Tiger Eye

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Through blurred vision, she saw the Magi make his escape; it seemed to her that his shoulders were hunched, his arms wrapped over his own belly.

  Strangers touched her. Dela wanted them gone, away, all those unfamiliar hands and voices, pressing against her useless body. And then Hari was there, pushing everyone aside, scooping her up into his strong warm arms. He said her name, but she could not make herself answer.

  Darkness swallowed her.

  * * *

  Dela dreamed, but her dreams were ordinary, without secrets from the future. A tiger ate a chocolate bar, and she was dressed like Alice in Wonderland, perched cross-legged on a spotted mushroom, trying to outwit an evil, grinning caterpillar. Dela was just thinking of a witty comeback to the caterpillar’s insulting remarks about her slug-shaped dancing shoes when she woke up.

  Disoriented, eyelids gummy, it took her a moment to realize she was in bed.

  In bed, tucked against a warm body, a heavy arm draped across her waist.

  Dela inhaled the light, indefinable aroma of forest after heavy rain, which barely masked the scent of leather, man. Hari. Not that she had expected anyone else. His weight around her body was unexpectedly comfortable. Soothing. She was afraid to move; she did not want him to pull away. He made her feel safe, a precious gift after a most unsettling day.

  She must have twitched—or perhaps her breathing changed. Hari stirred, carefully rolling from her. Dela caught his hand, but she did not look at him. Instead, she tugged Hari close, entwining his fingers in her own until he spooned against her back. His breath warmed her neck, and she sighed.

  “Are you well?” he asked quietly, his voice low, rumbling from his chest.

  “Better,” she said. “I’ve never fainted before.”

  “The Magi sent his powers into your body. I think you made him angry. That, and you were a fine distraction.”

  Dela remembered her fleeting glimpse of Hari’s anguish, and fought down a shudder of regret. “You could have gone after him.”

  “No,” he said. “I could not leave you.”

  “The curse.”

  “No,” he said again. “You.”

  Again she sighed, snuggling deeper into his warmth. “What happened after I passed out?”

  “I brought you here. You were unconscious, but shivering. So cold. I could not seem to warm you, so I thought to use my own body in addition to the blankets. I hope you do not mind.”

  “I don’t,” she said. Boy, did she not mind. “And you’re really sure that was the Magi, even after all these years?”

  “Yes.” Hari went very still with that one word. Dela tensed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sorry he’s still alive, sorry you had to see him … sorry I stopped you. I must have seemed cruel.”

  Hari’s chest rose and fell against her back. “Yes, Delilah. At first you did seem cruel. I wanted nothing more than to tear out his throat with my bare hands. I wanted to lap his blood. Taste his death. An old dream.”

  He sighed then, and it was a weary sound, ancient and sour. “But you were right. It was neither the time nor the place for my revenge.” Dela felt him shake his head, heard soft laughter, full of bitter surprise. “You are … remarkable, Delilah. You made me listen to reason. Reason, in the middle of a true blood-rage. I do not know what you were thinking. No one comes between a tiger and his prey.”

  “Ignorance is bliss.”

  This time there was more warmth in his quiet laughter, and Dela felt it from the top of her head all the way down to her toes. She drank in the sound; with it, a memory, carried on the back of his voice.

  “The Magi,” she said slowly, trying to remember, to puzzle out the nagging inconsistencies. “Why didn’t he use his powers on me at the Dirt Market? Why didn’t he try to force the old woman to sell him the box? If he’s really so powerful, why would he hold himself back, especially over something so important?”

  “He still hurt you,” Hari pointed out. “But you are right. Despite the harm he caused, his powers seem to have diminished. That, or he has learned caution.”

  Dela shuddered, recalling the feel of sharp fingers in her guts. “Caution, maybe—but if that’s diminished, I don’t think I want to know what he’s like at full strength.”

  Hari’s arms tightened. “You must understand, Delilah—when I first encountered the Magi, his might was such he could make the air burn with just his fists. If he did not concentrate on withholding his powers, he could not rest his hands on wood or cloth without setting it on fire. For that very reason, he lived in a cave and slept naked on a bed carved of stone.”

  “Nifty,” she muttered, remembering heat, the touch of the Magi’s skin. Comprehension made her gasp. “Wait. Is that how your chest was burned? Did he hurt you with just his hands?”

  “Yes,” Hari said. His arms tightened. “His fingers were the tools.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped you.”

  “No. A good hunter chooses the time and place. I will have another chance, now that I know he wants me back.” Quiet revulsion tainted his voice, a low shudder of hate and bewilderment.

  Now that I know he wants me back.

  “But for what?” Dela asked. “It doesn’t make sense, not after all these years. I’m sorry, Hari, but you’d think he would have forgotten you by now.” And just what do you know about psychotic sorcerers? Nothing, nada, zip. You’re a babe in the woods.

  “I do not know, Delilah. Discovering he survived is terrible enough. That he wishes to become my master … intolerable.”

  Intolerable indeed. The idea of that cold-eyed awful man holding anyone’s life in his hands made Dela want to run screaming for the hills. That, or go all Pompeii on his ass.

  “How did he find us?” she asked. “I’m sure he didn’t follow me to the hotel, and he doesn’t know my name.”

  She felt Hari shrug, as though to say, “Magic.” Dela, however, was not entirely comfortable chalking up the Magi’s successes to simple power. Anyone who needed to use bad pickup lines to kidnap a woman was running low on some kind of cylinder.

  “Be grateful he does not know your name,” Hari said. “I was careful not to use it in front of him. Your name might have given him power over you.”

  “How?”

  “Familiarity. When you know a person’s true name, it opens a crack into their life, into their mind. Your name is not what you are, but it is what you are called, and that is a profound knowledge to have over another.”

  “You gave me your name,” Dela said.

  “You were the first person to ask in a long while.”

  She sensed there was more to it than that, but she didn’t feel like prying, not if she wasn’t ready to hear the answers.

  Her hand felt dwarfed in his loose grip. She freed her fingers and stroked the elegant bones of his wrist, watching the play of shadows against his skin. Surreal, being held by Hari, but she liked it too much to pull away. Perhaps it was the intensity of their shared experiences, her flight into his mind, but all her earlier hesitations were fleeing. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to be touched. His presence felt safe, familiar as home.

  “He called you a Magicker,” Hari said, after several minutes of comfortable silence. His lips grazed the tip of Dela’s ear. She shivered. “I have also sensed your power.”

  Uneasiness replaced pleasure. Guess it was too much to hope he would forget.

  “I suppose the Magi is also a Magicker?” she asked.

  Hari nodded, solemn.

  “It’s complicated,” she warned, still reluctant. Of course, Hari was a self-proclaimed shape-shifting warrior who had spent the past two thousand years imprisoned in a box. He could probably handle complicated. He could probably handle just about anything.

  “If you do not wish to speak of it …”

  But that was not an option. If she and Hari were truly stuck with each other, he had to know the truth.

  “It’s not that,” she said. “What I do runs in my fami
ly, but it’s not magic. Not magic like you, anyway.”

  “I suppose that is a matter of perspective,” Hari said, and Dela wondered fleetingly if he wasn’t right.

  “The simple explanation is that I—we—can do things with our minds. My brother, for example, reads thoughts. If other people are weak or inclined to accept what Max is putting in their heads, he can manipulate, or encourage visions and beliefs.”

  “I can imagine the temptation for abuse.”

  Dela was not offended. “It’s very serious. Even before our powers manifested, Mom and Dad raised us to adhere to strict rules of privacy and ethics. We couldn’t get away with anything. My mother can read auras, while my grandmother is a pre-cog—sometimes she can see the future. Non-intrusive gifts, but because the power seems to change from generation to generation, my parents knew the possibility existed. They wanted to make sure we were raised responsibly.”

  “Can you also read minds?” Hari’s voice was soft, unafraid. Dela slowly exhaled, tension draining from her limbs.

  “No,” she said. “I have good instincts for people, and sometimes I dream of the future, but my real talent is with metal. I don’t know how or why, but it just … speaks to me. Besides being able to manipulate metal in subtle ways, I can always sense its components, its age. If a particular person has handled it long enough, I can hear that individual’s echo—an imprint—and I can see the story of the metal. What it has been used for, where it has been. That doesn’t happen often; it takes time for those energies to accumulate.”

  “My knives,” Hari said thoughtfully. “They told you a story.”

  “Yes.” Her palm still ached.

  “What did you see?”

  “Blood,” she whispered. “Death. But that was the blade itself. I also felt you, and your echo was so angry, so lonely and sad. You carried such regret for all the lives you had taken.”

  “I have done terrible things in my life, Delilah. It is true I committed them against my will, but the stain is still there. I have killed and killed, for days without end. I have lived the nightmare.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  “And still, after all you have seen, you do not turn away from me. Why?” There was such pain in his voice—pain, and a desperate longing. For what, she did not know. Forgiveness? Acceptance?

  Dela rolled over in Hari’s arms so she could see his eyes. She pressed her palm against his rough cheek. “At the core of you burns a pure bright flame, and it is made of kindness. That’s why I can’t turn away, why I’m not afraid.”

  “I do not feel kind,” he said.

  “But you are,” she responded.

  Hari kissed her palm. “I do not understand you, Delilah.”

  Dela smiled. “I’m not entirely sure I understand you, either, and I’ve been inside the shadow of your soul. Kooky, huh? Guess we’re just stuck with mystery.”

  Hari did not look as though he minded. He traced her lips with the pad of his thumb, and Dela closed her eyes.

  “I need your permission,” he whispered.

  “Tell me something first,” she said, and it was difficult to speak. “Why your change of heart? Why don’t you hate me anymore?”

  He looked embarrassed. “I tried not to trust you. I did not want to like you. Hate has always been safe, Delilah. I have been hurt so much it is easier to assume the worst.”

  “But?”

  He sighed. “But I am not a broken man, and everything you have done—your actions and words—has reminded me of that. I have not believed in anything for a very long time, Delilah, but I think I am beginning to believe in you.”

  It was the most profound compliment anyone had ever paid her, but there was something else in his voice that made her go very still.

  “You’re still waiting for me to slip up, aren’t you?”

  “Part of me expects it,” he said. “An old habit, born of experience.”

  Hari’s words hurt, but she was not surprised. His persistent doubts only made her more stubborn, more determined to prove him wrong and end the betrayal.

  “It’s a good thing you’re used to disappointment,” she said.

  Hari smiled. “My lady. Your permission?”

  “You have it,” she said.

  He kissed her. Gentle, tentative—a feather-soft brushing of lips. His tenderness was excruciating. Dela reached for him, pulling herself close until she lay flush against his hard body. Touching him felt so good.

  “Delilah,” he murmured, his breathing ragged. She was pleased he looked as dazed as she felt. “We cannot become distracted … there is too much danger now. The Magi will attempt to gain control of the box and kill you … and there are your other assassins….”

  “You sure know how to destroy the mood.” Dela glowered, but his eyes were gentle, and she burrowed her face against his chest. Hari wrapped his arms around her, burying his fingers in her hair. He felt large and warm, safe. But the world itself was not safe, and she thought about the Magi, the man who had tortured Hari—who had tried to kidnap her, and then sunk his mental fingers into her flesh.

  “How did the Magi stay alive all these years?” Dela wondered out loud. “If his powers have diminished, do you think he somehow drained himself in return for longevity?”

  Strange, hearing such odd talk come out of her mouth, though in some ways, it didn’t seem much worse than discussing telepathy and clairvoyance with her friends at the agency. She supposed it all depended on what a person was used to—and she was becoming used to quite a lot.

  “I wish I knew, Delilah. I am embarrassed by my ignorance. All these years I should have tried to learn something, but I was so focused on the present, on each command, resisting my masters to keep from being broken …”

  He stopped. Dela wanted to ask him more about his past, but held her tongue. There was too much emotion in Hari’s voice. She felt uncomfortable pressing him.

  “Hari,” she asked instead, “why didn’t the Magi summon you after he placed you in the box?”

  The question seemed to take him off guard, and he thought carefully before answering.

  “I do not know. He inscribed the curse on my chest, and then—darkness. Darkness, followed by light. My first summons, by a king who wanted nothing more than the deaths of his stepsons. I did not know why I was there, what had happened—only, I was compelled to follow the king’s orders. I could not escape him, and I tried, Delilah. I tried so hard. Later, I found someone to read the words inscribed upon my body. Like you, I found them incomprehensible. It was a bewildering time, frightening because I had no control, and every summons was to a new place, new customs, living under the whim of unpredictable, often cruel individuals. I was never safe. No one around me was safe.”

  What would it be like, forced to murder, unable to control your actions, ever? Torture.

  Dela chewed on her lip. “It doesn’t make sense. You’d think the Magi would have retained control from the start, kept you as a trophy or his own personal whipping boy. On the other hand, I’ve also been wondering why you weren’t just passed down from one master to another, constantly summoned within a particular family.”

  “That I can answer,” Hari said, with a wry twist to his lips. “I am a slave, Delilah, and so I must be purchased by anyone who wishes to summon me. I, too, used to wonder why I was not simply summoned again and again. That part of the curse was not written down. Perhaps it was even unintended. It took me some time to understand. My masters, fortunately, never did. They must have believed my ability to serve was for one person ever, and the box was either given away, stolen, or sold—upon which time the cycle began again. Assuming the new owner even bothered to open the box.”

  “Bought and sold,” Dela murmured. Hari frowned, and she said, “That’s what the old woman told me. She wouldn’t even let me touch the box until I paid her money.”

  Hari made a soft sound. “She knew what she was selling.”

  “And the Magi was aware she had it. I wonder how lo
ng he waited there, trying to convince her to sell you to him.”

  “I am surprised she did not claim me for herself.”

  Dela snorted. “And here you thought everyone wanted your body.”

  “Most do,” he said, and Dela laughed, lightly smacking him on the chest. Hari held her close and kissed her cheek.

  Something tight unwound in Dela’s stomach, a warm flush of comfort, but she still had one last question.

  “Will you ever trust me?” she asked. Hari’s smile faded.

  “I trust you,” he said gravely. “My heart has been broken one too many times, but I am willing to try again, to trust.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Because we’re in this together.”

  “That is good,” he said. “I am tired of being alone.”

  The phone rang, startling Dela. Hari, too, jerked with surprise. Dela rubbed his arm. “It’s okay,” she assured him, though really, it wasn’t. She did not want to answer the phone. She wanted to pretend the world beyond did not exist—that no one could harm them, and they could press against each other and talk, talk and kiss, and express their newfound trust.

  Dela answered the phone. It was her brother, Max.

  “I hear someone’s trying to kill you.” Machine gunfire punctuated his words.

  “Back at you,” she said, wincing as somewhere near, a man screamed. “Is this the best time to call?”

  “Only time. After this, things get really hairy. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be home in a week or so. Try to stay alive until then.”

  “Worry about yourself. I still can’t believe you got talked into a team project.”

  “I’ll be fine. Oh, uh, gotta go. Love—”

  Click.

  Dela stared at the phone. What a nice, normal family. She reset the receiver, and rolled back into Hari’s arms. And what a day.

  “My brother,” Dela explained to Hari.

  “Is he a soldier of some kind?” Hari asked. “I heard fighting.”

  “You’ve got good hearing. And no, he’s not much of a soldier, though he is good in a fight.”

  The only light came from the bathroom, leaving Hari’s angular face half-bathed in shadow. He closed his eyes, and Dela was reminded of a large cat, meditating on catlike things. She watched him for a time, lost to awe and strange twists of fate, and managed—for a moment, just a moment—to forget things like danger and deception and magic.