Ashes and Flame

by Aiden Bates

  “Ivan collect a lot of dragons?” Rez asked.

  I shook my head. “No, but… he had a way with words.”

  “So I’ve heard,” he muttered. “Mind my asking how you got involved with him?”

  Exhaustion made every part of me both achy and numb at the same time. My head swam, and I wasn’t sure I could remember my birthday, much less tell him my story. “Another time,” I said. “Um… thanks for that, back there.”

  “You're welcome,” he replied, eyeing me again. “I know you’re dead tired. You should get some rest. But what was that, exactly? Some kind of demon?”

  I shook my head. “I wish. Demons come with more rules. It was a djinn. Shaitan family.”

  Rez blinked several times. “That was a djinn? Why the hell was it after you? Because of the book?”

  That raised the hair on the back of my neck. I stiffened, and held my bag tighter. “What do you know about the book? Is that why you came for me? Who are you exactly?”

  He sighed, and raked his fingers through his hair. “Look, it… it’s a little complicated. But you’re safe with me, and where we’re going, you’ll be even safer. From a djinn and anything else that might be after you.”

  “I won’t read the book for you,” I said. “Just so you know. You can’t force me, and you can’t make me tell you—”

  “That’s not why I came for you,” he said quickly. “I don’t give a shit about the book. I mean, about what’s in it. We just don’t want it falling into the wrong hands. Again.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” I asked. “The cabals?”

  “No,” he muttered. “Look, like I said; it’s a little complicated. You should rest, okay? It’ll be easier to talk when you’ve had some sleep.”

  That was probably true, but he didn’t grasp what exactly was going on. “Where are you taking me? We can’t go anywhere that there are too many people.”

  “Pretty much everyone where we’re going can handle a bit of heat,” he said. “I’m taking you to Emberwood Weyr.”

  I shook my head. “No. You can’t do that, we can’t go to your weyr, it’ll be… everyone will be in danger there.”

  “We’re dragons,” he assured me, as if that was the answer to all of my problems. “You’ll be safe, trust me.”

  “No, I won’t,” I insisted. “And neither will they—you don’t know what this djinn can do, what it’s willing to do. It doesn’t give a shit what it has to do to get to me, it’ll carve through your people! I’ve seen it happen before.”

  He gave a dark chuckle. “Well, even if it could figure out where you went, again, dragons. We’re not afraid of a djinn.”

  “You should be,” I breathed. “Do you even know what djinn are capable of?”

  His hesitation was enough to tell me that he didn’t. I groaned, and rubbed my burning eyes. “They live and breathe magic,” I said. “And it’s going to find me wherever I go. There’s no escaping it.”

  “And why is that?” he asked, a note of worry finally in his voice.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Because it’s got a piece of my soul.”

  Silence.

  “Well… shit.”

  “Yeah,” I murmured. “‘Shit’. I can’t hide from it and you really have to believe me when I say that a whole weyr of dragons isn’t going to make a difference. It will get to me. And it’ll kill your people to do it. Look I… I appreciate the gesture. But you’d be better off just leaving me somewhere, and letting me get back on the run.”

  “Even if I was inclined to do that,” he said, glancing at me in the mirror, “which I’m not—I’m sorry, Daniel, but I just can’t let you run around with that book. It’s in the bag, right?”

  I realized my knuckles ached from holding so tight to it, and tried to ease my grip. Clearly, he knew. There was no sense in lying about it. “Whatever you think it is, you’re probably wrong.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But we know it’s dangerous. And we know that Ivan thought it was the key to something even more dangerous. So, one way or another, we’ve got to figure something out. I’m not going to leave you to that thing. Why is it even after you?”

  “Same reason you are,” I muttered, and leaned against the door to stare out the window. “Same reason anyone would be. The Book. What else? It’s not like there’s anything particularly special about me.”

  He sighed, and took a turn onto the highway.

  “Just so you know,” I said ruefully, “separating me from the book won’t make anything better.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” he said, but in the slightly stung way that made me think he’d been thinking exactly that.

  Honestly, if I had more energy, I’d have struggled a little harder, maybe made a jump for it out of the car door. I wanted to be more fearful, more angry, more forceful with him. But it had been so long since I slept. Since I really rested. I didn’t have it in me. Everything was raw, and numb, and heavy, and one part of me wanted to cry with relief while another part wanted to scream with frustration, but both of them were just as spent as the rest of me.

  I blinked, and my head bumped against the window.

  “Look,” Rez said, casting a look over his shoulder at me, “you’re about to pass out. Lie down, get some sleep. I’ll… I don’t know, I’ll make some calls, get some input. I don’t know what all I can promise, but I can at least tell you that you’re about as safe for the moment as you can be, right? So, take advantage of it. I won’t steal your book, and I won’t dump you on the side of the road, okay? I’m not asking you to trust me just yet, or anything like that. Just… I’m not that kind of asshole.”

  Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he wasn’t. The longer I tried to stay awake, though, the more likely it would be that my magic would recover and go out of control again. I didn’t answer him out loud. Instead, I just tucked my bag against the opposite door, pulled my knees up to my stomach, and tried to get comfortable.

  Not that it mattered. I had slept in worse places. And it didn’t take long before I couldn’t have stayed awake if I wanted to.

  I woke with the start of a headache some time later. It wasn’t dark yet, but the sun was headed that direction. The car was stopped, and I didn’t see Rezzek in the driver’s seat. Groggy, I sat up and rubbed my forehead, and realized my headache was because of the Book, already getting impatient. We hadn’t gotten much time in before I had to run before. “Seriously?” I asked it, thumping the bag. “Can you not tell that we’re not in the right place for that? Fuck. Just… give me a little more time so we can find someplace safe, at least.”

  Some of the pressure eased. Enough to tell me it was willing to compromise. It had left me alone while I tried to wait out the djinn, but I guess it still intended us to make up the time.

  The light hurt my eyes, and it took time for them to adjust. We were at some kind of rest stop, wide open. A few park benches were on a lawn, and a building with a couple of vending machines and bathrooms. A landmark sign was by the river. Given where we’d been before, I figured we’d headed north, toward the Ohio River. Illinois was a place I hadn’t really been before, and had been my next destination while it was still warm. I wasn’t sure where I’d head after that, but then I never really did know more than the next step.

  I got out of the car, messenger bag slung across my chest, and stretched. Everything cracked. I was still tired—and hungry and thirsty on top of that—but my head was a little more clear now, at least.

  Rez was just a little way away, a phone pressed to his ear. He turned around when I closed the door, and came a little closer. “Got it,” he said. “Text me the address, give her my number. It’s drivable. A little extra money on the card couldn’t hurt, though. Well, it’s not like I’m gonna check us in at the Ritz, man, but I’m gonna be on the road a while. Okay. Give Mikhail my love. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  He hung up, and looked me over. “You slept hard. Feeling better?”

  I folded my arms. “What was that
all about?”

  He snorted. “I’ll take that as a yes, then… I got some snacks. Couple of sodas, couple bottles of water. Some chips, candy bars, beef jerky. There wasn’t a lot to choose from. It’s in the front seat. You’ve gotta be hungry.”

  As if in answer, my stomach growled. I shifted uncomfortably on my heels as he raised an eyebrow. “Yeah,” I grunted. “I guess I could eat.”

  “Good,” he said. “You can do that, and tell me what’s going on. The more I know, the better I can help.”

  I looked around the parking lot. There was no chance I was going to outrun any shifter, much less a dragon. And what would be the point? Rez didn’t seem like he intended to take advantage of me—of course, neither had Ivan. But it was probably about one degree better than being on my own. And he had managed to run the djinn off. How long that would last and what its tactic would be next time were both in question, but…

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” I said at last. “But… thanks, anyway. For… you know. Snacks and stuff.”

  Rez’s eyebrow crept up a little higher. “You’re welcome. Come on. I only stopped to get something to eat and make a call. We should keep moving.”

  I went around to the passenger side of the car. “It sounded like we’re headed somewhere?”

  We both got in before he answered, and I saw the pile of snacks and bottles on the floorboard. I collected a bottle of water and a bag of chips as he started the car and explained. “I called my people,” he said. “They agree, a djinn is bad news. At least until we can do something about the piece of… ah, about the piece of soul it’s got on you. There’s a woman my friend’s mate knows. An elementalist actually, like you except…”

  “Except not explosive?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Basically. Anyway, she’s not cabal, I guess, and she knows some people who may be able to help. So, we’re going to meet her and play it by ear from there. It’s a bit of a drive, but being on the move is probably best, right?”

  “How far a drive?” I asked.

  Rez glanced out his window and rubbed the side of his neck. “About fifteen hours. New Mexico; place called Clovis.”

  I pursed my lips. “Huh. It’s been a while since I was out that direction. Not a lot of rain there this time of year. That could be good. Makes it easier to tell when it’s close.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted, “but… good to know. Eat, drink. Keep your strength up.”

  I did, twisting the cap off a bottle of water. It tasted somehow sweeter than water was supposed to taste, and the chips were just plain salted but may as well have been candy. And there was even actual candy in the pile. I closed my eyes as I crunched and swallowed and drank, and allowed myself just a few seconds to do nothing more than savor.

  But, there were complications that I couldn’t ignore, and that Rez would have to know about if we were going to take a road trip together. “Um… so, at some point in the next little while, I need to find a place to read.”

  I tried to say it like it was a casual request. But there was a bit of waver in my voice.

  He picked up speed on the ramp back to the highway, and glanced sideways at me, critical. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Stopping, and also reading that book. The way I hear it, it’s pretty dangerous. Why are you even—”

  “It’s not something I really have a lot of choice in,” I said softly. “Just find a place, okay?”

  We drove for a couple of minutes before he spoke again. “Yeah, you’re gonna have to explain a few things, I think. I know you probably don’t trust me, and that’s fine—but there’s a lot at stake here and I’m trying to help. So how about you start talking? What’s the deal with the book? Why don’t you have a choice? Why is this djinn after you? What happened to Ivan’s people and why did you leave them?”

  I chewed on a piece of beef jerky, nervous about answering any of those questions. It wasn’t a pleasant story, and no one was going to understand.

  But it had been so long since I had any kind of conversation with another person and, I didn’t know; maybe he could help? I doubted it. But if he couldn’t, well...

  It probably wouldn’t matter what I told him. He’d be dead.

  5

  Rez

  “I guess you know that I’m a glitcher,” Daniel said as I sped down the highway toward Arkansas, where this loner elementalist that Mikhail apparently knew was supposed to be living these days.

  “One of Ivan’s other, uh… people, I guess, told us,” I confirmed.

  “You’d call them acolytes, I think,” Daniel muttered. “They worshiped the ground he pissed on. Which… I mean, it’s not like I didn’t. For a while, anyway.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I mean, you don’t seem like the type.”

  “What type is that?” he wondered, casting me a dubious look.

  I shrugged. “The type that would follow a monster like him.”

  Daniel sighed, and sagged a little against the door. He popped another piece of beef jerky into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a time. “He didn’t seem like it at first,” he said quietly once he’d swallowed. “I had some trouble when I was a teenager. I was hiding out, trying to decide whether I should… what I should do about my problem, I guess. And I ran into one of his people. They said he could help, that he could give me direction and purpose, even fix me. I figured what the hell, you know? The alternative wasn’t exactly optimistic.”

  I frowned at that. At the empty space in what he said. I knew about the fire, of course; and the death. The injuries. Basri had dug it up. He must have hated himself after that. He’d have to, if he wasn’t a monster, and I didn’t think he was. “Did he, then?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Not so simple as all that. I was at my lowest point—I thought, anyway—and he told me I was special. I know it sounds fucking immature as hell, but no one had told me that, and after what happened I just… I wanted to believe him, I guess, so I did. And he talked about this world where mages would be on top. Not at the expense of everyone else, though—he said that everyone would have magic. That it would be part of the world like it never had been before. If we just trusted him, followed him. He called it ‘The Final Enlightenment’. It sounded good. A world where everyone understood the problems that magic causes, where everyone would get it, you know? No one would be afraid.”

  I didn’t, but found myself briefly envisioning a world where everyone was some kind of shifter. I could see the appeal. No more having to explain ourselves to humans that couldn’t possibly understand the kinds of instincts and drives that we had and they didn’t. How important they were, how they weren’t just quirks—they were in our bones, in our DNA, in our souls. “And people were afraid of you,” I offered. “So it sounded good.”

  “People still are,” he said. “Even if they don’t always know why. Everyone actually does have a tiny bit of magic. It’s not widely talked about because it barely matters. But people can just tell there’s something wrong with me. It’s their own native magic, even if it’s just a tiny bit of it, telling them there’s something about me that’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t feel it,” I said. I glanced at him, and found him rolling his eyes. “Really. Nothing about you feels dangerous to me.”

  “No offense, Rez,” he said, “but that could just mean you’re the type that gets selected out of the gene pool.”

  I tried not to take offense, but couldn’t help the bit of irritation that needled at me. “So you joined up with Ivan because he said everything would be golden. What then? He handed you the book?”

  Daniel’s hand grasped almost unconsciously at the bag. “Not at first. He took me to see it. Didn’t even open it up the first time. I just stood in front of it, and I guess I didn’t have a bad reaction. A few days later, he let me try to open it. I did. That was a big deal, turns out.”

  Mikhail hadn’t known anything about the book itself. Nothing useful or specific, anyway. His master had avoided sayin
g anything specific about it. So all that he knew was that it was old, and dangerous, and that Ivan had stolen it. And that it was still at large, presumably—that part, at least, turned out to be true. “What is it? The book, I mean. What’s it about?”

  He gave a snort, and shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t even know. Ten years I’ve been translating it and I still don’t really understand it. I mean, I can sort of read it, but it’s not the kind of book you read. Not really. It’s more like… something you process.”

  Sounded like mage stuff, for sure. “What’s dangerous about it then?”

  He wriggled in the seat, his brow pinching as if he was either reluctant to say or not sure how to. “It… it’s sort of alive. Not the way an animal is, or anything but…”

  “But?” I pressed. “Alive how?”

  “Ivan thought the book is a manual,” he said finally. “And, I think that’s probably right? But a manual for what, it’s not clear to me. It has these symbols in it. I guess you could say each one is maybe like DNA. I mean… the symbols themselves are what makes it alive. I can translate them. That’s apparently what Ivan thought made me special.”

  The way he talked about it, maybe it did. “Do you not think it does? Could anyone do it?”

  Daniel shrugged. “No. Probably not. But what’s the difference between ‘special’ and ‘cursed’?”

  “Is that a riddle?”

  He grunted. “I wish it was. I’d really like to know. Look, can we stop at the next rest area? I just need a couple of hours of quiet to work on it.”

  “Work on the riddle?” I asked.

  “The book,” he breathed. “I have to work on the book, I didn’t get the chance to finish before. I have to keep reading, keep working it out.”