Nightlord: Shadows

by Garon Whited

  We stayed like that for several minutes, waiting. Eventually, a creature, resembling a walrus more than anything else, glided up close enough to see through the swarms of fish. It had long, thick arms ending in three-fingered hands and large, black eyes. It blinked at me several times, turned suddenly, and darted away.

  I lowered Firebrand and it stopped burning.

  What do you think, Boss?

  I think it was sent to look. I don’t know how smart those things are, but they seem to work for the sea-people. My guess is that someone will be along shortly.

  And I was right.

  A dozen of the walrus-things returned and the fishy schools hastily dismissed class. Behind them, carrying glass-tipped lances, were the sea-people I remembered: Webbed hands with well-defined fingers and legs that ended flippers—I doubt they could walk on land; they didn’t have “ankles.” They wore minimal clothes, mostly utilitarian belts and such, apparently woven out of seaweed.

  I got my translation spell ready. I’ve never eaten a sea-person, so I have no familiarity with their whalesong-dolphin-squeaky language. I’m not sure I could say anything in it, anyway. I took a couple of deep breaths to clear the air out of my lungs. Burbling does not help when trying to talk.

  They surrounded me, much like the last time, but they seemed to be curious rather than cautious. One of them swam right up to Bronze and looked her in the eye. She blinked at him, just to show that she could. He made a peculiar warbling sound; I think it was laughter. He then reached out, slowly, to stroke Bronze’s forehead. She let him, and he made the sound again.

  Then we were surrounded much more closely. Webbed hands roamed everywhere, touching Bronze, tugging at my clothes, taking my hand and examining the unwebbed fingers…

  “Excuse me,” I said. The translation spell did its job; they understood the impulse behind the phrase. I was dealing with a rather alien culture, one that might not have corresponding words, so I was using the less precise version of the spell. It broadcast the idea, much like a telepath might, so they “heard” it in their language, in whatever fashion they could understand best.

  They backed away suddenly, mostly out of surprise.

  “Who are you?” one asked, and I heard both the sound of whalesong and the words. Good spell. Last time I tried to talk to these people, I had to fall back on tendrils and purely psychic communication.

  “My name is Halar,” I said, my voice sounding much lower and deeper underwater. “I’ve come down from the world above to talk to you.”

  This seemed to surprise them. They whistled and sang at each other for a bit, then the apparent leader waved his spear and quieted his friends.

  “This is strange,” he said, “but there are old stories of one such as you. If you are a descendent of the Bright One, we will be pleased to take you to the gathering-place.”

  “Bright One?” I asked.

  “The Bringer of Fire.”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course. By all means, let us go to the gathering-place.”

  “This way.”

  Bronze and I sink like bricks, so running along the bottom of the ocean isn’t all that hard. The water does tend to slow her down a lot, though, and the terrain is… unpredictable. They don’t have roads on the ocean floor because they don’t travel on it; they swim. Very quickly, they outpaced us, then turned back to see what the delay was.

  I discussed it with Bronze. She wasn’t happy, but agreed that they should probably carry me. After all, I had to be on the surface, lungs drained of seawater, and in a light-proof place before dawn. Time was the important thing.

  The sea-people were very accommodating. They got the walrus-things to carry me—this time, four of them at once; one for each limb. We descended ever deeper into the abyssal dark of the ocean.

  And I realized it wasn’t quite as dark as I had thought. The glass-tipped spears gave off light; the glass was enchanted. It was hard for my night-eyes to notice, but every time a spearpoint came near anything, that thing gained colors. Well, I knew the sea-people were magic-workers; now that they had moved from the Bone Age to the Glass Age, it was only a matter of time before they enchanted it.

  We crossed quite a lot of countryside—underwater countryside—on our way down to a city of coral domes. As before, they took me to the largest one in sight, but I also recognized that this was not the same group of domes—the same town?—as before. I was considerably east of where I originally tried to drown, so that made sense.

  The interior of the dome wasn’t quite pitch-black; there were a lot of people in there with glowing spears. I suspect the light wasn’t much more than starlight, but these people have exceptionally large eyes. They probably saw better in the dark than owls. And, judging by the sensations in my inner ears, they definitely had some sort of sonar going on.

  My guides dispersed to various perches all around the dome while the walrus-things settled me to the floor in the center. I stood up as they swam away.

  “Hello to you all,” I offered. They hroomed and wheeed for a bit. They didn’t sound all that different, really, from any other crowd of people talking to each other. It was just a bit more musical, and with that odd distortion you get when hearing something underwater.

  “Sorry to rush you,” I continued, “but is there someone here who can be a spokesman? I’d like to talk to you about something, but that’s hard to do with everyone. Can just one of you talk to me, please?”

  More discussion. Eventually, an obvious elder glided over to take up station-keeping in front of me.

  “I will speak,” he told me.

  “Excellent!” And I told him about what I wanted to do with Mochara’s sewer system. Land-based water would come out from the ground, like a dirty river, and disperse in the ocean. It would be a long way from here, of course—only about a quarter-mile, maybe a half-mile from the shore. Would that be a problem for them? Or would that cause an area downstream with the current to be better for their farming? Did they have any objections or suggestions?

  We discussed underwater ecology and farming practices. That is, they explained that they had no objection, provided they could pick the spot. I simply agreed with everything and promised to do it their way. I know when I’m out of my depth.

  Four fresh walrus-things helped me to return to the shallows; thirty or forty sea-people accompanied me. I get the feeling they don’t do much of anything without company. They don’t seem to like being alone. It makes me wonder if they evolved from schooling fish, rather than predatory fish. Assuming they evolved. I have some evidence that various forms of life were simply created.

  In the shallows, I stuck to Bronze while they scouted around. I’m not sure what they were looking for. Maybe they were picking a good spot for kelp beds. Maybe they were sniffing the current to determine where the watershed would go. Maybe they were just swimming around for a while to make it look good. I don’t know; I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

  Eventually, they reached a consensus. I marked the spot with a magical spike and thanked them for their help. They thanked me for being so considerate. We parted company in a thankful frame of mind.

  As Bronze carried me away, I laid down a magical line for the mountain to follow. When it grew tunnels out into the sea, it could follow that and create an outlet when it reached the spike. I would leave a line like that all the way to the wall at Mochara so the mountain could link into it easily. That was the sewage problem solved, at least.

  Something tickled me in the back of my mind. Like something I should remember, or something I should think about. Tianna, perhaps? Was there something I’d forgotten to do? Maybe a promise I’d made and skipped over? Perhaps… but I felt a strange urgency to my thought despite the vague, unformed nature of it.

  Bronze and I headed for the shore. I had a slightly-panicked moment when I saw bright light ahead; I thought it was the sunrise. But, no, we were headed north, out of the ocean, not east.

  We surfaced, splashed to the shore below the
city wall. A pillar of fire split the night over Mochara like a signpost for Israelites. It towered into the night sky like a searchlight of solid flame, barely wavering as it reached for and blotted out the stars.

  I stared at it for a second. Amber was doing something damned—or blesséd—impressive, but I wasn’t sure what or why. Something about it seemed to scream, but the actual sound, if any, was inaudible at this distance.

  Want to go check, Boss?

  I started to say, “Yes, of course,” and spouted water. I spat, coughed, and eventually just hung upside-down off one side of Bronze; she was helpful enough to hold one ankle with her mane while I drained. Several deep breaths later and some coughing to make sure, I was internally dry. I swung up again and seated myself in the saddle.

  “Yes, I think we will,” I said, answering Firebrand. Bronze went up the steps and the men on gate duty hailed us. I identified myself—I couldn’t blame them for being a little confused; I’m not usually a sea monster, and Bronze was cool enough to not breathe fire involuntarily. On the other hand, we were very clearly illuminated; people in the mountain would notice this. They let us in as soon as I replied; maybe they were just overcautious from nervousness. I sympathized fully.

  We hurried into town to find the pillar of fire. I was willing to bet it was at the Temple of the Mother of Flame, jetting up through the oculus at the top of the dome. I was close; it was at the priestess’ residence. The perspective had fooled me about the size of the pillar. It was much wider than I thought, probably thirty or forty feet across. The temple proper, statue, dome, and all was apparently untouched and oblivious to the raging inferno that was melting the walls of the house.

  As we got closer, it became harder to get closer; a crowd had gathered to form bucket-chains. Everything near the priestess’ residence was on fire. The chains of people were splashing the buildings and making it difficult to get through. I had to do some shouting and Bronze a little screaming; she can sound a lot like a steam whistle when she tries. This cleared a path pretty effectively. That got us up to the grounds and the bucket-lines re-formed behind us.

  The roof of the residence was gone, blasted or melted away by a roaring column of yellow-white fire vomiting a thousand feet or so into the night sky. It looked like a particularly bright and clean volcano. It seemed to have a vague suggestion of a female outline in the fire, fifty feet tall or more.

  Well, that’s not good, I reflected. Speaking would have required shouting.

  You think? Firebrand replied.

  Do your best to keep me from being broiled.

  You sure you don’t want to burn off the buildings around it, first?

  They’re blocking the heat from reaching the buildings behind them. We have to deal with the central column. If I live through that, then we can work on damage control. Now focus, okay?

  I’ll try, Boss, but you know this is divine fire type stuff. I’m also not so good at keeping things from burning…

  I know. Just suck up whatever you can so it doesn’t get to me. Every little bit helps. Got it?

  I’ll do my best!

  I put a heavy-duty heat reflection spell on myself. Whatever was going on in there, Amber and Tianna were involved. Getting it to stop—or, at least, getting them uninvolved—was about to happen, even if I had to take another big, hot bite out of Sparky.

  I really didn’t want to do that. The last one didn’t sit well. But what choice did I have?

  I dismounted and started stripping, piling things next to Bronze. She looked at me reproachfully.

  “You’ll melt,” I said. I didn’t need to raise my voice, not for her. We don’t communicate with words, as such, but we understand each other.

  She didn’t argue it, but she also didn’t like it. I continued dropping things next to her: cloak, swordbelt, armor, and various other accoutrements that couldn’t stand up to a pyrotechnic version of Hell. In short, I got naked; none of it would help, and having it melt on me or catch fire might actually distract me.

  This attracted a surprising amount of attention. You’d think people would have other things on their minds.

  “Besides,” I added to Bronze, “if I scream, I want you to get a good run-up, charge straight in, and open a hole for me to get out through. We can both get out quickly and hopefully without anything overwhelmingly fatal. Got that?”

  She was happier about that, but not much. She agreed to rescue me if she could and kicked at the street a bit, gouging out divots she could use for starting blocks. I pulled Firebrand from its scabbard.

  Are we really going in there, Boss?

  Yes.

  Um. Couldn’t we just wait until the fiery bitch-goddess finishes her tantrum?

  What does it say when the flaming Dragonsword doesn’t want to go into the fire?

  No, I answered.

  Can I ask why?

  My daughter and granddaughter are in there.

  And that’s important, right?

  I imagined a glacier with letters of blue ice: Yes.

  Firebrand shuddered psychically.

  Got it, Boss. Important. Very important. Really high priority.

  I didn’t bother to answer. Instead, I took a deep and biologically unnecessary breath.

  I reassured myself that I survived Sparky’s previous blast. By some reflexive, defensive measure, I blocked Sparky’s initial burp of pyrotechnic annihilation. Looking up at a tower of fire so bright and hot that it ignited things across the street, I was not reassured.

  Could I do it consciously? I knew I was going to try. So I denied the flames. I rejected them. I accepted their existence, denied them any relationship to me.

  I looked into the fire and told it No. I held that thought, concentrated on it, felt that all-inclusive negation like I felt the setting of the sun. Holding that thought, living in it, I faced the fire.

  One hand held up to shield my eyes from the light, I went into the melting building. Immediately, I found the going much more difficult. The floor had softened, forming a treacherous, deceptively slippery surface, like walking on mud-covered clay. Molten stone squished between my toes like hot mud. With my attention focused on an all-inclusive negation, it was difficult to keep my footing.

  It didn’t hurt. I wasn’t on fire. It was hot, but not painful. As long as the sea-people didn’t have a sudden crisis of faith, maybe I could get through this.

  Carefully, I made my way through the remains of a slumped wall and into what I thought of as the bench room. The pillar of fire was centered there, so Amber should be there. I couldn’t see a thing through the yellow-white wall of light, but the sense of her presence—outraged, angry, agonized—grew stronger.

  Can you see anything? I asked Firebrand.

  Not exactly. There’re two people in there, sort of. One of them is having a sort of tantrum or something. The other one is unconscious.

  Sparky and Amber?

  No. I’d know if it was the flaming goddess. I think Amber is having the fit and the little one is the one knocked out.

  At the speed of thought, even with just a small portion of your attention, you can pack a lot of swearing into a fraction of a second.

  Blinded by the sun-bright pillar of fire, I went ahead and closed my eyes. I extended the rest of my senses, looking for magic, looking for the flow of living energies. Yes, that helped…

  The pillar of fire was definitely a Sparky-like manifestation. Inside it was Amber, somehow larger than she should be, towering tall, taking up the whole of the thirty-foot-wide column of fire. She didn’t seem corporeal, but spiritual, as though her soul had come loose from her flesh. I had no idea where her body was, but putting her back into it struck me as a very good idea. She was slowly coming apart, as a spirit does when it isn’t bound to something.

  On that level, I realized I could hear her. Mingled with the roar of the flame was an ongoing, unending scream, mixed pain and rage.

  Can you get her attention? I asked.

  Are you serious, Boss?
Firebrand demanded.

  I had to admit, Firebrand had a point.

  Fine. Can you tell me where the unconscious person is? I can’t see through this hash of light and life-energy.

  Gotcha. Circle around to the left. A little more. Okay, you’re as close as we can get. She’s about six or seven feet in from the edge of the fire.

  I added some more vocabulary to my previous observations.

  I decided there was nothing for it but to try. Still refusing the flames, I went into the pillar of fire.

  The column was a quasi-solid cylinder of flame, blazing outward from a center point and blasting upward from there. I felt it pushing against me, almost stumbled over something, recovered, knelt. It was someone, my hands told me; someone small. I lifted her and carried her out of the flames.

  Facing away from the fire, eyes slitted against the light, I could see what I already knew. Tianna was unconscious. I had no idea why. She seemed unhurt. I wiped away melted floor from her, much like wiping off mud—she’s a fire-witch; they’re fireproof—and realized she was also naked. Apparently, a fire-witch can defend her clothes from coronal mass ejections, but only if she pays attention. And me without a spare shirt. Well, my cloak was okay, outside on Bronze. Once we got out…

  She didn’t wake up, but I did spot that her breathing was almost nonexistent. Was there anything to breathe in this inferno? Can a fire-witch be suffocated? Presumably so; fires can be extinguished if you deny them air. It seemed reasonable that it was still an issue for a priestess.

  I carried her outside and into fresher air. Once I set her down, I breathed into her a few times; my nighttime lungs don’t use the air they take in. After a couple of boosts, her breathing deepened and she opened her eyes.

  “Grandpa!” she screamed. “You came to rescue us!”

  “Yes,” I shouted back, not sure what she meant. “Are you okay?”

  “Some man hurt Mom!”

  I glanced at the pillar of fire again. Yes, that could easily be a dying fire-witch. Given that she was completely out of her body, she might be a dead fire-witch.