Chapter 68 Read the Small Teeth

“A mimic?” Jin asked.

“Rattlecat,” Nell said. “It borrows voices. Don't teach it anything you don't want repeated.”

Lark shut his mouth.

Too late.

The creature laughed again.

“It enjoys him,” Jin said.

“Everyone does eventually.”

Merrit met them above the yard in a red waistcoat that fit him considerably better than his smile. He had silver rings on three fingers and a little mouth-shaped pin at his collar.

“The man from the quarry.”

“The man from your invitation.”

“Of course. Have you trained many bell-eaters?”

“None.”

Merrit's smile faltered.

Jin set the folded card on the desk.

“I said so last night.”

“Natural talent, then.”

“A stone and a strong desire to remain alive.”

Lark put the wrapped collar beside the card. Merrit opened the cloth, inspected the stamped band and pushed it toward Nell.

“Two was the stock number,” he said. “Bought it from a marsh caravan. It broke out before we opened.”

“What happened to One?”

“Sold.”

“You sell these?”

“I buy many things.”

Jin looked at the pin on his collar.

“Including replacements, I hope.”

Merrit laughed a little too late.

He took them down to the ring: packed sand, four corner posts, a high rail between the audience benches and the working space. A narrow escape door stood beneath the east benches. Above the west gate hung a counterweight on a chain.

“No bell-eater tonight,” Merrit said. “Something livelier. You show your method. If it proves uncooperative, Nell brings it back in.”

“If it dies?”

“You keep the scrap. I keep my audience.”

Nell looked at him sharply.

“Merrit.”

“An unfortunate possibility.”

Jin walked to the escape door and opened it. Three stone steps led into the side passage where they'd come in.

It closed from the inside with an ordinary sliding bolt.

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He worked the bolt once, then left the door ajar.

“I want to see the creature first.”

“Naturally.”

Nell led them back to the iron door. The thing behind it whispered the word naturally three times, each softer than the last.

Through the viewing slit, Jin saw a long, gray body lying on its side. Plates of translucent horn rose along the spine. The tail ended in a flat fan of bone.

One eye opened.

Nell tapped the slit with one knuckle.

The creature's chin lifted. Its mouth remained closed, but the loose throat skin moved as it copied the little tapping sound.

Under the jaw, there were no horn plates.

Jin saw that just before the tail fan struck the door hard enough to make him step back.

“It wants your eyes on the mouth,” Nell said.

Jin looked at the dent beside the viewing slit.

“Successful marketing.”

Lark took his sleeve and moved him out of the fan's line.

“Try looking at the whole customer.”

The creature rose without lifting its belly far from the floor.

“How many people?” Jin asked.

Nell understood.

“Two handlers bitten. Both alive. I work the gate.”

Merrit's shoes clicked behind them.

“A learning experience.”

The rattlecat whispered it back.

Jin turned.

“I'll use a weapon. I'm not feeding it my hands.”

Merrit looked at Lark.

The swordsman did not smile.

“A short blade,” Merrit agreed. “Nothing hurled at the benches.”

“Nothing alive in the benches either,” Nell said.

Her employer spread his hands as though she'd made a joke.

When he'd gone, Jin found Nell oiling the counterweight chain.

The hanging block slipped while she worked. She planted one foot behind the other and closed her hand around the links.

A pale bronze line crossed the sand beneath her heel.

The block stopped.

Her arm hardly moved.

Jin looked from the block to her shoulder.

“That.”

She followed his gaze.

“Catchweight.”

“Can it stop a blow?”

“Some. Not the ones you should have moved away from.”

“I'd like to learn.”

Nell tested the chain before she released it.

“My first teacher made me catch sacks. For three weeks.”

“The show's at eight.”

She looked at him.

“Then you'll drop a lot of sacks.”

He did.

At first the weight tore his hands apart. Then Nell moved his back foot and made him turn his hips before his shoulders followed.

“You're trying to catch it at the fingers.”

“That's where it keeps arriving.”

“Move sooner.”

On the next try, a faint line formed beneath his heel. The sack stopped low against his chest. He held it for a heartbeat before the pressure escaped sideways and dumped grain into his shoe.

He looked up.

Nell nodded at the sack.

“Once isn't learning. Do it again.”

After an hour he could catch the smaller sack twice out of three. The larger one still took him to his knees. Nell made him let it go instead of pretending he could hold it.

“Ground first. Then your body. If either gives, move.”

He thanked Nell, then went with Lark to the inn to eat before the show.

At the inn he left his native gear, zipped his phone into the bag and returned home. Before Theo left for rehearsal, Jin tried the same stance with his training bag.

No bronze line.

The bag hit his chest and carried him into the sofa.

Theo stared down at him.

“Was that the lesson?”

Jin sat up, tasting dust.

“Half of it.”