Laura Resnick - The Purifying Fire

Samir said, “I agree, Chandra. Walbert has been preparing to challenge the monastery for years. If he didn’t feel ready to try to impose the rule of the Order here, he wouldn’t have used the ghost warden’s demise as an excuse.” He added, “Remember, I’ve met Walbert. Nothing he does is done without a great deal of thought.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s about Luti’s age, tall, gray-haired, thin. He holds himself erect and is very well-groomed. His smile is cold, like his eyes. He speaks in a calm, civilized tone, yet manages to be threatening.” Samir thought for a moment. “The things he says are outrageous and self-serving, but listening to him talk, I’m sure he really believes what he’s saying.”

Luti made a sound of disgust. “Then he must believe that that I can be moved by the transparent posturing in his letter. Does he imagine that the mountain cares, for even one moment, about the shade it casts on the plain? If he supposes that his absurd rhetoric will somehow curb our belief in the power of fire, then he is in for a rude awakening.”

“Oh, I doubt Walbert thinks a letter will cause you to cooperate with his demands,” said Samir. “Instead, I think he hopes the letter will incite you to rash behavior.”

Luti’s angry frown changed to a look of surprise. And then she smiled ruefully. “This is why you’re such a valuable friend, Samir.” She nodded. “Yes. Of course you’re right. Walbert isn’t just arrogant and power-hungry. He’s also shrewd and manipulative. He will need popular support so he is trying to provoke us.”

“But it’s important,” Samir said, “to give careful thought to your next move. Because careful thought is not what he’s hoping for.”

“Actually, my next move doesn’t really call for that much thought,” Luti said.

“Oh?”

“Walbert demands that I turn over Chandra to him-or, rather, ‘the red-haired female pyromancer who attacked four soldiers of the Order after criminally destroying a ghost warden.’” Luti looked at Chandra as she added, “Which is why I think the first thing I should do is send you away for a while. Someplace where Walbert won’t look for you.”

“So it’s not the oufes you were worried about, after all,” Chandra said.

“Oh, I’m worried about them, too,” Luti said. “Never underestimate just how vengeful an oufe can be.”

There actually is a mission I’m asking you to go on for the monastery,” Luti said to Chandra as they strolled through the herb garden, having just said farewell to Samir at the eastern gate. “Considering the danger that I suspect is involved, I’d be reluctant to send you, under normal circumstances. But since it’s obviously a good idea for you to be absent for a while…”

“You want me to planeswalk?” Chandra guessed. “That’s not dangerous.”

“According to Jaya,” Luti said, “it is rather dangerous. There aren’t roads or signs or maps among the planes of the Multiverse, are there? There are no convenient doors indicating where to enter and leave the Blind Eternities. And I assume there aren’t any heralds helpfully crying things like, ‘Welcome to Regatha!’”

“Well, I guess it’s a little dangerous,” Chandra said with a shrug. “But nothing I can’t handle.”

“A place without time or logic. Without physical form or substance. No ordinary person can survive in the?ther that exists between the planes. Only a planeswalker can,” Luti mused. “And they say that a planeswalker can only survive there for a limited time. If you become disoriented and get lost in the Blind Eternities, you might never emerge. Before long, you’d be consumed there and die.”

“They say? They, who?” Chandra said dismissively. “Besides you, who around here knows anything about planeswalkers?”

“Is it true?” Luti demanded.

Chandra looked out over the vast forest below the mountain, and to the plains that lay further east. “All right, yes. I could get lost and die in the Blind Eternities. So what? You, or Brannon, or Samir, could get lost and die in the mountains. The first time you sent me to meet with Samir, I thought I’d get lost and die in the Great Western Wood!”

“Yes, I remember. When you finally made your way back here, you were… irritable about your misadventure in the woods.”

“But the only alternative to taking that sort of risk is to stay home all your life.”

“And staying home isn’t that safe these days, either,” Luti said dryly as she sat on a bench under one of the garden’s ancient olive trees. Her glance surveyed the vegetation. “Goodness, that rosemary really needs trimming! It’s taking over the whole place.”

Not remotely interested in gardening, Chandra sat next to her and asked, “So where do you want me to go?”

Luti folded her hands in her lap. “Kephalai. Which is also part of the danger I’m worried about.”

“Keph…” Chandra laughed. “I get to steal the scroll again?”

“That all depends.”

“On what?”

“On you, I suppose.” She frowned again at the overgrown rosemary, then said, “Brother Sergil and the other monks working on the scroll believe they’ve solved the riddle. I don’t suppose you remember the decorative border surrounding the text in the original scroll?”

“No. Like I said…”

“Yes, the planeswalker who stole it from us played tricks on your memory.” Luti nodded. “Well, after more days of studying the text, the brothers believe that the decorative border-which they did not copy or study during the brief time that we had the original here-contains the clue to where the artifact can be found.”

“The border? In what way?”

“They’re not sure. It may be a map, it may be hidden text, it may be a spell…” Luti shrugged. “So if you can look at the scroll again, you may be able to see the information concealed within the decorative border.”

“And to look at the scroll, I need to go back to Kephalai.”

“If it’s still there. If the planeswalker who stole it from us didn’t take it somewhere else entirely.”

“Even if the scroll is back on Kephalai now, I might not be able to interpret what’s in the border,” Chandra said.

“In that case, the monks would like an opportunity to study it themselves. So you’ll need to bring it back here again, if you can.” Luti looked at her. “If the scroll is back in the Sanctum of Stars now, it will certainly be under increased security. Stealing it a second time will be very dangerous.”

“Fortunately,” Chandra said, “I enjoy a challenge.”

“Yes, I thought you’d say that. Even so, please be careful. If only for the sake of an old woman who has become rather fond of you, even though you’re an awful lot of trouble to have around.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I think it would be-” But Luti’s comment ended on a shocked gasp as the rosemary plant lifted itself from the soil and attacked them.

Chandra saw claws and fangs hiding amidst the plant’s spiky leaves as it suddenly turned into a tall, moving creature, with arms and legs that ended in the same spikes.

Heat flowed through her in immediate response to the danger, and she amputated one of the plant’s attacking limbs with a bolt of fire that she swept downward as she was assaulted. The creature hissed in pain, swayed, then doubled over and re-formed itself into some sort of small, leafy wolf-looking thing.

“How did it do that?” Chandra blurted, staring in surprise.

Luti gasped again. “Watch out!” She hurled a fireball at the creature as it crouched to attack. The projectile hit the growling four-legged bush in the face, but the leafy wolf easily shook off the blow and leaped for Chandra.

Her fireball was considerably more powerful than Luti’s, and when it hit the creature, the thing fell back with a screech, rolled over into a ball, and reshaped itself into the form of a giant spider.