The Fountain and the Flame: Chapter Eight

Illustration Credit: Depositphotos.com, James R. Hannibal; composed for the Lightraiders Adventure Bible System.

A READER-DIRECTED STORY

The Creator of All Things has opened a window to another world—a portal. We can’t step through this portal, but we may reach through with our minds.

The Creator has invited us to act as watchkeepers over Kaia and the friends she will meet along a dangerous path that lies ahead. The watchkeepers 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 watchkeeper, 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

BIBLE REFERENCE

Please take a moment to read Psalm 37:1-6 and Proverbs 3:5-8.

On whom do you lean in your struggles, and to whom do you give credit for your victories?

We ask the same question in this chapter as we did in Chapter Seven, but with a twist. Last time, the giant offered worldly power. This time Kaia confronts a creature that traps its victims by making them overconfident in their own wisdom. The Bible’s answer to both problems is the same (God’s Word is consistent). Lean on Him and not the world or your own understanding.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Click Here for Chapter Seven

Queensblood. Liege. Command me.

The giant’s rhythmic song beat in Kaia’s head in time with the pulsing throb of the scratches in her side.

“You look pale,” Luco said as Kaia lagged a bit in their march southward. “Need a breather?

“I’m fine.” She’d told him the same twice now, twice since he’d first asked if she was wounded after their fight with the giant. And Kaia had kept silent, even though a nagging voice in her head urged her to show him the scratches on her side and the festering sap around them.

Luco lifted his hands in surrender. “So you say.” He returned to his march—his relentless march—with Raz the fox trotting beside him. They’d been on the road for more than two ticks since the fight, and the young Fulcor noble showed no sign of weariness. Nor did his little sister, Nisa. Perhaps endless walking was in their blood.

Kaia hurried to catch up, wincing and clutching at her side.

A powerful ally I’ll be.

Quiet, giant! She almost said out loud. They had defeated that creature. Why did it still torment her?

Kaia forced her thoughts to shift to the message from the raven back at the Frost Isles and the scroll that had started her on this path.

A new story has begun. A new beginning will be won,

For those who seek me with all their heart.

Throw off the yoke—throw off the chains—of dragon lies and mortal shame.

Find hope restored at Ras Telesar.

“How long?” Kaia asked. “How many days ‘til we reach the Aropha sanctuary of Ras Telesar?”

Luco stopped, and Kaia couldn’t tell if he’d done so because he’d noticed the heavy breaths between her words or because of the laughter they’d caused him.

“Days?” In his amusement, Luco glanced at Nisa, who did not smile. She gave a little shake of her head, and he returned his gaze to Kaia. “Oh. You’re serious? In that case, are you expecting us to catch a flight with the falcons of Storm Heights? Or perhaps you expect to sprout wings of your own.”

She frowned, made less tolerant of his jesting by the pain in her side. “I don’t understand.”

“Clearly you don’t.” He forced his smile away—mostly. “My apologies. I’d forgotten you don’t have any schooling.”

That hurt. “I’ve studied. Haven’t I proved that?”

“You have. All I’m saying is that you’ve never sat under the tutelage of a house philosopher.”

Nisa poked her brother in the side. “Suffered is more like it.” She looked to Kaia. “You didn’t miss anything. Art and arithmetic. Quills and codexes. Our philosopher, Master Rathmoor, was slow of speech and quick with a measuring stick to swat idle hands.” She rubbed her wrists as if remembering such strikes. “I despised his maps the most. So many places to remember.”

“What does my schooling have to do with our road to the fortress?” Kaia asked.

“Rathmoor’s maps.” Luco set off again, directing his bear’s-head staff at the road ahead. “That’s what. If you’d studied his precious globe as I have, you’d know Ras Telesar is a thousand leagues from here.” He chuckled again. “We haven’t even left the canton of King’s Cradle.”

Kaia kept pace with him. He still hadn’t answered her question. “How long, Luco? If not ticks or days, then what should I count?”

“Months.”

“Months?” She felt suddenly light-headed. “We’re to be on this road for months?” A large rock by the side of the road beckoned to her—as good as any lady’s couch. She staggered over and sat upon it. “I think I’ll have that breather now.”

What had she done—setting off on this road without knowing the length or breadth of it? Kaia didn’t have months. Her mother had commanded her to go with the raven after her arrest. She’d urged Kaia to run to the sanctuary at Ras Telesar. But Kaia had done so expecting to find help there—help to rescue her mother.

Kaia had expected to find hope. Isn’t that what the raven’s scroll promised?

The pain in her side flared.

Queensblood. Liege. Command me.

A powerful ally I’ll be.

Was there another hope nearer at hand? “I’ll bet a giant,” Kaia said, “with its great stride and strong arms, could make the journey in a shorter time and protect us on the way. If only we had such an ally.”

In a heartbeat, Luco was standing before her. “Why would you say that?”

Why indeed? Kaia wasn’t sure. She felt faint. This breather wasn’t helping. “I . . .”

Luco’s stern eyes softened. “You truly aren’t well. It’s not just the road, is it?”

The nagging voice returned, as strong as the giant’s song. Tell him.

Raz growled and whimpered, adding his urging too.

She let out a long breath. “All right. I’ll show you.” She lifted the hem of her tunic.

Nisa gasped.

So did Luco. “Did I not ask if you’d been wounded. Don’t you know how dangerous this is?”

“They’re only scratches.”

“They’re infected. Look.”

Kaia glanced down. The green sap had taken on a milky hue with a lace of lichen growing in it. Dark veins spread along swollen red and purple flesh.

“A dark creature’s poison must not be hidden,” Luco said. “It must be dealt with as soon as possible. I should have been more forceful with my questions.”

He didn’t chide her any more than that. Instead, he guided her into the forest. “A tributary to the Serpentine runs close by. We’ll need the water.”

As they walked, choosing a careful path downslope toward the river’s rush, Luco offered a prayer to the Maker. He spoke in the Elder Tongue, but Kaia recognized the words—a passage her tehpa had taught her during their fishing days that seemed so long ago.

Do not be agitated by evildoers;

Do not envy those who do wrong.

For they wither quickly like grass

And wilt like tender green plants.

Had Kaia envied the giant? She’d wished for the power of its stride and its help in freeing her mother. Yet, now, while Luco whispered his prayer, she remembered the evil in the creature’s glare.

Feed me.

The giant had wanted Nisa as a meal in exchange for its allegiance.

“I’m sorry for my words,” Kaia said as Luco helped her sit on a log by the riverbank. “I shouldn’t have wished for the aid of such a terrible corruption.”

He lifted her tunic to check the wound. Before their eyes, the fungus around the scratches wilted back. The dark veins faded.

Luco drew a cloth from his satchel and dipped it in the river. “The prayer I spoke was a song of the Leander kings, long before that house turned traitor. Have you heard it?” He wrung water out over the scratches, then dipped the cloth again and began to scrub at the sap.

The roughness of the cloth hurt, but Kaia kept her features and her voice even. “My tehpa taught it to me. I don’t remember all the Elder Tongue words, but I remember the meaning.”

“Luco,” Nisa said, watching the river.

“A moment, Sister.” Luco rinsed his cloth and continued his work. “What meaning do you remember, Kaia?”

“The Maker is our help and protection. Trust in him, and he will act.” Watching as Luco pulled the cloth away, Kaia saw the swelling go down. She could see no remnant of the sap or its fungus.

“Luco, the water.” Nisa’s voice grew more insistent.

“The water is fine and clean, Nisa—or clean enough. The river’s haste makes it so. Hush, now. Treating dark creature wounds takes more than clean water and a dressing.” He lifted a bandage from his satchel. “Never hide your hurts after fighting a dragon corruption, Kaia, not even a little scratch. They wield poisons along with their knives and claws.”

Kaia swallowed. “Poisons?”

“Of many sorts. Fungus. Spores. Venom. The creature’s goal is to bring you back to its snare, even after you’ve defeated it once. Let such a wound fester, and you’ll fall into—”

“Luco!” Nisa stood over her brother with a rock as big as her own head and slammed it down on a tentacle with wicked talons, snaking through the reeds.

The tentacle slid back into the river. At the same time, another shot out and wrapped Luco’s ankle. It pulled him down the bank.

Kaia grabbed his arm and put all her weight into keeping him from the water. With his free hand, Luco took up his staff and fended off two more wriggling arms. He dug a heel into the mud to take his own weight. “Nisa, stay back! Kaia, let go of me and shoot it!”

“Shoot what?” Kaia saw only tentacles slithering back and forth. “What is it?”

“A valpaz—a water sentry.” He smashed the bear’s head of his staff into the arm looped about his ankle, and it withdrew. Before he could scramble up the bank, another tentacle replaced it and kept pulling at him. “A cousin to a giant!”

How could this tentacled water creature be a giant’s cousin?

Kaia snatched up her bow and let an arrow fly, but this river was not like the calm channels in the ice where she’d grown up shooting fish. The power of its flow knocked the arrow aside. “I can’t hit it!”

In their last fight with a dragon corruption, she’d seen Luco call upon the Maker for help and declare a verse from the Scrolls. What had he told her?

His truth wounded the creature by striking at the lies that animate it.

If this water sentry was born of the same corruption, then perhaps the same truths might fight it.

Luco still fought for his life, fending off four tentacles, while his sister pelted the water around them with stones. “Anytime now, archer!”

“I told you. I have no shot!”

Please, Maker. I can’t do this on my own. We need you. Another verse Kaia’s tehpa taught her during their fishing came to her—one much like the verses Luco had spoken. She called it out as a prayer and as a challenge to the creature. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding!”

A gurgling shriek sent foam to the surface. The wriggling tentacles quickened to a frenzy and withdrew, leaving no sight nor sound of the creature.

Luco jumped to his feet and backed away, joining Kaia and Nisa. “Quick thinking. Well done.”

“Not me,” Kaia said. “My father taught me that verse long ago, and I the Maker brought it back to me in my prayer.”

“An apt verse, indeed. Where the giant tempts its victims with the power of this world, the water sentry lures them into false confidence. The more a victim leans on his own wisdom and strength, the more the tentacles draw him in, until he’s taken under.”

Nisa stared at the water. “Why did it come for us?”

“My fault,” Luco said, making an apologetic face. “I dipped the cloth with the giant’s sap into the river. The creature must have caught the scent of its cousin’s poison. They are both animated by the same sort of dragon.” He looked downriver and thrust his chin at a stone bridge just visible near the bend. “There. The water sentry was likely put here to guard that bridge. It leads toward Miner’s Glory and the West Midland Road—the main road south through the interior uplands. I’ve never seen one here before. Something has certainly changed in the land, and the dragons know it.”

“Is that our road?” Kaia shuddered at the thought that the tentacled water sentry might return to its bridge and ambush them when they tried to cross.

Luco shrugged. “Might be. The West Midland Road is the easier route—well traveled, with many towns and villages along the way. That would be a wide and curving path, far out of our way.” He looked back toward the road from which they’d come. “The straighter path as the bird flies is due south, but there are no straight roads to the peninsula we call the Great Foundation, where Ras Telesar sits in the hill country. We’ll have to pick our way back and forth through many barriers.”

“Barriers?”

“The Mirror Peaks for one—jagged mountain passes of sharp obsidian. Within them, we’d face the perilous rim of Chasm Vale, and afterward a stretch of barren sand extending west from the Desert of Peshar Sin.”

Kaia didn’t like the sound of any of those. She knew the name Peshar Sin, a famous sorcerer and pet of the dragons in the days of the Traitor Kings. “Is that all?”

“Not remotely,” Luco said. “And without a straight road, that path might take even longer. So, since you lamented the long weeks of the journey, which will you choose? Shall we take the West Midland Road through the interior of Talania, past Miner’s Glory and Tovat’s Pool, or should we pick our own road south across the Mirror Peaks, the Desert of Peshar Sin, and other dangers between and beyond?”

Watch-keepers, which should Kaia choose?

1. The main road through the interior with more towns and villages?
2. A path of their own, zig-zagging south toward the Great Foundation and Ras Telesar?

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

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

About James
Former stealth pilot, James R. Hannibal is no stranger to secrets and adventure. He has been shot at, locked up with surface to air missiles, and chased down a winding German road by an armed terrorist. He is a two-time Silver Falchion award-winner for his Section 13 mysteries for kids and a Thriller Award nominee for his Nick Baron covert ops series for adults.

Learn more at https://jamesrhannibal.com/