Primeval Fire (Scarlet Odyssey, #3)

by C.T. Rwizi

Niko lets out a bloodthirsty battle cry. After Monti’s death at the hands of an Umadi witch, he vowed to wreak vengeance upon their hated neighboring tribe. He’s killed so many in these border skirmishes, and today he will kill again. But he knows no amount of death will ever soothe the rage that smolders within his core.

He doesn’t chase after the fleeing Umadi. He dismounts his stallion and walks to the fallen mystic so he can extract his spear. The man is already dead, eyes bulging like he can’t believe his fate. Niko lifts his weapon and stabs him through his skull for good measure. Freed of its master, the sable antelope trots off into the open wilds. It’s over.

Can’t you accomplish one task without turning it into a battle between independent and orthodox? Must I remind you that those distinctions are meaningless now?

Ilapara presses her fingers against her temples. She used to cover her crimson dreadlocks like an Umadi woman, but since becoming a jungle-dwelling insurrectionist, she’s ditched the veil and taken a liking to wearing haltered tops that leave plenty of room for her skin to breathe. Right now she feels like pulling all her hair out and screaming until her voice box ruptures.

“I joined this resistance because I’m strongly against what the new emperor represents,” she says. “Mystics must not wield political power: plain and simple. It is an inevitable path to tyranny. Already we see it with this usurper, how he punishes anyone who dares disagree with him. We who are blessed by the Mother must bow to the will of the common folk. That is the KiYonte way and a principle I am willing to die for.”

The floating wasp arrests their attention again as it releases a stream of sorcerous light from its crystal, producing a vision that chills the blood in Ilapara’s veins: the emperor himself, wearing a simple crown of moongold, outlined in red light, as though he were standing before them. Damn you, Salo, she curses. Why did you have to be so clever? His ingenious network of mobile mechanical skimmers was the inspiration behind the emperor’s own system of surveillance, except the emperor has had time to refine it.

He and Niko are of a similar height, but Vitari hasn’t been shy about drinking muscle-building tonics to make himself bulge like a hulking gorilla. Even his face is veiny and muscular.

The amphitheater falls still. “Your ears do not deceive you,” the queen says to her spellbound audience. “It was one of us who invited the witch. One of us who orchestrated the deaths of our tribespeople, and that traitor is here, right now.” Only through an enormous feat of self-control does Niko remain silent. The rangers in the Circle shift restlessly on their feet, however, each group eyeing the others suspiciously. Across the amphitheater, VaSiningwe rises to his imposing height, made greater by his spike-maned leopard headdress.

Niko looks to his side; Alinata keeps her eyes forward, though her somber expression tells him volumes. She was with him in the days before his death. She was with him, and she failed to protect him. Following that bitter thought is a guilty one: At least she was there. Where the devil were you?

“AmaSibere is right about one thing,” the queen announces. “I had everything to gain from Musalodi’s sacrifice. We all did. Because of his pilgrimage to Yonte Saire, I and every queen who comes after me shall know mastery over many ancestral gifts, including our own. What you have all just witnessed was the true power of an Ajaha unleashed. Power that I can grant to any of you, that I can also take away.”

As the crowds mutter in disbelief, Niko’s head spins at the implications. If the queen can take and give ancestral talents so easily, no tribe will be able to stand against the Yerezi people. Umadiland will burn like chaff. He relaxes into a nonthreatening posture. “AmaSibere,” he says in a gentle but firm voice, “the Circle has commanded you to drink from the Chalice. Please step down and comply.” Please don’t make me drag you down.

The goblet’s surface shimmers as she brings it to her lips, and then she tips it back and swallows down several gulps of whatever liquid it contains. She wipes her mouth and proffers it back to the Asazi director, but the woman waits, watching the queen closely. Only after some several seconds does she reach forward to accept the Chalice with obvious relief. “The words Her Majesty has spoken are true,” she announces to the amphitheater, and a knot of tension Niko wasn’t aware of loosens in his chest.

AmaSibere looks around the Circle like a hunted woman, her face contorting with hatred. “Curse you, Irediti.” She snatches the Chalice from the director and takes a big gulp, then extends it back, eyes wild with triumph. “There. Are you happy? I’m in—” She drops the Chalice, her words dying on her tongue, and the crowds gasp as AmaSibere’s skin blackens to the color of soot. Burns and blisters erupt all over her face. She scratches frantically at her throat, sinking to her knees, her head tilting up to the sky, nails clawing skin off her neck in strips, and when she tries to scream, she gurgles out a thick, inky fluid. A fetid stench fills the air as her flesh putrefies, rotting off until bone and tendon are visible. No one moves to help her as she collapses to the ground, where she continues to convulse and wither away. Only once she is little more than bones does she fall still, like the rest of the Circle. Niko averts his eyes, nauseated. “The Chalice has found AmaSibere a liar and rendered judgment,” says the solemn director. “May her soul find redemption on the Infinite Path.”

Amid their defeated silence, the queen looks at AmaSibere’s desiccated corpse, then rakes the amphitheater with her eyes. “Let no one here forget the twenty-seven souls who perished due to Sibere treachery. VaSibere chose to destroy his fellow tribesman in order to increase his influence; it is only fitting that he now suffer the very fate he sought to bring down on his neighbor.” She regards the Siningwe chief. “Are you appeased, Great Leopard?” He has just been made the wealthiest and most powerful chief in the Plains, but the rage in his eyes has not dimmed. He levels a finger at the former Sibere chief from a distance. “Be gone from these lands by dark tomorrow, dog, or I will personally take your head off with my blade.”

The nerve, Niko thinks, violence stirring inside him. Salo would probably still be alive were it not for this man. Why should he walk free? Before he does something he’ll regret, Niko reins in his new power; then he returns to his post next to the queen.

“I don’t want your help.” “Even if it means getting your friend back?” Behind her pillar, Ilapara holds her breath. A quiet, dangerous edge enters Tuk’s voice. “Why would you care about him?” “You must know by now what he was,” the woman says. “Truth be told, his death was . . . a waste. Tragic, really. If I’d known what the high mystic was planning, I wouldn’t have worked with him so closely.” She laughs, a short, ironic burst. “I thought I was using him, but in the end, I was just a tool in his scheme for power.”

“I told you, I—” “You were afraid, yes. And that’s just it, isn’t it? Your fear of losing everything was greater than your love for me. But while you lived like a prince, I was a plaything for your master’s friends. Do you know the abuses I suffered?”

Tuk seems to know where he’s headed, so she lets him walk ahead of her despite her misgivings. “Technically, she’s not my sister,” he says once they establish a good pace along what might be a hunter’s trail. “I can’t have a sister. I’m an atmech; I was made, not born. It’s just that our blueprints were extracted from a pair of twins who lived centuries ago, and we were made at the same time. We also came to life with some of their memories. Flashes, really, but enough to recognize each other from that other life.” That makes her your sister in every meaningful definition of the word, Ilapara thinks.

“Mukuni?” she and Tuk say at the same time. He was built to gallop across grassy plains, but he seems at home in these jungles, which is a shock to Ilapara because the last she saw of the totem, he was a metal statue sitting next to the gates of their former Skytown residence. He’d been that way since the night of the Requiem Moon, when he’d battled against and killed an arcane lion, getting injured in the process. With his master dead, Ilapara thought he would have run back to the Plains by now. He stops in front of them as if to block the way forward, a low growl coming from his throat.

Both Ilapara and Tuk lean forward to take a closer look. Salo once wore an amulet that pretended to be an expensive ruby. This stone is somewhat larger, though not of a material she recognizes. Something about it sends a shiver down her spine. “What are we looking at?” she says. “An artifact of Engai’s grace,” Amidi explains. “On the morning of the king’s wedding—may her soul find peace on the Infinite Path—we performed a ritual to catch a soul as it departed its vessel. This specific soul. Your friend’s soul. Everything he ever was, his essence. It is all contained within this rock, by the grace of Engai.”

Ilapara stares at the stone, wondering how a human soul could be contained in something so small. Salo’s soul. Could it be possible? But even if it is, then what?

Niko should leave, end this dream and never return. That would be wise. Instead, he stays and passes the night in the company of an alluring ghost, sinking deeper into this new madness.

“I understand you were good friends with my nephew,” the general says a while later. “I was.” Niko looks down at his sandals, and after a moment he adds, “Though I’d hoped we’d become better than friends in time.” A year ago, he wouldn’t have admitted this out loud. But Salo deserves better than a half-truthful admission about the nature of their relationship.

“I’m glad for you,” Niko says, blinking away the moisture from his eyes. “You need not apologize for finding happiness.” The general’s face softens with gratitude. “Thank you. And Aneniko . . . I’m sorry for your loss.” No one else has acknowledged the personal loss that Niko suffered. Sometimes he wonders if he even has the right to feel the way he feels. He nods, also grateful, and they leave it at that.

She hesitates. “I believe this thing, this signal or whatever it is, it’s calling out to him. Perhaps the only way for him to get better is to answer the call.” “You mean to go to the Faraswa Desert.” She nods. “He suggested going there on his own to investigate, but Niko, I can’t allow it. A teenage Faraswa boy crossing the wilds of Umadiland on his own? He won’t make it. But I don’t know what else to do.” In that moment, a crossroads appears before Niko, a fork in his path that demands he make a choice. He was once offered such a choice not too long ago, and in that instance the path he chose is one he’ll regret for the rest of his life. He won’t make the same mistake again.

They remain locked in an embrace for a time after their climax ebbs, but Ilapara’s impending departure soon settles over them like a cloud. She explained why she has to leave. She still feels like she’s abandoning him.

They bid their last farewells; then Jomo and his Sentinels step back while the ash witch spreads her arms and summons a whirlwind of ash and glowing embers. Ilapara waves at Jomo through the thickening wind; he waves back, but the loss she sees in his eyes makes her question her judgment. She’s found something real here. Why must she leave it to chase ghosts in a foreign land? She’s almost grateful when the ash witch transposes them into the Void, taking the decision out of her hands.

Here was a girl orphaned in a fire just before her third comet, now a queen’s apprentice living in a palace. But these days the palace has lost its sheen. This might have something to do with her monthslong stay in a Skytown mansion where even the plates they dined on were glazed with precious metals. The palace certainly feels rustic in comparison, but she knows the reasons for her disenchantment run deeper than a downgrade in luxury and decor.

“You’re too slow,” Alinata tells them. “Too weak. None of you would last five seconds in a real fight. I have fought tikoloshe. I have faced Umadi war parties. Out on the battlefield the enemy doesn’t care if you’re graceful or pretty to look at. They strike, and if you’re slow or weak, you’re dead. Get any other silly notions out of your head.” The girls say nothing. Unati is now sitting up and massaging her neck. Her eyes have misted over with tears of fury. She doesn’t get it. None of them get it, and they never will. Alinata shakes her head in disgust and leaves the quadrangle to return to the palace.

The tranquility the stranger awoke with morphs into growing disquiet. He moves to open the door; the metal handle is cold to the touch as he twists it to one side. The door opens out into a hall filled with statues, most of which stand in darkness, but the few lit by lanterns at their bases depict fiendish beasts surely drawn from nightmares.

“There’s not much time left. This is all happening sooner than I expected. And I know it may not be enough, but I’ve done all I could for you.” The woman wheezes for breath. “You’re my finest work. How fitting that I shall not live to admire it.”

I’m dead, the stranger realizes with a spasm of terror. This is the land of the dead, and I walk among them. The very air is poisoned, and now that he’s aware of this, he understands that the vibrations he felt earlier, the ones he can still feel, are a poison permeating and penetrating everything around him. Every surface and every wall, killing everything it touches.

His mistress was dead. A muting collar still bound his throat, and he was a convicted criminal. To a born and bred Jasiri, death was preferable to persisting in such disgrace. The last thing he expected was for the emperor to pardon him for his crimes and offer him a place by his side.

“That is the power of a symbol, Kamali. It can condense an entire philosophy, even one built on a foundation of lies, myths, and historical revisionism, into a single uncomplicated idea that can outlast the very empire that gave birth to it. Symbols are how you build militaries, how you convince a peasant to fight, kill, and die on the battlefield for reasons he does not understand, how you give him the pride to say, This is why I’m better than everyone else. Symbols are the bedrocks upon which nations and kingdoms are founded, and you have just let the most powerful symbol of the resistance escape.”

“Not just those in this city, I’m afraid. His fanatical gospel has spread well beyond the borders of the Yontai, and all because I acted too late.” A scowl visits the emperor’s face. “I let him be in my desire to demonstrate a more generous and permissive attitude toward the Faraswa people. But this ‘Meddur the Wise’ has used the developments in the desert to infect his people with dreams of a new awakening, and now we face the possibility of Faraswa emigrating en masse to their old homeland. I’m sure I don’t need to explain why this would be disastrous, do I?”

A defiant fire ignites in her eyes. “And what is it you think I want?” When he fails to answer, she yanks her arm out of his hand. “You overestimate yourself, Jasiri. You’re a friend, but you’re also a firm body, and that’s all I need right now.” He could never give her his heart, not truly. That lies elsewhere. But they are both here in the now, searching for a physical connection to a world that has become strange. Where’s the harm in taking comfort in each other? And it’s not like they haven’t done this before. He drinks her in with his gaze, her skin, her curves, her breasts, and blood rushes to his member. He stares into her eyes and sees his reflection in them. She is lost, but so am I. The last walls of his resistance fall, and he pulls her in, yielding to desire.

He limps deeper into the building, heading for the kitchen. Most of the crystal lamps in here are off. The few that are on illuminate the assortment of artworks arranged in long galleries. He spots more than a few that fell and shattered on the floor. People used to come here to admire these artifacts. Now they shall rot here forever in this poisonous sea.

“Trust your instincts” is what he was told. Right now his instincts are telling him he needs this food. Beyond the kitchen is a small living room with a single couch. He tosses all the food at the foot of the couch and groans as he settles down next to it, stretching out his wounded leg. I’m in the land of the dead, and I’ll join them if I don’t eat. His stomach proves surprisingly accommodating, and he finds that he’s hungry enough to consume the whole loaf and drink every last drop of milk. Weariness envelops him as soon as he’s finished, but he lacks the strength to lift himself up and lie on the couch, so he stretches out on the carpeted floor instead.

Knowing nothing of the Hegemons, the stranger cannot relate to Claud’s excitement. “What did you mean by ‘Corruption,’ Your Lordship?” he asks. “Did you mean the sea of poison killing everything all around us?” Claud appears to consider the words. “I suppose ‘sea of poison’ is as apt a description as any. The Corruption is certainly pervasive. Though it is in truth the lingering echo of the terrible weapon that killed this city. Anathema to all living things. And cogs aren’t usually built to survive it,” he adds, giving the stranger a sidelong glance. “Is that why you’re wearing spectacles? Because your lenses got fried?”

“Apostates!” comes an angry voice from elsewhere in the museum. “We know you’re here. There’s nowhere on earth you can hide from us! We’ll find you!” Luka picks up the stranger and slings him over one shoulder, even as he continues taking the stairs three at a time. He shows no evidence of exertion, but when they finally reach the lobby, he puts the stranger back down and loudly exhales. “You’re heavier than you look,” he says, panting. The stranger tries not to grimace from the pain of being jostled around. “Thank you for the assistance, Your Lordship.”

“By Ama . . .” She’s seen so many inexplicable things in her life at this point. Giant spirits staring at her from across a desert. Moving statues in a pavilion of moongold. By now she should be inured to the seemingly impossible. And yet the vision beyond the window leaves her dizzy, breathless, doubting her own eyes.

This is a sensitive topic for him—Ilapara knows this from experience. She also thinks she’s beginning to see the larger strokes of his plan and can’t help but suffer a strong spasm of disappointment, the feeling that she’s come all this way for nothing. “You want to bring Salo back as an atmech.” “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m not crazy. I know how it sounds, but it’ll work.” “I don’t see how,” she says. “Tuk, you once told me you were built from the memory of someone who lived long ago, but you’re not the same person. That means whoever your creator makes won’t be Salo but a shade.” “That’s just it,” Tuk says. “You’re right; I’m a flawed copy of a dead man. I have his face, I have some of his memories and quirks of personality, but my soul, if you believe in such a thing, is different from his.” Tuk unearths a familiar yellow stone from a pocket on his pants. “Salo’s true self is preserved in this stone. Not a copy but him. His true essence. His consciousness. When my creator builds a body around it, the person who’ll emerge will be, for all intents and purposes, the Salo we both know.”

“Sounds like Yonte Saire, then.” “Except with more drugs, assassins, blackmail, and deceit,” Tuk says. “Anyone who has power here has blood on their hands.”

A lissome young woman in nothing but nightclothes rushes by, but Aram catches her by the arm before she can go farther and pulls her closer. They speak in hushed voices, both glancing in Ilapara’s direction, and when the woman looks over with an intrigued smile, it’s all Ilapara can do not to try to hide behind Tuk. She might have crossed the desert to a strange land, but she knows a brothel when she sees one. The young woman finally notices Tuk and makes an excited little squeal, moving to embrace him. They kiss each other on the cheek like casual friends, but she must be busy, because she waves him goodbye and returns to whatever she was doing before they met her. Tuk and Aram speak for a little while longer, and then Tuk takes Ilapara by the hand and leads her up a staircase to an unoccupied room on the third floor, a sanctuary of silks and velvet upholstery.

“So you worked here,” Ilapara says, dreading the answer. “Not in the way you’re probably thinking,” Tuk replies with an amused smile. “This isn’t just a brothel, you know. It’s a house of entertainment. There’s food, music, gambling. Sex, too, but for once I wasn’t on the menu. I ran errands, mostly. Served drinks. Spied on the patrons. Dealt with dangerous threats. Aram owes me more than a few favors for the work I did here.” Tuk pauses, hesitating. “And fine, maybe I did sleep with him, but that was a choice, not an expectation. I can see on your face you’re worried he took advantage of me, but that’s not what happened at all.” Ilapara isn’t completely convinced, but a knot of anxiety loosens in her gut. “So you were lovers?” “We slept together. There’s a difference. We stopped when we became good friends. I don’t sleep with people I genuinely care about.” She lifts an eyebrow, confused and disturbed. “Are you telling me you didn’t care for Alinata?” “Not when we were still sleeping together,” Tuk says, then shrugs. “She was a stranger back then. We stopped when it looked like we might . . .” His eyes fall to his palms, and then the palms ball into fists. “What does it matter now? She betrayed us. And besides, meaningless sex is what I know. It’s all I’m supposed to be, and for years, it was all I was. I’m trying to work my way out of that, but it’s not easy. The best I can do for now is keep sex from tainting any friendships I care not to lose.”

Definitely not an auspicious design to Salim’s eyes, yet the ship bears an aged, perhaps antiquated look. The hull is a patchwork of different-colored metal, as though parts of it have been slowly replaced over many years. A shield of energy surrounds the ship so thickly Salim can almost see it as an aurora of swirling colors repelling the Corruption. A powerful mind core sits at the heart of the field, a locked and barricaded door designed to resist unauthorized influences, but Salim is certain he could break through with ease. He shoves that thought aside.

This other man might have been handsome once. The left side of his face is a study in strong, well-proportioned masculine features, unblemished and rosy in complexion. He has the slender frame of a huntsman, with luxuriant copper hair neatly combed into a side parting. The other half of his face, however, is missing. Flesh and skin have been peeled away to reveal the skull beneath—a skull that shimmers grotesquely with the luster of brass. His forearms are monstrosities of metal shafts and wires, poking out of his sleeveless blue coveralls, devoid of flesh and tendons.

I’m not human. He can’t be, for surely no human would treat another in such a way. “Welcome to the Ataraxis, cog,” comes the Professor’s voice. “It seems you’re more interesting than I assumed, to have survived Adamus intact. I don’t care what the captain says. I will know all your secrets even if I must tear you limb from limb.” There are footsteps and then silence. I’m not human, Salim thinks again. I’m a thing, to be beaten and dissected and broken. A toy. A machine. A cog, like Adamus. I’m not real.

Ilapara feels out of place, so she’s surprised when she receives a few admiring glances. Maybe Tuk was right about the dress, she thinks morosely and wishes she’d had the wisdom to bring a coat.

As applause breaks at the end of the dance, she makes the mistake of locking eyes with a spectator across the room, a large-bosomed woman in an imperious sapphire gown and raven hair piled up elaborately. Her already pale skin seems to drain of color, and it’s only belatedly that Ilapara realizes that the woman isn’t staring at her at all but at Tuk. She nudges him with an elbow to catch his attention, but she needn’t have; he’s already staring back at the woman with coal-black eyes. “I believe we’ve caught the host’s attention,” he says. He drains his glass in a few gulps and hands it over to a passing servant. “Shall we say hello?”