Doppelganger

18 Silverfire

Powder in her hair dulled its color to brown; makeup gave her cheekbones she’d never been born with, and at the same time downplayed her eyes. Despite it all, Miryo couldn’t help but feel the innkeeper’s eyes lingered on her a moment longer than they needed to.

Void it. My horse isn’t even stabled, and already my disguise is cracking.

She couldn’t figure out how. Granted, the pool she’d used for a mirror that morning had not been great, but she’d been impressed with Mirage’s skill in changing her appearance. The powder couldn’t take a lot of abuse before it would start to brush out, but it had the advantage of being temporary; she’d rebelled against truly dyeing it. It didn’t have to last long. All she had to do was get a room at the inn and stay in it, and touch up the powder at need.

But the innkeeper was looking at her already.

Had sweat begun to streak the makeup? The day was still young, but already it was hot. She had split off from Mirage and Eclipse earlier that morning, riding to Elensk while the two Hunters visited Silverfire. She still wished she had gone with them; her doppelganger had spent many of her formative years there, and so Miryo was naturally curious to see the place. But Mirage’s concerns were well-grounded, and so Miryo stayed away. She had wanted to just camp somewhere, but Eclipse had pointed out that it might cause trouble if a patrol of trainees from Silverfire came across her.

So here she was, in town and disguised. In theory. Perhaps not so well as she had thought, though.

The realization hit her like a falling tree branch. It’s not your appearance, idiot; it’s your behavior. You’ve seen for yourself how many mannerisms you two share. How many times do you think he’s seen Mirage, with Elensk this close to the school? That’s why he’s looking at you sideways.

I knew spending the day in a town full of Silverfire agents was a bad idea.

Quickly Miryo recalculated. And so when the innkeeper quoted the room price to her, she put on the expression she could least imagine on her own face or her double’s: petulance.

“Per night?” she said, deliberately imitating the accents she’d heard from the petty highborns in Haira. “Well, at least it covers the bathhouse as well, right?”

Irritation flickered in his eyes. “I’m afraid we have no bathhouse, goodwoman,” he said. “I will have a maid bring up a tub and hot water, though.”

Miryo was surprised to notice how much the lack of the honorific “Katsu” grated. It had been hardly any time since her testing, and yet already she took the term for granted. But no time to mull on that; she had an act to keep up. “No bathhouse? Sweet Maiden, what kind of backwater place is this? And I’m going to have to put up with another five days of this before I get to Dravya!”

“I apologize, goodwoman. I’m afraid this is a small town, and a small inn.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that.” Miryo put as much aggravation in her sigh as she could. “Well, I don’t suppose I’ll find better in a pest hole like this town. And I’ll be gone soon enough—thank the Bride. Now where’s my room?”

She dropped the pose as soon as the door was shut behind her. Her jaw ached, and she rubbed it absently; maintaining that expression had been surprisingly hard. And what a silly way to behave! Blaming that poor man for not running a city-class inn, when he lived in a small town. She wished she could apologize.

It was barely noon. Mirage and Eclipse would not be back until tomorrow, which left her with the remainder of today and part of tomorrow to kill. Somehow.

She had lunch first, sequestered in her room; then she had the maid bring up the promised tub and water. Miryo dismissed the girl’s offers of help, and as a precaution locked the door behind her. She didn’t soak in the tub, lest the steam interfere with her disguise; she was capable of touching it up, but not redoing it from scratch should it become ruined. Instead she stripped down and took a thorough sponge bath, fiercely scrubbing away the layers of dust that had built up during the ride. Then she touched up her disguise, called for another bath, and used this one to clean some of her belongings, remembering too late that a true highborn would have had a servant do it. By the time she was done it was vaguely dinnertime, and she called for the maid to remove the tub and bring supper. She ate. The dishes were taken away.

And then Miryo was out of tasks to occupy herself, and the boredom set in.

It had been three years since Mirage visited Silverfire, and a full five since she had lived there, but she still remembered every tree and stone in the lands surrounding the compound.

I bloody well ought to. We spent enough time doing training exercises out here.

She and Eclipse hastened their pace along the road; now that they were too close to their goal, neither of them had the patience to wait. They flew along, kicking up clouds of dust as they went. Mirage resolved to make sure Mist and Sparker were treated well while they talked to Jaguar. The horses deserved some rest, and weren’t likely to get it any time soon.

The tower with the bells and the dovecote was the first thing to come into view, poking up from the horizon. Then there was a dark smear, slowly growing; that was the small wood along the back edge of the compound, where students learned how not to sound like crippled cows when sneaking around. Mirage even knew the exact moment she would see the small guard tower and wall that straddled the road. They had always struck her as an odd paradox; they didn’t do much to guard entry to Silverfire, yet anyone who thought he could sneak in was sadly mistaken. The structures themselves were there mostly to give students practice sneaking in and out.

A whoop sounded from the tower as they approached. Mirage squinted and saw a limping figure emerge, waving energetically at them.

“Warrior’s blade, Mirage, you cost me ten silver! I bet you’d be here a month ago!” Viper hobbled forward another few steps and moderated his voice now that they were in range. “Both of you at once? Man, what a treat!”

Eclipse glanced at the leg Viper was favoring. “What’s up with you?”

“Took a spear to the thigh.” He put on a woebegone expression. “A witch healed it, believe it or not, but it still takes a while to get totally better. So here I am, serving guard duty on the infants.” A sharp whistle sounded then, and his head whipped around. “Speaking of which. There’s a class of fourteens coming through, and I’ve got to be ‘on guard.’ Come by after noon, though; it’s been a dog’s age since I talked to either of you.” That said, he hobbled back to his tower.

Mirage nudged Mist forward and frowned to herself. He expected me? Why? Does everyone know we’re on this commission?

The question would have to wait until after their meeting with Jaguar, so she put it from her mind and raised her head, taking in the view of Silverfire with warm appreciation.

She was an itinerant Hunter; she had no home. But if she had to name the place closest to her heart, it would be here. Up ahead were the shale walls of the barracks; Mirage could just see her old room, high up on one corner, and she smiled at it. Opposite was the small building where students had classes. Silverfire provided its trainees with a decent education, but since they rarely took jobs involving high-class society, book-learning was not of paramount importance. More of their lessons were conducted elsewhere in the compound.

Such as in the salle, just past the class building. Indoor practice was held there, but in fine weather—or often in poor weather—the students trained outside, in the hard-packed dirt ring next to the salle. Behind that she could see the archery range, and the mounted combat arena, and then the wood.

They stopped first at the stables, just inside the yard. Farther back were the school stables; these up front were for visitors only. They were staffed by successive shifts of trainees and one old Hunter.

“Good to see you,” Briar said laconically, taking the reins of their horses in his scarred, three-fingered hand. “Here for Jaguar, right? He’s been waiting.”

“Is he with anybody now?” Mirage asked.

Briar rolled his eyes around, considering it. “No. No outsider, at least, and he’ll kick a student out for you.”

Mirage grinned. “Thanks. Treat the horses to something nice; we’ve been hard on them lately.”

That earned her a sharp look, and then a scrutiny of Mist that took in everything from her dusty forelock to the tiny scrape on one back hoof. “You better not be treating her badly.”

“Treat Mist badly? I know better than that. You’d take a horsewhip to me if I lamed her.”

“Damn straight.” He tugged on the reins of the horses and vanished into the stables.

They continued onward, past the barracks and the infirmary. Mirage shielded her eyes with one hand as they approached the building at the tower’s base and glanced upward. Sure enough, there was a young man up there, plastered to the side of the tower and looking petrified. Must’ve lipped off to one of the masters. Poor sod. I wonder how many trips he’s made up there—and how many he has left?

Then they were inside the building, and blinking in the dim light. She could just barely make out a thin shadow behind the desk. “You took long enough getting here,” he said curtly. “We got your message days ago.”

“Delays happen, Slip,” Mirage said. Her vision was clearing now, showing her a tiny, rail-thin man sitting bolt upright behind a stack of papers. His knifelike face marked him as the twin of Wisp, Silverfire’s contact in Angrim.

“You do this on purpose, don’t you?” Eclipse complained.

“Do what?” Slip said blandly.

“Make it dark in here. You like us being blind when we walk in.”

“You knew what it would be like. Haven’t you learned to close your eyes before you come in? Stupid boy.”

Just as sweet as Wisp. Mirage grinned to herself. “Is Jaguar free?”

By way of an answer, Slip cocked his head to one side. A moment later, they heard a faint bong from overhead. “Now he is. You saw the idiot outside?” He barely waited for them to nod. “Five years here, and still an idiot. That’s his third session with the tower this month. Talon sent him for ten climbs this time. Says he’ll make it fifteen, next time, and twenty after that. Warrior save us all. I keep hoping the stupid git will fall off and make us all happy. Why Jaguar hasn’t thrown him out I don’t know. But he’s done now—that was ten—so go on upstairs.”

“Ouch,” Eclipse murmured in her ear as they left Slip’s domain. “Ten trips—that hurts.”

“And fifteen in store,” Mirage muttered back. She imagined she could hear the boy’s feet against the shale of the walls, climbing down from the belfry. “For his sake, I hope he learns to keep his mouth shut.”

And then they were at the top of the stairs. They both paused and straightened their dusty clothing. Then Mirage raised one hand and knocked.

“Come in,” Jaguar called.

He didn’t look surprised to see them. Of course not; knowing him, he’d known they were approaching before they even spoke to Viper. Silverfire’s Grandmaster had not earned his position by being a stupid or inattentive man.

Mirage and Eclipse saluted him. He stood and returned it, master to student, then sat once more. “Stand free,” he said.

They stationed their fed apart and clasped their hands behind their backs. No one really relaxed in Jaguar’s presence, even with permission; it just wasn’t possible.

Jaguar eyed them for a moment, then nodded. “Start talking.”

Miryo wished she could sleep. It would make the time pass more quickly. But despite being exhausted by the trip, she could not seem to fall asleep. It was too early, and she had too much on her mind.

She didn’t dare go down and socialize in the common room. Aside from concerns about her disguise, it didn’t remotely fit the persona she’d adopted, that of a young woman with pretensions to rank. Neither could she chat with the maid, even supposing she wanted to. She started to review spells in her head—a reflex left from the crush of the days before her test—but she immediately started to reach for power, and cut herself off, sweating.

Crone have mercy. It’s getting harder to resist.

The brief taste from that night in the wood had only sharpened her longing for magic. Which she ought to have expected. It was logical, really.

But logic did nothing to soften the bite.

Miryo paced the room for some time before finally stopping, swearing, and kneeling to pray.

Goddess. Please, oh please, hear my prayers.

Help me hold on. I can’t give in now, not when we maybe have a chance to make this better.

Or have I got it wrong? Maybe this really is the way you intended things to be. I feel like there should be another answer, but every time I look, I feel like I’m slamming my head against a brick wall.

Thinking about that put an uneasy feeling in Miryo’s stomach. What if she and Mirage failed? What would it mean? None of the options were reassuring. It might mean that the answer had been there, and they had simply been too stupid to see it in time. Or perhaps the Goddess intended for things to change, but not at their hands. Or the Goddess liked things the way they were.

Separation and death, a denial of the self—I can’t believe that.

Miryo firmed her jaw. I’ve committed myself to this path, Goddess. So either give me the strength to see it through, or convince me that I’m wrong.

It was more a demand than a prayer, but it hardened her resolve, and maybe that was enough.

“We think we know who the Wolfstar is,” Jaguar began when they were done with their report. “They have one, twenty-nine years old, named Wraith. He hadn’t done much to earn his name, or so we thought until recently. It seems he inherited in full measure the Wolfstar tendency to hide his tracks. But only for a while. After enough time has passed, he feels free to boast.”

“Boast?” Mirage said, not bothering to hide her contempt. “When you’re an assassin? That’s stupid. It’s not as if there’s a limited term on revenge.”

“He’s aware of that,” Jaguar said dryly. “It came out in this last year that he was behind the death of Lady Anade of Razi. Tangle, Cano’s Cloudhawk, went after him; he had a personal attachment to the late Lady. Wraith killed him a few months ago.”

Mirage whistled soundlessly. She knew of Tangle; he was one of Cloudhawk’s gems. And if Wraith was twenty-nine, he had to have killed Anade when he was just twenty-one. Her fight with him took on a whole new light—not that it excused her losing him in Vilardi.

“He’ll come after you,” Jaguar said. “You, Mirage, are far too distinctive to fight unmasked and not be recognized. Now that he knows you’re on his trail, he will be coming for you.” The Grandmaster’s eyes were unforgiving as he looked at her. “He’s your concern. We’ll do nothing to help you against him. You knew when you took the commission that it entailed Hunting the Hunter responsible.”

“I understand,” Mirage said calmly. He may be good, but I nearly had him in Vilardi. He’ll not escape again. “We weren’t looking for aid there.”

Jaguar nodded; he would never have expected another answer. Silverfire Hunters were taught to handle their own problems whenever humanly possible. “To the remainder of the commission, then. What do you plan to do?”

“We’ll tell our employer about our suspicions,” Eclipse said. “In person, if we can arrange it; I don’t like this communication at a distance. I want to see her face—whichever one of them it is—when we tell her.”

“And then what do you expect?”

“Not sure,” Mirage replied. “I get the impression that our employers are few; I don’t think they’d look so hunted if they had numbers on their side. Who their opponents are, and how many, and how powerful, we don’t know. That’ll affect how much trouble we face.”

“We’re Silverfires, though, and that should count for something,” Eclipse added. “Even if there’s trouble between our employers and the Wolfstar’s, they may acknowledge Hunter neutrality and leave us out of it. We aren’t bonded to anyone; we do the job we were hired for, impartially.”

Mirage could not have said what it was that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Jaguar’s expression gave nothing away. If he reacted, it was with no motion larger than an infinitesimal flicker of an eyelid. But something got her hackles up, and she gave the Grandmaster a hard look.

“We are impartial, aren’t we?” she asked him. “Unless there’s a reason you picked us.”

Jaguar dropped his eyes to his desk. It was as close to looking guilty as she’d ever seen him. After an excruciating pause, he said, “It was Tari-nakana that brought you here.”

Mirage carefully unclenched her hands and flexed the tension out of her fingers before replying. “I thought that was arranged by my company leader.”

“It was arranged with her. Tari-nakana—Tari-nai at the time—proposed it in the first place, and negotiated with me to accept you here.”

Her first thought, irrationally enough, was that it was good no one else at Silverfire had known of that Red hair alone had people whispering about me. If they’d known that, whispers would have been shouts. Everyone would have wanted me thrown out. Or dead.

“I believed when I chose you—and still believe now—that your impartiality isn’t endangered,” Jaguar continued. “You knew nothing of Tari-nakana’s involvement. Her tracking of your movements was almost certainly just a continuing interest in your career, and without further evidence, there’s no reason to believe it relates to her assassination.”

In a moment of spontaneous, unspoken accord, neither Mirage nor Eclipse said anything. They had further evidence, sitting just a short ride away in Elensk. But despite the loyalty Mirage owed to Jaguar, and despite the trust she had in him, she was not ready—not yet—to tell him about Miryo.

“Do you know why Tari-nakana wanted me here?” she asked.

Jaguar looked her in the eye and shrugged. “For the obvious reasons. You were—and are—ideally suited to being a Hunter. You were a good Dancer, but your talents wouldn’t have been fully used there. She saw that, and for whatever reason took a personal interest in seeing you where you belonged.”

And if that’s the whole story, I’m a Thornblood.

“One other thing,” Mirage said, and again she was not sure why she spoke. “We met Viper on the way in. He said he’d been expecting me. Why? Does he know about this commission?”

She didn’t imagine it; Jaguar’s eyes widened fractionally. “You haven’t heard, then.”

Mirage relaxed her hands again. “No.” What was I supposed to have heard?

Jaguar didn’t answer; he just stood and beckoned for the two of them to follow him.

They left his office through another door, this one opening on a staircase leading upward. It took them to the dovecote, and the balcony around it, which overlooked the salle’s outside yard, the archery range, and the mounted combat field.

The practice yard was crowded. At the far end a young man was going through a spear pattern with methodical slowness; the weapon’s length had earned him breathing space, but the rest of the yard was packed. A small clump of students, marked as fifteen-year-olds by the stitching on the backs of their jackets, were reviewing knife patterns together. A solitary twelve-year-old was falling, over and over again, plainly trying to learn to do it right. And on the side closest to them, the newest crop of trainees were sparring.

Jaguar directed their attention to the pair on the left edge. “Tell me what you see.”

Mirage looked down. The padding they wore masked them thoroughly. She thought they might be girls, but young as they were she couldn’t be at all sure. They still moved with the hesitancy of trainees who had not adjusted to the fact that they were supposed to hit people, but she could see they were beginning to get over it.

“They’re not half bad,” she said after a moment. “Still a little reluctant to hit each other, but they’ve learned to keep their guard up, and I can see some of the others haven’t. The taller one will be a good kick-fighter if she works at it.”

Jaguar nodded, and glanced at Eclipse.

“They move like Mirage,” Eclipse said.

Mirage stared at him.

“They’ve got her reflexes, her agility. They may not be used to hitting each other, but they already understand fighting in a way none of the others do. They’re naturals. Like Mirage.”

Mirage’s eyes were pulled inexorably back to the padded, androgynous figures below. Like me. Warrior’s soul. Are they—

“The shorter one has reddish-brown hair,” Jaguar said. “The taller has brown hair, but only because she dyes it. There’s another at Windblade, and one at Thornblood.”

Doppelgangers. Goddess.

His eyes flicked to Mirage. “You know something about this.”

It was a statement, not a question. And it put Mirage in a horrible position. It was one thing to not tell Jaguar about things he was unaware of; it was another thing entirely to lie directly to him. And yet she could not begin to fathom the trouble that could result if she told him what was going on.

Neither of them moved for a long moment Then, at last, Mirage dragged her eyes away from the doppelgangers in the yard below and faced the Grandmaster squarely.

“I do,” she admitted in a low voice. “But for the sake of… many things, I cannot tell you right now. Not until I clear up another matter.”

“You owe me certain loyalties,” Jaguar said. His voice was unexpressive; she could not tell if he was angry or merely reminding her.

“I know,” Mirage said, and tried to put strength into her voice. “But this other matter takes precedence. I swear by the Warrior’s soul, I owe you an explanation, and you’ll have one. But not now.”

“And what if you don’t survive this commission?”

Mirage quirked an eyebrow at him sardonically. “Wraith isn’t going to take me down. But just in case the witches do, I’ll arrange for you to get an explanation anyway. Will that do?”

He searched her eyes for a moment, then nodded. “It will. For now.”