Children of Fire

by Drew Karpyshyn

  His naked body was a mess of dark, purple bruises. Nasty welts and cuts covered his back where they had whipped him; huge welts and angry red lumps covered his arms and legs where they had beaten him with metal rods. His face was nothing but a bloody, lumpy mess. His lips were swollen and split, his nose broken and twisted at a grotesque angle. His eyes were ringed with black-and-blue splotches and had puffed up so bad he probably couldn’t even see. The thought of what they had done to him made Scythe want to kill every guard in the city, slowly and painfully. And her rage only grew when she saw the other men.

  They were naked and bound as Norr, but had suffered neither whipping nor beating. On the younger of the two, she saw the strange tattoos of sorcery painted on his skin. The other had no markings traced onto his flesh, but she was close enough now to see his eyes. Or lack of them. He had once been a member of the Order, and now he was being tried for heresy.

  The cart rolled slowly past her, and Scythe scrambled to keep up. She was able to twist and turn her small body through tiny gaps in the crowd, ignoring the rude comments, angry exclamations, and crude gropes she suffered as she squirmed her way toward the stage.

  Despite her desperate efforts to hurry, the press of people slowed her down. By the time she reached the edge of the wooden barriers keeping the mob back, the prisoners had already been unloaded from the wagon and secured to the stakes. Their gags had been removed so the crowd could hear their dying screams.

  Norr’s head lolled to one side, and his eyes had rolled back into his skull. The nearest guard stepped up and slapped him until he regained consciousness, drawing a fresh stream of blood from the big man’s broken nose and an approving roar from the crowd. Scythe marked that one, a tall, dark-haired young man.

  Another horn blast silenced the shouts and cries of the crowd, and upon the nearby scaffold Scythe noticed that a platform had been built for a speaker to address the crowd. A woman who could only be Lady Beethania stood atop it, her face a mask of sadistic triumph. Beside her was a man clad in the outfit of a lord’s mage, and in his hand he held a long staff with the skull of some strange monstrosity on the top.

  Still not even sure what she was going to do, Scythe began to worm her way through the crowd toward those gathered near the base of the grandstand.

  “Welcome, my people of Torian,” Lady Beethania proclaimed, her voice amplified by some minor enchantment of her mage so that it would carry to the farthest reaches of the square. “You are here to witness the execution of three men. One is a spy from the frozen steppes, an Eastern savage caught lurking in the fields and farms surrounding our great city. The other two have been declared heretics and sentenced to death by the Order itself.

  “But the Order does not hold sway here in Torian—we are a Free City and answer to none but our own!” A great cheer went up from the crowd, and the City Lord waited for the noise to subside before continuing. “Before I pronounce sentence on these men I turn to you, the people of Torian, the strength of this Free City, united in heart and spirit and mind. How say you, my subjects? Are these men deserving of death, or mercy?”

  A brief hope flared in Scythe’s breast, only to be quenched when the crowd began a ruthless chant of “Burn! Burn! Burn!” She tried to shut out the hateful words, forcing her mind to focus on a way to save Norr at any cost.

  “The people have spoken!” Lady Beethania declared, her arms raised for silence once more. “The prisoners shall burn!”

  She turned her head to the lord’s mage at her side. Scythe was close enough to see him draw a vial from his belt and take a sip. He swooned briefly, then smiled and slipped the vial back out of sight. He held up a fist with something small clenched inside and began a quick but intricate series of strange gestures. She could see his lips moving quickly in an arcane litany.

  Scythe remembered the vial of witchroot she had taken from the room back in Praeton; it was still tucked safely away in the pouch at her side. She pulled it out, even though it could do little to help her now. She was no wizard.

  She glanced over at the stage and saw that the guards had all climbed down. The prisoners stood alone, the oil-soaked faggots piled up to their knees. The lord’s mage stamped the butt of his skull-topped staff down onto the wooden platform of the grandstand, drawing her attention back to him. He was sweating profusely and breathing in long, heavy gasps. Whatever spell he was concocting was taking its toll.

  He stamped the staff again, and suddenly one of the faggots burst into flame. The fire caught on the oil, and the blaze quickly spread. A look of relief briefly passed across his heavy jowls, and then his face assumed an expression of arrogance and disdain fitting his position.

  The crowd erupted in cheers and screams of delight as the mob pressed forward, knocking over the barriers. Scythe was swept along with them, but managed to break free and run over to the grandstand. All eyes, including those of Lady Beethania, her lord’s mage, and the guards themselves, were on the quickly spreading blaze.

  Clutching the witchroot vial in her fist, Scythe broke through the front ranks of the crowd and rushed the stage. One of the guards stepped forward to stop her, but she ducked beneath his clumsy grab and continued her charge. She leapt up and managed to clutch the edge of the stage with her empty hand, then swung herself up on top before any of the other soldiers could react.

  The oil-soaked wood had been arranged so that the fire would burn slowly; just hot enough to cook the heretics over many minutes, giving the crowd ample time to enjoy their dying screams. Even so, the heat from the rising flames nearly bowled Scythe over. A wall of smoke blocked her path to the prisoners, but she threw her free arm across her face to shield her eyes as she plunged into the conflagration.

  The low flames wrapped themselves around her legs, scorching her boots and blistering her skin. She ignored the pain and leapt toward the nearest prisoner, the young wizard. She yanked the stopper from the vial and jammed it into his surprised mouth.

  “You better save all our asses!” she screamed as she dumped the entire contents down his throat.

  For a brief second there was a look of horror on the young man’s face, as if what she had done was somehow worse than the execution he was facing. And then he began to convulse and froth at the mouth.

  Scythe took a half step back and almost fell to her knees, the heat and smoke from the fire overcoming her. She had failed. Norr was going to die here, as was she. The blaze was higher now; in a minute the flesh of those on the stage would begin to melt and burn, their hair would burst into flames, and they would perish in agony. Ignoring the seizures racking the young man’s body, she turned away to find Norr and kiss him one last time before the heat devoured them both.

  A great rush of wind nearly swept her from the stage, an updraft that appeared from nowhere and lifted her momentarily from her feet. Instantly the flames were gone, sucked up into the sky, swallowed by an ominous green cloud that had suddenly materialized above the city.

  There was stunned silence from the crowd, the guards nearest the stage took a fearful step back. She glanced over at the young wizard: His back was arched, his head tilted up to the sky. His bound body thrashed about in the grip of a great seizure, though his eyes were wide open. He was screaming out an endless string of nonsensical gibberish, blood and spittle spewing from his mouth.

  Scythe turned to the grandstand to see if the wizard who had started the fire was about to ignite it again. But the man had collapsed in a heap, trembling in terror. His left hand covered his head as if he was afraid to look, and his right held the staff aloft as if it could shield him from the fury of the growing storm. The staff glowed with its own green light, though somehow Scythe knew that was not the cowering lord’s mage’s doing.

  As she watched, a great crack of thunder erupted and a fork of emerald lightning shot down, engulfing the entire grandstand in an unearthly blue glow.

  A collective scream rose up from those gathered on the wooden structure as a million volts seared their innards
, cooking their bodies from the inside out. The grandstand collapsed with an audible crash, and wisps of greasy smoke wafted up from the charred corpses in the rubble. The strange staff lay amid the carnage, still glowing and apparently undamaged.

  And then the clouds burst and fire poured down from the sky, burning embers falling like drops of rain over the whole of Torian. Panic seized the mob as they broke and ran, screaming and trampling one another in their haste to escape. As if fueled by their fear, the blazing orange drops flared into fist-sized balls of white-hot flame. The deadly hail incinerated everyone it struck, reducing them instantly to piles of smoking ash. Flashes of lightning split the night, arcing down to lash at the great towers of the city. Wherever they struck, the very stone itself was set ablaze with unnatural blue flame. Within seconds, the whole city of Torian seemed to be on fire.

  Everywhere, that is, except the stage where only moments before a more natural fire had blazed. Here the wood had cooled to a comfortable temperature. The guards had scattered with the rest of the crowd—at least, the few who had survived the deadly burning rain. All around the stage were piles of ash, as if the storm had been directed by conscious will to wreak its most fearsome havoc among the men who had imprisoned its creator. Except for the four figures on the stage, Torian’s square was now empty.

  Scythe tore her attention from the destruction engulfing the city and ran over to her lover. Using one of the knives in her belt she cut the cords binding Norr to the stake. Once free he collapsed to the ground, and Scythe quickly inspected his wounds.

  His skin had begun to blister from the heat of the flames, but the damage from the fire was the least of his injuries. The beating and bruises he had received would take week to fade. There didn’t appear to be any broken bones, but there were several large lumps on the side and back of Norr’s skull.

  “Quickly,” one of the other men—the older of the two—called out to her, “cut me loose!”

  She glanced over at the speaker. He was still lashed to the stake, as was his companion. The convulsions of the younger mage had stopped, and he had lost consciousness. Scythe ignored the man’s request.

  “Norr,” she whispered. “Norr, can you hear me? Norr, you have to get up.”

  Responding to the sound of her voice, the big man got to his knees.

  “There isn’t much time!” the man tied to the stake shouted. “Hurry, before the city rallies against us.”

  Scythe paid him no heed. She had come here to save Norr. If the wizard’s sorcery couldn’t free them from the stakes, she sure wasn’t about to.

  “We have to go, Norr,” she whispered, trying in vain to haul him to his feet. She gave up the physical struggle and dropped down beside him. “You’re too heavy; I can’t support you. You have to walk on your own.”

  Still on his knees, the big man shook his bruised and swollen head. “The others,” he croaked through cracked and swollen lips. Scythe noticed that several of his teeth were missing. “Cut them loose.”

  “Yes, hurry!” the monk exclaimed. “We don’t have much time!”

  Scythe glanced out and saw that the fury of the terrible fire storm was abating. The flashes of lightning were few and far between, but the blue flames still raged throughout the city, spreading from tower to tower like a forest fire through the treetops. Any survivors of the town guard would be busy all night trying to put out the flames.

  “We don’t need them,” Scythe said to Norr, still refusing to acknowledge the other. “We can sneak away before they find us.”

  “They saved my life,” Norr whispered. “I would have burned. I owe them.”

  Realizing the noble barbarian wouldn’t leave until the men were free, Scythe reluctantly got to her feet. She approached the older man, his dead eyes fixing her with a long, cold stare. She could kill him now. A single cut of her blade across the throat and his life would be over. She could do the same to the unconscious wizard.

  Norr would be angry, of course. But she could claim it was revenge for what they had done in Praeton. She could claim the mage had begun a spell and she had panicked. She knew that somehow she could convince her lover to forgive her for actions, once the deed was done. She could kill them all right now.

  Instead she cut the cords binding the monk to his stake. Norr would forgive her if she killed them. But she knew it would destroy a little part of him to do so; it would be one more sacrifice he had to make for the sake of the woman he loved. She had already asked him to make enough sacrifices.

  Without a word she cut the bindings on the wizard, the monk catching the unconscious body of the young man as she sliced him free.

  “What did you do to him?” he demanded angrily.

  “I dumped that bottle of witchroot down his throat,” she shot back.

  “Where? Show me!”

  She didn’t like the tone of his voice, but she liked the implied warning in his gray eyes even less. She might have made a mistake in freeing the monk, with Norr as weak and vulnerable as he was.

  “Here,” she said, scooping the vial up from where it had dropped on the stage and tossing it to him. Still supporting his friend with one arm, the monk’s free hand snapped out and plucked it from the air, so quick it was nothing but a blur. Scythe turned her back on them and made her way over to Norr, pretending she neither feared nor cared what happened next.

  “Distilled witchroot,” she heard the man mumble. She glanced back and met his unseeing eye. “You could have killed him!” he said to her, his tone one of unmistakable outrage.

  Scythe wheeled to face him, unable to keep silent any longer.

  “You would have all died if I hadn’t dumped that vial down his throat!” she snapped. “Instead of lecturing me you might want to thank me for my quick thinking!”

  “Thank you for almost killing the savior of the world,” he snarled back. “The Gods alone know what kind of irreparable damage you might have done to him.”

  Any further reply from Scythe was cut off by the feel of Norr’s heavy hand upon her shoulder. “It’s beginning to rain, Scythe.”

  All eyes save those of the still-unconscious young mage turned skyward. It was true. A soft but steady rain—of water, not fire—was falling over the city, quickly dousing the magical blue fire of the terrible spell that had freed them all.

  “The Order,” the monk said. “They’re dispelling Keegan’s Chaos storm. Pilgrims must be here in the city. They must have come to witness the execution.”

  “How many?” Norr asked.

  The man tipped his head to the side, as if listening for a sound only he could hear. “I can’t say for sure. A dozen. Maybe more. In the panic they were separated and their individual power was not enough to stand against Keegan’s spell. But now they have reunited to fight his power. As soon as the fires are out they’ll begin searching for us.”

  “Give him to me,” Norr said, offering to take the young wizard from the other man’s arms. “We can move faster if I carry him.”

  When the man made no reaction, Norr persisted.

  “We will come with you. Scythe and I. We will help you.”

  “Why?” There was no mistaking the suspicion in the question.

  Norr pointed to the unconscious young man. “He saved my life. I owe him a debt I must repay. It is the way of my people.”

  The monk hesitated before nodding. “Okay, you may come with us. But you can barely stand yourself, let alone carry someone else.”

  The monk scooped the young mage up and slung him over his shoulder with surprising ease, then leapt down from the edge of the stage to the ground ten feet below. Moving as if the man over his shoulder weighed no more than a small child, he approached the still-smoldering remains of the grandstand. He bent down and scooped up the skull-topped staff. At his touch the green glow illuminating it vanished.

  “Hurry,” he called out over his shoulder. “We have to leave now. Before the Pilgrims restore order to the city.”

  Norr clambered awkwardly down fro
m the stage, his bulk and his injuries making his descent clumsy and inelegant.

  “This way,” the monk said, moving quickly down an empty side street, using the staff as a walking stick to help offset the imbalance caused by the young wizard draped over his shoulder.

  Scythe could only watch in amazement as Norr complied without question or protest. Did he really expect her to do the same? She had a hundred objections she wanted to voice, a thousand reasons they should not join up with this doomed pair. She wanted to grab Norr by the scruff of his neck and slap some sense into him. She wanted to stomp off and just leave them all behind, three naked men fleeing through the streets of Torian. But she wanted to stay with her lover more.

  Biting back the insults and protests, Scythe leapt nimbly from the stage to follow in their wake.

  Chapter 45

  Keegan was surrounded by the blue flames of Chaos. The fire licked his skin, enveloping him. It covered his eyes, blinding him to everything else. It flooded his mouth and nostrils, crawling down his throat to fill his lungs.

  He felt the searing heat surrounding him, he felt it inside him. But there was no pain. He welcomed the heat, embracing the eternal flames as they embraced him. Floating in an ocean of fire, he was at first aware of nothing but the endless fury of the flames all around him.

  Slowly memories began to surface: a prison cell, being bound and gagged, being lashed to a stake. The smell of smoke from the smoldering wood. And then the Island girl standing before him, one last beautiful vision before he died.

  But he hadn’t died. He understood that now. Other memories crashed in. The girl pouring something down his throat. A rush of Chaos, an exploding storm. He was not dead, but he was lost in the haze of witchroot; his mind had broken free from his physical form and now floated free in the Burning Sea, source of all magic.

  Suddenly Keegan realized he was not alone. Though he could see nothing through the veil of endless burning blue, he sensed another presence with him. Something that wasn’t human; something alien reaching out with its awareness into the Chaos from a great distance, seeking to establish a link with the mortal world.