Hooks sank into her heart, anchors made of lightning. Tris hung onto Daja, tying herself, Briar, and Niko to the girl, keeping her among the living.
Daja staggered with the fire’s weight, and staggered again. It still fought her, trying to rise and break free. Her feet left the ground once, twice.
Where’s your root? cried Briar, frantic. You forgot to make a root again! Remember your vine? It needed roots!
Yes! shrieked Tris. Put a root down, into the rock!
Why? Daja wondered numbly. She was starting to melt. What had roots to do with anything? I don’t want to.
Just like a Trader, said Briar scornfully always running when things get rough.
Plague comes to town? That was Tris, a Tris as shrill as a jay. Traders are the first to leave.
I lived with them. I know. Sandry’s whisper was faint, as if she were dying. You can’t depend on the Tsaw’ha, not ever.
Daja forced herself to her knees, pushing against the fire’s lift. Her knees just barely scraping the road, she dropped forward to press her hands to the earth. Molten brass puddled around her fingers, all that was left of her staff. It stuck her to the dirt like glue.
Stop it, she told her friends. You only want me angry enough to try putting down a root. You could have just asked.
She thrust down with all she had.
The earth split. Daja’s magic fell into the ground and continued to fall.
Here was rock—hard rock, huge granite slabs jammed together. She found the deep crack formed by two immense pieces, and sent the flames through.
Tris ran past with the fire, pushing it and pulling it along the stone. Niko streaked by to help his student. About to ask what they thought they were doing, Daja took a breath instead and watched. When the flames—when the three mages—erupted into a deep chamber filled with mineral water, she knew what they had in mind. She had been here before.
Dragging more fire with her, she trailed them. Through rock-seams and veins of water they sped as Daja continued to pull her column of flame along. At last the fire itself picked her up and carried her on, racing with its own momentum. Too worn out to resist, she let it drag her until it slammed her into a wall of bitter cold. That brought her around.
Mind the glacier, remarked Tris.
Had she eyes, and a face, she would have glared at her friend. Will this work? she asked Niko instead. Can I send it all here?
Send it, he told her wearily. It mil melt ice for water for Gold Ridge, and there’s no risk of creating a volcano with only fire.
Only fire, he calls it, Daja thought wearily to herself. She turned and swam up her stream—her root?—of flame. Handful by handful, she grabbed at it, sending more through the ground. Finally it screamed past her with all its force, moving on its own. She could let it go, sure now that it would keep going until it smacked the glacier.
With a yell of triumph she exploded from the earth of the road. Back inside her own flesh, she slammed what remained of the flame-pillar into the ground. As soon as most of it was gone, she grabbed the ties that bound Sandry and Frostpine to her and began to reel them in. With them came the fire-scarves they’d been holding at the other end of the caravan. When Daja gripped the weavings, they let go. Into the ground the fire went, crackling ferociously. Daja continued to stuff it down, then all the nearby fires she could get within her power, until she realized that her hands were empty, that they had been empty for some time. She was in the middle of the road on all fours, without a stitch on.
She blinked, and dragged her left hand free of the dirt. Brass coated her palm. It lay in runnels around her fingers and on the back of her hand.
That is going to hurt like anything in a bit, she thought, and sat down hard.
For a moment all she could do was cough, and cough, and cough. Finally it occurred to her to look around. The fires were out. All she saw in the forest was burned greenery and thick smoke.
What of the caravan?
She squinted down the road, and choked with dismay. Every human being within her view was on his or her knees in the road, forehead and palms flat on the ground. It was the bow called the Grand Submission, taught to her people centuries ago by some distant emperor. Traders used it only when lives had been saved.
“Get up,” she croaked. “I mean it, get up!” I didn’t do it for you, she meant to add, but she was coughing again.
When she got herself under control, one of them crawled forward. To Daja’s horror, it was gilav Chandrisa, covered in soot, burns all over her clothes and skin. “We know what is owed,” the gilav said without looking up. “We know what must be paid. What you have done wipes your name from the record of the trangshi. We will attest to that and speak for you to the council of our people. You will be Tsaw’ha again, and your home will be Tenth Caravan Idaram.”
13
She had not stopped all of the fire. Five people died. Others had lungs damaged by smoke. Rosethorn’s burn ointment saw far too much use, among the villagers and among those of the caravan struck by flaming debris. Until their wounded healed, the Traders remained in Gold Ridge.
At least the valley had fresh water. The glacier had produced plenty of it once it was heated by the column of fire, and meltwater still poured into the lake and the wells. In the glacier valley Lady Inoulia ordered work to start on the copper mine, naming it “the Firetamer.” Already those who could be spared from repairs were bringing copper and copper ore out of the ground. How much they could get before the snows fell was anyone’s guess, but at least Gold Ridge had hope for the spring.