She looked at him, a quick flick to his disconcertingly intense gaze, then away. What was his problem? He turned back to his watering. He wasn’t, as it turned out, bald. He’d merely kept his carrot-red hair shaved in a pattern to make it appear he was. Then he’d cut it all off so it could grow in together, without drawing attention to his old disguise. So now it was boyishly short. It made him look young.
“Truth is,” he said, putting down the watering can and turning to study her, “they tell me that you’re better than I am.”
This time when her eyes flicked up, his amber eyes were waiting, and they held her like a fish on a line.
“Do you know why they’d tell me such a thing?” he asked.
She shook her head. Was he even telling the truth?
“They hope I’ll kill you. They hope I’m that vain.” He slid knives home in his belt. “And you know what? I am.”
Her breath was suddenly short. She glanced toward the door. No. If he was going to kill her, it was too far away. And who was to say he’d use a knife? He was watching her eyes, waiting for her to widen her pupils to look into paryl.
The whole room was probably full of paryl. Her heart sank. But she tried to keep her voice light. “Why not just do it themselves?” she asked.
“You don’t know the Old Man. If they kill you out of hand, they’ll have to answer to him. Killing a paryl lightsplitter? He’d be furious. And when he’s furious, people die. On the other hand, if they take in a spy, he’ll be even more furious. He’ll wipe out the whole mission here as traitors or incompetents. But… if they get me to kill you, it becomes my problem. And the Old Man isn’t likely to kill me. I’m too valuable.”
I didn’t even think of fighting him.
The thought pissed Teia off. She was a Blackguard. Near it, anyway. People feared her. Should, anyway. And she was thinking of running, of letting herself be pulled down from behind? Like what? Like prey. She wasn’t prey. She wasn’t a slave who had to curl into a ball while her mistress beat her, only defending, forbidden to answer rage with rage.
I am not a slave, not even to fear.
“So what’s it going to be?” she asked. “You wouldn’t be telling me if you were really going to kill me out of hand. You’re too careful for that. And I’m too dangerous.”
“Are you?” he asked, bemused.
“I am.” She smiled, and her rage smiled with her. Test me? Please do.
“I’ve half a mind to take your dogteeth for that impudence,” Murder Sharp said. He fingered his necklace, showing her the glittering pearls-that-weren’t-pearls.
“Come get ’em,” Teia said. She told herself that it was because a spy would be obsequious, desperate to do anything to get in. By putting on a mask of rebellion, she’d be above suspicion.
But that wasn’t really true, because fuck him.
“You’re not afraid of me?” he asked, smirking.
“I’m afraid all the time. It’s boring.” She felt the tiny flask of olive oil hanging inside her tunic. She still hadn’t thrown it out. Hadn’t been able to. Why was that?
His strike, when it came, was quick. But she was ready. A small deflection, and his open hand went over her shoulder rather than striking her cheek. She moved in, instantly. As she was small and not strong, everything about Teia’s fighting had to be technically sound. She went for the elbow lock, saw she wasn’t going to get it, stepped on his foot as he spun out of the elbow lock, and pushed hard.
And like a professional, he went with it instead of fighting it. He flipped, and she had no warning before his other leg clipped her in the back of the neck. It launched her into a wall, and she was so stunned, she couldn’t get her hands up in time. She smashed into the wall face first, staggered like a drunk, unable to control her limbs suddenly, and went down. Black rushed, stars winked. She felt her limbs being manipulated, bound, but it was too fast, they didn’t move right. She spasmed.
Two cupped hands slapped down on her ears, and trapped air went rushing into her head. The pain blotted out all. She gasped, breathless with pain.
By the time it faded enough for Teia to be aware of anything else, she realized she was trussed like a lamb, except her limbs were all pulled backward, her stomach on the ground, her feet and hands bound back in the air behind her. She had no leverage to fight the bonds. She heard a suck-click as Murder Sharp cinched the last rope, one hand knotted through her hair, pressing her face into the rough wood floor. Something wet dribbled on her cheek.
Drool.
She spasmed again. Some part of her retreated deep into the recesses and she bucked and thrashed like an animal. No use. No matter. She rolled over as he stepped clear. She tried to bite his feet. It felt like her arm was going to be pulled out of the socket. She gasped.
Murder Sharp stood. “Glad we got—ssscchhhht—that out early.”
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
“Are you afraid of me now?” he asked. Then he laughed.
He promptly sat down cross-legged next to her, tilted his head, studied her, doglike. He chuckled. He put a hand on her butt to push her hips down and pushed down, let go to let her rock like a toy horse you’d give a child. Back arched and trussed, she bobbed helplessly, up onto her chest, almost smacking her chin, then down onto her pelvis, helpless, helpless.
Murder Sharp laughed like a little boy with a new toy. Then he grabbed the back of her trousers and yanked up on them and her underclothes, cleaving the moon painfully. He chuckled like a mean adolescent.
“Just so you know,” he said. Ssschhtt. Again, that slobbery slurp-click. What the hell was that? The fear jumped from her stomach all through her whole body like lightning. She almost screamed. No no no. She had to wall that off. It held her vocal cords.
“Just so you know, you’re mine. To do with as I please.”
“I understand,” she said. It was supposed to be defiant. It wasn’t even close. Orholam save her! What was he going to do? “Please. Please…”
Don’t weep, Teia. I forbid. I forbid. She’d been a young girl enslaved, but she’d never been raped. Too boyish, too young, too lucky, maybe even protected by some small scrap of decency of her mistress or by her hope to sell Teia’s virginity. Whatever the reason—or for no reason at all—in that one thing, she’d been spared. She couldn’t breathe past the fear clogging her throat.
He rocked her back and forth, gently, gently. “You understand… here,” he said, tapping her head hard with one finger. “I need you to understand in here.” He rocked her body again. “Like an oft-beaten dog cringes when its master raises his hand even if only to grab a cup, I want your body to know my mastery, because there are only two motivators in this world: fear, and the desire not to fear.”
Suddenly, she was weeping. There was a first, intense spike of self-hatred for her fear like a snakebite, and then there was nothing but the fear itself coiling, curled around her, squeezing out her breath. But it wasn’t crushing her from outside, it was like the serpent was growing from within spiraling outward as if it wanted to escape. There was no room for Teia in her own skin.
“Shh, shh,” he said. “I want to tell you a story, Teia, a true story though five thousand or a thousand thousand years old. Or so widely regarded as true, it doesn’t matter.” He paused. Ssschht. Ssschht. What the hell was that sound? “Wait here,” he said. He stood.
He lit a lantern, then shuttered the windows, one after another. He kissed his roses, told them he wouldn’t be but a minute. He took his time, and slowly, the room filled with shadows.
Murder Sharp came back with the lantern, his handsome features ghoulish in the bobbing, harsh light. He put it down and sat again, cross-legged.
“Pretend this is a campfire. It works better that way. It’s a campfire story.”
Orholam, save me, save me. I’ll never do anything bad ever again, I swear it.
“In the beginning, there was—” He turned down the flame conspiratorially. “God. Shhh.” He turned the flame back up
. “And there was nothing. And the nothingness displeased the One. You see, he wasn’t yet called Orholam, for you know what Orholam means, don’t you?”
He spanked her, lightly, and for some reason, that shocked her more deeply than a hard blow would.
“This is the part where you answer, silly!” he urged.
Her mind went blank. She couldn’t remember what he’d been talking about—she arched her back, twisted her shoulder to see his face. He was losing his good mood rapidly.
“The Lord of Light,” some part of her answered for her. Perhaps Orholam himself had reached down and given her those words. Though she wished if he was reaching down and doing miracles, he would go ahead and give Murder Sharp a heart attack.
Oh, Orholam, how stupid am—
“If you draft paryl without my permission,” Murder Sharp said quietly, dangerously, “the first time, I’ll put out one of your eyes. See how you explain that to your commander. The second time you do it, I won’t go so easy. Understood?”
She managed a quick nod.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said suddenly. With both hands, he pulled her underwear and trousers out of her butt crack where he’d pulled it up earlier. Then he patted her butt lightly, as if it were friendly. Like this was something people did for each other. “I don’t mean you to misunderstand. I won’t violate you. Rape is disgusting. Beneath my dignity. There, does that set you at ease? My fault. Now, the story…”
She turned and rested her face on the rough floor, slave again, survivor, silent, and so very, very thankful.
“There was no light yet, yes? So It—‘He,’ if we must, since we are saying ‘Lord’ and one must admit the limitations of language in such cases—He couldn’t be a lord of light, then, right? There was no light. Ssschhtt! Right? Got it? Language can mislead us on all these things. We say there was him or it and nothing. But we don’t mean that he sat there with nothingness. He wasn’t on a porch swing with nothingness in a box on his lap, wondering what he’d do with it. We say Orholam and nothingness, but really it was Orholam and Orholam-not-ness. There was only him, but somehow he was lonely—though how could you be lonely, having never known company? Creation stories are impossibilities packaged in lies. He was, and it wasn’t not good, though he is all good and he was all that was? How can such be? He was, and it was good, but it wasn’t good enough? Perhaps that. I’ve felt that way, when alone. But he is to be perfect, and how could perfection be less good than it ought to be? Would that not be an imperfection? Or how can you add to perfection and still have perfection? Ssschhtt. Maybe that. Maybe in adding a perfection, you can have a new sort of perfection. Hmm…
“Well, he was. And he, the creator, created light. Light was his joy, his first and favored creation. Light, being first, partook of its creator’s very essence. But light, light isn’t. I mean, it isn’t just is. It doesn’t just be. It, it, it doesn’t sit. Light isn’t passive. Light sitting still wouldn’t be light at all. Light, light verbs! That other kind of verbing than is-ing. It, it goes. It flies. It moves. Even luxin, luxin doesn’t sit. It isn’t frozen motion, it is stable, predictable motion. Like glass. Motion in rings or predictable waves, motion slowed, but not motion stopped. Never that.” He scowled. “You’re getting me off track, making me tell it wrong. Let me try again. Ssschtt.”
He massaged his scalp, rubbing fingers hard through his disheveled red tradesman’s hair. “Ssschhtt. Dammit. Do you know what you’ve done?”
Teia shook her head, silent, submissive.
“You broke my teeth with your fighting.” He stood once again and moved away, carrying the lantern with him. With his back to Teia, he reached in his mouth. There was a slurp as he pulled something free. Teia was suddenly mindful of the drool that had dribbled on her face earlier.
She was going to wake up, wasn’t she? This was surreal. This couldn’t be—oh, no, that felt like a calf cramp coming on.
Sssscccchhhhhhttt!
He spat in a small spittoon. It was a lot of spit. Her stomach churned. He was talking to himself, too, slurring words, and she didn’t want to hear what he was saying. “… new red tabs frohm zhat fief…”
The spittoon accepted another shot, and then his voice drifted closer once more.
“Much better. You’ll be glad to know you just broke the adhesive. Else I would have been angry,” he said. “Do you know, with paryl, I don’t ever have to kill someone with my bare hands? It’s almost disappointing. There are other Shadows out there who let that make them lazy. And then they get captured by some oaf house guards because they can’t break a grip, and there are times when someone having a seizure is a bit too coincidental. This is why I am still a fighter, though I am so much more. Sometimes the meat must sing, and spirit merely nod and clap to the beat. Now where was I?”
“Light,” she said quietly.
“Ah yes.” He sat again. Folded his hands in his lap. “Calf muscle is cramping?”
“I hope n-n-not.” And then it went, cramping hard.
He grabbed her leg and she was spun around on her stomach. He worked her calf like an athlete or chirurgeon, skillfully working out the cramp in short order, and without causing unnecessary pain. Then he spun her back as if nothing had happened. He lowered the lantern light so that the barest ridges of his facial bones could be seen.
“In the beginning, God made light. And he saw that it was good. So he made the First Ones, that they might enjoy the light with him, and each other’s company. But the greatest of the First Ones rose up, and spoke for the Light. He said Light cannot be chained, that to sit in stasis and worship was no fit end for creators so glorious as they. And so he stole a light from the Lord of Light himself, and brought it to earth, and they called him Lightbearer. And he broke this light into colors so that all might enjoy it, so that even if some part were lost or chained again, yet light itself would be free. And he kindled many flames from that one solitary light he stole. And Orholam, in fury at this rebellion, barred the Lightbearer and those who followed him from the kingdom he now called the Heavens. And the Lightbearer and his Two Hundred set up their reign on earth, becoming gods in miniature, and over the course of eons, they bickered and fought, and when Orholam made men, they bickered and fought and used men to destroy men in their games. For God loved men, but men loved destroying what he loved.”
He turned the lantern up. “Tell me, child, is that close to the story you heard?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.” Her heart was a hummingbird in a cage.
“Then let me tell you: half of that version is lies. A cunning lie, close to the truth, as the best lies are, yes? The Lightbearer did not steal a lesser light. He stole the Light itself. And with it, he fashioned Man. Yes. And he fashioned us not in the image of himself, but instead, in the image of the Lightmaker and the Light, and this is why Man has two natures. This is why we are a mirror of God himself, sides reversed, smudges showing the flaws of the model, not the copies. The Lightbearer and his host are the gods of old. And when we ascend to the bane, it is an ascent to a fraction of the former glory. It is not a usurpation, for we are created in the image of the light itself and are no lesser sons for this. Indeed, in some ways, we are the greatest of all. Though, one must admit, the most fragile. Orholam and the Lightbearer have been at war since, with Orholam using the Prisms to try to chain all light and bring it into obedience to him again. With Orholam stomping out those colors he finds his people cannot control. Like paryl.”
He pulled out a knife. “All of this, Teia, is prelude.” His face twisted through a dozen expressions in two seconds. “What I do, what you seek to do, this has weight. Not the, not the killing. We might as well be harvesting fish from the salmon runs. Necessary, but not worthy of deep contemplation. This… this has weight. Turn over. Look.”
He kicked her, hard, right in the kidney. It took her breath and made her roll over. The sudden savagery—for no reason!—after he had been so calm and steady, pushed her right to the brink of tears again. She
had no idea what he wanted her to see. “What?” she said. “What?”
“This, stupid.” He was holding the hem of his cloak?
“The cloak?” she asked. A little muscle in her back started cramping, and she gasped involuntarily.
“Yes, the cloaks. The shimmercloaks, Teia. What are the shimmercloaks? What do they do?”
She wasn’t getting it. Did he want more than the obvious? Was he going to hurt her if she answered wrong? “Make you invisible?” she ventured. She braced herself for a kick.
“That’s right,” he said, amused once more. “And what does it mean to be invisible?”
Mean? What kind of question was that? It just was. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Dear Orholam, don’t hurt me again.”
“ ‘Dear Orholam,’ ” he echoed quizzically. But he let it go. “When the First Man and the First Woman first sinned, what did they do?”
“I don’t know. They were ashamed. They were naked. They hid. They, they clothed themselves.”
“They clothed themselves so the light wouldn’t touch their skin. They hid from Orholam. But of course, they couldn’t hide, could they?”
“Of course not, for Orholam sees all.” She stopped as soon as the old maxim crossed her lips.
Murder Sharp squatted on his heels, right next to her head. “To be invisible is the sinner’s first desire. To be invisible is to hide from man and angels and light and the Lord of Light himself. It is to be oralam Orh’ olam, hidden from Orholam. The pagan ancient Tyreans had a myth of a ring that when its bearer twisted it, it rendered him invisible. They didn’t believe in it literally, of course, how would a ring do such a thing? It was a parable for what a man might would do with all temptations laid before him. For, invisible, hidden from the eye of gods and men, what could a man not do? Allowed to do whatever he wished, what would a man do? To be invisible was to show the true condition of one’s heart. To the Tyreans, it was a story to muse upon. To the luxiats, it is more. Wanting to hide, to them, is itself evidence already that one is ashamed, that one’s heart is black. Who else would hide from the light, from truth?”