Chapter 9

She groaned theatrically before we started to walk down the steps, together and one at the time. I had to let go of her arm, even though I had wanted to find a way to slip my hand kind of naturally into hers. But I couldn't.

The stairway was not very wide, and it was almost cramped as we walked down. My senses told me we should be fleeing instead, fleeing with the money we, if not had earned, then at least did deserve. Instead the light was slowly fading with each step we took downwards, towards the unknown. But the light would return, I knew, just as soon as we found the firedancer. Still, it was better to confront him now rather than later and unprepared somewhere. They would not rest until I lay dead, not if the prophecy was true. And, I looked at the outline of Nightbreeze in the dark, so far it had proven to be so.

There was heat down there. I could feel the air, as dry as no cellar in a port city should ever be. But whether it was greencoal or something more sinister I could not tell.

We both stumbled when after descending some thirty even yet steep steps of smooth stone, our seeking feet met the surface of the next step higher up that what we had become accustomed to. We were down at the bottom. The darkness was now so deep that the small light-drawn sketch of a door-frame just ahead of us seemed to be growing almost supernaturally bright.

My hand found the door, which felt old and crackled, as well as Nightbreeze's groping hands. We both kept silent, me with a thunderous heartbeat that was part fear, part her touch, as our hands together sought and located the ring which served as a door handle. It was warm to the touch.

Her hair tickled my chin as we both, still in almost perfect synchronization, pressed our ears to the wood. It smelled like a woman's hair, yet with a touch of the sea and the desert both, of the wild and free wind that sweeps across land and ocean.

Inside there was no sound to be heard for a long time, and I was just about to try pulling the ring carefully when there suddenly came a voice from within.

"Burning fire deep below." It was a man's voice speaking in Thailo, and the tone and timbre fitted the firedancer perfectly.

"Beast of Flame, Lord of Rage." Initially trembling, the voice seemed to gain in strength.

"Eyes of Embers, molten lead." There was a clearer sense of warmth now, as if the air inside was being heated by his words.

"The Furnace for your foes! The Inner Fire for your priests!"

I felt Nightbreeze stirring beside me. She did not speak Thailo, yet she deduced it first. "He's chanting a ritual!"

"Come, Melter of Ice! Come, Scorcher of Woods! Come, Burner of-"

I pulled at the ring. Whatever it was that was happening, we had to stop it. Or flee from it, to the ends of the world. And the role of a Wanderer was not to escape danger, but to face one's destiny. Unfortunately.

The door slid open, and the blazing fire almost blinded us. The furnace was lit, all right, but the Garoth House was saving a lot of money by not having to buy any greencoal.

It was a goodly sized room, with the far wall occupied by the huge, black metal oven that dominated the chamber, tall and fat like a monstrous bipedal creature. Apart from it there was a full crate of greencoal, spades for shoveling it into the gaping mouth of the iron beast, and a rickety bed and table which must belong to the firedancer.

He was chanting his invocation, now at the top of his lungs, his injuries did not seem to bother him anymore, and neither did the infernal heat coming from the living flames. For the flames were truly alive. Not the poetic life of a crackling wood-fire or dancing candle-flame, but alive with a dreadful will and purpose. Tentacles or serpentine bodies of flame, or were they maybe the fiery arms of a demon too large to fit in the furnace, were writhing in hypnotic gestures outside the frame of iron. The flames were licking at the brick walls, and dancing so close as to almost caress the shrieking firedancer.

I tell you the truth, if it had not been for Nightbreeze I would have fled that very instant. But she charged into the room at once, covered the few feet separating us from the firedancer, and pushed him squarely in the back with all the force a small, very determined woman could muster.