Fire Logic

With her weapons and gear tied in a bundle on her shoulder, Zanja joined a group of farmers headed for Wilton Market. They tolerated her presence as a herd of horses tolerates a donkey in their midst.

In Wilton, Sai

Transformation, of course, is the business of chemists, but the flame‑and‑stone also was a traditional call to revolution. Nevertheless, no one except her stood in the street outside the chemist’s shop, mesmerized by the audacity of the weather‑worn sign. Someone bumped into her and snapped at her for blocking the way. She stepped into the dim shop, and bowed briefly to the chemist, the shop’s only occupant, who used a pestle to grind a mess of odd ingredients into a fine powder. A thin, vigorous woman with her gray hair braided and tied with a red ribbon, the chemist nodded but didn’t leave off her work until the grinding was completed. Then she came over to the counter, wiping her hands upon her apron.

“Yes,” she said, “do you have a receipt for me to fill?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Good, then. I hate to see healthy people dose themselves. So you need a potion for someone else?”

“For a friend. She needs something to calm her heart. She’s wild with grief, and it’s making her ill.”

The chemist tutted absently. “Lost a child?”

“Her whole family is gone. The Sai

The chemist seemed to hesitate just a moment, then she shrugged. “That’s country news,” she said dismissively. “So, she’s maddened by grief and you want to … what? Make her sane again? Make her family come back? What?”

“I want to give her some peace so she can think,” Zanja said. “I’m afraid she’ll do something foolish. Is there some drug that will make her talk to me?”

The chemist wrote a few glyphs in chalk on a piece of slate. “I’ll have it done tonight. Where should I send it?”

Zanja named an i

“And your name?” said the chemist.

Zanja took the slate from her and drew upon it the Snake glyph, for betrayal, and crossed it out, then wrote out her name, and gave the slate back to the chemist, who accepted it without a word.

She used what remained of her funds to bespeak a private room at the i

There was a tap on the door. “Chemist’s delivery.”

Zanja opened the door and let A

“I ate.” A

Zanja sat in the window again, leaving A

“It’s none of your business.”

“Then why did you come here to see me? You didn’t have to.”

A

“I thought you might want some help.”

A

Zanja said, “You searched for your family’s bodies, didn’t you? Like I did.”

“They’re alive, as far as I know. I suppose the Sai

“On the other hand, you can hardly hope to rescue them.”

“I don’t even know where they are.” For a moment, she looked exhausted. “But even if I could rescue them, my home would still be gone. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to rest.”

She began pacing the room. “The Sai

“My people built with wood also,” Zanja said. “And the Sammies burned the entire village to the ground.” They looked at each other. “Tomorrow is the dark moon,” Zanja added. “And it’s about time the Sai

A

Zanja looked bleakly down upon the crowded street of a community that would never be hers. “He and I are fighting different wars.”

A

Zanja said, “That sounds rather startling.”

“Startling? It’ll scare the Sai

Zanja stood up. The room moved around her. Her head filled with an appalling pain. Ransel came out of the mist, and put his arms around her. “I knew you would survive,” he said. “Now we shall have vengeance.”

Any wall can be breached, but Zanja had never imagined that it would be so easy to break into the Sai

Even as Zanja worked with A