Alaskan Fury (19 page)

Chapter 8:
Small Kindnesses

“Tell la Inquisidora Nieve we
are in position.”

The whisper startled Kaashifah
awake.

On the far corner of the cavern,
the djinni stirred.  “Done sleeping already, mon Dhi’b?  After the
abrupt
way you went to sleep, I assumed you were more tired than—”

“Shhh!” Kaashifah hissed,
twisting to crane her neck up at the smoke rising through the hole she’d cut. 
Beyond the white flakes drifting down through the opening, she saw nothing but
darkness.  Could she hear the soft chopping of blades, cutting the air?

  ‘Aqrab made a derisive laugh. 
“The time when you could shush me has passed, little wolf.  Would you like me
to sing you back to sleep?”

“‘Aqrab, shush!” Kaashifah
hissed, listening.

“Team two is also in position,
”
she heard a Frenchman say, like a static whisper in her mind.

The Spanish-tinged female voice
that Kaashifah recognized from the attack on the Sleeping Lady Lodge said,
“Team
two, hold your position.  Team one, light up the chimney.  Smoke them out.”

“They’re here!” she cried,
scrambling away from the wall.  She saw movement in the smoke above and
instinctively threw up a shield to match the curvature of the earth-bubble. 
Something rattled against her shield, trapped in the smoke-hole.  A moment
later, there was a blinding flash, mostly hidden by the earth above.  She heard
the sound of men yelling above her, but for her own part, Kaashifah dropped to
her hands and knees, unable to see more than blurry shapes.

“Mon Dhi’b!” the djinni bellowed,
likewise affected.

“I’m here!”  Kaashifah felt
something hammer against the shield at the entry she had carved into the dirt,
and the reverberating rattle of gunfire pummeled the wall of energy as bullets
slammed into her mental barrier.

“Can’t get through the front
door.  They’ve got some sort of shield up.”

“Use the faespar.”

Kaashifah’s eyes widened.  “They
have faespar!  ‘Aqrab,
go
!”  She saw movement in the corner of her eye
and the djinni vanished.

A moment later, her shield was
shattered as something pierced it, then soared across the cavern and blew apart
the wall opposite it.  Kaashifah endured the mental agony as her shield
dissolved, but her training as a Fury took hold.  While at rest and calm,
Kaashifah had to concentrate a few moments to reach her center, but in battle,
especially while experiencing pain, she could find her center in the space of a
heartbeat. 

“Merciful God!  Something just
lit up the infrared, right beside you, team one!  It’s outside to the
north-northwest.  Looks humanoid.  Circling around your backs.”

“I’m not seeing anything!”

“It’s there, Jacquot!  Two
meters to your left!”

Another voice, with a thick Scottish
brogue,
“Entry’s
open
, bampots!  Get inside!  Catch the little buggers
‘fore they twitter off to another hole.”

Even as the Inquisitors were
pouring into the breach that the faespar had created, Kaashifah wrapped herself
in a barrier of air and invisibility and wrenched open a portal to the
void-lines.  As the Inquisitors stumbled to a halt in the center of her cavern,
staring at the complete blackness behind the rip in their Realm, she pulled
herself into the Void and slammed the portal shut behind her.

Billions of lines of energy ran
outward from where she stood, lighting up the blackness in neon strings, each
vibrating to a different tune.  Kaashifah plucked one at random that was headed
in the general direction they were looking for and yanked.

Cold washed over her as the
void-walk carried her at unearthly speeds through the frosty blackness.  It
took longer than it should have, and she felt the frost building around her,
threatening to lock up her arms and legs.  What
should
have been a
near-instantaneous jaunt stretched out into long minutes, her mental strength
not what it had once been.

Lost too much blood
, she thought,
struggling to maintain control over the path she’d chosen.  If she let it slip
from her fingers now, she could end up wandering the billions of paths,
disoriented and adrift, until she finally succumbed to the Void’s cold.

Just have to hold on,
she
thought, forcing herself to maintain her course, to ignore the countless other
paths, calling to her, trying to tempt her from her destination like the sweet
call of the Sirens.

Sometime later, she spilled into
a frozen swamp, shivering, the sun already beginning to come up, indicating
that her walk had taken hours, earth-time.

A few moments later, ‘Aqrab
appeared, glaring at her.  “That was entirely unnecessary, mon Dhi’b.  I had
things under control.”

“They could
see
you,”
Kaashifah panted.  She was still seeing spots in her vision, where the flare
had gone off, and her head was swimming from her walk with the Void.  It was
all she could do not to throw up.

‘Aqrab frowned at her.  “They can
see me in the
half-realm
?  You’re
sure
?  What besides a
dragon
can see a djinni in the half-realm?”

“They must,” Kaashifah managed,
still dizzy from the billions of different paths that had tried to take her
attention from their destination.  Sprawled on her hands and knees, she panted
at the ground for long minutes, fighting vertigo.

Beside her, ‘Aqrab was looking
nervous.  “Are you saying they have a dragon working with them, mon Dhi’b?”

“It’s not a dragon,” she said,
closing her eyes against nausea.  “It’s infrared.  They are catching you on
infrared.”

“What is in for red?” ‘Aqrab
demanded.

“I don’t
know
,” Kaashifah
groaned.  While she herself had paid little attention to the rise of technology
over the last century, ‘Aqrab had stalwartly refused to acknowledge it existed,
imperiously proclaiming that magic was the only true constant, and that
machines would simply come and go, as they had in the past.  That fact was
leaving the both of them at a severe disadvantage, for to all appearances, it
looked as if the Inquisition had embraced both.

“So where did you drop us?” Aqrab
asked, glancing up at the edges of the swamp they were now in.  The snow here
was deeper, and the air colder.  He wrinkled his face as he watched the snow
melt around his feet.  “Goddess, but I hate this stuff.”

Unsteadily, Kaashifah stood up
and looked around.  “Can’t be far.”  Without tapping a ley line and taking the
time to prepare, the best jump she could hope for was a few miles.  And, on
such impulse, and as weak as she had been, it had probably actually taken them
longer
to void-walk, in this case, than it would have taken to travel by land.

Beside her, ‘Aqrab was looking
miserable, arms wrapped around himself as snow fell in tiny spackles to melt
against his ebony skin.  “Then we should probably find another place to hide. 
This in-for-red is dangerous.” 

Kaashifah watched the water run
down the djinni’s chest and back, steaming in purple droplets as it dribbled to
the ground.  “You could just retreat to the Fourth Realm,” she noted.  “I can
take care of myself.”

The djinni turned to glare down
at her imperiously.  “I will not leave my mistress to be murdered by
Inquisitors.”  His superior pose, however, was shattered by the shiver that
wracked him and the unhappy way he ducked his chin to his chest, his arms not
so much crossed as hugging himself.  “Damn this unnatural place,” he muttered. 
“Where
water
not only falls from the
sky
, but it can come as
ice
,
too.”  Shaking his head, he started forward, his aura melting a swath in the
snow as he moved, heading for the forest, and, doubtlessly, its cover of
trees.  As soon as he had entered the boundary of the treeline, the djinni
immediately ducked under a snow-laden spruce and began flicking the water
droplets from his body with a look of distaste. 

Once he was somewhat dry, he
looked up at her in disgust.  “I cannot believe you fools
bathe
in this
stuff.  It’s got the consistency of piss, and it seeps the very warmth from
your—”

Above him, heated to the
melting-point by his Fourth-Lander emanations, a snow-laden branch slipped free
of its burden, dousing the djinni in a small mountain of snow. 

“Waa faqri, wald il
qaraqir, neekni! 
Neekni
sahrawi
!” ‘Aqrab cursed, flailing, which
only made more branches drop their loads upon him as his temperature increased.

Seeing that, Kaashifah took pity
on him.  A shield was a minor thing, but it worked best if tied to something
material.  As the djinni hopped and brushed the snow from his shoulders,
shouting his displeasure, she broke a thumb-sized branch of spruce into a
two-inch piece, then wove a barrier upon it.  This she handed to the djinni,
folding it forcefully into his palm when he failed to notice her and continued
to curse and shake his other fist up at the tree, cursing its lineage.

“Calm down,” Kaashifah said,
stepping backwards before the increased temperature of the djinni’s aura burned
her.  “The tree is not to blame.”

“I’d light the damn thing
afire
if it wouldn’t bring the Inquisition down upon us,” he snarled, glaring up at
the tree.  The spruce, for its part, continued to reign regally above him, its
near-black needles utterly impassive in the light of early dawn.  “I
hate
snow.  I wish it a thousand deaths by a thousand dicks, all of it.”  He was
panting as he scowled up at the sky, the snow around his feet melted into a
bare patch of soggy moss and grasses.  “If I never saw this white khara again,
it would be too soon.”

“That should help,” Kaashifah
said, gesturing at the tiny piece of wood she’d given him.

‘Aqrab gave her a glare, his face
still wrought with irritation.  “What should help?”

“The twig,” Kaashifah said.

For the first time, ‘Aqrab
scowled down at the stick in his hand.  “What am I supposed to do with this,
Fury?  Light a fire?  I don’t
need
a stick to start a fire, mon Dhi’b. 
All I need is a pompous leper of a tree.”  He snorted and flicked her offering
into the snow and scowled up at the spruce again, obviously contemplating
lighting it on fire despite the eighty-foot pillar of flame it would produce
once the resinous sap caught fire.

Sighing, Kaashifah went and
retrieved the stick, then once more pressed it into his palm, forcibly folding
his fingers around it.  The djinni, she knew, despite his command of
Fourthlander magics, was not a magus.  He could not feel the barrier she’d
woven into it.  “Just carry it,” she said.  “It will help.”

‘Aqrab glared at her, obviously
in a foul mood.  “Help
what
?”

Kaashifah backed up to a
snow-laden birch tree and then, harnessing the strength of the Third-Lander in
her blood, she slammed her fist into the papery white trunk behind her.

“Miserable
manuke khara
!”
the djinni screamed, as snow pounded down all around him—

—yet didn’t touch him.

Kaashifah leaned against the tree
and crossed her arms over her chest, surveying him with amusement.  “That
better?”

The djinni, still steaming in
purple rivulets from the snow of the spruce tree, yet untouched by the snow of
the birch, was staring at her in open-mouthed shock.  He glanced down at the
little stick in his hand, then at her, then at the stick.  Looking utterly
flabbergasted, ‘Aqrab’s mouth hung open as he blurted, “You wove a
shield
for me? 
You
?”

Like the act was completely
incomprehensible to him.  Because she was a qybah.

Kaashifah felt her face heating
in the cool morning air.  Glaring at him, she said, “Now that I think about it,
you’re of the assumption I’ve never given you anything without a catch, so we
should probably bargain for it.”  She uncrossed her arms and reached for the
djinni’s hand.

‘Aqrab hastily lifted his fist
well out of her reach.  “You can’t take back a
gift
, mon Dhi’b.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, the
djinni’s massive fist hovering about five feet above her head.  “Maybe so, but
I can unravel its weave at a hundred cubits.”

‘Aqrab smiled at her through her
teeth.  “I will make
considerations
for your ‘gift.’  Perhaps tonight I
will not profane your body, in exchange for my supplies.”

Kaashifah scowled up at him. 
“Perhaps I’d find that acceptable.”

Warily, the djinni lowered his
arm, though he looked ready to snatch it away again if she reached for it. 
“Then we have an accord.”  He said it guardedly, like he half-expected her to
take it from him anyway.

 “Sounds as if we do,” she said. 
Kaashifah turned back to analyze the trail in front of them.  With the snow
blocking her view of the sun, she had no easy way of knowing which way was
north.  Her eyes fell to the Northlander trees, examining where the moss had
grown.  Moss, a growth that preferred less light, generally lived on the north
side of trees, where they received less direct sunlight.  Gesturing toward the
direction of the moss, she said, “The dragons are that way.”