Laura Resnick - The Purifying Fire

“I think we should get you out of here.”

“What?” she said.

He glanced around. Just a slight turn of his chin, a quick flicker of his eyes to encompass the street scene and the gargoyle guardians overhead. “This situation is volatile. We should leave.”

“Who are you?”

“We have very little time.”

“Then answer my question quickly,” she snapped.

“What happened back there,” he said quietly, tilting his head to indicate the disaster at the Sanctum of Stars. “That was you.”

She didn’t respond.

He prodded, “Wasn’t it?” When she remained unresponsive, he said, “Of course it was. Who else could have done it?”

“You’d better back up and tell me how you even know who I am.” She was starting to think he wasn’t working for the Prelate, or the ruined Sanctum.

“You’ve been making yourself conspicuous,” he said.

“Maybe so. But you haven’t. So I suggest you start explaining.”

“What was it?” He lowered his voice so they wouldn’t be overheard, but some emotion showed now. Tension? Disdain? She wasn’t sure. “A explosion of that size? Inside the Sanctum?” She didn’t deny it, and he whispered, “What were you thinking?”

She admitted wearily, “I was just thinking about surviving.”

His gaze dropped to the scroll clutched in her hand. “And also about stealing?”

“All right, fine, so I’m a bad person,” she said. “I had a troubled youth.”

“You’re still having a troubled youth.”

“All the more reason to stay away from me, Gideon.” She turned to go.

His grip on her arm stopped her. “Hunting you down has been troublesome. I don’t intend to go through it twice.”

She stared at him. “Why have you been hunting me down?”

He looked past her and, though he didn’t move, she sensed his tension increase sharply. “Never mind that now. I think we both know why they’re hunting you down.”

She turned to follow his gaze and saw half a dozen soldiers heading this way. She turned to escape in the other direction, only to see soldiers approaching from there, too.

“Are you their scout?” she demanded.

“No, I was hoping to avoid this.” He looked up at the gruesome sky patrol. “And I think you may have been spotted from above, as well.”

“Now what?”

“They’re going to take you into custody.” He added, “I hope you have a high threshold for pain.”

Adrenaline surged through her, and she felt herself getting her second wind. “I think I can fight.”

“No!”

“Will you help?”

“No”

“Then get out of the way!”

Chandra felt stronger. She was thinking about survival again, and fear had a wonderfully energizing effect.

As the soldiers approached her from both sides in the crowded street, she felt heat start to flow through her, welcome and inspiring. She felt the fire moving through her blood once more.

Gideon moved swiftly. He grabbed the thing hanging from his belt-that coil of metal. It unfurled in his hand, glowing so brightly that Chandra was distracted. He swung his arm, and then the thing was twining around her.

“No!” she said, shocked and caught off guard. “Stop!”

It had broad, flexible blades and sharp edges, and it was cold… so cold. It tightened around her, constricting her, stifling her breath. And its terrible cold trapped her fire, contained her heat, smothered her rage… As she struggled for air and shivered with cold, the weapon robbed her of consciousness.

But just before everything went black, she thought she heard him say, “I’m sorry.”

When Chandra opened her eyes, she found herself staring into the beady eyes of a black snake. Its tongue flicked out at her. She flinched and tried to move back, but couldn’t. Her back was flat against a wall, her limbs uncomfortably chained in a spread-eagle position. Bound by her wrists and ankles, her movement was almost totally restricted.

As the snake’s big face moved even closer, Chandra turned her head and made a stifled sound of protest. She really didn’t like snakes.

“Ah.” Someone spoke in a low, breathy voice. “It’sss awake.”

She gaped at the snake. “Excuse me?” Her voice was a dry croak.

But the snake said nothing more for the moment.

Chandra blinked and tried to focus her vision. That was when she realized the “snake” was standing upright on a set of legs and wearing a black robe with a hood.

“Oh.” She groaned as the realization penetrated her confusion. “You must be one of the Enervants I’ve heard so much about?”

“Yesss.”

Her mistake was understandable. It was standing so close to her that its head almost entirely filled her field of vision. And from the neck up, this thing looked exactly like a snake. A big one.

She looked down and saw that it had hands; hands that were thin, almost delicate, and scaly black with long wrinkled fingernails. Strangely a snake with hands made sense to Chandra at this point. Actual snakes were pretty limited in their activities, after all; and none, so far as she knew, spoke or practiced magic.

Chandra wasn’t sure what to make of these creatures, but she was sure they wouldn’t like the inferno she was going to bring. But as she struggled against her bonds, she realized that she could barely move. And it wasn’t because the chains were that tight. She felt absolutely exhausted, as if she hadn’t eaten or slept for days.

Blinking a few times to clear her foggy vision, she looked at her surroundings. She was clearly being held in a dungeon. Stone walls, floor, and ceiling. No windows. No torches, either. No candles, no fire, no flames of any kind.

The only illumination in the room came from slimy-looking phosphorescent things clinging to the walls here and there. Chandra guessed that the snakelike sorcerers had brought them here from whatever swamp they called home.

With such faint light and no windows, the room was dark, stuffy, and dank. And it stank.

The odor of damp decay, she suspected, was coming from her companions. There were seven Enervants in the room with her. One was still peering into her face; its tongue flicked in and out every few moments, as if testing Chandra’s scent. The other six, who all looked just like the first one, were gliding silently around the room in a figure eight. Their bodies were evenly spaced as they followed the pattern at a steady pace. Their paths steadily intersected without ever bumping into each other or pausing in their flow.

Chandra found it eerie. “What are they doing?”

She coughed a little as she spoke. Her throat was dry and she was dying of thirst. But she’d be damned if she’d ask for anything.

To her surprise, her captor answered her. “Gathering ssstrength.”

“Oh. Can’t they do that elsewhere?”

The Enervant didn’t answer. It just kept staring at her.

She tried another question. “Where am I? The Prelate’s dungeon?”

The snake nodded, its head moving on its muscular neck in a slow, sinewy motion.

She tried to think of what else she wanted to ask, but she was so tired. It was hard to pull her thoughts together or make the effort to speak.

Chandra tried to remember what had happened to put her in this position.

She remembered the man, Gideon, and his weapon. She had never seen anything like it, but she was reasonably certain that he had used some form white-mana based magic to subdue her. Even in her weakened state, the weapon alone could not have pulled her into unconsciousness like that.

As if the Order back on Regatha weren’t burden enough, she was in a dungeon on Kephalai because of some interfering heiromancer? But why would he be in league with these creatures? It didn’t seem right.