Infinite Magic

By Meyari McFarland

Meyari McFarland returns in a new collection of eight stories wrapped around magic. From that moment of reentry to space to finding love to fairy tale magic warping lives, Infinite Magic delivers the best straight to you.

Includes eight short stories plus a sample of the romance novel The Solace of Her Clan, set in Meyari McFarland's Matriarchies of Muirin verse:

The Return
Stitched Lines, Watching Eyes
Price of the Gift
Gossamer Threads
Floating Paper Strips
Saving Imani
Out of the Tower
Adventures of Snails

• Language: English
• Publisher: MDR Publishing
• Release date: Jun 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311479761

Meyari McFarland

Meyari McFarland has been telling stories since she was a small child. Her stories range from SF and Fantasy adventures to Romances but they always feature strong characters who do what they think is right no matter what gets in their way. Her series range from Space Opera Romance in the Drath series to Epic Fantasy in the Mages of Tindiere world. Other series include Matriarchies of Muirin, the Clockwork Rift Steampunk mysteries, and the Tales of Unification urban fantasy stories, plus many more. You can find all of her work on MDR Publishing's website at www.MDR-Publishing.com.

Book preview

Infinite Magic

By Meyari McFarland

Other Books by Meyari McFarland:

Matriarchies of Muirin:

Tales from the Dana Clanhouse

Repair and Rebuild

Storm Over Archaelaos

Coming Together

Facing the Storm

Fitting In

Following the Beacon

The Solace of Her Clan

Mages of Tindiere:

Artifacts of Awareness

City of the Dead

Transplant of War

Running From The Immortals

Hearts of Magic

Triumph of the Artificer Mages

Debts to Recover:

The Nature of Beasts

The Manor Verse:

A New Path

Following the Trail

Crafting Home

Finding a Way

Go Between

Like Arrows of Fate

Clockwork Rift

Blood Worms

Copyright ©2016 by Mary Raichle

Cover image © Rashevskaya | Dreamstime.com - Fiery Nebula Photo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be emailed to [e-mail]

This book is also available in TPB format from all major retailers.

Dedication:

This collection is dedicated my husband for all his support as I work to make my writing the best it can possibly be.

Table of Contents

The Return

Stitched Lines, Watching Eyes

Price of the Gift

Gossamer Threads

Floating Paper Strips

Saving Imani

Out of the Tower

Adventures of Snails

Excerpt: The Solace of Her Clan

Afterword

The Return

Maram added a stick to the fire, poking the embers dim glimmer into something like a spark of life. Her back was cold despite Kirin pressing close, his long horns carefully angled away from Maram. Not as cold as she could be, bless the Mothers for that. Her camp sat close to the Hightown cliff, nestled into a little indent created when the ones Above had decided to try to mine the cliff for building stone.

Pointless.

The stone was too soft for that, crumbling under their fancy tools.

Sparks flared and floated upwards like ships rising towards orbit. None of those anymore. The ships were long gone. Come and gone like mist in the wind. It was part of why Maram was here, down Below when she'd once been accepted up in Hightown. Ancient history but it was hard to let it go on cold dark nights when her girls were off hunting and the skies filled with stars that she'd never touch again.

It'd been decades since she saw stars without the distortion of atmosphere, decades since she'd been in a ship, had ridden the Wave between stars. Nights like tonight Maram felt every single second of those too many years, felt them like blood pouring from a cut artery, like having her arm cut right off and left to bleed out on the floor.

Kirin snuffled, touching his nose to the nape of Maram's neck. She chuckled and petted him. Nose still felt like the finest velvet even though his fur was going white with age. Just like her hair. It'd been black as the void of space once. Now it was a white so pure she looked as though she was going bald.

She tugged on her headscarf, grunting that it was still in place. Hated it when people saw her thin pale hair. Wrinkles weren't a problem but you had to have some pride and Maram's hair was that. Have to remember to check the supplies when the sun came up. They were low on several things and would need more soon, much as Maram hated the climb up the cliff to Hightown only to sneered at and charged too much as if she didn't speak nine languages and hadn't piloted ships between the stars when she was young.

Honestly, she missed it. There was a joy to riding the Wave, the faster than light drive that warped space around you, front and back so that you slipped past the bonds of time and distance. She'd been good at it. Only gave it up for love, a wife she adored, twin girls they'd doted on.

All long dead.

Kirin nibbled on her ear.

I know, I know, Maram huffed at him. Let him continue his nibbles, scratched under his chin until his eyes drifted shut in contentment. Letting the ghosts of the past bite me. It's hard without the girls around. Glad you stayed, old friend.

Kirin hum-huffed, one eye opening lazily. Intelligence showed there, alien, silent, unspeaking, but intelligence nonetheless. She'd never managed to find a way to communicate with Kirin's people. Most of them ignored humanity entirely, hunting the plains and traveling in their herds. She still didn't know why Kirin had chosen to leave the herd, to travel at her side from the plains to Hightown and everywhere else but he seemed quite determined to be by her side until one or both of them dropped dead with age.

The thought, or maybe the frown, got her another, sharper, nibble. Maram laughed. One more stick and then she leaned back against Kirin's side. She should sleep. If the girls were successful in their hunt there'd be work a-plenty on their return, carcasses to clean and quarter, meat to butcher, skins to scrape and stretch. Possibly even feathers to pluck, clean and sell for a premium up in the market. Even at her age, Maram helped. Wasn't as though the girls had learned everything she knew. Not yet. Maybe in the next few years. Who knew? It'd be nice to teach them to fly between the stars but that wasn't going to happen, no matter how much she dreamed of it.

When Maram opened her eyes, felt like a moment later but the sun was coming up so it'd been hours, the fire was cold and she heard the girls' voices carrying across the plains. Angel's high, sweet songs of thanks, prayers to the Mothers, came first. Then Nitya complaining that not every single kill needed to be prayed over despite the laughter from Carey and Desta's booming objections to Nitya's never-ending whine.

Kirin huffed, nosing Maram until she sat up, stood up, moved away from the cliff. Kept right on nosing her as if there was something much more important than fresh meat and a good meal after too many days of not much at all.

What your old ears picking up? Maram asked once she'd been driven a good ten yards from the cliff. You hearing things I can't?

Kirin stamped his right forefoot, their single agreed upon sign for communication.

Yes? Maram asked, stunned. Been years since you used that. You are hearing something.

Kirin stared at her, blinked solemnly, and stamped his foot again.

Maram cursed as she patted wildly for her comm. Front hip, no, back hip, no. Breast? No! Finally found it buried in the bottom of her thigh pocket, left side, under twine and bits of string she'd been using for weaving ornamental spider webs for gullible Hightown children to buy. The palm-sized unit was cracked and patched, barely functional on the best of days and cranky if not handled exactly right.

Hey Maram! Angel called when she came round the tumbled boulders along the path. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Maram's frantic fidgeting to get the comm working. Wait, what's wrong?

Don't know yet, Maram replied, attention focused on the comm. Kirin hears something.

That brought all the girls to her side, peering over Maram's shoulder despite the bloody near-hares and ground-fowl tied to their hips. Not a one of them over eighteen but they were the best hunters Below had. Maram'd be proud of their hard work if she weren't tight as a fresh-strung bow over Kirin's warning.

Nothing, nothing and more nothing on the comm. After a moment she lifted her head and stared out over the plains because her ears finally picked up what Kirin had heard.

Engines. Not the local flyers, little things with props and rotors that carried one or two rich people here and there. No, these were the big engines, the ones that thrummed like an earthquake turned low, ones that floated in the air like a bit of seed fluff set loose from the pod. She looked up and up and up and there they were.

Solar sails spread wide to catch the light as they descended from vacuum into atmosphere. Even at this distance she could see they were armored sails, sort used for heavy assault vehicles. Heavy bases shaped not like the balls Maram remembered from passenger transports but long and narrow, a spade perhaps. A sword, they looked like swords and damn if that didn't mean trouble for them all, trouble in the midst of the first hope she'd had in decades.

She heard a sob, realized a moment later that it was her crying.

Maram? Angel whispered. Are those spaceships?

Landing craft, Maram confirmed, cleared her throat, continued without the wobble in her voice. Real ship is out in orbit, great big thing twice the size of Hightown. Maybe three times. Depends on whose ship it is, how rich they are.

I thought they left, Angel whispered. Her hands clutched Maram's sleeve. She shook.

Maram didn't pat her, didn't hug, didn't even turn to look at the girl. She couldn't. Ships. The ships were back, back to this cast off failure of a colony with its uncommunicative intelligent species that had decided humans just weren't smart enough to waste time on. No reason for them to be back.

Unless this was a ship, a crew, that didn't give a damn about the laws that protected alien species. One that would rip the planet apart, take what they wanted, and leave the core behind, glowing into space as it formed a new crust devoid of life.

We're heading up, girls, Maram said.

She put a hand on Kirin's back. He stamped one foot, looked at the ships drifting lower slow and leisurely so that everyone would have time to see them coming and be there to greet them. Maram huffed, lips going thin as she glared.

Leave the food, Maram continued. Bring your weapons. All of them.

Hightown was a riot of people by the time they got to the top of the cliff. Everyone was there, even the other people who lived Below. Probably the entire human population of the planet had poured into the streets of Hightown's little development at the top of the bluff.

Not a surprise. They'd been left here, abandoned, two generations ago and there had never been any hope of going anywhere else. No other ships came. No reason for them to. And the Mothers knew that the native species had no interest in traveling to the stars. They were content living here on their world with it's perfect seasons, calm sun and quiet life.

Where Below was cliff and plain and the occasional tent someone had pitched overnight, Hightown was a town proper. There were paved streets, some cobbled, some actually carrying the weight of ancient old concrete that crumbled slowly away year by year. Buildings were two, three stories, made of bleached white brick. Usually they'd have fabric awnings over the streets to shield them all from the sun but in the hour and a half since the ships had returned the residents of Hightown had pulled them down so they could stare upwards in wonder.

You go first, Maram huffed at Kirin who shut his eyes in a silent laugh.

He reared up and then smacked his front hooves into the street. Startled the people out of the way. Pretty quick they had a path down Ninth Street to Draper's lane and then into the little winding alley that everyone called Shortcut Thoroughfare even though it wasn't wide enough for more than one person at a time and it wasn't a shortcut to anywhere. Cut around the regular streets but it took twice as long doing that. Kirin's shoulders brushed against the buildings on either side and he had to be careful how he led his head lest his horns catch on things.

Got them around the worst of the crowds, anyway, all the way to the old, old docks on the edge of the cliff that no one used anymore. Just no one at all. No ships coming from space so they'd been abandoned by everyone other than suicidal people who looked down and sometimes jumped to their deaths.

Maram was pretty sure there were still bones left on the ground from the last suicide under the main dock, heavy thing thrust a good twenty yards out into the air.

Today the docks were mobbed. A good thousand people, all rich and powerful, dressed in their finest, stood and talked and paced as the first of the ships approached slow and casual. Too slow. Maram knew how much work an approach like that was. Pilot was delaying, letting the rest of the crew scan the crowd, the town, find any weapons in Hightown.

Not that there were any, really. When they'd been abandoned their former employers had taken all the good weapons with them. Left Maram and the others with knives and sticks and tools but no instructions on how to make blasters or plasma cannons.

Is it supposed to come that slow? Nitya murmured, voice sharp despite the hesitance.

Nope, Maram said. They're sizing us up. Seeing if we can put on a fight. Seeing where the good stuff is. Could be after resources. Could also be slavers, girls, looking for young folk to take off and sell on other worlds to the sex trade. Both are worth more than all of Kirin's people, all the other people here.

That's sick! Nitya snapped, winced and then curled behind Maram as if afraid that someone would notice them, come over, drag her away.

Yup, Maram agreed. Probably going to take it easy, play the game. They'll con the leaders, girls, lead them away from the dock, the ships. We're gonna let them. They think we're fools.

Most of the people in Hightown are fools, Nitya said with a little sniff that made Maram laugh. Well, they are.

True enough, Maram agreed. So they'll unload one ship, two, maybe all three. Leave a few guards behind. We should be able to get some info from the guards, find out if I'm old and paranoid or old and right.

Kirin glared at her, stamping one foot.

Yeah, I know I'm right, old friend, Maram sighed. No reason for these people to come back. No good reason anyway. A few thousand humans on a world occupied by intelligent aliens? There's nothing here for honest folk. Only for those who don't care what they break or who they destroy.

He stamped again, dropping his chin so that those wicked long horns, sharp as daggers, rose into the air.

No one in the crowd of rich folks noticed them off by the end of Shortcut Thoroughfare. Good. Maram didn't want anyone remembering that she was still alive. Probably the only pilot left alive on the whole damned planet who'd actually ridden the Wave. She didn't know if she still could but Maram trusted her girls. She could talk them through it if she had to.

The first ship docked and oh yeah, they were scum. Leader sauntered out, smiling broadly with his hands held out to the mayor of Hightown as if he was a long-lost brother returned home after years away. They couldn't hear the conversation from here but Maram didn't need to hear it to know what they said.

Long lost brothers something, something, found you at last, return to humanity, discuss how to convey your wonderful people up to their waiting ship where you'll all live lives of luxury free from all illness, hunger and fear. The leader even gestured upwards while putting on a heart-felt expression of joy for them all.

Mayor ate it up.

He can't be that stupid, Nitya complained.

Oh, he can, Maram sighed. They all can. You get something you always wanted and yeah, you'll act like a fool, too. Only question is how long it'll be before the others dock and… oh, look at that. Already.

The other ships moved in, settling at the lesser docks and disgorging a good hundred fifty, two hundred big burly men with wide smiles, clean clothes and very, very nasty blasters. Couple had hand cannons so yeah, they were looking for people as well as resources. One of the men had a little scanner half the size of Maram's ancient old comm. He peered at it, tapping occasionally, and smiled like he had the best prey ever right in his net.

I don't like them, Angel hissed