“The souls of the elves are held in constraint to serve the living. They are prevented from going beyond. Perhaps they do not even know that such peace as you describe exists.” Ciang pointed a bony finger. “You are a danger to the Kenkari, Hugh the Hand. You are more of a threat to them dead than you are alive.”
Hugh gave a low whistle. His face darkened. “I never thought of that. The bastards. And I thought...” He shook his head. “They acted so compassionate... And all the time looking out for their own.”
“Have you ever known anyone who did not, Hugh the Hand?” Ciang rebuked him.
“Once you would not have fallen for such wiles. You would have seen clearly. But you are changed. At least now I know why.”
“I will see clearly again,” Hugh said softly.
“I wonder.” Ciang stared at the bloodstains on the desk. Absently her fingers traced them. “I wonder.” She fell silent, absorbed in thought. Hugh, troubled, did not disturb her.
At length she raised her eyes, regarded him shrewdly. “You mentioned a contract. Who has hired you and for what?”
Hugh moistened his lips, this part coming reluctantly. “Before he died, Bane made me agree to kill a man for him. The man named Haplo.”
“The one who traveled with you and Alfred?” Ciang looked surprised at first; then she smiled grimly. It was all starting to make sense. “The one with the bandaged hands.”
Hugh nodded.
“Why must this Haplo die?”
“Bane said something about some lord of his wanting Haplo out of the way. The kid was persistent, kept after me. We were coming up on Seven Fields, where Stephen was camped. I had too much to do to fool with a child’s whim. I agreed, to shut him up. I wasn’t intending to live that long anyway.”
“But you did live. And Bane died. And now you have a contract with the dead.”
“Yes, Ciang.”
“And you were not going to keep it?” Ciang was disapproving.
“I’d forgotten about the damn thing!” Hugh said impatiently. “Ancestors take me, I was supposed to die! The Kenkari were supposed to buy my soul.”
“And they did—only not quite the way you expected.” Hugh grimaced. “They reminded me of the contract. Said my soul is bound to Bane. I’m not free to give it to them.”
“Elegant.” Ciang was admiring. “Elegant and very neat. And so, elegantly and neatly, they escape this great danger that you present to them.”
“Danger?” Hugh slammed his hand on the desk. His own blood was there, taken from him years ago when he had been an initiate into the Brotherhood. “What danger? How do they know about this? They were the ones who showed me this mark!” He clutched at his breast as if he would rip out his flesh.
“As for how they know, the Kenkari have access to the ancient books. And then, you see, the Sartan favored them. Told them their secrets...”
“Sartan.” Hugh looked up. “Iridal mentioned that word. She said Alfred—”
“—is a Sartan. That much is obvious. Only the Sartan could use the rune-magic, or so they claimed. But there were rumors, dark rumors, of another race of gods—”
“Gods with marks like this, covering their entire bodies? Known as Patryns? Iridal told me about them, too. She guessed that this Haplo was a Patryn.”
“Patryn.” Ciang lingered over the word, tasting it. Then she shrugged.
“Perhaps. Many years have passed since I read the ancient texts, and then I wasn’t interested. What had these gods—Patryn or Sartan—to do with us? Nothing. Not anymore.”
She smiled, the thin and puckered lips, outlined in red that seeped into the wrinkles, made her look as though she had drunk the blood on her desk. “For which we are grateful.”
Hugh grunted. “And now you see my problem. This Haplo has runes like mine tattooed all over his body. They glow with a strange light. Once I tried to jump him. It was like wrapping my hands around a lightning bolt.” He made an impatient gesture. “How do I kill this man, Ciang? How do I kill a god?”
“This is why you came to me?” she asked, lips pursed. “To seek my help?”
“Help... death, I’m not sure.” Hugh rubbed his temples, which were starting to throb from the wine. “I had nowhere else to go.”
“The Kenkari gave you no assistance?”
Hugh snorted. “They almost fainted even talking about it. I forced them to give me a knife—more to have a laugh at them than anything else. Lots of people have hired me to kill for lots of reasons, but I never saw one of them start blubbering over his intended victim.”
“The Kenkari wept, you say?”
“The one who handed me the knife did. The Keeper of the Door. He damn near couldn’t turn loose of the weapon. I almost felt sorry for him.”
“And what did he say?”
“Say?” Hugh frowned, thinking, trying to weave his way among the wine fumes.
“I didn’t pay much attention to what he said—until he came to the part about this.” Hugh thumped himself on the chest. “The rune-magic. About how I wasn’t to disrupt the workings of the great machine. And I was to tell Haplo that Xar wanted him dead. That’s it. That’s the name of this lord of his. Xar. Xar wants him dead.”
“The gods fight among themselves. A hopeful sign for us poor mortals.” Ciang was smiling. “If they kill each other off, we will be free to go on with our lives without interference.”
Hugh the Hand shook his head, not understanding, not caring.
“God or no, Haplo is my mark,” he muttered. “How am I supposed to kill him?”
“Give me until tomorrow,” Ciang said. “I will study on it this night. As I said, it has been a long time since I read the ancient texts. And you must sleep, Hugh the Hand.”
He didn’t hear her. Wine and exhaustion had combined to rob him—mercifully—of his senses. He lay sprawled on her desk, his arms stretched out over his head, his cheek resting on the bloodstained wood. The wine glass was still clutched in his hand.
Ciang rose to her feet. Leaning on her desk for support, she walked slowly around to stand over him. In her younger days, long, long ago, she would have taken him for her lover. She had always preferred human lovers to elven. Humans are hot-blooded, aggressive—the flame that burns shorter burns brighter. Then, too, humans die off in good time, leave you free to pursue another. They don’t live long enough to make nuisances of themselves. Most humans. Most who were not god-touched. God-cursed.
“Poor fly,” Ciang murmured, her hand on the man’s shoulder. “What dreadful sort of web do you struggle in? And who, I wonder, is the spider who has spun it? Not the Kenkari. I begin to think I was mistaken. Their own butterfly wings may be caught in this tangle as well.
“Should I help you? Should I act in this? I can, you know, Hugh.” Ciang ran her hand absently through the mass of matted black and gray hair that straggled, uncombed, down his back. “I can help. But why should I? What is in it for me?”
Ciang’s hand began to tremble. She rested it on the back of his chair, leaned on the chair heavily. The weakness was back. It came over her more frequently now. A dizziness, a shortness of breath. She clung to the chair grimly, stoically, waited for it to pass. It always passed. But a time was coming when it would grow worse. The time when it would claim her.
“You say that dying is hard, Hugh the Hand,” Clang said when she could breathe again. “That does not surprise me. I’ve seen death enough to know. But I must admit I am disappointed. Peace. Forgiveness. Yet first we are called to account.
“And I thought there would be nothing. The Kenkari, with their foolish soul-boxes. Souls living in the gardens of their glass dome. What nonsense. Nothing. All is nothing. I gambled on that.” Her hand curled over the back of the chair. “I’ve lost, seemingly. Unless you are lying?” Bending over Hugh, she looked at him closely, hopefully. Then she sighed, straightened. “No, the wine doesn’t lie. And neither have you, Hand, in all the years I’ve known you. Called to account. Wickedness. What wickedness have I not done? But what can I do to make amends? I’ve thrown my dice upon the table. Too late to snatch them back. But maybe another throw, eh? Winner take all?”