What had begun with the gentle march of ants and the soft clunking of building materials turned into hours on end of dirty work. Cement mix splattered across the flagstones on the floor, bricks stacked at odd angles in preparation of being set. Tools that, perhaps, were not meant to be used in masonry strewn about the room. It all was oddly comforting to Flip, the repetitive labor of putting down cement, placing a brick, smoothing it down, putting down cement, and so on. It was like writing. Only all the words were the same. All the same idea. All the same feeling of regret and shame. Of hope. Of reparation. And as the wall slowly enclosed the nearly destroyed half of the basement, it became harder and harder to tell that there had ever been more than the semi-circle of visible, though heavily cluttered, space.
It was unclear how long Flip had been at work, he hardly seemed tired but he knew better than to judge time by the energy he had used. It could have been well over a day, it could have been four or five hours. That was the downside of consuming repetitive labor.
There was nothing to break the concentration that the wizard had on his task for close to a day and a half. It wasn’t until the echoes of sound outside of his tower roused him from his work. It was an unusual event. Every now and then a commotion would creep through the sturdy walls of the tower and bring Flip to peer out of one of his many windows, but never had an outside sound permeated to the basement before. And this wasn’t a commotion Flip had heard before, at least not from his tower.
The sound of screaming and people rushing by, of horses and carts on the move while people shouted to move and get out of the way. The pounding of heavy objects in the distance. It all came slowly to Flip before he realized he was no longer listening to the repetitive sounds he had filled his mind with for hours. It froze him to his core. And then he felt himself again and he found himself lurching to his feet.
Flip’s old body raced up the ladder and to the door o the tower with little regard for what it was he was leaving behind. He even left the trapdoor open. He burst through his front door and saw from the stoop of his tower a sight he had been dreading his whole life. Fellfire on the horizon, burning black and green in the twilight hours; whether in the morning or evening Flip didn’t have the capacity to comprehend. He hardly registered the chill morning air, and the ash that it carried from the heart of the town of Builend to his doorstep.
“Dovhran.” Flip hissed out the mercenary's name.
It was the only reasonable alternative, the only alternative Flip could bear to stomach. A fellfire roadside hold up only days before, now more fellfire in the town. The mercenary could have easily made off with more of the supposed vials of fellfire that had been used to harass the caravan. Why unleash them on the town, though?
Flip turned back to his tower, pulled his staff out from beneath the pile of hats and robes it had been supporting by the entryway and stormed out to the heart of the town. By some miracle, the door to tower eased shut behind him, perhaps pulled shut by the vacuum left in the wake of his hasty exit.
Town guard were beckoning townsfolk to the edge of the town along the road, close to a point where they could flee to Westcross should the worst happen. Whole families raced down the dried mud of the main road with nothing but their clothes on their backs. Flip ran past them all, ignoring the shouting of the guard for him to turn around and the uncomfortable looks of all the townsfolk he passed.
Flip was sure he had seen Dovhran near the temple of Haemer after feeling as though he were being followed. The mercenary wanted something from him, whether it genuinely was help on a dangerous mission into Velsaffe’s tomb or something else. It wasn’t a good thing, whatever he wanted.
Builend was burning away quietly as Flip ran through its progressively emptier streets. Some of the fire was natural orange and yellow flame, though the majority was the silent and all consuming green and black. The fellfire didn’t quite burn, so much as it boiled whatever was aflame and then disintegrated what was left. It was like a chemical reaction, breaking down the world it touched and turning it into more hellish flame. Flip saw discarded buckets by the now dry fountain at the town square, traces of an attempt to extinguish the flames. The sight filled Flip with more dread and attempted to dissuade him of his suspicions.
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As Flip made his way to the further reaches of town where the flames had originated, and their origin was evident from the even more distant burning and new smoke rising from destroyed reaches of the old quarter, he saw a surprising number of buildings untouched while those around them were nothing but ash. And then he saw the temple of Haemer. Untouched and still standing, and across the street an only slightly singed chapel of Ghovu—chain at the steeple pointing east—and the matron of the former and the patriarch of the latter beckoning a dwindling stream of helpless people into the doors of their houses of worship. Flip made quick eye contact with Cheska, who gave the wizard a knowing nod, before he rushed past her and into the temple.
The inside of the building was almost exactly as he remembered it. Despite the chaos outside, it still felt and smelled like home. It still felt safe. Everyone else huddled around the wide open space in the central room seemed to feel the same. It was almost an invasive peace that overwrote the heart and mind, not quite stupor inducing; though if there were a drug that could illicit the same effect, it would be priceless. Cheska had not failed in her position as hearth mother.
Flip paused in the middle of the room to look carefully at each of the refugees. None bore Dovhran’s face. Most were total strangers to the wizard. If he recognized anyone, it was only a passing acknowledgement of familiarity.
“Faengil, why are you here?” Cheska had entered through the main door and immediately addressed the wizard.
“I’m looking for the man that no doubt came here the other day after me.”
“Why are you looking for him? Don’t you know what’s happening? I thought you would be the first person to charge into the old quarter.” Cheska shook her head, a look of disappointment that could shame any child into apology on her face.
“I don’t know what’s happening, but when I came across him several days ago he had been hunting several thieves who used vials of fellfire to terrorize trade caravans. I believed he found some of those vials and let them loose on the town.”
“I wish you were right.” Cheska’s expression softened. “There’s a demon in the old quarter. Not like the imps that have wormed their way from the bubbling ash, it’s a monster. And the fire… it’s the real thing. It dried out the fountain at the town square and water only helped it spread. The guard are in the old quarter right now trying to kill it… I hope they can.”
“What about the houses that don’t seem damaged at all? I saw quite a few. And the temple seems untouched.”
“Those talismans you gave me, I passed them around to some of the families that have stopped by since then. There’s one on the door right next to hearthheart’s iron. I think the combination has worked a miracle.”
“I didn’t expect that…” Flip muttered to himself. Cheska seemed to overhear him and registered a puzzled reaction. “Are there any left?”
“I only handed out a few. Some of the people I showed them to were suspicious of the design, they said it was unsettling. I was going to ask for a blessing from Haemer to decipher them and perhaps make more myself if they worked… hopefully they could be made in a more appealing way…”
Flip drew closer to Cheska and held her shoulders. It was a strange gesture, given how much taller than the wizard she was, and how much younger she looked. But to those refugees in the room, at least those that had siblings, it was unmistakably the comfort of an older sibling to a younger one.
“I do not think your goddess could unpuzzle them, just as I do not think I could fully explain them. But I need them back. At least, a few of them.”
“They’re in the cellar, on my desk. I can get them…”
“I know where you mean. I think you might be more useful here. Most of these people are afraid of me, and I do not think they would like you to leave us all alone.”
There was a crashing noise at the door and a bloodied man in the tatters of a guards uniform and shredded chain mail dove through the door. Traces of fellfire that had gathered on his cloak and begun to eat away at it fizzled out as he passed the entryway. He looked young, but perhaps more capable than many that wore the symbol of the guard. He looked terrified.
“Hearthheart bless us, it’s coming this way.”
A panicked chill that Flip had never felt in the temple ran through all that had gathered there. The guard had failed. The next inhabited area closest to the old quarter was the faith ward. It seemed to dawn upon all the refugees, the wizard, and the hearth mother all at once.
They were next.