“Your grace,” the lady said to Duke Vedris, who nodded, “Master Niklaren, guests. As of this morning, each and every wildfire in this entire valley is—extinguished.”
Does she want us to applaud? Sandry asked her friends through their magical bond.
“Extinguished?” asked Rosethorn, fine brows drawn together in a tiny frown. “All of them?” She went to the battlement. “Are you sure?”
“I would hardly claim they were, if they were not,” Yarrun replied waspishly. “You wasted your students’ time in preparing burn medicines, as I told you. The grassfires have used up their fuel, and the forests are untouched.”
“I think that my mage does beautiful work,” said Lady Inoulia. “I had hoped you could be more generous to him.”
“What if fire got into the bottom-most layer of mast, deep under the trees?” demanded Rosethorn. “It could smolder for days, unseen, building in power.”
“I tell you it has not,” Yarrun snapped. “Why can you not admit that academic magic does things nature magic cannot?”
Lark went to the rail. “It’s an impressive feat,” she said, her gaze on the valley. “Rosie isn’t trying to take that from you—”
“Is she not!” cried the Gold Ridge mage.
“If you would just calm down,” Niko said, his thick brows knitted in a frown like Rosethorn’s. His concern, though, seemed to be for the other man. “Take a seat—”
Yarrun was sweating and pale. He stared at Niko with bloodshot eyes. “I am not one of your child-wizards, in need of coddling,” he hissed.
The duke took a seat, his eyes on the mages. Inoulia draped herself in a chair close to his. “They have uses,” Sandry heard her murmur to the duke, “but when these people get to one of their endless debates—!”
Tris wanted no part of the fight that was developing. Walking to the eastern edge of the platform, she stared at the view. There lay the village and southern road; past them she saw heavy forest and steeply rising mountains. Behind her she could hear Niko talking softly to Yarrun, and Lark to Rosethorn.
One eye on his teacher, Briar eased over to the table. Under the disapproving gaze of the servants he picked through a dish of berries. Sandry joined him, though she left the fruit alone.
“I can’t wait till we leave,” she murmured to him. “I’ve had enough of these people.”
Briar grinned and rested a berry on her lower lip. “Open wide,” he ordered.
Uh-oh, said a magical voice.
They turned to stare at Tris.
Uh-oh, she repeated. She didn’t seem to know that Briar and Sandry could hear. Uh-oh, uh-oh…
Stop it, Briar ordered in mind-talk as he and Sandry went to her. It’s idiotic and you’ll make us—crazy, he was about to add, but the sight below chased all thought from his mind. Billows of smoke rose in the eastern forest. They took shape not on the far rim or the southern edge, near charred grasslands and the firebreak, but at a spot a mile inside the woods.
“Someone’s burning leaves,” Sandry remarked flatly.
Flame raced up a lone, dead tree. Smoke eddied through the forest around it.
“Rosethorn,” squeaked Briar. He cleared his throat. “Rosethorn,” he repeated, louder this time. “Niko.”
Something in his voice brought Rosethorn at a run. “Sweet Mila of the grain. Yarrun!” she cried.
Everyone came over. Lady Inoulia gasped as the patch of smoke thickened, rising in a circle around the flaming tree. “Do something!” she ordered Yarrun.
He gave her a scornful look and fumbled in his belt-pouch. Producing a small, round bottle, he placed it on the stone rail. “Where did it come from?” he muttered to himself.
Niko stepped up beside him and briefly shut his eyes. The three young people shielded their own eyes as his power blazed out. Squinting, they saw that Niko had opened his eyes and was holding out his hands, palm up. A window opened in the air. Through it they saw, not pines and leafy trees, but limbs and trunks without greenery, and ground covered with masses of sticks and a glassy blanket. When they looked to the spot where the smoke had appeared, they could see that a dull orange glow lay under the glass blanket, spreading there like a stain in water.
The window vanished; Niko ceased to glow. “Rosethorn was right,” he said flatly. “Somehow fire got into the piled-up mast on the forest floor. I’m no specialist, but I would say this blaze has been growing for most of the day.”
“Impossible!” Yarrun brushed his hair back with a quivering hand. “I would have sensed it!”
Niko met his eyes. “Would you?” he asked evenly. “Even my students can tell you are exhausted.”
Yarrun bit his lip. “You want to see me fail.”
Niko continued to gaze at him, black eyes level, even kind. It was Yarrun who looked away.
Sandry grabbed Tris’s shoulder. Flames now appeared in the crowns of those trees circling the dead one. The smoke that rose from the ground there spread as the undergrowth caught fire. Impatiently Tris shook off Sandry’s grip and stretched a hand out to Yarrun. “Can you use my strength?” she asked. “I don’t know the spells, but—”
“I know them,” said Niko. “Good idea, Tris. Yarrun, you may have mine as well—”
“Gods rot you both!” shrieked Yarrun, his face dripping sweat. “I don’t need help!”
Hurt, Tris backed away.
Yarrun dumped a pile of glittering dust from his vial onto the stone rail. With a hand that shook he drew a circle in it, his lips moving. The dust began to rise, not as the breeze tugged it, but against the air’s motion. It hovered, then settled back onto the rail.
“I can do this,” Yarrun growled. It wasn’t clear whom he spoke to, and none of them replied. He scraped the dust into a small pile with the edges of his hands.
Stepping back, Niko used Briar for concealment as he reached behind the boy to pluck Tris’s sleeve. She looked at him with a puzzled frown while Briar, deadpan, gazed straight ahead. Niko pursed his lips and blew. Tris guessed that he wanted her to help Yarrun’s dust to reach the fire and nodded.
Yarrun nicked a vein in his left wrist with his belt-knife and let a few drops of blood fall onto the dust. Frostpine started to protest and stopped at Niko’s sharp gesture. The only sounds were the hiss of the wind and Yarrun’s hoarse, open-mouthed breathing. He swayed; when Duke Vedris moved to brace him, he shook the duke off.
Tris stepped back into the shadows beside the kiosk. Reaching into the breeze, she grabbed a fistful of moving air.
Again Yarrun drew a circle in the dust. This time the wet powder followed his finger in a trickle, as if he’d added more than a few drops of blood. He raised his hands, lips moving. The dust flowed into the open air, spreading until it formed a thin scarf.
Tris flung out her handful of trapped wind. It rushed from her grip, strengthened by its captivity, and pulled the scarf of dust away from the tower in its wake. Lady Inoulia and the duke felt the air’s passage and turned to stare at Tris. The redhead was leaning against the kiosk, her face to its stone wall, as if she were too afraid to watch Yarrun—as if she were too upset to have done anything. The lady turned her attention back to her mage. When Tris straightened and looked up, the duke still had his eye on her. Slowly he winked. Then he moved to the rail to watch the sparkling powder as it raced toward the smoke.
Now Yarrun was chanting, hoarse-voiced. His bony fingers cut the air, leaving trails of light for the mages to see. His voice climbed in volume; everyone stepped back from him as the power in his signs flew after the dust. Louder and louder he spoke, until the last three words were a scream. He dropped his hands, swaying.
Far below, the fire in the dead tree went out.
“Aha!” he bellowed. “And again I have done it! While—”
Mutely the duke nodded to a spot west of the original blaze, on the edge of the thin groove of the road. Smoke rose there. Yarrun pointed to it and shrieked something; the smoke blew apart. Nearby an oak, its leaves turning color, show
ed darts of flame. Yarrun pointed and spoke again; the fire vanished.
New smoke rose in four places close to the original blaze at the dead tree. Yarrun dealt with two. When he addressed the third, his voice was nearly gone. He staggered, pointed, opened his mouth to speak—and collapsed. Frostpine caught him and lowered him gently, turning his body so his face was visible.
Blood ran from one nostril, slowed, and stopped. Yarrun’s eyes were open; the veins in his left eye had burst, turning the white a dull crimson. He was dead.
Rosethorn knelt beside him and closed his eyes with her fingers.
“We’re in trouble now,” whispered Briar.
Lady Inoulia leaned over the battlement to stare down at the forest. The dead tree was burning again; so were many green trees around it. Half a mile from the east side of the road smoke rolled through the leafy canopy. It formed a mile-long dark band from the spot where they’d first seen it to a point near the castle. “Can you put it out?” she demanded, without turning away from the view. “I know this isn’t your kind of work, Master Goldeye, but—so many mages—can’t one of you stop it?”
“One of us tried,” Rosethorn said flatly. She still knelt beside Yarrun. “You saw the result. I warned him what happens when these things get started. I’ll tell you now—it’s too late to put the fire out.”
Inoulia, confused, turned to look at Rosethorn. “What do you mean? It’s never too late to stop a fire—”
“This fire has burned for hours,” Frostpine said quietly. “The longer it goes, the more force it gathers. Nature is slow to begin, but once she does, her works have their own hard power. Any mage who tries to command that fire like Yarrun did will die.”
Inoulia clenched her hands. “The village,” she said abruptly. “They’ll be trapped.” Raising her skirts, she raced down the stairs, her servants following.
Niko and Lark traded quick looks. “Stay here,” Niko ordered the three young people. When they nodded, he and Lark followed Inoulia into the castle.
“Yarrun died for her,” Sandry remarked bitterly. “Doesn’t she care?”
“Grief must wait until her people are safe,” the duke told her. “That comes first.”
“Then grief may have a long wait,” Rosethorn said. She hugged herself, her face gray. “The fire’s going into the crowns of the trees.”
Frostpine, who still held Yarrun, glared at her. “What does that mean?”
“It’ll speed up,” Rosethorn wearily explained.
“I had best see what I may do for Inoulia,” said the duke. He kissed Sandry, and left them.
Briar, Tris, and Sandry rushed to the battlement. The treetops were ablaze. As they watched, the fire jumped the road in three places, catching hold on the other side.
“Daja’s there!” cried Sandry, horrified. “Daja, and the caravan!”
At first Daja had ignored the thickening smoke. She was too busy watching the wagons and listening to the rise and fall of Trader voices from the road ahead.
“I’ll be glad to see the last of this place,” remarked Polyam after a burst of coughing. “The grassfires weren’t so bad, the last time we came here. Old Yarrun is losing his touch.”
“Not to hear him tell it,” replied Daja.
Polyam snorted. “Four years ago, six, he wouldn’t have let even grasslands burn. He took it as a matter of pride that he could stop any blaze in the valley. Once he accused the cook of giving him the nobles’ leftovers for his midday? He stopped all the fires in the kitchen. Nowhere else—just the kitchen. That’s how much control he had.” She looked sidelong at Daja. “I hope you and your friends don’t go all prideful like that. So many do—mages, that is.”
“We make too many mistakes to get prideful,” Daja assured her. Something was bothering her. The exposed skin on her left felt tight and stretched, as if—
As if I was at the forge and working close to the fire, she realized. As if I was really, really hot.
Balancing herself one-handed on Polyam’s shoulder, ignoring the woman’s protest, she stood on the driver’s bench and turned her nose into the wind. It came out of the east, to her left, along with the worst of the smoke and that feeling of too much heat. She sent her magic out in a widening arc, like ripples on a pond.
The knowledge of fire roaring out of control smote her chest, making her stagger.
“This is no time for trick riding!” snapped Polyam. “What are you up to?”
Daja sat. “How much farther till we’re clear of the woods?” she demanded. “I don’t remember how long this part of the road is. Polyam, quick!”
“Another three miles, give or take. Why?” Polyam coughed as thick coils of smoke rolled across the sunken road.
We’ll never make it, Daja realized. “We have to go back. There’s still time.”
“Go back? Whatever for?” Polyam was barely able to speak for coughing.
Daja! cried Sandry’s voice in her mind. Make them turn around! The forest is burning!
Daja cupped her hands around her mouth. “Stop!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Halt!”
A boy looked back, as did two drivers. When they saw who spoke to them, they turned away.
“Polyam, tell them!” cried Daja, yanking on the woman’s shoulder.
“Tell them?” Polyam demanded. “Tell them what?”
“The forest is burning!” cried Daja. “We’re riding into it!” When Polyam hesitated, Daja snapped, “I’m in contact with Sandry—she can see it from the castle!”
Polyam looked at the trees and the smoke. She thrust the reins at Daja and yanked her staff from the back of the cart. “Wait,” she ordered. “And hold ’em.” Slipping from the bench, she landed on the ground and staggered, her wooden leg sliding. With the skill of practice, she stopped her fall and lurched into motion on the road, using her staff to pull her along.
“Where’s the mimander?” she yelled. “Everybody halt! I need the mimander, I need the gilav—” She stopped to cough helplessly. The moment she got herself under control she moved forward, shouting for the leaders of the caravan.
Daja ground her teeth. Everyone ignored the yellow-decked Polyam. Of course, thought Daja grimly; she’s unclean because of her contact with me. They won’t hear her till she’s washed me from her skin.
Rising to her feet, Daja filled her lungs. Her ribs served as a bellows—smoke had no effect on a bellows—as she cried in a booming voice, “Halt right now, or by Hakkoi I’ll rust every nail in the caravan! I can do it!” She couldn’t, but the Traders didn’t know that. “Every ring, every buckle!”
The closest wagon slowed, then stopped. So did the wagon ahead of it.
So, thought Daja, grimly pleased, you just have to know how to talk to them. Where Is It? she mind-called to her friends on the tower. Where Is the fire? Was that a flicker of orange off to her left?
It’s half a mile ahead of the caravan and it’s coming at you all along the eastern edge, said Tris. And—and—her magical voice failed.
It jumped the road in front, Sandry told Daja somberly. You’re cut off. Make them stop, or they’ll ride into it.
Daja grabbed the reins and jumped to the ground. Dragging the donkey, she closed the gap between her and the wagon ahead and hitched the animal to it. People inside shouted, objecting to their wagon being touched by a trangshi; Daja ignored them. Once the donkey was securely tied, she ran to the front of the caravan, where Polyam was yelling at its leaders.
“You’re cut off!” Daja cried when she was within earshot. “Turn back! The fire has jumped the road!”
“Trangshi—” snapped gilav Chandrisa, furious, “this has polluted us all! Was that your aim all along?”
“I don’t care if you’re polluted or not!” Daja cried. “I do care that you’re riding into fire!”
“We have been too lenient,” began the gilav.
“Enough,” said a firm voice, as harsh as a crow’s—Polyam’s. “Mother, do as she says.”
The gila
v blinked at Polyam, who went to the heads of the ponies that drew Chandrisa’s pretty wagon. Gripping the reins, Polyam began to turn the team.
The road leader urged his mount back along the string of wagons, talking to each driver. Slowly, one at a time, they started to turn around. None knew better than Traders that haste now would mean tangled harness and fouled wheels. Each worked carefully, one fearful eye on the heavy pall of smoke on the road’s eastern flank.
Daja walked up to Polyam. “You never said she was your mother,” commented Daja in an undertone.
“It wasn’t exactly something that brought us honor, after the mountain ate my leg,” was Polyam’s muttered reply. Seeing Daja walk south on the road, she asked, “Where are you going?”
“I want to see how close we’re cutting this,” called Daja. The road led her up a small incline, over a rise, and across a small bridge above a dry creek. She climbed a second rise, halting at the top.
Three hundred yards before her, trees of all sizes blazed on either side of the road. The ground under them burned, reminding her of Rosethorn’s words about mast. Clumps of flaming leaves—burning squirrel nests—were carried by the wind into places where there was no fire. Within seconds they had started fresh blazes.
The fire advanced, roaring as she’d once heard an earthquake roar. Daja gulped from her water bottle, thinking hard. If she allowed this fire to come on, it would overtake the Traders. They needed a chance to get wagons and animals turned in this sunken road. Somehow she would have to stop the fire’s advance.
Tris? she mind-called. This is as much your kind of thing as mine.
She felt Tris reach out and wrap her fingers around a man’s warm and bony wrist.
It is mine, too. It was Frostpine, able now to speak and hear Daja through Tris. Relief made Daja’s knees weak. Frostpine would fix all this!
He looked through her eyes and whispered, Shurri and Hakkoi. He sounded frightened.
Daja swallowed hard. Perhaps he couldn’t fix it. What can I do? she asked. If I make myself into a really large bellows …?
No! Don’t blow the fire back, he cautioned. What works with candleflame won’t do here. You’ll just spread it.