Twelve: A Patrol

"What rune would start off a repellent defence sequence?"

Jordan frowned. "Er...that big loopy one. With the flick."

"The big loopy one with the flick," Yddris repeated. Jordan's face heated.

"I'm not good with names."

"Did you hear that?" Yddris said, pointing up at the sky, "That low groan? That was every Unspoken who has served before us despairing of you, that was."

"I thought it was you," Jordan retorted. "I was going to be polite and not comment on it."

"Anyone who passes wind that sounds like rutting Listener needs to see a physician."

Jordan snorted, then clamped a hand on his hood to keep it up as a bitter wind whistled down the street and buffeted them. The night was icy cold, more so than usual, so that even Jordan could feel it, warmed as he was by his magic. Frost glittered on window ledges and cobblestones, and their breaths clouded before them. As the wind subsided, he heard the noise Yddris had been referring to – a wet grunt, followed by a low groan.

"Hold onto your stomach, boy," Yddris murmured, "This might compromise your dinner."

They rounded the corner, and came face to face with two Listeners. Jordan wrinkled his nose. They hadn't spotted them yet, and after his many unpleasant experiences with Listeners, Jordan didn't need telling twice to fall silent and shuffle onto a rune path. On two occasions this particular variety of demon had almost crushed him to death, and he had only needed one to get the message.

The second Listener didn't seem to mind the experience.

His stomach rolled, heart picking up speed even though he'd finally learned to trust the nets to keep him safe. It was impossible not to instinctively ready oneself to run during an encounter with any of the bigger demons – the key lay in not actually doing it.

"You watching closely, boy?" Yddris asked. "I'm only doing this once."

The demons finally noticed them – with a roar, one rounded on Yddris and threw itself into a charge. Jordan tried desperately to keep track of which runes his tutor was drawing, but it was all happening so quickly he only picked up a couple. It was a very different experience identifying them in the safety of Yddris's attic, when the man was going slower and Jordan's nostrils weren't filled with the overpowering stench of demon. As the green rope formed from the rune sequence shattered and then peppered the charging demon with smoking holes, Jordan despaired that he would ever be able to cast so quickly.

The second Listener, seeming to sense the fate of its companion, hollered and made a break for it down the street.

"No point," Yddris replied to Jordan's unspoken question. "They're too fast to chase. They're usually also too stupid to run away, but it appears at least one has a brain."

"Will it cause problems somewhere else?" Jordan asked. He stepped off the rune path, the hum in his veins becoming fainter as the link dropped.

"It's possible. Unlikely, if it's spooked. Even less likely if it just got pregnant."

Jordan wrinkled his nose. "I bet these make fugly babies."

"What gives you that impression?" Yddris nudged the dead demon's bony face and a long string of translucent, blood-flecked drool escaped its gaping jaws. "Was it the eyes, the skin, or the smell?"

"All three. Have you ever seen them?"

"The babies? Yep. Squealing sacks of shit and vomit." Yddris paused. "Mind you, that's not limited to demons."

Jordan snorted. "No, I guess not." He paused. He had Yddris alone for the first time in days, and ever since the night at the Demon's Brew, things had been nagging at him. If he had to bring it up standing over a stinking Listener corpse, it wasn't ideal, however... "I've been meaning to ask..."

"Mm?" Yddris looked up from binding the demon's wrists and ankles together.

"What's the deal with...relationships? For Unspoken?"

Yddris straightened, stance almost wary. "What aspect, exactly?"

His face burned and he ducked his head. "Well, if they're, you know, the done thing."

Yddris relaxed. "Laurel?"

Jordan nodded.

"Not unheard of," Yddris said, returning to his work. "Not common, either, mind. And in your circumstances, probably unusual. If you're worried about what other people think of it, though...frankly, boy, it's no one else's business where you're putting it. It's not like you're going to get any surprises."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're not going to get her..." Yddris paused. "Has Nika not told you?"

Jordan's guard went up immediately. Since he had manifested the Gift he'd had several nasty shocks – his hair going white, as an example, or eyes turning a glowing green. Those were fairly aesthetic things, and hadn't been something that he paid much thought to, once he'd got used to the idea. All the same, he resented not being told first, and was already ready to get fired up.

"Ah, shit." Yddris rubbed his face. "He's better at this stuff than me. Right. Shit."

"It's that bad?" Jordan asked, voice shooting up an octave. "And nobody's told me?"

"It...depends." Yddris finished tying off the demon and dug out his pipe. As he lit it, he looked around the street, avoiding Jordan's eye. "Relationships aren't a problem, boy, but they aren't common in the Guild. Part of that is because in the vast majority of us it makes it impossible, and for a small few extremely difficult, to have children. Many don't entertain relationships at all because of it. For others, the partnership breaks down when things get settled. Mind, the occupation is dangerous enough that most don't risk it anyway, but that is a...factor. It's not a guarantee how badly it might affect you personally, and you and Laurel are far too early-stages to be thinking of...."

Jordan blinked and butted in. "And nobody thought to mention this before now? What, was I supposed to wait until I wanted to have kids before you told me?"

"I'm sorry, boy..."

"I'm not even surprised, you know. You're barely ever around to teach me! Harkenn this, Harkenn that – he's breathing down my neck to get better faster and then dragging you up to the castle every other day! No wonder this stuff slips through the cracks." Jordan leaned over, hands on his knees. "Christ on a fucking bike, I might never have kids. That's a big thing to miss out, in case it passed you by."

Yddris was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "I've asked permission to get you out of the city earlier."

Jordan looked up, taken aback by the change in tone. "Why?"

"Because there are some things only a Guild visit will teach you," Yddris replied. "That I will have a very hard time teaching you alone, and which I certainly can't teach you with Blackheart breathing down your neck. He's eating into the hours I have free to teach you. That's the problem here."

"I can't exactly tell him that."

"No." Yddris disappeared behind a billow of smoke. "Which is why I'm trying to get you out. Because you're right, there's no excuse for you not knowing that already. I suspect that there are other things that have been neglected, too, and I expect it's harder to take when this season has prevented you from seeing any of the Gift's benefits. And there are some, trust me. Guildtown's the best place to see it." He tapped out the pipe. "For what it's worth, boy, I really am sorry."

At a movement behind Yddris's shoulder, Jordan's heart skipped, his anger drowned out by sudden terror. "Behind you."

The Death had crept up on them like smoke on the breeze, totally silent, taking advantage of their distraction. Jordan had seen them before, had run from them more than once, but this was the first time he had been so close to one which wasn't debilitated or in shock. His breath froze in his lungs, catching at his throat. Then the hard, painful shock of Yddris's grip around his arm jolted him into motion, and sound and colour flooded back.

"Go, boy," Yddris hissed, "Go!"

Feeling like his energy was being sapped out of him from behind, Jordan forced his leaden limbs into motion before Yddris pulled him over. Déjà vu assailed him – this had been the experience of his first real outing as an Unspoken – but this time his fear was underlined by resignation rather than disbelief. Back then he hadn't really come to terms with the fact that he was stuck with this; this wouldn't be the last time he ran from a Death. One day, he was certain, he would have to kill one. There was no get-out clause with the Gift.

Such was his fucking luck.

One thing he could say in both Usk and Yddris's favour was that his stamina had improved. He wasn't quite at Yddris's level where, as always, Jordan's breath burned in his lungs long before Yddris's even grew laboured, but he was more easily able to keep pace.

"Why didn't we just jump back on the rune path?" he gasped, as soon as the thought occurred to him. Fitter he might have been, but he didn't find running for his life any more enjoyable for it.

"Because this one is too far in," Yddris replied. "And needs dealing with. So we're heading for back-up."

They had taken an unfamiliar route through the quarter and ended up approaching the street Yddris lived on from the other side. When Jordan glanced over his shoulder turning the corner, he found the Death alarmingly close, moving just as silently and seeming no worse for the chase.

"In." Yddris grabbed his shoulder and thrust him inside the house. He had been so preoccupied with the demon on their heels he hadn't registered their arrival, and almost lost his balance at the change in momentum.

"What's going on?" Nika appeared in the doorway to the front room. "You're back early...oh. Hap, there's a Death out here."

He said it as casually as Jordan might have made an observation about the weather. Hap didn't seem too concerned, either, limping out of the front room with a sigh. Koen came out into the hall behind his tutor but stopped just shy of the front door as the two Unspoken went outside with Yddris.

"You seen a Death kill yet?" he asked Jordan, who was still catching his breath. Jordan shook his head. "I've only seen one once. They almost never come this far in."

"Is this bad, then?"

"It's not too surprising. Deaths are soul eaters, and they're attracted by, ah...civil unrest. Considering a good portion of the population is finding food scarce and everything's gone tits up, I suspect souls are looking quite tasty at the moment."

Jordan wrinkled his nose. "Demons are gross."

Koen just chuckled. "You didn't have anything like this on earth?"

"No," Jordan muttered. "At least nothing that ate souls."

Even as he said it, he frowned. He didn't think there had been, but he also hadn't thought there were other worlds or portals or magic, and he'd been proven wrong on all three counts in spectacular style.

A low hum drew his attention back to the Unspoken, who had spread out to surround the Death, hemming it in. All three blazed with magic, not just visibly, but tangibly in the air around them, almost like a heat shimmer. Though each man's aura blended with the others, Jordan could still identify where each Unspoken's personal sphere of influence ended; the familiar sharp crackle of Yddris's magic stood out to him, and so did the cold frisson of Nika's. Hap's was more like a banked-up hearth he'd drawn too close to. The low hum had come from the demon itself, which was somewhat alarming considering it had no face to speak of aside from some ambiguous shadows in its smoky form. The only solid part of it was its beating heart in the centre of the cloud, lit up green to Jordan's eyes.

"Watch this," Koen murmured, and Jordan jumped, so engrossed in the scene he'd forgotten the other apprentice was there.

At some unseen signal, Nika broke the circle and ran, sketching a line of runes at lightning speed as he went. They hovered in the air, and then formed into long, thin shards. The Death, which had taken off in pursuit, just dodged around them, but as it passed the shards turned inward and followed. Yddris ran behind, also sketching, his sequence forming a series of emerald hoops that enclosed the Death and finally brought it to a halt, another low hum thrumming through the air. Nika's shards realigned themselves in smaller circles above and beneath and around the demon to prevent it snaking out between Yddris's bands, forming a cage.

With a few flicks of Hap's hands, the cage snapped closed with an electric crackle.

At first it looked like the magic would just pass through the Death, growing smaller and smaller, but then it clasped firmly onto the heart. The hum grew to a howl, like a wind from beyond the grave. Jordan's blood seemed to freeze in his veins at the sound, and to warm himself back up again he allowed a flame to dance along his forearms when the urge took him. Inside his hood Ren had taken up a low, rumbling growl, her bristling fur tickling his ear.

Yddris twisted, and with a movement almost too quick and smooth for Jordan to follow, a blade formed in his hand and pierced through the heart's centre. The emerald cage sparked and shattered, green embers skittering across the cobbles and winking out. The howl cut off, and the night fell quiet. The lighting-storm crackle of magic in the air faded.

Hap sighed, leaning on his walked stick. "I'm certain that gets more taxing every time."

Yddris flexed his hands. "Certainly doesn't get easier. That was a wriggly bugger."

"'S why you need three of us, see," Koen said to Jordan. "There's only one bit of a Death you can actually do any damage to, and the target's so small it needs lots of really fiddly rune-casting and a lot of magic. One of us alone wouldn't be able to cast fast enough or long enough to do that."

"Right." Jordan's voice escaped him as a croak. After the conversation he'd had with Yddris earlier, watching those near-impossible feats of casting made him want to be sick. All those things he had to give up when the Gift manifested, all so he could get up close and personal with living nightmares.

Anger flared hot and bright again now that the distraction was gone, boiling up until he wanted to scream. Ashes, all that remained of the Death, picked up in the breeze and blew across the cobbles towards his feet.

"Well met, Thorne," Nika said, stepping inside and sounding very tired. "How was your..."

Jordan turned on his heel and stalked through the house to his room. It wasn't Nika's fault, and he knew he was being unfair, but nothing about the whole dark-damned situation was fair. He was too angry to answer questions without causing upset, and Nika at least deserved enough respect not to inflict it on him.

He slammed the door and threw himself down on the bed. With a squeak Ren rolled out of his hood, rolling onto her back and staring at him with bright eyes.

"Not in the mood," he muttered, burying his face in the covers. A wet nose nudged his hand, and she wriggled underneath it anyway. Even though he fought to keep hold of his anger, the soothing rhythm of her purr started easing some of the tension in his chest. He propped his chin up on the bed and stared at her. "I'm trying to think of ways all this could get worse. You think of any?" He rolled onto his back and sighed at the ceiling. "Might as well prepare for them."

She clambered onto his chest and curled up by way of response, giving him a look that was distinctly disapproving.

"Stop judging me," he muttered, stroking her head.

A soft knock on the door disturbed him from a drifting half-sleep, brought on by Ren's low rumbling and his own exhaustion crashing down to claim him in a rare moment of stillness. He opened his eyes, willing whoever it was to go away.

"Thorne?" Nika cracked the door open and slipped inside. "Can we talk?"

Jordan didn't respond. He didn't want to know what he'd say if he opened his mouth; his fury was still boiling too close to the surface. He wasn't sure if it was the Death or the revelation earlier that had made it so potent, but it was proving impossible to rein back in with thought alone.

"I can come back," Nika said after a moment. "If I'm disturbing you."

He began to close the door, but Jordan croaked, "No. It's fine. I could use a distraction."

He pulled himself up into a sitting position on his elbows, adjusting Ren into his lap. Nika closed the door behind him and came to sit on the edge of the bed, his aura crackling with something Jordan was coming to associate with nervousness. Nika's aura was different to that of others – strangely cold, more of a cracking frost than a flame – and his anxiety translated to a pinging echo, like pressure on a frozen lake.

"Yddris told me what happened before the Death came," Nika said, and Jordan said nothing because he'd guessed as much. "I hope he wasn't too blunt with it. I know that with some things in the past he hasn't been the most...delicate."

"It was alright," Jordan mumbled. "I just...wasn't expecting it. I thought I was getting used to it and that this at least wasn't going to get any worse from here. The Gift, I mean. I don't...I hadn't given it any thought before and I don't know why it's so depressing now. But it is."

"That's understandable," Nika said.

"I don't even like kids that much."

Nika chuckled. "Also understandable. I see it as...an elimination of choice. Of freedom. In our profession, there is already a limited supply of those things. Even if you had never once thought about raising a family, it stings to know that the choice has been taken away from you if you ever changed your mind."

"You're better at words than me," Jordan muttered, flopping back on the pillow.

"Practice," Nika said. "It's helpful in the medical field to articulate things very accurately. It happens to also be useful in getting your rock-brained tutor to do what he's told."

Jordan snorted, and then groaned, running his hands down his face. "I can't believe no one told me. Is there anything else I don't know yet? Please tell me if there is."

"I don't believe so. Aside from a few Guild rules that aren't applicable to you yet, but they don't fall into the same category."

"Rules?"

"In that...area of interest, there are a few rules, yes. In relationship terms. Not hard and fast ones, mind. You may or may not know that once you have taken your oaths you must not show your face to anyone with whom you don't share an officiated union. Relations between Unspoken must never take precedence over citizen safety. Relations between apprentice and tutor are heavily frowned upon and likely to result in a transfer to another tutor."

Jordan frowned, interest piqued in spite of himself. "Does that last one apply to everyone – even if you're both adults?"

"Aye." Nika readjusted himself on the bed. "Even when both parties are adult it's considered an abuse of the position. Your tutor aids in the control of your magic, which is intensely personal as it is. Emotional involvement of that nature has no place in that process." He cleared his throat and abruptly changed tack. "Yddris is putting you onto some of my patrol routes as well as his. He says the timings might suit you better and help you learn the city better. Are you alright with that?"

"Yeah." Despite himself, Jordan was relieved. He suspected that of all his many teachers, Nika would probably push him the least. He tried not to think about Arlen, or Usk, and tried to keep the guilt at bay that always bubbled up when he thought about his time in the dead quarter. Though Nika had given him no particular reason to think so, Jordan wasn't certain yet that the Unspoken hadn't noticed him the other night on his errand for Arlen.

"I have one first thing tomorrow morning," Nika said. "It should be a quiet one. We can run through some history while we walk if you're feeling up to it. I think you might find it interesting." He got up after another pause. "You can come and talk to me if you need to, Thorne. Any time."

Jordan tensed, wondering if he'd imagined the change in tone, if the words had a double meaning.

But Nika was already gone.