Aelos cast himself through the night toward the distant, telltale red-orange flicker of hellfire. He’d been following his tracker for days as he pressed ever further south into the Phoenix Reaches. A river of golden fire cut through the grassy plain in the far distance, bisecting the monotonous landscape.

  The mistress had moved west, commandeering his hellhound and blindly assuming that the mortal would travel directly to his original goal. Aelos knew that he was expected to stay close, but… he was the one who had found the mortal the first time. If it wasn’t for him, they would have lost him. When he’d brought the news back, he had expected some real backup, not even fewer demons than he’d had supporting him to begin with!

  He had been wrong to go to her. Zijeregh was weak. Maybe even vulnerable. She had failed to control her mortal summoner, and it had placed them all in this awkward position. But… it also meant that he had an opportunity to exploit. If he could find the mortal and bring his soul to Nuros, he might take the mistress’ place.

  So, when Tallash’s orphaned imp came to him with an offer, seeking to redeem himself after his failure on the road, Aelos had accepted. While the mistress searched blindly to the west, Varinoth would lead him to the true prize. Imps had exceptional tracking abilities – they could follow days-old scent trails – and the hellhound belonged to Aelos just as the imp did. It had been a simple thing to suggest to it that perhaps the burning rains might have obscured the human’s trail. Hellhounds looked like stupid beasts, but they understood well enough.

  The imp had picked up the trail on the second day, heading deeper into the Phoenix Reaches. He tracked during the day, leaving Aelos behind to slowly navigate the shadow-poor territory. When night fell the shade caught up, moving much more quickly in the semi-darkness of the burning land and searching in a wide area to try to finally pin down the slippery mortal. He hadn’t found anything so far, but last night the imp had told him they were getting close.

  Tonight his gamble would finally pay off – it had to. He couldn’t afford to spend such a long time out of contact with the mistress. She would be growing suspicious as it was.

  Skipping the imp’s small signal fire, Aelos picked a spot far from any burning trees and cast himself upward in three dimensions. Eagerly, he scanned the grasslands around him, paying special attention to any light sources.

  There was nothing. Just dark grassland and a burning copse of trees in the distance.

  Annoyed, he descended, collapsing into two dimensions and finding refuge in the flickering shadow of a tall clump of grass next to the hovering hellfire flame. Varinoth crouched in front of it, unaware that he was in his master’s presence.

  “Where is the mortal?” he hissed, and the little thing jumped in surprise and whirled around, looking for his flickering form. “You told me we were close, yet he is nowhere to be found. What are you playing at?!”

  “Ah, yes, great one!” he answered, bowing toward him. He glanced up from his prone position, licking his lips nervously. “He isn’t here.”

  Aelos hissed in displeasure. “Then why have you stopped? There is no time!”

  “Right, yes… he… isn’t nearby,” the imp laughed nervously. “You see, I lied.”

  The shade flickered agitatedly and lashed out. Darkness stretched into the shape of a howling face flickered across the space between them and struck the insolent creature in the chest – pure, distilled terror, lovingly torn from the remnants of a mortal soul.

  Varinoth sat down heavily with a short cry and his hellfire flickered out. He shivered uncontrollably, breathing in short gasps. Aelos stood up in the resulting darkness, looming over him.

  “Explain yourself.”

  The imp collected himself and looked up, face splitting into an unsteady grin, showing sharp teeth.

  “I didn’t know great Zijeregh would come, or that you’d have the hellhound. But you were chasing the mistress’ mortal. I had to do something! I thought maybe you would tell the others, and I could lead everyone in the wrong direction. But it’s better than nothing. I helped! If he lives, the mistress will reward me!”

  Another bolt of shadow wiped the stupid smile off the imp’s face.

  “The mistress will break you for your stupidity and your treachery,” Aelos corrected the idiot. “The mortal’s death was ordered by great Nuros himself.”

  The imp shuddered uncontrollably for a moment, but recovered again annoyingly quickly. Mortal terror was, unfortunately, a weapon best applied to mortal minds. Aelos prepared to strike again when the imp gritted his teeth and raised a hand, creating a large burst of hellfire that congealed into a rough, rapidly spinning blob in the air. The light pushed Aelos back down into two dimensions – away from the fool.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “My great mistress will reward me – may her fire burn bright!” Varinoth snarled, eyes suddenly glowing red. “Tallash is dead and I didn’t swear any loyalty to you, or to Zijeregh. But you did. You should hurry, if you want to have any hope of explaining your absence to the great one.”

  Aelos flickered back from the imp, darting around the shadows cast by the imp’s light. He wanted to kill him, but there was little he could do here. While Varinoth couldn’t harm him either, he just wasn’t well equipped for this fight, even against an inferior opponent. How irritating. He would need to hunt him down on the other side, with the help of his thralls.

  Fuming with anger, he cast himself up into the night sky toward the north, back the way he’d come. As his mind cleared, fear drove him to push himself faster and faster. If Zijeregh had already found the mortal, he would have nothing to show Nuros or the mistress. He had to hurry, but he knew it would take days to find the others. What would he tell the mistress, now that he had failed a second time?

  ***

  Bernt bit down on the red coal grass florets, stripping them from the tough black grass. They hadn’t worked when he’d tried them about a week ago, but it was the most edible magical material he had on hand. He’d tried to capture some of the burning rain from a small pond left by the rains this morning, but hadn’t managed it. At first, he’d tried to get some into a vial with a cantrip, but the mundane glass shattered on contact. Then, deciding to trust his immunity to heat, he’d dipped a hand in to scoop some out. The stuff burned up almost instantly, rising into the sky in a yellowish cloud.

  At that point, he’d considered drinking some directly, but decided against it in the end. He was probably safe, but he had no safe way to test if he was just as resistant inside as out. Sure, boiling hot water wasn’t much of an issue, but burning rain was much hotter than that. Better to work up to it.

  The bark from the flaming trees would be a safer option to try, but he’d wait to make sure he could gather some more before destroying his only good sample – he wanted the opportunity to examine it properly somewhere quiet and without having to worry about his food running out.

  While he chewed on the florets, Bernt focused on gaining control of his new sorcerous channels, flexing them to modify the way mana circulated through him. It was difficult, but he knew he would get the hang of it – just as he had with his arm back in Halfbridge. He just hoped that it would allow him to control his body heat.

  Swallowing the mouthful of tiny petals, Bernt stopped for a moment to focus his senses on the channels that were threaded through his organs. He wasn’t sure exactly how to tell if it was working, but he’d recognize it when it happened. For a moment, though, nothing did. Then, he felt it as the upper channels, those near his stomach, twitched inward involuntarily. At the same time a warm sensation washed through the area, as if he’d just drunk some hot tea.

  That was something.

  The warm sensation persisted, but… was that it? His mana was moving exactly as it had before, and there was no rush of power.

  When nothing new happened after another minute, Bernt dug his papers out of his sack, recorded the results, and got back underway. He would find out eventually. As he threw the sack back over his shoulder, he noted that the cloth was getting dry and brittle from prolonged exposure to the heat emanating from his body. The same was true of his boots – the soles had cracked and were starting to come off.

  He really needed to get that under control, and quickly, or he’d be climbing up to the Peaks without his supplies and without shoes. At least his food was okay, though the remaining travel biscuits had gotten even harder and drier, if that was possible.

  Bernt limped along slowly, trying not to aggravate his still slightly swollen ankle. He supposed keeping a slow pace was for the best, anyway – any exertion that forced him to abandon his slow, shallow breathing sent stabbing pain through his chest from the broken rib. If anything, it was even more tender than the day before.

  Despite the agonizing pace, he did make progress. The flat grassland began to slope gently upward, and by evening he saw hills in the distance, blocking his view of the mountains beyond. There were no further landmarks shown on the map, except for a lake of fire a little ways further south of here, marked with a harvest location. At this point, though, he didn’t want to make any further detours. There was no telling if there were still demons after him out there. The safest thing to do was to get to the Sacral Peaks as quickly as possible.

  That night, he spent the evening trying a new exercise. He placed his hand in his small cooking pot and conjured water, counting seconds and doing his best to keep it from boiling as long as possible.

  There was no telling how long it would take him to get full control of this new sorcery, but this would at least give him some way to track his progress. On his first try, he managed barely twenty seconds.

  It took another full day to reach the hills, and he lost his boots on the way. A cracked sole caught on a rock and tore halfway off, the stitches ripping easily. Bernt tried to make string to repair them using some of the rough fibers from his rope, but he failed. The fibers got crunchy and brittle as he handled them, eventually falling apart.

  He really was going to have to climb to the Sacral Peaks barefoot.

  By the next morning, his ankle felt normal again, which was a small mercy. His ribs were just as bad as they’d been days ago. He didn’t know how long it took for an injury like that to heal, but he guessed that he’d need to see a priest as soon as he could – provided that he made it to the Peaks alright.

  Just to be safe, Bernt packed his belongings into the blanket from his bedroll, rather than the increasingly brittle one he’d been using as a sack. He did not want to gather his belongings off the mountainside if the damned sack tore as easily as his boots had.

  All his things had been cooked by now, slung over his back for hours every day as they had been. While nothing had actually burned, some of the papers had started to yellow and curl. He dumped the ruined healing potions, wrapped the papers in the damaged blanket to insulate them and packed them in the back of the sack, as far from his body as possible.

  Then, picking his way carefully to avoid stepping on any sharp rocks, Bernt started up the first hill toward the Peaks.