Child of Flame (Page 168)

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ALAIN woke to humming. At first he thought it was Adica, who could be counted on to make all kinds of strange noises in the course of her prayers and spells. He smiled, so blindingly happy that he didn’t even want to open his eyes, only soak it in. How strange to think that it was only after he’d lost everything that he gained what mattered most. Tightening his arms around her, he tucked her closer against him. Which was when he realized that the warm body lying alongside him wasn’t Adica’s but that of a rancid-smelling child.

“Hsst!” A woman clad in oiled sealskins jostled Alain and the child awake and, with an expression of urgency, beckoned to Alain to follow her. He bumped his head on the eaves as he swung out of the bed and stood up too soon; everything was built for shorter people here in the north. The long hall was empty, silent and cool. Winter had sucked the warmth out of the fires. Except for Sorrow and Rage, sitting faithfully by the door, the three of them were the only ones inside. Muttering and rubbing his sore head, he followed woman and child outside.

The humming sounded out here as well, a sound that rang up through the ground to reverberate in his head. Sorrow whined, irritated by the noise, but Rage remained silent. The woman called urgently to him again, gesturing that he should follow, but he hesitated, looking for Adica.

“Ta! Ta!” cried the woman, beckoning. She hustled the child toward the mounds that clustered like a flock of sheep along the valley floor behind the long hall.

Alain hurried after her. Several people ducked down into the entrance of one of the mounds. Coming up behind them, he looked down a low tunnel, a smaller version of the passage that led into the queens’ grave at Adica’s village. This passage, too, was lined by stones, but it hadn’t as sophisticated corbeling. In a crouch, he scuttled down the passage to a chamber that smelled of vegetables stored for a long time in a cool place, slightly spoiled by damp. No light illuminated the chamber, yet it was warmer here beneath the earthen mound than outside. Bodies pressed against him, all smelling slightly of rancid oil.

“Adica?”

She did not answer. She wasn’t here. He knew it in the same way he knew he had a hand at end of his arm. The moon had waxed full seven times since that day when he had found himself lying naked by the bronze cauldron up among the stones, but sometimes it seemed as if it had only been seven days, or as long as seven years. But in any case, he wasn’t going to hide in here without knowing where she was.

Crawling backward, he ducked out into the fresh air. The cloudy light of afternoon made him blink. The constant throbbing hum continued unabated. Adica wasn’t inside any of the eight mounds. The people crowded within seemed nervous, but not panicked. Each time he found his way in to one of the dark chambers, hands pulled him farther in, and when he made to leave, they plucked at him, urging him to stay.

But he had to find Adica.

He ran back to the long hall. It lay empty, and when the hounds snuffled around, they seemed unable, or unwilling, to find her scent. The hearth fire was burning low. How annoyed Aunt Bel would be to find a fire neglected! He fetched several dried cow pats and laid them on the coals, fanning the flame with a leather-and-wood bellows. The wheeze of the bellows didn’t mask Rage’s soft growl.

“Quick. Quick!”

He jumped. The Akka woman who had guided them here stood at the entrance to the hall. “Into the houses of dirt you must go. The dragons come.”

He whistled to the hounds and came out to stand beside the woman on the flat porch of hewn planks that fronted the hall. Now that it was light, he noticed the brilliant swirl of tattoos mottling her skin, red chevrons, white lines, and small black circles.

She frowned at him, gesturing irritably. “Quick, you go.”

“Where is Adica?”

“She goes above with the one who falls down when the spirit rides him and my brother who we call Tanioinin, something this means like the one who spits last. They walk to the high fjall.” She gestured toward the path they had walked down that morning, where it wound up the valley and was soon lost among the trees. Mist lay heavily over the high land above, as though a huge creature steamed in its sleep. Then she gestured toward the arm of the sea that lay quiescent below. A dozen skiffs were beached on the icy shore, twice the number that had been there at dawn. “The other sorcerers of my people come when he calls them. Now they will raise the dragons from their sleep to blow the clouds away. Then we walk the loom to the far land of the one whose god shines in her face.”

None of this made sense, and he was actually becoming alarmed. He hadn’t thought of his old life in months, but as if jolted by a spark of magic, he shuddered, remembering that terrible night when a locked door had blocked him from reaching Lavastine in his hour of need. “Where is Adica?”