Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(87)
I thought he’d gone and that my question would go unanswered, but a few moments later I heard him speak again, his mouth close to the door, almost whispering. ‘My whole life I’ve watched as your father paraded himself like the paragon of Jan’Tep society. Always looking down on me. Always believing I was less than he was.’ There was a brief pause, and then he said, ‘You can’t imagine what that feels like.’
The torch burst back into flame.
41
The Barn
The first lick of flame slithered away from the torch and began climbing the barn’s southern wall. Reichis raced over and leaped onto my shoulder, his entire body thrumming with anger and fear. ‘Put it out! Quick! This entire place is catching fire!’
He needn’t have bothered pointing that out. I was already trying to extinguish the torch. I grabbed a half-full bucket next to the horses’ watering trough and threw it on the torch. As if in answer, the flames hissed and spat, but showed no sign of quenching.
The squirrel cat scrambled down to the ground, running a mad route between my legs. ‘It’s not going out! Why won’t it go out?’
‘It’s thirstfire,’ I shouted, refilling the bucket and dumping it out on the torch again. ‘It won’t go out by natural means.’ The flames were already spreading out across the walls. Within minutes the entire barn would be engulfed in flame.
‘Stamp it out, Kellen! We’re going to burn alive in here!’
‘It won’t do any good,’ I said. ‘Stepping on the flames will just set my clothes on fire.’
‘Then banish the spell! Do something.’
I envisioned my will taking dominion over the flame, and chanted the words old Osia’phest had taught us. When nothing happened, I reached further inside myself and re-doubled my efforts. As if in answer, the counter-banded ember sigils on my forearm seemed to tighten, to strangle the vessels underneath my skin. Spark, damn you. I refuse to die just because of some stupid tattoos.
There’s this hope you have, deep down, that when you most need it – in that instant where everything suddenly matters because now it’s life and death – you’ll be able to overcome whatever it is that’s held you back your whole life and find your true strength. That was how it worked in all the old stories: the young Jan’Tep mage, face to face with the demons who have been tormenting his village, finally casts the great spell of banishment that had eluded him for so long.
‘Are you doing anything?’ Reichis asked. ‘Because it just looks like you’re constipated.’
It turns out all those stories are lies. Or maybe you’re not the young Jan’Tep hero in the story. Maybe you’re the demon that gets destroyed.
The flames were spreading, slowly but surely, making their way around the wooden walls of the barn. Already my eyes were watering from the smoke. Blind panic overtook me and I ran back to the door and hurled myself against it over and over. I got nothing for my efforts but a shooting pain through my shoulder.
‘Hit it harder,’ the squirrel cat chittered.
‘I can’t,’ I said, gasping from the pain of my exertions. ‘I’m not strong enough to break the door.’
‘Then just—’
‘Shut up,’ I said, trying to concentrate. I focused all my attention on the door, looking for a weakness in it, finding none. The only weakness I could find was in myself. Reichis could see it too.
‘Damn it all,’ he chittered frantically. ‘If I was going to take on an idiot human as a business partner, why didn’t I pick Ra’meth? At least he has enough magic to dismiss a fire spell!’
My throat tightened under the growing strain of frustration and terror. ‘Well, if I’m going to die in this burning barn with nobody but a stupid nekhek to give my eulogy, I’d rather you found something nice to say.’
‘Well, let me see,’ Reichis growled back. ‘You’re weak, you’re a coward and you seem to be pretty much the only member of your race who doesn’t have any magic. But on the other hand …’
He stopped chittering. I glanced around to see what he was looking at, but all I saw were the burning walls. ‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. I can’t think of one good thing about you, Kellen. You’re the most useless member of a useless species I’ve ever seen and now we’re going to die because of it.’
The flames crackled as they travelled up the wooden beams to the hay that was stored on the second level of the barn. Smoke was filling the room. Soon it would be hard to breathe. ‘I’m trying,’ I said, dragging first Shalla’s body and then Ferius’s to the water trough. I splashed some of the remaining water on each of them, not sure what good it would do but having no better ideas. I glanced around the barn again, searching for something, anything, that might help. If there had been enough horses I could’ve hoped that they might stampede and smash through the walls. All we had was Ferius’s horse though, and though it was growing more and more agitated, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Sorry, whatever your name is. It’s not fair that you have to die without knowing the reason.
The heat was overwhelming and whatever moisture I had left in me was sweating out from every pore. We didn’t have much time. Unlike the horse, Reichis understood what was happening, but his instinctive fear of fire was making him frantic. He tried to climb one of the walls, but there was too much fire and smoke now. The squirrel cat made it halfway up before tumbling down to the ground, coughing and shaking. I felt a strange empathy for the little monster. As terrified as I was, it must be worse for an animal covered in fur, for whom fire wasn’t a normal part of life. I knelt down to try and pick him up. He bit me.