I squinted when I emerged out of the dark cabin into Ivory’s brightly lit Nowhere. After gobbling up some type of cold cereal mush left out for me by the fire pit, I took a last look around. Having been familiar with Edgar’s Nowhere, I wasn’t surprised that there weren’t any mosquitos, ants or other insects present to attack me or my food.
I breathed in the fresh air and walked across the bridge to the landing strip, stopping at the still river to wash my face and hands and to scoop up a quick drink of water.
Valcas came into view as I approached the jet. Its color reminded me of blue-raspberry-flavored snow cones. As I passed Valcas I mumbled an awkward good morning and looked around for Ray and Ivory.
“We’re in here, Calla!” Ivory called from inside the jet. “Come on in. Valcas was just outside keeping watch.”
I climbed inside the jet, followed by Valcas who tightly shut the door. When everyone was seated and belted, Ivory prepared for takeoff. Since this time she wasn’t piloting a TSTA vehicle, Valcas would be in charge of searching and transporting us to the Fire Falls with his travel glasses.
Ray sat upright in his seat, focused and attentive. He’s probably never traveled this way, I thought. Instinctively, I reached for his hand to give him my support, whatever that was worth, which he accepted without breaking his focus or changing the direction of his gaze. I knew that the jet’s speed would be more than enough to set Valcas’ travel glasses and our team in motion, and that Ray was intent on learning, observing and recording.
The aircraft’s small windows glowed with yellow light from the outdoors. I wore my own pair of travel glasses as I watched the light change from yellow to white to a fiery orange.
Our vessel, no longer protected by the walls of a jet, was surrounded by flame. The air was stifling hot and it felt like we were floating. I peeked over the sides of what appeared to be a round blue watercraft and gasped when I saw licks of flame reaching up along its edges.
“A Fire Boat?” Ivory chuckled. “Well done, Valcas. I don’t even smell it burning.”
Valcas dismissed her praise, replying in a tone that I remembered well from when he’d first captured me. “I didn’t change the vehicle,” he said. “It transformed appropriately during travel. Welcome to the Fire Falls.” He was back to being businesslike, calm and mysterious.
Ivory returned his comment with an uncertain nod. Her blue training jet had turned into something else, the way vehicles usually did when using the travel glasses to travel to real places and made-up places that hadn’t become Nowheres.
I looked up and across the pool of fire spreading out from all sides of the boat. Rolling waves of flame poured down into the pool from a rocky mountain range. This was nothing like the volcanic lava that I’d expected after first hearing about the Fire Falls. The fire was not a molten liquid; it was a cascade of living flame.
I recorded what I saw through my travel glasses as well as the wonderment I felt while looking at it. I expected Ray, who sat next to me, was quietly doing the same with his mind.
As the boat bobbed closer to the Falls, a small island emerged in front of where the Fire Falls fell at their fullest.
“Don’t tie up the boat, Ivory.” Valcas sharply exhaled. “Calla and I will be going through the Falls.”
“WHAT? ARE you serious?” Ivory appeared panic-stricken. The look did not suit her.
“Get Calla and me close to the Falls,” said Valcas. “She’ll be her own decoy. You will need to leave us where the flames are shallow. Then you and Ray must take the boat and drive the Uproar toward us, to Calla, which is what it wants. We will escape through the Falls, and hopefully it will come after us and be extinguished.”
Ivory pressed her lips into a tight line, her steel-gray eyes glaring.
Ray raised his eyebrows. Frowning, he shoved his hands into his pockets.
Only then did it strike me that all the training in the world could never have softened the blow of the danger my team of protectors and I were about to face. My hands trembled as they covered my face in horror.
“You can’t expect me to just let you and Calla waltz right in there,” Ivory said tightly. “It’s too dangerous. We never discussed this—this wasn’t part of the plan.”
Valcas raised his voice over the crackling of flame. “You were chosen to obey commands on this mission, and our course has changed.”
My jaw dropped. Was Valcas in charge now because he transported us with his travel glasses? I wondered whether taking control over the travel made him captain. More importantly, how did he know the Uproar would show up here? Once again, I couldn’t shake the thought that the Uproar’s attacks seemed to coincide with Valcas’ presence.
“I will accompany Calla through the Fire Falls,” he repeated. “You and Ray will see to it that the Uproar follows us and is extinguished, and then your roles in this mission will be complete.”
With my face still covered, I felt two pairs of arms around me and the wetness of tears that fell from the direction of muffled sobs.
I looked up to see Ray’s blue eyes, glassy with tears. Saying nothing, he kissed me on the forehead and hugged me good-bye. Ivory did the same, surprising me with a kiss on the cheek.
“I figured sooner or later Valcas would want you all to himself,” Ivory whispered in my ear. “Follow whatever instructions he gives you and keep safe. He won’t hurt you. You’re too important to him—to all of us.”
I nodded, and then stood there with wet eyes, sniffling, as Ivory let me go.
My team and I sat in somber silence as Ivory maneuvered the vessel to a spot with rocky footing, high enough for Valcas and me to stand as close to the Fire Falls as possible. As the flames from the Falls drew nearer, I could feel my own temperature rise from their dry, sweltering heat.
Sooner than I would have liked, I found myself pressing the hands of Ivory and Ray one last time before Valcas and I disembarked.
Valcas reached out to Ray, who accepted and briskly shook his hand. “Excellent work detecting the Uproar’s weakness. Thank you, Technician. I wish you the best.”
Then, to Ivory, Valcas made a gesture with both hands open with outfacing palms, his fingers pointing upward and thumbs crossed.
Ivory nodded and returned the sign while softly speaking what I assumed was the gesture’s verbal meaning: “Peaceful parting and rapid reunion.”
Valcas and I stepped down from the boat and onto the island, the ground of which stretched mere inches above the pool of fire and less than a few feet away from the cascading Falls. He took my hand. His grasp was firm, but not threatening. He kept his distance as we watched the blue-raspberry boat float away across the orange pool of fire.
I reached down, feeling Valcas bend down alongside me, and tentatively touched the nearest flames. I pulled my hand back immediately. My fingertips tingled with a sour, burning pain. The flames were real. Instinctively, I pressed my fingers to my lips to try to ease the pain. I shuddered at the realization that soon my entire body would be engulfed in fire. I wasn’t sure I could do it.
Valcas tightened his grip on my hand. “This is a life or death situation. We cannot time travel through to the other side of the Falls. We will need to run through them. Running is something that I know you can do. We’ll be fine once we reach the other side.”
I smiled bleakly, remembering how I’d once run to the dock, around Lake Winston, and how, later, I’d run after stealing his travel glasses to escape his palace.
“You really are willing to risk your life for me,” I murmured aloud. “I’m sorry about what I said at the campground… about whether it would be easier to fix your eyes or your personality. That was a low blow. This—all of this—has been difficult for me, emotionally, physically and mentally, but that doesn’t make it right… what I said to you.”
Valcas removed his glasses. His colorless eyes reflected most of the flame around them. “No matter what you may think of me, I will protect you to the end. I will keep my promise to your father.�
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He bent his head down, toward me. “And, I will prove myself to you.”
MY CHEEKS warmed—both because of Valcas’ promise, and because of the sweltering heat of the Fire Falls.
A horn sounded. I looked up to see three tall puffs of black smoke rise in the distance. The blue boat was a tiny round berry that floated across the fiery ocean. The berry grew larger as it headed back toward us, in the direction of the Fire Falls.
“The smoke—” I gasped. “Is the Uproar coming this way, or did something go wrong?”
I looked to Valcas for direction. His expression panicked me. Having the benefit of being able to see his entire face without the glasses, I could tell he was alarmed.
“Valcas?”
“The Uproar is here,” he replied. “I can feel it.”
I blinked, unable to feel anything but the heat from the flames. “How did the Uproar know we’d be here? How did it find us so quickly? How come it only shows up when you’re—?”
“Put your glasses someplace safe,” Valcas said, ignoring my frantic questions. He dropped my hand to wrap his travel glasses in a cloth and secured them inside his clothing.
“Mine are already in my backpack, wrapped in a T-shirt.”
“Good. Any minute now we’ll need to run through. Appropriate timing is essential not just for our survival, but for theirs.”
I winced, knowing he was talking about Ivory and Ray.
“Okay,” Valcas said. “Take a couple of deep breaths. Fill your lungs with fresh air, as much as you can.”
I inhaled a few times, expanding my chest with the cleanest, coolest air that I could find. My body stiffened. “I can’t do this,” I said.
Valcas grasped my waist and turned me in the direction of the Fire Falls, all while taking a couple of deep breaths of his own. A moment later our hands joined again. He brought his lips to my ear. “Yes, you can. You must.”
I looked at the sheet of flame and bit my lip. There would be no going back. Shakily, I sucked in a huge gulp of air.
Valcas yelled, “Now! Hold your breath, close your eyes and run!”
His grip on my hand tightened, and I felt myself being tugged forward. We ran as fast as possible, blindly, without breathing.
Burning flames charred my clothing and skin. It smelled like a barbecue, the thought of which sickened my stomach. Had I not been trying to hold my breath, I would have gagged. Next came the sizzling and popping sounds, which only nauseated me more.
I lost the squeezing sensation of Valcas’ grip, but I felt something continue to propel me through the Falls. I opened my mouth, not to breathe, but to scream, when it hit me—really hit me—that I couldn’t run back out of the fire.
The fiery torment scorched my tongue and the insides of my mouth, turning my saliva to steam before burning through layers of skin. Then, the burning spread into my lungs as they pleaded for air.
I no longer felt my feet and legs pounding against the ground. Something else pushed me on, but the forward movement paled in comparison to the broiling of my body. I thought I would pass out from the pain and lack of air, waiting and hoping for either that or death.
As far as I could tell, my eyes were still shut—I’d complied with that part of Valcas’ instructions. Yet, in my agony, I had no sense of whether my eyelids were still intact or burned completely off my face. When I’d first entered the Fire Falls, I could see a fiery orange glow through my eyelids. Now everything was black and red.
Somehow “seeing” the blackness and the redness comforted me. My eyes were still present; they hadn’t been eaten away by the Falls. I knew this because my eyeballs throbbed, a distinct, piercing white-hot pain that stood out among the burning of my flesh.
No longer was there any concept of time.
I lost all awareness of Valcas.
Everything was pain and pain was everything.
While yearning for the relentless suffering to stop, I felt myself fall forward.
As I fell, an enveloping coolness wrapped me in balmy bliss. I wanted to sigh in relief, but my lungs had been deprived of air for an indeterminate period of time. I had nothing left to fill a sigh.
A cooling serum filled my mouth, stomach and lungs, healing me from the inside out as it repaired me, externally, internally, outward and inward.
I welcomed the liquid ointment into my eyes by opening them the way I’d learned while swimming in a pool of water. I would have laughed if I could have, remembering how much I’d complained about the chlorine in the water stinging my eyes.
This ability to open my eyes brought with it other sensations, making me realize that I hadn’t fallen at all. I became aware of my own two legs, felt them; they were no longer running, but they continued to carry me forward.
Then I began to see. First, I recognized that the balmy liquid was a blue-green color. Through it, I could see the shape of a cave, distorted but dark and gray, and very real.
To my left I felt a pressure on my hand. I turned my head to find Valcas walking beside me. By some miracle he was still holding my hand.
Encouraged, I picked up speed, dragging Valcas along with me. He didn’t resist. Before breaking through to the surface of air, I felt myself rinsed clean by a shower of clear, refreshing water—a substance much less dense than the blue-green fluid.
I drew in a long, deep breath of warm, delicious air as I stepped out of the water and onto dry ground. The sensation of Valcas’ hand fell away.
I could breathe again.
We’d made it through.
RELIEVED, OVERJOYED and happy to be alive, I turned to Valcas. We were soaking wet from going through the Fire Falls. Yet I felt a sudden urge to hug him. I shivered, feeling my gratefulness toward him overwhelm me. This was the first time I genuinely wanted to embrace any version of him since I’d left his younger self at the White Tower.
Valcas knelt in front of a pool of water at the base of the interior waterfall, fumbling with his glasses, presumably making sure they were safe and still intact.
“Valcas? Is everything okay?”
Instead of looking up, he shook his head. “Something doesn’t feel right,” he whispered. “I feel—something’s different.”
I instantly worried for him because, personally, I felt absolutely amazing. “Are you hurt? Did something happen to your glasses?”
Valcas stood and spoke as he turned to face me. “No. My glasses are fine. Physically I’ve never felt better; but there’s something else going on, something unnerving. I can’t figure out what—”
His eyes met mine.
He gasped and stepped backward, which would have startled me had I not been startled already.
Our voices overlapped. “Your eyes!”
Something had changed.
Everything about Valcas was exactly the same, except for one key detail: his eerie holographic, milky irises were no longer there. They’d been replaced by the bright green emeralds of his mother and of his younger self. Green, blazing and, as Shirlyn would have said, brilliant—as if they’d never been affected by the travel glasses.
I stared, transfixed.
Valcas cleared his throat. “I’ve dreamed of being able to see you like this again.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Your brown eyes are as dark and magnificent as the day I met you for the first time—when you were a baby.”
I nodded, still mesmerized by his transformation. I suppose I should have been happier about the fact that my eyes were no longer a sickly green color, that I looked normal again. But I couldn’t get past what I was seeing with them. I’d forgotten just how beautiful Valcas could be, how beautiful he was.
Valcas raised his dark eyebrows, which made his newly restored green eyes that much more stunning. “Are my eyes repaired as well?”
My chin quivered as I held back tears. “They are. You look like you again.”
I don’t know how long we stood there like that, like two people seeing each other for the first time. I couldn’t decide whether it f
elt more like meeting a stranger or finding a long-lost friend.
When we finally snapped out of it, reality hit that Ray and Ivory were still on the other side of the Fire Falls. We had no way to communicate with them to find out what was happening. Assuming we did find a way to get back outside, there was no way of predicting the timing of when Ray and Ivory destroyed the Uproar. I shuddered. The Uproar could have destroyed them.
Having no other way of distracting myself from these horrible thoughts, I joined Valcas in exploring our new surroundings.
The water in the pool near the interior base of the Falls was clean and filled with fish, seaweed and other plants. The space behind the falls stretched outward, flat on the bottom and rounded in the corners. Stone walls reached high up along the interior waterfall to an enclosed ceiling of sharp crags that jutted downward.
Flames from the exterior of the Falls shined through the interior waterfall, casting a yellow-orange glow on the pool and rocky ground. The outside layer of fire provided both heat and light, not to mention protection from the Uproar. It was a perfect hiding place from anyone or anything that dared not enter through the Fire Falls.
But the space opposite the Falls wasn’t enclosed. There was a tunnel opening, and we had no idea what was on the other side. Unfortunately, the light that stretched through the waterfall wasn’t bright enough to light up the entire tunnel. Valcas and I explored by feeling along its rocky walls. The walls were smooth, as if the tunnel had been carved out by an underground source of running water. From there, we felt through a series of smaller tunnels, finding that the inside of the Falls was a cavernous network of passageways and open pockets.
We didn’t hear a sound other than our own murmurings and footsteps. It was dark and quiet. And yet, I couldn’t help but feel that we weren’t alone.
Insight Kindling Page 10
