Kindling (Flame of Evil)

by Mick Farren

  The question compelled Argo to face the idea that he been studiously avoiding. He had called the name, and she had been in his dream, of that he was certain, but it was a certainty he would have preferred not to accept. Accepting it meant accepting that he was enfolded, maybe for the rest of his days, in levels of strangeness and abnormality that he could not even imagine. His old world and his old ways of thinking were breaking down, and he was entering the fearsome country of Yancey Slide, whether he liked it or not.

  “And what did you hear in this place of flames?”

  By some new instinct, Argo instantly knew what Slide needed to hear. “Quadaron-Ahrach was named by name.”

  Beneath the brim of his hat, Slide’s eyes narrowed. “Was he indeed? That may not be at all good.”

  “It was all through the dream like a chant. Quadaron-Ahrach, Quadaron-Ahrach.”

  Slide scowled. “Don’t speak his name quite so freely, boy. He may be old and frail and only human, but his power is never to be underestimated.”

  Argo would have liked to have sat and thought about all that had just transpired, but Slide indicated that he should get to his feet. Constant motion appeared to be part of the training process for whatever Slide seemed to expect was to come for him. Slide gestured to where Barnabas, Steuben, Madden, and Penhaligon sat in a circle. Steuben was wiping down a light carbine with an oily rag. “The Rangers have something for you.”

  Steuben beckoned. “Here you go, kid. The captain said fix up the piece for you, so fixed it up I did.”

  As Argo approached, with Slide behind him, the Rangers all got to their feet. “You’ve been lucky here, boy. It ain’t every irregular in this war gets an almost new Norse carbine, straight out of Birmingham. I could almost have kept it for myself instead of the ton-weighing piece-of-shit Albany issue I’m toting, but that wouldn’t have been the way of it, now would it? Wouldn’t have been right to get it for myself, like.”

  Steuben held the rifle in both hands, and a sense of rough ceremony descended on the gathering. He offered it to Argo. “Here you go, Argo Weaver, your first firearm as an irregular in the ranks of Albany.”

  Argo took the weapon and turned it over in his hands. “Is that what I am? An irregular?”

  “You look pretty irregular to me, boy.”

  Madden spoke, and Madden did not speak often or to no purpose. “Kiss the butt of the dead man’s gun, Weaver. Pay the respect to the last poor bastard who carried it.”

  Argo did as Madden instructed. He lifted the gun, inclined his head, and touched his lips to the oiled wood of the carbine. As he did so, he swore he could hear the gates to the world of Yancey Slide slam closed behind him. But when he’d run from Thakenham, had not he always known that from there on no turning back would be possible?

  JESAMINE

  The sun was setting, and Jesamine hurried to be inside before the darkness closed on a camp that was becoming increasingly strange and violent through the watches of the night. As the buildup of troops grew in intensity, the camp grew right along with it, until the place now spread and sprawled over such an area that it was becoming close to unmanageable. When people referred to the central base at Alexandria as a city under wood and canvas, they in no way now exaggerated, and the infrastructure of that city was being taxed to the point of collapse. Water and sanitation were already a problem, and on warm autumn days the stench was such that, on land that bordered on a swamp in the first place, old-timers feared that a cholera epidemic might be close at hand. By far the most serious disease so far, at least as Jesamine saw it, was the boredom that progressively gripped the minds of the men. Men whose only purpose was to fight had been idle for far too long. The scarcely bearable tension of waiting for the big push across the river was bursting into wild and negative outbreaks of indiscipline and insanity. Mamalukes fought with Teutons on a nightly basis. A concubine in another regiment had been gang-raped by a run-amok Mosul rifle company. Drunkenness was on a dizzying upswing, with a foul homebrew as the intoxicant of choice. Stills and blind pigs popped up all over the place, but for every manufacturer or illicit retail outlet the MPs and the Zhaithan shut down, three more opened up in its place. Rumors that mysterious Chinamen were delivering opium to the Mamaluke officers abounded, but Jesamine had seen none of that supposed traffic for herself. Drunken foot soldiers, on the other hand, seemed to stumble all over the duckboard walkways, the wooden sidewalks, or lie sprawled in the clinging mud that choked the thoroughfares between the endless lines of tents, and she had overheard more than one underofficer predicting that they would see a mass execution before the week was out.

  Jesamine had made use of the free time she had now that her colonel was away in search of his precious airship to take a walk to the goat pens to let T’saya know that she trusted her, as far she trusted anyone, and that she wanted to talk some more. Even on that fairly brief excursion, she could see how the camp was growing out of all proportion. She noticed that the stand of willows where she and Kahfla had secretly pleasured Reinhardt, currying favor with the master’s manservant, had gone, cut down to make room for even more lines of horse pens and drab green tents. She hardly missed the secret meeting place. She had spent too much time on her knees, at Reinhardt’s feet in its dirt, to wax nostalgic, but on the positive side, although the location of the trysts was no more, she continued to reap the benefits of the favors curried. None more than the ones earned when she had woken Phaall on Reinhardt’s behalf with the news that the airship had crashed. The most beneficial part of Reinhardt being in her debt was a pass that he had obtained by the simple subterfuge of slipping it in with a pile of routine regimental orders that Phaall did not have the patience to read before initialing his approval. While Phaall was away in the woods, and although he did not know it, she was legally permitted to reside in his quarters, eat his food, drink his booze, and also come and go as she pleased. She was merely awaiting her master’s return from the field and organizing a joyous reception when he rode home victorious. It was, after all, the traditional duty of the concubine in time of combat, and no one should ask any questions once the pass was produced.

  That, at least, was the optimistic theory, and it held good until, in the comparative safety of the Teutonic officers’ section, she turned a corner and saw the two Zhaithan priests in the sinister garb of the military wing waiting in front of the wood and canvas exterior of her colonel’s quarters. In their black cloaks, red and black tunics, spiked and turban-swathed helmets, and with holstered pistols and sheathed ceremonial daggers on their belts, they radiated such an aura of menace that no simple written pass could stop Jesamine’s stomach from turning to ice. She had trusted T’saya and her hallucinogens, and now the Zhaithan were waiting for her. She had been the classic gullible fool, seduced by illusions of possible power, and the old woman’s talk of “the big game,” into believing there might be any life except this one, and now she would pay for seeking such hope in the fire or on the gallows.

  “Are you the concubine?”

  Jesamine did not have to act the required part of brainless fear. Her mind was limp after all it had been put through that afternoon, and the panic of the stupid came quite naturally under the circumstances. “Yes … my lords.”

  “Where is Colonel Phaall?”

  The question was slightly reassuring. They wanted Phaall and not her, and their information was painfully out of date. T’saya had not betrayed her, and their secret was safe. “He and most of his regiment have gone south to bring back the crashed airship, my lords.”

  The Zhaithan’s faces were hidden behind veils of fine mesh chainmail that hung loosely from the insides of their helmets. It created the illusion of talking to men without faces.

  “He didn’t return with the prisoners?”

  Maybe their information was not as dated as she had assumed. Now she did not have a clue what the Zhaithan were talking about. Phaall had returned? Panic now came at Jesamine from both sides. “I know nothing of any prisoners. If Colon
el Phaall has returned, I haven’t seen him, although I am hardly the first he’d tell.”

  One Zhaithan looked at the other with a degree of small, unpleasant triumph that indicated an earlier argument. “I told you she would know nothing.”

  The other treated Jesamine to a hard look. “You know nothing of any prisoners?”

  “No, my lord. I already told you…”

  He cut her off. “You’ve heard nothing of three men and a woman who were supposed to have arrived here earlier today?”

  “No, my lord. I’ve neither seen them nor heard talk about them.”

  “And where have you been all day to hear talk, woman?”

  “While my colonel is away, I have been taking lessons in food preparation.”

  The questioning momentarily lapsed as a crew of lamplighters moved down the row of officers’ bivouacs, putting a match to the gas lamps and oil torches, but it resumed the moment they were out of earshot. “And there’s no talk of special prisoners among the women of the Teuton officers? No gossip?”

  “No, my lord. I swear. Nothing.”

  The two Zhaithan exchanged glances. The one who had spoken to Jesamine shrugged and then turned back to her. “There is no need for your colonel to hear of this conversation. As far as he is concerned, it never took place. You understand me, girl?”

  Jesamine did her best to look frightened and humble and keep all trace of sarcasm out of her voice. She dropped a deliberately demeaning curtsy, but was secretly very relieved. Once again the Zhaithan and the Teuton Engineers were in a pissing contest. That at least was nothing new. “Yes, my lord. I completely understand you.”

  The Zhaithan walked away like the lords of damnation they clearly believed they were, and even passing officers avoided their veiled and hidden eyes. They might have cautioned Jesamine to silence, but their very presence outside Phaall’s quarters was information that would quickly be disseminated on the rumor mill to all ranks of the regiment. She hurried inside, her heart still pounding. She quickly poured herself a schnapps, before even lighting the interior lamps, and dropped onto the bed. She did not care if Phaall walked in right at that minute. Even he would understand when she told him the Zhaithan had been looking for his prisoners. He would know where her loyalties lay and not begrudge her the schnapps. As she now read it, the mysterious prisoners were presumably survivors from the crash of the Norse airship. Phaall and the Teutons had them, and the Zhaithan wanted them. Phaall presumably wanted technical data from them. Why the Zhaithan wanted them was anybody’s guess, except maybe to put them to the torture and see what happened.

  Jesamine’s day had started out well enough. She was temporarily free of Phaall and had a pass that permitted her to go anywhere and do anything she liked, within the limits of her situation. She had lain in Phaall’s own bed until late morning, relishing the luxury of quiet and privacy, and then, after a couple of drinks, resolved to go and see T’saya. Her dreams were becoming more vivid and more complex with each passing day, and although she did still fear a possible Zhaithan trap, she knew she had to talk to the old African woman at least once more in the hope of making some sense out of what was going on. The day was sunny and bright, and everything was at least partially drying out after the torrential rain. The camp did not smell so bad, and the walk to the goat pens had been almost pleasant, except that, when she reached them, she saw plenty of goats but no sign of T’saya. Rather than just wait around in the hope the old woman might appear, she had asked a younger slave pushing a wheelbarrow of manure if she knew where T’saya might be. The slave had mutely pointed to a lopsided shack made of scrap wood, tar paper, and corrugated tin a short distance away, where smoke rose from a stovepipe chimney. The smoke made perfect sense. What had T’saya said about the goats? I raise them, I feed them, I love them, then I kill and cook them. The smoke from the chimney had to be the visible evidence that T’saya was inside taking care of the cooking phase of her dealings with the goats. It seemed from that moment the whole tone of the day took a turn for the unexpected and became a series of multiple and highly unwanted shocks.

  Jesamine pushed open the door to an interior so dim it was almost impossible to see on first entering from sunlit day. She heard T’saya before she saw her clearly. “Is that you, concubine girl?”

  Jesamine laughed. “It’s me, Jesamine, if that’s what you mean.”

  As her eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, she saw that T’saya was giving all her attention to a large cooking pot that was simmering on a wood-fired range. She was stirring the contents carefully with a long wooden spoon, and every so often she would stop and taste the result, adding a little more salt or various herbs from a rack of containers beside her. “So you decided to come and talk to me?”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I figured you’d get around to it despite all of your fears.”

  “My colonel went away.”

  “To look for his long-desired airship?”

  “How could you know that?”

  “Girl, I hear pretty much everything that goes on around here.” She stepped back from the range and indicated the vapor rising from the pot. “And what I don’t hear, I can read in the steam.”

  “I thought while my colonel was away I could maybe take some time to work out what was going on with me.”

  “When the Goddess spares you, she usually spares you for some reason.”

  “You think I’m being spared here?”

  “You think you got it hard then, girl? You think you got it hard eating the best of food, stealing your colonel’s booze, sleeping in a soft bed, and all you’re called on to do is lay under the fool and look interested in his huffing and grunting?”

  Jesamine resented being quite so freely dismissed as a pampered slut. “We on our backs also serve.”

  “Well, all that’s about to change real soon.”

  “You seem very sure of that.”

  “I am very sure of it, child. Make no mistake about that. The signs are all around you.”

  “What do you mean, all around me? I can’t see anything.”

  T’saya gestured for Jesamine to move closer. “Step up to the range, girl. Look into the steam and tell me you don’t see anything.”

  Jesamine did as she was told, but although she stared hard, she could see nothing but perfectly ordinary steam and smell the meat and spices. “I don’t see anything.”

  T’saya frowned. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing at all beyond what anyone might expect.”

  T’saya shook her head. “Maybe the seeing isn’t your gift. Or maybe you’re just not far enough along yet.”

  Jesamine turned away from the heat of the range. She was becoming hopelessly confused. “How can my entire life be about to change if I’m not far enough along yet?”

  “Events don’t wait until you’re ready for them. They come at you, ready or not. You know what I’m talking about?”

  Jesamine unhappily shook her head. “I don’t think I understand any of this. You read my dreams and tell me something’s about to happen, but you can’t say what?”

  T’saya moved to where two chairs faced each other across a small preparation table. She pulled out one and sat down, indicating that Jesamine should take the other. “Take the weight off your feet, girl. These things don’t all happen at once.”

  Jesamine sat as she was told. On the table between her and T’saya were a chopping board, an assortment of knives, more jars of herbs and oils, and a tin biscuit barrel with a scratched picture on the lid of idyllic rural Virginia, before the conquest, with a mill and millwheel. Beside the biscuit tin was an unlabeled bottle of something that looked uncommonly like alcohol. As if in confirmation of its contents, T’saya reached for the bottle. “I think maybe you need a drink.”

  Jesamine nodded. “I think maybe I do.”

  T’saya produced two glasses but also delivered a warning. “This ain’t your fancy Teuton lah-dee-dah schnapps now. This is homebrew, with a few
little additions of my own that help to clear the mind, you know?”

  “I think my mind could do with a good clearing.”

  T’saya poured two shots, but, before pushing one across to Jesamine, she picked up a small shaker bottle filled with an oily green liquid. She shook a couple of drops into each glass which immediately turned the contents cloudy. Jesamine looked at T’saya questioningly. “Wormwood?”

  “Something similar, plus some extras of my own.”

  Jesamine picked up the glass and looked at it carefully before drinking. “Is this going to give me visions, old woman?”

  T’saya laughed. “Are you afraid of visions, concubine girl?”

  Jesamine shook her head. “No, I guess not. Not if I learn something.” And, having committed herself, she swallowed half the glass in a single gulp. All of T’saya’s additions did little to mitigate the harsh burn of the moonshine, and perhaps made it taste more bitter than the rotgut normally did in its raw and unadorned form. “Damn.”

  “I told you it wasn’t smooth like the good stuff.”

  “T’saya, my friend, I don’t want to offend you, but there’s smooth, and there’s rough, and there’s this stuff.”

  “We all don’t have colonels buying our liquor for us.”

  Jesamine turned the glass in her fingers, studying the paint on her nails and summoning the courage to finish the shot. “You’re sure this is going to give me visions?”

  “You just sit awhile, and you’ll see everything.”

  T’saya rose to her feet to check on whatever was in the pot. Jesamine closed her eyes and drank down the rest of the glass. She also tried to stand, but found herself swaying, half out of the chair and wondering why she had bothered to get up in the first place. “What have you done to me, old woman?”

  “You wanted to see visions.”

  “I didn’t want to get drunk as a skunk.”

  “Sometimes that’s the price you have to pay.”

  In previous encounters with what were claimed to be hallucinogenic concoctions, the visual illusions had been slow in coming, only sneaking up on her once she had decided that nothing was going to happen and it had all been a burn. With T’saya’s brew, the abstract shapes and saturated colors rushed in fast and mean, closing on Jesamine like an assault of impossible form and brilliance. “Wow!”