Laura Resnick: The Purifying Fire

“Yes.” Samir nodded. “Those who feel the lure of Mount Keralia have little in common with those for whom order and structure are paramount. It’s a very… different sort of perspective.”

“It certainly is,” Chandra said with distaste. “So what does fire have to do with the Order of Heliud?”

“The Order’s power is said to come from something called the Purifying Fire. No one I know has ever seen it, and it is said that only a very select few within the Order have access to it, but it is believed to be a source of pure mana that dances perpetually like a flame in the ancient caverns beneath the Temple. The legend says that Heliud was a holy figure in the city of Thold across the Great Sea. He was accused of heresy, crimes against Thold, or some such thing. Regardless, Heliud was exiled along with his followers who believed his promise of a founding a shining city was indeed guidance from the Divine Will. The journey across the sea was long-they lost many of their number to sickness, and when they made landfall many more were lost to the vagaries of the wild.

“When they finally arrived at the site where Zinara was founded, Heliud’s followers were beginning to doubt his plan, or even if he had one. He was facing opposition by one of his followers, a man named Zin who believed they could go no further. They should settle. Heliud was unfit to lead them. The promised land he spoke of was a fever dream. Zin had the support of the majority and Heliud, emaciated and weak from the journey, was facing exile again.”

“You seem to know a lot about this, Samir,” said Chandra. “You got some sympathies you aren’t telling us about?” She grinned to take away the sting of the words.

“During the time I spent in protest on the grounds of the temple, an acolyte would come out and educate me on the history of Heliud. Anyway, to get to the point, Heliud returned to camp some days later. He had returned to peak physical form except that his once-lustrous black hair had gone as grey as the silver fox. When questioned about his transformation, Heliud said that he had found the physical manifestation of the Divine Will in a flickering white flame in some nearby caverns. He had thrown himself into it as penitence for failing to recognize the signs he’d been given, but rather than dying as expected, he emerged revived, stronger even than he had been before, proof of his righteousness. He claimed the fire had cleansed him of error and chosen him as the sole arbiter of Divine Law on Regatha.

“Zin still had loyal followers, many of whom believed that Heliud’s revitalization was somehow demonic in its origin. Heliud challenged Zin, saying that the Fire would be the judge of right and wrong. They had to go, one and the other, to face the Purifying Fire. As you might imagine, only Heliud emerged.”

“What happened to Zin?” asked Brannon.

“It’s interesting that you ask, Brannon, because I wondered the same thing. Heliud told his followers that Zin’s body had vaporized in the flame. The followers of Zin did not believe this explanation, but they never found his body, for as long as they searched the caverns. They were eventually mollified when Heliud named their settlement in Zin’s honor. They hold Zin sacred still, saying that his opposition was divinely inspired to test the truth of Heliud’s leadership.”

He paused, seemingly unwilling to finish the tale, but finally added, “Walbert is the successor to this legacy and the custodian of the Purifying Fire.”

“Well, doesn’t that just figure,” said Chandra in disgust. “The members of the Order have forbidden fire magic to everyone in their land while drawing their own power from fire? Or from something that’s just barely similar to fire?”

A flame that was cold and white didn’t sound much like fire to her. It sounded as rigid and deadly dull as she imagined the members of the Order were.

Chandra was passionate about the heat and fury of fire magic. She loved the gold, orange, yellow of explosions, the blood-red blazes of pyromancy. What was the point of something cold, white, and hidden underground? Surely there was no beauty in that. No glory, or passion, or thrill.

“The Order has forbidden fire magic in their lands,” Samir agreed, “and now they want to restrict our way of life in the Western Wood, too. Certain practices are still allowed, Walbert told me, because he says the laws issued by the Order are not, in his judgment, unreasonable. But now other supposedly-dangerous practices such as summoning are forbidden to us.” Samir’s normally gentle expression grew thunderously angry. “And the ghost wardens are the Order’s means of spying on us in our own land!”

“They have no right,” Chandra said. “None!” Samir rarely raised his voice, but he did so now.

“But at least a ghost warden doesn’t sound like it can be a very good spy,” Chandra said with a frown. “I mean, I’d sure notice it sneaking up on me, if it looks like what Brannon described.”

“Me too!” said Brannon.

“Actually, it’s more effective than you suppose,” Samir said. “It’s completely silent, after all. No feet or hands. We have many unusual things in the forest-”

“No argument there,” said Chandra.

“-but we’re not used to entities without any limbs. Well, apart from snakes, but you get my meaning.”

“I don’t like snakes,” Chandra said frankly.

The shadowy forest felt claustrophobic to Chandra, who was much more used to the scenic vistas of mountain living. The woods were teeming with life, much of it strange and unnerving: carnivorous flowers whose sweet scent lured the unsuspecting, poisonous insects that posed as plants, ill-tempered beasts that resembled moss-covered rocks, and monsters that looked like trees, among many others. Dirt, noise, fungus. None of it appealed to Chandra, but it did offer time away from the other Keralians, who could become quite boring in their devotion.

Even so, sitting on the dry ground outside Samir’s leafy hut, and politely pretending to drink some insipid beverage flavored with mashed plant roots, Chandra felt eager to return to the monastery and tell Mother Luti what she had learned today. If creatures of the Order were roaming the woods now, how much longer would it be before the Order tried to intrude onto Mount Keralia?

“Hardly anything moves through the forest without making a sound,” Samir said. “But these creatures do. Lately, numerous woodlanders have been surprised to notice a ghost warden watching them without having any idea how long it had been there.”

“That would be creepy,” said Brannon.

“For example,” Samir said calmly, “ever since you arrived and we sat down here together, I haven’t glanced at those bushes to our left until just a moment ago.” Now he turned his head and stared hard at the lush shrubbery. “So I don’t know how long that ghost warden has been listening to our conversation.”

Brannon gasped. Chandra jumped as if she had been bitten, leaping to her feet in the same motion as she whirled to face the bushes Samir was looking at.

She saw a white creature there, as as motionless as a rock. It didn’t breathe. Its pale eyes didn’t blink. It didn’t even react to Chandra’s sudden movement, nor to Brannon pointing at it and crying out. And its long white hair remained still, despite the breeze that made the leaves rustle gently on the bush obscuring it from Chandra’s view.

She circled around the clearing, moving to get a better view of the creature. From her new position, Chandra saw that, exactly as Brannon had described, it had no hands or feet, although four appendages were attached to its torso in a disturbing suggestion of arms and legs that trailed off into whirls of glittering white dust where toes and fingers should have existed.