Laura Resnick - The Purifying Fire

The Sanctum’s structure was more precarious than it looked. Without that wall supporting its fourth side, the building began to cave in on itself.

Chandra heard the tremendous crack of splintering stone and the crash of collapsing walls and floors. Despite the soldiers right behind her, she turned to look. What she saw was so startling, she stopped running and just stood there and stared in shock at her handiwork. So did the soldiers who, moments ago, had been so intent on killing her.

The tall spire of the Sanctum, high overhead, had started to sway. The gargoyles that squatted around it reacted slowly, their wings shuddering uncertainly as they unfolded from their hunched positions and prepared to take flight. Inside the building, all the soldiers and both mind mages were probably already dead; if not, then they would die within moments.

The massive spire toppled and fell. The Sanctum of Stars completely collapsed. It seemed to happen with a horrific slowness. The immense weight of cracking, falling stone created a terrifying roar. People in the streets were screaming in panic and fleeing to safety. Chandra turned and fled, too.

The enormous impact of the Sanctum collapsing on itself hurled rocks, flames, ashes, dust, and debris across the main square and down the length of every surrounding street. Chandra was knocked off her feet when the ground shook and a wave of rock and ash hurled her forward. Someone trampled her prone body as they ran headlong from the disaster. Winded and in pain, Chandra was lying face down in the street, debris still showering down on her as the dust of pulverized stone filled her lungs.

Coughing and bleeding, she lay there in a daze.

Fire above, the whole thing! The whole building! I didn’t mean to do that.

The screams of children filled her ears. She heard a woman wailing. A horse was whinnying in terror.

She had just wanted to escape alive with the scroll.

Dead soldiers? Sure. Dead telepaths? Fair game.

But she hadn’t meant to destroy a whole section of the city, terrorizing all of its citizens and perhaps killing innocents.

Pull yourself together. Come on! Get up. Get out of here-or you’ll be joining the dead.

Coughing and shaking, she rose to her feet. The scroll was still in her hand. She looked down at it, trying to think.

She couldn’t planeswalk. Not under these circumstances. And not with her strength so depleted. She didn’t have anything left right now. She needed to regroup and get a handle on things.

Still coughing, she staggered down the street, away from the Sanctum, going in the same direction as the fleeing crowd. By the time she felt she really needed to sit down, she was well beyond the dust, debris, and milling panic. Many people were filling the market street where she stopped to rest. News of the disaster, as well as varied explanations for it, circulated quickly.

Someone who saw her sitting in a dazed slump on the street kindly offered her food and water. Chandra realized she was shaking with fatigue, and accepted gratefully. She hadn’t really thought she was hungry, but once she started eating, she discovered she was ravenous. She consumed the food as greedily as a growing boy who hadn’t eaten in two days. She was thirsty, too, after all the dust that had coated her throat when the Sanctum collapsed. She drank her fill, then poured water over her head, neck, and hands, washing away blood, dust, and filth.

Only then did she look skyward and realize that the hunt was already on for her.

She saw gargoyles flying overhead, their big wings spread wide and their spindly legs trailing behind their pudgy bodies as they patrolled the sky. She could see two of them directly above. Just as one would expect from creatures made of stone, they were remarkably thorough and methodical in their work. The two of them moved back and forth across the sky in an even, intersecting pattern, switching each other’s route to double-check a section of ground with another implacable set of eyes.

Chandra moved slowly, so as not to attract their attention as she scooted beneath a street merchant’s canopy to shield herself from their view.

She wondered just how well those gargoyles could see; if they could spot her red hair from overhead. She needed to cover it up again even if they did they have some other means of detecting her. How many of them were hovering over the city? She was too weak right now to deal with them if they plucked her off the street.

Within moments, she noticed something even more alarming. The woman who had given her food a little while ago was now pointing her out to a man. Or, rather, pointing to the spot where Chandra had been sitting a moment ago. The woman was frowning in perplexity as she scanned the street, looking for where she might have gone.

“She was just there, so she can’t have gone far,” is what Chandra guessed the woman said to the man as she searched the street with her eyes.

He wasn’t wearing the uniform of a Sanctum guard, or of the Prelate’s soldiers, but he looked far from innocuous.

He was older than Chandra, but he was still young, late twenties, maybe thirty. He was taller than average, but only by a little. He had fair skin, blue eyes, and black hair. When he turned his head, she saw that his hair was long and wavy, and tied neatly at the back of his neck. He was dressed simply-tan pants and top, with scuffed leather boots and a well-worn dark leather vest. There was a small coin purse attached to his belt, along with something else that looked like a tool or a weapon. It was shiny, like metal, and coiled like rope-or a like a whip.

He looked lithe, agile, and fit. More than that, he looked as alert as a wild animal scenting prey. His movements were economical-even something as simple as the turn of his head, when his gaze sought her out under the merchant’s canopy. He didn’t waste motion or squander energy.

And his face didn’t give away any reaction when he saw her.

He nodded politely to the other woman without taking his gaze off Chandra, as if aware she’d use the slightest opportunity to bolt. His eyes held hers as he approached her. He didn’t hurry, but his walk was direct and purposeful.

She rose to feet, her heart racing as she tried to summon the power to defend herself. But she was still too weak right now. She hadn’t paced herself or conserved any strength. Back there in the Sanctum of Stars, she had thought only about living through her confrontation. She hadn’t thought about what she would do afterwards.

Several oft-repeated lectures of Mother Luti’s floated briefly through her mind. She needed to pace herself, control her power, and manage her emotions with more discipline. She needed to learn the limits of her strength and ration it intelligently in her magic.

And not just the limits. She needed to learn the extent of her power, too, and how to master it. She thought of the collapsing Sanctum and the chaos in the streets of Kephalai, and she felt the weight of that deed.

Chandra’s gaze remained locked with that of the approaching stranger. She couldn’t enter the?ther and escape him that way. She couldn’t call forth fire and fight him. She felt naked as he stopped and stood before her.

His gaze released hers as he took in her appearance, looking her over from head to toe. It wasn’t insolent, insulting, or sympathetic. He simply seemed to acknowledge her bedraggled condition and the event that had caused it.

Then he said, “Chandra Nalaar.” It wasn’t a question.

She shifted her weight. Since he was obviously looking for her, she wasn’t really surprised that he knew her name. It seemed everyone did these days. But it made her uneasy, even so.

She asked, “Who are you?”

“My name is Gideon.”

“And what’s that to me?”