Fire Lines

by Cara Thurlbourn

  After we’ve eaten, we dance. At first, I sway from foot to foot, happy to watch them, absorbing their elated smiles, forgetting why I’m really here. Then Garrett drags me to my feet and starts to twirl me around beside the bonfire. Tsam is dancing with Alyssa, the drummers are drumming, we swap and I dance with Tsam. I spot Kole, by the bridge, watching us. I beckon him over, giddy with the joy that hums through the air. Kole shakes his head, but walks slowly towards us. He might even be smiling. Alyssa and I grab a hand each and start to drag him into the circle. Tsam makes a joke about Garrett getting jealous, and all four of us laugh.

  Then something cracks. Like a firework. But small. Distant.

  I tell the others to stop. They ignore me. There it is again.

  “Stop!” I shout. “What is that?”

  The drummer stops, his hands frozen in the air. The revellers stumble to a halt. Then…

  BOOM.

  Just like the vision they showed me. A thunderous explosion, but not from the bridge – from the Academy. A voice cries, “There! The western tower!” and we look up to see dense grey smoke tumbling out of its windows.

  BOOM.

  Another, somewhere in the forest.

  From the clifftop someone shouts. “The houses! They’re on fire!”

  Tsam, Alyssa and Garrett encircle me. Watchers begin springing into the air, some towards the Academy, some to the forest but Kole ushers us to the far end of the beach, into an alcove just beneath the waterfall.

  “What’s happening?” asks Garrett.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” says Alyssa. “It’s Mahg. He’s come for Émi. I knew that Spectre…”

  “Not now, Alyssa!” shouts Tsam, in a tone I haven’t heard him use before.

  Kole steps between them. “I don’t know what’s happening but we have to get Émi out of Abilene.”

  “Shouldn’t we find Hitra?” I ask. “Rumah?”

  “There’s no time,” says Kole, glancing back into the alcove. “This way…”

  We follow him to a spot where the rock is slimy and damp. He wraps his fingers around a gap in the stone and starts to pull. Garrett helps him and the gap gets bigger. When it is big enough for us to fit through, we run. Into a cold, narrow passageway that winds down and down until it’s far beneath the City. We keep going. When we emerge, hours later, we are at the edge of the forest, just before the bamboo, and it is sunrise.

  Behind us, Abilene is still, except for columns of dark grey smoke, trickling up from the trees and into the sky. Alyssa is breathing heavily.

  “What do we do now?” she asks. “Where do we go?”

  “We follow the Elders’ plan,” says Kole. “We take Émi to Tarynne.”

  “Tarynne?”

  “Silvana has a message for her, it will tell her where Ava is. We need to hurry.”

  Alyssa peers out past the bamboo. “We don’t have any water. If we leave now we’ll be crossing the desert at midday, we’ll fry out there.”

  Tsam and Garrett exchange a worried look. Kole is the only one to speak.

  “We have no choice.”

  And he marches on.

  Fifteen

  At school, we were warned about the wasteland between Tarynne and Abilene. The Council told us that when Mahg destroyed the other cities, the desert spread until it engulfed every living thing. Everything, except for Nhatu.

  They lied about that, but it wasn’t a lie when they said no one could survive out here. Nothing could have prepared me for the ferocious, unrelenting heat, which dries up all the air in my lungs and burns my arms even through the sleeves of my tunic.

  There is nowhere to hide, no place to shelter. Every now and then, the Watchers stretch out their wings to provide shade, or to shield us from a flurry of sand that is being whipped up by the wind, but they can only do so for a couple of minutes before the fragile skin beneath their feathers begins to burn. So we soldier on. I don’t even look up as we walk. I just bow my head and stare at my feet. No one speaks.

  We walk through the midday sun and into the afternoon. It is only when I finally step into the cool of a shadow that I allow myself to look up. Ahead, the smouldering pinnacle of Tarynne reaches up towards the clouds. Its height casts the boulders below into a greyish half-light, offering salvation from the blaze of the desert sun. Kole leads us closer, and it seems as if he is going to try and walk straight through the rock itself. He beckons for us to follow him, then steps sideways around a section that sticks out further than the rest, and disappears.

  We copy him and pass through a narrow gap that widens out into a winding corridor. Pinholes of sunlight stipple our path and the walls radiate an earthy coolness that I simply have to touch. If I was alone, and if I wasn’t so thirsty that I couldn’t see straight, I would press my cheek against the rock and stay here, absorbing the drop in temperature. But the others charge ahead until, suddenly, we burst out on a busy street.

  Above us – way, way, above us – a slash of bright blue sky divides the pinnacle into two halves. On one side, market stalls have been chiselled out of the rock. On the other, an elaborate mural of elephants and Taman stretches for as far as I can follow it down the street.

  At the nearest stall, Kole asks for some water. The vendor, who has a birthmark like Kole’s on his left ear and part of his chin, hurriedly offers a flask. Taking in our sun-scorched cheeks and dusty appearance, he asks what’s happened. Kole tells him about what happened at the Ceremony, tells him to find Tarynne’s Elders and send help to Abilene. Wide-eyed, the man leaves his stall and runs down the street.

  We share the contents of the flask between us. All around, stall holders chatter amicably with their customers and a temperate air of calmness makes me feel as if someone is holding their hands over my ears. The quiet, coupled with the air-born scent of sage and lavender, has an almost soporific effect. My eyelids grow heavy and, after the effort of the journey here, I find it hard to start walking again when the group sets off once more.

  Everyone we pass has a purple birthmark somewhere on their face or arms, although I don’t notice any that are as prominent as Kole’s. We continue down the main street and, eventually, the stalls peter out. For a while, there is nothing ahead of us other than the street and the dancing sunlight. There are no doors here, just a series of unrecognisable symbols carved into the limestone wall at regular intervals. When we come to a symbol that looks like a spiral with a cross through its centre, Kole presses his palm onto it. The stone depresses slightly and the imprint of a door appears. It sucks inwards and sideways, revealing a cavernous living space with high ceilings and bright white walls. Kole ushers us in, then disappears into a side room, returning with a carafe full of water and five large tumblers. Again, we drink without stopping for breath. Then Kole tells us to wait while he goes after the stall holder.

  It’s impossible for Tsam, Alyssa or Garrett to keep still. They try to recline on the floor cushions in the centre of the room, but they end up back on their feet and pacing. Like the market stalls, Kole’s dwelling has been carved into the limestone but, with no windows, it is completely sealed off from the street. From the back of the room, an archway ushers in the hint of sunlight. Above our heads, a circle of fist-sized holes in the ceiling illuminate the room. It is cool here, and quiet, and it’s hard to believe that the chaos we left behind in Abilene really happened.

  While we wait, we do not speak. Then, after what feels like hours, when the sunlight from the ceiling is fading, Kole returns to us. Alyssa pounces on him immediately, asking what’s happening, what he’s heard, what we should do. Kole reaches into his pocket and hands her a tiny scroll of paper, like the one Tsam gave Fin. Alyssa unfurls it and reads quickly.

  “They’re alright?” she asks, looking back up at Kole.

  “No one was hurt,” he replies, “but many houses were damaged.”

  “I don’t get it,” says Garrett. “Did Mahg attack us?”

  Alyssa waves the scroll at him. “Hitra thinks it was just meant
to scare us, prove he could hurt us if he really wanted to.”

  “What about Émi?” asks Tsam. “Do they want us to wait for Sayah and Roan? Take her back to Abilene?”

  Alyssa looks at the scroll again, then shakes her head. Her voice is slow and small, as if she can’t quite believe what she’s reading. “No. They want us to go with her.”

  As the Watchers gather around the scroll and read through it again and again, Kole slopes off into the kitchen. I follow him, and find him leaning against the sink, breathing deeply. When he sees me he straightens up, but I fill a tumbler and pass it to him.

  “You should rest,” I say.

  He takes the tumbler from me. “There’s no time. It’s almost sunset. Maya is waiting for me.”

  Immediately, and I don’t know why, my cheeks flush. Of course he has someone. Someone waiting for him.

  His eyes twinkle as he asks, “Would you like to meet her?”

  “Now?” I reply.

  “She’s at her best at the end of the day,” he says.

  Unsure, but feeling unable to say no, I follow him past the others – who are scratching out a reply to Hitra on the back of the scroll she sent them – and through the archway at the rear of the living quarters.

  We emerge on a veranda that protrudes about an eighth of the way up the northern side of Tarynne’s limestone pinnacle. Below us, there is a reed-lined pool, not quite big enough to be a lake, and beyond, grassy plains melt into the horizon. Kole waits for me to absorb the view. A breeze drifts over us, carrying a delicate chiming melody. From archways all along the rock face, Taman like Kole are humming as they make their way to the pool.

  Kole and I make our way down a series of stone steps. When we reach the bottom, doleful calls trumpet out from somewhere behind us. Holding my elbow, Kole turns me around.

  “There she is…” His eyes are sparkling, his features lighter.

  I laugh, because I can’t believe I didn’t realise sooner that Maya is an elephant. One of at least fifty, who are emerging from a group of caves below the verandas. Kole raises his arm, waving. An elephant at the front of the herd lifts her trunk into the air as though she is waving back. When she reaches Kole’s side, he places his hands on her trunk and she sighs into him, closing her eyes.

  Kole tells me to wait here, and the pair of them walk side by side to the water’s edge. I sit and tuck my knees up under my chin, watching them gently pace their way through the reeds and out into the water. A few metres in, Maya stops and huffs at Kole as if she is scrutinising his travel-worn clothing.

  Kole shrugs apologetically and she twitches her ears at him.

  The other Taman are dressed in white billowing trousers and matching shirts, but as they wade further into the pool they remove their shirts, scrunch them into balls and dip them in the water. Beneath their shirts, they wear dark purple vests, the colour of their birthmarks. When Kole removes his tunic, however, he is naked from the waist up and I have to lower my eyes before my cheeks have the chance to blush. A little further out, when Kole is knee deep in the water, Maya lowers herself and rolls onto her side. Chanting under his breath, Kole gently and painstakingly washes her, using his bunched-up tunic to caress her thick, crumpled skin.

  The Taman finish bathing their elephants, then kneel so that the surface of the water rises most of the way up their chests. They continue to chant. From the shore line beside me, a young boy – only five or six – rings a large copper bell four times. The elephants rise and turn to face the Taman. Kole reaches to the back of his neck and untwists his hair from its braid. He presses his palms together and closes his eyes. Maya takes a step towards him and, more gently than I imagined was possible, releases a stream of cool, clear water from her trunk onto the top of Kole’s head. Then she strokes his face, and bows.

  When each pair has finished, the elephants trumpet in unison, the small boy rings the bell and the Taman lead the way back to shore.

  Kole joins me and sits down. Maya rests her trunk on his shoulder.

  “So this is Maya?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “This is Maya.”

  I turn to her. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

  She puffs her cheeks at me.

  “She likes you,” Kole says. “We do this each night – a bonding ritual. The young ones bathe in the mornings. First light.” He pauses, looking at me from the corner of his eyes as if he’s not sure whether to go ahead with what he’s about to say. “We can come back and watch the morning ceremony, if you like?”

  “Yes. I would like,” I say.

  “Good. After that, we’ll go to Silvana.”

  “You don’t think we should see her tonight?”

  Kole shakes his head, and glances up towards his home. “We are all exhausted. We know Abilene is safe, so we should rest tonight.”

  “Alright,” I say.

  Kole gazes out at the water for a moment, then says, “Émi, do you mind giving me some time with Maya?”

  “Of course. It was lovely to meet you, Maya. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  As I leave, she blinks at me and her eyes are just like Kole’s – deep and full. I feel my distrust starting to waver. How can I be afraid of him when a creature like Maya has given him her soul?

  When I reach the veranda, Tsam is waiting for me, stretching his wings.

  “Quite a spectacle,” he says.

  I stand beside him, looking down at the pool. “They’re so in tune with one another,” I murmur. “It’s like they know what the elephants are thinking, and the elephants know them too.”

  “I think they do,” Tsam says. “If a child’s sick, the Healers ask the elephants for advice about which herbs to use. If the Elders are struggling with a decision, they ask the elephants. The Taman trust them completely. They’re almost symbiotic. One being, instead of two.”

  “If I’m honest, I’m a little jealous,” I say.

  Tsam’s eyes flicker down to Kole.

  “Oh, no! Not jealous of Kole and Maya. Just jealous of their bond. I don’t think I’ll ever know what that’s like.”

  “You might,” says Tsam quietly. “When we find Ava.”

  When Kole returns, we have supper and take ourselves to bed before the moon has chance to fix itself firmly in the sky. We sleep in Kole’s bedroom, stretched out beside one another on the cool smooth floor. I think perhaps we won’t sleep, that we’ll all lay here restlessly, thinking of Abilene and how much worse things could have been. But the tumultuous emotions of the Ceremony and our departure lie heavy on our eyelids. Within minutes, we’re all sinking into a deep sleep.

  Sixteen

  Kole wakes me at sunrise and takes me back down to the bathing pool to see the young elephants. At the water’s edge, the boy who rang last night’s bell bounds up behind us.

  “Morning, Kole!”

  “Good morning, Bael,” Kole replies.

  “Who’s that?” Bael asks, looking at me.

  “This is Émi. She’s a good friend of mine.”

  Bael bows at me. “Pleased to meet you, Miss.”

  I smile and say, “Likewise.”

  The sun is a little way above the horizon now so Bael eagerly rings the bell again, four times, as before. Then I hear the sound of trumpets and stamping feet coming from inside the caves.

  The elephant caves stretch all the way along the underside of the verandas. On the third chime of the bell, shapes start to emerge. This time, calves as well as adult elephants amble down to the water’s edge. From above, a mixture of Taman and Tarynese children start to descend the limestone steps.

  When Kole spots Maya, he waves and she makes her way towards us. Behind her, bothering her tail with his trunk, follows a calf. Maya pushes it towards me.

  “This is Niri,” Kole says. “Maya’s son.”

  Niri waggles his ears at me and scrapes his right foot in the dirt. Then he reaches out his trunk towards me and tries to prise open my fingers!

  “He thinks you have food,” laughs Bael
. When Niri sees him, he bolts towards the boy, and wraps his trunk around his shoulders in what looks like an embrace. Then, just as suddenly, he releases Bael and rushes towards the water.

  “Bael will be Niri’s Taman,” explains Kole. “When they’ve grown, they will join the adults in the evening ceremony. Until then, they practise here in the mornings.”

  Maya watches carefully as Bael and Niri wade into the pool and perform a more playful version of the ritual I saw the night before. Bael washes Niri gently from head to foot, then Niri squirts water over Bael’s head. But when they are splashed carelessly by a nearby calf, they retaliate and the ritual becomes a mixture of squirting, laughing, dunking and wrestling as the children and the calves tumble around one another.

  As the sun begins to rise, Maya tickles Kole’s ear with her trunk and he sneaks her a piece of bread that I didn’t know he had brought with him. Then he pats her leg and says, “Sorry, Maya, we have to go now.”

  Maya tilts her head and it feels almost like an eye-roll, fed up that he’s leaving her so soon. But then she wraps her trunk around his body in farewell and forgives him.

  Silvana’s dwelling is just five symbols away from Kole’s. This time, when he rests his hand on the shallow, intertwined grooves, we have to wait before the outline of the door appears and slides inwards.

  Silvana is not what I expected. Despite her living in Tarynne, I had assumed she was a Watcher, that she’d fled Abilene after her son’s treachery. But her dark hair and complexion indicate immediately that she is Tarynese. Her hair is short, exposing elfin ears that are pierced from top to bottom with copper-coloured loops, and she wears a bundle of scarves tied on top of her head. She smiles broadly at Kole as she steps aside to let us in. They embrace, and the way Alyssa looks at them tells me their closeness is a surprise to her too.

  In shape, Silvana’s living quarters echo Kole’s, but hers are decorated with an array of herbs and flowers, hung from the ceiling with thick, plaited twine. Despite the morning light that streams through the pinholes and the archway, Silvana has lit candles and arranged them in grooves either side of an empty fireplace.