by Ryan Drake
“I s-s-said enough!”
Oh great, I thought. Thork Yurger, still dressed in his dark robe, stepped towards me from his place at the edge of the crowd.
This time the muttering died down completely.
“You know m-m-me,” he said. “You know who I w-w-work f-f-for. And you know what he’s c-c-capable of.” It would have sounded much more impressive had his voice not been high-pitched and stuttering.
“Wait a moment,” I said, putting two and two together. “Your master is Pingo T’Ong. Is he the scary man these people are afraid of?”
Thork Yurger looked at me with a sneer. “Of c-c-course he is. And you c-c-called these p-p-people idiots.” Then he casually took the torch from the barman’s hands and threw it into the pyre. “You’re d-d-done,” he said.
“Wait! Stop! Hold on a moment!” I said. The torch had landed between a couple of pieces of wood that I fervently hoped were wet enough to drink. But the flames caught within seconds and started to spread. I looked at the crowd, but no-one appeared particularly inspired to help. “Who cares who he works for?” I yelled. “Everything I said still holds true! Are you Pingo’s pawns or are you men in your own right?”
Even as I said it, I knew it was too late. Thork Yurger had interrupted me at exactly the right time (for him, anyway; it was exactly the wrong time from my perspective), and the momentum I’d gained with the crowd was gone. Instead of rushing to my aid and maybe pulling the pyre apart with their hands, they stood in uncertain groups talking it over. Those few who did want to actively help were held back by those around them.
Thork obviously understood what he’d done as well. He stood there, grinning.
“I’m going to kill you,” I said, but that just made him laugh.
“Hard to d-d-do if you’re already d-d-dead,” he said. As much as I hate to admit it, he had a very good point.
The flames had taken a good hold. Though still some distance from me, I could already feel their warmth and knew it would take real effort to put them out. I couldn’t hide from them or get out of their way, so I did the only thing I could: I spat at them. Repeatedly. And kept spitting until I ran out of spit to spit at them.
I might have had more luck trying to fly by waggling my ears. The flames ignored my futile attempts as if I’d never tried.
I started to panic at about that point. I mean, not only did I consider myself far too good looking to die, but burning to death just seemed like an incredibly painful way to do it. Not that I really knew, though. I hadn’t exactly tried it before. I’d never even really been burnt. Sure, I’d had occasional near misses when a torch burnt too low or I ended up in a tavern that was burning to the ground, but the worst that had happened is that my clothing got singed. And now I had to put up with this? It seemed a trifle extreme.
Maybe if I used my tail to open my trousers, I could pee my way to survival, I thought. Except that I didn’t really need to go.
Then I had a better idea. Ignoring Thork Yurger, the barkeep and the rest of the crowd (who were still arguing with each other despite the fact that the flames were rising ever higher) as if they didn’t exist, I whipped out my tail, crouched down as far as I could with my arms chained to the post behind me, and started flinging the wood beneath me away.
“Hey!” Thork Yurger shouted. “W-w-what are you d-d-doing?”
I ignored him. Then I changed my mind, took aim and flung a chunk of wood at him as hard as I could, savoring both the solid thunk it made on connecting with his shoulder and the pathetic yelp he made. From that point on, every piece of wood I moved went sailing towards Thork. He yelped a bit more, danced a little, and ended up backing meekly away.
Unfortunately, some of the crowd had seen what I was doing. More importantly, they’d seen how I was doing it. I heard the word “Demon” repeated often enough that I knew I’d lost them entirely. There was no way they would help me now.
I kept at it. The flames were getting very hot now, surrounding me, and smoke was coming up from underneath my feet. While I’d dug a fair hole around where I was standing, I knew it was never going to be enough. I was going to die here.
Still, I didn’t see any reason to stop, so I continued to wrap my tail around pieces of wood and fling them away.
“Gordan! Gordan of Riss!”
Huh? What? Who?
I paused, coughed at the smoke I was breathing, and looked out. And there she was, still looking beautiful in the firelight despite the wide-eyed look of horror on her face.
“Gabby!” I cried. “What are you doing here?” I was both infinitely pleased that she was there and aghast that she would see me like this.
For the first time ever, she ignored the fact I’d shortened her name. “Gordan, what have they done?” She shook her head. Perhaps she realized that she’d ignored my question, as usual. “I thought I might be in time, but….”
“But here I am.” I tried a grin through the smoke, but at just that moment a new flame appeared right under my feet. “Ow,” I said. Even so, I kept my grin going, for her.
It appeared to be too much for her. She started to cry. “I’m sorry, Gordan,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time. I’m sorry I blamed you for everything. I’m sorry I tried to kill you.”
The flames were really starting to sting. They’d caught my trousers and I figured I didn’t have a lot of time. “It’s all right, Gabby—sorry, Gabriella. I’m just happy to have you here, and I’m sorry too. You know, for everything. Goodbye now. It was very nice knowing you.”
Ok, so that ‘it was very nice knowing you’ bit was a little weak, but you’ve got to give me some credit. At the time I said it, I had flames dancing a little jig over my tunic, and let’s get serious, those things were hot!
They hurt. A lot.
I figured it was probably time to start screaming about it, you know, to give those watching the show they were expecting. But here’s the interesting thing: I didn’t really feel like screaming.
Sure, there were flames on and around me and I was in a fair amount of pain, but to a person like me who gets beaten up on a regular basis, it just wasn’t that bad. Kind of like smashing your thumb with a hammer. It hurts, but after a moment or two and a few choice swearwords, it calms down and you can get on with your life.
That’s what this was like. I could have screamed about it, but really, I figure screaming is for pain that’s pretty much off the end of the scale. You know, the just-before-you-die-horribly sort of pain. And this just didn’t seem that bad.
In fact, after a while, it didn’t seem bad at all. It didn’t exactly hurt any less, but the hurt no longer seemed to matter. The worst of it seemed to be the smoke, which was making me want to cough.
I started to get confused. What was going on? I wondered. Was this some form of non-burning fire I didn’t know about? Because it didn’t seem to be burning me at all. Not even my hair was truly on fire. Was the pyre just an elaborate joke designed to fool passing strangers and maybe give them a bit of a scare?
Or was I simply delusional? Perhaps I was dying and in incredible pain, only my mind didn’t want to face what was happening so it just invented a happier reality. Perhaps this happened to everyone when they were about to die….
Except that I felt fine. In fact, I was starting to feel really good.
I looked out of the fire to Gabby, but she was just standing there with tears running down her cheeks. I wanted to say something, but thought the noise of the fire might drown me out. By that stage I could barely hear anything else myself. And besides, regardless of how I thought I felt, I could still be dead in a few moments.
The fire was really burning now, and more and more flames were coming from right where I was. I coughed, struggling to breathe, and thought maybe that was how people died in a fire. Perhaps they breathed all that burning fire in and it charred their lungs. If so, then I was still in a mess of trouble. I coughed again, and once more … and then
it was like I was breathing fresh, clean air.
I couldn’t believe it. The fire raged all around me. I couldn’t see or hear anything else. I should have been dead ages ago. The fire should have consumed my body like it consumed the wood all around me, like it consumed my clothes and the very air I should have been breathing.
But it didn’t. Within the flames, I was alive and unburnt and whole. And I was no longer just starting to feel good. I felt great! I felt like I was the King of everything, and nothing could touch me!
I threw my head back as far as I could and laughed and laughed and laughed out loud. And then I laughed some more.
When I was done laughing, I thought briefly about that odd feeling in my chest, and for the first time it didn’t seem ridiculous that I’d breathed a huge tongue of flame. I tried to do it again just because of the image that would make for all those still watching. Picture a great fountain of fire erupting from me in the middle of the pyre. But it wasn’t to be. The strange feeling was still there, but maybe it wasn’t quite ready to come out.
I laughed again and thought how ridiculous it was that I was chained. I should be free, I thought, to enjoy this feeling as much as possible.
Then I realized I felt more than just great. I felt powerful as well. So thinking, I flexed my arms just to see what might happen.
It should have been impossible. I mean, I’d tried this before and found the chains much too strong. But then, everything about my current situation should have been impossible, and yet there I was, laughing my head off in the middle of my own funeral pyre. So I wasn’t surprised when I felt the chain give a little.
I tried again, this time giving it everything I had.
Pink.
That was the sound of the chain snapping. Just like that, I was free.
I strode from the fire wearing nothing but my grin. I still had the manacles around my wrists. They hadn’t snapped, just the short length of chain between them. But I didn’t really think that counted overly much. What mattered was that when the crowd of people watched me emerge, they saw a man covered in fire but unharmed, showing sharply-pointed teeth and a sinuous tail flicking back and forth.
Their reaction was predictable. The cries of “Demon!” sounded again, and that was it. They couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
“That’s right!” I bellowed. “Run for your lives, for I will not stop until all are dead!” Moments later, the flames covering my body had gone out and the area where the villagers had stood was almost deserted. Not even the barkeep or Thork Yurger had chosen to stick around.
I didn’t care, as long as they didn’t irritate me any more. Nor did I care that they thought I was a demon. They could have been right. All I cared about was that Gabby was still there, looking at me without fear but also with a combination of hope and amazement.
I walked right up to her. “Hi,” I said.
For a time she didn’t say anything. Then she gave a faint smile. “You’re naked,” she said.
I nodded. “Yes. Care to join me?”
Her smile broadened. “You know, I think I will,” she said, then kissed me like she meant it.
24
Coming Down from the High
We spent the next couple of hours warmed by the still-burning fire.
At some point Gabby commented, “I didn’t realize you had scales,” and I looked down at myself. She was right. In the flickering firelight the mottling I’d always had looked a bit like scales.
I shrugged and said, “Neither did I.” I wrapped my tail around her waist and pulled her close again.
Some time later, as we were breaking into one of the more permanent stalls looking for something for me to wear, I asked, “Why did you leave the Demesne?”
“I had a vision,” she replied. “I saw you in the fire. I only stayed there because—well, it seemed like the only way out for you and Max. And he’s the Shadow. You know. He’s rich.” She blushed deeply enough that I could see it even in the dark. “But anyway, when I saw you being burned, I knew that I had to try to stop it from happening. Not that I really needed to, as it turned out. And I saw the Fracture again.”
That explained a lot, I thought. “The Fracture?”
“Yes. Pingo T’Ong has it.”
And just like that, everything finally clicked into place. Thork Yurger, the orcs, everything. Pingo T’Ong had been at the heart of everything that had happened to me since this adventure had begun.
“There’s more,” Gabby continued. “He’s using it to summon a monster. If he isn’t stopped, he’s going to start a war and kill thousands and thousands of people.”
I was still feeling fairly amazing. “Then let’s go and stop him.” I said it without even thinking about it.
#
A few hours later I started to seriously regret those words.
We’d managed to find me a tunic and trousers, I’d been able to replace my boots, and Gabby had even let me borrow a half-decent knife. We’d also stolen a couple of horses. By the time the sun had climbed half-way to its zenith, we’d left the friendly little town of Brelor several miles behind us. I fervently hoped I’d never have to step foot in that town again for the rest of my life.
Sadly, that was about where the last of my euphoria had left me as well.
No longer did I feel as if I could take on an army of trolls or conquer the world single handed. In fact, I felt comparatively shabby. My new tunic was a bit tight across the shoulders and the fabric was rough. The trousers were chaffing me where a man shouldn’t ever be chaffed and I was sure that my boots were rubbing a sizable blister onto the knuckle of each of my littlest toes. The chain links still attached to the manacles wrapped around my wrists made annoying jingling sounds every time I moved. To top it all off, I still had that uncomfortable pressure deep in my chest, and it didn’t seem at all interested in going away.
But these little complaints were the least of my issues.
First on the list of really big issues was this: what did I think I was doing? I’ve said before that if I can help it, I make sure that I enter any fight with the odds well and truly stacked on my side. And yet, here we were, charging off (slowly, at the pace of an easy walk) over the foothills towards a man powerful enough to scare an entire village into doing his will, without him even having to be there. Sure, much of his power may well have stemmed from rumor, but I knew for a fact that he commanded at least one very determined assassin and a small army of orcs. And that assassin had recently shown some fairly decent skills.
And while I didn’t credit the barkeep’s words about boils or failed crops, I did respect Gabby’s abilities as a seer. I’d seen first-hand what she could do, and hadn’t known her to ever be wrong. And she had said that Pingo T’Ong was working on something big that smacked of very dark magics indeed.
Who in their right mind would actively choose to walk into all that?
Yet that’s exactly what Gabby and I were doing. All by ourselves. Without our own army, assassins or magic to aid us.
Gabby had whatever weapons she usually carried. I possessed nothing more than a knife, a tail, and a certain innate talent for fighting. And that was about it.
Now, let’s measure all this against my criteria for getting into a fight. Unfair? Check. Odds stacked heavily in my favor? Well, no. Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite was true. And in this particular case, one out of two is no good whatsoever.
It just wasn’t my type of fight.
The second item on my list of really big issues was related to the first. Thork Yurger. I hadn’t seen him since flinging a fair amount of wood in his direction when I was being burnt at the stake. For all I knew, he’d found a dark hole somewhere and curled up in it, certain in the knowledge that it would be the end of him if he told Pingo T’Ong of his latest failed attempt to kill me.
But he could equally have fled the town of Brelor for his master’s palace. The only advantage Gabby and I had was the ele
ment of surprise. And Thork Yurger could have already cost us that.
For all I knew, the path to Pingo’s palace could be lined with orcs, just waiting for us to walk by. And that could bode ill for our health.
The third item on my list of really big issues was this: what in the name of all the gods had happened to me?
Let’s get serious here. I’d survived being burned at the stake! And not just survived. I could have had a picnic in there! Who does that? Better question: how?
Was I some sort of demon, as so many people had suggested? What else could I possibly be?
And there was another, perhaps more interesting question: what else might I be able to do?
Sure, we were heading towards one of the very things that might be able to help me answer some of these questions, but really, all this had happened just the night before. I wanted a little longer to think things through before embarking on this sort of adventure.
Several times already I’d started to say something. What exactly, I didn’t know. Something to encourage Gabby to turn around, find a better plan or at least wait a while before confronting Pingo. But Gabby was Gabby, and I didn’t think there was anything I could say that might dissuade her from doing what she knew was the right thing to do. If I said anything, she’d look at me with a disappointed expression and continue on all by herself.
Perhaps it doesn’t cast me in a very good light, but I’ll admit that I’d also considered simply stopping and letting her do that. But I didn’t want to see her get hurt. So I walked my horse beside her, thinking that it would have been a beautiful morning if we hadn’t been on our way towards almost certain doom.
That’s when we reached the winding path that led up the side of a mountain to Pingo T’Ong’s palace.
25
Inside Pingo’s Palace
At about the same time, Pingo’s preparations were interrupted by the entrance of Thork Yurger. The diminutive assassin had hidden for a few hours after my show. Then he’d acquired a pony and ridden it hard all the way to the palace.
