Chris Pierson - Sacred Fire

As Beldinas’s foes closed in on all sides, Fistandantilus understood. This was what the world looked like to the Kingpriest: danger all around, and no way out. He was only holding on to gather more power; then he would unleash it, and bring the mountain down. His enemies would be destroyed.

But so would he, and he didn’t realize this.

The image vanished, and Fistandantilus let go, stepping back in astonishment Beldinas was not the pure vessel he required-not any longer. He’d wielded too much power for too long. He had wrath and envy in his soul-and pride, worst of all. The very means the wizard had used to get close to him had brought his ruin. He was not right for the ritual; the Portal would never open to him.

Softly, the Dark One began to laugh. It was strange laughter, tinged with self-mockery. What a fool he’d been, all this time! Pulling the puppets’ strings, making them dance-and never noticing that those strings and the Kingpriest’s were growing entangled. So many years, wasted on a hope that was false…

Fistandantilus laughed and laughed.

“Very good,” he said, glancing up to the heavens. “Oh, clever indeed!”

Beldinas only stared, still under the charm.

“So be it, then,” Fistandantilus murmured. “Let him smash the empire. It matters not.”

He passed a hand in front of Beldinas’s face, allowing a burst of magical energy to pass through as he chanted spidery words, “You will sleep,” he said with a hint of bitterness. “When you wake, you will have no memory of this.”

The Kingpriest nodded. Following Fistandantilus’s command, he climbed up onto his bed and lay down his head. In less than a minute he was snoring.

The Dark One stood over him a moment, then nodded to himself and let the cloaking spell slip over him once more. He still had work to do.

Squatting in the mud, the rain dripping down from the ash trees, Cathan remembered being here , in almost this very spot, in a ditch by the side of the road, deep in the highlands of Taol. He’d been young then-little more than a boy, really-though he’d become a man that year. He’d lost his family to plague, all except Wentha, and sunk into a life of outlawry, hiding from the Kingpriest’s men in the wilds. He couldn’t hold back a grim smile; so much had happened in his life, and here he was again. Perhaps life was a circle, as certain heretics claimed.

The journey west had taken longer than he’d expected- twenty-five days to travel what he could have done in fifteen, or ten on horseback. The roads were busy, and he had to be cautious, taking care never to raise his head so that others might notice his eyes beneath his hood. And that was just for commoners and tradesmen; when he spotted priests or Scatas -or the Hammer-he quit the road entirely, found the nearest wood or gully, and hid until they passed.

Peering up from the ditch now, he watched six mounted knights, riding from the south, dressed in battle armor rather than simple riding gear. He ducked down again with a curse; the men weren’t simply on their way from one town to the next. They were a search party to find him; Tithian was no fool.

The sounds of rattling armor and hooves clopping against the paring stones got closer. His hand went beneath his robes, touching the cudgel he still carried. Six swords against one club didn’t make for promising odds at all. He pressed himself flat in the mud, felt it soak through his robes, and shivered at the cold against his skin. He wasn’t well enough concealed, he knew.

Then the sounds of the knights receded toward the north. Risking another look, he saw they had moved on toward Govinna. He allowed himself a sigh of relief, then waited for them to vanish altogether. Only then did he rise from the muck. The wind blew through his sodden robes, making him shiver: winter came early to the highlands. If only he could risk a fire-yet the smoke would draw attention. This part of Taol had been deserted for years, ever since Kingpriest Kurnos’s men came through, burning and killing in their efforts to find the Lightbringer. Except for the occasional trapper or charcoal-burner, no one dwelled in southern Taol any more, and certainly not near Luciel.

His heart quickened at the thought of his old home. When he’d been a knight, he’d come back here every year, to honor the mother, father, and brother whose disease-wracked bodies he’d burned. It was here that Beldinas-just Beldyn, then-had first revealed his powers. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Perhaps it was, he thought. It was before I died, after all.

He dug at his belt and pulled out a flask of brandy-crude stuff, far from the moragnac they enjoyed in the Great Temple. He took a deep swig, and the warmth suffused his body again. It also awakened his stomach, which let out a peevish grumble. Food and drink had been scarce on the road, and here in the wilderness he’d been surviving on nuts and roots and berries.

He would eat again at dusk, and not before, he told himself as he put the flask away. His hand went automatically to a bag that hung at his hip, as it did a hundred times each day, and he fingered the Peripas through the leather. The Disks weren’t safe yet-they wouldn’t be, until he was out of Istar and across the Khalkist Mountains, into Kharolis. He also touched Fistandantilus’s spellbook, which, though it radiated cold and malice, somehow made him feel secure. He felt certain nothing evil would harm him as long as he carried that grimoire.

He glanced down the road again-there was nothing as far as his eyes could see, And yet, there was something, a presence he had felt constantly since his escape from the Lordcity. It never went away, and grew stronger every day. He signed the triangle, knowing it must be the gods. They were close now; the weight of the burning hammer was heavy on him. It still haunted his dreams.

“The end is near,” he murmured, and blessed himself again. Then he climbed out of the ditch and moved on down the road.

Tithian had never been to this place before, but he recognized it the moment he saw it. He’d heard about it often enough, back when he was Cathan’s squire, and life was simple. It once had been a prosaic cluster of thatched cottages in a valley close to the Imperial High Road, overlooked by a simple lord’s keep. Little remained of Luciel now. The Scatas had burned it to the ground almost forty years ago, and it had never been rebuilt. All that was left were foundation stones and the odd stub of a chimney, scattered like bones among thick bracken and furze. Badgers and ground-hawks ruled the ruins. But for the shell of the old keep-also weed-choked now, its walls crumbling and mantled in vines-one might never know that Luciel had once been home to several hundred souls.

Standing upon the wall of that keep, his shoulders hunched against the wind, Tithian stared down at the skeletal remains of Luciel and shivered. He was cold to the bone; he and his men hadn’t lit a campfire for days. That order had some of the other knights muttering bitterly, but he knew he was right to play it safe. No point in setting a trap, just to give away his position to anyone within ten miles.

The cold wasn’t the worst part. The sky was wrong. There was no other way to put it-there was simply something strangely unpleasant about its colors. To the west it was a filthy orange, as if the Khalkists were burning; to the east it was almost black, and flashing with lightning. Overhead, the clouds were bruise-purple, and they seethed and roiled like an angry sea. Tithian gripped his sword more tightly, seized by the irrational feeling that he might at any moment be sucked upward . Indeed the gods must be angry, he thought.