FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “We didn’t heal those plants,” said Taya. “It was someone else.”

  Zash snorted. “There is no one else. I want every one of my trees returned to healthy perfection.”

  Before Taya could protest again, Mandir growled, “What else?”

  “I want Bodhan to forgive the debt I owe him.”

  “That’s not something we can do,” said Taya. “You’ll have to speak to Bodhan.”

  “No, you’ll speak to Bodhan,” said Zash. “You’ll walk into his house and threaten to burn him to a cinder if he doesn’t sign off on the debt. And you’re not to tell him I sent you.”

  “It will be obvious,” said Taya.

  “Not if you’re clever about it. Make him forgive all the debts, or a batch of them. Not just mine. Convince him however you like; just make sure he won’t come after me later.”

  “If you want us to do these things, you cannot drug us with kimat,” said Mandir.

  “I’m not a fool,” said Zash. “I only need one of you for this. Mandir, you will perform the tasks while Taya remains here as my hostage. I will free her when the tasks are completed to my satisfaction.”

  “That won’t work,” said Mandir. “I have not the skill to heal trees.”

  Taya tensed. Mandir was lying. He wanted her to be the one set free, so she could run to the Coalition for help.

  “I’ve heard any Coalition member can do it,” said Zash.

  “You heard wrong,” said Mandir. “It’s a specialized ability.”

  “It requires a farming background,” added Taya. “Which I have, and he doesn’t.”

  Zash frowned. “Very well. Taya goes, and Mandir stays.” He turned to Taya and raised his right arm. The small object he’d been concealing was a dart. “You’ll receive further instructions later.”

  She covered Mandir’s body with her own, horrified at the thought that he should be drugged again.

  Zash threw the dart, and it impaled itself not in Mandir’s flesh but in her own. She scrabbled for it, hoping to pull it out before the poison could seep into her veins. But the dart’s effects were immediate. Her arms moved slowly, as if she were dragging them through wet sand. Mandir was yelling and moving beneath her. She couldn’t make out the words. She lost consciousness.

  Taya woke to a rustling noise and a warm breeze on her face. At first, she didn’t open her eyes. She was leaning against a tree trunk, and the air smelled of bananas. The sensations took her back to her childhood, those days when she was too young to work in the fields and she could take a nap in the shade of the banana plant whenever she wished.

  Those days were long past. Where was she, and what had brought her here?

  She searched her memory, and roused instantly. She and Mandir had been kidnapped by Zash. The last thing she remembered was being in that dark, underground prison of his—and being hit by another poisoned dart.

  She opened her eyes and found that she was indeed leaning against a banana plant. She appeared to be in the middle of Zash’s plantation. The sun was up and high in the sky. Since it had been evening when she and Mandir had ridden here, at least one day had passed, maybe two or three. There were no workers in the field, which was odd. She would have expected at least a few to be pruning suckers, pulling weeds, and netting bananas. But perhaps that work was futile with blighted plants.

  What was she supposed to do? Heal his plants and something else. But Mandir had wanted her to do something different: to run for the Coalition and seek help. She rose on shaky legs and staggered against the pseudostem of the banana plant. Whatever she’d been poisoned with had made her weak. Something heavy weighed on her chest, and she looked down to see a clay tablet resting on her shirt. She picked it up and read.

  “I trust that, since you are reading this, you have awakened. By now, your kimat should have worn off and you will have your magic back. As we agreed earlier, your first task is to heal my plants of blight and any other diseases they may be suffering. For your convenience, I have deposited you in my banana field alone, so you may perform the job without witnesses. I expect you to do this immediately.

  When the blight is gone, you may proceed to the other task we discussed.

  I have Mandir in my custody, well hidden and drugged with kimat. Should you fail in your assigned tasks, or speak to anyone of our arrangement, or leave town to seek your Coalition friends, or betray me in any other way, he will die.

  I am aware that you may be tempted to seek me out and threaten me directly. For this reason, I have hidden myself and will not reappear until your tasks are complete.

  I have taken an additional precaution and dosed you with a slow-acting poison. For obvious reasons, I cannot tell you which one it is. Suffice to say that there is an antidote, and I have it in my possession. Without it, you will be dead inside of three days. Finish these tasks before the three days are over, or I am afraid they must of necessity fall to your partner.”

  Taya swallowed. Three days? That was all she had left to live?

  Mandir had not anticipated the slow-acting poison.

  How long ago had she been poisoned? Did she have three days starting now, or three days from when she first fell unconscious, which could be as much as a day earlier? Or more than a day earlier, as far as she knew.

  Surely Zash would not want her dying before she had a chance to accomplish what he’d asked of her. She probably had at least two full days left. Maybe a third, but she wouldn’t count on it.

  Mandir had said to run for the Coalition, and she’d reluctantly agreed to do so. But she couldn’t possibly do that now. Even on a good horse—and she had no idea where Pepper was—it was at least five days’ ride to Rakigari Temple. She would not make it.

  Zash’s slow poison gave her no choice but to comply with his demands, at least for the time being. Maybe she could think of a way to foil him, but no plan sprang to mind, and the sun was moving inexorably through the sky.

  She peered up at the plant she had been propped against. Its leaves were spotted with blight, and there were hundreds of other plants just like it.

  She laid her hands on the plant’s pseudostem and closed her eyes. She spoke in the mother tongue, her voice low, not because her magic required it, but because the Coalition had taught them to speak their magic in a near whisper to prevent outsiders from learning the mother tongue. She called to the mother goddess Lalan, who lay dormant in all living things. With a judicious bit of flattery, Taya cajoled sleeping Lalan into wakefulness. The tree shimmered and pulsed, suddenly vibrant, its browns more brown, its greens more green.

  Lalan was the gentlest of the mother goddesses, but also the most remote. The hardest part of working with Lalan was to awaken her. But now that she was aroused in this plant, she began setting things to right. The black spots visibly shrank and then disappeared. Holes in the leaves closed up, and parasites rained out of the tree: little black beetles, green worms, white larvae. Taya’s throat tightened with revulsion as she picked a worm out of her hair.

  She looked up. It was done. The banana plant towered over her, lush and full and ready to produce a crop. She’d healed one plant. Only several hundred more to go.

  As she moved through the plantation, awakening Lalan in each plant, her mind worked on the problem of Zash and the slow poison. Zash was hiding Mandir somewhere, and that somewhere was probably right here on his estate. It could be beneath his residence, or beneath the burned-out house where he’d kept his sister. Or it could be in a cave or cellar just about anywhere.

  With sufficient time, she felt almost certain she could find Mandir. But time was something she didn’t have a whole lot of. Even if she found him, what could she do about the poison? She couldn’t kill Zash, and he knew it. If she did kill him, she would never learn the name of the poison or where to find the antidote. She might succeed in saving Mandir, but she would not save herself.

  What if she simply followed Zash’s instructions? That could not end well either. Once she’d completed his tasks, w
hat motivation did he have to free Mandir or give her the antidote? None whatever. He would want to eliminate them as witnesses.

  She couldn’t complete the tasks—not both of them. Not unless she could find a way to hold some leverage over Zash to save herself and Mandir.

  Nor could she run to the Coalition; there was no time.

  Nor could she search for Mandir and confront Zash directly. Of the three options, it was the most desirable since it gave her the opportunity of killing Zash. But that one bit of satisfaction would come at the cost of her own life, and maybe Mandir’s as well.

  There had to be another way, had to be. For now she would buy time while her mind worked on the problem. She could finish healing the banana plants by dusk, giving her just enough time to make it back to the city before the gates closed. If she could find Pepper. Surely Zash would make the mare available so she could accomplish the second task.

  Once she was back in Hrappa, she would have all night to come up with a better plan.

  Chapter XXXVI

  Hrappa

  TAYA’S STOMACH CRAMPED WHEN SHE was about halfway through healing the banana plants. Since there was no one around to help her, she soldiered on, hoping the problem would go away on its own. Instead, the pain worsened. By the time she finished the plants, she could barely walk. Could this be an effect of Zash’s slow poison?

  She made her way painfully to Zash’s homestead, where she found Pepper bridled and pawing the ground with irritation. Mandir’s blood bay was not with her.

  She was too ill to vault up on the mare, so she led the animal to a nearby boulder, climbed atop it, and mounted from there. Once she was astride, Pepper gave a little kick, just to let her mistress know she wasn’t happy about having to stand in her bridle all afternoon. But as Taya directed her onto the path that led from the high ground to the floodplains, the mare relaxed, champed her bit, and settled to her work.

  Halfway back to Hrappa, Taya’s pain became so bad that she couldn’t ride anymore. She dropped off Pepper, wincing at the impact as her feet hit the dirt. She ground-tied the mare and left her for a moment while she was sick in the fields. That relieved the pain somewhat, but now she couldn’t get back on Pepper. She couldn’t vault, and there was nothing in that flat expanse of flooded farmland to stand on for a mounting block. Grimacing, she took the reins and walked the mare back to Hrappa.

  Back at the guesthouse, she handed Pepper off to a servant boy. It was fortunate she had no appetite, since she hadn’t the strength to head into the artisan district for food. She went into the guesthouse, drank a single sip of water, and collapsed on her bed. There she shivered despite the heat.

  Miserable as she was, she was still better off than poor Mandir, chained up in that hole in the ground. How was he faring? She would never have guessed that someday she would miss the man she had once hated above all others. The more sick and lonely she felt, the more she craved his presence. She longed to feel his strong arms around her. At some point, maybe only in the past twenty-four hours, Mandir had ceased to be an irritating needlefly, and had instead become someone she could rely on. Someone who made her feel safe.

  Taya screwed her eyes shut. It was silly to waste her energy thinking about Mandir. In two days’ time, she would probably be dead, and Mandir too.

  Taya awoke, heavy and sluggish, to a knock at her door. Too weary to climb out of bed, she opted for the lesser effort of opening her eyes. Her room was bathed in warm, late-morning sunlight. Flood and fire, how long had she slept? She was supposed to spend the night working out a plan to foil Zash. She had so little time left before the poison killed her.

  The knock came again, making her jump. Who would be at her door? Obviously not Mandir, and Rasik didn’t come by with breakfast anymore.

  She sat up, throwing off a cotton blanket, and saw to her chagrin that she was wearing yesterday’s clothes. “Who’s there?”

  “I know about Zash and your partner,” called a woman’s voice.

  A shiver ran down Taya’s spine. Who could this be, some ally of Zash’s? Taya did not recognize the voice. Wary now, she rehearsed a few choice phrases of the mother tongue in case she needed to unleash fire in a hurry. She rose from the bed and opened the door. “Who are you?”

  “I’ll tell you, but not out here on the doorstep.”

  Taya frowned. Her guest was a teenaged girl. She was dressed in farmer’s clothes: homespun cotton and an indigo belt. And all at once, Taya recognized her. Flood and fire! This was the girl she’d been looking for since the day she came to Hrappa. She licked her lips, ready to drop a fire spell off her tongue if needed, and said, “Come in.”

  The girl slipped inside, and Taya circled around her, shutting the door. “You’re the jackal.”

  The girl’s brows rose. “How did you know?”

  Taya did not answer. Why had this child come here voluntarily? She must be aware that the Coalition had handed down a mandatory death sentence for her. Perhaps she was working with Zash and felt confident of her leverage. “You tried to kill me.”

  “I’m sorry.” The girl looked genuinely remorseful. “I didn’t understand. I thought you had come to execute me.”

  Taya had come to execute her, and still intended to. It was the law. “Why did you change your mind?”

  A smile lit the jackal’s face. “Because of what you did to the banana plants.”

  “At Zash’s?”

  “In town.”

  Once again, she was back to the mystery of the healed banana plants in the farmers’ courtyards. The girl apparently believed that she and Mandir had healed those plants. But they had not. Taya, meanwhile, had assumed it to be the work of the jackal. If neither Taya nor Mandir nor the jackal had healed those plants, who could have done it?

  She opened her mouth to voice the question—and then closed it. She had the jackal at close range and speaking freely. She would not jeopardize that, at least not yet. “You changed your mind about us because of the banana plants?”

  “I knew you couldn’t be all bad if you were willing to break Coalition law for our benefit,” said the jackal. “I’m hoping you’ll at least listen to me.”

  How naive she was. Taya directed the naïf to a chair at her little table. “Of course I’ll listen. Sit down. What’s your name?”

  “Amalia.” The jackal sat.

  “Not the same Amalia who was murdered? Zash’s sister?”

  “Yes, that one. Obviously I’m still alive.”

  Taya blinked at her, stunned. If Amalia was still alive, sitting right in front of her, the third murder had never taken place. And everything Zash told them had been a lie. “Did Zash send you?”

  “Great Mothers, no,” said Amalia. “He hasn’t seen me in weeks.”

  If Amalia was telling the truth, she and Zash were not working together. If that was so, how did she know about Mandir being in captivity? Much as Taya wanted to grab the girl by the shoulders and shake out whatever she knew about Mandir and Zash’s underground prison, she was going to have to be patient if she wanted to keep the girl’s trust. Perhaps the story could be coaxed from her in pieces. “Zash said you went mad after the fever.”

  “I know he said that, but it’s a lie. The fever never happened, and I’ve never been mad.”

  “So what did happen?” Taya smiled encouragingly, trying to look safe and kind and not at all like someone whose job was to burn jackals to death.

  “As a young girl, I worked alongside Zash on the plantation. One day I discovered that I could redirect the water in the irrigation canals simply by willing it to move. I knew immediately what that meant: I had the Gift. I demonstrated my talent to my parents so they would send me to the Coalition, but Zash had another idea. He told the family that if I went off to the Coalition, I would benefit personally, but the farm would suffer, and shouldn’t we all benefit from my Gift? If I stayed at home and used my magic on the farm, we would all become wealthy.”

  “That’s illegal,” said Taya.

&
nbsp; “I know,” said Amalia, “and I refused. But he was determined that I should not leave and deprive the family of my talent. He locked me up and told everyone I’d gone mad. Later, when I tried to escape, he chained me.”

  Taya recalled the charred shackles she and Mandir had found in the burned-out house. “His plan would never have worked. You need Coalition training to work complex magics.”

  Amalia nodded. “It was all for nothing—we know that now. I had raw power in abundance and could call fire and water, but my manipulations were crude. I thought I would get better over time, but for all I practiced, my skills did not advance. Zash wanted me to cure our banana plants of blight, but I couldn’t do it. He thought I was being stubborn, so he threatened me, and he punished me with poisons and beatings. But it didn’t work, and one day I managed to break free of my chains. I’ve been hiding from him ever since.”

  “Amalia.” Taya’s voice grew gentle. “You killed two people.”

  She shook her head. “One.”

  “Hunabi and Narat,” said Taya.

  Amalia shook her head again. “Just Hunabi, and...look, you have to understand why I did it.” She grabbed Taya’s hand and clutched it in her own. “There’s a textile merchant in town named Bodhan isu Kasirum—”

  “I know.”

  “He loaned money to a number of farming families when the floods didn’t come. But the contracts he made them sign—”

  “I know all this too,” said Taya. “The contracts trapped the farmers into producing cotton for him essentially forever, at below-market prices.”

  “Yes,” said Amalia. “And now they’re starving. A number of these families went to the magistrate for help, since obviously the contracts were unfair and they’d repaid their debt many times over in cheap cotton. But the magistrate and Bodhan are allies—they have a marriage contract in negotiations.”

  Taya frowned. Neither she nor Mandir had put that part of the equation together yet. Of course the magistrate had a vested interest in Bodhan’s business success, if he planned for his sons to marry Bodhan’s daughter.