The River of Fire

The stars were snuffed out like candles. The field was shrouded in black. The other shacks were simply not there. Outside Tarin’s window, it was so dark that it looked as though someone had painted the windows black. The growling continued—regular, insistent, ravenous. Voran’s hands shook.

“How?” whispered Tarin. “They could not have found this place. It is protected. It is beyond their knowledge.”

Voran knew how. Tarin had said it: “You must so guard your thoughts and inner movements of the heart that not even a stray intention will escape that can aid the enemy.” Apparently, even considering the drowned girl’s offer was enough to open a chink in the ancient protection.

“I did it,” Voran said. “The drowned girl, the Alkonist, she offered me a way out of the Lows.” Tarin’s eyes grew wide. “I did not accept it, but neither did I curse her out of my hearing. I may have even considered the possibility.”

Tarin breathed out heavily. “Perhaps. But she is an insignificant power, a thing the other Alkonist endure only because they must. She could not have done this…unless…” Something dawned on him, and he seemed even more afraid, if that were possible. “Oh, my dear Voran, I hope not…”

“What, my lord? Tell me, please.”

“There are powers of the earth…strange, shadowy powers with ever-shifting allegiances. They have no love for men. They have long remained dormant, but if they have awoken, it could only mean…”

Tarin took Voran’s forearms in his hands—an ancient gesture of kinship in war—and his eyes were frightening. They were the eyes of a man ready to die.

“Listen to me, Voran. The only way that the Raven’s horde could have found me is if the boundaries between worlds are tottering. That could only happen if Vasyllia is on the verge of falling to the Raven.” Voran must have looked more confused than usual, because Tarin smiled in spite of his fear. “Yes, my boy, Vasyllia is far more important than you realize. It hides a secret that may determine the fate of all the Realms, not just this one. Promise me, my boy. No matter what happens, you must not let Vasyllia perish. Even if it has already fallen, you must win it back. At whatever cost!”

His eyes were on fire now, and Voran was truly afraid for the first time in his life. His restlessness, his desire to quest, his wish to make a name in the world—all that vanished. He knew, with the conviction of someone on the doorstep of death, that he was not ready to face the Raven and his darkness.

“I promise, my lord.”

“I am no longer your lord, Voran. You are a free man. Though you are so unprepared, so unprepared.”

Once again, Tarin had a mumbled conversation with himself. Something knocked at the door, a soft knock, not threatening at all. It chilled Voran to the marrow. Tarin’s eyes were full of tears.

“I have been cruel to you, Voran, but it was done with a pure intention, I hope you realize. And it has not been enough. I am throwing you to the Powers, and I do not know if you will survive. But if you do not, we will all die.”

He fell on his knees and began scrabbling at the hard earth of the shack. For a moment, Voran wondered if madness had finally struck Tarin, but the old man looked up after his fingers had grabbed something, and he smiled his usual, impish grin. He scratched out a wooden trap door, pulled on it, and the trap screeched open.

“This place is protected, as I said. The line of sentinel spruces is a line of power, and the rest of my land is encircled by a river of fire—both are a deep magic from the days of Founding. If the Raven’s horde has truly passed it or avoided it somehow, then there is no hope. More likely, they are casting illusion at us from the other side. In any case, you must chance it. At the end of this passage, you will come out on the banks of the river of fire. You must not hesitate even a moment—jump in. It will be excruciating, yes. You may be consumed by it. But we have no more time to prepare. The battle has come to us.”

Before Voran could say anything, Tarin pushed a sheathed sword, bundled in fresh black fabric and tied with a new belt of black leather, into his hands and nearly threw him into the passage.

“Go, before it is too late.”

The knock on the door repeated, still soft and not remotely threatening.

“That is good,” said Tarin, smiling. “It suggests they are not actually here yet. You may have time. Run!”

The darkness in the passage was so thick that Voran was sure it would simply eat him before he could pass through. The silence was so complete that it thundered in his ears. His heart did its best to try to jump through his chest. He exhaled until there was no breath left, then inhaled a long, pure breath, and began to repeat the word in his mind.

“Saddaí. Saddaí.”

There was no change in light, but suddenly he realized that his hearing was enough to tell him exactly where to go, how long the passage was, and how fast he could run without falling or crashing into anything. This must be how a bat sees, he thought. He wrapped himself in the black fabric—which turned out to be a full cassock with fine bone clasps all the way down the front—strapped on his sword underneath it, and ran forward, the loose edges of the garment flapping behind him.

It seemed a long time, but the air eventually changed, becoming cold and fresh. The passage sloped sharply up, and before he knew it, he stood outside on the banks of a small river that flowed contentedly as though it were the middle of summer. It took him a moment to realize that this must be what Tarin had called the river of fire, but it looked merely river-ish.

“It took you long enough, my sweet,” said the drowned girl from above him. She landed on him like a cat, and her claws were just as sharp. Her arms and her hair engulfed him. He tried to push her off, but she was inhumanly strong. As he thrashed, he tripped on something and was on the ground. They rolled back and forth violently, and Voran felt her nails tickling him. They were cold as iron.

At first he laughed, it was so absurd. But it soon grew unpleasant. She laughed and laughed and continued to tickle until the nails dug into his skin, and the pain was searing. He found it harder and harder to breathe. The stars danced before his eyes for a moment, and he felt himself go under, but then she sprang off him.

“That was a foretaste,” she said in her girlish voice, dusting off her arms with her fingers, again parodying a typical gesture of a courtly woman. “I can kill you quickly, or I can do it slowly. It depends on my mood. Now you know.”

Voran reached for his sword, but it was not there. She held it, still sheathed on its belt, though it seemed to disgust her, like an old cheese gone green.

“None of that, Voran. Last chance. Take my offer, bed me properly, and I will take you to the weeping tree.”

“You lie, as I should have known. You are in the Lows of Aer with me. Of that, I have no doubt.” He felt the soreness under his arms. His hand came away bloody, and it disgusted him more than the sight of blood ever had before. “You cannot bear me over the barrier unless you are on the other side.”

“How clever you are.” She looked disappointed. “Never mind. I can still get my pleasure by force.” She lunged at him with the speed of a lynx, but he had no desire to stay and fight. He merely stepped a few paces back and fell into the water. The girl recoiled from the splash with a shriek. Voran, not stopping to think, splashed her as hard as he could before she could get away. The water caught fire on her hair, and in a moment, she was a blazing inferno, running away into the darkness. Her wail cut into him almost as painfully as her nails had.

Voran was in pure, clear water, but somehow it was also fire, though nothing like the usual red-orange flame. Each little eddy was also a translucent tongue of fire, and he was covered in them. At first, the flames were dew-like—soft and cooling and thicker than water. Then the pain seeped in as the flames reached through his clothes into his skin. He threw off the new cassock—it somehow remained untouched by the fire—and hurled it to the shore. It landed next to his sword.

He fought down the rush of panic, held his breath, and forced himself to submerge completely. It was excruciating, as Tarin had said. As he washed, he burned. As he took off the thick layers of mud and sweat, layers of skin sloughed off as well. Soon the pain was a scream in his ears, but he forced himself not to come up. He continued washing himself, continued mouthing the word—Saddaí, Saddaí—until even the scars from the serpent-hag came off in purplish clumps.

He stood up, bracing for the cold air, and waded out of the river. The water should have frozen on his skin the moment he broke, but the flames continued to dance over his body, though they no longer hurt very much. With a flash of embarrassed fear, he touched his head and chin. No, his shoulder-length hair was still there, only smoother and silkier, as was his still young beard. He sighed in relief.

He wrapped himself in the new cassock. It was clean. He had last been clean months ago. That moment, a short moment of exhilarated pleasure, was one of the longest of his life, one he would remember again and again for many long years. The fabric was thick and well-woven, excellent for cold weather, though he wished he had his old travel gear from Vasyllia to go atop it. As it was, his training with Tarin had hardened his body against cold in a way he did not think possible. All Vasylli prided themselves on their ability to bear cold, but his capacity to endure it now was far greater than the hardiest Vasylli.

There was something else that was different as well. As he realized what it was, he almost wept for the sheer joy of it—the soft palpitation in his chest, as of another heart.

Lyna had come back, and with her came the dawn. She sat on a low bough of a bent-over oak, its bark green with moss. Behind her head, the sun rose between two distant hills, giving Lyna a halo of gold. At first, he couldn’t see her face. When his eyes got accustomed to the light, he saw she was smiling.

“Lyna, how I longed to see you.”

“Oh, my falcon. My poor falcon. You cannot imagine the pain I felt when you broke our bond. It can be remade, if you wish it. But it will be painful as nothing else.”

Voran laughed dourly. “Today, that seems appropriate.”

“First, you must hurry. Tarin has crossed the line of sentinel trees to distract the Raven’s creatures, so that you could escape. I do not know how long he has left.”

As soon as Voran passed the line of spruces, the swirling darkness was on him, and invisible bonds stronger than steel pinned him in place. His senses sharpened, so that every movement of his pinioned arms was a cacophony of pain. At first, he saw nothing but murk, but the shadows resolved like fading smoke around a prostrate figure on his knees, bloodied hands clasping a hoary head, face planted firmly into his thighs. Voran refused to believe this was Tarin. Over him towered a hideous monster—a leonyn over seven feet tall, his head and face a horrible amalgam of feline and human, with only the worst qualities of both. He bared brown fangs and roared as he beat Tarin with a monstrous leather whip, edged with many tails.

Voran could not move. His frustration reached a boil, and he screamed out his defiance at the mass of formless creatures swirling in the darkness around the leonyn and Tarin. The lion-thing turned to look at Voran—its eyes were black shards of the void swirling around them—and smiled.

“Ah. The hag’s lover.” The leonyn’s voice was incongruously gentle. “Well met at last. How typical of your kind to hide in the stinking marshes. Quite a warrior you are.”

Tarin looked up. His face was battered, but his eyes still had the old fire. He assessed Voran for a heartbeat and seemed content with what he saw. With a groan, he got up. The leonyn stepped back in surprise.

“The old goat has some strength left,” the creature said and hissed, skin stretched back over his gums, revealing all of his fangs in challenge.

Tarin paid him no attention. He assumed the stance of the storyteller and cried out, as if in challenge, “How do you feel, young man?” The leonyn beat him again, but Tarin only flinched at it, as if it hurt no more than a mosquito’s bite.