Meek

Chapter 37: Into the Night Air

"I'm his servant!" Eli blurted, raising his hands and putting a terrified expression on his face.

Which wasn't hard. How by the Dreamers' soggy pillows had the mage known? The girl told him that nobody except Cousin Ugenia had ever met Chivat Lo in person. Maybe she'd lied, maybe that's what she--

A spark showed him the woman slipping toward him from behind, with her short sword in her fist.

Eli didn't move. Instead, he squeaked in outrage: "Of course I'm not my master! I'm his servant, his apprentice, his dogsbody!"

The woman's blade touched his neck and the big man drew a dagger from beneath his cloak.

Well, damn. Eli had hoped to buy himself another half minute, to reach the door--to engage the bolt--to handle the mage--but apparently he was out of time. So he sent the sparks flashing invisibly past the marquis and babbled one of his prepared lies.

"He--my master s-said he told the c-cousin! That I'd be here to g-greet you and he'd--"

"The cousin?" the marquis demanded.

"Y-yes, yes m'lord! That's what my master said, the cousin."

The sparks slammed into two of the oil lamps beside the door, which Eli had finessed to be as precariously-balanced as possible.

"He will return any m-moment," Eli babbled. "Please! He found evidence, he found proof--not proof, a lead, he found a lead about who attacked you, he said you--your lordship--he hoped you'd forgive him for--"

The lamps toppled to the floor with innocuous clinks. Then their wick-flames caught on the oil he'd poured inside the glass domes, which splattered onto the linen cushions and the basket of treated parchment. The flames spread with shocking speed across the straw-stuffed, oil-soaked carpet he'd rolled against the wall--then jumped the pictures on both sides of the door, which flared with a fierce heat that shocked even Eli, who'd expected it.

Well, and who'd saturated them in absint liquor, after buying a flask from a distiller.

The sword sliced a shallow slash in Eli's neck and the big guard spun toward the hallway, to defend against a possible attack from that direction. Mage-shields shimmered into place around the maquis while smoke billowed to the ceiling then started clogging the air.

"The bedroom !" Eli yelped, pointed toward the hallway despite the sword at his throat. "There's a way out!"

"There's no flogging way out," the big man snarled.

"The trap door! Under the bed, my master has a trap door!"

Eli sent one spark to overturn the rest of the booby-trapped lamps while the other shot toward the front door to drag the bolt closed.

Because he needed to lock them in: he needed to burn them alive. Nobody would expect an assassin to lock himself into a burning room with his target. They'd see him as another victim, not a killer. At least that's what he hoped. He'd coiled a rope inside a decorative urn by the window, in case he needed to get out that way. The rope would only reach halfway to the ground, but it was the longest he could find on short notice. It would break his fall, at least a little. And he'd last long enough in the fire, he hoped, to use it--after they all succumbed to fire and smoke.

Not even a mage could survive an inferno; magic offered no defenses other than shields.

Except the bolt was too heavy for a spark to shift. A pity, but not a surprise. He'd hoped to lock the door by hand before starting the fires.

While he strained at the bolt, the big man charged toward the bedroom. The woman released Eli roughly and his other spark overturned a bowl of oil that spilled across the floor, splashing liquid flames everywhere. In those first few critical seconds nobody thought to flee through the front door because the front door was the source of the danger, the first place that had been engulfed by flames and the one that was burning hottest.

And because he'd promised them another way out.

Smoke swirled around the edges of the mage's mostly-transparent shields as he and marquis started after the big soldier. Coughing and limping, recoiling as the flames spread and caught in the rags and kindling that Eli had planted across the apartment.

"You coming?" the woman said.

He gripped the cut on his neck--already healed beneath his palm--and whimpered, "I'm bleeding!"

She snorted in disgust and stalked toward the bedroom.

When she disappeared, he headed in the other direction. Stepping into the wall of flames at the door. He grimaced as the heat scorched his cheeks and stung his eyes. Despite his troll-blood, he took a moment to brace himself before putting his hand on the bolt.

The flesh of his hand sizzled, but he managed to shoot the bolt home then snap off the lever. He'd weakened that with a metal rasp, and to his surprise his sabotage worked perfectly.

Except he gasped from pain as his skin blistered from the scalding metal. He clenched his teeth until the numbness spread, and crouched beneath the thickest layers of smoke. He almost crawled to the desk. He'd stuffed a waterlogged blanket into the lowest drawer, as one of his various options. He thought he might wrap himself in that and ride out the fire in the kneehole.

Except that mage could blow a hole in the front door in an instant. And the moment they stopped looking for a 'trap door,' that's exactly what he'd do. Well, if they could find the front door. Eli couldn't see much--at least not with his eyes--through all the heat and smoke.

The sparks guided him, though. He crawled past the desk to the couch and pulled the dryn 'holly dagger' from beneath a cushion. Pierce the marquis with that and the wavy blade would slice his guts so badly that not even the physician mage could heal him. If he were here, which he wasn't. He was no doubt in the cool clinic, drinking a cold glass of water from the cistern and--

And he didn't matter. Eli needed to control the tension buzzing through him and focus on the mage who actually presented an immediate threat.

He needed to stab him, distract him, blind him--anything to keep him from smashing the door into splinters. Sweat beaded on Eli's face and immediately evaporated from the heat. Smoke scalded his throat but he managed to shove the desk closer to the door, to put another obstacle in front of the mage.

With one spark he monitored the shouting in the other room--at first frantic, looking for the non-existent trap door, then enraged, growing louder as the marquis and his retainers returned toward the inferno of the main room and then ...

And then the shelf he'd rigged in the kitchen must've collapsed, sending plumes of finely-ground flour into the air, because a deafening blast rocked the apartment and gouged chunks from the dividing wall.

Holy damn. He'd read about mill fires and dust explosions in the archives, but he hadn't expected that to work quite so well.

Debris spat everywhere, in gouts of fire and pain and noise. A shard of broken wood pierced Eli's leg, and the woman shrieked through the smoke. Or maybe that was the man, no way to tell. Agony made everyone the same.

As Eli gritted his teeth and yanked the shard from his calf, a spark caught a glimpse of a figure staggering through the smoke and flames. The woman. She walked three steps, bleeding from her ears, then collapsed. A moment later, big man almost tripped on her. Half his face was charred and swollen from the explosion and he swept his sword clumsily in front of himself, groping through the smoke like a blind man with a stick.

Through the sparks, Eli saw that he himself looked the same. He felt his lungs burning, straining, suffocating from lack of air--he wasn't healing as fast as he was taking on damage. This wasn't a race he could win, not for long. He needed to marshal his strength ... and finish this quickly.

The marquis and mage followed the big man across the flame-engulfed apartment. They didn't look so quite as rough as he did, because the shields had protected them from the blast. Still, nothing could protect them from smoke and heat, not while they were trapped inside this oven. The marquis was coughing, and dragging his weak leg, while the mage was sweating and blinking, sweating and blinking.

"Find the--" The marquis gave an ugly coughed. "--door. The blessdamned door, Hrough!"

"Try here," the big man said, from nowhere near the door.

"Not there, listen to the--" The marquis hacked for a moment, and his voice sounded feeble when he finally caught his breath. "This way, Gundray. Follow the noise."

Eli didn't understand for a moment, then he realized the marquis was right. Men were shouting in the landing, the closest few members of the marquis's forces were trying to break through that metal-reinforced door. Hidden by the smoke, Eli crawled across the room--and a ceiling beam collapsed.

The mage staggered and Eli punched his dagger crossways through the big man's knee then yanked. Blood speckled his face and the man screamed and fell hard, and Eli stabbed him in the throat.

"Gundray?" the marquis said. "Gundray?"

"He's dead." The mage's voice sounded like sandpaper and the hem of his tunic was starting to burn. "And I can't see the godsblessed door."

The marquis coughed so hard that had to stop walking, and just hunched here, leaning on his stick. "I ... I can't ..."

"Keep moving, friend," the mage said, as the flames caught higher on his tunic.

"For you, I will indulge in mercy," Eli whispered to the marquis, repeating his words from long ago. "Without which, justice is only cruelty. Thank me, boy."

The marquis's face whipped toward him, and the mage lowered his shield long enough to blast a--a something--two feet from Eli's face, digging a tunnel through the smoke. The projectile shattered the shutters behind him. Cool air gusted in--or gusted out, he couldn't tell, because the whole world was fire and smoke and the rush of fresh air simply bellowed the flames higher and hotter.

The mage blasted again, but Eli had already crawled sideway, circling around. So the attack missed him--and missed the urn with the rope, too, thank the Angel. At least that one had. One more stray blast, though, and Eli might find himself trapped in here as well, to burn with them.

So he wouldn't let the mage attack again. His scalded lung screamed for air and a spark guided him onward until he rose through the smoke and stabbed the mage twice from behind.

Hrough fell dead, a mound of burning cloth and melting flesh, and the marquis dropped to his knees a moment later, overcome by the smoke, holding his walking stick in both hands at the world burned around him.

Eli crouched in front of him and said, "Thank me, boy."

"Who ... the bright ... heavens ..." The marquis coughed until he spat blood. "Are you?"

"I'm the guy you should've left alone," Eli said, and beat him to death with the pommel of his dagger.

***

When he straightened from the body, he felt weak and dizzy. No air. Every inch of his exposed skin felt scraped and scalded. He couldn't heal from suffocation forever. Probably couldn't heal from it for another two minutes. So he turned dizzily toward the broken window.

He needed air.

He needed great gulps of fresh air, cold on his skin and--

And wait, he was forgetting something. He needed something else at that window, too ...

His thoughts turned to ash. He took a wobbly step, and then another. The skin of his arms blistered from the heat. The scent of roast meat surrounded him, mocked him with the memory of the troll pantry. He took another step. His hair caught fire, his clothes burned and melted to his skin.

Another step, and his weeping eyes stopped working. He couldn't see through them anymore but the sparks showed him the window, the swirl of scalding smoke and cool night air and ...

An urn! The rope. He needed to grab the rope from the urn, tie the end to that heavy bureau but he felt his body shutting down. He'd done it. He'd finished. Halo, he'd succeeded. He'd killed the marquis and--

A spark noticed a noise behind him. A whisper. A gurgle? The men pounding at the door? Not the marquis. The marquis was dead this time, absolutely and irrevocably dead with his head pounded into jelly but--

The spark focused on the mage.

The mage was a mound of burning cloth on the floor behind Eli. The mage was teetering on the brink of death, but a shield blanketed him, keeping him alive for another few seconds as his blistered lips moved and a chunk of burning debris blasted at Eli and caught him in the ass.

He staggered forward and an eruption of wreckage slammed into his back. He felt something snap inside him a moment before a hurricane struck: the male guard's body, a broken chair, beams and plaster, all pounding him toward the window.

With one charred hand, Eli flailed for the decorative urn containing the rope. His fingers touched the scalding clay, then everything shattered and he felt himself flung violently forward.

Through the window.

Into the night air, and falling.