Ink Adept
Page 41
A man walked through the smoke, hair and skin shining. On his wrist rose a livid black mark—the same shape as the one on Bast.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
Fire overtook the shadowy figure of the man, and the illusion vanished.
“He tried to find a cure, for a long time.” Unaraq’s voice was raw with bitterness. “But then he, too, was overtaken by corruption, even as he prayed to his lady Aïda to smile upon him once more.”
She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. How could they fight an enemy living within their own hearts? She was weary to the bone of fighting every moment of the day.
“It’s curious,” he said. Heat touched her face and she jerked away instinctively. Unaraq took his hand back. “You are full of hunger, like lava inside a dormant volcano. But you keep it locked away.”
She shrugged. “It’s what mortals do.”
“Amazing.”
“What?”
“No spirit may choose contrary to their nature. A rock spirit cannot over time become an air spirit. However we are born, that is how we must remain forever, no matter how long our life extends.”
Munayair shifted, still breathing through her mouth. “I’m not so sure humans are capable of change, either.”
He met her gaze with blazing eyes. “But you are,” he hissed, fierce as steam rising from hot coals. “The great miracle of mortal bodies. I have seen a man as mild as a spring morning turn overnight into a fiery brand, burning himself and his enemies into cinders. A great warrior who lives for the taste of blood in her mouth might one day renounce all violence and live as a hermit for the rest of her days. Napai grows strong in a mortal one day, and Aïda the next. But spirits are different. None of us may deny his true nature.” His eyes grew distant. “I can never enter the water, even if I wished to.”
Munayair considered this for a moment. “Some might call that fortunate,” she said. Anjita passed through her mind. Falean, Sachin, Lady Tarokh, Bast. “Humans make many mistakes, hurting themselves and others.”
“Do we choose our own path, or are we ruled by fate?” Unaraq glared at nothing. “Can such a being as I, destined to flow down one channel forever, really call myself free? If I could, by some effort, escape my nature, who would I be then?”
She struggled to open her eyes and look at him. Spirits, she was tired. “How have you evaded corruption for all these years?”
A smirk touched his lips. “Fire spirits aren’t as easily corrupted as the rest. There are two paths to cleansing: the path of water, and the path of fire.” He held out a hand and a flame erupted from his palm, illuminating his sharp cheekbones. “Water cleans slowly, but fire cleanses in an instant.”
Fear seized her, and she leaned away from the flame, but her curiosity was almost stronger. She looked at his glowing eyes as something stirred deep within, something she had forgotten from long, long ago. Was it a memory? A vision? Her fingers clenched around the mark as it burned.
“That’s why I mistook you for the chosen one. That mark you wear—symbol of a promise you’ll one day be called upon to fulfill.” Unaraq’s eyes burned.
“Will you save my children?” a soft voice whispered.
Startled, Munayair jerked back. At the same moment, something shifted in the corner of her eye. The cat jumped to her feet, staring into a dark corner of the tunnel, back arched and tail fluffed. After a moment she bared her fangs and yowled, a spine-chilling note of warning.
“What’s wrong?” Munayair said, scrambling to her feet. She held her witchlight high.
Crouched in a cleft of rock was a creature of glittering black scales and eyes. A forked tongue, also black, flickered from between sharp teeth. It was a lizard, a dozen handspans long from snout to the tip of its lashing tail. Unaraq’s eyes flared brighter and he hissed. He rose to hover above the ground, shimmering in a heat haze.
Munayair’s heart thundered in her ears. “What? What is it?” She bent to the cat, smoothing the fluffed fur, feeling the frantic heartbeat thudding inside the tiny body. She gathered it into her arms, where it struggled in silence.
“That shouldn’t be here.” Unaraq’s upper lip twitched to reveal pointed teeth, and he looked around with narrowed eyes. The flames on his skin flared brighter, and his eyes began to glow with a hellish light. “If that ... thing is able to find its way this far into the spring …”
He held out his hands, and flames burst into life, running the length of his arms and forming a nimbus around his head. Munayair gasped and stumbled away, shielding the cat with her body. The lizard scuttled back, eyes glinting in the flames, but did not flee.
“What is it?” she asked, leaning forward to see better. “A spirit?”
Unaraq’s lip twisted, and he spoke in a hiss. “Of a kind. You might call it a shadow spirit, or an anti-spirit. It haunts this place, seeking always to find its way into the heart of the sanctuary. Its name is Onol.”
Onol, she thought. Legion, in ancient Taellori. An involuntary shiver ran over her. She was having trouble thinking while the sound of the flames and the scent of smoke assailed her senses. Although she sucked in breath after breath, her head still whirled. Had the fire burned away all the air? The cat fought to be free, claws digging into her arms.
As they backed away, staring at Onol’s glinting black eyes, a ripple flowed across the water under Munayair’s feet. When it reached Unaraq, it halted and quivered, gleaming. Unaraq’s eyes narrowed. “The gokhai is calling. She almost never summons me to the confluence.” He frowned. “You were right—something is wrong. We have to go, now.” He turned to Munayair. She shrank back, struggling to hold onto her wits and the writhing cat at the same time. Unaraq seized her by the arm and she gasped at the heat of his hand. His gaze never left the lizard. “We can’t risk her following,” he said. “We’ll go by the path of fire.”
They shifted into a world of flickering red light, flames licking at them from all sides. Heat carried them faster than breath, blowing them along with smoke and sparks. In less than a moment, they emerged into darkness.
Munayair fell to her knees, struggling to breathe through the smoke filling her lungs. The world wavered around her. Screams echoed in her brain, the thunder of hooves, the hungry roar of flames.
“Raise your hands,” a rough, accented voice demanded.
So she did.
Inward pressure flared. A rumble overtook the voice of the fire, and then blessed coolness flowed over her. She had left the fire behind, along with fear. The river embraced her, buoyed her up, played with her hair, and chattered in her ears.
You’re finally awake! said a voice like streaming bubbles. You slept a long time.
Where am I? What happened? Munayair asked. The last thing she could remember, she had been in her mother’s wagon, traveling to her grandfather in the mountains. Where’s my family? Captain Tel?
Water flowed past her limbs, current coiling around her like fingers. Would you like to stay here with me?
With you? she replied, confused. But I’m mortal—I’d drown!
Yes. Baring sharpened teeth, the spirit blinked eyes like two chips of obsidian at her. Well, perhaps it’s for the best.
Terror struck Munayair then, for the river no longer cradled her. Gone the soft touches and buoyant playfulness. Now a savage torrent struck at her with wild fury. She tried to cry out, but water choked her and she spun away into bewildering darkness. As she sank, eyes of flame opened before her, and a voice asked, urgent and low:
“Will you save my children?”
And the mark ached, ached like a bruise, ached like sorrow.
Chapter 42: The Path of Fire
“Moony, breathe. Moony! Moony, you’re here with us, you’re safe—” The voice was soft, urgent, familiar.
Mother? No, it could not be her mother. Her heart leaped. Av? Did you come back for me? She opened her eyes and drew in a long breath, overwhelmed by bright light after so long in the dark. The cat hissed and spat, and voices spok
e to calm her.
“Call off your beast, uneg!” Dashjin cried.
“She’s scared,” Khuson said apologetically. “Anyway, cats don’t listen to anybody.”
Still trembling, she glanced upwards. The first thing she saw was Unaraq bending over her. Then she saw Ronyl, Anjita, Khuson, and Bast beside him. Many eyes watched in concern, but one pair held her attention. Blue, like the rest of her, but dimmed to grey by a thin scum of oily blackness.
“Don’t be afraid, Moony,” that same soft voice said again as a cool hand stroked her forehead. She remembered the crushing pressure of water flowing around her, the cruel smile. The voice—that familiar voice—
“Breathe, girl—breathe!” The imp’s hot hands hovered. “By my father—if I’d known you would react like this—”
“She’s terrified of fire.” Anjita’s voice sounded far away.
“Why didn’t you say something, fool mortal?”
“Everyone step back, let her breathe,” Ronyl murmured. The staring eyes disappeared from her view, all but the ones like flaring coals. Those eyes also unsettled her, but for reasons she couldn’t name—a fire? Or a promise?
“Will you save my children?”
She shuddered. Her mark itched and burned.
Unaraq shook himself, splashing hot water all over her. “Next time say, ‘I’d rather walk to the spring.’ You don’t have to drown me in it.”
“Drown?” she repeated, looking around.
Sharp claws pricked through her tunic. A wet, furious cat yowled from Munayair’s chest, ears flattened to its skull. She reached up to calm it and it bolted away, a streak of white in the gloom. In jerks, she became aware of her surroundings. Fragrant cypress boughs drooped low overhead. The room was cavernous and circular. Long years of rain had cut through the stone, leaving the room open to the sky. Through this opening, the enormous trunk of the cypress stretched towards the stormclouds. A spring welled up in a circular pool and flowed through four deep channels cut into the floor. Seven flames guarded by buzzing firebugs stood in bronze braziers around the pool. Glyphs were carved into the bare rock around the spring.
Finally, she could feel her own body again. Instead of singed, as she had expected, she was cold and wet. The cave was dark, half the braziers steaming and dripping water. Even Unaraq was the color of wet coals, glowing fitfully through cracks.
Shifting to sit up, she winced as her back grated against bare rock instead of a supple cushion of water. “I did what?” she muttered, staring from the dark water of the spring to her own hands, trembling in her lap.
“You did that on accident?” Unaraq said incredulously. “Then what we should be worrying about is your control, because the water in the spring isn’t supposed to answer to anyone but Ronyl.”
Her mind was working again, and she frowned. “You set me on fire,” she accused.
Unaraq rolled his eyes. “No, dunce, we were walking the path of fire. And you took to it like a natural, right up until the drowning thing.”
Shudders still crawled up and down her skin. “It felt like burning.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, touching her shoulder. She flinched from the heat and he backed away. “Ronyl’s almost ready for us,” he told her, then he was gone.
Anjita, watching from nearby while tugging at the pin in her collar, hurried over to Munayair as soon as she saw Unaraq leave. “Are you all right?” she gasped, hugging Munayair tightly. “Where do you keep disappearing to?”
“Sorry,” Munayair whispered against her shoulder. Even with waking eyes she saw twin flames staring back at her. A sorrowful voice asking, “Will you save my children?”
“The time is approaching,” Adept Ajhai had said. “You’ll have to do as you promised.”
What did I promise, Av? You were with me, then. What have I forgotten? But there was no reply inside her mind.
“Lady Moon!” Dashjin cried, gleaming as he fluttered to her. “We were so worried about you—”
She held out her hand and he alighted on her palm. “I’m sorry.”
Anjita smiled. “Lady Moon. I like that.” She took Munayair’s other hand and searched her face. “Are you all right?”
The mark ached. Munayair turned her face away and nodded, trying to cover her unrest by saying, “Where are we? What is this place?”
Dashjin rose from her hand, growing brighter. “We are in the very center of the grove here,” he whispered. “The confluence, where the powers of the high ones combine to protect us all.”
Craning her neck, she traced with her eyes the cypress rising through the ceiling. Graceful patterns of limb and leaf, enormous mass a shadow against the stormy sky. Evergreen boughs drooped to the surface of the water, and moss grew thickly on its trunk. Knobbled knees rose from the spring like an old woman lifting her skirt to wade.
“I think Ronyl wants us,” Anjita said gently.
Nodding, Munayair dropped her head. “You go,” she said. “I’ll be right there. I want to sit for a moment longer.”
Hesitating, Anjita squeezed Munayair’s hand, then walked away. Dashjin hovered beside Munayair, staring entranced at the roiling black water. He hummed under his breath.
She and Unaraq were not the only ones who had been gathered to the confluence. Spirits waited in knots under the waving boughs of the cypress. Anjita walked over to stand next to Khuson, while Bast leaned against a wall as far from the others as possible. His face had been cleaned, but blood stained his tunic and a bruise spread from the bridge of his nose to his eyes. A crowd of eager spirits whispered around him, and he glowered at the ceiling rather than meet their eyes. Goblins guarded the doorways. One for each cardinal direction, each element, each god except the Lady of Spirit. Munayair glanced at Anjita to see how she was handling this new blasphemy.
Then a movement among the leaves caught her eye. Ennai dropped from a branch overhead, swinging upside-down by her toes. “Clear out, princeling,” she said. “You aren’t needed here. Or wanted.”
For once, Dashjin didn’t rise to her needling. Munayair held out a hand and he lighted on her palm without looking away from the spring. “Fear is nothing to be ashamed of,” she said.
“It’s not that.” Dashjin shivered. “Water is my doom.”
“Doom?”
“You don’t even know that?” Ennai scoffed. “Mortals are so ignorant. All spirits have one.”
Dashjin nodded. “When I was born, the Thunderer-That-Was foresaw my death in dark water underground. Ever since then, my father has never let me near the spring.”
Doom. She touched her wrist. “Will you save my children?”
“If you look carefully, you can see it work.”
Munayair followed his gaze. She had not noticed Pich, the corrupted stone spirit, immersed in the pool. Goblins stood guard at a respectful distance. When Pich stirred, the water hissed and foamed. Blackness oozed into the water, drifted down one of the channels, and finally disappeared underground.
Munayair’s breath caught. “Will she be cured?”
“Of course not!” Ennai scoffed overhead. “The confluence can suspend the poison, not pull it out by the roots. Even ulgeroi know that.”
“Hey!” Dashjin snapped. “I know things a rootbound kudai never will—”
“Airhead!” Ennai sang, flipping to a branch further down.
“Confluence?” Munayair said, wondering who would win if they chose to fight.
“The confluence keeps us safe.” Dashjin lifted his chin to ignore Ennai’s daring acrobatics in the branches. “One of the only strongholds left after the great spirit war. It requires four high elementals to maintain the spell—air, fire, earth, and water.”
The walls flashed and the alarm sounded again. Ennai flinched and Dashjin let out a squeak. “They’re getting in!” He zoomed into the air, strobing.
Ennai launched herself from the tree and snagged him midair, sending them both crashing to the ground. She clamped one long hand over his mouth. “Shut it, fl
uff brain! Are you trying to cause a panic?”
An arm slipped around Munayair’s shoulders. “Well, this looks like fun.”
Ennai squeaked and leaped straight up into the nearest branch with Dashjin in her arms. Automatically, Munayair reached for her hands-off spell. Light sizzled along her skin, and when the arm disappeared with a yelp, she whirled to face her assailant.
“Windsinger,” Khuson swore, shaking numb hands.
“Spirits!” Her face burned. “Are you all right?”
Khuson flexed his fingers, wincing as sensation returned. “That’s quite a spell.” He winked. “I guess you could say sparks are flying.”
Ennai turned with a sniff and dropped Dashjin. She began picking insects from the rugged bark and studying them before popping them into her mouth. Dashjin drifted from the tree and collapsed to Khuson’s shoulder.
“Idiot!” Munayair snatched her hands from her tattoos and shoved him back. “Don’t you know never, never to surprise an adept?”
“No?” He grinned at her. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”
“You—ugh!” Her hands twitched towards the spells again, but she jerked them back to her sides. “Can you stop teasing me? What do you want?”
“Are you sure you want to know the answer to that question?” he asked, eyes twinkling.
“You …” She stopped herself on the verge of actually stomping her foot in rage.
“Munayair, Khuson,” Ronyl called out. Grateful, Munayair turned away and hurried to join the others around the spring. Anjita was hiding a smile, which Munayair ignored with gritted teeth. Ronyl turned from the spring to face them. She cupped her hands and a small pool formed. “Each of you must take a sip.”
Khuson and Bast both drank and leaned back with pained expressions. Then Ronyl tipped a measure into Munayair’s mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the icy liquid trickle all the way to her stomach. A shudder ran down her limbs and up to her head.