41
The Barn
The first lick of flame slithered away from the torch and began climbing the barn’s southern wall. Reichis raced over and leaped onto my shoulder, his entire body thrumming with anger and fear. ‘Put it out! Quick! This entire place is catching fire!’
He needn’t have bothered pointing that out. I was already trying to extinguish the torch. I grabbed a half-full bucket next to the horses’ watering trough and threw it on the torch. As if in answer, the flames hissed and spat, but showed no sign of quenching.
The squirrel cat scrambled down to the ground, running a mad route between my legs. ‘It’s not going out! Why won’t it go out?’
‘It’s thirstfire,’ I shouted, refilling the bucket and dumping it out on the torch again. ‘It won’t go out by natural means.’ The flames were already spreading out across the walls. Within minutes the entire barn would be engulfed in flame.
‘Stamp it out, Kellen! We’re going to burn alive in here!’
‘It won’t do any good,’ I said. ‘Stepping on the flames will just set my clothes on fire.’
‘Then banish the spell! Do something.’
I envisioned my will taking dominion over the flame, and chanted the words old Osia’phest had taught us. When nothing happened, I reached further inside myself and re-doubled my efforts. As if in answer, the counter-banded ember sigils on my forearm seemed to tighten, to strangle the vessels underneath my skin. Spark, damn you. I refuse to die just because of some stupid tattoos.
There’s this hope you have, deep down, that when you most need it – in that instant where everything suddenly matters because now it’s life and death – you’ll be able to overcome whatever it is that’s held you back your whole life and find your true strength. That was how it worked in all the old stories: the young Jan’Tep mage, face to face with the demons who have been tormenting his village, finally casts the great spell of banishment that had eluded him for so long.
‘Are you doing anything?’ Reichis asked. ‘Because it just looks like you’re constipated.’
It turns out all those stories are lies. Or maybe you’re not the young Jan’Tep hero in the story. Maybe you’re the demon that gets destroyed.
The flames were spreading, slowly but surely, making their way around the wooden walls of the barn. Already my eyes were watering from the smoke. Blind panic overtook me and I ran back to the door and hurled myself against it over and over. I got nothing for my efforts but a shooting pain through my shoulder.
‘Hit it harder,’ the squirrel cat chittered.
‘I can’t,’ I said, gasping from the pain of my exertions. ‘I’m not strong enough to break the door.’
‘Then just—’
‘Shut up,’ I said, trying to concentrate. I focused all my attention on the door, looking for a weakness in it, finding none. The only weakness I could find was in myself. Reichis could see it too.
‘Damn it all,’ he chittered frantically. ‘If I was going to take on an idiot human as a business partner, why didn’t I pick Ra’meth? At least he has enough magic to dismiss a fire spell!’
My throat tightened under the growing strain of frustration and terror. ‘Well, if I’m going to die in this burning barn with nobody but a stupid nekhek to give my eulogy, I’d rather you found something nice to say.’
‘Well, let me see,’ Reichis growled back. ‘You’re weak, you’re a coward and you seem to be pretty much the only member of your race who doesn’t have any magic. But on the other hand …’
He stopped chittering. I glanced around to see what he was looking at, but all I saw were the burning walls. ‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. I can’t think of one good thing about you, Kellen. You’re the most useless member of a useless species I’ve ever seen and now we’re going to die because of it.’
The flames crackled as they travelled up the wooden beams to the hay that was stored on the second level of the barn. Smoke was filling the room. Soon it would be hard to breathe. ‘I’m trying,’ I said, dragging first Shalla’s body and then Ferius’s to the water trough. I splashed some of the remaining water on each of them, not sure what good it would do but having no better ideas. I glanced around the barn again, searching for something, anything, that might help. If there had been enough horses I could’ve hoped that they might stampede and smash through the walls. All we had was Ferius’s horse though, and though it was growing more and more agitated, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Sorry, whatever your name is. It’s not fair that you have to die without knowing the reason.
The heat was overwhelming and whatever moisture I had left in me was sweating out from every pore. We didn’t have much time. Unlike the horse, Reichis understood what was happening, but his instinctive fear of fire was making him frantic. He tried to climb one of the walls, but there was too much fire and smoke now. The squirrel cat made it halfway up before tumbling down to the ground, coughing and shaking. I felt a strange empathy for the little monster. As terrified as I was, it must be worse for an animal covered in fur, for whom fire wasn’t a normal part of life. I knelt down to try and pick him up. He bit me.
‘Get away from me, human,’ he growled. He got on his feet and shook himself. The shock of falling seemed to have brought him back. His eyes were a little clearer and he looked as if he’d mastered his fear. I wished I could say the same for myself.
‘I was trying to help,’ I said.
He looked up at me and gave a little snort. ‘If you’re going to cry, go do it over the torch. Maybe you can put it out that way.’
‘I’m not crying, damn it. I’m sweating from the heat.’
‘Sure.’
I moved to the centre of the barn where the smoke wasn’t as thick and reached into one of Ferius’s saddlebags, which were on the floor. I was looking for a cloth to wrap around my nose and mouth. What I found was the little pouch of red powder she’d shown me when she was painting her card. I rummaged around and found the pouch of black powder. Hells, I thought, remembering what she said about them exploding on contact with each other. No need to worry about burning to death. I’ll just blow us all up instead. I thought about tossing them to opposite sides of the room to keep them separated, but then had a better idea. Well, not a better one, but it was the best I had. I ran to the barn door.
‘What is it?’ Reichis asked, following behind me.
‘These powders. They make an explosion on contact with each other.’
‘What’s an explosion?’
I almost laughed. But when would a squirrel cat have ever seen anything explode? Careful to use only my left hand, I scooped out a small handful of black powder and dropped it by the door. Part of me expected it to catch fire right away, but it didn’t. Whatever it was made from stayed inert until it met with the opposing chemical. With my right hand I pulled out a small handful of the red powder. ‘Stay back,’ I said to Reichis. I took a few steps back myself and then tossed the red powder towards the black. They exploded in a small ball of flame and, just for a second, I felt a surge of hope that the door might give way. It didn’t.
‘Do it again,’ Reichis said. ‘Use more this time.’
‘I used half of each bag.’
‘Then—’
‘It doesn’t work that way,’ I shouted in frustration. ‘It needs to be contained somehow. It needs something to direct the force. Damn it, I can’t think!’
The horse had broken its tether and was now running around the barn in circles, futilely searching for an escape. The noise and the chaos were making it impossible for me to concentrate.
I shut my eyes tight and clamped my hands around my ears so that I could focus. I turned my thoughts back to the powders sitting in their pouches on the ground. The first try had accomplished nothing but to feed the flames even more. A second wouldn’t do any better. The powder is the answer. Somehow. I just need a way to control the explosion so it doesn’t dissipate. Why couldn’t you have broken the damned ember band? Only … what I needed wasn’t actually ember magic. That was for creating energy, not focusing it.
I removed my hands from my ears and looked down at them, my eyes fixating on the specks of powder stuck to my fingertips. Master Osia’phest had told me at the oasis that the carath spell didn’t generate wind; it channelled whatever force was at the precise point of the spell. If the only energy present was a light breeze, then it channelled that breeze in the direction of the spell. If something more powerful was present …
‘Reichis, I’ve got an—’
‘Kellen, look out!’ he shouted.
I turned just in time to see a raging mass of hoofs and muscle rearing down at me. The horse, its mouth frothing as the sides of its coat smouldered from contact with the burning walls, was going mad, stomping on everything in its path. I jumped out of the way just in time to watch its hoofs smash into the dirt floor. The pouch containing the red powder tipped over and its contents began spreading towards the one with the black. I tried to reach in to pick them up, but the horse reared once more and again brought its hoofs down, and this time the pouch with the black powder tipped precariously. If the black one fell too …
‘He’s afraid of the fire,’ Reichis said, as if I might not already be aware of that fact.
I reached out and tried to gentle the horse, but it snapped its teeth at me. ‘Damn it, you’re going to get us killed, you stupid beast! Reichis, the powder!’
‘I’m on it,’ Reichis chittered. I turned to see him bounding from the other side of the barn. At first I thought he was going to run to the pouch of black powder to snatch it out of the way. Instead he leaped in quick progression from the floor up to a barrel and onto a shelf that held grooming equipment. From there he launched himself and spread his limbs wide, gliding onto the horse’s neck. The beast reared up, trying to shake him off, but the little squirrel cat held firm on to its mane and climbed up closer to its head. I watched in awe as Reichis, still hanging from the mane with one paw, used the other to grab the horse’s ear. I thought he was about to bite into it, but instead he started chittering furiously. The horse reared and shook once more, then its hoofs landed on the ground and it stopped moving.
‘His hide is starting to burn, Kellen,’ Reichis said, still sitting atop the horse’s head.
I grabbed a blanket folded over one of the stalls and used it to tamp down the horse’s sides. It took the treatment with surprising stillness. ‘What did you do?’ I asked, looking into the horse’s eyes. The fear was still there.
‘Horses are terrified of fire,’ the squirrel cat said. ‘It drives them mad.’
‘I know that. So how did—’
‘There are still one or two things that scare them worse than fire,’ Reichis said, looking down at the horse’s eyes. ‘I let him know which ones I could do to him before we burned alive.’
Ancestors save me from my new business partner. ‘All right. Stay back,’ I said.
‘What are you doing?’
Something that’s probably just going to get my hands blown off before I burn to death. I knelt down and with my right hand carefully scooped up some of the red powder from the ground. With my left I grabbed a roughly equal amount of the black.
I let the powders slip slowly away until I was left with just a pinch between the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It probably wasn’t enough to do more than burn the hells out of my fingers, but if I could make it work without killing myself then maybe I could try the spell again with more. I hope you knew what you were talking about, Osia’phest. I coughed again and realised this was probably my only chance. I’d have to aim for the point where the door met the wall. Maybe if I hit it just right, there would be enough force to make it buckle. Of course, for all I knew, Ra’meth’s mages would be waiting for us. The hells with it. Let the squirrel cat deal with that problem.
I had one shot at this. One spell that I wasn’t complete rubbish at, using breath – the one form of magic I’d sparked and the only one my father hadn’t counter-banded. If I failed this time …
‘Kellen, if you’re just going to piss about …’
I let out what breath was left in my lungs, said a brief prayer to my ancestors that, if I had to be reincarnated, I wouldn’t come back as a squirrel cat, and tossed the powders into the air in front of me. My hands formed the somatic shape for the spell: bottom two fingers of each one pressed into the palm, the sign of restraint; fore and middle fingers pointed straight out, the sign of flight; and thumbs pointing to the heavens, the sign of, well, somebody up there, help me, please.
The powders met and exploded in front of me – a split second of red and black fury that bulged out as if it were trying to reach up and grab my face. Then something – the spell, I guess – took hold of the fire and shot it straight out away from me. Please hit the edge of the door, I prayed.
Smoke and heat blew into my face and I stumbled backwards, losing my footing and experiencing a brief feeling of release – of floating – before I hit the ground. Don’t pass out, I told myself. Whatever you do, don’t …
Something cool and furry was on my left cheek. It went away only to return again a second later. The pattern continued for a few brief moments until I opened my eyes. Two beady black eyes set back from a whiskered snout looked down at me. The squirrel cat was sitting on my chest tapping my face with his paw.
‘What the hells are you doing?’ I asked.
‘I’m slapping you. I’ve seen humans do this when one goes unconscious. Is it helping?’ He pulled his paw back again. ‘Should I use my claws?’
‘Stop it,’ I said, pushing him off my chest.
I tried to rise too quickly and things started to go black again. I took in a breath close to the floor and then pushed myself up more carefully. The smoke seemed less thick. ‘Did I hit the door?’ But if I had, wouldn’t Ra’meth’s men be in here already, sticking something sharp in my belly?
‘Not even close,’ Reichis said.
‘Damn it,’ I said, getting my feet under me and doing my best to shake off the effects of the blast. ‘I can try again … I can …’
‘Don’t bother,’ Reichis said.
I followed the line of his paw towards the other side of the barn. The fire was still raging around us and I could hear wooden beams beginning to crack. The smoke cleared just enough for me to see what I’d done. I’d missed the door by a good six feet. It didn’t matter. Where the wall had been there was now a huge gaping hole; slats of charred wood blown through and supports falling over. I took one teetering step towards what was left of the wall. Two bodies lay partially buried under the debris where Ra’meth’s mages had stood guard. I didn’t bother to check whether they’d survived. I assumed you needed a torso to live.
I heard something shambling behind me and a moment later felt Reichis’s paw on my leg. ‘Kellen?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I think maybe I’ve found something about you that I like.’
I stared at the wreckage, the bits of burning wood and red-hot metal. I’d never seen destruction like that. Even the thirstfire torch had been blasted to pieces. A breeze was rushing into the now three-sided barn, feeding the flames but giving me a taste of fresh air I’d never expected to breathe again.
I knelt down and carefully picked up the pouches of black and red powder, putting one in each pocket before I went to drag Shalla and Ferius out of the barn. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve found something about myself that I like too.’