Fire Dance

by Ilana C. Myer

  * * *

  AT dawn the thing that had been Gared Dexane was entombed in a cove on the northern shore of the Isle—its most desolate, where no one went. There was not much left to inter. His flesh had rapidly liquefied from bone. Only the lidless eyes were intact, bewildered. Grey surf roared on the breakers as they worked, winds from the north a claw that struck again and again, as if spring had never come.

  PART II

  CHAPTER

  10

  IT had been years since Nameir Hazan had seen the mountains. The last campaign of Mansur Evrayad had taken them away from Kahishi, south to the Islands of Pyllankaria and a siege that had lasted three years. Yusuf had ordered his son to take the fortress there, that bestrode a profitable stretch of sea. Over years, rising in the ranks, Nameir had become accustomed to salt winds, relentless sun, the tedious privations of siege warfare.

  What they faced here in the northern marches of Kahishi was different. In truth, Nameir didn’t believe they were equipped to handle it. But even she, Mansur’s second-in-command, couldn’t tell him that. Besides, he knew as well as she how hopeless was their situation. They were faced with an enemy who could attack without warning, as if from nowhere; who evaded barriers as if they were air. Villagers told of awakening to find marauders within their walls with no sign of having scaled or tunneled under them. They set fire to homes, slaughtered and maimed, and by morning had vanished as swiftly as they’d appeared. Leaving no traces even for Mansur’s most skilled trackers. Those who died on the field of battle remained; the rest vanished with the sun.

  Another strangeness: the enemy dead disintegrated at unnatural speed—an added form of vanishing. The flesh melted from their bones within moments, a sickening spectacle even on the battlefield, where horrors were commonplace. Some of Mansur’s men, overcome by the sight and smell, had been unable to stop themselves retching on the spot.

  It was magic, and this forced them to rely on guidance from the Tower of Glass. The Magicians were often in Mansur’s thoughts, warning of an attack on a village or town, so Mansur could mobilize his men to ride with all speed to the site. But this was a flawed strategy, and even the king’s Magicians were not all-seeing. Only the god was that, and the One tended not to interfere in the battles of men, at least not as far as she could see.

  Nameir still prayed to the One, the Unnamed, despite her years serving in battle with Kahishians. A secret she kept, along with that of her sex, from all in the battalion but Mansur.

  She found him in the watchtower, alone. He liked it there, she knew, as if the vistas and steady wind lent him temporary reprieve. But this morning he had the look of a man who’d seen a djinn.

  She climbed to sit beside him on the ledge. “Is there news?”

  “Last night,” he said. He blinked at her. Nameir thought she had never seen him so exhausted, his face drawn in rugged lines. Nonetheless she thought he was handsome as his smooth-faced brother. “I received a dispatch from Zahir Alcavar. My brother has ordered Vizier Miuwiyah to send his men here as reinforcements. Despite the political headache of that. Miuwiyah will demand the world in compensation. I’ll have to give him joint command.”

  “What is happening?”

  “They’re done going after villages, it seems.” Mansur’s face was a mask of fatigue. “This time they want the prize.”

  She closed her eyes. Had been expecting this since the raids began. “Almyria.” Proud city of the north. That unlike the provinces had never entirely surrendered to King Yusuf, but paid tribute in gold and men-at-arms. A city that long ago, before worshipers of the Thousand-Named God came to Kahishi, was the capital.

  Nameir had seen it once. With its square towers and grey fortifications, Almyria was more austere than Majdara to the south. But within the castle, and the Temple that had once been dedicated to strange gods, were stores of wealth and art said to be without parallel. Even some treasures said to be enchanted, gifts to rulers of Almyria from their gods. Among the warriors of Nameir’s acquaintance a particular favorite was the tale of a golden sword that could hew through rock. That seemed fanciful to her. As a girl she had journeyed to the Temple of Almyria and seen the altar where once animals had been ritually sacrificed for the glory of long-forgotten gods. In general, what people were willing to do—and kill—for their god was of interest to Nameir Hazan. It had, after all, determined the course of her life.

  “I can only wonder what delayed them this long,” said Mansur. “If walls mean nothing to them.”

  “The city poses a greater challenge,” she pointed out. “So far the forces attacking the villages have been some hundred men-at-arms. Lord Ferran commands many more.”

  “You assume they will not send a greater force this time.” He shook his head. “That’s the worst of it—we don’t know what they can do.”

  “Your grace, perhaps…” She swallowed.

  “Tell me your thought, Hazan.”

  “Perhaps until now they’ve been—practicing.”

  The word was bile in her mouth. Too clear were the memories of ransacked homes and the scenes of an abattoir that greeted them—hacked limbs of entire families strewn in blood. It was senseless torture—no spoils were ever taken. Even the farm animals hacked to death. This, for practice? Nameir could see this thought pass through Mansur’s mind before he said, “What a terrible idea. You may be right. Unless…” He gazed from the parapet of the crude wooden tower. It offered a view of mountains, green with the spring, distanced from them with a blanketing of wildflower fields. At this time of day the surface of Hariya, the tallest mountain, was as interlaced with shadow and light as cut crystal. There were tales of caves in the depths of that mountain. Rivers of gold, it was said, and crowns, and encrusted goblets of all kinds. Creatures that granted wishes to mortals foolish enough to hazard their destinies on magic. Such tales as were spun over so many years one never knew when or how they’d begun.

  “I know little of the Fire Dancers, Hazan, yet … I wonder,” said Mansur. “If something—something new—has happened that’s made them more confident. Or stronger.”

  * * *

  CLIMBING down from the watchtower, Nameir felt misgivings she could not have given a name to. That sort of articulation was better left to her commander. On some nights by the communal fires during the dragging years of the siege, Mansur would recite poetry of his own composition. Much of it about war; he might compare lovemaking to the frenzy of battle, a grove of cedars to lances, ripples in a stream to the rivets in armor. Other poems were tender, elegies for gardens that burst into flower as he lay siege on a bare rock in the sea, many leagues from home.

  Those nights she would sit among the men as Mansur Evrayad spun words into intricate tapestries. And a fatalistic sensation would grip Nameir, as if she were armed with only a dagger, on foot, watching the swift advance of a horde of cavalrymen with spears.

  So many things Nameir Hazan hid from the world, when she herself was not complex. At least, she didn’t believe she was. She wanted only two things in life. One was impossible; the other could only be achieved through concealment. A woman in this army would not have been tolerated, and a Galician just barely. Years ago Mansur had guessed at the first, and she had revealed the second, with a defiant lift of her chin. And he’d laughed. In the early years, drunk on young triumph and the thrill of battle, he laughed often.

  “Hazan, it’s nothing to me if you are beardless or worship a false god,” he’d said. “You have the fire that’s needed, and a quick mind. You may not best a bull-chested mounted opponent wielding a two-sided axe, but … you just might, actually, by outwitting him. So never mind all this. You must stay at my side.”

  So she had done that, and over years risen to second-in-command. She had stood at the side of Prince Mansur on the day he was wed to a vizier’s daughter, a pretty young girl named Alyoka. The vizier was of an unruly sort, with ideas about independence; Yusuf wanted him contained. An alliance of marriage would help there, and Eldakar was being
saved for Ramadus. That had been several years ago. Alyoka lived with her parents. She had brought a daughter into the world, a princess, that Mansur had held in his arms only once. Sometimes at night he could be stirred to songs of the home hearth—of the tenderness of a wife, the sweetness of an infant child. These songs invariably seemed half-hearted to Nameir. She suspected they arose more from guilt than longing. Or perhaps a sentiment that arose at lonesome twilight, due to vanish with the dawn.

  Mansur liked fighting too much.

  Most of his time, and therefore Nameir’s, was occupied with battle. As second-in-command to the prince, she was compensated handsomely. Lately she’d commissioned a sword and set of knives that would have been the perishing envy of her younger self. There had been some concern, when she was a girl, that as a woman she would fail to pass anymore. But the god in his mercy had made Nameir exceptionally tall and broad, and flat-chested. She claimed her father had been unable to grow a beard, endured jeers that in time faded to respect. She learned to ride and obtained a charger of her own. All that a warrior could want, other than a title and land, and these were undoubtedly forthcoming if she survived.

  But in the course of things, the inevitable had happened. It was predictable, she knew. Mansur was everything a man should be. It was something to conceal for the rest of her life.

  Nameir could do that. She had been orphaned very young in a raid and survived, fought her way to second-in-command. She could stand firm, even on nights when that horde of cavalry glowered across the horizon of her heart.

  Thoughts along these lines were a litany she told herself, or a song, though one which would never possess the grace of Mansur’s verses. One thing Nameir recalled from a childhood withered to ash was her father singing at an altar to the Unnamed God. The talisman that music and words, even forbidden words, could be.

  * * *

  MALLIN was watching Nameir when she climbed down from the watchtower. She smiled wryly; he must have found some excuse to be there. The pale-haired, square-jawed young recruit, formerly a child slave from the east, looked to Nameir more than most. She had made the training of him her particular project. He had the makings of a leader.

  When he saw her, he shook his head. “So. A dispatch?”

  She glanced around, but there was no one else nearby. “Almyria,” she said.

  He whistled. “At last.”

  “You’re not surprised.”

  “What would those fuckers want with the villages? Of course this is where it was going.” Mallin spat. “This is magic like nothing I have ever heard, Commander. Where I come from there are hexes, charms. There are dead that rise and drink the blood of maidens at sunset. But this? What are these Fire Dancers?”

  “They are monsters,” she said. “Perhaps they weren’t always. Some foul magic has made them so.”

  * * *

  THAT day Nameir oversaw preparations for the march on Almyria. They would depart at first light. Vizier Miuwiyah’s forces would meet theirs at the crossing of the Iberra. As she inspected the ranks she noted how weary were Mansur’s men from the past weeks. It was not only that they’d been called upon, repeatedly and without respite, to hasten to sites of attack. She thought even these men, not above pillage themselves, must be weary to the soul after what they’d seen. Not even hardened men like these wanted to see children lying split open in the thoroughfare. It was difficult for all but the most curdled among them. Especially when each time signified their failure. The mission was to defend the villages, and so far they’d had—at best—mixed results.

  But Nameir knew that to show compassion for their weariness could lead to lapses in discipline, further failures. So she harangued the men to make ready their armor and weapons for the greatest fight they’d faced. They would have to draw upon all they knew of contending with a broken siege.

  If Nameir allowed herself to think too long about the implications of an enemy such as this, she was gripped with an icy paralysis. How could they win? But what did it mean to lose? There had been no demands, no terms of surrender.

  Too many gaps in all of this; it didn’t make sense.

  Unless it was simply that the Renegade, the self-styled King of the North, sought revenge on the sons of Yusuf Evrayad for the father’s betrayal. The former king had promised the Renegade lands south of the mountains if they joined as allies. For a time, the Fire Dancers had fought at Yusuf’s side in battles from Meroz as far east as Belgarve. But upon their return, something had gone wrong. The Renegade had taken his troops and returned to his mountain fortress. No lands were forthcoming for the Fire Dancers who for centuries had lived hardscrabble on the margins of Kahishi. Their dance still forbidden within the borders, punishable by death.

  Now in possession of a new, dreadful magic, they sought vengeance.

  * * *

  IT was dusk when the man in white was sighted. Sunset faded towards twilight, and above Hariya there sparked the evening star. Nonetheless the men guarding the camp spotted the stranger. They saw he was alone. He walked with an odd gait, half-limping, for some hours in the distance. When horsemen from the camp rode to accost him, the man in white ceased his halting advance, and, standing with arms akimbo, watched them come.

  So it was told to Mansur Evrayad and Nameir Hazan. The prince ordered the man brought before him.

  His eyes would live in her dreams. That was the first thought Nameir had at the sight of the man in white. His garment was a robe, no armor or visible weapon. Nothing to indicate a threat. Only his eyes gave her pause. The pupils had dilated until the irises all but disappeared; black eyes, and mad. His cheeks sunken as if with hunger, rough from sun and wind. His face overgrown with greying hair.

  Six men escorted the stranger to Mansur’s tent. Twisting his arms behind him, they forced him to sit on a bench at the table. Torchlight made erratic shadows across the face of the man in white as he laughed. When he spoke she glimpsed broken teeth. “I come with the key to your lives,” he said. “Or your deaths.”

  Mansur fingered his sword hilt. “You’d best not speak lightly of death.”

  The man in white laughed again. “The prince seeks a duel of tongues, since swords have failed him? If you would like to fail somewhat less, hear me out. I know the source of your enemy’s power, prince. And how to stop it.”

  Nameir looked at Mansur; his eyes narrowed. “Do you? Why should I believe you?”

  “You can choose whether or not to believe once you’ve heard the tale,” said the man in white. “In exchange, I want a horse and a purse of gold. I weary of these lands, and the dance.”

  Mansur’s fist came down on the table, hard. “You think to set bargains? I’ll judge if this tale of yours is worth even that.”

  “It surely is.” The man smiled toothily and wide. “It concerns the queen.”

  * * *

  NAMEIR was uneasy that night. She paced back and forth in her tent. She didn’t like that Mansur had ordered her and the guards to leave him alone with the man in white the moment the queen was named. It was not at all like him. It was a risk to his safety. Who knew what tricks this Fire Dancer might get up to? There was too little they knew of their ways—and their powers.

  Her thoughts turned to Rihab Bet-Sorr, wed to Eldakar less than a year. Nameir tended to avoid thinking of her. During their last stay in the Zahra, she had seen Mansur’s eyes when the queen was near. His transparency in those moments almost touching. It made Nameir Hazan sorrowful in ways she preferred to avoid.

  Such feelings on his part were to be expected—Rihab had that effect. For her sake Eldakar had compromised his country’s fragile peace with Ramadus.

  It concerns the queen. With those words, Mansur had turned pale. When he ordered everyone from the tent it was with barely contained anger, but Nameir also noted the sudden terror in his eyes.

  In that she had to have been mistaken—Mansur Evrayad feared nothing. A strength and a weakness, both, one she knew well. Nameir drew some deep breaths to soothe her n
erves, a trick her commander had taught her. Whatever was happening, she would find out on the morrow. Her duty was to be rested for the long march at first light. She curled into her blankets for sleep.

  * * *

  DARK surrounded Nameir. Men’s voices, braiding as one in wordless song. The dark began to clear, first with a glimmer of firelight. As the light strengthened it became flames. These leaped and merged until at last they were one, a whispering, hissing wall. The heat pressed on her cheeks.

  The voices reached higher, as if with the flames. A man stood with his back to her, watching them. He turned and saw her. He was pale-skinned, with hair like a lion’s mane. In his hands a gold, stringed instrument.

  “In the stars,” he said with a brilliant smile. “It is written.”

  And then he changed. A different man was before her, a different face against the flames: an elderly man, his beard entirely white. His mouth gaping wide, a silent scream. About his right eye fire made a complex symbol; his flesh began to melt. Now she heard him; his agonies stove through her skull.

  Nameir woke with a start. It was still night. The only sound in the tent her breathing. Outside, the murmur of guards on their shifts, the metallic click of armor buckles as they paced. Nothing amiss.

  Nonetheless she climbed from the blankets and began to pull on her clothes. She could not have said why. No time for armor, but the leather tunic, her swordbelt and dagger. With detachment she noticed she was shivering. Perhaps because of the night’s chill on her bare legs as she drew on her trousers. Perhaps.

  When Nameir exited her tent, the guards outside hailed her, but were noticeably surprised. “Just a walk,” she said, and kept on. Her feet led the way before her mind had time to decide. But of course that was where she was going. Not why. But where.

  Torches guided her in the dark. Men backed away as she passed, ceased their chatter. There were few guarding; most were asleep. It was—oddly, considering what they dealt with here—a peaceful night. The camp sheltered in a cluster of fir trees that fanned against the dark of the sky, lit at their base with torches. From the boughs crickets sang as if there were no such thing as pain, or war.