Chantico stared into the tiny flame wavering at the tip of the candle until the light made his eyes ache. Holding his breath, he shut everything from his mind but the flame, imagining it a miniature dancer, wriggling atop a post or tree stump. As he exhaled, the flame grew; with little effort of will he shaped it into the outline of a curvaceous young girl with long, flowing hair. Chantico fed the flame until it was larger than his hand, and then it sprouted dragonfly wings and floated gracefully from the wick.

"Dance," Chantico whispered to his creation.

Slowly, he began to pull his will from it, like an artist stepping back from a finished painting. Any time the fire figurine flickered unsteadily, he stopped, focused on it again, and began the process over. After three tries, he freed his mind completely from the faerie-shaped fire-being.

This time, he would try something different.

Recalling his years under the tutelage of the fire sorcerer Lares in the Majestic Allied Nations of Arcanists, he cast a spell of preservation on the flame. Now it would stay in form and burn until he willed it not to. The only thing left was to give it life!

Chantico could have moved it in any way he wanted. In fact, he was capable of creating larger, more detailed creatures of fire and animating as many as half a dozen with less effort. But he wanted this one to act without his will—he wanted it to live.

"Dance," he said to it again, careful not to animate it using his natural pyrokinetic ability.

It hovered several inches above the candle, its heat still melting the wax, but its only movement was the natural flickering of any fire. He began to impose his will upon it, thinking if he cut off abruptly, some of it might remain in the fire. In past attempts, this had caused the fire to disperse, but this flame had an arcanism cast upon it…

A thunderous rap on the kasmada metal door broke his concentration. Only his beloved Tabiti could pound a four-inch-thick door hard enough to disturb his meditation—curse that she should choose this moment to disrupt him!

Chantico kept his gaze on the shimmering flame-faerie as he heated a square device in the ruddy metal door. The mechanism, specially designed by a trader from Telekmara five years ago, would unlock the door only when heat was applied, expanding the metal and causing the tumblers to shift. When the metal cooled and the door closed, it would automatically relock. The device would only work for potent pyrokinetics like Chantico and his protégés, who could create and extinguish fire at will.

Tabiti entered, the train of her silk gown sweeping the obsidian floors for a good four feet behind her. She circled Chantico like a bird circling a lake before catching a fish, her golden amber eyes shining from under thick, straight locks of dark hair. Gem-studded gold jewelry tinkled delicately as she moved, a sharp contrast to the pounding she had applied to the door a moment ago.

But then, Tabiti was a woman of contradictions—and illusions. In fact, Tabiti was no woman at all. Her true form was that of a young volcano dragon, "young" in this case being an estimated four hundred years. Still, she exhibited many qualities inherent to youth, among them her infatuation with Chantico Manes, king of the Isum Islands.

She handed Chantico a silver goblet and the smell of sweet wine tickled his nostrils.

"You should have another drink," she said.

He took the glass, savoring the smell a moment, trying not to think of the taste. Dragon's blood was but a ghost to the nose, but a fierce foe to the tongue. "Your timing is ill," he told his lover.

She scowled at the flame-faerie. "Why should I care about these foolish experiments? They won't save your kingdom."

A rising anger burned his gut. How dare she make light of impending war with Telekmara?

Only days ago, he had received word that Telekmari warships were heading toward his archipelago. The Telekmari were device-mongers, machine whores. Their ships were made of steels formed in laboratories, and they wielded guns and missile weapons capable of unfathomable devastation. Chantico's people, the Inta, were tribal, with scant psychic and arcane abilities, excluding his seven students. Their only advantage was the strength and resilience of the kasmada metal—which was also the reason for the Telekmari invasion.

Kasmada metal was strong and resilient, hard to bend and harder to dent. The ore was mined from the sides of the dormant volcanoes lacing the islands and contained deeply embedded particles of obsidian. Its properties came from sitting under molten rock for thousands of years, only touching the air for a few days before being crafted into weapons or plates or shields. Its creation could not be affordably or accurately duplicated using any form of technology.

Distracted, he threw his head back and let the blood-and-wine slip down his throat, the bitter, sulfurous taste lingering on his tongue and making him wince. "And instead, you would have me do… what?" he asked. "What good is prolonging my life with your blood if you believe the Telekmari will destroy us?"

"Ah, my love," she said, affection seeping into her voice. "A fire god should fear no device."

"Only to the Inta am I a god," he reminded her.

"Any human who slays two volcano dragons is worthy of being called a god." The tone of her voice was ambiguous, somewhere between admiration and anger.

She would darken like that whenever she spoke of his history in the volcanic islands of Isum. Chantico had left the Nation of Arcanists and the tutelage of Lares when he learned that the fascist People's Regime of his native Kempora had fallen, but crossing the Wild Southern Ocean at age seventy had proven more difficult than when he'd fled his homeland thirty years earlier.

Instead of reaching home, he'd awakened, shipwrecked, on the outer islands of Isum. When he'd made it to the more populated inner islands, he'd discovered the natives to be under the oppressive rule of two dragons: Tabiti's brothers, each nearly a millennium old. His combined psychic and arcane mastery of fire, in addition to the few spells he learned of the counter-elements cold, water and wind, had allowed him to destroy the beasts and the Inta had named him king of the entire archipelago.

When Tabiti, of whom the natives had known nothing, had first revealed herself to Chantico, he'd believed she sought to kill him. Occasionally, he still wondered, but her potion of blood gave him new life, new energy. He was rightly ninety years of age, but the mirror portrayed a man shy of fifty. The Inta shamans called Tabiti his witch mistress. The tribal leaders called Chantico the Fire God.

"Your kingdom is small and weak."

Tabiti's voice snapped Chantico from his memories. "The Telekmari have devices that can kill your warriors before they get within range of kasmada swords, spears, or even arrowheads. A full suit of kasmada armor cannot protect a man from the chemicals of death the Telekmari are known to use."

He handed the goblet back to her. "Again, what would you have me do? If things are as grim as you make them out to be, what good is morale or strategy? You seem to think I should defend my islands alone."

"Perhaps you should," she said.

If there was humor in her voice, it failed to reach him.

"Tinkering with fire creatures won't help you, though."

She turned for the door, but Chantico jumped into her path. "You fail to see my goal in these experiments!"

Tabiti flicked her eyes toward the ceiling. "You wish to give fire a soul. I know this."

"But don't you see? If I can impart an independent will to fire, nobody need die in this war. None of my people need take up arms, if I can create an army of fire."

"You cannot do this though," she said. She stepped through the door and strode down the hall, her ivory shoes clinking against the stone floor like nails against glass.

"Then tell me what you think I should do," he demanded from the doorway.

She waved a dismissive hand. "It is your kingdom."

"Petulant child!"

She spun, her long, fine robes billowing like a flag in the wind. Her human eyes wavered slightly, glowing a blinding yellow. She said nothing, made no noise—only opened her mouth, and let a torrent of anger flow out in a stream of fire hot enough to turn a tree to ash in a thought's time.

Chantico held his hand before him. The gush of heat and flame stopped an inch short of his palm, splashing backward like a wave against a bluff. He used his mind to roll the fire into a ball, condensing the heat and energy to single, small source. For several moments she continued her breath attack and Chantico continued to push the fire into the fist-sized fireball, until it no longer glowed red, but blue, and then white.

When she had exhausted her lungs, Tabiti steadied herself and regained her composure.

"I ought to hurl this at you," Chantico growled. The fireball hovered before him, chest-high. If he didn't maintain control of it, the heat alone could melt the stone walls of the corridor. "There is enough fire in this small globe to wound even a dragon."

She tilted her head back, a slight smile coming to her lips. "Or, a Telekmari battle ship?"

He paused, thinking for a moment that he had found the answer. Then logic set in. "Of course I could create a sphere like this on my own, but my people cannot," Chantico said. "Was all that irritability just to arouse this meager solution?"

"It is your bloody kingdom—do I have to think of everything?" she moaned.

Chantico stormed toward her, part of his mind still locked on the fireball. "By the unholy powers! If you have a plan, then tell me!"

She sighed. "You told me you knew a spell that would allow a man to handle flame as though it were a rock."

"Yes," he gasped. "The fire stone incantation! But, would that work on such intense flame? And how could I produce enough to fit all of my warriors with them?"

"That is what you should have been working on," Tabiti said, "not fire-faeries."

"Damn you," he sputtered. "Could you not have told me sooner? You say you love me—"

"Indeed, I do."

Indeed she loved him, or indeed she did say so?

Curse her cryptic ways! There was no time for this nonsense. The Telekmari marines were approaching, and he had to find a way to reproduce and distribute thousands of the tiny-yet-potent fireballs he had made from Tabiti's breath. Hastily he cast a spell of preservation on the sphere, followed by the fire stone incantation. Instantly, he felt it take hold. That much was a success, but how to use it to push back his attackers? He could easily make enough to give his people a fighting chance, but it would not ensure total victory.

In fact, even victory would not be enough. The Telekmari could always send more troops—the nation was easily ten, maybe twenty times the size of Isum. He had to slaughter them, strike fear in the hearts of Telekmari soldiers and leaders alike. As abhorrent as the thought was, the Telekmari had to suffer appalling casualties. They only wanted the kasmada metal, which they could not duplicate successfully in laboratories, so he had to make the idea of continued conflict with his people too horrible to contemplate. The cost of conquest had to be made too high for the prize.

Teteo, Nanni, Mahui, Kagu, Ikez, Gibil, and Gabija. Four young men, a boy of barely fifteen, and twin sisters: these were Chantico's pyrokinetic students. They possessed only a fraction of his present power, but each was varyingly stronger than Chantico had been at their respective ages. Mahui was the oldest and most powerful, but the mindful Kagu held the firmest command. And though Ikez was both the most eager and resultingly the most reckless, it was the females who were the most dangerous. Gibil and Gabija were calculating, clever, and efficient.

Chantico's apprentices eyed the fire stone with varying emotions. Ikez was stricken with awe; Teteo and Nanni both looked at it eagerly. Mahui appeared on the verge of lust, while Kagu looked on with cautious curiosity. And deep in the recesses of Gibil's and Gabija's minds spun plans and tactics.

"In Telekmara and other places of technology exist that are called 'assembly lines'," Chantico told them, after explaining the fire stone. "One man's job is to perform only one part of the assembling of a device. He then moves the device down the line, where another man continues the construction, while he performs the same function on another of the same device. Thus, a steady and efficient flow of devices are built. We shall do that here, creating more of these fire stones. My goal is make enough to give two or three to each of several hundred of Isum's best sling-wielders."

"My Lord," Teteo said, eyes cast on the ground. The tan-skinned youth feared to look Chantico in the face, especially when questioning his motives. "My Lord, this seems hardly enough to battle the Telekmara. I heard they have machines that race through the air faster than hawks!"

Chantico ignored the remark, not wanting Teteo to know how justified his fear was. "I have woven the spell on this so that it will rupture and release its heat upon impact," he went on.

"How strong of an impact?" Gabija asked.

"Even the weakest throw would suffice," Chantico said. "But should it slip from the hand or out of a satchel, there is no danger."

"What if I trip and land on top of one?" Mahui asked.

"Then I will have one student less to teach," Chantico replied.

He arranged his students in a line. Mahui was to boost the heat of the existing stone while Kagu took on the responsibility of splitting it into two separate spheres. Gibil would then psychokinetically move one of the cloned fireballs to Chantico, who would weave the fire stone incantation. Ikez, Teteo and Gabija would do the same. Nanni's pyrokinetic potential was not as great as the others', but he compensated in arcane intuition. Before coming under the wing of the Fire God, Nanni had been training to follow his father and grandfather as a shaman. After watching his god and king cast the fire stone spell a dozen times, Nanni was able to weave it himself. The eight of them then increased their speed, working long into the night.

It was nearly dawn when exhaustion took the youths from the task. But Chantico, fueled by determination and fear for his kingdom, continued the process on his own. At noon, when Tabiti walked into the anteroom, almost a dozen straw-woven baskets lined black stone floors. Each basket held twenty-five or more fire stones.

Chantico managed to pull his eyes away from the original fire stone and turn a tired gaze on Tabiti. A permanent black circle spotted his vision, perpetually in the way, like a bratty child demanding attention.

"Almost three hundred," Chantico said, his lungs barely able to provide enough air for speech.

"That will have to suffice," Tabiti said.

"No," Chantico replied. "I want at least twice this many."

"There is not time enough," she told him. "Scouts have already seen the ships on the horizon. By nightfall, they will have reached the outer islands. By midnight, there will be blood."

"Then I need to work harder to make more," Chantico said.

Tabiti shook her head. She approached Chantico and held out her arms. He collapsed into them as though following a command. "Quite the opposite, my lover, my king. You will need your strength to lead your people into battle."

Five homunculi puttered into the room. The homunculi were a byproduct of Chantico's earlier attempts to give life to fire using the rarest of his powers: the ability to turn his living flesh into flames, and—rarer still—return to flesh again. After taking the form of pure fire, Chantico had intentionally removed his flaming arms and reshaped them using his pyrokinesis into three- to four-foot tall copies of himself. He'd then replaced his arms by shaping an appropriate amount of fire. Upon returning to flesh, Chantico had hoped to find semi-intelligent fire creatures. Instead, he'd found hairless, featureless masses that understood him as though linked to his mind. Stranger still, they could hear and see, although they could not communicate, and were bright enough to take simple orders from Tabiti and Chantico's protégés. Although not the result he had wanted, they were useful, and Chantico kept them around for petty tasks.

Now the homunculi, with their nailless fingers and seemingly boneless bodies, wrapped their arms around the baskets of fire stones and began pushing them out of the room. Tabiti, no doubt, had already decided on a plan of attack. Did she intend to share it with him? Chantico wondered. She was truly a cryptic being.

"Rest up, and prepare," Tabiti said. "I will ready the warriors."

Captain Hayden Hyatte approached the bridge of the TNSS Diplomat battlecruiser, the image of the cloudless sky still sharp in his mind. The blanket of solid black broken only by countless, diamond-like stars would stay with him until the very end of this campaign, the clear, moonless sky decorated with endless rows of patternless stars his anchor as men died and blood spilled around him in the early morning, as corpses baked in the heat of this southern-hemisphere land, and the cries and swears of nameless victims rang out through the thick of the night.

This would be a fast campaign. The people of the Isum Islands had no technology whatsoever. Their only natural resources were some exotic fruits, a few arts and crafts, and the kasmada metal—the entire reason for this invasion. And that's what it was: an invasion, plain and simple. The Telekmari had no right being here, Hyatte knew, except that they wanted kasmada ore. Scientists couldn't duplicate it properly in a lab, so the solution was to take over the only place where it existed naturally.

It was not Hyatte's place to judge the people or the cause, though. His purpose was to lead a swift and successful invasion, and bring home alive as many soldiers as possible. He would have doubted there would even be any deaths on the Telekmari's side, except for the rumors of some god-king.

"Captain, we're picking up some strange readings on the heat scanners," Commander Bracket said.

"Report," Hyatte said.

"As you can see on the screen by Ensign Parlor, we have readings of temperature spots reaching over three thousand degree centigrade," Bracket said.

"What the f—"

"And moving," Bracket added. "But that's not what's strange."

"It isn't?" Hyatte said.

"See for yourself, Captain," Bracket said, gesturing toward the screen.

The image showed a three-dimensional topography of colors indicating both depth and temperature. Sure enough, surrounded by fields of cool greens and cold blue was single dot of solid white. The numbers racing across the black bar at the bottom read figures in the thousands for that one, probably fist-sized blotch.

Hyatte was not one of the fortunate few who could disbelieve in the supernatural. As a decorated naval veteran, he had spent most of his life fending off skirmishes and treaty violators from the Majestic Allied Nations of Arcanists. He knew what sorcerers were capable of; even those who merely dabbled in it were dangerous and unpredictable. Hyatte was also familiar with the psychic empire ruled by Lord Ibola in the southwest, and had combated rogues from the mutant tribes far west of his homeland. So much heat, so perfectly contained—it had to be sorcery.

But what was the purpose? Was it a bomb? An illusion, to draw attention and fire?

Hyatte deciphered from the heat signals the camouflaged shape of a man in a canoe. Cleverly, the person had covered himself in mud or something similar to show a lower temperature and blend with the surroundings. Fortunately, both the Telekmari navy and their technology were smart enough to know better.

"Sir, communications from the Seadog, Manhunter and Harbinger are all reporting similar readings," Bracket chimed in. "In total, we've found eight of these phenomena."

"Um, Captain?" Parlor interrupted. "There's been a change in the readings."

It was plain enough. The single point of extreme heat had spread—no, wait, it was being twirled around. This island was supposed to be primitive. Were they going to sling the thing at the ship?

"Shields up, Ensign!" Hyatte ordered.

"Raising shields, Sir," Parlor said.

"Captain, the Seadog has been hit!"

Bracket wasn't reporting from the communications, he was staring out the port side viewscreen. A bright flash followed by a small, almost innocent pop flickered on the digital screen. A second later, a gaping hole appeared in the Seadog's hull, three levels high and wide, guzzling saltwater.

"Raise those goddamn—"

Hyatte could have sworn a pebble had bounced off the side of the Diplomat. He only half heard Bracket crying out that the hull had been breeched.

"Evacuate this mother," Hyatte said through his teeth. "And don't let anyone get off without a gun."

Chantico stood among his people, surrounded by bellows of horror, cries of agony and unholy curses against the enemies and their families. The beautiful yellow sands of Isum's islands were muddied by red puddles, littered with tan corpses. Five of the eight ships that had ambled through the outer islands had been sunk by the eight skilled sling-wielders that had volunteered to meet the first wave of the attack.

Not one of them had returned.

And the Telekmari were sweeping through the islands anyway. Their death-black, faceless metal armor could not be penetrated by the simple stones and arrows the Inta used. Flashes of red beams lacerated Chantico's people in rapid succession. Kasamada breast plates, many hastily forged only hours ago, reflected some of the Telekmari lasers, but exposed limbs and faces melted under the blasts.

The first line of defense had been fifty Inta warriors equipped with slings and fire stones. Those brave souls had destroyed a tenth of the estimated four thousand Telekmari soldiers before being overtaken by the enemy. Even camouflaged and hidden, using hit-and-run strategies devised by Tabiti, the Telekmari had destroyed them all and moved forward. Another fifty had been waiting for them in the shallow waters between some of the inner islands. This attack had proven equally effective—and had ended the same.

Finally, the machine whores stepped ashore on the main island, the central island. With Tabiti at his back and his seven students at his side, Chantico closed his eyes. He filled his lungs with all the air they could hold and more. Then, like a mad artist, he shaped with hands the form of a bird, then a dragon, then a winged angel fifty feet above the herd of enemy warriors. Each appeared as a shimmering mirage before exploding into giant, flaming imitations. Even the smallest, the fire-bird, had a wingspan of fifteen feet.

An upward rain of laser blasts and foreign curses assailed the fire-beings, rising like a miasma, then swooping down one at a time to pass ghost-like through the men, leaving behind a wake of smoldering and warped metal. Panicked, the soldiers dropped jammed guns and removed helmets and gloves, trying to cool their bodies of the searing heat that even automated temperature control systems could not keep at bay. They were rewarded with another sweep that incinerated limbs and turned faces to ash. Grenades still strapped to belt holders went off, tossing bodies like unwanted dolls.

Just as the Inta could not defend themselves against the lasers, the Telekmari had nothing to protect them against animated fire. The Inta drew back, allowing their god and king to defend them against the invaders. Chantico's students unleashed a fury of fireballs, localized explosions, and man-sized versions of their teacher and god's fire-beings. The Telekmari squads shattered into chaotic individuals running around the sand, shooting at anyone and anything. Chantico's people fell around him, victims of the battle-crazed and desperate men.

Hyatte pushed his men forward, pinpointing the source of the magic. The Inta leader, whom Hyatte guessed to be the rumored god-king, was not one of their kind. His face was that of a man of about fifty, but his eyes told a different story. He used magic to make him age more slowly, no doubt. Five young men and two girls stood beside him, fierce yet meditative. And one richly dressed woman, likely the queen, hid behind them. This was nation's true source of power, the head of the beast.

Followed by what was left of his crew—now just forty men, including Parlor and Bracket—he crept through the brush. His hands waving like a sinister conductor, the target and his associates stood in plain sight, in the center of a vast open area. The man was a hundred yards away, maybe less. Once to the edge of the thick, sweet-scented brush, nothing would block Hyatte's line of fire.

Then she turned, the richly-dressed woman, with her mud-colored hair, and flashed demonic yellow eyes.

She's no woman at all, Hyatte thought, half a second before her mouth opened wide.

"Get down!" Hyatte shouted.

From that small, human-looking opening gushed a torrent of searing flame. Hyatte dove to his left to avoid the blast. Most of his men did the same, but others dove straight down, covering their heads with their hands as though what they'd seen from the beach had been only a vid. Bracket paused, only for second, to consider which option was better and turned just in time to see the river of fire blast him full on. His body flew back ten feet from the force of it. The long-leaved plants hiding them melted like ice, turning black and curling up like spiders under insecticide.

Hyatte was out of options. His cover now little more than ashes, he stood. "Fall in!" he ordered.

Chantico looked away from the wrath of his fire creatures when he felt Tabiti use her fire breath. Those soldiers who were not torched or immobilized with pain were now charging toward him and he summoned a massive flash of light to blind them. Ten of the two dozen Telekmari slid to a halt or fell over outright, their hands clamoring to hold the eyes that the helmets covered. The rest came on, either unaffected or simply berserk.

A portion of his mind still on the fire-creatures, Chantico shot his arm straight out. From the tips of his fingers grew a serpent-like stream of flame, thirty feet in length. Making a fist, he pulled the whip back then lashed at the Telekmari before him. The one in front ducked, letting the whip decapitate the two immediately behind him.

Gibil caused an explosion that killed three more of the onrushing force, followed by another breath attack from Tabiti.

"Focus on the main force!" Chantico commanded his students.

He called to the fire-made dragon with his mind, bringing it dive-bombing down on the Telekmari. The creature turned in its flight. Then a strong hand gripped Chantico's neck, pulling him toward the ground, and a red laser flickered past his vision.

Chantico waited for the pain of the injury, the burning, the numbness. But all that came was the muffled thump of his body on the soft sand. His flame-whip dissipated like dust in the wind.

Chantico turned on his side to see Tabiti meet the troop head on. Her human guise faltered, the fine silks falling from her body as she quadrupled in size. Clawed and winged, with scales as red as lava covering her body, her eyes a solid, emotionless yellow, she tore into the few remaining attackers, ripping through metal as though little more than cloth.

A blaze of red filled the air as the Telekmari unleashed their lasers. Still on his back, the supposed god-king watched in horror as his students fell, one by one, their bodies emulsifying, splintering like rotten wood before crumbling to the soil. No longer hindered by the efforts of Chantico's students, the main Telekmari force now poured into the heart of Isum. Their blasts joined others, red beams splashing against Tabiti's body, forcing her to seek cover hundreds of feet in the air.

One lone Telekmari still assailed Chantico. His damaged laser rifle dropped into the dirt. Even with arms pinned, Chantico could have easily torched the man from the inside out. But what was the point? His kingdom was lost.

Hyatte wrapped his gloved fingers around the man's neck. If this was the rumored god-king of Isum, Hyatte took pity on these people. The older man, with his ancient-looking eyes, didn't even struggle as Hyatte's trained fingers tightened on his throat.

The sky warped like the ocean's surface, and Chantico recognized the wavering that occurs with proximity to extreme temperatures. Reflexively, he guarded himself from the heat using his pyrokinesis, just as the tail of the fire-made dragon swatted the Telekmari above him. How could that have happened? he wondered. The creature should have dissipated the moment his mind was severed from it, just as the flame whip had.

The Telekmari soldier rolled some eight feet. The dragon flew in a tight circle overhead, then dropped back down onto the man, scooping him in its faux-jaws of fire and passing over him with the entire length of its body. Afterwards, the warped, black metal suit resembled nothing so much as a log of smoldering feces.

Chantico leapt to his feet to see the other fire-creatures assailing and destroying Telekmari troops, each acting independent of Chantico's thoughts. Telekmari raced in all directions, though most were headed for the shore on which their ships had docked. Chantico fired a barrage of explosions, creating walls of fire to keep stray men from wandering deeper into Isum.

Tabiti emerged from the clouds, a screech of victory ripping through the air.

The sun was dipping below the water's edge when the last Telekmari ship sailed north, away from Isum, back toward Telekmara. With a heavy heart, Chantico saw to it that one of the three remaining vessels didn't make it past the outer islands. He hated the thought of excess death, but he had known all along that only a devastating loss of life and, even more so, machinery, would repel thoughts of a re-invasion.

The Inta had also suffered great losses—as had Chantico.

Under a moonless sky, the funeral pyre rose horrifically, a mass of mangled, mutilated bodies, few even whole. On top rested the remains of Chantico's students. The fire they had studied so hard to master would now return them to the soil from which they had sprung. It was fitting; they had caused so much death with fire, and now they would end the same way.

When the fire-creatures finished their job of picking and destroying wandering Telekmari, like farmers weeding the crops, Chantico dissolved them back into the nothing from which he had spawned them. There would be time later to duplicate them. First, he had to learn how to contain them, preserve them at length. He was not sure how he had even caused them to take on independent will.

But he knew who did.

"Did you know this war would inspire life from within the flame?" he asked Tabiti, who had once again assumed human guise, despite the multitude who had witnessed her transformation.

"Is that what you think was the catalyst?"

"I have lost my only students today, woman," Chantico huffed impatiently. "I am not in the mood for cryptic implications."

"Life and death occur in cycles," Tabiti said. "Only when great loss and great gain happen at the same time can such power be maintained."

"Did so many have to die before I learned this lesson?" Chantico asked.

"You are a god, my love," she replied. "Many will die for any cause you choose."