Fire Within: Book Two of Fire and Stone (Stories of Fire and Stone 2) (13 page)

Tseka was quite sure that no Nadra’s scales were supposed to leave the ground. Even after she grew accustomed to the landscape flashing by below—and even began enjoying the wind rushing over her scales—she still maintained that sentiment. But there was no way she was going to complain to Esset. Not about that, and not about the stench that emanated from the smoky black bird they rode.

It took them a few days to reach the edge of Moloch’s kingdom, and seeing it for the first time was a shock. There was a line in the earth; everything on one side was in color, and on the other, grey. The earth was grey, and even the plant life was tinged grey. Gretchen had told Tseka about the Greymaker, but it hadn’t really hit home what that
meant
.

All Nadra loved color; that was why their underground city was painted as vibrantly as it was. And Tseka had always been struck by how much more vibrant colors were aboveground, out in the daylight, so seeing where the earth suddenly turned grey made her scales twitch with wrongness.

Esset didn’t slow or stop when they entered the Greymaker’s range; if anything, he flew higher and faster. They continued until nightfall made it difficult to tell that there was a Greymaker at all. Finally Esset landed them in a decent spot to make camp and banished their foul-smelling mount.

Tseka stretched out her coils, relieving cramps and stiffness. She was tired, but a little antsy after seeing the Greymaker’s effects. Besides, she’d dozed earlier while they were aloft, knowing she was unlikely to get much rest once they reached Moloch’s kingdom.

Tseka surveyed their campsite.

“Your squishy human body will likely find this ground uncomfortable, but all these rocks will keep us well-hidden from sight,” she remarked. It was as close to a compliment as Esset would receive.

“I’d rather be alive than comfortable,” was Esset’s only response. He pulled some rations from his side bag and began eating without enthusiasm.

“Agreed. So all this grey… Gretchen mentioned the Greymaker, but…does it truly not hurt living things?”

“The creator of the Greymaker claims it doesn’t, but what do you think? The Nadra can see some energies, right? Does anything look…wrong?” Esset asked. Tseka hadn’t thought of that. It was mostly just heat that the Nadra could sense—other energies were perceived more as vague feelings. Strange that it was the “blind” one asking her to see, though.

Still, Tseka looked around, concentrating on her senses other than sight and hearing. “The earth and air feel strange, but the animals feel normal. You and I, the small family of mice over these, the birds nesting in that tree.” Tseka gestured around them. “I guess we’re safe then…” She wasn’t entirely reassured.

“What else did Gretchen tell you?” Esset asked suddenly. “I should have talked to her more before I left, but I just…couldn’t stay.”

“She told us what happened until you confronted the mage, and her best guesses as to what happened after. There wasn’t much more for her to tell,” Tseka replied. “I’m more concerned about what’s coming. What is our plan?”

“Plan? Heh. Yeah, that.” Esset’s words weren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but Tseka had known there wasn’t much of a plan when she’d gotten into this.

“The plan is to put my mind in a bat until I find where Toman is being held,” Esset said. “Then I find out when Moloch won’t be around, study the castle layout, make a real plan, and get Toman out. Then we get back to Salithsa as quickly as possible. I’m not sure what you’ll be doing.”

Tseka didn’t rise to the potential insult. She knew he was tired and frustrated and that she wasn’t particularly welcome—not yet. He just didn’t know he needed her.

“I’ll make myself useful. I imagine finding Toman and scouting the land will take longer than you think. Don’t worry about me. Concentrate on Toman.”

They stared at each other for a moment, red eyes to brown.

“Sleep, human,” Tseka finally said. “Rest, and search in the morning.”

Esset couldn’t argue with that.

A week later, Esset saw Toman for the first time since their battle with Moloch. It was the fourth castle dungeon he’d checked in Moloch’s vast, well-populated territory. He scouted through the eyes of a tiny, ashen bat, flitting unseen down corridors and staircases until he found the rooms with iron bars and broken captives.

The bat clung to the ceiling where it met the wall and peered into each cell; its perceptions were not like any human or even Nadra, and it took a long time to identify someone by sight. Thanks to that and the ravages of captivity—and Toman’s missing hat—Esset almost didn’t recognize his adopted brother.

Toman was lying on the bed in his cell, his eyes closed. When Esset realized it was him, he was overcome with a riotous combination of hope and despair—Toman was
alive
, but he was here, captive and tortured and—

Esset lost his hold on the summon’s mind and found himself lurching awake to his own body. He banished the distant bat before it could flutter around and be spotted. His breathing came fast and hard and his chest felt tight. The summoner looked up to regain his bearings when he was seized from behind.

Powerful arms wrapped across his chest, pinning his arms to his sides as a hand clamped over his mouth. His cry muffled, Esset struggled against his captor until something hissed in his ear.

Esset stilled—it was Tseka. The arms around him were scaled scarlet. But his heart still pounded and he strained his ears to hear what had caused her behavior.

He didn’t hear anything—no, there was the clop of a hoof. It was distant, but after a moment, the sounds of more horses joined in: three, maybe four. Tseka slowly released Esset, but he didn’t move much. The mounted men were below the rocky crags that the summoner and Nadra were hiding among, but any stray sound from above would easily alert them.

Soundless, Tseka moved to the edge of one of the rocks and peeked over for barely more than a second. Esset held his breath, but she ducked back again without any cry from below. From her grim expression, Esset gathered that the men below were part of Moloch’s patrols. Certainly the silence of the men indicated the kind of discipline Moloch employed.

It was several long minutes before the sound of hooves faded, and several more before Esset felt safe peeking over the rocks to see the tiny dots of the patrol’s retreating backs.

Esset slumped against the rock he’d been peeking around. “That was close.”

Tseka nodded. “This area is much busier than the last places we’ve checked.”

“Moloch may keep more than one of his important prisoners in that castle.” Esset gestured at the distant dot that “that castle” was on the horizon.

“More than one?” Tseka didn’t miss the phrasing of the statement. “Is Toman there?”

Esset nodded as the conflicting emotions flooded over him once more. He felt his body temperature rising as he tried to shake off the despair and focus on the hope.

“Summoner…” Tseka warned—she could see his body temperature rise.

“I know.” Esset forced himself to focus on breathing slowly—for a time, the memory of seeing Toman, even through the distorted, fiery vision of the bat, refused to go away, but after a couple minutes he succeeded in calming himself.

“How is he?” Tseka asked after a long silence.

“It’s difficult to tell. I doubt he’s a picture of health, but he still had all his limbs, and he’s alive.” Esset was aware of the irony of his words—all his limbs—but Toman at least hadn’t lost any more limbs, and his replacement limb had still been there.

“But we found him. Peace reign, we found him.” Tseka was grinning ear to ear; Esset couldn’t join her, knowing what Toman had probably gone through, but it helped lift him further from that despair.

“Is…is it weird that it bothers me that I didn’t see his hat anywhere?” Esset asked.

Tseka shook her head. “He did always wear it. Even underground, where there’s no sun to block.”

“With everything I know about Moloch and what Toman has no-doubt endured at his hands…it’s his hat that keeps bothering me.” Esset couldn’t figure that one out—by the shake of Tseka’s head, he guessed she couldn’t either.

A short silence passed before Esset shook himself back into action. “Okay, we need to start planning now.”

“What can you tell me about the castle?” Tseka asked, just as ready to get down to business.

Esset drew a rough square in the dirt with his finger, then sketched in a few walls. “Like most of Moloch’s castles, the dungeon is fairly deep inside. We’ll have to sneak in and through some corridors, then get Toman back outside so I can lift him out by air.”

“No punching out through a wall then, huh?” Tseka asked.

Esset frowned. “No. Even if my birds
could
punch through a stone wall—” Maybe, with their new strength since the phoenix, but he doubted it. “—we still wouldn’t want to risk attracting the attention of a mage who could stop us before we’re away. No, I’d rather get in and out without anyone knowing. They’ll notice Toman missing sooner or later, but I’d rather it’s later.”

Tseka nodded, and Esset realized she’d been joking about the “punching through a wall” bit.

“So we go in at night on one of your big stealth birds,” Tseka prompted him.

“Yes. I’ll take time to scout and figure out their patrol patterns, both up on the walls, in the yards, and down inside in the corridors we’ll be taking. And, of course, confirm when Moloch won’t be around.” Esset scratched his scalp as he thought. “Once we’re at his cell, one of my panthers can melt the bars to let us in and we can grab Toman and carry him out.”

“Carry?” Tseka asked.

Esset nodded. “No way the geas will let him come willingly. I brought a sleeping draught from home, so at least he won’t fight us. My only problem is getting the draught to him and getting him to drink it.”

“Good point. He’d probably sound an alarm upon seeing us if the geas acts that strongly,” Tseka said.

Esset nodded; his thoughts exactly. “Sending one of my summons would create the same problem—not to mention they’re not exactly discreet themselves. So I need something new—something big enough to carry a flask, discreet enough to sneak in, and different enough from any summon Toman’s seen to sneak in and get Toman to drink the draught.”

“Do you think Toman would drink the flask even if you manage all that?” Tseka asked.

Esset grimaced. “I can only pray, but I think so.”

“Okay…” Tseka sounded skeptical.

“I need to read.” Esset glanced at the sky; he still had a couple hours of daylight left. “If there’s a summon like that in here, hopefully I can find it.”

“You do that. I’ll catch some rest. Don’t get so absorbed you don’t hear if another patrol comes by.” Tseka slithered over and curled her coils into a pile leaning against him.

“Yeah.” Esset already had his tome out and his nose buried in it. He didn’t see Tseka shake her head before she closed her eyes to rest.

Despite Tseka’s worries, Esset
did
keep an ear out for trouble, although realistically they were out of sight and silent, and therefore unlikely to be found. Esset’s untimely waking was what had put them in danger before.

Esset’s eyes slid over the arcane runes in the book. Some had meaning, but some didn’t. Most he could read, but as soon as his eyes were no longer upon the runes, all memory of them vanished. Esset couldn’t say how many different summons there were; he’d read about them all at one point or another, but his mind was unable to hold them long enough to summon them. Sometimes they would return to him later, often when he needed them or thought that he would need them, but for the moment, they were like smoke in the wind: faintly there, then quickly dispersed.

The sun was low in the sky when Esset tensed. He reread the same passage three times, then looked up from the page and ran the incantation through his mind. He shook Tseka awake.

She came to with her hand reaching for her spear, but she relaxed when she saw Esset smiling at her.

“I found it!” Esset said. Still grinning, he murmured the arcane syllables and a creature materialized next to them.

It wasn’t unlike the fanciful shapes Esset had seen a pipe-smoker conjure at a traveling fair as a boy. It looked spider-like, but it was the size of a large cat and strangely insubstantial. Its body was made of smoke, like the giant raven, but lighter in color and less dense-looking. Its smell was faint, too, like a candle burning in the next room. Esset wasn’t much of a fan of its spider-like shape—it reminded him vaguely of the Reshkin—but it would fulfill all his needs.

“We can
do
this,” Esset said to Tseka in a hoarse, hushed tone. And he believed it.