by Gary Kloster
"Where?" Sera asked.
"I don't know," Jiri said. "But I know who to ask." She held up the little kindi she had carried out of the city with her.
"That thing?" Morvius said. "The thing that almost made you burn down the Red Spear last time you used it?"
Jiri glared at him, ready to retort, but she heard Linaria speak first.
"The thing you felt you had to keep secret from us?"
Jiri stared down at the little carving, its dark eyes staring blankly back at her.
I made my promise to Oza.
But Oza is dead, and all I have left are these people.
"I told you about fetishes."
"Yes," Linaria said. "Items that have a spirit bound to them, to give them magic."
"I said kindi were like fetishes. They are, but instead of spirits they hold a piece of someone's soul."
"A soul?" Sera frowned at the carving. "But it's not evil."
"No. They capture just a fragment of a freely given soul. Usually. My ancestors made them to hold knowledge, memories, stories, so they could be passed down. Using this one—" Jiri turned the kindi in her hand, careful of its sharp spearpoint. "I can speak to the little preserved ghost of a man who died long ago. I can see his home, listen to his stories, and it seems as real as us speaking now."
"Any memory?" Morvius said. "Sexy memories?"
"I suppose," Jiri said. She thought of all the kindi lining that room in the Pyre. "Someone must have done it."
"See, that's useful magic." Morvius tapped his fingers on Scritch's shaft. "So why did they stop?"
"There were dangers," Jiri said. "Sometimes people gave too much. Or too much was taken from them. The kindi became dangerous."
"Undead?" Sera asked.
"Maybe. Maybe something else. It was long ago, and the stories Oza knew were half lost." Jiri remembered huddling in the dark, listening to Oza whisper those story fragments that had been passed down, generation by generation. A kindi could have preserved them forever.
But magic always had a price.
"The kindi themselves could get dangerous, too. Those little ghosts in them sometimes went mad. Or they were mad from the start. They would try to take over whoever used them, pass from the kindi into the person's soul and possess them." Jiri made herself stop turning the kindi in her hands. "That was what Oza knew. What else they might have done, I don't know. I just know that the kindi were dangerous enough that my ancestors gave them up long ago."
Out in the night, sounds echoed up from behind Kibwe's towering walls. "They built many great things, but the kindi were their greatest. But Oza told me that their shamans came to understand that the magic of the kindi was something that would destroy them, so they gave them up." Jiri stared at those dark walls, a distant, angry heat kindling deep in her. "He said they destroyed them. Burned them, and buried their remains beneath the Pyre to be guarded, so that no one would learn how to make them again. That was the story he knew. But the real story was that they couldn't." Did Oza suspect as much? I think he did. I think that's why he kept such a careful watch over them. "They buried them, sealed them off, warned everyone away, but they couldn't give them up. So the kindi survived, until someone dug them up again."
"The Aspis Consortium," Sera said. "But what was the one that they stole? What is All-in-Ashes?"
"I don't know." Jiri met Linaria's eye. "I don't. I know from using this kindi that All-in-Ashes is a powerful, dangerous spirit. I know my ancestors feared it, but I also know that they were desperate. They were under attack from Usaro, and they wanted a weapon."
"A weapon," Morvius said. "Something that could wipe out a village in one strike. No wonder Amiro wants it. He could charge dear for that."
"It's not Amiro I fear," Jiri said. "It's Patima. She thinks she can control All-in-Ashes and turn it on Usaro."
"Usaro?" Morvius said. "Why?"
"She was there," Jiri said. "And they hurt her. Badly. All she can think of is revenge."
"Well." Morvius looked over at Linaria. "Why are we trying to stop her, then? I mean, I know Sera wants this thing's head for her trophy case, and Jiri is looking for her own revenge, but if Patima is doing all this to destroy one of the worst places in this whole rotten world, should we really be interfering?"
"If Jiri's right," Linaria said, "someone has already tried to destroy Usaro with this thing. And as I recall, Usaro still stands."
"My ancestors had a city. Much greater than Kibwe. I saw it in this." Jiri held up the carving of the spearman. "But I'd never heard of it before I used this. I've never seen its ruins. All that's left of my ancestors' works are the walls and statues of Kibwe, and the Pyre, where they buried their weapon. A weapon that I think turned on them."
Morvius grunted, but he didn't argue.
"Evil cannot be used against evil." Sera nodded at the kindi in Jiri's hands. "If you think using that will let us find All-in-Ashes, then use it. Let's finish this hunt."
Finish it. Not very long ago, Jiri had stood outside Thirty Trees with Oza, talking about Hadzi. In the time between then and now, her life had fallen away, piece by piece, like petals from a flower. Now this was all that was left. Finding Patima, finding All-in-Ashes, finding...What? That my life is gone? That Mosa Jiri Maju is as dead as Oza and Hadzi?
I will find their killers, and I will face them, and I will find an end.
∗ ∗ ∗
Morvius set a stool out for her in the open.
"Better out here, than under all that dry thatch."
Jiri sat down on the stool and it sank deeper into the mud. The rain had passed, but water dripped from every branch and leaf in the jungle beside them, and wide puddles reflected the stars that peered through the broken clouds. Morvius was right, but Jiri still felt terribly exposed out here, knowing that soon she would be lost in the dream of the kindi that she held.
Linaria picked up on Jiri's hesitation. "We won't let anything happen to you."
Jiri nodded. "I know. I trust you."
"Do you?"
"I do," Jiri said. "You've earned it." And I have to. Jiri raised her hand, held her finger over the sharp point of the kindi's spear. She could feel their eyes on her, watching, and her hand hesitated. Why? What does it matter now? Patima already made me break my promise, in the worst possible way. Quick as she could, Jiri brought a finger down on that iron point. The pain flashed through her, quick and sharp, and she raised her finger. Blood ran from it, darker than her skin and darker than the wooden, ebony lips of the carving that Jiri spread it across.
"Speak," she said, "and I will listen."
"Be quick," she heard Sera say, but the words stretched out, became long and faint, and Jiri was falling into another night, into a city that had died long ago.
∗ ∗ ∗
"Shani!"
The name echoed through the empty square, off the ornate buildings that towered over Jiri, the tall pillars topped with their soapstone statues. She moved, bare feet padding across the polished stone circle that surrounded the heart of long-dead Lozo.
"What's this? A woman calling for me?" Shani stepped out from behind one of the pillars, smiling. He was young, dressed in white cotton so fine it edged toward transparency. So handsome, so much like Hadzi, and Jiri's heart twisted, the pain sudden and unexpected. Behind him, the city began to come alive, lights springing up, whirls of color that hinted at moving crowds, the sound of music and laughter, the rich scents of curries and sweets. "And who are you, my lovely?"
"I'm Jiri, and I've been here before, Shani. Do you remember?"
Shani walked closer, Lozo waking around him. There were lanterns and people moving past, insubstantial but beautiful, gathering light and color and presence with every moment. "I remember many beautiful things, Jiri." Shani plucked a glass of palm wine from the hands of a woman wrapped in thin silk and stopped in front of Jiri, holding it out. "Lozo is a city of beauty. Come, I will show you, and tell you my stories."
Jiri took the glass from his hand.
She could feel its weight, the hard edges of its facets. When she threw it down, she heard it shatter, felt the splatter of cool wine against her muddy feet.
"I don't want your dreams of your city, Shani. I don't have time for them."
"No time for Lozo?" Shani still smiled, but the city had stopped coming to life behind him, the music and the smell of good things fading from the air.
"Lozo is dead, Shani. Usaro destroyed it centuries ago."
"No." In a moment, Shani aged decades. His face split with lines, and his bright eyes went dim with age and grief. His clothes changed, became armor, leather brightly dyed and studded with iron, each piece of metal etched with a symbol of protection and warding. But that armor was torn, rent by claws, its colors half-covered with the dark stains of blood. In his hands he clutched a spear, its shaft rough with nicks, the tassels hanging below its blade clotted with gore. "My city."
Behind Shani, Lozo changed. The buildings went dark beneath a sky full of smoke, and the music became the sound of drums, pounding like a terrified heart. Their thunder almost covered the noise coming from the high walls, the roaring and the screams that came from throats human and inhuman.
"No." Shani stared at the distant walls, holding his spear tight. "Lozo can't fall. The walls will hold, and my family..." Shani stopped, and overhead the smoke began to glow crimson and gold. "My son."
Shani spun, his eyes flashing with the light of the fire that flickered over the city. "They told me I could save it. Me. Shani the Strong. Those mages said we could do it. They promised me this would work!"
"What?" Jiri said. "What would work? What did they do to you and All-in-Ashes?"
"All-in-Ashes." Shani's face twisted. "They took me to see it. Bound in its prison, deep beneath our city. I saw it writhing in its chains, burning. The rock around it baked with heat, and the water, the blood of the earth, boiled. It was a monster, and they would make me part of it."
"How?" Jiri had to shout the words over the sound of drums and the wind that roared around them, reeking of smoke and blood.
"They had a kindi. They would put me in it. All of me, all my soul, and then they would bind All-in-Ashes to it, like a fetish. They would mix our spirits, make us one, so that I could control that thing. When they freed it, I would destroy the armies of Usaro." Shani dropped his spear caught Jiri's shoulders, pulling her close. "Do you understand? I will kill every demon-touched ape of that cursed place. I will burn them to ash, and I will avenge my son and save my city. My people. My wife. My daughter." He stared down at Jiri, his hands tight on her shoulders. "You look like her, a little. My daughter. What happened to her? Did I save her?"
"I don't know," Jiri said, almost a whisper. "Someone survived. The kindi were saved. The descendants of your people still live. Usaro doesn't rule this part of the Expanse. Shani, I need to know how the binding was done. Where it must be done."
He let her go, stepping back and staring up at the burning sky with shining eyes. "I don't know what they plan to do. I'm no mage. I just know they would put all of me in a kindi. Except this little piece, this part of me that I made them split off, so that some portion of me could remain untainted. So people could remember me." Shani bent and picked up his spear. "Did I fail? Did I lose control of All-in-Ashes? Was I not strong enough? Was it because I made them split this piece off?" Shani looked at Jiri. "No one remembers me, do they?"
"No," Jiri said softly. "Except me. Now. Please, tell me where this happened. I need to know."
"You remember," Shani said, then stood, silent.
Jiri waited, torn between a burning need to shake him from his reverie so that she could go, and the wish to take him in her arms and share his grief, so much like her own.
Finally, he spoke again. "They were going to take me to where All-in-Ashes was chained. The binding had to be done where that thing was weakest, in its ancient prison in the caverns below Lozo."
"And where is Lozo?"
"You don't know. It's gone, then."
"The city is gone," Jiri said. "But its descendants live. You saved them, but they're in danger. You have to tell me where Lozo was."
"How?" Shani asked. "If you've never heard of my city, what landmarks would you know? The Golden Road? The Clearing of An? The Steaming Eye?"
"No," Jiri said, fear curling through her. "No, I don't know— Wait. The Steaming Eye?"
"A small lake, just outside our walls. Its waters are blue, dark in the middle and lighter on the edges. The water is hot near the shore, and it boils and steams near the center. I told you how All-in-Ashes heated the springs."
"It steams," Jiri said. "It smokes." Smoking Eye. The lake beside the village where I was born.
The lake where the jungle's curse of fire was supposed to be strongest.
"It smokes," Shani said, and a curl of darkness drifted down from the sky, rolling over them.
Jiri felt its heat around her, and she coughed, but she still heard Shani.
"Do you know it?"
"I do," she gasped out. She coughed again, stared with burning eyes at Shani, a dim figure in the dark smoke, the sky crimson behind him.
"The Steaming Eye lay just before the gates of Lozo. Go there, and do what I wanted to do. Save our people."
Jiri nodded, her throat too tight to speak. Go. How? Go! She concentrated, and the city around her began to fade, to lose itself in the smoke. But before it could vanish, she saw Shani again. A man of smoke, and now—oh, by every spirit, she could recognize him now. She could see how that handsome face was the same as the twisted, monstrous mask of the thing that had flown over her when it escaped the Pyre.
"Remember me, Jiri," she heard his voice, faint and tearing apart. "Remember me, and my family, and my city. Remember that we fought. Remember that we were beautiful..." and the rest was lost.
Chapter Nineteen
Smoking Eye
Jiri opened her eyes, shivering and gasping.
Water soaked the robe she wore, dripped down her arms and braids. Morvius stood in front of her, an empty clay pot hanging from one of his hands.
"Did you just throw water at me?" Jiri's throat still felt raw, as if she had been breathing smoke again, and her shoulders ached from Shani's grip.
"I did. You were getting a bit smoky."
"Oh." Jiri could smell the smoke, like an echo from the kindi's vision, and see the dark marks on the cuffs of her robe. "Thank you."
"Do you know where All-in-Ashes is now?" Sera stood nearby, a little mud on one ear, but her tabard shone with the coming dawn's light.
"I do." Jiri pushed herself up, wavering on unsteady legs. Sera reached out and caught her, holding her up easily with one hand. "I can take you there."
"You will," Linaria said, "once you've rested."
Jiri and Sera spoke at the same time, their words tangling together. "We don't have time!" They broke off, frowning at each other, and Sera let go of Jiri's arm.
"You can barely stand, Jiri," Linaria said. "And when's the last time you meditated, or whatever it is that you do? Do you have any magic that you can do, now?"
"Patima hasn't stopped," Jiri said.
"Like you know," Linaria said. "Considering the spells Corrianne and Amiro threw at us last night, I damn well guarantee you they have. They won't want to walk unarmed into wherever Patima's taking them. Now. This place—where is it?"
"It's past Thirty Trees, in the jungles to the southeast. There's a hot spring, called the Steaming—Smoking Eye. It should be near there. It will take us all day, even if we go now."
"It will take us all day after resting for a bit." Morvius looked her over. "You have no magic, no weapon, and you're wet. We can lose by missing them, but we can also lose by showing up unprepared. Understand?"
Jiri stared at the broad-shouldered man, burning to move, to stop Patima. But with what? She was useless at the moment, helpless. "I'll walk with the spirits, and get my magic."
"Good," Linaria said. "I will meditate, and Sera will pray."
"You'll keep watch," Linaria said, walking toward the shelter of the little pavilion at the center of the village. "And make us breakfast. And find Jiri a weapon."
"Anything else?" he called after her.
"Could you find me some better clothes?" Jiri asked.
Morvius rolled his eyes. "Sure. Shall I braid ribbons into everyone's hair too, while I'm at it?"
"No thank you," Jiri and Linaria said, echoing each other, but Sera stared soberly at the broad-shouldered man as she walked to the pavilion.
"Only if they match my armor," she said, running her fingers through her short-cropped hair.
∗ ∗ ∗
By the time the song of the jungle had changed from night to day, they were on the trail.
Jiri had a belly full of food, a boy's rough shirt and pants, a long and wickedly sharp bush knife, and a head full of spirit magic. No sleep, but she didn't feel tired, and whether that was the tension running through her over the coming confrontation or the bitter sludge of coffee that Morvius had made her drink, she didn't care. She moved down the muddy path through the jungle, fast as she could while keeping an eye out, and still had to stop to let her northern companions catch up.
"How are we doing?" Linaria asked as they stopped beside a winding stream, swollen with the night's rain.
"Better than I thought," Jiri said, eyeing the thick curtain of vegetation on the other side of the water. "We should make Smoking Eye by nightfall, if we keep this pace."
"Easy enough," Morvius said, taking a drink from his waterskin, breathing easy. Jiri had touched him this morning, spending a little of the magic she had borrowed, and now he looked as cool in his armor as Sera. He had been quite happy about that, and had actually stopped calling Jiri ‘runt' briefly. Right up until she insisted he leave coin to pay for the things they had taken from the empty village.
"This place," Sera asked. "Smoking Eye. You said you were born near it?"
"Yes. There used to be a village near the hot spring. Oza found me there."
"You told me that placed burned," Linaria said, carefully. "Why wasn't it rebuilt?"