Children of Fire

by Drew Karpyshyn

  Alone in the darkness of the pirate ship’s hold, Methodis fumbled to open the latch on the footlocker’s lid. He didn’t know how much longer Scythe could last inside the airtight container, and he was desperate to get her out. But the latch had a complex locking mechanism, and the only light was from a few slivers of sun shining in through splits in the hull. After what seemed like hours but was likely only a minute or two, the lock clicked and the lid flew open.

  Scythe all but leapt out, gasping for air.

  “Slow, deep breaths,” he told her in a firm but quiet voice. “Try not to make any sound to draw attention.”

  Scythe nodded and did her best to follow his instructions, taking in air with a slow, steady rhythm rather than panicked gulps. Her pounding heart began to slow as her starving lungs were sated once more.

  “We don’t have much time,” Methodis said in an urgent whisper. “They’ll be back soon. You have to find somewhere better to hide.”

  Her eyes began to adjust to the disorienting shafts of daylight piercing the darkness of the hold, giving her a first look at her new surroundings. Boxes and barrels were piled haphazardly all about, seemingly without rhyme or reason. The most valuable cargo from several ships had been seized and thrown down here as quickly as possible, with no thought given to any kind of organization or order. Soon, she knew, the haul from the Dolphin would be added to the hoard.

  “This ship has to go back to port soon; I’m guessing they’re almost out of provisions. Their meat’s gone bad.”

  Now that she was no longer gasping for air, Scythe noticed the stench in the hold. Methodis was right; it stank of rot and maggots.

  “If they’re smart, they’ll salvage enough from the Dolphin to last them a week and get them back to Callastan. That’s where they’ll get the best price for most of what they’ve stolen. You have to stay out of sight until we get there.”

  Scythe nodded. It was dark here, and with the boxes and crates strewn about she should have no trouble staying hidden.

  “Once we get into port, wait until nightfall. Most of the pirates will go ashore. That’s when you sneak off the ship.”

  “What about you? Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “As soon as we get anywhere near port they’re going to have guards watching me at all times, Scythe. I won’t be able to get away. But you will.”

  She nodded again. “I understand. Don’t worry—I’ll tell someone what’s happened. I’ll tell them you’re a prisoner here.”

  Methodis shook his head. “No, Scythe. It won’t do any good. While docked, only the port authority has the right to board a ship without the captain’s permission. The pirates know enough to bribe them to stay away.”

  “Then I’ll find someone else,” Scythe insisted. “There’s got to be someone who can rescue you.”

  “No, Scythe! If they think there’s any chance of someone finding me, they’ll kill me. Then they can make up any story they want to explain my body. They could say I was a crew member they were bringing back for burial on land. Just leave me behind.”

  “I can’t! I … I …” She broke down in tears as the truth of what Methodis was saying finally dawned on her.

  “You can, Scythe. There’s nothing you can do for me. You have to save yourself. You have to hide before they get back. And stay hidden. Don’t try to talk to me. Don’t try to free me from the guards. Just stay out of sight until we reach the port, then get off the ship.”

  She didn’t answer him but stared down at the ground, crying softly. Methodis reached out and lifted her chin so she was looking him in the eye. “Please, Scythe,” Methodis begged. “They won’t hurt me. I’m too valuable. But you … you can’t let them find you! Now go. Hurry. Go now!”

  Scythe climbed out of the footlocker and gave Methodis a fierce hug. He wrapped his own arms tight around her, and for several seconds they just held each other in silence. Then he whispered in her ear, “Promise me you’ll do this, Scythe. Promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to save yourself.”

  “I promise,” she whispered back, choking on a sob.

  He held her for a few brief seconds more, then gently pushed her away. She sniffed once and wiped away a final tear. Then she gave her mentor a quick kiss on the cheek and disappeared into the clutter of the hold.

  Five days later they reached port at Callastan. Scythe knew they were docked in the city of her childhood because she had overheard two of the pirates talking about it earlier in the day.

  She had gotten quite adept at hiding among the crates and boxes of the pirate ship’s hold. At first she had cowered in the farthest corners, terrified she might be discovered, only emerging at night to steal scraps of food from the unguarded stores. But by the third day she had become bold enough to creep up silently whenever she heard anyone enter so she could listen in on their conversations. She had even gotten into the habit of spying on Methodis in the hope she could find a way to help him escape, too. Or at least get another chance to speak to him. So far she hadn’t accomplished either of her goals.

  He had tended to the wounds of at least ten men by her count. Some of the injuries were from the battle with Trascar’s crew while others were from drunken skirmishes among the pirates themselves. None of the men had died, and from what she had overheard the captain was quite pleased with his new healer.

  That made Methodis even more valuable, and it made it that much harder for Scythe to come up with a plan for him to escape. They only time he was ever allowed above deck was when he was treating a patient. The rest of the time he was in the darkness of the hold, shackled around his wrists and ankles with heavy iron chains bolted into the ship’s hull. And he always had at least one guard watching him.

  Despite all this, Scythe had no intention of leaving him behind.

  It was night now, all but a handful of the crew had left the ship to go whoring, drinking, or gambling on the mainland. There was only one guard watching over Methodis, and he was two-thirds of the way through the bottle of rum he was using to drown his disappointment at being left behind. If she waited long enough he might pass out in a drunken stupor … but the longer she waited, the greater the chance that someone else might come down to relieve him. She had to act now.

  The guard was half standing, half leaning against a pair of barrels, mumbling to himself about his bad luck. Moving without a sound she slid into position behind him. In her white-knuckled fist she grasped the thin knife she had salvaged from one of the many pilfered crates in the hold.

  She had never killed a man before, but the crew of the Dolphin had taught her how to do it in half a dozen different ways. She stabbed the knife into the pirate’s back at an upward angle, striking under the bottom edge of the shoulder blade. The sharp steel slid through his ribs and into his lung, and when he tried to scream all that came out was a soft sigh and a spray of sticky, bubbling blood.

  The man stumbled forward, wrenching the blade from Scythe’s grasp. He turned to face her, grasping and flailing behind him in a futile attempt to seize the handle of the knife lodged in his back. He took a step forward, then slumped to his knees. His chin and chest were soaked with the blood pouring out from his half-agape mouth. He reached out with his hands, though whether his feeble gesture was an attempt to grab her or a plea for help Scythe couldn’t say. He gave one last gurgling gasp, then slumped forward onto the floor.

  Scythe stepped over his body, only pausing long enough to yank the dagger free from his corpse, and rushed to Methodis’s side.

  “Scythe, what have you done?” he asked in a horrified whisper. “He’s dead!”

  “I’m getting you out of here,” she replied. She found the heavy padlock of his chains and tried to pry it open with the slim blade of her knife. The tip broke off but the lock didn’t budge.

  “You have to go,” Methodis pleaded, his voice urgent. “Get off the ship before they find you!”

  She ignored him and instead turned her attention to the body of the guard. She rolled him over o
nto his back, grunting with the effort, then rummaged through his clothes, searching every pocket. Her hands were sticky with blood and gore, but she fought back the urge to retch. She had to find the key! She had to!

  “Scythe!” Methodis hissed, his voice as loud as he dared. “The guard doesn’t have the key! The captain keeps it on his belt. It’s hopeless.”

  Giving up her desperate search, she raced back over to the chains. She wrapped one around her forearm twice and pulled with all her might, trying to wrench the bolt free from the wooden hull. It didn’t even budge.

  “This is pointless, Scythe. Just leave me here.”

  “I can’t leave you here now,” she grunted as she pulled on the chain again. “If they find you here with that guard’s body, they’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll say he was drunk. I’ll say he was mad at being forced to guard the prisoner. That he blamed me. I’ll say he attacked me and I was just defending myself.”

  Sweat broke out on her forehead as she strained against the bonds keeping Methodis captive, but still the bolt held.

  “You can’t fool me, Methodis,” she panted as she stopped to gather her strength again. “They won’t care if it was self-defense. They’ll kill you anyway.”

  “No, I’m too valuable. The captain knows this. He might flog me, but he won’t let them kill me. Go, Scythe. There’s nothing you can do for me.”

  Scythe cast her head from side to side, looking for some way to gain some leverage. Nothing.

  “Maybe I can find something in one of these crates. Just give me a—” Her voice was cut off by the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.

  “Yoskur?” a drunken voice called out. “Shift’s done, you lucky bastard! The captain sent me to take over.”

  “Go, Scythe. This is your last chance.”

  Methodis’s voice was firm yet calm. But when Scythe looked into the eyes of her mentor she saw a fear unlike any she had seen before. And she knew he was afraid for her.

  “Yoskur? You down there? Hello?”

  She dropped the chain and sprinted across the hull toward one of the portholes. Behind her she heard the footsteps coming down the stairs. She clambered up onto a stack of crates and slammed her shoulder into the porthole, forcing it open. It would be a tight fit, but she was slim. She heard a gasp and an angry shout, followed by the sound of a hard slap and a grunt of pain from Methodis.

  She wriggled her shoulders through the narrow opening. Outside the moonlight made it easy for her to see; compared with the dingy shadows of the hold it was almost like daylight. She could see reflections of the pale light on the water twenty feet below her.

  More pirates had come down into the hold; the sound of running footsteps and their angry shouts spurred her on. She twisted her body and pulled herself the rest of the way through, then fell like a stone into the cold ocean water.

  With powerful strokes she made her way through the waves until she was safely away from the pirate ship. She listened for the sounds of pursuit, of someone diving into the water after her, but heard nothing.

  Slowly she swam along the docks, parallel to the shore, passing pier after pier, trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and the ship she had left. After twenty minutes the shipyards were behind her and she was swimming through the open water. She kept going until her limbs became heavy and she was struggling just to stay afloat. At last, she angled in toward land.

  Ten minutes later she crawled up on shore on the very outskirts of the city. She rose to her feet and stood shivering in the chill night air: a fifteen-year-old girl, alone for the first time in her life.

  Chapter 16

  “I must speak with you, Nazir.”

  The Pontiff remained kneeling on the prayer mat in the center of the room, not turning to acknowledge the speaker who had barged in unannounced.

  “You have come to protest Cassandra’s candidacy,” he guessed.

  “I fear what will happen to the Order if she is to join our ranks,” Yasmin admitted.

  Her reaction was not unexpected. Seven years had passed since Cassandra had been rescued from Rexol, yet there were many in the Order who felt she was forever tainted by her brief apprenticeship with the wizard.

  “Cassandra has embraced our teachings and our faith,” the Pontiff replied. “Is that not what we hoped for when she first came into our charge?”

  “She served under a Chaos mage,” Yasmin pressed. “One with a history of openly defying the Order in the past.”

  Like the Pontiff, her voice was calm. But the scarred flesh of her disfigured scalp had turned a darker shade of purple, giving hint to the true state of her emotions.

  “That was not her choice,” Nazir countered. “She was abducted and forced to serve the wizard. We cannot punish her for Jerrod’s crimes.”

  At the mention of the heretic’s name, Yasmin turned her head and spat on the dusty stone floor in the corner of the room. The Pontiff frowned in disapproval, but didn’t bother with further comment. He understood that name was anathema to Yasmin.

  In the decade since Jerrod had been revealed as a traitor and a student of Ezra’s heretical teachings, nearly two dozen of his followers within the ranks of the Order had been flushed out and executed by the Inquisitors. Jerrod himself, however, had avoided capture. Yasmin had spent two years pursuing him as a fugitive across the Southlands and through the Free Cities, but each time she thought she had him cornered he somehow managed to escape.

  Her efforts had ended only after Beloq, the aging Prime Inquisitor, commanded her to return to the Monastery to serve at his side in the twilight of his days. Over the next three years the intensity of the hunt waned, as did Beloq’s health. With his inevitable passing, Yasmin had assumed the mantle of Prime Inquisitor; she was only the fourth woman in the seven-hundred-year history of the Order to be granted the honor, and the youngest of either gender to hold the position.

  Under her reign, the hunt for Jerrod had been renewed in earnest … only to yield two more years of frustrating, fruitless results. In Yasmin’s own eyes, failing to make Jerrod answer for his crimes was the only blemish on her otherwise perfect record. Now Cassandra, whose name would be forever linked with that of the traitor, was about to undertake her final initiation and become one of the Order.

  “You have questioned her,” Nazir reminded the fiercely devoted woman who now served as his right hand. “If you sensed a lack of conviction in her—if you sensed any uncertainty in her, or a wavering in her loyalty to the Order or her belief in the True Gods—you have the right to deny her candidacy.”

  Yasmin was silent for a long time before answering. Yet the Pontiff knew that as much as she might despise Cassandra for her past relationships, the Prime Inquisitor could not bring herself to falsely accuse the girl.

  “She is a true believer,” Yasmin confessed. Then she quickly added. “But we cannot simply ignore the visions of the Seers! We must remain ever vigilant!”

  “We must remain ever vigilant,” the Pontiff echoed. “But the dreams of the Seers are often difficult to interpret.”

  Yasmin’s fears were understandable. Jerrod’s exposure had dealt a crippling blow to his cause. Those followers who weren’t captured fled, or turned their back on the Heresy of the Burning Savior. Cleansing the ranks of the Order had snuffed out an imminent threat to the Legacy, and the visions of the Monastery’s prophets confirmed that they had entered an era of nearly unprecedented calm and tranquility. The flaming figures—the so-called Children of Fire—that plagued their dreams faded away, leading many in the Order to believe the Legacy was safe and secure.

  The Pontiff was not so easily fooled. He understood that though Chaos could be quelled, it could never be fully quenched. During the past decade of peace, the Sea of Fire continually lapped against the Legacy, weakening it; eroding it. And as the power of Chaos waxed like an incoming tide, the dreams of the Seers had once again been engulfed in smoke and flames.

  “The return of these v
isions warns us that a time of great danger approaches,” the Pontiff explained. “We need Cassandra to join our ranks.

  “I have watched her closely ever since she came into our provenance. I know her heart and mind; I see her devotion. I see her strength. Under Rexol she may have been a threat to the Legacy, but once she is initiated into the Order she will be one of its most stalwart defenders.”

  “If the vision is not a warning against Cassandra,” Yasmin suggested, “then maybe it is a warning against her old master. Rexol still embraces the ways of Chaos. Let me bring him in for questioning.”

  The Pontiff had considered and discarded her idea many moons ago.

  “Rexol has taken the crown prince of the Danaan as an apprentice,” Nazir reminded her. “Moving against him without clear and just cause would be seen as an attack on the Danaan people.”

  “Would that be so bad?” Yasmin wondered. “Their blood is befouled by Chaos. Perhaps now is the time to rally the Southlands and wipe the Tree Folk from the face of the earth.”

  “The Southlands is not ready for a crusade,” the Pontiff warned. “And the Free Cities are building trade with the Danaan—they would stand with them, not us.

  “War brings suffering and death; these are the seeds of Chaos,” he cautioned the overeager young woman. “Seizing Rexol now might be the spark that sets the world ablaze. In trying to prevent the collapse of the Legacy, we might actually bring it about.”

  “I had not considered that,” Yasmin admitted after a few moments of silent contemplation.

  “Chaos can ensnare us in many ways,” Nazir reminded her. “We must not fall prey to its tricks and traps. We must not be rash and foolish; we must be patient and careful.

  “The strength of Chaos ebbs and flows. These visions warn us that its power is growing in the mortal world once more. We must stay vigilant. We must continue to seek out those touched by Chaos and contain them, as we have done with Cassandra. And we must do so without plunging the Southlands into a war that could destroy us all.”