Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  “I suppose not,” said Sannet. “It's going to be strange not having you around,” he continued, “for all of us.” He looked down. He was carrying something: a small, wooden box, about four inches to a side, wrapped in wide, yellow ribbon. Caymus couldn't help noticing the Third Circle mark on Sannet's hand, and was suddenly reminded of the new symbol on his own skin.

  “What do you have there?” he said.

  “I was wondering if you could do me a favor, Caymus,” he said, then proffered him the box. “My parents are in Kepren and I was hoping you could give this to them when you find some time.” Caymus took the box. “Just a note and a trinket they'd be happy to see,” Sannet continued.

  Caymus nodded, happy to do a friend a favor. “Of course,” he said.

  “Franklin and Margaret Teldaar,” said Sannet, and then he extended his hand, which Caymus took in a firm handshake. “Thank you, Caymus,” he said, then turned to walk back into the Temple.

  “He's not exactly overly emotional, is he?” said Bridget.

  Caymus smiled. “Sannet? No, I wouldn't say that. I don't think he doesn't want to be friendly or anything,” he said. “I think he just sometimes forgets people expect it is all.”

  Be'Var and the others were coming back. “You ready to go?” Be'Var said to them. They all nodded. “Good, then we should be off,” he said. Matron Y’selle beckoned the girls over to do a last check of the harnesses while Be'Var hoisted himself up onto the driver's bench, leaving Caymus to make sure all the goods were secure and to latch the wagon's gate.

  The two converts quietly stepped in and assisted him. “I am sorry we did not get to talk,” said the taller of the two. His voice was deep and musical, though he had a fierce accent which tended to cut off the words before he had gotten them completely out. Caymus was struck, too, by the way the two of them moved. He could only describe it as being overly-deliberate, as though they paid a great deal of attention to even the most insignificant of motions. The effect was somewhat intimidating.

  “Me too,” he said, trying to be pleasant. He hesitated a moment. “Is it...Guruk?”

  The man smiled. “No,” he said. “He is Guruk.” He indicated his companion. “I am Fach'un.”

  Caymus winced. “Sorry.”

  “It is alright,” said Fach'un. “Perhaps we will get a chance to be introduced correctly on a day soon.” He put out a hand.

  Caymus took it. “I'd like that,” he said.

  Guruk, whose voice was higher in pitch but just as musical as Fach'un's, said, “Where you are going is not far from the land of our people. Perhaps you will go there and be introduced to them as well.”

  Caymus wasn't sure if Guruk was chiding him or simply offering a suggestion. He was completely unable to read the two men. “Perhaps,” he said, and as he did, he thought that he really would quite like to see the place Guruk and Fach'un came from.

  The checks on the gear were complete and Y’selle was up in the driver's bench, next to Be'Var, taking the reins from him. When she was situated, the matron called back, “Is anybody not ready to leave?”

  When no answer came, she flicked the reigns, and Feston and Staven ambled forward. Fach'un clapped Caymus on the shoulder as he turned to go. “Go with a flame in your heart!” he yelled to all of them.

  Y’selle had asked Caymus to follow along behind the group for the first day of the trip. He was supposed to keep an eye out for things falling out of the bed of their wagon, or for anything that might go amiss with wagon itself. Bridget and Gwenna walked alongside the horses, watching for limping, or any other changes in their gait that would signify something might be wrong.

  “How far do you think we'll get today?” Caymus asked of anybody who might be listening.

  Be'Var turned slightly to yell back. “Fifteen or so miles, if all goes well. When we hit the Greatstones, though, things will slow down.”

  “Is it going to take long to get across the mountains?”

  “Yes,” said Be'Var. “We're going to stop at Otvia, the mitre encampment that the women passed on the way up here.”

  “How long are we staying?” said Caymus.

  “I don't know,” said Be'Var. “Quit asking questions!”

  Caymus sighed. He hoped Be'Var's grumpiness was just due to their late night and that it wasn't going to continue for the whole trip.

  A soft breeze blew across his face; the sun was hiding behind some wandering clouds. Despite it being late summer, the day was cool and pleasant, and Caymus found himself elated by the prospect of adventure. As time passed, he kept looking over his shoulder, back at the Temple, watching it get smaller and smaller in the distance. Just as they were about to hit the tree-line that would mark their entry into Saleri Forest, though, he noticed a figure approaching from behind.

  “Someone's coming,” he said, and everyone turned to look, though Y’selle didn't stop the horses.

  The figure turned out to be Rill, running to catch them, a sack over his shoulder. When he reached them, he was out of breath and covered with sweat. “Wasn't sure I'd...catch you,” he panted. “I'm coming too.”

  It was more of a question than a declaration, and the way Rill was staring at Be'Var, he was obviously looking for the old man's approval. Y’selle reigned in the horses, and for a tense moment all eyes turned to the old master to see what he would say.

  Be'Var didn't take long to consider the issue. He took a deep breath, then turned to face the direction of travel. “Put your things in the wagon,” he said.

  Rill grinned at Caymus and the others, then threw his bag in with the rest. As Y’selle got the wagon moving again, he fell in next to Caymus. “Good luck on the journey, eh?” said Caymus. He wasn't sure if he was glad or upset.

  Rill shrugged. “Honestly, I didn't know I was coming until about ten minutes ago. I probably forgot a dozen things back there.”

  “Why?” said Caymus.

  Rill seemed to understand what Caymus meant. He looked ahead and said, “There's nothing for me back there. I'm terrible at all the things I'm supposed to be good at. I spent forever just getting to the point where I could enter the Second Circle, and I'm never getting to the third. Even if someone were to tell me I've learned enough that they want me to take the trial, there's no way I'm stepping into the Conduit to be burned alive! I've been hanging around because I didn't know what else to do, but now that they're testing students sooner than ever...” he let the sentence trail off. “I'm a failure as a Conflagrationist. If I keep on like this, I'll just keep on being a failure as a Conflagrationist.”

  “And,” said Be'Var, looking over his shoulder at them, “you're an idiot.” He turned around. “Don't worry,” he continued, “Kepren's a big place. It's full of idiots. You'll do just fine.”

  Rill looked a little stunned. He didn't seem to understand that Be'Var was, in his own taciturn way, approving of Rill's logic. Caymus grinned. If the old man had really thought Rill was a waste of time, he'd have sent him back to the Temple to be someone else's problem, no argument allowed. The poor boy hung his head, looking crushed.

  Caymus grinned and punched him in the shoulder. “Idiot,” he said, under his breath.

  Rill looked up at him, then, seeing the grin on Caymus's face, seemed to get the joke, and he broke out into laughter. His mirth was contagious, and for a few moments, everyone had a good laugh. Caymus was glad. It was a good way to start a journey and he found himself looking forward to his future more than he had in a long time. He didn't know what he would discover about himself, about the mark on his hand, about anything at all, but he was glad to be sharing an adventure with these people—old friends and new—and couldn't wait to see what lay around the next corner.

  CHAPTER 6

  Caymus narrowed his eyes against the glare of the sun and, once again, wiped the sweat from his brow. The steady heat of a late summer day beat down on him as he, Rill, and Milo rolled an empty, three-wheeled wagon toward a rust-colored boulder a dozen or so feet from the road. Milo ra
ther clumsily held up the corner with the missing wheel, while Rill steered the contraption and Caymus lent his great mass to pushing it along.

  Bridget watched bemusedly as she tended to the horses, while Gwenna and Y'selle rifled through the group's belongings, now sitting several feet from the trail, looking for some of the bread and cheese they'd brought with them.

  “Not so fast, Caymus!” Despite Milo's natural agility, he was having trouble keeping his feet under him as the trio moved forward. The three remaining wheels supported the weight well enough, but the corner that was missing, being to the front and right, wanted to tip forward due to the weight of the bench and harnesses. The small rocks underfoot weren't helping things either.

  “Sorry!” said Caymus. He wasn't actually trying to knock Milo over, but he had to keep giving the wagon an extra shove to get the one of the remaining wheels over a large stone, now and again.

  They had been on the road south for just over a day. The first day’s travel had been uneventful, as had their first night sleeping in the wilderness, though Caymus had had unsettling dreams about being trapped in the smoking hull of a burning ship. This day, too, hadn't been particularly interesting until the moment, just after the sun had reached its zenith, when one of the metal bindings that held the wheels of the wagon together had split with an audible “pang!” and rolled off ahead of a pair of startled horses, leaving the bare wood of the wheel exposed and the group of travelers in a less-than-enthusiastic mood.

  They had passed through the thick greenery of the Saleri Forest and were now traversing a rocky plain, dotted here and there with shrubs and grasses, which would eventually become the slopes of the Greatstone Mountains. After Y'selle had stopped the wagon, Rill had chased the metal band down the road until it had rolled to a halt, about a hundred yards away. The noise had frightened the horses, and it had taken Y'selle's careful handling of the reins and Bridget's and Gwenna's calming voices to keep them from bolting, pulling the wagon along with them and leading the group into almost certain disaster.

  When the horses had been calmed, and Rill had returned with the band, Be'Var had taken a quick look at the wheel, which was fine other than the missing banding. “We can continue on it,” he'd said, pursing his lips, “but it won't last. We'll do a lot of damage to it before we get to Otvia and there's no way it's going all the way to Kepren before it splinters to pieces.” They had decided to stop here and have some lunch while Be'Var attempted to repair the broken band of metal. They'd emptied the cart and removed the wheel from the axle, and now Be'Var was looking over his new project while Caymus and his friends rolled the ungainly wagon over to the waist-high boulder with the intent of balancing it there until the repair was complete.

  “Okay, stop!” said Milo, once they'd reached the boulder in question. “Let it go!” They did, and the wagon tipped slightly so that the affected corner was resting on the hard stone, the opposite corner lifting a couple of inches in the air.

  Caymus looked back and forth between the boulder and the lifted wheel, then at Milo, who shrugged. Rill walked back to the raised corner and pushed down on it, rocking the wagon a couple of times. “I think it'll stay where it is,” he said, as if he wasn't sure whether that would be sufficient. He rocked it a couple more times. “Is it moving off the boulder over there?” he said to Milo.

  “Only when you touch it,” said Milo.

  Rill smiled. “Good enough,” he said.

  Caymus tilted his head toward the spot in the road where Be'Var was kneeling down next to the circle of metal. “Come on,” he said, “let's see what else we can do.”

  When they walked up, Be'Var was holding the band close to his face, perhaps three inches from his eyes. He was staring intently at the broken edges, occasionally flexing them back together as though trying to figure out how they fit. “It’s called the ‘tyre',” he said, absently, as they approached. “Ties the wheel together, thus: tyre.” He flexed the band again. “Caymus,” he said quietly, “would you get—” Then he stopped, frowned, and got to his feet. “Never mind,” he said, putting the band down, “I'd better get it.” He walked off to the place where they had left their various barrels, trunks, and sacks, rubbing his chin as he did, as though deep in thought. Caymus remembered the 'surprise' Be'Var had mentioned having put in his trunk, and he briefly considered following him to get a better look at what the master had meant.

  Milo, meanwhile, sat down, cross-legged, on the ground and produced a leather waterskin. He tipped his head back, took a long drink, then offered the water to Caymus. Caymus decided Milo had the right idea. He accepted the skin as he, too, sat down. Rill, however, was hunched over the tyre, looking over the split in imitation of Be'Var, as though trying to figure out what mysteries the old man could divine in the cold iron. Caymus tried passing the skin to him, but Rill waved it away. “Something interesting in there?” he said, and handed it back to Milo instead.

  “It looks...torn,” said Rill, looking closer. He was hunched down with his face barely off the ground in a fairly comical manner.

  Caymus leaned over to see what he was talking about. To him, it just looked broken, like so many items in the Temple over the last week. “What do you mean?”

  “See there,” Rill pointed to one side of the break. Even Milo got a little closer. “There are a lot of little points and it's thinner toward the edges. No,” he said, “not torn. More like, stretched, like someone pulled it apart.”

  Caymus couldn't see what Rill was seeing. He leaned back and shook his head. “Rill,” he said, “I think the sun’s getting to you. You can't stretch metal.”

  “Of course you can,” said Be'Var, who was walking back, carrying two hammers, two pairs of tongs, and a surprisingly small anvil that was barely the size of his foot. “You can do anything to iron you can do to clay or wax or any other earth-heavy material,” he continued as he knelt and set down his tools. “You just need to heat it first. This part of the band,” he motioned toward the break, “was probably weak from the moment the iron was cast. It happens when they don't use enough flux and impurities get in. Here, take these.”

  He pushed a pair of tongs each at Rill and Caymus, then motioned for them to kneel on either side of him. “I'm going to need the pair of you to hold the two sides together. You,” he indicated Milo, who started getting up, “lift the end so this thing is standing straight up, with the break at the bottom.” Milo did as he was told, grabbing the band at one end and holding it up over the ground. Be'Var took Caymus's tongs from him and closed them onto one side of the break. “Hold,” he said, when he seemed happy with the grip, and Caymus grabbed them. Be'Var did the same with Rill, who seemed to be watching the whole process very intently. Be'Var then stood and placed one of the hammers under the inside curve of the hoop, extending the handle away from him for Milo to grab. “It's going to get a bit warm in a minute, so you're not going to want to touch it.” Milo nodded and held onto the hammer, letting the tyre hang from it. “It will rest on the anvil and these two will keep it steady, so you just need to keep it from tipping over. Think you can do that?”

  Milo nodded.

  “Good,” said Be'Var, kneeling back down. “If it falls, I'm burning off your feathers.”

  There was a bit of negotiation as Be'Var repositioned the hoop, placing his six-inch high anvil under it, then moving it again until the two were in contact. “Everybody stay right where you are.” He closed his eyes, then opened them, looking at Caymus. “Pay attention to this part,” he said.

  Caymus closed his own eyes and reached out, feeling for the piece of iron. He was becoming well-practiced at this, so finding what he wanted and latching on to it was relatively easy. As he firmed his grip, he thought about how different the metal felt when he held on to it this way, rather than with his hands. To his skin, he would have noticed the cold because his body contained more fire than the iron, but to his incorporeal mind, the feeling of solidity was most prevalent. It felt heavy and dense.

  As he
considered this, he sensed the presence of Be'Var's mind and retreated slightly to watch him work. He could feel the old man brushing over both of the broken edges of the metal, and as he did so he seemed to leave something behind. They felt like small tendrils, connections between the master's mind and the piece of metal, left to keep the connection open over a surface, rather than at a single point. When the process was finished, he felt Be'Var pushing: not against him, not against the metal, but against something he couldn't see. The sensation was strange, as though Be'Var's mind was struggling against an invisible wall, though not a wall. It was more like a membrane of some sort, like the skin over day-old soup, only much, much thicker. He could feel it starting to give, to bend, as Be'Var continued to exert force. Then, there was a puncturing sensation, and Caymus could see what Be'Var had done. Instead of lighting a flame by hand and drawing energy through the conduit it manifested, he had formed his own conduit, small and completely independent of any existing fire, a direct connection to the Conflagration. He was using his creation to feed the majesty of the realm of flame through the tendrils he had created, directly into the metal. The process was fascinating.

  Be'Var then pulled energy through the conduit. Push, then pull…Caymus liked the symmetry of that. The effect was immediate. Caymus could feel the iron growing warm, then hot. He knew that Be'Var could have heated the tyre faster, and he wondered if there was a good reason for slowing down the process. After awhile, though, he could actually feel the metal reaching the point where it started to lose its solidity.

  He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Rill squinting and looking away. When he directed he gaze down, he saw that the metal was now emitting a bright, yellow glow. Caymus had seen Be'Var working with iron before, but had never been able to observe this closely. His control of the heat was amazing. The hardest thing about pulling was maintaining the flow of energy through the conduit so that the affected material didn't burn or cool too quickly, and the fluctuation in this conduit was so minuscule that it was barely noticeable.