Three Acts of Penance [01] Attrition: The First Act of Penance

by S. G. Night

  He tried to move, but the column of fire held him prisoner, trapped inside an infernal cage. He screamed, but the sound was lost in the deafening roar of the flames, like the fire itself was drowning him out with its own terrible laughter. Like the fire itself was an animate being, a creature that wanted only to burn and to hurt and to destroy — a living, breathing Pyre.

  And the Pyre hated him. Imprisoned him. Laughed at his feeble attempts to resist its control. And now it was eating away at his flesh, gnawing, ripping, searing. He was dying. Burning.

  Burning!

  Then his markara arched. It seemed to scream at the Pyre, defying it with a wordless howl. A blistering, raw-throated battle-cry. It reached out, grabbed the Pyre and began to drink in its flames. Like water sucked from his skin by a spring zephyr, Racath felt the Pyre’s claws rush off his body and begin to drain into his markara. The Pyre screeched in chagrin and rage, wailing as Racath’s markara soaked up the ten-thousand tongues of flame.

  And Racath felt power. Power like he had felt only once before, that day on the Milonok Bridge. Power filling his limbs, his veins, his beating heart. In an instant, he was full, brimming with unprecedented energy. Saturating. Filling. Overflowing

  But this…this was worse than before! The Pyre filled him like boiling tar, taking up all the space in his body. It was in his throat, his lungs, his stomach, his head. There was too much of it.

  Soon he could hold no more, stretched to the point of fracture — but his markara just kept inhaling more and more of the unending fire. He was expanding, cracking, breaking! The fire had no place to go, so it just packed itself tighter and tighter, burning his insides just as it had his outsides.

  Racath’s body shook, vibrating, quaking — shattering under the pressure of the ten-thousand tongues of flame. He could feel the Pyre killing him from the inside out, burning him up with its fury, even as he tried to capture it inside his body. Try as he might to hold it, to be the captor rather than the captive, he could hear its sweltering cackle echoing inside his brain: the Pyre’s torrid triumph as it destroyed him.

  Then something broke inside his skull, like a dam giving way beneath the weight of an ocean of fire. The Pyre shrieked again as it was drawn through the newly-opened rift in Racath’s mind. It was sucked away, washed into a place somewhere beyond the gap — a place so infinitely vast that the Pyre could not hope to fill it.

  Suddenly, Racath was free. Free, and now it was the Pyre that was vulnerable, floundering on the other side of the rift. He grinned.

  My turn.

  Reaching through the rift, he chased the Pyre. He caught it. Gripped it. Bound it. Chained it. The beast roared in dismay, and Racath leashed it, slaved it to his will.

  The Pyre was his, now. He was the master. Euphoria bloomed in his chest and he released a mindless laugh. All coherent thought left him. There was no pain. No death. No fear.

  There was only fire.

  ——

  When Racath opened his eyes, the night was silent. The oil was gone from his body. His skin was unblemished, not a single burn or char. The lines of his markara were lit with trails of scarlet flames, but the flames were not burning him — they were part of him. In his mind, Racath could feel the rift had broken open. Waves of power oscillated like sloshing lamp oil back and forth between his body and the infinite energy on the other side.

  Deep within his mind, he could feel the defeated beast — the Pyre that had once held him captive — sulking under the weight of its shackles. It was angry, broken and defeated. But it was his now. It would do as he commanded, without question or doubt.

  Racath yanked experimentally on the mental leash that bound the Pyre to him. The Pyre responded without resistance. Magic came forth from the rift like a tidal wave.

  He made Red Lash, and a whip of solid, shining mage-fire blossomed from his markara, settling comfortably into his hand. It crackled with heat, but it did not burn his skin. Racath cracked the whip. The fire flared scarlet, and a line of black was scorched into the grass. The fire felt like an extension his body, not a magic that he had to conjure with effort and concentration. It was part of him. Or was it the other way around? Perhaps both: he was the Pyre, and the Pyre was him.

  He looked back at his right hand. There on his skin, a small Rotenic rune had inexplicably appeared, tattooed into his flesh.

  The rune was vatra. Fire.

  There was sudden applause. Looking up, Racath saw Nelle and Oron standing outside the stone circle. Both were smiling at him, their faces illuminated by the Red Lash in Racath’s hand. Nelle was the one clapping.

  “I told you he’d be fine,” Nelle beamed, nudging Oron with her arm.

  “Indeed you did,” Oron laughed. “And indeed you did, Racath. I should have known better than to doubt you by now. Well done, my boy. Well done.”

  The older Majiski bowed to him formally and announced: “Hail, Vatrus — Pyromancer, master of the flame!”

  Nelle winked at him and joined Oron in the bow.

  Racath’s grin widened. “What happens now?”

  “I have nothing left to teach you, Racath. All that remains is your trial.” Oron told him. He looked Racath up and down appraisingly. Then nodded to himself. “Yes. You are ready.”

  ***

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Interruptions

  Hisssss — thump.

  Rachel almost leapt out of her skin. Drawing both of her stilettos, she jumped out of her comfortable chair and entered a defensive posture, ready for an attack.

  Across the living room of the Manji Tor, Notak looked up from his book, his eyebrow arched at her. Placidly, he pointed to the table. In the air, a small rift in the fabric of the Mortal Plane was closing, a folded letter having just emerged from it and plopped onto the tabletop.

  “Oron,” Notak said tonelessly.

  Sighing in irritated relief, Rachel sheathed her weapons. Trying to get her heartbeat to calm the faul down, she went over to the parchment and unfolded it. A terse message was scrawled across it in Oron’s infuriatingly tiny handwriting:

  The Scorpion is ready. Drop everything, return to Nest immediately. No excuses, Rachel.

  — Oron

  “Piss!” Rachel threw the note violently aside.

  “What is it?” Notak inquired.

  “Oron’s finished with the new Scorpion,” she growled. “He wants us to go back to the domus — ugh!” She spat and folded back into her chair. “Why now, dammit….”

  Notak stared at her blankly. “I fail to see what your problem with this is.”

  “We just found Brahn!” Rachel shouted. “Just when we’re on the verge of kidnapping that sick faul, just about to find out who this Baron Monger really is, but now this—” she smacked the paper with her finger. “Interruptions! I swear, he always does this.”

  “Breathe deep, Rachel,” Notak said, turning his gaze back down onto his book. “Brahn is not going anywhere. The shipment from Dírorth will not arrive for another twelve days, and the Demon will not be picking the goods up until two days after that. That is more than enough time to travel to the domus and back. We will have no trouble snatching Brahn upon our return, interrogating him, and finding a means to gain entrance to the party. Our new compatriot might even prove helpful in that endeavor.”

  “He’d better,” Rachel grumbled. “I swear, he’d better be worth it.”

  “Nelle says that he is the only hope for Io,” Notak mentioned offhandedly. “And who knows. You might just find you like him.”

  ***

  Spark. Flare. Fizzle. The powder in the crucible ignited, bright and hot for a brief instant…

  Come on, come on…

  The burning powder sputtered out in a pathetic puff of smoke. Alexis scowled, trying to ignore the sour smell of the fumes. The wispy curls of smoke rising from this most recent faul-up seemed to mock her as they faded away into the air. Another sample burnt out. Another failure.

  Someone knocked on the armory door. Annoyance f
lashed through Alexis’s head at this new interruption and she felt her left eye twitch involuntarily.

  “What?!” she barked.

  The creaking of hinges answered her, and Toren strode into the armory. “Hey,” he greeted, coming to stand at her shoulder. His face furrowed with concern when he saw the dark expression Alexis wore.

  “Something wrong?”

  Alexis squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and did her best to quell the itching irritation that boiled in her fingers. She extracted herself from the fume hood and faced Toren. Then took a step back so that she didn’t have to tilt her neck so far back to see him. Damn tall people.

  “Nothing,” she sighed morosely. “Just stonewalled on my explosive powder project is all.”

  Toren gave a sympathetic grimace. “No progress at all?”

  “Well, today I’ve discovered three kinds of granular compounds that don’t make a good carrying agent for my liquid explosive,” Alexis said bitterly. “All in all, I’ve discovered a whole fauling ton of things don’t make good carrying agents. I could start a museum devoted to bad carrying agents. But, so far, no luck with anything that does work.” Another sigh. “Nothing left to do but start over again, I guess. Anyway, what’s up?”

  Toren rolled his massive shoulders. “Two things, one slightly less important than the other.”

  “Less important thing first, please,” Alexis said, massaging her aching temples.

  “Uhh…I hate to nag you about this…after your whole powder problem…” he hedged, grimacing again. “But…have you fixed my Stinger?”

  Alexis instantly relaxed. The question, strangely enough, brought her some measure of relief. She understood Stingers, knew how they worked and how to fix them. And having something that she understood to think about helped calm the frustration of the morning’s failures.

  “I have, actually.” She led him from the fume hood over to the workbench. Humming to herself, she sifted through the hive of cubbies and shelves above the table, each overflowing with widgets and miscellaneous tools.

  “Aha!” Alexis extracted the dark Stinger gauntlet from a cubby and handed it to Toren. “There we are, good as new.”

  Toren took the gauntlet, slipped it on, and made a fist. The Stinger flashed open, the freshly cleaned blade gleaming silver in the lamplight. Then, with the sound of a coiling spring, the Stinger drew itself back into the slot at the base of Toren’s wrist. “Excellent!” he said, satisfied. “Thanks a lot.”

  “No trouble,” Alexis shrugged. “Just don’t go catching axes with your arm again.”

  Toren chuckled once. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  “Good. Now, what’s the second item on your agenda?”

  The big Majiski’s smile waned a little. He scratched his ear and made an uncomfortable face. “Well…” he began hesitantly. “Mrak’s got a job for me. In Dor’mon.”

  “Uh huh.” Alexis turned away from him, pretending to look over the materials scattered across the workbench, hiding her chagrin behind a curtain of black hair. She didn’t want to admit it to him — she knew it would only inflate his head — but she had enjoyed his frequent visits to the armory since Racath had left. With Racath gone, Toren had become the only real close friend she had in Velik Tor, or anywhere for that matter. Who was she going to talk to with him gone? Who would she go to for conversation? Who would listen quietly and nod agreeably while she shot off ideas about her next project?

  “So…what?” she asked, her inflection deliberately flat. “Does Mrak want me to make you something special? If he’s looking for you to field test a sample of the explosive powder, he’ll be sorely disappointed.”

  “Actually, Alexis,” Toren interrupted, his words stumbling over each other. “Mrak wants…” He rubbed at the back of his head, as though he wasn’t certain what to do with his hands. “Um…he wants you. To go with me.”

  Alexis froze. “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah…” Toren affirmed, his face looking like he was bracing for an explosion. “He’s sending us both to Dor’mon.”

  “Me?!” Alexis exclaimed, turning to look at Toren again. She was swiftly confused, almost shocked, her thoughts racing in circles. “Mrak wants me to do field work?! But…why? What does he need from me? I’ve never worked the field before! I mean, I’ve got the training, but assassination’s never really been my forte—”

  “We’re not going on a hit, Alexis,” Toren told her nervously. “It’s Racath.”

  Caught off guard again, Alexis froze and looked at Toren with a raised eyebrow. “Racath?” she repeated. “What about Racath?”

  Toren shrugged. “Mrak didn’t really tell me much. All he said is that Racath’s almost done doing…whatever he’s been doing, and that he’s going to be in Dor’mon in a couple weeks.”

  “And why does he want us there?”

  “Racath’s apparently going to be working on something big in Dor’mon,” Toren said. “Mrak wants us to…keep an eye on him.”

  Alexis frowned dangerously. “What do you mean, keep an eye on him?”

  Toren made a helpless gesture. “I dunno. Mrak didn’t say it outright, but it kinda gave me the impression that Racath doesn’t answer directly to him anymore. That, or he’s just worried that Racath will….” He trailed off.

  “Racath will what, Toren?” Alexis asked imperiously.

  “Well…” Toren responded. “I think he wants us there to make sure Racath doesn’t get…out of hand.”

  “Out of hand?”

  “You and I are closer to him than anyone else,” Toren said. “Mrak knows that. Racath won’t respond well to another Genshwin just showing up and telling him what to do and what not to do. Mrak just wants us to make sure Racath doesn’t…you know…go crazy, like he did in Milonok—”

  Alexis bristled. “Toren Valgance, you know full well that I approve of what Racath did in Milonok! Don’t try and make him out like he’s an out-of-control puppy that Mrak wants us to leash!”

  Toren held up his hands defensively. “Look, I’m just a messenger. Mrak wants us there to watch Racath.”

  Alexis glowered at him for a minute, then relented a little. “Who would look after the armory while I’m gone?”

  The big Majiski shrugged again. “I dunno, Virgil?”

  “The hell he will!”

  “Come on, Alexis,” Toren implored. “You’ve always talked about getting out of Velik Tor and seeing Io. You’ve always talked about the day that we bring down the Dominion, and how you want to be there.” He straightened his back, standing tall and stoic. “Whatever Racath is doing, it sounds like a step in that direction. Don’t you want to know what Racath’s going to be up to? Don’t you want to be there when it happens? To be a part of it?”

  Alexis sighed and fingered a hammer on the workbench. She felt its weight in her hand, the familiar, reassuring heft of its iron head. It was comfortable, balanced. Safe, like home.

  But, as Toren’s words sunk in, it occurred to her that maybe she didn’t want to feel safe anymore. Maybe now, in this changing time, she wanted to be out there, with her friends, making good things happen. Watch Racath? Chaperone him and keep him on Mrak’s leash?

  Faul that. If she went, she wouldn’t chain her friend down. Of course, she’d let Mrak think that’s what she was doing — let straight-and-narrow Toren think that’s why she was going. But her heart was in a much different place. She’d help Racath in whatever way she could. And maybe with her help, he could pull off another miracle like Milonok.

  “Yeah,” she said, putting the hammer down. “Yeah, I do.”

  ***

  THIRTY-SIX

  Scorpion

  The Scorpions have a tradition. A ritual, of sorts, for inducting their newest member. In all my years I have never seen anything quite like it. Racath wasn’t given a ceremony, or superficial series of symbolic gestures. He wasn’t thrown a celebration. He didn’t get anything like that.

  Instead, Racath was awakened in the dead of
night as his entire body went rigid. Nothing worked: his mouth refused to unclench, his limbs would not respond to his mind’s commands — he couldn’t even open his eyes. The only thing not entirely immobilized by the hex was his lungs, although the pressure on his constricted airways made each breath rough and painful.

  Racath knew the feeling. It was the Bind — the body-lock hex.

  Beneath the darkness of his eyelids, Racath felt himself being lifted from his bed by two pairs of hands. Then he was carried — two sets of footsteps thudding on the floor — out of his room, through the library and the living room, and out the front door. He tried to struggle, but the hex refused to release him; it only made his muscles strain and ache.

  Racath’s mind reeled as he was carried across the lawn into the autumn night. Helplessness was smothering him. What the faul was going on? Were they under attack? Had the Demons found the domus? Were they taking him out onto the lawn so they could burn Oron’s house to the ground and slaughter him and the others in the grass? Just like his family?

  Then, suddenly, the hands that held his ankles and wrists released him. His stomach lurched violently. He felt no ground beneath him. He was falling.

  Oh God, were they dumping him into one of the streams? Leaving him hexed so he could drown like an unwanted dog? Racath held his breath and waited for the cold slap of water….And, instead, he came down on sand.

  All the air was pressed from his lungs and he lay there gasping through his nose for several moments, his head spinning. His heart pounded in his ears like a hollow gong.

  It took a few minutes for him to get a hold of himself. He had to stay calm, figure out some way to get free. Get free and fight back! With difficulty, he forced his breath and pulse to steady, calming them so that he could better hear what was happening around him. The night was crypt-quiet — his captors had left. He felt the sand beneath his unmoving finger tips, noted the familiar consistency and smell. The sparring pit? Why would they have brought him here?