Fire in the Mist Read online

  "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.

  "There were seven young women involved. Not ten, or thirty, or a hundred, as I am sure some of you have heard. Seven. Three were students from this campus. The other four are unknown, but we expect they are some of the hedge-wizards reported missing from other parts of Mage-Ariss in the last two days. Due to the condition of the bodies, it will be difficult to identify them. We were only able to recognize our three students because we knew we were looking for them."

  She shuddered as she recalled the exact condition of the bodies, but she continued doggedly. After all, her students needed to know what they were up against.

  "You may think it harsh of me not to sweeten the facts for you, but whatever it was that killed those women is still free. We have no reason to think it has quit hunting. That means any one of you may be its next target. You have to be on guard.

  "The Fendles are here, out in the lake right now. I don't know whether this means the gates of hell have broken loose and its demons are free among us as the stories say—or whether their presence has any meaning at all. Old myths frequently have a grain of truth to them, but rarely more than that."

  Rakell, she noted, nodded agreement at her last remark. "You must not assume that the end of the world has come because the Fendles have arrived," the director interjected.

  "Nevertheless," Medwind resumed, "precautions have been been taken to prevent any recurrence of this disaster, and the Mottemage and the Instructory have set out regulations that you will all follow."

  Medwind heard a few rebellious mutters from the back of the room.

  "There will be no punishment handed out by the Instructory for failure to conform to these regulations," she said, pointedly staring at the protesters in the back. "We assume that you are intelligent enough to see that these rules are for your protection, and that those of you who choose not to follow them can face the consequences as they occur. I suggest that you go into the secondary cold-storage room to view the bodies of your classmates if you choose to follow this second path, however."

  All signs of rebellion died as the import of Medwind's suggestion sank in. Good. I was right to push for no punishment. Now they won't play any games with the rules, thinking that they're getting away with something by sneaking past us. They'll remember who the real enemy is—and who it isn't.

  Rakell stepped forward. Her gravelly voice picked up where Medwind's left off. "The first and most important rule is this—you will stay in pairs at all times until the killer is caught. Please realize that this means that you will bathe in pairs, you will study in pairs, you will toilet in pairs. From this moment, your roommate is the other half of your body. You will be inseparable. No one—absolutely no one—is to be left alone in a hallway for just a moment while you go back to get something you forgot. No one is to leave you alone while you entertain visitors. There are no exceptions.

  "Second, you will maintain personal shields at all times.

  "Third, you will avoid the lake.

  "Fourth, you will not permit anyone who is not a student, instructor, or Councillor, access to the campus. If you see a stranger on campus, you will report that stranger to an instructor or to one of the Council Regents, who will be on guard here until the killer is caught.

  "Fifth—" Rakell started. Medwind heard her voice catch and soften. "Fifth, you will please remember that the students we lost were among the strongest and most magically capable on campus. They were not able to protect themselves. Don't let yourselves get into any situations where you might need to try." The Mottemage's eyes pleaded with the gathered mass of her beloved students. "Please—be careful."

  "It has to be the sajes," Yaji said.

  She sat at one table waiting for class to start. Faia sat cross-legged on the bench beside her. Around them, a group of classmates debated the cause of the murders.

  A lean,
mahogany-skinned girl nodded. "They split the city so long ago. If it weren't for them and their power-hungry tactics, mages and sajes would still be working together."

  Faia asked, "Why would they murder mage students, though? You say that they have their own half of the city. No mage bothers the working of the sajes."

  "Mages wouldn't. Women have honor. You just don't understand men, hill girl." Yaji looked at Faia disdainfully. "No matter what they have, it's never enough. They always want more."

  Faia snorted. "Do you actually know any men? Have you ever worked with one? Shared a house with one? Bedded one?"

  The expressions on the faces around Faia told her she had just committed blasphemy.

  "Gods, no!" one student snarled.

  "Have you?" another asked.

  "All three, and plenty of times," Faia said.

  The ring of young women pulled back from her.

  "Every conjugal contact a mage has with a man takes away a portion of her power," Yaji said. "By devoting energy to men, she sacrifices her strength for unimportant things."

  "That should give you something to think about, then," Faia said, and laughed. "Imagine what I could do if I had never tumbled any of the shepherd boys in the village." She shook her head in scorn. "Who told you that? To me, your story sounds like an excuse made up by old women who did not wish to supply their students with alsinthe. I have more power than any of you, and I have had all the men I wanted, and as often. And, no matter what you think, men have honor too."

  "Go out and tell that to the sajes who murdered our classmates," one girl yelled.

  "You do not know that a saje did murder your classmates," Faia yelled back. "You have no proof."

  "Saje-lover," one student muttered. Others took up the refrain.

  Medwind Song entered her classroom to find a fight starting. As soon as the students noticed her, the snarls died down. She stood in front of the class, suspiciously sure of the cause of the disagreement, and plastered a false expression of curiosity on her face.

  "What's been going on?" she asked.

  There was a pregnant silence.

  "We have been discussing the murders," Faia finally said, glossing over the dangerous mood that had sprung up in the room.

  Becoming something of a politician, our Faia, Medwind thought. That is something for the common good, in any case. She glared at her students. "It is time for class now. Please keep your speculations for appropriate times." The tall barbarian brought a small, spiny training ball from her pack and set it in front of her students. "Today we're going to work on using attack mode through defense shields. This is a repeat lesson—you should be competent at it by now."

  Usually, Medwind's announcement of combat lessons would have been met by groans and displeasure. It was an indication of the mood of the campus that no one even questioned a refresher course.

  When the frelle tossed the ball at the first of her students, it was slowed by the shield and pushed back by the force the student mustered. That marked the first time in memory that Medwind had not managed to hit at least the first student with the ball.

  Good, she thought. Maybe I won't lose any more of my children. She continued grimly, tossing the ball, watching it fly away, and wishing for something she could offer her students that would guarantee them their lives.

  After class, she stopped Faia and Yaji before they could leave.

  "I need you two to come with me. The instructors are meeting to determine our course of action, and we want to know anything the two of you can tell us." She stepped into the crowded room, and studied the mob. "The rest of you, go to your next classes, and stay in pairs. If you are done with your classes for the day, go straight to your rooms and shield your quarters carefully. Tomorrow, at second bell, we will be meeting in the downstairs corridors of your dorms. We will go to antis as a group."

  The instructors acted like an older version of the classroom crowd. Faia waited until Yaji had given her version, then told the assembled women what she had felt and seen. She described the method by which she fought off the invisible attacker. She told about being led by the Fendles to the bodies in the woods. And finally, she made it clear that she could not point any fingers at the sajes. She was as fair as she knew how to be.

  Again, everyone was certain the sajes were responsible.

  Rakell stood in front of the group after they finished grilling the two roommates.

  "There are a few pieces of information none of the rest of you know yet. You need to know now. First, we have now obtained identification from families of two of the other women Faia and Yaji discovered. They were, as we had suspected, some of the more competent and powerful of the hedge-wizards in Mage-Ariss. You of the Council already knew when these women disappeared. What you did not know is that each woman was murdered in the same way; first the hands were cut off and the stumps cauterized to stop the bleeding, then the skin was flayed and certain organs were removed, and then the throat was cut. The method indicates that pain and suffering were prolonged in every case for as long as possible without causing death. The abilities of the victims and the fact that this pattern was followed consistently followed convinces me that this was a ritual and suggests to me that the deaths were an attempt to raise power."

  The Mottemage paused. "There is one other thing. I hesitate to mention it, because I fear it will be the beginning of a greater nightmare than we already face. Still, facts are facts. A ring was found at the site of the murders, under one of the bodies." The older woman wrapped her arms across her chest and closed her eyes. "It is a ring of the style commonly worn by lower-level sajes. The presence of this ring may give us a strong clue to the identity of our killer. It also may give us a motive, if a lower-level saje was using blood magic to increase his strength."

  Under the outcry that followed the Mottemage's announcement, Yaji leaned over and yelled in Faia's ear, "I told you so."

  Faia bit her lip. "Then I was wrong. I was just so certain men could not do something like this to women."

  "Men are beasts," Yaji yelled.

  "I never knew any who were," Faia muttered to herself.

  The Council members asked nonmembers to leave, so that motions could be heard and a vote taken on the proper course of action.

  Faia and Yaji and Medwind went outside and sat on the hard stone benches that lined the grassway between the Mottehaus and One Round Way.

  Traffic thinned and the sky darkened while they waited, and the Tide Mother rose red and garish and ugly and cast its ruddy shadows over the whitestone of Ariss. Faia had a vision in which blood, and not the nearby planet, stained the city—and when the Councillors finally came out of their meeting and the Mottemage came over to join the trio, Faia was sure the omen had been a true one.

  "It's to be war," the Mottemage whispered.

  No more needed to be said.

  Medwind rested on her padded floor mat, breathing in the heavy scent of powdered amber, stoneweed, and musk burning on the brazier. Her fingers rolled restlessly across the worn skin head of her drum. She closed her eyes and remembered the felt walls of her b'dabba, the same incense thrown into her cookfire, the sounds and scents of camp—horses, laughter, the sizzle and scent of goat cooking on a spit, children screeching and playing one of a hundred versions of tag. She hungered for the chill, dry air of her homeland, for her good Hoos warsteed between her knees and one of her brawny Hoos husbands at her side. This city with its bogs and fogs and paranoias, its stupid intrigues, its infuriating sequestration of women from men, got no better no matter how long she waited.

  I'm next in line to head the University. When Rakell steps down, or, gods forbid, dies, I'll step into her place. I could make some changes then... maybe.

  She angrily pounded out a war-riff. Or I could go crazy trying. Ariss has been fending off "barbarian" ideas for centuries. Even Rakell, who has been my best friend for almost ten years, can't take my political suggestions seriously. Who am I to think that I could change all of Ariss—o
r even all of Daane?

  Now the idiots on Council want to wipe out every human being in Saje-Ariss without having any idea whether the sajes are really responsible or not. Just because of a ring that may not even be related to the murders. Medwind's drumming got faster and harder. Not so. It's because they don't like men.

  The barbarian, who had at some personal risk created a secret entrance to her quarters in order to smuggle her lovers in and out, rolled her eyes at that. That just proves they're idiots.

  No matter how sure the rest of the mages were of the sajes' guilt, Medwind wasn't convinced. And before she participated in annihilating half a city, she was going to have to be rock-solid certain.

  Tomorrow, she thought, I start doing a little tracking—my way. All this time in the city may have made me slow and stupid—but a stupid Hoos is brighter than a brilliant Arisser.

  I'll find the ones who killed my students. And only they will pay.

  * * *

  There would be war.

  Faia struggled with this thought, and tried to see the justice in it. Mages were going to destroy the saje side of the city, and all the people in it—men, women, children, magical, mundane, guilty, and innocent.

  Men were not the way these women claimed. Faia knew that. The mages' angry rhetoric simply did not make sense.

  She lay on her bed and stared at the dorm windows. There was nothing rosy about them at the moment. The cheerful pink glass was occulted by shutters, barred against the blackness of midnight—darkness and fear were held at bay by the gleam of lamps and the glow of shields. Yaji's bed had been moved next to hers. There was supposed to be safety in numbers.

  Safety from men. Men!

  How can they be so afraid of men?

  She rolled over on her side and looked at her roommate, who stared at the shadows flickering on the ceiling. "How can you hate men so much, Yaji? There are none in your life."