“My mother teaches swordplay much better than you do, Sir Henre,” she declared, then spun around and left the room, leaving Jakob to do the explaining this time. Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair, but Clara didn’t want to see Sir Henre ever again if she could help it. She was tired of the man.
Focus was changed from teaching to getting her ready to go to the Kastle. She spent quite a bit of each day on horseback since she had learned from her trip to visit Essua that it was a skill she could still improve on.
Jakob was going to be her escort and guide, and the two of them personally selected ten of the soldiers to accompany them. Since this was to be a long journey, it wouldn’t be proper for her to travel alone in the company of men, apparently, and Lady Roxanne insisted that Clara bring at least one companion. She chose Jasmine and Jill Anna, with their consent. Jill Anna didn’t seem very excited and claimed that she was mostly going to keep Jasmine out of trouble.
Clara was content with that excuse.
All that was left was to wait for the snow to melt.
Part 2
The
FIRE
On that same day, Lower Klarand received the Fire Prince. From the Firefall he came. Young he was, and loyal to his home, but his heart was great, as was his courage to lead us.
Chapter 1
“Yes, Kyle, you may take Josh and Parker for a hike before we leave,” said Andrew, without looking up from the map he was examining. “Just don’t push them off of any cliffs. We don’t have time to call 911 right now.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to ask, Andrew,” said Kyle, with a groan. “I—”
“Well, it happens to be what I just gave you permission to do, unless you want to stay and help me pack up the tent. On second thought…”
“I’ll take them hiking,” Kyle quickly amended, before Andrew could finish the thought.
“Good. Make sure they’re both wearing proper climbing gear.”
“We’re not babies anymore, Andrew!” protested Josh, who was apparently in earshot. “We know how to prepare for a hike.”
“Good; then do so.”
Andrew, satisfied with the directions they needed for the day’s trip, folded up the map and put it into his backpack. Now to get everything into the car.
Sleeping bags and food were easily and quickly packed and thrown in the trunk. He carefully stacked his dad’s computer and other electronics in the front seat, where they wouldn’t get broken. As per orders, his brothers already had their own clothes in their suitcases, so Andrew only had to make sure they were zipped closed – Parker’s wasn’t – and toss them in the trunk.
Only the tent was left, and then he would have to go track down his dad, who was chasing a rare butterfly or something of that sort, and hope that his three younger brothers would be back in time. They still had a four-hour drive before they got to their aunt’s.
“Hi!”
There was a girl of perhaps five or so sitting in front of the tent. Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“Laura,” she said simply, hopping to her feet. “We’ve met before, Andrew, but I don’t think you’d remember it, not exactly. I was older then.”
Andrew opened his mouth to protest, then shook his head. Sometimes kids had trouble with the whole older/younger concept. “Where are your parents?”
She shrugged. “That’s not important right now. You are what is important. Your people need you, Andrew.”
She darted away towards the forest, and Andrew naturally followed. After all, this was a five-year-old with no apparent supervision. She disappeared into the trees and immediately vanished from sight. Andrew stopped, considering whether following was the best idea.
No, it wasn’t. He had a car to pack. The girl’s parents were probably close enough, and while that didn’t explain why she knew his name, it wasn’t really all that important. Confusing, but not important. He would inform the park officials that there was a girl who may or may not have supervision, but for now…
Just as he turned away from the trees, he heard the terrible roar of fire. He spun back around. Where there had been forest just moments before was a spiraling inferno. It wasn’t spreading, the trees touching it didn’t burn, but smoke and heat poured out of it. He shrank back. This was turning into a very strange day.
And, unfortunately, his dad had the cell phone so he couldn’t call 911 or the park authorities.
But what about that girl? She had just run that way. Was she caught in the blaze? Or maybe she had somehow caused it. She hadn’t looked like an arsonist, but they did come in all shapes and sizes. It might not have been on purpose.
He heard a scream – not a girl’s scream. It sounded more like…
“Parker!” he exclaimed. And forsaking all caution, he ran into the inferno.
The moment he reached the flames, the ground slid out from under his feet and he fell. Liquid fire surrounded him, burning, yet strangely cold at the same time. Smoke filled his lungs, burning his eyes and throat. On and on he fell, regretting his rash decision, and wondering why this had to happen today of all days.
He tried to find something, anything he could grab to claw his way back to safety and life. There was nothing there. Everything he touched burned. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm himself, to think logically, but there was no logic to be found. It had been such a normal morning until Laura appeared and now…
Was he going to die? Was he already dead? He couldn’t be! His family needed him. His dad couldn’t remember he had kids half the time, and Kyle wasn’t responsible enough to do what Andrew did.
He squeezed his eyes shut, to try to come up with some sort of plan … but there was no way out of this.
Just when he was about to lose all hope, he felt a hand grab his arm, and he was pulled out of the fire. His skin collided with icy cold, and his eyes flew open.
The fire was gone. He knelt in a strange pink substance that felt like snow, though there was still heat coming from behind him.
“Are you all right, Fire Prince?”
Andrew looked up from the strange snow to find a bearded man standing over him – his rescuer? The man was dressed in a strange green outfit, with knives of varying length in his belt and a bow strapped to his back.
Closing his eyes and shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, Andrew pushed himself to his feet before his legs and hands could freeze. Had he somehow ended up at a Renaissance festival? Because that was certainly what the man looked like he was dressed for.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Three feet from the Firefall in Lower Klarand,” the man replied.
“Right.” Andrew didn’t recognize those names at all. “So, do you mind if I borrowed your cell phone? I should probably call my dad and let him know I’m all right and where I am. He must have seen that fire from wherever he was.”
“My … cell phone, Fire Prince?”
“You know, the phone you use when you’re not at home,” Andrew explained, feeling very annoyed. “I know you’re in character and everything, but I need to let my dad know that I’m okay. I need to get back to them!”
But the look on the man’s face was as innocent and confused as though he had never heard of a cell phone before in his life.
“What is a phone?”
“A telephone. You use it to talk to people from far away,” Andrew explained. Frustrated, he turned away from the man and tried to take in his surroundings. It was apparently winter here … and it had been summer just a few minutes ago. Not only was there pink snow on the ground, but also, most of the trees were bare. Those that weren’t were … purple? And that one was blue.
He shook his head again, trying to convince himself that he was seeing things. He opened his eyes, and they fell on the source of the heat – a rushing river made of fire.
Heart hammering in his chest, he knelt down to get a closer look. It certainly wasn’t water – smoke, not steam, rose off of it. And it wasn’t lava either. Andrew had seen
every type of lava earth had to offer. His dad, a scientist, studied many things and took his family pretty much everywhere. There wasn’t much in the natural world that Andrew hadn’t seen.
But pink snow, blue trees, and fire that flowed like water were new to him.
“Are you all right, Fire Prince?”
Andrew pushed himself to his feet and spun back around to face the man. “My name’s Andrew.”
The expression on the man’s face didn’t change. “Yes.”
“Andrew Stevenson,” he added.
“Yes. You are the Fire Prince.”
“But…”
“Fire Prince, if you are trying to tell me your true name, I don’t think it’ll work,” the man informed him. “Prophecy states that we shall only ever know you by your title.”
The words swirled around in Andrew’s head and frustrated him all the more. His eyes traveled back to the river of fire, then to its source. He and the man stood at the foot of a black cliff, and the fire spewed from a hole at least three hundred feet above them.
“The Firefall, you said this was?” Andrew asked.
“Yes, Fire Prince.”
“Stop calling me that!” Today was crazy enough without adding a man from his history books insisting on calling him this strange name. He needed to find a way home!
“It is who you are; you cannot deny it,” said the man, calmly. “The fact that you tried to tell me your real name and I still heard only your title confirms it.”
“I don’t care – stop calling me it!” He gestured wildly towards the fire river. “This isn’t scientifically possible.”
“Perhaps not in your world, but you’re in Rizkaland now.”
“I thought you said something about Lower Klarand.”
“Klarand is one of the islands,” the man explained. “And you’re in the lower part of it. If it makes you feel any better, this is the only place in all of Klarand where fire flows like this.”
“Right. So … when am I going home? How?”
“I know not,” the man answered, with a shake of his head. “Travel between worlds is complicated, and there are few who manage it. Come now, there’s no point for us to tarry here in discussion.” He paused, however, and took a good look at Andrew’s summer-oriented outfit, then removed the cloak he wore about his shoulders and handed it to him.
“Here,” he said, “it’s cold once we leave the immediate area of the RiFi, and we can’t have you freezing, after all. We’ll see what we can do about finding you some warmer clothes.”
Andrew accepted the cloak grudgingly and wrapped it around his own shoulders. It stank of unwashed body. The man didn’t wait for Andrew to say anything else and started walking away. Since Andrew wasn’t interested in being left alone in this strange place, he followed.
Why was this happening to him, of all people? Why couldn’t this “Fire Prince” have been some kid who wasn’t the coordinator of his family? A kid who wanted only to run away from home and get away from it all? Andrew was needed back home. He couldn’t be Fire Prince for these people.
As the man had warned him, it did grow colder the further they traveled from the fire river. Despite the smell, Andrew pulled the cloak tighter. It was warm.
They came to a lean-to shelter with a roaring fire. A man stood poking at the flames. Andrew’s guide picked up his pace.
“He’s come!” he announced. “The Fire Prince is here at last!”
This second man stood up, his eye landing on Andrew. “Him?” he asked. “He doesn’t look like much.”
“It’s him all right,” Andrew’s guide answered. “I pulled him from the Firefall myself. Alphego has sent him at long last.”
“Well … let’s hope He knows what He’s doing.”
“Of course he does,” Andrew’s guide countered. “His plans are always so infinitely better than ours. Fire Prince, I would like you to meet Zimon, one of our fiercest soldiers.”
“Uh … hello?” said Andrew. He inched closer to the fire, not feeling comfortable under the man’s sharp gaze.
“I took our waste down to the Firefall this morning,” explained Andrew’s guide, “and there he was. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“I’m having trouble believing mine,” said Zimon. “Well, Fire Prince, we just killed a shwazle. Would you care to come prove your worth and help us clean it?”
“I…” Andrew didn’t quite like the tone in the man’s voice. “I guess so, only … it’s cold.”
Zimon raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s winter, boy, what else would you expect?”
“It wasn’t a few minutes ago, when I was still in my own world and normal life,” Andrew protested.
“He’s dressed for summer,” Andrew’s guide explained. “We need to find him a jacket at least, and then I’m sure he’d be happy to help us with our kill.”
Andrew wasn’t as sure about that, but Zimon accepted the excuse and retreated into the lean-to, during which time Andrew covered the remaining distance between the fire and himself. At least this fire was acting normally and was a natural color. He tried to not look at the pink snow and purple trees.
Zimon emerged again and threw a leather jacket at Andrew, which landed at his feet. “Here, I guess it makes sense that we have to keep our Fire Prince warm.”
Andrew ignored the comment as he pulled off the cloak and tossed it to the side and put the jacket on. It smelled a lot better than the cloak, even though it wasn’t nearly as warm. He had to wait for his body heat to warm it up, after all.
“Now, let’s see about that shwazle,” said Andrew’s guide, smiling encouragingly as he picked the cloak back up and put it back around his own shoulders. “You’ll show Zimon you’re useful, won’t you?”
Andrew shrugged and reluctantly stood up, realizing that sitting here in front of the fire was not an option. How bad could it be, after all? His best friend’s dad hunted and had taken Andrew and his brothers a few times. He’d cleaned game before.
Zimon and the other man led the way away from the lean-to towards a group of men who stood about their kill. Blood splattered the snow, which made the pinkish tint a bit less horrible. The animal hanging from the tree was nothing like anything Andrew had ever seen before, but even that wasn’t so bad.
Then his eyes fell on the creature’s head, sitting off to the side. It was shaped like a camel’s, especially in the jaw. But it was covered in green scales.
It was too much, way too much. Andrew suddenly felt sick.
Chapter 2
“He’s the Fire Prince, you say?”
“I can’t believe it – just look at those arms. My Jeffry has ‘em twice that size, and he’s surely half his age.”
“What do you say about your precious Fire Prince now, Abraham?” This was Zimon.
“Just because he isn’t what we expected doesn’t mean that it isn’t him,” countered the man Andrew had met first and whose name was apparently Abraham. “We have to have faith that Alphego knows what He’s doing. The Fire Prince has had a tough day, I imagine, being pulled from his own world and the life he knows. How would you like that to happen to you?”
“It doesn’t explain those arms.”
Andrew squeezed his eyes even tighter shut. He knew he ought to say something in his own defense, something to make up for the fact that he had just fainted in front of everyone. But he didn’t feel like he owed it to these men. Despite what “Abraham” said, they clearly didn’t believe him to be their “Fire Prince,” and Andrew didn’t want the title any more than they wanted to give it to him. Honestly, if it were up to him, he’d have been back in his normal life, driving to his aunt’s at that very moment, not letting these men sit around him talking about him just like the whatever-it-was they had just killed.
“He hears us!” one of the men declared, apparently noticing Andrew’s eyes. “And he ain’t got anything to say! Some Fire Prince he is.”
No use pretending anymore. Andrew rolled himself onto his stomach with a
groan and opened his eyes.
“Who said I wanted to be your Fire Prince?” he asked. “Maybe I just want to go home so I can keep the CPS from taking away my younger brothers.”
With that, he climbed to his feet and took off running, he wasn’t sure where – just away from the men, away from the shwazle, away from the condemning stares. He veered away from the lean-to. No one was there, but that would probably be where they’d start their search. Besides, they’d just taunt him worse for running home to the fire like a sissy.
Not that he wouldn’t deserve it.
After he had run far enough without hearing anyone behind him, he plopped himself down on a fallen log and buried his head in his hands, hoping that if he squeezed his eyes closed tight enough, he could open them and have things back to normal.
Since they’d lost their mom in a car accident four years before, Andrew had had to fill in for her. His dad was, well, to put it kindly, a bit absentminded. He was a great guy and a highly respected scientist in multiple fields, but while he filled the role of dad satisfactorily, there was no way he could be mom as well. Andrew, who took after their far more organized mother, was the one to take on her duties – even though he’d been only twelve when they lost her.
“You know, it isn’t quite safe to be out here all by yourself.”
A kid’s voice, sounding so much like Parker. Andrew’s eyes opened automatically.
The kid looking down at him wasn’t Andrew’s brother. He was older than Parker by a year or two, with sandy hair, dressed in a brown tunic. What concerned Andrew was the long knife he wore in his belt. He also had a small bow and a quiver of arrows on his back.
“Uh … yeah … then you probably shouldn’t be out here,” Andrew informed the kid.
“Oh, but I know how to take care of myself,” the boy assured him, plopping down on the log next to Andrew. “You aren’t even armed.”
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