Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling

  If they ever do, he thought. Aloud: "OK, people, volunteers for fostering!"

  * * * *

  "What's that?" Sally asked, pointing to a big black-walnut tree as the wagon creaked and jounced over the ruts of the logging road.

  Juniper Mackenzie looked up. She'd been musing on how to get the food stores out of the Fairfax place and safely into her cabin's cellar and her barn. That was why she'd decided to take the steeper way from the back of the farm up through the belt of forest and to her land. It was quicker, and if the logger's trucks hadn't torn it up too much she might spend the rest of the day getting a first load.

  And do my shed and barn and cellar have enough room for all those seed potatoes? They need to be kept in a cool dark place until we plant. Needs must, we could bury them under straw in trenches, I suppose—

  On the path-side tree was a wheel with eight spokes. A plank below it had letters burned into the wood: EWTWRF: AIHN, DAYW. Embracing the wheel was a huge pair of elk antlers—once the pride of her great-uncle's cabin—with a silver-painted crescent moon between them on the wheel's hub, points upward.

  "That's the Wheel of the Year," Juniper said. "Crescent Moon for the Goddess; horns for the God, of course; we're the Singing Moon Coven, too. I put it up a long time ago, when I was in my new-convert, in-your-face phase."

  "And the letters?"

  "That's an acronym." She recited: "Eight Words The Wiccan Rede Fulfill: An It Harm None, Do As Ye Will. It's our basic commandment, you might say. 'Rede' is just an old word for maxim or precept or advice."

  Huge Oregon white oak and Douglas fir stood tall around them; the living musty-yeasty-green smell of the spring woods was strong. The woods were second growth, but the area hadn't been clear-cut since before World War I, and they'd been carefully managed for most of the time since, not to mention widely planted with valuable hardwoods like the walnut. Their rich mast of nuts and acorns attracted game, too.

  Dappled sunlight flowed over the rutted dirt of the road in a moving kaleidoscope, and Eilir and Dennis strode ahead of the horses, signing to each other. Terry was curled up asleep on a nest of sacks behind them in the wagon, and the Jersey cow walked along tethered to its rear, with her calf following of its own accord. Sally looked much more herself with a few days' rest and food; also much more ready to ask questions. She gave Juniper an odd sidelong look.

  "That's … ah … a very civilized maxim," she said, glancing over her shoulder as they passed the sign.

  "True. It's also bloody difficult, if you take it seriously; it includes psychological harm, and it includes harming yourself. Very different from follow your whim."

  "I … it's sort of difficult to believe you're actually a, ah … "

  "Witch," Juniper said, grinning. She put an index finger on the tip of her nose and waggled it back and forth. "But this is broken, so I can't magic us up much in the way of goods."

  At Sally's blank look, she went on: "Classical reference." And my collection of Bewitched episodes on tape useless, curse it.

  "Anyway, the Craft is a religion—magic is sort of one aspect of it, not the whole thing—and anything you've heard about it is probably wrong. Or read, or seen in a movie especially."

  That did get through, thankfully. At least my charitable impulse didn't saddle me with a fanatic who doesn't believe in 'suffering a Witch to live.' You found those in the most surprising places.

  Juniper went on aloud: "My coven meets here, for the Sabbats and some Esbats; the Coven of the Singing Moon. We have a nemed, a sacred wood and … It's sort of a private faith; you won't find us knocking on doors, and we don't claim a monopoly on truth or think ourselves better than others."

  Then she shrugged. "Well, being human, we actually do think we're better, but most of us try not to act like it. And … we did meet here. Goddess knows how many of my bunch are alive now."

  "Is Dennie one of your … ah … coven?" Sally asked; she seemed to be having trouble making herself say certain words. "Ah … I'm a Buddhist myself."

  "No; he's a blatant materialist, the poor man. And he's not Eilir's father, either; I know you were dying to ask. Or my lover. Eilir is living proof that you can get pregnant your first time: Is minic a chealg briathra mine cailin crionna, as Mom used to say. Many a prudent girl was led astray with honeyed words. By smooth-talking football players in senior high; bad cess to him, but I can't regret Eilir."

  Sally gave a chuckle of laughter. "She's a nice girl, even … "

  She touched her leg where the wound from the crossbow bolt was healing nicely. Neither of them mentioned the fact that a few inches up and to the left and it would have cut her femoral artery and spilled all her life's blood on the road.

  "She's a wonder, and that's the truth," Juniper said, happy for a moment. Thinking about Eilir usually made her feel that way. "Anyway, we're an eclectic Georgian group who favor Celtic symbolism; which means nothing to you, of course, but think of it as our equivalent of being Episcopalians."

  "You're single, then?"

  "No, handfasted." At Sally's blank look she went on: "Married, in Wiccaspeak. My man was in Eugene when things Changed. He's a systems analyst, of all things, but he loves the old music—that's how we met; and he's my High Priest. Think of it as being the vice-president of the coven." Softly: "Rudy's his name, Rudy Starn, and I'm trying not to think about him much. He'll know I've headed here, and I tell myself he'd want me to wait with Eilir until he comes, but it's hard, hard."

  Then she held up a hand. Dennis had walked up to the crest of the ridge; that ought to give him a good view of the cabin, and he was using the binoculars as well. When he turned she stiffened in alarm, but he didn't seem frightened himself—just puzzled. And Eilir tore over the ridge and disappeared at a run, which she wouldn't do if there was anything to fear.

  "Whoa, Cagney, Lacey," she said as she pulled in the team, set the brake lever—they couldn't be expected to lean into the traces on an upslope for long—and waited until Dennis trotted back to her, his face alight.

  "What is it?" she demanded.

  "There are people there," he answered. Alarm rammed through her, but he went on: "I recognize a couple of them, though, seen them with you. Chuck Barstow—I'd know that silly hat he wears anywhere. And a couple of others; come see for yourself."

  A surge of hope ran through her, shocking, like a cold electric jolt. There's no real refuge from what's happening with the world; and what refuge there is, is in other people. An added joy: And Rudy might be there.

  He'd been leaving on a trip down to California, to San Jose and Silicon Valley; a surprising number of Wiccans were in software.

  But maybe his flight didn't leave before the Change and he made it up here already!

  "It's the Singing Moon," she said aloud; poor Sally would be bewildered. "Or at least some of them. They'd know the way; I should have expected it; Goddess, I halfway did, as much as I dared. Chuck or Judy would have thought of coming here, at least, and we were supposed to have a meeting, the night of the Change—I was to drive in. They had farther to come, but probably had to hide less on the way."

  She flicked the reins and released the brake; another bit of steep climb, a turn to the left, and they broke into the open.

  A long stretch of rolling upland meadow opened out to either side, new grass rippling green and thick-streaked with early blue camas and rose-pink sorrel, dotted with big white oaks; forest-shaggy hills dark with conifers rose steep to the north. Off in the distance to the right a small waterfall went in spray down a rock face, formed a pool surrounded by willows, then lazed across the open plateau in a series of curves before vanishing from sight.

  "Those people are your, umm, coven?" Sally asked, as they rattled down the rough track towards the cabin.

  Eight adults and more children were running towards them, waving and shouting; Eilir was hopping up and down as she greeted them, and Cuchulain doing his usual barking wiggle at the familiar scents. Juniper scanned their faces, easy to recog
nize despite the distance.

  "They're most of it," she said. "Chuck, Judy, Diana, Andy, Susan, Dorothy, Karl and Dave—and their kids— but all those children in the green blazers? I don't recognize them! Nor the wagons they all rode in on!"

  Parked in front where the laneway curved by the house and trailed off to the right were …

  Juniper blinked. Now, that is a covered wagon, is it not? she thought.

  And strapped to its sides was a variety of historic junk, including an old-fashioned walking plow. The coveners had just begun unloading bales and sacks and boxes from inside when she arrived. Another was beside it. Eight horses grazed under a tree, big glossy roan beasts, and a dozen cattle of various breeds and …

  "Well, Lugh love me, it's a pig!" she said to herself. A big sow, to be exact, with some half-grown piglets near it.

  The cabin stood on a U-shaped rise in the center of the plateau's northern side, separated from the wooded ridge behind by a gully. It was a long low structure of Douglas fir logs squared on top and bottom, all resting on a knee-high foundation of mortared fieldstone and topped by a steep shingled roof that covered a veranda around three sides. Smoke trickled from the big central stone chimney; there were sheds and a barn of similar construction, and a gnarled and decrepit orchard on the south-facing slope below.

  "That's all yours?" Sally said; she sounded impressed.

  Not unreasonably, since there were three thousand square feet on the ground floor, plus the attic loft where she'd set up her loom and had a space for private Craft working.

  "It is mine, and a monster that's swallowed every penny I could earn in upkeep these last ten years," Juniper answered absently. "Great-uncle Earl built it to impress his cronies in Calvin Coolidge's time. And he may have been trying to bankrupt me with his will! At least I won't have to sell off the timber to pay the taxes and keep the roof tight anymore … "

  She felt a huge grin break free as her coveners came closer, and she stood up on the seat of the wagon despite the lurching and jolting, holding to the curving roof with one hand.

  "Welcome!" she shouted. "Oh, Cead mile failte! A hundred thousand welcomes!"

  Hands reached up to catch her as she dove down from the seat; for a long ten minutes there was only hugging and babbling and shouts of glee.

  When that died down enough, she looked around. There were Chuck and Judy Barstow, he a gardener for the city of Eugene, she a registered nurse and midwife; Diana and Andy, who ran a health food store and restaurant there … eight of them in all.

  "Where's the others? Where's Rudy?" she said.

  Her friends looked at each other, and their smiles died.

  Chuck Barstow finally spoke, his voice gentle: "We couldn't find Jack or Carmen or Muriel; we left a message at MoonDance. I hope they show up later. Rudy … Rudy's flight was a hundred feet up at six fifteen. Andy and I were at the airport to see him off. He's dead, Juney."

  She gave a sound somewhere between a moan and a grunt, feeling winded, as if something had punched her under the short ribs and made it physically impossible to breathe; somehow she'd known, but pushed the knowledge away. Dennis gave her an awkward pat on the back, and Eilir snaked through the crowd to embrace her; she'd liked the funny, skinny little man as well, even after he'd become her mother's lover.

  "Blessed be," Juniper murmured after a moment. "May he rest in the Summerlands, and return to us in joy."

  "So mote it be," everyone replied.

  Then she took a deep breath, and wiped her hand across her eyes.

  I'll grieve later, she thought. Right now there's work to be done.

  "Where did you get all this stuff? " she said, waving at the wagons and the livestock; there were chickens and ducks and geese, as well as the quadrupeds.

  "At the museum's exhibit—Living Pioneer History, where else?" Chuck grinned.

  The plumed hat looked a little incongruous over the workaday denim and flannel; he usually wore it with a troubadour's costume at the RenFaires, or his knight's festival garb for Society events. He was wearing his buckler slung from his belt over his parade sword, too …

  Which is perfectly good steel, she remembered with a shiver. Like the one I'm wearing.

  He went on: "The exhibit was mostly abandoned when we got there, right after the Change … all gone off to try and find their families, I suppose, poor bastards. It was chaos and old night in Eugene by then. So we just … liberated it, you might say, having as good a claim as anyone else. The rest of the livestock the same—some we bought, from people still taking money."

  "You saved lives by doing that," Juniper said. "Ours to start with; we'll use the tools and do it in time. It'll come back to you threefold, remember. And the children? Not that I'm objecting … but it's going to be very tight for food before harvest."

  She made a quick calculation. The Fairfaxes' stores would easily have been eighteen months' eating for three, without stinting; for …

  Good Goddess gentle and strong, twenty-eight including those children!

  … it would be about three months, carefully rationed.

  Of course, they could eat the livestock if they had to, even the horses … the chickens would yield something …

  "They were on a school bus," Andy Trethar said. "All the way from Seattle to Ashland, and returning when the Change hit. And … well, we just couldn't leave them."

  Chuck cut in: "Juney, Diana and Andy had just taken a delivery for their store, which we brought along, and we picked up everything we could along the way, and we cleaned out a garden-supply place that had a lot of seeds … We only got here a couple of hours ago ourselves, you understand."

  "Well, every mouth comes with a pair of hands," she said stoutly.

  Though many aren't very large or strong hands, in this case, she thought. But we'll make do—for a start.

  Rudy had always been on at Andy and Diana for carrying too much inventory at the MoonDance, tying up their scanty capital. That looked as if it was going to be a very fortunate mistake.

  Lord and Lady, we're probably better off than anyone else within a hundred miles!

  Chuck bent close: "And you don't know how glad I am to see you here," he half whispered. "I'd just about run out of charisma by this point. People are getting really scared. You're the High Priestess; give 'em some oomph, Goddess-on-Earth."

  Juniper swallowed, then planted her hands on her hips and raised her voice to address them all. At least she had a good voice, experience with crowds, and had long ago lost all tendency to stage fright.

  "Another hundred thousand welcomes, my darlings," she said. "But listen to your High Priestess now. We've got a lot of work to be done, and not much time to do it in. Here's what I think—that it's a clan we'll have to be, as it was in the old days, if we're going to live at all … "

  Chapter

  Nine

  Men on foot were a lot quieter than galloping horses. That was the only way Havel could justify this last-minute dash through the night to himself; he prayed with every footfall that they were going to be in time.

  Idiots, he thought. They're acting like idiots and it's making my job harder. Doesn't seem fair.

  The bandits had flogged their horses on all through the night, even after they'd caught up with Will Hutton, halting only when they'd run into the ranger cabin half an hour ago.

  Which meant that he had to stop too, to let them have enough time to lose fear of pursuit. Fortunately he'd been able to follow them through the open patches with the telescopic sight from his old rifle. He hoped it was the right thing to do, but he could feel sand grinding in the gears of his brain; it had been nearly thirty hours of hard effort since he last slept.

  "Stop!" he hissed to Eric, sinking to one knee.

  He'd blackened the heads of their weapons with mud, and now he held the spear low and level to the ground. From the edge of the pines that fringed the area around the old ranger station he gave the cabin a quick once-over, looking for the men on guard. There was light from
the windows, firelight and lamplight, enough to endanger his night vision; he squinted and looked aside. Four horses were hobbled in the clearing near the cabin, looking tired and discouraged and nosing at the rock and pine duff in a futile search for something to eat.

  He could see two human figures there: one slumped near the steps that led to the broad front veranda, and another standing on it—a stout figure carrying a bow, but looking through the front window, with his back to the outside world.

  A woman's scream probably indicated what was occupying his attention.

  "Now!" Havel said, and ran forward. Eric followed.

  Will Hutton was sitting on the edge of the veranda, his hands tied behind him around one of the wooden pillars that supported the roof. He'd obviously gotten another beating, but he watched the men coming across the pine needles and rocks of the space between the trail and the cabin with a hunted alertness. He raised his feet and hitched himself around the post silently as the two neared, pressing himself down flat as he did.

  Just a second more, Havel thought. Just a second and young Jimmie is dead meat and the odds are even.

  Eric was making a lot more noise than his companion; he wasn't used to running in the dark. Fat Boy Jimmie turned when they were still ten yards away. Havel abandoned any attempt at stealth at his strangled whinney of surprise and just ran as fast as he could, but it wasn't quite fast enough; the young man managed to draw the bow to his ear.

  Havel held the rough spear underarm with both hands, like a giant rifle-and-bayonet combination, hoping that the boy would be flustered or simply miss in the shadowy light with his eyes still dazzled from looking through the firelit windows—the bow wasn't a submachine gun and he couldn't spray-and-pray.

  There was no time to be afraid, but plenty to watch the archer's hands stop shaking, and steady with the three-edged blade of the arrowhead pointed directly at Havel's liver. He was using a snap-release glove, which argued for a distinctly uncomfortable degree of accuracy. Havel's snarl turned to a guttural roar of triumph as a foot lashed out and kicked the bowman behind one knee and the arrow flashed out into the night over his head, close enough to hear.