Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks [71]
Whereas almost every other tool of the trade was mundane, if rarely known, bottled fire was magic. The only people who could make it were the Harani aborigines, whose magic was tied to emotion and song. After being driven from their lowland homes two centuries ago, they hadn’t had access to the materials they needed to make philodunamos. How Durzo had known what those were, how he had gathered them, and how he had coached a Harani mage into making such a lethal substance, Kylar had no idea.
Sitting at the desk, Kylar rooted around until he found the gold-plated tweezers, a wad of cotton, and a candle. Then he couldn’t find a tinderbox. Since he could see in the dark, he never carried one anymore. Without a tinder-box, he couldn’t light the candle, without the candle, he couldn’t clean the tweezers, without clean tweezers, he couldn’t pull off a wisp of cotton to dip into the bottled fire, without the cotton, he couldn’t test an appropriately tiny measure of the bottled fire. He swore under his breath.
~Why do you make things so hard? Use me. I’m sterile.~
You telling me there’s no little ka’kari gravel out there?
There was a pause, then, unimpressed, ~And I thought Durzo’s humor was lacking.~
Nonetheless, in a moment, the ka’kari puddled in Kylar’s palm and formed an instrument with a flexible bulb on one side that tapered down to almost a needle-point on the other. Kylar had never seen anything like it before. ~Squeeze me and put me in the philodunamos.~
“You’re amazing,” Kylar said.
~I know.~
“Humble, too.”
Kylar opened the vial and sucked out a single drop. He dripped it on a rag, closed the vial, and pushed his seat back. The ka’kari dissolved back into his skin. Kylar put the vial of bottled fire on the other side of the room and closed the herb cases, only drawing out one vial of water. The gold drop of philodunamos dried in moments, becoming hard and flaky. Kylar dropped the rag on the ground and dripped some water on it. The water wicked outward until it touched the philodunamos.
There was a whoosh of flame as high as Kylar’s knee. The fire consumed the rag instantly and still burned for another ten seconds, then guttered out.
“It’s tricky,” Durzo had said. “Water, wine, blood, sweat, most anything wet should trigger it. But it can get unstable. So by the Night Angels, don’t even open it if it’s muggy.”
Kylar smiled as he tucked the vial away. Sweat. He’d pour the bottle on Terah Graesin’s incestuous bed if only such a death were public enough. He collected his clothing and gold and turned to grab a sword from the weapons wall, then something stopped him.
“You bastard,” he said.
Hanging on the wall, impossibly, as if Kylar hadn’t sold it for a fortune in a city two weeks’ ride away, was a big, beautiful sword with the word Mercy etched on the blade. There was no explanation, no message of any kind—except for the smirk implicit in resetting Kylar’s traps and replacing his single strand of hair. Durzo had redeemed Kylar’s birthright. For a second time, Durzo was giving him Retribution.
30
Kylar stood in a hazy corridor decorated with brightly colored animals, facing a door. There were no sharp edges to anything. It was as if he were looking at the world through sleep-blurry eyes. The door opened without his touch, and as soon as he saw her, his heart lurched. Vi was lying on a narrow bed, weeping. She was the only thing in the world utterly clear, sharp, and present.
She raised a hand in supplication, and he went to her. She seemed as unsurprised by his presence