Demons of the Flame Sea

by Jean Johnson

  The medjant was supposed to be everything to an adult Efrijt, but in practice, it held their loyalty only up to a point. Family ties still counted for a lot beneath that. Half the time, family ties were what got one into a medjant to start. Anzak’s skills, centered around commerce and accounting, were more suited for an advanced civilization; he was supposed to be interacting with the local monetary system, and was good enough to have been maybe a kuro of a small House like this one. But these primitive humans still bartered for everything.

  “The Fae expect for me to ‘pay’ for my food and lodging with information,” he warned his sejo. “I brought a few cheap iron trinkets, small blades that could be fitted with handles, but I have seen finer wrought iron in use, as well as good quality brass. They are,” Anzak admitted reluctantly, “the closest I have heard to being civilized on this world, here in this ‘Flame Sea’Tribe. Running water, sewage facilities, fine architecture, good metals for a primitive world, agriculture and animal husbandry . . .”

  Zakal tapped a finger against her lips. “. . . Find out how manyof those advancements are from the Fae, and how many are from the humans. The Fae pride themselves on blending in, on not uplifting primitive species. We could use that against them. If they have broken their own rules,” the sejo stated firmly, “then we can leverage that to remove their claim to this world. Perhaps even remove them from this world entirely, leaving it open to proper exploitation.”

  “They seem well-informed of our tactics, Sejo,” Anzak warned her. “They may have already considered that. I know they intend to watch me while I stay among them.”

  “Did you put up a scrying ward? In case they are spying on you?” she asked.

  “I did my best,” he told her. “I tied it to the anashak’s shields . . . which is why bugs keep crawling onto it, since I had to reweave the protections in a different way. But if they can absorb the local magics like sand absorbing rain, they could have a reservoir huge enough to penetrate what little I can do.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it with a sigh and a frown. A deep breath sucked in through her nostrils, before she spoke again. “I was about to chastise you, when I remembered that I would have trouble casting such things, too, on this world. At least the physics of mechanical and optical objects still work.”

  Anzak huffed a breath, a touch of humor crossing his mind. “I heard of one universe we visited where everything was made out of gelatin. I am glad to be here, even if it’s among primitives.”

  “Gelatin?” she asked, arching a brow. “I had heard of that one, too. I believe I am curious enough to consider paying a small fee to find out more about that universe. Take notes on this one, Taro Anzak. Find out everything you can about the Fae and their influence in the region. If you do well, you might become a daro from it. I am off to sleep.”

  She ended the call by reaching for a button on her side of things. Anzak pressed the one on his side, and sighed. Off to the east, the lone moon of this world brightened the horizon a little, not far off from rising. It was late, he was tired, and the anashak needed to fly him back down to the balcony of his borrowed quarters before it ran out of energy for the day. Tomorrow . . . since he would not be going anywhere . . . he would simply lay it out on his balcony, allowing the heat of the sun to recharge its energies.

  On the downside, the plant that created levitation out of sunlight for anything spun out of its fibers grew only in one universe, making such carpets rare and expensive. On the upside, the conversion process of sunlight to magical levitation energy worked in this universe. Sefo Harkut had gotten these rugs used, from a medjant that had moved its operations to a dimension where they no longer worked. Checking to make sure no bugs had crawled onto the carpet—and flicking off a beetle that had—Anzak slipped his fingers into the loops of the control threads, and concentrated, sending a tiny bit of his own inner energies into the weaving to make it lift up and float away from the edge of the cliff.

  Across the clifftop, a shadow shifted. It moved forward across the hundred feet or so separating it from where the Efrijt had sat, then angled toward the cliff edge to better follow the taro’s descent. A few moments later, the human crept off in the other direction, climbing down the narrow, rough-cut stairs that led from the watchpost not far away to one of the upper cliffside quarters that overlooked a side canyon, on the backside of the quarters the visitor had been given.

  ***

  “Grandmother . . . Wake up, Grandmother,” Talgan murmured.

  Technically, Siffu was his mother, not his grandmother, but she was the matriarch of their family, and had earned that nickname several times over. More to the point, he needed her as that matriarch, not as his mother. He gently touched the shoulder of the white-haired woman sleeping on her wool-stuffed pallet. In deference to her age, that pallet sat on a platform of rawhide lashed to a carved wooden frame, allowing her to rise and sit without needing help. When she was awake.

  A gentle shake as he tried again. “Wake up, Grandmother.”

  “Mmphf . . . Tal . . . Talgan?” Siffu asked. Her blue eyes opened, then squinted against the light of the oil lamp he had lit. “What is it, Son? Is something wrong? Are your children . . . ?”

  “They’re fine, Mother,” he quickly reassured her, giving her a moment to wake up a bit more.

  At least, he was fairly certain they were. His mate had died four years ago, leaving him with four children to raise; with the help of two of his sisters, they simply included his children among their brood in the mornings when he slept, and in the late evenings when he served as one of the night-watchers. Her gaze finally sharpened, and she pushed up onto her elbow, prompting him to speak again.

  “The stranger, Grandmother Siffae,” Talgan murmured, ducking his head in reverence. Her gaze sharpened, and she pushed up on her elbow, staring at him. Her offspring never used that name unless it had to do with the anima-beings among them. “He spoke with someone via some animadjical device. I could not hear everything, and I could not understand their words, but I heard a woman speaking sharply, then slyly. From what Seda told us earlier, I suspect they are plotting against the Fae.”

  Siffae sat up fully, aged brow wrinkling further in worry. She touched two fingers to her forehead as she had often seen Djin-taje doing, as if to ward away evil. “We will watch these outsiders. Question him carefully, my son. From what Seda said, he is as strange to a human as a Fae is.”

  “Yes, but less elegant, less refined,” her son agreed. A troubled thought creased his own brow, and he touched her linen-clad knee. “Grandmother Siffae . . . if the Fae are good gods . . . Good has its opposite. Are these bad gods? Evil anima-beings?”

  “I am not certain,” the aging southlander murmured. “But the Fae are mostly good gods, so it is reasonable to think that there are mostly bad gods out there, too. There were bad ones among the little gods of the southlands. Gods who were selfish, who encouraged their tribes to fight other tribes, to plunder and harm and destroy.” She dragged in another breath, closing her eyes for a moment, then intoned, “The Fae are gods of great goodness and kindness. We have been treated most gently by them. But all good is indistinct without the contrast of evil. Pleasure is unnoticed after a while in the absence of pain . . . so these Efrijt may very well be the greater evil to match their greater good.

  “We will watch them, Talgan,” she ordered, opening her eyes again. Her eyes looked a bit greenish in the golden light of the oil lamp he carried. Then again, the hair that had long ago turned white from age held a hint of its former golden hue as well in the lamplight. “We will watch, and learn, and think about what we learn . . . and we will watch and learn from the Fae-gods on how to treat these Efrijt.

  “Be careful whom you tell my thoughts to,” she added, easing her aging body back down onto her pallet. Talgan shifted to help draw up the light wool blanket over her shoulders. The nights were now cool enough that her ol
d joints needed the extra warmth, even though it was still technically late summer. “Seda said she made Mother of All think we are worshipping her again.”

  Talgan gave his mother, his matriarch, a lopsided smile. “We are worshipping them again.”

  “We never stopped,” Siffu corrected sleepily. “And so long as they are with us . . . we never will. They gave us a whole new life, gave us opportunity after opportunity. We will give them our respect, our reverence, and our love . . . until the end of days . . . for they are worthy . . .”

  “Yes, Grandmother Siffae. We always will, for they are worthy of it,” Talgan agreed, tucking her in. He kissed his dozing mother on her cheek, gently patted her shoulder at her sleepy murmur, and returned to his post on the cliffs, meant to watch for marauding tribal invaders.

  He did so wondering if there was a Fae for luck, as well as one for motherhood and healing, one for forgework and crafting, one for animadjic . . . Good luck had brought the Efrijt up close enough for him to hear and watch some of what the strange being did, and new god-beings were coming to their tribe, according to gossip.

  Chapter Six

  Three days later, amid a stream of crates and chests, bags and belongings, six more Fae came through the Veilway. Ban watched the first of them step through. Unlike his arrival as the first pantean member on this world, they did not need to check for witnesses; the grotto had already been secured from prying native eyes. Because of that security, the first one through, a female with hair so pale it looked like cream skimmed off of cow’s milk, barely gave the rest of the grotto any thought after her pale gold eyes spotted her target.

  Letting Éfan and Kaife tend the bags and boxes, passing them in a chain of levitation up out of the grotto to the others in the original pantean, Jintaya stepped forward with outstretched arms, greeting her kinswoman. She ignored the spark-bubble of anima drifting up out of the stone, sailing silently toward the edge of the Veilway, used to the way Fae magics drew out the local magic from stones and lakes and even the air whenever enough of it had naturally pooled together.

  “Muan, you are looking well. Stars be praised that it is so all the way through you and your life as well,” she added, clasping forearms with the younger Fae. Muan had chosen a practical outfit of a loose tunic and gathered pant legs left loose at the ankles. The grotto was not very hot compared to the rest of the region, since carefully concealed tunnels funneled air past cooling reservoirs, but Jintaya had warned the incoming members to dress for very warm weather.

  Muan, with her wavy near-white hair and pale gold eyes, superficially did not resemble her kinswoman, until their faces came close; they shared many of the same delicate features in brow, chin, cheeks, and even nose, though Muan’s lips were broader and plumper than Jintaya’s. She returned the clasp, then embraced her aunt warmly. “Yes, I am well all the way through. You glow with health and starshine, Jintaya. I am pleased you are also looking well. Through and through, I trust.”

  “Yes, through and through,” the pantean leader agreed. “Did you bring everything you need? We will be cut off for over two months.”

  “I wasn’t allowed to bring a full copy of the law library, but I brought as much as seemed relevant,” Muan told her. “Here comes my brother.”

  Zedren came next, passing through the shimmering cat’s-eye barrier in between two large, floating, faeshiin-bound chests. The Fae sidestepped the chests and came over to Jintaya, arms outstretched. He, too, wore loose clothing designed to help him acclimate. “Aunt Jintaya, the stars twinkle in envy at how good you look. I trust you are healthy all the way through?”

  “Through and through,” Jintaya agreed, clasping arms and embracing her kinsman. “And you?”

  “Through and through . . . except I dropped a hammer on my foot the other day.” He eyed her with his pine beige eyes, and wheedled, “I still have some bruising. I don’t suppose I could get one of your special healing spells laid upon it, soon? Two of my toes are still very purple, and I do not like it much as a color. Oh, and a cooling spell. I think it’s almost as warm here as it would be in my forge, once I get one set up.”

  Chuckling, Jintaya dipped her head. “I’ll see what I can do. But for now, refrain from using spells as much as possible. You will need to train hard under Éfan, all of you, as to how to control your magics in this realm so that you do not rob the locals of their own energies.”

  “I read the report,” Zedren reassured her. “I plan to pester this Éfan for lessons until I learn or he banishes me.”

  “Good,” the Éfan in question called out. He guided what looked like a miniaturized smelting forge through the Veilway as he spoke. “Because until you have learned to control your energy usage, one of us will have to lift and arrange all of this heavy equipment for you.”

  “And I am grateful for it, I promise. Who mangled the mess of that slip-disc, by the way?” Zedren asked, looking around.

  “I did,” Ban stated, rising from one of the benches. As usual, he wore black instead of the shades of gold favored by the Fae, a vest and a kilt, with black strapped sandals wrapped up to his tattooed knees.

  “However did you manage that?” Zedren asked, curious. “It looked like someone took a pneumatic hammer to it.”

  “It was a boulder. Bigger than four of that chaise lounge, there, and a handful of half-sized friends,” he added, pointing off to one side. Shifting his hand, he picked up one of six goblets sitting on a table next to the bench. “This is your translation potion for this world.”

  Zedren’s brows rose, his attention more on the size of the lounging couch than on the cup he accepted. “That . . . would be impressive. I’m glad you survived, even if your slip-discs did not.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “This, Brother,” Muan stated, nudging her sibling, “is Pwan, the Immortal.”

  Ban winced a little at the mangling of his name. “My name is pronounced Puhan . . . but I have come to prefer being called Ban.” He glanced briefly at Jintaya, before adding, “It is a new name for a new life. Please call me that.”

  “As you wish,” Muan allowed, dipping her pale head. “I shall be happy to call you Ban.”

  “Thank you.” Handing her a cup as well, Ban waited for both of them to drink. Zedren drained his quickly. Muan hesitated after the first sip, and drank a little more reluctantly, making faces every few swallows.

  Before she finished, someone else stepped through the portal, clad in the ornate, scaled sunsteel armor of the Fae. The Veilway stretched high up the wall, tall enough to have allowed two Fae to pass through with room to spare, even with one standing on the shoulders of the other; the newcomer stood taller than Éfan by a finger-length or so, though still shorter than Ban himself. Muan quickly finished her drink, grimaced one last time as she handed the cup over, and gestured at him. “Aunt Jintaya, this is Gh’vin Krue. Gh’vin Krue, this is Jintaya, our pantean leader, and kinswoman to myself and my brother Zedren.”

  The Guardian strode over to the cluster of them, brought his gilded boots smartly together, and raised his hand in salute, Fae style. That meant vertically raised with the fingers flat and held closed, his thumb against his breastplate over his heart. Jintaya returned it by pressing both hands together in a similar way.

  “Thank you for coming, Gh’vin Krue. I welcome you to the pantean of the Flame Sea, and hope you will be bored in the course of your duties.”

  “Stars willing, I shall be,” he returned crisply, lowering his hand. He then lifted both arms so that he could pull off his winged helm, revealing a face a bit more narrow than most of the other Fae, with eyes a pale shade of ice lemon, and hair that looked more old gold than faeshiin sunsteel.

  Unlike the other Fae whom Ban had seen, this fellow, Krue, had short-cropped hair.It fell in helm-rumpled tufts to his jaw, and bared the upswept points of his ears.Tucking the helm under his elbow, the Guardian eyed the other two newcomers, then
looked over at the Shae in their midst. “You are the one called Ban?”

  He nodded, and eyed the other man. If Krue stood a full finger-length taller than Éfan, and Zedren, now that the armored male stood close enough for a comparison, then he only stood that much shorter than Ban himself, maybe a little bit more. A stray thought crossed Ban’s mind. I do believe he’s almost as tall as my old people were . . . though still too pale and golden to be a proper Mendhite.

  “I have heard you can actually fight. I expect you to give me a good workout.” Krue’s words came out blunt, but his tone was not belligerent. Rather the opposite; the Fae sounded more hopeful than anything.

  “I will try to oblige, whenever I am here,” Ban replied. “I travel a lot.”

  “I would rather you remain in the region while we deal with the Efrijt,” Krue countered. “Either here or at their stronghold when the negotiation team visits. Physical treachery from the Efrijt is rare, but it has been known to be used.” He turned sideways and glanced at the Veilway. “My mate should be coming through next.”

  It took three more crates, then a tall Fae woman stepped through the portal, just a thumb-length short of Éfan’s height. Her long, braided hair had a more amber cast to it, the reddish highlights gleaming in the shimmering light of the Veilway. Blinking, she eyed the chamber with pale yellow eyes that looked a tiny bit greener than her mate’s ice lemon. A shimmering bubble of anima drifted through one of the walls, distracting her.

  “I know this is a new environment, but please move out of the Veilway path,” Éfan directed, arching a brow pointedly at her. “I am trying to bring your belongings across.”