Free The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel by Laura Resnick

knows anything about planeswalkers?”
    “Is it true?” Luti demanded.
    Chandra looked out over the vast forest below the mountain, and to the plains that lay further east. “All right, yes. I could get lost and die in the Blind Eternities. So what? You, or Brannon, or Samir, could get lost and die in the mountains. The first time you sent me to meet with Samir, I thought I’d get lost and die in the Great Western Wood!”
    “Yes, I remember. When you finally made your way back here, you were … irritable about your misadventure in the woods.”
    “But the only alternative to taking that sort of risk is to stay home all your life.”
    “And staying home isn’t that safe these days, either,” Luti said dryly as she sat on a bench under one of the garden’s ancient olive trees. Her glance surveyed the vegetation. “Goodness, that rosemary really needs trimming! It’s taking over the whole place.”
    Not remotely interested in gardening, Chandra sat next to her and asked, “So where do you want me to go?”
    Luti folded her hands in her lap. “Kephalai. Which is also part of the danger I’m worried about.”
    “Keph …” Chandra laughed. “I get to steal the scroll again?”
    “That all depends.”
    “On what?”
    “On you, I suppose.” She frowned again at the overgrown rosemary, then said, “Brother Sergil and the other monks working on the scroll believe they’ve solved theriddle. I don’t suppose you remember the decorative border surrounding the text in the original scroll?”
    “No. Like I said …”
    “Yes, the planeswalker who stole it from us played tricks on your memory.” Luti nodded. “Well, after more days of studying the text, the brothers believe that the decorative border—which they did not copy or study during the brief time that we had the original here—contains the clue to where the artifact can be found.”
    “The border? In what way?”
    “They’re not sure. It may be a map, it may be hidden text, it may be a spell …” Luti shrugged. “So if you can
look
at the scroll again, you may be able to see the information concealed within the decorative border.”
    “And to look at the scroll, I need to go back to Kephalai.”
    “If it’s still there. If the planeswalker who stole it from us didn’t take it somewhere else entirely.”
    “Even if the scroll is back on Kephalai now, I might not be able to interpret what’s in the border,” Chandra said.
    “In that case, the monks would like an opportunity to study it themselves. So you’ll need to bring it back here again, if you can.” Luti looked at her. “If the scroll is back in the Sanctum of Stars now, it will certainly be under increased security. Stealing it a second time will be very dangerous.”
    “Fortunately,” Chandra said, “I enjoy a challenge.”
    “Yes, I thought you’d say that. Even so, please be careful. If only for the sake of an old woman who has become rather fond of you, even though you’re an awful lot of trouble to have around.”
    “Yes, Mother.”
    “I think it would be—” But Luti’s comment ended on a shocked gasp as the rosemary plant lifted itself from the soil and attacked them.
    Chandra saw claws and fangs hiding amidst the plant’s spiky leaves as it suddenly turned into a tall, moving creature, with arms and legs that ended in the same spikes.
    Heat flowed through her in immediate response to the danger, and she amputated one of the plant’s attacking limbs with a bolt of fire that she swept downward as she was assaulted. The creature hissed in pain, swayed, then doubled over and re-formed itself into some sort of small, leafy wolf-looking thing.
    “How did it do that?” Chandra blurted, staring in surprise.
    Luti gasped again. “Watch out!” She hurled a fireball at the creature as it crouched to attack. The projectile hit the growling four-legged bush in the face, but the leafy wolf easily shook off the blow and leaped for Chandra.
    Her fireball was