The Barbed Coil Read online

  THE SENSATIONAL NEW VOICE IN EPIC FANTASY

  PRAISE FOR J. V. JONES’S FANTASY BESTSELLER

  THE BARBED COIL

  “Keeps the action and tension going right to the end.”

  —Locus

  “The action never stops. Jones invests her tale with thoughtful ruminations upon power symbols and history, unusual twists of plot, and unforgettable characters, which combine to create a work that transcends the tried-and-true formulas of fantasy. . . . A worthy successor to Andre Norton and Stephen R. Donaldson.”

  —San Antonio Express-News

  “Sparkling ideas. . . . Fans of the previous trilogy should feel right at home.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “From the first page, THE BARBED COIL draws the reader in . . . a compelling tale.”

  —Wayne MacLaurin, The SF Site

  “Excellent technique and a fine use of bountiful imagination. Even the minor characters come alive for the reader, and one must know what will happen to them. THE BARBED COIL is a book to be reread.”

  —Andre Norton

  “Jones is one of the few writers [who] can take basic fantasy concepts and combine them with her own incredible imagination to create something truly original. . . . Everything about it is just wonderful, from the original plot to the engrossing characters to the speed at which you move along. Do yourself a favor and read THE BARBED COIL.”

  —Explorations

  “J. V. Jones has proved that she is a writer to be reckoned with.”

  —The Plot Thickens

  “Fascinating. . . . With the clean writing and crisp dialogue . . . Jones keeps events moving and the plot elements fresh.”

  —The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

  “A superb novel, sculpted from colorful vocabulary and fantastic clarity [by] a brilliant storyteller sure to continue her dazzling career. . . . Read it, or regret it later . . . a triumph.”

  —SFX

  RAVES FOR J. V. JONES, AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF WORDS

  “A highly successful, popular fantasy epic. . . . A substantial cast and a vivid, colorful landscape. . . . A remarkable epic.”

  —Dragon magazine

  “One of fantasy fiction’s newest sensations. . . . Jones invests her tale with characters as rich as oven-baked bread, and with a sense of humor drawn from the pubs in her homeland, England.”

  —Des Moines Sunday Register

  “One of the success stories every writer strives for.”

  —Fresno County Sun

  “One of the most engaging new writers in the field.”

  —Locus

  “We have a major new writer here. Bravo!”

  —Dennis L. McKiernan, author of Caverns of Socrates

  “J. V. Jones is quite a find.”

  —Katherine Kurtz, author of the Deryni series

  “Rousing.”

  —Library Journal

  “Successful fantasy.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “These books are the best fantasy novels to appear in a long time—second only, in my opinion, to Roger Zelazny’s Amber series.”

  —New Jersey Graveline

  Also by J. V. Jones

  The Baker’s Boy

  A Man Betrayed

  Master and Fool

  A Cavern of Black Ice

  Published by

  W A R N E R B O O K S

  THE BARBED COIL . Copyright © 1997 by J.V. Jones. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address Warner Books, Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017 .

  Aspect® is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

  A Time Warner Company

  The “Warner Books” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2168-1

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1997 by Warner Books.

  First eBook Edition: December 2000

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  F O R B E T S Y

  A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

  I owe thanks and appreciation to Betsy Mitchell for her invaluable help and advice, to Colin Murray, Wayne D. Chang, Russell Galen and Danny Baror, Mari C. Okuda, Sona Vogel, and Daniel R. Horne. On matters of illuminated manuscripts, their painting and preparation, I am indebted to works by Michelle P. Brown and Janet Backhouse (though I must admit to inventing a few of the nastier preparations such as ground glass suspended in a binding mineral pitch myself!). And, as always, thanks to Richard . . .

  C O N T E N T S

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  Excerpt: A Cavern of Black Ice

  About the Author

  P R O L O G U E

  T he one who would soon be king ran naked through the woods. Night birds, night creatures, and night insects traveled with him through the vein-dark maze. Smells were sharp, the air was thin. The moon was a blade meant for cutting.

  Tree roots thrust like fists through the soil. Tree branches cracked like whips as he passed. Everything—the faraway stars, the night-tainted clouds, the rain-moistened earth, and the beasts in the shadows—were his for the taking this night.

  Five weeks before kingship. Five weeks before the start. Five weeks to prepare himself to do what must be done.

  So much power in the number five, so much ancient and terrible magic.

  The one who would soon be king turned his gaze to the west. The Vorce Mountains were spikes in his mind’s eye. The last vestiges of snow on their peaks were a virgin’s colors meant to taunt him. He would enjoy bloodying the mountain passes; thrusting through the time-worn gorges to the fertile land beyond.

  Garizon had been too long without a saltwater port, too long without a shore to call its own. But then it had been too long without so much more as well. Crushed, defeated, subjugated, then forgotten, Garizon had survived on blood and dirt and bile.

  Fifty years had passed since it last had a king. More than enough time for those to the west to die, or forget, or lose their minds to syphilis. More than enough time for Garizon to be styled “our grainfield in the east” and “our friend in times of need.”

  Garizon would soon be no one’s friend in need. Garizon had needs of its own now. Pride had to be restored. Land had to be reclaimed. A king had to be crowned with the Barbed Coil of gold.

  Fifty years of subjugation versus five hundred years of conflict. The one who would soon be king smiled to himself as he ran through the trees. The west had a short memory, and those who failed to remember were destined to a fate far worse than repeating their mistakes.


  San Diego Union-Tribune, March 28

  THWARTED BANK ROBBERS MAKE OFF WITH SECURITY DEPOSIT BOXES

  By Jeff Welz

  Special to the Union-Tribune

  A security officer was shot in the chest and approximately three hundred safety deposit boxes were stolen in a break-in on Tuesday night at the La Havra National Bank in Chula Vista.

  Samuel Ossaco, 46, is listed in critical condition at Scripps Memorial Hospital. He was able to alert the police approximately forty minutes after the robbers left the scene by setting off a manual alarm. All telephone lines appear to have been cut before the break-in.

  The robbers attempted to gain access to the main holding safe by using a mini-incendiary device. Police speculate they broke into the security deposit vault after this attempt failed. As yet there are no leads.

  “This is a very professional job,” said Lt. Jamie Peralla of the Special Investigation Division. “These men knew what they were doing. They knew which lines to cut, they knew where all the alarm devices were situated. They came fully equipped.”

  George Bonnaheim, president of the bank, has offered a $10,000 reward for tips leading to the recovery of the security deposit boxes. “These thieves have stolen fragments of people’s lives,” he said. “There’s no telling what is in those boxes.” (See BOXES on Page A-3)

  O N E

  S ettling down to enjoy her breakfast, Tessa McCamfrey skimmed over the first few pages of the Union-Tribune. Headlines, photo captions, and advertisements were the only things she stopped for. She could see and read the smaller type of the articles and editorials, but she didn’t like to concentrate on the characters for very long. Their size made her nervous.

  Leaning over her white, laminated desk, Tessa grabbed her bacon sandwich from its place by the phone. As always before she bit into the toasted English muffin, she took a peek inside, checking that everything was just right. She liked to see the grain of the meat.

  Satisfied, she took a bite of the sandwich, then flicked the paper to the next page. “Hmm,” she mumbled to herself as her gaze flicked across the headline STILL NO SIGN OF THE MISSING BOXES . How long had it been now? A month? Six weeks? They’d probably never turn up again.

  Just as Tessa threw the paper on the desk, the phone rang. Her body stiffened for the briefest moment. Three more rings, and then the brand spanking new Sony Deluxe Home Answering System clicked into action. Cassette wheels turned, appropriate lights blinked, then a voice that was not Tessa’s own advised the caller, “Our family isn’t at home right now. Please leave a message after the tone and we will call you back.”

  Tessa grimaced. Our family. She really should replace the prerecorded message with one of her own. Even as the thought occurred to her, she knew she’d never change it. She never could bring herself to do anything that needed to be done.

  An efficient beep sounded and was quickly replaced by a soft male voice. “Tessa? . . . Tessa? Are you there?” A pause followed, and when the voice came again it had lost some of its softness to frustration. “Look, I know you’re there. I’m coming over. We need to talk.”

  Tessa was out of her chair and pulling on her shoes before the last sentence started. The bacon sandwich was discarded, car keys located, pocketbook checked for, and wool sweater pulled over her cotton shirt. It was time to go for a walk.

  Tessa hated those end-of-relationship talks. She hated the look in the man’s eyes, hated herself for failing again. All her relationships had ended the same way, with the same phone call and the same recriminations and guilt. How could she tell the men she felt nothing for them yet couldn’t understand why?

  There was no way to tell them, which was why she spent her money on a series of successively better answering machines. She couldn’t tell them, so she’d screen them out instead. And if, like Mike Hollister, they threatened to come round and confront her in person, she’d simply take off to the woods.

  The southern California sun was brighter than Tessa liked. Despite the fact that it was now May and the temperature was in the low seventies, Tessa didn’t discard her sweater. She always felt too exposed with just a single layer of fabric between her and the outside world.

  Her yellow Honda Civic was a good friend. Unlike those faithless cars in movies that always stalled when the heroine needed to get away, the Civic purred into action the moment the key was turned.

  Where to go? Tessa wanted to see some green. Not the chemically enhanced green of land graded and ready for building, or the clipped and cultured green of the Mission Gorge golf course. She wanted some real green. Some living green.

  Turning the car onto Texas Street, Tessa headed north from University Heights and east on Highway 8, past lines of hotels, shopping malls, bowling alleys, and driving ranges. It was early Saturday morning, so the freeway was a breeze. The sky was southern California blue: pale, cloudless, hazy. The sunlight filtering through the driver’s side window was warm on Tessa’s hands and face.

  In some deep and secret part of herself, Tessa was glad to be on the run. It seemed the only times she was really happy in her life were when she was on her way somewhere. If she was lucky, there were minutes, even hours, when the anticipation of arrival was so overpowering that she forgot about everything except the journey itself. Without exception, when she finally reached her destination she was always vaguely disappointed. She never seemed to get just where she wanted to go.

  As Tessa drove she was aware of a mild ringing sensation in her temples. Shssssh, like fingernails scraped across a chalkboard. Tessa’s heart slowly sank in her chest. Not now. Not today. She’d gone so long without feeling it, she’d secretly hoped it had gone. Pushing her foot down on the accelerator, Tessa tried to put some distance between herself and the noise. From experience she knew the longer and faster she drove, the less her tinnitus would bother her.

  Tinnitus: a buzzing or ringing sound in the ear. Tessa had first been diagnosed with it when she was five years old, just before her family had left England for America. She clearly remembered sitting in the square stretch of grass that passed for their front garden in those days, pushing her fists into her ears and asking her mother when the “pinging noise would stop.” It felt as if a tiny bell had been struck inside her head.

  The noise went on and on. After a week the family doctor was called. Dr. Bodesill was a large, red-nosed man who smelled of port and had a peculiar fondness for wearing brightly knitted waistcoats. After much highly impressive “umming” and “aahing,” he advised Tessa’s mother that Tessa needed to go to London to see a specialist. Ten days later Tessa was bundled up in a thick winter coat in defiance of the heat, her hair was pulled back and her socks were pulled high, and she was dragged along to the station, protesting all the way.

  Tessa liked the train. The rhythmic thug, thug of the metal wheels skimming over the track and the multipitched sound of the engine masked her tinnitus completely during the two-hour journey. So completely, in fact, that by the time they arrived in London Tessa was sure the ringing in her ears had gone. Just as they coasted into Euston Station, Tessa turned to her mother and said, “Mummy, the noise has stopped.”

  Tessa’s mother had looked genuinely distressed at this statement: all the way to London, a specialist waiting to see them, and now her unruly and ungrateful daughter had taken it into her head to pronounce herself cured! Tessa’s mother was saved the anxiety of facing the London specialist with a miraculously and most selfishly cured child by the approach of a porter with a loud whistle.

  In all her life, Tessa would never forget the sound of that whistle. The train window had been rolled down since Stoke, and it was still down when the porter walked along Platform 4 and, picking a position less than three feet away from Tessa’s left ear, blew sharply on his professional stationmaster’s whistle.

  The sound razored through Tessa’s left ear, slicing nerves and tissue and membranes, setting her whole brain, her whole being, ringing with a dense clamor of noise. It sounded like a great metal
machine clanging away inside her skull. Tessa remembered screaming hysterically and begging her mother to make it stop. Hours later she learned that the sound of her own screams had aggravated her condition further.

  By the time they reached Harley Street, Tessa’s mother had tied her daughter’s hands behind her back with her yellow nylon scarf. It was the only way to stop Tessa from beating the noise from her temples.

  The specialist, an otolaryngologist named Dr. Hemsch, gave Tessa a sedative, a glass of lemonade, and a teddy bear to hold during the examination. Over the course of the following hour, Tessa’s ears were probed with light and cold metal instruments, her hearing was tested by exposure to a series of low- and high-pitched sounds, and urine and blood samples were taken by a plump nurse with cool hands.

  Dr. Hemsch explained his conclusions separately to mother and daughter. Tessa would be forever grateful to him that he spoke to her first. “Tessa,” he said, leaning forward and taking off his glasses, revealing blue and kindly eyes beneath, “you have what we call tinnitus. Now what that means is that you hear buzzing noises in your ears. There will be times—just like today when the porter blew his whistle in the station—when the noises will sound louder than normal. And other times when you’ll hardly hear anything at all.”

  The doctor touched Tessa on her shoulder. “You and I, Tessa, are going to be a team. We’ve got to make sure that you stay well away from loud noises like the porter’s whistle, because although we don’t know what causes tinnitus, we know that loud noises make it worse.”

  “Can you make the noises go away?” Tessa asked, emboldened by the exciting thought of her and Dr. Hemsch being a team.

  Dr. Hemsch looked her straight in the eyes. “I can’t do anything to make the noises go away. I can do things to lessen their effects, and if the tinnitus doesn’t get better on its own account, we will have to look into those alternatives together.”

  Tessa smiled, a little sadly, as she overtook a black pickup truck in the left-hand lane. She and Dr. Hemsch never did get chance to be a team. Shortly after that first visit, she and her parents had moved to New York. The tinnitus stopped sometime during the nine-hour flight and didn’t reappear until seven years later, relegating the blue-eyed doctor and his cool-handed nurse to fond memories in the past.