The digression had cost Rin her train of thought.
“Collateral damage,” Daryl suggested.
“Right, so your job is to keep her bodyguards from interfering or tipping her off. I need some quality personal time with her. Once she knows it’s me, there’s no telling what she may do.”
Rin thought for a moment. “There is a general principle to my work. Unless I can get in a room with the Protege, there is little I can do. But once we are together, they will not leave that room. At least not as they are.”
“You said you tried before. Won’t she recognize you?” Daryl asked.
“Did you?” Rin replied with a smirk.
“I’m not one of these Proteges,” Daryl pointed out. “Aren’t they protected from witchcraft?”
Rin groaned. What was it with this boy and witches? Had anything she said gotten through? She wondered what sort of garbled mess he had made of her explanations.
“There is no such thing as witchcraft.” She silenced Daryl’s objection with her hand. “I do not change appearance. I simply cannot be recognized. And yes, it applies to everyone.”
Suddenly something occurred to her. “Actually, that brings up a good point. I don’t usually work with others, so it’s easy to forget. This is important to keep in mind. You must not lose sight of me for too long. If you don’t see me for a month or two you won’t recognize me.”
“You’ll change?”
“I already said I don’t. The details aren’t important. Just understand, you won’t recognize me. There’s nothing you can do about that. It will be just like when you tracked me down. I don’t anticipate being separated for that long, at least not under any circumstance where I would want you to find me. But it is useful for you to know.”
Rin suddenly brightened. “See, I gave you some more critical information that will help you kill me.”
“How will I find you?”
“How did you before?” Rin asked, seizing the opportunity. This had bugged her for a while.
Daryl shrugged. “I just looked for signs.” It was vague but interesting. No, she decided, he definitely had help. But that conversation would have to wait.
“Well, whatever you did before, you’ll just have to do it again. But try not to shoot innocent women this time,” Rin admonished. “Or a baby,” she added with a grin.
“It took many years,” Daryl objected. So he had been searching the whole time. It pleased Rin that this wasn’t just a passing fancy of his. There was something romantic about it in a disturbing sort of way. What young woman didn’t want her very own homicidal stalker? Rin realized she was getting aroused. She contemplated having a go but instead shrugged and smiled.
“Then you’d better not get separated.”
“Can’t I just carry a photo?”
“Aww,” Rin crooned. “We’ve only been together a few months and he already wants to carry a photo of me. Do you have one?”
Daryl shook his head.
“Well, you’re not getting one. But no, it has to be in person. You have to come and warm my bed.”
The look on Daryl’s face was priceless. Rin shook her head.
“Yeah, Daryl. Everybody I deal with has to fuck me regularly or they won’t recognize me anymore.” Remembering that he wouldn’t understand sarcasm, Rin rolled her eyes. “No. You just have to interact with me once every month or so. I’m not sure of the exact boundaries, but if you say ‘hi’ that will do. Think of it like talking to your mother now and then. In a weird Oedipal sort of way.”
“But back to the matter at hand. Your job is to keep anyone from interfering while I get a chance to meet her. Ideally, I’ll talk my way in and everything will go smoothly. The way out may be a bit bumpy, though.”
Daryl smiled, and Rin gave him a sharp look. “I mean it. I can’t babysit you, so be careful. Things will happen quickly.”
“Why bring me along if you’re so worried?”
“I said I’d make a man of you. Even a dead man is better than no man.”
“You just made that up.”
“Yeah pretty much,” Rin laughed. “Sounds clever, though, doesn’t it?”
Daryl thought for a moment. “Why do you care whether she kills innocent people?”
Rin’s smile vanished. This again? She was about to punch him, but realized something was different. It wasn’t an accusation, just an oddly-worded question. That made sense. Where was the line, after all?
“There’s no such thing as innocent. It’s a word and nothing more. I do not mind killing people or letting them be killed when it benefits my mission. But I do not do so wantonly, and I try to avoid it when possible.” Rin looked away. “I certainly try not to kill babies.”
“What about all my comrades?”
“They weren’t babies.”
Daryl did not reply, and Rin eyed him coldly. “I thought you said they were assholes.”
“Yes, they were. But did you need to kill so many?” Rin understood what he was doing. This wasn’t a protest but rather a question of his mentor. He genuinely wanted to understand the criteria by which she killed. Does the world have criteria for whom it kills? Sure, those whom it kills. It was that simple. But Daryl wouldn’t accept that. There was the truth one believes and the truth others need. Rin gave it her best shot.
“A warrior is different from a peasant. When you fight a warrior, you do them honor by killing them. To avoid battle, however vastly uneven, is to shame them. Warriors are dogs. You may not hate dogs. You may even love them. But if a dog attacks at his master’s behest you must kill it. Not wound it, not spare it, but kill it. Anything else would be foolish or cruel. The cruelest thing you can do to a warrior is show pity.”
“But a peasant is like a cow,” she continued. “You do not kill a cow unless you must. It does not matter whether it is your own cow or your enemy’s. If you need food or the cow is blocking a road or you wish to starve the enemy you may kill it. But otherwise, it is left alone, like a tree or a rock. Why waste energy moving those things without reason? To take life without reason isn’t wrong, but it can be foolish. The more that are killed, the greater the uproar. It is hard to sniff out one’s quarry in a field of corpses. There are many reasons not to kill and fewer reasons to kill.”
“But don’t you enjoy it? I definitely got the impression you enjoy it,” Daryl pointed out indelicately. Did he enjoy it? That could be a problem. Not a big problem, but a problem. Psychopaths could be useful, but they were hard to control. He didn’t strike Rin as the type.
“Sometimes I do,” she replied. “When I wish to kill, I do so. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is as natural as shitting or eating or fucking. But if you eat to excess, you are a glutton. I kill when the desire strikes me, but I do not have an insatiable appetite for it.” There was an edge of annoyance in Rin’s voice. She certainly would not be judged, least of all by some hypocritical kid.
Daryl appeared satisfied but was turning something over in his mind. Rin gave him a little time for the question to formulate itself. She wondered if this was what being a parent was like: concocting inanely plausible explanations for things which had no explanation, things which should require no explanation.
Finally, he reached the inevitable conclusion. “I am a soldier. Why didn’t you kill me?”
“Well, I punished you instead. Just as satisfying.” Daryl didn’t laugh, and Rin realized what was wrong. He had registered her points about honor and killing and made the obvious deduction. She decided on a different tack.
“It wasn’t because I despised you, if that’s what you think. You were just a pup when we first met, and I didn’t feel like killing you. There is a difference between sparing a man because he is not really a man and sparing a boy because he is not yet a man.”
“The others were my age too,” Daryl observed coldly.
“I didn’t feel like sparing your comrades. I felt like sparing you. It was my choice, and no other’s. If you wish to have a choice, become strong enough to do so.”
Rin wasn’t sure how much more of this malarkey she could come up with. It was a good thing she had read so many history and philosophy books. They hadn’t offered any real wisdom but did furnish plenty of useful rubbish. Now she just had to keep these particulars in mind for a few decades until Daryl died. She looked him over. No, he’d get killed or figure it out a lot sooner than that. Rin wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to get him to hate her. Not just want to kill her, but really hate her. It could improve the sex, though she had no complaints in that department. Well she always could take that road later, she supposed. For now, she’d deal with him gently.
“You may set your mind at ease on that account,” she continued. “It was no reflection on your honor.”
“What about when I found you a few months ago?” Daryl’s words had a bitter edge.
“Well, at that time you had no master.” Rin watched Daryl’s eyes very carefully as she said this. “That’s right isn’t it? You have no master.”
Daryl shook his head. “Just you.”
Rin smiled. “Good answer. When you showed up at my door. You were neither man nor dog.”
“You kept saying you made a man out of me,” Daryl protested.
“Nobody but you can make a man of you. I simply cured you of your boyhood. Admittedly, I do use that sort of language a lot. But it’s my prerogative to be sloppy. You’re the apprentice. You must deduce the great meaning in every one of your master’s farts.”
Daryl gave her a sharp look, and Rin laughed.
“Perhaps if you stick with me, one day you’ll be a man. If you’re lucky, I may think you worthy of being killed. But, I can’t promise that. As for the past, what it came down to was that I just didn’t feel like killing you.”
Rin gave a cold grin. “Ask another time and you may get another answer.”
“That was all?” Daryl still sounded disappointed.
Rin had a sinking feeling. Was he getting clingy after only four months? She never knew what to do when men got that way. Well, she did know, but didn’t relish doing it. At least not in his case and not right now.
“Well, you’re trying hard to make me regret that choice.” No response. So it was going to be one of those conversations.
“Sorry, bub, that’s it. I didn’t ask why the gods chose me, so you shouldn’t ask why I chose you. If you do, you’ll never like the answer.”
This certainly didn’t help Daryl’s mood. But funk or no funk, they needed to get going soon. Rin kicked him hard in the shin. As Daryl nursed his leg, she continued her briefing.
“As I said, this Four has a particularly problematic protection. It is very possible, even probable, that she knows how to use it.”
“Do you know too?”
Rin felt like she was stating the obvious, but patiently explained anyway. “I have been granted knowledge of the protections, what they do, and what they mean. However, I cannot anticipate every possible use that a clever Protege could put them to. The last time I assumed I could, a simple Four managed to escape while killing thousands of people. It is unclear whether it was luck or she knew what she was doing. But she certainly knows now.”
Daryl looked up, his voice tinged with discomfort. “What is her name?”
“Why do you care? Her name is whatever she fancies this week. It is as irrelevant as her face.”
“And you? Are you Rin?” Daryl wondered.
“I call myself Rin. It is a convenient label. If you find that too confusing, you may call me Master or Your Everlasting Grace or She Whose Patience I Fatally Misjudged. As for her, all you need to know is that she is the target.”
“But …” Daryl began.
“Her name won’t tell us that, her body will. If it isn’t her, we’ll keep searching,” Rin responded testily. “But, it is.”
Daryl stared at her without saying anything.
“What? This isn’t so damned hard,” Rin finally snapped.
“I just want to know what to call her instead of saying ‘she’ all the time.” There was a hint of exasperation in the question, and Rin realized she had mistaken pragmatism for obstinacy.
With a sigh, she acceded. “Her name is Vivvett, if you must know.”
It was a while before Daryl broke the awkward silence which followed.
“So how will we … cumber her?”
Rin burst out laughing. “Encumber. Just say kill. It’s about as close as we can get to killing a Protege.”
Daryl seemed grateful for the allowance. It made sense that a soldier would want to keep things simple. “How do we kill her?” he repeated.
“You leave that to me,” Rin instructed. “Your job is to stop anybody from interfering.” Seeing the frown of disappointment on Daryl’s face, she relented. “I’ll share the details after I do the deed, ok?” Daryl didn’t seem completely satisfied, but it would have to do.
“She’s staying in a hotel. I will enter the room, and you must make sure nobody else does.”
“And if I can’t?” he asked.
Rin leaned in and kissed him on the lips. “That would be very disappointing. Who will be left to kill me?”
Can't wait to meet this Vivett. If Daryl finds her attractive though, he'd better hide it...