The Cleansing Flame

by Alec Hutson

  There. My green-glass sword, belted at the waist of one of the warriors. I sprint towards him as the massive kvah perched on his throne of mossy rocks bellows and gesticulates wildly. The warrior’s hand closes around the falcon hilt of my sword, but before he can draw it from its sheath I slice off several of his fingers with the flenser. He roars in pain as blood spurts from the stumps, and I rip the sword free and take off his head with one smooth stroke.

  I turn to face the rest of the warband, setting my feet in a defensive stance. The shock of what I’ve just done is fading, and the kvah begin to spread out, brandishing their oversized black iron swords and axes. I look for any that seem to be wielding what could have shot me with the poisoned dart, but there’s nothing that resembles a hewbow or blowgun. Lucky me.

  They charge in a disorganized, raging horde. Outside of the intense focus that’s descended on me I know dimly that I should feel panic at this avalanche of gray muscle and black iron rushing closer, but there’s nothing. I’m absolutely calm. Excited, even. I decide to give in to my instincts.

  The leading kvah howls as he swings his ax in a flashing arc; I explode into motion, catching the haft of the ax with the edge of my sword as it descends. The green glass passes through the wood like it’s butter, and as the ax-head goes tumbling through the air my sword continues on its path, tearing through the creature’s head and ripping his jaw clean off. I’m past him before he even knows he’s dead, spinning into the midst of the kvah. Time seems to slow and stretch; I see the shock in their piggish eyes as I twist to avoid a sword, then take an arm off at the elbow, then duck to avoid a mace that instead brains another of the creatures. Their movements seem honey-slow and I’m flashing between them, my sword flickering out, their blades passing through empty air. Blood arcs, limbs are separated, pained shrieks follow me.

  I come face to face with the scarred kvah who confronted us on the road. He snarls and sweeps at my legs with his ax and I leap over the blade and kick his head, smearing his stubby nose across his face. He staggers, dazed, and I grab hold of one of his tusks with my free hand, pulling him towards me as I punch him hard with the hilt of my sword and driving what’s left of his nose up into his brain.

  I whirl around, but the last of the kvah warriors are fleeing into the woods. I watch them vanish into the underbrush and then turn towards the massive kvah crouched on the rocks. His face is slack with surprise, his taloned hand clutching at the bones threading his necklace.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he murmurs numbly as I stalk closer.

  “I don’t know,” I say, then I leap up onto the rocks and thrust my sword through his pile of chins. His eyes bulge and he stares in disbelief at the length of green glass emerging from his neck. I slide the blade out as he topples backwards with a final rasping gurgle.

  A thud, then silence. I turn and survey the clearing – it’s a mess of scattered limbs and blood-splattered gray corpses. Poz is staring up at me in open-mouthed astonishment.

  “Tainted saints,” the old scientist breathes, his eyes drifting over the remains of the kvah. “I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.”

  I jump down from the rocks and stride over to Bell. There is surprise in her face as well . . . and something else. Awe?

  “That was incredible,” she whispers as I crouch down to slice her bonds. She swallows, staring at me as she rubs her chafed wrists. “Did you know you could do that?”

  “I knew I could fight,” I reply.

  “Kvah are considered vermin . . . pests . . . stronger than men but so undisciplined that trained soldiers usually have no trouble killing them. But that was eight against one, and you’re not even scratched.”

  I shrug. Should I tell her that they were moving so slow they never had a chance? Would she find that frightening, or impressive?

  Poz is next to the iron-bound chest, staring down with a pained expression. I leave Bell to gather herself and go to stand beside him. For the first time I can see the contents of the chest – it looks like very fine golden sand mixed with tiny flakes of quartz. So this is glitter. It doesn’t seem dangerous, but that explosion had resulted from just a few grains of this stuff sprinkled over a small fire. The chest is nearly full of glitter . . . enough to destroy a city, I’d wager.

  “Can you imagine the harm those cretins could have caused with this?” Poz says, and I can hear the relief in his voice.

  “Are you so sure this Contessa you’re delivering it to won’t do something terrible as well?”

  Poz turns to me, and I can see his uncertainty. “There’s much good that glitter can do, when properly controlled. It can burn nearly forever at a tremendously high heat – perfect for powering the steam pumps that are keeping the new electryc glowspheres radiant. The Contessa told me that’s what she wants it for . . .”

  “But you’re not sure.”

  Poz shrugs helplessly. “How can I be certain? Who knows what darkness dwells in the souls of others?”

  “You could find a stream and dump it out.”

  The old man wrings his hands. “Yes . . . but with the commission we agreed upon I could set up a new laboratory in Ysala, fund my research for a year, give Bell a home . . .”

  “Papa,” his daughter cries as she rushes up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” Poz says, stroking her hair tenderly.

  “Yes,” she says, her voice muffled. “Thanks to Talin.”

  Poz nods, his eyes finding mine. “Thank you for saving my daughter.”

  “It’s nothing,” I reply lightly. “I agreed to come along and guard you. Just doing my job.”

  The old man blows out his mustache, his gaze returning to the strewn bodies of the kvah. “I’ll be honest with you, Talin, that I didn’t believe for a moment you’d have to use your sword on the way to Ysala. These roads are usually very safe – when we get to Soril I’m going to have stern words with the seneschal stationed there. It’s his duty to keep beasts like the kvah from harrying travelers. They never should have gotten within a hundred leagues of the city.”

  It suddenly occurs to me that we’re in the middle of a rather forbidding-looking forest, and night is falling. “How are we going to reach a town now?” I ask.

  “We’re not far from the road,” Bell replies, finally letting go of her father and walking over to one of the kvah corpses. “I was paying attention, since I knew papa wasn’t, and you were unconscious.” She stoops down and extricates the small sickle blade I’d used to cut my bonds from where it was jabbed into the flesh of the creature. After wiping it on the grass she returns it to her pocket.

  “What exactly does it flense?” I ask.

  “A jugari,” she says, as if I should know what that is. Then she sighs. “Oh, right. Something like a cross between a badger and a geode. Valuable organic crystals inside them, but they bite.”

  I can’t even begin to imagine what that would look like. “And your wagon?”

  “Last I saw, before they marched us into the woods, a few of the kvah were rummaging through it looking for valuables,” Bell says. “Not that they’ll find anything.”

  “There are plenty of treasures,” Poz grumbles. “Just not the kind those imbeciles will appreciate.”

  I spare a glance at the darkening sky, barely visible through the lattice of branches. “We should hurry back, then. Before they decide to take their axes and make sure you haven’t hidden anything in the floorboards.”

  “Help me with this, please,” Poz says, lifting one of the chest’s iron handles.

  With some effort the three of us wrestle the chest through the forest, until up ahead I can see the ash-gray brick road through the thinning trees.

  “Wait here,” I say, letting down my side of the chest, and a moment later Bell and Poz drop the other. They’re both breathing hard, and their faces are red from the exertion, but I’m barely winded. I’m starting to suspect that my strength is a little bit unnatural.
>
  I stride forward, pushing through the branches. The wagon is still there, pulled away from the road so it’s shaded by the edge of the forest, and the two horses have been freed of their halters and have wandered away to graze. Books and Poz’s oddities are scattered about haphazardly, and suddenly one of the cloudy jars is tossed through the curtain to shatter on the ground.

  “Hey!” I cry, setting the point of my sword in the grass and leaning forward on the hilt.

  A moment later a tusked head emerges from the curtain. The kvah sees me and its jaw drops open. “Gungil,” it rasps, and I don’t know if that’s a name or a kvah curse. Then the curtain is flung aside by a second kvah, and they both stand there blinking stupidly at me, their arms laden with books.

  I can imagine pretty well what’s going through their ugly heads. I’m covered in blood, holding a gleaming green sword, and there’s no sign of their comrades who had dragged me unconscious into the woods earlier.

  Slowly, they turn to look at each other, and some unspoken agreement seems to be reached, for at the same time they fling down the books they’re carrying and leap from the wagon, then dash in a panic towards the trees. I let them go, listening to their frenzied crashing flight until it fades into the distance.

  “My books!” Poz stumbles from the forest, his face twisted in horror.

  “If after all this we just have to reorder your library, I’d say we were very lucky,” Bell says, coming to stand beside him.

  Poz sighs, nodding. “Yes, yes. Talin, if you’ll drag the glitter over here and keep watch, Bell and I will put things back in their places. Then we’ll be off – we won’t make Soril tonight, but I know of an inn not too far down the road.”

  7

  “What in the carious abyss is that?”

  “Hm?” Poz says, squinting at the thing looming ahead of us. “That’s the inn, of course.”

  Night has fallen as we’ve ridden on from the site of the ambush, and the twin moons have once more risen full and gleaming, painting the forest and the gray brick road with a spectral radiance. For a while now as we’ve traveled there’s been a great mound rising beyond the treetops, and I’d just assumed it was a barren hillock. It’s speckled with lights, which I’d thought must be campfires. But now our path has brought us close I can see it’s actually some sort of vast statue sprawled on its arse like it’s been drinking, its shoulders slumped and its head fallen forward. Stairs and walkways cling to the body of this giant, linking platforms upon which small buildings perch, many with lighted windows. From the largest structure, which rests upon the statue’s great belly, music and the smell of grilling meat drifts down.

  “The Warrior’s Rest,” Poz says. “I was hoping we wouldn’t be forced to pay their extortionate rates, but we would have to carry on through the night if we wanted to reach Soril.”

  “Who carved that thing?” I ask as a shadow lurches drunkenly on one of the platforms above us and hurls something out into the night. The tinkle of breaking glass soon follows.

  “Carved? Oh no, my boy. That’s a fallen war golem from the Artifice Wars. Been here for about five hundred years.”

  “That thing could move?”

  “Move? Of course. And fight. But its gears and flywheels ran down long, long ago. Just an interesting relic now.”

  Bell pokes her head through the curtain. She’s been inside the wagon, organizing her father’s collections. At first that had been Poz’s job, but he’d kept finding things he wanted to read, and every time we glanced within he’d been curled up in his chair with an open book in his lap. Bell’s face brightens when she sees the slumped golem.

  “Thank the saints. I would die for a hot bath.”

  “It must be a terrible burden lugging pails of water to the rooms,” I say, imagining some poor servant struggling up the steep stairs bolted to the side of the golem with sloshing buckets slung over his shoulders.

  “Oh, no,” Poz says, dismissing this thought with a wave of his hand. “The golem’s belly is hollow, and inside there’s a furnace and a pump. Water is drawn up from a hole in the floor, and then it is heated and sent off through copper pipes to the rooms above. A very elegant and interesting system.”

  “Getting to examine the plumbing is why we stayed here last time we passed this way,” Bell explains. “Though papa spent his time sweating in the golem’s belly on a tour from the innkeeper, while I was up in my room sampling the temperature of the water while drinking wine in the tub.”

  The image of Bell reclining in a tub – without her spectacles, her gleaming black hair plastered to her porcelain skin, a glass of dark red wine in her hand – is an alluring one. Either she’s embarrassed by what she’s said, or she’s just realized what I might be thinking, as her cheeks suddenly flush and her head vanishes back inside the curtain.

  Poz pulls up on the horses’ reins near a wide set of stairs that ascends to the platform balanced on the golem’s belly. The sound of revelry is now quite loud, many voices raised in song as a fiddle skitters a lively tune. There’s a low, wide structure to our left, basically just a roof under which a dozen other wagons are already sheltering. A boy rushes up to take the reins from Poz, though he freezes for a moment when Magda swivels her head to give him an evil stare.

  “Don’t worry, lad, she’s a kitten,” Poz says, standing up and stretching.

  My gaze travels up the massive golem, lingering on the lights from the rooms clustered around its shoulders and head. This place certainly looks expensive. “I don’t have any money, I’m afraid.”

  Poz claps my shoulder. “Lad, the least we can do in thanks for your heroism earlier is pay for your lodging tonight.”

  The common room is a swirl of activity, with dozens of paired dancers stomping in passable rhythm in front of a raised stage where a trio of long-bearded fiddlers are playing. The trestle tables that once filled this space have been pushed towards the back, and soon after we find seats a serving girl flounces up to take our order. She’s pleasantly plump, with a scattering of freckles, her long blond hair tied into braids. Her bodice is rather low-cut, giving an excellent preview of her expansive breasts. I’m starting to understand how Tervik had been convinced to abandon Poz and Bell.

  “Welcome, weary travelers,” she says with a charming smile. “What can I get for you tonight? We have a nice lamb roasting and a few fresh pheasants the boys brought in this afternoon.” She seems to notice me for the first time and flutters her long lashes. “Well, hello there. Aren’t you a dashing –”

  “A bottle of Varakeshian red and three orders of the lamb,” Bell says flatly. There’s not a trace of patience in her face or voice.

  The serving girl spares a glance at Bell, and whatever she sees causes her to swallow and bob her head. “Right away, mistress.”

  “I wanted the pheasant,” says Poz as the girl scurries back to the kitchen.

  “Lamb is your favorite.”

  “Yes, but –”

  “Poziminius?” A large man with a flamboyantly curled mustache is approaching our table. His impressive gut is hidden behind a stained apron like a server might wear, but gold rings flash upon his fingers.

  “Delan!” Poz cries, his face lighting up as he stands to clasp the man’s arm. “How are you?”

  “Very good, professor. Very good. I’m glad to see you survived your journey to the Chemerik. I hope it was a profitable venture.”

  “It’s not finished until we get to Ysala, but my hopes are high.” Poz lightly touches Bell’s shoulder. “Delan, you remember my daughter, Bellamina.”

  She offers her hand, and despite his impressive girth the man takes it gracefully and brushes her knuckles with his lips.

  “Of course I do. It is a pleasure to see you again.”

  Bell’s expression softens somewhat. “And you as well, Delan.” She indicates the boisterous dancers with her chin. “Business looks excellent.”

  The man straightens, stroking his mustache. “Ah. Tonight is the season’s first
twinned moons dance. Most of these folk do not have rooms at the Rest – they are farmers with their families from the nearby villages. We actually have plenty of empty beds tonight, and I insist you three stay with us for free.”

  “Truly, Delan? That’s a kind offer.”

  “Professor, the pump you repaired has been working flawlessly. Without your assistance I would have had to bring in a Tinker from Ysala, and that would have cost me a small fortune.”

  “Well, we thank you,” Poz says, ducking his head. Then he gestures in my direction, and I rise to clasp his arm in the same manner as I had watched Poz and Delan do a moment ago. “This is Talin. We met him this morning on the road, and it was a good stroke of fortune, as later we were ambushed by a band of kvah. Talin here fought them off.”

  Delan’s brows raise at this news. “Truly?”

  Poz nods grimly. “Perhaps three leagues west on the old road. Most are dead, but a few fled into the woods.”

  “Tainted saints,” Delan says, sighing. “They are getting bold these days.”

  “Why isn’t Soril’s garrison keeping things safe?”

  Delan’s mouth twists. “One of the Trusts bought out the contract with Soril and replaced the old soldiers with their own. There’s a new commander, as well, and I haven’t seen him but they say he’s an alethian. Ten span tall and muscled like an ox. More interested in holding fighting competitions in the town square than sending out patrols, I’ve heard.”

  “We’ll pass through Soril tomorrow. I plan on telling the town elders that their negligence has let kvah creep too close.”

  Delan lays a hand on Poz’s arm. “Do that. You’re on official Trust business these days, yes? Just let them know how much trouble would have come down on their heads if a shipment bound for the Contessa had been waylaid. That should wake them up.”

  “I have a question for you, sir,” I ask as a momentary silence falls. “I lost my companions yesterday, and I was wondering if you’d heard any news of them. Some have bright red hair, some brown, and they all have copper-colored eyes.”