Hunter Brown and the Consuming Fire

by Chris Miller

  When at last we reappeared, we fell side by side on the long boardwalk behind the Cliffside Inn. Boojum was weaker than he had ever been before—after transporting. He looked exhausted, singed and slightly annoyed at having pulled my weight with him. His hair and skin had already begun to miraculously heal, but his breathing was slower and his eyes full of pain.

  “Sorry about that,” I said, “but it was the only way to save us both. Come on, we have to hurry!”

  I picked up my worn-out pet with care and cradled him under my arm like a football. Racing across the deck toward the sky ship I waved my free arm at the others. The furnace had not yet warmed enough to work the propellers, but Stoney understood my signal and wasted no time in shoving off.

  “Quick, grab an oar!” he called out to Rob, pointing to a long pole that hung out over the side. With a great shove of the oar against the dock, the two pushed the vessel away from the inn as I jumped on board. The ship slid silently out into the open expanse known simply as the Void.

  We were out no more than fifty feet when Xaul bolted down the dock toward our craft. For a moment I almost believed he might leap out across the gap of nothingness, but he thought better of it at the last moment and held back.

  He came to a stop at the edge of the dock and locked his angry silvery eyes with mine. Those eyes, those bright and powerful eyes held more than simply a challenge in them. In that moment I knew he was committed to my destruction. Then, he turned coldly away and entered the inn once more. Seconds later, the inn burst into flames, the fiery tongues lighting the foggy sky.

  Poor Boojum was still so exhausted he barely even flinched at the sight of the furious blaze, though I could tell it did bother him. After sheepishly handing over Hope’s medallion, he gratefully accepted being put back into the safe, dark quarters of my backpack.

  “Funny,” Stoney said as he watched the Cliffhanger Inn burn away and fall off the ledge. “I always thought the old place would crumble into the Void while I slept. Never thought I’d watch it burn.”

  Rob, who was standing beside us, looked a bit queasy at the thought of having slept there for any time at all. As much as he was glad to be off the ledge, his new set of circumstances suited him even less. At least at the Cliffhanger there was some sense of solid ground beneath or near you. Out here in the Void, it was nothing but open air.

  “Sorry about your inn,” Trista said, realizing how much loss the man had suffered for our sake.

  “Ah, don’t be—the place has been anchoring me down ever since I inherited it years ago. Truth be told, I’ve always wanted to head back out into the open air.”

  “You’ve been so kind to us; I can’t thank you enough,” I said. Stoney just smiled and waved off the comment.

  “It weren’t nothing. Captain Stoney at yer service. The Author is calling you on, and I guess I’m going with ya for now,” he said.

  “We couldn’t ask for a better captain,” Trista said, assuring him of our approval.

  “Well then, welcome aboard the Bridesmaid. She’s a little unfinished in places, but I can assure you she’s as faithful a ship as any. So, let’s get going, shall we?” he said, stepping up to the helm and pointing out into the hazy sky. “To Torpor!”

  Below deck, the furnace that powered the propellers was blazing hot. With a flick of a lever, the propellers began to whir to life, providing the thrust needed to take us deeper into the Void.

  “Who was that back there?” asked Rob, referring to the figure who had chased us away.

  “Whoever it was, he’ll have a hard time trying to follow us in this weather. We’ll chart our course and be out of sight before he can launch a vessel of his own. He’ll have no way to know which way we’ve gone,” Stoney boasted loudly.

  “It was Xaul, the Xin warrior I told you about,” I said softly, holding the medallion out in front of me; the glow was soft and blue now.

  “How do you know it was him?” Rob asked.

  I explained how I had been having dreams—how I was able to see things, visions of events that were happening in other parts of Solandria. Then, I told them what I had seen of Xaul’s encounter with Petrov.

  “He was a good man, Petrov. I’ll never forget what he done for me. Why I was just an old, drunk sailor when he found me. Didn’t care fer no one but me own self.”

  “So, what happened?” Trista asked, curious as to what had made the change in the man.

  “Well, one day when I was a bit…ehem…under the weather, Petrov found me in an alley and took me to Sanctuary, nursed me back to health and fed me proper. He was the one who taught me abouts the Author and Aviad, you know. Even landed me an honest job at the inn with a friend of his. Didn’t ask fer nothing in return neither. Never been the same since, I can tell you that much. He’ll be missed.”

  Stoney’s good eye seemed to tear over at the thought of the lost Resistance Commander.

  “Petrov would have been proud of what you did for us, Stoney,” I said at last.

  Stoney smiled slightly at the thought. “Maybe so, young Hunter. Maybe so.”

  There was a moment of silence as we let our remembrances of the man fill the space between us. As we soared off toward Torpor, the Bridesmaid swayed back and forth, carried in the currents of the wind.

  “Still a bit queasy then, are you, lad?” Stoney asked, watching Rob.

  Rob nodded.

  “Don’t be afraid none; we’re in the Author’s winds now. Ain’t nothing going to happen that we can’t handle. You’ll see.”

  He paused for a moment then added.

  “Say, that reminds me of a song I likes to sing whenever I’m sailing. You wants to hear it?” he asked. Before we could agree he began bellowing out a tune, similar to the one the sailors had sung earlier that day as they were leaving the Cliffhanger Inn. Only Stoney’s version was quite different, both in its lyrics and in its delivery. He was as tone-deaf as a seal and blurted the notes out with such force that it hardly sounded like a song at all:

  Oh, sailing out on the Author’s breeze,

  I goes where he wills for his wind carries me.

  Never a worry and never a care

  When I’m sailing out in the open air.

  Trista and I just laughed at the man as he repeated the chorus a second time, which was unimaginably worse than the first.

  “Everybody now,” he said at the end of the second chorus. Shrugging my shoulders, I joined the boisterous man and convinced Trista to sing out as well. The two of us joined him in the song, singing at the top of our lungs.

  “You know,” Stoney said as we finished, “you lot really sounded awful on that last bit.”

  With that even Rob started to laugh.

  Looking back, I watched the shard of Galacia, a floating island of ice and snow, disappear into the hazy atmosphere. When it was gone at last, Stoney offered a suggestion.

  “Probably best if you all got some sleep tonight. There are bunks below deck, and I can manage myself for awhile; no use in all of us staying up.”

  Rob was the first to head below deck, deciding it was better if he were in confined quarters where he couldn’t see that we were flying. Despite the bitter cold, Trista and I were far too excited to go back to sleep. Adventure was in the air, and we were on our way at last. We kept watch with Stoney and enjoyed his company. He told tales of his former sky-sailing days and of the dangers of flight: sky serpents, funnel clouds and Void ghosts.

  “What’s down there in the Void?” Trista had asked at one point.

  “Nobody knows for sure,” Stoney said. “There are legends of course, but I don’t like to repeat them because there’s no telling what’s true unless you’ve been there yerself. Nope, I prefer to leave the mysteries of the Void unsearched.”

  He could have talked all night, but eventually Trista, obviously troubled by something, wandered away to the railing.
I followed, leaving Stoney at the helm alone.

  “Something wrong?” I asked carefully.

  “No, just thinking,” she said. I leaned on the railing beside her and waited.

  Just then, the craft broke out of the dense fog and into a grand expanse of sky, scattered with wisps of silvery clouds in a deep midnight blue. Two pale crescent moons, one slightly larger than the other hung overhead, accompanied by an array of stars too numerous to count.

  “It’s beautiful,” Trista gasped. “And to think, all of these years, the stories of Solandria my cousins believed…all of it was true.”

  “Strange, isn’t it,” I replied, spotting the silhouette of another shard floating off in the distance. I still wasn’t used to the sight.

  “Overwhelming actually,” she said. “You know, I always had a feeling there was more to life than meets the eye. I just never dreamed there was a world like this.”

  “I know what you mean. The first time I was called here, I was so full of questions it was infuriating. I thought I had my life all figured out. I was in control and everything revolved around me. And then when things changed I felt so disoriented and lost.”

  Trista nodded. “So how did you deal with it?”

  “Not very well at first,” I admitted. “But when I started learning about the Author, things started to get easier to accept.”

  “That’s one of the things I don’t understand. How is it that you all are okay with believing there is some great Author at work in our lives?”

  “How is it you aren’t?” I replied.

  There was a long pause.

  “Nothing comes from nothing,” Trista said at last in a misty voice. “That’s what my cousins always used to tell me.”

  I smiled, “The first truth of the Code of Life. It helps us remember that everything we see owes its existence to something else, something bigger than all of this,” I said, spreading my arms out toward the Void around us.

  “The Author, huh,” Trista answered. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah,” I replied, “and he brought you here for a reason too, Trista.”

  “You think?” she asked, searching my eyes with her own.

  “Absolutely,” I answered, putting my arm around her shoulders and giving them a squeeze.

  As the first signs of dawn began to creep into the darkness of the Void, we stood amazed at the sight. A new day had begun and unbeknownst to us, so had an ill-fated journey.

  Chapter 14

  The Difference of a Mark

  Get your grubby hands off that you little thief!” Rob howled in a fit of rage, throwing a sauce pan at Boojum. It was a good toss too, and would have been right on target had the critter not disappeared at the last possible moment.

  Boojum, whose hunger refused to subside, had taken to raiding the galley of the Bridesmaid on a regular basis. This time, it was an orange, star-shaped fruit that Rob had intended to cut into equal rations. It was his job to prepare the food, and he was furious that Boojum had interfered yet again.

  “Sure, disappear, you lousy rodent,” Rob said as he stomped up the steps to the main deck. “But if I catch you stealing from my kitchen again, I swear we’ll be having Boojum stew for supper!”

  Boojum reappeared and scurried across the deck, hiding behind my leg in hopes of escaping Rob’s wrath.

  “Take it easy, Rob,” I said. “It’s not Booj’s fault he needs to eat more than the rest of us.”

  “Fine, I’ll remind you of that when we run out of food,” he said, stomping back down to the lower level in a huff.

  “Wow, someone’s in a mood today,” Trista said as she passed by with a bucket of soapy water in hand.

  “Can’t blame him really,” I said. “We’ve been sailing for two days now, and he’s spent most of it cooped up below deck. I wish he would lighten up a bit and join the rest of us.”

  “Cut the guy some slack,” Trista replied. “He’s afraid of heights, you know.”

  “I know, it’s just that at the fairgrounds he seemed so excited to know there was another Codebearer at school. Honestly, I thought we’d get to know each other better, but here we are on an adventure together in Solandria and I feel like I hardly know that guy. It seems like he just likes to keep to himself.”

  “Why don’t you talk to him about it?” Trista suggested.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  Trista rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “Here,” she shoved a sponge in my hand, “you can clean those windows on the deckhouse over there, and I’ll go keep him company.” With that she scooted across the deck and disappeared down the stairs to check on Rob.

  With a four-day journey ahead of us, Captain Stoney had suggested we assign duties—the only fair way to ensure each of us carried his own weight. I shared the task of night watch with Stoney (four hours on, four hours off). When not on watch, I was to report to Trista who was in charge of cleaning the ship a bit. It seemed there was always something to be done. Not having seen regular use for quite some time, the Bridesmaid was a little worse for the wear.

  Rob, on the other hand, preferred to stay below deck and had volunteered for the job of cook. Surprisingly, he wasn’t bad at it either. Nevermind the fact that he had a bandage on nearly every fingertip from mishaps with the sharp knives.

  At any rate, the galley was decidedly Rob’s domain, which of course put him further at odds with Boojum who had a knack for wanting to eat at the most inopportune times.

  A loud crunch from over my shoulder near the deck railing caught my attention; the little critter was already happily munching on the stolen starfruit.

  “As for you, mister,” I threatened, “you’re starting to be a bit of a nuisance, you know that?”

  His cheeks were fat with juicy pulp, and he wore a puzzled expression. Pointing to his chest, he glanced both ways as if to ask if I meant him.

  “Yeah you,” I replied.

  The creature swallowed a great big gulp of food and spoke. “Boojum good; Boojum help.”

  “Some help!” I said sarcastically. “So far you’ve only managed to help yourself.”

  At this, he dropped his head in shame.

  “Sorry,” he said, holding the half eaten fruit out toward me in an effort to make amends for his mischief.

  “Oh, keep the fruit. Just try and stay out of Rob’s way, okay? And no more food without asking, understood?”

  “Okee dokee,” said Boojum, tossing the pit of the fruit aside and nodding his head eagerly up and down. “No Rob, no foods!”

  With that he scurried back to his favorite corner of the deckhouse and curled up in a nest of blankets to eat his reward.

  I set to work scrubbing the grime off the porthole windows of the deckhouse. Inside, Captain Stoney sat at a broad oak table in the center of the room, studying the navigational maps and stroking his mustache. His normally jovial mood had turned notably sour over the last day, and I wondered what was bothering him. As I finished cleaning the window by the door, I could hear him grumbling to himself inside.

  “No, no, no,” Stoney said, pounding his fists on the table for effect. “It’s all wrong, blast these maps!”

  “What’s the matter, Stoney?” I asked, wandering in to see if I could be of assistance.

  “It’s these maps; I can’t seem to figure out why we keep getting so far off course. Never had trouble like this before and it’s driving me mad.”

  “How far off course are we?” I asked.

  “That’s just it, I can’t say for sure. We’re supposed to be here, near the Shard of Sinos by now,” he said, pointing his finger just to the right of the map’s center. On the map, his finger was surrounded by a large gathering of shards, the largest of which was named Sinos. I recognized the name, only because it was the part of Solandria my teacher, Samryee, had b
een from. That was, of course, before he had fallen in the battle of Sanctuary. Like Petrov, he was gone now.

  I drove the thought from my mind. As fitting as it was to honor a teacher and mentor, dwelling on the past for too long only robbed the present of its power.

  Stoney continued. “As you can see, there should be plenty of land in these skies by now. I was planning on stopping for supplies, but there’s nothing out there—nothing but the Void!”

  Stoney was frustrated and it showed on his face. Clearly, he prided himself on being an expert airman and was not pleased that his skills were failing him.

  “What baffles me the most is that every time I checks our course…our compass here says we’re off by a mark one way or the other. It’s never spot on when I come back to check it after a bit.”

  His dirty fingernail pointed to the edge of his compass. The tick marks that surrounded the outer rim were so small and insignificant I couldn’t imagine they could make any difference at all.

  “Only a mark? That can’t be so bad,” I said. “We can’t be that far off track then, can we?”

  “Sure, it don’t look like much to you, but one mark can equal a hundred miles or more when you follow it out. Never underestimate the difference of a mark.”

  “So, are you saying the compass is bad?”

  “Nope, this one’s as trusty as a snow pup—never failed me before.” He set the compass back on top of the maps and slouched back in his chair, putting his face in his hands. Massaging his forehead, he began to think out loud. “Maybe our rudder’s out of sorts.”

  I was no mechanic, but it didn’t sound like an easy fix.

  “So what do we do?”

  He took a deep breath, puffed his cheeks and blew the air slowly from his lips.

  “Only one thing to do! I’m going to have to go overboard and check it out.”

  Having made up his mind, Stoney stood up on the spot, letting the chair slide away behind him, and made ready to do what needed to be done.