Cicadas. Rustling leaves. The thin, maddening whine of mosquitoes. An endless chorus of life, the voice of the jungle. The air pressed against his face like a damp wool blanket, thick enough to chew, and the canopy overhead blocked the sun without offering a scrap of coolness in return.
The party strung out along a narrow trail. Two locals hacked a path through the undergrowth with machetes, and behind them came Jean, Sophie, and Professor Jones, all of them streaming sweat. Three porters brought up the rear, bent double under crates of equipment. Berit walked in the professor's footsteps, dry and unmoved, as though heat were a concept he'd read about once and dismissed.
Jean slapped another insect on his neck and winced at the smear of blood and sweat under his fingers.
"Never understood elves," he said, wiping his hand on his trousers in disgust. "Living in a steam bath and calling it harmony with nature."
"They say elves don't sweat," Sophie offered, fanning herself with a broad leaf. Her face was flushed, her hair plastered to her temples, but her stride hadn't slowed.
"The capital's no better this time of year," Jones wheezed beside them. He leaned on his walking stick but kept his back straight, though every step cost him. "The stone bakes all day. Come nightfall you could fry an egg on the pavement. At least here there's shade."
"And bloodsuckers," Jean muttered.
"As if we're short of those at home," Sophie said.
"At home they wear frock coats and smile before they drain you."
A crash of branches ahead, a shout cut short by a dull thud and a splash. One of the lead men had slipped on wet moss. His partner lunged for him and missed. Jean was already moving, vaulting over roots.
The young porter, a lad named Piet, had gone into a ravine. By the time they hauled him out he was coughing up water, his face and arms scored by thorny scrub. But his eyes were worse. The lids had swollen to slits, so puffed he could barely see through them.
"Rest stop." Jones raised a hand to halt the column, took Piet's chin and turned his face to the light.
The other porters were in no better shape. Skin scratched raw and bleeding, eyes red and streaming, breathing ragged. They stood with their heads down, not daring to complain.
"What happened?" Jean asked, inspecting Piet's ankle. The bone was sound, but the swelling had already started.
"Can't see nothing, monsieur," the head porter muttered, twisting his hat in his hands. "Gnats is murder. Piet, he's gone near blind, that's how he fell. Rest of us ain't much better."
"Why the devil didn't you say something?" Jones frowned.
The workers shrank, bracing for a blow.
"We got to keep moving, monsieur. Count's orders. Work like you're serving His Grace hisself."
Jones shook his head and said something unkind about the stupidity of the human race. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and drew out a coin, a translucent disc of frost-quartz with what looked like a tiny storm trapped inside.
The porters went rigid, staring at a month's wages lying on a palm.
Jones drew a long breath, pulling energy from the coin. The quartz flared white and crumbled to nothing, but for an instant the professor's eyes flared with power. He set his hand on Berit's shoulder, grounding the discharge.
A wave of coolness rolled outward from the two of them in a circle ten paces wide. Every insect caught inside it dropped dead, falling as dry dust. The swelling drained from Piet's face before their eyes, his scratches closed over, and the men breathed deep, as though they'd stepped into mountain air.
The porters touched their own faces. They stared at Jones in awe edged with terror.
"Monsieur..." The head porter pulled off his hat, crushing it in his hands. He stared. "You... spent a whole coin? On the likes of us?"
"What, was I supposed to wait until you all went blind and broke your legs?" Jones said.
They stood in silence, the way men stand before a god who has stepped down from the sky.
"Thank you, monsieur," Piet whispered. "We'll work it off. Double, we'll work it off."
"Get moving," Jones waved them on. "While the ward holds."