by Garon Whited
I laid my hand on the pivot-door and felt the heat. The block of stone was already hot to the touch.
Firebrand?
It’s not my thing, but I’ll do what I can.
I cast several different heat-absorbing, heat-reflecting, and heat-dissipating spells. My usual cooling spell wasn’t going to cope with this, and I hate being slow-roasted.
The door ground open slowly and I went inside. Nothing flammable in the front room survived. The stone benches were okay, but cushions, cloths, and every wooden item was nothing but fine ash. A wind blew in behind me as hot air flowed up the staircase and out the upper windows.
I heard crying.
The heat grew as I worked my way farther into the structure. I felt it as a low-grade baking and sweat started all over my body. I found the source of the crying in what was probably a small audience chamber. It was hard to tell what it was used for. The only furniture was the built-in stuff—two curved benches and a couch-like projection from one wall.
Lying on the floor was Tianna, pale as a ghost and bleeding.
Dammit, I’ve seen this twice, now. I didn’t need to see it the first time to know I didn’t like it! I spent a fraction of a second berating myself for not doing something, anything, to anticipate this. I know the Boojum uses assassins! I know he tried to kill Tianna once! I should have thought to guard against this.
Is it the fact she’s a priestess? Is that why I don’t think of these things? The Mother of Flame should keep a close eye on her own temples? Then again, she’s not a goddess of watchfulness or protection. She’s a goddess of fire. No doubt an assassin knifed Tianna and turned suddenly to rapidly-expanding plasma.
The Temple of Flame needs guards, dammit. From now on, it’s going to get some whether they like it or not.
Tymara sat on the floor next to her mother, holding Tianna’s head in her lap and sobbing. Tymara’s hair provided the light for the room. Her whole head was a fire, burning bright and hot. There was no sign of her safety hairband. At a guess, it vaporized. Well, it wasn’t built to handle an emotionally distraught fire-witch, just contain the occasional reflex.
My great-granddaughter is weeping over the form of my granddaughter.
Someone is going to die, I decided, a thought as cold, as icy as a black tendril coiling around a frightened soul.
Firebrand gave off a vague aura of generalized agreement. I think it was trying to keep a low profile and not attract attention.
“Tymara?”
She raised her head. Her eyes burned as blue as a hydrogen flame. A wall of fire blasted toward me like a shockwave. Firebrand deflected some it. My spells deflected some of what made it past Firebrand. It was still devastatingly hot. My armor didn’t enjoy it at all, smoking like an oil fire for a moment. I wasn’t directly harmed, but the temperature spiked like someone opened the oven door. If I didn’t know better, I’d think my eyeballs started sweating.
“Tymara!” I shouted into the flames. “It’s me! It’s your grandfather!”
Her eyes narrowed, but the flames withered. I took it as a good sign and struggled with my visor for a moment, fighting to get it open. When I did, I regretted it. The air was roasting hot on my sweat-covered face
When Tymara saw my face, she immediately sprang to her feet and ran to me, bawling the whole way. Her hair didn’t set me on fire, thankfully. I knelt and hugged her while she threw her arms around my neck. I noticed her tears vanished as quickly as they formed.
“Provus!” she cried, and subsided into sobbing. I carried her back to Tianna and knelt again, examining her for wounds. I didn’t see anything, but he bloodstain under her implied a wound in her back.
I sat Tymara on my knee as I knelt.
“Tymara? I need to look at your mom, okay? I have to cast spells. Can you let me use my hands?”
“Mama’s dead!” she wailed.
“No, she isn’t,” I insisted. “She’s hurt, but she needs help. Can you let me help her?”
Tymara let go of my neck and moved to stand next to me, hands clenched on the edges of my armor. She didn’t like not being held.
I took at magical look at Tianna. Someone had put a long, thin blade into her. It entered slightly to the right of the spine, between two ribs, crossing up and to the left, obviously aimed for the heart. Unfortunately for whoever did the stabbing, a right-handed strike for the heart has problems. There are too many bones in the way and there isn’t a good angle. Left-handers have a much easier time from the rear.
Never try to stab a fire-witch in the front. Stabbing them in the back isn’t much safer, but you’re more likely to connect.
The wound wasn’t immediately deadly, but it was fatal without someone to fix it. Tianna isn’t old enough to know how, yet, and I doubt the Mother of Flame can manifest inside a child to do it herself. Tianna was lucky, though. She was lying on the wound. Her crumpled robes, pinned between her and the floor, made a crude bandage. Still, she was bleeding into a punctured lung.
Tymara, meanwhile, kept crying. I had her climb on my back and hold on.
“I want you to concentrate,” I told her, “on mommy being happy. Okay? Picture her smiling at you. Focus on it, like when you’re focusing on a spell. It’ll help me fix her,” I lied, “so try hard to hold that thought in your mind. Got it?”
“I got it,” she assured me, sniffling. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated, which kept her occupied, quiet, and out of my way while giving her something to make her feel useful.
I, on the other hand, reinforced a heat-deflection spell. I was sweating like a squeezed sponge and desperately needed to lower my temperature. I had to do that first or risk fainting from the heat. With the additional protection, I wasn’t going to be happy, but there was a chance I wouldn’t pass out in the middle of rendering first aid.
First off, the internal bleeding. Bleeding into a lung will cause death by drowning before death from blood loss, so let’s seal that up. Then we can worry about other internal bleeding. It doesn’t need to be neat, just effective. She’s lost a lot of blood, so keeping all the rest of it was vital.
All right. Airways functional, blood loss stopped. That’s the first aid. Next was moving us all out of the oven before my internal thermostat shut me down. Despite my best efforts—and Tymara calming down a lot—the room was still suitable for roasting whole hogs.
“Okay, sweetie. Lead the way out to the worship area. We’re going to put your mommy in front of the statue of the Mother. Got it?”
“Got it!” She let go and took a step in the direction of the door. She was absolutely filthy with soot from my scorched armor. Somehow, I doubted Tianna would care too much about that. Larger concerns. It told me bad things about my fevered state of mind, though, if I was being distracted by dirty clothes. Haste was indicated.
I lifted Tianna as gently as I could, more concerned about her delicate condition than about getting her filthy with soot. I didn’t like the way the floor seemed to sway. I blinked sweat out of my eyes and tromped carefully after Tymara. Doors were tricky when I had to walk sideways. My balance was starting to become uncertain. I figured out an easier way. Leaning against the edge of the doorway, shuffle-stepping in a half-circle around the doorjamb, I swung Tianna gently through with me. I kept my balance and didn’t fall on her. My breathing sounded loud as the hot air rushed in and out of me.
Tymara led us outside, and a good thing, too, because I wasn’t entirely sure which way was out. Even stepping into the draft of outside air was like stepping from the sauna into the cold plunge. The air was icy, frigid, and I felt immediately better. I took a few deep breaths, noting as I did so how vapor still wafted up from my armor. How hot was it in there? Too hot for me, that’s certain. Maybe I should have sent someone less sensitive to heat, but I was in a hurry.
After maybe ten seconds of letting my cooling spells get the upper hand, we crossed to the open-air gazebo-dome. Bronze came over with us to look. The rest of the spectators showed signs of wan
ting to join us, but Bronze turned, blowing flame as a warning. The city guards took the hint and worked crowd control.
I laid Tianna down on the altar. Once I cooled down a bit, I felt better. I could think about more than one task at a time. I laid a focused healing spell on her, targeting the channel of the wound, then cast another spell for the blood already in her lungs. The blood trickled out through her mouth, a thread-thin stream, drawn out slowly and gently to avoid triggering any coughing spasms.
For the moment, it was all I could do. On the other hand, there were other entities involved.
I shot a look at Sparky’s idol.
“Well?” I demanded.
Tymara, still scared and worried, cocked her head as though listening to something I couldn’t hear. She stared at me, then at the statue, then at me again. She frowned and took her mother’s hand. Fiery sparks crackled around them for a moment as power moved from goddess to idol to priestette to priestess. I don’t know why Sparky did it that way, but I’m sure she had her reasons. It worked, at least, and Tianna’s whole body glowed like the sun behind a cloud.
My granddaughter opened her eyes. Her color was better and she took the first deep breath I’d seen so far. She immediately rolled onto her side and coughed, spraying bloody foam.
“I wasn’t done with the blood in her lungs!” I shouted, waving a fist at the statue. Sparky made no reply, but Tianna’s hair flickered, deep down in the curling red. The flickering spread like fire through a forest, igniting everything in a matter of moments. Her color improved markedly and her eyes shone with an inner light. It lasted only a minute, then faded away.
I helped Tianna sit up. Tymara climbed up on the altar to sit on her lap and hold her mother. I didn’t. I thought that might be pushing it. I did put armored arms around them, though, as I stood there beside the altar.
I also promised myself a reckoning.
I don’t do well with losing people I love. I spent decades in a depressed funk after losing Bronze. I do only slightly better with nearly losing people. I get angry instead of depressed. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. I’m not.
An enlightened soul—which I am not—would unflinchingly accept death as a natural part of life. Everything dies, sooner or later. Even as an immortal, I will eventually experience a death, a permanent one. That, at least, I accept. It doesn’t mean I want to. Nor does it mean I want to experience the death of loved ones.
Killing me is one thing. Killing people I care about is worse. My own death I’ll cope with. I’m not so good at others’.
I could have meditated on my anger and frustration forever, but there were formalities to be observed. I looked up at the statue again.
“Thank you.”
Sparky still didn’t reply, but I didn’t expect her to.
When Tianna and Tymara settled down, I helped them off the altar and sat them down to talk. Tymara insisted on being held. I accommodated her, soot-covered armor and all, since her mother was still shaky and weak.
“All right, explain,” I began. “What happened here?”
“I was talking with a young man. He wanted to know if we could come to his house to tend his ailing mother. We do that, sometimes, if they’re so sick they can’t be moved. While we talked, I got up to pour a drink—”
“He stabbed momma in the back!” Tianna shrieked, her hair blazing yellow. “He put a knife in my momma!”
“I recall,” Tianna agreed, dryly. “I felt it like a blow and I suddenly couldn’t catch my breath. My knees buckled and I fell. I think I hit my head.”
“It’s a hazard of being a public figure and dealing with people off the street. You’re getting guards.”
“I do not want them.”
“Did I ask what you wanted?”
“No, but the Temple—”
I held up a finger to silence her and addressed the statue of Sparky.
“There will be guards for the Temples of Flame. We’re not—I’m not—going to let this happen again. You can draw them from the fire-faithful or they can lurk like shadows in the corners. It’s up to you.” I turned to Tianna again. “Discuss it with her some other time. Back to the fact you were stabbed.”
“Very well, Grandfather. Yes, I was stabbed. I fell. I’m not sure what happened after that.”
I ducked my head lower to meet Tymara’s eyes. I raised an eyebrow.
“I was scared,” she admitted, her hair dimming. “I was mad. I broke your hairband, provus.”
“I guessed. It’s absolutely okay, sweetheart. I’ll get you a new one.”
“After the burning, I tried to help momma, but I don’t know about putting people together. It’s hard.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed. “But I think you did help, at least a little. You helped enough,” I assured her, “so she was still alive when I arrived.”
“I’m sorry I almost burned you.”
“You what?” Tianna asked, surprised.
“It was a misunderstanding,” I said, quickly. “A guy in armor burst into the room while she was crying over you. I might have reacted in a similar fashion. It’s okay.”
Tianna touched my armor, running fingertips over the black surface. They came away stained with soot. She wrinkled her nose at the stink.
“I didn’t know your armor could be damaged,” she observed. It was news to me. Maybe the Knights of Shadow have more of a reputation than I know.
“I think,” I added, “Tymara did very much the right thing. The only thing she could have done better was to run and get help. As it stands, she did marvelously. Didn’t she?”
“Yes. Yes, she did,” Tianna agreed. Tymara smiled a little. I was glad to see it.
“All I did was a little basic healing and bring the two of you out to the altar. After that, it was Sp—it was the Mother of Flame’s job. I’m glad we got you two sorted.” Then—only then!—did a terrible premonition land on me. Maybe I’m too focused, sometimes. Maybe I’m just a bad person. “Now I have to make sure the Queen and the Royal Family are all alive and well. Then I have to put on my Demon King hat for a while.”
“You have a hat made out of the Demon King?” Tymara asked, eyes wide.
“It’s an expression. I have to wear a hat that makes people think I’m the Demon King. It’s not made of him. It just makes me look like him.”
“Oh.”
“Grandfather?” Tianna asked, laying a hand on my forearm. “Please don’t do anything…” she trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence. I gently lifted her soot-stained hand and kissed the back of it.
“I have to go.”
“I—I don’t want… I wish…”
“Me, too.”
I passed Tymara to Tianna and Bronze nuzzled Tymara for a moment, making her giggle. We walked away, heading for the street. The crowds saw us coming and cleared a path before we even reached the line of city guards doing crowd control. As we passed the guards and the nearest one spoke up.
“Majesty? What do you want us to do?”
“For now? Keep the Priestesses of Flame safe and protected at all times, at all costs. Stop anyone who tries to hurt them. If anyone tries to hurt them and lives, make sure they stay alive in my personal dungeon. Don’t let them escape by dying.”
“Yes, Sire!”
We galloped up the Kingsway, into the mountain, and down to the scrying room. On the way, I shot a thought skyward.
What the hell is going on? I demanded.
I’m trying to figure that out, my altar ego replied. I’m not all-knowing, remember? And the Boojum has been raising a royal rhubarb up here about still being restricted when there is clearly a holy war on against his followers! I’ve been busy and distracted!
Maybe that was his whole purpose in raising that rhubarb!
Maybe!
Couldn’t you have told me people were being assassinated?
While you were standing near a bunch of mortals who don’t dare do anything to you? Is that safe?
I had to
admit, he had a point. At night, it might be more of a problem, but I could see his point. I hated to admit it, just as I hated the fact it was a valid concern.
“Fine,” I said, aloud. “How’d you know I needed to be at the Temple of Flame?”
Sparky. She told me to get you over there. She didn’t want to tell me why. I think she’s a bit jealous that I have you in the world.
“Well, if you’re not too busy now, could you please take a look for any spikes in the world indicating the deaths of fanatical assassins martyring themselves for the greater glory of the Lord of Light?”
Yes… I think I can. I’ve rested and your whirligig prayer wheels have been helpful. I’ll give it a shot.
Bronze and I made it to my scrying room while he checked things over. I have no idea how that works, but I don’t think I care too much. Maybe it’s the equivalent of an energy-state search engine. I’m not sure I want him to explain it to me. I have other things to think about.
Okay, I think I’ve got a report for you.
“Lay it on me, big guy.”
There were a dozen or so assassins. They went after quite a few random kids, most of them from your body’s days as the Demon King, I think. One tried for T’yl and wounded him badly, but it never pays to underestimate a magician. In the Royal Family, they tried for both Lissette and Liam. Lissette is fine, but Liam’s wounded. They dealt with the poison and the wound, so they’re confident he’ll pull through. Dantos, fortunately, was in the middle of working out with a practice sword when the appointed time or signal or whatever came around. The assassin tried for him anyway and failed to so much as touch him. Dantos beat him to death almost by accident. Bob was also a target, but assassinating elves is like trying to catch a bird by sprinkling salt on the tailfeathers. Someone also threw a bucket of water on Amber, but that sure as hell didn’t end well for him—my guess is they didn’t have any other ideas on how to kill her.