Fire Study - Study 03

CHAPTER ³⁴

A TRIUMPHANT GRIN SPREAD on the Fire Warper’s face. Moon Man remained unflappable. He held my hand. Even though it appeared to be made of smoke, his hand felt solid in mine. Moon Man looked at me. The oval shape of his eyes matched Roze’s. Why hadn’t I noticed the resemblance before?

Roze’s comments replayed in my mind. Could I reanimate Moon Man’s body after I took him to the sky? According to Roze, soulless bodies were unaffected by magic. Could I create a small force to help Irys and Valek?

My bat flew around my head. Odd. How could he be here?

Moon Man sighed. I missed the point. It didn’t matter how the bat had gotten here, but why was he here at all. Bats. Opal’s glass bat. I reached for my pocket, but the answer halted the motion. Opal’s sister. Tula!

When Ferde had stolen Tula’s soul and strangled her, I had used my magic to breathe for Tula, but as soon as I had stopped, she had stopped.

I didn’t possess the power to raise a soulless army.

The magician born one-hundred-and-fifty years ago wasn’t a Soulfinder, but a Soulstealer.

I was a true Soulfinder. And I knew what my job entailed. The Fire Warper grew impatient with my delay and reached for my free hand; I yanked it away. My bat cried out with joy and disappeared.

I sought Roze with my mind, seeing her soul and the souls of all her victims trapped within her. Their blood had been injected into her skin to bind them to her. I pushed at the blood, sweeping and forcing it through her pores, pulling the souls free, sending them to the sky.

She yelped and rolled up her sleeve. Black liquid oozed from her arms, dripping onto the sand. The putrid smell of rancid blood surrounded her like a fog. Each one I removed weakened Roze until only her own power remained.

Then I projected my mind to Gede and did the same to him. One by one I plucked souls from the Warpers, weakening them.

The Fire Warper cried an oath and lunged for me. Moon Man intercepted and fought him so I could return my attention to the Keep.

Roze’s magical hold on Irys had slipped when I extracted her power. Freed from the magic, Irys used her own skills to draw a knife close to her and cut the rope. Once loose, she ran to a few others who had not been pricked with Curare but who, like her, had been captured by magic.

Gale and Marrok joined her and they attacked Roze. Valek’s opponents had been distracted by the scene around them, giving Valek the opportunity to dispatch them. The man with the blowpipe ran off. Valek turned his full attention to Roze.

Satisfied all was well with my friends, I focused on the Fire Warper. He held Moon Man in a tight grip, compressing Moon Man’s soul to bind him to the fire world.

“Stop,” I said. “You’ll gain no more power today.” I pulled at Moon Man with my magic and he popped from the Fire Warper’s grasp. “I find souls and ensure they arrive at the proper destination. He doesn’t belong here. But you do.”

I moved past him. He tried to stop me, but he was a soul just like all the others and I controlled him. Moving through the fire world, I found those who didn’t belong and released them to the sky. The Fire Warper screamed at me with each one, but I ignored him. A long time passed as I freed them all, but my energy increased with every rescue.

“Why aren’t I tired?” I asked Moon Man.

He smiled. “Think about what you have learned today.”

I glanced around. The Fire Warper’s power had diminished with each freed soul. Perhaps stealing his power had increased my own?

“No.” Moon Man looked a little exasperated, as if he couldn’t believe how slow I was. I did take some pleasure from his expression. To alter his calm demeanor required much effort on my part.

The Fire Warper glowered at me. “It is only a matter of time before I regain my strength,” he said. “There is always someone who desires more power and I will be waiting for them.”

“Not if I can help it,” I said.

“Then you will have to spend eternity with me to prevent it. The knowledge is out there now. Another fool will figure out how to contact me through the flames.”

He had a point. But I was the Soulfinder. In order to do my job, I would have to stay in the underworld and send the souls to their proper places. Thinking about my job, I remembered a promise to Moon Man.

“Can you guide me to the shadow world?” I asked him.

“No. But you can lead me.”

“And you call yourself a guide?”

He smiled serenely.

“I hate you.” I clasped Moon Man’s hand.

I thought of the shadow world with its gray plain and sky. The red glow faded and soon the featureless expanse spread in front of us.

“This is only the corridor between worlds, Yelena. Look deeper to see the real shadow world.”

Another cryptic instruction. For all my abilities, I still couldn’t get Moon Man to give me a straight answer. I pushed away my frustration and focused on who I was trying to find. The Sandseeds who had been killed by the Vermin in the Avibian Plains.

The flat area began to undulate and transform into the plains. Small outcroppings of rocks grew and the smooth gray ground sprouted grass and a few bushes. A cluster of canvas tents popped up and circled a fire pit. The scene before me resembled a Sandseed camp. Yet there was no color. Only black and white and every shade of gray.

Sandseeds huddled together in this camp on the altered Avibian Plain, living in the shadow cast by the real world. They clung to their memories of life, not realizing peace awaited them in the sky.

I walked among them and talked to them. Their numbers grew and I had to stop myself from reliving the horror of the Vermin’s attack and massacre. I made promises to watch over the living Sandseeds who had hidden during the attack. Days and weeks could have passed while I convinced them to move on. I had no concept of time.

Again, as I sent each one into the sky, my strength grew. “There are many more souls clinging to the shadow world,” I said to Moon Man, thinking about all the towns and cities in Sitia and Ixia. “Let me return you to your body and you can tell the others my fate.”

“I can not return,” he said. “My body has died, unlike yours. And even if you heal me, I would be unhappy and would wish for death.”

“Like Stono and Gelsi?”

“Yes. Eventually both will find their way back to where they belong.”

“Then I will send you to the sky. You deserve to be there.”

“Not until you understand.”

“I do understand. I’m doing my job. I’ve resigned myself to living here to keep Sitia and Ixia safe from more Warpers!” I clamped my hands together to keep them from wrapping around Mr. I-know-everything-and-you-don’t Man’s thick neck.

“Have you truly resigned yourself?” he asked.

“I…” I huffed in frustration. I would rather be back with Valek, Kiki, my parents, Leif, Irys, Ari, Janco and my other friends. I had learned my true job, but there were still many aspects of my magic and others’ magic to explore. I thought about Opal’s unique ability. Then I remembered my glass bat.

Had it survived the fire? I felt inside my pockets. Odd how my clothing had survived the flames. My fingers touched a smooth lump. I pulled the animal from my cape. The inner core glowed with magic. Staring at the light, I saw Leif’s sad face. He peered at me in sorrow, then disbelief when I smiled at him.

“Hello from the underworld,” I said.

“Yelena! What the…? Where are…? Come back!”

“I can’t. Tell me what has happened?”

He gave me a quick sketch of how the battle had played out after I jumped into the fire. Most of the Warpers were dead, only Roze, Gede and four others remained alive. They were in the Keep’s cells, awaiting trial.

“They will be hanged for treason and murder,” Leif said. He grew somber. “We buried Moon Man last week.”

“Last week? But—”

“You’ve been gone for weeks. We keep the fire burning, hoping you’ll return. Also Valek will not let us quench it. He’s been helping the Councilors and Master Magicians recover from their ordeal and to smooth out relations with the Commander via Ambassador Signe. Valek went from the scourge of Sitia to the hero of Sitia.” Leif smiled sardonically.

Valek. The one person I wouldn’t mind spending eternity with.

Leif continued, “And the rest of us are coping with the aftermath. Many students were killed by the Vermin. We’re still sorting out who is left. Your friend Dax is okay, but Gelsi died resisting a Warper.”

Moon Man was right, Gelsi found her way back. I hoped Stono wouldn’t suffer too much before his soul found the sky.

He paused. “The Sitian army’s hunting down the remaining Vermin who escaped. The Sandseeds have moved back to the plains to repopulate.” Leif sighed. “You’re missed by everyone. Why can’t you come back?”

“Someone needs to keep the Fire Warper from regaining power.”

Leif frowned as he thought, then looked hopeful. “Bain has burned those old Efe texts to stop someone from learning about the blood magic.”

“But there are others who know how to perform the ritual, and, even though you will execute them, they will be here in the fire world and able to communicate to someone who is determined to seek them out.”

“You’re a Soulfinder, can’t you send them somewhere out of reach?” Leif asked.

“They don’t deserve to be in the sky.”

“Why not?” Moon Man said.

My mind thought over what I knew of the sky, which was very little. “I think they would taint it. It’s pure and their vile deeds would soil it.”

“Finally. What is the sky?”

What indeed? When I sent souls there, I felt refreshed, energetic even though I used power, which usually caused me fatigue. I added souls to the sky. Adding to the power blanket surrounding the world.

The source of magic!

The world’s soul.

Moon Man beamed at me. “Now you can send me there! And then you can return to your life.”

He chuckled at my dubious expression. “You will find a way, Yelena. You always do.”

“Last piece of cryptic advice?”

“Consider it my farewell gift.”

I hesitated for a moment. Once Moon Man was gone I would be all alone.

“All the more reason not to stay,” Moon Man said.

“There’s one thing I won’t miss.”

“And that is?”

“You reading my mind all the time and making me figure things out for myself.”

“All part of being your Story Weaver. It does not stop, you know. You will hear my voice in your mind from time to time, giving you my unique advice.”

I groaned. “And I thought living in the underworld for eternity was bad!”

Before sending him to the sky, I stared at him, trying to hold his features, including his sardonic grin, in my mind. When he disappeared, his absence felt like an icy coating on my skin. I realized I still held Opal’s bat, but my connection to Leif was broken.

I wandered through the shadow world and found lost souls. Every so often I checked in the fire world to make sure the Fire Warper remained as he should be. He cursed, taunted and tried to cajole me, depending on his mood.

Irys, Leif and Bain all talked to me through the glass animals. They were the only ones who had the ability to use them. Through them I knew Roze, Gede and the other Warpers would be hanged soon. I prepared to receive them in the fire world.

In the meantime, I stared at my bat, trying and failing to connect to Valek. My desire to talk to him, to hold him, clawed at my body. Frustration at my inability to communicate with him caused a window to open to the real world, and I could view events around my fire. I laughed at my intense feelings of ownership. My fire. But I sobered. I knew after they hanged Roze and the others, my fire would be doused and my window closed for good.

The Council planned to hang Roze and her accomplices on gallows built in the bloodstained sand then burn their bodies in my fire. An insult given only to traitors.

The sand would be cleaned up and perhaps the gardeners would plant grass in the space. Or some trees. Flowers. A memorial? Perhaps a structure similar to one of the Citadel’s jade statues or fountains. To remember me and Moon Man.

Now I was being maudlin and dramatic. Next thing I knew, I’d be designing the memorial, sketching its dimensions in the sand. I wondered about what they would do with all the sand. Send it to Booruby to be melted into glass? So Opal could turn fire into ice?

I froze in shock as a wild idea formed in my head. Thinking it through, I found many holes and reasons for it not to work. But success or not, at least I could say I tried. And the effort alone would keep Moon Man from nagging me for a while.