The Hidden Fire (Book 2) (12 page)

“There
is a way,” Kyric said.  “Into the wind.  We must go through it to get past it.”

They
walked into the blowing ashes, their eyes all but closed against the sting of
the grey flurries.  The ambient light never changed, and they had no sense of
how much time passed as they trudged across the plain of ash, their footprints
quickly disappearing behind them.

They
plodded along for what felt like days, their exposed flesh chaffing from the
falling ashes.  Each step became an effort.  Kyric’s mind grew numb, and
Rolirra stumbled along beside him.  “I have to stop and lie down,” he croaked. 
His throat felt scorched.

“No,”
she said through cracked lips.  “You might fall asleep.  We can’t take that
chance.”

A
burning stench had been growing for hours when they at last broke through the
ash.  The rain hadn’t stopped.  It simply passed overhead now that they
approached the source.  Ahead lay a dozen burning hillocks.  As they came
closer they passed into a haze of roiling smoke, so that they were among the
hills before they saw.

The
hills were heaps of burning corpses.  They were all types of people, tangled
and naked and charred.  Rolirra placed an arm around Kyric to hold herself up,
and he leaned heavily on his spear.  One hand over their mouths, they lowered their
heads and pushed through the smoke and the heat and the smell.  The only sound
was the hiss of the flames.

And
then the hot wind died, and they raised their heads to find that they stood above
a time-carved badlands of dried mud and jagged black rocks.

“We
must try to find a stream,” said Rolirra.  “We could follow a stream to the
place where all water flows.  I’ve been there — from there I could find the rainlands.”

As
they descended into the badlands they found it to be a maze of deep canyons. 
It certainly looked like water had flowed there at one time.  The upper walls
of the canyon stood awash with sunlight, but the floor seemed condemned to be
always in shadow.

“We
cannot keep walking like this,” Rolirra said.  “We will never get there in
time, and I am tired from the plain of ash.”  They had brushed the ashes away
as well as they could, but she was still streaked with them in places, and her
hair was grey.

Kyric
shrugged.  “I don’t think we have a choice.”

She
stopped and looked him in the eye.  “I’m serious.  We must find a better way to
travel.  And soon.”

Ahead,
the canyon widened as it entered a steep bend, and patches of tall, broadleaf
grass began to appear along with huge trumpeting flowers that smelled like
rotting meat.  In the distance, a great mound of dried mud clung to the canyon
wall.  Winged insects crawled to and fro across the mound.  Kyric thought they
looked like big bumble bees.

Rolirra
plucked a blade of grass and pressed it between her thumbs, cupping her hands
and intertwining her fingers.  She blew hard into her thumbs, like she was
sounding a conch shell.  The whistle was torn and squeaky.  Kyric suddenly
remembered doing this as a child . . . somewhere.  He tried to tell Rolirra,
but his tongue felt like lead and he could barely move his lips.

She
whistled a song of ear-splitting screeches, swaying with a rhythm that wasn’t
there.  A handful of bees took flight, steering a winding, crazy course toward
them.  As they came closer, Kyric realized he had miscalculated the distance
and the scale — the bees were the size of ponies.

He
dropped to one knee and set his spear against his foot.  He would impale the
first one to charge him.  But the bees pulled up sharply to hover in front of
Rolirra.  They weren’t exactly bees.  They didn’t have stings, and they had a
single pair of eyes that were more like a lizard’s — each eye moved separately. 
They buzzed at her and she squeaked back at them.  Two of them lighted on the
ground and the others flew back to the nest.

With
a here-goes-nothing look on her face, she sauntered over to one of the bees and
mounted it like a horse, pulling its antennae back and holding them like
reins.  The creature rose, bobbing and drifting side to side.  Rolirra shifted
her weight and reined in.

“It’s
alright,” she said.  “Let’s ride.”

Kyric
climbed onto the other bee and tried to imitate Rolirra.  The giant insect
hummed silently with its own vibration, and it was sensitive to the slightest
change in balance.  He leaned forward and instantly they were in full flight,
the wind of their passing pushing back his hair and filling his eyes with tears. 
He wove left and right past sharp boulders with little more than a thought.  He
became giddy with the joy of it.

Rolirra
caught up with him and signaled that she would take the lead.

“We
should go higher,” he called to her.  “Get out of the canyons and take a good
look around.”

She
made an uncertain face.  “I don’t know.  We’re doing well like this.”

“I’ll
just pop up for a quick peek.”  He lifted his haunches, raising his head, and
sped toward the rim of the canyon.  The bee began to slow.  The wings beat
harder, the buzz rising in pitch, and still they slowed, until at last the
creature could rise no more.

Above
him, a rocky ledge jutted out from the rim.  Something shiny and black looked
down at him — something with a fanged maw between a pair of pincers.  When
Kyric urged his bee to dive for the canyon floor, the predator leapt from the
ledge, spreading bat-like wings.  It was a flying scorpion, and it was twice
the size of the bees.

The
scorpion folded its wings back and dove straight at them in a free fall.  Kyric
kicked with his heels and pushed his mount’s head down.  Its wings beat in a
frantic blur as it powered its descent.  Rolirra had been flying a slow circle,
now turning out and rushing to full speed as Kyric leveled and passed her.

Two
more winged scorpions had joined in the chase.  In level flight they were
faster than the bees and they began to close the distance.  Seeing that there
was no outrunning them, Kyric reversed direction with a half loop, couching the
spear under his right arm, and Rolirra followed him.  He went straight at the
lead creature.  It arched its tail over its head, presenting a stinger the
length of a rapier.

They
were lined up to pass on their right sides in a strange aerial joust.  Kyric
aimed the tip of his spear at the scorpion’s maw, but as they met his weapon
was swept aside by a hairy claw.  He leaned away and the bee rolled with it,
narrowly dodging the thrust of the stinger — but not entirely — it had torn a
rent in the bee’s hindwing. 

There
was a shuddering vibration to the flight now, the creature bobbing and zigzagging
before it regained control.  The second scorpion came at him.  While the bees
were slower, they were far more nimble, he realized.  He lined up on the
scorpion as before, to pass by the right, then cut to the other side at the
last second.  His spear slid past the claws and struck the monster deep in the
mouth
,
lodging
there, the shaft breaking with the force of the impact.  The scorpion went limp
and fell to the ground, smashing into one of the jagged black rocks.

Rolirra
used the bee’s agility to avoid the first scorpion, turning as if to draw it
away.  It banked toward her, but could not turn so sharply.  She slowed and
turned back as the scorpion flew past her, and suddenly she was behind and
above it, raining javelins into its backside.  It broke off and climbed away,
its wings beating desperately, heading back to the nest.

The
last scorpion wasn’t far behind the one Kyric had felled.  He had only his
shortsword now, and it felt awfully short as he drew it.  He urged his mount to
climb, and the scorpion veered to come up beneath them.  Kyric looped as
tightly as the bee could manage and became the one to pass underneath as he
dove.  He reached high and his sword opened a seam along the creature’s
abdomen.  It bled a trail of dark ichor as it twisted and died in flight.

As
he turned back to join Rolirra, he felt his arm going numb  He had been stung
on the last pass.  There was a red-rimmed hole in his shoulder that strangely
did not bleed.  A purple-black stain beneath his skin spread rapidly from the
wound.

By
the time he landed near her he could barely hang on.  She helped him down.  He
could tell from her expression that it was bad.

“We
will have to ride double so that I can hold on to you,” she said.

“Shouldn’t
you cut the wound and drain some of the poison?”

She
shook her head.  “That will not help.”

She
placed him in front of her on the bee, holding him with her elbows as she
gripped the antennae.

“Do
not fall unconscious,” she commanded.

She
urged the bee to flight.  It rose sluggishly to a height no greater than its
wingspan, and labored forward at a fraction of its normal speed.

“This
will not do,” she said.  “We need to find one of the blue springs as quickly as
possible.”

She
leaned out and plucked one of the trumpeting flowers as they passed.  The stem
was long as her arm.

“Haieee!”
she cried, digging in her heals.  She used the stem as a crop, whipping the
great bee on the abdomen and between the wings.  Golden pollen spilled from the
flower in clouds, sticking to everything it touched.  The creature flew a crazy
circle for a moment, and then off they sped, fast and straight as an arrow,
riding on a river of golden dust.

They
streaked along the floor of the canyon, weaving through rock formations and
soaring over deep pits.  The pitch of the buzz began to change.  The bee
started to shake and slow down.

“No!”
screamed Rolirra, beating it again with the flower.  “You must keep going.  You
must.”

They
flew from that canyon into another.  And into another.  A terrible croaking
whine began to rise from somewhere within the bee.  Rolirra struck it on the
head, showering it in pollen, and it flew on at a frightening pace.

The
walls of the badlands grew taller and more sheer.  They had flown into a box
canyon, and it ended ahead in a vertical rock face.  They raced toward it.

Kyric
spotted what looked like cave entrance.  He tried to point to it.

“I
see it,” Rolirra said.

They
flew into it at full speed.

And
out.

Into
the upper end of a valley.  Through slitted eyes, Kyric could see hills and
patches of green in the distance.

The
whine of the bee reached a crescendo, and pieces of its wings began to tear
away as it shook violently from side to side.  Rolirra urged it on nonetheless. 
Slowing, it sank lower, and lower, and then struck a grassy mound, and they
were thrown forward, landing hard and coming to an abrupt halt in a patch of
sand.

Kyric
tried to sit up but could only rise to one elbow.  The giant bee lay on its
back, legs curled, its shredded wings twitching, making a weak clicking sound. 
Rolirra stood over it with a javelin in her hands.  She thrust it deep between
the eyes and ended the poor creature’s misery.

She
managed to get a shoulder under Kyric’s arm and get him to his feet.  “I can’t
carry you — you have to walk.  I saw the blue spring from the air.  It’s just
over there behind those trees.”

He
was partially paralyzed and couldn’t feel his legs.  With him walking a few
steps here and there, and her dragging him in-between, they somehow made through
the trees to a pristine spring-fed pond.  It was the most brilliant blue he had
ever seen.

Rolirra
propped him against a rock and waded in to her knees, reaching down and digging
in the soft earth.  The sand lining the pond was blue.  The water was blue as
well, blue as a dyer’s vat.  Rolirra brought up a handful of blue sandy clay
and returned to kneel beside Kyric, smearing it over the puncture and the
discolored patches of skin.

“The
blue loam will heal you,” she said.  “Only give it a little time.”

He
already felt better.  He hadn’t known he had been in pain till it began to
recede.  Rolirra went back to the pond and dunked herself, washing away the
last of the ashes of the dead, and he felt his eyelids drooping.  Warm,
delicious sleep beckoned him.

Rolirra
saw and ran from the pond.  “No!  You must stay awake!”

The
world rapidly slowed.  The water flying from Rolirra floated to the ground like
tuffs of cotton.  Her lips moved, but only a deep, garbled sound came out.

And
then he was gone.

He
awoke at first light, before the bell had rung.  Lerica was sitting up, looking
at him.  “You got stung in the night by a nasty insect.”

There
was a large red welt on his shoulder.  “Pretty sure it was a scorpion,” he
said.

Rolirra
was handing out cold fishcakes.  Kyric went to her.  She looked tired.  ‘
I’m
sorry
,’ he said-signed.  ‘
I could not help it
.’

‘
You
were badly hurt.  And I was pushing too hard after our . . . bad start
.’ 
She managed a thin smile.  ‘
We will have to live one more day with sunshine
.’

The
morning went much like the day before, with Aiyan refusing to kill the slave
Thurlun selected, and Kyric and Lerica sent to haul nets.  Thurlun went back to
his hut and stayed there for hours.  They had stopped for the noontime water
ration when he came striding over to the stump, the locket in one hand and an
axe in the other.  He shook the locket at Aiyan.

“Tell
me how to open this.”

Aiyan
looked at him.  “It cannot be opened by you.”

Thurlun
gave him an ugly grin.  “Think not?”  He tossed the locket onto the ground and
took the axe in both hands.  He waited.

“Last
chance,” he said to Aiyan.

Aiyan
said nothing.

Thurlun
raised the axe and swung down with full force.  He must have caught the locket
off center, because the axe and the locket both bounced away from the point of
impact.  The locket arced through the air and flew a dozen paces.  When Thurlun
picked it up, Kyric nearly choked on his water.  It wasn’t even scratched.

“Guppy!”
shouted Thurlun.  “Bring me a chopping block.”

They
set up a segment sliced from a tree trunk for the chopping block, and Thurlun
had them nail the locket down with iron spikes.  “Now I can land a solid blow
without it slipping away.”

He
hit it dead center this time, with full force.  The axe bounced back so hard
that it flew from Thurlun’s hands.  The axe blade was chipped in several places.

Guppy
stared at the locket in wonder.  “Not a mark on the damn thing.”

Thurlun
looked for himself.  Suddenly he whirled in anger, taking the axe and swinging
with all his fury.  It struck, and chips of the axe blade flew away.  He swung
again and this time the whole axe-head shattered.

He
pried the locket from the block.  It looked untouched.

“What
in the hell
is
this?” Thurlun shouted to the sky.  He stormed back to
his hut, calling over his shoulder, “Guppy.  Fetch me a hacksaw.”

They
went back to work, the afternoon turning very hot.  Even for someone young and
fit as Kyric, it was hard labor.  Among the Ilven, even the stronger men looked
a little worn, but there were few of them.  Half the slaves were either old men
or girls.  They were the ones most at risk at the end of the day, when everyone
was tired and it was easy to make a stupid mistake.

Kyric
tried to work carefully in the last hour of the day.  “There’s been no
accidents,” he said to Lerica.  “No one has been killed today.”

Suddenly,
he very much wanted to end the day that way.  He and Lerica began signing to
the Ilven, ‘
Be safe
,’ or, ‘
Work with care
.’  They began to nod,
and pass the word on to their fellows, the pickers calling it up the slope to
those at the tables.

Even
Ral got caught up in it.  He began coaching them, saying, “Watch your step
there man.  You — pull more to the right.”  The Ilven didn’t really understand
him, but it kept them on their toes.

And
then they were done.  No one had died that day.

Kyric
stepped a little lighter as they crossed the bridge to the island.  “You seem
pleased with yourself,” said Lerica.

“I
needed a small victory.”

She
looked at him with dark, turbulent eyes.  “I know.  But I need a larger one.”

He
stopped and turned to her.  “Do you think you’re the only one here who’s
angry?  I have to swallow my anger all day long.”

“Maybe
you need it,” she snapped back, “to give you the courage to do something.”

His
grin was almost a snarl.  “Anger can’t give you courage.  It allows you to do
things you wouldn’t otherwise do, but that’s not courage, that’s stupidity.”

They
ate in silence that night, Lerica facing away from him.  He lay down and closed
his eyes as soon as he had finished, but he couldn’t sleep.  His mind was
racing after the spat with Lerica.

His
dreamland quest with Rolirra seemed absurd when he stopped to think about it. 
He would have this dream where he went to a rainy place, and that would make it
rain here.  The river would flood, and they would remain safe on this island
while Thurlun and his men were washed away.  What had he been thinking? 
Ridiculous.  And even if it could be done, what would happen to Aiyan?  He had
to find a real way out of this, here in the real world.

He
rolled onto his side.  Maybe Lerica was right.  Maybe he needed to stop choking
down his anger and let it run.

The
night was black.  The moon had not yet risen.  He felt her kneel behind him and
touch him on the shoulder.  “I shouldn’t have said that,” she whispered to
him.  “I’m sorry.”

She
lay down, curling up against him, pressing her back into his.  It felt
wonderful.  It might have been arousing had they not been filthy, exhausted,
insect bitten, and in irons.  They had been under physical strain for the last
few days — days full of brutality, fear, and death.  Their lives were at risk
every moment in this place and they counted on each other.  They had seen each
other emotionally naked, and all of a sudden lying there back to back seemed
far more intimate than any kind of passion.

He lay there, listening to the rhythm of
her breathing.  It was nice, just leaning against her like that.  He closed his
eyes.

And
opened them.  He lay on a gentle slope above the blue spring, his head propped
against the roots of an oak.  “Rolirra?”  He didn’t see her anywhere.

“Up
here,” she called from above him.  She sat on one of the higher branches of the
tree.  “A stream runs out of the far side of the pond.  It looks like it
follows the valley and joins another.”

She
swung down to land lightly next to him.  “I’m sure this will lead us to where
all water flows.”

His
shoulder was completely healed.  He bathed in the blue water, and then they
started down the valley, walking along the banks of the stream.  The lush grass
rippled in the breeze, along with glowing flowers of a color not found in
nature.  Everything was unusually bright.  The air tasted fresh and the whole
valley sparkled with vitality.  They walked briskly, with a bounce to their
steps.

Rolirra
gave him a sidelong glance.

Kyric
held up one hand.  “I know what you’re going to say:  This is too slow.  But
look how springy the ground is; I can bounce from one long stride to another. 
Maybe how you walk is the trick to crossing this land.”

At
first the bouncing walk didn’t seem much better, but slowly they gained
momentum, each bounce just a little longer than the last, the ground just a
little more springy with each stride, until each bounce became a long leap. 
They bounced higher and farther, the momentum building, and soon each step
carried them over a furlong.

The
stream connected with another, and another, and then to a little river that
joined with a larger river.  The sun became a glowing orange ball sinking low
in the sky.  At the apex of a bouncing leap, Kyric looked ahead and saw a great
lake with a hundred rivers flowing into it.

Rolirra
caught up with him on the next bounce.  “Do you see the island?”

A
small island rose from the lake a quarter mile offshore.  It was five stories
high and flat-topped, with vertical granite faces on every side and split in
two at the waterline, the crevasse ending about halfway up and giving the
island the appearance of the lower portion of a man.

“We
must make it to the island on our last bounce,” she said.  “Anyone who falls in
the water will be lost.”

They
started to push off harder with each leap.  Each bounce went longer and higher,
but the island was coming up fast.

They
took their last bounce at the edge of the lake, and Kyric jumped for the island
with all that he had.  This last spot had a much stronger spring to it and
seemed to fling them out over the water.  Not only would they easily reach the
island, it looked to Kyric that they would go too far.

“We
need a headwind,” he called to Rolirra.

“Look
for one!”

There
was always wind on open bodies of water.  He quickly scanned the lake.  Ahead
of them, the water rippled with the coming gust.  Kyric spread his arms wide
and let it strike him head-on in a flurry of blows.  It slowed them enough. 
Then the island rose up to meet them, and at the last second Kyric realized
that the ground would be hard and they would probably die.

There
were trees on the island.  Perfect little trees the shape of umbrellas.  He hit
one on the edge, sliding off and landing spread-eagle on a shorter one and
plowing through.  The trees weren’t as soft or as flexible as he had hoped.

The
fall had knocked the wind out of him, and his head rang a little, but he sat up
to find that he had no broken bones.  His elbows were scraped raw and his wrist
felt sprained, but it looked like he was alright.  Rolirra was bleeding from
the nose and had some bad bruises.  She limped slightly as she came over to
him.

“This
is one of the walking islands of the inner sea,” she said.  “We were lucky to
have found it.  It could very well carry us to the shores of the rainlands.”

Kyric
stood and checked himself for further wounds.  “The island walks?”

“Yes,
but only at night, and only if we dance.”

Rolirra
went about the island as the sun went down, gathering certain stones the color
of blood and tangerines, and piling them in the middle of a patch of barren
ground.  As darkness fell, the sky filled with bright stars and still more were
coming out.  Tenfold the usual number of stars graced the night, casting a
light like the full moon.

Rolirra
struck two of the stones together.  They sparked and caught fire, and she
tossed them on the pile to ignite the others.

“The
firestones will burn all night,” she said.  “Now we must dance.”

“Can
you teach me the steps?”

“No,”
she said, slowly circling the fire.  “We must discover them together.  We must
learn the dance of walking to the rainlands.”

He
joined her in the firelight, having no idea of what to do.  She started moving,
turning away from him and stepping toe to heel.  Clearly this was to be a dance
in the Terrulan fashion.

He
tried to imitate Rolirra, who was taking short light steps.  Her body quivered
a little as she went.  Her motions were gentle, the steps easy — a pace they
could maintain for hours.

They
began to experiment with arm movements.  Twirling hands and waving fingers. 
After a while, Rolirra stopped and turned to him with a frown.  “We’re not
moving.”

“We’re
not dancing together.”

She
cocked her head at him.

“Where
I come from,” he said, “men and women dance together.”

“I’ve
never heard of this,” she said.  “How is it done?”

“We
hold hands.”

A
waltz didn’t seem quite right here, so he took one of her hands and led her
along as in a promenade.  They shuffled some and pranced a little.  Kyric tried
to imagine how it would feel to be a giant creature of stone, wading in a great
lake.  When their dance fell into a slow but lilting half skip, they felt the
island move

Rolirra
nodded and smiled.  “This is a better way to dance.”

They
circled the fire and the island walked into the night, tilting slightly to one
side and then the other in the rhythm of its stride.  Soon they were far from
the shore.  The stars wheeled across the sky and they danced on.  It reminded
Kyric of another dance beneath the stars with another woman, but he couldn’t
see her face or remember her name.  It was like a half-forgotten dream.

They
had danced long when a roaring sound rose from the waters below.  Rolirra
stopped and led him to the edge of the cliff.  A gigantic whirlpool, large
enough to swallow the walking island, spun violently at the center of the lake.

“The
place where all water flows,” she said.

“Where
does it go?”

“None
have dared to pass through it in my lifetime.”

They
returned to their dance.  They were tired now and there was no joy in it.  It
began to seem endless.  They stopped to rest at one point, but it only made the
dance more of a burden when they started again.

“The
dawn is not far away,” Rolirra said.  “We must dance faster, for the island
will sleep when the sun rises.”