Calling Up the Fire

by Lori Martin

  Suddenly remembering this, Paither looked up with a start, as if to see the tower looming beside him. Of course, it would be miles down river from here. Perhaps they would see it from the water... If they lived to get there. Was he carrying Mejalna to her death? No doubt she thought so; he could tell by the set of her shoulders. Well, she had wanted to join him. She had loyalty to match her loveliness. But no faith in him.

  When she did finally join him – having lost two arrows, with no result – he turned to considering the problem of navigation. What little information he had in the scrolls dealt with the Seacoast’s tides, and the piloting of large fishing boats. The question of a small craft awash in rapids went unanswered. As she came up he said, “We’ll need strong paddles. Let’s try different sizes out and see what works best. And I don’t think the benches we were thinking of will do; we’d be unseated too easily. We’ll need to anchor our feet or our ankles beneath something.”

  “When I was on guard stand last night I carved a little model of the boat. It’s almost finished. We could launch that first and see how it holds up.”

  “That’s an excellent idea... do you know, I might be a fool, but it doesn’t frighten me. Were you afraid, in your Defier raids?”

  “Before they began, yes. We’d be crouched together and waiting. Oh, it always seemed like forever! But once you’re in the middle of it, all you think about is what you have to do the next moment, and the next moment, and the next, until all of a sudden it’s over.” Mejalna shook herself and stretched; for all her doubts the exhilaration of the river had touched her, too. “I expect it’ll be the same fighting the Valtah.”

  The next morning they tried the boat model. Paither went into the river to his waist and released it. The water squirmed through his legs like a wild thing; he marshaled his strength to remain upright. The little craft, done to scale of their own boat, did well. Samalas panted along the bank to follow its progress. It outdistanced him quickly. Mejalna sent up a cheer of success. Then it caught in a cross-swirl and smashed into a boulder.

  “Not bad,” Paither commented, climbing back up.

  Samalas rejoined them. “It was water-worthy, at least,” he said, “but I don’t think you’ll be able to steer. You’ll need to use your paddles just to stay off the rocks. The river will take you where it wants.”

  They ran one brief practice (“to test the boat,” they said to each other). Paither insisted on trying it alone. They girdled him with stout ropes, so that Samalas could pull him in if the craft foundered. Mejalna crawled out on an overhanging limb downstream, where she could make a grab for him if necessary; first they lashed her to the tree to prevent her from being pulled in with him. Their precautions were not needed. He came out sopping wet, panting, and complaining of the water’s pull on his arms, but safe.

  It was time to split up. Samalas gathered his meager belongings into a saddlebag. Paither walked over to adjust his sash and robe. Though Samalas had been careful to dress as a Mendale, the tying-style he used was out of date; as a young man he should be more fashionable. Paither pulled the sash into proper position, smiling kindly into his eyes, while in his inner hearing a woman’s voice hissed, Halfer.

  Samalas would take all three horses; it would make his story more plausible to the checkpoint soldiers. Paither had a horse breeder token to pass on as well; he flipped it to him quickly, before his eyes could see the mark of Nichos’s estate. Samalas had been through checkpoints before and was confident of his ability to talk his way through.

  “You’ll need something in your purse, though.” Paither said. “Traders don’t travel on words alone, and you might need to bribe someone.” He drew off the heavy silver bracelet, hammered to a sheen, which covered his royal mark. “Take this into a town and sell it. It should be worth something. I won’t be needing it.”

  Samalas accepted it with a small bow. “Your commands for me in Lindahne, relas?”

  Paither had many. Firstly, Samalas was to bring the scattered Defiers back into some semblance of army order; secondly, he would give his support to the stories of a new relas. He would also have the task of proclaiming two children born of Dalleena-relas and her guilty alliance with Rendell Armasii. “But relas,” he protested. “No one will believe that without proof.”

  “That won’t come to anything. Don’t worry so much.”

  “But why do it?” Mejalna broke in, unexpectedly in agreement with Samalas. “We don’t even know where she is.”

  “That’s your final task, Samalas. To find her.” They stared. “She’s a royal heir of Lindahne, even as I am. She must be found.”

  “But relas, you told Renasi to look for her in Mendale.”

  “She’ll come to Lindahne,” he said. “I don’t know when. But the goddess will draw her there.”

  They discussed timing, where and how to meet again in the shelter of the Five Hills. When it seemed there was nothing left to be said, Samalas turned away, but Paither caught at his arm. “I have something else to give you.” He smiled. “But don’t sell this.” He drew off the gold chain around his neck. With his left hand he reached for Samalas’s own, and turned up the palm, which was callused by the pull of the reins. He placed the glittering relasii ring on the coarsened skin.

  “Mejalna.” His tone was stern. She stepped closer. “You are the living witness, you and the gods.” Samalas stood very straight; their hands were locked together over the ring. “I name thee Regent, Samalas son of Lehe and of Ipthros, I name thee Regent of Lindahne, before Mother Nialia. If I should perish, or do not return, Lindahne itself is delivered into your safekeeping until Ennilyn Saila, daughter of Dalleena royal and of Rendel Armasiil, may come into her own. Under the conquerors or in war, in a new life for our country, I, Paither Lista-relas, charge you with the protection of our people.”

  A crimson flush rose in Samalas’s face and then receded, leaving him white and cold. Paither added softly, “You may go. May you travel in the gods’ care. May Nialia hold you beloved.”

  Samalas said nothing; it was Mejalna who whispered the response. He kissed them both in turn, pressing his cheek to theirs, so that they felt his tears. With a final bow to the relas he walked away. As he mounted his horse the gold chain glimmered between his fingers.

  They would launch their little craft at daybreak. In the meantime there was supper to be shot, skinned, cleaned, cooked, eaten; beds to be rolled out on the hard ground; and watches to keep. Paither’s movements, as he turned from task to task, were graceful, sparse and sure; Mejalna stole a look at him. A fine pale beard, just two shades darker than his hair, was growing in well, and had lost its look of stubble.

  He was spreading his bedding out beyond the cooking fire. Before she had time to withdraw her scrutiny he faced in her direction. Their looks met over the red glow. She blurted, ”How did it happen?”

  He paused uncertainly. She inhaled in a little gasp, as if she could suck back the question, then went on with forced courage. “The fire you were in. It is a burn scar, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” It had been years since anyone had asked. If it had been someone, anyone else, he would have welcomed the frank examination, in preference to the usual covert glance. “I was ten. There was a new foal that spring. Nichos had promised her as mine. I was there for the birth, I’d often seen them, but this mare had trouble. The foal finally came out, all drenched of course, with the ears back. She was a flighter, with long frail-looking legs. You always think, ‘This one can’t possibly stand,’ and then they do, right away. She was black with one white streak down the muzzle. Just beautiful.”

  He opened the bedclothes across the dirt and sat down to take off his boots. As he pulled at the leather he whistled, tunelessly; Mejalna had an irreverent thought that the relas of Lindahne must be tone-deaf. She waited.

  He stretched out, leaning on his elbow, so that she saw him through the flickering fire. His face glowed in the heat. He said, “I named her Rena, for the goddess of Love.” He shot a grin at her. �
��I was smitten. For three days I was in the stable constantly. The mares don’t mind you if they know you, and I’d taken care to be friends with this one. Nichos had to come and drag me off to bed.” He was learning to use their proper names, though his heart still said, Father, Mother. “I don’t know to this day what woke me. No one had raised an alarm. I looked out to the stable. The fire had just curled along one corner, that’s all; the mare wasn’t even neighing yet. My uncle Temhas found out later that it was the new water boy; he’d taken up pipe smoking and been careless. Nothing burns like a stable and hay.

  “I flew out of the house, I didn’t even have the sense to rouse anyone. I remember stopping by the well, but when I came up to the doors I could see one little bucket wasn’t going to be of any use. By that time the stable workers were up and shouting. The main house was all lit up, as if it were on fire too. But I was there before any of them... The mare was screaming by then. The sheer heat in the air was astonishing, I remember it hitting, wave after wave of it. For a moment I was rooted to the spot, with the dribbling bucket in my hands, then over all the shouting and huge noise of the flames I heard, I thought I heard, the foal.” He was looking into the campfire, conjuring up that fiercer blaze, remembering so deeply he no longer seemed aware of her. “The doors were hot when I touched them, though the fire had started at the other end. I yanked at the bolt and one of the men yelled something; I was afraid he would stop me, so I flung the door open like a fool. Of course that made everything much worse. It’s confused for me after that. I know I stepped in, I saw the foal, I even reached out for the mare’s bridle – but then there was a huge bursting on my left. It’s funny, I remember it as a booming noise, more than the explosion of flame it really was.

  “I don’t know why I wasn’t killed. At least in a way I do, because Temhas reached in over the threshold and dragged me out by my ankles. They told me that part; I don’t remember it. I suppose I blacked out. My hair was on fire and my sleeping gown; they poured all the water, all the buckets they’d run to the stable with, they splashed it all on me. I came to choking.” He laughed a little. “Temhas always said I was more in danger of drowning than anything else.”

  Mejalna said, “So they couldn’t save the foal.”

  “No. No, they were lucky to stop the fire at all, after it took another stable with it. They evacuated the main house, but it was all right. There wasn’t much wind, and it rained hard later, which helped them.”

  They fell silent. Mejalna shifted uneasily on her bedding. As she laid her head back, thinking it was time for sleep, she heard him walk around the fire towards her. She was flat on her back; she opened her eyes and found him squatting over her, head upside down to her own. His chin bobbed when he spoke. “We’re certainly in danger of drowning tomorrow.”

  “I know it,” she whispered. She was fascinated by his distorted mouth, hanging over her so strangely.

  It was said in Lindahne that the goddess holds the seasons, and can turn the tides of times. The midwives call on her for the hour of the baby’s birth; lovers await the good omens before marriage begins. As the weaver pushes the loom, so can she hold it back; and Paither was caught. He felt almost a physical grasp. Into his mind came the thought of all of Mejalna’s protests: against bringing him to the Defiers, against rescuing Nichos, against trying the Valtah. Her voice, calling him halfer. Maybe she still didn’t believe in him. He had crossed to her, fully intending... He straightened, and stood.

  Mejalna – in pain, in relief, in confusion – suddenly saw only blank dark sky over her. Two or three stars shone, winking.

  There was a part of the story he hadn’t told her, a secret such as all mortals keep, secrets too frail and small to suffer speech. At the moment of stepping into that conflagration of rolling flame, he had halted: not in horror but in awe, in wonder at the beauty of it, that blazing, all-conquering light.

  He saw it again behind his closed eyes. As he drifted into sleep it merged with another fiery light, a red globe, a sun over all the horizon. In his first dream he rode to it again, as the first time, galloping, and he did not know the memory was not his own.

  In the morning Paither claimed their biggest problem would be judging the distances they were traveling. Mejalna, eyeing the Valtah’s rush, had her own opinion. She belted her chiton, tied back her hair, and stood with chin out, waiting for orders as any soldier.

  Paither had changed into similar garb, lent by Samalas; since he’d first come to the Defiers he’d been living in borrowed clothes. “The day will come, relas,” Mejalna had said, “when we’ll see you in the blue of the royals.”

  They dragged the boat–canoe down the slope to the water. Their baggage was lashed to the bottom. Mejalna tossed in the paddles and climbed in, while Paither pushed the craft off the bank. As soon as the water caught it up he had trouble; he had to skid after it and leap into his seat. The canoe shot ahead.

  It was water-worthy, but for two hours they were helpless, flailing, paddling ineptly and without effect, bumping into scattered hidden rocks. Only luck, or the goddess’s hand, saved them from disaster. The thundering current mastered them. Paither felt it as prideful as a god, and like a god it was best to submit to it. They were carried farther away from the shoreline than he had wanted. As two cross currents met before an outcrop of rocks, twirling them into a whirlpool, he wondered how they’d ever make landfall again. At the front, Mejalna, remembering some of her childhood skill, was getting the knack of the paddles. She learned over the bow and shoved them off a rising rock.

  He risked a look up. Could it be only high-sun? His shoulders were aching and his forearms shook with fatigue. Mejalna’s eyes blazed out of skin gone stark white. “We have to try for the bank,” he shouted above the roar. She threw a desperate glance at the solid earth beyond them and nodded, though clearly she didn’t expect to live that long. A bolt of admiration for her, and something else, jolted through him. He dipped his paddle back into the water, which tried to yank it from his grasp. It slipped out of his fingers; he would have lost it but for the leather thong holding it around his wrist.

  For the first time they tried to cut across the current, feeling its immense strength all over again. The boat rushed sideways downstream while they merely inched south to the shoreline.

  They hit sudden shoals. Paither took quick advantage. He twirled out a rope – the same maneuver with which he had broken horses – and it caught neatly around a tree stump. The rope yanked taut. Mejalna was flung down between their seats. As if finally satisfied, the river lifted them up again, and brought them to a shallow pool. He floundered out, Mejalna behind him, and together they pulled the craft on to mud. When they reached the first line of grass they collapsed.

  After a time, with wobbly legs and shaking fingers, they built a fire to dry their clothes. It was a hot blazing afternoon, but he heard her teeth chattering. He couldn’t control his own shivering.

  They grew stronger and could stand more hours on the water, though every night sleep crashed down on them like a black stone. Neither could stand a watch; they gave themselves over to the protection of the darkness. Then a fierce rain held them up for two days running, which they spent huddled miserably under an overhang of rock.

  The day it cleared they were back on the river, with mud smeared under their eyes to cut the dazzling glare. The shadow of a bird of prey crossed over. Paither glanced up, blinking, and saw on a far rise a group of dark figures. A lone farmer he might have expected, but these were too many. It must be a patrol. “You see,” he shouted forward to Mejalna, feeling vindicated. “I was right.” He gestured with his paddle, then grabbed at the canoe’s side to steady himself. “Soldiers!” He wondered if Samalas, even alone, had made it through the checkpoints. Mejalna nodded. If she answered he didn’t hear.

  For her the hardest moment came at daybreak, when she had to leave the land’s protection all over again. Her quick courage, which had stood her in good stead as a Defier, deserted her then. Somewhere ou
t on the water she would struggle, become angry, and recapture it; but first she had to step into the canoe, with only her pride to conceal her terror.

  The far shore remained shrouded in fog. Sometimes dark trees shivered through it. “Dream trees,” she said, making a Lindahne joke. Despite their frantic efforts to stay close to their own shore, the unknown country often drew too near. The god of the Valtah – and Paither was sure there was one now, though his name did not appear in the roll call of the immortals – teased and tossed them, vengeful of their trespassing.

  “It’s almost pushing us there,” Mejalna said that night, as the dusk closed in. The canoe was overturned between them. They were re-smoothing roughened spots and plugging holes. The craft underwent such a continuous pounding that they had to make repairs every night. Sometimes they needed to make new paddles as well. Despite their leather thongs, they had already lost two overboard.

  Paither considered her statement, made off-handedly. He looked up from his work, his eyes searching the water, but the night was spreading its velvet cover. Beyond their own flickering torch post he seemed to see answering glimmers playing on the Valtah. His hands paused. Then the lights, if they were ever there, were suddenly quenched. The god laughed.

  “I thought I saw something float by us this morning. I called to you but you couldn’t hear me,” he said.

  “What was it?”

  “I’m not sure. Something like a bright piece of cloth. I supposed it was only a fish, but yesterday I saw two long pieces of wood.”

  “Branches?”

  “No, wood shaped by human hands. Like slat pieces. We should pass the border tomorrow.”