The War of Embers

by James Duvall

  Lost Alchemy

  She opened the book and turned the pages deftly with a claw. The book presented like a travelogue, but instead of detailing places the author had been, each chapter described a place of significance to alchemy that had somehow been lost in the Shattering. Sapphire's chest swelled a little with pride as she mentally checked off more than a few of them and quickly skimmed past. Toward the back she found an entry she had personally considered the alchemist's equivalent of hammering the vault, a fool's errand. It seemed a strange thing to include the well-known ruins of Forrander University, destroyed during the Shattering, but the text contained something she did not expect.

  Because of risk of fire, the university's primary alchemy lab was constructed on nearby Isla Merindi to isolate it from the university's main grounds. I personally attempted to visit this second location and can attest that the building still stands but the local dwarves would not allow any agent of the crown to investigate the relics here, as the property fell back into their dominion after the Shattering.

  The location immediately rose a few notches in Sapphire's estimation. Through a gap in the tablecloth the bookseller rose to reach for the young boy's money. Sapphire reached out the other side and quickly snatched one of the books at the far end where she thought she'd seen the deep maroon cover. The first cover was obviously wrong, deep green, a history of famous alchemists. Two more quick grabs and she had procured two more books on alchemy, though neither was the title she was after. Wood groaned as the bookseller settled back into his seat. Sapphire grimaced as the students marched on down the row. She needed another distraction.

  Digging through her satchel she came up with a few options, most of which were more aggressive than the situation warranted. She needed something that would catch the shopkeeper's attention but wouldn't draw a crowd or worse, Fletcher Street. She needed... She needed... Something vibrated against her chest. Just across from her another dragon materialized as suddenly as a flame springing from a struck match. Dawn's immaterial chest formed partially around the bookseller's shelf. His white and orange wings stretched out fully, fuzzing through the tablecloth on both sides.

  “Good morning!” he announced cheerfully, smiling ear to ear.

  Sapphire gawked at him wide-eyed.

  Dawn's eyes softened as his expression flashed to one of worry. “Oh, is this not a good time...?”

  The bookseller bellowed in alarm and shot back from the misty wings, his chair toppling over. A moment later he threw the curtain back. Sapphire snarled at the man, startling him back again. She lunged out from beneath the table and reversed direction with a wing-assisted leap, landing atop the table and scattering books. There, the deep maroon cover. She snatched it up and found the author's name in silver leaf, Nicholas Carrol.

  “Sapphire you can't just steal it!” Dawn protested.

  “They stole mine!” Sapphire shot back, then readied herself as the bookseller came at her with a broom.

  “Yes, but he didn't,” Dawn said, gesturing at the shouting broomy man.

  “This is not the time!”

  The broom came in for a swat. It would be effective against most luminarians as they could not breathe fire like their distant mountain-dwelling cousins, but Sapphire was more than prepared to deal with something like this. Fire formed in her claws and she swiped it through the air, catching the broom in an arch of flame. The dry bristles burst into flame and the bookseller dropped it in alarm.

  “Not on the books!” Sapphire shouted.

  The bookseller backed away, horrified. “Someone help! It knows how to summon fire!”

  Sapphire snatched up the burning broom and threw it into the streets, quickly beating out the flames with her tail. Now dozens of sets of eyes fell upon her. In the corners she could see the other luminarians slinking away, apparently having no desire to be associated with this aberration in behavior. Dawn flickered into nothingness and reappeared at her side. This made everyone take a big step back. Emboldened, Sapphire raised her head high and proud.

  “I've only come for what's mine!” she declared, retrieving the book and stuffing it into her satchel. “The mages took my copy of Nicholas Carrol's Treatise on-- Ow!”

  Somewhere behind her someone had thrown a stone and bounced it off the back of her head. She turned to face them, hissing and snarling. The three alchemy students.

  “Who threw that?” she demanded, her eyes watering with tears. Damn that hurt. Two more rocks soared past her. One of the boys had a handful of rocks which the other students replenished from. Sapphire was only a few feet tall, they easily towered over her. Slowly the circle of humans tightened around her.

  “I should be wearing one of those amulets!” Sapphire protested, standing her ground against the alchemy students. The next rocks bounced harmlessly off her shield, leaving little cracks like broken ice which quickly resealed. Spells followed soon after, pathetically weak. How dare they.

  She took a step toward them, growling. Somewhere behind she could hear Dawn protesting, urging her to go while he 'held them off.'

  She would go but she was going to take one of those amulets. Heaven knew she'd earned the right. All three of the students seemed to realize that something was very wrong when their best spells failed to leave lasting damage on Sapphire's shield. As she advanced they withdrew until all at once their courage broke and they fled. Sapphire surged forward, quickly overtaking them and tackled the boy with the more advanced amulet bearing the sky sapphire. He screamed in terror as she yanked at the chain, shattering the clasp. As soon as it was free she hopped back and let him run.

  Sapphire lifted her prize overhead, beaming in triumph as the students bolted away like startled rabbits.

  A blast of energy hit her shield like a sledgehammer. The impact sent her rolling and she only barely held onto the amulet. She found her feet quickly, claws scraping at the earth as she surged up to face her attacker and met him through a spiderweb of cracks that had already begun to heal but much too slowly. Another direct hit like that would be trouble.

  This mage wore a professor's robes and had a grim, deliberate way about him. Dawn materialized at his feet but the man stepped through his misty form without hesitation; he had already fallen for Dawn's ruse once. Thinking quickly, Sapphire flung the small bead of onyx his direction, fully activating its enchantment. Darkness sprang up all around, plummeting the a section of street into apparent night. The mage too was caught in this and looked around in confusion, hands groping blindly for some point of reference.

  “I am only taking back what is mine,” Sapphire shouted to him. He did not answer. He readied a spell but didn't risk firing it blind. Under cover of the unnatural darkness Sapphire made her silent escape.

  Two hours later Dawn finally returned to her as she sat sulking near the skyport. Nicholas Carrol's Treatise on Alchemy was open on the bench next to her but she hadn't read much of it. Instead she gazed down at the broken sky sapphire amulet, slowly turning it over in her claw.

  “Are you alright?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “I'm fine,” she said, her voice and attention distant.

  “Why did you bring that?”

  In answer she heaved a deeply frustrated sigh.

  “I thought... you didn't want to go back there?” Dawn asked, peering down at the amulet.

  “I don't,” Sapphire answered. Exhaustion gnawed at her, tugging her toward the ground as though gravity were somehow stronger in the aftermath of her bungled heist. Leaving Dawn's amulet on while she was trying to sneak around?

  Stupid.

  “It was a stupid thing to do. All of it. I let my emotions get the better of me. Those... those people were alchemy students. I heard them talking before you arrived. I just thought...”

  “After what happened? I imagine that was hard,” Dawn said, his voice gentle. His misty form couldn't produce any form of real contact but he leaned in close as though to press his forehead against hers. Sapphire returned the gesture, closin
g her eyes and thinking back to that last firm touch before she'd begun this most recent journey.

  “It is a difficult thing,” Sapphire said, “when you've poured the passion of your life into something only to find you are not wanted. I can pass their tests. I've done it.”

  “I know,” Dawn said gently. He gave her a sad, sympathetic smile.

  For a moment the two sat in silence, Sapphire slowly collecting herself and putting to rest that deep sense of loss for the life she'd been denied.

  “Tonight I am moving on to Pendric Shard.”

  “Pendric Shard? Why there?”

  Sapphire explained about the book she'd found. Dawn grinned sheepishly at his untimely interjection into the story.

  “There are probably a few books in the tower on Pendric Shard, or the region in general,” Dawn said. “I will do some research while your ship is underway. How uhm... how long...?”

  “Longer than I would like,” she said. “I found a ship already. It's already lifting off. If I can get to a secluded place I'll put the amulet on I promise.”

  Dawn frowned, his ears drooping. “Be safe, Sapphire.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Nearby the airship rose from its cradle, a powerful glidestone engine lifting it high overhead. Sapphire pressed her forehead toward Dawn's and then stuffed the amulet in her satchel before rising up to meet the airship as it approached the gate. The gate was one of the few ways through the shardwall surrounding Cahen, and during preparations to pass through it was one of the most opportune moments for a dragon to sneak aboard.

  Sapphire spiraled up to meet the airship, taking advantage of the warm air updrafts along the shardwall. She touched down on the aft deck and found her way into the ship's cargo hold. A faint thrum of magic passed through the air even in the interior spaces as the airship passed through the gate, leaving Tandor Shard and the city of Cahen behind.

  Chapter 2

  The Lighthound

  Trade Route outside of Beronn, Telluria Shard

  The advent of the Shattering brought the arrival of the shardwalls and a great number of changes to the ancient world. City-states that would no doubt have warred with one another until only one power remained suddenly found themselves divided by impassible barriers which no practicioner at the time could pierce. For this reason, great nations whose capitols were separated by spans of only a few miles went unvisited by their neighbors for many hundred years.

  From Shardwalls, A History

  Hot and dry, the air in the crew quarters stung Timothy's eyes with the taste of smoke. A mess of playing cards lay scattered across the aisle. He trod through them as he pushed aside the overturned table. When the ship had slammed into the mountainside, several of the bunks had broken loose and tipped into the narrow aisle, creating a forest of broken frames and torn, stained mattresses leaking old straw and deep brown whiskey from someone's private stash. Timothy climbed over and through them as quickly as he could, calling out for survivors as he felt his way along. Above him, a stampede of boots on the airship's deck drowned out shouted orders and cries of alarm. Below him, the crashed airship's glidestone engine ground its crystalline blades against the mountainside, growling like an angry, caged beast. The boiler's relief valves blew open and began to scream. Their shrill whistle cut the air, sounding the airship's death wail.

  “Is anyone down here?” Timothy called, shouting over the din of the struggling engine and the wail of a boiler poised to explode.

  “Help!” a young voice called, mercifully not from beneath the pile of broken furniture but down the hallway beyond.

  “I'm coming!”

  Timothy sprinted toward the source, passing through a hallway already made dim by a thin haze of smoke. The ship shuddered. Somewhere below something gave out with a thunderous crack. Timothy's world rolled toward starboard, tossing him against the bulkhead and tipping glowing crystals from their wall sconces. The crystals flashed as they crashed into the floor and shattered, their broken pieces giving off pale memories of their previous light. The deck continued to tilt, the ship rolling until it found purchase again on the bare rock and came to a sudden, shuddering halt. Timothy stumbled, crunching glowing bits of broken glass beneath his boots as he made a mad grab for the door frame. He heaved himself inside the cabin and steadied himself on the unsteady, sloping deck. It was brighter in here, several crystals still illuminating the room.

  For a moment Timothy stood silent, watching the survivor with disbelieving eyes. He was in a well-adorned stateroom, containing a large bed, a chest of drawers, and tapestries and paintings on all the walls. Flames flickered below, casting light up through the floorboards and bathing the scene in dark reds and oranges. At the stateroom's center, a gryphon fought to gain control of a heavy sea chest, shoving and heaving it toward the door against the steep incline of the floor. Eagle's wings pushed back the gathering smoke while talons and lion's claws fought gravity and the great weight of the sea chest.

  The gryphon scrambled around to the closer side and seized a handle in his beak. He pulled with all his might, gaining agonizing inches as the entire thing threatened to slide away from him. Books, clothes, the contents of many drawers, and the drawers themselves lay haphazard across the floor, all dislodged by the jarring force of the ship coming down on the mountainside.

  Timothy came to his senses. “We have to go, leave it! The ship is on fire. Everyone else is already gone.”

  The crashed vessel shifted precariously, sending Timothy grabbing for the door frame again. The gryphon's chest got away from him and slid toward the starboard wall like a battering ram. The creature chased after it, lunging and clawing along the floor. The chest stayed just ahead of him, gaining speed until it crashed against the wall, splintering wood. More smoke poured in through the new hole, seeping in around the chest from the adjoining room.

  “The boiler is going to explode! Leave it!”

  “I can't!” the gryphon shouted back, his voice desperate. His taloned forelimbs scrambled at the lid, trying to pry the chest away from the wall and get behind it again. “This is my duty. Help me!”

  Thickening smoke darkened the room, choking out the light as it found its way up through the floorboards. The gryphon's struggle continued undeterred. By then he had interjected himself between the chest and wall and was heaving with all of his might to overcome the slanted floor and raise the chest back to the level of the door. He was fighting a losing battle, gaining inches as the fire in the ship's belly grew by the yard. Sweat gathered on Timothy's brow. The air grew dry. An inferno raged below, flames roaring as the wind passed through them. The deck would not hold out much longer. Boots echoed through the corridor outside.

  “We're in here!” Timothy called.

  Timothy's First Mate, Willoughby, barged in with several crewmen in tow.

  “What's going on in here?” Willoughby bellowed. “Is that a gryphon? The ship's on fire, what's he-”

  “Willoughby!” Timothy cut him off. “You and your men take that chest aboard the Stormbreaker. I want everyone off this ship. Now!”

  Willoughby waved his men forward. “You heard him, boys!”

  The gryphon hopped out of their way, his worried blue eyes watching the chest as they hoisted it up and bore it toward the door.

  Timothy stood aside to let his airmen pass. The gryphon darted through behind them, his wings tucked close against his leonine body. Timothy followed close on their heels with Willoughby huffing along behind him and coughing in the smoke. Daylight pierced through at the end of the corridor, and the rescue team burst out onto the open deck.

  Above, the Stormbreaker's glidestone engine whirled. The glowing pink crystals kept the airship at a steady altitude while the skybridge was deployed. Charcoal columns of smoke rose from either side of the crashed, dying husk of the Wild Hawk.

  At the foot of the skybridge stood the Wild Hawk's captain, a wide-eyed man in fine clothes. He shouted orders, his voice carrying over the loud clang of
the evacuation bell.

  “Everyone's clear,” Timothy shouted, urging the captain up the skybridge. The shaken man looked at him with uncertain eyes which eventually fell upon the gryphon.

  “He is not coming,” the gryphon reported bitterly. “He has abandoned his post...”

  For a moment the Wild Hawk's captain looked out across his ship's sagging frame, anger and relief battling for primacy upon his worried brow and tired eyes.

  “There is no one else, come aboard our ship, do not let yourself perish here,” Timothy pleaded.

  The beleaguered captain gave a small nod of defeat and followed Willoughby, the chest, and the gryphon up the skybridge.

  Once the last soul had come aboard the Stormbreaker, Timothy shouted the order to depart. “Torvald! Distance! Quickly!”

  The Stormbreaker pulled away before the crew could hoist up the skybridge. It tumbled into a gorge below, stirring up a thick cloud of dust as it bounced down the craggy slope, breaking into pieces as it went. The Stormbreaker sailed at speed, all hands at stations. Timothy stood with the rescued Wild Hawk crewmen, watching their vessel burn. A few minutes later the boiler erupted. The blast rolled like thunder through the valley. The Wild Hawk disappeared beneath a cloud of splintered wood and burning shards. When the smoke cleared, the remnants of the Wild Hawk were barely recognizable as a ship. The heart of it had disintegrated and the rest broken into three large chunks on the side of the mountain. Her captain removed his hat and held it close to his heart. Her crew did likewise, all standing there together in somber silence.

  Later in the evening Christopher Trammel, the Stormbreaker's master and captain, sidled up to Timothy at the aft rail. “What's the count?”

  “About two dozen rescued from the Wild Hawk, five injured,” Timothy reported. “We brought the captain and the first mate, but we had to leave one dead behind. Willoughby and a few others found him pinned beneath a cannon below deck. The survivors are feeling pretty badly about it. They poured a drink out for the poor fellow an hour ago. Their captain said some words. I've welcomed them all aboard and promised to deliver them to the skyport in Beronn.”