On Fire’s Wings (26 page)

She hesitated before she did what she knew had to be done. She hated her fire abilities now. They had cost her the single most precious thing in her life, and she was loath to make use of them. But she was already doing so without being able to control it; she was warm and comfortable in an environment that made a
sa'abah
shiver. She might as well deliberately use her abilities to help save a man's life.

Kevla scouted for a scrap of dried grass, found a few sorry blades, and placed them down in front of her. She took a deep breath, then said quietly, “Burn.”

As it had always done since she began to bleed, the fire obeyed her command. A small flame crackled to life.

“Show me Tahmu.”

It revealed nothing. Kevla tried not to be too worried. The fire-scrying only worked if the person she was trying to locate was near a fire himself. It was morning. She should have tried last night; the odds that Tahmu would be close to a fire would have increased. She would try again tonight.

After getting some food and water in her stomach, Kevla stretched, trying to ease the soreness of riding all day, then mounted. She set her eyes on the sacred mountain, and rode.

She stopped only briefly to eat and stretch. She talked to the
sa'abah
a great deal in an effort to push down the pain. It was starting to abate, only, she suspected, because she was focused so intently on her own impending death. It made her feel better to think that it would all be over soon.

When she made camp that night, the first thing she did was create a fire and ask to see Tahmu. She watched it intently for some time, eating and drinking with her eyes glued to the flickering flames.

Suddenly, she saw a blur and sat up straighter, leaning forward and straining to listen.

“I wonder if there was anything I could have done,” she heard the
khashim
of the Clan of Four Waters say in a heavy voice. Tears sprung to Kevla's eyes. She had not fully appreciated how much son resembled father; Tahmu's voice and face were so like Jashemi's. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Tahmu tossed something into the fire moodily.

“Done how?” The voice was Halid's, and Kevla tensed. “Prevented someone from being taken by
kulis?
Great
khashim,
if you knew how to do that, you would be more honored among our people than even the Great Dragon.”

Tahmu's lips thinned. “I…suspected. But I did not act. I was blinded by love.”

Jashemi's dreams,
thought Kevla. Jashemi had tried to tell Tahmu of his dreams, but his father had refused to listen. Fear now warred with anger. If only Tahmu had trusted his son! She thought about what Jashemi had said, that her powers and his dreams—the dreams of others like him—were manifesting now to save their people. She wondered if he was right, and if Tahmu was hastening the destruction of all of Arukan.

But now Tahmu was speaking again and she turned her attention back to him.

“…have been warned,” he was saying. “Yet I have heard nothing.”

“Perhaps they have not been spotted,” Halid said. “Or perhaps the other clans think you have made this up, to hide your shame at a son who has run away with a Bai-sha.”

Tahmu's gaze went stone cold and his head whipped up to look at Halid, who was out of Kevla's view.

“You speak freely for a Second, Halid,” he said in a low voice. “Don't forget your position, or I shall name another in your place.”

Kevla's hand flew to her mouth.
Don't get him angry with you, my lord! You don't know what he's capable of!

There was a strained silence, then Halid's gruff voice. “I humbly apologize, my lord. This has been a trying time for everyone in the Clan.”

“That it has been,” said Tahmu. “It is forgotten, Halid.”

She watched the fire for a long time. The two men and a few others cooked a meal over its flames, convincing Kevla that they were indeed on the hunt for her and Jashemi and not staying at the House. She learned nothing more of import, but was not comforted by the idle chatter of men around a fire.

She had no way of knowing how many men Tahmu had brought with him, but it didn't matter. All that concerned her was that one of those men was Halid. It would be easy now for the Second to get his lord alone, away from the other men, and cause an accident or—

She was surprised at how much she cared. This was the man who had decreed her death, but she knew he hadn't wanted to. Knew he certainly hadn't wanted to hunt down his son like a
liah.
Kevla felt an odd sort of compassion for him. She did not want to see him dead, regardless of what he had done.

Besides, perhaps Tahmu was right. Maybe she was a
kuli.
The only one who thought she was not was Jashemi, and he had been a victim of her deadly powers. She fell into an uneasy sleep, and when she awoke in the morning was suddenly aware that she had not had any dreams of the Great Dragon since Jashemi's—since Jashemi. She wondered why. Perhaps he knew that she was coming to see him, and soon she would be face-to-face with him. Then he could torment her to his dragon heart's content. But she had to admit, she was relieved that she did not have to stand before the Great Dragon every night. Sleep was now her escape; living was her nightmare.

Her little five-score friend had done well by her; Kevla had plenty to eat and drink. Each day, she traveled closer to the sacred mountain, and each night, she sat and called fire, to see where Tahmu was. Kevla started to look forward to it; why, she did not know. She supposed it was that this was her last connection to this world, and she wanted to make sure Tahmu was safe before she gave herself to the Dragon.

Tahmu had taken to sitting and staring into the fire, as if he could see the same things Kevla could. She knew he simply wanted some time to think. One night as he did so, she locked gazes with him. She and Jashemi had been able to speak through the fire; she wondered if, should she will it, she and Tahmu could.

Just as she was thinking this, she saw something move behind Tahmu.

Someone was approaching him, raising an arm—

“Behind you!” Kevla shrieked.

Startled, Tahmu leaped to his feet and whirled around. The shape behind him was now revealed to Kevla. Firelight glinted off the blade Halid carried, the blade that now slashed down—

Kevla moved forward, as if she was there with Tahmu, leaning into the fire. Suddenly, his face took on more natural tones. She saw stars and sand and realized that somehow she had stepped into her own fire many leagues away and was now standing in the center of Tahmu's. The fire had transported her.

She gasped, shocked. The two men struggling in deathly silence were startled by her abrupt manifestation as well. Halid gaped openly at her, and Tahmu took that precious second of inattention and twisted Halid's wrist. As his Second arched in pain, Tahmu seized the blade from Halid's nerveless hands, flipped it so he grasped the leather-wrapped hilt, and shoved it deep into his adversary's midsection.

Halid grunted. Gritting his teeth, Tahmu jerked the knife upward, piercing Halid's heart. Blood fountained onto the
khashim's
hand. Halid's face displayed an expression of shock, and when Tahmu pulled out the knife, he fell to the earth.

For a long moment, neither Kevla nor Tahmu moved or spoke. She stood, still in the center of a burning fire, her hands to her mouth. She wondered how long it would take for Tahmu's men to rush out and seize her, but apparently, the confrontation had awakened no one. The men had fought in silence, and she had to assume that no one but Tahmu had heard her warning cry.

Tahmu stared at his trusted Second, lying dead by the fire, then slowly looked up at the woman whose warning had saved his life.

Kevla stepped out of the flames. This was not how she had willed it, but the moment had arrived. She stood tall and straight, then bent her long, slender neck back, exposing her throat. Her hair fell like a dark cloud almost to her knees.

“Kill me,” she said.

T
ahmu stared at his daughter standing before him, her long neck stretched back to receive the blade.

He was still panting from the deadly fight. The knife that Halid would have used to kill him was red with the traitor's own blood, and the night was so still and his senses so heightened he could hear the scarlet fluid dripping into the sand.

Tahmu had been the one to take the watch; he would have stood, stretched, and awakened the next man in a few moments, had Halid not come. None of his men had yet roused. His thoughts were jumbled and confused. There was only one thing that was clear to him: Kevla had been right. Halid had indeed planned to kill him.

When no blow was immediately forthcoming, Kevla lowered her head and looked at him questioningly. He motioned to her and they walked away from the encampment, where their voices would not be heard.

“You saved my life,” he said.

Uncertainly, she nodded.

“Did you also speak the truth about Yeshi? That she was trying to poison me when you…attacked her?”

“Yes,” Kevla said. “I would not lie to you now. Not when I have come to you to be killed.”

Tahmu looked at her. The moon's light permitted him to see her face clearly, even though they were away from the fire's light.

The fire….

“No,” he said. He flung the bloody knife onto the ground. “You have saved my life. I will not take yours.”

They were silent for a moment. “You do not think I am a
kuli?
” Kevla asked.

Suddenly feeling very old, Tahmu sat on the sand. “I don't know what to think anymore. I thought my wife faithful, if not happy; I thought my Second worthy to be trusted with my Clan. Now I learn they have conspired against me, and tonight I killed Halid. I thought my son obedient to the law, but he has dreamed strange dreams and defied my orders. I thought you a demon, and even now you walk through fire as easily as through a door. Yet you saved my life. My world is not what it once was. But your life is spared.”

“No it isn't,” Kevla said softly, sitting beside him. “There is something you must know, great
khashim.
I was on a pilgrimage tonight. I was going to go to the Great Dragon and offer myself as a sacrifice. I have committed a terrible crime, and I can think of no better way to atone.”

Tahmu softened. “You attacked Yeshi to try to save me, and these powers of yours—”

She cut him off. He was surprised at her boldness in doing so. “No,” she said. “I did not intend to hurt her, but I stopped her from putting poison in your food, and I don't regret that. What I have done…oh, great lord, you will have no wish to spare me once I have finished speaking.”

A sudden fear clenched his heart. She had not left the House of Four Waters alone, and he suddenly realized that Jashemi was not here….

Quietly, in a somber voice, Kevla told her father of her awakening abilities. She spoke of the strange dreams that began coming to Jashemi at the same age. She told him of their stolen moments, of the bond that grew between them. There was something final in her words, and Tahmu's apprehension grew.

Dragon, no…not him…curse me, but do not harm him….

“We found a cave, where we rested and drank,” Kevla continued. “He told me that he had met others like him—others who had the strange dreams, which he believed were not dreams at all but visions. Jashemi felt that my powers and these visions were connected, that they were growing in strength now as part of a way to defeat this Emperor who has been decimating the clans. He wanted to gather these Seers, gather the clans, and stand united against this new threat.”

Her usage of the past tense did not go unnoticed. A wave of unspeakable sorrow washed over Tahmu. He had agreed to Yeshi's demands to hunt down his children, but what he had not told anyone, not even Halid, was that he never intended to find them. He would let them go, and return having appeared to have made the attempt. Kevla and Jashemi would live—

The sharpness of the pain would come later, he supposed; right now, the ache was dull and heavy and wrapped with regrets, with bitter knowledge of opportunities missed.

“How did he die, Kevla?” he said, his voice deep and sad.

She didn't answer for a long time. When he turned to look at her, he saw she had buried her face in her hands.

“Tell me,” he said.

Kevla took a deep breath. “There was a bond between us,” she said, “and we knew it to be both wrong and powerful. He was a
khashim's
son and I a Bai-sha. And yet, we loved one another. We knew we could never be together, so neither of us spoke of our feelings. But in the cave, when we thought we had nothing to lose, that there were no more obstacles between us, we—he loved me as a man loves a woman, and in those moments I have never been happier.”

He stared at her in dawning horror. The girl was innocent of the wrongdoing, ignorant as she was of her identity, but Jashemi….

Kevla's voice was hollow as she continued. “He brought me great pleasure, and as that joy washed over me, the Dragon exacted his revenge for our transgression. I opened my eyes, and he was gone.”

“He died…in your arms,” Tahmu said. Such things happened, but usually not to one so young.

Kevla shook her head. “I killed him,” she said. “All that was left was ash.” She turned to look at him with eyes that glinted in the moonlight. “He burned as if with the heat of a thousand pyres, great lord. Fire came through me and took your son in the space of a heartbeat.”

Tahmu's mind reeled. His stomach churned. Incest and death in the same single, passionate act—He trembled and put his sweat-slick, chilled face in his hands, trying to grasp it all. Kevla sat beside him, making no effort to flee.

“I am cursed,” he whispered. “The Dragon has taken everyone that I ever loved. There is none in this world more wretched than I.”

“Yes, there is,” Kevla whispered.

He did not roar his anger. He did not scream his grief. Swiftly, and in terrible silence, he reached for the knife he had dropped, seized Kevla, forced her to the ground and pressed the blade against her throat.

And yet still he hesitated.

“Do it, great lord,” Kevla whispered. “End my misery and avenge your son.”

He straddled her, as his son had before him, trembling not with passion but with agony. Her face remained calm and she closed her eyes. With a bitter oath, he hurled the dagger into the night and rose.

“I cannot kill you,” he said, “My life is yours this night. But oh, Kevla, you do not know what you have done!”

She sat up. Her hand went to her throat and he saw a thin trickle of blood that looked black in the moonlight. Rising, she said, “You mistake me. I know full well what I have done.”

He turned away, shaking his head. “You know only part of it. The rest—by the Great Dragon, it seems I have made mistakes at every turn of my life. Your mother was right.”

The mention of Keishla seemed to jolt Kevla out of her stony grief. “My mother? What does she have to do with this?”

He made his decision and faced her then, looking her in the eye. He observed with dull surprise that she was almost as tall as he was, and he was no short man.

“Your name is not Kevla Bai-sha,” he said. “In a better world, it would have been Kevla-sha-Tahmu.”

Her eyes widened. “You—you are my father?” At his nod, her hand flew to her mouth and she whispered, “Then Jashemi…did he…?”

“He knew,” Tahmu said heavily.

“By the Dragon…that was what he tried to tell me, and I would not let him speak….” She began to cry, sinking slowly to the earth. “
That
was the bond between us.
That
was what we felt, not….”

Tahmu had thought he would enjoy seeing her suffer, but the sight gave him no pleasure. The fury in him was spent. Kevla had not known, and Jashemi had obviously made a deliberate choice to rebel against the laws. The boy's desire for Kevla—his
love,
Tahmu mentally amended, for he knew that Jashemi would not be tempted by any lesser emotion to violate so primal a taboo—had driven him to it. To his surprise, Tahmu found himself kneeling beside his daughter and putting a tentative hand on her bowed shoulder.

“Your mother wanted me to tell you, when you came of age,” he said. “Tell you that you were conceived in love, not out of a base desire. Sahlik wanted you and…and your brother to be together, to know one another. I should not have tried to hide you—hide my own shame, bury my mistakes. And now, I have paid for that, with betrayal in my family and the death of my son.”

Her slim shoulders shook. He rose, looking at her sadly. He had no comfort to offer her.

“You're not a
kuli,
” he said at last. “Nor was Jashemi.
Kulis
have no hearts with which to feel love—or to break. Get up, Kevla. Return to your own fireside, and leave me to my men and my wife.”

She sat up, wiping at her wet face. “Please kill me,” she said. “I can't—I cannot bear this!”

“Your life or death belongs to the Great Dragon now.”

He watched her stumble to her feet, and then slowly walk back toward the encampment. Tahmu's breath caught as she stepped into the heart of the fire, and disappeared.

He sat for a while, alone in the dark, thinking about his life and the choices he had made. What if he had married Keishla? Would the Clan really have been damaged past repair? What if he had brought Kevla openly into the House, not caring what Yeshi thought? Or if, after his wife had discovered Kevla's identity, he had acknowledged his daughter then?

He knew Jashemi's heart, and knew that at the beginning the boy had only wanted to know his sister. If he had been openly encouraged to do so, perhaps this sibling bond would have stayed innocent.

Jashemi…
what if Tahmu had listened to his son's hesitant confession about his dreams instead of threatening? The boy had had no one to turn to who would listen. His traditions offered no acceptance. There was no one for Jashemi, except Kevla.

Decisions made. Opportunities missed. Roads not taken.

And then an image of his son's face swam into his head, and emotions came crashing down on Tahmu. His knees gave way and he fell to the sand and wept, wept for all the poor choices, the lack of faith, the turning away instead of opening. Wept for his son's misplaced passion; wept for his daughter, the unknowing instrument of her brother's death.

Oh my boy, you were the best of us. I am sorry I was not there for you. I'm sorry at my lack of faith, in myself and in you. And now it's too late.

Sounds reached his ears and he realized that someone had awakened. Halid's corpse had no doubt been discovered. It was time to return and explain.

His body felt heavy, stiff. But as he walked slowly back to the now-awakened encampment, something resembling clarity formed in his mind.

Perhaps there was, after all, something he could do to honor his dead son.

 

The advisor stood and surveyed the troops. It would be fanciful to say their solid, well-trained ranks advanced as far as the eye could see, but it was almost accurate. There were thousands of them, at any rate. Their number swelled daily as they conscripted their prisoners from various lands. Fear might not be the best motivator that had ever been conceived, but it served for now. He nodded to the general, indicating his approval.

Horns blew and the troops cheered as their Emperor advanced. It was strange, thought the advisor as he regarded his young lord. The Emperor always looked out of place when he was not indoors. He seemed to gather strength from the shadowed, musty rooms, seeming larger and more intimidating.

But he was the Emperor, and he commanded this magnificent army, and that army had already conquered two lands. If he looked slighter in the sunlight, it was no one's concern. Certainly not his advisor's.

The Emperor rode a magnificent white stallion. It blew and
snorted, pink nostrils flaring, and champed at its golden bit. The Emperor sat straight on his steed, the jeweled crown he wore catching the light and almost blinding the advisor.

The Emperor waited patiently for the cheers to die down. When he spoke, his voice carried much farther than it had any right to, and the advisor felt a chill run down his spine. Just when he was ready to dismiss the Emperor, he did something like this to remind all gathered of his tremendous power.

“We stand poised on the precipice of yet another victory,” he intoned. “Two countries have already fallen before our standard. Arukan must follow. Its people are scattered, and our raids over the mountains have been fruitful indeed. Though a barrier, the mountains are not impossible for our army to cross. We will find these isolated clans and sweep across their desert landscape like a sandstorm. Their pathetic weapons are no match for ours; their warriors pale in comparison to you, my army. We will take their women and goods, settle their lands, and continue to move until this world knows no place that does not fly my standard. I, your Emperor, will ride with you on this glorious moment in our land's history. Arukan will fall!”