If it worked...
They walked into a large hall, about three times the size of the Ritual Room, yet not even half the size of the meeting hall. Caymus recognized it as being one of the rooms he'd run through on his path to their trap, or one very like it. There were a few dozen barrels of varying size stacked against one wall, but the rest of the room's perimeter was covered in small holes. Each of the holes was about the size of Caymus's closed fist, cut into the shape of an upside-down triangle, with a small spout jutting out at the bottom. All around the room, what looked like stone guttering ran up to or past each of the holes, then turned slowly downward to empty into what appeared to be raised marble bowls, the rims of which were tall enough to reach Caymus's chest.
When he looked more closely, he could see that small droplets of some kind of clear liquid were dripping from each of the holes, one drop every few seconds. The droplets were then being caught by the guttering and funneled down into the bowls.
"What is this place?" he said.
"We collect the stone oils here," said Merkan, who walked over the pile of barrels, picked up a small one—it was small by his standards anyway; he needed only one hand to carry it—and brought it to one of the marble bowls to be filled.
"Stone oils?" said Caymus, peeking over the rim of the nearest vessel. He could see it was about half-filled with the liquid, and that, when gathered together in a pool, the stuff appeared to have a slightly orange tint.
"It is the oil we burn to see in Otvia," said Merkan, who had filled his barrel. "It coats the torches and fills the troughs in the tunnels and chambers. It burns for many days and makes no smoke."
"I suppose," Milo said, looking around, "smoke would be a bit of a problem down here."
"Why do you call it 'stone oils'?" said Caymus.
Merkan didn't seem to know how to answer the question. After a moment of hesitation, Be'Var answered for him. "The oil comes out of the stone itself," he said. "No idea how they do it, but the Otvians have been coaxing oil out of stone for as long as I've been around. Probably a lot longer."
Caymus supposed he shouldn't be surprised at anything that the mitre were able to get stone to do, but he didn't think that getting liquid out of it should be possible. He wanted to know more but, for the moment, there wasn't time. He scratched at the back of his neck, which had started itching.
Merkan smiled at Be'Var and nodded graciously, then indicated the barrel in his hand. "Who will carry this?"
By now, they had all gathered around the bowl which Merkan had used to fill the barrel. All eyes turned to Rill, who sighed. "I suppose that would be my job, wouldn't it?" he said, then raised his arms. "Give it here, then."
There was a bit of fumbling and catching as Merkan handed a barrel, which he could hold with one hand, to Rill, who needed two, and who still managed to slosh the oil about somewhat.
"I don't think you'd better make any plans to stay, after this," said Milo, chuckling and indicating the spilled oil at Rill's feet. "The place doesn't seem built for—behind you!"
They all turned to see the two creatures entering the room, one after the other, through the same corridor they had used. The monsters must have followed them here, but why now, all of a sudden? Caymus noted that they were clawing at the ground and rearing up just the slightest bit; they were about to attack. He needed to act fast.
"Rill!" he yelled, "put it down! Now, Rill!"
With greater speed than Caymus would have imaged from his friend, Rill slammed the barrel onto the ground, covering his face and torso in splashing oil as he did so. Then, in the next minute, he was out of the way, diving back behind the bowl.
"Be'Var!" Caymus didn't wait to see if Be'Var had heard him before he closed his eyes and felt for his master's presence in the barrel of stone oil. It wasn't there. A quick scan of the room found that the master of the Conflagration had instead placed his mind into the bowl itself, still almost completely filled with stone oil. A flame was already taking shape within it, already growing in intensity.
Caymus latched on to the flame, skittering atop the pool of oil, which had already cascaded into dozens of conduits into the Conflagration. He chose one at random, wrapped his conscious self around it, and squeezed. He felt the rush of flame through him, felt it pour into the oil, heard the fire roar with fury, felt the heat of it on his skin.
Then, Milo was there, and the flame leapt out, streaming at the leftmost creature, striking it like a blazing spear in the face. Caymus's eyes were closed, but he could hear it emanate a scream that could only result from the most severe pain.
It was working.
They had not, however, had surprise on their side, as they had hoped. While the creature on the left was held back, struggling against the combined power of the three men, the other was advancing quickly—too quickly. Somewhere, past the sound of the flames, Caymus heard a deep voice cry out in pain, followed by the sound of a body falling to the floor, and he knew that Merkan had opened his wound trying to get into the creature's path. Caymus opened his eyes and saw that the awful claws and teeth were going straight for the prone mitre, would be digging into him in a mere moment.
Things seemed to move slowly, then. He saw the lance of fire, which seemed to grow, like some living thing, out of the bowl of oil, before striking out at the creature furthest from them. He noticed that it wasn't as arrow-straight as he had thought, rather it wavered back and forth, by perhaps a hand's width, on the way to its target. It reminded him of the river that nourished the village where he grew up, which sometimes wavered in its path toward the sea, depending on what the winter snowfall had been like. If the waters were strong enough, it would sometimes even get split in two by a small hill near the coast.
Without making a conscious decision, almost as instinct, Caymus shifted his consciousness again. He pulled away from the conduit, but left a portion his being behind to keep the flame burning. The rest, he placed directly in the path of the flames, turning his own mind into a massive obstacle, into that hill that split the river.
The lance of flame parted around him, and the resulting second stream of fire struck out at the legs of the charging creature, forcing it backward. The original portion of the lance, however, veered off to the left, moving away from the creature they had already targeted and instead hitting the wall, just below one of the triangular holes. Carefully, Caymus repositioned himself. He felt as though he were trying to keep his balance on a narrow beam, shifting himself, and the resulting streams of fire, again and again, until both finally struck true, forcing the creatures backward.
As he watched both monsters slowly backing away, he wrapped the conduit again, squeezing the flow of the Conflagration with all his might. He wasn't certain how long they had already kept up their effort, so fierce was his concentration, but by now the fiery lances glowed with a brilliant red.
In the next moment, the trial was over. Caymus was amazed to see the creatures seem to crouch down, then suddenly pass bodily through the ground beneath their feet until they were gone. In the next moment, Caymus let go of the conduit, brought his consciousness back to himself. The currents of air that had formed the lances slowly dissipated, and Caymus could feel Be'Var pinching off the conduits, one by one, snuffing out the flames.
They were all gasping for breath. "There are vents in the ceiling," said Milo, holding himself up against one of the large bowls, "that should let new air back in, but I'd suggest that Be'Var fixes up Merkan again and we get out of this particular room, eh?"
In short order, Merkan's leg was closed up and the five of them, having caught their breaths, found themselves making their way back to the meeting hall and the Center of Otvia.
"All right," said Be'Var, with more than a hint of exasperation in his voice, "which of you did that thing, splitting the flames up?" He looked back and forth between Caymus and Milo. "I was sure one of you would be bragging about it by now."
Milo burst out laughing. "I thought you did that!" he said.
&
nbsp; They both turned and looked at Caymus, who smiled, self-consciously, and shrugged. "It just seemed..." he paused, looking for the right words, "like it needed to be done."
"Ever do that before?" said Be'Var.
Caymus shook his head. "Never."
"Mind telling me how you knew to do it?"
Caymus had been wondering the same thing himself, and hadn't yet come up with an explanation that he was really happy with. "There's this river that runs a few miles north of Woodsea, the town where I grew up. It's the same one that goes through the southern part of Saleri Forest. They call it 'The Wandering River' because it sometimes changes course, depending on how strong the water's flowing. I was thinking of this little hill that sometimes ends up cutting it right in two and...it just felt right," he eventually said.
Be'Var nodded, and didn't ask any more questions. The answer appeared satisfactory.
When they reached the circular wall that the creatures had been trying to get into, Merkan asked the others to stand back, then closed his eyes, and pounded with his fist, three times, against the stone surface. A moment later, Caymus was amazed to hear a tone, like a long, sad note played by a lonely violin, emanate from the rock itself. As the note played, a square doorway, a few heads taller than Merkan, appeared before them. Merkan pulled at a large handle that had formed in the structure, and the door opened wide.
Caymus looked in and gasped. He had been expecting that their task had been to rescue a few dozen, maybe a hundred, trapped mitre. Instead, inside the huge, well-lit chamber, the weary, frightened faces of at least a thousand souls looked back at them.
Be'Var clapped a hand on Caymus's shoulder. "You did good today, boy."
Caymus pushed a smile past the disbelief on his face. It was the single nicest thing the master had ever said to him.
CHAPTER 9
Gwenna could feel the tension collecting in her neck and jaw as she watched the velox down below. The large, mountain creature reminded her of a goat, but it was half again as large and had three curved horns growing out of its head: one on either side, the other in the center, and all three curving forward to dangerous-looking points. It was a great, shaggy thing, with brown fur that reached the ground in some places. As it approached the edge of the water, she forced her jaw to unclench and took a slow, steadying breath, all the while holding the nock of the arrow against the bowstring at her waist.
Milo leaned forward and whispered behind her ear. “Don't draw yet,” he said. “Wait until it starts drinking. It won't be able to hear as well with all the sloshing.”
Gwenna nodded her understanding. She and Milo had been watching the small pool of water—it was shallow and barely three feet across—that they had found tucked away in a small ravine above the Otvian encampment, for what felt like hours. Milo had said that velox made their homes in this rocky terrain, and that if they waited long enough, one of them was bound to turn up here.
A small amount of frustration took hold in her gut as the velox stopped, still several feet from the edge of the water, and looked about. It didn't seem frightened or tense though, and the eyes didn't linger in their direction, so she kept quiet and still.
As she waited, Gwenna slowly tested her bowstring, drawing it back ever so slightly to feel the tension in the weapon. The bow had belonged to a mitre child who had not survived the assault of the last week. Gwenna had recently acted on her impulse to ask Milo to teach her the bow, and when the child's father had learned that one of their saviors wanted to learn to shoot, he had presented it to her in thanks for all she and her friends had done.
Indeed, there had been so very much to do: in the two days since the men had enacted their mad scheme and driven off the insects, she, Bridget and the matron had spent long hours tending to the sick, while Be'Var dealt with their wounds. Dozens of them had been injured by fangs and claws in the attack, and many of the wounds had begun to fester, so they'd had no lack of patients in the last forty-eight hours.
In the end, she'd found the occupation all-too-familiar, and when Milo had found her this morning, tired and depressed, he had insisted she come hunting with him so as to give her a break from it all, and to give her a chance to practice her archery. She'd been grateful for the respite, and for the instruction, short though it was: the two of them had spent perhaps an hour taking practice shots, Milo adjusting her grip and correcting her stance, before they'd come out to watch the pool.
The velox was moving again. Gwenna realized that she had been holding her breath, and exhaled quietly. As the animal dropped its head to drink, she looked to Milo, who nodded slowly. Moving as quietly as she could, she raised the bow to shoulder-level, took aim, and pulled her bowstring tight, bringing the tip of her index finger to the corner of her mouth, as she'd been taught. Milo had said that the heart was usually the best place to land an arrow, but that velox had unusually thick ribs, so her best target was the neck. When she believed her aim correct, allowing just enough extra height for the arrow's descent, she let her fingers fall open, loosing her arrow. She also winced slightly as the bowstring scraped past her forearm.
The arrow flew in the right direction, but struck the ground considerably short of her target. Gwenna watched with frustration—and some amusement—as the velox raised its head to watch the projectile as it skittered across the ground, passed underneath its shaggy belly, and landed in a clump of dry-looking brush. The beast tensed its legs, preparing to run, but before it could move, Milo had already loosed a second arrow, which plunged into the creature's neck.
Eyes wide, the velox reared up and, with a bleating, gurgling sound, ran in the other direction. Faster than Gwenna could believe, Milo was up, dashing down the rocky slope to give chase. Gwenna considered following after him, but she wasn't nearly so sure-footed as he. Instead, she followed the along the edge of the ravine, hoping she'd be able to keep up that way instead.
As she ran, Gwenna rubbed her forearm, cursing aloud. Milo had told her a number of times that it was important to rotate her left arm slightly inward when taking aim, lest the joint of the elbow find itself in the path of the bowstring. She wondered just how much the mistake had cost her in terms of accuracy.
She scurried as fast as she dared across the rocky landscape, trying to avoid the stones that looked as though they might shift or skid under her feet and picking her way past small bushes whose sharp-looking thorns warned of certain injury should she fail to avoid them. When she looked up from her feet, she could just see Milo, dashing across the landscape, jumping over rocks and bushes alike, about ten yards below and several dozen yards ahead of her. His blue clothing stood out against the reddish-brown of the Greatstones, flying over the landscape as though it wasn't even tethered to the ground.
She wondered if Bridget would have been able to keep up with him. Bridget was more lithe than she, had longer legs, and had always beaten her in their little races around Flamehearth Mission. Gwenna frowned, thinking of her. The two of them had argued that morning, just before she had left with Milo. Her friend seemed to think that she was treating Caymus unfairly, that she was leading him to believe she wanted to be with him, despite the fact that she didn't seem to really have those kinds of feelings. "I know you like him, Gwen, but you don't like him that way, and it's not fair for you to make him think you do. You can't do that to men," she'd said, angrily. "Do you want to end up a lonely spinster when you're old?"
It had been that word, "spinster," that had bothered Gwenna, though she couldn't explain why. She did like Caymus, liked his rich, full voice, the broadness of his arms and the pleasing contours of his face, even though that face sometimes only displayed frustration and contemplation for hours on end. She liked the intensity of his eyes after he'd decided on some dangerous course of action, the recent rescue of the mitre included. She really wasn't sure that she didn't have romantic feelings for him; she just didn't feel like she wanted the relationship between the two of them to develop any further than the flirty playfulness they now enjoyed.
Bridget didn't understand it. She saw the world through the eyes of a maiden, measuring each boy she met as a possible future husband. Gwenna just didn't see things the same way. She'd become a permanent fixture of Flamehearth Mission on her thirteenth year, and this was the first real adventure, the first real freedom she'd experienced in a very long time. She didn't want to think so hard about the future when she was just starting to really enjoy the present. She was hunting velox with an air priest at the top of the Greatstone Mountains! What other wonders might be in store for her?
Still, maybe Bridget was right. Maybe she should let Caymus be closer to her, or perhaps put him at arm's length, if only so as to avoid hurting him, or giving him the wrong idea.
Flames, but why did the word "spinster" upset her so?
She was still thinking about Bridget and her words when she crossed a short ridge and saw Milo, kneeling over the red-stained velox, about fifteen feet below her. The way down to him was steep, but she thought she could manage it if she chose her footing carefully, so she slung her bow over her shoulder and started down.
She kept one eye on Milo as she picked her way downward. His bow lay next to him on the ground. He was bent over the velox, his hand resting on its neck. She could see from the occasional twitch of muscle that the animal was still barely alive. As she reached the bottom of the ravine, she saw that Milo's eyes were closed and that his lips were moving, whispering some soft words she couldn't hear. The sight intrigued her: Milo usually exhibited such a light and carefree attitude to everything, so this solemn moment seemed out of character. She considered saying as much, but decided against it and instead sat down on a nearby rock and waited for him to acknowledge her.
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