The Devil Incarnate (The Devil of Ponong series #2)

by Braden, Jill

  Maybe she’d come early.

  She listened. The children’s voices were low, but they were inside. Yes, she was early. She squatted on the veranda and waited. Within five minutes, more parents were squatting beside her.

  The door finally opened. Ma’am Thun beckoned them inside. RhiLan’s fear wrenched as she tried to think of what she might have done to anger the teacher. Or perhaps her children had misbehaved, but that didn’t explain why the other parents were also in disgrace.

  The converted apartment building smelled of children and old books. The foyer’s bare timber grass floor was meticulously clean, although the dark varnish only lurked in corners. A gray path led to each door, and the dark, narrow stairs’ bowed risers showed where years of students had trod.

  The tension evident in Ma’am Thun’s face and strict posture at first made RhiLan think the teacher was angry, but when Ma’am Thun spoke, her voice was thick with sorrow.

  “Do not bring your children back this afternoon. The school is closed.”

  RhiLan had never seen a Thampurian lady cry. She was so confused that she grasped Ma’am Thun’s hands between hers. Instead of pulling back, Ma’am Thun groaned as if she might faint.

  The other parents squatted in the foyer.

  “What has happened?” one of the other mothers asked.

  “The soldiers. They said I’m not allowed to teach Ponongese children anymore. I showed them my charter. They ripped it into pieces.” Her hand shielded her eyes for a moment. Then she flicked away her tears. With a deep breath, she smoothed the lace ruffle at her neck. “Well,” she said in a brighter voice, as if that was all she meant to say on the matter.

  Then she rang the bell that hung over the first door off the foyer. The first door opened and children filed out. The sight of their parents inside the school caused many to turn to their classmates with questioning glances.

  Ma’am Thun barely inclined her head to each student as they passed her. The children, as was right, bowed much deeper with their hands pressed together. She also slightly bowed to the parents. Her smile wavered, but no more tears fell.

  RhiLan wanted to stay behind and ask questions, but the door shut behind them with such finality that she didn’t dare. The Thampurians were very proud. Any hint of pity would only anger Ma’am Thun.

  Children, as they often did, ignored the strange ways of the adults and ran ahead, glad to finally be free for their lunch.

  A father with a withered right leg slowed his steps as he waited for RhiLan to catch up to him. “I wonder what he will do.”

  RhiLan wondered if she’d missed the first part of the conversation. “He?”

  The man looked around before lowering his voice. “The Devil.”

  “The Devil!” Alarmed, she stopped, her mouth open.

  “You didn’t know? He pays the tuition for all Pha children at this school. How else would those of us from Old Levapur afford such a luxury as education?” His boney chest filled out as he took a deep breath. “My son, he’s slow with words, but no Thampurian merchant will ever cheat him with numbers!”

  “But, the Devil!”

  “The Thampurians better watch out, because when the Devil is angry, people die.” He bowed and hobbled after his son.

  ~ ~ ~

  RhiLan carefully filled her tjanting pen with melted wax and then drew the tip over the new sarong she was making. The wax was too hot, and the line flowed into the others to ruin the intricate design. The wobbly lines she’d drawn looked like her daughter’s efforts.

  “The Devil! My children went to a school financed by the Devil!” She couldn’t hold back her despair any longer.

  It felt as if her apartment were too crowded for RhiLan. She wasn’t used to having so many people underfoot in the afternoon. QuiTai sat at the low table with RhiLan’s daughter RhiTeek in her lap as she helped the children practice their letters. RhiHanya swept the floor.

  “It was just a school, cousin. It isn’t as if he was teaching them to pick pockets,” RhiHanya said.

  “How do we know what went on? Ma’am Thun seemed so respectable.”

  RhiHanya glanced at QuiTai. “Maybe the man was misinformed.”

  “He seemed to know. He approved!”

  “Everyone knows,” QuiTai said. She pointed to a place on RhiLiet’s page and told him, “That letter is a dragon scale. There’s a little point at the tip. Yes, like that.”

  RhiLan felt as if she’d been dismissed. “I didn’t know! Why do you corrupt such a good thing?”

  QuiTai made a face as if she were reluctant to speak. “I grew up in Old Levapur. My mother had the foresight to send me to Ma’am Thun’s school even though it meant going to bed hungry many nights. Other parents in the slums wanted to send their children but couldn’t afford to. I taught what I could to the ones who were interested, but teaching requires a mindset I don’t possess. Once I was in a position to pay tuition for others, I did, much to the relief of those I tried to teach.”

  “See?” RhiHanya said.

  “But she gets her money from the Devil.” RhiLan gasped. “I’m sorry, Wolf Slayer. No offense.”

  QuiTai inclined her head. “None taken, auntie,” she said even though RhiLan was certain her frighteningly serene guest was irked.

  If you are what becomes of a child with a Thampurian education, perhaps my children are better off out of school, RhiLan thought. She immediately regretted feeling that way. The Wolf Slayer had done nothing to her to deserve such a waspish sting.

  “So what do you plan to do about this?” RhiHanya asked QuiTai.

  “About what?” QuiTai asked.

  RhiHanya paced the apartment with that roll to her hips that warned RhiLan that her cousin was spoiling for a fight. She’d been foolish enough to insult the Wolf Slayer, but she had an excuse. Her cousin was a fool to continue prodding her to argue when she was already angry. While RhiHanya was much curvier, QuiTai looked like the type who would strike fast, and fatally.

  “Your school being closed,” RhiHanya said to QuiTai.

  “It isn’t my school.”

  “Uh huh.” RhiHanya’s head bobbed with attitude.

  RhiLan felt pressed from all directions. The Thampurians, her overbearing cousin, the Wolf Slayer, and now even the Devil seemed to have staked out territory in her mind so that she could barely think without bumping against one of them. If only there was a polite way to get the Wolf Slayer to move out. And then her cousin.

  “Maybe I should go to the market,” RhiLan murmured.

  RhiHanya turned on her. “At least you can leave this apartment. We’re stuck here. Right, auntie QuiTai?”

  Rather than answer, QuiTai gently combed through RhiTeek’s waist length black hair. “One day, when you are fertile, you will wear your hair in a braid like your mother and cousin,” she told the girl.

  “Can I have a clip like yours?” RhiTeek asked.

  QuiTai smiled down at the girl but said nothing. RhiLan didn’t want any more of QuiTai’s charity.

  “Only I want an orange one. Green is ugly,” RhiTeek said.

  “RhiTeek!” RhiLan was mortified. It was bad enough to say such a thing to an ordinary guest, but to this one, who sat coiled around her daughter, it was alarming.

  QuiTai chuckled. “Orange is a good color. It says that you’re happy and strong, like the sun.”

  “What does green mean?” RhiTeek asked.

  RhiLan sucked in a breath between clenched teeth.

  Brow furrowed, QuiTai finally said, “It means I like green.”

  “Oh.” RhiTeek shrugged and bent over her letters again.

  RhiLan exhaled in relief.

  “It means she’s dangerous,” her middle boy said. He looked at QuiTai for only a moment with his solemn eyes. It was the first words he’d spoken in her presence.

  “Are you dangerous?” her eldest boy RhiLiet asked, suddenly much more interested in QuiTai than he had been.

  “Yes,” QuiTai answered RhiLiet in her unnerv
ingly flat tone that made one wonder what she might be thinking.

  “Stop it this instant! Have you no manners? Wolf Slayer, forgive them,” RhiLan said. Her heart raced. She didn’t think QuiTai would harm her children, but she swept over to the table and yanked RhiTeek out of QuiTai’s lap. She grabbed RhiLiet by his hair, since he had been the rudest, and dragged him to his feet. He twisted and turned under her grasp, his chubby cheeks flushing bright pink as he yowled. “We’re going to the market, children.”

  QuiTai rose. “If I may impose, RhiLan, could you do me a favor?” She grabbed a few coins from the purse that hung always from her waist. “Buy a few things.”

  RhiLan wanted to say no, to ask this woman to go away, but she was beginning to fear QuiTai, so she took the coins. “What do you need?”

  “Anything. Not food, though. From what you said, no one is willing to spend money. Someone has to be the first. If they see you willing to spend money on something you don’t need to survive, it will have a greater impact.”

  “Can I have a hair clip?” RhiTeek asked.

  “Not for several years, little sister,” QuiTai told her.

  RhiLan bristled at QuiTai’s nerve. “Many, many years,” she said. “And definitely not until you show better manners to our guests.” She glared at her boys. “And that goes for you two. No sweets.”

  RhiLiet was still pleading his case when they left, but his younger brother said nothing.

  ~ ~ ~

  RhiHanya chatted as she bent over the sarong on RhiLan’s frame to pick off the ruined wax designs. “My cousin doesn’t have the temperament for an adventure.”

  If only she could have gone with them. I need quiet time to think.

  QuiTai couldn’t figure out what to do with herself. She could recline on the divan and pretend to sleep, but her mind would still be wide awake and frantic for activity. Every letter and newspaper LiHoun brought her had been read so many times she could almost recite them from memory. She crossed the room and opened a typhoon shutter.

  “You are not going out on that veranda in daylight,” RhiHanya said. Her fist was on her hip.

  “I’m bored.”

  “You and me. So liven my afternoon by taking a step outside. Go on.”

  They’d both feel so much better if they could get out of the apartment, or distract themselves from the heat and relentless boredom somehow. Unfortunately, sex was out of the question. Or was it? She saw RhiHanya’s scowl. Angry sex could be fun.

  But you couldn’t get away afterward, could you? Better not entertain that thought much longer.

  “I wish LiHoun would stop by.”

  “That’s fine for you, talking in those cat-words so I can’t join the conversation. That’s rude, you know.”

  RhiHanya definitely wanted a fight. QuiTai was in no mood to help her, so she bowed her head. “I’m sorry. It is.”

  QuiTai looked around the apartment. There was nothing new to see. By now, she knew every inch of the room, every item in it, and far too much about the people who lived there. If she’d had any skill with a needle, she would have searched their mosquito nets for holes and repaired them. Her gaze alit on the double boiler RhiLan used to melt the wax for her batik work. Steam still curled over the pot.

  She went to the cooking fire and put the kettle over the fire. Then she opened each of the drawers in RhiLan’s spice cabinet.

  “You’re making yourself tiuhon tea, right?” RhiHanya asked. The edge was still in her voice.

  Irritation prickled QuiTai’s temper like a heat rash. It took every ounce of control to keep it out of her voice. “My fever already broke.”

  “So?”

  QuiTai growled. “Oh, all right. I’ll make tiuhon tea. But if I have to drink it, so do you.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “Neither am I.” She took a deep breath. She would not be dragged into a fight, especially not one as stupid as this.

  RhiHanya seemed to have reached the same conclusion. “If that’s what it takes to get you to drink it, then go ahead and make a cup for me too.”

  The plot that formed in QuiTai’s brain wasn’t one of those that hit with the full force of clarity. This one was far stealthier. It crept up on her as she waited for the water to boil. Instead of seeing a whole plan, she only saw the first step. Tiuhon tea was bitter and strong enough to hide other flavors. She glanced at RhiHanya, who was still picking at the wax on the sarong. Then she slid open the drawer with the black lotus and palmed the vial.

  Minutes later, she handed RhiHanya a scalding cup of tiuhon tea and settled on the divan with her own cup. They chatted idly about inconsequential matters, each trying hard to be polite when they wanted nothing more than to snap and make snide remarks.

  RhiHanya’s thoughts tailed off, unfinished. She yawned loudly. “Sorry.”

  QuiTai reclined on her elbow and closed her eyes to slits as if she, too, were drowsy. Thunder rattled the typhoon shutters. Rain sprayed down moments later.

  RhiHanya yawned so hard that tears fell from the corners of her tightly closed eyes. “I can’t think why I’m suddenly so tired.” She pulled a sleeping mat off the pile in the corner and stretched out on the floor. Before long, her breaths turned to a deep, even rhythm.

  “And that’s why I rarely accept a drink from anyone,” QuiTai told RhiHanya as she sat upright, her eyes fully open.

  The final stages of her plan had come to her as she watched RhiHanya drink the bitter tea. She set aside her cup and limped across the apartment to the spice drawers. No one would notice the daub of black lotus missing from the vial that she placed back exactly where she’d found it.

  She went to RhiHanya and knelt beside her head.

  “I’m not a nice woman.” That didn’t explain why she’d laced the drink with black lotus. RhiHanya wouldn’t hear her, but she still felt as if she owed, if not an apology, at least a reason. “I can’t sit here and do nothing for days on end. I need information. I need a conduit to the Oracle. And you were foolish enough to trust me.”

  She pressed her lips to RhiHanya’s and milked a drop of her venom into her mouth.

  ~ ~ ~

  QuiTai saw RhiHanya’s pillow sister and fleeting glimpses of the Ravidians taking the villagers captive. But the majority of the Oracle’s vision was about the escape from Cay Rhi.

  Show me the future, Goddess.

  The scene shifted, but not to the future. She saw LiHoun talking with her on the apartment veranda, although this time they spoke in Ponongese, and they discussed a plan to free the slaves.

  QuiTai sat back on her heels. That was wrong. They’d spoken Li. Besides, the plan was deeply flawed. Only an idiot would attempt something like that.

  Why are your visions wrong, Goddess? You’re never wrong. And why don’t you speak?

  She was seeing RhiHanya’s dreams, not memories. That explained the difference between what she knew to be true and what she was seeing. She pushed those aside and dug deeper into RhiHanya’s mind. A flood of memory came to her, but it was only about RhiHanya’s life on Cay Rhi. There was nothing about the men who had paid Petrof to kill her. Once again, the Goddess failed. It was an unprecedented string of failures.

  This would take a great deal of thought.

  The visions she saw were usually of past events. These came through the conduit and were always from the conduit’s perspective. From their memories. She’d seen plenty of her conduit’s memories, first from the vapor addicts and now RhiHanya.

  Of course. That’s what the Oracle is really for – searching their minds for guilt or innocence. They can’t hide their memories from her. The way I use her is wrong, which is why she’s punishing me.

  Her thoughts turned to years ago, when her mother and grandmother had trained her in the Oracle’s ways. It had been years since she’d taken part in a true Qui ceremony. The Thampurians had been quick to ban the Qui’s practices when they took over the island. They called it human sacrifice. To be fair to the Thampurians, it was.
>
  How could she ever forget that innocent woman who died at the hands of the Qui? Guilty people she didn’t care about, but killing an innocent was just murder, no matter how convinced you were that you had the right to do it.

  That woman, the one accused of murdering her neighbor. She’d denied it even as they forced the red tar’s smoke into her nose and mouth. My mother lifted me so I could add my venom to hers and Grandmother’s. The Oracle showed us the woman’s innocence and grandmother proclaimed it as the woman’s heart slowed. But then a strange thing happened. All her memories linked together like parts of a story, and I knew who had killed the neighbor. The Oracle spoke, but no one heard what she told me.

  For years I wondered about that, until a few days ago in the Dragon Pearl when Lizzriat said she heard nothing from that Thampurian when I did. It’s obvious now. The Oracle doesn’t actually speak from the mouth of the conduit. I hear her in my head. That’s why Mother and Grandmother didn’t hear the Oracle proclaim the name of the real killer.

  But why didn’t that woman tell her accusers everything she knew? It would have saved her. She knew who killed her neighbor. She had it all locked in her memories.

  Unless the woman didn’t know what those memories meant. She couldn’t see the big picture.

  Hand over her mouth, QuiTai’s eyes widened. She’d never had such a terrible thought before.

  No. This is sacrilege.

  Rising, she shook off RhiHanya’s black lotus lethargy and paced the room, quickly striding from one end to the other. She pushed open the typhoon shutters and gulped in air as the rain splattered on the veranda.

  Grandmother and Mother were linked to the conduit the same way I was through our venom. It opens a connection from our minds to the conduit’s and to the Oracle. Grandmother and Mother saw everything I saw, but they didn’t put the woman’s memories together. They didn’t see it any more than the woman did. They’ve never had the ability to gather information and read the meaning that connects it together. But I do.