Fire Within: Book Two of Fire and Stone (Stories of Fire and Stone 2) (48 page)

There—beyond the village, he saw one of them come. He flew to take a closer look, but he felt an extreme vertigo overcome him. The fiery bird he controlled began to fall from the sky, and a moment later, Esset was blinking against vision from his own eyes—Jess had brought him back to his body.

“They’re too close!” Jess shouted. Esset surged to his feet to survey the battle—Jess was right. Too many of his summons had fallen while he’d been in the trance. He called reinforcements, but it took time to push back the army of skeletons again. Only once he was confident that his summons were holding back the legion of skeletons again did he attempt to find their source.

It was futile. He tried twice more, but each time he “left” the battle, it would turn against them and he would be forced to return. He considered just evacuating the people, but according to the farmers, the next village was quite close, and Esset knew this army would head straight there and slaughter each and every one of them.

There was no way out.

Toman waited. Invulnerability was a two-edged sword; nothing could touch him, but nor could he touch anything. When he used the Ashiier’s gift and turned to stone, nothing could physically harm him, not tooth or blade or even plague. But there was a cost—he could move, but only slowly, as if he were underwater. He felt as if his mass had doubled, or heavy chains were bound around him, and he was required to struggle against them. He felt as if he were made of stone.

Stone: that was the gift the Ashiier had given him. Thanks to this ability, he had been able to find the courage to resume the fight against Moloch. When he gave himself completely over to the stone, he was protected entirely from magic as well. Nothing could touch him—he could never be entirely at Moloch’s mercy ever again. It was a poor alternative, but at the same time, it was an incredible alternative to having no alternative at all.

The flaw of the ability was his inability to help others while he was protected by stone. Becoming partially stone was almost impossible to maintain, although he’d temporarily managed earlier by slowing down the transition from flesh to stone. Now, however, he simply had to wait for the mages to destroy or drive away the remaining plague beasts before he could do anything. He couldn’t help—not without changing back from stone and exposing himself to infection. In other words, he couldn’t help without it costing his life. Toman had never been good at standing aside while others fought.

Over the space of what seemed like an eternity, Toman felt the plague beasts cease to gnaw at him, then heard the sounds of battle subside. Finally he opened his eyes. One of the mages leaned over him; the random thought that her strawberry blonde hair was rather pretty flickered through Toman’s mind. The dying light made her hair glow like a halo around her head. The mage’s expression went from confusion to surprise when she saw Toman’s eyes move. She shouted to her comrades as Toman reversed the magic that had turned him to stone. Another mage—a man this time—appeared in Toman’s field of vision only a moment later, and both of them hovered, unsure of what to do. Considering that touching someone infected by the plague-beasts carried the consequence of a horrible death, Toman couldn’t blame them, but he couldn’t reassure them that he was fine until the stone receded.

“What’s wrong with him?” someone asked outside of Toman’s limited field of vision. “That doesn’t look like the plague.”

“I don’t know,” the female mage replied after a moment’s hesitation. She hovered a little closer to Toman.

“Animator Toman, are you okay?” she asked. Toman closed his eyes and tilted his chin down slightly in an affirmative. His skin was beginning to lighten from its granite texture. Already it was much easier to blink.

“Not the plague then,” the female mage said, looking up at the other mage.

“Then what—” the other mage began angrily. He was cut off.

“Just wait.” It was yet another mage’s voice. “Can’t you see his skin changing? I’m willing to bet he’ll be able to answer us in a few minutes. Give him some space. In the meantime, let’s do another sweep to make sure we didn’t miss any of those creatures. The thought of even one of them escaping gives me chills.” Whoever that last voice belonged to, he must have been in charge, because Toman heard the rest of the group move away. The mage with the pretty hair stayed, but the other vanished from his view.

Toman was flesh and blood again long before the head mage’s estimated time. Changing to stone was quicker than changing back, but even so it only took a minute. Soon he was sitting up and reassuring the mages that he was fine and not infected. They seemed rather anxious around him, and they kept shooting uneasy looks at his exposed metal hand. He did his best to ignore their discomfort.

“I need my other glove,” he finally said, all too aware that he was only wearing one. He prayed the other hadn’t made it far, but he was concerned, since his animations had been unable to locate it, and their ability to see was unhindered by the dying light. He needn’t have worried.

“Here.” One of the mages held it out to him. “It seemed out of place, so I picked it up when I saw it.”

“Thank you,” Toman replied, taking the glove and slipping it on. Most of the time he tried not to let on that the gloves were the source of his animating ability—it was simply safer that way—but when they were somehow out of his sight, it made him extremely paranoid. It felt good to have his metal hand mostly covered too. A bit of metal was still visible above the glove and below the tattered remains of the long strips of cloth that he always wrapped from bicep to wrist, but it wasn’t terribly obvious.

Most of his clothes were in tatters now, liberally torn by the plague-beasts’ teeth, but he felt significantly less naked with his gloves on. Thankfully his floppy-brimmed hat had also survived without further damage; it was now planted firmly back on his head.

Feeling much better, Toman took a look around, but the light was dimming so much it was difficult to see. It was well and truly dusk. He wanted to call Esset and Tseka to let them know what he’d discovered, but he needed the trust of these mages, and they’d probably think he was crazy if he started talking to a little stone snake curled around his ear. He already made them uneasy, Toman knew. Better not to do anything that would need further explanation.

Toman’s eyes fell on the pyre the mages had assembled. It was hastily made, but Lors’s body had been carefully arranged despite the risk of exposure to plague. Toman joined the mages in a circle around the pyre. Each mage held out a hand and sparked the tinder; the pyre flared to life.

Grief washed over Toman; childhood friends were irreplaceable. Lors had been a little bookish and a lot naïve, but he’d had a huge heart and lots of laughter to share. Lors hadn’t deserved to die—such was true of too many of Moloch’s victims. Toman thought of facing Moloch, and his heart hardened. He was afraid, sure, but his resolve eclipsed it. Toman was no longer a prisoner, no longer a victim. This time, Moloch would pay.

The magically-fueled flames reduced Lors’s remains to ash swiftly; a light wind kicked up the ashes and carried them away to the mountains.

Toman watched the ashes scatter long after they were already gone.

“Let’s get out of here,” he finally said. They had done all they could to ensure no more plague beasts came—now all they could do was wait and see where and when Moloch would strike next.

Toman escaped as soon as he was able—he’d been forced to change into clothes that weren’t shredded or contaminated, and he wanted back into his own clothes. Unfortunately, it seemed every military leader and political figure in Sedina that had ignored him before now wanted to debrief him. He settled for a brief meeting with the most important of them to convey what he’d learned. It didn’t take long, really—he’d already told them everything he knew about Moloch, so this was just a small addition. Still, escaping had been tricky, and now he was headed for the Esset house to grab a change of clothes, since Arxus was too far away; he wasn’t impressed with the baggy shirt and canvas pants they’d provided him with after stripping him of his own destroyed clothes.

He didn’t wait until he was home to call, however. He activated the little ear-snake on his way there and waited for a response. And waited. And waited. Toman felt fear coil in his belly as he realized he might not have been the only one under attack. He feared something had happened—why else wouldn’t they answer? He arrived at the Esset house without reaching anyone. Once the door was safely closed behind him, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his nerves before beginning to call into the magical device. He didn’t know if it would work or not, but he had to try something.

“You really are persistent, aren’t you?” a drawling voice finally spoke into his ear.

“Erizen!” Toman practically shouted.

“Tch, really, if you’re going to shout, I’m taking this thing back out of my ear,” Erizen said.

“Why didn’t you answer? I haven’t been able to reach anyone!” Toman said.

“We’ve been…busy. Tseka is asleep now,” Erizen said. Toman got the distinct impression that his attention was elsewhere.

“Were you attacked too?” Toman asked.

“Indeed. I’m doing a sweep to double-check now,” Erizen replied.

“If the totem was destroyed, I don’t think they’ll be coming back,” Toman said.

“Totem?” Erizen asked. Toman was surprised.

“I was attacked too, by a horde of plague-beasts. I tracked them back to their source and there was a massive post with three crosses on it. It had bodies draped on it. When I destroyed it, the creatures were unable to return to attack again. They just kept appearing until the totem was broken,” Toman explained.

“Well there’s no totem here. I did a magical sweep of the entire kingdom—and a little beyond—and there’s nothing,” Erizen said. “Unless… Let me check something. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait!” Toman shouted, but Erizen was gone. Toman growled at the air and activated the animated snake again. There was no answer once more, so Toman set about retrieving his change of clothes and getting dressed. He had an assortment of spare belts as well, and it felt good to be “armed” again.

“Well, you were right.” Erizen’s voice spoke in his ear again. “It was rather well shielded. I had to look for a spot of total lack of magic to detect it—you’d best pass that tidbit on to any mages you’ve got over there.”

“Did you destroy it?” Toman asked. He was already leaving the house to return to the people he’d tried so eagerly to escape.

“Of course,” Erizen sneered. “Although you should know, Tseka and I managed to deal neatly with our pest problem without destroying the totem. Evidently there
is
an end to them—at least temporarily—if you kill enough of them. I wouldn’t recommend trying it though. Best just to destroy the totem.”

“Good to know,” Toman replied, knowing it was useless to try to pry real details out of the mage. He’d get the real story from Tseka later.

“I’m worried about Esset. He hasn’t answered,” Toman said.

“Well, he’s on his own,” Erizen said. Toman gritted his teeth against the mage’s callousness. “Unless you want to abandon your post so Moloch can erect a new totem? Besides, he could simply be busy, and even if something is wrong, there’s no way you could get to Baliya in time to do anything.” Unfortunately, Toman knew Erizen was right. He had to trust his brother to come out ahead; that was difficult when he feared for him.

“So have fun agonizing about that. Ta.” Erizen disconnected the spell and Toman was once again left with a one-sided magical communication spell. He kept trying Esset as he headed back to the mage’s tower to alert Sedina’s mages on how to search for further totems.