Страница 6 из 8
I traced my knife along the edges of the Order tattoos, dropping the blood on Leila's floor in a lopsided circle. I didn't have all the supplies to do this properly, butIhopedmy blood and my urgency would be enough for me to find the answers I needed. I tossed my knife aside, out of the circle,and sat down and began to chant in the language of the Jadorr'a, the words low and rough in the back of my throat. Magic steamed in the air.
I fell away.
My body stayed in Leila's house butIopened my eyes in the center of Kajjil. When I joined the Order as a little boy, I memorized spell after spell, but this one, this opening of a gateway, was the first.
This was the part of Kajjil that held answers.
Kajjil's center looks different to every individual. For me it was a desert of glass. The wind sounded like chimes. I wandered over the landscape, murmuring my question inthe language of the Jadorr'a:
How do I find Lisim Sarr? How do I find Lisim Sarr?
I wasn't sure I would get an answer.The wind slipped through the glass dunes.My feet ached. My eyes watered.
How do I find Lisim Sarr? I asked, raising my voice.
And then Kajjil's center answered. The place was created by the Order years and years ago, and they built it out of the knowledge of every Jadorr'a whohadeverbeen. Those Jadorr'a answered me now, whispering on the wind:
Fire.
Fire.
Fire.
"Fire?" I didn't understand. I've no capacity for fire magic.
Fire, the voice said, rising in a clamor.Fire fire firefirefirefire.
And then flames erupted out of the glass ahead of me, golden flames shot through with human bodies, and I understood.
The Fire of Amkarja.
The flames extinguished in a curl of smoke, but the voices continued to chantfireas I stood in Kajjil, afraid to return to my body. I knew, in theory, how to ignite the Fire. It was one of the spells I had memorized as a little boy. A spell my tutor had warned me away from.
"To find what is lost," he'd said,leaning over me as I worked."It never goes out. It will always keep looking. But there are easier ways to track a target."
And he was right, assuming the commission was simple. Routine.
I pulled away from Kajjil and reco
I stood up, gathered my knife,andcrept out to Leila's hallway. Her house was empty, still, and dark. I found her sleeping on the divan, the skin around her eyes red from crying. I knelt down beside her and shook her awake. She gasped a little and her eyes opened and gave me a long sad look.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"You aren't a very good person," I said.
"I know. I'm all right with it." She reached over and cupped my face in her hand and smiled. Her touch was gentle and soft and it reminded me of every other time she had ever touched me. Stupid as it was, I couldn't stay angry with her. "You're not, though," she said. "Not finding him won't change that."
"I know how to find him." I took her hand in mine and squeezed. She watched me, her expression unreadable. I stood up. "I saw the way in Kajjil."
She pushed herself up onto one arm. "Are you going to do something stupid?"
"I'm going to stop him."
"So yes."
I turned away from her and walked to the door. Behind me, she said my name. She told me to wait.
But I ignored her.
#
I went into the desert, far away from the lights of the city. It was darker than I could have imagined, so dark I could barely see my own hands. I cast a handful of small lanterns,and they floated around my head like wayward stars, illuminating everything with pale bluelight. They didn't help much.
I'd been able to procure a stack of firewood from a desert tree growing outside the city wall. With my magic I cut the tree into pieces and shovedtheminto a burlap sack I stole from Leila's house, along with a bit of flint fromthepile beside her stove, and here I was, with everything I needed to cast the Fire of Amkarja. A stack of wood, a piece of flint, and my own blood.
I began to work, slowly and methodically. I arranged the firewood in a circle, making a neat, even pile. Putting off the inevitable. When I was finished I stepped back, my arms crossed over my chest. It was cold without the sun, and I shivered beneath my armor and my robes, although I wasn't sure I was shivering from the cold.
I knew how the fire was supposed to work: I would cast it, using my theoretical knowledge,and the magic would draw me in close, making me a part of the fire.The flames would show me the faces of those who were lost. I would ask the fire to show me Lisim Sarr. Because I am Jadorr'a,and because I gaveapart of myself up,it would comply, although I knew I would have to be careful, I would have to be polite. Armed with this new information, I could travel through the shadows to kill Sarr in his bed, completing my commission and saving the lives of the people in the pleasure district.
Once it was done, I would need to ask the Order to send helptoextinguish the flames. I wouldn't be able to do it on my own, and if I left it, the fire would burn and burn until the end of the universe.
Enough dawdling. I had until sunrise to complete my commission.
I pulled out the flint and held it, measuring its weight in my hand. Then I struck it, tossed the tiny flame onto the wood, and watched as it all caught fire. I grabbed my knife and poised it over my forearm. My tattoos glowed, sensing the magic I was about perform. I closed my eyes. I thought of the words, an ancient spell in the language of the Order, one I knewperfectly. I knew everything perfectly. I had just never done it before.
I began to chant.
At first the words were only words, but as they spilled out of my mouth they transformed into magic, and I no longer belonged to myself. My voice was no longer my own. It was the voices of the lost, calling forth the Fire of Amkarja. The knife pierced my skin. I wasn't expecting it. My eyes flew open at the jolt of pain. The knife dug deeper. Blood gushed over my arm. No. No. This wasn't right. It was supposed to be a nick, enough to draw a few drops --
Enough of me remained that I was able to yank the knife away and fling blood into the already-golden flames, completing the spell and igniting the fire. Something whispered at the back of my head. A bit of wisdom. A warning.Don't look.
I looked.
It wasn't right. I was supposed to see the lost, figures twining and dancing in the gold of the fire. But instead I saw myself, my face twisted and monstrous. The true me, I thought. The face of an assassin.
Fear flooded through my body. My arm burned from where I had lost control of my knife.
"I'm not lost," I said to the fire.
It roared in response, letting off great waves of heat.Forced by the magic,I drifted close tothe fire, wanting to be a part of it, to feel the flames wrap around me like a blanket. I vaguely remembered my task. Mycommission. "Lisim Sarr," I managed to choke out. "Please, I need to find Lisim Sarr."
My face-in-the-fire snarled at me. Lisim Sarr didn't seem so important anymore. Only the fire;the golden sputtering light. I was close enough to touch it. I knelt down in the sand and leaned forward. The smoke tickled my eyes. The flames licked at my face.
The pain was dazzling.
I screamed. The left side of my face felt as if it had been ripped away. I screamed and fell backward and screamed and screamed and when I hit the ground I didn't hit sand, I hit floorboards, rough-hewn, cold, damp. I couldn't see out of my left eye, everything was blurred andindistinct, but out of my right I saw that overhead was a gapped ceiling of the sort they had in the ice-islands.