by Jean Johnson
“The Red Rocks are elementalist about the anima, not shamanistic. To them, it is a force, not a spirit,” Zakal dismissed. “So it is not locally made, whatever this is. But it could be a chunk of anima that has taken on semisentiency, if it could control Daro Jadal’s body. I presume, since you woke me, it has not stopped infecting the workers?”
He nodded, tusks baring in a grimace. “At the rate it has been infecting the humans, which started three hours ago . . . we will have lost twenty by now.”
Zakal’s eyes widened in alarm. “Twenty? Already? That’s a tenth of our workforce!”
“That is why I personally came to wake you.”
Pushing away from the door, she hurried to her dresser to dig out proper garments to wear. “We cannot afford to lose any more. You should have told me this when I opened the door,” she added disapprovingly over her shoulder. The seso carefully looked away, giving her visual privacy while she struggled out of her nightclothes. “Whatever this force is, it is beyond our ability to corner and control. We are going to have to activate extreme measures to deal with it.”
“What are you thinking, Sejo Zakal?” he asked carefully.
She bared her tusks even as she pulled a fresh undertunic over her head. “As distasteful as it will be—and no doubt expensive—we will have to call upon the Fae to come handle this. If it is some strong surge of anima gone wild, they can handle it. I request that you go to the broadcast room and send the signal to activate Taro Anzak Urudo. He should still be in that oasis just a quarter hour’s flight from Ijesh on his anashak, yes?”
“He should be, yes.”
“Instruct him to take his communicator straight to the Fae.”
“That goes against security protocol, Sejo Zakal Kurukan,” her operations officer stated disapprovingly.
“Taro Anzak is our spy, because he is still useless as a financial advisor on this world. He certainly does not have the authority to make quick decisions. And by the time he could relay things discreetly back and forth, we will have lost a quarter of our workforce. As it is, by the time the Fae could get here, even with those damned skydart ships breaking the sound barrier, we will lose nearly half of the mine workers at that rate. Even just losing twenty, the humans are primitive enough, they will consider it a sign from the spirits that they should no longer work for us.
“Our livelihood is at stake, and I will let the Fae travel to Kasir itself if needed, to preserve it,” she asserted, shutting the dresser drawer firmly. “Do you agree with my assessment of the severity of the problem, or do I need to wake Sefo Harkut to seek his opinion?”
“. . . I do not object,” Seso Parut stated. “I will go to the broadcast room, wake the taro, and get him moving.”
“Good.”
Except it was not good. Anima should not turn sentient. So far, she’d heard no reports of this world having any actual gods, fully sentient, fully powerful, fully . . . alarming. There were Efrijt who made bargains with such deities in order to operate in their realms, but this world hadn’t had any sort of being powerful enough to need placating.
The Fae were the closest thing to that, and their own morals and ethics insisted they refuse all offers of godhood. Her people were more pragmatic in their refusal. It was forbidden not because of some high-minded ideal, but because the Saitan and the Adjuti, ruler and advisers over all the Efrijt, did not want any rivals within their own race. Such things led to civil war, and civil wars were neither civilized nor profitable.
At least, when it came to the mercury trade. There were medjant who specialized in weapons and armor, in selling the tools and the secrets and the training needed for war, but that was not her vision for Medjant Kumon. Her merchant house would not fail due to some primitive, upstart hocus-pocus.
***
Flame Sea
Jintaya is right, Ban thought, unsheathing one of the two curved, faeshiin-gold blades he had carried for decades now. But so is Krue.
He remembered the day the Great Guardian himself, leader of the Fae nation, had given both blades to him. They were delivered, the Great Guardian had said, in a deliberate show of trust that the immortal Shae named Ban would not use those weapons against his people. Against Jintaya’s people. They were honorable, compassionate, caring, and worthy of friendship. Worthy of not only gaining their trust, but of keeping it.
I am the only person who can do this without remorse. Both blades had been safely tucked into magespace when those boulders had fallen on him, twenty years ago. The same personal pocket dimension he stored his clothing, special gear, and most precious mementos in even now. Unlike his original earring. Drawing in a deep breath, he faced the male who had become his friend. “Are you prepared for the possibility of immortality?
“You may not have a body afterward like I do, Éfan, but you do know some of the sufferings I have discussed over the years. The boredom of everyday life, as well as the pleasures and the pains. The grief as well as the joy, the anger as well as the love. The fear as well as the disgust . . . and endless eons of tedium in between moments of terror and triumph. Are you prepared to face the possibility of an eternity of life on this world, until it and this universe ends? . . . And are you prepared to face oblivion if you end up dissolving instead?”
Éfan squared his shoulders, smoothed his robes, and nodded. “I am pre . . . wait.”
“Do you change your mind?” Ban asked blandly.
The mage shook his head. “No . . . someone is casting Efrijt magics just outside the stronghold. Pure Efrijt, not the hybrid version Udrin used. I think they are trying to contact us.”
Dakin, seated along with Chadesh outside the circle of Fae, sucked in a sharp breath. “My cousin! If something has gone wrong, they would have activated Taro Anzak.”
“Taro . . . ? Oh yes, he’s the Efrijt disguised to look and act like a human in that oasis to the west,” Krue dismissed. “The Sparkling Springs tribe, the one Parren set up with an aquifer and a trio of artesian springs four decades ago.”
“Speak kindly of my kin,” Daro Dakin warned. “He actually likes the humans he now lives with. They do not treat him as useless, just because his primary skills have no value on this world.”
“I apologize, no offense was meant in my tone or my words,” Krue said. He hesitated, then looked over at Jintaya. “We have so many protections woven about this place, the nonmagical means they use to communicate would not have penetrated our wards.”
“Go make sure it is him, and bring him inside. Both of you, Dakin and Krue,” Jintaya directed. “He may have news about Udrin. Finding the boy is more important right now than safety protocols. Just make sure it is Anzak, first.”
“May have news? About my wayward nephew?” Zedren challenged, arching one of his cream eyebrows. “They would not send him here in the middle of the night for anything less.”
“Thank you, Zedren. You may go with them,” Jintaya directed.
From the slight pinching of her brow, Ban guessed she refrained from pressing the edge of her first two fingers to the tension spot as an act of pure diplomatic will. He sheathed his blade and settled onto one of the padded benches that had been pulled into a consultation circle for their previous meeting here in the grotto. Rua came over after a few moments, bearing a bar made of nuts pressed together with honey, and a mug of fruit juice.
“We might not need this most days, but you still need to eat,” the agriculturalist reminded him.
Ban accepted the offering. “After you give your energies to Éfan, will you not also need food and drink?”
She smiled and gestured off to the side. “Where do you think I got this? Kuro Chadesh suggested a last meal for Éfan, which made me think of needing food after we have given him all the energy we can.”
Swaying a little on the bench, Ban spotted the basket and two pitchers waiting on a side table. “I hope your energies will be enough,
or we will have to delay until he is fully saturated. I would rather not behead him only to waste his chance at transcendence.”
“I would rather not waste it, either. Eat,” the motherly agriculturalist ordered. “It will kill time while we wait. That’s the only kind of killing we can waste at the moment.”
As far as jests went, it was both lame and poor. Ban “killed” the taste of it by biting into the bar, chewing, and washing down each mouthful with the watered-down mix of pomegranate and date juice she had brought. The condemned volunteer, Ban noticed, did not sample any of it, but instead quietly conferred with Krue. Jintaya paced a little, the quartet of intermarried cousins murmured among themselves, and the remainder sat and stared at their surroundings.
When the least-ranked Efrijt on the planet came into the grotto, he looked around with those amber orange eyes, zeroed in on Jintaya, and bowed three times as he approached. “Thank you for the honor of visiting your stronghold. I regret the necessity of it.” Anzak lifted the bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a boxy tablet full of technology. “I have the communicator we use on this world. Sejo Zakal needs to speak with you about an urgent matter.”
Setting it up on the refreshment table at a gesture from Jintaya, he activated it. A moment later, an image of Sejo Zakal and the rarely seen Seso Parut appeared in the flat slab of crystal occupying most of the device.
“Greetings, Fae. Some sort of anima-thing is attacking the humans of our . . . You already know what this is?” Zakal asked, apparently seeing the slumping of shoulders, hearing the heavy sighs.
“Unfortunately, we do,” Jintaya stated grimly. “Udrin, Son of Daro Dakin Urudo of Medjant Kumon, Son of Muan-taje of the Flame Sea Pantean . . . has figured out how to become one with the anima of this world. He has no physical body anymore,” she added gently. “We may have a way to stop him, but then again it may not work.”
Zakal grimaced, baring her tusks. “If it is the boy Udrin, he is killing our human workers, and has killed one of the medjant. More will follow. Kuro Chadesh, Daro Jadal was possessed by the anima-thing, manipulated physically, then killed. If he is willing to casually kill one of us, then he will kill all of us . . . and we have little defense against him. I am going to order everyone to retreat through the portal.”
“Don’t close it,” Éfan urged. “Our plan is to catch him and take him through the portal.”
“I cannot allow a dangerous—”
“—He is empowered by the magics of this universe,” Éfan stressed. “Remove him from this world, and he will become helpless in short order as he uses up whatever anima he takes with him. The same anima that is now his means of existing.”
“I must insist upon this, under the extraordinary circumstances clauses,” Jintaya asserted. “Udrin is a danger to everyone on this world. If the portal to Faelan opens at any point, and he is not kept away from it, he could find himself empowered by the rules of magic in our universe. However, given that Efrijt magics are weak and incompatible with this one, it stands to reason he will have no energy source to draw upon in yours.”
“Sejo, Seso, as the father of the child,” Dakin spoke up, moving next to Jintaya, “I confirm that the child is mentally unstable and a danger to everyone on this world. Udrin must be neutralized.”
“I as an Efrijt healer confirm the child is unstable and a danger to everyone on this world,” Chadesh added, moving next to him.
Muan joined them. She looked as grim and unhappy as her co-partner, but as determined as them as well. “As the mother of the child, I confirm that Udrin is unstable and a danger to everyone on this world. Specifically, on this world. We will bring devices that will keep the anima at bay from your stronghold until we can capture and contain him, and take him through the portal.”
“And how, exactly, will you do that?” Seso Parut asked. “You drink the anima like you breathe the air. He may be able to control you.”
“So long as Ban stays alive, he can become a trap to contain the child,” Éfan explained. “We will drive him to Ban, who will seize and contain the anima of his very being, and carry him across.”
“I knew it!”
Zakal and Parut jerked and looked around quickly, their Efrijt-hued eyes widening. A moment later, their clothing rustled and the sejo’s dark curls lifted up and yanked sideways, making her yelp in pain.
“I will not be caged and dragged to another world! This is my world! I am the god of this realm, and I will kill you before I let you banish me!”
The unseen force flung Zakal out of the view on their end of the communicators. A crack and a cry of pain made everyone on the Fae end of the link flinch and hiss.
“Udrin! If you kill her, we cannot close the portal!” Parut shouted quickly, holding out his hands. “Kill her, and that portal will always be there, open and ready to shove you through! The same goes for myself and Sefo Harkut!”
Stillness met his words, and then the air reverberated with Udrin’s echoing voice. “You have half an hour to get every Efrijt off my world, and the portal sealed. Any Efrijt left behind will be killed as the pathetic, weak animals you are.”
“Udrin!” Dakin snapped. “There are three of us here in the Flame Sea. We cannot get to the portal in half an hour. We need more time!”
“Well, I guess you’ll just have to die trying, because I am not giving you enough time to get that Shae monster up here. Half an hour, or die!”
“Udrin, he is your father!” Muan protested, outraged.
“Wrong!” The air around Parut stirred, ruffling his curls and his clothes. He winced as Udrin snapped his reply in that eerie reverberating voice. “Daro Dakin Urudo was the father of Udrin Urodo, the Dai-Fae-Efrijt mortal. But that Udrin died, and good riddance! I am Taje Udrin-taje-ul, God of the Flame Sea! Half an hour, animals, before I start hunting the Efrijt!”
Objects flung across their view. Parut yelped and hurried in the direction Zakal had been flung.
“Shut it off,” Jintaya ordered, her tone terse, her brow furrowed, and her gaze blazing with the most anger Ban had ever seen the gentle Fae exhibit.
Taro Anzak quickly did so, crossing to the table and deactivating the unit. In the silence following its shutdown, he hesitated, then admitted very quietly, “I feel reluctant to leave the place I have made for myself among the people of the Shimmering Springs. They . . . they are not as bad as I originally believed their kind to be. But . . . I cannot stay. I do not wish to die at the whim of my own kin.”
“Do you have any magic that can get us there quickly enough?” Kuro Chadesh asked.
Zedren shook his head. Jintaya did as well.
“The only thing we have is to transform me, and hope I can get there fast enough, and push him through the portal before the Efrijt close it,” Éfan told them. “Once he’s pushed through, he will weaken and wither . . . and your people will not have to flee.”
“You cannot do it alone,” Krue warned him. “I will go with you.”
“We don’t have enough energy for that,” Zedren countered. “And you don’t know the route to the medjant lands as clearly as I do, since I have flown the barges and skydarts there the most of any of you. I will go with Éfan. It will drain all the others to empower both of us, but I did some calculations in my head while I was out and about. The anti-anima devices can also register and record the relative strengths of anima energies located nearby. The rest of you have enough energy to send both of us to the saturation point. I know exactly where to go, and I can fight. With two of us, Udrin will be far less likely to escape.”
Krue opened his mouth to argue. Shava touched his arm, silencing him. “I will not be parted from you, yet there is not enough for three. The many reasons for you staying solid remain.”
Jintaya looked at Zedren, saw the determination in the young Fae’s gaze, and bowed her head in permission. “Do it. And let us do it now. Fae, take your pl
aces. Efrijt, move out of the circle. Ban . . . are you prepared?”
Ban nodded. Rising from his seat, he crossed to Zedren. The artificer offered his forearm, clasping Ban’s when he accepted it. “I’m younger than Éfan, but that makes me better prepared. I have fewer memories to hold me back, and no mate to think of.”
“You have a sister to think of,” Muan hissed. She smacked him in the shoulder with her knuckles, glaring at him. In the next moment, the pale-haired Fae embraced her brother tightly. “We’ll find a way to bring you back.”
“Hey . . . if we do end up living forever, we’ll be able to keep Ban company,” Zedren joked quietly.
Jinji heard, and snorted. “If what Udrin can do is any indication, stirring up the wind, you’ll have an eternity in which to make gas-passing jokes behind his back.”
“Jinji! This is a solemn moment,” Jintaya chastised.
Sighing, the younger Fae subsided. Everyone moved to take their places, save that Zedren joined Éfan in the center of their circle. Ban joined them, too. Éfan looked around the circle, dragged in a deep breath, and nodded. “. . . Begin transferring energy to me. When it flows out at the same rate it flows in, I will be ready. Ban . . . only behead us one at a time, and only at that point. I am ready, and aware of the many consequences of my choice in doing this.”
“I am ready as well,” Zedren added, squaring his shoulders. He met Ban’s gaze steadily. “I accept the many consequences of this choice . . . and I ask that you behead me when I am saturated with anima . . . once we know it works with Éfan, of course.”
He gave the elder Fae an apologetic look. Éfan merely nodded, fully aware this was a dangerous experiment. He looked at the others. “Begin the anima transfer.”
Around the trio, the other Fae lifted their hands, concentrated . . . and started forming spark-spitting spheres of anima around their fingers. Proximity-based attraction seemed stronger than the intent of each Fae, however. They wobbled forward, but bobbed and swayed off course.
Frowning, Éfan walked around the circle. He stretched out one golden-tanned hand, the loose sleeves of his overrobe swaying a little. Each time he touched one of those spheres, brushed the fingers of a fellow Fae’s hand, the anima surged into him. Each resummoned, sparking sphere glowed whiter and brighter in the time it took for him to complete a circuit.
