The Forest at the Edge of the World (45 page)

“I want him tested, now. Again.”

His companion exhaled. “Still on your tirade.”

“I’m about to prove to you that I’m a compassionate man, Do
ctor,” Mal said calmly. “I want Perrin Shin to have a son.”

“Uh-
huh
,” his partner said. “And how are you going to ensure that?”

“Eliminate his wife and daughter.”

The doctor choked and coughed before regaining his voice. “What?!”

“Consider, what if the second baby is another girl? He’s already had one, chances are overwhelming he’ll have a second. Then Shin’s chances at a son are over. What a waste. Even officers are allowed only two children. But,” Mal continued as easily as if he was musing over dinner choices, “as the law states, should his wife and children
die,
he can remarry and have up to two more children. Another two chances at a son. Now, what’s not compassionate about that?”

It took the doctor several long, heavy moments to respond. “That’s . . . that’s . . . An expecting woman? That’s a little
much
, don’t you think? And a baby?”

Mal eyed him. “Shin’s a test subject, remember? Consider the wealth of information we can gather from such an occurrence. How would someone as strong as Shin respond to the loss of his wife and daughter? What we learn could better the entire world in terms of recommendations coming out of the Office of Family on ways to handle grieving. Then again, if he doesn’t have any strong feelings for them, we will have done him a tremendous favor. In one way, we stand to gain a great deal, another way
he
gains a great deal. That’s what we call a gain-gain situation.”

Had there been any more light in the room, Mal might have di
scerned the growing horror in his companion’s eyes. But perhaps that was why they always met in the dark.

“Nicko, you can’t be serious. You can’t do this . . . not to them.”

“Not to
them?
” Mal squinted. “Are you sure you’re not bonding to him, just a bit? I made that mistake once with a horse. When it died I actually felt some sorrow, and couldn’t fully appreciate the information its death provided me. It was almost not worth killing the beast for. Don’t fall into that trap, now.”

The doctor held up his hands. “I’m not, I’m not. It’s just that . . . well, tha
t wealth of information you mentioned—perhaps there’s more to this than we realize, a full range of possibilities we haven’t considered. Do you know how rare it is for a man, especially an officer, to have
two
children? And so close together? Nicko, we shouldn’t eliminate a potentially captivating research project.”

Mal was unconvinced. “You realize I had others to choose from, but I thought you were the most intelligent and open-minded. There are others willing to take your place, you know.”

His partner scoffed. “Who, Gadiman? The most paranoid creature to have ever skulked in the world? When we began this you said you wanted
balance
. Gadiman is as unbalanced and shifty as the land around Mt. Deceit! You replace me with him, you’ll both be discovered and overthrown in less than a year. There’s tragedy, and then there’s outrage. Keep this research to creating
tragedy
, and you can continue it for decades. But if it produces
outrage
, someone will start digging, and at the bottom of the pit they’ll find you!”

Mal met his stony glare. “The return of the Guarders is tragic, my good doctor,” he said slowly. “If Shin wants to avoid tragedy, and wants his woman to birth another baby, he’s going to have to make sure of her safety himself. Shin’s a test subject. If you can’t handle that, I’m sure Gadiman can. What’s it going to be, Doctor Brisack?”

Brisack swallowed hard. “Speculation—fatherhood has made Shin so fierce a bear that not even a dozen Guarders could bring him down.”

“A dozen you say? Fine,” Mal smiled thinly. “A dozen for Ca
ptain Shin it is, then.”

---

It wasn’t unusual to see the Administrator of Family Life out in the city of Idumea, not even this early as the sun was rising. Of all the administrators he was the least intimidating and most gregarious. He smiled at people as he passed and was known as The Good Doctor, be it for his effectiveness or his manner, no one was quite sure. But his eyes had that twinkle one hoped to see when they’re being told it
was
indeed a raging infection, but he just might have something new to treat it that didn’t involve cutting, sucking, or bleeding, so don’t worry, sit tight, and be sure not to touch anything on your way out.

Ten years ago he joined the university working with other su
rgeons to experiment with sulfurs, resins, herbs, and anything else nature provided that might be medically beneficial. The university work was occasionally more time-consuming but certainly more predictable than panicked knocks on his door at all hours.

Still, he was frequently stopped along the road to “take a quick look” at something. It never failed to amuse him how modesty va
nished in public places when the most famous doctor in the world could be persuaded to examine a body part usually kept under wraps, even in one’s darkened bedroom.

But The Good Doctor marched with single-mindedness this morning through the mansion district and on to the official messe
nger service several blocks away. Something like this shouldn’t go through the regular messenger service, because that mode of delivery would serve only to confuse, not enlighten.

The fifty-five-year-old man, his gray-brown hair balding on top—and no, he wasn’t working on a cure for something as vain as that; besides, balding men are more virile, everyone knew that—didn’t notice the waves to get his attention, or the elderly man
who held up a wrapped foot barely outside his peripheral vision. The Good Doctor stared only ahead of him, dodging citizens, carts, horses, and anything else that suddenly appeared in his shortened view.

He only hoped he worded it correctly. It had to be subtle yet o
bvious, while vague yet telling. But writing complex details, cataloguing findings, choosing words for their specificity, not their ambiguity, was all he’d ever done before.

Yet he couldn’t allow this. This was beyond research, running into senseless revenge. Revenge for a purpose, yes; he could see the reasoning for balancing the scales once they’d been brutally upset.

But this? To call it research insulted science, and he wouldn’t stand for that. It was now a cruel game, and the main participant didn’t even know he was playing. He deserved a fighting chance.

The Good Doctor was going to give him one.

After all, it was the doctor who gave Wiles’ map of Edge to Mal, marked with the future Mrs. Shin’s home. He was merely evening the odds.

---

Chairman Mal took a deep breath and sighed. “Yes, I actually
do
want to see him again,” he said to the page that stood at the door.

“Told you!” said a voice full of heartless glee, and the lanky man barged through.

The page backed up quickly, shutting the door behind him.

“Well, Gadiman?” Mal asked calmly.

“I had him followed all the way! Found the message, too!” His small eyes brightened as he licked his lips.

“Where’s the message
now
, Gadiman?”

“On its way. That’s what you wanted, right?”

Mal nodded. “Yes. Were you careful?”

“I’m always careful!” Gadiman bristled. “No one will be able to tell the seal was broken or the message read.”

“So what did it say?” Mal clasped his hands together.

“He wrote, ‘Captain Shin, a dozen will be awaiting in the sha
dows to assist in the care of your wife and daughter.’”

Mal pondered that while Gadiman puffed and bounced from one foot to another.

“Don’t you
get it?
He told Shin! About the twelve men you’re going to send!”

Mal nodded slowly. “I could tell that he couldn’t let this ha
ppen. He knows he can’t stop it, but thinks he can send a warning.”

“So can I bring him in for questioning?!”

“No! Of course not! What has he done wrong, as an administrator? Nothing. I can handle him—
if
there’s anything to handle. Shin may understand the warning, but he won’t know when, or how, or what. In fact, it will make him all the more edgy.” His smile sucked all the warmth out of the room. “Indeed, Brisack just made this more intriguing. How will a paranoid man behave if he knows that an attack is imminent, but doesn’t know when? Oh, how I wished I had eyes in Edge right now! Hmm. That’s not a bad idea, is it now?” he muttered to himself. “My own set of eyes in Edge . . .”

Gadiman scowled at the Chairman, following only half of what he was saying. “Sir?”

Mal looked up.

“What should be done?! Shin will know!”

Mal’s smile frosted the windows. “He’s been warned there are twelve. That’s why I already sent word that
fourteen
will be on this mission.”

Chapter 22 ~ “Do I
look
like I’m about to do something stupid?”

“
A
nd so that resolves the concerns about soldiers patrolling along the canal system, but we’re still having some complaints from farmers in the east. It seems that—” Captain Shin’s face began to contort.

Karna started to smile and glanced over to the new staff se
rgeant and master sergeant who were sitting with him in the forward command office. The master sergeant glanced over at the sand clock on Shin’s bookshelf, nodded in admiration, and winked at the lieutenant.

Shin’s face continued to twist until he could no longer fight it.

He yawned.

The rotund staff sergeant smiled. “Well done, sir! Nearly time for dinner, and that’s your first yawn.”

The three men chuckled as Shin glared good-naturedly at them. “You said you weren’t doing that anymore.”

“There’s so little to entertain us now, Captain,” Karna sighed in feigned sadness. “Quiet forest for over a year, and now that it’s the Raining Season again—well, Guarders hate the snow. Nothing will be happening for at least another moon until Planting begins. We keep ourselves sharp by guessing how much sleep you lose each night.”

“And it’s only going to get worse when that second baby comes, sir,” the gnarled master sergeant drawled. “Why, we can take bets for at least another three seasons!”

Shin smiled reluctantly as the men laughed. “Grandpy Neeks, knowing you there’s a chart somewhere in your quarters. You know
how I feel about gambling.”

“No slips of silver—only bragging rights. And being right is better than being rich around here. We all accept that, sir,” he said with a smile in his eyes. “So far, I’m the
rightest one around.”

“You always are, Neeks.” Shin couldn’t help but chuckle.

For as long as Perrin knew Neeks, the man had been called Grandpy. His red hair went prematurely gray when he was twenty, and he had a naturally weather-beaten look as if he were a decades-old stockade fence. He also had a monotonous way of slow-talking that said, “Don’t interrupt me boy, or I’ll take you out to the woodshed after I finally finish this story and make you chop four cords of wood then make you build another shed to hold it all, so help me, now sit down, shut up, and show some respect because I’m not gonna take no mouth from no one.”

He was perfect for whipping the new recruits into shape.

Perrin had requested him specifically as Wiles’s replacement, and was stunned to realize that, when he opened Grandpy’s file from the High General, Master Sergeant Neeks was only forty years old. Perrin wondered if he would seem as ancient and gnarled in ten more short years of serving in the army. Maybe the weathering effect only occurred to the enlisted men.

The other new addition to the fort, Staff Sergeant Gizzada, r
eplaced the master sergeant who retired right after the forest raid, and was almost a complete opposite. While Neeks was as pale and gray as the strongest mortar, Gizzada was as dark and brown as the richest soils. And even though he was six years older than Perrin, he looked more like an overgrown boy with a round face that matched the rest of his body, dark cheeks that were hued a deep red, and a tongue that was always licking his lips as if knowing dinner was on the way.

The former head cook of midday meal at the garrison was a good fit as supply master.

“Sir,
I’m
not for lack of things to do around here,” Gizzada said jovially. “I keep myself well entertained!”

“So that’s the problem, Karna? Not enough entertainment for you?” Shin asked. “I didn’t realize you were so eager to get
back into the forest
. I can arrange for that, if you insist.”

His lieutenant paled as the sergeants sniggered. “No, sir, I don’t want you violating your father’s orders again. Why, he might pr
omote me ahead of you.”

Shin’s eyebrows went up as the sergeants chuckled.

There was a knock on the office door and Neeks opened it.

“You’re a little late today, messenger,” Grandpy said severely to the young man holding the bag from Idumea. Neeks never passed up an opportunity to dress down a young soldier.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sirs,” he nodded towards Captain Shin. “The messenger I met in Vines said there were some last minute administrative additions to the pack in Idumea. And as you know, we’re not allowed to leave until all of them are satisfied.” He took the pack off his back and handed it over to Grandpy, who kept the eyebrow up.

“Then I suppose it’s remarkable you get to leave at all,” Karna mumbled daringly.

Shin nodded back to the messenger. “I won’t have anything to return for at least an hour while I sort through this. Might as well take your meal here rather than in Mountseen.”

“Be first in line at the mess hall,” Gizzada recommended. “Roast venison in a button mushroom sauce with buttered spuds.
Mmm!” He kissed his fingers.

“Thank you, sirs!” the messenger said happily, before having his grin wiped away by Neeks’ still-menacing eyebrow.

As he bolted down the stairs, Neeks dropped the pack on Shin’s large oak desk. “Feels a little heavier today, Captain. Need some help going through it?”

“Probably,” Perrin said, pulling out some of the contents. “More notices. We’re going to have to build larger notice boards around Edge to hold them all.”

“Or ask the Administrators to be more concise,” Karna nodded as he picked up a large document detailing something mundane.

Shin sat down at the desk and sorted through the pile. “Ah, this one looks promising. Nice and small.”

He grinned as he looked at the plain beeswax seal. Something in his belly tightened, but maybe it was because he was now thinking about venison, and he could hear Gizzada’s round abdomen rumbling. As the other soldiers sorted through the message pack, Perrin opened the small folded document, grimaced at the unfamiliar writing, then swallowed as he read the sentence.

For a minute none of the other men noticed that he hadn’t moved, until Neeks glanced up and saw the dead look in his eyes. “Sir? Something wrong?”

Shin didn’t answer.

“Captain?” Karna tried.

Shin only swallowed again and refolded the message. “Men, take care of the rest of this for me, please. Anything important, leave on the desk. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes.” He stood up and put on his cap.

“Sir?” Karna said, stunned that the captain would leave while messages needed addressing.

“And when I come back, you may find something far more interesting to do than timing my yawns!”

---

Rector Densal released a heavy sigh and looked at the note in his hands. “Perrin, I think your father might have more insight than me.”

“I don’t think I have that kind of time, Hogal,” Perrin said gravely as he sat across from Hogal at his eating table.

Tabbit stood behind Hogal, reading over his shoulder. “Are you going to tell Mahrree?”

Perrin shrugged. “According to number three on my mother’s list, I shouldn’t give Mahrree anything unnecessary to worry about. One never knows when the mother bear instinct may arise.”

Tabbit nodded. “Joriana was always very smart in these things.”

“I don’t know,” Hogal mused. “Mahrree might need to know that a dozen Guarders have her and little Jaytsy marked.”

“Oh, that’s not
really
what it means,” Tabbit blanched. “Is it?!”

“What else would it mean, Auntie?” Perrin said, trying to keep his growing rage and worry out of his great aunt and uncle’s house, unsuccessfully. “It’s written in a hand I’m not familiar with, and by the tightness of it, it looks like they even took pains to disguise it just to be sure. Somehow it got smuggled into the message bag. Only administrators and the army can submit messages to that service. The messenger said the pack was delayed in leaving Idumea early this morning, and that’s why!” he gestured furiously at the note. “Someone took great risks to get me that warning, and they wouldn’t bother unless it was a
real threat!
”

Hogal patted Perrin’s hand. “It will be all right,
my boy—”

Perrin stood up abruptly, knocking his chair backwards. “
HOW
will it be all right, Hogal?!  They want my wife and babies! They’ve been successful before, in eight different villages! How do I know those people weren’t warned like this, and failed to stop them?!”

Tabbit covered her mouth in terror and slipped into a chair next to her husband.

“They’re cowards!” Perrin bellowed at the message.
“Going after the most vulnerable and innocent?! What could be easier targets than an expecting woman and her nine-moons-old daughter?! NO!”

“Perrin, sit down,” Hogal said firmly. “Now.”

Perrin’s broad chest heaved up and down as he met Hogal’s determined gaze. For a tiny old man, he was profoundly persuasive.

Perrin eventually sighed, picked up his chair, and sat down again. With his head in his hands he murmured, “How do I fight this, Hogal?”

“With one hundred soldiers, Perrin!” Hogal reminded him. “Keep her under guard, at all times.”

“Or make up an excuse and move her and Jaytsy to the guest rooms at the fort,” Tabbit suggested. “Say there are bugs infesting the house, and it needs to be cleaned out with herbs that might affect your next baby.”

Hogal nodded. “Not a bad idea.”

“There are no bugs in the middle of Raining Season,” Perrin mumbled in irritation. “Not under a foot of snow. And Mahrree would never agree to living at the fort. Sorry, Auntie,” he said more quietly. “I didn’t mean to get angry.”

She patted his hand. “You have every right, Perrin.”

“Perrin, just tell her. She’s an intelligent, thoughtful woman. She can handle this,” Hogal promised.

Perrin looked at him glumly. “When she’s
not
expecting, yes, she’s a very intelligent, thoughtful woman. But when she’s expecting? She’s a little . . . emotional. Even though she’s only halfway through this expecting, she’s still—well, take last week, for example. She said that since the fort had been so quiet, maybe my father would consider shutting it down and letting me take on less dangerous work, like being a rancher!”

Hogal and Tabbit laughed sadly.

“Obviously she doesn’t know that cattle run away from you,” Hogal said.

Perrin smiled halfheartedly. “She didn’t believe me. But then she went on to list all kinds of other work I could do. Something sa
fer that will ensure that our children always have a father.”

“Perrin,” Tabbit said gently, “she knew what she was getting i
nto when she married an officer. I talked to her about it, and so did your mother.”

“But this is precisely the kind of thing she’s fretting about,” Pe
rrin explained. “I know once she’s birthed this next baby, she’ll be a little more rational, but for the next three moons or so? She’s terrified something will happen to me. So how am I supposed to tell her that it’s not
me
she should be worried about? There’s something more,” he said, his round shoulders sagging. “We haven’t been getting much sleep lately again—”

Tabbit frowned. “I thought Jaytsy was sleeping through the night.”

“She is,” Perrin sighed, “but recently Mahrree’s been . . . There’s a problem. For the past week she’s already been feeling strong pains. We were up most the night last night counting them. It’s far too early, and the midwife says Mahrree needs to relax and not feel any stress so that she doesn’t risk birthing too soon. Hycymum knows, and has been coming over every day to clean up and cook, and drive Mahrree a bit crazy with too much attention, but can you imagine what this kind of news would do to Mahrree? She could lose the baby.” His voice cracked and he stared at the table again.

“I had no idea!” Tabbit whispered. “I’ll go over tomorrow to help Hycymum. Maybe I can entertain Jaytsy.”

“Thank you, Auntie,” he smiled at her, but his eyes were wet. “We didn’t want to worry either of you, but now I see that we need all the help we can get.”

“That’s why we’re here, my boy.” Hogal examined the message again. “No time frame given.”

“I know,” Perrin said. “Something could happen tonight, or in five weeks from now.”

“They always attack at night, correct?” Hogal said.

“So far. Which means I need to beef up patrols every night until something happens, but we can’t
look
like we’re expecting something. They’ll strike when we appear the most susceptible. They likely won’t want to be out in the freezing temperatures for long. Their black attire stands out rather well against the whiteness . . .” His voice trailed off. “Black
against
white . . .”

Hogal and Tabbit exchanged glances. Tabbit immediately re
cognized the rector’s look of,
We need to be alone, dearest
.