The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel (16 page)

“I was imprisoned because of you! Enervants tried to drain all my power!”

“Enervants?” That got his attention for a moment. He glanced in her direction. “Do they smell as bad as people say?”

“Yes.”

“Enervants,” he murmured. “That explains why your planeswalk went so badly. You were weakened.”

“In part,” she snapped. “The other part is that I had to enter the æther just moments ahead of dozens of soldiers! They tortured me to find out where the scroll was, and they would have done it until I died because I didn’t know where it was!”

“Yes, I heard.” Gideon seemed lost in thought, his mind scarcely on the conversation as he said, “All things considered, you did well to survive. But it’s a pity you chose
this
place to end your walk.”

“So sorry you don’t like it,” Chandra said acidly. “But since you weren’t invited in the first place, why don’t you just leave?”

He looked at her. “You haven’t figured it out.”

His face was in shadows and his expression guarded, but something about his bland tone infuriated her.

“If you followed me to take me prisoner and drag me back to Kephalai, then you made a big mistake, Gideon!” She threw her hands out to encircle him with a ring of fire …

And nothing happened.

He stood there calmly, not moving a muscle, not reacting physically at all. His voice sounded faintly amused when he said, “Indeed.”

Chandra stared at her hands in bewildered shock, turning them over and studying her palms as if she could read the answer there to her sudden absence of power.

“But I feel much better now,” she muttered. “So what …”

“You may feel better,” Gideon said, “but surely there’s something you
don’t
feel?”

“I …” She frowned, realizing what he meant.
“Mana.”
Suddenly, her difficulty in feeling it earlier made sense.

He nodded. “Something’s blocking our access to mana.

She stared at him in surprise. “Blocking mana?”

“It’s not completely effective,” he said. “That’s why you feel
something
. But it’s effective enough to be a serious problem for us.”

“Us?” She realized the full import of what he was telling her. “You’re without power, too?”

“As much as you are,” he confirmed.

“I noticed it was hard to feel the flow,” she said, thinking back. “Hard to bond. But I thought that was because I was still weak.”

“No.” He shook his head. “If you concentrate long and hard, you can probably call on enough mana here to start a small cooking fire. But that’s about all, while it’s being blocked so well.”

Chandra had never heard of such a thing. “What could do this?”

“I’m not sure. Something very powerful, obviously.”

“Or some
one?”
She thought of the hungry prince.

Gideon shrugged. “It would take constant focus and a lot of strength. The effort would be enormous. A big drain on just one person.”

“So he probably has help,” she mused.

“He?” Gideon repeated.

“There’s a necromancer named Prince Velrav who rules here.”

“Of course,” Gideon said. “Black mana would be abundant here.”

“Is that why it’s always nighttime here?”

He looked at her sharply. “Always?”

She told him what she had learned from Jurl.

“A goblin,” Gideon mused. “I suppose you couldn’t get any sense from him of whether this phenomenon is recent or has been going on for centuries?”

“No.”

Jurl had been pretty typical of goblins, in Chandra’s experience: neither bright, nor articulate.

Gideon looked up at the night sky. “No clouds. But no stars.”

“I noticed that, too,” she said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“I doubt that’s the normal night sky here.”

“You think Velrav pulled a …” Chandra shrugged. “A
shroud
over this plane?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Gideon said.

“Is that what’s restricting the mana?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I’ve never been anywhere where
that
had happened.” He jerked his chin skyward. “Perpetual night
attributed to the local necromancer king …” “Prince.”

“My guess is, the two things are related. What else did your goblin friend tell you?”

“‘Friend’ would be an exaggeration.”

“He led you to water. He didn’t try to kill you. For a goblin, that sounds pretty friendly.”

“Yes,” she said pensively, reflecting on the encounter. Her first impression of Jurl, when she saw him eating his squealing prey alive, was that he was like all other goblins she had encountered—only more so. “He
was
surprisingly nice to me. I wonder why?”

“I don’t suppose you threatened to set fire to him?” Gideon said dryly.

“Oh, yeah. Maybe that’s why.”

“What else did he tell you about Velrav?”

Chandra recounted Jurl’s vague comments about Velrav’s servants abducting individuals from every race living on Diraden, in order to satisfy the “hunger.” She concluded by describing the encounter with the Bog Wraith.

Gideon said, “So you didn’t kill it and alert Velrav’s entire army to your presence?”

“No,” she said stonily.

“It’s nice to see you’re learning from your mistakes.”

“What do
you
know about my—”

“Before we go to all the trouble of destroying this … yes,
shroud
is a good word for it, we should make sure—”

“Hold on, what do you mean ‘we’?” she said. “If you’re determined to meddle in local problems, that’s your choice. Enjoy yourself! But this has nothing to do with me. All
I
want to do is get the blazes
off
this creepy plane and …” The full weight of the problem facing them hit Chandra like a physical blow. She swayed a little as she realized exactly what this meant.

“Ah,” Gideon said. “Therein lies the rub.”

“We can’t leave,” she said, appalled by the realization.

“Not until we can establish proper mana bonds. As long as it’s restricted …”

“We’re stuck here.”

Fleeing Kephalai in a weakened state, Chandra had risked dying in the Blind Eternities. And here, without access to any real power, she risked living the rest of her days in perpetual night.

“I’m stranded.” She gazed at her handsome companion in horror. “With
you
.”

“Well, if you get bored with me,” he said, “there’s always Jurl.”

“I suppose you’re going to suggest that you and I …” She swallowed, so revolted by the idea that she had trouble even saying it. “That we … work together. To get out of here.”

“I can manage alone, if you’d rather just give in and settle down here. But, yes, I—”

“Give
in?”

“I imagine it will be easier to escape this plane if both of us are working on the problem.” His lips relaxed momentarily into what might have been a slight smile. “Together.”

She thought it over. “There are certain conditions, if you want my help.”

“By all means, let’s pause to negotiate the terms under which we’ll cooperate.”

“
I
didn’t ask you to come here,” she reminded him. “Your being here is entirely your own fault. You shouldn’t have followed me. While we’re on the subject, you also shouldn’t have stolen my scroll or helped the Prelate’s soldiers capture me!”

“I think we’re digressing.”

Chandra said, “My conditions are as follows.”

“Go on.”

“I won’t return to Kephalai. You will not take me back there. You will not trick me or manipulate me into going there again.”

“Agreed.”

“Nor will you inform the Prelate, her forces, or any other inhabitants of Kephalai where I go when I leave here.”

“Agreed,” he said.

“You will not betray me to Prince Velrav or his minions in order to secure your own escape, and you will not prevent me from leaving this plane.”

His black brows rose. “You
do
have a low opinion of me.”

“If you don’t like my terms,” she said, “that’s fine. We don’t have to work together.”

“No, your terms are fine. I agree to them.”

She searched his face to see if she trusted his word on this. His expression gave away little. But she refused to be afraid of him … and she recognized, however reluctantly, that it made more sense for them to cooperate here than to be at odds with each other.

He said, “As long as we’re negotiating our partnership …”

“We’re not partners,” Chandra said sharply. “We’re just … um …”

“I have some conditions, too.”

“Oh?”

“You will—at least, insofar as you are capable of it—
think
before you act, while we are here.”

“How dare—”

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here—and probably a very short life, at that—because you didn’t use your head.” When she just glowered at him, he prodded, “Well?”

“Insofar as I am
capable,”
she said darkly, “I will think before I act.”

“Good. Next condition: You will not kill anyone who isn’t a danger to us.”

“How are we deciding who is or isn’t a danger?” she asked suspiciously.

“Let’s agree you’ll trust my judgment on that.”

“No.”
She turned away.

His hand on her arm stopped her. “Chandra.”

She turned her head. Their eyes met. His were very serious. To her surprise, he didn’t look angry. She wasn’t quite sure what she saw there, though.

He said softly, “We could die here.”

Gideon was a little taller than she. Chandra tilted her head up and said, “Then I’ll die because of
my
judgment. Not
yours.”

His hand still held her arm. “I don’t want to kill any innocents while I’m trying to get out of here.”

The thought of innocents bothered her.

“I don’t, either,” she said, aware of how close together they were standing. So close that she noticed now he needed to shave. The dark shadow starting to darken his jaw would become more obvious by morning … which wouldn’t come, of course. Not on Diraden.

Gideon said, “You can be a little … reckless that way.”

His gaze dropped, and his dark lashes lowered. Chandra had a feeling he was staring at her lips. She licked them, and she felt the grip on her arm tighten ever so slightly.

“I was trying to survive. They’d have killed me on Kephalai.” She heard the breathlessness in her voice and didn’t like it. She jerked her arm out of his hold and stepped away. “Anyhow, what makes you think we’ll meet innocents? So far, I’ve talked to a goblin, seen a Bog Wraith,
and heard about a black mage with a sinister appetite.”

“The night is still young.”

He looked at her impassively, as if that odd moment hadn’t happened between them.

Maybe it hadn’t for him.

She scowled at him. “So. Are we working together?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” she said. “Since you’re an advocate of
thinking
before you act, what’s your plan?”

“First,” he said, “I think we should find out who’s watching us.”

“Watching us?” She frowned. “What makes you think we’re being w—”

“Yaaagggh!”

The wordless bellow was accompanied by something big and heavy careening into Chandra’s back. At that same moment, she saw Jurl leap over a tumbled stone wall and attack Gideon, who whirled around to defend himself.

Chandra hit the ground with considerable force, and had the wind knocked out of her. She heard snarling right by her ear and felt a heavy body lying on top of her. Then a powerful grip seized her shoulders and started banging her against the ground. Over and over.
Hard
.

She called on fire, intending to incinerate her attacker … and then realized that she couldn’t.

Damn, damn, damn
.

While she fought to retain consciousness, Chandra saw a hairy, clawed hand out of the corner of her eye. Lumpy, gray skin. Another goblin.

Jurl?
she wondered in confusion.

It kept banging her into the ground, as if trying to tenderize her.

That does it!

Without enough physical strength to gain the advantage, in her current position, she tried a different tactic. “I …” Fortunately, the ground wasn’t hard: but even so, this was painful. “… surrender!” She was smashed into the ground again. “I surrender! I surrender!”

“What?” the goblin said, pausing in its assault.

“I surrender!” Now that she wasn’t being pummeled against the ground, she could hear the grunts and blows of Gideon and the other goblin fighting each other.

“Surrender?” the goblin said, breathing on her neck.

“Yes! I surrender! I give up!” Chandra cried. “You win!”

The goblin’s weight shifted. It was evidently surprised, and perhaps a little confused. Since goblins weren’t known for their mercy, it might never have encountered this reaction to an attack before. Typically, a fight with a goblin was a fight to the death.

The pause in the goblin’s assault and the shifting of its weight was all Chandra needed. She used the muscles of her legs to buck the goblin off of her with a powerful scissor kick, before she rolled over and reached for one of the rocks lying at the base of a nearby ruined wall. Rock in hand, she threw herself at the goblin and smashed its massive head. The goblin shrieked and stumbled backward. Chandra jumped up and hit it in the head again right at the temple. The beast hit the ground hard. Unmoving, blood trickling from its ear, Chandra left the it where it lay and staggered away, unsure if it was dead.

“Ugh!
I hate goblins! I
hate
them!”

Chandra turned around, intending to go help Gideon. He and the other goblin were rolling around on the ground together, their bodies wallowing frantically in the mud around the stone walls.

Chandra picked up another rock and moved toward them. The goblin lost its hold on Gideon, who rolled away
and raised his foot to kick the goblin in the face with considerable force. It fell backward, then staggered in a circle and turned toward Gideon, who rolled across the ground rapidly and stretched out his arm, reaching for something. The goblin saw Chandra approaching them and froze. It turned its head and saw its companion lying prone on the ground.