Mercedes Lackey: The Fire Rose

She had taken perhaps a dozen steps in the direction of the hotel entrance, when suddenly every horse in the street stopped dead, threw up its head, and screamed in mortal terror.

And with that scant warning, the earth rose up in revolt.

A terrible rumbling that made her stomach churn and her knees go to water began in the distance, and as she looked instinctively towards the sound, impossible as it seemed, she actually saw the earthquake approaching.

The whole street was rising, like an ocean wave, and more waves followed behind it. The street billowed as if it was a rug and a housewife was vigorously shaking it. As it billowed, buildings swayed and began to shake apart.

For some reason she herself could not have afterwards explained, she ran into the nearest hotel doorway, which was a small side-entrance that was almost certainly locked to the outside, and reached that spot just as the first wave struck.

She braced herself in the doorway with her hands and legs as the earth began an insane gigue. Around her, up and down Market Street, walls, chimneys, and entire buildings were toppling. Church bells rang with cacophonous fury, as if an enormous child had grasped each tower in its fist and was shaking it. Under the ringing of the bells, the earth roared defiance so deafening that Rose could not even hear herself screaming, although her mouth was open and she felt herself to be howling in fear. The cornices of buildings about her fell to the ground in a deadly hail of masonry; chimneys collapsed with killing force, crashing down into their own buildings or the ones next to them. There were no words for the terror that filled her; anything she had experienced before this was as nothing. There was only mind-numbing fear, and the sound of Judgment Day.

Then, finally, it all stopped.

She took a breath; another. She dared to think that it was over.

It began again.

She honestly thought, as the second quake struck, that she was going to die of fright.

Finally, after an eternity almost as long as the first quake, it was truly over. There were several small pulses, diminishing in strength, then-quiet. A hush as deathly as the roar had been settled over the street.

Then the screaming began.

The quake bucked and kicked like an untamed stallion, but Cameron's home and grounds had been made as safe as Pao's Earth Magick could make them, as Pao's home in China-town had been made as fire-resistant as a Firemaster could guarantee. All over the house, furniture and ornaments crashed to the floor in a paroxysm of destruction, but the house itself remained intact. With the sure instinct of one who had ridden out smaller quakes, Cameron dived beneath his desk, a sturdy piece of furniture that would shelter him if any of the rest of his possessions or parts of the ceiling came crashing down upon him.

The huge mirror flung itself from the wall and hurled itself at the desk just after he dove beneath it, shattering into a thousand splinters. Out in the stable, Sunset and Brownie screamed their terror, but they were safer than he was. There was no furniture in the stable to come hurtling at them.

There was a pause of about ten seconds, then the second quake hit, shaking the house with the fury of a dog killing a rat. If anything, the second quake was worse than the first.

Then, after an interlude of terror too long to be time, it was over.

Cameron had only a single thought, and it was for Rose. If she had, in her fear, run out into the street, she was now almost certainly crushed beneath tons of brick and masonry!

But he looked out from beneath the sheltering bulk of the desk, to see small fires everywhere there had been lamps or candles, and he put that thought aside for the few seconds it took to summon his Salamanders and send them all over the house and grounds, extinguishing flames wherever they found them.

Then he snatched up a shard of mirror, cutting his hand a little, and breathed his Magick on it.

He was just in time to see her getting slowly to her feet, sheltered in precisely the correct place, a sturdy servants' entrance to the hotel, her black clothing now grey with the dust that choked the air. The mirror was too small to give him much of a view, but she cocked her head to one side, then hiked her skirts up to her knee and began to run shakily up Market toward Third.

At that moment, he knew one thing, and one thing only.

It did not matter what he was, or who saw him. It did not matter what she thought of him, or about him. He had to get to her, if he died trying. And there was one way-on a horse that would not tire, would not stop, and would run faster than poor Sunset ever dreamed of doing. It would take his every resource, and would even require his own blood, but he could reach her within the hour. He had done this before, and it had left him with little in the way of resources, but it was his only hope.

Pushing fallen debris aside with the strength born of fear for her, he ran to his Work Room, to transform the most trusted of his Salamanders to a new form, the only one which could cross this now-broken country at the speed he required. And if his Salamanders had not been his trusted friends, but had been coerced, this Conjuration would, in these conditions, almost certainly be deadly.

He was going to Conjure the Firemare.

The screaming was coming from the area of Third and Mission; that was all she was certain of. Somehow she had retained her glasses through all of the heaving and tossing, but dust hung so thickly in the air it was hard to see clearly. But the buildings south of Market were mostly of frame or brick, and the earthquake had wrought terrible damage to them. From a block past the Palace Hotel on down towards the Waterfront and down Third to the south, the buildings were twisted and collapsed like so many constructions of paper and matchsticks. It was from there that the screaming of the trapped and injured came. Why there should be so much damage there, and so relatively little where she had stood, she had no idea. There must have been a reason, but it didn't much matter at the moment. Up ahead, people were trapped, hurt, possibly dying, and she ran to help them.

Other people were emerging, mostly still gowned in their nightclothes, from buildings on either side of her. They were shaken, white and subdued, talking in whispers, looking towards the distant sounds of screaming. She had not gotten far before another quake-smaller, but no less terrifying-sent her down to her knees again.

But she was on her feet as soon as it had passed, and the continuing screams drove her onward. Finally, though, hampered by petticoats and skirt, she stopped in the middle of the street. Oblivious to anyone watching, she pulled her petticoats off, and ripped the side seams of the skirts to the knee. She started to discard the useless underthings, then thought better of the idea; she slung them over her shoulder and began running again.

Other people, mostly men, and some in shirtsleeves or nightshirts, began to respond to the sounds of terror. It was soon apparent what their goal was. Here, in the area that San Franciscans called "South of the Slot," the buildings were all wood and frame. Had been, rather-now they were twisted matchsticks and splinters. Many had been inexpensive hotels and rooming houses, and it was towards one of these that she and other people were running.

It was very clear the moment she reached the spot that she would be useless in rescue work, even with her skirts tied up above her knees. Rescue work consisted of clearing rubble and wrenching timbers loose until you reached a body-hopefully, a living body-then waiting until others took it away before beginning again. That was the job of strong men; even in a frenzy of hysterical strength she could not have lifted a single one of those splintered boards. But if she could not rescue, she could perform rough first-aid, and she did.