by Watson Davis
Sifa’s necklaced lit up and she ducked. Fire erupted around her, the statue beside her blasted from its pedestal. She threw herself to the side, out of the statue’s path as it crashed to the floor, the arm breaking off. Sifa looked back, and the priest yelled, stamping his feet, waving his arms, preparing another fireball.
She scrabbled to her feet and hurled herself to the door, stumbling through it into the dark night beyond, slamming it shut. Her necklace lit up once more. Flames blasted through the cracks and the door bowed outward.
Magelights hovered around the statues of the Empress. Several people she recognized, people from the crowd earlier in the day, stood outside beside the statues, speaking to them, praying to the Empress, whispering in her ears. They all turned and stared at her, their jaws slack.
Sifa ran toward the street she remembered, the one where Shiyk’yath had stood in the wagon and preached.
Yath Yi whirled toward her and said, “I know you. I do know you, right?”
She barreled past the woman, ignoring her, glancing back at the door, at the tongues of fire dripping down from the mantel. The doors flew open and the shadow of the priest appeared.
Sifa darted into an alleyway and up a winding street. Her sandals slipped on the slick, round stone pavers. Behind her the priest yelled, “Which way? Which way did she go?”
A filthy man sat cross-legged on the side of the road, a tin cup in his thin hand, his eyes lazy and glazed, his clothes tattered and stained with blood and muck. A pack of flies buzzed around him, and a sign rested on his shins read, “Nede Fuud.”
Sifa skidded to a stop before him, bending over toward the beggar, her eyes wide. He looked up at her, a simpleton’s smile on his lips. He raised his cup to her and with a hint of hope in his voice said, “Gimme coin?”
“Shiyk’yath?” Sifa gasped, reaching out to touch his swollen cheek.
“Yuh?” he said, frowning. “Who are you?”
Sifa’s necklace blazed, the jewel roaring to life, no longer invisible, pulling at her hand. She dodged to the side, tumbling over Shiyk’yath, the two of them sprawling onto the street. A fireball exploded where she’d been standing. Flames splattered around her, flying onto Shiyk’yath. Embers burned in his hair and on his clothes.
“Fire!” Shiyk’yath screamed, leaping to his feet, swatting at himself, hopping from one foot to the other. “Burn!”
“Come on!” Sifa jumped to his side, patting the flames out and then tugging on his arms. “It’s alright. I’ll put them out. You’re fine.”
The priest jogged toward them, his chanting ragged as he panted for breath, his hands waving, magic swirling around him as it concentrated into a flaming ball.
Sifa tugged on Shiyk’yath’s arm. “We have to go!”
But he pulled away, wriggling his arm free from her. “No! I don’t know you!”
The priest set his feet, rearing back with his arms, his hands cupped and filled with infernal fire.
Sifa released Shiyk’yath. She whirled and sprinted away, her fist tightening around her necklace. The jewel blazed bright once more, and she dodged to her right. A fireball plowed into the street beside her, ripping the stones from the earth, cutting a deep smoking gouge into the street. Sifa raised her hand to protect her head and her face from the flying shards of stone and clumps of dirt.
The necklace blazed to life once more, and she bounded into the entryway of an apartment building battered with age and a lack of upkeep, with bricks missing from the arched mantel and the walls. A fireball exploded into the wall, ripping out bricks, collapsing a wall. Sifa pressed herself up against the undamaged part of the wall, crouching down and raising her hands, her arms, her crook and the necklace over her head. The floor above tumbled down in a huge pile of rubble.
She batted her eyes, coughing, waiting for the dust to clear.
The priest appeared out of the haze, a smile on his lips, flames dancing in the palms of his hands. “Are you going to come peacefully? Or do we end your wretched existence right here?”
Sifa jumped to her feet, glaring at him. She kicked at the ground, lowered her head, and prepared to launch herself at him.
A large rock struck the priest, smashing into the side of his head. His body stiffened, the consciousness departing from his eyes, and he crashed to the ground like a mighty tree. Ghostly hands reached up through the floor and the dust, and pulled his screaming soul downward.
Shiyk’yath lurched into the doorway, standing over the priest’s body, his hands in front of his mouth, his eyes wide with terror. “Uh oh. I bad boy.”
Hunters and Hunted
“WE’RE WONDERING IF you know anything about a woman named Che-su,” Ja’ast said.
The door of the thatch-roofed stone shack opened, revealing a well-muscled old man wearing a baggy brown cloth wrapped around his hips. The stink of the nearby outhouse drifted on the hint of a breeze, overpowering the earthy scent of the vegetable patch beside the house and of the wispy smoke spiraling up from the stone chimney. The distant walls and towers of Tuth-yoo peeked through the trees, barely visible in the distance.
Ka-bes stood with her hands clasped before her.
“Che-su?” the old man said, rubbing the white stubble on his chin and backing away from the rickety wooden door into the shadows.
“Yes,” Ja'ast said, leaning on his shoulder against the door jamb with his arms crossed. “She was the—”
“I know who she was,” the old man snapped. “Everybody knows who she was, you fool, but no one speaks her name out loud anymore, not anyone who values their freedom.”
Ja'ast glanced back at Ka-bes with his eyebrows raised.
Ka-bes shrugged. “Maybe we should go.”
“Maybe you should give me all your money,” the old man said, moving his arthritic hands and fingers in an uncomfortable-looking pattern, the joints popping. “And maybe I won’t mention your names to the priests of Tuth-yoo.” He pursed his lips. “Maybe I will.”
Ka-bes whispered a word, summoning her magic and casting a spell of magesight. The greens and browns of the earth and the trees grew more intense. The vegetable patch twinkled with a hint of magic and the stone walls of the shack shimmered. Earth magic swirled around the old man.
“There’s no need for animosity,” Ja'ast said, raising his hands. “We are friends here.”
“Che-su violated her oaths and made deals with demons, pacts that threatened the empire,” the old man said. “The Empress sent Her wizard and Her assassin to fetch the idiot. They dragged her away in chains along with all her friends and associates. Any friend of Che-su’s is no friend of mine. Indeed, any friend of Che-su’s is an enemy.”
“Yeah, but when they dragged her away, where did they drag her to?” Ja'ast asked, leaning toward the old man. “That’s all we need to know.”
The old man yelled a word of power, invoking the spirits of the earth, and raised his arms. Two columns of stone sprang forth from the ground at either side of Ja'ast.
Ja'ast uttered a word, crouching and flinging his arms out to the sides, shattering the stones beside him. Shards sprayed out and Ka-bes spun away, shielding her face.
A column of stone surged up beneath his feet, but Ja'ast leapt back, flipping over backward and bringing his arms up toward the old man. “Let’s not do this.”
Ka-bes moved her hands in an intricate pattern and crept away from the two earthmages. The rainwater in the barrel beside the door lifted up like a serpent.
The old man stomped his foot, and the earth cracked and rumbled. A fissure opened beneath Ja'ast. He fell a few feet but he swept his hands to the side and a pedestal of dirt and rock formed beneath him, lifting him back up. Ja’ast said, “So, I guess we’re doing this?”
Ka-bes flung her hands forward and the serpent of water launched itself forward, wrapping itself around the old man’s face, forming a bubble of water around his head.
He staggered forward, clawing at his face, at his mouth and nose, his eyes wide with
fright and his mouth open as he tried to breathe. He fell to his knees.
Ja'ast flicked his hand and a trench formed around the old man, the dirt streaming up and covering him. Ja’ast turned to Ka-bes and cried, “Don’t kill him!”
Ka-bes moved her fingers and the water returned to its serpentine form, its body wrapped around the old man’s neck, its head looming up and hovering over the top of his head. He gasped for breath, coughing and sputtering.
Ja'ast fell to his knees before the old man, grabbing his shoulders and asking, “Please, tell us where they took Che-su.”
The man scowled up at Ja'ast. “They took her to Basaliyasta, and gave her to Diyune. But I swear, I will see you both enslaved and tortured beyond anything—”
Ka-bes grimaced and clenched her fist. The serpent of water engulfed the man, choking off his words.
Ja'ast darted back, clapping his hands together. Two slabs of stone emerged from the ground and slammed together, catching the old man’s head between them, crushing him.
Ka-bes relaxed. “I thought you said not to kill him.”
Ja'ast shrugged. “I meant you shouldn’t kill him before he told us what we needed to know. I thought you were going to do it and I figured it would be more merciful to squish him quick than to make him die slow by drowning. Besides, you heard him. He was going to turn us in. Didn’t leave us a choice.”
Ka-bes nodded. “That’s what I keep telling myself.”
“SHIYK’YATH,” SIFA SAID, standing beneath a mighty birch tree with her fists on her hips, her necklace around her neck, her foot tapping on the leaves and branches covering the forest floor. “I need you to stop and sit down.”
“I’m hungry,” he whined, trudging past her, dragging his feet through the leaves, the leaves bunching up around his ankles in a huge pile. He kicked the pile, sending leaves flying.
“I need you to wait for a moment.”
His shoulders slumped, and his head bounced from one shoulder to the other with each step, a string of drool hanging down from the side of his mouth. “You said we were going somewhere there was food. Where’s the food?”
“Bad people are coming after us, coming to take us back,” Sifa said, stomping alongside him. “We’ve got to get away. I need to break the spell on you so they can’t find us.”
“I killed that priest.” Shiyk’yath’s brow furrowed, his eyes blinking as though straining to put his thoughts together. “If priests are good guys, then I’m the bad guy. I don’t want to be the bad guy.”
“That priest was a bad guy and you, my brave friend, are a good guy.” She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up, to stop him. “Now hold still so I can figure out how to do this.”
“Really?” He peered down at her, a wistful smile on his lips. “I’m one of the good guys?”
“One of the goodest,” Sifa said, grinning up at him.
“My ankle hurts bad,” he said.
“I know,” she said, wincing. “But even now, the bad people could have dogs on our trail, searching for us.”
“Dogs?” Shiyk’yath asked.
“Yes, dogs,” Sifa answered, pushing his arm, guiding him toward a big rock.
He pulled his arm out of her grasp and sat down on the rock. “Ah. Good. I like doggies. I’m hungry. Can we eat now?”
“In just a little bit,” Sifa said. She walked around Shiyk’yath, tracing the tendril attached to the base of his skull. She knelt and studied the thread—much thicker than the one that had been there when she’d first met him, much more complex.
“What are you doing?” He turned to her. “Are you going to get some food?”
“I will in just a bit,” she said, holding her hand up toward him and tracing the thick cable of interlacing strands of magic flowing back and forth. Her necklace flared and her mouth went dry.
But nothing happened.
She found a nodal focus and, hoping it was the right one, she ripped it apart, shredding the magical flows, disconnecting them from Shiyk’yath’s soul, flinging them away, disrupting them with her willpower and focus.
The tendril exploded into black motes of vile hatred, transforming into black worms that rained to the ground, disappearing into the leaves and dirt.
Shiyk’yath threw his head back and screamed, then plunged forward, stumbling and falling to his knees. He threw up, vomiting a stream of black goo crawling with black worms. He gasped for breath, shaking his head and spitting. He glared up at her with unfocused eyes, his lips pulling back from his teeth, a froth on his lips like a rabid dog. “What?”
Sifa backed away, shrugging. “I don’t have any food.”
“Screw the gods-be-damned food!” he yelled, lurching to his unsteady feet, shifting his weight from his injured ankle. He reached out and snatched her hand, pulling her forward. “We’ve got to get out of here. I mean, I killed a thrice-damned priest. We have to get as far away from here as we can possibly get. Maybe to Morrin or Birgita.”
“Where are you going?” Sifa asked, stumbling after him.
“Far away from here.”
“No.” She tugged at his wrist, setting her feet. “That’s the wrong way. We go this way.” She nodded the way her heart told her to go, toward that ache.
“That way?” he asked. “Why not directly away from Ofo? We’ll get farther away faster this direction.”
She shrugged, wriggling her wrist free. “You go whatever way you want to go, but I’m going that way.”
“Fine, we’ll go this way,” he said, turning in the direction she wanted to go, limping and grunting with each step but rushing through the brush even faster than Sifa who chased after him, slipping over the trunks of fallen trees, around stumps and ducking under thick vines and pressing through clumps of bushes.
Sifa’s breathing grew faster, and sweat dripped into her eyes. The glow of her necklace grew brighter. She looked around but saw no threat. She asked, “How’s your foot?”
Shiyk’yath didn’t stop to look back at her, didn’t turn to speak to her, just spoke over his shoulder, saying, “I’ll make do.”
When he stopped, she walked right into his back, knocking him forward. He crouched.
Sifa looked around, her chest heaving as she panted to catch her breath. Her hand moved up to touch her hood, making sure it was pulled up. “What’s wrong?”
“Shh.” He motioned with his hand for her to be quiet.
She pulled her hood further down. “What?”
“Don’t matter if you speak or not,” a woman’s gruff voice said. In front of them, up in the trees, a thing crouched on a branch, a woman with red scaly skin, large black eyes, a hook nose and a big chin. Wings with greasy black feathers fluttered slowly on her back: a harpy. “We’re not gonna lose you again.”
A warrior in leather armor stepped out from behind a tree to their right, a bow in his hand, an arrow nocked and aimed at Shiyk’yath.
Behind Sifa, another man said, “We been tracking you for a good mile. We can always use a fat reward.”
Sifa whirled, putting her hands over her mouth and squeaking in surprise. A soldier in chain mail with a sword in one hand and a triangular shield on his back stepped forward. His tabard showed a green dragon, marking him as being from the Galnyan militia.
“I won’t let you take me back,” Shiyk’yath said, grabbing the dagger from Sifa’s belt.
“No,” Sifa said, laying her hand on his upper arm. “You’ll just get hurt.”
“You two be still,” the harpy said, strutting toward them. “You start to cast a spell, and we kill you.”
The one in front of them kept his bowstring taut and edged toward them. “You make any sudden movements, and we kill you.”
“What are you going to do with us?” Sifa asked.
“You’re coming to Basaliyasta with us, and we’re going to hand you over to Bishop Diyune,” the one behind them said.
Shiyk’yath spat on the ground. “Why don’t you just kill us and be done with it, you milk-livered basta
rds?”
“Heads are messy,” the harpy said, “and I don’t want to have to lug your filthy carcass to Basaliyasta.”
“Like you’d be the one lugging a carcass,” the swordsman behind them muttered.
“Listen to me,” Shiyk’yath said, pointing the dagger at the archer, “everything you believe about the priesthood you serve, everything you hold true in your lives, are all lies. Everything. Just a web of deceptions woven by the bitch in Nayengim to keep you doing her bidding without questioning anything.”
The harpy cackled. “They’re going to fight.”
“You sound like a right rebel, you do,” the archer said. “I’ve heard there are rebels about, like The Magpie and his band, but I’ve never met anyone stupid enough to be one before. Put your hands behind your back.”
Sifa put her trembling hands behind her back.
“I’m no rebel.” Shiyk’yath lowered his hands slowly, his head tilted, a sneer on his lips, the dagger dropping from his fingertips. “But I can’t go on living like this and I don’t see how you could, either, once you know the truth. People can’t go on living these damned lives and believing these damned lies.”
“Be careful,” the harpy said, swooping down from the tree and landing in a crouch beside the archer. “His dagger has power. Give it to me.”
The swordsman behind them sheathed his sword and pulled a length of rope from his belt. He stomped through the grass, twigs and branches breaking beneath his feet, dried leaves crackling, and Sifa wondered how neither of them had heard him. The soldier stood behind Shiyk’yath, grabbing his wrists, wrapping the rope around them.
Sifa stared at the swordsman’s back and saw a thick tendril connected to the back of his skull, glittering with magic, the tendril spilling down his body, translucent and gauzy.
Shiyk’yath whirled, swinging his arms and shouting, “Run!”
“I told you!” the harpy said, leaping into the air.
The archer yelled, “Hold still!”
The swordsman jerked away, dodging Shiyk’yath’s fists, but he bowled over Sifa, knocking her down and falling on top of her. Shiyk’yath snatched the dagger from the ground.