Book Read Free

Firesoul

Page 22

by Gary Kloster


  "Did they do this?" Fingers touched her burns, light as a butterfly, but Jiri still twitched. "Or was it you?"

  It was a woman, speaking to her, her voice familiar, but Jiri couldn't pull her thoughts together enough to recognize her.

  "It doesn't matter, I suppose." The woman touched the side of Jiri's head. "I'm going to take your blindfold off now. There's not much light in here, but it will probably seem bright. You might want to close your eyes."

  Maybe they are closed, Jiri thought. How can I know?

  That question was answered when the cloth was pulled from her head and light crashed in on her, blazing like the sun. Jiri's lids slammed shut, even though she wanted light, was desperate for it. As soon as she could, she made her eyes open and drank it in. One small candle burned on the table that Corrianne and Mikki had left in the cell. That was all, but its flame seemed so great after all that darkness.

  In its glow, Patima leaned over her, brown eyes soft with sympathy.

  Jiri jerked backward. Her hands rose, to ward the woman away or attack, she wasn't sure, but through them she could see Patima watching, calm and patient. Jiri stared at her through burned fingers, then let her hands drop.

  "You." The word came out a croak, barely recognizable, but Patima nodded.

  "Me. Hold still."

  Jiri sat still as the Bonuwat woman reached out, even though the feel of Patima's hands made her skin crawl. Patima took hold of the evil necklace that Corrianne had put on her. The dreamless clung to Jiri's neck as if reluctant to let go, but Patima worked at it until the dark band stretched over Jiri's head. When it was off, Jiri sighed. She had lost count of how many times that thing had dug into her neck, stealing her breath and clawing at her skin.

  "Amiro got this from a Nidalese trader." Patima folded the horrible thing in her hand and tucked it into a pocket of the embroidered vest that she wore over her tunic. "They've invented many kinds of torture in Nidal."

  "I'm not going to tell you anything," Jiri said. The words tore at her throat, aching from lack of water. "No matter what you do."

  The woman nodded. "All right." She straightened up and edged something toward Jiri with her foot. "Here's a bucket, if you need it. I'll be back in a few minutes."

  Jiri watched Patima walk out of the cell, leaving the door open behind her. She pushed herself up off the floor, her whole body groaning with pain.

  She left. I should run.

  Can I run?

  Jiri stood there, legs shaking, body trembling. Breathing in and out, she pulled herself together. Stopped the trembling, made her legs steady. Took a step.

  I can do this.

  Do what?

  Run out naked into the hall, and get past Patima and whatever guards were out there? Or locked doors? Find her way out of this building and out of this compound?

  One open door isn't freedom. It's just a test to see how stupid I am.

  At least she left the bucket.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Patima wasn't gone long. When she came back, she was carrying a tray. One of the guards trailed behind her, holding another bucket and a pile of cloth.

  Patima set the tray down on the table, and the smell of it hit Jiri. Curried goat and rice, flatbread and fruit, a jug of watered palm wine and a pot of tea. Despite herself, Jiri found her eyes focusing on that tray.

  "Put those down and take the other bucket out," Patima told the guard. He silently did as he was told, and Patima and Jiri were alone again.

  "I know you're hungry and thirsty, but we should take care of a few things first."

  Jiri waited, staring at the woman. She could guess the next part of the game. The food and drink would be hers, if she talked. Part of her wanted to rush the tray, to drink and eat as much as she could before Patima could snatch them away, but she still had her pride.

  For now.

  "What?" she grated.

  "Your hands and your neck need tending. And your ears. Unless you like them pierced?"

  Jiri could feel the thorns, hard spikes grinding into her swollen ears. "No. No I do not."

  "Then let's get those thorns out."

  Patima started to move toward her, but Jiri shook her head. She raised a burned hand and grasped one thorn, yanked it out, then the other. The pain of them going was like a coal against Jiri's ears, and a rush of blood followed each one out, but she didn't cry, didn't fall. She stood, holding the thorns in her hand, and breathed between clenched teeth.

  "Here," Patima said, reaching for Jiri.

  "What are you doing?" Jiri said, staring at Patima as the woman's hand closed around hers, pressing lightly against her burns, and against the thorns.

  "Helping you," Patima said, and she spoke a soft ripple of words, like music.

  Jiri recognized the healing magic as it flowed from Patima's hand into her. She almost refused its solace, but she was already weak enough. She let the magic run into her, and the pain in her hand, her neck, her ears, and her body was washed away. On the back of her hand she could see the burns closing, knitting together, flesh red, then pink, then dark and whole.

  Jiri let Patima go, and the thorns fell from between their hands to the floor, sticky with blood.

  "There's water and soap and a cloth," Patima said, nodding toward the new bucket the guard had brought. "And clothes."

  "Helping me." Jiri went to the bucket, picked up the soap and the cloth and began to wash. "Where were you last night, when your friends were helping me?"

  "Out," Patima said. "Otherwise that wouldn't have happened." She paused as Jiri sniffed at the soap. "Sorry, it's northern and horrible. They make it with something called lye. It won't poison you, but it'll dry your skin out something terrible."

  Jiri rubbed a little onto her cloth and scrubbed it over her skin. "So you have no interest in interrogating me." Despite Patima's healing, faint bruises still mottled her skin, patterned like snake scales. A reminder of Corrianne's serpent, and the marks ached whenever Jiri ran the cloth over them. "Am I free to go, when I'm done washing up?"

  "No, of course not." Patima sat and poured out two cups of the tea. "I need to know about these kindi, and about this All-in-Ashes. Very badly. Torture, though, is an awful way to get questions answered. It's repugnant, it takes too long, and the quality of the information it produces is terrible."

  Jiri put down the washcloth. She wasn't clean—not even close—but the worst of the blood and dirt were gone and she needed to eat and drink. She rinsed and dried herself, then slid into the loincloth and light robe that Patima had brought her. Dressed, she went to the table, taking the other stool. "Your friends seem to like it."

  "My companions are simple people," Patima said. "And they use torture for the same reasons most people do: not for information, but as a punishment for anyone who doesn't do what they say, a way to demonstrate their power, or entertainment." Patima stared at her tea, her eyes distant. "I've seen enough suffering, and I don't like lying to myself. Hurting those who are weaker than me doesn't make me any stronger, it just wastes time." She looked at Jiri. "Chagu village burned last night, less than a mile from our walls. The guards on the wall claim a spark fell from the sky, then rose with the smoke."

  Jiri's stomach clenched. How many more are dead, now? She picked up her teacup, and though it trembled in her hand she made herself drink. When it was drained, she put it down. "All-in-Ashes."

  "Yes." Patima refilled her cup. "The council has decided to ignore the guard's story. They claim it's the biloko, because that's a threat they know how to face. They're forming militia groups and sending them out."

  "They'll die out there, too. Unless All-in-Ashes comes for Kibwe." Jiri stared the other woman in the eyes. "It has to be stopped. You have to give back what you stole."

  "So you can do what?" Patima asked.

  Jiri's healed hands made fists on the table, and she felt the heat in them. "Stop it," she said.

  "Mmm," Patima said. "I'm guessing you don't know how."

  "At least I
would try!"

  "You think I wouldn't? You think I took that kindi so that innocents could burn?" Patima shook her head. "Calm yourself, Jiri, before you burn your food. We don't have to be enemies."

  "You broke into the Pyre. You set that thing free. You destroyed my village, killed my people. You got me cast out of my tribe." A wisp of smoke drifted up from the table under Jiri's hands. "You killed Oza, my teacher. My father. Because of all that, and more, I think we do have to be enemies."

  Patima sighed. "Fine. I've wronged you, and you are, it seems, burning for revenge. But you also need to eat, and I need to tell you a story. So why don't we spend a little time on that, and then I can ask you my questions and you can spit in my face."

  A story. Something like Amiro's, probably, something that this smooth-voiced woman thought she could manipulate Jiri with. I should just spit in her face now. But I need all the strength I can gather. Jiri tore a piece off the flatbread and dug it into the bowl of curried goat. "Talk fast," she said. "We're wasting time."

  Patima shifted in her seat and straightened her back, reminding Jiri of the storytellers who would come through Thirty Trees. When she spoke, her words spilled sweet from her tongue, beautiful and compelling.

  "I come from the city of Bloodcove, on the shore of the Fever Sea. My family owned a boat, but I wanted to do more with my life than sew sails and gut fish. So I apprenticed myself to Marisan the Magical, the finest entertainer in the city. A singer, dancer, storyteller, illusionist, joker—she could do it all. Except hold on to her coin, or knife fight when she was drunk.

  "I was four years into my apprenticeship when those faults became abundantly clear to me. Marisan got into a fight over some pretty elf boy with the first mate of a pirate ship out of the Shackles, and she ended up falling on her own knife. Losing my teacher was bad enough. Finding out that she was up to her eyes in debt to the meanest moneylender in Bloodcove was worse. That old bastard wanted his coin, and if he couldn't get it from Marisan, he figured he would get it from me."

  Patima took a sip of her tea. "He sent some of his bully boys over, and I spent a night just about as fun as the one you just had while they laid out the terms of my new contract. Which, in short, was that he owned me. I countered his offer by throwing myself out a window into the bay.

  "I probably would have drowned, or died in the jungle, or been caught again, but as luck would have it I was picked up by a boat owned by the Apsis Consortium. They were starting an expedition into the Expanse, looking for trade. I had no interest in the jungle, but they were getting out of the city, and that was all I cared about. It didn't take me long to convince them that they could use another translator.

  "We traveled and traded. Those northern fools thought that since they knew one dialect of Polyglot—that's what they call the jungle languages—they knew them all. They learned their error soon enough, and I started earning my keep." A smile flickered across Patima's face. "It was funny. I liked it. Everyone on that expedition loved me. I entertained the guards and workers, and I translated, and when even I couldn't speak the local's dialect I could usually make everyone understand what was going on. Because of me, that expedition went deep into the Expanse, and the riverboats were full of rare things. We were all going to be rich, and the head of the expedition promised me that I would have a valuable place with the Aspis Consortium, and that I wouldn't have to worry about that old bastard back in Bloodcove."

  Patima put down her teacup and reached for a porcelain cup and the palm wine.

  "We were just about to turn back. We finally had enough, the boats were riding low in the water. Then we heard the drums." She took a long swallow of wine. "They came from ahead of us, deep and dull. When they heard them, every Mwangi member of the crew went still, as if they were already dead. The northerners had no idea. They questioned and cursed until someone finally explained it to them. We had gone too far. We had heard the drums of Usaro.

  "I won't bother with describing our useless flight, or our capture. I won't go into details about the lucky ones who were torn apart right away, or who slit their own throats. I won't talk..." Patima stopped, staring down at nothing, her eyes turned in, her body seeming to shrink. "I won't talk about what happened after those demon-worshiping apes brought us back to Usaro. I will just tell you that in Usaro, torture is an art and an entertainment, and they could spend weeks in its appreciation.

  "The apes found out early that I was a translator. That saved my life." Patima smiled, a terrible, bitter expression. "They found that useful. Not because they pretended that they wanted information. No, those monsters were honest about their torture. They wanted me because they wanted to know what their playthings were shrieking, what terrible blasphemies they could force from them. What awful promises they could extract. They broke minds as avidly as they broke bodies. So my body was left alone, while they made me watch what they did to every other member of that expedition.

  "This went on for months. Until the last one died, his flesh neatly sliced from his bones, teased delicately away from every vein and artery so that he would last. When they finished, they looked at me, smiled, and led me back to my cage."

  "But you escaped," Jiri said, then shut her mouth. It was rude to interrupt a storyteller, and despite everything else, Jiri had to admit that Patima was just that. Jiri had finished her food, and she barely remembered eating.

  "Escaped," Patima said. "I got away. There was a coup attempt, I think. Some member of the Court of Hateful Smiles moved against the Gorilla King. Ape battled ape, and blood and chaos were thick in the streets of Usaro. My cage was broken, and I ran. There were other humans running too, slaves and prisoners screaming their way toward the jungle, and I saw them get cut down. That would have been my fate, but my luck, oh my cursed luck, blessed me again. At my feet was a body. A huge silverback gorilla, wrapped in armor. Imade myself go to it, rubbed its blood on me, stole its cloak and the amulet around its neck.

  "The cloak and blood scent got me out of the city. But it wasn't long before I heard the sounds of charau-ka pursuing me. That's when I learned how to use the amulet." Patima pulled at a fine silver chain that ran around her throat. From beneath her shirt came an amulet, blackened silver set with a lump of polished sardonyx. "I touched its magic, and one of the demons bound to it answered.

  "It came, and tested me. It should have bested me, but my terror gave me strength. I mastered it, and it killed the charau-ka. I could hear it, tearing them apart while I ran, and I laughed at their screams, laughed and cried, and for a long time I didn't know anything else.

  "Somehow I survived the jungle. Moving, always moving, away from Usaro. Until I was found and brought here." Patima took a sip of her wine and nodded toward the bottle. "Have some. It's well watered. I'm not trying to get you drunk."

  Jiri frowned, but she took the jug and poured herself a glass. "I heard about you. How you lived as a beggar, telling stories in the market."

  "It took me a while to put my mind back together. Mostly." She set down her cup. "I can go days now, not thinking about it, not remembering. Then I'll hear a monkey call from the trees, see a butcher cutting meat, hear drums from the Adayenki, and it all comes back. And the nightmares. They never stop."

  "I'm sorry for your pain," Jiri said, and it was unsettling how true that was. Patima's story had dug into her. Usaro was the Expanse's nightmare, the place where all the bad-luck shadows pooled. "But what does this have to do with the Pyre, and All-in-Ashes?"

  "Everything." Patima looked at Jiri. "Usaro taught me many terrible things, but the most important is this: The strong can hurt the weak, and I was weak. So very, very weak.

  "That was what made me pull myself together. Why I went to the Consortium and told them that I used to work for them, that I wanted to work for them again. This place, these people, have money and power. They were strong, so I joined them and made myself stronger. I learned everything I could about magic, about how to fight, about...everything. Ever since Usaro, getting st
ronger—getting smarter—is all I've done. And you know what? It's not enough. It will never be enough. I'm human. Weakness is written in my flesh. No matter how well I fight, I can bleed. No matter how much I know, I can still be outmaneuvered. No matter how strong I get, I'm still just meat for the beast.

  "I am still Usaro's prisoner. It just has to claim me."

  Jiri set down her cup. There was something in Patima's voice, some strange certainty that curdled the little bit of sympathy Jiri had been feeling for her and made her want to edge away. "All flesh is mortal. It's a vessel for our spirits, which will go on. Usaro can't touch your spirit."

  Patima looked up at Jiri, her eyes gleaming. "You're so young and stupid. Usaro has already drawn scars across my soul, and I will never be free. Unless I destroy it."

  "All-in-Ashes," Jiri said.

  "Yes." Patima stood. "A spirit to save my spirit. I found hints of it in the books and scrolls Amiro had collected, things that were meant to lead him to ancient treasures and relics. A thing of fire and destruction. A weapon meant to destroy a city—Usaro. I spent years hunting for it, and where do I find it? Right on my doorstep."

  "It's not a weapon," Jiri said, staring up at her, but she remembered Shani. Ancestors, what did you do? "It's a disaster."

  "All weapons are disasters," Patima said. "And I mean to use this one on that cursed city." She looked down at Jiri. "I found All-in-Ashes' prison. I freed it from that kindi when I touched it. But I cannot control it, and so it turns its wrath on the innocent. That's why I need you. Tell me how to use that kindi. Tell me what I need to do to control that spirit, and no more villages will die. Tell me, and I will burn the evil of Usaro out of the Expanse. Tell me."

  Patima's voice filled the chamber, pounding Jiri down, making her small. She was still weak from the night before, exhausted and frightened. But she was angry, too, and she clung to that heat. "You're a raider. You treat with demons, and you killed my teacher."

  "I am. I do. I did." Patima said the words slowly and quietly. She seemed to pull in on herself, no longer a force towering over Jiri. Now she was a woman again, tired and sad. "I've done so much wrong, trying to do this one right." She knelt down on the stone before Jiri, looking up at her. "I never wanted to hurt anyone, Jiri, believe that. I just did what I had to. What I must. Believe me. I'm trying so hard to do this good. Believe me." She reached out her hand to Jiri.

 

‹ Prev