The Fountain and the Flame: Chapter Three

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 THREE

Click Here for Chapter Two

Kaia pressed herself close to the village wall, gaze flitting between Raz, seated by the bobbing skiff, and the road to the dock.

How soon would the dockmaster return? The night ferry, with its mean captain, would not be along for a while, still making its stops at the other northern islands. That gave her some time to row clear of the main channel if she took the skiff. She felt a mild pang of guilt at the idea but pushed it aside. Why should the laws of lords and dragons matter to her?

Fresh snow fell on the dock, softening the crunch of her steps as she hurried to Raz. Kaia tossed her bow and quiver into the skiff, and the fox happily followed. He’d never had qualms about stealing. The two had met when her father caught Raz snatching a fish from their drying line. He named the fox Razodbesh—bandit in the Elder Tongue. And when Vath sent her father away, Raz had become Kaia’s only friend.

The raven, who seemed less comfortable with taking the skiff, perched himself on a weathered post and squawked.

She shot him a glare as she untied the moorings. “Quiet! Someone will hear.”

Perhaps the raven might be satisfied if Kaia paid for the boat. She didn’t have enough to buy a skiff outright, but a whisper in her head urged her to at least leave a few coins. Could she afford such a sacrifice? “No,” she said aloud, as if to drown the whisper in the cold channel. “I may need these coins on my journey. Who knows what lies ahead?”

After climbing in, Kaia set the oars and took her first pull, and the skiff coasted out into the channel. She beckoned to the raven with a toss of her head, but still he would not come. “Stay, then. See if I care. I’ll find my own way.”

The channel gave way to the bay, and the bay to the open sea of Val Glasa. Kaia knew enough to hold her course in the open water by keeping the faint red glow of Ras Pyras off her stern—the forever flame pouring from the central tower of the Great Red Dragon’s fortress. Keeping the northern fire in sight grew easier as gray twilight turned to a black snowy night. The rowing, however, grew harder. Hours passed. Her arms ached. The waves tossed her little boat. “How wide can Val Glasa be?” she asked the fox.

Raz laid his chin on his paws and whimpered.

“I don’t know either. We’d best build a fire to stay warm.”

Most Frost Island boats had fire pots. The skiff was no different. Kaia had never used one, but she had struck a flint and steel a thousand times to light her mother’s hearth, and soon she had the coals burning. She let the skiff drift for a spell and warmed her hands. “See? We’re going to be all right.”

Raz inched backward toward the bench, away from the pot, and whimpered again.

The fire pot had a domed half lid, sitting askew, and Kaia realized too late what it was for—a wind block. Before she could move the lid into the correct position, a gust lifted an ember from the coals and dropped it onto a stack of burlap bags. In seconds the whole stern was ablaze.

Raz leapt to his feet and barked. Kaia pulled off her father’s coat to smother the fire. The sea, for its part, helped douse the flames. But it chose the bottom of the skiff for its entry, and once in, the water would not leave. The planks groaned. The waves rose higher. And the skiff broke in two. The sea took Kaia’s boat, her bow and quiver, and even Raz. She could hear his bark, but the rolling black waters masked everything beyond the reach of her arm. “Raz? Raz!”

The bark faded.

Kaia draped herself over a wooden plank. The moment the magistrate and his goblins had taken her mother away, she’d known she would spend the rest of her life alone. But Kaia had not realized how short a time that would be. The thought and the chilling cold left her mind and body numb. Kaia did not even shiver. She simply closed her eyes.

“Oi! You there!”

Her eyes fluttered open. Had she heard the voice or dreamed it? Fighting the numbness, she looked up and saw lanterns illuminating two tall masts.

Silhouettes leaned over solid wood rails. “She’s moving. Fish her out of there! Girl like that is worth something to someone.”

No, I’m not, thought Kaia, but she caught hold of the net the men threw her and held on with a frozen claw as they pulled her out of the waves.

A burly sailor lifted her over the rail like a sack of frost flowers and set her down on a barrel.

Now that she was out of the water, the shivering set in with a vengeance. “Th-thank you.”

The man walked off without reply. Another replaced him—a short, well-groomed fellow in a snow-dusted coat and broad-brimmed hat. The night ferryman. “Speak, girl. We saw your fire. What possessed you to take a boat like that out on seas like this?”

“I’m t-traveling.” Out of the corner of her eye, Kaia saw the men pull her father’s coat out of the water with a hook and line. They dropped it onto the deck beside the barrel. She watched a mass of wet fur that might have been a fox tail whip out of sight beneath it. Raz.

The ferryman looked left and right, and Kaia followed his gaze. The others had gone about their work or returned the ship’s larger firepots to keep warm. The man lowered his voice. “Runnin’ away, more like. Headin’ south are ya? Answerin’ a call o’ sorts?”

“A call?”

Who was this ferryman? He’d always worn a hard aspect on the docks, made sharper by the torches that lit his coming and going. But he’d never said two words, harsh or otherwise, to Kaia or her mother. Apart from her fears and suspicions, Kaia knew nothing about him. She dug three silver pinnis out of her coin purse and held them out in her open palm. “I can pay.”

The ferryman took them all. “One fer yer passage. The others to help pay fer the skiff ya sank. I s’pect someone’ll be missin’ it in the mornin’. I’ll cover the rest, with a little extra for his silence. Now, when I’m done with ya, bury those indigo eyes in my planks and keep ‘em there for the rest o’ the trip.” He gave a slight tilt of the broad-brimmed hat toward a hooded man in the shadows, well outside the flickering light of the firepots. “Take a seat next to that gentleman o’er there and don’t leave his side, ya get me?”

Kaia nodded,

The ferryman stood back a pace and raised his voice. “That’s two extra silvers fer draggin’ me out of my way ta fish yer carcass out o’ the brine.” He gestured down at the growing puddle beneath her barrel. “And thanks for bringin’ so much of it with ya. Now get outta my sight!”

The sailors at the firepots chuckled and nudged each other. Kaia buried her eyes as commanded, hopped down from the barrel, and hurried to collect her father’s coat.

The ferryman’s outburst had drawn the attention of two frost goblins, who snickered but did not interfere. Careful not to look at them, Kaia lifted the coat with the water-logged fox hiding inside and turned toward the firepots.

She hesitated.

A place lay open next to the largest fire—warm and inviting. But the ferryman had told her to join the hooded man. His seat, so far from the light, would leave her just as cold and wet at the end of the trip as she was right now. Still, during their bewildering exchange, the ferryman made no mention of returning her to her liege lord. She dared not disobey him, lest he change his mind.

Kaia left the firelight, and with a sad squish of her wet clothes, she plopped down next to the hooded man.

“Excellent choice, child. From what I’ve seen, you and fire pots do not blend.”

She said nothing. Raz poked a nose out from under her father’s coat, and she hurriedly pressed him out of sight again. But she was not quick enough.

The hood canted, and the man grunted. “Most folks wear furs without the original owners still inside.”

“Raz is a friend,” Kaia said.

“He’s trouble. That is a fox’s stock-in-trade. It is who they are.”

“Trouble or not, he’s the only thing keeping me warm.” As her fears subsided, the shivering set in. Kaia hugged her knees. “At this rate, my fingers, toes, and ears will blacken and fall off before we reach the other side.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” The man bowed his head, opened two rough palms toward the night sky, and muttered under his breath in the Elder Tongue. Then he laid his hands on the wooden planks.

A flash of warmth washed through Kaia. In an instant, her clothes were dry. Raz crept out from the coat and curled himself up between them, out of sight from the other passengers. He snuffled at his silver-white tail. It too had gone perfectly dry.

“You’re . . . a mage.”

“Hush, child. Banish that word from your mind. I am nothing more than a servant of the Maker, and I asked him to pass the comfort he has given me on to you. One day, if you hold to this journey, you and many others may be privileged to do the same.”

This journey.

To Ras Telesar? Kaia had hardly begun, and already she had almost died. “How close did I come? How much farther to the other side?”

“Less than a league, now. But Far Cry Harbor is narrow, and it is dark without the ferry’s torches. You’d have crashed into the rocks if you hadn’t so wisely set your boat on fire and drawn the ferryman’s attention.”

There was an accusation in his tone when he said your boat. He knew she had stolen the skiff. “I had to do it. My mother was hauled off to Ras Pyras. If I’d boarded the ferry, the goblins might have taken me too.”

“Yet here you are.” The hood shifted as the man glanced toward the creatures. No matter the angle, Kaia could not see past the shadow to the face behind. “Choices are often hard in a broken world. But choosing an unjust path only breaks it more. When the owner of that boat wakes on the morrow to find his livelihood stolen, will he think it just?”

“Mother and . . . someone else”—she had no intention of saying, a raven—“told me to flee to Ras Telesar. I was only thinking of getting safely away.”

“Mmm. Yes. We all struggle to think of others over ourselves.” He let out a rueful chuckle. “Until recent days, I myself rarely bothered to try.”

“What changed?”

“Everything.”

The two bright moons appeared from behind a cloud, and for the first time, light breached the shadow of the hood. A broad burn scar ran from the right corner of the man’s forehead to the left side of his chin.

Kaia gasped.

He took no notice. “Ras Telesar. Ras Pyras. The Hill of the Fountain. The Hill of the Flame. Strange that an intersection of those polar opposites should set you on this road.” He sat back again. “Yet not so strange, if the prophecy holds.”

The prophecy again. Before he could say more, a sailor shouted. Torches glowed ahead. Far Cry. The two frost goblins ambled past, retreating to the stern. One looked sickly. The other laughed at its companion, until its own leg buckled, and it collapsed to the deck. The pale green of its twisted calf muscles unraveled into wriggling cords. “What’s happening to them?”

“This is the limit of their range.” The man was not as old as Kaia had previously guessed. The dark gristle surrounding the scar at his chin spoke of one who had not yet reached middle age. “The servants of the dragons are soulless animations. Dragons cannot create. They can only corrupt. Frost goblins are animated lichen from the northern caves, and lichen will not survive south of Val Glasa. In Far Cry, you will see spotted cave goblins instead. The locals call them toadstools.”

“Lichen,” Kaia said to herself. “Toadstools.” She almost laughed. “Goblins are fungus.” The idea robbed the creatures of some of their frightfulness.

The man held Kaia with a long gaze. “You are a quick study. Good. Perhaps that is why you were called to the fight.” The ship bumped into the largest of the port’s docks and the sailors set about their work with earnest. The man stood and walked off toward the plank.

“What call?” Kaia asked, wrapping Raz in the coat and hurrying after him. “What fight?”

He didn’t answer. The man spoke not a word until they’d left the boat, giving only the slightest nod to the ferryman as they stepped ashore.

No lanterns were lit in Far Cry, as if the whole place were under curfew. Signs nailed to a post at the southern end of the town square pointed toward brick pathways heading east, south, and west. The man pushed his hood back and took the western road. When Kaia followed, he turned, scowling. “Do you always follow strangers you meet on boats?”

Was he still a stranger? Yes, she supposed. She didn’t even know his name, and he had not asked for hers. Kaia glanced around at the unfamiliar port. “I don’t know where to go.”

“South. That is the road to the Hill of the Fountain and to the one I hope you’ll find there.”

Hope? What hope did she have of finding her own way? Why had the raven abandoned her? “What about you? Won’t you come south with me?”

Regret, and perhaps a little fear, creased his burn-scarred brow. “That is not my path. The Maker is about to answer the prayers of his creations, and the world must know. I will play the role of herald.”

Raz poked his head out from the coat and growled. Kaia took another step. “You’re him, aren’t you.” She did not know whether to be grateful or angry. A mere rumor of this man had cost her everything. “You survived Vath’s flame. You’re Mage Asteran.”

“What did I tell you about that word?” The mage shook his head. “I am no longer Asteran. It was a prideful name, a dragon name—Born of Stars. If we meet again, you may call me Luthelan, for I, like all men, was born of the dust.” With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Kaia standing by the signpost.

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

1. Follow Luthelan even though he told her not to?
2. Follow the southern road as Luthelan instructed her, continuing her journey without a guide?

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

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