Taming Fire

by Aaron Pogue

  "You're no soldier either," the bully said. "We've had plenty of cutthroats and thieves through here, though, and we know how to deal with them." He glanced over his shoulder to the handful of men still gathered between him and the bar. "Don't we, fellas?"

  I had to swallow against a lump of fear. I ducked my head. "I assure you, I'm neither cutthroat nor thief," I said. "Just a weary traveler." I turned my shoulder toward him, trying to break the confrontation, and gestured across the room. "Just grant me an hour by your fire—"

  He slammed a palm hard against the front of my shoulder, spinning me back to face him, and the patrons nearest us scraped away. Behind the bully, his fellas took a step closer, ready to help.

  I threw a look around the room, hoping to find an innkeeper to come to my aid. The closest I could find was a bartender, and he met my gaze with one as level and hateful as any in the room. No one in the whole common room met my eye with anything other than defiance. I found myself falling onto other habits, scanning the room now as terrain, noting the obstacles I'd have to fight around.

  As soon as I caught myself doing that I took a long step back and raised my hands, open, palms out. I had no strength for a fight, and I didn't want to hurt any of these people. I didn't much want to get hurt, either, and that was the more likely outcome. "I'll go," I said. "I'm sorry. I was only looking for some warmth and light. There are dark things out in the night."

  "That there are," the bully said, stalking after me even as I withdrew. His fellas fell in behind him. "And we've seen enough of them."

  One of his fellas slapped him on the shoulder and pointed at my still-raised arm. "What's that there?" he asked.

  The bully peered closer, and I realized he was staring at the pale white scars upon my left wrist, peeking out the end of my tattered sleeve. "You branded?" the bully demanded. "You a renegade from the king's justice?"

  That struck too close to home. I stopped suddenly and he stepped too close again. I met his gaze and shoved back my sleeve to reveal more of the wicked scar that snaked all the way to my shoulder. I heard someone gasp in the watching crowd and saw the confusion pass over the bully's eyes.

  "That's no brand," I growled at him. "That's the mark of a living dragon. I faced it, and I survived."

  A flash of memory took hold of me then—of the black dragon that had nearly destroyed me, and of the dark shapes passing in the night outside—and fear held me in place. Fear gave me courage. There were worse things out there than this bully and his half-drunk friends.

  He opened his mouth to sneer more contempt at me, but I shook my head once. "I brought no threat," I said. "I gave no offense." The words came out low, almost shaking with a quiet fury. "All I ever hoped was an hour at your fire."

  As I said it I fell into my second sight. The fire flickered and flared on a broad stone hearth. I saw it as a dozen dancing flames, and in my mind's eye I reached a hand across the room and plunged it painlessly into the fire. I knotted that invisible hand in the twisting flames, gripped them tight, then pulled them back to me.

  The susurrus of fear that had held the room since my arrival burst into a many-throated scream of true terror. Chairs clattered and tables crashed as the inn's patrons scrambled away from me. To their eyes the fire itself stretched out in a long streamer, flowing like a jet of water from its bed of embers to my outstretched left hand.

  I transferred my gaze to the bully, still standing above me. He was frozen in perfect terror, and I felt no pity. I held the hearthfire in a ball between my hands, close to his belly. The living fire struggled to escape, fighting to be free, but I bound it with my will. Every errant flame I bent back into the fire's core, until it blazed like an inferno between us.

  "I never hurt you," I said, resuming my rant, "and yet you greeted me with hostility. I—"

  I saw him tremble then. I saw tears in the big man's eyes. His fellas had fled him, cowering with everyone else in the room against the cold stone walls. I could taste their fear, thick in the air, and it sapped my strength. It sapped my anger. I lowered my gaze, extended one hand, and sent the fire flowing back into its bed. I saw the bully catch a breath, and it escaped him almost instantly in a shrill little sob. I turned my back on him and left the inn.

  13. Of Violence and Blood

  Outside, the wind howled. The darkness felt deeper after holding a hearthfire between my hands. It was cold and thick and empty. I squeezed my eyes tight shut for a moment, heard someone in the room behind me burst into tears, and shook my head once. I turned south.

  I'd gained a road, at least. And I had places to be. I took a deep breath and let it out. Probably for the best, really. I hadn't time to spare or coin to spend. A stay at the inn had been an idle dream. I set my shoulders, turned my face toward Tirah, and started down the road.

  I went perhaps a hundred paces before a tremor seized me. I made it another step and then I shook again, like a doll in the jaws of a furious hound. I fell to my knees and gasped a single sob. Shame burned cold behind my chest. I'd come here hoping to escape that kind of darkness, and instead I had shared it with all these innocent people. I could still see their fear, could smell it in my memory, and it turned my stomach.

  And mixed within the shame I felt my own fear. It was the fear that had chased me across the hills, the fear of mighty things unseen. But there was more. I had as much to fear from men as monsters. The bully in the bar had reminded me of sins I'd long forgotten. I was a fugitive of the king's justice. I had enemies at court and at the Academy. I had enemies among the king's garrison and in the rebels' highest ranks. The world of man was bent against me. The only peace I'd truly known had been at Joseph's cabin. And I had walked away.

  A shiver wracked me and another sob escaped. I missed that rotting cabin. I missed the man who hadn't challenged me, had never sneered. He had shown me only kindness that brought me from the edge of death and brought me into my power.

  My power. I ground my teeth. My power that had torn his boat to tinder. My power that had filled these hearts with fear. My power that I could not quite control. Better if I only had the sword.

  But even as I thought it, I remembered the king's soldier I'd spitted on my blade. I shook my head and clenched my fists. I was a threat, a danger, a monster as terrible as the beasts that roamed the night.

  This town's bully had known it. Archus had known it, and Seriphenes, too. Cooper, mocking me on the hills outside Sachaerrich, and everyone who'd ever heard my father's name and shunned me in the streets. They'd known and sought to chase me out.

  Everyone but Joseph. I pushed myself up to sit on my heels and dragged my ragged sleeve across my eyes. He'd given me a home. He'd given me respect. He'd taught me a new trade, and shared his wealth, and perhaps I could have stayed there all my life. Let rebellion wrack the land. Let Claighan's nightmare dragonswarm roll across the earth. They wouldn't touch some fisher's hut forgotten on the shore.

  I took a breath. I dried my eyes and thought of my friend Joseph. I thought that I'd go home—

  And then I heard a sound upon the road. It was the crunch of stone beneath a boot and less than half a dozen paces behind me. Fear and fury flashed through me, and I flung myself to my feet. I sprang backward, opening distance between me and this intruder. And as I jumped my eyes darted to take in every detail. My hand flew to a sword that wasn't there.

  It was no attacker, though, no mob come to chase me from the town. It was one man, barely older than me, with work-worn hands and friendly fat cheeks. His eyes were wide, startling white within the night, and he threw his hands up and flung himself to the ground. He screamed, "Don't hurt me!"

  The shame bit deep into my gut again, and my shoulders fell. After another heartbeat I stepped over and helped the young man to his feet. He wore a wedding band upon his hand and met my grip with easy strength.

  "I'm sorry to have frightened you," I said. He laughed, nervous, and I winced at that. "I will not hurt you. Just go."

  He stood before me. He a
djusted his shoulders, then took a breath. "I'd rather not," he said. "I'd rather hear your story."

  "You'd never believe it," I said.

  "That interesting, is it?" he said. A smile peeked out at the corners of his mouth, then came out for real. "I could hardly complain at that."

  I shook my head, then nodded down the road. "I'm needed in Tirah." It made a better excuse than Joseph's cabin. "I should go."

  "Not at night," he said. "That's foolishness. Even for a wizard." His face went pale at that and he gulped, but he recovered in a beat. "I have a room. And a warm fire. And my Becky can make you a supper to warm the soul. Stay with me a night and I will carry you halfway to Tirah tomorrow."

  "Carry me?" I said. The rest...it sounded too good to even think about. "Why would you—"

  "I've business down in Ammerton," he said. "And a team too fine to haul a cart, but you'll be glad of them tomorrow."

  I looked more closely at his eyes. I shook my head. "That's no answer." I glanced back at the door of the inn. "Why would you offer me this?"

  He paled again, just a touch around the eyes, but I saw it. He didn't look back at the inn. "It wasn't right to treat you that way," he said. "And I could use a dangerous man on my side, if I'm to take the road to Ammerton. And because...." He trailed off. He finally broke eye contact, looked away, and gulped again. "Because I am afraid of darker things than you."

  That much I could believe. I remembered the dragons fighting just miles from this town. I couldn't have been the only one to see it. This man was a helpless farmer, forced to take his cart down the long miles of the empty road. I remembered the loneliness, the emptiness of the land all around me. Whether I went back to Joseph's cabin or on down the road to Tirah, I had that desperate solitude to look forward to.

  That decided me. I'd impressed him with my show of fire, but I wouldn't be half so handy against an attack as he hoped. But his horses could move me faster, and I'd appreciate his company as much as he hoped for mine.

  "Daven," I said, extending my hand, and he grinned again.

  "Rann." He said. I nodded my head, once, and he led me back to the stables to fetch his cart.

  * * *

  His farmhouse sat on a plot that would have made Jemminor jealous, with a stable of his own and a house for the farmhands besides. His Becky made a fine meal indeed, and he showed me to a bed more comfortable even than the one I'd had at the Academy. I woke an hour after dawn, still sore and still tired, but better for the rest. The farmer had his cart already packed and waiting, and I watched his wife fret and fluster over him for a dozen minutes before he finally kissed her once, warm and firm, and said his sweet goodbye.

  "I'll be back tomorrow," he promised.

  And then we took to the road. He asked for my story and ended up telling me his. He was the second son of a minor baron. His older and younger brothers had both gone off to war behind the royal banner. One for love of country, one for fame. Either one, it seemed, would have made a better farmer than young Goodman Rann. The family home was fallen on hard times, and he had to make this journey.

  The story passed the time, but it cut at my heart. He didn't tell me how his brothers died, or exactly when his father passed along. He didn't tell me what it was that drove the farmhands from his fields, devoured his livestock, and ruined his crops. He spoke of accidents and fickle fortune, the way a farmer would, but I could see the edge of darkness he dared not address outright.

  There were dragons in these hills. I saw no sign of them by daylight, as we rolled swiftly south along the farmers' road to Tirah, but I could see the signs of them in Rann's story. I could feel their effects in the mob's response to my appearance last night. The dragons had brought hard times, chaos, even where they hadn't yet shown their true forms.

  I thought again of running off to Joseph's cabin. It was a wish, a dream, but not one I could long indulge. I knew too much. I knew what wrecked the farmer's lands. I knew what screamed in the night. And I knew it was just the beginning. We would need more than brave men or hiding places. We would need an army. We would need organization. We would need order.

  A memory of the rebel wizard Lareth flared in my mind, sharp and clear. He knelt beside me, almost giggling, and told me he would kill the king. I had no love for the king, but the nation needed order now. Lareth's reckless stroke would doom the world. I looked over at the farmer on the seat beside me, set my jaw, and turned my eyes toward Tirah.

  We passed through Nauperrel and Undermest and a dozen little towns with names known only to their farmers. We passed beneath a clear blue sky, sun riding high, and lunched in an inn where three of the King's Guard bragged of a recent victory over a band of rebels. Or perhaps a band of brigands. It was hard to tell from their description, and I got the sense the Guardsmen didn't much care.

  We passed the afternoon in pleasant silence, the morning's gloom long lifted. Birds sang in the air, cattle grazed in unfenced fields, and Rann began to hum a merry tune. The dragon threat was easy to forget.

  I carried it in my heart, though. I remembered what I had seen, the dragons' fight at dusk, and even as the goodman whistled, I watched the sun sink down. How much of it was timing? Would the dragons come out as evening approached? The road bent from east to south, and shadows stretched across it as we moved closer to the hills. I felt a shiver chase down my spine. Timing and terrain. There was more here to fear.

  But nothing came for us. Evening settled down, and my eyes ached from staring at the land rolling by on our right, but Rann noticed nothing and soon he had us rattling over cobblestoned streets and settling to a stop near an inn as large as any I'd seen outside the City. Stableboys came to fetch the reins, and Rann hopped down to the ground.

  I moved automatically, following him, and for the first time really looked around. "Where are we?" I asked.

  "Ammerton," he said, as though it were obvious. "You've never been?"

  I blinked at him. I looked back up the road, the way we'd come. "But you said—"

  He nodded. "We made most of a hundred miles, in time for supper." He jerked his head toward the inn. "Come on. They make a fine pork cutlet here, and Simeon's going to be waiting."

  I started to go with him, but I remembered I had no money to my name. The farmer had bought me my lunch, but I could hardly expect the same courtesy at the end of our journey. Still, I had no desire to be out on the road with dark coming on, and his company would find me welcome at the fire. I could find a place in a corner to sleep and strike for Tirah in the morning.

  So I followed at his side as he opened the door. The place was huge. And empty. A bartender nodded to us as we came in, and a worn old man hunched over a beer in one corner, but otherwise the common room was deserted. Rann grunted with the same surprise I felt.

  I nodded toward the old man. "Is that Simeon?"

  "No," Rann said. His voice was distant. "Simeon is Becky's cousin. He's supposed to have seed and stock for me." He stood for a moment, then shook his head and started across the room. "Ol' Gregor," he called. "You seen Simeon? He was supposed to meet me—"

  The bartender shook his head, grave, and Rann's pace faltered. He read something in the bartender's expression and his face went pale. "Something wrong?"

  "Just got news an hour ago," the bartender spat back. "Something happened out at Drew Gail's farm."

  "What?" Rann asked. "What happened?"

  "Hard to say," the bartender said, and he dropped his gaze. "Crazy rumors coming in, but whatever it is, it's bad. Folks went out to check on him, Simeon among 'em."

  Rann didn't listen to the rest. He turned on his heel and sprinted for the door, clutching at my sleeve as he passed. I knew what he was thinking, and I didn't like it. He bolted to the stable, caught a stableboy by the collar, and screamed at him for his cart.

  "Rann, wait," I said. "Wait for word to come back. We don't know what's happened."

  "I know," Rann said. "And you do too. These people won't admit it, but I've heard the things th
at scream in the night." His face went ashen. "Oh, Simeon."

  "How far is this farm?" I asked, while stablehands bustled to prepare the cart. "Do you know even where to find it?" I had to ask it again before the farmer heard me.

  "A couple miles outside town," he said. He nodded, almost frantic. "Not far." His breath caught, and I saw his lip tremble.

  I put a hand on his arm. "Rann," I said, trying to comfort him, and he whirled on me.

  I saw rage flash in his eyes, but it was born of fear and it fled a heartbeat later. "I tried to warn him," he said. "The hills aren't safe. Nobody listened, but I noticed it was worse in the hills. And in the woods."

  I swallowed. "You don't actually know," I said. "It could be anything."

  He shook his head. And then his eyes found mine, and I saw compassion settle in them. He sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I have to go, Daven. I have to go check on him. He's family. But this is no business of yours. Go on."

  I shook my head. "No, I'll come with you."

  He reached into a purse on his belt and counted out a handful of coins. He offered them to me. "I know you can't afford a room. Get yourself something to eat."

  I pushed his hand away. "I can't take that," I said.

  "You did as much as I needed," he said. "You made my trip a brighter one." His eyes flashed at that, and he dropped his gaze. He swallowed.

  I looked back at the inn one last time then shook my head. "I should at least see it through to the end," I said. The cart rattled up and I nodded to it. "This is what you wanted me for anyway, isn't it?"

  His eyes widened in surprise, then moistened with gratitude, and I felt a stab of shame. I couldn't offer him the help he wanted from me. I couldn't do anything to stop a dragon. But he needed company more than anything else. He needed hope. I hauled myself up onto the seat and then stared down at him. "Come on," I said. "Let's see what all the fuss is about."