The Fire King (34 page)

Karr hoped not. Weariness filled him. Still, he hid it as he had done many times before, forcing himself to stand straight and tall. “If you do not wish to take us—”

Tau waved a hand and shook his head. “No. Let me tell Baya that I am going with you. She will pack us things to eat.”

He walked ahead, back toward the tent. Graceful, quick on his feet—he did not move like an old man, and Karr realized he had forgotten to ask his friend an important question, one of many.
Will I ever die? Why have I not aged like you? You look old, but you are not three thousand years older. We are the same.

Soria and Robert met him halfway to the wagon. Her braids were frayed again, and the wind tugged her long dress tight against her legs. Faint worry lines creased her brow, and her eyes were dark with shadows.

“You do not care for Tau,” Karr said, not needing to be told.

“Neither of us trusts him,”
Soria replied in her own language, presumably so that Robert could understand.
“Anyone who condemns another to be buried alive is not all there in the heart or head. I don’t care how much time has passed.”

Karr could not disagree. He felt many things seeing Tau again, including excitement and a stunned, careful happiness. But there was grief, too, and distrust. A sense that this was
too much.
He had not survived in battle, or human politics, or led his people for years without listening to his instincts. Even when those instincts railed against his very best friend in life.

“He is taking us to a group of chimera who live in the mountains near here,” he explained.

Soria translated for Robert. Tau emerged from the tent holding a loose blue bag, and a red canister. Bayarmaa clung to his side, and when he bent to whisper in her ear, she smiled—but not with happiness. Her eyes held a sad acceptance, as though she was used to her husband taking unexpected excursions without her. It could not be an easy thing, especially as Tau had not told her what he was. Karr could not imagine keeping such a secret. To shift his shape—to live in another skin—was too much a part of him. To live under the same roof and be a mate to one who so obviously loved him, and yet hide that …

Perhaps Tau was afraid of frightening the woman. He obviously did not trust her. But if either of those things was true, then Karr thought it more merciful for Tau to be alone. More merciful for both sides.

“Let us play at being gods,”
he remembered Tau saying, more than once.
“Let us play, when we have so little. The humans are begging for it.”

“No one begs for deception,”
Karr had replied, always.

And like always, as though part of a game, Tau would whisper,
“But lies can ease the pain of living.”

He could hear those words ringing through him as he watched Tau load his bag and the sloshing red container into the back of their wagon, and then hop onto the two-wheeled transport sitting upright outside his home. He made a kicking motion and it roared to life, spewing a dark fume that made Karr’s nose itch and burn. Odd, seeing his friend so well adapted to this modern world, moving through it with ease and grace. It rubbed at Karr, making him uneasy. Like seeing the sun in place of the moon. Felt wrong.

Tau drove ahead, taking a road that led them north of the human capital and then west toward the mountains. Their wagon bumped and bounced over a dirty track that led across the rocky plain, passing men on horseback driving sheep beneath a sky that yawned blue and brilliant. Sunlight was constant, pressing warm through the window on Karr’s skin. Soria sat close beside him, also warm.

No one talked, though Soria began tugging on her empty sleeve. A sign of nerves, Karr thought. He needed a sleeve to twist, himself.

“I do not understand any of this,” he said quietly. “I trusted him with my life.”

“Trust is difficult,” Soria replied, just as softly. “It is a leap of faith.”

“Sometimes you fall.”

“Hard.” Soria smiled bitterly. “I used to have a lot of trust.”

She said nothing else. Her silence was heavy and solemn, lost; and Karr did not want to press. Not here, where there was nowhere for her to run. Karr wanted to protect her from pain, not cause it.

I trust her with my heart,
he had said to Tau.

He had trusted Tau, as well. From childhood unto death. And now he knew that trust had been misplaced. His friend had confessed to betraying him.
Betraying
him, and sentencing him to an eternity of torture.

A numb horror filled him. He could not have imagined resurrection all those years ago, nor Soria. And not this. Not
this.
He did not know how to reconcile the discovery, except to treat it as part of the surreal dream his life had become.

Tau had become his enemy. Once, long ago, without him realizing it. Was he still?

Was Soria, for that matter?

He glanced down at her, and she met his gaze. There was nothing hidden—not her concern, and not the tender heat that made his heartbeat quicken. He had been inside her mind; he had felt some of what had shaped her, and it was powerful, and tragic, and wildly fierce. He could not deny that. He could not convince himself that it was untrue. It felt natural as breathing, to trust her. He was simply worried that she should not trust him.

Especially when he was still here, risking her life. Selfish, stupid. Yet he was burdened by a tiny voice in his head that was certain he would never allow her to be hurt—not by any enemies, not by himself. It was that sense of self, that little voice, which had allowed him to make excuses and ignore the danger, that little voice that had allowed him to keep her by his side.

No, it made no sense, his feeling of security around her. And if it was true, that made it almost worse that he had killed Yoana and her unborn child: the idea that somehow he had been conscious enough to stop himself, had he wanted.

They reached the foothills of the mountain late that afternoon, a forested area of large rock formations and distant snowcapped peaks. They pushed their self-propelled wagons along yet another rough trail, bumping and sliding through with bone-jarring strength until, finally, neither Tau’s two wheels nor their four could take them any farther. Ahead was a small footpath that led upward into the forest. Karr’s legs throbbed just looking at it.

“This is another reason why I thought they should not come,” Tau said. “We must fly the rest of the way.”

“Fly,” Soria repeated.

“You can walk, if you like.” Tau smiled. “It will take longer.”

“I will carry her,” Karr rumbled, disliking the way his old friend looked at her. As though a mask was slipping from his eyes, revealing a hungry wolf.

Soria translated for Robert and Ku-Ku. Robert stared directly into the sun for one long moment, and then glanced away.
“My little friend and I will wait here for you. I think, perhaps, that would be the best.”

“Indeed,”
Tau replied, in the same language.

Robert smiled, but the expression was icy.
“Tell me something, Professor Mulraney. Who taught you how to live forever?”

Tau gave him a sharp look, as though he was seeing the man truly for the first time.
“You would not understand such things.”

Ku-Ku made a small sound, picking at her nails with the tip of her long knife. Robert’s smile grew.
“I might not be a professor, but I am a curious man, and what you are and what you did are no secret. I don’t think
how
should be, either.”

Tau’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at Karr. “My wife,” he rumbled, in the language of the chimera. “You know she was a priestess. She was also aware of magic. She hid it well from everyone else, though she taught me some things before her death.”

Soria translated. Robert looked thoughtful, as if he did not entirely believe the chimera. He opened up the back of the wagon, and took out the blue cloth bag that Tau had brought. He tossed it at Tau’s feet and it made a clanking sound. Karr did not think it sounded like food.

“You brought the sword,”
Soria said tightly.
“Didn’t you?”

Tau began to strip off his clothes. Golden light seared his skin, feathers erupting in long, rippling waves. He bent to pick up the bag, and Karr saw his shoulders bulging with wing buds.

“I never go anywhere without it,” he rasped, his voice thickening, deep and sharp. “It is too precious.”

Too precious to leave behind—especially if you are never going back.

Karr slowly took off his shirt and pants, leaning close to Soria. In her ear he whispered, “Stay. Something is going to happen.”

“I know,” she breathed, brushing her lips over his ear. He pulled back, staring into her eyes. No fear. No doubt. Just trust and determination, wild stubbornness.

“My dangerous woman,” he murmured. “How I love you.”

He did not expect to say those words, but he felt no shame afterward, nothing but heat as her gaze turned liquid. A tentative smile touched her mouth and then shifted into something fierce. She grabbed his hand as golden scales rippled over his skin, and squeezed hard.

“Do not dare leave me here,” she said. “Promise me that I will face this with you.”

“I promise,” he agreed, closing his eyes as bones broke inside of him, expanding and growing, muscles churning. His haunches slipped into the form of a lion, and his neck stretched, mouth hooking into a short, draconic beak. Talons curled through his shifting hands but he was careful; Soria still held on to him, and her touch was an anchor. He could feel nothing else, not even the ground beneath his feet.

When Karr could see again, Tau had also finished transforming. His friend crouched on all fours, wearing the body of a wolf and the wings of an eagle. He clutched the satchel in his hands, which were still humanoid, though covered in thick silver fur. His eyes glowed, trailing light down lupine cheeks.

“Brother. It is good to see your face again,” Karr whispered. Heartache filled him—and anger at himself, for not forgiving and trusting Tau—but before he could say a word, the chimera leaped into the air, wings beating furiously.

Soria stepped back, shielding her eyes, and looked at Robert.
“Are you going to surprise us?”

“Oh,”
he said, as Ku-Ku tossed him something that resembled a black brick covered in tiny red squares.
“I’m sure I’ll catch up somehow.”

Karr was not entirely comforted.

He picked Soria up, holding her tightly in his arms. His legs still ached, but not nearly as much. It had always been thus with his wounds: he was stronger in this other body; faster, tougher, harder to injure. Pain had always slipped away, as it did now.

His wings thrust down hard, and he leaped high into the path of a strong breeze. Slowly, painstakingly, he gained altitude, and then he followed Tau as quickly as he could.

The air was cold, and the winds gained strength. The world was vast beneath them, lush forests tumbling down rocky hillsides that were cut with frothing rivers. Light dazzled, and each breath was labored but sweet. Tau drew alongside him for a short time, and Karr could almost forget where they were and what had happened. It was good to be in the air again with his friend. Good to be himself with someone who remembered the old times.

He lost track of distance, only the changing shape and lushness of the land. Until Soria shouted, “I saw something glitter!”

Karr saw it as well: a reflective surface, shiny against the side of the mountain, there and gone in the blink of an eye. It was an odd place to see something like that: a sheer cliff face, just stone and nothing else. Except, as he drew closer he picked out small dark spots, like caves, and when he was closer still, some of the lines in the stones looked structured, as though cut by hand, shaped and molded into something that resembled a small, perfectly camouflaged city. Several narrow trails led up the cliff face, and Karr saw people on them. Men and women who wore loose robes buffeted by the wind.

Tau did not seem unnerved in the slightest to fly toward them. Karr followed his lead, noting uneasily how several of the humans pointed and started running.

They landed on a narrow ledge beside a rough-hewn staircase that wound against the rock face toward the open mouth of a cave. Karr heard a soft babble of voices above him, and smelled rich, smoky scents that he had not encountered since visiting the Nile kingdoms. Incense, thick and lush. Several men poked their heads out of the cave—just one of many caves, Karr realized. Their heads were shaved, skin dark and leathery, and they wore dark robes.

Soria sounded faintly stunned as she said, “They are monks. I have heard of remote monasteries, but this …”

Her voice trailed away. Karr understood why, also losing the ability to speak or think. Above him appeared a tall, pale woman, silver hair hanging loose down her back. She was very old, but her eyes were golden, and Karr knew her face.

“Althea,” he whispered.

She stared at him like he was a ghost or a demon, and staggered backward, clutching her chest. “No!”

“Althea,” he said again.

“You are dead,” she breathed, eyes large with disbelief. And then she looked past him and saw Tau, and her expression hardened with hate. “You. What have you done?”

“I do not yet know,” whispered Tau, staring at Karr. “I have not decided.”

The woman named Althea leaned hard against the side of the cave entrance. She was striking, more than six feet tall and lean as a cat. She was clearly old, with pale, fine skin drawn tight over her bones, but she also had a grace that reminded Soria of a dancer. Despite her aged appearance, she would have put most supermodels to shame.

She was not happy to see Tau. In fact, Soria had the strong feeling that if Althea could have punched a hole through the chimera’s chest, she would have. Karr, however, was another matter. Soria could not quite judge Althea’s reaction to him, other than complete and utter shock. Which she supposed was natural after thousands of years thinking someone was dead. She could only assume this ancient beauty was a chimera from Karr’s past: if Tau, then why not more?