Laura Resnick - The Purifying Fire

Chandra rolled over on her side and tried to punch some shape into her flat pillow.

And why might killing a ghost warden be ill-advised, anyway? Surely Luti didn’t think it was a good thing to have those creepy creatures roaming the woods and spying for the Order? To hear Samir talk, it wasn’t long before they started appearing in the mountains to protect the Keralians from themselves and anything they might do that the Order didn’t like.

Tired of chasing this subject around and around in her head, Chandra closed her eyes and tried to will herself to relax and get some sleep. She forced herself to clear her mind, focus on her breathing, and let the darkness absorb the clamoring voices in her head.

But then she realized the voices weren’t all in her head. She frowned irritably as she recognized the sound of whispering directly outside her door. It was very late, but some of the Keralian acolytes were night owls who preferred to study and practice until dawn and then sleep all morning. Life at the monastery was pretty unstructured, and the residents seldom interfered with each other’s habits, as long as they didn’t impinge on the rights or comforts of anyone else.

Whispering and muttering outside her door, Chandra decided, especially while she was trying to sleep, counted as impinging on her rights and comforts. She heard two lowered voices. They sounded like they were arguing. She wished they’d go argue somewhere else. She was about to get out of bed and tell them so when the door to her chamber creaked open.

Chandra opened her eyes as her body went tense. Who was entering her room in the middle of the night?

She heard the same two voices again, now in her doorway. Chandra’s room opened directly onto an outdoor walkway with a view of the mountains to the south and the sky overhead. Squinting through the dark, she saw two figures standing in her there, faintly illuminated by the moonlight.

The two intruders were short-shorter than Brannon certainly, whose head only came up to Chandra’s shoulder. They were also broad and squat, with misshapen heads, and they moved in an odd, lumbering way, as if trying to keep their balance on the deck of a ship in rough waters. But it wasn’t until Chandra saw their brightly glowing orange eyes that she realized what they were.

“Goblins?” she asked incredulously, so startled she forgot to feign sleep…

The closer one stumbled back in surprise when she spoke, careening into the other. The second goblin gave a muffled shriek, hopping around on one foot-his other, it seemed, had been stomped on by his staggering companion.

Chandra tilted her head back and blew a fiery breath straight upward. The resultant flame flew up to the ceiling and bounced tentatively there for a moment before it attached itself, burning like a torch to illuminate Chandra’s room.

She got out of bed and looked at the intruders with unconcealed revulsion. “Goblins.”

The red skin that covered their misshapen, bald heads had the texture of lumpy dough. Hair sprouted from their fungal ears and their scaly hands had claws as long as the yellow fangs that protruded from their mouths, dripping with saliva.

“You’re drooling on my floor!” Chandra said in disgust.

They also, she noticed, smelled terrible.

The goblin hopping around on one foot gibbered at its companion in a tongue Chandra didn’t recognize. The other goblin hissed at her.

“I’ll say this just once,” she told them, letting flames ripple boldly along her skin in an effort to intimidate them. “Get out of my room. Get out now.”

The goblin that had hissed at her nudged its companion, who was still obsessed with the pain in his foot. Getting no reaction, the hissing goblin nudged again. This annoyed the second goblin, who put down his aching foot and irritably swatted the first goblin. The first one growled in annoyance, turned around, and hit him back.

As if oblivious to Chandra’s presence, they were suddenly clobbering each other with vehemence, growling and gibbering. Chandra watched them for a few moments, but her amusement quickly palled, and she interrupted them with a stinging bolt of fire that got their attention.

“What in the Multiverse are you two doing here?” she demanded.

They blinked, as if startled to be reminded that they had invaded a woman’s bedchamber in a monastery where they had no business being. Although goblins practiced fire magic, they were unwelcome here. The Keralians had no interest in studying and working alongside creatures who had the manners, values, and sanitary habits of rabid animals.

One of the goblins, evidently remembering the business at hand, bared its chipped yellow fangs and snarled, “Kill woman.”

In unison, the two goblins gave a guttural little war cry, before launching themselves at Chandra.

She moved her hands forward, calling golden heat into her palms, and warded off her attackers’ claws by throwing a large fireball into their faces. However, the goblins were perhaps more competent then they’d originally appeared. It was clear they had some moderate protection against fire, whether from a charm or spell. Chandra’s opening salvo left them unsinged, though slightly disoriented.

Taking advantage of that moment, Chandra picked up the lone chair in her room, and brought it crashing down on the confused goblins. One of them screamed and clutched his bald head, staggering. Apparently rethinking his commitment to murder, he dashed out the door.

The other goblin merely seemed to be enraged by the heavy blow. It snarled viciously and, doubling over, flew straight into Chandra’s knees. The chair flew out of Chandra’s grasp as she lost her balance and fell against the wall, propelled by the speed and surprising weight of her attacker.

The goblin tried to tear out her throat with its fangs, but Chandra gouged the beast’s fiery orange eyes with one hand and pulled its hairy ear as hard as she could with the other, trying to pull its head away from her neck. While the beast was temporarily blinded, she balled her fist and transferred all her energy there. Her knuckles superheated like molten lava and she punched the goblin in the stomach. As the wind and a considerable amount of spittle was knocked out of her assailant, she pushed with her fist again, twisting it from side to side in an effort to cook the thing from the inside out.

She squirmed beneath her adversary, trying to shift her weight so that the goblin’s dripping saliva and revolting breath weren’t in such close proximity to her face.

“Chandra? Chandra!”

She risked glancing away from her opponent and saw Brother Sergil standing in the doorway, blinking at her. There were a couple of other Keralians behind him, also attracted by the commotion.

“There’s a second goblin!” Chandra shouted. “It got away! Stop it! Get it!”

“A second…” Sergil gasped, still staring at her. “Fires above! What are you doing to that goblin?’”

“Get the other one!” Chandra shouted, as the goblin took advantage of her distraction to throw its weight. She was suddenly rolling around on the floor with her gruesome opponent.

“Do you want some help with that?”

“Sergil! Get the… Agh!” She cried out in sudden pain when the beast’s claw drew blood from her thigh. “… other one!”

“There’s another one?” Brother Sergil said, sounding appalled, but he and the other monks disappeared before she could reply.

Trying to keep the goblin’s fangs away from her throat, Chandra kept pressing her molten fist into its muscular belly. Her magic was much stronger than anything claimed by this stinking thing, she knew. She just needed a little more time… And, sure enough, a moment later, she felt the goblin’s skin start to sizzle. The stench of burning cloth arose from the spot, followed by the sickly smell of roasting flesh. The goblin quivered, snarled again… then let out a howl of pain and released its hold on Chandra, intent now on getting away from her. She tried to cling to it, telling herself to take it captive, but really wanting to kill it. However, its fight or flight instinct had taken a distinct turn toward flight and Chandra released it rather than have her arm chewed off.