Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

"We stole them…?" El asked, but it clicked in her head almost immediately. "The Embers. Somehow we got those other three powers from them? But, why only those three? We… uh… took a lot of Embers…"

"If I had to guess," Bones started. "And it is a guess, as I haven't done the proper research on the subject, I'd say it was something to do with duration. The Ember I suspect bestowed the communication magic to your people came from Pycrin's immediate neighbour. It was also the first nation Pycrin conquered. Maybe conquered is a bit of a misnomer considering the tactics used at the time, but my point stands.

"The power to communicate over large distances didn't immediately become available, but appeared over several decades. This new power in concert with the already powerful flame armor greatly contributed to Pycrin's next conquest. Previously, Redik – that was the nation's name – had managed to hold Pycrin back. Their ability to ignite powerful weapons had led to a stalemate with Pycrin's flame armor.

"However, once your ancestors gained the ability to coordinate troops without messengers, the battles became very one-sided. Physically, one on one, Redik could match Pycrin, but they were unable to keep up with the information game. It was still a long, drawn-out series of battles – again, I can point you towards an excellent volume on it in the library – but the final results were inescapable. Again, a few decades after taking Redik's Ember, the ability to ignite weapons began to manifest in Pycrin's newest troops."

"Could the people of Redik fly?" El asked.

"No, they couldn't. That came from Pycrin's third conquest, which actually happened very shortly after Redik. Hrm, I should back up a step and mention after Pycrin conquered Graxia – the first neighbour that had communication magic – the army split into two directions. The first, and largest opponent, was Redik. While the bulk of your army waged war there – to the east of where Balacin is – a smaller contingent was sent southwest to the rocky domain of the Huloji Tribes.

"Unlike Pycrin, Graxia, or Redik, the Huloji didn't really have a nation, but instead roamed a large section of cliff-laden and inhospitable territory."

"I think I know where you're talking about," El said. "The Cliffs of Hul?"

"Yes, exactly," Bones confirmed. "For most, the cliffs would be a terrible place to live, with nothing but rocky, carved up landscape. However, the tribes there had eked out survival through the power of their Ember."

"They could fly?" Dayne asked.

"Not quite," Bones said. "Their Sparks weren't powerful enough for that. They could glide, though. And, with the powerful winds in and around the cliffs, it was enough. When Pycrin took that Ember – and killed the tribes to the last member – they gained the seed that would allow them to nearly conquer the rest of the world."

"If they couldn't fly," El asked, thinking it through. "Why can we? Is it because having more Embers made our Sparks stronger?"

"I believe it is," Bones nodded while pouring themself another cup of tea. "It took more than seventy years for Pycrin to take all three of those Embers and for abilities to show up in enough numbers to be truly dangerous. At first it was just the elite, but within another twenty years, they were common among all troops. Not that Pycrin had been idle that whole time. No, they'd continued their expansion, first on your home continent, then spreading out to nearby nations with ships of war.

"When the magic of flight became prominent enough, well, that was when the Firestorm was born. I'd say that was about a hundred and twenty-five years ago now."

"How do you know all this?" Dayne asked.

Bones held up their hands to gesture to the wide room around him. No, not the room, the library. "Fortunately," the golem said, "The Vestish magic had allowed them to travel far and wide, which gave them the ability to learn much of Pycrin's activities. Unfortunately, it also attracted Pycrin's attention. Even though we are very far away from Pycrin, they hunted the Vestish down once they discovered them.

"Many of the nations in this area fell much sooner than they would've if Pycrin didn't make a beeline for Vestis." Bones shook their head as they spoke. "Vestis, Pili, and Wirock fared relatively well, in that we didn't put up much of a fight. The Firestorm came, took our Embers, and left. I heard rumors of another nation further to the north that… didn't have such a happy ending. I don't know the details as to why, but they were wiped out to a person. It was bloody and brutal, with…"

The golem trailed off as the temperature in the room suddenly dropped and something cracked sharply to El's left. Her head turned to see the cup in Sol's hand split down the side, the tea inside completely frozen. Even the chair where he sat was covered in ice, while frost crawled across the floor and up the nearby furniture.

None of that held El's attention, though. No, it was the look of pure anguish on Sol's face, and the tears running down his cheeks at the mention of…

That was Sol's home Bones was talking about. Where he'd lost his wife and child to the Firestorm. The people hadn't been wiped out to the person – Sol had survived. And then become the Stormbringer, marching inevitably on Pycrin far to the south.

"Sol," El said softly. "I'm sorry."

The sound of her voice seemed to pull him out of whatever memory he'd locked himself in, though his eyes looked at her without really seeing her.

"I didn't realize we were so close to your home," she continued, each word drawing him back to the present one step at a time.

"Not… so close," he said woodenly. "It's still further from here than Pili is. I'd planned to go back after we finished returning the Embers, but mention of it… brought back some unpleasant memories. I'm sorry." With the apology, the temperature in the room quickly returned to normal, though the ice stayed where it was.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"No need to be sorry," El said. "Do you need a minute?"

"I'm fine. Please continue." Sol wiped away the remnants of the frozen tears with the back of his hand.

El's gaze lingered for a few seconds on Sol – she'd have to check in with him later – then turned back to Bones. "Back to the Embers," she said. "Why don't we have powers from the other Embers? You said duration, but if we were here more than a century ago, shouldn't we all have the Vestish magic?"

"Hrm?" Bones asked, flaming eyes still staring at Sol. It took El repeating the question for him to finally turn to her. "Ah, yes, duration and volume, I should've said. After the Ember that bestowed the wings was taken, Pycrin's march of conquest drastically sped up. The influence of the Embers became oversaturated. Perhaps, with more time, you may see other abilities develop. Or, if something… unusual happened."

Unusual? Yeah, that could probably describe what happened to me and Nexin. I bet somebody like Felps figured out the same thing Bones did – that Embers could give us more powers – so they tried to replicate it. On kids. Burning bastards.

El shook her head before the painful memories could close in on her. They'd been coming more and more frequently recently, and less and less of them were pleasant. To call most of them torture wouldn't have been an understatement. No wonder the Pyre buried the memories.

"Now, it's my turn for a question," Bones interrupted her thoughts. "You said you were returning the Embers. Pycrin – the conqueror – is returning Embers? Why?"

"The Pyre tried to revive itself," El said. "With a plan to scorch the entire world to ash. Not that it's an excuse, but it sounds like it was influencing us the entire time to take more Embers. That's why the Storm rolled through here."

She purposely left out the part where Sol brought the Storm, though there was a good chance Bones would figure it out. The golem seemed too intelligent and knowledgeable not to put it all together. And, just as she thought that, Bones nodded.

"It is starting to make sense now," Bones said. "Why else would the Rime stir after so long? Hold on… did the Pyre actually revive?"

"Uh… maybe? For a few seconds?" El said, looking at Dayne, though the big man just shrugged. "Mostly we dealt with the avatar, but I guess the Pyre itself did show up briefly before it got put down by… you called the other one the Rime? Icy half-spider lady?"

"Yes, that sounds like the Rime. She manifested as well? When was this?"

"Yeah, they were both there. A few months ago, now. The Storm would've faded right after," El said, giving Bones a timepoint for reference.

"And then the Depths showed up," Bones mumbled, nodding again. "Them both being present at the same time must've been what unsealed the Depths. Too bad. It sounds like you saved the world from one god to doom it to another. Ah well. Here's to extinction," Bones held up their teacup as if in a toast. When nobody else seemed quite so jovial, they lowered it back down and took a sip.

"That's the second time you've mentioned the Depths," El said. "What do you know about it?"

"Them," Bones corrected. "The term is technically representative of the armies under the command of the Fathom, which is a god on par with the Pyre or the Rime. You'll see one of the… foot soldiers… outside this room. Small, with long claws and…"

"Hangnails, yeah, we've fought them," El interrupted. "Along with seawyrms and the blue guys. Do they have names?"

"Hangnails? Seawyrms?" Bones asked, then chuckled. "Appropriate names, I guess. Not quite the technical terms, but they roll off the tongue well."

"Do you even have a tongue?" Dayne asked.

"Details," Bones said with a wave of their hand.

And this is what Felps would be like if he became an immortal golem? We can never let that happen.

"Now, you mentioned you'd fought the… er… hangnails? And seawyrms?" Bones asked. "I can't imagine they reached Pycrin in the few short months since they returned, so where did this happen?"

"Pili and… Wirock," El said, stumbling over the second place slightly, not sure how the golem would take the news.

Surprisingly, the golem seemed to take it in stride with a single nod and a "Figures."

Then again, without facial expressions, it was tough to tell what they were thinking.

"Why does it figure?" Dayne asked.

"Is it because Wirock had something to do with the Depths returning?" El added. "When we were on Wirock, another golem mentioned something about digging too deep. Do you know something about that?"

Bones sighed.

How does a golem even sigh?

"Yes, it probably wasn't just the manifestation of the Pyre and the Rime that released the Depths," Bones said. "If what you heard is correct – and I have no reason to believe it isn't. I left Wirock around five decades ago to come to Vestis to join this library. Around the same time, my people had discovered an island far to the north of us. One we had no record of, even though ships had sailed those waters for hundreds of years. Odd, that.

"Regardless, they began studying the island. Just before I left to come here, I heard mention of the term 'the Depths' for the first time, and was asked to research it while here."

El looked at Sol. "Looks like we've got that lead you were looking for."

"We do," Sol said with a nod, the earlier pain on his face gone. "I will have some questions for you," he said to Bones. "And I'm hoping you can… direct me towards some relevant volumes in the library."

"Happily," Bones said, their stone face somehow giving off the impression they were smiling. "You said 'will', though. Is there something else first?"

"Yes, I believe El has a question for you about a separate topic she came here for. Related to the Embers," Sol said.

El nodded. They'd gotten so much information already – and she'd be lying if she didn't want to wring Bones dry for everything they knew – but she was on a timeline. "You seem to know a lot about Embers and the magic they bestowed."

Bones nodded the affirmative.

"Do you know about an Ember connected to the In-Between? Ah, that's…" she trailed off, Bones already nodding again before she needed to explain.

"It's rare to meet somebody who knows the name of that place – or that it exists at all," Bones said. "The ability to move through the In-Between was very interesting to the Vestish though – given both magics were based on travel – and was the providence of a small country on the same continent of Pycrin.

"From what I read, they were a nation that fell quite quickly when Pycrin invaded, but mainly because there was nobody there to fight back. The entire population had vanished overnight, so the Pycrin forces simply went in and took the Ember, and that was the end of it."

"Vanished overnight…?" El asked, glancing at Sol, and from the look on his face, he was thinking the same thing she was. "Did they go into the In-Between?"

"That was one theory," Bones said. "Though nobody has ever been able to prove where they came back out."

"Nothing? No idea where they could've gone?" El prodded. "I… could really use a chat with one of them."

"No idea," Bones said with a helpless shrug. "I can only tell you where they were before they vanished."

"I guess I'll have to start with that," El said, tempering her frustration. Really, she should be happy she even had a location, but it'd felt like she was close to finding a person. "Where do I need to go? You said it was on the same continent as Pycrin?"

"Yes, to the southeast of Balacin. The country's name was Calipan, and its capital was a small place by the name of Salid."

"… Salid?" El asked and looked over at Dayne and Sol. They were just as surprised as she was. Salid – the place where it had all started. Where she'd first encountered the Stormbringer. Of course it was burning Salid.