Ian, always a compassionate man, let go of his own anger. He was the only person, Human or Kin, that Scythe had ever met who could do that so easily. He spoke with the soft, comforting voice that Scythe remembered from his youth. “Scythe, please, give me a minute of your time. I want to understand a few things.”
The voice spurred a memory of another quiet evening. Surprisingly, it was one that had occurred before he had even met the Human. His father, another man who sought to understand people, sat with him at their small kitchen table, tutoring him in reading.
Most Kin parents accepted the heavy responsibility of educating their sons and daughters in the home; there were very few places like the Human schools for younger children. Kin children learned all the fundamentals from their parents and then, at around age ten or so, would also begin training in specialized areas. This could happen independently at home or by studying under another community member. Later, at around age thirteen, they would begin formal apprenticeship in a chosen field, the beginning of their careers and entry into adulthood.
His father had asked Scythe, “Why do you think I chose this particular passage tonight?”
Scythe looked down at the book, an autobiography about a famous general. As he had been taught, he thought before he responded, “This book is a recommended reading. Every kid has read it. But,” he added when his father nodded, “if you say that you chose this for a reason, I might guess that it is because something here is important to you.”
Scythe scanned the pages they had just covered while his father waited. He pointed to a section, “This refers to his later campaigns, the ones that resulted in strict containment of Humans and the creation of the bordertowns. Since mommy comes from a bordertown, maybe this is what you want me to focus on?”
The elder Scythe nodded appreciatively, “That is a solid assumption, son, but entirely incorrect, I’m afraid.” He turned the pages until he reached one of the last sections they had covered and pointed. “Read here again.”
“‘Talon was asked why he walked the desert in the day, and avoided the lush forest. He replied that he didn’t walk the desert, the desert walked in him and to carry that into the forest was to risk bringing drought. It was also true that he never sought favor nor gave his, though it was sought by…’”
“Stop there, Scythe. What is the story referring to here?”
“Well, everyone knows that the way of the desert is the warrior’s path. To walk it in the day means that he chose the hardest roads, and the forest represents the family…”
“But?”
“Well, it says that he wouldn’t give his favor; he never married and he said it was because he was a soldier. But, that doesn’t make sense because most of the soldiers here in Poinsea have families.”
“Yes, they do. So why didn’t General Talon?”
“He said that the desert walked in him. Um...he...was so much of a soldier that he couldn’t keep a family?”
“‘The desert walks in me’ was not a common expression. Some even say that he came up with it himself. What it means is that the way of the desert was integral to him in some way; it was part of who he was. And because of this elemental part of him, he could not or would not marry.”
“That’s sad,” said Scythe, looking at the passage again. “He even thought it would hurt people.”
“It is sad, and it is hard to say if the ‘drought’ he mentions refers to what would happen to his own family or to anyone that he would come in contact with. In any case, he felt that his particular affinity for war left him incompatible with family life. It is true that from this time onward, he had very little to do with his own or the families of his friends.”
Scythe frowned at his father. “You think I will be like that, like General Talon, since I have decided to specialize in military applications next year?”
“I have been thinking about your choice, and why young Keyrin singled you out years ago for this path. I believe he may have thought that the soldier’s uniform may be one of the easier uniforms for a halfblood to wear, prejudice against both them and Humans being so high. However, the governor’s son isn’t the one who has the right to decide for my son. Just because he set you on this path years ago does not mean that you need to follow it blindly for the rest of your life. I want you to make the decision yourself. What do you think?”
Scythe thought about his daily training, which was directed by his two friends, Rend and Smoke, both soldiers of Keyrin’s personal guard, the Blades. It was the single most important thing to him, outside of his family. He always did more than they required and pushed himself as far as he could go during each activity or drill. At night, he did extra reading in all the areas they studied together: technique, meditation, strategy, history of warfare, first aid, weaponry and equipment maintenance. He had no stronger desire than to join them in the Blades someday.
However, he had not thought that it might mean not having a family of his own. In Kin society, only the strange or perverse did not have a family; even those whose relatives had died or lived far away were adopted by close friends and included in daily life. To be Kin was to be family. All else was emptiness.
“I thought all the soldiers stationed here at Poinsea had families.”
“They do,” his father agreed.
Relieved, Scythe said, “So, there is no problem. I do want to be a soldier, an exceptional one, and I want a family too, Dad.”
For a moment, his father thought about how he would proceed. Scythe waited quietly until he finally said, “It is a worthy life, son. One more question: what set Talon apart from the rest of the other Kin generals at that time?”
“Aside from having no family?”
“Aside from that.”
“Well, he was the most famous: very talented, inventive and gifted in strategy.”
“He was a true genius, on the battlefield and in the council chambers.” Scythe’s father acknowledged smoothly, his expression piercing.
Thick ropes wrapped around Scythe’s chest, and it wasn’t until several seconds had passed that he remembered to breathe. His heart had taken off by itself, and he belatedly tried to slow it down with a deep breath. “That’s...that’s true, but…”
“I am no genius, son, but I have witnessed it and read a lot about it, especially in the last few years, since your aptitude became so pronounced. What I’ve found is that genius, true genius, has no interest in the normal way things are done, nor any sympathy at all for its host. In some cases, it is like a jealous lover, taking all of you and leaving nothing for anyone else. We know that a healthy family shares the drink, the bitter and the sweet, but genius doesn’t like to share. It likes to consume.”
“I...I share.”
“I know, son. Your heart spreads wider than the sky. This is not about that. This is about knowing the nature of what is inside of you, and how it will react to years in the desert. The warrior’s path is not a peaceful one, and your particular condition means that you will embrace it more fully than anyone here in Poinsea. It may be that you can live a normal life, with a family and a typical home. Or, you may find yourself driven in the way I see you each time I am home: flying through books, pushing yourself physically and mentally, making yourself into something no nine-year-old has ever been.”
“I can stop anytime. I just won’t...I won’t go too far,” Scythe insisted.
“Will you be satisfied with that? What happens when you are still? Not when you are meditating, but when you are just sitting around doing nothing?”
Scythe didn’t have to think about his answer. He already knew. If he wasn’t training, he was thinking about training, or he was reading about it, or solving some puzzle he had been working on, or making a puzzle to solve. “I am never still,” he confessed with wide eyes.
His father, perhaps thinking he had gone too far, lay a hand on his arm, gripping it comfortingly, “Don’t worry too much about it, Scythe. You will make your own life, with the family at your back when you
leave and waiting at the door when you return. I have only been thinking, son, that there are many ways to use your amazing gifts. Other professions are open to you, ones that are less wrapped in violence and may afford you more opportunities for a happy family. The desert is not the only path available to you. Your genius is a gift, one that I want you to feel proud to use. I am not telling you to change your mind about next year. I just want you to choose carefully. Just think on it, will you?”
“Father,” Scythe said seriously.
The man smiled, recognizing the signs of his son’s powerful determination.
“I will have a family and I will be a great soldier in the service of the Kin, like you. I can do both.”
“Good. Then the discussion is done. We move on to trigonometry now.”
Scythe looked across at Ian, a man who had been like family to him at a time when he still believed in his childhood ambition. “You remind me of my father in some ways, Ian.”
Ian’s eyes widened in surprise and then, as Scythe knew they would, warmed. “Really?”
Scythe nodded. “He wanted to understand, too.” He paused to organize his thoughts before continuing, “He didn’t think...I could...or rather, he wondered if it would be possible for me to function well, in society or in a family, because of who I am. This was before I was infected with the virus, this is purely what I am. And, he was right to doubt; the virus just made it worse.”
Ian interrupted, “What do you mean, ‘Who you are’?”
Scythe sighed. The topic was making him impatient. “It's complicated, but the bottom line is that I just don’t care enough anymore. About you, Mercy, anyone. I don’t have room, or the interest, or that thing that makes your eyes change when you think of your family, Ian. It’s not here, and I don’t miss it at all because, honestly, that thing messes with my work.”
“Your work?” Ian asked incredulously.
“Yes, my work, my life. Let me put it another way, Ian, because it's clear you aren’t getting it. There was a man, a Human, long ago who heard music all the time. He couldn’t rest until he wrote it or performed it. When he didn’t, or even when he did and it really drove him, he couldn’t handle the rest of his life’s demands. He was a terrible husband, friend, father, everything.”
“I’ve read about him. So what? You aren’t a musician. You’re a soldier. Don’t even try to tell me you have some obsession to kill or something, because I am not believing that for a minute.”
“It’s not the kill, although that can be part of it, but the hunt. I need to hunt, Ian. When I am tracking down somebody, especially someone good at keeping hidden, it fills me in a way nothing else does. It is just...right in a way I can’t explain.”
“Everyone works, Scythe, and when the work is done, they go home.”
“What if your work is your home? What if the hunt gives me what your family gives you?”
Ian shook his head stubbornly, “No, it’s not the same.”
“Ian, let me show you, and then I am done explaining.” Scythe laid his hand on the table.
A thick rope of power separated from Ian’s arm and reached across the space to lay gently upon Scythe’s forearm.
With a focusing breath, Scythe formed a sequence of images for Ian that were so clear and full of feeling that the man gasped when they hit him. He watched as Scythe poured over a mountain of evidence, examining every piece of information and sorting it into one or more slots in his mind. Then he began to select the ones he wanted and lay them out like tiny mosaic tiles on the floor of an enormous hall, lifting them up and moving them around until the pattern he had created felt right. As he worked, every now and then without warning, a dozen of them would fly up in the air and rotate or flip over or move to another place entirely; some would disappear, merely rise up and fade away. Then they fell back down, rearranging themselves and piecing themselves back together into a solid whole that was clearer than it had been a moment before. As the case progressed, some tiles became fixed into place. These finished pieces made up the border, which started out small and thin but grew as the part he was working on, the middle, shrunk. His excitement mounted as he moved inward to the center. Behind him, arcing around the room and surrounding the diminishing work area was the completed outer circle: rings of various widths decorated in elegant patterns that caught the eye and took it on a journey about the room, all the time slowly spiraling inward. By the time he was done, and sometimes the last part happened so quickly that in the time it took him to close his eyelids and then open them for a blink, the rich, textured tiles had formed into an intricate, beautiful motif. Shining at his feet in the very center of the room was the answer.
Then he turned and left the hall because the next part had already started calling to him: the hunt. Scythe showed Ian what the pavement felt like under his feet when he moved with surety toward his goal: each step jarred him awake, sending bits of electricity up his legs and throughout his body. Ian found out what it was to walk into a building just a day after the captives were moved to another location, and breathe in the stench of sweat and that singular odor that terrified Humans emitted. He let it be Ian’s hands that gripped a man’s shoulders, thumbs pressed into soft flesh, his gift stripping the mind bare to reveal like gold coins shimmering beneath a fountain: a name, a location, a time.
Scythe shared the intoxicating thrill of being so close, and then...the moment he had anticipated: the moment when he realized that violence was inevitable...a sweet release. The tight control that he bound himself with for every minute of the day slid off him. The joy of speed, economy of movement, precise technique that cut through them with an ease bordering on art. Even the occasional injury felt good, made his lips pull back from his teeth; he loved the challenge of someone lucky enough or good enough to touch him.
It was always, always over too soon. Let them clean up, take care of the whimpering prisoners, and take their own smell of fear with them. They left Scythe with the few surviving perpetrators who could talk, or not, before he took all he wanted. Then, with the information sent and the mission complete, what did he feel? The itch for more.
I chose the way of the desert, Ian, and now the sand and the dry wind and the blue sky are under my skin. Really, I am just a house for the desert. It fills every room, and there isn’t space for anything else.
Scythe pushed Ian’s power away him, watching the man closely. Ian sat back heavily in his seat, wiping perspiration from his brow and then pressing his palm against his face and pulling it across his skin until his hand covered his mouth. Finally, he nodded and dropped his hand. “I guess I should thank you for answering me, but honestly, that was a bit much. Your focus amazes me; I’ve never felt a mind like that, not even Mercy’s and she is sharp.”
Scythe waited while Ian took a minute to collect himself and think. By the time his friend spoke, his shoulders had sagged, and he seemed weary or…disappointed. Either one was a sign of acceptance, and that gratified Scythe because it meant that he had gotten through to Ian the way he wanted to.
“Maybe...maybe you are right, about your work consuming you, but I hope not. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, especially not you, Scythe.” Ian stood up.
Since there wasn’t anything left to cover, Scythe determined that they were done with the conversation. He nodded and turned to his tablet again. “There is one thing, before you go.”
“Yeah, what?” Ian asked.
“I think there is a person missing from the border patrol report,” Scythe said, pointing at the screen.
“Really? Who?” Ian perked up immediately and came slowly around the side of the desk so that he could see. Scythe automatically adjusted his position to make room for him.
“A man who is not listed in the operation log, not listed in payroll or on any roster, but I found him in one of the personal journals. Look here.”
Ian scanned the document, “How in hell did you get a hold of that?”
Scythe shrugged noncommittally and continue
d, “This journal was uploaded three days before the warehouse attack. See here?”
Ian skimmed the paragraph, “Hm, some guy, a Human, a local, who was helping them out around the place, doing laundry and running errands. Phillip.”
“Well, there is a Phillip in the records, a guy taking cash for general help. It’s a typical arrangement most units have with bordertown residents, but this guy isn’t him. That Phillip was in his fifties, according to the captain’s record and the local birth certificates. This guy is clearly younger.”
Scythe highlighted the section with a quick brush of his finger, Phillip reminds me of you, Pete. You guys would get along great, except he’s not quite as old as you and works twice as hard. “Her bio shows that her brother is twenty-five. I’ve got no record of this young Phillip anywhere.”
“So you think this guy was working undercover for the terrorists?”
“I don’t know what he was doing. It might just be some guy who was overlooked. Repeatedly. But, it doesn’t feel right to me, especially since there is a name coincidence, so I’m checking it. What makes me suspicious is that nobody reviewing the case even knows he was there.”
“Except for you.” Ian watched Scythe as he nodded, a tiny upturn at the corner of his mouth. “Why do you think there isn’t any other record of him?”
“I have no idea. The captain was very thorough about documenting anyone they contracted for work out here. Along with that, you know how the border patrol has to account for every cent they spend, so there should at the least be record of him receiving money, even from the petty cash.”
Scythe frowned, concerned about the lack of information and the further evidence of tampering with information. More disturbing than the absence of information about this Phillip was what it indicated about the reliability of the rest of their data. If someone could delete information without being detected, then they could also change it. That left him with the daunting task of doubting everything that they thought they knew about the case.
Halfblood Journey Page 10
