Killian turned to me for help, his mind questing out for me like an invisible hand reaching out. I stayed behind my mental wall, reinforcing its strength with my mind. I didn’t want him to see me right now, didn’t want him to see what I was feeling for him, my best friend who was more to me than even a brother.
Envy ate through me like acid, leaving nothing but dirty thoughts and poisoned feelings. I knew I was being unfair, but I couldn’t help it. Killian still had a mum, a mum who loved him enough to save up so that he could get out of the Swamp. Why couldn’t he just accept his good luck and be grateful? Seeing him with his family made me feel like a beggar looking in on a Solstice dinner.
I turned away, not wanting to look at him and not wanting him to look at me. The hate in me was a bad, black thing, but feeling it somehow felt good, like lancing a pustule to let the pus drain out of the wound.
Killian was frowning at me, puzzled by my refusal to connect.
“Come on!” I snapped. “Sun’s up and we’re losing daylight. If we’re doing runs we need to get going.”
Killian blinked, then nodded. He turned to his mum and sis and said, “We’re not done talking about this.”
But the way Cinda and his mum was looking at each other, it was clear they’d already made up their minds about their plans for Killian.
~.~.~
The day before the Taxman was set to come, we all sat down to dinner together, my family and Killian’s, just like we did every year. I don’t know when or how the tradition had started. Probably it was just instinct for us to huddle together for comfort and warmth, knowing what was coming.
It was a quiet, solemn meal, just like it was in all the years past, but this year I felt nervous and jittery. I had an idea since that day we found Killian’s mum and sister arguing in front of the house. It was a crazy idea, still only half formed, but it was bouncing around like a loosed dog in my head, growing and gaining speed with every minute.
“Who d’ya suppose the Taxman ‘prentices with, to be a Taxman?” I asked at the table, trying to sound casual.
Da looked at me over the rim of his mug, his eyes already bloodshot.
“What kind of a fool question is that, boy?”
“I just want to know,” I said, keeping my tone carefully neutral.
Da narrowed his eyes at me. “You got all the curiosity of a card shark and I wasn’t born yesterday. Tomorrow’s Tax Day and the Swamp’s gonna be full of Bluecoats and imperials, so whatever you have planned, you go on right ahead and unplan it.”
I only stared at Da, keeping my face blank. He wasn’t Gifted, not like me and Killian, but sometimes I wondered if there wasn’t something more to him than just a drunk old muddog.
“The boy’s just curious,” Killian’s mum said gently, laying a hand on Da’s shoulder. He shrugged and grunted, and she turned to me with a smile. “Taxmen are Scryers. They don’t need no ‘prenticing.”
“Why not?” I asked innocently.
Cinda let out a snort of disgust. “Cause Scryers are born, not made. They got the power to see straight through into your head and your heart and pull out your darkest secret. Ain’t nothing you can hide from a Scryer, and come Tax Day, ain’t nothing you can hide from the Taxman either.”
I nodded slowly, as if this were the first time I’d heard of this explanation, but my heart was triphammering inside my chest. “So anyone who was a Scryer could be a Taxman.”
To my left, I could feel the gentle pressure of Killian’s presence probing at my mind. He was staring at me, a vertical crease forming between his brows, his anxiety washing out of him in metallic waves like tainted water. I ignored him.
“Only imperials are Scryers,” Da said, casting a suspicious look at me.
“There’s got to be others with the Gift,” I said.
Da blinked at me, his lips parting in amazement. Then his face darkened and he wrenched himself out of his chair, slamming his mug down on the table hard enough to slosh beer over the sides. “I knew it! I knew you was up to something!”
“I’m only asking—”
“Now you listen, boy, and listen hard. It’s only a Gift if it’s in an Imperial. Anybody else, it’s a curse, not no gift, so get your head down from the clouds.”
“But why does it matter?”
“It matters!” Da yelled, his eyes wild and a little desperate. “It makes all the difference in the world.”
Across the table from us, Cinda and Killian’s mum were exchanging confused, worried looks. They didn’t know that Killian and me were Gifted. We’d kept our word to my mum and not told anyone. Da wasn’t supposed to know either—I hadn’t told him—but it was obvious that he had some inkling. This just meant that I had to work faster, before he could stop me.
I lowered my eyes and tried my best to look ashamed. “Yes, sir.”
Beside me, Killian’s presence pressed against me like a series of insistent knocks against my mental walls. I ignored him.
Tax Day was coming, and after that, our thirteenth birthday. Killian had plans, and it didn’t matter that those plans had been made for him instead of by him. Killian had plans that didn’t involve me, plans that involved leaving me. I couldn’t just sit still while even Killian was taken away from me. I wasn’t so good with words and figures maybe, but I wasn’t just another mudpup in the Swamp. I had the Gift, and it was finally time to put it to good use.
~.~.~
For all the stories that parents told their little ones about the Taxman, he was actually a handsome man, and surprisingly young. He had black hair and pale skin, and a mouth that smiled often and with what looked like warmth. For those without the Gift—those who couldn’t feel the dark void that surrounded this man, the disturbing feeling of dark and cold, like a treacherously deep pool of water—he seemed like a pleasant enough fellow. Only his eyes, which were pale and clear like a cold sky in winter, betrayed his true nature.
On Tax Day the Taxman did not come to the people of the Swamp. They came to him. They all gathered in the public square with their coins and their papers, waiting for the Taxman to call their names from his heavy book of names, and for him to look into their eyes and announce what was owed.
I had been to Tax Day many a times before, but I had never paid attention to what was going on. Littlings didn’t have much opportunity to participate on Tax Day. This year I really looked and listened, and when the Taxman looked into Da’s eyes, my pulsed quickened when I felt the ungentle pressure of his mental probing against Da’s mind.
There was no mistaking it, this language that was not a language, this way of hearing without speaking. The Taxman was Gifted, just like me and Killian. The imperials called it being a Scryer, because they liked to have a fancy name for everything, but it was all the same thing.
The Taxman released Da and announced the year’s bill: Two tigers and three frogs. Da winced, but shook the coins out of his purse and dropped it meekly into the Taxman’s palm without meeting his eyes. He slinked back into the crowd, shoulder sagging with relief.
Then the Taxman called Killian’s mum, the last name on the list. She shuffled forward slowly, leaning heavily on Cinda’s arm for support. The Taxman looked into her eyes for a long time, long enough to make the crowd ripple with murmurs of concern and anxiety.
At last the Taxman leaned back and smiled his easy smile, and announced the bill: “Six tigers.”
“Six tigers!” Cinda cried in dismay.
At this exorbitant figure, the crowd roared in disapproval, but quickly quieted again when the Bluecoats drew their guns.
Cinda gaped at the Taxman. “But…but why? Our house is small. We don’t hardly own nothing!”
“And yet,” the Taxman said. “You have left behind in your pretty little house a tin box with seven frogs in it, instead of bringing the coins to me today for assessment.”
Cinda gasped and looked at her mother, who stood frozen with her eyes on the Taxman. “Please, sir. It’s only seven frogs…my son’s ‘pr
enticing money.”
The Taxman laughed at this, a hearty guffaw that seemed to burst spontaneously from his lips. “Apprenticing money? For a mudpup? Ahh, see, that is the problem with you mudders. The Empire shows you a drop of leniency and all of a sudden, you think you are real citizens. Six tigers.”
“We ain’t got six tigers!” Cinda cried.
“I am sure you will come up with the money,” the Taxman said breezily. His cold gaze shifted from Cinda to Killian, who had stayed silent and grim throughout this entire exchange. “Have it ready for me by this time next month. Either I take the money from you, or I take the boy.”
The Taxman turned to go. I looked from him to Killian, excitement warring with horror. Was this what Taxmen did? This wasn’t what I wanted for myself. I didn’t want to go taking from people, the way everyone had been taking from me all my life. But what choice did I have? It was either you do the taking, or you get taken from.
I turned to face the Taxman’s retreating back and, with as much force as I could muster, I shouted at him using the Gift as loud as I could.
WAIT. TAKE ME WITH YOU.
Ahead of us, the Taxman stumbled and almost fell over. He straightened and stood there for a long while with his back to the crowd. When he turned to face us, I saw a smear of red beneath his nostril where he’d wiped the blood away.
Pride lanced through me. Pride that I’d hurt the Taxman, and that I’d gotten his attention. His pale eyes were hungry as they roamed the crowd.
“Who did that?” he asked softly.
“I did,” I said in a loud, clear voice, and stepped forward. I heard Da’s muffled curse behind me, but I didn’t care. I had done what I’d set out to do. I was going to get out of the Swamp.
The Taxman focused on me, his lips curving into a slow smile. “You, little boy? You called me?”
“I want you to take me with you as your ‘prentice,” I said, jutting my chin out and puffing up my chest. “You saw what I can do.”
“Indeed I did,” the Taxman said softly, his blue eyes glittering. “Imagine. To find the sacred Gift in the filthy blood of a mudpup. You know they say the Gift was from the Gods, passed down through the bloodline of the First Emperor himself to the imperial families. It is a mark of refinement, and good breeding, and yet, here you are, a filthy street rat with the blood of kings. If only I had the time, little rat, I would dearly love to…study…this little anomaly.
“Alas,” he sighed deeply and turned to a Bluecoat. “Duty calls. You there.”
The Bluecoat snapped to attention. “Sir?”
“Kill this mudpup for me and hang his body from the tower.”
The ground seemed to give out from under my feet. Dimly, I heard the sound of scuffling and my Da’s indignant howling, but that seemed far away and insignificant. In that instant, what I felt most of all was Killian. Killian had reached out to me, burst through my mental walls with a presence that was knife-sharp and relentless. I felt his presence surround and engulf me, felt his grief and his rage and his determination to change this, to save me, and just like that day in front of Killian’s house, I felt myself shamed by my own inadequacy as a friend.
Then there was no more time to think because the Bluecoat was advancing on me and pulling his pistol from its holster. I froze in place. I needed to run but I felt like my blood had been replaced by ice water and my head stuffed full of wool.
The Bluecoat was closer now, looming over me. I could smell the acrid burn of electricity as his gun charged up, but still my body would not move.
“RUN!” Da’s voice came from behind me, followed by a yelp of pain and a loud crash. It was enough to break me from my stupor, but by now the Bluecoat was too close and I was in range of his gun. Desperate, I surged forward instead, diving for his knees. He skipped nimbly out of range and kicked at me, catching my temple with the side of his boot.
I fell aside and moaned, my head bursting with a sickening pain. This was it then. All my careful planning, all my ambitions, all my plans, and I was going to die in the street in front of my Da, shot down like a rabid dog.
Through the haze of pain I heard Killian again, but his voice was strange, sharper and clearer and more Killian than I had ever heard before.
Stop. Stop this, you have the wrong boy!
The Taxman blinked owlishly at Killian. Oh?
Can’t you even tell who’s talking to you? I thought you were a proper Scryer. You can’t even tell the difference between a common street rat and a Gifted one?
But he said—
This is the Swamp. Everyone here would sell out their mother to get ahead. He saw an opportunity and like a true businessman, he jumped in and tried to profit from it. Poor fool didn’t know what he was getting into. But you can see now, can’t you, that it was me all along. I’m the real deal. He’s just a grifter who chose the wrong mark.
I finally realized what was so strange about Killian’s voice. It wasn’t his voice at all, at least not the kind he used when speaking out loud. He was talking to the Taxman using the Gift.
The Taxman looked from me to Killian curiously. What is he to you?
Nothing, Killian said. He’s just a nobody. Don’t worry about him.
His message was more than words. A subtle calmness radiated through me, slowing my hammering heart. Even the Taxman’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a brief moment, but his gaze drifted over to me again, and suddenly I felt his mental presence like a battering ram against my mind. I hid behind my mental shield and cowered, pretending to be unconscious. Killian said nothing, but I felt another subtle pulse from him, and a sudden urgency filled my veins. My mind filled with images of mountainous piles of paper and scattered coins, and I found myself fretting over all the filing that needed to be done this afternoon. Tax Day was always so much work, and half the day was gone already.
The Taxman gave a little shake of his head and looked away from me, focusing on Killian. As you say. I suppose the one I should be killing is you, then.
You won’t kill me, Killian said calmly.
No? The Taxman said, his lips quirking up into a smile.
No, said Killian. I can be useful to you.
Be careful, I wanted to tell Killian, but the pain was closing in, blackening my vision and covering my head. Before I went completely under, I got one last message from Killian, delivered on a wave of sadness and warmth and pity and regret: I know. Goodbye.
~.~.~
When I woke up they were gone, Killian and the Taxman both. No one knew what happened. For the Ungifted, it appeared as if the Taxman had ordered a boy to be killed, only to halt and engage in ten minute long staring contest with another boy, before leaving and taking the second boy with him.
All that anyone could tell me was that the Taxman hadn’t killed Killian. Not right away at least.
That was all that I heard of Killian for the next three years. It was like waking up to find that you’d had an arm cut off while you were asleep. Eventually you could learn to live with it, because people can learn to live with just about anything, but the loss was always there.
Then, this morning, the day before Tax Day, Killian came back as a Scryer.
~.~.~
It was three after midnight but Killian didn’t bother carrying a lantern and he didn’t bother knocking. He just announced himself by standing outside my door, silent as a shadow, until I got up and unlatched the door and stood aside to let him come in.
I had kept the fire going low in the hearth for the warmth as much as for the light. Not that Killian could benefit from the light. They’d taken his eyes. It was the first thing you noticed when you saw him, the red sash that covered the sunken mounds where his eyes should be. There were other things too, innumerable scars all over his body, so that you couldn’t look away from one hurt without staring squarely at the evidence of another wound.
Swamp Dogs: A Story Story Page 2