Fire Within: Book Two of Fire and Stone (Stories of Fire and Stone 2) (30 page)

The following evening, Esset, Tseka and Erizen were already sneaking towards one of Moloch’s impressive castles. They slipped past the sentries on the outer wall easily; Esset had dropped them inside the walls using one of his giant, smoky bird summons. Erizen had complained about the smell, of course, but Esset and Tseka had ignored him. Now their situation was too precarious for anyone to so much as whisper; they had to sneak into the castle itself, and they planned to use the same design flaw here that they’d used to spring Toman—a grate to the lower levels on ground level.

Instead of calling a summon to break through the grate this time, however, Esset just used his new control over fire. It wasn’t faster, but it was certainly less conspicuous. He gripped each bar in one hand and focused his fire to melt the bars top and bottom so they could be removed. Erizen and Tseka kept watch until they were all able to slip through the opening into the stone hall. Esset pulled up a mental floor plan of the castle; they needed to go down first and make sure the cells were empty. He beckoned and they began to sneak down the corridor. Everything went smoothly; the cells were empty and they managed to avoid or sneak past the guards that they detected. Finally they ended up in an empty room—a torture chamber, actually, which had Esset’s stomach in knots—that was relatively central, by Esset’s guess.

“Is this good enough?” Esset whispered to Erizen, who looked far too comfortable in the room for Esset’s taste. Even Tseka looked extremely uncomfortable, and she’d been perfecting her poker face with Erizen around.

“Should be. I still say we should let all Moloch’s underlings get killed. Soldiers, mages, and servants are harder to replace than buildings,” Erizen said; at least he kept his voice down.

“No,” Esset replied bluntly.

“Cast your spell,” Tseka hissed.

“Put up your shield when I say so,” Erizen ordered back. He’d been a little put out that no one seemed to want to play mind games with him—or more, in Tseka’s case. Esset and Tseka were silent as Erizen wove his spell. Esset fidgeted, glancing up and down the corridors.

A clamor arose from outside. “Intruders! Intruders in the castle!”

Esset cursed under his breath. “They must have discovered the bars I melted. Hurry up, Erizen.”

“This spell is complex. I still need a couple minutes,” Erizen said.

“We might not
have
a couple minutes,” Esset replied, but Erizen didn’t respond. He just stood there with his eyes closed. Tseka put a hand on Esset’s shoulder to calm him, but a moment later her face twitched to face the left-hand corridor.

“Someone’s coming,” she warned him, and a moment later he heard the incoming footfalls. Cursing again, Esset summoned one of his fire-cats as Tseka erected a shield around them. The fiery beast had barely materialized when three men in mage’s robes turned the corner. Their faces turned white when they saw the cat.

“Shields!” one of Moloch’s mages cried, but they were too slow; Erizen released his spell first. Esset felt a chill run down his spine as the spell washed over the shield and throughout the castle, disregarding walls or direction.

Esset could see the expressions on the mages’ faces transform from surprise at seeing them to pure, abject terror. Shields and offensive spells forgotten, the three men simply ran. Esset quickly called back his fiery panther—there was no need to attack the mages anymore.

Erizen smirked with satisfaction. “The spell is past now, let’s go.”

Tseka looked at him and shrugged as her shield vanished.

“Now we run,” she said, despite the fact that she just slithered rather quickly instead of “running.” Nevertheless, she was right. Esset just hoped that Erizen was right about people being too afraid to notice the Nadra fleeing with them, because they were about to put his theory to the test.

They emerged from the room and heard muffled screams from elsewhere in the castle. They started running, heading to the nearest outside wall so they could make their escape. Esset had to stifle a response when a guard came charging up the hallway behind them. For a moment, Esset thought he was attacking, but then the man dropped his sword and ran right past them, heading for the stairway so he could escape the castle. Esset found that he was surprised that Erizen's spell worked as he’d said it would.

Esset, Tseka, and Erizen sprinted upstairs and emerged on the ramparts; Esset shouted the incantation for his fiery birds twice and two birds mantled on the walls. Tseka quickly mounted one and sent it aloft; Esset vaulted onto the back of the other and helped Erizen up behind him. Then they followed her up into the air. Esset had the birds circle above the castle, watching people flee from the buildings. They did so in various states; some were clad in sleepwear while others were in full armor. One couple wore nothing at all. Tseka would approve. Maybe.

Esset waited until he deemed everyone was far enough away, then wheeled the birds farther out. This was the tricky part; he had to make sure the birds they were riding didn’t misbehave while he sent his mind down into the castle and summoned his new fiery creatures into place in structurally vital locations. From above, they could only see a few of them situated next to the outer curtain walls; they were dark dots that slowly grew brighter until they were white-hot. Up close, they looked much different.

Deep underground, massive tortoises appeared next to the main supports of the building. They started off black as ashes, with only dimly glowing eyes. Over the span of three minutes or so they slowly began to glow, like coals being fanned back to life, and then intensify in color, like steel being heated so it could be hammered into shape. The mouths of the tortoises opened and lava began to pool under their chins, but it was inadequate to release the pressure growing within them.

High above, Esset, Erizen, and Tseka still circled wide around the castle. For a while, it looked like nothing was happening; then everyone was shocked by a massive explosion. Fire and stone exploded into a mass of chaos. A giant fireball erupted upwards into the sky, and the sudden wave of heat made even the fiery birds they rode miss a wingbeat and dip towards the ground. Esset had to scramble to direct the birds further away so they didn’t get scorched. Below, the castle still burned.

The heat was so intense that the stone was not just scorched but twisted and melted in places. Anything more flammable, including wood, was reduced to a fine ash and carried aloft by strange winds that carried it over the surrounding area. Where the castle had once stood, grim and looming over the city, there was now a pile of smoldering rubble.

“Nice,” he heard Erizen say in his ear; he even sounded impressed. Esset had to admit that he was pretty pleased with himself. But he knew better than to hang around; without waiting for the smoke to clear, he turned the birds and made haste away from the scene.

“Three castles in five days!” Esset crowed as he burst into Toman’s workshop six days later. Toman looked up from his current creation with amusement in his gaze.

“Another smooth mission?” Toman asked. Esset hesitated.

“Successful,” he conceded. “Although…” Esset glanced over his shoulder and shut the door. “We did run into a little trouble this time. Looks like Moloch’s mages are on the lookout for us now, and we tangled with a few of them before we could get away clean. It went…surprisingly well.”

“But…” Toman prompted him.

“I’ll…start at the beginning,” Esset replied. As victorious as he felt, Esset knew Toman had picked up on his reservations.

“For good news, we don’t need to use Erizen’s fear spell anymore. I just circle a fire bird overhead and everyone knows that it means the castle will blow up, so they all run away,” Esset said. Toman nodded. “However, Moloch’s mages know what it means too, and they came looking for us. I managed to blow up the castle first, but they got one of my birds before we could get away. I caught Tseka with my own mount but the weight of three of us dragged our bird down. Even still, with Tseka’s shields and my summoning, it was a surprisingly easy win. We killed two of the mages and the last one fled.”

“So what’s the problem?” Toman asked.

“Erizen,” Esset replied. Always Erizen. “He just stood back and watched while we fought. With his help, we probably could have driven away all three instead of killing two of them, or we could have gotten away quicker, but he did nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Maybe he was…” Toman began, but he stopped at the flat look Esset gave him.

“Yeah,” Toman conceded. “I imagine he had a reason, but is it one we’d think is good?”

“I doubt it. I don’t even like having him along. We don’t need him for fear spells, so why bring him?” Esset asked.

Toman shook his head. “Just hang in there. We still need him for the Greymaker, remember? He has the expertise we need.”

“Then let’s do it! Let’s go after the Greymaker,” Esset pressed. He ground his teeth when Toman shook his head again.

“Moloch isn’t weak enough yet. We have to keep up the attrition,” Toman said. Esset ground his teeth harder.

“Look, I might not have to deal with Erizen, but I’m not exactly having fun here either,” Toman snapped. “I’ve been sitting here, day in, day out, animating things. Everything from scouts to assassins; everything from giant birds to little bugs.”

The animator held up the mosquito-like creation he had in his hand, roughly the size of his fist. “I spend time programming them to wander for a while and confuse their trails before going after Moloch to try to kill him. I don’t expect them to succeed, but I keep sending them. I know they’ll frustrate him and force him to keep his guard up. I know it will irritate him, reminding him that I escaped and I
dare
to come after him again. He’ll hate it that I’m using tactics against him that he had me use against his enemies.” Toman drew in a deep breath and exhaled. Esset looked away, knowing this wasn’t fun for anyone.

“But it’s more than that, Esset. I’m being creative in how I go after him. I created a snake that looked like manacles that would hide in one of his torture rooms to ambush him. I created tiny poisoned fleas to hide in his bed. I’ve created moles to burrow in his rooms and chew on supports to collapse rooms around him. I could kill a hundred ordinary men, easily, with the tactics I’m using against Moloch.” Toman’s eyes were tortured when Esset looked into them.

“Even after everything the Ashiier did for me, this sickens me. I shouldn’t be this good at coming up with ways to send my animations after Moloch, but it’s all thanks to Moloch that I am.” Toman ran his hands through his hair.

Esset couldn’t leave his brother in tortured silence. “No one could go through that unchanged. You’re still
you
,
Toman.” Toman was still Toman, even after a little change. Or was that incorrect by definition? Esset didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to.

“Am I? Are either of us?” Toman’s brown eyes met Esset’s.

“What do you mean?” A perplexed crease formed between Esset’s eyebrows.

“Look at you, Esset. Look at the power you command now. You may not have been ‘awake’ while I was imprisoned, but that time changed you too.” Toman rested his head in his hands now, not looking at his brother.

Esset couldn’t deny his brother’s words. He was still trying to come to terms with his new power himself. But for all the new powers, he still felt like he was the same person at heart, just as Toman was.

Toman sighed. “This is a war, Esset, and to win it, we have to be smart, and we have to be patient. So please… Be patient.”

“Yeah,” Esset agreed. “You’re right.” But even as he admitted defeat, part of him rebelled. He didn’t—couldn’t—trust Erizen. Not ever.

Two days later, they were scouting out another of Moloch’s castles when they heard some strange rumors that sent them back to the site of their first castle-razing. Esset landed them on a distant hill and they all stared in disbelief at the castle in the distance. It was back. There was no sign of destruction at all, just a pristine castle, identical to the one they’d destroyed, sitting in the exact place the old had sat, as if they’d never so much as touched it. Esset couldn’t believe his eyes.

“It has to be an illusion,” Esset finally said after they stared at it in silence for a long while.

“Oh no, it’s perfectly real and solid,” Erizen said. Esset looked at him and saw that he was smiling.

“What are you smiling about?” Esset growled at him. Erizen’s grin only grew.