The Infiltrators (11 page)

But his exposure to Vilizen and Zolgen
had given him his first opportunity for prolonged exposure to the
eyes of men who have killed all manner of victims—armed guards,
businessmen, politicians, soldiers, wives, even children. Sometimes
he could see Zolgen’s eyes glowing as he demonstrated a
particularly nasty neck or spinal break, and he knew Zolgen’s mind
was flashing graphic reminders to him of just exactly what it
looked like when that technique was applied to
completion.

He had seen too much of Zolgen in the
eyes of the men approaching his shop asking for swords, and he had
told such men that he had no swords currently for sale.

They usually began to argue, swearing
they had direct knowledge that so-and-so had recently purchased
one, but Pitkins’ eyes had drilled into the pupils of such
customers as he repeated icily, “I have no swords currently for
sale.”

He had long ago concluded that the
shedding of human blood initiated one into a bit of a brotherhood.
Many times, he had remarked to a civilian that a man they had both
been speaking to was a killer, and virtually every time the
civilian responded with derision, saying that “you can’t judge a
sword by its sheath.”

Pitkins had never wasted time arguing
with such men. He only repeated his observation whenever given the
chance as a kind of experiment. In the end, he had concluded that
less than one in a hundred civilians could recognize the eyes of a
killer, while killers themselves never failed to recognize their
own.

It was this that had ended any further
argument from the young rascals who had invited Pitkins’ icy gaze,
for they too knew that they were staring into the eyes of a man
well-versed in shedding blood.

Though it succeeded in getting them off
his property, it worried him that he was beginning to accumulate
enemies by the week. Then, just a couple of weeks ago he had
stopped receiving visits from anyone.

Initially, he was relieved at the
subtraction of this annoyance, but this was promptly replaced by a
boredom so intense he almost felt like placing ten swords on his
back and walking through the worst parts of town yelling out
“swords for sale!” like a common peddler. Then, he began to worry
that the sudden cessation of visitors might be the prelude to an
attack or threat of some kind.

Though it had not yet happened, it had
caused him to go galloping home a couple of times to check on
Donive. While relieved to find her and the pets safe and sound, it
had lately triggered questions from Donive: “What’s wrong, honey?
Are you thinking about the past? Have you had trouble with anyone
lately?”

He had attempted to shrug these
questions off with humor: “No, I just miss your sweet face, babe,”
he would tell her. “Plus, with Lookout here, there’s nothing to
worry about.”

Lookout was the name they had finally
settled on for the stray cat they had adopted. Pitkins sometimes
teased their Great Dane, telling him, “Mervin, you better watch
out, or Lookout will steal your job as guard dog.”

Mervin would bark happily, wagging his
tail, as if to say he would be honored to step aside for someone of
Lookout’s caliber.

Lookout was like nothing Pitkins had
ever seen. He stayed close to Donive constantly, and if anyone ever
approached the house, Lookout began meowing ferociously, sometimes
ten minutes before the visitor was even within sight.

He often put himself between any
visitor and Donive and would only step aside if rebuked harshly. On
one occasion, Pitkins found a dead coyote outside the henhouse with
claw marks all around its neck, and even though the coyote had
managed to nudge the door open enough to where Lookout could have
entered and eaten a few chicks if he had the inkling, all animals
were found safe and sound within.

At night, Lookout could often be seen
checking the windows, with a malicious glow in his eyes that
Pitkins thought could be an even greater deterrent than Mervin’s
180 pounds.

When Pitkins petted him affectionately
and said, “You’re the official guardian of this house when I’m
gone,” Lookout had purred with an intensity that suggested his
comprehension of the statement went well beyond what was
expected.

Pitkins continued his aimless sprint
through the woods, now stripping his shirt off, as it was
thoroughly saturated and dripping with sweat, while his mind
processed all the random memories of both long ago and the recent
past.

It had only been today that he had
fully ceased denial of a change in Mr. Simmers’ eyes that he had
noticed quite some time ago. His polite, unassuming, low-key,
seemingly transparent demeanor had caused Pitkins to first tell
himself that almost every rule had its exceptions, and Richard
surely was one, as everything else about his demeanor belied the
content of his eyes.

And sometimes it seemed as though even
his eyes themselves changed, as if he had built-in curtains that
normally blocked a part of his soul that he did not wish others to
see. But today, while he witnessed his uncannily masterful
interpretation of Winds of Death, he had seen Zolgen’s eyes in the
figure before him.

Pitkins, who had been sprinting at full
speed for twenty minutes, was beginning to feel some stiches in his
side.

And when he had mentioned the man who
embarrassed him at grappling, he knew right away this man was
associating with a Varco agent.

In spite of the mastery he and his ten
chosen officers had acquired at Gicksin, it had never spread
through the Nikorian ranks, much less those of the general
army.

It has to be a
VARCO!!

But why is Mr. Simmers
associating with a Varco, and why are his eyes acquiring the look
of a murderer?

His first instinct was to cut all ties
with Richard. After all, he didn’t need the money. But he was
immediately reminded of the extreme melancholy caused by his recent
boredom.

Shut this guy out, and
you’re going to be counting cracks in the floor at your shop or
counting weeds in your yard.

Just as Pitkins stopped his pointless
run and bent over to catch his breath, something caught his
eye.

He turned and looked and saw a large
bird leaving the forest. His mind immediately told him it was a
pholung, but he dismissed that as preposterous. It was too far away
to tell. Plus, he hadn’t seen a pholung in years. It was well known
they did not live in Sodorf.

He glanced again and barely saw a speck
in the sky. While he subconsciously noted it was traveling towards
Selegania, his mental filter did not condescend to bring that
detail up the chain of command to be analyzed by Pitkins’ conscious
mind for potential relevance.

Somehow, the only message that reached
Pitkins’ conscious mind was that the next time his curious student
left his shop he would follow him. He needed to learn more about
Mr. Simmers.

Chapter 14

Righty was feeling conflicted as Harold
transported him towards a gigantic cumulonimbus. It looked like a
mountain, and as he drew nearer it seemed one moment to resemble
Halder’s face and the next Pitkins’. He pierced the cloud before
there was time to determine whether either was an even remotely
objective observation or if his mind was having fun toying with his
perception.

Pitkins’ praise still resounded in his
ears but so did his hostile questioning about the ranch hand who
had whipped him in grappling.

He seemed angrier than me at
that SOB, and he’s not even the one who got whipped by
him.

Pitkins sure must have had an ax to
grind with somebody and seemed almost desperate to hear of anyone
who might know or be connected with those people.

But how could a sloppy
description of a man’s fighting style get Pitkins so interested? If
there is someone, or are some people, he’s aiming to settle a score
with, could their fighting style really be so unique as to identify
them?

And what was the phrase he
had used? “Wicked beyond imagination”? Maybe Pitkins has led a
sheltered life. Maybe if he knew some of the rough sorts I
know—

He stopped himself there as he realized
something about Pitkins that Pitkins had also realized about him.
The eyes. Pitkins had seemed like a soft-spoken, overly trained
instructor who, while a wellspring of knowledge about combat,
surely couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t, hurt a fly.

But today had been the first time he
had seen a different texture to those eyes. In the moment of his
fury, while asking endlessly about the curious ranch hand, Righty
had gotten the impression he was looking into the eyes of a
killer.

Every assumption he had held about
Pitkins’ incapability of violence had gone out the window in that
split second with as much certainty as if he had just seen Pitkins
cleave a man in two.

“Harold?”

“Something tells me you have a question
about Pitkins.”

“Kasani! Today everyone’s ahead of me.
Yes! As a matter of fact I do. Just who the hell is this man
anyway?”

Harold let out a short squawk, and the
hitchhiking konulans scattered quickly, just barely staying within
eyesight but being far out of earshot.

“Hey! What’s going on here?”

“Do you want real answers? If so, you
don’t want the konulans within earshot.”

“What’s your beef with them? Is there a
conspiracy afoot?”

“No. Let’s just say I consider them to
be on a need-to-know basis, and this isn’t something that interests
them.”

Righty’s day seemed to have been cursed
from the moment he opened his eyes. Even the unexpected peace and
minimal police presence in Sivingdel now seemed to take on a
sinister light, as if all the police had traded their uniforms for
plain clothes and were closely on his tail. He had been whipped in
front of his men, barked at suspiciously by his usually calm combat
instructor, and was now being made aware of distrust amongst Harold
and the konulans—the one realm he thought free of secrecy,
jealousy, and conspiracy.

“Do you trust them?” Righty asked
directly. “After all, you brought them to me.”

“Look, Mr. Simmers,” Harold said, with
unaccustomed formality, “let’s get something straight. The
hierarchy is not simply you, then me, then the konulans. I brought
them here. I can take them out anytime I want. I can leave anytime
I want. I’m not your slave. I’m with you because your life is
exciting, and I’d have little to do otherwise. Plus, I see you as a
friend.”

“Of course—you’re my best friend!”
Righty said sincerely.

“Good—then let’s just set a boundary.
Managing men is your territory. I’ll advise you but never attempt
to overrule you. Managing the konulans is my territory. You can
advise me, but I have the final say. That clear?!”

“It is,” Righty said flatly, wondering
whether he would be bucked off this flying bronco at two hundred
miles per hour if he asked another improper question.

“Look,” said Harold, far more softly,
“managing konulans is not like managing men and vice versa. You
know mankind far better than I ever could. But I know
konulans.”

“You got it.”

With a calm voice, showing the conflict
was behind them, Harold began, “There are many rumors, but
separating them from fact is no easy task. He’s from Sogolia. He
used to be a general. Little more is known than that. I used to
work for—” (for some reason, the word “wizard” just couldn’t quite
make it out of his beak, even though it was a simple fact) “a man
who was very interested in a prophecy.

“The first man in Sodorf to be knighted
for a deed of heroism, and not for possessing noble blood,
signified the opportune time to set in motion a plan for Dachwald
to attack Sodorf.”

“What?!!!” Righty asked in genuine
bewilderment.

“Before you get all worked up, just
remember you’ve never deigned to ask about my past. But I’ve never
held it from you either.”

“Maybe I was afraid to know,” Righty
conceded. “So how in the hell did a Sogolian general end up in a
small sword smith shop in Sodorf City?”

“The best I can reconcile the
contradictory rumors, he had a falling out while general in Sogolia
and was banished, just narrowly escaping execution. My former
master had him kidnapped, thinking that was vital to the prophecy.
He planned on killing him once Sodorf was vanquished. Sodorf had
been pummeled to the point only a small fraction of their army
remained, and it was cornered in Sodorf City.