A Gift of Flame

Chapter 6, Scene 2

Guard Chaani entered her Captain’s chambers, removing the shield on the desk lamp so that the light of the Flame filled the spare room. “Apologies, Captain. A message has arrived for you from the Sazi.”

Captain Ophea sat up, rubbing at her eyes. She had JUST laid down and had been on the brink of sleep. Her troop had returned from Thera an hour before, and she had thought it too late to bother her Lord. Was Sazi so eager to learn her news that he would send for her at this hour?

 She took the scrap of parchment from her lieutenant, and her eyebrows rose at seeing a missive not only in Sazi’s own hand but scribbled obviously on whatever had been close to hand. The message was brief, written not in the formal Naghlas hieroglyphics but in the Common developed by the Rikin. “Trip to Yang-Shmbl. 2 Nagh, 2 Chu, 1 Kz overland to Nmsh. Ocean after. Prepare. See me in morning - Sazi”

 She snorted at the pointlessness of the last line. As if he could keep her away! There had to be a story behind this – Phi would have sworn that nothing short of a knife held to his throat would have induced him to make THAT trip. Or an apology from Yi…?

 She was contemplating the options when it penetrated that Chaani was still chattering at her. “…Delivered by the strangest naghlas I’ve ever seen! So short and skinny - maybe he’s a baby? He’s BLUE… I’ve never seen one with that color before. I thought they killed all the unlucky ones in the crib! Though from all the scars, it looks like someone tried…”

Phi threw off the covers and jumped to her feet. “A blue naghlas? Is he still here?” She dragged a shift over her head and trotted for the door.

 “Um, probably Captain… I came to wake you right away…” Phi left the startled Chaani behind, for once grateful for her Lieutenant’s tendency towards gossip. Her chambers were only feet from the barrack’s entry, and she opened the door in time to see the youth call his Shadow forth.

 "Wait!"

The minute she saw him tense, she wished she had just let him go. The boy's Shadow seemed to shrink as if retreat back into his naghlas Vessel but held. Oh Gods… but she had to know.

 "Yes, Captain?" He swung his head in her direction, and came as close to squeaking as his monstrous throat was capable of. The sibilant Old-speak of the Naga caressed the walls of the courtyard.

 "You're the Sazi's secretary now, yes?" Phi eyed him, trying to get his measure. "And you're traveling with us?" A stray breeze made even more of a mess of the short feathers on her scalp and tugged at her light shift. But there was nothing in the boy’s eyes to indicate he was judging her in return – only wariness that bordered on fear. Of her. What the hell kind of naghlas was he?

 "Yes, sir... er... my lady?"

Phi’s thin lips straighten to a tough line, and she crossed her arms, staring at him as she leaned against the doorway. The huge-but-tiny-for-his-kind naga hunched a little more, his long ears flattening against his head, clearly waiting for her judgment. She had wanted to know… what? If he was better than the putrid disaster he’d been the last time she’d seen him? It was a relief to see that he was healed in body, but cleaning that mess up had only laid bare the damage that went beyond skin and bone.

 She should have stayed in bed.

 "Fine," she said at last. "Bring warm clothing. The sea can get cold, and the mountains will be colder." Phi looked at the horizon, to see the last light of day slip below the horizon. “And take a lantern with you when you fly.” The ‘idiot’ that tagged along at the end of that rebuke was unspoken, but still hovered. Turning from the purpling child, Phi snatched a metal sphere from just inside the door and held it up for him to light the candle.

 With a self-conscious look, he did so, a thin swirl of Flame spun from his massive mouth – small in comparison, but more than enough to half-melt the wax before it ended in a shower of floating sparks. Phi eyed the wick to make sure it would remain upright, then gently closed the metal hatch and clipped the sphere to a ring on his harness. Her hands brushed his scales, the their intense heat made her flinch and the muscle beneath the leather jumped at even that slight touch. Above her, the breath caught in the naga’s throat, and she realized she was holding her own as well.

 With a cough she stepped back. “Go prepare.” She spun on her heel and strode back into the guardhouse, closing the door firmly behind her the moment she could.

 But instead of returning to her interrupted sleep, she ducked into the guard’s hollow right by the doorway and peered through the arrow-slot that covered the courtyard. Through the narrow slit she saw the young naga still standing where she had left him, blinking like an idiot. After another few seconds he shook his head and launched himself sky-ward.

 She stared after him as he soared away. That child had kept himself alive on these streets for three - or had it been four? - hundred years. For anyone else that would have been unremarkable – it wasn’t like most people had to worry about dying, especially not a few strides from their home. But him… he had starved and scraped and had his own kind try to break him whenever he’d left himself exposed. Phi had seen the children of Slaves hurtle rocks at him, driving him from their trash-bins – the same Slaves who should have been giving him the food off their own tables and tending him like the prince he was, no matter WHAT the Consort said.

 But what amazed her was that after a life like that he should have been shattered, should have lost the favor of the Gods. But he had not. To see him still able to call upon them and fly was an amazing sight. Is that why the Sazi….

Phi quashed that thought, exhaled and pushed away from the window. There was her bunk waiting, and what little sleep she might find with this new worry on her mind.

 Hundreds of years of street-survival, spent enduring more than she had in her own fifteen millennia. So… why was she so terrified that he wouldn’t last a single day on this journey?