The Magic Mines of Asharim

by Pauline M. Ross

  We all raced across the square. I could hear Petreon behind me bellowing for buckets, organising a chain to bring water from the fountain. Thank the One for someone with a calm head, able to take charge. A few people dropped back to help. The violent emotions churning in my head abated a little. I ran on, Xando beside me, some of the women just behind us.

  We were almost there when a great roar shook the ground beneath our feet. A second-floor window exploded outwards, spewing flames with a great blast like a furnace. The women screamed, filling my head with their fear, huddling in a panic.

  Not all, though. A blur ran past me, straight for the front door. Kijana. I ran after her, Xando still in my wake.

  Kijana reached the door, which stood wide open. Black smoke plumed out. Kijana covered her mouth with her hand and would have plunged in, but I grabbed her arm. No one could enter there, and live. No one normal.

  “Let me go! Helly’s in there, I have to get to him.”

  “Where?”

  “Up there.” She pointed vaguely.

  I spun her round to face me, shaking her. “Where precisely? Think!”

  She took a deep breath. “Top floor. Back. Middle room.”

  “Any more still inside?”

  Her face crumpled. “Two other boys. In there.” She pointed to the missing window, fringed by burnt fragments of shutters, flames leaping and diving. “No one else. All in the kitchen at the Main House.”

  I released her, and turned to face the burning house. To Xando, I said, “I will go in. Don’t let anyone follow me, understand?”

  “Very well.” I blessed him for asking no questions.

  Then I walked through the open door into the smoke-filled house.

  Immediately the panic filling my head subsided, and it was easier to think.

  The entrance hall was almost intact. Black fumes curled round me but there were no flames under my feet. The walls were still upright, but an open door on one side revealed a mass of flames and debris where the fire in the room above had collapsed. The floor held, but not for long. The two boys in there were beyond human help. I passed on quickly through the smoke.

  The stairs were clear at the bottom, but the top was ablaze. I couldn’t pass that way. There would be another staircase at the back of the house, so I moved on as quickly as I could. As I passed the bottom stair, a burning spar fell, spinning towards my face. I caught it with one hand and tossed it away, rushing on.

  I felt nothing. Neither smoke nor flames affected me. It was as if I walked in a bubble of clean air, breathing freely, feeling no undue heat. Even my clothes were untouched.

  The back of the house was full of smoke, but the heat and flames were behind me now. I wasted valuable time searching for the back stair, but found it behind a curtained-off door. I raced up the stairs two at a time. The higher I rose, the more smoke I encountered, but I could breathe easily.

  On the top floor I took a moment to look around me. The fire at the front was a dull roar, and crashes sounded from time to time as ceiling timbers and heavy furnishings collapsed into the void, or glass shattered.

  Above the noise, a small voice crying for help. A few paces brought me to his door, and I wrenched it open. What I saw shocked me more than the fire, if that were possible. Helly lay flat on a low bed, his wrists bound with ropes looped through a metal ring in the wall.

  “Help me,” he sobbed, tears streaking his dirty face.

  I was full of questions, but there was no time. A glance at the knots told me they were too tight for me to untie. “Quick, where will I find a knife?”

  “Um… kitchen. Oh but… scissors! Sewing basket!”

  He couldn’t point, but he jerked his head, and I saw the basket on a bed opposite, fabric spilling over the edges. I rummaged, found nothing, tipped the whole contents onto the bed. A flash of metal revealed the scissors.

  Cursing every wasted second, I sawed at the rope. Helly coughed, his chest heaving. The smoke was getting thicker. I’d never attempted a rescue before, so I wasn’t sure how it would work, but perhaps my ability could help him too?

  “Can you get your face close to me? Right up close? I can breathe, so maybe you’ll be able to share my air.”

  It was awkward, but I leaned across him to work on the far rope and he lifted his face close to mine. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought his breathing was easier.

  The rope was thin, and soon gave way to my determined hacking and the blessed sharpness of the blade. One more slash freed him, the ends of the rope slithering out of the ring in the wall.

  “Come now.” I held out my hand to him, but I could see, now that I looked closely at him, that he had no strength.

  I picked him up. He weighed almost nothing. “Keep your face close to mine. I don’t know this house, so you will have to guide me to the back door. Can you do that, Helly?”

  He nodded.

  Outside the room, flames curled about the rug at my feet and the smoke was intense. I felt my way to the top of the back stairs, and on downwards, my feet feeling for every step. A huge crash behind us made me catch my breath, and Helly whimpered, but whatever it was settled and our way was unimpeded. Down and down, one step at a time. Helly’s breath rasped and I could see sweat on him, so I guessed the fire was getting close, but I had no sensation of heat.

  At the bottom I stopped, undecided, but Helly pointed. “Door,” was the only word he could manage. I turned that way, but when I opened the door he’d pointed to, the flames were licking round it. I kicked it in. Beyond, a laundry room and scullery. One side of the room was well alight, and patches of flame were spreading as I watched, but directly opposite was the door to the drying yard. We were only a few paces away from safety.

  “Be brave, Helly. This is the last step.”

  I wanted to run, before the fire overran the room entirely, but I was terrified of tripping and hurling Helly into the flames. I trod with care, crossing the burning rug, avoiding a smouldering chair, edging past a flaming curtain. But I could feel the fresh, clean air beyond, and in moments I had wrenched the door open.

  We were safe.

  Almost at once, my mind was assaulted by agonising waves of terror. The yard gate burst open and a crowd rushed in, many with buckets. Xando’s face was the first I noticed. Petreon was there too. Then Kijana in a whirl of anxiety and relief.

  “Helly! Oh Helly!” She snatched him from my arms, and cradled him, her face flooded with tears.

  He wriggled until she set him down. “I’m all right.” A bout of coughing shook his thin body. “Let me go.”

  “Allandra, how can I ever thank you?” she said, grasping Helly firmly by the wrist, where the cut rope dangled.

  “What by all the demons is that about?” I yelled at her, the sea of roiling emotions crystallising abruptly into anger. “He could have escaped the fire by himself if he hadn’t been tied down. What were you thinking? It’s inhuman, Kijana. He’s a child, you can’t tie him up like a beast.”

  “It’s to keep him safe,” she whispered. “From the pool. It’s the bloom…”

  “The bloom…?” To stop him succumbing to the lure of the pool. Of course. Probably the other two boys had been tied to their beds, too. Where the fire started.

  “Helly,” I said. “Do you know what happened? How the house caught fire?”

  He hung his head, silent.

  “It was the other two, wasn’t it? What did they do?”

  Kijana gasped. “They asked for a lamp. To keep the brightmoon in their room, they said. We saw no harm in it. But they must have knocked it over.”

  Helly’s head shot up. “They were trying to burn the rope off!” he shrieked. “To be free! That’s all we want, to be free!”

  He twisted violently, and slipped from Kijana’s grasp. She screamed, and dived for him, but he was too quick for her, tearing out of the yard into the square beyond, then arrow-straight towards the mine.

  Kijana tried to run after him, but Petreon held her firmly. “Leave him
. He’s gone. You can’t follow. Not with the bloom on. Too strong.”

  She fell to her knees, her screams echoing from the walls.

  Her grief pierced my mind, and I staggered back, appalled. Terror, anger, desperation; they were bad enough but Kijana’s shattering emotions tore me apart. I put my hands to my head, as if I could block it out, but there was no escape. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe; the only thing that existed in the world was that terrible tornado of grief.

  I turned, trying to get away, but I was lost and helpless. I think I screamed. I tried to find my way out of the milling crowd, but there was always someone in the way. And then—

  Silence.

  All the violent emotions were gone. In their place, gentle compassion, a little sorrow, and love – sweet, affectionate love. I opened my eyes and looked into Xando’s sympathetic face. He had my hand firmly in his grasp.

  “There is nothing more we can do here. Shall we go?”

  He tugged my hand and meekly I followed him, uncomprehending, but grateful for the respite, however caused. He led me out into the small square beyond the yard, then through the streets to the larger square with the fountain. A long chain of people passed buckets back and forth to the house, but it was hopeless. The whole front was aflame, and all that could be done was to prevent it spreading to the adjoining houses.

  Never letting go of my hand, Xando took me back to the kitchen to collect our coats, where the agitated flickers were relieved to have us close again. Then out through the other door and by a circuitous route to the wine merchant’s shop. Only when we reached the small tasting room did he finally let go of my hand.

  At once the gentle emotions disappeared. There was nothing, his mind a blank to me again. At least, the One be praised, I was out of range of the turbulence surrounding the fire.

  Xando opened a bottle of wine and poured some into two glasses. He pushed one across to me with his soft smile. “Drink. It has been a difficult evening.”

  I sipped obediently.

  “You know, Allandra, you are not doing much to improve your reputation as a witch.”

  That brought a gurgle of laughter from me. Impulsively, I reached across and touched his hand. There it was again, that warm, kindly love. His smile deepened, but he said nothing, leaving me to work it out.

  “You knew. You knew I could detect emotions.”

  “I guessed. You reflect what other people feel like a mirror. When feelings run high, often you leave the room.”

  “But not yours. When I’m not touching you—” and I lifted my hand away from his, “there’s nothing there at all. But if I touch you—”

  I reached out my hand again and he clasped it in both of his, lifting it to his lips. “Yes. You are aware of everything in my heart. I have learned to shield my emotions from scrutiny, but I cannot do that when we are in physical contact. When we touch, you are inside my shield, as it were, aware of my feelings but protected from those of everyone else.”

  “How do you do that – the shielding? Can I do that? Will you teach me? Please?” By the One, to be free of this curse at last!

  “I have no idea how I do it. I have always been able to, so for me it is instinctive.”

  “Oh.” I was deflated.

  “I cannot imagine,” he said slowly, still holding my hand, “how you have survived without such a capability. I would have gone mad, being exposed to every passing surge of anger or fear or jealous rage. For me, it is a conscious choice to open my mind to another. I do it briefly, to test the truth of what is said, or to look beneath the surface. But I prefer to shut the world out. You have never had that choice, it seems.”

  I hadn’t thought of it until that moment, but at last I understood what he was saying. The clues had been there, if I’d been able to read them. I was not alone! I was not, after all, some freak without equal in the world. Here was someone else who could read the emotions in others, just as I could. And if he could choose to shut them out, then perhaps I could, too, in time.

  “I tried to shield myself,” I said. “I tried so hard. But I could never manage it.”

  “And you cannot manipulate feelings, either, I imagine?”

  “Manipulate?”

  “Adjust the feelings of others. Reduce Chendria’s hostility to you, for instance?”

  “No, I— You mean, you can? You have?”

  He nodded. “Did you never wonder why everyone seemed so calm these days?”

  I started to laugh. “I just thought that things were settling down. I suspected it was your influence, but I never thought—” I smiled at him. “And you love me.”

  “Yes. I would have thought you might have guessed that.” He kissed my hand again.

  “I – no. I knew you liked me, but nothing more than that. I can’t tell what anyone feels unless I can see inside them. Well, this is a day of wonders.”

  “Indeed it is.” He said no more than that, but I knew what he meant, and now that I could see into his mind, I picked up the flash of astonished admiration as he spoke.

  “You want to know how I can walk through fire.”

  “Only if you want to tell me. And the other matter. Hurling someone across the plaza. You are a lady of many talents. But then, with your heritage, that is to be expected.”

  “That isn’t true, actually,” I said. “It’s a myth that all the Highest have multiple connections. Some do, but for most the connection is stronger, that’s all. As far as I know, I am the only one of my family who has more than one.”

  He looked at me expectantly. I could have avoided talking about my strange abilities, I suppose. He’d given me that choice, and secrecy was my instinctive habit. But half the mine residents had seen me walk unscathed through fire, so I supposed I would have to account for myself before too long. Better to explain first to someone who was unquestionably on my side.

  “The fire business…” I began, and he nodded encouragingly. “I have always had that, since I was a child. I put my hand right into the cooking fire one day when I was not even two. The flames, the heat, the smoke – none of it affects me in the slightest.”

  “Or your clothes,” he said. “Entirely unsinged.”

  I nodded. “But it’s never been useful before.”

  “Can you create fire?”

  “Deliberately?” An astonishing idea. “You will think me very stupid, I’m sure, but I’ve never tried. It never occurred to me.”

  He laughed, kissing my hand again, as a surge of love washed through him. And through me. I felt exactly what he felt, the same gentle, amicable love, affection but no passion. I wasn’t sure I wanted that. Friendship, perhaps; I needed all the friends I could find, but love? I was done with love. It had failed me.

  He showed no sign he read my doubts.

  “Well, perhaps tomorrow you can make the attempt,” he said, smiling. “But outside, somewhere with plenty of space. And the ability to understand emotions? Have you always had that?”

  “To some extent, although it was – hmm, muted, I suppose, when I was a child. It reached full strength when I was about eleven or twelve. I learned to manage it… most of the time. There were a few… accidents. But what happened to Janna, in the plaza… that has never happened before. The feeling was the same, but there was no fire.”

  “Fascinating!” His eyes gleamed. “So many abilities. But however did you avoid the Program?”

  “I never took the test.” I laughed at his astonished face. “It’s true. One of the servants had a child the same age as me, and she took the test for me.”

  “But why? You would have been taught how to use your gifts, how to control them.”

  “I would have been a prisoner!” I spat back.

  There was a surge of sympathy in him, and I remembered that he was not in the Program either. All Tre’annatha were supposed to be part of it – tested at the age of five, and then assigned according to ability. Non-Tre’annatha were recruited only if they had some special talent.
/>   He said nothing, though, waiting patiently for me to explain.

  “I was the youngest of four children,” I said. “The older three were all taken. They all had strong connections, so when they were tested, they were taken into the Program. Gone for ever. Then my mother died when I was born, and my father was determined that I would not be taken too.”

  “It must have been difficult to hide your connections,” he said.

  Difficult! That didn’t begin to cover it. “What about you? How did you avoid the Program? Or did you escape?”

  “No, I was never tested, either. I was an accidental – oh, I daresay you have no idea what that is, do you?” I shook my head. “My parents were not designated as breeders, but I was born anyway. It happens, sometimes, although it is rare. They should have handed me over to be raised elsewhere. That is the protocol. But they chose not to.”

  “You really are a rebel, then.”

  He laughed. “In that way, perhaps. Not politically. We moved around a lot until I was six, and then we settled at Mesanthia. It was much easier to live our own lives there without any questions being asked. It is strange – we have both been living outside the system, you and I. We have more in common than I had realised, Allandra.”

  I couldn’t miss the burst of affection that passed through him as he spoke. Affection and something else – relief, perhaps. He was an outsider, too. Finding someone else with the same talent was a significant moment for both of us.

  When we went to bed that night, I asked him to take his shirt off. He looked at me quizzically.

  “So I can touch you. I like seeing into your mind.”

  “Ah. Because if you had any thought of trying to awaken me…”

  “No, no. It’s restful, sleeping with a man who wants nothing from me.”

  And I could drift off to sleep with his love wrapped around me like a blanket. That was such a comfort. Almost I could believe I was back in Caxangur, that nothing terrible had happened, that I was safe.

  Almost.

  13: The Pool

  When we went to first table the next morning, it seemed as if nothing had happened. Two children had died in the flames and a third had been taken by the bloom, Kijana’s house was black and hollow, but everyone sat round the table and ate as if this was just another day. Several of the women were missing, among them Kijana, and one or two of the others let loose an occasional sob, but otherwise all was normal.