Made Assassin 4 Chapter 1

The fire being walked with a type of haste that would’ve drawn my attention right away, even if I hadn’t already been tracking her through the Ardere.

She was a Voltid woman named Phiffu.

In the strange lull of the week after my murder of the assassins who’d been sent to kill the king, I’d already followed up on the other two Voltids who had been bullied into helping Sievni.

Phiffu was the third.

The female Voltid was as short and thick as a tree trunk, like most of her kind were. She also had the same characteristic, frizzy orange hair with slightly blackened ends that made her look like she’d recently been struck by a stray bolt of lightning. Her hair was much longer than Sievni’s had been, and it probably would have reached all the way down to her waist.

When I’d started tracking Phiffu, though, she’d already been approaching the Ardere’s Forest of Flame, and her hair had begun to stand slightly on end.

It wasn’t extremely noticeable at first, with just the bottom few inches of her hair floating outward a little, like the strands were filled with static electricity. But by the time the light of the Ember Fields was fading behind us through the trees, the Voltid’s hair was sticking out almost completely straight from her head in every direction. Individual strands wavered and crackled slightly like they were charged up with lightning and could shock the next thing that touched them. As the Voltid quickened her stride even more, I saw sparks fly from her feet each time they struck the ground.

I knew what that meant: she was angry.

The closer Phiffu got to her destination, the more worked-up she seemed to become, and her pace kept increasing. At this point, she was going so quickly that half of the flames flickering on the candle-like trees around us were snuffed out from her passing, and the branches that crisscrossed overhead were so thick that it was almost dark beneath them without the candlelight. This deep in the Forest of Flame, it was almost hard to believe there were still two massive suns hanging overhead in the sky.

As I saw the poorly contained chaos of even this lesser Voltid’s rage, I was glad that I’d chosen to follow her personally. This job was both too important and too dangerous to leave to one of my estate members.

From what I’d found, I was still sure that Sievni had been the ugly little backbone of their plans to sabotage Cinis’ rule, and I knew that Voltids generally couldn’t do much with their powers. It seemed to sort of burst out of them in sudden fits of rage at the most, but Sievni had proven they were capable of dabbling in other types of magic.

And I’d be damned if I was going to allow even the slightest possibility of someone trying to hurt or sabotage the future mother of my children in some way.

So, I was now venturing deep into the Forest of Flame on Phiffu’s tail, but if the Voltid happened to notice she was being followed, it wouldn’t be me she saw. I had mirrored a tall, lanky man I passed in the city before I came here.

But I still had good reason to avoid being seen.

I was armed with a few weapons that were made of the same material as the spearhead I’d used against Sievni. It was the only material capable of piercing the thick, armor-like skin of Voltids, so the weapons would likely be necessary if it came to a fight.

The catch was that this material they were made of was extremely rare and could only be found in one little-known corner of the Ardere. When Sievni saw me wielding them that day in the Forest of Hud, he’d suspected instantly that I was working for Cinis, and I was sure it would be the same with other fire beings, especially another Voltid.

On top of all that, being detected would jeopardize my goal of ensuring that this situation was truly resolved, and it could possibly call Cinis into question for sharing this little-known secret of the rare material with me.

So despite the precaution of mirroring some random person from the city, I still didn’t want to alert Phiffu to my presence if I could avoid it.

Even though she was keeping up a quick pace through the trees, it wasn’t too hard to follow the Voltid. She was growing more careless in her enraged rush to get to her destination. Normally, the unique, spongy ground that covered much of the Forest of Flame did a lot to muffle the sound and traces of footsteps, but Phiffu’s stomps were so heavy that they actually left deep footprints in the ground before it slowly rose back into its previous shape.

But I had no difficulty slinking along silently as a panther behind her. The spongy surface was enough to eat up the sound of my footsteps, so it must’ve taken an incredible amount of force to produce the thumping strides that rattled the tree trunks around the Voltid as she walked.

I knew from my intel that she was headed to the home of some other fire being named Jenguad, but I didn’t know his exact location in here, so I couldn’t afford to lose sight of the Voltid. She’d been following the path so far, but now she abruptly veered off of it between two of the candle-like trees, where something like a deer trail wound through the forest.

Now that we were off the path, I could see the greater variety of trees that made up the Ardere’s own forest, and it was hard not to grow distracted by their odd, eye-catching features. It was also harder to see, since there seemed to be less and less of the candle-like trees to illuminate the darkness. I had to be careful with every step, but I was still able to notice some details.

Some of the trees were ones I had seen on my past visit to the Ardere for Cinis’ coronation, like the weeping willow-style trees that had fire tendrils instead of vines, and even a few of the trees crowned with pale blossoms that held tiny flames inside them.

On the other hand, some of the forest’s plants were entirely new to me, and they constituted a whole new level of bizarre.

Perhaps the strangest of these were some fat, towering plants that looked like cactuses, but their spiny green surfaces roiled and bubbled. I got the impression that they were half-filled with a lava-like substance, because a few of them had holes toward the top of their thick green trunks. These gaps were bigger than my head, and they all had an ominous, ruddy glow shining out of them.

As I passed by one of these plants, a wild, feathered face jutted out of its hole to stare silently at me while I passed. It was an owl, but its eyes looked like dangerously luminous tangerines in both size and color, and they narrowed on me threateningly. The owl didn’t attack, but its gaze followed me, and it silently opened and closed its sharp orange beak like it was muttering under its breath at me.

Once I was out of the owl’s sight, I let out a slight breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and trailed Phiffu further into the trees. It was almost entirely dark now, and the only light came from more of these cactus-holes that surrounded the barely present trail we were heading down.

I carefully skirted a patch of blackened firegrass that would have crunched under my feet if I stepped on it. This brought me near a hanging vine that had an enormous red flower bud dangling off it right at eye level for me. I had no idea what it was, but I felt that bud was bigger than it had any right to be. It looked like a giant, swollen pumpkin swinging silently through the surrounding trees with a pendulum-like motion.

As I passed within a foot of it, the flower bud suddenly bloomed within a span of two seconds, and not in a pretty way. Its petals yawned wide in a silent but vicious manner, and I caught a glimpse of its petals with jagged, razor-like edges as they gnashed down with a quiet but deadly snick, like they were trying to bite me.

The murderous flower petals passed within an inch of my face, and I clamped my mouth shut instead of letting out the curse that sprang to my lips.

Then I ducked down and launched myself forward in an undignified but well-calculated frog leap. I landed noiselessly in a crouch on the spongy forest floor and glanced back to see the flower had closed back into an innocent bud.

It was now swinging on its vine again like nothing had happened.

I shook my head at this somewhat expected but still startling display of violence from the Forest of Flame, and then I resumed my tracking of the Voltid. I darted forward at a faster pace to avoid losing her, and I carefully measured my long strides to land at the same time as her own rapid but short footsteps.

The trees were growing more closely packed now, and I had to be more careful than ever as I slipped between them. At the same time, there was a dim, red-orange glow slowly filtering through the lower trees ahead.

Then Phiffu emerged into a small clearing in the trees that was at the mouth of a steep-sided little gully, where something like a river had clearly once flowed through to carve out the nook in the land. The narrow sides of the gully rose up and almost came together like a cave overhead, and I quickly realized that instead of dirt, the floor and sides of this gully were made out of some sort of shiny, volcanic stone like obsidian.

I watched Phiffu from the trees across the clearing, and she rounded a sudden curve in the gully and disappeared from my sight. She was walking directly into the source of the glow that radiated from the mouth of the gully, it looked almost like the same baleful light I’d seen shining from inside the giant cactuses.

I didn’t know at this point whether the Voltid had just walked into Jenguad’s home or some other hellish place, but wherever it was, I was sure it was somewhere I couldn’t follow. Not only would I be walking into a place where my only exit could be cut off, but I also felt sure there was some sort of heat or fiery substance inside that I wouldn’t be able to pass through.

“Damn,” I muttered under my breath.

Then my gaze followed the glow shining from the roundish mouth of the gully, and I realized it wasn’t only shining out of the entrance. If I squinted, I could also see a dim fracture of red-orange light that was sent upward toward the sky above it. This meant it must not be a closed-in cave, but rather an extremely slim shaft in the gully.

I might be able to continue tracking the Voltid by creeping along overhead and listening in, so after a moment’s hesitation, I darted up the slope to the ground above the gully. Now I could see that the small strip of light continued through the forest in a slightly meandering path, and I crept alongside it carefully. I stayed at a small distance so I could walk on the spongy substance of the forest floor where it crept over the volcanic rock, and to my delight, I could hear the clomp of Phiffu’s steps clearly as she traveled down the slim gully.

I followed quickly but carefully to keep pace.

After about a minute of this, we rounded another, sharper curve, and I heard a sudden grunt and a slight squawk, along with a loud clang. It sounded as if the Voltid had run smack into something metallic down in the tunnel-like gully.

Then I heard a nasally voice that was similar to Sievni’s but about an octave higher in tone.

“Jenguad!” Phiffu hissed. “Open the gate this instant!”

Compared to the lower tone of the other Voltids I’d tracked, the shrillness of Phiffu’s voice sounded extremely odd to my ears. But judging by the tone of the responding voice, there was nothing odd about it.

In fact, this Jenguad sounded almost pleased to see her.

“Phiffu!” he rejoiced, and his voice was simultaneously like the deep boom of a large gong and the squeak of an old, rusty door hinge. “To what do I owe this delight?”

Phiffu’s rage only seemed to ramp up at this response, and I heard more metallic rattling and clanking, like she was shaking the bars of this gate she’d mentioned.

“This isn’t going to be a delight unless you let me in right this instant, you burnt-brained old fool!” Phiffu scolded. “You told me you’d get back to me with your payment for the fire-squids! I broke several laws to get ahold of those for your precious little illicit food stand, and if you don’t…”

The pissed off Voltid woman ranted on for several more minutes before Jenguad finally dared to cut in.

“I heard you were up to some racket with that dreadful Sievni, Phiffu!” Jenguad spoke up. “Did you really expect me to come knocking on your door knowing you were involved with him? I heard he was threatening families!”

“That’s been over for ages now, you flamin’ ninny!” Phiffu snapped in a scornful tone. “Yes, he was threatening families, but I shut him right up--”

“Pah!” Jenguad let out a strange, booming cackle as he dropped his feigned delight at seeing the Voltid. “You did no such thing. Somebody took him out, I heard about it. No one knows who, but it certainly wasn’t you.”

There were a few moments of silence, followed by some shuffling, like Jenguad was edging backward down in the gully. Then a bright blast of yellow-orange light came searing up through the crack in the rocks, along with a bout of steam and the sound of a panicked woof from the unfortunate Jenguad.

Phiffu had clearly lost her temper.

Sure enough, she finally found her voice and burst into screaming.

“On my orders!” she insisted.

“Your orders, don’t make me lau-- aaaarghhh!”

As more signs of Phiffu’s fiery rage came up from the small gully, I knew I’d heard enough, and I repressed a chuckle as I turned away. This Voltid was clearly up to nothing more than typical Voltid things, based on what I knew about the troublesome beings. Cinis would still want to know about this little interaction, but probably only for the sake of reprimanding these fire beings for the illegal squid thing.

This was my final confirmation that the Voltids had entirely abandoned their evil plans. Or rather, Sievni’s evil plans that they had been forced into.

Once I was back in the stretch of some candle-like trees, I paused for a moment to shift back into my own body, and I shivered slightly as my nose and jaw rearranged themselves and my shoulders swelled slightly wider.

I knew what direction Cinis’ palace lay in from here, and the queen had told me not to hang around off of the path any more than necessary along the way. I hadn’t seen any animals on my trip here other than the owl, but I figured that was probably due to the thundering footsteps of Phiffu the Voltid. Cinis had warned me there were all sorts of wild and possibly deadly animals in here, but I was armed to the teeth with the weapons she’d given me. I was also well prepared to fight off any threats, but I thought it wise not to underestimate any forest that showed a sort of Hud-like awareness.

More specifically, I wanted to avoid another encounter with anything like that giant, carnivorous flower that had almost bitten my head off earlier.

With all this in mind, I decided to honor my agreement with the queen, and I cut back through the forest to find the path again. Once I reached it, I would head out of the Forest of Flame and straight to Cinis’ palace to tell her the good news.

This tracking mission was the most eventful thing that had happened in the week since I took out the wind goddess’ assassins. But that fact alone was highly suspicious to me. I had seen the wind goddess’ vengeful golden eyes staring through my bedroom window at me only a week ago, but somehow, it was as if she’d entirely disappeared since then.

Well, almost.

I had the sense I was being watched by her at times over the last few days. Years as a highly-trained assassin had made me constantly aware of surroundings and the “feel” of a place, and I couldn’t shake the idea. Even now, as I walked briskly down the path with a wary glance around me, I felt this sensation creeping on me again.

But the only living thing I glimpsed was a series of silver flickers through the trees that I realized was a herd of the same tiny, gleaming deer I’d seen with Ephy and Nara on my last visit. They soon passed out of sight, and I reached the tree line unchallenged. The Ember Fields stretched out in front of me again beneath two suns, and the Forest of Flame was behind me.

I turned and headed off down one of the wide, spongy paths across the more open land, and I walked with the Ember Fields now to my right and the Forest of Flame to my left. This path would take me directly to Cinis’ palace once I rounded a bend up ahead that skirted the fiery lake, but the sensation of being watched swept over me again with each stray breeze.

The hairs on my neck started to prickle, and I tried to reason with myself that there was a chance I was just being paranoid. After all, I was within the bounds of the Ardere, and I wasn’t even sure if the wind goddess’ magic could penetrate its borders.

The heat of the firelands made each breath of wind feel like a balmy sunglow against my skin, and I almost fluttered my eyes shut for a moment at the relaxing feeling. This breeze definitely didn’t feel anything like what I imagined the wind goddess would send after me if she could.

Then, in the space of a heartbeat, the wind picked up from behind me and turned into a cool surge that carried a rain-heavy scent like a thunderstorm with it.

I looked around me in alarm as the surge swelled into a blast, and I didn’t doubt for a moment that the goddess herself had found me again.

Every inch of my body was tingling with awareness.

To my left, the closest candle-trees flickered out. Waxy, flame-tipped branches whipped, snapped, and dropped into their own melted pools on the ground with a bunch of sizzling splashes. On my right , a few chunks of smoldering embers tore loose from the ground and went skittering across the fields’ glowing surface.

But the windswept chaos seemed to be mostly confined from reaching any further. The strongest force of the wind came down on me personally like a bunch of giant, frigid fingers raking their clawed nails along my back, my neck, and my face. Then a high-pitched whistling filled my ears, and I felt a fluttering of panic in the pit of my stomach.

I had the weapons to fight off almost any threat, but what the hell was I supposed to do against the wind?

I tried to quicken my pace and hoped I could outrun the wind and make it to the palace, but the wind’s cold fingers seemed to tighten around me in a death grip. I couldn’t move forward, I could only be struck and clawed at by the wind while it held me still.

“I… don’t… think… so.” My words came out as a choked grunt, but I felt stronger just having said them.

Then my own watery powers began stirring in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure exactly how I might use them against the wind goddess, but now was the time to find out.

I started to focus my energy in the way Ephy had taught me. I didn’t know exactly what to do with them at this point, though, so I called the waters to me with all my strength. All waters, any waters. I just needed to stop this.

The whistling stabbed at my ears again. This time it came in several sharp, staccato noises that sounded almost like a wicked laugh. It was a cold, relentless sound, and it sent chills down my spine.

All at once, the laugh crescendoed, and the wind tore at me with renewed fury. I felt myself being lifted off my feet, and my stomach was suddenly being pummeled by the fists of wind. The pain made me double over, and a force like a brick wall slammed down on my back as if to complete this motion. It sent me into a sort of sprawling bow, and then the wind snatched me up again like a rag doll and just shook me.

Blood filled my mouth as I bit down on my tongue, and my teeth rattled in my skull until I clenched them hard. I scowled with the effort while the wind started to tug me higher into the air by the scruff of my neck, and the force of the wind goddess felt like a giant dog was about to shake its head and crush my spine before it gulped me down.

Scatterings of embers and ashes suddenly filled my vision as the wind whipped around me in a vicious cyclone, and it lifted me higher and higher as it thrashed at me with the force of a thousand whips.

Then the pool of power in my chest that I’d been focusing on burst free.

I didn’t see where the water came from, but suddenly it was there, like a sheet coming down in front of me out of the sky. Then it immediately condensed into a jet that reared up and spat itself down into the cyclone of wind like a striking cobra.

But I got the overwhelming sense that the malevolent wind was doing all it could to shatter the water into a thousand droplets. Its fury and will was that palpable, and it seemed to tear painfully at my flesh until the water suddenly snapped out into a sheet again and surrounded me.

Then I was alone and hovering about twenty feet above the ground.

“Well, shit,” I gasped into the sudden calm as I looked around me.

I was no longer being thrashed around. Instead, I was floating in my own pocket of wind-free air, and I was completely enclosed inside an orb of slightly glowing, aquamarine water. I could breathe well in here, and the air felt cool, fresh, and almost fragrant with a scent like fresh water lilies. I could still hear the wind shrieking with renewed fury, but the sound was extremely muffled now.

However, I did hear some faint, wet-sounding thuds like it was pummeling unsuccessfully at the water orb.

I felt only a slight drain at this use of my powers, and as my pulse slowed a little, I was able to shift from focusing my powers on “I need to stop this” to the specific task of maintaining the orb. As soon as I accomplished this, the draining sensation ebbed away, and I felt a surge of relief tinged with triumph.

Then, all at once, the wind fell completely silent.

The only sound was the faint swirl of glowing water as it flowed around me like a perfectly smooth sheet. All violence had ended, and the swirling orb and I slowly lowered toward the ground. When I reached the flat surface, I waited cautiously for a few moments before I gradually released my grip on my powers.

At first, nothing happened, but then the glossy sheet of water collapsed on me with a strange, suction-like noise followed by a mighty splash.

I exhaled sharply as I was doused with cool water, and I stood there for a moment just breathing. The only sound was the water dripping from every surface of my body, and they sizzled a little as they plunked down onto the hot, spongy ground.

“I’ll have to practice that,” I muttered to myself.

I took a few more deep breaths as I made sure I felt my water powers pooled inside me again and ready to grab at a moment’s notice. It was reassuring, but soon I was hit with the full urgency of the fact that the wind goddess had apparently just tried to tear me limb from limb.

And either her or her powers were presumably still just roaming around the Ardere.

With one final glance at the still and silent sky, I immediately set off toward the palace at a run.