The Red Mage Finds A Slime Trail, Not Of His Own

First.

She said it with such certainty that I almost expected several more gods to emerge from the shrubs and begin competing.

I looked at my palm. “How do I use Redborn power?”

“Call it,” Tawa said.

“I assumed gods had advanced beyond giving poor instructions.”

Tawa did not give a response to that. All of the elves around just stared and waited. Nimiwa had brought her hands together against her chest, blue and orange eyes sparkling with anticipation.

I closed my fingers over the mark and pictured the flamberge, but nothing happened.

Keme watched from behind Nimiwa. He did not need to speak for me to understand his opinion of my new divine power.

I tried again. The same result. Nothing.

There was something almost comforting about that. Power had ignored me for forty years. Something was there now, waiting for whatever obvious lesson I failed to understand. If it answered, there was people I could protect with something like that. There were also old accounts I could settle. The younger man I had been spent years dreaming of the day he could correct every wrong done to him. I had not been young for a long time, but apparently those dreams had only been waiting.

The Church had taught me what happened to men without power. It had given me decades to imagine what I might do if that ever changed. People had abandoned me, beaten me, and sold pieces of my life whenever they found a buyer. A sword no one could take from me offered several persuasive ways to correct the imbalance.

The emptiness I had carried for forty years had been replaced by something more dangerous: possibility.

That was the problem with second chances. From the wrong angle, they looked remarkably similar to opportunities for revenge. I did not trust the gods or prophecy. But trusting myself seemed even less sensible.

The flamberge was the first sword I had raised… well, attempted to raise, for someone other than myself.

Perhaps that was enough.

Heat suddenly pierced my palm as orange fire erupted between my fingers.

The flamberge formed in my grip, its rippled blade burning brightly. It was no longer made of steel, but of fire held in the same shape, hot enough to distort the air without scorching my skin.

I lifted it. The sword was still heavy, but the weight felt manageable now. It settled into my grip as though it had finally accepted that neither of us was getting a better partner. The blessing had made it usable but it had not supplied the knowledge required to make me useful.

Nimiwa looked at me as though I might save them. That frightened me more than the fire. I knew what I would do to survive. I had no idea what I might do once survival stopped being the only choice.

I attempted a short swing. The blade continued farther than expected and I lost my footing from the motion. Keme caught my shoulder and steadied me before I toppled over.

He stared at me and said something quietly. I looked over at Nimiwa who was doing her best to smile. “He says Tawa chose poorly.”

Tawa walked along the painted hide. “The blade knows your hand. That does not make you a warrior.”

“Does all divine teaching come after it is already understood?”

The flames continued burning.

“How do I turn it off?”

I opened my hand and, fortunately, the flamberge dissolved into sparks. Before I could test whether it would return, a warning cry passed through the trees.

The Imperial Order had resumed its search. Keme turned toward the wounded and began issuing commands. Those capable of walking lifted those who were not. The clearing started emptying almost immediately.

Tawa faced Nimiwa. “The tribe goes north.”

Nimiwa reached for her sack. “And Hanwi?”

“We take him to the shrine.”

Tawa turned toward me. “Hanwi has remained silent too long. Her blessing no longer reaches the wounded, and her presence at the shrine grows weaker.”

“Grows weaker?” I asked. “Why wait for me instead of going inside yourselves?”

“Hanwi is goddess of inner purification,” Tawa said. “Her inner shrine admits no soul born to a fixed path.”

I looked at the mark on my palm.

“You just gave me one.”

“I did not change how you were born. You remain Redborn. Your path is still open.”

Nimiwa hauled the sack onto her shoulder. “We leave.”

I looked toward the wounded. Several would likely not survive being moved again. More would not survive the night without Hanwi’s healing.

“If we restore her blessing, they can be healed?”

Tawa looked toward the wounded. “If she still answers, the Moon Guardians can use her healing again.”

“Then show me the shrine.”

Keme stopped beside Nimiwa before leaving with the wounded. He spoke quietly, pointing toward the shrine path and then at me.

Her ears lowered.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He says if shrine is dangerous, I run.”

Nimiwa answered him in Elvish.

Keme’s expression hardened. He pointed first at her, then at me, and finally toward the path the tribe had taken.

“He says responsibility does not mean die with you.”

“I like him more and more each time.”

Nimiwa tightened the straps of her sack. “He does not like you.”

Keme struck one fist against his chest. Nimiwa returned the gesture. Then he turned and followed the last of the tribe as they vanished north between the trees. Nimiwa watched them disappear for a few moments, then she turned toward the moon and took to the path.

Tawa rode upon the top of her sack, his burning hair reduced to a weak glow between the trees. I followed close behind, occasionally managing to avoid roots without placing my hands on Nimiwa’s hips.

We climbed through wet undergrowth, crossed a stream cold enough to numb my ankles and descended into a ravine where the trees grew too close for moonlight to reach the ground.

Strange carvings began appearing on stones. Circles divided into crescents, some full, others almost entirely dark. Nimiwa moved ahead, occasionally stopping to trace the lines with her fingertips before continuing.

“Hanwi marks?”

“Yes.”

“Are they supposed to be glowing?”

“No.”

Some of them were. A dim light seeped through cracks in the stone, the same hue as Nimiwa’s blue eye, brightening and fading in slow pulses.

The ravine opened before Hanwi’s shrine. A circular door was carved directly into the face of the ridge. Every phase of the moon surrounded its edge. Moss covered most of the lower half, but the ground before it had been disturbed.

Nimiwa stopped, lowered her sack and inspected. Mud covered the ground in front of the shrine. Something broad and heavy had dragged itself through it, leaving a trail wider than my body. The tracks ended at the sealed door.

“This was not here,” she whispered.

“How long ago were you here?”

“Three moons.”

Long enough for plenty to change. Whatever she recognized in the trail had set the tips of her ears trembling. I crouched beside the track. My knees objected to the position, but they had objected to most of my decisions since leaving the wagon.

Two smaller impressions appeared on either side of the track, deep enough to collect water. Four long impressions spread from each rounded mark, like fingers joined to the same palm.

A wet, slimy film clung to the top of the ground. It caught the blue light from the stones and shimmered like an oil slick.

Nimiwa lowered herself beside me. “What is it?”

“You’re the oracle.”

“You are looking.”

“A division of labor I am beginning to regret.”

I touched one finger to the mud. The substance stretched when I pulled away.

Slime.

There were broken branches behind us, but every leaf had been brushed away from the ravine. Mud had piled along the outer edges of the trail, pushed forward by something moving from the shrine.

Whatever had made it had not dragged itself toward the sealed door.

It had come out.