| A sickly-pale sun found the convoy of Cleansers sleeping fitfully. The Shriedhan shrieked as they tried to pass the wards, losing limbs in the traps Jenya and Dharin had set. Seer sat up slowly, ignoring the sharp pains in ribs that hadn’t healed properly in thirteen years. Looking around the cart, her eyes fell to Kelnai’s sleeping form. She smiled faintly, almost in apology. Wincing, she stood and dressed for the day of exhausting work ahead. Gently, she placed a hand on Kelnai’s shoulder, and shook her loose from sleep. "What is it," Kelnai groaned. "The sun has risen, and we have work to do." Seer fought off a coughing fit. "I need your assistance for the Ash Rites." Kelnai turned under her blankets. "Then have your pet, Dharin, help you," she grumbled. "Kelnai," Seer whispered, struggling for patience. "You know that neither Dharin or Jenya, or any male could help with the Ash Rites if they wanted to. It would kill them. They might be able to lend me some strength, but it wouldn’t be enough." Satisfied with this admission, Kelnai left the comfort of her blankets to pull on her deep red robes. "Last night," Seer said softly as Kelnai dressed. "I didn’t mean -" Kelnai cut her short, looking over her shoulder at Seer as she spoke angrily. "Save it for a Mage that would care. You detest my presence, just as I detest yours. Before, we could pretend that we got along, but even Jenya, oblivious Jenya," a slight smile made her full lips quirk, "knows how much I loathe you. But I can resist running you through as you sweat and groan in your sleep." She smoothed her robes. "We have work to do now." She left the cart and marched barefoot past the cart drivers, leading the way to the pile of bodies. Dead carrion eaters surrounded the reeking wall of flesh in an almost perfect ring. Seer finally decided to give up trying to explain herself to Kelnai. The ruby-haired child had no desire to understand, but despite this Seer promised herself that one day her apology would find it's way to words. Kelnai raised her hand tentatively in front of her, standing just outside the ring. "I can’t break these wards." She spoke bitterly. Seer nodded, stepping forward. She raised her hand, feeling for the alterations of temperature that denoted the presence of Cair’leih. The more frequent and more powerful the fluctuations were, then the more powerful the Rite for which Cair’leih had been used. More skilled Magi could feel the patterns of the Flux and determine what the Rite’s purpose was, and how best to break it. Seer closed her eyes and began humming, offsetting the Flux. As the pitch and volume of her voice rose sweetly, and sharply, the air shimmered disturbedly. The Mage made her eyes watch, jealously noting the ease with which Seer felt, analyzed, and broke the wards. Suddenly Seer fell silent. Opening her eyes, and folding her arms across her chest, she sighed tiredly. "They’re broken." "After you," Kelnai sneered suspiciously. Seer rolled her eyes, stepping through the still shimmering wall of air. Taking a deep breath, she took her place on one side of the waist-high pile of dead militants. She looked beyond the bodies of the dead, focusing on the convoy where several children had begun playing with toys Jenya and Dharin had carved for them. "What happens to them?" Kelnai flicked her chin in the direction of the children, playing with Jenya’s own son, Shorin. "They stay with us, until we find a safe place for them to be. Hopefully, we find that place soon. Children don’t deserve to see so much death. Maybe in a decade some of them will become Magi, perhaps Trackers. Or maybe none of them will become Cleansers at all, and will lead normal lives with normal children of their own. Some may go back to the side of the Taer’shal. It is entirely up to them." Kelnai laughed, watching Shorin run circles around the other children. "I doubt many of them will become Cleansers, after watching us kill their parents." "True," Seer sighed. "I’m getting tired of all the death, though. We give these people the chance to accept the Acharya, and let him shelter them from any unnecessary hardships, and they fling stones - or worse - at us. I don’t understand it anymore, but I’m thinking of joining them." "What?" Kelnai’s eyes widened. The thought of having to explain her presence here to Seer, should she side with the Taer’shal, was more than a little worrisome. "For what reason could you possibly wish to live in these squalid conditions?" "I want to know what they have that they are willing to die for. If another major War began, I would have no honest reason to fight for the right to live." Seer shrugged, returning her attention to the pile of bodies before her. "What about Dharin?" Kelnai raised her arms, forcing herself to focus on the pile of dead parents as well. Oddly, Seer laughed. "He does not deserve all of my problems. I care for Dharin, too much to ask him to overlook my past and fall in love with me. I do not wish to attach myself to him, to make him my reason for living. He deserves so much better." She raised her arms to the skies, feeling the soft heat of the sun on her palms. Neither Seer nor Kelnai noticed Dharin and Jenya standing outside the carts, watching the two of them stretch their arms to the heavens, humming gently. Seer was surrounded by the faint glow of rapidly shimmering air, yet only the air around Kelnai’s stomach and chest shimmered even faintly. They opened their mouths, singing loudly the almost lost words of the Rite of Ash. Their voices rose in unison, warping the energies in the air and ground around them into pure Cair’leih. Their wills combined as the pitch of their voices rose, heating the Cair’leih, and incinerating the bodies of the dead. Soon Seer and Kelnai stood before a pyre, its flames brighter than the rays of the sun. Jenya and Dharin both felt the heat radiating from twenty feet away, but Seer and Kelnai, working together, stood unaffected. The pitch of the Magi Song rose higher, almost to a scream, and the flames danced on Seer and Kelnai’s bare feet, kissing their pale flesh. Their robes swayed in the wind, catching the light of the flames, but otherwise untouched by the heat. It was as if Cair’leih were a living being, with immeasurable respect for the flesh of a Mage whom could alter and control it. In reality, it was only that a Mage’s body temperature changed to compensate for its environment, protecting the clothes that protected the Mage that had been blessed by the Acharya. The flames spread, singeing the grass. With their eyes closed, their mouths open, and their arms held to the skies, Seer and Kelnai didn’t notice the awe with which Dharin and Jenya watched. They didn’t notice the flames spreading past their feet, consuming the bodies and limbs of the dead parents, and dead carrion eaters. The two Magi stood in the middle of the circle of flames, completely untouched. The pitch of their voices slowly fell, and the flames died reluctantly, still reaching out the lick the skin of the Magi. When the two had fallen silent, and all the flames had dissipated, all that remained of the pile of bodies, and the dead carrion eaters was ash. Compared to the screams, the new silence was deafening, until the sound of the Seer falling to the ground, unconscious, broke it. Kelnai rolled her eyes and walked through the ash to bother the cart drivers for breakfast. "Weakling," she muttered. Jenya saw Seer fall and was moving before he knew it. Giving Kelnai a cold glance, he ran to her side as quickly as he could, only to be beaten there by Dharin. "Seer," Jenya whispered softly. Dharin looked into her eyes, open and staring vacantly. Though she lay on the ground, her opal hair was unstained by the ashes. "Her body is cold," Dharin said worriedly. "It always is after Ash Rites, Dharin." Jenya sometimes was forced to become the voice of reason, which irritated him. "And she always collapses after them, Kelnai always leaves her on the ground, we always run to Seer to make sure she’s alright, and she always wakes up an hour after collapsing. That is how it always happens, and how it always will until she becomes stronger." "As selfish as it sounds, I don’t want that to happen." Dharin laughed bitterly, lifting Seer off of the ground with Jenya’s help. "Why in Sharan’akar not? You like freaking out every time she falls down, dropping whatever you are doing to run to her side?" The two of them carried Seer to where the children had been playing, before Dharin sent them inside so they wouldn’t see the Rites. "That isn’t it, Jenya, and you know it. I have this feeling that if she becomes any stronger, then she’ll be better than the Acharya, and it might -" Dharin took a deep breath as he and Jenya carefully laid her down on the grass. He shook his head. "If she gets any stronger, it might kill her." "Dharin, she knows how to handle herself. I don’t know if there’s anything on this plane, short of the Acharya himself, that could kill her." It hurt Jenya to know how much pain Dharin was in, especially over a girl. Seer made him so angry sometimes. "That’s my point, you don’t know. No one does, because no one has tried. But if she gets stronger, other Magi could easily get jealous and band together against her, or Acharya himself might decide she’s a threat to his plans as powerful as she is, and I can’t protect her from them." "I give up!” Jenya shouted. "If the two of you would just sit down and talked about how you felt about each other, a solution would present itself. But no, both of you act like nothing is happening! This is stupid," Jenya muttered. "I’m used to being the irresponsible one. A Sun-Chylde, prone to rash decisions and impulsive pranks I’m supposed to be, but no. You’ve become just as foolish as I’m supposed to be. Love is going to kill you, Dharin. It will kill us all," he muttered and stalked away angrily to find his son, rolling his eyes as Dharin smoothed out Seer’s hair. |