The cheerful notes, encouraged by the challenge, burst forth with a playful, trumpeting cheer and continued to dance around him. There was an element or quality to the sounds that reminded him of something else, or maybe it was someone else, because listening to them was like being encircled by loving arms or looking into a pair of eyes that held him even closer than the hug did. Finally, his own spirit betrayed his watchful self, broke through its weakening resolve, and answered the notes with its own song: a low, deep wave that seemed to swell in his chest before rushing out of him to weave itself into the larger symphony.
Something new emerged: a steady, powerful song upon which a lighter melody played joyfully, contentedly, enticingly. A brief wave of dizziness washed over him, and Scythe sunk down to the ground, embracing the peace that poured into him.
The music called to his soul, lifting him and carrying him on its unearthly wings through the melody. At the same time, his spirit framed the music, began to play in it, changing it. Come this way, his spirit urged with rich, soulful bars, and the song, eager to join with him, eager to play, followed his lead.
He could sense another, like Human but not Human, and like Kin but not Kin; it was not anything he’d ever felt before. However, Scythe was so enthralled by the music that he was barely even curious about what would normally have held all of his attention. Not yet, he pushed his instincts back, a moment more...
The strange mental footprint and the shuffling sound to his right he could ignore, but the sorrowful melody it brought with it forced him to open his eyes to see the shape of a small child approaching warily. He immediately sensed its deep loneliness, a discordant twang in the music, making him want to scratch an itch, or wipe off something slimy from clean skin. He turned his body toward it, and when it crouched down, holding itself tightly, he opened his arms; his spirit sung a gentle, beckoning chord that surrounded the boy’s discordant note and pulled it in.
The shadowy child hesitated only minutely before standing and stepping into the embrace and latching onto him. On a compulsion triggered by the feeling of small arms gripping his neck, Scythe pulled the child into a tight hug.
Far away, the quiet voice of reason whispered, “A child? Here?” He knew vaguely that it was impossible, that something was wrong, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care. He ignored the distant impulse to assess his situation, his defensive instincts muted, or drowned out, by the sounds around and in him. At that moment, all that mattered was his music, their music. The boy’s sorrowful notes scratched at his mind as painfully as any physical injury, and Scythe’s spirit ached to heal the tear in the song. The laughing melody calmed itself, and Scythe’s strong, deep notes asserted themselves, rolling over the boy’s painful song, and wrapping it up tightly in firm but gentle stanzas.
The twang slowly faded, leaving a tiny memory of itself in the song: a bittersweet note that danced with the others. Scythe’s enjoyment of their creation was even stronger now, and the new symphony was more resonant for the reminder of pain overcome. Scythe closed his eyes and, with a slow breath, released the tight grip on the boy, satisfying himself with a light hug. He filled the song with his contented spirit and reveled in the beauty of what they had made. In the mist of this quiet moment, a slight pulling at his mind brought with it another wave of dizziness that disappeared as quickly as it appeared, just before a spark of concern could begin to form. The child, resting his head sleepily on Scythe’s shoulder, provided a comforting weight in his arms; the boy’s soft breath against his skin was a reminder of the abiding happiness that the unconditional love of children always brought him.
The music and the child: two halves that made the hold.
After a while, the child whispered affectionately in Kin, “Father,” and a startled Scythe held the boy out in front of himself; he froze when he realized that the boy looked exactly like he had as a child. Long, deep black hair framed a face made up of sharp angles: cheekbones and jaw jutting out farther than any Human’s, and thin, straight eyebrows over wide eyes green and murky as the sea. His skin was a shade of dark gray that never had been seen on a Human and was even unusual among the Kin: the color of a stormcloud, heavy with rain. Wide eyes, fearless and excited, matched a happy grin.
“You are drawn to people’s memories. Why is that?”
Scythe blinked. “What?”
The child laughed at him, a bright, joyful sound, turned in his arms, squirming free, and ran off into the brightness. Each step left behind a footprint bursting with new green grass that spread outward until the growing patches covered the ground with plants, rocks and a small pond. Soon Scythe sat in the small garden of his childhood home.
Scythe stood and walked in wonder of his surroundings, following the younger version of himself. The ambient sounds of footsteps, birds singing, and the rustling that a gentle breeze engendered in a place teeming with plant life reached him and he stilled, regretful, when his soul-made music began to fade in the face of nature’s greater song. Fortunately, the music did not disappear completely; it hovered in the air, lightly playing in the wind.
The boy turned to him and spoke directly into Scythe’s mind, Teach me, Father. Teach me of your world. Remember for me.
-----------
Two months earlier…
He held up the slip of paper that had been folded neatly, the edges lined up perfectly, and left in the book; he lifted it to his nose and pulled the scent off it. Then he looked more closely at the message, examining the individual strokes in the handwriting of the two things that were written there: a twenty-four digit network address and a password. TE8S8530.
He replaced the message, closed the book and looked around again, but nothing was out of place. He strode to the door, opening his backpack and carefully stowing the extremely old and rare, original printing of the Human soldier philosopher Jir Dem On. It had arrived at the mail station two weeks before, for a fictitious name he had created, as he did for every purchase he made from sources he wasn’t familiar with, for this purpose only; he had already canceled the account and by that night, all evidence of the transaction would be wiped from the mail service’s records. The only thing he couldn’t eliminate digitally, the signed proof of delivery, he had removed from the cashier’s pile while she was getting the package. As far as the mail service was concerned, he was a ghost.
Why was he surprised? Finding ghosts who didn’t want to be found was what she did.
He turned right and headed up the street to where his bike was parked, reaching into his pocket and taking out the gloves. As he pulled them on, he calculated. He was scheduled to return home, and would have been well on his way there already, if he hadn’t taken this detour. He had been gone a little longer than normal this time, his latest trip having been more difficult than he had predicted, and he was itching to get back to his family, to his own soft bed, and to the place where he could sit and slowly enjoy the treasure he had just acquired. On the other hand, the delay meant that he had already missed Mercy’s spring break visit by a week, so there was no reason he couldn’t take another handful of days and check out the message.
He started up the motorcycle, and, after carefully but quickly scanning the street, sidewalks, buildings, and what he could see through the windows of the buildings under the guise of checking to see if the road was clear, he pulled into traffic and headed back the way he had come.
-----------
Cord sat back, leaning on the rear legs of the chair, and studiously ignored the books piled up on the table in front of him. He took a deep breath and tried to achieve something resembling quiet. The tiny, sparsely furnished room was about as silent as it got that late, or rather, that early in the morning, but the noise pestered him nonstop.
Studying usually kept him from thinking too much, but not tonight. Tonight, everything he read reminded him of the things he made a career of avoiding. Even the simplest words, like ‘red’ and ‘light’ sparked memories that he purposely kept shrouded, and while he pul
led the cover over those, others would pop up like freaky jack-in-the-boxes behind him. Pretty soon, they surrounded him, mocking his attempts to shut even one, not to mention all of them, out.
Chasing women always took his mind off uncomfortable topics, but they were in short supply at the moment. Scythe could keep him from thinking too much by working his ass off, but since Scythe wasn’t around, he had to make do on his own.
Being on his own was something he hadn’t had in...well, five years, really. This was the first time they had let him–had trusted him enough to–have a little freedom, to make decisions for himself in all that time. Since the moment he had said, “My life is yours,” one of them, Scythe at first, but then any of the others later, had been right by him to ensure that he kept his word. It had gotten so that he was used to having someone around, and having the feel of at least one person’s power pressing on him all the time.
The constant reminder of his position had irritated the hell out of him at first, but now that he was alone again he realized that it had become a kind of comfort, too. His new life was nowhere near as exciting as his old one, but then, it wasn’t as stressful either. There was something to be said about just following along, doing what you’re told, never having to make a decision. Just eat, work, whatever. While it didn’t win any awards for excellence or achievement, it was soothing in a way, and was still better, as they were fond of reminding him, than being the victim of an assassination order: an order that the King himself had given Scythe, and which he had risked his own safety, his family, everything, to disobey.
Cord had spent many hours wondering what the hell had been going on that day in the head of the man who was, until the moment he had freed him, the closest thing he had to a mortal enemy. Cord had threatened him, tried to murder him with a bomb delivery boy, drugged, assaulted and tried to mind rape the closest person to him, and was instrumental in getting him framed for crimes he didn’t commit. If their places had been reversed, there was no way on earth Cord would have resisted a chance at revenge.
For some insane reason, Scythe had done that very thing, and then, knowing that another assassin would be sent when it was clear Scythe had failed, he had helped Cord escape. A week later, he had stood between Cord and an irate Young family, who had the same personal reasons for wanting him dead, and defended his decision.
“I know, Ian, what he did...better than you do,” Scythe had said in that infuriatingly calm voice.
“Then what the hell were you thinking?” harped a hugely pregnant and obnoxious woman who looked a lot like Ian, but fatter.
With Scythe, Ian, his wife Faith, and the gigantic harpy, who turned out to be Ian’s sister Lena, all in the room together, Cord thought his head was going to split. He had never felt such a concentration of power in one place before, and it intimidated the hell out of him. Lena was easily the scariest one, until her husband, an equally agitated but thankfully powerless Kin man, had moved closer to her, calming her with a soft touch and quiet words about their unborn child.
“This was my choice,” Scythe had said firmly. “I chose not to kill.”
That seemed to have had some special significance to them, because they immediately backed down and, after a much less heated discussion about the rules of his virtual enslavement, accepted Cord into their home.
He had thought that he had gotten past the worst part, because in his mind a young girl wasn’t that important when it came to big decisions. He had since learned how incredibly stupid he was to think that. If he had been paying attention better, he would have known that to Scythe her opinion was the only one that mattered.
Mercy had been out with some children when their truck pulled up to the main house of the winery that would become his new home and didn’t return until late. Scythe, the heartless bastard, purposely dropped Cord on her without any preparation, and she had nearly killed him herself on the spot. The very man who had defended him to Ian just stood there, arms crossed, and watched while Ian’s daughter used her power to knock him up against and over a table. While he was still stunned, by both the hit on the back of the head from a heavy wooden chair and by the realization that no one was going to help him out, her gift snuck right past his wavering defenses and into his chest. He still remembered the sensation of fingers snaking their way through his body and closing over something close to his heart, squeezing and pulling on it; he could still feel the utter panic that had taken hold of him: panic and the awareness that he was completely helpless and about to die.
Before, when she had escaped from him in the Capital, he had seen her do the same thing to the man he had hired to rape her. He had felt nothing, of course, when the stranger had died, but he had gained a profound respect for the strength of her gift. It had taken him less than a second to realize that he didn’t want to die that way, so he had run.
This time, though, he had been completely caught off guard, thinking that the meeting would be like the one he’d had with her parents: an angry argument followed by grudging acceptance. He hadn’t expected to be attacked, not by a Mercy that seemed to have grown more confident and more capable in the short time that had passed since her capture. In fact, she didn’t hesitate once until the last second, when his life was literally in her grasp. Just as the grip she had on him tightened, her power was washed away, pushed back by an enormous wave. Cord, who had been curled up in agony on the floor, opened his eyes to see Scythe right above him. He was looking across at Mercy, whose fury had not been spent and was being redirected at the one who had stopped her.
“What are you doing, bringing him here?”
“If you want him dead, he’ll die...right now...but I’ll be the one to do it, Mercy, not you.” It was only then that Cord, in turning his head slightly, felt the blade that was held against his neck. Scythe didn’t show even a hint of appeal, or remorse; he merely waited for her answer. Cord felt the blood leave his face as he realized that he had not once been safe from the moment he had escaped from the detention cell. All the time he was traveling with Anora and Scythe, the arrival at their country home, the interview with the Youngs, none of it was the beginning of his new life. It was all Scythe making the final preparations for the end of his old life. He had been just walking along a long path to the executioner’s stump.
“Is his death what you want?” he asked when she stood there, fuming mad, silently staring at a point just below Cord’s jaw, where a blade rested on his skin. Cord could feel his pulse beating rapidly against the cool metal.
She ground her teeth, and her power moved with her gaze away from Cord. When Scythe nodded, he realized that they were talking to each other, using her power to link their minds together. He waited to the sounds of his own and the girl’s heavy breathing, both noticeably loud next to Scythe’s slow, measured breaths. Cord watched as she calmed herself, every now and then glancing down at him before returning to the one that was most important to her.
“Fine. But keep him away from me,” she snapped, turning on her heel and leaving in a huff.
“You…” Cord swallowed, sitting up when Scythe put away the knife in the single, quick motion that was almost more frightening than having it at his neck. “You planned to do that the whole time, didn’t you?”
“No. I told you this already. I planned to kill you in your cell.”
“Yeah, but afterwards, you...did you bring me here, so that they...just so that she could kill me herself?”
“No. I wouldn’t let her do that, but,” he stood up, “I definitely would have done it for her.”
That had pissed him off, “Just like that? Just because some girl wants it? A king orders you to do it, and you shrug it off, but some girl you’re hung up on holds a grudge, and you’re ready to go?” Okay, maybe it was a bit of an understatement to refer to her resentment about being beaten and raped as a grudge, but still, what was that compared to an imperial order? The man had such messed up priorities.
He had stared at Cord thoughtfully for a minute and th
en answered, “The King’s order I didn’t follow for my own reasons. As for her decision, I wasn’t too worried.”
“Why not?” Cord had been worried. Really. Damn. Worried.
“Her name, Cord, is Mercy,” he said, as if that explained everything.
He didn’t think she seemed all that merciful a few minutes before.
“So what happens now?” Based on what he knew about teenage girls, he couldn’t help wondering if she would change her mind the next day. Or maybe in the next hour.
“Now, Cord...now it’s your turn.”
Whatever the hell that meant. Such a pain in the ass. He was always saying shit like that.
'His turn' apparently meant doing a ton of work: laboring in the winery or out in the fields, tutoring the children, helping around the house, cooking for their huge household, and going along with Scythe when he left to make arrangements for their security, to drop off or pick up packages, meet with his widespread network of contacts, or infiltrate some business or home, usually to hack their computer.
'His turn' meant endless lectures about what was the right way to treat people, to live with respect and integrity, and other fucking nonsense that people lucky enough to have it all were egotistical enough to believe was possible or even desirable for everyone else. It meant that, despite all the bullshit about respecting others, he had no say about whether or not Lena used her power on him to show him his own soul: picking apart his sins, fears, and conceits while he squirmed like a lab rat. Making him remember things he had long packed away. This was a once a week walk through hell in the beginning and then less and less frequently until he was only subjected to it once every two months or so. Finally, just months before, she had announced that he didn’t need it any more, and that he should be given an assignment on his own. Nobody had argued with her; they all trusted her judgment.
While he was thrilled to be finished with their special sessions, he didn’t feel that he’d made any great leaps in the areas they expected, or changed in any significant way. The only difference that he had noticed at all was what was disturbing him at the moment, and it was mostly just annoying. It usually stayed in the background; only on rare occasions did it get full of itself, crank up the volume, and to hell with the neighbors.
Halfblood Legacy Page 2
