The Fountain and the Flame: Chapter Four

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 FOUR

Click Here for Chapter Three

Kaia fought the urge to follow Luthelan down the western path. The once-mage was right. Her road lay south, but the fear of going it alone tore at her insides. “So, what then? Am I to follow these bricks all the way to Ras Telesar?”

“The bricks for a time, yes. And then the river.” With each step, Luthelan’s form became harder to perceive—his voice as well. “But the river is swift. Take care you do not fall in, unless you know how to fly.”

Raz, who had been content up to that moment to ride along in Kaia’s oversize coat, dropped to the ground and shook the dampness from his fur.

She bent down to scratch his ears. “Unless I know how to fly? Shouldn’t he have said swim?”

The fox swished his tail and trotted off toward the southern road.

“Right,” she said, following. “He was raised as a mage. They always speak in riddles.”

Within a hundred paces, the merchant stalls along the road dwindled, giving way to snow-laden pines. The pictures Kaia had seen in her mother’s books did no justice to the trees. She drifted to the edge of the bricks and touched a bough. Snow rained down in a miniature storm. Raz spun beneath it.

Watching him brought a smile to her face. She pulled a pinecone twice the size of her fist from the next branch up, and the branch snapped up to launch its burden high over them both. Kaia twirled in the glittering snowfall, mimicking the fox who ran counter-circles at her feet, until something strange caught her eye. A single ray of light streaked down into the forest from the two bright moons, Phanos and Tsapha, passing close to each other. Molunos would be up there as well, dark and unseen. He only revealed his red form once a year.

“Where do you think the ray ends?” she asked the fox.

Raz dove into the forest.

“Wait! Come back! I didn’t mean—”

Too late. He was gone.

What had Luthelan told Kaia about goblins in this region? He’d said they were kin to cave mushrooms. And mushrooms love the night.

What if such goblins roamed this forest—on this night? She rushed into the trees. “Raz!”

The pine boughs, so pleasant before, clawed at her face and dumped snow over her head. She blinked the cold flakes from her eyelids. “Raz?” Her foot landed on a rotting log, and it gave, sending her stumbling out into an open patch. Kaia skidded to a stop with her toes a few paces short of a ledge.

“That was close.” Now she knew what Luthelan had meant by his crack about flying.

The path lay not far away, having turned to gravel where it bent to follow the cliff. Raz waited there, panting, staring out over the ledge as if mesmerized. Kaia joined him and gasped at what she saw.

To her east and north, the cliff stretched away to become a natural dam that held back the shimmering waters of Val Glasa, the northern sea. Here and there along the dam, silver mist rose from waterfalls that fell to feed a great river far below. And on that river stood a walled city, defiant, splitting the waters in two.

Dizzy from the height, Kaia stepped back and turned toward the forest to see that she’d found the end of the moon ray. She laughed. A fireglass.

At the top of a stone tower, a polished copper bowl gathered the moonlight and reflected it back into the sky through a crystal lens. The Frost Islands had similar devices, signal stations for the elite Dragon Corps. The lens and bowl normally projected the light of a fire. The moonlight had been caught by happenstance.

Perhaps.

Raz pressed ahead of her to approach the tower, but soon stopped with one paw raised. The moonlight faded from the lens, and he kept watching, cocking his head so that his ears flopped to one side. He sensed something.

“What is it, boy?”

Kaia had hardly finished the question when a figure leaped from the tower window and crashed into the pines below. A moment later, a boy about her own age came sprinting out of the trees, looking over his shoulder, running right at her.

Kaia held out her hands. “Watch out!”

The two tumbled into the snow together, gold coins spilling about them. Without the faintest apology, the boy rose to his knees and gathered what stray coins he could into a satchel heavy with more.

A man in a blue and green tunic appeared from the forest next. To Kaia’s horror, two creatures like overgrown gargoyles rushed out behind him. They stopped, necks grinding as their burning eyes searched the night. Rust showed on their faces and arms—any surface not covered by their scant armor. The man pointed at Kaia and the boy. “There, you brainless beasts. There are two of them. What are you waiting for?”

A churning orange glow grew within the cracks in the creatures’ stone-like hides. They raised black curved swords and let out guttural shrieks.

“Yeah…” The boy looked down at Kaia as he stood, brown hair falling over one eye. He offered her a hand. “You should probably run too.”

Having no other option, Kaia accepted the hand and the two took off together with Raz at their heels, making for a section of the gravel road that descended the cliff face. But the boy was fast. Well ahead of her, he vanished around the first switchback.

When Kaia and the fox made the turn, the boy was nowhere to be seen—only slick gravel passing behind a thundering waterfall.

Kaia kept running, but once the two had crossed to the other side of the falls, Raz stopped.

She turned to see the creatures still coming, one by one. The fox held his ground and growled.

“Raz, what are you doing?”

Only he knew. As the first creature entered the wet tunnel formed by the falls, Raz sprang forward. He dodged a sweep of its sword, and ran between its legs, weaving back and forth about its ankles. The creature slashed and stabbed. Every failed strike brought it shuffling closer to the road’s edge, until mud and rock crumbled beneath its heel. With a surprised shriek, it fell back into the pounding water and disappeared.

The remaining creature spread its arms and roared, molten fire in its eyes and joints blazing bright. Raz retreated to Kaia’s side. Running was of no use. And she doubted the fox could pull off the same trick twice. She balled up her fists. “Come on then! Come and get us!”

The creature gripped its sword with a crackling hand and advanced.

Before Kaia could rethink the wisdom of her taunt, an ivory staff flashed out from a crevice. The steel bear’s head topping the staff smashed into the creature’s gargoyle chin and sent it flying into the waterfall after its friend.

The boy with the gold coins squeezed himself out from the crevice, grimy with mud and grit. He walked between Kaia and Raz, motioning with the bear’s head. “Follow me. This isn’t over.”

Kaia hesitated. Did she want to get involved with a thief? For this boy certainly had stolen that gold from the tower. What other explanation could there be?

Raz whimpered at her heel, and she sighed. “Yes. I get it. We’re all thieves. You’re a fish thief. I’m a boat thief. If this boy is a gold thief, who are we to judge?” She watched the boy, who had not slowed his gait one bit to wait for her, round the next switchback. “Fine. Let’s go with him.”

She and Raz rounded the bend together and found the boy seated on a log in a grassy depression, rubbing a black remnant of the creature from the bear’s head of his staff. Kaia sat beside him. “So… What were those things?”

“Their kind is called Wyngorloth in the Elder Tongue, monsters formed from the ores of various metals. Most folks call them orcs, short for ore creatures.” He glanced her way. “How is it you don’t know this?”

“We have no ore creatures where I come from, and I’m glad of it. Those two were horrifying.”

The boy chuckled. “Not really. Those were iron orcs—big, rusty, and dumb. The nasty ones are the coal orcs, or far worse, the quicksilvers.” He continued his work on the ivory staff, polishing a spiral of steel that ran from the bear’s head to the spiked tip. “You may call me Luco. And you are?”

“Kaia. You left that staff in the crevice because you knew the orcs would follow, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

She admired the ivory. “A rich weapon for a common thief. You could have sold it for gold instead of stealing those coins.”

“Those coins belong to my family, stored in that tower in secret over three generations for the sake of throwing off the yoke. I am no thief.” He ceased his work and frowned at her. “Nor am I common.”

“You’re a nobleman.”

The ivory staff. His clothes. How had Kaia not seen it before? Luco wore the same blue and green as the man who’d chased him from the tower. A boy like this could have her locked up with a snap of his fingers. And she’d given him her name without a thought.

Kaia shot Raz a look that asked What have you gotten us into?

The fox buried his nose under his paws.

Amid her fear, something Luco had said returned to Kaia. She swallowed, choosing her next words carefully. “What… was it you said about a yoke?”

Luco shouldered the satchel of coins, planted the staff in the dirt and rose. “Throw off the yoke—words from a prophecy. My parents raised me in a hidden faith until my uncle found them out.” He narrowed his eyes at Kaia as she stood. “Why? What do you know of it?”

The poem. Throw off the yoke. Throw off the chains. Of dragon lies and mortal shame.

When she didn’t answer, Luco raised his chin and gave her a wary look. “Have you had dealings with a raven of late?”

Her eyes widened. It had not occurred to Kaia that anyone of noble birth would need to throw off a yoke or chains. The idea seemed absurd.

“Don’t deny it, I can see it on your face. This is good. The Maker has seen fit to contrive our meeting. Now you and I will travel south together.”

Kaia’s shock turned to annoyance. Noble or not, who was this boy to declare what she would do next. What if she didn’t want to travel with him?

Luco ignored her scowl and pointed with his staff at the city below. “But first we must break into my uncle’s house. I expected the orcs, but not him. He was supposed to be traveling. Now that he knows I’m running, he’ll have the whole place locked down.”

The dwelling at which Luco directed the bear’s head was no house. In Kaia’s eyes, it was a castle—which stood at the center of a fortified city. She snorted. “You have the gold. Why go back? What did you leave behind, nobleman, your favorite silk handkerchief?”

Luco’s jaw tightened. “My sister. Nisa. Her nursemaid agreed to bring her to me at the city gates, along with provisions for the road. Now that Uncle has caught the scent of my plans, that won’t happen.” The command in his voice softened into a plea. “Please, Kaia. I know you’re intent on heading south as I am. But first will you help me save Nisa?”

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

1. Help Luco rescue his sister from his uncle’s castle?
2. Head south now and let this rich boy deal with his own problems?

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

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