No Deadly Thing

by Tiger Gray

  He chose a table against the wall, on the other side of the partition. He hoped Randolph could identify him, because he wasn't sure the man would look the same as he had in the medical tent. If he was real. If this weren't some kind of elaborate hoax. If he weren't going mad.

  The coffee tasted nothing like the muck he had subsisted on all those years in the military, and he ate the cupcake in two big bites, as though he were once again five years old.

  "Pinecroft?"

  He looked up. The man that stood there looked much like he had in the vision. His white hair was still neatly cropped, and he walked with that same gravitas Ashrinn had seen in him before. This time, however, he couldn't pick out the white eagle insignia that he remembered with such clarity. The man --- Randolph --- had the look of the Mafioso about him, his broad, strong body clad in a very nice suit indeed. The rings on his pinky and right middle fingers did not do much to muddy the stereotype.

  Ashrinn hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of cake. He felt like a school boy who had been caught filching sweets. He could only pray he didn't have frosting on his face.

  Randolph's blue gaze had a way of softening when he smiled. Ashrinn was struck by the difference between the look Randolph gave him and the hard, flat gleam he had seen in his wife's eyes. He said the first thing that came to him, tension knotting his shoulders.

  "So, you are real."

  Randolph laughed. It was a good laugh that started in his belly. "You make me sound like Santa Claus."

  Randolph did have a certain ageless quality, and the same kindly expression often associated with Christmas images, but he was sure no depiction of Santa Claus ever portrayed the kind of muscle this man had on him. "Not enough gut for it."

  "Hrmph. I might be old, but that's no excuse to be a slouch. Mind if I sit?"

  Ashrinn gestured at the empty chair. "I should think that was rather the point," he said, doing his best to present a calm exterior, "You're not going to pass through solid objects, are you? I mean, is this the part where you tell me there's a prophecy about me, or that I get a special sword?"

  Randolph eased his bulk into the seat, folding his hands on the table. Those hands were broad and callused, as though he'd been practicing with a blade as a matter of daily habit. "I'm afraid that we very rarely receive that kind of sign, though the divine is known for ordering events to our advantage. Whether we use that fair fortune properly is another matter," he said, pitching his voice low so the other customers couldn't hear. "You do get the sword, though."

  Ashrinn peered at him. Was he jesting? He opened his mouth to ask another question, but the girl making the drinks called Randolph's name. Ashrinn watched as he went over to the counter. He had inherent physical talent, like a soldier but without the regimented polish.

  He's real! You didn't imagine him, he told himself, You've still got a couple of working brain cells.

  Maybe he ought to feel dismayed that there might be more to the world than he'd previously thought, but he felt elation first. He hadn't imagined it.

  That means Kiriana really is something supernatural. That sobered him. She'd held off on a demonstration of her magic for now, but she wouldn't toy with him forever.

  Randolph returned with something deep and dark in a tiny cup. Ashrinn suppressed a smirk; it looked like a doll's cup in his hand.

  "Ah, American espresso." Randolph shook his head like a tolerant parent. "So, does it comfort you to know that I am real, or frighten you? It is the rare man that embraces the other world with no hesitation."

  Ashrinn thought of how those men might have had less to prove than him, how maybe their mothers didn't tell them bedtime stories about mysticism that had only a thin glaze of disbelief spread on their surface. And more than that, he wanted to understand what had happened to him in that dusty alley.

  He hunched his shoulders and leaned towards Randolph, aware of how intense he probably appeared but unable to scour the desperation from his expression. "I want to know how I did what I did."

  "Your moment."

  Ashrinn nodded as the ghosts of that day pounded pavement in the back of his mind.

  "All paladins go through something like what you did. We are instruments of the divine and we are born in fire."

  "They were about to kill my second," Ashrinn blurted, "I was close to all my men but he was different. We've been together since Basic."

  His mind whirled with recall, bright and dark flashes in a painful strobe. Randolph watched him, face impassive. Ashrinn could imagine his own expression all too well, wild eyed, raw. He itched to fish the flask out of his jacket's inner pocket.

  "I am honored that you would share your story, Ashrinn," Randolph said, "but you don't have to. You'll find that amongst us asking after another paladin's moment can be considered quite rude if you aren't very close."

  Ashrinn grasped the man's meaning and didn't ask after Randolph's.

  For the second time, he made a deliberate effort to use whatever nascent second sight he possessed. Randolph's aura was like having a military grade flashlight shined directly into his eyes. He swallowed a yelp as best he could and would have kicked back from the table if Randolph hadn't reached out and grabbed his wrist.

  "Pinecroft," he said, "at attention."

  It had been a long, long time since Ashrinn had been of a rank and station where other men told him how to jump, but he remembered. He shoved the second sight away with all his will and blinked the spots from his vision. People at the tables nearby spared him a few looks, but no more than that.

  Ashrinn panted after breath and drained his coffee cup in one long gulp. "What am I?" he said, when he could speak again.

  "Chosen."

  "But why? I'm not religious. Call me crazy but I have a hard time believing in a God who is both all loving and yet sends people to a place of eternal torment."

  "Some paladins will try and tell you that religion is important. Some paladins, like some humans, are convinced that only their way is correct. But my holy order is not founded on those principles."

  Ashrinn pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to fight off a tension headache. Basics. Start with the basics. "What was that just now?"

  "My aura. You must be particularly gifted, sensitive to magic."

  Great.

  Ashrinn pulled his wrist back. Randolph withdrew his hand. The wrinkles of concern crinkling Randolph's forehead mitigated his frustration and he assured himself once again that he wasn't going crazy.

  "The divine force you feel now doesn't have anything to do with the faces humans put on it, though for some paladins their personal beliefs do color their powers. It will not answer questions about whether God exists, nor will it tell you the meaning of life. It will, however, motivate you to do good works. The voice of the divine is easy to misinterpret because it speaks softly, but if you are vigilant and forthright, you will hear it and act accordingly."

  Oh yes. A scion of strength and fortitude. Obviously.

  "Look, let's get to the point, shall we? What do you need someone with my kind of military training for?" He wondered, not for the first time, what Randolph knew about his role in the armed forces.

  "I came to Seattle because I had a vision. I thought that maybe I could create something free of dogma. Something that operated on basic principles --- compassion, integrity, fortitude --- instead of sitting around making arbitrary decisions about who does and does not belong." Ashrinn could almost taste the bitterness in Randolph's words. "And for a while, it seemed possible.

  "But now we're being challenged. We're overworked, and relations with a lot of other magical communities are an uphill battle. You try being a white man and going to a Native reservation, telling the shaman there that you want to help. Let's just say that white men have said that many times before."

  He could imagine all too well. Run out of Iran and protected from British racism only somewhat by his father's station, at least he hadn't had to do it in abject poverty. "Right, so you're
stretched thin. I sympathize. What I want to know is, why do you need someone who is handy with a garrote?"

  "You've got a lot more to you than that," Randolph said, and Ashrinn wondered if he'd somehow managed to steal his official file, "and you're right. This problem is bigger than being understaffed."

  "I don't suppose you can tell me about it?"

  "Not until you're a member of the Order."

  "That's a bit of a funny deal, don't you think?"

  "I have faith in you, but my Order teeters on the brink and I won't deliver the death blow by trusting a spy, even if the chance that you're other than you appear is slim. Suffice to say the Pacific Northwest is in danger. People have been falling ill, and it's not random chance. It's a race to build a better infrastructure than our enemies, before they tear the veil away, before they kill thousands of innocents, because the world you see right now won't last. It's not a question of if the humans will be made aware of what's going on under their noses. It's a question of when, and of how many of them we can save, how many of them we can sway to our cause."

  "Why don't you reveal the truth before they do? Control it?"

  "We're not ready. We don't yet have the resources to keep the inevitable panic and chaos under control. That's why I need you, and people like you."

  "That's noble, but I'm not interested in being someone's subordinate," Ashrinn said, absorbing the news, "I earned my leadership role, and if you're here to strong arm me into being a raw recruit again, forget it."

  "No, Ashrinn. No. I meant it when I said I needed your help."

  Randolph bowed his head and shifted one hand over the other. Ashrinn read the signs well. The words had hurt to say. Ashrinn's heart opened at the subtle shame on Randolph's face. He could relate.

  "Then be honest about what you can."

  "I'm a hopeless leader," Randolph said. "Oh no, not in terms of being inspiring, not in terms of being able to give a speech or care for my paladins. And on a small scale, I'm good at strategy and dealing with people and their crises." He looked heavenward for a moment. Ashrinn watched him fidget, toying with his empty cup and spinning the ring on his pinky. "But I don't need more police. Or more volunteers, in this case, though we're always hurting in that regard." His gaze, direct and grave, pinned Ashrinn to his chair. "I need an army."

  Ashrinn had the denial half formed on his lips, ready to tell Randolph to go to hell. He didn't know thing one about this man or his problems, not to mention Randolph might well already know about him being a Unit soldier, a dicey situation at best. Most of all, Kiriana would hate the idea. He couldn't wrap his mind around defying her.

  Unbidden, a flash of memory. When do I ever organize things to my liking?

  "Done," he said in a wave of anger and defiance.

  "Divine bless you," Randolph said, and Ashrinn could hear the lump in the other man's throat. "With your help, maybe we will keep the Pacific Northwest free."

  He heard the words, but from far away. Another flash of memory, unfamiliar this time.

  The pain could not be comprehended by the higher mind. He lay on the hot stone of the Tikrit back alley in utter surrender; there was no fighting through wounds like his. His gaze blackened and spun closed like the aperture of an old fashioned camera lens, and he thought, with a mixture of relief and sorrow, that he would die here.

  Malkai's hands, crossed and pressed over the knife wound. He wanted to say any number of things to his closest friend, open his eyes to look at him, but found he could do neither. He faded to the sounds of prayer, spoken in a voice made uneven by tears.

  Ashrinn sat straight up, grabbing after the fragments. What had Masters said to him later?

  That was a goddamned miracle.

  "I may have a candidate for you, Randolph," he said, and this flame of hope burned brightest of all those that had kindled for him today, "I'll know soon."

  He thought of the real estate ad tucked into his breast pocket, where some men would have kept their scripture. He thought of having Malkai with him through this, too.

  "Oh?"

  "Say six months or so."

  "What happens then?"

  "Divine willing," he said, testing the new phrase like an unfamiliar flavor, "I buy a house."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "I'm afraid you'll find our set up amateurish, Ashrinn," Randolph told him as he lead them down a winding gravel path on the outskirts of Skagit County, "but I'm hoping you can put us right. I was taught in an archaic fashion and I'm afraid it's reflected in the Order."

  Ashrinn said nothing, limping along as best he could in Randolph's wake. He was having trouble focusing; every time he swallowed the muscles in his neck snarled into a knot of misery, bruises that cut deep into tissue though their visible features had been smoothed away. Kiriana had been true to her word; pressing the moving issue had cost him. His newfound healing factor and his elation at getting his way helped shield him from the worst of it, though, and he did what he could to put up a neutral front. He'd become rather adept at that particular piece of acting, over the years.

  They came to a chain link gate and passed through. The ground was lush and rain soaked, though the clouds above hadn't yet opened to deliver the pelting encore in the offing. The thick aroma of pine trees coated the back of his throat. He'd never been anywhere so green; everywhere he looked vines and moss and bushes thrived. He had to admit he loved that part of his new home, though he longed as always for the flowers of Iran. Randolph strode across the field.

  Ashrinn stopped, a ring of braided magic blazing to life at his feet. He stood dazzled for a long moment. Many signatures had gone into the spell --- was that the right word? --- and he barely recognized most of them. Some were totally foreign, the contributions of creatures he couldn't name. The power sizzled, and he knew that if he had bad intentions that power wouldn't hesitate to fry him.

  "It's keyed to you," Randolph said, waving him forward. He glanced down at the protection spell again and gulped. It reminded him of trying to cross a bridge with a glass bottom. One might logically realize that there was a surface there, but feeling it was another matter entirely.

  He stepped forward, half expecting to get electrocuted. A curtain of energy passed over his body, and for a second he saw a wild whirlwind of hues that he couldn't even comprehend. Magic invigorated him and he caught up with Randolph without trouble. They started walking again. He focused on mundane details to calm his mind. He noted a few apple trees and, standing out boldly amongst its fellows, a single peach tree.

  The corner of a farmhouse poked through the foliage on the right as they approached, and he heard the sounds of laughter and of steel on steel.

  "It's tradition for every new member to add a little something of themselves to our wards," Randolph said. "But it won't hurt you. It recognizes your signature."

  "Thank goodness. I'll do what I can about your setup," he said, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation, partly to distract himself from how unsettling that had been. He was proud of how even his voice sounded, "I'm grateful to have a purpose."

  Randolph glanced at him as they came abreast. "Sometimes I think it's cruel to make men into weapons, only to discard them."

  . "It changes you," he admitted as they rounded the corner. The farmhouse, painted red just like the farmhouses in children's books, sat at an angle that hinted at a sunken foundation. Easy to see why, given the way water pooled in the rich earth by the front steps. He doubted that anything here ever truly dried out. The door stood open on a good natured riot, cooks and what he guessed were trainees alike bustling about. Ashrinn could smell food cooking and his spirits received a much needed infusion of good humor. He and Randolph turned a corner and went down a small hill, leaving everyone behind.

  What waited for him in the ring of beaten grass at the end of the path would have dampened any trained fighter's spirits, however. Three recruits, one male, two female, doing what could only be described as training by the most kind of onlooker
s. With live sword blades.

  You'd think I'd learn, Ashrinn admonished himself as they kept on down the path, good humor never lasts long.

  He turned to look at Randolph, hoping for some kind of explanation.

  "It isn't as silly as it seems," the older man told him in a hushed tone, "We paladins do use swords. They're mystical weapons instead of strictly physical ones."

  "You're giving them live steel! They're not ready for that. And swords are all well and good, but it's 2007 and they aren't riding into battle on white steeds, are they? Do they know how to use any modern weapons?"

  Randolph shook his head, but before he could say anything else the training erupted into full-on roughhousing. The male turned and laid the flat of his sword across the backside of the shorter of the two females in a series of staccato slaps. She laughed and tried to get away. Playing. They were playing with weapons.

  Before Ashrinn became aware of his actions he was crossing the space, anger giving him the longest stride his abused body could manage.

  The male --- the boy --- had the misfortune to get in his way first. The kid had an unruly mop of straightened hair that Ashrinn guessed he'd done himself, brown eyes, and a lanky build. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, and while he had some muscle on his arms, it didn't make him look any less green. Ashrinn guessed his age at somewhere between sixteen and twenty years old. The boy leaned on the broadsword, blunting the point in the soft earth.

  "Give me that bloody sword." Ashrinn said. The boy looked like he might protest and somewhere in the back of Ashrinn's mind he reminded himself that the kid didn't know who the hell he was. His tone worked, however, and boy did as he was told.

  "What in hell do you think you're doing? You feel like putting your friend's eye out? How about taking off her arm? You're supposed to be a grown man and yet you're thicker than the goddamn dictionary." Ashrinn scanned the other two faces, turned towards him now. One moon-pale, especially so next to the boy with his dark skin, with eyes like a frozen over lake. The other girl was plump, white but tanned, with a burnished gaze that reminded him of a hawk. He looked back to his target.