Firesoul Read online

  "She wants to hunt that thing. So do I." Jiri adjusted the flowing wrap dress that Kalun's daughter Fara had brought to her, insisting that Jiri must wear it for the meeting. The folds of its orange silk felt strange against her skin. "But gods and crocodiles, you were right. She cares nothing about me or Thirty Trees. She just sees a snake, and I'm the closest stone. The thing is, she could say the same about me."

  "And what are we?" Morvius said. He had dressed up, again in the strange layers of his northern clothes, but these fine fabrics still had a bit of luster left to them, and he barely smelled of alcohol.

  Linaria had changed, too, into a simple dress that looked a bit like Jiri's borrowed one, but its silk was white, and around her waist she wore a thin belt of linked silver rings. "We're here," she said, answering him and not answering.

  Jiri glanced at the white-haired half-elf. What were they? Tools to be used, like Sera, but Jiri didn't understand them. Well, I don't understand Linaria. Morvius followed her, that was obvious enough, but Linaria's interest in Jiri seemed to go beyond Kalun's coin.

  She keeps acting...friendly. That thought made Jiri worried, fascinated, and suspicious, but she pushed it away. They were here, and it was time to focus on this meeting.

  They had walked across the Adayenki, silent and empty now with the night, the successful couples from the Orchid Dance gone to whatever hammocks they could find, taking their drums and leaving silence. The hall of the Governing Council lay just on the other side of the pavilion, a great, round building without walls. The thick thatch of the high roof was held up by great pillars of teak and mahogany beams carved with intricate vines, from which hung lanterns of brass and colored glass. Beneath those bright blooms, colored carpets had been spread, and each one held a chattering group of people. Mostly Zenj—jungle residents like Jiri—but she saw scattered among them the colorful clothes of Bonuwat traders, tall and ritually scarred Bekyar, the pale faces of northerners, and a few things that she was unsure of. Busy trying to stare covertly at a group of broad, impossibly hairy man-things that she thought might be dwarves, she almost walked past the carpet where Sera had already taken a seat. Fara was there though, too, and Kalun's daughter clicked her tongue at Jiri and caught her attention.

  "Here." The girl patted the carpet. "Father sent me ahead to hold your place. It's going to start soon. Do you want anything? There's coffee, and tea, and sweets, and palm—"

  "No," Linaria said firmly, cutting off Morvius before he could speak. She handed Fara a coin as she folded herself gracefully onto the carpet. "Get yourself something, though, with my thanks."

  The girl grinned and bounced away, heading for one of the vendors circulating through the hall. Jiri dropped into her place, with Linaria between her and Sera, and Morvius groaned and sat behind them.

  "Haven't these people heard of chairs?"

  "They've heard of stools," Linaria said. In the center of the pavilion, a ring of stools waited, empty. "You just have to be on the council to get one."

  "It hurts my scars to sit like this," Morvius grumbled.

  "Good. Maybe the pain will remind you why taking a wererat to bed is a bad idea."

  "He didn't look like a wererat when I took him to bed," Morvius grumbled.

  A week ago, Jiri would have begged to hear that story. Tonight, after all that had happened, she could focus only on searching the crowd. "Where are they?"

  "Aspis?" Linaria said. "There." She pointed across the hall to a broad carpet spread a few rows away from the council's circle of stools.

  Jiri saw Amiro first. The man was dressed in a blue silk suit trimmed in gold, and rings flashed on his fingers as he whispered to a group of men who clustered around him holding slate tablets and slivers of chalk. On the other side of the carpet Corrianne sat sulking on a thick pillow, waving a bright pink fan that matched her dress. Patima sat behind her, dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing in the market. The Bonuwat woman's eyes were searching the crowd, and when they found Jiri she nodded at her, not mocking, simply acknowledging her and then moving on.

  This was the story Jiri needed to hear, now. "What can you tell me about them?" she asked Linaria.

  "Amiro is a local. He apparently started working for the Consortium as a child, running messages. He worked his way up, imitating his Aspis bosses to the point of converting to the worship of Abadar. He became a cleric of the merchant god, and a few years later he was given a brass badge and made an official agent of the Aspis Consortium. His boss started him relic hunting, and assigned him Corrianne, Mikki, and Patima to help." Linaria shook her head. "I think the man considered Amiro a threat, and wanted to get rid of him. But somehow Amiro made those vipers work together, and they've done well. So well that when his boss died of the red drip, Amiro took his job. It's surprising that he was out in the jungle, really. He's been here in the city for months, trying to make his promotion permanent.

  "Corrianne is from Taldor," Linaria continued, "by her name and her accent and her dress. And by her attitude, though I wouldn't say that in front of any other Taldans. She can't stand the Expanse, but she's here for traditional reasons."

  "Traditional reasons?" Jiri asked.

  "She's on the run. According to a bounty hunter I once met, she had a bit of fight with her family back in Taldor. The few that survived put a nice price on her head."

  "Was that the bounty hunter that got eaten by a giant eel in the baths?" Morvius asked.

  "Yes."

  "One of the many reasons you should be damn careful about picking fights with wizards," Morvius said, staring at Jiri.

  He said he liked me better when I started lighting things on fire. Jiri shoved the thought aside and made herself ignore Morvius. "I don't see the little one that stabbed you."

  "Mikki?" Linaria rubbed her hand across her belly. "You won't. She's wanted too, but by the locals. Mikki got into a fight over a dancing monkey with the favorite grandson of a Tirakici elder a few months ago and knifed him. He lived, but the poison she used destroyed his mind. The council has ordered her capture and execution if she's found in the city."

  "So she's not in Kibwe?"

  "No, she's here," Linaria said. "Amiro and the Consortium find that halfling assassin far too useful and too dangerous to let out of their sight. You just won't see her outside their compound."

  A compound. I wonder where that is? It wasn't a question that Jiri thought she should ask Linaria. "What about Patima?"

  "Patima." Linaria said the name carefully. "Patima is strange. She's the quiet one of that group. All I knew about her was that she was a bard, and a gold hound. She was good at finding the forgotten places, the secret ones where things were hidden. With Corrianne and Mikki around, I never paid much attention to her. These last couple of days, though, I've asked about her.

  "She was found in the jungle five or six years ago, alone and raving. The merchants who found her brought her here and left her. She lived as a beggar for a while, telling tales and singing for coin, until she pulled herself together and started working for the Consortium. Since then, she's done very well for herself. The woman I talked to..." Linaria paused, remembering. "She said it was hard to connect them, that calm, quiet woman in the nice clothes and the beggar that she used to warn the children away from, because her stories always gave them nightmares."

  "What kind of stor—" Jiri's question was broken with a crash of cymbals, followed by a cacophony of bells and chimes and more cymbals as a group of children ran through the hall, all of them ringing bells and beating drums. To frighten away bad-luck spirits, Jiri knew, but it also did a fine job of breaking up all the gossip and trading going on beneath the flower lanterns, and when the children ran out and the council marched in, the hall was impressively silent.

  A tall man with a carved staff marched in with them, and he stood and waited until all the old men and women had taken seats on their stools, all facing in toward each other. "Kibwe," he called out, in a voice deep and strong enough to easily reach
the edges of the hall. "I am the Voice of the Hall. I tell you, your elders have assembled, and the Governing Council is now in session. I call on the spirits of our ancestors to watch, and lend us their wisdom." He raised the staff and knocked it against a rafter, in a spot worn smooth by previous blows, and Jiri, impressed despite her nerves by the panoply, settled in to watch the show.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Two hours later, Jiri had very much had enough of the show.

  "How much longer will this go on?" she whispered, and beside her, Linaria surreptitiously slipped the slim book she had been reading beneath a fold of her skirt. It looked suspiciously like the book that Morvius had been reading at the marketplace, the one that Sera had called an insult to poetry, decency, and anatomy.

  "Are they still arguing over whether the tax on cotton bales should be raised by a copper?"

  "No. Now the old man with the hat is arguing that roosters should be banned in the city, because they wake him up."

  "Well, they're into civil matters then. They should open the circle soon. That's when Corrianne will make her complaint."

  "Shouldn't Kalun be here?" Jiri looked around for the man. He was still nowhere in sight.

  "Don't worry, he'll show." Linaria's sharp features shifted to grumpy. "He's important enough to come in as late as he wants." Behind them, a soft snore rumbled, and without looking Linaria jabbed her elbow back. It didn't wake Morvius, but it made him shift, cutting off the snore.

  Jiri sighed. All this time wasted, listening to these fools ramble about scraps of coin, while Patima and her friends sat so close to her. Where is the thing she stole? Not here, so had they left it in their compound? Or have they sent it out of the city already in one of their caravans? The thought shook Jiri, but she didn't believe it. That thing. Patima wants it for something. What, Jiri didn't know, but she wanted to wring that answer from the woman too.

  Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice the shift in the council's talk until the Voice of the Hall took his staff and knocked it again against the rafters. Paying attention again, Jiri saw that all the old men and women were turning on their stools to face out at the people sitting around them.

  "The Governing Council of Kibwe is now open to its citizens. Are there any here who would seek their wisdom?" The Voice gripped his staff like a weapon, and the way his eyes flashed seemed designed to make any petitioner think twice. Still, the hall rustled with motion as people began to get up and make their way forward.

  "Citizens," Jiri said. "Corrianne isn't a citizen, though, is she?"

  "Of course not." Kalun carefully stepped from the broad aisle running through the hall to their carpet, seating himself with a grunt. "Kibwe seems like it might be going to hell, lately, but it's not so far gone as to allow someone like that to join its ranks. Corrianne has no citizenship, no standing, and no tribe, so Amiro will bring her case."

  "Nice you could make it," Morvius said, yawning and stretching. "How did the bribery and intimidation go?"

  "As well as could be expected." Kalun watched the flurry of activity as various children and clerks ran scraps of parchment up to the council members or bent to whisper in their ears. "I'll know for sure when they pick the council member to judge Amiro's case. At least he went right up. We won't have to wait."

  Amiro was first in the line of petitioners who now stood in front of the Voice. Unlike most of the others, he looked perfectly at ease before the looming man. This close, Jiri could make out the darker gold pattern of keys woven into the shining borders of his shirt.

  "You know what to do?" Kalun said, tilting his head toward Jiri.

  "Shut up unless I'm questioned, then just tell the truth," Jiri said grimly. "And don't light anything on fire."

  "That's it." Kalun turned to face the center of the hall as the man with the staff called out in his booming voice.

  "Amiro Kibwe has come to the Governing Council, and he wishes to speak! What say you, wise ones?"

  The elders on their stools waved away the messengers around them, settled their mugs of coffee and tea and wine, and nodded.

  Amiro bowed and walked forward.

  Chapter Eight

  Judgment

  They've chosen Simla to judge this."

  Jiri heard the tension in Kalun's whisper. "Is that bad?"

  Amiro had given a long speech to start out with that said nothing but managed to compliment the council and its wisdom in a dozen ways before his breath ran out. The Aspis man didn't have a voice like, well, the Voice, but his words still carried through the hall, level and assured. When he was done, the council members had turned inward and whispered to one another until one of them finally rose. An old woman, but not ancient, her hair gone gray, not white, and she stood tall and straight.

  "She's known for honesty, impartiality and fairness," said Kalun.

  "So it's a good thing, then," Jiri said.

  Kalun frowned without looking at her. "Impartiality is the last thing we want from a judge. I wanted the old man whose grandson Mikki knifed. The whole trial would have been about Amiro working with her then."

  "At least Amiro didn't get his favored judge," Linaria said. "His influence isn't greater than yours."

  "No. But when the hell did it grow to be equal to mine?" growled Kalun.

  In front of them, Amiro had started speaking. "—and it was there that Corrianne ran into Linaria, a foreign adventurer in the employ of Kalun of the Red Spear. She attempted to exchange pleasantries, but she was rudely interrupted by a young woman that was with these northern mercenaries, someone they had brought in with them from the jungle. This girl accused my good employee of..." Amiro spread his hands and shrugged. "Something. When my other employee, a Bonuwat woman called Patima who has lived respectably in this great city for years, tried to calm her, she was unsuccessful. So Patima wisely decided to leave, and at that point the girl attacked. Using magic, she pulled fire from the air and tried to strike Patima with it. When that failed, she apparently went a bit mad and lashed out with her flames. Thankfully no one was hurt, which I'm sure was due to the prompt arrival of a squad of your fine guards, but I do believe city property was damaged." Amiro ran his fingers over the smooth gold silk of his cuffs. "I don't have to tell you, I'm sure, how upset my employees were. They stopped their shopping, as I'm sure many others did, and hurried back to our compound. I come to you tonight, as a citizen of Kibwe, to speak for them, to ask you to exile this dangerous young woman from the city so that they, and all others, can feel safe in our marketplace once again. And further, I ask that you might lend your wisdom to those who would bring such an unreliable person into the heart of our city. Thank you."

  Simla didn't thank him back. She simply looked at him, and Jiri thought her hard dark eyes were unsettlingly reminiscent of Sera's.

  "Is this young woman here?" Simla said. "Does she have a citizen that can stand and speak for her and defend her actions?"

  "She is and she does," Kalun said, rising smoothly to his feet, looking strong for his age. A buzz of conversation rippled across the hall, but it fell silent when the Voice cleared his throat and glared out at the crowd.

  "We have just heard Amiro's complaint, and we have all heard that something troubled the marketplace today." Simla turned her eyes on Kalun. "What is your account of what happened?"

  "The same, and different," Kalun said. "My employees, all non-citizens of Kibwe but good, tax-paying inhabitants of this city, did meet Amiro's this afternoon. It was their second meeting this week."

  "Councilwoman Simla—" Amiro started, but Kalun kept speaking.

  "Their first was near the village of Thirty Trees, home to the shaman Jiri Maju." Kalun waved his hand at Jiri. "I sent my people there to help her deal with a team of Aspis Consortium raiders who were stripping a ruin that lay close to their village, raiders who had killed her teacher, the shaman Mosa Oza Thirty Trees."

  "Councilwoman—" Amiro interjected, to no avail.

  "Amiro, Corrianne, Patima. They were the r
aiders, along with a halfling called Mikki—"

  "What? You were with that murderous little—"

  This time the interruption came from an old man in an orange robe, sitting on a stool halfway around the circle. The grandfather that Kalun wanted as a judge. Jiri watched the man jump up to shout obscenities at Amiro, who had folded his hands and was staring up into the shadows gathered over the lanterns. Yes, he would have been more partial to our case.

  It couldn't matter now, though, Jiri thought. They can't ignore this. Amiro with a criminal, killing a shaman. And when we tell them of what happened to Thirty Trees, of the danger that is still out there...

  The Voice stepped forward and cracked his staff against the rafters until the hall quieted and a small knot of council members pulled the old man in orange back down to his stool. When he was settled, Simla spoke.

  "This encounter you speak of. It happened beyond the bounds of Kibwe, yes?"

  "It did," Kalun said.

  "Then it has no bearing on this council, and is immaterial to this case."

  What? The word was on Jiri's lips and she was starting to stand, ready to shout it out when a hand grabbed the back of her dress and jerked her down, hard.

  "You told Kalun that you knew what to do, girl," Morvius rumbled. "Do you? Or should I go get a bucket of water?"

  Jiri didn't say anything, didn't look back at him. She settled back down and adjusted the wrap of her dress with a low growl. Before her, Kalun was trying to argue.

  "—believe it does have bearing, because—"

  "Your belief does not matter here, Kalun." Simla leaned forward on her stool. "The law is clear. The council rules Kibwe. What happens beyond a spear's throw from our walls is none of our concern. You may object to that law, and you may have good reason, but it is the law and we will follow it. Now. Do you have anything to say about what happened at the market today?"

  Kalun considered her, and when he spoke again his voice held no trace of anger. "Yes, Councilwoman. Amiro has given his version. Mine differs mostly in who struck first in this little skirmish. That woman," Kalun pointed back at Corrianne without bothering to look at her, "did not greet my employees, or my guest. She attacked them with words as sharp and poisoned as darts. She did it with every intention of provoking a scene like the one that occurred. I believe the council has ruled before on the concept of fighting words, and has spoken against them."