Ten Ruby Trick

by Julia Knight

  Up close, the craggy hills and valleys of the Master’s crystals winked brightly. “His wrist please, Commander.”

  Holden took Van Gast’s left arm and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to expose the wrist. Only then did Van Gast’s tired, pained mind realized what was about to happen. He wrenched his arm away, tried to grab for his pistol in its pouch and end this. No good, something he hadn’t planned for—Holden’s grip was too tight, himself too weak, even if the pistol was still there, which he doubted. The Master wasn’t stupid.

  Van Gast shoved into Holden and twisted, managed to get his arm free but staggered without anyone to hold him up. Get the gun, got to get the gun out of the pouch. If he still had it, if they’d not taken it. He’d not thought he’d be blacked out, thought at the least he’d get to shoot someone. Then Holden’s arm was round his waist, gripping him and squeezing the glass in his side. The blackness that had been lurking at the back of Van Gast’s mind loomed like a thundercloud, threatening to blot out everything.

  “Why are you doing this?” He could hardly hear his own voice over the bubble of his breath. “You were free, why did you come back? You already killed her with a bond. She’s dying out there somewhere in a shitty little tavern, because of you. Because of your Master. How many more, after me? How many people are you going to kill for this, Holden?”

  The arm holding him tensed, and glass grinding in his side made pain bloom large in his head. Only Holden kept him upright. “Patterns. Lines. Purpose.” Holden’s voice was flat and colorless. “Choices turn order into chaos. Choices…I couldn’t, I can’t.”

  “Commander?” The Master’s voice, deep and rolling, compelling.

  Holden pushed Van Gast forward again and raised his wrist. His hand was shaking and when Van Gast turned his head, Holden wouldn’t meet his eye. That could be him, would be him if he let them bond him. That colorless, lifeless thing that had, briefly, been alive. Been human.

  The Master raised his hand and a silver string writhed over his fingers. Looking for flesh to bond.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Holden couldn’t watch so he stared at the floor. Patterns to soothe a disordered mind. Only the patterns weren’t soothing him anymore. It was Van Gast’s fault. Van Gast who’d taken the bond from him, exposed him to a world he couldn’t comprehend, that had so overwhelmed him he longed for his shackles again. Had robbed him of his only real comfort, of what he dreamed he might be. Holden glared at the tiles, as though they were the source of his doubt. A jumble of images ran through his mind but they made no sense, the bond smoothing everything into one mess of color and sound, making him forget. Only he wasn’t sure he wanted to forget. There was something, something important that he should remember.

  “Commander?” The Master’s voice, deep and rolling, compelling.

  Holden pushed Van Gast forward again and raised his wrist. He couldn’t meet Van Gast’s eye. Who had killed her, him or Van Gast? The thought blew through him like a typhoon, shredded the forgetfulness, rolled away the fog. They both had. Van Gast in making her fight it, making her do everything she could to keep him free of it. He had killed her just as surely as Holden himself had, as Cattan had, whether he knew it or not. And Holden, who’d bonded her, who’d wanted her not just because he loved her but because she represented every dream he’d had of freedom, a freedom that, when he got it, he wanted rid of. And in that freedom, he’d taken everything from Van Gast. Everything.

  The Master raised his hand and the silver string writhed over his finger and leaped. It burrowed into Van Gast’s skin as though made for it, as though they were one and the same. Van Gast jerked in Holden’s hands, his jaw clenched against the scream, against the pain that was racing through him, stretching every sinew, twisting every muscle as it bit and burrowed. Holden let him slide to the tiles.

  Van Gast thrashed against the pain, but his dark eyes were locked on Holden. Accusing, full of hate. The circle on his wrist, the mark of the mage-bonded, darkened from red to blue-black and little tendrils worked their way up his arm. Holden couldn’t look—and couldn’t look away.

  Josie had died to keep this man free, and here Holden was, helping to bond him. Van Gast’s back arched, every muscle stretched to breaking, and still he didn’t scream, didn’t beg. Holden glanced at the Master. His mouth was curved in a sly smile, his eyes glittering with satisfaction. Enjoying the pain, enjoying the power. Holden’s stomach turned. The bond had started, long ago, as service to their mages and had become this.

  Finally, mercifully, Van Gast’s writhing slowed and stopped in gradual steps. First his muscles loosened so that he was no longer bent like a bow. Then the violent shudders grew less, the sweat thinned, the clench of his jaw relaxed. He lay shivering on the floor, blood staining the tiles underneath him, his eyes still radiating hate.

  “Up,” the Master said, putting every ounce of compulsion into his voice.

  Van Gast grinned, a lopsided, blood-tinged thing that reminded Holden inescapably of Josie. “Fuck you, pig-fucker.” He twisted with new pain, his feet tattooing a beat on the tiles, his arms outstretched, fists clenched.

  Holden reached down when it was past, slid a hand under his shoulders and helped him to his feet. Van Gast sagged against him, his blood soaking into Holden’s tunic.

  “Fucker,” Van Gast whispered and was rewarded with another shudder of reprimand and the black lines raced up his arm. It wouldn’t be slow this time, not slow but just as painful.

  Holden got a better grip on him and let Van Gast’s head loll on his shoulder. He’d never give in, never stop fighting, Holden knew that now. Like Josie. He’d rather it killed him than submit to it, serve the Master or anyone.

  Josie had died to keep this man free.

  There was only one way to make her wish come true, and only Holden to do it. He pinched his eyes shut in terror at the thought, and wondered just how much of a coward he was.

  Van Gast tried to breathe in short bursts, tried to ignore the surges of bright light in his vision. He clamped his teeth down on the screams that wanted to escape. She hadn’t given in, she’d fought it all the way, was still fighting even now, he hoped, and so would he. Someone was holding him up but their face was a blur. All he knew was a hand held him, kept him from falling to the floor. That, and the bond in his wrist was trying to take over his mind. Pain radiated from it in ripping waves, made the hole in his side seem insignificant. Pain that seeped into his brain and tried to numb it, tried to make him forget. He fought against it, the thought that he would forget—who he was, what he’d done, but most of all her.

  Josie. If he forgot her, then when she died it would be as though she’d never existed, as though everything she’d tried to do was nothing. So he fought the greyness that seeped into him through muscles and nerve and blood. If all he could do was remember her, then he’d do it.

  “Fucker,” he whispered, the last, useless gesture of defiance.

  Finally he realized it—the enormity of what she’d done. Lived with this for weeks, tried to tell him the only way she could, by twisting the trick. She couldn’t say it in words—the bond wouldn’t let her—so she’d tried to show him, tried to make him think, and he’d thought nothing except unease, suspicion of her. Nothing except that she’d betrayed him when it had been all she could do, the one thing she could show him to let him know the danger he was in: miss her second swing with the club and give him a brief chance of escape.

  Josie never missed except on purpose.

  Something clicked quietly by his stomach. He knew that sound—a pistol being cocked. Kyr’s mercy, they were going to put him out of his misery. He would have cried in thanks, if crying wouldn’t hurt more, wouldn’t test the hole in his side to the limit. He didn’t care what Kyr chose for him—not as long as Josie was there too. Even the Deeps, the dark twisting depths of torment, would be preferable to this, if she was there, if he could spend his wretched time telling her that he was sorry.

  Whoever was holdin
g him shifted their stance and Van Gast was helpless to right himself. His fingers, his hands were numb and he couldn’t hold on. He slid to his knees, a penitent. When the gun went off next to his head, the blast deafening him, the flash of powder blinding him, he was sure he saw Kyr coming to choose for him. He welcomed her with an open heart.

  Chapter Thirty

  Holden kept his eyes on the Master and willed his mind to the blank fog of service. Straight lines, patterns, purpose. A mage of the power could see into the head of any bonded man, and his thoughts were not for sharing. He hid them behind the tiles. Black into white into blue into grey into black. Straight lines, patterns to soothe a disordered mind. He let the patterns fill his thoughts.

  The Master gloated over Van Gast, at the way he stumbled in Holden’s grip when he shifted. Then the Master’s smile slipped, became a grimace of hatred. He raised his hand, farther than Holden had ever seen him move before. He had no doubt what was coming, and he couldn’t let it. At last, at last he’d found his fight. Too late, but it was there. Maybe it would be enough, maybe you only needed to want it enough, as Josie had.

  Keeping his mind blank and grey, Holden dropped his hand to his pistol. He cocked it, quiet as he could, and let go of Van Gast. The Master’s eyes, his focus, followed Van Gast as he fell to his knees as though worshipping the power before him. The Master didn’t see Holden, or anything but the spent and twisted body of his enemy.

  Holden raised the pistol, forcing his hand up against the pain, against the will of the bond that pulsed through his arm. Black tendrils snaked their insidious way from the wound at his wrist and toward his heart. It didn’t matter. She’d done it, she’d fought it. It could be done. It could. It was right that he fight it. Necessary. His arm came up level with his shoulder, shuddering with pain. He kept his teeth clenched against it, against the bond that shot white arcs of agony across his brain, tried to twist his muscles. He could do this, if he wanted it enough.

  He shut his eyes at what he was about to do, and fired. The noise echoed round the chamber, bounced off pillars and tiles and rumbled back to Holden. When the sound died away he was still standing with his arm out, eyes shut. Waiting for the guards to run him through, the Master to grind him to dust, because he couldn’t have done it, couldn’t have killed the Master. The Master was unending. But the Master had never thought it would be a bonded man who tried for his death.

  Holden’s arm shook as he waited and he dropped the pistol. It started as a tingle in his wrist, the light touch of nerve-endings tickled. His eyes snapped open as it grew, as the silver thrill crept up his arm, faster now, racing through his body with a sudden, joyous lightness mingled with a burning pain and a thread of panic. Guards murmured around him, gasped in surprise or fear. Metal clanged on the tiles as one and then another dropped their swords. Holden looked up.

  The Master half sat, half lay across the dais, propped against a pillar. A dribbling black hole marred the crystals on his chest, and chunks of them lay over his lap or sprinkled across the cushions. Crystals slid from one side of his face, a tinkling avalanche of them. The face beneath was pale, wrinkled and slack. A sharp nose, a slash of a mouth, eyes open but not seeing. Holden sat down abruptly next to Van Gast. He couldn’t seem to do anything but stare for long moments.

  “Nice shot. Didn’t think you had the balls for it, to be honest.” Van Gast’s breath bubbled in and rasped out.

  The Master was dead and his bonds would die, even now were fading away to nothing. Some of the guards huddled in a group, silent and watchful. A few ran, panic etching their faces in white. One of the captains came forward, his footsteps an irregular beat on the tiles as he hesitated.

  “Commander? I—I—” His mouth hung open but all he could say was that one word, over and over.

  Holden stared at the tiles. No order. No purpose. This time he couldn’t go back, this time he must make his choices and live with them, not retreat like a turtle into the safety of its shell. This time he wasn’t going to be a coward. “We’re free, Captain.”

  The captain stepped back and stood straight, at attention, as though that could hold all his thoughts together. “But, Commander, but what do we do now? Who will tell us? We need that, I need that. I can’t, it’s all too big. Should we wait for another mage to come? They can give us another bond. One will become the new Master.”

  “Not if I can help it.” Holden stood up, a newfound determination lending him strength, giving him purpose. No more mages. No more bonds. The mages were nothing without the bonded, could do nothing but magic. Bondsmen did everything for them.

  “Then who?”

  Holden bent down and helped Van Gast to his feet. He was very pale now, his skin cool and clammy. “This man. He knows what it is to live without a bond, he knows the world that we’ve never seen. For now, we do what he says. Van Gast?”

  Van Gast raised his eyes briefly, as though it took a great effort. “Two things. Skrymir’s probably just about to storm the ship. Get him to bring Guld and the boy. Josie too, if she’s—” His voice faltered. “If she’s still alive. Then we finish it, Ten Ruby Trick.”

  “What is the end of it, the true end?”

  “We steal every fucking thing we can and we sail away quick.”

  “Commander, are you—”

  “You heard the man,” Holden snapped. “Now do it.”

  Van Gast sat propped against a pillar on the dais and felt the swell of the tide underneath him as they got underway. They’d stolen the ship, not just any ship, but the Master of the Archipelago’s. The other two ships, the ones that had been masquerading as racks, would follow with what was left, or what they could find, of Josie’s men and a crew of Remorians. A Remorian crew who knew nothing except how to take an order. His orders now.

  He watched as Holden smashed the tiles on the floor one by one with a hammer he’d found somewhere. There was a pattern to it. First black, then white, then blue, then grey then back to black. Methodical. Soothing in a way. Holden looked different, something different in the way he walked, the way he held himself. That and the grim little smile as he smashed another tile.

  He lifted the edge of his shirt and looked at the hole in his side. He’d been right—it did hurt like a bitch later. The blood was starting to clot at least, but it would start afresh when they took out the glass and the bullet that was still in there somewhere. Hopefully someone could find him some booze on board to help him through that part. Something else was there, hidden by all the blood. He pulled it out gingerly. Kyr’s mercy. One of the daggers, still intact, without even so much as a chip. He wiped at the blood but only succeeded in smearing it around. The liquid inside sloshed gently.

  One wedding dagger, what good was that? What good was he without Josie? Just a smash-and-grab merchant. A bit of panache and no head for twists. Nothing really, and without Josie seemed to be where he was. Oh, she was here, on board. She was even still alive. Just. Skrymir had brought her aboard and Holden had told him where to find the Remorian healer, one used to dealing with bonds, and all the chance she had. She was still fighting, but there was no movement, no life in her, only purple lines and the smell of death. As soon as he could move, he’d find her, watch her slip away from him again, for good. He laid the dagger on his lap and only realized he was crying when tears dripped off his chin and splattered on the glass.

  “What’s that?” Holden crouched down on the dais next to him with his back to the body of his late Master.

  Van Gast looked up and scrubbed at his eyes, pretended he was just weary, not crying. Holden saw, he could tell in the way he looked, but he said nothing and Van Gast was glad. “A wedding dagger. I had two, but the other one got shot. I was…” He shut his eyes briefly and willed his voice to keep calm. “I was going to use them to see if she loved me.”

  Holden frowned and smiled at the same time. “You needed them to tell you?”

  Van Gast glared at him. “How could I know, she’d never tell me. Too bloody slippery,
too wary after you left her. She wouldn’t say it, see? Because of you, because every other man in her life had let her down, betrayed her trust. I thought she did, I hoped. But I didn’t know, and now I’ll probably never know. Now I’m just another man who let her down. She asked me to trust her, and I couldn’t. Just another bastard in a long line of bastards.”

  Holden tried to hide a smile behind his hand. Funny, Van Gast had never seen a Remorian smile before.

  “You think she needed to say it? You couldn’t tell?” Holden laughed, a rough jagged thing, as though it had been years since he’d had cause.

  Van Gast turned his head and busied himself sliding the dagger away, on the other side to his wound, next to the waterproof pouch and the pistol he’d never had a chance to use. How could a Remorian understand?

  “She said you weren’t so bright, but I thought that was just another lie. Maybe she was right.”

  “Now hold on a fucking minute—” Van Gast sat bolt upright and instantly regretted it. Godsdamn, hurts more than a bitch. He slumped back against the pillar.

  “You didn’t know then, maybe. Do you now?” Holden watched him carefully, still smiling like a man set free from a death sentence.

  Van Gast shut his eyes again, too tired and heartsick to keep them open. All he could see was her, different times, different places. How she looked at him when they were alone, when she lost her sharpness. The way she’d kissed him. The way she’d tried to kill that mage, tried everything she could to keep him free. Maybe he did know now, but by every god there was, he’d have liked, just once, to hear her say it.

  “Um, I think you need me to do something about that.”

  “Hello, Guld. I think you could be right.” Van Gast sat up straighter, clenched his teeth against the dig of glass into his side and opened his eyes. Guld stood on the dais, hopping from one foot to the other and glancing round nervously. Ansen hid behind his legs, his eyes wide as he took in the blood.