Fire

by Cheryl Twaddle

  "What the hell?" I wondered out loud. "It looks like there's no way to get this door open." I looked around the room to see if there was any other way out and saw nothing. There were no windows and the only other door was the one to the bathroom. The only way out was through the door we came in.

  "Let me have a look," said Robert. His search proved fruitless as well. "Hmm, this is a puzzle."

  "Do ya think?" My words came out angrier than I intended, showing my frustration. "Sorry."

  "It's okay," Robert smiled. "Just look in the drawers and see if there's anything we can use to get this door open."

  "They're all empty," said the colonel after searching all the drawers in the room. "We could try breaking it down but that'll be noisy. Someone will definitely hear us."

  We stood in front of the door, staring at it, as if it would magically open on its own. I started to feel my frustration turning to anger. There had to be a way to get this door to open. I squeezed my hands into fists and bit my bottom lip. I didn't like the thought of giving up. I wanted to pound on the door until someone came but a lot of good that would do, Gregorius had given very clear instructions not to let us out. Then, out of nowhere, came a soft knock on the door. I quickly looked at Robert who shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He was just as confused as I was.

  "Hello? Are you in there?" It was Jeremiah; I recognized his weathered voice.

  "Jeremiah?" I asked as I went to the door and touched its surface.

  "Yes, child," he said. "It is I. May I come in?"

  "Please do," I answered and stood back. There was a click and the door opened. The old healer stood there, anxiety painted on his face.

  "Stand aside, child, and let me in before anyone comes." I moved to let him in and cringed as he shut the door behind him. "There isn't much time!"

  "Time for what?" I asked. "Is something wrong with Marshal? Did he get worse?"

  "No, no, no," he waved off my concerns. "Your friend will be fine. I admit I did have my doubts when I first saw him but the stones are doing their work. He'll be conscious and on his way to a complete recovery in no time."

  "You mean it?" I asked. Jeremiah nodded and I breathed a sigh of relief. "Please, take me to him. I need to see him."

  "In due time, child. I came to talk to you first," he said. " I want to know what information Faelen gave to your friend."

  "I thought you didn't believe in Faelen," I pointed out, feeling my trust in the old man wavering a little.

  "Oh, I very much believe in the legends of the Fire People," he smiled with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "After all, the legends have been taught to all of us when we are very young. My parents believed in them and their parents before them. How can I deny such historical information when all the elders believed so passionately in them?"

  "Humph. So, you think some kind of immortal, talking wolf told us to come here?" I asked.

  "I know that the legend tells of how Faelen hid the Fire People throughout the outer worlds," he stated.

  "We already knew that," Robert said. "Gregorius told us as much."

  "I know," said Jeremiah. "But he didn't tell you everything."

  "What else is there to tell?" I asked.

  "First, you need to tell me why you came now!" He was pretty insistent that we knew something. "If Faelen sent you here, there must be a reason. Please, if you were told anything, you must tell me!"

  "Even if this Faelen did tell us something," said Colonel Al, "why would we tell you? We don't know who you are. Are you even a part the Huxley family?"

  "Thankfully, no," he said. "The Huxleys are very complex people with a trail of wrongdoings throughout their history."

  "Sounds like you don't like them very much," I said.

  "On the contrary," said Jeremiah, making me feel even more confused. "There have always been a few bad Huxleys but there have also been some fair and just members as well."

  "How do you rank the current leader?" asked Colonel Al.

  "Amelia?" I could see a brightness come over his face as he thought of the First. "Amelia is a very special leader. Her rule is fair and just."

  "So, why the uprising?" I asked. "If she's so good, why are the people waging war against her?"

  "Oh, no, they're not waging war against Amelia!" He seemed surprised by this. "Is that what you thought?"

  "Well, Gregorius..." started Robert.

  "Of course, Gregorius!" He threw up his arms and shook his head. "I should have known he would tell you some ridiculous story of how this war started."

  "Actually," I said, remembering what the Second had told us when we were eating in the kitchens. "His exact words were; 'who knows why the lessers do anything'."

  "Sounds like Gregorius all right," Jeremiah gave a sarcastic chuckle. "I'm sorry it was him that found you and not Amelia. She would have explained things to you properly."

  "Why don't you explain it to us?" I suggested.

  "There's not enough time to get into details," said Jeremiah. "But I can tell you that the battle outside was started by Gregorius, not Amelia. You heard him call the people lessers? Well, that's an opinion he's had since being a child. He's always considered himself better than everyone else. Ever since he was four years old and his father started reading the legends of the Fire People to him, he's felt superior to everyone else. He misinterpreted everything the legends talked about, turned it all around to benefit his position in society."

  "How did that start a war?" asked Robert.

  "Five years ago Gregorius left the city to hunt," explained Jeremiah.

  "Hunt what?" asked Cornelius.

  "Overusers," answered Jeremiah.

  "What are Overusers?" asked Emma Lee.

  "You see," Jeremiah started. "When the Fire People helped us emerge from under the ground, there weren't a lot of resources. Food, water, even breathable air was in short supply. Over time it got easier to live above ground and eventually our numbers started to grow. Which was good but it also depleted our resources. Something had to be done to preserve what we had. Limitations had to be set."

  "Yes," said Emma Lee. "Gregorius told us all about the limitations he wanted his sister to enforce; how she should put something in the water that would stop the women from bearing children but she said no. She wouldn't allow it."

  "Really?" Jeremiah said as if hearing about this poisoning of the water for the first time. "Well, of course she wouldn't allow it. I can't see Amelia doing anything so horrible. I can just imagine how angry this must have made her. Everyday her hold on her brother loosens." He sighed with a heaviness that shrunk his form. Then, he straightened his back and returned to his story. "But that's not what I meant by limitations. The Limit Law, as it is called, refers to the rationing of our resources. Every man, woman and child are given a thousand points each at the beginning of the year. They can share their points if they want. That way a child who can not use the points for themselves can pass them on to their parents or whoever runs their household but they don't get any more. Every time a person gets food or water or if they take supplies to build or seeds to plant, anything they take, costs points. If they or their household use more points than they're given, they become an Overuser and must be penalized."

  "How are they penalized?" asked Robert.

  "It's always the same," he replied. "Overuse and you're banished to the Dark Lands until the next year when you're given your thousand points once again."

  "The Dark Lands?" I said. "That doesn't sound good."

  "It's not," agreed Jeremiah. "The Dark Lands, as the name implies, is a very dark place. Nobody's actually come back from there. After our people started to live above the ground, groups were sent out to see what was left of our world after the Collapse. Almost all came back with the same news. There was no one else; we were alone."

  "And the Dark Lands?" asked Robert.

  "The Dark Lands were something completely different," Jeremiah continued. "The people that managed to return from that group had ho
rrific stories to tell. There was life in the Dark Lands, life that had survived the Collapse without having to hide underground but they paid a price. Their air was still full of toxins. Their water was like poison and, yet, there were survivors."

  "That's good, isn't it?" asked Emma Lee.

  "No," said Jeremiah. "There may have been survivors but they were no longer people like we are. They were born with deformities, missing parts of their bodies or growing parts where they shouldn't be. They had grown feral, resembling animals more than humans. The group that was sent there were met with sentries who ripped them apart. It was like they didn't recognize us as people. The ones that made it back carried their nightmares from the Dark Lands for the rest of their lives."

  "How many are there?" asked Robert.

  "Nobody knows," answered Jeremiah. "We've never sent another group. We'd need an army at our side and getting an army into the Dark Lands would be impossible."

  "Why?" asked Robert.

  "There's a canyon just before you enter the Dark Lands," he explained. "It was there before the Collapse but it wasn't that big. After the Collapse, it was colossal. It took that first group we sent over a week just to get to the bottom and it was not an easy hike. The cliffs were steep, the ledges were decayed and the dirt moved with every ounce of weight put on. There's no way an entire army could get through there. So, we stayed away."

  "And made it a prison?" I asked. "How?"

  "By building a bridge made out of ropes," he answered.

  "How were you able to do that if they didn't want you there?" asked Colonel Al. "Didn't they try to stop you."

  "Oh, yes," Jeremiah laughed. "They have their leader too and, when the ladder was being built, he came to meet with our people. They made a deal; he would allow us to use the Dark Lands as a prison but they were allowed to do anything they wanted to the prisoner when they arrived. We have a horn that we blow when we're sending a prisoner and they send someone out to meet them. It's been a good system to keep order here."

  "It doesn't seem fair," I said, "to send someone to such a horrible place just because they went over on points. What if they didn't meant to but had to feed their kids somehow?"

  "We all know the consequences for overusing," he said.

  "Do many come back from the Dark Lands?" asked Robert.

  "Like I said before," he answered, "no one returns."

  "So, I imagine people try hard not to break the law," said Robert.

  "Yes, they do," he answered. "But Gregorius changed all of that."

  "How?" I asked.

  "Five years ago, Amelia's mother died of an affliction that couldn't be treated," he said. "We've lost many over the years to the very same affliction but never before had it struck the Huxleys. Gregorius believed it was because his father was one of what he calls the lessers. The fact that his mother had fallen in love and married a man with absolutely no Huxley blood at all was already a first for the ruling family. There had always been a branch of the Huxleys who believed wholeheartedly in the pureness of their blood. The marriage of the First to a lesser, if you will, was an abomination and they made sure that both Amelia and Gregorius knew this. Throughout their childhood, they were shamed severely by their own relatives."

  "Wow," I said. "Sounds like a fun bunch."

  "Well, fortunately, Amelia disagreed with all their purity talk and rose above it," Jeremiah continued, ignoring my sarcastic observation. "Gregorius didn't. He was convinced that his father had somehow given his mother the curse through their more intimate moments. It wasn't true, of course, but nobody could convince Gregorius of that. With the death of her mother, Amelia took over the position of First and Gregorius took revenge on his father by banishing him to the Dark Lands."

  "What?" I asked. "Why would Amelia let him do that?"

  "Amelia didn't know until it was too late," stated Jeremiah. "She had so many other things to do. She was only eighteen when her mother died. She found herself buried under papers and documents and Huxleys telling her what to do. It was so overwhelming that she could barely come up for air. If Gregorius wanted to take over some of the more mundane tasks, why not let him? He told her he was going to go with their father beyond the borders of Algar to fish out overusers. It was the least he could do to help her cope with all the work of being the First. She was grateful and even allowed two of her personal guards to go with them."

  "It was all a lie, though," he continued. "Gregorius had no intention of ever bringing his father back. When they got far enough away from the city, he made his move. They went to the village his father was born in. Gregorius gathered the people a little at a time and ordered the guards to tie their hands together and gag their mouths and then he marched them to the Dark Lands."

  "Nobody tried to stop them?" asked Robert.

  "I'm thinking the guards helped with that," Colonel Al pointed out.

  "Yes, they did," Jeremiah said. "They didn't like what Gregorius was doing but they also knew he had great influence over his sister. There was no way they would risk punishment for not following orders."

  "And his father?" I asked. "What did he do?"

  "Nothing," Jeremiah sighed. "He was still in deep mourning over losing his wife. When Gregorius had him beaten he made no attempt to defend himself. Perhaps he saw truth in the young man's words and blamed himself for his wife's death. He died before they reached the Dark Lands."

  "Oh, my god," I put my hand to my mouth, feeling sick to my stomach. "He killed his own father?"

  "I told you Gregorius blamed him for making his mother sick," said Jeremiah. "He's a purist, plain and simple. He hates that his blood has been tainted by the people of this world. Marching innocent women and children to the Dark Lands proved just how much he hates them."

  "Did they make it?" asked Emma Lee. "Did the women and children make it to the Dark Lands?"

  "Yes," Jeremiah said and then nervously wiped his upper lip. "They were weak and cold and hungry but they made it and then Gregorius ordered their deaths."

  "What?" I could feel my face start to burn with anger. "Why would he do that? They were already going to the Dark Lands. Why kill them?"

  "Because they survived the journey and that angered Gregorius more than anything else," he said. "He wanted them dead, so, he ordered the guards to kill every last one of them."

  "And did they?" I asked.

  "No," Jeremiah said. "By then, the guards knew Gregorius had gone mad. They would take the chance that Amelia would pardon them for disobeying orders. So, they started to cut the ropes that bound the prisoners."

  "I bet that went over well," I said sarcastically.

  "On the contrary," said Jeremiah. "It only made him angry. Angry enough that he killed the guards and then turned his weapon on the prisoners and killed them all himself. Or so he thought."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "There was a boy," he said. "About nine years old. Jacob was his name. He managed to escape and run back to his village, telling everyone he met about the horror Gregorius had committed. Everywhere, people rose up in fury, ready to march to the Huxley House and demand the head of the Second."

  "So, what did Amelia do?" asked Robert.

  "Amelia loves her brother very much," said Jeremiah. "She had just lost her mother and now her father. She was new to the post and losing Gregorius would leave her all alone, vulnerable to everything and at the mercy of her overbearing relatives. She had to keep him alive."

  "But, surely, he got punished?" asked Emma Lee. She seemed appalled that he may have gotten away with this.

  "Amelia put him in confinement for a year," said Jeremiah. "Which was shortened to six months and then to three months. Gregorius served his sentence within the Huxley house, enjoying all the comforts that came with it. This enraged the people."

  "Thus starting a war," Colonel Al said.

  "Yes," agreed Jeremiah. "Thus starting a war."

  "He couldn't have been very old," I observed. "When he killed all of those peo
ple; he couldn't have been very old."

  "He was sixteen," said Jeremiah. "Now, he's twenty-one. He's had five years to increase his anger towards the lessers. He's had five years to influence his sister with words of hatred towards those who do not have the Huxley blood. Amelia may have a pure heart, but her head has been turned slightly in the direction of her brother. She feels she has no choice, especially when those close to her have betrayed her and gone to the other side."

  "Her soldiers?" asked Robert and the old man nodded in agreement.

  "But, if she's influenced by her brother that much," I said, "why defend her?"

  "Because," he said and I could see a twinkle of love in his eyes for the leader of their world. "Like I said before, she's a good person. I believe she will come to her senses and get rid of her brother. She just needs a push in the right direction."

  "And you think Marshal can do that?" asked Robert.

  "Yes, I think Faelen sent you here for that very purpose," said Jeremiah.

  "Then why would Greg be so excited that he's here?" I asked.

  "Because, the legends all foretell of the return of the Fire People," he explained. "The Fire People will return and place their wrath upon the impure."

  "That's pretty vague," I said. "Who the hell are the impure?"

  "Anyone without Huxley blood I'm guessing," said Robert.

  "Oh, it's much more than that," said Jeremiah. "Gregorius believes the wrath will hit those with any blood other than Huxley in their system, even if it's only a drop."

  "That's ridiculous," I laughed. "How many people have only Huxley blood? Gregorius doesn't. You said so yourself; his father was part of the lessers."

  "Unfortunately that's a detail Gregorius overlooks," said Jeremiah. "And there are quite a few with Huxley blood only. The belief in pure bloodlines does not rest in the Second's head alone. It has been here since the Fire People first left."