The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel (17 page)

The goblin gave a shrill little cry—then turned and fled.

“Stay back!” Gideon ordered as Chandra dashed across the ground.

“It’s getting away!”

“Get down!” Gideon raised an arm to make wide, rapid circles over his head.

Chandra saw something glint brightly in the moonlight as it spun over Gideon’s head, making a menacing
whooshing
sound. She realized it was that daggertail of his, unfurled and swirling above them with deadly speed.

Remembering that the thing had three very long, sharp blades, Chandra threw herself to the ground and covered her head. Without his magic guiding the weapon’s steely tendrils, who knew whether Gideon’s aim was any good.

She heard the
whooshing
sound change to a long steel sigh as Gideon unleashed the whip. She peeked between her fingers and saw that he had released the entire weapon, letting it sail through the dark night, handle and all. The goblin was speedy and had already covered some distance, but it couldn’t outrun the flying weapon.

As Chandra rose to her knees, gaze fixed intently on the fleeing goblin, Gideon set off at a run. Chandra saw something glint briefly in the moonlight, then she saw the goblin fall down. She rose to her feet and ran after him, too.

When she reached Gideon’s side, the goblin was lying on the ground, grunting and snarling as it struggled in the sharp tangle of flexible blades that were constraining its short legs.

“I shouldn’t have doubted your aim,” Chandra said to Gideon, breathing hard from her exertions.

“Lucky shot,” Gideon said. “To be honest, I could scarcely see him.”

“Chandra!” the goblin said in a familiar-sounding voice. “Don’t kill!”

She sighed. “Hello, Jurl. We meet again.”

G
ideon seized the handle of the whip and jerked it sharply. Jurl’s eyes bulged and he made a horrible groaning sound from the pain inflicted on his trapped limbs.

Chandra asked Gideon, “How did you know they were watching us?”

“The one that attacked you was casting a shadow on the stone wall near you. I realized it when he moved.”

She hadn’t seen the realization dawn on Gideon’s face. She should remember that he was good at hiding things.

Gideon gave Jurl a light tap with his foot. “But I didn’t know there was one behind me, too. They move quietly, don’t they?”

“Don’t kick!” Jurl said.

“Explain why you just attacked us,” Gideon said to the goblin.”

“Chandra go away soon.”

Gideon glanced at Chandra, then said, “You attacked her because she was leaving?”

“Because no time.”

“I think he means,” Chandra said, “he attacked
now
because I had told him I was leaving very soon.”

“Yes!” Jurl was apparently pleased with her interpretation. “No time.”

“Why attack her at all?” Gideon asked the goblin.

“Take to Prince Velrav.”

“What?” Chandra scowled. “You were going to turn me over to Velrav? To feed the hunger?”

“Yes.”

“Now I see why you were so helpful, Jurl. You wanted me for yourself.”

“Yes,” Jurl confirmed.

“To think I was beginning to like you,” she muttered.

“So you’re one of Velrav’s takers?” Gideon asked Jurl.

“Yes.”

“I see,” Gideon said. “Why?”

“Take gift to Velrav. Velrav give something.”

“Ah. And if you took a beautiful fire mage to Velrav,” Gideon said, “you’d get something good, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.” Jurl looked as crestfallen as a writhing, captive goblin could look. “But not now.” He looked at Gideon and added, “Don’t kill.”

“Why not?” Gideon gave the handle of his weapon another sharp tug.

Jurl gasped. “Give me life. I give you.”

“Give us
what?”

“Tell me what,” Jurl said. “I get.” “What I want,” Gideon said, “is someone who can answer all my questions.”

“Questions?” Jurl repeated.

“My questions about Velrav. About Diraden. About why morning never comes.”

Jurl thought it over, then suggested, “Wise woman?”

“Yes,” Gideon agreed. “I want to speak to a wise woman.”

“Village wise woman,” Jurl said eagerly. “Know things.”

“How far?” Gideon asked

“Not far. I bring you.”

Gideon said to the goblin, “I’m going to remove the
sural
from your legs.”

“What?”

“The weapon.”

“Good!”

“And then I’m going to use it to tie your hands behind your back.”

“Bad”

“If you resist or try to get away while I’m doing this,” Gideon said, “I will catch you again, but I won’t be nice.”

“You could end up like your friend, Jurl. You don’t want that, do you?” Chandra prodded.

“Not friend,” Jurl said dismissively.

“Then why did you bring him along?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you have to share with him whatever Velrav gave you?”

“Need help now,” Jurl said. “Kill later.”

“No honor among goblins,” Chandra muttered.

“I guess the prospect of attacking a woman alone was too daunting,” Gideon said dryly.

“Intimidated by my beauty, no doubt,” she said, recalling Gideon’s earlier comment.

“Maybe so.” There was no mockery in his voice. He was looking down at the goblin as he began untangling his weapon from its legs. His expression was hidden in shadows. Chandra stared at him in bemusement. Until he said, “Hold the rock where he can see it.”

Gideon finished removing the sural from Jurl’s legs. “Roll over.”

Jurl said, “Don’t tie hands.”

“Roll over,” Chandra said, “or you’ll die right now, exactly the way your friend died.”

“Not frien—”

“Shut up and do as you’re told,” she snapped.

With blatant reluctance, Jurl rolled over and allowed Gideon to seize his arms and start binding his hands together with the flexible blades of the sural.

When the goblin cried out in pain and protested, Gideon advised him to stop resisting. “This will hurt less if you cooperate.”

When Gideon was satisfied that the restraint was secure enough, he rose to his feet, holding the handle of the sural. The lengths of steel that stretched between the handle and the goblin’s bound wrists served as a sort of leash.

“Get up,” Gideon said.

“Cannot,” Jurl said.

Chandra moved to put her hands under the prostrate goblin’s shoulders, and pushed him—with some effort—up to a kneeling position. From there, she and Gideon each took one arm and hauled Jurl to his feet.

“Now take us to the wise woman,” Gideon said.

“Yes.”

“Oh, one more thing.” Gideon twitched the handle of the sural. Jurl protested as the sharp bands of steel tightened around his wrists and pulled his arms backward at a painful angle. “If you try to trick us, or betray us, or take us to anyone else …” Gideon tugged the handle again. “I’ll pull on this thing so hard, it will cut off your hands.”

“No!”

“Without hands, the rest of your life will be helpless and miserable. On the bright side,” Gideon added, “it will no doubt also be very, very short.”

“No trick!” Jurl promised. “Just wise woman!”

“Good,” said Gideon.

“This way,” Jurl said.

They left the stone ruins behind and set off in a different
direction than Chandra had gone before. As they walked through the quiet, dying landscape, following their reluctant guide, Gideon said, “You’re pretty useful when there’s trouble, even without the fire magic.”

So was he. But she was reluctant to pay him compliments. Instead she asked, “Where did you get your …” She pointed to the weapon whose handle he held.

“The sural?”

“Yes, your sural.”

“My teacher gave it to me.”

“Did he …” She hesitated, then asked, “Did he know about you?”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “Yes.”

“Was he a …” Chandra glanced at the goblin trudging ahead of them. “Was your teacher one of us?”

“No, but he knew about our kind.”

“How?”

“His teacher was one.” Gideon added, “And his teacher gave him the sural.”

“Where did it originally come from?” She had never seen anything like it.

“I don’t know.” Beside her in the dark, Gideon said quietly, “His teacher died without telling him where he’d gotten it.”

“Do you know how he died?” For a planeswalker, there were so many possibilities.

“A pyromancer killed him.” His voice was calm, without expression.

There was a long silence between them.

The ground they were walking over was particularly damp. It squished under Chandra’s feet as she kept pace beside Gideon in the dark, neither of them speaking.

Ahead of them, Jurl trudged along, his shoulders stooped. He started to pant a little, and his steps got slower.
Apparently the goblin was feeling fatigued. At one point, he asked to rest. Gideon refused the request.

The continuing cool silence between her and Gideon gradually got on Chandra’s nerves. After all, it wasn’t
her
fault that his teacher’s teacher had been killed by a fire mage. For all she knew, he deserved what happened to him.

“So did you know him?” she asked abruptly.

“Know who?” He sounded mildly puzzled, as if he’d been thinking about something else entirely.

“The pla—” But before she could finish the word, she recalled that Jurl could hear them. The goblin was stupid and ignorant, but nonetheless capable of plotting and scheming. The less he learned by eavesdropping, the better. “The one who owned the sural. The one who died.”

“No. He died many years before I met my teacher.”

“How did you meet your teacher?” she asked.

Chandra had encountered very few planeswalkers. In her experience, they were a rare breed, and they were loners. They didn’t congregate, and they weren’t necessarily friendly to each other.

“He … found me,” Gideon said.

“After you …” She phrased it in a way that would make no sense to the goblin, in case the creature was feigning fatigue and listening to them. “Crossed over?”

“You mean after I traveled?” Gideon sounded a little amused by her attempt to question him without being understood by their captive.

“Yes.”

“No, we met before that.”

“How did he find you?”

“Jurl, you said it wasn’t far,” Gideon reminded the goblin. “This seems far.”

“Yes,” Jurl agreed wearily. “Seems far.”

“If you’ve lied …”

“No.” Jurl added, “Don’t take hands.”

“Well, maybe I’m just little tired,” Gideon admitted to Chandra. “Does it seem far to you?”

She couldn’t see his expression. Instead of answering him, she prodded, “You were about to tell me how you met your teacher.”

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m bored.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Of course, we could talk about something else. The scroll, for example.”

“Then
I’d
be bored.”

“So how did your teacher find you?”

“Well,
you’ll
identify with this,” he said. “I was a criminal.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” She asked, “What did you do? Attack women and take away their valuables?”

“Very funny. As a matter of fact, we sacrificed the cutest animals we could find and drank their blood from our victims’ skulls by the light of the moon.”

“Then this place should bring you back to your roots.”

“To be serious, we mostly broke into rich people’s homes—”

“We?”

“There was a group of us. I was the leader, more or less. We stole money, goods, valuables. And, uh …”

He seemed reluctant to continue his story. “Yes?” she prodded.

“Then we gave it away.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “To the poor.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“We were …” He seemed to search for the right word. “Idealistic.”

“That’s a far cry from drinking animal blood.”

“I was very young. I wanted to change things,” he said. “But I didn’t know how. I was good at stealing. Good at fighting. Pretty good at handling a group of wild boys my own age.”

“That’s easy to believe.”

“But I had a lot to learn.”

“Where were your parents? Didn’t they try to rein you in?” Her own parents had certainly tried, back when she was a girl.

“My mother was dead by then,” he said.

“And your father?”

“Who knows?” He sounded indifferent. “I never met him.”

They all walked in silence for a while. Chandra really started to feel, deep in her bones, how helpless she was here without her power. Even if they did get some answers from this wise woman Jurl was taking them to, what would they do to get away from this plane? She tried to stop thinking it.

Finally she broke the silence: she had to find something to distract her from these thoughts.

“Your teacher,” she said suddenly.

“What?” She could tell by Gideon’s reaction that he had been far away. Perhaps lost in thoughts similar to her own.

“How did your teacher find you?” she said urgently. “How did he get you to give up your life as an outlaw?”

There was a pause. Then he said, “What makes you think I gave it up?”

She released her breath on a puff of surprise. Then she
smiled—and felt grateful to him for making her smile. “I stand corrected.”