Denied--A Novel of the Sazi

by Cathy Clamp

  “Anica!” he called to her as she swam, but she didn’t answer. “Anica!” She dove underwater so she didn’t have to listen to him. When he reached out with his magic, she pushed it away and kept swimming, holding her breath as long as she could.

  She made it on one breath underwater to the shore. When she got out of the water on the scorched beach, Tristan was already there. She hadn’t even seen him swim past her! Bobby was stomping out the doll campfires with his boots. Tristan grabbed her arm, but not hard like when the fire was coming. “I can force this, you know. I can put a magic hold on you until this is over so you don’t get hurt.” The surface of his face was angry, but it was a lie. The undercurrent, just beneath the surface, was worry, fear.

  She pulled her arm away and he didn’t stop her. But his eyes started to glow blue and the push of magic pressed against her skin. She couldn’t help but stare at his face, those eyes, with surprise and anger in return. “Does this mating thing make you stupid?” The glow in his eyes dimmed the slightest amount. She smelled oranges rising over the smoke, but it was not hers, or Tristan’s. Bobby was listening and commenting without a word. But he was amused. “Or is being mated to me so horrible that you want to die?”

  The questions seemed to take the wind completely out of him. It was obvious from his scent that he didn’t know exactly how to reply, so she continued, “Each time you attach to me you are weaker. You have said so yourself. So either your brain does not work right and you do not know you will die, or you do not care that you will die if you face this bad man, which insults me.” He blinked, then blinked again, and his jaw opened, but no sound came out.

  Bobby didn’t turn around to face them, but he did clear his throat. “Interesting note in the mediation files, Ris: Anica’s culture requires a challenge battle for insults.” He smiled when Tristan glared at him. But then Bobby’s face grew more serious. “But more important, if you intentionally go into battle while mated and it kills your mate, it’s a death sentence.”

  She raised her brows and crossed her arms over her chest to watch him process that. Seconds passed while his clothing slowly turned gray from the ash settling on him and his face turned gray from Bobby’s words. He could tell his friend was not lying and she certainly wasn’t going to dispute the first part, because it was true. “I do not intend to chase your bad man. He has done me no harm. But the woman snake, she has harmed me and my family. I do not ask your help, but I will find her to bring justice to my family.”

  Bobby sighed. “Not that simple, Anica. Same rules apply. You can’t intentionally go into battle and risk Ris. Since he’s mated to you, your death could actually kill him.”

  Now it was her turn to stare openmouthed at the snake. Smoke rose all around him from the fires he had tamped out. It blended with the golden power that rose around him to make him hazy and indistinct. She had to blink and rub the tears in her eyes brought on by the stinging. “How can you stop legitimate justice for a wrong? Your job is to do justice!”

  He walked closer, stomping on one last smoldering fire and flipping some wet dirt over the sputtering flame. “Exactly. My job is to do justice. Not yours. You are welcome to track her. But if you find something, you come to me or Alek or Amber. You don’t get to go off half-cocked and take her down yourself.”

  “But Tristan can?!”

  Bobby raised his hands, like it was out of his control. “Official sanction for war crimes. Lagash has a long history of … well, choose your high crime and he’s done it.”

  “You can’t kill the woman.” Tristan’s voice was quiet, subdued. “Even I can’t and I have no idea what I’m going to do with Lagash because of it.”

  “Wait.” Bobby turned to him. “What?”

  “You might as well both know,” Tristan said with a sigh. “I recognized the snake’s scent at Anica’s house.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose and smeared the soot, causing streaks of pale skin to show through. “She’s Ahmad’s older sister.”

  Bobby walked closer to them, until he was close enough that had he flicked his tongue he would have hit Tristan’s nose. “Ahmad doesn’t have any siblings.”

  “He used to. Five or six I knew of. Everyone presumed Enheduanna was long dead. Of course, we thought Lagash was, as well. He was mated to her, which is where some of his power comes from, so I’m shocked it’s her. I guess I assumed he’d drained her dry long ago. But I know her smell. And I can assure you that no matter what she’s done, Ahmad will never allow her to die.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Bobby reached down and picked up a rock that should have taken two hands to pick up. He threw it into the water with enough force that it looked like a stick of dynamite had been tossed in instead. “That means we can’t kill him either, if they’re mated.”

  “But he can kill us? How is that fair?” Neither man answered her, but they both had similar sour expressions. Some days, Anica hated having to play by the rules, when nobody else seemed to care about them. “Then at least we can find them. We can catch them and give them to Ahmad. If he breaks rules, nobody will care. Yes?”

  That actually made Bobby think. “A few will care, but I don’t know they’ll punish him. It’s probably as close to a solution as we’re going to find.”

  She turned her head suddenly to a distant sound. Lifting her head, she tried to smell what went with the noise, but there was too much ash in the air. “I hear something.” She pointed to a stand of trees that was only partially burnt. “It sounds like someone yelling.”

  Bobby and Tristan turned their heads, tried to listen. But the crackling, hissing sound of the fire was still too loud. Tristan shook his head. “Which way?”

  She pointed and Bobby took off at a trot in that direction. Before Tristan followed him, Anica put a hand on his arm. “This is not over. Okay? We must talk.”

  He didn’t respond before turning to follow Bobby, but she smelled such a flurry of emotions, even if they talked, she wasn’t sure he would be able to talk reasonably. She broke into a run. Too much was happening. The thought of talking with him when he was not ready made her tired. If she was lucky, it would only be like Papa and he would calm down and listen logically. Or it could be worse, like trying to talk sense to Samit when he was angry.

  She would have to approach it carefully. Or not at all. She wasn’t sure a relationship with Tristan was worth chasing if he didn’t consider her smart enough or strong enough to deal with her own problems. Even Papa, for all his worry, had considered her strong enough to fight Larissa. Had the two families not chosen to decide the boundary issue with the Ascension challenge, she would have been allowed to fight in animal form.

  Anica heard the sound again, and sprinted past the two men, cutting right hard to match the sound. Then her nose picked up the scent. It was Bojan! Her speed increased at about the same moment as Bobby and Tristan caught the smell. “Bojan! Where are you?”

  “Anica! Here!” She turned in her trajectory and found Bojan near the base of the mountain. His shoulder was pressed flush against the stone as though he was reaching for something. “Help me! Scott is trapped.” He pulled his arm back and Anica came close to the small opening between the fallen boulders, which was just barely wide enough to fit an arm in.

  She tried to see in, but it was too dark. “Scott? Are you okay?”

  His voice was distant, tinny, like it was traveling a long distance inside the hole. “No. My wing’s trapped in the rocks. If Bojan shifts me back to human, the rock will move and probably rip my arm right off.” Anica put her nose right against the rock and inhaled. It was definitely Scott and he was in much pain.

  Bobby touched Bojan on the shoulder. “What happened? How did you get here? You were on the first truck out of town.”

  Her brother shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  That was not the answer the Wolven investigator wanted and, frankly, not the one that Anica wanted either. She wanted to know why Bojan had risked his life to come to the mid
dle of a forest fire. Smoke still rose from the skeletons of massive pines all around him. He was covered with ash, the soot thick enough on his face that it looked like the makeup rock stars wear. She could smell burnt hair but couldn’t tell where under the gray. “You need to tell me,” Bobby said, his voice flat and serious. “We’ll get him out of there, but I have to make sure you didn’t put him there.” Bojan looked at her and Bobby noticed. He put a hand on his arm and turned him away. “Let’s talk about this over here.” Bojan went, but he kept looking back over his shoulder. The scents of worry and fear were strong, but there was guilt there too—thick and oily enough to stick to the inside of her nose.

  Bojan, what have you done?

  Tristan had squatted down next to the hole and was feeling inside with one arm. He called down the hole, “Do you know how far down you fell?” He turned to her and lowered his voice. “What’s the boy’s name again?”

  “Scott.” She felt helpless. The rock was so large. Bigger than the delivery truck that used to take their raspberries to market. “Can you move it? Can you move the rock and get him out?”

  “Scott? Do you know how far down you are?”

  The tiny voice inside the stone replied, “It was a cave before the entrance collapsed. I don’t know for sure, but maybe twenty feet.” So that was the rumbling they felt under the water. It had probably been loud, but with everyone gone for the fire, nobody was here to help. Tristan took a deep breath and let it out slow before shaking his head.

  She didn’t like what that said to her, so she tapped him, and questioned with her eyes, so not to worry Scott. Tristan put a hand over the hole and whispered, “I don’t know. Look up.” He motioned with his head. When she did, all she saw was more mountain … a big pile of rocks. She shrugged, not sure what she was supposed to see.

  “The rock that fell is a base stone. It’s holding up everything above it. When it fell, everything else shifted. If we move it, the whole mountainside could come down in a rock avalanche that could bury half of the valley, including Luna Lake.”

  The knot of worry in her stomach grew until it felt like something in her insides was chewing its way out of her body.

  CHAPTER 16

  This was the very reason why Tristan had abandoned humanity. So many problems. So many emotions. Anica and her brother wore their worry and fear on the surface of their skin. While her brother was just worried for his friend, Anica was worried for everyone. He could feel it pressing against him, burrowing under his skin so deep he couldn’t ignore it. Worse, Anica was a doer. Her first thought was to fix problems, to take the weight of them on herself, without want of glory or money, but just to make things right. He could feel that too and both hated it and was refreshed by it. He used to be the same way, but time and experience had beaten it out of him. Too many failures, not enough appreciation for the wounds and scars earned for others. Scars like Anica’s. He’d been shocked by the deep claw marks she’d revealed. How she’d survived the attack he couldn’t imagine. They’d tried to claw out her heart, and given the size of her body, they should have succeeded.

  Proud, tough, determined, and sentimental: a dangerous combination … for many reasons.

  “Stay still down there. Try not to move around. We’ll see what we can do to get you out.” Tristan could feel the man’s desperate hope waft from the hole, accompanied by a scent that said he knew he was doomed. Tristan was pretty sure he was. There was only one way to know for sure. “Hey, toss me your flashlight.”

  Bobby reached down to open one of the pockets on his pant legs. “No guarantee it’ll work. I didn’t bring the water-resistant one.”

  “Scott, are there multiple entrances into the mountain?” Tristan asked.

  “Yes! There’s a whole network of caves. But this one doesn’t connect with the others and I don’t feel any air moving except from this hole.”

  Okay, that was a problem he hadn’t anticipated. The opening in front of him was barely big enough for him to slither through. But if this was the only air hole, he’d be blocking it for as long as it took him to reach the trapped man. He passed the flashlight to Anica.

  “Take this apart and dry everything as best you can. I’m going to see if there’s another way in.” She nodded and set to work. Tristan addressed his fellow snake again. “Bobby. Scuba or Amber. Your choice. He’ll need either air or magic to keep breathing while I try this.”

  Bobby looked at him, then at the hole, then back again. From his expression, he wondered if Tristan had lost his mind. “You can’t be serious—”

  “You have a better idea? One of us has to go look and, let’s face it, you won’t fit.”

  Bobby could squeeze himself into some pretty small spaces, but even in python form he was too big to fit into the gap. “It’ll have to be Amber. You and the scuba hose won’t fit at the same time.”

  Anica had moved next to her brother, the only dry one of the lot of them, and was using the inside hem of his shirt to sop up water from inside the flashlight. The look she gave him was mostly confused, with a thread of nervousness. “How will you get down to him without making hole bigger and causing more rocks to fall?”

  He stared at her. With her nose, she had to know he wasn’t really a bear. But the fact that she had to ask at all meant neither Bobby nor Amber had told her directly. “I think you know the answer to that.” Instead of saying the word out loud—“snake”—he instead thought of hunting with his family when he was young. A dozen of them, blue and black bands shimmering with magic in the water, diving peacefully among the coral and grass, searching for eels and young fish. Then, weighted down with their meals, slithering up onto the shore to rest and sun themselves on the warm rocks.

  He couldn’t tell if she was watching the memory in his mind, but her brow furrowed and she stopped putting the flashlight back together. She walked toward him, until she was nearly touching him. Finally, she spoke. “Another lie. You cannot be both bear and snake.”

  But who was lying? He stared at her long enough that she looked away. She knew. Maybe not the whole truth, but part of her knew he wasn’t a bear. “People have thought I’ve been different things at different times. What you can see or smell can be tricked. Illusion magic can be very powerful. But what’s in my mind is real.”

  She shrugged one shoulder, not believing him, then focused on the batteries, inspecting every inch of them before sliding them back into the body of the unit. “Unless you lie to yourself too. If you believe it real … remember it that way … isn’t it still a lie?”

  Was it?

  How much of his past was shaded by how he remembered an event? Did it matter what was real or just how he interpreted it at the time?

  “Let’s get Scott out and safe and then we can talk. Okay?” She nodded, just once, her eyes cold and distant, then handed him the flashlight. He was not at all surprised that it worked when he pressed the button. Anica was nothing if not thorough.

  “I like Scott and he is important to Bojan. Do what you can. I will not ask how.” She paused and then turned away. “But I cannot watch.” She strode away and to stand beside Bobby and Bojan, her back to Tristan.

  He was surprised how much that bothered him.

  Yes, she had a bad history with snakes. Yet why did he have to prove himself as a snake when he hadn’t had to as a bear? Her prejudice, no matter how well deserved, told him that he would do whatever he had to do to end the mating cleanly. He’d spent most of his life alone and been fine. He didn’t need the emotional stress of fitting someone into his life.

  He put up mental shields like he was back in Sargon’s court, where Nasil and his priests could invade his mind and torture him at will. His mental walls were solid stone to keep his mind clear and free of influence. He felt the connection with Anica sever, leaving him alone in his own mind. It was harder than he expected to maintain, and a little unnerving to realize how accustomed he’d gotten to having someone share his head and how odd it felt to be by himself.

>   Shaking off the sensation, he pulled his arms out of the sleeves of his shirt and concentrated on shifting. His arms melded into his body, which then narrowed until he was able to wriggle out of the neck of his shirt. His legs joined into one mass, then smoothed out until he could slither freely. He picked up the flashlight in his teeth and easily climbed the seemingly smooth rock, grasping the microfractures in the stone with his scales. Fingers were so clumsy for climbing. He never understood why humans liked to climb freehanded.

  Tristan shined the flashlight into the hole and set it down while most of his body was still outside. “Scott?”

  “Still here,” came the faint reply.

  “You’re going to have to hold your breath for a few minutes. I’m going to try to get to you and it’s going to block this hole.”

  There was a pause while he sorted that out. “Okay. But … it’s a little tight on space in here. I don’t know that there’s really room for even another owl. Or how you’re going to get in here. But I can hold my breath for about two minutes underwater.”

  Two minutes. That wasn’t nearly enough time to negotiate a safe path through the crevice. But he’d have to try. “Just breathe slow and shallow. Hopefully, there’s air coming in from more than just this entry.” Without turning his attention, he called out behind him, “Bobby, send someone to get Amber. I might need you here and she might be needed for Scott!”

  Without waiting for an answer, he picked up the flashlight in his teeth again and entered the hole. Thankfully, the crevice was wide enough to allow the flashlight passage—at least, so far. He was entirely within the mountain now, even to the tip of his tail. His senses narrowed to the sensation of rock under his scales and watching for the next turn in the narrow passage. He made four nearly ninety-degree turns in three dimensions in the first three feet. Tristan began to feel a little like a pretzel and it was getting hard to keep moving forward. His skin was being rubbed raw all over by the rough stone—unavoidable in such tight quarters but painful. There was no reason to stop to heal himself, so he was just going to have to put up with it. His best hope was to speed up.