The Purifying Fire p-2

by Laura Resnick

  Then Walbert recovered his composure and said, “I will give her to the Purifying Fire.”

  Fire won’t kill her.” Gideon’s voice was quiet and without expression.

  “As I said, I don’t intend to kill her,” said Walbert.

  “What will happen in the Purifying Fire?” Gideon asked.

  “It will cleanse her.”

  “Cleanse me of what?” said Chandra.

  “Of your power. It will purify you,” Walbert said with evident devotion. “The Purifying Fire will eliminate the destructive poison of fire magic from your existence. It will forever sever your bond with the corrupting force of red mana.”

  “You’re taking away my power?” Chandra said, appalled. “I don’t understand. Why don’t you just kill me?”

  “Because once you’re stripped of your power, you’ll be an example for others.”

  “An example?” she repeated.

  “You are the most powerful fire mage on this plane,” Walbert said. “And I will take away your power.”

  “She’ll be bound to this plane,” Gideon said.

  “Yes,” said Walbert, holding Chandra’s gaze. “No more planeswalking. You’ll spend the rest of your life on Regatha. Powerless. Defeated. Subject to my will.”

  “No,” Chandra said, a sick dread washing through her. She had anticipated death, not being stranded for life on just one plane, robbed of her power and with no reason to live.

  He ignored her outburst. “I won’t have to challenge the Keralians or invade the mountains again. They will see you stripped of all power and utterly impotent, and they will realize what they risk by continuing to oppose me. And so they will submit to the rule of the Order.”

  “No, they won’t!”

  “They will. I have foreseen it,” he said with cold satisfaction. “The woodlanders will see you, too, vanquished and humbled, and they will understand that the Order must not be thwarted or disobeyed any longer.”

  “I thought I was coming here to die!” Chandra said angrily. “I agreed to be executed, not… violated, humiliated, and put on display!”

  “Your message didn’t mention execution as a condition of our agreement,” Walbert said. “As far as your part of our bargain goes, you said you would surrender to my custody. And that was all you said.”

  “I didn’t say that I’d allow you to feed me to the Purifying Fire!”

  “The ceremony will take place tonight,” Walbert said. “I have a great deal to do before then, so this conversation is over.”

  “I won’t let you do this me, Walbert!”

  He ignored her again as he shouted, “Guards!”

  “No!” As the door behind her opened, Chandra leaped forward and threw herself across the desk at the old mage.

  Alarmed, Walbert tried to evade her, but the speed and force of her attack shoved him back into his chair as he started to rise from it. She punched him in the face as footsteps thundered into the room. Chandra got her fingers on his throat and began squeezing just as several pairs of hands seized her. She kicked, bit, punched, and screamed threats as the soldiers pulled her off the high priest and subdued her.

  Walbert tried to speak. He choked, coughed, and tried again, successfully. “Bring her hands together,” he instructed the soldiers.

  They did-with some difficulty, since Chandra continued struggling violently.

  Walbert covered her wrists with his hands and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Chandra felt something cool encircling her flesh, and she looked down to see a thick, shining white coil binding her wrists together, in addition to the shimmering sheath that already covered her flesh.

  With her wrists bound together and four men holding her back, she tried to attack Walbert again. It was futile, but she was too enraged to give up.

  Walbert turned to Gideon, who still hadn’t moved, and said angrily, “Were you just going to stand there and watch her kill me?”

  Gideon shrugged. “You’ve got guards.”

  Chandra was still kicking, struggling, and shouting when they dragged her from the room.

  She was alone in a locked chamber, with her wrists still bound, when he came to her.

  Chandra’s stomach clenched when the door to the chamber opened. Were they coming to get her for Walbert’s ceremony? There was one small window in this room, high up on the wall, so she knew that night had fallen some time ago.

  When he entered the darkened room and closed the door behind him, she asked, “Is it time?”

  “Not yet,” Gideon said. “Soon, though.”

  “If you’ve come to tell me you didn’t know what he would do,” Chandra said coldly, “I’m not in-”

  “That’s not why I came.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To tell you there may be a way out,” he said.

  She blinked. “You’ll help me escape?”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not possible.”

  “Of course it’s possible,” she snapped. “All we have to do is-”

  “It’s not possible without killing a lot of people,” he said. “So the answer is no, Chandra.”

  She looked at the faintly glinting metal of the sural that was coiled at his belt. “Then kill me now.”

  In the dim light, she could see him shake his head.

  “Please, Gideon.” She heard the pleading in her voice and hated it, so she didn’t say more.

  He shook his head again.

  She looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… can’t.”

  Chandra shrugged, gazing at the floor. “Maybe someone else will.” And she would do her best to encourage them.

  “There may be another way,” he said.

  When he didn’t continue, she looked at him again. “Well?”

  “I’d have come sooner, but I’ve been with the Keepers. And since I didn’t want to arouse their suspicion, it took time. I had to be… circumspect about my questions.”

  “The Keepers?”

  “Of the Purifying Fire,” Gideon said. “It’s never left unguarded.”

  She sat down on the narrow cot, which was the only item of furniture in the room, and looked at him in silence.

  He said, “There may be a way to enter the Fire but keep your power.”

  “May be? You’re not certain?”

  “No one is certain,” he said. “No one has tried it in this lifetime.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re afraid of being cleansed of their power if they enter the flames.” He added, “That’s why no one in the Order has ever entered the Purifying Fire. Not Walbert, not the Keepers, not anyone.”

  Gideon crossed the room and sat beside her on the cot. “The Fire is very ancient, much older than the Order. Before the Temple was built, there was another temple that existed on this spot. Smaller, humbler. This place has been a holy site as far back as Heliud. The priests and priestesses of the old faith here, long ago, worshipped the Purifying Fire, and people came from all over Regatha to give themselves to it.”

  She frowned. “Give themselves? As sacrifices?”

  “No. To prove they were worthy,” he said. “Some died. Others survived. And if you survived the Purifying Fire, then you could become a priest or priestess of the faith. Because you had proved your soul was clean.”

  “Clean,” she repeated flatly.

  “That’s how they survived the flames,” Gideon said. “Not with magic, not with special protection. They entered the flames with a… a clean soul. And they didn’t die.”

  She shook her head. “But I’m not going to die in the flames.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Their eyes met in the shadowy room, illuminated now only by the glow emanating from her shimmering white body sheathe and the bright white coils that bound her wrists.

  And she knew he was right. What would happen to her in the Purifying Fire would be, for her, the same as dying.

  No, it would be worse than dying. Much worse.
r />   “I can’t bear it.” Her voice broke.

  “I know.” He put his hand over both of hers, which were clenched together on her lap. “So we need to prevent it.”

  “But how does someone clean their soul?”

  “You face the things you’ve done,” he said, “and accept the weight of your responsibility for your deeds, without lies or excuses.”

  “That’s it?” she said skeptically.

  “That’s what the Keepers said.”

  “And if I do that, then I won’t… my power won’t die in the Purifying Fire?”

  He didn’t answer, and she knew it was because he couldn’t guarantee it. He had searched for a solution, for a way to save her. This was what he had been able to find. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all that he could offer.

  You face the things you’ve done…

  “But I’ve done so many things,” she said pensively.

  “What did you do that gives you nightmares?”

  She drew in a sharp breath and stared at him, her heart thudding with sudden fierceness.

  He asked, “What did you do that left you with ghosts to carry?”

  She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “I don’t talk about that. I can’t talk about that.” After a moment, she said, “I can’t even think about it.”

  “But you dream about it.” It wasn’t a question.

  She was silent.

  His voice was kind when he said, “If you need some time alone now-”

  “No,” she said.

  He waited patiently, not moving at all. His hand remained resting on both of hers. His breathing was steady.

  “I…” She stopped, feeling sick. Her heart was racing. She forced herself to tell him. “I caused the deaths of my family and my whole village.”

  Gideon didn’t move or speak.

  Her breath came out in a rush. “I’ve never told anyone that. No one alive knows.”

  “That’s what happened to your mother? You… caused her death?”

  She nodded. He had asked her about it on Diraden, after she had cried out for her mother in her sleep. In the burning stench of her nightmares. Now she could give him an answer.

  “I was raised in a traditional mountain village,” she said, “on a plane I’ll never go back to. My family were ordinary people. Decent people. My father was gentle. My mother was strict. I had two younger sisters who irritated me, and an older brother who I adored. He taught me to ride, and to fight, and… well, a lot of things. He was killed in the war. By then I had already discovered…”

  “That you had power?”

  “Yes. I played with fire in secret, going off alone into the hills to practice, even though it was forbidden.”

  “By whom?”

  “By everyone. My parents forbade it, because they didn’t understand it and were afraid. The elders of our village told me I had to stop, because it was against the law. And the law forbidding fire magic had been passed by the new ruler, when our lands were occupied at the end of the war.”

  She paused for a moment, then said, “But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. It was like… Well, you know what it’s like to discover you have that much power. That kind of talent. It’s not something you can quit or give up.”

  “No.”

  “The more my parents and the village elders tried to get me to stop practicing and experimenting, the more suffocated I felt. Even though I was too young for it, they started talking about marrying me off, thinking that maybe that a husband and children would solve the problem.” She shook her head. “But, of course, the problem was who I was. I didn’t yet have any idea what I was, but I knew for certain I was never going to settle down to village life. I wasn’t ever going to be one of them. With every passing day, I felt more and more… different. Separate.”

  She looked down at his hand, resting on hers, and remembered how alien she had felt in her own birthplace.

  “Finally, my parents, under pressure from the village elders, talked seriously to another family about getting me married to their son. When I found out, I was furious. I wanted to run away. To leave home. But…” She shrugged. “I’d never been anywhere. I had no idea where I would go. And the whole realm was under martial law. I knew I wouldn’t get far from our village before I’d be stopped by soldiers. I felt trapped there. Imprisoned in that narrow, smothering life.”

  Chandra paused again. Gideon waited.

  “I had been manifesting greater and greater power. Getting careless. Not hiding what I was doing, even though I knew I should. And now that I was so angry…” She started breathing harder. “I set off a huge explosion of fire on the outskirts of our village. I… yes, I wanted to frighten the village elders. And my parents. And the family who had just agreed to have their son marry me-I wanted them to change their minds, to refuse! I wanted him to refuse. I wanted to be set free.”

  When she stopped again, Gideon asked, “What happened?”

  “The explosion attracted soldiers. They didn’t know that one stupid, angry adolescent had done this. They thought the people in my village had to be rebels. They assumed the men had been practicing fire magic, in violation of the law, and were planning to use this secret power to attack the occupying forces.” Her voice was breathless and uneven as she continued, “So they rounded up everyone in the village, forced them into the cottages that were closest to the fire-which was spreading-and barricaded the doors.” Tears started welling up in her eyes. “The fire spread to those cottages… and everyone inside… burned.”

  The tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks.

  Gideon asked, “Where were you?”

  “I had gone off to be by myself after starting the fire. I came running back to the village when I heard the soldiers attacking. When I saw what was happening, I fought them.” She took shaky a breath and wiped her eyes. “It was the first time I’d ever used my power that way. For fighting. It was the first…” Tears fell again. “First time I ever killed.” She tried to steady her breathing.

  “And your family?”

  “They burned alive inside our home. I heard their screams. I saw my mother at the window, begging the soldiers to let my little sisters out of the burning building.” Her voice broke. “I smelled their burning flesh…” She closed her eyes and wiped her face. “They all died because of me. My parents, my sisters, and everyone in the village. Because of me. Because I played with fire.”

  Gideon’s gentle clasp on her hands became a firm grip. With his other hand, he stroked her hair.

  “No one was left alive,” she said. “No one. And it’s my fault. I brought that fate down on them.”

  “And that’s what haunts your dreams.”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “Those are my ghosts.”

  “How did you live through it?”

  “When everyone was dead inside the burning buildings and the screams stopped, I didn’t have the will to keep fighting. So the soldiers captured me easily then. They made me get down on my knees, so they could behead me on the spot. And when I saw the blade of that sword coming down to my neck… suddenly I wanted to live. I was terrified. And then…” She shrugged. “My spark was ignited. I planeswalked. One moment, I was kneeling in the dirt of my village with the smell of burning flesh in my nostrils and my head about to be cut off. And the next moment… I was in the Blind Eternities-with no idea where I was or what was happening.” She gave a watery sigh. “And that’s when my next life began. My life as a planeswalker.”

  She took a few steadying breaths. “Sometimes since then, I’ve wanted to burn down the whole Multiverse.”

  “And you never went back?”

  “No. I never wanted to.”

  Chandra felt his silent acceptance of everything she had told him. She supposed, from that, he understood the full weight of what she had done, but he didn’t withdraw from her or condemn her. It was a surprise to find that he might not.

  “I came to the Temple because I couldn’t live with somethin
g like that happening again,” she said. “I couldn’t live with causing suffering and death at the monastery, to the people who had taken me in and treated me as one of their own.”

  “You did the right thing.” His voice was very soft.

  “And have I done the right thing now?” she wondered. “Telling you this?”

  “Are they as heavy to carry as they were before?” he asked. “Your ghosts?”

  She closed her eyes, feeling the load she carried. She felt the tears on her cheek and the hand that clasped hers. “No,” she said at last, a little surprised. “No, not as heavy as before.” The sorrow was as deep as ever, but the burden was lighter now that she had admitted what she had done.

  They sat quietly together for a while.

  Finally he said, “I have to go. Walbert is busy, but he’s going to start wondering where I am. Especially since…”

  “Since it’s almost time?”

  “Soon,” he said.

  She squared her shoulders. “I think I’m ready.”

  “How do you feel?”

  She searched her soul. “I don’t know if this is what it’s like to feel clean,” she said, “but I feel better. I feel I can face what will happen tonight.”

  Chandra remained alone in her dark chamber for longer than she had expected. Nothing in her life matched the sorrow of what had happened to her family and village because of her, but there were certainly other things she regretted, other things she had done that weighed on her. Indeed, there were enough such memories to keep her thoughts occupied until someone opened the door of her chamber and ordered her to come out. And then she wondered if she had remembered everything and taken responsibility for it.

  She blinked as she entered the well-lit hallway where candles burned brightly in sconces that were spaced at regular intervals along the walls.

  The four soldiers who were escorting her led her from this corridor on the upper level of the Temple down various flights of stairs until she finally thought they must be below ground level by now. There were no windows anywhere along this corridor, and the ceiling here was so low that the tallest soldier in her escort had to duck his head in a few places.

  As they approached the end of the corridor, she saw Gideon waiting for her. He was holding a torch and standing beside an open doorway. He gave a brief nod to the soldiers as they turned her over to him. Then they stood guard at the door.