Wolf's-own: Koan (35 page)

This nonreality might work out after all.

With a pinch of his mouth, Jacin sighed then turned and walked away. He didn't look back at Asai.

The cherry blossom petals turned into snow as he cleared the alley.

He wished he'd thought of this sooner. It was so freeing to just accept that nothing was real and that nothing he did mattered.

Asai hadn't followed him from the alley. Jacin wasn't quite sure what to make of that yet. On the one hand, it was one less delusion; on the other, Jacin wasn't the optimistic sort, and he figured it was only a matter of time before something—or someone—else cropped up to push him out of the relative stasis he'd just reached. He didn't let it faze him. There was a sparkling new sense of freedom wending through him, and he wanted to keep it for a while. Maybe forever.

No one depending on him, no one telling him what he was-should-be-could-never-be. It wouldn't be that hard to just never go back to that inn, never see his brothers again, disappear from their lives believing that they would go on to live out a safe, gratifying existence without the threat of him hanging over them. They'd find vocations, marry, have families, live to be old men—much happier and more peaceful than they'd ever get with their Ghost-brother hovering at their edges. And if there came a time when they were in danger and he wasn't there to save them...?

Well. He'd never know, would he? He could go on believing they were well and happy, and he'd never have to grieve.

A young man bustled past Jacin, tipping him a nod and a friendly smile beneath the hood of his cloak. Jacin blinked after him, only realizing as the man passed and was hurrying on his way that the smile was in response to the one on Jacin's own face. He stopped on the walk, not caring that he was jostled and bumped, and touched his fingers to the unfamiliar curve of his mouth.

A high, clear laugh sounded to Jacin's left; he spun, caught a flash of gold curls moving quickly through the teeming streets. Jacin only blinked for a second then instinctively followed. He almost called out Caidi's name, but didn't get a chance. She peered back at him with a mischievous grin then ducked into the press of bodies and was gone. Cursing, Jacin tried to shove his way after her, but pulled up short when a young woman walked directly in his path and looked up at him curiously. And then Yori was standing right behind the woman. “What the fuck,” was all Jacin had time to gasp before Yori was gone again, the young woman he'd almost plowed under staring at him now, more wary than curious this time. She skirted Jacin with a nervous flick of a glance, and then a mocking chuckle was hitting him in the solar plexus. Jacin spun, saw Malick through the press of bodies between them, his wide-lanky frame leaning against the post of a shabby little stall just off the thoroughfare, a familiar smirk on his face that made Jacin's guts go all sloppy.

Jacin had already taken two lurching steps toward him when a crooked old woman, gathering a sack to her chest as she left the stall, walked right through Malick and then... he was gone. Just gone.

"Because he wasn't there,” Jacin snarled, ignoring the few people in his periphery who paused to stare for a quick second before hurrying on. “He wasn't real. None of it's real."

So it really shouldn't be
hurting
this much. Like a blade to the gut, and Jacin's hand moved unconsciously to the scar beneath his breastbone.

"—is the name of my trade, after all."

Jacin let his gaze drift over to his left, to the reedy voice that somehow traveled through the damper of falling snow and the crush of pedestrians to reach him from yards away. The man was small and thin, but not with ill health; it looked like he was just built that way. He was young, perhaps Jacin's age, his clothes bright and motley, a colorful mishmash of strips of fabric sewn together into trousers and voluminous shirt that very nearly dwarfed him. Spectacles with dark-tinted lenses sat askew on the tip of his nose, giving his mien a look that was halfway jaunty and halfway enigmatic. His hair was long and satiny-looking, bound back from his angular face in a loose tail.

There were too many people crowded around and inside the tiny stall, but they all merely browsed or stood quietly, waiting patiently for the young man to get to them. The man looked up, as though Jacin had called him with his gaze, then merely smiled and tipped Jacin a wink over the rims of the spectacles and went back to speaking with the middle-aged woman with whom he appeared to be haggling.

Jacin looked again for Malick. Hope had flared so abruptly in his chest he hadn't realized what it was until it had dissolved in the acid of bitter disappointment. Now it turned to something nauseating and sour.

"I do not promise that you will walk away with what you want,” the man at the stall said, “but with what you need.” He waved his hand to the placard nailed to a post holding up the roof of his little stall.
Necessities
, it read. “I assure you,” the man went on, patting at the woman's hand with a reassuring smile, “you desperately need this."

Jacin couldn't see what passed from the man's hand to the woman's, but it made the woman startle back a little and gasp. Her mouth worked for a moment, then she slumped like she'd just been punched. It looked like she was trying not to sob.

"There, now,” an old man put in soothingly. “Sometimes, the answer comes hard.” He reached out and patted at the woman's shoulder with a crooked hand, then went back to perusing the stall's wares.

Intrigued, Jacin took a few steps through the people weaving their way around him, and toward the stall. He couldn't hear any of their voices anymore, but the man looked up at Jacin again, just looked, that calm smile speaking a subtle welcome, even as he patted the woman and accepted payment for whatever it was he'd just given her. Sniffing, a tremulous smile slanting her mouth, the woman thanked the man, turned the smile on Jacin as he idled up to her, then went slowly on her way. Jacin watched her go.

"You look like a man lacking in several necessities,” the man said, still smiling, peering at Jacin with no reserve, no real caution, no discomfort. Like Jacin was a normal person. “And yet,” the man went on, “I wager you have no real idea what you need."

Several of the stall's patrons turned to look at Jacin curiously. A girl who couldn't be fifteen yet frowned. “I was next,” she said softly.

The stall's owner gave the girl a gentle smile. “Some need more than others."

The girl huffed a great put-upon sigh and slid Jacin a glare, but merely backed away and busied herself with poking about the apparent disarray, half of her grudging attention on Jacin, half of it on a small chunk of dark amber, a tiny insect trapped forever in its center.
The color of Malick's eyes
, Jacin thought with a hard pang, and wondered if he was the bug, snared inside someone who wasn't even here anymore. Then again, it would probably be more appropriate if the stone was darker—onyx, maybe—deep and fathomless, and... bloody hell, he really needed to get over himself and stop being such a punter.

"Now, Kyai,” the young man said when the girl reached out to stroke a finger over the stone's smooth arc, “you know that is not what you need."

The girl's mouth pinched down, but she said nothing, just pulled her hand away and cut Jacin a resentful scowl out the corner of her eye. She turned and made her way slowly around to the back of the stall.

The young man smiled after her for a moment then turned to Jacin. “Now, then,” he said, rubbing thin hands together and peering at Jacin with clear appraisal. “Let me look at you so I can find what you need."

Jacin narrowed his eyes. “You can't see in me.” No one could. It was the one good thing about being him.

"I cannot,” the young man conceded, smile blooming into a friendly grin as he tipped his head in a shallow bow. “But I can see you."

Jacin didn't know what that meant, so he ignored it. “You're spirit-bound.” It made sense, with the colors and all. He couldn't be sure, because he'd never cared enough to ask, but with Shig's hair and Xari's shawls, the apparent shared preference made sense. His mother hadn't worn bright colors, but then, his mother had lived her life trying to hide what she was. He frowned at the stall's owner curiously. “Magic is legal here?"

"Ah, so you
are
Jin, then.” The man nodded, ignoring the rest of his patrons when they all paused to shoot not-so-surreptitious glances at Jacin; Jacin found that a little harder to ignore. “I thought you had the look. Full-Blood, yes? Mitsu has not seen full-Blood Jin for ages, and now I've seen two in a week.” He beckoned Jacin closer. “The spirits are not to be captured and bound,” he said as Jacin stepped beneath the slanted roof and out of the steady fall of thick, wet snow. “It is not my right. I merely ask of them, and they answer."

He waved his hand over the seemingly nonsensical piles of varied goods scattered around the small space. If “goods” they could truly be called. A little mound of what looked like smoothed sea stones sat next to an oil lamp that looked like it was made of solid gold. A rusted-out length of thick chain, its links corroding to russet dust, coiled around an unset beryl stone that was probably the size of Jacin's fist. Several small water-filled bowls held gossamer-finned fish the colors of bright jewels, floating in bored tedium as they stared wide-eyed at the world glass-warped beyond theirs. The entirety of the small space was a jumble of riches and just plain junk.

"Let's see what we can do with you, then,” said the man. There were drops of water prisming the dark glass of his spectacles. Jacin could see his own distorted reflection, so he stopped looking. “I think there are many things you need, and most of them not easily got."

The young man tapped at his chin, peering at Jacin intently, then turned and rummaged beneath a table draped with thick damask and heaped with books and scrolls. Jacin noticed the thick leather tie holding back the man's hair was coming loose, and reflexively tried to drag his fingers through his own. He got caught up in the tangles and gave it up.

"I wondered who might be coming for it,” the man muttered, seemingly to himself, as he rummaged beneath the table. “Funny... another Jin rather had his eye on it; a boy with the mark of....” He trailed off and straightened, gaze sharper, more assessing than it had been, hands holding a black-lacquered, ivory-headed walking stick in both hands like he was offering a champion's sword. “This, I think."

Jacin shifted a reflexive look down to his leg, where his boot hid the misshapen muscle, but couldn't hide the limp. The patrons were all watching and trying to look like they weren't. Jacin didn't necessarily relish the idea of disparaging this young man's livelihood in front of what were apparently loyal customers, but magical or no, the man couldn't possibly see inside Jacin, couldn't possibly know what he needed when Jacin didn't even know himself, and the cane was just too obvious.

"Hardly magical,” he said as he reached for the stick. Jacin's frown was unconscious but immediate; the ivory cap was carved into the shape of a wolf's head.

"I claimed no magic,” the man countered easily. “Merely a necessity."

Jacin refrained from rolling his eyes. A harmless enough swindle, he supposed. “How much?"

That seemed to give the young man pause. “I'm not quite certain,” he answered slowly, fidgeting with the spectacles and setting them more firmly to the end of his nose. “And I don't think that's all you need."

"How would you know?” Jacin couldn't help the way it snapped out of him, edging on anger. The rest of the small gathering was completely silent, listening. Jacin didn't care. Too many people thought they knew what he thought, how he felt, what he needed, and not a single one of them did. Malick was the only one who ever came close, and even he—

Jacin cut the thought off before it could pierce him.

"That's the odd thing.” The man was peering at Jacin intently over the dark spectacles, like he was trying to remember Jacin's face, or look behind it. “I don't know. I can't see. It's like you're not even standing there, but....” He hesitated, eyes narrowing behind the spectacles, drifting down over Jacin and pausing on—

Shit, maybe Jacin should have hidden Malick's ring or something. The man was staring at it now, head tilted to the side, then he cut his glance quickly back up to capture Jacin's. “Huh,” he said, though he raised his eyebrows when Jacin fisted his hand and not-so-surreptitiously slid the ring around so that the stone rested in his loosely curled palm and only the band was visible. “I believe I see more than perhaps I should,” said the man with something too close to a smirk.

"You see
nothing
,” Jacin barked back, though he suspected perhaps the man saw more than Jacin wanted him to. And wasn't that just his fucking luck?

A shudder rippled through Jacin, despite himself, and his glance reflexively roved over all of the faces trying to look like they weren't looking back. Jacin didn't want them looking, he didn't want them
seeing
, so he shoved the stick back into the man's chest. Whether this was all one big, long delusion or not, a strange awkward shame Jacin didn't understand was writhing through him, and it pissed him off. He didn't wait for the man to take the stick back from him, just let it drop to the rush-strewn floor of the stall and turned to leave.

"Wait!” said the man, and he latched on to Jacin's sleeve, reeling back quickly when Jacin spun with a ready snarl. The man held his hands up, harmless. Slowly, he crouched down and picked up the walking stick, then tilted it at Jacin. “A gift,” he said, still studying Jacin carefully, perhaps not as friendly now, but not
un
friendly, either. “My wares come to me through the hands of Fate and the gods. I dispense them as those who need them come to seek them out. They pay their hearts’ worth, not mine.” He waggled the stick. “Perhaps it has no worth to a heart that can't find itself.” His head tilted when Jacin scowled, but the man merely smiled. “On the other hand, it has no worth to me beyond its purpose. If the one for whom it was meant turns it away, it has no purpose, and is worth nothing to me. Take it."