by Kyra Halland
He would just have to have faith in her good sense and skills, he decided. He kissed her and stretched out on the blankets, and, despite his unease, immediately dropped into sleep.
Chapter 6
WHEN SILAS WOKE up the next morning, the sun had already completely cleared the horizon. “You should have gotten me up an hour ago,” he said to Lainie as he stretched to work out the kinks. After all these years, sleeping on the ground should be getting easier, not harder. He must be getting old.
“I figured you could use a little extra sleep,” she said. “I don’t want you to wear yourself out. That wouldn’t do either of us any good.”
Though he was anxious to be after the killer again, he had to admit he did feel better and more alert after the extra hour of sleep. Before they broke camp and moved on, he took a few minutes to do a careful search with his mage senses. Sitting still with his eyes closed, he let his magical awareness spread out, feeling the lay of the forces around him, searching for power and the variations in the flows of natural and magical energy that would reveal the presence of a shield. It was much easier to carry out a more thorough magical search when he was sitting still like this than when he was riding or tracking. Either way, though, whether it was by way of a concentrated search or while he was on the trail, he was bound to find some sign of his quarry sooner or later.
It didn’t look like that break was going to come this time, though. He drew in his mage senses. Then, just before his awareness returned to the physical world, a disturbance, a brief flash of power, snagged at his senses, as though someone who had been hiding underwater for a long time had finally come up for a quick breath of air. It was only a glimpse, a passing brush of power, too little to compare to the power he had felt at the scene of Horden’s death. But how many mages could be hiding out here in the middle of nowhere? He opened his eyes and looked in the direction the burst of magic had come from, towards the system of washes running out beyond the south end of the range of hills. The A’ayimat sentry’s words and his own guess had been right.
“Find something?” Lainie asked.
“Yep, found him. He’s that way.” He nodded towards the south. “Let’s go.”
* * *
AGAIN GOING ON foot, they picked up the search where they had left off the night before, tracking back and forth across the strip of land between the base of the hills and the road. It was a tedious business, and, so far, it had all been for nothing. Lainie tried to concentrate on looking at every hand-width of barren, dusty ground, but she couldn’t keep her thoughts from turning to the implications of what Silas had told her about Verl Bissom’s and Garis Horden’s deaths – the implications she had been trying hard not to think about.
Of course, the worst part was that Silas’s name was on a list of people to be assassinated. She knew that what he did for a living was dangerous, but there was a difference between the ordinary risks involved in hunting for villains and having someone after you who had been sent on purpose to kill you.
Beyond that, it also meant the end of her hopes that she and Silas could get their marriage approved by the Mage Council and get Silas’s fertility block removed. Unless there was some other way of removing the block, she would never be able to have children with him. No doubt they could find an orphan to adopt, and she was sure she would love an adopted child as much as a child of her body, but she had always had a deep yearning to grow life within her body and give birth. No matter how many children they took in and how much she loved them, she was afraid that yearning would always be there, unsatisfied, eating away at her heart, her happiness, and her ability to love.
She shouldn’t give up hope, she told herself. The Mage Council was made up of people, and people could change their minds, or leave or die and be replaced by other people with different ideas. As long as she and Silas were alive – and weren’t too old – there was hope.
And right now she needed to keep her mind on the task of making sure Silas stayed alive. She pushed back her worries and applied herself to searching even more diligently for signs of the killer.
It was mid-afternoon when she spotted the first footprints. They just appeared, emerging from the dust on the ground as though whoever had left them had been walking through a dust storm and had stepped past the edge of the storm. Tamping down her excitement at finally finding something, she examined the prints more closely to make sure of what she was seeing. No doubt about it, they were footprints, or rather bootprints, traveling in a straight line south.
Silas was searching several measures away. “I think I found something!” she called to him.
He came over with Abenar and squatted down beside her to examine the footprints. She watched him, feeling just a little bit pleased with herself for being the first one to spot them. “Hard to tell how old they are,” he finally said, “if they were made during that dust storm yesterday or before then. The storm must have reached a lot farther than I figured. Though the dirt here doesn’t look stirred up.” He studied the prints a little longer. “A medium-size man, by the size of them, or a large woman,” he said, pointing out to Lainie the details in the footprints that told him about the person who had left them. “Worn-out boot soles, moving fast. And just one person.”
“Think it’s the killer?” Lainie asked.
“I’d say there’s a good chance it is. I would have expected him to be bigger, if he overpowered Verl Bissom and Garis Horden, but powerful magic will compensate for lack of size and physical strength. But footprints aren’t a sure sign of size. And the timing seems right, and the only reason I can think of why anyone would head out this way in a hurry is if he’s planning to hide in those washes.”
Lainie looked towards the thick growth of scrub trees and brush that marked the watershed. Her excitement at finding the killer’s tracks gave way to a chill in her bones. Somewhere in that tangle of washes and vegetation was the murderer who had Silas’s name on his list of targets. She checked her gun to make sure it was loaded, then forced herself to stand up on legs suddenly gone shaky. “Let’s go get him, then,” she said.
They followed the footprints for several leagues, past the southern end of the long, broken line of hills to the first of the washes that angled south-southwest from the hills. There, the trail disappeared into the thorny thicket that lined the bank of the wash. Several branches were broken in that spot, and Silas found a dark thread caught on a thorn. He stood looking down into the wash, and Lainie peered around him. The bottom of the wash was dark with the shadows of twilight, and they couldn’t see any more tracks. It was clear their quarry had gone down into the wash, though; the question was, had he turned right or left, or had he gone straight ahead across the creek bed and out the other side? “What do you think?” she asked.
“It’s too dark to tell.” Silas glanced at the western sky, where the sun had sunk almost completely below the horizon. “We’d best get some sleep and pick up the trail in the morning.”
They made another fireless camp and ate a supper of cold rations, then Silas closed his eyes and went quiet and still, as he did when he was searching with his mage senses. Lainie kept a close watch on their surroundings while she waited.
After a while, he opened his eyes and shook his head.
“Didn’t find anything?” she asked.
“Nothing. Slippery bastard… He’s better at shielding than anyone I’ve ever come across except for Carden.”
A thought came to Lainie. “Maybe he isn’t shielding. Maybe he’s suppressing his power the way I do.”
“As far as I know, only Wildings-born mages can do that.”
“So why wouldn’t the Mage Council hire a Wildings-born mage as an assassin?”
“They would consider a Wildings-born mage inferior and untrustworthy. A Wildings-born mage is likely to be half-blood or less, and his loyalties are more likely be to his Plain kinfolk and the people of the Wildings than to the Mage Council. At least, that’s how they would see it.”
“The
y could have told him you and those other men are dangerous to the settlers. Or maybe he actually hates Wildings folk because they hate mages so much.”
“You could be right,” Silas said after a moment. “If he went to school in Granadaia – which he must have, if he’s working for the Mage Council – that could very well have turned his loyalties towards the Mage Council, if he didn’t already hate the Plain settlers.”
The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. “And the Mage Council might think his Wildings power gives him an advantage over the Granadaian mages he’d be hunting. He’d be a lot harder for them to find, at least.”
“That could be.”
“If he is Wildings-born and his power is like mine, maybe I can find it. Like how that blueskin we talked to knew about my power, even though I was suppressing it.”
“It’s worth a try,” Silas said. “But if you find anything, get back out right away. We can’t let him find out about you.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise.”
Lainie shifted to kneel with her hands pressed flat on the ground. When she had been searching for the Sh’kimech ore, physical contact with the ground had helped her find both the Sh’kimech deep beneath the earth and the amber-colored Wildings magic nearer to the surface. That amber power influenced the power of mages who were born in the Wildings; someone who could sense that power might be able to sense other mages who were connected to it. Maybe that was how the blueskins had known about her power.
She closed her eyes and stilled her mind, letting physical sensation drop away, then reached down with her mage senses through her contact with the ground. Just beneath the surface, she came to the warm, living power that flowed through the earth of the Wildings. Silas had shown her how a camouflaged shield would show up as a slight hitch in the patterns of magic and other energies aboveground; it stood to reason that a mage whose power was influenced by Wildings earth-power, who was hiding his power, would appear as a variation in the field and flow of that magic.
She let her awareness drift through the Wildings magic, getting a sense of its normal state. Silas had told her the power in the earth couldn’t be used; a mage’s inborn power was influenced by the magic present in the place of his birth, but that magic was part of the land and couldn’t be drawn and used by humans. But being immersed in this magic felt so comfortable and so natural; it seemed to Lainie that it was part of her and she was part of it, and to draw it into herself would be as easy as breathing…
She stopped herself. Right now, on the trail of a killer who most likely had Silas as his next target, was no time to be experimenting. And, anyway, look at what had happened to Carden, messing around with powers he didn’t understand. She shook off the warm, comfortable sensation and turned her attention back to her search.
She reached out farther, following the flow and weave of power, and farther still, stretching her mind like she was trying hard to remember something she had forgotten. And then, far in the distance, just at the edge of her reach, she came upon a place where the flow of magic simply disappeared then reappeared, like where a thread went behind a piece of cloth then came back up for the next stitch. That was it, she was certain, though she couldn’t have put words to why she was so certain. She had found him.
Remembering Silas’s warning, she drew back, careful not to brush the hitch in the magic with her own power. Just before she came all the way back to herself, a sudden brief burst of power from above the ground, much closer, startled her. She snapped her mage senses the rest of the way in and opened her eyes. Silas wasn’t going to like what she had to tell him.
“Find something?” he asked.
“I did. Him, and another one. There’s two mages out there.”
“Gods-damned sheepknocking sonsabitches!” Silas exploded. “I was afraid of that.”
“Shh!” Lainie whispered. “I think one’s close by.”
Silas’s swearing dropped down to a low grumble of rolling words that sounded like Island curses. “Where are they?”
“One of them is pretty far away. That’s the one I think is suppressing his power, the Wildings-born mage. In the power in the earth, there was a place that just… wasn’t there. Like it was hidden. The other one felt a lot closer. He’s shielding; it felt like he let his shield go real quick, like he had to catch his breath.”
Silas nodded. “That’s what I felt this morning. Which way?”
Lainie recalled the sense of direction she had felt while she was in contact with the power under the ground. It was strange how the directional pull was so clear and strong. She looked that way, into the thorny overgrowth of the watershed and back up towards the western slope of the hills. “They’re both back in there.”
That night, Lainie again sat up with Silas during the first part of his watch. She knew she needed to sleep sometime so she could take over the watch later while he got some rest, but she didn’t think she could sleep quite yet. It was eerie, knowing there could be two murderers hiding somewhere in the washes. Every chirp or creak of an insect, flutter of wings, or rustling of brush made her jump.
“Do you think they’re working together, the two mages I found?” she asked.
“That would explain how Bissom and Horden were taken down,” Silas answered. “And one mage alone isn’t strong enough to do any kind of weather-working. He would have needed help to blow up that dust storm, or even to just magnify a natural storm long enough to carry out the murder. On the other hand, it’s harder for two men to stay hidden or to keep a secret than one. If I hired an assassin, I’d want him to work alone.”
“If they are working together,” Lainie said, “since one of them is Wildings-born, you’re going to need my help. Like I can find him because my power’s like his, maybe I can also fight him better.”
“We’ll see,” Silas said shortly, in a way that sounded to her like he meant there was no way in all the hells he was going to let her get involved in the fight.
“If they aren’t teamed up, which one do you think is the killer?”
“You made a good argument that it could be a Wildings-born mage, but I’d still have to lay money it’s the Granadaian. I just can’t see the Mage Council hiring a Wildings-born mage for something this important and sensitive.”
“Then who do you suppose the Wildings-born mage is? And why would he be hiding from us if he isn’t the killer?”
“It could be he’s hiding from the killer, not from us. Maybe he saw the killer.”
That made sense. Then Lainie had an encouraging thought. “If he isn’t working with the killer, maybe he can team up with us.”
“It’d sure be good to have some backup,” Silas said. “But without knowing any more about him, we’d better not count on it. And anyhow, you said he’s a lot farther away than the killer is. But if we do find him and he seems a decent sort, we can ask him.”
It was getting late. Lainie lay down to try to sleep so she could keep watch later on. She didn’t think she would be able to sleep, but it felt like hardly any time at all had passed when Silas shook her awake. She sat up, yawning and stretching but rested enough to take over. Silas checked her gun to make sure it was loaded and made her promise that she would wake him up if she saw or heard anything at all. “I will,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”
He kissed her and lay down, pulling the blankets around himself, and soon fell asleep.
Lainie spent the rest of the night scanning up and down along the bank of the wash, watching and listening for any change in the quiet darkness. Behind her was open desert, offering no cover for anyone who might try to sneak up from that direction, but she still turned to look that way at frequent, irregular intervals, to make sure no one was out there. Even with Silas next to her and her gun close to hand, her spine crawled and her neck prickled at the thought that the assassin might be watching her as she was watching for him, and that the two of them might be the only people awake in all this vast and desolate place.
But
the rest of the night passed uneventfully, and with sunrise Lainie and Silas resumed the search. Mala and Abenar balked at going down the steep, brushy bank into the wash, so Lainie waited behind, holding their reins, while Silas followed the footprints down into the creek bed. The plan was that when Silas figured out which direction the man they were tracking had gone, she would lead the horses in that direction and, with some luck, find an easier way down into the wash.
Lainie could hear Silas cursing and thrashing around through the brush in the creek bed as he searched first one direction and then the other. Finally, he clambered back up out of the wash. He was sweating, and his hat and duster were covered with tiny leaves and bits of bark and twigs. Even this early in the day, it was hot to be wearing a coat, but without it his arms would have been scratched to shreds by the thorny trees and bushes and the pricklepad cactuses growing along the banks.
“Nothing,” he said. He lifted his hat and wiped sweat from his forehead, then took a long drink from one of his water bottles. “Not a footprint, not a hair, not a thread. Nothing. It’s like he just disappeared into thin air.”
“Can mages do that?” Lainie asked.
“It isn’t possible. I’ve seen plenty of things I never would have thought were possible, but vanishing like that would break every law of magic and nature. He must have found a way to hide all signs of himself without using enough magic for me to notice it.”
Lainie looked up towards the hills, where she could make out a dozen or more ravines and gullies running down to the flatlands. The two mages she had sensed were in that direction, she knew that much, but where in all the thorny, brushy, trackless maze of washes were they hiding?