Wolf's-own: Koan (36 page)

"I don't want it."

The young man chuckled. “That hardly ever matters.” He tried to push the stick into Jacin's hands, so Jacin just fisted them. “You need it."

Jacin couldn't truthfully deny that. “How much?"

"I told you, it's a gift. Its worth is—"

"I don't
care
about ‘worth’ and I know you can't know anything about me or what I might
need
. I don't even care about whatever swindle you're trying to pull. Just tell me how much and I'll pay you and go."

The old man who'd soothed the weeping woman earlier shook his head and
tsked
. “No respect,” he muttered.

Jacin curled his lip but didn't snap back.

The stall's owner seemed genuinely nonplused. “To me, it is worthless,” he said, his smile still lingering, but not as sure as it had been before. “Fate placed it in my hands, and I now place it in yours. Its only worth is what you make of it."

He waited. Jacin merely stared at him, slit-eyed and wary, then reached out and took the walking stick. He glared down at the wolf's head then back up at the man. He wanted to smack those clever little spectacles off the man's face.

"I don't worship Wolf. I don't worship any god. In fact, I despise them all."

There were gasps and angry mutters from the stall's patrons. None from its owner. Jacin had been kind of hoping for shock and a quick retreat. He didn't get it.

The young man merely chuckled. “That hardly ever matters, either.” He tilted his head, as though listening, and as it had with Asai on the roof, the reflection of the pose triggered an unsettling body-memory and sent a light shudder down Jacin's spine. “There is a tavern,” the man said, slowly, his brow twisted like he was unsure and his voice distant, “past the fountains and several buildings down from the silk shop.” He pointed. “Across from The Happy Tearoom and through the alley in the back. Rihansei is the man you need."

Jacin set his mouth tight. “Right. So I can walk right into a group of thugs waiting to mug me for what you won't ask for here in the light of day.” The last time he'd walked into that trap, his whole miserable world had ended. He wasn't falling for it again. Jacin leaned in and lowered his voice. “I don't care if you're a con, I don't care if it's a trick. You don't have to prove your ‘magic’ in front of your followers, we both know it doesn't work, and you don't have to sic your cronies on me for making you look a fraud. I'll pay for the bloody stick, all right? Just tell me how much."

The man's eyes cleared and he frowned. He shook his head. “Perhaps I cannot see for you, but I can
see
.” He waved up and down over Jacin's person and the sheaths strapped all over him. “No, I would not set ill will on one such as you. I think retribution, though swift and no doubt painful, would come not only from your direction, did I dare. I am Wolf's, you see. I
do
worship him, and I have no wish to anger him."

Yeah, sure. Whatever that meant. Jacin had no interest in trying to decode it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two koins—remnants of his blood money, earned by slaughtering Blood thieves and torturing names out of a lord's vulnerable whore. More than generous, in his opinion.

The scabbed gash on Jacin's palm itched and flared as he pulled the money free. He tilted his head. “Don't suppose you've got any gloves about, then.” Something he actually
did
need. Then, a little more hopeful: “Smokes?"

When the man merely lifted his eyebrows and shook his head, Jacin rolled his eyes. Damn it, if this was Jacin's personal delusion, the answer should've been “yes.” Because he really needed a smoke. Or maybe this part was real. Maybe just the parts with Asai were the delusion. That would be a helpful indicator.

A touch more optimistic than he'd been a minute ago, Jacin handed over his money.

"These are Adan koins,” the man said, peering at them sitting dully in his palm.

Oh. Jacin hadn't even thought of that. This part must be real, then. His mind might have come up with that bizarre outfit, because his mind
was
bizarre, but Jacin didn't think he had the kind of imagination that could conjure the mundane annoyance of this. Plus, everyone else in the tiny shop was openly staring now, and the discomfort felt real enough; Jacin glared back for a moment before cutting his glance away and down.

"Gold is gold,” he said. If the man didn't want the money, Jacin wasn't about to argue with him. It wasn't like the walking stick had been his idea in the first place.

"And fate is fate, I suppose,” the man sighed, but he tucked the koins down the front of the baggy shirt. “You need Rihansei,” he repeated and shrugged. “I don't know the name. I don't know where it came from or what he has for you, but the spirits say you need him. Fate is fate."

With a disbelieving scowl, Jacin turned to go, then paused. He slanted a look at the young man over his shoulder. Smirking now, Jacin reached out and plucked the loose leather tie from the young man's hair. There was a belated flinch back, then the young man merely stared at Jacin with a questioning frown.

Jacin shrugged as he used the tie to pull his own tangled hair back and secure it. “I need this,” he said, flipped another koin at the young man, then he turned and left.

No one came after him, so Jacin assumed the sale was final. Which was good, because he really did need the tie. Though, what he
really
needed, Jacin thought as he tapped the new stick against the cobbles, was to find a vendor who sold smokes.

He found one. And just about got into a fistfight with the vendor when she tried to refuse the Adan koins, which were the only currency Jacin had. And he
really needed
a smoke. The attention the row had attracted would have made Jacin uncomfortable once; now, he didn't care. Perhaps Asai wasn't dogging him anymore, but that didn't mean this whole thing wasn't just one long hallucination, and if he was going to live inside delusion, he was going to be smoking while he did it, damn it. And if he wasn't living inside delusion... well, he was going to be smoking while he did that too.

Even the threat of the Patrol wouldn't move Jacin. A hard, stony stare had finally moved the vendor. She'd taken four of Jacin's koins, more than Jacin had paid for the stick and the bit of leather, but
oh
, so worth it. He sucked the smoke greedily as he hobbled.

He'd never bought them before. He'd always nicked Shig's. Some warped sense of... he didn't know—loyalty, maybe; loyalty to Asai, because Asai wouldn't approve, and,
I think that you still... care. I think it still messes with your head
, and Jacin really needed to stop letting it.

This was
his
world now,
his
insanity, and if he was to be master of nothing else, he would be master of his own fantasies, whatever form they took. If he could keep this long, drawn-out dream from tipping into nightmare, he might do all right.

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A few new spells, Dakimo thought as he carefully dipped the brush into the henna, Emika's fine-boned hand settled trustingly in his palm. The swirls and slashes and curvettes came back to him easily, though it had been... he didn't even know how many years it had been since he'd used these wards. No need for them, really. Dakimo's magic was much stronger than anything even Rihansei could throw at him—not that Rihansei would—but there was the matter of Kamen and supposed magic he hadn't been able to thwart, and whatever nothing-that-was-obviously-something that Imara had not-felt, and Dakimo had a personal interest in keeping Emika safe.

"That tickles,” she murmured to him as his brush swept delicately up the network of thin bones that sloped from index finger to wrist.

Dakimo smiled and slipped a quick glance up from beneath half-drawn eyelids, met Emika's coy smile with a wistful one of his own. He didn't reply with innuendo and teasing; he merely tightened his light hold on her fingers and dipped his brush again. Pursuits of the body would wait. Concentration now.

"We are nearly done,” he said.

Emika gauged the reply correctly—she always did—and merely went back to reading whatever report or complaint or ruling she'd been studying to occupy herself while Dakimo traced over the old wards and charms on her hands and added new ones, absently whispering spells as his brush swept whorls and ancient characters on her smooth skin. There was an intimacy involved that couldn't be helped—not that Dakimo wanted to—and these sessions more often than not ended with a locked door and an order left with the secretaries that the governor was not to be disturbed for an hour. Dakimo didn't think that would be happening today. Emika seemed to understand and concur equably.

Dakimo thought he might really love her.

"You met with Goyo this morning.” Emika seemed to be paying more attention to whatever she was reading, and her tone was casual—pertinent small talk—but Dakimo knew her very well. She wanted to know.

"I did.” Dakimo kept painting. He'd never actually used this particular ward, ancient as it was, but... it couldn't hurt.

Emika waited for a few beats, apparently finishing a paragraph, before going on, “And what news from Snake?"

Dakimo considered lying. And then he considered telling her the truth. He was still caught somewhere between the two, trying to form an answer, when the noise beyond the governor's closed doors rose in pitch and volume. Dakimo stilled his brush, listening, Emika's hand still lying trustingly in his own, until the voices took on a panicked tone. And then someone screamed. He was already rising, putting himself between the door and Emika and pulling his veil of protection tight around them both, when the door burst open.

The first thing Dakimo saw was the blood. The second thing he saw was the smile. Cold and sly beneath gray eyes set in a red-spattered face too angular and too close to perfectly shaped to be anything but Jin. Dripping knives were held in tight-clenched fists; more knives hung in belts crisscrossed over hips, with yet more tucked in sheaths strapped to thighs. The look was feral, lethal. If the man hadn't been standing right in front of him, Dakimo would have doubted he truly existed. Trying to look at him with anything but the physical senses was like trying to catch smoke in his hands.

"Incendiary,” Dakimo whispered, eyes narrowed.

"Wolf's sheep,” was all the man said—sneered—in a voice rough and raspy, and the smile curled wider. He flipped a knife in his hand.

Jacin stopped dead when he reached the teahouse to which the strange little man had directed him. With a sharp curse through his teeth, he took a last, long drag of his smoke, then dropped it to the ground. He shook his head with real wonder.

Couldn't be real. Because how could that stall vendor have known? Coincidences like this just didn't happen.

Fate, the young man had said. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just more of Jacin blundering into an outward reality by following an inward desire. He didn't know what was real and what wasn't, so how was he supposed to know?

Like everything else, it didn't matter. Once he'd stopped fighting it, it seemed that things just started falling in to place.

Jacin stared at the sign above the door then down the alley between the two buildings that, presumably, led to another door. And didn't necessarily care what might be waiting in the stretch of darkness between him and it. Fate was fate, and he could disdain the gods, but there was no disdaining Fate. It would have him, and in this case, he really didn't think he minded.

Now,
this
was something that Jacin would expect his warped mind to come up with.

He hadn't even known he wanted it. Hadn't even thought about the angry words Malick had spoken, like a last instruction. Hadn't even acknowledged that vengeance might be lurking inside all the spiraling emotions caroming around inside him since he'd watched Malick go down and take all of Jacin's safety with him.

Then again, what was Jacin, if not a tool for vengeance?

There is no fair—there's Balance, and that's all there is.

Wasn't vengeance a balance of its own sort?

"Fate is fate,” Jacin whispered. He peered once more up at the sign—The Gates of Rapture—then sucked in a bracing breath and limped down the alley, walking stick
tap-tap-tapping
along.

He
really
wanted this part to be real.

All right, so Malick had been telling the truth: this wasn't a whorehouse. And if it was, its atmosphere left a lot to be desired.

Jacin stepped into The Gates of Rapture with a wary eye scanning all points, taking in somewhat bemusedly the variations of the assembly. Men and women in a wild array of apparent wealth, from moneyed to beggared, and yet all mixed together in conversation with no apparent awareness or concern about station. A young woman clad in the rich robes of the Heldes, cheekbones highlighted by the sepia strokes of elaborate tattoos, lounged on cushions at a squat table, delicately smoking from a water pipe while speaking quietly and earnestly to an elderly man who looked like he was keeping his raggedy coat on by a few stitches and a wish. A girl who couldn't be older than Morin wagged a grubby finger at a young woman dressed in a fine satin longcoat and who appeared to be listening like her life might depend on what the girl said next. Jacin pegged the woman as
Temshiel
or maijin, because she was beautiful, without flaw, and mortals just didn't look like that.

The buzz of conversation was quiet, but more noticeable for the fact that Jacin could hear it at all. No musicians strummed or sang in a corner, no drunks bawled epithets, no doxies strolled the perimeter proffering favors.

It only took a second or two for the poppy smoke to curl into Jacin's nostrils, overlain by the yeasty smell of cheap beer and the more palpable sting of strong liquor. He wondered if everyone here was already stoned. Would that be a good thing, or a bad thing?

No one paid Jacin any mind as he wandered into the dim-lit room, just cut the occasional curious glance his way and then went back to what they'd been doing. He almost wished someone would challenge him, because there was no one tending the shabby bar, there were no maids or lads waiting tables, no clear direction for Jacin to point himself. Jacin was almost beginning to wonder if he hadn't perhaps stumbled into someone's private party when a great, whiskered man detached himself from a pile of low cushions and lumbered toward him with something a little too close to intent in his dark eyes. His hair and beard were as white as snow, both sprouting straight and lank in unkempt tufts. He was bigger than he'd looked while lounging on his cushions, a full head taller than Jacin and at least twice as wide. And nearly every bit of visible skin besides his face was covered in tattoos.