Firesoul Page 4

  That word.

  Jiri remembered the terrible magic that had staggered Oza and almost torn her life away. Her hand lashed down, grabbed the pouch Linaria had given to her, and hurled it.

  The demon was beginning to speak when the bag struck it straight in the teeth. The green cloth split, and thick filaments of adhesive filled the demon's mouth, wrapping around its writhing tongue. Choking, the monster raised its claws and tore at the glue that welded tongue to gums, fangs to lips.

  With a whoop, Morvius charged into the water, driving Scritch deep into the pale green belly. The demon leaned forward, clutching its wound, and Sera charged.

  The paladin drove her sword down, cleaving through scale and skull. The demon heaved back, trembling. Arrows hammered into its chest, and darts of energy like flashing glass flew from Linaria's hand and tore into its throat. With a strangled croak, the demon fell backward. Dark water churned as the demon convulsed, tearing at its ruined head and throat with its own claws. Then it went still and sank.

  "Good work."

  Jiri barely heard Linaria's words. Or Sera's prayers, or Morvius's curses as he waded back, away from the slime that slicked the water's surface over the place the demon had fallen. Her hands clutched the necklace she held, and she stared over the churning water at the little elemental she had called, still struggling uselessly to shift the stone.

  "Don't worry about that." Linaria wiped at the bright blood streaming from her nose and reached into a pouch on her belt, pulling out a folded sheet of papyrus. The half-elf read the words traced over the sheet, and they faded. Below the Pyre's peak, the narrow opening scabbed over with stone, light gray against the dark rock.

  "There. Sealed." Tipping her head back and pinching her nose, Linaria winced. "All in all, that actually went pretty—"

  Beneath them, the ground trembled. Jiri felt a wash of heat, and something acrid burned its way through the numbness of her nose. Atop the black rock, the ashes stirred, and the heat shimmering over them rose like flames, reaching into the sky.

  "Damn it, Lin, you know you shouldn't say crap like—" Morvius started, but Jiri held up her hand.

  "Listen," Jiri whispered. The sound came again, faint but clear. The scrape of steel on rock, coming from the stone scab that Linaria's scroll had formed over the shuddering Pyre's entrance, then silence. "Something's trying to get out."

  The air on the muddy shore beside them suddenly trembled, tore open, and then that broken, empty space was filled with people. There was a man wrapped in battered, heat-warped steel, a warhammer swinging in his hand; a pale northern woman in once-colorful silks that were now charred; a strange looking young girl; and a woman with flowing dark hair whose arms were wrapped around a bundle of wet and smoking leather.

  The girl was the first one to move, and as she did Jiri realized her mistake. The woman was tiny, but her movements were too quick, too graceful for a child. The little woman flipped over the armored man, putting him between her and Sera.

  "Hello there," she chirped. "Rude of you to slam that wall up right when we were trying to leave." Her hands moved, flashing fast, and Gavin and Linaria went staggering, metal blades jutting from their bellies.

  The man in front of the little knife-thrower frowned and raised his hammer. "Kalun's people. Of course." Despite his northern armor and weapon, the man looked like he belonged to the Mwangi as much as Jiri.

  The woman in the silks beside him twisted her ash-smeared face into an evil smile and laughed. "Morvius! Linaria! You are the most amazing idiots!"

  "What the hell are you talking about, Corrianne?" Linaria gasped, her hands clutching at the hilt of the little dagger that was growing a red flower across her stomach. Morvius had caught her, was holding her up as he stared murder at the halfling woman with the knives.

  "Timing, dearest!" the silk-woman said, still smiling like poison. "Like always, yours is so, so bad. Just wait until you see what's chasing us."

  "What's catching us, if you spend any more timing chatting." The woman carrying the bundle nodded back at the shaking Pyre. "Now get us out of here."

  Jiri was trying to understand and react to everything happening around her, but her attention shattered when that woman moved and the leather wrapped around the thing she carried shifted. A gap opened in its wet folds, and for a moment Jiri could see something hidden beneath it. Dark carved wood, and something red, glowing like hot metal, all swimming beneath shimmers of heat. Heat that warped the air around it, twisted it like flames, climbing, consuming—

  Jiri ripped her eyes away from the thing, her body blazing, her head spinning. The air around her seemed to be shivering like flames, but she forced herself to look through it and meet the woman's eyes.

  "You can't," she gasped. Can't what? Jiri couldn't put it into words, the danger that she felt radiating out of that thing, anger and heat pounding like some monstrous heart. Couldn't force herself to speak, while an echo of that anger and heat was pounding in her own heart. She can't take that, can't touch that, can't—

  "I'm sorry, girl," the woman said, her voice beautiful. "For the hell that follows me. It's not meant for you." There was sympathy in her words, but it was gossamer flesh over solid bones of certainty. "But if I have to drag that thing across the whole Expanse to bring it to where I need it to be, so be it." The ground trembled again, and the woman's voice cracked like a whip. "Corrianne!"

  "Gods, Patima, I know!" Corrianne held up her hand, sketching symbols in the air that flickered and vanished before they were truly seen, and she whispered words fast and sibilant.

  Jiri shook her head, tearing her eyes away from whatever the woman Patima held. Head aching with heat, she raised her hand, fire licking around her fingers. She barely noticed Morvius setting Linaria down and stalking forward, Scritch held low. Sera moved on the other side, her shield up. She didn't pay any attention to the armored man stepping out in front of Corrianne, his warhammer ready. Her only focus was on Patima.

  "You can't," Jiri said again, raising her hand, her fist clenched around fire, but Corrianne was calling out—

  "Lovely meeting you all, but we've people to see, riches to earn, and terribly awful things to run away from. Have fun!"

  Corrianne threw her arms out, slapping one hand onto the back of the man protecting her and letting Patima grab the other. The little woman with the knives spun and leapt, grabbing nimbly onto Corrianne's skirt. Jiri's eyes remained on Patima, who cradled that smoking bundle as if it were her last child, and Jiri's arm was moving, throwing the fire she held straight at her. The woman stared back at her, dark eyes shining, reflecting the light of the flames flying at her—

  And then she was gone.

  Gone, her and all her companions, and the thing that they had stolen from beneath the Pyre. With a hiss, Jiri's flame hit the mud where they had been standing and fizzled out into steam and ashes.

  From the ground behind Jiri, Linaria gasped. "Gods damn us. She can teleport now?"

  "Of course," Morvius said, turning from the now-empty space in front of him. He frowned at the slim blade embedded in his partner. "Poisoned?"

  "Of course."

  "Why hasn't someone fed that halfling to a crocodile yet?" The tall man looked down at Jiri. "You're a healer, right? Lay her down and—"

  "No." Jiri's eyes were back on the Pyre, staring at the stone wall Linaria's magic had made. A black spot marked its center, growing and spreading. "Something's coming."

  "What?" Morvius looked over his shoulder at the door. "Balls," he said, then he went fast to Linaria, scooping her up, ignoring the white-haired woman's gasp of pain.

  "What's going on?" Sera demanded.

  "We're running," Morvius shouted, and started to lurch forward, away from the Pyre. "You might want to join us."

  The paladin looked back at the blackening stone. She raised her sword, but cursed quietly when a streamer of blood oozed out of the cut that split her scalp and ran into her eye. "Come on," she told Jiri, backing away.

/>   Jiri stared at the door, saw the cracks spreading across its charring surface. She thought of the thing that woman had held. A carving of wood, metal hot enough to glow. Her hand clung to the necklace she held. What had that woman stolen from beneath the Pyre? She said she was sorry for the hell that follows her. What follows her? Her hand ached, clutched so tight, and in her head she heard a voice, sharp and clear and sudden.

  Jiri, go!

  Jiri turned and started to run, but behind her rock cracked and a wall of air and heat slammed into her, smashing her off her feet. Rolling onto her back, Jiri tried to see but the air was full of smoke and ash, and her eyes were streaming, her lungs burning. Somewhere, someone was screaming, and all the ash in the air was moving, pulling in on itself, and Jiri could see wings over her. Giant wings, stretching across the sky, wings of ash that roiled the smoke as they beat, and at their center something glowed like a cinder, something shaped like a man. That thing raised its terrible, hate-twisted face of fire and ash and roared, and heat rolled over Jiri. It spun around her, an inferno that almost touched her but didn't quite, and she was howling too, her burning lungs throwing out what little air they held. Smoke swirled in and covered her eyes, and all the world was ash, and there was only darkness.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  When Jiri opened her eyes and found light again, it was the red-gold light of sunset, with night coming fast. Shadows stretched thick across the clearing before her, obscuring it, though it seemed familiar. Blinking burning eyes, she coughed and sat up.

  "Alive?" Linaria crouched before her, a stained rag pressed to her nose.

  "Yes. You?"

  The half-elf fingered the tear that marred her bloody silk shirt. "I'm fine. Mostly. Sera can be a pain in the ass, but she's useful. Now if I could just stop this nosebleed..."

  "I've got blood fern." Jiri choked a bit on the words, coughed and spit. Her spit was black with soot. "Back in Thirty Trees."

  "Ah," Linaria said, softly.

  Jiri stared at her, then looked again at the clearing they sat in. Wind stirred the trees around it and scattered the ashes that filled it. Familiar, but not, because the homes that had once filled it were gone, charred to nothing.

  "We never saw what came out that door." Linaria's eyes shone in the dark. "It went over us like a forest fire, all heat and smoke and ash. Then it was gone. I made Morvius go back, and we found you and Gavin back near those ruins. The archer..." She sighed. "The poison had slowed him down too much. That thing caught him, and there wasn't much left. You weren't far away, but other than being out cold, you were untouched. Lucky."

  "Lucky," Jiri said. She could feel a weight around her neck. Someone had put Oza's necklace on her while she lay unconscious. She wouldn't have, but now she knew she couldn't take it off.

  "Sera picked you up and we came back here. But whatever that thing was, it beat us. Burned a perfect circle out of the jungle, centered on your village." Linaria rested a cool hand on Jiri's arm. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing left."

  Jiri stared around at what she could see of the empty clearing in the gathering shadows. The mango trees were gone. All of them? Maybe. Something burned in her eyes, and she couldn't tell if it was ashes or tears.

  "That thing..." Wings of ash, and something like fire, shaped like a man.

  "Gone. Who knows where?" Linaria said. "Hunting Corrianne, maybe. Hopefully."

  "No. Not her." Jiri felt strangely calm, distant, despite the charred flesh scent that she could smell below the smoke and ash reek. "Patima. The one that you said could summon demons. She was holding something. That's who it wants."

  "Patima. Because of what she held?" Linaria said. "Well, if it's something valuable that they stole out of that place, they'll all want their piece of it. Patima, Corrianne, Amiro, and Mikki, that poisonous goblin in halfling-skin." Linaria's hand touched the tear in her shirt again. "They're Aspis Consortium, they're always in it for the money. We...worked together, once." Linaria paused. "It didn't go well."

  Patima. Jiri pulled herself up. Aspis Consortium. She stared down at the ashes that surrounded her. "Did you find anyone?"

  "Just bones," Linaria said. "Sera buried them."

  Buried. In the dimming light, Jiri could see a mound of earth, pitifully small, bare of offerings. She pulled her eyes away.

  Lucky.

  "When I was a baby, Oza found me. In a village, burned by fire. I was the only living thing he found in the ashes. He named me Jiri, after a sister he had lost. For my home name, though..."Jiri traced the thin trails of smoke that still rose toward the darkening sky. "He named me Maju. It means ashes. Jiri Maju, Jiri from the Ashes. Then he brought me here, to a new home. And now this place is ashes, too."

  "Jiri, this isn't your fault."

  "My fault," Jiri said softly, crouching down and picking up a handful of ash.

  "No. Patima, or the Consortium who sent her, or that thing. They're responsible for this. Understand?"

  "Understand?" Jiri's hand tightened, and she felt the smooth powder of the ash warm in her palm. "Oza is dead. Thirty Trees is ashes. I am Mosa Jiri Maju. I understand who is responsible." Her hand opened, and the fine gray ash drifted through her fingers like smoke.

  "And someday, they will be ashes, too."

  Chapter Five

  Mosa

  When the sun touched the sky over the Expanse and the black arc of stars began to fade into blue, the rhythm of the jungle changed. The roaring chorus of the night insects faltered, and the high-pitched screams of the fruit bats faded. In their place, the sounds of the dawn grew. Birds sang and squawked, monkeys chattered and squabbled, and the insects of the day began to hum.

  That change in the jungle's rhythm was grooved deep into Jiri's bones. Every day of her life she had woken to it, pulled herself from the whispering spirit stories of her dreams and returned to the waking world, to the Expanse, to Thirty Trees, to her life.

  My life.

  The noise of daybreak surrounded Jiri, but she didn't want to open her eyes and let the coming dawn in.

  She didn't want to see what her world had become.

  Sleep had rolled like a flood over her last night and drowned her in senseless darkness. Part of her wanted that back so badly, that sheltering embrace of oblivion. But the currents of sleep had turned against her, and now she lay awake and the truth of what had happened wouldn't stay hidden. It sparked to life, a painful heat that burned through her, grief and anger like bright flames.

  Jiri opened her eyes to the dawn of her new life, and its ashes blinded her with tears.

  Everything is gone.

  Jiri rubbed her hands over her face, pushing those tears out of her way. She could feel the ash mixed in with them, gritty against her skin. She could smell it too, thick in the air around her, overpowering the faint remnants of the medicine root she had smeared beneath her nose the day before to block the demon's stench.

  The demon that killed Oza.

  Jiri's hands fell to the necklace that lay tangled around her neck, stroked the smooth bone of the carved fetishes hanging from it. It tore him apart. It ate him. Jiri shuddered at the memory, and the flames in her grew. Their heat made her tears run faster, but that was all right. They cleared the ash from her eyes and let her see.

  A smooth circle stretched around her, an empty gray death-mark branded into the tangled vibrancy of the jungle. This was all that was left of Thirty Trees. Last night, in the dim of twilight, Jiri hadn't seen how perfect the destruction was, how precise and absolute. Everything in the circle that covered where the village had been was gone, burned to ashes, gray and black and white, the shifting surface spotted only with a few shards of heat-shattered clay and the occasional gleam of a melted lump of metal.

  Pots and tools, rendered down to nothing by the terrible heat of that thing, that...

  That what?

  Jiri pushed herself up, rising slowly from the gray drift of ash that had collected around her in the night. She didn't know. Some spirit of smoke a
nd flame, nameless to her and terrible, had destroyed this place. The only home she had ever known.

  Some spirit, released from its prison.

  Released by those raiders. Aspis Consortium. Jiri rolled her tongue over the strange words, whispering them silently. That was what Linaria had named them. Treasure hunters seeking a fortune, they had broken into the Pyre and stolen...something. Jiri had seen it, cradled in the arms of that woman, Patima. It was a Bonuwat name, and Jiri thought that the woman had the look of those coastal people.

  A Bonuwat woman, and the man had been from the Expanse, who knew what tribe. Then there was the halfling poisoner and the northern magician. Aspis Consortium. They were the ones who had come to Jiri's home, sneaking and stealing from the Pyre, the tainted barrow that Jiri's ancestors had warned everyone away from. They were the ones who had woken the spirit that burned Thirty Trees.

  Burned and killed.

  In the center of the circle, Sera had made a grave. Jiri's eyes found it and slipped away, unable to rest for long on that little mound of earth. Instead, they found Morvius and Linaria sleeping near her. They had stripped off armor and outer clothes, but for some reason they had cocooned themselves in silk sheets thin as gossamer. The silk covered them completely, including their heads, and for a moment there was almost something besides anger and grief in Jiri's head, some spark of curiosity about the northerners' madness, but the taste of ashes in her mouth killed her wondering. Instead, she searched for Sera and found the paladin standing behind her.

  Sera's short hair and the pale skin of her face and neck were marked with soot, but her gleaming armor and the white tabard that she wore over it were perfectly clean, untouched by blood or mud or ash despite everything that had happened yesterday. The paladin was on watch, her dark brown eyes searching the jungle that stretched around them. For a moment those intense eyes rested on Jiri, then went back to her watch.

  "I'm sorry for your dead." Sera faced away from Jiri, her words soft and hard to hear against the birdcalls. "They should never have burned. No one should."