Fireweaver

by Ryan W. Mueller

  When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost hesitant. "When I told you why I helped with the Sunlord's kidnapping, I was lying. I didn't anticipate any of what Deril and the others would do. That's Teravin's domain, not mine."

  Faina felt as if everything were crashing down around her. This was a man she'd come to trust, and now he was telling her that he'd lied. She took a couple of deep breaths, forcing herself to hear him out. Perhaps he'd had good reasons for lying to her.

  "The truth is I wanted to free Cardell."

  Faina felt as if she'd been punched in the gut. "Why in the Core would you want to do that?"

  He motioned for calm. "Relax. It isn't what you think. I don't want to free him because I support him. I want to free him because that's the only way to defeat him once and for all. This prison won't hold him forever, and the longer he's there, the more insane he'll become. We have to let him go free while he still retains some shred of sanity."

  "And what about all the people he'll kill?" Faina asked. "What if he destroys the sun this time? Everybody will die."

  "He wouldn't do that. No one is that insane."

  "I trusted you," Faina said. "You should have told me the truth from the beginning."

  "I couldn't reveal my true plans in front of Teravin. I still don't know whom he's fighting for." He gazed at her, smiling. "Besides, it's been a long time since someone has trusted me. I didn't want you to think badly of me."

  "You still should have told me after we finished with Teravin."

  "Yes, I should have. That is my mistake."

  She leaned on the railing as Kadin and the others faded into the distance. "All right, let's say I still trust your judgment. What should we do?"

  "We wait for Kadin to free Cardell, and then we strike."

  "In other words," she said, "we're going to try to kill him now."

  "That's the plan. I have no idea if it will work, but this might be our best opportunity. He's been imprisoned for years. When he breaks free, there's a good chance he won't be completely present and in control. If we can surprise him, we can kill him."

  "But how do you kill a god? I thought no normal weave could do it."

  "That is true," Alvin said. "But one of the Lost Weaves can. Red and Purple."

  "Then you'll use it against him?"

  "Unfortunately, I cannot."

  "Because you're only a Fireweaver?"

  "Not quite," he said. "I could go to the Source and attain the powers of a Sunweaver as well, but because I am a god, performing that weave would kill me before it could kill him. It's a very dangerous weave, designed specifically to kill gods, and it will kill the first god it touches."

  Faina shuddered. Despite his betrayal, she couldn't stand the thought of him dying. He'd been kind to her, even if he had lied a few times. "All right," she said. "What do we do, then?"

  "The weave is very specific about who can perform it. It can only be a Sunlord or Firelord who has also touched the Source and become both Sunweaver and Fireweaver."

  "Then I think we have a problem."

  Alvin paced near the door to the balcony. "I know."

  "Do you think Kadin could do it?"

  "I don't know how freeing Cardell will affect him. It could tire him too much. We can't depend on him, but he might be our only option. The tough part will be keeping him alive once he has served his purpose."

  "But the world still needs a Sunlord."

  Alvin shook his head sadly. "Not once Vardin and Cardell are through with their plans. You see, they told me a long time ago, back when I was still on their side. One day, they would restore the sun. The people wouldn't know the truth. All they'd know is that these two gods restored the sun. They would be worshiped like never before."

  "Is that all that motivates them?"

  "Power is the strongest motivation of all," Alvin said. "I've felt its pull myself. Once, I wanted to be just like them. I wanted the worship of the people. I wanted everyone to love me, and fear me. The power of being a god, it's intoxicating in a way. The more you experience it, the more you become a slave to it."

  Faina gazed across the city, trying to sort through her thoughts. This city looked like a decent place to live despite the mist that crept through the streets. If this was the world Vardin ruled over, than perhaps his reign wouldn't be so bad.

  She turned back to Alvin. "What would Vardin's world look like?"

  "I wish I had an answer for you. I can only guess."

  "What if it's not that bad? What if it's actually better than what we have now/" She felt a sudden surge of anger. "Our world is a terrible place after all."

  "Vardin would make it worse. Remember this, Faina. He kept me from the Source even when I was on his side. He wants to control the number of people who are both Sunweavers and Fireweavers. That way, he can have all the most powerful on his side. You know the prejudice in our world, the division. Imagine what it will be like when Vardin's powerful supporters come into power. Anyone who is not both a Sunweaver and a Fireweaver will face a tough life. We will all be slaves to the will of the most powerful."

  Faina felt strangely empty. She thought of the life she'd lived, of all the hardships she'd faced. This was the kind of life that everyone would face unless they were one of Vardin's favorites. Perhaps he and Cardell would restore the sun, but at what cost?

  "Is this Vardin really so rigid in this thinking?" she asked. "I don't understand why he'd want to take over the world. Does he think he could run everything better?"

  "He's not interested in improving the world. He's interested in taking revenge against everyone he believes he's been wronged by."

  "It doesn't make any sense to me," she said. "I think I need to know what really happened during the Sunlight War."

  Alvin stared across the city, his gaze distant, as if he were deep in thought. He remained silent a long time, and Faina was sure she wouldn't get an answer from him. How was she supposed to trust him if he didn't trust her with his secrets?

  "It begins in the time before the Sunlight War," he said. "Back when we were on our home world. Most of the people in this world were ordinary, even once we developed the ability to give people magic." He ran a hand through his hair. "I wasn't entirely truthful with you before when I told you how magic came to be, or more accurately, how the gods came to be."

  Somehow, Faina wasn’t surprised.

  "When we developed the ability to give people magic, it led to a war almost beyond imagining. There were billions of people in our world."

  Faina shook her head. "How many is that?"

  "More than you could possibly understand," he said. "And by the time this war was over, only a few thousand people remained. We almost destroyed our world itself. After this war, it was no longer fit for us to live in it."

  "Why was there a war?"

  Alvin leaned wearily on the railing of the balcony. "Because humans are violent creatures. No matter what we do to try to improve ourselves, we always find ways to hate each other over the most trivial things. In this case, some people claimed to be on the side of the Almighty. They said He'd spoken to them. A belief in the Almighty was always a part of our world, but no one had ever seen Him.

  "More and more people ended up on the side of the Chosen, as they called themselves. I was not one of them. Of the gods in this world, only Aralea was one of the Chosen. I don't know if she ever met the Almighty, but the legacy of that war lingered when we came here. Vardin, Cardell, and I were all on the other side.

  "These Chosen became very dogmatic in their views. They hated anyone who opposed them, and they were ruthless in the way they fought. Eventually, we had to come up with the same tactics. In the process, as I said, our world was almost destroyed, and in the end, there was no true winner of this war. We both decided it was in our best interests to stop fighting. We also had to leave our world behind because it could no longer support all of us. As long as we remained in that world, we would be tempted to fight again. So we traveled to our Realm
of Shade and went through the Nexus. When you have the magic of a certain world, the Nexus will send you to that world. It can be different for some people who possess the magic of multiple worlds, but that's a matter I don't quite understand, and it's very rare."

  Faina tried to absorb all this information. On some level, she could understand everything he was saying, but it also showed the world to be a much larger and stranger place than she'd ever thought. It would take time before she could understand fully, if that was even possible.

  "But there was a problem," Alvin continued. "When we came to this world, we still bore our old grudges. We also brought some of our old world's magical technology with us. The Source came from our old world, and Vardin has protected it his entire time here. Those who guard it are absolutely loyal to him, not because they support him of their own accord, but because he's using the mind control weave on them.

  "Now, to get back to Vardin's motivations. As I said, he holds a major grudge against Aralea, which means he hates all of her people, Sunweavers. At first, I held this grudge as well, but then I saw the extremes to which Vardin and Cardell were willing to go. I couldn't let that stand, so I switched sides. Now Vardin holds the same grudge against me, and by extension against my people, Fireweavers. He's so far gone that I don't think he cares anymore about people. You have to realize we went through unimaginable horrors in that war. Some people were able to recover. Others have never quite been sane since then."

  Faina thought she was following everything, but she still had her doubts. Alvin had admitted multiple times that he'd lied to her. What if he was lying again, trying to manipulate her into doing his will?

  No. That didn't matter. In the end, her friends were in danger. Vardin was threatening them to get his way, and that made him an enemy.

  "All right," she said. "I think I understand."

  "You have doubts. I can see it in your eyes."

  "That doesn't matter," she said. "My friends need me. Do we have a plan?"

  "I know a secret way inside. It's dangerous, but it's the best chance we have."

  "And once we're inside?" she asked.

  "We hope that everything turns out all right."

  Chapter 41: Blood and Vengeance

  Rella stood in the doorway to the room where Atarin and the others had been staying. She couldn't believe her eyes, and she felt like vomiting. There was blood everywhere, and bodies littered the floor.

  "What in the Core happened here?" Atarin said, his voice barely audible.

  Kae looked pale. "My sister."

  "I don't see her," Rella said. But was she only being hopeful? She stepped farther into the room, passing dead bodies. Blood had covered most of the floor. How could someone have killed all these people without alerting anyone else?

  Karik took unsteady steps into the room, glancing from one body to another. "That's Vanara," he said. "And Meran. And Narine." He sagged against the stone wall. "They're all dead. This . . . this can't be happening. No . . . it has to be a dream."

  Atarin put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm afraid it's not a dream."

  The sadness in his eyes startled Rella. She hadn't thought Atarin capable of such an emotion, but now she could see that he was a normal human being. Cold and calculating, yes, but not entirely without emotion.

  For her part, Rella felt as if the room had become very cold. She stepped hesitantly through the room. At least a dozen people lay dead, and she didn't want to step on their bodies or in their blood. She had to see if Andra was here, for Kae's sake.

  Kae had advanced to one corner of the room. She stared at the floor in silence, her body shaking fiercely. Rella didn't need to ask.

  Andra lay on the floor, her throat slit, blood staining the stones around her.

  Kae's voice was soft but deadly. "I will avenge you, Andra. Whoever did this will know true pain when I am done with them."

  "It had to be Vardin," Kara said. "He must have seen us as a threat. He must have sent the soldiers after us and then sent assassins to kill everyone here."

  Kae rounded on her. "How can you take this so calmly?"

  "I've seen death on a much grander scale than this before. I know what it's like to lose people you care about. Over the years, I've learned to keep my emotions in check. There is a time and place to mourn, but that time is not now, and that place is not here."

  "She's right," Atarin said. "We should leave before anybody finds this."

  "I'm afraid it's too late for that," Karik said.

  Rella turned to see four city guards standing in the doorway, their expressions stern. They took in all the blood and dead bodies and immediately drew their swords.

  "Stay where you are," one of them demanded. "You are under arrest."

  "This isn't what you think," Rella said.

  But the guards weren't listening. The same man said, "Lay down your weapons and come with us."

  "Not a chance," Atarin said. He turned toward the stone wall and sent a Yellow/Green weave at it. It was not a precise weave, not like what they'd done in the cavern, but it was enough to blow a giant hole in the wall.

  "Let's go!" Kara shouted. They all took off, and the guards remained in the doorway, looking on with wide eyes. Good. It appeared they weren't Sunweavers or Fireweavers. They stayed were they were as the party jumped through the hole in the wall.

  Since they were jumping from the second floor, they wove shields to cushion the impact when they hit the ground. Rella was exhausted, so her shield barely softened the impact at all. She hit the ground hard, and it knocked the wind out of her.

  As she tried to catch her breath, Karik helped her to her feet. She nodded in thanks, and then they all took off running. More guards were funneling into their surroundings. Some of these guards did have magic. Together, the party wove shields, but there hadn't been enough time to replenish their reserves. They had to escape the guards, and quickly.

  "Do you have a plan?" Atarin asked Kara as he ran beside her.

  "I'm trying to think of one."

  "Well, think faster," Atarin said.

  Kara glared at him but said nothing as they raced through the streets. Crowds parted as the party approached. The guards followed close behind, gaining on them. Though they wore light armor, they were not exhausted. Rella and the party couldn't run forever.

  She had to think of something. Even if they could prove their innocence, which was highly unlikely, they didn't have the time to deal with legal proceedings.

  They ducked into an alley, reached another street, turned right. Rella's heart pounded. She glanced back to see the guards gaining on them, calling out for them to stop. Soon it seemed as if every guard in the city had been alerted to the chase.

  The party stepped onto another street and found themselves face-to-face with a dozen guards. These guards possessed magic. Rella could feel the energy coursing through the air as they tried to form a shield around the party.

  Atarin was quicker, though. He sent a wall of flame at the guards. It didn't quite reach them, but it was enough to distract them and make them weave their shields around themselves for protection. The party took advantage of the distraction, darting to the left, into another alley.

  On the next street, they didn't find any guards. They pivoted to the right, and it looked like they might be free, but then more guards approached from farther up the street. Atarin didn't hesitate. He sent another wall of flame at these guards. Rella glanced back to see more guards closing in from behind.

  Though she hated the thought of harming these men, she had to do it. She wove Red and Orange and sent the flames toward the guards. They shouted in alarm and retreated. With guards closing in from both directions, though, there was only one place for the party to go.

  They ducked into a nearby weapons shop. When they burst through the door, the shopkeeper looked away from the customer he was helping. Both their eyes were wide as the party darted past them, over the counter at the far end of the room, and into the storage room behind. Poundi
ng footsteps told Rella that the guards were close behind.

  The storage room contained so many weapons Rella couldn't have counted them all in a week. Swords. Spears. Bows. Some weapons she couldn't even identify. She would have loved to tour this place sometime, but now was not that time.

  What if there was no other exit?

  They pushed toward the back of the storage room, passing crates that were stacked almost up to the ceiling, forming a confusing maze. The guards shouted from behind, but they seemed to be a bit farther back now.

  Rella and the others made so many turns that she quickly lost her way. She kept hearing the voices of the guards, kept glancing back to see if their pursuers were gaining on them. It was impossible to tell in this confusing maze.

  "I found a trapdoor," Kae said. "Maybe we can hide down there."

  Rella skidded to a stop on the stone floor, looking where Kae had indicated. The others all stopped as well, and Kara kneeled beside the door. She pulled it open, then gestured for everyone to slip through.

  Beneath the trapdoor, there was more storage. Once they were all on the other side, they closed the trapdoor.

  "The guards can still find us in here," Rella said.

  "Not if we barricade the door," Atarin said. No one questioned him. They found some crates and quickly put them in a position where they would keep the door from opening. Eventually, a powerful Sunweaver or Fireweaver would find a way to alter the stone, but these guards didn't appear to have such talents.

  "Now we're trapped in here," Karik said. "How does this help us?"

  "It gives me time," Kara said. She found an open area in the center of the room. A few small sunlamps cast dismal light upon their surroundings. "I can do the weave to get us to the Realm of Shade. If all goes well, I can get us to the Source itself, or at least close."

  The party watched and waited as Kara did the weave to take them to the Realm of Shade. Shouts came from above, along with the pounding of the trapdoor against the sturdy crates. Rella didn't know how long their makeshift barricade would hold.