Sacred Fire

by Chris Pierson

  So would the scholar.

  Men had escaped him before. Tomb-robbers tended toward cowardice, and he was only one man. Sometimes they broke and fled, and even he could not chase them all down. That was fine—none had ever returned, and the tales they spread surely kept many others away. The Staring Ghost was a fearsome legend in these parts, and most men did not care to face him. But this time, it was different. The scholar had been learned enough to see through the superstition, and recognize him for who he was.

  Cathan started to swallow a curse, then remembered he was alone here and let it out aloud instead. It echoed off distant walls, ringing in the gloom. Word would spread that the Twice-Born was alive and hiding in Losarcum. They would come for him—it was only a matter of time.

  The blackness felt physical, smothering him. He needed light. He reached to his right, fingers probing. First they found a hilt of smooth metal, set with shards of porcelain where other weapons had gems: Ebonbane, his sword he’d wielded as a knight. He always slept with the blade close by. Now his fingers passed by, and found the smooth glass of a lantern, a chip of flint, and a steel knife beside it. He worked with this, practiced movements in the dark, and after a few tries made a spark. A moment later the lantern was glowing, a dull glimmer that grew steadily brighter, revealing the room around him.

  This place had been part of Losarcum’s public baths once, though its pools and tubs had dried up long ago. Vast and cavernous, its edges lost in darkness, it had collapsed into rubble at one end where what looked like a small temple had smashed into it. The surviving walls, and the parts of the ceiling that hadn’t given way, were tiled with a menagerie of fanciful beasts carved out of golden sandstone : laughing, fish-tailed mermaids and one-horned whales, coiling sea serpents and many-tentacled krakens. Glass sparkled amid the rubble. A few furnishings, scavenged from forays deeper into the ruined city, lay here and there: more lamps, some wine jugs and casks of oil, a few urns of spices. The remains of a cooking fire blackened what had once been the bottom of a cold-water pool, its tiles painted with fish and waterfowl. The bones of his last meal, a dog-sized lizard he’d caught out in the Tears, lay cracked in a heap nearby. Cathan surveyed it all: this was his kingdom, his hermitage, where he’d lived apart from the rest of the world for … how many years? Fifteen? Twenty? He’d long since lost count.

  Not for much longer; his days of solitude were already as good as over. If the scholar’s escape hadn’t been enough to convince him of that yet, the dream’s return had.

  He struggled to his feet—gods, his leg hurt!—and found a tattered, dirty robe and wrapped it around himself, then took a slug of sour wine from a nearby jug. His stomach growled, but he ignored it; one could find enough to eat in the Tears to keep from starving, as long as one didn’t mind eating giant spiders and such, and he had learned to accept hunger as a constant companion. He started toward a crack in the floor to make water—then stopped halfway there, his whole body suddenly tensing, the hairs on the back of his neck standing erect.

  Danger. He wasn’t alone here.

  He wasn’t sure, at first, what sort of danger; he could see nothing unusual in the half-light, could hear nothing but his own breathing. There was no strange scent on the air. But Cathan was a warrior—or had been one once—and he still trusted his instincts. Someone … or something… was here in the cave with him. After a moment, he knew what was amiss: the air had changed, the temperature dropping. The baths were ordinarily cool—but this was different. It was a bitter chill that put him in mind of the winters in the hills where he’d spent his youth. That never happened here, in the heart of the desert.

  Instinct—the same instinct that had alerted him in the first place—turned him around, got him moving back toward the heap of blankets that was his bed. He grabbed Ebonbane, the hilt familiar in his grasp. He brought it up, turning this way and that, looking for the source of the cold and saw it, a pool of deeper darkness amid the gloom, over by the vents where the Losarcines had once bathed in steam. He knew it was no ordinary shadow, even before the figure emerged from its heart, turning his blood to ice: tall and broad, shrouded in robes the color of midnight, the tip of a long gray beard emerging from the blackness of its hood.

  Cathan backed up a pace, his eyes wide. Ebonbane trembled in his grasp, and his heart pounded with terror. I’m dreaming again, he thought. This is another nightmare.

  Watching him from across the cavern, Fistandantilus the Dark chuckled. “No, Twice-Born,” he said. “You are very much awake.”

  Chapter 4

  “You won’t be needing that,” the archmage said. Fistandantilus didn’t move, not that Cathan could see, nor did he speak a word of the tongue of magic. Still, in a heartbeat Ebonbane’s hilt turned blazing hot, searing his skin. With a gasp he let it, go clatter to the floor. Immediately the pain disappeared; looking at his palm, he saw no blisters, not even redness. Cathan stared at the fallen sword, then turned his gaze back to the black-robed figure.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The wizard shook his head and sighed. “Why is it,” he said, “that every conversation I have with someone seems to begin this way? Never ‘good day to you, Fistandantilus,’ oh no. Or ‘would you like a glass of wine?’ It’s always ‘what do you want?’ ”

  Cathan made a sour face. “How unreasonable of us. It must be such a burden for you.”

  The hooded head angled, then chuckled, a humorless sound like the creaking of dry leather. “Well put, Twice-Born. I like you already. No one has dared be sarcastic with me in centuries.”

  “I don’t have anything to fear from you,” Cathan replied. “I’ve already died once.”

  “True,” Fistandantilus said, stepping forward. He raised a hand, twitching his fingers. “But there are worse things than death.”

  It happened in just a flash, so quick that later Cathan wasn’t sure if he’d only imagined it. Even so, the instant of agony that flared through him was as though his entire body had been immersed in Kautilyan fire, was enough to leave him down on his knees, tears in his eyes, and the burn of bile in his throat. He looked up at Fistandantilus, fighting to keep the horror from his eyes. A minute of pain like that would leave a man utterly, irrevocably mad. And the Dark One seemed able to do it without any real effort—or compunction.

  “Now you fear me,” said the Dark One. “Good.”

  With an effort, Cathan got back to his feet. “I’ll ask it again,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here because I need your help,” Fistandantilus answered, then nodded as Cathan’s eyes narrowed. “Difficult to believe, yes. But much as it pains me to say it, there are things even I cannot do. I need your help with the Kingpriest, Twice-Born.”

  Now it was Cathan’s turn to laugh. “The Kingpriest? Look around you, Dark One. Is this the Hammerhall? I left Istar behind long ago. If I could, I would live the rest of my life without seeing it, or the Kingpriest, ever again.”

  “But you will, Twice-Born.” The Sorceror stepped forward, his robes whispering. “You will, and soon.”

  He turned to his left, speaking spidery words and weaving his hands through the air. Cathan felt the cold in the air intensify—and something else, something he hadn’t felt since Losarcum fell. Magic. The sorcerer was drawing it down from the black moon, focusing it with his will. Dread rising, Cathan watched as Fistandantilus pointed at one of the baths’ empty pools, channeling the magic toward it.

  There was a gurgling rush of sound, and as Cathan watched, pure, clear water flowed up through a crack in the pool’s bottom, swiftly climbing the painted-tile walls, in less than a minute it was lapping at the edges, cool and clear and tempting. It shone with golden light, casting glowing ripples upon the cavern walls.

  “Look into the water, Twice-Born,” Fistandantilus said. “There is something you must see.”

  Maybe the wizard charmed him to do it, or maybe curiosity led Cathan to the pool’s edge. The water glist
ened as if the sun were shining down upon it, but otherwise there was nothing to see within.

  No, wait. There was something, after all. Images forming, running together on the surface. He squinted, trying to see what it was … and then the images coalesced into a sight he knew all too well: a maze of canyons, snaking among the golden mesas and canyons of the Tears, the shattered remains of Losarcum at its heart. He was looking at them from above, circling like one of the carrion birds that always seemed to be wheeling overhead, searching for things the desert had killed. With a view like this, a man could make such a map of the Tears that no one would ever get lost in them again.

  The view shifted, and he spied something new. A thread of silver, winding through the canyons like some strange serpent. Sunlight gleamed off silvery armor and snowy robes, and though there was no sound, he was sure he could hear voices chanting, singing hymns to the gods. He knew what an imperial processional was; he’d marched in plenty of them himself. And there, at the heart of this one, was a gleam of holy light that could be only one person.

  The Lightbringer had come to the Tears. He was less than two leagues away from this very place.

  Cathan swallowed a curse. The scholar had told Beldinas where he was! He’d known it would happen, but that didn’t make him any happier about it.

  “Let him come,” he growled, glaring at Fistandantilus. “I swore never to go back. Not after this.” He gestured at the ruins around him.

  “And no blame to you,” said the wizard. “It is understandable. But … before you dismiss him too quickly … you should look closer.”

  Something in the Dark One’s voice made Cathan’s stomach turn cold. You’re being manipulated, a small voice told him, but he couldn’t help it; he looked again. When he did, he saw a closer view of the processional. Now he could make out other figures besides the glowing shape of the Kingpriest astride his golden chariot: knights and priests, the gray-robed figure of the scholar … and there, an armored man in the scarlet tabard of the Grand Marshal of the Divine Hammer. The man had his helmet off—any smart man would, in the baking heat of Dravinaar—and Cathan could make out his face … the freckled, boyish face that, except for the beard, didn’t seem to have changed in all these years.

  Tithian. He felt a strange surge of pride that his former squire had risen to lead the knighthood. But the knowledge also unsettled him. The Hammer had done some terrible things in the Kingpriest’s name. He’d even participated in some of those deeds. What more had happened under Tithian?

  Then he saw another figure, riding nearby, and shock spiked through him, momentarily driving thoughts of the Divine Hammer and the Lightbringer from his mind. There, flanked by two young men who could only be her sons, he spotted his sister.

  “Wentha,” he breathed.

  “Yes,” answered Fistandantilus. “It changes things, doesn’t it?”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had aged, but she was still beautiful. Even grim-faced as she was, the mere sight of her made his heart lighten in a way it hadn’t for years. She might be old and somber, but to his eyes she was still the laughing girl he’d called Blossom.

  “A pity she won’t reach this place alive,” said the Dark One.

  Cathan looked up sharply, his heart lurching. “What?”

  Fistandantilus nodded toward the pool. “They are being hunted. Look closely.”

  When Cathan turned back, the vision had shifted again. Now he was looking at the back of the train rather than its front. There, the rear guard of knights rode watchfully, searching the clifftops and the skies. Even now, manticores and giant scorpions prowled the depths of the desert, and ruffians preyed on unwary travelers. Cathan nodded in approval of the knights’ vigilance, his eyes following their gaze. The skies were empty, the cliffs bare. A frown spread across his face; where was the danger Fistandantilus spoke of? He turned to question the archmage—then stopped, catching his breath as he saw it.

  It was the faintest of ripples, disturbing the sands of the canyon floor for just a second before it vanished again. He blinked and had nearly convinced himself he hadn’t seen it at all when it appeared again—a hundred yards behind the trailing knights, shifting the sand slightly, only to be gone again. None of them had spotted it; they were watching for death from above, while it stalked them below.

  “Palado Calib,” he breathed, rising to his feet “What is it?”

  “The same as any of the beasts that haunt these lands,” Fistandantilus said. “The spawn of wild magic, set loose by my unwise brethren when they destroyed the Tower. But this beast is particularly cunning. It will wait for the right moment before it strikes … and when it does, it will kill them all. The Kingpriest, Lord Tithian, your precious sister … unless someone stops it.”

  Cathan glared at the wizard. “This is one of your tricks, isn’t it? A ruse, to make me go to them.”

  “Possibly,” the Dark One replied. He spoke another word, and the images in the pool flickered and faded. The water swirled as it drained away. “But can you afford to believe that? Are you willing to bet your sister’s life?”

  The cavern was silent. Cathan glanced into the pool, watching it empty itself again, the scrying spell done. His fists clenched, unclenched, clenched again.

  Something floated toward him, glinting in the lamplight. It was Ebonbane, moving through the air to hover before him.

  “You’ll want your weapon now, I think,” Fistandantilus said.

  Cathan shot him one last furious glare. Then, with a snarl, he grabbed the sword out of the air and ran out of the cavern, as fast as his injured leg could carry him.

  *****

  Something was wrong. Tithian could feel it.

  There was nothing out of the ordinary that he could see. The processional—a half hundred of his knights and as many clerics, along with the Kingpriest, the scholar Varen, and the MarSevrins—had set out from the Lordcity on the first day of the year. Three weeks had passed, and only their surroundings had changed—first the grasses of the old city-states, then the Shifting Sands, now the snaking canyons of the Tears, bringing back terrible memories. All the while, he’d wondered: Cathan had chosen to return here? Of all places in the world, he had come back to Losarcum? Beldinas believed it, though, strongly enough to leave the Temple in Quarath’s care while he made this journey, so here they were, riding slowly along the rock-strewn road, the priests singing soft hymns while the men of the Divine Hammer searched the clifftops for danger, and found none.

  So then why this strange feeling, this prickling at his scalp? Why, when there was no foul scent on the air, no odd noises or movements from the canyon walls, was a lingering doubt growing in his mind? He bit his lip, running a hand over his sweat-damp hair, then glanced over at the Lightbringer on his chariot.

  Beldinas didn’t notice. He was conferring with Varen, listening while the scholar told him this was the way he and the sell-swords had come, half a year earlier. The processional, had already killed several magic-warped creatures, and sent many more slithering or scuttling away in terror.

  “The cave of amber is only four miles from here, Holiness,” said Varen, eyes lowered so Beldinas’s light wouldn’t hurt them. “I’m sure he won’t be far.”

  “No,” the Lightbringer replied, “he won’t be.”

  Tithian’s scalp prickled again. Unbidden, his hand moved to the hilt of his sword. To his right, he heard an intake of breath.

  “You feel it too?” he murmured, his eyes flicking in that direction. “What is it?”

  Sir Bron’s nose wrinkled, his lips skinning back from large teeth. He was gripping his sword, too—had bared two inches of its blade, his other hand tightening about his palfrey’s reins. “I’m not—wait,” he said, and looked down. “Gods bite me.”

  Tithian followed his gaze and uttered a quiet oath. The ground was moving, just slightly—the rocks shifting and the sand aquiver beneath his horse’s hooves. He yanked his sword free a moment before Bron did, sounds echoing off
the cliffs. A chorus of ringing steel followed as the other knights drew their blades without knowing why. Tithian wheeled his horse toward Beldinas’s golden chariot, his heart stopping as he saw the sand beneath it start to bulge.

  “Holiness!” he cried, digging in his spurs.

  He was a moment too late. Beldinas was just turning to face him when the ground erupted in a great fountain of sand. The chariot leapt into the air, the draft-horses screaming as it pulled them up with it, then it tilted and came crashing down again on its side. There was a terrible splintering, and Beldinas tumbled free, sprawling face-first onto the ground. All around, men and women cried out in horror to see him fall—and then again when they saw what had caused the accident.

  It was maggot-pale, a tremendous worm with hooked claws bristling at its sides. A small forest of tentacles—translucent white flesh showing the blue of veins beneath—writhed on its front end, making wet sounds as they lashed the air. Amidst them, a great maw opened like a horrid flower, its inner edges ringed with rows of sharp teeth. It rose ten feet out of the hole where the Lightbringer’s chariot had been, coiling in midair as everyone gawked at it.

  Everyone but the Kingpriest. He lay still, knocked out by his fall. Tithian leapt from his saddle, landing hard on the unsteady ground, and ran to Beldinas’s side. Bron joined him, and so did three other knights who were nearby; together they formed a ring of steel about the glowing, motionless form. Tithian swiped at a tentacle that came close to him, his blade whistling through the air.

  ‘To me!” he called. “Protect the Lightbringer!”

  His men responded with admirable speed, and some of the clergy did too, brandishing maces and iron-shod staffs. Other clerics scattered, screaming. On the far side, Rath MarSevrin had drawn a slender, curved saber and stood protectively while Tancred hurried their mother away from the white worm. Closer still, Varen stood stiff, paralyzed by fear or fascination in the monster’s shadow.