Sparkers (16 page)

Azariah grabs my hand as we skirt another tent. The heavy cloth beats in the wind, and it feels like we're brushing past the heaving side of some enormous beast. The lights of the next clearing twinkle through the trees.

It's slow work forcing our way through the tangle of underbrush. Twigs snatch at our clothes and scratch our wet faces. It seems like a miracle when we break through into the second clearing. The bonfire draws us like moths.

While Azariah examines his mud-spattered clothing in the firelight, I peer out into the shadows. Behind us, there's a tiny orange tent set off a little from the others. I nudge Azariah, and we walk toward it.

“Hello?” I call, hoping my voice carries through the drenched cloth.

“Come in,” someone replies.

The tent is dark inside, lit only by a tiny oil lamp and now by our lanterns, which we set on the ground. An ancient woman sits at a round wicker table, her hands folded on the embroidered tablecloth. A silver and turquoise ring gleams on her finger.

“I am Basira,” the woman says. “Come closer.”

The unexpected richness of her voice pulls me deeper into the tent, and I shuffle forward. The lamplight catches in the golden threads of the tablecloth, transforming them into mesmerizing wires of flame.

“Who are you?” asks Basira. Her eyes are light like Tsipporah's, only less green, more like the color of water. I find it difficult to look away from them.

“I'm Marah,” I say.

“I'm Azariah.” He forges bravely ahead. “We'd like to buy some heavenly tea.”

“First I will see what you have to give to me,” Basira says. I hold my breath, remembering Yochanan's words.
Be sure to pay her properly
.

She tilts her head as if in invitation, and I notice a couple of stools half-hidden by the folds of the tablecloth. Azariah and I drag them out and sit down.

Basira fixes her attention on Azariah. “You are Xanite, aren't you?”

“Yes,” he says, startled.

She addresses him in Xanite, and he replies in the same language, looking self-conscious.

Basira smiles, satisfied. “I will give you the heavenly tea you ask for if you tell me a story.”

“A story?” Azariah says, perplexed.

“A Xanite story,” Basira adds, gazing serenely at him.

He looks helplessly at me, and I feel a spurt of alarm.

“If it's a tale you want,” Azariah says, “Marah knows lots, don't you?”

“Not Xanite ones,” I whisper.

“Oh.” His forehead creases. “But Sarah says you're good at storytelling . . .”

I shake my head. While I'm reluctant to entrust him with this crucial task, it's clear Basira wants it to be him.

Azariah closes his eyes, and I wait in trepidation. At last he speaks. “I think . . . Maybe . . .” He faces Basira. “I know the Xanite creation myth, the story of the beginning of time written on the temple scroll . . .”

Basira nods.

“It's in Xanite, though,” Azariah says shakily, glancing at me.

“You may tell it in Ashari,” Basira says.

“All right.” Azariah pauses. “Before the river of time began to flow, the waters of the world lay trapped inside a great boulder, larger than the heavens themselves.” He closes his eyes. “The boulder rested below the sands of the earth.”

Basira's face is glowing with something other than the lamplight.

“These sands wrapped the barren earth in their countless grains. And in the waters inside the boulder under the sand slumbered a spirit, the greatest of the spirits, who is Kohal.”

I shiver. I should've had more faith in him.

“There came a time when Kohal awoke and smote the boulder. The waters erupted out of the sands, and a river called Time, huge and invisible, began to flow through the heavens. Outside the waters, other spirits multiplied until they were without number. These spirits are eternal and are with us still, because they are outside Time.

“The river's current gave rise to mortal life. Plants grew thick in its waters: seaweed and flowering vines and trees bearing fruit. The fishes and the great whales swam in its depths, and the eagle and the thrush flew alongside them. All the animals of the desert and the forest and the mountains dwelt on the river's sandy bottom, and humankind walked among them.”

I could listen to him for a while yet, but I sense the story is already drawing to a close.

“All mortal life flourishes still in the river of Time,” Azariah says solemnly, “but none can ever scrabble onto its banks.”

I let out a sigh. There is a brief silence. Basira's eyes are shut, and her expression is faraway, as though she is seeing another land.

Then she takes a breath. “My thanks. The heavenly tea you require is yours.”

Without asking how much we want, she hands him a small leather bag tied with a red cord.

“But your price,” Azariah says.

“You have shown reverence for where you came from and trust in each other,” Basira says. “There are too few people who honor their ancestors or befriend those different from themselves. This tea is yours.”

Almost speechless with disbelief, we thank her and duck out of the tent into the night. As new rain patters on my head, I feel as though I'm waking from a dream.

I
t feels much colder back in the first clearing, and I'm shivering. We find Tsipporah in the swollen crowd around the fire. She has the cub's foot, the oxalis tubers, and the perilla oil in a bag tied to her belt, and Azariah and I have the black eggs, the cardamom, and the heavenly tea. The three of us plunge back into the dark forest, Azariah and I trudging behind Tsipporah. The creak of the glistening black trees and the incessant whisper of the freezing rain are soothing, or maybe it's just that I'm exhausted.

For a while, nobody speaks. Then Azariah says in an undertone, “That was bizarre, in the tent with Basira.”

“Yes. Your story was good though.” I hesitate. “You're pretty devout, aren't you? I've noticed the Maitaf on your desk . . .”

He doesn't answer right away. “I like being observant,” he says at last. “In the Maitafi fane, and in the Xanite temple.”

“Do you say the prayer to greet the dawn?” It's the only habit of strictly practicing Maitafi I know of.

“Usually only in the wintertime, when the sun rises late,” he says sheepishly.

We emerge from the woods and pass through the slum into the city. Soon the buildings are familiar. Before we reach the Ikhad, Tsipporah stops at a small street that leads to the river.

“This is where we part,” she says. “You know your way home from here, and it's time I went home too. Here.” She unties the bag containing the rest of the ingredients from her belt. Azariah takes it from her.

“My thanks, Tsipporah,” I say, though the words feel inadequate.

“Yes, my thanks,” Azariah echoes.

“I wouldn't have done anything less for you, Marah,” Tsipporah says. “Go home safely, both of you.”

Then she heads toward the river, the tip of her shawl fluttering behind her.

I stifle a yawn. “You should come to my apartment,” I tell Azariah. “It's the middle of the night, and we're soaked.”

“All right,” he says, his expression intensely grateful.

We start trudging toward Horiel, but we haven't gone far when a voice shatters the rain's gentle murmur.

“Azariah! Marah!”

I spin around. Behind us, a figure steps from an alley.

“Channah?” Azariah and I say in confused unison.

She raises her lantern, and her black coat glitters with rain. There's something unsettling in her expression.

“I've been sent to take you to the Assembly,” she says, taking a step toward us. “With the ingredients for the cure.”

I gape at her.

“How do you know about the ingredients?” Azariah demands.

“I've been following you,” she says. Her face is drawn, her eyes flickering with uncertainty.

“Following us?” Azariah glances anxiously at me, and I remember he thought he heard someone behind us in the slum, on the way to the forest. An age ago.

This makes no sense. What does Channah have to do with the Assembly?

Memories come floating back to me, all her probing questions in the auto, the way she knew about the foreign dignitaries attending the Second Councilor's funeral . . .

“You're a kasir,” I say.

“What?” Azariah exclaims.

Swiftly, Channah arranges her hands at chest level and utters a word. Icy shock seizes my muscles, and my legs fuse to the street.

Azariah looks wide-eyed from me to Channah as I struggle against the spell. “You are a—”

He breaks off, turning back to me and dropping his lantern. It clangs on the cobblestones as the flame goes out. He twists his fingers, shouts an incantation, but nothing happens.

“You're a spy!” he shouts at Channah. “The Assembly sent you to keep an eye on us, didn't they?”

Channah doesn't deny it. “Please calm down. I don't want to hurt you,” she says, a note of desperation in her voice. “The auto's right up—”

“What've you been doing in our household?” Azariah insists.

Channah swears under her breath. She curls her fingers into another sign and speaks. Black smoke billows into my mind, snuffing out the world around me.

• • •

I
WAKE
UP
on the ground, my eyelids leaden. Rolling onto my side, I wince at my stiff back and sore legs. The air around me is cold and musty. I open my eyes and gingerly raise my head. My lantern burns on the concrete floor, illuminating crates stacked against stone walls.

“Marah?”

Azariah is sitting against a large wooden box, so weary he can hardly hold up his head. I feel as spent as he looks.

“Azariah, what—?” I press my palm to my pounding forehead. “Where are we? What happened? Did Channah . . . ?”

“We're in my house,” he says, sounding embarrassed. “In a storage room in the basement. I . . . I tried to fight her, but she's a much stronger magician. She brought us in an auto, a government model, and then she smuggled us down here and locked us in. The whole time it was like I was drugged. I helped her
carry
you.”

Pressing my hands to my sides, I realize the pockets of my cloak are flat. “The ingredients!”

“She took them all,” Azariah says.

I feel like crying, but I'm too exhausted. Then a new wave of panic crashes over me. Mother. She must be beside herself.

“Azariah, I'm so tired.”

“I know,” he says. “Sleep.”

“But we have to—”

“Sleep,” he insists, his voice already muffled. “We can't do anything until we rest.”

So I stretch out on the floor again, and Azariah extinguishes the lantern.

I expect to sink into slumber at once, but I don't. In the dark, the storage room could be infinitely large or as close as a tomb. My breath keeps holding itself, and I have to release it with a pained gasp. I imagine Azariah's river of time rushing through the blackness, and in it I see faces: the Seventh Councilor, Channah, Melchior, Tsipporah, Basira, then Azariah, Sarah, Leah, Caleb, and Mother. My heart aches, but I don't want it to stop. Better to hurt than to be numb, better to feel than to forget . . .

The next thing I know, I'm staring up into Azariah's pinched face. His brown eyes reflect the lantern light. The floor is unforgiving under my aching back.

I sit up and rub my eyes. “Is it day?”

“How can we tell?” Azariah says. “I feel better though. Are you rested?”

“Rested enough,” I say. “Did Channah say anything else to you when she brought us down here?”

“Nothing useful,” he says. “She asked me where the Hagramet book was. I wouldn't tell her, but she said it didn't matter, she knew it was hidden somewhere in my study. It must've been her who broke in there Tenthday night.”

I struggle to straighten out my swirling thoughts. “She was eavesdropping on us all along, wasn't she? She must've reported us to the Assembly. But why are they pursuing us so secretively? I felt something was wrong when we thought about telling someone what we'd found, remember? This just proves the Assembly has something to hide.”

“But what?” Azariah says. “They want a cure to the dark eyes, everybody does. This should be cause for celebration.”

I stand up and walk in a circle around him. “Unless they have some ulterior motive . . . Don't look at me like that. I have no idea what it could be. But it
is
strange that the cause of the dark eyes should be explained in a book the Assembly has banned.”

He frowns. “They didn't specifically ban that book, they banned Hagramet books.”

“It amounts to the same.”

“But Marah, the Assembly instituted the ban a hundred and sixty years ago. It can't have anything to do with the dark eyes.”

“Well, when do you think the neutralizing spells were lost?” I ask. “Surely at least a hundred and sixty years ago, since no one remembers them today. What if they were lost
because
Hagramet books were banned?”

He opens his mouth to retort and abruptly closes it, looking uncertain. “Maybe there is some connection,” he says at last, “but that doesn't explain what the Assembly is doing
now
.”

I purse my lips. “At least you agree they appear to want very tight control over the cure? I wonder if they even want people to have one . . .”

“Of course they must!” Azariah almost chokes on his words.

“Well, we can't just keep talking. We have to get out of here and retrieve the Hagramet books and take back the ingredients.”

Azariah swallows. “Assuming we accomplish all that, where do we go?”

“Home,” I say, picturing Mother at the kitchen table, her face haggard. “I mean, my apartment.”

“Are you sure? Channah knows where you live.”

“I don't know what else to do. And I need to see Mother.” I glance at the door.

Azariah follows my gaze. “It's locked. And not just with a key.”

“You're a magician.”

“Didn't I tell you how strong Channah was? I tried while you were unconscious.”

I twist the doorknob, but the lock won't budge. I rattle it back and forth a few times and then start pounding.

“No one ever comes down here,” Azariah says.

I look around at the bare walls, the dusty crates, the cracked ceiling. “We could try knocking up there.”

“I think she thought of that. There are a lot of spells around here.”

“How do you know?”

“I can feel them,” he says. “The spells draw the ambient magic into currents. It's a tug, like a breeze.”

“Then won't other people in the house feel them too?” I say.

“Not unless they come close enough.”

I rest my forehead against the door. When it quivers, I jump back, almost losing my balance.

“It moved,” I say.

“I didn't hear—”

The door shakes again, and this time we both hear a thud outside.

“It's her,” Azariah says. “Get back.”

The bolt slides over with a deafening click, and someone peers in, shining a lamp into the storage room.

“God of the Maitaf,” says Melchior. His eyebrows arch as he looks from me to Azariah. Our clothes, dried stiff, are plastered with mud and strewn with twigs and dead leaves.

“Go back,” Melchior says over his shoulder. He blocks the doorway, straining against whoever's behind him. “Uncork another bottle of mead. I'll be right there. Go!” He elbows someone we can't see and steps into the storeroom, closing the door. “What the hell is this?”

“How did you open that door?” Azariah asks.

“I broke the lock spell.”

“You did?” Azariah says with undisguised shock.

Melchior glares at him. “I let people underestimate me. What are you doing down here?” He acts like we've encroached upon his territory. Apparently somebody does come down here.

“Channah shut us in,” Azariah says. “You have to help us get out.”

“Channah?” Melchior stares at us both. “What's going on? What happened to your clothes?”

Azariah's jaw clenches. “The forest happened. Melchior, we've found a way to cure Sarah, but Channah stole what we need.”

“
What?
” Melchior seems unable to form words as disbelief, hope, and anger mingle in his expression.

“Channah's a kasir,” Azariah says. “All the spells on this room are hers. I think the Assembly placed her here to spy on Mother and Father.”

“We really have to leave,” I put in.

“Look,” Melchior says with an impatient gesture, “why don't we ask Mother or Father for help? They could—”

“No!” Azariah says. “If we draw them in, it'll bring the whole government crashing down on us, on Channah's side.”

Melchior's face hardens. “Fine. But if I help you now, I want all this explained to me. Especially what you said about curing Sarah.”

“All right,” Azariah says.

“I know how you can leave without being seen,” his brother begins, but I cut him off.

“We can't leave until we get what Channah took from us. Where is everyone in the house?”

“Father's at work,” Melchior says. “Mother's with Sarah.”

“Sarah.” Azariah's voice almost breaks. “How is she?”

“Her fever's gone, but the illness is in her chest now. She can't sleep for coughing.”

“What about Channah?” I ask.

Melchior frowns. “My friends and I passed through the servants' hall coming down. I'm sure I heard her moving around in her room.”

“So she's still here,” I say with relief. “Melchior, what if you tell Channah Sarah's asking for her, to get her out of her room?”

“As if Channah cares about Sarah,” Azariah says spitefully.

“She has to pretend to, at least,” I counter.

The seconds trickle by until Azariah says, “Let's try it. We have nothing to lose.”