Fire in the Mist

by Holly Lisle

  Lost everything—and trying to be brave.

  She sat up and wrapped her arms around him. "It was Racker's Plague, Aldar. I am almost certain a trader brought it with him when he came to town."

  "Plague? Are we going to die, too, Faia?"

  Reasonable question.

  Faia studied his dark, worried eyes. "Not likely. The dead do not give Racker's Plague to the living. Only the living do."

  He nestled his head against her shoulder. His wet hair brushed her skin, and she felt him shiver with chill. "Why did they all die?" he whispered.

  Why did they all die? What a question, Aldar. If I knew that, I would be the greatest Healer that ever lived, instead of just an unwilling student of herbs and roots. They all died because anyone who gets Plague dies. They all died because everything dies in its time. They all died because no one knew enough to save them.

  "I do not know, Aldar. I do not think anyone knows. They just did, and if we had been there, we would have died too. We could not have helped them."

  His shoulders heaved convulsively. "I want my family back, Faia."

  She felt her eyes filling with tears—the sweet relief of tears that came just when she was sure her heart had gone dead. "Me too, Aldar. I want my family back, too."

  They clung to each other—wet, cold, crying; they wept until they were exhausted. Then Aldar crawled into Faia's hammock, and, curled tightly together, the two drifted back to sleep—survivors with nothing left but each other.

  Faia woke first, thinking it was dawn—but the rain was sheeting down again, and what faint light there was came from directly overhead.

  Midday?

  Aldar, even in his sleep, clutched at her with the strength of desperation.

  What am I going to do now?

  Yesterday, leaving Bright had been obvious. There was nothing else she and Aldar could have done. But she had no idea where to go. Her life had centered around the village and the highlands. She had never been to a village other than Bright. She rememberd her father's tales of such places, of course; but faced with the sudden prospect of going to one of them—and without her father to guide her, she felt sudden terror. Such places would be full of Flatters—and how human could such folk be, to live without farming or flock-tending, to dally without toiling from day to day? She yearned for the familiar security of Bright.

  There is no Bright, Faia, and you are going to have to figure out something to do, because you cannot sleep on the road for the rest of your short, miserable life.

  Aldar shifted, and she found herself stroking his hair.

  Thank you, Denneina, Lady of Beginning and Ending, that I am not alone. Thank you that there is another with me who remembers Mama and my sibs; who recalls the Floralea Day pole dance, and the Tidelight procession at Sammahen Eve on the village green; who remembers the love that was in Bright. Because I do not think I could live if I had to remember it alone.

  Aldar cried out, and flailed around.

  Faia tightened her grip on him. "I am here, Aldar. I am right here."

  He woke up, and Faia could see the terror still in his eyes.

  "It really happened, didn't it? They're all gone."

  "Yes. They are all gone."

  His shoulders sagged, and the faint remainder of light in his eyes went out.

  He needs to think about something else. We both do.

  Faia sat up and faced him. "Aldar, we need to make some decisions. Right now, we have no place to go. We have very little food, and no trade goods. I have never been out of Bright except to go to the highlands. Have you been anywhere else?"

  He nodded solemnly. "I just got back from Willowlake yesterday. I was there getting merchants to agree to buy our wool."

  "Would that be a good place to go?"

  "I don't know any other one."

  Faia smiled sadly.

  * * *

  For three days, the mages and sajes of Ariss hadn't been able to conjure so much as a warm beer. Ever since the terrifying disappearance of magic, the city of Ariss sat in a silent darkness brought on by the grounding of flying carpets and the snuffing of the ghostlights. At the same time, the naenrids and darklingsprites who had been kept on their best behavior by warding spells ran amok. With their magic weakened, the damage they could do was slight—still, they did their level best to inflict grief where they could. They spilled water on cookfires and peppers into sweets and sugar into fuel, tracked dirt over clean floors and loosed livestock from their pens. When, on the fourth day, the ghostlights flickered dimly back to life, the magicworkers of Ariss cheered, and began cleaning up the mess—and also began Searching in earnest for whoever or whatever had caused it.

  In small groups, mages and sages tracked the flow of magic backward, finally narrowing the source to the place where a tiny hamlet called Bright was supposed to be. When they found only a slagged and blackened pit that followed the outlines of a village, the strongest and best of Ariss' magical community girded for war, and sent out scouts to find the cause.

  Faia and Aldar ran out of food on the third day; they did not run out of rain at all. But they were thinking and acting as a team, Faia realized, and there were times when, trudging along the road, she could once again think about things other than Bright.

  I worry, mostly. Never does any good, but at least I come by it honestly. For a brief instant, she managed a smile. Yes, I am just like Mama that way.

  "Anything in your snares?" she asked.

  Aldar, crouched by a thicket, grinned up at Faia. "A rabbit. Did you have any luck?"

  "The rain is wrecking the berries, but I got a perryfowl—lucky hit with the slingshot. So we eat at least one more day."

  "We're only two days away from Willowlake, I figure." Aldar studied the forest. "I think we'll be out of this by late tomorrow."

  "Good. I like to see where I am going. I am not used to all these trees."

  They sat together, their erdas overhead hooked together to make a larger covering. Faia had found that their nightmares were not as bad if they slept next to each other. The campfire glowed with friendly warmth as they cleaned the game.

  Aldar skinned the rabbit carefully and rolled the hide— "I'll tan this if I get a chance," he told her. "It won't be worth much, but it will get us something."

  Faia nodded agreement. "We might be able to get a bit out of these feathers, too. If I had a loom and some yarn, I could make two or three keurn-cloths; perryfowl feathers are better woven into those than almost anything else."

  Do the people of Willowlake use keurn-cloths to ensure the fertility of their flocks—or do they do something different? Maybe even if I make these into keurn-cloths, I will not be able to sell them.

  Suddenly, she was a little nervous. "What is Willowlake like?"

  Aldar flicked an eyebrow—an oddly adult expression on his young face. "Fancy. There is a rooming house there that has running water indoors—you can take a bath that comes hot straight out a trough tap stuck in the wall. I got to stay there one night because the village had me listed as a merchant trader." His voice grew enthusiastic. "They have three full streets of shops, and the main streets are all paved in cobblestones. They've even named the streets. The Willowlakers do not allow livestock to be herded on the shop streets, either."

  He looked thoughtful. "I have heard that some of the people have their privies indoors, too—though I do not imagine that is true. If you keep livestock off your main street, I reckon you will not stick a privy in your house."

  Faia nodded. Willowlake did not sound like a comfortingly familiar place so far; it sounded alien. "I imagine you are right," she mused. "How are the people?"

  "They are nice enough. Shopkeepers are all the same, no matter where you find them—they are looking to get something for cheap they can sell for dear. Bakers are about the same, too. If you look hungry enough, sometimes the baker will give you some dough-ends or day-old crusts, just like in Bright." He grinned wolfishly at that. Apparently, like the other village boys,
Aldar had made a habit of looking pathetic and starved when in the presence of anyone who might give him something to snack on. "One of Mama's sisters lives there—she took me around and showed me the sights. She told me that almost five hundred people live there."

  Faia, who knew her own village had had about eighty people living in it, tried hard to imagine five hundred people all together. "How could they possibly remember everybody's names?" she murmured.

  Aldar sighed. "I truly do not know—but I do not think there is anyone there my aunt does not know."

  "So you will have family when you get there?" Faia thought about that wistfully. Her whole family had lived in Bright. She had no one left.

  "Yes. My aunt Sarral. Mama did not think much of her—her going off to Willowlake and becoming all fancy... but I like her. I suppose Sarral will take me in." His eyes darkened with concern. "There will not be anyone there for you, will there?"

  Faia shook her head.

  Aldar bit his lip. "I am sorry, Faia. But Sarral is really nice. She will let you stay with her; I know she will."

  And what place will I have in a big city like Willowlake? Will I be able to find work tending someone else's flocks? Will they be able to use a half-trained healer? Or will I just be in the way? Aldar will manage—he already knows the people who buy and sell, and they know him.

  But there was no sense feeling sorry for herself. She would manage. Somehow—she wasn't sure how—but somehow she would find a place for herself in Willowlake.

  In the tenuous morning mist of Ariss, under a dull, gray, rain-laden sky, soft light reflected off a secluded bay of the lake next to the campus of Daane University. A transparent, one-sided bubble—a gate of rainbow-washed light that opened into nothingness—grew larger and brighter. Its light flickered off the surface of the water, and drew the attention of a lean tan-and-brown cat who had been hunting along the shoreline. The cat crouched beneath a sweet-smelling dzada bush and waited.

  Magic had been returning slowly to Ariss—slowly, but steadily. The bubble grew with the magic it drew through the ley-line streams that coursed overhead and through the earth, and reflected exactly the amount and quality of the power available there. The growth of the bubble, too, was steady and slow.

  The cat who watched did not wait for an event, as a human observer surely would have. It did not look for explanations. It was satisfied simply to observe the patterns of light the bubble put forth, and later, the wispy shadows that began to take shape behind the transparent wall. The cat was not hungry, or perhaps it would have looked for dinner instead lolling under the shrub entertaining its curiosity. Perhaps not. The bubble was outside of its experience, and its experience was broad—for a cat. Its curiosity regarding magic in any form was acute.

  For a very long time, nothing happened except that the bubble grew larger, and brighter. This was sufficient for the cat. It rolled a leaf back and forth between stubby fingers, and waited.

  The shapes inside of the bubble became more defined and more pronounced. One of the dark shapes began to deform the surface of the bubble, as though pressing against it. The stretching became more and more pronounced, until there was a sudden "pop," and a dark, furred form splashed into the water.

  The cat watched this remarkable occurrence without apparent surprise. He had, after all, seen many startling things—had even participated in some of them. He stretched out one lean foreleg and admired the sharp claws and neat, mobile fingers of what had once been a paw, but was now unmistakably a hand.

  He waited further, and was rewarded with one repetition, and then another, of the bizarre event. When the bubble had popped seven times, it grew abruptly and painfully bright, and with incredible speed tightened and shrank until without warning it vanished.

  Seven large, furred shapes swam along the shoreline. The cat watched them until they disappeared around a bend in the little bay. He waited still longer—hoping, perhaps, for yet another miracle. When finally he yawned and stretched and turned to stalk home, midday bells were ringing in the city, rain lashed the surface of the lake, and the fog was long gone.

  Aldar had judged their distances about right. Even in the pouring rain, they still managed to come within sight of Willowlake just after sunup three days later.

  The town covered the entire far side of the valley from one bend in the river to the next. It had spread from the river bottom-land to the ridge, and edged along the lake from which it obviously drew its name—her eyes tried to adjust to the size of the place, and could not.

  "Oh, gods," Faia whispered, "it is huge.... So big.

  Willowlake lay on the other side of a deep, slow-moving river. The road she and Aldar were on led directly to a covered stone bridge that arched across the water. The bridge was wide enough that two wagons could cross it side by side; Faia was in awe. On their side of the river, cultivated fields spread over every tillable inch of land; the rocky fields held sheep and goats and cows. Right across the river, at the edge of Willowlake, there were little fieldstone cottages with thatched roofs that looked very much like the houses in Bright. But beyond them, there were cut-stone buildings that soared two stories high, and buildings with roofs of slate cut and laid in pretty patterns, and houses that looked for all the world as if they were built of wood—

  "Faia, are you all right?" Aldar's voice cut through her anxious reverie.

  "I cannot go there. I could never feel at home in such a place."

  Aldar became very grown-up and reassuring. "You will do fine. It is big, but the people there have always been good to me." He gave her a quick, fierce hug. "You are wonderful, Faia. They will be glad to have you there."

  Fifteen-year-old eyes looked into hers with a devotion she had not anticipated. She was surprised to find that she actually did feel better.

  "Thanks, Aldar. As long as we are together, I guess we will be fine." She hugged him back, and sighed. With a nervous gesture, she pulled the wide brim of her hat lower across her face and wiped the rain from her cheeks. She was sniffling a little; apparently she was going to catch a cold from all her days in the rain.

  Her stomach churned.

  I just wish I had someplace to wash up before I walked into that big, fancy town. What will they think of me? I am covered in mud and soaking wet and my clothes reek from six straight days of wearing— She clenched her fists until the nails bit into her palms, then squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. They will just have to understand, I suppose. I have been doing the best I can.

  She gave Aldar another brief hug, then smiled uncertainly. "I am ready," she said.

  Aldar became more animated with every step toward Willowlake. Now that it was in sight, he chattered on, all about the wonders in the massive town of five hundred—the elegant horse-drawn carriage he had seen, the fountain that one woman had in her front yard, the stall in the market where a traveling vendor sold animals as pets. Not practical animals like the kittens of good mousers or dogs for herding sheep or guarding property, he remarked—but pets. Birds that sang, or talked; gaudy fish that were no good for eating, but that simply swam around in glass bowls to be looked at; even a miniature horse that, as far as Aldar could tell, was no good for anything.

  Faia listened with half her attention. The other half was concentrated on the covered bridge, where, she became more and more certain, something was wrong.

  Something was wrong—and the prickling hairs on the back of her neck insisted that it concerned her and Aldar.

  As they drew closer, she could make out shapes standing under the covering on the bridge, out of the rain. There appeared to be more than a dozen people—and she could feel their eyes on her and Aldar.

  "—and Sarral does not cook on a rack in the fireplace. She has a stove—" Aldar was saying.

  Faia cut him off. "Are there always that many people waiting on the bridge?"

  Aldar peered into the gloom of the covered bridge, and noticed what she was talking about. "Usually there is only the toll-taker." He looked
puzzled for a minute, then he smiled. "I guess not everyone wants to walk in the rain like us."

  Faia was neither convinced nor reassured. "It has been raining for days without a break, Aldar. They would not all just stay under that bridge, waiting."

  She noticed movement from the crowd, as the people who had been standing in the front moved aside to let several others through. Faia was close enough now that she could make out details.

  The ones who had come through the crowd to stand in front were two men and two women dressed unlike any she had seen in her entire life. The men wore gaudy gold-and-green robes that swept in smooth lines to the ground, and rich carmine hoods that fell away from their faces in gracious draping curves. Their hair was long, pulled back and braided, and their beards were worn long, also braided, and adorned with heavy gold rings and wires. The women had their hair cut straight off at their shoulders and worn loose—in fact, had it not been for the revealing tightness of their clothes, she would have thought them to be men as well. They wore leather pants and matching leather jackets—the tall, dark brunette wore red, the tiny redhead, pale blue. Both sported soft, loose black boots that bagged around their calves, and heavy silver rings at neck and wrist and ankle over the boots.

  The two men were standing close together, conferring; they were obviously maintaining as much distance from the two women as they could without going out and standing in the muddy, swollen river.

  "Lady bless," Aldar whispered. "I have never seen anything like them before."

  Wonderful. Faia shivered in the cold rain and worried. There is something off kilter about that mob on the bridge, and about their interest in us—

  "Aldar, stay here," she hissed. "I do not like this, and I do not want you to get hurt. I will go up and talk with them and find out what is going on."

  "But what about you?" Aldar worried.

  Faia thought of what she had done to the village of Bright, and shook her head grimly. "I can take care of myself if I have to. I want to know that you are safely out of harm's way first, though."