Fireweaver

by Ryan W. Mueller

  "Is this really the time?" Teravin asked.

  "She is part of this whether you like it or not."

  "Please be quick," Teravin said. "We have matters to discuss."

  Alvin nodded. "I'll try to keep this as short as possible. Faina, I assume you know the official version of events." He glared at Teravin, looking almost too angry. "The version your Church spouts as truth."

  Teravin returned the glare but said nothing.

  "I do know," Faina said. "What really happened?" She leaned forward eagerly, though it was hard to believe that she was suddenly privy to the world's deepest secrets. How had her life come to this? She'd always been an ordinary Fireweaver. No one special.

  But Kadin had changed her life. For the better.

  "There was a war between the gods," Alvin said. "That much is true. During that war, I was on the side of Vardin and Cardell, or at least I was at first. We were all going against Aralea alone. I don't know how her armies withstood ours, but she held strong. She has always had a lot of fight in her, and I admire her for that."

  "She wasn't alone," Teravin said. "I was on her side as well."

  Alvin narrowed his eyes. The expression looked forced, as if it were all an act. "Then you're a god as well? But that doesn't make sense. There were only four of us sent to this world."

  "I was not born a god," Teravin said. "I came from another world. I went to the Nexus in that world's Realm of Shade, and the Nexus sent me here because I had a natural affinity for Sunweaving. That also made me into—"

  "A Traveler," Alvin said. "Of course."

  Faina stared at them, unsure what question she wanted to ask. This entire conversation had confused her. Finally, she said, "What is a Traveler?"

  "Someone who can Travel between different worlds in the universe," Alvin said.

  Faina shook her head, more confused than ever. "Different worlds?"

  Teravin chuckled. "Did you think this cold and desolate planet is the only place that has human life? No, there are countless worlds out there."

  "And you can travel between them?" Faina asked, beginning to understand.

  "Not all of them," Teravin said. "I can travel between my home world and this one. You can only go between different worlds if you know they exist. If I really wanted to go between all the worlds, I'd go to the Nexus and let it take me to different worlds. But I don't want to do that. I possess the magic of this world, and I have a mission to fulfill here."

  Alvin leaned forward in his chair. "What mission is that, exactly?"

  "Nothing less than the defeat of both Vardin and Cardell. Also, the restoration of the sun. I want to see this world thrive again, as it did before the war, before Cardell almost destroyed the sun. You may not always like my methods, or the views of my Church, but I've seen glimpses of the future. I know some of what must be done."

  Alvin frowned. "Has the ability to read the future returned?"

  "A little bit," Teravin said. "But it's not what it used to be. Not even close."

  Faina still struggled to keep up with this conversation. She'd always thought she was an intelligent and open-minded person, but this was a lot to take in.

  "What really happened in the war?" she asked.

  Alvin considered for a few moments. "As I said, I fought on the side of Vardin and Cardell, at least at first. But I grew to be more and more disillusioned with their vision for the world. In their minds, only people who were both Sunweavers and Fireweavers mattered. Due to this, they guarded the Source down in the Realm of Shade. That's the place where one can be made into both a Sunweaver and a Fireweaver."

  Teravin took a sip of water from a cup on his desk. "Why didn't you ever go to the Source? Surely they would have allowed you to go."

  "I don't think they ever quite trusted me. I was a powerful Fireweaver, but I knew I was up against the odds if I tried to get to the Source. So I remained a Fireweaver alone, just as Aralea remained a Sunweaver alone. I should have seen that I had much more in common with her than with Vardin and Cardell."

  "Why did you fight against her?" Faina asked. She'd always accepted the official version of history, and she'd never thought about it more deeply. Now that she had this chance to know the truth, he couldn't let it slip away. At the same time, though, she had the feeling that Alvin and Teravin were not being entirely truthful with her.

  "Some of what you've heard is true," Alvin said, "but it's actually a lot more complicated. These days, Sunweavers are persecuting Fireweavers, but that was not always the case. In fact, it was more the opposite. Fireweavers and those who were both Sunweavers and Fireweavers persecuted Sunweavers. You see, anyone with Fireweaving could gain energy from the Core whenever we needed, as long as we had Firelords who could sustain the Core. Sunweavers have never had this luxury. The only thing that kept them from being wiped out completely was the fact that Sunweavers are born more often than Fireweavers."

  Faina was beginning to understand. "But why would you treat Sunweavers so badly? What did they do to make Fireweavers hate them so much?"

  Alvin sighed deeply. "In the end, it wasn't about Sunweavers or Fireweavers. It was about a rivalry between the gods, which we passed on to the people who shared our powers."

  "And where'd this rivalry come from?" Faina asked.

  "It's difficult to explain," Alvin said. "We all came from the same world, where we developed the ability to create gods. This came in response to a threat known as the Itari, but they're a story for another time." He closed his eyes, as if remembering something. "This ability to create gods brought a lot of problems to our world. There were so many different types of magic, and eventually we all formed our own groups, advocating one form of magic over another. This turned into outright war a few times. In the end, we decided we could not all share the same world. We found those worlds that were somehow linked to our magic, and we settled on these worlds, hoping to find more peace.

  "But in case you haven't noticed, mankind is terrible at finding peace. We'll always see something worth fighting over, and in this world, that became a war between Sunweavers and everyone else. We believed that Fireweaving was a purer form of magic. A better form. And so we controlled the ability of people to become Fireweavers.

  "I'm not proud of the things I did back then. That was why I eventually tried to break free from Vardin and Cardell. They forced me to do what they wanted. At the time, I thought I wanted to do their will. I joined with them, and, yes, I played a role in weakening the sun. I couldn't do it myself, however. That job fell to Cardell. It was all part of an effort to weaken Aralea by weakening her source of power. We hoped it could end the war.

  "And it did. But it also made the world what it is today. Millions of people died, unable to survive in a world where food could not grow well without the light of Sunlamps. I did what I could, trying to save the world I had helped destroy. I asked Vardin and Cardell to restore the sun, but they refused. That was when I realized what they were. I turned against them. But when I did so, they turned against me as well. They put all the blame for weakening, the sun on me.

  "When Aralea found me and used her weave to imprison me, I didn't fight her. I felt that I deserved to be imprisoned for what I'd done. But I didn't remain in this prison very long. Aralea came to speak with me from time to time, and she came to see that I had changed, that I could fight on her side. I told her the truth, and she believed me. And she freed me."

  Alvin stopped for a long time, and the room fell into silence. He closed his eyes, as if thinking over what he wanted to say next, which led Faina to believe he was about to tell a false story. Somehow, she still trusted him even though she suspected he was lying to her. If he was lying to her, then surely he had good reasons.

  Eventually, he continued. "Together, we set out to put Vardin and Cardell in this prison. We succeeded with Cardell, but Vardin eluded us. However, this was still a victory. Cardell was always the much stronger of the two. Without him, Vardin was vulnerable. We thought we might be able to
defeat him, but we didn't. The second part of this war ended with me fleeing and Aralea being imprisoned in the Realm of Shade. She is still there, in Vardin's fortress. I've tried to devise ways to free her, but I've never come up with a good enough plan. I feel as if I've failed her. Once, we were enemies, but we became good friends, and she doesn't deserve to suffer like this."

  He fell silent, as if lost in dark thoughts. Faina tried to sort through everything he'd told her. He was leaving out a lot of the details, but the general description did fit together in her head. In fact, it made more sense than the fiction she'd lived with her entire life. If only she could hear the true story, not what Alvin wanted her to hear.

  "You should have revealed yourself to me," Teravin said. "Or perhaps I should have learned who you were and then revealed myself to you. We've thought we were enemies, but in reality, we are allies. We can fight this war together. We can save Aralea. We can defeat Vardin and Cardell. And we can restore the sun."

  Alvin stared down at the polished wooden desk, his gaze troubled. "There was no way we could have known each other's true identities. We can't change the past, but now that we do know, we can work together. We can achieve the victory that eluded us six hundred years ago."

  Faina had trouble believing she could work with Teravin. Even if he wasn't the true power in the Church, he'd allowed the persecution of Fireweavers. There must have been a way for him to lessen the persecution.

  Then there was the way he'd treated Kadin, kidnapping his sister and threatening to kill her. Would he have gone through with that threat, or was it all a part of the game he was playing, this ability of his to somehow read the future?

  And then she thought of Alvin—no, Halarik. He'd said he'd taken part in kidnapping the Sunlord. Why would he have done that if it would only lead to the release of Cardell?

  She took a deep breath. "Why did you help them kidnap the Sunlord?"

  Alvin was silent awhile, frowning as if he didn't want to share this information. At last, he said, "This is a bit more difficult to explain. I wanted Atarin and the others to try to free Halarik, but I also wanted them to fail. It was a delicate balancing act, and it almost didn't work. But now it has led them down the path to the truth. I can't read the future at all because you need to be both a Sunweaver and Fireweaver, but I can make educated guesses."

  There was a brief moment when he met Teravin's eyes, and it looked as if they shared a silent conversation.

  "That was still a huge risk," Faina said.

  "But it worked out," Alvin said. "You may not know it, but I had a hand in the events of Deril's quest. I exposed Talin as a Firelord so that he would be in Atarin's palace and able to help you. I befriended Rella's father and convinced him she was ready to go on her first journey alone as a merchant, and I told the bandits led by Kae that they would have a well-stocked caravan to rob. Since I knew who Rella's mother was, and who her uncle was, I manipulated events so that she would end up in the palace. From there, she was able to help Deril. It all almost went horribly wrong, but it did work out well in the end.

  "Now Atarin should be over in the Sardek Empire, seeking the Lost Weaves. In doing so, he will meet the Monks of Duran, and he will learn the truth about our world. Atarin is a man with strong views, a man who does what he feels needs to be done, regardless of the consequences. But he is not an entirely bad man. He will fight on our side once he discovers the truth. It's a matter of events playing out correctly, of course, but I think they will."

  "It almost sounds as if you can read the future," Teravin said, a faint smile playing at his lips. Faina suspected again that this entire conversation was an act of sorts, and despite her general feeling of trust toward Alvin, she was beginning to doubt his intentions.

  Alvin chuckled. "No, I am merely very good at perceiving where events might go. But as we know from today's events, we can miss a lot. Both of us."

  Faina still couldn't believe she was part of this conversation. "What do we do now?"

  "We all go to the Realm of Shade," Alvin said. "Together."

  Teravin nodded. "We should go immediately."

  Chapter 33: The Enemy of an Enemy

  Rella sat in a chair in Kara's office. It was hard to know what to think of this woman. She had the power and immortality of a god, and yet she seemed like a normal person. She was from another world, and yet she seemed as if she could have lived next door to Rella.

  "I'm not sure if we should visit Cardell," Kara said.

  Talin stroked his graying beard. "Why not?"

  "His prison is secure for the moment. We can't risk letting him escape."

  Rella had a chilling thought. "Atarin still thinks Halarik is the one who's been imprisoned. If Atarin breaks Cardell out of his prison, what's going to happen?"

  "Nothing good," Kara said.

  "Then we should make contact with them," Rella said. "Convince them of the truth."

  Talin barked a laugh. "Do you really think that's going to work? The last time I checked, Atarin doesn't trust any of us. If we try to talk to him, he'll probably have us killed."

  "I think I can do it," Rella said. "I can talk to Karik. Karik is close to Atarin. Between that and my relation to Atarin, I just might be able to convince him of the truth. If I can get them to come here, then they can hear it from your lips, Kara."

  Kara had a distant look on her face, as if she were in deep thought. "I'm not sure I can convince them of something they're so unwilling to believe."

  "We have to try," Rella said.

  "But how are we going to find them?" Kae asked. She'd been silent awhile, still mourning the loss of her husband and worrying about her sister.

  "It shouldn't be that hard," Rella said. "Bradin told us they've been here already. If they've already been here, then they're sure to come back."

  "I don't like this plan," Talin said.

  Rella took a breath. "It's going to work. Trust me."

  "You're putting yourself at risk," Talin said, and Rella could hear the genuine concern in his voice. She looked into his eyes, seeing the kind man behind the stern exterior, and she could almost forgive him. In time, perhaps her memories of the torture would fade.

  Or at least she would come to accept them.

  "I'm willing to take that risk," she said.

  Kara leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on the desk, her gaze sharp. When she looked at Rella, though, a smile crept into her features. "Rella, you remind me of myself when I was your age. When you set your mind to something, there's no changing it." She stopped, blinking rapidly, as if fighting against sudden tears.

  "Is something wrong?" Rella asked.

  "You also remind me a bit of someone else I used to know. Someone I haven't seen for five hundred years." She gazed up at the ceiling. "I don't even know if she's still alive."

  "I'm sorry," Rella said, feeling the urge to put a comforting hand on Kara's shoulder. "I can't even imagine."

  "Don't worry. That's all ancient history now. I can't return to that world. It belongs to the past, to a different life. This is my life now, and I want to see this world prosper again."

  Talin cleared his throat. "Let's get back to the matter at hand. Are you sure you want to do this, Rella? I see the way you look at me, the way you're haunted by what I was forced to do to you. Remember? That was done by Atarin's command. He could do even worse to you now."

  "I know."

  "And you're still willing to do this?"

  "There is something strange between Karik and me," Rella said. "I don't know if we have feelings for each other. We didn't spend enough time together for that. But I think there could be something more. He cares about me. Why else would he have let me go when I was a prisoner?"

  "All right," Talin said. "It's the best plan we have."

  "And we have to do it," Rella said. "They have to know the truth."

  After a long silence, Kara said, "Do you have accommodations here in the city?"

  "No, we do not," Kae said. />
  Kara rose from her chair. "Then you can stay here with us. I can show you the quarters where our monks sleep. They're nothing fancy, but I don't think you'll care all that much."

  Talin chuckled. "Sounds better than sleeping on the ground."

  "I'll go back to the library and see if Karik returns," Rella said. While Talin and Kae followed Kara one way down the hall, Rella returned the other way, finding the place where they'd entered the headquarters of the monks.

  Bradin waited by the door. "Leaving so soon?"

  "I have something I have to do." Rella was about to step through the door, but then she stopped. "How do I get back in here?"

  "Here. Let me show you. Focus on the weave I'm doing. Hold onto my hand if that helps."

  Rella did so, and she could feel the weave stirring within Bradin. It was a Yellow/Green weave, but not a powerful one. The mixture of the colors was unusual. Too much Yellow, not enough Green. After he did it a couple of times, she produced the weave herself.

  "Just do that," he said, "and you'll be able to get back in."

  "Thank you." She stepped through the door, returning to the library. When the door closed behind her, she experienced a moment of panic. Even though she'd just practiced that weave, she worried suddenly that she wouldn't be able to return.

  Stop worrying about everything, she told herself, though she knew the effort was useless. Life without worry was impossible for her after everything she'd been through.

  Lost in these worries, she wasn't paying enough attention to her surroundings.

  Not until she felt cold steel against her throat.

  She screamed, but the sound didn't make it far. Someone had created a shield around her.

  "Screaming won't do you any good."

  She would recognize that voice anywhere. Atarin.

  Her heart pounded a mighty drumbeat. She forced calmness into her voice. "I would appreciate it if you removed the dagger from my throat."

  "Very well." He lowered the dagger.

  She turned to face him. "What do you want?"

  "I want in to see the Monks of Duran and their leader. Her name is Kara."