“Can you tell me anything useful about the Night Fire? Do you know his real name?” Serenity didn’t hold out too much hope of that. The type of hero story Blaze was talking about was often highly distorted by the storytellers expanding upon it over the years. Some of it probably was true, but figuring out which bits could be difficult. The general trends like deception and evasion were likely to have a basis in reality but beyond that it was hard to say.
Blaze shook his head. “That’s a secret of the priests.” He looked down for a moment and shook his head before he met Serenity's eyes once again. “He’s been gone longer than the earliest records I’ve seen. There was information in the Healer’s books on how to treat damage caused by Night Fire. It was marked as apocryphal and not taught to anyone; I only know about it because I read everything I could get my hands on about healing.”
No surprise there; Blaze was very interested in healing and new healing techniques. Before he came to A’Atla, he’d spent most of his time on Earth looking into modern medicine one way or another. Serenity suspected that if he had time, he’d try to get into a training program. Serenity doubted there was one that would fit him well; the man simply knew too much for the introductory classes that were all his local credentials would let him into.
“Follow me,” Serenity told the zombie. He turned back to Blaze. “I think we’re done here. I should ask more, but we can do that back where it’s more comfortable.”
On the way out of the room, Serenity stopped at the body of the Wrath Demon. It was completely irrational to feel sorrow for killing it; there was no other choice and it was a demon. That still didn’t stop him from recognizing the similarity.
It also didn’t stop him from deciding that the body of a demon was probably not something he wanted to leave lying around. While he couldn’t immediately think of a use for it, he didn’t want to see what use someone else came up with. He considered pushing it through his Rift, then shook his head. “Blaze, can you burn this to ash?”
“Not easily; it’s too large. Are you certain you want me to try?”
Blaze’s “not easily” was someone else’s “probably not, but I’ll try if you ask.” Serenity took another look at the demon and sighed. It was probably too large for an easy solution. “No, I’ll put it in my Rift and figure out what to do with it later.”
Blaze was happy to help move the awkward body.
They were halfway back to the camp when Serenity realized he had a big problem. Tom Cooper left the camp; more importantly, Tom Cooper fought the summoner. If Serenity handed him over to others to question, he was certain that would be known. At the same time, Serenity raised him from the dead and he didn’t want that action being assigned to Tom Cooper. It was too like what Serenity was known for.
There was an obvious solution. It was the same one he’d been using, if a little more difficult. He didn’t have to make it work for long, at least. He did need to make certain the summoner didn’t see it if he wanted to allow others to question the man, but that was easily solved.
When they were close to the camp, Serenity told the zombie to stay where he was and informed Blaze he’d just be a moment because he “needed to get Tom.” A few minutes later, he walked out of the room he’d disappeared into.
Twice.
Coordinating two forms that were both walking at the same time was much easier than it had been, especially since Aide had gotten far better at assisting his movement for simple locomotion. With Aide’s help, his bodies walked slightly differently rather than taking their steps in unison. After a few steps, Serenity had “Tom” float instead; it helped mask the physical similarity.
Serenity wanted to have “Tom” pass through the camp quickly and let Serenity hand over the zombie, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, they were greeted by the camp commander, who was far more interested in thanking Tom for his defense of the camp than in letting him move on. It wasn’t until Serenity finally interrupted and asked where he should deliver “the prisoner” that the camp commander seemed to realize that the zombie didn’t belong; “Tom” was able to slip away after that.
The situation took some explanation, but eventually it was all settled. Serenity left the zombie with a man he’d only met in passing; he was supposed to ask questions provided from the outside. Serenity gave him limited authority over the zombie but warned him that he couldn’t pass it on to anyone else; Serenity would have to do that. In truth, it was possible, but it was dangerous to give out too much authority.
Serenity tried to warn him about just how detailed and specific he was going to need to be, but the very first question he heard as he left was “Why did you attack the camp?”
The zombie didn’t answer, of course. Serenity debated telling them to ask why the summoner ordered his snakes to attack the camp, but in the end decided not to. They’d learn the hard way, just like he had, no matter how much he helped. It probably wouldn’t take too long if there was an actual live link elsewhere. Someone would catch on. It wasn’t like he hadn’t warned them.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
----------------------------------------
The next morning, Blaze and Rissa insisted on following Serenity when he led Amani into the depths of A’Atla to look at the anomaly. Serenity knew why Rissa and Amani were there; he’d mentioned it to Amani in the hope of getting a new idea on how to safely enter the blocked room, while Rissa was there simply because he was there.
Blaze’s presence was a bit odder. Serenity had expected him to go back to the surface in case he had more patients once he checked Amani and determined that she was healthy, but he hadn’t. At first, Serenity assumed Blaze was interested in the blocked-off room; he asked questions and definitely seemed to want to know what Serenity had found. Despite that, Serenity noticed that Blaze kept sneaking glances at Amani when she wasn’t looking. Blaze was interested, but it seemed clear that Amani was also a major reason for his presence.
Had he found something during his magical examination that was concerning but he didn’t want to talk about for some reason? It was possible he’d found something related to her long time dilation that would probably dissipate on its own and he didn’t want to worry her. That seemed somewhat unlikely given the way Blaze bullied Serenity, but if there was nothing to do but wait it seemed possible. Serenity couldn’t think of any other reason he’d be following Amani around.
Whatever the reason for his presence, Blaze did come up with several additional things Serenity should test for; the one that was the most interesting was a type of magical mushroom that would grab nearby mana and use it to create spores, then spread them on an artificial wind. From what Blaze said, it created a “whirlpool” effect on a person’s mana if it infected them.
The mana loss wasn’t dangerous to most people; instead, it was the spores that could kill. Blaze cautioned Serenity that while he could probably survive the spores, the mana-draining effect would at best knock him out and killing the mushroom required outside intervention because the way it grabbed nearby mana distorted spells cast by its victims.
It was another point against entering the room, but at least it was one he could test for. If there were strange currents in the air or odd particles at the very edge of the room, Serenity would need to find out what caused them. At a minimum, he should test for the particular mushroom Blaze was familiar with. It seemed unlikely that was the problem, but something similar seemed possible.
Serenity took a few hours to design the ritual he’d use for the detection. If he had the choice, he’d use a simple spell; making the spellform would be faster and easier. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t get a spellform to last long enough in the area past the wall for it to matter. He never got any useful information back.
The larger scale, stability, and duration of a ritual spell allowed him to charge it with far more mana and even pull on the ambient raw mana directly. That allowed it to last long enough, but it also meant he had to design every single bit of the ritual, then cast it. This one was a larger variation on the base ritual than most since he was trying to find particles and determine their size as well as track airflow, so the modifications to the spell took a little time.
Serenity was only about ten minutes into the actual ritual setup when Amani came up to him with a puzzled look on her face. “Why are you trying to enter the locked room?”
Serenity knew he’d explained that already, but perhaps she’d forgotten. “So I can figure out what’s going on in there and stop it.”
Amani shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. I mean … why can’t you do that from outside? Not figuring it out, but stopping the mana you don’t want to go in the room from entering.”
“I can’t-” Serenity stopped himself. Nothing was impossible with magic; it just took more skill or knowledge. He knew a lot, but he’d repeatedly proven he didn’t know everything. “Are you telling me you have a way to stop raw mana from going past a wall?”
Amani shrugged and grinned widely. “Stop it, slow it down, is there a difference?”
Well, yes, but also no. If you could slow it down enough, the difference became almost theoretical. The mention of slowing things down made Serenity’s mind jump to the impressive artifact that was the only thing he knew for certain Amani had designed. “Wait, are you telling me that’s how the Vault was made?” How could he have missed that? He hadn’t noticed a difference in the raw mana level inside and outside. Then again, he’d only been there while the door was open.
Amani gave a half-shrug with one shoulder. “It wasn’t necessary or wise. It was difficult to block off the entire vault and still get mana from A’Atla. Most of the weapons didn’t need it, anyway, so I made containers for the ones that did. That way the enchantments could be inside the Vault and at the same timeflow rate. Matching it up across dissimilar timeflows, especially variable ones, is hard.”
She bit her lip, then admitted. “I haven’t figured that part out yet. I can definitely design something to stop it at a common timeflow though! Realtime is the easiest.”
Just how lucky was he that the woman who he found locked in the Lost Vault was not only the woman who designed it (and therefore had a way in) but that she also knew how to do something he didn’t that might solve his biggest current issue?
Or was he that lucky? It felt positively paranoid to consider that she was a plant, but sometimes paranoia was correct. This entire situation was just too convenient.
Serenity took a long, hard look at Amani and pushed his Magesight to its limit. He looked specifically for any trace of the Night Fire Affinity. There was some, very little compared to the amount the summoner must have had, but it was present. The residue clung to her like she’d been near a major spell powered by Night Fire.
There was no such Night Fire residue on Blaze when Serenity checked him, so the residue on Amani definitely wasn’t from the summoner. She hadn’t even been as close to his body as Blaze had been.