The Fire King

by Marjorie Liu

  “I do not imagine there is an alternative.”

  Robert raised his brow, not understanding Karr’s language. “Was that a yes?”

  “He’ll need help,” Soria suggested, and glanced at Serena. “What about Long Nu?”

  “We leave her. She has done nothing wrong.”

  “You’re crazy. Kidnapping, torture, death threats—”

  The shape-shifter held up her hand, her single eye glinting dangerously. “She is one of us. I will not restrain or harm her. Not for doing what she thinks is right. Drugging her pushes the limits.”

  “She won’t feel the same about you, not for helping us.”

  “You assume I’ll be around when she wakes up.” Serena studied the unconscious shape-shifter, and her expression softened with compassion. “She is the oldest of us now, and the most powerful. And she cares. She cares a great deal about our survival. She has suffered for it.”

  Serena looked at Karr, and the compassion disappeared; everything in her features hardened. “There are so few of us left. We must breed if we are to live. And so, what if everyone learned that we can take mates from other shifters? It would be tempting, easier, because of our secrets. But those children from such unions? How would they live and survive? Chimera require special rearing, with control over their abilities more difficult to learn. They are violent by nature. They are made for war. There is no place for such instincts in this new, modern age.”

  Soria narrowed her eyes. “You seem to know a great deal about his kind. I wonder why that is.”

  Robert laughed quietly to himself. It was an unpleasant sound. Serena backed away, looking toward the door. “We must go.”

  Soria stood. “You know something. What are you hiding?”

  Serena peered out the door. “Come. Hurry.”

  Robert grabbed Karr’s arm and slung it over his shoulder. “I knew a giant once,” he muttered, wincing. “He was always drunk. But I think you’re heavier.”

  Karr’s eyes flashed golden. “I am going to bite off your hands for touching my balls.”

  Soria bit back a smile, opened her mouth to translate—only to have Robert shake his head. “I can guess what he said.”

  “No,” she replied mildly, slinging Karr’s other arm around her waist. “I really don’t think you can.”

  It was cold outside, and the stars glittered. There was a smooth breeze carrying the faint scent of smoke. It was perfectly quiet, eerily so. No one spoke as Serena led them quickly across town, back toward the helicopters. Soria glimpsed movement on her right—almost cried out and then swallowed her voice when she saw Ku-Ku looking back from the shadows, gliding alongside them like a specter.

  Soria kept expecting to be shot at, and the anticipation was almost worse than an actual bullet. When the helicopters were finally in sight—or rather, just one of them, as the other seemed to be missing—she murmured, “Where are the men?”

  “Fool’s errand,” Robert muttered, as Karr’s breath whistled quietly with pain. “Serena sent them away. Said there was a package—the human kind—that needed to be retrieved at a certain set of coordinates. They’ll be there soon. I suspect they will wait for quite some time before realizing they’ve been duped.”

  “Will they hurt Long Nu when they return?”

  Robert exhaled sharply, but with cold laughter. “Doubtful.”

  Serena climbed into the pilot’s seat and began prepping the helicopter. Ku-Ku slid up front beside her, while Robert helped Soria ease Karr into the back. She grabbed a first-aid kit that was belted to the wall, turned on a flashlight which she held her in teeth, and began trying to clean up the mess that the wire had made of his legs.

  It was awful. Karr glanced down, and tightened his jaw. Soria hardly knew where to begin, and spit the flashlight into her hand. “Robert, can you get him some antibiotics to prevent an infection?”

  “I have some. But first, the hard part.” He took the gauze from her, along with a bottle of peroxide, and began swabbing at the long, serrated cuts. The peroxide foamed. Karr hissed.

  Soria could not hold his hand—not while handling the flashlight—but she sat close, nudging his elbow with her thigh, and a moment later he reached out, grasped her leg in one huge hand, and squeezed gently. His grip was warm, firm … and very much alive.

  Relief hit her so hard that her eyes burned with tears. They were out of there. She was loose, free with him.

  The importance of that, and how much it meant to her that he was safe, was staggering. Soria struggled with herself, finally gaining control over her emotions, but not before sharing a long look with Karr that said more than anything that language alone could have conjured.

  The helicopter roared to life. Serena shouted, “Where am I taking you?”

  “Ulaanbataar!” Robert called back, before Soria uttered a word. When she stared at him, brow raised, he shrugged. “Roland said you had a lead there.”

  “He said that, did he? What else?”

  “That I am not to leave your side.”

  “So why did you the last time?”

  “Because some things you can handle yourself. And others”—he glanced up front at Serena—“require a different kind of touch.”

  Soria shook her head. “I do not want to know.”

  “I’m certain that’s a lie,” Robert replied, “but it’s the results that count.”

  It took them two hours to fly to Ulaanbataar. Serena landed on the outskirts of the city, almost ten miles away. It was still night. A Land Cruiser was parked nearby. Soria heard the heavy rush of water: a river was close, though she could not see it in the darkness.

  Karr’s legs had been bandaged as well as possible, and he had choked down a first round of amoxicillin. Robert and Soria helped him walk to the Land Cruiser. Ku-Ku followed, as did Serena more slowly, her one good eye faintly glowing.

  “I won’t be traveling on with you,” she said quietly. “I’ll take the chopper south, as far as it will go, and then leave it. I can find my way back to civilization more quickly on my own.”

  Soria hesitated. “Thank you.”

  Serena looked like she couldn’t care less. Tilting her head, she leaned in toward Karr, who was perched on the edge of the Land Cruiser’s backseat. He was almost too large for the vehicle, especially with his wounds. Soria suspected they would have to put down the back seats so that he could use the trunk space as well.

  Karr watched Serena warily. Golden light flickered dangerously in his eyes.

  “I am not changed in my opinion of you,” she told him quietly. “I think you are dangerous. To believe otherwise is naive.”

  “Then we feel the same,” Karr rumbled, and Soria translated.

  A cold, almost seductive smile passed over Serena’s mouth. “I will take that as a compliment.”

  Soria had the uncomfortable feeling that Serena would take a great deal more than that, if she had the chance. Even Karr narrowed his eyes. He did not look amused.

  Serena inclined her head toward Robert. “Don’t be a stranger, old man. I have a grandchild to show you.”

  “A grandchild,” he said, gently mocking. “You must have been birthing babies when you were a baby.”

  Warmth touched her gaze, but it was so fleeting as to have been imagined. Serena turned, nodded at Ku-Ku—who was watching her with those empty, dead eyes—and began striding back to the helicopter.

  Soria hesitated, glanced at Karr and then ran after her. Serena must have been moving more quickly than she looked, because she was already climbing into the machine when Soria caught up. The shape-shifter paused, one foot raised, lean with muscle and sharp angles. Her blonde hair seemed spikier than usual, her cheekbones higher and more feline. Feral, dangerous, and deadly.

  “Why did you help us?” Soria asked, breathless from running. “Back in the village, and now?”

  Serena hesitated and looked away. “I thought of my daughter. Kidnapped, strapped down. For nothing but experimentation. We shifters hide because
humans would find us freakish and dangerous. We would be hunted without mercy, without a chance to prove ourselves. It was only fair to give your chimera his chance.”

  “And yet?”

  “I meant what I said. His kind …” She stopped, looking down at her hands. “There are none like him. He comes from an age when the chimera were still powerful. When they meant something. His presence alone could bring those days back. We cannot afford that.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He is living proof of a time better left forgotten.”

  Soria wished she had more time, but she felt the pressure of those waiting behind her, as well as the tenseness of Serena’s posture, swaying deeper into the helicopter. “I still don’t understand. The chimera are part of you. You can’t deny your children.”

  “Children grow up,” Serena replied bluntly. “And then, sometimes, they kill you.”

  She climbed into the helicopter, and slid the door shut in Soria’s face.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The wagon—or car, as Soria called it—was too small for his body, though after they folded down the soft leather seats to reveal a rather more spacious area (a marvel of human ingenuity that he would be most pleased to investigate at a later date) Karr was able to rest on his back with more comfort—meaning that he could lie down with his knees up so that his calves and ankles did not rub or bounce against the hard surface beneath him.

  The pain was relentless; nauseating, strength-sapping, almost worse than a stab wound because it was spread over a much wider area. Those wires had cut him deeply; and the lacerations were rubbed full of dirt. Even though he had suffered terrible, life-threatening wounds in the past, pain was pain. It always felt like the first time.

  The man, Robert, was up front behind the wheel used as the car’s steering mechanism. Beside him sat his youthful companion, with her eyes like a cobra’s, her personality just as lethal. He had never seen such an odd pair.

  Soria rested close, on her side, facing him, his right hand in her left. Her cheek pressed against his shoulder, and occasionally her mouth touched the same spot. The comfort he took from her presence ignited a heat inside him that he had never felt or considered. Such a simple thing—having her lie beside him in this strange dark wagon, in this even stranger world—and yet, being near her was like resting in the presence of a great and wondrous mystery, the kind that had no answer but existed solely as a delight of magic, proof that the wondrous did indeed happen.

  He could not say any of that, though. Not simply because they were in the company of others, and not because he was shy around her, for he was not. Saying certain words cheapened them. Feelings were not words. Actions were not words. Words were fleeting. It was the look in the eye that lingered, or a touch, or moments such as this that he would always remember: in pain, fearful … but oddly content.

  “They are alive,” he whispered to Soria, as he watched lights pass in a blur beyond the glass of the wagon, lights that reminded him of lives. “Not many, and they are scattered. But they are alive. The chimera exist.”

  “How do you know?” she asked softly, her voicing of his language little more than a purr. “What I saw … I did not know you could do that.”

  “Blood calls,” Karr said quietly, his scar aching. “Not many were capable of that magic, but my mother had certain gifts that she passed on to me. I used it, sometimes, to find lost children.” He hesitated. “Maybe I should not have taken the risk. In hindsight, I cannot believe that I did. But it was worth it, just to know.”

  “Are any close?”

  “I think so, yes. But I have only a vague sense of where they might be. There was a cluster to the northwest, and one very far from here, in the heart of the land south of the Nile.”

  Soria tensed. “Really.”

  “You know something?”

  “No,” she said, and then hesitated again. “A little over a year ago, right around the time I was hurt, a place was found where shape-shifters had been imprisoned. Taken by humans for experiments in breeding. The people I work for managed to free them, but there were pregnancies involving many human women. Given the nature of the experiments, I suppose it’s possible that some chimeras were made. On purpose. Just to see what would happen.”

  “Humans hurting shape-shifters?” Karr exhaled slowly. “Controlling them? Using them in such ways? I cannot imagine.”

  “They hide for a reason,” Soria answered, her hand tightening around his. “You will have to do the same, or else live where there are no humans.”

  “Do such places exist?”

  “They are rare.” Soria smiled against his shoulder. “You might have to compromise.”

  Will you be there? Karr wanted to ask, shutting his eyes against the lights and passing buildings, trying not to listen to the roar that the wagon made around him. Dizzying sights and sounds. This was a world Soria had been born to, and took for granted. She had a life here. He had nothing but himself.

  So, nothing has changed. All you ever had was yourself. You can still be useful. Perhaps you are no longer a warlord, but you know things that no one else does. You know of a world and life that has been dead for thousands of years. That is worth something.

  The wagon made a sharp turn and then slowed. Soria struggled to sit up. “Where are we?”

  “I had a contact set up a safe house for us,” Robert said, turning in the seat to look at them. “My people can be trusted.”

  “Your people,” she said dryly. “I thought you were a mercenary.”

  “I am.” Robert smiled, though it did not reach his eyes. “And I am very good at what I do.”

  Soria gave him a sour look. Karr glanced at the girl seated up front, and found her staring back with eyes so flat that he seriously considered killing her just to be on the safe side. Instead, he held himself still as she slid gracefully from the wagon, taking with her a large black bag into which she had slid her sticklike weapon. Robert opened the side door and offered a pale, sinewy hand.

  Karr took it. He did not want the man’s help, but his pride had limits and his legs felt as though they were still being sawed with wire. Gritting his teeth, squeezing Soria’s hand, he hobbled from the wagon toward a door that the girl held open some short distance away. The city was quiet in this district, though Karr heard the distant buzz of voices and strange music. The buildings reminded him of what he had seen in Erenhot: windows covered in bars, smooth pale stone, simple nameless lights. These were functional in ways that should have dazzled him but that did not. There was no loveliness in the stone here, nothing that begged the eternal, as had the temples in the Nile kingdoms or near the dark seas of the Hittites. Even the nomads had kept about them a warm, living lushness.

  It was cold inside the building they entered, but quiet. The air smelled clean. Not much to see except a table and chairs. Robert led them into another room where there was a large bed pushed against the wall beneath a startling painting of a naked woman. Karr stared for a moment, tore his gaze away, and eased himself onto the bed. He was accustomed to sleeping on the ground, but the padding was soft and felt good on his aching body. He tried not to sigh, and closed his eyes.

  “Interesting,” he heard Soria say. “You decorate this yourself?”

  “I leave that to experts,” Robert replied. “Make yourself comfortable, if possible. Ku-Ku will be nearby.”

  “Leaving already?”

  “Research. We need to learn who in town might have an ancient sword collection. There can’t be many.”

  Soria was silent a moment. Karr cracked open one eye and saw her giving the man a pensive look. “Where did Roland find you?”

  Robert smiled. “Maybe I found him.”

  He turned and left the room. Karr muttered, “You are surrounded by strange people.”

  Soria shot him a wry look, and shut the door before coming back to sit on the edge of the bed. “It’s just me now. If you want to scream from the pain, I promise not to tell.”

  Karr could not help but smil
e, though that hurt as well. “Come. Rest beside me. Perhaps I will scream very quietly in your ear.”

  “Exactly what a girl wants to hear.” Soria curled on the bed, angling her body away from his so that her legs would not accidentally brush against him. Her distance—when she was so close—was as frustrating as the pain. He wanted to feel her body pressed tight against him.

  He settled for holding her small hand, savoring the press of her head against his shoulder and the rare sense of place and time he felt in her presence: not displaced, not lost in another world but anchored here and now, because he knew her. Because, miracle upon miracle, he trusted her. This woman—his enemy, his friend, his mystery.

  “When I died,” he said quietly, after a long silence, “this is not what I expected.”

  Soria exhaled sharply. “What was it like?”

  Karr closed his eyes. “A long nightmare. Darkness and dreams. Memories that never ceased. I was always battling, always in blood, with brief moments of peace that never lasted. But I always believed we become in death what we were in life, so I suppose I should have expected nothing less than what I received.”

  “That is horrible,” Soria replied. “Are you sure you were dead?”

  “Maybe I am not alive even now. Perhaps this is part of the vast dream, and I have simply moved from one state of sleep to another. It would make more sense than all the wonders and tragedy I have seen since opening my eyes.”

  “I do not feel like a dream,” Soria murmured.

  “You do to me,” he replied gently—and, feeling bold, kissed the top of her head.

  She scooted closer and brushed her mouth against his.

  Her touch was exquisitely tender. No one had ever been so careful with him.

  “You touch me as though you are afraid I will break.”

  “Maybe I am,” she whispered, her eyes like dark honey. “You are not invincible.”

  “Simply hard to kill.”

  She smiled, but it was strained. “Just once. I would rather not tempt fate again.”

  “Really.” Karr swallowed hard, his heart aching. “Would you grieve for me?”