The Cold Eye

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Yes. And your choices led you there, on that day.” That suddenly, the blankness was gone, her face still somber but her eyes holding that familiar sharp spark of life, as though she’d finally bested him. “And that road led to this one, and this particular mess.”

  He moved Steady out of her way, pressing his heels into the gelding’s side. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

  Much to his dismay, he meant it. Even though she had never answered his original question.

  Which of itself was answer enough.

  Her heart had nearly stopped when Gabriel asked her, blunt as a bullet, if she’d killed the magicians. The words had coiled in her throat, but instead she had turned it back on him, pushing her own questions until he had no choice but to retreat.

  She had known some of it before, half-told stories and confessions, a life left on the other side of the border, threads of it still tying him there. But the idea that leaving had made him so ill, that had been new. Disturbing.

  She looked at the sigil in her palm, tracing the thick black lines and curves with a delicate finger. There were times she’d swear she could feel them, like a scar, but the skin was smooth under her touch now, the loops as familiar as her own breath.

  And now, if she let it, she could feel that warmth in her bones, imagine the white traced with faint, glittering strands of silver.

  Purest fancy. And yet.

  Something moved within her. Something that did not carry the scent of the boss’s cigar or his whiskey.

  Had she ever had the option to leave? If she’d left Flood behind her, followed her parents across the Mother’s Knife into Spain’s arms, or taken passage across the river into the States, or headed into the far north with the Métis, into English-held lands . . . Would she too have been driven back, sooner before later, ill and broken?

  Had the choice she made been no choice at all?

  And if so . . . had the devil known?

  They made camp well before nightfall, choosing a spot on the bank of a wide creek, surrounded by scrub and berry bushes. They moved around each other smoothly, settling and grooming the horses, building a fire, settling their packs. The hum of insects was loud around them, and she spotted a pair of rabbits nearby, eyes wide at her before they decided she was no threat.

  Somehow, the thought of trapping something held no appeal tonight. She picked a hatful of berries instead.

  Among the supplies they’d taken on was a loaf of fresh bread that had been taunting them with its smell all day. Isobel cut two large slices off of it, then placed them on a flat rock she’d set just next to the fire, and left them to warm, while Gabriel cleaned the berries and added them to the meat he was simmering in the tripod pot. They’d not stopped for a mid-day meal, and Isobel’s stomach had been too upset with nerves to want any of the dried venison she carried, so even though she didn’t feel hungry, the tightness in her stomach reminded her that she would need to eat now.

  They had another two days, at this pace, before they were back at the valley. Another two days before she had to face the haint—and its keepers—again.

  Gabriel finished what he was doing, then sat back on his haunches and studied her until she felt the urge to check if she had a smudge on her nose or a leaf in her hair.

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  She almost laughed at that, except it wasn’t funny in the slightest.

  “Isobel. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do once we get there?”

  He sounded so much like Marie just then, for all that his voice was so much deeper, she broke into giggles. And once she started, she couldn’t stop. Hiccupping, painful giggles that formed deep in her belly, pushing up through her chest and into her throat, causing her to bend over and wrap her arms around herself, trying to make them stop.

  Then warm arms were around her, drawing her against a broad chest, and the weight of something against the crown of her head, barely audible words of comfort against her ear.

  “It’s all right. It’s all right, Isobel. Let it out. It’s been a horrible few days, hasn’t it? I know, it’s all right, there’s nobody here but us, you can cry, it’s all right.”

  Slowly, the storm inside her wore itself out, leaving an aching emptiness behind. Her back ached, and her nose was snotty, and dinner had likely burned itself, but Isobel couldn’t bring herself to move just yet.

  “I don’t know what to do.” The words were muffled against his chest, her hands fisted between them, nails digging into the flesh of her palms. “I don’t . . .”

  She knew what needed to be done. She thought she would even know how to do it once she was there. But she didn’t want to. “I’m tired, and I’m sore, and I don’t want to be this person anymore.”

  The admission was torn out of her, scraping her throat raw, making her cringe at the sound. She’d made a Bargain, she’d inked the pen with her own blood and bound herself to the boss, and once on the Road, she’d bound herself to the Territory somehow, and she didn’t regret it she truly didn’t but she was so tired.

  She didn’t realize she was saying all of that out loud until too late. Horrified, she pulled away, opening her left hand —wincing at the ache in her knuckles—as though afraid that the mark there would have disappeared, that her words would somehow be enough to break the binding.

  It was still there: thick black lines looping twice, an open circle curling around it. The devil’s sigil, pressed into flesh, and she traced the cool lines with the forefinger of her other hand and let out a sigh that ended with a painful hiccup.

  Black marks, not silver. She took some comfort from that. She could see the boss, rage at him. He was real.

  “Here.” Gabriel dug awkwardly into his jacket pocket and pulled out a kerchief. It wasn’t the cleanest linen she’d ever seen, but she used it to wipe her eyes and then blow her nose.

  “Keep it,” he said, and she was able to giggle, real humor this time, even as she scrambled out of his lap, trying to reclaim a few shreds of dignity.

  “Better?”

  “Yes. No.” She sniffed, but her nose was too clogged to smell anything. “Did dinner burn?”

  He glanced at the fire. “It’s fine. Go walk it off. Take the mule. Mules are good for this sort of thing.”

  “What?” He was making no sense.

  He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Go, walk. With the mule. Trust me.”

  Isobel wasn’t sure which one of them had gone mad, but she got up, brushing the dirt off her skirt, and went to gather the mule.

  Flatfoot had been comfortably grazing, but when she slipped her fingers into its mane, tugging gently, it followed her without complaint.

  Past the berry bushes, the ground was mostly rock and sagebrush. The sun was sinking but still high enough for Isobel to see clearly. The bugs zipped and sang around her, a stick-bug leaping nearly across her nose when she startled it. In the distance, she heard foxes yip, and she thought of the rabbits she had seen earlier, wishing them luck and fleet feet, to stay uneaten. A bird perched nearby and sang at them, liquid sounds broken by sudden chirps.

  Another day’s travel and none of this would surround them; the land would slowly become empty, sorrow and anger turning it barren.

  The mule made a deep groaning noise and pressed its weight against her side. She slung an arm over its neck and leaned back. It smelled terrible; dirt and dung and musk, but even the terribleness of it was familiar. Comforting. One long ear flicked backward at her, and he whuffled, this time more contentedly.

  Gabriel had been right, as usual. This helped.

  “Who knew you would be useful,” she said into one furred ear, and the mule snorted at her, then tried to eat the feathers in her braid. By the time she pulled them away, the longer one was slightly soggy, the edges badly ruffled.

  She smoothed them as gently as she could, trying to reshape them flat, then held her braid up for consideration, letting the afternoon light catch glints and colors in them she’d either never see
n or forgotten about.

  They had been a gift, an acknowledgment that she was . . . what?

  Touched, Lou had said. Touched by the Territory. Something shifted inside her at the thought. Trapped by the Territory, bound to it . . . but she hadn’t wanted to leave.

  Her fingers brushed over the feathers, wondering if she had been doing the wrong thing wearing them every day, or if she should have left them in while she slept, or if she was meant to burn them when they became ragged, an offering back to the winds. . . .

  “Would it be so much,” she said, as much to the world around her as to the mule accompanying her, “for things to be explained rather than feeling as though the world’s watching me try to figure it out?”

  Flatfoot flicked his tail at her, as though warning her to watch what she asked for, and Isobel held her breath. She wasn’t sure if she wanted an answer or not, but when no snakes or hawks or deer dropped in with useless advice, she exhaled in relief.

  “When I get back to Flood,” she told the mule, “the boss and I . . .” Her voice trailed off and they wandered on in silence. She might like the idea of demanding more information from the devil, but she wasn’t fool enough to think it would happen. She knew he cared for her, cared for all of them, but he was still Master of the Territory, and she was in his service.

  And if he had not known, if this thing happening to her were none of his doing or planning . . .

  She had agreed to whatever had been asked of her, even if she hadn’t known it at the time. Be careful what you ask for, because the devil will give it to you.

  “Isobel.” She turned at the sound of her name being called, surprised to realize that they’d wandered so far from the camp. The sunlight was beginning to fade, the small flames of the fire rising above the grasses, casting the surrounding dusk a shade darker. The smell of cooked meat caught a tendril of breeze, wafting toward her, and suddenly, she was starving.

  Gabriel didn’t say anything when she hugged the mule around the neck and sent it back to join the horses, then sat down at the fire, only handed her a plate.

  “We’re being followed.”

  She hadn’t expected that, but she supposed it wasn’t a surprise: they’d been followed to the town; it would make sense they’d be curious where they’d go next.

  She took a bite of her dinner, then asked, “How many?”

  “Not sure. Maybe only the one? Whoever it is, they’re good enough I doubt I’d be able to catch them out. But stay alert; our luck’s bound to turn at some point.”

  Gabriel scraped his plate with his fingers, sucking the juice off them with satisfaction. Having fresh meat that they hadn’t had to catch or skin was a rare pleasure on the road, and the lamb had been particularly tasty. She finished her own, then thought of going back into the valley, where living things had fled, and the last bite tasted sour in her mouth.

  “Those buffalo . . .”

  “The herd you found?” He rubbed the scruff on his chin, scowling at her in a way that, if she didn’t know him, would be frightening. “We burned the hides we found. It wasn’t enough?”

  “I don’t know. How can it be? I promised them I’d do what I could. But there isn’t anything I can do, is there? They’re already dead; I can’t make their lives less wasted. Their blood was used for . . . for a terrible thing, and I can’t make it right—”

  “Isobel. Stop.” He stretched out one leg and kicked her gently in the shin. “You’re right; there’s nothing you could do. You were there too late, and even if you had been there . . .” He picked up his own plate, then hers, once she indicated that she was finished, and put them aside for washing. “If you’d been there, you’d be dead now, Iz. You’d have tried to stop them and you’d have failed. And you can’t take the entire chain of events on your shoulders, because, well, you just can’t. People —even wind-mad magicians—make their own choices, wise and foolish, and there’s nothing you or I or the devil can do about that.

  “If it makes you feel better, when all this is sorted, we’ll go back and burn the bones. That way they can return to the dust properly.”

  She exhaled, a little shaky still, half-expecting something to happen, something to speak or appear. But she was alone inside her skin. “When this is sorted.”

  “And speaking of which. How are we to accomplish that?” His foot remained pushed up against her leg, and it reminded her of the way Flatfoot had leaned against her before. The thought made her smile, even though there was nothing amusing in what she was about to say, and she thought that smile might look a bit like the boss’s when he was particularly unamused.

  “I haven’t any idea. I’ll make something up when we get there.”

  Gabriel had made his bed up that night with Isobel’s words rattling between his ears, aware for the first time in years of every rock and root under his bedroll, the rough leather of his pack under his cheek, and every noise and silence of the night, until finally the stars dimmed and he was able to sleep.

  They were both up before the sun lifted over the hills behind them, casting pale red rays over the higher mountains directly ahead.

  “We could always . . . go back.”

  “To Andreas?” The look Isobel gave him made it clear she thought he’d lost his wits.

  “To Flood.”

  Her face went flat, only the fluttering blink showing her surprise.

  “That was what you had wanted, wasn’t it? To go back to Flood?”

  “To make sure you were healed properly,” she said, going back to saddling her mare. “You’re moving well now. I saw you hadn’t rebandaged the claw marks; they’re scabbed up cleanly.”

  “Iz.”

  “So, there’s no need to ride all the way back there, and you were correct; it would have been foolish anyhow, so —”

  “Isobel!” He couldn’t recall the last time he’d raised his voice, and certainly not to a woman. Mayhap back when he was young and still living with his sisters . . . “Isobel,” he said more quietly, seeing that she had paused in her actions, arms frozen in place over Uvnee’s nose, the bridle half-on, her back straight and too stiff. “There’s no shame in asking for help. You’re just one woman; we’re both just . . . If you think this is too much for us to manage, then there’s no shame in handing this over to the devil. It’s—”

  “No.”

  “All right.” He swung up into Steady’s saddle and waited for her to do the same with Uvnee, tucking the edges of her skirt under her legs and adjusting her hat before picking up the reins again. “Onward and upward and on to glory, then.”

  They’d gone barely ten paces from their campsite before he nearly tore his shoulder out of its socket trying to grab the carbine and load it while also reaching for his boot knife. The conflicting instincts slowed him down enough to realize that the shadow at their shoulder wasn’t a maddened magician, a ghost cat, or another irritatingly useless spirit-animal, but the elder Isobel had half-mockingly named Broken Tongue.

  “Grandpapa,” he said finally, hoping that his voice was calm enough to be polite, switching to French with an effort. “We did not expect to see you again.”

  The old man sniffed once, with unmistakable emphasis. “I did not think you to be fools.”

  “I am a fool traveling with a woman.”

  “You say the same thing twice.”

  Gabriel was not going to translate any of that for Isobel, riding on his other side. She seemed to have taken the old man’s reappearance more calmly than he had, or maybe he’d simply missed her reaction. Or, he thought, at this point Isobel had gone beyond surprise or dismay at anything. That was not a comfortable thought.

  “Tell him we go to cleanse the valley,” she said, looking up along the path they’d been following, rather than at either one of them. “If it is possible.”

  Gabriel explained that, hoping that the elder would not ask him how she meant to accomplish such a thing when she had failed before. This might well get him killed, but it wasn’t as though
he couldn’t die any number of ways otherwise. All flesh failed, and every story he’d ever been told of those who wished otherwise ended badly.

  Grandfather walked with them without speaking after Gabriel told him what Isobel meant to do. It would have been rude to interrupt his thinking and equally rude to speak to Isobel before the elder had indicated he was finished, so Gabriel contented himself with studying the landscape in front of them, trying to determine where their trackers were at any given moment, wondering if they were part of Grandfather’s tribe or another group, and very carefully not wondering what would happen when they rode through the entrance to the valley again.

  “Je sais ce qu’elle est maintenant. Est-ce qu’elle le sait?”

  I know what she is now. Does she?

  When he looked to his side again, the old man had disappeared as silently as he’d arrived, with neither Steady nor the mule, moseying along behind them, so much as twitching an ear in reaction.

  He was not fool enough, though, to presume that they were alone now. The old man was keeping an eye on them, had likely been doing so ever since they first came to the valley.

  Gabriel wasn’t sure if that was comforting or made it all that much the worse.

  He wiped his forehead and replaced his hat, refusing to give the old man the satisfaction of seeing him look around.

  “What did he say?” Isobel asked finally.

  “Nothing of use.”

  “Of course not.” She pulled the brim of her hat down over her face and slumped in an exaggerated fashion in the saddle. “Native or spirit or . . . when a magician gives more answers than the rest of you, what’s the use?” she asked, loud enough that anything with sensitive ears could hear her from twenty paces back. “Fine, then. Let them leave us be, and the devil won’t have to look in after them in turn.”

  As indirect threats went, Gabriel had to admit that should be a particularly effective one.

  She knew that Gabriel was watching her. The boss used to do that too, then he’d sit back in his chair and light the cigar he never smoked, watching the pale blue plume of smoke twist and turn in the wind, or he’d open a new deck of cards and shuffle them against the dark green felt of the card table, spreading and rearranging the cards like they told him something new each time, waiting to hear what she would say.