The Land Set Aflame

Chapter 61: The Touch of Flames

It was one of those moments of calm and clarity in the wake of battle. The intensity of physical exertion and the stress of emotional conflict had dissipated suddenly after the climax, and was replaced with a deafening stillness.

There was the exchange of glances among victorious allies, their expressions of relief and understanding resonating with the emotional residues in Leofric's mind.

Leofric dared to crack a smile, and even chuckled a little as he stood up. Svenden and Callyndia joined him, hesitantly. Kithana lagged a bit behind, but did finally break into a smile as she approached Leofric for a quick embrace and a light kiss.

The momentary touch of her heat on his lips brought with it a flash of understanding. Leofric frowned. "A touch of flames," he said softly.

A confused reaction danced across Kithana's pretty face for a moment. "What?" she asked.

"Somehow," he said, "Something touched that woodland spirit and transformed it into a fire spirit. That wasn't Myndrith: her magic is more of the shadow variety. It had to be Master Garrafey. I suppose that must be what he's been doing here: learning to transform one type of spirit — or one type of mana — into another. To give them just a touch of flames."

"Like he changed me into a shadow spirit," Kithana said.

"I don't think that was quite the same thing," Leofric said, "Shadowflame is both fire and darkness. He didn't change your fundamental nature: merely added a new component to what was already there. But, in this instance, he completely changed this woodland spirit into a fundamentally different type of spirit, so that nothing of its original nature remained behind."

"Is that something new?" Callyndia asked from several paces away.

Leofric could only shrug. "I admit I don't know," he said, "It seems, when he changed the spirit, the spirit took on a different nature: he became bold and aggressive, he was wailing in constant pain; whereas before he was simply a gentle, shy creature of the forest."

He thought for a moment. "From the shadowfolk, he learned how to blend shadow and flame. Myndrith is both fairy and shadow spirit, so perhaps he learned from her how to combine those two. In the instance of this recent spirit, he learned to infuse flame onto a fairy spirit."

"So, that's his end goal?" Callyndia asked, "He just wants to learn how to mix all the different kinds of mana together? Shadowflames... fairyflames... shadowfairies?"

"Perhaps," Leofric said, "But in this last case, he then took the next step: he stripped away the original essense of the fairy spirit, leaving only the new infusion of flames behind."

"That doesn't make sense to me," Callyndia replied, "He would have to keep something of the original essence, right? Otherwise... well, the spirit wouldn't have remained the same entity, would it?"

Leofric furrowed his brow and chewed his lip in uncertainty. "Yes," he said, "I suppose you're right. I'm probably greatly oversimplifying what is undoubtedly a very complex and nuanced process. But, it seems, whatever happened here, Master Garrafey used the shadowfolk and your dryad friend as stepping stones, a means of learning something fundamental about the nature of spirits and mana."

"But it's not just spirits, is it?" Svenden asked, drawing everyone's eyes to him. Clearly, nobody had expected him to contribute to this conversation.

"What do you mean?" Callyndia asked.

"Well," he said, "The first time we encountered weird shadow blending, it was in skunks. Skunks are material creatures, not spirits."

Leofric exchanged a look with Callyndia. "We had assumed that those skunks were simply natural creatures that had been exposed to ambient mana in some way," he said, "But I suppose it would make sense if they were actually creations of Master Garrafey. An early attempt on his part, perhaps?"

"But what's his end goal in all this?" Callyndia asked, "He wants to transform things into other things? Infuse them with contradicting types of mana? I don't see a clear objective in all this."

"And what does it have to do with that 'Great Furnace' in Ylvas?" Kithana asked.

Before he could offer an answer, there was a sudden darkening of the sky, as if a cloud had suddenly flown in front of the sun. They all looked up, and saw plumes of smoke.

This sparked a thought in Leofric's mind. "He wants to cover the land in flame," he mused thoughtfully, "To set the whole land aflame."

"Yeah, he wants to burn everything," Svenden said, "We already knew that, didn't we? That's kind of what this whole thing has been about, hasn't it?"

Leofric's eye twitched a bit in annoyance. "No," he said as gently as he could manage, "You're missing some of the subtle nuance, Mr. Moon. He doesn't want to burn things: he wants to... transform them. He wants to sort of... infuse the land with flames, so that, when it all burns, it isn't destroyed in the process."

Svenden blinked in confusion. "Wait, you think he's trying to protect the world from the flames?" he asked.

"Well, he certainly sees himself as the hero of this story," Leofric said, "But, none of this matches the rhetoric I heard from his own mouth. When he introduced his plans to me, it was all about 'restoring balance' and 'righting old wrongs' or something. Nothing about transforming beings into entities of fire."

"I don't know, Leofric," Callyndia said, "Admittedly, I haven't had much interaction with him, but none of this sounds like what he was saying or doing. Are you sure you aren't just... looking for a reason to believe in him again?"

Leofric sighed heavily. "Perhaps," he said, "Perhaps there is a part of me that hopes, deep down, that there is a good motive behind all of this, but I'm afraid I can't condone my old master's actions, regardless of his inner motives. He's clearly attempting to recapitulate something of what the Liches of El-Hesk did to precipitate the Age of shadow, only he's trying to learn how to convert it for use with fire mana instead of shadow. And regardless of what motive he has, I think it will not end well."

"Well, here's what it sounds like to me," Callyndia said, "Unlike shadow, fire is destructive and savage and uncontrollable." She looked apologetically at Kithana then. "With rare exceptions, of course. It sounds like he's trying to glean some of the subtlety and stability of shadow, so he can use it to control the flames. It doesn't sound like he wants to save the world from the flames: it sounds like he simply wants to be in control of it while it all burns."