Wildfire and Steel

by J. J. Green

  The suburb the mages had entered was old and unkempt. Carina found this a little odd. Usually, newer buildings were found at the edge of metropolises. That was where expansion took place. On the other hand, Pirine was not a rich, quickly developing place as Ostillon had been.

  Until she could afford to buy an interface, they would have to rely on face-to-face encounters to find lodging and work. Carina’s fingers closed around the local currency Jace had given her, which was tucked into her pocket. All they needed was a room and bathroom. A kitchen would be good too. Cooking at home was usually cheaper than buying street food.

  “Should we knock at someone’s door and ask if they know anyone who has a place to rent?” Parthenia asked.

  “Let’s walk a few more streets into the city,” said Carina.

  They passed along the wide roads, lined with trees and one-story houses. It was not the kind of neighborhood where Carina would expect to find rental places. The area was somewhere that families lived, children growing up and playing in the large yards.

  As they walked, Carina remembered a similar search on Ostillon, trying to find work and a place to stay. She also recalled Reyes Dirksen and his convoluted plan to return her to his mother’s clutches. At the time, his assertions that he’d planned on leaving the Dirksens had seemed convincing. Perhaps he’d been genuinely considering the idea. But loyalty to his family had won out in the end.

  “I’m tired,” Oriana announced. “I want to sit down. Riding on that horse hurt my bottom.”

  “Oriana,” said Ferne, exasperation edging his tone, “stop complaining. We’re all tired.”

  “I’m only saying,” his sister replied, indignant.

  “We could ask at one of these houses if they know somewhere we can stay,” said Parthenia.

  Carina didn’t hold out much hope but it wouldn’t hurt to try. They had walked a few hundred meters into the city.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll ask. You all wait here.”

  While the children clustered on the sidewalk Carina strode to the nearest home and looked into the security panel. If anyone was home their house system would notify them they had a visitor. She waited.

  A minute later, the door opened. A short, old woman stood in the doorway and removed buds from her ears. “Yes?”

  “Sorry for disturbing you,” said Carina. “We’re looking for somewhere to stay.” She glanced at her siblings and saw them through an outsider’s eyes: dusty, disheveled, and needy looking. How different from the rich, privileged children she had first met. They had descended to a level of society very familiar to her. “I was wondering if you might be able to point us in the direction of a place to rent?”

  The old woman’s gaze took in Carina, Bryce, and the boys and girls in one brief look. “You won’t find anything like that around here. You need to go into the city center.”

  “Okay, thanks,” said Carina. She turned and stepped down from the porch.

  As she returned to her waiting family, she shook her head, but then the old woman called out, “Hey, wait a minute. Come back.”

  When Carina reached the porch again, the woman said, “How much are you willing to pay? I have a spare room. It isn’t much, but you could put a couple of mattresses on the floor.”

  Carina had no idea how much to offer. She named a sum that seemed fair for a week’s rent. When the woman’s eyes widened and she quickly accepted, Carina realized she’d suggested too much. “Could I see the room first?” If it was tiny or awful, she would back out of the deal.

  The old woman introduced herself as Bridget and invited Carina into the house. “I’m Tamira,” Carina said. “Most people call me Tammy.” She doubted that Castiel would have made his way to Pirine to look for them, but the precaution wouldn’t hurt. She would tell the children to make up fake names as well. She hoped Darius would remember to use them.

  The room was not tiny or awful. It was large and clean, though Bridget had used it as a storeroom. “I can move that stuff out in a jiffy,” she said. “What do you think?”

  Carina thought that as somewhere they could stay for the next week while they got on their feet, the room would do fine. She told Bridget she would take it. “But we don’t have any mattresses. Will it bother you if we sleep on the floor?”

  “Makes no difference to me,” said Bridget. “You can swing from the ceiling for all I care.”

  As Carina walked through the house again on her way to tell her family the good news, she saw that Bridget’s furniture was old and threadbare, and the place had not been decorated for many years. She felt less bad about over-estimating her offer for the rent. The woman could clearly use the money.

  “Are you wilderfolk?” Bridget asked before Carina stepped through the front door.

  “Wilderfolk?” asked Carina.

  Bridget looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s okay, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Are you from the group camping out on the prairie right now?”

  “We….” Carina didn’t see any reason to lie, and she couldn’t think up a credible background story at such short notice. “Yes, we are. Is that what people call us?”

  “We do. I hope you don’t think that’s rude.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Carina’s curiosity was piqued. “What do people say about us?”

  “Only that you all seem to meet up every few years, here on Pirine or somewhere nearby. You gather and live in a camp for a few months, and then you go. No one knows why for sure, though I’ve heard some rumors. Not that I believe them, of course. People love to gossip and think the worst of everyone, don’t they? I’m sure you’re all fine folk, just going about your business. Nothing wrong with that.”

  It would have been impossible for the Pirinians not to notice several hundred people gathering in an encampment for months, but Carina hadn’t considered how the Matching might be perceived by outsiders. Should she Send to Jace to tell him what she’d learned?

  Carina realized she couldn’t if she wanted to. She didn’t have anything of his to Locate him. The money he’d given her would be imprinted with the human trace of many hands. Anyway, she decided, Jace and the rest of the mage council were probably aware of the mages’ image as ‘wilderfolk.’ It seemed harmless enough.

  “I’ll go and tell my family to come in,” Carina said.

  Oriana was delighted with the news that she didn’t have to walk any farther. She and the rest of Carina’s family followed her into Bridget’s home. The old woman was already moving things out of her spare room. Carina and Bryce offered to help her, while the children opened the bags the young mages at the Matching had given them and began to take out blankets and other donated possessions.

  Soon, the room was empty of Bridget’s stored boxes, which she had crammed into spare corners of her home. From what Carina could tell, Bridget seemed to live alone. She guessed the old woman might have been tempted by the idea of some company as well as the rent money.

  Carina watched her brothers and sisters as they unpacked and made themselves at home, gabbling noisily and bantering with each other. Company was certainly something Carina could provide, in spades.

  Then she noticed Oriana wasn’t helping. She sat in a corner, her arms folded and her lips in a pout.

  Ferne asked, “What is wrong with you, Oriana? Why won’t you help?”

  “I don’t like this place,” she replied. “I want to go back out on the prairie. I don’t want to live in a house. I liked our tent and living with all the mages. It isn’t fair.”

  Carina rolled her eyes. Oriana was turning into a real pain in the ass. Something would have to be done about that, but if the girl’s spoilt entitlement was the worst Carina had to face, she would be happy to settle for it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Castiel peered at the feed from the spy drone, amazed by what he saw. He was sitting in a room at the hotel suite the local government had assigned to
the Dirksen delegation, watching a scene that was opening entirely new avenues of discovery about the world of mages.

  Reyes was restless as he sat beside him, joined to Castiel’s wrist by handcuffs. Castiel smiled. After nearly a week on Pirine, Reyes seemed to have entirely lost his smug delight at being Castiel’s guard. The knowledge brought Castiel a modicum of pleasure. It was one of his few sources of happiness in his current situation.

  Reyes had been ruthless and exacting in his performance of his duties. The only times he would take off the handcuffs were when Castiel needed to use the bathroom, and then he fastened the other cuff to a pipe before going outside to wait.

  Within a couple of days the metal bands had begun to chafe both their wrists. Reyes pulled down his sleeve to act as a buffer—doing nothing to help Castiel, naturally—but it was clear that the cuff continued to irritate him.

  After all, as long as Castiel was fastened to Reyes, Reyes was fastened to Castiel. Reyes might have the freedom to dictate where they went and what they did, to an extent, but he was almost as equally inconvenienced and restricted. He took out his frustration on Castiel through insults and taunts, though the mean words did not seem to make him feel any better.

  Castiel had found he could bear it all if he clung on to the notion that Reyes was suffering almost as much as himself.

  Then the news had arrived that the landing party might have found the mages, and the possibility had thrown a new light on everything.

  Only, they hadn’t apparently found Castiel’s mages, but some mages. Rather a lot of them.

  Commander Kee got the credit for the discovery. When he and the rest of the landing party had put out feelers, asking about strangers from outsystem who had arrived recently, specifically a young woman with five children, the answers that came back were entirely unexpected.

  No one remembered seeing that particular group, but the local gossip was full of news that a gathering of ‘wilderfolk’ was going on, out on the prairie, and that people had been arriving for weeks in one way or another. No one minded nor did anything about it except to speculate what they were doing. The land was public, and the wilderfolk did no harm. They were expected to leave the place undamaged as they always did.

  Anyone else might have ignored the information as irrelevant. Castiel certainly thought so the first time he heard it. What could possibly be interesting or useful about a group of vagrants setting up camp, probably in order to abuse brain-destroying drugs and perform weird rituals? But Kee did not seem to dismiss any information until he knew it to be worthless.

  The commander had inquired more about this group and sent out soldiers dressed in civilian clothes to try to enter the camp. The attempt only brought more questions. There was no road to the campsite. The wilderfolk seemed to have walked for a day or more through long prairie grass to reach it, though there were no tracks.

  So Kee had sent in the spy drones, and that was when everything had been blown out of the water.

  Castiel never tired of watching the feed from the tiny drones, which looked like flies. He had never seen so many mages all in one place at once. He had never even imagined so many existed. Mother had always avoided talking about anything to do with mages unless Father forced her. Consequently, Castiel’s knowledge of them was sparse.

  He had formed the impression that Casting was something done rarely and for special purposes, yet the images from the encampment showed people starting fires, Transporting objects or themselves, Rising water from a spring, and performing other Casts as if it were the most ordinary behavior in the world.

  “Your sister led us to a nest of mages,” Reyes sneered. “You should be proud.”

  “Bullshit,” Castiel replied. “We don’t even know if she’s on Pirine, let alone at that campsite. No reports have come in about her.”

  “She’s here,” said Reyes. “I’d bet money on it. It’s only a matter of time until she turns up.”

  “I doubt it. If she’s on Pirine, where is she?” Castiel asked, nodding toward the screen that displayed the drone feed. “We’ve seen hours of recordings now and no one’s spotted her.”

  “Unless you have, and you’re lying.”

  “Why would I lie?” asked Castiel. “Why would I want to protect her?”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said Bryce. “I was forgetting what a sniveling little squealer you are. You wouldn’t piss on your family if it was on fire.”

  Castiel couldn’t think of a suitable comeback, so he only said, “You know what Carina looks like, and the rest of them too. If any of my siblings were there you would have seen them by now.”

  Kee came into the room. Sable was with him. Castiel hadn’t seen her for days, while she and Barrett had been attending meetings with the Pirinian governments. Sable’s garb had reverted to its usual expensive simplicity.

  Kee turned off the drone feed and addressed the room.

  “We have received permission from the Pirinians to round up the mages and deport them. However, what we’re actually going to do is surround the encampment overnight and move in at dawn, killing as many as we can. Realistically, taking into account these people’s special abilities, we can’t expect to wipe them all out, but we should be able to make a serious dent in their numbers and make them think twice about ever interfering in Dirksen business. The rest of the company is on its way down from the Elsinore as I speak.”

  Killing as many as we can? It was to be a massacre. The deliberate, controlled mass murder of unarmed people who had committed no crimes and had no clan affiliation. Castiel had thought Kee was somewhat soft-hearted. That was what his interrogation techniques had seemed to indicate. It appeared that impression had been incorrect.

  Reyes shifted in his seat beside Castiel. When Castiel looked at the older boy, Reyes had turned pale. Was he shocked? Even Castiel himself was surprised by the viciousness of Kee’s plan. The commander certainly didn’t pull his punches. Or had the idea been Sable’s? She wasn’t the head of the clan for nothing.

  Kee went on to explain the finer points of the operation, which was to take place at sunrise the following day. Castiel wondered what he and Reyes were supposed to be doing while all this bloodshed went on, but Kee did not say.

  The commander was in the middle of stating the importance of separating the mages from their elixir at all costs, when Sable raised a hand to her ear and frowned. She had heard some news. Her features brightened with uncharacteristic glee.

  She placed a hand on Kee’s arm, signaling him to stop. She whispered in his ear, and then swiftly strode from the room.

  Kee’s dark eyes focused on Castiel, and he gave a small smile. “You’re in luck, Castiel Sherrerr,” he said. “We’ve found Carina and the rest of your sisters and brothers. I think it’s time you had a family reunion.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bridget had been kind enough to cook them all dinner that evening, so Carina and Bryce didn’t have to leave the house to buy food. The old woman wouldn’t even accept the money that Carina offered her. In fact, she’d seemed embarrassed that Carina wanted to pay, and Carina had wondered if she’d violated a cultural expectation, perhaps insulting Bridget with her offer. It was always hard to navigate the social norms when visiting a new planet.

  They were too many to fit around Bridget’s small table, so they ate in their room, sitting cross-legged on the cloths the other mages had given them. The children had also discovered light, metallic bowls, plates, and cutlery among the offerings. The generosity of the young mages at the Matching gave Carina a twinge of regret. Had she done the right thing to leave, taking Darius with her? Would the current gathering be the last in the history of mages? She rubbed her forehead to ease the headache she’d had for hours.

  “What’s wrong?” Bryce asked before popping a spoonful of Bridget’s delicious stew into his mouth.

  “Just wondering if we should be doing this.”

  “No, we shouldn’t,” Oriana said. “But it isn’t too late to cha
nge our minds. We could Transport back to the camp right now if we wanted to. We all know where it is.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Ferne. “What would Bridget think if she came in to find an empty room when no one has gone out of the door?”

  “Well we don’t have to leave like that,” Oriana retorted. “We could leave in the morning. Go somewhere quiet where no one can see us.”

  “No,” said Parthenia. “We have to return to Ostillon. We have to find Castiel and stop him from helping the Dirksens.”

  “Maybe I should go back to Magda, Carina,” Darius said, concern written in his big, brown eyes.

  “Ugh, we aren’t going anywhere,” said Carina, recalling guiltily that she had not allowed her brother the opportunity to say goodbye to his teacher and mentor.

  Her headache was pounding and the split in her family’s opinions was making it worse. If anything was clear, it was that they had to stay together and have a common purpose. Their time at the Matching had only served to divide everyone. “We have a plan and we’re sticking to it.”

  “You have a plan, more like,” said Oriana.

  Ferne poked her in the ribs, and she shoved him in the chest with the heel of her hand.

  “Stop it!” Carina snapped.

  “Come on, kids,” said Bryce. “Knock it off. Things aren’t going to be easy for the next few months. We need to make a special effort to be nice and get along.”

  Ferne and Oriana looked daggers at each other, but they stopped fighting. However, Oriana pushed her spoon into her bowl and put the bowl down. “I’ve had enough.” She stood up and walked to a corner of the room, where she began to make herself a bed on the floor.