The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (39 page)

After a while I tried to Cloak myself, and called to the
guard, “Sir, can you see me?”

He turned and gave me a stern look.  “Of course I can.”

“Figures,” I said. 

He turned away, bristling as he heard me rustling the papers
stacked on the desk. 

“How about now?” I called.

“Yes,” he said, sounding bored.

I whistled a bit and examined the wireless transmitter that
took up most of the desk.  For something called
wireless
, there were
cords everywhere.  A headset lay to one side, like a pair of worn nickel and
leather earmuffs, with a small device resembling a miniature microphone tucked
underneath.  The rest of the desk was a jumble of wires, brass knobs, steam and
transducer gauges, and glass tubes.  I twisted one of the dials and the steam
gauges spiked and fell, but disappointingly, nothing else happened. 

After a while I reached deep inside for that sense of
necessity that had enabled me to Cloak the last time, and asked, “Now?”

“What’s your game—”

His voice died and he scowled into the guard post.  I
grinned, triumphant. 
Finally
.  Finally I’d managed to Cloak without
needing real fear for my life driving me—a significant advantage.

“Where’d you go?” he hissed, releasing his pike to grab for
his rifle.

“Oh, don’t fuss,” I said, leaning forward to shake myself
out of the Cloak.  “I didn’t go anywhere.”

He stared at me, some mixture of disgust and fascination
warring in his eyes.  “Don’t do that again,” he growled.  “Or I will lock you
in cuffs.”

“Cuffs.”  I smirked at him.  “Cuffs can’t stop me.”

He turned suddenly back to the drive, coming to stiff
attention.  I peered out and saw, to my dismay, Griff and Samyr climbing up the
palace steps.

“You can’t seriously think there’s anything to it,” Griff
said as they drew closer.  “I think it’s a load of gobshi—”

“Griff!” Samyr interrupted, turning pink.  “Not here.”  She
glanced at the guard and noticed me behind him, and all the blood rushed from
her cheeks.  “What’s he doing here again?”

“He’s waiting to speak to someone,” the guard said.

Griff met my gaze.  “Who here would want to speak to
him?
”

“I’m sitting right here,” I said.  “I do actually speak
Cavnish.”

I jumped off the stool and slipped out past the guard.

“Hey, get back there, boy,” the guard snapped.  “I didn’t
say you could move.”

I ignored him.  “Brought reinforcements this time?” I asked
Samyr, nodding at Griff.

“You’re a Jixy?” Griff asked.  “What can you do?”

“You really want to know?”

“Please tell me it’s something good,” he said, surprising
me.

“Griff!” Samyr hissed.  “Come on.  We
need
to
talk
.” 
She tugged on his elbow for emphasis.

Griff didn’t move.  “Well?”

I concentrated, and watched the blood drain from Griff’s
face—my only signal that I’d succeeded in Cloaking again.  Somehow, I thought
it would be safer than changing my face, especially because I’d already played
the disappearing trick on the guard.

But Samyr turned a perfect shade of white. 

“You’ve got to arrest him,” she whispered.  “Lieutenant, you
have to arrest him now.”

“I can’t bloody see him,” the guard said.  “Why?”

“When the King…when the King got shot…they said the assassin
disappeared.  Just like that.”

I watched the horror spread over the guard’s face, and
cursed myself for my stupidity. 
I
knew the difference between a Ghost
and a Cloak, but most people didn’t.  But I couldn’t move, because as soon as I
did, I would reappear, and the guard wouldn’t waste a moment before clapping me
in cuffs.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized Kor had just
arrived, riding up on a striking grey horse that looked far finer than I might
have expected.  He handed the horse over to a groom and came striding up the
steps like a thunderstorm.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, stopping beside the
guard.

“Don’t move,” the guard said.  “We believe there might be an
assassin nearby.  The one who shot His Majesty.”

Kor glanced around briefly, one brow arched.  “Really.”

“He was just here.  That boy, the one who came looking for
you the other day.”

Kor looked utterly unimpressed, so finally I sighed and
shifted my position.

“I’m not an assassin,” I said, but I’d barely got the words
out before the guard spun at me.

Instinct took over.  I crouched and rolled under his pike,
kicking his knee and wrenching the weapon away from him.  Samyr gasped and
ducked behind Griff as I leveled the blade at the guard’s throat, but Kor just
laughed.

“Help the man up, Shade,” he said.  “And give me that before
you hurt somebody.”

Stars, if he can get me out of this mess…

I tossed him the pike and bent to help the guard up.

“Mr. Kor, explain this,” the guard said, straightening his
uniform jacket.

“This kid isn’t the one you need to be worried about.  He’s
got some tricks, but he’s not dangerous.”

The guard limped, red-faced.  “I beg to differ.”

Griff just goggled me, wide-eyed and speechless.

“I’m not
that
dangerous,” I said.  “That was
self-defense.”

“You will vouch for this boy’s innocence?” the guard asked
Kor.  “Because if you can’t, I’m arresting him now.”

“I vouch for him.  Believe me.  He wasn’t the shooter.” 

He shot a dark glare at me, which I knew meant in Kor-speak,
You and I are going to have a chat.  Won’t that be lovely?

I gave him my most charming smile.  “The flyboy asked what
kind of Jixy I am,” I said.  “So I showed him.  If I was really a blue fin, do
you think I’d be daft enough to flash about my secrets?”

“Maybe,” Griff said, belligerent.

“Oh, bog off, y’ vutting—”

“Civil tongue!” the guard said, cuffing me in the back of
the head.

I grinned at Griff, daring him to retaliate.  Griff wasn’t
terribly hard to provoke, not with that hot-head of his, but this time the
presence of the guard, Kor, and Samyr seemed to be enough of a force to keep
him cool.

“Come on,” Kor snapped, grabbing my elbow and sending a
static charge down my arm.

I jerked free and bowed to Griff and Samyr, and strode after
Kor into the palace.  Luckily the angry lady guide was nowhere to be seen, so
Kor marched me in utter silence through empty corridors until we reached the
steps to the subterrane.  Back in our familiar training room, he slammed the
door shut and spun to face me.

“What the hell was that?”

“Keeping up appearances,” I said, shrugging.

“That’s
not
what I meant.” 

He swiped off his hat and threw it onto the table, striding
a few paces back and forth.

“It can’t be,” he muttered.  “Was he right?”

“You’re not making sense,” I said.  “And besides, you
already knew I could disappear, so what’re you so sore about?”

He glared at me as if he had half a mind to slap me, but I
knew he wouldn’t.  He might throw an honest punch to teach me a lesson, but he
would never slap my face.

“Yes,” he spat.  “I knew about
that
.  But that’s not
what I saw when the guard turned on you.”

“What d’you mean?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face.  “The guard’s pike
jumped.  It
jumped
.  It should have sliced you clean down the back, even
with your stunning acrobatics, but it
didn’t
.  It moved out of your
way.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He cursed under his breath.  “Your mother.  I need you to
tell me all that you know about her and your father.”

“You work for them,” I snapped.  “What else do you want to
know?”

“Tell me about your heritage.  Your magical heritage.  God knows
she never talked to me about it.”

“She never talked about it to anyone.  I don’t know what her
gift was.  I always assumed it was something unimportant,” I said, a vague
uneasiness creeping into my thoughts.

“You really never asked?”

“Why should I have?” I asked.  “What difference would it
have made?  I was all but forced to forget what gift
I
had.  Why would I
have cared what hers was?”

The answer didn’t seem to impress him, but he just rolled
his eyes and asked, “And your father’s?  You never cared to know about that
either?”

I stared at him, bewildered.  “He hasn’t got a gift, you
dundering idiot.  I’d have thought you’d know that better than anyone.”

“Watch your tongue with me, kid,” he said, then paused and
frowned at me.  “I’m not talking about the King.”

A cold prickle crept over me, slowing time to a sluggish
crawl, dreamlike, surreal.

“Explain what you are talking about, then,” I said, voice
low.  “Now.”

For a long moment we just stared at one another, me
expectant, him disbelieving.

Finally he shifted and said, “You didn’t know?  You honestly
never knew?”  When I didn’t move he ran his hand over his head and leaned back
against the table.  “Wasn’t expecting that.  All right, look.  The magery gene
is what they call a
recessive
quality.”

“Go on.”

“It means, both your parents have to be mages for the gift
to be passed on.  And parents who have more than one gift are more likely to
pass on multiple gifts to their children.”

I tried to speak; my voice wouldn’t come.

“Tarik.”  A moment, then, “
Shade!
”

I snapped my gaze to his face, but I couldn’t see him.  My
whole world was crumbling around me, and he expected me to pay attention to
him?

“You mean…”

“I’m sorry, kid.  I thought you knew.”

“No one was ever allowed to talk about magic around me,” I whispered. 
“I had no idea.  My father…Trabin isn’t my father?”

“You’re lucky his pride is bigger than his hatred of magic. 
Admit he was cuckolded, and by a pair of mages at that?  Never.  And I’m sure
he did love Elanar, even after he learned the truth.”

I frowned; Kor had no manners, but calling my mother by her
name seemed brazen, even for him. 

“You’ve known all along?”

Kor smiled, bitterly.  “Yes.”

“Do you know…”  I swallowed.  “Do you know who my father
is?”

“Was,” he said.  “He’s dead, Tarik.  I’m sorry.”

I sat down in the chair in the middle of the room, burying
my face in my hands. 
Why’d you tell me this when my father isn’t even
alive?  Why couldn’t I have gone on believing Trabin was my father?  Oh,
stars.  No wonder he has always hated me.

“He was Istian,” Kor murmured.  “You look a lot like him
right now.  Spitting image, really.”

I grimaced.

“I never knew what kind of mage he was.  But if I know
Elanar, I know she would never fall in love with a nobody, no matter what his
secular titles were.”

“What was his name?”

He stared at me long and hard, his fingers twitching on his
sleeves.  “Do you want to know this?  Are you sure?”

I shuddered and nodded.  “What difference does it make now?”

“All right.”  He leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely
between his knees.  “His name was Eyid.”

I reeled back as if he’d struck me.  All my breath
shattered, leaving me gasping.  “Eyid?  My father was
Godar Eyid?
  The
one…the one they say…”

“The one they say we assassinated?  Yes.  That Eyid.”

I remembered, suddenly, my mother’s sudden pallor when
Eyid’s death had come up at dinner, so long ago.

“Oh God,” I said.

“Yes.  Now you’re beginning to see.”

I ground my palms against my eyes, my throat on fire, a
hollow in the pit of my stomach.

“Kor.”  I swallowed, hard.  “Is it true?  Did we assassinate
him?”

He plucked his hat from the table and turned it in his
hands.  “I don’t know.  I honestly don’t.  That’s one secret I don’t think I’d
have been privy to.”

“You said my mother never talked to you about her magical
gifts,” I said.  “Why would she have?”

“Because I’m her damn brother, that’s why.”

That was too much. 

I stood, throwing back the chair and holding out my hand to
ward him off, and stalked from the room.  But I didn’t get far.  I stopped in
the cold, sterile corridor, bracing my hands on the wall and muttering every
obscenity I knew, trying to choke back the burn of tears because I’d be damned
if Kor came out of that room and found me crying like a blithering girl.  I
leaned my head against the wall and dug my hands across my skull, hating the
roughness of my shaved hair, wishing inanely to be Tarik again, just for a
moment.  But why?  Tarik was just as much a lie as Shade.

I
was a lie.  All my life.  No wonder deceit came so
easily to me.  It ran in my veins.

A light static prickle showered across my shoulders, and
suddenly I realized that Kor was there beside me, his arm around me.

“I’m sorry, Tarik,” he said, tightening his grip.  “I’m so
sorry.”

Before I could stop him, he pulled me into a fierce hug.  I
wouldn’t break down, but I didn’t pull away either.  Kor’s sincerity stunned
me.  After a moment he clapped me on the back and released me.

“You’re better than your past,” he said softly, gripping my
arm, “and you are not your parents’ sin.  They were wrong to keep that secret
from you, but it doesn’t change who or what you are.  Or what you’ve
accomplished.  Honestly, Tarik, I didn’t think you’d survive on the streets,
much less thrive.  If I hadn’t known you, I would never have guessed you were
playing a part when I saw you on the steps up there.  You’ve got a talent.”

“A talent for lying.”

“It’s still a talent,” he remarked, bland.

I leaned back against the wall, staring up at the white
electrical lights.  I wanted to think about anything else, talk about anything
else, to distract myself from the revelation.  And when Kor didn’t push the
topic, for once I found myself grateful to him.