Birdcage

Chapter 6: Fire in the Night

Vix and Caine took up positions on either side of the witch, her pacing, him squatting on the balls of his feet. The silence grew steeper around them, looming like a wave about to come crashing down. Vix found herself gritting her teeth so hard they hurt. She forced herself to unclench her jaw.

“I don't think we should be so close to the wagon," Caine said. He shifted and went on, “If anyone from the Al'Vidar realizes something went wrong, this is the first place they'll come looking."

Vix stopped pacing abruptly. She had not thought of that. “Good point," she said. “Help me pick her up, will you?"

The two of them went to the motionless witch. They hesitated only a moment before squatting down and slipping their hands beneath her, taking care not to disturb the bonds on her wrists and ankles. Vix felt her skin crawl as she touched her, as though she was moving some huge, slimy slug, rather than this small, slight woman.

It felt like she was prodding a sleeping bear with a stick. Fear coiled inside Vix, squeezing her stomach in a vice. One wrong move and the witch might awaken. 'And then who knows what might happen?' Vix thought.

Caine seemed to be thinking along the same lines. A bead of sweat snaked down his face, which was as pale as a corpse's.

Together, Vix and Caine raised the witch between them. Halfway up, her eyelids suddenly fluttered in a quick, rapid movement, like the wings of a hummingbird. Vix and Caine froze at once.

The witch groaned softly. Then, she fell still again. Her breath whistled out softly through her nose, barely audible above the night wind.

Vix took a deep breath and raised the woman up the rest of the way. Across from her, Caine flashed a shaky smile. “There," he said. “As easy as 'hocus pocus.'"

The witch's eyes suddenly flew open like window blinds. Vix jumped so badly that she nearly let the woman fall straight to the ground. The young woman's pupils flicked between Vix and Caine almost too rapidly to follow. She let out a muffled, whimpering squawk from behind her gag.

“Ancestors!" Caine growled. “She's awake!"

“Set her down!" Vix said hurriedly, thinking of the choking ribbons that had flown out from the witch before.

They deposited her on the ground and took several steps away. Vix waited, body coiled like a spring, ready to launch herself at the woman the moment she tried anything.

But the witch showed no signs of putting up a struggle. She remained where she was, eyes still flitting quickly between her two captors. Her shoulders shook like chattering teeth, and her face was slack with terror from behind the cloth gag.

Caine glanced uncertainly at Vix. She could see the telltale signs of pity begin to appear on his face.

But Vix was unmoved. Heart hammering in her chest, she went to one knee in front of the witch. Immediately, the woman's roving eyes zeroed in on her.

“I need you to listen carefully to me," she said to the witch. “Understand?"

The woman nodded fractionally, looking almost frozen with fear.

“I'm going to remove that cloth from your mouth," Vix told her. “And when I do, I'm going to ask you some questions. You'll answer them for me, without any tricks or magic... or whatever it was you did in the wagon."

She leaned closer. “If you lie, or try to hurt me or my friend, I'll put the gag back in. And then, I'll dig a hole six feet deep, drop you into it, and fill it back to the brim, with you still inside. I get the feeling that even being a witch, you might not find that to be very agreeable. Do you understand me?"

The witch's eyes bulged in her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Caine make a small, protesting motion. But Vix paid it no mind. She held the witch's gaze, waiting to hear her response.

At last, the witch nodded. Her breaths came in small, rabbit-like bursts that made her frail body tremble. Vix held her gaze for another long moment until she was satisfied.

Then, trying to master her own trembling fingers, she removed the gag from the witch's mouth. Her body felt like it was made of glass, tensed hard enough to shatter. Vix prepared to shove the gag back in place the moment she heard an unfamiliar word.

But the witch said nothing. She just waited, still staring at Vix, her eyes stretched wide. Vix stared back for several seconds, marveling at the woman across from her, so ordinary on the surface.

“Good," Vix grunted at last, suppressing the tremor of relief that went through her. “First, what is your name?"

“Mirra," the witch said. “Mirra Renoux." Her voice sounded oddly hoarse, as though she had been shouting for hours.

“Are you with the Al'Vidar?"

Mirra hesitated.

“Answer her," Caine said behind her.

Mirra took a shuddering breath. “Yes," she whispered.

A chill went through Vix. “What you did back there... was that magic?"

Again, Mirra seemed afraid to answer. “The Al'Vidar call it the Truth. But, yes, it's simpler to just call it magic."

Vix rubbed her arms as yet another shudder went through her. She exchanged a look with Caine, whose eyes shone out white and wide in his head. Vix wanted nothing more than to ask more about the Al'Vidar and their magic. But she forced herself to wait.

“Do you know Eva Cassidy?" she asked.

Mirra looked, somehow, more afraid. “Yes," she said in a small voice.

“She's a member of the Al'Vidar as well, then?"

“Yes."

“Oh, blast it all," Caine growled. “Answer in more than just one word, will you?" he said sharply to Mirra. “Who is this Eva Cassidy, exactly? What does she want with Vix? And what are the two of you doing here?"

Mirra made an incoherent gasping noise in the back of her throat. She looked absolutely terrified. Vix pursed her lips. Pushing Mirra hard was getting them nowhere.

She held up her hand to Caine and shook her head slowly. He gritted his teeth, almost looking like he was going to keep after Mirra anyway. But, with a nod, he fell silent.

“Keep answering our questions, Mirra, and we won't hurt you." Vix made her voice as gentle as she could, as though trying to coax back an animal on the verge of bolting. “All right?"

Mirra's eyes locked with her own again, and after a long pause, the witch nodded once again. It struck Vix suddenly how young Mirra was. She could not be any older than eighteen.

The watchful fear began to dissipate from Vix, her tensed muscles relaxing with an almost audible sigh. Vix did not trust Mirra in the slightest; she had seen firsthand that the girl was dangerous. But it seemed that the witch was not going to try and make an escape.

'Yet, at least,' Vix reminded herself.

“Why did Eva Cassidy leave me with you?" she asked Mirra.

The young witch licked her lips. “I don't know."

Vix narrowed her eyes and tried again. “Where did she go after leaving you?"

“I don't know."

“Why didn't she think to tie me up or put some kind of guard on me other than you?"

“I don't..."

Caine let out a growl of exasperation.

“It's true!" Mirra said shrilly. She tried to sit up, apparently forgetting the bonds on her wrists and ankles in her excitement. With a grunt, she toppled onto her side again, facing Vix.

“I was to wait for Madame Cassidy on the outskirts of Alenza, with the horses and wagon!" the young woman said. “We were to go back together, but she said that she had business to attend to in town, and that I should start without her!"

Mirra took a huge gulp of air; she had said all this in one breath. “She didn't tell me where she was going! And I don't know a thing about why she wanted you, either!"

“But you still went along with it?" Caine demanded. “You helped capture an innocent woman without even asking why?"

Mirra turned her head away from him, her cheek pressing against the dirt, and fell silent.

Caine snorted in disgust. “I doubt we'll get much more out of this one, Vix. That Cassidy woman must have kept her in the dark as much as possible."

“Please!" Mirra suddenly wailed at his feet. “Don't kill me! You promised you wouldn't kill me!"

“Stop shouting!" Caine said. “Who said anything about killing you, anyway? We just want some answers... anything and everything you can tell us."

Their conversation seemed to fade from Vix's hearing, until it sounded like muted mutterings coming from far away. The itch in her head was burning as though on fire. She was missing something. Eva Cassidy seemed like many things, but stupid was not one of them.

Why, then, had she gone to all the trouble to capture Vix, only to leave her in the uncertain custody of Mirra?

'It makes no sense,' Vix thought. 'She would have made certain I was taken to some place they could keep me locked up. And if she had to leave, shouldn't she have tied me up, or given Mirra some help to make sure I didn't escape?'

Yet Cassidy had done none of these things. It did not add up. There was another reason, some unexplored motive that would explain everything. Vix was sure of it. Yet no matter how hard she thought, she came up with nothing.

Feeling almost like a sleepwalker, Vix rose to her feet. Caine and Mirra were still talking, the young witch's voice rising hysterically. Neither noticed her get up. Vix approached the wagon, still sitting in the middle of the road. The two horses harnessed at the front stamped their feet and snorted at her approach.

Vix ran a hand along the rough wood. She examined the empty bed of the wagon, pushing aside the scraps of fabric that she and Caine had not used to tie up Mirra. There was nothing to find.

She shook her head scornfully. 'What did I expect? A diary of evil plans signed by Eva Cassidy, herself?'

Still, she could not bring herself to give up. She went to her hands and knees and checked the spokes of the wagon wheels. Vix knew she was looking out of sheer desperation, now.

But just as she was shaking her head and starting to get back to her feet, something winked out of the corner of her eye. Vix looked back at it, behind the wheels, on the underbelly of the wagon bed. A thrill of shock went through her.

A red spot stood out among the inky blackness beneath the wagon, a circular patch of wood that glowed and dimmed in regular intervals, like a fat lump of burning coal. Vix watched, entranced. At the brightest point, she could make out thick black lines amid the rusty red glow, which seemed to form a spidery sort of diagram.

A nagging feeling of recollection stirred in Vix's brain. Those lines reminded her very much of something. It took her less than a second to place it. The great cave beneath Southbend Manor, one of the Al'Vidar's meeting places – the floor had been covered with the same sort of markings, from end to end.

There was nothing about the softly glowing spot that seemed remotely dangerous. Yet, somehow, the sight of it filled Vix with an overwhelming sense of dread, pooling into bone-chilling fear.

Almost before she knew what she was doing, Vix had leapt to her feet. Running to the front of the wagon, she untethered the horses and delivered a sharp slap to their backsides. The mares trumpeted shrilly and galloped away into the darkness.

Then Vix turned and ran full tilt back toward Caine, who was standing above Mirra, watching her in astonishment.

“What in the...?" he began.

Vix slid to a stop in front of him and looped an arm beneath Mirra. “Help me get her away from the wagon!" she cried.

Caine remained where he was for a fraction of a second, frozen. Then, he leapt forward to help, without asking for a word of explanation. Vix did not wait to haul Mirra all the way up. Instead, she slid the prone witch across the ground as quickly as she could, with Caine's help. Mirra grunted in pain as she bumped over hidden stones in the darkness.

The sloping ground made her job easier. Vix stumbled forward, Caine at her side, hauling Mirra between them. She moved on the back of a blind panic which she still did not fully understand.

The only noise was the chirruping of night insects, the harsh sounds of Vix's breathing ringing in her own ears, and the small cries of pain from Mirra as she slid across the rocky ground. Nothing was happening.

Vix turned back and slowed fractionally, her rational mind seizing back control from her instincts. There was no reason to be afraid. She had spooked them all for nothing.

But the moment the thought crossed her mind, an explosion suddenly rocked the quiet night, splitting open the silence like an ax through rotting fruit. Vix was knocked off her feet by a gust of fiery air and sent sprawling to the ground. Her hair was flattened to her skull as a wave of heat passed over her. Then it was gone, as though it had never been.

She raised her head, ears popping and ringing. Mirra was lying flat on her stomach, groaning softly. Caine was on his back, spread-eagled, blinking as he tried to push himself upright.

Vix looked behind her. In the center of the road, a few dozen feet away, a column of fire was licking at the night sky, sending up plumes of smoke toward the stars. It was the bed of the wagon, Vix realized, engulfed in flames. The wheels and box had been obliterated. The sad remnants were raining down in charred flecks, riding upon the back of the drifting smoke like ashen snow.

The wagon had simply erupted, like a firework that had burnt through its fuse. Vix stared at it, barely able to comprehend what her eyes were showing her. Her limbs wobbled and she would have fallen if she had not already been on her knees.

'A few minutes ago, and I still would have still been inside that thing,' Vix thought hollowly to herself.

Realization rocked her. Vix wrapped her arms around her knees, shivering as she faced the towering inferno lighting up the night.

She had discovered what Eva Cassidy's plan had been for her, after all.