Fire Within: Book Two of Fire and Stone (Stories of Fire and Stone 2) (8 page)

After an hour digging around the inside and finding nothing, Esset summoned his bird again and rose aloft. He circled one last time and was about to leave when he noticed that one corner of the second story was virtually untouched by scorch marks. The roof was even partially intact.

Esset directed the bird lower; sure enough, one upstairs room had mostly withstood fire, elements…and intruders. It was a small room on the corner with only a narrow slit for a window. Esset flew by the slit several times to peek in; his heart beat faster when he saw there was still furniture inside. Maybe, just maybe, the instrument—or information on it—would still be there, inside.

Esset flew the bird closer and set it to hovering by the window so he could get a closer look. He leaned towards the narrow opening, craning his head to see inside. Just as he spied a small chest on a desk, his hand slipped. An undignified yelp escaped him and tiny flames danced in the air around him as gravity took over. His fiery mount tilted its wings so he slid along it—right into the wall. Esset’s senses scattered when his head connected with the stone wall; he couldn’t tell up from down or right from left. Not until he hit the ground.

Esset groaned but remained still as the bruised side of his body reminded him which direction was down. He did a mental check of what hurt, then rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. He saw fire.

Panic sparked again when he saw the flamelets dancing in the air around him. If anything was left in the house, he couldn’t afford to burn it. The flames grew more intense with his emotion until he forced the panic back, taking slow and steady breaths. Over the course of a minute, the flames shrank, then vanished. Esset heaved a sigh of relief and closed his eyes again, making sure he would remain calm and fire-free before even thinking about getting up.

A single story wasn’t too far to fall—less than that, considering he’d bounced off the bird’s wing and the wall on the way down. Esset figured he’d have some colorful bruises and a nice lump on his head, but nothing seemed to have been seriously damaged.

Esset sat up gingerly. He glanced up to see his summoned bird still hovering above him; the increased obedience of his summons was definitely a nice perk of the phoenix’s loaned power. Under the old Contract, the summon would have certainly flown away—if he’d even been able to get it to hover so calmly in the first place. Time to test that control a little further.

Esset murmured an incantation and a tiny, ashy black bat appeared in the air next to him. Its squeak sounded like a sizzle from bacon in a hot pan. Closing his eyes, Esset sent his consciousness into the tiny creature to use its senses.

Esset adjusted to the altered perception on the fly; he could smell sound, taste colors, and see the scents in the air as the bat flew up to the window. Fortunately he could also still see and hear in something of a normal fashion, or he’d never be able to adjust—at least not to the level of adeptness that he had.

The bat flew through the window and hovered. Esset could hear it chittering, tiny snaps and pops like a cozy campfire. Esset looked around, once again spying the small chest on the desk. He had the bat land atop it, but there was no way the tiny creature would be able to lift it; this was just recon. There wasn’t much in the room: a bed, a bookshelf with some seriously deteriorated books, and what looked like a clothes-chest. Esset would definitely have to investigate in person, despite his fear of setting anything useful afire by accident.

Esset banished the bat with a thought and called down the bird still hovering above. He got to his feet with a groan as it landed beside him. He wasn’t looking forward to trying to hop over to that window.

Or maybe he didn’t have to “hop over.” Esset mounted up and launched off the ground. He figured if he had the bird fly straight for the window, he could banish the bird at the last second and use his momentum to propel himself through the opening.

Esset lined the bird up for the attempt. He didn’t want too much speed, but he didn’t want to repeat his fall, either. The bird swooped in. Esset readied himself on its back and then leapt, banishing the bird as planned. The window came up fast—too fast. Too fast and too small.

Esset’s shoulders slammed into either side of the stone frame of the window, and he barely stopped himself from falling again. When he was sure he had his balance, he breathed deeply to make sure he was calm and fire-free. The motion pulled at the new bruises on his shoulders.

“Hello, bruises fifty-five and fifty-six,” he muttered. He knew Toman would have laughed at his misfortune, but at the thought of Toman, Esset’s humor vanished.

Esset turned sideways and wedged himself through the narrow opening, musing that even Teheba, the slightest of the three scavengers, was bigger than he and probably wouldn’t have fit through the window. Esset was a bit on the tall side, sure, but he was a far cry from being buff.

As Esset dropped inside the room, he noticed scratches on the window-ledge. From a grappling hook? Probably. It didn’t look like the hook had caught on anything, but it was difficult to say. Certainly the room looked untouched—he seemed to be the first to successfully reach the room.

Good.

Esset went straight for the small chest, but to his chagrin, it was locked. Undeterred, Esset stuffed the chest in his side bag and continued searching the room. There wasn’t much to find; the books had been ravaged by pests, but Esset doubted they’d been written by Garson or Atah anyways. Still, the loss of any book was a tragedy in Esset’s eyes.

The larger chest on the floor held only clothes—again, heavily deteriorated. The desk and chair were nondescript and held no secrets—Esset checked—but the bed held a surprise. Esset sifted through the disintegrated canvas that had once held straw as a mattress. He was rewarded for his efforts with a tiny key.

Esset grinned at the tiny piece of metal and dug the small chest back out of his bag. The lock gave to the key with a tiny
click
, and the contents were intact. The gold cufflinks, tiny engraved cameo and wooden dog held no interest for Esset—they were simply the treasures of a man long dead. No, it was the scroll that captured all of his attention.

Esset withdrew the scroll with the utmost care, but it was unnecessary: the scroll had been perfectly preserved. Esset guessed the box had been magically sealed as well as physically locked, as the paper seemed almost new.

Esset started to sit down on the chair, but he leapt back to his feet when it wobbled dangerously. For a moment, he debated returning to the inn, but he didn’t want an audience any more than he wanted to pay for another room. No, here was fine; Esset sat cross-legged on the floor instead.

It didn’t take long for Esset’s hopes to dwindle. The scroll had to do with Garson’s work, not Atah’s. Where Atah’s work all centered on using natural energies to undo magic, Garson’s focused on using those same natural energies to work magic in the first place. The scroll focused on healing—Esset would have been incredibly excited about his find if not for the fact that it meant he still didn’t have a complete geas-breaking “spell.”

Esset’s mood encroached on despair, then swung around to anger. Esset dropped the scroll back into its box and clapped it shut just before he felt his body temperature rise and flamelets began dancing in the air around him. The fire only fueled his despair and anger until he finally forced himself calm. Esset stood there for a long time as the internal struggle played out. More than anything, Esset feared that he was wasting his time, and that the rest of the information he needed didn’t even exist.

I still have a lead to follow. I just have to find the scavengers,
Esset reminded himself, and it was enough to calm him until the dancing flames vanished.

Mouth set in a grim line, Esset climbed up onto the window ledge again. Chest secure in his bag again, he summoned a bird and jumped onto its back. Moments later, he soared north; he had some scavengers to find.

Esset flew back to the eerie crater in the mountains, then tracked his way down the mountain after the scavengers. By the fourth day of gruelling travel and little sleep or food, Esset was second-guessing his decision to search for them.

Every second I waste is another second that Moloch is torturing Toman. What if I’m wrong, and they’re not heading to Omineca? Just because they’re based out of there doesn’t mean they’re going there now. I lost their trail on the trade road yesterday, and if I’m wrong…

Esset shook his head to clear it and squinted in the dying evening light. It was dark enough that he couldn’t follow tracks, mule scat, or traces of old campsites, but on the trade road, that didn’t matter anyways: too much traffic.

No, right now he was hoping to see live camps. He’d been searching long enough and quickly enough that he should be catching up to them any time. If he was right about their direction. And speed. How fast could three people with two mules go? They’d be limited to a man’s footpace regardless…right?

Bright Hyrishal, I hope so.

He’d checked the few inns that he’d passed and found no sign or word of them. It was the no word part that bothered him; surely someone would have seen them pass, even if they hadn’t stopped, since they had no reason to avoid towns. Or did they?

Esset shook his head again. He had to focus or stop and rest, and he wasn’t ready to stop yet. He strained his eyes against the dying light again. Was that a campfire?

There was no point in trying to be stealthy, not riding a giant flaming bird. Esset flew straight for the campfire. When he got close, he saw a group of five men shouting and scrambling for their weapons. Undeterred, Esset landed in the middle of them, next to the campfire.

After banishing his mount, Esset stood alone in the middle of five armed men whose emotions appeared to range from nervous to angry.

“Hi.” Esset lifted a hand to wave.

“What do you want, mage?” One man brandished a sword and stepped forward. He had a very large beard.

“I’m looking for some people. I was wondering if you’d seen them. Two men and a woman. Raf, Beow, and Teheba Herega,” Esset replied.

“And if we have?” the man asked.

Hope sparked in Esset’s chest. These men did seem to be of the rougher variety. Maybe he’d been asking in the wrong places before. Well, maybe not, since he’d been asking in the only places he could find, but still.

“You have?” Esset said.

“What’s it to you if we have or haven’t?” the man asked. Esset didn’t like his tone and considered summoning something to remind him who—or what—he was dealing with.

“I’m hoping to employ them,” Esset replied, noticing that a man to the side and behind him had nocked an arrow to his bowstring. Most of the nervousness had vanished from the collective demeanor of the men, and he caught a hint of greed in their leader’s gaze.

“If you want information, it’ll cost you,” the bearded man said. Not that he was the only one with a beard—far from it—but he certainly had the biggest, bushiest beard.

Esset scowled, suspecting these men were of a criminal element, but he didn’t want to fight if he didn’t have to. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin; it wasn’t a lot, but it wasn’t insultingly small, either. He tossed it to the man, who caught it with a grin.

“We’ll need more than that, laddy,” the bearded man said.

“That’s all you’ll get. Did you see them or not?” Esset asked. Two swordsmen were slowly creeping forward behind him. Esset was thinking these men couldn’t be all that smart if they’d already forgotten that he’d come in on a giant flaming bird of prey.

“Money makes the world go round,” the bearded man replied, holding out a hand and rubbing his fingers together.

Esset was sick of wasting time. He let arcane syllables roll off his tongue, summoning not one, but two fiery birds. One screamed a war cry; it sounded like the high-pitched squeal of sap boiling inside trees before they exploded from the extreme pressure. The other just hissed, an eerie sound like steam escaping under duress. The ring of men staggered back in a gratifying fashion.

“Raf. Teheba. Beow. Herega.” Esset carefully enunciated each name.

Wide eyes reflected the new firelight.

“We parted ways with them only earlier this evening. They were pressing on to make the next town by midnight,” one of the other men said. The bearded man was silent.

“Thank you.” Esset kept an eye on them as he mounted one of the birds; if they were stupid enough to forget about the first bird, they might be stupid enough to attack now. Thankfully they weren’t that stupid, and he made it airborne without event.

Once aloft, Esset concentrated on his breathing for a few moments to calm himself and clear his mind. He was close—very close, if the man’s words were true.

Esset flew lower now than before, so that the bird’s light would illuminate the road and anyone still traveling upon it. It didn’t take long to find them.

Talons extended and wings flared as the fiery bird landed in front of the scavengers, setting both the mules to distressed braying. Beow and Teheba immediately took to calming their pack-beasts while Raf stepped forward to greet Esset, who immediately banished his mounts. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the comparatively dim light of their lanterns.

“Esset.” Raf gave him a small nod.

“Raf.” Esset returned the gesture. “Sorry for the scare.” He was looking at the mules, not implying he’d scared the scavengers themselves.