CHAPTER ONE Commission [Mirage] Rain pattered steadily through the leaves of the wood and dripped to the ground below. Two figures slipped between the trees, all but invisible in the darkness, silent under the cover of the rain. The one in the lead moved well, but the one trailing him moved better, ghostlike and undetectable, and he never knew she was there. Three men waited for him, crouching in a tight clump under an old elm and shivering in the rain. He came up to them and spoke in a low voice. "She's alone. And looks like she'll be bedding down soon enough. If we wait, she should be easy to take." Hidden in the trees just a short distance away, the woman who had been following him smiled thinly. "I still don't like this," one of the other men hissed. "What if she's got spells set up or something?" The woman's jaw hardened, and the amusement faded from her face. "She ain't a witch," someone else said, with the tone of a man who's said it several times already. "You saw her in the alehouse. She damn near cut that fellow's throat when he called her one. And Tre would have said if she'd been singing when he looked in on her." "She wasn't," the spy confirmed. "Just talking to her horse, like anybody does. And besides, witches don't carry swords, or play cards in alehouses. She's just a Cousin." "We're wasting time," the last of the men said. "Heth, you go first. You make friends with the horse so it don't warn her. Then Nessel can knock her out. Tre and I'll be ready in case something goes wrong." "Some help that'll be if she is a witch," the fearful one said. "How else did she manage to get five Primes in one hand?" The leader spat into the bushes. "She probably cheated. Don't have to be a witch to cheat at cards. Look, there's four of us and one of her. We'll be fine." Ten of you wouldn't be enough, the woman thought, and her smile returned. Not against a Hunter Not against me. Mirage didn't object to being accused of cheating at cards, especially not when it was true. She did object to being called a witch???or a Cousin, for that matter. And she objected to being driven out to sleep in a rain-drenched wood, when she'd been hoping for a warm, dry inn. Now these idiotic thugs were planning on jumping her? They deserved what they were going to get. She slipped away from the men and returned to her campsite. Surveying it, she calculated the directions Heth and Nessel were likely to come from, then arranged her bedding so it would look as though she were in it. The illusion was weaker from the other direction, but with the fire in the way, any scouts on the other side shouldn't be able to see anything amiss. Then she retired to the shadows and waited. The men took their time in coming, but Mirage was patient. Just as her fire was beginning to burn low, she heard noise; not all of the men were as good at moving through the forest as Tre. Scanning the woods, she saw the spy nearby, already in place. She hadn't heard him get there. Not bad. Quiet whispers, too muted for her to pick out. Then one man eased up next to her horse. Ordinarily that would have been a mistake. Mist was trained to take the hand off any stranger who touched her. But Mirage had given her a command before leaving, and so the mare stood stock-still, not reacting to the man trying to quiet the noises she wasn't making. Mirage smiled, and continued to wait. Now it was Nessel's turn. The leader, who had slid around to the far side of the fire, gestured for him to move. Nessel came forward on exaggerated tiptoe, club in his hands. Then, with a howl, he brought the weapon crashing down on her bedding. Tre went down without a sound half a second later. Fixed on the scene in front of him, he never noticed Mirage coming up behind him. "She's not here!" Nessel yelled in panic. Mist, responding to Mirage's whistle, kicked Heth in the chest and laid him out flat. Mirage stepped into the firelight next to the horse. "Yes, I am," she said, and smiled again. Nessel, a credit to his courage if not to his brain, charged her with another yell. Mirage didn't even bother to draw a blade; she sidestepped his wild swipe and kicked him twice, once in the chest and once in the head. He went down like a log. Mirage, pausing only to give Heth a judicious tap with her boot, leapt over the fire in pursuit of the last man. He fled as soon as she appeared, but it wasn't enough of a head start. Mirage kept to an easy pace until her eyes adjusted once more; then she put on a burst of speed and overtook him. A flying tackle brought him down. She came up before he did and stamped on his knee, ending any further chance of flight. Then she knelt, relieving him of the dagger he was trying to draw, and pinned him to the ground. "What did you think you were doing?" she growled, holding the dagger ready. He was trying not to cry from the pain of his injured knee. "Gold," he gasped. "Only that. We weren't going to kill you. I swear!" "I believe you," Mirage said. "And for that, you live. Provided you learn one little lesson." He nodded fearfully. "I," Mirage said, "am not a witch. Nor am I a Cousin. I have nothing to do with them. Can you remember that?" He nodded again. "Good. And be sure to tell your friends." She stood and tucked his dagger into her belt. "I don't like people making that kind of mistake." Then, with a swift kick to his head, she knocked him out. Eclipse scowled as he shouldered his way through the crowds swarming through the streets of Chervie. The newer parts of the city, outside the walls built during the city's heyday as an Old Kingdom capital, were more open in their plan, but here in the central parts even carts couldn't make it down half the lanes. That had never been a problem for him before, but then he'd never been in Chervie this close to the Midsummer Festival. It seemed that every resident of the city had packed back inside the Old Kingdom walls, along with all twelve of their country cousins. The sheer press of people made him twitchy and irritable. It was a relief to step into the alehouse he was seeking; the interior was full, but it was nothing compared to the streets outside. He scanned the patrons, dressed up for festival in bead-work and lace, and soon spotted a familiar and distinctive head. She found him at the same instant, and even across the room he could see her light up. He sidled his way between the tables and came up to her, grinning. "Sitting with your back to a door, Seniade? What would our teachers say?" "They'd say I should have picked a different alehouse. Two doors on opposite walls, and hardly a seat to be found in the whole room. I decided to watch one and take my chances with the other." He snagged a stool out from under a patron who had just stood to leave and settled himself onto it. "Well, I'll watch your back and you watch mine. Not all of us have your reflexes, Sen." She quirked one eyebrow at him. "You know, you're the only one who still calls me that. Even the rest of our year-mates call me Mirage." "And you still call me Kerestel. Old habits die hard, I guess. Or else we're slow learners." Mirage grinned. "Can you believe this crowd? I'd forgotten how seriously they take Midsummer in Liak. I knew Chervie would be full, but this is ridiculous???and the festival hasn't even really started yet! It's a shock, after the quiet of the road. "From what I hear, your trip wasn't what I'd call quiet," Eclipse said pointedly. Mirage raised her eyebrow again. "I came here by way of Enden. An alehouse maid there treated me to???well, several things, but two stories in particular. One about how a soldier playing cards was almost knifed in their common room, and another about how four village lads showed up the next morning, bruised, bloody, and stripped of everything but their skins." "They were lucky to keep those. I figured they owed me their coin for trying to steal mine, and as for the other???" She shrugged. "I wouldn't have actually stabbed him." "Your fuse has gotten shorter, I see. Or did he have an extra deck up his sleeve?" "No," Mirage said, looking down. "In fact, I won the hand." Eclipse leaned forward. "Void it. That again?" "Yeah." She sighed. Eclipse noted frustrated fury in her eyes when she lifted her head, but it was soon muted. "Same with the four fools. Except they thought I was a Cousin." "So they're idiots. Not all witches have red hair. And just because you do doesn't make you one of them, or one of their servants." "Tell that to the idiots who panic when I lay down five Primes." His eyes widened. "You did that? No wonder they were suspicious." "It didn't take magic," Mirage said, and grinned wickedly. "Just agile fingers." Eclipse swore a blistering oath that earned him a dark look from a prim-mouthed merchant woman at the next table. "Void it, Sen, you're going to get yourself killed! Cheating at cards is not going to improve your reputation!" She shrugged. "I was bored." "Bored?" He stared at her in disbelief. "Of all the people I know, you're the last one I would expect to court trouble just because you're bored." Mirage gestured dismissively and looked away. He caught hold of her arm, worried. "No, don't you brush me off. What's wrong?" She pulled her wrist free of his grip and sighed. "Nothing. I'm just??? bored." "Haven't you had any jobs lately?" "Plenty. So many, in fact, that I'm taking a rest; Mist and I have been on the road for months. Three hires, all back-to-back. Courier run clear across the land from Insebrar to Abern, for starters, and then they had word that a town farther out in the mountains was having trouble from bandits???ended up being some m...
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