Jo Clayton: The Burning Ground

Luca nodded to Zell, then to Zaro in the other bed. She brought her hand around and held out the case of Tale Cards. “We need you to read for us, Heka.”

Wann brought Wintshikan the Heka’s Shawl, setting it about her shoulders. +It’s important.+

Wintshikan took the case, looked at it, looked up at Luca. “What is it?”

Luca clasped her hands behind her. “It’s because you’ve got the sight, Heka, you always had it even when you wouldn’t believe what you saw.” She turned her head so she could see the others. “Well?”

Hidan and Nyen were standing with their backs against the panels. Hidan signed. +All clear. Go ahead.+

Luca nodded, fixed her eyes on Wintshikan. “Remember what I said when we saw… um… the ocean for the first time?” Her mouth twitched into a brief, taut smile. “A fern offered us a chance to redeem that pledge. I want to know is the chance real or is she pulling something for reasons I can’t see.”

“She?” Wintshikan slipped the cards from the case, unwrapping the silk scarf folded around them. She set the case on the bed beside Zell, spread out the scarf, sat holding the cards.

“A Pixa fem. She said she was the one in the song, the little gray ghost. I think maybe she is. You look in her eyes, and it’s cold as winter and you see a hungry boyal thinking you’re food.” She shivered.

“You and Wann, Nyen and Hidan, you’re thinking of going with her. Is Xaca?”

“No. We’ve talked it over, she wants to stay with Kanilli; us, we don’t have daughters to worry about. I want this, Heka. You know how much.”

“I know.” Wintshikan murmured the blessing over the cards and shuffled them. She lifted her head. “Let it be my touch alone. I am Shishim. The last of Shishim.”

With a jagged gesture, Luca called the others around her. They stood together, shoulders touching shoulders, watching as Wintshikan cut the cards and laid them out on the bed beside Zell.

Wintshikan’s breath quickened as she saw the base card was no longer the black oval of formal Death, but a sign of approval. She touched the card with the tip of her forefinger. “This defines us. As you can see, it is the Fire on the Altar. This that you do, Luca, Wann, Nyen, Hidan, you do in the service of God.” She moved her finger to the first of the three cards in the middle row. “These are the determinants that mark the days to come. The first card is a warning. The SkyFire. Danger, quickness, the unexpected coming at you. Be fast on your feet and never forget to look behind you. The second describes that which surrounds you. It is the Cauldron which brews both poison and health. Think well what you do. The third is the Gateway that looks forward and back. Again a choice. A turning point. I can’t tell you what to do because I don’t know what that choice will be. Whatever you decide, you will have my blessing and Zell’s.”

She touched the first card in the top row. “These are the guides to direct us to the Right, Path. The Egg. Out of your actions in the days to come a new world will be born. The Balance. If I read this true, the War will end, and life will right itself at long last. It may be what I want to see, but my heart says this will happen.”

She moved the remaining “cards from her lap, set them on the white sheet beside Zell, and got to her feet with some difficulty, her joints protesting. Eyes blurring with tears, she hugged each of them hard, held each for a long moment before she let her or xe go. Then she stepped back. “Go with God and the blessing of Shishim.”

Lightning welds and sunders, casts light and dark. A call to quickness of mind, eyes, and hand.

Shadith inspected what she’d drawn, closed her eyes, and dug into memory for more details about the Ptak-km base. She added another group of small houses to the complex beyond the Control Center, wiped at the sweat trickling from her hairline, and glanced at the sky.

The day was hot, and the air in this mountain pocket hardly moved. The sun had sunk behind the pointed tops of the conifers surrounding the meadow, and a few clouds were drifting into the ragged circle of blue overhead. No sign of Yseyl. She glanced at the locals squatting by a small fire, passing around a pan of stewed tea and talking quietly, all but young Zot who was moving restlessly about, jumping the stones in the creek on the far side of the meadow, squatting to toss pebbles at the fish that made thin wavery shadows in the clear water.

She watched Zot a moment, frowning. When she’d objected to having her involved in this business, Yseyl’s face had gone dark with anger and her eyes had a glitter that said I won’t listen to this. So she let it drop.

Zot aside, it was an odd team Yseyl had brought, two Imps and four Pixas, and it should have been too explosive to work. The only thing they shared was being hohekil.

The mals were Impix brothers from a farm outside Gajul. Khimil and Syon. After the farm was burned to the dirt and the rest of the family killed by Pixa phelas, Khimil and Syon lived in Gajul a while, then began working their way along the coast as sailors, cutpurses, laborers, whatever it took to survive. Yseyl said they hated the war, hated the Fence so much they’d work with anyone to drop it, even Pixas, though it did help that these Pixas were ferns and anyas. They were short and wiry, hunger and rage lines aging their angular, bony faces, and they were seldom still, hands busy, eyes moving continually.

Luca and Wann, Nyen and Hidan looked calmer, though that was all surface; beneath the skin there was the same anger and determination. They were more uneasy about this collaboration than the brothers, but they were also intensely focused on the goal.

Shadith began making star crosses to indicate the trees growing on the slopes leading up to the rim of the caldera, trying to get the patches in proper orientation with the settlement. It passed the time and until Yseyl got back, she had nothing to say to the team. If Yseyl bothered to return. She couldn’t be sure about that; the thread of trust between the little gray ghost and her was very fragile indeed.

“What’s that?”

Shadith looked up. Zot was standing beside her, hands clasped behind her back as she scowled at the drawing.

“A map. I’m trying to remember everything and set it down.”

“That’s where we’re going?”

“Mm.”

“Is that a wall, that outside line?”

“Of a kind. Do you know about volcanoes?”

Zot snorted. “I may be an orphan, but I’m not ignorant.”

“Well, this is supposed to be the rim around one of them. These squiggles here, they’re supposed to be trees growing on the slopes that lead up to the rim. We’ll go to ground in them once we get there and wait for things to get quiet.”

“Hunh.” Syon had drifted over from the fire while she was talking. “What’s that got to do with taking the Fence down?”

“When Yseyl gets back, I’ll explain. No point in repeating myself. But if you want, I’ll tell you about the map now.”

His grin wiped the hardness from his face, and she realized quite suddenly how young he was. “Hoy!” he yelled, “Khimil, rest of you, come over, take a look at this.”

Shadith drew her finger along the outer line. “The Ptak base sits at the bottom of this caldera like soup in the bottom of a bowl. It’s near the end of the mountain range we’re sitting in right now. About as far north as you can go.”

Luca frowned. “How many days’ travel?”

“Riding? Probably more than a month. We won’t be riding, we’ll be flying.” She flickered her fingers in anya laughter. “Offworld machines. One-way trip is around three hours. But it’ll take at least two trips to ferry you all there, so getting everyone into place ready to go will use up the afternoon and most of the night. We won’t be moving on the base until…” She raised her head as she heard the hum of lifters, reached out, relaxed as she touched Yseyl. The ghost was flying low, beneath the treetops, so Ptak cameras wouldn’t catch her.