Masks of Moi'dan

By James Dwyer

Moi’dan the Masked once ruled half the world, in a time when the gods had been slain and all magic banished with them. When the heavens were breached to create a new age of gods, Moi’dan was betrayed and destroyed, but did not die. His life was fractured into nine lesser lives, and his masks of power lost.

Amadis has always been more than a Powerborn and less than a god. He is the fractured memory of Moi’dan, and he will do anything to return to that power. But whenever a tyrant seeks to build his empire on the deaths of innocents, there will be those that rise to stop him:

Kris, a man who has survived things that no fleshborn should, overcomes the weakness of flesh through the strength of his will. He uses that will to keep from slaying every man, woman, and child that he meets, but he will gladly unleash all darkness that dwells within him to kill Amadis.

Thisian, who wants nothing to bloody do with Amadis, or Kris, or any other lunatic that might want to kill him, but he will fight when he must. He is Powerborn, a Fureath’i Flameborn with the blood of gods running through his veins, and he uses this might to travel with thieves, to hunt for gold, and to bed as many women as he possibly can.

And Phira, the first female blaze commander of thousands, the slayer of gods, the wielder of the Jaguar blade, the woman who killed the Iceborn Aerath and who has now set her sights firmly on ridding the world of Amadis. If any think to get in her way... may they all die screaming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Dwyer
• Release date: Apr 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370682379

James Dwyer

Born in the 80's, and lived the 90's, brothers James and Brendan Dwyer live in Cork and Dublin, Ireland.Cult Fiction is their first published novel.

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MASKS OF MOI’DAN by James Dwyer

Published by Paused Books 2016

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © Paused Books 2016

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between these fictional characters and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

www.pausedbooks.com

Chapter One:

Memories

Chapter Two:

Torn

Chapter Three:

Time and Function

Chapter Four:

Flaming Magic

Chapter Five:

Deceptions

Chapter Six:

Guardian

Chapter Seven:

The Masks of Moi’dan

Chapter Eight:

Reunion

Chapter Nine:

The Wolves of Greater Beings

Chapter Ten:

Strings of the Web

Chapter Eleven:

Ruling Pieces

Chapter Twelve:

Fractures

Chapter Thirteen:

Prey

Chapter Fourteen:

Return

Chapter Fifteen:

Broken

Chapter Sixteen:

Heart of Fire

Chapter Seventeen:

Ambition

Chapter Eighteen:

Demons

Chapter Nineteen:

The Fate of Heroes

Chapter Twenty:

The Taking of Lives

Chapter Twenty One:

Released

Chapter Twenty Two:

Recourse

Chapter Twenty Three:

The Future of Worlds

Chapter Twenty Four:

Intruder

Chapter Twenty Five:

The Cost of a Life

Chapter Twenty Six:

Confrontation

Chapter Twenty Seven:

An End

Chapter Twenty Eight:

A Dream

Chapter Twenty Nine:

A Final Act

Epilogue

Chapter One:

Memories

Amadis appeared at the fallen tower and feared that his mind deceived him.

Once, as the Tower of Guardians, this structure had withstood assault from any adversary. Once, when he was the guardian of this very place, he had fought an army and defeated the man who would become a god. Now it lay shattered and broken, its pieces cast out in the markings of its death. It almost seemed fitting.

Darkness surrounded the scene, the moon no longer holding power since the deaths of Aerath and Aerune – both slain by that girl. The girl who has stolen my sword. But Amadis did not rage at his circumstances, he had a new sword now, one that would prove more valuable in the tasks he had ahead. Returning to his current task, Amadis surveyed the ruins. Shells of the great wall curved up from the lake, the main body of the tower having fallen into its depths, yet the top had collapsed on land, where Amadis stood. His mind continued to defy that this was real but it seemed that whatever had broken the great Tower of Guardians, had done so from inside its very walls. The result was that the ruling chambers had landed at his feet, so it was with little effort that Amadis located the first of his masks.

Lifting free a small portion of stone revealed a wooden mask in the shape of an eagle, lying untouched amongst the smashed remains of its false companions. It had been with him all along. When he had first fractured and became this guardian, he remembered seeing all nine masks lining the walls of the ruling chambers and he remembered thinking what a mighty warrior Moi’dan must have been. Of course it would have brought Brijnok endless pleasure to know that one of the real masks was placed there among the fakes. Always, it had been the Segment of Ahmar that Amadis thought he guarded, for it to forever lie untouched so destruction would not descend. Since he could no longer feel its presence, he had to assume someone removed the segment and brought this ruin to the tower. But how many years might Amadis not have lost if only he had touched this mask and begun his journey back to what once he had been. Brijnok must have cast a powerful Blindness to hide its true power, but Amadis was no longer blind. He reached down and picked up the mask.

One to travel through life. In the shape of an eagle it stands on the mask, because with it the eyes of all life become known.

Amadis placed it on his face and the world once more lit up with glorious truth. The darkness of night was banished as power coloured his vision in its overwhelming abundance throughout the world. The tower still glowed bright, the heart of its walls beating on even in its death, bathed in the pulsing life of the surrounding lake and forest. In the sky, Amadis could see the wounds of the world, numerous and bleeding, Connecting magic to the flesh of Powerborn, and being stolen and drank by any others that could. Above it all, there was another power, a darker one and fiercely proud, throwing his protective shadow over a single land. Frehep, the god of the sun and fire, the man whose army Amadis defeated at this tower, the great power that was sworn to never intervene in the lives of men. The sun god sees me, Amadis thought, but he fears me more.

A flash of light back on soil and Amadis spun to see a Spectre of flames appear before him. This was not Frehep, but still it took an iron resolve to prevent dread from creeping within. This was the Spectre who had poisoned him, who was the reason that even now Amadis’s mind still faltered, and who was the singular cause that he had been trapped inside that mountain for so many years. The Spectre was also a fracture of Moi’dan, one of nine, each the embodiment of a mask, each a power too great for Brijnok to destroy, and so, when the traitor attempted to kill his own brother, he failed. Instead of ridding the world of Moi’dan the Masked, Brijnok gave it nine of him. Amadis knew he was another of these fractures, and knew that if Moi’dan was ever to return to the world then he would need to kill the other eight. The Spectre was aware of this also and Amadis watched as the creature slowly created a sword of flames.

Just as gently, Amadis eased out the Lion, a sword of white with silver flames of its own etched upon the blade. The two fractures of Moi’dan faced each other, both knowing that they needed to slay the other to become whole again, to become Moi’dan instead of one of his memories. The Spectre recognised the sword in Amadis’s hands however, and could foretell its defeat,

‘You will kill Brijnok?’ the Spectre asked.

‘Of course.’

The Spectre nodded that this was good, but then startled suddenly, ‘You will wake him! You will wake the monster, Jherin.’

Still wearing the Eagle’s Mask, Amadis narrowed his eyes towards the man of flames. He remembered the creature of destruction, Jherin, remembered how he cleansed the world of gods and created the age that Moi’dan and Brijnok ruled. If the beast was sleeping, then Amadis had no intention of waking it.

‘No, I will not,’ Amadis replied, not for any need to mollify this fracture, but because it was truth.

‘Yes, you will,’ the Spectre insisted. ‘I can see it. I must stop you!’

‘Rationalise your death as you will,’ Amadis said with a sigh. He had wasted enough time.

On the last occasion they fought, Amadis held the Jaguar, the black-bladed twin of the one he now possessed. The Jaguar was the sword that made life into death, the sword that girl had stolen, but the sword with which he had failed to kill this Spectre. There was no flesh here to turn into death; there was only power, and now, where the Jaguar was the opposing force to life, so was the Lion the antithesis to power. The Spectre struck first, faster than Amadis, but when their swords met the Spectre was destroyed in a flash of light.

Through the eyes of his mask Amadis watched the obliterated power burst out in every direction, seeking return to the life-stream and the world from whence it came. Then, he held his breath as the power began to curve, arcing widely but surely until finally it sped back to him. The stream of light entered his flesh and brought so much more than a mere increase in strength; it brought unity, a raw communion between the two broken fractures of Moi’dan the Masked. Closing his eyes to better understand what was happening, Amadis searched his mind and his memories, trying to draw clarity over who he now was. Had he become a fusion of the Spectre and his former self, or had he become a truer version of the original Moi’dan. A fleeting search would yield no answers, and he did not have time to spend on a deeper journey. He would act on the assumption that he remained as Amadis, the ruling sentience of a much more powerful warrior being brought back to life.

Returning his sword to its scabbard, Amadis also removed his mask and placed it on his hip. The wooden piece attached itself to his belts with a life of its own and with welcomed familiarity. Taking one final look at the remnants of the tower, Amadis turned his head up to the heavens and hoped that Brijnok was watching.

‘I have only seven more to kill, brother, before I am returned. Then, I will come for you.’

That Brijnok hid the Eagle’s Mask in plain sight, made Amadis wonder what other wretched creatures he thought to torment in similar fashion. The smiling god always sought to amuse himself above all other considerations, and there was one such man by whom Moi’dan and Brijnok had been jointly entertained. So Amadis left the Tower of Guardians and appeared instead in a guardian’s maze.

There were standard entries to the labyrinth scattered about the world, where adventurers of flesh could enter at their peril. Amadis had no such need of conventional doorways. Now that the Spectre no longer haunted the life-stream, Amadis could use it to appear at any place of his choosing once more. It was with narrow vision that he used this ability to bring order to the world before, appearing only to slay tyrants that sought to incite chaos. He had been otherwise content to let the rulers of each land do as they pleased, so long as they did not interfere with Amadis’s peace. He saw now that he had been misguided, content with simpler goals to satisfy the needs of a fractured life. Once he was complete, there would be no simpler goals. The world needed a merciless ruler, and Moi’dan was the only one powerful enough to rule it. But to do that, he needed what was locked within this maze.

The warren consisted of identical rooms, each chamber small, grey, and decrepit, lit by flickering torches that would never burn out, and held four archways that led to other chambers, all of which leading again to four more. The different rooms were unique only in that they held varying scenes of ancient battles, and contained warriors of stone, holding weapons of steel or, as Amadis remembered now, masks of wood. Taking care not to touch anything but the floor, Amadis began navigating his way through the maze.

The last time he was here, he had been searching for cuts to take him to the mountain prison of Lae Noan which had ended with his doom. His mind had been assaulted with memories of Moi’dan during that trek, and so he had stepped upon a trap and been taken to the guardian’s lair. The same would not happen again. His mind felt clearer than he could ever remember, he felt awakened from the slumber of centuries, and he strode straight to the chamber that he sought.

A single room, with every inch of its edge filled with statues preventing entry, held two lone figures at the centre. One was dressed like Amadis, a man of slim build holding a single sword, wearing little more than jerkin, shirt, breeches, and boots. An important difference of course was that this man wore eight panels around his belt and a wooden mask upon his face, faded red with the image of a hammer carved upon it. Next to this statue was one of an overly armed man, with more weapons than anyone could possibly need, each secured around his armour and none held ready within his hands. This statue was smiling, the gesture made grotesque by a scar that trailed up from one side of his mouth, over his ear and back through his hair; Brijnok and Moi’dan, the brothers united.

It was a clever trap, the coveted mask that the statue of Moi’dan wore, or the many weapons of power with which the statue of Brijnok was adorned, would make valued prizes for any warrior wandering in this forgotten place. Yet, if one attempted to squeeze entry, to touch the statues that lined each archway, then the guardian would feel it and wrap his lair around them. The chamber would twist and disappear, with another to stand in its place, one of darkness and pillars, of infinite possibility, yet one that Arathema the Guardian could never leave. Arathema might even know what sat dormant inside this chamber and never be permitted to touch it. The same would not be true for Amadis.

Removing the wooden plate from his belt, Amadis once more pressed the Eagle’s Mask to his face and the maze disappeared. The chambers and archways were gone while the statues remained, surrounded on all sides now by rows of wide pillars, ridged with silver that towered upward without end. The floor was the same beaten grey, but no longer were there walls or ceiling. Darkness was the only thing to be seen no matter how far Amadis’s eyes could pierce. This was the guardian’s lair, and although Amadis had been here before, the statues had never followed and neither was there now sign of Arathema their master. As test, Amadis removed the mask and found himself back inside the chambers of archways. Satisfied that he had not been discovered, he returned the mask to his face once more. This was not the warping trap of the guardian; this was simply the truth of the maze unveiled.

The pillars he now saw were in place of where the corner of each chamber stood. The statues that would be at the chamber’s centre were gathered together in line of sight, rows upon rows of them surrounded by the silver columns and Amadis could even see the webs that connected them all. A dull glow in the distance gave Amadis his guess at where the spider of this web currently slept, and one of the new truths that arrived through the mask made Amadis scoff. It would seem he needed to kill this guardian one more time, but for now the mask was his goal.

The rules had not changed, if Amadis touched the statues, then Arathema would make them vanish and the mask would be lost. But with the true sight of the mask revealing the walls to be false, Amadis could now see four means of entry through the circle of statues. The pillars were wide, yet not entirely equal to the width of the walls that lined the chambers. If he were to remove his mask, it might appear that Amadis was now walking through those walls, where really, he was simply edging around a pillar, still careful not to touch a single line of the vast web. It did not take him long to slip past and he soon stood facing the statues of Moi’dan and Brijnok. Never one to waste time on sentiment, Amadis grabbed the mask.

The same overwhelming feeling of completeness swept through his flesh at the touch of the Hammer’s Mask. Rather than relish its recovery in full however, Amadis’s satisfaction was cut short. Like the other weapons of power these statues held, each a prize for the guardian’s games, the mask was connected to Arathema and touching it woke him up.

‘You have returned, brother,’ a voice rasped behind him. It was the sound of grinding metal and with it, all of the statues disappeared. It did not matter. Amadis still held the Hammer’s Mask and he secured it to his belts. Before turning, he also removed the Eagle’s Mask from his face, eliminating the view of truth, yet was not surprised to see that he still stood among the pillars and the darkness. He faced the guardian.

Little more than a skull of tightly pulled silver skin, with dark hollows instead of eyes or mouth, Arathema the Guardian looked pleased to see Amadis returned. The last time they met, Amadis swore he would never be back. That was the oath of a different man. Now, he had become more.

‘I have returned in more ways than you think, brother,’ Amadis replied, noting the look of increasing joy on Arathema’s face as he used the familial term.

‘Yes, I prayed this day would come. He promised me it would.’

‘Then you understand I will kill you.’

‘How I have longed for it!’ Arathema shouted with a laugh. ‘All this time, we were blind to each other, yet deep down we knew. We knew, and we did not know what we knew! Aha!’

‘It would seem the Blindness that Brijnok placed upon us has now been breached.’

Arathema nodded, the gesture making his body clang as the thick black armour moved with him. Seeing the blue symbol of the Shield’s Mask etched upon his chest still summoned a rage inside of Amadis, but it was directed at Brijnok now for the audacity to place it there, clear for the entire world to see, all except for Moi’dan and his fractures.

‘The sword, the last prize I gave you, it destroys power, it broke his curse,’ Arathema clapped his hands in glee and Amadis wondered if the creature would also dance a jig.

‘If that is the reason, then why did it not bring truth to you when you held it?’

‘I do not touch these items, brother, much as the world still does not touch you the way it does the flesh of others. I am the guardian of these gifts, I cannot use them…’ Arathema looked down at his hands, ‘No, I am not the guardian.’

‘I remember there was once a guardian who looked as you do, who was named as you are now and served the same function. We were fascinated by this lonely creature, but in the end we killed him. Do you remember? It would seem our unresolved interest in him,’ he waved at the armoured skull standing before him, ‘resulted in this.’

‘A joke… to Brijnok…’ Arathema whispered, remembering his own death as the first guardian was slain and then again when Brijnok shattered Moi’dan and his masks.

‘Do not despair. When I have regained all nine of our masks, and slain the others of our fractures, Brijnok will be repaid for what he has done.’

Something of the old Arathema awoke at those words, the joy at his long awaited death being replaced with a sneer. ‘And if I kill you? Then I will be the one who becomes Moi’dan reborn. You may have inherited all of his arrogance, brother, but do not forget that I still contain his power. Here, in my kingdom, I have the power, not you!’

‘You will not kill me,’ Amadis said back. There was no arrogance in his voice as once there might have been. Instead there was almost regret as he drew the white blade from its scabbard. Arathema looked down on the instrument of his death.

‘We will return to what we once were?’ He asked, his voice soft, already fading to the oblivion that waited. ‘I will be free?’

‘Yes,’ Amadis answered. He waited until Arathema accepted those words, waited until he could see a peace settle on the tortured man, waited until the black hollows of his eyes closed under silver lids, and then he plunged the Lion sword into his heart.

Without the true sight of his Eagle’s Mask, all Amadis could see was the guardian vanish and be replaced with a rain of weapons. Every item of power, that any of his statues had ever held, burst into being and crashed to the ground between each of the infinite pillars. As fresh strength entered his body, Amadis breathed deeply to welcome the increasing feel of completeness to his being. His hands were trembling but not out of frailty; they shook with exhilaration. What he would become, what he was already becoming, it was a feeling too immense to be contemplated for long. Drawing himself back to the external world, Amadis gave a single dismissive glance to the armoury of powerformed weapons littered before him. There was a time he would have created an army from these blades, but there was only one kind of powerformed weapon that he needed and those were his masks. He had seven more of them to find, with six other fractures of the same power as him to kill. Each might now be awakening from the Blindness that clouded Amadis and they would all war to be the one who regained their lost power. Amadis would slay them all and reclaim the nine forsaken masks for himself.

Moi’dan the Masked would return; and may all his enemies die screaming.

Chapter Two:

Torn

Kris never felt it necessary to admit when he was in pain. Always, doing what needed to be done came before all other concerns, fighting with every breath to be a better Fureath’i and anything that did not serve towards that function was a thing unneeded. But as he woke and tried to rise, even Kris had to admit that he had better days.

After years of avoiding full sleep, Kris was forced into it these past nights. First by Nureail, who incessantly fussed over his injuries, almost convincing him to sleep if only for unconsciousness to bring him some silence, but it was when Phira had ordered him by her rank as blaze commander that Kris had no choice than to comply. By the way his body stabbed at him now through a thousand pained muscles, Kris was far from convinced sleep had any use. He did not feel rested, and if anything, he felt his body had become worse from the brief lapse in strength that sleep had brought. His left side still burned, drawing all heat from the rest of his body. His left arm hung useless, the bicep torn and the hand smashed and broken. His right arm was little better, the skin withered and rotting, every joint bloated with swelling. The back of his skull still felt like it had caved in on itself, and the rest of Kris’s head felt much the same. Even though the effort threatened to steal consciousness away once more, Kris stood up.

He was still in the Temple of Ice, although at least they had found a chamber not entirely frozen, one that even held torches on its walls. Phira had stripped the torches from every other chamber in the temple she could find and placed them all within this single room. The fire was unnatural, similar to the other temples Kris had encountered, so they did not extinguish when placed in the centre of the room to form a heart fire. It meant that the surrounding chambers were thick with darkness now, and that their poorly defended camp would shine as the sole target for any other unknown inhabitants or encroaching enemies. So far there had been none, but it did not reduce his unease at seeing both Nureail and Phira absent as he woke. With his face still swollen and crusted in blood, Kris found that the muscles in his face would not frown, so he settled for clenching his one working fist.

Repositioning the sabre on his belt from where he slept with it, Kris reluctantly reasoned that he would need to bring one of the torches with him if he was to look for Nureail. The idea of bending over, or kneeling down, did not appeal to him now that he was already standing. He was not confident he would be able to get up a second time.

‘Kris! Why are you up! You should be resting! How are you feeling? Has your fever broken?’

Despite protests from his face, Kris managed a frown for the sudden bombardment of questions from Nureail. She hurried into the room, holding a torch in her left arm, her right arm ending at the elbow in a stump. The swelling on her face had healed at least, even if Kris’s had not, and her right eye was able to open once more. Some slight scabbing and yellow bruising was all that remained of the beating Kris had given her. He could not feel ashamed for what he did, but he accepted the pain of its memory as just punishment. He deserved much worse for hurting her, and he certainly did not deserve the warmth of affection she gave him. Her light brown hair, usually hanging loose to bounce in curls at her shoulders, was now tied back giving her a look of purpose. It was the shining green and brown of her eyes though that Kris continued to marvel at. His own eyes held nothing but threat and murder in the blackness of their depths. How a woman with eyes as beautiful as hers could look upon him with anything but revulsion was something he would never understand.

‘You should not be travelling in this temple alone,’ Kris said, ignoring her questions.

‘And you should not be standing, firstly because you need to heal, and secondly because it shouldn’t be possible. Even after we cleaned and stitched the worst of your wounds, Kris, going through those mirrors caused more harm than any injury. And you went through them twice!’ The stump of her right arm gestured by instinct before she remembered her hand was gone. Her usual stance when berating Kris with useless facts was either to have both hands perched on her hips, or to have both arms folded by her chest. She could do neither now, so instead she marched to the centre of the chamber to return her torch to the heart fire.

‘Where is Blaze Commander Phira?’ Kris asked. It was unlike him to ask questions, preferring instead to wait until he could uncover the answers for himself, but it was often necessary with Nureail to ask directly. She spoke so much about inconsequential things, that if Kris attempted to wait until she said something useful, he could often be waiting for some time.

‘Where do you think?’ Nureail said, looking around the empty chamber for something to vent her frustration. Kris had felt similarly frustrated in previous temples with the Scholar. Now that his strength and energy were so greatly diminished though, he found his rage was a smaller thing in their absence. He found it even less again while around Nureail. It had not been a light commitment he made to never allow the woman into his heart, made in the face of her candour and advances. It was his journeys through the soul-stealing mirrors that had drained him of that resolve and he could not regret it. Those mirrors were likely where Phira now was, so Kris did not feel the need to guess correctly. Instead he hobbled over to a wall and eased himself down to a seated position.

Nureail watched his pained motions and she moved over to join him, grabbing the bundle of cloaks they had made as his bed. Slipping down beside him, she spread the cloaks over them both and Kris had not the strength to stop her. The scent of her hair and her skin filled Kris’s senses and he breathed her in deeply, embracing the comfort. She leaned her head on his shoulder and for a blessed time there was silence.

It did not last long.

‘She spends most of her days commanding the mirrors to show her inside each of the Prae’surlas cities, ordering them to display all weaknesses that every fortification might have. I’d say with certainty she’s inspected every inch of every city by now, yet still she persists. I’ve told her how dangerous it is to be near those things, that for every hour in their presence, a year or more of her life would be stolen, but with her rank she simply commands me to silence when I press too far.’

The idea that anyone could command Nureail to silence was enough to make Kris laugh. He never laughed though, just like he never slept and rarely smiled. Instead he found himself breaking out in a painful cough, sending fresh agony into his side. Nureail paused to check if Kris was alright, before she nestled back into him and continued talking.

‘Any time she is not preparing military strategy then, she is looking at images of her fallen husband, Dallid Fireborn.’ She stopped again to lift her head and look at Kris. ‘Do you miss him too, Kris? From what Phira told me, he was the closest friend you had.’

Kris restrained himself from sighing. Of course he missed Dallid. The man was possibly the only other Fureath’i who Kris could have admitted caring for in the world apart from Nureail. But he would not waste time dwelling on it. The man had died fighting the Iceborn Aerath, helping to save the world from turning to ice. Even though the Foreigner Amadis had killed him, it was still a Fureath’i death that was without regret. The fact his death could have been avoided if Kris had only cut off the Iceborn’s head when he had the chance was also something he would not consider. It was not by will or conscious decision that Kris had stopped his attack on Aerath and ran to Nureail’s aid. He had no control over what he did. Between that, and Kris’s violence on Nureail, and his murder of her brother, there were far too many things that happened because Kris had lost control. It would not happen again.

Nureail accepted his silence and did not press for an answer. Talking for her seemed as soothing as silence was for Kris, so he respected her ways as she sometimes respected his.

‘I miss Tereail,’ she said, speaking of her brother. Nureail could view the past to re-live events as they occurred, so even though she was unconscious when Kris killed Tereail, she had gone back to see it happen. It was one more reason why the woman should hate Kris, yet still she claimed to love him. Kris did not know if he was capable of feeling an emotion as pure as love. All he knew was that he felt good when she was near. It was not quite the peace or happiness as others described to him, but Nureail was possibly the only person that Kris could not contemplate killing now. The same had never been true of anyone before, with nothing but a fevered will holding Kris back from killing everyone he knew at some stage in his life.

‘Phira’s idiocy with the mirrors has achieved one thing at least,’ Nureail said, taking a deep breath while changing the subject from her brother. ‘She’s found the closest flowstone. You were right, you know, when you said that a dais for the Temple of Fire wouldn’t be here, even though there is a master dais that we can’t operate. So instead she instructed the mirrors to show her the one closest to our current location, one that leads to a temple that will have a flowstone back to Furea. That’s where I was before you woke. The mirrors showed us the dais but it didn’t detail how to get there. Phira ordered me to map the way.’

Again, Kris felt like smiling at someone finally being able to get Nureail to do as she was told. Even around the Eight Kings of Furea, Nureail’s status as lord and her powerful connection with time was enough to demand respect. Phira had little respect for even the eight kings, so she would have less for a woman with half-Foreign blood and no military rank. Instead of smiling though, Kris began the arduous task of standing once more.

‘What are you doing? Kris, you will break open those spear wounds if you don’t stop moving!’ Nureail stood as well, torn between helping Kris stand and shoving him back down.

‘If Blaze Commander Phira has found our way out of this temple, then we should leave at once.’

‘You are in no fit state to travel,’ Nureail said, her arms trying to fold in front of her chest, the forgotten injury only serving to frustrate her further. When they first met, Nureail admitted she studied everything she could about Kris, but since then he found that he fixated upon her every detail as well. So he knew at once by the look in her eyes that she had a hundred ready retorts for everything he might say. He went with one she may not have expected.

‘Nureail,’ he said calmly, the casual use of her name, rather than calling her Teller or Scholar, still bringing a smile to her unbidden. ‘The longer we wait here, the more likely it will be that our blaze commander will decide we should go directly to Rath’Nor.’

For a Scholar, it took her a moment to realise to what he referred.

‘She would risk the mirrors again?’ Nureail said, terror making her face drop. ‘She can’t, I couldn’t, you couldn’t, Kris the fact you survived two journeys was a miracle, a third will kill you. In our weakened states it could kill all of us.’

‘Then the sooner we leave those cursed things behind, the better.’

Nureail would have enjoyed nothing more than to discuss the matter for another two days before agreeing to the same conclusion, so Kris did not give her opportunity to argue and instead began walking towards the darkness. It would force her to follow with a torch, rather than allow him to wander without light and risk further injury. In his limited yet difficult experience with Scholars, Kris found that action was the only effective way to fight their endless reasoning. He heard Nureail stamp towards the torches and their supplies.

‘Are you going to make a one-armed woman carry everything, Kris?’

There was nothing essential in their camp that they could not do without, with the exception perhaps being the torches and the food. A Fureath’i needed only the fire in his heart and a sabre in his hand. It seemed to make her angry when he instructed her on the proper actions of being Fureath’i though, and that in turn made her more difficult to manage. Instead he used her own reasoning against her,

‘If I am too injured to stand or walk, then I am too injured to carry things that we do not need. Bring only the torch and food supplies, leave the rest.’

He waited at the exit to their chamber while Nureail began muttering and cursing about being stuck with too simple-minded warriors now instead of one. Having a stubborn ember class to deal with had been bad enough so she did not need an arrogant blaze commander to order her about as well. She rummaged through the packs that she and Tereail had brought, attempting to lift them, the cloaks, and the torch, all with one arm. Even a simple-minded warrior could see it would not work. As everything fell from her awkward grip, Nureail managed only to keep hold of the torch so