Possibly I am strong enough.
She realised she was smiling, and looked at him again, and when he smiled back, this time, it was unmistakably a smile, not merely the remains of an old human reflex not quite abolished by Fire. “Does honey always make one smile?” he asked, as if it were a serious question.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “Yes, it does. With your permission, Master, I will give you some to take back to the House with you. Do not let Ponty know you carry it!”
The night the Onora Grove burned she had been sleeping fitfully, for there was a ferocious storm tearing at the landscape, and the earthlines were uneasy. When the lightning struck not far from her cottage, she was out of bed and dragging on her clothes before she had thought of anything she might do. Even after it had occurred to her that she needed to have thought of something to do—and could still think of nothing—she went anyway, snatching up the smallest and plainest of the Chalice cups off the shelf as she passed, one that had no specific meaning or duty, and stuffing it down one pocket in her cloak; a small jar of honey went into the pocket on the other side.
When she opened her door and stepped out the rain felt strangely warm against her face, but the wind buffeted her like a blow from a fist and she stumbled, holding on to her door-handle for balance. She scuttled down the path from her door, leaning against the blustering gusts. The wind was behind her as she turned onto the main path, which was wide and smooth enough for wagons, so she ran, clutching her skirt and the ends of her cloak against the force of the gale. The rain drove against her, through the cloak, through her clothing, to her skin. The sky was turning red as she sprinted toward the grove, and through the roar of the wind she began to hear the hissing of the rain-lashed fire. The wind slewed around and the fog billowed out to meet her; her lungs hurt from smoke as well as running.
She almost hurtled into the Master; in his black cloak he looked like more smoke and fog. She had not come far, but her legs were trembling with effort, and with fear. The Master was standing, apparently merely watching the fire; but he turned to her at once and said, “Good, you’re here,” as if he had been waiting for her—expecting her. “Can you bring me water from the stream?”
It should have been hard to hear him through the sound of wind, rain and fire, but it was not; and his voice sounded calm and strong. Bewilderedly she turned around, realised where she was, and went to the stream. It flickered a macabre, almost phosphorescent red; it did not look like water. Nor could she hear its usual cheerful murmur as it tumbled in its bed. She dipped a cupful up and returned to the Master.
“You have brought honey too?”
Wordlessly, she pulled out her jar. It was the calming honey, and she saw it, as she tugged the stopper out, as the tiny frail thing it was, absurdly so, to set against a forest fire. The flames were now leaping taller than the trees, seeming to erupt out of the strangling smoke, and the increasing heat, as close as they were, was no longer only heat but pressure, squeezing her like a giant’s hand. But she felt as if she were already on fire: the flick of her hair against her neck must be leaving welts; the brushing of her own fingers against her skin burned; she expected to see flames licking up the sides of her heavy, sweltering, rain-sodden cloak. But honey was the thing she could do, to mend a rent in the landscape, to put out a fire. And here she had a Fire-priest with her. This time it was not all up to her.
After a moment’s hesitation, as she had not remembered to bring a spoon, she scooped up a little honey on one finger—it felt pleasantly cool—and stirred the finger through the water in the cup. Still wordlessly she held it out to him.
“Can you come any closer to the fire?” he said. “I can protect you, I think.”
It was a little like that day he had first said “stand by me,” the day he had healed her hand, when she had had to pull the bandage off quickly and hold her hand out toward him quickly, before she lost her nerve. Rain, wind and red fire-heat beat and tore at her; the last thing she wanted to do was go nearer the heart of the maelstrom. She knew that lightning fire was hot enough to burn, even through rain, but it felt all wrong—it felt like the end of the world. Was this what Elemental Fire was like—the end of the world?
She turned away from him and stumbled in the direction where the heat and redness were the most savage, with her wet and steaming hood pulled as far down as it would go over her face as protection against sparks, and her hands tucked under her cloak—one holding the cup and one covering the open top. She did not dare fall, and she could not see her way; her feet felt for each step blindly, and her heartbeat in her ears was almost louder than the fire. She had to open her mouth to breathe, but the smoke scorched her lungs, and her mouth felt as hot as if she were swallowing fire.
The Master walked behind her. She could not sense him doing anything, but when he said “this is far enough” and they halted, the fire was raging all around them, and either the rain had stopped or it was evaporating before it had a chance to fall. Her cloak and hood were dry, and despite the intense, aggressive heat she shivered as if she stood in a blizzard of snow, not fire. Everything around her was fire-red: the air, the earth, the sky, the poor burning trees—the Master himself was red, his black cloak as red as his red eyes.
No way out, she thought. The fire’s come round behind us, and there’s no way out.
Again she held the cup out to him, but she needed to hold it, small as it was, with both hands, because her hands were shaking so. He held his hands over it for a moment and then said, “No. You will have to pour the water into my hands. I’m sorry—there may be a bit of a—sudden reaction. I believe I need the Chalice’s hands to do the pouring, but you will want to step back quickly, I think.”
She thought she might be weeping, in terror or despair, but her tears too evaporated before they touched her face. The heat was indescribable—unbearable—and in that moment she knew that the Master was doing something, or she would already be dead. She took a deep breath—slowly, because of the heat; still it felt as if her lungs were boiling in her breast—and poured: steadily, not too fast, not just slopping it into his cupped hands, trying to let the weight of the cup stop her own hands from trembling. She remembered having done this with the cup of welcome; but this one was too small. In the smoke and the shadows and the glaring red light she could not see if the water was pouring or not…perhaps it was only steam erupting out of the mouth of the cup…and then she stepped back, as quickly as she could without, she hoped, leaping like a rabbit. In any Chalice work you had to do it gravely and unfalteringly or it didn’t incorporate properly—like not letting the sponge work if you were trying to make bread—I wish I were at home now, with the dough rising and a nice little fire to heat the oven—those are all I know, the ordinary, commonplace things, those are what this Chalice works in; I was not made for this—oh, I can’t breathe—my face is burning—my hands—
This is still a rite like any other, she told herself, even if it isn’t in any of my books, even if I don’t know what it is, even if it is in the middle of a holocaust. I am still Chalice; I bear the cup; I bind and I—I calm—and I witness.
She was half prepared for the pillar of fire that shot up from his hands as it had done that day at her cottage, although this was much more frightening, a red-gold, dazzling-bright column as big around as a man, roaring even louder than the fire. And smelling faintly, mysteriously, of honey. And of…wet. The backwash of heat that slapped her face was damp.