Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

THErest of the day was a little less fun but definitely more productive. The owner of the tavern where Sosie worked-a thin, fretful man named Eddie-was much more amenable to the notion of army recruiters than Ward had been, and he agreed to let Senneth and Kirra stay in his place all day, presenting their case to residents. His wife turned out to be a reader as well, and she sat beside them most of the day, giving them quick biographies of the mystics who approached them and her assessment of their reliability.

Before day’s end, Senneth guessed that they’d talked to thirty or forty mystics with a range of powers and varying degrees of amiability. A few she liked instantly and hoped to bring back to Ghosenhall right away. A few others seemed only mildly interested in her proposition but agreed to join up with the royal army if war really did sweep across Gillengaria.

One or two struck her as being too furtive or too damaged to be of much use, no matter how desperate the battle became. These were mystics who had been beaten or threatened or abused so often that they had little strength and no trust left in them, and their power, if any remained, was buried and hard to summon.

These were the mystics, in some sense, who most deserved to have a war fought in their defense.

Ward came by late in the day, sneering a little. He was accompanied by a boy who might have been twelve years old, slight and reedy and freckle-faced. He had badly combed hair, impish eyes, and an air of guileless excitement.

“Lot of people seem to be interested in this story you’re telling about the king needing an army of mystics,” Ward said. He was so big he seemed to be crowding them back into the booth, though he didn’t actually try to sit.

“It’s the truth, as-with your ability-you surely know,” Senneth replied.

“Might be true, but people need a reason to follow someone like you. A total stranger,” Ward said. “Maybe you don’t have any power of your own, or not much, anyway. People want to know how strong you are.”

“Other people want to know, or just you?” Kirra inquired sweetly.

Senneth ignored her. “I’m a fire mystic. I’d be pleased to demonstrate my ability. Would you like me to burn Carrebos to the ground? I can do that, but I doubt it would make anybody truly happy.”

Ward put his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Jase here’s a fire mystic, too,” Ward says. “We’ve all seen him call up flame-and settle it down, too, when a house was about to burn. Maybe you could have a sort of competition with Jase-show us what you can do that he can’t. People might be impressed by that. If you were better.”

“Oh, a duel!” Kirra said, clapping her hands together. “What fun!”

Senneth didn’t even look at her. “It’s not remotely fair,” she said quietly. “I’m twenty years older than he is and far stronger than you realize. He has no chance of besting me.”

Ward shrugged. “Well, if you’re afraid to try-”

Kirra strangled a laugh. Senneth dropped her eyes to Jase’s face. “How old are you?” she asked him.

“Thirteen a week ago.”

“You’re pretty good with fire.”

He shrugged, but his eyes were blazing with excitement, so she guessed he had a nice combustible power. “Well, Jase, I tell you this just so you know what to expect. I’ve never met a mystic who’s stronger than I am, no matter what his skill. And I can see I’m going to have to show off a little to prove a point to your friend here. So don’t be upset if I don’t hold back. Don’t let it discourage you.”

He grinned. “All right.”

“When shall we have our little contest?” she asked Ward. “Do you need time to alert the town?”

“How about right after dinner?” he said. “Sky’ll be dark. Fire’ll show up real pretty then.”

“Agreed,” she said. “Let’s meet out on the main street in about two hours.”

Tayse was back about an hour later, Donnal at his heels, so they ate a surprisingly delicious meal in Eddie’s tavern. Darryn joined them and endured their teasing until talk turned to the upcoming competition.

“How do I play this?” Senneth asked Tayse, the consummate tactician. “Start small and build, or just open with conflagration?”

He considered. “Open big, but save something for a final showdown. Awe them, and then terrify them.”

“Any chance the boy could really be better than Senneth?” Darryn asked.

“No,” Senneth, Kirra, and Tayse all answered in unison.

Senneth laughed. “And if he is, then I’m certainly bringing him back to Ghosenhall, whether or not he wants to come! Anyone with more power than me should definitely be in service to the king.”

When it was full dark, Senneth and her party emerged from Eddie’s tavern to find a sizable portion of Carrebos’s population already lining the main street. An iron brazier had been set in the middle of the road. Ward and Jase stood right in front of it, tending a small fire, while the townspeople waited a respectful distance back. Senneth made her way through the crowd with quite a contingent following her-Tayse, Kirra, Donnal-the-dog, Darryn, Sosie, Eddie, and Eddie’s wife. None of the spectators appeared worried, Senneth thought. They all looked like they had come out for an evening of rare entertainment.

She couldn’t imagine another city in Gillengaria that would be so complacent at the notion of witnessing a duel between mystics.

She stepped up to the brazier and smiled at Jase. “Do you require a little fire to begin with? To get your own fires going?”

He eyed her uncertainly. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to start one on my own. But I can put out any fire that’s set.”

“Let’s see, then,” Senneth said. She held up her hand, closed her fingers, and tamped out the blaze.

There was a small ripple of response from the crowd, but she wasn’t done yet. She raised her arm and offered a quick twist of her wrist, and every window of every building in town went dark. Candles blown out, hearth fires extinguished, light and heat smothered at every source. The murmuring of the crowd grew louder.

“Ah, but we need a bit of fire, don’t we, just to see what we’re doing,” she said. Pivoting slowly on one foot, she pointed at building after building-the taverns, the shops, the cottages-and reignited each separate flame inside each one. Then she made the circle one more time, spinning a little faster, setting fire to objects that had never been meant to be torches. A short pole holding a merchant’s sign. The tall chimney of a two-story boardinghouse. A bare, scrubby tree lurking on one side of the road. A cart. A wine barrel. The coals in the brazier sprang back to life.

Undaunted, Jase whirled around just a second or two behind her, dousing each unnatural blaze, leaving the hearth fires unmolested and the candles primly flickering.

She had to laugh. “Very good,” she approved. “Now, can you put this one out?”

She set herself on fire.

“Mercy!” someone shouted, and she felt the whole crowd shift back. She viewed the world through a wall of violent colors, orange and red and yellow and black. Her clothes writhed with flame, her short hair was a crackling wick. She felt the tickling heat on her skin, breathed the scorched air-she knew she was burning-but she felt relaxed, familiar, ordinary. She was always a degree or two away from combustion anyway; she harbored fire in her heart, felt it running always through her veins. Sometimes it surprised her to think she didn’t always exist surrounded by a prismatic inferno.

She felt Jase’s magic tugging at the flames, dampening them to short little licks of fire. She let him succeed for a few minutes, enough for the crowd to notice, enough for Jase himself to feel a little thrill of accomplishment. Then she flung her arms upward and a column of flame shot above her head, reaching so high no one on the ground could see the end of it. She pivoted again, more quickly this time, and gestured. Here. Here. This place. Here . And each time she pointed her fingers, something else erupted into fire. Eddie’s tavern. Ward’s inn. The house of some poor onlooker, who instantly started wailing. The whole street was hemmed in with heat; every intent face was illuminated by the erratic, dramatic light.