by Garon Whited
“‘A new priestess in the world?’” I echoed.
She cocked her head to one side, regarding me. “Of course. I am the only one that survives of this generation. Perhaps, in another few years, another will be born and I will teach her.”
“Oh.” Again, I didn’t grow up here, so nobody sees fit to tell me these things. I hate that.
“You did not know?” she asked, curious.
“I didn’t even know about fire-witches until I met you.”
“Really?” She seemed slightly taken aback.
“How do you know that you’re, you know, the only one?”
“Mother says so.”
“Mother?”
“The goddess,” she clarified.
“Oh. Right. Sorry, I’m still not completely pulled together. But… well, how is that possible? I mean, wouldn’t there be fire-witches in, what is it, that southern kingdom, Kamshasa, or whatever it’s called?”
Tamara smiled slightly. “There are. But the Church—the Church with which you are so displeased—was once much greater than it is. Fractions of it, or factions of it, each worship the Light in their own way… and my way…” she trailed off.
“Is right?” I guessed.
“I hear the voice of the Mother,” she said, simply.
“And they hate that.”
She nodded. There’s nothing to inspire hatred like claiming to be right while everyone else is wrong. There are a couple of other religions that can testify to that.
“I’m sorry,” I offered.
She took a breath, let it out, and smiled. “Do not dwell on it. I will not.”
“Right. So. You found me. Do go on, please.”
“There is little else to tell. I found you lying in a charred circle with your horse standing over you, standing guard. She let me examine you. I could find nothing wrong, as such.”
“As such?” I echoed.
“You seemed to be far too bright, but that need not be wrong.”
“Bright?” I asked again, feeling like an echo canyon. I know I sounded stupid. I hate that.
“Inside. You were too alive. There was too much of the divine Fire inside you. Unguided, that could be bad; even a simple illness could prove deadly as it grows far more swiftly than it should. But you seemed healthy, so it did no harm. I vented much of it into the valley, to relieve the stress it placed on you. I also see your sword and your horse tend to absorb such things. A good portion of that power is yet within the metals.”
I glanced at Firebrand. I got the feeling it was smug. Then I realized what she’d said.
“You know that an illness is alive?” I asked, startled. Microbiology with medieval technology?
“Of course,” she replied. “Most illness of the body is caused by tiny lives, feeding on you and sapping your strength. Like mistletoe growing on a tree, really.”
“How do you know that?”
“I am a Priestess of the Flame,” she answered, primly. “I can see the colors of the living flame within you. How can I fail to see the dark red and deep orange against your own blaze?”
“It’s not really something I understand,” I said. “So I’m okay now, right?”
She looked me over again and froze.
There was a long silence while I waited. She just stared at me, eyes widening… and widening… her breath seemed to stop and she grew very pale, then she began to breathe rapidly and color came back into her face with a vengeance.
“Oh… certainly. Yes. You seem… quite strong.”
“Good. I need to be; Things are bothering me.” I didn’t press her. It also occurred to me I didn’t want her examining my inner living-ness too closely. I don’t know what I look like to a fire-witch’s vision, but I bet I look different at night. I needed to distract her, provided I wasn’t too late for that already.
“Ah, right to business,” she said. She turned away and busied herself at the counter. I got the feeling she was nervous or frightened. I think it was her body language. Her movements were a trifle too fast, a little too jerky. She started making tea. “Is it something that will keep for ten minutes?”
“Hmm. Probably.”
“Then it can wait for tea,” she replied, not turning around.
“Okay, but none for me, please. It doesn’t agree with me.”
“Of course. If there is anything you would like to drink? In moderation, of course…?”
“No, thank you.” I doubted she would contribute a pint from that pretty neck of hers.
“Very well.” She seemed slightly miffed. That boded ill; not accepting her hospitality didn’t strike me as a good idea. Pretty low on my list of Things To Do was to get her mad at me.
“However,” I added, “I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for your help. Would you do me the honor of lunch, tomorrow?”
She turned to look at me again. She blinked at me for several seconds, thinking. “You want me to come into town and have lunch with you?”
I’m glad I can’t blush at night. “No, I know the Church has a thing about red hair,” I said, having been recently reminded. I can absorb new facts when they’re hammered through my skull. “How about I bring lunch with me and we can picnic?”
She cocked her head and looked thoughtful. “Why?”
I started to say something about how I had nothing better to do than have lunch with a pretty lady. But somewhere between brain and mouth, the words changed—and thank-you to whatever gods look out for fools.
“Truthfully, I don’t want you to feel upset with me for not accepting your hospitality. And to say thanks for helping me, both recently and in the near future.”
“Hmm. That’s fair enough, I suppose. I accept.”
“Then I’ll see to it. Your water is boiling.”
She made the tea and sat down at the little table to drink it. Lemon, no sugar. Ack.
“So what is it that brings you to consort with the high priestess of a pagan goddess?” she asked, sounding moderately amused.
“Demons.”
She set the cup down and looked at me seriously. “Summoning or banishing?”
“More of a hunting. Hunting me. I want them to stop.”
She arched a fine, reddish eyebrow and indicated I should continue.
I repeated my story about the devourer that tried to eat me, and she nodded intermittently.
“I see your difficulty,” she replied. “What do you wish of me?”
“Ideally, I’d like you to make them stop. I’ll settle for anything you can tell me about demons, their summoner, and how to get rid of either. Preferably both.”
We talked about that for quite some time. In short form, this is what I learned about Tamara’s perspective:
The Mother is the sun; this is her predominant aspect, the goddess of life. She has another aspect, the Grey Lady, in the moon. In that aspect, She is the goddess of those who are nearing the end of their lives, as well as those whose bodies have died. This is the face the Mother wears when she’s going to do something that isn’t necessarily what most people would call nice. It’s the “tough love” face. She is also known as the Guide, but we didn’t go into why.
The Grey Lady also has associations with nightlords. The present Church would have it that nightlords are all evil fiends and unholy creatures of the darkness. According to Tamara, those are the marivel. Nightlords are supposed to be more like Valkyrie. They are the hands and fingers of the Grey Lady, finding those who need to die—whether because they desperately want to or because even Mom won’t let them live—and seeing to it that it happens. Antibodies in the body of the world, eating anything that gets out of line. Metaphysical cops. Supernatural enforcers.
There is another deity in this pantheon, however, referred to as the Dark One, or the Father of Darkness. He is in charge of cold, entropy, the dark, and all empty things. He is a characteristically male deity, with a tendency toward warfare, bloodshed, destruction, and death.
Mom is the warmly nurturing deit
y (with Her occasional savagery when necessary) while Dad appears to be the brutal, abusive father people tend to want to horsewhip. Between the two exist the whole spectrum of Their children—everything that lives.
Dad, being the faithless piece of dirt that He is, has had more offspring than just the ones by Mom; He has created Things on His own as well as through incestuous relations with the living things of the world.
The ones He created are the demons. They have none of the divine Fire of the Mother, just a dark, empty, brooding hunger, or a cold blaze of dark fire in the more powerful ones.
The second, the get of darkness and of living things, are significantly less pleasant than their mothers. Examples include marivel (surprise!), dragons, basilisks, cockatrices, minotaurs, trolls, and all manner of other unclean things—all of them inimical, hostile, dangerous, and carnivorous.
As for dealing with demons, there are too many shapes and sizes to describe; they hate fire and light of all sorts. They also slip away between the boundaries of the worlds with ease, returning to the outer darkness before dawn; they cannot endure the gaze of the Mother—that is, sunlight. The most powerful of them can remain in the world through the daytime, but they must not encounter direct sunlight lest they burst into flame and be obliterated. But none of them can enter this world unassisted. Since the world is a joint creation of Mom and Dad, Mom won’t unlock the door. They have to have something to provide that sort of implied permission from Mom; someone with a spark of the divine Fire must help. That is, one of Mom’s kids has to unlock the door before a Thing can come in the house.
As for finding out who that idiot was, only the Thing would know. They are lying, deceptive, and brutal; getting a straight answer out of one is like doing engineering drawings with a noodle for a T-square and a pretzel for a triangle.
“So I’m going to have to wait until someone tries to kill me again?” I asked.
“It would seem so. Unless you wish to call up one of those dark brethren and interrogate it?”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Wise,” she observed, nodding. “I cannot say this is a good thing, but it does seem the laws of the Church are weakening.”
“Yeah, that is good news for you, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “I dislike being condemned.”
“I’m not fond of being hunted. Tell you what; you don’t get grabbed by the Hand and I’ll try to keep from being eaten by demons. Fair?”
She chuckled. “I will make the attempt, surely.”
“Excellent! I think you’ve been a great help; I may not be better equipped to cope with demonic things, but at least I feel less completely ignorant.”
“I’m happy to have helped,” she replied, smiling.
“Well,” I said, rising, “I thank you for your help. If you will excuse me, I’ll be going.”
“Probably best,” she murmured.
I belted on Firebrand. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, nothing. I’d hate to keep you from your duties.”
“I’ve enjoyed this chat. I just hope nothing has crawled into my workroom while I was out.”
“Perhaps you should hurry. You say that you are hard to find?”
“I have a spell,” I agreed. “Makes me hard to spot with magic.”
Tamara caught her lower lip between her teeth and hesitated, as though about to say something. She didn’t, though, and I rose to open the door. Bronze was still standing outside, waiting.
“Halar?”
I paused in the doorway, turned. “Yes?”
“You will be careful, won’t you?”
“Of course. I have good reasons to be.”
“All right. Where are we having lunch?”
I snapped my fingers. “Ah! I have no idea. Do you know a good spot?”
“Oh, just meet me at the circle,” she said, smiling. “I’ll show you from there.”
“Brilliant. I’ll do that.”
She took my arm and kissed my cheek. “Good night, Halar.”
I noticed how good she smells. I kept that as a warm and happy thought as I mounted up and started for home.
I glanced back as I rode away. She stood in the doorway and watched me until I was out of sight.
My workroom was undisturbed; no fresh entities crawled in the window. Shada was in bed, asleep, and I was careful not to wake her. I paused for a few minutes, leaning on the doorjamb, just looking at her. She looked different, somehow, when she was asleep. Maybe she wasn’t trying to put on a false front—while she slept, she looked more like herself. I think that’s it. It took me a while, staring at her, to figure it out.
I shut the door quietly and went into the library. There was a three-foot lens on my worktable, along with its smaller counterpart and the mirror.
Yes! The glassblower must have finished them while I was napping in a field.
After I set up a candle, I started fiddling with it, adjusting it to a more precise focus. It took a while and involved a lot of very finicky adjustments of the glass. I may be able to manipulate matter very finely, but it takes work and patience to get optics at any level of precision. Just ask the guys who made the Hubble reflector. Plus, I only had the length of the room to work with when testing it. If I’d had better mirrors, I could have multiplied the length of my test beam… but the usual mirror around here was visibly imperfect. I have one good mirror—a signal mirror from my backpack.
How does one make a flat sheet of glass? With a roller? Something to look into.
I finally wound up shooting the one-candlepower beam into the mirror and reflecting it out into the living area. It was a pinprick of light that burned to the touch; I was a happy man.
Now if only the carpenter were done with the cradle! Patience, patience…
I shuttered the window and waited out the dawn.
The baron regarded the contraption with some interest. Peldar simply ignored it and me, choosing instead to regard the raft out in the water.
“So this is the weapon you were telling me of?” the baron asked.
“Indeed.”
“How does it work?”
“The light of the sun feels warm on your skin, does it not?”
“Yes.”
“These lenses take that warmth and focus it down to a point on objects far distant.”
The baron regarded the lenses mounted in the wooden frame. “But the heat of the sun does not harm me,” he observed.
“True enough, lord. But if I strike you in your armor with a practice sword, the force of the blow does not harm you; it is spread out over all your armor. If I strike with a war-hammer, all the force of the blow strikes a tiny point—and penetrates.”
Peldar snorted. “Nonsense. It is the weight of the head that adds force to the blow.”
“My lord, if you would, hold out your hand,” I said, smiling. He did so, and I placed mine, palm down, on his palm. “Feel the pressure of my hand,” I said, pushing down. He pushed back up, supporting the weight.
“I do.”
I lifted my hand and then pushed down with one finger, keeping it rigid, but pushing just as hard.
“It is not painful, my lord, but it is much more annoying, not so?”
He nodded as I withdrew my hand. “That it is. But an annoyance will not stop an army.”
“May I trouble you for your dagger, my lord?”
He hesitated, then handed it over. I held it, point-down, in my fist.
“Now extend your hand again, my lord, and I will apply the same pressure through the tiny point of the dagger. We will see if it is still just an ‘annoyance’.”
The baron chuckled. Peldar flushed. I handed back the dagger and he glared.
“The same thing,” I continued, “applies to the heat of the sun. Admittedly, on a cloudy day there may not be much use to it. But today looks good for these purposes.”
Peldar kept his dagger out and toyed with it, eyeing me. “Then when shall we see this miracle, wizard?”
I pull
ed the cover off the upper, large lens and rotated the cradle to align the lenses toward the sun. The beam shot off the mirror into the sky. With a bit of adjustment, I sent it out over the water.
“Observe; we reflect the light so…” and I tilted the mirror down to let the beam strike water. There was a sudden hissing and boiling. Steam poured up into the air. I panned the beam over to the raft. Wood charred and crackled; rope twanged as it parted.
“The steam marks the place where the light strikes, and it is a simple matter to turn the mirror so the light plays over rigging, sails, hull, masts, or crew. The light is so hot it will set fire to a man or melt a hole in armor. Best of all, if you can see it, you can hit it; the range is as far as the eye can see.”
There was an appreciative silence.
The baron stepped up to the device and regarded it. “Let me.”
I stepped aside. “Have a care of the light as it comes from the lower lens; keep your hands clear of it or you will lose whatever the light touches.”
He nodded and gingerly took the rods that adjusted the mirror. Pieces of raft began to flame. Turning, he swung the beam to the east, playing it over the seaward face of the Eastrange. Shading my eyes, I could see sections of rock smoking and steaming. He held the beam steady on a projecting rock and waited; after a while, it began to smoke, then crack.
The baron returned the mirror to an upward-angled beam.
“And you say that there is no wizardry in this?” he asked, regarding the glass suspiciously.
“None that is required to use it. There is some magic in the glass and the mirror, to keep them from melting, of course.”
The baron nodded. Peldar was still regarding the east, shading his eyes to look at the heated stone; distantly, the sound of cracking was still audible.
“Well done,” the baron said. “I shall have a tower constructed to take full advantage of it.”
“Then I will construct three more, that they may be easily used in any direction.”
“Very good.”
“What about night?” Peldar demanded.
I turned to him. “At night they are useless, my lord.”
“I thought as much.”
“But, now that you bring it up, I am sure I can modify them to throw a wider beam of powerful moonlight, or perhaps lantern light, to illuminate targets for archers. Thank you for the thought; your wisdom in warfare is even greater than I had believed."