by John Daulton
Casting the teleportation spell was a matter of moments. The size of the tower and all its stone, much less all its floors of books and furnishings and its two living occupants, were nothing to him. Altin was a Z-class teleporter, teleportation the strongest school of magic he possessed, the strongest of his seven schools, seven of the eight possible. Such access to the varied magicks of Prosperion was rare, and it was a rare mage indeed who could toss towers about the galaxy so easily as Sir Altin Meade. But he could, and it was through that rare gift that they found themselves there above Yellow Fire and, in the moment after Altin’s glance into the scrying basin, that they found themselves upon the surface of the large gray moon.
“Well, here we are,” he announced as he came out of the teleportation chamber and rejoined Orli amongst the jumble of books and dusty magical things. “Let me know when you are ready for me to drop the Polar Piton’s shield.”
“Well, don’t drop it yet,” she said, looking startled. “You don’t even have your helmet on. And let me check to make sure the teleport didn’t do anything funky to our suits. You people and your damn magic are always messing with our technology.”
He feigned indignation. “You people, eh? And here I thought you meant it when you swore all that fealty to Her Majesty on the Crown City walls the day the demons came. Some subject of the kingdom you turned out to be.”
She laughed. “Of course I meant it, but that doesn’t change the fact that your magic tends to scramble computer brains sometimes.”
He nodded, his face serious again. Many a near mishap—and more than a few that weren’t so lucky as to be just that—had occurred when the channeling of magic disrupted the circuitry of the Earth machines. The people of both worlds were still working on trying to figure out why that was, why it only happened sometimes, and how distance and specific schools of magic came into play. There was so much to learn, but there was also hope that some insights would be found soon, as there were teams from both worlds working on that very thing. So much could be gained by both worlds if they found a way of unraveling that mystery. But until then, the mix could be dangerous.
“Put your helmet on,” she ordered with a twinkle in her eyes. She took it off the table where it sat near a low-burning candle. She lifted it up and set it, gently and lovingly, into place. He reached up and fumbled with the latches for a time, which put an exasperated expression upon her face. “God! You’re like a big infant with these things.”
“Hey!” he protested. “Look at these gloves. How can I be expected to perform delicate operations when each of my fingers is as big as a pig’s foot?”
“I’ll give you a pig’s foot,” she said, smiling again. With a few deft movements, she had his helmet locked into place. She made sure the suit’s dorsal unit was secure, then checked the control panel on his chest and the other on his sleeve. “All good,” she said. “Let’s go. And don’t forget to take it down slow. Let the air out of here easy first, or we’ll be picking up Tytamon’s stuff from halfway across the solar system.” She pointed to the heaps of things around them to make her point.
Altin nodded, then closed his eyes. He let his mind slip into the mana, the place of magic, which for Altin was a constant pink mistiness, like a cloud had settled upon all the universe and no wind stirred. Most magicians saw mana differently: as currents, rising tides, waves, and undulating whorls of chaos. But Altin had a ring—he had the stone within the ring, really, hidden underneath—given to him by Blue Fire. It was a piece of herself and a piece of the Father’s Gift, a part of that which had given her life. The ring smoothed out the tempest for Altin, gave him mana that was nearly as instant as his thoughts. He no longer had to speak the words that shaped ideas and formed the constructs of spells as other humans did.
And so, with that quickness afforded by the ring, he plunged into the mana and, with it, into the magic dome he had cast around the tower, the dome known as a Polar Piton’s shield. He reached out with his thoughts and found the thread of magic that wove the dome together, holding in the air they breathed, maintaining the steady temperature, and even sustaining the very gravity that held them both comfortably to the floor. He found the thread, tugged at it gently, and, heeding Orli’s warning, unraveled the invisible protective shell slowly so as not to send all the air beneath the dome blasting through the windows in a rush. He let it leak out through small openings until it was all gone. The air he could manage; the gravity he could not.
He braced himself as he opened his eyes, awaiting the crushing mash of gravity that had smote him when he’d dropped the shield on the planet Red Fire, a great weight that felt as if ten thousand smashing bricks had fallen upon him. But it did not come. Intellectually he’d known it wouldn’t. Orli told him this moon was much smaller than Red Fire was. Smaller than planet Prosperion even, if not by much. But still, the mind and memory do their work, and it was a matter of several moments before the tension left him and his taut muscles could relax.
“I confess to having been nervous there,” he said by way of letting her know that it was done. For without saying so, there was no other evidence that the dome was down.
Orli turned and looked out the window. “It looks kind of like our moon on Earth.”
Altin, having never been there, couldn’t say much to that. “Well, let’s be on with it, shall we?”
Orli picked up a large tool kit and slung the strap over her shoulder. “Yes,” she said, “let’s go.”
Not long after, the two of them emerged from the tower’s stairwell and stepped out onto the dusty surface of the moon. Orli looked around, tapping the optical controls on her sleeve to get a telescopic view of the horizon all around. She scanned a long, slow arc. Only the mountainous area ahead broke the monotony of the vast gray plain. “Nothing,” she said. “Looks pretty dead.”
“Well, hopefully it’s not all dead,” he said. “Let’s go see if he’s still alive down there somewhere.”
Chapter 6
Pernie stood amongst the hunters again, just as she had yesterday and the day before and the day before. Twenty-four days in a row, to be exact, all exactly the same. The hunt would gather here outside the cave that had become her home on Fel’an’Ital; they would wait for Seawind, who was always last to arrive; and when he did arrive, they would all run off and leave her to run pointlessly into the trees.
Her admiration for their killing craft had begun to wane by the seventh day of trying to run with the hunt, which had been yet another day of the elves having to save her from predators. And such had been the case on every occasion since but for one, and that had hardly been any better. By the fourteenth day she’d been stung twenty-three times by nine different types of insects, three of which were considerably taller than she was, and twice she’d actually been pulled into a giant termite lair—the same one both times. The big snake that had snatched her off the vine on her third day had nearly crushed her in its coils—actually it had crushed her for the most part, but as usual, Seawind’s magic made the injuries go away—and since then it had been nothing but birds, reptiles, insects, and various types of cats, canines, rodents, and, more often than not, mystery beasts, one after the next. The only day she hadn’t been nearly or partially eaten was the day she’d plunged straight off a cliff with a sheer drop of some four hundred spans to a rocky beach below. She’d only been spared death on that occasion because Seawind had arrived as she went over. He was kind enough to throw his spear through her leg, abruptly ending her fall, and then haul her up by the length of slender rope he’d somehow managed to get tied to the end of the shaft. Yesterday, she’d actually been in the mouth of a twelve-span crocodile, which had begun to spin her round and round in a death roll at the edge of a riverbank when the elves finally showed up, and so today, she had decided that she was going to tell them she was done. Every day before, Seawind or Djoveeve had come into her little chamber in the cave, woken her up, and somehow convinced her to try running with the hunt again. Every time, they somehow manag
ed it, though she could not be sure why, and every day it was the same thing: her getting mangled by some jungle beast. Over and over again. But she wasn’t going to do it now. Not this time. This time she’d had enough. One croc too many, by her way of seeing things. One croc, one cliff, one centipede-thing too much.
She sat upon a log with her jaw set and her skinny arms crossed upon her chest, waiting. The youngest elf, for that is what she decided Sandew was, watched her with a look that made her even more determined to go home. He’d taken a spray of acid in the face a few days ago from a giant bird that had plucked her up and carried her off to its nest, some kind of green-and-white eagle with a parrot’s beak and eyes as big as Pernie’s head. For a time after, there was some fear he might lose his sight, even with Seawind appearing almost the moment it occurred and working healing magic on the spot.
“Why don’t you go home, little human?” Sandew said as he watched her staring at him. “You’ll never run with us. Your species is slow and weak. I said it when you got here, and I’ll say it again. What is the value of coming here to die?”
“Djoveeve ran with the hunt, Sandew,” said another elf. “She is human.” Pernie did not know the elf’s name. She knew none of them by name beyond Seawind and Sandew, even though the elves in this group were the only elves she’d seen since coming here. Just these. They rarely spoke when she was around.
“That was before my time,” said Sandew. “And in the two hundred and ninety years since, what other human has? Djoveeve was an accident. The gods forgot themselves when they made her.”
“There has been no need for another,” said Seawind, appearing atop the brown mounded projection of the cave mouth and having come from somewhere far beyond.
“Well, this one isn’t it. I’ve heard the stories. Djoveeve ran with the hunt on the second day.”
“That is true, she did. I was there. And before her, Belletelemew ran with us on the ninth. I fail to see your point.”
“We approach the full passing of the moon, Seawind. Perhaps his time with the humans has made Shadesbreath’s judgment weak. Perhaps he has misread the signs.”
“He has not. If you choose not to run with the hunt to make her, that is up to you. But the rest of us will run until it is done.”
“I’m not going to run,” Pernie said. Her voice sounded small, snuffed nearly to nothing by the noise of so many creatures all around, the elves and the animals, the forest swallowing up her words. She felt it and repeated herself, though the elves, keen of hearing as they were, had heard it fine. “I said, I’m not going to run.”
“You must run. It is the only way,” Seawind said.
“I want to go home. I’m not doing it anymore.”
“But you are getting better.” Seawind even managed to sound as if he believed it, but she knew better. Grown-ups always said things like that, even when they weren’t true.
“I am not,” she said. “I’ll never run with your stupid hunt. It will always be the same. Next time the croc really will eat me. Or you’ll miss my leg and spear me through the head when I fall. The snake will get me, or the spider-apes. I hate it. And I hate you. I want to go home.”
“I’m afraid you can’t go home until you have mastered the spear.”
That made her look up at him. She hadn’t heard that before. “What do you mean, mastered the spear?”
“When you’ve mastered the spear, you will be eligible to take your first test. Pass it, and you will be free to go.”
“I can throw one as well as you,” she said, defiant and reasonably convinced she could. She’d been throwing her own homemade spears nearly all her life, ever since the first day she’d discovered the value of a good, straight stick. She reached for his. “Let me try.”
“You cannot have one until you can run with the hunt. You already know how it must be.”
“Well I won’t.”
“That is up to you.” He turned to the rest. “Are you ready?” All nodded but Sandew, who sent both Seawind and Pernie a nasty look. “Very well. Off with you, then,” Seawind said. And, as always, they seemed to simply melt into the trees. Only Seawind stayed behind.
“I won’t go,” she said, resetting the cross of her arms and huffing loudly to make sure that he would hear. “I won’t.”
“Patience, little Sava. You must keep trying. It will come to you.”
“No, it won’t. I’m slow and stupid, just like Sandew says. You said yourself the others before me could do it faster than I could.”
“The others before you had different gifts.”
“What gifts?”
“I cannot tell you now. You must do this on your own.” He squatted down before her, and looked her straight in the eye. His huge almond-shaped eyes seemed kind to her then, possibly for the first time. “But you can do it, little Sava. You didn’t come here by accident. It is the will of Tidalwrath. It is simply a matter of time.”
Her mouth wriggled like a worm on a warm rock, but she didn’t know quite what to say. He spared her having to, however, for he jumped up, touched her cheek gently, and ran away, off into the trees after the rest of them. Again.
She watched him go. Arrows hardly shot away so fast. She would never run like that. Not in a thousand million years. So what did they think it was that she could do? And why wouldn’t he tell her how Djoveeve and that other woman before her had done it? There was obviously some kind of secret.
It must be magic, she thought. But she couldn’t use magic yet. At least not predictably. Not even when she was mad. She hadn’t been able to get out of the crocodile’s teeth. Or the beak of that giant bird. She’d surely been about to hit the ground that day she went off the cliff. So what, then?
She sat right there on her log and thought and thought and thought. She felt like there must be some kind of riddle. But, for the life of her, she knew not what. After a time, she gave up trying to think about it and let herself cry for a while.
She missed home. She missed Kettle. She missed eating real food instead of stupid fish strips and fruit. She wished Master Altin were here to save her like he always was for stupid Orli Pewter. What had Orli ever done for him? Nothing, that’s what. She kept trying to get him killed. That’s what she did. But Pernie would never get him killed. She would protect him with her life.
But first she had to get out of here. But how? She wondered at it some more, and found herself wondering what Master Altin would do if he were here instead. She wondered, and then she knew. She knew exactly what he would do. He’d already done it.
With a grim smile, she got up and headed into the trees. Walking this time.
Chapter 7
Unlike even the rocky red storm that the surface of Red Fire’s world had been, the moon that had once been the living Yellow Fire was now as quiet as a tomb. As Altin and Orli trekked across the ash-dusted plain, nothing moved. Not the least trace of life. Nothing to make sound, no rustle, rattle, or rumbling. There wasn’t even anything to add visual noise, no color but gray. There were no flowers or trees. No weeds. No lichens clinging to the dead gray rocks. There wasn’t even the least amino acid curled unseen in some hidden pond somewhere, in some puddle beneath some craggy rock. There was just nothing. It was so still and vacant even the winds had died. The very air had been terminated, burned away by the blast of the blue sun, Fruitfall; one great flare and all things were destroyed, right down to the atmosphere.
And yet, despite the bleak vacuum of lifelessness, Orli had hope as she and Altin made their way into the jagged teeth of upthrust peaks before them. Somewhere among them would be a cave, an entry that would lead them down into the place where Yellow Fire lived—or had lived, so many millennia ago. So many millions of years perhaps. No one knew, not on Earth or Prosperion. There was no way to know. And Blue Fire couldn’t tell them. Blue Fire didn’t measure time like they did. For her there was only the time before Yellow Fire’s love, the time during, and the time after it was gone. But it didn’t matter how long. As long as they ha
d hope, there was still a chance.
In size, this world was much smaller than Red Fire, much smaller than Blue Fire too, but that hardly counted as an advantage when it came to the work Altin and Orli had at hand. In speaking to Altin as Blue Fire often did, blasting his mind with esoteric images and emotion mainly, though increasingly with some nascent grasp of words, Blue Fire had imparted a sense of direction to him, a mental map of where it was that they needed to go to find Yellow Fire. To call what she gave him a memory would perhaps be overstating the case, but he had what might be better called an instinct for finding Yellow Fire now; at least that’s how he explained it to Orli. It was a feeling that would trigger when the time was right, a sense that left was better than right at some intersection of passages, or that down was preferable to up. Intangible as it was, unsettling and hard to trust, the type of memory he had received had worked before, not so many months ago. It had worked when he had led them through the caves, caverns, and fissures into the depths of the vast world Red Fire, hunting the heart of that murderous world down. It worked then, so it would work now.
What lessened her worry all the more was that, unlike their trip to kill Red Fire, for this trip, they had the advantage of Altin’s magic. Without the crushing assault of Red Fire’s thoughts intent on blasting Altin’s brain apart, they could do without the anti-magic enchantments that had kept them safe. This was a great luxury, and so with that advantage, and the fact that Orli had brought two Higgs prisms rather than one, they hoped to make quick and safe work of the search.
She let him lead the way, and just as before, Altin’s instinctive memory led them directly to a pass leading into the craggy mountains, and after an hour or so, they reached the entrance to a cavern.
“Well, here it is,” he announced unnecessarily. “According to my cloudy borrowed memories, somewhere in there is where Yellow Fire’s heart should be.” She smiled, a short, determined thing, and strode in. He followed, then quickly took the lead.
