Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  I hoped like hell Balidor was wrong.

  I hoped like hell Revik didn’t believe this crap.

  11

  TEST

  I GLANCED UP when the door opened, startled.

  I shouldn’t have been, I suppose. I’d invited him there. For a moment, we just looked at each other. Then he glanced down at my hands, and smiled faintly.

  “I had heard you were an artist,” he said. “I have never seen it.”

  Kneeling on a floor pallet, supporting my upper body by alternating between my elbows and hands, I’d been drawing. It was the first time in ages, really. I wished I had an easel, or better yet, a drafting table, but the floor worked reasonably well, all things considered.

  At Balidor’s words, I looked down at my hands, following his eyes.

  I hadn’t been thinking too clearly about the contents of the sketch itself, but when I glanced down at the charcoal lines, an image of Feigran stared back at me, his owl-like eyes serious, shimmers of that profusion hinted at in their contours. His cuffed wrists lay in front of him as he traced patterns on the metal table with one pale, bone-like finger.

  I wasn’t used to people walking in on me.

  Not since I’d lived in San Francisco, anyway.

  The cave-like, underground catacombs where they’d housed me felt like a vast maze, with more than enough space for twenty times the number Balidor brought with us. Despite their size, and the height of many parts of the cavern, I’d been struggling with borderline claustrophobia since we got here. Maybe it was a normal byproduct of underground living––no windows, a lot of low ceilings, low light, stale air.

  Maybe it had something to do with the vast amounts of “stuff” that shared the space with us. Every corner and crack of the caves appeared to be filled with artifacts of one kind or another. A lot of it was books and scrolls, but I’d seen paintings, mosaics, stone sculptures, ancient organic machines, prayer rugs, even bone fragments and what looked like mummified bodies.

  It also crossed my mind that I might be contracting Revik’s claustrophobia.

  Supposedly we could take on one another’s traits, as well as one another’s skill sets. Maybe I could pick up his neuroses, too.

  Glancing up, I saw Balidor examining my drawing still.

  Despite the faint curiosity in his eyes, I realized he looked tense. It was subtle––a slight difference in the set of his shoulders, along with a flickering of his gaze that hinted part of his mind remained somewhere else.

  I might have noticed earlier if it wasn’t for the collar.

  “Are you all right?” I said.

  He gestured a yes, without returning my gaze.

  When I didn’t stop looking at him, he sighed, clicking softly.

  Watching him, I smiled. Balidor’s mannerisms were seer even compared to other seers. Maybe it was a function of his age, or all that time spent in the Pamir with no one but his own people, but he seemed to belong to a different time period, as well.

  “I do not know if I am, at that,” he said. “…All right.”

  I sat back on my knees. “What’s up?”

  “I do not like this, Allie.”

  “You don’t like what?”

  He gave me a puzzled smile. “What do you think? What we are doing. What we are about to do here. Tonight. As we have done on many nights before this.”

  “But you’re just giving me lessons, right?”

  His eyes sharpened, holding a denser understanding.

  “Lessons, yes.” He exhaled, blowing out his cheeks slightly. “But for what purpose? You want to be able to keep things from him. Okay, I understand that. The bond compromises you, and I would feel the same. But you want to be able to do this to a degree that makes no sense to me, Allie… not if you are planning on maintaining your current distance.”

  He gave me another of those knowing looks, arching a chestnut-colored eyebrow. “If I did not know better, I would think you wanted to be able to conceal things from him even when you are with him. As in, when you are together with your mate. Physically.”

  I flipped the page on my drawing pad, starting a new sketch on a fresh piece of paper. Feeling the Adhipan leader’s eyes on me, I shrugged, answering him without looking up.

  “Well. I might need to, right?”

  “If he kidnaps you, you mean?”

  “Yes. I mean… sure. That’s one reason.”

  Balidor clicked a little sharper, but still seemingly to himself.

  “Allie, if he kidnaps you, you would have no need of this. Not to this degree. You can already keep him out of your thoughts. You would not need to be able to keep him so thoroughly out of your emotions, too. He would already know he could not trust you.”

  When I glanced up, his eyes sharpened on mine.

  “You cannot infiltrate him, Allie,” he said, his voice harder. “You cannot. There is no possible way. Even if he were not your mate, he is Syrimne. Do you understand me? I doubt that even I could accomplish such a thing, and I am not married to him.”

  He gestured elaborately with one hand.

  “It is impossible on its own. For you, doubly so.”

  When I didn’t answer, he clicked louder, aiming it at me that time. I rolled my eyes.

  “‘Dor, seriously… calm down. I haven’t done anything yet.”

  “But you are thinking about it, yes? You intend this?”

  I shrugged, seer-fashion, still bent over my sketch pad. “It crossed my mind that it might be necessary. If he keeps killing people. If he goes after Vash.”

  “It is out of the question!”

  I looked up, a little annoyed. At the anger rising to his eyes, I clicked back mildly, shaking my head. “I don’t have any immediate plans to do anything. I just want the training. It’s a serious Plan B, okay?”

  When his eyes didn’t relax, I sighed again, pushing a lock of hair behind one ear.

  “Look. We’ll try to sever things first. But it might not work. You know it might not. If it doesn’t, we’ll be short on options. And probably time.” Feeling my jaw tighten, I tried again to focus on my drawing.

  “…He’ll be seriously pissed off, too, which won’t help anything.”

  “But what you are talking about,” Balidor said. “It is risky in the extreme. It goes directly against my charge as the leader of the Adhipan.”

  “‘Dori, again. I haven’t done anything yet.”

  “But I should not be helping you!”

  A little startled at the emotion in his voice, I glanced up. After studying his expression for another beat, I shrugged. “You work for me, right? And essentially what I’m asking you to do is to help me stay safe. So how does that go against your charge?”

  His eyes focused on mine.

  The light gray irises looked openly skeptical.

  I couldn’t help but smile a little. His looks still struck me as completely incongruous with his role in some ways. I knew he was around 400 years old, but he still looked more human to me than most of the other seers, even those in the Adhipan. I knew that helped him as an infiltrator, but it disarmed me, too.

  Which I suppose was the point, really.

  “I may never have to use it,” I reminded him.

  “You are expecting you will have to,” he said. “That tells me you are thinking something, Allie. You are not telling me everything.”

  I waved dismissively, still lying on my stomach. “If I was, you would have read me for it by now. Collar or no.”

  “Which is precisely why I am worried,” he said.

  I gave him a faint smile, and a bare glance. “So you’re spying on me now, ‘Dori? You infiltrating me?”

  “You leave me little choice!”

  I glanced up, surprised again at his vehemence.

  He returned my look, his expression openly worried.

  Hesitating another half-beat, he sat abruptly. Pulling his legs in so that he was cross-legged on the floor across from me, he kept his eyes on my face.

  I r
ealized only then that he’d been waiting for a more formal invitation from me to join me. Giving up on the drawing, I sat up, too. I pushed aside the pad a moment later, curling my legs under myself as I watched him glance at the drawing once I had. It struck me that he was genuinely curious about my drawings.

  I found myself wondering if Revik told him something about my art.

  It was hard to believe they’d been friends, before all this.

  “Can we talk openly at least, Allie?” he said. “Are you so sure Vash won’t be able to do what you told Dehgoies?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not sure at all. But I need to be able to keep my mind separate from Revik’s. You’ve been saying that all along.”

  “But there is no possible way to guarantee it is working,” he said, exasperated.

  I recognized his tone. It was the tone all of the infiltrators got when I did or said something that displayed how little I knew about their subtle craft.

  I’d been hearing it from Revik for almost two years.

  I’d heard it almost as long from Maygar, and now Balidor.

  “If Deghoies determines what you are doing,” Balidor continued, sharpening his voice. “He could very easily pretend he is not able to get through… that you are blocking him, when you are not. He would do this simply to use the opportunity to gather more private information about you. Whether you know it or not, you control your thoughts more now, knowing he might be listening. He might hope you would relax this control, if you thought you had blocked him.”

  At my skeptical look, he clicked more sharply.

  “He is an infiltrator, Alyson… a damned good one, in addition to the rest. It is what I would do.”

  I smiled a little. “You would spy on your wife?”

  “If I worried she was thinking of leaving me… I might,” he said at once. “Especially if I had reason to think her affections had altered towards me.”

  At my frown, Balidor’s jaw hardened.

  “He is seer, Allie… not human. The etiquette is not the same. And you know after that little speech of yours in Delhi, he thinks you are having an affair. I felt him thinking it. After you told him that you would leave him.”

  Averting his gaze from mine, he gestured vaguely.

  “I know this in part because he tried to discern if I was the offending party. He could not feel it on you definitely, so therefore assumes your lover would have to be an infiltrator of high rank. Someone who could hide such a thing from him.”

  I felt my face tighten a little more. “I know all that, ‘Dori.”

  “Then you must know he is obsessing on where you are right now… and who you are with. He would do anything to gain an advantage in this, Alyson. I would bet my life on it. He is likely looking for you at this very moment.”

  But I only half-heard that part. My mind was still turning over what he’d said, thinking about his words. After a pause, I found myself frowning.

  “It would be one way to know for sure,” I muttered.

  “What would?” he said, staring at me.

  It occurred to me I hadn’t included him in my previous train of thought.

  I glanced up, and felt my face warm.

  “I don’t think he could hide it, ‘Dori… if he saw me with someone, I mean. Not if he saw it while it was happening. I don’t think his super-spy powers would extend to being able to hold it together for that. Especially if he wasn’t expecting it.”

  I hesitated, watching the other’s eyes a little more carefully.

  “I know I couldn’t, when he did it to me,” I added. Leaning against the stone wall, I hooked my leg with one arm. “I would feel it, ‘Dori. I know I would. If he saw that, I mean.”

  Still thinking, I gazed up at the ceiling, shaking my head.

  “You don’t know Revik.” I exhaled, smiling humorlessly. “Even before he became Syrimne, he had this thing with me and sex, maybe because I hadn’t been with any other seers before him.” I swallowed, thinking about Elise, Revik’s first wife.

  She’d cheated on him. While she’d done it for a good reason, I knew Revik’s issues around fidelity and marriage weren’t wholly about me being a virgin when we consummated.

  I didn’t want to tell Balidor that, though, even now.

  “…My point is, it would bother him if that changed,” I said. “A lot, I suspect. He reacted badly to the whole Terian thing in D.C., and that was rape. I was collared for it, too, both times it happened. If I let someone else into my light… if I did it willingly… I think it would really throw him. More than he could hide from me.”

  Balidor only looked at me. His silence was loud, though.

  It occurred to me that I’d actually shocked him.

  Maybe my implicit suggestion shocked him, or maybe it was my admission that Revik was the only seer I’d ever slept with––maybe both––but something I’d said definitely stunned him into silence. Despite the collar, and the complete lack of change in his facial expression, I could sense it somehow, or see it, maybe, with my eyes.

  My face warmed, even as I told myself it was stupid.

  Hell. For all I knew, the same idea had already occurred to him.

  He was a good enough infiltrator, he could have manipulated me into this conclusion on his own, then convinced me that my same suggestion shocked him. As much as he and Revik and whoever else thought I was naïve about infiltrators––and maybe they were right––I wasn’t completely clueless.

  Whatever ‘Dori’s initial reaction had been, whether it had been feigned or not, it was gone within seconds.

  I could see him thinking about my words tactically next. I knew he would look at it from multiple angles as a matter of course, including contingencies if the test failed.

  He was an infiltrator, after all.

  “I agree, Alyson,” he said finally. “With all that you have said, it would be the only way to be sure.” He met my gaze, his eyes deadly serious. “You would be willing to try that? It puts you at considerable risk.”

  I smiled humorlessly. “Actually, no. It puts whoever would be dumb enough to do it with me at considerable risk.” When he didn’t smile back, I added, “I don’t think Revik would kill me, no matter how pissed off he was. Especially if he’s on some whole religious kick with us. But he wouldn’t think twice about eliminating the competition.”

  Balidor nodded again, his eyes still thoughtful. “I agree with that, too.”

  “So do you have any infiltrators you’d just as soon get rid of?” I joked. “Bonus if they’re not too hard on the eyes.”

  Balidor looked up. His expression grew denser again somehow.

  Once again, his facial muscles didn’t move, but I found I knew what he was thinking anyway.

  “No.” Shaking my head, I gestured it in seer, too, to be sure there was no mistake. “Absolutely not.”

  “I could help you,” he said. “I am probably the only one who could monitor your light in enough detail to see the holes. Even if he got through, we would know how he did so.”

  “‘Dori,” I said, exasperated. “No!”

  “Alyson—”

  "And anyway,” I said, waving him off dismissively. “The whole point is, I have to be able to do it without your help. Without anyone’s help,” I added, seeing him about to argue with me. “And no, Balidor. Jesus. We can’t afford to lose you.”

  I didn’t add that I couldn’t afford to lose him, not after everything.

  He was the only seer left I trusted absolutely, apart from Vash and Tarsi.

  “It is my job, Allie.”

  I gave an incredulous laugh. “I think that goes a bit outside of your job duties, ‘Dori. But I appreciate the full service shop you’re running.”

  He looked at me, his chiseled face hard.

  He’d always reminded me of one of the more ruggedly handsome action stars in the movies. His gaze sharpened on mine when I thought it, so I knew he might have heard that, too, collar or no. There wasn’t much that got past him when
we were sitting this close… and he was Balidor, after all. Head of the Adhipan, famed infiltrator of the Pamir. Revik told me once that Balidor was considered the best infiltrator alive.

  If he heard that, too, Balidor’s face didn’t soften.

  Seeing the expression there, I realized he had made up his mind.

  He really thought he should be the one to do this.

  And maybe it even made sense, after all.

  Could we really afford to pull anyone else into what we’d been working on for the past few months? I needed more than one set of eyes looking at my light, making sure the shields really held. Despite the confidence I’d expressed, I also needed one other person listening for Revik, in the event he picked up on what was going on.

  Balidor had the best chance of being successful with both of those things.

  I supposed he could just watch while I did it with someone else, but that idea didn’t appeal to me all that much. Anyway, it wouldn’t be as effective.

  I needed to actually be having sex with the person, not conducting a clinical experiment. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a test at all.

  Nerves rose in me as it occurred to me that I was thinking about this seriously. It had moved out of the realm of theory and into an actual plan.

  I found myself looking at him, in a way I never had before.

  Could I really do it? Balidor was a friend, and his looks definitely weren’t the issue, but the reality of it threw me completely. Whatever else was going on, with me and Revik and whatever else, I’d never really contemplated doing what I’d threatened to do in that garage. The whole issue of other people and sex felt like a back-burner one to me.

  I’d just wanted Revik away from me.

  I’d felt sick at what he’d done, about the fact that I’d slept with him right before he’d done it. I felt like an idiot for thinking him seeing me would make any difference in his mental state or his ideology. I made the crack about prostitutes because I was pissed off, and because I figured he needed to hear it to know I was serious.

  In no way had I gotten far enough in my thinking to imagine myself doing the same.

  Truthfully, all seer reputations for promiscuity aside, I’d never really been the type to need a lot of different sex partners in my life in the first place. I’d gone through phases like that, sure, but more out of necessity than preference. Mostly, I’d done it to stave off sex pain, although I didn’t call it that, since I’d believed myself human at the time.