This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Wen Spencer
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2601-8
eISBN: 978-1-62579-859-6
Cover art by Dominic Harman
First printing, April 2022
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Spencer, Wen, author.
Title: Harbinger / Wen Spencer.
Description: Riverdale, NY: Baen, [2022] | Series: Elfhome | “A Baen Books Original.”
Identifiers: LCCN 2021060301 | ISBN 9781982126018 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781625798596 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.P4665 H37 2022 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060301
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Electronic Version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
This book is dedicated to my wonderful patrons.
It is through their support that I am able to do what I do.
Special thanks to
Marti Garner
Roger A. Josephson
Andrew Riley Prest
Torsten Steinert
And
Andrew Hart
Richard Jamison
Anders Ljungquist
Kathy Brann
Michael Carter
Robert Williamson
And an Extra-Special Thank-You to
Ellen McMicking
1: BLACKBIRD SINGING IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
“What? Wait!” Tinker cried, cutting off the flow of Jin’s explanation. She’d been wakened up in the middle of the night to be told that the tengu’s spiritual leader needed to speak with her immediately. The household staff had set out a formal tea in the dining hall and made themselves scarce. They were probably lurking in the deep shadows nearby, just in case she would need more dainty sandwiches or little fruit tarts or another pot of strong tea.
Tinker suspected that the shadows also held Jin’s bodyguards. She knew from experience the tengu could come and go like ghosts despite their massive wings. It would explain why her entire Hand was present for the meeting. The five holy sekasha warriors were fully dressed, heavily armed, and standing guard at her back as if they hadn’t been asleep just minutes before.
Lightning flickered; it lit up the garden outside the dining hall’s windows. The thunder made Tinker jump a little. Was Windwolf fighting for his life someplace? Most of the domana elves in Pittsburgh were gathered at the far eastern edge of the Rim; they planned on fighting the oni in the morning. She hadn’t felt Windwolf call the Wind Clan Spell Stones to cast lightning. Nor could she sense anyone using Fire Clan or Stone Clan esva. None of the domana elves were fighting. The lightning was normal electrical discharge and nothing else. Rain started to drum on the dining hall’s roof. It was an oddly comforting sound.
“I have what?” Tinker was sure this conversation would make sense if it weren’t some ungodly hour in the middle of the night.
“Twin siblings.” Jin looked exhausted. Since she’d seen him late in the evening, he must have flown to his village and back. “Six of them.”
Tinker squinted at him. Maybe she was still asleep. This could be a weird dream. She had had a lot of those lately. “You’re — you’re kidding. Right?”
“No, I’m not.” His great black wings rustled with his nervousness. “I know that technically that they belong to Esme Shanske, but Gracie Wong would love to adopt Leo’s—”
“Back up. Back up,” Tinker said. “I have what?”
Jin sighed. “Twin siblings. Six of them.”
“How can I have six twin siblings? Wouldn’t they be six-something — sextuplets?” No, that sounded like a porn video. “No, wait, if I have six siblings then we would be seven. Seven…seven…seven…”
The conversation was in English, so only Stormsong was following her muttering. The tall warrior leaned over Tinker’s shoulder to pour her more tea. “Septuplets, domi.”
“Are you sure?” Tinker spooned several teaspoons of honey into the tea before gulping it. “September is the ninth month.”
“It was the seventh month, but it changed to the ninth when the Gregorian calendar added…” Jin sighed again and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “It’s a naming convention. I believe it’s because all of the eggs are fertilized at the same time. If all the resulting embryos were implanted immediately in one woman, the resulting children would be twins. The term ‘twin’ stays true to that concept even if the embryos are used at different times by different women.”
He was talking about how Tinker had been conceived in vitro ten years after her father died. She vaguely knew the mechanics; Lain had explained it to her when she was very young. She’d alarmed Lain by talking about having a brother who lived far away. (Only after Lain went through all the biology had Tinker confessed that she confused “brother” with “cousin.” She had meant Oilcan, who lived in Boston at the time.) Lain had kept referring to possible siblings as “theoretical” until Tinker thought that the word meant “imaginary” because Lain indicated that it was quite impossible for such siblings to exist.
But Jin wouldn’t wake Tinker up in the middle of the night for imaginary siblings. Since Stormsong was quietly translating the conversation to the others of her Hand, Tinker switched to Elvish.
“Wasn’t all that stuff — the genetic material — stored at some place in New York City?” She had found the paperwork recently while digging through her grandfather’s belongings.
“It was,” Jin said slowly and his wings rustled. “All of the stored fertilized eggs have been used. To make children. Many children.”
“Six of them?” Tinker said.
“As far as I know.”
She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with the information. “Two more and we would have had a baseball team.”
“Domi.” Pony murmured. “Since cousin could tap the Stone Clan Spell Stones even prior to being spell-worked, we need to know where these children are located.”
Tinker wasn’t sure if he meant “we” as in her Hand or the entire sekasha-caste whose job was to keep tabs on the domana-caste. It made suddenly clear why Jin was there, in the middle of the night, to report the news. She’d been thinking that this could have been handled by a phone call in the morning. To the elves, her siblings were potential walking weapons.
Jin was waiting for her to ask. His people were safe only because he promised to be her loyal servant. She was learning that everyone else understood that they had to wait for her to realize what the hell was going on and give the appropriate order.
“Where exactly are these…” Tinker paused as she realized that Jin was implying that her siblings weren’t adults. “Did you say children?”
“Technically two are children, and the other four are about to be newborns. They are at Haven.”