Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  Moments later, the wagon was completely inside the cave, and they were all free of the biting snow. The cavernous space was dark, and, in the sudden silence, Caymus realized his teeth were chattering.

  He and Rill took the moment to rest, leaning against the back of the wagon, their heads drooping, their breaths coming in heavy pants. He could hear the crunch of gravel and dirt as the others moved about the cave floor. Then, he felt the wagon shifting slightly, heard the springs creak. “Master Be’Var,” came Y'selle's voice, “would you kindly start a fire and get some light in here?”

  There was some rustling along the side of the wagon and then, a moment later, a torch sputtered to life, illuminating the cave's interior. Caymus lifted his head to see Be’Var, standing a few feet from the wagon, holding the torch high and surveying their new surroundings.

  The cave was deep. The portion of it that the torchlight made visible opened up to about thirty feet in width, which would leave plenty of room for the group to spread out and stay the night. The floor had a noticeable downward slope, and it seemed to take a slight turn to the right about forty feet back, at the edge of the torch's light. Caymus wondered just how far back the cave went, but didn't think too hard about it. He still felt uneasy about this place.

  Y’selle was sorting through the group’s belongings, bringing out more torches, which Be’Var was helping her light. “Bridget, Gwenna," she said with a warm smile, "would you dears please unhitch the horses and make them comfortable?” Then she turned to Caymus and Rill. “And if you boys could check the supplies and separate out anything that’s gotten wet and needs to be dried out, please?”

  “Yes, Matron,” said Caymus. Rill just nodded, still shivering. Y’selle smiled at them. It didn’t appear lost on her that the travelers themselves were among the things that needed to be dried out. “Thank you, boys,” she said. “Be’Var and I will start setting up some semblance of a fire to get everyone warm again.” She turned around. “Milo?” She peered into the darkness. “Where’s Milo?” she said.

  “Saw him heading to the back of the cave,” said Be’Var, his tone gruff, even for him. “He’ll be back soon enough.”

  They each set to their tasks. As he worked, Caymus could feel his breathing slowing, becoming less ragged, as warmth slowly returned to his core. After a few minutes, he could even feel his fingers and toes again. Though he was working perhaps a half-dozen or so feet inside the opening, he felt no chill; the cave was remarkably well-protected from the wind. He wondered why that was. Was it a freak of circumstance that kept the gale outside from entering this place, or was there some design to it?

  Y’selle had given a torch to Rill, who held the light aloft so that Caymus could pick clothing and bedding from the back of the wagon, then either set them on the bench or drape them over the sides so they could begin the process of drying. As he worked, he gazed about himself, absently examining the walls of their temporary home. He was taken aback when he realized that each of the stone surfaces was smooth; at least, the circular walls were smoother than he’d have expected for some random cave in the middle of nowhere. The walls of a cave should have been riddled with cracks, crags and protruding rock; instead, the surfaces were no more coarse or uneven than the bark of a tree. Indeed, the look of it reminded him of the skin of a mountain pine.

  “Think someone used to live here?” said Rill, following his friend's gaze.

  “Maybe,” said Caymus. “Someone definitely smoothed all of this out at some point.”

  “And added fixtures,” said Rill. "Look," he said, pointing to a spot on the wall behind Caymus.

  Caymus turned to see. Attached to the wall were two small bands of metal, one above the other, forming a torch sconce. “Yes,” he said, looking hard at it, “I do think somebody used to live here.”

  Rill paused a moment before speaking again. “Think somebody might still live here?” he said.

  Suddenly, Milo’s voice burst out of the darkness. “Storms!” he cried, and then a scream echoed through the room, filling the cave as though it were some fluid filling the chamber. Caymus put his hands to his ears to shield them from the noise, felt the panic rising in his throat. The scream wasn’t Milo's. The sound brought back for him the night that he’d been chased, terrified, through Saleri Forest. One of the creatures was here.

  After a moment, the scream subsided. Caymus jumped down off the wagon. “Milo!” he yelled into the darkness, not sure what to do. The others seemed likewise unsure, but Caymus found he was the only one moving forward.

  A moment later, Milo’s voice came again, closer this time. “I’m okay,” it said, and he came briskly jogging out the darkness, looking far less concerned than Caymus expected him to be. “It’s all right,” he said to the frightened faces around him, “It’s—“

  He was cut off by another cry that echoed through the chamber, though this one wasn’t nearly as loud. It seemed less shrill, less angry, more...scared. Milo squinted his eyes until the noise subsided, then continued. “It’s all right,” he said again, “I don’t think there’s any danger.”

  Be’Var, now stepping up to Milo's left side, appeared to have found his sword. “What happened?” he said, stealing a look into the darkness. “I know that sound, and I don't see how it could not be dangerous.” By now, Milo's face was bathed in flickering torchlight as the travelers converged around him.

  “Yes,” he said. “It's one of the creatures, but,“ he quickly said, “but it’s safe, I think.”

  “You think?” said Rill.

  “Yeah,” said Milo, turning to look back into the blackness. At that moment there was another sound, but this was no scream of rage. This sound was morose, quiet, the sound of something in pain.

  “It’s trapped,” said Milo, turning back to the group. Caymus was sure the look in his friend’s eyes was actually one of pity. “Come on,” he said, “and see for yourselves.”

  If not for that last sound, Caymus didn’t believe anybody would have followed Milo, but follow they did. As he walked behind his friend, he considered the insanity of the action, of knowingly walking toward those claws, those teeth. In the end, he decided that, however much they feared what was in the darkness of the back of the cave, there was simply no way any of them could listen to such a pitiful sound and not feel the need to investigate, to even try to help. Before he could develop the thought any further though, the group rounded the corner at the back of the cave, then stopped abruptly as their torchlight found the thing they sought.

  Caymus recognized the claws, the head, the eyes of one of the horrific monsters that had nearly caught him the night of the attack, but he immediately understood what Milo had meant: there was no danger here; the creature was trapped in the floor of the cave.

  The appearance was that the entire back end of the creature had simply fallen through the ground. There were no furrows in the soil, no piles of dirt, no loose rocks, not even scratch marks on the ground. The creature’s head and front claws seemed to have simply appeared out of the dirt floor without having dug through. Its mouth hung open and its legs twitched and scrabbled as it attempted to free itself, but it could gain no purchase, make no progress. It was simply and completely trapped in the earth. As it moved, it made a noise that reminded Caymus of a frightened dog.

  How could the creature possibly have arrived at such a state? A cave-in or other collapse was something Caymus could have understood, but this creature seemed as though it had simply fallen straight through the ground, or perhaps partially emerged from it. He’d heard tales of earth priests who could pass through the ground, unhindered, but the idea that one of these otherworldly monsters could possess abilities so similar to those of some of the wisest holy men in the world was almost as sickening as it was improbable.

  Caymus felt a small hand grip his. There wasn't enough light to see, but he could feel that it was Gwenna standing beside him. "The legs," she said, her words coming out in a whisper as she pointed at the creature's twitching appe
ndages with her free hand. "Look at the legs."

  Caymus needed a few moments in order to see what she saw, but when he did, he gasped. The creature was slowly clawing at the ground around it, trying to gain enough leverage to pull itself out of its earthen prison. The sharp tips of its claws, however, didn't scratch or till the dirt. Instead, they seemed to pass right through, as though either the claws or the floor had no substance.

  "How?" Rill breathed, taking an absent step forward.

  Be'Var grabbed Rill's collar, yanking him backward. "Careful, fool," he said. "We don't know how long it's been stuck there, or even if it's really as trapped as it seems."

  "You think it's pretending?" asked Y'selle, arching an eyebrow at him.

  "How?" Rill said again, this time more loudly. He was pointing at the legs, still passing like apparitions through the floor.

  Be'Var sighed. "I don't know," he said. "These things are made of an element that hasn't touched this world for longer than most histories remember. We already knew they're all but immune to fire," he said, then motioned around the creature. "It would appear that this substance, whatever it is, is capable of passing right through the earth element, as well."

  "Huh," said Milo, putting a crooked finger to his chin, "it would explain why I wasn't able to find any tracks around your Temple." He didn't hang around for a discussion, but rather moved away and began an inspection of the surrounding walls. By the torchlight, Caymus could see that the cave itself didn't extend much further back. If he considered the area in which they currently stood—everything past the corner they had turned—to be a sort of room, then the creature had come up in the room's center.

  "Why here?" said Rill, his eyes following Milo as the priest felt the walls.

  "Why not here?" Be'Var said, not really listening. The old man was staring at the creature, which, by now, was moving a great deal more slowly, as though losing the will to fight.

  "No, really," Rill said, with greater conviction, "if these things are capable of literally moving through earth, why did this one decide to come up here? For that matter," he continued, motioning toward the wall Milo was examining, "aren't the walls of this place made of earth? Aren't the walls of the Temple? If the creatures can pass through the earth element, why didn't they just walk straight through the walls that night and kill us all?"

  Caymus didn't much like the implications of what Rill was suggesting.

  "Aha!" exclaimed Milo. When Caymus turned to him, he was looking down at something. "Come," he said, waving them over with a vigorous arm, "look at this!"

  The group, with the exception of Bridgett and Y'selle, made their way over to him to see what the fuss was about. He was standing over what looked like a large stone, about half the size of a grown man, cut into rectangular shape and lying on its side on the ground. A large section of it—about a quarter of the mass, in all—was missing from one side.

  "Help me lift it," said Milo, who grabbed hold of the surface with the missing chunk and motioned for someone to do the same. Caymus obliged, and together they stood the stone up on its end.

  When they stood back, Caymus wasn't sure what he was looking at. The piece of rock had a bowl shape carved into it the area where the large piece had been cut out. The facet of stone that stood perpendicular to the bowl seemed to have once had some kind of writing etched into it, though he didn't know the language and the words were so worn away with the passage of time that he wasn't sure he would have been able to read them, even if he did.

  "It's a light stone," said Be'Var. He pointed to the carved bowl. "They fill this with some kind of flammable oil and set it on fire so they have light to see by."

  "Who does?" said Milo.

  "Earth worshipers," replied Be'Var, now shifting his gaze to the upper edges of the walls and the ceiling. Without asking, he grabbed Milo's torch and waved it about, trying to get a better look. "Look there," he said, pointing at a black substance that coated the area above and around the stone, "that's from the flames, the burning oil. This used to be a place where dirt-lovers gathered to worship."

  Caymus thought about it, thought about their own night of terror. "You think that's why it came here?" he said. "To kill earth worshipers?"

  "If it did," Be'Var said, glancing over his shoulder at the now barely-moving form, "it's a number of years too late. I don't suppose anyone's worshiped here for centuries, maybe longer."

  "What if it's the place," said Gwenna, who was bending down to get a closer look at the faded writing on the stone, "and not the people?"

  "The place?" said Caymus.

  She nodded, then looked at Milo. "Didn't you tell me that your friends said they attacked a lot of temples and churches on the same night they came after us?"

  Milo nodded. "Cities and places of worship seemed to be their targets."

  "Have you heard of any cities that were attacked that didn't have places of worship in them?"

  Milo's eyes looked away a moment, considering. "No," he said, looking back at her with a slight smile. "I don't believe I have."

  "So," she said, standing up and dusting off her hands, "what if places—the actual places—where people worship other elements are the only places they want to attack?"

  Caymus wasn't sure what to make of the thought. He glanced at Be'Var, whose leathery face was tight with concentration as he, too, tried to tease apart the threads of the puzzle.

  "It's not that they want to attack those places!" said Rill, whose eyes had suddenly gone very wide. "They're the only places they can attack!"

  There was a moment's pause while everyone waited for Rill to explain. "Come again?" said Be'Var, giving voice to Caymus's own thoughts.

  Rill began speaking quickly, his eyes still wide. "What if they can only attack places like churches and temples, places of worship? What if they're the only places they can actually get to?" He looked around at the confused or doubtful faces around him. "Look," he said, flitting his gaze back and forth between Caymus and Be'Var, "from what I overheard this afternoon, the way you two make fire is to open a kind of doorway into the Conflagration, right?"

  Caymus nodded. He wondered if Rill knew how much he talked with his hands when he was excited. "Right," he said.

  "Well," Rill continued, "These things have to come from somewhere, right? What if they come through the same way?"

  Be'Var was wearing his exasperated look. "Of course they do. They're not from this world, so they'd have to come through a conduit."

  Caymus could see his friend's enthusiasm starting to deflate. "Go on, Rill," he said, encouragingly.

  "Doesn't it fit, that..." Rill stopped for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He put his hands together to form a square in front of him. "If someone builds a church somewhere," he said, "and people spend years and years there making these conduits and making little doorways into other places like the Conflagration, doesn't it fit that it would be easier for these things to come through in those places? It's like if you take the same path through a clearing, over and over again: eventually, you're going to wear a path where the plants don't grow."

  Be'Var opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and seemed to really think about what Rill was saying. "So, what you're suggesting," he said after almost a minute, "is that what we do—the opening of conduits—somehow weakens the barriers between our world and the elemental realms, and that doing so in one particular place over a long time makes that spot vulnerable to entry by these creatures. Is that what you mean?"

  Rill was nodding slowly, but before he could speak, Bridgette's voice broke through the silence. "I think it's dead."

  As one, they all turned to look at the creature, which had stopped moving. As they stepped nearer, Caymus noted a distinct change in the creature's color. Where once the armored plates had been a deep black, now they were a dusky gray. There was also another sensation, a sort of emptiness in the room that he couldn't quite put a name to, but, to him, it was quite obvious that the creature had died.


  "I think," said Rill, quietly "that the stronger a place of worship is, the more people there that practice the kinds of Aspects you practice, the easier it is for these things to get through, wherever it is they come from." He took a deep breath, then continued. "I think this cave used to be one of those places, but it hasn't been used for so long that the way in closed back up, and that's why this one got stuck, halfway through."

  Nobody said anything for a while. Nobody seemed able to take their eyes off the dead thing before them.

  "I think you might be right," Be'Var finally said. "I think you just might be."

  Some moments later—Caymus didn't know how many—Y'selle stepped toward the front of the cave. "Come on," she said, "the monster isn't going anywhere and we have a lot left to do before we can bed down for the night."

  The others moved to follow her, but Caymus remained behind, still staring at the creature. He felt torn. The last of these things he'd seen had tried to rip his flesh from his bones, and only the combined power of a dozen masters, plus the help of the Conduit itself, had saved him from a grisly death. This one had been so sad, so pathetic. Chances were that it had been trapped here since the night of the attack, over a week ago. He couldn't even imagine the horror of being so completely trapped for so long.

  "It's not the same, is it?" Be'Var had evidently turned back and was now standing next to him.

  "I know that it would have killed me if it could," said Caymus.

  "But you still feel sorry for it." The old man sighed, blowing out his cheeks. "It's like that when you're fighting for your life." Be'Var was standing with the blade of his sword planted in the ground, his hand resting on the pommel. "When we fought for king and country all those years ago, we fought ruthlessly, but, in the end, we always eventually had to come to grips with the fact that that every man we killed was loved, was precious to somebody. Most of us were able to get past the guilt, to find a way to live with it. A lot never did. Never thought I'd feel sorry for one of these things, though."