Circle Opens #03: Cold Fire

by Tamora Pierce

  Outside Daja helped Gruzha to stand and released her fire weavings in the house. The flames returned to their meal.

  Ben waved some women forward. They wept as they took the wet blanket off Gruzha and wrapped her in a dry one, patting her head, face, and arms as if they couldn’t believe she was real. As they did they backed away from Daja, taking the blind girl with them. Daja sighed and held out the birds’ cage, reclaiming the silvery protective shield she had put on it. The finches began to chatter in tiny voices as a woman carefully took the cage.

  Daja looked down. Her shirt and breeches, overcome by more fire than they were spelled against, were crumbling on her body. Firefighters and those in the crowd backed away, just as Gruzha’s friends had.

  “Very admirable,” Ben snapped at the onlookers, striding toward the woman who still held Daja’s belongings. He snatched them from her hands; the woman then fled into the crowd. Ben turned to Daja and offered the girl her boots and stockings. Daja pulled on the boots, shaking her head at the stockings: they were too much trouble to put on now. Her clothes fell away in flakes as she straightened. By the time Ben shook out her coat and wrapped it around her, she wore only a breastband and loincloth. The harsh wet air raised goosebumps all over her and made her teeth chatter. She dragged more warmth into herself from the house until her teeth stopped clacking.

  “I’d see you home myself, but I’m not done here.” Ben glanced at the burning house, then scanned the crowd. “Is there a hired sleigh about —”

  Daja pointed wordlessly at Serg, who had left his place in the line of firefighters to come for her.

  Ben looked at him. “Serg, isn’t it? You’re in one of the Kadasep brigades.”

  The footman nodded, gingerly offering his arm to Daja.

  “Get her home,” Ben said. “If you’ve any hot, sweet tea, give her some. Forgive me for rushing off.” He strode over to a neighboring house, shouting to those on the roof and pointing to a cluster of shingles that had started to burn.

  Daja looked at Serg and at the offered arm: it shook. He gulped and tried a quivering mockery of the smile he’d given so readily that morning. “There are side streets we can follow to Everall Bridge,” he told her.

  Daja waved the arm aside and followed him back to the sleigh. Everyone moved away; whispers preceded them. They’ll get over it, she told herself as Serg helped her into the sleigh. They always do. Eventually.

  Later, when all the gawkers had scattered to their homes, he returned to inspect the remains of the boardinghouse. He checked them thoroughly, breaking open large clumps in case embers still burned at their hearts, but the true fire had gone. His bones ached, warning of snow on the way. If any hidden fire pockets remained, they would soon be dead, covered with snow and ice.

  Sythuthan, but she had been glorious to watch! As much as it burned him to see her go where he could not, it had been wonderful to see her in action. To watch the fire bend and reshape itself to her liking. She had gone up the steps and through the flame-wreathed door as she might walk into her own house. Flames slid from her clothes, her hair, her skin. In that moment alone she was a beauty and a terror, this stocky, brown-skinned girl with her calm, thoughtful eyes and her fistfuls of thin braids.

  He and the watchers had waited as the blind girl screamed — how was he supposed to know she was home? — for someone to help her. Then the blind girl turned from her window, and was gone. The crowd had moaned. Had the wench heard Daja? Or had the fire caught her?

  The second floor was well and truly burning by then. Flames spurted through the third floor windows at the sides of the house. He’d done such a fine job of shaping this fire, starting on both sides of the basement. It had raced first up the side walls, as he’d wanted. He’d left an escape path clear in case anyone remained inside, because he did try to cover all possibilities. He’d honestly thought he was being overcareful, that no one was there when he’d lit the wicks in their lamps of oil. He’d heard nothing as he’d prowled the cellar and the ground floor. If he’d heard anyone, he would have left the place alone. Nobody was supposed to die, particularly not some blind shopgirl, but the firefighters had to be tested. They had to prove themselves, not on some tame fire, in a building that was scheduled for destruction, but on a real fire with lives and property to worry them.

  Somewhere inside the house as it burned, after Daja had gone in, he’d heard the crash of wood and plaster. Ceilings had started to drop.

  Then, a miracle. The flames around the front door bulged out, away from the house, like a sail in a strong wind. Suddenly the bubble they formed popped, tearing the sheet of fire into long streamers. At the center of the streamers stood Daja Kisubo, a blanket-muffled body over one shoulder, a cage in her hand.

  A cage?

  Daja walked out of the building. The body was the blind girl, still very much alive. And Daja carried a cage full of finches, of all things.

  The sight of the birds made his heart twist. He hadn’t wanted to kill any animals, especially none so harmless as finches.

  Daja put the girl on her feet. Behind her the streamers of fire turned back into the doorway, released to finish their meal of wood and cloth, oils and glass.

  The idiots in the crowd shrank away from Daja. They ought to flinch from a goddess like her. They weren’t fit to kiss her bare feet as she stood there in the icy mud, offering the birdcage to anyone who would take it.

  Why was she here, in Kugisko, now? Had she come for him, to make him her servant, or her priest?

  He would have to see. He would have to find out if she was worth his service. She might not even be a goddess, just another self-satisfied mage. And wasn’t it funny, at his age, to fall in a kind of love with a teenaged girl barefoot in the mud, her clothes blackened and crumbling, her dark skin gleaming with sweat? Whatever she was, he would love her until they died.

  4

  Muffled giggles and whispers woke Daja in the morning, when she would have liked more sleep. She sat up in bed: Nia and Jory, halfway across her floor, jumped back a step. They were dressed to go outdoors.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Daja asked in her most forbidding tone. “You’re only supposed to come in when I’m here.” She always put work materials away after an early mishap in which the youngest Bancanor, inspecting her things, had turned his hand bright yellow, but there was always a chance the children could find trouble with items she couldn’t put away.

  “But you are here,” Nia replied.

  “I was asleep. That’s not here, here.” Even to a tired Daja that didn’t sound rational. “What do you want?”

  “There’s the teacher thing today, yes?” asked Jory reasonably. “And meditation after you get back, even if it’s still light. You’ll never learn how to skate this way.”

  Daja looked at them with horror. “Skate? Now? Before breakfast?”

  “It’s a good time,” Nia assured her. “We’ll have the basin to ourselves. And you have to practice till you’re used to it.”

  Daja glowered, though she knew they were right. “Who’s teaching who here?” she demanded. When she saw the twins were about to reply, she hastily put up a hand. “Never mind. I’ll meet you in the slush room.” They stared at her, unmoving; Daja sighed. “I have to clean my teeth and dress, don’t I?”

  They walked to the door. Nia was opening it when Jory squeaked and dug into a pocket. “This came for you last night,” she said, depositing a sealed note on Daja’s worktable. “From Ladradun House.” She followed Nia out.

  Daja flung off her blankets and got up. She would deal with the note later, when she remembered how to think. “First thing in the morning — no, it’s not even morning,” she grumbled. The water in her pitcher was cold. She set her palms on the pitcher’s sides, calling warmth until the ice on the water melted and she could clean her teeth and rinse her mouth without shrieking from cold.

  When they left the house, Daja shook her head with dismay. It was dawn on the rooftops of the city, but o
n the level of the boat basin and the canals it was still shadowy. “I can’t see what I’m doing,” she complained. Nia ran into a shed for torches.

  “Sometime we’ll take you night skating,” Jory promised as she and Daja sat on a bench to don their skates. “On Longnight everyone carries a torch or a lantern and skates around the city, and people have stalls where they sell tea and hot cider and winter cakes. Everyone skates till dawn — that’s how the sun finds its way back to us in the dark. And there’s singing, and baked apples, and hot pies.”

  Nia returned with lit torches, set them in sockets around the basin, then put on her own skates. She and Jory stood and glided to the center of the ice.

  “Come on,” Nia urged the seated Daja. “Let’s see how much you remember.”

  Daja grimaced and tried to stand. Her feet went out from under her; she resumed her seat on the bench, hard.

  “Dig in with the end of one skate,” Jory advised. “Or you keep moving.”

  Daja accepted this advice and managed to stand. She then yanked the toe of her skate from the ice and shot across the basin, arms windmilling. Nia and Jory slid out of her path. Two-thirds of the way across Daja’s feet kept going, but the rest of her did not. She landed on her back, staring at the pearly dawn sky.

  Jory and Nia, stifling giggles, hauled her up.

  Bruised and ready for more sleep, Daja sat down to breakfast in the busy kitchen, where no one would try to converse with her. She was nearly done when she remembered the note from Ladradun House: she’d thrust it into her pocket on leaving her room. Opening it, she checked the signature: Bennat Ladradun. She remembered his help the night before, his cool direction of the fire brigade, and smiled. He must have been exhausted, yet he’d made time to send this.

  Daja picked her way carefully through his handwriting. Ben’s letters slanted this way and that; the lines staggered across the page like drunken men. The loops of his y’s looked like claws. Weren’t tutors supposed to ensure that the sons of rich families had decent penmanship? Briar’s handwriting was clearer after only six months of study. Of course, Briar’s teacher had threatened him with death if he mislabeled her bottles. Perhaps Ben needed a teacher like Dedicate Rosethorn.

  Dear Viymese Daja,

  I would like to talk to you about the fire last night, if you would be so kind. I will not take much of your time. I will be at Ladradun House tomorrow until noon if you would visit me there, or I will call on you when you say it is convenient.

  My thanks, Ben Ladradun

  Daja folded the note. Maybe she would mention her idea for living metal gloves to him. And she would like to see the home of a true hero. How many of those was she likely to meet?

  Kugisko’s nobles built their Pearl Coast homes in stone; so did the imperial governor. In the city, all but a very few built their large houses out of wood: it was a point of pride, a willful separation from the nobility. Bancanor House and Ladradun House were both samples of Namornese woodwork. The houses sported enclosed porches that ran around the sides to the rear, ornately carved roofpieces, window, and door frames. Both were three stories tall, their workshops, chicken coops, and stables enclosed and connected to the rear of the main structure so that no one had to go outside during the bitter winter storms.

  Ladradun House was larger than Bancanor House, its windows curtained with brightly embroidered drapes displayed through expensive glass windows. Steps, window frames, and shutters were vividly painted to distract people from Namorn’s long gray winters. Soon after Daja’s arrival, the twins had given her a tour of the neighborhood, explaining that roof and window carvings showed the family’s occupation. At Ladradun House Daja saw bears, otters, lynx, hares, and beavers in the carvings, a proclamation of the family’s fur business.

  A maidservant let Daja in and led her to Ben’s study. The woman dressed in the band-collared, tunic-length blouse and long skirts of the Namornese, but unlike most, she sported no colorful embroideries. As Daja followed her they passed two other servants, a man and a woman, whose clothes were just as drab. Namornese fashion was to dress servants in matching clothes, or liveries, but Matazi had given her people a choice of three bright colors for their indoor clothes, and let them decorate with embroidery as they wished. Daja wondered if the Ladradun servants were depressed by such dull garments.

  The maid admitted her to a room containing a wooden table heaped with books and papers. Books were stuffed into shelves on the walls; more books filled a cupboard beside the window. The curtains were blue, as was the small rug on the floor. The room was cold, with no fire burning in the stove. The maid left Daja there.

  Daja settled herself in a chair to wait. There were drawings on the walls, but little else in the way of decoration. On her arrival in Namorn she’d found the clutter of designs, carvings, and vividly dyed and embroidered cloth annoying. Now she was in a house that had stripped most of that away, and she missed it.

  She was shaking her head at her folly when the maid returned with a tea tray. The girl set the tray on a corner of the table nearest Daja and filled a tea glass before she scuttled out again.

  Daja sipped her tea. It was watery: the third or fourth brewing from these leaves, not the first. Did they think she was a servant? If she were here as a Trader, to do business, she would have left. Pebbled Sea hospitality dictated food, tea, and a comfortable setting, articles as important as the business discussed. Tea like this was a slap in the face.

  “Daja, hello, hello.” Ben Ladradun walked in, making the room feel cramped. He seemed taller indoors than he had out. “You’re good to come, and so quickly. I thought you might be exhausted — we can really talk another time….”

  “No, I’m fine,” Daja said. “Truly, I am, Ravvot Ladradun.”

  “Ben, remember. Ravvot Ladradun is who I am to the people at my business. I prefer to think about business as little as possible.” He poured himself tea, put a sugar lump in his teeth, and tried to swallow. He made a face and went to the door. Leaning out, he called, “I want my tea, Yulanny.” He turned back to Daja, running a big hand over the unruly curls on top of his head. “She didn’t realize that you’re an important guest. They get in trouble if they brew fresh tea for someone who isn’t merchant class…. Where are you from exactly? I don’t think anyone mentioned it.”

  “I lived four years at Winding Circle temple in Emelan, where Frostpine’s a Dedicate,” said Daja, looking up at him. She wished he would sit. “Before that, I was a Trader on the Pebbled Sea.”

  To her relief — her neck was getting sore — he crouched to start a fire in his stove. “As I understand it, if you’re a Trader, you’re one for life.”

  “People can leave,” Daja said. “Some do, usually for love. I was made trangshi — outcast — when my family’s ship sank and I was the only one who lived.”

  “And now you’re a smith-mage.” He added wood until a healthy blaze was going.

  Daja nodded, then realized he couldn’t see it. “So they tell me,” she replied. “I keep thinking I haven’t learned nearly enough.”

  He asked her other things, about her travels, about the metals she had studied. Once the maid brought fresh tea, Ben poured for Daja and himself. Settling into his chair, he cradled his steaming glass in his hands. His left hand was unbandaged now, with newly healed skin bright pink on its back. “How do you do it?” he wanted to know. “I told you Godsforge couldn’t handle fire, though he could shape it. He made creatures for the local children on holidays. They loved his fire butterflies and dragons. But he could never have walked into a burning building like you did and come out unscathed.”

  “I don’t know how I can do it and others can’t,” Daja replied. “Though Frostpine can, too.”

  “And you can see, even inside the flames?” Ben asked.

  Daja nodded. “Just as clear as you see me.”

  Ben set his glass down, turning the metal base in his fingers. He took a deep breath, like a man about to dive into the sea, then asked. “Did
you see anything odd inside the boardinghouse? Anything unusual?”

  Daja thought, Of course. He’s probably seen hundreds of fires. He’d notice this one was not typical. “I think the fire was set,” she told him.

  He frowned. “I was afraid of that,” he commented softly. “I’d hoped I was wrong.” He coughed and sipped his tea. “Why do you think it was set?”

  Daja stared at the hearth-fire, picturing the burning house in her mind. “On the ground floor, everything to the right of the hall and everything to the left was burning. The hall and stairs were spelled against fire, but the spells weren’t that good.” She drank her tea, registering the stronger taste. “Accident fires run outward from one place. By the time this one reached those spells, it should have been big enough to roll over them.” Ben nodded. She continued, “That hall should have been on fire, too. I think it was started, maybe in the cellar, along each side of the house. That’s why the hall and stairs weren’t burning — the fire hadn’t reached them yet.”

  Ben sighed. “I think you’re right. I noticed each side was going up first, along the length of the building. It just looked wrong.”

  “Have there been other suspicious fires lately?” Daja asked.

  Ben smiled crookedly. “No. We lost a warehouse a couple of months ago, but that wasn’t suspicious. And there weren’t any big fires all summer, which is our worst season.” He shook his head. “I’ve heard some broth-brains claim we’ve made the city so safe that the fire-spirits have left us.”

  Daja made a face. “People aren’t all that clever, mostly, are they?”

  “Someone’s clever,” Ben reminded her. “Someone arranged that fire like artists arrange paints.”

  “Have you any idea who?” Daja wanted to know. “What kind of monster would burn a girl to death?”

  Ben actually flinched. “Please don’t say that,” he asked. “We came too close there. If you hadn’t arrived —”