The Fire Seer (3 page)

The
ilittum
spread her arms. “Welcome, children, to the Coalition. There was a time when our people were like the foolish quail. We lived apart and hoarded our Gifts, even the precious fragments of the mother tongue, which is the language of magic. In those days, we fought amongst ourselves, and our enemies picked us off until few of us remained. But like the quail, we have learned wisdom. We have joined together and combined our strength. As long as we remain united and loyal to one another, as long as we preserve the secret of the mother tongue, our kind shall endure forever.”

Taya’s heart beat faster. All her life, she’d heard the Coalition spoken of with scorn and hatred for their secrecy and stringent laws. She’d never before heard the reasons behind those laws. Of course the magical had to stick together.

“Now, to business,” said the
ilittum
. “All of you possess the Gift and have been granted the rank of initiate. Beginning tomorrow, you will commence your training. It will take nine years of instruction for you to learn the mother tongue and its proper use. When your training is complete, you will assume the rank of
ilittum
, and for the rest of your useful lifetime, you will serve the Coalition in whatever capacity suits your particular talents.”

An artisan-caste boy raised his hand. “Do we get paid?”

Some of the children tittered.

The
ilittum
smiled. “As a member of the Coalition, you will have the best of everything. You will be treated like a prince or a princess everywhere you go. You will receive all Coalition services for free. And when you are qualified and actively serving, you will be paid. Currently, the
illitu
receive six gold sticks per season.”

Some children gasped, and even the ruling-caste boys looked impressed. For Taya, the amount was incomprehensible. She could send much of it home to her family and still have more than she would ever need for herself.

“Let me remind you of a few important things,” said the
ilittum
. “You were all born into either the ruling caste, the artisan caste, or the farmer caste. But in the Coalition, there are no castes. When you join us, you will give up your old caste and just be Coalition.”

Taya sat up straighter. Since she was farmer caste, this was good news for her. She glanced slyly around the room and noted, with satisfaction, the alarmed looks on the faces of the ruling-caste children.

“In the Coalition, we are all equals. This goes for girls as well as boys, women as well as men. Some of you may be accustomed to households in which men are the leaders and women are the followers. But the Mothers grant their Gift in equal strength to both sexes; therefore, in the Coalition, men and women have equal rank. Should you join us, you must accept this.”

Taya supposed the boys might have some trouble with that. For her part, she liked the Coalition more and more.

“Now we come to the difficult part.” The
ilittum
assumed a stern look. “It is not only your privilege, as a recipient of the Gift, to join the Coalition, it is your duty. You must spend at least one week with us, learning our ways. If, at the end of that time, you desire to return to your family instead of joining us, you may do so. But first you will drink this.” The
ilittum
reached into her pocket and drew out a cloth bundle. Unwrapping it, she revealed a tiny ceramic vial. “This is
kimat
. Drink a sip, and your magic will be disabled for a day. Drink the whole bottle, and your magic will be destroyed forever. If you choose not to join the Coalition, you must drink
kimat
to destroy your magic. Who among you knows what a jackal is?”

Many hands went up.

“I’m glad most of you know. For the benefit of those who don’t, a jackal is someone magical who operates outside the authority of the Coalition,” said the
ilittum
. “If you were to leave here without taking
kimat
, you would be a jackal. The penalty for being a jackal is death by fire. You will join us or you will take
kimat
. Is that clear?”

“Yes,
ilittum
,” the class intoned.

Taya shrugged. Why did they even have to offer a choice? Her mind was made up. Who could possibly want to take
kimat
? Why would anyone not join the Coalition?

Chapter 4: Hrappa

Mandir tried not to stare as Taya vaulted, lithe as a dancer, onto the back of a delicate black mare. Every move she made drew his eye. Where was the self-control he’d worked so hard to develop? What had the Coalition been thinking, pairing him with her when they knew his history, and hers?

Rasik walked up, leading Mandir’s blood bay gelding. Mandir grunted acknowledgement and took the reins. Seizing a hank of mane, he vaulted up, not quite as gracefully as Taya. Mounting was trickier for men than for women; he had sensitive body parts to protect.

When Mandir was a child, his mother had owned a tomcat who’d spent hours staring up at the pigeons in the barn rafters. The cat had no way of reaching them, yet he couldn’t stop watching. Mandir felt like that cat as his gaze slid inexorably back to his partner.
Flood and fire.
Seeking a distraction, anything at all, he scanned the streets for danger, half hoping he would spot a threat, but there was nothing.

“What’s his name?” called Taya.

“Whose name?” said Mandir.

Her head dipped to the blood bay. “Your horse.”

“He doesn’t have one yet. I just got him.” After a moment, “Yours?”

“Pepper.” She stroked the mare’s silken neck, and the mare nodded contentedly.

Jealous of the damned horse, Mandir turned away. He’d been fifteen years old the day he first laid eyes on Taya, and he’d been obsessed with her from that day forward. If his fixation had been sweet and innocent, it might have been manageable. But it wasn’t. His desire had never been to hold Taya’s hand and write her love poems. What he’d wanted to do with her,
to
her, even at that tender age...well, he couldn’t blame her for being frightened of him. He’d tried everything to free himself of the obsession, from tormenting her and pushing her away to, later, reversing tactics and actively pursuing her in hopes that one torrid night might satisfy his twisted lust. The torrid night had never taken place—she’d refused him repeatedly—and nothing had tamed the beast within except to leave Mohenjo Temple entirely.

To see her now, after five years...
bantu kasu annasi
, it was hard. He couldn’t explain why Taya fascinated him. Her beauty was earthy rather than exotic, her dark hair, golden eyes, and sun-bronzed skin appealing but far from unique. Her curves were spectacular—that he would grant her—but he’d never known a woman more inept with clothes and hair. She couldn’t seem to get her hair into the headdress tightly enough, and it was always half falling out or lopsided. In fact, it was lopsided right now. His fingers twitched. He wanted to ride over and fix it, but if he laid a hand on her she’d burn him crisp as a jerky strip.

Her flaws both irritated and mesmerized him. The little bits of hair sticking out of her headdress drove him crazy, yet they also fed his fantasies. It was all too easy, seeing the partial disarray, to imagine her hair out of the headdress entirely and spread out, fan-shaped, on his pillow. Furthermore, he suspected that women who insisted on their hair and clothing and makeup being perfect all the time were reluctant to engage in certain activities that involved getting messy. A woman like Taya, on the other hand...

Rasik mounted a brown gelding and circled in front of them. “Let’s get on with this. Where to? Hunabi’s murder site, or do you want to see the city first?”

His question seemed to be aimed at Mandir, so he answered, “Ask Taya. She’s in charge.”

Taya’s eyes met his with a look of surprise and gratitude. Then she turned to Rasik. “Where is the murder site? The magistrate said a cotton field. I take it that’s outside the city walls.”

“We don’t run irrigation canals into the city,” said Rasik.

“Take us to the murder site then, and you can show us the city along the way,” said Taya.

Mandir let Taya and Rasik set off first and took up a protective position, guarding their flanks. He’d watched Taya like this, from behind, far more than she knew. Indeed, he’d practically stalked her for years. He wasn’t proud of it. Even as a child, he’d been ashamed of it—not that his behavior was ugly but that his obsession targeted a girl so ridiculously beneath his station. When his ruling-caste friends had laughed at him, he’d gone out of his way to tease Taya and be cruel to her, trying to convince them he didn’t secretly love her. Now those friends had flown, scattered to the winds like dandelion seeds, and the only person whose opinion mattered to him, Taya herself, despised him.

If he could do it over again, he’d play out his life differently. But wishes were river mist; they had no substance and only obscured one’s vision. Still, he could apologize for what he’d done, and he ought to. He planned to, at the first opportunity. Taya might not respond well, but if he accomplished nothing else he would at least ease his conscience.

Rasik was gesturing at some building for Taya’s benefit. Mandir had seen the city already, having arrived a day earlier, and even if he hadn’t, Hrappa was like every other agricultural river city in the Valley of the Lioness. They were all laid out in the same pattern: well planned, with city walls surrounding three separate districts. The farmer caste lived nearest the gates, the artisan caste in the middle, and the ruling district in the rear. Since the city gates were the first point of failure when the Lioness flooded, the back of the city was the most desirable real estate. But the less fortunate could always retreat to the Citadel, the great fortified building on high ground in the middle of the city, if floodwaters breached the walls.

Rasik said something Mandir couldn’t hear. Apparently it was clever or funny, because Taya flashed him a grin. Jealousy and anger flooded Mandir.

No
, he told himself.
No, no, no.
There was his beast again. For four years as a troubled initiate he’d wrestled unsuccessfully with it, damaging himself and damaging others. And then one night he’d almost killed Taya. It was an accident. He would swear until the day he died that it was an accident. He’d meant to
scare
her, intimidate her, not harm her. But he’d lost control of the situation. She had suffered burns and nearly died of smoke inhalation, and the Coalition had intervened.

At the time, he’d resented his punishment, but since then he’d learned to appreciate the way it changed his life. During his Year of Penance, he’d come to terms with and tamed his beast. Then he’d finished his training at Rakigari Temple and became a fully trained
ilittum
. Finally Taya had ceased to haunt him. Sure, he fantasized about her at night sometimes, and often when he made love to another woman, he imagined she was Taya. That was probably why his affairs so often ended badly. But at least he was no longer out of control.

Or was he? The moment he’d laid eyes on Taya here in Hrappa, all the old feelings had come rushing back.

“Murderers!” The voice jolted Mandir from his thoughts. “Betrayers!”

An elderly peasant was running at them with a knife in his hand. Mandir kicked his horse into a gallop, driving the animal in between the peasant and Taya. There he reined up sharply. With a few harsh words of the mother tongue, he called fire into the hilt of the man’s knife, turning it red-hot.

The man yelped and fell to his knees, clutching his wounded hand to his chest. The knife fell into the dirt. Mandir glanced back at Taya. She appeared stunned but unharmed. A knot of onlookers gathered about them, some of the faces worried, others angry. While Coalition law permitted Mandir to punish the old man for the unprovoked attack, even burn him to death if he chose, Mandir didn’t have the stomach for it. And he didn’t like the look of this mob. The attack had been so inept it might have been a suicide attempt, or a setup of some kind. He wasn’t going to take the bait, not with Taya at risk.

“Someone fetch water to soak his hand,” Mandir called to the crowd. He nodded to Taya and Rasik, who clucked to their horses, and they cantered away.

“What was that for?” asked Taya when they were out of the mob’s range. “Is hatred for the Coalition so strong here?”

Mandir’s eyebrows rose. “It’s strong everywhere.”

“Not where I grew up,” said Taya. “I mean, yes, people didn’t like the Coalition. But they weren’t murderous.”

“How often did the Coalition pass through your village?” asked Mandir.

“Almost never,” she said.

“Hrappa is a farming town,” said Mandir, “but it sits on the Silk Road. Coalition
ilittu
pass through here all the time.”

“That shouldn’t make people angry,” said Taya. “The Hrappans can sell them supplies. It ought to be good business.”

Rasik swung his horse around. “Three Coalition men passed through here last season on the Silk Road. They grabbed two farm girls and ravished them. One of the girls didn’t survive.”

Taya was stunned into silence. After a moment she recovered her voice. “But men of all sorts commit atrocities. Not just Coalition.”

“When the Coalition do harm, we have no recourse against them,” said Rasik.

“Of course you do,” said Taya. “Rape is proscribed by law, even for the Coalition.”

“Coalition members are subject only to Coalition justice,” said Rasik. “We reported the crime to your organization. They took no action. Why should they? No money in it for them.”

Taya shook her head, disbelieving. “I’m sure you’re wrong about that.”

“I believe him,” said Mandir. “I’ve seen cases like that before.” Poor Taya. Part of her charm was that she’d led a rather sheltered life, the first fourteen years of it in a remote farm village so backward it made Hrappa look sophisticated, and the remaining nine secluded in a Coalition Temple. It had made her easy to tease, back at Mohenjo.

“Even if that’s true,” said Taya, “and I’m sure it’s not, we’re not all like those three men. I would never hurt somebody like that, obviously, and Mandir...wouldn’t either.”