Fire Logic

A few hours later, she found the dead soldiers. The ravens had arrived before her, and hopped reluctantly away as she approached, uttering insults in their harsh, secret language. The Paladins had done their work as briskly as any butcher, and deliberately left the bodies to be found. The man who had banged his foot on the floor like a horse had been shot with a pistol and then finished with a dagger. The woman whose fist had left an aching bruise on Zanja’s cheekbone had been shot three times. The horses had been recruited to serve the resistance, Zanja assumed. The two Sai

In the near distance, Zanja could hear the voices of the farmers, breathlessly singing a working song to keep their energy from flagging as the afternoon grew old. The smell of violence suffused the bright air. The ravens jostled each other impatiently, edging their way back to the feast. This was still Shaftal, Zanja told herself, but it seemed like an alien land.

A year after the fall of the House of Lilterwess, Councilor Mabin’s book, Warfare, had become the manual for insurgency throughout Shaftal. People whose lives had until then been the very model of peacefulness joined the Paladins–the new Paladins, Mabin called them, for they did not give up their families or take complicated vows. Soon, every region of Shaftal that the Sai

Zanja’s teacher developed a shortness of breath that left him unable to endure the rigors of travel, and she became Speaker at age twenty‑two. Traveling beyond the borders, she became adept at avoiding the frequent, brief armed confrontations between Sai

She continued to serve her people and her god, however precariously. But every year, she wondered how long she could continue. That she would eventually be caught up and killed in the random violence of the unending war seemed inevitable. But this year, as she reclaimed her horses from the farmers who had looked after them that summer, and continued homeward on northerly roads, she carried a new fear with her. The fear haunted her as the roads became narrow tracks and finally disappeared entirely, leaving her to navigate her way by the stars, the shape of the land, and sheer common sense. The fear followed her as she entered and scaled the mountains, following ways so rarely traversed that scarcely the trace of a path could be seen. She returned home to her people, as she did every autumn, but this year, living among the Sai

The flashing mirrors of the sentinels alerted the village of her coming, and her clan brother, Ransel, met her on the path as he usually did. “Zanja! Home so soon? Did you grow tired of breaking the hearts of the Shaftali women and decide to break the hearts of katriminstead?”

She gave a snort of amusement, for Ransel knew perfectly well that she had no great accumulation of discarded lovers on either side of the border. “I grew tired, anyway,” she said.

“And you missed me?”

She eyed him with mocking doubt. “Well…”

He laughed. Ransel was always laughing, always mocking, always telling jokes or making up crazy riddles. The raven god, a trickster himself and a great practical joker, had chosen Ransel to serve him, and Ransel did so with unremitting enthusiasm. “Say you were lonely!” he teased. “Admit that the inconquerably self‑sufficient Zanja na’Tarwein was about to expire from the poison of solitude! Say that–”

He could go on like this forever if not interrupted. “I was,” she said. “Terribly lonely. As I always am.”

He fell silent. She put her arm around his waist, and he gripped her affectionately across the shoulders. “Well,” he finally said, “You’re lonely no longer. Let’s go climbing tomorrow.”

“Climbing! And what exactly do you think I’ve been doing for eight days now?”

“You’ve been climbing alone. Climbing with your brother, that is completely different.”

“No doubt. Anything done with you is completely different. But the elders will want me tomorrow.”

“Oh,” he sneered. “The elders!”

“Has the weather been fine?”

“Other than the occasional touch of frost and flurry of snow.”

“Will it hold until the day after tomorrow?”

“It might. But whether I will be offended at being put off to accommodate a bunch of creaking, self‑important–”

“–Leaders of the people,” she said pointedly.

“You’re no fun,” he grumbled. “Did you bring me something?” He glanced hopefully at the heavily laden horses.

“I’ll answer that question when we go climbing.”

“Aha! A bribe! Well then, since you know my price, I shall agree.”

They walked companionably together, behind the horses, who kept up an eager pace because they could smell the nearness of home. “So tell me the news,” Zanja said. She did not usually have to prompt him.

He said, soberly for once, “Well, I don’t know a good way to tell you this, my sister. The Speaker is dead.”

She stopped in her tracks. Ransel’s momentum carried him a couple of steps beyond her, and he turned around. “Here,” he said. “Sit for a moment. The horses know the way.”

He squatted on his heels beside her in the middle of the path. “It was a quiet thing. One morning, he simply did not wake up. Salos’a had come during the night to carry him across his last boundary.”

“Without anyone there to remind him of the stories of his life.”

“I am sure there was no need. Salos’a knows his life already.”

“I wanted to be there at his death. And I needed to ask him …” To the astonishment and embarrassment of them both, she abruptly began to weep, and could not get herself under control for some time. As much as she looked forward to Ransel’s staunch affection, she had looked forward to her long conversations with her old teacher, the only one she could confide in. Though she had taken over his duties and position, she still relied heavily on his advice. Now, when she needed most to ask him what to do, Salos’a had taken him off to a far land where he could not possibly be so badly needed.

She raised her head at last. Ransel, uncertain what to do in this unprecedented situation, had simply looked away and was courteously pretending not to have noticed her tears. She stood up, wiping her face, and they continued down the path. After a while, Ransel, somewhat muted at first, began to tell her all the other events of the summer, as he always did. By the time they reached the Asha Valley, where Zanja’s people thrived in peaceful comfort, she had gotten more surefooted as she tread the precarious edge of sorrow, and was able to keep from falling into it again.