Order of the Fire Box Set

by P. E. Padilla

  “We may be able to work that out,” Molara said. “But back to the point. My spectral peeps work. That makes me very happy.”

  “Spectral…peeps?” Wilfred asked.

  “That is what our illustrious inventor calls her new gift to humankind,” Kate said as she rolled her eyes.

  “Catchy, right?” Molara asked.

  The only response she got was silence.

  23

  The four spent several hours working on the plan for how the Infirium members would communicate with each other. By the time they were done, it was written out on several sheets of paper, complete with contacts for each person and how they were to relay messages to the others, especially to Kate, Molara, and Peiros.

  “That was brilliant thinking, Wilfred,” Molara said. “Having each person only interact with two others. This way, we can make sure everyone is safe without having to meet in large groups. It was just what we needed.”

  Wilfred wouldn’t meet the beautiful Purple’s eyes, focusing them instead on the papers on the table. “It wasn’t too tough. I got the idea from how some of the Blue squads check up on each other during a battle. At least, it’s how they used to do that. I think only my squad still cares enough to try, and that’s mainly because of our sergeant.”

  Kate frowned. It seemed that everyone’s attitude had gotten worse. Well, almost everyone’s. “Still, it was good thinking. Now we have a viable plan, and the only thing each person needs to remember is the two they interact directly with. If one person suddenly stops communicating, at least two people will know immediately. Good job, Wilfred.”

  The young man blushed, but also smiled. He wasn’t used to being praised for his hard work, and Kate knew he did work hard. She wasn’t praising him simply to make him feel good, however. His idea had solved a sticky problem they had. He had proven his right to be in the planning session.

  “So Molara,” Kate said as she turned to the dark-haired woman. “Do you plan on making more of the…uh, peeps?”

  Molara’s smile made Kate reconsider using the ridiculous name. “I do, when I get a chance. Now that I’ve worked out how to make them, they shouldn’t take long, but I have a lot of other more pressing tasks since we have two that are functional already.”

  “Oh, do you want me to give you back the pair you lent me?”

  “No, silly. I didn’t lend those to you. I made them for you. They’re yours. I would appreciate it if you continued to use them and let me know how it works out.”

  “I will absolutely do so.”

  “And please share with us what you find about the movement of demons, or if you actually spot one,” Peiros said.

  “Definitely,” Kate agreed. “If we can figure out where they’re going, and when, maybe we can figure out who is behind this mess. Attitudes seem to be getting worse and doing so faster all the time. I think the demons’ ability to push thoughts into our minds is to blame, but how, when we have all been dealing with it since we got to Gateskeep? Maybe they have come up with something new, a better way to affect many people at once. Some of the things I have seen and heard don’t seem possible in rational people.”

  “I agree,” Molara said. “Unfortunately, I don’t get out much, so this other pair seems a waste for me to keep here.” She tapped on the case sitting on the table to the side of the papers. “What I really need is someone who is out there, someone who maybe the enemy doesn’t know about. It has to be someone who can blend in and seem harmless. Wilfred? Would you like to help out?”

  The young man jumped when Molara said his name. “What? Help? Yes, of course, I want to help. I want to do anything I can. I often feel like I don’t do enough.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way.” Molara slid the case with the other pair of glasses in them toward Wilfred. “You’ve seen Kate use them. You simply put them on and look around.”

  “Wait.” He put his hands up as if she was going to throw the glasses at him. “You want me to use one of two priceless magical items?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But what if I break them?”

  “Please don’t.”

  “What if someone sees me use them?”

  “Try not to let that happen.”

  “What if—”

  “Wilfred,” Kate said softly. “Do you want to help or not? If you don’t feel you’re up to the task or if you simply don’t want to do it, say so. We will understand. No one is forcing you to do anything.”

  “No, I don’t…I mean it’s not…that is, it seems a lot of responsibility. Are you sure you want me to be responsible for a magical treasure of that sort?”

  Kate laughed and pushed his shoulder. “Tell me something, Wilfred. If the glasses sit here on the table, how valuable are they to our cause?”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it away from his face. “I guess not very.”

  “Then you see that there is only value if they are taken out into Gateskeep and used to find out if and where demons are roaming.”

  “I suppose.”

  Molara took up the conversation. “Then the question is simple. Do you want to help the Infirium by using the glasses to help us track the whereabouts of demons?”

  Wilfred opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He closed his eyes briefly and took a breath. Opening them again he answered, “Yes.”

  “Bravo,” Peiros said, putting his hands together in front of him and bowing to the young man.

  “Wonderful,” Kate said. “Be careful not to break them—the case will protect them from most things—and try not to let people see you wearing them. Especially since there will be two identical pairs out there, we don’t want the enemy deducing their purpose. Report directly to one of the three of us when you see anything. It would probably be better not to record your sightings anywhere, but if you don’t think you can remember them clearly, you can jot down notes. Try to use some kind of code so that they won’t tell anyone anything if found.”

  Wilfred nodded at everything Kate said and gingerly took the case from the table.

  Molara pointed to the case. “You can probably fit the peeps’ case in your belt pouch, but it also has a loop sewn onto the back of it so you can attach it directly to your belt if you prefer. Thank you for helping us in this, Wilfred.”

  His eyes turned liquid and he looked down at the table. “No, thank you for letting me do it, for making me feel important, as if I’m part of something.”

  Molara reached over and gave him a one-armed hug.

  “You are part of something, Wilfred Gaylord Lisney,” Peiros said. “You are an important part of trying to save all of humankind. Do not forget that you have just as much right to proudly serve as any other.”

  “Thank you,” Wilfred said in a whisper.

  Kate patted her friend on the back. He would do a fine job, she was sure. She hoped he would not put himself in danger. She would talk more with him about it later, when the happiness of being included in their search faded a little. She didn’t want to ruin his moment.

  Over the next week and a half, Kate and Wilfred used their peeps carefully so as to avoid notice. They coordinated their efforts so they could systematically scan several parts of the city.

  Kate tried using the glasses from atop the wall, but the distance was too far to pinpoint where the trails were. She was, however, able to detect large groupings of demon trails from up high, making a mental note to check those areas at the street level for better resolution.

  Each time Kate made her surveys, she visited Molara and noted her findings on sheets of paper Molara had set aside for the information. The Purple kept them in her own rooms, so even those who had access to the general area of the secret section of the library couldn’t see them. Not that they were concerned about that, but they wanted the information to be in the safest place they knew, and that was in Molara’s area.

  A picture was beginning to form from the trails she and Wilfred found. Kate had an idea about them but did
n’t want to say anything until they gathered more information.

  “You and Wilfred have been doing a great job in using the peeps,” Molara told her one day when Kate stopped in to report the day’s findings. “Any problems with the peeps themselves, or any improvements you can think of that need to be made?”

  “Improvements?” Kate said, sitting across the table from her friend. “They are already as perfect as they can be. If you want improvements, perhaps you should not do as good a job on your first try as you typically do.”

  “Oh, pshaw. There is always room for improvement.”

  Not with you, my friend, Kate thought. You are very nearly perfect.

  “Oh!” Molara’s sudden exclamation made Kate jump. “I almost forgot. Peiros and I think we have the text of the kellmanach xurki passage translated. The important one that we’ve been concentrating on, not the auxiliary passages. Or what we believe to be auxiliary passages.”

  “You do? That’s fantastic. What does it say?”

  Molara started to bite her lower lip again, something she rarely did. “It still doesn’t make a lot of sense, but maybe with your fresh eyes—gorgeous green eyes, I might add—you can figure it out.”

  Kate felt her face flush. Why? She and Molara joked like this all the time.

  “I’ll do my best with your gorgeous ice-blue eyes watching me and making me nervous.”

  Molara broke out into that fantastic smile she seemed only to flash occasionally. It was much more smile than her normal, still fantastic, smile.

  “Ok, here it is:

  After an age and an age and half an age

  The creatures of the light will wage a war

  The battle joined will be decided

  At the gate, where the darklings and the glorious fight

  For a time the army must wait

  The moon to renew thrice

  After the loss of the lord and vassal

  The weapons of the enemy and by the enemy

  Will prove to be of benefit

  On that day will the plans conclude

  No more will be the soft lighted bodies of the enemy

  That day will be the glory of the darkness.

  “The meter is better in the original language. It’s as close to poetry that guttural language gets, I think. You’ll have to ask Peiros to read it for you. My demon speak is horrible. This passage, though, gives me the sense of a dirge, with a slow cadence. Anyway, that’s not important, but I think the passage is.”

  Molara pushed the piece of paper she was reading from across the table to Kate.

  The Purple continued, “It’s fascinating how the language seems to change the meaning of the same word based on the context. It was one of the things that was most difficult to figure out. Anyway, I think this is about as accurate as we can get for now.”

  “Interesting,” Kate said.

  “The other times we’ve found where kellmanach xurki—glory of darkness—are mentioned, we think those are just referring to this main passage. We haven’t spent much time on them yet, wanting to finish this one. I just wish it made more sense.”

  “There is a lot there, it seems.”

  “Yeah. I mean, the part about the ages, that most likely doesn’t matter. Who knows how demons reckon time? I think they live forever unless we kill them. Or unless they kill each other.

  “The part about the war, I think the creatures of the light refer to us. You’ve told me Hell is dimly lit all the time. I could easily see how they’d call us that.

  “The parts about the gate and battle are pretty evident. I’m not sure who the darklings and the glorious are—in fact, I’m not positive we even translated those correctly—but the next section seems important.

  “Did you see a moon when you were in Hell?”

  Kate thought about it, trying to picture the sky when she was trapped in Hell. “No, I don’t think so, but the sky seemed obscured most of the time, like there were clouds or fog or something. I’m not even entirely sure we weren’t down deep under the rock somewhere.”

  “I see. Well, this prophecy, which it seems likely it is, sets a time frame of three cycles of the moon. If they don’t have one, then maybe they’re referring to ours. That would be three months. But three months until what? And from what?

  “And then there’s that bit about the weapon of the enemy being useful? I don’t know. The glory of darkness sounds ominous. It seems likely it’s talking about a great victory over us, the soft lighted bodies. That’s about all I can gather from it. What do you think?”

  Kate read over the passage again. “I think you did a marvelous job in translating something when you had nothing to start with. I wouldn’t know how to begin to go about doing that.”

  “Thank you, but I was looking more for help than for praise.”

  “Yes, yes,” Kate said, tapping the paper with her finger. “I agree with you about all you said. Two parts of it stick out for me more than the others. The first is that the army must wait the, what, perhaps three months? The other is about the weapon of the enemy.

  “The waiting will be from the fall of the lord and the vassal. Hmm.”

  Molara threw her hands up. “I know. Which lord? Are they talking about the king or some lord in Brasea? And what does some vassal have to do with anything?”

  “I think it could be something else. What if it’s talking about a demon lord?”

  Molara scoffed. “A demon lord? What difference would it make if a demon lord…?” The little gem on Molara’s forehead swayed as she shook her head at herself. “Could it be?”

  “I think it is talking about Thozrixith and his vassal, the mage Arkith.”

  “Both of whom you killed, what was it, two months ago?”

  Kate nodded. “A bit more, which means we have less than a month until the glory of the darkness. We may have postponed the final battle by killing the lord and the mage, but it appears we were also fulfilling prophecy. Demon prophecy. If that isn’t enough to make you shiver, I don’t know what is.”

  “Yes, yes it makes sense. Three months from when you killed the demon lord and his pet mage. If this is true, we don’t have much time.”

  Kate blew out a breath and slumped in her chair.

  “What?” Molara asked. “What is it?”

  “I realized just now that even if prophecy doesn’t work or isn’t real, it doesn’t matter. If the demons are using this to guide their actions, their belief will still cause them to attack with all they’ve got.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “And that part about the weapon of the enemy,” Kate continued, “it could mean using the Order against itself. It all fits. This may have been their plan all along. They could have even manipulated things to sacrifice Thozrixith and Arkith. They did allow us to sneak into Hell, after all. Things higher than a demon lord may be pulling the strings on all these many puppets. Us included.”

  Molara slumped in her own chair. “I’m afraid you might be right. We’ll have to tell Peiros about this and try to figure out how to prevent it. Do we try to nullify the weapon, or do we somehow work on making sure the gate is secure, or is there something else we need to do?”

  “One thing is for sure,” Kate said. “We need to find a solution, and soon. We’re running out of time.”

  24

  During the week after she and Molara discussed the demon prophecy, Kate hardly had time to eat, let alone report in with the Purple. Every time she thought to go to the secret section of the library, Sergeant Seeth would have something else she needed to do. She only made it to Molara three times in seven days.

  “I only have a few minutes,” Kate told her friend. “I’m on another extra assignment to stand at the gate for no apparent reason. They have been running me ragged and locking down the barracks at night for some reason. I think they’re just trying to keep me from communicating with you and the others.”

  “No,” Molara said. “It’s not just you. I’m hearing the same thing from everyone
. It seems that they are trying to keep us suppressed and isolated. We can still pass messages quickly through our chain of communication, but we can’t even get two or three together to discuss anything in any length.”

  “They know we’re onto them, then?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe it was part of their plan to weaken our ability to act together when the time draws near for the final battle. We have less than three weeks now.”

  “What will we do?”

  Molara blew out a breath and growled. “I don’t know. I’ve been working on the demon text alone—among my other projects—but haven’t found anything useful yet. I made a few more pairs of the spectral peeps but haven’t been able to hand them out yet.”

  “Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. I don’t see them allowing me any more time than I’ve had lately, but I’ll do what I can.”

  “I will definitely let you know if I figure something out, Kate. Be careful out there. I hardly think they’re isolating everyone without thinking about how to dispose of us. I’m afraid we may be overmatched right now.”

  “We’ll figure something out. I need to go, or they’ll come looking for me. I’ll visit when I can. Keep using that big brain of yours. I know you’ll come up with something.”

  Molara gave her a smile and a small wave as Kate rushed out the door.

  She didn’t want to alarm Molara, but she was scared to death. It seemed much too easy for the entire Order to turn against them so quickly. Someone was trying to keep them apart, but it could have just as easily been members of the Infirium dropping dead for no apparent reason. Would the unnamed enemy resort to that in the end? Death had been used to deter them before, but it was obvious even to whoever was responsible for the attacks that the Infirium would not give in so easily.

  All thoughts of her future fled as she navigated through the crowds to report to Major Travada.

  In a fit of unpredictable action, Travada had notified her through Sergeant Seeth that she was to report to him at fourth bell in the afternoon. She’d had just enough time to run to Molara and tell her what had been happening. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell her friend about being summoned to the major’s office. It probably wasn’t important. She hoped there wasn’t a squad of guards waiting there to execute her or to discharge her as they did with Captain Achard.