Wolf's-own: Koan Page 4

  "Alone?"

  Dakimo asked the question with so little query in the tone that Malick almost missed the too-casual slide to it. He managed to keep his expression bland. “No, I think I'll bring a companion along. Samin is a good man to have about. And it's always wise to have backup.” And Samin could do with a little mayhem.

  Emika shook her head, impatient. “The Incendiary?"

  Malick hoped the reflexive closing down and tightening of his shields wasn't visible on his face. “Incendiary?” Threat and warning, all in one.

  Dakimo sighed. “Kamen, please. Did you really think word wouldn't spread?"

  No, he hadn't, not really. He'd just hoped he'd have a bit more time. Fen needed a bit more time.

  "Maybe not,” Malick admitted. “But I had thought that a Temshiel of Wolf would understand and perhaps try to keep it from spreading.” He shot a meaningful glance at Emika and then back to Dakimo. “Exactly where are your loyalties in this, Wolf's-own?"

  "My loyalties lie with Wolf and my duty to Tambalon, as charged by Wolf himself.” Dakimo was very obviously offended, indignant. “You've no right to question—"

  "I've every right, when it comes to the well-being of my own, and the Incendiary is—"

  "He is not your—” Dakimo stopped then sucked in a long, steady breath. “He is your charge, yes,” he conceded. “But you have brought him to Mitsu, and while you are here, you must obey Tambalon law.” He gestured to Emika. “The governor is Tambalon law."

  Yeah, which was why Malick had chosen not to let anyone know he was here. The one place in the world where Temshiel and maijin both had to obey mortal law also, somewhat unhappily, happened to be the one place Fen needed to be to become what Fate had made him. Anyone who'd been paying attention, anyone who hadn't slept through the past six months, had to know Kamen would be bringing the Incendiary here eventually. Malick just hadn't wanted them to know until after Fen was... better.

  "Kamen,” Emika put in, somewhat gently. “His presence has already changed fates in ways not even Dakimo can see. Surely he would be useful in—"

  "No.” Just that one word, low and quiet, but Malick managed to make it drip with malice. Damn it, he'd known they were up to something.

  "Wolf made him for a reason,” Dakimo said. “You can't just—"

  "Fate made him,” Malick snapped. “And you know just as well as I do where that led with the last Incendiary. I'm not watching it happen again."

  Emika cut a glance over to Dakimo. She was very good, a years-long diplomat, so her expression gave very little away, but Malick was pretty sure she was taken off guard by that last.

  Not Dakimo, though. He shook his head, ever so slightly, then turned to Malick. “Many of our kind know of the Incendiary, you cannot pretend you didn't know talk would spread quickly. And you cannot pretend you're not aware of the dangers. Perhaps only we few know where he is now, but... Kamen, you cannot do this alone."

  Malick snorted. He couldn't help it.

  All right. Fine. Malick didn't have to be on his own with this one; he could draw some allies, should he need them. And he might. If nothing else, he could wheedle one or two of Wolf's into helping him mow down the banpair, once he found them, so he could get back to concentrating on Fen and his latest turn into depression and apathy. Because an apathetic Fen was not a Fen who was going to care much if every minion of the gods started sniffing around to see which way he'd jump, some of them likely determined to make the decision for him, one way or another. The one advantage Malick had here in Mitsu was that no one could get through his veil and find him, which meant they couldn't find Fen by looking for Malick.

  Which reminded him—Malick had a couple questions of his own.

  "How did you even know I was here, anyway?"

  Dakimo rolled his eyes. “You mistake strength for talent and power, Kamen. So many of the young ones do."

  Malick glared. Yeah, yeah. That's what all the old immortals harped. Some of them spent more time in the temples learning that “talent” than they did actually out in the world, doing what they were supposed to be doing. No wonder they lost touch with mortals.

  "The point,” Emika put in, peering curiously between Malick and Dakimo, “is that there is an Incendiary in Mitsu, and Mitsu is in need of assistance. As I understand it, the Incendiary draws Fate's players to himself, and his influence—"

  "I said no,” Malick barked, perhaps a bit too harshly, but this was a point on which he had no intention of giving even an inch, and they might as well know it. “The man's still getting over having lost half his family, not to mention what Asai did to him, and then having to deal with Yakuli. I'm not risking—"

  "Was he not a fairly accomplished assassin?"

  Fairly accomplished. Bloody hell, the woman had a real talent for understatement.

  "He can't even walk without a limp,” Malick ground out, “and you want me to get him to put himself out there as some kind of bait for banpair who've been managing to slip through the magic of the gods and their servants for years? No. This man saved the Jin. He needs rest, he deserves rest, and I'm not going to allow you to—"

  "He is so very fragile?” Dakimo asked.

  Malick almost choked on the anger that surged in his chest. He held it back.

  Yes and no, he didn't say. Wouldn't say. Not in front of these people. Fen still had that diamond-hard core somewhere in there, its facets just beginning to pick up a glimmer of a shine on the voyage here, but once they'd hit Tambalon and Fen's “ghosts” reawakened....

  No. This wasn't going to happen, Malick wouldn't allow it. Not until either Fen showed Malick he was ready, or until Wolf grabbed Malick by the scruff of the neck and made him tell Fen what he was and why people like Dakimo and Emika were going to be wanting to use him as their personal tool.

  "No one touches him,” Malick said. “And no one talks to him. I'll take care of your bloody banpair for you, and you'll leave me and mine alone. Anyone tries to come for him, they'll have to get through me.” He stared evenly at first Dakimo, then Emika.

  To her credit, Emika didn't flinch or look even the slightest bit cowed. “And you will see to it that the Incendiary's presence does no harm to Mitsu or its citizens. I want no repeat of what happened in Ada."

  Malick very nearly snarled. “Don't enslave his people or try to take away from him what's his, and you won't have to worry about it.” He shot them each one last glare. “Stay away from us. No interference. You don't want to piss me off."

  He didn't wait for a response, and he didn't wait for a formal dismissal. He slammed through the door of the governor's receiving room and out into the wide hallway, glaring at the polished marble beneath his boots as he stalked. Temshiel and maijin everywhere, he could feel them, and he checked his veil again to make sure they couldn't feel him.

  Thing was, he admitted as he strode out of the Statehouse and down the steps to the crowded street, none of this was a surprise—just an annoying inconvenience, when he had other, more important things on his mind. He'd known someone was going to twig to his presence here eventually—and, as a result, to Fen's—he just hadn't counted on being so admittedly unprepared when it happened. And in Tambalon, of all places. It wasn't bad enough that Fen had sunk back down inside himself almost the very day they'd arrived here—no, it had to be compounded by the fact that the gods and all their minions were probably even now looking for the Incendiary for their own purposes, and now there was a pack of rabid banpair gumming up the works. Malick's time was going to be more in demand than he wanted it to be. And Fen needed him, damn it.

  Figured. Malick's timing had always been shit.

  He hadn't been paying attention as he stalked and stomped about the teeming streets of the capital, face set like thunder and eyes narrowed to slits, so that anyone who got in his way quickly amended their misstep. He'd thought he was merely wandering aimlessly, walking off some steam before heading back to the inn, so he was a little surprised and mightily put out to realize h
is feet had led him all unknowing to the short iron gate that marked the entrance to the grounds of Wolf's temple.

  Maybe it was just as well. He'd been thinking only yesterday that maybe he should track down Imara, that she could maybe do... something for Fen. She was a healer, after all, and she was old. Old old. And claimed quite frequently that she'd seen it all. Imara might be able to give Malick a direction to point himself. Not that Malick needed help when it came to Fen. Not from anyone, including bloody Joori, the annoying little prick. It was just that—

  Oh hell. Malick was such an idiot. Imara. Of course. That was how Dakimo had found them. There wasn't a Temshiel in the world who spent more time in Mitsu than Imara did—she probably knew every shop owner and dock worker in the entire city. She wouldn't have needed to look for Malick with magic; all she had to do was pay some fisherman to watch for arriving Jin, because Malick could veil Joori and Morin from prying eyes, but he couldn't veil Fen. And Imara would know that. Damn it all.

  He glared up at the fountains and the priestess in her painted wolf's mask who tended them, and then past all of it and through the shade of the hackberry trees to the open arches that led into the temple itself. The priestess's head lifted, turned toward him; for a moment, Malick thought she somehow knew him, sensed him, until he realized her gaze was pointed just over his left shoulder. He sighed, quite purposely loud and longsuffering, and set his hand to the gate before he turned with a scowl.

  "Imara.” Damn it, he hated it when she sneaked up like that.

  Imara dipped her dark head, a bit of a smirk twitching at one corner of her mouth. “Finally come to pay your respects to your god?"

  Malick did not roll his eyes. As if he didn't pay his respects with everything he did. As if he didn't—

  "Oh, I know you think you know why you've come,” Imara put in mildly as she let the smirk bloom and gestured Malick through the gate. “So it'll be that much more fun for me when you actually find out why you're here. And you thought you had a lot of work to do now."

  "You like to live dangerously, don't you?” Malick muttered as he strode up the path, valiantly not giving in to the impulse to shove Imara into the fountain's pool as they reached its near edge. “If you've forgotten the sting of having your ass handed to you, I'll be happy to refresh your memory for you."

  "Ah, Kamen,” Imara said as she linked her arm through Malick's and tugged him along, “I've missed you. I don't have enough arrogant asses in my life."

  She was nearly bubbling, like the twentyish young girl she appeared to be, instead of the centuries-old Temshiel who'd given Malick the fight of his life the one time they'd tested each other. Whatever she had in mind this time, it wasn't going to be pleasant, Malick could tell just by the gleam in her topaz gaze.

  "Uh-huh,” Malick told her, “and I don't have enough annoying immortals who think they know better than me just because they're older, or who think they're my mother. Just cut the bullshit, Imara, and tell me what you want."

  "What I want?"

  "Yeah, and don't pretend you didn't tell Dakimo how to find me, because that innocent trick doesn't work on me anymore. And thank you, by the way, for turning on me when I was coming to you for—"

  "You should have reported to Dakimo yourself. He is Wolf's voice here in Tambalon, and while we run in Wolf's Cycle, Emika is Wolf's law."

  "Unless Wolf himself has ordered otherwise."

  Imara's eyebrow went up. “And has he?"

  Fail the Fool and fail the Cycle

  From Fen's mouth, but it had been Wolf's voice. And regardless of what Malick had thought it meant at the time, he knew too well what it meant now. He firmed his jaw.

  "Yes.” His eyes narrowed when Imara rolled her own. “Look, I know how disappointed you are that I haven't yet managed to fuck myself over completely and trip myself into the suns, but I'm not—"

  "You haven't told the Incendiary what he is yet.” Imara's voice had turned cool, just like that, but her expression was... hard to read. “Have you."

  Disappointment? Disdain? And how did she know that, anyway?

  Malick didn't care. Pick one, they all made his hands fist. “And neither will you, so don't even think it.” Hard and cold. Because no one could understand this but Malick. And until Fen gave him some kind of sign that he was ready, no way was Malick setting this on Fen's shoulders.

  "It's your job, Kamen. By all means, you should do it."

  Malick narrowed his eyes. That had the ring of threat more than concession.

  Imara stopped just on the far edge of the fountain's pool and held to Malick's arm with a firm grip so that he was compelled to stop with her. With a look, she dismissed the priestess, waiting until she was on her way up the temple's steps and out of earshot before turning back on Malick, stern.

  "I want to meet this Incendiary."

  "No."

  "The choice is not—"

  "No."

  Imara paused, gold gaze piercing, measuring. Malick had just been thinking she might be able to help; now, he locked everything he had down tight, daring her to try to wriggle through the veil that cloaked thought and feeling, leaving only the set of his jaw and the hardness of his gaze by which to measure his reaction. Because it would not be a good idea to let Imara touch the bit of fear her request—demand—had stirred down deep in his belly.

  He pulled his arm out of Imara's grip. “The Incendiary is mine, until either he decides different or Wolf does. You don't know him, I do, and you're just going to have to trust that I know what I'm doing. I will tell him, when I decide he can take it."

  "Take it.” Imara stepped a pace away and set her stare on the ripple of the pond.

  Shit, Malick should've been a bit more circumspect about that little outburst, but he'd opened his mouth before Better Judgment could amble up and introduce itself.

  "It's a lot for a man to accept, is all. He's still grieving. Let him finish that before springing this on him."

  "So, he is unwell?"

  Bloody hell, she was really very good at the whole “genuine concern” thing. After centuries as a healer, Malick supposed she ought to be. Still, he wasn't taken in. She wanted something here, and Malick was afraid he knew what it was.

  "He is....” Malick paused, tried to do that thing Fen did, where he looked like he was ripping out his heart to give you an answer, when really he was giving you a very blatant nonanswer that you didn't recognize as nothing at all until after he'd coerced you into fucking him unconscious. And then it was too late. “Fen is unique. He has his own ways of dealing with things. I just want to let him. He needs time."

  "For what, Kamen? To grieve his own? To undo what the Ancestors did to him?” She paused, but she still didn't look at Malick. “To forget his first love?"

  Don't kill her, don't kill her, don't kill her.

  Easier said than done. Malick's hands ached to wrap around someone's throat, and since Asai wasn't an option, Imara would do. He restrained himself, said, “All of it,” and that was all.

  Imara just kept staring at the water, watching the mottles of the bright-colored sakou slither and flash as they flittered just below the surface. “What are you hiding, Kamen Wolf's-own?"

  Malick didn't flinch or move, didn't even shift his glance. He kept his gaze fixed on Imara's profile and breathed evenly. He couldn't afford to give anything away, not to Imara. She was old, she was smart, and she was ruthless when she needed to be. If she thought Fen was “fragile,” as Dakimo had wondered, she might very well try to take him from Malick. And it wasn't only Malick's own wants and desires that recoiled at the thought. Fen needed Malick, whether Fen knew it or not. And Asai's persistent “ghost” was only a part of it.

  "Just keep your nose out of it, Imara,” Malick warned. “He's mine until one of us is dead, or until he chooses otherwise. Don't test me on this."

  Imara sighed. “Ah, but testing you is so very... educational.” She stepped back from the pond, snagged his arm again and started steering them
for the temple. “You can't put it off any longer, Kamen. It's your job. You may have until the week's turning, and then the matter will be taken from your hands. He will begin at the temples. If you'd like to maintain your hold on him, I suggest you ensure his cooperation."

  "He's not ready."

  "Make him ready."

  "I can't make him ready, damn it, there's more to—"

  "Then make him think he's ready. Tell him what you must, give him what you must, but get him to the temples, and make sure he ends up in Wolf's."

  "I'm not pushing him to—"

  "Push, wheedle, fuck him into compliance, since you think you're so bloody good at it, just do—"

  "—make a choice like that, not now, not Fen, I can't—"

  "Can't. You're Temshiel, Kamen—a Temshiel of Wolf in Wolf's own Cycle. Are you telling me you're not as good at getting someone to do what you want as Asai was?"

  Cheap fucking shot. Malick stopped at the temple's bottom step, anger flooding his chest with hot resentment and indignation. He hated being pushed, and Imara knew all his sore spots. He was surprised she hadn't thrown Skel at him too. But Malick would be damned if he was going be pushed into pushing Fen—not by Dakimo, not by Emika, and certainly not by Imara.

  Damn it, she owed Malick. He deserved better than this. Fen deserved better than this.

  "He's borderline suicidal, Imara. If I push him too hard before he's ready, he might—"

  "Then you'll just have to make sure he doesn't.” Implacable. So bloody ruthless Malick could have strangled her.

  "Imara....” He tried entreaty this time. Because nothing else seemed to be working. “I know what I'm doing. Just leave him alone for a while. I'm taking care of this. He'll be what's expected of him, but he needs—"

  "If you knew everything you think you know,” Imara cut in, gaze abruptly somber, voice softer, “you would indeed be a creature to be feared by even the gods themselves.” She tugged on Malick's arm. “Come along, Kamen, you know you have to. Wolf's not through with him. Wolf's not through with any of you."