The Burning City (Spirit Binders)

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  “Where’s Akua?” she asked the death, though she knew well enough not to expect an answer.

  The death shrugged. “And why would the avatar know?”

  “Because Akua and death are obviously—” She stopped abruptly, just now snagging on the peculiar word the death had just used. “Who’s the avatar?”

  “Myself,” it said.

  “But. . .you’re the death.”

  “I’m death’s avatar. I am of, but not one. The avatar is the death, but death is not its avatar.”

  It occurred to her that she had never before heard her death refer to itself in such concrete terms. She had never known it considered itself somehow separate from the great death.

  “And the godhead might know where Akua is, but you don’t?”

  The death leapt up and a nearby rickshaw driver stumbled and nearly fell on his face. Lana glowered at the death—she’d so far avoided causing anyone else grievous bodily injury due to their proximity to the spirit. The avatar.

  “Clever,” it said from directly over her head. “But you’ll need to understand more than that to beat the witch.”

  She wanted to yell that she understood that perfectly well, but people on the street were already giving her wary glances. So instead she hugged her elbows and wished she could be smarter, braver, more talented. She wished that she were the greatest witch on the islands, instead of the novice pitted against her. But how could she possibly beat Akua if she didn’t even understand what game the witch was playing?

  The Mo’i’s house was as grand as she’d always heard—with large panes of clear glass windows, floors of patterned red acacia wood, and countless pieces of fine art and furniture. The fire temple, where Kohaku’s wife had hidden herself, paled in comparison. And yet, there was something chilling about the place, in the way the servants who passed her so quickly kept their heads down, in the utter absence of conversation and banter. Not that anyone in the city had been very cheery after the disaster, but it wasn’t hard to imagine Kohaku terrorizing his servants the same way he terrorized the city.

  As a servant led her to the garden, she wondered what he would say to her in this more controlled setting. She wondered if she should mention what she had learned from Sabolu the previous evening. The precocious stablegirl had found her to say that she’d seen the Mo’i and the “old bag” speaking in one of the pagodas near the stables. This wasn’t terribly shocking news—the old bag had his wife and child, after all—but it put Lana in mind of an angle she hadn’t before considered. Surely the fire temple must know more than it was saying of how their own spirit had loosened some of its bindings. And if the head of that temple was meeting with the one who had enabled it? Indeed, it was bizarre that the fire temple had not repudiated Kohaku entirely. Maybe they were pleased that the fire spirit had become more powerful. The eruption certainly had increased attendance at temple services. She considered who she could approach for more information. The rebels clearly hated Kohaku and the fire temple enough to have gleaned some intelligence about them, but she wasn’t sure how much she trusted Pano and the ones who had brought edged weapons onto the streets. But their old friendship might make Kohaku disclose more than he would otherwise. Lana had to learn more about the nature of the fire temple’s relationship with Akua.

  She found Kohaku sitting beside a decorative pool filled with fire eels. The trees arching above him had lost their flowers, but a few were heavy with end-of-season fruit.

  She could only see his back as the servant hurriedly departed. His voice was low, but animated in what appeared to be heated conversation. She froze, wondering if she should wait for his other guest to leave. Why had the servant led her here if he was indisposed?

  “What possible harm could they cause me?” he said. His voice was thready and high, like he was pleading. “Is it so untenable to just…”

  He paused. Lana strained, but couldn’t hear the other person’s voice. A stark suspicion began to worm its way through her gut. She swallowed and started to move, ever so carefully, to her left.

  “Yes,” Kohaku said. “Yes, of course.” He laughed bitterly. “Don’t I always do as you say, Emea?”

  But he was alone in the garden. His gaze rested on an empty chair, and beyond that, a decorative persimmon tree. His head snapped up, and he turned around. His initial look of startled terror quickly morphed into a carefully pleasant smile. Lana did her best to keep her own expression steady. He had been speaking to thin air.

  “Lana!” he said, standing as she approached. “I’m so glad you came. I wondered if you would.”

  “It’s good to see you again,” she said. Strangely enough, she meant it. He reminded her of the time before the disasters, before Kali’s death, when the sum of her problems were a mother who sometimes demanded too much and a girlhood crush on her schoolteacher.

  Though she’d meant to speak immediately of Makaho and Akua, Lana found herself reminiscing with Kohaku. She told him what had happened to the island after he left and their desperate efforts to save the remaining mandagah fish from the salt water.

  “I don’t know if it will ever be safe for them again,” she said. She drew out the red jewel that always lay beneath her shirt, though she had no reason to wear it now but sentiment.

  Kohaku leaned forward slightly and touched her hand in sympathy. “Sometimes I think of how the scholars will look back on this time. This is a dark age. We’re so close to the brink, of everything going back to the days before the spirit bindings. There is a man in the tinkers’ guild who can make clockwork solstice dolls that walk and jump, and there are other men a few streets away who sharpen kitchen knives into swords and plot to start the first Esselan war since the spirit bindings.” He sighed and tucked the ginger hair she remembered so well behind one ear. “Who’s to say which side will win out? The creators or the destroyers?”

  Destroyers? That didn’t seem to describe Pano, quietly dispelling the angry crowd. She’d read much of the rebel literature passed furtively in the streets. The tracts displayed a shocking level of ignorance about the mechanics of binding, but she doubted that their endless lists of abuses and atrocities attributed to the Mo’i were entirely false. Perhaps something had to be destroyed before something good could be created. Or perhaps the destruction could go too far.

  “I think that violence always leaves the control of those who start it.”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, that’s precisely it! Why else do we have the taboos against war, Lana? Because our blood feeds the spirits. Before the great bindings, that was bad enough. But now? A war in Essel could unleash far worse than even the disaster of Nui’ahi.”

  Just the thought made Lana’s stomach clench and her eyes dart involuntarily to Kohaku’s missing left hand. War might unleash the fire spirit? And wouldn’t he know? The disaster had destabilized everything, not the least of which was the death spirit. She didn’t even want to contemplate what would happen if death broke free. A dark age, Kohaku had said. And here she was, a black angel, at the center of it.

  She shook her head. “I need to ask you about the fire temple, Kohaku,” she said. “It’s said you’re close to them now—especially Makaho, the head nun. Do you know what they were doing prior to the disaster? Surely the spirit’s restlessness must have made itself known there at least.”

  She had carefully phrased her question to avoid any reference to his own wrongdoing, but he still stiffened imperceptibly and looked away from her. She felt a pang of regret. But they were so far from her first home. They could never again share the camaraderie of teacher and student.

  “Makaho?” His mouth twisted. “She stole my wife. I keep relations with her in the hope of getting Nahoa back.”

  Lana didn’t think that the wary girl with the baby would let anyone steal her, but didn’t say so. She was here to find Akua, not antagonize the Mo’i.

  “But still, you must know more than I do of what the fire temple is scheming.”

  “If you’re a
sking if I think Makaho had a hand in the disaster, of course not. She was as surprised as all of us. All of us.”

  He glared, as though daring her to contradict him. She raised her eyebrows. “Kohaku. I’m just looking for my mother.”

  This seemed to blunt his righteous anger. He blinked.

  “Your mother?”

  “She lived—lives here. She disappeared right before the eruption.”

  For a moment he looked genuinely grieved. “Oh, Lana. I’m so sorry. But, have you looked. . .I mean, it’s been months. I’m about to add all the missing to the rolls of the dead.”

  It only made sense, but she remembered those tattered missing posters, those forlorn hopes. “You’re right,” she said. “But they’ll hate you for it.”

  He laughed. “They already hate me. It’s quite liberating, the scorn of public opinion. But, Lana, your mother—”

  “Isn’t dead. Don’t ask how I know. But she disappeared right before, and I know that the fire temple is involved.”

  “I’ve never seen your mother here, Lana. The city is huge. I doubt I’d even recognize her after so many years.”

  She sighed. “But I believe another woman was with her. An older woman with a gravelly voice and graying hair. Missing her right arm.”

  She watched his expression carefully as she said this, but she needn’t have bothered. He blanched so pale even young Sabolu could have determined the news perturbed him.

  “Have you seen her?” Lana prompted.

  “No!” he nearly spat out the word as he leapt from his chair. “No, I’ve never seen any one-armed woman. Someone else who nefariously sacrificed herself for the spirits, right?”

  No wonder everyone suspected him of helping the fire spirit. He wore his guilt like a habit. And yet she wasn’t sure if he was lying. Perhaps Akua had plotted something with him, but she rather doubted it. Akua liked her associates either more clueless or more cunning. Kohaku was too helpless a mixture of both.

  “I meant nothing at all, Kohaku,” Lana said as gently as possible. “It’s just her distinguishing characteristic. Are you sure you never saw her? Or heard anyone else speak of her?”

  He relaxed slightly, but his mouth still turned down in an oddly familiar scowl of derision. “No, I’ve never heard of anyone, anyone at all, matching that description.” His pause was small, but his eyes had widened as though he remembered something.

  She stood herself, so she didn’t have to tilt her neck quite so far back to meet his eyes. “Are you sure, Kohaku? It’s terribly important. I must find my mother.”

  He fiddled with his left sleeve. “Of course I am. I’d help you if I could, Lana.”

  It was this pretense of concern when he was so clearly concealing important information that broke her self-control. How dare he murder so many in the ashes of Nui’ahi and then compound the crime by arresting and torturing scores more? How dare he pretend that he hadn’t been involved? That he was some innocent victim protecting the city from the—what had he called them—destroyers? It was a sick joke.

  She took a step toward him, shaking out her wings so that they trailed briefly in the pond and splattered the stones around them. He flinched, but didn’t retreat. “I’m quite familiar with sacrifice, Kohaku. Yes, that kind of sacrifice. I sat vigil on the mesa at the heart of the ancient wind shrine to get these wings. I have spoken with two of the great spirits and tested their geas. I know more about the spirits and sacrifice than you ever will, and I know what you did in the fire temple. You can no more accidentally burn yourself in the primeval fire than you can accidentally kill yourself in the heart of the death. You sacrificed, and you got something in return. And so did the fire spirit, didn’t it?”

  His shoulders trembled, but his voice was strident in its panicked dissembling. “Rumors! Nothing but rumors, Lana. What would you know? You’re barely a sapling. No one will believe you. They’re about ready to string you up already. They think the black angel brought this destruction. And how do I know they’re wrong? Maybe you did, maybe—”

  She cut him off with a disgusted wave of her hand. “Don’t be a fool. They can blame us both if they please, but you and I both know who is responsible.”

  She turned to leave, struggling to calm her pounding heart, her rapid breathing. “They’ll never believe you,” he said again when she reached the door. “You can’t say anything. I’ll—”

  “I loved you back then, you know,” she said more quietly. “I almost came back with you.”

  Kohaku stilled, then shook his head. “You should have.”

  Choices, Lana thought. Bad and good and indifferent, and so often impossible to tell which was which at the time. She could only move forward.

  Now Lana had only one viable choice left. She would go to the source of all the rumors and the turmoil: Sea Street.

  4

  THE FIRST DISTRICT HAD BEEN hard hit by the lava flows. Much of Sea Street was now riddled with crevasses exposed by the molten rock, and improbable mountains where it had settled and hardened. Its buildings had almost all been destroyed in the fires that swept through the district. The first district was a ruin, a burned-out cinder of the teeming neighborhood it had been just a few months ago. And it served as a perfect, defendable barrier for the rebels, a no-man’s – land where the Mo’i’s forces feared to venture and the rebels scared away anyone who didn’t belong. Lana flew there, because she was too furious to care about prudence and the exertion calmed her. If anyone pointed or shrieked as she passed overhead, she took no notice.

  “You made an enemy today, Lana,” the death said, placidly soaring along beside her.

  She grimaced. “Witness how little I care. He did all this. He killed all these people.” She paused, and then looked again at it. “Why did you call me Lana?”

  “Isn’t that your name?” it said, and then faded to near-complete transparency.

  She of all people knew how dangerous mass violence could be at this time, but she still found her sympathy for the rebel cause growing by the hour. The destruction of the city was far easier to see from up here—perhaps another, unvoiced, reason for why she had avoided flying the last few months. Tents and impromptu shanties had sprung up in the ash-beds of the destroyed buildings, like a sallow reef slowly blooming on the carcass of a sunken boat. The path the lava had taken down the slope of Nui’ahi cut across the eastern half of the city like a sinuous scar and emptied, eventually, into the sea, where it had created several new miles of island. She wondered how Essel would rebuild, how it might accommodate itself to this violent, sudden reshaping. Though she could have flown straight past the rebel barrier, she landed in the middle of Sea Street. It was safe enough—no one to see her here but rebel soldiers. One approached her as soon as she touched down, a war adze tucked into a sash. He was young, one side of his face and neck covered in such broad swaths of still-healing burns that she wondered how he’d even survived. Did the rebels have witches who could manipulate geas well enough for healing?

  “What do you want?” the rebel guard asked. His tone was brusque, but not unkind. And honestly, such directness was a relief after her meeting with Kohaku.

  “I’d like to speak with Pano.”

  His hand tightened on the haft of his adze. “What do you know of Pano? What do you want with him, black angel? I won’t have you hurting him.”

  “Stand down, Tope. It’s all right. I asked her to come, and here she is.” Pano climbed the lava slag they were standing upon and touched the boy lightly on the shoulder. Then he gestured to Lana. “Follow me,” and Lana was left to awkwardly balance herself as they climbed across the dried lava flows, deeper into the first district. Rebel territory, Lana thought, but the frisson of danger she expected to feel was undone by the utter normalcy of the scene behind the lines. She saw the same destruction, the same fire and ash, but perhaps slightly less desperation. It appeared the rebels took care of their people at least as well as the Mo’i. And they hadn’t caused the devastation in the first
place.

  There were no undamaged buildings within sight of Sea Street, but Pano led her into one that was still mostly standing. It looked like an ancient tree nearby had borne the brunt of the fire, sparing the meeting house. Everyone they passed nodded to Pano, which confirmed her suspicion that he was an important member of the rebel movement, perhaps even its leader. But when they finally entered the main room—roughly patched with scavenged wood and heated by a smoky fire—someone else was seated before a short table piled with papers. She was an older woman with skin so unusually pale it reminded Lana of Ino, the water sprite. Her hair was thick and frizzy, the color of dirty sand, and held back from her face with a blue headband. Her eyes were the oddest shade Lana had ever seen—pink, like a washed-out sunrise. She’d never met anyone with this sort of coloring before, and even the air in the room seemed to heat when the woman leveled that uncanny gaze at her. No question, Lana thought, of who had led here.

  “Eliki,” Pano said lightly, pushing Lana ahead of him. “Look what just flew in.”

  The woman—Eliki—gave her such a thorough look that Lana fidgeted. “Fascinating, as usual, Pano,” she said. Her voice was clear and firm. It carried much the way Pano’s had on the street the other day. She sounded, Lana realized, like one of the elders back on her island. Like Okilani, who perhaps had always known, it occurred to Lana for the first time, about the second jewel Lana had found on the morning of her initiation.

  “You’re very young,” Eliki said, addressing Lana.

  Lana shrugged. Eliki gave the barest of smiles. “And yet I suspect you’ve seen things I can’t even imagine. These are not times when one has the luxury of youth. My daughter was about your age when she died.”

  “What happened to her?” Lana asked, though she wondered if she should have just nodded politely.