Caine Black Knife

smallest gesture might trigger the slide toward an infinitely unpredictable resting state. We were the butterfly in Hong Kong, and the whisper from our wings was going to alter the path of the category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic.

I could feel it because that’s what I do. When I breathe myself into mindview, I can even see it: black Flow, the energy of change itself. The cosmic web of causation. Quantum smears of probability, and the islands of order that are the heartbeat of chaos.

Hell, it’s more than what I do. According to a certain pack of demented clusterhumps who are a chronic hornet’s nest in my buttcrack, it’s what I am.

But fuck them, anyway. This story isn’t about them.

She took a deep breath, and her hand tightened on the altar-block. “Your brother had fallen among bad company, here on the Battleground. The truth, I fear, is in fact darker: that he had become part of the Smoke Hunt.”

“If you really want to know what’s going on, why aren’t you just sending down some Knights with a list of questions? With that truthsense of yours-”

“It is not ours, freeman, but Khryl’s. And even so, it has its. . limits.” Her indigo gaze darkened. “Are the Monasteries unaware of this?”

I met that squarely. “Still, though. What do you think I can do that you can’t?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, freeman.” That wistfulness had slipped back under her voice, and I realized it had been always there, deepening subtly every time she called me freeman. “I suppose that would be between you and your conscience.”

“Yeah. Conscience. Sure.” I sighed. “What do I have to do?”

“You will pledge yourself to a Call of Duty, sealed and sanctified by the Witness of Our Lord of Valor.”

“You want me to work for you.” I squinted at her. “That’s not as good an idea as it sounds.”

“You would. . work. . not for me, but for Khryl.”

“He might not like it either.”

“Nothing in the Battleground is a question of what we like, freeman. It is necessary that the enemies of Our Lord meet His Justice.”

“You mean your justice,” I said, nodding down at the pistol.

Her eyes went bleak as winter dusk. “It is the same.”

“The coincidence’s kinda funny, huh?”

“Not to me.”

“Not much is, I bet. What’s involved in this Call of Duty shit?”

“Through me, you will pledge yourself to Khryl’s Service in this matter. Your pledge will be Witnessed by the Lord of Battles Himself, and your compliance will be enforced by His Will until He is satisfied that you have completed your task. Once invested, the Call of Duty is absolute; you will faithfully comply with the terms of His Call and pursue its resolution to the exclusion of all other concerns.”

My teeth found the inside of my lower lip again. It was starting to swell.“What if I don’t want to?”

“Freeman, you will want to. Taken freely, His Call becomes your own most potent desire. For the duration of His Call, you will burn for its completion.”

“You sound awful damn sure I’m going to do this.”

“Your alternative. .” One finger twitched at the Automag. “. . remains.”

“What if I don’t like that one either?”

“The ogrilloi of the Smoke Hunt,” she said tonelessly, “bear marks at the bases of their spines. The mark is a simple curve of black, shaped like a fighting claw.”

I found myself dropping my gaze toward the red-smeared streets, but I didn’t see them because I wasn’t looking down a thousand feet at the city. I was looking down twenty-five years at lean, stringy, desert-hard Black Knife bitches. Dancing in the firelight below my cross.

“And now, today, to my city, comes the legendary Bane of the Black Knives. The Skinwalker himself. I cannot believe this is coincidence.”

I shook the flashback out of my head. “It’s not. Not even a little.”

“Thus it is that I have brought you to my side.”

“You want me to stop the Smoke Hunt.”

She said, “Yes.”

“And you think I’m gonna jump at the chance because they’re playing at being Black Knives.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re willing to turn me loose in Purthin’s Ford because you’re afraid that Justice and Truth aren’t gonna cut it this time. Because Khryl makes you play by too many rules.”

“I told you it was. . complicated.”

“Lady, that’s not complicated at all. Think about who I am.” An effort of will unknotted fists I did not remember clenching. “That’s what I came here for.”

“Yes,” she said. “I believe that of all living creatures, perhaps you alone truly understand what it is that Khryl’s land faces: the doom that lours upon His people. Perhaps you alone truly understand what the Black Knives were, and would be once more.”

“Screw Khryl’s land. And his people.” I stared into the clouds. “Even Orbek. It’s not like he’ll thank me.”

“Yes,” she said. “You still hate them. The Black Knives. Even after so many years. It burns in you. I can feel it.”

“Some things,” I said slowly, “you don’t get over.”

“Yes.” Starfire kindled in her eyes. “Yes.”

She thought she knew what I was talking about. I could read in those eyes that she did know something about hate. Something. Not everything. I remember being that young. I remember thinking I knew what it is to hate.

“I believe it is Khryl Himself who has brought us together,” she said. “That Khryl Himself has decided that you are the last best hope of His people.”

“I’m just a guy. A guy who’s gotten lucky a couple times, that’s all.”

The creases around her eyes squeezed toward a smile. “And many who believed so now moulder in the dirt.”

I couldn’t exactly argue the point.

Her face hardened. “Thus it is that I have brought you to my side. Thus it is that Khryl excuses my defiling His Purificapex with your presence-you, the disrespecter. The blasphemer.” Her voice could have cut glass. “The Enemy of God.”

I shrugged. “Not your god.”

“Prince of Chaos. Blade of Tyshalle.”

“I always heard Tyshalle and Khryl were on pretty good terms.”

“Not even human.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“It is known to the Order that you are of the Aktiri. That you escaped from the True Hell-not this pale irony below us-along with your demon Artan brethren, on what has become known in Ankhana as Assumption Day.”

“My demon brethren. Oh, sure.” I made a face. “Y’know, one of your Order’s greatest Knights was one of my ‘demon brethren’-”

“You speak of Jhubbar Tekkanal.” Now the smile did break through her weary mask, but it was a smile without joy or humor. “Did you think his origins unknown? Did you think his true nature could be concealed from Khryl?” She tossed her head like an offended mare. “Why do you think his epithet was the Devil Knight? It was his purity of heart-the power of his faith-that enabled him to transcend his demon heritage. You-”

Her stare was bleak. “You are known to be without purity, and without faith.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever.” Though truth is a fine thing, it’s still not much fun to have everybody I meet shove it in my face. “We’re demons, sure. Fine. Must not bother you too much having us around, though, right?”

The corners of her mouth turned down. “We are not here to speak of these things.”