WIZARDS’ FIRE
More than a thousand leagues away from the Isle of Evermere, Grandmaster Pipkorn witnessed the battle on the schooner through Tanch's eyes as he gazed into his magical font in which floated one of the twenty fabled Rings of Talidousen. Sweat dripped down the grandmaster’s furrowed brow; his breathing, heavy. He'd already aided Par Tanch, enhancing his spells beyond Tanch's ken, beyond what even the Talidousen Ring was capable of. The strain was difficult for Pipkorn to bear, for hurling a spell over such a distance was far more taxing than throwing it in person. But it had to be done. Their mission had to succeed. If Theta failed, it would be the end of everything.
But for all Pipkorn's efforts, their deaths were at hand. Even Theta could not survive the horde that charged at them. And remotely, Pipkorn could not save him, or any of them. Not against an entire army of bloodthirsty fiends — creatures beyond even Pipkorn's experience. But he could help do some damage, terrible damage, and then rely on luck and providence to see them through.
***
Tanch knew what he had to do. The trouble was forcing himself to do it. The group’s only chance was for him to unleash the full power of his Scorched Earth spell against the Evermerians. There were so many of them, and spread out over such a span, he didn’t know whether he could stop enough of them to cause the rest to flee. But it didn’t matter. He had to try. He had to do his part. He had to do everything he could to survive. Who could fault him for that? And so he pushed his fears aside, pushed his conscience aside, and focused on his will to survive, his burning need to live. Though what it was that he lived for, even he could not say.
Tanch waved his arms and made strange gestures with his fingers; he murmured certain words that he had only spoken once before — words that tapped the mysterious wellspring of energy that comprised the grand weave of magic. And as he did, he felt some portion of himself reach through the ether, across the dimensions, and into the weave itself. The eldritch energy surged into him, and spread throughout his body, covering every surface, inside and out, making him one with it — with the magic. He welcomed that power as an old friend, though he feared it more than a bit, and never fully trusted it. He brought all his energies to bear to contain it, to control it, even if only for the briefest of times. The magic grew in power as the moments ticked by, growing heavier, weighing him down. He called on more of it, and more still, as much power as he could master, and then some; far more than he had ever wielded before. It filled him up until he thought he’d explode. Almost so much that he wanted to explode just to be free of it.
Then he felt the power surging and pulsing within the Ring of Talidousen that he wore on his right hand. He felt the ring’s reserves of strength and power and marveled at them, for they dwarfed his own. How an inanimate object could hold such power was beyond Tanch's comprehension. He felt the power stream from the ring into him, adding to what he commanded himself. It was so heavy, that power. He didn’t understand why it didn’t crush him; flatten him to nothing. But somehow, it didn’t. He still stood. He was still in control.
Just before he was about to let loose the magic, he felt even more power surge into his spell, strengthening it. Much more power. He could no longer contain it all. The overflow of that sorcery took shape outside his body, hovering invisibly about his person, unseen by any but Tanch himself. Tanch couldn't believe it; he'd heard of such clouds of magic, but only in story and legend — only in tales of the great archmages of the ages. How could such a thing happen to him? The cloud of eldritch energy grew brighter, stronger, more powerful, and weightier. But from where the new power came, Tanch had no idea, though he welcomed it. The raw energies that spun about him were more than he could gauge, more than he could understand. It was all Tanch could do to hold the spell back, to restrain it long enough for it to build to its full potential. Yet he dared hold it no longer, for the Evermerians thundered down the pier toward him. They'd be at his and his companions' throats in moments.
And then death erupted from Tanch’s hands. A geyser of flame shot from his fingers even as spheres of coruscating energy, gold and orange and red, launched from his palms. The fire blasted toward the onrushing Evermerians, far too fast for them to react. In the blink of an eye, the magic incinerated those closest to him. It left nothing but ash. Those farther away burned slower but with equal finality. Simultaneously, the spheres of energy flew amongst the Evermerians, humming as they went, turning and weaving with intelligence — homing in on their victims. One after another, the spheres exploded and tore apart anything and everything within ten yards of the center of each blast. Though far more destructive, the explosions were reminiscent of the sparkling fireworks thrown by hedge wizards on midsummer’s night. Fleeting visions of those fireworks dominated Tanch’s last thoughts as he collapsed to the deck, smoke rising from his body.
***
Ob, Tug, Dolan, and the men in the longboat with them had been rowing toward the schooner as fast as they dared, trying to maintain silence, and thus secrecy, for the night was dark, and the Evermerians hadn’t yet spotted them. But they had been too far out, too far west. They didn't make it to the schooner in time, not nearly.
They threw themselves down as the roaring flames shot from Tanch's fingers. Even behind him, still a goodly ways from the schooner, the heat was oppressive; the air, difficult to breathe. They flattened themselves to the bottom of the longboat while the fireballs exploded along the strand, not knowing whether they would live through it or be taken by the flames. Waves of heat battered them, tongues of flames licked over their heads, and the superheated water of the bay roiled, steamed, and rocked the boat, threatening to capsize it. They covered every part of their flesh that they could to protect it from the steam and the condensing droplets of hot water that rained around them, wincing each time a droplet burned their flesh. Then they heard the screams from shore. There’s nothing quite like the sound a person makes as their body is eaten by flames. It’’s something that sticks with you, even though you’d like to forget it; a truly horrific sound and one that Ob had heard all too many times in his life. Never had he heard such screams from so many voices at once. This time it was hundreds of them. Hundreds. And in addition, crowded as they had been only moments earlier, the blast must have killed many hundreds more outright, maybe even thousands.
Ob sat up in the boat and saw the docks aflame. Half the stretch of the boardwalk was fully engulfed, including many of the buildings closest to the water. Several of the long piers were on fire. Many Evermerians ran screaming from the boardwalk area, but for others it was too late. Many, fully enshrouded in flame, ran wildly about the burning boardwalk, screaming, careening into things, and one by one falling to the ground, writhing for a time, until finally, they moved no more. The smell of burned meat was heavy in the air. Those things were inhuman monsters, cannibals, and worse; yet still, such suffering was a difficult thing to watch, even for an old soldier like Ob.
Then Ob realized that the schooner was afire.
“Put your backs to it, boys,” he said as he looked for any sign of life aboard the schooner, though he saw none. “We’’ve got to get to them before they get all toasty.”
Graybeard cursed and muttered as he watched the flames spread across his ship.
“Was it the wizard that did that?” said Tug as he scanned the destruction. “Does he have that kind of power?””
“I expect so,” said Ob, “since he did something similar in Tragoss Mor.”
“That was a lot smaller thing than this,” said Tug.
“Here the need was greater,” said Ob. “I guess we all underestimated Mr. Scaredy Cat. He really has something to him after all. A lot to him, I suppose. Had me fooled but good. Thought he was nothing but a hedge, and a useless one at that. That sure ain't the truth, and I'm not afraid to admit it. That's the gnome way, you know. Then again, old Mister Fancy Pants may be behind it. I don’t put nothing past him, that stinking foreigner.”
“Are you saying that one of yours did that?” said Captain Graybeard as he pointed to the inferno.
“That's right,” said Ob. “We got powers, we do; all sorts of powers. Those aren't even our best men over there.””
Graybeard was speechless.
A minute or so later, they had the longboat pulled up to the east side of the schooner. The smoke was thick and at first, they didn't see any movement. Then something moved on deck, but Ob couldn't tell what.
“Ahoy, Theta, you stinking bastard,” yelled Ob. “Artol! Magic boy! You alive?”
“Captain,” shouted Tug.
Dolan stood up and was about to leap from the longboat over to the schooner when Ob restrained him. “You're in no shape for acrobatics, boy. I'll go. Me and Tug.”
And they did. Tug threw a grappling hook with a rope ladder attached to it up over the schooner's gunwale. He climbed it with shocking ease considering his massive bulk. Ob scurried up no easier. Captain Graybeard and two of his men came along to help.
They crouched low to avoid as much of the smoke as they could and moved toward the back of the boat.
“We were about to go over the side,” said Artol as he stepped toward them through the thick smoke, Glimador a step behind him. “Would have been a cold swim.”
“Everyone okay?” said Ob as he tried to look past Artol. He spotted Theta and Slaayde kneeling beside Tanch and Bertha. Bertha wasn't moving. Tanch was flat on his back and seemed to be having a seizure. His face was bright red. His clothes were scorched. ““Oh, shit.”
“What about the others?” said Ob to Artol. “Slaayde's men; the lugron and that other fellow?””
“Dead,” said the big soldier.
Just then, a rogue wave hit the schooner and nearly swamped the longboat, spray flying onto the piers and the boardwalk, dousing some of the flames, though the water didn't carry far enough to put out most of the fires.
Within a minute, they had everyone piled into the longboat and started rowing out into the bay. Graybeard and his men were none too happy to leave their ship behind, but they had no choice, for the schooner would never sail again; not with the damage that it had taken.
They were a hundred yards from shore when Ob said, “Oh, boy, we're still in the deep stuff,” as he pointed toward shore. “That's her, ain't it? She's still alive, the bitch.”
They all looked toward the shore. On the west side of the docks, there gathered the surviving Evermerians. A hundred at least were engaged in fighting the fires with buckets of water drawn from the bay. The rest lined up along the strand, the Duchess at their center.
“It's her,” said Dolan.
“Dead gods,” said Ob. “It looks like there's more of them now then there was before. How can that be?””
“Before, it was only the men,” said Dolan. “Now their women are out there too. Lots of them. And from what I can see, they've got bigger teeth than the men.”
Ob sat down next to one of the schooner men and helped with an oar. “We've got to move quick. Everyone get on an oar. If they take to the water, or pull out some longbows or bigger stuff, this will get ugly fast.”
Tanch convulsed where he lay, shaking, and foaming at the mouth.
“Is there anything we can do for him?” said Artol to Theta as they both pulled their oars.
“Not until we get back to the ship,” said Theta. “Even then, whether he lives or dies is out of our hands. It's all up to what strength he yet has within him.”
“He saved our butts,” said Artol.
“That he did,” said Theta.
“You'd have gotten out anyway,” said Artol. “Wouldn't you have?”
Theta tilted his head to the side in a semblance of a shrug. “It would have been a long, cold swim.”
“Aye,” said Artol.