The Burning City (Spirit Binders) Read online

  I leaned against her. Parech polished off the spirits, and I shared the amant with Tulo. The air at this time of night, so close to the ocean, had gone from brisk to frigid, but someone had built a bonfire, and so we crowded around it with the others who were too reluctant or too intoxicated to go home.

  “I don’t think,” I whispered to Tulo late that night, “that he is a bad man.”

  She put her arm around my shoulders and frowned thoughtfully. Somehow she knew who I meant. “You heard what Parech said. You heard what he did.”

  “But so did all the others. Can you truly hate every Maaram soldier?”

  “Yes. Maybe. It doesn’t matter, Aoi.” She hesitated and then flung the ashes of our amant into the bonfire.

  “If he is not a bad man, then there are no bad men.”

  For the next two nights, a young and swarthily handsome, but otherwise nondescript, Maaram trader spent and lost some modest sums in the gaming pens. The cocks he bet on were not obviously infirm, but a sound judge could have told him to bet more wisely. He chatted with the soldiers who had come there to gamble, trading innocuous stories about the sea routes and troubles in Essel. The second night, after his third loss in so many hours, the trader asked a nearby officer for advice on his next choice. The officer was happy to oblige, and their chosen cock dispatched the other with a savage swipe across its stomach that sprayed intestines and entrails all over the sandcovered pen. The officer bought the trader a cup of cane spirits in mutual celebration, and the two parted on friendly terms.

  Parech was sure that Taak thought nothing of him, but would remember him clearly when the time came. And, more importantly, so would the other commanding officers who attended the cockfights with Taak. And then, finally, it was my turn. Parech had spent several days combing the city for the perfect clothes. He said it mattered more for me than he or Tulo because so much of my story depended on Taak’s perception of my station. No matter that I was some Kukichan country bumpkin—a bit of Parech’s magic, and I’d become a highborn Esselan lady in temporarily dire straits. In the end, the man selling the clothes that Parech wanted demanded an inordinate length of sennit braid and would not take salt, so Tulo had to reprise her role as street-corner spirit talker to earn the rest. Parech bound my hair in braids and pinned it like ropes to my scalp. He tied a shimmering rope of clamshells around my ankle and draped me in a tunic of patterned purple barkcloth in the Esselan style. This was a marvel of ingenuity, because the cloth he found was stained and distressed in precisely the way you’d expect of someone who had been nearly drowned in the ocean. Though I spoke Esselan with perfect fluency, I’d never been there and had not the slightest idea of how their ruling class dressed. Parech assured me that Taak had even less of an idea than I did, but a few details would help to make my case more convincing. He met Tulo and me in our room carrying a vial of green ink made from the crushed skin of a salo fruit and a row of bamboo needles.

  “Parech, I don’t know how to make Akane warrior marks. You know that, right?”

  Tulo looked at me sharply. “What’s he doing?”

  “He has ink and a tattoo needle.”

  Parech grinned. “Ana, you mistake me. It’s for you.”

  Tulo looked confused. “You want warrior tattoos, Aoi? Are you going to fight?”

  “Of course I’m not going to fight! And I’m not going to mark my skin like some ignorant Akane either!”

  He just laughed and drew me down next to him. “I’ve seen the way your eyes trace my ‘barbarian’ marks, Ana. I don’t think you object to them very much at all.”

  And I blushed so deep and hot I thought even Tulo could tell. “What do I need tattoos for, though?”

  “Highborn ladies wear their family marks on their upper arms. Come, are you afraid of the pain? It doesn’t hurt too badly.”

  I looked down at the ink and then back to his laughing eyes. I was a little leery of the mallet and the needle. I’d seen others getting their marks and the experience had never looked less than agonizing.

  “Is this necessary?” I asked.

  “It’s all about confidence, Ana. The more you look the part, the more confidence he’ll have in your story, and the faster we’ll be able to leave this benighted city.”

  Tulo frowned. “I thought you said we should go to the city because we shouldn’t live in the forest like monkeys.”

  “And we shouldn’t. That doesn’t mean we should live in this city. Maaram is headed for a fall.”

  “They have the larger army,” I said. “And the element of surprise.”

  He leaned back on his elbows, so his bleached hair brushed Tulo’s belly and his shoulders rested against her thighs. “You reveal your ignorance of politics, Ana,” he said. “Maaram is to Essel what a drizzle is to a hurricane. I’d be very surprised if the Esselan chieftains are not already quite aware of what is surely the worst-kept secret in the country. And remember, they have the trick of the metal edge.”

  I found myself shivering and looked abruptly away from them both. Tulo had laid out our sleeping pallets, which took up most of the small room not already occupied by the low table. The scene was familiar, yet for a moment it seemed superimposed with something more grisly and frightening: the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians sprawled in their own blood on the dirt streets of Okika. Buildings burning and people running for their lives from the long blades that sparkle like water in the harsh sun. Taak bleeding to death on his bearskin cloak.

  “. . .seems rather extreme,” Tulo was saying, oblivious to my mood.

  But Parech watched me carefully. “Well, I can’t make her do something she doesn’t want to. You know my feelings on the matter, Ana. What do you say?”

  I forced a smile and shrugged. A little pain now might be enough to help us avoid disaster in the future. “Why not? But try not to make it too hideous, Parech. You can’t wash off skin-needle ink.”

  I thought he would respond with more teasing but he merely levered himself up and squeezed my shoulder. I bit my lip.

  The pain was entirely as bad as I had expected, though Parech tapped the needle and filled the well with such assurance I gathered he had performed this service many times before. I had to raise my arm so he could make the mark all around its circumference several times over. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and then just ground my teeth. Tulo held my other hand in silent support. I thought Parech would tease me, but he was intent on his design, and I was not inclined to disturb his work with anything other than the occasional grunt.

  Eventually he leaned back and let the empty needle and inkwell fall to the floor. “There you go, Ana.”

  “How is it?” Tulo asked.

  I didn’t have the energy to lift my head, so I was grateful when Parech answered, “Impressive, though I suppose I would think so.” He paused. “It suits her.”

  There was a certain quality of admiration in his tone that infiltrated my weariness and made me sit up and examine his handiwork. The mark moved from near my shoulder halfway down my upper arm. It was a complicated pattern, similar to Parech’s warrior marks, but more intertwined, with a distinctive knot near my shoulder. My skin was now red and raw, but even I could see how soon the marks would meld with my skin. It made me look sophisticated. I imagined myself in the purple tunic and realized I might even, in a certain light, be held to look beautiful.

  “It’s. . .it’s good,” I said. My voice was uncharacteristically husky.

  “Of course it is,” Parech said.

  I went to sleep soon after, stunned for reasons I couldn’t articulate. I was seventeen years old, I remember. Seventeen, and I’d lived on my own for the past two years, but the night Parech marked me was the first time I felt like a woman.

  “Please, tell me what I can do!” the foreign girl begged. She had dropped to her knees before the wild-haired fortune-teller and the bystanders who waited their turn peered curiously at the scene. “I have nothing left,” she cried, the tears on her cheeks obvious even fro
m a distance. “My father doesn’t know where I am! It seems so hopeless.” She bent her head and heaved sobs so great the men gambling on the other side of the square paused and looked up.

  I didn’t see any of that. Parech told me later. I was too focused on the tears pouring down my cheeks while Tulo placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. I found that it was easiest to work up a good torrent if I thought about Kukicha. First my parents’ deaths, then my old priest’s, and finally, when it seemed like my distress might exhaust itself, I forced myself to remember the foul-smelling trader who had tried to rape me. None of us had the luxury for mistakes now. The game had been engaged in earnest, and we had to see it through. I saw how eyes snagged on my family marks, as though evaluating my station.

  We three had planned this scene carefully. This was the second market day, and Tulo had set herself up on a relatively busy street not very far from the officer’s lodge. Taak would be sure to hear of her presence, and in the absence of any obvious workings of fate would be eager to consult with her again. But it being a market day, and with Tulo’s newfound reputation, the crowd surrounding her was far larger than it had been the week prior. Taak was waiting behind several other people when I approached Tulo and began my performance. He would have been able to hear my anguished cries, but not Tulo’s responses.

  “If you show patience, my lady,” Tulo was saying in that gentle, almost musical tone she affected for this work, “the spirits will lead one to you who can help restore you to your family and proper position. You need only be prepared to receive.”

  She lifted my face from her skirt with her finger and I nodded earnestly.

  “But I don’t know how much longer I can stand this wretched existence away from my people!”

  Tulo bent over and began expelling great seismic coughs. A moment later Taak pushed his way through the crowd and knelt before her. A few of the people in the line grumbled, but I thought they noticed his uniform and didn’t dare raise too much of a fuss.

  “My lady,” Taak said, placing a hand on Tulo’s trembling shoulders, “Are you well?” Before she could compose herself and respond, he turned to me with an expression so fierce I flinched. “What have you done to her?” he said.

  “She has done nothing, young soldier,” Tulo said, no matter that Taak was at least five years older than she. “Indeed, perhaps it is I who have wronged her.”

  Taak looked puzzled at this. “But she’s one of the miserable Esselans. What harm could you have done to someone like her?”

  “The worst harm in the world: I might have given her false hope. When I read the spirit paths for her five days ago, I thought I surely saw a fortuitous meeting in her future, some heretofore unseen method of returning her to her prior station. But she now says she has no more options and is close to begging on the streets. Perhaps the spirits led even me wrong this once.”

  I kept my dry eyes on the ground, deliberately not even looking at Taak in my assumed pose of abject misery. I released a muffled sob, as though I was too overwhelmed to even pay attention to the crowd surrounding us and the soldier by my elbow. In reality, I could tell the number of breaths he took in a minute. Would he take our bait?

  “Indeed, lady,” Taak said after a moment. “I cannot doubt your skill. I can almost feel the spirits when you’re nearby! But I too haven’t. . .” he trailed off and looked around nervously. The waiting crowd seemed to have grown a little too quiet for privacy. He lowered his voice. “I too haven’t met the one you saw in my future. The crossroads of the spirits. The method by which I can achieve my destiny.”

  Tulo looked up to the sky, her hands raised dramatically. She could not have known it, but she stared directly at the bright afternoon sun. Its light seemed to set fire to her hair. Even knowing all I did, I shivered. Tulo truly was uncanny, just not in the way all these people thought.

  “And yet,” she said, her voice colored with the slightest tint of otherworldly mistiness, “I see both your roads so clearly. An opportunity and a destiny.”

  Taak glanced at me. His curiosity was clearly piqued, but not enough to inquire who I was. I played an Esselan, after all, and he was part of an army about to lead a war against them. I’d need to be more explicit.

  “I don’t believe you!” I shouted. “What destiny is this? My father is the high chief of all Essel and here I am, stuck in this backwater drainage hole with nothing and no way to ever get back to him!”

  There, that ought to do it. I glanced surreptitiously at Taak, worried that I might have been a little too transparent in my desire to transmit this information to him. But a deep line creased his forehead, and his expression was one of such furious speculation that I knew he only suspected what we’d arranged for him to know.

  Tulo couldn’t see his expression, but she had other ways of sensing people’s moods. She smoothed the back of my hand in a way that reassured me.

  “My dears,” she said in the gentle manner of a mother coaxing her children to stop playing and weed the garden, “I regret that I cannot help you more. But there are others waiting their turn for me to peer into the spirit realm, and even one such as I must eat.”

  Taak stammered out an apology and signaled to one of the other soldiers who had been waiting behind. He paid her with a bushel of breadfruit. I nearly drooled onto it: we’d eat well by the fire tonight!

  Taak backed away with his friend and after a moment, making sure I had composed myself, I stood and wandered dejectedly away, toward the coop of green and red plumed jungle fowl clucking complacently on the road. Perhaps a dozen other stalls filled the clearing, making up all of Maaram’s fabled market day. At the time this had seemed like an unbelievable cornucopia of worldly goods. But Parech was right: Maaram is to Essel like a drizzle is to a hurricane. I loitered by the chickens so I could keep a surreptitious eye on Taak. He was talking in low tones with his friend on the other side of the square. My stomach knotted. I certainly hoped this friend had no great knowledge of Essel or its customs. Taak I knew well enough by now to feel safe about our prospects. But it would be hard for me to fool anyone even slightly less gullible or more intelligent.

  Finally, just when I was wondering if I should break the plan entirely and approach Taak myself, he started walking toward me. His friend stayed behind, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest.

  My hands were trembling entirely of their own accord—no need to feign nervousness.

  “You,” he said, peremptorily enough that the woman minding the chicken coop gave him a speculative glance. I took a step back. He had begun in Maaram, but now he switched to heavily accented Essela. “You’re the daughter of the Esselan chief? Truly?”

  “Yes, s-sir,” I stammered, pitching my voice so it sounded high and innocent.

  His eyes widened and a smile trembled at the corners of his lips. “Just as I thought,” he said, his voice strained with tamped-down glee. “Perhaps this is the lady’s sign of destiny.”

  I contrived to look even more timid and confused than before and said simply, “Sir?”

  He gave a curt nod to the overcurious chicken farmer and grabbed me by my elbow before I could do much more than squawk. I had a moment of genuine panic—had Tulo and I misread him this badly? Would he try to force me? Then I realized that Parech would almost certainly kill him before he got very far, and so stumbled along behind him. He took me inside an open-air hut with a cockfighting sandpit that doubled as a kava hole during the day.

  “Who are you, sir?” I asked, as the proprietor poured two bowls of scummy kava. I stared down and wondered if I saw drowned ants in the brew. The light was too low to be sure.

  “An o—” He swallowed down the real answer and regarded me with an expression he fancied guarded. “Just a soldier,” he said. “How did you come to our city? It’s an unlikely place for a highborn Esselan. And you seem to be in trouble.”

  I attempted to make my bottom lip quiver, but when I realized I more likely resembled a gawping fish, I stared at the table and
gripped the edge. I told him my carefully rehearsed tale of woe. How I had been on my father’s own ocean canoe, traveling toward the fire shrine on Holoholo, when the water and wind had risen and swirled into a storm so great that the proud ocean canoe had been reduced to kindling. All of my companions had drowned, and I was only saved by clinging to the splintered mast. I floated for two days before I washed ashore on the mainland. I went to Okika to see if there was anyone who could help me reach my father, but the world was a cruel place and now I would surely die before I saw my homeland again.

  I actually managed to work up a few tears to cap the end of this speech. Honestly, I’d cried more in the last few hours than I had in the past five years. But the tears were well worth it, because by the end he grew florid with a crude, avaricious joy. I pitied him. I’d never met a mind more ill-suited for scheming, but that very quality made our game possible.

  “Indeed,” he said. “I’m sorry you’ve suffered such great misfortune. And I think. . .yes. . .yes, it’s just as the spirit talker told me it would be. And you, too, I gather. Together we can each find our destiny!”

  “Destiny?”

  He put his hand over mine and for a moment I saw a spark of something, a certain tilt to his head, that made me blush and wonder if I might not be a little pretty, after all.

  “My dear,” he said, “I have a proposal for you.”

  It went just as Parech said it would. I, a helpless chieftain’s daughter, would be given resources sufficient enough to travel back to Essel in some style and comfort. When I arrived there, I would simply contrive to send Taak a “few simple notes” regarding army size, naval capabilities—and the infamous edged weapons. I pretended not to understand their import. I even pretended not to know that the two powers were approaching confrontation, though that was increasingly obvious by the day. As a guarantee of my delivery of these notes, Taak would send a soldier friend of his to escort me back home. Parech looked slightly discomfited that Taak had already suggested someone else for the role he had meant to play, but there were many methods of discouraging a soldier from making a long sea voyage, and he quickly set about applying them. A powder slipped into the surly friend’s palm wine gave him the runs right before he was to leave for the cock pens with Taak.