I didn't know what to do. I wanted to tell somebody, but I'd tried that once, and I wasn't stupid enough to kiss the same gator twice. And I was kind of afraid they'd tell me this
was
better, that my leg was as good as it was going to get. And every time I thought about the prick saying that, my chest got so tight I couldn't breathe. So, I mean, yeah, I completely funked it, but I got to say there wasn't nobody trying to call me on it, neither. The celebrants had quit stopping by, and me and the prick were ignoring each other so hard it's a wonder we didn't run into each other. The only thing I was saying to him these days was, "How's my brother?" And all he was saying to me was, "Fine. He's fine." I'd been right to think he was a bad liar. He was even worse than me.
So I was worried about half out of my mind about Felix, and I didn't want to think about my leg. I didn't much want to think about Felix either, but I couldn't help that. I kept walking in the Three Serenities because it beat sitting in that fucking room and because I could drive myself into the ground and that meant I would sleep. I'd got to where sleep was the only escape I had. I knew that was bad, too, but there was a limit to how much shit I could care about at once.
So I'd kind of forgotten the walking was supposed to be making my leg better until Thamuris scared the living daylights out of me one afternoon. I don't even know where my mind was, but he said all of a sudden, "Does your leg still hurt?" and I jumped a foot.
"Kethe! Yes—" And then I caught up with myself and said, "It ai—it's not so bad."
"Come here."
I'd figured they had him on some pretty heavy-duty laudanum or something—or he was just naturally kind of cloudy—but the look he gave me was like a dissecting knife. He meant what he said, and he knew what he was talking about and he was pissed at something and I didn't want it to be me.
So I went limping across the grass to where he was sitting. He tilted his head back to look at me, and said, "Sit down."
"I'm gonna be a powerful long time getting back up."
I don't know if he understood me or not. He just said, "
Sit
."
I sat.
"Now just hold still," he said, "and tell me if I hurt you." Which was the first time anybody in the Gardens had bothered with that part.
I sat still, and he touched my forehead, then the dip between my collarbones. He took my wrist to feel for my pulse, and then he laid his hand on my right hip. You got to understand, there wasn't nothing sexy about it. I don't know if Thamuris was straight or molly or if he even cared, but I knew that wasn't what he was after—even if anybody in the Gardens would've made a pass at me anyway, which most likely not.
He moved his hand down my right leg, just barely brushing my trousers. He was about a handswidth above my knee when that ball of glass spikes all at once started spinning around, and I made a noise. Couldn't help it.
Thamuris jerked his hand away, and the pain backed off some although I still felt like I ought to see little bits of glass poking up through my trousers.
"Who has charge of you?" he said—well, more barked, I guess. Powers, he was pissed.
"Khrysogonos. I mean—"
"Is he one of the Celebrants Major? I'm afraid I don't know them all."
"No, he said he was an acolyte. I—"
"Not him. The celebrant. The one who is in
charge
."
"I don't know. I mostly seen Celebrants Major and Celebrants Minor, and I don't know all their names…"
He said a phrase Dmitri'd been fond of, only with a lot better diction and attention to the stress pattern. "I must talk to the Arkhon," he said, got up like it wasn't no effort to him, and marched off, not drifting at all, leaving me stranded like a barge run aground on a sandbar.
I tried a couple times to get up, but it was late, and whatever he'd done, it'd woken up the hornets in a big way. After the try where I did get my knee to bend, but then realized that them big black spots in front of my eyes meant I was fixing to pass out, I gave up and waited for the prick to come find me. At least he'd find me conscious.
The sun set and I sat there and got chilly. I managed to drag myself around so I could get a glimpse of the door through the trees, and even that was about more excitement than my leg could stand.
"Kethe, I hate this," I said, because there was nobody to hear me, and I wondered if Thamuris was really going to try and raise hell with the lady who ran the Gardens, and whether it would make things worse or not.
And then, finally, the door opened, and I saw a lantern. I thought, Thank the powers, and then I heard voices and thought, Oh,
mother fuck
. Because anybody besides the prick out here tonight was not somebody I wanted to meet.
The voices got closer, winding around on them artful little paths, and I started to be able to make out words.
A guy said, "So where
is
your murderer, Khrys? Do you suppose he's run away?"
The prick said, "I'm sure he's out here."
"Since he couldn't have gone anywhere else," a girl said, and there was a nasty little chorus of sniggers. I wondered if I could crawl into the bushes before they spotted me, and just how sorry I'd end up being if I spent the night outdoors.
"That's right—Khrys has the corridor key," the first guy said, and I sure wasn't no fan of the prick, but I was liking this guy even less. "I wouldn't have thought they'd let you have that, Khrys."
Everybody sniggered again, and I guessed there was a mean little private joke in there somewhere.
The prick said, stiff as a board, "I am pleased that they trust me to do my duties well," and I heard the sound of four or five people falling about laughing.
"You
are
a treat, Khrys," the guy said. "You know this assignment had nothing to do with trust, right?" I could see their lanternlight, but they'd stopped just out of sight around a bend in the path.
"What do you mean?" the prick said, and I couldn't help wincing for him. If he walked into traps like that, airheaded as a cloud, it was no wonder he was a prick.
"Blessed Tetrarchs! Do you mean you accepted that assignment and you didn't
know
?"
"Didn't know what?"
"Khrys, my lambkin," said a different girl. "This one wasn't about trust. It was about finding some poor fool to do the dirty work."
"You know Arkhilokhos's been out for your blood," said a third girl.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," the prick said, but it was that high, trembly voice that wouldn't've fooled a deaf idiot. "I was chosen because I speak Midlander, and—"
"So do I," said the guy. "So does Menelaos, and Kanake, and Laodamia. Sorry, Khrys. I'm afraid you're special."
"But just think of the experience!" said the second girl. "I've never met a murderer!"
I thought, Oh sweetheart, trust me, you ain't missing much.
"He must tell you
wonderful
stories," said the first girl. "Does he, Khrys? Does he tell you about the people he's killed?"
"No."
"Well, have you
asked
?" said the guy, and, powers, I wanted to smack him.
"No," said the prick.
"Well, where's the fun in that?" said the first girl. "I would at least have
asked
."
And here I'd thought there was nothing good to say about the prick.
"You couldn't, Myrrha darling," said the guy. "You don't speak Midlander—and the murderer doesn't speak Troian, does he, Khrys?"
"Not very much," the prick said, which showed how much he knew.
"What a pity," said the third girl. "I'm sure he'd be a fascinating conversationalist."
They laughed at that, and the girl called Myrrha said, "I heard Eranitos saying he was no better than an animal."
"He certainly looks like one with that horrid scar," the third girl said.
"Kharis!" cried the guy. "I didn't know you'd already seen him. Cheater! How'd you—"
But I couldn't stand it no more. They think you're dumb, I said to myself. Just go ahead and play dumb and get out of this. I called out in my most Marathine-accented Midlander, with the vowels dragged out so it sounded like I'd never been outside Lyonesse in my life, "Mr. Khrysogonos? That you?"
For a second, I thought they'd all fallen down a well, and I would've been grateful for it. Then the prick came round the corner, all in a hurry like there was somebody he was trying to get away from. "What are you doing out here?" he said. "Why haven't you come in?"
"I been sitting," I said, and then the rest of 'em came into view. Three girls and a guy, all tall, skinny redheads about the same age as the prick. One of the girls had the lantern, so there was enough light for me to see. Their faces and the way they were staring at me. All at once I felt like I didn't have no clothes on.
"So this is the murderer," the guy said in Kekropian—Troian, I mean. He was good-looking, and the set of his mouth said he knew it. I didn't like him no better for having seen him.
Deadpan's easy for me. It's making my face move that's the hard part. So I just sat there and pretended I couldn't understand them and didn't have the least little idea of what was going on.
"This is Mildmay," the prick said, still stiff as a board.
I ain't much for cat and mouse, but the opening was more than I could resist. "Are these friends of yours, Mr. Khrysogonos?"
The guy understood Midlander, like he'd said. He snorted, while the girls just looked blank and greedy. I thought the prick was going to bust. But, powers, he knew the drill and he stuck to it. "They are some of my fellow acolytes," and I'll be damned if he didn't introduce them. "Astyanax, Potidaia, Myrrha, and Kharis."
"Pleased," I said, mostly to see what this fellow Astyanax would do with it.
"I am most charmed to make your acquaintance," all smooth and pleased with himself. "Please forgive my companions—they don't speak your language."
Neither do you, asshole, I thought. " 'Course," I said.
"It's getting very late," the prick said in Troian, too fast and too loud, like he was trying to head something off before it got rolling. "Don't you think—"
"Not yet, Khrys," Astyanax said. "There's a question I want to ask… Mildmay first." And, powers and blessed saints, I hated the way he said my name.
I knew this wasn't going nowhere good. But there was literally nothing I could do about it, and it was way obvious that the prick didn't have no idea how to shut this guy up. So there was this nasty little pause, and Astyanax said in Midlander, all bright, social interest, "How many people have you killed?"
I was ready for it, at least. I let the question sit there a moment, let him know I was on to his game, then I said, "I done lost count," and smiled at him.
I don't smile, 'cept at people who deserve it. And myself in the mirror sometimes, just so I don't forget. It's an ugly, ugly expression, 'cause the left side of my face don't hardly move, and the whole thing ends up looking like a half-dead sneer. And I don't imagine the lanternlight helped. Astyanax and his gals kind of leaned away from me, and the prick said, "It's
very
late. Let me help you up."
He really didn't want a fight. He yanked me up out of the grass like I was half his size and said, real firm and loud, "I have to get my patient to bed. Good night." And he set off like his tail feathers were on fire, dragging me along after him. Astyanax and the girls just stood there and watched us go, and I thought, like a rain cloud, I ain't shut of this.
Felix
The door opens.
I am in the corner by the window, huddled between the foot of the bed and the wall, where the owl-eyed people can't drag me out. They have come in two or three times today, little groups of them, and stared at me, sharing stone words among themselves. But they have not approached me. I have barricaded myself in with a chair so that the anger cannot reach me. It is too big to squeeze itself into corners or under pieces of furniture. It flaps sullenly around the room, waiting for me to weaken, to give in, to make a mistake. It knows it will have me in the end. Salt water drips and pools around me.
An owl-eyed man enters the room alone and closes the door behind him. The anger orbits him, smelling for vulnerabilities. I do not move. The colors around this man are strange, not like the others'—red and black, but also great, trembling outbursts of gold. They make me dizzy.
He stands for a moment, looking at me as the others did, then crosses to the room's second chair and sits down. He says something, small iron words; the anger lets out a derisive screech, hurting my ears, and begins to coast restlessly across the ceiling. I do not move.
We stay like that for a long time. I wish I could relax, sleep, but that is what the anger wants. That would let it in. I sit and watch the anger; I do not think it can attack anyone except me, but I may be wrong. Occasionally the owl-eyed man will say something, and a rampart of small, hard words piles up in front of his feet. I wish he would leave, but I cannot speak. I have not been able to speak since I drowned.
Smaller angers begin to gather in the corners of the room and under the bed. Night is coming. And still the owl-eyed man will not leave. The anger is stronger at night; the smaller angers feed it. I do not want the owl-eyed man to be hurt, but there is nothing I can do, nothing except stay where I am, my hands locked around my knees so that the anger cannot use me.
I nearly cry with relief when he finally gets up, but then he crosses the room toward me, and my muscles tense so violently that for a moment I can't breathe.
I want to warn him to stay away, to scream and curse, to drive him out of the room. But the salt water filled my mouth and drowned me, and it is all I can do now not to let the anger fill the emptiness the water scoured out.
The owl-eyed man sits down on the bed. The anger is flapping around his head, shrieking; I am shaking with the effort of not surrendering to it. The owl-eyed man is speaking, building a wall of words between himself and me; the anger is making figure eights around us both, watching for its chance.