Lesson of the Fire

by Eric Zawadzki

  “Will you obey me as a slave should obey his master?”

  “Yes,” Sven managed, and his blistered skin became whole again. The pain vanished.

  Nightfire touched his shoulder. He no longer glowed, but the first rays of dawn lit his face. The black cloak in his hand was clean as though newly washed. He no longer looked imperious and terrifying. If anything, he looked slightly embarrassed.

  “Come with me, Sven,” he said gently. “We will reach my home before nightfall.”

  Sven pulled the black cloak around his naked body and obeyed.

  Chapter 39

  “I think everyone who spent time around Sven Takraf experienced what I did — the unshakeable feeling that your presence in his life is part of a plan to guide him on the path to his destiny. From the first time I heard a story about him, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, even though I didn’t know what role I would play.”

  — Pondr,

  Collected Journals, edited by Weard Asa Sehtah

  Glancing at her six companions, who were by turns scanning the horizon and fidgeting, Erika turned her eyes ahead and walked away from camp, toward the town. Shadows moved in the mist within fifty yards of the open gate. As she drew near, they became black-clothed Mar.

  She grinned. Perhaps Einar had driven off the invasion the way Sven had claimed, and only a few towns had fallen.

  “Peace i’the swamp,” Erika called to them, raising her hand in greeting.

  The approaching Mar did not respond.

  Maybe they can’t hear me.

  She trotted ahead of her escort a few yards before coming to a sudden halt. Something was not right here. There were too many of them. It was difficult to count them in the fog, but she guessed at least a hundred Mar had appeared. They approached without conversation. A lone hunter or forager might remain quiet to avoid attracting the attention of gobbels, but a hundred Mar had nothing to fear from Drakes in a Protectorate town. There would be no reason for silence.

  She squinted at them, trying to discern what might have brought them here.

  “This’s strange,” one of the adepts whispered. “We should leave, Weard Unschul.”

  The Mar moved as though chained with whips lashing their backs. They moved as if defeated. All of them held twigs, their hands shaking. Two of them attracted her eye.

  Her breath caught. They were her parents. She raced toward them, abandoning the adepts.

  “Mother! Father! What is going on here?”

  As she neared them and saw their eyes, saw the screams they couldn’t sound, they raised the twigs in their hands. Flames engulfed her, and she fell to the soggy ground wondering why her parents would hurt her so. Behind her, the adepts screamed. She closed her eyes in pain.

  Sven, you were wrong. They’ve conquered the Protectorates.

  * * *

  Less than an hour after Erika left the camp, the wand-wielders came for the adepts. Pondr could see a thousand Mar with vacant eyes in the clearing fog, and he could see the wands in their hands. The adepts formed in ragged ranks, trying to remember the finer points of magical combat they had been taught.

  “What’s going on?” Asa asked. “Where’s Mom?”

  Pondr grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to the back of the small army of adepts. He looked desperately for somewhere they could hide, but this part of the Morden Moors was treeless and fairly flat. Nor would black cloaks hide them among the reds and purple of the sedges that covered the landscape.

  At the front of the adepts, Nanna took command of the situation as best she could. “Power adepts to the front to defen’.”

  The shuffle of bodies began.

  “Energy adepts, center ranks. When I give the order, attack. Vitality adepts, rear ranks. Keep the others healthy. An’ spread the line out. We’ll want to use ochre tactics — surroun’ them.”

  Like we have the numbers for that, Pondr mused sadly.

  He knew this wasn’t everything they had been taught, but only a few of the adepts had ever seen combat before. Best to keep the strategy simple.

  It will do them no good. These are mapmaker’s odds.

  Pondr squatted in front of Asa and brushed away her frightened tears awkwardly, feeling at least as out of place here as she must. He commanded no magic that could burn or pummel men into submission. He didn’t even have a real weapon — just an eating knife.

  A roar rose from the adepts’ ranks, shattering the mist and shaking the earth. Pondr felt it to the core of his being, felt the water shudder under the primeval war cry of the Mar. It did not die out for several minutes, and the enemy’s returning silence proved powerfully effective.

  “Hold your ground!” Nanna shouted, but her voice was lost in the din.

  By a mutual consent akin to that of migrating birds or stampeding animals, the adepts charged.

  “Climb onto my shoulders, Asa, and I will tell you another story.”

  She did. Pondr walked away from where the armies gathered as quickly as he dared. This was no place for either of them. The screams of rage and pain followed him as he fled. The Traveller began to speak, trying to keep himself and the girl calm.

  * * *

  There was a time, Asa, not too long ago, when there was no war. Mar did not fight Mar. Many of them never left their own homes. The duxies were strong and stood apart from each other except in Council, and they kept a tight rein on their provincial magocrats.

  Oh, surely, the land was dangerous. Drakes abounded. Dinah’s Curse was as deadly as ever. Towns were necessarily small, generally unhealthy, and people died from disease and starvation and stupidity. But they didn’t die at the hands of their protectors, like the armies in the field now.

  Into this time of peace, your father was born, the second child of Pitt and Tyra Gematsud. His older sister is your aunt, Katla Duxpite. Like you are your mother’s daughter, Katla and Tyra shared a strong bond — one that she carries to this day. Flasten took Tyra as a slave, though, when your father was your age, and this story began there.

  Your grandmother was a remarkable woman, Asa. In those days, a mundane was as roots under a magocrat’s boot, a slave as mud. With noses high and gloved hands to ward off diseases from even clean Mar, no weard would help except under duress. I didn’t say it was a better time — just a peaceful one. Everyone had a place, and everyone knew it.

  But Tyra Gematsud made a friend of her magocrat, who respected her reputation for beauty, charm, friendliness and willingness to help her neighbors. Tyra’s spark kindled minds and lives for miles around her village, and those who knew your grandmother tried to be like her. Yes, Asa, like your father, but she never became as powerful as he is. She never had the chance.

  Flasten sent magocrats to snatch people from Gunne to sell as slaves in Wasfal. Her magocrat couldn’t drive them away on her own, so the wizard had to leave to go get help. She went to the Dux of Gunne, who made promises for a year but kept none of them. Meanwhile, Tyra’s village ran out of food and wood, as Flasten kidnapped more and more of their hunters and foragers.

  Your grandparents held their village together throughout the long and terrible winter. They kept them from arguing with each other or giving up. They took turns risking themselves on expeditions to find food and fuel for the village, so of course everyone who knew Tyra did, too. Though many people didn’t survive, most of them did because your grandparents wouldn’t let anyone give up and wouldn’t let anyone starve or freeze.

  You may wonder, Asa, where was the kind magocrat in all this? When she finally decided the dux wasn’t going to help, she went to her old teacher, Nightfire, who agreed to move all the people in the magocrat’s care to a place beyond Flasten’s reach.

  By the time Nightfire arrived with all the wizards from his Academy, though, a Flasten magocrat had kidnapped Tyra. Everyone was very sad, especially your dad and your aunt, but they couldn’t find Tyra no matter how hard they looked, and they had to leave. The passage was long and hard, and the magocrat and many other
people died along the way. But because of Nightfire, they eventually made it safely to Rustiford.

  And what happened to your grandmother? That is a sad story, but an important one. She endured many humiliations on her long journey to Wasfal Palus, where the magocrats of the Duxy of Flasten sold her to Aflangi traders from beyond the great plateau. For twenty years, she worked as a slave to a foreign dux who did not speak her language. Life was harder than she could have ever imagined, and she missed her friends and family terribly, but she tried to be a comfort to those around her who were also suffering, for the foreign duxy was always at war with its neighbors.

  During one of those wars, her dux was killed. In the confusion, Tyra led a handful of the slaves in a daring escape, but she suffered a mortal blow during the chaos. On her deathbed, she made one of her companions swear to the Oathbinder that he would go to Marrishland to tell her family what had happened to her and to help her children as much as he could.

  The oath-bound slave died of fever long before reaching Marrishland, but he told Tyra’s story to the healers who tried to help him. The healers told the story to their neighbors, and a trio of young mapmakers set out to carry out the dead slave’s last wish. Two of them starved to death before reaching Marrishland, and the third fell prey to Dinah’s Curse within a span of his arrival in Wasfal Palus. The tale passed from person to person as a curiosity, but no one set out to carry out Tyra Gematsud’s final wish.

  At last, the tale reached the ears of a Traveller who, though not in the least interested in carrying out the wishes of some slave woman he had never met, could not resist the lure of finding out how the story ended. It took years of research in the deepest parts of Marrishland’s swamps to discover what happened to Sven and Katla — that they had both become powerful wizards. The Traveller couldn’t find Tyra Gematsud’s daughter, but her son had recently seized the Chair, so he went to Sven Takraf to learn the story from the man’s own lips.

  In picking up the ragged end of Tyra Gematsud’s story, the Traveller found himself ensnared by it. He was a part of Tyra’s story now, and it would give him no rest until he told it to someone who could carry out her final wish. Though he had sworn no oaths to help Tyra’s family, he found the urge to do so irresistible. So long as he kept her story to himself, no harm would come to him, but he would also find it impossible to escape from the role it assigned him.

  * * *

  The sounds of battle faded into silence as they left the armies behind them. Pondr knew how it would end. It did not take a veteran general to recognize a hopeless battle or a merciless opponent when he saw one. Some adepts had tried to surrender, no doubt, but they would have received no quarter from the glassy-eyed Mar.

  There is surely enchantment at work here, Pondr thought.

  “Your grandmother was very brave, Asa. Now it is your turn to carry her story and your turn to tell it. She would want you to tell her story to your father. I’m just a stranger to him.”

  “You know it better, though.”

  He smiled sadly. There had not yet been any sign of pursuit, but Pondr had encountered wizards and enchanters too many times to think he could escape the one who turned innocent mundanes into an army of mindless wand-wielders.

  “I’m a Traveller, Asa, and I know how stories work — whether I hear them, see them or live them. Your father’s enemies will come for us soon. Tyra Gematsud’s story cannot save me this time, but it will protect you, if you’re brave like she was.”

  “Where is Mom?” she asked suddenly.

  “She’ll be safe, but your father. … I know you have his kind of memory. No matter what happens, tell him the stories I told you, and I might still be able to help.”

  She tensed, but Pondr felt her right hand leave his shoulder. “I swear by the Oathbinder to tell Dad the stories.”

  “Good girl, Asa.”

  It was nearly dark before the wizards came for them.

  “Did you really think you could outrun a wizard?”

  Pondr had only met Weard Wost a couple times — not enough to recognize his voice — but his Flecterran accent gave him away. The Traveller stopped in his tracks and very gently set Asa down without turning to face Robert.

  “What you have done is forbidden by the laws of your land and theirs, Weard Wost.” Pondr shrugged off the rucksack where he kept his journal and handed it to Asa.

  “Do not lecture me about laws, Traveller. You surrendered your immunity when you aided the Mardux.”

  Pondr turned slowly to face the farl, raising his hand in the Mar gesture of salute and surrender. “Don’t be so certain, Robert. I’m as entangled in this tale of gods, heroes and fire as you are, but at least I recognize it.”

  “Sven is not the Guardian!” Robert snarled. “The Mar love their epics and legends, but I know a myth when I hear one. I do not believe in that one any more than I believe in their gods!”

  Pondr lowered his hand so no one would notice how much it was shaking. “Or in the power of a Traveller’s stories?” He met Robert’s gaze and struggled to keep his voice from cracking. “I have heard stories from your history, as well. Your teacher was a priest among the farls, was he not? Oh how you must have hated him for how he treated you.”

  Robert took a step back, and his lip curled. “Shut up,” he said, pointing at the Traveller.

  Pondr heard Asa screaming at Robert as he collapsed into the mud. Then a final silence fell upon the Traveller, and his journey came to an end.

  * * *

  “You should have let the Traveller go,” Ari said softly, handing Robert a bowl of steaming soup. “Have you never heard of the Traveller’s Curse?”

  “Of course. I have also heard of fire-breathing guer called draxi.” He sneered. “They are just as mythical. I was less concerned about his Curse than his stories. A dead Traveller is less trouble than a living one.”

  Ari sighed and sat down on a wicker chair. “Marrishland saw many kinds of magic before the Mar were born. It is said some of our ancestors could only wield magic when they were dead.”

  “Nonsense. You Mar did not even have a written language until the Gien Empire crushed your army like so many irritating mosquitoes.” He closed a fist in the air in front of him to capture an imaginary insect. “Half your history is myth, and the other half is extrapolated from myth.”

  Ari said nothing. You farls share territory with two other races whose magic behaves nothing like mine or yours. And you know Mar do not see the myst the same way you do.

  “How are our hostages?” Robert asked, sipping.

  “Einar continues making gloves,” Ari said. “I see what you mean now. No wonder Weard Takraf took the Chair so easily.”

  “Volund was a fool not to see it. Takraf’s mystique blinded him to the obvious.”

  “The Mardux’s wife has recovered, though we are dosing her with morutsen. She might only be an apprentice, but she has long been close to powerful wizards, so it is likely she can wield magic well enough to escape.”

  “She would not get far.”

  “Well enough to inconvenience us, then. Her daughter has quieted considerably now that her mother is safe. She is reading some books the Traveller carried with him.”

  “Good. I have finished preparing our welcome. Send the messenger to Domus Palus and offer the Mardux our terms.”

  “Yes, Weard Wost.”

  Ari stood up and left the large hut that served as their headquarters in Leiben. Once he had been pacified, Einar had removed the defenses so they could use it as a base of operations.

  Sven would not accept Robert’s terms, Ari knew. Eighth-degree wizards were not known for their devotion to family, and Sven was ambitious even among his peers. He glanced in the direction of the hut where his stepfather labored on Blosin gloves for Robert’s conquest.

  Ari reached the small hut where Erika’s parents stayed. They cringed when they saw him. All the Mar of the Protectorates did, making Ari wonder what Robert had made them see when they looked upon
his Mar apprentice.

  “I am sending you with a message for Sven Takraf. Tell him Weard Robert Wost has captured his wife and daughter, together with the Protectorates. If he does not come to Tortz alone, we will sell everyone here as slaves, starting with his family. Do you understand?”

  They sobbed as they scraped and bowed before him, assuring him that they certainly did. Ari recoiled in a mixture of horror and disgust even as he called the myst and sent them both into the Tempest.

  Is Robert’s enchantment truly unbreakable?

  The enchanter claimed that only proof of his death could break his hold on the slaves he made, but that was a convenient fiction. Ari knew enough about the mysdyn of Presence and Wisdom to recognize that.

  Of course he would want us to believe that our army would turn against us if we killed him. If it is a spell, it is self-sustaining, but it can be broken. If it is nothing but a form of elaborate torture, then it can be resisted.

  Ari removed a flask of morutsen from his cloak and went to renew Robert’s less brutal hold over the Mardux’s wife and daughter.

  Chapter 40

  “We hear, tell and live stories, and those stories shape each other. The stories we hear change the stories we tell and live. The stories we tell change the stories we hear and live. The stories we live change the stories we tell and hear. My gift lies in sometimes knowing how one story will affect another, but every story I tell changes me as surely as it alters my audience.”

  — Pondr,

  Collected Journals, edited by Weard Asa Sehtah

  It took two spans for Ragnar’s wizards to inspect and assimilate the Domus army. He demanded sworn oaths of each of them — to obey him without fail until the Mass no longer threatened Marrishland. Volund’s last remaining son swore no oaths in return.

  If Ragnar had doubted that Horsa Verifien was the same person who had thwarted him at every turn during the Teleport War, a few war councils pushed aside all uncertainty. The priest was unflaggingly loyal to the Mardux and to the Duxy of Domus, but he was also a competent strategist and a skilled magic-wielder. Now that he had allied himself with his rival general, Horsa had put all his knowledge at Ragnar’s disposal. The range of their reconnaissance had already doubled, and the Flasten army even adopted some of the Domus wizards’ formations and small group tactics.