Southern Fire ac-1

by Juliet E. McKenna

Trust. Ok, I trust your magic, most assuredly, after seeing you draw pictures out of nothing into a bowl of water, proving beyond doubt that a wizard's insidious spying can reach anywhere. It's trusting you at my back, believing you wont somehow betray me, that's what I'm finding the real test.

  Risala spoke up before Kheda could decide on a response. 'Let's go ashore and see just what happened.'

  Kheda stared into the thick brush beyond the village where undergrowth flourished anew in the rain. 'Do you suppose there'll be any Chazen islanders able to tell us what went on here?'

  'I can't even see a house fowl come back looking for grain,' Risala said sadly.

  Dev deftly steered the Amigal round so the stern drifted into the grudging beach. 'Get the skiff, girlie. You, make sure we're secure.' He looked at Kheda and nodded towards the twin-fluked anchors. 'I don't fancy swimming for the ship if she drifts. There's sharks in these waters.'

  Kheda hefted the heavy weight of the bow anchor and glanced at Risala. 'Do you want to stay aboard, keep watch out to sea?'

  'I want to see what's gone on ashore.' She shook her head stubbornly.

  Kheda threw the anchor over the Amigal's prow and hauled on the rope until he was confident it was dug deep into the rocky sand of the sea bed. Risala fetched the skiff round from its tether at the Amigal's stern and smiled up at him as he dropped the second anchor. Kheda lowered himself lightly into the little vessel and took the oars. Dev joined them, gazing all the while at the beach. Reaching the shore in a few strokes of the oars, the three of them dragged the skiff up out of the reach of the sluggish waves.

  'They were building defences,' Risala remarked. A ditch had been dug halfway across the grassy slope, though pointed stakes that had been stacked together were now scattered like straws in a wind.

  'Much good it did this prentice sorcerer,' chuckled Dev with cruel amusement. 'I told you these people are more interested in fighting each other. I don't see them taking on any other domain at least until the end of the rains.'

  'You said they were penning up prisoners like animals?' Kheda couldn't see anything like the stockades Dev and Risala had described.

  'Looks like they were keeping them locked up in the huts.' Dev had already reached the splintered remains of what had been a substantial building.

  Kheda joined him, kicking at a solid pole with floorboards still attached. 'Berale wood, seasoned, oiled against white ants, snapped like kindling.' The rough reddish inner grain of the splintered wood showed like a wound against the dark surface, polished with years of use.

  'The sailer's long gone.' Risala looked worried. 'I don't know what the Chazen people will be eating come the dry season, even if we do drive these wizards out.' She kicked at the end of a fallen roof truss. A litter of damp thatch slid away unexpectedly.

  Her yelp startled them both. Dev was instantly four steps back towards the shore as Kheda reached for Risala, other hand drawing the dagger he'd taken from Dev. 'What is it?'

  Risala shook herself like a hound coming out of the rain. Setting her jaw, she pointed at two corpses twisted in an ugly embrace, the shifting palm fronds releasing a foetid stench of death. Insects scurried away from the intrusive daylight.

  'They may yet tell us something.' Kheda sank down to a crouch and looked closely at the two dead.

  'Necromancy?' queried Dev, moving closer for a better look.

  'You're not working any spells over them.' Kheda spread a hand protectively over the bodies.

  'I thought you meant you were going to work some rite, for speaking to the dead.' Dev folded his arms and looked at Kheda, bright-eyed. 'That's long been the rumour in the north, what with all your people's insistence on past being linked to present and future. No? That's a shame. That would have been worth something to me.'

  'I have no idea what you're talking about.' Kheda didn't know whether to be more appalled or bewildered by the notion.

  'Can we discuss barbarian ignorance some other time?' Risala had turned away from the pathetic corpses. 'There's no saying when the savages might come back.'

  'See what you can see; I'll see what I can find.' Dev wandered off.

  Kheda looked down at the bodies. One was an old man with close-cropped hair and a grizzled beard and a paltry string of turtle shell beads around his neck. The other was a woman, her age-weathered skin sagging and wrinkled, dark eyes glazed in death. Neither showed much visible decay beyond the predation of carrion flies. Steeling himself, he lifted the man's clenched hand from the old woman's stomach. It moved limp and loose, a fisherman's calluses hard on the palm. 'They're not long dead, a day or so.'

  'What killed them?' Risala asked softly.

  'Hard to say.' Kheda examined the old fisherman's head with gentle hands. 'There's no wound that I can see.'

  'There's blood on her neck,' Risala pointed out, swallowing hard.

  Catching his lower lip between his teeth, Kheda moved the old woman's grey plait aside. Blood was clotted dark in a thin score around her neck. 'That didn't kill her. Something was ripped off her neck, a cord or necklace.' Kheda sighed, shaking his head as he stood to look down on the bodies with all the detachment he could muster. 'There's some bloating but they're so thin, I think they were starved by their captors. When this happened, whatever happened—' He gestured, baffled, at the wreckage of the prison and the wider destruction beyond. 'The shock, their weakness, I think they just died.'

  'Why take prisoners and then treat them so badly?' Risala's puzzlement mirrored Kheda's own.

  'Why take prisoners at all? What use is a domain with no one to work it?' Kheda scrubbed a handful of earth through his hands.

  'Do you suppose they'll take the land for themselves?' Risala looked around uneasily.

  'There's no sign of it, is there? If you're not interested in slaves, why not give them a clean death?' Kheda sighed. 'This is what threatens my own people, if we cannot find a way to stop it.'

  'Or worse.' Risala's eyes were dark with apprehension. 'We still don't know what they want their prisoners for, if it's not to make them slaves.'

  'Come, see what I've found.' Dev's shout rang with cruel satisfaction.

  Kheda and Risala exchanged a glance before walking over to join the mage, who was crouching among the ruins of another hut.

  'I told you there was a mage camped here.' Dev glanced up before looking back to something pinned beneath a fallen beam. 'Mind yourselves.'

  Risala and Kheda stepped back hastily as the heavy beam, taller than Kheda and as thick as his thigh, flipped up and toppled away at Dev's negligent gesture.

  'Was that him?' Risala gasped, appalled.

  Dev chuckled. 'Not so pretty now, is he?'

  Kheda stared at what had once been a man. 'Was he racked?'

  'Not the way you mean.' Dev kicked at one of the corpse's mangled, contorted arms. Every joint had been pulled apart, knobbly ends of bones clearly separate beneath stretched yet unbroken skin. His legs had been similarly wrenched out of their sockets, thighs at an impossible angle beneath his hips. 'No signs of binding, no bruises.'

  'Magic did this?' Kheda looked at the dead man's face, jaw hanging dislocated, teeth startlingly white in the clotted mess of blood choking his mouth. His head was misshapen, skull plates separated beneath the mud-caked bristly hair, eyes ruptured into oozing ruins surrounded by crude sweeps of reddish paint.

  'I'd say so.' Dev nodded with satisfaction. 'You remember me saying he looked like the lowest in the pecking order?'

  'I remember you saying you needed to see these wizards working their magic, to devise a means for us to work against them,' challenged Kheda. 'What does this tell you?'

  'That this weakling has been picked off by one of his rivals. I saw him having some sort of parley with another of his kind a while ago. He ended up handing over loot and prisoners. Someone must have decided to take the rest. The wild men who'd been following him will all have gone along with the new top dog.' Dev kicked contemptuously at the body before glancing at Risala. 'I do
n't think that fight we saw between those two mages was anything out of the ordinary. I think you get to wear a fancy cloak by killing your way up the ladder.' He grinned at Kheda. 'More than one warlord's seized power that way.'

  Kheda ignored the taunt. 'Can you tell what happened here?'

  Faint blue light glittered momentarily over every ruined house and hut. Dev laughed as Kheda shivered and Risala recoiled from the tumble of splintered wood beside her.

  'Someone knew how to work powerful magic with the air.' He kicked the body again. 'I don't know what element this fool had an affinity for but he didn't get a chance to use it. His enemy's magic ripped him apart, then did the same for his petty little holding. Whoever was responsible has another notch on his staff, or whatever these people use for a symbol of their power.'

  'This is how it's done among your kind?' demanded Kheda.

  Dev looked up angrily. 'My kind do nothing like this. This is crude, brutal magic, strongest wins and subtlety be cursed. We of the north, we prefer refinement in our enchantments, working to an understanding of the nature of magic, exploring every nuance of its potential.' He gestured at the dead mage with frustrated contempt. 'This is smashing an oyster with a building hammer and not caring if you crush the shell, the flesh and any pearl within it all into powder. My magic is sliding in a careful knife, winning yourself nacre, pearl and something to eat all at the same time.'

  Kheda was unimpressed. 'Does this tell you how we may fight them?'

  'No,' Dev said slowly. 'Though I think I know who'll be next on the list, if someone is rolling up the weaker mages hereabouts. I wouldn't mind seeing that fight. If I can see how these people use their magic, I can think of ways to work against them.'

  'Do you mean you'll scry to see them fight?' Kheda looked dubiously at the wizard.

  'Oh, no, I need to be there,' Dev assured him cheerfully. 'You can't tell who's winning a cockfight if you're standing outside the pit.'

  Risala had been delving cautiously in the wreckage of a hut. 'They left the turtle shell and the pearls again.' She stood up, brushing her hands against her ragged trousers.

  'If they scorn such wealth in favour of jewels, they're bound to go north sooner or later.' Kheda looked grim. 'That's where the Archipelago's gems are to be found.'

  Dev nodded to Risala. 'Gather that lot up and get it aboard.'

  'What gives you the right to rob these people?' Kheda challenged him immediately.

  'Who's left to rob?' protested Dev. 'Anyway, you said I'd be well paid. We can call this something on account.'

  'You go looting on your own,' Kheda said coldly. 'Once you've worked your spying magic to be sure no one's sneaking up on us. We'll bury the dead before we leave here.' He turned his back on the wizard and Risala dutifully followed him back to the lifeless couple.

  'At least they died in their rightful place.' She looked around helplessly. 'Is there anything to dig with?'

  'Go and look.' Kheda knelt to score a line in the damp turf with the dagger he'd taken from Dev and kept for himself, even if it was an undistinguished Viselis blade. He began levering the grass up. 'Otherwise it'll have to be our hands.'

  'No sign of anyone around here at all.' Dev waved cheerfully, throwing aside a scoop of sea water in a broken pot.

  'Keep looking. We don't want to be taken unawares.' Kheda concentrated on peeling back the stubborn turf.

  'I don't want to be caught any more than you do.' The wizard waved a negligent hand. 'Though anyone with a pennyweight of sense will be sleeping out the heat of the day under a tree.'

  Risala returned with two hoes, one with a charred handle, the other broken but still serviceable. 'This is the best I can do.'

  Kheda took the broken tool. 'Then let's do our best for these two.'

  The heat of the day seared their bent backs as they dug. Dev plundered the wreckage of the savage mage's hut, fetching sacks from the Amigal, and loading them with turtle shell and pearls, whistling insouciantly.

  Is it the magic staining your bones that makes you so obnoxious? Or did you come to hide in the Archipelago because you'd made enemies of all your fellow wizards?

  'Hitting him probably isn't the wisest thing to do.' Risala nodded at Kheda's tight grip on his hoe with a rueful grin. 'Though it might be worth it, to stop him whistling.'

  'He's doubtless just trying to provoke us. I have a daughter, Efi, with a similar talent.'

  'What do you make of this riddle?' Risala paused, leaning on her hoe to wipe the sweat from her forehead. 'Why are these people here? What do they want? They're not looking to settle, not from what we've seen. They're not planting any crops, not even husbanding their supplies. They're taking slaves or prisoners at least but that's all wrong as well. I don't know how things happen in the southern reaches, but when Danak Sarb killed Danak Mir for the domain, Danak Mir's people were given over to the troops for whatever use they cared to make of them; they were sold for slaves, kept for concubines, just raped and discarded. I haven't seen any sign that these savages have laid so much as a finger on the Chazen women. What do they want? They're not even taking the pearls and turtle shell that bring this domain its wealth.'

  'They want gemstones, we know that much.' Kheda shared her bemusement, jabbing his hoe into the earth in frustration. 'Why are those so valuable to them, to these wizards, that they'll risk deaths as foul as that?' He jerked his head back towards the dead and disjointed mage.

  'I don't think it's about gems or land or women, willing or not,' said Dev unexpectedly, stopping to eavesdrop on their conversation. 'It's about whatever those wizards can give their followers. It must be something so tempting, so wonderful that they'll risk being ripped apart by someone else's wizardry, that these warriors will follow just for the chance of seeing their man win the prize.' The mage's eyes were dark and mysterious. 'I wonder what that prize might be.'

  'What could be here that a wizard would want?' Risala protested. 'We don't have magic in the Archipelago.'

  'You do at the moment and you want rid of it.' Dev went on his way, preoccupied by his speculations.

  Kheda straightened up and considered the depth of the grave they had dug. 'This should do.'

  Risala hurried to catch Dev as he came up from the shore. 'Give me one of those.' She took a cotton sack from his hands and ripped it along its seams, ignoring his protests. Returning, she handed Kheda a length of cloth, wrapping another tight around her mouth and nose. 'Let's get this done.'

  The cloth muffled Kheda's sigh as he bent to take the old man's shoulders. Risala reached for his feet. The old man wasn't heavy. Beetles scattered as they lifted the corpse away, pale worms wriggling frantically over the damp, stained ground. There was no way to lower the body into the grave so they had to let it drop with a dull, unpleasant thud. The old woman was lighter still and landed with a muffled thump. The stench of disturbed death rose from the corpses and Kheda began hastily raking dirt into the hole while Risala scattered soil over the foulness where the bodies had lain.

  'Do you suppose this will help their families, if they are still alive?' she wondered, words tight in her throat.

  'It can't hurt.' Kheda looked across to the rising heart of the island. 'And their presence should do something to counter the past evil for anyone living here in the future.'

  'What do we do about him?' Risala jerked her head towards the wrecked hut where the savage mage still lay.

  Kheda scraped a last slew of soil across the grave and pulled the cotton rag from his face, using it to scrub away the sweat. 'We burn him. Fire purifies.'

  Risala twisted the cloth between her soiled hands. 'Do you suppose we can ever be cleansed, after so much dealing with magic?'

  Kheda heard a desolate note in her voice. 'I fully intend to free myself of all taint,' he said firmly. 'Just as soon as we see a way clear to freeing this domain of all these savage wizards. Let's make a start by burning this one and then we can see if Dev's any notion of making good his boasts about getting rid of the rest.
'

  'Thatch will get the fire started.' Risala caught up an armful of brittle fronds. 'We want hardwood after that, to burn hot.'

  'The hotter the better,' agreed Kheda, pulling dry floorboards from the ruins of another building.

  He was kneeling, trying to catch a spark in a tuft of fibres teased from the cotton rags, when Dev sauntered up.

  'Why are we setting a smoke signal to draw every enemy eye?' wondered the wizard sarcastically.

  Kheda didn't look up. 'You wanted to find out who killed him, didn't you?' The tow flared and Risala cupped her hands around the fledgling flame. Kheda fed it with torn pieces of palm frond.

  'Find out, yes. Fight off his hordes, no.' The flame faltered and Dev laughed. 'I can do that for you.'

  'No,' Kheda said curtly, carefully tending the smouldering tinder. 'We're trying to cleanse the magic here, not brand the very rocks with it.'

  Dev snorted, annoyed. 'If you're not done when I'm ready to sail, you can paddle to the next island.'

  Kheda didn't answer, though he kept a sideways eye on the Amigal as he and Risala built the fire ever higher over the dead mage.

  'That should see him burned to ashes,' said Risala with satisfaction as she threw a final chunk of wood on the blaze.

  Kheda nodded. His mouth was dry as dust.

  The ashes will remain. We'll just have to hope for a good storm to wash the foulness away for the sea to dilute.

  Once aboard the Amigal, Dev snapped brusque orders at them both. 'Get the anchors up. You, girl, help me raise the sail.'

  Once he'd broken the anchors' determined grip on the sea bed, Kheda slung a bucket tied to a length of rope over the side. 'Fetch some of that white brandy, please,' he called out to Risala.

  Dev was using the stern sweep to drive the little ship into deeper water. 'Got a taste for it now?'

  Kheda knelt to scrub his hands in the bucket of water. 'Where are we going?'

  'A couple of islands over yonder.' Dev nodded in an easterly direction. 'One mage with a sizeable mob was camped in a village split either side of a narrow strait. I've just had a look over there and now there are two of them staring each other down. I'd say one or other of them killed the one you've just toasted.'