Wolf's-own: Koan (3 page)

"Seyh!
Seyh
!"

Samin didn't growl as the young man with the funny little spectacles caught his sleeve. He must've scowled, though, because he was let go immediately, and the strange young man backed up a pace with a quick assessing glance at Morin and Shig.

"Ah,” said the young man and dipped his head on a small nod. “I apologize, but....” He trailed off and again looked at Shig.

Shig smiled, all friendly welcome. “It's your business, after all."

Samin had no idea what that meant, but he followed Shig's gaze to the little stall from where the young man had leapt and raised his eyebrows.
Necessities
was written on a small placard and nailed to one of the posts holding up the stall's roof.

Morin was frowning, taking the young man in. On the small side but wiry-looking, and dressed in loose tunic and trousers that looked like he'd put them together with a disparate array of eye-wateringly bright handkerchiefs. Dark, sleek hair was gathered neatly into a long, loose tail at his nape. His smile was small but sincere enough beneath those strange violet spectacles, and he offered a deferential manner to Samin that Samin was still trying to figure out when Morin stepped in a little.

"Ooh,” said Morin. “Lookit the fish."

The booth was rather plain, compared to the others they'd seen down around the main square where the temples sat. As they got closer to the Ports District and the inn where Malick had put them, the atmosphere grew just a touch seedier, but still not seedy.

Bamboo shelves stood prominent in this man's shabby booth, one lined with little bowls containing a single fish each. Ruby-colored and cobalt, velvety black and silklike jade—their fins were long and flowing, as though decked in the formal robes of the Adan. Samin privately decided they were pretty enough, but they looked rather bored and sickly, and he hoped he wasn't going to have to talk Morin out of one.

Shig was rather bolder than Morin: she stepped around him and right up to the young man, who watched her, patiently expectant, with a serene smile on his somewhat pretty face. Shig turned her grin on him and dipped her colorful head in a respectful bow. She offered her hand, but not as though she meant to shake with the young man. “Seyh,” was all she said, then she put her hand palm up in front of her and merely waited.

The young man's mouth split in a dazzling grin, and his small hand settled atop Shig's. “Ah,” he said with a knowing nod, “a child of Wolf, with the kiss of your god upon your brow. You've the mark of the spectral domain all about you like invisible skin.” He closed his eyes briefly, a light frown beetling his thin brown eyebrows, before he peered at Shig with keen interest. “You've lost your cursed gift, girl. Have you come to seek it again?"

Samin's eyebrows shot up, and he leaned in to make sure he didn't miss anything. Did that mean what he thought it meant?

"I'm here to learn from my god if he wishes me to have it,” Shig answered.

Which was certainly news to Samin. He hadn't even known it was possible, and now he wondered if he even liked the idea.

Shig was still grinning, but her tone was strangely somber. “I didn't lose it, seyh—it was taken from me when the Ancestors went home."

"
Ah
!” the man said again, eyebrows rising, making the spectacles slide a bit down the bridge of his nose. “Not Jin, though.” He enveloped Shig's hand in both of his. “Half-Blood, then,” he said with a satisfied nod. He peered at Morin now, renewed interest in his gimlet gaze. “I've not seen a full-Blood before.” He smiled again when Morin took a small step back, wary, but the young man didn't look offended. “Fear not, young Jin. You are not in Ada, where I hear even now your kind struggle for that which they know not how to grasp."

Morin frowned; he looked like he was trying to decide if he should be insulted or not. “What does that mean?"

It meant that just because the Adan had no more cause to fear and imprison the Jin, it didn't necessarily mean that the troubles of the Jin were over. The gossip Samin had heard coming from across the sea had not been entirely good news, and with every additional report, he was just as happy to be well-rid of it all. He'd seen no reason to trouble the boys with it, and definitely not Fen; he hoped he wasn't going to have to shut up this nice-seeming stranger.

"You will know when it is time, I've no doubt,” the young man answered with a knowing smirk for Samin that Samin didn't like at all. The man patted Shig's hand then released it. “Fate is not yet done with any of you, I think."

"Well, I'm done with Fate,” Morin muttered and picked up a walking stick that had been propped against the support post beside him.

"That, young seyh,” the young man chided, “is not what you need,” and he took the stick from Morin's hands. The young man set a protective hand about the wolf's head that topped the stick and peered at it closely, as though looking for damage, before he slipped it under a table weighted down with what Samin could only think of as junk. “Someone else will be by for it eventually, no doubt,” the young man said then pushed up the spectacles and peered at Samin again, as though waiting for him to say something.

"No doubt,” was all Samin could think of. He gave Morin a little nudge. “Come on, have your look so we can go. D'you want a fish or not?"

"Eh,” said Morin, attention diverted once again to the bamboo shelves and their bowls. “I just thought they were interesting. They looked better from farther away, anyway."

Samin nodded. “Is that all they do? Just float about and stare?"

"You thought they might juggle?” The man's smile was not unkind as he loosed a thready little giggle into his sleeve. “Here now, girl, back away before you bring it all down on my head.” He shooed Shig away from where she'd been dipping her fingers into one of the bowls; she went with a smirky little smile and a wink at Samin. “Think you they serve no purpose, eh?” The young man seemed to be talking to himself as he pulled down two apparently random bowls and brought them carefully over to set them on the table before Morin. “Sometimes the purpose of a thing is merely to share its beauty with the world.” An impish grin spread across his face as he scooped his hand into one of the bowls, dumping a satiny garnet fish into the bowl of one that looked like liquid turquoise. “And sometimes, the beauty merely hides its purpose."

The reactions were immediate: droplets splashed up and out as the fish went for each other with a viciousness that surprised Samin. From floating placidly in their separate bowls like lumps of pretty jewels, to blood in the water in a second and a half. Morin only stared steadily, like he was analyzing tactics or something, thoughtful.

The young man snorted a little and turned his attention back to Shig. Boldly, he tugged at a stray green curl that had come loose from the striated tail at her nape. “Such a beacon to the spirits you must have been, girl. Bravery or arrogance?” He dropped a quick, knowing wink. “Or brave arrogance?"

Shig let loose a small giggle; if Samin didn't know better, he'd think she was flirting. “Necessity,” she told the man with a sly glance at the placard that apparently was meant to describe his business. “The spirits can be difficult, but also useful, if one can master them."

"Mastery!” The man's eyes went wide, and he reared back the slightest bit. “It is no wonder, then, that Wolf looks so fondly upon your own spirit.” He dipped his head in an echo of the respectful bow Shig had given him a moment ago.

"Um... I think....” Morin's face was screwed up in mild revulsion. He peered at the young man, then gestured him over. “I think the blue one won."

Ech. Samin's lip curled a little at the bloody bowl, and the blue fish once again floating placidly in the middle of it, the mangled fins of the other fanning down over its back from where it hovered, dead, just beneath the skin of the water.

Morin just kept staring at it, a deep furrow in his brow. He didn't shift his glance as the young man wordlessly dipped his hand into the bowl, caught the victor and dumped it unceremoniously into the empty bowl and set it back on the shelf.

It took a moment, but Morin eventually shook himself. “What are those made from?” He cut a meaningful glance at a row of amulets, a little bit challenging, maybe, but he didn't seem to want to dare to actually touch them.

"From the earth, the sweat of my brow, and the blessing of my gift,” the man answered.

Morin narrowed a skeptical look upward. “No Blood?"

The young man nearly choked. “Never!” He waved an imperious hand out in a sweeping gesture. “The Adans’ ways are not ours, young full-Blood. Look away from your past oppression, or you may lose forever the ability to see beyond it."

Samin's mouth thinned down. It was quite possible that the advice was good, but this man had no idea what a Jin's life was like in Ada. It wasn't his right to chastise Morin for bearing scars and keeping his—in Samin's opinion—healthy suspicions because of them.

"The oppression is not so long past,” Samin put in, warning. “The boy's got a right.” Before the young man could sputter a reply, Samin jerked his chin at the table. “Do these come with the spells to use them, or is that extra?” Because that was how these hawkers worked: the product was usually cheap, but the key to using it dear.

"Not spells,” the man corrected, gathering his dignity about him like a cloak. “Prayers.” He stepped behind the table, dismissed Samin, and shifted his attention to Morin. “You will find many things the same here,” he said, “but also many things different. We do not command our magic with spells; we ask of it. We ask the gods to bless us in its use. Only
Temshiel
and maijin have the right of control. We merely pray for the blessing of favor.” He picked up an amulet made of ruby that sparked like blood when he held it up to the light. “Merely focus,” he said. “An orison from my hand to yours. You will find no one of the Craft who will promise an answer to all of your prayers—only that the gods will hear them."

An abrupt upswell of music blatted from a small stage set up across the busy street, nestled between a cut-rate fish market that smelled cut-rate, and a candle shop that was apparently trying to overpower the nasty fish smell with nasty perfumed wax. Morin immediately lost interest in the vendor and turned his eyes across the street, wonder and pleasure blossoming over his expression as a puppet show began.

Samin only sighed as Morin bolted away, the young man and his booth and his fish forgotten completely. With a polite nod to the young man and a snatch at Shig's arm, Samin followed after Morin. Shig looked like she was going to dip into sullen, but then her gaze caught the show, as well, and she smiled before running to catch up and take a place in the watching crowd beside Morin as the puppets began their larking.

Samin ambled leisurely up to the outskirts of the audience, watching Morin and Shig almost as much as he watched the show, taking in their expressions and smiling over them like a proud father, and he didn't even let that thought embarrass him. A man could do worse than this brood.

A tug at his sleeve pulled his gaze down and to the right, to see the young man from the booth giving him that serene, knowing smile over his spectacles as he pushed something chill and smooth into Samin's hands. “For the boy,” the man said.

Samin looked down, eyebrows shooting upward, and confusion pushing aside the pleasure of a moment ago. He was holding a fishbowl. A fucking
fishbowl
. A
full
fucking fishbowl. With a fish flopping around in it. What the hell?

"The lad needs no luck or protection,” the man went on. “Wolf has already marked him. No small thing, that.” He set his hands around Samin's and forced a firmer grip on the bowl, paused as laughter at the puppets’ antics swelled and drowned out whatever he was going to say, then continued, “The obvious is almost always a mask.” He paused again as music started up, then patted Samin's hands and released them. “If there is equilibrium to be found, it will be the Kurimo that finds it."

He was making absolutely no sense, and yet so serious, so sure, like a bloody fish in a fishbowl could explain the secrets of the universe. Samin sighed. A nutter, of course. Samin should have known from the way Shig had taken to the bizarre little man.

"Uh,” said Samin, and he tried to push the bowl back, “I don't think—"

But the man only wheezed his weird little chuckle and shook his head. “A gift, seyh, a gift. To refuse on the cusp of the New Year...."

Was dishonor and insult and bad luck besides, right, terrific. Samin made himself tip his head in a shallow bow, and kept back the growl. “As you wish, seyh. Blessings on you for your generosity, and luck in the New Year."

The man merely bobbed his head and chuckled some more as he retreated back to his booth, pushing the spectacles up the bridge of his nose again.

Samin did
not
throw him down on the ground and start kicking his head in.

"It's our birthday soon.” Joori tried to put buoyancy into his tone, but the statement still came out hesitant, too forced. He took a step away from the doorway, trying to gauge his brother's mood. You just never knew with Jacin anymore. “Malick says they have fireworks at midnight on the Turn here. And there's a bloody-great festival. He said we'd all go."

Jacin just kept staring out the window, slumped on the bed he shared with Malick, slats of shadow from the crisscross pattern of the muntins on the windowpane bisecting the too-sharp planes of his face. There wasn't even anything to see—just the weathered boards of the pier on which the inn sat, the water, and the suns in the sky—but Jacin watched some kind of inner landscape anyway, so it didn't seem to matter. Joori tried not to sigh, tried to just accept it and pretend at patience. Sometimes Jacin was just like this.

It had been almost three months now since that horrible day and night. A whole new world had been opened to them, and then at least some of it presented in more tangible ways—a new land, new people, new lives. The grief and shock weren't quite as fresh. The scars were beginning to cover over all the past hurts for Joori. Still there but not so sharp, not so sensitive to the accidental touch anymore.