Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  The spring Uther turned seventeen, an illness swept the land. The keening of grieving mothers could be heard throughout the stinking city of Holderford, and it was Uther, not his arrogant younger brother Huwen, the crown prince, who stood by Father at Prince Eamon’s side as he tossed with fever. But Eamon worsened and slipped into a dreamless sleep.

  It was Uther who was dispatched to bring healers with herbs and magic spells. And when the curse of the disease could not be lifted, it was Uther who was sent to bring the castle magiel. His father and the magiel prayed over the prince’s wasted body for candlemarks on end, petitioning the Gods, their hands joined and frozen to the Ruby. Eamon’s pulse continued to beat and his breath continued to flow. But he did not wake.

  When the Ruby slipped from the king’s fingers, he and his magiel returned from their prayers in the spheres of the Gods, both collapsed with exhaustion.

  But still his brother worsened.

  Uther was privy to his father’s anguish as, one by one, the high magiels of Midell, Pagoras, and Gramarye, summoned to Holderford, delivered the same verdict: nothing could be done. The boy lived, but his ghost no longer inhabited his body. Then the magiels of Teshe and Elsen, and even the magiel of distant Orumon were sent for. The boy was a golem, they said, living on without mind, without will, without sense.

  The Many Gods were weak, or their magiels too frightened to act.

  Uther stood by the door as his father paced the floor, knelt by the bed, stood at the window searching the stars for answers. Uther brought his father food in the night and took it again in the morning, untouched. Uther watched as his father grew thin; as he turned away his advisors; as whispers filled the halls and meaningful glances were exchanged among the nobles; as his father’s younger brother, Avin, took on more and more of the duties of state; as the queen retired to her chambers and the solace of her personal magiels and their potions of forgetting.

  Uther was summoned. To bring secret visitors up back stairways. Other magiels—lesser, not high magiels of the Great Houses—to plead with this God or that. They came in silks or in rags, to confer with the king and administer other remedies; more questionable; more futile. As long as the boy breathed, his father would not give up.

  The night came when Eamon lay wasted in his golden chamber, his skin so translucent in the candlelight, the veins, and even bones, seemed to shine through. The king, as though bent under a great weight, turned from his vigil. Calling for Uther, he sat at his desk and wrote a note, affixing his seal. He wrote an address on its outer wrapping.

  “Come, boy,” he said in a voice that rasped like his quill on the parchment. His eyes shone, dark and liquid, as he placed his big hand on Uther’s head and drew a finger down to lift his chin. “Call the coachman. Go to this house. Wake the magiel you find there. Wenid Col, his name is; a magiel devoted to the worship of only the One God. Bring my summons to him.”

  The cult of the One God. Even Uther had heard of it.

  His father pressed trembling lips together. “Your brother is dying, Uther. Be swift.”

  Uther was frightened, and looking at Eamon, wondered, Is this the last time he breathes?

  His brother lay motionless. No lash fluttered. His blue-tinged lips were parted as if suspended in mid-gasp. Did he breathe? Or did the flicker of the candle flame mimic the rise and fall of his chest? Uther glanced at his father and held his breath. Eamon was like a figure of wax.

  Father hastened to the bedside. He bent low, a cheek to feel the faint sigh of breath. His head plunged to the narrow chest, listening.

  A moment.

  His father growled or moaned and lifted his brother by the shoulders. He shook him, once; let him drop to the pillow. He listened, watched, shook again.

  “No!” The growl was louder this time. He whirled and caught Uther by the arms, his grip crushing. “Go!” he cried, shoving him toward the door. “I’ve delayed too long—”

  Uther bolted out the door, clattered down the stone steps, and flew into the midnight rain, screaming at the coachman to wake! Wake! Whip the horses for all they’re worth!

  Empty streets flew past in a lifetime of bruising corners and jouncing ruts. Cobbles gave way to streets of clay transformed by sheets of rain to grease beneath the wheels. The nightmare journey ended in a plunging halt before a building sandwiched between a silent tavern and a glazier’s.

  Uther tore from his seat and pounded on the door. A spring storm—cold and full of power—slapped his shoulders and drenched his hair. “Answer in the name of the king! Answer—”

  The door opened and a servant looked Uther up and down.

  “Please, Sieur!” Uther held out his father’s letter in the driving rain.

  “Who is it?” A wheedling voice rattled from the interior.

  “A messenger.” The servant took the letter and scrutinized the seal in the dim light of a single gusting candle ensconced in the entryway. “He says he’s from the king.”

  Above the pounding of the rain, Uther heard an interior door flung open. A stooped old man came to the entryway, his face a web of wrinkles, his eyes round and hungry. He snatched the letter and held it up to the candle. “Let him in. Shut the door.” He tore the outer velum away and scanned the contents of the letter. “This is it,” he breathed.

  “The king has capitulated?” the servant asked.

  The magiel turned to Uther. “You’ve seen the boy? How bad is he?”

  “I—I don’t think he’ll live, Sieur.”

  “Don’t think? Or is he dead already?”

  “I don’t know—”

  The magiel struck a table with his fist and shot his servant a penetrating look. “Why did he wait?”

  “The price is high,” his servant answered.

  “Now the cost to the boy will be high as well.”

  “And to you,” the servant said.

  The magiel swiped the air in denial. “I don’t care about myself.”

  “If you do this thing, magiels of the Great Houses will band together to cast you out.”

  “Please, Sieur!” Uther begged.

  The magiel pulled a hooded cloak from a peg. “We’ve been through all that. It’s got to be done.”

  “For the glory of the One.”

  “For the glory of the One.” The magiel threw the cloak over his shoulders and, pulling up the hood, plunged into the rain.

  And then the magiel was in the coach, and Uther was in his place clinging to the handholds on the back, listening to the crack of the whip above the gusts of rain as the horses labored up the hill, hooves clattering on cobbles.

  Get on! The king awaits!

  The beasts blew and steamed and the guards stood aside as they flew into the castle bailey, coming to a halt at the side entrance. Uther jumped from the coach and ran up the tower steps to lead the magiel to his father.

  Wenid Col strode through the dimly lit corridors and, glowering at the guards, flung open the royal chamber door himself.

  Uther’s father lay in the light of a single candle, prostrate across the bed, across Eamon, shuddering with sobs, and Uther understood then, the words of the magiel.

  His brother was dead.

  “Stand!” the magiel cried in a voice so used to whispering that his croak barely pierced the howl of the gale.

  Uther eased the door into its jamb, cutting off the knowing whispers of the servants.

  Dead. Like the son of the scullery girl who carried her infant about the kitchen, moaning. Like the yeoman, lying on his pallet with flies nipping at his eyes until the Holder’s men took him away. Like the noisome corpses piled on the hauler’s wagon, bumping over ruts through the city gates.

  His father moaned with an anguish that swathed Uther in an urge to run to him as he had as a child. “No, no...”

  In three strides, Sieur Col crossed the room and put his hand on Father’s shoulder, pushing him onto his back with a force that belied the magiel’s thin stature. “Do you wish your son to live?”

&nb
sp; Father slithered from the bed to wallow in grief on the floor. “He’s dead! Dead! You’re too late!”

  Uther’s throat tightened at the knowledge. The guilt.

  The magiel crouched before him, still obscenely clutching his shoulder. “Nothing is beyond the power of the One God.”

  The king shook his head in bewilderment, raised his hands, trembling and useless, to pull at his hair. “My son! My son...”

  “Swear. Swear fealty to the One God, and only the One God.” The magiel shook Father by the shoulders. “Swear you will denounce all others as demons, and your son shall be returned to you.”

  The old man’s words made no sense. Eamon was dead.

  But his father lifted eyes full of confusion and hope.

  “You know the cost,” the magiel said.

  The king—the king!—bowed his head. “I do.” He pushed his lank hair back with his hands.

  “All the prayer stones,” the magiel commanded. “The Amber. The Citrine. The Emerald—all six must be sacrificed to the One God. Do you swear? No one will have access to Heaven. Only the Ruby will remain.”

  Uther’s father sat up straighter. He searched the magiel’s face with disbelief. “I can,” he gasped. “I will. The kingdoms will be taken by surprise. I can secure them all.”

  “Because the Many Gods are false Gods. Demons. You know this to be true.”

  “False Gods,” the king repeated. Streaks glistened on his cheeks.

  “Only the One has the power to save your son. Say it!”

  “Only the One.” A choking voice. A whisper.

  “You believe?”

  “I believe.” His father’s shoulders crumpled and tears coursed again.

  “I will endure the ordeal for you, My Liege,” the magiel said softly. “For the boy, and for the glory of the One God.”

  Wordlessly, his father scrambled to his knees and kissed the magiel’s hand.

  The magiel shed his cloak. “Bring the Ruby.”

  Uther shrank into the shadows of the velvet drapes.

  The king took the prayer stone from its locked box on the pedestal and knelt beside Eamon as Uther had seen him do so many times before. He held it out: a glinting crystal sparkling red fire in the candlelight. Golden rays snaked from its center.

  The magiel stood at the head of the bed and laid his hand on the king’s wrist.

  And that was all. The magiel and the king became abruptly motionless.

  Through the night Uther watched. His father and the magiel prayed, their spirits lifted from this lowest sphere of earth, to traverse through the first sphere, the Heaven of thieves and murderers, through the second, the third, and so on, to the very highest sphere of the One God. Silent and motionless were their bodies, as their spirits pleaded for the life of a boy.

  The storm raged and waned and raged again, beyond the glassed windows.

  Uther stoked the fire and relit the candles.

  Morning drew near.

  The rain lessened and the howl of the wind diminished. Dawn filtered through blustery clouds to cast pale streaks across the parquet floor and the snowy coverlet on the bed. Uther opened the east window and a cool zephyr lifted the filmy drapes, scenting the room with promise.

  His brother sighed, and turned his head.

  His brother. Eamon.

  The magiel crumpled and fell to the floor. Father’s eyes fluttered and he collapsed against the side of the bed. The Ruby rolled onto his lap.

  Within days, the king sent his best cadres to each kingdom’s strongholds, traveling light and swift, racing rumor. Relinquish your prayer stone and swear allegiance to the One God, his message read.

  Or give up your lands in bloody battle to be redistributed to ambitious royals, loyal to their king, was unsaid.

  Teshe capitulated and in due course its prayer stone, the Amethyst, was destroyed. Elsen, Gramarye, and Pagoras fell within the first weeks, and the Azurite, Chrysocolla, and Emerald were smashed. The king of Midell fought for a bloody eight months, but the Citrine was shattered. Far south on the edge of the wilds, Orumon—protected by the Amber, second in strength only to the Ruby—resisted.

  “You know the rest,” Uther said.

  Huwen took a deep breath and shook his head slowly. “Yes,” he said. “I know the rest.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The trip east from Postinghouse was made in silence, punctuated only by practical necessities. Meg’s fatigue was no longer the sharp exhaustion of lack of sleep from overuse of magic. It was the dead kind of weariness that came from having no purpose. Yes, there was the rebel camp. The cause. But what was she now? A common village magiel, working for a politics that had no way to succeed. Gods, how much had changed since she’d left her childhood in Archwood.

  Where the Orumon River met an unnamed creek, they came to a crossroad. A post driven into the ground, bright in the rays of the westering sun, bore arms pointing down each track. Coldridge, Cascade Creek, Big Hill, and behind them, Archwood. She and Rennika had to choose a direction.

  It was too late to travel further. A short distance into the woods they found a place flat enough to camp. As Meg collected spruce boughs and suitable poles from the deadfall to make a quick lean-to, Rennika gathered a few early fiddleheads and onions for a thin soup.

  When they were settled in their robes, radiance of a small fire reflecting into the sloping roof of their lean-to, Meg raised the question of their destination. “We need to find Janat.” Dwyn expected her. Of course. But what was the point of the uprisers’ cause now? The new king, Huwen, would bring the Ruby back from Archwood, and they could not fight the magic of Heaven.

  “And Sulwyn?” Rennika asked.

  “Janat. Family.” Meg would mend things with Janat, if she could.

  Rennika was silent for a long moment, head resting on a bent arm, face bright-lit in the firelight. “I’m going back to Highglen. To Yon, if he’ll have me.”

  Meg had dreaded this response. Rennika was thirteen and had pinned her hopes on the first boy who’d charmed her. “And if not?”

  “I have a home with Colin.”

  “Less than a year?” Meg asked bitterly. “And you’ve already abandoned your family for a new life?”

  Rennika scowled without responding, and Meg wasn’t sure if her sister was avoiding a quarrel, or if she had no grounds for argument. Then Rennika shrugged. “You could come.”

  The pain stabbed. Come to Highglen? And what?

  “Why don’t—”

  —a crunch.

  Meg listened. An animal?

  Rennika tugged awkwardly at the branches beneath her, freeing a spruce bough and slapping it on the fire. With a gout of white smoke, the flames abruptly died back.

  They laid still and listened.

  Definitely. A crunch behind Meg.

  And a crunch on the far side of Rennika.

  Meg tied the throat of her cloak closed, preparing to run, and in the gloom she saw Rennika silently do the same.

  A weapon. Her spells were in vials in a sack, tucked down by her feet. How could she be so stupid? So distracted? Her boots were there as well.

  Slowly, trying to be silent, Meg brought herself to a sitting position and picked up her boots.

  “Stay where you are!” A handful of men leapt from the woods around them, steel reflecting dull red in the gloom.

  Meg and Rennika both scrambled to their feet.

  But Rennika was better prepared. She gave a quick nod and Meg took in a lungful of air, and, ducking, ran into the woods. A cloud of confusion rose behind them as Rennika uncorked her vial and ran.

  Meg and Rennika, bereft of all their travel gear but the cloaks on their backs, rode into the rebel camp in the hills south of Coldridge the next morning on cavalry horses stolen in the confusion of their attack. It was the only place Meg could think of to go where they might find safety and welcome.

  The encampment was a quagmire of chaos. Each day since Meg left must have seen the addition of new troops. Runners
with messages had proliferated, and squads of armed men moved purposefully on tense assignments. The camp had bloomed into a large, disorganized town. Meg guided her mount between cobblers and smiths, armorers and cooks, asking the way to Dwyn’s tent.

  They dismounted, letting the tired horses muzzle fresh sprigs of grass springing up among the dry stalks from last fall, and Meg told Dwyn’s page she’d returned. After a short wait, they were admitted.

  Dwyn perched on a stool at one end of a campaign table spread with a large and detailed map of Coldridge and its surrounding fields and forests, one hand over his mouth, listening to his counsellors. Sulwyn was there, Orville and Finn, and Fearghus. Sulwyn’s eyes softened in relief at her entrance, then flicked away.

  As soon as Rennika saw Sulwyn, she ran to him, and he gave her a warm but brief hug.

  Dwyn held up a hand to stop Finn’s words and nodded to Meg. “It’s good to see you returned safely,” he said with iron in his voice. “We will talk later about why you were not at your assigned post.”

  His entire demeanor changed as his gaze landed on Rennika. He turned back to Meg. “Your sister? The little one? Whom I hid in Gramarye?”

  The keenness in the king’s response unsettled Meg. She should not have brought Rennika here. Though—where could she have taken her? “She is.”

  Calculation flitted through his eyes. “...Rennika.” He smiled at the girl. “Welcome.”

  Rennika drew back from Sulwyn and returned the king’s look with one of guarded suspicion. She nodded, a hint of a bow.

  Dwyn summoned his page. “Bring Meg what food can be found.” He nodded at Rennika. “Take this one to Meg’s tent. Bring her food and whatever else she needs.”

  The page bowed and led Rennika from the tent.

  Meg drew in a breath and curtseyed. There was no point in telling him about Mama and the Amber. It was of no consequence now.

  “You have missed much that is important for you to know. You can go to your tent later.”