Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy)

by J. S. Morin

  I hope I was not in a fight, he thought.

  His reflection in the mirror was a wreck, but Kyrus smiled back at himself. For the first time, he truly saw himself as a grown man. I am a guild member! The medallion still hung proudly from his neck; he had not removed it since Davin had placed it there two nights before.

  Yawning and stretching purposefully, Kyrus was determined to will away his fatigue and headache, and continue about his day. It was overly ambitious of him, but the chipper attitude he forced on himself helped him ignore the pain a bit and focus on more pressing matters. As his mind cleared a little, something struck him momentarily, a fleeting bit of a dream that seemed out of place.

  He remembered something about using magic for the first time. He had long dreamed during his childhood of being a great wizard like in the fairy tales, rescuing maidens and battling dragons. But it seemed that even in his own dreams, he was destined never to be able to use magic, no matter how long or hard he tried. He had not recalled dreaming of it for many years, and he remembered his dreams more often than not. Last night, he had dreamt differently, he knew—or thought he knew. The memory was gnawing at the edge of his conscious thoughts, just out of reach. Concentrating, he tried to bring to mind his dreams of last night but the harder he tried, the further they slipped, as was often the way of dreams. The drinking had only made it worse.

  Kyrus gave up for the time being, and turned his attention to the more immediate tasks of the day ahead of him. After washing and dressing, he headed downstairs to get to work. As he passed the door of Davin’s room, which was slightly ajar, he could not help but wonder anew at the thought that his old friend was really gone. It still seemed strange to Kyrus, something he did not expect to become accustomed to for some time. He wondered what he should do with the room, for he had little enough need of the space his own room provided. Perhaps he could rent the room to a boarder. The thought that he might take on an apprentice of his own had not even entered his mind.

  The day’s work seemed tedious now, without Davin around. There was still just as much work and now half as many scribes to do it. Surely Davin’s work had slowed recently due to his advancing years and aching joints, but he still was able to write a vast number of pages each day. Kyrus missed both his contribution and his wit. He set himself to his task, though, and made it through a greater volume of work than he was normally capable of, since he and Davin often broke off from working for one reason or another during the day, when they felt the need. Kyrus, feeling the pressure of filling his mentor’s place as the preeminent scribe in Scar Harbor, pressed straight through the day with naught but a short break at noontime for a small lunch of soup and bread.

  At sunset, he put down his quill for the evening. It was nearly summertime, and the days were already long enough in Kyrus’s estimation without lengthening them with lamplight. Kyrus flexed the cramps out of his wrist and decided to take a walk to get his idle legs a bit of limbering. As he opened the shop’s door to go out, he received a small but not unwelcome surprise.

  “Ash, what are you doing here?” Kyrus asked the familiar feline that had been lying patiently on the front stoop.

  In answer, the cat stretched languidly and walked past Kyrus into the shop. Apparently he had his own opinion on where he wished to live.

  “I see. Well, I shall have to write Davin and see what he wants me to do with you, but you are welcome here for the time being.”

  Kyrus did not feel the least bit odd talking to the cat, though a woman closing up a vegetable stand for the night looked at him strangely. Kyrus had acquired Davin’s habit of talking to Ash as if he were another person, a trait he had developed during the years he lived alone with the cat before taking on Kyrus as his apprentice.

  Kyrus shut the door behind the cat and started off down the street with no particular destination in mind. The fresh, mild air felt good as he filled his lungs, and cleared out the musty feeling that had settled there from being cooped up indoors all day. The sky was clear. In the dusk, Kyrus was just able to start picking out stars as the deepening gloom of falling night revealed them one by one. He tried to let all the worries and pressures of his new responsibility drift up and float away into the vast canopy of the heavens. It did not quite work but he felt the better for having tried.

  As he walked around Scar Harbor, shops were closing and taverns were filling. Civil servants were about with brands, lighting the oil lamps that kept the main streets safely lit throughout the night. Mothers called their children home from play and sent them off to bed. The city streets grew quieter and more somber. Most folk about were heading somewhere for the night, whether that be home and bed, or a night of revelry. He exchanged greetings with a few people he knew and accepted congratulations from several relative strangers who happened to notice his newly acquired Expert’s Medallion, before he self-consciously tucked the chain under his shirt so as not to draw attention to it.

  On the other side of the street, walking his way from the other direction, Kyrus spotted Abbiley Tillman. Abbiley was a girl near to Kyrus’s own age, one who had caught his eye some time ago, and continued to do so whenever he saw her. He did not know much about her, just that she was an artist and sometimes a singer, and that she supported her younger brother since their parents had died. She seemed shy and he had never gotten up the nerve to talk to her. He was equally shy, especially around pretty girls. She had short, dark hair that she wore loose, the prettiest blue eyes, cheeks that dimpled when she smiled—Kyrus was shocked from his musings when he saw that she had noticed him looking her way.

  He quickly turned away, but an inspired bravery struck him at that moment and he gathered up the courage to look back and smile. He was greatly relieved and elated when she actually smiled back. It was a shy little smile but it was clearly directed his way. He raised his hand to wave to her and was about to call out a greeting when a horrified look crossed her face. Kyrus’s heart fell immediately, thinking he had pressed his luck too far.

  Thunk!

  A sharp blow struck him blindside in the head, and he blacked out.

  Groaning, Kyrus opened his eyes to be greeted by the faces of a pair of concerned bystanders, framed by a backdrop of the night sky above him. His head stung both just above the right temple and directly in the back, where presumably it had hit the cobblestones.

  “Are you all right?” one man asked. “You should watch where you are going. You walked right into a lamppost.”

  Please do not let Abbiley have been watching, Kyrus thought in despair. Luck was not with him, though, for he heard hard-heeled shoes hurrying across the cobblestones toward him.

  “Oh my, are you hurt?” asked a concerned voice.

  As the speaker came up next to him and crouched at his side, he easily matched the voice with its owner: the shy—but apparently caring—Abbiley. He had not realized until just then that he had never so much as heard her voice before. All that he had learned of her had been through acquaintances.

  Kyrus took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the side of his head. It came away speckled with blood but not as much as he had feared to see.

  “I should live,” he announced. “But I would swear that lamppost was a full pace or more farther to the right just a moment ago.”

  He managed a slight, rueful smile at his own expense. Those gathered around him shared a chuckle and knew he was not badly hurt. Abbiley did not join in the mirth, though, for she seemed genuinely concerned about his injuries. She remained as the rest of the small crowd dispersed.

  “I am so sorry. This is all my fault. Please forgive me,” she said.

  “How do you figure that?” Kyrus asked, rising to a seated position. “Are you the one who decides where to place lampposts on this street?”

  She tried to hold back her amusement and not be sidetracked. “It was my fault. I distracted you and you walked into the post. If it had not been for me, it would not have happened.”

  “Well, if by that you me
an if you had not been so captivating that I could not help but look your way, then I accept your apology.” Kyrus kept his tone lighthearted but it still made Abbiley blush. “Though … it was my own fault that my legs kept moving in one direction while my eyes drifted in the other.”

  It must have been the blow to his head but Kyrus could never remember having such a long conversation with a beautiful young woman before. He normally was stumbling over his words long before this point.

  She helped him regain his footing and stand up. “My name is Abbiley,” she introduced herself, not realizing that Kyrus had already known that much.

  “Nice to meet you. I am Kyrus.”

  “Oh, you were Mr. Chartler’s apprentice, the new Expert Scribe?” she asked, clearly impressed.

  “Yes, that would be me,” Kyrus admitted.

  “Well, I must say, I had expected you to be much older. I guess I just always thought of experts as being old men, like nice old Mr. Chartler. I was sad to hear he was leaving.”

  “Well, I cannot say much about your expectations but I am working on the ‘getting older’ part. I still have some work yet to do on it, and walking into too many posts will not do much good toward that end, but I promise to keep trying.”

  Seemingly relieved that Kyrus was apparently all right, she laughed.

  After a pause, he continued: “Davin was a good friend and I am going to miss him, way off in Golis. The shop seems so empty without him around and it has only been one full day.”

  “Umm … Well … maybe I can come by tomorrow, you know … to see how you are faring?” she stammered out, trying to avoid looking Kyrus in the eye.

  He took her hand in his. “Thank you. I would like that,” he said.

  She looked up at him then and saw him smiling down at her. She licked at her lips and swallowed.

  “Oh … I have got to go. My brother is going to wonder what has become of me.” She gently pulled her hand away from Kyrus and turned to hurry away. “So I shall see you tomorrow, then?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Mind the lampposts!” he called out to her, smiling.

  She quickly turned her attention back to where she was going, but not before a wide smile spread across her face.

  Who was that? Kyrus thought.

  He did not mean the girl, either. He vaguely recognized the voice as his own, but where were those words all coming from? It was as if every clever thing he had ever thought to say to a girl—but could not—had suddenly sprung to the tip of his tongue. While he had promised to avoid walking into posts, he seriously considered running his head into a few more to see what other wonders they could induce. He shook his head—until realizing that it hurt to do so—at the strange development.

  His walk was taking him generally back toward the shop, though he was barely aware of his surroundings. His thoughts were revolving all around Abbiley and that pretty smile she had shown him. The image was fixed in his mind as if she had painted it there herself. He continued in a daze until something strange caught his attention.

  One of the lamps had gone out.

  In and of itself, it was not so unusual an occurrence. The lamps ran out of oil despite the light-keepers’ best efforts to prevent it and sometimes a strong wind or mischievous children would climb the posts and blow them out. What was unusual was the familiar feeling of standing by an unlit lamppost in the dark.

  The dream!

  It came back to him suddenly …

  * * * * * * * *

  He was stumbling along in the dark, unsure of quite where he was going. Shadows stretched in front of him from a small light some distance behind. Feeling in front of him with his hands, Kyrus caught hold of the post of an unlit lamp and used it to steady himself. It was an effort to maintain his balance for some reason.

  This all seems wrong. I never dream about things from my real life, yet that was clearly Scar Harbor. All my dreams take place in a world that exists only behind the lids of my eyes, and have for as long as I can remember. There are no lampposts or streets like the ones we have in Scar Harbor; the world in my dreams is like something out of the fairy tales I had always loved when I was little. I am a mighty hero there, a knight. I have never dreamed about wandering in the dark, drunk … not that I can remember, at least.

  “Sh … Shtoopid lamp.”

  He tried to shake it, but the post was firm in the ground.

  “Can’t shhheee where I’m going. Turn back … on.”

  He tried again to shake it, but gave up when once again nothing happened.

  “Oh, shtubborn, huh? I’ll show you,” he threatened the lamp.

  “Alephhhh… kalai… abdu,” he slurred out, pinching his fingers together and inscribing a circle in the air.

  Kyrus felt a chill wind rush through his body. The tip of his finger burst into a soft white light. He brought the glowing finger up in front of his face, so close that his eyes crossed. He blinked and pulled his head back. It did not hurt and it certainly did not look like fire, but he could not tell what was making his finger light up.

  That is not right at all! Magic never worked for me before in any of my dreams. I have tried before—many times. It was a recurring nightmare years ago, the same incantation, performed just as the instructor had said, yet nothing happened. Other students snickering, succeeding so easily where I had failed …

  Kyrus shook his finger, trying to extinguish the light as if it was a flame, but it clung stubbornly to the tip of the index finger of his right hand. He tried to wipe it off on his shirtsleeve, with no better result. Dumbly, in his drunken state, he thought to light the lamp with it, in the hopes that it would be transferred and leave him. He pushed his finger inside the glass of the lamp and held it there, but the glow would not leave him.

  Down the street, another reveler was walking his way, seeking his home after a night’s drinking. Panicking, Kyrus tried to hide the offending digit, certain that it would be trouble if anyone else caught sight of it.

  He thrust his hand into his pocket, but the glow was bright enough that it shone through the fabric, illuminating his pants from within. He tried covering it with the fist of his other hand, but light seeped out the cracks between his fingers, casting ominous shadows all about; that just made things worse. At last, and in desperation, he stuck his finger in his mouth and was satisfied to see no light pouring forth.

  Turning away from the person approaching in the darkness, he hurried away as best he could towards the shop. Fear had lent him some relief from the dizziness of the alcohol in him, and he managed an awkward run, one arm swinging in time with his stride while the other was held up in front of him, keeping the weirdly glowing finger safely hidden in his mouth.

  * * * * * * * *

  He thought it odd that all of the reverie came back to him just then, but as Kyrus looked around him, the environs in his dream looked much like where he was right then. The similarity was striking, even down to the fact that one of the lamps had blown out. Kyrus assumed that the sight of a street so akin to the one in his dreams must have been the cause of the sudden remembrance of the dream.

  It still seems so odd that for the first time for as long as I can remember, my dreams have included elements from the waking world.

  His head still bothering him as he walked, Kyrus dabbed again at the wound above his temple. There was only a little blood this time but as he looked down at the handkerchief, he once again noticed the cut on the knuckle of his index finger—the one on his right hand. Kyrus felt dizzy as blood seemed to rush to his head. He held the finger up for a closer look, then, glancing about to see that nobody was watching, put his finger in his mouth, just as he had remembered from his dream. He winced as the cut fell right in line with his teeth. His breath started coming short.

  How much of that was a dream? This cannot be real. There is only one way to find out, though.

  Kyrus hurried through the streets, the frantic beating of his heart causing his head to throb in the two places where he had
hit it earlier. All thoughts of Abbiley and what for a moment had held the promise of being one of the best days of his life, flew from his mind. He reached the shop after just a few minutes and burst through the door, drawing a startled yowl from Ash as he was rudely awakened.

  Kyrus tried to calm his breath, for he was near to hyperventilating. He would not be able to tell for sure until he tried it and he needed his voice for the attempt.

  Hopefully, he thought, this will all just turn out to be a weird coincidence of a nightmare and a drunken stupor.

  When he had finally mastered himself to the point where he felt he could speak without his voice trembling, he went up to his room and closed the shutters. After a moment’s reflection, he decided that it might be best to use Davin’s vacant room instead, just to be on the safe side.

  He remembered the whole rigmarole he had learned in his dreams, in that faraway realm in his head where they had finally told him to stop trying to create magic. It was the incantation his dream self had tried for so long with no results, hoping to see just the tiniest bit of an effect for all his hard work. He swallowed hard and then began.

  “Aleph kalai abdu,” he recited, while carefully touching the tip of his middle finger to the tip of his thumb and carefully tracing a small circle in the air.

  The tip of his injured finger burst into a soft white light.

  Kyrus stared at it for just a moment … and then passed out.

  Chapter 5 - Hard Time

  Choonk … choonk … choonk … choonk—CRACK—choonk …

  The heavy hammer swung rhythmically, slamming into the rubble of more rocks than he could count. Denrik Zayne paused a moment to wipe the sweat from his bald head before any more of it dripped into his eyes. He was of average stature and not a solidly built man, but he had a body that had long grown accustomed to hard labor even before coming to this place. His skin had a weathered, leathery look, tanned by sun and rubbed raw by the ocean wind.