Fire & Chasm

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  Now we’re here alone, and Leora’s grinning from ear to ear at everything in the house. She might have some pretty terrible memories associated with this place, but it’s obvious her life here wasn’t all bad. There must have been a lot of good times, too.

  “And this was mine,” she says proudly, dragging me to a room at the end of a long hallway.

  There’s a bed. A girl’s bed, the blanket embroidered with roses and ladybugs. Ratty, well-loved stuffed creatures are piled at the foot of it and on top of a dresser. They’re all links to her past, to all the moments I wasn’t a part of. But I barely glance at any of them, my eyes drawn instead to a dark stain on the wooden floorboards in the middle of the room.

  The smile on Leora’s face melts away when she sees what I’m staring at.

  “What’s that?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

  “It’s nothing. Just a spill. An accident.”

  “It looks like blood.” Dread seeps into my stomach. I can’t stop staring at the spot.

  I didn’t know it mattered, that you’d be . . . linked. Not until I came home that night to find my ten-year-old daughter, my little girl, covered in blood.

  “You weren’t hurt,” I tell her. It’s a statement, not a question, because we both already know it’s true.

  “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t think about it.”

  “It matters to me.” It’s her blood staining the floor, but it might as well be mine.

  Hadrin said he needed the hair of a maiden to work the spell. And now I remember just what that spell was. It was a sacrifice to the Chasm. That was the day they opened up a channel between it and me. That was the first day they put me in the chair, when they made me bleed.

  It wasn’t just hair they needed. It was a blood sacrifice. No wonder we’re linked now.

  I shudder. And then I’m there again, in that dark room, naked and strapped into the chair. The leather’s too tight on my wrists. Two wizards stand in front of me, holding sharp knives. Bringing them closer.

  I’m sick and shaking. Terrified and powerless. I scream. I beg them not to do this, but they act like they can’t hear me, like I’m not even there. I pull against the straps, but it’s no use. I keep expecting them to put the knives down and admit it’s just another test, just to see how I’d react if something like this was really happening. But the intensity radiating from them, and the way they won’t look at me, lets me know it’s not a test. There’s no getting out of this, and just the thought turns me into someone else. Something else. Wild and crazed, like a trapped animal. My only thoughts are of how to get away. Of how I’d do anything, anything, to get out of here, to not let them touch me.

  Or maybe that was the real me all along. Maybe everything else—all the outer layers, the parts people see—was all just for show. A few moments of fear and it’s shucked all away, leaving a raw core of violence and desperation. A gnawing madness that won’t be calmed.

  Hadrin stands off to the side, supervising the whole thing. Listening to my terrified pleas and watching me suffer. I look to him, to see his face, because I know he outranks the others. I know he could stop this. Maybe it’s not going to happen. Maybe he’ll change his mind, because he can’t really stand there and watch these wizards do whatever it is they’re going to do to me. He has to call it off.

  I silently pray for him to call it off and let me go.

  But he doesn’t. And when one of the wizards looks up, waiting for his approval to start the next step, he nods. He nods. And then—

  I’m back in Leora’s room. Trembling all over. There are tears in my eyes, but I quickly rub them away with the palms of my hands. I reach for my knife, my nerves jolting when it’s not there. It wasn’t enough just to wear the blue robes. Hadrin insisted that the knife would be too recognizable. If Endeil was looking for me, if we got stopped by a guard on the way out of town . . . One glance at my obsidian and it would all be over.

  Leora’s staring at me, her eyes as wide as I’ve ever seen them. She opens her mouth, but no words come out. Then, her voice shaking, she asks, “What were they going to do?”

  I turn away from the bloodstained floor, rubbing my arms, suddenly freezing. That’s what I remember most about afterward, when they were done with me. Being so, so cold. “What was who going to do?”

  “It was like you were having a nightmare, only you were awake. You said, ‘Don’t let them do it.’”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember, anyway.”

  “Az,” she whispers, “don’t lie to me.”

  “Do you still have my knife?” I wrapped it up carefully, so there’d be no chance of her touching it, before she packed it away in her bag for me.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Of course. It’s with the rest of my stuff. Let me go get it.”

  She steps into the hall. I put a hand on her wrist. “No. That’s not . . . I don’t think you should give it back to me.”

  “What?”

  “Just . . . put it somewhere safe and don’t tell me where it is.”

  “Is this because of what my father said? Because we’re not in Ashbury now, and even if the High Priest is looking for you, which we don’t even know if he is, that doesn’t necessarily mean—”

  “No. That’s not it. I just . . .” I just don’t trust myself with it right now.

  Leora’s raising her eyebrows at me, waiting for an explanation. “You and that knife have been inseparable ever since I met you. You almost didn’t take it off when we . . .” She trails off, her cheeks going red. “And now you’re telling me what? That you don’t even want it back? That’ll be the day.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t want it.”

  “That’s what I thought. So I’ll put it on the dining room table, okay? If you want it, you can take it. If not . . .” She shrugs, already on her way down the hall.

  I watch her go, not stopping her, not arguing. Already my resolve to stay away from my obsidian is crumbling, because of course I want it. It’s better this way, her leaving it out for me. Not putting it directly in my hands, but not keeping it from me, either. Pretending I have a choice. I’ll go mad without it, and what was I thinking, telling her not to give it back?

  An image flashes through my head. The one of Leora, sobbing, drenched in blood.

  And I wonder if we both haven’t just made a horrible mistake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I’m walking up Market Street with Hadrin a few days later. He’s been coming to the house every morning—to the house, but never inside—and we’ve been going to the wooded park nearby, talking in hushed voices about magic. It’s a nice park, part of their fancy neighborhood, with hardly any people in it, at least in the mornings. A couple of neighbors have recognized him, from years ago, and given their condolences for his late wife. When anyone asks about me, he says I’m his apprentice. He doesn’t tell them my name, or that his daughter and I are together.

  That’s what we’ve been doing, but today I had something else in mind. Today, I want to see the guild.

  We’re on our way there, headed up the hill, when I start catching snippets of conversations. Not much, just a few words, but they’re enough to make me pause. Phrases like “new power” and “the High Priest.”

  I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Rathe can bring back the dead. It was only a matter of time before everyone heard about it.

  I’m stopped in the street, straining to hear more, but then Hadrin glares at me and grabs my arm, practically dragging me along. He must not have heard what I did, or he’d be stopping to listen, too. “We’re never going to get there if you keep gawking at everything,” he growls. “Do I need to remind you that coming here today was your idea?”

  “No,” I say, jerking my arm out of his grasp, “but it hasn’t stopped you so far.”

  “Let’s just get this over with.”

  I follow him. Maybe this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done—something he’s already told me sev
eral times this morning—but I can’t stop thinking about it. About the wizards’ guild. Ever since I started getting my memories back, it’s been on the edge of my mind, never quite leaving me alone. I thought that I’d have all the answers now, that I’d know all the missing pieces, but I don’t. And now that we’re here, in the capital, the thought of the guild being so close haunts me. It walks up my spine like spiders every night as I try to fall asleep. It brushes over my skin, making me shiver.

  “It won’t fix anything, you know,” Hadrin says.

  “I have to see it,” I tell him. “I have to, just to prove I can look at it and walk away again and still be all right. Just to . . .” Just to prove to myself that it doesn’t have any power over me. That it’s bigger in my head than it is in real life.

  “You’re making a mistake.” He sounds worried. Not snide or judging. Like he actually cares what happens to me.

  I glance over at him. I could have gone alone. It’s not like the High Guild is hard to find. Or I could have brought Leora instead. She would have held my hand when we got there and yelled obscenities at the building, or at wizards passing by on their way to work. She would have told me it doesn’t matter what happened there—not a moment of it—because she loves me anyway.

  It’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted to hear that. It’s not like I wouldn’t have smiled at her and felt lucky and grateful and like maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that what she said was true. That it really doesn’t matter. Even if I know that it does. It matters too much, and I don’t want her to see me like that. To look over at me and know how much of me died inside that building.

  I have to face it, to show myself that I can, and yet . . . I can’t face it alone.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” Hadrin says. “I shouldn’t have let you come this far.”

  “Let me? As if anything I do is your—”

  A nearby conversation makes me stop in midsentence. We both hear it this time. A woman says, “She has a second power now, thanks to the High Priest,” and Hadrin and I both turn to stare at her.

  She’s standing with a friend in front of a bakery. “It’s a miracle,” she goes on. “My niece can make all the weeds in the garden just wilt away.” She snaps her fingers. The other woman’s eyes widen, and she gasps, but it’s not a horrified gasp—it’s more like she’s in awe.

  I want to run over there and tell them that it’s not a gift, that it’s from the Chasm, of all places, and that if her niece turns out anything like Rathe— But what good would it do? Going up to a complete stranger and saying I overheard her conversation and her niece is probably evil now, so she’d better watch out? Instead I keep walking, my pace quicker this time.

  Word about Rathe’s new power getting out—that was inevitable. But this is much worse. “Endeil’s found a way to keep doing it,” I tell Hadrin. Not that I’d believed he wouldn’t, or that, without me, he’d just give up the whole thing. Maybe he got someone else to do the obsidian part. Someone less skilled, but more willing. Then again, I underestimated how powerful his magic was the other night, and he almost killed me. He would have, if Father Gratch hadn’t walked in. Maybe his magic is strong enough now that he doesn’t even need the obsidian.

  If he ever did. I wouldn’t put it past him to have told me the obsidian was a necessary step, that he needed my help. All so he could play some sick mind game and get me to willingly cut into my friend. But I push that thought away. He needed me—he did. He’s just found some other way now, that’s all. What I did to Rathe . . . that wasn’t for nothing.

  “All the more reason,” Hadrin says, “why he needs to be stopped and why you should be preparing to defeat him. Not out on some crazy mission to drive yourself mad.” He pauses, putting a hand on my arm. “Listen, Azeril. When I said this wasn’t a good idea, I meant it. I know you think I’m the last person you should trust, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  “Because I’m a weapon. Because you need me in working condition.”

  “Because you’re only a boy and you need someone looking out for you. Someone older and wiser who doesn’t want to see you get hurt. Not any more than you have been already. And going there is going to hurt. You’ve been through enough. So let’s turn around and go back and forget this.”

  “You’re telling me you care what happens to me. Now, after everything you did. You could have stopped the experiment at any time. You never had to let it go that far, but you chose to anyway.”

  “All the more reason to stop this. I know what we did to you. I know everything you endured in that Fire-forsaken basement, and I won’t let you relive it. It’s bad enough you have your memories. Dredging up the past any further will only cause you more pain. We’ve both changed since then. I’m not the same man who stood by and watched you get hurt. I will not watch it happen now, and that means we’re turning around and going back home.”

  My home is in Ashbury. Even if I’ve left for good, it still feels like home. And his is up this hill, at the guild itself. But I know what he means.

  I open my mouth to say, “Okay,” but the word dies on my lips as I look up and see the tallest spire of the guild looming over the nearby buildings. It’s just a glimpse, but it sucks the air out of my lungs. A wave of fear passes over me, so strong that my vision blurs.

  And suddenly I remember the last time I was here, in these streets. I was running. Knowing that at any moment someone would realize I was gone and send the whole guild after me. And if they found me . . . But I had the knife. I would have killed myself before I let them take me back. And I’d have taken down as many of them with me as I could.

  Getting anywhere near this place was a mistake. I feel like I’m back there, the day I escaped, and that it’s only a matter of time before the wizards find me. And when they do I’ll be too scared to move, to reach for the knife, and then I’ll be back in the chair—

  “Azeril?” Hadrin peers at me, his face lined with worry. He’s right there, only inches in front of me, but he sounds so far away. “Are you all right?”

  I can’t even speak. All I can do is shake my head before I turn and run in the other direction.

  Hadrin finds me hiding in an alley at the bottom of the hill, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees, taking deep breaths.

  He’s out of breath himself, and his face is red, his chest heaving.

  The alley is narrow, wedged between two gray stone buildings. It smells like garbage and urine. I can hear a rat scrabbling around in a discarded basket somewhere behind me, while a blackbird squawks from the rooftops.

  I know the wizards aren’t coming for me. I know this isn’t that day three years ago, and yet I can’t shake the terror. My thoughts won’t sit still, and my body won’t move.

  “Don’t tell me ‘I told you so,’” I mutter. “If you even so much as think it . . .” But my threat sounds empty, even to me.

  Hadrin squats down in front of me, so our eyes are almost level. “I know I’ve made mistakes in the past, and I know this doesn’t even begin to make up for them, but I would never let them take you. Never. Do you understand?” He presses a hand over his heart. “No matter what happens, you will never have to go to the guild or down to that basement again.”

  “To the place where you tortured me, you mean?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. I would die first, before I ever let anyone take you there.”

  “And I know what a wizard’s promise is worth.” I rest my forehead on my knees, not looking at him. I think about my obsidian and its comforting fire, but I don’t move to touch it. Partly because I’m still too frozen with fear, and partly because I need my thoughts to stay focused as I try to remember exactly what happened the last time I was here. I glance up at Hadrin. “I remember running,” I tell him. “Running through this strange, unfamiliar city, with all these sights and smells and noises, and . . . and light, and knowing I would die if I stopped. If I didn’t run fast enough or far enough before they figure
d out I was gone and caught up to me.”

  They did, in Ashbury. Those wizards that Father Moors saw me kill. That was my first memory. I’d blocked out everything else, or something had blocked it out for me. That part’s still fuzzy. One minute I knew who I was, and then there was a burning feeling in my head, and it all went away.

  “But what I don’t remember is how I escaped.”

  “Someone left your cell unlocked that night. Terrible mistake. The wizard on duty was fired years ago.”

  “No. He locked it. Like he did every night. I saw him do it. Do you think I wasn’t watching? Waiting for the time someone would make even the slightest mistake and I’d have a chance of getting away? Every night I tried to open the door, even though I knew it wouldn’t open. Even though I’d watched my keeper lock me in. It hadn’t opened that night. I fell asleep, but I woke up in the early morning. There was a noise or something, and my door was ajar.”

  “Perhaps you were wrong,” Hadrin says. “Perhaps it wasn’t locked after all, only jammed, and came free in the night.”

  “It wasn’t the only door that was unlocked. There were several more I had to get through to escape. If even one of them had been locked properly . . . but they were open. You can’t tell me that’s just one act of carelessness.”

  He glances away, wincing as he gets to his feet. “I’m too old to be kneeling down in the gutter. Come on. I assume you’ve had enough of this foolishness and we can go back?”

  I don’t move. My voice is quiet, strained, afraid to say the words—but I say them anyway. “Was it you?”

  “What?”

  “Was it . . . Were you the one who—”

  “I understood the question! You think I, a high-ranking official of the High Guild”—he tugs at the collar of his robes, indicating the little gold symbols sewn there—“would ruin years of hard work and risk my career for some pathetic boy?”

  “Someone let me go.”

  He snorts. “And you think it was me? How touching.”