Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (15 page)

The woman said, “You may think so. I’ll stay a locksmith.”

Talivane said, “Good. I’ve eaten your bread. I thought I’d eaten one of your stones.”

When the others chuckled, Naiji said, “I’m glad Dovriex cooks for us.”

Dovriex said, “Thank you! Oh. You slept through breakfast.”

I began to consider abandoning the oblique approach. One more try, I told myself. “You!” I said to the stout man. “What do you do to earn your keep?”

“I transform myself into a panther and chase away annoyances.”

I imagined he would make a rather plump panther. I only said, “Oh.”

“I’m good at it.”

“I’m sure. That’s why you do it?”

He looked suspicious, but nodded. “In part.”

“And?”

“It’s a living.”

“And?”

He grimaced. “Are you going to teach us to fight or are you going to keep asking questions?”

“What do you expect?”

“I don’t know.”

Chifeo said, “I do!” We all looked at him. He blushed. “Well, I thought there’d be, you know...”

“No,” I said.

“Well, sitting around with our legs crossed and thinking about nothingness, and riddles, and—”

“Ah,” I said. “Like, what’s the sound of one hand clapping?” I snapped my fingers as an answer. “Or is it masturbation? Or is the only answer the sound of slapping whoever asks the question?”

Naiji said, “You’re saying that there are many answers to every question.”

“In part.”

“There’s more?”

I nodded.

“So tell us.”

I laughed. “What would anything mean, that I told you?”

“It would mean that you thought...” Her eyes narrowed as she grew suspicious.

I nodded again.

“You want us to find the answer ourselves, so we’ll believe it.”

“Yes.”

“But there are so many answers.”

“Yes.”

Chifeo shouted. “There are different answers for each of us!”

I sighed my relief. “Exactly.”

The shape-shifter said, “I didn’t come here to think.”

“If you don’t like it,” said Dovriex, “pity Avarineo in the next class.”

Talivane said, “This lesson seems rather simplistic.”

“Odd, then, that you weren’t first with any answers.” I looked at the others and wondered what I hoped to accomplish. I doubted I could teach enough of the Art to give us even a tiny advantage in the upcoming conflict. Perhaps I only wanted to earn the witches’ respect and trust. Finding no answer that satisfied me, I decided to simply teach them as though they were any other group who met to learn the Art.

I led them through several exercises. Their life in these hills had made them strong, so I concentrated on stretching and relaxing their muscles. The casual chatter ended as the physical work began. I demonstrated the basic kicks and punches and blocks, and let them practice a few fighting techniques with each other.

The dancers, Chifeo and the pretty girl, showed promise, if they decided to continue their studies. So did Naiji and Dovriex. I wondered what went into training a Master Chef. The rocksmith had a sense of perseverance that would help her in the early stages of learning, but the red-haired twins were almost ideal students, being limber and strong, quick to see an action, understand it, and make it their own.

Talivane, on the other hand, was too tense. I told him twice to relax his shoulders, then decided that twice was once too often for a first class. The fencer tried too hard and therefore did poorly. His pride demanded that he be perfect with a single attempt. The other man, the self-proclaimed shape-shifter, moved with grace but without power. His punches and blocks were pleasant to see, yet meant nothing.

Sometime in the second hour of practice, Chifeo said, “Master?”

“Yes.”

“Would you show us what we’re to learn?”

“I’ve been doing exactly that.”

“I don’t mean like that. I mean, would you give us an exhibition of how an Artist fights?”

“The Art may teach fighting, but fighting isn’t its goal.”

Chifeo ignored that. “Please?”

The others smiled and nodded. In part, I knew from experience, they only wanted to rest, and watching the teacher would give them an excuse to sit. The rocksmith was flushed with exertion, and Talivane’s breathing was loud. I remembered how I had enjoyed seeing those who knew more of the Art than I did, and how grateful I had been for the opportunity to sit. “Very well,” I said. “I’ll need a volunteer.”

They glanced at each other. Chifeo, after a moment, hesitantly raised his hand.

“Fine,” I said. “It was your idea.”

“What do I do?” He seemed to regret his impulse. He looked at the ground and wiped his hands nervously on his pants.

“Fight me. And don’t worry. I’ll stop each technique just before I hit you.”

Chifeo nodded. “I don’t think I can control—”

“That’s all right. I can defend myself.” A few of the others laughed, thinking I had spoken modestly. But then, I thought I had spoken modestly too.

“Good,” said Chifeo. A hint of a smile came to his lips, more than would normally come from a nervous student facing his teacher before a group of his peers. I should have seen that as a warning. I only thought he felt cocky facing someone of approximately his own size.

Chifeo circled me, holding his arms in an awkward parody of mine. I followed him with my eyes and only turned when he was about to pass beyond my sight. He finally came at me with a double-strike at my face and midriff, a punching technique that I had shown the class. I blocked and countered with a hand thrust that would have driven his nose into his brain, He gasped as he dodged back. The audience gasped also. I congratulated myself. Old Rifkin’s the greatest against untrained children.

Chifeo tried a side-kick at my face. He was limber, which I credited to his dance training, but the kick was clumsy and slow. I leaned away from it, then darted in for a hammerhand blow to his skull. He ducked, flailing his arms and kicking again so wildly that he should have fallen. Instead, his foot struck my ribs. Only an instinctive block saved me from a crushed chest, but I still coughed in pain and surprise.

Chifeo’s eyes went wide. “Are you hurt, Master?”

“Only my pride,” I said. “Continue.” I am a very slow learner.

My right side ached more than I wanted to acknowledge. I shifted so that my left was to him, then stepped in close to sweep his feet from under him. I had decided to end this practice bout quickly.

His forward foot lifted a bit, seemingly by coincidence, and came down on my ankle. I twisted to keep from breaking it. That meant falling, so I turned, and wrenching my leg free, somersaulted out of Chifeo’s way.

He laughed, apparently in innocent enjoyment at doing well in a friendly fight, as he skipped forward to kick at my head. His heel grazed my skull, dazing me. I reacted at last as I was trained, as though this were an actual battle and not a teaching demonstration that, for some reason, had gone wrong. My hand came up to snatch Chifeo’s ankle. It closed on air. He was faster than I was.

It made no sense to me. I am a
very
slow learner. Chifeo came in with another punch, a blow that must have seemed harmless to the observers. It barely touched me, but it glanced against a nerve in my left arm, paralyzing it. I understood then. The boy’s performance, no matter what it looked like, was due to more than his good fortune or my bad. Chifeo was not what he seemed. Which meant—

I warded off a kick that almost ended any of my future hopes of fatherhood. Chifeo laughed, again innocently, and said, “This is fun, Master!” The class laughed, too, a little nervously. Several of them had begun to wonder if I was clowning or, worse, if I was not as skilled as I had seemed. I was alone in knowing just how much fun Chifeo was having.

I didn’t know if he wanted to kill me because he had recognized me or if he thought I would be in his way when it was time to shuck his role of servant and slay the Gromandiels. It didn’t matter. He had chosen an interesting ploy, to make me appear less competent than I was, then to kill me with an “accidental” blow that a “real master” would have deflected. He had overplayed his hand by trying too hard to prove my inability. I shouted, “Chifeo’s a Spir—”

And then, for that crucial instant, my mouth seemed to fill with cotton. I opened my lips, but I could not speak, or even grunt. I thought Chifeo’s smile grew slightly wider to show his satisfaction with his skill and his subtlety, though that may have been my imagination. I realized with the horror that slows time that Chifeo had infiltrated the witchfolk on his own merits as a witch. During that long moment, I watched as he skipped forward, ready to silence me forever.

And then he fainted.

Naiji stared at Chifeo, unconscious on the ground. “Oh, Rifkin. Not again.”

“Two,” said Talivane with a sigh. “I don’t know why, Rifkin, but you aren’t at all subtle. Do you really think to dupe us twice in as many hours?”

I faced a ring of grim, unsympathetic faces. “Wait!” I cried. “Did anyone sense any mindspeaking? Any at all?”

No one answered, though they all continued to stare.

“Or any use of witchcraft coming from me? Any? I know you’re all suspicious enough to have watched me closely.”

Talivane grunted grudgingly, “No.”

“Good,” I said. “Chifeo tried a gagging spell on me. It didn’t work.”

Talivane’s eyes narrowed. “Why—”

“Why didn’t it work?” I asked, to stave off the question Talivane had begun to answer. “Not because I’m some master magician, as you seem to suspect. I have iron hidden on me.” Not for the first time, I was glad I’d kept the pin in my hair. “His spell must have rebounded from it.”

Talivane said, “But why would Chifeo use magic in a demonstration bout? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because he’s a spy and probably a Spirit.” As one member of my audience gasped at my words, I said, “You may have thought you had your share of problems, Gromandiel, but it looks to me like they’ve only just begun.”

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