The Fire Seer and Her Quradum Read online

  Ilinos scrambled to his feet and pelted, stumbling, toward the main house. His footfalls raised dust clouds behind him.

  Taya’s arms were folded. “Well done.”

  Mandir had no excuse to offer. The monster inside had emerged once again, and his ears still rang from it. He looked down at his skinned knuckles. Then he recalled the boy he’d been trying to defend in the first place. “Setsi, are you all right?”

  “You scared him off,” said Taya.

  Mandir turned and saw Setsi running toward the stable.

  “That went well,” he muttered, getting to his feet. His knee hurt; he must have banged it when he’d taken Ilinos to the ground.

  “What possessed you to do that?” said Taya. “We’ll never get Setsi to go with us now.”

  Mandir flexed his knee, testing it, and grunted at the pain. “I’ll go over there and apologize.” Maybe after he’d given everyone, especially himself, a little time to cool down.

  “You can’t keep doing this,” said Taya. “Losing your head and then apologizing, as if that makes it all better. You looked like you were about to hit me when I tried to pull you off him.”

  “I’ll never hit you, I swear it.”

  Taya eyed him. “Did you hurt your leg?”

  “My knee.” A fitting punishment, though inadequate.

  “Sit down and let me heal it.”

  Mandir sank gratefully to the ground. He’d been afraid she would never touch him again, now that she’d seen his old self emerge, the one he thought he’d banished. He opened his mouth to apologize again—and then closed it. Apologies did not impress Taya. Nor should they. Words were cheap.

  She sat beside him in the dirt, placing her hands on his knee, one on top of the joint and one below. She closed her eyes briefly as she called to Mother Lalan.

  Mandir closed his eyes too. Just feeling her hands on him was healing. The rage leaked out of him, drop by drop. As his nervous energy drained away, he felt the shame of what he’d done. He’d meant to defend Setsi from a bully. Instead he’d acted the bully himself. He’d have been within his rights to hit Ilinos once in retaliation—a proportionate blow, no harder than the one Ilinos had given Setsi. Smarter still would have been to use his magic to frighten Ilinos away.

  Thinking about it made his head hurt. He lowered his head into his hands.

  “Tell me the truth, Mandir. What happened?” Taya asked softly. “I don’t blame you for being angry with Ilinos—I was furious myself, when he hit Setsi. But it was like you were yourself one minute and someone else the next.”

  “I was—” He hesitated. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Make an effort,” said Taya.

  Mandir spoke in a low voice. “Ilinos was me, when I lived here. I was scared to take on the bigger boys, so I picked on the smaller ones instead.”

  “Ah.”

  “I saw what he was doing. I saw it from the outside, and I hated him so much. So much, Taya.”

  “You have to control it,” said Taya. “That wasn’t your old self you were beating; it was your brother. He might have deserved a single blow, but not what you meted out. Why didn’t you just summon fire and frighten him a little?”

  Mandir closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “And now you’ve scared Setsi as well.”

  Mandir let out his breath. His knee felt better. It hadn’t been badly injured, and Taya, though she was a disciple of Isatis rather than Lalan, was a more than competent healer. “I’ll go over there now and try to fix it.”

  “Not everything is fixable, you know. Some things you have to not break in the first place.” Taya kissed him lightly on the shoulder, and Mandir thanked the Mothers that she seemed to have forgiven him, at least for now.

  Chapter 10

  As they walked toward the stable, Taya watched Mandir carefully. She’d known it would be hard on him, being at his father’s house, but she hadn’t expected him to lose his temper so badly. If he lost control just from watching one boy pick on another, what was going to happen at supper tonight? Tufan was sure to be worse than Ilinos.

  When she’d watched Ilinos bully Setsi, she, too, had flashed through some uncomfortable memories. If Mandir had seen himself in Ilinos, he wasn’t the only one. Long ago, she had been a target of Mandir’s bullying.

  But now she observed that bullying arose from fear. Ilinos was a scared little boy. Mandir, at Mohenjo Temple, had also been a scared little boy. It was illuminating to see, at long last, that such behavior came not from strength but from weakness.

  In the stable, Setsi and Nindar stood in the aisle, talking in whispers. When they saw her and Mandir, they backed away. Setsi cast a look over his shoulder, as if seeking an escape route.

  “Where’s your tutor?” Taya asked brightly, trying to sound friendly and nonthreatening.

  “Drunk,” said Nindar.

  “Hungover,” said Setsi.

  Taya bit her lip. “Is he often drunk? Or hungover?”

  Setsi shrugged, and Nindar was silent.

  She felt another pang of sympathy for the boys. The one good thing about living in Tufan’s household was that Tufan, as a prince of the realm, gave his boys an education. He’d given one to Mandir, who’d entered the Coalition reading and writing fluently, an advantage that she, a farmer girl, had not enjoyed. But if the new tutor was a drunk, Setsi and Nindar were being denied even that.

  “I’m sorry about what I did,” said Mandir. “I saw Ilinos hit you, and I overreacted. It was foolish, and it was wrong, and it won’t happen again.”

  Setsi and Nindar exchanged a glance, and Setsi spoke. “We’ve heard stories about you, from before you left.”

  “I imagine they don’t paint me in a favorable light,” said Mandir.

  “No,” said Setsi.

  “Can we sit down somewhere and have a talk? I want to explain to you why I lost my head. I’m not making excuses. I just want you to understand why you’re not in any danger, even though I scared you just now.”

  The boys exchanged another glance—they seemed to have mastered the art of wordless communication—and nodded agreement. Taya and Mandir followed them to the feed room, a small, sweet-smelling storage area filled with barrels of cut barley. They settled on the floor in a rough circle, with their backs against the barrels.

  “The stories you’ve heard about me are in essence true,” said Mandir. “When I lived here, I was a zebu’s ass like Ilinos. And I took that behavior with me when I left for the Coalition. Taya here can attest to it.”

  Taya nodded. “I certainly can.”

  “But life outside Tufan’s household was very different,” said Mandir. “In the Coalition, behavior like what I was accustomed to wasn’t tolerated. I was punished for my transgressions and made to serve a Year of Penance. During my penance, I met a man named Neshi who became a sort of second father to me. The one Tufan ought to have been.”

  Setsi licked his lips. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Taya, who was trying to understand what motivated him, what might persuade him to leave. All of Tufan’s children were effectively fatherless as well as motherless. Setsi wasn’t tempted by the prospect of joining the Coalition, but perhaps he could be tempted by the possibility of finding a father, or somebody who acted like one.

  “I’m better now,” said Mandir. “That is, I’m getting better. What you saw today was my old self coming out. Being here is hard for me. I’ve so many bad memories, and I’m damaged, Setsi, permanently damaged by the years I spent here.” He swallowed.

  Taya slipped her hand into his.

  “But the day I left,” said Mandir, “was the day I began to heal. I see in Runawir and Yanzu and Shardali the sort of man I would have grown into, had I stayed. You are at a crossroads, Setsi. You can stay here and become the next Runawir or Yanzu or Shardali. Or you can leave, as I did, and start to heal.”

  “All well and good for myself,” said Setsi. “But what about Nindar?”

  “Because of the Accords
of Let, we can’t take him by force. So tonight, we’re going to try to bargain with Tufan for him.”

  Both boys laughed bitterly.

  “It won’t work,” said Nindar.

  “Taya wants to try it,” said Mandir. “Don’t discount her. She has an outsider’s perspective, and she might be able to accomplish what you and I cannot.”

  “This fate you speak of,” said Setsi. “The damage one suffers, living here—it could happen to Nindar if I abandon him.”

  “If you stay, it will happen to both of you,” said Mandir.

  Nindar shook his head. “Not if we stick together.”

  “It’s only a matter of time,” said Mandir.

  “Setsi is as old now as you were when you left for the Coalition,” said Nindar. “And he’s never been like Ilinos or the others.”

  Mandir blinked. Taya, holding his hand, could feel the tension in his body. Mandir had always claimed that his problems had been caused by growing up in this household. If Setsi had grown up in the same household and not succumbed, what did that say about Mandir? Was there something fundamentally wrong with him that wasn’t wrong with Setsi?

  For a moment, everyone was silent as they contemplated this uncomfortable truth.

  Finally, Setsi spoke. “What are the Accords of Let? I keep hearing them mentioned, and I know they say what the Coalition can and can’t do, but what are they exactly?”

  “If you join the Coalition, they’ll teach you,” said Mandir. “They’ll tell you the story about the quail and the hunter, and they’ll go into lots more detail about our history. In brief, a long time ago, there was no Coalition, and all mages were independent. Some never learned to use their magic effectively because they lacked the mother tongue, while others found older mages who could teach them the language, and they became skilled.

  “During this time, some mages abused their power. Others were exploited by powerful men in the ruling caste. Those who lacked magic envied those who had it. Then a mage tried to depose the king. While he was unsuccessful in seizing the throne, he killed some of the king’s family and followers. In response, the king proclaimed magic to be an abomination and levied a death sentence upon anyone who possessed it.

  “This was a dark time for our people. Mages died by the hundreds. The survivors, in desperation, banded together into a coalition and waged war on the king and his armies. Their numbers were few, but their magic was strong. They met on the fields of Let for the final, decisive battle. Many died, but neither side could gain an advantage. When the king himself died in battle, his followers offered the surviving mages a truce. They drew up the Accords of Let, and those accords are still in force today.”

  “What do they say?” asked Setsi.

  “That there shall be peace between the Coalition of Mages and the crown, each having dominion over its own people,” said Mandir. “The Coalition has an exclusive claim on all who possess magic. We investigate and punish all magical crimes. But we have no authority over the nonmagical, as the nonmagical have no authority over us. When I defended you from Ilinos, I was within my rights, because I was defending a subject of the Coalition from a subject of the crown. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, but because of the Accords of Let, I didn’t break the law.”

  “The Accords protect you from Tufan,” said Setsi. “But they also protect Tufan from you.”

  “Exactly,” said Mandir. “If I make a move toward Tufan at supper, his guards would be within their rights to arrest me. But if I bargain with him peacefully, they cannot touch me.”

  “Then you’d better be careful tonight,” said Taya.

  Mandir nodded. “I’ll control myself this time.”

  ∞

  “Don’t tell the water where to go,” said Taya to Setsi. “This is a goddess you are dealing with. You must ask.”

  Between the two of them sat an overturned bucket, onto which Taya had flicked a droplet of water. Nindar looked on, propping his chin in his hands. Setsi stared at the droplet, his brow furrowing, as if he could make the droplet move with the force of his will.

  “You make demands of the goddess,” said Taya. “I see it in your eyes. She won’t listen to demands.”

  Setsi let out a flustered breath. “I can’t do it.”

  “Invite the water droplet to move. Imagine that the droplet has knocked on your door, and you are asking it in for supper.”

  Setsi nodded. His eyes became intense as they focused on the water droplet.

  “Ask,” Taya reminded him.

  “You can do it,” encouraged Nindar.

  Setsi’s eyes softened, and the water droplet quivered. It rolled a short distance across the overturned bucket.

  Setsi looked up in surprise. “Did I do that?”

  Taya grinned. “You must have. I didn’t touch it.”

  Setsi grinned back in the first expression of happiness she’d seen from him. He focused again on the droplet, soft-eyed, asking the goddess with respect. The droplet moved again, farther this time.

  “Look at that!” cried Nindar.

  Now that Setsi seemed to have the idea, Taya sat back and let him practice. It was getting close to supper. She and Mandir had chosen to spend the afternoon with Setsi and Nindar. They could accomplish nothing until their meeting with Tufan anyway, and she preferred the company of these two boys to that of anyone else in the household.

  When the tutor failed to turn up for their morning lessons, the boys had moved on to their daily chores. They’d turned most of the horses loose to graze and to drink from the river. Nindar retained two of them, the nervous chestnut mare and a quiet black gelding, which he watered by hand and placed in the corral. Then Setsi left the stable to perform his chores at the main house. Taya and Mandir had gone with him to help.

  As Setsi swept the kitchen floor, Yanzu managed to spill an entire barrel of dried peas, probably on purpose. Taya watched Mandir closely, hoping he would not erupt into violence. He didn’t. He joined Taya and Setsi on his hands and knees to help pick them up.

  Shala and Ilinos were also at work in the kitchen, washing dishes and kneading dough for bread. But as far as Taya could tell, the older brothers did no work at all.

  When Setsi’s house chores were done, he moved on to the kennel. Taya had been looking forward to meeting Tufan’s hunting dogs, but when she saw the roiling, snarling mass of toothy animals that pressed up against the fence, her enthusiasm vanished.

  Setsi carried the dogs’ water up from the river, and Taya and Mandir helped, reducing what would have been two trips to one. When Taya saw how Setsi struggled to pour the water into the dogs’ trough over the high fence, she stopped him, and she and Mandir made another demonstration of magic. They had Setsi place the buckets on the ground, and then they called the water from the buckets to the trough. It flew there in a broad, liquid snake, making a graceful arc through the gaps in the fence.

  Then Setsi fed the dogs, throwing hunks of meat into the pen. Taya watched with disgust as the dogs fought viciously over the scraps. She could see it would be impossible to safely clean the cage. The dogs lived in their own waste, and probably always had.

  Setsi finished his chores early and rejoined Nindar at the stable. When Taya saw the boys’ friendly reunion and the warmth on their faces as they touched fingers, she began to understand how they survived out here. It was hard work, and they suffered much harassment and abuse, but at the end of the day, they had each other.

  That knowledge gnawed at her as she taught Setsi the basics of using his magic. Her teaching had a purpose; she wanted Setsi to have a taste of the thrill his power gave him before he made a decision that could destroy it forever. If they failed in their negotiations tonight, teaching Setsi a little magic might help to convince him to leave. But what a terrible choice for Setsi to make: lose his magic, or lose his brother.

  She left Setsi and Nindar to play with the water droplet and found Mandir, who stood at the entrance to the barn, watching the main house.

&
nbsp; “Are you ready for tonight?” she asked.

  He snorted. “No such thing as being ready for Tufan.”

  “Did you have a friend like Nindar or Setsi when you were here?”

  Mandir’s eyes darted away, and he looked uncomfortable. “No.”

  “I came here thinking it would be every man or boy for himself,” said Taya. “But it’s not. There are alliances. Setsi and Nindar. Runawir, Yanzu, and Shardali.”

  “Setsi and Nindar, yes,” said Mandir. “They seem to be true friends, which is something I’ve never seen in this household. It makes me wonder how it happened with them and never with the rest of us. I was more like Illinos, a mangy steppe dog trying to avoid the bigger boys and make the smaller ones do my work. But don’t be fooled by Runawir, Yanzu, and Shardali. There’s no loyalty among that trio, only an uneasy alliance.”

  “What time is supper?” asked Taya.

  “Now,” said Mandir, eyeing the house. “You should know that Tufan is certain to throw a few barbs at me tonight.”

  “Words, you mean?”

  “Words,” said Mandir. “Resist the urge to contradict him, because it will accomplish nothing. Let’s stay focused on the goal of freeing Nindar.”

  “Understood.” Taya took his hand. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 11

  Taya entered the dining hall with Mandir and the two boys. The near end of a long, rectangular table was crammed with people, yet there were five empty chairs at the far end. One of them, the ornately carved chair stationed at the head of the table, appeared to be for Tufan. Shala sat in the chair to Tufan’s left. Everyone else had chosen to sit as far from the head of the table as possible.

  Well, that suited Taya’s purpose. She needed to be within an easy speaking distance of Tufan in order to negotiate with him.

  Mandir took the chair across from Shala, at Tufan’s right hand. Taya took the seat beside his, and the boys settled across the table.