The God Eaters

  Kieran gave him one of those false smiles. "Any sentence that comes out of nowhere and starts with 'Look --' is doomed to end with 'sorry'. I'm not mad. My past isn't a secret, I just get tired of talking about it."

  "Oh." Ashleigh looked down at his hands, made them stop picking at the hem of his shirt. "Then

  -- if you don't mind -- just so I don't keep blundering into it -- could you tell me? Who you are.

  Why you're here." He waved a vague gesture. "What the world looks like from where you are."

  "What, you don't want to drag out the mystery?" Kieran stretched out on his bunk, hands behind his head, showing the skin of his waist again, so that Ashleigh had to look away. "Nah, you're right, better to lay out all the cards. Puts us on more even terms. And I have a feeling you can help me as much as I can help you."

  "How?"

  "Dunno. Now shut up so I can tell the story."

  "Sorry."

  "So. Me. My mother was a prostitute. Then she died. So I was turning tricks for a while, actually quite a while, and that's why I was in lockup the first time. Prostitution. Would've been a fine and a work sentence, if I was a girl, but you know, they tacked the extra sodomy charge on. Tiyamo was a giant dogfight, and that's all you need to know about it. That's where I found out about my Talent. Missed the normal fourteenth-birthday Survey on account of not officially existing."

  "Didn't they do a Survey when you were arrested?"

  "Yeah, but they didn't find anything. I don't know why. Either they fucked it up or mine grew late. I noticed it the end of my first year in Tiyamo. See, I was this scrawny little guy, and everybody knew why I was in there -- anyway, there were some folks I really wished would just curl up and die. And they did. One guy got bit by a snake in the yard. Another guy got sick, and a couple guys stabbed each other... I probably woulda killed off half the inmates and got caught, except this guy Shrike noticed what I was doing and clued me in. Got me a job when I got out.

  'Course, I ended up killing Shrike pretty much right away. I didn't like his attitude.

  "Kinter -- that's the boss -- he gave me whatever I wanted. Drowned me in girls and liquor and poppy. I don't like girls, and booze bores me, but the tar was all right." Kieran gave a snort of bitter laughter. "Mistake. Once he had me on the leash, well -- you get it."

  What does he mean, doesn't like girls? He can't have meant it the way it sounded. Ashleigh must've made some sound, because Kieran turned to give him a disapproving stare. "Don't look so shocked, Ash. Most of the world lives like that, one way or another."

  All Ashleigh could think was that he was starting to like being called Ash. He'd declined the nickname as a child because of the dumb jokes people made about it, but it was all right now.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

  "Sure. Anyway, I had to learn to kill folks up close and personal, because Kinter didn't want to overuse the magic thing. Gets too obvious, certain people get too interested. I learned to shoot, and use a knife -- use it right, I mean -- and they had this old guy who knew kengdan -- you heard of it?"

  "Iavian boxing, right? It's illegal."

  "It's dirty fighting. Stuff like you saw today. First thing Kinter had me do, when he figured I knew enough, was beat some guy to death over a bad deal that cost him about fifty signets. You believe that? Five thrones. My guess is he didn't care about the money, he was just trying out his new toy.

  "So I hated him, of course. But he held the leash.

  "That was how it was when he sent me after the Dyer brothers. White boys from Rainet. Cal, Mack, and Shanin. They weren't in the poppy game, they were just holdup men. You know, highway robbers. I was supposed to shoot two and disappear the third, make it look like they jacked each other. Maybe to distract the cops from something, I dunno. The point is, when I found them, watched them, listened to them, I couldn't do it."

  He paused, looking Ashleigh over, as if deciding how much to tell. Then he looked away.

  "Actually, it was Shanin Dyer's face that stopped me. He had this way of smiling, like he knew what you were thinking but he liked you anyway...

  "I told Kinter no go. He cut off my supply. Three days without it and I was begging to do the job.

  Went back to the Dyers' hangout and found I couldn't again, sat there debating with myself until they came out and caught me. That was such a damn relief -- I figured they'd just kill me -- but they didn't. Shan talked the others out of it. He helped me kick.

  "Cal got killed a couple months later, Mack settled down with a native girl who'd already had a couple of his babies, but me and Shan kept going. Had some good times, and made a lot of money. Got famous, too. I hear we made the papers all the way out to Helermont when we hit the Red River mail train. We didn't get hardly nothing out of that one, but I guess it looked flashy or something. Wish we'd kept our heads down more, 'cause after that the cops got serious about catching us. Probably the fuckers who killed Shan got a medal."

  He sighed. Levered himself off the bed and went to the bars. He stood there for a while, looking up at the dirty skylights. Then he put his back to the cell door, and stared at Ashleigh for a time.

  Suddenly he reached out and set his hand on Ashleigh's hair. Ashleigh flinched, and Kieran snatched his hand away. He went back to his side of the room as casually as if he'd done nothing strange.

  "I'm tired of this story. Shan's dead, and I'm in here." Kieran threw himself on his bunk. "I'm taking a nap." He rolled over to face the wall.

  Ashleigh stared disbelievingly at his back for a long while. He'd never encountered such confusing behavior before. One thing he was sure of: Kieran was nowhere near as in control as Ashleigh had at first assumed. His calm had been deceptive. Just because he'd kept a straight face while blurting out the story of his sordid life didn't make it any less blurt-like. And what was that thing with the hand?

  Had Kieran meant what it sounded like he'd been implying? That the late Shan Dyer had been more than a partner in crime? Maybe more than a friend? Was he mourning a lover? He didn't act like it. Besides, no one would have admitted so lightly to being an invert; surely such proclivities were subject to floggings and cagings in the south just as they were in the rest of the Commonwealth. Probably Kieran had just wanted to make contact with someone, anyone -- but with his empathy damped, Ashleigh knew he was just making blind guesses. It could have meant anything at all.

  Ashleigh bitterly regretted flinching. Kieran was probably tired of people being afraid of him.

  But he was scary. And he clearly had a few gears loose, though after a life like that he was certainly entitled to be a bit batty.

  Ashleigh tried, for a while, to imagine what it must have been like to live that life. He couldn't.

  He thought he'd probably gawped like a goldfish the whole time he was listening; which hadn't kept Kieran from telling him. Maybe it didn't matter who he'd been talking to, as long as he could spill his story and get rid of it. Maybe he'd even wanted to be stared at. To have someone care enough to be shocked. Or maybe the case was the opposite: that Kieran was so incapable of feeling as to part with the wretched garbage of his past as easily as anyone else might discuss the price of onions.

  Ashleigh found he was chewing his nails, and made himself stop. What does it matter? he told himself. It's not as if he cares what you think. Or what anyone thinks, or says about him.

  Nevertheless, Ashleigh had to wonder whether the reason Kieran had given for offering his protection, as an excuse to fight, had been a cover for something a little kinder... or for something more cruel.

  Chapter 3

  Kieran studied the texture of the wall, working on his calm. He'd cracked a little bit, there; explained too much. Given in to impulse. That had been a junkie thing to do. All day he'd wanted to know what those rusty curls would feel like to his hand, and so he'd just gone ahead and found out.

  There was a chill feeling he could wrap himself in, if he could find it, that would make it too much trouble to talk like t
hat again, not worth the effort to reach out to the poor, doomed, pale thing he shared his cell with. Once, he'd been good at it. After Shan, though -- having friends had been a mistake. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd done after watching a bullet take Shan's head apart, but when he'd come to his senses there'd been five cops and a Watchman dead and he himself had been discovering the joys of a sucking chest wound, which sort of indicated a loss of control.

  Blaming himself wasn't going to help. The reasons never mattered. Excuses only made you look like an idiot. He had to close up the gaps.

  Was Ash going to pry now? Kieran could feel him staring. Maybe telling him all that stuff had scared him; that would be good. He'd keep his distance. Having a clever little mouse on payroll was one thing; getting attached to him was another, and Kieran had no intention of doing that.

  Ash was going to be useful. The guards seemed to like him, he was intelligent, he was weak and needy, he was an excellent tool. But only if he stayed a tool. His ignorance of the true nastiness of life could be a liability, otherwise.

  It was too bad, really. In other circumstances... No. That was a bad place to let his thoughts go.

  There were no other circumstances.

  If wishes were horses, Kieran thought, I'd be the only one walking.

  So he chose a spot on the wall in front of his nose, a vein of darker orange running through the yellow stone, and examined it with all his attention. It was a trick he'd invented as a child. He didn't move his eyes, refused his thoughts, concentrated on that one little orange swirl until all the useless anxiety and useless hope had faded. Until he could look at his cellmate's freckled, innocent, blue-eyed face and not want to smash it in or devour it.

  When someone spoke his name at the door, he was almost ready to handle it. He almost didn't give a damn why, or what was about to happen. Almost was going to have to be good enough; they weren't going to give him time to finish collecting himself.

  "Trevarde," the guard's voice repeated. "Get a move on, freak. Unless you want a taste of this."

  There was a slapping sound.

  Something touched his shoulder. "Kieran?"

  "Don't touch me," Kieran said. But he didn't jump. He didn't hit. That was going to have to do.

  He got up, and discovered that 'this' was a baton the guard was smacking into his palm, making a show of impatience. Kieran could've easily taken it from him and made him eat it, but knew he would've been perforated by a dozen bullets the next moment. Since he supposed he didn't want that, he came along peacefully instead.

  "Where are you taking him?" Ash asked.

  "Testing," the guard replied. "You'll get your turn. Probably tomorrow." Ash must've looked fearful, because the man added, "He'll be back by supper, so don't rent out his room just yet." He made up for this non-regulation reassurance by prodding Kieran in the small of the back. Kieran responded with the obligatory cold glare, but inside he was smiling. Good mouse, he thought at Ash. They like you. Make them tell you things. Use your innocence to help me, and I'll see you get to keep it as long as possible.

  An explanation was a very tiny victory, of course, but Kieran could never have gotten one, no matter how sweetly he asked.

  Testing. That didn't sound like fun, but it was apparently non-fatal, and since he couldn't do a single thing about it he saw no reason to have an opinion. Another guard fell in behind him at the end of the tier, and they marched him down the stairs and through the gated door he'd been brought in by last night. It seemed like they might be taking him outside, to another building, but then they took a left turn and he gave up guessing.

  It grew colder as he walked, and the light changed. There was a flight of stairs, the stone painted with glossy gray industrial paint. Up, but still in a tunnel carved out of solid rock. They were inside the mountain.

  The walk ended at a metal door that felt cold to look at -- what a weird thought. There they waited for a time. "Now, you mind your manners when you meet the Colonel," the guard said, apparently just to fill the silence. "Or I'll take it out of your hide."

  After a while, the door seemed a little friendlier, and then it was opened by a man in a White Watch uniform. Two pins on the collar and one loop of scarlet braid on the shoulder. Not a colonel. "This is Trevarde?" said the uniform. "Come in. Sit down."

  As Kieran went in, his mind opened up like the view from a high hill. Like a fever ending. Like waking.

  "God," he said.

  "Sit down," said a man behind a metal desk. "Chaler, you can go."

  "Sir," said the uniform, and went.

  Kieran went to the empty chair that faced the desk, and fell into it, a little stunned. The sensation of being imprisoned had gone entirely. He knew that he was farther from freedom than at any previous point, locked into a small white-painted hollow in the middle of a mountain with only one well-guarded exit, and yet some oppression had paradoxically lifted. It left him feeling light and strong and wide-awake.

  This room was outside the wards that kept the inmates from using their Talents. He'd barely noticed them, coming in, but it seemed the pressure had built up, and letting his mind unfurl brought a sensation of pleasure that was slightly painful. It threatened his composure.

  "Aren't you afraid I'll attack you?" he said.

  The man who was undoubtedly the Colonel smiled at him, pleasantly, as if they were just chatting in a bar somewhere. "I think you're smarter than that, Mr. Trevarde."

  "Well, yeah. But people don't usually bet their lives on it."

  "I'm also rather better shielded than those you've attacked in the past. Your Talent would have little effect on me." He waited for a response, and when he didn't get one, turned to taking things from the drawers of his desk.

  He was a fleshy man, the Colonel, with gray hair in a tidy queue and half-round spectacles perched on his nose, a bit past middle age, not at all what Kieran expected from a high-level White Watch officer. The Watch mages who'd grabbed Kieran from the local police had been damn near faceless in their pseudo-military perfection. Maybe this was what they'd be when they grew up.

  "I'm Colonel Warren. I'll be performing a series of tests with you, some of which may be unpleasant, but they'll be less unpleasant with your cooperation. I'm aware that being a prisoner tends to make one wish to rebel, to cause difficulty for one's captors, but I think you have a strong instinct for self-preservation, Mr. Trevarde. I think you'll find it in your best interest to follow my instructions and cause as little trouble as possible. Do you understand?"

  "Sure. What's this for, anyway?"

  "For the greater good, Mr. Trevarde. You should be thankful you have this chance to work off a little of your moral debt, though of course it can never be paid in full this side of the Final Judgement. Now, we'll begin with a simple Survey. You've been through this before, so I expect you to remain calm and facilitate my task by opening up as much as possible."

  Oh shit, not one of these. Kieran closed his eyes as the Colonel came out from behind the desk.

  Okay, you can handle this. It's just another trick, you remember how to do this, you just wait it out...

  The Colonel's chilly fingers touched his head, and suddenly Kieran knew he couldn't open up to this. Something in him that wasn't subject to will rebelled. And so the mental rape of the Survey was every bit as painful as it had been at his hurried excuse for a trial.

  Icy, alien thoughts like blunt metal instruments battered at his defenses, tearing his thoughts apart. The agony was nothing physical, but something worse; a pain like grief, like shame. Then the probing penetrated below the level of thought to a place in the mind that Kieran knew was never meant to be groped like this. The cold manipulation of a stranger's thoughts dissected his selfhood; peeled apart layers, poked and squeezed, cut and bruised.

  Fighting was impossible, but he fought anyway. Not consciously, because volition had been the first layer to be shoved aside, but with an automatic response, like vomiting when poisoned.

  When at last th
e alien thoughts stopped pushing, this reflex ejected them, doing as much damage on the way out as they had done coming in.

  A scream choked off, and Kieran recognized that it had been his own. He was sweating, shivering, hoarse. He tasted bile in the back of his throat, and bitter hatred, and his stomach hurt.

  He tried to speak, and only groaned.

  The Colonel was back behind the desk. "I did warn you not to fight," he said, in the kind of smug pretense at apology that Kieran had used on men who'd tried to kill him.

  "Ah, shit," was all Kieran could get out.

  "We'll have to repeat the Survey from time to time, you see. I hope next time you'll make it easier on yourself."

  Kieran tried to swallow, couldn't, spat instead. "Anyone who could keep from fighting that," he croaked, "is a sick, sick person."

  "Well." The Colonel looked at some of the things on his desk; picked up a pen, moved a piece of paper. "I believe we're done for today."