Yarrun called it the Great Square of Zuhayar the Magnificent, said Tris. It put your forge-fire out. If you make it big enough, maybe you can put this out.
I can’t make a square big enough to put out a forest fire! cried Daja.
Start weaving! urged Sandry. Worry about putting the fire out after it’s under control!
Daja moaned, chewing on her lip. The wall of flames was advancing, with the caravan in its path. The only thing that blocked it was her.
Looking the ground over, she saw a gap in the fire where a mass of rock jutted through the soil. The road itself was another break in the wall. Perhaps what she needed was more than one fire-weaving.
Reaching out with one hand, she split her fingers apart. The leftmost chunk of fire was her thumb, the mass directly ahead her index and middle finger, the blaze on the right her remaining fingers. She let her magic billow forward on those three paths. It swelled and bloomed, carrying power from Sandry Tris, and Frostpine as well as Daja’s own. Holding that magic with her mind, she pinched the blaze into three gigantic stems. In a way it was like handling forge-fire, except that the least quiver in her attention would free these flames to do much more damage than she could in a smithy. Pinching this fire in made it stronger, like channeling a broad river into a small, deep channel. She drew her three blazes up and sent them shooting toward the sky in pillars.
Locking her mind on the leftmost pillar, Daja ordered it to break into multiple strands on one end, like her earlier fire-weaving. This blaze fought her. It wanted to break free of her magic and go back to eating everything in sight.
“No,” she growled. She had worked her will on iron and gold. This fire would do as it was bid!
The column writhed. It wanted to chew the fuel-covered ground. It did not want to submit. Daja struck hard with her magic, slamming her power down. The column wavered and split at the end like a frayed rope.
Here was Sandry, waiting in the core of Daja’s magic. I can do this, she assured Daja. Let me through.
With a sigh, Daja turned her loose. Sandry raced in to gather the ends of the frayed column of fire. As swiftly as if she’d handled fire-thread all her life, she began to weave. Daja watched briefly, worried because she could see that Sandry’s grip on the many strands wasn’t as firm as she would like. No matter how often the fiery threads escaped her, though, Sandry grabbed them back time after time.
Reassured, Daja looked at the fire-pillar directly before her. Now she understood better how to shape it. Using power like a hammer, she struck. The column wavered, then firmed. Daja pounded it again and again. At last the end frayed into strands. Tris took this weaving over. She wasn’t as quick as Sandry, but the strands didn’t escape her as they did the noble. Tris would be all right.
Daja watched her friends, clutching the last column of flame. Thank Trader and Bookkeeper that our powers mixed, she thought, startled. I never could have worked this blaze all by myself.
She fixed her mind on the column of fire she still held. This time she was confident: a single blow of her magic split it into a dozen strands.
Allow me, said Frostpine. His magic roaring through her made Daja’s teeth chatter. She let him by, watching as he worked the flames not as thread but as wire. One after another he laid the strands across each other and hammered the places they crossed, melting them into a solid join.
Daja’s vision grayed; her knees felt weak. All this power running through her body was dragging at her strength. She bit her lip and forced her mind back to the job at hand.
Sandry finished her work, a long scarf of flame that towered in the air. Remember when you hy your grid on your forge-fire? she asked Daja now.
It went out, Daja replied, hope leaping fire-bright in her own heart.
So put out a fire with this! urged Sandry.
Certainly there were large blazes behind the three flame creations. Daja carefully drew Sandry back through her core, pulling her friend out of the fire-scarf Once none of Sandry was left in the weaving, Daja gripped it afresh and pinched off its stem. When it was free of its trunk, she let the weaving fall to the ground.
Everything under the scarf went black, smothered. The flames close to its edges, however, blew out and away, setting a new part of the forest ablaze.
“Oh no,” whispered Daja, horrified, guessing what had gone wrong. When she’d dropped her grid on the forge-fire, the edges of the stone fireplace had kept the blaze from escaping. There was nothing out here to hold the fire at the edges of the weaving in.
We’d better not try that experiment again, Sandry remarked grimly.
No indeed, Daja replied.
They watched as the last fiery threads in Frostpine’s and Tris’s columns joined the rest to form tidily arranged scarves. Done, Tris said with relief. She trickled wearily back into Daja.
Frostpine stopped to admire his work. Not bad for an old man like me, he remarked. This kind of thing has real possibilities. I’m glad I tried it.
I’m pleased that you’re pleased, Daja replied sarcastically. If I knew you wanted to play with fire, I’d’ve helped you with it ages ago.
She felt him laugh as he retreated back through her, allowing her to grip the fire-scarves alone. They blazed white with power, barring the advance of the more ordinary fires behind them. Daja scratched her head, trying to think. Now what? Ought she to try to capture the fire that had started when she and Sandry had dropped that weaving? It was taking a path away from her and the caravan. To get it, she’d have to chase it. Was she up to that?
A hand fell heavily on her shoulder and was quickly snatched away. “Trader, you’re hot!” cried Polyam. She was coated in soot; the yellow qunsuanen paint was smeared. “Are you all right?”