The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel (9 page)

“Fortunately,” Chandra said, “I enjoy a challenge.”

“Yes, I thought you’d say that. Even so, please be careful. If only for the sake of an old woman who has become rather fond of you, even though you’re an awful lot of trouble to have around.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I think it would be—” But Luti’s comment ended on a shocked gasp as the rosemary plant lifted itself from the soil and attacked them.

Chandra saw claws and fangs hiding amidst the plant’s spiky leaves as it suddenly turned into a tall, moving creature, with arms and legs that ended in the same spikes.

Heat flowed through her in immediate response to the danger, and she amputated one of the plant’s attacking limbs with a bolt of fire that she swept downward as she was assaulted. The creature hissed in pain, swayed, then doubled over and re-formed itself into some sort of small, leafy wolf-looking thing.

“How did it do that?” Chandra blurted, staring in surprise.

Luti gasped again. “Watch out!” She hurled a fireball at the creature as it crouched to attack. The projectile hit the growling four-legged bush in the face, but the leafy wolf easily shook off the blow and leaped for Chandra.

Her fireball was considerably more powerful than Luti’s, and when it hit the creature, the thing fell back with a screech, rolled over into a ball, and reshaped itself into the form of a giant spider.

“I
hate
spiders,” Chandra said with feeling.

She raised her hands to call forth a hot flow of lava, and dumped it all over the disgusting creature that was scuttling toward her with murderous intent. The massive spidery
thing
was smothered beneath the lava and incinerated by the liquid fire.

The two women stared at the glowing pile of cooling lava that had destroyed their attacker.

“Well.” Luti was panting. “That was … different.”

“Ugh! Did you say you know what that thing was?”

“Yes. I’m pretty sure it was a woodland shapeshifter,” Luti said, still breathless. “I’ve heard of them … but this is the first one … I’ve ever …” She sat down shakily on the bench again. “I’m too old for a shock like that.”

“Even
I’m
too old for a shock like that.” Chandra’s heart was pounding after the brief fight.

“No
wonder
the rosemary looked so overgrown,” Luti murmured.

“That was pretty clever, I have to admit.”

“Not that we won’t miss you, Chandra,” Luti said, her hand resting over her heart on her heaving chest, “but how soon can you go?”

Chandra talked with Brother Sergil that evening, trying to get some idea of what to look for in the decorative border if she saw the scroll again. She didn’t learn much. As Luti had already told her, it might be a pattern, it might be artfully concealed text, it might be an ornate map. Or it might be none of those. But he did tell her enough so that she would be able to identify the scroll, considering she had no memory of it.

Wonderful.

She decided to go to Brannon’s room while he was getting ready for bed to tell him she was going away again, but that she would be back before long.

“You’re not running away from
oufes
, are you?” he demanded.

“No, of course not,” she assured him.

“Because we’re better sorcerers than a bunch of elves and weird woodland creatures.”

“Yes, we are.” She tucked him into bed and said, “But the brothers want to know more about the scroll I brought back—you remember the scroll?”

“Yes. The one that the stranger stole.”

“Right. So Mother Luti asked me to try to find it.”

“I should come with you.” He started to get out of bed. “I can help you!”

“I need you to stay here and protect the monastery,” she said firmly, nudging him back onto his narrow cot. “There
was another attack today. That’s the fourth one. And if I hadn’t been there, something awful might have happened to Mother Luti.”

“I heard! A woodland shapeshifter!” Brannon’s eyes glowed with excitement. “I kind of wish you hadn’t killed it right away, Chandra. Mother Luti’s never seen one before, and she’s really
old
, so maybe I’ll never get another chance to see one.”

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “It was pretty interesting.”

“But you weren’t scared?”

“I was a little scared,” she admitted. “Especially when it shaped itself like a
spider.”

“Ooh! I wish I’d seen that! Was Mother Luti scared?”

“Yes, I think she was pretty scared. And now, even though I won’t be here after tonight, it might take Samir a little while to convince that oufe tribe to stop sending assassins to the monastery. So who knows what could happen next?”

“They might even send a spitebellows!” he said eagerly.

Chandra didn’t know what that was, but she said,
“Exactly
. So while I’m away looking for the scroll, I need to know that someone is here protecting Mother Luti and the monastery. Someone I
trust
. Someone I can count on.”

Brannon sighed, the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Oh, all right. I’ll stay.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“But just this time. Next time, I’m coming, too.” “We’ll see, kiddo.”

“Chandra.”
The unfairness of her equivocation clearly incensed him.

“It’s getting late,” she said hastily. “Try to get some sleep.”

“When will you be back?”

“Soon,” she promised. “Goodnight.”

“Here, take this.” Brannon handed Chandra a small piece of flame quartz on a string. “It’s for luck.”

“Thanks, kiddo.”

Chandra left Brannon, knowing he’d lie awake for a while thinking about the exciting things that had happened and that might happen again. She went back to her own room and began preparing to planeswalk.

Ideally, she’d rather do this outside, alone in the mountains. That was where she felt the most centered and focused, the best prepared for planeswalking. But it would be a little difficult to concentrate on entering the æther if she had to keep both eyes peeled for assassins outside the comparative safety of the monastery walls.

Even
inside
the walls, she needed to be alert, considering that goblins had invaded her room and a small bush had tried to kill her in the herb garden.

A death sentence from oufes was a nuisance, she decided.

But alone in her room, with the door closed and the table pushed in front of it to keep out intruders, she could prepare in safety and depart unseen.

Of course, in an emergency, she could planeswalk without as much preparation, but it was dangerous. Also pretty nauseating. The first time had been like that. She hadn’t known what was happening, and the disorientation had been like some horrific combination of being poisoned, beaten, dropped down a well, and scalded. With no idea what was happening or where she was going, she’d thought she was dying. Indeed, she nearly
had
died. It was just luck, survival instinct, and some innate, previously unrecognized talent that had led her through the Blind Eternities to find the relative safety of another plane.

There, she learned what she really was, and had also learned how to travel more safely between the planes of the Multiverse. And, with practice, she was getting better at it.

She sat down on the floor of her dark room and began by focusing on her breathing.

In, out. Slow. Even. Relaxed. Inhale, exhale
.

Each time a thought intruded, she banished it and focused again on her breathing.

Innnnnn. Outtttt
.

With each cycle of her slow, rhythmic breathing, her bond grew stronger with the eternal flow of mana throughout the Multiverse and its infinite planes. Her bond to mana, that ethereal fuel for all magic, was strong on Regatha, and she would use it to carry her through, but there were other planes and other sources of mana ready for those who understood the use of the power.

Chandra felt a welcome tingle of heat begin to flow through her. She opened herself further, accepting the intense flow. She felt fire in her blood, in her bones, in her belly. She heard the roar of flames around her, and she felt their glow all through her body.

Still concentrating on maintaining a deep, relaxed breathing pattern, she sensed her physical presence on Regatha beginning to dissolve into flames as she slipped into the Blind Eternities. As she disappeared from her humble bedchamber into the hot blaze of a fiery chasm, she recognized the formless void that existed outside of time and space.

Green, blue, white, red, black. Undulating rivers of vibrant, multi-colored mana swirled around her in a dizzying whirlwind. Overhead. Underfoot. On all sides. Tumbling like waterfalls, twining like ribbons. Vibrating like the strings of a harp, filling her senses, flowing endlessly …

She moved as if swimming in invisible lava, pushing her way through something rich and heavy that she could neither see nor touch, but which surrounded her, engulfed her, and melded itself to her. Its fiery heat both energized and drained her, consorting with that Spark inside her, that innate quality that kept her from being devoured by the void.

She spread her hands wide, palms facing outward, and concentrated, trying to sense the energy of the planes echoing throughout the Multiverse. She had been to Kephalai once before, so this journey was easier than the other. Even though there was no path, she recognized the way. She sensed where Kephalai lay in the tumult of her surroundings, and she willed herself to journey toward it. There was no herald, no marker. She sensed the energy flowing from a particular source, and she recognized it with comforting certainty as Kephalai.

She sought entry to the plane, a way through the shifting veils in her path, coming between her and her goal. Calling on all her power, she propelled herself toward the plane like a flaming arrow, shooting herself into physical reality once more.

“Ungh!
” Chandra grunted as she was flung physically against something very
hard
, flat, and broad. She bounced off it and fell down to an equally hard surface. She lay there limp, breathless, trying not to pass out.

All right, the journey had gone well, but the arrival was a little bumpy.

She lay facedown on the stony ground, her ribs heaving as she gasped for breath, and a chill creeping across her sweat-drenched back and arms as the cool air of Kephalai washed over her.

She opened one eye and saw that she had bounced off a stone wall. No wonder it had hurt. The building nearby
and the stone paving beneath her cheek were both a cool, pale gray. She thought she smelled dead fish, an odor so rank that even the gulls she saw circling overhead might decline a free meal.

“Mummy, look!” cried a child.

“No, dear, stay away from her,” said a woman’s voice.

Chandra rolled over and looked up at the woman and small child who were walking past her. They were both fair-skinned, with the blonde hair and blue eyes that were common on Kephalai. The woman was holding the little boy’s hand, and she had a well-bundled sleeping baby nestled in her other arm. She and the boy both wore cloaks over their clothing.

“Is it morning or afternoon?” Chandra asked, shivering a little. The cloud cover made it impossible to tell.

The woman scowled at her. “Women like
you
should stay off the streets by day and leave them safe for decent folk and innocent children!”

Chandra stared after the woman as she stomped away, dragging her little boy with her. “Some things don’t change, wherever you go,” she muttered.

She took a steadying breath and slowly hauled herself to her feet, wincing a little as she did so. She’d definitely have some bruises as souvenirs of her arrival on this plane. She rubbed a hand over her thigh and was glad that the claw wound there hadn’t split open as a result of her crash landing. It might leave a scar, but it was still healing well.

Chandra looked around to get her bearings. She recognized the place, having been there before. Rising above the water on the other side of the harbor was the bridge where she’d had to seriously blow some things up so that she could leave Kephalai. She grinned when she saw there was still a heap of tumbled stone from the damage she’d done, including some hideous statue she’d destroyed. That hadn’t
been intentional, but there was no denying that Kephalai was a better looking place without it.

Chandra tensed when she heard screeching overhead. Looking into the sky, she relaxed when she saw only birds flying above. One of the nastier surprises of her previous adventure here had been the gargoyles from the Prelate’s palace. Two of them had captured Chandra and carried her above the city, hauling her off to captivity. If she was going to steal the scroll again, she’d need to do something about those creatures.

Getting her bearings, Chandra turned away from the harbor and started making her way along the city’s crowded flagstone streets. The first order of business, obviously, was to see if the scroll was back in the Sanctum of Stars. Then she could decide what to do next.

The Sanctum of Stars was a sort of combined museum and treasury in the heart of the city. It was a repository of such rich, diverse, and rare objects that its renown extended beyond the plane. She spotted the Sanctum easily, though she was still some distance from it. Its pale stone spire rose majestically above the domed buildings surrounding it. Chandra crossed another bridge that stretched over one of the city’s many canals. While walking in the direction of her goal, she considered how to approach this situation.