The pyromancer at court

The pyromancer grimaced and adjusted his hands. Flexing his fingers and snarling against the heat. Sweat beads on his forehead and slides down his cheeks, he can feel his flesh crying out, beginning to blister, just beginning to feel the lick of the flames in earnest. All of the king's court seems to hold it's breath. The sharp beedy eye'd gaze of the king blazes under that golden crown. A great arch of fire swirls over and about above the hands of the magic user. His black beard had once been long, when he was younger, his talent, had seen to that. The blaze that swirled and danced overhead, dazzled even his black eyes. It was out of control, fire always was. It seemed, an explosion in slow motion. Wild combustion, reigned at last by the will of man. The pyromancer's eyebrows scrunched down on his eyes and he snarled, bearing yellowing teeth. His robes went suddenly whipping all about his arms and legs, the room having suddenly filled with a gusting fiery wind. Something was wrong, this demonstration should have ended. He hadn't given any more energy to the spell, why was it escaping, eluding his will to contain it. In desperation, he searched the room for an answer. The king had climbed to his feet and was yelling something, swiping an arm from left to right, as if trying to erase the pyromancer's fire with his sheer anger, commanding it's extinguish. A simply dressed man, stood among the court. Out of place and set back against the far east wall. He was holding up a blue gem, and whispering to it, an oily, smirk of knowing malice on his face. His teeth gleamed and he made eye contact with the pyromancer. As the gems light faded the fire finally bust it's cage and filled the room with it's overwhelming power. The simply dressed man saw himself up a hidden stairway, and out up through a secret passage. A full minute after the explosion in the former king's court. The simply dressed scoundrel was pushing a large brick back into place and dusting off his tunic. He cast a look about the castle walls, smirked his oily smirk, and strode quickly to the edge of the castle's moat. Over it atop a lengthy thin board of strong wood. He kicked the board into the moat behind him, and walked at an easy unhurried pace into a busy street. No one stopped to question why he smelled ever so slightly, of smoke.