Mercedes Lackey - SE 2 - Wheels of Fire

VIP免费

2024-12-02 0 0 610.15KB 318 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Mercedes Lackey and Mark Sheperd

Wheels of Fire

A Serrated Edge Novel

• CHAPTER ONE

Streamlined shapes of bright metal hurtled across

asphalt, machines that roared, whined and howled,

leaving hot air and deafness in their wake. They were

without a doubt louder than any dragon Alinor had

ever encountered. But instead of scales, these monsters

were covered with flashy, bright endorsement decals

for Goodyear, Penzoil -

And, since the sport of automotive radng was more

expensive with every passing year, such other odd

sponsors as pizza and soft drinks.

The cars were no longer just radng machines; now

they were, in effect, lightning-fast billboards. While

these machines used many of the products they

hawked, Alinor could only marvel at some of the

strange connections made between the sport of auto

radng and the things humans consumed.

The decals flashing under the sun only emphasized

the vehicles' speed; they moved too fast to be seen,

muclTless read. As car after car flashed by Alinor's

vantage point, he was left with a vague impression of

shapes and vivid colors. Presumably commercials had

imprinted those shapes and colors in the minds of

humans vividly enough that there would be instant

recognition.

Alinor marveled at the sheer power of these metal

beasts. The only other creature that could approach

those speeds was an elvensteed, and then only if one

wore a car's metallic seeming.

Sun beat down upon the track, numbing the brain,

2 Mercedes Lackey&?Mark Shepherd

and Alinor yawned, pulling a red SERRA cap dghter

over his head. Last night's final preps had taken more

out of him than he had anticipated. Even for one of the

Folk, two hours of sleep wasn't quite enough. He

stretched a little and glanced at his watch; the team had

been out here in the pits since just after dawn, and even

the workaholics would be wanting to pull the car in and

break before too long.

I hope, anyway, he thought, combating the sleepglue

that formed on the inside of his eyelids. That break better

happen soon, or HI fall on my nose.

In spite of his fatigue, he had to grin a little as he

looked around, contrasting himself with his surround-

ings. Hallet Motor Speedway is not where you'd expect to find

one of the Sidhe hanging out. Not even one who's a founding

member of the South Eastern Road Racing Association.

Strange days, indeed.

Not that there weren't more elves and mages in the

pits and driver's seats back in SERRA territory than

anyone could ever have dreamed. Roughly a third had

some connection with magic, and there were a few, like

young Tannim, who were known for wandering feet.

But for the most part, the elven drivers and mechanics

of SERRA never left their home states and tracks,

much less traveled to the wilds of Oklahoma.

Quaint little state, he had thought during the trip in,

though "little" referred more to the size of the cities,

not the square mileage of this new land. In many ways

this was refreshing to one of the Sidhe, seeing so much

wilderness with so few humans around to destroy it.

He hadn't had any trouble adjusting; so far as the

natives and pit-crew were concerned, Alinor was just

another mechanic. No weirder than most, since mechs

were a breed unto themselves.

If for some reason I had to hide, this would be the place to

come. There's no sign ofUnseleighe Sidhe, and I haven't

encountered anything hostile. I could set up a woodshop ...

WHEELS OF FIRE 3

maybe become a raving Baptist out here in God's country; that

would really throw any pursuers off. He shook his head,

pushing the dismal mental picture away. Eck. What a

truly frightening thought.

Some of the Folk, the Low Court elves, couldn't go too

far outside the influence of their chosen power-nexus,

and most of the rest were content with the many chal-

lenges on their home ground. But Alinor prided himself

on the fact that he was not ordinary in any sense, even by

SERRA standards; the only other elven mechanic that

could match his skill was Deirdre Brighthair, and she

couldn't challenge his mastery of metal-magics. Even

Sam Kelly had been impressed by what he could do.

Of course, I am a few centuries her senior, give or take a few

decades. And Fve been a mage-smith for a long, long time.

He wished, though, that he could work some other

kinds ofmagery; a litue magic that would loosen Bob's

tongue, for instance. Excessive conversation had never

been one of the man's character defects, not for as long

as Al had known him. He knew Bob was no idiot, that

quite a bit must be going on in the young human's

mind. The problem was that what actually came out

appeared to be carefully edited or just doled out

unwillingly and uttered with extreme caution. If Bob

had said five words since dawn, Al would be surprised.

Their car banked around a corner and screamed

pasCthem, kicking up a brief bow-wave of hot, dry,

exhaust-tinged wind, motor howling like a Bane-

Sidhe. Then the beast of metal and gasoline dopplered

away, swinging around for another lap.

"Hot," said Alinor, strolling the few paces away from

the edge of the track to where Bob sat on an oil-drum,

his red coverall immaculate, despite the hundreds of

adjustments made on "their" engine since it first went

out this morning. He leaned up against a tire-barrier

and pulled his cap a little lower over his eyes, so that the

brim met the top of his Ray-Bans.

4 Mercedes Lackey &f AfarA Shepherd

"Eyah. It's that," Bob Ferrel replied, without taking

his gray eyes off the track or the frown off his lean,

weathered face.

Al sighed. Bob was in full laconic Maine-mode. Like

talking to a rock. Actually, I might get better conversation out

of a rock. "Nice track, though."

"Eyah."

Considering that this out-of-the-way track was a lush

little gem, that was hardly an adequate reply. When I

know people who would kill to work here.... "Guys back at

Fayetteville would be green," he offered.

"Eyah."

All right, new lactic. See if he's at least listening to me.

Alinor tried the path of absurdity to get something like

conversation out of his human partner. "I heard

they're going to bring in topless camel races next

Saturday."

Now Bob finally turned his head, just barely enough

to give Al a hairy eyeball, despite the glasses. "There's a

ping in number three cylinder I don't like," he said

sourly. "I want you to look at it when they bring it back

in."

Blessed Danaa, you might have said something.

Alinor stiffened and instantly became all business.

When Bob said he heard something, a SERRA mech

listened to him. Bob, like young Maclyn's mother

Deirdre, could tune an engine by ear. "I can look at it \

now," he offered.

"Do that," Bob said, tersely. "We've got a reputation

riding on this."

Bob took that reputation a litde more seriously than

Al did; after all, a High Court elven-mage like Alinor

could conjure anything he wished to out of the

molecules of the air and earth around him, just by

studying it long enough to "ken" it. Bob, when he

wasn't partaking ofelven hospitality, had a living to

make. The old-fashioned way, he once joked, in a rare

WHEELS OF FIRE

instance of humor. And Bob Ferrel had every intention

of dying a wealthy man.

Not that I blame him, Al thought absently. He's the kind

that hates charity.

The elven mechanic lounged back again, but this

dme every bit of his concentration was bent on the car

careening its way back towards them. Or rather, his

attention was bent on what was under the hood; a cast-

aluminum engine block of elven make from the

"shops" at Fayetteville, another one of the Fairgrove

facilities. Al knew this particular block so well he could

have duplicated it in an hour. He should; he had

kenned it himself.

Not that he wanted anyone outside of a select com-

pany of SERRA members to know that.

He set his mind ranging inside the inferno of the

howling motor, wincing away just a little from the few

parts of iron (not so dangerous now, but still uncom-

fortable), winding his probe into cylinder three. He

gave brief mental thanks to Tannim for teaching him

those human mageries that made it possible for him to

probe through and around Cold Iron at all.

In a moment, he had identified the problem. As the

bright red car rounded the far turn, he corrected it

with a brief surge of magical energies. He pulled his

mind out of the engine and looked up as the car roared

by the pits.

Bob was smiling as he pushed his own cap onto the

back of his head.

"What was it?" the scrawny mechanic asked, running a

hand over his sandy hair before replacing the cap.

"Not the cylinder at all," Al replied. "Piston arm."

"Ah." Bob relaxed still further. It hadn't been a

failure of the block, and so he was content. Bob's design

had been the one used as a prototype for this block,

and he took design flaws personally.

Now I'll get some conversation out of him.... Al waited,

6 Mercedes Lackey £s? Mark Shepherd

and Bob remained happily silent, contemplating the

track with a smile instead of a frown.

Al burst out laughing, and Bob favored him with a

puzzled stare. "You're incredible!" he chuckled.

"Anyone else would have been throttling me to find out

what the problem was and how I fixed it, when you

know damn good and well the arm's steel and you

know we don't handle Cold Iron happily or well. But

you, you just stand there, and say 'ah.'"

"You'd tell me when you got ready to," Bob replied,

unbending just enough to give Al a "man, you're

crazy" look.

Al shook his head. He was far too used to the volatile

temperaments of his hot-blooded Southern com-

patriots.-4n3> mechfrom the Carolinas would have been

foaming at the mouth by now and describing my parentage in

terms my mother would take extreme exception to. Not Bob.

Not even close. This cold fish from the rocky coast of

Maine was just as icy as the elven nordic-derived

"cousins" who'd settled there. About the only thing

that got Bob's goat around here was the area itself:

landscape and the climate. Al thought the rolling hills

were marvelous - and the heat was a nice change

from the mountainous country of home. Occasionally

the residual magic left over from the times when the

Indians flourished here came in handy. Though - in

fairness, he wouldn't want to live here for very long,

even if it was a nice change.

Not Bob. He couldn't wait to get back to "where I don't

bake and I don't have to look at so much damned sky."

"' 'E's pinin' for the fiords,'" he muttered.

"Eh?" said Bob.

"Never mind. I was just thinking you're a lot like the

liosalfar that fostered you."

"Ah," said Bob, his icy gray eyes softening a great

deal. "Good people, your cousins."

Al sighed. Another typical understatement. At the tender

WHEELS OF FIRE 7

age of eight, "Bobby" had been rescued by one of the

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

MercedesLackeyandMarkSheperdWheelsofFireASerratedEdgeNovel•CHAPTERONEStreamlinedshapesofbrightmetalhurtledacrossasphalt,machinesthatroared,whinedandhowled,leavinghotairanddeafnessintheirwake.TheywerewithoutadoubtlouderthananydragonAlinorhadeverencountered.Butinsteadofscales,thesemonsterswerecoveredw...

展开>> 收起<<

Mercedes Lackey - SE 2 - Wheels of Fire.pdf

共318页,预览5页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Mercedes Lackey - SE 2 - Wheels of Fire

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: