The Fires of Farsinchia: Waterspell, #6

Chapter One

What the—? Ow!

Heat flashed in Karenina’s hand as she snatched the heavy pendant from under the neckline of her sleeveless blouse. The solid chunk of metal was threatening to burn her. As she held the pendant away from her skin, fire gleamed in the depths of the blue steel and flickered in the nuggets of pure gold with which her brother Galen had fashioned the jewelry. In that instant, Nina saw the flaming forge of the metalsmith, though Galen’s magical workshop lay at a great distance beyond the void that separated her adopted home from the faraway world to which she and her brother were native.

Nina not only saw—and felt—the fire of her brother’s spellcraft, she heard his voice within the flames.

Come quickly! Galen cried, his words echoing across the formless oblivion. Jacca needs you.

What’s happened?

Nina yelled into the pendant as though shouting through cupped hands. But the flames had died and the metal had already cooled. The brief link between the worlds was broken, leaving Nina staring at the exquisite piece of jewelry she’d always known was enchanted. When Galen pressed it into her hands at the hour of their last good-bye, she had felt the magic within the metal: magic from the hands of its maker. Until this moment, however, she had not guessed the pendant held the power to breach the void.

Such power had been wielded by only three wysards of Ladrehdin, all of them female. Nina herself had been a little girl, not quite six years old when she first crossed the void on magic of her own making. Going back a generation, Nina’s legendary mother—Lady Carin of Ruain—had also made the crossing at a young age, although her passage had not been by choice. Carin’s first journey through the nothingness had been forced upon her by dark magic. She’d been abducted from her childhood home by a blood sorceress whose name would never again find utterance among the true wysards of Ladrehdin. Though now condemned and forgotten, that ancient sorceress had been the only other adept of Ladrehdin who’d had the power to create otherworldly bridges.

Which made Nina stare all the harder at the pendant crafted by Galen of the Ore Hills, the metalsmith wysard who had worked void-breaching potency into his parting gift for his sister. Nina tried squeezing the chunk of metal between her hands, attempting to reinvoke its power. When she got no response, she dropped the pendant under the neckline of her shirt and pressed the now-cool steel to her naked flesh. Behind closed lids, she pictured her brother at his smithy, and called to mind Galen’s daughter, the green-eyed girl named Jacca—the magian child who had the gift of fire at her fingertips, a fire even hotter than Galen’s ore-smelting furnaces.

I’m coming, Nina whispered into the silence that followed Galen’s brief, magical entreaty. She was only distantly aware of ocean breezes sighing through the palm trees of her island home on this alien world where she had lived since the age of thirteen. Carried upon the breezes, tropical birdsong came faintly to her ears. Nina noted the far-off booming of surf upon the shore, and heard a ship sound its horn as it approached the distant harbor. Her thoughts, however, remained riveted upon the world to which she had been summoned.

Nina recalled her first glimpse of the foothills where Galen made his home and practiced his art. Up from the desert canyonlands, she had ridden to the hills hot and sweaty, reining her horse beside the gritty nomad who had been her guide to that remote corner of Ladrehdin. Nina had drunk in the sight and scent of the pine trees that climbed those hills and lightly greened the mountain slopes rising beyond them. After weeks in a barren desert, she had needed the moist coolness under those trees like a fish needed the sea. Southern Ladrehdin’s sunbaked deserts were no place for a water-sylph who carried the ocean in her veins.

And yet, Nina had sorrowed to reach the Ore Hills and bid farewell to the nomad named Corlis. During their time together, struggling to survive in a nearly waterless desert, the man had become more to her than a guide.

The nomad’s lean, sun-bronzed face swam before her mind’s eye as Nina tucked away her necklace and leapt down the slope to her cottage in the papaya orchard. This latest abode of hers was tiny, but the two-room hut was all she’d had since returning to her island world. She’d come back to find her descendants comfortably lodged in the larger house below the towering wall of rock, the house on the beach of the sheltered bay.

She’d once shared that home with a mortal man, a non-magian native of these islands. But Makani was dead now, victim of his mortal years, leaving Nina widowed and restless. Seeking the solace of family, she had jumped the void to visit not only her brother Galen, but every wizardly relative she could locate in the world of her birth. She might have stayed in that world, might have remained at home in Ladrehdin amongst her magical kinfolk, if her sense of duty to her own descendants had not drawn her back to these islands.

Once here, however, Nina had discovered that her progeny no longer required her maternal, guiding hand. Her children’s children had spread throughout the archipelago, devoting their talents to rebuilding a world previously devastated by an otherworldly plague.

There had been only one thing she could do for them now. Upon her return to this revitalized world, Nina had acted swiftly to close off a potential source of new peril to the ocean planet called Earth. From the garden shed behind the house on the bay, she’d grabbed an axe and a shovel and climbed to a lonely spot inland from the beachfront property. In that place, high up the forested slope behind the house and unseeable from any window, a misshapen tree had grown—a strange and twisted thing that did not belong in this world. Nina had proceeded to chop it down. Then she’d dug up its roots and tossed every shred of the tree onto a bonfire. For good measure, Nina had salted the burned ground and come back weekly thereafter, to watch and be certain nothing pernicious regrew in that hidden place.

She’d been up there making her regular inspection when Galen’s message came through. Now she was back in her tiny hut, the two rooms her descendants called a granny flat.

Nina snorted. She did not look or feel like a granny, or care to live like one. But here in this world she was a grandmother and a great-grandmother, many times over. Truth was, she’d lost track of how many greats now attached to her matriarchal status. She and Makani had known five generations of the family they made together. Of the descendants continuing on from there, however, Nina now had only a vague notion. More than a century had passed, after all, as reckoned by the passage of time in this world.

These days, islanders whose names she did not know would address her as Noni Nina and approach to offer tentative hugs. She found these encounters increasingly awkward, not least because the longevity granted a wysard of the true Power made Nina seem like a woman of twenty-five: a strong, healthy woman whose athleticism contrasted painfully with the decrepitude of her oldest living offspring.

You’re doing it again, Nina muttered to herself as she busied around her small rooms. Into a satchel of soft cloth, she threw spare clothes, then shouldered her bow and quiver of arrows as she headed for the hut’s narrow door. You are running from the brevity of mortal life. You’re fleeing the pain of deathbed vigils.

This time, however, Nina had an irreproachable reason for running. Her niece Jacca needed her.

Unlike the people of these islands—people whose years were measured by the limited timescales of their mortal world—Jacca was imbued with magic. From her wizardly ancestors, and by the favor of the Elemental Ones to whom the Power ultimately belonged, the girl had inherited a great gift of fire-magic. When first it manifested, Jacca’s gift had overwhelmed the child. Nina had been forced to conjure waves of water to quench the inferno that threatened to burn the girl alive.

So great was Nina’s concern for the child, she had made herself her niece’s guardian. But then Jacca had been properly apprenticed to a master wysard, a fire-mage like the girl herself, a mage who could teach the girl to harness her gift. That master was none other than Galen the goldsmith, he who had fathered the child out of wedlock and for a time had refused to acknowledge her, or to admit the affair that had produced her. It had taken Nina’s cajoling—and the display of Jacca’s extraordinary powers—to convince Galen to accept his responsibilities, both as the child’s father and as her wizardly tutor.

But now something was amiss. Jacca needs you, Galen had said. Although distorted by its passage through the magical pendant, his message had carried notes of urgency. Had Jacca’s gift overwhelmed even the master fire-mage who had been conjuring and controlling infernos since his babyhood? Was Galen desperate once again for the quenching power of Nina’s water magic?

As she hurried past the main house, toward the coral-sand beach of the secluded bay, Nina paused to speak to one of the urchins who played in the shallows, splashing like a porpoise and laughing. The boy was her direct descendant, but by how many generations she couldn’t be bothered to calculate. She certainly did not remember the child’s name. Her Earthly progeny were uncountable by now. Her offshoots had spread through the islands, many of them sailing away year by year to populate distant shores. Nina did not ask the boy’s name as she beckoned him over. He clearly knew who she was, and that was all that mattered.

Child, she said, crouching to address him at eye-level, there’s somewhere I need to be. Tell your folks that ‘Noni Nina’ has gone traveling. As the boy reached with pudgy fingers to trace the curve of the bow in Nina’s hand, she crooked a smile and added, Tell them I won’t be needing the granny flat.

Chapter Two

Nina’s leap across the void ended with her splashing into waters even warmer than the tropical seas she’d left. A strong sidestroke brought her to a familiar ledge of rock at the edge of the hot-spring pool. She and Jacca had sat together on this very ledge, back when the girl first showed Nina the spring that bubbled in secluded secrecy in the Ore Hills, up behind Galen’s lodge. The warm waters had been their place of bathing and swimming during the days when Nina and Jacca had shared a tent in a hillside pinewood, while Galen had tried—and failed—to figure a way out of his parental responsibilities.

The hot spring was exactly where Nina had wanted to land. She’d crossed the void with perfect precision—a feat not assured, given that all of her previous transits between the worlds had been to and from the wizardly stronghold of Ruain. In that hidden province, the realm of her birth, Nina had called upon Ruain’s vast magical potencies to carry her through the nothingness. She had not been certain that her own powers of water magic would be sufficient to bridge the gulf between Earth’s Pacific Ocean and Galen’s Ladrehdinian spring.

As she climbed from the water, Nina whispered her thanks to the unseen but always felt Source of her wizardly gifts. Hard experience had taught her: magical power belonged to the Elementals and must never be taken for granted. Never a day passed, now, when Nina did not express her gratitude for what she had been given.

Crouched on the ledge near the pool’s upper rim, Nina caught her long braid of raven hair and swung it like a sodden rope over her shoulder. Tied to the end of the braid, as always, was a strip of satin-shiny, iridescent fabric, its colors shimmering through every shade of purple, violet, blue, and woodland green.

Grog, my old friend, Nina called down into the pool, directing her voice through its depths, downward to the fractured rock where heated water welled up from the sunless, stony roots of these hills. I have returned. She swished the end of her braid in the water, the fabric floating and twisting, making a tiny disturbance that was unlikely to catch the attention of the King of the Underworld. But she must try. I’m in the hills west of that desert lake where last we met. I would love to see you. I’ve missed you.

Not awaiting an answer—Grog could be thousands of miles from here, and a hundred miles deep—Nina scrambled up off the ledge. From the rim of the pool, she made straight for the trail through the pine trees. Her clothes and hair dripping as she walked, she followed the trail down to the frigid cave that had once been Jacca’s refuge from the child’s blistering fire-magic. Nina stuck her head in, but saw by the conjured light of an Ercil’s orb that the child’s former bedchamber was empty. Nothing now remained of the water cask, the candle stubs, or the heaped blankets with which the cave had once been furnished.

Farther downhill, Nina left the trees and approached the back gate of Galen’s lodge. She did not tarry there, or call out to whoever might now dwell in that house. The last time Nina had seen the place, Galen’s mortal wife had been resident within, the woman seething with fury over the revelation of her husband’s affair and the by-blow the affair had produced. Nina saw no reason to seek Galen within the walls of that house. More than likely, his wife had thrown him out.

A surer place to find Galen, always and ever, would be the metalsmith’s forge. Nina continued on down the lane and around the corner, out into the sun that baked these hillsides only a little less ferociously than it scorched the desert that stretched eastward from their feet. She followed the street she had climbed on the day she’d first reached the Ore Hills, and retraced her steps down near the stables where she had left her horse on that initial visit.

As she neared the shadowy alleyway in which she had taken her leave of Corlis—bidding the nomad farewell with a last, passionate kiss—Nina faltered. With an impatient shake of her head, she pushed the memory aside. She could not, however, stop her sidelong glance down the length of the alley as she stepped past to pull open the door of Galen’s workshop.

The smithy was surprisingly cool inside. A back door stood open, and through it Nina glimpsed the blue-white glow of a roaring fire in the adjacent courtyard: Galen’s forge in operation. But whether by clever placement of the furnace or magical restriction of the heat that it threw off, the front of Galen’s shop offered customers a cool and sparklingly illuminated room in which to admire the metalsmith’s craftsmanship.

Displayed were tiers of fine jewelry in gold and silver, steel and copper, many embellished with precious gemstones that glittered against the polished metals. Alongside the jewelry, Galen’s sought-after blades filled a glass-fronted case. On offer were daggers, stilettos, short swords, cleavers, boning knives, and even scythes. Occupying two walls were examples of Galen’s larger smithcrafts: gates made from iron bars that he’d twisted into the fantastical shapes of wild animals and mythical beasts: hooded snakes, fringed lizards, fire-breathing dragons.

Nina took it all in with a glance that encompassed an apprentice who sat at work in a far corner, the boy so focused on the gold wire he was braiding that he hadn’t looked up when the jingle of the bell over the shop door announced her arrival. The clerk behind the counter, however, took immediate note of Nina’s presence.

May I help you, madam? the gray-haired beldame asked in the crisp voice of a practiced saleswoman. A beauty like yours needs draping in gold. The woman gestured at the heaviest, most ostentatious collars and necklaces on display—the priciest items in the shop, Nina felt certain. Though why the woman would think Nina could afford such treasures was beyond her. She’d arrived in Galen’s showroom penniless, and decidedly bedraggled from her submersion in the hot spring, her dusty walk down the chalk-layered hillside, and her sweaty traverse of shadeless streets. Though now, out of the sun and standing in the chill interior of the shop, Nina felt goosebumps rise on her bare arms. Her knee-length trousers and thin, summer blouse stuck to her with clammy dampness where they had not yet dried.

Is Galen out back? she asked with the casual confidence of someone who felt entitled to deal with the owner directly, bypassing the hired help at the front counter. He’s expecting me.

The saleswoman lifted her chin and eyed Nina narrowly. But then she gave a brief nod and stepped to the doorway where the sound of forging drifted into the shop, a muted roar from the furnace yard beyond.

Sir! the woman yelled into the middle distance. A lady here to see you.

No change ensued in the hiss of flames or the rhythmic clanking and hammering that filled the space beyond the open door. But presently Galen stood framed in that doorway. The sun and the white fire from the open yard behind him conspired with the glitter of gold and jewels in his showroom to strike sparks from his tousled copper hair. His green eyes flashed with the clarity of emeralds as his gaze swept the room and lit upon Nina.

Sister! he cried, and lunged from the doorway to fling open a hinged slab in the display counter so she could join him in the back. I wasn’t sure you’d received my message. His voice sounded muffled as he embraced her and pressed his cheek against hers. I thought you had, but that was many days ago. I was afraid you would not come.

Days?

Nina extricated herself from Galen’s enveloping arms, arms that bulged with a blacksmith’s musculature. She frowned up at her brother. "I was on my way here within an hour of scorching my hand on this magical messenger of yours. From under the neckline of her blouse, Nina pulled out the beautiful pendant with its ocean waves crafted of blue steel, the symbol of her element gleaming under the brilliant whitecaps that Galen had worked in polished silver. I barely took time to grab my bow and a few spare clothes. Nina dropped her squishy satchel on a bench in the sunlit furnace yard and rested her bow beside it, then unshouldered her quiver and belatedly checked that she hadn’t lost her arrows in the hot spring. What can you mean, that you called me days ago?"

Galen lifted his hands, his sooty palms up and fingers spread, signaling his uncertainty. "It’s been days for me, he said, gazing at her. I guess there’s no knowing, though, what time does or how fast it passes for you … out there in the great beyond."

Of course! Nina smacked her forehead in sudden comprehension. Island time.

The conventional meaning of that phrase, as Nina had learned it during her sojourn on the ocean world, referred to the easygoing, live-in-the-moment attitude that many islanders could embrace when their day-to-day survival was no longer their chief concern. Conditions in the archipelago had improved dramatically since Nina’s earliest introduction to those islands. Back in the last century, by the count of Earthly years, staying alive was all anyone could do or think about. Nowadays, however, the people had leisure for playing games, making art, chasing butterflies and generally goofing off, as they put it.

But for Nina, island time had quite a different meaning. That’s what she called the mind-bending disparity between the elapse of years on Earth and the way moments were reckoned on Ladrehdin. She’d been barely six years old the first time she set foot on the ocean world. Her mother, anxious for Nina’s safety in a place torn apart by pestilence and bloody violence, had forbidden any return journeys until Nina’s wizardly tutor released her from apprenticeship. It wasn’t until Nina was nearly thirteen that her parents accepted her tutor’s assessment, and the young wysard’s own, that she was ready to make the leap. Nina, however, had arrived in the islands a second time to find that a scant twenty-four months had passed in that reality while she’d been home in Ruain for a full seven years.

Much more recently, the pattern had repeated when she’d toured the south country of her homeworld for nearly a year, and then returned to the islands to ensure the continued security of her adopted realm. No one in the archipelago had even noticed she’d been gone. A year in Ladrehdin had translated to a few days on Earth.

And so it was again. Here in the Ore Hills, Galen had been watching sunrises come and go, despairing of Nina’s return although she had sprung back immediately, from her perspective, upon hearing Galen’s call.

Island time, Nina repeated, and squeezed Galen’s grubby hand. It plays tricks. But I’m here now. She looked around the furnace yard, seeking her niece amid the noise and smoke of smelting and forging. Where’s Jacca? Is the girl all right?

She’s traveling, Galen muttered. Safely away from here. I had to get her out of the hills and let folks simmer down.

Simmer down? Nina echoed. What happened? What has she done?

Nothing, Galen almost snapped, his emerald eyes glittering. My daughter has done nothing wrong. She’s harmed no one. But things have been happening here that people can’t explain. They’ve decided to blame Jacca, since they cannot find anyone else to blame for their troubles.

What troubles? Nina started to ask, but held her tongue as the words continued to flow from Galen. Her brother had begun life as a happily mischievous but untalkative child. Over the years, however, Galen had grown fluent in his speech, an alteration that still tended to startle Nina, it seemed so different from the nearly wordless boy she’d grown up with.

Maynor started the slander, Galen said, fuming. Mostly to get back at me. He snorted. The man will not challenge me to a duel that he knows he’ll lose. So he’s spreading rumors and lies to hurt me and defame Jacca. Galen frowned as he rubbed the back of his neck. I need you to help me keep a level head, Nina. He shot her an earnest look. I need you to quench some fires—my own maybe, to stop me burning Maynor alive. He has tried my patience until I’m about ready to fry him.

With a sharp snap of his fingers, Galen evoked a long tongue of white-hot fire from the mouth of the nearby forge.

But mostly, Nina, he added as he dropped his hand and turned back to her, the people of these hills need you to quench whatever those fires are, the sparks that come in the night and set haystacks alight, and barns, and now a couple of houses. People are scared, with good reason. But they’ve got no reason to think Jacca is setting the fires. She is innocent. While she’s gone from here, we’ll prove it. You and me, we’ll find out what’s going on. We’ll prove the girl is blameless.

Nina studied her brother, absentmindedly fingering the now-dry strip of fabric at the end of her braid. Then she stooped to pick up her bow and quiver. The damp satchel of clothes, she thrust at Galen, not remembering the dark soot on his hands until he’d caught the soggy sack. Nina winced at the smudges he left on the pastel tropical weave.

The last time I came here, she said, turning toward the door to the shop’s interior, "you stuck me in a tent and never invited me into your