Foxhunt Read online

  “Hypocrite,” Bright sung, flipping the cloth over in her fingers. “Knowing you, I bet you’ve driven that woman out of her gourd by now.”

  “Rivasoa has a respectable grip on her gourd, I think,” Orfeus said. Rivasoa looked faintly uncomfortable.

  “This can’t just be a social call, you know I’m busy,” Bright said. She looked Orfeus up and down and frowned. “You’re here for your shots? Already?”

  “Mm, and a checkup, if you don’t mind. Something’s up with my energy levels. I had a dizzy spell.” No need to hide that in front of Rivasoa, who had seen it.

  Bright looked at her then stood, wiping her hands on the rag. Her brown eyes went distant as she shifted her focus from one problem to the next.

  Rivasoa made a neutral noise of inquiry. Orfeus glanced at her. “Bright is my friend,” she said. “She helps with my health.”

  “What shots?” Rivasoa said.

  Orfeus took her cloak off slowly and hung it over a random surface, taking the time to weigh Rivasoa up, gauging degrees of distrust. Truth could be a useful tool. She said, “Estrogen.”

  “Ah.” To her slight surprise, that did it. Rivasoa sat down on the one empty chair, folding her broad hands over her lap. “I’ll wait.”

  Em flounced down at once beside her and started chatting about her nails.

  Bright’s small operations room, barely bigger than a cupboard, was clean and sterile. She slid the opaque plastic door closed behind them and set to busily washing her hands. Bright was messy and chaotic, not unsafe.

  Orfeus sat down on the chair and rolled her sleeves up, looking around. Gleaming metal tools sat beside a few more dubious things, vials and sealed bags. In one corner sat a small and humming refrigerator.

  Bright washed carefully between her fingers. “How do you manage it so that everyone you know is trans?”

  “It’s a gift,” Orfeus said. She rested her hands on her knees.

  Bright turned to her, drying her hands, and clucked. “Thigh shots, Orfeus. You know this.”

  Orfeus sighed. “Fine, fine.”

  She unlaced her boots and rolled her pant leg up past the thigh. Bright swabbed her skin down with antiseptic in a business-like fashion, then injected the hormone. As she stabbed into her leg, Orfeus feigned a stretch to pretend she didn’t wince. Bright grinned.

  “One disruption to the schedule shouldn’t kill you,” she said, straightening. “Your Blood ought to release that at the usual rate over the next three months, but come see me if there’s any unexpected side effects. We haven’t broken schedule before, so who knows.”

  Orfeus lounged back. “If I wanted true precision, I’d work my way up to a real doctor.”

  “I’m a real doctor,” Bright said, offended. “I mean, not in medicine, obviously. But we both know you’d never. No, all your luxury allowance goes to having your damn guitar.”

  “Don’t talk about Galahad that way,” Orfeus said. The banter was a relief, and she wasn’t too worried about anything going wrong. Her Blood would release the stored estrogen little by little, as usual, and it was better than pills she never remembered to take. Having nanites was a handy thing.

  Bright tugged the other stool over to her and sat, looking at her seriously. “Alright, now the arm. I should check on your nanites. Maybe they’re low.” She looked a little doubtful.

  “Taking my blood would’ve made more sense first, wouldn’t it have?” Orfeus complained, but she rolled her sleeve back up a little further. It was certainly a strain upon their friendship that most of her sessions with Bright involved being stabbed repeatedly with small, sharp things.

  “I …” Bright said and paused. “I can’t always, order things, right, in my head—”

  Orfeus waved her hand hastily. “Bright. It’s fine. I trust you.”

  Bright looked down and ran a hand self-consciously through her hair, then cursed vividly, and lurched up to wash her hands again.

  When she returned, she pressed the needle to Orfeus’s vein, and Orfeus looked away so as not to see the plunge. The pain didn’t come, just the slight prick of the blade resting on the surface of her skin. She turned to see Bright frowning. “Your veins are practically violet,” Bright said, drumming her fingers against them. “Have you been drinking enough water?”

  “You’re not my mother either.”

  “You wish your mothers were as brilliant as me,” Bright said airily. She wasn’t always tactful. She prodded the vein with her finger, which Orfeus felt was unnecessary. “Did you give blood recently?”

  Orfeus laughed. “Me? No.” She paused, considering. “I did give some blood unwillingly, by which I mean a bounty hunter cut some holes into my back.” Bright’s jaw dropped slowly open, staring at her. Orfeus drummed her heels idly against the floor. “And hit me on the head a few times, maybe. A little bit.”

  “A bounty hunter?” Bright said and grinned broad and wicked. “How did you dispose of them?”

  “Oh,” Orfeus said and shifted back. Bright belatedly pulled back her needle, and Orfeus rolled her sleeve down. “Well. It’s a work in progress.”

  She looked back to find Bright staring at her. Mouth agape.

  “What?” Orfeus said and crossed her arms. “I’m dealing with it.”

  “You’re telling me someone set a bounty hunter on you,” Bright said slowly, and Orfeus lifted her hand.

  “They were from the Order of the Vengeful Wild,” she said. “The Wolf to be exact. Not some lawless renegade or anything—”

  Bright shook her head impatiently. “Someone set a dangerous hunter from the friggin’ Order of the Wild on you, and you just – Orf? Uh, Orf?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Orf,” Bright said, and drummed her fingers restlessly against her broad thighs. “Hey, Orf, I love you, you know that. I’d do anything for you as long as it wasn’t boring. But uh, why would you, you know, when there’s maybe a murderous wolf person hot on your tail and after your blood, could you maybe not lead them to where my damn girlfriend is?”

  Orfeus jerked her shoulders back. Evasive answers queued up behind her tongue, excuses and deflections, but Bright had done her many favours and deserved better. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” Running to safety, and not thinking for one moment of the safety of those she ran to, wasn’t something she was proud of. “I won’t do it again.”

  Bright’s serious look faded, and she gave a raucous laugh. “It’s not like I’m expecting it to come up!” she said. “Just saying. Just saying.” She scratched her face. “Okay, well. You’re on it, right? Dealing with it somehow? Is that Elder woman helping you?” She looked through the opaque plastic door doubtfully. The derision Eldergrove felt for Farflung was reciprocated.

  Orfeus shook her head. “I haven’t been able to make a move yet. I went to Eldergrove to find information. I—”

  “You’re running,” Bright interrupted.

  Having someone else around who didn’t care too much for social niceties was useful, on occasion. Someone blunt. Someone right. Bright and Orfeus had a lot of similarities, but that was the main difference: Bright got to the point. “Yes,” Orfeus said. “I guess I was. But not anymore.” Survival was one word for what she’d been doing, but cowardice was another.

  Bright nodded and patted cheerfully at her head. “I have faith in you.”

  Orfeus gazed at her through narrowed eyes, then stood. She laced up her boots, took a deep breath and stepped to the door.

  Bright stopped her before she opened it. “Orfeus,” she said, “one more thing.”

  Orfeus stopped and gave her a look. “If you’re going to chide me more, I should warn you I’m approaching today’s limit on being humble and accepting.”

  Bright shook her head. Orfeus had never seen her look quite so serious, almost scared.

  “You said you didn’t give blood,” Bright said, “but there’s a fresh puncture wound in your inner elbow.” She placed her finger on the same spot on her own arm. She met Orfeus�
�s eyes, her own wide and dark. “Either you have habits you haven’t told me about, or there’s something here you’re missing.”

  Orfeus’s skin crawled. She nodded shortly. She didn’t say thank you as she went outside, but she knew Bright knew.

  In the outer room, Orfeus breathed in as deep and calm as she could manage. Reassuringly cluttered out here, and comfortably the same as ever.

  Not quite the same. Rivasoa and Em still sat together. Rivasoa had her hands held up, face focused, painted nails sculpting careful patterns. Orfeus stared. Above Rivasoa’s hands danced a perfect copy of the butterfly they had seen, made of dancing light. It was beautiful.

  Rivasoa’s eyes flicked up to her, monitoring, then focused back on her lovely creation.

  This talent would have made Orfeus like her much more, normally. It still did, but there was a sour taste in the back of her throat. She had walked with this woman, talked with her, and the whole time…

  Who in Eldergrove had taken her blood? Without asking, without permission or warning, and it had to have been them because Orfeus had slept so deep, so dreamless. No wonder her head had been dizzy and dazed today. Who and why? One of the council or all of them? Did Rivasoa know?

  Did Rivasoa do it?

  Em smiled at her, and Orfeus managed to smile back. She tossed an emptier grin in Rivasoa’s direction. “Come with me to the market,” she said brightly. “You can get some better clothes.”

  Rivasoa frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.”

  “I think your clothes are nice,” Em said. She paused. “Terrible for riding,” she said, because Em was honest, too, most good people were, “but ideal for staying indoors, or walking in gardens. I wish we had robes like that here.”

  Rivasoa blinked at her and smiled, cautiously.

  Maybe Orfeus would have won an ally from this woman by now if she was friendlier. Maybe not: she couldn’t do it as well as Em did. She certainly had no taste to be charming now, with suspicion sour and unwanted in the pit of her stomach.

  Bright came out from behind her, wiping her hands again. “Staying for dinner?” she said almost casually.

  Tonight must be Bright and Em’s dinner night. Date night, which was why Em was over and cleaned up instead of greasy from work. They probably didn’t have much meat allowance to spare.

  “No, I’ll show Rivasoa some Farflung market food,” Orfeus said. “It’ll be an experience.”

  “What are you after there?” Em said, putting her hands in her overall pockets and smiling at her.

  “A tasegun,” Orfeus said. She didn’t need to see Em’s slight frown to rethink it: her mind was already recoiling from the idea. “No, not a gun. Maybe a sharplight knife.”

  Em’s perfect brows rose and rose. “Mm-hmm.”

  Bright, less tactful, whistled. “That’s a lot of things!”

  “And I need to send a message while I’m there,” Orfeus said, like that was an afterthought and not the purpose of the errand.

  “I hope you brought plenty of things to trade,” Em said, looking faintly amused. Em was always entertained by the lack of preparedness in the people around her. The people around her mostly being Bright, this was fair.

  Orfeus shrugged, and patted her cloak, her bag with its bulging pocket. “I have enough.”

  Bright settled back at her worktable and pulled out her wand without anything as formal as a goodbye. Em waved to them. Orfeus went out into the hallway, with the tall, robed shadow who might have taken her blood.

  She tried to stay calm and couldn’t manage it. Very well. One could still get an awful lot done while on edge, if one was good at it, and Orfeus was good at everything.

  “That girl,” Rivasoa said thoughtfully.

  Orfeus glanced at her as they passed by the series of close-set doors. “Which?”

  “Bright. She was a rival of yours once, yes? So I read,” Rivasoa said. “A fierce one, a competitor. And you made her an ally instead.”

  Orfeus smiled to think of that time, of her much younger self and Bright much the same, brash and brilliant. That was back when Orfeus thought she could really get into the intricacies of Blood and its magic, instead of doing as she did now and dabbling a little in everything. “I suppose I did.” They had been competitors, yes. Orfeus had gone to her frankly, confessed that Bright was far her superior in the field, and in the same breath asked for her help.

  “You did well,” Rivasoa said. Orfeus glanced at her. The taller woman didn’t look at her, only stared serenely ahead as they passed through the hallway and Orfeus led them onto the stairs that would lead outside. “That seems a trait of yours, your file says. Turning enemies into friends.”

  “I suppose,” Orfeus said, a little surprised. She was braced for betrayal, but not for Rivasoa complimenting her. They went up the small flight of stairs, and out: the wind howled, up here, threatening to snatch all words and life away, but the rails were secure, the bridge covered and safe.

  They passed into it, and the noise dropped down. The market would be busy, once they reached it, the centre of spokes of covered bridges, busy and bright with all the variety Farflung had to offer, including some more dubious things to trade. When Farflung was dangerous, it was blatantly dangerous, not something that snuck up on you in the middle of the night.

  Rivasoa did not look at her, and said, “Then what do you turn your friends into?”

  There seemed no answer to that so Orfeus made none.

  Chapter Five

  Singer,

  Here is what I have found: The title of the Wolf belongs to the strongest or most honoured fighter, and has existed as long as the Order can be traced back, at least three hundred years. The person called Faol has held the title for the past fifteen years, by all accounts competently, by which I mean anonymous reports from clients register satisfaction and no complaints have been lodged by any of her prey she’s left alive. He has been reported using both the he and she pronoun sets at separate times, from which I infer she is possibly genderfluid.

  Faol has no presence in the web and no records from before she joined the Order. There is a story of someone sighting Faol sitting placidly by the Order’s Leader’s side as only a very young child, eight or ten and already in training. As a researcher, I must deem this dubious.

  In melee, Faol relies largely on her augmented strength, as well as a series of knives, a clawed hand and possibly some ranged weaponry. He is five foot five and has an unpredictable temper.

  - From A Person of No Significance

  * * *

  Rivasoa made no complaints in the market, so perhaps she had a better head for new situations than Orfeus thought. There was room to move between the close-packed people and stalls, just. People with metal hands or three arms or twitching, surgically attached tails sold all manner of things: plastiglass tech, visors, light displays, glittering substances with names spelled out in sigils. Among all this, it was easy enough for Orfeus to find and purchase the items she was looking for and to send her message.

  She sent it from a small automated station, glittering with blue crystalline decorations. With the right device, she could send messages from anywhere in the city. All of Farflung functioned like a Hub.

  There was a message for her as well from Significance O’Hallow. Orfeus read it twice, then deleted it. She trusted O’Hallow more than she did the other Elders which meant she did not trust xem much at all.

  Orfeus turned from the station and jumped, hand going to her new taser, then exhaled heavily. The big, bulky person who’d brushed against her wasn’t the Wolf, just someone who moved in a similar way. Here in Farflung, where many people were heavily modded, it was obvious the Wolf’s bulging muscles and too-fast speed were the result of bodily modification. Augmentation. How was she to fight such a foe?

  Orfeus tucked her tasegun back into her belt. She was at least a little more prepared, now. She wouldn’t run anymore.

  She’d traded a bag of dried lavender for the tasegun,
but she still had plenty of pouches of plants and herbs to trade. Booking passage some of the way back to Tinctora was easy enough. Orfeus handed over the small jar of rosemary to the cheerful, gangly transportation manager, then looked at Rivasoa expectantly.

  “Oh,” Rivasoa said, as the transportation manager inhaled from a small device and exhaled a cloud of cherry-scented smoke from a metal-lined hole in their neck. Rivasoa looked uncomfortable, like she had never had to make a trade in her life. Maybe she’d never needed to trade for anything beyond the basic necessities supplied to everyone because she lived in luxury already. Orfeus nearly relented and said she could cover her, but why should she? It wasn’t as though she chose to have Rivasoa here.

  Rivasoa reached carefully into her bag and took out a book. A real paper book.

  “It is pre-Brink,” Rivasoa said, unnecessarily. No one as morally superior as an Elder would be caught dead in possession of a deadtree book dating from any time after such things became frowned upon. She rested her hands very lightly on the thick cover, then passed the book over, sealed in its bag.

  The transport manager set their vaporiser down, looking as though they couldn’t believe their luck. They took the book carefully and flipped through several different lenses on their set of spectacles, staring at it. They whistled through the hole in their neck. “Yes, honoured patron! That will do very well!” They put it carefully down and began sorting hurriedly through the items on their table. “But this is far too much a trade! Would you look also at some other recompense?” They waved behind them. “Perhaps a pet?” Elegant chrome robots perched on a sort of tree at the back of the stall, not unlike the cat furniture Linden made. There were chirping mechanical birds, small humming orbs, an eight-legged creature covered in artificial fur.

  “No,” Rivasoa said coldly.

  The transport manager dropped their hand, blinking.

  Orfeus stepped in between them and tried to think of something Rivasoa wouldn’t turn her nose up at. “Perhaps some fruit,” she said.