Tenth Man is available from Prizm Books.
Saul Hornsby is the last magician in Verusa. As a young man, Saul was embroiled in a plot to destroy a war-golem factory where his father was killed in a workplace accident. Now he lives in fear of the police.
Audel, the owner of the golem factory that provides most of the town’s work, blackmails Saul into using his magic to find a lost object. Saul finds more than he was looking for when he stumbles across Audel’s runaway son, Toven, in the sewers below the city. It doesn’t take long for Saul to fall in love with Toven and, with Toven’s help, to begin uncovering the truth about his father’s death.
Random Factoids:
Tenth Man is actually set in Victoria BC. The geography is a little skewed but landmark buildings such as Saul’s apartment and the Janion really do exist.
Originally published by Bewildering Stories, Tenth Man was rated number 26 of that year’s best ebooks by Preditors and Editors.
An excerpt from the first chapter of Tenth Man was published in Neo Opsis issue number 10 and reviewed by Jason Sizemore of Tangent Online. That excerpt was nominated for an Aurora Award in 2007.
Heavy industry plays a big part in this book. All of the industrial complexes described are based on real places that Tamara knew as a child.
Victoria is supposedly undercut by miles of disused sewer tunnels and subterranean passageways. Tamara would like to thank the good folks on the forum at the Urban Exploration Resource for their assistance. Without their help, the book would have been very different.
The little red eye on the answering machine winked at him from across the room. He ignored it, set down the box and opened the cover. The thing inside went perfectly still. It’s grayish, pudding-shaped mass developed first a bubble, and then something like a pale eye bulged under a translucent layer of skin, and pushed through.
The eye slid over the grey body, swiveled madly as it around the apartment. From some orifice, the familiar snuffled and growled.
Saul hit the answering machine button. He tugged his shoes off as he listened to the messages. His five-thirty pet store clerk had canceled, the woman having found what she had been looking for. Another had confirmed. His five pm wanted to come tomorrow, and the deep voice of the man who booked him at six thirty wanted to be sure of the address. Saul dialed the number, watching the familiar inch around the cardboard box, leaving a trail of slime like a slug.
“Yes, hello, this is Saul Hornsby from Hornsby Magic.” Efficient, automatic professional mode. “I got your message. Yes. It’s right across from the park actually.” He wandered into the kitchen, opened the fridge and rooted around. Left over salad was wilting in a cut glass bowl.
“Yeah, big cream-colored building. Pretty new, you can’t miss it. The sign’s outside.”
He took it over to the box. The familiar formed a soft peak, eye scrambling over the grey skin to look. Saul put the salad down in the box and stood back.
The familiar extended a proboscis of grey flesh to feel the contours of the bowl, the brown-tipped lettuce, the soggy tomato slicking the glass with a rotting sheen. Another and another protuberance extended from the lump of flesh, each examining whatever it came in contact with; caressing the lettuce, picking up tomato and holding them close to the little, opalescent eye. Saul sat down on the couch to watch.
“No, it’s cash only, if that’s all right.” He stifled a yawn. “Good. See you then. Bye.”
He hung up and left the phone on the coffee table, and cupped his chin in his hands. The familiar had sent out so many feelers that it seemed to be enveloping the salad bowl. More pale little eyes had appeared, each swiveled as the elongated mouthparts tasted, touched the salad. Saul leaned forward and watched. One pale eye turned slowly toward him.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you, little guy?”
The lump of flesh shivered. Beneath it, the bowl was almost completely obscured. The elongated flesh held up pieces of lettuce, the orange rounds of carrots. Saul could hear now the sounds of mastication, of digestion, could sense it’s curiosity. It was eating, smacking it’s lips together, devouring the salad, examining the component parts. It looked up at Saul, formed a slit in its grayish mass like a mouth. It grinned.
Saul. It said, at last making contact.
“Yes, I’m Saul.”
He felt the creature probing his mind with the same intense curiosity it exhibited on the lettuce and sat back, allowing the creeping thing to wander.
You are Saul. He waited, calm and patient, while the creature searched through his mind for information. I am?
The consciousness was as undeveloped as it’s body. You’re a familiar. He said and the creature gripped the thought.
Familiar. What shape? Familiar. It linked the word to Saul’s memory like a game of word association. Cat. Toad. Broom. Witch. Wizard. Familiar.
“I like cats.” Saul said. In his mind, image after image flashed. It was as if the creature had discovered every Halloween cut-out he had ever seen and was viewing them in quick succession; Witches, cats, candy, children, doors, old women with curlers, patterned pillowcases, costumes, witches, cats…
Cats. Two or more of a cat.
“Well, one cat would be fine.”
The creature in the sagging cardboard box contracted. It moved away from the salad bowl, leaving discarded as inedible the gelatinous seeds of tomato like a smashed egg in a nest. When he reached in and took the bowl away, it arched upward to examine his hands, the elongated mouths attached like suckers. Saul was still and waited while the creature examined him, recalled his finger tip an hour before, tracked the past through Saul’s memories, all the way back to the pet store. It withdrew the proboscis and the eyes slid across the skin toward him.
Saul is master. It will feed us, therefore, It said, coming to this conclusion slowly, Saul is not to eat.
“That’s right.”It shivered, it’s grey-green mass shifted like a muscle tightening. Saul sat forward, watching the process with a fascinated disgust. Two legs and then another two emerged. White tipped feet, orange fur like stockings. The body began to emerge. Yellow-orange and striped. Grey-green eyes, a small white nose. It looked up at him, matching form with an image located in Saul’s memory.
Cat. It said triumphantly.
Saul laughed. “Very well done.” He got to his feet and opened the balcony door to let some air into the place. “The apartment is yours, just don’t claw up the furniture if you’re going to be a cat, ok? What do you like to eat?”
It did not have the words to describe its wants, so the familiar thought of the dog food at the pet store. Saul was treated to a memory of the creature gorging. It had thrown it’s grayish body from a high shelf into big paper-lined bag that smelled of meat and oil and eaten until bloated and swollen to twice it’s size. It remembered being found by the clerk. Saul felt awash with vicarious pride in the mess and ruckus it had caused.
“Dog food it is.”
The familiar jumped lightly from the box and curled on the couch.
