Chapter 19

Rudderless

There was no trail to follow. Aliya sat and stared idly at the ashes of last night’s fire. They should have packed up and left by now. But, where was there to go?

Vali wandered around the clearing whacking the long grass with a stick. The morning was overcast and humid, the air pressing down on them. Just watching him pointlessly attack plants was exhausting.

Even Meera and the goat lacked their usual energy. Only Quantum managed to resist the general feeling of hopelessness. He climbed up Aliya’s arm to her shoulder and smacked her ear with his tiny front foot. It stung, and she glared at her little friend.

‘Stop moping,’ he commanded. ‘It doesn’t suit you. Get on with what you need to do.’

‘I did that,’ Aliya said. ‘I set out to find Azak, and I found him. It was a dead end. Now there’s nothing left to do.’

Vali stopped swinging his stick and looked at her incredulously. ‘You have to cure the plague: that’s your quest.’

‘How is that mine?’ she demanded. ‘That was Azak’s quest, and he failed. It killed him.’

‘But he must have left you some clues,’ Quantum coaxed. ‘What exactly did he say?’

‘Nothing that made any sense,’ Aliya complained. ‘Something about dreamwalking too far, and being dead in a bubble? And something about fire…Find the fire? No, listen to the fire.’

‘Maybe a fire elemental can tell you the answer!’ Vali said. ‘If you talk to a fire spirit, will I be able to see it too?’

‘Ah, I don’t think so.’ Surely it was mad to think that she could find answers through a magic she knew nothing about? It was crazy to think that she had any chance of solving this at all. But who else was there, out here in the middle of nowhere, that she could expect to do it instead?

Brimming with enthusiasm, Vali declared, ‘I’ll build a big fire,’ and rushed off to collect wood. He was still seeing this whole adventure as a game. As a way to prove a point to his father, rather than as a matter of life or death.

Quantum said, ‘It’s obvious Azak had real confidence in you.’

Or maybe Azak was lost and she was the only person he was able to talk to. Would he have passed this responsibility onto her for any other reason? But she nodded, grateful to Quantum for trying.

Vali soon had a merry fire burning in front of her, which made the muggy weather even more oppressive. Now, to get this over with as quickly as possible…except she didn’t know how to begin.

‘Hail, spirits of fire,’ she tried, wishing the others weren’t listening to her fumble. ‘I need your help, please—will you talk to me?’ She waited for a response, peering into the flickering flames for any sign of a figure or unusual movement…but there was nothing. Opening up her senses, she searched more closely, mentally reaching into the fire. Oh, bliss! She was glowing from the inside, light and full of dancing energy. Why had she never done this before? The flames were so delicious, she wanted to taste them, feel them wrap around her in a hot caress…

‘Careful!’ Vali’s hand on her shoulder jerked her away from the blaze. How dare he? Grabbing his wrist, her muscles full of the strength of the fire, she wrenched him towards the flames, inhaling the promise of burning and pain.

She let go abruptly. Okay, that’s why she’d never done this before.

The fire called to her, a feather-touch of temptation at the edge of her mind. Why did she keep waking up these abilities that she didn’t want to have? A great ball of resentment, regret and fear boiled in her stomach. This was never going away. It was part of who she was.

She was a shaman, destined to be hated, feared and outcast.

Unless she hid the truth from everyone.

‘Sorry, Vali,’ she said.

He rubbed his bruised wrist. ‘So, did you see one?’

‘No, there’s no one there.’ Fortunately. Even without an elemental spirit involved she had been burned—metaphorically, and almost literally. ‘I suppose we should have expected that. I mean, this fire is only temporary—how could a spirit live in it? They are probably only found in volcanoes and places like that.’

‘We have lots of volcanoes in my country,’ Quantum said hopefully.

‘We have one too,’ Vali said, ‘I heard some merchants talking about it. It erupted about two years ago. It can’t be that far away; it’s between here and the coast, at least.’

The possibility of answers. The possibility of being burned a lot more badly. Visiting a place where hot lava poured out of the ground sounded like a terrible idea, but what else could she suggest? Give up and go home? It had never sounded more appealing. But she would only be going back to face the same situation that had driven her from home in the first place: her family, everyone she knew, were in danger. If there was even the slightest chance that she could change that, didn’t she have to try?

Both her choices were bad. Confront the spirit of fire, or dive into dangerous nightmares.

The flames whispered to her.

‘Let’s find this volcano and whatever lives inside it.’