The Cold Eye

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “The last time we had a bear inside the walls, it was a half-grown cub the children smuggled in,” the judge said, his face no better than Gabriel’s, a faded blue kerchief held against his nose and mouth, “and we had to deal with the mother trying to knock the gate down. That mistake has not been made again.”

  Another time, the story would have amused Gabriel. But with the memory of bodies torn and strewn about, he couldn’t even muster a smile. “Then what?”

  He knew, even as he asked the question. It was possible that a beast or man might kill a magician, especially one that was already bound. But both, within the wards? There was only one thing Gabriel could think of that could do that to two magicians. Another magician.

  “Tousey said they came on two magicians in a duel and recruited them, and then five more. All accounted for. But if they reached one and he decided not to participate, didn’t want to play with others . . .”

  The judge considered his theory. “He might have thought they were easy prey, with the máitre’s bindings on them.”

  One of the people who’d followed them from the judge’s cabin and gathered outside the hut while the judge and Gabriel investigated, asked. “And got to them how?”

  “Does it matter?” Gabriel eyed the woman: younger than most, pale-skinned and leaning heavily on a wooden crutch. That would explain why she wasn’t working a field —and possibly the look of distrust that seemed etched on her face, as though she expected everyone she met to lie to her. “Trust me, trying to think on what magicians can and can’t do will keep you awake in the small hours. Best to be thankful they chose to destroy each other and not us.”

  Except they might have chosen exactly that, if what Tousey said was true. If they thought it was in their best interest to turn on the Territory in exchange for riper pickings . . .

  No. This, all of this proved that no magicians could work together, not even for a wanted goal. They were too mad, would turn on each other from instinct and need. Even Farron, for all that he seemed fond of Isobel, had warned her that a moment’s faltering on her part, and he would not be able to resist, like a fox in a hen yard. And that had been a magician in full control of himself. One touched by the madness Isobel described?

  “You think we need to increase our wardings?” a third voice asked. Gabriel couldn’t pick him out of the small crowd, but it didn’t matter; they all looked the same just then, as though Gabriel had begun speaking Hollandic —the words might be familiar, but the meaning escaped them. That was the problem with settlements, he thought. They became accustomed to things working and stopped thinking about why they worked that way, just blindly following along. . . .

  Gabriel thought of Isobel laid out cold and bleeding on the bench merely from having touched one of the ward posts they all took for granted. “I think whatever medicine could reach through what you have already, there isn’t anything anyone here could do to stop it.”

  Isobel, his thoughts supplied. Isobel might.

  Might. Would try, if she knew. And might fail.

  He was not her guardian. He should go wake her, tell her what had happened. Let the Hand decide what to do.

  He stood just past the doorway, his back to the shredded bodies, and did none of that.

  “All right, enough,” the judge snapped when someone else tried to ask another question. “There’s not a thing for any of you to do here, unless you’re volunteering for cleanup?” He waited, but when no one volunteered, he waved his hand irritably. “Then get, all of you.” He waited until they began to disperse, then called out, “Possum!” The hut-keeper ambled over from where he’d been crouched by the door, his eyes redder than the day before, his hair and clothing just as tousled and grimy.

  “Anything to add to the conversation?” The judge’s voice was just as sharp, but there was a level of respect that hadn’t been there before when he spoke to the others, and Gabriel wondered if there was more to Possum than he’d realized.

  “If’n I did, I would have told you.” His gaze flicked back and forth between the two men, and Gabriel wished Isobel were with them so he could ask her if the ward-maker was lying.

  “All right. Do you think you’ll be able to clean that mess up?”

  “Not enough that we’d ever be able to use it again,” Possum said readily. “Not so much the blood and guts as what was done to ’em.” He sucked at a forefinger, then added, “Living silver done that. Likely have to burn it down and build anew, maybe even dig up the floor, depending how deep it went.”

  Gabriel went still and cold.

  “Take what you need to make it done,” the judge said, as though he had no understanding of what the old man had just said. “If anyone gives you grief, send them to me.”

  Possum grinned at that, showing blunt yellow teeth. “Ain’t no one will give me grief, and you know it. Even if they do feel summer-dumb.” He gave Gabriel a mocking salute, then ambled past him, pushing the rider aside to reach the doorway, and disappeared inside.

  “He’s as mad as a magician.” Possum couldn’t have said what Gabriel had heard. He couldn’t have.

  “Not nearly, but . . . he’s always been a special one, from the day he was born. But without him, we’d have a harder time of it, keeping the wards intact, so allowances are made.”

  The judge took Gabriel’s arm, pulling him gently away from the lockhouse, leaving Possum to do his work unobserved. Most of the crowd had faded away as well, and Gabriel could hear the previously missing sounds begin, noises of a living town going about its day.

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “What, about having to burn the hut down and build again? Yeah, that’ll be a hardship, but I’m thinking we got off lightly after—”

  “No.” Gabriel interrupted him. “About the living silver.”

  “Living silver is a myth, a story natives tell, to explain things they don’t understand. I told you, Possum’s a special one; he believes things like a child. But he’s a fine maker, and I suppose the two may happen together, yes?”

  “It’s not a myth.”

  “Oh, come now . . . ,” the judge scoffed, then sobered when Gabriel did not laugh. “You’re serious?”

  “The miners believe it.”

  “Oh, well, miners.” The judge waved a hand as though to dismiss the entire breed.

  “And so does the devil.”

  The judge placed a hand over his mouth, drawing it down into a fist resting at his chin, his eyes gone distant. “Impossible,” he decided. “Even if such a magic exists, which I’m not saying it does, we’ve little enough silver here among all of us, and all of it forged and still. No, that was only Possum being Possum. I won’t worry about it.”

  Gabriel bit his tongue rather than speak the words he was thinking. Silver was a tool, forged and smithed into useful bits, be it a buckle or a button or the coins they carried. But the deepest, most powerful veins? They were more dangerous than a dozen magicians and thrice as unusable. Simply putting pickax to a vein could be enough to destroy the mine itself and everyone within it.

  But the judge was right: there were no mines here that he’d ever heard tell of, and living silver could not be shaped or formed to carry anywhere. The judge was likely right: Possum was the sort who’d lead you by the nose for amusement if you let him.

  “—about then, I find myself envying you the Road, I don’t mind admitting.” The judge had still been speaking; Gabriel tried to make it seem as though he’d been listening. “And speaking of which—” The judge looked up at the sun just now rising over the eastern wall. “Time we wake our remaining prisoner and send him on his way as well. You’ll be there?”

  And that, Gabriel surmised, would close the book on this matter for the judge. One prisoner executed, one condemned to his fate, two magicians dead —but since he saw no threat to any of his people, the matter was of no further concern.

  The worst of it was, Gabriel could not bring himself to blame the man. That was how the Territory worke
d: you honored the dead and you warded their bones, but you did not linger with their memory.

  But Gabriel, for all that he knew better, for all the warnings he’d been given, couldn’t let go so easily. Only two things could destroy a magician: the wind they took their power from or another, stronger magician. And if a wind had taken back its medicine, there would not have been a lockhouse left standing to be blood-splattered.

  A duel, one against two, and the two lost; the winner unknown but filled with the power they’d stolen, a powder keg of madness ready for a match to ignite.

  The people of Andreas could pretend this didn’t affect them, that someone else would clean the mess. Gabriel traveled with the Devil’s Hand and had no such luxury.

  Isobel wasn’t quite sure where she was when she woke. There was a bed underneath her and a warm coverlet above, and a feather pillow under her head rather than the hard leather of her kit.

  Then memory hit her: magicians, the frantically beating wings of the ancient spirit, the marshal’s death, molten claws of something beneath her skin . . .

  She sat up and shivered in the cool air, her bare arms prickling. It might be nearly summer, but she suspected it never reached the warmth of the plains this far north.

  She had been warm the night before. Had burned from within, her bones limned with liquid heat, opening to . . .

  She closed her eyes and breathed out. Survive, the Reaper hawk had told her. Isobel thought if she remembered too much of the night before, she might not.

  Gabriel was nowhere to be seen, the blankets pushed to the foot of his bed, his boots missing. It was ridiculous to feel abandoned, alone: he’d likely gone to use the privy or find breakfast and would be back soon enough.

  Isobel rummaged in her pack for her comb and toothbrush and powder, then dressed. On a whim, she dug into the bottom of her pack to find the shawl she remembered folding and placing there so long ago, back in her room at the saloon. It was dark blue and fine-woven, a birthday present from when she turned thirteen, one of the few things she’d packed simply because it was pretty. She pressed her face to the soft wool now, remembering green felted tables and sawdust, whiskey and soap, fresh bread and brimstone, and all over it, running underneath it, the familiar-comforting tobacco smoke and bay that meant the boss had been near.

  After so many weeks of horse, leather, and woodsmoke, those once-familiar scents were strangers, and that thought made her eyes water before she dashed the dampness away, draping the shawl over her arms the way Marie had taught her, and went in search of Gabriel.

  The judge’s house was open but empty, neither judge nor his wife nor Gabriel to be found, and Isobel had no idea where to look next, her lack of direction allowing uncomfortable thoughts to creep past her ear, trying to find their way to her eyes, to make her remember.

  She drew the shawl more closely around her shoulders, wishing she had simply put on her well-worn jacket, and tried not to think at all.

  “Excuse me?” She raised her hand, oddly tentative when she saw a group of three, two men and a woman, walking toward her. They paused on seeing her, as though they’d forgotten there were strangers in town, then the woman smiled —tightly, nervously—and said in a voice softer than her face, “How may we help you, dear?”

  “I’m looking for my mentor? Gabriel Kasun?”

  Something shifted on their faces, echoing the woman’s nervous smile, and Isobel’s nerves tightened. “Do you know where he is?”

  He was, it turned out, checking on the horses. Uvnee and the marshal’s pony had been let out into the small fenced yard, and the mare whickered when she saw Isobel coming, hoping for a treat. She rubbed the mare’s nose fondly, then went into the shed, looking for Gabriel. He was checking Steady’s hooves while the mule was busily chomping down on something out of a wooden trough set along the far wall.

  Other than their three and the marshal’s pony, there was an elderly brown mare who likely had been retired from heavy work, resting in the shade, and the two brown dogs keeping her company.

  “I would have thought they would have more horses,” she said when Gabriel and Steady both raised their heads to see who had come in.

  “The others are in use,” Gabriel said, going back to work with a hoof pick. “Not that they have many—they kept ‘losing’ them to raids.”

  “Raids?” Isobel was confused. “I thought they were on good terms with the local tribes.”

  “They are. I suspect that’s how they kept it that way.” He finished checking Steady’s hooves, tossing what looked to be a small pebble to the side, and leaned against the horse’s side as she gave the mule a hand to sniff in greeting. “Gives them something to brag about and argue over when they get together. Pride’s important to a warrior. Stealing horses has become an honored tradition.”

  “Gabriel.” She could read him too well. He was talking the way she was not-thinking, to keep something at bay.

  “The magicians are dead. Something got through the wards last night, early this morning, and killed them.” His words were sharp, dropping into the air like knives, slicing at her, opening her.

  “What?” Her voice was faint, hollow, echoing the faintness inside her chest, something fluttering faintly in distress.

  “This morning, when they opened the wards to bring them out. That’s all they found.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Saw it myself, Iz. Wards were intact, magicians were dead. Mind, I’d say fair riddance to the both, but it makes me worry what else is out there now, more powerful than the two of them, and mayhap just as mad.”

  Isobel could feel her brow crease, a hard tic twitching in her cheek, and she schooled herself as though she were facing the devil across the card table, refusing to let anything slip free. “Are you sure they didn’t destroy each other once they woke up?”

  “Not unless it’s normal for them to rend each other limb from limb and leave only bloodied bits and bone behind,” Gabriel said. “And it’s not, so far as I’ve ever heard.”

  Isobel turned her face back to the mule, smoothing a hand over its soft nose to gain time to respond.

  “Isobel.”

  He was asking her what to do —not mentor to student, but rider to Devil’s Hand.

  Survive. No whisper, no memory, this, but common sense.

  “They’re likely far away from us by now,” she said. “If whatever did this meant to strike at us, it would have already. Farron said magicians have much cunning but little patience.”

  “ ‘And blown by the winds from which they take their names,’ yah, I remember that. So, we’ve no fear, leaving this town in our dust?”

  “I see no reason why it should return.” Her voice shook a little, and she firmed it by the end, willing her words to convey confidence without allowing for further questions.

  To her relief, he only nodded. “The judge has asked us to carry word of the marshal’s death. He’ll write up whatever report’s needed; we only need take it with us.”

  With the mail chain broken until the post rider recovered from the flux or was replaced, it was the least they could do. And Isobel couldn’t deny she’d a fierce need to leave this town and its high walls behind and never return.

  “So, we can leave?”

  Gabriel hesitated, and she braced herself. “We . . . You should be there when they hand Tousey over. As witness.”

  As the Devil’s Hand, he meant. As witness.

  They went back to the cabin they’d been given, repacking their kits in silence. A fresh pitcher of water had been left, along with a covered tray holding a corn mush that tasted better than it looked, and what might have been half a small pig, roasted to crackling perfection and cooled so you could eat the strips with your fingers. Isobel might have wished for coffee, but the water was fresh and cool, and sufficed.

  She didn’t think being more alert for what was to come would help, anyway.

  There were four natives outside the judge’s bench, as though they had b
een waiting there forever and would wait forever again with equal ease. Isobel was still learning what Gabriel seemed to read easily as breathing, but even she could tell that the quillwork on the moccasins on the older man with two silver braids was a different style from the beading on the vest of the younger man next to him, dark head bent as he listened to what the first man was saying, and the other two, standing at a respectful distance, had shorter hair and broader features, and their leggings and moccasins had no visible bead or quillwork. At least three tribes had sent someone to speak for them. The same three who had followed them here? Likely.

  There were two settlers lounging nearby also, younger and bulkier than most of the people she had seen so far, sun-dark, and she thought maybe the judge had called in aid from the nearest fields, although the scene appeared peaceful enough.

  She had a passing thought that had he taken such care earlier, the marshal would not have died, but she and Gabriel had both been there and the marshal had died anyway. Isobel had been able to scrub the blood from under her nails but could still feel it when she rubbed her fingertips together, unseen in the whorls of her skin.

  The older man with the braids looked up as they approached, and stopped speaking, but he did not acknowledge them. Following Gabriel’s lead, Isobel paused at a distance and stood, waiting.

  Then the door to the bench opened, and the judge came out, followed by Tousey. He was bareheaded and disheveled, having spent the night in his clothing, but he walked easily, without visible shame or fear.

  The four warriors stood, somehow seeming to come together even though they did not move closer, as the judge and Tousey came to them. Gabriel put his hand on her arm to stop her from joining them.

  “This isn’t our trouble,” he reminded her. “We’re only here to watch.”

  The silver-haired elder eyed Tousey up and down and then up again, then reached forward to poke one gnarled finger into his shoulder. “You are the one who caused the ground to shake?” Disbelief was clear in his words.