The Cold Eye

by Laura Anne Gilman

  She held, but just barely, and at the cost of sleep. Another day, or if the other magician also began to push, the bindings would fray and fail.

  Had it been only them, her and Gabriel, and perhaps only one magician, she might have risked allowing it. She was curious what might remain of them, away from the rage of the ancient spirit; if there might be a way to reclaim them, the way a stream filtered clear again after a storm, or at least learn what they had done, what they had woken. But she could not risk it. The road marshal might have accepted her position and authority, but the other two, the Americans, had no reason to believe she was anything more than what she appeared: a young female, with a horse they could use to escape. If they thought for an instant that she was distracted . . .

  After two days, she was reasonably certain that Marshal Tousey would not be so foolish, but she hadn’t needed Gabriel’s side-glance cautions to know the sort of man the scout was. Not everyone who came into the saloon back in Flood had been gentle, or kind; folk made deals with the devil for revenge as often as for survival. If he saw opportunity, Anderson would slit their throats and steal their horses, the mule, and their boots. She would not give him the chance.

  And Gabriel was hiding something from her. It was likely nothing, and Isobel suspected she was being foolish, but it wore on her nonetheless. And there never seemed a private time to bring it up, traveling with so large a group.

  They came to the creek Gabriel had said was just before their destination, this one low enough that the water barely brushed the horses’ hooves. The marshal glanced at Isobel, who gave the other woman a go-ahead sign, the water too sluggish to pose much risk, although she took up position between the horses nonetheless as they moved down the slope and into the sun-warmed current.

  “Gentlemen, bound hands does not make your legs suddenly shorter or slower. Lively, now!” LaFlesche called out, having noted a distinct slag to their pace as they slogged, wet-footed, to the top of the bank on the other side. “And there we are,” she said in satisfaction, coming to the rise of the bank and looking out.

  Isobel brought the horses up and checked to make sure their burdens hadn’t shifted, then went to stand by LaFlesche. A wide dirt road elbowed toward them, then cut across a squared-off plain backed by low-sloping hills. Squinting, she saw the road led to the tall brown shape of a palisade wall.

  “Our destination,” LaFlesche said with no small relief.

  But despite chivvying the prisoners, it took them most of the available daylight to reach the gates. It hadn’t rained recently, and dust from the road flew up into their faces and into their mouths and noses, forcing them to cover their faces with kerchiefs to breathe cleanly, and slowing their pace.

  “I’d near forgotten why they call ’em the dust roads,” LaFlesche grumbled after she’d had to wet down her kerchief a third time, wringing it out with a moue of distaste at the dirty water dripping from the cloth. “Worse than cottonwood. Worse than mud, worse than anything.”

  “From dust ye came and covered in dust ye shall remain,” Gabriel said. LaFlesche glared at him from behind the reaffixed cloth over her mouth and chin, while Isobel pulled her hat down further in a vain attempt to keep the dust out of her eyes and hair as well.

  When they’d come within a dozen paces of the tall wooden gate, they saw an odd dozen long-barreled muskets aimed at them over the top.

  LaFlesche paused, putting out a hand to stop anyone from taking a step closer. “Marshal Abigail LaFlesche, bringing prisoners for judging,” she called out. “And honored guests” was almost an afterthought, and Isobel felt something inside her growl at the insult.

  “Hush,” Gabriel said quietly, and she felt herself flush again at evidence it hadn’t been as inside as she’d thought.

  Half the muskets were pulled back when they heard her voice, the remaining seven remaining tilted down at them.

  “So much for them not havin’ military,” Anderson sneered, looking at Tousey, but loud enough for the others to hear. “Lyin’ savages, even the whites.”

  “I will gag you,” LaFlesche said almost conversationally. “Unless you’d rather me simply cut your tongue out?”

  The scout glared at her but clenched his jaw shut without another sound.

  There were male voices on the other side, and the gate slid open, revealing a small forecourt and a cluster of buildings beyond.

  The moment they crossed the threshold, Isobel felt something shiver up her legs; the town’s warding, noting the arrival of strangers. Her throat closed in a panic, realizing that she hadn’t considered that the warding might object to the magicians or to the binding laid on them, but the wooden gates of the town closed behind them without alarm or outcry.

  A judge lived here, LaFlesche claimed. Perhaps the warding had been crafted to allow for prisoners coming in and leaving? Isobel took a deep breath and felt the bump of a hand against hers; Gabriel had shifted Steady’s lead to his other hand and now stood next to her, his hat tipped forward against the afternoon sun that angled over the low rooftops of the buildings, reflecting almost too brightly against . . . She squinted, then tilted her head. Yes, there were bits of metal on the roofs, angled against the edge.

  “Snow-breakers,” LaFlesche said, seeing where her attention had gone. “Winter here, the snow piles up, gets heavy enough to break a roof if you’re not careful. Ice, too. So you want it to come down . . . but not all at once.”

  “The snow slides off the roof . . . The bits are sharp, breaks it up so it doesn’t all come off at once?”

  “Mmmhmmm. You ever been knocked on the head by a month’s worth of snow, you appreciate that.”

  While Isobel was considering the idea of that much snow, wondering if the woman was making sport of her, the marshal turned to welcome the man who was coming forward to greet them, a gaggle of others just behind him, staring as though they’d never seen strangers before.

  Isobel had to admit that maybe they hadn’t, at least not like this.

  A single figure pushed through the crowd, elbowing the others aside with casual disdain. “Marshal LaFlesche, isn’t it? I’d say it’s good to see you, but marshals never bring anything but work, and you likely remember how much I hate that sort of thing.”

  The man was old, not ancient, but what hair he had left was sparse and white, curled tight against a balding pate, and his face drooped like an old dog at the jowls. He wore a fitted black cloth coat, the shirt underneath it fastened up to the neck, and trousers with a neat darn in the knee, but his boots were polished clean, despite the dust that seemed to settle over all else.

  “Good to see you still up and kicking, Judge,” the marshal said in return, shaking his hand. “And yes, I’m afraid I’ll need you to drape the bench one more time.”

  The judge pulled his head back, examining the newcomers with an expression that reminded Isobel of nothing so much as a turtle suddenly startled from his log. “All of them?”

  “Ah, no, my apologies. Judge Pike, this is Gabriel Kasun, and Isobel . . .” The marshal hesitated, as though uncertain how to introduce her.

  “Isobel née Lacoyo Távora,” she said, stepping forward. “Most recently of Flood.”

  “Ah.” The old man’s narrowed eyes studied her, giving nothing away. “Come from the Old Man’s lair, eh? Well, you’re welcome to Andreas, despite what you bring, though there’s little to recommend it these days. We’re mostly emptied out for planting and grazing, just us oldsters left behind. And what of these others—are those two dead, or do they sleep as such?”

  “Ah. Well, and there’s a story to be told,” the marshal said, rubbing her jaw, a rueful tone to her voice. “These two”—the marshal indicated the Americans, their hands bound in front of them—“are accused of having made false claim of insult.”

  “Against you two?” the judge asked, turning back to Isobel and Gabriel.

  “Against them,” the marshal said, gesturing to the two bodies slung across the saddles.

  “Ah.�
�� His narrow-eyed gaze went to them, noting the faded clothing and worn boots visible from that side. “And they are . . .”

  There was a silence: Isobel felt no need to be the one to inform the judge that they’d brought two magicians, however unconscious, into his town, and apparently neither did Gabriel. LaFlesche coughed once, then took up her burden.

  “Magicians. Bound and warded,” she added quickly. “But we couldn’t simply leave ’em there.”

  “Yes, you could have,” the judge said, and for the first time, Isobel felt like she might have an ally here. “What the blasted night am I supposed to do with magicians?”

  Run, don’t walk. Isobel hadn’t realized quite how much traveling with Farron Easterly had changed her—and Gabriel—until she saw the panic in the judge’s eyes.

  “Drape the bench and pronounce judgment, of course,” LaFlesche said, almost cheerful, and Isobel wondered if maybe the magicians weren’t the only mad ones in their party. From the way Gabriel wiped a hand down the front of his face, leaving two fingers across his lips as though to keep himself from saying anything, she wasn’t the only one having those sudden misgivings.

  “I’m too old for this nonsense,” the judge told her, then waved irritably at the people still lingering behind him. Most of them, Isobel noted, were not much younger than he was, mostly male but with a few women among them, silver-haired and deep-creased skin. “Stop hovering like a flock of hens and be useful,” he barked at them now. “Put the walking ones in the holding pen.” And he turned back to LaFlesche to ask, “I’m presuming you have their parole they’re not going to run?”

  “They’re not bound to the Territory,” Gabriel answered for her. “If they break parole, nothing will chase after them.”

  “There was no need to tell them that,” LaFlesche said, tight and quiet.

  “I waited until we were inside walls, didn’t I?”

  The judge turned to stare at Gabriel as though seeing him properly for the first time. “Hrmph. Well, Andreas’s walls are good at keeping things out; we’ll see how well it keeps ’em in. And those two . . .” Isobel hadn’t thought it possible for his eyes to squint further, but they did. “You, girl, you the one keeping ’em down?”

  Isobel nodded.

  “Then you stay with ’em. Lucky you. Lou, take ’em to Possum’s; let him earn his keep for a change.”

  Lou was one of the few women in the group, her hair silver-brown and her ash-dark skin lined with age, but she walked with a firm step and flesh on her bones. “We supposed to haul the horses in as well?” she asked tartly, eying the animals up and down.

  “Would serve Possum right if you did,” the judge said. “But no. We still got that sledge around here somewhere?”

  It seemed that they did.

  After sending two men off to fetch the sledge, Marshal LaFlesche and the judge escorted her prisoners down the street as though they were honored guests. Most of the gaggle followed them at a safe distance, leaving Gabriel, Isobel, and the woman named Lou. And two unconscious magicians, three horses, and a mule, the latter having wandered off to pull at the weeds growing along the edge of the gate.

  “The boys’ll be here with the sledge in a minute. You want to untie ’em and get ’em on the ground, or will that be a problem?” Lou’s words were blurred soft around the edges, and Isobel had to work to understand her, but when the question came clear, she shook her head. “We lay them flat at night, and it didn’t seem to affect the binding.”

  “Well, then, get ’em down.”

  Gabriel pushed his hat back and gave Lou a mocking salute, then turned to untie the heavier of the two magicians from Uvnee’s back, while Isobel unknotted the ropes on the marshal’s pony, who turned its head and gave her what seemed, to Isobel’s thinking, a grateful look.

  “Didn’t like carrying dead weight, did you, huh? Can’t say as I blame you.” The magician wasn’t much taller than she and seemed barely skin and bones under her hands, but pulling him down from the saddle still staggered her backward, forcing Lou to catch her with a hand flat between her shoulder blades.

  “Help me,” Isobel started to say, but the woman had already stepped back, pulling her hand away as though Isobel’s body had burned her.

  “They’re . . .” Lou blinked at them, then slid her glance sideways to where the mule seemed to be looking back at her with a “don’t ask me” expression. “They’re safe?” she asked, with her hands trying to emphasize what she meant by safe, but Isobel thought she understood.

  “For now, yes.” Three days, she’d had them down; she could feel them both struggling below the surface now, lashings of power and anger mixed with frustration, and worse, a dawning awareness of her as the source of their binding. She was not confident that, in their madness, they’d be able to remember that it had been the ancient spirit that burned them, not her, nor would they care even if they did remember. But for now . . . “Their bindings hold.”

  “I only ask, not to offend, but the wards on our walls are for keeping things out, not once they’re already in,” the woman said hastily, as though hearing an edge in Isobel’s voice. “And if they wake as mad as they’re made out to be . . .”

  Isobel declined to tell the woman that these two were even madder than most. It would help no one. “There’s no worry until sunrise, at the least,” although it was as much a guess as a gamble. “Your ward-maker should be able to reinforce their work, specific to where you keep ’em, at least long enough for the judge to hear the tellings.”

  She coiled the rope and hooked it over the pommel of the pony’s saddle, and slapped its hindquarter gently to tell it she was done. The pony simply snorted once, then ambled off to join the mule in search of edible grass.

  “I’m assuming your ward-worker didn’t go off to help with the planting,” Gabriel said when the local woman made no response, pulling the taller magician off the saddle and laying him next to the first without any particular care. “If they did, you’d best send a message now and a fast pony, too.”

  Uvnee, not as sanguine as the pony, shuddered as the weight left her back, ears twitching and eyes rolling nervously now that she could see what she had been carrying. Isobel stepped over the bodies to soothe the mare, stroking her nose and speaking reassuringly about what a good girl Uvnee had been, while Steady sidled closer and rested his head over the mare’s neck as though to add his own reassurances.

  Lou shook her head. Her hair curled like early ferns, bobbing over her eyes when she moved, shoved out of the way with a gesture Isobel recognized from seeing Gabriel do it—the move of someone more accustomed to wearing a hat, who never thought to tie back hair that would be sweat-tamed soon enough. Not a rider, but someone who worked outside, with her hands.

  “No ward-maker to speak of ’cept Possum, that old fool, and young Georgie, who’s yah, gone for planting. Never had much need for one. Andreas’s been here longer than we have; when the first traders came down from the north, they asked to build their cache here. That was more’n fifty back; they’re long gone, and we just use what was set. Every now and again, it needs reminding, but—” She made a gesture with her hands that seemed equal parts resignation and apology.

  “You—” Gabriel stopped whatever he’d meant to say, then started again. “And there’s none of the tribe remaining nearby?”

  Lou shook her head again. “They were a small tribe even then, story says. Most of ’em married out into other tribes or just . . . wandered off.”

  Gabriel didn’t often sigh, but when he did, it spoke measures. “Most of what I know’s from east of here; I’d be more likely to foul it than fix if I poke around. You might take a look-see, check if anything needs remaking.”

  Isobel started to protest that she wouldn’t know the first thing about a town boundary that old, one that someone else set, that she hadn’t ever studied wards, and what she’d done to bind the magicians wasn’t anything like, but Gabriel’s look held her cold.

  He was telling her she wa
s the only maker they had, never mind she was no maker at all.

  She bit her lip and nodded, telling him she understood. More bluffing, and hope no one called them on it.

  If she weren’t feeling so queasy and worn, Isobel thought, it might be funny. Wasn’t so long ago she’d thought just being the Hand meant folk would respect her, thought bearing the devil’s sigil meant she could do whatever was needed —she’d known how to close off the infected homestead, hadn’t she? Had been able to find the spell-beast, to stop the Spanish monks from making things worse, to feel not just the Road underfoot but the whole of the territory rolling like thunder in her bones. She might not be a maker, but she had power.

  But the truth of it was that none of that knowing had come from her, and the moment she’d been cut off . . . she’d been useless. Helpless. An old man’d had to save her from the spirit’s anger. A road marshal had been the one to capture the magicians, bring the Easterners in for judgment.

  A whisper had to come tell her where the problems lay.

  “You’re a ward-maker?” The words were dubious that anyone of Isobel’s youth could be useful, the question digging into Isobel’s own doubts like a spade to dirt, but making Gabriel’s silent warning more urgent as well.

  When Isobel didn’t object to the title or deny it, Lou pursed her lips but said only, “Well, don’t go fussing with ours too much unless’n you must; we’ve got to be able to raise it again come winter.”

  “I . . . what?” Isobel wasn’t sure she’d heard Lou’s words correctly, but the two men returned with the sledge before she had a chance to ask the woman to repeat herself.

  The sledge was nothing more than a heavy wooden slab set on runners that curled up in front. Isobel took a closer look: there were narrow sheets of iron hammered along the edges of the runners, gripping the wood tightly on either side.