The Fire Seer (15 page)

Mandir ignored her; he was still chanting his magic. But he was almost done. She felt much better. When he completed the task, he spoke. “How does your leg feel?”

The pain was gone; all she felt now was a slight tingle. “Perfect, I think. Did you do a healing rotation at Rakigari?”

“It’s part of the standard training for a
quradum
.”

“Thank you for pulling me out of the river.”

“You’re welcome. I tried to get you out before the flood hit you, but I couldn’t dismiss your fire, and you didn’t hear me calling your name. How am I supposed to protect you if I can’t even get to you?”

“You did protect me,” said Taya.

“You almost died in there. If I hadn’t spotted you when I did...” Mandir growled in frustration. “And no, we didn’t see the jackal. There was no time to look. But she’s going to pay for this.”

“You shouldn’t have told Rasik so much about her. Just the fact that she’s a woman is more than he should know. Information from scry-visions is for Coalition ears only.”

Mandir lowered his voice. “Coalition rules are designed to protect the organization, not individuals like you and me, and we’d be fools to follow them blindly. Rasik is our constant companion, and if the jackal is trying to kill us, I want a third pair of eyes looking for her.”

“Rasik doesn’t like us,” said Taya.

“He can go home and burn our effigies for all I care, as long as he remains loyal. And I believe he will.” Mandir shooed a needlefly away from her arm. “His anger is honest, and I’d rather deal with honest anger than with someone who smiles at me with thin lips and later sticks a knife in my back.”

“He has no reason to be angry with us. Those two girls who were raped? We had nothing to do with that.”

“That’s not why he’s angry,” said Mandir.

“Why, then?”

Mandir lowered his voice still further. “It has nothing to do with us. It’s his personal circumstances.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. It’s a ruling-caste thing. If you want, I’ll tell you about it later. Do you have other injuries I should take care of?”

Suddenly embarrassed of her torn robe and lying in Mandir’s arms with his hands all over her—flood and fire, what was she doing?—Taya extricated herself and stood up. The blood rushed to her head, and she staggered. Mandir, rising behind her, steadied her shoulders, but she recovered quickly and moved away from him. “I’m fine. If I have any other injuries, I’ll heal them myself.”

He watched her critically. “I’ll bet you’ve got some cuts and bruises. Healing is better done by someone who isn’t distracted by pain. And who took a rotation at Rakigari.”

“No cuts and bruises.” Actually, she had a number of sore spots beneath her robe, but she’d been through enough humiliation for one day. She wasn’t going to undress in front of Mandir so he could heal bruises.

It was hard enough just being in his presence and looking at him. Now that she wasn’t in his arms anymore, she had the disadvantage of actually getting an eyeful of the man, shirtless and sun-bronzed and smiling at her with his hair dripping wet from the river. Flood and fire, couldn’t he find a shirt to put on? Every time he moved, she could see the play of muscles across his arms and chest. It was all she could do not to stare.

And, as usual, she was a total wreck herself, this time a little more so than usual. She gathered up some of the stray fabric of her cotton robe to wring the river water out of it. Torn and soaking wet, the robe was all but ruined. She touched the top of her head. Her headdress was gone, and her hair was down, plastered around her shoulders. She turned to Mandir and challenged him with her eyes. “How does my hair look now?”

He grinned. “Like a rat’s nest, only less tidy. Let’s get you back to Hrappa.”

Chapter 19: Mohenjo Temple, Seven Years Ago

Taya stole down the temple hallway, checking each side passageway to make sure Mandir and his friends weren’t there. They had a habit of ambushing her, and Mandir seemed to know her third-year schedule down to the minute. He often planted himself and his cronies in the only path between the library and her room at exactly the time her special class dismissed, so he could follow her back to her room, making insulting comments all the way, or pin her in a corner somewhere and insist on examining her work. He never actually touched her, but sometimes his friends did, and his chasing her around and trapping her was frightening enough. She feared the situation would escalate someday. He was building up to something. She wasn’t sure what.

Today, happily, Mandir was nowhere in evidence. Taya broke into a jog as she approached her tiny student room. Shutting the door behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief. Here she was safe. Mandir had free rein of the temple halls, but he was not permitted to follow her into her room. She turned, preparing to put down her armload of homework tablets.

Mandir was sitting on her bed.

Taya jumped, suppressing a scream, and the tablets scattered over the table.

Mandir grinned. “Did I scare you?”

“Get out,” she hissed. “You’re not allowed in here.”

“Naughty girl,” said Mandir. “You’ve got a boy in your room. And you closed the door.”

“I didn’t invite you in, and I don’t want you here,” said Taya. “Get out. Now.” She reached for the door, but was afraid to open it. Would she be in trouble if someone saw her?

“I’d like to make you an offer,” said Mandir.

“What?” Taya’s mind raced. Should she run out of the room, maybe find an
illitum
? If she did, Mandir might be gone before she got back, and she might be punished. He might tell someone she’d had a boy in her room. Where were Mandir’s friends?

“I don’t think you like it when my friends and I give you a hard time in the halls,” said Mandir.

Taya gave a distracted nod. The boys might be lying in wait. If she left the room, they might jump her or something. For what purpose, she did not know—but Mandir’s intentions were never good.

“Am I right?” said Mandir. “You don’t like that?”

Taya blinked. She’d taken that for a statement; not a question. “Of course I don’t like it.”

“I could make it stop,” said Mandir.

“All right,” said Taya, knowing there had to be a catch. “Make it stop.”

“I will. And from now on,” said Mandir, “I’m going to be your secret companion.”

The hair rose on the back of Taya’s neck. She didn’t like that idea at all. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mandir licked his lips. “It means we won’t tell anybody, but I’ll come to your room sometimes.”

“And do what in my room?”

“Come here and I’ll show you.”

Gooseflesh rose on Taya’s arms. She might be an illiterate farmer girl from a village in banana country, but she had not been born yesterday. She lunged for the door, leapt from the room, and ran as if all the floodwaters of Zhaerath were behind her.

Hours later, when she finally dared return, Mandir was gone. But on the floor, her homework tablets were smashed to pieces.

Chapter 20: Hrappa

After yet another visit to the public baths, a trip back to the guesthouse, and a change of clothes, Taya felt much better, though still a little weak and shaky. Mandir joined her for lunch.

“I have to ask,” he said, between bites of freshly baked flatbread, “were you granted a vision from Isatis before the flood hit you?”

Taya puzzled over what she’d seen in the fire. “I saw multiple visions, but I couldn’t make sense of them. They all showed the same...oh.”

“What?” said Mandir.

Taya shook her head ruefully. “I think I understand. Isatis was trying to warn me. She was showing me images of the river flooding, hundreds of them at once. I didn’t comprehend her message.” She blew out a breath in frustration. “I have to go back and scry again.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Mandir.

“I have to. I didn’t get the vision.”

“And give the jackal another chance to kill you? She’s obviously watching our movements. She can’t attack us with fire because her magic is no match for yours. But the moment you go out to that island, you make yourself vulnerable to an attack by flood. I can’t be out there with you when you’re scrying, and flooding the Lioness is the easiest thing in the world, even for a jackal.”

“She can’t follow us around all the time,” said Taya.

“Maybe she can,” said Mandir. “Maybe she does. Look, you’ve already seen the jackal in one scry-vision. We have plenty of leads to follow up on here in Hrappa and at Zash’s plantation. Why don’t we investigate those for a while and see where it gets us? If we run out of leads, we’ll reconsider scrying the island.”

“What if the jackal attacked me on that island because she really, really didn’t want me to see the vision of that murder?” said Taya.

“What if she attacked you on that island because it’s the only place you’re vulnerable to her magic?” countered Mandir.

Taya sighed. “Fine, we’ll try the other leads first. Who should we visit this afternoon?”

Mandir eyed her. “You’re looking a little worse for wear. Let’s stay close to home and start with Hunabi’s brother, Kalbi. He’s right across the street. We can give Rasik the afternoon off and let him hunt onagers. A bit of kindness might go a long way with that one.”

Taya nodded. “Kalbi, then.”

∞

“I was wondering when you were going to talk to me,” said Kalbi, ushering them into his office in the Hall of Judgment. He was a slim, straight-backed boy with a reserved manner and an arrogant arch to his eyebrows.

“We’d like to test you for magical ability,” said Mandir.

Kalbi’s brows rose, but he submitted to Mandir’s fake magical ability test and passed it. When it was over, he smiled cynically. “Of course I’m not magical. If I were, I’d be wearing the green and silver like you.”

“We had to be sure,” said Mandir.

“So.” Kalbi leaned back in his chair, interlacing his fingers behind his head. “Have you made any progress? Figured out yet who killed my brother?”

“We can’t comment on that,” said Taya. “But we suspect your brother was involved with a woman.”

Kalbi snorted. “Which one?”

“Not the one the two of you were contracted to marry, but another woman. And this woman, though she was not herself the murderer, may have been involved somehow in the crime.”

“Hunabi was involved with
lots
of women,” said Kalbi.

“You’re saying he was popular with the ladies?” asked Mandir.

“Popular—that’s one way of putting it.” Kalbi rolled his eyes. “Do you know what my brother used to do?”

“What?” said Mandir.

“My father is the magistrate of Hrappa,” said Kalbi. “That means that whenever there’s a dispute between two people in this city, he hears the case and makes a decision. It is the role I will one day have, when my father passes away. Hunabi would have shared it with me if he hadn’t been killed.”

“Yes,” said Mandir. “Go on.”

“I’ve been preparing for the role all my life,” said Kalbi, indicating the shelves cluttered with tablets. “But Hunabi’s interests had lain elsewhere. Whenever an important case was being heard, Hunabi would find out which way my father leaned. He would go to the family of the winning side—they wouldn’t know they were winning, of course—pick a girl in the family he liked, and tell the head of household he would make sure the magistrate ruled in their favor if they allowed him to sleep with the girl. Usually the family went along with it.”

“
Bantu kasu annasi
,” growled Mandir. “Did you never tell your father?”

Kalbi grimaced. “He didn’t believe me.”

“You said Hunabi guessed at who would win based on which way your father was leaning,” said Taya. “Did he ever guess wrong?”

“It’s possible,” said Kalbi. “I wouldn’t know.”

Taya recalled the angry woman in her scry-vision who had confronted Hunabi in the empty field. Could she be someone he’d slept with as part of a bargain, and then she felt he’d reneged on that bargain? How did the jackal fit into all this? Could she, too, be one of those exploited women? “Do you keep records of the magistrate’s court cases?”

“Of course,” said Kalbi. “They’re filed in the archive. Rasik can show you.”

“Thank you.” Taya rose to leave.

“I’ll tell you something else,” said Kalbi. “There’s only one person in Hrappa who truly mourned Hunabi’s death, and that was my father. The rest of us were relieved.”

Chapter 21: Hrappa

In the archive, Taya found that the cases were filed neatly but dated only by season and year. Hunabi had died early in the season of Lalan, which meant they had to consider all cases from that season as well as those from the season of Agu which had preceded it. That turned out to be twenty-six cases. Taya’s hope that there would be only four or five evaporated in the mountain of tablets sitting before her. Resigned to the task, she divided them between her and Mandir, settled onto floor across from him, and began, slowly and haltingly, to read.

The first case was a dispute over a loan. A peasant farmer had borrowed money from Bodhan isu Kasirum—which was interesting; Zash had borrowed money from Bodhan as well—and failed to repay it. The terms of the loan were confusing, but apparently they specified that if the loan was not repaid, the farmer was required to compensate Bodhan by growing cotton on his land instead of whatever else he normally grew, and selling it to Bodhan at a below-market price. In his suit, the farmer claimed this arrangement was unfair.

“It’s amazing how many of these cases are about bad loans,” said Mandir, thumbing through his stack. “Five of the first seven I’ve looked at.”

Taya stared at him. “You’ve read seven cases already?”

“Skimmed them,” said Mandir. “It seems our Bodhan isu Kasirum isn’t just a cloth merchant. He’s a moneylender.”

“Was he the lender in all five of your cases?”

“Yes,” said Mandir.

“I’ve got a case like that too,” said Taya.

“Just one?”

“So far,” she said defensively.

“This Bodhan fellow is looking suspicious,” said Mandir. “He may be connected to every single murder. He could be connected to Hunabi’s, if Kalbi is right and Hunabi was murdered over some court case in which Bodhan played a role as moneylender. Not to mention the pending marriage between his daughter and Hunabi and Kalbi. He’s connected to Narat’s murder, because Narat is his daughter. And he’s connected to Amalia’s murder, because Zash was indebted to Bodhan as well.”