The Fire Seer (30 page)

Vella frowned, looking torn. It was clear to Taya that she wanted to help but was afraid of retribution. Finally she said, “What evidence do you need?”

“Some sort of proof that Bodhan knew his daughter was alive and had not died in a flood. Proof that he knowingly lied to the Coalition.”

“Wait here.” Vella left for a back room. When she returned, she was carrying a small, dusty tablet. She handed it to Taya. “There is your evidence.”

One word at a time, Taya labored her way through the writing on the tablet. It was a letter to Vella from her son, who had emigrated to the neighboring town of Mosand and begun a fledgling bakery of his own. She glanced up at Vella. “So you
did
know his whereabouts.”

Vella folded her arms.

Taya read on, conscious of Vella’s and Amalia’s impatience. In the second paragraph, the son referred to his wife, Narat, who was helping him with the bakery, and who he suspected might be pregnant.

This letter was perfect. It was exactly what she needed to bargain with Bodhan. “They
did
run away together.”

“I have said nothing,” said Vella.

“Of course. You have told me nothing at all.” Taya slipped the tablet into her pocket.

∞

Taya pulled up Pepper in front of the now-familiar sign,
Fine Cotton Cloth & Indigos.
After dismounting, she took a deep breath and stood straight and tall, remembering that she was no longer a simple farmer girl; she was a Coalition representative. She wore the green and silver, and this lent her an air of authority that she would never have possessed on her own.

As she walked up the steps to Bodhan’s palace of a home, the doorman held out a hand to stop her. “Bodhan is meeting with a buyer. I could get you on his schedule for tomorrow—”

Taya did not slow her stride. “This is urgent business. The buyer can wait.”

“Lady—
ilittum
—” the doorman stammered as she walked around him. “You cannot go in.”

She glanced at the doorman’s belt to see if he carried a weapon, and was almost disappointed when she saw there was no dagger hilt she’d have to call fire into to protect herself. She opened the door.

The doorman leapt forward, wedging his body into the opening. “Lady—”

“Move,” said Taya, summoning a thin sheet of fire between the two of them.

He jumped back, his face ashen.

Taya beckoned to Amalia and headed inside.

She found Bodhan in the drawing room, seated at a table and talking with two other men. She aimed an unfriendly glance at each of Bodhan’s companions. “Leave. I have urgent business with this man.”

Bodhan stood. “Taya, what an unexpected pleasure—”

“Leave,” she repeated.

The men glanced at her green and silver. One of them stuffed some tablets into a satchel, and they departed.

Bodhan glared, all pretense of courtesy gone. “If you had
any
respect for my business, you would not...” He trailed off as he spotted Amalia.

“I have wonderful news for you,” said Taya. “I’ve found your daughter.”

Bodhan’s eyes were on Amalia. “You are mistaken. This is not my daughter.”

“That’s not what I meant. I know where your daughter is.”

“Kana is not missing.”

“I mean Narat. She’s alive and well, married and living in the city of Mosand.” Taya held out the tablet, close enough that he could peer at it but not so close that he could snatch it out of her hands.

Bodhan leaned in to read. After a moment, he remembered to act surprised. “Flood and fire! My daughter has been alive all this time?”

Taya put the tablet back in her pocket. “You’ve known where she was from the beginning. You falsely reported her drowned because you were angry at her defiance and shamed by her low marriage.”

Bodhan jabbed a finger at Taya. “Do you have any idea the trials I’ve endured, with these new dyes and the falling price of indigo?” He rose and began to pace. “My daughter sneaked out of the house to meet her lover on an island in the middle of the Lioness, and if I feared her drowned by a jackal known to be operating in the area, it was only because, as a concerned parent, I could do nothing less.”

“You don’t care about Narat,” said Taya. “You care about your personal fortune and nothing else. You dragged me and my partner out here when you had no evidence on which to base your accusations. That, sir, is a crime.”

“Of course I had evidence,” said Bodhan. “Narat was last seen near the river. A jackal had already killed the magistrate’s son, so it stood to reason—”

“It did
not
stand to reason,” said Taya. “That was wild conjecture. Your accusation was false, and as a representative of the Coalition, I have the right to take action.”

Bodhan sobered and took a seat. “What sort of action?”

“I am assessing you a fine of fifty gold sticks.”

Bodhan’s mouth fell open. “Fifty gold sticks! Are you mad?”

“Payable immediately,” Taya added.

Bodhan leapt to his feet. “Heartless thug! Did I not explain to you how my competitors have hoarded the secrets of dyeing cloth? My business is in tatters! I cannot pay this exorbitant fine.”

“I’m willing to consider an alternative to payment,” said Taya.

His eyes narrowed.

“A personal favor,” continued Taya, “for which my partner and I might be willing to forgive your crime against the Coalition.”

“What is this personal favor?”

“You have made a number of loans to landowners in Hrappa. These loans were attached to contracts that required the borrowers to farm cotton for you and sell it to you at below-market prices, making it impossible for them ever to pay the loans back.”

“How am I to compete against the other cloth merchants if I have to pay excessive rates for my base materials?” sputtered Bodhan. “You will ruin me!”

Taya hesitated. Would she really ruin him if she took those contracts away? Then she thought of the starving farmers and decided it didn’t matter. “If you want your crime and thus the fine forgiven, you will forgive these loans, every single one of them.”

Bodhan waved a hand. “I forgive them.”

“
In writing,
” she said. “And you will also acknowledge and dower your runaway daughter.”

Bodhan’s eyes looked like they would pop from their sockets. “You will destroy me!”

Taya shrugged. “Or you could pay the fifty gold sticks.”

Bodhan glared at her. He lowered his voice. “You know how to create trouble. But you’re not the only one. I can create trouble, too, if I choose. Every banana plant in Hrappa was afflicted with blight, and now they’re all healed. How do you suppose that came about? Healing plants or animals without the proper tithe is a Coalition crime too.”

Taya shrugged off the threat. “I hear there’s a jackal in town.”

Bodhan’s eyes were full of hate. “Get me a tablet.”

Chapter 40: Hrappa

“Ouch, ease up,” said Taya as Amalia’s fingers dug into her flesh. They were cantering across the floodplains toward Zash’s estate. Poor Amalia, terrified by the motion of the horse, was clinging desperately to her back.

“Sorry.” Amalia relaxed her hold.

Pepper’s ears were flat against her mane in disapproval. She didn’t generally mind carrying extra weight, but a stiff rider who didn’t follow her motion was something else entirely. Taya gave the mare a sharp kick, driving her on. There was no time to teach Amalia how to ride, nor could they take this journey at a walk. They had to reach Mandir before Zash did him any more harm. “Is there an approach to his estate other than the main road?”

“No,” said Amalia. “But when Zash lies in wait for someone, he does so from his window. We can avoid being surprised by not going near the house.”

They reached the base of the path that led up to the estate. “Can we avoid being seen?”

“If he’s watching the road, no.”

Taya slowed Pepper to a trot for the ascent. Pepper, still annoyed by her second rider but generally a willing animal, threw herself into the work, huffing as she hauled them up the rocky path. As they reached the peak, Taya slowed the mare to a walk.

Zash’s house appeared before them, looking deceptively peaceful with its palm fronds dipping and bowing in the wind. Taya’s stomach fluttered as she glanced at the window nearest the door, presumably where he had lain in wait for her and Mandir the last time they’d been here. He was not there, or at least not visible. “Which way toward Mandir?”

Amalia pointed toward the banana fields.

As Taya turned Pepper into the banana fields, one part of the mystery still nagged at her. Amalia had explained almost everything, but there was one piece missing. Who had healed the banana plants in town? Both Bodhan and Amalia had assumed she had done it. But she hadn’t, not unless she’d been drugged somehow and didn’t know she was doing it. That didn’t seem likely. It had to have been someone with Coalition training. So who could it have been?

Pepper stepped lightly through the banana plants, picking up her feet to avoid stray leaves and suckers. The plants were in beautiful condition, as lovely as yesterday when Taya had healed them, but the workers were still missing. Perhaps Zash had sent them home while he took care of his dirty business. Or could he have murdered them all, and disposed of the bodies? Taya shook her head. She couldn’t believe she’d actually
liked
that man. In only a week’s time in Hrappa, she’d made an almost complete about-face. She’d gone from liking Zash and hating Mandir to the opposite, hating Zash and liking Mandir. Maybe
more
than liking Mandir.

Taya blinked. She knew who had healed the banana plants.

I learned how to fill that hole by helping people,
Mandir had said.

Now she understood why he’d discouraged her from looking at the banana plants and had talked her out of reporting the incident to the Coalition elders. He didn’t want the Coalition to know, because it was
his crime
.

At once, her mind rebelled. The thought was ludicrous. Mandir, her onetime Mohenjo bully, had risked his life to help some farmers he barely knew? And yet it could be nobody else.

Why had he not just told her? She would not have reported him. They had both been poor farmers as children. It was hard to watch other farming families go hungry when they could, at so little cost to themselves, make a difference in those families’ lives. Now that she thought about it, it shamed her that she had not healed the plants herself. What a thought! In this situation, Mandir had been kinder and braver than herself.

“Stop here,” said Amalia.

Taya halted the mare.

“See ahead?”

Taya peered through the plants. In front of them was the clearing with the burned-out house. “Zash showed me this before.”

“But you didn’t find what I’m about to show you.” Amalia slid off Pepper with a grunt—a virgin rider, she was going to be sore tomorrow—and approached the building.

Taya bit her lip at the sight of the girl out in the open where anyone could see her. What if Zash was hiding in the wreckage? She dismounted, ground tied Pepper, and circled around to approach the building from the opposite direction. She and Amalia had a numbers advantage, at least, and they both had magic. And by approaching from opposite sides, they could not easily be surprised.

Across the burned-out husk of a building, Amalia stiffened.

Taya froze and glanced around for danger. She saw nothing. “What’s wrong?”

“The trapdoor’s open,” called Amalia.

“What trapdoor?”

Amalia pointed at the ground.

Taya picked her way through the maze of fallen rocks and charred fragments to where Amalia stood. There was indeed a trapdoor in the middle of the floor. Its wooden covering had been removed and set aside, and a crude stone staircase led down into darkness.

“If it’s open, Zash must be down there right now,” Amalia whispered.

Taya stared at the opening. “We haven’t been exactly quiet. He’ll know we’re here.” She shivered, thinking about Zash waiting for them in that blackness below, with eyes better adjusted to the dark than theirs.

Amalia drew in a nervous breath. “You’re right.”

Taya felt that nothing could induce her to go down that dark hole, knowing the danger, but what else could she do? Wait outside until he came out? Not when Mandir was down there with him. “I’m going in.”

She considered whether to light her way with a ball of fire or just descend into the darkness and hope Zash couldn’t find her any better than she could find him. She decided on the latter. A ball of fire would half blind her in that darkness, whereas Zash might use it to orient on her. She took a deep breath and moved toward the stairway.

Amalia placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go first,” she whispered. “If Zash is waiting with a dart, it’s better if he hits me with it rather than you. Your magic is stronger.”

Thinking of Mandir and knowing that Amalia was doomed by Coalition law anyway, Taya let the girl step in front. Sunlight dimmed and cool air pricked her skin as they descended into the underground cellar. The stone steps were rough and unpolished under the soles of her feet, and they curved unexpectedly, rounding a corner. This diminished the light further, and soon she could see nothing at all. She laid a hand on Amalia’s shoulder so she could keep track of her in the darkness. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Amalia how far down the staircase went, but making noise would be foolish. Instead she focused on making her footfalls as quiet as possible.

Her hand on Amalia’s shoulder unexpectedly rose, and her foot landed hard on even ground where she’d expected another step downward. The impact jarred her teeth, but at least they’d found the end of the stairway. Amalia hesitated, as if uncertain which way to go. She moved to the right, hugging a stone wall. Taya followed.

Suddenly Amalia was yanked forward, away from her. The girl gave a shriek and then was quiet.

Taya spoke sharp words in the mother language, calling fire for illumination. The light appeared just in time to reveal someone diving toward her, someone huge. Not Zash, she realized. Bigger.

Taya spoke again, calling a wall of fire between her and the attacker. He tried to stop, but his momentum was too great. His arm ran straight into the fire, and he screamed. Then he shouted words in the mother tongue of his own, and she dismissed her fire completely. “Mandir?” she called into the darkness.