The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel

by Laura Resnick

  “See who come. Maybe take.”

  “Take? You mean, the prince’s servants capture those who come to the water?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do they take everyone? Or just goblins?” “Everyone.”

  “So far, you’re the only, er, person that I’ve met. Who else lives on Diraden?”

  “Some like me. Some like …” Jurl shrugged. “Others. Many others. And some like you.”

  “And Prince Velrav’s servants take them all?”

  “Take some of all.”

  “Why?” Chandra asked.

  “Hunger.”

  That was disconcerting. “They’re taken when they’re near the water?”

  The goblin shrugged. “Near water. Near wood. Near ruins. Near hill. Near village. Near castle. Near—”

  “So you’re saying that the prince’s servants have taken individuals from everywhere?” What a lovely plane she had stumbled onto.

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, I might as well get water.” And then maybe she’d try leaving Diraden straight away, without bothering to pause for rest. The situation here sounded deranged and deadly—and perfectly in keeping with the atmosphere she had sensed. If she felt better after drinking her fill, then perhaps leaving while she was still fatigued—but with proper preparation this time—would be better than sticking around here until she felt stronger. “Jurl, I’ll bet you know this place well. Do you know how to get water without being bothered by Prince Velrav’s servants?”

  The goblin stared at her silently. Although its grotesque face showed no expression, she sensed it was suspicious of her request.

  “If you take me there,” Chandra said, “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t betray you. I’m thirsty. I just want to get water, and then go away.”

  “Go away?”

  “Yes. You’ll never see me again.” It was a promise she intended to keep.

  Jurl studied her. “Go away soon?”

  “Very soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “By morning.”

  “No.” The goblin shook its head.

  Chandra frowned. “Why not?”

  “No morning.”

  “What?”

  “Morning never come,” Jurl said. “Not here.”

  After some discussion, Chandra guessed that Prince Velrav was some sort of necromancer who had pulled a veil of eternal night across this plane. There was presumably a good reason for this, but Jurl didn’t know what it was. Nor did Jurl remember an era when things had been different, so this had apparently been going on for quite some time.

  When Chandra asked how long the trees had been naked and dying, he said, “Always.”

  She supposed perpetual darkness explained why they were dying. And black magic probably explained why they were dying so slowly that, as far back as Jurl could remember, they had looked exactly the way they looked right now.

  But it was possible that this was just what normal trees looked like on the dark plane of Diraden, swamped in black magic and ruled by a demented mage who occasionally had his subjects captured and brought back to his castle to satisfy “hunger.” Jurl seemed to know no more than that about the “taking” of various individuals over the years; nor did he seem to think anything more needed to be known about it.

  A goblin’s life revolved around pretty simple interests, after all: hunt, eat, drink, reproduce, make merry, fight, kill, be killed. It seldom got more complicated than that.

  It was a welcome relief that the water that Jurl led her to wasn’t far away. They passed through a moonlit copse of tall, thin, trees with thick, spidery roots that had snaked across the surface of ground, covering the path in long, lumpy twists of rotting wood and thick, sickly vines. Beyond the wood, they came to a lagoon. Silvery light from the moon glinted off the still surface of the water, which was rimmed by a dense thicket of vegetation.

  Chandra surveyed the sinister-looking pool of water. “How long have you been coming here?”

  “Always.”

  Because some species of goblin matured fast, growing to adulthood within a couple of years of their birth, “always” might only mean a year or two. On the other hand, some goblins lived a very long time. Chandra was unsure which category Jurl fell into, but couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  “Water good,” Jurl said encouragingly. He lay face down beside the lagoon, stuck his head into the water, and began drinking.

  Chandra walked a few judicious steps away from his noisy gulping, then knelt down, reached a cupped hand into the lagoon, and scooped up a small quantity of water, which she studied in the moonlight. It was clear and cold. When she brought it close to her nose, it had no odor. She bent over her hand to cautiously take a sip. It tasted fine.

  With a shaky sigh of relief, she lay face down at the edge of the lagoon, bracing her hands by her shoulders, and drank her fill. After slaking her thirst, she rested briefly, then drank some more. When she was done, she realized how dehydrated she had been. Already, thanks to the water, Chandra’s thoughts felt clearer, her body more responsive, her senses sharper. She was still tired, but she was in complete command of herself again.

  Suddenly, the goblin made a hissing sound.

  Chandra glanced at him and saw that he was frozen in position and staring across the lagoon. She followed his gaze, but she didn’t see anything, which wasn’t surprising. Jurl’s eyes were probably better accustomed to this dim light than hers.

  She whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  “Bog Wraith,” the goblin growled. “Bad.”

  Chandra froze, peering into the darkness and trying to see the creature that Jurl saw. “Is that what takes people?”

  “No. Can’t take. Can tell.”

  “Can tell?” Chandra repeated. “It will tell its master it saw us here?”

  “Yes.”

  And presumably its master was Prince Velrav. “Great.”

  “Kill,” said Jurl.

  “Kill it? I can’t even see it.”

  “There.” One long, lumpy arm pointed to a twisted tree that leaned out over the water, its barren branches touching the surface of the lagoon.

  Staring hard, Chandra was able to make out something that looked like pale white skin gleaming in the moonlight. Then she realized that some of the shapes she had assumed were branches were actually the long, dark tendrils of the Bog Wraith’s hair, floating eerily in the still air. The creature itself floated, too; a pale, transparent figure veiled in black shadows.

  “Bad,” Chandra agreed, aware of a chill in her blood as she studied the silently watchful creature.

  “Kill,” Jurl repeated.

  This thing seemed familiar … She realized that it reminded her of the ghost warden she had destroyed on Regatha.

  That wasn’t the sort of incident she wanted to repeat here. She intended to leave Diraden unnoticed, not create a commotion and attract attention. And she wanted to enter the æther in a sane and steady manner, not to reenact her frantic and nearly fatal departure from Kephalai.

  “No,” she said to Jurl. “I won’t kill it. All that thing has seen is a woman and a goblin drinking water. So what if it tells? Let’s go quietly now.”

  As she turned to go, the goblin grunted, obviously dissatisfied.

  When they had traveled some distance, Jurl said, “Now eat?”

  She thought of his recent meal, which she had interrupted, and said truthfully, “I’m not that hungry.”

  “Sleep?”

  “No, I’m going to leave,” she said decisively. Diraden was no place to linger.

  “Leave where?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Leave now?”

  “Soon.” And since she didn’t want the goblin asking questions while she prepared to planeswalk, it was time to bid him farewell. “Thank you for taking me to water, Jurl. You’ve been, um, a good host.”

  “Still hungry.” Jurl nodded at some nearby bushes. “Hunt.”

  “Enjoy.
” She tried not to think about it. “Goodbye.”

  “Wait here. Jurl bring food.”

  Jurl turned and entered the nearby thicket. Chandra had been wrong in her initial assumption that his long arms would drag on the ground. He walked with them bent sharply at the elbows, shoulders wide and forearms dangling at his sides, and he could move with surprising speed and silence.

  Chandra turned away and continued walking as she considered her options. Not wanting to be there if the Jurl did return, she decided it would be best to return to the ruins where she had arrived, since the crumbling walls offered a little cover. It also made sense to her to open a path to the Blind Eternities at same spot she had entered the plane.

  Fortunately, the journey to water had not taken her very far from the place she sought. She retraced her steps without difficulty and arrived back at the ruins before long. The crumbling, lichen-covered walls looked stark and foreboding in the eerie, eternal night.

  As her gaze traveled over her stony destination, Chandra was surprised to see a flash of bright white light explode silently from within the ruins, although she couldn’t see what had caused it. A stone wall stood between her and the source of the sudden, bold flare.

  She froze in her tracks. She didn’t think this source of bright light had anything to do with this dark Prince Velrav, but wanted to be cautious, none the less.

  She stretched out her senses in order to call on the mana of the Keralian Mountains as a means to protect herself. A flash of panic washed through her when she realized she could scarcely feel it.

  Breathe, she told herself, smothering the fear. Breathe.

  She concentrated. She focused on her memory of other planes, of other sources, but she still couldn’t feel that flow of red mana. How was that possible? She was feeling stronger, better than she had a while ago, but she couldn’t establish a mana bond.

  Stop. Think.

  She squared her shoulders and moved forward, her footfalls silent on the damp ground. Whatever was going on inside these stony ruins, she needed this space to commence her planeswalk back to Regatha. And, if necessary, she would make her temporary claim on these ruins clear to others. With or without the use of magic.

  She crept up to the walls of the ruins, stepped quietly over some fallen stones, and peered around a corner, looking to the spot where the burst of light seemed to have originated.

  She saw a man rising slowly to his feet as he seemed to gather himself and reconnoiter his surroundings.

  Chandra saw two dark smudges on his tan leggings where he had been kneeling in the mud. His long, tousled hair hung in his face as he turned toward Chandra.

  When the man saw her staring at him, he went still.

  After a brief pause, he said, “Hello, Chandra.”

  Cold shock washed through her. “Gideon.”

  I wasn’t sure you’d still be alive. That was some walk you took.” Gideon’s voice was dry.

  “How did you …” Chandra’s heart was pounding as she realized what the answer had to be. “You followed me? You followed my trail through the Blind Eternities?”

  He nodded. Just one small, downward movement of his chin. No motion wasted.

  “Planeswalker,” she breathed, still stunned. She hadn’t forgotten the promises she’d made to herself about what she’d do if she ever found him again, but this revelation changed things a bit.

  There was no wonder he had been able to catch her off guard and capture her so easily in that street back on Kephalai. A planeswalker! He would be at least as powerful as she was. And he was a little older than she, so he was probably more experienced, more skilled at using his power, given that he’d had more time to learn and practice.

  Gideon’s gaze traveled over her. “I see that you’re all right now.”

  Apart from looking like he’d taken a tumble when he entered this plane, his appearance was exactly the same as it had been.

  She said, “Apparently that walk didn’t do you any harm.”

  He gave a small, dismissive shrug. “I had time to prepare.”

  And he evidently knew that she hadn’t.

  Chandra was impressed that he had been able to follow the erratic trail of her confused wandering through the Blind Eternities. That had certainly taken skill.

  Impressed—and disturbed. Why had he bothered?

  She doubted she’d like his reasons, whatever they were.

  “Where are we?” Gideon asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I was following you,” he reminded her.

  “I got lost,” she said irritably.

  “I could tell.” He looked around. “So you don’t know where we are?”

  “It’s called Diraden. What are you doing here?”

  He walked past her, moving beyond the ruined stone walls to look out over the landscape. “Like I said, I followed you.”

  “Why?”

  “Everything’s dying here,” he observed.

  “Where’s my scroll?” Chandra demanded, noticing that he didn’t have it on him in any obvious place.

  “It’s not your scroll.” Gideon walked over to a tree, examined the naked branches, and used his foot to brush aside some loose dirt.

  “It’s not yours, either!” Chandra said.

  “No,” he agreed absently as he knelt down to touch the ground. He picked up a handful of damp soil, closed his fist around it, and inhaled deeply as he looked up at the sky.

  “Where is it?” Chandra demanded.

  Gideon was scarcely paying attention to her, which irked her. He stood upright again, looked into the distance, and said quietly, “Everything is wrong here.”

  “I asked you a question,” she said with gritted teeth.

  Ignoring her comment, he brushed past her and walked back into the ruins. Chandra followed him. When she started to speak again, he held up a hand to silence her. He was circling the spot where he had arrived on this plane. There was a frown of concentration on his face.

  Chandra decided she’d had enough. “You tricked me! You helped the Prelate’s soldiers capture me! You stole my scroll—”

  “You stole it, too,” he said dismissively, still frowning as he looked up at the sky again. “And it’s not yours.”

  “I was imprisoned because of you! Enervants tried to drain all my power!”

  “Enervants?” That got his attention for a moment. He glanced in her direction. “Do they smell as bad as people say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Enervants,” he murmured. “That explains why your planeswalk went so badly. You were weakened.”

  “In part,” she snapped. “The other part is that I had to enter the æther just moments ahead of dozens of soldiers! They tortured me to find out where the scroll was, and they would have done it until I died because I didn’t know where it was!”

  “Yes, I heard.” Gideon seemed lost in thought, his mind scarcely on the conversation as he said, “All things considered, you did well to survive. But it’s a pity you chose this place to end your walk.”

  “So sorry you don’t like it,” Chandra said acidly. “But since you weren’t invited in the first place, why don’t you just leave?”

  He looked at her. “You haven’t figured it out.”

  His face was in shadows and his expression guarded, but something about his bland tone infuriated her.

  “If you followed me to take me prisoner and drag me back to Kephalai, then you made a big mistake, Gideon!” She threw her hands out to encircle him with a ring of fire …

  And nothing happened.

  He stood there calmly, not moving a muscle, not reacting physically at all. His voice sounded faintly amused when he said, “Indeed.”

  Chandra stared at her hands in bewildered shock, turning them over and studying her palms as if she could read the answer there to her sudden absence of power.

  “But I feel much better now,” she muttered. “So what …”

  “You may feel better,” Gideon said, “but
surely there’s something you don’t feel?”

  “I …” She frowned, realizing what he meant. “Mana.” Suddenly, her difficulty in feeling it earlier made sense.

  He nodded. “Something’s blocking our access to mana.

  She stared at him in surprise. “Blocking mana?”

  “It’s not completely effective,” he said. “That’s why you feel something. But it’s effective enough to be a serious problem for us.”

  “Us?” She realized the full import of what he was telling her. “You’re without power, too?”

  “As much as you are,” he confirmed.

  “I noticed it was hard to feel the flow,” she said, thinking back. “Hard to bond. But I thought that was because I was still weak.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “If you concentrate long and hard, you can probably call on enough mana here to start a small cooking fire. But that’s about all, while it’s being blocked so well.”

  Chandra had never heard of such a thing. “What could do this?”

  “I’m not sure. Something very powerful, obviously.”

  “Or someone?” She thought of the hungry prince.

  Gideon shrugged. “It would take constant focus and a lot of strength. The effort would be enormous. A big drain on just one person.”

  “So he probably has help,” she mused.

  “He?” Gideon repeated.

  “There’s a necromancer named Prince Velrav who rules here.”

  “Of course,” Gideon said. “Black mana would be abundant here.”

  “Is that why it’s always nighttime here?”

  He looked at her sharply. “Always?”

  She told him what she had learned from Jurl.

  “A goblin,” Gideon mused. “I suppose you couldn’t get any sense from him of whether this phenomenon is recent or has been going on for centuries?”

  “No.”

  Jurl had been pretty typical of goblins, in Chandra’s experience: neither bright, nor articulate.

  Gideon looked up at the night sky. “No clouds. But no stars.”

  “I noticed that, too,” she said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  “I doubt that’s the normal night sky here.”