The Fountain and the Flame: Chapter Two

A READER-DIRECTED STORY

The Creator of All Things has opened a window to another world—a portal. We cannot step through this portal, but we may reach through with our minds. Concentrating, we see a young woman, Kaia, seated on a bridge of stone and ice, feet dangling over cobalt blue waters.

The Creator has invited us to act as Watch-keepers over Kaia and the friends she will meet along a dangerous path that lies ahead. The Watch-keepers must work together to help Kaia make good choices. These choices will not always be easy, and Kaia may not always do as we ask, for she is strong-willed. Will you accept this challenge with us?

If you desire to take on the mantle of Watch-keeper, please use the “Leave a Reply” box at the bottom to answer the question posed at the end of each chapter of Kaia’s story.

THE FOUNTAIN AND THE FLAME: CHAPTER TWO

Click Here for Chapter One

Kaia tucked the scroll under her coat. “All right, Raven. I’ll follow. But shouldn’t I pack supplies for the journey? I’ll hurry home, and we can still make the noon ferry.”

The raven answered her with a hard look—a solid No. The letter had said nothing about packing supplies. Then again, it had said nothing about following the bird, either. The poem had only said that she should travel south to Ras Telesar.

“I don’t care what you say. I’m going home to pack. You can follow me or meet me at the docks.” She expected the raven to launch into the air and either wheel above her or fly toward the docks. Instead, he stayed on the rocks of the ice rim, watching her. “Fine. Do what you wish. But I won’t come back this way, along the rim. And I won’t miss the passage waiting for you. Old Wystan, the day ferryman, will let me stow away. I’m sure of it. The captain of the night boat is not so kind.”

Kaia kept to the wrong side of the wall bordering the land that belonged to her liege, Lord Advor, for a good distance inland, heading for a culvert where she could cross. Getting caught on another noble’s land could mean arrest or a beating, but she had no intention of returning by the way she’d come. The sight of her mother on that bridge scrounging for lux flowers might crumple Kaia’s resolve to run away. And if Malpensia got wind of the raven, the whole province would know the story by the morrow next.

She found her culvert, half buried by a snow drift, and dug her way through. Then she hurried across the network of bridges toward a row of peasant hovels, cut into a rock shelf near the central channel of Lord Advor’s land. But she stopped short Two creatures shuffled through the snow a stone’s throw from her front door. Stringy white hair. Green skin. Teeth and claws like the grimy ice at the edge of the road. Frost goblins.

What were goblin guards doing out there among the channels? They usually stayed close to the chief nobles or their lieutenants. Kaia ducked behind a barrel of lux flowers and watched.

With the short, jerking movements of their kind, the two goblins snuffled at every door and squinted into every window, searching. But for what? Kaia didn’t plan to stick around long enough to find out. She waited until they rounded a bend in the channel, then ran into her hovel.

The place was a wreck—an overturned table and chairs, broken pots scattered about, lux leaves all over the floor. The goblins had done this. Thank the Creator that Kaia’s mother had not been home when they came.

While bending to right the table, Kai saw the rags that served as her mother’s curtains flutter. She gasped and reeled backward into the stone wall, only to see the raven shoot through the window and circle the room. He landed on the mantel.

“You,” she said, breathing hard. “I thought you were meeting me at the day boat. Don’t you trust me?”

When the raven said nothing, Kaia pointed to the window. “Go back out there and keep watch. There are goblins about. We don’t want them catching us, not with what we’re planning.

The demand seemed well-reasoned—essential, even—but the stubborn raven refused to obey. He turned and pecked at a stone.

“That won’t do much good,” Kaia said. “Perhaps you don’t understand how rocks work, but—”

The stone moved. The raven backed away with an I told you so head bob, and Kaia wiggled it free. A pouch fell to the floor with a hefty clink and spilled its contents. Coins—silver pinnis and gold halfins. And the money pouch was not the only treasure. Two scraps of parchment lay in the shallow hole. Both were inked with Lord Advor’s seal. She drew them out and showed them to the raven. “Look. Passage markers.”

Kaia handled the parchments as if they were pure gold leaf. Passage markers were too valuable for her mother to have purchased. She imagined her father had tucked them away years before—the coins too—perhaps the unused remnants of some errand for Lord Advor. She had no time to wonder. There was a scratching and snuffling at the door.

She spun, tucking the parchments behind her back. She’d left the door cracked open. How could she have been so foolish? Whatever was out there could push in at will. Yet no one did. After a few moments, Kaia swept the coins into the shadows with her foot and took a cautious step. “Hello?”

A snow fox poked his head into view, ears twitching. He licked his snout.

Kaia let out her breath. “Raz. Not now. I don’t have any fish for you.”

The fox took no heed. He invited himself in and sniffed around the coins while she gathered them into the bag.

The raven squawked and pecked the air with disapproval.

“Leave him alone,” Kaia said, slipping the markers into her coat pocket. She went to the pantry and drew out a bundle of dried lux leaves to stuff into the other pocket. “Raz is an old fishing friend. You’re the one who’s new here.”

But she had no time for old friends. A glance through the curtains told her the goblins had moved on. Now might be her only chance. The raven seemed to agree and flew past her through the window. Kaia tied the coin pouch to her belt, lifted her bow and quiver from their hooks, grabbed a water skin, and headed out after the bird. “I’m sorry, Raz. I have to leave.”

The fox was not so easily abandoned. As Kaia hurried along the channel, she heard a snarling from behind. She looked back to see Raz tugging her father’s old weather coat out of the hovel.

“Where did you find that?”

Raz stopped to look up at her, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“That coat is too big for me. And I don’t need it. I’m going south. You should clear out. If the goblins come back, they’ll take that coat, and they’ll happily skin you alive to make a hat to go with it.” She turned to go.

The snarling resumed, and Raz continued dragging that absurd coat down the path to follow. If that didn’t draw attention to her plans to run away, nothing would. Left with no choice, Kaia relented. She lifted the oversize coat away from the fox and put it on over the quiver and water skin hanging at her hips. As she did, she saw how high the sun had climbed on its southern arc.

“Oh no. The day boat.”

She ran, coat flopping, with the fox bounding beside her.

By the time Kaia reached the docks, the ferry had gone. She could see its sails on the horizon. The raven flew out to sea in a gesture of futility, then turned back toward her.

“What are we to do now?” she asked him. “Am I to spend one of these passage markers just for the ferry across Val Glasa? We have so much farther to go.”

The bird landed on a mooring post and began preening his feathers, unconcerned.

Before Kaia could press the raven more, she heard a shout from the market gate. A crowd had gathered there, larger than she’d ever seen. Something was happening. Something big. She tried to walk that way, and the raven flew in front of her, as if to head her off. Kaia shooed him away and kept going. The night boat would not come for hours. What else was she to do with the time? But she knew better than to squeeze into the crowd.

Kaia snuck along the outside of the market wall to the place where furrier’s backed up against it and where some rock rising from the snow could give her some help. A quick climb and a short leap brought her to the furrier’s rooftop. She crawled to the peak and looked over.

“Mother?” The word came out as a squeal.

Many eyes turned Kaia’s way. She ducked down. The raven cawed and flapped above to cover for her, and Kaia waited until he settled down before looking again.

A man dressed in the red robes of a magistrate stood at the head of a small wagon train, surrounded by his goblin guards and a crowd of merchants, all talking at once. But Kaia had no interest in the magistrate. The last two wagons in his train were little more than cages on wheels. In the first, Malpensia and Pellion the Baker sat with eyes downcast. Malpensia was weeping. The second wagon held only one prisoner—Kaia’s mother. Its rear door lay only a few feet from the shop Kaia had climbed.

Kaia slid down the rooftop and dropped to the stones in the alley beside the furrier’s. From the corner, under the shadow of the awning, she stretched out her arm. Her mother’s shoulder, resting against the bars, was only a hands breadth beyond the reach of her fingers.

“Mother!”

Her mother turned, looking left and right. “Kaia? Get out of here. You need to run!”

“Mother, goblins are searching the peasant rows. They were inside our home.”

“Of course they were. They were looking for you.”

Looking for Kaia. How had that not occurred to her? “But why?”

“Malpensia’s prattle. Her gossip about Asteran spread to the magistrate. And when he asked her where she’d heard it, she pointed to me. A lie. But she added a truth to sell it. She told him I still follow the old faith.”

The Creator. The High One. Kaia followed the old faith because it was her mother’s faith, not out of loyalty to a deity no one had heard from in generations. And now look where that faith had gotten her. She shook her head, tears brimming. “This can’t be happening. Where will they take you?”

She already knew the answer. Ras Pyras, the Hill of the Flame, where the Great Red Dragon sat in his fortress surrounded by the circular palaces of his nine Primarem. If her mother entered those circles, Kaia could not follow.

Her mother confirmed this fear with a glance to the north, where the sky glowed red. “You have to run, Kaia. Go south. Seek a hilltop sanctuary called Ras Telesar.”

Ras Telesar. What did her mother know of that place? Kaia felt as if her legs giving way. She pushed what strength she had into them and rushed out of hiding to pull at the cage’s iron lock. “No. I won’t let them take you!”

The raven, perched atop the furrier’s awning, raised a curled foot to his beak and made something between a cough and a caw. There were voices at the forward wagons, high-pitched and gravely.

“The goblin guards are coming.” Kaia’s mother grabbed her hands through the bars to stop her from rattling the lock. “Go. Quickly.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Remember the lullaby I sang to you as a child.”

The voices grew louder. The wagon groaned as its wheels began to turn. Kaia’s mother pushed her away, tears falling freely. “Run, Kaia. Now!”

A throng moved to the market gate, leaving now that the spectacle was over. Kaia escaped in their midst. But once outside, she was at a loss. She couldn’t go home. She’d missed the ferry. She could do nothing but hide in a nook between the rocks and the market wall until nightfall, weeping for her mother and hoping the captain of the night boat might let her on.

Or perhaps there was another option.

Raz walked to the dock and sat beside a small boat bobbing at its moorings. The dockmaster had not yet reappeared. If she took her chance now, Kaia could row away with no one to stop her.

She chewed her lip. She had a long road ahead. Stealing a boat would spare her from hard questions and save her a few coins and a valuable passage marker. And if Raz was so eager to follow her in this journey, he could ride along.

Watch-keepers, what should Kaia do? Should she:

1. Wait for the nightly ferry, pay the ferryman’s price, and use a travel marker, hoping he doesn’t know about the search for her?
2. Take the risk of stealing a skiff and rowing herself across the icy sea?

Comment your vote via the “Leave a Reply” box at the bottom of this post.

James R. Hannibal
Award-Winning Author & Former Stealth Pilot