15

When the door closed again and was latched with an unseen hand, Hamasa bared his teeth and tightened his jaw. Then, he led Marya down the dim hall. It sloped gently downwards, the walls rarely opening into small rooms without windows or other exits. Most were empty and fetid with the odor of wild animals and must, as well as a strange dry smell that could only be air that had been kept closed in stone for years. The deeper they went, the less Hamasa could smell of animals that had encroached on this forgotten place, but that odd scent of old, trapped air and stone lingered. It tasted more like a cave than a building.

The path finally opened into a massive chamber, so massive that the few torches set atop standing poles couldn’t light half the space. A large slab of stone sat at the far wall directly across from the bottom of the stone ramp. Most of the torches encircled this stone altar where packs and various items lay scattered over the surface except in the middle. According to texts and what Hamasa could vaguely make out, there was a shallow depression carved into the stone. Around the edge of the bowl would be various symbols in reoccurring patterns—the world made flat around the sky. Maybe traces of old blood were there, but that didn’t seem likely. The shamans were quite meticulous in the texts. They wouldn’t have wanted the wrong casters affected by the wrong spells. Most likely the old magic lingered, the layers upon layers of spells creating a feeling, a general sense of something there, when nothing in actuality was. And even these poachers, with their disregard for the freedom of creatures that had once been revered in this very place, edged away from the middle of the altar.

Hamasa counted five humans lounging around the altar, all chatting casually, their voices echoing in the cavernous room. Their dogs were crowded around their feet, gnawing on rawhides or hanks of thick rope. One was sleeping, its body stretched out flat and tongue lolling as it snored. He glanced around, looking for the captured creatures and froze, horror squeezing at his chest. He didn’t need to feel Marya’s hand clenching around his to know what he was looking at. Metal cages were stacked along the western wall, more than a dozen. Most contained only one creature, some carried two or more, but all were roughly the same size. A few cages were smaller and made of thin wires so closely braided that they were almost mesh. The tiny winged bodies within were silent, not even a buzz or chitter when one of the poachers walked past. Viciously sharp-toothed and winged lohas, smaller and more dangerous cousins of the dende called chanaces, and an extremely rare and beautiful winged páhalebra, the sight of which made Hamasa gasp out loud, grateful for the silence of the spell. He dragged his horrified gaze away, taking in the few mundane creatures like golden furred monkeys and rosette-spotted jaguars caged among the Others. All of them were curled into spaces much too small for them and drugged into manageable stupors. Their bodies were too lax, all of them too quiet. Either there were more spells or the more mundane use of drugs.

Marya and Hamasa hurried to the cages, neither tugging the other in their identical reactions, and almost colliding with the man walking back towards the altar in their haste. Hamasa knelt in front of the first cage, and his eyes locked on the sinuously beautiful and glittering coils that looked black as pitch in the gloom of the páhalebra inside. The wings, about an entire grown man’s arm length in span, fluttered restlessly, and the páhalebra’s tongue darted in the air. Could it taste his scent, could it tell he wasn’t like those poachers? That he was a friend? Hamasa shook his head to clear the unnecessary thoughts and looked closely at the lock. It was a hanging padlock, which would be easy enough to break, but… He gently traced the edge of the lock. All the hair on his head rose, his skin pulled tight into gooseflesh. Where he touched the padlock there was a hot fizz of static lightning.

Locking spells. Of course. No common cage or lock could keep lohas contained, and páhalebra were as notoriously difficult at being caught as lohas were. What had they used to catch one in the first place?

“Ay, that thing is trying it again. Is that lock gonna hold all the way to Róntraih Porto?” a woman asked while walking towards the cages.

Hamasa was yanked away and behind the cage before he could flinch. One of Marya’s arms, wiry and strong, wrapped around his chest, holding him against her. He couldn’t hear the pants or wheezes, couldn’t hear if she were cursing a mean streak, but her heart was beating so hard he could feel it against his spine, and her arm was shaking, her grip painful around the ball of his shoulder. For her peace of mind, he kept perfectly still, holding his own breath as the woman who had spoken neared the cage.

“It’ll last. It ain’t our first job,” a man drawled, passing out playing cards to the remainder of the crew.

“Yeah, but we never had a páhalebra before. They’re clever beasts.”

The páhalebra hissed dangerously, its sadly cramped wings fluttering and the dry slither of its scales scratching against metal and stone.

“Get away from it. It’ll start bashing itself against the bars again if you rile it up. Let’s get this game on.”

The woman grimaced at the winged serpent that was glaring up at her with a balefully shining golden eye. “Sooner we leave the dirty sticks, the better,” she muttered as she turned away.

Hamasa let out a silent sigh, Marya’s chest shuddering with her own sigh behind him. Her arm loosened and he crawled away, then reached out and found her hand wrapped tightly around the shaft of her old shovel handle. It was, sadly, time to wait some more.

Hamasa looked once more at the páhalebra, and jerked back. Its head had risen, its wings spread as far as they could, and those golden eyes were looking right at him. It was waiting for him. Wondering why and how he could sit there, free, and do nothing. Hamasa swallowed hard, looked towards the altar, the pack of dogs and poachers, and then back at the páhalebra. It waited, feathers brushing the sides of the cage. There was loud thuck and the whole cage rattled and the the páhalebra flinched, twisting around and hissing. On the floor outside the cage was a boot. A boot.

“Settle down,” another woman called over.

Hamasa squeezed Marya’s hand and dropped it, then crouch-walked his way around the back of the cages. There were whispers of movements, interested chitters from the lohas, deep drags of breaths from the chanaces as he passed them. If they couldn’t exactly see him, they knew he was there. Using their magic. Covered in what had been used in their name long ago. Of course they knew he was there. Maybe from the moment he walked down that ramp.

While most of the poachers’ packs and equipment were on the altar with them, not everything was. A wagon with burlap sacks and discarded ropes was resting in a corner. Probably to haul the cages. Although the air felt damp and heavy with age, the air inside the temple was actually dry. Dry enough that licking his lips was like rubbing sand on wood. He set his hand in the midst of the burlap and ropes and dirty bits of hay. Each and every bit of it flammable.

And let the heat come.

It bubbled up from his belly, spread through his veins, rushing fast and elated and free at last. Not quickly squashed down or restrained to a mere blush or fever. It burned through him. And then the burlap, rope, and hay began to smolder. Smoke began to rise around his unseen hand.

“Do you smell that?”

There were dog whines and snorts, a skitter of claws and shuffling of boots on stone.

Hamasa set his second hand amidst the flammable debris and pushed hotter, and hotter still, through his too soft palms. A spark rose, and another, like lightning bugs they fluttered around his wrists and arms and then a lick of flame. Just that one slip of real fire and suddenly the whole foul, awful cart, seeped in the misery of the captured, was burning. A bonfire in the middle of a cavern of stone. Hamasa was already slipping away, knowing the light of the fire was tearing apart the shadows covering him. He closed his eyes, desperately reaching for the cleared mind he’d found in the woods. Remembering the feeling of soft mara fur and grit. He couldn’t let the spell drop. If it fell from him, Marya and Valerius could still use the element of surprise.

“What the—”

“It’s on fire!”

“We can see it’s on fire!”

“What are the dogs doing!?”

Hamasa opened his eyes, his shaking hands clasping and unclasping in front of him, willing the telltale heat to ebb. The whole pack was rushing towards him, teeth bared around snarls as they searched out his scent. Only for the front of the pack to skid to a stop, then the whole pack, their noses lifting and falling, their bodies cringing away with whines.

“Go,” Hamasa whispered in neither Mekshan nor Riyukezan.

With yelps and whines, they raced for the ramp, falling over themselves and knocking into the legs of their masters to run for the outside. One hunter ran after them, cursing and yelling colorfully. The remaining four beat at the cart with their coats, their shirts, spare trousers, one even tried emptying a waterbag over what was already an out of control bonfire.

“What the dragon’s tit is going on here? A cart doesn’t just burst into fire outta nowhere!” a man wheezed, dropping the ruined coat and stepping away.

“Someone’s—” The woman broke off to cough, carelessly dropping the waterbag in her hand, the cured hide of it making a strange schlop on the stone. “Someone’s in here!”

“Whoever set off the alarm glyphs earlier,” a second man said.

The last man, who had held a coat long since dropped and smoking faintly on the ground, rubbed at his face and opened his eyes. To look directly at Hamasa, who was pressed against the stone wall and staring back wide-eyed.

“What the—”

“Ah…” Hamasa’s breath squeaked in his throat. All four faces streaked with sweat and soot were turned towards him now. Firelight flickered over their expressions of disbelief and fury. “Um?”

“You little—” The first man to see him was the first one to move. He strode towards Hamasa with long-legged strides and reached for the sheath at his hip. It wasn’t a sword, by the shape or length of it, but it was definitely a sharp pointy object that Hamasa did not want anywhere near him.

He scrabbled over the stone, nails scratching and sandals slapping his heels. Just as he managed to get fully standing, Valerius stepped into the ring of torchlight behind the poachers. The knight looked right at Hamasa, face thunderous.

“Sorry!” Hamasa shouted stupidly. Thankfully, it made the four poachers pause. The man with his wickedly sharp long dagger frowned.

“Did you just say ‘sorry’?”

This time, Hamasa saw Valerius slip silently forward and chop the nearest poacher on the back of the neck with the side of his hand. The sudden grunt, and the immediate thump of the man’s body to the ground, had the poachers looking over their shoulders, bewildered shock pulling their eyes wide and their jaws dropping.

“He was talking to me.”

The three spun completely around, the woman letting out a loud squawk of a curse, but Valerius was already on top of them. With a speed Hamasa didn’t even know humans were capable of, Valerius struck out with the flat of his hands, knocking away punches as if they were mere branches of a trees in his way, and ducked low, simultaneously sweeping the feet out from under one of them. Marya materialized abruptly, her stave clutched in both hands, but her run aiming for Hamasa. He rushed to her, forcing her to skid back and spin around when he grasped her sleeve. They ran around the worst of the fight, Marya muttering curses while barreling towards the cages and the creatures excitedly waking from their stupors. They clawed eagerly at the air between the bars or at the padlocks, ignoring the jolts of lightning or sparks of flame depending on the lock spell all while screeching and yowling.

Hamasa slid over the stone on his knees, catching against the side of the nearest cage.

“How do we unlock these stupid things? I don’t think we got time to search for a key!” Marya exclaimed, letting out a little scream when the jolt arced up her arm.

“Go for the mundanes. The animals without magic. Those locks should be magicless, too. Hit them. Bash them. Whatever it takes,” Hamasa said, frowning at the magicked padlocks, one in each of his hands, and ignoring the sparks that flew around his palm. Inside, the chanaces—two in one cage, three in the other—backed away as much at they could, snarling and spitting at the lock.

“Bash it? A rock, or a… right,” Marya raced away.

Without the shadow spell, it was even easier to call heat. Fire against fire was… messy, inelegant, but it would be fast. His palm heated, the locks glowed ruby red, and there was a pop inside Hamasa’s mind. Iron melted between his fingers and he yanked the locks off.

The chanaces slowly crawled out, the torchlight falling over them so Hamasa could see them clearly. At first glance, they looked more like human children than anything else. Tiny little humans whose heads and noses were too big and their ears pointed. Then, they bared mossy green teeth and their eyes gazed up at Hamasa. Fathomless and dark, like the shadows that had gathered in the lines of the Guanabánoch portrait. Shadows pulled from under the trees and the passing of clouds. Although they were awake, their movements were sluggish and they crawled more than walked, spring-green soles of their bare feet showing.

Hamasa grabbed the next lock and Marya came back with a knife, the hilt heavy and thick and wrapped in leather. He yelped aloud, jerking back his hand.

“What happened?” Marya asked, hesitating at the largest cage. “Is it okay to just… let out a jaguar?”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Hamasa snapped. His eyes narrowed at the locks on the lohas’ cages that fizzled with lightning rather than fire. It hurt in a way the other lock spell hadn’t.

“I wouldn’ do that, kids. Jaguars don’t play nice,” warned a low, rough voice with a heavy accent Hamasa couldn’t place.

Marya and Hamasa spun around. Marya held out the knife on reflex, her jaw tight and her bushy brows lowered. The man in front of them had a blunt, heavy-ended club barely bigger than the man’s hand—a sap—in his grip; the streaks of soot and sweat and the bloody swell of his fattened bottom lip made him more a wild animal than a man.