The Cold Eye

by Laura Anne Gilman

  And yet.

  Isobel reined Uvnee to follow the owl’s lead, angling away from the path they’d chosen. Every story she’d ever heard claimed that owls were bringers of bad news, of death, of sorrow. But that was what they’d been following all along, hadn’t it? And all those things . . . the boss always said they were what taught wisdom, too.

  Wisdom isn’t knowledge. Knowledge teaches you it’s not wise to risk. Wisdom tells you why you should.

  They’d been playing faro after hours. Molly and Jack and the boss, and . . . Suzette, it had been. Isobel had been freshening their drinks, listening to the conversation. They had been talking about death, and loss, something that had happened outside of Flood that Isobel hadn’t been privy to. And the boss had said that about knowledge and wisdom, and the conversation had paused, then moved on to something else.

  She’d remembered that, even though she hadn’t understood it. She still wasn’t sure she did. But maybe . . . a Hand needed wisdom even more than knowledge.

  “Isobel?” Gabriel’s voice was a question, but she knew he was already following her, the mule snorting its displeasure like an old man told to change chairs just as he got comfortable, as they picked up a slow trot, the horses showing pleasure at the chance to run, even for a bit.

  The owl stayed just ahead of them, then dipped and with a fold of its wings, disappeared into a hollow, beyond which a stand of tall narrow pines rose. If it went into the trees, she would lose it. . . . Isobel felt her breath catch, something drawing her on with more urgency, and she dug her heels into Uvnee’s sides, startling the mare into a jouncing lope, Steady and the mule quickly left behind.

  “Isobel, damn it!”

  Gabriel’s shout was exasperated, and the drumming of hooves told her he’d kicked Steady into a gallop to catch up. But Uvnee was faster and Isobel was lighter, and they stayed in the lead until she suddenly pulled the mare up, hauling on the reins like the greenest rider afraid of falling off.

  The mare kicked her hooves and bucked lightly in protest but seemed no more inclined to go forward than Isobel.

  Her breath harsh and rattling in her chest, Isobel looked the way Gabriel had taught her, her gaze sweeping from left to right, never resting too long on any one thing, taking in the details without trying to understand them, finding everything that didn’t belong, anything that might be a potential threat.

  The pale trunks of firestarter mixed with spindly pine along the far edge, hemming two sides of the meadow with green shadows. The third side, to their left, ended in pale, jagged-faced rock rising well over her head, sheer enough that not even the most ambitious goat or demon would try it.

  But none of these were threats, none of those things held her attention past noting, because of what waited directly in front of her.

  Tucked into the hollow was a wide, flat expanse of grass growing blue-green, a dream-perfect place to turn the horses loose and let them romp and graze for days, an entire herd of horses, lacking only a stream to make it perfect. But something other than horses had gotten there first.

  Closer to the rock wall, the grass had been charred in two thick lines, maybe twenty paces each, black and sooty, not quite in the center of the meadow, and where the lines crossed, two figures paced around each other, snarling and snapping, their arms moving, shoulders shifting, legs stalking, until they seemed less human form than dust-dancer, swirling towers of dun-colored wind.

  Magicians. Isobel recognized it with a gut blow, their power rising and swirling within them like too-strong perfume, making her gag. And within that swirl she tasted a now familiar scent lingering in the heart, the hot burnt smell of sorrow, and madness.

  She had found two of the surviving magicians from the valley.

  Her skin prickled, nausea rising into her throat, but they did not look up, did not look away from each other, didn’t notice she had come thundering over the ridge. They were trapped, she realized, watching them circle each other like wolves over an elk carcass, caught somehow within a makeshift crossroads, the power within both bait and trap.

  But how? Isobel rested her palms on the mare’s neck, reins forgotten, and breathed steadily, trying to calm both the animal and herself. Magicians were drawn to crossroads like bears to berries, but only for the power within them, and a crossroads gained that power slowly, over time. Something so new-drawn would have nothing within it to pull; even Isobel, at this distance, could tell that the only power there was what the magicians had brought themselves.

  But that power . . .

  Isobel stiffened even as she urged the reluctant mare closer, and her mouth went dry. Magicians . . . they were not mortal any longer, but they were born so, born human. Even when they gave themselves over to the winds, they were still human. But what swirled within these two figures was not.

  A sliver of understanding fell into her hands, fitted into the space that had been empty. They had escaped with their lives, these two —but they had taken the ancient one’s medicine with them. And more —the pounding of her pulse echoed the thundering of hooves within them, their coats the shadow of ancient wings; the sacred blood of the Territory poured over their hands and splattered their faces. She could see it on them, fresh as the moment of slaughter.

  Her palm burned and her eyes itched, and Isobel realized she had urged the mare even closer, until Uvnee balked, planting hooves and tossing her head, white-rimmed eyes and trembling sides telling Isobel in no uncertain terms that she would move no farther.

  Isobel slipped from the saddle and took another few steps forward, drawn by her rage, only to feel herself yanked backward, a hard hand on her shoulder. The hours of training Gabriel had forced her through kicked in, and she broke free of the hold, throwing herself backward —away from the crossroads—and reaching for the blade in her boot.

  “Hold,” a voice commanded, and only then did Isobel realize that she was not the only one outside the crossroads trap. A figure glared at her, a wide-brimmed hat pulled low, a long leather coat over shirt and trousers much like Gabriel’s, down to the worn leather riding boots, but the shape . . .

  The woman seemed to realize Isobel was female at the same moment, but other than pushing her hat back to better study the newcomer, she did not react, her attention only a quarter on Isobel, the rest returning to the scene within the crossroads.

  Silvering hair glinted under the sunlight, a high forehead and sharp bones below, and Isobel realized that she knew that face, although she couldn’t place it. Had this been someone who had come through the saloon, someone she had read for the boss? That didn’t seem right, but she couldn’t figure it closer until the woman reached up and tugged at the lapel of her coat, revealing something that also glinted silver in the light.

  “Stay where you are,” the road marshal told her calmly, her attention still on the crossroads. “Don’t be a fool; you don’t want to get any closer to this.”

  Isobel’s memory for faces placed her then. The dining hall in Patch Junction. The woman had been seated at a table with another woman, the only table without a man at it, and Isobel had noted that. It had also been the first time Isobel had ever seen a woman in trousers. Months later, Isobel understood the appeal when most of your day was spent in the saddle.

  “We’ve been tracking the same prey,” she said to the woman, careful to keep her body still; this woman had the look of someone who slept with both eyes open and a hand on her weapons, and only a fool would give her cause to violence.

  “Then you’re a fool, girl, and like to be a dead one soon enough.”

  Isobel didn’t react to the insult, digging her fingertips into the flesh of the sigil to remind herself of what mattered, keeping her gaze on the marshal, with only a flicker of her eyes sideways to where the magicians still circled each other. “No fool, and not dead yet. Unlike you. How long do you think you can hold them there?”

  Isobel knew the answer already; she could feel where the makeshift crossroads was already beginning to fray under t
heir assault. It might have been enough to hold one, but two, driven to an even deeper madness than usual? The marshal was fortunate it had not broken already.

  The owl had done them all a good turn, directing her here, and she thanked it silently, hoping it would hear.

  “That’s none of your concern,” the marshal replied, “and nothing a posse should be poking at.”

  Isobel almost laughed, even as she heard Gabriel ride up behind her, the creak of leather telling her he’d swung down out of the saddle. She lifted a hand to tell him to stop but didn’t look away from the marshal, willing the woman to listen to her.

  “We are no posse, following no bounty,” she said, and then turned her hand so that the palm faced the marshal. It was perhaps too far for her to see the mark etched into her palm, but as the woman had shown her sigil, so too would Isobel.

  “My name is Isobel. And your trap is fading. Will you allow me to aid you?”

  The marshal glared at her suspiciously, and Isobel suddenly understood the expression she’d seen more than once on the boss’s face, when someone took heavy losses at the table but refused to come out and ask what they’d come for, and end the game.

  “They are not fugitives under the Law,” Isobel said, and there was more ice in her voice now, irritation surging again. “You have no right to hold them, even if you could.” The Law gave road marshals the right to bring those accused of crimes before a judge, to intervene in arguments between settlers, to negotiate quarrels between natives and settlers if requested to do so, but the Law, like the devil, held no sway over magicians. Only the winds themselves held that, and the winds did not care.

  “Complaint has been made against them,” the marshal responded, and Isobel realized —belatedly, annoyed at herself for the failure —that the marshal was not alone. Two men stood behind the woman, far enough away that Isobel had not noticed them, faint shadows compared to the flame of the figures in the crossroads.

  She narrowed her eyes at them, frowning. “What complaint have they made?”

  “What right is it of yours to know?”

  “You’ll dance all day if you keep this up,” Gabriel growled, and before she could stop him, he was striding past Isobel, the edge of his coat flapping behind him as he walked, hat in his hand, indignant, heedless of the magicians still pressing their will against the trap that held them.

  The marshal did not back down but stared back, left hand dropping to the butt of the pistol at her waist, right hand reaching up to touch the space where her sigil rested.

  Isobel had never considered that a marshal’s sigil might be more than identification, and called herself a fool even as her attention was drawn again by the crossroads, the impossible-to-ignore flickers of madness and sorrow growing fiercer as the trap lost power. Whatever Road medicine the marshal had used to construct it, the magicians were perilously close to erasing it—and when they did, they would consume each other. And, without thought, caught in that madness, anyone within reach.

  Gabriel must have sensed her desperation, because he wasted no more time.

  “Marshal, this is Isobel née Lacoyo Távora, the Devil’s Hand, and she ranks you in this regard. Stand down and let her aid you.”

  Gabriel’s interruption was one of desperation, inserting himself where he had no right being, but the marshal had sense enough of her kind to not be a fool, for which Gabriel would ever be thankful. He could feel Isobel tense and then relax behind him as the marshal eased her hands away from her weapon and stepped back just enough to no longer be an immediate threat.

  “Been a while since a Hand rode out of Flood,” she said, not taking her gaze off either one of them. Not a fool, but not fool enough to accept them at only their word, either.

  Isobel stepped forward then, her left hand outstretched, palm up, so the marshal could see it better. She glanced once, then nodded, and Gabriel had cause to wonder if she’d seen the sigil in flesh before, the way she took it in stride once Isobel’d identified herself.

  “So, what would you have done, Hand?” The marshal crossed her arms over her chest and eyed Isobel. “Unless you’ve some way to bind not one but two magicians and force them to answer questions . . . a honey pot seemed my only recourse.”

  Gabriel should not have found her description of the trap amusing, but the visual—of the magicians as bear cubs with their paws caught in the sticky bait—forced him to press his lips together so he didn’t smile.

  Isobel only scowled at the false crossroads, tugging at her braid with one hand. “How did you do it?”

  The marshal—who had not yet given her name —smirked a little at that. “Not all tricks are in the devil’s cards,” she said.

  Isobel accepted that with a shrug of her own, circling—at what he hoped was a safe distance —the two figures still stalking each other around the center of the crossroads. She paced them, then turned and walked the other way, going counter-wise.

  That seemed to draw their attention away from each other, and Gabriel tensed, but other than one of them hissing at her when she drew close, neither made any move beyond that, and it seemed to Gabriel’s eye, at least, that they drew back into the crossroads, their movements slowing to an almost resigned pace.

  He had no idea what she’d done and no desire to ask. Let them all keep their secrets; he wanted no part. He moved to gather Uvnee’s reins with Steady’s, rope-penning them with the mule. If they were truly panicked, it would be easy enough for them to pull up and run, but anything shy of that and the ropes would remind them to stay put.

  Isobel circled around crossroads once more, then stepped away. Her hat hung from its cord down her back now, strands of hair escaped from her braid to curl around her face, and Gabriel thought that she looked very young if you didn’t know better.

  “It will hold, for a while longer,” she said, and her voice was quiet, tired. “Enough time for us to talk, at least.” She turned and looked at Gabriel, the plea clear in her gaze; he nodded once and walked over to join them.

  “Those two,” he said, tilting his head at the figures who had kept their distance. “You say they claimed insult?”

  The marshal glanced at her companions, then turned back to them. Her arms were still crossed against her chest, but the rest of her pose had eased, and Gabriel was reminded suddenly of a professor back at William and Mary who would stand like that for the entire lecture. He’d been militia when he was younger, rumor said, and had forgotten how to sit down.

  “These men have claimed insult given to them.” The marshal studied Isobel, ignoring Gabriel. Her eyes were light-colored, her skin tight against her bones the way some folk aged, sun-spotted, and he thought she’d been a handful and a half when she was younger and with more to prove.

  “Insult, against magicians?” Isobel’s voice skirted scorn and amusement, but only just, and he thought that was a thing she’d sucked from the devil’s teat, for it to be that perfect.

  The marshal extended one arm and flicked her fingers inward, telling the two figures to come closer. They did so, though reluctantly.

  “Magicians are still men. You say they have no right to that claim?”

  The younger man opened his mouth as though to protest the marshal’s question, but his companion—an older man, dark hair trimmed close to his scalp and greying at the temples—placed one hand on his shoulder, silencing him. Like Gabriel, he knew enough to stay out of this.

  The younger man shook off the hand, and on closer inspection, Gabriel decided he was not young after all, but merely carried that air of youthful arrogance. His hair was long, pulled into a queue that fell halfway down his back, and his worn cloth jacket and boots told Gabriel he was Eastern-born, likely a military man turned scout. His kind —restless, quarrelsome —were fleas on the back of respectable folk, but like fleas, there was no escaping them.

  The other man’s clothing was of better quality, if equally worn, and his boots said he, too, was a riding man, not accustomed to long miles of
walking. There was a look about the man’s eyes, though, a steadiness where his companion shifted, and Gabriel thought of the badge tucked into his pocket, and thought for certain there’d be a matching pinprick in the man’s lapel where the sigil should go.

  But he didn’t offer it back to the man. Not yet.

  “I say, first, that claiming insult against a magician is a fool’s walk.” Isobel’s tone was tart, her hands fisted at her hips, shoulders back and chin up, all signs that she was bracing for a brangle. “And second, that they drew the insult on themselves by meddling where they had neither right nor reach.”

  Her gaze shifted from the marshal then to the men behind her, and Gabriel couldn’t say for certain, but if he’d been the recipient of that stare, he might have apologized for anything he even thought he might have done. These men were either made of sterner stuff, or they were in fact fools, because the older man tried to rebut her charges.

  “If I understand your use of the term, I gave no insult, none that any sane man would take.” Sharp tones, clearly bitten off, eyes narrowed. “I merely offered these men an opportunity to better themselves, to bring under harness forces that—”

  “Your first mistake was thinking that they were sane,” Isobel snapped at him, cutting his words mid-shaping. “And your second was approaching them at all. Are you yourself mad? Or did you have some deeper intent in your actions?”

  Gabriel stilled, the letter from Abner suddenly a burning-hot coal against his skin, despite the fact that it was safe in the pack draped over Steady’s saddle, his earlier fears confirmed. If this man had been sent by the president, if Jefferson thought somehow to utilize the medicine of the Territory for his own use . . .

  Only a madman would do so. A madman or a fool . . . or someone who did not believe the stories that came out of the Territory. Someone who thought with a logical mind, searching for explanations that could be turned and controlled.