The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (24 page)

And all he said was, “Suppose it depends.”

Stars, the boy could be untalkative.  I was used to it in
Derrin, but not the kids my own age.  Most of them, you wanted them to shut up
more than anything.

“Will you tell me where you’re from?  I got to make some
account of you to Derrin.”

“I can handle him.”

I snorted.  Not because I didn’t believe him, but because I
kind of wanted to see him try. 

We finally reached the Hole, just when I started to think
Shade’s feet were apt to fall off.  As we came to the wall, I kept trying to
guess what he’d think of it all.  But his face was a mask, calm and
disinterested, though his gaze swept across the ruined factory and the whole
property like he could memorize everything about it, just so.  I wondered if he
could.

“We’re here,” I said.

“Here, where?” Shade asked, and frowned at something behind
me.

I followed his gaze and saw Pika perched up on the guard
post, a wee flame-headed gargoyle.  She goggled us a good five seconds, then
dropped like a bolt.

“Hayli!” she shouted.

Then she just stared at Shade, flighty as a finch, her
forehead all puckered up and her hair sticking straight out like fire.  I
glanced at Shade, but he just met my gaze, calm as could be, though it felt a
bit like a scolding.  Maybe he just didn’t have any other expressions.  I
shrugged and went to Pika.

“What’s bothering, Pika?” I asked, keeping my back to Shade.

“Who’s that?”

“Tag’s Shade.  He’s a mage.”  I scuffed my toe on the
ground.  “Says he wants to meet Rivano.”

“I feel like I’ve seen him before,” she said, scowling. 
“But I haven’t.  I can’t get a feel for him.  He’s just…” She waved her hands. 
“Blank.”

“What d’you mean, a feel for him?” I asked.

She shrugged.  “Be careful, Hayli,” she whispered, and
shimmied back up to the guard post and buried her head in her arms.

I beckoned Shade and he came after a minute, hands in his
pockets.

“Did I pass?” he asked.

“Aw, Pika can’t keep anyone out, not really.”

He flicked a glance up at her as he passed but she wouldn’t
pay him any attention, and finally,
finally
, I caught a little whiff of
anxiety coming off him. 
Get a feel for him?
  What did that even mean? 
Pika didn’t always make sense, but she did seem to have a way of knowing things
about folks.  I shivered as I led Shade toward the rusty old factory and the
narrow steps leading down into the Hole.

“Down there?” he asked, dubious.

“Surprised?  Look, I’ve got to take you to Derrin first,” I
told him.  “But then I’ll get you some new trompers.”

“Thanks,” he said, catching the door as I passed through.

“Watch your step,” I said, turning onto the wide staircase. 
“It goes down a bit.”

He grunted and crept down after me.  I could hear the tap-
tap
of his bare feet on the stone stairs, each step painfully slow.  Slower.

“How far?”  His voice dragged out in a thin little rasp.

I glanced back but the shadows had him, and I couldn’t make
out his face at all.

“It’s just down the hall.”

I winced as I said it, because it was terribly unfair to say
it was
just down the hall
.  It took ages and ages to get from one end of
the Hole to the other.  But if I told him that outright, maybe he’d just sit
down there on the steps and give up.

He hobbled down until he stood just a step higher than me,
so close I could see all the colors of the storm in his eyes.  He narrowed them
a bit at me, then shifted a pointed glance past my shoulder.

“Don’t lie if your life hangs on it,” he said.  “You’re
terrible at it.”

I sighed.  “I know.  I’m sorry.  It’s a ways yet.  You
a’right?  Haven’t lost any toes, have you?”

He actually smiled.  “A few, probably.  I’ll make do.”

I nodded and headed on, trying to go slow so he wouldn’t get
too red about it.  And as we went I got to noticing all the things about the
Hole that I’d never seen before, because I kept trying to imagine how it looked
to him.  Funny how the little things, when they’re so familiar, can seem so
invisible.  I’d never noticed the drips of water trailing rusty streaks on the
walls and the puddles on the stained cement floor.  I’d never heard the wind
whistling in the high windows that didn’t quite fit their casements.  I’d never
smelled the musty, stale air. 

I’d only ever noticed the paintings Bugs and Pika had
doodled on the walls with stolen paints, and the sound of folks laughing, and
the smell of food.  I wondered if he only saw the bad.  I wondered if he saw
the home.

He must have been reading my mind, because out of nowhere he
asked, “So this is where you live?”

“What about it?” I asked, tetchy.

He arched a brow and scanned the walls, his eyes resting on
Pika’s recent scrawl of a motorcar.  I was just glad Pika hadn’t decided to
decorate it with details from the Prince’s motorcade, because that would have
made it all rather gruesome.  Shade stared at it a good while, until I started
wondering if he’d never seen a car before.

“It’s nice,” he said, so I didn’t know if he meant the
drawing or the Hole.

I wrinkled my nose and headed on.  By the time we got to the
barracks, Shade had gone all pale and grey like a real shade, until I thought
he’d slip away into nothing right in front of me.  A few of the kids hanging
about got to gawping at us as we passed, some of them whispering to each other,
some of them laughing.  Shade did look a bit frightful, with his face all
bloody and his waistcoat ripped from the rubbish bin.  I don’t think he’d even
got to realizing that he was bleeding.  Maybe he just didn’t care.

“Who’s the fish, Hayli?” Link asked, sauntering out from
behind a pillar.

I groaned.  “No one you need to know about.”

Shade paused right next to him, giving him one long stare in
the eye. 

Link grinned and ducked his head.  “Derrin’s coming,” he
said, and backed away, but not so far that he couldn’t get a fix on everything
we said.

I took a breath and turned to face Derrin.  This ought to be
good, I thought, because right then Derrin and Shade looked kind of like
mirrors of each other, all silent and stern and prickly. 

“Who’s this, Hayli?” Derrin asked, stopping in front of us
and giving Shade the once-over.  “Visitors aren’t welcome.”

Shade’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t say a word.

“This is Shade,” I said.  “Shade, Derrin.”

“Taumir,” Shade said, holding out his hand.

Derrin barely glanced at his hand, and didn’t move to take
it.  A moment and Shade lowered his arm, but he didn’t get red about it.  If
anything, he got colder and darker than ever, the ragged edge of a storm cloud.

“You’re Istian?” Derrin asked.

Shade nodded.  Istian!  I should’ve known, but I didn’t know
much about Istia except what the Herald and the Hole rats talked about.  Folks
said that most of the mages in the world had some Istian blood.  They had the
best mages anyway, and some folks said they even had a mage for a ruler.  I
couldn’t even imagine what that would be like.  Mages in charge, and not hiding
in the underground… I couldn’t imagine why Shade had left.

“Care to explain this?” Derrin asked, turning back to me.

“I need to see Rivano,” Shade said.

Derrin’s face went blank, just like that.  “Sorry.  No. 
Hayli, show him out.”

“Derrin, can I talk to you?” I whispered.

He stared a good long minute at Shade, then nodded once and
moved back toward the corner where we could talk in quiet.  I waffled a bit,
twisting my finger in a loose thread on my waistcoat.

“Not like you to bring in strays,” Derrin said.

“Except he’s not.  Derrin,” I hissed.  “He tore up Anuk and
Jig.”

“Looks like he got his fair share.”

I glanced back at Shade, who’d taken to leaning against the
pillar with his arms crossed. 

“Well,” I said.  “Suppose Jig got him a bit.”

“We’ve got plenty of fighters here, Hayli.  We don’t need
another one.”

“Div’n you see that mark, though?” I asked.  “He’s a Mask.”

“I don’t trust Masks.”

“How many Masks have you ever known?”

He just looked at me, then shook his head.

“If you’re ganna be like that, then what mage
can
you
trust?” I asked, which made him smile a bit.

“Still, didn’t you wonder how he got here in Brinmark
wanting to see Rivano?” he asked.  “All the way from Istia?  I didn’t know
Rivano was known in those parts of the world.”

I lifted my chin, feeling trucky.  “Maybe we should talk to
Rivano about that.”

My bravado didn’t impress him.  He actually laughed, but I
blushed because it meant he thought I was being ridiculous.

“I don’t have to remind you that we don’t have all the mages
on our side, do I?  Some of them hate us outright.  How do you know this Shade
kid is here to become a devoted follower?  Maybe he’s here to kill Rivano. 
Should I just let him walk in and do it, because you’ve got a fancy?”

“Derrin!” I cried, bright red now.  “That’s not fair.”

“You see my point, though, don’t you?” Derrin persisted. 
“I’ve got a responsibility.  I can’t just slip protocol for no reason.”

“Well,  I div’n mean you should let him see Rivano now. 
Maybe we could let him stay here and be useful for a bit.”

Derrin studied Shade, rubbing his jaw the way Kantian did
sometimes.  “I’ve got you to look after.  You want me to give you
responsibility for looking after
him?
  Because I’m not going to do it.”

“I can do it,” I said.  “Me and Anuk.”

He let out his breath and dropped his hands.  “Hayli,” he
said, drawing out each half of my name like a scolding.  “You both have jobs. 
You should be focusing on your training.  I can’t have you two wasting your
time nannying some kid who doesn’t even belong here.”

I glowered and tossed my head back, because I knew I was
losing and couldn’t figure how to win.  

Chapter 5 — Tarik

I watched Hayli as she whispered to Derrin, a little cold
anxiety creeping over me.  Derrin was a force; I didn’t need any better
acquaintance with him to see it.  He didn’t tower over Hayli or fold his arms
to try to intimidate her.  He didn’t need to.  I’d seen that kind of hidden
power before, in my father, and watching him and Hayli deliberate stirred the
sleeping snake of my cowardice again.  It took every ounce of my will to stand
there and wait.

Anuk and the bug-eyed kid slipped into the room, followed a
little later by Jig.  I sighed.  If I’d thought about walking away, I couldn’t
now.  I could never run away with them staring at me.  Even the little
red-headed girl Pika wriggled her way into the growing crowd, crossing her
skinny arms and scowling at me like the devil.

Jig sidled up beside me.

“Dan’ you see you’re not wanted, you filthy chizzer?” he
whispered, lounging back against the pillar beside me as if we were chums.  He
grinned, viciously, and asked more loudly, “How’s the nose?”

“Why, did you try to hit me?” I shot back.

The bug-eyed boy stifled a snicker, but one of the bigger
kids cuffed his head.  “Shut up, Bugs!”  Then to some of the other kids he
said,  “He ate the trash.  Jig fed him to the rubbish bin.”

Snickers chased around the group.

“Shade was just fooling him,” Bugs said.  “Tricking him
out.”

One of the other boys laughed loudly.  “No he weren’t.  Look
at that face.  He only lasted ‘cause he’s a cheating son of a skirt who dan’ na
how to fight like a man.  Couldn’t bear to lose good and honest, could he?  No
wonder he’s on his own, nowhere to go.”

I felt my cheeks burning—Tarik’s cheeks.  I’d never imagined
that one of the benefits of my gift was that I could keep my masked face as cool
and indifferent as if I didn’t really care.

“Sorry,” I said.  “Who’s the one living in a basement with a
pack of rats?”

“Least we got a pack, like,” Jig said, eyes narrowed to
slits.  “Wha’ve you got?  You got nothing here. 
Nothing
.”

What could I say to that?  He was right.  I had nothing,
because I belonged nowhere.  A stranger in every world I walked.  I glanced at
Anuk, who didn’t laugh with the others but stood observing the scene with
frigid indifference.

“Look at that mark, Vim,” Bugs said, jumping up and down. 
“He’s a mage, he’s a mage!”

Jig snorted.  “Bet he’s a Farmdoll.”

“Is that what you are, trash-eater?” Vim asked, crossing his
thick arms.  “Useless?  Some kind of third-class mage who dan’ deserve a mark?”

I rather wished I had Kor’s gift.  I wouldn’t mind repeating
my knife trick with Jig to remind them all not to push me.  My thoughts shifted
uselessly.  If I fought back, they’d think they had goaded me into it.  If I
stood silently, they’d think they had intimidated me.  I wasn’t sure which
would be worse.