Enna Burning (21 page)

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The going was slow and painful. Enna never felt fully recovered from the struggles with Sileph, and the fever stormed inside her. Sometimes from halfway within a dream, she heard Finn’s desperate voice—“Isi, please, she’s so hot, you’ve got to wake up”—and then Enna would feel a breeze help push back the orange haze.

Once she dreamed of Sileph and saw again the moment when fire raged around her and she yelled that he loved a shell. She started awake, breathless, afraid that she was dead. Even in sleep, she was aware of the fever tugging life from her, but awake, she was conscious of Yasid looming on the horizon like a dangerous storm cloud. The fever, and the death it promised in its steamy breath, frightened her as much as the thought that she would live to reach Yasid and be cured. With fire blazing around her, she had said to Sileph, “This is what I am.” Without the fire, what would she be?

But relief was palpable when Finn was near. With Enna lost in a fever haze and Isi tormented by wind, Finn became their caretaker. He cooked for them and scouted their path through bogs and stony hills, following as best he could Isi’s old map. When Enna was especially sick, he tried to get her talking to take her mind away or asked Isi to tell stories. Or, at the worst moments, he took her in his arms and sang in his dry, low voice silly songs about swimming rabbits and no-tailed squirrels.

Their journey was further slowed by the river Suneast that had obviously swollen since the map had been drawn, and they spent three days looking for a crossing. After the Suneast, they followed a road beside a stream, occasionally meeting travelers with hair nearly as dark as the Bayern and skin the color of polished cherrywood. Finn caught fish and hare and traded some of his meat catches for dark, flat bread.

The other travelers did not speak their northern language. To no surprise to Enna, as often as Isi was well enough to stand and walk she was practicing on the southerners the language of Yasid outlined in her book.

“It takes some listening to figure out how they speak and get the accent down, but I think I’ve about made it out.”

“You would,” said Enna. “You’re amazing. Here’s the extent of my gift of languages: Over there!”

“Over there,” Finn shouted without looking up as he cleaned the cookpot.

They laughed, then had to explain the story to Isi, and Enna quickly found in the telling that it was not so funny to her anymore. She stopped speaking and looked away, shunning the various burning images awash in her mind. She had that haunting feeling again that if she just looked over her shoulder, she would see remnants of her handiwork—smoking tunics, blistering faces, mouths open to scream.

“Enna,” said Finn.

Enna knew that, though terrible, the memories could not haunt her so fiercely if she did not still harbor the longing to burn. The thought of losing her intimacy with fire hurt almost as much as how it now burned her blood and skin.

Then at last, over two months from leaving the palace, they passed the border of Yasid and into Quapah, the first town. What first appeared to be a stone city wall proved to be built from bricks the color of the sand. The houses and buildings were smooth structures with small, high windows. Everything was pale and brilliant, flashing back at the sunlight and burning the eyes.

Isi asked a woman where to find the
tata-rook,
the fire worshippers. She wrinkled her nose as though she smelled something rotten and pointed beyond the city wall and grazing goats.

They led their horses across the scrubby grasses of the goat pastures, over a rocky ledge, and onto smooth, fine dirt again. Just at the sight of a rambling building, Enna felt her stomach squeeze tighter in dread. It was tidy and well laid. A stacked rock wall surrounded fields of green plants, vegetable fronds sticking their heads up through the pale soil, and rows of corn, cotton plants, and fruit trees with lustrous green leaves. This land was so much warmer and drier, and so much more open to the strikes of sunlight than the forest she knew, Enna marveled that anything grew at all.

Atop a platform in the center of the field, a young man sat cross-legged, his hands on his knees, his eyes closed. A cloth was stretched over his head, shading him from the sun. Enna squinted into the distance and thought she saw similar platforms in the fields on the far side of the house. Enna greeted the man, and Isi asked him a question in the southern tongue, but he did not look their way.

The three scrambled along the rock wall, looking for an opening for their horses to pass. From behind they heard voices. Isi stopped to listen.

Four boys came from the direction of the town. They climbed atop the wall some thirty paces from the travelers. Their hands were full of stones, and they shouted at the man perched on the platform. To Enna, the words sounded harsh and ugly.

“They’re saying some words I don’t know,” said Isi, “but they feel like insults. And they’re calling the man ‘unbeliever’ and asking him why he’s so selfish with the rain, only making it fall on their fields.”

They heard a loud snap. One of the boys had thrown a rock at the platform. It bounced off a pole.

“Why would they do that?” said Enna. “And why does he let them?”

Isi shouted something at them, but the boys paid her no mind.

Another snap.

“For pity’s sake,” said Enna.

Finn’s hand darted to the sword at his hip. Enna thought,
Good for you.
But Isi put a hand on Finn’s arm.

“I don’t think even defensive swordplay would be wise in a place where we are the outsiders.”

Another stone. This one hit the man on the side of his arm. He flinched but did not open his eyes. The town boys laughed and gathered more rocks.

“Come on, then,” said Enna, taking Isi’s arm, though she scarcely felt capable of taking another step. “If no one else will stop boys from attacking a defenseless person, we have to.” Finn walked beside Enna, his face adopting his wary warrior expression. She faced the boys and raised her voice. “Ho there.”

The boys turned to them with amused smiles. Two stones launched in their direction. Finn and Enna remained still, knowing that Isi would deal with it, and indeed, a sudden breeze easily knocked them off their path. One of the boys jabbered something at Enna and threw another stone, this one also missing its mark.

“Just threats,” said Isi.

“Tell them the
tata-rook
don’t want to hurt them, but that the sun’s their father and he’ll protect them,” said Enna.

Isi translated, pointing up at the sun, and the boys smirked and laughed. Enna took Isi’s hand and a felt a little more strength steady her bones. She could sense the heat streaming from their bodies and began to tug, like winding loose yarn into a ball. The action was as satisfying as pulling a barbed thorn from her foot.

“Tell them the sun loves the
tata-rook
, and they must be careful, for when the boys threaten them, the sun takes away its heat.”

Isi translated. Enna continued to pull. The loose heat caught, and she yanked harder, pulling living heat from their bodies. It was drawn to her, into her. Without her having to ask, Isi knew to send a wind over her skin, into her mouth.

The boys were no longer laughing. Their confused faces began to show fear, and she saw color fade from their cheeks. One of them lifted his hands to the sun and shouted with a trembling voice.

“He’s begging the sun to forgive and let them live.”

There’s more in there,
thought Enna.
If I keep going, I can pull out just a little more.

Finn touched her shoulder. “That’s probably good. Just that.”

The wind blew harder. Enna let go of the strings to their life heat and stumbled. Finn caught her under her arms and held her up. The boys relaxed, put arms around themselves, and shivered. After a moment they all raised gestures of thanks to the sun, hopped off the wall, and ran back to the village.

The three turned toward the house and only then noticed a man standing not two paces away. He had dark skin wrinkled with sun and a beard graying around his mouth. For a moment a smile seemed to twitch on his lips, but he stilled it and just stood looking over their faces. As she stood there in the open, the earth felt hotter to Enna than her own skin. She could still feel the sensation of tugging on those boys’ life heat. To gather it and let it seep and blow away without lighting fire made her hands twitch as if for a task to perform. She bit her lip and looked at Finn for comfort, but his face swooped in and out of her vision.

At last the man spoke a word. Isi responded in the southern tongue and then translated his response.

“He says that we may’ve saved that man’s life, but it’s too dangerous to play with such a force.”

Isi and the man continued to speak as he led them closer to the house. A woman appeared and silently led their horses away. The man motioned for them to sit on the cool tiles of a porch. When Enna passed into the shade and yet still seemed to feel the relentless beating of the sun, she knew she was in a bad way.

“Enna,” said Isi.

Enna slowly met her look and realized belatedly that Isi had said her name several times before she responded.

“Enna, this man is Fahil. He is the caretaker of this
roga tata-rook
, this community of fire worshippers.”

“Fahil,” said Enna.

Fahil thrust his hand against her forehead and pulled it away quickly, then nodded and said something to Isi.

“I’m learning so much, Enna.” Isi’s voice heightened in excitement, and she spoke the northern tongue to Finn and Enna, occasionally translating further communication from Fahil.

“He says, it’s no ugly thing to be a fire worshipper. The sun is the manifestation of the Creator, and fire is the manifestation of the sun. But it is not an easy blessing. That’s why they’re all here.”

“Here in this, uh,
roga tata-rook
? They’re all like me?” said Enna.

Isi nodded, looking at Fahil and straining to understand. “He says, some people of the desert lands are born intimate with fire, that when they first show signs of it they come here, or to other
roga tata-rook
.” She spoke to the man and got his answer. “Yes, he says he too can pull fire from air, but he won’t do it, um, casually. It’s not for humans to play like creators. The townspeople, they don’t understand, or they fear them. Those boys we stopped were from Quapah. Fahil says they bother the
tata-rook
sometimes, and once townspeople killed a woman as she sat in the field.”

Isi spoke for a moment, then translated Fahil’s response. “He is surprised that both you and your brother were taught the skill. He has never known it to be taught, just born in a person after a certain age, and he’s never heard of a northerner with the knowledge.”

“Why me, then?” asked Enna.

Isi shrugged. “He doesn’t know. Maybe you and Leifer had a relative from the south far back, or maybe it can be taught after all and no one ever tried.”

“But Isi,” said Enna, “Fahil and the others we’ve seen, they’re fine. But there’s something wrong with me.”

Isi repeated Enna’s words, and Fahil looked back at the sky, a crease between his eyes. Then he spoke softly.

Isi hesitated. “He agrees that you are dying.”

Finn made a small noise. Enna rubbed at fever chills on her arm. She had wondered for weeks if dying felt like that, the fever burning constant hopelessness. She had thought it was just fear of losing the fire and living in a world void of heat, but it was not just fire she might lose.

Enna felt Fahil watching her. Isi spoke again with much halting, and Fahil seemed reluctant to answer. After a time he pointed to the man on the nearest platform.

“I begged him to tell me how all the
tata-rook
avoid the burning inside that came to you with the fire knowledge,” said Isi. “He asks me, do I know why that man sits up there? He’s talking to the, uh, water, or the rain and dew. They have a word that means any water that doesn’t come out of a well. He can’t call the water from the clouds, but what water there is in the air, he can ask it to go to the plants instead of wasted on the sand. Here they grow enough food for everyone in the
roga tata-rook
and much of Quapah. That’s how they can produce so much in a desert.” Isi turned to Enna, her eyes full of excitement. “They have water-speaking. Isn’t that amazing? I’ve always wondered.”

Isi spoke again and listened to Fahil’s response. “He says, everyone who comes to a
roga
with fire knowledge is taken in to see if they also know water. It takes years to develop. And in some it never does. . . . He won’t say directly, but I think the ones who never develop the water tongue, they go away, or they die. But when a person knows both heat and water, they form a balance. The language of fire doesn’t overwhelm them, tempered by the presence of the water, and the water can’t consume the person because of the threat of the heat always near. It makes sense, Enna. I often thought that the wind was overcoming me because I didn’t speak all languages, as the tales say we once did. But I never thought that balance could come from just knowing two elements that work against each other. I’m going to ask him if he’ll teach you rain.” She grinned and shook Enna’s knee.