The Burning Ground

3. The thief

The thief stared at the smuggler she’d tried to kill.

Yseyl was small and slight, little larger than an anya and almost as dark. Her face was thin and the color of late year leaves, a mix of green and brown, her fine long hair also greenish brown; ordinarily it was braided tightly, but the smuggler had pulled it loose when he searched her for weapons.

She’d slipped all his traps but the last, was caught in a sticky web she couldn’t see or fight; it moved with her when she moved, held her with an unrelenting gentleness that she found more frightening than threats or pain.

She watched the smuggler as he finished unloading his shipment of ammo for the mountain guns above Khokuhl, black thoughts surging through her head, despair chilling her. How many more dead, how much more destruction? She was Pixa, but it’d stopped mattering a long time ago which side killed the other. She no longer believed in God nor cared what the Prophet said. And she knew she was not exactly sane these days. That didn’t matter. She’d stalked and killed nine smugglers before this one, and if she could figure a way to get at him, she’d add him to her list.

He was an odd creature, like nothing she’d seen before, not much taller than she was, with fur like sooty plush covering all visible parts of his body including his face, mobile round ears set high on his head, eyes like pools of melted silver with pointed pupils. His ship was like him, sleek and black, with something about the paint that made it hard to see even on such a bright day as this was turning out to be.

She tried again to gain some ease in the invisible web, looked up, and met that enigmatic silver gaze. Why was he keeping her alive? That niggled at her, disturbed her concentration. Anyone with a grain of sense and the firepower he controlled would have ashed her the minute she tripped the trap.

He set the flare to let the Pixa gunners know where to find the load, swung the crane around and dropped a net beside her. When he got close enough, she could hear him singing something that-ached her ears with its scratchy falsetto. He lifted what looked like a small rock from a cairn beside three bushes, tossed it in the air, caught it, then tucked it in a pocket of the broad belt he wore about his narrow middle. He spread the net out, tipped her into it, pulled it tight around her.

A moment later the crane lifted her into the hold of the ship.

Alone in that dark place, drowning in a sea of sour smells, she felt a shudder, a slight pressure, then nothing-or rather, nothing but a Sound that vibrated in the center of her bones.

That stone. Whatever. That was the control. He set it in a niche by the door. Door. Sphincter. Shat him out of here. God curse… focus, Yseyl. feel it… feel… “Ali!”

The stone was a hot little bit of business, but she’d handled worse getting to the other smugglers. The only reason she’d fallen this time was the cleverness of the furman. He’d set out more obvious traps to herd her to this one and left it quiescent until it was triggered by the shutting down of the rest. It had her before she could identify the source. If I manage to get out of this, I’ll have to sniff around more…

Yseyl shook off anger and began reading the forcelines in the control. It was slippery, shifting with every touch, like trying to pick up a bead of mercury. Someone knew about mind fingers and what they could do. The thought chilled her, but she pushed it away and concentrated on finding the force knot that marked the shutoff.

After a while that her heartbeat told her was almost an hour, she tweaked a fine hot line, twisted another, there was a small pop and a smell-and she was free-and falling over as her muscles spasmed.

As she got to her feet, lights came on in the hold and a voice with a lisp and drawn out vowels spoke to her. “Remarkable. Adelaris swore even the psi-talented couldn’t defeat that web.”

“What do you want? Why did you…?”

“Capture you instead of killing you? Come talk to me. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Have I a choice?”

“Not really. If I can’t get value for you one way, I will another. There are places that buy people like you and play with them.”

“I would die first. After I kill you.”

“Yes. I’m sure you would. Number ten on your list, hm? I’d rather not test your skills in that area if you don’t mind. You don’t like the war, do you?”

“I don’t like arms dealers.”

“Nor do I, sweet assassin. It’s not a profession I’d have chosen if I had any choice in the matter. How’d you like to put holes in that Fence?”

“What do you think? And why trap me?”

A weary sigh. “Because I want out from under. I want to buy my contract. To do that I need a thief who can pass through security like a ghost. You.”

“I see.” Yseyl found that she believed him, primarily because she could think of no other reason for what he’d done. “Vumah vumay, I’ll listen.”

“Follow the lights.”

Yseyl stepped from twilight into brightness. The furman sat in a large armchair facing the door sphincter, a heavy weapon on his lap. She leaned against the wall, crossed her arms, fixed her eyes on him. “So. Explain.”

“Heard about the others you got to the past three years. I knew two of that nine, and they weren’t gullible or fools. Three more I knew by reputation. You were sliding through wards that would stop anything up to a battle beam, anything more tangible than a ghost. I mean, you offed old Vervin, he’s snakier than Holdam viper in a snit. Well, maybe this is wasting time, but I wanted you to know why I came up with this idea.” He shifted the weapon as she changed her stance.

She forced herself to relax. “You mean you’ll promise to ferry anyone I bring you across the Fence and over to Sigoxol?”

“Would you believe me? Hah, don’t bother answering. Even I wouldn’t believe me. No smuggler’s going to chance taking passengers past the Fence, so chuff that out of your head. It’s something else I’m offering.”

“I’m waiting.”

He lifted his lip, showing his tearing fangs; it might have been a smile, but she didn’t think so. “Plenty of time, sweet assassin, before we get where we’re going. Hm, you might reach out and grab hold of that loop beside you, in about half a breath…”

Craziness. Like the time she’d smoked khu with Crazy Delelan. Chaos criscross, floating floors and gloating doors, melting and pouring, terror’s musk, puffball dust…

Then the floor was solid under her feet, the wall cold and firm behind her back.

“What…”

“Shifting to ‘split. Upsetting when you’re not used to it.”

“Where…?”

“That’s part of the tale, Ghost. Yes. That’s what I’ll call you. Ghost.” He set the weapon aside, waved his hand at the other chair. “Sit down and relax.”

Hand closed on the loop, Yseyl bent a knee experimentally, leaned out from the wall. The vertigo was gone, her legs seemed prepared to hold her, and the floor had stopped melting. She took a, step, then another. A third step brought her to the empty chair. She swung it around and settled herself in it, facing the furman. “So why have you stopped being nervous?”

“Haven’t, but I dnn’t think you’re stupid. Kill me,” he reached around, tapped a sensor. The expanse of black glass across the front of the room went an iridescent gray with loops and swirls of pale color shifting in ways that woke nausea in her upper stomachs. “And that’s where you’ll spend the rest of your life.”

“Hell?”

“Who knows.” He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and dropped his hands on the armrests. “I can tell you how to put holes in the Fence. Big enough to pass a boat through and slick enough that no warning gets to the Ptaks. You want to hear it?”

“What’ll it cost me?”

“There’s a… mm… drug… a group of drugs, actually… that can extend the number of a person’s days approximately tenfold. Very very expensive. Very very desirable, hm?”

“So?”

“I want you to steal some for me.”