Ember and Ash

by Pamela Freeman

  “He is here,” Elva said.

  Ember began to shiver. Her sister Elva was a prophet, a mouthpiece for the local gods of the black rock altars, but Ember had never seen her possessed before. She lived a long way away, in Hidden Valley, and the gods had been quiet every time they had visited there. It was wrong, horrible, to hear another voice come from her sister’s mouth.

  Ash and Cedar, Elva’s sons, didn’t even blink, and her mother took it in her stride.

  “Give us guidance,” she asked. “We entreat you.”

  Elva turned to the hearth, her movements unsteady, as though the gods weren’t used to commanding a moving body.

  “Show yourself,” the deep voice said.

  The fire grew, swelled, spread out into the room itself, into a tree of flame. He was there; the face, just as she had seen it. The others saw it too, and that was a comfort of sorts, that she wasn’t just imagining, wasn’t going mad… The dark, blazing, male face stared at her, eyes not red but black.

  “You are mine,” it said. He said. “You will come to me.”

  Her anger flared up as fast as His flames. Oh, she’d fought against her temper since the day she was born, but not this time. This was righteous anger and He deserved it.

  “I will not be owned!” she shouted.

  He laughed, the flames dancing at His feet in rhythm.

  “I don’t own,” He chuckled. “I possess.” His tone made it explicit; heat ran through her, from her nipples, her belly. How dare He! Even Osfrid had never made her feel like this.

  “Not me,” she hissed.

  His eyes narrowed and He turned His head to glare at Elva as though she—the gods—were responsible.

  “She has the right to refuse you,” the gods said. “You may not compel worship.”

  Ember felt supported, at last. All those dawn services at the black rock altar had been worthwhile, it seemed. Fire seemed to shrug, and turned back to stare at her. Her father moved to stand in front of her, but she sidestepped him. It was dangerous, she felt, to let Him out of her sight.

  “Then I must make you come,” He said. “If you wish to relight the fires, you must steal fire from me.” He looked at Arvid, standing helpless beside her. “If you must protect her, use the old blood. I will consume anyone else.” His gaze went past her and He paused, considering. Ash and Cedar, she realized, had come forward as well and were standing right behind. “Those two will do,” Fire said. He smiled, as if at a private joke.

  With a great thwump of air sucked up the chimney, the flames were gone. He was gone. The fire was out in the hearth again, as if it had never been alight, leaving behind a scent of woodsmoke and something else, something acrid which seared Ember’s throat. No one spoke. Cautiously, Ember came forward and, crouching, touched the ashes. Cold. As though the fire had died a lifetime ago.

  She stood up slowly, confused. What had He meant?

  Behind the wall, in the kitchen, shouts and accusations were flying.

  Her mother frowned and went through the connecting door, saying, “What’s toward here?” in her best lady’s voice. She came back a moment later, her face pale.

  “The fire’s gone out in the kitchen,” she said, looking at Elva.

  Ember blinked. Why was her mother’s voice so shaky? A kitchen fire…

  Martine crossed the room and put her hand on Arvid’s arm. They were the same height, and at the moment wore the same expression of worry, giving them a strange resemblance.

  “They can’t relight it,” Martine said.

  “Try again,” Arvid replied.

  “It will not avail,” the gods’ deep voice said. Elva blinked and coughed, clearing her throat. “This isn’t good,” she added, in her own light tones.

  Ember turned back to the fireplace and grabbed for the tinderbox which lay on the mantelpiece above it. Tinder on the ashes, kindling from the basket next to the hearth, flint, striker… the flint was struck and sparked, but although the sparks fell onto the tinder, they didn’t catch, just charred and died. She tried again, and again, in a nightmare where everything was familiar but nothing acted as it should.

  She had made fire like this since she was a small girl. Children were taught fire-making early in the Last Domain in case they were caught by nightfall in a forest, or became lost. Fire was all that would save them, then.

  Her father came to kneel beside her.

  “Let me try,” he said. “Maybe a man…”

  She blew on the sparks as they fell from her father’s hand, but the tinder stayed sullenly unwilling to catch, and finally they gave up. Martine had her hand under her breasts, as though holding her heart firm.

  People were crowding the doorways. Arvid turned to them and beckoned one forward. Holly, the woman who led his guard.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  “All the fires in the fort,” she answered. “Except one. The bonfire—the wedding fire. That’s still burning.”

  “Take a brand from it—” Arvid began, but Holly interrupted.

  “No, my lord. We’ve tried to light sticks from it, torches, tinder—it will burn whatever wood we put on it, but as soon as you take the wood from it, the fire goes out.”

  All the fires in the fort, Ember thought numbly. It was spring. They could survive spring and summer without fires indoors. Cook on the bonfire. But this was the Last Domain, and when summer ended and the snow came…

  A man ran into the room and fell on his knees in front of Arvid, panting.

  “My lord, our fires…”

  “Where are you from?” Arvid asked.

  “Two Springs, my lord.” It was the nearest village.

  “Are there any fires alight, there?”

  The man shook his head.

  “No, my lord. Except there’s a candle Mayflower keeps burning always in remembrance of her daughter, you know, the one who died so hard of the canker. That’s still alight. But we can’t take a light from it. And—and there’s a flame, but the candle’s not burning down.”

  Arvid looked despairingly at Martine, and cold settled into Ember’s bones. If this was the story throughout the domain, their people were dead when the first snow fell.

  Palisade Fort, the Last Domain

  Send messengers,” Arvid said to Holly. “I want to know how far this has spread. Find out what we’re facing.”

  Her father wanted to collect facts, but Ember knew what he would find. Fire had taken Himself away, to force her to come to Him. To be His slave, His—what? If He’d wanted to kill her, she would be dead already, like Osfrid. She began to shake, again, as she had after the fire had killed him.

  Ash came up behind her and led her to a chair, sitting her down firmly. He handed her a mug of applejack.

  “Drink,” he said, his hand on her shoulder. The human warmth, so mild in comparison to the searing heat of fire, comforted her, and she drank. She stared at the mug in her hands, barely listening as reports began to come in from nearby farms and villages.

  She couldn’t go to Him. Over and over, she relived that moment when she had been surrounded by flames. Was that what He wanted? To have her like that forever? Shudders ran through her. She couldn’t do it.

  The door banged open and a woman ran in to throw herself at Arvid’s feet.

  “My lord, my lord, the fires—” she was gasping, tears of sheer panic in her eyes. “The world has gone mad, my lord!”

  Arvid crouched down to lift her to her feet, but Ember could see that he didn’t know what to say. The world had gone mad. The woman’s face reflected her own fear. Without fire, their people were doomed…

  Her fault. Was this her fault? If she hadn’t defied Him, let her temper get the better of her, He would not have punished her people like this. Wouldn’t have needed to blackmail her… She shuddered at the thought of going to Him, abasing herself. Of a prison made of flame if she failed. But what else could she do? If that was the only way to get the hearths relit, she had no choice.

  “I have to go,�
�� Ember said. “I’ll leave straightaway. I can be back by first snow.”

  Arvid stared at her as though she were speaking a foreign language.

  “You are not going anywhere,” he said. It was the warlord speaking.

  She felt a moment of relief. Her father had forbidden her. It wasn’t her fault; she’d offered, and been refused.

  But the woman at Arvid’s side, face still distorted by fear and distress—what could she say to her? When the snow came back, in winter, and this woman died of cold, or had to leave her home and everything she had in order to survive… would “my da told me not to do it” feel like enough excuse then? She wasn’t a child.

  Her mother had pulled out the casting stones and sat right down on the floor to cast, as if she’d never been a warlord’s lady, never sat at the glass table with the officers and their wives. Her father was staring as if he’d never seen Martine before.

  “Fire Mountain,” she said, looking up from the stones. “In the old stories, that’s His home. The stones say she must go there.”

  Arvid spun on her, his face incredulous.

  “You can’t seriously mean that!” he said.

  Martine spread her hand wide, indicating the stones lying across the square of blue linen she used for casting.

  “You’d send our only child out into the wilderness because the stones tell you to?”

  Arvid’s voice was oddly flat and Martine sent him a quick look, then stared down at the stones again, her fingers touching them lightly, one by one, as Ember had seen her do so many times.

  “Do you want your people to die?” she asked quietly. “Do you want them to be forced onto the roads like Travelers?”

  He flinched.

  “There must be another way. Some spell that can create fire without—without Him.”

  Ash the Prowman stepped forward.

  “No,” he said simply. “The Powers are the Powers, and they control their element completely, when they wish to. Not every spark struck catches flame at His command, normally, but He controls each spark if He wishes.” He hesitated and moved to the table, where there was a water jug. “Just as my Lady controls water, no matter where it is.”

  He held his hand over the jug. There was a gurgle and the water rose up out of the jug in a straight column. Ember gasped—it was an impossible thing, impossible. Water hung in midair. It brought back the nightmare of Osfrid, screaming in the middle of an impossible column of fire. Cold sweat broke out all over Ember’s body. She swallowed her gorge, forcing herself to get up and walk over to face her father, who watched the water with a gray, expressionless face. The Prowman took his hand away and the water fell back into the jug, a few drops splashing out onto the tabletop.

  “You will not light a fire without Him,” the Prowman said. “And He will not relent. Ember must go.”

  The woman who had cried at Arvid’s feet timidly put her hand on his arm.

  “My lord…”

  “Get out!” he snapped. She ran for the kitchen door and a moment later he looked ashamed of himself, and spoke more quietly, to the Prowman, ignoring Martine.

  “Fire Mountain is on the border with the Ice King’s people! She’s a child! She can’t—”

  “If it weren’t for Fire,” Ember said clearly, “I’d have been a married woman by now and no longer your subject.”

  He stared at her, his head lowered a little, like a bull facing enemies.

  “You’ll all die, unless you leave this place,” she said. “Unless you go somewhere He hasn’t cursed. Or… unless I bring back a piece of the Fire Mountain, to light the fires again.”

  “You’re not old enough to go out on the Roads…” he protested.

  “I was four years younger, the first time I did,” Martine said quietly, standing up, her stones tucked neatly back into her belt.

  “In the south!”

  Her father was right. There was a world of difference between the mild, gentle southlands and their fierce northern country. But she had no choice.

  “I’m not planning on going alone,” she said.

  Ash and Cedar stood there like two sides of a gatepost, although Ash was a head taller and much broader across the shoulders. But both of them were solid. Dependable. Capable.

  “You heard what Fire said. We’ll take her,” Ash stated.

  Martine turned to Elva, looking uncertain.

  “Sweetheart? Did the gods tell you anything else?”

  Slowly, Elva came forward. She placed a hand on Ash’s cheek, the other hand on Cedar’s.

  “They told me,” she said in a voice full of grief, “that I must send my sons.”

  The brothers shared a look of satisfaction, but Elva’s head drooped, and they crowded around her, arms around her shoulders, trying to reassure her.

  Ember went to her father and took his hand, as she had when she was a small girl. “The gods and the stones both say I must go,” she said.

  Arvid hesitated, then turned with relief as Holly came back into the room.

  “Holly has some old blood, don’t you?”

  Looking puzzled, Holly nodded. “My grandam was a Traveler,” she confirmed.

  “So Holly will lead you,” he said. “A full squad, all with old blood.” He looked severely at Ember. “And no arguments.”

  “Not from me,” she said. He looked at the boys, and Ash shrugged. “The more, the safer,” he said.

  “Maps,” Martine said. “Do we have detailed maps of the mountains?”

  “If we don’t,” Arvid said, “I’ve been paying my scouts too much for too long.”

  As they found the maps, as they hurriedly packed whatever food they could find that didn’t need cooking, as they unearthed the heaviest winter gear from its summer storage in the loft, as they strapped snowshoes and tent frames to the pack horses, reports came in from across the domain. No fires anywhere, with small, odd exceptions: a child’s play fire, a branch of candles which had been used in a bedroom while a couple made love, another wedding bonfire in a distant village, a lamp burning in the sickroom of a dying Traveler woman.

  But none of these would share their flame.

  Mountainside, the Ice King’s Country

  We take what we need!” the Hárugur King shouted, his cheeks showing red with rage under his beard. “We do not ask!”

  “Trading is not asking, Father Sire,” Nyr said, a little less patiently than the last three times he’d said it. He took a breath to calm himself and tried not to cough when the smoke hit his lungs. His father refused to have a chimney installed in the Council Cave—no breaking with tradition, even in the cause of fresh air. Tradition. Maybe that was an argument he could use. “Our ancestors traded,” he said.

  His father paused and shot a quick glance toward the circle of gray-haired men sitting cross-legged, each on the skin of a wolf he had killed himself. The Hárugur King’s council had no power to gainsay the king, but they did have influence. Particularly Bren, his father’s best friend and closest adviser. Bren lifted one shoulder, as if to say, “Hear the boy out,” so his father nodded at Nyr to go on.

  “The old songs often talk about trading. Taking the Dragon’s Road to the Wind Cities, for example,” Nyr reminded them.

  The old men were nodding.

  “That’s true,” Garn said. He was the songkeeper, who taught the boys all the traditions. “And not just the Wind Cities. Over the mountains, one song says. That one about the big blond warrior from the south who led his people out through Death Pass. We traded with them for a long time before they closed the passes.”

  That caused a deep silence. Nyr felt his heart beating strongly. Over the mountains—the land of plenty, where ice came only in winter! The land of sun and green grass all year around, they said. Where a child—a child—could go for a walk quite safely, with no fear of wolf or wolverine or even storm. And they said that the wind and water spirits had never been in that country. The soul-eating monsters had disappeared from his own land twenty or so years ago,
but he could remember them, just, remember the fear as the wind wraiths had chased him and his big brother Andur once, long claws out and hungry teeth gnashing. Nyr shivered with fear and revulsion. They had only just made it to the shelter of the stable in time. The greatest fear anyone in Mountainside had was that the wraiths would return as mysteriously as they had disappeared. But the southerners, it was said, did not need to fear them at all.

  He had been to the country over the mountains, twice now, with raiding parties, and he had seen the green fields and the rich farms, but that had been high in the mountains, which was enough like his own country in summer to be disappointingly ordinary. But if they traded… he might actually get to a place where it didn’t snow. Or see the real ocean. The free ocean, where waves slapped the shore, as they did in the sagas.

  The silence in the cave stretched on. No one was prepared to comment before the Hárugur King spoke.

  “The easterners cannot be trusted,” his father said eventually. “They are selfish, and greedy, caring not for others. If you go there, they will take your trade goods and kill you, and we will be left with nothing but grief.”

  Tears stood in his father’s eyes, and there was a murmur of sympathy from the council. They had all lost sons or nephews in the raiding parties. Nyr’s brother, Andur, had been killed only two years before. His father had grieved thoroughly, as a man should, to put the pain behind him, but the thought of losing another son was perhaps too hard, Nyr thought. Particularly him. He had always been his father’s favorite, much to Andur’s disgust.

  “Will you keep me home forever, to keep me safe?” Nyr asked gently, matching tears standing in his own eyes. “Like a young maid, waiting for a lover who never comes?”

  His father scratched vigorously at his beard, a sign he was trying to avoid answering.

  “I will consider it, and ask the King’s guidance,” he barked, and rose, so that all the council had to stand up too. Nyr covered his eyes with his hand, the mark of respect due to a king, and kept them covered until his father strode from the cave.