Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I by K. Panikian (essential reading txt) 📗

It is generally smaller than a horse, with armored scales and four clawed feet. It has two heads and both spit fire. If you cut off one head, the other will not weaken. The smaller ones have wings but cannot fly. I don’t know if the large ones fly.

I have fought two azhdaya in my lifetime. The first time, in the Varangian realm, I was very young, maybe sixteen? A small azhdaya came to my village and began stealing chickens. The elders trapped it in the coop one night and in the morning, I was sent to kill it. I chopped off one head with my axe and was severely burned by the second head. Marcus shot it in the chest with an arrow and it did not falter. I never dissected one, but I believe they have two hearts and two sets of lungs. I killed the one in the coop finally when I kicked it hard into an anvil, stunning it, allowing me to sever its spine with my axe.

The second time I saw an azhdaya was outside of Prague in 1924. This one was very big, the size of a large pony. It was raiding a sheep farm every night for two weeks straight. This one walked into a pit trap, allowing me to pin its body in a deep hole. It was easy then to avoid its flames and fill it with arrows.

The flames of an azhdaya are very hot, but do not spread like a fire. There is a burst of flame, like from a cheirosiphone, that is focused.

I stopped reading and looked up cheirosiphone. It was a siphon, or projector, for deploying Greek fire. I wondered what Irene knew about Greek fire; I thought that Theo said the recipe was long lost? Maybe the Varangians took the recipe with them through the first portal?

The back door opened and Owen stepped outside, dressed in warm layers and carrying two new beers. He offered one to me and I took it, gesturing to the other folding chair.

“Thanks again for doing the fire pit work today,” I told him. “I know it had to have been gruesome.”

“Gruesome, yes,” he answered. “That’s a good word for it. Were you reading Julian’s find from today?” he gestured to my phone.

“Yeah,” I answered. “It actually sparked an idea. Do you know anything about Greek fire?”

Owen thought for a long moment, staring at the orange coals, before he offered “Ah, was it in a video game a while back?”

“I have no idea,” I responded, sighing. “It’s the second time I’ve heard it referenced in the last week though. That can’t be a coincidence.”

I pulled up my phone again and texted my dad: “Search for journals for Greek fire references.”

“You said your dad’s on board with all of this,” I said to Owen. “What about your mom?”

“Mom’s mellow,” he responded. “She’s rolled with the punches from the first time my dad told her the family story. She’s never witnessed anything supernatural herself, which probably helps,” he added. “She’s an artist, a potter.”

“And what do you do now that you’re out of the army?” I asked. I was so nosy. Next, I would ask him if he had a girlfriend… I muzzled my thoughts.

“I actually just enrolled in college at McGill,” Owen answered proudly. “I get a full ride after ten years in the army. I’m thinking accounting.”

“Good with numbers?” I asked with a smile.

“Excellent,” he answered and smiled back at me.

He leaned forward in his chair. “What do you think? Can I build it back up or will you gag if you catch a whiff of eau de monster?” He gestured to the dying fire.

“Build it,” I answered. “I’m tough.”

Owen stood and hefted some new logs from the diminished pile and layered them in the coals. Then he sat again.

“What do you do in Alaska?” he asked me.

I told him about grad school and my TA work and about my small apartment in Anchorage. He asked some more questions and we talked for a while. It was nice. The fire caught and crackled and smoke drifted upward into the clear sky.

I stared at the flames, watching them dance in the breeze, and then I felt it, that gold spark that I drew on when I whistled. It danced in the fire in front of me.

“I’m going to try something,” I murmured to Owen. He turned to me and raised his hand like he was going to touch my cheek, but stopped when I added, “I’ve never done it before, so get ready to run if it turns bad.”

“I feel like you should give me more information than that,” Owen answered, hands in his lap once again. “What are you trying? Why would it turn bad?”

“I’m going to whistle the fire and see if I can control it. If I lose control, I think I saw a fire extinguisher in the mudroom.”

“Okay, got it,” Owen replied. “I’m going to move my chair, I think, a little bit away from you. Not that I’m worried. But you know, sparks might put holes in my coat.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

I thought about what tone to try. Liquid and lilting, I whistled at the fire. I started low and then let the pitch climb higher. In response, the flames in the pit rose. They were thinner, stretched out, but definitely climbing. I could feel the magic, gold spark stretching back down to the coals below. I added a wild trill and the flames separated from the glowing embers to hover in the air. I changed my tone again into an imperious demand, and the flames condensed into a ball. The ball spun in front of me, bobbing gently. I made my song enticing. The fiery orb and its gold, glowing center, started to drift toward me.

I noticed Owen take another step back behind me and I stretched out my arm. The blazing sphere hovered over my hand and I felt its warmth through my glove. Actually, it