Firefight (43 page)

It flashed bright as the sun finally broke over the horizon, bathing me in light. Was it my mind, or was the light stronger than it should have been?

Prof approached on his flying disc, his lab coat fluttering behind him. He landed on the other side of the small peaked roof from me, and regarded me with a strange interest. Again I was struck by how different he seemed. This man was
cold
. It was him, but a him with all of the wrong emotions.

“You don’t have to do this, Prof,” I told him.

He smiled and raised a hand. Sunlight bathed our rooftop.

“I believe in the heroes!” I shouted, holding up the pendant. “I believe they will come, as my father believed. This is not how it will end! Prof, I have faith.
In you
.”

A forcefield globe appeared around me, breaking the roof tiles under my feet, enclosing me perfectly. It was exactly like the one that had killed Val.

“I believe,” I whispered.

Prof squeezed his hand closed.

The sphere compressed … but suddenly, though I’d been inside it a moment ago, I wasn’t in it now. I could see it right in front of me, shrunken to the size of a basketball.

What?

Prof frowned. That sunlight, it was getting brighter, and brighter, and …

And a figure of pure white light
exploded
into existence between me and Prof. It blazed like the sun itself, a feminine figure, radiant, powerful, golden hair blown back and shining like a corona.

Megan had arrived.

Prof summoned another forcefield globe around me. The figure of light thrust a hand toward him, and suddenly that globe was around Prof
himself
instead. Megan was changing reality, making possibilities into fact.

Prof looked even more surprised this time. He dismissed the globe and summoned another around the figure of light, but when it started to shrink it was around him again in an eyeblink, closing him in, threatening to crush him.

He dismissed it, and I saw something else in his eyes I’d never seen before. Fear.

They’re all afraid
, I thought.
Deep down. Newton fled from me. Steelheart killed anyone who might know anything about him. They’re driven by fear
.

That wasn’t the Prof I knew, but it
was
the High Epic Phaedrus. Confronted by someone who manipulated his powers in ways he didn’t understand, he became terrified. He stumbled away, eyes wide.

In the space of a heartbeat, we were somewhere else.

Me and the glowing figure. One building over, inside a room with a window through which I could see Prof standing on the rooftop. Alone.

The glowing figure beside me sighed, then her glow vanished and resolved into Megan, completely naked. She fell, and I managed to catch her. Outside the window, on the next building over Prof cursed, then hopped on his disc. He sped away.

Sparks. How was I going to deal with him?

The answer was in my arms. I looked down at Megan, that perfect face, those beautiful lips. I’d been right to have faith in the Epics. I’d just chosen the wrong one.

Her eyes opened, and she saw me. “I don’t feel like killing you,” she whispered.

“More wonderful words have never been spoken,” I said back.

She stared at me, then groaned, closing her eyes again. “Oh hell. The secret
is
the power of love. I’m going to be sick.”

“Actually, I think it’s something else,” I said.

She looked at me. I was suddenly made conscious that she was very,
very
naked, and I was nearly naked as well. She followed my eyes, then shrugged. I blushed and put her down, then moved to find something for her to wear. As I stood, however, clothing appeared on her—the standard jeans and shirt, shadows of clothing from another dimension. Good enough for now, I supposed.

“What
is
the secret, then?” she asked, sitting up and running her hand through her hair. “Every other time I’ve reincarnated, I’ve been
bad
when I first came back. Unable to remember myself, violent, destructive. This time … I feel nothing. What changed?”

I looked her in the eyes. “Was that building already on fire when you ran into it?”

She pursed her lips. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It was stupid. You don’t need to tell me it was. I knew you probably weren’t in there, not for real. But I thought—maybe you were, and I couldn’t risk that you might be.…” She shivered visibly.

“How afraid of the fire were you?”

“More than you can possibly know,” she whispered.

I smiled. “And that,” I said, gathering her into my arms again, “is the secret.”

Epilogue

ABOUT
five hours later I sat on top of what had once been a low building in Babilar, warming my hands at a cookfire. The building now rose some twenty stories over the once-submerged street below.

Not a single building had collapsed as the waters left. “It’s the roots,” Megan said, settling down next to me and handing me a bowl of soup. She wore real clothing now, which was kind of unfortunate, but likely more practical, as it had gotten really cold in the city all of a sudden. “Those roots are tough stuff, tougher than any plant has a right to be. They’re literally holding the buildings up.” She shook her head as if amazed.

“Dawnslight didn’t want his utopia to fall if he did,” I said, stirring my soup. “The fruit?”

“Still glowing,” Megan said. “The city will survive. He
was warming the water somehow to keep the place from getting too cold, though. He’s going to have to find another way to deal with that.”

Other people moved about us. The people of Babilar were banding together in what they saw as a crisis, and we were just two more refugees. If any who passed saw something different about me, recognized me from one of the fights, they didn’t say anything. At least, nothing more than a few hushed whispers to their companions.

“So,” Megan said, “this theory of yours …”

“It
has
to be fear,” I said, exhausted. How long had it been since I’d had any sleep? “I faced down the waters, and then was immune to Regalia trying to make me an Epic. You rushed into a burning building to save me, despite your terror, and you awoke free from the corruption. Epics are afraid, at their core. It’s how we beat them.”

“Maybe,” Megan said, uncertain. Sparks. How was it that someone could look so good simply stirring soup? And while wearing clothing a size too big, her face red from the chill? I smiled, then noticed she was staring at me too.

That seemed to be a very good sign.

“The theory makes sense,” I said, blushing. “It’s like oatmeal on pancakes.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me, then tried her soup. “You know,” she said, “you’re not actually bad at metaphors …”

“Thanks!”

“… because most of the things you say are
similes
. Those are really what you’re bad at.”

I nodded thoughtfully, then pointed my spoon at her. “Nerd.”

She smiled and drank her soup.

As good as it was to be with her, I found the taste of my soup bitter. I couldn’t laugh. Not after what had happened.
We ate in silence, and as Megan stood she put a hand on my shoulder.

“If either of them had been told,” she said softly, “the cost they would have to pay to save the city, do you doubt they’d have agreed to it in a heartbeat?”

I reluctantly shook my head.

“Val and Exel died as part of an important fight,” Megan said. “And we’ll stop it from consuming others. Somehow.”

I nodded. I hadn’t confronted her about Sam yet. There would be time for that eventually.

She went looking for a refill. I stared at my bowl. Sadness gnawed at me, but I didn’t give it free rein.

I was too busy planning.

A moment later I picked out a voice from those around us. I stood, lowering my bowl, then pushed my way past two chatting Babilarans.

“He’s a goofy-looking fellow,” Mizzy was saying. “Tallish. Terrible fashion sense …” Then she saw me, her eyes opening wide. “Um … he has some good attributes too.…”

I grabbed her in a hug. “You heard the broadcast.”

“Yeaaaah,” she said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I asked some people to broadcast a message to you and Tia, hoping you’d pick it up on your radio and … You didn’t hear it?”

She shook her head, which was annoying. I’d wracked my brain trying to come up with a way to make sure Prof didn’t get to her. I’d thought the radio idea would be a good one. After all, we’d been able to use the shortwave to reach Abraham in Newcago.

Missouri held up a small slip of paper and showed it to me. Fortune cookie paper.
Missouri
, it read,
hide. Hide now
.

“When did you find this?” I asked.

“Last night,” she said. “Right before dawn. About a hundred of them said that. Creeped me out, I’ll tell ya. Figured I should do what it said. Why? You look sad.”

I’d have to tell her about the others. Sparks. I opened my mouth to explain, but at that moment Megan returned.

The two of them locked gazes.

“Uh, could we not shoot one another?” I said, nervous. “For now? Pretty please?”

Mizzy looked away from Megan pointedly. “We’ll see. Here. I think this one is for you, maybe?” She held up another slip of paper. “It was the only one that was different.”

I hesitantly took the paper.

Dream good dreams, Steelslayer
, it read.

“Do you know what it means?” Mizzy asked.

“It means,” I said, folding the paper in my hand, “that we have a lot of work to do.”

THE RECKONERS SERIES CONTINUES WITH

CALAMITY

SPRING 2016

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ANOTHER book has arrived! Once again, my name may be on the cover, but a ton of unseen hands helped with its creation. This book is unusual in that it was the first one I created with the specific help of the Dragonsteel Think Tank, a name I’m giving right now (and will probably never use again) for the brainstorming group who went out to lunch with me and helped me work through problems in the outline.

They include the Insurmountable Peter Ahlstrom—my editorial assistant, and a face you may see popping up on my blog and Facebook page, answering questions and making occasional posts. Seriously, folks, this guy is awesome. As a key member of my first writing group (with Dan Wells and Nathan Goodrich, whose name you may have read at the front of the book), Peter has been a huge help all along. If you see him at a convention, give him a pat on the back.

Also at that lunch were Karen Ahlstrom, keeper of the Dragonsteel internal wiki, and Isaac Stewert—mapmaker extraordinaire and now full-time employee at our company. They gave great help with this novel, as did the other members of my current writing group, not including those listed above: Emily Sanderson, Alan Layton, Darci & Eric James Stone, Benn & Danielle Olsen, Kara Stewart, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, and Kaylynn ZoBell.

The talented team at Random House include my editor, Krista Marino, who did a fantastic job with the book (and with giving periodic polite reminders of due dates), and Jodie Hockensmith, who consistently goes above and beyond the call of publicity duty in working with surly authors. Other Random House folks deserving of applause include Rachel Weinick, Beverly Horowitz, Judith Haut, Dominique Cimina,
and Barbara Marcus. The copyedit was done by the talented Michael Trudeau.

My agents, Joshua Bilmes and Eddie Schneider, were—as always—a wonderful resource, as were the entire team at JABberwocky. I’m pretty much convinced they’re Epics in disguise by this point, considering all they manage to get done. My UK team on this book include Simon Spanton—my editor at Gollancz, who always makes sure my trips to London are welcoming and full of flavor—and John Berlyne of the Zeno Agency, my tireless advocate.

Beta readers on this book were Brian Hill and Mi’chelle & Josh Walker. Montie Guthrie, Dominique Nolan, and Larry Correia helped me out with firearms terminology and practices. Gamma readers and community proofreaders were Aaron Ford, Alice Arneson, Bao Pham, Blue Cole, Bob Kluttz, Dan Swint, Gary Singer, Jakob Remick, Lyndsey Luther, Maren Menke, Matt Hatch, Taylor Hatch, Megan Kanne, Samuel Lund, Steve Godecke, and Trae Cooper. If I ever become an Epic, I’ll kill you guys last.

Finally, I’d like to thank my wonderful wife, Emily, and my three rambunctious boys. They make life worth living.

Brandon Sanderson

BRANDON SANDERSON
is the author of the number one
New York Times
bestseller
Steelheart
, the first book in the Reckoners series; the internationally bestselling Mistborn trilogy; and the Stormlight Archive. He was also chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. His books have been published in more than twenty-five languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Firefight
is the second book in the Reckoners series.

Brandon Sanderson lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. To learn more about Brandon and his books, visit him at
brandonsanderson.com
, and follow
@BrandSanderson
on Twitter and
BrandSanderson
on Facebook.