by Carol A Park
He could focus on that. What was the terror of coming to care for a woman compared to facing the divine?
He thought on that for a moment. The former was worse. Way worse.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Purified in Flames
“Vaughn.” Someone was shaking him. “Vaughn!”
He sat up with a start. Danton loomed over him. “The sun’s setting,” Danton said.
Vaughn rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Thanks. Thrax up already?”
“Yes. He’s already filled the bowl with some of his blood.”
Thrax, their requisite fireblood, would be joining Vaughn in his theoretical journey through the portal. He figured he couldn’t go wrong with a fireblood, since Xiuheuhtli was their patron, this was his shrine, and apparently, the sky-fire also belonged under his purview. He needed one anyway, for the best results in manipulating fire.
At least, he assumed he did.
There was a lot they still didn’t know for sure, but they had all night to experiment. If they hadn’t figured it out by then, Vaughn’s entire mission ended here. They’d have to wait until next year—or more likely, never try again, since he’d have more responsibilities than gallivanting around Setana, as Yaotel had put it.
His throat tightened. Not gonna think about that. As long as it was all theory, he was fine. Vaughn grabbed his pack and the new bow he had bought and followed Danton out of the tent they had set up. Danton was with them to cover their tracks if need be.
Ivana ducked out of the shrine. And she was with them in case of…
Ha. Last-minute language problems.
Really, she was the closest expert on this journal and inscription that he had—and likely the only living person who knew anything about the mysterious language.
Seven days after he had left her room at the inn, he had collected her. She had said nothing about their kiss, so neither had he.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but she seemed more aloof than she had recently. More curt and clipped.
He took a deep breath and met her in the courtyard before the shrine.
“Anything new strike you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Do you want the journal with you?”
“The copies of the relevant bits are good enough,” he said, adjusting the flap on the pocket of his pack where he’d tucked said copies. “I don’t want to chance the journal itself getting lost.”
He turned toward the spot they’d chosen to try their first experiment. It seemed like the spot where the serpent monument would have once been, both from the description in the journal and the layout of the small shrine area itself.
Thrax had his pack on as well, while Danton and Ivana stood off to the side. They watched in silence while the sky slowly darkened until the last vestiges of the sun had disappeared.
The first burning ember streaked across the sky. They all stood for a moment, transfixed. He had to admit, it was a breathtaking sight. Nonetheless, any sane person was in a safe room—or at least inside, on a night like tonight—not standing in the middle of nowhere.
But the chances of a bloodbane appearing nearby were just as high as in the city—perhaps higher in the city—and out in the wilderness, unless it appeared literally in front of them, all but the most vicious would run away.
More likely than not, they’d have no issues.
Vaughn looked around. “Ready?” he asked Thrax.
Thrax snorted. “Ready as I’ll ever be. So what’s your first idea?”
Vaughn stepped toward the stone bowl full of Thrax’s blood, now solidified into a bowl of aether. “Um. So, fire and blood. We’ve got blood. We’ve even got blood from a fireblood. Try setting it on fire?”
Thrax reached out with his hand and made a clenching motion toward the lantern that Danton held. Fire trickled out from it like water had from the creek for Vaughn not that long ago.
Thrax was becoming more skilled.
He directed the gout of flame to the bowl and then let it go there.
It caught the aether but burned through it like kindling and then went out.
Nothing happened. Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Next,” Thrax said.
Vaughn turned toward the small campfire they had set up behind the bowl. “Light the fire.”
Thrax used his magic to goad the logs into flames. They caught and burned, and before long, they had a roaring fire.
“Anyone have some meat they want to roast?” Danton joked.
“Now try your blood on top of it,” Vaughn said.
Thrax ran a knife over one of his palms and held it over the fire, letting drops of blood fall into the flames.
They sparked and sizzled, but again, nothing apparent happened.
Vaughn sighed. “Okay. So those were the two easiest options. Next…” He grimaced. “The inscription talks about the traveler being purified in flame. I was hoping it was a metaphor, or maybe a description of the portal itself when it formed, but I suppose it’s possible we have to step into a fire.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” Thrax said. “Maybe we will be roasting some meat.”
“Easy enough for you,” Vaughn shot back. “You can shield yourself.”
Thrax tossed him a pouch. “So can you.”
Vaughn eyed the pouch dubiously. Fireblood aether was some of the most volatile. Firebloods could control it easily enough from their own blood, but Vaughn would never attain the level of precision over it that Thrax had.
He had shielded his hand before but never his entire body. “You first,” he said, grinning at Thrax.
Thrax shrugged and stepped into the flames.
Vaughn had to restrain himself from pulling the man back.
“I’m good,” Thrax said, shaking out his hands. “Just feels a bit ticklish.”
“Any…tingling in your fingers? An insatiable desire to step toward a certain spot or do a little dance? Anything at all?”
“Nope.” Thrax cracked his neck, waited another few moments, and then stepped out of the fire.
Well, at least that meant there was no point in Vaughn trying it. He hooked the pouch of fireblood aether to his belt and tapped his fingers against his waist. “Maybe you’re not pure enough,” he said.
Danton snorted and Thrax barked a laugh. “Look who’s talking!”
Even Ivana sniggered at that.
Vaughn frowned at all of them. “All right, all right. My next idea is to offer up a human sacrifice. Any volunteers?”
Thrax stopped laughing. “You’re joking, right?”
Vaughn raised an eyebrow at him, unsmiling.
“Uh…Vaughn…” Danton said.
Vaughn rolled his eyes. “Yes. I’m joking. Sort of. I mean, I suppose it is possible that the doorway requires a human sacrifice, but I’m not willing to go that far.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“There we go,” Thrax said. “That’s what we could have used that assassin for.”
Ivana licked her lips, not seeming at all amused.
The sky was ablaze now, so much so that their little fire hardly seemed to make a difference to the amount of light in the area.
“Maybe we started too early, or there’s something else we missed. Ivana, let’s hear the inscription again.”
She held out a piece of paper in front of her and read: “‘When the serpent is loosed upon the sky, all who seek the favor of the gods, even those gifted of their blood, shall at the appointed…’” She waved her hand in the air. “‘Blank, by sacrifice of blood, be purified by the flames of the serpent, and blank divine blessing and blank, beyond all mortal measure.’”
On the word “measure,” the fire chose that moment to send up a flare.
Ivana lowered her hand and stared at the fire.
“Was that coincidence, or did reading that make something happen?” Vaughn said eagerly. “Read it again.”
Ivana obliged him, and again, at the end, the flames seemed to dance a little
more.
“Anyone else see that?” he asked, looking around.
Danton nodded. “It did seem to get a little more vigorous there at the end.”
“Didn’t you say this was originally written in some ancient dead language?” Thrax put in. “Maybe it needs to be read in the original language.”
“Can you do that?” Vaughn asked Ivana.
“No. I have no idea how it’s pronounced.”
Vaughn pounded his fist against his thigh. “Well, damn.”
Ivana pursed her lips and stared into the flames. “I don’t think the language has anything to do with it.”
“No?”
“When has speaking words ever made your magic work?”
Vaughn rubbed at his jaw. “All right. You have a point. But—”
“What are you missing?”
Vaughn’s heart sank. “The serpent,” he said. All this, and the serpent did matter? He had been banking on the idea that it didn’t.
“Not exactly. You’re missing a focus. Could you use something else?”
Vaughn scratched his head and turned to Thrax. “Thrax? Any recommendations?”
Thrax tapped his chin. “I mean, for lighting a fire to be used as a light, an unlit torch or even the wick of a candle helps. Or a campfire, the wood itself.” He gestured toward the burning fire for emphasis. “But what kind of focus does one use to tell the fire to open a doorway to the gods?”
“A door?” Danton suggested.
It sounded stupid on the surface, but if aether could be encouraged to heal because it was sprinkled in salve, or encouraged to light up a room because they trapped it in a panel that they decided would light the room, maybe it wasn’t such a dumb idea after all.
Thrax snapped his fingers. “Crap. We forgot to haul a door with us.”
“Thrax,” Vaughn said slowly. “Find some more wood and set it out in the shape of a literal door on the ground.”
They all stared at him. “Look, I know it sounds dumb, but who knows? I’ll try anything.” He thought about that, and then he revised his statement. “Except human sacrifice. I won’t try that.”
Thrax was already building a rectangle with sticks on the ground nearby. “Shall I light them up?” he asked when he was done.
“Wait,” Vaughn said. “Add a few pieces of kindling in the shape of a snake in the middle. Maybe it’ll get the idea of what type of door then.”
“What in the abyss is the shape of a snake?” Thrax demanded to know.
“I don’t know! Make it…snakey-like!”
“Snakey-like,” Thrax muttered, but he complied, creating a line of smaller sticks that waved back and forth.
“Now try,” Vaughn said.
Thrax carefully lit the sticks on fire, and then the “snake,” so that before long, a burning rectangle lay on the ruined stones with a long, wiggly pattern in the middle.
Vaughn cut his hand and sprinkled more blood on it.
Still, nothing happened.
“Wait,” Ivana said. “I just remembered something.”
“What?” Danton, Vaughn, and Thrax said as one.
“You know how the Conclave priests chant words, sometimes music, when they use their aether?”
“Yes…” Vaughn said. He had witnessed it firsthand, on many occasions.
“What if the words aren’t nonsense, smoke and mirrors? What if they act like a different sort of foci?”
Vaughn looked back at the flickering rectangle again. “All right. I’ll buy that. Can’t hurt to try it.”
Ivana read the inscription one more time. And as she spoke, something changed.
The fire burning on the stick-door burned brighter and then hotter, turning into the blue-white flames of the center of the hottest fire. Vaughn could feel the heat intensify from where he stood; and even Danton, already a few feet away, took a couple steps back.
Ivana lowered the paper and stared at the door. The sticks were no longer being actively consumed by the fire. “My gods,” she said. “It’s actually doing something.”
“This is it,” Vaughn said with certainty. He nodded to Thrax. “I’ll go first this time.” He plunged his hand into the bag of fireblood aether and crushed a handful, willing it to shield him from the flames.
Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped into the rectangle.
The flames leapt out to meet him, almost eagerly, and then writhed around him, within him. He clenched the fireblood aether in his hand and gritted his teeth. It was hot—painfully hot—
“Get him out of there!” he heard distantly, and it sounded like Danton’s voice.
“No!” he shouted through clenched teeth. “It’s painful, but I don’t think it’s hurting me! Thrax!”
But Thrax didn’t join him. Vaughn heard shouting, but it faded, and he could no longer hear anything but the roar of flames, or see anything but the blue dance in his eyes—even his lungs seemed to breathe only hot, burning air—until he was certain he was going to be torn in two from the inside out.
He fell to his hands and knees, the heat vanished, and everything went black.
Literally.
He knelt for a moment, feeling a bit dizzy. He waited, and the feeling eventually dissipated. He sat back on his heels and waved his hand in front of his face.
He could see its outline, so it wasn’t pitch black, then.
“Thrax?” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure why he was whispering.
Nothing.
He hesitated. “Danton? Ivana?”
Silence.
He looked around, straining his eyes into the dark. His eyes were already starting to adjust, just not in the way they did for his night vision.
His heart sped up. That was…disconcerting.
He burned aether to turn invisible, but he had no way of confirming whether it worked without someone else—or a mirror. Even so, he could feel aether when it burned in his blood—it was difficult to describe, but he knew it was happening.
He felt nothing.
He swung his pack off his shoulders and fumbled in it until he found his portable light panel, then pressed his thumb against it and held it up.
Nothing.
Feeling a bit panicked, he jerked the hunting knife he’d brought with him out of the little sheath at his waist and pricked his finger with the tip.
He had never—never—been so glad to see his own blood turn silver.
So he still had aether in him. Why couldn’t he use it?
He could now faintly see his immediate surroundings, empty shapes and lumps in the darkness. There was one such shape nearby, and it reminded him a bit of a prone human body. Thrax?
He crawled toward it. The ground was dry dirt and rock, hard and unforgiving, and shriveled clumps of brown and sometimes blackened grass crackled against his hands and knees.
He reached the shape, leaned over it, and looked down in shock.
It wasn’t Thrax, but Ivana.
How in the abyss—
Blood trickled from her nose and the corner of her mouth, and her eyes were closed. Panic rising in his chest once more, he felt for a pulse at her throat…
He breathed out in relief. Her heart still beat, strong and healthy.
He put a hand on her chest, and it rose and fell.
She was alive. Just unconscious.
He glanced around once again. The landscape was becoming easier to see, his eyes having adjusted as much as they were going to. The sky wasn’t truly black, but rather dark red, like the color of drying blood. There was enough light to see now, but he didn’t know where it was coming from. There were no stars, moon, or sun in the sky. Most of the dark shapes were rocks and boulders: large, jagged formations sprinkled across what appeared to be an otherwise flat, brown plain—pitted occasionally with craters—as if some angry deity had picked up a handful of stones and hurled them there in a fit.
He swallowed. Maybe they had.
He turned back to Ivana and shook her. “Ivana!” he whi
spered again, not daring to speak louder, due to the terrible suspicion growing in his mind.
Still, she didn’t move.
He rummaged around in his bag again, looking for one of his two waterskins. He found one and dribbled water over her face.
A moment later, she gasped, as if she hadn’t been breathing, and sat up, her hand immediately moving to grasp the hilt of the dagger at her thigh. “What in the—?” Her eyes flicked around the landscape and then came to rest on Vaughn.
Her hand relaxed. “Where are we? Why am I here?” She wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve and looked at the blood. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know,” Vaughn said, answering each of her questions in turn. “Though as to the last, I was hoping you could tell me.”
She wrinkled her nose, as if trying to remember. “You were in the fire. It turned blue, then white, and the flames looked like they were beginning to consume you. You started screaming—”
“I did not!”
“You started screaming, and Danton panicked. He tried to drag you out but couldn’t get close enough. Thrax leapt in after you, but it was too late. You were gone.”
“And Thrax wasn’t?”
She shook her head. “As soon as you…I don’t know. Disintegrated? The fire started dying back down.”
“And so how did you get here?”
“I’m… Well, I’m not sure. Thrax stepped out of the fire, and then it just…exploded.”
“Exploded?”
“That was the last thing I remember. I woke up…” She gestured around them. “Here.”
Vaughn stared at her. “I didn’t think you’d be able to come here. You’re not a Banebringer.” His eyes widened. “Are you? Did a bloodbane get summoned? It was the sky-fire—”
She held up her hand. The smear of blood from her nose was still red.
Vaughn scratched his head. “Okay, let’s forget about that for now. You are here. Somehow. And—” He looked around. The landscape was as desolate and empty as before. “Unless Danton and Thrax got, I don’t know, thrown somewhere else, they aren’t.”
