Cold Fire

by Kate Elliott

  My blood spotted the sand. When I glanced toward the green-blue sea, I was sure I saw a finned shadow churn the depths. I raised my bitten arm toward my lips.

  She said, “Yee don’ want a touch dat. Let dey behiques suck it. Or yee become he.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Where yee hail from, maku?”

  She had a firm grip on the man’s ankle. He was sniffing the air and groping toward me, but she was strong enough to hold him down.

  A greasy slime of fear slid right down my spine. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He a salter.”

  “A salter? Like salt plague?” I reeled backward. His dead flat eyes skimmed over me, looking not at me but at what lay beneath my skin: my hot, pumping, salt-laden blood. “Are you saying he’s riddled with the salt plague? The salt plague which makes your mind and body rot? The salt plague for which there is no cure?”

  “Owo,” she said, which meant yes in one of the Mande languages.

  The urge to retch rose so strongly I ran to the shade where vegetation probed the sterile sands. On hands and knees among the stiff-leafed plants I vomited up bile. My arm throbbed as if hot needles had been jabbed into my flesh and were engaged in a frantic dance aided by a swarm of impatient wasps. His flat, mindless gaze, as dull as an imbecile’s and less cunning. His lurching gait. The salt plague ate your body and your brain. There was no cure, no palliative, no hope, only a slow deterioration into living death.

  The thud of footsteps made a counter-rhythm to the fear and pain drumming in my head. Maybe I was going to die, but I wasn’t dead yet. I shoved myself up. Figures swam into my vision.

  “Salve. Salve, Perdita.”

  Greetings, lost woman. The formal Latin soothed my ears.

  A person moved toward me with palms outstretched in the sign of peace. “By Jupiter Magnus! It is Catherine Bell Barahal. How in the unholy hells you got here I cannot imagine.”

  I brandished my cane. I wasn’t going to get bitten again. “Don’t come closer. I’ll kill you.”

  “Catherine Bell Barahal. Look at me. We’ve met before.”

  Five people stood in a cunning circle around me, so I couldn’t bolt. Behind, still on the beach with the sun’s glare washing their skin to the color of rotting corpses, the young woman was tugging on the thing that had bit me, trying to drag it away as it strained toward me. Three men and two women faced me. Four of the strangers were foreign. They had thick straight black hair very like my own and they looked a little like Rory but a lot more like someone else entirely: broad across the cheeks with high, flat foreheads and deep-set brown eyes, fit and healthy. In fact, they looked like people, nothing like the lurching man-thing that had bitten me. At least the monster in the water had been terrible in its perfectly awful beauty. Wouldn’t it have been better if it had killed me and I’d bled my life away in the water?

  Blessed Tanit! I was going to die in the most horrible way imaginable.

  My knees gave way. First I was standing and then I was on the ground.

  One of the men crouched beside me, out of range of my cane.

  “Catherine,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’m not a salter. Hold out your arm.”

  His calm tone convinced me to hold out my arm. A woman upended a vessel. Salt water poured over the wound. I must have yelped, but all I could hear was the pain.

  “You’re faint. Drink this.”

  I was dead anyway so if he meant to poison me it would be preferable to die quickly instead of slowly. He handed me a hollowed-out gourd and unsealed its cork. I lifted its rim to my mouth. A sweet liquor with the kick of strong alcohol coursed down my throat. I began to chug it, until one of the women spoke curtly, and the speaker took hold of my undamaged wrist and stayed me.

  “Wait. Let it settle. Then you can have more.”

  Its searing after-bite blasted along my throat. Finally he came into focus. He had hair the reddish-gold color commonly seen in western Celtic tribes who had not mixed with Roman legionnaires and the Mande refugees from the empire of Mali.

  “You were with Camjiata,” I whispered. “In the law offices.”

  “That’s right. I’m James Drake. You do remember me?”

  The liquid churned in my belly. I broke into a sweat. “Was that man a salter who bit me?”

  “Stay calm.” He spoke to the others. By their voices, it seemed they were haggling.

  “My mind must be rotting already,” I cried. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

  They came to a grudging consensus. The others moved off, taking the creature and the young woman with them. For some reason, the creature did not attack them.

  “That’s because we’re speaking Taino,” he said, turning back to me. “It’s the common language in these parts. Drink up. It’s the local drink. It’s called rum.”

  I drained the vessel. The liquor cleansed my mouth; it numbed and dazzled, spiking straight to my head. “Will rum cure me?”

  “No. Rum can’t cure the salt plague. The seawater has flooded his saliva away. But I want to wash the bite again. You have to come with me. Please put the sword back in your belt. No need to wave it around.”

  The sight of the jagged tooth marks bruising my forearm and the blood leaking sluggishly along my skin made me clumsy. I fumblingly fastened the cane to its loop. With a hand pressed to my back, he steered me to a sandy path that led into the trees. Birds clamored in a brazen assault on my ears. Where it was bright the sun was a lance piercing my eyes and where it was shadowed the earth was a monstrous presence trying to devour me. I could not get my balance despite my companion’s solicitous hand and respectful silence although I would have liked it better if he had talked to drown out my whirlpooling terror.

  We came to a clearing around a circular pool filled to the brim with water as intensely blue as James Drake’s eyes. Next to the pool rose an unwalled shelter, just a roof thatched with dried fronds that shaded a table and bench. He sat me on the bench and gave me a second gourd of rum.

  “What’s this for if it won’t cure me?”

  “It’s to numb the pain and the fear. We don’t know each other, Cat Barahal, but you’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Why does it matter if I trust you? I’m going to die. There’s no cure, and every bitten person dies.” Shaking, I took a long swallow of the rum. It was better than thinking.

  A pot and several baskets hung under the eaves. He took down the pot, filled it with water, and hung it from a tripod. Then he put his hand on the wood beneath it. His lips parted, and flames curled up.

  “You’re a fire mage,” I said, intelligently I am sure. I was finding it challenging to put words together because, between the rush of alcohol and fear to my brain, words wriggled away as soon as I had them in sight. “But fire mages all burn up when their fire runs out of control. Unless they learn the secrets of the blacksmiths.” I pressed my fingers to my brow, trying to reel in my scattering thoughts lest I start babbling secrets. “That drink went straight to my head.”

  He came over, caught my chin with a hand, and looked me over carefully. “My apologies. I’m going to have to ask you to kiss me.”

  “Kiss you!”

  He offered a rueful smile. “As you so astutely observed, I’m a fire mage. If I press my lips to yours, the contact will allow me to know if the teeth of the salt plague have gotten into your blood.”

  “Because you’re a fire mage, you can tell if I’m infested with the salt plague if you kiss me?”

  “That’s right. And if I catch it quickly enough, I might be able to heal you.”

  “Heal me! ” I sucked in a shocked breath, mouth parted, heart pounding, blood pulsing through my veins and horrible, horrible death spreading through my blood. “Don’t mock me. There’s no cure.”

  “In Europa they believe there’s no cure. Here in the Antilles, we know better. Healing is one of the gifts of fire mages. There are certain diseases we can heal by killing them within
you before they kill you.”

  If he was lying, I was no worse off than before. But what if he was telling the truth!

  I leaned into him, and I kissed him on the mouth. He returned the kiss decisively, his lips warm at first, and then his kiss turned hotter until its heat coursed like sun through my body. I forgot I was dying and felt quite astoundingly alive.

  He released me abruptly.

  Panting, I sank back, hands propped behind me on the bench to hold me up. I was very confounded, warm and tingling all over. The liquor was making my head swim.

  He stared at me as intently as if he saw something odd.

  My bodice had been pulled askew, exposing half of my left breast. Blushing, I straightened the cloth. I could not catch my breath, and there was a part of me that badly wanted to kiss him again, as if his kiss or his magic had roused a slumbering beast within me.

  He carefully eased my torn sleeve back and with a finger traced the bite mark. The jagged wound had gone pink at the edges, with ragged clots of darkening blood and clear oozing plasma. “It broke the skin.”

  “Can’t you help me?” I whispered. I grabbed for the gourd of rum and drained the last of it.

  “I can’t quite tell…but if I had your permission to try again…”

  Why not? The last thing I wanted now was to be alone. When I nodded, he caught me close with another kiss. He was fire, and I burned into the core of me because I was being caressed by tendrils of sweet flame along my skin, and within my skin, and against my lips. Was this fire magic? For as it twined through my body, I wanted nothing more than to run my hands along his back and do more of this kissing; much more; much, much more. He broke off the kiss.

  “Cat! Your claws are out.” He grinned. “Desire suits you. You’re all flushed.”

  “I was bitten by a dying man with a rotted mind. Of course I’m flushed!” I was sure my bosom was heaving, because I still couldn’t catch my breath. “Can you really heal me? You’re not just saying that to take advantage of me? Offering me one chance to live before I die?”

  His gaze narrowed, as if a spark of anger flared in his eyes. Drawing back, he released my arm. “Is that what you think this is? Let me tell you a few things about the salt plague. If a person is bitten by a salter, that person will become infested with what we call the teeth of the ghouls. They’re so tiny they are hidden from sight. At first, the bitten victim is harmless to others. But inside, they’re slowly deteriorating as the infestation grows within their blood. On the day the infestation flowers, they forget everything they ever knew except that they have to drink warm, living blood because their own is dried up. Now they bite. It’s all they live for. It’s all they know. In time, they become like salt, unmoving. Morbid. Worse than dead, for they crave and can never be satisfied, trapped in a pain-wracked, paralyzed body.”

  “Stop! Please, stop!”

  He softened. Pressing a finger under my chin, he held my gaze. “Cat, you have one chance. You’ve been bitten. But the teeth of the ghouls haven’t yet caught in your blood. If I can burn out all the teeth before they catch and hook in your blood, then you won’t become a salter. But we have to do it right now. It’s like a snake’s venom. I have to burn it out before it’s too late to stop it.”

  The water he had set over the fire was boiling. I heard its burbling chatter, and the titter of birds in the trees, and the pulse of the sky like blood in my ears. My head floated as on clouds.

  “Of course I want to be healed! Why are you waiting?”

  His lips lifted into a faint smile as he brushed a hand lightly along my shoulder, pulling the fabric of my shift down just enough to expose the curve of a shoulder. Where his fingers touched my skin, desire purred into me. “A fire mage’s healing is called the kiss of life. I have to be much, much closer to manage it. My lips to your lips. My bare skin to your bare skin, all of it. For me to find and burn out all the teeth of the ghouls swimming your blood, there must be no barrier—none—between us. It’s the only way I can heal you.”

  I could not think. But oh, Blessed Tanit! I wanted to live.

  So I just said, “Yes.”

  15

  I woke with my bitten arm throbbing and my hair in my mouth. Sitting up, I wiped the strands plastered across my cheek off my face so I wasn’t chewing on them. The movement of my arm across my breasts made me realize I was stark naked. My bare skin to your bare skin, all of it.

  Blessed Tanit! I had really done it. And it had been pretty nice.

  By the sour feeling in my stomach and the woozy way the world smiled on me, I was sure that not only had I been drunk but I was still a little drunk.

  Proud Astarte! No wonder Rory behaved the way he did, wanting to be petted all the time!

  I found my cane under the bench. My drawers, shift, bodice, and jacket lay discarded across the table. I sat on the ground on top of the remains of my overskirt and petticoats, spread open like unfurled wings to provide a blanket of a sort. The jagged tears in the fabric made me wonder what manner of teeth could shred tightly-woven wool challis and fine linen quite so spectacularly. I brushed a leaf off my bare hip and flicked an ant off my ankle. Despite the drink, I had a clear memory of how the clothes had come off and the rest of the events had proceeded. And although I was a little sore, I otherwise felt good.

  Some would have said I ought to be shamed, but I could dredge up no shame in my heart. I had done what I needed to do to save my life. Anyway, to whom was I beholden? Andevai and I had already agreed to seek a dissolution. The Hassi Barahals had sacrificed me, and the mage House did not want me nor did I want a marriage I’d been forced into. According to the ancient rites, a young Kena’ani maiden had the right the offer up her first sexual encounter to Bold Astarte in the temple precincts. So be it. I had made the offering that was mine to give.

  “You might want to wash before you dress.” James Drake looked up from where he crouched by the cheerful fire and the pot of hot water. I felt a blush creeping out on my skin, and he grinned. It was difficult not to smile back at a good-looking young man who admires you so openly. Especially when you’ve just had sexual congress with him. “Although no need to put on your clothes for my sake. Even half drowned with your hair all in tangles, you’re a remarkably pretty girl.”

  “You put on clothes,” I said, for he had: He wore trousers with a white shirt hanging loose over it, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hands were darker than his arms; his torso, for I remembered quite a bit about his torso, had been as pale as cream. “Am I healed?”

  “Do you doubt me?” He seemed a little offended. “I washed. You’d best wash, too.”

  I pulled on my shift and stepped out from under the shelter to consider the pool. Its sides were so round that the fathomless blue waters seemed like an eye staring heavenward.

  “How deep is this pool?” I asked.

  “It’s a sinkhole. Around here, they say it goes down forever, into the subterranean world that is not this world but another world linked to ours.”

  I jumped back from the edge. Into the spirit world.

  “You can’t wash there,” he added as he pulled a length of wet linen from the pot. He wrung it out as he walked over to me. “The Taino call it a sacred place.”

  Trembling, I accepted the blessedly hot, damp rag and washed my face and, more gingerly, the skin around the bite. “Did you really heal me?”

  He took my arm and pressed his lips to the bite. A tickle of heat spread through my body.

  Maybe I gasped. Maybe I sighed.

  He released me with a chuckle. “You’re not one bit shy. Alas, I have duties I must return to, or I assure you we’d linger awhile in the shade. However, you fell asleep and I’m in trouble already. They don’t like me because I’m a maku. A foreigner. They despise us foreigners. You’ll see.”

  I handed him the cloth. “But did you heal me?”

  He took my chin in a hand and met my gaze with a serious one. “No taint of the plague, no teeth of the ghouls, runs
in your blood. That’s the truth. Avoid the pens, and don’t get bitten again.”

  “What are pens? Where are we?”

  “We’re on Salt Island. Under Taino law, all salters must be held in quarantine here.”

  “Who are the Taino?”

  “The Taino are the people who rule this entire region, all the islands of the Antilles. I’ll answer the rest of your questions later at the behica’s table.”

  “What’s a behica?”

  “A fire mage. Like me. I warn you, she’ll want to know how you got here. Don’t tell her anything. She’s an impatient, grasping sort of woman. Like all Taino nobles, she has a great sense of her self-importance. Do me a favor and don’t mention we met in Adurnam. I promise to explain why later. Now I really have to go. Here is Abby. She’ll find you a pagne and a blouse.”

  “What’s a pagne?” I saw the girl from the beach lurching toward us through the trees along the sandy path. I was being abandoned to the care of a stranger. “Can’t I come with you, James?”

  With his gear in his arms, he kissed me on the cheek. “We’ll be together later. Call me Drake. Everyone does.”

  He set off down the path. Passing the girl, he spoke phrases that sounded like a forgotten tartan of Celtic, Mande, and Latin, the cadences a different music from the melody I was used to.

  The girl limped up. She ventured an awkward smile, as if she wasn’t used to smiling and thought perhaps she had forgotten how. “Yee want a bath and cloth.”

  “Is your name Abby?”

  “I have dat name Abby. Yee have dat name Cat’reen?” A dapple of sunlight through leaves caught on her face to give her dark eyes an odd gleam as she looked down the path to make sure Drake was out of earshot. “Dat maku heal yee?”

  “Can he really heal people?” I held my breath.

  She wheezed in a breath, as if at a stab of pain, and let it out. “All behiques have dat power. He one, even if he a maku.”

  “A maku is a foreigner. A behique or a behica is a fire mage. Is that right?”