The Seekers of Fire (19 page)

Rianor gripped the dagger again and dashed forward, Desmond at his heels. Rianor ran and shoved bodies aside, until there was no one between him and the painted windows. His dagger flew, and glass crashed into a myriad of colored shards.

Most of Rianor's peers had never exited a building through the window in their lives, or at least they had not done it since their childhood years. Rianor could not afford to shout in this air thick with smoke, and there was no time for gentler treatment.

He physically grabbed a random body and thrust it out.

Only then did the others understand what they must do.

Rianor

Evening and night 78 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705

Servants and others rushed to the noble crowd as it stumbled outside the temple. Some of them must have been in the smaller, Mentor-run temple at the far end of the square; others had probably come from the pub further away, in the backstreets. Some were quick and nimble: opening umbrellas to shield the nobles from the icy, skin-scraping rain, supporting or even carrying the ones who could not walk alone. Others, noble and not, slipped on the broken glass shards, and some fell and bled, while others only screamed.

The rain muffled the sounds and blurred the occasional moonlight, but Rianor could still hear and see yet others, perhaps noble but probably not, whisking away in the dark and cold with carry-on items that did not belong to them. Seizing an opportunity and making it yours no matter when and how it presented itself was the mark of genius, Desmond had once said. Rianor had not known that there were so many unrecognized geniuses in Mierber.

"Move aside!" Rianor shouted at the people closest to the temple wall. Earlier had been on the windowsill, helping others climb, but he had jumped down some time ago, for he was more needed outside now. "There are others coming behind you!"

With one hand, he grabbed the collar of a finely-dressed young man sitting empty-eyed on the ground and hauled him up. For a moment the boy staggered, then blinked and suddenly slapped his own cheek, then rushed to help Rianor haul the next one. Lord Eric of Kieran, Rianor thought when he saw his face closer, no more than sixteen years old. This was the youngest age group allowed and required at the Night Fire Ceremony, so at least there were no children for Rianor to take care of now. There were special, daylight Fire Ceremonies for children ...
No.
Rianor swore, wiping sweat from his brow. There
were
children. Little screaming creatures were right now running from who knew where to the mess that was their parents, older siblings, and House relatives.

"All children, stay away!" He shouted again, but the rain gulped his words instantly. It was raining harder now, semi-darkness and vague light interchanging as clouds passed beneath the moons. Why were not the damn Square lights on? His hands trembled as he pulled a sprawled woman to her feet. She sagged against his body, and suddenly his legs could barely hold him. He felt every single broken rib and even the ones that were supposed to be intact, and he felt the wet and coldness extensively. He felt his veins as blood beat wildly against their walls, and then he saw blood drenching his coat and trousers.

It was not his. The woman he was holding was bleeding onto him.

"Is there a healer here?" Rianor tried to shout again, and again the rain muted his voice, but still the crowd seemed to hear him. Most had stopped screaming now, for screaming in rain was not useful at all, so they just stood there in the dark—cold, wet, and scared.

"You, come and help her." He knew that the balding man with the gray coat was from the Healer's Guild, for they had been introduced today. He was a commoner who had built a fortune and entered Fireheart circles by selling creams and such to ladies. He looked at Rianor and then away.

Rianor was so used to people following his orders that he was late in understanding that these here would not. They had followed him out of the temple like terrified sheep, but now they were terrified sheep who were starting to remember that they were supposed to be, or to imitate, lords and ladies.

They did not give a damn that Rianor's present orders might be the most useful thing they had heard in their lives. They did not care that they all had to become disciplined and organized in order to respond to whatever the Bers would serve them next when they, too, got outside—and that Rianor could organize them. Suddenly, they did not want to follow Rianor's orders; they did not want to follow
any
orders, even if the person giving them knew what he was doing.

With a few exceptions, such as Desmond, lord Kevin and lady Kaitlyn of Fredelbert, young lord Eric, and two or three others, they were all useless elements of a mad mob but believed themselves to be individuals.

Rianor was a High Lord; he had learned about mobs. There must be few things in the world worse than a mob element that was, like all mob elements, devoid of a mind but under the delusion that it still possessed free will. Imagination failed before the havoc such "
free will
" could wreak upon the world.

Perhaps the healer was not incompetent, or a bad person. Perhaps he was just a good, skilled man who was very, very scared, which was why he ran and tried to elbow an escape path for himself by shoving others down onto the glass shards.

The way Rianor saw him at this moment, however, was like a defective part of a mechanism. A part that was supposed to be a tool for repairing other parts but did not work, damaging other parts instead, breaking the whole system. And the system had to work. Detrimental parts had no place in it. Rianor raised the new dagger that someone, perhaps Desmond, had at some point thrust into his hand—and stilled his hand a moment before he would have hurled the weapon through the rain. He almost saw it make an arch, diving into the healer's back. He almost saw
himself
as naught but a mob element acting on an impulse, murdering without thought.

His hand now trembling, Rianor slipped the dagger into the sheath on his belt.

It was too late. He had set an example. There were daggers in too many hands now, and thoughts in too few heads. They were going to fight, and it was not right. They were going to fight amongst themselves, but none of
them
had tried to burn or suffocate the rest inside the temple, whose broken windows were staring at them like blind eyes. They were going to fight because their reasons not to had been presently wiped out, and suddenly Rianor was too tired.

Still holding the wounded woman, his head and eyes in pain, he tried to walk but found the ground unstable and unresponsive.

Then the temple came alive.

Rather, the temple was suddenly bathed in light, both from the inside and from the suddenly glowing lanterns in the square. Suddenly, the square itself—this semi-dark, blurred place of confusion, hatred, and harsh, whipping rain—had transformed back into the Temple Square of the Fireheart. The air was warm, too, raindrops sizzling into nothingness as they met some barrier.

Dagger hands drooped as eyes blinked, minds gradually starting to partition the mass of limbs, drenched expensive clothes, and faces dripping with what might be runny make-up or blood, into individuals. Individuals they knew.

Several Bers came out of the temple, through the gates, and Rianor realized that for some time now the gates had been open.

"My lords and ladies."

The red-robed woman with the Voice, standing between a red-robed man and a black-robed girl, other Bers following closely behind them. She looked calm and almost peaceful, her eyes on the crowd, her hands caressing a perfect ball of fire. Her two companions, on the other hand, had hoods partly concealing their faces and held no flame at all, but for a moment Rianor met the man's eyes. Those eyes did not even seem to be seeing the crowd. Both the man's eyes and the girl's were dark in color—but the darkness ran much deeper than that. Had their outer colors been light, their eyes' essence would have been dark still.

These two are the ones to beware,
Rianor thought just as the woman raised her calm voice again.

"My ... children. It is all right. You are forgiven."

Forgiven? The ground must have become more responsive to Rianor's feet, for he managed to make a step forward. The wounded woman was no longer in his arms. A Mentor, who had perhaps just come from the smaller temple across, was tending to her on the ground.

"Healers are coming, she may still live, my lord," the Mentor had mumbled when confronted by Rianor's glare, then quickly had torn her dress to try to stop the bleeding. A stabbing wound. Rianor had not been the first to draw a dagger.

This had been seconds ago, but years seemed to have passed. His head throbbing, Rianor made a few more undisturbed steps towards the Bers, the crowd suddenly shying away from him.

"Who is forgiven for what," he said in a deceptively soft voice. "By whom."

Nan had told him many years ago, when his parents were still alive, that he was a child who could stare his way through stone. At the same time, he had learned early enough that Nan herself was never affected by his disconcerting glares. Nan-harder-than-stone, he had called his outwardly soft, chubby nurse whenever he felt the desire for a good chase around the House.

This woman was even harder than that, and her words were soft like silk wrapped around iron.

"My child. Chaos is currently inside you, mutilating, eating at your quintessence, seeking a way out, to profess aggression."

She shook her head sadly, the flameball shining softly in her hands. It was a pretty ball, its light soothing. Was this Ber fire or wildfire, and why did she brandish exposed fire even now? Showing her control of it, perhaps. Her power. It did not look like it was burning her hands, and if it were a weapon, it did not look outwardly menacing.

"High Lord of Qynnsent, the Lost Ones can incite chaos in even the best of us. I forgive you, in the name of the Master." With a flowing motion that did not seem insulting at first glance, she turned her back to him and walked towards the noble crowd. "The Master can forgive all of you!"

The Master, he who watched this world from the Eternal Place, knew the Lost Ones and their chaos, she said, and the mindless fools listened. The Master and the Bers, his Mierenthian delegates who channeled his wisdom to this world, she claimed, knew that the Lost Ones and chaos always lurked close to everyone.

It was as if the Fire ceremony had never been interrupted. As if the Bers had not almost suffocated about a fifth of Mierenthia's most influential non-Mages half an hour earlier. Calm, dignified, and almost motherly, the Ber preached amidst street lantern light blurred by the slowly lessening drizzle of rain, Mentors and newly arrived healers bent over casualties like black, silent shadows.

"There are Edges," she was whispering, as if she almost did not want the crowd to hear her words—as if she were telling a tale that would haunt little children's nightmares. As if she were telling a tale to little children, who could only understand it in clear, simple words.

"There are other Edges besides that treacherous line at the end of Mierenthia's lands, and they are even more perilous."

She closed her eyes dramatically, like a theater actress. "They are not physical Edges, for they lie within our very minds—and beyond them are lesions of doubt and belligerence. What lies beyond these Edges can sometimes reach inside, and if you let it do that often, it can overwhelm your very thoughts. It will, until all that is left inside you is bitterness, maliciousness, images of a fake world, and a weak quintessence. But chaos, destruction, and decay have no place amongst Mierenthia's worthiest!"

Her cry cut through Rianor's headache like a whip. What had Nan said, that he was going to have headaches for many days? The Fire Ceremony had brought him the first headache since last night, and his head felt as if it were bleeding from the inside. He only hoped it was not truly so.

He was tired. He was too tired to even think, and he was grateful for the hand that suddenly gripped and supported his shoulder. Desmond, his face scraped and grim. He motioned for Rianor to remain silent.

All right, he would. He did not want to speak; he wanted to sit down and rest for a moment. He closed his eyes and tried to control his breaths. He was the person who had organized the escape from the Ber-created chaos—he had acted, so let someone else talk—let someone else ask the Ber why her empty words contradicted her actions.

Rianor opened his eyes when, moments later, no one had asked, and saw the Ber woman watching him intently.

"Even a High Lord can be affected by chaos and the Lost Ones," she said quietly, "perhaps even more so than the rest, for a High Lord or Lady carries heavier burdens. You thought yourself a hero when you destroyed Holy Temple property and instilled terror into your peers, didn't you, High Lord of Qynnsent? This is what the wild elements, the elements of chaos, do to people. Wildfire overwhelmed you first, and then rain overwhelmed you again. "

He could have replied, pointing out the obvious fallacy. Perhaps he would have, if some instinct had not made him take notice of the faces of the crowd. Some of them made special effort to ignore him. Others, wet imbeciles in crumpled, expensive clothes, who perhaps were right now alive only because of him, looked ready to attack him.

How fast could human perceptions of a situation change? Too fast.

It was all right, the Ber witch was telling them all in her motherly voice, the Qynnsent lord was a weak human, just like they, his peers, were weak humans—and a High Lord could be forgiven once. He, a weak non-Ber, had sabotaged a Holy Ceremony because of his own insecurities and the wildfire effect, and they, weak non-Bers themselves, had followed him into another wild, confusing element—the rain—with dire consequences.

"Let it be a lesson of trust for you all," she said, the trust they were supposed to give to Bers, the delegates of the Master. They should have stayed in the temple and trusted the Bers to complete the ceremony in the right way, for only Bers could control terrible wildfire and give people air for breathing, peace, and safety.