Kate Elliott - Cold Fire

A thousand pins would not have made the skin along my neck and back prickle more violently. I slowly turned my head.

A woman sat cross-legged on the bank under the canopy of a massive yew tree whose wide crown and split trunk I had, strangely, not noticed until just now. She simply sat, saying nothing, looking over the river, her hands folded peacefully in her lap. She had the look of the locals who lived in the countryside northeast of Adurnam: tightly curled black hair with a reddish cast, dark brown skin, and brown eyes, features that spoke of Celtic forebears as well as West African ones. It was her ordinariness that made me uneasy. She was dressed in the commonplace, practical summer clothing of the villages: a skirt sewn from bright cloth printed with red and orange paisleys on a butter-yellow fabric and bulky from petticoats beneath, and a high-necked blouse with a kerchief tucked around the collar. The apron she wore over all looked recently laundered, not a stain or a crease. She held a strip of fabric of the same pattern as the skirt. Folding it, she deftly bound it over her hair to create three decorative peaks in the fabric.

Perhaps I sucked in air too hard.

She turned. Her eyes widened with the same surprise I had felt a moment before.

Hers was a face that arrested the gaze. It had a familiar look to it, especially about the eyes, which were deeply lashed and finely formed. I trusted that face at once, although I knew I ought to trust nothing here.

“Greetings and peace to you, Aunt,” I said, for there is never any harm in being polite. “Is all well with you?”

Bee’s hand tightened on mine.

The woman spoke in a voice I had heard before. “No trouble, through my power as a woman. And you, bride of my grandson? I did not expect to find you so quickly.”

Bee tugged on my hand. “Run.”

“Do I know you?” I asked, for I was dumbfounded, although not struck dumb.

“Before this, one time I and you have met. I am Vai’s grandmother.”

I don’t know how many times I blinked, or how wide my mouth gaped. Bee’s tugging on my arm grew quite insistent, until I realized she intended to rip off my arm if I did not do something.

“Are you a spirit sent to confuse and tempt me?” I asked, and added hastily, “No offense intended. It’s just a question.”

The woman held out a necklace. A locket shone as if sunlight burnished it, although the silvery sky revealed no sun.

“That’s my locket! With my father’s portrait.” I pulled my arm out of Bee’s grasp.

“Cat!” Bee lunged, pinning my hand to the ground. “Don’t you dare take it!”

The locket dangled like deadly fruit from the woman’s hand. “To walk with wisdom and caution in the spirit world is wise,” she said. “This amulet Vai tucked in my hand. He gave it to me after he made an offering to the ancestors. He asked me to look for you. He thought this locket might draw me and you together.”

“Who are you?” demanded Bee.

“Do not speak your true name aloud in the bush. The creatures who live here eat names as well as blood. You can call me Fati.”

I twisted out of Bee’s grip, snatched the locket, and opened it. The image of Daniel Hassi Barahal, with his black curls and ironic smile, stared at me. When I touched the locket to my lips, I knew this was my very own locket. I had been forced to trade it to two girls in Four Moons House in exchange for their getting me out through a locked door.

“How did Vai obtain this?” I asked as I slipped it over my head.

“He did not tell me. He asked me to find you and guide you, for I know a little of the bush. Already I find you on open ground where any spirit animal may eat you.” She lifted a scolding finger. “You must stay on the path. Or on warded ground.”

“We were in Adurnam an hour ago,” said Bee. “How can he have been at your village? How could he even know we fell into the well? Cat, you need to give that locket back.”

“He came down the well after us, trying to help us, Bee. I haven’t had time to tell you yet.” I surveyed the woman for signs of razor teeth or hidden tentacles. This was not the frail old grandmother whose bedside I had attended in the village of Haranwy on Hallows’ Night. Here, in the spirit world, she appeared as a younger woman in the prime of life, old enough to be the age of my mother, had my mother lived, but not so old that she had begun to bend beneath the burden of age. Vai had the same beautiful eyes. “He would have come after us into the spirit world, but because it wasn’t one of the cross-quarter days, he couldn’t cross. It’s so obvious!”

“What’s obvious?” demanded Bee.

“He went home to ask the hunters of his village to hunt for me in the spirit world.”

“His actions you understand perfectly,” said his grandmother.

“It’s what I would do, in his place,” I said.

“Very noble of you, I’m sure, Cat,” retorted Bee, “but it must be many days’ ride from Adurnam to his village, so he can’t have gotten there yet.”

“The days pass differently here. An hour here might be a week there. He would have plenty of time to go ask his kinsmen for help. I understand the locket is a talisman. But I don’t understand how you are come here, Grandmother.”

She said nothing. Heat settled over us in a sweltering mantle.

“You must be dead.” My words emerged stiffly.

Bee sat back with an exhalation.

Fati looked at me, still saying nothing.

“He must have found you when you were dying. Because the dead cross over into the spirit world, he asked you to seek me out once you got here. I never thought…” My fingers curled over the locket. “If you’re here, then my parents are here somewhere as well. I could find them.”

“Maestressa, please forgive our bad manners.” Bee shifted forward. “I hope you suffered no pain. I hope we find you at peace. I’m sorry.”

“For what are you sorry?” she said with a gentle smile. “The crossing awaits us all.”

Belatedly I lowered my gaze, as one did with elders. I absolutely believed she was who she claimed to be, although I could not explain why. “My apologies, Grandmother. You and the villagers helped me at great risk to yourselves. When I said I wasn’t sure I could trust you, when I was there in your house, I didn’t mean it to be rude.”

“Mmm. Yes. You were rude. But you were frightened, and you are young. We all make mistakes.”

“You are generous to forgive me.”

“Have I forgiven you? I choose to help Vai because he is a very good boy.”

“He wasn’t that good of a boy,” I muttered. “He was arrogant, contemptuous, and unkind.”

“Then he forgot the manners his mother and I taught him.” She bent a gaze on me that made me duck my head like a scolded child. “Do you appreciate what he has done? To come so far, against the will of the mansa, is no light choice for him.”

“I appreciate his efforts to make sure Four Moons House doesn’t recapture us. But I can’t believe the mansa would do anything to harm such a powerful young cold mage.”

“I do not believe you comprehend what he risks for you. You think you know what it means to be born into clientage, to be bound by law and custom to serve another, but you do not know.”

“We in the Kena’ani are raised to serve our households,” I retorted, not nearly as belligerently as I might have. “As I did, when my aunt and uncle gave me to Four Moons House against my will. They would have given me to whatever cold mage came to collect me. It happened to be him.”

“Do you suppose that was chance? Your destiny was chosen before you were born.”

“I don’t believe that!”

“I don’t either,” said Bee stoutly, and loyally. “Although I do have to wonder why I was cursed with this gift of dreaming.”