Final Fieretsi: Part I of the Fabula Fereganae Cycle by Will Davidson
Chapter XXI: To Save Ferrets
Pheia sighed, yet the shimmering being beside her seemed not to notice. “I thought you said it’d take only a day to reach Sol-Acrima.”
Shizai smiled as the afternoon sunshine diffused through body her and cast rainbow shards on the ground. Even an elemental can be wrong, princess. I’m sorry. I suppose I misjudged the distance. Either way, the Fieretka can wait a wee bit longer.
“Are you sure?” Pheia’s voice betrayed her frustrated feelings. “How do we know they haven’t tried to save Fairun already?”
I know these things, Shizai bubbled.
“Yes,” Pheia shot back, “but you do not know the distance to Sol-Acrima.”
We all have our weaknesses. Yours is impatience. Mine, a bad sense of direction… and judgment
Pheia’s interest piqued at the mention of an immortal elemental having some sort of weakness. “You, having a bad sense of judgment?” she asked incredulously.
Yes, the watery Furosan said. Let me tell you about Yifunis.
“Do you mean the Fieretsi? The one I saw when I died?”
Yes. Now listen…
“What the hell was that?” a man shouted as a metal grate crashed to the floor behind him. Instantly all eyes were drawn to the spot. And the two stunned ferrets sitting astride the fallen grate.
“Get them!” another voice added, and a rain of hands descended from the sky.
Run! Gemmie shouted. She skittered across the tiled floor and slid sideways under a metal cabinet. But Maya hadn’t followed. His harness and pouch, the very things that were supposed to save Fairun, were caught.
Hold on! Gemmie cried and, claws slipping on the sleek floor, tried to make her way back to her friend.
No, you get out of here! the bigger ferret said as he puffed his tail and bared his teeth with a hiss. The half-dozen humans surrounding him took a step back.
But- Gemmie began, her own tail puffing in panic.
No butting. This is just like Farān, Gem. I had to leave Kilara behind. Now you have to leave me. Just trust me on this and go get Stefi and the others. It’s their turn to save the keys now.
W-what about you? Gemmie’s panicked voice stammered, her feelings torn between the conscious desire to save her friend, no matter how hopeless the circumstances, and the instinct to flee.
There are plenty of fingers to taste! he whooped as he sank his teeth into someone’s too-curious fingers and drew blood. I’ll be fine. I promise.
Gemmie scuttled away as Maya was snatched up as if a many-headed hydra had just plucked him for its meal.
“Those weasels sure are taking their sweet time,” Djidou muttered as he popped a sulfur match on his thumbnail and lit a cigarette. He leaned casually against the back wall of the research facility and glanced at the open ventilation shaft. No one had seen them earlier sidling through a back alley behind the towering building.
“For the last time, they’re ferrets,” Stefi said, her voice as stressed and strained as the rest of her. “They do things in their own time or not at all.”
“But it’s nearly lunchtime and I’m hungry. You don’t think something could have happened, do you?” he asked and exhaled an acrid yet silky cloud of smoke.
Ifaut watched it with wide eyes. She poked Sansonis and pointed. “Look! He has the smoky sticks too! Are you sure I can’t have one?”
“Very sure,” Sansonis said. Before he could say more, Stefi caught their attention.
“Shh!” she hissed and held up a hand for silence.
The ensuing quiet was marred by Ifaut’s, “Are you really sure?”
“Yes! Now shut up, would you?”
The Furosan withdrew her inquiries as her ears drooped beneath her hat.
“Be quiet!” Stefi strained her ears, even though it was only her mind that could hear what she wanted to.
Stefi… a breathless voice sounded, wafting on the unseen and unfelt breezes that carried conscious energies about Feregana.
“It’s Gemmie,” Stefi said. She suddenly wished her gift was a two-way conduit between ferrets rather than just a receiver. Sure, she had spoken to them with her mind before, but only when they were sitting on her shoulders. She continued to listen but only snatches reached her ears.
Stefi… got Maya… running… Help us! Help!… They’re coming for… Help!
Then her voice went silent.
The strength left Stefi’s legs and she fell to her knees. At the thud of her falling and the sound of her sobs, Cédes moved to comfort her, shoving Djidou out of the way when she bumped into him.
“Stefi,” she said, feeling that even one word was too many for the occasion, just another weight to press down on Stefi’s heart. Although she herself had never befriended a ferret, she had only to imagine what would happen should she lose Stefi. She knew that she wouldn’t even have the fortitude to cry. “It will be all right, Stefi. We’ll save the ferrets for you. And for them.” She knelt beside her.
Stefi sniffed. “Cédes… you will find them, won’t you?” She wept unashamedly and her tears fell to the ground. They hesitated for just a second before draining into the dust.
“Of course, dear heart.”
Stefi felt a comforting warmth spread through her body like a mild liquid flame. At once her troubles seemed lessened, dissolved by the sensation that seeped from friend to friend.
“Well!” Djidou exclaimed and let out a low whistle. “A flaming Furosan that doesn’t burn humans! Now there’s a new trick.”
“Yeah,” Ifaut added. “And she’s not even using the stone like last time.” She latched onto Sansonis’s arm with both of hers. Her fear manifested itself in her grip.
“That is because,” Cédes said, her voice rising with every word, “this rage is all my own!” Suddenly her kneeling form and Stefi’s were enveloped in a surge of flames. Although tongues of flame licked their huddled forms, both sat impervious to their raging heat.
As Djidou and Adnamis made to run, Sansonis and Ifaut held them back.
“Don’t worry,” Sansonis said. “We should get ready to find the ferrets. Trust me.” Already he could feel the darkness descending over his mind, only this time it was conscious, called for. Ifaut wasn’t in danger, but the ferrets, his fellow Fieretka, were. And that was enough. With Ifaut still clinging to him like a child to its mother, the curtain of darkness only covered some of his consciousness, held at bay by her touch. He only hoped it would stay that way.
Ifaut nodded in agreement. “And you can always trust Sansonis. Trust me.”
Before Djidou could respond to her strange logic, a sudden blast of heat, its force like a searing gale, knocked him backwards. Cédes stood slowly above Stefi’s prostrate form. The heavy makeshift robes that had been used to cloak her appearance were now burned away to reveal her Furosan features and blazing eyes.
“Do you still want my help, Raphanos’s help, to destroy this place, human Djidou?” she asked, her voice taking a mocking tone that felt unnatural as it winged on her peaceful voice. She took her staff and clutched it near the center with both hands.
“Yes,” he said in awe. “You mean you have another one of those stones?”
“Yes,” Cédes said and revealed a ghastly grin. Her canines gleamed in the morning light. “Lots of power. Plenty of power. For that is all that matters in this world, isn’t it? Not the power to love, to look after your friends, but the power to kill and bend others to your will. How naïve I was before I set out into this wide world, how I believed that others, perhaps even humans, felt the same.” She gave her staff a sharp twist, moving her hands in opposite directions. “Yes, we both desire power. But now you shall see both how very similar and very different our uses of it are.” Cédes pulled the two halves of her staff apart, revealing two long, thin, double-edged blades that sheathed themselves upon each other.
Stefi’s weak voice rose from the ground like a lifting fog to reach the others’ ears. “Now that’s a new trick,” she said, ins
“Mister Djidou,” Cédes continued, her arms stretched outwards and down so that the tips of her twin blades nearly brushed the ground. “Once the ferrets are safely back in Stefi’s arms…” She took a breath, held it, then let it out slowly as if reluctant to continue. “…you may have my help to burn this terrible place to ashes.”
After taking many deep breaths, and fortified by her friend’s burning resolve, Stefi finally managed to take charge of the situation. And yet the thought that her ferrets might be dead dulled her usual confidence. “Djidou, do you know where they might be holding the ferrets?” she asked.
“Probably in some sort of storage room…” he said and thought for a moment. “It all depends where they were caught. In other words, I don’t know.” He shrugged.
Stefi nodded. “Cédes,” she said, “do you remember when you said that with the right training I could even destroy worlds?”
“Yes, a power our human friend would be rather interested in acquiring, I might think,” she said bitterly.
“Look, this isn’t the time for anti-human sentiment,” Stefi shot back. “Right now he’s our only hope of finding Gemmie and Maya.”
Cédes snorted. “I wish to save them as much as you do, but cast your mind back to when we last trusted a human.”
“I already have. And even if this is some stupid trap on his part, I walk into it willingly if it means I might be able to save them.”
“And I shall be at your side. But as for you using that sort of power, it might very well kill you if you were to use it now, even to break into or destroy some place like this. We must rely on my own, although it frightens me to no end and I wish not to harm anyone if I can help it.”
“Don’t forget us!” Ifaut piped up. She took the hands of Stefi, Cédes, Sansonis, and herself, then clasped them together. “I’m not just here for Sansonis, you know. The ferrets are important to me too. So are all of you. You’re the bestest friends I’ve ever had!”
“That’s right,” Sansonis added. “We’re all Fieretka, aren’t we? Even if I can’t control this… darkness… I’ll help out. As long as Ifaut helps me.”
“Of course!” she squeaked. “What about dog-face?”
Rhaka growled, but his eyes twinkled. “I will help too.”
With tears of happiness in her eyes, Stefi spoke. “Thanks, everyone. This could get dangerous, more dangerous than Valraines. I just want you to know that I appreciate your friendship.” She took a deep breath, held it, released it. It didn’t help. Her tumultuous mind refused to still. “Here’s how it’ll go. Adnamis, you and Djidou get that airship ready. Once we have the stone and the ferrets we’ll want to get the hell out of here in a hurry.”
“No,” Djidou said. “I’m going with you. I suggested using the weas… the ferrets, and I know where the stone is. It’s only fair that I go in. Adnamis can prep the ship herself.” He turned to face the Kalkic girl. “Ady, go get me a gun, will you? Then meet us on the roof.”
She nodded and jogged off into the morning.
“What’s a gun?” Stefi asked. “And why the roof?”
“What? You’ve never seen a gun?” Djidou laughed. “Now I really know you’re not from around here. It’s the latest in Sol-Acriman weaponry, a weapon that can shoot out a small piece of metal with deadly accuracy. They’ll replace the bow and arrow and completely revolutionize warfare.”
“Hah!” Cédes scoffed. “Stop gloating over your ever-more imaginative ways to kill others. Do they happen to be manufactured in this very place, by chance?”
Djidou nodded solemnly, seemingly ashamed of the enthusiasm he’d used when describing the new arms. “That’s another excuse for you to blow this place sky-high, I suppose. As for the roof, there’s no way we’ll be waltzing back out the front door once they know we’re inside.”
Stefi craned her neck skywards. “It’s a long way to climb, but we can make it. I think.”
At that moment Adnamis came running back, her glasses fogged with her panting breath. She handed a strange weapon to Djidou. Its long, cold barrel was made of a metal that barely reflected the sun’s light, and at the other end was a wooden stock. Stefi shuddered at the sight of it as its new form radiated a maligned, calculating evil.
As Djidou took the thing he slid something into the base near the stock and slid shut a bolt. It clicked like the lock on a cell, signaling death for whoever crossed its path.
“Ready,” he said levelly and gripped the rifle with both hands. “Adnamis,” he added, “meet us up on the roof, all right?”
The Kalkic girl nodded, pecked Djidou on the cheek, and hurried off yet again.
“Now that that’s sorted,” Stefi continued, “we have ferrets to save. Me, Cédes, Djidou, and Rhaka will go in and find the ferrets and the stone. Ifaut, you and Sansonis keep an eye on the front door and make sure we’re not followed.”
“And if you are?” Ifaut asked timidly.
“I believe you’re capable enough to slow them down. If it gets too much then stall them as much as you can and head to the roof. We’ll wait for you there.”
“I hate to always be the negative one,” Sansonis said, his entire right eye now nearly as dark as the pupil, “but there’s a chance we may not follow.” He looked at Ifaut, really looked, and saw she was biting her bottom lip. Her deep blue eyes, although dry, threatened to let forth a torrent of tears at any moment. He knew they wouldn’t. Sure, she might be a bit fragile at times, but right now she couldn’t look any stronger. Or more beautiful.
“We’ll wait,” Stefi said, interrupting his thoughts.
“I know.” He turned to Ifaut and took her shoulders.
The Furosan slowly raised her eyes and when they found Sansonis’s her face burst forth in a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,” she said with unexpected happiness. “I owe you one, remember? And I’m not about to go back on my word. It’s not quite the picnic in Sol-Acrima, but I’ll follow you all the same.” She took his hand.
Now it was Sansonis’s turn to cry. His one dark and one steely eye shone with encroaching tears at his kamae’s display of unwavering loyalty, something he was sure now went beyond mere Furosan custom. He was quick to check them. If she was brave enough to confess her love, whatever sort it may be, then he had to be brave enough to show strength. He swallowed his sadness. It left a nasty taste in his mouth.
“We’re ready.” The Kalkic nodded and, using the hand not claimed by Ifaut, took a knife from his belt. Ifaut did the same with her sword.
As Stefi turned to leave, a thought came rushing back to her, what Cédes had said yesterday. It was as they left the two kamaes standing there hand in hand that the full understanding hit her, what the two had undoubtedly been thinking but she had somehow forgotten: two of them were going to die here in Sol-Acrima. And she knew now it was those two.