Laura Resnick - The Purifying Fire

The ghost warden truly seemed to fear the fire, its entire form sliding horizontally away from the flaming projectiles with only a scant moment to spare. Then it abruptly returned two beams of white light in quick succession. Chandra dodged the first one and met the other with a deflective ball of flame.

“Oh no you don’t!” She threw another fireball, and another, and another after that. The area surrounding the glade was a wall of flame by now, each successive explosion of fire adding to the blazing fury. The oufes were in hysterics, and Samir was shouting words she couldn’t quite hear.

Moving at a run, Chandra circled the glade to block the ghost warden’s only remaining escape route. It hovered uncertainly, facing Chandra, surrounded on all other sides by fire.

The approaching horses were now so close that Chandra could hear the jingle of their bridles directly behind her as she threw three more fireballs at the creature in quick succession. Its rapid, evasive movements managed to dodge the assaults, but the result was a bonfire that could not be avoided and the ghost warden was soon consumed in flames.

Over the roar of the fire and the shrieking of oufes, Chandra became fully aware of the rattling bridles and snorting horses behind her, as well as the sharp exclamations of male voices. She was already turning toward the sounds when she realized what Brannon was frantically screaming at her.

“Chandra! Soldiers! Behind you! Soldiers on horseback!”

There were four of them. Their horses were dancing nervously, frightened by the fire. The soldiers, all wearing boiled-leather armor over pale blue tunics, looked stunned as they gazed at her. Three of them had their swords drawn. One appeared to have entirely forgotten he was armed, and just stared at Chandra with his mouth hanging open.

She grinned as she raised her arms high, a mane of fire swirling around her head and shoulders. Flames licked across her skin, surrounding her body in a flaming aura. The torches at the end of her arms grew immense as she shouted, “Leave this forest! Never come back! Tell Walbert what you have seen! The Order is finished here!”

Since they seemed to need a little encouragement, she threw a fireball over their heads. One of the horses pranced sideways, its eyes rolling with fear. Another reared up, nearly unseating its rider.

When Chandra threw a second fireball, letting this one come a little closer to hitting one of the men, they all four turned and fled. The sight of their horses galloping away made her grin with exultation.

She watched until the green woodland swallowed them up, hiding them from her view as they fled, she supposed, in the direction of the plains. She felt someone tugging at her sleeve.

“Chandra,” Brannon said, his eyes wide as he looked up at her. He was still a boy, and she was tall for a woman. “Samir says we should leave before the oufes strip your flesh from your bones and feed it to wolves.”

“What?” Chandra frowned as she glanced over her shoulder in Samir’s direction. “Oh.”

The mage was holding back a mass of the woodland creatures with an undulating green net of tangled, writhing vines that he had conjured between them and the glade, Some of them were flinging themselves at the barrier, squealing as they got tangled up in it, while others were trying to climb it, in an attempt to go over the top and proceed from there.

All around them the glade burned. She had started a forest fire, one that was raging completely out of control.

“Oops.”

Oufes, she knew, could be very touchy about this sort of thing. Indeed, Samir was taking quite a risk with his own people by interceding to protect her. However, she had destroyed a ghost warden and chased away four of Walbert’s armed soldiers. Hopefully, when the oufes calmed down, they’d realize that she had acted for the best.

At the moment, though…

Chandra started toward Samir, intending to help him.

He glanced in her direction, and an expression of horror contorted his face when he saw her approaching him. “Go!” he ordered. “Go now!”

Brannon grabbed her by the shirt. “Chandra…”

Samir was right, she realized. These oufes were pointing at her and screaming. Her presence was only increasing their frenzy. She hated leaving Samir to deal with this alone, but that was the best choice available at the moment.

“All right, yes,” Chandra said, grasping Brannon’s hand. “Let’s go. This way.”

They ran across the glade together, their footsteps carrying them into a wall of fire. Knowing that no forest-dweller would follow them this way, they fled through the welcoming embrace of the flames.

The first attack came the following night. Chandra was lying awake in her narrow bed, torn between anger over Luti’s latest lecture on self-control and a certain reluctant awareness that the mother mage had a valid point.

Fortunately, Chandra’s fire-as she had been quick to remind Luti earlier tonight-had only burned down a small portion of the Great Western Wood. Samir had sent one of his many relatives to the monastery earlier to inform them that Chandra’s forest fire had been contained and quelled after nightfall. The rains had been sporadic this year, but the elves’ magic had kept the fire confined to the the glade where Chandra had destroyed the ghost warden.

“Nonetheless,” Luti had said to her earlier tonight, “you did far more damage than good, Chandra.”

“But I-”

“Eliminating one ghost warden may have been helpful-”

“May have been? That thing was a spy for the Order!” “-or it may have been ill-advised. In either case-”

“Ill-advised how?” Chandra demanded.

“In either case,” Luti said, clearly losing patience with her.

“The possible benefit of eliminating one ghost warden from the forest cannot balance the catastrophe of burning down the forest.”

More admonishments had followed. “Playing with fire is bad for those who burn themselves,” said Luti quoting some sage or another. “But for the rest of us it is a great pleasure. I want you to be able to experience this pleasure as I do, Chandra, but until you learn to control your impulses, you will continue to burn yourself and those around you.”

Chandra lay wide awake in bed thinking about that last statement and wrestling with the emotions it stirred.

She hated being reprimanded and lectured. It made her want to leave Regatha, Keral Keep, and Mother Luti far behind her. She was seething with indignation and felt like setting something on fire, even though that was precisely what had gotten her into this trouble in the first place.

On the other hand…

Chandra heaved a breath as she lay on her back, staring up into the darkness.

On the other hand, she had indeed destroyed part, however small, of the forest, enraged a tribe of oufes, and no doubt caused a lot of trouble for Samir. The woodlanders hadn’t ever done her any harm. Samir considered her a friend, and the Keralians sought cooperation with the forest races against the encroaching power of the Order. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable for Luti to say that making enemies in the woods by wreaking destruction had been a bad decision, or, rather, to quote her, “a stupid misstep.” The actual decision had been to rid the woodlands of a spy for the Order. That was a good idea, thought Chandra.

However, given the way things had turned out, it was possible that the woodlanders found a single ghost warden among many to be slightly less disruptive to their daily routine than she had been.

Chandra kept reviewing the events of that day and wondering what she should have done differently. Capture the ghost warden instead of kill it? How could she have done that? The creature was so fast and elusive, she had barely been able to get close enough to throw fireballs at it. Should she have just let it spy on her and then go its merry way? Out of the question! Instead of killing it in the woods, should she have chased it to the plains and thereby accidentally set the farmlands on fire? Would Luti be less exasperated with her now if farmers were enraged instead of woodlanders?