The Fire Eye Chosen_Sequel to The Fire Eye Refugee

by Samuel Gately

  “I’m right here,” Kay said, quickly closing the remaining distance, her hand clenched by her side in searing pain. “Always happy to help the Home Guard.”

  Joah recognized the boldness of her approach, and ducked just before she flung her hand forward, spraying the group with a fistful of the demonlord pepper. The three fake lawmen caught it directly in the face. As always, it took a moment for them to realize what had just happened. One made it as far as taking a step before the demonlord went to work. In seconds all three were on the ground in agony, rubbing at their faces.

  Kay waded into the group and pulled Joah to his feet. He had his shirt over his mouth and his eyes closed. “Fuck, Kay, I hate when you do that,” he said through clenched teeth. “You got me good this time.”

  “Sorry, Joah.” A hand clutched at Kay’s ankle and she paused in her response to stomp on it. “I wasn’t about to try the baton with a broken arm.” She drew him clear of the circle of downed men. “Stay here a second.”

  Kay walked over to the Home Guard carriage where the horses waited patiently. She gave one a slap and they began slowly cantering away, drawing the carriage behind them. With luck, they’d remember the way to the station it had been stolen from.

  Joah had tried opening his eyes by the time she returned. They were angry, red slits and, as she watched, he began coughing. “Next time, more warning.”

  “You got it.” She turned to the men on the ground, pondering what to do with them. She could send for the real Home Guard or the Wrang. They would land on the impersonators with fury. And she would wind up tied down for another day, explaining herself to clerks while she should be chasing down the leads Jenna Weiss had given her. Instead she leveled a kick at the closest man, catching him in the ribs.

  Kay gave one last longing look towards her office, the sofa so close and yet so far, and sighed. She took Joah’s arm and began leading him down the street. Once they were out of the earshot of the men, she said, “Does Simone still have pallets set up in the backroom of The Harbor Grey?” She looked at Joah’s red face. “He’ll have goat’s milk. It will help a bit.”

  “I know, Kay. This isn’t the first time I’ve been caught in your crossfire. He probably stocks it just for me.”

  “Well, after that have a drink on me. I’m getting some sleep.” They shuffled down the street, ignoring the cries of the men behind them.

  Chapter 18. In Need of a Path

  “Where have you been?”

  “Sleeping, Yamar. On a luxurious, silken bed even the Dynasty would envy.” She’d been in the cluttered back room of The Harbor Grey, on a thin pallet thrown down next to mounds of old potatoes. “I was deep in a dreamless sleep where I’d left Celest and all of its troubles behind.” Another lie. Her dreams had been relentless, all circling the image of the city filled with black smoke, two towers rising above the murk.

  Kay had awoken feeling strange. She’d always felt in tune, somehow in touch with the Fire Eye when it showed its face every year. But as she’d stepped outside of the tavern earlier, there had been something more than that. She’d felt a sort of power falling over her. She was less tired than expected, less sore. Her spirits and confidence were higher than they had any right to be. And her spark…it felt stronger. Dangerously so, as though she could reach out and set the world on fire. It was a feeling both pleasant and terrifying. She’d lost herself to the fire’s call before. It had a way of taking hold of her.

  “Have you found it?” she asked.

  Yamar stood in front of an enormous painting of the Fire Eye on the side of a building off the alley. They were near Goen Square. The sun was setting, lengthening the shadows of the quiet neighborhood. Several pairs of uniformed Wrang were visible along the street, examining the walls.

  “No,” he replied.

  “What did she say?”

  “Her directions weren’t great. She remembered the location of the painting enough to point us here, but we haven’t found a blue line. She guesses she walked a few minutes after finishing the painting, before entering a basement door off an alley. And then it was into the maze of tunnels.” He gestured around him. “The others are looking for the blue line and checking doors, but there are hundreds within a five minute walk.”

  Kay studied the painting before her. It had a vividness, a life that was definitely Jenna’s. Kay had never cared for recreations of the Fire Eye. It had always struck her as arrogance, an attempt to bring control over the uncontrollable. Which matched the mindset of the Gyudi, who believed the celestial event belonged exclusively to them. She followed the bright swathes of color around and around with her eyes. The brushstrokes swirled outward, finally ending near the bottom-right of the image. As Kay examined its bottom edge, she saw paint splatters on the ground.

  She looked up and down the street, seeing the pairs of Wrang studying the walls. “Wait, you’ve got them looking for the line?” As he nodded, she shook her head, “That’s not right. She didn’t need to get back to the painting, just the surface. She wouldn’t have risked it until they were in the basement. And even then she might not have started it right away. She just needed it to get her back near enough to find the door again.”

  Yamar made a noise of disgust. “Then what are we looking for?”

  Kay pointed at the bottom of the painting. “Look at the ground. Look for paint splatters in the dirt. Maybe her jars were dripping. Maybe one of them got some on their boots. Their footprints may not have lasted a day and a half, but there still may be paintmarks.”

  She began at the edges of the painting and was rewarded by finding a single drop of orange paint in the dirt. “Here. We follow this.” She scanned the ground, then looked around the corner. “Another one.”

  Yamar and Kay, bent low over the dirty alley, moved forward in increasing excitement. Yamar found another drop halfway down the alley. There was a large splatter of blue paint beyond a turn farther down. Kay tried to picture the girl walking through the alleys, surrounded by masked men and darkness, surreptitiously readying her paints for her act of defiance. “I think we’re close,” she said.

  This alley had long rows of stairs leading down to basement doors, one on each building. If they could find some evidence of which one they’d turned to, they could find the blue line. Otherwise it would take hours, maybe all night to try each of them. They walked slowly to the end of the alley.

  “Are you seeing anything?” Kay asked.

  “No.”

  “Then this might be it. Somewhere here. This is where they went underground.”

  Kay was looking up and down the rows, considering where to start, when the light of a torch flared from around the corner of the far end of the alley. Fear crept over her as she reached towards the baton at her belt. She glanced back to Yamar, whose face was calm. Soldiers of the Dynasty had little to fear, even in the darkening alleys of neighborhoods like this.

  “Not ours,” he said, watching the light.

  Kay stared as the long shadows of many men moving swiftly across the alley appeared on the far wall. “We left the other Wrang too far behind. Jyurik found me again.”

  A booming voice came down the alley as the torch rounded the corner. “Fetch! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Who’s your friend?”

  She groaned. “Worse. It’s Vascal.” Her excitement over closing in on the line, her good feelings of this afternoon all fled, replaced by the special kind of fear Vascal managed to awaken in her. She turned to see what she already knew she would, the light of another torch behind them. Vascal wouldn’t have revealed himself until he’d cut off their retreat. “We’re trapped.”

  “Who is it?” Yamar asked, voice still placid.

  “Vascal runs the Farrow black market. Last time we crossed paths he was trying to collect the contract on my head.”

  “I can hear you, Kay,” Vascal called out from the far end of the alley. “This is exactly the kind of loose talk we can’t have.” A slight change in tone indicated he was speaking
with Yamar. “I am a businessman, sir. One who is merely collecting just repayment on some debts. I happened to be friends with one of those men you killed on Sethro Street, fetch.”

  “You have no friends, Vascal,” Kay called back.

  Vascal took the torch from another, throwing the light over his face. Kay could see his anger, his pride. The torchlight glinted off his nose ring, his earrings, his dark eyes. She could also see, standing next to him, one of the Gol she’d encountered earlier this morning. One who’d been wearing the uniform of a Home Guard when he’d come calling at her office door. She was tempted to make a quip about how well that had worked out when Yamar stepped in front of her.

  “I am Wrang Captain Yamar Advoco,” he shouted down the alley. “If you are indeed a businessman, you will understand the grave nature of threatening the Wrang or any representative of the Dynasty. Leave now.”

  Kay could hear muttering from the far end of the alley as Vascal considered his reply. He wouldn’t be happy to square off with the Wrang, but Kay wouldn’t put it past him. Yamar was standing tall and unbent, staring down the alley, waiting for a response, his hands free of his cloak, sword still undrawn.

  They needed to buy some time, hope the other Wrang caught up with them. Or find an escape. She looked around at the various basement entryways. “There,” Kay pointed towards a set of stairs descending from the street. “Is that a handprint?” In blue paint, there was a tiny smear that might have come from a set of fingers or the edge of a palm.

  “We’ll have to hope it is.” As Yamar turned to look back at her, some instinct drove him to turn back suddenly. An arrow shot out from somewhere near Vascal. There was a flurry of motion before her and Kay watched in disbelief as Yamar held the arrow up, tightly clutched in the hand he’d caught it with.

  He held it before him and broke it with a loud snap. “We could still consider that a mistake,” Yamar called out in a cold voice. “Once I draw my blade, you will have sealed your fate and that of all your men. The Dynasty does not suffer traitors.”

  They answered with another arrow. This one Yamar dodged, and both he and Kay quickly ducked down by the side of the alley. She pulled him into the stairwell where she’d seen the handprint, hoping she wasn’t imagining it in her desperation.

  The few stairs running down below the alley gave them cover as another pair of arrows rattled past. But the torchlight from both sides was swelling as Vascal’s people advanced. They were trapped. They’d kill Yamar. He couldn’t catch all the arrows they sent at him. They’d probably try to take Kay alive, at least at first. She shuddered to think what her last hours would be like.

  Kay almost moaned with relief when the door at the bottom of the stairs opened easily on oiled hinges. They rushed inside a narrow tunnel, Yamar pushing the door shut behind them and leaning against it. From the last lingering sunlight leaking in through the door’s fringes, Kay could see a blue line of paint, low on the wall. It led back into total darkness. The way behind was closed. Their only choice was to go deeper. “Give me your light,” she said, reaching her hand back to Yamar, who was searching for a way to barricade the door.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Why not?! You didn’t bring a lantern, a candle, matches, anything?”

  “One of the others is carrying the equipment.” They heard footsteps on the street outside. Vascal’s people were closing in. “You didn’t bring a light?” he asked quietly.

  She shook her head in the darkness.

  Vascal’s voice was close, too close. It held no trace of his usual mocking laughter. “Come out, fetch, or we’re coming in. Come out now and we’ll leave the Wrang. No one wants his blood on their hands.”

  Yamar looked back at Kay. “He’s lying. They’ll do everything they can to kill me after firing that arrow.” No trace of fear in his voice.

  “I know that, Yamar,” Kay replied. She glanced into the dark tunnel, then at Yamar. She sighed. “I hope you can keep a secret.”

  Kay reached inside herself and pulled out a flame, holding it inches above her outstretched hand. It came easily, far more easily than it usually did. She willed it over towards the blue line and then down the tunnel where it shed a dim, orange light across the black throat. Ignoring Yamar’s stare, she began following it. “Let’s go,” she tossed back over her shoulder.

  He wedged a knife under the door, firmly kicking it into place with a boot, then hurried after her. She could feel his eyes on the flame, his disbelief. “How do you do that?” he asked finally.

  “How did you catch that arrow?” she asked back. There was no chance she wouldn’t have some explaining to do once they’d set Vascal comfortably behind them. She could only hope her decision to trust Yamar worked out. If he reported this to the Dynasty, she may have more than one committee digging into her affairs, one decidedly less gentle. A problem to occupy her mind once she’d cleared the present hurdle. She glanced at Yamar but he was looking forward.

  Both fell silent as they walked along the tunnel, following the dim light of the flame which tracked the thin blue line of paint. They’d found the path to the Court of the Gyudi. Now they just had to walk it, straight to the stronghold of their enemies.

  Chapter 19. Deathsworn in the Dark

  The small flame flickered as it traveled along the wall of the tunnel. It steadily led Kay and Yamar deeper into the underground nest of winding passageways, following a thin blue line of paint. The blackness swallowed their feet as they traveled in near total darkness, the flame providing them with little more than a direction. They stayed close together, Yamar’s hand clutching the hood of Kay’s cloak.

  When the light faltered, which happened whenever the blue line faded, as it did for long stretches, she was forced to draw it close again and send it out, searching. As the fire cast its light on their faces, she could see Yamar staring at it, thousands of unanswered questions in his eyes. Questions she ignored. They pressed onwards through the landscape of grey stone, the only feature of interest the blue line of paint showing them the way down.

  Kay spent the first hour certain that every shuffle of their feet hid sounds of pursuit. That Vascal’s men had forced the door, recognized the significance of the blue line, and were on their heels, better equipment freeing them to move faster than their prey. When she’d worried that angle to exhaustion and still no pursuit materialized, her concern shifted slowly forwards. She began thinking about what was ahead. Soon the shadows around each corner were shaped like a slouched Jyurik. He waited in the dark like a spider, a ready laugh on his lips for the foolish fetch, returning to the web of her own accord. He’d be backed by countless masked men who would quickly disarm the pair, drag them down to the Court of the Gyudi, and throw them at the feet of the would-be Dynasty for more sport.

  Each step seemed to draw them deeper underground, away from the world Kay knew. They were far below the Fire Eye and getting farther. As they went deeper, Kay seemed to diminish, grow weaker with every step. The pain radiating from her broken arm grew, a reminder of exactly how well she’d fared the last time she’d come face to face with the Chosen Dynasty in their domain.

  She began seeing black snakes at her feet, slithering silently just beyond the dim light. They parted before each footfall, gathering like threads of smoke that spread across Celest, the vision from her dreams. “Say something,” she finally breathed to Yamar to break the silence.

  “We must have come at least three miles by now,” Yamar replied, voice as calm as if they walked the halls of the Palace.

  “I…I think so,” she replied, trying to match his tone and probably failing. She didn’t like to admit it, but his steadiness, his hand on her hood, were a comfort in the darkness.

  “So who exactly was Vascal?” Yamar asked.

  “Like I said, he runs the Farrow black market. Headquarters out of a bar on Sethro Street in the Lagoons.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it. You don’t really get to know someone like Vascal.
If you’re close to him, there’s already a knife halfway in you. He was more on Ewan’s beat. And Ewan told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from him. Just like Amos had before him.”

  “But still you managed to get tangled up with him?”

  “Not by choice, Yamar. Sometimes this city just isn’t big enough.”

  They fell to silence. Yamar finally broke it. “Does anything about this route remind you of before?”

  “No,” she said, trying not to look down at her feet, certain she’d see the silent snakes which tracked them. “But time moved differently behind that mask. And I was helpless, being carried. It’s different to walk. I guess better, but it doesn’t feel much better. Each step feels like a mistake.”

  “You shouldn’t be down here.”

  “I know that. No one should.”

  “I mean, this isn’t your job, taking on the Gyudi.”

  “No, but I’m not here for the Gyudi. I’m here to take back what they stole.” Kay thought about Jenna Weiss putting her arms around her, home safe. And there were others ahead, somewhere at the end of this line. And Ewan’s killer. There was that too.

  With every stride, Kay was certain her foot would finally touch one of the snakes slithering unseen below her. And then they would turn and fall on her, hissing as they dragged her down. She didn’t like the silence. “And you?” she asked Yamar. “Does this fall under your job description?”

  “Of course,” he replied quietly. “A threat has been made on the Melor Family. I am Enos Melor’s deathsworn.”

  Kay stopped and turned, letting the flame die in her surprise. They were plunged into total darkness. Yamar, caught off guard, ran into her, throwing his arms around her to prevent them from falling. Kay could feel his breath on her face, still level and unafraid despite the blackness on all sides. She closed her eyes, focusing, and summoned the flame again. As she opened them, she saw a cloud of sadness pass over Yamar’s eyes before they shifted to the ground.