Weeks Before the Altar

Clang. Clang. Clang. Thunk.

Calder swung his pickaxe, sinking its point into the ground. He tried to stretch his seizing back but every muscle tightened further like a tangle of knotted cord. He winced and bent over, resting his hands on his knees. Sweat dripped down his nose and into the dirt, disappearing as the arid earth drank it in. Calder thought he'd get used to Urmalia's climate by now but he hadn't, especially in the quarry. The harsh sunlight soaked into the sandstone ledges, turning the already unbearable heat truly hellish.

"Break's over, let's go."

Calder stood up and wrapped his calloused hands around the handle of his pickaxe, shooting a dark look at the passing foreman. The foreman smirked, patting the studded club that hung from his belt.

"Smug bastard," Rog said, spitting what little saliva he could muster in the foreman's direction. "If we weren't chained up he'd be singin' a different tune."

Calder glanced at his own manacled feet and traced his eyes down the line of men he was chained to. Rog was closest to him, and then there was Sid and three others Calder didn't know. Calder and Byron normally worked together, but Byron was on kitchen duty today; the foreman had separated them for talking too much.

"You're damn right he would be," Sid said. He turned to Calder, a gap-toothed grin spread wide across his face. "Rog 'ere is the best boxer I ever seen."

Calder couldn't be sure since Rog was already red faced and sweating, but he could've sworn the brute of a man blushed. "Ah, I ain't that good, just got lucky a few times is all."

"He's bein' modest Calder. I swear, I never seen anythin' like it. This one poor fella thought he'd-" Sid was cut short as the ground behind him erupted with fire. The three men Calder didn't know were completely engulfed by the inferno and burned to ash in moments. Sid tackled Rog to the ground, dragging Calder with them. Calder landed square on his back, the wind knocked from his lungs.

"What in the hells is going on?!" Rog yelled over the roaring flames. "We've got to get up, move!" Calder yelled. The flames were conjured; Calder could feel the mana emanating from them. They were consuming anyone and anything they touched in an instant. Conjured flames would only last as long as the mage could will it, which for most mages was only a few seconds at a time. These flames, though, were not going away. They were growing hotter, larger. This told Calder that more than one mage was behind them, keeping them kindled as a unit. This wasn't merely an attack, this was a cleansing.

Calder pushed to his feet and pulled Rog up beside him, who yanked Sid up by his shirt. "We need to move quickly but carefully, do you understand?" Calder said, looking both men in the eye. They were terrified. Calder did his best to swallow his own fear, to look like the leader they needed him to be. They all had to hold it together if they were going to survive this. Rog nodded. Sid didn't get a chance to respond.

A flame like a forked tongue flicked out and licked Sid's arm, devouring flesh as it travelled across the rest of his body. Sid flung himself to the ground, rolling and burning and howling as the fire greedily ate him whole. Rog let out a yell and began trying to stomp out the fire burning his friend. Calder tried to stop him but he was too late; the fire would consume anything it touched, and very soon the fire would jump from Rog and onto him. And if he didn't burn to death he might suffocate first; the whole quarry was filling with thick, acrid smoke. Time was running out and he was attached at the ankles to two panicked animals.

Calder pulled his pickaxe from the dirt and swung at the chain connecting he and Rog. It writhed wildly as Rog began to kick dirt onto Sid, who was no longer moving.

"Rog!" Calder yelled. "Rog, stop! It's too late! Rog!"

Rog didn't stop. Calder couldn't hit the chain. It was too small, moving too fast. Calder hefted the axe and with a guttural yell he swung again.

A dull thud.

Rog jerked forward, went stiff.

Calder wrenched the pickaxe from Rog's back, a sucking, squelching sound. Blood trailed behind the point of the axe, spraying in an arc across the ground and splattering Calder's shirt. Rog fell face first onto Sid's burning corpse, causing the flames to roar and surge like a frenzied beast. Calder could feel his skin start to blister from the intense heat of it. He backed away from Rog and Sid as far as he could, pulling the chain taut, and brought the axe down once more. It cracked through the chain and the sudden release of tension sent Calder stumbling backward, but he quickly righted himself and started running.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Smoke burned his eyes, his throat, his lungs. The agonized screams of men and the roaring of the flames filled his ears. He was completely disoriented, had no idea if he was headed for the exit, but he kept moving.

He skidded to a stop as he was met with a wall of flame. He spun to the left and to the right but he was in a narrow walkway of nothing but stone, much too tall and too smooth to climb. He turned to go back from where he came, hoping to find another way through. A burning, crackling tower of wooden scaffolding collapsed, crashing down and blocking his path. He was surrounded with nowhere to go. A cold jolt of fear ran up his spine and into his chest where it sat, vibrating, wanting an escape but finding none. It made him start to shake, to pace back and forth looking for an exit, unwilling or unable to accept that there wasn't one.

The smoke. So much smoke. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He was dizzy, his legs felt wobbly and unresponsive. He fell to the ground wheezing and choking and crying and reaching out for something, anything, to save him. His breathing slowed, his sobs choked off. He closed his eyes.

Then, he was on a cliff's edge overlooking a dark, calm ocean. It was night, a full moon high in the cloudless sky. He should've been able to hear the gentle breaking of the waves on the rocks below, should've been able to feel the cool breeze run over his face and through his hair, but the scene was ethereal to him, as if he were in a dream.

The pyre. It appeared as if from thin air, assaulting his senses.

It was wide as a house and twice as wide, built of neatly stacked wood. Every few levels the skull of an oversized lizard was mounted as if in decoration. They were untouched by the fire save for the glowing embers that rested in each of their eye sockets and filled their gaping, jagged-toothed maws.

Calder felt that cold fear begin to rise in him again just as it had in the quarry, but before it could take hold something caught his eye; strands of crystalline rivulets flowed toward the pyre from every direction, dissolving into a fine sparkling mist just as they reached it.

Mana. They were strands of mana.

Calder walked up to a strand close enough to the ground for him to reach and tentatively put out a hand. The mana didn't feel like anything physical, but emotional. He felt the will behind it, singular in purpose and resolute, knew its purpose; to keep the pyre burning.

Calder told it to stop. It did. The mana strand disappeared.

He moved to the next, and the next. Each disappeared like the first, and with each missing strand the pyre grew weaker. When he reached the next strand, he told it to come to him instead. Give him the power it was giving the pyre. It did.

Calder was mana sensitive; not gifted enough to be a full-fledged mage, but enough to do a few minor conjurations. The mana he felt flowing through him now was unlike anything he had ever experienced. It was a sharpness, a clarity of mind he had only dreamed of having. With this small surge of mana he felt like he could do anything. Just think of what he could do with more.

He extended his will to the other strands and sent his newfound mana to carry his intent. The strands responded, lending him their power just as the first one had. He had been a fool. His mind was not clear before, his senses not sharp. He had been as a drunkard stumbling his way through life. No, this was clarity. This was sharpness. He could sense anything and everything around him. Every insect, every blade of grass, every current of air was his to command, his very word was law. He was a god, was the god, of this domain.

He turned his focus to the pyre, who's flames were burned down to cinders. He reached his will to the ocean below and with a simple thought made it his servant. A spout of sea water shot into the sky and crashed down onto the pyre, extinguishing it with a hiss of steam and cracking wood. The water rushed over Calder's feet and into his face and he choked on it, the pungent taste of brine filling his mouth. He felt his grasp on the mana loosen and as it did so did his power. He desperately reached for it but it slipped away as quickly as it had come. The sea was no longer his servant; the spout he had summoned raged into a torrent that threatened to wash him away.

A woman dressed in simple white robes was standing next to the ruined pyre. She was mouthing something but Calder couldn't hear what she was trying to say. Another rush of water, another taste of the ditch water. The woman still stood there, mouthing over and over. She was to blame. She was trying to take this place from him.

Calder strained his will, tried to grasp at the trees, the rocks, anything he could use to attack the woman and make her stop, but he couldn't fight the steadily increasing deluge of water. Another spout shot from the sea, this time aimed directly for him. It crashed over him and with a jolt, Calder awoke.

He spluttered, flinched at the painfully bright light as he opened his eyes. He was himself again, burns and bruises and all. He wasn't a god at all. It was all in his head, some sort of fever dream brought on by near death. He lay at the bottom of a muddy ditch, soaked and filthy. How had he gotten here? He should've been burned to death in the quarry. He sat up and sitting on a rock a few feet away was the woman in the white robe from his dream.

"Welcome back," she said. "We have a lot to discuss, you and I."