The Cleansing Flame

by Alec Hutson

  The figure makes no sign to suggest that he has heard the student-scholar, continuing to examine the books in front of him.

  Waylish whirls to me. “That’s him, I’m sure of it!” he says excitedly. “Why doesn’t he say anything?”

  “Because something isn’t right,” I say, finally seeing what a large pile of books had previously blocked from us.

  In the middle of the chamber is a long table. Several women are seated on benches, bent over open books. One of them, an older woman, looks on the verge of passing out, slumped so far over that her face is nearly brushing the pages in front of her.

  And Bell.

  Her face is creased in concentration as she pores over a massive, leather-bound tome. Her eyes skitter over the page incredibly quickly, and then she flips to the next page without looking away.

  “Bell!” I cry, rushing up to her. She doesn’t seem to hear me. I put my hand on her shoulder, but she ignores the touch.

  “Bell, what’s wrong?” I grab the book in front her and start to pull it away, but with an almost animal growl she wrenches it back and returns to her frantic reading.

  “Look,” Waylish says, and the dread in his voice tears my attention from Bell. He’s pointing at the far end of the table, where a skeleton in wisps of tattered clothes is slumped. Beneath its skull are the disintegrating remains of an open book. It seems like this fellow died while reading.

  “There’s more,” I say, just now noticing the skeletons sprawled around the table. All of them look like they collapsed while sitting on the benches.

  “What is going on?” Waylish asks. He sounds close to panic.

  “I’m not sure,” I answer, turning slowly as I take in the entirety of this strange room.

  And that’s when I see it. My hiss of surprise makes Waylish jump.

  “What?” he cries, his voice hitching from fright.

  I put my finger to my lips and then point to a particularly large pile of books. Some kind of long, many-legged creature is curled beside it. The pallid light slides along its gleaming, segmented length, and from its wedge-shaped head emerge serrated jaws. It looks like a massive centipede.

  Waylish’s lips move. Is it dead?

  I shrug. I’m about to take a few steps closer and hack off its head when I notice something else.

  “There,” I say, pointing at a section of the wall far from the table. It’s just at the edge of the light thrown by the hovering sphere. No shelving is cut into the wall there, and I can see a vast shape recessed in the dimness.

  I approach whatever it is, Waylish trailing behind.

  The light of my sword plays along a cracked and yellowing pillar . . . no. That’s not stone.

  Bone. It’s a tibia almost as tall as I am.

  The darkness melts away before my blade, revealing the skeleton of a giant seated on a huge stone throne. It’s ancient, and whatever clothes it had once been attired in have rotted away into nothing. Massive hands that could have crushed a human in their grip clutch at the ends of the throne’s armrests. Some of the thing’s ribs are broken, others are missing altogether. The skeleton could almost pass for that of a man, though admittedly a giant one. Except its head: the skull is strangely shaped, tapering almost like a horse’s, and a pair of tusks curve upwards from its jaw.

  “Tell me what this is, scholar,” I ask Waylish, unable to tear my eyes from the skeleton.

  It takes him a while to find his voice. “I don’t know,” he finally says quietly. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”

  Men.

  I jump, whirling around. From Waylish’s terrified gasp he also heard the echoing whisper.

  One is from this place, one is not.

  The voice pulses in the stillness of the chamber, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

  “Who are you?” I cry, peering into the darkness pooled at the fringes of the room.

  Once we traveled far. Now we dwell here, beneath the hollowed hill.

  “You are the poelthari?”

  That is one name we are called.

  I shiver – a prickling coldness has enfolded me since the voice began to speak. “I came here for my friend.”

  Did you? But you entered our home for another reason.

  “This . . . is true,” I admit. “We came seeking answers.”

  And what was the question?

  “We wanted to know more about the glitter and the Cleansing Flame. There was a book somewhere . . .”

  A long pause. Waylish and I share an uncertain glance.

  Yes. We see it in the woman’s thoughts. This book is here.

  “We wish to trade you for it. And for the freedom of those in this room.”

  Another silence.

  The book has already been read. It did not have the answers we seek. You may take it.

  An accommodating spirit, at least.

  But the woman stays. Hers is a powerful mind. She may be the one to find what we are looking for.

  “She must return with me.”

  She must pursue the answer.

  Frustrated, I turn and look around the chamber again, my gaze traveling over the many thousands of books. And then I think of the countless thousands more that fill this sprawling warren of tunnels. “That could take centuries.”

  It already has.

  Instinctively my sword rises into a guard position as I notice the man who had been up on the ladder approaching me with the slow and measured strides of a sleepwalker. His eyes are glazed, his face empty, but in his hands he holds a tome of wine-colored leather.

  “Rogan,” Waylish hisses as the man walks past him. There’s no indication that his friend has heard.

  The poelthari’s scholar-zombie holds out the book for me to take, and with my sword still raised in one hand I accept it with the other, careful not to touch the man’s flesh. Who knows how this sickness is shared?

  “The Cleansing Flame and Other Rare Exogenic Substances: Inferences of Possible Outcomes After Combination,” I read. Definitely written by a scholar, not a poet.

  You may take the book. And if the woman finds the answer, she will be freed.

  “What are you looking for?” Waylish asks in a quavering voice. “What is your question?”

  Again, quiet descends in the chamber. The coldness seems to deepen, and there’s even a slight breeze that slides across my clammy skin.

  How do we leave this place?

  I flick another quick glance at Waylish and see the same confusion that must be in my face.

  “You . . . want to leave?” I ask.

  We wandered here long ago. We were striders between the elsewheres, too curious. Too foolish.

  “How did you get here?”

  Through this.

  The outline of a doorway flares opalescent between the legs of the giant, set into the base of the throne. It almost looks like . . .

  “By all the dead gods,” I murmur.

  It looks like the Gate I’d gone through to get to this world.

  It closed behind us. But somewhere there is the answer of how to open it again. And we will find it.

  My hand brushes the stone key in my belt pouch. A shock of cold energy shivers through me. “I can open that door,” I say. Almost immediately there’s a sharpening in the air of the chamber, as if the entirety of the presence’s attention is now focused on me.

  Could this be true? You smell of elsewhere. But you are merely a man – how could you breach the barrier?

  I withdraw the key and hold it up. “Will Bell be freed if I can open this door?”

  A vibration comes up from the stone. Dust sifts down from high above, glittering like snow in the pale light.

  Yes.

  I step forward and begin to run my hands over the stone of the Gate. Despite its obvious age there are no imperfections that I can feel, not even the tiniest crack. A stab of fear goes through me that there isn’t a place for the key, but then my fingers touch an edge where it feels like a piece has been cut
from the stone. I raise the key and try to fit its odd angles into the space – at first it doesn’t want to slide inside, and panic rises up again . . . but then with a satisfying click it falls into place.

  The shaking of the poelthari’s codex-hoard has increased, and the great mounds have begun to shed books like stones sliding down the sides of mountains. Waylish shrieks in fear, knocked off his feet by the trembling.

  Light seeps down from the edges of the Gate, rushing to fill the space within. In moments a seamless golden curtain has fallen. Where does it lead? Back to the red wastes I’d awoken in? Whatever strange realm birthed the poelthari? Or another world where Valyra and her tribe now wander?

  I grit my teeth in pain as a bitingly cold wind rushes past me. In that briefest of moments I can actually feel the weight of the poelthari’s being as it slides through my mind – incomprehensible images swell in my thoughts and then burst like soap bubbles, leaving only half-remembered fragments. Colors, swirling together like paint caught in a whirlpool, long tentacles reaching up from a cold abyss, laughing little children with sharp fangs and ancient eyes . . .

  I return to myself, drawing in a shuddering breath. Somewhere behind me, Waylish moans.

  The coldness has vanished, and the chamber is no longer shaking. We are alone.

  With fumbling fingers I pry the key loose of the gate. The golden light leaks away, until again only cold stone remains.

  Bell.

  Ignoring the nausea I now feel rising up in me I hurry back across the chamber, towards the table with the three captured scholars. Bell is still sitting there, but instead of reading the open book in front of her she’s simply staring blankly at the open pages. I grab her by the shoulders and turn her to face me.

  “Bell!” I cry, shaking her. “Bellamina, wake up!”

  The fog in her eyes clears. She blinks, as if waking from a dream. Then she leans forward, her arms going around my neck, and kisses me. There’s a hunger to it. Even a desperation, maybe. She tastes sweet, like how I remember on the road to Soril.

  Finally, she pulls away, breathing hard. She opens her mouth to say something but before she can we both turn in alarm as the older woman who had been slumped at the table rises with a shriek of panic. She’s looking about wildly, her chest heaving and her face ashen.

  “It’s all right,” I say, trying to calm her. “There’s no danger any –”

  Her scream of terror is cut short as she suddenly vanishes in an avalanche of gleaming white. Blood splatters Bell and I, and for a moment my mind cannot understand what’s happened . . . then I’m shoving Bell behind me, my sword again in my hand.

  The huge centipede moves with blinding speed, its serrated jaws scissoring shut around the woman’s neck. Her head comes off like the top of a dandelion, her face frozen into an expression of shock. Blood geysers from the stump of her neck, and Bell finally screams.

  At the sound the centipede writhes away from the juddering corpse, slamming its bulk into the long table that separates us. The table lurches, its edge catching me in the stomach and sending me staggering backwards. I barely keep my hand on my sword as the creature wriggles itself beneath the table, its carapace scraping against the wood. Clacking mandibles lunge for me and I scream as I swing at its monstrous head. My sword bites deep into its flesh and the centipede screeches in pain, twisting away from me. Its flailing length smashes into my side, the weight of its bulk sending me sprawling.

  I stagger back to my feet, dazed, as Bell screams again. The centipede is tossing its head back and forth, green ichor oozing from where I slashed it. One of its mandibles has been sheared off. Bell is only a few paces away from the beast, flat on her back, her hands raised above her in horror. Segmented legs flicker around her, each tapering to a point that could impale her. Shaking my head, I rush over to the beast and drive my sword again into its head, right between its faceted black eyes. Immediately it goes rigid, except for its lone remaining mandible, which flares open. I get a good look down the thing’s ridged pink gullet before it slumps motionless to the floor.

  “Saints,” Bell murmurs as I help her to her feet. Her eyes are wide, and a lashing of green blood covers her face. So no more kisses right now.

  “How are you?” I ask, and she somehow manages a shaky smile.

  “Better. There was a voice . . . I had to do what it said. I had to keep reading the books here until I found information about the gate and how to open it.” She rubs her neck and grimaces. “I’m thirsty.”

  “The poelthari kept the ones it took here until they died.” It’s a new voice, raw and cracked. I turn to find Waylish supporting his friend as they approach the table. “And when someone did die they either just lay here or were eaten by that thing.” He gestures weakly at the dead centipede. “Havlar – our friend – he collapsed a few days ago. Then that monster . . .” He runs a shaking hand over his face. His eyes find mine. “Thank you.”

  Bell makes a hitching sound in her throat. “How . . . how are we going to find that book now? It will take years.”

  “No,” I say. I’d dropped the book when the centipede had lunged for us, and now I walk over and scoop it up. “This is it, yes?”

  Bell’s eyes light up when she sees the cover. “Saints, Talin, yes!”

  “My only concern is how we’re going to get out of this labyrinth.”

  The scholar we’d rescued tries to say something, but his words deteriorate into ragged coughing.

  “What Havlar is trying to say, I think,” interjects Waylish, “is that we know the way out. Or at least back to the main entrance. Before that hunchback pushed us through the hole we were planning on trying to sneak past the guards, and we’d memorized the route to this chamber.”

  Good news – I wasn’t really looking forward to trying to find our way through this maze. “Then we should go.”

  “But the books . . .” Bell says, turning to take in the vast hoard the poelthari had collected.

  “We need to go,” I remind her. “Remember your papa.”

  Bell’s mouth twists into a scowl. “Yes. Though if our situations were reversed I think you’d have to drag him out of this place kicking and screaming . . .”

  18

  “Looks like you’ve gone and grabbed the queen’s tits,” says the blue-furred humanoid across from me with a raspy chuckle, his long ears shivering. He gestures with a clawed finger at the card I’ve just played – it shows a rather foppish-looking fellow brandishing a slim silver rapier, a rose clenched between his teeth. The Rake is written below the picture in flowing gold script.

  “Is that good?” I ask, still befuddled by the rules of this game, which seem to change with every hand dealt.

  Shin Shin, the qayth teaching me how to play Knights and Knaves, shrugs and offers a smile full of pointy teeth. “Depends. Some of the time the Rake of Roses will steal away the Queen of Stars with his bold approach, and you’ll be that much closer to a full court. But unfortunately . . .”

  And here it comes.

  “I happen to hold the King of Storms.” Shin Shin snaps another card down. A fat man glares up at me, lightning flickering in his dark beard. “Never try to seduce a queen when the king is standing next to her. If you do . . .” He pauses, looking around the table.

  “It’s off with your head!” comes the shouted reply from the other gamers sitting with us, a mix of qayth and humans.

  Shin Shin picks up my Rake and flicks it into the pile of discarded cards.

  “Then I think I’ve lost,” I say, spreading my remaining cards on the table. I have a few Manservants, a Lady-in-Waiting, and the Black Vizier.

  The qayth leans closer to examine what’s left of my hand, his small pink nose wriggling. “Ah. Should’ve played the Vizier during the advisor run earlier. And the Rake is unlikely to do much in the endgame . . .”

  I sigh, pushing away from the table. “What you’re saying is that I’m out of money. Again.”

  “It would appear so. Why don’t you go
beg your beautiful mate for enough coin to deal you in again?”

  “Perhaps later,” I reply, turning away from the gamblers. Deliah is seated across The Last Word’s common room with a pair of prodigiously muscled warriors. Their scale-mail hauberks leave their bulging arms unprotected, which strikes me as rather foolish. Surely impressing the fairer sex should be a secondary concern to keeping your limbs attached during battle.

  One of the long-haired warriors finishes some story with a roaring punch line, and Deliah dissolves into laughter, wiping at her eyes. A spark of jealousy flares within me.

  “Deliah,” I say, sliding into an empty chair. “What’s the jest?”

  “Oh,” the lamias says, laying a hand on my arm. It’s hard not to miss the look of intense dislike the muscled warriors throw my way, though Deliah pretends not to notice. “It’s just too funny. Chelivas, tell Talin the story.”

  The warrior gives me a forced smile. “I’m sure it will not be as funny the second time . . .”

  “He had a war mammoth,” Deliah says, still struggling to catch her breath. “And the beast farted, waking up the robbers they were about to attack . . . but . . . the robbers thought it was a sign from their thunder god . . . and . . . and . . .”

  “I get the gist of it,” I say, as one of the serving wenches approaches our table. “An ale,” I tell her, but she shakes her head.

  “You can find it at the bar. Mal wants to see you two.” She jerks her head in the direction of the barkeep with the black-and-white hair. He is staring across the room at us.

  Deliah and I share a quick glance. What is this about?

  “See you later,” Deliah says, standing, and the two warriors leap to their feet and demonstrate surprisingly graceful goodbye bows. I roll my eyes and take Deliah’s arm – the one not in a sling – and guide her towards the waiting barkeep.

  “Nice fellows,” she says, and I grunt.

  “So nice they’d gladly stick a knife in me if I turned my back.”

  Deliah laughs again. “You’re jealous. How sweet.”

  I’m about to grumble a reply but Mal clears his throat as we step up to the bar. “There’s a visitor for you,” he says, and it sounds to me like there’s a slight edge to his words. Is he nervous?