The Hidden Fire (Book 2) Read online

  He pulled a pistol and used it as a pointer. “So yes, it comes to this, but you don’t know what this is. This is my way out. I’m going to make enough money off of this to retire. And not to a one-room cottage — more like a cozy villa in the Syrolian Alps.”

  He waved away a circling fly and lowered his voice. “Look, I know this is a shitty job. But it’s only a matter of grit your teeth and get through it, and then it will be raining gold. So do us all a favor, Candy. Take the oath and make your mark and we can get on with it.”

  Aiyan stared at him. “What makes you think that a decent man could tolerate this for even a minute? You’re trafficking in human lives, kidnapping innocent folk and sacrificing them so you can make a kandar. It’s an abomination.”

  Lerica glanced sidelong at Kyric, a touch of panic in her eyes. What was Aiyan doing?

  “And my name isn’t Candy. I am Sir Aiyan Dubern of the Order of the Flaming Blade.”

  Thurlun let out a short bark of a laugh. “That’s the worse lie I’ve ever heard. They don’t give knighthoods to war criminals. And that’s what we were — and still are — guilty, but pardoned.”

  “That was fifteen years ago,” said Aiyan. “A man can make much of himself in that time if he hasn’t poisoned his own spirit. But I really don’t care if you believe me. I’ve lost all the respect I ever had for you.”

  Thurlun stiffened. “You think you’re all high and mighty now, do you? A decent man, you say? Well I can look into your eyes and see that you’re still a killer, and that you never stopped being one. I recognized it right away back then, when you first asked to sign on; that’s why I took you despite your youth. You want to know the real reason they called you Candy? It wasn’t about the peppermint sticks. It was so they didn’t have to call you Killer, because they could all see how easy it was for you. But I saw one thing the others didn’t. When you would get the shakes after a raid, everyone thought it was just regular nerves, but I knew it was the backlash of the thrill. For you, it was better than having a woman, and you would bide your time till the next one.”

  He turned to Kyric. “Hey, arrow boy. How long have you been working for this man?”

  Kyric shrugged. He was happy to let Thurlun think him a hireling. “A few months.”

  “And how many men has he killed in that time?”

  Kyric couldn’t help but think about it. In less than a fortnight Aiyan had killed eight men in Aeva. But they were all men who had sided with evil. And he had to judge himself before he could judge Aiyan. He had killed three in a matter of minutes.

  Kyric didn’t say anything, and Thurlun looked at him more closely. “I see. You’re one of us as well. A killer in training. Bet you never killed anyone till you met him.”

  He turned back to Aiyan. “You’re even passing it on to the next generation. Like a decent man would.”

  Aiyan didn’t move. “At least we don’t do it for money.” He spat out the last word.

  “We’ll see what you do it for,” Thurlun said with a rising fury. He slammed down the dogs on his pistol and pointed it at Aiyan.

  Aiyan simply stood there, looking at Kyric. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “It is the moment of the tower.”

  “Guppy! Harlon! Get out here now and bring a pair of manacles.”

  Thurlun went to stand behind Aiyan, but the silver locket dangling below Aiyan’s sash caught his eye. He fingered it for a moment, then asked, “Pocket watch?” When Aiyan said nothing he tried to open it. He removed the chain from around Aiyan’s neck and looked at the locket closely, feeling all over it for a secret clasp.

  “How do you open it?”

  Aiyan wouldn’t even look at him.

  “What is in this?” Thurlun snapped.

  “The hidden fire of the spirit,” Aiyan said. “The only place you will ever see it is on the edge of my sword.”

  Guppy and Harlon came out with the irons. Thurlun told them, “You two chain Candy to the stump by his left wrist. He’ll need his killing hand free.”

  The smoothly sawed-off stump of a great canopy tree lay in the middle of the camp, a huge iron ring fixed in its center. They manacled Aiyan there, with Guppy, a mountain of a man, bucking the tails of the rivets with one blow of his hammer. They gave him just enough chain to take one step.

  “The game begins in the morning, Candy,” Thurlun called to him, still holding the locket. “And we will all see what you are. Before this is over, you will kill an innocent man in order to save the guilty.”

  “It is him,” Lerica whispered, her voice cold as the grave.

  “Who?”

  “The Cutter. It is him.”

  The stump lay on ground that didn’t see shade until the shadows grew long. As the sun swung low the overseers clapped and the slaves went into a bustle, finishing their work and putting away their tools as if a boogey man would soon come out.

  Ral and Guppy busied themselves at a tree opposite the little island. Rigging like that on a ship’s mast ran from the top of the tree. A rope led to one block and tackle, looped through another one and ended at a long object that leaned over the water. It was a drawbridge. They lowered it and the slaves walked across it in ones and twos, Ral cursing and telling them to hurry.

  Thurlun came over to Kyric and Lerica. “Before I untie you, I want you to know that the crocodiles are very active at night. They’re big, and they’re man-eaters. Do not go near the water’s edge at night.”

  Kyric looked him in the eyes. The man wasn’t lying.

  Tebble, the one Kyric had fought with, came rushing out of nowhere growling, “You fucking son of a bitch,” throwing a haymaker swing aimed right for his nose.

  Thurlun stepped in and caught his arm. “Whoa. What’s this about?”

  Tebble was unusually red on his forehead and around his right eye. “He rubbed something in my face. It’s killing me.”

  “You’ll live,” said Thurlun. “Go smear mud on it like the natives do.”

  Harlon led them to the bridge. It was a stripped tree-trunk that had been split and folded back, with a few rough planks set crossways to hold it together. They were the last to cross. It was narrow, and it wobbled. The waters of the swamp rippled. Creatures moved beneath the surface as twilight began to fall.

  The Terrulans all stared in wonder at Kyric. A foreigner akin to their captors, thrown in with slaves. They stepped aside as he walked among them. Then a skinny old woman with close-cut hair stood before him, surprise on her face as she greeted him in Cor’el.

  ‘You are even younger here than on the other side,’ she said-signed. ‘With your power, I thought you would be older than me.’

  ‘Who are you?’ he returned.

  ‘I am the one who dreamed you here. I am Rolirra.’

  CHAPTER 9: Dreamers

  Kyric blinked and looked again. It was her, only she was thirty years older. “I knew you were real,” he said, though she didn’t understand him.

  ‘How is it,’ he said-signed, ‘that we have walked together in our dreams?’

  ‘We are Ilven,’ she replied. ‘We are the clan of dreamers.’ She smiled wearily. ‘Everyone is tired and hungry. We will talk at the meeting place after we have eaten.’

  Beneath a group of trees in the middle of the island, a cooking table had been fashioned out of tree limbs and mud. Above a bed of coals in its center, thick slabs of fish roasted on a buccan of green wood. Rolirra said some sort of blessing over it, which was echoed by the circle of Terrulans, then it was handed out, with palm leaves for plates.

  It was bland, yet fishy in taste, but otherwise alright. Suddenly mad with hunger, Kyric wolfed his down and licked the remaining flakes from his leaf. Someone brought him more. Apparently there wasn’t any shortage of fish around here.

  “Why do I get the feeling,” he said to Lerica, “that we’re eating fillet of angel ray?”

  She didn’t say anything. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and licked it clean. “What in hell is wrong with Aiyan
?” she whispered savagely. “All he had to do was agree to work for them — “

  “I know, I know.” Kyric let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why he didn’t do that.”

  Clouds of mosquitoes gathered over the island. A big round moon began to peek over the treetops as the last light faded in the west. “Great,” said Lerica. “The moon will be full tomorrow night.”

  “And will you turn into a bird and fly away?” he said, thinking of the fairy tale about the woodcutter.

  “No bird. But I might fly.”

  He was about to ask her what she meant by that, when Rolirra came over and sat down beside him.

  ‘I do not know how I found you on the other side,’ she said-signed. ‘I was looking for another, the dream master of our clan. But you are like a — ‘

  She used a sign Kyric didn’t know.

  Lerica translated. “Sinkhole.”

  ‘ — a sinkhole that draws all the waters around it. How is it that you can — ’ she searched for simple signs, ‘ — carry things from one side to the other?’ She showed him a discolored patch on her leg. ‘This is from the firebird. It came from the other side. This is called — ‘ she said the word, “Ti’ilve.” ‘Only the elder dreamers from the time before the days of cold could do this.’

  Kyric held out his hands. ‘It is nothing I try to do. When I was young, I was — ‘ he couldn’t think of the right sign-sounds, ‘ — I was touched by a power that cannot be known.’

  She was quiet for a moment. ‘I am sorry. All this time I thought you were a master dreamer, knowingly coming to aid us. You always found a new way, even when I was lost.’ She laid on her back then, patting the ground next to her. ‘Come. We shall see if we can go to the meeting place together.’

  Apparently, the meeting place was in the dream world. All around the cluster of trees, the other Terrulans were bedding down in small groups. He laid next to her and closed his eyes. She covered the tip of his little finger with hers.

  After a day like today, he knew he couldn’t easily fall asleep. He didn’t understand what Aiyan was doing. If he had no respect for Thurlun, then he had nothing to prove. Had he simply lost his temper? Wasn’t their freedom and safety worth one day of working with slave-takers? If it was only a trick to get away, it wouldn’t make them real slavers, would it? Would it?”

  “It poisons your heart the first time you allow another to treat a person as property,” said Rolirra

  They sat in the shade of a great tree beneath a mild summer sky. The wind blew, and sunlight ran in iridescent waves across a grassy slope leading down to a village, one of a chain of villages surrounding the hill, all connected by gardens thick with fruited trees and blossoming vines.

  “But they would use your people as slaves whether I was among them or not. It wouldn’t change what is happening.” He looked at her. She was young and beautiful as she was in the other dreams, and he was older and stronger once again.

  “It would change what is happening to you. You would have to send men to their deaths. If you thought in your heart that you were not a slaver, you would still be one with your hands. And how would you wash that blood away?”

  He remembered the river of blood.

  “I see,” he said. And he repeated what Aiyan had told him: “All battles are battles of the spirit.”

  “That is wisdom.”

  “Not my words.”

  The trunk of the tree had a girth of many arm spans, splitting into dozens of branches that arched far into the field. Shining golden moss ran in patterns through the wrinkled bark, and the leaves glowed like green lights. There were others sitting beneath it as well, and Kyric recognized many as slaves from the camp. Some of them stood and went down the hill.

  “I am glad we could come here together,” Rolirra said. The dream tree lies very close to the other side. For those of my clan, this is the beginning place. I was surprised when I went through and found myself in the desert of light.”

  “Why didn’t you speak of this when we first met?”

  “The farther you go, the more the memory fades. If you go deep enough, you lose your other self. It is the same on both sides.”

  He nodded. “In the desert, I didn’t realize I was dreaming. It felt like I was in the waking world.”

  She looked at him seriously. “You do not understand. It is all a dream. Only there are two aspects to it. One balances the other. This is the first lesson we teach to our children.”

  She stood and picked a leaf from the tree. It shone even brighter in her hand. She blew on it and it floated upward, caught on a current of air, and drifted away like a feather.

  “We must find a way to free our other selves,” she said, “or we will die there. Then we could only be here.”

  Kyric grinned in surprise. “Are you saying that when we die there, we do not die here?”

  “Yes. It is the same on both sides of the dream.”

  She led him around to the other side of the tree. The trunk had split open, revealing a hollow inside. It was wide enough for a man to pass.

  “This is the first door,” she said. “It leads to the caves of many ways. From there you can find many places. I want you to come with me to the rainland plateau.”

  “Why?”

  “So that you can bring rain to the other side.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “You know that when I carry things to the other side, they become much less that what they were. The fire breath of the salamanders came across only as a sunburn.”

  “The rains of the plateau are punishing.”

  A breeze shook the dream tree and the glowing leaves twinkled. The light danced in Rolirra’s eyes.

  “What good would the rain do?” Kyric asked.

  “It would drive them away. The river would rise, and the swamp would rise. When they overflowed, the evil men would have to go. They would have to take their evil treasure and leave, or else drown. They were on the verge of this when the wet season ended. It would not take many days of rain.”

  “Wouldn’t you drown as well?”

  “No,” she said simply. “The island will hold us up. It will ride on the water.”

  She was obviously getting confused, mixing what could happen in the dream world with the real. “Maybe it would here,” he said, “but on the other side, earth doesn’t float.”

  She placed her hands on her hips. “It does.”

  With his memory of the real world intact now, he suddenly felt uncomfortable with Rolirra’s near nakedness. She’s really an old woman, he told himself, but he had to look away nonetheless.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “The man they have chained in the camp will free us soon. It looks bad now, but Aiyan is an extraordinary man. He is a true warrior and a master of weird arts. The rain is not needed. So do not worry — when the time is right, Aiyan will see us rescued and the slavers undone.”

  Rolirra was unconvinced. “That may be so. But it may not. Their leader is clever as a demon. He has a power.”

  Thurlun did seem to have a way of looking right into you, Kyric thought.

  He threw himself down in the grass. “Come. Let’s just lie here for a while. It’s been a hard day.”

  She knelt beside him and patted his hand. “Tomorrow will be even harder.”

  CHAPTER 10: Slaves

  He awoke at first light to the sound of a bell, thinking for a moment that he was aboard Calico. Then he opened his eyes and sat up, suddenly furious — furious that this place existed, furious that Dorigano could be blissfully ignorant that this was happening so near to him. He was angry at Lerica for coming along. He was angry at Aiyan for letting them be captured. He was angry at Rolirra for guiding him here, and he was angry at himself for helping her do it.

  Aiyan still sat on the stump, unmoved from when Kyric had seen him in the light of last night’s moon.

  The remaining fish from the night before had been wrapped in leaves and set atop the cooking table, and now everyone filed by the table to gulp
down a handful and get to the drawbridge before Guppy and Harlon finished lowering it. Their urgency made it clear that they would be punished for not being ready to go as soon as it was down.

  The morning was moist and smelled vaguely of rotting leaves. The Terrulans shuffled across the bridge, holding their irons up with one hand so that they wouldn’t catch on the cross pieces. Kyric wondered if crocodiles really waited below the bridge. He also wondered how well any of them could swim in a set of those shackles.

  The slaves went to their assigned areas, where guards already awaited them. Ral and another man stood at the river, each shouldering a long pike, and Tebble loitered near the tables. Pacey and the other sharpshooter, a man with only one ear, climbed to their posts in the trees. Rolirra and an even older woman, the only Ilven without shackles, apparently stayed on the island. There was a latrine to maintain, and soon, no doubt, more rays to prepare for supper.

  Harlon stopped the last slave across the bridge, signaled Kyric and Lerica to come across, and escorted them to the stump where Thurlun waited with Aiyan.

  “Here’s the game,” Thurlun said to Aiyan, pushing the slave close to him. “Kill this man and you all go free. No strings attached. It’s as simple as that.”

  Aiyan raised his manacled wrist. “With one empty hand?”

  Thurlun laughed. “I knew you would say that. Please don’t try to make me believe you need a weapon. We both know you could snap his neck in a second.”

  The slave looked at Aiyan and smiled cautiously. He didn’t know a word of Avic.

  Aiyan met Kyric’s eye at last and said, “Is he telling the truth?”

  “I believe he is,” Kyric said. “But I don’t understand.”

  Aiyan answered him, but he looked at Thurlun. “If I murdered this gentle man, who is guilty of nothing but being made a slave, I would have nowhere to go and I would belong to nothing. I would no longer be a Knight of the Flaming Blade. It would make me the killer he thinks I am, and I would be his once again.”