Wolf's-own: Koan (13 page)

The threat was clear. The intent behind it, however, was less so. Xari bit her lip. “But the Incendiary. You don't know what this might do to—"

"It won't matter for much longer.” Calm; implacable. “Kamen has nearly run out of time. The Incendiary will not be his concern after today.” Imara lifted an eyebrow. “Perhaps you and I together can achieve what Kamen keeps refusing to hand to his god, yes? Perhaps bringing the Incendiary's oath to Wolf, as Wolf wishes, will be that final step on your path from initiate to a true maijin of Wolf."

Xari looked away. Another why, another when, any other Incendiary, and it might have been tempting. “You treat with griefs and possibilities you cannot under—"

"Xari.” Kind and gentle this time. “What happens, what will happen, it is clearly Wolf's will. It would not do for you to question your god now.” The threat was wrapped in silk, but all too clear. Imara shook her head then shrugged. “Perhaps Kamen needs a lesson only Wolf can teach him."

"Wolf has marked the Incendiary's brothers,” Xari said evenly. “Both of them. They must be—"

"I shall see to it, Xari. I shall see to all of them."

Xari slumped back, resisting the urge to scratch at her cheek, the paint somehow heavier on her skin now, cloying. She stared at Imara, meeting the brilliance of the gold gaze squarely, meaning to argue, debate, get the woman to see sense. Instead, she shut her mouth, mute beneath the plain command in Imara's eyes, the reminder of who held the power here.

They had a history, Kamen and Imara. Not one on which Xari had been informed, but one that went deep, from what she'd been able to glean, which wasn't much. For
Temshiel
, they were extraordinarily closed-mouthed about whatever it was they shared between them. Still... this was not the end of things, merely an unhappy beginning, and Xari would keep a close watch. If the opportunity came again, Xari would not be so foolishly trusting as to allow Imara to see it. Imara had no idea what she was calling down upon one Wolf would see saved; Xari did. She'd seen what loss did to the Incendiary. And she owed the boy.

With a shift of her fingers, Xari waved away the portents still swirling in the stone.

"I don't
know
what he needs, damn it, but he needs
some
thing!” Joori's voice was strained, but it was more with concern than with anger, though the anger was there. Samin didn't even have to look to know the statement—plea?—had been directed at Malick. “He's not getting any better,” Joori went on, fraught, “he's getting worse."

True. Fen had seemed all right for a while there, but now....

"You're wrong.” Malick sounded awfully damned sure of himself. Then again, Malick always did.

"I'm
not
wrong,” Joori insisted. “Don't think for even a second that you know my brother better than I do."

No, all the gods forbid anyone should imply they might know something about Joori's brother that he didn't.

Well. Damn. Sitting them all down together for tea—"like a family again"—had seemed like such a comforting idea when Shig had put it to Samin this morning.

Samin sighed and sucked in a bracing breath before venturing through the open door and into the room Joori shared with Morin. Shig looked up from her cup at Samin with a grim smile and a shrug; Morin gave him a roll of the eyes, but Samin might have been invisible, for all Joori and Malick noticed. Samin went to the service set on the press and picked up a bowl for tea.

"Fine, then what do you suggest?” Malick asked Joori, an outward calm Samin was sure he didn't actually feel.

"I....” It seemed to stymie Joori for a moment. “I don't know,” he admitted. “What about that Tatsu? The healer that—"

Malick shook his head; Samin thought the sadness was real enough. “Magic can't heal hurts of the heart, Joori. And hurts of the mind—"

"He's not crazy!” Joori snapped.

"Sure he is.” Morin. Funny, how the things Morin blurted could still manage to shock Joori sometimes. You'd think he would have learned by now. Morin noted Joori's look of stunned betrayal and merely shrugged. “He's batshit,” Morin said, unabashed and getting bolder by the day. “You would be, too, if it was you. Why can't you just let him be?"

Joori was gaping. Shig exchanged a look with Malick, but neither of them seemed to have the brass to insert anything into the heavy silence that fell. Samin calmly poured himself a bowl of tea and exited, just before the dam burst. The volume rose before he'd even crossed the threshold. His timing was getting better. Bloody hell, Joori's voice could reach decibels that would deafen the dead, and Morin couldn't help poking at hornets’ nests. Samin half listened to it from the inn's hallway, out of sight of the others, because hell if he was getting dragged into all that.

Annoying, perhaps, and all too frequent these days, but Samin couldn't blame any of them. He understood Joori's anxious frustration, Morin's pragmatic acceptance, Malick's stubborn optimism and Shig's uncharacteristic concern. He understood because he felt every one of them himself, depending on whether Fen's mood swings happened to be at apogee or perigee. And when you sometimes couldn't allow a man free use of even a kitchen knife for fear he'd put it through his own throat, you sort of had to acknowledge the existence of a problem. Unfortunately, you also had to admit your complete lack of knowledge about how to even try to fix it.

The tension was getting too tight around here. They needed a job or something. Samin needed a job, and hunting these elusive
banpair
might be exactly what he needed. He was actually looking forward to it. He just wished Malick would stop holing up in his room with Fen and get to it already. Samin was going to start killing pedestrians for walking funny pretty soon if he didn't get to let off some steam. There were bad people who needed dying, and here Samin was, cooling his heels.

Sighing, carefully sipping his tea as he headed down the hallway, Samin almost missed the lean figure propping up the wall, folded into the shadows between the last room on the left and the stairway. Samin paused, took a good look. Fen was watching him from behind ragged fringe. What Samin could see of his eyes was a lot less empty than they'd been the last time Samin had worked up the nerve to have a look. At least Fen was actually dressed and groomed. Perhaps a Dark Day was taking a turn for a Good Day. Or had been.

"How long have you been there?” Samin asked, quiet enough that no one would hear if there happened to be a lull in the shouting coming from Joori's room. Not that it seemed likely. It almost reminded him of Shig and Yori's screaming matches, and he weathered the pang in his chest with bittersweet remembrance.

Fen stared at him for a long moment, measuring, before he looked away with a heavy shrug. “A little before ‘batshit',” he said softly.

"Yeah, well.” Samin went to take a sip of his tea to cover the fact that he had nothing of relevance to offer; he paused with the bowl halfway to his lips and offered it to Fen instead. Fen must've come down here for something, after all. And Samin didn't blame him a bit for not wanting to go into that room.

One corner of Fen's mouth turned up, sardonic, but he took the tea with a nod of his head, said, “Thanks,” and he pushed himself away from the wall.

He was almost to the door to his room when Samin called softly after him, “People love in their own ways, Fen. Sometimes it doesn't help, but you just have to let them do it anyway."

Fen paused with his hand on the door, then turned his head to look at Samin over his shoulder. “Yeah. And yet somehow, the way I do it isn't ever good enough."

Samin had no idea how Fen meant that, and he had a dismaying certainty that it mattered. Before he even considered voicing the question he knew bloody well he wouldn't ask, about something he was pretty sure Fen hadn't meant to say, Fen had limped back into his room and shut the door. Samin stared after him for quite some time, pondering, before he braved Joori's room again for another bowl of tea.

Malick shook his head and cut his glance away from Shig and out the window of her little room. Twilight was blooming, the last day of Imara's “deadline” was fading, and Malick had other things he should be doing right now besides arguing with Shig. He was just about done with interfering women.

"All I need from you,” he growled at Shig, “is for you to keep an eye on Joori and Morin while Fen and Samin and I are gone tonight. I don't want them to know Fen is coming with me.” If Malick could
get
Fen to come with him. “Now, can you handle that or not?"

Shig didn't back off, not even a little. She glared, as fierce as Malick had ever seen her, almost as venomous as Fen. “First tell me what the hell you think you're doing. Why would you even
think
this is a good idea?"

"Because I need to know if he'll fight to defend himself, and putting him in a position where he
has
to defend himself is going to be the best way to see if he will."

Shig's mouth dropped open. “Are you
insane
?"

Probably. Not taking the time to figure out how to rearrange Shig's head so she didn't remember what she'd heard as Fen lay bleeding at Yakuli's—or anything having to do with Incendiary in general, while he was at it—probably indicated that yes, Malick might be a bit on the barking side. Then again, so would pretty much everything he'd ever done in his life. Any of his lives.

"Well.” Malick shrugged. “Guess it depends on who you ask."

"
Damn
it, Mal, I
told
you—"

"And I told
you
that there are things beyond my control, things I
have
to do, whether I want to or not, so stop fucking arguing with me."

"Bloody hell.” Shig shook her head, lip curled in disgust. “So full of excuses, every damned one of you. What excuse will you use when he finally kills you and then himself?"

Why was Malick arguing about this, and why did he care so much if Shig understood? “Fen is a grown man, a very
capable
grown man, who is—by the way, and now that you've brought it up—choking beneath all the tender care you all are forcing on him. This is Fen we're talking about, for pity's sake. Do you
really
think he couldn't have made some kind of weapon out of his henjiisticks by now, if he was as dead set on offing himself as he thinks he is?"

"Then why have you been avoiding the temples like they're contagious, when it's supposed to be the reason we're here in the first place?"

Malick set his jaw and looked away. Because he didn't have an answer for that one that would make sense to anyone but him. So he switched tactics. “What the fuck, Shig, isn't it Joori's job to be Fen's keeper? Why don't you try this protective mother-hen shit with him and see how far you get before he shoves you out the nearest window. He doesn't need every bloody one of you on his back all the time, so just back off."

"Well,
someone
needs to be there to sweep up the shattered little bits once you've broken him,” Shig snarled. Snarled!
Shig
! “You wanted his submission once. You got what you wanted, and now you want to hand him life-and-death choices, when you know bloody well he doesn't know what to do with them. It's not your right to—"

"No, it isn't my right, but it's my fucking
job
, not yours, so why don't you just shut your damned mouth for once and let me do it.” Malick paused, sucked in a long, deep breath, and tried to keep himself from shaking her. “Look.” Calmer; more even-toned. “He has to learn that an oath is his to give and not anyone's to take. The choices Fen has to make, he has to make for himself."

"And you keep thinking he'll just come right out and ask what those choices
are
.” Shig stepped in close, and though she was at least a head and a half shorter than Malick, she still managed to look menacing. “He can't handle it, Mal. He's not made that way. If you give him the choice, he'll take self-destruction every time."

Malick didn't think he'd ever seen Shig so furious. There had to be more to her anger than the obvious, but Malick hadn't a clue what might be beneath it. Until he looked a little deeper and realized that maybe he'd been neglecting to pay enough attention to everyone else's grief and confusion while he'd been concentrating on Fen's. He'd have to fix that. Just not right this second.

"You're wrong,” he said, as reasonably as he could. “I know you think you know him, but he isn't like you. His mind doesn't work the same way. He's got too much room in his head now, and he's filling it up with self-hating poison. ‘Fail the Fool and fail the Cycle,’ remember? This is my
job
, Shig."

Shig was shaking her head, mouth set in a grim, angry line. “You can't save him by taking away all direction and pretending you're giving him choices, don't you
get
that? He's too easily seduced, Mal. Look what he did for Asai. Look what he did for
you
. You can't trust him with something like this, and you can't save him by—"

"
Don't
,” Malick snarled, “make me punch you in the mouth. You don't know what you're talking about, Shig, there's a lot more to Fen than even you can see, things
I've
seen that you can't even—"

"He's already looking for answers to the questions
you
keep waiting for him to ask,” Shig snapped. Malick growled a little and made to push past her, but Shig gripped his arm. “You've got the right intentions, but you're doing it all wrong, and you're doing it wrong because you think you know him better than anyone else does, except you don't. If you won't give him the answers he wants, he'll seek them anywhere he thinks he might find them, and do you really want to risk him getting them from someone else?” She leaned in and up, tightening her grip on Malick's arm. “Do you really think there aren't those who are already looking for him,
Temshiel
?” She let go of Malick with a shove. “I
begged
you to help him,” she seethed. “But if you're going to insist on giving him even more reasons to hate himself, then bloody well get his oath, get him Wolf's protection,
now
, before another one of you vultures gets him first."