Something happens that night!

The house slumbered as Barton tossed and turned. His thoughts were once again against him. Just him in the little bed, no company tonight, no sex to drown out the shame and anger. Running was a mistake, he should have fought and died.

Hours passed, before an orange glow began to suffuse the night sky. Morning already?

“Barton! Wake up! Someone’s coming!”

He sat up with a start and looked out the window. It was the middle of the night, but the sky was lit up with the light from a massive fire. He threw the window open and thrust his head out. He could smell the smoke, bitter, heavy, it stung his nostrils, and made his head tingle. In the far distance he thought he heard screams.

“Barton!”

There was a sudden pounding on the teahouse door. Followed shortly by a loud crying. Barton ran down the stairs in his night clothes, and flung open the door.

It was an unexpected sight. A giant Yuwanese woman was standing before him. Slightly taller than the tall Barton, she had large boulder like shoulders, and huge biceps. She was wearing a thin see-through gown. Her eyes were stained with black tears, the silk was burned away in numerous places, and everywhere she was coated with soot.

She gestured frantically at Barton and then in heavily accented Tommlish; “Please! You must help! The circus! The circus is burning!” She pointed at the glow that was turning night into day. Barton stepped out of the teahouse and began to run towards the fire. Behind him the teahouse crumpled in on itself with a hearty whoosh. A jumbled mess of eaves, beams, and hard wood floors rippled and tore at themselves, until only an athletic young Ikovian woman remained.

She had long raven black hair that was collected in a thick ponytail going down her back. Very well sculpted strong limbs, and a face that was roughly beautiful, and startlingly intense. She was wearing a thick, sensible, blue, woolen long coat trimmed with fur.

She immediately began to run after Barton, up the hill through the woods. “Barton! What are we doing?”

“Stopping the fire Zora!”

She set her face. “It can’t be like Exeton, Barton!”

He nodded. No magic. But. They would do what they could.

The blaze was so hot Barton could feel it tanning his skin. He wished he had brought his shaded lenses. Zora was completely overwhelmed by it all. Her nose was twitching wildly, and she had taken out her fur hat and tugged it around her ears. They both raised their shirts to their face, covering their nose and mouth, what they could.

Barton heard screams coming from behind the big top. Zora heard quiet whimpering out around by the covered wagons, and game stalls. They both set off running as the Yuwanese woman emerged far behind them from the woods, stumbling, and out of breath.

Barton was quick. Zora was quicker. He found circus people stumbling around behind the big top. Emerging from their tents or wagons they had been struck dumb, blinded, or poisoned by the smoke. With one hand he began to direct older man and woman towards the woods and where he knew a small stream trickled. With the other hand he began to scoop up the small circus children, as many as he could in a trip, running back and forth between the woods, and the soon blazing tents as embers the size of a fist rained down from the sky. All around him people cried out from their burns and collapsed to the ground, huffing, and moaning.

Zora lifted a collapsed stall off a man trying to scrabble out from underneath it. He was covered in scratches and burns. “Go! Go to the woods!” She said in her best broken Tommlish. He didn’t seem to understand and stared at her blearily. Grabbing him by the back collar she pulled him across the ground and then thrust him in the direction of the woods. “Go!” Before she went to another stall several paces away to save someone else.

Through the smoke she saw a figure. Robed in dark leathers, and clearly attempting to go unnoticed. No human would have been able to peer through smoke and darkness like Zora was now. She began to change course and stalk towards him when she heard another moaning cry that would have gone unremarked without her there. Reluctantly she broke into a run in the opposite direction of the shadowy figure.

Barton and Zora reunited as the big top collapsed in an explosion of sparks. They stood together, the heat bathing them uncomfortably for a moment, before they left.

Barton coughed into a napkin. His saliva was stained with soot. He had stripped to his underwear and was rubbing cold, moist towels, up and down his body. Zora was a house again, but all her windows were open to try to air out the smoke smell that was now clinging to her clothes.

“Barton, I saw a figure through the smoke.” Rumbled the teahouse.

Barton nodded. If anyone would have it would be Zora. “Do you think we could follow them?”

“Do you want to?” She asked. It was a good question. They weren’t heroes.

He wasn’t sure. He shook his head. Not our business. “No. Zora before dawn break we should go. Pick up the house and move us twenty miles south, like we talked about. Ketterville will have new customers, and we shouldn’t be here any longer.”

Zora grumbled. “‘That house’ is me you know. ‘Pick up the house’ that means ‘Zora walk twenty miles south while I read in bed.’”

Barton shrugged and gave her a halfhearted smile. “I keep you invisible while you walk. Is that not enough?”

“You did that spell months ago. It hardly counts as…”

“Has it worn out?”

She grumbled. Barton Solomon-mage was extremely good at his craft, the spell would hold for months yet. “No? It hasn’t. In that case. I need some rest. See you in the morning.” He walked up the narrow flight of stairs and into his room. It wasn’t technically possible to leave Zora’s presence if you were still anywhere inside the teahouse, but she let the matter lie.

A few hours later the house rose from the ground on dainty legs and began to trot towards Ketterville. And into far more danger than what they left behind.

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