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

“There’d better be something here after all the trouble we went to,” Beow grumbled. His siblings ignored him again.

“Pass me the rope—I’m going down first,” Teheba said, holding out a hand. With a few more grumbles, Beow dug out the rope and the three of them secured the line to some rocks.

Raf secured his own line to a jutting rock before carefully picking his way down the side of the crater. Really, the rope was only necessary for the first short section, and Raf untied himself when the crater bottom become almost level.

Now inside the blackened scar, Raf realized it was much larger than he’d first thought. Easily as large as a city block. He felt a hint of trepidation, but it only added to the thrill of what they might discover. Still, he was forced to keep his eyes on his feet so he wouldn’t slip on the places where the rock had been melted so shiny-smooth that it was slippery.

He’d reached the pillar before he knew it, and he was still staring at it when shock when Beow finally joined them. All three of them stared at the pillar for some time before anyone spoke.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Raf admitted. Beow scowled.

The pillar was semi-transparent, and inside was a man. He was young, in his twenties, Raf guessed, and he seemed to be asleep. It looked like he’d been suspended in the air when the pillar had encased him, for his head and shoulders were angled slightly forward, almost like he were slumping. He didn’t look particularly peaceful either, although it was difficult to see much. His general outline was visible, but except for a few clearer spots here and there, it was murky within.

“Is he dead?” Beow asked.

“I don’t think so,” Teheba said. Raf glanced at his sister and knew she was trying to figure out how this turn of events could profit them, and she was coming up short.

The wind kicked up—it was unnaturally gusty in the crater—and they watched a fine mist of the black substance get blown away. It seemed that the pillar was eroding very slowly, like an hour-glass with the time running out. Raf wondered what would happen when it reached zero.

Teheba reached out and touched the pillar; the black substance fell away like loose sand beneath her fingertips. She put her fingertips to her nose, then tasted it.

“Peh. It’s like ash, but different. Magic-made, no doubt,” she reported.

The gusts picked up into a full wind that whirled around them and the pillar. The air shaved layers of the pillar away to swirl around them, causing all three to raise their arms to shield their faces. Beow suffered particularly from the wind-borne assault without the additional protection of a scarf. He stepped back several paces, where the air was clearer. In a moment, Teheba and Raf were forced back a pace as well.

As abruptly as the wind had kicked up, it died again. Then Raf saw that the wind had blown away enough of the pillar to uncover the man inside.

“Oi!” Raf shouted the warning and stepped forward at once, catching the man who’d been in the pillar as he began to fall forward.

“Oof, gimme a hand,” Raf said. Teheba already had a steadying hand on him and moved to help stabilize the young man. Raf caught his balance and saw the young man’s eyes open; for a moment, all he saw was fire, but then his eyes cleared to an ordinary brown and rolled back into his head. The young man turned into dead weight as he passed clear out, leaving Raf and Teheba to lay him out on the ground.

Teheba surveyed the young man pessimistically, and Raf knew what she saw. She’d hoped that there’d be a reward for “rescuing” this guy, but those plain clothes didn’t bode well for a rich family or patronage. His clothing was tough but plain, down to his long brown coat. His grooming didn’t mark him as any kind of nobility either—while he was clean-shaven, his brown hair was unkempt and cut in a commoner’s fashion. He was young and in relatively good shape, but he had a light build and certainly didn’t have the marks of a laborer or warrior on him.

“Well, Beow, I think you were right. This was a waste of time,” she said.

“Let’s go then,” Beow said with his customary scowl.

“We ain’t leaving him here,” Raf said.

“Why not? He ain’t worth anything,” Beow objected. “And we owe him nothing, that's for sure. You’re always saying time is money. We’re wasting money. Let’s go.”

“Settle down, Beow. We came all this way, we can’t just leave him here,” Raf said, his tone suggesting that Beow should stop talking. Beow ignored the suggestion and opened his mouth to argue, but Teheba cut him off.

“Raf’s right. We should at least stay until he wakes up. He’s probably a mage, right? Maybe someone wants him back. If there’s a chance this trip isn’t a total waste, we should take it. Make yourself useful and go get blankets from our packs back with the mules,” she ordered.

“This is—” Beow began to object.

“Go.” Raf’s order made Beow scowl but he turned to obey.

“Wait, what’s that?” Beow suddenly said. Raf followed his gaze to what was left of the pillar. Beow trotted over to it and brushed away the ashy substance. The slight wind scattered the ash away.

“What did you find?” Teheba asked. Raf stayed by the unknown man’s side, but he craned his neck to see.

“Looks like a book,” Beow said. He lifted the object up and brushed it off; the ash was like so much dust, but the book seemed fully intact.

“Magic?” Teheba asked with keen interest.

“Gotta be, to have survived all this.” Beow waved around at the crater before focusing on the book again. He opened it, but scowled at the contents.

“What’s it say?” Raf asked.

Still scowling, Beow tilted the book in his direction as he walked over. Raf tried to read the pages, but the symbols looked like nonsense. In fact, when he wasn’t directly looking at the page, he couldn’t even remember what the symbols looked like.

Only Teheba looked happy. “Definitely magic.”

Beow perked up. “Think we can get lots of money for it?”

“Tough to say,” Teheba replied. “If it’s actually useful—that is, if anyone can understand it—we could get a lot. If not… Well, we’d probably have to search a long while for a buyer, but we’d probably be able to still get some decent coin for it.”

“I’ll carry it,” Beow volunteered.

“You still have to go get those blankets,” Teheba said. Beow barely even scowled as he turned and climbed back up the side of the crater.

Meanwhile, Raf turned his gaze back to the unconscious man. He touched the man’s wrist lightly and found he was feverishly hot to touch. Hopefully the man would wake soon, or getting back to civilization was going to get complicated.

Esset woke with a pounding headache. He groaned and tried to open his eyes, but the brightness of the bleak grey sky above caused him to squeeze them shut again. When he heard someone nearby, he tried again, to the same effect.

“He’s awake,” a female voice said beside him, and Esset heard footsteps. This time when Esset opened his eyes, he managed to keep them open by squinting against the light and turning his head to the side so the glare wasn’t so bad.

Esset was disoriented—he didn’t recognize the voices, or his surroundings. What had happened? When he reached back into his memories, he remembered exactly how he’d gotten there and sat up so quickly that blackness blurred the edges of his vision.

“Whoa!” someone exclaimed.

Esset’s vision cleared in time for him to see a multitude of little flamelets dancing in the air around him. His mind went blank with surprise until the woman beside him shouted and try to stomp on a little flame that was floating close to the ground.

Two facts were likely: that he was the cause of the flames, for all that he’d never been able to do something like this before, and that these people weren’t foes. Esset tried to calm himself and willed the tiny buds of flame dancing around him to vanish. The dual effort worked, and the flamelets vanished.

“Sorry, I think,” Esset said, and found that his voice was so hoarse that his apology was barely intelligible. His throat felt like it was sticking to itself, it was so dry. One of the men snorted. The woman scowled, but the second man just passed a flask of water over to him.

“Drink,” the man suggested. Esset did so, but he was careful not to drink too quickly. He found that took a great deal more self-control than he’d originally thought; he was parched. He was three-quarters through the flask when he became aware that two of the three were watching him like a hawk. He stopped himself from finishing the flask and passed it back.

“Thank you. I’m Esset.” At least his voice was clearer now.

“Raf,” said the nearer man, pointing at himself. Then he pointed at the woman, then the other man. “Teheba, and Beow Herega.”

“What happened?” Esset asked. Clearly some time had passed since the battle—after all, they’d checked the area thoroughly beforehand and there’d been no one, and now these three were here. The question was how much time. He glanced up at the sky. A day, maybe? Two? That would account for how weak he felt. He had no idea how he was still alive at all, but he’d think on that question later. If he wanted to save his brother, he had to hurry.

“We followed stories, hoping to make a profit is what happened. Instead we found
you
.” The one called Beow sounded considerably less than impressed. The scathing tone slipped right past Esset as his words indicated it had been longer than he’d thought. How long. A week? …A month? A cold pit of fear formed in his stomach.

“How long was I like that?” he asked, his throat so tight he could barely ask the question.

“We first heard a story about this place a few months ago, but we’re not from these parts,” Teheba said with a shrug. Esset could barely breathe.

Raf looked him straight in the eye. “Best we could tell, the crater we found you in had been there for about two years.”

Esset stared at him. Internally, his world came crashing down. First, the words failed to compute. When they did, all he could think was
No. No. No no no nonono…
He turned completely inward and didn’t even realize he’d dropped his head and closed his eyes. What about his brother? Moloch had taken him, after capturing him with magic; Moloch, the twisted Dark Mage they’d foolishly tried to stop, only to have their own plan turned against them. The thought of Toman in Moloch’s possession for even one day was too horrific to contemplate. What would Moloch have done to him in a year? If Toman was even still alive, would there be even a shred of his spirit left? Would he still
be
Toman? Could Moloch have destroyed his mind and soul and left nothing but a shell with Toman’s abilities to do his bidding? Could—

“Hey Mister. Uh, Esset!” Raf’s voice snapped Esset’s mind back into the present and he opened his eyes. Heat was radiating from Esset, so much heat that a faint steam was rising from him.

“Bright Hyrishal help me,” Esset muttered to his deity. He tried to calm himself and clear his mind, to release the anxiety that had momentarily overwhelmed him. With clarity came certainty; he didn’t know if his brother was still alive, and if he was alive, whether he could be saved. But that just meant he’d have to find out. Everyone would think they were both dead, which meant he had only one place he could go—home. As he calmed himself, the heat subsided and the steam wisped away. He looked at the three who had found him.

“Thank you for your help,” Esset said. “Ah—” A thought occurred to him: an important thought. “Did you find a book with me? A tome?”

Raf and Teheba exchanged glances, and Beow scowled.

“Give it to him,” Raf ordered Beow, whose scowl deepened.

“Great, so now this salvage mission is a total bust. We could get a good dollar for this thing.” Beow picked up the book and waved it in the air.

“Trust me, it’s useless to anyone who’s not a member of my family,” Esset said.

“I don’t think so. Any book that can survive the conditions we found it in has to be worth something. Locked in that black stuff under your feet, with a heat shield around it? Someone would pay for it, even if it did turn out to be useless,” Beow argued, clearly unwilling to relinquish the tome.

“Please,” Esset said. “I need it.”

“And we need to make a living,” Beow countered. Raf was glaring at Beow, but Teheba looked like she was enjoying the scene.

“Please, I would rather remain a friend than become your enemy,” Esset finally said. He didn’t like resorting to threats, but he had already lost far too much time. “I have the power to take it by force if necessary.”