A Single Candle

by S. J. Varengo

  But at that moment she heard his laughter. It was much nearer than it had been the first time. Immediately she called out to him. “Surok! I am here, Between. And I know this is where you go when you’re hiding like a scared little girl from the forces of the Light. So what do you say that you and I stop all the dancing and face one another?”

  “I thought you liked dancing,” the demon answered, as his voice seemed to draw nearer still.

  “No! You do not get to speak to me like that!” she replied sternly. “My likes and dislikes are off limits to you.”

  Laughter. Cruel, sharp-edged laughter in response. It sounded close enough that she felt she should be able to see him.

  And then she did. His form was still quite far off, but was huge already. She moved with purpose in his direction as he strode toward her. A moment later, for the first time, they were face to face.

  “I will speak to you in whatever manner and on whatever topic I desire,” he said and he looked down at her. Cerah knew Surok was colossal, but now, standing mere yards from him, she felt like an insect on the floor, where any footstep might mean the end. Surok, apparently, was noticing the same thing.

  “How could that foolish Mind from Above think that one so tiny could defeat me?” he said, his laughter booming. Surok’s voice was ever wicked and icy, but after so much silence it seemed deafening to Cerah.

  She was not about to appear the least bit intimidated, however. “Not, ‘defeat,’ Surok. ‘Destroy.’ It falls to me to destroy you utterly.”

  The monster’s expression did not change, except for the burning red eyes, which widened ever so slightly. “Do you like the dress my mother made for you?” he asked, clearly deflecting. “When she pulled you into the Under Plane she felt that flimsy armor you were wearing looked to constrictive. The next time you see her, you should thank her for that.”

  “Changing the subject? Did I hit a nerve? I don’t care to discuss fashion with you, demon. I would rather talk about ending you.”

  High above Cerah’s head, Surok lifted his hand to his mouth, as though he was yawning. “How tedious you are. ‘I’m going to destroy you, Surok. I’m going to end you!’ Don’t you ever want to talk about anything else? Do you like games?”

  Cerah’s laughter burst out of her before she could squelch it. “That was funny,” she admitted. “Very well. We can talk about games. When I was younger as I was quite good a Rugata.”

  “What, the ring-tossing game? Where you try to stick your circle atop your opponent’s pointy hat? Rubbish. I’m speaking of real sport!”

  “Oh, and what sport do you prefer?”

  Without warning Surok fired a crackling bolt of energy at Cerah, who dodged it at the last possible second. “Murder! Now there’s a game!” the demon shouted, sending a second jolt screaming down toward her. Again she rolled away as it tore into the ground, turning the hard soil to glass where it stuck.

  As she moved, she decided the time for conversation was over. She pointed a finger in Surok’s direction and said “Singe.” From her fingertip came a ball of fire which was easily twenty feet in diameter, far larger than any blast spell cast by any wizard, and all done without a staff to send off the bolt. It struck Surok mid-body, and he was engulfed in flame from the waist down. Cerah was close enough to hear the crackling of his black skin and smell his sizzling flesh as the fire burned. Surok let out a scream of pain, but then spoke a word in a language Cerah did not know. As he did a coating of ice formed upon the area affected by Cerah’s spell, and the flames were quenched. Cerah could see that though the fire was out, the demon was still in pain.

  “Did you call that spell ‘singe?’” he asked her, pain clearly painting his already horrid voice. “Rather ironic.”

  So, he wanted to talk again. Stalling, Cerah realized.

  “Yes,” she said as she regained her feet. “I call it ‘singe’ because it’s my little fire spell. Would you care to see ‘cinder?’”

  Cerah circled to the demon’s right side. She noticed that he’d used his left hand to send the voltaic charges toward her. She also noticed that he was moving slowly as he attempted to turn to take away the advantage the maneuver gave her. The icing spell may have put out her flames, but it was also restricting his movement.

  “Actually, I’d rather show you this!” Surok’s arm moved, with this hand clenched as if to punch her. But when the arm was fully extended, a blast of cerulean, fist-shaped power flew towards her, like a boulder of energy. She dodged it, but when it hit the ground it sounded like an explosion and it left a large crater. “Why don’t you hold still, you jumping grizzo!” the demon bellowed when his magic missed its mark yet again.

  Now Cerah decided to play act. Raising her hand to her mouth just as Surok had, she pantomimed a loud yawn of her own. However, with the same hand she quickly made a gesture from high to low, as though she were slitting open a fish to clean it for dinner. “Rend!” she said.

  Surok again howled as a long incision opened from his chest to his groin, and black blood began to gush out. Again Surok spoke in his infernal language. Cerah expected to see the wound close, but instead she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head quickly to see what it was, not wanting to take her attention off Surok for long.

  It was one of the shimmerings that she’d witnessed several times while traveling through Between. This one seemed larger than the others, and it glinted more brightly. She thought maybe she’d overlooked it earlier and decided to ignore it, but as she turned to focus fully upon Surok once more, she saw that his huge foot was moving swiftly toward her. Although she had avoided all his magical attacks she was unable to dart out of the path of his giant black appendage in time, and he kicked her in the direction of glint. She toppled into it and felt herself once more being transported to another realm. As she passed out of Between she heard Surok laugh, though less heartily than before.

  Then, again, there was nothing.

  Ban was drunk.

  He’d been in the hold of the ship long enough to eat and sleep several times, but today he’d been very thirsty and since the fallen keg of ale was all he had to drink, there could be only one outcome.

  Because his mother had made sure he avoided this sort of vice, he had no experience with alcohol and he did not know what a safe amount was. So, he drank until he stopped being thirsty. But long before that had happened, he’d had too much.

  The experience was not unpleasant, he’d decided. He felt jolly and at ease. It made him feel like singing, which he knew better than to do, or perhaps like dancing, which he didn’t have room to do. So instead he just lay in the small space that existed between his home among the wicker baskets and the other stacks of goods nearby. He lay there and thought about profound things.

  Girls smell so much better than we boys do, he thought. I know some, who can afford it, put perfume on themselves. But even girls without perfume smell nice. I like girls. Girls are wonderful. And they smell nice. Did I say that already? So do those pink flowers that mother loves so much. I remember when I was young I used to pick them for her, before I found out how much easier it was just to steal her a bouquet. She never scolded me when I brought them to her, even after I started lifting them.

  “Do you know what else?” he said aloud, not realizing he’d begun to do so. “Dragons smell pretty nice too. I didn’t expect them to. Most of the animals I’ve been around stink to the Next Plane. But that wizard who told me I couldn’t join the army had his dragon standing nearby and when I walked by it, it smelled really nice. Like spices or something.”

  Although Ban and his mother couldn’t afford to buy the expensive spices that made food taste so special, he’d spent plenty of time in the market square and he’d been by the stalls that sold the stuff. Often, he would just stand nearby and inhale deeply, reveling in the scents as they mixed with one another. It was one of his favorite things to do.

  “I’ll bet there are huge spice stands in Harundy,” he said,
still aloud. “I’m supposed to find the general, but he can wait till I find a great big spice booth and just stand there, sniffing to my heart’s content.” The thought of that tickled him, and he laughed, far too loudly.

  “Oh, cover me in spices when my dying time is nigh, then light the pyre and watch me as I’m lifted to the sky!” he sang, having forgotten that he’d decided only a moment before that doing so was ill-advised. He started to sing the second verse of the old folk-tune when he heard the hatch bolt opening. Immediately he put both hands over his mouth and fell silent.

  “I’m tellin’ ya, I heard someone talkin’ in this hold! Singin’ even!” came the now familiar voice of the sailor he called “Crane-man.”

  “And I’m tellin’ ya, yer nuts! We loaded in this cargo ourselves! Do ya recall loadin’ in any people? Cuz I sure don’t!” shouted the second, who Ban had named “Big-words,” because the other had teased him about that back on the dock in Tarteel.

  “Well o’ course we loaded it ourselves. We’re all there is!”

  Even in his impaired state, Ban realized this was good news. If the small ship’s crew indeed consisted solely of these two half-wits he had a better chance of getting through the voyage alive. But first he had to get them to reseal the hatch.

  “And regardless, I heard someone singin’,” Crane-man continued. “Now are ya gonna hold the lamp and go down with me so check it out?”

  “Listen, if ya want to poke around in that stinky hold, then be my guest. I ain’t climbin’ down,” said Big-words.

  “Yer useless. Why yer mother didn’t just drown ya at birth I’ll never know! At least hand me over the lantern.”

  “Here take it. I’ll even lower the ladder for ya.”

  Ban could see the lantern’s light playing off the ceiling of the hold as Crane-man reached it down through the hatch, and he heard the rope ladder unroll and hit the deck below the opening. A moment later he heard another sound: that of Crane-man cursing as he lost his grip on the ladder and fell eight feet to the hold’s deck, followed by the sound of the lantern shattering.

  “Perfect, ya damn fool!” shouted Big-words from above. “Now ya set the cargo on fire. I hope ya burn right along with it!”

  “Shut up and fill a bucket, ya wizzle-worm!” Crane man screamed back. “My breeches are burnin’.”

  Ban could hear Big-words grumbling that he shouldn’t have to save his stupid partner when he’d told him not to go into the hold in the first place. As he groused his voice grew more distant, then Ban heard a splash, followed by more cursing as he ran back to the hold. A moment later he heard a second splash as the bucket was poured from the hatch.

  “Great, ya put out the cargo, but my pants are still on fire!”

  “Hold yer krasts. I’ll get another one.” As Big-words hurried to refill the bucket, Ban could hear Crane-man moving. From the sounds, aside from doing a lot of screaming, it appeared he was attempting to climb back up the rope ladder. An instant later he heard him curse with even more force. Big-words returned just then.

  “Are ya serious? Now the ladder’s on fire too!”

  “Pour the bucket, for Pilka’s sake!”

  “Keep climbin’! That ladder’s burning fast.”

  “Pour the bloody bucket!”

  Another splash, then: “Ya missed me! Ya didn’t get one drop on me!”

  “Shut yer face and climb!” admonished Big-words.

  Crane-man kept screaming as his pants, and now the ladder to which he clutched, continued to blaze. A moment later the screams grew more distant and Ban heard yet another splash, much larger than those that had preceded it.

  “Feel better?” he heard Big-words ask.

  “Shuddup and throw me a line!”

  “Maybe ya should stay in the water for a while. Ya know, to make sure your breeches are out.”

  Ban realized that Crane-man had jumped overboard to extinguish the flames, but his partner’s ill-timed humor was not lightening his mood. “Ya missed yer calling ya great zankrat! Ya shoulda joined up with a minstrel show!”

  “Why? Cuz I’m so funny?” Big-words said, laughing hysterically at his own cleverness.

  “No, cuz then you’d be rollin’ cross country in a painted wagon with a big fat bearded lady for a wife and ya’d be outta my hair!”

  “Ya don’t have much hair left after that fiasco and disaster too!”

  “There ya go with your big words again. Just lower a line, so I can climb up there and throttle ya!”

  “Be nice, or ya can stay where ya are. I can pilot this tub to Harundy just fine without ya!”

  “Alright. I won’t kill ya. The line, man, the line!” Crane-man shouted.

  “Here,” said Big-words.

  Throughout this whole exchange, Ban had been fighting desperately to hold back his laughter. These two are better than a minstrel show, he thought. So urgent was his struggle that his ribs hurt, but he kept one hand firmly clapped across his mouth, and with the other he pinched his nose, lest a snort escape via that route. Just as he began to regain his composure he heard the two men from the hatch opening once more.

  “Well, ya won’t be climbin’ down there again, now the ladder’s burnt,” said Big-words. “I told ya to let it go. Even if there’s someone stowed away, so what? What’s he gonna do, climb out and take over the boat? Become a pirate on the high seas?”

  “No one rides this tub fer free!” declared Crane-man.

  “There’s no one bloody down there, fer the last time! Wouldja seal the hatch and get yer scrawny behind back to the helm before we plow into a reef!” said Big-words.

  “Oh, alright,” said Crane-man. But just before he slammed the hatch shut he shouted down into the hold, “I know yer down there, tick-worm. When we git to Harundy and unload, I’ll give ya the throttling of yer life!”

  The door crashed shut, but as the latch was set, Ban could here Big-words continue to harangue his partner. “Yer awful throttley today. More hands on the wheel and less flappin’ jaws!”

  “Up yer keister!” shouted Crane-man.

  “Oh! Who’s usin’ big words now?”

  Ban could no longer hold the laughter back. In his current state, pretty much everything seemed funny, but the banter of the two sailors was more than he could handle. Fortunately, they didn’t hear him and reopen the hatch. Ban started to feel very sleepy, and a little sick to his stomach, so he crawled back into his wicker nest and prepared to settle for the night.

  Just as he drifted off he heard Big-words bellowing one final time. “Harundy by sunrise, if ya don’t wreck us before then.” That was more good news. He fell asleep and dreamt of the beautiful sorceress on the gold dragon, and the man with Ban’s own face painted onto the body of a strongman.

  6

  Return to the Frozen South

  Trakkas was blur of chaotic activity. Slurr watched as units moved from one location to another, while the city’s citizens scrambled frantically among them. He turned to Yarren. “We need order, fast.”

  The young wizard nodded his head. He waved to Kern and Parnasus, who were conversing not far away. The elder wizards came quickly.

  “This is not good, Slurr” said Kern. “The Trakkasians are at a near panic.”

  “I’m afraid the panic is full-blown,” Parnasus observed. “The army is not helping either. Why are they so disorganized, General?”

  Slurr shook his head, “I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.” He strode purposefully to the first armed warrior he could reach, and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “What in the name of the deepest Under Plane is going on here, soldier?” he shouted.

  The hapless soldier, a man of about thirty, looked up at Slurr’s face, his eyes wide with fear. “You’re even bigger than they said you were,” was all he managed to say.

  Slurr fought the urge to smile at the warrior’s completely inappropriate response. “I asked you a question,” he said, his voice unconsciously softening slightly.

  “The a
rmy has received news from Stygia. The people there have joined up with Surok.”

  Slurr wondered how the news had reached Trakkas before he had. Only the other wizards would have known this and the general was confident that none from among the ranks of the riders would have leaked the information.

  “Where did you hear this?” he asked, his voice hardening once more. The last thing he needed was having his own troops stampeding through the city alongside the frightened citizens.

  “I heard it from my brother, sir, and he heard it from our captain who said a carrier-yst had dropped a note with the news near the unit’s cook-stand.”

  Slurr realized that the bird bearing the news could have only come from within the walled city. Surok was hoping to spread panic. Anything the demon could do to assail the minds of his adversaries, Slurr knew, was an essential part of his overall strategy. Fear was already an inevitable side-effect of the unnatural clouds that appeared when he was near, to a lesser or greater degree, depending on the constancy of the individual. Even the cold which accompanied billowing murk wrenched at the human’s resolve. And now this.

  “I have brought reinforcements from the forces which were guarding Stygia, and an even greater force will have by now landed at the port of Senchen. They are marching to join us as we speak.” Indeed, the wizards who had overflown the armada had projected to Kern that the ships had arrived safely, and he had instructed them to march to Trakkas.

  “So we will not be massacred?” the soldier asked Slurr.

  “Oh you, yourself, will most definitely be massacred if you don’t help me bring some probity to this madness.”

  “Probity, sir?”

  “Order, control, discipline.”