The Burning Isle

by Will Panzo

  “That’s what I figure,” Cassius continued. “The runners returned and they confirmed what I told Galerius and now you need me to describe the situation in the city. Did your men have trouble getting into Hightown? Is that what this is about?”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “Cinna won’t talk, will he? Or if he is talking, he’s not making sense. And, of course, he won’t let the runners pass through the Market to Lowtown. Then you’d have Piso’s perspective and maybe could piece together your own version of events. So you’re stuck with me, last man out of Scipio.”

  “There. Do you see it?”

  Cassius squinted into the distance. He could see only jungle at first, then he glimpsed movement. Through the brush emerged three figures bathed in light the color of rum. Tall and lithe, they moved with a fussy, catlike grace. They were nude and painted smoke white, and their long hair, dark and straight, bounced at their backs. As they drew closer, he could see they were women. The one in the lead carried a large candle with both hands and she had a belt of shells around her waist that made noise as she walked. The other two held what looked like parcels suspended from braided tethers.

  “Lost your heart?” Quintus whispered.

  “Who are they?” Cassius looked up. The tops of the black trees were limned like teeth against a shelf of white stars, as though he were staring out from inside a mouth about to close.

  “Native emissaries.”

  The three halted. They were facing the fort now. The one in the lead raised her candle high and kneeled and stood again. She loosed a long wailing cry, almost singing.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Making offerings.”

  The two began to spin their parcels overhead in wide circles.

  “Of what?” Cassius asked.

  “Skulls.”

  “Human skulls?”

  “Anything less would be an insult.”

  The two released the skulls, which sailed crashing through the jungle.

  “They’re trying to ransom back someone they lost,” Quintus said.

  “From who?”

  “From me. From Death himself as far as they’re concerned.”

  The lead woman blew out her candle and threw it. The three figures turned abruptly and began to walk back into the jungle from which they came. They moved stiffly at first but after a dozen steps they all three broke into a panicked run, charging like hunted boars. The brush seemed to swallow them.

  • • •

  “You’re a smart man, Cassius.”

  Quintus sat before a small hearth in his apartments, watching the flames lick at a kettle that hung in the fire, the kettle steaming and whistling.

  “I don’t know about that.” Cassius sat cross-legged on a pile of strange skins and furs. The room was heavy with a warm, wet smell. The wood of the walls seemed waterlogged, and the steady dripping noise on the ceiling meant that a light rain was falling outside.

  “The way you guessed my position earlier. I’d call that smart.”

  “I’d call it observant. There’s a difference.” Cassius rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted after his stay in the cell, his body sore and weary. His head throbbed.

  The room was large but cluttered. A round table dominated the center, big enough to support a massive feast but littered with scrolls and maps instead, dice, bones that might have been human or animal. A diviner’s deck of ivory tiles was played out across half its surface.

  “Observant?” Quintus said. “You were locked in a jail cell for a day. What was there to observe? No, the skill you employed was projection. You were able to see outside yourself. To judge my options and to know which I’d pick and why. Ever consider a life in the legion, boy? You’d make a hell of a tactician.”

  “Are you willing to hire me?”

  Quintus smiled, the first smile Cassius had seen from him. “There are rumors about you.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “You worked for Cinna, is that true?”

  “It is,” Cassius said.

  “And then double-crossed him for Piso.”

  “Also true. Although I’d take exception with the term double-cross. He meant to have me killed. I was a mercenary. I owed him nothing.”

  “And you’d work for me if I paid you?” Quintus asked.

  “I would.”

  “At what price?”

  “I’m sure you’ll offer compensation to match my skill.”

  “So your loyalty is to the highest bidder?”

  “I fought to save your son,” Cassius said. He fixed Quintus with his gaze. The general’s eyes were deep and black, like two holes bored into his skull. “And in doing that, I ruined every contact I had in this city. I’m unemployable now. I’d hate to seem crass, but yes, it’s true, if you don’t hire me, I won’t find work on this island. I will serve you well for your money, though.”

  “There’s talk that you had a hand in the troubles at the Market.”

  “Talk from who?”

  Quintus shrugged. “There’s always someone willing to talk in Scipio.”

  “Can you trust these talkers? Half of them would sell their children for the right price.”

  “Did you have a hand in the troubles?”

  Cassius sat up straight. He could feel Quintus watching him, measuring each reaction. The thought made his heart quicken, and his weariness ebbed. He could remain calm in the face of monsters and storms of fire, but the general’s stare unsettled him.

  “I fought at the Market,” he said. “So did half the killers employed by both bosses. Should I be chastised both for disloyalty and for doing the job I was paid to do?”

  “There’s talk you helped instigate it.”

  “The bad blood in that city was there before I ever set foot on this island.”

  The kettle continued to whistle. Quintus lifted it from the fire, his hand wrapped in a thick rag. He carried the kettle to a small desk, where two glazed ceramic cups were set, the cups decorated each with the image of a crane in flight.

  “Porcelain,” Quintus said. “From the Eastern kingdom of Xin.” He poured each cup half-full of steaming water and placed the kettle on top of the hearth. He searched the desk drawers until he found a small wooden box and a spoon. He opened the box and spooned out two portions of a brown powder into each cup, then stirred the cups and carried both across the room, offering one to Cassius.

  “What is this?” Cassius asked.

  “Something to help you sleep.”

  “What makes you think I need help sleeping?”

  “Must everything be a confrontation? I’m extending some hospitality. Accept the gesture in the spirit it was offered. I’m not trying to poison you.” And then, as though to drive home the point, Quintus drank.

  Cassius held the cup close to his face and inhaled, trying not to appear as though he were scenting it for toxins. He took a small sip, then, as Quintus watched, a bigger one.

  “And if I were trying to kill you, I’d have soaked your cup in scorpion venom long before you ever set eyes on it.” Quintus laughed. A barking, unpleasant sound.

  “You’re funnier than I thought you’d be.”

  “Did you give much thought to my sense of humor?”

  “Some.” Cassius set down the cup.

  “Well, I’m full of surprises.”

  “Why don’t you wear your gauntlets?”

  “Why would I wear them?” Quintus asked. “For protection?”

  “A spellcaster always wears his gauntlets. I’ve not felt myself all day without mine.”

  “Is that your way of asking for them back?”

  “I figured they’d have been split up and the spells sold off already.”

  “Do you think so little of me, Cassius.”

  “Will you answer my ques
tion?”

  Quintus held his hand in midair. He did not speak, but only looked at the hand, and seeing where his attention was focused, Cassius watched as well. The hand trembled.

  It was a slight motion, but it continued without pause until finally Quintus clenched the hand into a fist and folded his arms across his chest, tucking his hands one under each armpit.

  “Answer enough?” Quintus asked.

  “That’s not an uncommon ailment.”

  “It’s a sign.”

  “Sign that you should give up your spells?” Cassius asked.

  “My body can’t handle the energies I wielded. I was hurting myself.”

  “You’re touched.”

  Quintus was silent.

  “I am, too,” Cassius said.

  “Well, that makes sense. A man as young as you, fighting as well as you do. You would have to be either gifted or well trained.”

  “I’m well trained, too.”

  “Where did you study?” Quintus asked.

  “The Isle of Twelve.”

  “You don’t have to lie to impress me.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You don’t lie?”

  “I do,” Cassius said.

  “But not now?”

  “Not to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to know who I really am.”

  Quintus sat on the edge of his large table. He prodded a pile of trinkets with his index finger, a piece of jade, a silver necklace, some whittled ivory ruined by a bad craftsman.

  “So you trained in the best spellcaster school in all the world?”

  “I don’t know if it’s the best,” Cassius said. “But they train the touched exclusively.”

  “Are the rumors true? Do they make you sleep on rocks? Feed you once a week? Beat you daily?”

  “It was a hard life there.”

  “Why endure that?”

  “To make myself strong.”

  “Shouldn’t you still be there? They train students for decades.”

  “I ran away.”

  “Had enough of that rot?”

  “I wanted to work.”

  “In Scipio?”

  Cassius nodded.

  “Strange choice,” Quintus said.

  “I felt it calling me.”

  “Maybe that was just a voice in your head.”

  Cassius looked to Quintus. “Have you ever felt that?”

  “A voice in my head?”

  “Yes.”

  “They say I’m mad, don’t they?” Quintus asked. “Too much spellcasting, right? Or else it’s in my blood?”

  “Your father was a spellcaster, wasn’t he?”

  “Touched. Like me. And his father before him and his father before him.”

  “It skipped Vorenicus though,” Cassius said.

  “I held out hope for years. When you’re touched, the ability comes late. I was fourteen before it happened to me.”

  “I was a little younger than that.”

  “But it never came to Vorenicus. It upset me for a while, that we wouldn’t share this. But now I think it’s for the best.”

  “How is he?”

  Quintus shook his head. “Not well.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I have healers working on him now. It’s a slow process when dealing with a head injury. Or so they say. They’re terrified of his waking up without the ability to speak or some such thing.”

  “You don’t trust their talents?”

  “Would you? You’re a killer. How do you feel about healers?”

  “They’re hacks. Or else too scared to put their abilities to a true test.”

  “A true test?”

  Cassius raised his hands as though to cast a spell.

  Quintus smiled again. “Be careful, boy. Wave your hands like that at me, and I might take you up on the challenge.”

  “I don’t have my gauntlets.”

  “And if I gave them back? Would you accept?”

  Cassius was silent.

  Quintus laughed. “A wise answer.”

  A light, airy feeling filled Cassius’s chest now. The pain in his arms dulled. He felt straighter, as though the tension in his shoulders had been massaged away.

  “What’s in that tea?” Cassius asked.

  “Why did you save my son’s life?”

  “Answer mine, and I’ll answer yours.”

  “It’s an old Native concoction. In strong enough doses, those animals use it to perform surgery. They could cut your foot off, and you wouldn’t know it was missing for half a day. Or care for that matter.” Quintus downed the rest of his drink, setting the cup on the table afterward like proof of the deed.

  “I admire Vorenicus,” Cassius said.

  “You must take me for a fool. Feed me a line like that. Has the tea gone to your head already, boy? I thought we were being honest here.”

  “I meant what I said.”

  “Admire him for what?” Quintus asked.

  “For the same reason the people in that city laughed at him. He believed in something. Had the conviction to work for it.”

  “That’s my fault probably. I loved him too much.”

  Cassius looked away.

  “I raised him soft,” Quintus said. “Might have done him some good to see a bit of hardship.”

  “Oftentimes, that’s the crime of a mother.”

  “His mother died in childbirth. He never knew her. If there’s blame to be laid, it rests with me.”

  “What will be your response to Piso and Cinna?” Cassius asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “It doesn’t seem like such a tough choice to me. They slaughtered fifty of your men. And nearly killed your son. They have to be held accountable for their actions.”

  “So I should march the legion down there this very night? Wake the whole lot of those bastards with a rain of arrows and fire and the like?”

  “They’ll think you weak otherwise.”

  Quintus’s eyes grew sharp, focused. “They’re not stupid enough or blind enough to think me weak.”

  “So why not show them your might?”

  “Because if what you say is true, if they’re fighting amongst themselves, then they’re doing my work for me. If I show up at the gates with three thousand men, then those two whoresons will stop killing each other and join forces to fight me. And that’s a headache I don’t need right now. So let them fight till their exhausted. And then I’ll smack their hands like the naughty children they are.”

  “What of your men?” Cassius asked. “Won’t they be mad, you leaving the deaths of their brothers unpunished?”

  “You think there’s a man in this fort who hasn’t seen a brother killed in action?”

  “And if Vorenicus dies? What then?”

  Quintus turned to the hearth. He considered the fire.

  “I think that’s enough talk for tonight.”

  THE ONLY DEFEAT IS DEATH

  On the Isle of Twelve, they called him Spider, but in the world between, the voice called him by his true name. A boy of fourteen, he had been training for six months when an errant spell during a sparring match sent him tumbling into a ravine. The spell had loosed a concentrated shock wave meant to disorient him, but Spider had been fighting recklessly. Overconfident, he had lowered his guard while pressing an attack, and the shock wave, a spell he otherwise would have recognized and avoided, struck him with full force.

  He had angled his sparring partner, a boy two years his senior, to the edge of a cliff, hoping to force him to yield. The boy, named Walrus, was doughy and slow but had a patient disposition and had timed his strike perfectly. Spider was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  Hi
s momentum as he fell carried him off the edge of the cliff. He fell for twenty feet and landed on his back, lying motionless in the ravine for hours. Walrus took his time in getting help. He walked back to the initiate barracks slowly, spent time searching for a senior initiate instead of alerting the first person he saw, and then, as the sun set, had difficulty locating the cliff where the boys had sparred.

  All the while, Spider lay dying, his mind adrift in the void and a faint voice from behind him calling his true name.

  The Masters did not expect him to live.

  “Dead by morning,” Master Tarek declared, standing over the boy in the dank confines of the infirmary. The light of dozens of candles played across Spider’s broken body. His chest and belly purpled with deep bruises, his ribs mashed, back broken.

  In the void, Spider never heard this pronouncement. He floated in the dark, listening to a lullaby about rain and a river.

  The next morning found Spider still alive in the infirmary, his blood soaking into the stone table. He breathed in shallow, ragged gasps, muttered incomprehensibly. Master Tarek was impressed by the boy’s resolve.

  “It seems he wishes to live.” Tarek stood over Spider’s body, probing with indelicate hands. He pressed on ribs, felt them crunch and shift under his finger. He palpated the bruised belly, watched as Spider writhed and moaned in response. “Very well then. Summon the underclassmen. We’ll let them practice their healing spells.”

  The initiates spent all afternoon casting healing spells on Spider’s body. Inexperienced and with little concern for Spider’s life, they eschewed the reserved approach of most healers. They knit bones in hours that a practiced hand might take days to mend. All the while, Spider bucked and sweated on the stone table, his hands and feet lashed to keep him from resisting.

  In the place between, Spider felt himself floating through endless fire, his world reduced to searing pain. In the distance, he heard a familiar voice calling to him. The voice was faint, barely discernible.

  “Stay your path,” the voice said. “Nothing will stop you.”

  The initiates finished their practice by sundown, and Spider passed a tortured night in the infirmary. He drifted between waking and dreaming, sometimes listening to the sound of the voice, sometimes hearing his own screams. All the while, his body hummed with remembered pain.