Behind them, Yasper cursed. Cnán dared to look and saw nothing but shadow. Yasper’s tiny light had gone out.
Finn grunted, and she whirled around to stare into the face of one of the filthy monks. His eyes were bulging and his mouth was opening and closing. His breath—how could it be possible?—was even worse than the corpse-rot stink of the courtyard. His hands scrabbled feebly at the ash shaft of Finn’s spear, protruding from his chest. He grunted and strained, broken Latin spewing from his mouth. Cnán caught a few words—vengeance and reclaiming among them—and then the breath rattled in his throat.
He was dead, but she hit him on the head anyway. Just to be sure.
The howling monk came next, the flaming skull-crowned staff roaring before him, and Finn hauled Cnán back, blocking the clumsy swing of the flaming staff with the steel tip of his spear. Sweat sprang on his brow and arms, coating him against the heat of the fiery ram skull. The monk swung the staff to and fro, forcing Finn back; he started chanting in time with his swings, an obscene liturgy.
Cnán stumbled down the hall, fleeing the fiery beast on the end of the pole. The tunnel filled with boiling orange light, and the heat—the waves of it, rolling over her—were too much, too much like…
And she was back in the burning house again, eight years old. The fire monster had her mother in its burning clutch, and it snapped and snarled at Cnán as she tugged and pulled at her mother’s heavy hand. Her skin blistered as it snorted fire, and her tears sizzled to steam on her face, burning her eyes as she shed them. Wake up, she cried, wake up.
The monster roared closer. Stark horns protruded from its fiery flesh, and its eyes were a maelstrom of black and red flame. Its mouth yawned open, fire gushing from its empty throat, and she remembered screaming, as if the violence of her cry could force the beast away. But the monster only howled with glee as it devoured her mother, its fiery tongues licking the skin from her face and arms, leaving nothing but black ash.
A shadow interposed itself between her and the flame beast, a phantom that shattered her memory. She came back to the present and found herself sprawled on her ass in the subterranean tunnel. Finn, his hand grabbing at her clothing, was dragging her away from the ragman priest and his fiery stick.
They passed Yasper, who—as soon as they were behind him—threw the fat jug he had scavenged from the ruins. The crazed monk shrieked and waved his flaming skull-crowned stick at them, and he paid no mind to the tumbling jug. It struck the stone floor in front of him and shattered.
The hallway erupted with blue flame, and a concussive wave of superheated air filled the tunnel. Yasper flung himself down on Cnán and Finn, or maybe he was bodily thrown by the wave of force—she wasn’t sure of anything after the explosion of light and sound. Fingers of heat crawled across her skin, stroking her cheeks and eyebrows. She didn’t dare open her mouth, for fear those hot tendrils would fling themselves into her throat and chest.
And then the tiny sun went out, leaving smoke and shadow and tiny strands of blue and yellow flame in its wake. The stench of burned meat filled the tunnel, and somewhere in the near distance, a pitiful creature mewled and whimpered.
Coughing, Yasper dragged himself off Cnán and leaned against the tunnel wall. His face was streaked with ash and sweat. “Such a waste of good aqua ardens,” he sighed.
Finn snarled something in his native tongue, and Yasper only nodded absently as he shoved himself upright. “But I didn’t kill us,” he replied, indicating the burned and smoking heaps in the hall. “The Virgin protects the truly clever.” He stamped out several tiny fingers of flame that were dancing on the floor.
The staff with the ram skull lay on the floor, its horned crown still afire, but the flames guttered and shivered as if they were slowing dying. Using his scarf, Yasper beat out the scattered rings of fire that wreathed the pole. Protecting his hands, he lifted the staff and, with its light, illuminated the passage beyond Cnán and Finn.
“Et facta est lux.” He grinned. “We’d best hurry before the rest of them find their courage again.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ERIC BEAR
Thanks to my family, to my friends, and to everyone who’s fought alongside me on this book, both metaphorically and literally. Thanks to all the other writers, especially Mark, for working harder than any one person should. Thanks to my dad and my grandpa, for guiding me down the path of writing.
GREG BEAR