Wait. Where did he go? One moment he was there, a dimly seen figure a little ahead of me, and the next… nothing. Just the rain, the darkness, and the alley.
Was there some door I hadn’t seen? A corner he could have disappeared behind? I walked faster, even though the alley was so steep that it made my calves ache. Where had he gone?
Something hard and heavy hit me from behind, and I tumbled onto my hands and knees in the middle of one of the muddy rainwater gullies. A second later, something even heavier landed on my back, knocking me flat on my belly, so that I ended up swallowing a mouthful of gritty gutter silt. Euuuch.
“Do you think I’m blind? Or deaf? Or stupid?”
The voice was no more than a whisper, a chill whisper in the dark. I had no trouble hearing it, though. A knife against one’s neck sharpens one’s concentration wonderfully. I shoved against the pavement and tried to roll to one side, away from the knife, but a warning prick made me stop.
“Lie still, boy. Or you might get hurt.”
“Who are you?” I hissed. “What is it you want?”
“None of your business. Didn’t your mama teach you not to pry?” Another small jab of the knife stressed his point. “Can you count to a hundred?”
What did he mean?
“What—”
“I asked if you could count to a hundred?” Another prod with the knife, not a deep one, but enough so that I could feel a warm trail of blood running down my neck to mix with the cold rain.
“Yes.” Was he some kind of a maniac?
“Then do it. Stay down and count to a hundred before you get up. If you try to follow me again, I’ll kill you.”
The voice was still only a whisper, but I had a very clear sense that he would do exactly what he said he would do, if necessary.
“Is that clear, boy?”
I tried to raise my head, but the man with the knife shoved my cheek into the stony ground.
“Is that clear?”
“Yes,” I muttered, spitting out another mouthful of gutter water. “Let go of me.”
“Let me hear you count.”
“What?”
“Count. Loudly and clearly, please, so that I know I won’t have to put a bolt into your back.”
A bolt? Did he have a crossbow? Or was he just bluffing?
“Start counting!”
He had a knife at least; I had felt that clearly enough. Reluctantly, I began to count.
“One, two, three…”
“Go on.”
“Four, five…”
The weight was gone from my back.
“Six, seven, eight…”
Steps disappearing into the darkness. I sat up.
Thhhhwappp. Something long and black skittered across the stones of the alley only a few inches from my knee. He did have a crossbow, it seemed, or a partner armed with one. How many of them were there?
“Last warning. Keep counting!”
How far had I got?
“Eight, nine, ten…”
There was a low purr of laughter from the darkness, and a different voice, teasing and soft, quite different from the cold harsh whisper. “Good boy.”
A woman, that much I was certain of. That made at least two of them, and one of them had a crossbow. So I sat there in the rain, counting—“twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty”—feeling like a complete idiot, and yet too uncertain to get up. Until I had reached sixty-three, and I suddenly heard Nico’s voice behind me.
“Davin, anything wrong?”
Oh yes, quite a few things. I was cold, wet, and furious, and I felt like grabbing Nico by the throat to shake the truth out of him. What kind of murderous maniacs had he got himself mixed up with?
“What could possibly be wrong?” I said sourly, getting to my feet. “I’m just sitting here in the rain practicing my counting.”
“Davin…”
But I didn’t feel like discussing it. “Shouldn’t we be going home? Or at least out of the rain?”
Nico looked at me. He was wearing neither hat nor cloak, so he must have followed me as quickly as he was able. His hair was sticking to his forehead in dark, wet spikes.
“That sounds like a good idea,” he said. And so we walked back to the Harbormaster’s house together, pretending that everything was normal, pretending that there had been no man in a black cloak, no knife, and no crossbow.
I had discovered absolutely nothing. I still didn’t know who the man in the cloak was, or what he had given or received from Nico. Of the two of us, only one was the wiser: Nico now knew that we were watching him.
When we got back to the Harbormaster’s, there were some people Callan wanted Nico to meet. I got out of it by saying I needed to change into some dry clothes, and the Harbormaster’s daughter showed me upstairs, to the room where we were to sleep. Dina and Rose went with us, and the moment the Harbormaster’s girl—Maeri, her name was—was out of the door, they pounced on me. Who was the man in the cloak? What had I found out? Unfortunately, the answer to that question was nothing much.
“Did he cut you?” Dina eyed me anxiously when she heard about the ambush. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.” I wanted to forget the whole episode. I wasn’t proud of my belly-dive into the gutter, or of the helplessness I had felt with that knife at my throat. In any case, the cut was small and had already stopped bleeding.
“But I still have no idea where he went. We’ve nothing to go on.”
“Not quite nothing,” said Rose.
“What do you mean?”
With a strange, shy-looking shrug, Rose produced a small crumpled up piece of paper.
“What’s that?” asked Dina.
“The note Nico got from the stranger.”
“But how did you get hold of it?”
Rose blushed and looked at her feet. “It wasn’t so hard.”
I gave her a sharp glance. “Where did you learn to be such an expert pickpocket?”
“Don’t start again!” she said angrily. “I’m no thief!”
“No, but…” I vividly remembered the last time I had suggested that Rose might have a somewhat relaxed attitude to yours and mine. The slap had set my ears ringing, and I had probably deserved it, because Rose hadn’t stolen anything. All the same, it was strange how she had managed to get the little note away from Nico without him noticing it.
“It’s just not everybody who—”
“Do you want to know what it says or not?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then stop asking stupid questions!”
Dina smoothed the crumpled note. “The Sea Wolf, tomorrow before dawn,” she read. “I wonder what that means?”
“Has to be a meeting place,” I suggested. “An inn, perhaps.”
“Or a ship,” said Dina. “Are any of the ships in the harbor called Sea Wolf?”
“We’ll find out,” I said. “All we have to—”
Rose flapped her hands in warning.
“Sshh,” she hissed. “Give me that. Someone’s coming.”
She tucked the note into her apron, and not a moment too soon, because just then Nico and Callan pushed through the door.
“Aye, but it is a rude price to ask,” Callan growled. He and Nico appeared to be in mid-discussion.
“That’s the way of it when goods are scarce,” said Nico. “I say we close the deal and count ourselves lucky that we can get flour at all.”
Callan scratched his neck. “Might be,” he said. “But rude all the same!”
DAVIN
A Clip on the Ear
Next morning, the sky was clear, though there was still a great deal of wind. That seemed to be the rule here rather than the exception. In many ways, it was a strange place to put a town—barren and storm-swept, with nothing much to recommend it to anyone who did not love rocks and waves and seagulls. By far the best thing about Farness was the harbor. It was full of life, people and animals and ships, from the huge broad-bottomed trading vessels to the tiny
dinghies that splashed their way from ship to pier and back again, or from one vessel to another. There were bleating goats in wooden crates, there were sacks and barrels and chicken cages, coils of rope and cloth for sails, and a briny smell of tar and wood and seawater.
We were searching for the Sea Wolf, Dina and I. Rose’s task was to keep an eye on Nico, who had gone out with Callan to try to trade for the goods we needed.
“There,” said Dina, pulling at my sleeve. “The one with the red sails!”
I ran my eyes over the row of ships along the pier and found one with red sails. Dina was right. The name was painted on a plank up near the bow, along with the black outline of a wolf’s head.
I looked curiously at the ship. Was it just a meeting place for Nico and the man in the cloak, or was he planning to sail away right in front of our noses?
“I wonder if I could get aboard,” I muttered.
Dina looked frightened. “Davin, no!”
“Why not? It’s pretty common, boarding a ship. Look around. People do it all the time.”
“But—”
“Might even be rude not to stop by and say hello, seeing as how we’re in the neighborhood.”
“Davin, you don’t know them.”
“I know one of them. Sort of…”
“The one who stabbed you with a knife. And told you he’d kill you if you tried to follow him again!”
“It was dark. He probably won’t even recognize me in daylight.”
“No, Davin. If anyone is going aboard that ship, it has to be me.”
“You?”
“Yes. At least they don’t know me. They might not stab me on sight.”
There was a sort of point to what she said, but there was no way I would stand calmly on the pier and watch my sister walk into danger. Possible danger anyway.
“What would you say to them?”
“Not much,” she said evasively. “What is it you want to know?”
“When they sail. Where they’re going. Is the Cloaked Man aboard. That kind of thing.”
“All right. Wait here.”
I never meant to. No way was I letting her do this, what with her being my sister, and a girl, and all that kind of thing. But sometimes, somehow, it’s really, really hard to stop Dina when she has her mind set on something. She was already—Wait, where had she gone? She seemed to have disappeared into the crowd without a trace. How can you stop someone you can’t even see? So there I was, biting my nails, my eyes glued to that bloody ship. I hadn’t seen her board it, but where else would she be?
It took forever. Around me, people were busily loading or unloading their barrels and boxes and whatnot, and I knew I was in the way. This was no place to stand and admire the view. I sat down on a barrel—herring, by the smell of it—but my butt had barely touched the wood before a short, sinewy ship hand told me to be off, this weren’t no twopenny show. I was so worried about Dina I couldn’t even think of a comeback. Where was she? I could count to twenty, slowly, and if she wasn’t back before that… What if the ship sailed?
That thought made my palms sweaty. What would I do? Throw myself off the pier and try to swim after them?
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… it was too much like the night before. Was the Cloaked Man there or not? What if he recognized Dina? He might have noticed her at the Harbormaster’s. Damn. I had had enough of doing nothing. I was going aboard that ship if it was the last—
“They sail tomorrow morning. But I didn’t see the Cloaked Man anywhere.”
I think I actually jumped a foot.
“Dina, how the hell do you do that? I haven’t taken my eyes off that ladder for a second!” Not completely true, of course, but close enough. How could she suddenly be standing right in front of me?
“Do you want to know what they said or not?” She had this oddly wooden expression on her face and wouldn’t quite look at me, and all of a sudden I knew why.
“It’s something he taught you, isn’t it? The Puff-Adder.”
“Don’t call him that!”
“Oh, I do beg your pardon. What would you like me to call him instead? My Lord Blackmaster? Sir Dreamkiller the Brave? The celebrated Colmonte Assassin?”
“How can you say such things when you were there, when you saw what he did for us and… and what it cost him. He saved your life, Davin!”
“Don’t remind me.”
But she just had, hadn’t she? And she was right too. I did owe my life to Sezuan and his Blackmaster arts. I just couldn’t stand the thought that Dina… that my sister was his child, and that she was in any way like him.
“Dina, he was not a good man,” I said, as gently as I could.
She looked at me for a long moment, and there were tears in her eyes.
“You don’t know anything about him,” she finally said, and turned away from me and left me there. And I know she tricked me on purpose. I know it was no coincidence. She did something to me, and suddenly, a screaming seagull trapped my eyes, and I had to look at it. And by the time I was able to tear my attention away from the gull and the bay and the wide gray waters, it was too late. Dina was nowhere to be seen.
I was so furious that walking was too slow for me. I ran all the way back to the Harbormaster’s house, not caring who I jostled or pushed aside in my hurry. So when Dina turned into the gate, I was already there, waiting.
It wasn’t something I calmly decided to do. It was stupid, and afterward I was sorry. But the moment I saw her coming around that corner—practically backward because she was so busy trying to see if I was following her—my hand shot out and caught her on the ear, flat and hard.
“Never do that again. Ever!”
It took her completely by surprise. She hadn’t even seen me before I hit her. I saw her tears and her shock, but I was furious.
“Is that what you want to be? A sneaky, belly-crawling snake who cheats and lies and deceives everyone?”
She was deathly pale, except for where my hand had hit. Four red fingers showed on her cheek, as clearly as if I had painted them there.
“What if that is who I am?” she said in a hard voice I barely recognized. “I am his daughter too, Davin.”
“No, you’re not! You’re ours. Not his. What would Mama say if she knew about your sneaky little tricks?”
“Shut up.” She was trembling all over. “Shut up! If you say one more word about Mama, I’ll… I’ll—”
“Davin! Dina! What on earth is going on here?”
I spun. Nico stood there. Rose and Callan were coming up the street behind him with the Harbormaster.
“Nothing,” said Dina.
“Nothing?” Nico stared at her. “Davin, did you hit her?”
Afterward it was very hard to explain. That I had been so furious, I mean. That I hit Dina. Hit her. But it was… as if someone had pushed me, or forced me to do something by tying me or holding me. That would be one thing, and bad enough. But what Dina had done was worse. She had pushed me inside my head. And that was a different kind of force. More… more like what the Educators had done to me. That was the best explanation I could give.
And I couldn’t even tell Nico that much. Because then I would have had to tell him what Dina had done, and then Nico would know that she… maybe he knew already. That Dina could do the same kind of thing that the Puff-Adder had done. But I couldn’t make myself say it. And Dina was just as silent. She stood there with those stubborn tears in her eyes and the red marks on her cheek, vivid as a brand.
“What is it with the two of you?” Nico’s gaze went from one of us to the other. “Dina, what is going on?”
Dina ducked her head. “Nothing,” she muttered once more. She tried to push past him, but he held out a hand to stop her.
“Dina.” His voice was very gentle. “Something is wrong, any idiot can see that. But whatever it is, surely it can’t be so bad that we can’t talk about it.”
She looked at him for such a long time that Nico had to look away, even though sh
e wasn’t using her Shamer’s eyes. Nico would so like to meet her eyes calmly and trustingly, hers and Mama’s both, but he was like a horse that had been whipped. He had once been forced to meet the full force of the Shamer’s gift, and something inside him could never quite forget the pain.
“You don’t know,” said Dina. “You just don’t know.” And when she pushed past him this time, he let her go.
Then it was my turn.
“Why did you hit her?”
His dark blue eyes were cold. I could feel the weight of his gaze, almost like an icy gust of wind. Nico did not have Shamer’s eyes, of course, so really there was no need to duck my head. But I felt less than proud of myself right then.
“None of your business,” I said and started walking so he had to step aside or slam into me. “It’s a family matter. And last time I checked, your last name was not Tonerre.”
I was almost all the way across the cobbled yard before I heard him mutter, “If only it was.”
At first I didn’t understand what he meant. But then I remembered what he was probably planning. A lonely journey through a hostile land, a journey which would, if he was good and really, really lucky, end in the killing of his own half brother. It might not always be all peach pie and roses, being the Shamer’s son and Dina’s brother and all that. But I was suddenly glad my name was Tonerre and not Ravens.
DAVIN
The Sea Wolf
“The Sea Wolf?” said the Harbormaster. “Now, why are ye so keen on that ship? Anyone would think ye were looking to buy her.” He laughed gratingly, for people who found it hard to pay two silver marks for a barrel of herring hardly had the means to buy a fully rigged sloop. And that was what the Sea Wolf was, I had discovered. A two-masted sloop plying freight from the Magdan Coast to Farness and back again.
The Shamer's War Page 3