Fan the Flame

by September Thomas

  “You did the right thing.” Maat crouched beside me, knees splayed wide for balance. He toyed with the emerald he had yet to put away and scratched his head. “Phenex was a monster. He imprisoned me, he imprisoned my people… for a very long time. He needed to be taken down.”

  I chewed my tongue and tucked the pendant beneath my clothing once more. It rattled softly against my Water rings.

  “Good riddance, I say,” echoed Ryder, following the movements with intent. I’d filled him and the others in on how I’d defeated the djinn while patching up other injured members of our party. “If he hadn’t betrayed you now, he would have later.”

  I knew that. I understood that. But it didn’t sit right with me, enslaving someone because he’d wrongly enslaved others. Especially someone who’d already escaped his chains before. However, no matter how much I twisted it around in my head, I couldn’t figure out another way to take him down, so inside the vial he’d remain until I had a better plan.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to take him with you?” I asked Maat for the dozenth time.

  “Nah, he’s all yours. You sealed him in there, you’re his new master.” Oh yeah. I guessed he was probably back to his wish-granting, soul-stealing ways. “Besides, we need to air out the palace, make it ours again. There’s no place for him there anymore, even locked away.”

  He and the other nero had decided to head back to base after depositing us at the Earth Temple. Now that they finally had their magic back, they were eager to return to the rest of their people and spread the good news. They were ready to reclaim their lives and figure out where to go from here.

  I was happy for them. They’d lived with enough evil for too long.

  I surveyed our little group. Funny to think how things had changed in a fortnight. Gone were our luxurious digs, our fashionable clothing, even our animals, but in its place lingered a firm sense of unity, one only acquired through hard work and surviving something truly inexplicable together.

  Rose, Briar, and Vera had returned from saying goodbye to two more of their sisters. I’d asked to go with them to honor Oak and Laurel’s last rites, but they’d told me to stay. Granted, Rose seemed touched I’d asked. A few nero had also perished, and the funeral pyre had already consumed their bodies and souls.

  “There’s something you should know,” Maat said, fiddling with his ripped sleeve. My own clothing was barely clinging together at the seams, reduced to a simple long-sleeve shirt, my hardy gloves, and thick canvas pants. He was confident we were only about four hours out from the temple, or else I’d seriously worry about the implications of staying out in the relentless sun.

  “If it’s another djinn, I may need you to figure that one out on your own.” I cracked my first grin of the day. It felt nice.

  “Not another djinn. Gods help us, there’s only one out there.” He licked his cracked lips. “It’s about the Earth Temple. You need to be on your toes there, it’s not a particularly pleasant place.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything pleasant about having magic.” I swatted at the sand with a heady dash of raw bitterness. “Most of the time it seems like more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “That’s not true. There’s beauty, too.” He flicked a hand at the ground where a small cactus at his feet sprouted a single red flower. “But not there. The temple is led by a group called Davos. They’re a council originated from the teachings of the original Earth God Davarius—so they claim anyway.” He closed his eyes and stroked the scar along his nose.

  “They’re twisted. You’ll understand when you meet them. They don’t like me very much, so I try to avoid them most of the time when I’m bartering for supplies.” He flashed a wicked smile. “Be careful, ok?”

  “Basically, you’re telling me I’ve traded one power-hungry freak for a bunch of power-hungry freaks.” With effort, I got to my feet. He quirked a brow. “Sounds pretty par for the course.”

  “One more thing—”

  “Someone’s coming,” Joseph yelled, spurring us all into action. He pointed to the western horizon and the dark specks hovering above the dirt. I could sense their signatures. “Whoever they are, they’re coming in fast.”

  “Sand skiffs.” Maat shielded his eyes, squinting. “Must be Earth Temple guards. If that’s the case, I would be best served not catching their attention.”

  I shook my head mournfully as he shoved the emerald in his pocket. He yanked me close in a one-armed hug, then released me all too quickly. “If you need anything, anything at all, I owe you a great debt. Contact me anytime for anything.”

  I stared at him quizzically, wondering what was happening.

  “Say you accept, please?” He clutched my wrist hard, his eyes bright with sincerity.

  “I—I accept?” I hissed through my teeth when my arm seared. He, too, grimaced and released my arm. Circling our wrists were identical black tattoos. Great. More magic I didn’t know anything about.

  “There. Now it’s official.” When I rubbed the raw skin, gaping, Maat returned to the nero. They discussed something for a half-second, before transforming into small, yellow cats with long legs and even longer black-ringed tails. They wasted no time slinking away, disappearing in the endless waves of sand.

  “Did that happen?” asked Finn, scratching his head. “What was their hurry anyway?”

  “He didn’t say, exactly,” I said, scanning our small group. Two Gods, one kelpie, one incubus, and three pixies. “Are you guys ready for this? Whatever it might be?”

  Ryder grinned. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  The pixies thudded their chests with their fists, then raised them high in a salute.

  Finn and Joseph shook their heads wryly as the long, hovering platforms—what Maat had called sand skiffs—stopped and kicked up sand around us. On each platform stood two burly dudes, arms big as boulders and faces decorated thickly with ink. I wasn’t picking up on any magic, but they might be able to do some damage with the spears they gripped.

  They also didn’t speak, merely stared at us somberly.

  One minute bled into two. And then a handful more.

  “Would you mind turning off the jets,” Ryder yelled over the hum of the engines, circling a finger over his head. “This dust is doing something terrible to my allergies. When I start sneezing it’s impossible to—”

  “Who are you?” The guy in the nearest skiff spoke first. He’d shaved his eyebrows and red-streaked tattoos fanned out from the corners of his eyes.

  I tucked the tips of my fingers into what remained of my pockets. “Who’s asking?”

  The engines whirred faster, kicking up more sand. Finn elbowed Ryder who held a hand up to shield his eyes. Only about five yards separated us now. The big guy glared at him.

  “We are representatives of the Lost City. If you don’t answer me now, we’re about to have a pretty serious problem on our hands.” He shook his spear as the man behind him fingered the trigger of a large gun.

  I sketched a bow. “Zara Ramone, God of Water and First of Four at your service. This humble young gentleman beside me is the God of Air, Joseph Windrunner.” I pointed around the circle, naming off members of our group until I ran out.

  The guy blinked a few times, his face firm and flat and blank.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Believe it or not, we’re looking for you.”

  “Were you responsible for the disturbance we detected this way?”

  I scrubbed the back of my neck, grimacing at the fresh layer of sand I found there. I pointed somewhere behind me in the direction of the battlefield we’d abandoned. “If you go maybe one-hundred yards in that direction, you’ll find about three dozen bodies. I can’t say for certain, but that might be the disturbance you’re talking about.”

  Not-so-big-guy with the gun muttered something too low for me to hear.

  “What do you want?”

  “A tall glass of ice water would be great,” I s
aid, then winced. Rose chortled across from me, barely covering her mouth with her hand, though her eyes danced merrily. I sensed Finn glaring daggers, so I was careful to avoid looking in his direction. I loathed that expression.

  Big Guy wasn’t impressed either. “I don’t like your tone.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m hot, I’m tired. I’ve been through a hell of a lot in these past few days.” I toed the sand. “All I want is find your God and give him his magic back, then maybe take a shower and grab a nap if I’m lucky.” I mulled that over. “Though it doesn’t have to be in that order. The shower can come first, I suppose.”

  Big Guy blinked again.

  Sand went down my windpipe and I coughed. Ryder had a point. They could have killed the engines.

  It floored me, though, when the guard cracked a smile. “Get on board, God. All of you.” He swung the spear in a slow circle. “As eager as you are to visit our temple, we’ll see if you feel the same once you arrive.”

  Chapter 26

  “You don’t look like a God.”

  “Yeah?” I scrubbed at the underside of my wrist. Nope. The tattoo encircling it wasn’t going anywhere. The small sunburst directly over my artery was also new. Maybe bleach would help. “What’s a God supposed to look like?”

  Big Guy—whose name was actually Adio—surveyed the deck. Rose and Briar flanked me, masking their throaty yawns with the backs of their hands. Joseph was nerding out over the control panel at the front of the skiff while Finn stretched out on a bench beside him, the back of his head cupped in his hands, battered boots swaying with the movement of the ship. Both of them were scruffier than normal, with at least a few day’s growth of hair on their faces.

  Ryder had managed to stay clean-cut somehow and mimicked my posture across from me: back against the rail, arms braced so his biceps bulged, legs crossed, one toe jabbing a hole in the floorboards.

  “Like that guy.” Adio thrust his spear at the incubus. Ryder’s golden gaze lightened, his grin blinding. Great, an ego boost was just what he needed. “You look at him, you know what you’re gonna get. Lots of brawn, lots of power, maybe not a lot of brain.”

  My jaw dropped in delight as the incubus glowered, feigning indifference by shaking sand from his hair.

  Adio wasn’t done yet. “You though, you’re shifty.” I barely restrained the laugh threatening to burst from my chest. “I had a girlfriend once, she was shifty. She ran away with my best friend.”

  I patted his shoulder companionably. Poor guy. “I’m sorry to hear that. Women are the worst.”

  If he had eyebrows, they would have furrowed. “But you’re a woman.”

  “Exactly.” I winked at him dramatically. “So I have it on good authority.”

  “Gods,” Rose muttered, scrubbing her hand down her face. “Save me now.” I jabbed an elbow into her rib cage and she glared from the slit between her fingers. “You really want to go there, Zara?”

  I eyed her extra-digited fingers. “Maybe not.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Yeah, you definitely don’t act like a God,” Adio repeated, nodding once as if that solidified the deal. Rose and I exchanged glances. “Just like the other one.”

  “Joseph?” I flipped my thumb at the helm where the God of Air pretended like he wasn’t listening. Around us, dunes whizzed by at speeds I couldn’t comprehend. It was a marked difference from traveling by camelback. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s in disguise.”

  Joseph shifted a long piece of hair out of his face, still bent over the controls the pilot fangirled over. I tugged on my collar. “Most of the time he’s a monster to be around. Throwing stuff across the room, slamming doors, raising all kinds of holy hell. He’s got this deal where he can create a ghost version of himself, and he’ll follow you around without you knowing.” I mock shuddered. “It’s horrible. Try keeping secrets from someone like that. You can’t! You’re lucky I made him pinkie swear to behave.”

  How I said that with a straight face was beyond me.

  “Stones and bones,” Rose growled. Joseph showed me his back and Ryder snorted. Adio eyed the God with newfound cynicism. He started to say something, but a dark spot along the horizon snagged my attention. Walls of dark stone arched high to the skies, topped with metal spikes and electrified wire and men with guns. Our sand skiff was aimed at a pair of gates garnished with bleached femurs and skulls. Beyond those gates, looming high over those walls, were the distinct triangles of pyramids. Three of them. My head tipped back as we approached the Lost City, trying to fathom their magnificent height.

  The doors slowly swung wide with a piercing shriek. Our pilot slowed the skiff, the other two following our lead, and ghosted inside the walls. A small, stoic crowd had gathered, their energy radiating excitement. Like the nero, these people, too, wore brightly colored clothing and laced sandals. The men sported longer hair and thick beards, while the women observed behind wispy black veils that shielded their eyes beneath thick hoods. Bracelets of bleached bones were draped around wrists and ankles, others had strung strands of teeth around their necks and wove broken bits into their hair. One man who stood particularly close to us had what looked like a piece of skull clasped to the cup of his ear and I shivered. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but this wasn’t it.

  Near the back of the masses stood a long line of steely-faced soldiers wearing bits of leather armor. Some held swords and bows while others clutched guns. I straightened my spine and lightly touched the blue-bladed dagger in its sheath on my thigh.

  Adio had laughed when I’d offered it as we’d boarded, telling me that if we really were Gods, a puny little knife wouldn’t matter much. To his credit, my magics were both operating at full blast. A river roared somewhere beyond the pyramids and I sensed flames devouring wood in controlled fire pits and ovens scattered around the city.

  The skiff passed easily through the gaping spectators, approaching the nearest pyramid. On its sandstone steps stood thirteen figures in billowing robes white as swan’s wings. Each of them wore masks of bones that jutted out from their faces, assembled to look like the skulls of a wide array of animals. Some I recognized, like the horse and the eagle. Other masks were more twisted as if some experiment had gone horribly wrong—like one that bore the unmistakable skull of a deer with a mouth filled with wolfish teeth.

  I twisted my hands together, uncomfortable with the combination.

  On the top step, standing alone, was a man wearing the skull of a large reptile—maybe a dragon? He raised his bare arms over his head when the skiff rolled to a stop. Adio nudged me with the butt of his spear. I stepped to the ground first.

  Out in the desert, I hadn’t minded the torn rags that were my clothes or the layer of hard-earned dirt and grime that streaked my face. But here, before this obvious show of power, I belatedly wished Adio had taken me up on my suggestion of stopping to bathe first. For the first time in weeks, in front of all these people, I realized my own odor, the heady stink of sweat and sun.

  “Welcome to the Lost City, home of the Earth Temple,” Dragon said, his voice carrying to the crowd behind us. It was impossible to make out his eyes through the mask’s blackened sockets. He moved down two stairs. “You may not be aware, but you are the first visitors we have welcomed in nearly two decades. We closed our borders to any and all we didn’t know, only reopening them recently at the request of a close associate.”

  I brushed my shirt where the vial burned against my chest.

  Two guesses who that was.

  They even talked alike: smooth and polished and offensively polite.

  “While we are fortunate you not only made the dangerous trek across the Momani Desert, your journey is still not yet complete,” Dragon continued. “Two of you claim to be Gods, but we know two of the Gods perished long ago. If you are truly those mighty sovereigns and not mere impostors, you must prove yourselves in the shadows of our sacred pyramids.”

  “Well this ought to be fun,” Joseph said
dryly, throwing his voice so only I could hear it. “I love having to prove myself over and over again.”

  I rolled my eyes, hoping this wouldn’t be a repeat of our greeting at Phenex’s palace. A headache throbbed in the back of my head.

  “We are Davos, the council in command of the Earth Temple, and as per our law, we require a demonstration. Should your demonstration of power and ability prove satisfactory, then, and only then, will you and your guards be permitted to stay within our walls.”

  Davos. I recalled Maat’s warning.

  Magic burned in my fingertips and I followed the glowing strands back to the smallish robed figure standing on the lowest step. He wore one of the twisted masks, a creature bearing both the heavy tusks of a boar but also the large, flat eye sockets of an owl. Behind those darkened sockets, I sensed him watching me. The magic flowing between us felt familiar and I eyed the connection. It was kind of green. Could this be the God? If so, why wasn’t I certain about it, like I had been when I’d met Joseph?

  The God of Air heaved a sigh and stepped forward. I’d missed my cue. “I’m Joseph Windrunner, God of Air. While I’m not sure what you will find satisfactory in terms skill, I sincerely hope you find my demonstration worth your valuable time.”

  In a small show of theater, he brushed the skin beneath his eyes, muttering lightly, then raised his hand over his head, wrist quirked, and brought his fingers together slowly.

  The world went quiet.

  The temperature, too, dropped, and I wrapped my arms around myself as I shivered, wondering what he was up to.

  A few minutes passed.

  Not a grain of sand swirled, not a single person in the considerable crowd whispered.

  When I realized what he’d done, a slow smile crawled across my face.

  Oh, he was brilliant.

  Dragon stepped forward, arms spread wide. His sandals moved silently over the gritty stone steps as he gesticulated. I imagined he was speaking, maybe even shouting, though none of us could hear it. We also couldn’t hear the blast of the horn when the soldier next to him raised the polished instrument to her lips.