Owing to the precaution of approaching from upwind, it took several minutes to reach the scene. Braving the unstable updrafts, the seagull side-slipped its way toward the column of smoke and executed a careful dive. One street-facing building was the centerpiece, although at least some of the adjoining structures were a clear loss as well. Whoosh! - another fireball rolled out of the smoke and ascended toward the bird. The gull slid out of the way, feeling its tail feathers crisp, and glided toward more stable air. Had it heard any cries from the fully engulfed facility below? - detected any signs of life? No, it decided, it had not. As the bird dropped to a perch on a gable across the street, the remainder of the roof fell in, sending forth a fresh shower of embers and flaming sparks. The front wall leaned over toward the fire and then blew into vapor, floor by floor, from the uppermost peak straight down to the foundation.
A civic firefighting team had their gear spread out on the street in front of the building. Their sorcerer was making futile passes in the air, watching rain clouds begin to condense and then get immediately shredded to bits by the churning hot vapors. His associates were wielding a hose leading back to their water wagon. The declining trickle from the nozzle, though, spoke to the imminent depletion of their supply.
The gull fluffed its feathers and settled down to wait. There was undoubtedly more to come.
The Great Karlini lurched through the streets, hoping it had been just a delusion, just a fever of his overwrought brain, just a sign his mental house of cards had taken an inconvenient moment to spring into ruin. But if there was a sign, it was clearly not found merely inside his own head. The evidence was apparent off ahead, in the column of coiling black smoke winding and twisting its way above the rooftops.
And he’d thought he had left pandemonium behind him at the Tongue Water. Or no, he had scarcely thought that at all. At the instant that horrible, despairing cry had split his head he had known that no matter the level of discord at the Running of the Squids, the true affliction - or at least the affliction closest to his own interests - would be found far across town.
The cry still hung in his ears. Levitation, Karlini thought, why didn’t anyone ever come up with workable levitation? But he was putting all his remaining energy into running. Even if there was levitation he’d have no reserve to spare to invoke it, or any other spell-work for that matter - not that he could think of any spell activity that would be particularly helpful just at the moment. Resurrection was another concept endlessly discussed, endlessly debated upon, that regardless still eluded even the gods, as far as anyone knew. Whether it existed or not, though, it was what he’d need.
Bad planning, bad planning and irresponsibility, and he had no one but himself to blame. He’d have no one else to blame for the rest of his life. If he hadn’t been so drained and exhausted from that out-of-control effort against the ice sorcerer - what was his name, Dortonn - and then his unexpected bath in the Tongue Water, perhaps he’d have still been able to think of something, to be there when Roni had needed him –
That shriek, that dying shriek -
Or was it the sign of death? Might there be hope? Things even less probable had somehow managed to squeak themselves to an acceptable resolution, before. But this time? This time?
Then somehow he had arrived. The whole block seemed to be on fire. His arms reaching forward, feeling the air, Karlini plunged toward the flames; then, as his waterlogged clothes began to steam and his face began to sear he came limply to a halt. Maybe she hadn’t been there. Maybe it was just Dortonn’s final diversion.
In his reverie, he had actually begun to consider hurling himself to immolation in the flames when he suddenly felt himself beaten roughly about the head, and then seized with a sharp pinch on the shoulder.
“Oh, it’s you again, is it,” said Karlini, not even bothering to glance around at the seagull; he knew the bird far too well by this time, having been haunted by it since this whole thing had started, somewhere off in some desert. “Thanks for saving my life, I suppose, not that I’ve done anything with it but screw up when people needed me.”
People? Karlini thought. Well, yes, but not just people. They might have been estranged (another matter that had clearly been his fault) but she was still his wife, and the person he’d intended to spend the rest of his life with. Was his wife? Had been his wife.
Had been his life.
So Karlini continued to stare, sweat and other fluids running down his face, his skin blistering from the heat, his breath coming harsh and twisted, trying still to get his mind back in gear, as flaming timbers crashed and smoke billowed and prospects turned to ash; he failed to notice when the seagull screeched and flapped off to another part of the crowd, or when it returned, bringing others with it.
What does a guy have to do? Jurtan Mont had been wondering as he and Tildy watched the fire brigade try to contain the disaster and keep the entire block from going up, and hope to stop the flaming embers from jumping streets and buildings and leapfrogging across the district. He had been through quite a lot in the last day himself, culminating with his last-possible-moment nick-of-time arrival to pull his sister out of the building to safety on the street. But did his sister bother to thank him? Did she bother to notice him? No, all she’d done was keep edging away from him and staring at the fire. Of course, he was still covered with filth and reeked from his lengthy encounter with a hill of night soil, but he had unmistakably saved her life. What did she want from him?
She wouldn’t answer his questions, either. Answer? Jurtan doubted she was even listening to him. Her information might be important, too. Take the guy she’d been with. Who was he, anyway? Why did Jurtan’s music sense keep hitting him with warning slidehorn wails whenever the man was around? And then what had happened to the fellow in the Karlini lab? Had he set the fire? Was he dead, or if not where was he now?
How could Jurtan protect his sister if she didn’t even have the good sense to realize she needed it?
Then all of a sudden she had opened up. But had it been to tell him what he needed to know? Hah! “So what happened to you since yesterday?” she’d said.
“I was chased. I escaped. I got lost. I don’t want to talk about it,” he’d concluded.
Okay, so it hadn’t been the smartest thing to say, even if she did have him miffed already. He should have taken the opening to start engaging her in conversation, and then steered things to the topics in which he was interested. Instead, she’d immediately tuned him out again. And then, while he’d been trying to think of a new wedge to crack open her shell, they’d been dived on by this crazy seagull; dived on and virtually shoved down the street back toward the raging fire.
Ahead of Jurtan, his sister faltered. “It’s Karlini,” she said uncertainly.
Who do you think it would be, with that seagull involved? Jurtan thought, but he was proud of himself that he hadn’t actually said it out loud. “Well, maybe he knows what’s going on.”
“He wasn’t here,” said Tildy.
Before Jurtan could say anything else, the seagull slammed into him again with its webbed feet extended, knocking him forward and into his sister. The music in his head, which had been playing a pretty demoralizing dirge, broke ranks with a mocking accordion wheeze. Jurtan seized Tildy around the wrist and yanked her forward. “Come on,” he said, “before that bird decides to do us in.” She dragged along behind him in a dazed shamble.