Snow, Fire, Sword Read online

  “The Demons’ Army?”

  “Our master has told us there is a great struggle for the cosmos,” said Sadik gravely. “The Demons are trying to control the world again. We are with the Army of Light and fight against them.”

  “Oh,” said Adi, and a great relief filled him. Somehow, he must have come to the right place. These people obviously knew something about what was going on. They might well be able to help him.

  A few men and women walking along the track paused to look at them, and Sadik greeted them, introducing Adi as his good friend. Adi smiled and greeted them a little nervously but felt himself relaxing. He looked curiously at his surroundings. To one side of the track were rice fields where people were working, and to the other were vegetable fields.

  Sadik, noticing Adi’s glance, said proudly that the community was almost self-sufficient in vegetables, though not yet rice or meat. “But we are getting there,” he proclaimed, as they passed a herdsboy pushing along a bright-eyed contingent of goats. He waved and smiled at them, his interested gaze on Adi, who grinned back.

  Now the track wound through a cover of trees and emerged into a clearing. Here was a cluster of large houses and huts, set around an open-air, pillared pavilion. The pavilion was white, decorated with bright, geometric patterns, and featured the words “The Light Shines” on its concrete pillars.

  “That’s our meeting place,” said Sadik proudly. “We built it ourselves.”

  Some distance from the pavilion was an elegant building whose golden roof and white towers proclaimed it to be a Mujisal house of worship. Farther still was what looked like a high wall, perhaps the entrance to an inner compound.

  The houses clustered around the pavilion were carefully whitewashed, their tin roofs glittering, and around the houses was arranged a series of little gardens. Neat pebble paths edged with white rocks linked the pavilion, the houses, and the house of worship. It was quite a sight out in this back block, and a welcome one after the dust and ugly straggle of Gunungbatu.

  “So,” said Sadik, drawing the car up with a flourish outside one of the houses, “how do you like my home, Adi?”

  “It is very fine,” said Adi truthfully. “Much has been done here.”

  “We have worked hard. The land was all rocks and weeds when my master first got here, five years ago.”

  “Wah!” said Adi, impressed. “That is a short time to accomplish all this.”

  Sadik beamed. “It certainly is! It is proof of the shining nature of our master’s goodness, and how it inspires people. Now, my friend, I will take you to the washhouse, so you may refresh yourself. I will ask if you may be presented to the master so that—”

  “Please forgive me,” interrupted Adi rapidly, “but would it be possible for you to ask your friends if any of them are going to Kotabunga soon?”

  Sadik nodded. “I will ask, indeed.”

  As they got out of the car, Adi noticed that they were being watched by a small group of unsmiling youths. He bent his head and smiled, but their gaze did not waver, nor their expressions change. He wondered if they thought he was too finely dressed, here in this hardworking place, and unease roiled up inside him again.

  THIRTEEN

  DEWI AND HUSAM AL-DIN had hoped they might catch up with Adi, walking along the road to Kotabunga, but they saw no trace of him. They reached Kotabunga just before dark, in time for the daily rush in and out of the city. The crush of cars, bikes, and people made it hard for them to go along at more than a snail’s pace. They were heading back to Kwanyin’s place, but the gold district was all the way across town from them, and at this rate it would take an hour or more to reach the She-Po.

  Dewi desperately wanted to get back to Kwanyin and see if Adi was there. She tried to keep calm, but she couldn’t help thinking that, caught in this traffic jam, they would be sitting ducks for the hantumu.

  “Maybe I should get out and walk there, warn Kwanyin we’re coming.”

  “No,” said Husam firmly. “Don’t leave the car. You’re safer in here, I think. You’ll just have to be patient.”

  Dewi said nothing, but her thoughts were rebellious. She looked unseeingly out the window, twisting her hands together. As she did so, she felt the red stone on the ring of protection cutting into her skin. She looked down at her hand, at the ring glowing there so brightly. Her thoughts whirled. What was it Senopati had said, back at Chandi Maya? That the ring could call fire…If that was the case, then this was the time to do it, when they needed speed and protection. Wildly, she raised her beringed hand and shouted, “Fire, fire, come to me! We need you, now!”

  “No!” yelled Husam al-Din. “It’s dangerous to call Fire like that, unmediated! You never know what—”

  Whoosh! Heat instantly filled the car—an intense, searing heat—and a ghastly roaring. There was a loud crack as the vial of sacred water hanging from the rearview mirror exploded; then the little bottle Husam had stowed in his clothes also burst. The heat in the car instantly vaporized the zummiyah water. Scorch marks appeared inside the car, devouring the pictures, attacking the holy books as well. Dewi felt her throat burning, her eyebrows sizzling. Yet there was no smoke, no flame, just this hideous heat.

  Husam al-Din was shouting words in a language Dewi had never heard, words that sounded strangely like the crackling of flames. And suddenly, it was all over. The heat vanished as quickly as it had arrived, leaving a smell of burning, and scorched walls, books, and pictures. Dewi could not move, though she was not hurt. Her heart ached bitterly as she looked at the ruin of Anda Mangil’s wonders. Her finger, where the ring had been, throbbed and stung like mad. The ring itself, an almost unrecognizable lump of twisted metal, its stone shattered into a thousand pieces, lay on the floor of the car.

  “God be praised,” said Husam al-Din. “God be praised, I remembered the right words, and we are still alive.”

  Dewi did not dare to look at the old man. She whispered, “Forgive me, forgive me. I’m such a fool, such a fool.”

  He looked down at the twisted ring. “Well, it’s finished now.” He bent down to pick up the shattered pieces of glass from the bottles. “Pity. We lost our protective water—still, it did protect us from the worst of it, or you and I would be up in flames right now.” He sighed. “Well, fire can be a tricky thing.” The car’s horn began to blow, loud and long and shrill, as if in protest, or pain.

  Cars in front of and behind them hooted in reply. There was a cacophony of noise all around them; then, suddenly, it seemed the traffic jam was clearing, for they were moving along much more freely. They turned a corner, into a quieter street. And then…

  Someone stepped right in front of their car, gesturing at them to stop. Someone familiar. Someone who filled Dewi with sudden, irrational dread. Kareen Amar, the redheaded woman from the guesthouse. She looked crazier than ever, smiling and smiling, her smile ghastly, showing her sharp, crooked teeth, her eyes full of a strange, burning light.

  “Step on the accelerator!” shouted Dewi. “Don’t stop, Husam!”

  But the car had already skidded to a halt by the side of the road. Kareen Amar knocked at the window, shouting, “I am Kareen Amar. Let me in, young one. Let me in!”

  Dewi glanced over at Husam—and got a terrible shock, for he was staring at Kareen Amar, a spellbound expression on his face. Dewi’s pulse raced with terror. The old man was bewitched! She gave a strangled little cry. There had been the betchar driver, the red-eyed monkey, and now this creature. Dewi leaped into the backseat and wrenched at the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “The shape-shifter’s trapped us, Husam!” she cried. “Look, it’s bewitched the car, it’s trapping us.”

  Husam did not answer, just kept staring at Kareen Amar. The driver’s door suddenly opened. Kareen Amar’s deep voice filled the car. “Listen to me, young one, for you must. I am Kareen Amar, and you must listen to me.” Husam al-Din moved over so she could sit behind the wheel.

  She put a hand on it, and obediently the motor turned over.
She touched the ceiling, and all at once the scorch marks on the car’s walls, and on the pictures and books, vanished. The car still smelled of burning, but otherwise it was as good as new. Dewi thought, desperately, She’s got immense powers; we are lost! She will take us to her afreet’s lair and I will never, never see my poor father and home again.

  “You must listen to Kareen Amar,” said the woman, as the car began to pull away from the curb. “Stop being so afeared, young one.”

  Dewi suddenly found her voice. “This is Anda Mangil’s car,” she shouted. “It’s not for creatures like you. Leave it alone, leave it alone!”

  “Anda Mangil is dead,” said the woman, with a terrible smile. “He is dead, and it is Kareen Amar who is now here.”

  Wild grief and anger surged through Dewi, and she flung herself at Kareen Amar, pounding her with her fists, yelling, “No! No!”

  “Stop that, young one,” said Kareen Amar, and she raised her hand, easily pushing Dewi back. She tried to throw herself again at the woman, to make her stop the car, but it was as if a wall kept pushing her back, some force that would not allow her to come near.

  “Husam!” Dewi screamed. But Husam did not move. Dewi grabbed again at the door handle, breathing a desperate prayer to God in the highest Heaven as she did so. This time it opened easily, and she tumbled out into the street. She got swiftly to her feet, not looking behind her, knowing she must not allow Kareen Amar’s eyes to hold her in a trance as they had Husam al-Din. She ran as fast as she could into a very narrow street, hoping that they would not be able to follow her there in the car, and even if they got out, she might have enough of a head start on them to get away. She ran with her breath whistling in her chest; she fell over once, got up, ran on, heard her beautiful clothes straining and ripping, but knew only that she must get away, as far as possible from that shape-changing thing. She and the hantumu had killed Anda Mangil, and now she was taking over his car.

  Dewi groaned inside herself. Oh, if only, if only she’d known properly how to use the ring of protection! Why had she uttered those rash words? Now she was without Rorokidul’s protection, without Sword, without her father, one of her companions dead, the other vanished. She was in a desperate, desperate state, and there was no telling how she would escape.

  Dewi had run into an area she did not know at all. It was a place of mean little hovels tumbling over one another, of narrow, dirty, slippery streets, with open drains running down the middle of them, and of mean-faced, pinched-cheeked people looking warily at her as she sped past. The name Kotabunga meant City of Flowers, but in this part of the city, you did not feel any flowers would ever grow, only the rankest weeds. She began to feel more and more anxious as she kept going and the streets kept on getting narrower, darker, dingier, the houses closer and closer together, crowding one another above her head. Where was she? What could she do? Where could she run to?

  Rorokidul’s words came to her. She must get to the Water Gardens. But where were they? The picture of the gardens that hung in Anda Mangil’s car—was there anything that showed where they were? She strained, trying to remember.

  Suddenly, behind her, she heard a familiar, frightening sound: motorbike engines. She did not stop to turn and look but ran straight ahead, racing as fast as she could, weaving in and out of alleyways, tripping over loose stones, getting up, running on under the flat, incurious stares of passersby. She stopped and called out to a passing woman, “The Water Gardens? Where are they?”

  The woman smiled at her, showing broken teeth. She opened her mouth, touched her fingers to her throat, and shook her head. The woman was mute—but not deaf, for she pointed up the street and made a gesture with her right hand to indicate a turn. Dewi cried, “Thank you, thank you!” and ran in the direction the woman had indicated. But just as she turned the corner, she tripped and sprawled headlong into a slick of mud in the middle of the street. As she scrambled up, she heard the motorbikes getting louder. They were almost on her. She couldn’t run fast enough in this costume. She tore her skirt and sandals off, discarded them in the middle of the street, and ran in her bare feet and knee-length jacket as fast as her legs could carry her. The breath screamed in her chest and her throat as she spotted the great white pillared gate down the far end of the street. She recognized it from Anda Mangil’s picture. The Water Gardens! She would be safe there.

  Summoning up the last reserves of her strength, she sped toward the gates, the hantumu so close behind her, she could smell the hot engines of their bikes. She heard the whistle of a sword and felt a sharp sting in her shoulder, and knew she was hurt. But she was there, she was there! She literally fell through the gates of the gardens, landing heavily on slick paving stones, sliding a few meters, then whacking her head so hard that she fainted.

  She came to slowly. She was lying on her back. All around her was green, as if she were enclosed in a cocoon of plants. She tried to lift an arm but could not. She attempted to move a foot but could not. She was tied down somehow. There was a throbbing pain in her left shoulder. She listened hard and heard nothing but the distant sound of water.

  “Please, Queen Rorokidul, are you there?” she called softly. “I can’t move. Will you…?”

  “Silence! This garden is my realm, not Rorokidul’s!” came a woman’s voice, full of petulance.

  Dewi’s heart fluttered wildly. “I was told this was a safe place. I was told to come here.”

  The voice snapped, “Ha! Safe, eh? Look what your kind has done!” And suddenly, Dewi found herself being dragged, scraped along the ground until she came to a complete and painful stop. A chink opened in the green cocoon, and she could see out. And she saw a picture of devastated beauty: bushes had been uprooted, flowers pulled out; boughs and branches littered the ground. And now she could see that she was indeed in a green cocoon, for she was wrapped, like a bundle, in strong vines. She was completely helpless.

  “Look, there’s more, there’s more!” The vines twisted around her, making her head swivel. And she saw that some distance away was what would once have been a lovely stone garden, leading to a little pool. Someone had broken the pots, shattered the masonry, thrown rubbish in the pool, so that the whole thing looked like a pitiful ruin.

  Dewi said quickly, “I am truly sorry. It was a dreadful thing to do, whoever did it. This should be a place of beauty and peace.”

  “It should be! But it is no longer.” The voice had risen to a scream. “You are human. It is your kind did this!”

  Dewi found her courage. “It may have been my kind, but we are not all alike. Please, listen. I have come to find Snow, Fire, and Sword, and heal the damaged land. I found Sword, but have lost it; tried to call Fire, but it burned me. I had two companions when I started; one of them is dead. Please, if you want to punish those responsible for this horrible thing, you will help me. For if you do not, he whose influence is behind this will win; and if he wins, not only will the gardens be desecrated, but they will be destroyed.”

  The vines slackened suddenly, then fell away, melting from Dewi’s limbs with such swiftness that it made her dizzy to watch them. The voice said, “Get up, get up, girl! Get up and let me look into your eyes and see if you tell the truth.” Suddenly there was a strange being standing before Dewi: a tall woman with green skin and green hair, with eyes the color of water and hands that were more like talons. Teeth as sharp as knives glittered in her thin-lipped mouth, and the glance she flashed at Dewi was not reassuring.

  “I am Ratupohon, guardian of the First Garden,” said the green woman. “So, it is you who must find Snow, Fire, and Sword? I have heard of this quest. What is your name?”

  Dewi got shakily to her feet. She felt ill. Her shoulder hurt abominably. She dipped her head as politely as she could and said, “I am Dewi, Great Lady.”

  “You are hurt,” said Ratupohon. Dewi glanced at her upper arm, where blood caked her torn jacket.

  “It is a sword wound from the hantumu.” Dewi winced. In the next instant, she ne
arly cried out loud, for Ratupohon, in one swift movement, had brought a hand down on Dewi’s shoulder—and her touch was like nothing Dewi had ever felt before. It burned like fire, it stung like ice, and it seemed to penetrate through to the very marrow of her bones. But the throbbing pain went away, and when Ratupohon took her hand off, Dewi saw that the blood had vanished and the flesh under the torn jacket was completely unmarked.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Think nothing of it,” said the guardian impatiently. “It is as well for you that you called on the Queen of the Southern Sea, though. For I am in no mood to ask questions of stray humans. Revenge is strong in me.”

  And Dewi knew, with every breath of her body, that was indeed the case. “My Lady Ratupohon, will you not tell me what happened here?” And why you could not stop it, she thought, but did not ask.

  Ratupohon’s green eyes looked thoughtfully into Dewi’s. “It is a good question,” she said, “and deserves a good answer. Come, girl Dewi, and be my guest. Follow me.” Imperiously, she turned away, her straight back slender as a whip, and as menacing. Dewi had no choice but to meekly follow her.

  FOURTEEN

  ADI FELT A LOT better after his wash. The washhouse had boasted spotlessly clean bathtubs and showers; the water was warm and comfortable; and there were good thick towels, and even a few unguents to rub on tired feet. He was still a little nervous as to what people might think of his finery, so seeing a discarded robe lying on a bench in the washhouse, he put it on over his clothes. It was very large and floated on him, but it made him feel less conspicuous. He did not put his beautiful headdress back on but squashed it into the capacious pocket at the front of the robe. He was bareheaded now, and felt a little naked without something on his head, but that would have to do. He had just thrust his feet into his sandals when Sadik reappeared, all smiles.