The Sentient Fire (The Seven Signs)

by D. W. Hawkins

  The black fluid filled the Circle, undulating like a calm sea.

  “I’m sorry, my love,” Inera said, closing her eyes, “It’s too late, now.”

  Dormael’s heart skipped a beat in disbelief. This can’t happen this way! He pulled again at his Kai, trying desperately to wrench his magic out one last time. There was nothing.

  He was going to die.

  “Goodbye, Dormael. I will always love you.”

  With that, Inera turned her head back to the blackened Circle, snarled another guttural word that echoed with that other voice, and tossed another splotch of blood directly into the middle of the Circle.

  There was a sound like Dormael had never heard, a strange sucking noise that seemed to pull sound itself from his ears. Everything in the room, including Dormael dangling on the chain, was pulled toward the Circle. The black fluid began to spin impossibly fast, and then the center of the Circle seemed to pull away, sinking into the wall and then farther, as if it were opening into the Void itself.

  Something reached a sinuous, wet hand from the black, grasping the edge of the Circle where it met the wall. Its skin was a grayish color, its fingers too long, disjointed and deformed. Dormael gazed in horror at the hand, then at the thing that began to squirm forth from the Gate Inera had created.

  Its head appeared first, narrow and pointed in some strange triangular fashion, its eyes glowing yellow embers along the sides of its face. It didn’t seem to have a mouth, but there was a hole at the tip of its face, and a long tongue, festooned with long hairs or spikes, whipped out and tasted the air as it seemed to slither into the room.

  It wasn’t large – in fact, it was about half the size of Dormael. It pulled itself with those too long and skinny hands into the room, and plopped out onto the stone floor. It had four long, skinny arms, but no legs. The rear end of the thing seemed to be a boneless flesh bag, and dragged lifelessly behind the creature as it came forward, its glowing eyes fixed on Dormael. Its fingers and tongue quivered strangely as it entered, and there seemed to be a strange warping of the air that rose up from the thing as it slithered fully into the stone chamber.

  Dormael began to scream, but suddenly he felt something touch his mind, and that strange stretching of his senses stopped his reaction completely. He’d felt this sensation before, in that strange dream, and when he’d been on the cusp of death. Somehow, the alien power he’d encountered was here. Time seemed to be frozen around him, the expressions of the guards frozen on their faces, and the strange thing on the floor moving forward now only inch by inch.

  This is an abomination.

  I thought so, too, Dormael thought wryly, grasping onto humor before he could go mad with fear. The presence in his mind didn’t understand.

  The woman summoned this thing from the depths?

  Yes…what is it? What is it going to do to me?

  It is a Taker. It will crawl into your body and eat your insides, then wear your skin.

  Sounds…disgusting.

  I do not understand this word.

  Why are you here? How did you get here? Through that Gate?

  I…do not know. Somehow, sometimes, I can see what you see. My imprisonment…it is weakening. I think that you have done this.

  How? Dormael thought incredulously. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this strange thing in his head. He still didn’t know what it was. The thing on the floor was still moving toward him impossibly slow.

  I do not know. My memory is…fragmented. Part of me is gone. I was two, and now I am one. But now, there is you.

  Well, I don’t think I will be here much longer. Not if that thing on the floor has its way.

  If you die, what will happen?

  I don’t know, Dormael thought sarcastically, I’ve never died before, not all the way. The presence was quiet for a few moments, and Dormael could feel it pondering, trying to piece something together. Sharing his head with the thing was starting to give him a headache.

  I may be able to touch your world. I will try.

  Time rushed back into place. The Taker squirmed, quivering toward Dormael quicker than he thought the thing would be able to move. It reached the edge of the Greater Circle and stopped to gather its slimy, skinny arms beneath its body. It started to raise itself from the floor.

  Then, Dormael felt his head swim. His body tensed, as if he were falling from a great height, and his vision stretched, the far wall seeming to move away from him as everything in his peripheral sight seemed to come closer. His mind reeled, and his vision blurred as everything he could see seemed to vibrate. Something moved from him, some strange invisible force that felt wrong somehow, like it didn’t belong in his world.

  The presence moved out from Dormael, exploding from his chest like a tangible but invisible wind that seemed to also repel the very air around it. He swung backwards on the chain as the thing moved out from him, slamming into the Taker and moving it back a step as they struggled against one another. Dormael could feel the struggle happening on some level in his mind, but the force he was communing with was waning, being pushed slowly back to wherever it was that it came from.

  But not before it blew the sand of the Greater Circle underneath it in all directions.

  Dormael’s magic flowed into him as the presence in his mind was pushed finally back to that dark prison it came from. He desperately threw his magic at the chain above him, and it rusted and snapped. His feet landed on the cold, slippery stone, and he crouched there, naked, facing down the Taker before him. Inera screamed incoherently, something full of rage and disbelief. Dormael smiled.

  Then people started to die.

  ****

  D’Jenn crouched in the tunnel, listening to the noises coming from the darkness in the distance. Allen was hunkered down near him, breathing heavy with anticipation. There was some sort of antechamber beyond them, and D’Jenn had discovered two guards watching the entrance to yet another chamber, and the noises coming from that room were…disconcerting.

  There was screaming, words that D’Jenn couldn’t quite hear, and someone, a woman unless D’Jenn missed his guess, chanting in some strange, guttural language. D’Jenn could feel something strange in the magic, a greasy, slimy, wrongness that was slithering into the room beyond them from…somewhere. D’Jenn wasn’t sure.

  We have to go now, Allen signed to him in the Hunter’s Tongue. His face had an urgent, excited expression, his jaw clenched and the muscles there working as he ground his teeth.

  We have to deal with the guards first, and quietly. If we lose the element of surprise, it could go very wrong, D’Jenn replied.

  Leave that to me, Allen signed back, and before D’Jenn could dispute him, he was moving off into the darkness toward the antechamber. D’Jenn cursed quietly, but followed his cousin down the tunnel. Allen had somehow drawn forth weapons when D’Jenn wasn’t looking. He held his handaxe in his right hand and a long, thick dagger in his left. He moved like a stalking predator, his footfalls silent underneath the sound of the running sewage. He moved to the edge of the torchlight, and D’Jenn tensed for the confrontation. He didn’t have Allen’s grace with weapons, and if he drew his morningstar the guards would definitely hear him. To top it off, if he used any magic then whoever was in that chamber beyond would sense him doing it before he got his spell off. It was all up to Allen. D’Jenn settled back to watch, getting ready to rush in when he was needed.

  Allen reached into a pocket and drew out a coin, placing his dagger in his teeth. Then, with a quick gesture, he tossed the coin side-arm into the chamber, so that it struck the wall to the guards’ right, causing both of them to look in that direction curiously. It was the death of them.

  Allen was up in an instant, hefting his axe in his right hand even as he was rushing forward. He threw the thing overhanded at one of the guards, already concentrating on the other as he rushed forward with his dagger. The first man barely had time to register there was an attack as the axe sank into the side of his head with a wet
thunk. By the time the other guard realized what was happening and got a hand on the short sword at his side, Allen was on him.

  Allen rushed up against the man, trapping his sword arm against his body and ramming the dagger through the side of his neck with the other hand. The guard made a gurgling hiss as his legs gave out, and Allen caught his body and lowered it lightly to the ground. The first man had slumped backwards and slid down the wall, his body limp and his eyes staring off in different directions. The attack had only taken a couple of seconds, and made no more noise than a man shifting around in a chair. D’Jenn raised his eyebrows at Allen and nodded in appreciation. Allen recovered his weapons, and the two of them turned toward the second chamber.

  There was a half-rotten wooden door to the next room, and torchlight seeped through the cracks. The noises had mostly stopped in the chamber beyond it, but D’Jenn could feel something…strange…happening there. There was a moment of quiet, and D’Jenn and Allen looked at each other for just a second.

  On three, D’Jenn signed, and Allen nodded his agreement.

  Then there was a sucking noise like nothing D’Jenn had ever heard. It seemed to pull at him, as if there was a whirlpool in the next room sucking everything toward it. The door began to vibrate on its rusty hinges, making a loud clattering noise in its decaying frame. There was a wet sloshing, slithering noise from beyond the door, and D’Jenn looked over at Allen. There came a scream from the chamber, a high-pitched wail of rage, and D’Jenn suddenly felt Dormael’s song ring out in the magic, a triumphant symphony of power.

  “Three!” he shouted, and sent a torrent of magic at the door, blowing it from its hinges into the room beyond.

  ****

  Bethany stepped lightly down the spiraling staircase, moving stealthily so she wouldn’t wake whatever beasts may be down here guarding the Conclave’s treasures. The stairs she’d found were different than the rest of the compound, they seemed older, somehow, the stone under her shoes worn just a little smoother than the rest of the stairs she’d explored, and there were strange and mesmerizing designs laid into the bricks themselves, made of some metal, maybe brass or copper.

  The torches were also different. In the rest of the Conclave they were encased in glass and metal cases, like street lamps or oil lamps, but here there were naked torches burning on sconces set directly into the stone itself. There also weren’t many of them, and Bethany had to proceed carefully, feeling her way along so she didn’t fall.

  This was all so exciting. She just knew there had to be something interesting down here. It was just like all the stories where heroes found secret treasures buried under abandoned castles.

  Eventually, after feeling her way down those stairs for what seemed like forever, she came to a quiet, dusty hallway. There were no doors that she could see, and only one torch burning here on the wall, and it was almost gone. She wished she knew how to make the magic light like Dormael and D’Jenn did, but they hadn’t taught her how to do that yet. Besides, they had both told her that she was never to use her magic when she was by herself. That was alright, she was scared to do it, anyway.

  The torch was too high on the wall for her to reach it, and both ends of the hallway were completely dark. She didn’t want to pass the entrance to the treasure room, or step on a trap she couldn’t see – and what if there were monsters in the dark, just waiting to eat her? She had to find a light of some kind, somewhere.

  She really did want to be good. She always did what she was told, even when she didn’t want to. Maybe she could figure out how to do it, how to make the light. If she did, she could show Dormael later, and he would be really proud of her. Maybe he’d want her to show him all the treasure she’d found, too. The thought made her smile, so she decided not to be afraid. After all, what was she supposed to do? What if something ate her down here?

  She closed her eyes, and imagined herself in a deep pool of water, just like they’d told her to over and over again. It was easier now than it used to be; she’d been practicing almost every night with one of the wizards, and she was getting better at it. She could feel her magic, her Kai, deep in the water, singing to her. Its light was brighter all the time, and she didn’t have to reach so deep to touch it anymore. Trying to relax and focus her thoughts, she reached out for her magic.

  It filled her suddenly, and made her squeal a little in surprise. The torch behind her flared up for a second with a little whoosh, and she could feel it wanting to be startled with her. She focused, and told the torch firmly that she was not scared, and it might as well just go back to burning like a normal torch.

  Surprisingly, it did.

  Bethany smiled, and almost jumped up and down a little. She’d done it! She was so happy that she almost forgot to stay focused, but then reminded herself of what D’Jenn had told her.

  “An unfocused mind yields unfocused magic,” she said aloud with a matter-of-fact tone. She had to be serious – she was a wizard, now.

  She loved feeling her Kai singing to her. The magic was still the best feeling she’d ever felt. She was connected to everything when she was using her magic, and she elated in just listening to it move through everything around her. She could smell the tiniest pieces of dust in the hallway, and even feel the water moving through the cool air down here. She could sense somehow that she was under the ground now, and could feel the dirt humming to her from everywhere at once. It felt like the whole world was moving beneath her, and she could almost feel herself moving with it, somehow.

  The darkness wasn’t so dark now that she was letting her magic sing to her, so she decided that she didn’t really need a light, after all.

  But which way should she go – left or right? She thought about pushing her mind out in either direction to see what was down the hall, but D’Jenn had said that there were traps sometimes that could hurt you if you didn’t know what to look for, and Bethany knew that she didn’t. She pondered it for just a second, and she got a strange feeling from the left hallway. That decided it – she stepped off down the right hand corridor.

  The shadows seemed to move away from her as she slowly walked down the path, trying very hard to stay quiet. She didn’t make much noise, and she couldn’t hear anything moving around down here, anyways. She walked for about a minute, and then she came to an old wooden door set into the wall on her left. Excitedly, she turned the knob and pushed it open.

  The hinges creaked in rusty protest as she did, and she gritted her teeth against the noise as it echoed through the underground hallways. The door was hard to open, and every time she pushed at it, it squealed again in protest. Finally, she got fed up with the door.

  “Be quiet!” she whispered at the rusty hinges.

  And they stopped squealing.

  Bethany froze, startled. Was it really that easy? Everything she’d tried before this had been very difficult. Timidly, she tried coaxing her magic into telling the darkness to go away.

  Nothing happened. Her Kai continued to sing to her, but the dark stayed right where it was. She sighed in exasperation. There was no time to worry about this now – there was treasure to find.

  The room beyond the door was dark, dusty, and smelled like mold and dirt. She stepped carefully inside, trying to squint her eyes enough to see what was in the room, but beyond a few vague shapes she couldn’t tell what was inside. She reached out with her hands, touching the closest shape in the darkness, and could feel old, dry wood under her fingers.

  It was a table. How boring. Reaching out with her other hand, she felt what seemed to be a rug, rolled up and leaning against the table, and as she touched it a cloud of dust rose up from the fabric and made her sneeze. She backed out of the room sniffling and trying to stifle more sneezes from coming out, disappointed in her discovery. It was just a storeroom. She’d have to keep looking down the hallway.

  Bethany snuck around through the darkened tunnels, looking into open chambers and opening multiple doors over the next hour or so, only to be disappointed over and
over again by what she found. There were plenty of those storerooms. She didn’t know why anyone would want to save so much old furniture, but there was plenty of it down here. She also found old scrolls and stacked papers that fell to dust or crumpled away as she tried to pick them up. It was too dark to read any of them, and she wasn’t very good at reading yet, anyway, so she left those behind as well.

  She was beginning to get very irritated. Where were all the magical swords? Where were the giant gems that contained genies and goblins? All she’d found was old, dusty, boring furniture. She was beginning to lose interest in this, and she was starting to get hungry.

  She tried to head back the way she’d come, but somehow she got turned around and just ended up at an intersection between hallways. There was a torch burning on the wall, so she could see, but she didn’t recognize where she was. She tried to get another feeling from her Kai, but there was nothing. Her heart started to pound a little, thoughts of being lost down here forever entering her mind.

  Why hadn’t she just stayed where she was supposed to? She began to feel afraid, and tears came unbidden to her eyes. She would never get back. She was alone all over again.

  No, no, no, no anything but that!

  Her mind started to play tricks on her. She thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye, someone pass down an adjacent hallway. She backed up, hiding with her back against a wall, peeking around the corner and waiting tensely for it to reappear. Nothing happened. It was so quiet down here. She suddenly felt very exposed, and very vulnerable. She had to hide!

  The torchlight grew low, as if something were sucking the fire away from it. A cold sweat broke out on Bethany’s forehead, and she hid her eyes behind her hands, visions of people in the dark around every corner, just waiting to scoop her up and take her somewhere even darker.

  Something skittered in the hallway behind her, and the noise was so loud in the quiet that Bethany almost jumped out of her skin. She bolted down a side hallway, no longer even caring where she was going. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was down here, stalking through the hallways, looking for her.