22

Out of the Ashes

Luvo and the island spirits carried me back to Starns. I couldn’t have reached it on my own. I had used up everything in that last fight with Carnelian and Flare. The islands even gave me some strength, after Luvo nudged them.

I will tell Rosethorn you are alive, Evumeimei. We will come for you as soon as we can find a ship to bring us, Luvo promised. You know she will manage it.

I did know that.

The strength the islands gave me was enough so I could crawl into a barn uphill from the place where I had left my body. I needed to be under cover. Ash still fell from the cracks that had opened on Mount Grace. I had no way to know if there would be any gadolgas from the volcano sprouting out to sea. I barely noticed the earthquake that shook the hill just as I began to climb it. My sense of everything was dull and distant. I wasn’t too far from being a cinder.

As soon as I could do more than bleat like a sheep, I searched for food. Sooner or later I had to see if Meryem, Jayat, and Nory were alive. If I had only been unconscious for a day, they might be partway to Moharrin, if they lived. That day when I woke up in the barn, though, I could do little more than stagger. The bit of light that came through the clouds of ash was fading. In my present shape, I wouldn’t make it as far as the river without food or a horse.

I had to find food before the light was gone. My feet—then my knees and my hands—crunched as I headed for a nearby farm.

In their rush to escape, the farmers had left plenty behind. I ate my food cold for two days. The house’s fires were out. I couldn’t bear so much as the heat from a candle flame, anyway. Even the touch of my own breath on my skin was too hot. I hoped that effect of being nearly scorched by volcano spirits would wear off soon. Normally I like fire.

That second day, the farm’s goats came back. They were hungry. I fed them and milked a few. What milk I didn’t drink I gave to the other animals that returned. I learned to walk like a sailor when little earthquakes shook us all. Those were more gifts from the Carnelian and Flare volcano, growing out to sea.

On the second day, I lurched around, sweeping ash off of grass, hay, troughs. I brought up water from the well until it was clean. I opened the doors of the house and brought the washtubs and barrels inside, to protect them from the worst of the ash. Then, slowly, I filled anything that would hold water for the animals, inside and out. I dumped grain out of sacks in the barns and sheds. Until rain came to rinse the ash away, they’d be able to survive. I hoped.

The ash stopped falling by the third day. From rumblings in the ground, I guessed a lot of volcano spirits had abandoned the chamber under Mount Grace entirely, going to try their luck under the sea. No one remained to try to escape the mountain. The skies were hazy, but it was clear, except in the southeast, where a black cloud hung. That would be the new volcano. Flare and Carnelian had led enough of their kind out that they had built a mountain on the ocean floor. They were coming into the open air.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I needed to find my friends, if they were alive. They had to be alive. After everything—melting, the sea’s meanness, fighting with young volcanoes…Meryem, Nory, and Jayat had to be here. They had to be breathing and walking around. I didn’t know how I could bear it if, after everything, I found their bodies on the way to Moharrin.

I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to reach them. The earthquakes would have knocked the road to pieces. Lucky for me, two of the animals who had come to the farm were mules. You can’t beat mules for taking on bad terrain. I sweet-talked them into wearing saddles and packs I had stuffed with food and mule treats. I knew that nobody tells a mule to do anything. It’s better to negotiate.

So what if I hobbled like an old woman? It was time to go. Otherwise, like the ferret in the old stories, curiosity would kill me. Or worry. Or fear.

Off we went, slowly. Each step sent up a puff of ash. Tree limbs sagged with more ash. It blanketed the grass and hid the stones. I had to wrap a scarf over my face to keep from breathing it. I even ripped up two shirts and gave the mules scarves for their noses. I envied them their long eyelashes. Every little breeze blew grit right into my face. My eyes watered all the time.

The mules warned me when a fresh shake was coming. That was good. My magic was still limp, so I didn’t know. When the mules halted, their eyes rolling, I’d slide from the saddle. I’d talk soft to them until the ground settled again. I gave them apples and carrots and paid them compliments in every language I knew. They liked the compliments even more than the treats. Mules are pretty vain.

There’s no good speaking of that journey. It lasted two and a half days. The road was just sad. In three places rockslides had wiped it away. Lucky for me that I had mules. Lucky, too, that the Makray River was changed, knocked into a new course by the bouncing earth. We picked our way along the old riverbed. The whole time I prayed to Kanzan the Merciful, to Heibei, and to the gods of the Living Circle. I wanted to see no tumbles of clothes, no bodies half buried by rock or ash. I wanted no sign that the people I searched for had died making this journey. Either the gods listened and they were safe, or they were under so much rock that I never saw them.

I wore out the three brooms I brought, sweeping ash from the mules’ grazing and my campsite. I went through every spare bit of cloth. We couldn’t drink the Makray’s water. It was acid from the damage done by the volcano spirits. The mules grumbled as I measured out water from my canteens, but they could smell the river. They wouldn’t touch that water. If I came back after death as anything, it would be as a mule.