Born of Flame

by Oscar Steven Senn

  “Go there!” She spoke harshly, forcing a lever.

  “Quan is approaching, milady, shall I fire on him while you repair the mining generator?”

  “I’m not repairing it!” she growled. “Just head for the pylon beacon and get us there in one piece.”

  Votal’s reply was obscured by a blast that jarred the ship. Korliss Quan was again in range. A last connection was made, and an alarm began shrieking insistently from the portable generator. Ignoring it, she shoved the entire unit into the garbage chute and slammed the hatch. Another blast rocked the ship. She banged into a pipe as she tried to reach the control pod. Grimacing, she strapped herself in. With a deft though trembling hand Spacebread maneuvered the image of Quan’s ship in the dead center of her scope. It was gaining.

  Below, the fifth planet was growing larger. A ruined place, even its atmosphere had been burned away by the blue sun’s explosions. An ironic thought crossed her mind, a thought that wondered how the key to Klimmit’s precious life could hide in such a dead world.

  “Only ten seconds before the generator overloads, milady,” Votal warned. “Should you not jettison it?”

  She laughed, counted five slowly, and pressed the garbage release. In the scope the generator tumbled cleanly toward Quan’s vessel and, before it could be avoided, flared in a blinding release of energy only meters from the hull. It was the same place the joint beam strike had earlier damaged Quan’s steering.

  Spacebread, however, never saw how well her desperate plan worked. For just as the sabotaged machine jettisoned, Quan’s energy beam hit the control pod with full force, and Spacebread blacked out.

  * * *

  A POUNDING, dim and primitive echoed inside her head. Spacebread felt breath tickling her fur, an odd sensation. She wobbled her head to make the tickling and the pounding go away but was not successful. With the misery of one who knows staying unconscious to be a hopeless battle, she opened her eyes.

  They were no longer in flight. Through a veil of smoke in the control pod, she could see a dark landscape beyond, lit only by the ghostly glow of the nebula. Her head was slumped across her chest, and it was her own breathing that had tickled her fur. The ship was at an impossible angle, an angle of crash landing. And the pounding was not inside her head. She winced as she unbuckled herself and stumbled against the planet’s steady gravity, searching for the source of the noise.

  Suddenly, the rhythm stopped. A light pierced the control pod window, blinding her momentarily. Then it was turned on its carrier, who waved.

  “Dundee,” she moaned.

  When she turned her head sharply, there was a consuming pain. She held her neck with one hand while weaving her way to the air lock and discovered crusted blood along the left side.

  “Votal, open the outer lock doors,” she muttered.

  But there was no response, and she suddenly realized the ship was nearly dead. Votal had been damaged beyond functioning. She steeled her mind against the pain and cranked the outer door open by hand, closed it, and then pumped cabin air into the lock.

  The inner doors screeched as they opened, and Dundee’s suited form appeared.

  “Thank the stars you’re all right,” he said, slipping an arm around her and helping her sit. “You took some rough pounding up there. I think you owe your life to your computer. It managed to evade most of Quan’s fire and land, sort of.”

  “It’s not the first time,” Spacebread said, recovering a bit. “How the blazes did you manage to locate me in the Shadowmaze?”

  Dundee grinned. “Galvirst. He kept me locked up for a week, then suddenly I was brought to Antares. He outfitted my ship and everything, probably because I said I’d sue him. From there I just followed your exhaust trail through the maze. I’ll explain fully later.”

  “Where’s Quan?” Spacebread checked the charge in her gun.

  “He went down a good way from here. We tore his steering systems up pretty bad. It should take him quite a while to repair and follow us.”

  “Good. Then we have a start. Now, is there anything to go to?” She eyed the calico cat coldly, the tiny flame of hope inside her not daring to flicker.

  “Of course. Your computer put you down about a hundred meters from the front door of the place. A great door under that pylon, and it has air inside, by my readings. Looks like a complete underground complex.”

  The flame flickered. “A chance,” she murmured. “We have a chance then. Let’s get Klimmit and see if there is a more-than-mythical Flame in this more-than-mythical planet.”

  A sound that Spacebread had taken to be the buzzing of a malfunctioning motor now stopped. She turned and looked at Niral in his nest. He had ceased his chant, but still held the coffer protectively against him.

  “A moment,” the Korliss rustled. “I will come and bear the coffer.”

  “No,” Spacebread said firmly. “You would only be in the way. Stay here, where the ship can protect you. They can’t break in. We should only be a while.” She spoke while slithering into a vacuum suit.

  Niral nimbly unstrapped himself and stood, no longer with his stooped and hesitant bearing. “It is no use trying to stop me. I will come. Here is where my heart has been leading me, though in my fear I did not know it. I have learned from you, Spacebread. I have learned that the strength of my religion comes from inside me, as does your strength. Inside me is all the power of the Korlann. A Warrior has all the strength of his clan. Now I will use it to protect you while you restore the figlet. It was I who made this fight necessary. It will be I who fight it.”

  Spacebread nodded. She had been too distracted of late to notice the change in Niral, and now she understood. The honor that Quan had stolen was being reborn, nurtured by Spacebread’s example and the Warrior’s Creed of Kesterole. She silently dialed a series of dimensions into the suit closet. Fortunately it was not connected to Votal’s collapse and had enough power to weave a vacuum suit for Niral.

  They embarked without speaking further, down the ladder onto the black and dusty surface of forgotten Osghan. A landscape of stark destruction yawned on all sides, mounds of blasted ash alone marking ancient dwelling sites. To the left, intriguingly alien with its mad angles and junctures, lay what looked like the wreck of some sort of Osghan space vessel. Everywhere, thick clots of cosmic dust clung to the shadow side of things where the white star’s blast had not reached.

  The pylon towered against the soft glow of the sky. Its topmost structure had been ripped off by the star’s blast, but still it was massive, and it pointed down to a round door partially obscured by rubble. The three figures ran toward it, swirls of black Shadowmaze dust that had escaped the star’s fury clouding their steps.

  The great door, sensing their presence, hissed open, and they tumbled into the chamber beyond. In a moment the inner door admitted them into a dark hall. Spacebread and Niral quickly shed their space suits, but Dundee seemed more comfortable in his. Before he could scan about with his flashlight, as if from nowhere a thin light glowed, enough to light the structure around them. It was like a flame seen through fog, and it moved with them.

  The underground structure was a labyrinth, a twisting, tortuous passage, as complex and confusing as the Shadowmaze, and built for alien proportions. A spidery script decorated panels over doors, lit briefly by their guide-flame. Everywhere there were images, quickly passed, of hunched alien bodies.

  Niral stopped in awe before one panel, intricate with lost writing. “The people of the Flame,” he said. “The wisest, oldest race in the galaxy.”

  But whether the writing was warning or encouragement, they never knew. The glowing mist led them on into the silence, and with each step Spacebread’s expectations rose against her protective doubt. There could be no arguing—she was truly in lost Osghan, a thing she had believed impossible. Perhaps other impossible things were not.

  Suddenly Niral stopped again, and Spacebread was about to pull him forward. But he had a familiar worried look in his eyes. His glackule
s quivered strangely.

  “They follow,” he whispered. “Quan’s drones.” For a moment she was afraid he was going to fold in terror again, but then a calm seemed to return to him.

  Spacebread drew her gun. Indeed, there was a hint of light back beyond the last turn they had passed, and it appeared to grow until they could hear small echoes, whispers of pursuit.

  The three companions ran, or at least Dundee and Spacebread did. Niral floated. Spacebread’s doubts clustered back like the wall of darkness their guide-light held back. She wondered if a similar light was leading Quan, and if such lights led anywhere at all. Until now she had assumed that the pylon and maze were a monument to the Flame-that-is-not-a-Flame, and that inside its central chamber was a lamp or crystal or some other power that Klimmit could be passed through. But now she wondered if the maze and light were but a lure to destruction left by the dying Osghans to protect the secret of the Flame.

  They dashed around an exhausting series of S turns and down ramps, Spacebread’s wounded neck burning with the strain. Then, ahead of them, a wide hall opened, longer than any they had yet found, and it widened as they went, in a grand manner. On and on they ran, growing more desperate each moment they spent in that long, straight gallery, for anyone entering it behind them had a clear shot their way. Finally, ahead, the guide light entered a domed, columned chamber with another doorway exiting.

  Something thundered. Spacebread pivoted and Dundee whirled, his light shining on the high pillar that now cracked and fell clear of the chamber wall, plunging to the floor ahead of them. It crashed athwart the new doorway in a shower of dust.

  “Quan!” Niral hissed.

  A rifle cracked from the other end of the long hall. A beam of red light lanced out. Dundee screamed.

  Spacebread shoved him to safety behind the fallen pillar and dove there herself. He writhed in agony. His left foot was gone, burned away. Niral stood directly in the hall opening to block further shots from the drones, and Spacebread could not get a clear shot at them either. They carried lamps. There was no light leading them.

  Niral turned calmly. The coffer slid out of his arms and floated to her. “Go. Follow the light. It will lead you safely to your destination while I deal at last with my weakness.”

  Spacebread hesitated. Perhaps she could get a clear line of fire to Quan. But then various chunks of pillar leaped into the air, guided by Quan’s evil will. The first drone reached the chamber and raised his pistol to club Niral. Suddenly he screamed. Something snatched him and flung him like a rocket to the ceiling. He crashed into it, the force dissolved, and he fell like a stone to the floor. Niral stood now like a pillar, hovering protectively in the drones’ way.

  “Go,” he said again to her in an ageless voice.

  Dundee nodded, rallying. “Get lost. We can manage, my love.”

  Her heart lifted her through the doorway, ducking a shot as she passed. How good it felt to have such friends as Gorsook and Dundee to give themselves, yet the pain of their loss rivaled her neck wound. In a moment she was into another winding passage, conscious only of her quest for Klimmit’s life.

  The sounds of battle, the cries and shots, no longer reached her. They should have, but she had entered a realm of silence without being aware of it. Beyond a cramped hall, she reached a high room. It was as though she had stumbled into another world, separating her from other times and spaces.

  Her footsteps echoed to a halt. There was not a mark of script upon the walls, nor design of art. Lone and empty an altar rose from the center of the room. The guidelight circled the room slowly, mounted the altar and flickered there for a moment as though it burned atop a lamp, then went out.

  But Spacebread could still see clearly, as though that glow remained after its source had gone out. She turned, seeking a way to go on, but she knew perfectly well this was the goal of her journey, the long trek to regain Klimmit’s life. This barren room.

  Her shoulders sagged. She had not really anticipated this moment. Niral had spoken of a legend that there was a guardian left with the Flame, a keeper who helped pilgrims find their way. But there was none. Nor was there a Flame. Now she realized how lost she was, and how desperate for Klimmit’s return she had been. She had no idea of what to do.

  “Yet this is where to turn when there is nothing left to do,” she muttered without realizing it. “Or so my mother said. Is this really the home of what she sang about and believed in so long ago? If so her faith was emptier than I supposed. The place exists, but the Flame does not.”

  A very special loneliness took her as she recalled the warmth of that distant touch and voice. Then she rallied, struggling inside herself for a solution.

  “What do I remember of her stories? Think, ‘Bread! Anything might help.”

  But try as she might, the only scrap she could recall was the nursery song with its simple tune and nonsense words. But wait—could there be a clue, some rhythm or sound hidden in the song itself that activated a motor or opened a panel? She combed her brain, agonizing through the memories. Finally she had enough words to start. She placed the coffer on the altar for safety and sang haltingly.

  “Tis a flame that releases,

  ‘Tis a flame that is free,

  But a flame also binds us …”

  She faltered, then found the line.

  “Though ‘tis not a flame to see;

  ‘Tis a flame underlying,

  All that we seem to be.”

  The next part was clearest, a cherished nursery sound.

  “Is it hiding in the corner,

  Or waiting in the hall,

  Or could it be that the flame,

  Hides in everyone and all?”

  She lost it again, the next part sunk deep in dim timelessness. Near panic took her; she ran through possible opening lines …

  Then suddenly, but quite calmly, a small voice behind her finished the tune.

  “Like a kitten playing peek-a-boo,

  And fighting with its tail,

  The Flame hides behind our eyes,

  Like a face behind a veil.”

  [14]

  Behind the Veil

  SPACEBREAD spun, her sword ready. But before her stood only a small wide-eyed kitten laughing at her wariness. It had long white hair, a pink nose, and wore a thick brown robe, which flowed ridiculously across the floor behind it.

  “Who are you?” Spacebread demanded, irritated.

  “An echo—who are you?” The newcomer chuckled. “A kitten come to play peek-a-boo?”

  “I come to play nothing; I am on a mission of life or death.”

  “Oh, excuse me!” The kitten assumed an expression of exaggerated woe.

  Spacebread frowned. “I seek the Guardian of the Flame, child. Can you take me to him?”

  “What’s in the box?” The kitten pointed at the coffer.

  Spacebread put her hand on the box protectively. “Something precious. Now, please, can you help me? Are you of the Osghan race—were they cats?”

  “They are gone,” the kitten answered, swishing the tail of her robe playfully. “Did you bring me a present, is that what’s in the box?”

  “Where is the master of this place?” Spacebread hissed impatiently. “Tell me quickly if you know!”

  It was the kitten’s turn to frown. “No hurry. Here, now, you seem to think you can barge in here and act any way you please! You are afraid of those back there? Don’t worry, it would take them a year to reach us here. Stop acting as if the world is ending—the world ended here a long time ago.” The kitten giggled.

  “What do you mean it would take them a year?” Spacebread puzzled angrily, stepping forward.

  “Time. It twists toward here like the corridors do.” The kitten hopped to the top of the altar before Spacebread could stop it. It bent over and continued, eyeing the box. “The Osghans built a time-maze here as well as the ordinary sort. It only lets in those immediately who have the most immediate need to see the Guardian. The others are in a
slower time-world.”

  “But where is the Guardian?” she insisted, sheathing her sword.

  The kitten blinked. “Why, here!”

  Spacebread’s eyes narrowed. “You? How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know.” The kitten looked equally puzzled.

  “At least you could announce yourself,” Spacebread protested, trying not to feel her heart sink.

  “I don’t know why I should. You certainly didn’t. Don’t you know you’re supposed to announce your name and purpose to the guards in the hall?”

  “There were no guards.” Spacebread began to feel as if she were going mad.

  “Oh, their ghosts then. This place is full of ghosts. Whole world is.”

  “I bear a ghost also.” Spacebread lowered her voice. “It’s in the box. A friend, thirty seconds from death. That is why I must find the Flame-that-is-not-a-Flame. It’s my last hope. Tell me where it is, please.”

  “But you don’t believe in the Flame.” The child smirked and gaily opened the box. Klimmit’s frosted features stared up. “Wow, it would take a big flame to thaw him out.”

  Spacebread tried to hide the clawing fear within her. She didn’t know how this kitten had survived in this lightless prison, or whether it was real or a projection of some sort. And she didn’t care. It sickened her that her last chance to have Klimmit back was a prancing child in a barren room.

  “I said, you don’t even believe in the Flame,” it repeated. “I don’t understand why you’re here. Because of a song your mother used to sing?”

  “How did you know that’s where I heard it?” Fear flickered inside her. A suspicion grew that she was on the right track.

  “You answer my question first.”

  “My mother believed in the Flame very strongly.” Spacebread sighed, hating the memory that bit into her. “I cannot. She prayed that it would help her. It didn’t. She lost her family and ended her days in poverty.”