Ash.
***
“So, what exactly can we do?”
Anger flared up within me at the sound of those words and I could only look at my clone incredulously. But it was still so eerie, looking at a visage so similar to mine, and it was more than just my looks. It was my mannerisms. My way of speaking. My tone. Everything.
It was all… Ash.
Which made his question all the more infuriating.
“You know the answer to that!” I wheeled away from him.
Snickering, he pranced in front of me, halting my progression to nowhere at all. “We can burn everything we want to ash. Or so we thought!” He chortled. “So, what else is there?”
“It’s been a week of this!” I groaned, at first. Then wheeled back around to him and the dead human. But neither of them cared about the heat I was putting out. The environment itself was uncaring. A badlands of metallic spires and blackened earth that had been my second home since our training began. As he said, it was glorious.
Gloriously frustrating.
“Are you going to help me, or tease me for all hours of the waking day?”
“I am helping you.” My clone calmly smiled before he gestured to the dead human, Caleb. “We, are helping you.”
“Are you?” I laughed. “Because all we’ve done is sit here and talk.”
“We’ve been thinking too.” He calmly quipped. Then pressed on before I could retort. “Thinking paves the way to knowledge. Which then paves the way to power.”
“So then give me a hint.” I stepped towards him, arms bared before me with my palms facing the blue above.
He looked at me for a long moment. And after taking a glance at the dead man, he said. “We could have beaten it, you know.”
“I know.” My sigh matched the regret, the pain, in his tone. “With the right weapon-”
“No.” Ash shook his head, stealing my words. “With your body.”
“Is it customary for Devils to speak in riddles?” I clenched my fists tightly on impulse. “Out with it!”
“It is.” Ash calmly nodded. “Giving answers freely is not how one learns. You must find the answer yourself.”
“Okay then.” I sneered. “What are they?”
Ash smiled as he stepped forward to grab onto my wrists and hold them between our eyes. “Defeating an iron golem requires you to go against your nature.” He shook my fists gently.
“You… want me to fight without fire? That’ll kill me!”
“It will not.” Ash smiled wider. “And no, that is not what you must do. You must first become attuned to the other aspect of your nature, and then become like your enemy.”
“And what in the Hells is that supposed to mean?”
“Would you like a demonstration?” He stepped aside with a foul grin, making way for Caleb to stand before me. “He was a pyromancer in life. An arsonist and a murderer, known for a certain technique he favored using.”
Ash- my clone, said something after that. But I was distracted by the dome of fire the dead man- Caleb, formed around us. Not by the size of it though, the cloud of burning air was rather small and unimpressive. Instead, I was entranced by the flame’s dance as it whipped and toiled around and even swirled within his body like a furnace. Realization smacked me at once. But then came his charge.
His fist, a soft and plushy mass of darkness, impacted my jaw before I could react. While it didn’t hurt, I could feel the intense heat energy contained within. I could sense the flames still dancing within him. Fueling his physicality with the other aspect of his nature, heat.
Understanding came to smack me in the face just as his fist did. And another squishy fist rocketed into my gut a second later. Then another slapped against my eye. Then another slammed into my ribs. Driving the point home further and further with each passing blow.
“Alright!” I flared my arms wildly. “I get it now!”
“Then do something about it.” My clone calmly spat. “Trial by fire. That is how we learn. That is how we train: In the same way in which we fight. So, think, Ash, think. Adapt to the enemy before you or fall by their hand.”
“Agh!” I lashed out, sneering. And found the dead man’s hand caught within my burning grasp. “Fine!”
After willing fire into my hand, I concentrated my mental might on looping the flames through my fist, attempting to seal it within but managing nothing more than a flame-wreathed fist that slammed into Caleb’s cheek.
It deformed on impact despite the lack of power, spilling the ground with blue-green teeth and ‘blood,’ but he pushed against it. More so, he absorbed both my blow and my flame like the hated golem, then struck back at me.
“Not quite.” My clone grinned from the sidelines.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Sneering, I let the heat within me flow, focused my will on doing as Caleb did, and used it to drive my actions forward. But no matter how hard I focused, I couldn’t contain the flames spurring from my body. I couldn’t circulate the flames within me. And I couldn’t stand my snickering clone, heckling me from the sidelines. So instead of circulating my flames, I pulled them towards the source of my will and focused them. Compacted and compressed them into a ball of contained energy held at the center of my forehead until heat and light poured from my body in waves, leaving me with a curiously giddy feeling.
“Sun Walker.” I found myself saying, and more, smiling at the dead man. Caleb.
Being unable to talk, he only beamed widely and nodded his approval. Proudly showcasing his missing teeth in a way that ceased to wane, even as I darted forward to punch him through the gut.
“Finally!” I cheered, unable to help myself from this giddy feeling spreading through my body.
But my clone was eager to quip. “Yes! You’ve learned to crawl!” He laughed, stealing my mirth with but a few words. “Now, we must learn to run. But this is a trial by fire. So, I ask. Can you fly?”
By the gods... “You know I can!”
His raised brow and cocked smile said all. He knew it, and worse, I knew it. So I begrudgingly birthed torches from my fists to lift myself into the air. But both he and Caleb scratched their chins in disapproval at the sight.
“Are you serious?” I scoffed. “What now?”
Neither of them said anything. Nor did they move. For a few seconds at least. It was Caleb who suddenly crouched forward and birthed his own fire, from under his feet, to propel him towards me in a blinding flash.
My body shook suddenly. Making everything seem… distant before the world refocused to an ebon pillar set before my eyes. It wasn’t but a moment later when I realized it was Caleb’s knee, rubbery and dimpled, folding into my chin before he continued onward like a human-shaped rocket. Swathing me in the back blast of his torched feet.
Mimicking Caleb once again came only as an afterthought. I'd recovered, and he was already high above by the time I decided to steal his heat. And my clone, ever knowing, was smirking at me with his brows raised expectantly at the outcome.
“I cannot lie.” I grinned at him. Then turned my eyes to Caleb, flying circles above the both of us. “This is as exciting as it is frustrating!”
With a fiery bellow, I opened a channel from the sun centered in my brow to my feet and rocked up to meet Caleb in earnest. Like infernal predatory birds, we traded blows high in the sky. I gave it my all. But Caleb, even being so weak, was more agile. He was more experienced than me, who struggled to reorient my legs quickly enough to maneuver my body as gracefully as he could. So I adapted once again by creating a belt of fire around my waist and a wreath of flame around my shoulders.
It gave Caleb a potential heat source, of that, I was aware. But the ability to be pushed in any direction and better, gain more heat to absorb and focus, gave me the edge I needed to overcome Caleb’s incessant skipping about in midair.
Much to my dismay, though, Caleb didn’t reform after I defeated him. Giving me no choice but to head back to my infuriatingly calm other half. But only after flying around for a bit. Even then, though, I returned to see him grinning wide in satisfaction beside a reformed Caleb and… Amun.
“Now that you’ve realized the proper technique, we practice until it becomes second nature.” My clone said.
While I paid his words mind, my thoughts and eyes were focused on Amun. My boss, in the flesh. I could tell it was him and not his clone by the strange heat patterns emanating from him. He was cold, like the undead he ruled over, but also not. Like a blank spot against the endless hues of my thermal sense. But still, there was heat within him. A smoldering ember that peered through the veil of darkness that was Amun and... stared at me.
“I’m surprised to find you here,” I said after realizing I was staring. But he paid it no mind.
“Likewise.” He instead smirked. “I’m surprised you have an interest in the schools of Wizardry. Or rather, I find it ironic that you look to the schools for insight or inspiration.”
“H-" I caught myself. "What makes you assume that?”
“Because I had the same thought process.” He laughed in that strange snorting way of his. “That was until I learned that we can only follow one of the Schools if we choose to be a Wizard. So, I’ve decided to learn what I could from other Wizards and adopt skills from all the schools.”
“So, you’re here to talk me out of becoming one?”
“No.” He scoffed. “You can walk any path you wish. I’m here to talk about our Sorcery. We are both in tune with different planes of reality. And.” He gestured between us. “We both possess arcana.”
“I see.”
“Have you ever been to the Plane of Fire?” He suddenly asked.
I was taken aback by the sudden shift in conversation, but it wasn’t as if it was something I was unprepared for. “I haven’t.” I quickly answered.
“Really?” He recoiled. Just like everyone else.
“Yes.” I sneered. “Is that so surprising? Have you been to the Plane of Shadow? To the Underworld?”
“Many times,” he calmly nodded, despite my tone. “To all three questions, yes. In hindsight, however, I was guided into both realms the first time, so I’m unsure how long it would have taken me to find my way on my own.”
I was the one to recoil this time. “Guided? By who?”
“My forefathers.” He rapidly blinked. “My father and great grandfather.”
“Oh, yeah.” I sheepishly chuckled after suddenly realizing his blinking was no mere tic. “The Necro King. I've never met my father." I sighed. "But I was told he was a genie from the Plane of Fire. By my mother.” I added. “She was resistant to fire. Not immune. So she only lasted a few years after I was born. Her body burned slowly over time. Until all that remained of her was… ash.”
“My condolences.” He bowed at the neck. A simple gesture, but it carried the weight of a heartfelt response. “If you ever wish to speak with her again, just say the word.”
“She is nothing but ash now.” I sneered.
“Still,” he calmly blinked. “I can go to the Underworld and call out for her. If her soul is there, I can give her solace in my domain. And when I learn to create enchantments, I can build a construct that will allow you to speak with her again. Just say the word.”
“I-” I tried to swallow through the lump of slag that suddenly formed in my throat. “Well,” I eventually sighed after failing and failing again. “Thank you.”
“It’s the least I can do,” he said. “For your service, I’m immensely grateful.”
“The least you can do.” I incredulously snorted and took a long look at the curious man or devil or drow or God. Or whatever he was. “I feel as if were are kindred souls, in a way," I suddenly turned, chortling softly. “We are one-of-a-kind individuals, you and I. Wherever we may go, we shall never find another such as we. Well.” I sighed. “I might find another Fire Djinni. Or if not, another phenotype of my kind. We aren’t that rare, after all. But you are perhaps the only Drow-Devil in existence. You have a foothold in two cultures. Despite that, you have the resolve to carve your own place in these here realms, rather than find the best one of many to call home.
“I envy you, Amun. But then again, you are a Divine Soul.”
“You too will carve your own place in these realms, Ash. That is my promise to all of you. That’s what this is for.” He gestured to the scorched earth around us. “To give you the tools and the resolve to build that place for yourselves and for others as I have for all of you.”
Besides expressing my gratitude again, I did not how to respond. So I chose to let my mind go blank and allowed the first thought that popped into my head to stream through my mouth unabated., and what came out was rather interesting.
“Say, tell me about that dark fire of yours.”
"Oh?" He turned a lively grin my way, one accompanied by highly raised brows. "You mean the Flames of Moil?"