I Can See Clearly Now Page 3

Realm justice - but could he be lying about it?

  Rel pushed in between Pollack and Van Raighan. “Show me the Witnessing again.”

  “What are you playing at, boy?” The Sherriff tried to brush him aside, but Rel held his ground.

  “Something strange is going on here, sir. I’ll use Clearsight on it, and we’ll get to the truth.” The thief had to be lying. Rel thought he heard Van Raighan sigh, but the his face was strangely neutral. Not the face of a man about to be caught in a lie.

  Rel let the icy claws of Clearsight slide around his eyeballs as the bubble appeared between him and Van Raighan. The thief had the faint glow of the Gifted around him - brighter than Rel expected, though not as bright as Pevan’s aura - and the bubble glittered, but little else changed. Pevan’s aura blended at the edges with Van Raighan’s; what on Earth did that mean? The dancing colours in the air were less pronounced in town than they had been up on the canal path, but still there like a whisper on the edge of hearing.

  The figures appeared in the bubble again. Through Clearsight, Rel could clearly see the resemblance between the human and Van Raighan; the same thin face and pointed features. The man in the bubble was taller and broader than his brother, but brothers they were. So where was Van Raighan’s lie?

  The angle was strange. Witnesses could only record what they’d seen, but if Van Raighan had seen that view with his own eyes, he’d been dangling from the roof of whatever the cave was. Clearsight pierced the depths of the abyss, but only enough to reveal just how far down it went - miles, if not more. Again, Van Raighan’s brother - Rissad? - slid across the rough stone floor and slammed into the back wall, and Rel’s enhanced sight told him something broke in the man’s shoulder. Rissad was Gifted, more strongly than his brother; to Clearsight, the rock behind him shone with the reflection of his aura.

  There was some sort of old machinery on the back wall, a hinge of some sort, surrounded by rods and piping. A hinge meant a door, but there was no door, unless the entire back wall... Even as he thought it, Rel saw the shape of the concrete slab that would slide out and swing open. It had to weigh tons. If it opened, it would sweep Rissad and the Wildren clean off the ledge.

  One of the Wildren was missing, Rel realised. Clearsight revealed one fewer than had been present in Van Raighan’s original Witnessing. But a Gift-Giver would never extort a human into stealing Stable Rods. Would they?

  The bubble flickered as the Wildren turned to leave Rissad trapped in the stone, and Rel flicked a glance at Van Raighan. The thief was staring at him, face pale. Clearsight revealed every line of his frown. Rel couldn’t quite read Van Raighan’s mind, but his emotions were written all over his face. For a fraction of a second, Rel even caught a glimpse of a second face hovering just behind the first. Not that he needed it to tell him Van Raighan was still hiding something.

  The Witnessing kept playing out between them, past the point at which it had stopped the first time. Rissad squirmed in the stone, then pounded on it, obviously screaming. Suddenly, he stopped, folded his arms, and seemed almost to relax. Rel concentrated on the man’s face, trying to read it as he had Van Raighan’s.

  Rissad’s eyes were half-closed, his brows level, his lips straight. No, not quite straight. A twitch tugged at the corner of his mouth, the vaguest hint of a smile. It was impossible to squint while Clearviewing, but Rel felt his own eyelids pressing at his eyeballs as a dim pressure through the ice. What was he seeing?

  He jerked back as the bubble burst, but his eyes felt frozen open. The sensation of losing touch with the Witnessing was of the front of his brain running into a stone wall, but the figure of Rissad still hung in the air. Rel tried to grab at it with his eyes, pushing away the niggling worry that this was impossible. Little was known about how the Gifts interacted, and if he’d never heard of a Witnessing turning into a Clearviewing, it didn’t seem completely unreasonable.

  The stable image of the Witnessing had vanished with the bubble; Rissad was surrounded by flickering ghosts of the Second Realm, swirls of colour that vaguely outlined the shapes of the ledge and chasm, and the vaguest sense of a creature hulking over him. The abyss exuded a light uncomfortably similar to the colour of the Realmlessness, a sickly effect that lay across the image like oil.

  Rel fought the waves of confusion and distraction and brought his attention back to Rissad’s face. Three faces, one of top of another. Rel saw each of them through its fellows, clearly provided he didn’t try to focus on two at once. The first bore the relaxed expression from the Witnessing. The second was smiling, eyes narrowed and teeth showing slightly, the face of a predator about to strike. The third was twisted to the point of comedy with faked terror, nostrils flared, trembling, neck muscles twitching.

  Taking control of the Clearviewing - as much as such things were ever controlled - Rel went looking for what Rissad was up to. The faces flickered, growing vaguer, and hunger ate at them. The fake-terror face vanished, and the other two became gaunt. Moving into the future, then.

  The aura around Rissad flared, and he vanished through a Gateway. His own? He reappeared standing by the hinge, his legs still buried in a cylinder of stone. The sides of the stone were glass-smooth where the Gateway had cut them. The image flickered, and Rissad was falling from the ceiling, legs still encased in stone. Rel had to fight not to wince as he slammed into the ledge and the stone shattered. For a moment, it looked like the fall had killed the elder Van Raighan, but he started crawling towards the machinery of the hinge, favouring his injured shoulder and dragging a leg bent the wrong way at the knee. Despite the injuries, though, a smile spread across his angular face.

  The viewing froze, lingered in the air for a second, and faded away. Rel blinked in surprise, then blinked again and again, trying to clear the cold from his eyes and convince himself they were still attached to his face. The Clearviewing ending like that could only mean he’d be there when Rissad escaped.

  Someone jostled him, almost knocking him off his feet, and he looked around. Two of the guardsmen were running for the door and Pevan was gone. So was Van Raighan. The Sherriff was shouting. The front of his brain felt like frozen fog. What was going on?

  Pollack grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “What the hell was that, boy?”

  “What?” Rel’s voice sounded distant in his own ears, but the inside of his skull felt a little warmer.

  “That... vision. What did you see?”

  The vision, right. Rissad Van Raighan, and a huge door that a Gift-Giver wanted to keep him from. Well, if Chag Van Raighan was a master thief, what must his elder brother be like? Rel explained as quickly as he could. If it was possible, Pollack’s face seemed to get darker with every word.

  Rel finished, “I need to know how long I’ve got. Where’s Pevan?”

  “What do you need her for?”

  “I need to get to the Sherim. I may not have much time. Sir.”

  “Get running, boy. Pevan’s chasing Van Raighan.” Pollack pushed Rel towards the door, swinging open on its creaky hinges. Something exciting was definitely happening outside, by the shouts that drifted in.

  Rel said, “Sir, you don’t understand. I may be our only chance to stop Rissad, and for all we know he could be crawling towards that door right now.”

  “And right now, Van Raighan is getting away because you distracted us all. You’d better hope your sister’s more useful, boy.”

  “Maybe you should have paid more attention, then!” Rel snapped. Like it was his fault if the Sherriff’s men had let the thief get away.

  “You shouldn’t shout at the Sherriff like that, Relvin,” Pevan’s voice cut through Pollack’s growl as the big man raised a hand to strike Rel. “It’s disrespectful, and you did distract everyone.” Pevan was stood in a Gateway in the wall by the door, holding Van Raighan’s arms pinned behind his back. The thief wore a grimace, and a dark mark above his right eye that was probably a new bruise. Pevan shoved him forward and stepped out of the Gateway, letting it slide cl
osed behind her.

  Rel opened his mouth to protest, but she beat him to it, “You want me to Gate you to the Sherim? We’d better get moving.” She pushed Van Raighan forward again and he stumbled right into Pollack’s chest. The Sherriff grabbed him clumsily. Pevan continued, “Try not to lose him again, Sherriff. I won’t always be here to clean up your mess.”

  Van Raighan yelped as Pollack’s eyes bulged, the Sherriff’s arm tightening across his captive’s chest. Pevan gave them a sweet smile, head tilted to one side, then took Rel’s arm and pointed at the rough stone of the nearest wall. “You need your bag, Rel?”

  Rel was always surprised by how soft his sister’s hands were, even through the fabric of his shirt. And small, with fine fingers. The only feminine feature she possessed, he was sure. He swallowed. “No time.”

  Pevan nodded, and a Gateway appeared on the wall. They stepped through and out under a bridge. In front of them the canal surface rippled with rain. Rel knew where they were - still a good mile and a half from the Sherim.

  “Pev-“

  “You know it’s a bad idea to Gate directly to the Sherim, Rel. For that matter, you know it’s a bad idea to go twice in the same day.” Pevan put her hands on her hips again, fixing him with a glare as if he was just out to make mischief.

  “It’s not