Fire Logic

by Laurie J. Marks

  Zanja picked up the shirt, which was even more rank than hers had been, and stood there feeling like a parent must feel when her firstborn suddenly ceases to be a child.

  When Karis came out of the water, Emil wrapped her in a blanket, and gave her the last cup of tea. She sat by the coals of the fire, watching Zanja stew her shirt and spice it heavily with shavings from their solitary bar of soap. “You never told me what a peculiar feeling it is to have someone work magic on you,” she said to Zanja.

  “Well, I didn’t want to seem as if I were complaining.”

  “What did he do?” Medric asked.

  “Water magic makes no sense to me. He did something very ordinary.”

  “Surely not!”

  “It was ordinary, I tell you.”

  Perhaps Karis was incapable of appetite, but she ate an astonishing quantity of bread and fish, and then pursued a lengthy argument with Medric. It was well past sunset by the time the tremors began, and when Zanja went into the cave with her, the porringer under the water clock had filled to overflowing, and was surrounded by a small pond of spilled water, with the water clock nearly empty.

  “I guess we need a bigger bowl,” Zanja said.

  Karis sat upon her pallet of woven reeds.

  “Here, you’re supposed to drink dry the jug, he said.” Zanja picked up the water jug from the floor, but it already was empty. “What did he do to you?”

  Karis said, “You know how people wish for more time.”

  Zanja looked at the overflowing porringer. Another drop plunked into it. “Time is water?”

  “For him it is. I told you it made no sense.”

  “How is it ordinary that he gave you more time?”

  “People give each other time fairly commonly, don’t they? You’re giving me some of yours right now. I tend to be miserly with mine, however. I always feel like I don’t have enough of it.” She lay down. “Am I tired?”

  “You should be.”

  The spasms, when they came, were not nearly as violent as they had been. Afterwards, in the few moments between smoking the pipe and going under smoke, Karis said, “I think I might live.”

  “You’ve faced your ordeal with great courage.”

  “What choice had I?” And she was gone.

  Chapter 24

  The night had been edged with a bit of autumn’s chill, and when Zanja awoke, she remembered that she had crawled into Karis’s bed in the middle of the night and covered them both with her blanket. She lay alone now upon the reed pallet, and a bowl with waves painted along its edge sat beneath the water clock, collecting time. She went out and found Karis beside the fire with Emil. He had unbuttoned and rolled up the leg of his breeches to reveal the knee that plagued him so, and it was a wonder, Zanja realized as she got a closer look at the scarred, distorted, swollen joint, that he could walk at all, much less run and fight the way he did. Karis laid her hand upon his knee and he began arguing with her.

  “Just concede,” Zanja advised him. “She’s bigger and stronger than you are.”

  Her clothing had dried enough to wear. She took Medric’s borrowed shirt to put it with his gear, and found him asleep on the reed bed he and Emil shared. He often slept late, for he often sat awake for half the night. When Zanja returned to the fire, Emil’s knee had been transformed. “I don’t know,” he said bemusedly. “Somehow, this seems like cheating.” He worked the new knee as he might work the trigger of a new pistol.

  Karis said, “Five years of walking on a shattered knee seems long enough to me.”

  “It’s just as well I haven’t known you all these years. How could I have kept from entreating you to heal my friends, who all are dead now? What a horror I would have made of your life, laying upon you a burden of moral quandaries, matters of life and death, that no one person should have to resolve by herself. It used to take an entire government and strength of tradition to relieve the G’deon from having to decide how to dole out his favor. You have no such protections.”

  “Not even the protection of being able to pretend that I’m superior to everyone else. Good morning,” she added to Zanja. “Is it too early for such serious talk?”

  “We’re out of tea,” Emil said sadly.

  Karis had already eaten, but sat down with Zanja to eat again, and told her that Annis, who seemed to be living with the Otter People, had rowed over at dawn with the new bowl for the water clock, the day’s delivery of food, and a pair of sandals for Karis. “Have I met Annis before?” Karis asked.

  “I doubt you remember. She’s a genius at blowing things up, and comes from a good family.”

  “That’s better than I can say about myself.”

  Emil took a few steps, testing his new knee. “Oh blessed day,” he said, “You’re a genius, anyway. You can always get a good family.”

  Karis was still smiling as, after breakfast, she took Zanja’s arm and walked her down the beach. “You must have been cold last night.”

  “I’m afraid it made me presumptuous.”

  Karis had turned her face away to look over the busy waters of the lake. Now she looked back, and Zanja did not think she had ever seen such unhappiness. “Presumptuous?”

  “I—”

  “Let’s pretend I don’t understand why it might be presumptuous for you to share my bed on a cold night,” Karis said.

  “All right.” The pretense was certainly preferable to any other alternative.

  “But if I’m to be your torturer...”

  “What torture? I have no false hopes.” Zanja kicked at the stones. “I thought we were pretending we didn’t know what we’re talking about.”

  “I guess that’s not going to work.”

  “Well, then let me say my speech about how I hope you won’t let this come between us, and how in time I’ll come to my senses—”

  “Come to your senses! Oh, have pity!” Karis dropped to her knees and drove her fists onto the stones with enough force to send them flying and clattering across the beach. Zanja grabbed her wrists, fearful that she would break the small bones of her hands without knowing it. Karis cried, “Let it me be who comes to her senses! Let me taste, let me feel hunger and pain and weariness and even pleasure! Let me know the name of the desire that drives me! If there be gods —”

  Karis was taken by a spasm of grief as sudden and violent as the smoke convulsions that made her life all but unendurable. She struggled in Zanja’s embrace, but finally let her head rest in the cradle of her shoulder while she wept. At last she was still, and said hoarsely, calmly, with her head heavy against Zanja’s breastbone, “Zanja na’Tarwein, you’re in love with a madwoman.”

  Zanja kissed the tangled mess of Karis’s hair. “I’m not entirely sane myself.”

  Karis convulsed again; Zanja could only hope it was with laughter this time. And then they both lay still, while the sweet laughter of the Otter children echoed across the water, and the warm sun rose above the canyon rim. In that silence that came in the wake of sorrow, Zanja felt the heavy weight of the moment, resting upon her like a door upon its hinge. She said, “Councilor Mabin has proven herself so ruthless, it seems that something about you must terrify her. I wish you would explain it.”

  Karis groaned against Zanja’s chest. “Shall I explain why water runs downhill? Shall I name the forces that bind together and tear apart? That I can do. But why Councilor Mabin hates me and has always hated me, that I can’t explain. It’s not for anything I’ve done—I’ve done so little—so it must be for what I am.”

  “Once you lived with her, you and Norina.”

  “No, Norina lived with her, but I was her prisoner, for Mabin doled smoke out to me, one piece at a time, like a reward given a trained dog. Mabin is the one who taught me that no matter what else I did with my life, I had better learn a trade so I
didn’t have to depend on anyone except myself for my smoke supply.”

  Zanja stroked a hand down Karis’s unruly head, but had to stop because it was too much for her to endure.

  “Agreeing to help me escape her cost Norina too much,” Karis said. “She became as bound to me as I am bound to smoke.”

  “She was what, Medric’s age?”

  “She was never young,” Karis said. “When she was crowning between her mother’s legs, her mother shouted, ‘There’s been a mistake! My baby is an old woman!’”

  “That explains a lot,” Zanja said gravely. “But I’ve never understood exactly why Norina agreed to help you. If you were not to be the G’deon...”

  Karis said wearily, “No, Zanja, she told you the truth when we were at Strongbridge. It is her duty to make it possible for me to survive to vest the next G’deon.”

  “That’s all you live for? To lay upon some child a burden you could not yourself endure?”

  Karis lifted her head then, and Zanja let go of her. Having felt the force of her anger before, Zanja thought it prudent to put some distance between them.

  “I am not completely without hope,” Karis said, with great restraint. “I can yet believe that the future can be different from and better than the present. I even have the audacity to imagine that I might yet win some small honor for delivering Shaftal’s inheritance to its rightful heir.”

  Zanja said, “But why are you not Shaftal’s rightful heir?”

  “You have to ask? Just look at me.”

  “Do you believe that Harald G’deon picked you as thoughtlessly as he would pick a whore, and raped you with his power merely because you were convenient? Or rather, is that the story Mabin wants you to believe? This same Mabin who hates you and controlled you first through smoke and later through your beloved friend, and finally, rather than have you escape her control, all but murdered you? You still trust that woman’s judgment?”

  A long time the silence lasted. Karis rubbed her eyes as though to clear away a blur of tears.

  “Tell me what happened when they brought you to Harald,” Zanja said.

  “It was afternoon. The night before, I had managed to use smoke without Dinal realizing it, for we were sleeping under stars. But once we came to the House of Lilterwess, I began to worry, for it was such a crowded place. Dinal had been so kind to me, I feared to lose her regard by telling her the truth, but I thought that I would have to. That was the only thing on my mind as she brought me into Harald’s room. The room was full of silent, dignified people, who all turned in surprise to stare at me. Dinal’s hand was on my shoulder. She pushed me forward, and the dying man on the bed opened his eyes and held out his hand to me. I felt a surprise, a kinship—he was an earth witch like myself. I knew so little that I didn’t even realize this must be Harald G’deon. I thought that he might teach me what to do with myself, if he lives. But his life fire burned so faintly, I knew he would only live a few more hours at most. So I took hold of his hand, to bid him a safe journey. That is what I remember clearly. Norina says he died immediately after empowering me, without saying a word.”

  “Who decided it was not Harald’s intention to name you his successor?”

  “It was the Lilterwess Council. Once Dinal explained who I was, and it became evident I was a smoke addict, the Council decided not to affirm me as G’deon.”

  “But Norina was not party to that meeting, was she? And Mabin is the only councilor who survived the night.”

  “Norina has her faults, but she has never lied to me.”

  “No, but it’s possible she doesn’t know the entire truth. I’m asking because I don’t understand why Mabin fears you enough to kill you.”

  Karis said quietly, “I have been vested with a stunning power, and nothing can stop me from exercising it as I choose. Don’t you find that frightening? I’m certain Mabin fears that I will challenge her, and claim the G’deon’s right. That I have no desire to do so must be unbelievable to her.”

  “But what if Harald G’deon knew what you were when he sent Dinal for you? Even if he was out of his mind, as some say he was, he was not a fool. So let the G’deon’s chair remain empty if that’s what seems right to you, and wander the land in rags and die unknown like Mackapee did. Scholars like Emil and Medric will study the obscure history of your life a hundred years from now and never quite make sense of it. So what, so long as it makes sense to you?”

  Karis uttered a short laugh.

  “What I see is that your life has been decided by people who seem determined to keep you within boundaries and to keep you from realizing that they are controlling you. And I see that as a result you never have made a choice for yourself except one time, the time you saved my life. And it put all of your keepers into a panic, which surely reveals how illusory are the boundaries they’ve put around you, and how easy it would be for you to simply step outside of them. So why not set yourself free of them? If you were free to live as well and joyfully as you could, exercising with honor what powers have been given to you, what would you do? Can you even imagine?”

  Karis muttered to herself, as her raven would have, “Oh, I am in dire danger.”

  She laid her hands flat against the stony beach. “I know exactly what I would do,” she said. She got abruptly to her feet. “Excuse me.” And she was gone, striding quickly back the way she had come, to where Medric sat awake in his bed. Perhaps it was a trick of the light reflecting from his spectacles that made it seem as if he were staring at them across the length of the beach. Karis sat beside him and they had a long, sometimes agitated conversation, which ended only when Karis got up to go back into her cave.

  Zanja looked in on her after a while, and Karis raised her head from where she sat in a huddle upon the floor, with her filled smoke pipe in reach, and the water clock plunking the occasional drop into the bowl. Zanja said, “Since you were kidnapped twenty-one days ago, one keeper or another has been hovering over you. It’s not a role I relish much myself, so I hope you’ll just tell me when you think you’re strong enough to need no looking after. Are you strong enough today?”

  Karis shook her head. She looked frightened and worn out, and Zanja remembered that Karis had no way to judge what her limits were. “Shall I come in?” she asked.

  “You’re very formal.”

  “Well, I’m making up this dance as I go along. I can’t get it right all the time.”

  Karis smiled. “That’s better. You know, you aren’t always the most restful of companions.”

  “Are you admonishing me?” Zanja sat down beside her. “I’ll be boring if you will.”

  “No,” Karis said, “And no again. But let’s not talk about the future anymore.”

  So Zanja diverted Karis with tales of her lifelong friendship with Ransel, until the water level in the bowl had risen high enough, and Karis reached for the pipe. She suffered no life-threatening convulsions, and because of her rapidly increasing strength, she remained awake after she had smoked. Zanja supposed she could take her for a walk, like a pet, but the very idea was so unsettling that she got up and left the cave instead. It was more than disconcerting to see Karis go from the morning’s robust passions and willful vigor to this helpless passivity. The contradiction between the two Karises was not at all easy to encompass, and Zanja began to understand a little of why Mabin and Norina and even Karis herself had been unable to imagine her as anything other than a flawed vessel, to be patched together until it could be replaced. But if fire talent could not encompass a grand contradiction, what good was it?

  It seemed strange that the nights had turned chilly, until Zanja examined the night sky and realized that any day now, the stars of summer would set. Karis took Zanja exploring up the river canyon, which required more stamina than Zanja would have thought Karis possessed. Karis’s energy seemed inspired by the grand s
cale of the landscape: the broken rocks as big as houses, the foaming river, the looming stone cliffs, the narrow strip of sky. Her fascination with the place worked as a camouflage, and it took some time for Zanja to realize that the quality of their conversation had changed, and not for the better. They skated across the surface of a conversation mysteriously opaque and impenetrable, like water turned to ice.

  By the time they returned to Otter Lake, Zanja was utterly confounded. Karis had used herself up by then, and they stopped to rest on a rock at the edge of the beach. The sun had dropped below the canyon rim, but the rock retained its warmth, and Zanja lay back upon it and shut her eyes, only to be assailed by a chaos of emotion that her disciplines could hardly keep in check. So this was love, she thought ironically, and hoped she’d soon discover the remedy for it. Then, she felt a mouth touch hers, tentatively, curiously, and she opened her eyes to find Karis’s somber face, carved into hollows by her hard fight with smoke, so close that Zanja scarcely would have had to move to kiss her again. Zanja said desperately, “Now you are torturing me.”

  “I’m torturing myself,” Karis said. She sat back, but Zanja still could scarcely breathe. “If my hands had been cut off I’d still be interested in picking things up, and I might even try it once in a while.”

  Zanja said, in a voice that did not seem hers, “Please don’t try it again.”

  “Then how am I to live as well and joyfully as I can? You pose me quite a paradox.”

  Karis had given Zanja’s scarcely functioning mind a glyph of words to figure out. While Zanja floundered in her divination, Karis sat with her chin upon her fist. Sometimes, a trembling passed over her. At last, Karis spoke again. “Maybe you’ve been merciless for good reasons, but you’ve been merciless nonetheless.”