“I once advised a king to commit an act of betrayal that I thought was the right thing to do, and I’ve never been able to forget the lives lost because of me…. I’ve been trying to atone for it since. The signs tell me today is my day.”
“If you’re such a believer in the Fluxists, maybe we’re meant to end our journeys together.”
“But you’re so young! This cannot be right.”
“How can you claim to know the ways of the Flow?”
Luan chuckled. “I have never claimed to be a very good Fluxist, and I see that I cannot match you in debate.” He hugged Zomi tighter, and the child hugged him back.
By now the roaring of the fire was so loud that it seemed as if they were in the middle of a typhoon. The thickening smoke and searing heat made everything around them appear shimmery and hazy, like a dream.
But Zomi did not share Luan’s serenity; she refused to believe that the Flow, whatever that was, meant that they had to die. Certainly her teacher could think of something to do. “The act of betrayal by the earl may be a sign that we are not meant to die at all.”
“Oh?” For a moment Luan’s eyes, reflecting the approaching fire, lit up. “But what can we do?”
“You are supposed to know that!”
“Since neither of us can climb up the cliffs, we must urge the villagers to leave as soon as possible.”
But the villagers refused to abandon either Elder Comi or Luan and Zomi, and it appeared that everyone was going to die together in the oncoming conflagration. The flames were so close now that only a thin band of forest lay between them and the clearing for the hamlet.
The villagers and Elder Comi all sat down in mipa rari in a semicircle around Luan and Zomi. “Tiro, tiro,” said the elder, a peaceful smile on his face. “Tiro, tiro,” the other villagers repeated, and reached out to link their arms into a wall of flesh.
Since Luan and Zomi were guests, the villagers were carrying out the ancient duty of hosts to shield them, even if their sacrifice would only slow down the flames for but a second.
Luan and Zomi bowed their heads. “All men are fellows before the bleak, endless sea and the fiery, explosive volcanoes,” Luan said, reciting an old Moralist adage.
Once more, Zomi looked for and found Curious Turtle in the sky. Because it was so overladen, the rate of ascent was extremely slow even though the stove was working at full power. It was barely fifty feet up in the air, and it was accelerating toward the flames.
“I guess even Lord Kiji, bringer of winds, is not very pleased with the cruel earl and his lackeys,” said Zomi. “He’s pushing them toward the fire. They’ll never get high enough in time to escape being roasted.”
Luan squinted and shook his head. “It’s possible that Lord Kiji is angry at him, but I’ve learned over the years to attribute as little as possible to the gods. I’ve come to rely on the precept laid down by Na Moji: Since the will of the gods cannot be ascertained, it’s always simpler—and more likely correct—to explain things by verifiable patterns.”
“Aren’t you the son of an augur? That… almost sounds like the words of an atheist!”
“The best way to honor the gods is to blame them for less. They may guide and teach, when it suits them, but I prefer to think of the universe as knowable. The balloon’s drift is easily explained. As the fire heats the air above, it grows active and light, rising to leave behind a vacuum, and the cold and heavy air outside the fire is drawn toward it.”
“Like the hot-air balloon when we inflate it? When the cold air rushes in to make the flame stand straight up?”
Luan nodded and smiled. “Exactly.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the receding balloon, “Drop your anchor! You’ll never get high enough in time. You can still escape by the cliff route!”
But the men in the balloon did not respond.
“Maybe they’re too far,” mused Luan. “Can you shout at them? Your voice is higher pitched, and may be easier to hear over the roar of the flames.”
Zomi shook her head. “I will not do anything to save them.”
“That’s not the moral—”
“I don’t care! I only care about people close to me.”
Luan sighed and pulled her close again as powerful gusts of hot wind whipped around them. He hugged her and said nothing more as they watched the balloon disappear in the thick smoke over the roaring fire.
Perhaps there were screams, but the balloon was too far for them to be sure.
Suddenly, Zomi struggled and pulled away. “Teacher! I think there is a way!”
While Luan and Zomi remained where they were, the villagers ran into their houses and emerged with jars of cooking oil, medicinal liquor, rags, sheets, small tables, cradle beds.
Instead of sacrificing themselves for their guests, it looked like they were ready to escape with whatever possessions they could carry. Elder Comi stood in the middle of the hamlet, gesticulating and calling out orders.
But instead of heading for the cliffs, the villagers smashed the wooden furniture apart and wrapped oil-soaked rags around the ends of the pieces of lumber. Then they divided themselves into two groups. One group lit the makeshift torches and carried on their backs bundles of firewood and more jars of oil; another grabbed shovels and hoes. Both groups then headed for the raging flames advancing on the hamlet.
The heat was like an invisible wall. A few stumbled, fell, got up again, and pushed on. Rags soaked with an infusion made from herbs intended to reduce fever were wrapped around their noses and mouths so that they could breathe in the suffocating smoke. A few daring ones had chewed herbs that could fool the mind into believing anything. There is no fire. There is no danger, they muttered to themselves, and pressed on.
The running villagers in their ragged clothes flapping in the wind resembled a swarm of moths headed for the flame.
By the time the rising heat made it impossible to move forward another inch, the villagers had reached the shrubs and saplings at the edge of the woods. The forest fire, like a caged monster, was about to smash through this flimsy screen and emerge into the clearing for the final carnage.
Séji shouted the order, and the villagers went to work. Those with shovels and hoes started to dig a shallow ditch, ripping away the grass, fallen leaves, and surface soil. They worked quickly and efficiently, and carved out a shallow defensive moat at the edge of the forest—but what could such a small ditch do against the rampaging flames that they faced? The fire would easily be able to leap across it and devour the hamlet.
The other group, meanwhile, had spread apart and dropped bundles of firewood in an arc on the farther side of the shallow moat. They emptied bottles of oil and liquor over the firewood, and then they set the bundles alight.
In the face of fire, they added more fire.
An observer might well wonder if the desperation of their situation had driven them into the belief that it was better to die in flames started by their own hands.
The villagers continued their work, extending both the ditch and the arc of flames at either end. They seemed intent on surrounding the village with it.
The new fires grew stronger, brighter, louder. Soon, they were as high as a man, and then two men, three men. The crimson tongues extended to lick at the trees at the edge of the forest.
Strangely, instead of leaning over to jump over the shallow, apparently useless ditch, the new wall of flames leaned toward the greater fire in the forest, like a child yearning for a hug from its mother. The wind grew even stronger, whipping the new flames into a frenzy.