The Fire Seer

by Amy Raby

  Bodhan looked perplexed. “It was, and still is, a wonderful opportunity for her. She will be marrying into the ruling caste.”

  “How does she feel about having two husbands?” said Taya. “It’s not her way. She was raised in the artisan caste.”

  “The more fathers, the stronger the heirs,” said Bodhan. “Kana knows this and grieves for the loss of one of the fathers.”

  Taya frowned. She wasn’t getting anywhere with this line of questioning, and she didn’t get the impression Bodhan cared much about either of his daughters. “What were the brothers like? I’ve met Kalbi, but I never had the opportunity to know Hunabi.”

  “Quality men, both of them, but then, they are ruling caste. Kalbi, the elder, is responsible and serious. Hunabi was brave and daring.”

  “Sir, we would like to test your daughter Kana for magical ability,” said Mandir.

  “You cannot possibly think my daughter is your jackal!” said Bodhan.

  Taya blinked, trying not to let her bewilderment show. What was Mandir talking about? There was no test for magical ability. The only way the Coalition could identify new initiates was to watch them perform magic, and if initiates chose not to perform, the magic could not be compelled from them.

  “It’s just a formality,” said Mandir. “Because your daughter has a connection to two of the murder victims, she is naturally a suspect. We need only test her, and once we are assured she has no magic, she won’t be a suspect any longer.”

  “Well,” said Bodhan, looking nervous, “I suppose that makes sense. When do you propose to test her?”

  “Right now,” said Mandir.

  “Very well.” Bodhan rose from the table and led them down a hallway to another room where a young woman sat at a worktable littered with jars and tools and scraps of clay. She was using a small pointed tool to etch designs onto a sculpted figurine. The girl had talent, Taya thought. Perhaps she had made the gazelles in the entryway. Her sculpture, though incomplete, was easy to identify. It was a river dolphin with sleek lines and a frightening array of teeth.

  The girl was neither the jackal nor the witness she’d seen in her vision.

  Mandir picked up Taya’s hand, which startled her until she realized he simply desired her signal. She made a double slash mark on his palm, and he released her.

  “That’s a lovely sculpture,” said Taya. “Your name is Kana?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Kana’s voice was soft. She seemed a shy, unassuming girl.

  “We’ve come to test you for magical ability,” said Mandir. “Hold out your hand.”

  Kana looked frightened. “I don’t have the Gift.”

  “It’s all right,” said Bodhan. “They just want to eliminate you as a suspect.”

  “Your hand, please,” said Mandir.

  Kana set down the clay-etching tool and held out her hand.

  Mandir took it and positioned it palm down. “Some droplets of water are going to fall on your knuckles. If they fall toward your little finger, then you have nothing to worry about; you’re nonmagical. If they fall toward your thumb, then you have the Gift.”

  Kana nodded, shifting nervously in her seat.

  “Don’t move,” scolded Mandir. “If you move your hand, I shall know you are trying to cheat. But don’t worry. If you’re not the jackal, you have nothing to fear.”

  Again Kana nodded.

  Three water drops materialized from the air and dropped onto Kana’s hand. Taya could see from the angle Mandir was holding Kana’s hand that the drops ought to fall toward her thumb. Kana was trembling; no doubt she could see that too. Yet the drops, defying nature, sat where they were. After several long seconds, the droplets slid down Kana’s hand toward her little finger. Kana sighed in relief.

  Mandir had moved those droplets with magic. Taya was certain of it.

  “Well, we know you’re not the culprit,” said Mandir. “Perhaps you could answer some questions for us?”

  ∞

  Later, in the privacy of her guesthouse, Taya was finally able to ask Mandir what he was up to. “Why did you make up that business about the magic test?”

  He shrugged. “It was just an idea I had.”

  “You moved the droplets yourself.”

  “Of course,” said Mandir. “We don’t want everyone in Hrappa to know you can identify the jackal on sight. So I thought we might like to have a ruse that allows us to look at people without their realizing that looking is all we’re after. If word gets around as to how the test is administered, the jackal might not be frightened of being tested. She knows that by using magic, she can manipulate the drops into falling on the correct side.”

  Taya took a seat at the table. “All right. I’ll grant that’s not a bad idea.”

  The visit to Bodhan’s had been only modestly illuminating. Kana was innocent, and questioning her hadn’t yielded any information beyond what Bodhan had already told them. Kana seemed a submissive, obedient girl who parroted whatever her father told her. She and Mandir had questioned the clerk as well, who had corroborated Bodhan’s tale about the magical flood. To learn more, Taya would have to go to the actual murder site, scry, and hope for a vision from Isatis. She also needed to visit the family of the boy who hadn’t shown up that day. They’d learned his name was Kamber, and he was the son of a baker woman.

  Might it be more productive simply to go door-to-door in Hrappa, looking for the jackal under the pretense of using Mandir’s test for magical ability? She already knew what the jackal looked like. There didn’t seem to be much more Isatis could tell her, although she wouldn’t mind getting a closer look in a second vision.

  Raindrops pattered on the rooftop.

  “There’s our storm,” said Mandir.

  Chapter 10: Hrappa

  By sunset, the rain had become a downpour. Mandir sat alone on the bed in his guesthouse, bored, disinterested in either food or sleep. It was too bad Taya resented his presence, or he’d spend the evening with her. He wasn’t accustomed to being alone. At the Temple, he’d always had friends around.

  In the distance, a single blast of the horn sounded, which meant the gates were closing in case the river overflowed its banks. All the townsfolk should be inside by now anyway. No Hrappan citizen would be foolish enough to venture outside the walls after dark with a storm rolling in.

  Thunder grumbled in the distance. Mandir moved to the window to see if he might catch a glimpse of the next lightning strike. This storm was more than just Agu’s fury. Isatis was on the rampage as well.

  He should check on Taya, just in case. Not that the storm presented any immediate danger. But he was her quradum, and her safety was his responsibility.

  Opening the courtyard door, he looked outside. The rain fell in diagonal sheets, galloping across the courtyard. At least the distance he had to cover was short. He charged across the courtyard, knocked quickly at Taya’s door, and let himself in, hoping she wasn’t naked inside. All right, he wouldn’t mind if she was naked, but she would mind if he saw her in such a state. He turned around and faced the doorway, just in case.

  “Taya,” he called.

  No answer.

  He turned back around. Taya’s dinner, partially eaten, sat on her table, but the woman herself was nowhere to be seen. Her bed was made, not as neatly as he had made his own, but clearly it had lain untouched since morning.

  “Taya,” he called, louder this time. Perhaps the washroom? He walked around the corner to check, but she was not there either. The house was tiny, and he’d searched the entire place.

  Why would she leave the guesthouse in the middle of a storm? The gates were closing, and she would not work on the case without him—she ought not to, anyway. She hadn’t expressed a need to buy anything. Her food was provided for her, and all the shops in the artisan district would be closed.

  Did she have a secret lover in Hrappa?

  No. That was ludicrous. She’d only arrived yesterday, and he’d been with her almost the entire time.
>
  Could someone have kidnapped her? Lured her away?

  The front door was unbarred. Mandir burst through it.

  Rain pelted his head and shoulders and pooled around his feet. The streets were dark. He summoned globes of fire at intervals for visibility, but they revealed only emptiness and rain.

  He splashed to the Hall of Judgment. There, under the covered stairway, he shook the water from his hair like a dog and pounded on the door.

  A guard with a mace at his belt answered it.

  “I need Rasik,” said Mandir. “My partner’s missing.”

  The guard looked him over. “Rasik’s off duty.”

  “Get him back on duty. I need to talk to him.”

  The guard shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it’d be my head if I tried to drag him out now. If you want to talk to him, he lives over there.” He pointed at a house down the street.

  Mandir headed out into the rain again. Rasik’s house looked, from the outside, a lot like his own guesthouse, except a little larger. He banged on the door.

  Rasik answered it with an expectant air but frowned when he saw Mandir. “I’m off duty. Talk to me in the morning.” He started to shut the door.

  Mandir caught the door and forced it back open. “My partner’s missing. Help me find her.”

  A baby wailed somewhere inside the house, and a woman’s voice spoke. Mandir couldn’t make out the words. Rasik turned in the direction of the voice and called, “No, dinner’s not here yet. It’s something else.” Then to Mandir, “I’m not your partner’s keeper. You lost her, you find her.”

  “She left the guesthouse through the front door,” said Mandir. “You’ve been out and about preparing for the storm—if not you, then the servants under your command. Somebody must have seen her leave.”

  He heard splashing behind him in the street. Mandir turned, hoping it might be Taya, but it was only a servant boy delivering a leather pouch. Rasik accepted it wordlessly and said to Mandir, “You want me to question all the magistrate’s servants because you don’t know where your partner is? Do it yourself.”

  “If she comes to harm, things will go badly for you,” said Mandir. “The Coalition will send another team out here—”

  “Who’s to say she’s come to harm?” said Rasik. “Maybe she just went for a walk.”

  “In this?” Mandir gestured at the pouring rain.

  “Excuse me,” said the servant boy. “Do you mean the Coalition lady?”

  Mandir turned eagerly. “Have you seen her?”

  “She’s in the stable,” said the boy.

  “The stable?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Where is the stable?”

  “Show him,” Rasik said to the boy.

  Mandir followed the boy through the muddy streets to the stable. The huge doors, large enough to admit a horse or even a wagon, were ajar, and he found himself able to slip inside without opening them farther.

  The barn was warm and dry. It smelled wholesome, of hay and straw and well-groomed horses, with just a hint of manure. The animals were restless. Some stamped their feet or circled in their stalls, distressed by the storm. But the servant boy was right. Taya was here. Mandir couldn’t see her, but he could hear her voice. She was crooning to some creature in one of the far stalls.

  Mandir brushed the rivulets off his rain-spattered clothes—flood and fire, he hated looking disheveled—and finger-combed his hair. He stalked down the aisle, relieved at having found her but furious that she’d made him worry and run around like a fool in the rain.

  He rounded the stable aisle and spotted her. “What in the Mothers’ names are you doing here? I looked all over for you!”

  Taya jumped at his sudden words. She was standing in one of the animals’ stalls. The black horse in the adjoining stall, startled, flung up its head and reared, and then capered about the stall, kicking at the walls.

  “Look what you’ve done,” snapped Taya. “I only just got her calmed down.”

  Mandir looked again at the black horse. “Is that Pepper?” He felt sheepish. Even he ought to know better than to make sudden movements in a stable. If Taya had been in the stall with Pepper, she might have been hurt.

  “She gets crazy during storms.” One of Pepper’s hooves connected with the stall door. Taya winced.

  “Well, you shouldn’t have run off without telling me.”

  “I didn’t go running off. I went to the stable, which was practically next door.”

  Mandir opened his mouth to retort, and then closed it. He was making a mess of things. However justified his anger might be, he was going to have to rein it in, or he’d lose Taya again like he had at Mohenjo. Taya was too sensitive and too stubborn to be won with harsh treatment. He would win her with gentleness or not at all.

  He unclenched his fists and tried to breathe normally. The stall Taya stood in held, to his surprise, a dwarf elephant, which Taya was scratching behind the ears as she eyed her fractious mare. “Who’s the elephant?” he asked. “Is he yours?”

  “His name is Piru,” she said. “A placid creature, thank the Mothers. He’s not mine; he belongs to the Coalition. He’s to carry back Hrappa’s tax payment.”

  “He traveled here with you?” Mandir tentatively stroked the elephant’s trunk, and it came questing up toward his face. Alarmed, he stepped away. “What does he want?”

  Taya laughed. “Food—he thinks you might have a treat. Yes, he traveled here with me, and he’ll travel back as well.”

  “I’m sorry I spooked your horse,” said Mandir. “I was worried when I couldn’t find you. I thought something might have happened to you.”

  Taya smiled wryly. “You needn’t worry about me so much. I know what the jackal looks like, and she’s just an untrained girl. She doesn’t frighten me.”

  “Worrying about you is my job,” said Mandir. “And the jackal is not the only danger in Hrappa.”

  “My magic is strong. The Coalition wouldn’t have given me this if it wasn’t.” She touched the fire agate on her belt.

  “And they wouldn’t have assigned you a quradum if they didn’t think you needed protection,” said Mandir. “Help me do my job by letting me know when you’re going to leave the guesthouse. Please?”

  “I suppose that’s fair.” Taya frowned at him. “But you have to promise not to yell at me.”

  “Deal,” said Mandir. “Touch fingers?”

  Taya hesitantly extended her hand, and they touched fingers.

  “There’s something else,” said Mandir. “I want to apologize.”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “For what?”

  “For the way I treated you at Mohenjo Temple,” said Mandir.

  Taya turned away with a bitter laugh.

  Anger simmered in Mandir’s chest. “You think that’s funny?”

  “You think you can make up for four years of torment with an apology?”

  She had a point. Mandir felt the inadequacy of his words. “It was wrong of me. All of it, especially the fire maze. I look back on those days with regret.”

  Taya shrugged. “Thanks, I suppose.”

  “You suppose?”

  “Did you think it would make those four years go away?”

  Mandir left the stall door and paced down the aisle. He hadn’t expected this to go well, but still, he’d hoped. “What do you want from me, Taya? You want me to get down on my knees and beg your forgiveness?”

  “No.” She made a face. “That would be embarrassing for both of us.”

  Mandir stared at her. He’d thought for certain she would go for the begging-on-his-knees option, not that he planned to seriously do it.

  “Maybe you underestimate how much harm you did at Mohenjo. I was a farmer, the only person of that caste in the entire class. You were not only ruling caste, you were royal—”

  “A royal bastard,” said Mandir. “With no title, no inheritance, and no acknowledgement from the royal family, except from my father, who’s the family e
mbarrassment.”

  “Important details you kept secret for almost a year,” said Taya. “Everyone looked up to you. The way you treated me set an example. Had you been kind and accepting, they would have been kind and accepting too. Instead you mocked and harassed me. And they joined in.”

  Mandir grimaced. That was true. He’d been the de facto leader of that initiate class, thanks to his name and tattoo, and he’d set the tone. He couldn’t even claim it had been accidental. He’d singled her out on purpose.

  “All those years at the Temple, I had no friends my own age. You made certain that I was alone. And I stayed alone after you left.”

  “That I don’t believe,” said Mandir. “Several of the boys in our class secretly liked you. They wouldn’t have approached you while I was there, but after I left, I’m sure a few of them came sniffing around.”

  “They did,” said Taya. “I sent them away.”

  Mandir spread his arms. “How is that my fault?”

  “Would you want to be friends with someone who used to torment you? I don’t even understand why you did it. How did it profit you to harass me? You were respected and admired without even trying.”

  “I did it because I was in love with you,” said Mandir.

  Taya rolled her eyes. “Ridiculous. Give me a real reason.”

  “That is the real reason,” said Mandir. “Do you remember the day we met, when I showed you how to eat lirry fruit?”

  “I remember.” Her eyes went distant, and she looked sad.

  “I fell in love with you the instant I laid eyes on you,” said Mandir. “But I was horrified by that. You were a farmer! I was a bastard, and I didn’t want that discovered. To throw off suspicion, I associated exclusively with the ruling caste. I pushed you away, publicly and emphatically, determined I should fall out of love with you.”

  “Mandir, you can’t treat someone like that and call it love.”

  “It was...a twisted love. The only excuse I can claim is that I was fifteen years old and stupid, and I grew up in a household that taught me nothing but cruelty.”

  She shook her head. “You made your own choices.”

  “Did you ever like me?” asked Mandir.