by Greg Curtis
Briagh took to his heels the moment he saw it. He sprinted as he had never sprinted before. But then it was run or die. There was nowhere else that was safe from the burning rain. If Briagh thought he had been pushing himself to his limit before, he soon found out he was wrong as the fireballs made him push that much harder to get to the safety of the mountain and the overhanging rock ledge before the rain killed him.
But as fast as he was, he just wasn't fast enough. Not when the fireballs were falling out of the orange sky all around him. He got burnt. None landed on him or he would have been killed outright. But some came close enough that the explosions singed him. And they hurt. A lot. But all he could do was run and then run faster.
Soon his lungs were burning and the sweat poured off him as the grass beneath his feet caught fire. Briagh yelped in pain, wanting with everything he had to shift form so he could heal his wounds and regain his breath, but knowing he couldn't do that. The wolfhound simply wasn't fast enough to escape this attack. So he remained in his panther form, pushing himself harder again.
Soon his lungs felt like they were on fire, his muscles felt like they were turning into burning lumps of red hot coal, and his was heart thundering in his chest. And when the grass finally gave way to stone he knew a moment of relief. But only a moment. He couldn't let it stop him from running the rest of the way to the safety of the overhanging rock.
But there was a new problem. The footing underneath him was broken and full of holes. But still he had to run as the fireballs kept raining down all around him. So Briagh leapt from rock to rock, taking care to avoid the puddles of fire that were forming all around him, popping up like mushrooms, and especially not to trip and break an ankle. Being crippled out in the open would be a death sentence.
And eventually he made it, smashing into the cold hard rock face at full speed. Once there, he shifted and collapsed to the ground, all but broken and feeling sorry for himself. How could he have got himself into this mess? And yet as he had to remind himself, he was a morph. A stronger and tougher man than he had realised until recently. And over the previous few months he had learned to fight. To win. Of course nothing he had learned lately had prepared him for this. What could?
In time, while he lay there gasping for breath and wanting nothing more than to dive into a lake of cool, clear water and drink to his heart's content, he managed to take in the sight of the forest behind him. All he could see was a land on fire. Everything was burning. Huge flames towered over the forest and leapt for the sky. Smoke was billowing upwards, turning the orange sky black. He had only just made it in time. Even another minute out there in the forest would have led to his certain death. Because the trees were clearly no protection.
But how could that be he wondered? How could he be lucky enough to emerge from the forest and find the mountain and the safety of the ridge just as the sky was preparing to rain fire? The coincidence seemed a little too incredible. And then as he looked around a little more he realised the coincidence was greater than he knew. Because the ridge of rock above his head sheltered a path leading up into the mountain. Presumably to the terrace at the top. What were the chances that the only safety there was from the burning rain could only be found at the path leading him to his destination? And how could the sky rain fire at all? It wasn't supposed to do that.
Then again, nothing that had happened in this place was supposed to happen. Trees weren't supposed to attack people. Grass wasn't supposed to try and eat you. The land certainly shouldn't be trying to swallow you whole. Was it anything to wonder then that the sky rained fire? And at least it meant that the trees wouldn't be trying to kill him for a time. They were too busy burning. He could also hear them screaming, which was very odd as he hadn't known that trees could scream. They were also writhing in the flames. He hadn't known that trees could writhe either.
Briagh did however understand pain. And he understood as he stared back at the forest that it was in agony. The forest was burning to death. Even the grass in the clearing was suffering. He could see it shuddering as the flames caught hold. The whole clearing almost seemed to dance as if there was a wind blowing. But at least the grass couldn't scream.
Was this the world real, he wondered? Or had he somehow entered one of the underworlds? Because what he was staring at looked very much like the depictions of the lands of demons he'd seen. Fire and pain. Screaming too. He didn't like the forest. In fact, he hated it. But as he stared at it even Briagh realised he didn't want to see what was happening to it. No one should be burnt alive. Not even apparently sentient trees. It was simply too cruel.
But it was more than that he realised as his wits returned to him. With the forest burning – and it would likely do so for days – it meant that he had no way back. He was now effectively trapped on this mountain. Was that was the purpose of the fire rain? Maybe this was all part of the greater plan of the woman who called to him. Was she really the Goddess? Toying with him? Or just making sure he completed his journey?
This place was a giant trap. Actually it had been both a trap and a test. First there had been the call. The dreams. A lure to bring him here. A test he suspected, that might only be heard by morphs like him. Then there had been the forest. A forest that had no escape since once you entered it, the way back vanished. Then his survival skills had been tested by the forest. Once he had passed that test came the fire rain. The only way to escape the fire was to get to the path up the side of a mountain that led to his destination.
It seemed impossible that someone could have caused all this. Not someone mortal. Especially when he looked out over the clearing and the forest beyond and saw what looked like a couple of leagues of forest turned inferno. Looking up into the sky of orange and gold Briagh saw only more fire raining down. Even the most powerful wizard – even a wildred – could not call down devastation on this scale. Nor could he think of any reason why one would care enough about him to bother. He was a nobody. But if the one calling him truly was Morphia, the Goddess, then there were potentially no limits to what she could do. And there was no reason to imagine that her motives had any resemblance to those of mortals. Or that this took any particular effort on her part at all. This could just be a game to her. She could just be toying with him for her own amusement. Making him do whatever she wanted simply for fun. The thought scared him.
But it didn't change things he realised. He was stuck on a mountain, surrounded by fire. He could not go back. He had no food and nothing to drink. His destination lay ahead. His only chance of escaping this nightmare lay in climbing the path to the terrace he had seen in his dreams. And if the technologist and his ally were there, it was also his only chance to save his fellow morph. Even if he had wanted to give up and escape, he could not. His only choice was to keep going.
“You, know a true Goddess – one who actually has some regard for those of her blood – would offer them some shelter! A place to rest. Some water to drink! Maybe even a little food!”
Briagh yelled it at the sky filled with falling fire, in the hope perhaps that he would be granted some little respite. But of course there was none. No water or food magically appeared in front of him. And though there were places he could perhaps have rested, he simply wasn't tired. Not after the fear that had just filled him.
Eventually, after he'd recovered enough of his strength he started walking up the path, glad that it at least was sheltered by overhanging rocks, though wondering what new dangers lurked ahead. He hoped that the end was in sight, all the while trying not to pay any attention to the fire rain that was still falling all around him. As long as it couldn't hit him he told himself, it didn't matter.
The only thing that mattered was what lay ahead. Another test no doubt. This one would probably be even more deadly. But if it was a game he told himself, then surely that meant there was a way to win through? Because what sort of game gave your opponent no chance of winning? A boring one. Surely she didn't want to be bored?
Chapter Forty Six
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br /> “What, by all the gods, happened here?”
Princess Elan spoke for them all as they surveyed the scene in front of them. And for once she looked something other than angry. She wore an expression that might have been shock. Perhaps it was even fear.
She wasn’t alone in that. Abel felt the same. In all his life he'd never seen anything like the burnt out scene of devastation in front of them. He'd seen forest fires before. One anyway. And he knew what they left behind. Burnt out forests of blackened skeletons that had once been trees. But this had gone so much further than that.
The skeletons weren't skeletons. They were pieces of skeletons. Stumps of wooden bones. They could barely even be called trunks. The fire had burnt far too hot to leave anything more than that behind. And the ground was blanketed in layer of thick black ash.
Beyond the zone of blackness stood the mountain. T'illshar Ree. It looked to be a solitary peak of rock with a shear face, that had somehow escaped the fire.
“Abel?” Master Zo'or addressed him. “What do you see?” He was always doing that. Using everything they came across as a chance for Abel to learn.
“It's an illusion and yet it’s not.” Abel did his best to describe what he saw. “But it's so detailed and complex that I can't work out what parts of it are real and what parts aren't. It's as though the reality and the illusion have combined.” He bent down and scooped up a handful of the ash around his feet.
“This ash both is and isn't ash. It's more … It’s akin to ash. Partly ash and partly something else. I mean, I can feel the ash in my hands as well as see it. I can smell it and if I was willing, probably taste it. But I know it isn't what I see or feel. I simply can't see what it actually is. Has there been a fire here? I don’t know.”
“Good.” Master Zo'or managed a word of praise. He did that sometimes. “Your sensitivity is growing. You are developing the instincts of a wizard.”
“Nothing we see here is as it seems.” The wildred raised his head to address them all. “But everything we see is in some fashion real. If you see a tree stump in front of you, you may be sure that there is something solid in front of you. But you may not be sure that it is in fact a tree stump. Everything has been altered and we see only what we are meant to see.”
“Or what Briagh is meant to see.” Father Argen interjected. “I don't think any of this is for our benefit.”
He'd been saying the same thing for a while now. In fact, ever since they'd entered the Forbidden Forest. Largely it seemed to Abel, because it wasn't as dangerous as it was supposed to be. No monsters had attacked them. No ghosts had appeared. There had been no strange noises in the night. And they hadn't got lost either, heading due north as straight as an arrow flew. Abel was grateful for those things. He didn't want to face any danger. But the priest seemed to take it as some sort of affront. As if they weren't attacked by these things simply because they weren't worthy.
Personally, he found it a relief. Their journey had been safe and uneventful. He liked that. And each evening he got to spend some time with Master Zo'or who would introduce him to some new spell or aspect of his magic. In only a few weeks with the wildred, he had learned more about his magic than he had in his whole life so far.
“There was that fire last night.” And a truly strange fire it had been Abel thought, which was why he mentioned it. Fire in the sky like sunset, but a sunset where the sun almost seemed to be settling down onto the land. Kissing it. Perhaps this was the result?
The technologists claimed that the sun was in fact a huge ball of fire in the heavens larger than the entire world. And they had performed all their strange observations and measurements to prove their theories that it travelled around the world. Personally Abel was happier with the more commonplace explanations. That the sun was a god. He wasn't sure he believed all the other parts of it. That the great God Celes burned. His head with fire and his body with darkness. That the sun was merely his head burning brightly. And that he spent all his days chasing his beloved moon goddess and she chasing him so that during the days as he chased her the darkness lay behind him, and at night when she chased him, she shone in his shadow. It seemed to him very often that the priests embellished their beliefs with the tales of the bards. But really, what else could the sun be but a god? And this looked like the perfect example of what would happen when the sun god took human form and walked the world, even for a few minutes.
“Fire in the sky and fire in the ground.” Father Argen mused. “Truly, never before have I seen the like. And the witch compass pointed straight through it, surely meaning that Briagh was caught in that inferno. And yet he survived since the compass now shows he has moved on.”
“It reinforces my belief that he was drawn here.”
Maybe, thought Abel. But why, here? If it was Morphia that drew him here as seemed likely, what did she want him for? And did it have anything at all to do with the technologist? Because thus far in their travels through the Forbidden Forest they had seen nothing that even looked like a dire wolf. They hadn't heard a single howl. And as for the ghosts and monsters that apparently dwelt within it, they hadn't seen any of those either. It had been a singularly peaceful trip.
No monsters, no ghosts, no dire wolves, and a gentle walk through what had been up until now a peaceful forest. The only thing that was out of place was the sky of orange and gold. Until now, all of them had been beginning to think that maybe Briagh's quest in being drawn here had nothing to do with Barachalla. They had been starting to think that he hadn't been called here. The dream had just been a dream. And this place was no home of Morphia at all. For days the thought that they should just turn around had been with them all. But at the same time the one thing that kept them going, was the understanding that they still had no other thought as to where the technologist might be. It was here or nowhere.
Coming across this devastation however changed Abel’s views. He knew it had changed Father Argen’s view and suspected it had changed the others as well. Whatever had happened, this was not of the natural order. It was not of wizards and magic, or technology either. It had to be divine. Perhaps then Briagh really had been called here? He supposed they should be grateful for that.
For him though, it didn't matter. For the first time in his life he was receiving some training in his gift. Taking the first steps towards becoming a light bringer. And as an added bonus his crippled leg was far stronger than it had been. For Abel those things mattered far more than the rest. One day he had hopes of becoming a true wizard. Not perhaps a great wizard like Master Zo'or. But still a wizard of some sort. A man with a future. It was a dream that he had never dared follow before. It would have been selfish of him if he had followed that path, given the state of poverty he and his family lived in. But now the dream seemed to be becoming a reality.
Unless of course they died before then. And staring out over the leagues of what looked like burnt out forest in front of them, Abel had to think that that was a possibility. Because whoever or whatever could do this could kill them all as easily as a man could crush an ant beneath his feet.
“We should make tracks.”
The sound of Elan’s voice brought his mind back to the Princess. She was a woman he had come to despise over the time they had travelled together. He did however, respect her determination. She was always and only of one mind. She set her mind to a task and there was no swaying her from it. Right now her task was to kill the technologist. Maybe to rescue her bothers and mother too – Abel wasn't completely certain of that – but nothing would stop her killing Barachalla, save death. Sometimes she hid the truth of her blood thirsty quest behind soft words and lies. But it was always there.
No wonder Father Argen despaired of her. She was supposed to be a Princess of Abylon. A supporter of the faith of the Great Sage. But it was clear to all that she had no place in her heart for wisdom. Only for vengeance. She followed The Bloody God.
Yet maybe that was what they needed. Someone of singular purpose, even if
that purpose was not theirs. For the moment they shared a goal, and she could propel them towards that goal as no other could. Something she proved once more as she strode out into the fields of ash, heading for the distant mountain.
The rest of them of course had no choice save to follow her. If nothing else, they could not let a woman head off into danger alone. If they hadn't she would have gone on alone. Maybe she knew fear, but she would not let it stop her.
Then a thought occurred to him. “Master Zo'or.”
“Abel?”
“If there has been a fire which this ash would seem to suggest, then Master Barachalla could not make his way through it. He's old, Callum is crippled and they have prisoners. How could they wade through this?”
“True. So if he and Callum are to succeed in their madness, then they must already be ahead of us. On the mountain. They must have come through before the fire. Or else they are behind us somewhere and their mission is delayed.”
