by Gary Kloster
"It had a bad reputation. Like the Pyre. Fire was always too eager in that place." Like it is in me. I should have guessed that Lozo's ruins and the cavern that once held All-in-Ashes lay near there.
"Your tribe. The Mosa. Did they fear you because you were from there?" Linaria asked.
Jiri looked at her sidelong, wondering what the woman was reaching for. Will she wonder if I'm tainted, like Sera? "Yes. All except Oza."
Linaria wiped the sweat from her pale face. "I grew up in a place called Irrisen. I left it, by trick and then by choice, but almost everyone who knows judges me for being born there, and they fear me, and refuse me their trust."
"I don't know that place," Jiri said.
"Few people do, in the Expanse. That's why I like it here. That and the flowers."
"Aw, you're making up. Sweet." Morvius tucked his waterskin back into his belt. "But aren't we supposed to be running headlong toward our fiery deaths?"
"Yes," Jiri said. "But lets deal with one possible death at a time." She bent and pulled a rock out of the mud, stared carefully at the patterns of leaves and vines on the other side of the stream, and then threw the rock, shouting, "Sa!" as she did.
The rock hit the leaves and something squawked, the noise like a bird call but deeper. Vines shifted and something stepped out onto the path across from them, an animal scaled and feathered, a birdlike thing the size of a man that stood on its hind legs, huge sickle claws twitching on its feet. Yellow eyes gleamed at them, and it opened its mouth and squawked again, showing sharp teeth.
"What in six hells is that?" Morvius settled into a fighting stance with his spear pointed at the creature.
"Makumo," Jiri said. "Dangerous, but much less brave when they know you've spotted them." She picked up another rock and threw it at a different spot in the trees. There was no squawk this time, but the leaves shivered as something moved behind them. "All of them."
The raptor on the trail in front of them twisted its head, listening to the retreat of its companion. Its bright eyes glittered as it faced them again, and the great claws on its feet twitched, as if eager to slash. Jiri stepped back, putting her smaller target behind Morvius's bulk, and Linaria slid in beside her. Sera stepped around them both, her sword hissing as she pulled it from her sheath.
Across the stream, the makumo pulled back scaled lips to show a thicket of hooked teeth, still glaring. But as Sera settled in beside Morvius, her shield up, it gave a disgusted-sounding grunt and darted after its companion, the green-and-black feathers of its back blending in rapidly with the undergrowth.
"That's what I love about this bloody jungle," Morvius muttered. "It's so full of nasty things."
"It's full of hunters," Jiri said, scanning the leaves on the opposite bank again before splashing across the stream. On the other side, the trail stretched on, empty of everything but the clawed footprints of those graceful, deadly beasts. "Let's go," she said, heading down the trail, searching the jungle around her for more hunters, and for her prey.
∗ ∗ ∗
The trail narrowed, almost disappearing before it reached Smoking Eye. No human foot had trodden it, it seemed, since Oza had brought her here on her twelfth birthday. Jiri had wanted to see where she was born, and she found nothing but a tangle of growth, the jungle having swallowed the place where the village had once stood.
It would have swallowed this trail, too, but for the animals that used it. Jiri looked up from the tracks in the dirt, frowning into the dying light. The sun was almost down, and beneath the canopy the shadows were thick.
"This way," she said, and pushed her way off the trail.
They wound through the trees, over buttress roots and around fallen branches thicker than their bodies. Jiri winced at the sounds of her companions, the crunch of their boots, their muttered complaints, but she kept her focus on the jungle around her until it opened up.
The village was gone, but the water it had stood beside was easy to find. Smoking Eye lay still and steaming, a small, round lake, brilliant blue even in the fading light, its color growing darker until it became almost black in its center. There, the water stirred a little, plumes of steam rising from it. The plants growing on its bank were low, the great trees forced back by the heat, and Jiri could see all around the lake.
"There." The low light didn't make it easy, but Patima and her Aspis companions hadn't been subtle. A little ways around the lake, a trail had been carved into the jungle, bushes and vines cut aside. "That's where they went."
"Excellent." Sera pulled her shield around, settled it on her arm. "Now let's hope that this All-in-Ashes is there, too."
"Yeah, let's hope," Morvius said.
Jiri didn't say anything. She just looked over the water, at the jungle beyond it. Lozo? There was no sign of ruins, nothing but trees and shadows. Had time and jungle swallowed the city so completely?
Or had something else?
Jiri looked up once at the darkening sky, and started toward the path.
∗ ∗ ∗
Beyond the lake, the ground rose, then fell. It was gradual at first, and Jiri barely noticed it as she picked her way through the jungle, following the mark of boots and cut vines. But then the ground sloped down sharply, except for a thin ridge of overgrown rock just ahead.
Jiri stopped, holding aloft the stone that she had wrapped a few bits of sunlight around. In its golden glow, joined with the sharp blue of Linaria's light, she could see bits of stone pushing up through moss and vines, sharp-edged pieces of broken granite. Shebent and pried one free, looked at it. Then another. On the third stone, one moss-covered surface was smooth, and when she rubbed her fingers across it, peeling away the green, she found something carved into it, a symbol etched into the broken granite.
A symbol she had seen carved into the walls of Kibwe, and the passages of the Pyre.
"Lozo," she said, and stood. Holding up her light, she could see the ground falling on the other side of the crumbled remains of the wall, great trees growing over slumped piles of stone, still pools gleaming in the hollows between them. Some of those pools steamed in the dark.
Jiri scrambled over the stone, following the trail. Lozo. She had felt relief when she had seen the boot prints beside Smoking Eye, but this carving convinced her. This was dead Lozo, and this was where Patima had come with the kindi she had stolen. All Jiri had to do was follow her, praying to all her ancestors that whatever ceremony Patima had to do to bind All-in-Ashes to her, it was a long one. Following Patima's tracks, Jiri started to hope.
That hope crumbled when the trail dropped into a depression that lay before a great banyan tree and stopped at a wall of broken stone.
∗ ∗ ∗
"The cavern where All-in-Ashes can be bound is beneath this place." Jiri ran her hand over the broken stone that lay at the end of the line of boot prints. "They must have found a passage down here, then collapsed it behind them."
"If we'd tried that, it would have fallen on our heads," Morvius said. "They're probably fine, though."
"Probably," Linaria said. "But how'd they know we were following them?"
"Did they know that?" Sera's hand was on her sword, and her eyes were searching the shadows around them. "Or were they fleeing something else?"
"What—" Morvius started, but the rest of his question was lost in a curse as he hurled himself at Linaria, knocking her down and rolling across the rough ground with her. A line of fire slashed down out of the night, hitting the ground where Linaria had been standing and sending up a whirl of burning leaves. More fire followed, a bright red bolt smashing off Sera's shield, making the white metal briefly red, while another crashed into a stone beside Jiri's head and showered her with sparks and glowing chips of stone.
Jiri slapped the searing bits of rock out of her braids and pressed tight against the stone of the rockfall. She saw their attackers now, snarling down at them from the branches of the tree above. Their yellow eyes, and the sharp teeth that filled their impossibly wide mouths, f
lashed in the light of the fire.
Biloko, and Jiri cursed herself for being so intent on Patima's trail that she'd missed them.
"I thought they were dead," she shouted, raising her hand to throw her magic at the hideous creatures overhead.
"The guard in Kibwe said they had killed most of them. The rest ran." Morvius rose from the ground, shifting away from Linaria, who crouched now behind a thick buttress root. "I guess we know where to."
"Can you catch them, like before?" Sera raised her shield to block a spear that slammed down from above.
"Yes," Jiri said, starting to release the magic. Then she closed her hand, catching the spell before it left her. The fierce red creatures dropped from the tree, hurling themselves at the companions. "No, too close," she said and let the green magic of the tangling spell roll into red. Fire shot from her hand and hit a biloko in the teeth as it charged her, knocking it back.
"Eh, there's not that many of the little bastards." Morvius swung Scritch around, slammed the spear deep into one of the biloko's bellies, then pulled it free. Spinning, he caught another one trying to rush him, sliding the spear easily through his hands and hammering the blade into the biloko's chest. Both of the creatures fell, and he was turning to find another when a burst of fire hit him, scorching across his armor.
"He comes!" a high, whistling voice shrieked. "I hear the beating of his wings, and taste the reek of his smoke on the wind!" A biloko stood away from the others, one hand still glowing from the spell it had just cast at Morvius, the other clutching something small and dark. "She will not claim him! He will burn her! He will burn us all!"
Brands marked the red skin of the biloko, symbols etched with fire into its skin, and Jiri recognized them—this was the one that had called to her, and said that she was marked, too. Fire gathered in her hand, but in front of her the biloko she had hit before was pulling itself up, hissing as it gaped its mouth open around its burned tongue. Jiri turned to it, but before she could throw her fire, Sera was there.
The biloko raised its spear, but Sera swept the weapon aside with her shield. Her sword followed, a vicious blur, and the biloko's head spun free of its body, tumbling away into the shadows.
"You won't have to wait for him to burn," Jiri said, and threw her fire at the branded biloko. It hit the creature, blackening the patches of moss and vines that covered its head instead of hair.
The biloko shrieked, something like pain and something like a laugh, then raised the kindi it clutched high over its head, pointing its other claw at Jiri. "Burn," the biloko howled, "all will burn, all will be ash," and sparks swarmed around its empty hand, gathering into a little ball of bright crimson which it brought back, ready to throw.
Jiri threw herself to the side, but the biloko tracked her. It changed its throw as its arm came forward, but before its hand snapped out and released the shining fragment of fire that it held, a line of white split the air.
Linaria's spell flashed through the darkness, there and gone like a lightning stroke, leaving a line of drifting frost like an afterimage in the humid air. That bolt of cold struck the biloko in the belly and a wave of white crackled over it, the burns of its brands swallowed by a tide of ice. Without a sound the biloko stopped, stuck in place by the cold that locked its muscles and wrapped it in ice. It stood, immobile, then tipped slowly backward.
There was an ugly sound when it hit the ground, like the breaking of crockery, and the ice-coated skin of the creature split and broke, shattering around the lines of its brands. Flames flickered as those frost-burned marks broke, and fire and ice met, flinging up steam and the reek of burning flesh. Then the fire winked out, there and gone as fast as Linaria's line of cold, leaving Jiri blinking in the darkness. She pulled herself up and her eyes readjusted, finding the charred corpse of the biloko sprawled in a patch of steaming mud.
"Well, that was thorough." Morvius shifted his spear, keeping its tip leveled at the two biloko who still crouched before him, the last of the creatures left. "I guess I'm stuck with the cleanup."
The biloko's yellow eyes flicked from the tall man to the wet, smoking corpse of their leader, and then they broke. One fled into the darkness, but the other scrambled back, toward the branded biloko's body. It stooped its headlong flight to pick up the kindi that the dead biloko had dropped, then kept running.
"Stop it!" Jiri shouted, scrambling after the thing. Her hand flickered with fire, but the biloko dodged behind the trunk of a tree. Jiri ran after it, scrambling over roots and through bushes, the crunching sound of her companions' boots right behind her. She had already lost sight of the biloko, but she could see the shaking leaves, the swaying vines that its passage had disturbed. Jiri ran after them, the light she held flashing around her, making shadows dance and lunge.
Because of those twisting shadows, Jiri completely missed the edge of the great sinkhole that suddenly opened in front of her.
She felt her foot going out into the empty air, saw the huge maw of the hole spreading open before her, but there was no way she could stop. Her arms spread, as if she thought she could grow wings, and something brushed across her fingers. With the desperate speed of terror, Jiri clenched at the thing that had touched her, fingers wrapping around a wrist-thick vine. Her hand locked onto it, her other hand dropping the stone she had wrapped her light around, letting it fall like a lost star as she grabbed at the vine with both hands.
It shook in her hands but held, changing her fall into a swing, her momentum carrying her out over the hole. Jiri clung to the vine, terrified that it would break, but as she reached the end of her momentum and swung back, she saw something that broke through her fear: Morvius, charging up the trail she had left, tearing headlong toward the cliff edge.
Jiri tried to shout a warning, but all that came out of her mouth was a sort of panicked gurgle. She pulled up her legs, tucking them in tight as she swung back, trying to time it. Spear, spear, avoid that spirit-cursed spear echoed through her head, then she was there, lashing out with her legs, catching Morvius in his belly with both heels. Avoiding Scritch, somehow, she sent Morvius flying backward onto his butt. The shock of the impact sent Jiri spinning backward, arcing over the edge again, her grip slipping as the world whizzed around her, but she hung on. Behind her, she heard the clatter of metal and the sound of cursing.
She swung back, her spinning slowing, and saw Linaria's white-blue light shining before her. By the time Jiri had swung out and back again she could make out Linaria standing over Sera and Morvius. The paladin was untangling herself from the broad-shouldered man, grunting out a series of words that didn't sound at all like blessings. Morvius, meanwhile, ignored her and laid back, his pale face paler, his mouth and eyes wide. Then, with a sudden huuuhh, Morvius pulled in a lungful of air.
"Wha?" he wheezed, finally sliding away from Sera.
Linaria looked at Jiri hanging from her vine, a few feet out from where the ground fell away.
"Jiri found a hole, and thought you should know about it."
Morvius pulled himself up, breathing raggedly. "Oh." He stared over the cliff edge, down fifty feet of ragged stone to the brush and rocks below. Then he looked out at Jiri.
"You have a damn good kick on you, runt."
"Thanks," Jiri said. Her hands were beginning to cramp, holding on so tight. "Could you pull me in?"
It took them a moment. Morvius stood near the edge and held onto Sera's belt as she leaned out and caught the tail of Jiri's shirt. When they pulled her in, Linaria grabbed the vine, keeping it from swinging back out. "Are you all right?" she asked Jiri.
Jiri opened and closed her aching hands. "Yes. The biloko—"
"Is right there." Morvius peered over the edge of the cliff. "Your light fell near it. It's not running anymore. It's kind of...oozing. Are we going down?"
"Yes," Jiri and Sera both said.
"Well then." Morvius tucked Scritch across his back. "Can't say I haven't been wanting to do this since I got to this damn jungle." He snagged
the vine out of Linaria's hands and swung out on it, slipping down with a whoop that turned into a long drawn out "Owww!" before he hit the bottom.
"You all right?" Linaria called down.
"Yes," he called back in a tight voice. "But you might want to wear gloves when you do that."
∗ ∗ ∗
Jiri pulled Sera's heavy leather gloves off and held them, waiting for Sera. The paladin stood before Morvius, staring intently into his eyes, her lips moving silently. Then she reached out and caught his head between her hands, holding it tight.
"Know her power. Iomedae. Know her name. Iomedae. Know her blessing."
Morvius shook in her grasp, and the angry red marks and blisters that marred his face, neck, and hands smoothed out and vanished. The only sign left of the biloko's attack and the friction of the vine were clean patches of skin.
"Damn," Morvius said. "Like being kissed by an angel and kicked by a mule, both at the same time. And all for free."
"You think so?" Jiri said, handing Sera back her gloves. The paladin didn't say anything about Jiri's comment, but her lips turned up in a tiny, smug smile, like a cat.
Shaking her head at them both, Jiri stepped away and examined the broken corpse of the biloko. It had gone off the same edge that had almost claimed Jiri, but it hadn't caught a vine. Instead, a large chunk of broken limestone had caught it. Walking carefully around the dark blood that had splashed the tangled plants and vines, Jiri reclaimed her light and held it up. It only took a moment to find what she wanted.
The kindi was shaped like a man, intricately carved in mahogany. But the figure's face was huge and distorted, taken up mostly with mouth. That great, grinning mouth was filled with teeth made of iron, their points gleaming in the light. When she picked it up, Jiri carefully avoided the sharp points of those fangs.
"Those tracks we found in the Pyre," Linaria said, looking at the carving.
"That biloko, up there. The one who cast spells. It went into the Pyre after we killed the demon and found this." Jiri could see it so clearly. The biloko running its hand over the carving, catching a finger on a tooth, its blood spilling on the kindi's lips. "I think they bound a piece of a sorcerer's soul to this kindi. Too big a piece. It took that biloko over and added madness and magic to its hunger."