Children of Fire (38 page)

Scythe turned to the grandstand to see if the wizard who had started the fire was about to ignite it again. But the man had collapsed in a heap, trembling in terror. His left hand covered his head as if he was afraid to look, and his right held the staff aloft as if it could shield him from the fury of the growing storm. The staff glowed with its own green light, though somehow Scythe knew that was not the cowering lord's mage's doing.

As she watched, a great crack of thunder erupted and a fork of emerald lightning shot down, engulfing the entire grandstand in an unearthly blue glow.

A collective scream rose up from those gathered on the wooden structure as a million volts seared their innards, cooking their bodies from the inside out. The grandstand collapsed with an audible crash, and wisps of greasy smoke wafted up from the charred corpses in the rubble. The strange staff lay amid the carnage, still glowing and apparently undamaged.

And then the clouds burst and fire poured down from the sky, burning embers falling like drops of rain over the whole of Torian. Panic seized the mob as they broke and ran, screaming and trampling one another in their haste to escape. As if fueled by their fear, the blazing orange drops flared into fist-sized balls of white-hot flame. The deadly hail incinerated everyone it struck, reducing them instantly to piles of smoking ash. Flashes of lightning split the night, arcing down to lash at the great towers of the city. Wherever they struck, the very stone itself was set ablaze with unnatural blue flame. Within seconds, the whole city of Torian seemed to be on fire.

Everywhere, that is, except the stage where only moments before a more natural fire had blazed. Here the wood had cooled to a comfortable temperature. The guards had scattered with the rest of the crowd—at least, the few who had survived the deadly burning rain. All around the stage were piles of ash, as if the storm had been directed by conscious will to wreak its most fearsome havoc among the men who had imprisoned its creator. Except for the four figures on the stage, Torian's square was now empty.

Scythe tore her attention from the destruction engulfing the city and ran over to her lover. Using one of the knives in her belt she cut the cords binding Norr to the stake. Once free he collapsed to the ground, and Scythe quickly inspected his wounds.

His skin had begun to blister from the heat of the flames, but the damage from the fire was the least of his injuries. The beating and bruises he had received would take week to fade. There didn't appear to be any broken bones, but there were several large lumps on the side and back of Norr's skull.

“Quickly,” one of the other men—the older of the two—called out to her, “cut me loose!”

She glanced over at the speaker. He was still lashed to the stake, as was his companion. The convulsions of the younger mage had stopped, and he had lost consciousness. Scythe ignored the man's request.

“Norr,” she whispered. “Norr, can you hear me? Norr, you have to get up.”

Responding to the sound of her voice, the big man got to his knees.

“There isn't much time!” the man tied to the stake shouted. “Hurry, before the city rallies against us.”

Scythe paid him no heed. She had come here to save Norr. If the wizard's sorcery couldn't free them from the stakes, she sure wasn't about to.

“We have to go, Norr,” she whispered, trying in vain to haul him to his feet. She gave up the physical struggle and dropped down beside him. “You're too heavy; I can't support you. You have to walk on your own.”

Still on his knees, the big man shook his bruised and swollen head. “The others,” he croaked through cracked and swollen lips. Scythe noticed that several of his teeth were missing. “Cut them loose.”

“Yes, hurry!” the monk exclaimed. “We don't have much time!”

Scythe glanced out and saw that the fury of the terrible fire storm was abating. The flashes of lightning were few and far between, but the blue flames still raged throughout the city, spreading from tower to tower like a forest fire through the treetops. Any survivors of the town guard would be busy all night trying to put out the flames.

“We don't need them,” Scythe said to Norr, still refusing to acknowledge the other. “We can sneak away before they find us.”

“They saved my life,” Norr whispered. “I would have burned. I owe them.”

Realizing the noble barbarian wouldn't leave until the men were free, Scythe reluctantly got to her feet. She approached the older man, his dead eyes fixing her with a long, cold stare. She could kill him now. A single cut of her blade across the throat and his life would be over. She could do the same to the unconscious wizard.

Norr would be angry, of course. But she could claim it was revenge for what they had done in Praeton. She could claim the mage had begun a spell and she had panicked. She knew that somehow she could convince her lover to forgive her for actions, once the deed was done. She could kill them all right now.

Instead she cut the cords binding the monk to his stake. Norr would forgive her if she killed them. But she knew it would destroy a little part of him to do so; it would be one more sacrifice he had to make for the sake of the woman he loved. She had already asked him to make enough sacrifices.

Without a word she cut the bindings on the wizard, the monk catching the unconscious body of the young man as she sliced him free.

“What did you do to him?” he demanded angrily.

“I dumped that bottle of witchroot down his throat,” she shot back.

“Where? Show me!”

She didn't like the tone of his voice, but she liked the implied warning in his gray eyes even less. She might have made a mistake in freeing the monk, with Norr as weak and vulnerable as he was.

“Here,” she said, scooping the vial up from where it had dropped on the stage and tossing it to him. Still supporting his friend with one arm, the monk's free hand snapped out and plucked it from the air, so quick it was nothing but a blur. Scythe turned her back on them and made her way over to Norr, pretending she neither feared nor cared what happened next.

“Distilled witchroot,” she heard the man mumble. She glanced back and met his unseeing eye. “You could have killed him!” he said to her, his tone one of unmistakable outrage.

Scythe wheeled to face him, unable to keep silent any longer.

“You would have all died if I hadn't dumped that vial down his throat!” she snapped. “Instead of lecturing me you might want to thank me for my quick thinking!”

“Thank you for almost killing the savior of the world,” he snarled back. “The Gods alone know what kind of irreparable damage you might have done to him.”

Any further reply from Scythe was cut off by the feel of Norr's heavy hand upon her shoulder. “It's beginning to rain, Scythe.”

All eyes save those of the still-unconscious young mage turned skyward. It was true. A soft but steady rain—of water, not fire—was falling over the city, quickly dousing the magical blue fire of the terrible spell that had freed them all.

“The Order,” the monk said. “They're dispelling Keegan's Chaos storm. Pilgrims must be here in the city. They must have come to witness the execution.”

“How many?” Norr asked.

The man tipped his head to the side, as if listening for a sound only he could hear. “I can't say for sure. A dozen. Maybe more. In the panic they were separated and their individual power was not enough to stand against Keegan's spell. But now they have reunited to fight his power. As soon as the fires are out they'll begin searching for us.”

“Give him to me,” Norr said, offering to take the young wizard from the other man's arms. “We can move faster if I carry him.”

When the man made no reaction, Norr persisted.

“We will come with you. Scythe and I. We will help you.”

“Why?” There was no mistaking the suspicion in the question.

Norr pointed to the unconscious young man. “He saved my life. I owe him a debt I must repay. It is the way of my people.”

The monk hesitated before nodding. “Okay, you may come with us. But you can barely stand yourself, let alone carry someone else.”

The monk scooped the young mage up and slung him over his shoulder with surprising ease, then leapt down from the edge of the stage to the ground ten feet below. Moving as if the man over his shoulder weighed no more than a small child, he approached the still-smoldering remains of the grandstand. He bent down and scooped up the skull-topped staff. At his touch the green glow illuminating it vanished.

“Hurry,” he called out over his shoulder. “We have to leave now. Before the Pilgrims restore order to the city.”

Norr clambered awkwardly down from the stage, his bulk and his injuries making his descent clumsy and inelegant.

“This way,” the monk said, moving quickly down an empty side street, using the staff as a walking stick to help offset the imbalance caused by the young wizard draped over his shoulder.

Scythe could only watch in amazement as Norr complied without question or protest. Did he really expect her to do the same? She had a hundred objections she wanted to voice, a thousand reasons they should not join up with this doomed pair. She wanted to grab Norr by the scruff of his neck and slap some sense into him. She wanted to stomp off and just leave them all behind, three naked men fleeing through the streets of Torian. But she wanted to stay with her lover more.

Biting back the insults and protests, Scythe leapt nimbly from the stage to follow in their wake.

Keegan was surrounded by the blue flames of Chaos. The fire licked his skin, enveloping him. It covered his eyes, blinding him to everything else. It flooded his mouth and nostrils, crawling down his throat to fill his lungs.

He felt the searing heat surrounding him, he felt it inside him. But there was no pain. He welcomed the heat, embracing the eternal flames as they embraced him. Floating in an ocean of fire, he was at first aware of nothing but the endless fury of the flames all around him.

Slowly memories began to surface: a prison cell, being bound and gagged, being lashed to a stake. The smell of smoke from the smoldering wood. And then the Island girl standing before him, one last beautiful vision before he died.

But he hadn't died. He understood that now. Other memories crashed in. The girl pouring something down his throat. A rush of Chaos, an exploding storm. He was not dead, but he was lost in the haze of witchroot; his mind had broken free from his physical form and now floated free in the Burning Sea, source of all magic.

Suddenly Keegan realized he was not alone. Though he could see nothing through the veil of endless burning blue, he sensed another presence with him. Something that wasn't human; something alien reaching out with its awareness into the Chaos from a great distance, seeking to establish a link with the mortal world.

The Slayer. Ancient enemy of the Gods. A champion who, through the Talismans, became immortal.

Emboldened by the heady rush of witchroot and the Chaos all around him, Keegan reached out to touch the other's mind, completing the bridge between their two worlds. Instantly, he was buried under a tidal wave of images: the memories, dreams, and visions of seven hundred years of existence.

Keegan recoiled in terror, his mortal consciousness unable to process the overload of information. The connection was broken as Keegan's awareness fled down into the depths of the Chaos Sea to escape the horrors he had witnessed in the other's mind. For a moment the other presence flailed about, trying to grasp onto the unexpected intruder. Then it was gone, swept away by the currents of Chaos.

His psyche reeling, Keegan sank deeper and deeper into the Chaos Sea, drowning beneath the weight of all he had seen. In an act of desperate self-preservation, he began to cast aside the images, purging them from his awareness before they dragged him so far down that his own identity would be washed away forever.

Just before he reached the bottom of the infinite ocean of Chaos, he managed to regain some semblance of control. With an act of monumental will, he began to claw his way back to the surface until he finally broke free, his sanity battered but intact.

Most of what he had seen in the Slayer's mind was gone, but he had clung to a few precious pieces of what he had seen. The Pontiff was dead, the Monastery in ruins—the work of powerful Minions the Slayer had sent through to the mortal world. They were seeking the Talismans—the Crown, the Ring, the Sword—that had transformed Daemron into a God.

There was something else Keegan clung to, something he had sensed an instant before the connection had been broken: fear. The Slayer was afraid of him. In their brief moment of contact the God had sensed Keegan's power, and he knew the mortal could destroy him.

And Keegan knew the Minions wouldn't just be hunting the Talismans, now … they'd be hunting him, too.

Gil stared out his window, listening. His home was on the outskirts of town, but that didn't stop the wind from carrying the laughter and voices to his window. The people of Praeton were celebrating; the rebuilt Singing Dragon had finally opened for business again.

For many days the mystery of the strange men who'd wrecked the tavern and their relationship with Scythe and Norr, who had vanished the night of their arrival, had been the sole topic of conversation among the citizenry. Friends and neighbors had spoken of nothing else as they came in a steady stream to keep Gil company while he recovered from the terrible injuries to his legs. Though no answers were forthcoming, wild speculation ran rampant. Gil himself even became something of a local hero for those first few weeks, credited with a far greater role in events of that night by virtue of his wounds.

But as the days progressed to weeks the visitors to Gil's room became less frequent. Life went on; there was business to take care of. Praeton had grown weary of the topic. Talk turned to crops and local concerns. Money was raised to repair the Singing Dragon. Bit by bit Praeton was putting the tragedy behind them. The town's wounds were healing.

As were Gil's own—though far less quickly. He was still an invalid, unable to even leave his bed without help, barely even able to roll onto his side without passing out from the jolts of pain shooting up from his legs and ripping through his entire body. His wife cared for him constantly, though she slept in her own bed because of his injuries. But his visitors became less frequent and stayed for briefer periods, as if seeing him like this was an unwanted reminder of events best forgotten.

Gil understood their attitude. There was a world beyond his bedroom window that hadn't stopped; a world he was no longer part of. His friends and neighbors had to get on with the business of living. But understanding did little to quell the bitter resentment welling up as he heard the joyous shouts and pealing laughter from the Singing Dragon wafting down the street.

He stared wistfully out the window at the darkness beyond. The lamps hung out in windowsills to guide folk home cast strange shadows on the deserted streets. It would be many hours before people returned to their homes. Perhaps one or two would stop by tonight, drunkenly pounding on the door until Gil's wife roused herself and let them in. More than likely they would arrive late tomorrow morning, hung over and eager to regale him with stories of the evening's events.

Tonight Gil had resigned himself to an evening alone, staring out the window at the shadows cast by the lanterns.

Suddenly one of the shadows moved. For a second Gil thought the shadow was that of a man—a man too drunk to stand, for he crawled along the street on all fours.
Not crawled,
Gil realized as a cold finger touched his heart,
scuttled. Like some horrible human spider.

He blinked and the shadow was enveloped by the darkness. But he could sense it was still there. Afraid even to breathe lest he reveal himself, Gil peered into the night, trying to pierce its black veil. The shadow moved again, but now there were two. Two ghastly inhuman silhouettes scuttling through the streets of Praeton on clawed appendages, noses pressed low to the ground, snuffling like hounds on a scent.

One of the shadows paused, tilted its head back, and gave a screeching howl of evil triumph. The cry rose up on the wind, borne away to the sky—and then the creatures vanished again into the night and Gil felt a cold fist release itself from around his soul.

They hadn't come for him; the monsters were after other prey. And he couldn't help but feel pity for whoever the twisted, crawling twins were hunting.