by Mark Eller
"It's gotten worse since the emperor arrived," Lioth said. She stirred uneasily and then stilled.
Wild Talents like Lioth, he had read, were dangerous and unstable. Most cracked beneath the strain. Only the most stable, those who received training in self-control from an early age, escaped the curse.
The worst mass murderers on record had been wild Talents.
These speculations left Delmac in a quandary. Lioth was an unsurpassed resource for Clack's followers. Delmac's honor insisted he reveal her secret. Once discovered, she would be killed no matter how useful she proved to be. Wild Talents were that dangerous to have around.
Lioth's death would also mean Delmac's. Only her status and honor kept him alive. Even so, he should accuse her. He had always insisted his honor was more important than his life. He still felt that way, but was his honor was more important than Lioth's?
Falling in love could be a bitch.
"It can be," Lioth said with troubled tones, "and thank you."
"You know?" he asked.
"Choose," she answered.
Feeling confused, Delmac didn't know which choices she offered. Did she want him to act on his feelings, or did she expect him to decide about revealing her secret?
"I'm tired," she said. "Either decision will do. Tell me what it is in the morning."
* * *
Delmac woke to the sensation of one hand on his shoulder and another over his mouth.
"Shush," Lioth warned. "I can't save you if you make a noise."
"What is it?"
"They're coming," she whispered. Her voice quavered, sounding as if she were close to tears. "Stay still."
Strung bow in hand, she disappeared, a ghost merging with the night, leaving not even the stir of a leaf or a grass blade to mark her passing.
How did she do that?
Despite her orders, he sat up and arranged himself against the tree trunk he'd leaned against earlier. He listened, deliberately eliminating the crickets, the owl, and all the other normal night sounds. Though no unusual noise came from the camp, something would soon happen. In these matters, Lioth was never wrong.
A shadow flickered at the edge of his vision. Without moving, he focused on the area. Another flicker of shadow, and then he made out the broken shape of a human. The figure paused. Another joined it, and then a third. A fourth.
Delmac pursed his lips and refused to close his eyes. These were not his people. They were Chin, not Clan. They followed Aaron Turner, a man Delmac admired and hated with every fiber in his soul. They were not his people. Their fates held no meaning to him.
But they were people he had sworen to serve. He joined their forces, their army. He promised them his honor. Yes, he truly did love Lioth. But honor must be served. This betrayal, he decided, would claim only his life.
Decision made, Delmac opened his mouth.
Whisss
Thud
The woman staggered, stumbled several paces toward Delmac, and then fell. Too late, Delmac's warning died on his lips. The other figures scattered. Another fell as an arrow found it, and then he heard only the heavy breathing of the wounded woman. Her open eyes pleaded as they looked on Delmac. The arrow in her ribs quivered with each ragged breath.
From the dark, Lioth ghosted to Delmac's side. Crouching, she leaned against him, her own breathing ragged, her face twisted in sorrow.
The wounded woman's mouth opened. Fresh blood looked black on her lips.
"I wish," the woman said. "I wish..."
"I'm sorry," Lioth whispered.
The wounded woman shuddered. Her eyes slowly glazed, and she died.
"I am─" Delmac began, wishing he understood more of the Chin language because he did not know the words he wanted to say.
Lioth clamped a demanding hand on his arm. Her head lifted with a sudden jerk, turning to stare past the trenches, looking toward the camp's center.
"I'm a fool," Lioth whispered.
Fire lit up the sky. Thunder deafened his ears. People screamed. A wagon disappeared in exploding flames, and fires spouted from other wagons.
Two more explosions sounded just as a faint breath of the first concussive wave pushed against Delmac. Far from the explosion, he hated thinking of what the explosive wave had done to the people lying near the wagon.
"They are learning," Lioth said, sounding almost approving.
* * *
Harvest Patton is a master in the art of love, she thought, arching her back against the hand stroking her belly. Experienced, he did not engage in clumsy fumbling and aborted half-measures, the hallmark of her first lover.
He leaned forward, his form trim, hard, and tall. For the thousandth or the ten thousandth time, she willingly opened her lips as he pressed his mouth to hers. Twining her tongue with his, she moaned with her body's wanting. Harvest was a man. Her man.
His tongue withdrew, their lips separated, touched again, and his lips whispered while his hand stroked her body.
"Guess," they murmured.
"I can't," she whispered back.
And then he formed the words, the impossible, dreaded words she longed to hear.
"I love you." His lips brushed against hers. "I love you."
Fighting back remorse, knowing the dark path she chose, she kissed the corner of his mouth. "Me too."
They made silent love for the hundredth time. It felt like nothing she had experienced before because they loved, because they knew they loved. She hoped this moment, this love, was worth dying for. Some secrets could never be kept…and this was one, a thought to carry her from ecstasy to sleep.
She opened her eyes after the morning's sunlight already warmed the tent's interior. Their blankets were tossed aside. Their bodies combined into one tangle. Her head rested against Patton's strong chest. Gentle love surrounded her, bathed her, and assured her.
She smiled. Even asleep, his feelings were not hidden.
Sounds of morning activity came through the thin tent walls. Guilt washed through her. She should have been up an hour ago with decisions to make, orders to give, and messengers to send out. This was a hard time for everybody, not a time for self-indulgence.
Harvest stirred.
Smiling, she trailed fingers over his stomach ridges, tangling fingertips in his curling belly hair. Suddenly, she stilled. Something felt wrong. Something was wrong.
She heard breathing.
Fearful, unbelieving, Melna lifted her head from Patton's chest and twisted to look over her shoulder.
"Awake?" her husband asked.
"Aaron," Melna whispered, not knowing what to do. She drew a blanket up, covering herself, ridiculous because bare skin was not one of her taboos.
They were caught. She had nothing left to hide, and she was dead.
Poor Harvest.
"We'll talk about this later," Aaron told her. "Where's Kim? I need to see her too."
"Kim's been gone for weeks," Melna said, speaking low so Harvest would not wake, protecting him for these few moments. She wondered when would Aaron give her over to the law's judgment then remembered this was Chin. Aaron was the law. Peaceful resignation washed over Melna. The deception was over. The die cast.
Melna refused to be afraid even though her fate was sealed and her punishment clear, a punishment she deserved.
"Kim said she had to do one more thing before she could be whole," Melna told her cuckolded husband.
Aaron frowned. For the first time, he frowned. Before this his expression had been entirely noncommittal. "I have need of her. I suppose I'll have to make do with another. Melna, wake Patton up and get dressed. We need to pick up a passenger in Jutland before going to New Beginning."
Abruptly, he rose and headed toward the tent flap.
"Aaron?" Swallowing, Melna fought the words free. "I'll do it for you. I've hurt you so badly the least I can do is take this task from you."
The eyes he turned to her were not angry or puzzled or pained. "You haven't hurt me. You can't. Not anymore." He
smiled, and to her surprise, the smile touched his eyes. She had never seen a smile touch his eyes.
Melna shook her head, confused, and now, finally, truly frightened. She didn't understand what happened.
"You've changed," she hazarded, finally seeing the new inches, taking in the maimed hand.
"I've grown," he answered and pushed the tent flap aside.
"Aaron."
Once again he paused.
"Why?"
"Because I love you," he answered. "I love you both."
He left, and with his leaving she realized the love permeating the air, the love she thought emanated from Harvest, had disappeared. Her husband took it with him.
* * *
Chapter 20
"Oh, my God!" Missy exclaimed when Aaron walked through the door with Melna and Patton trailing behind.
Smiling, Aaron shook his head as Missy leaped from her reading chair in the Great Room. The book she dropped did not hit the tile floor before she landed on her feet.
"It's just me," he said. "Home from the wars."
"Gods, Aaron!" Missy exclaimed. "How can you be flip at a time like this? Look at you! What have you done to your poor hand?"
Aaron held the offending member up in front of his face, examining it. He supposed its condition provided sufficient reason for Missy's concern. His hand was certainly a sight. Knuckle bones were flattened, and his fingers bent at angles nature had not intended.
Upon removing his hand's wrappings, the hospital personnel had been more than a little upset upon discovering his miraculous healing had encompassed his hand because they had not yet readjusted his bones. His healing sealed skin, merged flesh, and left the shattered bones exactly where they lay.
"I hurt it."
"You ruined it." Missy's eyes appraised him. "I wondered why we lost another Zisst. The one I was holding faded from my arms. Two days later, Kim's showed up. I know this Zisst belongs to Kim because it has a notch in its right ear."
"Perteet," Zisst said.
"Hey, fellow," Aaron answered it. Zisst looked like he wanted to be petted, but Aaron would not touch the fellow. The last thing he needed was to absorb the last Zisst. For one thing, he was having enough trouble adjusting to his new height. For another, he wasn't ready for what one more joining would do to him.
Climbing up Missy's leg, Zisst settled across her shoulder.
"I haven't been here for a while," Patton noted. "A lot's changed." His demeanor appeared open, but now that Aaron looked for it, Patton appeared a touch wary, a little distant. Aaron supposed the wariness had been there for a while, probably since Patton fell in love with Melna.
"A lot has changed," Melna agreed in a subdued voice. "It certainly has." She had pulled Aaron aside when she finally left the tent. Harvest, she told him, had slept through it all. Her lover and his friend had no idea Aaron knew the truth. For now, Aaron would let the matter lay.
"Aaron," Melna continued. "Why are we here?"
"You're here to wait until the war is ended," Aaron told her. "I'm here to ask a favor of Martha Hines."
Melna's face turned stubborn. "I won't allow myself to be stuck here while our people are dying."
"There are no guarantees you won't get killed," Aaron told her, though he had secretly hoped for this exact reaction. "I can't watch over you all the time."
"I'll risk it."
"I'll watch her," Patton broke in. "I won't stay behind. I've spent too much time nursing these people."
Aaron studied the man. Patton's statement was more than chest beating in front of his woman. He took his responsibilities to the tribes very seriously.
"You were coming anyway," Aaron told him. "Renford took off after most of my council tried to kill me. Not surprising since most of the others worked toward their own agendas. With him gone, I need you to pass out orders."
Missy's face became bemused.
"Harvest fought in the T'chung," Aaron explained. "He won the respect of every Chin. More important, they're used to taking orders from him since I'm so often gone. I need him in case they decide not to follow me."
"They'll follow you," Missy said ardently. "Half the world would follow you if you asked it. Somehow, you're different, and I don't know why."
"What does your Talent tell you?"
"My Talent was never dependable," she said.
"Was?"
"I threw away my Stone. I didn't want it anymore. Kim did the same thing."
"But why!" Melna burst out. "You threw away years of living! You threw away a hundred years or more of youth!"
"I threw away an object keeping me separate from the One God," Missy explained. "I feel him now. He's in me." She looked pointedly at Aaron. "His blessing radiates off you. You're almost holy, almost like Heralda."
"Almost," Aaron agreed because he could no longer deny the truth. "So where's Heins?"
"She's goes out every day. I don't expect her back for a couple hours."
"Tell her to meet me in the exercise room."
"I will." Missy shifted Zisst on her shoulders so she could safely lean down to pick up her fallen book. After settling into her vacated chair, she opened the book to the proper page. "I want to talk to you later."
* * *
Aaron flowed. He flowed, and the forms flowed through him, somehow recognizing and compensating for the loss of one hand. His body was fluid quicksilver as he threw kicks and blocks against imaginary opponents. Experimentally, he leaped and flipped, spinning his body in an impossible double seven-twenty convoluted side flip.
His feet landed exactly where they were needed.
Satisfied, Aaron ran.
His indoor track was a short oval requiring twenty circuits to cover a mile. Aaron ran, his mouth open to the air, his breath flowing steadily as his pace increased.
He ran. He set his feet before him, stretching and speeding, wondering, discovering. He ran a mile and then two, and then twenty, learning this new body no longer understood the meaning of fatigue. His legs pumped faster than ever before, but his muscles weren't tired, and his lungs weren't tight, and he breathed no harder than if he stood still.
Satisfied, Aaron slowed, stopped, looked to the free weights and decided he really didn't want to know.
With a fast jerk of his hand, he slapped himself across his face.
Good, he still felt pain.
"I didn't know," Martha Heins said from the doorway. She stepped into the gym.
Aaron raised an eyebrow.
"I waited a year for the perfect opportunity," she explained. "There weren't many times when I was in the same room with you, and we were never alone since you saw me as part of the larger group." A wry expression crossed her face. "I suppose it's a good thing I didn't know most of your council would have been happy to see you dead. I might have been tempted to kill you in front of witnesses. I don't doubt the attempt would have been fatal for me. I didn't know how tough you really are."
"It's a recent acquisition," Aaron told her. "It came with the inches."
Martha was a woman well into her middle years. Somewhat dumpy, few would take her for a highly trained assassin. The aura of lethality constantly surrounding Kim was entirely missing from this woman, and yet Aaron knew she could be extremely effective.
He drew in a deep breath. "I'm sorry I asked you to meet me here. I wanted to ask a favor from you, only I've reconsidered."
"Oh?" She took a slow survey of the gym. "I wish I had known this was here. Inactivity has slowed me down, made me soft." Her gaze fastened back on him. "Have you heard? It appears I had no choice but to change professions. Nefra declared war on the guild. The main house has been destroyed, its trainees captured, and the few surviving journeymen have been put to the question. Nefra dissimulated the information they learned to every country possessing a guild house. In response, the guild is burning its own houses down and going underground."
"I can't say I'm sorry," Aaron said slowly.
Martha's laugh was short, dry, and brittl
e. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing stray locks out of her eyes.
"I'd doubt your sanity if you were," she finally said. "You and the guild have disagreed for far too long. Still, this isn't the guild's end. It will remain underground for a few tens of years and then resurface like it has before."
"And this was when?"
"Five hundred and twenty-seven years ago last time it happened. I doubt you'll believe this, but the world needs assassins."
She caught his doubting look. "Rivalries demand action. Those actions might not mean much when the people involved are petty aristocrats or minor merchants, but when the leaders of nations get involved murder can be the simplest solution." Her look was pointed. "For example, if you died when you were supposed to there would not presently be a crusade of thousands seeking your death, or were you aware a mob, thirty thousand strong, is marching across three countries to reach you?"
"Am I supposed to feel guilty for not dying?" Aaron asked.
She shrugged. "It would have made things easier on us if guilt made you careless. Did you know I'm not stupid?"
"Pardon me?"
"You wanted to ask me a favor. There's only one thing I'm especially good at. Who do you want killed?"
"I was going to ask you to kill Clack's main general, Han Chuk," Aaron confessed. "I thought with him out of the way we might have an easier time of it." He shook his head. "I've reconsidered. Murder doesn't seem the right way to go."
"Of course not," she answered with bitter scorn. "Why murder one man when his death might keep a few thousand others breathing? Your doxy wants to speak with you."
Angry, she spun on her heel and exited out the open door. Moments later, Missy hesitantly poked her head through the opening. "Is it safe?"
"As it's going to be," Aaron answered. "You wanted to talk?"
She took a look around, sniffed the sweat laden air appreciatively. "This is rather impersonal and open."
"I've no patience for anything else," Aaron said. "Not right now. Too many things are running through my head."
"I suppose," she answered slowly. "I guess this isn't such a bad place after all. I think it all started here." She made a slow and thoughtful way to the workout area at the center field of the track. Mystified, Aaron followed. Missy lowered herself, crossing her legs as she sat down.
