Fires of Memory

by Washburn, Scott;

  “I think you better go back to your room, Jarren. I’ll send someone to get you for dinner.”

  “Very well. I shall see you later, Idira.”

  * * * * *

  Matt looked up at the empty balcony for a long while before stirring. What a mess! And it was almost entirely his fault. He had allowed Dauros’s cooperation to lull him into a false sense of security. It had not occurred to him that there might be a coup among the wizards—but it should have, blast it!

  “So what do we do now, sir?” Matt turned and saw the escort commander standing next to him, a young lieutenant from Zamerdan named Tul Jernsen. He reminded Matt of a certain young lieutenant he had known about four years earlier.

  “Well, dinner should be delivered—or dropped—down to us in an hour or so. Afterward, we could always play some cards.” In fact, he wanted to scream and pound his fists against the rock. But the men were watching him, and he had to be in control of himself if he wanted to control them—or the situation.

  “Sir! We have to do something!”

  “We just did something, Lieutenant. We planted doubt in the enemy ranks. For right now, that’s about all we can do.”

  “We can keep working on the door. And we have a hundred feet of rope now.”

  “The door is not going to work: they are aware of what we are trying. Any other digging through the stone would take far too long to do any good. As for the rope…” He looked up and eyed the balcony above them. It was the only possible exit. Could they fabricate some sort of grapple that would allow them to get a rope attached up there? Maybe. The railing on the balcony was solid and did not have any convenient balusters that a weighted rope might snag. If they heaved something through the windows behind the balcony, it might catch on something. But that would also make a great deal of noise when the glass broke. Someone came to check on them every hour, so anything they tried would have to be done in a shorter time than that. And if they failed, the next place Stephanz put them might not be nearly so comfortable as this.

  “I shall have to think about what we can do with the rope,” he said to the lieutenant.

  * * * * *

  “Hess, I think I may have found something interesting,” said Jarren to the alchemist.

  “Oh? What?” Hesseran did not seem terribly interested. Jarren had been working with the man for nearly a week, and he seemed more distracted each day. He was afraid he was losing his enthusiasm for the project.

  “Yes, it’s here in a letter from a magic user in Kirast to a friend in Duma. It’s nearly four hundred years old. He writes about a traveling circus that visited Kirast. Apparently, there was some fake magicker with the show who was using gunpowder to trick the locals. He had no real power, but the flashes and smoke from the gunpowder fooled the people. The writer describes what he did to expose the fraud: ‘Thus I used the olde Seeker spell with a touch of fire and set the golden bees upon the rascal’s powder. It caused the greatest consternation! But I did not realize he had so much powder with him, and I near to burned down the whole tent! Recall ye how we used the Seekers to bedevil poor Franzi back in school?’ This sounds to me like the ‘fireflies’ that the colonel describes!”

  “It certainly does!” exclaimed Hesseran, suddenly filled with his old enthusiasm.

  “But do you know what these ‘Seekers’ might be?”

  “Yes, of course! It is a very simple spell. A tiny magical ‘sprite’ is created and it will look for something. They would be used to find lost items—keys, money, anything, really—and when the Seeker found it, it would give off a loud whistle. Portin! Would it be possible to substitute fire for the wind that makes the noise?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said one of the other wizards, looking up from his book. “But the fire a Seeker could carry would be very weak, I would think. Hardly more than a spark.”

  “A spark is all that’s needed to set off gunpowder!” cried Jarren.

  “By the gods,” said Hesseran, shaking his head. “Here we were looking for some mighty battle magic, and it turns out to be a spell that any student might know!”

  “But much greater in power,” said the man called Portin. “A typical Seeker spell might create a few sprites at most. This spell the Kaifeng necromancer uses creates vast swarms.”

  “True, but if it works the same way, it lets us know what we are up against. This is a wonderful discovery, Jarren!”

  “Thank you, Hess,” said Jarren, extremely pleased with himself. “But can you discover a way to fight it?”

  “We are certainly a lot closer to finding a way now!” The man was smiling, but suddenly his face fell.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Let me do a little more reading here. Keep up the good work, Jarren.” He stared at the man as he went back to his book. What was the matter? Something was going on, that was for sure. Well, there was nothing he could do about it. He shrugged and went back to his own studies. The letter had been in a collection of correspondence he had discovered, and perhaps there would be more references to the Seekers. The writer had made it sound like the trick he pulled on the fraud to be a common occurrence. He was soon oblivious to his surroundings once again.

  It was late afternoon when Idira and Thad came to collect him for dinner. He was surprised to see that Hesseran was gone and that there was only one other person in the library. “Hello, Idira, Thad. Later than I thought. But we made some real progress today! Did Hess have a chance to talk to you?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “In fact, I’d like us to go and talk to him right now.” Jarren looked at the healer and was surprised by her sad, almost grim, expression.

  “Is something wrong?” She did not answer. Instead, she led them down a series of increasingly narrow hallways and then through a door. It led to a small balcony that overlooked a gray and angry sea. Hesseran was there. After they were through the door, Idira looked behind them and then shut it.

  “What…what’s going on?” asked Jarren. Hesseran looked even grimmer than Idira had.

  “I’m almost wishing that Lyni had cut you up for fish bait, Jarren,” said Hesseran.

  “Why? What have I done now?”

  “You’ve brought chaos here is what you’ve done!” said the man angrily. “Things were so simple and orderly before you came. Now…now I don’t know what to think.”

  “You can’t ignore the truth, Hess. The evidence is damning and you know it.”

  “Please, what are you talking about?”

  Idira stared at him. “You should know. What you said earlier. What your friend, the colonel, said the other day.”

  “You mean about Dauros’s death…and Stephanz?”

  “What else?” said Hesseran angrily. “After talking to you—and hearing about the colonel’s accusation—I couldn’t rest. I kept thinking about what happened and what Stephanz might have done in my laboratory besides take the sleeping potion. Finally I had to see for myself. Everyone thinks I’m a terrible slob. They are probably right in most things, but not when it comes to my chemicals and potions! I know exactly what I have there and no one but me has access to it.”

  “So? What did you do?”

  “I took an inventory, of course! I’ve been up almost every night all week doing it.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Well, the missing sleeping potion, of course. But I was also missing five drams of Scodgeblume.”

  “I’m not familiar with that,” said Jarren.

  “It’s a medicinal herb,” explained Idira. “It can cool the blood and slow the heart. I often prescribe it for some of our older people here. But the normal dose would be an eighth of a dram!”

  “What would five drams do to a person?”

  “For a healthy person, it would probably put them in a sickly sleep for several days—if they were lucky.”

  “And for an old man—like Dauros?” Jarren hated to ask, but he had to.

  “It…it would slow his
heart down until it stopped.”

  “Which is exactly how he died, as I recall. His heart just stopped beating.”

  “Yes,” whispered Idira.

  “It doesn’t prove that it was the Scodgeblume or that Stephanz gave it to Dauros, Idira!” said Hesseran. “We just don’t know!”

  “We know enough. At least I do.” She paused and sat down heavily on a stone bench and stared out at the tossing sea. “Dauros was old, but he was in good health. I had examined him myself not three days before. And Stephanz was almost rabid in his opposition to Dauros’s policy. No, it all fits together. Colonel Krasner is right: Dauros was murdered—and Stephanz is the murderer.”

  “But…but…” stuttered Hesseran.

  “You know it’s true, Hess!”

  “I…yes, I know.” The man’s shoulders drooped and he plunked down on the bench beside Idira. Jarren looked at them, exchanged glances with Thad, and sighed. Partly in relief and partly in guilt. In some ways Lyni—and Hess—were right: he was the cause of all this.

  “So what do you plan to do now?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Hesseran.

  “We have to do something!” said Idira. “He cannot be allowed to get away with this! I will not follow a murderer!”

  “Nor will I—but others will. I mean, they will refuse to believe the evidence. Most of the older members opposed Dauros’s policy to begin with. They will follow Stephanz.”

  “What about the younger ones?” asked Jarren.

  “Maybe a few would side with us, but only a few. And Stephanz has all the servants in his pocket. He’s been in charge of them for years, and he’s been giving some of the stronger men special treatment and flattering them for a long time. They will follow him, I’m sure.”

  “And those same servants have the soldiers’ pistols and swords,” said Idira.

  “Well, that rules out both a new election or a coup,” said Jarren, glumly. “Counter-coup, I suppose would be a more accurate description, but in any case, we can’t pull it off.”

  “Then we’ll leave!” said Idira suddenly.

  “Leave? And go where?” asked Hesseran.

  “With Jarren! To the mainland! We’ll do what we were planning to do before Dauros died. We’ll help them against the Kaifeng!”

  “How?” said Jarren and Hesseran simultaneously.

  “How would we leave? Why we’ll just get in one of the boats and go! Stephanz would not dare try to stop us. We’re not prisoners—or his slaves!”

  “It won’t be as easy as that, Idira,” said Jarren. “He’s not going to suffer anyone challenging his authority. He’d stop you just out of pride, if for no other reason.”

  “He’s right, Idira,” said Hesseran. “The man’s ego is beyond comprehension. He will try to stop us.”

  Idira was silent for a few moments, and then she nodded. “Yes, you are certainly correct. I wasn’t thinking clearly. But we shall still leave; we’ll simply have to do it in secret.”

  “I insist that we bring Colonel Krasner and his men,” said Jarren.

  “I was assuming that, Jarren,” said Idira. “Getting them out of their confinement will be difficult, but not impossible. From there we can go directly to the boats.”

  “Who is going to sail the boat for us, Idira?” asked Hesseran. “I certainly can’t. I don’t think you can, either.” They both looked to Jarren.

  “Not I! I don’t think any of the soldiers are sailors, either.”

  “Nor am I,” said Thad. They all looked out on the roiling ocean. “We’ll need someone who knows what they are doing, or we’ll all end up drowned.”

  “Lyni,” whispered Idira.

  “What?” exclaimed Jarren. “She’d never agree to help us! She hates me!”

  “She might agree to help—especially after she’s told what killed Dauros,” said Hesseran.

  “She’s the only one, Jarren,” said Idira. “Her field is winds and weather—just like Stephanz—and she’s an experienced sailor. There are only a few others on the island, and I would not trust any of them.”

  “Well, if you really think she might help…”

  “I do. If this is going to be done, we had best do it quickly. Stephanz is still distracted trying to consolidate his power, but that won’t last forever. Now let’s go find her.”

  * * * * *

  They found Lyni alone on another balcony, contemplating the same sea that they had been. She was dressed all in black. She looked up as they approached. Her face was sad, but it quickly became angry when she saw Jarren. “What do you want?” she snapped.

  “Lyni, dear, we need to talk to you. It’s very important,” said Idira gently.

  “If it concerns him or his friends or his cause, I don’t want to hear about it!”

  “It concerns all of us, Lyni. Him and you and all of us.”

  The young woman looked defiant, but did not protest when Idira sat down beside her. Hesseran stood nearby, and Jarren and Thad retreated as far as the small space would allow. Idira reached out and took one of Lyni’s hands.

  “We’ve all suffered a terrible loss, but I know that you have suffered most of all. I’m terribly sorry, but I fear I shall have to increase your pain still more.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is no easy way to say this, Lyni. Dauros did not die of natural causes, he was murdered.”

  The woman in black looked up at Idira and then ran her eyes over the rest of them. She dropped her head and nodded. “I know. Stephanz killed him.”

  “What?!” All four of them shouted at once.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? He had everything to gain by killing him. He had the opportunity—and he took it.”

  “But…but, you mean you knew?” gobbled Jarren.

  “Not until it was already done. When I found his body the next morning, when I saw the white sludge in the bottom of his cup…then I knew.”

  “What?” exclaimed Hesseran. “You found the Scodgeblume?”

  “If that’s what it was. I washed out the cup later. It’s all gone now.”

  “I wish you had kept it, Lyni. I could have verified that that is what it was.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know Stephanz killed Dauros.”

  “But you still hold me to blame,” said Jarren.

  “None of this would have happened if you had not come here.”

  “You are not being fair, child,” said Idira. “Jarren did not intend any evil when he came here. No one forced Stephanz to do what he did. Stephanz willingly chose to murder.”

  “To protect what he held dear.”

  “Does that make it right? You opposed dealing with the mainlanders as strongly as did Stephanz. Would you have been willing to kill Dauros?”

  “N-no.” Lyni suddenly sobbed and buried her face in her hands. “No!” Idira gently put her other hand around the woman and pulled her close. Jarren stood there and watched Idira trying to console the younger woman. He felt extremely awkward, but at least had the good sense to say nothing at all. Eventually, Lyni’s weeping stopped.

  “Since you have figured it out, Lyni, what were you planning to do?” asked Hesseran. The woman sniffled and then her look of anger returned. Jarren jumped when she produced a knife from somewhere in her clothing.

  “I had planned to kill Stephanz—and him!—and then jump from this balcony. But I don’t suppose you will allow me to do any of that now.”

  “Oh, Lyni!” cried Idira. “You shouldn’t even think of such things!” The healer looked horrified. Jarren felt a little horrified, himself. The way she had looked at him just then!

  Lyni casually tossed the knife over the railing. “I’ll think of such things until the day I die. But I don’t suppose I’ll ever do them. So. You four have also reached the same conclusion. What are you planning to do about it? Not that I really need to ask.” She glared at Jarren again.

  “We plan to leave,” said Idira. “To go to the mainland.”

  “And he
lp him?”

  “That was our plan, yes.”

  “I don’t want to be a part of that.”

  “Dauros wanted to be a part of that,” said Jarren. “He died because he believed that was the right thing to do. You could honor his memory by carrying out his last command.”

  Lyni stared at him for a long time. “You fight dirty. But I should have expected that from you.”

  “Lyni, we need your help to reach the mainland,” said Idira.

  “So I surmised. Why else would you come looking for me? You need me to sail the boat and tame the winds.”

  “Will you help us?” asked Jarren.

  The woman hesitated for a long while, but finally she nodded. “There is nothing left for me here, now. Why not? When do we go?”

  “Tonight,” said Jarren.

  * * * * *

  Matt watched the basket with the supper dishes being pulled up through the gently falling snow. At least they didn’t have to do their own washing up. And there was even running water and an ingenious toilet system. As prisons went—and he’d been in a few in recent months—this one was by far the best—and probably the most frustrating. They had been stuck here for a week and might be stuck here for months.

  No, by the gods, they would not! They were going to get out of here, and they were going to get what they came for. He didn’t know how, but he knew that they were going to do it! The rope seemed like the best chance. They had fashioned a grapple, of sorts, which they hoped might allow them to get up to the balcony. Unfortunately, it was what happened after they got to the balcony that worried Matt. In all probability, the room the balcony was attached to would be locked from the outside. If they managed to get up there, they would still be stuck. The only thing he could think to do would be to wait in ambush for the next person who came to check on them. But he had no information on the procedure. They only saw one person up on the balcony, but that didn’t mean there weren’t a dozen others who came along just in case. And even if they did get up there and then get out, they still had to find their way down to the boat and sail it out of here.