The Firefarer

Part Five: Alchim / Chapter One: Calligraphy

"Carin, this is hopeless."

The heat was unbearable. Even the surrounding rocks burnt Moran's fingers when she touched them. Mirages and haze shimmered over the grasslands on the other side of the road, the air merging with the earth, the earth with the air.

"Quiet!" Carin threw her an angry glare. "We'll wait as long as we have to."

"We'll be dead before we've even left the wastes of the Harars."

"We'll be worse than dead if we don't have a disguise."

It had been first light by the time they put the scree of the mountain slopes behind them. That was when Carin had determined that they would wait, crouching behind these rocks ... for what exactly, Moran wasn't even sure. Her sister stated simply that they would not survive a day in Pagi territory dressed in plaid. Their only hope rested in acquiring Pagi clothes.

"Acquiring?"

Carin creased her thin lips into a vicious smile. "Stealing."

"Do you suppose Pagi will readily part with their clothes to a pair of Ruach?"

"They will if I present them with this."

She wafted her trident beneath Moran's nose. Moran pushed it away delicately. "Well, you're the warrior," she conceded.

"And you're the traitor, sister," Carin remarked blithely. There had been no further discussion. Moran ground her teeth, shifting from one leg to the other, her dress soaked with sweat and sticking to her skin. But after several hours of suffering in the searing heat, the tally of potential targets had been disappointingly poor. First came a troupe of actors: drunken, singing and swaying atop a high, horse-drawn wagon.

"Too many of them," Carin hissed. Moran watched, despondent as the cart careered away across the plains, threatening to spill its passengers into the long grass. As the sun rose higher, her eyelids drooped. The Golach had permitted them no more than a few hours rest: a fitful, feverish sleep in which Moran dreamt of Andre burning and melting, her long hair aflame, the skin dripping from her face. She had woken, screaming, to be escorted from the Mearahn caves by Ida and Keles, who watched with grim satisfaction as the daughters of Arioch stumbled their way down the mountainside. She knew what Keles was thinking: they would not be coming back.

"Look!" Carin pointed to a distant cloud of dust rising up from the road on the horizon. Shaken out of sleep, Moran squinted against the sun's light. The cloud was travelling towards them, accompanied by the thunderous pounding of hooves on dry earth. And then, perhaps twenty or more Ahi emerged from the miasma of dust and dirt, their faces blackened with tattoos, braided locks of hair streaming out like banners on the wind behind them.

Carin released a long, low whistle. "They may be on their way to slaughter some Pagi ˗ perhaps we should have offered our services," she smirked.

"Or perhaps we're not the only ones seeking the Firefarer."

"Perhaps." Her back to a boulder, knees drawn up before her, Carin twisted her head to face Moran. "They're not animals, you know ˗ the Ahi. I saw that once."

"What do you mean?"

"The Pagi believe the Ahi to be wild beasts. They say the same about us. But I saw once...I saw..." she swallowed, her stern eyes softening.

"What did you see?" Moran laid a hand on Carin's forearm.

"It was before Ol Terenzo had turned the Pagi against us. Perhaps two autumns past. Our little adventures together had stopped ˗ do you remember? You were already too infatuated with...with Ol Adama by then."