THE WIZARD HUNTERS

by Martha Wells

  “No, that was all him,” she replied, patting her pockets to make sure she had everything, trying to gather her thoughts. She was tempted to tell the bullyboy that if he tried rowing a galley on the open ocean, he might develop hands that hard too, but there didn’t seem to be much point in it. She asked Ilias, “You want to get something to eat?”

  Ilias followed Tremaine back up toward the huge street with the trees, where they stopped at a place with little tables and chairs under a dark green awning. There were a few other people already seated there, some with bags of belongings piled around their chairs, looking at papers or maps and talking in urgent voices. As they sat down a man in a white shirt brought them two more cups of the horrible stuff everyone drank here. Tremaine held a brief conversation with him, then as he left reported, “He says they’ve still got food. They don’t want to leave any for the Gardier, so they’re trying to use it all up before they go.” She propped her chin on her hand. “I haven’t had mutton stew with truffles in forever.”

  Ilias had time to notice how drawn her face was before she dropped her eyes and said suddenly, “I have to tell you something. I’m not—” Her fingers tapped at the table, impatient with herself. “I’m not as reliable as you think I am. If, that is, you think I am—”

  Knowing the tangent might go on for a while, Ilias interrupted quietly, “You’re fey.”

  She frowned slowly, not meeting his eyes. She had a shadow over her right enough. He could understand it, at least partly; her home was about to be destroyed. Ilias had seen cities lost in war, villages falling prey to outlaws or wizards, and this place had that same air of dying desperation. It stank of fear worse than it stank of smoke. But it was the same for all the others, Florian and Gerard and Ander, and they hadn’t had that fey light in their eyes. Tremaine’s shadow was more complicated than that. “I saw it in the caves,” he told her. He tasted the drink absently. It was still awful, but not as awful as the last one. “Gil was too, for a long time.”

  Tremaine looked at him narrowly, as if trying to gauge his sincerity. “Gil was? Because of his sister and the others Ixion killed?”

  Ilias nodded. “Gil blamed himself for that, though it was just as much my fault. Gil thought he should have recognized what Ixion was. But when we met him, and he was pretending to be normal, he didn’t use any curses. We didn’t know Gil couldn’t tell a wizard was a wizard unless he was doing a curse.” He hesitated, absently turning the cup around. “And he blamed himself for me ending up with this.” He touched the symbol burned into his cheek.

  “Dyani told us it was a curse mark.” Tremaine paused, obviously weighing how far to pry. “How was it Gil’s fault?”

  Ilias had promised himself if any of the Rienish ever asked, he would tell them, even though it couldn’t mean to her people what it did to his. “When we followed Ixion to the island, he caught me.” He glanced up warily, then reminded himself that none of the people at the other tables could understand their conversation. “He cursed me, a transformation curse. Gil thought he’d have to kill me. But when Gil killed—cut Ixion’s head off—it went away.”

  He knew it wouldn’t mean the same thing to Tremaine, raised not to see wizards as a corrupting evil, but she still managed to surprise him. Instead of revealing even mild shock, she looked at him, her eyes assessing. “The scars on your back. That’s where they came from. They didn’t look like normal scars.”

  He nodded, distracted by the realization that it was easier to tell her than he thought it would be. “Years ago in most of the cities of the Syrnai, if you survived any kind of a curse, the lawgivers would kill you. They were afraid the evil was still inside you, even if it wasn’t on the outside anymore. Now they don’t, but you still have to wear this mark. And any obligations toward you, family or marriage, don’t count anymore.”

  Tremaine’s brows drew together. “But Halian and Karima and the others didn’t. . .”

  “No, they didn’t. But they’re different.”

  She studied the tabletop a moment, then asked carefully, “Why did you have to get the mark? It seems like Giliead could have prevented it.”

  That one he had no moral obligation to answer, but he had the feeling that she was seeing past his words a little deeper than he intended. In which case there was no point in not answering. He looked down, rubbing idly at one of the stains on the much-abused wood, hunting for the right words. “I didn’t have to get it.” No, it was all his own choice. Be very clear about that. That mix of willful pride and self-hate and self-pity was something you could manage only all on your own. “I thought it would make me feel better. I hated the way I felt, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I could have left Andrien, gone somewhere inland where nobody had ever heard of us all, but I didn’t want that, either. So I went to Cineth and got the curse mark. Gil caught me halfway there and practically went crazy trying to stop me. I didn’t think he was going to feel the way he did over it.” He hadn’t thought about anything except himself. But he still didn’t exactly regret it, maybe because it was a lesson he had had to learn and it was just as well he had finally learned it and got it over with.

  She lifted her cup and put it down again, apparently just to examine the brown ring it made on the table. Her gaze had turned abstracted, as if what he had said had sparked some new thought and she was turning it over carefully, examining it from all angles. “You wanted to change everything.”

  Ilias hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “When everything hurts too much, you want to get away from it but you can’t, because it’s inside you. So you do something drastic because you know it will change everything.” She shrugged slightly, her eyes on the street. “Doing something drastic like that usually does.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. He waited until she shook herself slightly and her eyes were seeing him again. He asked, “So why are you fey?”

  Tremaine gave him that unexpected, faintly self-mocking smile. “I don’t know.” She looked out at the rainy street, her expression turning sober again. “I lost a lot of people in this war, but so has everyone else. I lost my father. Not that I was that close to him. He’s not somebody anyone gets close to. Because of him, of what he did, I was accused of being crazy once, and locked up. Though not for very long.” She let out a frustrated breath. “Maybe that’s not it. A lot of people found out about it and it was humiliating, but it doesn’t sound like much compared to ...” She shook her head wearily. “If I knew, maybe I wouldn’t be fey.”

  “You had plenty of opportunity to die,” Ilias pointed out. “Maybe you’re not as fey as you think you are.”

  “Maybe.” But her eyes were opaque again and he couldn’t tell if she believed it or not.

  The rain was still falling as they returned to the bookbinder’s. The bullyboy was there but instead of starting trouble he seemed more inclined to slump against the wall and study Ilias with hostility and poorly concealed admiration. Tremaine went to the back room again, leaving Ilias in the foyer.

  Tremaine’s thoughts were still mostly on their conversation. The reflective pain etched in his face, and all the torment that lay under the simple honesty of the way he had spoken about it, told her it was all so much worse than he was making it sound. It made her own problems seem more like a failure of resolve than anything the world had done to her. Maybe she just needed some perspective. She needed something, she was pretty sure of that. But talking to Ilias had given her a wariness about reaching for that something without being absolutely sure it would do the trick. If it looked easy, then it probably wasn’t an answer at all.

  Preoccupied with that as she stepped into the inner room, she wasn’t aware of anything out of the ordinary. Then a man stepped out from behind the door, shoving it closed behind her and turning the lock. She stopped, eyeing him thoughtfully. He was another version of the bully-boy in the outer room, though a little older and bigger. He sneered nastily at her, an expression that began to turn a bit disconcerted under Trem
aine’s steady regard.

  She looked at the old man, still seated at his desk. He smiled thinly, saying, “I think perhaps I would like a little more for my work. You understand.”

  This close to her goal, Tremaine was tempted to just grab the marble paperweight on the worktable and beat him to death. But she supposed that since Ilias had objected to the entire scheme on principle, he would also balk at allowing her to kill a sexagenarian. She raised her voice slightly and said, “Ilias.”

  The door slammed open, the broken lock hanging by one screw, and Ilias strolled in. The older bullyboy looked him over, then backed away slowly, absently studying the ceiling as if he was standing on a corner waiting for an omnibus. “What’s wrong?” Ilias asked. The light rain had flattened his hair down and he didn’t look nearly as fluffy. With the dark clothes, his scar and the strange silver mark on his cheek, he did look exotic and dangerous.

  The old man wet his lips. “I didn’t realize you had company. My mistake.”

  Since it had worked the first time, Tremaine just stared at him. The Valiarde name combined with the appearance of actual muscle had convinced him he had made an error in judgment, but she wasn’t in that good a mood. She took the document off the desk and read it over in silence broken only by the old man’s nervous wheezing. Satisfied, she tucked it into the dispatch case, tossed one of the gold coins onto the desk, then told Ilias, “Let’s go.”

  She didn’t realize the younger bullyboy from the front office had followed them out into the street until Ilias suddenly whipped around and grabbed him by the collar.

  The bullyboy winced, holding up his hands in surrender. “You a Valiarde? You hiring?” he asked Tremaine hurriedly.

  “He wants a job,” she explained to Ilias in Syrnaic.

  He lifted a brow and released the boy, who stepped back, self-consciously tugging his jacket back into place. It was nice to know somebody considered them the winning team, but Tremaine wasn’t so sure. She told the boy, “You don’t want this job. Do what the government says and leave town.”

  He watched them walk away, scuffing his boots in the dirty puddles on the sidewalk.

  Someone was waiting for them when they got back to the car. Leaning casually against the passenger side was an older man with long graying hair. He was dressed in an expensive greatcoat over a dark suit that made Niles’s careful style of dress look cheap. His arms were folded and he was holding an ebony walking stick topped with a silver lion’s head. As they drew near, Tremaine frowned, trying to remember if she had seen him before. Despite his age he was a very handsome man and she was sure she would have remembered him.

  He watched her approach with a thoughtful expression. “Tremaine? I’ve been waiting for you.”

  She glanced uncertainly at Ilias, who said pointedly, “I’m not going to beat up an old man either.”

  “I didn’t bring you along to— Never mind.” She addressed the stranger, switching back to Rienish. “I don’t believe I know you?”

  He smiled. “I’m your uncle Galiard.”

  “Oh.” Tremaine stared at him, nonplussed. She had long wondered who her other guardian was, but she had never expected him to simply wander up one day and introduce himself. Particularly this day. “Is that your real name?”

  “Of course not. I’m actually your uncle Reynard.” He pushed away from the car, leaning on the cane, and eyed Ilias with a hint of challenge. “And this is ... ?”

  “This is my friend Ilias. He’s ... not from around here. He doesn’t speak Rienish.” She turned to Ilias to explain in Syrnaic, “It’s all right; he’s an old friend of my father’s.”

  This caused Ilias to eye Reynard warily. He jerked his chin toward the other side of the street. “There’s two men watching us from over there”—his eyes moved over the passersby, settling on a man standing near the lamppost on the corner—“and one more up there.”

  Tremaine turned back to Reynard, who was waiting with polite curiosity. She said, “He’s spotted three of your bodyguards. Any others?”

  Reynard’s blue eyes were amused. He stroked his neat mustache. “No, he got them all. Very good. He’s much better than that playboy you used to go around with.” He lifted his brows inquiringly. “Whatever happened to him?”

  “He’s a captain in the Army Intelligence corps, and I wasn’t ‘going around’ with him.” Tremaine cocked her head, finally remembering where she had seen him before. The newspapers. He was Reynard Morane. “You should know; you’re Captain of the Queen’s Guard.” She hoped she was keeping her face expressionless but she wanted to reel. It was hard to believe that this man had ever known Nicholas, except in a superficial social way. She could see them as opponents, but not as allies, friends even, with Morane privy to all of Nicholas’s secrets. And to be her other guardian, Morane must have known everything there was to know.

  “Retired.” Reynard looked away across the street, his eyes narrowing. His expression turning serious, he said, “We’ve never met before because it was important for a number of reasons, past and present, that no one suspect I was ever associated with your father. That’s not going to matter now.”

  Tremaine nodded slowly. After what Averi had told her, and what she had seen today in the city, it didn’t come as a shock. “You’re evacuating the royal family?”

  “They went early this morning. The city will be under siege by tomorrow, maybe the next day if we’re lucky. In the Philosopher’s Cross the street barricades are going up.” His gaze came back to her and turned kind again. “I wanted to make sure you had a way out of Ile-Rien.”

  “That’s what this was about.” She hugged the leather case to her chest. The man on the other end of the Garbardin exchange would have told him about her wanting the bookbinder’s address, but she didn’t want to go into details. Reynard would know all about the Institute’s project anyway. “We’re leaving, but we have some people we have to pick up first.”

  Reynard nodded but asked sharply, “Where’s Gerard?”

  “Ah . . . he’s one of the people we’re picking up.”

  “Well, that’s all right then.” He stepped away from the car, tucking the cane under his arm and adjusting the fit of his gloves. “I’ve got to go.”

  She had to ask. “To Parscia?” He didn’t look like someone who was about to run away. He didn’t look like someone who had ever run away from anything.

  “No, I’m staying here. Your father’s organization is going to work for the government-in-exile, whether most of the members know it or not. Fortunately, going underground won’t be anything new for them.” He met her eyes. “I’ve never taken advantage of my contact with them except to fulfill my obligations to you. Using them as a resource for the Crown would have been a betrayal I was not prepared to make, even after Nicholas’s death. But I know in this situation that he would want me to use them against the Gardier in any way I could.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I was a friend of your mother’s, too.”

  Tremaine didn’t want to go down that road. “Don’t tell me I look like her.”

  He smiled a trifle ruefully. “No, I’m afraid there’s more resemblance to a portrait of Denzil Alsene in the palace.”

  Tremaine frowned. “Who?”

  He snorted, looking amused. “He’s a less than illustrious ancestor of yours. We all have them, but your father was very sensitive on the subject.” He watched her gravely for a moment, then nodded to her and to Ilias. He propped the cane on his shoulder and walked away.

  Chapter 19

  The routes out of the city were crowded but the Chaire road to the coast was still relatively clear. Most of the civilian populace would be going the other way, trying to seek refuge in the Low Countries or Parscia. For now, Tremaine thought as she drove past a line of cars waiting to turn onto the Street of Flowers. The Gardier would surely take those lands next.

  Tremaine had much to occupy her thoughts but the trip back to Port Rel was fairly serene, except the one time she had to pull over
to the side of the road so Ilias could be sick. It was dusk by the time they reached the town and she found a place for Gerard’s car under the trees on the street behind the hotel.

  As Tremaine climbed out, she saw three men in military uniform walking briskly toward them down the cobbled path through the overgrown lawn. Her first thought was that Averi had been more optimistic than he had appeared and had sent them to wait for her arrival, so when she brought back the document they could get things under way immediately. She had discarded this theory by the time they reached the car and decided instead that they hadn’t recognized her and were coming to warn her off the hotel property. “Miss Valiarde,” the first one said, and that theory went down in flames too. “I’m afraid I have to take your friend into custody.”

  She stared at him. I will not be stopped now. She took a step forward. “What? Are you out of your mind? Under whose orders?”

  The man looked more than a little taken aback, possibly not expecting Tremaine to respond quite so forcefully. “I was told he was a security risk.”

  Made uneasy by Tremaine’s anger and an agitated conversation he couldn’t understand, Ilias eyed the corporal aggressively. Tremaine put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from doing anything rash. She said, “He and his friend blew up a Gardier airship. Two, actually. That was before the Gardier burned the village near where he lives, sank the ship he was on and killed or captured most of his friends and family. That’s a little much for a secret agent, isn’t it? And he doesn’t speak Rienish, so it isn’t as if he could overhear our plans, now could he?”

  One of the other men gave the corporal a rather accusing glare. Tremaine suspected that despite Averi’s caution the story of the destroyed airships had already filtered through to what was left of the military detachment. She had just confirmed it for the enlisted men and surely most of them would see Ilias as a hero.