Children of Fire (16 page)

She didn't answer him but stared down at the ground, crying softly. Methodis reached out and lifted her chin so she was looking him in the eye. “Please, Scythe,” Methodis begged. “They won't hurt me. I'm too valuable. But you … you can't let them find you! Now go. Hurry. Go now!”

Scythe climbed out of the footlocker and gave Methodis a fierce hug. He wrapped his own arms tight around her, and for several seconds they just held each other in silence. Then he whispered in her ear, “Promise me you'll do this, Scythe. Promise me you'll do whatever it takes to save yourself.”

“I promise,” she whispered back, choking on a sob.

He held her for a few brief seconds more, then gently pushed her away. She sniffed once and wiped away a final tear. Then she gave her mentor a quick kiss on the cheek and disappeared into the clutter of the hold.

Five days later they reached port at Callastan. Scythe knew they were docked in the city of her childhood because she had overheard two of the pirates talking about it earlier in the day.

She had gotten quite adept at hiding among the crates and boxes of the pirate ship's hold. At first she had cowered in the farthest corners, terrified she might be discovered, only emerging at night to steal scraps of food from the unguarded stores. But by the third day she had become bold enough to creep up silently whenever she heard anyone enter so she could listen in on their conversations. She had even gotten into the habit of spying on Methodis in the hope she could find a way to help him escape, too. Or at least get another chance to speak to him. So far she hadn't accomplished either of her goals.

He had tended to the wounds of at least ten men by her count. Some of the injuries were from the battle with Trascar's crew while others were from drunken skirmishes among the pirates themselves. None of the men had died, and from what she had overheard the captain was quite pleased with his new healer.

That made Methodis even more valuable, and it made it that much harder for Scythe to come up with a plan for him to escape. They only time he was ever allowed above deck was when he was treating a patient. The rest of the time he was in the darkness of the hold, shackled around his wrists and ankles with heavy iron chains bolted into the ship's hull. And he always had at least one guard watching him.

Despite all this, Scythe had no intention of leaving him behind.

It was night now, all but a handful of the crew had left the ship to go whoring, drinking, or gambling on the mainland. There was only one guard watching over Methodis, and he was two-thirds of the way through the bottle of rum he was using to drown his disappointment at being left behind. If she waited long enough he might pass out in a drunken stupor … but the longer she waited, the greater the chance that someone else might come down to relieve him. She had to act now.

The guard was half standing, half leaning against a pair of barrels, mumbling to himself about his bad luck. Moving without a sound she slid into position behind him. In her white-knuckled fist she grasped the thin knife she had salvaged from one of the many pilfered crates in the hold.

She had never killed a man before, but the crew of the
Dolphin
had taught her how to do it in half a dozen different ways. She stabbed the knife into the pirate's back at an upward angle, striking under the bottom edge of the shoulder blade. The sharp steel slid through his ribs and into his lung, and when he tried to scream all that came out was a soft sigh and a spray of sticky, bubbling blood.

The man stumbled forward, wrenching the blade from Scythe's grasp. He turned to face her, grasping and flailing behind him in a futile attempt to seize the handle of the knife lodged in his back. He took a step forward, then slumped to his knees. His chin and chest were soaked with the blood pouring out from his half-agape mouth. He reached out with his hands, though whether his feeble gesture was an attempt to grab her or a plea for help Scythe couldn't say. He gave one last gurgling gasp, then slumped forward onto the floor.

Scythe stepped over his body, only pausing long enough to yank the dagger free from his corpse, and rushed to Methodis's side.

“Scythe, what have you done?” he asked in a horrified whisper. “He's dead!”

“I'm getting you out of here,” she replied. She found the heavy padlock of his chains and tried to pry it open with the slim blade of her knife. The tip broke off but the lock didn't budge.

“You have to go,” Methodis pleaded, his voice urgent. “Get off the ship before they find you!”

She ignored him and instead turned her attention to the body of the guard. She rolled him over onto his back, grunting with the effort, then rummaged through his clothes, searching every pocket. Her hands were sticky with blood and gore, but she fought back the urge to retch. She had to find the key! She had to!

“Scythe!” Methodis hissed, his voice as loud as he dared. “The guard doesn't have the key! The captain keeps it on his belt. It's hopeless.”

Giving up her desperate search, she raced back over to the chains. She wrapped one around her forearm twice and pulled with all her might, trying to wrench the bolt free from the wooden hull. It didn't even budge.

“This is pointless, Scythe. Just leave me here.”

“I can't leave you here now,” she grunted as she pulled on the chain again. “If they find you here with that guard's body, they'll kill you.”

“I'll say he was drunk. I'll say he was mad at being forced to guard the prisoner. That he blamed me. I'll say he attacked me and I was just defending myself.”

Sweat broke out on her forehead as she strained against the bonds keeping Methodis captive, but still the bolt held.

“You can't fool me, Methodis,” she panted as she stopped to gather her strength again. “They won't care if it was self-defense. They'll kill you anyway.”

“No, I'm too valuable. The captain knows this. He might flog me, but he won't let them kill me. Go, Scythe. There's nothing you can do for me.”

Scythe cast her head from side to side, looking for some way to gain some leverage. Nothing.

“Maybe I can find something in one of these crates. Just give me a—” Her voice was cut off by the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Yoskur?” a drunken voice called out. “Shift's done, you lucky bastard! The captain sent me to take over.”

“Go, Scythe. This is your last chance.”

Methodis's voice was firm yet calm. But when Scythe looked into the eyes of her mentor she saw a fear unlike any she had seen before. And she knew he was afraid for her.

“Yoskur? You down there? Hello?”

She dropped the chain and sprinted across the hull toward one of the portholes. Behind her she heard the footsteps coming down the stairs. She clambered up onto a stack of crates and slammed her shoulder into the porthole, forcing it open. It would be a tight fit, but she was slim. She heard a gasp and an angry shout, followed by the sound of a hard slap and a grunt of pain from Methodis.

She wriggled her shoulders through the narrow opening. Outside the moonlight made it easy for her to see; compared with the dingy shadows of the hold it was almost like daylight. She could see reflections of the pale light on the water twenty feet below her.

More pirates had come down into the hold; the sound of running footsteps and their angry shouts spurred her on. She twisted her body and pulled herself the rest of the way through, then fell like a stone into the cold ocean water.

With powerful strokes she made her way through the waves until she was safely away from the pirate ship. She listened for the sounds of pursuit, of someone diving into the water after her, but heard nothing.

Slowly she swam along the docks, parallel to the shore, passing pier after pier, trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and the ship she had left. After twenty minutes the shipyards were behind her and she was swimming through the open water. She kept going until her limbs became heavy and she was struggling just to stay afloat. At last, she angled in toward land.

Ten minutes later she crawled up on shore on the very outskirts of the city. She rose to her feet and stood shivering in the chill night air: a fifteen-year-old girl, alone for the first time in her life.

“I must speak with you, Nazir.”

The Pontiff remained kneeling on the prayer mat in the center of the room, not turning to acknowledge the speaker who had barged in unannounced.

“You have come to protest Cassandra's candidacy,” he guessed.

“I fear what will happen to the Order if she is to join our ranks,” Yasmin admitted.

Her reaction was not unexpected. Seven years had passed since Cassandra had been rescued from Rexol, yet there were many in the Order who felt she was forever tainted by her brief apprenticeship with the wizard.

“Cassandra has embraced our teachings and our faith,” the Pontiff replied. “Is that not what we hoped for when she first came into our charge?”

“She served under a Chaos mage,” Yasmin pressed. “One with a history of openly defying the Order in the past.”

Like the Pontiff, her voice was calm. But the scarred flesh of her disfigured scalp had turned a darker shade of purple, giving hint to the true state of her emotions.

“That was not her choice,” Nazir countered. “She was abducted and forced to serve the wizard. We cannot punish her for Jerrod's crimes.”

At the mention of the heretic's name, Yasmin turned her head and spat on the dusty stone floor in the corner of the room. The Pontiff frowned in disapproval, but didn't bother with further comment. He understood that name was anathema to Yasmin.

In the decade since Jerrod had been revealed as a traitor and a student of Ezra's heretical teachings, nearly two dozen of his followers within the ranks of the Order had been flushed out and executed by the Inquisitors. Jerrod himself, however, had avoided capture. Yasmin had spent two years pursuing him as a fugitive across the Southlands and through the Free Cities, but each time she thought she had him cornered he somehow managed to escape.

Her efforts had ended only after Beloq, the aging Prime Inquisitor, commanded her to return to the Monastery to serve at his side in the twilight of his days. Over the next three years the intensity of the hunt waned, as did Beloq's health. With his inevitable passing, Yasmin had assumed the mantle of Prime Inquisitor; she was only the fourth woman in the seven-hundred-year history of the Order to be granted the honor, and the youngest of either gender to hold the position.

Under her reign, the hunt for Jerrod had been renewed in earnest … only to yield two more years of frustrating, fruitless results. In Yasmin's own eyes, failing to make Jerrod answer for his crimes was the only blemish on her otherwise perfect record. Now Cassandra, whose name would be forever linked with that of the traitor, was about to undertake her final initiation and become one of the Order.

“You have questioned her,” Nazir reminded the fiercely devoted woman who now served as his right hand. “If you sensed a lack of conviction in her—if you sensed any uncertainty in her, or a wavering in her loyalty to the Order or her belief in the True Gods—you have the right to deny her candidacy.”

Yasmin was silent for a long time before answering. Yet the Pontiff knew that as much as she might despise Cassandra for her past relationships, the Prime Inquisitor could not bring herself to falsely accuse the girl.

“She is a true believer,” Yasmin confessed. Then she quickly added. “But we cannot simply ignore the visions of the Seers! We must remain ever vigilant!”

“We must remain ever vigilant,” the Pontiff echoed. “But the dreams of the Seers are often difficult to interpret.”

Yasmin's fears were understandable. Jerrod's exposure had dealt a crippling blow to his cause. Those followers who weren't captured fled, or turned their back on the Heresy of the Burning Savior. Cleansing the ranks of the Order had snuffed out an imminent threat to the Legacy, and the visions of the Monastery's prophets confirmed that they had entered an era of nearly unprecedented calm and tranquility. The flaming figures—the so-called Children of Fire—that plagued their dreams faded away, leading many in the Order to believe the Legacy was safe and secure.

The Pontiff was not so easily fooled. He understood that though Chaos could be quelled, it could never be fully quenched. During the past decade of peace, the Sea of Fire continually lapped against the Legacy, weakening it; eroding it. And as the power of Chaos waxed like an incoming tide, the dreams of the Seers had once again been engulfed in smoke and flames.

“The return of these visions warns us that a time of great danger approaches,” the Pontiff explained. “We need Cassandra to join our ranks.

“I have watched her closely ever since she came into our provenance. I know her heart and mind; I see her devotion. I see her strength. Under Rexol she may have been a threat to the Legacy, but once she is initiated into the Order she will be one of its most stalwart defenders.”

“If the vision is not a warning against Cassandra,” Yasmin suggested, “then maybe it is a warning against her old master. Rexol still embraces the ways of Chaos. Let me bring him in for questioning.”

The Pontiff had considered and discarded her idea many moons ago.

“Rexol has taken the crown prince of the Danaan as an apprentice,” Nazir reminded her. “Moving against him without clear and just cause would be seen as an attack on the Danaan people.”

“Would that be so bad?” Yasmin wondered. “Their blood is befouled by Chaos. Perhaps now is the time to rally the Southlands and wipe the Tree Folk from the face of the earth.”

“The Southlands is not ready for a crusade,” the Pontiff warned. “And the Free Cities are building trade with the Danaan—they would stand with them, not us.

“War brings suffering and death; these are the seeds of Chaos,” he cautioned the overeager young woman. “Seizing Rexol now might be the spark that sets the world ablaze. In trying to prevent the collapse of the Legacy, we might actually bring it about.”

“I had not considered that,” Yasmin admitted after a few moments of silent contemplation.

“Chaos can ensnare us in many ways,” Nazir reminded her. “We must not fall prey to its tricks and traps. We must not be rash and foolish; we must be patient and careful.

“The strength of Chaos ebbs and flows. These visions warn us that its power is growing in the mortal world once more. We must stay vigilant. We must continue to seek out those touched by Chaos and contain them, as we have done with Cassandra. And we must do so without plunging the Southlands into a war that could destroy us all.”

“I understand, Pontiff,” Yasmin said, bowing her head in acceptance of his wisdom.

“Go and tell Cassandra to get ready,” Nazir ordered, returning to their original purpose. “It is time for her to become one of us.”

Cassandra trembled, but it wasn't from the cold. Though there was a chill in the desert night, she had grown accustomed to it after six years at the Monastery.

“Are you afraid, child?” the Pontiff asked.

She shook her head. “I'm not afraid.”

That wasn't entirely true. The Monastery was her home, the only home she really remembered. The devoted servants of the Order had taught her their ways and instilled in her an understanding of and a belief in the True Gods; they had shared their wisdom with her as she had grown up among them. They were her family now. The only family that mattered. She had been waiting for this moment for many years, eager to take the final step and truly become one of them. As this day had approached she had felt an ever-growing excitement and anticipation. Now that the moment was at hand, however, she couldn't help but feel a bit overwhelmed with the gravity of it all.

A dozen monks of the Order had gathered in a circle here in the courtyard to be part of her initiation. Their faces and forms were hidden by heavy cloaks, the hoods pulled up to conceal their identities. They were not individuals here—they were the Order.

Those surrounding her didn't speak, only stood in somber silence as she had made her way to the center of their ring. There, the Pontiff had been waiting for her. She hoped his question was one he asked all of the initiates; she hoped he didn't sense the fear she refused to openly acknowledge. She didn't want anything to get in the way of the ceremony.

The Pontiff placed a reassuring hand on her slim shoulder. “Prepare yourself. We are about to begin.”

The monks around her began to chant softly. She glanced up at the night sky above her, gazing at the stars for what might be the last time. But the loss of her sight was a small price to pay for what she was about to gain.

“Close your eyes, Cassandra. Do not rely on them to guide you; look to the power within. Let the True Sight guide you now.”

She did as instructed, shutting her eyes. At first there was only darkness. Cassandra began to breathe, channeling her energy, focusing her power as the monks had taught her, drawing upon all the lessons she had learned over her years of study.

When she had first arrived as a little girl her power had manifested itself only in her dreams. She would wake screaming in the night, the terrible visions overwhelming her. But with the guidance of the prophets she had slowly learned to control her visions. The nightmares became less frequent, finally stopping altogether—with one exception.

There were still nights when she would see the face of Rexol, the mage who had abducted her as a little girl. Sometimes she would awaken with the image of the man who had been her master until the Order had rescued her burned into her mind's eye, her left arm tingling with a terrible heat. Even after all these years, Rexol still haunted her, a dark and shadowy figure she could only half remember.

Apart from these episodes, however, she was no longer at the mercy of the power within her. She had learned to redirect it, to turn it to her advantage. Now she used her power to see the world around her. Eyes still shut, the world around her slowly came into view. Not the shadows and twilight she would see if she were to open her eyes, but a full and complete awareness of her surroundings that transcended the physical world.

Sensing her achievement the Pontiff removed his hand from her shoulder and placed his palms firmly but gently over the lids of her still-closed eyes.

“Cassandra, do you understand what you are about to do?” he asked in a deep voice, enacting the first line of the initiation ritual.

She gave the traditional response. “I must sacrifice my sight so that I can truly see.”

“And do you do this of your own free will?”

“It is my honor and privilege to do this.” She spoke slowly, carefully. She was about to undertake a sacred oath, and she was determined to recite it without flaw. “I believe in the True Gods. I give my life to their service, and to the service of the Order that was founded to protect their Legacy. I vow to defend this Legacy against any who would destroy it, be they man, woman, or child.”

“No one life can be held before the greater good. Any in the Order must be willing to sacrifice his or her life to protect that which we believe in. Do you understand this, Cassandra?”

“I do, Pontiff.”

“Then cast aside the trappings of the mortal world, and see with the Vision of the True Gods!”

The Pontiff thrust his palms forward, throwing her head back. She fell to her knees and cried out as her vision dissolved in an agonizing blaze of blue fire, blinding her. She shrieked as the intense heat seared the lenses of her eyes. She screamed and clawed at her face as the soft tissue of her eyes melted away, molten tears crawling slowly down her cheeks. The fire burrowed deep into her skull as the Pontiff's power burned away the last vestiges of her mortal sight and she could do nothing but scream and writhe at the unbearable agony.

And then suddenly the pain was gone. The veil of blue fire obscuring her sight slipped away to reveal the world around her, blazing with a pure and glorious intensity she had never witnessed before.

“It is done, my child.”

Responding to the Pontiff's words Cassandra opened her once emerald eyes to reveal two gray, lifeless orbs.