Sally

Sally Carathal's heartbeat felt like a hammer was swinging inside of her chest, striking her ribs like pounding spikes into a railroad. The reverberations, imagined as they might be, left her hands quivering in her sleeves, and her mouth was parted just enough to keep her teeth from chattering.

The bone-rattling fear had started when Sally first felt the Golem's thunderous step, and hadn't stopped since.  And it had only gotten worse now that she could see the monster, head and shoulders taller than the wall it had destroyed. Part of what held her in place wasn't courage, but the worry that her legs weren't strong enough to carry her through her terror.

Fear was a strange feeling for a Crafter. Her will commanded flame. Though her thoughts alone the air could blaze and burn with heat. Her power could melt stone or rend towers. In most way that mattered, she was fire, perhaps even more than she was a creature of meat, blood, and bone. And yet, she was afraid.

She looked around, at the only five other people left for miles. All of them, like her, wore a Crafter's red coat. Most of them she only knew by reputation, but she knew those reputations well. Crafter Tuomas Idriel, who designed the ceramics that piped the Spire's flames throughout the City. Verity Oal, who worked in metallurgy making metals that could only be made at the impossible temperatures a Crafter could heat a forge to. Daev'lia Yoak, who has helped guide nearly a hundred Crafters to graduation over four decades. Ulia the Stormcloak, who's heat haze could turn the air into blue and green light. They were, in some ways, more power than the entire City hosted during the Fist Invasion.

And they had never seemed small before tonight.

Even Garland Kohl just looked the part of an old man resigned to his fate, standing on the battlements as the end of the world came marching. And until tonight, Sally could not have imagined Crafter Kohl as anything less than fire made flesh. Black ash for skin, long hair that waved like smoke as it rose from a flame, and a voice that sounded remarkably like the roar of a furnace,

"So that's a Golem," Crafter Kohl said at last. His tone was light, as if they were only out here on a research trip. "They really didn't embellish it on the Fourth Tapestry."

No one responded. For Sally, much of it was simply not being able to think about conversation.

Crafter Kohl turned around, light on his feet, and tucked his hands into his coat pockets. He grinned at them all, and the air changed. The damp cool air of the far fields was washed away in a blast of air that threw Sally's coat back. The air shimmered around her, felt warm and heavy, and — uniquely to Crafter Kohl — smelled like old books.

"I trust you all remember the heat haze," Crafter Kohl said, as his power bent the air around him to his will. "There isn't always cause to use it, but waging war with the Craft beings here. Within your heat haze, everything is subject to your will. The air inside, the stone you touch, all of it exists because you allow it."

Sally took a deep breath, and reached out with her will. She seized the heat in the air around her, and all at once she became more. She saw with more than her eyes now, as fire shimmered in the air around her. She could smell the dust at her feet even as her power scorched it, taste the air as her power rippled through it, and see by the light her own fire made.

She smiled, her fears shrinking into insignificance as she became fire.

Crafter Kohl was looking at her, with a knowing grin and eyes that seemed to glow with their own candlelight. He looked away, from one crafter to the next, nodding to each of them in turn. "Your shadows will wait back at the train. It isn't protocol, and Oversight will give the guild an earful when they hear about it, but I don't want any of you distracted. You've been asked to fight, so the City can put up with you being able to fight at your best."

"Are you sure we should be left to ourselves?" Another Crafter asked. Ulia, Sally realized after a moment. She had never actually heard the Crafter speak before. "I've seen what happens when we lose ourselves, Garland. Stathal Burke, I was the one asked to drop the watchtower on him. Nine-hundred dead, and we called ourselves fortunate."

"That experience is part of why you're here, Ulia. Your power has been tested before, and precious few of us can say that," Crafter Kohl said. He pointed behind them, away from the Golem, towards the glow of firelight. "But we're sixty miles away from the City, and the enemy is close. If the City has to worry about one of us losing ourselves to our power, we ought to count ourselves fortunate. It means we won."

Sally looked back at the Gloem in the distance, and despite her power, the euphoric rush of life that came with the Craft, the insignificant little knot of fear that had shaken her earlier remained. "The Crafters who fought before us weren't so fortunate, to worry about what might happen to them after the battle."

"Even the victorious ones," Crafter Kohl agreed. He turned around, to face the Golem, and spread out his arms. "Tuomas, Sally, on my left. Ulia, Verity, Daev'lia, on my right. Space yourselves out, so the Golem can't attack more than one of us at time. And keep your heat haze up, all of you. I'd rather not snuff any of you out by accident."

None of them laughed. But Sally did walk to her post with a certain eagerness, her power rippling thorough her heat haze, causing the air in her wake to crackle and hiss.

She stopped a half-hundred feet away from Crafter Kohl, and watched the Golem march. It took just a singe step every half-minute or so, but each step ate over a hundred feet. "It's painfully slow," Sally said to herself. Despite its immense gait, it's lethargic pace could be outdone by a meandering child.

"We'll be fortunate if it can't move any faster," Crater Kohl said loudly, hearing her despite the distance. Sally grimaced, but was impressed by how keen Garland's senses had become. Often, it was hard to hear, even through the flame, with the noise your own power made.

Crafter Kohl looked past her, to the far end of their formation. "Tuomas, give us the opening move."

Tuomas nodded, without turning his eyes away from the Golem. He raised his right hand straight up into the air, with his fingers spread wide.

The air around the distant Golem turned blue, and bent into a halo of nearly white light. It grew brighter as it thickened, rippling and flickering as it grew brighter. Despite beingsurrounded in her own Craft, Sally could feel the heat emanating from Tuomas' work. The Gloam parted in a wide halo around the Golem, and the wheat beneath burst into flame.

Then, Tuomas clenched his hand into a fist.

Light blotted out the horizon, washed across the fields, and seared the battlements beside Sally. The wind struck her heat haze a few moment later, just as the light faded. The dust and scorched air scarred the edges of her craft, until the ball of air she held was lit up in a haze of orange.

The wind passed like a wave on a levee wall. All across the field, the grass and wheat lay flat, knocked askew or even ripped from the ground by the force of Tuomas' Craft. Through the eyes of her fire, Sally could see the wall she stood on was a shade darker now, blackened just a little by a single, astonishing Craft.

And the Golem, unblemished, took another step.

That tiny fear buried in the back of her thoughts, nearly drowned by the confidence that came from being able to rend reality though a command of her will, returned.

"Sally, you're up," Crafter Kohl said.

Sally pointed her finger at the oncoming mountain of stone, and Crafted. New eyes opened for her, and she looked at the Golem both from miles away, and from so close she could reach out and touch it. Instead, she turned a hand made of exploding air into a fist harder than iron. And with the force of a tower tumbling to the ground, she struck that walking mountain of stone.

Her awareness plunged into the cacophonous chaos of exploding air, like plunging into water with open eyes. Sally could feel her sense of self begin to get pulled into the turbulent rush of euphoric power, as more and more of her was fire, and less and less was left. Reluctantly, like willfully severing a limb, she let go of her Craft.

She saw through her eyes again, became flesh and blood again, and looked at the Golem.

It stood still, unharmed. No fractured stone, no blemish, no slag or scorch markings. For all the damage her Craft could have done to the wall she stood on, the Golem endured as if it were just the rain.

Crafter Kohl raised his hands. Beside the Golem, a single speck of fire appeared. Barely more than a pinhead of light at this distance, it somehow seemed to shrink even as it grew brighter. For just a moment, it seemed both impossibly small and unbelievably bright.

And just as the Golem began to take another step, it exploded.

The blast didn't look as strong as what Tuomas managed, and lacked the ferocity of Sally's effort. The air hardly moved, and Sally only felt the barest ripple in the ground before the Craft faded.

But unlike during her efforts, the Golem stumbled.

Sally gasped in surprise as that mountain of stone landed hard on its leg, sinking hard into the ground. It bowed as it stopped itself, its arms outstretched, and only just stopped before it toppled over. Something inside her, something other than the gnawing fear, surged to life until it bubble into her conscious thoughts. She eagerly seized the Craft, tense and blissfully enraged, her power poised to strike.

It was a feeling that she could feel the others shared. "Crafters!" Garland Kohl bellowed into the dark, pointing his finger at the Golem. "Hold nothing back!"

And the horizon turned red.

Sally lashed out with a primal fury, and her heart sang in joy as her power crashed into the Golem. Over and over, she battered it with blows that would have left even the towers of High Central in ruin. The wall beneath her feet trembled, their light illumined the clouds overhead, and the field was little more than embers and ash.

But the Golem marched on.

Ruinous power crashed against that walking mountain without splintering stone. Heat enough to melt stone, iron, or even the ceramics pipes, and it might has well have been the rain.

"How the burning hell did we survive the last invasions?" Sally asked aloud, as she flung more and more of herself into the assault. She looked over to Crafter Kohl, not needing her eyes to follow the battle. Strangely, Garland Kohl didn't look like he was part of their assault. He was watching carefully, his right hand extended in front of him, as if he was waiting for something.

The Golem began to take another step while Sally was looking away. It stepped through the pounding of fire just as easily as it had taken its last step, and raised its leg up. And just as the leg rose up, Crafter Kohl clenched his hand into a fist.

With her own Crafting at work, she had the impossibly perceptive eyes of her own fire. And through it. She could see through the imperceptibly tiny moments where Crafter Kohl collapsed a Craft in on itself. So much fire, so much power, and he crushed it into a speck, a single mote, pressed into an impossibly small space. So bright it might as well be a piece of the sun.

And then Crafter Kohl opened his hand.

The explosion broke Sally's craft and flung it away, like a bug beneath a smith's hammer. With her sight extinguished, she turned her head just as the blast hit her again, as the shockwave carried across the miles. And in the distance she saw the Golem lean, stumble, and use one of its massive arms to keep itself from falling.

When the Golem rose up again, it took another step. And then another.

"That frightened it," Crafter Kohl said, as he raised his hand above his head. Another explosion washed over the Golem, but it did little more than shorten its massive gait as it advanced. He turned away from Sally, down the wall, and raised his voice, "It doesn't want to fall. Press it as hard as you can, it wouldn't change its pace unless we were a threat to it!"

It was hard to see this charging mountain as an encouraging sign. A mile away now, and drawing closer with every pounding step, an absurdly analytical part of her mind began to try and guess how many thousands of tons made up this Golem.

But each step it took was through a hurricane of fire; a cacophony of violence that should have shattered it, would have levelled mountains, could have left entire districts in ruin. But somehow, even as the fires grew brighter and more violent, and Sally's comrades on the wall grew more desperate, the Golem kept marching on.

Sally could hear laughter from somewhere past Crafter Kohl. Shrill, humourless, exuberant laughter that made her shiver. She looked over to see Ulia, her heat haze alight in luminous green hues, tiny slivers of lightning dancing around her like fish in the river. She smiled with her mouth open, laughing as she swung her arms about and contributed to the maelstrom of flame around the Golem.

They called Ulia 'Stormcloak' for her heat haze. And accompanied with that manic glee, the sight was deeply unnerving.

"Let her burn," Crafter Kohl said, seeing her without turning his head. His voice was level, tranquil even, jarringly at odds with the pain. Through the fires of her heat haze, she could see the clenched jaw, the slight frown, the furrowed brow, and the clenched fists, the only small and subtle signs that he felt anything at all.

And what he felt clearly wasn't surprised. "You expected this?" Sally asked.

"As you should have," Crafter Kohl said.

Sally looked over to Ulia, as she rejoiced. As she lost herself to her power. Sally knew she was worried, but there was something she should have felt in that moment, a missing pain, a missing feeling, something other than the quiet concern of watching an ally turn into a liability.

Why didn't she feel sad? Sally was troubled to find she didn't have an answer.