Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (29 page)

Komaki’s lips began to curl in rage. “If I think you’re being stupid, I will kill you now. The Lords of Moon Isle do not ally themselves with fools.”

Komaki nodded once, slowly.

I said, “A stay in my body has not made you kinder, Izla.”

He glanced at me. “I’m used to being Rifkin now.”

“I’m still used to it. The transfer of minds was more permanent than you thought.”

He shrugged. “I should never have rushed the ritual, I suppose, but the rebels hardly left us time. You don’t sound like old, stupid Rifkin, though. You sound like me.”

I squinted and stood up cautiously. He let me. I said, “Southerners. You can’t tell them apart.”

He laughed. “You see? Old Rifkin was a loyal fellow, but he had no wit.”

Our memories did not match. I stood there, trying to sort the possibilities of what had happened that last day in Istviar when Izla Seaprince, Lord of the Ladizhar Sea, asked his most trusted guard as a final act of duty to exchange bodies for the few days it would take to flee to the country’s border.

“You haven’t understood yet, have you?” my other self said. “I knew the truth when you saw me and immediately called me by name. Old Rifkin would have stared for half an hour while he puzzled that out.”

“I’m Rifkin,” I said.

“Names,” said my other, tossing one hand in the air to dismiss the matter. “They mean nothing. What basis do you have for identity?”

“My memories are Rifkin’s.”

“So are mine, old friend. And Izla’s, as well. Aren’t yours?”

They were not, but I tried to keep my face impassive.

“You don’t trust me.” He smiled, as if speaking to a child, then laughed. “Of course not. I wouldn’t trust me. So I don’t.”

“I’m Rifkin,” I repeated.

“You’re neither,” he said. “Not Rifkin. Not Izla. In a sense, there are four people taking part in our conversation. There’s you, who think yourself Rifkin. There’s me, Izla. But there still lurks in this—” he tapped his chest—“Rifkin’s body, the mind of the true Rifkin, and I imagine Izla lies in that body, eh?” He smiled when I shook my head. “But that’s a simplification. You’re the synthesis of both Rifkin and Izla, as am I.”

I watched him smile, and it was like watching myself in a distorted mirror, though I hadn’t seen that face in a mirror for several years. “I’ve had to be, to survive since I... since we were dethroned. Old Rifkin was always a simple fellow. It was easy to get him to give in to my will, so often that he hardly exists in this body. But in surrendering, he became part of me. His memories are mine, just as his body is mine. His reflexes are mine. Sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night, his fears are mine. I’m not Izla anymore, not the Izla you knew. And I’m certainly not Rifkin, though I keep his name.”

I wanted to kill him for saying these things, perhaps because I suspected, no, knew they were true. The original Rifkin was a memory in Rifkin Spirit’s mind. How much longer would I survive in lzla’s body, if the First Rifkin could not survive in his own?

I tensed like a novice. Rifkin saw it and smiled. “This body has been a killing implement for thirty-five years, Rifkin-myself. You may have trained my body every day you’ve worn it, but it still will not equal this one.”

“I’m younger than you are now,” I said.

“And I envy you that,” he said. “Almost as much as I envy your witch blood.”

“Why did you become a Spirit?”

“I had to sell my skills somewhere. Why do you serve the witches?”

“One saved my life.”

“So?”

“It means something to me.”

He grinned. “And to me, as well. It means, my more than brother, that we will rule this world soon.”

“Oh?”

“I rise quickly through the Spirits’ ranks. Rifkin’s skill and Izla’s wits are an almost unbeatable combination. Now, with you adding Izla’s power and doubling his wit—”

“No,” I said.

“You need more time to think about this. I understand. Perhaps there’s still a bit of Rifkin in you.” He studied me. “These names are too confusing. Shall I be Izlarifkin and you, Rifkinizla?”

I wanted to cry “Never!” and throw something in his face. I had listened to too many tales of heroes when I was young. I nodded at him. “Sounds better than Big Rif and Little Rif. You proably wouldn’t want to be Little Rif, anyway.”

He glanced at me, then grinned. “No, Rifkinizla. I wouldn’t.”

“You speak freely in front of Komaki.”

“He doesn’t understand Ladizhan.”

“I see,” I said. “And what of the witches in the castle?”

“What about them?”

“Would you save them?”

“You’re the only witch I want, Rifkinizla.”

“They could be useful.”

“Or a hindrance. It would attract too much attention to us, if we tried to turn Komaki from his purpose.”

“But—”

“Forget your pets. The Spirits are more powerful than any band of witches. I’ll serve Moon Isle until I rule it.” He smiled fondly at me. “But I’ll protect you.”

“You’re too kind.”

“It’s interesting, watching you. It’s almost like seeing a favorite suit of clothing altered to fit another. I’m almost jealous.”

“Izlarifkin,” I said, nearly choking on my part of the name, “I intend to protect the people in Castle Gromandiel.”

“You needn’t, now.”

“I especially need to, now.”

“Why?”

“A vow.”

“Odd.” He stroked his chin. I tried to decide if that reminded me of Izla or myself, then realized it was characteristic of Talivane.

“What?” I asked.

“Old Rifkin was a loyal sort, and very stupid, but he wasn’t a fool.”

“Rifkin always understood duty,” I said. “Why else did he serve Izla so well?”

“Because it was easier than doing anything else, my brother. Rifkin always suspected that I, the Izla I, had dear Mother killed. He never acted. Why?”

I stared, but he did not choose to acknowledge my anger.

“Let us stroll through our memories together, my self. Rifkin feared Izla, for Rifkin feared witches.”

“I didn’t,” I whispered. Perhaps I only thought it.

“He told himself that it was important to spare our city from further dissent during a time of civil crisis, so he never spoke his suspicions.”

“That was valid, at the time. There were no better—”

“Perhaps,” Rifkin Spirit said. “But Rifkin’s greatest fear was that Izla’s existence was his fault, a result of a dalliance with the Sea Queen before he met his wife. And we both know that’s true, don’t we, my father, my brother, my self?”

I nodded dumbly. I had told Naiji that my son was dead, and I had not elaborated, thinking all my sons were dead. I did not tell her that I thought I had killed the last one when I took over his body.

“Let the Rifkin in your mind sleep, my brother. You do not need him anymore. You are not him. You’re Rifkinizla, now. You’ve always known that. Acknowledge it.”

I looked into his eyes, my eyes. I had not known that dark eyes could be flecked with black. He smiled at me, and something in me said that I had borne Rifkin’s sense of honor for too long, carried his sense of guilt for too many deaths.

And perhaps, I realized then, old Rifkin was a simpler man than I remembered. I should have understood everything much sooner than this. He played with me. One fact told him as soon as he saw me that I was only Rifkin, and never Izla, and that was that I carried steel weapons rather than bronze.

I let my shoulders slump as if surrendering to him. I said, “You... You’re right.” I shook my head slowly as I studied the ground. “Whatever I am now, I’m partially Izla. Or his child.” I reached up to the back of my neck to rub it, as though it ached from many burdens. “How else,” I asked, finding the iron pin in my hair and whipping it at the Spirit’s chest, “could I trick you so easily?”

He twisted, but the pin still took him high in his right shoulder, almost under the clavicle. His right hand had gone to his belt for a dart as soon as I had acted. My pin slowed him.

I leaped aside, shaking the borrowed cloak from my shoulders, for it would only encumber me. As I moved, I threw a handful of dirt from my pocket at the Spirit’s eyes.

Komaki watched desperately, trying to decide what the Spirit would do if he intervened too soon. I had seen the Duke’s responses to Rifkin Spirit’s threat, so I doubted he would stay quiet for long. During that moment when I might have attacked my other self, I kicked Komaki’s left temple to win a few more minutes of privacy.

Rifkin had cleared the dirt from his eyes. He said, “You might have fled.”

“I didn’t come here to flee.”

“You still hope to save those witches?”

I nodded.

He laughed. “Yes, you’re definitely Rifkin, for all that you wear my body.”

“Thank you,” I said. I wondered if he could use his right arm. When he snapped a throwing dart at me, I learned he could. It snagged my jacket as I spun. I continued the spin, flipping my last three darts at him and then finishing with a side kick at his injured arm. He parried with a forearm blow, which left his waist open. I snatched his weapons belt and pulled. We both tumbled to the ground.

I had hoped to counter his skill by getting in close, where we would fight like animals rather than Artists. The result was that his strength gave him the advantage. He shoved back at me, throwing me several feet away. His belt, which I still held in my left hand, came with me. He was not weaponless now, but I had his sword, his knife, and his darts. I doubted he had much else hidden on him.

He kicked at me from his crouch. I whipped the belt at his leg, snagging it. He slashed downward with a dagger that he had worn somewhere. Treacherous fellow. I released the belt, and he tried to stand. The belt served as a snare about his ankles, and he fell again. I kicked him in the head, hard. He fell against a camp table, knocking it down, and lay sprawled as if unconscious.

My edge in battling every Spirit I had encountered had been that they did not expect Izla to fight well. I never thought Izla himself would fall for the same reason.

I should have killed him. I wanted to kill him, but I had killed too many people in the last few days, and this one was myself. If there was still an Izla in my skull who might someday win, perhaps the Rifkin in his would wake again.

I turned to Komaki, and Rifkin’s foot caught mine, pitching me. His knife opened my jacket and the bandages beneath it. He snarled, “Surrender, brother.”

I tugged my axe from my belt. He tried to take me during that moment, but I had already drawn my own knife. When he lunged, I slashed his forearm.

His face bled from one of my last throwing darts. Its trail told that it had skipped across his cheek, sliced his ear, and gone. A second one was caught in his coat. It did not appear to have touched him. The third must have missed him entirely.

“They’re doomed,” he said, referring to the folk in the castle. “So are you, if you persevere.”

“Never.” I thought of the bear, and brought my axe up toward his groin. He caught it with his dagger to deflect it. I stabbed for his torso, but then his foot drove into my testicles.

Free me
, Izla whispered.
I will save you
.

“No!” I threw the axe at Rifkin’s head. He raised his arm to intercept it, which only resulted in the ruin of the arm. I buried my knife in his side.

Kill him
, Izla said.
Kill him now
.

“I can’t even kill you, you damned thing. Why should I kill myself?” It seemed to make sense at the time.

I limped to Komaki and slapped him until he woke. Perhaps I should have tried to be quieter, but no guards had investigated yet. I suspected that Rifkin Spirit’s orders were not to intervene unless he demanded it, no matter what anyone heard. And perhaps no one had heard anything, for we had fought with little noise, as we had been trained when we were a fishing village boy on White Mountain.

When Komaki’s eyes fluttered open, I said, “
I’m
Rifkin.” I shook him again. “Rifkin. Say it.”

“Rifkin?”

“Right. Not him.” I pointed at Rifkin Spirit. “Me. Not him. Rifkin.”

“Rifkin. I... I understand.”

“Good. Understand this. I saw your fear of that thing that wears my name, my...” I shook my head to clear it. “My name. You see what I’ve done to it, here in the heart of your camp.”

He nodded.

“I could kill you now, Komaki, but I need you alive. I need you alive to...” I shook my head again, trying to remember. “... to order your soldiers away from here. Understand that? That’s the only thing I need you for. Will you do that?”

He nodded too quickly.

“Good,” I said. “Because if you do not, I will come back for you, Komaki, and I will kill you. Then I’ll find whoever rules this army after you, and I’ll tell that person to take your people home. I would rather not come back again. The person with my name will seem your best friend in the world, if you make me come back for you. Do you understand me, Komaki?”

This time his nod was convincing.

“Good.” I put him to sleep with a nerve pinch and turned to go.

Rifkin watched me.

“You’re hard to knock out,” I said.

He smiled slowly, hiding pain. “You’re not an easy opponent, yourself. I thought I kicked your balls.”

“You did.”

He nodded, seeing that I also hid pain. “Yes. You’re old Rifkin.”

“You could’ve killed me while I spoke with Komaki.”

He smiled again.

“Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged and winced. “You didn’t kill me while I lay here.”

“So?”

“Maybe a bit more of old Rifkin lives in me than I thought.”

“Oh.”

“Enough to tell you this: You spared me, I spared you. Go, now. If I recover, we’re even.”

I nodded. “Even. What about the Duke?”

“I’ll tell him that I can protect him, but he won’t believe me, not now. Did you kill all the Spirits I sent?”

I turned over a hand, palm up, and let him read whatever he wished in the gesture. “They’re dead.”

“All?”

“Probably. We even caught Chifeo.”

“Who?”

I smiled. “Your masters don’t tell you everything, Rifkin Spirit.”

I slipped under the tent wall and into the night.