Fire Logic Read Online Free PDF Page A

however, remained firmly in control of the Paladins and of the farmers who fed and sheltered them.
    Zanja’s teacher developed a shortness of breath that left him unable to endure the rigors of travel, and she became Speaker at age twenty-two. Traveling beyond the borders, she became adept at avoiding the frequent, brief armed confrontations between Sainnites and Paladins. She learned the side-roads and byways, since the main roads were frequently patrolled by foul-tempered Sainnites. She could not avoid the cities, though, where to sell her woolens she first had to bribe the guards, and afterwards hand over a substantial portion of her profits. In the countryside, the Paladins sometimes were not much easier to deal with, for, like the Sainnites, they had become violently suspicious of any stranger, and especially a stranger like Zanja, whose dark coloring made her uncomfortably visible, and whose presence and purpose could not be easily explained.
    She continued to serve her people and her god, however precariously. But every year, she wondered how long she could continue. That she would eventually be caught up and killed in the random violence of the unending war seemed inevitable. But this year, as she reclaimed her horses from the farmers who had looked after them that summer, and continued homeward on northerly roads, she carried a new fear with her. The fear haunted her as the roads became narrow tracks and finally disappeared entirely, leaving her to navigate her way by the stars, the shape of the land, and sheer common sense. The fear followed her as she entered and scaled the mountains, following ways so rarely traversed that scarcely the trace of a path could be seen. She returned home to her people, as she did every autumn, but this year, living among the Sainnites had left her wondering whether her people’s future was any more certain than her own.
    The flashing mirrors of the sentinels alerted the village of her coming, and her clan brother, Ransel, met her on the path as he usually did. “Zanja! Home so soon? Did you grow tired of breaking the hearts of the Shaftali women and decide to break the hearts of katrim instead?”
    She gave a snort of amusement, for Ransel knew perfectly well that she had no great accumulation of discarded lovers on either side of the border. “I grew tired, anyway,” she said.
    “And you missed me?”
    She eyed him with mocking doubt. “Well…”
    He laughed. Ransel was always laughing, always mocking, always telling jokes or making up crazy riddles. The raven god, a trickster himself and a great practical joker, had chosen Ransel to serve him, and Ransel did so with unremitting enthusiasm. “Say you were lonely!” he teased. “Admit that the inconquerably self-sufficient Zanja na’Tarwein was about to expire from the poison of solitude! Say that—”
    He could go on like this forever if not interrupted. “I was,” she said. “Terribly lonely. As I always am.”
    He fell silent. She put her arm around his waist, and he gripped her affectionately across the shoulders. “Well,” he finally said, ‘You’re lonely no longer. Let’s go climbing tomorrow.”
    “Climbing! And what exactly do you think I’ve been doing for eight days now?”
    “You’ve been climbing alone. Climbing with your brother, that is completely different.”
    “No doubt. Anything done with you is completely different. But the elders will want me tomorrow.”
    “Oh,” he sneered. “The elders!”
    “Has the weather been fine?”
    “Other than the occasional touch of frost and flurry of snow.”
    “Will it hold until the day after tomorrow?”
    “It might. But whether I will be offended at being put off to accommodate a bunch of creaking, self-important—”
    “—Leaders of the people,” she said pointedly.
    “You’re no fun,” he grumbled. “Did you bring me something?” He glanced hopefully at the heavily laden horses.
    “I’ll answer that question when we go