Fire Keep

by J. Scott Savage

  6: Training

  Marcus woke to a steady banging on his front door. He vaulted out of bed, shouting, “Master Therapass!” before he was completely awake.

  But when he threw open the door, no one was there. It was still dark outside, where a cluster of stars shined so brightly that it looked like he could almost touch them. He stepped through the door and looked around.

  “Master Therapass?”

  The stars moved, and he rubbed his eyes. They weren’t stars at all, but brightly glowing insects. Sort of like the fireflies he and Kyja had seen in the Midwest, except much brighter—like electric diamonds. As he watched, the insects changed color from white to red to purple to orange. They danced though the chilly air in a ballet of ever-changing geometric shapes.

  As Marcus reached for the insects, they swirled away, forming themselves into a face. A female voice laughed. “No touching. Only looking.”

  “Divum?” Marcus said, backing up a step. “What are you doing here? Where’s Master Therapass?”

  The glowing insects disappeared, replaced by the air elemental, now made of leaves, flowers, and what looked like silver smoke. “He hasn’t arrived yet. But I was instructed to begin your lessons this morning. The first thing you need to know is that air magic is the most powerful of all the magics. And the most difficult to master.”

  “Hang on a second.” Marcus ran his hands through the top of his hair. “You’re here to teach me magic? It’s not light yet.”

  Divum giggled. “The sun is up. You just can’t see it.” The leaves and flowers changed into what looked like a bunch of squirming red pieces of spaghetti. “Besides, the worm that rises earliest avoids the bird’s beak.”

  Marcus had never heard the saying put that way before and wasn’t entirely sure it made sense. But he was awake now, so he figured he might as well see what the Aerisian wanted to teach him. “Okay. Let me have it. What’s so great about air magic?”

  Riph Raph, who had made his way sleepily out the door, eyed the juicy worms with suddenly bright eyes. “Breakfast!” But as he started toward the worms, part of them broke off and morphed into a spiked wooden club. Without warning, the club swung toward Marcus.

  “Hey!” he yelled, ducking out of the way. Without his staff to lean on, his feet slipped out from under him on the dew-covered grass, and he slammed to the ground.

  “You must do better than that, or the land elementals will have to teach you how to use magic to put your teeth back in,” Divum called. The sweetness of her voice was offset by the club circling around and swinging at Marcus’s face.

  Panicked, he managed at the last minute to deflect the club with a blast of air. “Geez!” he howled. “You could give me a little warning.”

  “There is no warning in battle,” Divum sang.

  The club swung again, but this time Marcus was ready. Waiting until the spikes were inches from his face, he attacked the club with another blast. This time, instead of simply deflecting it with a single flow of air, he grabbed the air inside the wood itself and yanked in all directions. The club exploded into thousands of tiny splinters.

  “How do you like that?” he said, pushing himself to his knees and doing a little victory dance with his arms.

  Riph Raph bobbed his head in time with Marcus’s dance. “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You want any more?”

  “Better,” Divum said. “As long as people use only wooden weapons, you’ll be fine. Let’s see how you do with something a bit more difficult.” With a flash of light, the club pieces turned into a shining metal blade.

  Over the next hour, Marcus fought against a sword, two swords in unison, a spear, arrows, and a throwing axe. Each weapon required a different kind of spell to be defeated. By the time he’d driven the axe so deeply into a nearby tree that even Divum couldn’t pull it out, he was covered with sweat and bleeding from scores of nicks and cuts. The morning air, which had felt cold when he first woke up, was a relief to his burning skin.

  “Can we take a break for a few minutes?” he gasped. “I think I can handle whatever you throw at me.”

  “Of course,” Divum said, returning to what seemed to be her natural form, which looked mostly like a normal woman if you didn’t pay attention to the fact that she was made of leaves, rocks, flowers, sticks, and anything else that might be handy. She lay back on the ground, watching the sky, which was quickly turning from purple to orange as the sun peeked above the cliffs surrounding the valley.

  “Do you have any idea why Master Therapass is having me learn all this?” Marcus asked. He watched the Aerisian carefully, thinking about the note.

  “I would assume he’d like to keep you from being chopped to pieces.” Divum laughed. “That, or he knew how much I’d enjoy throwing swords at you. It’s not as much fun as, say, teeth made of ice. But it suffices to keep me amused.”

  “Haha.” Marcus groaned, remembering how close he and Kyja had come to being killed by the Frost Bite. “But seriously, don’t you think this seems like a waste of time with Kyja still somewhere in Fire Keep? Maybe Master Therapass, has—I don’t know—some other plan he isn’t telling us about?”

  If Divum had written the note, she didn’t take the bait. Instead, she sat up and stared at him. “Knowing how to protect yourself, and others, is never a waste of time.”

  Marcus shook his head. “How about if you tell me what you know about Fire Keep? I can protect myself fine.”

  “Can you?”

  Divum did something to the air that Marcus couldn’t make out. He looked around for another weapon, but there was nothing in sight, which was a relief. Marcus leaned over, trying to catch his breath. “Yeah. I mean . . .”

  The Aerisian stood, and a pair of small, gold blades flashed between her fingers. For some reason, as Marcus stared at the blades, a cold ball filled his stomach. As she walked toward him, he tried to cast a flow of air to push away the weapons, but stopping the Aerisian seemed nearly impossible. Had he really believed he could protect himself? Compared to the air elemental, he was nothing—a baby crying in his mother’s arms.

  Terror filled Marcus’s mind as Divum walked slowly toward him. The blades were so small. But what if they were really sharp—like razors? Or poisonous? He tried one last time to summon an air spell as the realization came to him that Divum must not be on his side at all. She’d joined the Dark Circle, just like Calem. But he couldn’t seem to focus. His skin, which had been burning up before, was ice.

  The Aerisian knelt before him, her eyes glittering, her smile wide. She placed the blades against the sides of his neck, and Marcus knew he was about to die.

  “One thing you might not know about air magic,” she whispered, caressing the sides of his neck with her blades, “is that it can also control emotions. A strong enough spell can change the morale of an entire army. Would you like to learn how?”

  All at once, his fear was gone—along with his doubts about Divum’s being on his side. With the sleeve of his robe, he wiped a sheen of perspiration from his forehead then nodded. “Yeah, that would probably come in handy.”

  For the remainder of the morning, Marcus continued to practice air magic with Divum. Influencing emotions was much harder than blocking weapons, requiring a more subtle use of air that was more art than science. He couldn’t control Divum’s emotions at all, but he did manage to convince a soldier that he was hungry. And he made Riph Raph so giddy, the skyte got hiccups from laughing.

  The air magic he mastered the quickest was extinguishing flames. The biggest fire could be put out easily by cutting off its oxygen. He wondered if he could use the skill to offset a Summoner’s fire breath.

  At some point, Riph Raph brought him his staff. By the time Graehl showed up with fruit, cheese, and sliced meat, Marcus was exhausted. He collapsed by a small stream, eyeing the food like a lion studying a grazing antelope.

  “How goes the magic?” Graehl asked as Marcus piled several slices of beef and cheese on a piece of bread.

  “Divum is
a great teacher,” Marcus said around a mouthful of food. “Even if she does seem to take a little too much enjoyment from my mistakes.”

  Divum chimed—she was now a series of small brass cymbals—and smiled. “What can I say? Humans are amusing.”

  “She’s right,” Riph Raph said, flying over to snag a likely looking piece of meat. “You were pretty funny the first time she sent a flame dragon your way. You should have seen yourself. Helllllp me!”

  “Whatever” Marcus snorted. He stuffed his mouth with a handful of fruit that looked sort of like raspberries, but tasted like fruit-punch-flavored marshmallows. “Have you heard anything from Master Therapass?”

  Graehl gave him a considering look. “Not a thing. I assume he’s doing something important. Once you finish your lunch, you can continue your magic lessons.”

  “Continue?” Marcus looked at Divum and groaned. “I thought you said we were done for the day.”

  “We are,” Divum said with a soft musical clattering.

  “But we’re only beginning,” Cascade said, forming himself from the shallow water of the stream in a way that always freaked Marcus out a little.

  Marcus turned to Graehl for help. “But I already know water magic. I can make a pretty good water creature, and my ice bolts rock.”

  “Water magic is much more than water creatures,” Cascade said.

  Marcus felt a sharp pain across the front of his right arm and turned to see that the Fontasian had sliced open the skin halfway between his palm and his elbow with a blade of sharpened ice. “What are you doing?” Marcus yelped. “That hurt.” Warm blood oozed from the wound and dripped down the side of his arm.

  “I imagine it does,” Cascade said. “For your information, water magic is the most powerful of all magics. It will not be as easily mastered as air magic. One of the greatest strengths of water magic is healing. So you may as well get to work on closing that wound.” He nodded thoughtfully as though reviewing what he had said and agreeing with it. “The cut won’t hurt for long though. There was a mild poison on the blade. It won’t kill you. But it will numb your body for several hours if you don’t counteract it quickly.”

  Marcus didn’t know if it was because he’d already spent all morning practicing air magic, or if water magic really was that much harder, but healing wounds was exhausting. And all of the practicing was done on himself.

  Without any warning, Cascade held a burning stick against Marcus’s hand and said, “Let’s work on burns.”

  Then he snuck up behind Marcus, hit him over the head with a branch, and said, “Concussions are an interesting case.”

  He had never been as glad as when Cascade told him they were done with healing for the time being and they were moving on to seeing. But seeing proved to be harder than healing. When Marcus couldn’t see through the stone cliffs outside their camp, Cascade gave him a befuddled look and shook his head. “You saw through the tree, easily enough.”

  “A tree’s like this thick” Marcus said, holding out his hands. “That cliff must be a hundred feet of solid rock. Duh.”

  “I am not familiar with the word duh,” Cascade said with a placid expression. “Does it mean difficult?”

  Marcus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s exactly what it means.”

  “Well the more duh the task, the more important it is that you practice it. After you conquer seeing, we will work on invisibility. That, too, is duh, but you must not let it stop you.”

  Late that afternoon, Raindrop came by to work with Marcus on weather control, blocking curses, and visions. Marcus managed to create a small, black raincloud, which chased Riph Raph around the valley floor, shooting him with tiny lightning bolts. At least half the time, Marcus was able to either block or cure curses, which covered his face with angry red hives, made him slobber uncontrollably, and caused him to bark like a dog.

  “I’d rather learn how to cast curses,” Marcus growled irritably.

  Raindrop shook out her color-changing robe and smiled. “You have no need of curses at the present time.”

  Marcus wasn’t so sure. “The next time I see Master Therapass, I’d like to try a couple of curses on that old wizard for putting me through this day of torture.” Speaking of Master Therapass, where was he? Marcus looked over to where the sun was beginning to set. He’d been so busy practicing magic that he’d nearly forgotten he was waiting for Therapass and Tankum to arrive.

  An unsettling thought occurred to him. Had the wizard distracted him on purpose? Was this entire day nothing more than a way to keep his mind off of Land Keep and recuing Kyja?

  7: Doubts and Deceptions

  As the sun disappeared behind the cliffs, Marcus made his way toward the building he’d eaten dinner in the night before. A pair of soldiers stood outside the door, eating roasted chicken from metal plates. They glanced curiously at Marcus and Riph Raph as they approached, then turned and wandered back to their stations.

  Marcus yanked open the door, hoping for news on Master Therapass and Tankum, but Graehl sat alone by the fire. He shook his head. “Still no word.” Reading the look of frustration on Marcus’s face, he frowned. “I know. I’m concerned too. I’m starting to worry something might have happened to them.”

  Marcus dropped onto a bench and banged his fist on the wooden table. “Then let’s go looking for them. If they’re in trouble, they may need our help.”

  “We can’t do that.” Graehl reached into the fire with a pair of tongs and removed a whole chicken from one of the slowly turning spits. “Therapass made me promise we wouldn’t search for him. He doesn’t even want the water elementals checking up on him. Whatever he’s doing, he wants it kept secret.”

  Marcus whipped his wand out of his belt and extinguished the fire with a single burst of air magic, which made his ears pop. “Listen to yourself! This doesn’t make any sense.”

  Graehl nodded appreciatively. “Looks like you learned something today.” He handed Marcus half a chicken and a fluffy biscuit on a metal plate. “Eat. You must be starving.”

  “I’m not eating anything until I know what’s going on,” Marcus said, pushing the plate away.

  “If you’re not going to eat that . . .” Riph Raph said, tentatively. “I’d hate to see it go to waste.”

  “Have it,” Marcus said. He stared at Graehl. “There’s something you’re not telling me. What is it?”

  Graehl waved his wand at the fireplace, bringing the flames back to life. “I don’t know anything. And frankly . . .” He sighed. “Frankly, I’m as worried as you are. But I made a promise, and until I hear differently, I’m not comfortable breaking it. At least not yet.”

  Not yet. What did that mean? Again, Marcus considered telling Graehl about the note. But it was clear that whoever had given him the message didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.

  “Answer me truthfully. Do you trust Master Therapass?”

  Graehl blinked. “Do you know of any reason that I shouldn’t?”

  Marcus chewed on the inside of his cheek. “You mean besides the fact that he told me we were going to Land Keep, then dumped me here with no idea of what’s going on? While Kyja could be hurt or trapped, for all I know?”

  “There is that.” Graehl fiddled with something in his pocket. “Just between the two of us, I’m beginning to wonder.” Although they were alone in the room he glanced toward the door and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t say anything, but if he doesn’t show up by tomorrow night, I’m planning on sneaking past the guards.”

  “How?” Marcus asked. “Take me with you.”

  The tall man seemed to think it over for a minute. Then shook his head. “It’s too dangerous for you to leave. I wouldn’t take you unless it was an emergency.”

  “It is an emergency,” Marcus said. “We have to rescue Kyja. I don’t know how much longer she’s got.”

  Graehl grunted. “Eat your dinner and keep up your strength.”

  Marcus took his plate back from Riph Raph and fo
rced himself to finish his food.

  As soon as they were outside the building and on their way back to the cabin, Riph Raph flew to Marcus’s shoulder. “What was that all about? You really think the wizard’s up to something?”

  “Oh he’s up to something,” Marcus said. “I just don’t know what.” He weighed the pros and cons for a minute, then went ahead and told Riph Raph about the note he’d found under his pillow. “You and I are in this together,” he said when he’d finished the story. “We both understand that the most important thing is finding Kyja.”

  Riph Raph peered around the dark valley, his eyes reflecting the silver moonlight. “Who do you think left the note?”

  “I don’t know,” Marcus admitted. “I can’t imagine Cascade or one of the other water elementals leaving that kind of message; they don’t have the imagination. And if it was Divum, the note would probably have exploded in my face. She thinks that kind of thing is hilarious. That leaves Lanctrus-Darnoc or one of the soldiers.”

  The skyte licked a bit of chicken from his beak. “What about Graehl?”

  Marcus had considered him, but what would have been the point of his leaving a note? “If he wanted to warn me, he could have done it at any time.”

  Eying each of the soldiers they passed—wondering if one of them might have written the note—Marcus made his way back to the cabin. The first thing he did when they stepped through the door was check under his pillow and beneath his blanket. But whoever had left the original message apparently didn’t have any more information to pass along.

  As tired as he was, Marcus fell asleep almost immediately, and what seemed like only a couple of hours later, there was a knock on his door. This time, Marcus had a pretty good idea who it would be. Aching and sore, he grabbed his staff and limped across the room.

  Outside, the inquisitive faces of Lanctrus-Darnoc greeted him. “Good morning,” the fox said. “Did you sleep well?” the boar asked.