“Where are you going? I thought you were going to train me!”
“It’s war. Plans change. The Old Man isn’t pleased, but there’s word that there’s a Third Eye.”
“What’s that? What’s that mean?”
“A prophetess. A true prophetess. Apparently for a long time she was safely out of the way on Seers Island where she couldn’t tell anyone anything, but now she’s out in the satrapies, helping the Chromeria with the war. You might be able to guess how important someone who can see the future would be to either side.”
“Pretty damn,” Teia said.
“That’s right. So that’s where I come in.”
“Isn’t it going to be a bit hard to get close to someone who can see the future? I mean, you’d figure she’d protect herself, right?”
Sharp sucked spit through his dentures. “Smart one, aren’t you?”
Shit. Teia was supposed to be playing dumb. “I’m not trying to be wise,” Teia said, placating. He might punch her again, if not do something worse.
“The cloaks,” Sharp said.
“The cloaks?”
“Her powers are all connected to light, turns out. The Order’s known about her kind for centuries. She can’t See the future, past, or present of anyone who wears the cloaks. Course, the Seers know that we know, which is why they usually stay on their island sequestered away from our blades. Gavin Guile brought an end to that. So I guess we can blame this on him. But them Seers gotta know their place.”
Teia felt sick to her stomach. “So what’s the plan? Kidnap her and sell her to the highest bidder? Hold her somewhere and make her work for you?” Maybe Teia shouldn’t give them ideas.
“Too dangerous. How do you outwit someone who can see the future? You can’t. We gotta kill her.”
It shouldn’t have shocked Teia, this blithe talk of assassinating someone. It was what she was here for, after all. To learn, to become part of the plans, and then upend them on the Order’s head. But… he was going to kill this woman. It was just work to him.
“Thanks,” Teia said.
“Thanks?”
“For telling me. Like you trust me.”
“Eh.” He shrugged, and finally started working at the knots to untie her. “It’s lonely work. No one to talk to. No one to appreciate it when you’ve done good, you know? Shadows usually work in twos, maybe for just that. So you know, I asked that you be promoted to be my second.”
“Really?” Teia said. She was oddly flattered.
“The Old Man said you aren’t ready yet. It’s why you won’t get to keep the Fox cloak, at least not unless he’s got a job for you.”
“What? I earned that cloak.” Inside, though, Teia was delighted. As long as they thought she had no cloak at all, they wouldn’t be on the lookout for her doing the things that only a cloak allowed her to do; being known not to have a cloak made her invisible to the Order.
“He wants to hide himself from her, of course. He needs the cloak for that.”
“So does that mean I’m never getting the cloak back? He’s going to wear it all the time?”
“We know she needs direct sunlight to do her… Seeing? Seering? So if you do jobs, you’ll likely go after sunset and have to return the cloak before dawn. If you do well, after she’s dead, you’ll get to keep your own then. Your own fault, though, you shoulda found the other cloak they recovered.”
Teia raised her hands. “It wasn’t there.”
“I know. We believe you about that. We’ve had the White’s room turned inside out, looking for hiding spots. Went through all your shit, too. Best guess is that she hid it somewhere and didn’t tell anyone where before she died. The Old Man thinks she kept the Fox cloak to study it, thinking that no one could use a cloak that short. Or maybe she knew about the cloaks and hoped to teach you how to use it herself, someday. Loved to study things, she did.”
“Whoa,” Teia said. “She never said anything to me about that. Swear.”
“Death does tend to interrupt plans. It’s why we do what we do. Anyway, the Old Man will be handling you directly from now on. I’ll fill you in on your drops and how he’ll signal you, or how you can signal him in an emergency.”
He did, using much of the same tradecraft that Teia already knew from working with Karris. It all left Teia’s mind whirling, though. She’d be meeting directly with the Old Man of the Desert?
After so long of nothing, it was hope. She might actually cut off the Order at the head.
If she was smart, she’d need to do it before the Third Eye was killed. In the meantime, she’d have to pass word about all of this to the Iron White.
“There’s just one more thing,” Murder Sharp said. “You’re still pretty useless with paryl. It’s my fault, I know. I haven’t been able to come around and teach you like I should. But it’s war. Everything is different now. Nothing is as we’d like. In the basement here is the solution to your problem.”
“Solution?” Teia asked. Her chest tightened.
“There’s a slave down there. An old man. Won’t be missed. Practice on him. The paralysis pinches, the lung clots, the seizures. When you’ve learned as much as you can before your next shift, kill him. With paryl if you can. There’ll be a new slave down there every few weeks. Do try to learn fast. Murder practice ain’t like other practice. Every body we have to get rid of puts someone’s life in danger.”
And then he left.
Murder practice. Dear Orholam. Teia looked at the doorway to the basement stairs as if it were the mouth of hell itself.
She reached to squeeze the vial of oil she kept at her neck, but it was no longer there.
Chapter 44
The woods sang a song Kip had never known. The ponderosas swayed and shyly sighed as frogs croaked in chaotic chorus, descants of squirrels soaring high above all like preening sopranos while the wind danced past, her tresses brushing his cheek as she spun, leafy skirts flaring, willowy legs flashing.
The evening chill held him back from the floor, putting a hand upon his thudding heart. Be still, my dear, be still.
The last drop of rain pressed a shushing finger across his lips.
Made pliant by the rain’s caresses, the earth pulled back her leafy covers like a beckoning lover, and the scent of their love filled the house of sky.
“Kip?” Conn Arthur whispered. “My lord, are you well?”
Kip came back to himself. “I’m eccentric, Conn Arthur,” he said, very quietly, “eccentric.” Not crazy.
“Never mistook you for concentric, sir.”
Kip grinned. A wit, in a bear?
On the other hand, he was probably the last person who should judge a person’s mind by the flesh suit it wore.
They were fanning out through the woods here as the late afternoon passed, looking for signs of the spy. They had docked not twenty paces back, and it had taken only that much distance for Kip to be overwhelmed by a sense of homecoming.
Not his own homecoming. Daimhin Web’s. He nodded to Conn Arthur, and, spreading out with twenty others for a distance of three hundred paces, they began ghosting through the woods.
Daimhin Web was from a village long lauded for its skillful hunters. Among the best of them, there was a test, an impossible test, to sneak up on a deer and touch it with your bare hand. Many young men tried for years, learning everything from their elders about scent and silence and silhouettes and the sweet subterfuge of stalking; they meditated on water and wind and all the ways of the wood and weather. They became satraps of silence, conns of camouflage, paragons of patience.
And friends of frustration.
Those were all traits invaluable to the master hunters they became, for on the path that led to that test and that failure, they were molded into the greatest stalkers known to man.