by Gary Kloster
"I didn't understand most of what it said. But it talked about burning."
"All-in-Ashes." Jiri stood, holding the hideously grinning kindi. The carving felt hot like a fever, uncomfortable in her hand. "It was talking about All-in-Ashes. That spirit...spread, I think. You saw what it was doing to the Pyre, burning it down, bit by bit. I think it was doing the same thing to the souls that were bound in all those kindi." Jiri pulled out the little bag that she had tucked beneath her shirt. She didn't really want this evil little thing to share space with Shani's kindi or Oza's necklace, both of which were nestled inside, but she couldn't leave it here. She dropped it in and knotted it shut, but she could still feel it, its heat bleeding through the bag and irritating her, turning her thoughts toward anger and flame.
I need to get rid of this thing. I can't have it near me when I confront All-in-Ashes. Between the both of us, there will already be too much fire.
"Where now?" Linaria asked.
Jiri lowered her light, getting it out of her eyes, and looked around. They stood at the bottom of a huge hole, crumbling cliffs of limestone curving away into the shadows in both directions. The jungle rolled over the edges and filled the pit with green, but the brush and plants were lower here, the trees stunted, unable to grow roots deep enough to stretch tall. Jiri could see the night sky above them, a swath of bright stars interrupted by the darkness of a bank of clouds coming in from the west, lighting flickering silently in their bellies.
"Down," she said.
"There's a cave over here," Morvius said.
Jiri nodded, and headed toward him. He stood beside a great stone that jutted from the ground, a foreign piece of granite among the limestone, its edges a little too even. Brushing the dirt away, she saw that it was the corner of a block, found the traces of carvings that marked it.
"There was a city here called Lozo," she said. "The man bound to the kindi I used, Shani, he said they found All-in-Ashes in one of the caverns beneath the city. I think when Lozo fell, it really fell. The caverns beneath it broke open, and the city was swallowed."
"The Mwangi is full of ruins," Morvius said. "It's like civilizations come here to die."
"Is it any different elsewhere?" Jiri asked. "Tribes, cities, nations—they sprout like trees, and if they find the right conditions they thrive and grow, become mighty, and cast their shadow over every competitor. But like trees, like everything, they all eventually fall. And in the clearings they leave behind, new things grow."
"You sound wiser than your age," Sera said. "Sometimes."
Sometimes? Jiri bristled. I don't think I'll tell her that Oza explained that to me, years ago. "All things follow a cycle."
Beside the stone, a dark hollow opened in the ground, a crevice carved into the rock by water, and a tiny stream ran down its mossy bottom. Jiri carefully dropped into it and found herself in a narrow passage that twisted down into the ground. She stared down its dark throat, and from the sky far above she heard a rumble of thunder. If that storm unleashed a torrent while they were in this passage...
That's all we need now, a chance to drown before we can burn.
"Well?" Morvius said, standing over her. He had cut loose a long vine and was wrapping it into a coil, a clumsy rope. "We going in?"
Jiri breathed in the scent of warm water and stone, of rot and stale air, remembering the Pyre, the pool before it and its dangerous passages. Thinking to herself that whatever waited for them in the bowels of this long-broken city, it was going to be worse than what they had found there.
"Yes," she said, and started down.
Chapter Twenty
Mud and Light
The cave was barely more than a crack, narrow and wet, and as the thunder faded behind them it was replaced with the clack and scrape of Sera's armor against the stone.
"Gods damn me, I'm going to scrape my balls off in here," Morvius growled. "This passage does lead somewhere, doesn't it?"
How should I know? You found it. Jiri kept the words locked between her teeth and pushed forward, feet slipping on the strange black moss that grew beneath the shallow water covering the bottom of the cave. Water that might have risen a little, maybe.
If this place floods, it will come fast. We might already be too far from the entrance to turn back. We just have to keep going forward, toward—
Light? Jiri stopped, peering through the shadows ahead. Shadows that flickered and pulsed, vanishing and then coming back.
Was that—?
The sound of thunder echoing down the cave confirmed it. That had been lightning. Jiri hurried forward, squirming through the crack until she found the opening through which that light and sound had spilled.
For a moment, her stomach clenched. Have we just gone in a circle? The cave opened into a deep pit whose steep limestone walls dripped with vines and brush and small trees. Another sinkhole, like the one she had almost fallen in, but looking out at it Jiri saw the differences. This sinkhole was larger than the first, and a great mound of broken rock rose up in its center, a small mountain of rubble covered in ferns and white-flowered vines. A dead tree stood on the mound's peak, its twisted limbs raised toward the storm-covered sky, like a corpse hand reaching for one last bit of light.
The stream they were splashing through tumbled down into a pool of mud that stretched along the base of the overgrown mound. Bubbles rose from its dark surface, swelling to obscene size before they burst and splattered. It was a bowl of boiling mud, and beyond it Jiri could see the mouth of another cave, there and then gone in a flash of lightning.
Ferns hung over the edge of the pool fifty feet from where Jiri stood—too far to jump—and the walls of the cliff were too sheer and smooth to climb here, especially with the rain pouring down. But the bubbles in the mud were rising on the other side of the pool, and the hot spring that birthed them must be over there.
How hot is the mud here? How deep?
With great care, Jiri held one foot out over the mud. Hot, but not painful, and she slowly let her foot touch. The mud was thick and sticky, warmer than her blood but not scalding. With one hand holding tight to the thick stem of a bush that hung out from the wall of the sinkhole, Jiri shifted her weight to the foot that rested in the mud. It sank in to just above her ankle, then stopped, and Jiri pulled her foot back out with only a little effort and a nasty sucking sound.
"Hand out the vine," she told Morvius, who stood with the others behind her, looking dubiously at the mud. "Everyone space out and take hold of it. I'll go first."
"Shouldn't we tie ourselves to it?" Sera asked.
Jiri shook her head. "Don't take this wrong, Sera—I think I'm actually starting to like having you around—but if you step into a deep hole wearing all that steel, I'm dropping this vine and letting you go to your goddess alone." Sera frowned and Jiri shrugged. "Sorry."
"About not wanting to die? That makes perfect sense. We came to this place with a purpose, and it wasn't to drown in a mud puddle." Sera took the vine from Linaria and passed its end to Jiri. "I'm just worried about what I'm doing wrong, if someone in this group likes me."
Is she joking? Jiri wondered. Was I? Have I started liking these people? Linaria, yes, but Morvius? Sera? Gods and crocodiles, when did that happen?
Now wasn't the time to worry about that. Holding tight to the vine, Jiri stepped one foot into the mud, then the other. The oozing earth shifted under her feet, treacherous and uncertain, but she didn't sink any deeper than her ankles. Carefully, she picked her way through the sludge, holding the vine in one hand and touching the limestone wall with her other, ready to catch herself if one of her feet sank too deep.
The mud rose up her shins, almost to her knees, and Jiri fought for each step, working her legs through the slimy grip. It was getting hotter, too, not quite burning, but uncomfortable, and that matched the heat of Jiri's impatience. Is Patima wading through mud somewhere, too? Or has she already found the chamber where All-in-Ashes was bound? Jiri jerked her leg forward, trying to reach
the stones rising from the mud ahead, the opposite edge of the pool so close, and stumbled, barely saving herself from falling face-first into the muck by pressing her hand to the wall beside her.
"Step carefully, Jiri," Sera said, behind her. "Haste won't help us here."
Did I say I liked having her around? The vehemence of that thought surprised Jiri, the rage in it so sudden and hot. Her hand left the wall and touched the pouch that held the kindi. The one she had taken from the biloko pressed against her belly, hot and almost painful, like an infected wound. I need to get rid of this thing. Taking her hand away, Jiri moved, grim but slow, picking her way through the last of the mud until she pulled herself out on the other side. Out of the mud, she slid her bush knife out and chopped a few feet off the end of the vine she held. Then she tied the rest of the vine off to the trunk of a small tree that pushed itself out of the stone above the pool.
"What are you doing?" Sera asked as she pulled herself up out of the pool, her boots squelching with mud.
"I need to get rid of this kindi," Jiri said. "But I don't want to destroy it."
"Why not?" Sera had turned to help Linaria up out of the mud.
"Because I don't know what will happen if I do. I might just free that bit of soul that's trapped in there, let it go to come after us." Jiri started up the fern-covered mound of broken stone that covered the bottom of the sinkhole, the rain tapping on her braids and washing the mud from her skin. A little way up, buried beneath a drift of white flowers, Jiri found a good-sized chunk of stone. Soapstone, she realized as she picked it up, and beneath the moss that coated it she could still make out its shape: a hand, fingers bent and tipped with claws. Perfect. "But I want to make sure no one ever picks it up again."
Jiri pulled the carving out of the bag, making sure her fingers came nowhere near the iron teeth. It glared at her with its blank wooden eyes, and Jiri could feel the fever heat pouring out of the wood. Were you a good man once? A teacher? Or did they put your soul in such a nasty carving as a punishment? It didn't matter. All-in-Ashes had touched this thing, and Jiri could feel its taint boiling out of it.
The infected heat of it pulsed in time with her barely checked anger.
Jiri wrapped the piece of vine that she had cut away around the carving and the stone hand, binding them together. When she was done, she started up the rough hill, heading up and back toward the deep end of the mud pool. When she stood over it, staring down at the bubbles that belched and popped below, she held out the kindi. "Whoever you were," she said quietly, "we don't want you anymore." Her hand opened, and she let the carving go.
It fell into the boiling mud, resting on the surface for a second. Then the weight of the stone hand dragged the dark wood down, pulling it beneath the mud. Gone.
"Good," Sera called up to her, and Jiri nodded. Dropping that nasty thing felt like pulling a thorn out.
"Perfect," Morvius said, pulling himself up out of the pool. "We could have sold that, you know."
"Evil never brings wealth," Sera said.
Morvius sat down on a stone, pulling at one of his mud-covered boots. "Do you actually listen to half of what you say?" he said, popping the boot free. He held it up and mud slid out, plopping wetly onto the ground. "Do you realize most of it's crazy? Evil brings all kinds of coin—that's why people do it. And I could really use some new boots."
Jiri ignored them, wiping the rain from her face and staring down at the curve of the wall. There, half covered in brush, she saw another narrow crack leading away from the sinkhole. Toward the cavern she wanted?
Maybe.
Jiri closed her eyes. Did she know where she was going? No. Did she know where Patima was? No. Did she have any idea of how to stop Patima or All-in-Ashes if she found either of them? No. The uselessness of it all poured over her. Every time she had met Patima, the woman had beaten her easily. What chance did she have now?
Why even go?
The thought echoed through her, even as Sera called up, "Which way should we go?"
No way. All paths led to the same place, didn't they? To death and ruin? Oza was dead, Thirty Trees was gone, and if Patima burned the rest of the world, did it even matter?
Yes.
That thought, that spark of anger, burned bright among all the ashes of Jiri's sudden despair.
It matters, Jiri thought, and raised her head. She was walking, not down the hill but up, toward the trunk of the dead tree that stood at the top of the pile of stones. Rain fell on its broken branches, a steady patter of drops, and below that sound Jiri could hear something else now. A low, keening noise, a soft dirge of a song that was all sorrow and sweet sadness and the promise of the succor of sleep. Everlasting sleep, free from all her pain...
The spark of Jiri's anger caught, and she didn't fight it. She wrapped herself in its heat, shaking her head and snapping herself out of the song that spilled from the cracks in that twisted tree. In those cracks, she could see something flicker, and a vine slipped out of one like a snake, twisting silently through the air like a blind worm, searching.
Umdhlebi.
A dead tree possessed by a vicious, evil spirit that filled its victims' heads with lies and despair. Oza had taught her about them, warned her, told her that if she should ever meet one, she must—
"Run!" Jiri spun, stones clattering beneath her feet, and started tearing down the tumbled stone slope, ferns and flowers whipping around her legs, wet moss slick beneath her feet. "Go!" she shouted at the others, who were staring up at her sudden flight. She pointed toward the gap she had seen, arm bouncing as she leapt down the slope.
Morvius moved first, slamming his boot back on, pulling his spear free and bulling forward through the brush. Linaria came after, right on his heels. Sera stood still, though, pulling her sword and settling her shield on her arm, her eyes on the crest of the hill and the tree that was not a tree.
There was a sound behind Jiri, a groaning crack and the grind of stone against stone. She wouldn't look back, didn't have to in order to know the umdhlebi was pulling itself out of the stone to follow her. Keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her, she ran toward the narrow passage, still shouting.
"Move, Sera!" The umdhlebi was slow, but if the paladin waited too long it would cut her off, trap her between the mud pool and its long vines. Thankfully, the woman in the bright armor started to move, following Morvius and Linaria. Not as fast as she should, but fast enough.
Jiri reached the edge of the sinkhole right as Morvius and Linaria caught up, and she ran past them, pulling at the curtain of vegetation that half-covered the wide crack in the stone. "Here," she called, and they piled in. Sera was coming, running slowly in her armor, and Jiri looked up the rough slope of broken rocks. The umdhlebi was moving, a tall broken trunk riding on a nest of roots that twisted through the stones. Thick vines pushed their way out of the cracks in the trunk, black tendrils covered with blood-red thorns that lashed through the air with predatory hunger.
"What is that thing?" Sera gasped, but Jiri just grabbed a handful of the paladin's shining white tabard and started to run. Sera clanked behind her down the twisting crevice. The walls came together somewhere overhead, and the rain stopped falling on them, but the only light was Linaria's, bobbing along ahead. Jiri had left hers somewhere back with the tree monster, and she had no interest in going back for it.
∗ ∗ ∗
They caught up with Linaria and Morvius in a place where the passage widened into a chamber, empty of everything but stalactites and water dripping into a clear, shallow pool that filled the center of the small cavern. Four more passages spilled into this room, and Linaria was holding up her light, staring at them.
Jiri and Sera stumbled to a halt, breathing hard. Morvius looked past them, up the passageway they had come through. "Did you lose it, or do we keep running?"
Jiri shook her head. "It didn't follow us far. Umdhlebi are too slow to chase down unwounded prey."
"Then why all the running?" Morvius said.
>
Jiri took another deep breath and straightened. "I wanted to keep you out of range of its song. If you hear it, it makes you give up, give in. Those who hear it will go lay themselves at the umdhlebi's base and let its roots tear them apart."
"I didn't hear anything," Morvius said.
"That would be because of all the running." Linaria lowered the glowing stone she held and looked at Jiri. "Are you good? You were starting to walk toward it, before all the running and screaming. Which I appreciate."
"It caught me, for a moment," Jiri said. "I should have recognized it the minute I saw it, but I was so distracted thinking about that kindi, about Patima. If Oza's spirit is watching me..."
"If your dead teacher's watching, ask him to tell you which way we should go." Morvius nodded at the other passages. "Or are we going to keep using the let's-just-guess approach?"
Jiri's anger, so useful with the umdhlebi, wasn't going to help her with Morvius. But she couldn't hold her tongue completely. "She's down here. We'll find her." Jiri held out her hand, and Linaria handed her the light.
"Of course we will. Everything else has worked out fine so far." Morvius leaned against a column of lumpy stone, staring down into the pool. "Let me know when you're ready. I'll just watch these little glowing crabs wrestle until then."
Jiri gritted her teeth, feeling hot, but at least this time her anger didn't have that strange, sick feeling that had wormed through her when she carried the iron-toothed kindi. No, this anger was very familiar. Because it's mine? Or because this taint of fire has been in me since my birth?
Ignoring the question, Jiri walked the edge of the cavern, checking each of the other caves that led into it. All of them looked natural, but their floors were too smooth and even, obviously worked at some point long ago. All of them were stone, free of dust, and unmarked.