Those Who Walk the Flame Road
The bell that marked the time in the city started ringing in the distance. It was noon. The sound of the bell was coming from the north. The people who heard it were relieved by the semblance of normalcy after the ferocity of the previous night’s attack.
Hugo awoke from dreams of fire, sweating all over. He was wandering in a fever, and all his limbs felt heavy. A cold palm settled over his forehead. Hugo wanted to see who it was, but even opening his eyes was a struggle. His breathing was harsh and irregular; breathing too deeply made everything hurt.
Taking deeper breaths did help clear Hugo’s head, a little. He felt a pillow under his head. Finally, he forced his eyes open and looked up at the girl checking his fever.
She was sixteen or seventeen years old--so, not more than three or four years older than him. She appeared kind, and was frowning down at Hugo, concerned about his condition. He didn’t know who she was.
Most of the women Hugo had seen in his life wore their glossy black hair loose and long, but this girl’s hair was only shoulder-length. It was black, but not smooth, and there were reddish highlights when the sun shone on it. Her collar and sleeves had been torn and imperfectly mended several times. Her clothes were clean, but very old.
The girl’s features were plain, but her eyes were striking. Hugo had never seen a Yogoese person with reddish-brown eyes before.
Hugo had seen one of those strange lizardfish winding around the woman’s neck last night. Remembering that made him recall everything else: the battle, the fire…following this girl, Ryuan, home. In the darkness, he’d thought that she was older.
The worst memory was his mother and sister’s screams. He’d blocked that out yesterday, but he could hear them now as if they were still happening. He closed his eyes.
Ryuan’s compassion washed over him. There was a lizardfish around her neck, and his, and she used that connection to try to console him. He didn’t understand any words. It was like she was whispering, albeit in a soothing tone.
But Hugo didn’t want to be comforted. He tried to grip the lizardfish that was clinging to him and fling it away, but that didn’t work. His hand passed right through the mysterious creature. He could feel and see that it was there, but there was no sensation of contact when his hand touched it, only a gentle warmth.
“Shit! What the hell is this thing? A monster?”
Hugo pressed his palms to the floor and tried to jump to his feet. That was a mistake: he collapsed almost immediately with agony racing through all four limbs and compounding in his skull. He felt like he was being ripped open. He curled in on himself on his bedding, suppressing the urge to vomit.
His throat and eyes ached from the smoke, and the wound in his side was on fire. Could he live with such pain? He had to endure it, somehow. Tears leaked from his eyes. He gritted his teeth and tried to control himself, but everything hurt too badly. He wept openly, hugging himself.
Hugo’s mother and sister were dead.
If only mom had listened to me when I asked…
If his mother hadn’t been so stubborn about saving everyone, she might still be alive. Should he have dragged her? Forced her somehow? But even if he had, Nahso would still have run away.
Hugo wasn't mad at his mother and sister for dying. He didn't resent them for not following him. He blamed himself for their failure to escape. All he could remember when he thought of them now were their last desperate screams as the Talsh poured into the building as fast as the fire consuming it.
He should have caught Nahso’s hand. He should have told his mother and sister his entire plan so that they would understand it. He’d been too slow: that was all there was to it. He would never see them again, no matter how much he wanted to.
Ryuan watched over Hugo in silence, staying completely still. When it seemed like he’d calmed down somewhat, she got up and ladled some water from a barrel by the door into a cup for him. She knelt down next to Hugo again. She put the cup down, then helped Hugo sit up a little so that he could drink.
The cool water felt soothing to Hugo’s cracked lips and parched throat. Some of the pain in his head and chest eased. After he finished the water in the cup, Ryuan helped him stretch out on his back again and rearranged his blankets so that he could go back to sleep.
While he slept, Hugo’s grief seized hold of his chest, covering him all over. He felt like he was sinking in quicksand or in mud that had no bottom. Although his grief remained as a clinging, cloying thing, his rage dissipated. It would do no good to be angry now: not at himself, and not at the Talsh.
Hugo awoke feeling drained and depressed. The whole world seemed to recede; it felt far away, like it couldn’t touch him. His violent fit of crying left him exhausted, but without his rage, he was also afraid. Not of Talsh, but of being alone.
The young woman was still next to Hugo, sorting through laundry.
“You’re…Ryuan, right?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Why did you save me?” he asked. Talking to Ryuan brought his surroundings into sharper focus.
Ryuan couldn’t speak, of course—but the lizardfish creature could. Although Hugo had never heard it speak any words before, he could understand it now, just as well as he could understand the words of a person.
“I can talk to you because you found a taramu.” Hugo wasn’t hearing with his ears—he knew that—but it seemed to him that the creature had a peculiar accent. He learned later that the lizardfish (and by extension, Ryuan) was speaking the type of language that commoners used. Hugo was the son of a warrior and a nobleman and was used to a different way of speaking. Hugo didn’t look down on the common people. He never had, and to do so now would be beyond foolish, since Ryuan had saved his life.
“What’s a taramu?” Hugo asked.
“The creatures that are around our necks. I call them taramu for convenience.”
Ryuan blushed. If she’d had a voice, she might be giggling. Hugo got the sense from the lizardfish—taramu?—that she was embarrassed, as if ‘taramu’ was a childish nickname or something. She looked down at the lizardfish wrapped around her neck and patted it affectionately. Hugo watched her fingers go right through it, just like his did when he tried to touch the one attached to him. It was a peculiar sight.
“Taramu love fire.” Ryuan continued talking through the lizardfish. “You’ll find them wherever there’s a blaze.”
Hugo remembered the taramu leaping above the flames in the evening sky, as if they’d been dancing. “What are they, though?” Hugo asked. “I’ve never seen them before.”
“I don’t really know,” Ryuan responded. “I know that some people can see them, and that most people can’t. You can see them now, even though you never did before.”
Hugo remembered locking eyes with a taramu for the first time. Now that he thought of it, the taramu had probably been just as surprised to see him as he’d been to see it. His eyebrows drew together. “What does it mean? Why can I see taramu? Why can they see me? Have they always been there and I just didn’t notice? And how can you talk through them? Isn’t that…weird?”
Ryuan seemed uncertain. “There are...a lot of things that I don’t understand.” She stared at the floor, then closed her eyes. White sunlight streamed through the open window, onto the floor. The light was creeping up to her knees when she opened her eyes.
“When I was little,” Ryuan began cautiously, “I thought I was dead, for a little while. I don’t remember it very well, but my father told me that I fell down a well and almost drowned. I don’t think it was a well. There was water, and it was dark, but I didn’t fall into it. The water was...all around me, all of a sudden, but I could still breathe.”
Hugo recognized parts of her experience as being similar to his own. He’d woken up surrounded by water after his mother and sister had died. He leaned forward a little, eager to hear the rest of what Ryuan had to say.
“The water was so blue. I’ve never seen anything like that. Blue all over, and very intense, with no variation in color. I felt like I’d been swallowed up and that there was no way out, but I wasn’t dead, and it didn’t feel dangerous or anything.
“I don’t remember what happened after that. The next thing I knew, my dad was holding me. And after that...everything changed. Everything. I used to be able to talk, you know, but I can’t. Not anymore. My voice just...won’t come out.”
Hugo blinked. He saw the bright blue water surrounding him again, and the shadows of his mother and sister fading into it. When he blinked again, all of that bright blue water vanished. He knew that he and Ryuan had seen the same thing, more or less, but he didn’t know why. At the time, he’d thought that he was dreaming, but Ryuan seemed to think it was real.
“How many times have you seen it?” Hugo asked.
“Four,” Ryuan answered.
“And you can only speak through the taramu now? Did that happen after the first time you saw it?”
Ryuan shook her head. “At first, I couldn’t talk at all. I only met the taramu two years ago.” Her expression appeared pained. Hugo got the impression that he’d touched a sore spot on accident. Her jaw clenched, but she kept telling Hugo what had happened.
“There was a fire. At the time, we were living in the eastern part of the city. There was a restaurant next to our house, and it caught fire around lunchtime. I was away at the time, but when I came back, our house was gone.
“Dad was at work. I got home before him. I knew that he was probably all right, but my mom--my mom was at home. I was so scared that I would find her, all burned up...” Ryuan’s hands shook. She pet the taramu around her neck to steady herself.
“There was a taramu there--just a little one, maybe a baby. I think it came because of the fire. It went inside the house by climbing on the smoldering roof and lowering itself through the chimney. I tried to scream and warn the taramu that it was dangerous, but no sound came out.
" 'Hey, you!' I called out. 'Do you see anything in there? Is my mom...' " Ryuan looked down. "That was when one of the taramu came to me from the burning house, and wrapped itself around my neck.
“And...I saw her. My mom. She was crying in the doorway. I could see her face clearly, but the rest of her body was like smoke. I think the taramu let me see her, one last time. It’s from the world of spirits, and can see other spirits, even though we can’t.
“The taramu told me to go inside the house, then pointed its head at the back door. ‘She’s there, she’s there,’ it said.”
“If she was by the back door, didn’t she get out?” Hugo asked. Why would Ryuan’s mother be a spirit if she’d escaped the fire, though?
“She got out,” Ryuan said. “I found her in the yard, but she’d inhaled too much smoke. She got really sick after that, and then she died. I think if I’d rushed inside and gotten her away from the burning house faster, she might still be alive.”
Ryuan rubbed tears out of her eyes, then took a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s how I met the taramu. That’s why I can talk to you. I can speak to my mother’s spirit this way, too. I was really happy about that. I want dad to be able to talk to her, too, but he can’t see the taramu, so they won’t go around his neck. I’ve never met another person who could see them, aside from you.”
Ryuan smiled. It looked like it hurt something in her, to smile like that, but there could be no doubt that she was an exceptionally kind person.
"Did you go where the fires are, again? The smoke's real bad, even here. So you saved some kid over there, huh?"
Hugo remembered that Ryuan’s father had asked her that last night, when she’d brought Hugo home. “So you’ve been looking for others, then.”
Ryuan nodded. When she noticed the hoarseness of his voice, her eyes widened slightly in alarm. “Your throat must hurt because of the smoke,” she said through the taramu. “I’ll get you some ohru.” Ohru was fruit juice mixed with honey. “We should probably clean your wound again, so it doesn’t get infected.”
Hugo glanced down at his injured side. It was bandaged and didn’t hurt unless he moved. It looked like the bleeding had stopped, but it was probably a good idea to change the bandage.
Ryuan helped Hugo sit up straight, then unwound the blood-soiled bandage. She brought in water to clean the wound, then re-wrapped it with clean rags. Her hands were rough, but he didn’t complain. Having the wound clean made his head feel clearer.
Hugo was somewhat disturbed by the fact that he didn’t really know where he was. He’d only met Ryuan the previous night. She seemed kind and trustworthy enough, but what about her father and the other people that lived on this street? There wasn’t much he could do at the moment. He wasn’t well enough yet to flee...and if he fled, where would he go?
Ryuan helped Hugo lie down again, and he went back to sleep.
Ryuan and her father, Yoar, went fishing in the canal during the early evening. They caught small fish, scaled and boned them, and preserved their meat in brine. Yoar sold the jars of preserved fish to make a living. He came inside late, reeking of fish guts and looking none too pleased about it.
The preserved fish was pretty good, especially when cooked with rice and fresh vegetables. The meal was a simple one, but it was hot and filling. Yoar glanced over at Hugo’s scabbard as they ate.
“You’re one of them, then? The Mikado’s Shields?”
Hugo said nothing in reply. Yoar paused for a moment, then continued speaking.
“You’re wearing the same clothes as a merchant’s son, and your haircut is a generic one, but anyone would be able to guess that from your scabbard. I’ve heard rumors that the rest of you are hiding in safe houses around the city, and that the Talsh have orders to kill you all.” He sighed. “Besides, it’s easy to tell you’ve been through some bad trouble.”
Hugo gritted his teeth. Staying here would put Yoar and Ryuan in danger. He kept quiet, waiting for Yoar to ask him to leave. He would find his way and keep himself safe some way, right?
That was what Hugo tried to tell himself. He should be stoic, like a warrior, but the thought of being on his own again when he was so weak and hurt overwhelmed him. He set his plate of food aside so that he wouldn’t drop it as tears coursed down his cheeks. He hid his face in his empty hands.
Yoar was usually a quick and plainspoken speaker, but now, he spoke gently and quietly. “You’ve seen us. You know that we are poor. We can feed you for a week or two, but after that, your being here will cause more than one serious problem. For now, rest and recover. I understand that you might hate the Talsh and want your revenge, but you won’t be able to avenge yourself until you get better.”
Yoar had heard about the attack on the warehouse that Hugo had fled from that morning, when he’d gone to the market to sell fish. That was how he knew that people associated with the Mikado’s elite imperial guardsmen were being targeted by Talsh. He’d been curious enough about the rumors to go to the warehouse himself.
The burned warehouse was a sight that Yoar would never forget. The corpses of the fallen were left where they were; Yoar guessed that Talsh was trying to make an example of them. Yoar had never witnessed such heartless cruelty before in his life.
No one came to bury the bodies. Those who tried were rebuffed by more Talsh soldiers. It had been almost a full day since the start of Talsh’s attack, and no one had buried any of the dead.
While looking over the carnage at the warehouse, Yoar understood that Yogo would lose the war. He considered it already lost.
The Yogoese people were accustomed to war. Horam and Orm were at their borders, and when they weren’t fighting one another they were often fighting Yogo. Yogo also had more than its own fair share of internal strife.
However, over the past few years, Yogo had enjoyed a brief and unusual period of peace, because the Talsh Empire was keeping the nation’s ancient enemies occupied. After Talsh conquered Horam and Orm, the empire turned its sights on Yogo.
The years of peace made Yogo more unprepared for war than they would have been otherwise, and there would be no aid from their neighboring nations, which were already under Talsh dominion. Food prices shot up overnight as Yogo struggled to feed its army. Other necessities couldn’t be bought for money or bartered for: there were constant shortages. The Mikado forced conscription from Yogoese families, sending men to war who knew little of it against their will.
Men died in battle against the Talsh, or died of starvation at home. Some Yogoese people turned against their own countrymen and became bandits and scavengers, stealing indiscriminately in order to stay alive.
Hoshiro, the Imperial City, was the best-defended, and the last to fall. The gates that protected the city were all burned, and the sky was stained red with reflected fire. Those fortunate enough to survive the night would remember the echoing of the Talsh war drums over the city until their dying day. It seemed like the end of the world—and it was, at least, the end of the world as they knew it.
No one slept in the city that night. At daybreak, the sun shone off the Talsh soldiers’ long pikes and polished armor. There were so many of them marching through the city that they resembled an army of ants. Rain might have helped put out the fires, but no rain fell: Yogo had been suffering from drought long before the Talsh army showed up.
After the outer city was destroyed, the Talsh army marched to the Imperial Palace. They burned the gates there, too, and killed all the guards inside. They took the Mikado hostage, but there was no news of anyone else being spared. The people of the capital were devout believers in Ten no Kami, but no miracle occurred to save them. Those who survived were disillusioned. The Mikado was alive, but taken: the Talsh Empire intended to use him instead of kill him. Perhaps that could be seen as a miracle of sorts, but it wouldn’t save any of Yogo’s people. The Mikado couldn’t reverse the terrible damage done to the city, or bring anyone back to life.
At the end of winter, the Talsh army marched down the city’s main thoroughfare carrying eight large baskets. They passed beyond the burned gates that led to the ruined Imperial Palace. The people living along the street watched them go with stone-faced expressions.
If the Mikado really was descended from Ten no Kami, then how could the filthy Talsh touch him? That should have been impossible. No one had seen him leave the palace. Many people believed that if he was taken from the city by force, lightning would strike the palace and destroy the rest of the city, rather than letting it fall into enemy hands.
But none of that happened. After the initial attack, the Talsh didn’t destroy the city further. There was no lightning in the sky.
Some people clung to their beliefs despite the evidence to the contrary. The Mikado couldn’t possibly be inside one of those baskets the Talsh soldiers were carrying. The Talsh hadn’t managed to oust him from the palace. If they had, then where was Ten no Kami? Had their god abandoned them? No, impossible.
Some days later, the Talsh army opened one of the gates in the lower city to the public. A temporary courtyard of fine white sand had been built beyond it, and on the sand, the corpses of the Mikado’s protectors lay in neat rows, still bloody and wearing armor. Most of the bodies were lacking heads.
The people of the city were shocked to their core at that Talsh army’s brutality. The believers who had clung to their faith in the Mikado for so long could no longer deny the facts: the Mikado was gone, taken by Talsh, and Yogo now belonged to the Talsh Empire. If Ten no Kami was involved at all, then the god must have agreed to this atrocity for some reason.
Talsh soldiers started moving into the city, occupying empty homes and building others over the ashes left behind by their attack. The city looked like a dust cloud or an anthill from a distance, so busy were the Talsh soldiers with their rebuilding efforts. The streets were thick with people scurrying to and fro. Familiar roads now led to new buildings, new plazas.
The Talsh army rebuilt the walls around the city and the gates they’d burned in the architectural style of their own culture. They set up four towers, one at each corner of the city; soldiers were stationed in those towers day and night. Yogo’s soldiers and anyone who resisted Talsh rule were executed as traitors to the empire. Little by little, the Talsh Empire brought Yogo to heel, and what little resistance remained was crushed beneath soldiers’ boots.
The rebuilding efforts were still underway when a large group of people entered the city through the main gate. They wore richly colored garments and flew gaudy banners with foreign lettering on them. Behind them was a long wagon train full of supplies and luxury items.
Some of the people were Talsh, but most were Ormese. Talsh had conquered Orm before it had conquered Yogo. The people and wagon train moved along Hoshiro’s main street, spreading word of the Talsh Emperor’s compassion and mercy. They brought out food from the wagons and distributed it free of cost. Food had been difficult to come by since the drought had afflicted Yogo’s fields starting a few years before. The starving people of the city were grateful for the Talsh Empire’s generosity. The spectacle had another purpose, which it also achieved: the Talsh Empire was obscenely wealthy, and they wanted their conquests to know it.
As the days continued, the last pockets of resistance against the Talsh Empire in Yogo died out. It was true that the Talsh Empire had cruelly killed the Mikado’s shields and men in the army, but they hadn’t killed any common people--at least, not the ones who didn’t resist them. Rumors spread that those who swore allegiance to Talsh would receive a share of the empire’s wealth. People who chose to throw their lot in with the Talsh army were paid better than Yogoese citizens and were given nice homes to live in.
Yoar couldn’t forget the terrible sight of the burned warehouse that Hugo had fled from. A few people had managed to flee, just like Hugo had, but they’d been caught and hanged on a blackened beam of the warehouse. One of those people was a child, burned almost past recognition.
Yoar tried to eat his lunch, but food wouldn’t stay down. What did that poor child do, to deserve such a thing? They must have been so scared...and then the soldiers killed them. Not quickly, either. The Talsh hurt them. Hurt and killed children...
Yoar’s stomach turned over. He remembered the terrible fear that had gripped the city on the night of the attack. Talsh had spared no soldiers, and none of their relatives. Their ruthless efficiency was alarming. If the Talsh army learned that Yoar and his daughter were harboring Hugo, they would certainly be killed.
But driving Hugo out, or turning him in, was out of the question. Yoar remembered Hugo’s face when Ryuan had led him home. He could barely stand then, and he was still severely injured. Yoar wasn’t like the Talsh: he couldn’t make a child suffer so terribly and so unfairly.
If we can get him away from the soldiers, he might be all right, Yoar thought. Other people must have seen Hugo and Ryuan while they were escaping the warehouse, but no Talsh soldiers had come to his door. His neighbors were the sort to keep to themselves. If he could find a safe place to send Hugo, all of them might be able to continue living in safety.
Yoar talked over what he was thinking with Hugo. Hugo’s face fell, but he nodded. “I’ll leave when I can. Thank you so much for all your help.”
Hugo told Yoar that he’d fled to the second floor of the warehouse during the attack. Soldiers had followed him upstairs, but by that point, the roof was on fire, so his pursuers probably thought he was dead.
That relieved Yoar somewhat, and partially explained why no one was looking for Hugo yet.
Yoar and Ryuan cleaned up the house after dinner. They sat down across from one another, looking at the floor while a small fire burned in a pit before them. No one spoke. Noises from the street were clearly audible through the house’s thin walls: dogs howling, drunk men singing and shouting, footsteps. Hugo went to bed again, but the strange noises all around him made it difficult to fall asleep.
The estates belonging to the Mikado’s shields were completely silent that night: silent and burned, like the warehouse Hugo had escaped from. Hugo thought about his home as he’d left it, everything clean and tidy, and realized that he would never see it again. Even if, by some miracle, the house was still standing, he would never be able to go home.
Hugo stayed awake for a long time, looking at the ceiling of Yoar and Ryuan’s house.
No comments:
Post a Comment