Wolf's-own: Koan

by Carole Cummings

  "Jacin?” Morin pressed his face right up against the door, just in case Jacin was in there and simply chose not to answer. Jacin did that a lot. “I only wanted to tell you....” Morin paused. Because he really didn't have much to say.

  He didn't know Jacin very well. He got the feeling no one knew Jacin very well, except maybe for Malick, but Morin would never even dream of saying that in front of Joori. Joori might be a sincere pain in the ass sometimes—Jacin too—but they were Morin's brothers, and he didn't have to like them to love them. Strangely, it seemed he didn't have to know them very well to love them, either. He knew Joori a little better than he thought Joori knew himself, but he was only recently getting to know Jacin, and he was a far stretch from the Jacin who had lived in their father's house in a camp in Ada all those years ago. Morin never would have thought he could love someone he didn't know, not before he'd “met” Jacin again, but he almost halfway understood now why Joori had let this whole thing make such a mess of him—almost as much of a mess as Jacin was, but that might be stretching things.

  Jacin was smart, Jacin was brave, though perhaps too reckless about it. He could be wickedly funny when he actually said the things he normally just thought in his head, though Morin thought the humor was almost always accidental, and Jacin hardly ever got his own jokes, or even the fact that he'd made one. He'd smile sometimes, though, because he seemed to understand it was expected. He was terrible and beautiful with a knife in his hand, and Morin hadn't been quite sure, when he'd watched Jacin cut down guard after guard after guard, whether he wanted to run away from his brother or learn how to be just like him. Jacin was too loyal for his own good, and too focused on keeping everyone alive but himself, except when others depended on him living. And once he set himself to a purpose, he seemed to have no idea how to quit.

  Morin thought that right there was a great deal of Jacin's problem—his only purpose right now was to get well, and he had no idea how to do it. Maybe Malick pulling Jacin into whatever he and Samin were up to would turn out to be the best thing, give Jacin that focus he needed. Morin was pretty sure that was how Jacin had managed not to die before, when he really should have.

  He was batshit, all right, not entirely sane, but he wasn't insane, either. Morin didn't know exactly what the difference was, but he knew it was there. Their mother had been crazy, but she hadn't been insane, either, though maybe she'd been getting there toward the end. Shig was definitely crazy, but it only made her weird and kind of wise and not boring. Morin thought the hair had very little to do with her craziness and everything to do with her weirdness, which was a distinction he was pretty sure no one saw but him. Well, Yori had probably seen it. And maybe Samin.

  Maybe it was too much knowing that did it. Too much knowing tangled too deeply with too much feeling. Which made Morin kind of grateful that he was, at least according to Joori, a selfish little shit.

  And that was all the thinking about it Morin wanted to do. Whether Jacin was or was not behind that door, Morin was probably better off not knowing it.

  "I just wanted to say good night, Jacin,” he said, and he headed back to play cards with Shig and Joori.

  * * * *

  "You've fought maijin before,” Malick had said. “Same thing, no worries. Once I find them and take their magic away, they'll be just as vulnerable as anyone else. It's the finding them part that's going to be tricky."

  So he'd said.

  Yeah. Right.

  Samin had known better than to count on that, so he hadn't been at all surprised when two of the bastards had found them. Thing was, he was surprised—and apparently, so was Malick—that it wasn't just banpair. There were mortals in this little pack of rabid predators, and whatever magic they were wielding was giving Samin some real worry.

  "We're being watched,” Malick had said, not five minutes ago, and they hadn't even been out of sight of the inn yet, hadn't even really pointed themselves in whatever direction Malick had chosen before they'd left.

  "By who?” Samin had asked.

  "I don't know.” Malick had looked a little scary, all narrow-eyed and distractedly attentive as he'd reached out with his magic to try to catch hold of whatever it was he felt. “It's magic, but... I can't....” He'd trailed off then, set his jaw, and reached for his sword.

  It was all a blur, from then ‘til now, filled with the flash of weapons in the moonlight, the shouts of their attackers, and the sounds of up-close battle. There were nine of them, armed heavily and not seeming to care in the least that they'd picked a fight with a Temshiel right in the middle of the Ports District and right out in the open. Samin could see the lights from the market two streets over; could hear the peal of bells on boats in their slips on the pier.

  Bold bastards, and bloody strong too. It was the rare man who could challenge Samin in hand to hand, but it had only taken a moment for him to understand that if he didn't draw his broadsword and do some immediate damage, he wasn't going to walk away from this. And it seemed either Malick wasn't using his magic, or he was and it wasn't working.

  They were masked, every one of them. Head to toe in black, hooded, and with black kerchiefs obscuring the bottom halves of their faces. Their weapons varied, but they were all armed well, with quality steel, one with a whip, until he'd flung it out to wrap around Fen's wrist, and Fen had merely caught it and jerked it away from him. It still hung tangled around Fen's arm, but he didn't seem to be allowing it to distract or interfere. He swung it in an arc around him, drove four of them back, then let loose a little volley of throwing knives. He hit two, but neither of them dropped.

  "Those three!"

  Malick kicked one of them in the chest to drive her—Samin was pretty sure it was a woman, from the shape—to drive her back into two more of the thugs, only to have her roll to her feet and propel in again. Malick spared a second to point before swinging his sword in a wide arc, clipping the woman up the side as she flung herself at him, then dropping back to engage a man coming from his right flank.

  "They're the ones we want,” Malick told Samin, then he swirled into nothing, reappeared a few steps away from where he'd just been and drove his sword into the gut of the one who'd been trying to blindside him. “Get them, will you?” he grated then wrenched the sword up and over in a way that told Samin it would be the final maneuver for that one, at least. Empty crates splintered and garbage scattered as Malick shoved the now-corpse down the lane between a closed up netting repair shop and a woodworker's stall.

  Down to eight. No, eleven, actually, because the three Malick had pointed out were new and just standing at the edges, watching. Samin didn't see anything that marked them different from the ones doing the attacking, except for the fact that they only watched while others did their fighting for them, but Malick had said so, so....

  Setting his jaw, Samin started trying to wade that way, engaging in every direction, swinging his sword a little wilder than he normally would, but they weren't giving him a lot of choice. Every time he let one of them get close enough, he took another cut or gouge to a limb, and Fen wasn't the only one throwing sharp things around. Three times, flashing little star-shaped projectiles had come whistling at Samin's head, and it had only been because he was busy defending against two or three at a time that he'd moved and they'd missed him. If this kept up, it was only going to be a matter of time.

  Samin shot an assessing glance about, dismayed when he didn't see Malick, but he couldn't spare a second to think about it. Samin couldn't see Fen and Fen didn't make a sound when he fought, but Samin knew he was still at the center of the press of bodies; Samin made this brilliant deduction when he heard a bitten-off scream and three fingers came sailing over the melee to bounce off his chest. Good. Fen was making some progress, then. Even as Samin glanced over, one of them went down to the cobbles, and Fen spun into another, knives a whirling trail of silvery refractions in the moonlight.

  Malick was suddenly at Samin's back, driving back an attacker Samin hadn't known was com
ing up behind him. “Watch it, will you?” Malick snapped. “I can't go and get them, if you're not going to watch your own back."

  Samin's mouth crimped as he slammed his fist down, caught one of them on the crown of the head, satisfied when they went down, but annoyed all over again when they just rolled away and got back up. Damn it, that blow should have broken some vertebrae, at least.

  "So, go and get them,” Samin barked as he swung his sword up and caught one in the chest. Skin and muscle, a scrape of bone, and the bugger finally went down. What the fuck were these people?

  "I was, but I had to come back and save your ass,” Malick told him, flipping the garrote out in a whistling arc but missing. “Fucking shit,” Malick hissed. Samin had to concur. Malick never missed. “Fen, damn it, the ring—go to shadow!"

  Except Fen didn't. Samin couldn't tell if he was ignoring Malick, was too busy to spare the attention, or just hadn't heard him.

  Samin parried one of the freaky bastards and thrust at another. “Why aren't you using your magic?” Because as little as he liked the idea of just throwing magic around, they could really use an advantage here.

  Malick didn't answer, only growled, “Just hold on for a minute, yeah? And watch this one coming up on your left.” And then Malick was gone, back to shadow again, and Samin was too occupied with the one coming up on his left, and then the one coming up behind him, and had no opportunity to pay attention to anything else. He consoled himself by grabbing the nearest attacker by the collar and hurling him-her-it into the fountain; the impact cracked then splintered the stone figure of a raven, but that was all the satisfaction Samin got.

  Somehow, he ended up back to back with Fen, which was good, because Samin was getting a little tired of these people trying to distract him while one of their compatriots tried to flank him. Not so good, though, because Fen just drove and drove and drove, and Samin knew that if Fen got himself a line to a sure kill, he'd be gone and Samin would be on his own. Probably not for long—he hadn't done so much as a push-up in months, so far as Samin knew, but Fen was still bloody fast—but it only took less than a second to make a difference in a situation like this one.

  Damn, but they could certainly use Yori and her bow about now. The thought was more painful than the blade that swiped down the back of Samin's hand.

  With a bit of a growl, Samin dropped back a pace when he saw-felt-sensed Fen lunge forward. Fen feinted left, and Samin mirrored the move with a cross-attack to the right. His arm was shaking when he lifted the sword above his head, his shoulder rattling an outraged twinge all down the length of it; he was getting tired. Samin didn't have the time to pay it any mind. A black-clad figure drove in from almost dead-on, and Samin swung the sword down, timing it so the blade would hit the space where the figure would be when it descended, and hit—

  Nothing. Samin hadn't missed—the figure simply wasn't there anymore. The tip of the sword chinged as it glanced the cobbles, but Samin barely heard it, too preoccupied with slamming his glance to all points, looking for a trick, but there apparently wasn't one. They were all just gone, and not into shadow, because Samin would have recognized that for what it was. They'd just disappeared: there one second, gone the next.

  "What the hell?” he heard Fen mutter in a tone of annoyed bewilderment.

  Samin's sentiments exactly.

  "C'mon, move,” Malick barked, striding up to them from where the three he'd been after had been standing and watching. His gaze was flicking everywhere, narrowing at the five dead bodies on the ground, head tilted in that way that told Samin that Malick was looking with more than just his eyes. Malick took hold of Fen's arm and propelled him toward Samin. “Let's go, we need to get out of here."

  He looked unnerved. Samin had only seen Malick look that way once. “What the fuck, Mal?” was all he could think to say, but he started moving nonetheless. For whatever reason, Malick was pushing at Fen until he was flanked between them, and Samin didn't think it had anything to do with what Malick and Fen did together behind closed doors.

  "I don't know,” Malick said, grinding it out from between his teeth. “But I've an idea where I can find out. Back to the inn first.” He paused only momentarily to snatch up Samin's left arm and scrutinize where the sleeve of his coat was neatly split and dripping blood. He winced a little when he glanced at Samin's other hand. “How bad?"

  Adrenaline was still gushing through Samin's veins, so he likely wouldn't be able to tell for a while, but the flow didn't seem like anything to worry about. “Not very, I think. Stitches.” And probably not only his arm and hand, either. He was pretty sure his thigh had caught a few slices too. He scowled. Without Umeia, it would be Malick doing the sewing, and Malick kind of sucked at it. And there would be no benefit of quicker healing, either. Samin had never realized just how good he had it, back at the Girou.

  They both had a look at Fen, but it appeared that none of the blood splashed over Fen's face and clothes was coming from him. How had he bloody managed that? Even Malick had caught a blade or two, it looked like, and his lip was bleeding.

  "Where are you going?” Fen asked suspiciously.

  Malick pushed him between himself and Samin and started walking again. “To The Gates of Rapture,” Malick answered. “If I'm right, the man I—"

  "You're going to a whorehouse? Now?” Fen had stopped, and even Malick's determined tugging wasn't moving him.

  Malick rolled his eyes. “No, it's not a bloody whorehouse. It's just a tavern, and if things haven't changed completely since the last time I was here, there will be a man there who can maybe tell me how it is that banpair can suddenly wield old magic that they shouldn't have and that I could barely touch or take away from them. Now, let's go—I don't know if they're coming back, and in case you couldn't tell, they were kicking our asses."

  "They weren't following through,” Fen said, a suspicious frown leveled at Malick. He glanced at Samin with something like apology then back to Malick. “They never connected, not once. And they had plenty of chances. The three I killed had at least an equal chance to get me when I got them, but they didn't take it. Any of them."

  "I noticed that."

  Huh. Samin hadn't. Then again, he'd been a bit busy.

  "Looks like they don't want you dead.” Malick's voice was tight as he prodded Fen back into motion. “Or even blooded."

  Samin's mouth turned down. “Well, lucky Fen, then, because they were certainly giving me their best shot.” He kept a watch to all points as they moved, but he wasn't sure how much good it would do with people who could just pop into and out of thin air. “A snatch?” he asked, wary. And if so, why?

  "Hell if I know,” Malick growled. “And I bloody should. They shouldn't've been able to block me like that, and I can't— Fucking ow!"

  Samin snapped his glance over in time to see Malick slap at the back of his neck, stop dead, then yank. When he brought his hand around, it held a long, barbed shaft that made Samin's stomach drop down into his boots. He sucked in a sharp breath. “Mal...?"

  With eyes narrowed down to slits, Malick sniffed the tip of the dart, then clenched his teeth. Breathed, “Shit, shit, shit!” and pointed an almost panicked glance to Fen. “Fen,” he said, a little thick and slurred, “Jacin. Don't... don't....” He turned a bleary gaze on Samin, mumbled, “Don't let him poison himself,” and then he went down. Just dropped. Facedown on the cobbles so hard and fast that Samin only stared for a few seconds before instinct took over.

  "Fen,” he said, urgent, “get back to the inn."

  Fen didn't even seem to hear. He was staring down at Malick—or rather, Samin made himself acknowledge, Malick's corpse, because Samin had no doubt what that last look in Malick's eyes had been, nor did he doubt what was on that dart.

  "Malick?” Fen croaked, too thin, too reedy. He crouched down, took hold of Malick's shoulder and tried to turn him over. “Malick?"

  Samin crouched too. Not exactly a good defensive position, but at least he was a slightly smaller
target. Gaze caroming everywhere at once and still seeing nothing, Samin tried again: “Fen, we have to get back to the— Bloody hell!” He lurched back when the first of the flames ignited, engulfing Malick's body in seconds, so hot and fast they almost singed Samin's eyebrows. He didn't have time to dwell on it; it looked like containing Fen was going to be all he could handle.

  "No!” Fen shouted. “Malick! Malick!” He tried beating at the flames, eyes wild in the flicker and flare, face pulled into an expression of shock-grief-pain-betrayal that Samin had no doubt Fen wasn't actually letting himself know he felt.

  Samin took hold of Fen and dragged him off and back, glad Fen had no knives in his hands at the moment, but not doubting for a second they were coming if Samin couldn't get him calmed down. “It's a spell, Fen,” he said. “He did it on purpose. So he couldn't be bound to the earth."

  Because as satisfied as Malick had been with the fate Fen had handed Asai, he'd also been rather horrified at the prospect of experiencing it personally. He'd told Samin he'd made sure it couldn't happen, but Samin hadn't really thought about how until now.

  Fen was twisting in Samin's grip, still trying to throw himself at the flames. Samin wasn't so sure now if it was to put the fire out or dive into it. “He promised,” Fen wheezed. “He... he... no, not...."

  Stilling abruptly with a harsh, gasping breath, Fen snapped his glance around, and slammed it into Samin's. Samin had to bite back an actual groan at what he saw in Fen's eyes—dark, blank nothing, just like they'd been when Caidi and Yori had died.

  "To spirit, Fen,” Samin tried to assure him. “Not forever, he'll come back, it's just for—hey!” He scrabbled as Fen slithered out of his hold, but Fen could be slippery when he wanted to be, and Samin had let himself be maneuvered off his guard by that look in Fen's eyes. “Fen, wait!"

  But Fen wouldn't. Knives drawn and gripped in both fists, he shot to his feet and took off, his limp only noticeable because Samin knew to look for it. Too bad it wasn't going to slow him down any. Samin didn't see any of the banpair lurking about, but as had been proven too clearly, that meant shit. Fighting them had been like fighting the air, and that dart had come out of bloody nowhere. Fen didn't seem to care. Whether he was after vengeance or suicide, Samin didn't know, but it was looking like they would be one and the same if Samin didn't do something.