Mystic: A Book of Underrealm (23 page)

Every few seconds, another flaming arrow would whistle by overhead and force them all to duck. But in truth, they were spread so far apart that there seemed little danger of being hit. Still, Jordel often directed them to hide within doorways and behind walls. A whistling would fill the air—a fresh volley to pepper the city—whenever he did.
 

They saw Xain the moment he joined the fight. Amidst the chaos, an even greater clamor arose—a tremendous swelling crackle to drown the shouts and screams around them, alongside the clash of weapons at the wall. Looking up, Loren saw a small figure crowned in a corona of light. Fire and lightning spit from Xain’s hands, flying over the wall to strike the other side. Sometimes, his flames were dashed aside, and sometimes magic vaulted the wall to strike him, but always Xain cast it away. But she could not watch him long, for fire had spread through many of the city’s buildings and required all their efforts and focus to see it extinguished.
 

No matter how many blazes they doused, ever more were born. Arrows were never ending, and though sparse they were many. A constable would seize her shoulder without warning and point her to some building. Loren would follow their finger, find a blaze licking the roof, or somewhere inside, and empty her bucket upon it. Then she would return to the line to find another bucket waiting.

She had a thought in the midst of it all, as she took shelter from a fresh volley of arrows: not once in all this had she seen any Dorseans. The chaos atop the wall was too far and too frantic to see much of anything, and no men had yet breached the southern gate. Here she was, fighting as hard as anyone in Wellmont to save their city, and she could not see the foe. In her weariness the thought struck her as uncommonly funny, and she barked laughter without meaning to.
 

“What?” said Gem, wheezing as he leaned on his knees beside her. “What could possibly make you laugh in the clutches of madness?”

“We can’t even see them. The Dorseans. Where are they?”

Gem stared at Loren, his large eyes brilliant white in the middle of a soot-blackened face. “On the other side of the wall, you imbecile.”

“Never mind. Another bucket. Annis?”

Silence followed, enough to pause Loren’s heart. She looked frantically around, but the girl was nowhere.

“Annis!” She tugged at Gem’s threadbare shirt and pulled him close. “Where is she? Which way did she go?”

“I do not know!” said Gem. “Let go of me!”

“Annis!” she screamed, stepping heedless into the street. “
Annis!
”

“Loren!” cried a voice, and she found herself thrown to the ground as a small form tackled her. She raised her arms to strike it, but then recognized the face.
 

“Annis? What are you . . . ?”

“Down!” she shouted and pushed Loren into the cobblestones before she could rise.
 

A whistling filled the air as flaming arrows passed over and around them, striking cobblestones, ricocheting into the air with a sharp
tang.
Neither was struck.

“Thank you,” said Loren. “I thought we had lost you. I was searching—“

“I got turned around. Let us try to find—“

Her remaining words were lost in a roar of snapping timbers. A building farther down the street had collapsed, and from its ruins bloomed a shower of sparks that singed the air around them.

“Put it out!” screamed a nearby voice. “Get that building before it catches the others!”

“Come on,” said Loren, rising and tugging Annis to her feet. Gem joined them, and together they ran towards the collapsed building. A shop or a house; Loren could not tell. She paused, realizing that Jordel was not there—in her panic to find Annis, she had almost forgotten the Mystic.

They reached the wreckage. Loren heard a bloodcurdling scream from within. Poking from between two timbers, a hand grasped at the air. Inside she could see the spreading flames.

“There is someone inside!” Annis cried.

Loren had already seized one of the beams and was trying to move it. Annis went to her side, and in a moment two men appeared. Together, they heaved the debris away from the body, and Loren reached for the grasping hand.

She pulled hard, and a woman slid out amongst the filth, screaming as she came to rest on the cobblestones. Flames had roasted her flesh like meat on a spit, and the stench made Loren gag. The woman was sightless, with deep burns scarring her eyes. Every limb flailed with her agonized screams.

“Calm down, calm down,” said Loren, though she herself wanted to run away crying. “Help me get her to a healer.”
 

Together with Annis she heaved the woman to a rickety stance and slowly made their way to the bucket line.

“This woman needs a healer,” said Loren to no one’s attention. “A healer! Where can I find a healer?”

Her calls finally caught a constable’s eye, one of the men directing those carrying buckets. He took one look at the woman and turned away. “Leave her. Those burns will kill her. No medicine can prevent it.”

“We must try,” said Loren, angry.

“Put your efforts towards saving the buildings. Else many more will die from the fires.”
 

The constable walked away, and Loren was left standing with the woman’s arm across her shoulders.

“Come,” said Annis gently. “He is right. We must do as he says.”

Loren wanted to argue, but as Annis lowered the woman to the ground she had little choice but to follow. Her screams were deafening, and she clutched hard at Loren’s cloak. She tried to pry her fingers away, but the woman had an iron grip.
 

“I am sorry,” said Loren, voice trembling. “I am sorry, I am sorry. I must go.”

At last she freed herself from the woman’s grip and stumbled away, but not towards the bucket line. She did not know if it was the smoke or the fire’s red glow, but Loren felt blind. She crashed into a wall, her shoulder smarting from the impact, and sank to the ground on hands and knees. Her throat seemed to constrict, burning as it sucked in the smoky air. The stench of the burnt woman still lingered in her nostrils—then all at once it overwhelmed her, and she lost her food to the cobblestones.
 

Loren sat up and leaned against the wall.
 

Where is Annis?
 

She looked around, searching, and spotted her at last just across the street. Annis sat beside Gem, holding the boy in her arms while he trembled and wept.
 

Though her limbs still felt weak, Loren forced herself to rise and go to them. She was struck by the calm on the girl’s face. Annis could have been riding a carriage on a country road for all her apparent distress. She stroked Gem’s hair, rocking him back and forth as the boy fought for control.
 

Annis looked up as Loren approached. “Are you well?”

“I am not. But I shall have to pretend. And you? This madness does not seem to trouble you as much as I would have thought.”

“I have seen death before.” Annis shrugged. “Sometimes, much worse than this.”

Loren wondered what that might mean, for the burnt woman was seared into her mind. But then she thought of Damaris and what Annis had said upon their escape—how she had seen her mother kill before, in terrible ways. Loren shuddered. It was terrible to think of a child growing up to see such things.

“Can you go on, Gem?” she said. “No one will think worse of you if you wish to return to the inn.”

“I shall not leave you here in this madness.” Gem’s voice was brave even as his tears continued to flow. “I only . . . it is only that I have never seen such madness. This is no battle like they tell in stories.”

“Battles rarely are,” said Annis, still holding him tight. “Send your mind from here. Think of a day in the future, when this place is far behind us and we are living in Calentin as wealthy nobles. It will come true if you can only keep seeing it.”
 

Gem shook his head but did not shrug her arms away. “I am no child and will not play such games. I need only a moment to collect myself.”

Annis said, “In the darkness under the river, you told me to do the same thing. Send your mind somewhere more pleasant, and keep breathing.”

That calmed him. Gem sucked in a deep gulp of air and slowly released it. A few more times, and at last he scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. Then, with Loren’s help, he rose.

“Very well,” he said. “If we mean to return to this madness, let us do it now. Before one of you loses your nerve.”

Loren gave Gem a gentle smile, and he returned it. Then she led them to the bucket line, and soon they plunged back into a world of roaring flames and pain-soaked screams.
 

All the while, Loren found herself looking anew at Gem and Annis beside her, wondering if she would have been as strong at their age, or if she would have run from the flames in terror. In the Birchwood, under her cruel parents’ sway, it had been easy to envision herself as the brave girl at the center of a great tale waiting to be told. But now she had met two others whose courage eclipsed her own. Were they exceptional, as she had imagined herself? Or did they merely answer the call of circumstance?

The thought weighed heavily on her mind as they kept running, dousing, and running. Then the bells pealed throughout the city again, and a great shout rose along the southern wall. No more arrows hissed through the air.
 

The Dorseans were retreating. The battle was over.

twenty-seven

LOREN STUMBLED OUT OF A building, her final fire doused. Steam ran through the streets, lingering grey remnants of the small, inglorious fight the city’s inhabitants had fought against the unrelenting flames. Gem lay on his back in the middle of the street, chest heaving and eyes closed. Annis sat cross-legged nearby, head drooping as though asleep. Mayhap she was.
 

Moving listlessly, Loren went to lean against the building’s wall, her head bumping the bricks. They were still warm from the heat of doused fire. Every part of her wanted to lie down and sleep in the street for days, waking only after the siege was over and the Dorseans had left. But now that the battle was done, Jordel would want to flee Wellmont. And Loren wanted that even more than rest.

Somewhere in the chaos and burning, she had reached her decision. If this was war, she wanted no part of it. And if Jordel meant to stave off a war, she would help him. She did not doubt it would come to killing in the end—the Mystic seemed prone to such—but he had promised Loren that she would need raise no hand in violence. If he would teach her the ways of shadow and secrecy and could guarantee safety for Annis and Gem, then she would help him if it gave even a small hope of stopping such battles.

She heard hasty, urgent footsteps, a distinct cadence amidst the shuffling walk of all those around her. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw Xain walking towards them.

The wizard’s clothes were a mess. Hair jutted from his head in every direction. He had lost an eyebrow to fire, and the top of one boot was tattered. But his eyes gleamed clear and bright, and his steps did not falter. He caught sight of Loren leaning against the wall, and his eyes darted nervously around.

“There you are. Where is the Mystic?”

“Vivien left with you, before the battle began,” Loren mumbled, weak and unable to speak louder. “We have not seen her since.”

“Not the woman,” Xain said. “I left her behind. Jordel.”

“I do not know. We lost him somewhere in the chaos. He must be nearby.”

“Let us hope not,” said Xain. “Come. It is time to go.”

“Go?” Her hackles rose. “Go where? Jordel is our way out of the city.”

“I do not need him.” Xain spoke quick and harshly. He looked to Annis in the street. “Girl. Do you still carry the . . . cargo?”

Annis looked up at the wizard, her eyes blank. When they finally focused, she slowly nodded. “Yes, I have them.”

“That is all we need. Come, quickly, before those meddlers can find us.”

“You agreed to leave with Jordel.”

The wizard was worrying Loren, and that seemed to give her more strength. She pushed off from the wall and stood to face him, feet spread, hands at her sides.
 

“There was no lie in your voice this morning, wizard, and do not tell me there was. You have no skill for deception. You meant to follow Jordel, and I have decided the same.”

“Then you are a fool,” snarled Xain. “Only one lost in madness would go with the Mystic or aid his plans. If you had heard half the things he told me, you would run screaming from this place and live forever terrified by the sight of a red cloak.”

“What things? You pledged to tell me what he said. Let me hear them now, then, if you are determined to run off and leave him.”

“We all will. You have promised a half share of something, and I will have it.”

“Not until we reach your contact,” said Loren angrily. “As I have told you again and again.”

“Foolish girl!”
Xain shouted, making Loren jump. “Do you not think I could take them if I wanted? I pledged an agreement, but you have twisted the terms until they have nearly snapped. With a single word, I could have what is mine. Mayhap I shall.”

His eyes glowed white as he whispered, and with a twist of his hand a gust of wind slammed into Annis and sent her to the ground. The wizard seized her arm.

Loren rushed forward but paused as Xain’s eyes glowed harder and he raised a hand towards her.
 

“Stop this!” cried Loren. “We made a deal. Have you no honor?”

“You speak to me of honor, yet you would deny me my due. Now, will you come with me willingly, or must I take my share by force, and yours as well?”

Loren was nearly swaying on her feet from exhaustion. She knew not what to do. She had already decided to go with Jordel, and even if she had not, Loren no longer had any wish to travel with Xain. But what choice did she have? She did not doubt he would take Annis and flee Wellmont alone if she refused, and then she might never find the wizard again.

Over Xain’s shoulder and far down the street, Loren saw a pale figure in a red cloak. Her hair was a mess and her shoulders slumped, but still she walked with her head held high.