Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  His work began to take shape, and he felt the tiny spark begin to gain purchase on the dead material, felt it burn and grow as it enveloped more of its fuel. With some effort, he guided it down through the needles and into the wood. There, it took hold, tentatively at first, then with greater confidence. When he was sure his intervention was no longer needed, he opened his eyes and witnessed the fruits of his labor. The flame was small, dancing lightly along the top of the log. Milo had backed away and was now sitting down on the other side of the fire. “Wait,” he said. “Don't stop just yet. Can you heat it up some more?”

  “I can,” Caymus replied, a little unsure if it was a good idea. “That's where things went wrong today, though. It's probably not safe.”

  Milo let out an easy chuckle. “Oh, don't worry about that,” he said, and closed his eyes. “It couldn't possibly be more dangerous than what I have in mind.” He briefly reopened one eye and looked pointedly at Caymus. “We're going to need it really, really hot for this to work.”

  Caymus sighed, then shut his eyes and focused on the flame once more. Suddenly, he recoiled, finding something he wasn't expecting. Another presence was there, toying with the elemental nature of the dead wood. The presence stopped, as if waiting. Caymus realized it could only have been Milo, doing his part in the little experiment. He mentally shrugged and pressed on, narrowing the stream, but being more cautious about his actions than he had been previously. He could hear the flame starting to burn more vigorously as it caught more of the wood, could feel the conduit growing larger.

  “More, Caymus,” came Milo's voice. Again, he narrowed the stream, holding on to it tightly as it grew in intensity. He was nearing the point of disaster he had reached in the classroom earlier that day; this time, of course, he was outside, and so he was fairly certain there would be no trouble with breathing, but he felt panic start to build in him, nonetheless. He considered stopping before things got out of control.

  Then, he felt Milo's presence in the wood again, but now he was acting, and not only on the burning log. The air in and around the blaze was beginning to act on the flames themselves, to penetrate them and coax them this way and that. Caymus's natural reaction was to resist this interloper. He tried to somehow strengthen the conduit, to make it more resistant to the invading air.

  “You've got to let me in or this won't work.” Milo's voice rose sharply to be heard over the roaring fire. Caymus exhaled, relaxed his mind, and let his guard down, allowing the air into the burning creation, into the conduit itself. He could feel Milo now, and not merely as a separate consciousness. The two minds were mingled somehow, not as one, but working in a harmonic kind of partnership. He had the briefest sense of another conduit opening, but to a realm he didn't know, a place unfamiliar and alien. “You might want to open your eyes for this!” Milo's voice was ecstatic.

  Caymus did as he was told, wincing slightly. Besides the uncomfortable feeling of touching this other consciousness, the flame had now completely engulfed the log and was burning with such a brilliant white light that it was painful to look at.

  Then there came what felt like both a massive blow and a release. The sensation was sudden and violent, and to Caymus it seemed as though he should have been knocked over. The searing flame shot out toward the stone column in the center of the clearing, extending out to span the distance in less than a second. He was astonished. A stream of white fire, emanating from the burning timber, was actually beginning to sear through the side of the rock. The clearing was brightly lit now, as if by the sun, and the noise was so furious that he had to cover his ears for fear of being deafened. Within a few seconds, the flame had burned through a giant section of stone and the top of the column was toppling directly at them!

  With a shout, Caymus dropped his connection to the conduit and rolled backward out of the way of the falling monolith. The thing crashed between them, shaking the ground and sending night creatures swarming into the air and scurrying into trees.

  After the screaming in his mind had died away, Caymus stood and looked around. It took a few moments for his eyes to readjust to the moonlight now that the fire had been neatly extinguished by the column it had destroyed. “Milo!” he shouted. “Milo, are you okay?” He relaxed when he heard giggling—quiet, but with increasing momentum—coming from the other side of the fallen section of rock. He looked over it and saw his friend, rolling with giddy laughter on the ground.

  “Milo!” he shouted at him. “Are you alright? What was that? What did you do?”

  Milo managed to restrain himself long enough to look up and speak for a bit. “Wasn't that,” he said, and lapsed into laugher again, “wasn't that the most incredible thing you ever saw, that you ever felt?” He sat up, calming down a little, and held his hands up in front of his face. “Two elements,” he said, a look of wonder in his eyes. He then brought his hands together, intertwining his fingers, “Working together to create something new and...” he put his hands down and shrugged his shoulders, “...wonderful.” Then he fell back on the ground and started laughing again. “But you should have seen the look on your face,” he said, pointing at him, “when that thing came down!”

  Caymus just stared at him. By all rights, he should be furious for putting them both in such danger. But, as he watched his friend's ecstatics, he couldn't help laughing too, his heavy, resounding voice offering a stark contrast to Milo's manic giggling.

  Later, their mirth spent, they stood together, staring at the remainder of the once-magnificent column, which now ended in a mass of black char about four feet up. Caymus felt a small sense of loss at the sacrifice, and wondered if Milo had known that the force they had created would be hot enough to burn through stone.

  “Well, I guess I won't be sitting on my little throne anymore,” said Milo, his tone mimicking Caymus's own feelings.

  “You'll find another one, Milo.” Caymus gazed around the clearing. “But I don't know that it'll be in quite such an ideal place as this.”

  “I don't know,” said Milo, moving toward the pillar. He grabbed onto the top edge and hoisted himself up, spinning himself around so he was sitting on it, facing Caymus. He swept a finger along the charred stone and examined the black stain it left. “Once a good rain comes along to clean up a little, I think it might still do.”

  Caymus turned away, facing the Conduit in the distance. “I really can't wait to get back and tell the masters what we've discovered tonight.”

  “I'm not so sure about that, you know,” said Milo. Caymus looked back and saw that his friend's expression had turned unusually thoughtful.

  “Why? What do you mean?” he said.

  “Well,” said Milo, looking toward the Temple grounds himself, “Caymus, you know as well as I do that, despite the 'live and let live' policy most have adopted, besides a few haphazard friendships like you and me, the different elemental factions have never really gotten along. What we did tonight, I’m almost sure it's never been done before, else we probably would have heard about it at some point.” He looked back at Caymus. “Don't you think?”

  “Yes. Probably,” admitted Caymus.

  “So, just think. This fire-master disciple, not even in the—what do you call it, third order?”

  “Third Circle.”

  “This 'not even a third circle' disciple walks in and says, 'Masters I was hanging around this air priest the other night and we found out—'.” He jumped off the column and brushed the soot off his hands and clothes as he spoke. “I doubt you'd get much further than 'air priest' before being taken into a room for a few days and given a long series of lectures about why people like me can't be trusted.”

  “Like 'they'll crush you with giant pieces of rock in the woods'?” said Caymus.

  Milo smiled and pointed at him. "That's a pretty good one,” he said.

  Caymus nodded with more than a hint of resignation. “So, what do we do? We can't just not ever tell anybody.”

  “True,” said Milo. “I don't know. I'll ask the
winds for their thoughts on it. You do whatever it is you do when you're not sure about something and we'll see if we can figure it out between us.” He finished dusting himself off. “In the meantime, you take your faith test tomorrow as planned and get into your new circle thing. I'm sure that's a good start.”

  “I'll do that,” said Caymus. The two stood in silence for a moment, looking out at the forest around them and at the small amount of destruction they'd wrought on the little clearing. After awhile, Caymus turned to go. “I'd best be getting back,” he said. “If I'm too tired in the morning, Be’Var might start wondering what I’ve been up to.” He looked sharply at Milo. “They're not looking for me, are they?”

  Milo cocked his head, listening. “Nope,” he said after awhile. “Only sound coming from that place is snoring. And I,” he added, moving to the far side of the ruined plinth, “will be going, too.” He picked up a bow and a quiver of arrows he'd apparently stashed there earlier, then headed off to the western edge of the clearing. He turned toward Caymus and waved his hand. “Good luck tomorrow.” Then he turned and bolted off into the trees. “May the wind guide you!” he shouted, giving the traditional farewell of air worshipers.

  “Go with a flame in your heart, my friend,” Caymus said softly, giving his element's own version of goodbye. With that, he turned and, using the Conduit as a guide, started the trek back to his home.

  Caymus took hurried steps as he made his way back through the forest. He believed what Milo had said, that nobody stirred at the Temple, but it would still take him some time to get there and he knew that the morning would come sooner than he wanted. And what a morning it was going to be. Tomorrow, he would take his Test of Faith. Tomorrow, he would become a disciple of the Third Circle and begin the final leg of his journey toward becoming a master of the Conflagration.

  As he picked his way through the branches and roots of the forest, he couldn't help trying to reconcile his training with what he had just experienced. His entire life, he'd been taught that the other elements, though just as essential to the creation of the world as his own, were completely separate and foreign from one another, and that he could never hope to work with them. The various sects of each religion could find common ground when they shared Aspects, of course: The men that the missionaries had brought with them, for example, apparently knew of an Aspect that prevented flesh from being burned when touched by flame, whereas Conflagrationists stressed the ability to control the fire conduits themselves, so as to manipulate temperatures.

  But here, this very night, he had discovered that completely different elements, at least those of fire and air, could work together to create something new, something powerful. In his wildest dreams, he'd never even conceived of that possibility. Though, when he allowed himself to think about it, he had to admit that it made sense. In the years he'd been at the Temple, he had been shown that everything—every plant, every animal, every stone, the stars in the sky, every single thing in existence—was composed of different amounts of the four elements.

  Earth gave things their hardness, their sturdiness, and was primary in the composition of the ground beneath his feet. It made men firm and unbending, stubborn and uncompromising.

  Air made things light and supple. Though it was most obviously present as an invisible substance that surrounded him and filled his lungs with each breath, it also existed in other, less obvious places. It could be brought out of a pot of water by bringing it to a boil, for instance. People whose bodies were composed of more air than was normal made for quick sprinters and graceful dancers. Air made a person giddy and childlike.

  Water was not only responsible for the moisture of objects, but it made things soft and gentle. Just as air could be coaxed out of cooking water, rain water sometimes fell from the sky, perhaps from the very stars. It was compassion and grace, elegance and beauty.

  Fire was the heat that made a man's breath warm. It was the volcano that pierced the ground. It was the element of power, of raw emotion, of destruction. A body became warm when pushed to the limits of exhaustion or when in the grips of disease. It also gave men courage, strength, the will to fight on against even the worst of odds.

  Caymus considered these things, wondering what his newly found knowledge might mean for him in the near future, when, quite suddenly, a flurry of white appeared before his eyes. He quickly brought his arms up to shield his face but, in doing so, lost his balance and, with a thud, fell on his back. A lightning-shot of pain went through his body and the faintest of cries escaped his lips as he rolled over, reaching for his left shoulder blade with his right hand. He couldn't detect any blood or feel any real wound and, since the pain was subsiding, he guessed he hadn't really hurt himself too badly. A quick scan of the ground revealed the small rock he'd landed on. It wasn't sharp, but it did protrude from the ground an inch or two.

  Caymus got back to his feet, shaking his head. His back would be tender tomorrow and would probably bruise a little. If he could manage to hide it from the masters, he'd be alright, but he had no talent for lying and if they asked him how it happened, he'd have to face the music. He looked around for the cause of the incident. It was still there, sitting in a branch about waist-high, looking at him with its head cocked at a slight angle as though wondering what it was that he wanted. It was the same white hawk he had seen before. He was almost certain of it. "Thanks," said Caymus. "You trying to get me in trouble?"

  The hawk screeched at him, then, with incredible swiftness, spread its wings and took flight, going directly for his head! "Whoa!" Caymus ducked out of the way, then turned to watch it land on another low-hanging branch, just a few feet away. It wasn't watching him anymore; instead, it was facing away from him, looking in the other direction.

  "What's the matter with you, bird?" Caymus was starting to get frustrated with his small tormentor. "Are you—” Then, he saw what the hawk was looking at.

  The first thing Caymus noticed was a pair of shiny, wet orbs. They looked like they might be onyx, or perhaps smoked glass. Each was about a hand-span in size. They stood at shoulder-level and were a few inches apart.

  They looked like eyes.

  They couldn't be though, not as big as they were. Still, they were unnerving, glistening in the small amount of moonlight that penetrated the forest canopy. When the hawk screeched again, he backed away slightly and the orbs moved to follow him. It was then that he saw that they were, indeed, eyes. It was then that, for the first time in his life, Caymus knew true fear.

  The creature was huge. Caymus thought it must easily reach ten feet. Those eyes, deepest black, protruded slightly from a head that looked like it was made from the carapace of an insect, bony and reflective in the moonlight. Beneath the eyes was a mouth of vicious-looking, sword-like teeth, which curved inward at impossible angles. Below the thing’s head were almost a dozen legs, arrayed along the evenly spaced sections of its long, centipede-like body, and holding it a full two feet off the ground. Each leg was also covered in the black, armor-like material; each had what appeared to be tufts of hair at each of three joints; and each ended in a long, sharp claw. Caymus could hear what sounded like breathing coming from the thing, a deep and ghastly rasp. As it breathed, its entire body rose and fell slightly and the teeth in its cavernous mouth wavered menacingly, back and forth.

  It just stared at him, like some dead thing. The eyes had no lids, no pupils. The face, if it could be called a face, seemed to regard him as would a freshly-risen corpse which had been given the chance to confront its killer: with accusation, loathing, and malice. Caymus could feel his heart race, his breath quicken. His legs threatened to buckle under him, but he refused to let them. He didn’t know what this beast was, had never seen such a thing in his darkest nightmares. All he knew was that he dared not move.

  Again, the monster came toward him: a short, scuttling movement. Caymus, terrified, threw a hand over his mouth, and only partly to stifle a scream. The thing carried the foulest of odors, like the reek of dead f
ish mixed with the stench of a rotting bog. Underneath the stench there was another smell, sweeter, like burnt sugar, but it didn't a chance against the reek of rot and death that now permeated the air.

  Caymus felt something behind him. He had been moving away from the thing without thinking and now found himself backed up against a tree. The creature stopped, too. It had reached the branch where the hawk still sat and now shifted its gaze toward the small bird, raising its head slightly so that its eyes were level with the branch. For a few moments, there was no movement, just the rasping sound of the creature’s breath as the two seemed to stare each other down. Then, the creature reared its head back, opening its jaw wide. As it did so, each tooth seemed to unfold and extend outward until it actually protruded from the huge mouth. Then, the head came forward and snapped. The movement took only a fraction of a second, but the hawk was faster, and by the time the creature had bitten down, its prey had vanished. As it crunched through the branch, the hawk took wing and flew out above the trees, crying out into the darkness.

  The creature shook its head back and forth, dislodging the splinters of wood from its maw and folding back its teeth. Then, it turned its attention back to Caymus, who still had not moved. He knew he should flee. He knew he should run faster than he had ever run in his life, but his legs wouldn’t budge. Slowly, the thing scuttled closer. Caymus’s breathing was ragged, his shallow gasps coming quickly, but he couldn’t break free of those eyes, of that dead stare.