IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
IV: Braided Paths
Chapter 7 Magic and Misdirection
Wednesday, August 19, 2708 The Articles of War do not
apply in an insurrection which the government refuses to acknowledge as a
war. A red cross just makes something
convenient for the cross-hairs of our enemy to home in on, so we gave up
bothering with it generations ago. They
find us at the very brink of dawn. Shellfire chews up the road
behind us in loud explosions as we scramble for all we're worth into the
surrounding countryside, but the greenfire speeds our steps and makes us laugh,
half-crazy with the thrill. I whistle
for Malcolm to take half our wounded and supplies south towards a landmark that
he's recognized. He might have contacts
that could help, but we all stand a better chance if we split up. Or did I do that yesterday? No matter—just run! Tanjin says that he used to
live somewhere north of here, so the rest of us go that way, on bare hope. With us come Kiril and Lufti, hurling their
Parthian shots of bullet and stone, but the bullets won't last at the rate
we're going, they don't grow in pods in monastery gardens...keep your mind on survival,
idiot! Race after the frightened,
bleating llamas as the wounded cling desperately to their backs, their pale
jaws clenched beneath the dirt. Tanjin pounces on a llama
left unburdened by death, to try and steer the general stampede. Now my arms gather my young to me as I take
flying leaps down the mountainside, each stride lengthened by the magentine
hidden in the pack strapped to my back, barely skimming the ground with each
footfall before I push off again. I
can't fly fully with my depleted body and the weight of Kiril and Lufti
clutched to either side, but I make it as close as I can, desperate to catch up
with the mountain-footed beasts that plunge ahead. The first colors of morning bleed into the
sky beyond windswept trees in glorious silhouette, distracting me, but I fight
to keep control of my mind and brush the earth a pounce or two ahead of death. The children scream when we
drop down a cliff that only wild goats and corries ought to dare, but I hold
them tight against my pounding breast and break our fall with all the power
left in me. With the llamas we thud and
roll, then race again, Tanjin and the strapped-on wounded floured in dust,
speeding on like the most natural thing in the world—but a person can't feel
real after doing something like that, not when thin air and vertigo,
post-levitation hunger and greenfire in the blood spin away all sense of reason,
not in the Charadoc, where magentine abounds but few know what to do with it,
and those few who do call it magic, not when I can't believe half the science I
learned in some other lifetime at Til Institute. We speed beyond the gunfire while the troops
behind us stare in shock, uncertain of what they've seen. * * * (They regard magentine as magic, sorcerous and evil. I must not will a glow around me. I must not light the morning lamp with my
mind. I must fumble with a match. It breaks in my hand. I must remember to only curse in
Toulinian. I must sit by, shamefaced, as
somebody else snaps a match against a stone, smirking as it flares up
brightly. I hear somebody whisper
something about Lumnites, and then the muffled snickers, as I pull on the
scratchy woolen underwear, the hose, and the ridiculous, pumpkiny pants. An amber glow now illuminates the sleepy,
blotchy faces all around us as we pass around the basin and the water, then
march down the stairs in step, carrying our chamber-pots to the level where the
plumbing reaches in a ridiculously acrid military formation. I feel the marble of magentine in my pocket like
a guilty secret, hard and heavy. I
wonder if I'll ever need to use it?) * * * Full daylight, now. Gray.
Overcast, but the rain will not drop here. Color gradually seeps back into the world. Another leaf and it flares up brightly. We don't feel our feet anymore. We stumble, sure, but we recover. We have all the strength we need. I watch my children, skittering over the
rock, down a harsh slope more like a sandpaper slide than a path. But their bravado carries them forward, bless
their pounding hearts. We have to give the animals
a break, if nothing else. Giving leaf to
llamas only make them uncontrollable, so I've been told. Two of them have already foundered, but
deaths among the wounded has left us with spares, anyway. I wish we'd had time to butcher the shaggy
beasts. Not really, but I suppose I
ought to wish it. Now we have the chance, but
the meat lies miles behind us. We sit
together on the hard stone ground, waiting out the animals, who have crowded
around a little rocky spring, lapping at its green water, nipping at the
scrawny epiphytes that cling around its edges.
But nobody feels like resting with so much leaf in them. The llamas soon tuck themselves in on
themselves to sleep. So I strap on my flit and
tell the others to stand watch. Every
single one of them positions themselves on a different rock, turned outward,
clutching their various weapons to themselves, glaring out into nothing. I stuff a corked jug into my shirt. I choke down cornbean bread. And I take off for reconnaissance. High up here, I can see the
canyons like parallel fissures scraped into the rock by monster claws. Several have enemy soldiers in them. In our latest one they march straight towards
us. In the farthest canyon, away from
the action, or so the enemy thinks, they have paused for lunch. I smile as I hover out of
their line of sight, wondering if they'd like some medicinal spirits to go with
their potatoes and beans? All of those
healing herbs distilled into the powerful cordial, oh what a waste and ask me
if I care. I drop it down right onto the
campfire and speed away before they even notice that something plummets towards
them. They might not even know why their
fire exploded. After the bang, I hear
orders shouted all up and down the canyons.
I repress the urge to chuckle; they mustn't learn to look up! I see our own stalkers struggling to get
themselves and their equipment up over a ridge of rock, abandoning the trail that
leads right to us because they heard us supposedly attack elsewhere. Now every sorry fool of them must try and
charge cross-grain to the landscape, thinking to close in on us. Meanwhile I land and tell my folks to move,
before they realize the ruse and come charging after us. Thank you, monks, for your
precious herbal concoction. I
don't think that that small explosion killed anyone. A few shards of pottery might have caused
some cuts, a few flying embers might have made a blister here and there. But the misdirection? Priceless! |
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