The Fire Seer

by Amy Raby

  Mandir reached for the body, but thought better of it and drew away.

  “I’ll get her,” said the brother. He carefully lifted the dead woman out of the tangle of plants and moved away. With a little encouragement from Mandir, the other farmers followed him. They walked back about thirty yards and turned, forming a rough semicircle to watch the scrying.

  Taya swept her arms through the air, calling fire in a great swath around her. Mother, you are death and you are rebirth, she spoke in the mother tongue. You are the warmth which sustains us and the punisher who scours sinners’ bones. You are the torch and the candle flame; you are the grass fire that licks across the prairie. I am your humble daughter, who loves and fears you.

  The flames around her pulsed yellow, a sign of approval.

  One of your daughters perished here. Great Mother, help me learn how it happened.

  Images appeared in the fire. Taya saw young Jaina crouched in the fields, plucking weeds from between the cotton plants. No one was in her immediate vicinity, though in the distance other farmers weeded their crops. Jaina raised her head to mop her face, and Taya noticed she didn’t look healthy. She had the stiff, glassy-eyed look of someone in pain. For a while, she continued to work. Then, blinking, she staggered to her feet. Her body cramped. Her muscles bulged, and her limbs bent at strange angles. She fell to the ground, jerking and seizing. After a short while, her body stopped moving. The images disappeared.

  Taya extinguished the fire. Thank you, Mother.

  Across the field, Mandir and the farmers stared.

  Flushed and faint from the proximity of the fire, she headed toward them. It wasn’t Coalition policy to share the content of fire visions with people outside the organization, but in this case she and Mandir needed help interpreting the vision. It had not shown the murderer. “She died of convulsions. Either she was afflicted with a fast-acting illness, or she was poisoned.” She turned to the stricken brother, who held the body. “Help me reconstruct her day. Where had she been before she began her work in this field?”

  “At home,” said the brother.

  A distant jingling signaled the approach of a zebu-drawn cart, sent by the priests and bureaucrats to collect the body. The farmers fell silent.

  “Did she go to the fields alone, or in company?” asked Taya.

  “Alone.”

  Taya nodded. That left any number of possibilities as to where she could have been poisoned. She could have met the murderer along the way and drank or eaten something he’d given her. Or she might have been poisoned at her own home. “Where did she eat breakfast this morning?”

  “She did not eat breakfast,” said the brother.

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “We had nothing.”

  The cart pulled up, and Taya moved away so that the appropriate rituals could be performed. A priest sprinkled the body with flower petals and then with purified water for the closing of the eyes. She waited as the chants were intoned and the body ritually offered to the Mothers. Jaina’s body was frighteningly thin, which suggested that either she was chronically ill or food was scarce in her family. She’d been farming cotton at the time she died, so her family was probably one of those which had taken out a loan and fallen prey to Bodhan’s greed.

  When the body had been loaded onto the cart, Taya pulled the brother aside again. “Had she been ill before now?”

  “Not at all,” said the brother.

  “Will you show me your house?” she asked.

  The brother nodded.

  They made a solemn procession back to Hrappa, the zebu cart carrying Jaina’s body and the peasant farmers walking alongside with lowered heads. Taya and Mandir rode horseback, holding their mounts to a mincing walk.

  At the gates of Hrappa, the zebu cart departed for the artisans’ district, where the body would be washed and prepared for its funeral pyre, and Jaina’s brother led Taya and Mandir into the farmers’ district. He brought them to a home of mud brick, much like the others except that its thatching had been punched through on one side by the storm and hadn’t yet been repaired. Here Jaina had lived along with her parents, her grandmother, and her siblings. The grandmother and two young children were the only ones at home. Everyone else had gone out to the fields when they’d heard the news, or had already been there working at the time it had happened.

  As the still-wailing mother was led across the room to a seat, where her family members surrounded her with hugs and a fresh flow of tears, Taya retreated a step and almost backed into Mandir. He laid a hand on her shoulder to steady her, and almost immediately removed it. She felt the warmth of his body behind her. At first she found it comforting, but then the memories flooded back, her waking unexpectedly in his bed this morning, the argument that had followed. She grimaced.

  A young woman, perhaps Jaina’s sister, approached Taya, brushing tears from her eyes. “We greatly appreciate your help. May I get you anything?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Tea? Beer?”

  Taya stared at the woman. Her family was obviously poor. They hadn’t had enough to eat breakfast this morning, and for a farmer heading out to work in the fields, that was the day’s most important meal. Why would she offer anything to well-fed Coalition members such as Mandir and herself?

  “No, thank you,” rumbled Mandir.

  “But we appreciate your kindness,” added Taya. “I’m sorry for your loss. Mandir and I will do everything we can to find and punish the person who murdered Jaina.”

  Perhaps that was why this family was so welcoming, as compared to the families they’d visited previously. These people wanted justice. That was something the Coalition could deliver, and without charging a fortune for it. The woman drifted away, returning to her family.

  Jaina’s brother stood apart from the rest. Though his face was etched with misery, he seemed the calmest and most resigned of the group. Taya beckoned to him, and he joined her and Mandir.

  “What’s your name?” Taya asked.

  “Navati,” said the brother.

  “Mandir and I need to ask you some difficult questions.”

  “I will answer what I can,” said Navati.

  “Has your family had a court case up for judgment by the magistrate within the last few years?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the court case about?”

  “Some years ago we borrowed money from Bodhan isu Kasirum,” said Navati. “But we could not pay it back. Now we farm cotton for Bodhan, and he does not pay us a fair price.”

  “So you took your case to the magistrate. Has he ruled on it yet?”

  “He ruled against us.”

  “Now we come to the part you may not wish to talk about, but it’s important,” said Taya. “Did your family make any sort of private arrangement, concerning the case, with any member of the magistrate’s family? Specifically, with the magistrate’s son who was murdered?”

  Navati’s face hardened. “I do not know what you mean.”

  “Think carefully. I swear on the Fire Mother’s name that I mean no harm to your family. I intend only to capture and punish the person who killed Jaina. Was there an arrangement that involved Jaina?”

  “There was no such arrangement.”

  “There are penalties,” Mandir drawled from behind her, “for lying to the Coalition.”

  Navati darted a fearful glance up at Mandir. “There was no arrangement. Also, this jackal you are looking for—that is not the person who killed Jaina.”

  Taya frowned. How could he possibly know it was not the jackal, unless he had information he wasn’t sharing? “Why do you say that?”

  “The jackal kills with fire. This other kills with poison.”

  That was true—she’d had the same thought herself—but she couldn’t help feeling that he knew something more, something he wasn’t telling her. “It is not uncommon for a murderer to kill using more than one method.”

  His eyes slid away from hers. “The jackal did not kill Jaina. I am certa
in of this. You must find the person who did.”

  “We need to inspect your house,” said Mandir. “Jaina may have been poisoned within these walls.”

  Navati nodded and gestured for them to proceed.

  Taya went first to the cellar, a cramped, below-ground space crowded with clay jars. She lifted the lid off one jar after another. They were empty. A stray grain or two lurked at the bottoms of some, telling her what they had held in better times: wheat, peas, barley. A wooden cask held a few inches of beer. Mandir smelled it and tasted a drop. He shook his head.

  They climbed out of the cellar and searched the house itself. There were only two rooms, the common room where the family slept, and a washroom. In the washroom, they found a ewer of water. Again, Mandir smelled and tasted it. “Not poisoned, at least not that I can taste.”

  Finally they went out into the courtyard. Like most Hrappan courtyards, it was fully enclosed by other houses and shared with three other families. In the center was a cook pit filled with ashes. Each family had its own personal garden, encircled by a low rock wall.

  A spectacular banana plant grew in the garden belonging to Jaina’s family.

  “Look,” said Taya, redirecting Mandir’s attention from the cookpit, where he was inspecting the ashes. “It’s not blighted.”

  He nodded.

  She walked up to the banana plant to examine it more closely. Its stem was thick and straight, its sail-like leaves wide and unblemished. Coolness drifted down from the plant’s canopy, a blessed relief from the hot sun. The plant carried no fruit at all, but when it was ready to produce, she had no doubt it would do so in spectacular fashion.

  Across the courtyard, she spotted a second banana plant, also healthy. “That one’s not blighted, either.”

  Mandir nodded. “You’re right. Well, I see no evidence of poison here, or anything else.”

  “Yes, but the banana plants...” She couldn’t help but feel that this was important. The family they’d visited two days ago had said that all the farmers’ trees were blighted, except for a few on Zash’s plantation. But here were two flawless, healthy plants. How could the blight not have spread to them? They were close in proximity to the blighted ones she’d seen before, and blight was notoriously contagious.

  “Their plants haven’t caught the blight yet,” said Mandir.

  Taya frowned. Her farmer instincts told her that was unlikely. “I want to take another look at that plant we saw night before last.”

  Mandir grunted. “We’ve got more important things to do.”

  “It won’t take long. We needn’t even speak to the family; I can look at the plant from outside their courtyard.”

  Taya expected Jaina’s family to be relieved when they said they were leaving, but instead she found herself surrounded by adults and children thanking her and touching fingers. Mandir was similarly mobbed. He was gracious, but she could see that the attention of these strangers made him ill at ease. Just inside the door, the mother ran up to them, carrying a necklace of glass beads. “I am sorry we have nothing more to offer,” she said, pressing the necklace into Taya’s hands. “We are grateful for your help.”

  The family left them alone once they were outdoors. Puzzled, Taya examined the necklace. It seemed perfectly ordinary and safe. She collected Pepper from where she was ground tied, and mounted. This family was so friendly and the others so resentful. Why the difference? Was it because their daughter had been killed and they hoped Taya and Mandir would bring her justice? Or was there some other reason?

  “Let’s go back to the house and talk this over,” said Mandir.

  Taya nodded; maybe Mandir had noticed something she hadn’t. “On the way back, I want to look at that other tree.”

  “You’ve seen it before,” said Mandir.

  Taya ignored him and neck-reined her mare down to the street where the other family lived, the one which had been so rude to her and Mandir when they’d visited. From her vantage point on Pepper’s back, she could just see over the courtyard wall. She fixed her eyes on the banana plant, whose canopy reached well above the wall. The plant was lush and healthy.

  She twisted around, excited. “It’s not blighted anymore.”

  Mandir squinted at the tree. “It must be, if it was before. Blight doesn’t heal on its own, does it? Maybe you can’t tell from this distance.”

  “No, I know a blighted tree when I see one. That plant is no longer blighted, and that means somebody has healed it.” A terrible thought occurred to her. Her heart pounded. “What if it was the jackal who healed it?”

  He kicked his horse over to her side, leaned over, and spoke softly in her ear. “Let’s not speak of Coalition business here. People are about, and they are listening.”

  “But this changes everything! Do you see?”

  “We’ll discuss it at the guesthouse.”

  She nodded, but she could hardly contain her excitement, let alone her fear, at this new discovery. The jackal had healed the plants, and that couldn’t be done without a thorough understanding of the mother tongue. She and Mandir were not dealing with an untrained magic user at all. They were dealing with someone far more dangerous, a mage who’d had Coalition training.

  “Come on,” she said to Mandir, and clucked to her horse.

  Chapter 30: Hrappa

  To Taya’s annoyance, Mandir would not go straight home but insisted upon their stopping at the baths first. In the excitement of the morning’s happenings, she had forgotten about bathing. Though she still smelled of smoke and incense from the party, it didn’t bother her as much as it had earlier this morning. This new development in the case, however unfortunate for the young woman and her family, had provided Taya with a distraction from the awkwardness of last night. But now was the best time to bathe, while the pools were fresh and available. When the farmers came in from the fields, there would be hardly room in the baths to move.

  When they returned to the guesthouse, clean and sweet-smelling, Taya invited Mandir inside.

  “Those banana trees,” she began, just as the door closed. “They were healed by someone with Coalition training.”

  “You’re assuming they were,” said Mandir. “But maybe they were never blighted in the first place.”

  “No, I didn’t make a mistake. Someone healed the blight, and that’s not something a jackal can do. It requires knowledge of the mother tongue. Our jackal is far more powerful than we thought.”

  Mandir said nothing.

  “Do you not see? The jackal must have had Coalition training. Either that or knowledge of the mother tongue has leaked out of the Coalition. One way or another, this is a serious problem. We have to notify the elders. Let’s send them a message. I’ll dictate if you’ll write.” She headed for her shelves, where she kept her tablets and stylus—and then remembered that the tablets had been stolen.

  “Taya.” Mandir seized her arm. “You don’t want to notify the Coalition elders.”

  “We have to tell them.”

  “We haven’t found the jackal yet. All the Coalition will know is that someone healed some blighted trees without authorization or payment—and whom do you suppose suspicion will fall upon?”

  She blinked. “The jackal.”

  “No,” he said. “You and me.”

  “They won’t think that.”

  “Won’t they?” said Mandir. “Who’s to say the Coalition won’t believe that one or both of us did it? They might go easy on you, but they’ll never go easy on me. I’ve had a Year of Penance already.”

  “If we notify them right away, suspicion will be less likely to fall on us.”

  Mandir raised an eyebrow. “How naive you are to think that.”

  Her cheeks flushed. She hated when he called her naive; it reminded her of all the times she’d been ashamed of her farming family and her lack of education before Mohenjo Temple. She yanked her arm out of his grip. “No matter what, we have to write up that vision Isatis gave me. We can do that now and discuss the oth
er thing later. And I’ll need to borrow one of your tablets.”

  Mandir left through the courtyard door and returned with several tablets and a stylus. “You dictate, and I’ll write.”

  Taya took a seat at the table. She’d deal with the problem of the mysteriously healed banana plants later, perhaps when Mandir had thought about it a little more and realized how important it was. She hadn’t expected him to be so skittish about the Coalition authorities. “What are we going to do about the missing mission tablets?”

  Mandir’s brow wrinkled as he sat across from her. “I don’t know. Maybe rewrite everything.”

  Taya made a face.

  “You have a better idea?”

  “Let’s not rewrite it all just yet,” she said. “I’m not sure that I remember all the details. Let’s just hope that when we find the jackal, we’ll find the missing tablets along with her.”

  Mandir smoothed some water over the clay to moisten it, etched the introductory words at the top of the tablet and looked at Taya expectantly. “All right, your vision. Begin.”

  She recounted the vision to him in as much detail as she could remember. This one was less involved than the first, and thus easier. She finished her dictation in twenty minutes, and Mandir needed only one tablet to write it down.

  As he etched the final words into the clay and picked up the tablet to scan for errors, someone knocked at the door.

  It was Rasik, carrying two trays of food. He shoved one of them at Taya. “Lunch.”

  Taya did not take the tray. Instead, she glanced back guiltily at the breakfast tray a servant had delivered earlier, which she had moved to a shelf and ignored. She inhaled the rich scents of peas and onions and roasted lamb from lunch, and her stomach rumbled.

  Mandir rose from the table. “Sorry,” he told Rasik. “We don’t want you to bring food anymore.”