Caine's Law (53 page)

“You’ve been fighting to give our clan power. To give us freedom, and a future here in Our Place. Now it’s less complicated. Your job now is only to protect us. Do you understand me?”

She didn’t answer.

“This is my word. This is your law. Do you understand? Say it.”

Softly. “I understand.”

“You and your bitches—your priesthood, whatever the fuck you call yourselves—your duty now is to care for the Black Knife Nation as a bitch cares for her cubs. The rest isn’t your problem anymore.”

“Bitches
fight
.”

“I know,” he said. “But Black Knife bitches fight only to
defend
the cubs. To defend the family. This is law. From now till forever.”

“Then who destroys our enemies? Who bitches the world to keep it down scared? Who?”

He gave her half a self-deprecating smile. “When Orbek adopted me, he said I had put dishonor on the Black Knives. He said now that I am Black Knife, I share dishonor. And I do. He also said that what honor I win, Black Knives share. And you will.”

“You say …” A fierce yellow light kindled in her eyes. “You say Skinwalker fights for
us
now.”

“You have seen me make war against Black Knives. Now see me make war
as
Black Knife.”

She whispered with something resembling reverence,
“Nazutakkaarik terkallaz keptarroll ymik kaz tash …”

She ducked her head, then whirled, scrambled up the rings, and sprinted out into the tunnel toward BlackStone. He watched her go, reflecting that he really would have to learn Etk Dag someday, then turned to Tucker. “So?”

“Sounded like a proverb.” Tucker looked singularly thoughtful. “She said ‘The Skinwalker becomes his kill.’ ”

“Huh.” He couldn’t decide whether the coincidence was significant or not. “Funny how shit comes together.”

“Funny?”

“You speak Lipkan. Ever read their poetry? There’s a traditional metaphoric reference, especially in epodes—they refer to Tyshalle with imagery about night, unlit caverns, inside the tomb, y’know, all that shit. In older works—especially in the early epics where Tyshalle is used as a character—He’s often tagged with an epithet that translates roughly as ‘the permanent dark.’ Sometimes just with a capital-D Dark, right?”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. The Blade of Tyshalle,” he said heavily, “is basically a poetic usage for
the black knife
.”

“That’s what you call funny?” Tucker looked appalled. “You have a peculiar sense of humor.”

“I get that a lot.” He went over to the lowest ring and sat. “Time for you to go.”

“How many times do we have to have this conversation?”

“Not that kind of go.”

Tucker went still. “Hey, y’know,” he said slowly, “if this is about the Hand—”

“This is about you,” he said. “I’d let you walk out of here if I could make myself believe you’d actually do it.”

Tucker sighed. “Well, if you’re gonna be that way about it—”

“You’ve done me a lot of good,” he said. He leaned back on his elbows,
then scooted farther back so he could draw up his knees. “You helped me get with the horse-witch, and you helped me get with myself. You helped me get down here today. I know you didn’t do any of it
for
me, but I owe you anyway. That’s why I don’t kill you where you stand.”

“Well, I’m plain damn sad you feel like that, Jonnie. You think maybe we could come to some flavor of accommodation?” He scratched absently at his arm, and a lance of scarlet power blasted through the air—

And exactly at the perimeter of the bull’s-eye, it evaporated as if it had never been.

“Don’t insult me.”

“I had sort of thought to arrange a surprise,” Tucker said.

“Nifty Firebolt. How’d you grave the enchantment? A tattoo?”

“If you really want to know,” Tucker said, “maybe you’d like to step on in here and have a look for yourself.”

“I should kill you. I know I should. If our positions were reversed—”

“Never happen.” He sat down on the crystal. He sounded tired. “I’m a professional. You’re not. You never were.”

“That’s true enough, I guess.”

“A pro would have finished me at the bluffs.”

He shrugged. “The thing is, I admire you.”

“Skip the blow job.”

“Not just your skill. Your commitment. Devotion to your craft. And I like you.”

“Not enough to let me walk out of here.”

“Because getting people to like you is part of your job. And you’re just as good at it as you are at everything else.”

“We done yet?”

“How about you answer one question? Just one, for no reason but to satisfy my curiosity, since you’ll never see this world again.”

“Hate to leave you unsatisfied.” Tucker shrugged. “How about we trade? Since I’ll never see this world again.”

“Sure.”

“What do you figure to do with the Hand? Take it for yourself?”

“Oh, hell no.”

“It’s a lot of power.”

“Not any kind I want.”

“Then what? Must be extreme. Since you’re about to smoke a guy you like just in case he might get in your way.”

“Extreme enough,” he said. “I’m gonna give it back to Khryl.”

Tucker stared.

And stared.

And stared some more.

And finally said, “You’re right to kill me.”

“I’m not gonna kill you.”

“Does t’Passe know about this?”

“Of course not. Jesus Christ. She’d have blown my head off before I finished the sentence.”

“She’s not as sentimental as you.”

“You might say.”

Tucker sighed. “All right. Ask.”

“Your name.”

“Come again?”

“Your name. That’s all. Your real name. For when I tell people this story.”

He seemed to think this over for some few seconds, then he sighed a nod and shrugged. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “No harm, I guess. You can call me Heywood, Lord Jablohmie, Marquess of—”

The rest vanished into the blinding yellow flare of power. When the power was gone, so was Tucker.

The chamber was quiet then, so quiet that he could hear the synchronized breathing of the thousands of immobile fetch-blanks that still crowded the topmost level of floor. He looked up. Well … not
quite
immobile …

Their eyes were open.

All of them.

And all of those eyes were fixed on him.

“Yeah, all right. I can take a fucking hint.”

He pushed himself to the edge of the ring and stood up. Out in the center of the crystal there was no trace Tucker had ever been there. No trace any of them had been there.

Except for the shadow in the crystal below. A bug in amber.

He took a knee in the center of the bull’s-eye, and laid his palm flat upon it. “Hey,” he said softly. “You ready?”

A reply came—not in voice, nor even language—but in silent understanding.

Since before either of us was born
.

“This is not what I wanted for you. Not even close. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to hurt you so badly you’d remember me every hour of every day for the rest of your life. But not like this.”

You swore that when I woke up in Hell, you would already be killing me again
.

“I wasn’t talking about this Hell. Or how you woke up. Or even this kind of killing.”

Does your meaning exist? Your words still do. I can hear them now. Forever
.

“Not forever. I’m taking care of forever right here.”

Forever, my beloved, does not mean what you think it means
.

“Yeah, okay, I should have known better than to talk to you anyway.”

He reached out with his mind and found Reality, and he put his will upon it. “Skaikkak Neruch’khaitan, come forth! Or, y’know, rise and walk. Whatever.”

In the depths of the crystal, the shadow moved.

It grew, gathering solidity as it did, coalescing in the soft yellow glow, and the clearer it became, the less human it appeared. The crystal’s surface parted and from it like a goddess from the sea foam rose an ancient and withered ogrillo bitch, wholly hairless, only crumpled stumps where her legs should be, a knot of scar where her right eye and cheekbone had been, and her remaining eye burned with ferocious madness that was yellow as the crystal below.

“Hey there, you shit-crazy old bat. Been awhile.”

It has been forever, little rabbit. But in forever, I see you always
.

Where her right hand had once been—where her hand had been blasted to smoldering shreds by her once-borrowed power—was instead a mailed fist, its steel chromed like curves of mirror, flawless and pristine. It was this she extended toward him as though offering to shake his hand.

Care for our people, little rabbit
.

“You know I will.”

He clasped the mailed fist with his hand of flesh. “Good night, Crowmane. Sleep well.”

I will dream of you, my beloved
.

“And in that dream I’ll be skull-fucking your eye socket with a barbwire cock.”

I’ll miss you too
.

“You’re still a festering slab of rat cunt,” he said.
“Ch’syavallanaig Khryllan’tai.”

When the flame of Khryl’s Authority from his hand met the Flesh of His Fist, white fire incinerated the universe.

When he became aware once more of his surroundings, the Hand of Khryl was gone, and the only light in the chamber came from the flames licking up from Crowmane’s corpse. He lay on the smooth cold crystal and tried
to figure out how to get to his feet, because he couldn’t exactly remember how to move his arms and legs. His hand hurt. So did his arm, his shoulder, chest, ear, face—even after taking some time to think about it and really search, he couldn’t find a single part of his body that was not shivering with pain.

“Oh, sure,” he muttered. “Forgot to mention this part, huh?”

His leathers weren’t in much better shape than he was. He reached once more with his mind to touch Reality, to repair his body and restore his clothing … but he found no Reality he could touch. He couldn’t even register the fetch-blanks, who lay lifeless in jumbles like a mass grave.

He sighed. Sure, this was how it was supposed to work … but somehow that didn’t make any of him hurt any less.

He managed to push himself up to hands and knees. Then he had to stop and catch his breath. His nose was bleeding. His blood dropped to the crystal and in the firelight it was black.

Black?

Blood doesn’t look black in firelight. He touched his face, and his hand came away blackened with oil that dripped from within his nose. He stared at his reflection in its iridescent obsidian, and like the ball of Reality in which he’d sought a glimpse of his future, what he saw was power.

But in the oil, he saw his future too.

He nodded to himself. “Showtime.”

S
he is not seen, nor is She heard or felt, smelled or tasted, but She is here, for Here is She Everlasting.

“And amen,” Duncan murmurs, acutely grateful to be pinned to the ground, as it relieves him of an unconquerable necessity to kneel. And within his head whirls a vertiginous existential dread: that he is only a figment of Her Imagination, a passing fancy that at Her slightest distraction would evaporate into nothing that had ever existed at all.

Kris Hansen, Deliann Mithondionne, Emperor of Ankhana and human king of the elves rests on his knees with lowered head. Even Angvasse Khlaylock, Lord of Battle, has taken a respectful knee. Only the horse-witch has not moved; still she sits at Duncan’s side, now idly braiding wildflowers into a garland.

Caine walks out into the center of the glade and says, “Fucking cut it out.”

The Presence replies, not in words, or even sound at all, but in meaning.

As ever, you demand I be less than I Am
.