9. Of Demigod Dilemma

Jaguars reached for Prebuha’s throat as if the fires spurred them on. Smaller beings were kicked aside, even trampled, for the felines didn’t even care. This was not a battle for space, or food, or self-defense. It was pure vengeance on Prebuha for something her ancestors had done long ago.

Alix wasn’t available to save them this time.

Running away was out of the question, said the firewall at Prebuha’s back.

In her peripheral vision, she was glad to see beings escape. Some customers of Dilova, who had mostly suffered the disaster in silence. Some members of Prebuha’s folk, who gave their leader a final guilty glance before jumping through a gap in the fire.

The gaps didn’t stay long. Feria approached one, hoping to push her unconscious husband through it, but arrived too late.

Prebuha climbed Tresmo anyway. She punched her sharp nails into his hardening bark until she had a secure hold far above the ground. Large felines couldn’t climb, everyone knew that.

“Get down, you coward,” they screamed at her.

“Permiox!” yelled Prebuha, ignoring them. “Here!”

It was now or never. She would ask him to freeze her health as it was now, so she could come down and beat the jaguars. She might have had even better days than this one—she would never know—but no more days after this on looked most likely.

A yelling fox cast spells behind his back as flame fingers reached for him. The circle shrunk. Tresmo had to retract his longest branches or risk being ignited already.

“No, no, no,” he muttered endlessly. “Not like this. Please. Not like this. My … my seeds … my children … they’re not ready …”

“Jaxian is speaking to you, sloth filth!” yelled the jaguar leader. “If you don’t come down … we’ll start killing at random.”

“Why?” yelled Prebuha, tears streaming down her face. “I never hurt you. They never hurt you. You will likely die with us in these fires.”

“Well then,” said the jaguar, as he turned around and bit at the nearest being.

Fiante.

Who smiled at the jaguar and tried to wave, saying in the sweetest voice: “Hello stranger, we haven’t met before. No worries. Hmm. Memory full of holes. Nice to meet you. Are you a friend of Dilova’s?”

“No!” cried a powerful voice even higher than Prebuha. Dilova dove down, aiming her sharp beak at the jaguar, but she was too far away.

The jaguar lurched at Fiante.

“Let’s negotiate!” shrieked Prebuha, climbing down to where she was almost in danger. Permiox had reached her now. He’d abused his magic to freeze a branch diagonally, allowing him to simply walk up the tree instead of climbing.

The Jagu tribe had seen it too. Permiox had given them a path to Prebuha, but they didn’t bite yet.

“Only if the end of your filthy tribe is on the table,” said the jaguar.

“I have something better,” said Prebuha. She looked in Permiox’ eyes. Such a young boy. Too much power for a child.

“Spit it out. Before we’re cooked.”

The fire claimed the first unlucky customers of Dilova’s restaurant, who arrived only days ago in a completely functional forest. The others, even now, spent effort blaming Feria and aggressively asking “where is the help of the gods now?”

Prebuha’s face contorted. She felt horrible, sick, her longs filled with nothing but smoke and ashes. She coughed up blood; her right eye, dried-out, refused to open any longer.

“It’s the same everywhere. Everyone keeps fighting! All the time! All these people are one family, supportive of the gods, eating the same food, living on the same lands, and still they attack each other. Physical or otherwise.”

“How else could life develop?” asked the jaguar, trying to nip at Prebuha’s feet. “Must defend your place when attacked. Must avenge your family. Or they’ll walk all over you, taking your homes, taking your food. Be happy we let you live this long.”

“No. No! Where I come from, we had peace for a thousand years. And we lived well. It is possible.”

She realized she’d made her decision. If she froze her world now, that cycle of war and vengeance would indeed never end. But if she didn’t, if she tried more negotiations tomorrow, she might just return Somnia to eternal peace. She might just let the Jagu and Asha tribes drop their vengeance. Before things could get even worse for the godchildren.

All the wounds she’d suffered the past few days might just heal.

“Erm, you called on me?” said Permiox.

“Yes. But not for myself,” whispered Prebuha. She turned to the jaguar. Other members of the Jagu Tribe had cornered her own loved ones, even Mamotas, and held them by the throat, ready to kill them all with a single command.

But their leader listened to her. He must’ve been a member of the Pricecats, almost mythical beings rumored to be susceptible to bargaining—as long as they believed they got the most out of it.

“This fox has magic,” she said, loud enough for all to hear. “Is there something you like about yourself? Maybe your strength, oh yes, you are very strong. Maybe your wisdom, oh yes, you Jagu are very wise.”

At this, the leader nodded.

“Permiox can freeze that thing forever. You’d stay strong, even as you get old. You’d move just as fast as you do now, oh very fast jaguar. If I give you this magic …”

Prebuha swallowed. The fires had reached Tresmo. His first leaves had turned to ash, and only a ferocious shaking of the branch could put it out. The problem of getting out alive was by no means solved yet, of which Tresmo reminded them all with every earth-shattering phrase uttered.

“… if we give you that, will you let us all go? For good?”

“No time for negotiation!” yelled Tresmo, almost shaking Prebuha out of the tree. “Save me! Please! Stop the fires! Aaaah.”

“That sounds like a deal,” said the jaguar, sidestepping a flaming branch. Other jaguars asked to use the magic too, but the leader forcefully declined.

Prebuha felt wetness. Tresmo was losing branches to fire, his voice had become an unintelligible roar, and he pushed water out of himself, as if sweating.

“I’m sorry Tresmo, so sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to save you too. I’m not magical, I’m not a god.”

“My children … my legacy …”

Tresmo shook violently once more, then fell still.

Cautiously, Prebuha climbed down from the tree.

Along the way, she noticed four iridescent balls of leaves. They had left Tresmo at four different corners of his canopy, fallen down like ripe apples, then picked up by the wind. The first sentient tree, at last, had definitely given up hope for his own survival.

She and Permiox met the jaguar face to face.

He requested the things Prebuha mentioned. Keep his strength, his speed, his mind, as they were now—forever.

Only a tail’s breadth away, Feria had finally learned to distinguish between Jagu hearts and other hearts. She would’ve liked to stand further away, but the amount of unburned space left in the forest wasn’t even enough to build a single cottage on.

With weary eyes, she watched Permiox start the spell to grant the jaguar his wishes. And the other jaguars, feeling betrayed by their leader, becoming restless and muttering amongst themselves.

Alix was far gone, and might never wake up unless he got a jolt of energy soon.

Halfway the spell, the other jaguars roared and attacked the animals they held captive anyway.

Gosti grabbed their tools, their sharp stones, and defended themselves. Mamotas did so too, but the poor creature lost his tool when a tail slapped it out of his hand. He jumped after it, almost straight into the fire, preferring that over fighting weaponless.

The deer merchant successfully caught a tiger with his antlers. A tug of war ensued, digging their heals into the ashes, until the scuffle ended in a draw. With a mighty swing, the deer threw himself and the tiger into the fires together, never to return.

Feria focused on her magic. She tapped into the beating hearts all around her, singled out the enemies … and she felt so exhausted, so done, for what would it all matter if they burned to death in the end?

She started stilling the beat of their hearts anyway.

A cry of … triumph? She cracked open on eye to see Mamotas jump out of the fire, holding his tool.

But the scorching heat of the flames had melted it. The stone had blended with wood and leaves, creating a much larger circular shape. Even when Mamotas dropped it, because it was still on fire, the bonds did not break. The wheel ran over his attacker. It kept rolling, faster and faster, until it also rolled over the Jagu leader.

A jaguar attached to a wooden wheel rolled past Tresmo’s base and into the fires behind. The jaguar screamed. The heat melted his body into the wheel, connecting the two forever.

Permiox had to turn around and follow the jaguar, lest his magic attach to the wrong thing with terrible consequences, and finished his spell.

Feria stopped all Jagu hearts, but the leader had now suddenly jumped out of her reach. Still on the web of life, but … different.

Instead, Jaxion would be spinning on a flaming wheel for eternity.

Dilova stepped up to Feria. She had to—there was no more space to stand. They were on an island in a sea of fire. Tresmo cried his tears, but didn’t ask to be saved anymore.

“Flee, you flying fool,” said Feria.

“Not without Fiante,” she said, crying. “I just … I just wish I still had one good day with him, I do. I wish I’d frozen time when he was most—”

Permiox and Prebuha studied the flames that contained Jaxion. They were the only ones that weren’t desperately climbing Tresmo, as if the fire would be too lazy to pursue them higher in the air.

Jaxion’s wheel spun, yes, always at the same pace, but the flames around it didn’t move. They were still hot, but didn’t expand, or set Tresmo on fire, or actually flicker.

He could do it.

He could freeze larger spaces. He could freeze the whole fire.

He could—he would—they should?

Feria could not let any life die unless it had to. Especially not the first sentient tree.

“I am very sorry, Tresmo,” she said, touching his bark just before the fire on the other side reached it. “For saving you.”

Permiox nodded and cast a massive spell.