Knight of Flame

by Scott Eder

  “What do you mean?”

  “Before the leader…took me, I had one fleeting hope. For a moment, I was just like all those seven year olds back in the home looking for their prince, hoped to see that white horse and handsome rider appear from around the bend in the road. I put all my heart and soul into that single desire, but then the pain blocked everything else out. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming, but I couldn’t help the tears.”

  “I’m so sorry, Wren.”

  “It’s okay. It all worked out. You see, my hero did come that day. In a glorious blaze of fire.”

  “Dev?”

  “Yeah. He followed me home, but I lost him when I fled the orphanage. He thought he got to me in time, though.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “After he dealt with the others, made sure they wouldn’t be able to do anything like this again, he draped his shirt over me, gentle as a lamb, and carried me back to the orphanage. It must have been two, maybe three, miles. The whole time he said that I was safe, that he would take care of me, that I would come live with him and his friends in a wonderful place, and go to fancy schools, and learn all kinds of neat stuff. I didn’t want to risk losing everything by telling him that my honor had been stolen. I was afraid they wouldn’t want me anymore and what he promised sounded so good. So, I kept my mouth shut.”

  “That wouldn’t have changed their minds.”

  “I know that now, but to a twelve year old half-breed…you didn’t do anything to risk a good thing. In time, there was no need to tell anyone.” Wren shook her head as if to reroute her train of thought. “Eh, not like it matters anymore.” She stood up and stopped the movie.

  “What do you mean?” Cassidy’s stomach plunged at the abrupt change in Wren’s tone.

  “He’s got more to worry about than just me.” Wren pushed around her, but Cassidy grabbed her arm. “I gotta get going.”

  “Wait,” Cassidy said. “Please.”

  Wren paused, keeping her back to Cassidy.

  “He loves you,” Cassidy said.

  “I know that. Just like I know he will always look out for me. But, now there is someone else.”

  “Who?”

  Wren turned, cocked an eyebrow, and gave Cassidy her best are-you-really-that-dense? look.

  Holy hell.

  Chapter 38

  NERVOUS ENERGY SPARKLED AROUND THE GATHERED Knights. Cyndralla, Dronor, Magnus and Wren stood at attention over the seal of the Order before their Precept. Cassidy stood out of the way at the base of the quartz bridge while Stillman walked the line-up.

  Anxious for the Knight of Flame to show, she glanced at the doorway every few seconds. Wren’s last minute revelation aside, she hoped Dev would at least have the honor to wish his fellow Knights well. Maybe he figured they wouldn’t find anyone in the barge at all. The Knights didn’t know what they were walking into. All they had to go on was Dronor’s word that he felt the orbs in that ship.

  Not taking any chances, they planned to go in force.

  Good. She hadn’t known the Knights very long, but she’d come to like and respect them.

  The jury is out on the Water Knight, but the rest are cool. And Dev, yeah, the jury is still out on him too, but for a totally different reason.

  Hands clasped behind his back, Stillman paced up and down the row of anxious Knights. His shiny black boots scuffed across the stone floor.

  Cyndralla stared straight ahead, resplendent in knee-high boots and a pristine white combat dress, slit up both thighs. She’d bound her long hair in a tight braid. Circling her head, a silver coronet with delicate golden filigree held a flawless white diamond the size of an orange.

  Dronor, dashing in his sculpted body armor and floor-length cape that mimicked the deep blue-black of the ocean at twilight, smoothed his goatee and smirked in that insufferable, cocksure way of his. A golden hilted rapier rode his hip.

  Armored in Quinsteele mail, Magnus towered above them all, his golden mane hanging below his massive shoulders. He’d bulked up since the impromptu concert, regaining the height, breadth and muscle mass he’d shown at her house. The hilt of his double-bladed battleaxe stuck up over his left shoulder.

  Wren stood at the end of the line. Black leather covered her lithe body from head to toe. Cassidy bet Dev lined it with Quinsteele. A brace of gold-wrapped knives crisscrossed her chest. She scanned the room.

  “They look impressive, don’t they?”

  Cassidy jumped as Dev whispered in her ear. Preoccupied with the other Knights, she hadn’t noticed him come up behind her.

  “I should be going too.” Dev’s voice held no bitterness or anger this time, only resignation.

  Cassidy didn’t know what to say to that, but noticed a sharp spike in tension as the other Knights noted his presence. Stillman turned and eyed Dev expectantly.

  “Well, here we go.” Dressed for battle in jet black leathers lined with his Quinsteele armor and Cinder strapped tight to the center of his back, Dev approached the apprehensive Knights. The muscles in his bare arms flexed, probably in agitation, with each headstrong step.

  I hope he doesn’t make a scene.

  Dev dropped to one knee before his commanding officer and lowered his head. “Sir. Permission to address the troops.”

  Stillman raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Permission granted.” He stepped aside to make room for Dev. Magnus smiled and Dronor frowned.

  Dev kissed Cyndralla on the cheek and hugged her close. She seemed bewildered by this unusual action.

  “Try not to get everyone killed, Drippy.” He said to Dronor and held out his hand. Dronor glared, but clasped Dev’s hand firmly.

  Dev punched Magnus in the chest and nodded once. Magnus returned the nod.

  With Wren, he adjusted her straps and tapped her on the shoulders. She flung herself at him, launching herself off the ground, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Group hug!” Magnus bellowed and joined in.

  Cyndralla looked on in bewilderment for a second before tentatively placing her arms around Dev and the others. Dronor sneered, but his eyes told Cassidy a different story, told her that he wished things were different. But he didn’t close the gap, didn’t join in.

  Stillman smiled indulgently.

  Sensitive to the undercurrent of emotions in the room, chills coursed over Cassidy’s body. She hoped nothing happened, that the mission went off without a hitch, but she had a bad feeling slinking around inside her. She kept the unease to herself, afraid that giving it voice would make it real. So, instead, she cracked a brittle smile and played along.

  Everything will be okay.

  “Right.” Stillman cleared his throat. “You all know what to do. Safe journey, my Knights. Wren?” He moved close to his daughter, pulling a small jar from his pocket. The scent of jasmine wafted through the room when he unscrewed the lid. “Close your eyes, little bird.” After dipping one finger into the potion, he drew it gently across each of her closed eyelids. “This will help you see in dark places.” He held her cheek with one hand and kissed her forehead. “Go in peace, my daughter.”

  The Precept stepped back. “Cyndralla?”

  The Knight of Air handed a gateway card to him then touched the diamond above her forehead. A shimmering oval took shape in front of her.

  “Based on Dronor’s description, I opened this portal to an abandoned warehouse across the dock from the barge.” She eyed the travelers for questions. “After you go through, step aside and make room for the next.”

  One by one, the Knights stepped into the portal and disappeared.

  Cassidy bowed her head, saw that Stillman and Dev did as well, and offered a silent prayer for the Knights’ safe return.

  * * *

  The globe spun on its axis down low in the Womb—three lights in Tampa, one lonely crimson blip in Wales.

  “How long has it been?” Nerves twitchy, Dev jumped up and paced from one end of the room to the other.

  “About
three minutes later than the last time,” Cassidy replied.

  I should be down there. Dev threw himself in the chair. This sucks.

  “How about a glass of wine to calm you down?” Stillman asked.

  “No.”

  “Fine. But I’ll have it on hand in case you change your mind. Garison.”

  A spot on the floor near the wall roiled, the stone liquefied in a two-foot circle. Large hands pawed the air and slammed down on the solid stone to either side of the hole as the flat, black marble head of Garison emerged. Citrine eyes latched onto Stillman as soon as they crested the surface.

  Garison wasn’t one of Dev’s favorites. Cold, aloof, he held himself apart from the Knights and didn’t try to work with them like Bob, or his room’s muncle, Jester. Muncles—Magnus came up with that one. Too lazy to say homunculus, he shortened it to muncle and it stuck. It worked well for Jester and Bob, but Garison just seemed…rigid. And while he had the same type of grooved mouth as the rest of the muncles, it never varied from a straight, flat line.

  Clear of the floor, Garison ambled directly to Stillman, stone block feet clopping sedately across the bright crystal floor, and bowed at the Precept’s feet.

  “Garison. Some wine, please. And perhaps bread and cheese.” Stillman looked to the others for approval. Cassidy nodded and Dev stared at the lights on the globe.

  The stern muncle bowed again and, without a look to either Cassidy or Dev, left on his mission.

  How can they eat at a time like this? Stomach in knots, jaw clenched tight, Dev launched to his feet and lapped the table for the hundredth time.

  Chapter 39

  HEART IN HER THROAT, WREN STEPPED through the gateway. After the bright glow from the transition, the darkness she walked into seemed absolute. She stumbled to the side, tripping over something on the floor, to make room for the others.

  Her intrusion stirred up years of accumulated dust and dirt. It rose in a cloud, coating her tongue and throat. A light breeze drifted through the glass-less windows and carried with it the metallic tang of rust mixed with the stench of low tide.

  By the time Cyndralla came through, Wren’s sight had adjusted to the darkness. The salve Stillman rubbed on her eyes sped up the process dramatically. The moon provided enough light for her to find a path through the wreckage of the grimy warehouse, but not to penetrate the gloom to either side. She couldn’t see the walls, but the rectangle a lighter shade of dark ahead must be the door. Trusting her instincts and sticking close to Magnus’s hulking presence ahead of her, she made it to the door without another stumble.

  Wren paused at the doorway and checked the scene. No signs of life and the only movement the slow rise and fall of the moored barge as it rode the bay’s swells. A rickety gangplank, spanning the distance between land and dark vessel, creaked and scraped fresh furrows in the old wooden planks.

  “I don’t think the bridge will take Magnus’s weight,” Wren said.

  Dronor turned to the earth giant. “Can’t you just shrink yourself until you’re over then get big again?” he asked, annoyed that the plan already hit a snag.

  “I can shrink down, but I would take three times as long to re-grow over water and I don’t want to take the chance of being attacked during my transition. Any other ways in?”

  “No.” Dronor jumped in as the authority on the subject. “Only the planks.”

  “I can make you lighter.” Cyndralla offered.

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Dronor huffed.

  “Probably because you were sucking up all the available air space with your babbling,” Magnus said.

  “Boys.” Cyndralla’s hiss cut Dronor off before he could respond. “We don’t have time for this.” She turned to Wren. “You’re the quickest.”

  Was that a compliment? She must really be nervous.

  “Sneak up the ramp and check out the deck.” The Knight of Air leaned in close. “Wave to us from the rail when you’re done. If something happens, scream.”

  Wren nodded.

  “Careful, bird-brain,” Magnus whispered.

  She grinned and poked her head out of the empty doorframe. No signs of movement. Traitorous hands trembled as she leapt from cover. Her first few steps tentative, she crouched low, waiting for any sound or movement to indicate she’d been seen. When nothing happened, she bolted across the dock, sprang up the rickety gangway, and stopped just shy of the deck.

  Blocking out the thumping of her heartbeat, she focused all her attention on the darkness ahead of her, looking for something out of place—movement of shadows, a strange light, anything that might alert her to someone else’s presence. Other than the creaking of the ship itself as it rode the minor swells, the deck appeared clear.

  Crouched low, she crawled from the gangway onto the deck and scampered from one hunk of cover to the next. Clearing the deck, she moved into the pilot house, ears straining, eyes darting.

  A flutter, off to her left, like the pages of a book in a stiff breeze. She hit the floor behind the steering console and waited for the sound to happen again. It moved closer with another flutter and small thud. Then another.

  What is that? No breeze. The floor isn’t creaking under its weight. It can’t be much.

  She peeked around the side. Nothing. In a crouch, she crept around the console. A small dark shape jumped. Wren drew, aimed, and threw in the space between heartbeats, spearing the unfortunate to the wall.

  The thunk of her knife sounded loud. She held her breath and waited for a response. All quiet, she examined her kill.

  A gigantic bug. Nice. She yanked out the knife, slid the corpse off and wiped its juice on her pants.

  Satisfied that she was alone, she waved to her companions on shore and met them at the ramp. “Don’t step in the middle, use the supports on the side.”

  “Well done.” The Knight of Air gave Wren a satisfied nod.

  Wren caught her jaw before it dropped open. Two compliments in one day. I must be dreaming.

  Cyndralla and Dronor made it up with no problem. Magnus waited until the Knight of Air waggled her fingers and whispered that it was safe for him to cross. Mimicking his predecessors, he braced himself on the supports. The bridge groaned under his weight, but he made it across and joined them on deck.

  Dronor led the way through the small cabin and jabbed his finger into one of the rusted holes on the back wall. He triggered the mechanism and a false wall receded to reveal the promised security door. Cyndralla laid her palm on its surface.

  Now that’s a big door.

  “Wait a minute.” The Knight of Earth stepped outside the cabin, walked around, and came back in. “That’s what I thought. That door is against the outside wall and there’s nothing on the other side except blank wall. There is nowhere for that door to lead. Be ready for anything.”

  Wren looked around for somewhere to sit while Cyndralla worked the complex lock. It was going to be a while.

  “It is done.” Cyndralla said as the door swung wide onto a forbidding wall of darkness. Thin metal steps led down.

  She is good.

  “You can feel that, can’t you?” Dronor asked, hands held out as if feeling the flames from a hearth fire.

  Nope. Not a thing.

  The other Knights nodded and peered into the black.

  “I noticed Shadow’s hint before, but the full extent of its evil was masked by the door. Do you sense anything else?” Cyndralla stepped through the doorway and vanished down the steps.

  “Just the orbs,” Magnus answered. “But I doubt that’s all we’ll find.”

  Dronor moved next. Magnus motioned for Wren to go, so he could bring up the rear.

  “I thought barges were flat,” Wren said as she paused in the doorway and tried to pierce the dark.

  “They are,” Magnus answered. “But this one is decidedly…different.”

  Dizziness, nausea, fear, panic, she felt them all until the comforting bulk of Magnus pressed against her back and scared
them away. Licking dry lips, she put her arms out in front of her and took the leap of faith. Inside, her eyes tingled. Shapes resolved from the darkness. Dronor’s, and further down, Cyndralla’s forms glowed a pale yellow as they descended into…what? Wren’s enhanced vision couldn’t penetrate the gloom more than fifteen feet.

  “How about some light, Cyndy?” asked a grumbly whisper from over head.

  “Yes. Close the door, but not all the way.” Cyndralla’s voice emerged from the darkness ahead.

  “Done.”

  A light flashed as Cyndralla took the point. She stood at the first landing of a steep iron stairway that led into the midnight abyss of the ship’s hold. The small globe at her shoulder shed a dim light that barely lit a five-foot circle around her, but it beat feeling around in absolute darkness.

  From what Wren could see, the stairway dived into a fathomless black. Against the farthest edge of the light, the darkness roiled. They descended slowly. Wren stretched her senses to the limit, on alert for that tiny sound, that small scrape that warned her that they weren’t alone. In this darkness they wouldn’t have much time to react, but even a second or two could mean the difference between life and death.

  Aside from the creak of the stairs, she walked in silence for what seemed like an hour until the light down below leveled out, followed by Cyndralla’s, “Found the bottom.”

  A few more steps and Wren touched down on what must be the floor of the ship’s hold. She got the impression of a vast open space, although she couldn’t be sure since the light didn’t penetrate the gloom for more than a few feet,.

  “This is crazy,” Magnus growled. “What are we doing?”

  “We’re here for the orbs,” Dronor said.