Fire in the Mist (16 page)

Faia jumped and dropped the flute, which careened toward the water. She scrabbled after it, and caught it, and nearly tottered into the lake in the process.

Her breathing was fast and she was shaking as she turned to face the unwelcome intruder. "Yaji," she snarled, "do not ever sneak up on me that way again."

"This is the second morning you skulked out of the room. I want to know why. And I want to know what happened last night."

Faia raised an eyebrow.

Yaji smirked. "I wasn't really asleep by the time you left the room yesterday. I simply didn't choose to follow you then."

"The reason I am out here does not concern you."

"I think it does."

Faia glowered at her roommate. "It doesn't have anything to do with last night. I just needed to think." Faia was more and more certain that, no matter whether her relationship with Yaji had improved or not, she did not want to share the giant otters with her. The otters were Faia's secret—and before she thought about the dreadful attack of the previous night, or her miserable classes later in the day, she wanted to think about the otters. By herself. "Go away and leave me alone for a while," she added.

Yaji stood on the boulder in the mist. Her long black hair fell freely, and her delicate gown billowed slowly in the slight breeze. Tatters of fog blew between her and Faia, giving Yaji an ethereal, ghostly appearance. She looked, in fact, very like one of the fragile young love goddesses Faia's mother had told stories about when Faia was little. Even as a child, Faia never cared for fragile young love goddesses, and discovering that her roommate looked like one when standing in damp, sticky, miserable fog did nothing to improve her feelings towards Yaji.

"I don't want to go away. I want to know what you're doing." The other girl crossed her arms and lifted her delicate chin.

Faia faced a nearly irresistible urge to throw Yaji into the lake. Reason told her that if she did such a thing, at some time in the near future, she would very likely find something unpleasant, and probably slimy, in her bed. With regret, she restrained herself.

Instead, she decided that telling Yaji a disemboweled version of the truth would be the easiest way to get rid of her. More than anything at the moment, she wanted that. So she concocted a little lie.

"If you must know," Faia said, feigning resignation, "I am trying to catch an otter to make into a pet."

"No animals are allowed in the dorm."

"And what of the cats and the dogs hidden under every bed in the place?" Faia knew this would be a telling point.

Yaji wrinkled her nose. "There aren't any in my room—I don't want to be bothered. If you really want an animal, though, I suppose I wouldn't report you if you got a kitten."

"I do not want a kitten. I like otters."

The other girl looked appalled. "Otters smell like fish!"

Faia shrugged. "The whole city smells like fish. I did not think you would notice."

Yaji would probably have made a brilliant retort right then, but one of the giant otters popped its head out of the lake and spoiled everything.

Faia winced. So much for her secret.

At the sight of the colossal animal, however, Yaji reacted considerably more violently than Faia would have anticipated. Her eyes grew round and frightened, and she began making passes in the air with her fingers. Her reaction was not surprise, Faia realized, but terror.

"You didn't mean one of
those
, surely!" Yaji's harsh gasp was almost inaudible.

"Well, yes, I did. Actually." Faia thought Yaji's reaction was excessive, but also puzzling.

"Lady Mother, Faia," Yaji whispered, "that's not an otter. That's a Fendle."

Others were up before the first bell. Medwind and her Mottemage sat in the sunroom, staring out at the dim light of first dawn.

"Another one of our students went missing last night, and there are reports from Mage-Ariss of more hedge-wizards who are suddenly missing. There were four times when I felt the start of that mind torture again—but each time the victims were weaker, and more quickly hidden. There is something else, Rakell. Last night I also felt a failed attack. The disturbance struck out at one of our students, but that student suddenly shielded." Medwind Song sat cross-legged at her Mottemage's feet. "Lady Motte—I fear. And I know shame at my fear."

The Mottemage curled in her chair and stared out her window into the featureless fog. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was as insubstantial and featureless. "Our shields are worthless. Our watchers—seemingly blind. And our finest students, abducted in the dark of night, seem helpless against this evil, whatever it may be."

She stroked Flynn absently as he lay curled on her lap. Her eyes looked at something invisible and far away. "I, too, know fear, Medwind. And though I was never the warrior you are, still I have faced my share of evil. In these attacks, I feel the taint of something strong and old. Where it has been before these last few days, I don't know. But now it is free, and it is here."

"Why is it taking students?" Medwind shifted nervously.

"If I knew that, I would, perhaps, know what it was. At the moment, I could rest easier if I knew what it was doing with the students it takes."

Flynn stretched and shifted. Suddenly alert, he stared at Medwind and hopped onto her leg. He reached up and grabbed at her nose-ring with his stubby, furry fingers.

"Touch that and die, cat," Song growled.

Flynn pulled back and sat watching the tiny arc described by the jewelry. His tail twitched in irritation.

"Sooner or later, we're sure to find out something," Song told the master mage.

"I wish I were as sure." The graying head shook slowly.

"A Fendle?" Faia looked into the deep brown, winsome eyes of the giant otter, then glanced at her roommate.

Yaji nodded vehemently. "A Fendle. One of the myths of Ariss. Hundreds of years ago, the story goes, the city wasn't divided. Male and female magicians worked side by side as equal partners. Earth, wind, water, and fire were drawn upon by all. But some of the sajes, led by one wicked Master Saje, plotted for power, and by bribes and trickery in the councils and meeting rooms, they limited the realms of women's influence. When they had accomplished this, they began warping and twisting their magics. Without the women's voices of reason and demands that they work only for the good, these evil men began drawing the energy from pain and death to fuel their horrible spells. That perverted magic created a monster that overwhelmed its creators, and devoured them. And the other men either bowed to the monster and called it master or refused to accept responsibility for the evil their brothers had wrought.

"So one old Wisewoman of great power created the Fendles, who are, according to our legend, sensitive to magic—protective of good magic and repelled by evil. The story goes that they led the old Wisewoman and some of her colleagues to the growing monster, the source of Ariss' evil, and helped fight the battle that divided Ariss and eventually conquered the horror. The Wisewoman and her friends and the Fendles pursued that great evil to the gates of hell. The Wisewoman and the other mages were killed in a final skirmish, but the Fendles survived. They were given the charge of standing guard throughout eternity, to see that the monster never escaped. It was said that the Fendles would never be seen again, so long as the evil was contained.

"I always thought it was just a myth," Yaji added.

Faia studied the great beast that had begun nuzzling its head against her waist. She scratched it behind the ears, and thought. At last, she whispered, "Then if this is a Fendle, that means..."

"It means that the gates of hell have broken open, and its denizens have been freed. Oh, gods." Yaji's eyes were round and frightened. She stared at the Fendle as if it were the chief devil of saje hell.

The Fendle chittered excitedly, and looked toward the deep wilds of the forest.

Yaji said, "I think we ought to get back to the dorm. We won't say anything about the Fendles..."

Faia was shaking her head.

"I don't want to know why they're here," Yaji continued, her voice taking on a pleading note. "Faia, I just want to go back to my studies and forget I ever saw a Fendle. I want to forget about that incident last night. I want things to be normal again."

The Fendle nattered angrily and snapped its teeth in Yaji's direction. Then it took Faia's hand gently in its mouth and pulled her toward the forest.

"Yaji, you said the Fendles were the guardians of the gates of the hells. Have you thought that whatever it was that tried to catch us last night might be the evil thing this beast is pledged to fight?"

"Yes," Yaji said. Her voice, ending on a rising inflection, indicated that she had indeed considered the idea—and wished she hadn't.

Faia frowned, irritated. "If we do not find out why it is here, we might not escape next time." Faia looked into the beast's dark eyes. "You are trying to tell us something?"

The Fendle's response was an excited trill.

Faia pulled her hand from the Fendle's mouth and rested it on one side of the big beast's head. "I could talk to my dogs, and they could answer me. Will you let me try to talk to you?"

The Fendle purred.

I hope that means "yes,"
Faia thought.

She rested the other hand on the Fendle's round, wet, soft-furred skull and closed her eyes. She could see the bright lifeforce and feel the Fendle's Self. As she studied what she saw, she suffered a pang of unease. A dog's Self was completely open. No part of its mind was beyond her touch. The Fendle, like humans, had a barrier around part of itself beyond which she could not see. So the Fendle was complex, like humans; not simple, like a dog.

The part of the creature's mind that she could speak to urgently wished that she accompany it into the woods. There was something in there it wanted her to see.

"Yaji, I am going with the Fendle. You go back to the school and tell the Mottemage and Medwind Song about what has happened."

Yaji's eyes darted from the sweet-faced Fendle to Faia. She shifted anxiously from foot to foot, and Faia could almost see her figuring the distance from the lake to the dorm through the thick fog, and remembering the thing that had tried to abduct her the night before.

"I don't want to walk alone back to the campus. I'll go with you," Yaji said. "When we've seen what that animal wants us to see, we'll tell the Motte and Song together."

Faia nodded. Secretly, she was relieved to have another person along. She had no wolfshot, only one little throwing knife, no sling. She did not even have her brass-tipped staff anymore. If she were attacked, at least Yaji should be more help in a fight than nothing. Maybe.

They set off through the fog, the Fendle leading with its sinuous, rollicking gait. It would race just to the point of disappearing into the fog, then turn and look back. It was obviously impatient.

"I don't like this," Yaji said. She trailed a step behind Faia. Her long skirts were hiked to her knees and tucked into her belt, and her delicate shoes were muddied and stained.

Faia did not mistake her complaint for one of displeasure over the state of her clothes, however. As the trees closed over their heads and the fog thinned slightly, Faia felt a malevolent presence. "I know. I wish your myth made the Fendles a sign of good fortune." Faia was suddenly finding it necessary to shove branches out of her way. The undergrowth became denser by the step, the ground soggier, the walking more precarious.

"Faia," Yaji whispered. "What happens if we get lost?"

Faia shook her head. "I do not get lost. I call the faeriefires, and they lead me where I need to go. The only reason we are following the Fendle right now is because only it knows what it wants us to see."

Yaji looked slightly relieved. "If you're sure..."

"I am."

Yaji subsided into silence and concentrated on her walking.

The Fendle crunched and crashed through the undergrowth, and Faia and Yaji followed. The fog refused to thin any further.

Slowly, Faia became aware of a faint scent that had been tugging at the back of her mind, demanding recognition for the past minute. At the same time that she realized the smell was there and began trying to figure it out, Yaji's whisper sounded in her ear again.

"I smell something strange."

"I, too."

"What is it?"

I do not know—shut your mouth and let me think a minute
, Faia thought. She said nothing, though—merely shrugged.

Initially the smell was faint, slightly sweet, somewhat unpleasant. As it increased, it became overlaid by a strongly metallic scent, and the sweetness became cloying, and...

Bright. It smells just like Bright. I could never forget that smell....

And with the memory of the smell came the recognition of what she was probably walking into. The stench was almost overpowering. Faia shuddered. "Yaji, I do not think you should go any further," she said. "I think this will be bad—very bad."

Her protective instinct was a moment too late.

"Faia, look there," Yaji whispered. "What is—oh, gods, that looks almost like..."

Yaji screamed. Faia would have joined her, but she simply could not breathe.

Hands were what she recognized first. Hands, with bloodied fingernails, and fingers spread and splayed. Not, she realized, hands that were attached to bodies. Just hands. Lots of them.

No
, she thought.
No. I cannot look.
She pressed her face against the rough bark of the nearest tree, and squinted her eyes tightly shut. And with the last of her conscious control, she sent up a faeriefire beacon to blaze over the charnel grove.

Cleanup had been a nightmare. Medwind Song was sure she would never erase the images of the slaughtered young women from her mind. Peeling the shocked Faia away from her tree and dragging hysterical Yaji back to campus had been no pleasant tasks, either. But one ugly chore still remained.

She stood in front of the assembled students of Daane University with the Mottemage at her side and took a deep breath. "By now," she started, "most of you have heard rumors of what Faia Rissedote and Yaji Jennedote uncovered today. And I am certain you have started hearing tales of the appearance of Fendles, and wild stories of what that is supposed to mean. Rumors on campuses get exaggerated. And even though things were bad, I imagine what you have heard has become worse than the truth by this time. I am here now to separate the rumors you have heard from the facts.