FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

Cormar’s head.

  Frantically Sara watched as the knife sailed forward with deadly accuracy. Fast and sure, it was unlikely to miss. She didn’t have any compunctions about killing the man. Just because he hadn’t done anything wrong yet, didn’t mean he wouldn’t in the future. She was almost never wrong about her instincts.

  As she watched, Cormar didn’t duck down. He didn’t have time. Instead he stopped the knife cold. With ice. Sara watched in disbelief as icicles formed on her blade in mid-air until the hurtling knife fell to the floor with a clunk, weighted down by the sudden formation of frozen water around it.

  The only sound in the warehouse after that was bated breath as everyone waited to see what Cormar would do.

  After all, she had just tried to kill her boss.

  Chapter VI

  THEN CORMAR’S VOICE BROKE THE silence. “Well done, Fairchild. I knew I did right by hiring you.”

  Sara strode forward. On edge still. She’d never seen weather magic used so quickly or skillfully. Weather mages were laughed at by most of the mages skilled in any sort of magic useful for defense or tactics. Fire mages and even stone mages had better defense systems in place. After all, how was a gust of wind supposed to stop a man coming at you with his sword at the ready? It was a running joke among battle mages that weather mages were good for two things: a farm and dying in spectacular fashion. But she had just found out how they could turn their skills to the battlefield. Thoughts flowed through her mind at the implications for tactics but now wasn’t the time.

  A few steps later, she stood over her knife and looked down in disapproval. It was useless as it was. Not only was the blade covered in ice, but the whole thing had frozen to the floor. She couldn’t even get to it to pick it up.

  “I don’t suppose you can reverse this,” Sara said, looking up at the mage who had captured her blade.

  He stood with his hands in his pockets and his corner lackey at his side. “Already done.”

  She looked back down and saw that he was true to his word. Her blade lay in a damp pool, free of ice. She reached down to pluck it up and almost dropped it. Only the training drilled into her by instructors over the years that a warrior never let go of their weapons kept her from doing so. The knife hilt was like touching white fire. A cold so bitter that it felt like her fingers would be frozen to the hilt within a few seconds.

  Ire flashed in her eyes. Amusement flittered in Cormar’s eyes as he said, “Cold, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t bother responding. Just raised a hand with knife in place and smoothly pushed it into her sheath at her waist. It took everything in her power not to grimace at the biting cold that had overtaken her fingers, but she managed. She wouldn’t show weakness in front of this man.

  “I’m impressed,” he said as he walked forward slowly. “But then again I’ve been impressed by you since I met you. A young woman with the skill set of the fabled warriors. From a family darkened by the deeds of her father.”

  Her head snapped up.

  “Oh yes, I know who you are now, Sara Fairchild,” he said, waggling a finger. “I know about your father’s desertion and subsequent execution just over half a year ago. I make it a point to know everything there is to know about my employees, you see. When you walked out of my office, I made sure to get that information as soon as possible.”

  “You’ve been a busy man,” Sara said stiffly.

  “Shocked, my dear?”

  “Unimpressed would be a better word,” she said.

  He stilled. “Someday that smart mouth will get you killed.”

  “Not by you.”

  There was nothing he could say to that. He may be a weather mage with a touch of ice, but she was a battle mage with the fury and fighting power of ten men.

  Then he cracked a smile. “I like you. I don’t like many of my employees.”

  Ezekiel shifted behind her nervously and Cormar spared him an irate glance.

  “How did those men get into my building?”

  Sara wondered, how did he know about the other fellow? I already disposed of the body.

  Then she realized he must have spies watching the building. After all, it would be too much trust to expect a man like Cormar, who she suspected was much more than he seemed, to leave his prized artifacts in the hands of two employees. Even if he’d known one of them for a while.

  “I d-don’t know,” stammered Ezekiel.

  I need to do some snooping on my own, she thought as she listened to their conversation, What kind of weather mage and evidently wealthy collector works as a fishery manager? None that I’ve ever heard of. This has black-market racketeering written all over it. That I knew already. The question is, is it the kind of racketeering that you can get away with by paying off a tax collector and city watchmen with a hefty sum to look the other way or the kind that will bring the empress’s guards down on their heads?

  Sara knew that the answer to that question lay in whether or not Cormar had a bunch of junk stored here. Or genuine artifacts.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, sniveling worm,” said Cormar. “But since you answered…”

  Uh-oh, thought Sara, This doesn’t sound good.

  Suddenly the front door burst open and gusts of winds like a gale burst into the building. Cormar lifted his hand and Sara unsheathed her knife. He was up to no good. But he wasn’t focused on her, she soon noted. The gusts of winds blew past her and captured Ezekiel in their cold grasp. The curator rose above his beloved artifacts in the middle of a furious wind tunnel. Sara felt cold settle in the pit of her stomach as she watched the winds whirl around helpless Ezekiel, who was spinning like a top in their hold.

  “Please, Cormar!” she heard Ezekiel shriek.

  Please, what? She wondered. Please don’t torture me like a sadistic bastard?

  People had accused Sara Fairchild of being unemotional and detached throughout her entire life. In her mind, those were good things. An emotional fighter was a dead fighter. But even she wouldn’t watch while a man was tortured…unfairly. If he had been a prisoner of the state she wouldn’t even have considered intervening—after all, that was a whole different matter. But this was a personal vendetta.

  Out of her peripheral vision, she noticed that not a single artifact moved. She realized then that Cormar had impressive control over his gifts. It took skill not to send small objects like the medallion and dress laying on the bench just feet away from them flying. As he targeted Ezekiel and Ezekiel alone, she thought about what to do.

  Sara looked around desperately and spotted the area of the roof where she knew the metal pole rested on the other side. She raced over and noted nothing out of the ordinary. The roof was whole and no entrance showed to her eyes. She became agitated. Even as nervous as she was, the only sign of stress appeared in the tic of her lower lip. Her sharp eyes never wavered from their target. Ezekiel was screaming now. She cursed. The secret entrance wasn’t where she thought it was. She almost turned away when she noticed something odd on the ground. Every single one of the regular benches had five artifacts of various sizes and shapes on top. Always five. Never more. Except the lone bench below the spot she’d noted outside.

  She came over and quickly looked at the six objects on the bench. Evenly spaced out, only one sat where she’d expect the thieves to drop down through a hole in the roof. The object was a large, round egg the size of her head and made of pale golden amber. It sat on a pedestal of jade and looked no more out of place than any of the other objects on the bench. But she had her suspicions and she acted on them. Hands trembling because she didn’t know what she was picking up, Sara lifted the egg and the pedestal from the bench gently. As she did, a magical field she didn’t know existed lifted as well. Looking up with hope in her eyes, Sara spotted a man-sized hole now visible in the roof. From the hole spilled a rope, and she knew she had her second entrance.

  The egg had been some kind of illusion device. Whirling quickly, she called out, “Cormar! I found it. I found the way the thi
eves have been getting in. Let Ezekiel go.”

  Cormar looked over at her from where he stood. Irritation lined his face when he spotted the hole in the roof. “So you have.”

  To Ezekiel he snapped, “See! The watcher found the entrance. Why didn’t you? You’ve been on my payroll for weeks. One might wonder if you planned this all.”

  Ezekiel was too dizzy to say much. All Sara heard from his mouth was, “No, no, no,” over and over again. She put the egg down and strode forward. This had to stop. Fortunately, Ezekiel chose that moment to throw up and the waste rained down on the floor. Cormar took a step back and pulled a cloth from his pocket to wipe away a speck that had landed on his shoulder. With a cold look up at Ezekiel, he stopped his wind tunnel. Ezekiel dropped to the floor with a thud.

  Sara raced forward to help Ezekiel sit up while Cormar wrinkled his nose at the stench now atop his artifacts.

  “Are you all right?” she asked the dazed curator as she pushed him up by his back.

  “What?” Ezekiel said, his head lolling to the side. He clearly wasn’t coherent yet.

  She looked up at their boss as he walked past them without a word.

  Cormar picked up the egg and jade pedestal she had hastily set down and studied it.

  “Well, well. A refraction egg. Haven’t seen one of these on the market in a good two weeks,” Cormar said.

  Cormar looked over at the man standing beside him. “Wainwright, didn’t I bid on an egg like this at the auction just last month?”

  His secretary quickly stated, “Yes, sir,” while pulling a notebook out of his pocket.

  Shifting through the papers, Wainwright elaborated, “Thirteen days ago, sir, at the Giles Manor auction. It was described as a pale amber egg with an attached jade base. Bidding started out at two hundred shillings. We lost out at five hundred and fifty-six.”

  “So we did,” said Cormar with a Cheshire cat smile. “Well, it seems that I’ve gotten my little prize for free.”

  He set it back down and came up to his watcher and curator.

  By this time Ezekiel was sitting up on his own and she had stood. Her face was like stone. The man was a snake.

  “Ezekiel, see that you catalog my new possession, seal that damned hole, and get two new benches set up,” said Cormar.

  “Benches?” said Ezekiel weakly while shrinking behind Sara.

  “Yes, I have a new shipment coming in tonight.”

  With that Cormar walked out of the door whistling.

  Sara and Ezekiel looked at each other, then they started at the sound of muffled shouting that came from across the room. The fat man was awake.

  Wainwright came back through the door, looked at their prisoner, and then looked at them. “Cormar says he’ll send someone for the thief.”

  He left.

  Sara had a feeling that whomever they sent wouldn’t be good for the fat man’s health. Apparently neither did the fat man, because the sound of his muffled cries grew louder and he began banging his head against the walls of thin metal.

  Ezekiel stared at their unwelcome guest. Then he looked back at the now-visible rope hanging from the ceiling.

  “What?”

  Ezekiel wheezed, “You honestly think that fat man climbed down that rope?”

  He has a point, she thought while looking up. It’s nothing but two twined cables with knots tied in. He never could have managed the climb.

  “One thing at a time,” she murmured. “Let’s get that entrance closed and then we’ll find out what our friend knows about the statue.”

  Ezekiel nodded. As she walked away she heard, “Thanks. For stopping him and possibly saving my life.”

  She turned back and nodded. “Any time. Now are there building materials in that supply closet?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Good.” she replied. “I need a fire starter, some rope, fabric, and a piece of the building’s sheet metal.”

  He looked at her oddly.

  “Do you have all that?” she said impatiently.

  “I’ll check,” he said, hurrying over to the large cabinet built in the back. It looked big enough to hold at least two of the benches inside, so she suspected the supplies would be pretty extensive.

  Ezekiel opened it with a yank of the thin metal door and poked his head inside.

  She went back to studying her new project. She had an idea. She just hoped it would work.

  She heard him shout something. “I have everything but the fire starter!”

  “Fine,” she called back. “I can do without it.”

  “Wait…this fabric has holes in it.”

  “Not good,” she yelled back. “There’s nothing else?”

  “No.”

  She thought about it. “You wouldn’t happen to have an extra shirt with you?”

  There was silence. Then he said reluctantly, “Near the front door in my satchel.”

  She trotted over and saw a red bag on the ground. Quickly she grabbed the shirt and got to work with her knife back near the thieves’ entrance.

  “Okay,” said Ezekiel as he began rummaging in the cabinet. She heard him grab a few things and then yank on something. Seconds later, the sound of a crash came to her ears, with a startled yowl echoing after that.

  Before she could turn, he said, “I’m all right.”

  She cracked a smile.

  He came over with a piece of thin metal that was two times bigger than the hole above. It was perfect. He set down the rope on a nearby bench while handing the thin metal over to her.

  Taking it, Sara grabbed the rope and set to work.

  It was unconventional, but she had seen it done once. If she could recreate it then they were off to a good start. She wrapped the rope around the square metal sheet and then tied two sailor’s knots in it to keep the end from unravelling. Then she grabbed the shirt she had sliced the sleeves off of. Taking the main part that was left, she carefully sliced holes into the four corners of the cloth and slid the opposite end of the rope through them. Finished with that end, she tied it off with another sailor’s knot. Carefully, she held the loose fabric in her right hand and conjured a ball of battle fire in her left hand. Holding them up side by side, Sara resized the ball based on the amount she estimated the interior of the fabric could hold upon expansion.

  Ezekiel asked over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see. Grab a piece of dry wood for me.”

  He scrambled away and brought back a short stick— it looked like a remnant from one of the benches.

  “Put it down next to my right hand, please,” she said.

  She was concentrating on her task. This was the hard part.

  She gritted her teeth, realizing her mistake. She couldn’t hold two flames and the piece of wood at once. Ezekiel shifted nervously behind her.

  “When the spark rises, I need you to catch the flame,” she said.

  Putting down the fabric and grabbing some flint from her boot, she struck it once, then twice, then a third time against the metal.

  The spark was enough for the flame to rise and she quickly hissed instructions to Ezekiel. “Now!”

  He moved the wood up and it caught the natural flame that she needed. She put the flint on the floor and reached back toward him to grab the flaming piece of wood from him. It was slow burning, which was good.

  Caution in her voice, she spoke to Ezekiel. “Now step back.”

  She didn’t have to tell him twice.

  Hand steady, she moved the natural fire closer to the mage fire. It was a trick her father had taught her and one he had used in the arena against his magical opponents. A mage’s fire could be created in such a way that it mimicked everlasting fire with one key difference: It was extremely combustible. What she was about to do was dangerous enough, that she knew of battle mages who had blown off their own limbs trying to mimic her father’s trick.

  Nervous sweat began to bead on her brow as she imagined her hand ending in a stump. She hadn�
�t actually done this herself before. Just watched him do it numerous times with ease.

  His voice came back to her then, Remember, Kitling. Steady and sure. Don’t flinch and you’ll control the flame.

  She gave a deep breath and lit the mage fire in her left hand with the natural fire in her right. The bright blue ball of mage fire became encased in the flickering flames of red. It was gorgeous to watch as they melded together to become the purple fire known as a battle inferno. It was the size of a child’s ball in her hand, but she knew they could be made large enough to take out an entire wagon if needed. This time she just needed it to do one simple trick: burn hot enough to solder the thin metal sheeting to the roof.

  “Here,” she said to Ezekiel, breathing slowly.

  “Here, what?” he said, “You don’t want me to take that ball, because if I do we’re likely to die, and, well, you know that’s a very pretty fire, but I’m not so good with fire. Are you sure that’s…”

  “Stop!” she snapped. He was rambling and sounded like he was about to faint.

  “I just need you to take the burning wood from my right hand,” she said tensely.

  “Oh.”

  She saw him reach over hesitantly out of the corner of her eye and take the burning wood that was starting to make her eyes tear from the proximity to the smoke.

  “I’m just going to put this in some water,” he said.

  She wasn’t paying him any mind. As he ran off, she carefully picked up the fabric with the rope tied to it with a free and steady right hand. Then she moved the ball of battle inferno to the edge of the knotted fabric. As she let the fabric drift through her fingers, she heard Ezekiel come panting back.

  Concentrating on her task, Sara let the purple ball of flames in her hand drift into the center of the fabric as the corners of the shirt rose from the magical heated air next to it. She was careful to keep the temperature of the battle inferno low, timing it to blast just like she would if she was targeting it to hit a city wall. Not a moment sooner. Her heart beat fast. Hoping it would work. Praying to the gods that she had done it right. Then the fabric rose above the ball like an inflated circle and she smiled.