A Single Candle Read online

  “Hm. Still holding a grudge, then?” Cerah continued to be surprised by her cavalier antiphons. This was not how one addressed a goddess, she supposed. But even so it seemed perfectly correct. Pilka may have been Ma’uzzi’s kin, but Cerah had a direct connection with him. The Greater Spark was God within. And for that reason, Pilka could rail against her, revile her, but she could not touch her. Just as Cerah had been immune to Surok’s destructive magic, she was safe from Pilka’s asperity.

  “Oh, how brave you are, little one,” said Pilka. “How boldly you speak to an entity who was before the dust of your star had even formed. Do you know why you are here, in this desolate place, among these forsaken umbrae? I will tell you. You are here because I pulled you here. My Surok is now free to shred your cherished Quadar.” Her smirking face seemed to loom only inches from Cerah’s, but the mortal girl did not flinch.

  “How I got here is of little consequence,” Cerah replied. “The Free People and the wizards of Melsa have joined forces against you. The Greater Spark may reside within my breast, but each warrior, each wizard carries their own portion, their own direct touch of Ma’uzzi.”

  “I told you not to speak that name!”

  Cerah could not resist. She began to repeat the name as would a taunting child: “Ma’uzzi. Ma’uzzi, Ma’uzzi, Ma…”

  “ENOUGH!” Pilka’s choler expanded to such a degree that the beauty that Ma’uzzi had breathed into her so long ago, before there was before, as the ancient scribes said, was completely occulted by the evil that she had cultivated within herself. She no longer expressed anger. She was anger. But she raged impotently, for nothing that she could say would provoke this human girl. No matter how repugnant was her locution, no matter how red hot her palaver, Cerah remained unaffected.

  “I agree. More than enough,” the girl replied, and with that she stepped forward, walking directly toward Pilka.

  “What do you think you’re doing, speck?” the goddess asked.

  “Leaving. I grow tired of you.”

  “WHAT?”

  Cerah continued to walk closer and closer to the glowering deity, her expression placid. Yet within her was a seed of uncertainty. Should the goddess refuse to yield, the Chosen One would eventually come into contact with an incorporeal entity. How that would play out she could not say, but the Spark told her to press on. It occurred to her that Pilka would be unwilling, unable even, to bear that mirror of Ma’uzzi which burned within her. On the other hand, Cerah might touch the ethereal entity and simply cease to exist. There was no precedent for this sort of meeting.

  And should she succeed in getting past Pilka, she had no idea where she was going.

  Still she came. At last it seemed that she was about to collide with the goddess, but at that moment, with a scream of exasperation and mania, Pilka’s form began to spin, forming what looked to Cerah something very similar to a funnel cloud. The celestial creature then tore through the throng of shuddering spirits, tossing them madly in every direction. Her voice found its way back to Cerah saying, “We are not finished, mote!” and then was gone.

  “That could have gone much worse,” Cerah said aloud. Then to herself she thought, It may yet.

  The Green Kettle, an outdoor café in the commercial district of Thresh, was closed, but around one of its tables sat the remaining leadership of the Light.

  “Alright,” said Parnasus. “Let us look with clarity and frankness at our situation. Forgive me for my bluntness, Slurr, but Cerah is gone. I pray her departure is only temporary, but the fact is that she is gone and Surok remains. That leaves us with the responsibility for continuing to fight back his forces. And the demon himself, Ma’uzzi help us.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help Cerah?” Slurr asked. He had forced himself to regain his composure, knowing that there was an entire army that was looking to him, but it was a struggle, and he was still preoccupied with thoughts of his wife.

  “At this point we know so little that I cannot think of a feasible course of action in the regard,” the First Elder said to the grieving lad.

  “We still have riders on every continent,” interjected Kern. “At the very least they can, along with all their other duties, keep watch for any trace of her.”

  Slurr smiled at his friend. “You always know what to say to me,” he told him. “I am not so naïve to think that we will get word that she has been found anytime soon, but knowing that your riders are looking for her makes me feel better. If anyone can find her, it is the wizards of Melsa.”

  Now Parnasus smiled. He was ever impressed with the pure heart of this man-child. Slurr was, he reminded himself, still not quite nineteen years old. Since he had first met Slurr, on the docks of Melsa just over a year ago, he was impressed not only by his size and strength, but by his constant optimism and his willingness to tackle any situation set before him. Their current footing, however, was far more slippery than any they had faced to that point.

  “Very well. Kern, please project that request to the rider captains immediately.”

  “At once, Elder,” Kern said. He stood and took a few steps away. Turning his back to aid his concentration, he focused his energy and sent a message to all the leaders of the rider groups across the planet, informing them what had happened and what to do. After he was sure the projection had been successful he rejoined the parlay.

  “Thank you,” the First Elder said. “Now then. We have turned back Surok here on Sejira, at least for the moment. General, where do you think the next assault will be?”

  Slurr thought for a moment, both about an answer to the question and about Parnasus’s motive for asking. He wants to keep my mind occupied, he thought. “In my head, since the black ships headed south when they retreated, I would say Jenoobia,” he answered finally.

  Kern, who knew Slurr better than anyone, heard the unspoken “but” and immediately asked, “What does your heart say?”

  “Yes, my heart gives a different answer. For Surok the absence of Cerah will give him the same sense of advantage that he had when tuning into her anger. Then he knew where she was, and he went elsewhere. Now, having taken her…” his voice caught as he said the words, but he pressed on. “Having taken her he can go where he wishes, and my heart says that will be Illyria.”

  “We have already dispatched a sizable force to your homeland,” said Parnasus, “and it was home to the largest standing patrol even before the reinforcements were sent, so we can hope for good things if that is the case. We have twice dealt successfully with the demon’s foul legion, once utterly and once decisively enough to cause them to turn tail.”

  “Yes,” said Slurr. “But in neither case did Surok actually join the fray. I am quite certain that the next attack will see him directly involved. I think he will go to Illyria because there are more people there than on any other continent. There are ten great cities spread across the land.”

  “Nine,” Kern corrected quietly.

  “Yes, of course. Nine. How could I forget that Kamara is no more? I saw its end with my own eyes. So, yes, nine. That is still a tasty prize. If he were able to cleanse Illyria of human contamination it would give him great momentum and severely damage the morale, not only of the Army of Quadar, but of all people, everywhere.”

  “I feel that the general is correct,” said Yarren, whom Slurr had asked to sit in this counsel of the highest authority of the forces of the Free People. “Kamara was the capital city of Illyria, but there are others almost as large, almost as important. Trakkas, Pinz Amin, Xaxar… these three alone hold over a million souls. And Harundy holds that many itself.”

  “I too believe that Illyria will be the next of the Green Lands to be darkened by Surok’s fetid presence,” the First Elder said after considering the opinions of Yarren and Slurr. “So, do we further bolster our battalions already there?”

  Slurr answered decisively. “Yes. I would take the force we brought to Sejira and head on to Illyria. As fast as we can load them.”

  A
dmiral Renton was the fifth member of the counsel seated at the café table. He spoke for the first time. “We have become quite adept and loading and unloading our warriors. Taking the force that defended Sejira and moving them to Illyria should not take long, but Surok once again has a head start.”

  Slurr nodded gravely. “He does. The army already on the continent will not yield to him easily, but the sooner we can get the additional fighters there, the better. Obviously.”

  “There are currents we can utilize to get to Illyria, similar to the one that brought us close to Thresh,” said Renton. “They are not as strong, nor is there one single stream. It will require some skillful seamanship to find them all.”

  Slurr smiled at the Admiral. “With you at the head of the Armada, I have no doubt that every advantage will be exploited.” He paused. “I will not be sailing with you on this voyage, however.”

  Parnasus lifted an eyebrow. Is his heart faltering? he wondered nervously.

  “I know that my presence does not have the same effect on the warriors as Cerah’s,” he said in answer to the First Elder’s unspoken question, “but I will be at the head of the Army sooner than later. Kern, will Szalmi bear his old friend once more?”

  Kern’s face brightened as he realized that Slurr was planning on going to Illyria on dragon-back, and not remaining behind after all. “Szalmi will always welcome you…” he began, but as he spoke a loud trumpet from nearby interrupted him. It’s was not his own match-mate that was calling however. It was Tressida. The golden queen, who had been standing with Szalmi at the edge of the courtyard where the Green Kettle was situated, now gingerly made her way through the open space and came to stand behind Slurr’s chair. Once there she trumpeted once again, rather loudly.

  “I think,” the First Elder said, “that the match-mate of the Chosen One is expressing the desire to carry you on her majestic back.”

  Slurr stood and put his arms around Tressida’s long neck. “I did not mean to offend, Tressida. Rather I did not feel worthy to ask that of you. I would be honored to fly between your golden wings.”

  Tressida, happy to have her intentions understood, pressed hard into Slurr’s embrace and made gentle cooing sounds.

  “Then it is decided,” Slurr said. “I will select the divisions I wish to deploy and instruct my captains to move them to the harbor. Admiral, you will again ably facilitate the loading of the troops. Kern, mobilize the flights at once. Yarren, I would have you remain with Parnasus until I’ve finished issuing my orders and am ready to depart. We three will catch up with the remainder of the wizards and fly hard to Illyria.”

  The three wizards and Renton looked at Slurr with renewed admiration. None of them really knew, beyond the wizards’ sense that Cerah was not dead, what had happened to the Chosen One, to where she had been taken, or by what means. Yet after only an hour since her disappearance, Slurr had realized, as had Parnasus earlier, that it fell to him to fill another portion of the void her vanishing had left. None doubted that the lad’s spirit was in turmoil, but his dedication to the army, one that had been raised upon the word that evil was approaching but that the Chosen One had arrived, was allowing him to press through his personal turbulence.

  “As you say, General,” Parnasus said at last. He stood and faced the young man. As the others watched, he lifted his hand, raising his fist in salute. Kern, Yarren and Renton quickly rose to their feet and did the same.

  Slurr returned the salute and said, “Enough talk, then. Let’s move.”

  2

  Therra

  Cerah had been walking through the Under Plane for what seemed like days. It did not take long to see that the hopeless souls who dwelt in that forsaken region, their hearts already broken by the knowledge that they would be forever separate from the love of Ma’uzzi, were offered no reprieve from their agony by their surroundings. The Under Plane was utterly featureless. There was no light, save for that which Cerah carried within her. The Greater Spark, in this region of spirit, caused her to glow ever so faintly. To the spirits that populated this eternally dismal place, however, the incandescent blush was like a blazing signal fire. In a realm that knew no light, even a glint was blinding.

  And so wherever she went the sad shades were drawn to her. They attempted to approach her, their spectral hands reaching out to touch, grab, possess. She kept them at bay by casting the away spell, although she modified it, (as only the Chosen One could), into a bubble, which both encased her and moved as she did.

  Cerah knew from reading the history of Quadar which had been magically inscribed upon the walls of Onesperus that humans had dwelt upon the planet for a very long time. The race of wizards, according to those ancient runes, had appeared later, brought forth by Ma’uzzi to stem the rising tide of evil, introduced to Quadar by his sister/daughter, Pilka.

  Even knowing all of this, the sheer number of disowned spirits astounded her. Where ever she moved, they surrounded her. The spell worked to open a path for her as she passed, but they were never far from her. Indeed, they pressed in as closely as she allowed.

  Further compounding her discomfort was the reverberation of their sighs and moaning as it constantly filled her ears. As if having been pulled from the beauty of the Green Lands into these vast doldrums were not bad enough, the ceaseless soundscape of misery literally assailed her.

  She had put forth a brave face when confronting the ruler of the Under Plane. Even as she had been squaring off with the cask of hatred that was Pilka, she’d been surprised by each thing that had come out of her mouth. Now that she was sometime removed from the encounter Cerah reflected upon the experience and was absolutely dumbfounded by her own temerity. She had stood up to a goddess!

  However, upon remembering that the heart of Ma’uzzi, who created Pilka as well as everything else, beat within her she was better able to understand her own boldness. The creator has chosen her, and so in so choosing had endowed her with the authority to confront any that opposed his will. In the days through which she had passed since beginning her quest to defeat Surok, she had grown more and more comfortable with that authority. She commanded human and wizard warriors alike. When she said fight, they fought. When she said stand down, they did.

  But to stand up to the very mother of her eternal enemy with such impudence that it had actually left Pilka at a loss, that it had caused her to retreat and, Cerah knew, regroup…well that still seemed to her a bit too close to madness.

  As she continued to move through the endless nothingness it occurred to Cerah that when she had turned to Ma’uzzi for guidance, and he had taken the anger and hatred from her heart, along with emotions she had not expected to lose, the fear that rationality told her she should have felt when looking into the eyes of Pilka was absent as well. She mourned the loss of much of the passion that had characterized her early life, but she was grateful that her capacity for terror seemed to be gone as well.

  At one point, in a vain attempt to ascertain the distance she’d traveled Cerah looked behind, toward the direction from which she’d come. When she did she realized that her away spell was having a residual effect, for the spirits did not immediately fill in the swath that her passing cut through their thronging mass. However, she saw that one spirit seemed to be using the path to follow her. It was the specter of a young girl. Initially she thought little of it. She knew that all the denizens of this place were drawn to the Spark of the creator that she carried. But as she continued on, she looked over her shoulder again. Most of the spirits, once they realized that they could not draw near to her, simply stood and watched her pass.

  But this girl continued to shadow her. Cerah frowned, and turned away again, moving a little faster through the desolation. Several minutes later she glanced back to find the female sprite was still following and had in fact closed some of the distance between them. She stopped and turned around. The girl stopped as well, but did not retreat.

  “You! Stop following me. It is your lot to remain in this place. Purs
uing me will not change that.”

  The girl took a few steps toward Cerah, but was eventually halted by the spell. Cerah could see her more clearly now. She was young, no more than ten or eleven. Her hair was long and unkempt, and she was clothed in a plain frock, only a shade grayer than her skin. It was more tatter than cloth. Like every other spirit in the Under Plane her face was a mask of sorrow, but Cerah saw that in spite of that she was quite lovely. She meant to push her further away and be done with her, but she did not.

  “What do you want? You know that I cannot help you. For whatever reason, Ma’uzzi has decreed that you must dwell in this Plane.”

  The girl spoke, and her voice, sorrow notwithstanding, was musical. “I know my fate, Cerah of Quadar. I know you are not here to help me.” For several moments, they faced one another saying nothing. Then the girl continued. “But I can help you.”

  Cerah was not expecting that. “How? How can one assigned to this lorn realm aid me?”

  “The Under Plane is vast. No, not just vast. It is eternal. You will walk in the straight path you have chosen forever. In truth, however, that path will take you nowhere. For the Under Plane curves in upon itself, and the further you journey, the closer you come to your starting point. It seems flat, but it is in fact a sphere within a sphere.”

  Cerah stared hard at the girl. It was not inconceivable that she might be lying. But as she looked around her, she realized that there was no way to tell if she had in fact made any progress in her lengthy travelling. It was just as possible that she was exactly where she’d found herself upon gaining awareness.

  “Alright. Suppose you’re telling the truth. I still see no way that you could help me. If what you’re saying is fact, then I am trapped, no better off than yourself.”

  No lessening of the rueful expression occurred, but Cerah though she sensed a shadow of a smile in the girl’s next words. “I know a way.”