The Daemon Prism, page 53
And Rhea. “You, whom I know least, you burn, as well. I sense it when you dress a wound or venture a question. You ever seek the truth behind the wound or the answer you’re given.”
His hand shook a little. “Listen to this story, passed on to me through the gift of one I called my enemy, drawn from the life of one we all called friend:
“Another winter coming … He had chained me near the top of the mount so I could look on the lands of men beyond the Ring …” Word for word, Dante recounted Portier’s last memory, Ianne’s memory, of an hour in his long prisoning on Mont Voilline back at the Beginnings of the world … but as the sun fell, I watched the green fires blossom against the night, spreading across the land and knew I had done right. A stone house snug against the wind. A knife kept sharp enough to carve a vine on a shepherd’s staff. A frightened child soothed with a hero tale that took shape in the hearth flames. Magic …
“Does it not tease you that this memory came from the earliest of all his lives?” Dante’s voice resonated like Merona’s bronze bells, like thunder in the deeps, sending heat down my limbs like power in the veins. “Why was Dimios punishing him for stealing what belonged to greater beings? It was likely centuries later, at a time when the war beyond the Veil cast the living world in shadow, that Os crawled into that cave and petitioned the universe, only to be dragged out holding the Seeing Stones. What was it our friend lanne saw blossoming across the lands of men from the mount? The fire he had stolen. The fire Os begged to be renewed. This, I think.”
The warmth heating my cheeks belied the cool highland night. My neck prickled as Dante felt for one of the little piles and used his scarred hand to trace a circle around it in the dirt. He touched the pile of grass nearest him and did nothing we could see, save smile….
No one spoke. The wind of early summer caressed our cheeks and the afterglow faded. And as the first star came out in the deepening sky, white smoke curled up from his finger. Moments later, a cheery flame of orange and yellow, threaded with dark green, had devoured his little clump of grass. Yet it continued to burn and followed his hand into the air, where it hung like a newborn star.
“Attend, students,” he said, “each of you whose fire burns so brightly, your first lesson. The night cools and grows dark. It is the nature of grass to dry. It is the nature of dry grass to burn. The aether is closed off to us, but keirna … essence … remains. Magic lies not in our blood, not in a random talent, not pouring through the conduit of Heaven’s fire, but hidden in this world itself. That is Ianne’s gift … Portier’s gift. To find it is our task—to discover our need, and then to bring will and intent, imagining, and our own inner fire to serve it. All of us here are capable. But we must begin again, here at the beginning….”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Ken Perry and Celu Amberston for their gracious insights into the world of the senses. To Susan Smith and Linda Kinsel for your most special friendship, support, encouragement, and writerly counsel, and to the whole circle of Brian, Catherine, Courtney, Curt, and Susan for keeping me honest. To my dear readers and colleagues, near and far, for encouragement and commiseration through the tough days as well as the fine ones. To Mother, Brian, Jerry, and Andrew for understanding. And forever to the Exceptional Spouse for patience and support above and beyond.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carol Berg has lived a large portion of her life in realms of mystery and adventure—Middle Earth, Camelot, Amber, Wonderland, Harry Dresden’s Chicago, Jim Chee’s New Mexico, Cheltenham race track and the colleges of Oxford, Cold War Berlin, the Welsh borderlands, River Heights, and Marvel’s version of Hell’s Kitchen. Though she earned a degree in mathematics at Rice University, in part so she wouldn’t have to write papers, she took every English course that listed novels on the syllabus, just so she would have time to keep reading. Somewhere in the midst of earning a second degree in computer science at the University of Colorado, a software engineering career, and raising three sons, a friend teased her into exchanging letters written “in character.” Once Carol started writing fiction, she couldn’t stop. Carol’s epic fantasy novels, and those written by her alter ego, Cate Glass, eighteen in all, have earned national and international acclaim, including the Geffen Award, the Prism Award, multiple Colorado Book Awards, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. Carol lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains with her Exceptional Spouse, camping, hiking, biking, binge-watching good stuff, and reading.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Carol Berg
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-9654-6
This edition published in 2024 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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Carol Berg, The Daemon Prism
