Domick gave me a startled look, then said defensively, “He has a way of putting things that makes them memorable. It is a fine and useful quality in a leader.”
There was not the slightest flicker of humor in his voice. He had always been serious, seldom speaking more than was necessary or laughing aloud, but now it seemed he had built a deep wall of reserve around himself. I wanted to ask why, but his manner did not invite intimacy.
“Do you see much of Brydda?” I asked instead.
The coercer gave me a wary look as we passed under one of the few lit street lanterns, and it struck me forcibly that something was very wrong.
“I see him,” he said noncommittally.
“How is he, then?”
Domick was silent so long, I thought he meant to ignore the question, but at last he spoke.
“Superficially, he is the same as ever: brave as a lion, swift to laughter, loyal, proud, and silver-tongued. But to my mind, his policy of elusiveness is affecting his mind.”
“You mean he is going mad?” I asked, startled.
Domick gave me a pale echo of a genuine smile, which fleetingly stripped the years away from his face. “I mean, it is affecting his way of thinking. He is the kind who needs to trust. He is happiest with loyal comrades constantly about him. He remains close to Idris and Reuvan, who you’ll remember came with him from Aborium. Yet even those friendships are strained. For the sake of security, the Black Dog has chosen a lonely path.”
He fell silent and I considered what he had said. No one knew better than I how loneliness tainted a person’s thinking. Solitude could become an addiction, a canker of the soul, ever hungered for as much as it was loathed. All the years I had spent in the orphan home system after my parents were killed, I had kept myself apart—even from my brother Jes. With informants about, friendship was dangerous in the best of cases, and I had extra reason to fear, being a Misfit. This had made it hard for me to trust or to relate to people, even when it was safe to do so. And, in spite of all the years of longing for friends, now that I had them, part of me yearned to be by myself again.
But Brydda had not learned the orphan’s lesson. I could well imagine the effect enforced solitude would have on him. It saddened me to think of the laughter dimmed in the merry giant.
“And you?” I asked impulsively. “Do you think of your path as a lonely one?”
Domick gave me a strange look but made no response.
We fell silent as we passed an open veranda where an old woman swept her porch. She watched us go by, as if poised to run inside and bar the door. I felt her eyes following us through the rain until we passed out of sight.
We came into a street running right alongside the shore. A boardwalk was built level with the cobbled street, but beneath it the ground dropped away to a narrow, rocky beach. Rain fell into the water with a hissing susurrus. Again, I was conscious of a strong mental static, which indicated the water was tainted in some manner. I did not recall this from my previous visits to Sutrium. Perhaps there had been a recent firestorm?
The sea was so dark that it seemed as if we traveled along the rim of an abyss. This would be a good place for an attack, but I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder.
Thoughts of one fear begot another, for without thinking, I asked, “Have you heard anything of Ariel lately?”
The name evoked in the coercer the same heavy silence it caused anyone who had been at Obernewtyn before Rushton became its master.
“He went to Herder Isle just before the plague struck,” he said at length. “It seems that he remains in the Herders’ good graces, though I do not know why. They were as angry with him as the Council when the soldierguards he sent to Obernewtyn found nothing. I would have expected them to cast him off as the Council did.”
“You know, it has always bothered me that Ariel was so certain Obernewtyn had not been destroyed by firestorm that he sent the soldierguards to catch us in the lie,” I mused.
“His Talent must have given him the knowledge,” Domick said.
I gaped at the coercer, astonished. Why had it never occurred to me that Ariel was a Talented Misfit?
Domick went on, unaware of my reaction to his words. “Kella thinks he has empathy because of the way he generated fear, but I think he is a latent coercer—it would explain his skill at manipulating his way into power. I doubt he’s a futureteller, for he’s been caught off guard too often; a true dream would have been enough to tell him that Obernewtyn still stood.”
True dreams were common among Misfits and often contained fleeting flashes of the future.
My mind circled back to my own question: Why had I never thought of Ariel being Talented? I had known he was a Misfit, but above finding him morally corrupt and sadistic, I had never considered what it was that had made him a Misfit. Why?
The answer came swiftly.
Because I did not want it to be so.
I wanted to believe that all Talented Misfits strove for right and justice. The thought of someone so wicked having a Talent, being part of our community … It left a bitterness in my mouth.
The rain began to fall more heavily. The coercer looked up with a muffled curse and lengthened his stride. I drew up the hood of my cloak to stop water dripping down my neck and hastened to keep up, my thoughts running ahead of me.
Ariel as a coercer—even as a weak and unaware coercer—was a fearsome notion.
In the early days at Obernewtyn, there had been much concern over the morality of coercion and even talk about trying to convert it to healing or some other use. But in its aggressive form, it had proven too necessary to our survival.
Instead, there had been a move away from separatism. These days, guilds aimed to train novices to use all their powers, though Misfits still generally chose to specialize in one specific Talent as part of the process of becoming guilded. There had been some resistance to crossguilding, until it was realized that development of a lesser Talent often enhanced the primary ability. For instance, as a farseeker with coercion, I could coerce from a distance, instead of needing to be close to a subject, as a typical coercer must. And the combination of beastspeaking, farseeking, and coercing meant I could coerce animals without being close to them physically.
Domick plucked at my arm and pointed across the street to a dingy inn whose signboard proclaimed its incongruous name: The Good Egg. “That is where we will make contact with Brydda.”
“The last time I went into an inn looking for Brydda Llewellyn, I was nearly arrested,” I said, following him reluctantly across the street.
“We will not ask for him openly,” Domick said. “It is just a matter of ordering a certain obscure brew, which will not be in stock, in a particular quantity. Then the Black Dog will be signaled and will send someone for us as soon as he is able.”
There was no time for more talk, as the door swung open and a group of drunken revelers stumbled out into the night. Domick grasped my elbow, steering me past them and into the inn.
Though cavernous, it was poorly lit—as all such places were, for the people who came to drown in their cups seldom wanted to be seen doing it. The inn was surprisingly crowded for a city supposedly full of the poor, but perhaps there was always enough coin for oblivion. The room reeked of cheap, sour fement and old sweat, but I was grateful for the warmth created by the throng.
I took my cloak off with some trepidation, having no alternative but to let myself be seen as a girl because of the clothes I had put on in the safe-house bathing room. The garments were not necessarily that of a gypsy, but my tan skin marked me, so I made the room see me as a full-grown gypsy woman rather than as a girl.
I could have completely coerced one or two people into seeing me any way I chose, but not a whole roomful. Coercing a large number of people was more of a general influencing, or accentuating what existed already in their minds. It was a surprisingly effective trick even when those with natural mindshields were about, because a group of people tended to operate as a s
ingle—and not very intelligent—mind. Still, I had to work within reasonable limitations.
Domick apparently had his own feint in mind. To my surprise, he suddenly reached out and drew me into the circle of his arms.
9
“HO, MIKA!” SOMEONE cried.
Domick turned, digging his fingers into my shoulder.
“Join us,” said a lean man with close-set, crafty eyes that moved over me like prying fingers. “Who is your companion, my friend?”
“Her name is Elaria,” Domick said in an arrogant voice that startled me almost as much as his putting an arm around me. He slid into a seat, pushing me before him, and I found myself crushed up next to an old man with a grizzled face and faded blue eyes.
“Elaria, I am Kerry,” the lean man opposite introduced himself with a leering smile. He stabbed a blunt finger at the old man beside me. “That is Col, and by me here is Oria.”
Col merely grunted, but the blond woman, Oria, gave me a friendly nod, which filled me with suspicion. Since when were people remotely civil to a gypsy?
As if accommodating my doubts, a thick-necked youth farther down the trestle scowled at me. “Halfbreeds are thieves an’ plaguebirds,” he said loudly in a highland accent.
“You are a fool, boy, blighted with stupidity—which is a greater affliction than plague, since one cannot even hope for recovery from it.” Domick’s eyes were contemptuous. “Would I walk about with a carrier of the cursed plague?”
Oria and Kerry roared with more laughter than the witticism deserved. As the blond woman moved her head, I saw that her face was disfigured on one side by the savage spore of the disease.
“Ruga, you’ve been put in your place fair enough.” Kerry leaned across the table toward me, and I fought the urge to slap him away. “She’s comely enough,” he approved. “But my taste don’t run to gypsy flesh. Specially not one with a face as sober and sour as a judge.”
“No doubt she finds you a sour eyeful, too,” laughed the woman.
“Well, like I was sayin’,” said the young highlander somewhat huffily from farther down the trestle, “I’m thinkin’ of joining th’ soldierguards. I’d just as soon step on a few necks as have mine stood on.”
The oldster beside me gave a sneering laugh. “Join up and you’ll just as likely find yourself warring with the tribesfolk in distant Sador. And I’ve heard they roast over their temple fires and eat those they take prisoner.”
“There will be no war against Sador,” Kerry said swiftly, his eyes flickering to Domick’s face and then quickly away.
“The Council has sent Herders on a mission to make peace with the Sadorians,” Domick said.
“Peace?” echoed the bleary-eyed Col. “The Council don’t want peace, ’cepting maybe a big piece of Sador. And who knows what them Herders are after?”
An awkward silence ensued; then Kerry said with forced joviality, “Best keep your words for other company, old man. There’s some here who might not take kind to your speculation.”
“You have no need to worry about me,” Domick said. “Fools blow air out of their mouths as often as their bums, and either way it causes a stink and comes to nothing.”
I looked around at the people at the table and, seeing their expressions, understood suddenly why Kerry and the woman had behaved so oddly, fawning on Domick and being civil to his gypsy companion.
They were afraid of him.
Abruptly, Domick rose and left the table, saying he wanted to order a drink. I tried not to look disconcerted at being left alone there, but I sensed the others at the table studying me covertly. Unnerved, I shaped a general coercive probe suggesting that I was defective. Given the general prejudice against gypsies, it was not difficult to plant a negative thought, and as the idea took root, they relaxed.
Only the plague-scarred Oria continued her scrutiny. I entered her mind and discovered she believed me to be a spy left by Domick to garner information. It was clear this disturbed her, but I did not trouble to delve deeper to learn why. I merely grafted into her thoughts a memory of having seen me before with different men at different inns and of having observed enough of my behavior to judge me defective.
Her disquiet faded, and she dismissed me from her mind. Turning to the old man, her brow creased with exasperation. “You are a fool with a mouth big enough to lose yourself in, Col. Don’t you know who that was?”
He shrugged. “Some official or other. What do I care who he is? I’ve seen him here before.”
“And that makes him safe?” she hissed. “He works for the Councilcourt.”
“He sweeps the floor an’ runs messages,” said the highlander, Ruga, from down the table. “I heard him say so once.”
Oria sneered at him openly. “Of course he would say that.”
The old man frowned. “Well, what does he do, then? Is he a spy?”
I felt myself start, but no one noticed. The blonde leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “You heard what happened to Jomas?”
Col merely nodded, so I was forced to read the memory evoked by the woman’s question directly from his thoughts.
Aman called Jomas had spoken out against a Councilman, claiming the official had charged his father with sedition in order to obtain his farm. Jomas had been arrested and charged with sedition the very next night and was tortured so savagely that he had never walked again.
“So what? Everyone knows they torture seditioners,” Col said.
Oria looked around before speaking. “Neither Jomas nor his father were seditioners and well you know it. But the point of the story is that Mika was here when Jomas was mouthing off about that Councilman.”
Col snorted. “And for that you’d have me fear him? This place is full of folk who’d sell their mother for the price of a mug. Anyone could have reported Jomas’s mouthings.”
“I went to see Jomas when he recovered,” Oria said fiercely. “He told me he was there when they tortured him.”
“He?” the oldster echoed, confused.
“He,” Oria repeated. “Mika.” She lowered her voice. “He is a torturer.”
I was so shocked that my probe faltered in its hold on the group.
“We should not talk of such matters,” Kerry said, his tone suddenly anxious. “People who talk too much have a way of disappearing into the interrogation rooms beneath the Councilcourt.”
“Sometimes elsewhere,” Oria added darkly as I regained control.
I could barely follow the turn in conversation as someone else asked if there were truly prospects for war in Sador.
“That’s not why they’re recruitin’,” retorted Ruga. “They want more soldierguards because of them rebels with Henry Druid gettin’ too big for their boots.”
“Henry Druid is dead,” Oria interrupted. “He died in a firestorm in the highlands. The rebels they’re after now are those led by Brydda Llewellyn.”
“Not Brydda. Bodera,” Kerry said.
“What does it matter who leads them?” sneered Col, glaring into his mug. “I hope there is a war, whether it is with them demonish-looking Sadorians or the rebels, and they all kill one another.”
The table fell silent again as Domick reappeared bearing a small jug.
“I don’t know how you drink that mucky syrup,” Oria said brightly. “But if you ordered it more often, old Filo would keep some for you instead of your having to wait while he sends out.”
The coercer made no comment. He drank with every evidence of enjoyment, then set the mug down and looked around the table.
“You should be careful of loose talk,” he said casually. There was something in his voice that brought everyone in the immediate vicinity to silence.
“There are those who are not what they seem,” he went on in a sinister tone. My heart began to thump. Now what was he doing?
“Take that man.” He pointed to a drunkard at the nearest table, staring about owlishly. “He seems no more than a sot. But is he really? Perhaps he is something more than
he seems. Perhaps he has drunk less than he makes out and flaps his ears for seditious talk.”
Oria laughed uneasily. “You jest.”
Domick smiled and sipped at his golden mead.
Suddenly the oldster beside me slammed his fist down. “I’ll not pretend! I am no seditioner to sit here cowering. You think we don’t know what you are?”
The room fell silent, and all attention was on Domick, waiting to see what he would do.
“And what am I?” he asked in a soft, dangerous voice.
“I’ve a right to speak,” Col blustered, the silence penetrating at last.
Domick sipped the last of his drink; then he dabbed fastidiously at the edges of his mouth with a handkerchief. “You should use your tongue for less dangerous talk, old man,” he said at last. “Fortunately for you, I sweep, I write letters, and sometimes I deliver them. That is all I do. Anyone who would say otherwise … should think twice.”
He rose, pulling me up with him. I kept my head down, trying to look moronish and insignificant. Domick nodded languidly to Kerry and Oria. “Perhaps, when next I come, the company will be better.”
Kerry smiled stiffly and bade us walk safe.
Outside, I pulled on my cloak with suppressed fury. “Are you crazy? There is not a person in there who will forget your face or mine after that little display. And how is it so many people know you work for the Council? Is this some brilliant new strategy based on telling your business to every stranger you meet?”
Domick was looking out into the night, his face empty of expression. “A Council employee is often investigated in the interests of security. If I had no life to investigate, I would be instantly suspect. I must have a background to fit my role, and those people are part of it.”
“You might have warned me,” I snapped. “What if I hadn’t been able to improvise?”
“Guildmistress of the farseekers, veteran of hundreds of daring and brilliant rescues unable to improvise?” he demanded dryly. “Yet I would have warned you, had I expected them to be there.”