by Gary Kloster
The voices were coming from the door to Jiri's right. She glided the other way. There was nothing but silence behind this door, and at its base she found a hole gnawed in the wood. Her tongue flickered, and through the smoke she faintly tasted rats.
It might be large enough.
Behind her, the voices stopped, then Jiri heard Mikki.
"Do you smell smoke?"
Turning her head, Jiri shoved her way into the hole, pushing until she had poured her whole body through. The room beyond was nothing but a closet, stuffed with junk and empty of any other exit. She considered it. The smoke taste hadn't filled this room yet, and the rat taste was strong. And good. She slithered between empty barrels and broken stools, following it, and found a broken stone in the wall. Beyond it lay darkness.
Jiri poked her blunt head in. The hollow beyond the stone was narrow—a handspan wide, maybe—but it was wide open above her and to both sides. Nothing but darkness filled her eyes, but she could taste mildew, stone, rats, roaches, water, and a tiny portion of fresh air.
Ignoring the sounds of shouts behind her, people yelling for buckets and water, Jiri flowed into the hole and began to climb.
∗ ∗ ∗
The hollow was a space between the walls. A way for them to breathe, to keep the inner stone from sweating in the heat and damp.
Jiri puzzled that out as she worked her way up. The gap stretched on and on—around the whole building, she supposed—blocked only by support buttresses and broken stones. Getting around those was easy enough. She just followed the rat trails.
She climbed, pushing herself up, going for height. It was dark, except for the occasional bright crack, but she didn't care. Sight was not nearly so useful as taste. Voices came through the stone occasionally, but she heard no more shouts, no cries of alarm.
They'll probably get the fire out fast. That room was all stone. It will take longer to clear the smoke and let it cool enough for them to go in, though, and find out I'm not there.
The thought should have been amusing, but Jiri was figuring out that a snake was not a particularly emotional beast. Her fear had guttered with her change, and she found herself considering her situation with a detached, thoughtful manner. Only her anger still flickered, and even that was only a few fitful coals.
So I know how to control my anger at last: turn into a snake.
Which I can only do after I control my anger.
Coiling around a stone that had tilted in, Jiri blinked. There was light above her—not bright, but steady—and she shifted her direction and slid toward it. Now she could see that she was almost to the top of whatever wall she was climbing. The narrow space she was in ended just a little above her. The light she saw was a gap in that space, a piece of stone that had broken out of its mortar and fallen. Stopping just before that gap, she flicked her tongue out.
She tasted fresh air, and people, rats, stone, and rain. Carefully, Jiri pushed her head out of the hole and looked around.
A lattice of wooden beams surrounded her, angling up into shadows. They supported a roof of tiles, and she could hear rain pattering against the other side. Below that roof, the rafters ran over the rooms that split up this long building. None of them had ceilings, so that the heat could rise out of them and collect up here, where it would slip out the vents to the outside. From where she was right now, Jiri could see one of those vents. It would be a simple thing to crawl over the rafters and slip out into the rain.
She flicked her tongue at the vent, then turned her blunt head away. Not yet.
It was a risk. Patima and her kindi might not even be in this building. But she had to check. Jiri slithered out of the wall and on to the nearest rafter. She made for a thick beam that ran through the center of the building, looking down as she went. Storerooms and offices passed by below, nothing useful, the few people inside bent over ledgers. Jiri reached the beam at the center and started to flow along it, startling a few rats into scurrying, panicked climbs away from her. She forced herself to ignore them, and stared down at the rooms passing below her. Nothing yet, just an empty library and a cluttered office, but she was only halfway down the building. Then she heard a clatter below.
Coiling on her beam, she stared down. She was over a hallway, and against one wall a flight of stairs opened in the floor, heading down. A man and a woman were lying before the stairs, a spilled bucket spreading water beside them.
"—idiot, why are you running—"
"—a fire, and you're in the way!" The man pulled himself up, and Jiri thought she recognized him as one of the guards from her cell. "Get others, get some buckets, and start running them down these stairs."
"Buckets?" The woman was pulling herself up, wringing water out of her clothes. "Of water?"
"By all your stupid ancestors, what else?" The man snatched up his bucket and rushed back out to refill it.
The woman turned and ran into another room, calling, "Fire!" as she did. The cry was picked up, and Jiri could hear it echoing through the building.
I have a little time, while they're confused. But only a little. This place would soon be crawling with clerks and guards. If she wanted to get away...
Jiri stared ahead. She still had half the building to search. She hesitated, her tongue flicking, tasting the air.
Tasting something faint, buried in all the other scents rising around her, but sharp.
Blood, burning.
Jiri dropped her head and slithered toward that taste as fast as she could.
∗ ∗ ∗
Patima lay in her room alone, sprawled across the stone of her floor like a broken doll.
Jiri lowered herself silently from the rafters, watching the woman. She twitched sometimes, body jerking, head turning. Her dark hair was tangled over her face, black strands covering her eyes. Her lips moved, as if she were trying to talk, parting, going still, then moving again. Her chest rose and fell, breathing, but sometimes she would stop, then start again with a gasp or a muttered, broken word. Her left hand was clutched over her heart, and Jiri could see blood, wet on Patima's skin.
She's caught in the dream.
Jiri twisted her body and looked at the low table beside Patima. On one side, Jiri could see the little kindi she had taken from the Pyre, Oza's necklace of carved animals beside it. On the other side, a slim journal lay open, its smooth pages covered in tiny, neat writing. A quill lay dripping on those pages, and a pool of ink lapped at the book, its jar tipped beside it.
In the middle of the table stood the kindi Patima had stolen.
Jiri moved slightly, made sure she was over Patima's pallet, then let herself drop. Her body thumped into the tangle of sheets, and she reared up. Patima, lost in the vision that filled her head, just twitched and muttered. Jiri made herself ignore her, and stared at the kindi.
It looked like the statue that had held it in the Pyre, something like a man with wings of smoke and flame. Carved from ebony, with obsidian inlays, the carving's darkness was broken only by the veins of iron that ran through its wings like sharp metal pinions and the iron spike that jutted from its chest. It was as if the statue had been impaled on that spike, a spike that glowed a dull red. The wounded wood around that metal was charred and smoking.
The face, carved with exquisite detail into the black wood, was Shani's.
Slowly, wary of those gleaming, obsidian eyes, Jiri crawled off the pallet and toward the kindi. The smell of burned blood and scorched flesh was thick here, and she could see the marks of Patima's blood on the kindi's lips.
How long ago did she start this? Jiri tilted her head and stared at the woman twitching on the floor beside her. Will she survive this?
Will I let her?
That was a thought that would have to wait for a moment. Jiri pushed herself up, crawling on the table, carefully avoiding touching that dark kindi. She looked at the things arranged on it and hissed.
I miss my hands.
Jiri could turn back. That would be easy. But she wouldn't be a
ble to become the snake again—not until she rested, until she walked the spirit world in her dreams again. Oza had taught her that much. And she had no hope of escaping this place in her real form. She would have to do without hands for this.
She examined the things on the table, and realized that she had one thing going for her at least: the kindi shaped like All-in-Ashes stood in the middle of a pile of shining metal links, a bag made of metal loops all hooked together. Patima must have put it in there to keep the kindi's hot iron from burning whatever it touched, and when she used it, she hadn't taken it completely out of the bag, just dropped the sides around it and left it exposed. All Jiri had to do was put the other kindi she had found beside it, with Oza's necklace, and then pull the bag up around them all.
All while making sure that she didn't touch that sharp, scorching spike that jutted out of that kindi.
This should be easy.
It wasn't. Long minutes passed as Jiri pushed and nudged, picking things up with her mouth, wishing for her thumbs. Outside, she kept hearing voices, people yelling about fire, feet pounding past the room, someone yelling about a prisoner, calling for Amiro, for Patima. Jiri ignored it all, and kept moving.
She had finally pulled the bag up and closed, cursing those sharp iron-tipped wings the whole time, when someone pounded at the door of Patima's room.
"Patima! Amiro needs you! There's been a fire, and he told me to—" The door rattled, and Jiri lunged for the bag, grabbing its drawstrings in her mouth, ready to try to climb up and out. The door stayed shut, though, latched from the inside. "Patima?" The man cursed, and Jiri heard feet running away.
Someone will be back. Soon.
Jiri had what she had come for. She just had to get it out of here. But on the floor, Patima still muttered.
Helpless. Alone.
Like I was.
Anger stirred in Jiri, and a faint echo of heat passed through her scaled body. It was enough. Jiri poured herself off the table, down to Patima. She hesitated, her tongue dancing over the woman's face. Tasting her scent, tasting burned blood, soap, and fear sweat.
She only had one way to do this in this form.
So do it.
Moving fast, she snaked herself around Patima's neck. The woman shifted and groaned, but didn't raise her hands, didn't open her eyes. Jiri stared down at Patima's face, body wrapped tight around her neck, and began to clench her muscles. Below her, the woman went rigid, mouth opening, trying to breathe. But her eyes didn't open, her fingers didn't tear at Jiri's scales. Jiri was choking the life from Patima, but the woman was unable to fight, dying while wrapped in whatever nightmare that kindi had trapped her in. Jiri stared down at her, watching her choke.
She's helpless, alone, like I was, and I'm killing her. Images flickered through Jiri's head: Oza dead and Thirty Trees burning. A terrified woman in a cage surrounded by apes. A city ablaze. Jiri's coils eased for a second and she heard Patima wheezing for air, trying to live, and she started to—
Someone pounded on the door behind her. "Patima. Are you in there?"
Mikki's voice was easy to recognize. Moving fast, Jiri released Patima, slithering up to the table to grab the metal ring bag by its leather drawstrings. Behind her, she heard Patima cough and groan.
"I hear something," Mikki muttered, and the door rattled. "Break this down. You're twice my size."
There was a thud from the hall, and a curse. The sounds goaded Jiri, made her climb faster even though the heavy bag pulled her down. It was almost impossible, but the thought of being caught, of being taken back to that cell, kept her moving. Looping a coil over a rafter, she dropped her head down and snagged the bag, lifting it out as the door shuddered again.
"Damn, you're useless. Give me a boost and I'll go over the top."
Gods and crocodiles. The curse came out as a hiss through Jiri's clenched jaws, and she moved, sliding along the rafter to the edge of the roof, the bag fighting her the whole way. In the shadows where the rafters met, she looked back. There was a flash of a small hand clutching the edge of one of the rafters, then another, and Mikki pulled herself up. Jiri tensed in the shadows, terrified for a moment that the halfling would taste her, but she stayed still and watched as the assassin jumped nimbly down into Patima's room. A tinkling laugh came up a moment later.
Jiri didn't want to listen anymore. She wanted out. Looking around, she tried to find another vent. She didn't see any, and started crawling forward, pulling the bag with her, until she felt a drop of water tap on her snout. There, a little ahead and above, was a broken tile and a hole to the outside. She shoved herself toward it as fast as she could. Behind her, Mikki was shouting.
"Patima's been attacked! Somebody tried to kill her, or she's getting hickeys from snakes."
There was another voice, maybe Amiro's, but Jiri couldn't tell as she shoved her way into the rain, breaking more tiles with her coils to force the hole wide enough for the bag. Mikki's answer covered the noise.
"Fine! I'll look for her. But that means you get to deal with those idiots in the east warehouse!"
∗ ∗ ∗
Outside, it was darkness, rain, and confusion.
Jiri coiled on the roof, trying to sort it out. She could taste rain, bird droppings, rats, the distant reek of latrines, and the smoke of a thousand cooking fires. The rain blinded her, and she could barely see over the compound stretched around her. She was in the middle, surrounded by buildings, and there were people rushing with lanterns through the darkness below. They were shouting at one another, a confusion of voices mixed with the storm. To Jiri's flat, serpent ears, their voices blended together, and she could barely pick out the occasional word, a shouted "Fire!", a howl of pain. Those shouts blended with another noise, something that sounded like distant thunder, long and low, but didn't stop. It just kept going, rising and falling.
It wasn't All-in-Ashes. That fear passed quickly. No flames rose from the city, no terrible wings spread across the sky. Jiri didn't know what was happening. What she did know was that she was getting sluggish, tired, her cold-blooded body chilled by the rain.
Enough.
After all the difficulty she had taking this shape, changing back was as easy as taking a breath. She closed her eyes and remembered her hands, and she felt the change. It spun through her, dizzying then gone, and she was herself again. Herself, with arms and legs and good eyes and a tongue that stayed in her mouth. Herself, dressed in the light robe Patima had given her, her teeth clenched on the drawstring of the chain-metal bag.
Jiri grabbed the bag and spat out the string. The movement shifted her, and she suddenly became very aware of her position, standing on a steep, rain-slick roof high over the wet brick of the courtyard below. She quickly lowered herself to all fours, grabbing at the tiles with her free hand. This perch had seemed so secure when she was a snake.
I should have climbed down first.
But she had wanted to see.
Jiri took time for that now. The dark and the rain still made it hard, but her eyes were much sharper now, and so were her ears. She could watch the people moving below, clerks and laborers heading in, toward the center of the compound, while the guards were heading out toward the low walls, the warehouses, and the big house that she had been watching before she got caught.
Are they under attack?
They were acting like it, moving like termites whose mound had been kicked open.
Mixed in with their shouts was that low rumble Jiri had heard, the one that sounded like thunder. The sound of voices, hundreds of voices, raised into the rain from the city. Beyond the walls of the Aspis compound, she could see lanterns and torches moving, could see that the Adayenki Pavilion was filled with their flickering light.
Lightning flashed, and real thunder boomed. The light and noise stopped Jiri's staring and got her moving. Whatever was happening in the compound and in the city beyond, she could use its confusion to get out. Scrambling over the wet tile, she crawled across the roof to a tree that rose
beside the building. A mango tree, Jiri realized when she got there and saw the shape of the leaves, and she decided to take that as a good omen. She slid along the edge of the roof and found the thickest branch she could, hanging just out of reach. She slung the metal bag around her neck, then cautiously rose, balanced on bare feet, and jumped.
She was in the air for only a second, but that second stretched, until she was sure it would never end. Then she crashed into the branch, and everything was moving too fast, the wet bark sliding away from her clutching fingers, and her hands were lashing until somehow she was clutching desperately at the branch, unsure of how she got there and not caring. Heart hammering, she worked her way to the trunk and down the tree.
On the ground she crouched, deciding where to go. People were still running around, shouting and pointing and going in circles, and their confusion frustrated her. How can I avoid you if you don't know where you're going? She watched a couple of guards dash back and forth in front of her. Someone shouted at the men, and they both charged toward one of the warehouses, the eastern one. Jiri stared at the building and the crowd of guards that were clustered around its door. Mikki had said something about the east warehouse, and as Jiri watched she saw something flicker through the door. A splash of light, not fire or lightning—something blue-white, like when Linaria—
"No," she whispered, starting toward the warehouse. It was all open courtyard, and she gave up on the pretense of trying to hide, moving quickly instead, trying to look like she had purpose, like she belonged. Halfway to the building, she saw a group of guards spill out the door, some of them rushing toward her. Jiri's heart skipped, but she kept herself moving forward. The guards reached her and swept by, heading somewhere else, a Zenj man and a northern woman. In the man's long dreadlocks Jiri saw something gleaming. Ice, a long band of it, steaming in the rain.
Yes, Jiri thought, and kept moving.
In front of the warehouse, a northerner was snapping orders at guards. "—somewhere in the northwest corner, behind the crates of cocoa. You three go up the center aisle and help the others keep them pinned there. The rest of you will come with me. We'll sweep—" He cut off, seeing Jiri. "What?" he shouted over the rain and the city's roar.