Burning Magic

by Joshua Khan

  The boys dismounted, their legs shaking, and hauled themselves onto a rock.

  It was a perfect lookout spot. They could now see that this valley was just one among many; the whole landscape was broken ridges and cliffs. A chasm in the earth offered the easiest passage between valleys, and that’s what they were peering down into. At the mouth of the next valley was another camp—smaller than theirs—and Thorn’s eyes were sharp enough to see the campfires glinting off armor and sword blades.

  “Any idea who they are?” he asked.

  “Scorpion tribe.” K’leef pointed at two wings of riders. “That’s a pincer formation. Tents on either flank, guarding the main one, which is where you’ll find the chief.”

  Chief? There was someone down there, dressed in red robes. “Could that be…Jambiya?”

  It had to be. There was Farn, smoldering in the dying light of the evening. The monstrous efreet sat away from the main camp, wreathed in flames.

  K’leef squinted. “I don’t know what he’d be doing here. The Lava Mountains are in the other direction. We’re here because we got off course….”

  “Maybe he knows something we don’t. Which wouldn’t be difficult, since we know nothing.”

  “The books said—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Thorn shuffled forward, to the very edge of the cliff, for a better look. One member of the Scorpion tribe was pushing along another figure.…“Oh no.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Lily.” Thorn caught the flash of the metal around Lily’s wrists. He knew they weren’t bracelets. “She’s their prisoner.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “She is not my problem,” Kismet said after Thorn and K’leef had told her about Lily.

  “But I saved you and your family,” Thorn replied.

  “And I saved you and your two friends.” Kismet rubbed her belly. “Whatever debt I had toward you has been paid.”

  Thorn pointed at Gabriel. “He doesn’t count! You could have left him!”

  “Hey!” Gabriel lay on a mattress nearby, still weak from his injury but hungry. He was already on his fourth skewer. “This is good, what is it?”

  “Chicken,” everybody said at once.

  Others sat around the camp, including Kismet’s wrinkled old mother. She kept her beady eyes on Thorn, and he didn’t like it. The warriors, too, just listened to Thorn’s pleading, offering nothing. Eventually, Thorn stood up, kicked sand into the fire, and stormed off to a rock far from everyone. Though he did stop to grab another stick of rat on the way.

  K’leef followed a few moments later. “So how are we going to rescue her?”

  Thorn peered across the camp. “It would be a lot easier if we had ten or twenty of them helping.”

  K’leef shook his head. “They’d only cramp your style.” He snapped his fingers and a spiky bush burst into flame. “Can I suggest something?”

  “Go on.”

  “We rescue Lily and get out of there. No heroics.”

  “Of course.”

  K’leef stared at him so hard it made Thorn blush. “Thorn, I know what you’re thinking. You’ve got too honest a face.”

  “I ain’t thinking nothing.”

  “Rubbish. You’re thinking that Jambiya needs to be taught a lesson. I don’t disagree, but now’s not the time.”

  Thorn scratched his knuckles. “Easy for you to say. He didn’t try and melt your hand.”

  “If you want my help, then you’ve got to agree to this.”

  “Who says I need anyone’s help?” said Thorn. “Give me a bow, an arrow, and a giant bat, and I can solve most problems.”

  “Thorn…”

  “All right. It might be easier if there was a distraction. You may come in useful. For a change.”

  Aliyah walked over. She said a few words in Djinnic and held out a bow and quiver full of long shafted arrows.

  K’leef laughed, then translated. “She says Kismet told her to give you these.”

  “Am I really that predictable?” But Thorn took them with a nod of thanks. The bow was typical Djinnic, compact and highly curved, and the arrow shafts were straight, with neat fletching. He touched the tip of an arrow to test its sharpness. “Can’t get decent iron out here? Bone arrowheads aren’t bad, but they can shatter.”

  Aliyah must have picked up the dismissive tone. She spoke again, and K’leef translated. He pointed at one of the arrows. “Not these. And they may serve you better against the things of the Shardlands.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means Aliyah knows her business better than you do, Thorn.”

  Still, he felt a lot better—whole—with the quiver slung over his back and bow resting in his fist. He gave the bowstring a thrum. “Beautiful sound, ain’t it?”

  “Only to you, forest boy.”

  Hades responded right away to Thorn’s whistle. He sensed that Thorn wanted to make trouble, and he was eager to join in.

  “What’s the plan?” asked K’leef.

  “You distract them with your magic. While they’re looking left, I’ll come in from the right and free Lily. Open up them shackles, and then we’re out of there.”

  “And Hades?”

  “He’ll grab you and take off. Lily and I will shadow-step.” Thorn slipped onto Hades’s back. “We’ll be back before someone tells Gabriel what he’s really been chewing on.” He held out his arm and helped K’leef climb up behind him. “Best you hold on tight and try not to look down.”

  “It can’t be—WHOA!”

  Up and up they rose, Hades carrying the bulk of both boys without too much effort but with plenty of grumbling. The monster had lost some weight while being out here, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Predators needed to maintain a fine balance of being lean enough to want to hunt but not so lean as to become weak. Right now Hades soared.

  Over the cliffs they went, K’leef howling with joy and a dash of fear as he squeezed his arms around Thorn’s waist. Thorn nudged the bat with his knees—there was no saddle on Hades—and they crossed the valley and headed toward the camp where Jambiya had settled down for the night. It was the perfect setting for trouble—cloudy and cold, making men want to nestle down in their blankets and stare at the fire. Beyond the cast of those flames, the rest was utter darkness. Hades, despite his immense size, drifted in the wind as silently as a feather.

  They circled over the camp.

  What was shadow-stepping like? Thorn wondered. He’d never actually gone on one of those journeys with Lily. He hadn’t wanted to—the thought of traveling through the Twilight made him break out in goose bumps. But this plan was a good one. Nice and simple.

  He’d been in chains before, and to avoid that happening again, he’d made a point of learning how to escape them. The blacksmith at Castle Gloom had shown him how to pop the locks off a shackle. He’d then practiced until he could open it in less than a minute with a slim knife, like the one now tucked in his sash.

  The cuffs would be made out of cold iron—otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hold Lily—but the mechanism would be the same as any other.

  He wouldn’t complicate things by trying to take on Jambiya. But if that scum did come into his sights and an arrow found its way heading in his direction…

  “You ready?” Thorn asked K’leef.

  “To save Lily?” His friend grinned. “You’re never going to let her forget this, are you?”

  “Nope.” Thorn patted Hades’s cheek. “Put me down there.”

  He slipped off Hades and dropped the last ten feet. The bat, his load cut in half, jerked up, then powered higher with another wingbeat and was gone.

  Thorn crouched behind a boulder.

  Get Lily and get out.

  Most of the tribesmen were asleep now, all wrapped in their blankets next to their little fires.

  Which one was Lily? Everyone looked the same from here.

  He unwrapped the end of his turban, covered as much of his face as possible, then
wandered into the camp. It was time to rescue a princess.

  And yeah, he was never going to let Lily forget it.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I need to get out of here.

  Lily glanced around the camp. There wouldn’t be a better opportunity than right now. Jambiya was busy making plans, leaving her under the guard of one of the new nomads.

  Her magic would be at its most powerful on a night so dark. She could probably shadow-step hundreds of miles. But first she needed these cuffs off.

  Guard duty was boring. It was a job passed to the lowest-ranking person, usually the least able. The man watching her had hand-me-down armor, and his spear wasn’t even straight. A patchy beard did little to hide a face cratered with sores. He wore two different style boots, one exposing his toes. The only clean item he had was the bandage around his right arm.

  She sucked her teeth and gestured to it. “Looks nasty.”

  “It is nothing.”

  “How did you get it? A fight?”

  A flicker of a smile crossed his lips. “I slew a ghul.”

  “Wow. A ghul? That is no mean feat.” Lily frowned with concern. “You’ve had it treated, right? For infection?”

  He hesitated. “Of course. I washed the wound before I wrapped it up.”

  “Good. That’s all I wanted to know. Glad you keep sprigs of, er, rot-root handy.”

  Now he looked worried. “Rot-root?”

  Lily shrugged, acting as if this was no big deal. “Of course. It grows everywhere in Gehenna, practically a weed. Everyone knows you clean out ghul bites with rot-root. Stops you from becoming one yourself.”

  Tales grew in the telling. Gehenna was a kingdom of ghosts and ghouls and all breeds of graveyard monsters. But one myth persisted: If you got bitten by an undead creature, you’d become one yourself. The story usually involved vampires and zombies—maybe because they had teeth. It was utterly ridiculous; anyone giving it a moment’s thought would realize that it made no sense. If it were true, then there’d be no living people left in Gehenna by now. Yet some stories stuck.

  The nomad scratched the wound.

  Lily wrinkled her nose. “Itchy? That’s how it begins.”

  He forced himself to stop. “It is nothing!”

  “I’m sure you’re right. But tell me this: Is your throat feeling a bit dry?”

  He clutched his neck. He was truly afraid now.

  Of course it is, you fool. Think how much smoke you’ve been breathing in the last few hours.

  He looked at her desperately. “What will happen to me?”

  Lily glanced over at Jambiya. “He won’t want a ghul in his band, will he? I suspect your lord will…well, you know.”

  The nomad gulped as his future suddenly became very bright. With flames.

  Lily sighed. “It’s a simple spell to fix the decay.”

  “Do you know this spell?” he asked, pleading.

  “I am the witch queen,” Lily snapped. “Of course I know it.”

  “Please, my lady. I have family….”

  Lily shook her head. “No. I can’t cast a spell. Jambiya will sense me using magic and then what? He’ll kill me. Both of us.”

  The nomad pointed to a large boulder some distance away. “There? Will he detect you using it from there?”

  Lily frowned. “Perhaps, perhaps not. How about there?” She pointed to another cluster of rocks, coincidently nearer the cliff face.

  He got up and looked over at another one of the nomads. “The girl wishes to relieve herself.”

  His companion nodded, not that he seemed particularly interested in what Lily wanted while he picked the flesh off his grilled rat.

  The nomad prodded Lily with the butt of his spear. “Move.”

  They walked to the rocks, and as soon as they were out of sight, the man frantically unwrapped his bandage. Lily inspected the wound, only a small gash, and gasped. “By the Six…”

  “What? Tell me!”

  “It’s worse than I thought. You’ll need a new bandage—this one’s contaminated. We’ll use your turban.”

  He pulled it off and shook it until it was a long ribbon.

  Lily directed him to sit down. “Relax. The more you worry, the faster the poison will spread. Take a deep, slow breath. Close your eyes.”

  He did.

  Lily quietly picked up a rock and raised it above his bare head. “Relax. It’ll be fine in just one moment….”

  Thud!

  The man slumped to the ground a moment after Lily struck.

  Crouching, hidden from view of the camp, she estimated the distance to the cliffs. They were about a hundred yards away, and there were plenty of caves to hide in. Then she could take her time getting the shackles off.

  Another nomad approached, and she ducked back down behind her boulder. She picked up another rock, just in case. Why couldn’t they all just go to sleep and make life easier for her?

  She tightened her grip on the rock and waited.

  “You gonna come out anytime soon, or are you still taking care of business?”

  Lily jumped up. “Thorn?”

  The nomad pulled the cloth from his face. “Who else?”

  “Thorn!”

  “Shh!” he snapped. They both hid back down. He winked. “I’m here to rescue you.”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t knock your brains out,” she said, tossing the rock aside. “And I do not need rescuing. I was making my escape perfectly well by myself until you interrupted it.”

  “Escape? Dressed like that?” He looked her up and down. “And why are you dressed like that, with your belly showing an’ all?”

  “I suppose, since you’re here, you might as well get these off,” she said, holding up the shackles. He didn’t respond. She shook them again. “My outfit distracting you, Thorn?”

  “Er…what?” He shook his head. “The shackles. Right.”

  He twisted his knife into the lock, and with a few swift turns they came undone.

  What a relief. Her fingers tingled as the blood started flowing back into them again. “So did you actually have a plan, or were you making it up as you went along, as usual?”

  “Of course I had a plan,” he snapped.

  “Well?”

  A series of explosions went off to their left. One after the other, each and every campfire blew up into an inferno, shooting burning debris a dozen feet into the night sky so the camp was suddenly lit with small shooting stars.

  “That plan,” said Thorn proudly.

  Men ran and shouted, and a horse bolted through the campsite, knocking one of the smaller nomads head over heels.

  “That K’leef is getting better every day,” said Thorn. “This next part’s up to you, Lily.” He nocked an arrow and loosed it in one fluid move. The arrow cut through another horse’s tether, and it, too, galloped free, adding to the chaos.

  Jambiya yelled orders at his men. Then he turned toward the fires and held out his hands, palms facing outward.

  The flames waved and pulled. They jumped through the air and spiraled over and over, gathering themselves like so many burning threads until they formed a long ribbon, heading toward Jambiya’s open hands.

  A hellish shriek overhead made the men dive into the dirt. Hades swooped low and fast over the camp, claws outstretched. He grabbed a figure out of the dark, threw his wings down mightily, and took off before the spears and arrows flew after him.

  The mighty efreet, Farn, was up and lumbering through the camp. But its presence was making things worse as it sought to protect its master. His merest touch ignited tents and the guide ropes. More horses panicked as the creature surrounded itself with flames.

  “Thorn!” screamed Lily.

  Her uncle charged at them, sword drawn.

  Thorn’s next arrow lodged itself in Pan’s calf, and he stumbled. He glared at Thorn and broke the shaft, while yelling at the others to stop them. He wasn’t giving up.

  “The shadows are deepest there,” said Lily, pointin
g at a crevasse in the cliff wall.

  Thorn laughed with glee. Horses bolted and nomads chased after them; other men were busy using blankets to extinguish small fires, and Farn had gotten itself wrapped up in the blazing folds of a tent. Thorn was loving the chaos.

  “Hold tight, Thorn. I don’t want to lose you in the Twilight.”

  He did as she said.

  Lily sliced her hand through the air, ripping the Veil between the lands of the living and those of the dead, opening a doorway into the Twilight. There’d be a blast of freezing air and then…

  Nothing.

  Lily did it again. Still nothing.

  She stared at the shadows. “It’s not possible….”

  Pan limped toward them with five others beside him. All looked ready to kill. One smoldered.

  Thorn looked back anxiously. “Get a move on, Lily….”

  “I can’t.” Her voice cracked as she clawed uselessly at the darkness. “My magic’s not working!”

  THIRTY

  What was happening?

  Magic could fluctuate out in the Shardlands. The wild storms altered reality, and what else was magic but an agent for change?

  Could that be it? Yet K’leef’s and Jambiya’s fire sorcery was working.…Then why not hers?

  They ran into a fissure in the cliff. The roaring flames behind them lit up the cave entrance, but then, as they made their way deeper inside, the light dimmed to a faint glow and finally, complete darkness.

  That didn’t bother her. Lily had grown up in Castle Gloom. Even without light, she could sense where the winding walls were by the subtlest air movements, and as in the castle ruins, her feet stayed steady on the pitted and rocky ground.

  “Come out, Lily! You’re too old for hide-and-seek!”

  Uncle Pan had grown up in Castle Gloom, too. Darkness was no handicap to him, either.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Thorn whispered.