Keepers of the Flame

by McFadden III, Edward J.

  “Are you alone?” Tye said.

  “There are no other people here,” Ozzie said. “I am an exile of Argartha and thus suffer my plight alone. You suspected this, no?”

  Nobody spoke. The fellowship stood on the threshold, waiting for someone to take the lead.

  “You’re afraid, and you should be.” He rose and put his book on the chair. “But you needn’t be. I mean you no harm.”

  “We’ve been told that before,” Tester said.

  “Do you doubt that if I wanted to hurt you I could have done so already?” There was a pile of wood in a corner and suddenly a log floated through the air and placed itself on the brazier. Dark smoke swirled, forming a face in the air. Peter’s face.

  Milly gasped.

  “Come. Sit by the fire and be refreshed,” Ozzie said. There were chairs, a table, wine, and a board of cheese and bread before them, where moments before there had been nothing. “I can move fast when I want to.”

  Milly and company seated themselves, the warmth of the fire refreshing. Candles burned in wall sconces and shadows danced on the ceiling. A crow landed in the open window, cawed and flew off. To Milly, it looked like the crow had one eye.

  “Don’t worry, Larry is fine. He found the turtle,” Ozzie said.

  “How do you know?” Milly said.

  Ozzie looked at Ingo, and said, “Have you told the woman nothing?”

  “You’re a reborn. Big deal,” Milly said. “You lack social grace, like some others of your kind I’ve met.”

  “My apologies. I don’t entertain people often,” Ozzie said.

  “How long have you been here alone?” Robin said.

  “Oh, most of my life,” Ozzie said.

  “And how long is that?” Tye said.

  “I am six years, four months, and nineteen days old,” Ozzie said, his smile cool as ice on a summer morning.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Year 2075, Oz, northern Virginia

  “Excuse me?” Tye said. “Did you say you’re six years old?”

  “I did,” Ozzie said.

  “You’re a little tall for a six-year-old,” Milly said.

  “Yes, I know.”

  Tye had seen a few things since grabbing a jump flight out of Iraq to go on leave, but this might take the prize. Ozzie was next to him, then next to the fire, or next to Robin. Every time he blinked, Ozzie jumped to a different position. Tye felt dizzy, and his stomach gurgled. This wasn’t right. None of this was right.

  “Calm yourself, Tye,” Ozzie said. “I meant what I said. I mean you no harm, though I doubt I’ll be able to help you much.”

  “How can you be six?” Ingo said. Then his eyes grew wide as understanding flooded through him. “You’re a highborn.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard the term. I don’t like it. Both my parents are reborn,” Ozzie said.

  “Doesn’t explain you claiming to be a toddler,” Robin said.

  “Instead of staying the same age like my parents, I age about four years to every actual year I live,” Ozzie said.

  “How sad,” Milly said.

  “That’s why you need to live life to the fullest,” Ozzie said.

  “That why they kicked you out? Living life to the fullest,” Tye said.

  There was a blur of motion, and Ozzie stood before him with a tray of tall glasses full of a deep red liquid. “Refresh yourselves,” Ozzie said. He held out the tray. Tye didn’t want to take a glass, but pressure squeezed his mind, like a thousand ants pushing a mango up a hill. He took a glass and nodded.

  Pepper and Turnip lay next to the ornate brazier, at peace and content. That alone should have been enough to put Tye at ease, but it had been almost ten years since he’d relaxed beneath his favorite palm, staring at the crystal sea. He’d never been a snowflake, but now he was hail; hard, destructive, and cold.

  Ozzie watched him, waiting for him to take a sip. All eyes were on him. This sip, or lack thereof, would set the tone. “Let us drink a toast when everyone has refreshment,” Tye said. Sometimes moving a pawn forward one space was the best move you had.

  Ozzie appeared delighted. “Wonderful idea. I’ve never been a part of anything like that,” he said. He zipped and blurred as he distributed the glasses, then stood in the center of the room. He lifted his glass, then looked around, unsure.

  “Would you like me to say it?” Tester said.

  Ozzie nodded.

  Tester raised his glass, and said, “To the turtle. May she bring us all we need at the end of the path.” He tapped his glass against Ozzie’s, and then they were all clinking glasses. When they were done, Ozzie spared Tye and company their anxiety and took a long draft, emptying most of his glass. Tye raised his, looked around at the faces of his companions, and drank deep.

  The wine was excellent. The best he’d ever had. It had a nutty flavor with deep resonance and a fruity finish. Tye had four glasses and ate until his stomach couldn’t fit anymore. The food kept coming, and their host watched with amusement as they broke their fast.

  “Can you tell us of the turtle?” Milly said.

  “One must walk the path. Live with nature and understand the tenants of Argartha before the turtle truly reveals itself,” Ozzie said.

  “Really, because we thought it was in Washington,” Milly said.

  Ozzie laughed. “I’ve heard that,” he said. He froze, turned to Robin and got in her face. “Yes, Robin of Hampton. It’s very much like that indeed.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Tye said. He was getting the feeling it was time to leave.

  Robin shook her head and said nothing.

  “She was thinking that this situation is similar to when the fellowship got brought before Celeborn and Galadriel,” Ozzie said.

  Tye remembered the scene well. The lady had measured the fellowship, and it hadn’t gone well for all of them. “You know of sacred text The Lord of the Rings?” Tye said.

  “Who doesn’t?” Ozzie said.

  Tye’s vision blurred at the edges, and he looked down at his empty wine glass. He had to shut this down. They had to be on their way. He tried to get up but couldn’t move.

  Ozzie laughed. “You want to eat and run? How nice is that?” Ozzie’s voice had started out whimsical, but ended in a harsh rasp.

  “I’m sorry, we don’t want to overstay our welcome,” Tye said.

  “Don’t be silly. You’re staying the night. Have more wine,” Ozzie said.

  Tye looked down and his glass was full. He took a long pull. “Is there anything you can’t do?” he asked.

  “How would I know?” Ozzie said.

  “Mind control lets you do whatever you want. How’d they make you leave?” Tye said.

  “Will someone tell me what they’re talking about?” Ingo said.

  “In a minute,” Tye said. “How?”

  Ozzie looked at the floor. “There are highborns more powerful than me.”

  “I just tried to get up, and I couldn’t. He was holding me down,” Tye said.

  “Why’d you get kicked out? What did you do?” Milly said.

  Ozzie got up and walked to the window. Smoke filled the room, and Tye drifted again. He stood on the lido deck watching Jerry Bucannon and Ester Rollinghope argue. Then the captain’s conference room, and Ester floating in white sea foam. Haven’s face filled his mind. His wife. She was older than him, and he often thought she was dead, and his heart ached for not being there for her. Perhaps he was wrong, but there was a scraping on his mind telling him she was gone. The storm at sea, Mexico, Stadium, the entire voyage reeled in fast forward as Ozzie flipped through the catalog of his life.

  The smoke thickened, and Ozzie’s face appeared. He said, “That was nasty business at the armory. Left a piece of yourself there, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes,” Tye said. He was crying, and his chest burned as it heaved in and out.

  The smoke swirled and cleared. Ozzie sat before him, his gold flecked eyes studying him. He blurred and moved, stopping be
fore Milly, then Ingo, then Robin and Tester.

  Tye rubbed his eyes. “Is everyone OK? Stop that. Stop it now,” he said.

  “The new world is hard, and it’s too easy to justify hatred and violence. I needed to discover who each of you are,” Ozzie said.

  “Or what? You’ll kill us?” Tester said.

  “Why no, but you’ll never leave OZ if I don’t want you to. I’m no Axe, old killer, but I have my limits,” Ozzie said.

  Silence filled the room, and a piece of wood floated onto the fire, sending smoke and sparks bellowing at the ceiling. The candles flared and sputtered out, and the fire in the brazier blazed, then dimmed. Somewhere a crow cawed, and Tye thought of Larry.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Milly said. She cried, her eyes bloodshot and distant.

  “I’m sorry father,” said Ingo.

  Robin cried, tears streaming down her red face.

  Tester stared at the floor, a blank stare on his face, shoulders slumped.

  “You’ve all paid such a high price to be here. Don’t you want to know why?” Ozzie said.

  “Screw you, asshole,” Milly said. She drew down her Glock and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She pulled the trigger again and again, the hammer striking, but nothing happened. She pulled the clip free and examined the bullets and they were still in place.

  The gun flew from Milly’s hand and Ozzie caught it. “I’m thinking you guys are going to be with me for a while. How fun. I miss having people around. Hopefully you’ll last longer than the others,” he said.

  “Look, what’s happened here? Aren’t we your guests?” Tye said.

  Ozzie shook his head and transformed back to the in-control host oozing hospitality. “Yes. Let’s forget the ugliness. At least for tonight.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” Ingo said. “This place, Argartha. It’s supposed to be a place where the reborn can live in peace, but the two reborn I’ve met are outcasts.”

  Night had fallen and Ozzie stared out the window at the stars.

  “Am I wrong?” Ingo persisted.

  “No. You’re not.” Ozzie sighed. “You have to understand that even the smartest among them can’t explain why reborns exist, let alone anything of their offspring. Science died with humanity, and it’s been slow to return. They know its XK119, and they have a cure of a kind.”

  “Is the disease still out there? Can we catch it?” Tye said.

  “Yes, and no. The disease is out there somewhere just as the black plague survived the ages. Is it active? Are there known vectors? No, but Argartha’s data set is very small. Communication is bad, and keeping track of what’s going on around the world is an impossible task, unless you have someone like Ingo,” Ozzie said.

  “So why did they kick you out if your skills are so valuable?” Tye said.

  “Let me ask you this: what would you do if you had to make a decision, but you had contradictory information about the situation? Like Ingo pictured you at the turtle, but in my image you aren’t there. Who would you believe? How would you decide what was the real scene? The scene you wanted to be true?” Ozzie said.

  “I’m confused. You’re saying several reborns foresaw different images of the same future? Images that all couldn’t possibly be true?” Milly said.

  “Yes. I stuck by my vision, but those who run Argartha believed something else,” Ozzie said.

  “This makes sense, no?” Tester said. “All futures are only possible futures until the moment arrives and a new time path is created.”

  “Something like that,” Ozzie said.

  “I’m afraid this is above us. What can you tell us of Argartha?” Tye said.

  “It is your dream, is it not?” Ozzie said. “Better you experience it for yourself. Anything I say will pale in comparison.”

  “Can you take us there?” Robin said.

  Ozzie left the window and sat beside Robin. “I can go to the border of Oz, but no further.”

  “Are there many like you?” Robin said.

  “No. There were twenty-four in Argartha when I left,” Ozzie said.

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” Tye said. “Do they visit?”

  Ozzie laughed. “No, they don’t visit. I’m a monster to them.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Tester said. “With your powers I’d think you’d be treated like a king.”

  “You would think,” Ozzie said.

  They all drank in silence, sipping their wine. Tye’s head spun, and if he didn’t get to bed soon, he’d pass out where he sat.

  “It’s his mind reading,” Ingo said.

  Ozzie’s eyes blazed. “What do you know, boy?”

  “That you measure the hearts of men, and that you killed a man you believed was going to murder your father,” Ingo said.

  “You’ve seen this?” Ozzie said.

  Ingo nodded. “You told the authorities, but their reborn saw something else. You took matters into your own hands.” Ingo flinched. “Your father, the man you saved, led the prosecution to have you exiled.”

  Tye stared at Ozzie. They all did. He smiled. “You’re lucky to have Ingo.”

  “So you’re innocent?” Milly said.

  “Truth is, I’m not sure,” Ozzie said.

  Pepper got up, followed by Turnip, and their movement sparked everyone from their sleepiness. “I have rooms for you below. Come. You can rest the night and, in the morning, you can continue on to the city,” Ozzie said. He turned to Milly. “Don’t be so fast to judge.”

  Tye slept well, his dreams filled with Respite and the life he’d had there. The next morning the fellowship left the castle without seeing Ozzie. They found breakfast, a short note wishing them luck, a tourist map of Washington, DC, Peter’s axe, and Milly’s Glock 19, but no Ozzie.

  The company followed the red brick path out of Oz, and when Tye turned to look on the valley one last time, there were no castle ramparts poking from the tree canopy, nor was there a giant green witch head or red shoes. There was nothing but a sea of green, covered in thin fog.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Year 2075, Washington, DC

  Cracked tombstones stuck from the ground like broken teeth on both sides of the trail, their forlorn homage to the fallen soldiers of the gone world fading into oblivion. Trees of oak and evergreen interspersed with dogwood and cherry grew thick, and underbrush of hither grass, brambles, and weeds filled every open space. Leaves of every color fell like rain, and tree roots and vines snaked across the ground. Most of the headstones were crushed and broken by the tide of vegetation that had overtaken Arlington National Cemetery, but here and there the engineering of the old world held sway. Pillars of marble, metal sculptures covered in kudzu and weeds, brass plaques, thousands of granite and marble gravestones, and cracked and scattered pathways and roads barely distinguishable amidst the hallowed forest. Sadness washed over Milly as she walked among the dead and their trees, and she would always remember this place as the Soldier’s Wood.

  Pepper tracked ahead and Turnip followed up the rear. Milly hadn’t seen the cat since breakfast, but Pepper slowed-up periodically and Milly saw her on the trail ahead. A patch of clear ground opened to the right, and several intact grave markers stuck in the earth. The one closest to the path had no name or date and was marked simply Unknown. An older stone protruded from the base of an oak, its inscription rubbed away by time.

  “I’ve been here,” Tester said. “I remember that gravestone embedded in the tree. The marker made of ordinance is around here somewhere.”

  “Ordinance?” Ingo said.

  “One marker was made of melted down shell casings. In the early days grave markers were made of wood and painted white. Some of the graves are real old, but those are closer to the visitor center on the other side of the cemetery,” Tester said.

  “I’ve been here also, though I don’t remember much. I was ten or so, and it looked way different,” Tye said.

  Milly considered asking Tester why he’d been here, but
the old soldier had shared little about his past, and she didn’t think he’d start now, but she cast out a line anyway. “You have family buried here, Tester?”

  “My father and grandfather,” Tester said. “World War II and Korea.” That was the most he’d told Milly about his family in all the years she’d known him.

  They broke free of the forest and the Potomac River rushed by before them. Pepper waited for them, panting. The bridge was upriver half a mile, and they headed toward it, walking single file along the remnants of the pathway that ran beside the river. Wilderness had reclaimed the land to the river’s edge, but they found the two large stone pillars with eagles atop them that marked the entrance to Arlington Memorial Bridge. Kudzu and dead vegetation hung from the brick bridge, which looked to be collapsing in several spots, but appeared passable with a little climbing.

  “The winters up here are much harsher as you can tell by the deterioration of everything, even the stone,” Tye said. “Back in Mexico, all these stone structures would be in much better shape.”

  The air was still, cold, and the sky dirty-white.

  “What day is it, Tester?” Milly said.

  “December 19th. A Thursday,” he said.

  “Ozzie’s map shows a clear path to the turtle. Once we’re across the Potomac to the mall, we’ll continue east to 7th. The map shows two 7th streets, one marked NW and one NE. We’ll explore northwest since it’s closest and...” Milly said.

  Ingo interrupted her. “It’s northeast. There’s a street sign now, an intersection.”

  “That’s convenient,” Robin said. “All of sudden it comes to you?”

  “The more information I have about a place the more detailed the images become. Having the map focused things, and when we got here things pieced together like a puzzle,” Ingo said.

  Robin didn’t look convinced. Milly was beginning to understand why people who weren’t reborn got frustrated with people like Ingo, Hansa and Ozzie. Nobody likes another poking into their business, and what could be worse than having someone read your mind? Or see your future? Someone who always told you the better way to do something, or drew conclusions based on random thoughts you couldn’t control?