The Firefarer

Part Five / Chapter Two: Alchim

Alchim rested amongst vineyards and orchards, its rooftops a maze of red tile, the tall facades of houses, inns and shops aligned like a many-fingered fist. It was midday by the time they reached the town, the sun at its height and the air thick with haze and heat.

"So who am I?" Carin buckled her trident to the saddle and climbed astride the mule.

"Master Borso," Moran muttered.

"Just so. And don't forget it. Otherwise we're as good as dead."

With a light flick of reins Carin set off, Moran traipsing along behind her. Others now joined them on the road: fruit pickers and farm hands, merchants journeying to or from the town, tinkers, jugglers, whores and vagrants. Some saluted Carin, others leered and pointed at Moran. Their disguise, it seemed, was humiliating but effective.

They passed through the wide arched gates of the town and into a medley of hawkers, acrobats, street sellers and street walkers. Moran was now painfully aware of how her plaid, her dark skin and hair marked her for Ruach. Some hissed, others observed, eyes burning with contempt as she pushed on in her sister's wake. It had never been like this before the fall, she recalled. Back then Pagi and Ruach had lived alongside one another as neighbours. Perhaps the tensions had always been there, erupting into the occasional brawl or exchange of insults. But for the most part, Ruach children had played with those of Pagi, their mothers gossiping together in the streets, their fathers ploughing the same fields. What evil could have spawned such hatred, she wondered, leading those same mothers to watch listlessly as their neighbours and children were rounded up and hacked to death? What insidious power had wormed its way inside the minds of those fathers who then chose to betray and kill their fellow workers? And why should she now feel a stranger ˗ an enemy even ˗ in a town which had once been home to both Pagi and Ruach, their two cultures enmeshed like the strands of a rope?

Carin must have sensed her unease. Bending low in the saddle, she hissed in Moran's ear: "We'll stop at an inn. I'll try and ask a few questions. You can stay in the room."

"I don't like it. Let's turn back."

"No! If we find the Firefarer, all of this will end, remember?"

Moran made no reply. Perhaps the Golach was right. Perhaps the Firefarer's powers would be enough to right the wrongs of the Pagi ˗ to punish them for their crimes. But nothing would ever bring back the past. In spite of the heat, the jostling crowds, the stink and confusion of the town, she shivered.

The street spiralled upwards, narrowing until the roofs appeared to close in above them and the sky itself was a mere strip of light. At last Carin stopped outside a darkly-timbered inn. Its sign dangled from rusty chains and the paint on its boards was faded and chipped, but Moran still made out two words: The Elements.

Carin rapped with all the confidence of a true bred Paga on the door. It swung back after a few moments to reveal the landlord, his bulk swathed in a worn doublet and filthy apron, a few greying locks of hair plastered across a pink expanse of scalp. "Well?" Jowls quivering, the man gurned at Carin, his swinish eyes peering out through folds of fat.

"We seek a room for the night."

"We?" Swivelling his entire body to the left, he peered at Moran as if she were a beetle he might crush beneath his boot. "No Ruach. There's only one good place for them and that's at the end of a rope."

Carin's eyes narrowed and burned. Moran held her breath. Her sister's fury might be the death of them yet.

"We can pay." Carin jangled their bag of stolen coins beneath the landlord's nose. His piggish eyes turned weasel.