The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel

by Laura Resnick

  She sat up, tearing herself out of his embrace. When she felt his hand on her arm, she flung it off.

  He sat up, too, but he didn’t try to touch her again. “Chandra …”

  She started to speak, then changed her mind. Anything she might say now would reveal too much—even if only how forbidden the subject was.

  “I apologize.” His voice was calm. Trying to make her calm. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  Chandra inhaled deeply. In, two, three. Then exhaled. Out, two, three.

  She could feel him peering at her, and was glad the darkness hid her face, as it hid his.

  When she thought she had control of her voice—of her words, and thoughts—she said, “You’re right, we should get some more sleep. I’m still tired.”

  There was a pause. “Of course.”

  His voice had that impassive tone he often used.

  Chandra lay down on her bedroll with her back to him. She felt him move away from her, returning to his own bedroll, where he should have stayed in the first place.

  She lay awake for a long time in the dark, with her eyes wide open, forbidding herself to think about anything. Anything.

  Although she didn’t expect it to happen, Chandra drifted off eventually, and she slept soundly. When she awoke, Gideon had already risen and gone back out into the night. Falia said some of the men had taken him to speak to someone who could tell him more about the Fog Riders that they had seen earlier.

  “The rest of the villagers are all doing their work.” Falia said to her, “There is no one to guide you to where he is. You must remain here.”

  The girl’s manner toward her now was noticeably cool. It was all too easy to guess why, given where Gideon had chosen to place his bedroll when they all went to sleep. Chandra might have told Falia that she had no interest in Gideon, let alone in competing for his affections. But that seemed like too absurd a conversation to have with someone who looked so young.

  Not wanting to stay on Diraden—or in Gideon’s company—one moment longer than she had to, Chandra decided to tackle a task that she and Gideon had talked about: questioning Jurl. So she went into the livestock hut to see him.

  The cage was empty. The goblin was gone.

  Chandra turned around, intending to go alert the villagers. She found Falia in the doorway behind her. The girl had followed her here.

  “He’s escaped!” Chandra said.

  “No,” Falia said.

  “Then were is he?”

  “Being skinned and roasted.”

  “What?”

  “Goblins make good eating.” Falia gave Chandra’s horrified reaction a look of cool amusement.

  “You’ve killed him?”

  “We’ve butchered him.”

  “You’re going to eat him?” Chandra couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, no.” Chandra covered her face with her hands, swamped with guilt. “No wonder he was so angry at me! He knew you might do this! And Gideon and I locked him in here! We made him helpless!”

  “He was a goblin.” The girl’s voice was contemptuous.

  “But he was my …”

  Actually, friend would be wildly inaccurate. Jurl had tried to kill her and Gideon; and they had taken him prisoner and brutalized him when he resisted their questions or orders.

  Such behavior, on either side, wasn’t exactly the basis of friendship.

  Chandra knew full well the goblin was treacherous, amoral, and vicious. She had no doubt that, given a chance, he’d have fed her to Velrav without the slightest hesitation or pang of regret. She had also known that a situation might arise where she or Gideon would have to kill Jurl.

  But she had never intended to turn him into a helpless, caged victim that the villagers could skin and skewer at their leisure.

  But that was exactly what she had done.

  Chandra stared at the smirking girl in the doorway. “How can you eat someone you’ve talked to? Someone you’ve given food to?”

  “I fed him because his skin looked a little too loose when you got here. A well-fed goblin is juicier.”

  Chandra was aghast that she had slept in the same small hut with this revolting, sneering, deceitful child! “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  She was so angry she felt dizzy. She also thought she felt a sudden headache coming on. There was a pounding in her ears, a harsh, uneven drumming that echoed around her …

  Chandra frowned, realizing the sound wasn’t inside her head. And it was, she realized with a creeping chill, familiar.

  “If you plan to vomit, get it over with.” The girl’s voice was hard. Her eyes were narrow and her lips tight with loathing. “The riders are coming for you.”

  “What?” Chandra breathed.

  “The Fog Riders are coming to take you to Prince Velrav.” Falia’s tone dripped with dark satisfaction.

  Chandra heard the echoing beat of approaching horses, their hooves thundering against the ground. “Me?” Chandra felt the hut closing in on her. “But … why? I mean, how do they know I’m here?”

  “Because I summoned them.”

  “You?”

  “I told you, people thrill him. Power thrills him. Why do you suppose he has not fed on me?”

  “Power,” Chandra murmured. “Power.” She tried to call on mana. Any amount. Any feeble flow that she could use to power her fire.

  “Because I trade with him for my life.” Falia looked much older than she had before. Perhaps even older than her true age. In that moment, she looked hard, ruthless, and casually cruel. “I find special things for him. A fire mage, such as you … Oh, my. Very exotic, Chandra.”

  She looked at the girl sharply. “Did you drag that out of Jurl with your skinning and roasting tools?” She knew Falia hadn’t heard it from her or Gideon.

  “He traded the information for his life. But goblins are stupid. He was still caged when he gave up your secret, you see. He didn’t even realize there was no reason not to kill him once he’d told us. If only more goblins were merchants.”

  “So you’re one of the takers,” Chandra said, calling on her fury, calling on fire … and scarcely even able to feel her chilled blood warm a little bit.

  “This is Diraden.” The girl’s voice was flat. “Everyone is a taker. Some of us are just better at it than others.”

  Chandra decided they had chatted long enough. Fire magic wouldn’t work. Velrav had seen to that. She’d have to evade those Fog Riders the old-fashioned way—by running, hiding, and finding a means to fight them even without her power. And the first step was to get out of this hut and away from this smirking brat.

  Chandra ran, straight into Falia, driving the flat of her palm against the girl’s face and striking upward. Falia shrieked in pain and fell backward. Chandra dashed past her … and found herself running straight into about a dozen spears.

  She barely managed to stop her headlong rush into the ambush without skewering herself on the sharp metal points. She stood, frozen on the spot, looking down at the spear blades pressed against the vulnerable flesh of her throat, her breasts, and her belly.

  The hoof beats were getting closer. The riders would be here in moments.

  Falia arose from her sprawled position on the ground. Her nose was gushing blood. It flowed down her face and into her mouth, coating her teeth with red as she snarled at Chandra. Her dark eyes blazing with fury, the girl walked over, spat in Chandra’s face, and then slapped her, hard.

  Chandra gave very serious though to retaliating … but she didn’t favor dying of a dozen spear wounds in exchange for the pleasure of hitting the brat. Instead, she demanded, “What have you done with Gideon, you warped little bitch?”

  “Gideon is where I told you he was.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Of course!”

  Chandra studied her. “Ah, I see. You got him out of the way so you could have me carried off without his interference.”

  “When h
e returns, I’ll tell him you disappeared. I’ll be very convincing.” Falia wiped her bloody face with her sleeve, but this only succeeded in smearing the blood all over her skin. “He’ll never know what happened to you. And he’ll forget about leaving here. Once you’re gone, he’ll stop thinking about going back to wherever you came from.”

  “And, of course, you’ll comfort him tenderly while he grieves for me?” Chandra said.

  “He will forget you,” the girl said with malicious satisfaction. “You are nothing.”

  “I thought I was special enough to be a life-saving treat for your dark prince?” Chandra shrugged. “Listen, you sickly, demented, venomous child, if you think Gideon will ever notice you, then you’re even sillier than I thought you were.”

  “He has already noticed me. I have more at my disposal than you may think. He will be mine,” the girl said furiously, her blood-smeared, sallow face going an unbecoming shade of puce. “If I am ever to be allowed to live, and better, to die, I need to produce a healthy successor. Gideon will help me do that.”

  In that moment Chandra understood. Falia was as trapped as she was, perhaps even more so.

  The noise of galloping hooves became too loud for further conversation, which was something of a relief.

  The first thing Chandra saw was that fast-moving cloud of white fog traveling across the ground, glowing in the moonlight. Then she was able to see the riders, their looming black shapes rising out of the fog as they raced toward her.

  They looked so terrifying that, for a moment, she couldn’t move. It was like being trapped in one of her nightmares. She wanted to scream, to flee, to weep, and she couldn’t do any of these things.

  Then her wits came back to her in a welcome rush.

  Spears! she thought. That ought to be an effective weapon against a rider.

  And fire. Gideon had said that blood drinkers didn’t like it.

  The four riders entered this part of the village and cantered around Chandra and her captors, circling them like a pack of predators. The thick mist swirled around the villagers and amongst them. Chandra felt as if icy snakes were twining around her knees when the fog reached her.

  Perpetual nighttime worked in her favor on this occasion. Several of the men surrounding her were carrying torches.

  She simulated terrified hysteria—which wasn’t that big of a leap—and staggered to her right, feigning confusion and panic as she shrieked. The men broke position, some of them falling back, others stepping to one side. She found her opening and seized a torch from one of them. She swung it around like a club, using the fire to keep her captors away.

  “Seize her!” Falia shouted.

  Chandra shoved the torch into the face of one of the men. He staggered backwards, lost his footing, and dropped his spear. Chandra caught it with her foot and kicked it up to her other hand. Warding off her captors with the spear, she used the torch to set fire to thatched roofs of two nearby huts. With the light wind, there as a good chance the fire would spread to more huts. Meanwhile, it was already distracting the villagers and sparking some panic among them. She hoped that, beneath the dark pall that covered Diraden, a big enough fire would be visible from far away. It would alert Gideon, if he saw it.

  She had never used a spear before, but she assumed that sticking the pointy end into soft flesh would be effective. Turning suddenly, she dashed toward one of the riders and shoved the spear into his guts.

  The force of her blow almost unseated him, but he was a skilled rider and clung to his mount. She could see the rider’s face as he moved away, the spear lodged in his belly. It was a bony and ghastly white visage, with black eyes, and lips so dark they looked black, too.

  The villagers had backed off to the edge of the fray, but Falia was screaming for them to seize her. They apparently thought it was a challenge best left to the Fog Riders. They were more concerned about their burning village.

  Chandra turned with her torch to attack another of the four riders. As he came toward her, she shoved the torch into the dark horse’s face. The animal whinnied, reared up, and danced sideways. She was about to follow up her attack and go after the rider when instinct warned her to look behind her.

  The rider she had stabbed had withdrawn the spear from his guts and was swinging the long wooden handle straight toward her head.

  In the moment before it hit her, Chandra thought irritably that Gideon hadn’t warned her that blades wouldn’t kill blood drinkers.

  Chandra gradually became aware of a weight on her head. So heavy it hurt. Hurt terribly. It felt as if an enormous rock was pounding into her skull, over and over. It hurt to move, it even hurt to groan. She lay there in dazed silence, wishing the pain would go away.

  She heard unfamiliar voices, echoing noises, laughter, growls. Sometimes she heard sighs or sobbing and felt wetness on her face.

  “There, there,” said a deep, melodious voice.

  For some reason, the voice frightened her. She hoped it would go away and never come back.

  But it did come back.

  “You look better, my dear.”

  There was a groan. Chandra thought she had made the noise. To test this theory, she deliberately tried to repeat the sound.

  Yes! She heard it again. She was groaning.

  But the effort was exhausting, and she sank back into oblivion.

  “Yes, I think you may surprise us and survive,” said the voice, some unknown time later. “I love surprises. Are you waking up?” the voice asked, dripping with amusement. “That’s it. Open those eyes wide. Surely it’s time for us to meet?”

  Chandra squinted even in the dim light of the room. She heard a feeble moan and was embarrassed that she had made that pathetic sound.

  Her vision adjusted and she gradually recognized that she was lying in a bed, with a red, silken canopy overhead. The opulent room was large and lighted with candles.

  The pain in her head gave her a dazed feeling that she at first attributed to her unfamiliar surroundings.

  “Ah, she lives,” said the deep, melodious voice that had become so familiar to her recently.

  Chandra didn’t like the sound of it any more now than when she had been out of her senses. Moving carefully, she turned her head in the direction the voice had come from.

  A young man stood next to a dormant fireplace on the far side of the room. He was tall, slim, and fair-skinned, with black hair that gleamed as if it had been polished, and red-rimmed dark eyes. His lips were so dark, they looked almost purple.

  Chandra did not find him an attractive example of manhood.

  “I’ve won,” he said.

  “Won?” she tried to say.

  Her tongue wasn’t quite working yet, but the man seemed to understand what she meant.

  “The wager,” he said. “Some bet you would die shortly after you were brought here. Others gambled that you’d linger for a bit, then quietly expire. I, however, knew that you would make a full recovery.”

  “Recover?”

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  “I …” Chandra had a feeling, despite the relative comfort of her bed, that this was not a good place to be.

  She started wading through the debris in her mind. Abruptly, the details of her capture came back to her.

  Where is Gideon?

  She groaned.

  “Oh, dear,” said the young man. “That tragic?”

  “Price Velrav,” she croaked with certainty.

  “At your service!” He swooped down in an elaborate genuflection. “May I call you Chandra?” He added, “Since you’ve been lying in my bed for so long, I feel like conventional formalities would be absurd.”

  She ignored the throbbing in her head, and looked under the sheet that covered her. “Where are my clothes?”

  Her throat was so dry, she choked a little from the effort of speaking.

  “I had them taken away to be cleaned. They were filthy.” He crossed the room to sit on the bed beside her prone body. “I
didn’t want them soiling my sheets.”

  She glared at him. “This isyour bed?”

  “Well, all the beds here are mine, but for now it’s yours,” he said, leaning forward as he reached out to trail his pale fingers along her naked shoulder.

  “Touch me and I’ll break your fingers,” she snapped, knocking his hand away.

  “There’s water on the bedside table, it sounds as though you need it. Please,” he gestured to a pitcher, his movements light, almost feline. “Drink, you will feel better.”

  Chandra jerked her chin at him. “Off the bed.”

  “As you wish, my dear.” He rose with an amused look on his face.

  She held the sheet in place as she laboriously pushed herself into a sitting position, always aware of the prince’s red-rimmed gaze. She turned and poured herself a cup of water; she drank and felt better, pouring another glass as soon as she’d finished. Only after drinking a third glass did she look at him again.

  “I like a woman who’s that concentrated on fulfilling her needs,” Velrav purred.

  “I don’t care what you like.” Her voice sounded more normal now. She must have been unconscious for quite some time.

  He grinned. Chandra steeled herself so as not to react to the eerily white teeth that were filed to sharp points revealed by his broad smile.

  “The story the riders told me is easier to believe now.” Velrav shrugged. “Lying there unconscious, you looked lovely, despite the bruises, and certainly very, er, healthy!” His lascivious gaze traced her body up and down. “Even, one might say, robust.”

  “I attribute my good health to a steady diet of grub soup,” she said sourly.

  “That’s a very nasty scratch on your thigh, though it’s healing well. What did that to you?”

  “A goblin,” she said.

  “Ugh. Nasty creatures,” Velrav said fastidiously. “And yet you eat them.”

  “I don’t, my dear.” He sounded appalled. “That’s peasant food! Goblins are brought here only to feed some of my, er, less refined companions. What about that cut on your arm? It was festering nicely when you arrived.”

  She said nothing; it took her a moment to realize he was referring to the incision made by the Enervant to remove the burrowing snake.