Dragon's Mage (An Advent Mage Novel), The - Raconteur, Honor

by Raconteur, Honor

  “This is useless. Let’s go to Merton.”

  I looked up from the illegibly written report in my hands, having to blink several times to switch mental tracks. “Merton?”

  “They have a better Hall of Records there,” she explained, already picking up files and sorting them so she could put them back on the shelves. “And they’re better at getting copies from the other Coordinators so they have more complete records. Its further east of us, I know, but it’s a relatively short trip with Kaya and it’ll give us more information to pull from.”

  I didn’t see why not. We desperately needed information. Besides, Merton offered another very interesting possibility. It was a more cosmopolitan place, as it set right on the sea, and so it hosted a few wizard and witch’s outposts. If we went there, I might be able to get a few necessities custom made.

  After three days of hacking up black gunk, I really didn’t want to go the rest of my firefighting career eating smoke. If there was a way around it, I was taking it.

  We put all the reports back, climbing the narrow stairs back up toward the land of the living, and stepped out into the Hall’s main foyer. To my surprise, I saw fading light outside of the windows. Had we really been down there for so long? It looked to be near sunset now. Well, no wonder my stomach had been petulantly rumbling, then.

  We went straight back to the inn and the main room there, as we really didn’t know of any other places to eat. I sat across the table from Mari, enjoying a late dinner in the inn’s main room. Or at least trying to. This place had to have a good cook, as everyone and their mother chose to eat here. It seemed every other second, someone would stop by our table and tell me a funny story about what Kaya did or ask some question about Mages.

  When the last person left, I leaned closer to Mari and said in a low voice, “Remind me not to eat here at night.”

  “It’s a tad busy,” she admitted although her eyes crinkled up in amusement as she shrugged it off.

  ‘Busy’ was an understatement. Really, you’d think everyone came in here tonight just to talk to me— I snapped around, sheer instinct sending me spinning the other direction, facing north. “Something’s burning.”

  “What?” Mari demanded in astonishment. She popped up and stuck her head out the nearest window, looking for herself. “I don’t see anything….”

  “Something’s burning,” I repeated, more firmly. I could feel it. And the fact that I could feel it, this far away, scared the light out of me. A fire had to be very hot before I could sense it like this. “Mari, call them in. I have to go.”

  I didn’t give her a chance to respond before scrambling to my feet, calling for Kaya as I went. The room became noisy around me, people calling out questions about what was going on, but I ignored them all and didn’t let them deter me. Kaya met me at the door, almost shoving her nose inside to see me.

  “Saddle?” she asked me, I think taken aback that I didn’t immediately head for the stables.

  “No time, just hold on to me.”

  She gently grasped me with one hand, cradling me against her chest, wings unfurling to propel us into the sky. After that first initial lurch off the ground, her rhythm settled out and she gained altitude steadily. The wind caught my hair and clothes, buffeting me with them, and I had to clamp down on my hair again to avoid eating it. Not wearing my jacket, I felt the coolness of the evening, and huddled in closer to Kaya’s warmth to stave off the chillness in the air. Her nostrils flared and contracted as she took in the smell of the wind.

  “Burning.”

  So, she could smell it? “Yes,” I said encouragingly, pointing to a dense grove of pine trees up ahead. “It’s from over there somewhere.”

  Kaya’s eyes narrowed even as she flapped her wings in a strong rhythm, gaining speed. “See it.”

  “That orange glow over the trees?” I thought I had imagined that because I was trying so hard to see something.

  She didn’t waste any more time on talking, but picked up her pace, sending the wind rushing through my ears and whipping around me. The stand of trees didn’t sit more than a few miles outside of the city, so we reached it within moments, and I could almost see through the gathering fire and smoke that a building sat in the middle of the pines. I caught glimpses of white stone and purple roofing as we came in closer. It didn’t look like many of the trees were burning, just the ones nearest the building, but it was enough smoke to obscure my sight.

  “Kaya,” I called over the rush of the wind and the cackle of the fire below, “can you land?”

  She darted from one side to the other, head swiveling as she looked. “No room,” she finally responded in aggravation.

  I’d been afraid of that. I hadn’t seen any real clearing near the building either. “Then come in as low as you can and drop me!”

  My familiar turned her head and gave me a look that I swear she learned from Mari. It boiled down to: I can’t believe you just suggested such a stupid thing.

  “I’ll be fine at this short a distance,” I assured her. I couldn’t help but smile when her look turned even more disgusted. “Honest.”

  Her look became suspicious. “No get hurt?”

  “Promise,” I responded with a wide grin.

  Very gingerly, she started to let go of me, but I could tell that at the first sign of trouble, she’d dive back in and catch me. But she truly didn’t have to worry. I couldn’t use extreme heat to fly with like the Fire Mages of history, but I had controlled falling down to an art form. As soon as Kaya loosened her grip on me, I shot out jets of condensed heat from my palms and the soles of my feet. It didn’t stop me from falling, but it slowed me down considerably so that I came in to land with only a slight jar and trip of the feet.

  I’d landed somewhere near the side of the building, next to an open porch. The heat around me was intense, as hot as any forest fire that I’d been in. Most of the trees next to the building weren’t on fire, but some of them were starting to catch ablaze just from the intense heat of the air. I honestly didn’t know which to tackle first, the trees or the building itself. I didn’t want the fire to spread, but it would as long as that building burned.

  That last thought decided it for me and I turned resolutely for the building, only pausing to put out a tree that openly blazed.

  Just one problem: the building didn’t have anything obviously on fire. Oh, the heat of it was there, I could feel that clearly. But I didn’t see anything.

  The fire had to be contained inside of the building still. That was the only possible explanation. Swearing, I headed for the door at a flat sprint. As I did so, chunks of the marble stone started cracking and falling off in large pieces to the ground. A few of them actually came close to hitting me. I dodged and weaved through it, feeling like I was under enemy fire as I ran. One piece got close enough to graze my arm, and if not for my personal shields, it would have left quite the scorch mark. Fortunately, the shields repelled it entirely and it bounced away.

  Door, door, door—there! I saw a glimpse of a handle protruding outwards. I kept track of it as I passed several large, towering columns. This building had to be a temple of some sort, judging from the rectangular layout, the showy columns, and the solid construction of marble. I climbed the short stairs upwards to the porch two at a time, but when I reached the door, it was already ablaze, the handle red hot. I couldn’t touch any of it without burning myself, as anything I touch automatically enters my shields.

  Frustrated, and not in the mood to find a creative solution, I just lifted a hand and blasted the door inwards with a roar of flame. It splintered and imploded inside. Almost belatedly, I hoped that no one was actually inside. That would surely have hurt them if they were.

  Too late to call out a warning, though. I dodged inside, my eyes taking in everything quickly. Someone had piled a lot of wood randomly inside, all of it ablaze, and the rafters holding up the roof were also burning. No one appeared to be in here, but the stacked wood blocked most of my view of
the room. I couldn’t be sure.

  Didn’t matter at the moment. I started with the fire at my feet and started putting all of it out, shifting from one side of the room to the other, trying to see everything. But this building didn’t have more than a single room to it, and there were no handy stairs or anything for me to stand on so that I could get a higher view. I could see most of the rafters, and the wood in front of me, so those were easy. But I could hear the sound of fire still crackling, and the breaking of the marble before it thudded to the ground. Not all of it was out yet.

  All right, time to get creative. I lifted both hands and sucked out any residual heat of the logs in front of me, channeling it all to go out behind me and up harmlessly into the air. With the wood cool enough to touch, I used it to climb up and get a higher view. I had to be careful doing this, though, as some of the wood at the bottom had become very fragile charcoal and would crumble under my weight. As I climbed up, the wood constantly shifted this way and that in an unpredictable fashion so that I fought for my balance from one moment to the next.

  “Krys!”

  Mari? How by the guardians did she get here so quickly? I turned my head just enough to call, “Don’t come in here!”

  “I’ve got a firewagon coming to help!” she responded in exasperation.

  “Then get them working on the trees in back. I didn’t do anything about those.” Wait, did she say they were still coming? So then how did she—it suddenly hit me. Of course. With Kaya unable to land, she had gone right back for Mari, probably dropping her in at the entrance so that Mari could run in to help me. Smart dragon.

  Mari grumbled, but I heard her quickly run back outside, boots echoing on the marble.

  I climbed the last two feet, enough that I could finally see over the wood, and started on the fire still blazing in the back. At this height, I could see the rest of the room, and it took only a minute to put the rest of it out. Phew. All right, next I needed to channel all of the heat out of here before it could do even more structural damage.

  As I worked on that, I could hear the clang of the bell on the wagon and men shouting to each other outside. Trusting them to handle the trees (and for Mari to call for me if they needed any help) I kept going, not allowing myself to be distracted.

  Funneling the last trace of heat outside, I took a better look at the room. Whatever decorations had been here before now lay under black soot. The marble had been white once, but now looked mostly grey with streaks of dense black here and there along the walls. The wooden support beams were nothing but black charcoal, really, and it didn’t look strong enough to hold the tile roof overhead. It wouldn’t be wise to stay in here much longer.

  Turning, I left the room, exiting through the ruined doorway. As I went down the stairs, I took a look around. The firewagon could barely be seen off to the side, just around the corner, but I saw several men already relaxing so the worst of it must already be put out.

  From the main road leading up to the stairs, Kaya came, muscling her way through the pines and sometimes reaching out with one paw to push a tree aside so that she could pass. Her tail thumped in an irritated rhythm against the ground as she moved, mouth formed into an alarming pout. When she spied me on the stairs, the tail slammed hard into the road.

  “Krys! No like drop!”

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” I apologized in a soothing tone. “It was an emergency. Besides, I’m fine.”

  Her tail lashed out again, this time hitting two nearby trees hard enough to uproot them.

  Mari appeared from around the corner and came straight to me. Without a word, she started looking me over, hands actually moving me so that she could see my back as well.

  I moved as she wanted me too, trying to be patient. “I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

  “I’m with Kaya on this one, Krys.” Mari finally let go and stepped back, fixing me with a dark scowl. “That was a remarkably stupid thing to do. Rushing into a burning building without backup was stupid.”

  “I have two words for you ladies: personal shields,” I enunciated clearly. A mage’s shields can withstand anything thrown at it, even burning rock. They know that.

  “I have two words for you,” Mari retorted sweetly. “Oxygen deprivation.”

  Opening my mouth to respond, I tried to riposte, but couldn’t. She had a point. Shields wouldn’t do anything about supplying me with air.

  “…Point,” I admitted weakly.

  “You’re also not supposed to go into a firefighting situation without your partner,” Mari continued with that same ruthless sweetness. “Remember?”

  I actually had forgotten in the heat of the moment. Slumping in on myself a little, I mumbled, “Sorry.”

  Shaking her head ruefully, she didn’t continue scolding me, but came in closer and cuddled in for a hug. Mari, as a rule, didn’t really touch people that often. In fact, she usually only did so when the situation called for it, like when she was on Kaya. So I knew that for her to act like this, I had to have scared her out of her wits. It startled me, a little, to feel how small she was. Her head barely came up to my chin. Mari had such a strong personality that she always seemed larger to me. In that moment, her vulnerability stood out as strongly to me as her strengths. If I were to really protect this woman, I had to remember that all of them combined made Mari who she was.

  Feeling remorseful, I hugged her back hard and swore to myself I wouldn’t do something like this again.

  The moment was shattered by an unfamiliar male voice asking uncertainly, “Uh, Magus? Is she supposed to be doing that?”

  Sighing, I released my grip on Mari and took a step back. Who was supposed to be doing what? I looked around, following the firefighter’s pointing finger to where Kaya sat nearby.

  Apparently my dragon familiar, now reassured that I had been properly scolded, had turned her attention to something else. Specifically, the fallen marble that littered the ground giving off waves of heat. She scooped them up with the side of her mouth as I watched and happily crunched on them, dribbling pebbles here and there.

  “Kaya.” I took in a breath for patience. “What are you doing?”

  “Tastes good,” she assured me around a mouthful of rock. “Hot crunch!”

  Mari shook with silent laughter, trying to hide a smile and failing miserably. “So, is this something like rock candy for dragons?”

  Probably. “Kaya, that won’t make you sick later, will it?”

  She shook her head innocently, batting her eyes at me even as she continued chewing. Well, if she was sick later, it would be entirely her fault. Shaking my head, I waved at her to continue.

  A man I didn’t recognize climbed up onto the porch, eyeing the roof nervously overhead as he moved. “Is that structurally sound?”

  “Probably not,” I responded with a slight shrug. “In fact, let’s get off the porch.”

  Everyone seemed to think that was a good idea and moved with alacrity.

  When we were back on the ground, well away from the snacking Kaya and the crumbling building, the firefighter lifted a hand in greeting.

  “I’m Tsai, Chief of the 1st Division. Ainlie.”

  I put my hand against his, feeling the rough callouses of a veteran firefighter. “Haikrysen, Fire Mage. I think you’ve already met my partner, Mari, and my familiar, Kaya.”

  “Have indeed.” Tsai gave both of them a respectful nod. “Magus, we’re glad you caught on to this fire so quick. Bit surprised it didn’t shoot up flames, though. We would have seen it that way.”

  “Really? I’m not surprised.”

  Mari indicated the building with a jerk of her thumb. “Because of all the wood stocked up inside?”

  “No, although that didn’t help,” I disagreed. “You see, marble doesn’t burn or melt, not like some stone does. If it’s heated up enough, it’ll change composition and become quicklime. At that point, if it’s still being heated up, it’ll crack and break off in chunks.”

  Both of them regarded t
he building for a moment. “Like it’s doing now,” Mari concluded grimly. “So you’re saying that the building is actually quicklime now instead of marble.”

  “Mostly,” I agreed. “Well, the stone heats up on the surface first, so actually only the outer portion is quicklime. Some of the interior parts might still be marble.” I wouldn’t bet on it, though. It had been a very hot fire.

  “That building is a national treasure,” Tsai informed us with a tic beating along his jawline. “It’s been there for hundreds of years. You’re telling me we’ll probably have to tear it down?”

  “Either that or call in an Earth Mage to turn it back into marble.” Seeing that he was honestly upset I offered, “I can call one in for you.”

  Tsai took in a long breath. “Thank you, Magus. I’ll pass the offer along. They’ll probably take you up on it.”

  They might want to think of some reconstruction while they were at it. If those wooden support beams were stone instead, it would be much harder to set that building on fire. But I’d mention that to the right people when I had the chance.

  Mari frowned at the building. “This was definitely arson, right?”

  “Right. Oil had been rubbed onto the wood so that it would light quick.” I’d known that from the first moment I’d seen the beams. “It might well be the same work as our madman. But I didn’t see anything to support that.”

  Mari sighed in frustration. “I didn’t think this would be easy, but….”

  I gave her a supportive smile. “We’ll catch him. Eventually. The thing that bothers me is how did he set everything on fire so quickly?” I turned to look at the building, frowning as I thought. “It was clear that the beams and wood were all burning at more or less the same rate. It wasn’t a case where one section had been lit on fire first, and then the others in succession.”