It worked. A jet of flame like none I’d ever seen before erupted from my mouth and engulfed the monster. It moaned again, and this time I thought there might have been a hint of pain or anger, or fear within it. I kept the flame going for as long as I could. The monster burned.

Eventually, the flame started to falter. I kept it going for one heartbeat more, and then it was gone, leaving me with that same horrible ashy taste in my mouth.

Exhausted, I dropped to my knees and watched the monster burn.

Its moaning had become a sort of howl. It still moved within the flames, but no longer did those movements seem to be consciously directed.

I felt someone nearby and turned to see Gabby standing beside me, her face and shoulder showing grazes where she’d been hit. But she seemed perfectly fine otherwise.

“I knew it was you who burned down my tavern,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I didn’t even know I could do that.”

The monster continued to burn. Surprisingly, there was little smoke. Perhaps the cavern opened up somewhere to let it out.

“Tell me. How did you get past the guards?” I asked her.

“I told them Pingo was expecting me. Us, I mean. Me and Maximus. Then suggested that there might have been a few dozen female orcs down in Brelor, but that they would have to be quick because they were heading to the Demesne.” She shrugged. “Only the most powerful orcs usually get to see womenfolk of their own kind. They gather them together in harems. The orcs here ought to be gone for at least a few more hours.”

We watched the monster burn.

At some point Max landed on my shoulder. “Knew yeh could do it,” he said, but I didn’t reply.

The fire eventually faded. I thought for a moment that the monster still lived, but it had ceased moving and moaning some time before. Even so, it still looked remarkably whole. Then Gabby approached it and gave it a solid whack with the side of her blade.

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It crumbled into a large mound of dust.

I realized I’d spent the last few minutes on my knees. I stood, feeling drained. “Well, that’s done,” I said. “Now what?”

“The Fracture,” Gabby replied.

Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that. I nodded. Together, we moved over to the smaller pentagram and the fading oddity within. I contemplated it for a moment.

“It doesn’t look so good,” I said. If I listened closely, I could hear it faintly keening.

“It’s dying,” Gabby replied.

“Dying?”

She nodded.

I looked at it for a moment longer and thought I could see flickering of images within. “What do I do?”

“Usually, you just ask it to show you what you want. But I think it’s too far gone for that. Perhaps if you touch it?”

Still, I hesitated. If it really was dying, was it right to touch it? There was no way I could know, so I did as Gabby suggested. I reached out and touched….

And my mind was inundated with images. Past, present and multiple futures flooded over me in such a rush that I could barely make sense of it all. I saw Pingo bent over the Fracture, being mean to a servant and doing dozens of despicable things. I saw myself and Gabby, side by side but old and gray. Equally, I saw myself stabbed or hanged or pulled apart by an angry mob. All very interesting, I thought, but I really didn’t care too much to know what my possible future might be. I could discover that pretty simply myself, given time. What I wanted to see was the past.

The Fracture showed it to me. It showed me all the mischief I’d ever engaged in, all the irritations I’d caused to so many others, and all the difficulties that had come my way.

And over it all, there was one image that kept repeating. Over and over, although I didn’t quite know what it meant.

The Fracture kept showing me an image of a dragon, just like the one I’d briefly glimpsed in Gabby’s crystal ball so long (had it really been just a few days?) ago.

I didn’t know what to think. I tried to follow the image, to learn more about what it meant, but it was already fading….

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Gabby asked.

“No. Yes. Sort of, but I don’t really know. Perhaps if I try again….”

“It’s too late. Look.”

I did so. No longer did the Fracture simply rest one corner of itself on the floor. Now it lay flat and had become almost opaque. The faint keening sound had gone. As we watched, the Fracture flared brilliantly once and seemed to shatter. Only instead of leaving shards behind like it would have if it had been glass, it left half a dozen spheres that looked surprisingly like….

“Are they crystal balls?” I asked.

A moment before Gabby’s face had been creased with grief for the Fracture’s passing. Now she lit up. “Yes!” she exclaimed. She reached out and grasped the largest. It was at least twice the size that hers had been.

I grinned. “Looks like you can be a Seer again,” I said.