The Labyrinth of Flame

by Courtney Schafer

  The demon said, “Your master is too clever to leave his den, and I dare not travel the currents of the ssarez-kai’s great hearthfire”—Ninavel’s confluence, I understood that to mean, thanks to Kiran. “They inhabit even the least of its eddies in force and would act swiftly to protect their human tool from spying eyes. Yet even the most cunning of you mud-land rats are crude and clumsy in your efforts to wield our fire. When your master wrenches currents out of their natural paths to mirror the pattern of his desire, that change makes ripples that travel far. Great ripples have been spreading of late—and in them, I have tasted hints of the labyrinth’s poisoned fire. A warning I do not intend to ignore.”

  Kiran was thinking at a furious pace about Ruslan and confluences and magic, the whole of it too complicated and unfamiliar for me to follow. I had other concerns. The demon’s refusal to venture into Ninavel meant no chance of crippling Ruslan’s casting by killing Mikail. Nor had it escaped me that the demon was dancing all around the fact it didn’t have a fucking clue about Ruslan’s plan.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. His drawling accent more pronounced than ever, Marten said, “If you have nothing more to offer than vague warnings and assumptions, I can see why Kiran rejects your help.”

  The sand-figure’s head cocked. The suggestion of a tongue flicked out, there and gone. “Who is this bold ratling, cousin? Not the shadow-souled one you hold in such esteem, so usefully bound to our fire… No. I think perhaps this is the mage whose soul tasted so sweet, spiraling away on the currents. A shame you took him back into your realm before I could swallow it all.”

  Lena made a choked sound of revulsion. Marten’s jaw sagged in pure, genuine horror before he got control of himself and retreated into the armored blankness I’d seen when he questioned Talm in front of Ruslan. I felt queasy myself, thinking of the demon shadowing us and lapping up Marten’s agony like a sandcat savoring marrow from a cracked bone.

  “Did you know?” Marten demanded of Kiran.

  Kiran hadn’t. The surprise and revulsion beating in my head were stamped plain on his features; Marten had to know he wasn’t that good of a liar. And Marten had to be smart enough to see what the demon was attempting. It knew Kiran had help from human mages. It wanted to drive that help away and leave him with no choice but to take the demon’s offer.

  Kiran’s surprise hardened into outrage. He spat at the demon, “You could have helped me protect him. Instead, you hid yourself and drank his ikilhia—and you want me to believe you are my ally?”

  The demon hissed like an adder about to strike. The ripple of Taint strengthened and the sand-shape blurred outward. I took an involuntary step back, my gut seizing, even as I braced to hammer aside a Tainted attack. Kiran held his ground with his hand locked on my wrist, his anger hot enough to overwhelm the cauldron of his fear.

  No attack came. Lena’s rings blazed bright, her mouth moving in urgent, silent song, and the whirling sand contracted back into demon-shape.

  In a rasping snarl, the sand-figure said, “Yes, I swallowed the mortal fire you so rashly spilled. If I had not, the ssarez-kai would have tasted it and found you long before you fumbled your way back into your own realm. That is not all I did to conceal your path, ungrateful child. Even though I knew your attempt to gain an ally of your own kind would be useless.”

  Careful, I thought at Kiran, but he ignored me. “Not useless,” he said. “This man has knowledge of the human defenses that guard Ashkiza’s weapon. In exchange for his knowledge, he wishes some from you. If you don’t want your enemies to take the weapon, answer him.”

  That was speaking far more plainly than I’d like. The demon’s answering laugh was a gritty chuckle, not silver-sweet as I’d heard in the cirque, but the mockery remained sharp. “Is he like the ratlings of the desert? Begging for the merest taste of the fire their souls are too pitifully dark to touch?”

  “Not quite,” Marten said. “I want to know if the artifact you call Ashkiza’s creation has ever before been used as a weapon.”

  The sand-figure straightened. That flicker of a tongue appeared again, in and out in rapid succession. “Once.” It didn’t elaborate.

  Marten said steadily, “In Alathia, mages are not taught much of foreign folklore, but there is one legend that Denarell of Parthus took care to record in his private papers. A legend that speaks of the southern blight: the wasteland where nothing lives, not even the tiniest of plants. Once, long ago, it was a land of oases and life. But death came in a single day and reigns there still.”

  “You know already, then,” said the demon. “Not that it is much of a secret. Do not you mages take power from our realm and spend it at your leisure? But you are such lowly creatures, you use only scraps, and we care not. The children of fire have greater appetites. Your world is barren compared to ours, but it contains a power not found in the halls of fire.”

  Kiran’s realization shocked through me. “The weapon takes life! Like an akheli would but in far greater quantity. That’s the power Ashkiza used to shape and alter your realm as magic does ours.”

  “It was a human who showed Ashkiza the way,” the demon said. “You are such greedy little things. So consider well, cousin, what will happen if you scorn my offer of aid and let your master reach the weapon first.”

  My chest felt hollow, the air I breathed as thin as on the highest of peaks. I’d seen maps. The southern blight was huge. Big enough to swallow the Whitefires and all of Alathia and a good chunk of Varkevia besides. Only the Kaithans dared to enter the wasteland, but the tales I’d heard said not even they had ever crossed the blight’s heart. To think the blight had been created not when the gods made the world, but on a demon’s whim, and that such a horror might well happen again—I couldn’t get my head around the idea. It was too big in its awfulness.

  Marten said, “You speak to Kiran as if the outcome would be different with the weapon in your hands. But it doesn’t matter which faction of demonkind holds the weapon, does it? If it’s used by any of you, mass death will result.”

  He wasn’t looking at the demon but at Kiran. So was Lena, both of them so intent they weren’t even blinking. In a blaze of understanding, I knew one reason Marten had demanded this chat. He knew we didn’t trust him. He hadn’t wanted confirmation of what he already knew, but for Kiran to hear from the demon’s own tongue how dangerous Ashkiza’s weapon was.

  But I can’t turn aside from seeking it, Kiran protested to me, frustration and fear hot behind the words. The demon is right about one thing. I can’t let Ruslan take it in my stead.

  I’d guess Marten is hoping to convince you to leave the weapon alone and kill Ruslan before he can take it. That didn’t sound like a bad plan, despite how little I trusted Marten.

  But how? Kiran said, each word stark. I was counting on the weapon to defeat him.

  The demon said, sweetly reasonable, “Your pet mage lies, cousin. Not all of us care so little for your realm as the ssarez-kai. Ashkiza used her creation the once, to birth into fire those lineages she found worthy and destroy the rest. But she retained a certain fondness for your mud-lands, though she was the one who led us from them. She decreed that none should use her creation until she found a different source to draw upon; after all, there are more realms than those of mud and fire. She put her weapon where she believed none could touch it while she journeyed to explore wilds you have never imagined. Yet if any rat is clever enough to sneak past her defenses in her long absence, it is your master. The weapon is no longer safe where it is. I wish only to return it to Ashkiza and earn her favor, perhaps even her kin-bond, should she judge me worthy. You understand something of what it means to be outcast and kinless, though that is far less a burden for your kind than mine. After so long alone, the chance to gain a new lineage, and that of the Survivor herself—I would not use the weapon and throw that chance away.”

  Oh, the demon was clever and no mistake. All this sob story about how it wanted kin again was perfectly designed to
strike at Kiran’s weak spots. Sure enough, part of him was softening, wondering if he dared believe the demon was speaking truth.

  I snorted, and said aloud, “Do other demons fall for this kind of honey trap? ‘Oh, give me the weapon, and I won’t use it’—yeah, right.” To Kiran, I added, Don’t let it lead you along by telling you what you want to hear. Listen to your gut. Which was screaming at him that demons couldn’t be trusted. For once, I was glad of the terror welling up from his shattered past.

  The demon said, “The children of fire have no need for lies. I have always told you the truth, cousin. Can your pet mage say the same?”

  Marten said sharply, “Kiran. You cannot trust this creature.”

  But Kiran was tying the demon’s words back to his own knowledge of magic, the concepts flickering over each other too fast for me to follow. Something was bothering him, something about sources.

  He said to Marten, “Instead I should trust you? If the weapon is so dangerous it should never be used, how is it that it fuels Alathia’s wards and no one lies dead?”

  Lena twitched and looked at Marten. The bleak darkness in her gaze—abruptly, I understood that not all her anger and distress was over how Kiran and I had hurt him. He’d told her something about the wards. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be anything good.

  She may not think it good, Kiran said to me. But I have to know the truth. If there is any way I can use this weapon against Ruslan… Eagerness rose in him, fierce as a swooping hawk’s.

  Marten surely read that desire. He hesitated, glancing at the sand-figure. The demon was silent, unsettlingly so. I had the distinct impression that it, too, was hoping for an answer to Kiran’s question.

  Lena spoke. “Alathia’s method is no good solution. But Kiran, end this summoning and vow to us that you’ll make no alliance with this demon or any other, and afterward Marten will tell you everything he knows of the weapon, holding nothing back.”

  I hadn’t even known Marten could glare like that. Apparently Lena’s offer wasn’t any part of his plan. But she held his gaze; maybe she was speaking to him mage-fashion, because his expression of outraged refusal slowly smoothed away.

  “Do as she says,” he said to Kiran. “I will tell you what I know.”

  The sand-figure made a noise like claws scraping over stone. “Don’t be foolish, cousin. Without my aid you will fail. I have been patient; far more so than you deserve. But I can wait no longer for you to see reason. Come to me now and enjoy my favor. Or deny me and force me to use harsher measures. One way or another, you will walk the labyrinth for me.”

  I could’ve told the demon that was the exact wrong path to take. Kiran had been torn, wanting answers from Marten, yet worried he couldn’t trust those answers or take on Ruslan without demonic aid. Now his mind blazed with rebellion.

  “Your threats prove you can’t be trusted. I will not bring you Ashkiza’s weapon.”

  “Will you not?” the demon said, poisonously amused. “You forget; I have seen your mind. I know your weakness.”

  The sand-shape blasted apart, grit spattering us all. I choked and spat, pushing in wild reflex with the Taint, but nothing was there. The glow of the armband’s garnets winked out. The distant gully was empty once again. That faint, nagging whisper in my head had vanished.

  “Where’d the demon go?” The sudden surge of my fear was as deep and frantic as Kiran’s. All I could think of was Cara, Melly, and Teo. I’d sent them away from the earth-current to keep them safe, but right now no place felt far enough. “Lena—the others, what if the demon—”

  “I sense their soulfires,” Lena said. “They’re waiting right where they should be, and nothing seems wrong. We should keep to our original plan and summon them to join us. However, I suggest we climb to the highest possible point on this ridge. If this demon can call creatures like the hunters the ssarez-kai unleashed on Kiran…”

  The memories of the hunt spilling out of Kiran were terrible. I grabbed Marten’s arm; he was still in bad enough shape he’d need help negotiating the steep slope to the ridgecrest’s highest point, which was sheltered by ranks of far larger boulders than those near us now.

  “Don’t think you’re weaseling out of your bargain. Talk as we go.”

  Marten dug in his heels and called to Lena, “Destroy the charm first.”

  I should watch over her. Kiran was worried the demon might spring some trap using the charm. Much as I approved his caution, I had to stop myself from snatching after him when he left my side. I felt so fucking helpless with the Tainted part of my mind gone dead.

  Gods all damn it, I’d survived ten long years and plenty of nasty situations without the Taint. Stupidest thing I could do was get all dependent on it again. Hadn’t I said I’d prove I could stay in control?

  I hustled Marten up the ridge, weaving between looming boulders. Lena and Kiran soon caught up.

  Lena said, “The link is destroyed beyond use, but the charm isn’t the only means the demon might use to overhear us.”

  She was looking right at me. Kiran said to her, “I cast safeguards around his bond to the confluence when I first took him into the demon realm. If the demon tries to break through them, we’ll feel it and I’ll defend him.” He turned to me. “Stay close. If you feel any tingling or prickling as you did when Lena cast on you, yell for me. Immediately.”

  “I’ll yell my fool head off, believe me.” Even with my help, Marten was moving about as fast as a crippled snail. Worse was the hollow of Cara and Melly’s absence. Why had I thought it a good idea to split up? No matter how impossible Kiran thought it was for the demon to reach them, I feared we’d overlooked something. I know your weakness… What was the demon planning?

  To my further annoyance, Marten refused to say a gods-cursed word until we reached the absolute highest point on the ridge, and Kiran went through a whole rigamarole of vowing while Lena was in blood contact with him so she could vouch he was telling the truth. By the time they finished all that, the boulders hemming us in had gone purple with the onset of twilight. Cara and the rest shouldn’t be long in arriving—if they were truly all right as Lena kept claiming. But I’d had enough of waiting.

  I growled at Marten, “Any more stalling, and I’ll kick you into that gully and let the demon eat the rest of your soul.”

  Kiran’s sharp look said he thought I was being too harsh. I didn’t care. We’d just given up our best hope of destroying Ruslan. Marten had damn well better share something worthwhile in exchange.

  Marten leaned against a boulder’s bulging side like his legs might give way otherwise. “I never imagined a day would come when I would so thoroughly shatter my oaths.”

  Lena gently pressed him down to sitting. “We vowed to sacrifice anything Alathia required of us. Your honor and your future are a far more bitter sacrifice than life or even health, and I well know the pain of it—but Marten, I believe it necessary.”

  Kiran added, far more politely than I would’ve, “I’m sorry, Marten, but I must know how Alathia can safely use the weapon. Did you source it in some other realm as the demon said Ashkiza hoped to do?”

  Marten said, “No. In ours. Our own people, that is. We have no great confluence as you do in Ninavel, no vast reserves of earth-power. Perhaps you’ve heard that every citizen of Alathia gives over a sample of blood at birth for the Council’s records. The Council uses those samples to bind every Alathian into spells linked to the artifact—weapon—whatever you wish to call it. The wards are powered with our own lives. A tiny amount from each, to form a great whole.”

  I couldn’t hold silence. “You’re telling us your wards are powered with blood magic?” No wonder Lena was so upset. Every Alathian mage I’d ever met recoiled in pious horror at the very idea of fueling magic with other people’s lives. To think the Council had been doing just that all this time…

  Marten snapped, “It’s not blood magic! No lives are sacrificed before their time. No effect at all is felt by the untalented, the am
ount taken is so tiny.”

  Kiran said, “But when they die, from natural causes or otherwise—is it not so that their deaths provide your wards even more power?”

  “I hadn’t time to make a study of it before my arrest.” But Marten’s averted eyes proved he knew what a weaselly excuse that was.

  In bitter victory, I said, “I knew you were no different from Ninavel. Blood magic outlawed to save your citizens—right! Let me guess, the Council outlawed it so nobody could challenge them.”

  “They outlawed it so no one would misuse the ward system,” Marten said, glaring. “Imagine what someone as greedy and ambitious as Ruslan could do with the ability to draw power from hundreds of thousands of people. Or even Ruslan himself—if he gets his hands on this artifact, he won’t need magefire to kill everyone in Alathia. All he needs to do is draw power.”

  I didn’t protest that Ruslan’s vow would stop him. I knew better than anyone how little protection that vow gave. “What makes you think every Council member is so purehearted?”

  “Because none of them can touch the artifact,” Marten said. “Nobody can. The seven captains of the Watch are told there is a location we must above all else defend: a chamber deep in the heart of Alathia’s Marrowvale Hills. After Lena told me of her suspicions about Denarell and demons, I went there in search of the truth. I was able to enter the chamber, although not undetected. Before the Council came for me, I learned enough. Within the chamber is a seamless veil of magic as powerful as our border wards, but unkeyed—no human may pass. Within the veil stands an arch made of anchorstone such as we use for our border gates; and through that arch I saw a blaze of ever-shifting fire. I believe the arch is a gate to the demon’s labyrinth. I suspect the only way to reach that gate is to step sideways into the demon realm to pass the veil of wards. But it would seem no demon can enter the gate, the labyrinth’s energies are so poisonous to them.”

  “Whereas I could,” said Kiran.

  “Yes,” said Lena. “But do you see why you must not? One mishap with the artifact, and every Alathian citizen will die.”