by Gustavo Bondoni
in Issue 88, May 2019
The guardsman took one look at their clothes and waved them through. Gina smiled to herself, amused to note that the good people of Revenn were just as quick to bow to the trappings of wealth as those of Hell’s Gate. Even their famous proclamations of equality didn’t seem to be proof against the maxim that some were more equal than others.
The gate led into an arched passage whose roof was dotted with murder holes. At one point, the floor on which they tread echoed hollowly, sign of pitfalls beneath.
“This should be an interesting place,” Tavill said.
“I don’t think things can get much more interesting than Hell’s Gate,” she replied.
“One can only hope.” He glanced at her sidewise. “But knowing you, I sense that they might.”
She ignored him and pulled at her coat. Though warm enough for the mountains, and of high quality, it was too tight around the neck. She found herself wishing they’d robbed a different couple. But then again, perhaps it was for the best. The nobility of Hell’s Gate deserved to be left naked and unconscious on the street more than any other group she could think of offhand.
Besides, Tavill actually looked handsome in the man’s outfit, especially now that his wounds were healing.
The passage opened into a small square from which three streets led further into the city. Gina shrugged and chose the one in the middle, on the premise that it shouldn’t take them too far from where they needed to be.
“I wish I knew where the Priest of Wasyl is. It’s not the kind of thing you can ask just anyone. I’d prefer it if he doesn’t know I’m coming.”
“I still this is a bad idea. Hell’s gate is just five days’ ride away, even on those ridiculous mountain roads. I don’t want to be here when whoever wins the fight between the demons and the Tyrant decides to come looking for you.”
“They should be too busy holding the city to worry about that. And besides, if Haggoth’s horde wins, he should be thankful to me for setting him free.”
“I think he might object to the fact that you’re telling everyone his name.”
Gina shrugged. “He’ll need to kill a lot more people than just me to stop that now. We’ll be fine.”
“Whatever. What are you going to do when you find the priest?”
“I told you already. I just want to ask him a few questions.”
Tavill didn’t look convinced, and she felt a small surge of guilt for what was about to happen. It passed quickly, however: they’d only met a few days before, and he’d been doing his best to sacrifice her to the demons below Hell’s Gate at the time, so no matter what happened next, he probably deserved to suffer through it by her side.
“Should we find an Inn?”
“Do you have any money? The woman seems to have had all her wealth locked down in clothes.”
“The man had nothing but the brooch we traded for the horses. I suppose his credit is good everywhere. I wonder who he is.”
“I don’t care. I hope the demons got him.” Impulsively, Gina reached out and grabbed a small man passing by. Her victim spluttered in protest, but upon closer inspection of her clothing and of Tavill’s hulking form and menacing glance, he became docile.
Gina smiled at him. “I’m sorry to detain you. Could you indicate where the Priest of Wasyl is located?”
“He’s in the narrow streets. Walk straight up this road and ask when you get to the alleys.”
“I think I’d prefer it if you would show us the way.”
“I need to be somewhere else,” the man protested, and began to pull away, Tavill or no Tavill. But, as a wisp of wind wrapped itself around his neck, his eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know… I’ll take you.”
Gina smiled. “Thank you.” She knew that air elementals here were very weak – they couldn’t have choked him… but there was no need to tell the man that. And she definitely didn’t want him sending the priest a message before she got there.
With the man’s help, they found the Wasyllan Sanctuary easily enough. It was just a small brown door in an unimpressive building fronting an alley that Gina could have stretched her arms across. It most certainly wasn’t what she’d been expecting.
“What did you think you’d find?” Tavill asked as their unwilling helper scurried away. “Wasyl is not a big thing in the mountains. Our people have learned to fear the elementals, and anyone communing with them is viewed with suspicion at best. Revenn only tolerates them because Revenn tolerates everyone. I remember what the Tyrant did to the last priest who tried to come into Hell’s Gate. The demons complained because the pieces they got to feed on were too small.”
Gina shrugged. “Let’s go inside.”
The door was locked, but insistent banging summoned a small, wizened servant who told them to go away. Gina ignored his words, gave him her best smile – which she knew would work on any man with a pulse, and told him. “We’re here to deliver a donation.”
“Deliver it to me,” the man said with a leer.
“Come, come, you know better than that.”
The servant sighed, and opened the door another fraction in order to look them over. “All right. Come inside.”
The place was no more impressive on the inside than it was from without. A small, dark front room opened into what seemed like a room not much larger, but which held a table suitable for six people. It was illuminated by a soft blue glow.
Gina sighed. “I hope you’re not expecting us to be impressed by the light. From the look of it you might have one, perhaps two water elementals giving you some help.” She looked around. “Definitely two, but very weak.”
The old, bearded man seated at the end of the table nodded to her. “I see that this conversation is going to be a bit different from what I normally have in this place.” He turned to the servant. “Gastón, please go down to the tavern and get us some wine. Perhaps the Tribellan red we enjoy so much.”
Once the stunted man had left, the priest turned his attention back to them. “So, who do I have the honor of addressing? I imagine that you didn’t come to give us a donation, though, as you can see, it wouldn’t be amiss.”
Gina suddenly wondered why she’d come. She’d always been well treated by the priests, back when she was an acolyte with talent, and before she’d abandoned their teachings to go her own way. And yet, she felt that, somehow, they were the enemy, that what they had refused to teach her – refused to teach any girl – was tantamount to stealing her birthright.
“I would like to know where to go for elementals in this city. Real ones, not like these two. Preferably fire. Water and Air are too weak, and never really gotten along with Earth spirits.”
“These two are loyal, faithful servants. I’d thank you not to insult them.”
“Suit yourself, but I need to know where I can find stronger elementals.” Gina saw a flint and steel on a ledge beside her, with a candle in the center of the table. She took the igniter, and sat on the seat facing the old man.
“Do you know how to see them?”
“I can see them,” she told him. “Possibly much better than you can. I was taught the ways of Wasyl on the plain. I learned some of the secrets, but I also learned to spot the lies. I also learned that most priests are more afraid of the elementals themselves than most of the people out there.” She struck a spark and created a small flame on the wick of a candle, something that was impossible to do for most people. “My theory about that is that the priests are afraid of the elementals because they can’t really control them as well as they want to. And they know there are others out there who can.”
The flame burned brightly, drowning the blue light in soft orange. A tiny face danced within the flame, leering at Gina, and occasionally glancing over at the priest… at whom it stuck out its flame-tongue.
The old man stared at it and swallowed. The fear visible in his eyes confirmed Gina’s suspicions: this man had probably been exiled here because he could barely control the weakest of elementals, so he would assiduously avoid fire spirits. It was probably wise to send the real duffers out to these places – an ineffectual weakling was likely to create a sense of benign indifference as opposed to open opposition, and that was something the Order of Wasyl could use to its advantage if the need arose.
Of course, it might also be that they wanted to maintain control over their priests; men with power were dangerous in the mountains, since there were truly strong forces at work just below the ground.
She smirked to herself. Perhaps they shouldn’t have worried so much about the men… Women with power, she knew, were even more dangerous, as the Tyrant of Hell’s Gate had discovered to his cost.
She looked the old man in the eye. “I’d like to know where the more powerful elementals are. As you can see, I prefer to play with fire, so anything with a nice vent or caldera would work well. But if not, I wouldn’t say no to a raging river.”
“Why should I help you?”
“Because we both are trained in the mysteries of Wasyl. In a way, we are brother and sister, united by our sensitivity to the spirit world.” Of course, in that analogy, she didn’t say, you’d be the much younger little brother.
“But why would you need strong elementals? Or way is clear. We seek to commune, to use the elements to make lives better, but without resorting to force. Our philosophy is to guide, to commune with the spirits around us, and use their energy create harmony between man and nature.” He gave her a long look. “I can’t see how the strength of the spirits we speak to could have any importance.”
“It’s important to me. I feel more harmonious when speaking to stronger entities.”
“I think you have slipped from the path. Perhaps it would be better if you left,” the priest told her, a calm air of finality in his tones.
Gina thought about that for a few seconds, and then responded in what she felt were perfectly reasonable tones. “I think that, if you don’t tell me what you know, purely in the spirit of brotherly collaboration, of course, I will have the spirit in that candle burn away your beard.”
“You dare walk into a sanctuary of Wasyl and…”
“I dare basically whatever I think I can get away with. Right now, I believe you aren’t powerful enough to defend yourself from a small candle-fire spirit, or even begin to challenge my mastery over it. I could take your water elementals equally easily. But I won’t. All I need is some information, and we’ll be on our way.”
The old man gave her a dark look, but then broke his gaze. “You will find a cleft behind the marketplace. It is a place of pilgrimage and worship, but it also opens into the bowel of the mountain. There are fire elementals there.”
“And how do we get in?”
“It is open to all. Just be sure to take an offering.”
“Thank you. I knew we would understand each other.” She stood. “May the peace of Wasyl guide your steps.” It was the only part of the litany that she could remember, from back when she was being trained as an acolyte. She’d always found the stable boys much more interesting than her lessons.
“Just go away,” the old man sighed.
***
As they walked towards the market, Tavill gave her a critical look. “That wasn’t nice. We probably could have convinced him without resorting to threats.”
“Perhaps. But they aren’t nice people. Do you believe that they expected us to be virgins all our lives? They told us that the spirits would only speak to the pure of heart and body.”
“Sounds logical, I guess.”
“I can assure you that they were wrong,” she told him, with a wicked smile. “But worse than that, they seemed to think it only applied to the girls. So, if you ask me, they deserve whatever they get.”
“Still, I don’t think that priest in there has much to do with policy-making, do you? He just seemed like an old man who would have loved to be appreciated instead of insulted and threatened.”
Gina turned on him in disbelief. “Have you lost your mind, or just your memory? If I recall correctly, when I met you, your main occupation was to push naked women into a pit of fire so they could be torn to pieces by demons.”
“That wasn’t my main…” but he let the protest die. “All right, I guess it’s a fair point. What are you planning now?”
“Well, as you know, my attempt to install myself as the leader of Hell’s Gate didn’t go exactly to plan.” She waited while he finished snorting. “And now I find myself without a city to rule. So, I was thinking what a tragedy it is that the good citizenry of Revenn doesn’t have a Tyrant to guide them. I believe we can remedy the situation.”
“You can’t actually…”
“They were young girls, too. Most of them were barely girls that you had to push into the pit while they screamed for their mothers. Did you do it yourself or did you have your guards do it for you?” Seeing that he had no answer, she laughed. “Besides, doesn’t Tyrant’s consort seem a much better position for you than maiden pusher?”
“Consort?” he asked, but had the wisdom not to say anything more.
“Oh, look. That must be the marketplace.”
***
Getting an appropriate offering was not easy. The guard at the entrance to the cave sent them back to the marketplace for some root of the blin tree, which turned out to be a series of small circular chunks of wood. The locals, wise to the pilgrimage functions of the cave, had priced it as high as they thought possible.
Gina was sure that their clothes had added a healthy bump to the price – enough that they’d had to leave Tavill’s coat with the peddler in order to obtain what they needed.
Seeing them sufficiently laden with offerings, the guard let them enter the cavern.
“I hope this was worth it, Gina muttered as they trudged down a dank, long cave that seemed to be more of a path than a natural cave. The walls were made of smooth rock formations that looked like they’d been worn smooth by running water. Torches in iron rings broke the penumbra, but they were much too far apart for easy navigation.
“This is a lava tube,” Tavill said. “We used to explore these as children in Hell’s Gate.”
“Fascinating,” Gina said. “What a lovely childhood you must have had. No wonder you became a professional maiden sacrificer.” The cave had done little to improve her mood. She hoped the fire pits were truly something special, because if not, they’d have sacrificed a cloak for no good reason.
And then, after a sharp bend in the tube, she stopped dead. The walls of slimy rock had suddenly disappeared, and the dark cavern was suddenly infused with a warm orange glow.
When her eyes adjusted, she saw that the light was coming from the cavern walls, no longer smooth and rounded but sharp and hard. She could see deep inside them, as if looking into a cloudy diamond. And there, in their profundities, lived a flickering orange and yellow and red glow, as if the walls had swallowed a fire and somehow kept it captive in their belly.
“How…?” Gina was at a loss for words. She’d seen enough of the world, both on the plains and in the mountains, that she knew beauty, but she’d also seen enough to know that beauty was the preserve of the rich, the almighty Tyrants and petty kings. It wasn’t something that would be open to the masses in this way.
She resolved, once she became Tyrant, to close the cavern for her own exclusive use.
They walked through the living fire of the walls slowly. Gina tried to take in every facet of the beauty around her, every twinkle and flame. She barely noticed as the clamminess of the cave gave way to a warm, dry wind.
The flaming diamond corridor ended as abruptly as it had begun. It opened into a cavern which radiated an angrier red than the subdued hues of the passage. A short shelf or rock opened onto a caldera in which the blood of the deep earth bubbled. It was crusted over at some points, but in others, there were burning stumps of wood from blin trees.
Despite the heat radiating from the pit, a knot of red-robed pilgrims knelt at the edge of the abyss, blisters forming as they slowly baked.
Gina walked to the edge only long enough to throw a branch into the caldera, and then stepped back from the oven-like air. She watched the wood burn, and understood why it was used for offerings. It floated on the molten rock, but stood vertically, and only area in contact with the lava burst into flame, a beautiful blue fire.
Fire elementals crawled all over the burning branches, ranging in size from the inconsequential – no larger than the one she’d summoned to light the candle in the priest’s home – to monumental monsters who barely touched the burning wood with a tendril. Most of those were hidden in the molten rock, but she could feel them below the surface, calling to her.
That, of course, was the problem with fire spirits. They were always hungry for things to consume, and human flesh had long been a favorite.
But that was only if you were less powerful than they were, and Gina was not that. She’d grappled with a lord of the hells themselves – she’d lost, of course, but she had survived – and nothing in this shallow pool held any terror for her. She summoned the largest, deepest of the lurking flame-spirits.
It resisted. Commanding it was like trying to pull a well-laden bucket out of a deep well. It was a slow, laborious process.
In the end, inevitably, she felt it budge, sensed the way it moved towards the surface. She saw the sudden flash as it broke through, and watched all the blin branches suddenly burst into flame all along their lengths, lighting the hall with near-white radiance. One of the pilgrims, unable to stand the sudden increase of heat, toppled, falling headfirst into the caldera. He didn’t even have time to scream before the monster of fire consumed his body.
“That is just the first of the sacrifices you shall have,” she told the elemental. “Obey and you shall be rewarded fairly.” She left silent what would happen if she was disobeyed. Elementals knew the kind of etheric pain that a good Wasyllan could impart. Gina knew she was among the best.
Tavill, on the other hand, seemed to have his reservations. He saw the colossus beginning to emerge from the fiery pit and stepped back almost to the opening of the crystal corridor. But, to his credit, that was as far as he went.
The pilgrims, on the other hand, were having a more difficult time of it. A couple staggered to their feet and turned to run, while the rest seemed to believe that the elemental was a god come to answer their prayers. This second group exploded into a cacophony of chanting and yelling, in a rapture of ecstasy which Gina found incredibly annoying.
“If you want, you can answer their prayers,” she told the spirit. She turned to face Tavill. “I think we have the power we need to take this town, don’t you?”
She ignored the horrible transformation of prayer into screams as the pilgrims paid for their unwise choice of deity.
***
The problems began as soon as they emerged from the crystal corridor. This was particularly frustrating because she’d seen how beautiful that place was when the source of light was actually within the corridor as opposed to just being refracted from the caldera. She could have spent days in there, telling her elemental to dance for her so she could just watch the infinite reflections.
But the guardians of Revenn had other ideas.
As soon as the elemental emerged from the crystal corridor, two solid-seeming spirits materialized and jumped at it.
The huge fire creature sidestepped them easily and plunged tendrils of flame into them, causing the new figures to hiss and spit, but Gina knew what they represented.
“Earth elementals,” she shouted. “Come on, we need to get out of this cave as fast as possible. We can’t fight them underground.”
She raced down the corridor, cursing the organic, uneven surface of the stone, and spirits materialized around them, trying to block the path of the flame, to smother it, to contain it.
Tavill began to fall behind. Unlike Gina, he wasn’t immune to the touch of the elemental’s flame, and he’d already been grazed more than once. He’d have some very pretty welts to show for it later. “Why don’t you control the elementals?” he shouted. “Send them back to their master!”
“I told you already. I’ not good with earth elementals.”
This was putting it mildly. Not only had she never been able to bend the servants of the soil to her will, but, more often than not, she found that they’d do anything in their power to oppose her desires. She remembered her lessons as if it had been yesterday: a shower of dirt and the laughter of the other acolytes.
This was exactly the same thing except on a much bigger scale.
The tiny earth spirits that had made up the bulk of the first wave of defenders were gradually being replaced by ever larger and more powerful elementals. Soon enough, it became evident that the sheer size and number of their enemies were herding the animate flame into a side cavern. It would never make it to the exit.
“Tavill, come on. They’re concentrating on the spirit. We need to try to get out.” She sprinted towards the exit; they were close enough that she could see daylight up ahead.
The earth elementals in the cave weren’t the tiny brown balls of ethereal matter she’d learned with as a child. They were big, solid-seeming boulders of energy, and even the small ones were ponderous. They wove their way between the spirits.
Gina avoided one final obstacle and turned towards the light, when she was suddenly struck in the stomach by what felt like a ball of rock. All of her forward motion was arrested, and she only had time to say “Oof,” before another impact swept her legs right out from under her. She landed hard.
By the time she’d recovered her breath sufficiently to stand up, the opportunity had passed. A wall of living spirit-rock pushed her towards another corridor, one she could have sworn wasn’t there before. When she refused to move, not only did she bet shoved, but smaller pellets of spirit bounced painfully off her head. She went where they directed.
Where they directed ended up being another larger cavern, about the same size and layout of the caldera chamber. But where that one was hot and oppressive, this one had a cool, humid wind blowing through it. Behind the shelf was a pool of strangely illuminated blue water. A waterfall fell from the roof into the lagoon, and it was mist from this cascade that gave the room its pleasant sensation.
The fire elemental cowered to one side of the platform, driven right to the edge of the water by the earth spirits which surrounded it. Tavill, likewise, looked as though he’d been battered pretty badly on the way, and Gina herself didn’t feel particularly well either.
But she suspected that her true concern were the people seated along the table with their backs to the pool. There were seven of them, four women and three men, and none of them looked amused. The ancient woman in the center, sitting at a chair that was both larger and more ornate than the rest glared at her with ice-blue eyes.
“Is there any reason we shouldn’t kill you right away?” she asked.
There really wasn’t. In fact, that they were still alive showed a tendency towards leniency that was both unusual and unwise. But she knew she needed to find one, or they’d eventually come to the same conclusion. “I have done nothing to harm you.”
“Nothing? Perhaps you don’t feel that killing pilgrims owed the protection of the city under ancient and revered treaties is harmful to the council?”
Ah, so these were the city’s revered rulers, the choice of a free people. They looked as sour and humorless as the tyrants of most of the other cities in the mountains. Who’d have elected people like this? If she’d been asked to vote, she would have voted for the bawdy mistress of the local brothel, or maybe a pleasant stable owner.
Clearly, the people of Revenn had a lot to learn.
She hung her head. “I am just a poor girl from the plains. I was enslaved by a Tyrant,” this part, at least, was true, although she’d gotten herself enslaved on purpose. “When I managed to escape, I came to Revenn, hoping that in a place where people are all considered equal, I would be given a chance to build a life.”
“You aren’t dressed like a slave. You’re dressed like a noble, and your actions mark you out as a sorceress.”
Gina was about to respond, but stopped herself. If the people of this town couldn’t tell the difference between a sorcerer and a disciple of Wasyl – no matter how far strayed from the flock – then she might have an opportunity. She wondered, then, why the earth elementals obeyed commands from these people. Probably ancient agreements followed slavishly despite their origins being long forgotten.
“It’s true I’m a sorceress, but the clothes are just illusion. As for the fire, I tried to conjure a light, but something more powerful than expected emerged from the pool. I couldn’t control it. We were running away when your army came and saved us.”
This caused a stir, and for a moment, it looked she would get away with it. But the steel-eyed woman presiding over the meeting brought her peers to order. “Do you take us for fools?” she asked.
Gina thought it best not to respond to that. Instead, she sent a tendril of summoning to the elemental of fire, her faithful servant. She ordered it to break through the spirits around it and burn the people at the table.
The flame didn’t move.
“I think it would be best to end these proceedings quickly. Let it be noted that the accused was allowed to give her side of the story, and decided not to cooperate. Let no one dispute this death sentence as unjust.”
The words ‘death sentence’ broke through her attempt to make her servant move. It simply wouldn’t – no longer a lord of the fiery depths, it had been cowed to the mentality of a defeated prisoner. It was useless.
“You dare to attempt to sentence me to death?” she cried, raising her arms.
Many of the people at the table flinched, but the woman in charge simply lifted a finger and two large earth elementals placed themselves between her and the table. When nothing happened, the old lady smiled. “Perhaps sorceress is too strong a word, but it is still a good thing we captured you. The world will become a better place without your mischief.”
“Perhaps you’re right. But not today.” As Gina had expected, all eyes were on her.
Unnoticed behind the platform, a wave formed, driven by the spirits of water. It reared up to nearly man-height washed over the fire elemental. That lord of flame writhed in pain and fury, and found the strength to fight its nemesis, more than Gina thought it had left. It writhed and screamed – and created steam.
Lots of steam.
Under Gina’s coaxing, air spirits spread the steam around the room, covering the chamber with a foggy soup so thick she couldn’t see for more than an arms-length in front of her.
But she’d looked to see where the exit was before acting.
Slowing only long enough to grab Tavill’s arm, Gina ran to the chamber entrance.
Without the earth spirits to block their way, they were out of the cave in moments, sprinting past a surprised sentry and through the marketplace.
Only after they’d left the city through the same gate they’d entered hours before and put some distance between themselves and the city did they halt their brisk walk.
“They’re not coming after us,” Gina said.
“I know.”
“So we’re safe.”
Tavill gave her a dark look. “Perhaps. Except that this road only leads to Hell’s Gate, where we really, really won’t be welcome. And our only other option is to walk through the mountains.”
“So we’ll walk through the mountains. I’m a powerful sorceress, remember?”
“All I know is that you have a true talent for nearly getting me killed.”
“I’ve always managed to bring you out alive, haven’t I?”
“You made me jump off a tower last time.”
“And here you are. Come on. We’ll cross the mountains. How hard can it be?” Gina set off at right angles to the path, not caring if she was heading north, south, east or west.
Tavill followed. “I’d feel much better about this if I had a coat.”
“Oh, shut up.”
©May 2019 Gustavo Bondoni
Gustavo Bondoni is an Argentine novelist and short story writer who writes primarily in English. His debut novel, Siege was published in 2016, while two others, Outside and Incursion, were published in 2017. On the short fiction side, he has over two hundred short stories published in fourteen countries. They have been translated into seven languages. his writing has appeared in Pearson’s Texas STAAR English Test cycle, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Perihelion SF, The Best of Every Day Fiction and many others. He placed second in the 2019 Been Memorial Contest and received a Judges Commendation in The James White Award. His work has appeared previously in Swords & Sorcery.
Other recent work includes an ebook novella entitled Branch, published in 2014. I have also published two reprint collections, Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011). The Curse of El Bastardo (2010) is a short fantasy novel. His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com.