The Firefarer

Part Two/Chapter Two: Falling

Dawn was rising by the time they broke camp and set off inland. The sky remained dark and pitched with menace over the sea, but a thin finger of red graced the mountain peaks of the Harar range up ahead. Carin strode in front, trident strapped between her shoulder blades, her bare feet disappearing amongst the tall, fine grass blades of the plains.

"Come on, Moran!" She turned, her face wrapped in a scowl. "I'd have us out of Pagi territory before the light rises."

Perhaps, Moran thought wearily, she was still lost at sea: half dreaming, half drowning. But then her sister handed her a flask and she tasted sweet water, not brine. A light breeze picked up, whisking her hair, casting it into her eyes. It was all too real.

"Where is the Golach now?"

"In the caves at Mearah."

Moran stopped and stared at Carin. "In the Harars?"

"Where else would he be? It's our final refuge."

Moran craned her neck back, taking in the wild, bleak summits which towered over the plains, dull stretches of grass and scree clinging to their sides. Even now in mid-summer, dirty patches of snow still lay in gullies or the low troughs of cols. It was as desolate and unforgiving a place as she could imagine, but it remained a refuge for the Ruach. Up there amongst the mountain wastes were old friends and neighbours ˗ many who had survived the days of terror. And, of course, amongst them reigned their leader in exile: the Golach.

"Moran for the last time! I don't want to be climbing when night falls."

Biting her lip, she hitched up the tattered remains of her dress and ran. "So tell me," she panted, catching up with Carin, "which one of your spirits told you where I was?"

"They're not my spirits. They speak to us all. Well, all of us except you." She turned to Moran with a gaze which fell just short of pitying. "Perhaps you don't know how to listen."

"I've listened for them every day, sister. It's they who have abandoned me, not I them. Perhaps I'm simply not a Ruach. Perhaps I'm some...some changeling. Perhaps our mother..."

"Enough!" Carin snapped, her jaw set, her pace quickening as she pushed on across the plain. "I'll not hear that kind of talk, Moran, and you know it. You're enough of a Ruach to know who is worthy of respect."

"Well apparently on that score I fail too."

Carin lapsed into stony silence, chewing on her lips as if she were biting back words.

"Do you see our parents amongst them?" Moran asked. "Amongst the spirits?"

There was a long pause. Her sister appeared to be labouring beneath a weight, a deep, pressing burden. "Sometimes," she said at last.

"You could tell them...tell them I'm sorry," Moran said in a half whisper.

She hadn't really wanted Carin to hear that. The words had been addressed to herself as much as her sister. But then Carin said, "I already have done."

That was the only thing she regretted. Not the long, humid nights lying in Andre's arms. Not the days spent in study and lovemaking. No, for that she would apologise to no one ˗ not even the Golach himself, were he to demand it of her. What she had shared had been a love so precious that its loss was akin to death itself.

But the knowledge that, as she had lain beside her lover one star soaked night, her mother had been hacked to death by murderous Pagi, her father hung in the street ˗ their home ransacked of its treasures and then burnt to the ground, that was unbearable. And when the news had reached her, she had broken down, almost losing her mind to grief. That, she now realised, had been the moment when she knew that if she stayed with Andre any longer, it was not just her own life which she risked.