The Stormbringer's Mate

the radio w

y he paused between sentences as if he were reading them off a card. Elsie stood frozen with her hand

ou're listening." A pause. Static. "Elsie, I know

strides and picked up the hand

oon's

ck at her. The needle on the

mean, the m

red his throat. "She's been watching it since the new year and she says the pull is early. Every wolf in the house felt it last n

not po

nger this time. "I sent a man up to you six days ago with a grey jacket and no

ed on the handset. S

in my cold room. He's been

er. "Then whoever killed him knows where your station is. Elsie, listen to me

before I knew I had

e. "Ca

with my name.

It was meant for your eyes and nobody else's." His voice rasped. "I couldn't s

istening

n decide what you're going to do." The radio crackled and his voice faded and came back. "And

dio we

e was pale under the freckles, and her hands were not steady, a

oot,"

llu

oot, E

om and you want to go rummagi

ranger up a mountain with a letter for me

d then pulled her keys off the n

e lay on it with his hands folded the way she had left him, and the frost on his

inside and my fingers found the folded paper wedged against the heel. The seal was Duncan's,

y and unfolded the paper. Els

uncan's cramped hand. Twelve rows, twelve columns, filled with figures between nine hundred and one thousand

"Those are pressure readin

hem off your r

send them

Elsie sat down beside me with her pencil. "Your barometer's been lying for three weeks. Duncan's been writ

across and turned the paper round so it faced her, and

said. "My reading for that hour

teen

ineteen." She went down the column, her lips moving. "Nineteen, twenty o

on my fi

at me sharp

ineteen is S. Nineteen is S. Five

s not

." I pushed the paper back

e figures by amounts between one and twenty six, and when she had written them all in a

HIRD MARKER NI

sage from Duncan,

e hid in your readings

untain by a man who got himself killed." She put her pencil down and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "The Sussex ridge is

there's going to be a ful

es were very wide and ve

rs in my readings knows when the

barometer on the wall was holding steady at a figure that was not the figure it should have been, and

e and the moon

ha

bout a thing going wrong in a hurry." I sto

W

u can't fight what's waiting at the mark

id something that was not quite a smile. "You've b

ding a code in your own weather reports from the

r than I meant them. Her

and got up and walked out, and her boots went down the corri

e lamp and the grap

nt and go

ainst the cold, looking east. The snow had stopped and the sky had cleared and the mountain was

wn for three years. I've forgotten how

't take a

obeyed and hasn't been for a long time." I put

moment. Then she sai

n it a thousand times and I knew how it should look two days before full and it did not look like that. It l

ot right,

N

did it

this time she let me see it. "That's the Sussex ridge out there. Three weeks ago the moon was where it should be and the pre

ls

e days early." She turned to me and her face was very still. "What if that's not a coincidence? What if the delay wasn't weather and the mo

for her. I did not have

moving slow along the crest where there was no path and no reason for a light t

ack and she did not step away. Her fingers were col

is at the third marker, and it's the middle