Cinders of Magic

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

According to the legends, the denizens of the Lekate islands, the Lekatu, have passed down over the centuries; their diminutive chain of islands to the north of the Saike dominion was created by the Coward Gods. The Lekatu attribute the slapdash nature of the isles to the whims and eccentricities of The Ancient Queen, and despite her name having been stricken from history, the people of Lekate still hold certain images of her in reverence. Every few decades since the vast deposits of raw copper ore were found to blanket the isles, there have been attempts to colonize and mine the rich natural resource, but each attempt has met with abject failure.

The Lekatu were content to allow foreigners to try and steal from the islands, laugh as their ships were scattered on the reef, and revel when their tunnels caved in around them. They say the repulsion of these foreigners is the will of their silent queen, and as such, the Lekate islands are one of the last bastions in the world that still worship the Coward Gods. The Lekatu people are amiable enough and will often trade what they produce with sailors that anchor their ships safely away from labyrinthian reefs that comprise the shoreline.

Given the immense difficulty that anyone non-native to the isles might have trying to reach the shore, Stu’buut was surprised to find a young girl lying unconscious in the sparkling green sands of Killona Island while she was about checking her beachside traps like she did each morning. Stu’buut had seen foreigners a few times before, and the girl’s lack of the green hair that characterized the Lekatu was the clearest indicator that she was from elsewhere.

Stu’buut set aside her basket of fish and hurried to the young girl. The girl was breathing, if only shallowly, and her lips were dry and cracked from too long at sea. Stu’buut pulled her waterskin from her side and gave as much as she dared to the child before she set out trying to rouse her. It took more than a few light slaps to the face to get any kind of reaction from the girl.

The girl opened her eyes, eyes that held no white to them. Solid blue orbs that sparkled like the sand when the light of the sun struck them glanced up at Stu’buut for the barest of moments before closing again. Weakly the girl mumbled something, but Stu’buut didn’t speak the foreigner’s tongue, and she was far too entranced by the girl’s eyes to pay much attention. The bout of consciousness only lasted a moment. After saying the few exotic words, the girl was once more gone from the waking world, and Stu’buut was unable to bring her back to the realm of the waking.

The small woman found it too difficult to carry the girl back to the village. Foreigners grew far too tall, and Stu’buut would make sure to leave a copper piece for the crows tonight in thanks that the girl was not nearly as muscled as the other foreigners that Stu’buut had met. Stu’buut’s house was quite a way up the shore and sat overlooking the tideline on a small cliff face. Once home Stu’buut set back to the shore to gather the fish she had left in the sand before anything came along to snatch up her catch. She would need to check her traps as well. That night’s dinner would need to be for three.

Ailfrans leaned leisurely against the gunwale of the Seaknife. The ocean was a glistening spread of light underneath the harsh mid-morning sun, and the cloudless sky offered no refuge from the heat. On most days the crew of the Seaknife would be below deck or idling in the shade that the massive sails of the ship provided, but today there was plenty of work to keep the sweating and swearing men busy.

Captain Elrick coordinated the scavenging of the ruined ship remnants that had been discovered before sunrise. From the floating remains of the hull that were retrieved from the water it was obvious that the ship had been of Sloanish make, but as to why it had been destroyed in the middle of the ocean far away from shore was still a mystery.

The salvaging of the destroyed vessel was little more than a distraction for the men. Elrick needed only to follow the wizard’s intense glance across the bow to a set of islands burning like a well-stocked bonfire to know their next destination. The grey smoke billowing away from the islands was intense enough to make it seem as if the earth was spitting dark clouds into the sky, and the flashing white lights within the smoke sat ill with the captain.

“Think this is the one we are looking for?” Elrick asked from Ailfrans’s side. The captain was uncertain what to make of his mysterious charterer. The Sloanish always paid well for the goods run past Fiorian blockades, but he had never been asked to smuggle a man before.

“I am certain of it, captain,” Ailfrans replied.

“I was afraid you might say as much. Little chance whoever it was you are looking for survived this wreck.” Elrick looked back to the water, where his crew was pulling what they could from the remnants of the ship. Not much still lingered above the surface, but what did hinted at a vessel that would have easily dwarfed the Seaknife had it survived long enough for the two to meet.

“I need you to take us closer to those islands, Captain,” the wizard said in his gruff manner.

“I’m afraid that can’t be done,” Elrick replied. “Shoals here are too swallow and filled with rocks the color of the water. If you dare to venture closer, I’m sure you’d see plenty of ships that tried to make the trip out to those islands.”

The wizard considered a moment. “A skiff then,” he said. “We will also need a few men to bring us there and back.”

“What makes you think that myself or any of my men would be willing to follow you onto land that is currently on fire. Surely you didn’t miss the flames.”

“Those flames are a beacon, Captain. You and your men have nothing to fear from them; anyone that comes ashore with me will be under my protection.” The wizard turned and his gaze on the captain, and his golden eyes seemed to bore into the man, the red flecks of iron in the wizard’s irises burned like the islands beyond him.

“I…I think I will take you at your word, High Wizard.” Elrick found himself backpedaling portside to the gunwale away from the man. “Rich, bring that skiff around and make sure that you grab Pork. Tell him to bring plenty of water. We’re going ashore.”

The mop-headed youth glanced to the islands. “Ashore’s on fire, Captain.”

“You think I don’t know that boy! Now get it done before I decide to appease the waters with you and pick up a new dullard when next I make port.”

Rich took the threat with all seriousness and set about untangling his small boat from the wreckage he had been sifting through. “The water is a good idea,” The wizard said from just over Elrick’s shoulder. “It will in all likelihood not be an easy trip.”

Ailfrans brought the three men with him to the shore, but it was easy to see that it would be impossible to get them to continue further without using force. By the time that the skiff had landed upon the shore, half of the water that they had brought had been drunken, and the men were slick with sweat from the heat.

This close to the inferno, it was easy to see the blaze soaring up into the sky alongside the smoke a thousand feet or more, spinning as if caught in some kind of cyclone and obscuring nearly all of the island they landed on behind a wall of amber. Ailfrans reached into the boat and pulled two water bladders which he strapped to himself. There should have been more islands nearby, he knew, but either the sea had swallowed them or something far greater had.

“Have your men wait in the water, Captain. I will return as quickly as I am able,” he said.

“We cannot wait here for long,” Elrick replied.

“Then I shall hurry. I doubt there is much still left standing to search.” Ailfrans grabbed a damp cloth from the skiff and dunked it into the water. He pressed the cold fabric over his face before he left the three men behind as he wadded up the shore.

Ailfrans barely made it thirty paces before the heat almost forced him to turn away. He called upon his power and surrounded himself within a bubble of protective nullification. As he had suspected it would, the sorcerous fire pressed against his barrier and evaporated wherever it touched. Still, the smoke of the scorched land pressed heavily upon him. Ailfrans choked on the fumes behind his protective cloth, but he continued to push on.

Within his protective bubble of power, the wizard was a man apart from the world of flames around him. Beyond the melting shoreline and the steep rocky slope that abutted it, he found what had at one time been the stone base of a modest home. The gray stones had been burned black beneath the heat, and the edges of the rocks glowed a faint red as the stone itself began to melt. It was a strange thing even for Ailfrans, being able to sense the deadly heat in the air around him, beneath the soles of his bare feet, but being completely protected from it.

Ailfrans trudged through the swirling inferno to what he hoped was its center. In the flames, all sense of direction was abandoned. As he continued, his sphere of protection would envelop the remains of other burned-away buildings and the charred remains of the small people that had once inhabited the island. There was little to guide him other than the direction that each of the blackened bodies were running away from, towards the sea. Ailfrans followed the feet of the dead towards the center they were all fleeing, towards what he thought would be his quarry.

After what seemed like an eternity amongst the fire, Ailfrans tripped into a space clear of the flame. He stumbled into the center of a small village, though this too had seen its fair share of burning. The blackened skeletons of the small buildings surrounding a square open space continued to smolder, oblivious to the hellfire that lay just a few paces beyond their remains. There were bodies here too, charred to coal and barely recognizable for what they were by their vague shapes.

In the center of the destroyed village, a figure still held some life. Ailfrans hurried across the dead around him towards the young girl. She rested on her knees with her arms wrapped tightly about her in a simple dress like what the islanders had once worn. Ailfrans knew the girl by description alone, but there was no mistaking the waves of energy radiating from her as he approached.

Hesitantly, he kneeled next to the girl. She was muttering something too quiet to make out, and as Ailfrans came about her, he could see tears streaming from eyes of solid blue. Ailfrans laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder and was repelled by her power. Forcefully, he poured a surge of his own nullifying energies into the girl directly, and after a brief struggle, the world of fire about them began to subside.

The heat vanished, and the voluminous smoke that filled the air began to leave along with it. Ailfrans pulled one of the water bladders from his waste and put it to the girl’s cracked lips, and forced her to drink. She did, greedily, and after thee full gulps, Ailfrans allowed her to take a break and speak.

“He found me,” the girl said, her voice haltering and weak.

“Who?” Ailfrans asked, taking a well-deserved drink for himself.

“The monster,” she answered. “He always finds me.” There was more color in her eyes then, irises of solid ruby where before there had been nothing but the perfect blue of power.

Ailfrans looked to the devastated world about him. Three islands burned down to the very rocks in such a short time. “I will make sure he doesn’t find you again,” he promised. He took the full water bladder from his belt and pressed it into the girl’s hands. “Drink. We have a walk back to the shore, and the trip will be a long one after we get there.”