us had heard the ladder rattle. Mieni hopped over the edge of the roof, adjusting the lines of her suit. Many koboldim wore children's clothes, but Mieni had made a point of wearing a ladies' suit tailored to her diminutive frame. "Kobold, not goblin. I do insist on the distinction."

Mieni closed her mouth so sharply I feared her fangs would cut her lips. "Just so, Mr. Swift," she muttered. A lone bee, moving drowsily in the cold, crawled out from under the shattered honeypot and stood on the dead Davala's broken eyesocket, waving its antennae as if lost. "Odd," she said. "Very odd."

"It's not—" I sighed as we reached the doors of the veterans' wing. "It was a cruel thing for him to do. She has her vows, and too many of us veterans are too scarred to be any sort of decent companion."

Izzy pushed himself up, trying to see. A flickering light like the reflection of moonlight on the ocean cascaded over the hall, and through it shadows darted like knife-edged fish—Society guards, he realized a little late, moving between him and the light. A gentle roar and boom heralded the trundler automaton's actions: settling down again, after whatever it had done to contain someone.

Marten hesitated. This life in the Wrights' Division, ground under the heel of the Bull's soldiery, or the pyre... but he was a coward, and the books, the books.... He sagged and took Gerda's hand, nodding. Just till I can escape.

The lenses continued to strike as I leapt over Phidias. I wrenched Lundqvist's stylus from the socket, heedless of the damage I did to both. "Professora Lundqvist!" I shouted, peering at her sensor ring and the brain beyond. But the walls continued to keen, and Lundqvist's phonograph remained silent.

The farther they traveled, the more Skald's old trade seemed to distort what he saw, forcing the faces he'd learned over the last few weeks to conform to the city vision. This one will break after a day, he would find himself thinking as the other drovers hailed him. This one is strong, but he favors his left knee; use the hammers first. This one will not break on his own, but hurt any member of his family and he'll tell you anything just so you'll stop.

Professora Lundqvist insisted on taking the bones to the captain, and borrowed me for the purpose. I piled the serpent’s jawbone on her tank, secured the lesser fangs to her braking mechanism, and accompanied her up to the lift. Lundqvist, lacking either an andropter or the torso around which to fasten one, could not venture to the open decks, and thus we were limited to the helm room.

Carla caught her breath as the shape came clear: a face of pipes and fittings and gears, its eyes glowing faintly with the sheen of werglass. The mouth was only an expressionless line of cable, but when the voice spoke again there was no question whose it was. "Who is she?"

Her age was impossible to say, for her face was crusted with muck and roots. Her teeth were like kernels of mottled corn. She was naked, her skin textured like stone, gray and gravelly. Wet, bulbous mushrooms grew in the moss around her womanly crevice. Her reek nearly brought me to my knees.

When the boy opened his eyes, his finger was gone, the flesh sealed over it as if it had never been. Then the temple wall bucked and groaned, and a hairline crack appeared in its surface. Light came pouring out through it—a strange sort of light he could not describe. “Yes,” said his father. “It is opening. You must give more.”

When no eyes were on her, Lys frayed a rope with her knife—choosing one which would not harm the sails but would send an iron pulley tumbling into the sea. When Tamlen angrily ordered a replacement brought from the cargo hold, Lys was first to volunteer and on her way before anyone could deny her.

I thought about hitting him and taking what Gilga-Yar was after. But this old man had me curious, and my patron’s lack of forthrightness with me made me want all the more to know what was going on. So I took the shovel and the knife. “What am I doing with these?”

Deathfire shot an arrow through the man’s back. Then he drew his sword. The woman and children would be easy enough to kill, but he wanted to take care of the baby first. “Don’t worry,” he said, rubbing a gentle hand across the woman's sweat-soaked brow. “I’ll make it painless for all of you.”

I held my father while he died. It was all I could do, but I whispered fiercely, "Father, I'll get your sword back one day. One day when he least expects it." I'm not sure Father could hear me by then, but I never forgot my promise.

The title of the book was Principles of Light-Bearing, and Sharide was engrossed in it by the second page. It described how light was the underpinning of the world. She had dreamed of being a weaver, and a fisher, and a soldier, and many different wives, but the life of a seeker of knowledge had never come to her yet. When next she slept, she decided, she would try to find a life wherein she had read this book, and other books, and understood them.