Monpress gave him a sideways look. “Glad to hear you’re so happy about it,” he said, glancing at a pack of wooden benches as they gallivanted down a side street. “From my point of view, it looks like we just kicked off the end of the world.”
“Hardly,” Eli said. “We were merely the catalyst for something that had been brewing for years.” He smiled up at the empty battlements. “People and spirits aren’t all that different in their fundamentals. When the circumstances are primed, all it takes is one act of defiance to set off a revolution.”
“I see,” Monpress said, frowning as a line of barrels rolled out of a shop on their own accord and emptied themselves into the street, dumping gallons of dark red wine into the gutters. “Remind me never to take you into a country I like.”
Eli just grinned and settled back to watch the show.
The Duke of Gaol ran down the spiral stairs of his citadel, taking the broad stone steps two at time. He could hear the chaos through the thick stone walls, and rage like he had never felt burned in his mind, tightening the grip of his enslavement even as more and more of the city’s spirits slipped free. Well, he thought as he burst into the great hall of the citadel, not for much longer. He was the Duke of Gaol still. The rebellious spirits would remember who their master was before the sun rose.
The last of his soldiers had already fled, leaving the great hall empty. The duke marched past the scattered benches and to the enormous hearth. The fire was banked for the night, awake and quiet under a blanket of ash. Without hesitation, the duke thrust his hand into the glowing embers, and the fire sprang up with a piteous, crackling roar.
“You’re coming with me,” the duke growled. “We’re putting an end to this.”
The fire bowed, shuddering under the Enslavement that roared down the duke’s arm. It rose heatless from its bed and settled itself in his hand, flickering across his skin without so much as singeing his white cuffs, too cowed even to burn. Satisfied that this spirit was still loyal, for the moment at least, the duke turned on his heel and walked toward the great racks of weaponry on the far wall. He grabbed an ax with a great, curving moon for a blade. Hefting it in one hand, he mastered the small, stupid spirit with one blast of his will. Thus armed, he marched to the front of his citadel. The great doors flung themselves open as he approached, and he stepped into the chaos that was once his ordered, beautiful, perfect city to face the man responsible.
“Monpress!” he roared, his voice cutting through every other sound.
Across the square, two men looked up, and the duke, one hand wreathed in orange fire, the other gripping his ax, went out to reclaim his authority.
“Eli,” Monpress whispered, watching the black figure with the flaming hand and the gleaming ax stalk toward them. “I say this as your teacher. You should run. That man cannot be reasoned with.”
“You think?” Eli said quietly. “However, considering the little speech I just made, running doesn’t seem like an option.”
Monpress sighed. “Do you see the trouble principles get you into? If I’d known you were this eager to throw your life away, I wouldn’t have bothered coming here to save you.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.” Eli sighed, turning to face the duke. “If you don’t want to fight, I suggest you leave. This could get ugly.”
He expected some sort of protest at this, maybe a dry stab at his supposed inability to do anything without help. But all he got was a hand squeezing his shoulder. “Good luck,” Monpress whispered. Then the hand was gone, and so was the feeling of having someone beside him.
Eli gritted his teeth. Couldn’t blame the old man, really. He was just living by the rules that had kept him alive through his decades as a thief. The rules he had taught Eli, and which Eli was ignoring right now as he stood at the end of the chaotic square, lounging with his arms crossed as the duke marched toward him.
“I should point out,” he said when the duke was ten feet away, “that if you kill me, you’ll never know where I stashed all the money I’ve stolen.”
“You’ve made yourself more trouble than any money could pay down at this point.” The duke’s voice was an icy knife.
Eli swallowed and took a step back. His back was to the line of houses on the far side of the square, directly across from the citadel. Though the ruckus of rebellion was raging loud and strong around them, the houses facing the duke were silent and crouching. The show of obedience didn’t save them. The duke glared up at the wooden structures and raised his left hand, the one wreathed in flame.
“Stop!” Eli cried. “If you burn it, it’ll never serve you again.”
The duke glared murder at him. “Understand,
thief
,” he said. “I’d rather rule a smoking pit than be disobeyed by my city.”
He waved his hand in a great, glorious burst of orange sparks, and the house behind Eli exploded in flames.
“Let this be a lesson!” the duke cried, his voice booming through the Enslavement that was, even now, still grabbing at order. “The price for disobedience is death!”
The house screamed and writhed as enormous flames raced across its timber frame, devouring the old hardwood with unnatural speed. But then, as fast as the flames had started, they flickered out. The duke’s eyes widened, and he turned to the fire in his hand. It flared up, flickering in terror and pointing wildly at Eli.
Eli was standing at the house’s door, one hand gripping the wood of the door frame. He had his back to the duke, and his figure was shimmering with heat. Steam rose from his wet jacket and with it smoke curled from his shoulders in long white wisps, forming a cloud above his head that flashed and sparked. The cloud grew, clinging to him, and by the time the last of the house fires flickered out, Eli’s shape was almost invisible behind the thick smoke. A great sound roared up in the sudden darkness, and a giant burst from the sparking smoke. It stood as tall as the house it clung to, glowing and liquid, like flowing fire, in a bulky and almost human shape, complete with a great, grinning face. Little puffs of steam rose from the giant’s surface as the soft rain brushed against it, but the fiery monster ignored the water, grinning down at the duke with monstrous glee.
“You see, Edward,” Eli said, his voice hoarse with smoke but still mocking, still triumphant as he grinned over his shoulder, “you don’t get to set the price anymore.”
The duke’s eyes narrowed. “So your fire spirit appears at last? I was beginning to think it was a rumor after all when you failed to bring it out during out little talk.”
“Come on,” Eli said. “You weren’t nearly scary enough before for me to bring out my trump cards.”
“Really?” The duke scowled. “Well, let’s see how many more I can make you play before you die.”
“Now,” Eli said, turning around, “be reasonable—”
A blast of fire was his only answer. Eli dove sideways as the duke lashed out, sending fire out in great waves, burning anything that would burn. All around them the houses burst into flame, and the wood began to shriek in terror. Eli shouted to Karon. The giant nodded and began moving from house to house, sucking up the fire as he went. But even he wasn’t fast enough to stop it all. The duke’s enslaved flames leaped with singular purpose, eating up the wet wood like sparks on dry grass, turning the square into a trap of flames.
Grim and grinning, his ax gleaming in the firelight, the duke began to advance on Eli, and Eli, not keen on traps or axes, decided it was time to run. In a burst of speed, he shot past the duke and ran flat-out toward the far side of the square, where the fire had not reached. But hard as he ran, he could hear the duke behind him. The duke moved with amazing speed for a man his age, and just as Eli was about to duck down a fireless alley, the duke gave a shout. There was a flash of light, and a stream of flame leaped over Eli’s head, singeing his hair. A moment later, the houses on either side of the alley burst into a hungry fire.
Eli skidded to a stop and turned to find the duke right on top of him, swinging wildly with the ax. The old man held it like a stick of firewood, but with a blade like that, he didn’t have to be good. Eli shrieked and jumped out of the way, careful to keep his back to the open square and not the burning buildings.
The duke recovered instantly, hurling a wave of flame, not at the houses, but at Eli himself. The thief was gone before it landed, running along the edge of the square and back toward his lava giant, his last refuge. Before he’d gone a dozen feet, the duke landed a blast of fire on his back, and Eli fell. He rolled across the wet cobbles, smacking the giggling flames with his hands until they were smothered, but while he was putting himself out, the duke had closed the distance, and when Eli looked up again, he saw that he was trapped. They were back where they’d started, at the farthest end of the square from the citadel. Eli jumped to his feet as the duke advanced, ready to run again, but there was nowhere to go. He was right up against the burning doorway of a storefront, with the duke in front of him and everything else in flames.
By the time Eli realized that he was truly trapped, it was too late. The duke’s burning hand closed on his shoulder and tossed him to the ground with surprising strength. Eli hit the doorstep hard, crying out as the skin on his shoulder blistered from the duke’s burning grip. He started to get up again, but the duke’s boot slammed down on his chest, pinning him to the ground. Edward stood above him, a black silhouette against the burning night.
“Go on,” the duke whispered. “Call your lava spirit. It won’t do you any good. Your head will be off your shoulders before the words leave you.”
Eli swallowed, and the duke’s boot pressed harder on his chest, crushing the breath out of him.
“I’ve won, Monpress,” the duke said, raising his ax in a shining arc. “I
always
win.”
Eli couldn’t even think of an answer for that. He could only watch as the ax whistled through the air, flying straight for the exposed area between his collarbone and his neck.
A moment before it struck, something strange happened. The blow, which had been straight and true, turned sideways, landing not in Eli’s flesh, but deep in the wooden doorstep beside him. For a moment, both Eli and the duke just stared at the blade. Then Edward ripped it free with a roar of rage and raised the ax again, using both hands this time, the fire from his flame-wreathed fingers scorching the ax’s wooden handle. But as he swung again, Eli saw the ax blade flip in the duke’s hands. It flipped on its own, and Eli heard a small, terrified voice cry out in defiance, “Death to tyrants!”
With that cry, the metal head of the ax let go of its shaft. It flew into the house behind Eli, burying itself in the burning door. Edward, robbed of the ax’s weight, stumbled into his swing. He was still staring at the bladeless hilt in disbelief when another extraordinary thing happened. The wooden shop sign, its painted surface blistered and illegible from the fire’s heat, let go of its hinges. Nothing had broken, for the nails were still there, still strong. The wood simply had stopped holding on to them. The sign fell with a fearsome cry of vengeance and struck the duke square in the back.
“Go!” the sign shouted, bearing down on the duke with all its weight.
Eli went. He shot up, kicking the duke out of the way and running past him. But the duke was not done. With tremendous strength, he threw the sign off and made a grab for Eli as he passed, catching the thief’s leg and sending them both sprawling on the wet cobbles. Eli kicked, but Edward was too fast. He surged forward, his hands going for Eli’s neck, but just before he reached the thief, the ground beneath them began to rumble. At the corner of the square, the iron treasury door launched off its supports with a great, ringing cry. It rolled like a wheel, bouncing over the cobblestones that swiveled to guide it.
“For the cause!” it cried, its iron voice filled with decades of bottled anger. “Death to tyrants!”
The duke had just enough time to look up, his face pale and disbelieving, as the door flipped itself around and, with a final wordless cry of vengeance, fell flat-side down on top of him.
With a great, iron crash, the enslavement over Gaol vanished. The duke’s control winked out like a snuffed candle, and all at once spirits were everywhere, piling themselves on top of the door, which was ringing like a gong in triumph. Unfortunately, in their exuberance, they weren’t watching for Eli, who was still lying on his back where the duke had tripped him, staring in amazement. When the second hail of roofing tiles nearly took his leg off, he realized he’d better get out.
He rolled over with a groan, moving stiff and slow where the running and the falls had battered his poor bruises, looking for somewhere safe to lie. But everywhere he looked, spirits were rushing forward, trampling him under a wave of pent-up rage. Eli beat them back as best he could, but it was like fighting the tide, and he realized that he was going to be crushed to death under a riot of celebrating barrels, cobblestones, and roofing tile.
He had just enough time to appreciate the inglorious and ironic nature of such an end when a pair of strong arms burst through the jabbering spirits and grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him up and out in a single motion.
“You all right?” said a blessedly familiar gruff voice, and Eli nearly burst into tears. He’d never been so happy to hear Josef in his life.
“Better than the other guy,” he said, but the words turned into a choking cough. Even with the rain, the square was still black with smoke.