Flesh and Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Gather the wood,” he told Ao. “There, between us.”

  Ao did so, and stepped back, watching curiously. Jerzy sucked at the inside of his mouth, willing moisture to come forward, and then spat onto his palm, cupping the small amount of spittle protectively.

  He had not worked firewines enough to have them in his system. But he knew the taste, the smell, the depth of the grapes, the shape and color of the leaves, the touch of the soil that fed their roots.

  Was it enough?

  “Fire, come.” The most basic firespell decantation. “Fire, come. Flame to fuel.” He placed his hand on the topmost branch, and barely let the command slip from his lips, a faint blowing whisper. “Go.”

  It was barely a crackle at first, so faint he wasn’t sure he heard it, then the log warmed under his touch and when he removed his hand, a flicker of steady blue flame appeared in its place, dancing up and down the branch. It caught, moving from one bit of wood to another, until a small but cozy fire burned in front of him.

  “Not so useless after all,” Mahault said, and Jerzy felt as though the fire was warming inside his chest as well.

  “There are things both of you need to know,” he said, sitting back down on his stone and waiting while Ao sat next to Mahault on the log. They seemed strangers—they were strangers, unfamiliar faces made even more distant in the hazy air above the fire.

  “You can trust us,” Mahault said. “On my honor, if not that of my father’s.” Ao said nothing, merely waited, his hands resting on his knees, his face calm and unworried, his dark gaze sharp even through the haze.

  “It began almost a year ago,” he began. “When my master first heard rumors of strange disasters that could not be explained by normal means. . . .”

  When he had finished bringing Ao and Mahault up to date with everything, from Malech’s first voiced concerns all the way through to the death of the servant boy in his room, the last of the sunlight had disappeared. The only illumination came from his little fire, still crackling merrily over the wood it was not consuming.

  “You think that’s why he would not see my delegation?” Ao asked. “Because whoever was influencing him told him not to? But why? To what profit?”

  “And he would not . . . would not be rational, would not listen to anyone who had counseled him fair in the past, because. . .someone was telling him otherwise, as Sar Anton claimed? But how does that tie into what you were sent to find?” Mahault was trying to put the pieces together in a recognizable mosaic, and failing.

  “I don’t know,” Jerzy admitted. “My master sent me to harvest what news I could find, of strange doings or disasters aimed at Vinearts, against magic itself. Instead, I find—”

  “That it’s not just Vinearts,” Mahault said, the pieces clicking for her, even as Jerzy saw the pattern in his own mind. “It is power itself that is being attacked. My father. . .” Her face could have been carved from the same stone her city was built from, once again cool and strong. “My father is being manipulated by those he trusted, coaxed into decisions that are not good for Aleppan. I don’t know if that Washer had anything to do with it—but Sar Anton certainly did, I would swear to it.”

  “Intrigue,” Ao said. “Court intrigue. . .only rising from servants, not courtiers. From within the House itself, not external. If the maiar is being manipulated by an aide, was he set there by Sar Anton? Or the Washer, Darian? Washers are deep, and their Collegium has fingers in every pot. But what would be their complaint against Vineart Giordan? No, it makes no sense.”

  Jerzy held up a hand, unconsciously imitating a pose he had seen often enough from Malech, when his master was thinking something through and did not want to be disturbed.

  “What made you think something was wrong?” he asked Mahault. “You were following them, listening. . .and you’ve accepted everything I’ve told you without hesitation. Why?”

  “My father. . .was a strong man, but a fair one, and he knew that there was a role for every soul born. ‘Like Vinearts,’ he would say. ‘They end up where they’re supposed to be.’ I had thought, when I told him I wished to be a solitaire, he would be proud. It is a seemly career, if not one often taken by the daughter of a maiar.”

  “He refused you permission?”

  “He refused permission, and set that. . .hound of a watchwoman on me, to ensure I did not leave without consent, and my mother would not gainsay him, too afraid of his uncertain temper. Without their dowry, or some great act of courage on my part, the solitaire would never accept me.”

  “So you used us to make your escape,” Ao said.

  Mahault looked up, but Ao was grinning, not at all annoyed. “Brilliant,” he said. “Brilliant. What a solitaire you’d make!” He sobered then, just as suddenly. “Not that I can offer any dowry to ease your way. My own clan. . .I’ll have caused them loss of face, taking something that belonged to another without compensation. It will take something equally brilliant to make them accept me again.”

  Jerzy leaned back, starting to feel as though he were back where his master wanted him to be, after all. “Something like discovering who— or what—is trying to influence princes, and to what end? And you, Mahault. . .would finding those who tried to harm your father, and bringing them to light, be considered an act of courage?”

  Ao’s expression was still solemn, but a hint of his usual mischief returned in the way his eyes crinkled slightly at the ends. “Oh, yes, indeed,” he said, even as Mahault turned his offer over in her quiet way.

  Jerzy watched the two of them, coming to Agreement over the flickering tendrils of spellfire, and felt something twist in his gut. Serpents attacking shorelines, ships destroyed, Vinearts disappearing, and a trade-city’s ruler and the local Vineart both undermined. . .Giordan, the maiar, perhaps even Washer Darian: the touch of magic he had felt twice now, it came from none of them. That aide to the maiar. . .it was his unknown master who was the greater enemy, the cause of the unrest and distrust being sown across the Lands Vin.

  And it was an enemy they could warn no one against. Without a name, or a reason, no one would believe their misfortunes were not caused by a visible enemy, an attackable foe. Panic would be the enemy’s ally, not theirs.

  And if he returned to the Valle. . .they would take him there, him and his companions, and perhaps Master Malech as well. But he needed to warn his master. He had no mirror, no messenger birds, or coin to hire a meme-courier.. . .

  The three of them, against an unknown force of unknown strength and purpose. The student, the trader, and the fighter.

  That thought triggered a memory, and it was as though he heard Master Malech’s voice, too distant to be true and yet real as the fire in front of him.

  “Magic, and knowledge, and strength,” he said, feeling a sense of impossible calm settle over him. “Those are the three things we need. . .and the three things we have. Ao, can you find us a ship? I have a plan.”

  THE CAULIC FLEET struck during a night-storm, prows rising and falling over the white-capped waves. The storm itself was natural, although he knew his crew believed the scryers had called it up through some dire arts; not ideal weather to sail through, but a useful screen against their own actions, should anyone be watching for them.

  The scryers stood, as they had for days now, in the bow of the Risen Moon, three shadowed figures sodden and whipped by the storm, but solid as though planted in the planks of the ship itself. At the helm, the captain put his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Steady and true, boy. Steady and true. Through to dawn, and we’ll be in the royal bedchambers by midday.”

  They had been lurking for days, waiting until the damned scryers said the time was right. They were short of supplies and long on nerves, but he had faith in his men, and they trusted him. Caulic skill and Caulic steel were a match for any Vineart’s tricks.

  “Steady,” he said again, as the ship rocked in the wind. “Steady . . .”

  “Firespouts!” came the cry from the scout’s mast, where a young
sailor was lashed to his nest. “Firespouts ahead!”

  The pilot swore, hauling hard on the wheel, and the Risen Moon shuddered under the sudden change of direction.

  “A pox on their mothers,” the captain swore. “In this weather?”

  As though in answer, a geyser of flame slammed up through the waves to the starboard, flickers reaching out toward the sails. The captain slammed his hands down hard on the rain-soaked rail. There were no firespouts near Atakus, not in any reports ever made of the well-traveled lanes, not in a hundred years.

  “More damned trickery,” he muttered, swiping the back of his arm across his face in a useless attempt to clear the rain from his eyes. The band holding his hair from his forehead was soaked and likewise useless, and he pulled it off with another muttered oath, tossing it down to the deck. “They cannot blind us, so they think to singe us. But we shall not have it! We will not be denied. Steady on, lads!” he yelled into the storm. “Steady on and strong!

  Sailors raced to the side, hands pulling on ropes, tugging the sails out of harm’s way, but another firespout to their rear caught a barrel of spellwine, and the crew was split between trying to protect their cargo and their means of propulsion.

  “Steady,” he said again to the pilot, and went to help his crew, even as another firespout hit them dead-on.

  In the bow of the battered ship, the three scryers never once took their gaze from where the shoreline of Atakus should be.

  “KAÏNAM. KAÏNAM, WAKE. Wake quickly.”

  Kaïnam sat upright. He had been reading an old text, and fallen asleep at his desk, when his sister’s voice called to him, urging him to rise.

  “Am I late?” he asked her, rubbing the exhaustion from his face—and then remembered. Only a dream. Thaïs was dead, his father gone mad, his home cut off from the outside rather than face his sister’s killers, hiding in fear rather than demanding justice—

  “Kaïnam, look!”

  A dream, following him into his half-awake state. But the voice was so urgent, he found himself following its urgings, rising from his chair to the balcony of his bedchamber, looking out over the dark, rain-slicked night seascape.

  A seascape blasted by sudden, short-lived pillars of flame.

  “Sin Washer be merciful. . ..”

  Barefoot, wearing only a robe against the night air, Kaïnam flung open his bedchamber door and raced down the stairs, knocking aside the servant who had come to rouse him. His father was already dressed, standing on the open portico, only slightly protected from the rain. He was accompanied by his ever-present guard, and even as Kaïnam came up beside him, the guard who had been stationed outside his chamber door slipped into place to his left.

  Master Vineart Edon, a constant visitor in the months since the barrier went up, joined them within minutes.

  “What further madness, what insanity is this?” Kaïnam demanded of the Vineart. “What spells have you encircled us with, to cause this?”

  Firespouts were deadly, the bane of any shipping port; no captain would dare wend his way through them, not when a single burst could destroy his entire ship. To cause such a thing, even in defense, was to doom them to isolation and poverty forever, for no matter what the future brought, none would ever believe the harbor safe again.

  “Master Edon, is this your doing?” Erebuh asked, staring out into the night, where columns appeared and disappeared without visible pattern.

  “Of course it is,” Kaïnam shouted. “Firespouts don’t simply appear where none have been before, not without magic—”

  “Kaïnam, I swear to you.” Edon’s voice cut across Kaïnam’s, even without raising his own tone. “To create that many firespouts is a skill beyond any single Vineart, even a Master. Whatever happens out there, it is not my doing.”

  “There’s a ship out there,” one of the guards said, looking through a viewscope. He handed it to Kaïnam, who looked as well.

  “A Caulic-built vessel, by the lines,” he said. “Coming straight for us, as though they knew exactly where we were.”

  “Could the fires be theirs?”

  “Cauls?” That surprised a laugh out of Edon. “Not unless they’ve found a river that runs of gold, to buy the firespells and waterspells needed, and the Vinearts skilled enough to decant them. And why would the Cauls cast firespouts around their own ships?”

  “Two enemies, come so close in one night, attacking each other?” the prince asked. “But who would come to our aid thus?”

  “Our aid?” a quiet voice mused in Kaïnam’s ear, an impossibly familiar voice from out of his dream. “Our aid, or our downfall? This, too, we shall take the blame for, however it falls out.”

  Kaïnam alone heard the Wise Lady’s voice speaking his innermost fears, and he alone felt a shiver in his spine.

  THE NEXT MORNING wreckage spread across the shallow waters of the bay, driftwood bobbing on the waves, barrels and spars drifting in the tide, while the stink of burned, bloated bodies rose from the shore. Kaïnam guided the salvage operation, as befitted his father’s heir, but the bile in his mouth came not from the scene, but what he dreaded lay beyond.

  None of this had been accident, or coincidence. He knew that, deep in his gut. Someone had set the killer to prick them, push them into the ill-advised use of magic with withdrawal from the world. Because of that, someone had sent those ships to discover them—for good or ill, it did not matter now, because someone—the same someone? A different enemy?—had used magic again to create firespouts, making it look as though Atakus, not content to simply disappear, had used spellwines to kill.

  Princelings using magic to wage war, to kill. Forbidden, by Sin Washer’s Command. No one would ever believe their innocence, not now. Not after what they had done. Someone had done this to them, planned and prepared the way. But for what? What purpose, what plan?

  “We took the bait, Thaïs,” he told the dream voice, now silent. “We took the bait, and sealed our own doom. But I will not let it go unanswered. I swear to you; your death, our loss of honor—though it cost me everything, it will not go unanswered.”

  The harsh cry of a seabird overhead was the only response to his vow.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prelude

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  PART II

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  PART 3

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24