Wrapt in Crystal
Praise for Wrapt in Crystal
“It doesn’t get much better than Wrapt in Crystal—interesting characters, an intriguing mystery, a believable love story, an exotic setting and a satisfying ending . . . spellbinding.”
—Starlog
“A nice blend of exciting action and realistic . . . police work, of self-discovery and revelations of feelings, of love and crime . . . solid and compassionate.”
—The Davis Enterprise
Praise for Sharon Shinn and her novels of Samaria . . .
Archangel . . . Jovah’s Angel . . . The Alleluia Files
“Shinn can make you see angels.”
—New York Review of Science Fiction
“Each of these books is better than the last.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Shinn has created an enchanting world . . . I recommend this [book] without reservation.”
—Charlotte Observer
“Inventive and compelling.”
—Library Journal
“Triumphant.”
—Publishers Weekly
“I was fascinated by Archangel. Its premise is unusual, to say the least, its characters as provocative as the action. I was truly, deeply delighted.”
—Anne McCaffrey
“Clever and original. Some may raise eyebrows at Sharon Shinn’s less-than-saintly angels, but they make for far more interesting characters than the winged paragons of legend. Many will no doubt find her end results quite heavenly.”
—Starlog
“Taut, inventive, often mesmerizing, with a splendid pair of predestined lovers.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Displaying sure command of characterization and vividly imagined settings, Shinn absorbs us in the story . . . an interesting SF-fantasy blend that should please fans of both genres.”
—Booklist
“[A] book of true grace, wit, and insight into humanity, past and future . . . The developing attraction between Archangel Alleluia and a gifted but eccentric mortal should charm the most dedicated anti-sentimentalist and curmudgeon.”
—Locus
“The spellbinding Ms. Shinn writes with elegant imagination and steely grace, bringing a remarkable freshness that will command a wide audience.”
—Romantic Times
Praise for The Shape-Changer’s Wife . . .
Nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Winner of the William Crawford Award for Achievement in Fantasy
“Sharon Shinn strikes me as the most promising and original writer of fantasy to come along since Robin McKinley . . . Her deceptively low-keyed, marvelously straightforward storytelling is a delight and a comfort to discover. This one knows how it’s done.”
—Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn
“Ms. Shinn takes a traditional romance and wraps it in a fantasy . . . rousing.”
—Fantasy & Science Fiction
“Exceptionally lovely . . . incredibly appealing . . . a stunning reminder of how the good, basic values of well crafted storytelling can create a delightful world to escape into . . . sweet and beautiful.”
—Locus
Ace Books by Sharon Shinn
THE SHAPE OF DESIRE
STILL LIFE WITH SHAPE-SHIFTER
THE TURNING SEASON
TROUBLED WATERS
ROYAL AIRS
JEWELED FIRE
UNQUIET LAND
MYSTIC AND RIDER
THE THIRTEENTH HOUSE
DARK MOON DEFENDER
READER AND RAELYNX
FORTUNE AND FATE
ARCHANGEL
JOVAH’S ANGEL
THE ALLELUIA FILES
ANGELICA
ANGEL-SEEKER
WRAPT IN CRYSTAL
THE SHAPE-CHANGER’S WIFE
HEART OF GOLD
SUMMERS AT CASTLE AUBURN
JENNA STARBORN
QUATRAIN
Viking / Firebird Books by Sharon Shinn
THE SAFE-KEEPER’S SECRET
THE TRUTH-TELLER’S TALE
THE DREAM-MAKER’S MAGIC
GENERAL WINSTON’S DAUGHTER
GATEWAY
ACE
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 1999 by Sharon Shinn
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
ACE is a registered trademark and the A colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9780593333464
Ace trade paperback edition / May 1999
Ace mass-market edition / April 2000
Ace ebook edition / March 2021
Cover design by Katie Anderson
Cover photographs courtesy of Shutterstock
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
a_prh_6.0_c0_r0
This book is for friends who haven’t even read it yet: Laurell, Lauretta, Mark, Martha, Tom, Nancy, Debbie, and Gus. Thanks for welcoming me so warmly into the group.
Soon or late, each new frontier
Yields: Forefathers braved the sea.
With scythe and plow, the pioneers
Broke the land. Technology
Tamed communication. Now,
We settlers seek a wilder place
To bridle with our rough know-how:
The midnight prairie miles of space.
Terran-born, we hopefully
Spread our nets for lights afar,
And catch the moon. Our sons will be
Moonchildren, and snare the stars.
—by Essex Bounty,
Old Terran poet,
circa 1990
Night of crystal, day of gold,
Goddess, in your arms enfold
Soldier, servant, saint and sinner—
Spring and summer, fall and winter.
Crystal midnight, golden dawn,
Flawlessly the days flow on,
Filled with pure ecstatic light—
Fiery morning, icy night.
Goddess, give us star and sun
To guide us through our mortal run.
Sweetly are the secrets told—
Wrapt in crystal, limned in gold.
—Prayer to Ava,
traditional,
origin unknown
Contents
Cover
Praise for Sharon Shinn
Books by Sharon Shinn
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraphs
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fift
een
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About the Author
Chapter One
Travel on the commercial cruiser was excruciatingly slow, but the vast Moonchild fleet made few visits to Semay, and the planet’s government had asked that this mission be started, at least, as quietly as possible. So Lieutenant (Special Assignment Officer) Cowen Drake came in by the conventional route, and divided the long slow days between reading and brooding.
On the whole, the reading was more profitable. He had brought a stack of books and visicubes and reports about Semay, and he pored over these with the single-minded intentness that he brought to nearly everything he did. He could sit for hours, immobile before the screen, scanning through the documents that described and analyzed this small world on the fringes of the civilized galaxy. Gathered by the formidable Moonchild intelligence forces, the reports tended to center around specific events important to a certain time period; they were thorough as far as they went, but they gave only the sketchiest overviews of the planet’s history. The books were a better bet, most of them coming from Semay itself, but the books he could scarcely read.
He thumbed through one of them now, a hardcover volume bound in crumbling red leather and illustrated with engraved prints. Hand-sewn into the frayed binding, now and again the pictures unexpectedly came out in his hand. Semay had been settled by a group of colonists from the planet Mundo Real, which thousands of years before had been settled by pioneers from Old Earth. Those Mundo Real settlers had all come from a segment of the home planet known as Western Europe, and they carried with them languages and traditions that they were determined not to lose. The colonists who, hundreds of years later, traveled from Mundo Real to Semay had left the traditions behind but taken the languages with them. As a result, the common tongue on Semay was some curious, hybrid amalgam of Romance languages called Spanish and French and Italian, and Drake couldn’t understand one word in ten.
He was studying, though. He had brought language tapes with him as well as history books, and he played these while he exercised, while he read, while he slept. He could not say he had made a great deal of progress. Linguistics had never really been his specialty.
Which had not seemed to bother Comtech Central, the assignment bureau responsible for matching up Moonchild officers with crises in the Intergalactic Alliance of Federated Planets. He couldn’t speak the language, and he wasn’t exactly sympathetic to religious issues. And from what he could tell of his reading so far, religion was at the heart of the problem on Semay.
For perhaps the hundredth time, he pulled out his case files to review details of the murders on Semay. Five people had been slain, all women, all priestesses belonging to the two major religious sects on the planet. All five had been killed within the borders of Madrid, the principal city of Semay. The local police force (the “hombuenos,” according to Drake’s file) were used to regarding the priestesses as sacrosanct, and thus were reluctant to investigate the tragedies with the ruthlessness they might muster in another case. They needed help.
Drake turned another page in the report. The local governor had asked for assistance from the local Moonchildren stationed on Semay. But there were only three of them, and they were deep in political negotiations with the planetary government. They had recommended instead the full-time investigative skills of an SAO dedicated to the case. The governor had been grateful for the suggestion. And a few days later, Drake was on his way.
It had taken him several readings to get a grasp of what exactly was happening on Semay, and why it was important enough to merit the attention of Interfed and its elite peacekeeping forces. The murders, though baffling, were straightforward enough. First to be killed was a priestess of the Triumphante sect, the dominant and most widespread order on the planet. A few weeks later, a member of the Fidele sect had been found dead. Both women had been garroted and left on abandoned property. Next, another Triumphante was murdered, then another Fidele, then another Triumphante.
Drake thumbed forward to the appendix describing the religious orders on Semay. Everyone seemed to worship the same goddess, Ava, but how they approached her said a lot about their individual personalities. The Triumphantes were a wealthy, powerful and popular sect that espoused a philosophy of worship as joy. Among their adherents were the rich and the politically ambitious. The Fideles were stern ascetics who gave away all possessions and spent their days ministering to the poor. Different though they were, the two sects had managed to coexist in harmony for more than a thousand years. They preached no gospel of derision or hate. So who had learned to hate the priestesses, and why?
And why did Interfed care? Drake closed the folder, then closed his eyes. Semay’s major export was a handful of aromatic desert spices that had not been successfully transplanted anywhere, and this unique crop had guaranteed it a place in the free market of the civilized planets. It had also made Semay reluctant to accept a long-standing invitation to federate, since planetary officials feared the inevitable influx of off-world merchants. But Interfed wanted Semay within its protective and commercial net. Indeed, the small Moonchild contingent even now in Madrid was there specifically to woo this skittish bride and bring her home as the latest Interfed conquest. Actually, that courtship had been in progress ten years or more, and to date Semay had shown very little interest in accepting Interfed’s proposal.
Drake leaned his head back against his chair. But. The Interfed was equally interested in attaching Corsica, a military planet with a high level of technological skill. Corsica, desperately seeking a trade alliance with Semay, had agreed to federate only on condition that Semay also step inside the Interfed net. If Interfed could convince Semay, it would win over Corsica, it would secure the whole Aellan Corridor. It would sew up yet another loose corner of the galaxy.
Drake opened his eyes and smiled sardonically. Whenever an issue seems unclear or improbable, look for the profit motive. Interfed had never been an altruist. Drake was not being sent to Semay merely to save the lives of a few religious fanatics. He was going there to make the universe a haven for commerce. He felt much better once he understood his proper mission.
* * *
* * *
The cruiser made dozens of stops between its embarkation point of New Terra and its final destination of Fortunata. From there, Drake would have to catch a shuttle to Semay, a loss of another two days. He was by nature a patient man, but he hated waste, and this slow, meandering journey seemed a criminal waste to his fastidious mind.
The night before they made planetfall on Fortunata, Drake was joined at dinner by a fellow traveler who had introduced himself as Thelonious Reed. He was a small, graying, older man who was perpetually cheerful and indiscriminately friendly; he would strike up a conversation with the surliest crew member or the most reserved passenger. He whistled incessantly as he sauntered through the brightly lit corridors of the ship, as he waited for his meals to be served in the low-ceilinged dining room, as he stood at the windows in the viewing cabin and watched the stars slide by. From a distance of two rooms, Drake could hear him coming, and escape him if he chose, which the Moonchild often did. For some reason, Drake distrusted a man who so openly broadcast his arrival and his mood.
He was, however, well-trained enough to cover his mild dislike. He nodded genially when Reed asked to sit with him at dinner, and even forbore to be irritated when the older man carefully arranged his linen napkin over his chest and lap.
“I never asked,” Reed said when this task was accomplished to his satisfaction, “is it convicts or commerce that brings you to Fortunata?”
Even an impassive face could be expected to betray a little surprise at a question like that. “I’m not sure I understand,” Drake said gravely.
Reed widened his eyes. “Fortunata
,” he repeated, as if that explained everything. “That’s all we have to offer, you know. Biggest trading center in the Aellan Corridor—and the biggest prison in this half of the galaxy.”
The question now made sense. Drake allowed himself a small smile. “And which end do you favor?” he asked.
Reed selected a roll from the bread basket on the table and watched while the waiter laid the night’s dinner before him. “I’m a businessman myself,” he said. “Run thirty merchantmen cargo ships from my base in Fortunata. Times are good. I remember when it was only ten.”
Drake was slightly interested. He had the Moonchild’s ingrained hunger for raw data, no matter how valueless. “What kind of cargo?”
Reed waved a hand. “Whatever I can buy or sell. Fortunata’s a crossroads for the Aellan Corridor and the Maxine Circle. We ship anything anywhere. All strictly aboveboard, too.”
Drake repressed a brief grin; legitimate merchants had, in the past, had their share of disputes with independent mercenaries who could carry small, valuable and often illegal cargoes from planet to planet and avoid inconveniences like taxes and import duties. “Spices?” he wanted to know.
The other man nodded. “The luxuries of life—the cargo I prefer,” he said. “Deal with the rich, my friend, for they can always pay, and they are always civilized.”
Drake toyed with his food. He was not here undercover, after all, and he openly wore the wristbadge and earring that would brand him as a Moonchild. Still, as a matter of principle, he disliked playing his hand too openly. “Do you import and export spices from Semay?” he asked.
Reed’s face took on a bright look of excitement. “Ah, Semay,” he said, as if someone had mentioned his favorite daughter. “I have several ships that regularly make the run to Madrid. Best spices in this part of the galaxy. Possibly the best spices within Interfed. Are you a connoisseur of such things?”
“Not yet,” Drake said. “Hoping to be someday, maybe.”
“Then you’re on your way to Semay, I take it? Not Fortunata after all?”