Shapes in the Mist by AdmirableMonster

Burned Alive

Written for the prompt Lothlann/burned alive

Fire laughs.

I feel the flame crackling beneath my skin, consuming me.  Pain.  I scream, but my body does not.  It rests quietly beside the fire, where my sibling tends it.  I cannot feel the cold stone beneath me, but I know that it is there.   My tongue burns in my mouth, and I cannot speak.  All around me ash is floating on the wind.

It swirls and parts.  I forget my name. I forget myself. I forget my family.  

I am Ambaba, husband of Ushini, secret husband of Salmi, and grandson of Yshenaavsh.  I am afraid.  There is a great roaring and rumbling in my ears, and the air sparks with embers.  At the horizon, red firelight shimmers on golden scales, but it will not remain long at the horizon.  It is coming—it is coming.

I am a warrior.  I have been sent to fight the lamp-eyes, with their limbs like sticks, fey monsters that cannot die.  I fight for the lord of my hearth, distant and far away.  I fight to return to my family, whom I have not seen since the campaign began.

Fire spreads along the horizon to both sides.  We must turn the fire against them, our hearth-lord said.  They brought fire to this land, which was dark.  The stories tell of a spirit of flame that killed a thousand of our ancestors and set a fire in the sky that burns to this day.  But the hearth-lord reached into the sky and stole a part away, and he and his servant labored long in the forge until they created Fire-that-walks.  This is our fire, but I fear our fire, too.

The lamp-eyes are upon us, melting out of the grass on either side.  The air is heavier with smoke than I realized, and they ride almost silently, a whisper on the wind that carries death.  One of them looks up towards the fire, and they blanch.  They reach out a hand to me and speak in their reedy, nasal tongue.  I do not understand the language, but I understand the offer.  The fire will devour all of us, and make no distinction.

It would not be right to ride with the monsters who slaughtered my kin, but I want to see Salmi again.  I take the hand, and I am lifted into the saddle behind the lamp-eyes.  Whether it is our fire or our enemies’, it will consume us all the same.  We will choke and die upon the same smoke.

I feel the cold stone beneath me.  I open my eyes.  Above my head shine the myriad white pale eyes of the hidden mother, who watches but cannot save us. I am Yazgash, sister of Mozhak, grand-daughter of Zashgtesha.  I have taken my first step into the world of spirits.