Chanter fell backwards, his cry lost in the roaring thunder. The golden fire swept away across the land, leaving the trees around them ablaze as the thunder ceased with the passing of the fire. Kieran struggled to his knees and stared around in confusion. He jerked back in surprise as a black sword appeared in the air before him. Talsy crawled towards the downed Mujar, fearful of another sheet of fire. Kieran plucked the blade from the air, his face twisted with grief and elation.
Talsy reached the stricken Mujar and touched him timidly. The golden fire had left no mark on him, but the forest that blazed around and over them presented a grave danger, its heat growing with every passing second. Sweat beaded her forehead as she examined Chanter. He stared blindly at the inferno above him with wide eyes, a look of frozen horror on his face. She shook him gently, then with more force when that had no effect. The Mujar lay as if in a trance. The chosen used blankets to beat out small fires as burning branches fell from above. Kieran sheathed the Starsword and crawled over to Talsy.
"We've got to get out of here!" he shouted over the flames' roaring crackle. The fire crept down the trees, consuming the bark with soft whining, popping sounds and the liquid sizzle of boiling sap. The people beat out the fires around them, their labours growing frenzied as more and more branches fell.
"Chanter's hurt!" she shouted, glancing around. "Where can we go?"
"Back to the ridge, there are fewer trees on it."
Talsy gasped for air as the fire consumed it, leaving only smoke to breathe. The people coughed as they fought the flames, and children screamed in terror. The forest floor had started to burn, the dead leaves lighted by fallen branches.
"We'll never make it!" she cried. "The fire's too big!"
"If we stay here, we die!"
"If we try to get through that, we die too!" she shouted back.
A man screamed as a burning branch fell on him, and his fellows rushed to beat out the flames with blankets. Sheera hurried over to Talsy and knelt beside her.
"What's wrong with him?" Her eyes widened at the sight of the blackened hole in the centre of Chanter's chest. "Is he alive?"
"Of course he's alive," Kieran said.
"He seems to be stunned." Talsy patted Chanter's cheek with growing desperation. "Chanter! Chanter wake up! We need you!"
The heat became unbearable as the trees burnt more fiercely, the fire creeping closer along the forest's leafy floor. Kieran glanced around, a dozen ideas flitting through his mind, only to be discarded. Cutting the trees with his sword would only bring the fire down on top of them, and summoning the wind was equally useless, since the fire surrounded them. Sweat poured down his face, and he wiped it from his cheeks. Their only hope was the Mujar, but Chanter seemed to be oblivious. Talsy coughed, retching, and Sheera gasped and fanned herself. Smoke choked the people who struggled against the fire, and some collapsed, overcome. The children's screams were replaced by coughing.
Kieran gripped the Mujar's tunic and pulled him up until he was sitting. Chanter's head lolled back, and blood oozed from the blackened hole in his chest. Talsy gave a cry of protest, but the Prince grabbed the water bottle from Sheera's belt and upended it over the Mujar's face. Chanter blinked and spluttered. Kieran shook him.
"Come on, you bastard! Snap out of it!" he yelled.
Chanter groaned and closed his eyes, his face twisted with pain. Kieran shook him again, coughed and blinked away tears as the smoke stung his eyes. The Mujar writhed, almost tearing free of Kieran's grip, then flung back his head and screamed. Kieran released him, shocked, and Chanter slumped. The Mujar's left hand dug into the soil as he fought the agony within him, and his right was still clenched in a fist. Talsy sobbed, tears coursing down her face.
"Chanter, help us! The fire! Stop the fire!"
The chosen retreated from the spreading flames, defending a smaller and smaller area of ground. The men beat at the fire, turning to help each other as burning debris rained down on their heads. Women and children huddled under blankets, many unconscious now from the choking fumes. A man blundered into the flames and ran screaming from them, setting alight to two of his fellows as they tried to save him. He fell, rolling and screaming.
Chanter's head jerked up and his eyes opened, flicking around at the burning forest as if seeing it for the first time. White teeth flashed as he bit his lip, agony twisting his face. A woman screamed as a fallen branch set the blankets that covered her alight. Men rushed to help, hampered by the thick smoke and searing heat that threatened to overwhelm them. Talsy turned despairing eyes on the writhing Mujar, whose face was twisted with pain as he bit his lip until it bled. Realisation hit her like a mule kick. She grabbed Kieran's arm and shook him with all her strength.
"Lift him up!"
The Prince gaped at her as she coughed.
"The Dolana! Lift him up! Off the ground!" she cried.
Still looking confused, Kieran slid his arms under the Mujar. With a heave he rose to his feet, carrying the slender unman. Chanter grimaced and sagged, then, to Talsy's surprise, the inferno redoubled as he summoned Crayash. In a second it was gone, and he raised his left hand, making a slow, graceful gesture.
The raging inferno vanished with such suddenness that the air was sucked in with a mighty thud, like the slamming of a giant door. The heat disappeared with it, leaving the smoky air chilly, and the fumes dissipated as a cool wind rushed in. The chosen sagged to the ground, the injured whimpered and groaned, the rest gasped and coughed, some vomited from the smoke they had inhaled.
A blasted land surrounded them. The burnt forest stretched away in all directions, still blazing several miles away. Their haven was large, the charred trees around them cold and dead, but in the distance the fire still raged.
Kieran started to lower Chanter to the ground, but Talsy said, "No, don't put him down." The Prince hesitated, and she looked at Chanter. "Can you stand?"
Chanter frowned and nodded. Kieran lowered his feet to the ground, but Chanter's legs buckled and he fell to his knees. Kieran and Talsy followed him down and held him upright as he swayed. Sheera mumbled about tending the wounded and hurried off. Chanter sat back on his haunches, his right hand, still clenched, hanging beside him. Blood still oozed from the hole in his chest, and Talsy picked up Sheera's fallen water skin and attempted to pour water over the injury. Chanter thrust it away.
"No," he grated, his voice hoarse and strained. "Not yet."
"What's happened?" Talsy flinched as the earth trembled.
The Mujar shook his head, and she shot Kieran a confused, pleading glance, but he also looked baffled. Chanter reached across with his left hand and gripped his right forearm, lifted it as if it was lifeless and held it before him. Talsy gasped and recoiled, stumbled backwards and caught herself with her hands. From between the fingers of Chanter's right fist, something black oozed like a liquid. Its writhing tendrils clasped his hand with a substance that was neither stone nor wood, not living, yet not dead. Even as they stared at it, the tendrils spread towards his wrist. Clearly he could no longer open his hand, bound as it was within the cage of darkness. He grimaced, drawing back his lips from teeth gritted with pain.
"What is it?" Talsy muttered, her eyes wide with horror.
Chanter laid his right arm on the ground before him and looked at Kieran. "Cut it off."
Talsy gave a cry of protest, muffling it with her hands. Kieran licked his lips and eyed the Mujar. Chanter ground his teeth in agony, his lower lip oozing blood where he had bitten clean through it. His brows drew together at the Prince's hesitation.
"Cut it off!" he snarled, his eyes blazing like a trapped wolf.
"Chanter!" Talsy cried. "You can't!"
The Mujar's left hand flashed out and gripped Kieran's arm in a bruising grip that made him flinch. "Do it, or I'll do it myself."
Kieran tried to jerk his arm free, but Chanter's grip was too strong. The Prince nodded, his mind made up by the agony on the Mujar's face.
Talsy grabbed him
as he reached for his sword. "No! You mustn't! He doesn't know what he's saying!"
Kieran shook her off. "I think he does."
The Mujar's eyes flicked to his fist, where the oozing blackness had almost engulfed his wrist. "Above the black. Cut it, hurry!"
Kieran drew the Starsword, fending off Talsy's attempts to stop him. She hampered him to such an extent that he pushed her away hard enough to send her sprawling, then raised the sword and brought it down in a singing stroke that severed Chanter's hand just above the wrist. Chanter gasped, snatching away his severed arm as blood spouted from it in little scarlet fountains. Grabbing the hand with its black cage, he drew back his left arm and threw it as far as he could, sending it arcing into the burnt forest, where it landed in a puff of ash.
Chanter clasped the stump of his arm to his chest and rocked, his eyes closed. Lines of pain still marred his brow and bracketed his mouth, but the intense agony was gone with his hand. Blood oozed from the stump and joined the trickle that ran from the hole in his chest. Talsy blinked away her tears and held out the water skin again. This time the Mujar lifted it to his lips and drank deeply, letting the water run down his chin onto his chest. He groaned as the spasms of healing gripped him, folded up and keeled over. The faint manifestation of Ashmar stirred the air with the soft sound of beating wings as he writhed. When the convulsions passed, he sat up, looking drained. The wounds in his lip and chest had vanished, and skin covered the stump of his wrist. Talsy's eyes flinched from it, and she raised her gaze to his face instead.
"What happened?"
Chanter's strained smile faded quickly, leaving his face grim. "Tyrander has broken the Staff of Law."
Talsy gaped at him, Kieran swore foully. "How could he? That should be impossible!" he growled.
The Mujar nodded. "It's supposed to be. The gods decreed that it could only be broken by a Mujar weapon wielded by whomever he had given it to. Even in the unlikely event of a Mujar ever creating a weapon, the person he gave it too was bound to be good, therefore the staff was safe."
Kieran groaned and covered his face; Talsy stared at the ground, stunned.
Chanter went on, "It's my fault. I alone am to blame. I created the sword for Kieran to rescue you, Talsy, and it fell into the hands of his twin, whom I didn't know existed. It seemed unlikely that he would know what it could do, even less likely that he would actually do it, but I should have made sure and destroyed it."
"What will happen now?" Talsy's voice shook a little.
The Mujar sighed, gazing around at the burnt forest. "The laws are gone. For a while their memory will hold and the world will appear unchanged. Then they'll break down. One by one, they will be broken. The lesser laws will fall first, then the greater ones, until this world falls apart."
"What was that?" Talsy pointed at Chanter's severed wrist.
The Mujar raised the stump and studied it. "This was the other two staffs, of Life and Death."
Talsy gasped, her hand flying to her ripped bodice. "That's why you...?"
"Attacked you? Yes. That was the first law to fall. It says, 'Life and Death shall never mingle'. The two staffs were opposites, and drawn powerfully to each other. The moment the Staff of Law was broken, that law vanished and the two staffs came together. Had the Staff of Life still been in your bodice, you would be dead now, and without it I could not bring you back."
He gazed at the stump, rubbing it with his left hand. "I had not planned on losing my hand, but Kieran attacked me before I could throw the Staff of Life away, so I was still holding it when the Staff of Death joined it. Fortunately, even the Staff of Death cannot kill a Mujar, but it was a painful experience."
Kieran scowled at the charred leaves. "I didn't know."
Chanter shook his head with a smile.
Talsy demanded, "What did you think he was doing? Did you think he was going to murder me? Suddenly went mad? Or perhaps," she sneered, "he was overcome by sudden lust, in the middle of all that fire."
Kieran's head jerked up, and Chanter said, "Talsy, that's not nice."
The Prince glowered at her, then looked away, gritting his teeth as she muttered, "Idiot."
Chanter sighed and continued, "The golden fire came from the staff, released when it was broken. It carried the laws away with it and scattered them to the winds."
Kieran raised his head. "Can't it be fixed?"
"The staff had to be in its true form to be broken, so it was made of stone at the time, but its pieces will be scattered far and wide. Even if we found all the pieces and put them back together, no one knows all the laws."
"You know some of them," Talsy pointed out.
"Yes, but not all. There are thousands. Forget one, and the chaos will continue."
"But it wouldn't be so bad."
"No," he agreed, "but it might still be terrible."
Nothing remained of Tyrander's castle but rubble. The oasis had vanished with the staff's power, as had the proud castle it had created for him. The ruins were part of the original structure, built by Tyrander's ancestors long before the Staff of Law had come into their possession. It had brought with it the red desert that had swallowed the city and most of its inhabitants. When Tyrander's grandfather had finally realised that the staff had the power to create an oasis, his people were almost destroyed. His castle, reduced to ruins by the desert's dryness and its punishing winds, was restored by the staff's magic, but few of his people chose to stay in the unnatural oasis.
A column of Hashon Jahar galloped away from the ruins, their task complete, though none had struck a blow. The red sand blew through the rubble, slowly covering it, yet before too long the bones of its destruction would reappear as the desert vanished. The orderliness of the Black Riders' ranks wavered. One steed drifted away from the others, plunged through the sand alone for a while, then drew back to its fellows and re-joined them.
Many leagues away, on a continent now devoid of people, the flashes of golden fire streaked through the sky like comets. The wind blew and twisted it, swirled it around and sometimes dropped it, whereupon it fell like golden dust to sprinkle the land. Its glow faded, leaving nothing of itself behind.
On a vast, grassy plain, a giant folded flower guarded its precious treasure in petals as strong as tempered steel. A sea of deadly leaves surrounded it, their golden surface edged in black and veined with blue. A streak of light fell from the sky, dropped by a high wind, then caught by a lower breeze. The breeze swirled it playfully, twisted and turned it, dropped it for a moment, then gathered it up again. The wind strengthened, speeding the wisp of light across the plain. It flew straight to the flower, carried on a strong gust. The light touched the petals and flashed through them with a wisp of smoke.
Within the cradle of his watery womb, the Mujar child kicked as his pod filled with golden light. His tiny limbs paddled in protest, helpless to ward off the light that burnt into his unformed brain. He jerked and flailed, then grew still as the light faded, leaving him in comforting darkness once again.
On the outside of the flower's folded petals, a strange black mark remained, a scar of angular lines, scrambled writing that made no sense, a million words imposed upon each other. The golden lights in the sky wandered aimlessly, tumbled by the wind, fell and faded to nothing, vanishing forever from the world.
Talsy shivered, glancing behind her at the eerie, silent forest of burnt trees. The chosen had lighted several fires against the night chill, and some of the men had ventured out to find the burnt carcass of an unfortunate deer. Now its meat roasted on the fires, and the people ate well. Chanter had healed the injured, and sat beside Talsy, staring into the flames. He had eaten his share of the meat, hampered by his lack of a hand. The Mujar kept forgetting his new handicap and reaching for things with a hand he no longer possessed. The sight of the stump sickened Talsy, and she tried not to look at it.
"What will happen to that now?" she asked him, jerking her head at the darkness behind her.
"The staffs?" He sh
rugged. "No doubt they'll grow into something hideous, the first of many."
Kieran glanced up from the flames. The three of them sat at their own fire, out of earshot of the others. "When do we get to the gathering?"
Chanter shook his head. "We don't. There's no gathering now, no judgement, no paradise. Only survival, if we're lucky."
"But we'll find the pieces of the staff. We'll put it back together," Talsy protested.
"What about the laws?"
"Give it the ones we know, make up the rest as we need them. When we see something wrong, we make the law to stop it."
The Mujar sighed. "The gods laid down the laws. Do you think that we're as wise as they?"
"We have to try," she insisted. "We'll do the best we can. It's better than nothing. Won't the gods help?"
"Perhaps. But we got ourselves into this mess, why should they get us out of it?"
"Because it's their world," Kieran pointed out. "Surely they'll want to preserve it?"
"Considering the mess it's in, they might decide to let it die and recreate it." Chanter glanced at Talsy. "But we'll look for the pieces of the staff. If we can find them before things get too bad, maybe we can save the chosen still."
The two Truemen stared into the flames, leaving Chanter to his thoughts. The Mujar rubbed the stump of his right wrist as he remembered the agony of the joining staffs within his flesh. Never had he experienced such pain, even the memory of it sickened him. The purity of Life, held close in his fist, imparting its joy and strength. The sudden arrival of Death, slamming into his chest and punching the air from him as it shot through him to join with Life. For that instant the two opposites had torn him, boundless joy and strength against the sickening drain and sorrow of Death. Then the two had joined, cancelling each other out and becoming nothing in a welter of searing, mind-bending agony the likes of which he never wished to feel again.
Broken World Book Two - StarSword Page 24