by A. L. Knorr
I came to an utter halt as I realized I hadn’t seen a candle in a long time. I thought I’d taken a wrong turn was about to go back when a light spot on the floor ahead drew my attention. It as a single rose petal. I continued on until I saw another one. Ryan had run out of candles. He must have been carrying quite a bag of rose petals with him, pilfered from Basil’s greenhouse was my guess.
I let out a cry of pain as something sharp stabbed into the sole of my left foot. Hopping, I lifted it to look at the cut. Blood dripped onto the chalk floor, dark and glimmering against the pale, dusty surface. Sending fire to cauterize the cut, I waited for it to seal, wiped my forearm across my face, and kept going.
I hadn’t brought my phone, thinking it would be useless so far underground, but realized I should have because I’d lost all track of time. I’d already passed numerous off-shoots and cross-roads, I’d descended and ascended, both on slopes and on huge steps and drops that required the use of fire-power to either climb over or jump down from. I was completely, hopelessly lost, and all I had with me was one little jar of water and a dress now covered with chalk dust.
I felt like crying and screaming. I felt like turning around and going back. I had more than one bad moment thinking that Ryan had lured me down here without even intending to go through a Burning, just to give me a scare. If that was the case, it was working.
My imagination tortured me by recalling every horror movie monster I’d ever let into my brain through my eyes. I half expected that around the next corner would be some ghastly, eyeless creature with a head full of teeth and long, skinny limbs as it crawled upside down along the ceiling, drawn by the smell of hot flesh.
I wondered how many miles had passed beneath my feet when I recalled the waitress at The Chalk Tombs saying that the network of caves and mines all led to the coast.
Arcturus was on the coast. When I’d looked at the GPS, it had said that The Old Mine Teahouse was four and half miles inland. Surely, I’d come four miles by now, but I’d made so many turns and gone around so many bends that I could be heading back inland. I barely knew up from down, let alone east from west.
A dry sob rose in my throat as despair gripped me. The only thing that kept me from collapsing right there on the chalk floor was the occasional lonely rose petal leading me deeper and deeper into the mine.
Sweat ran into my eyes. The air wasn’t just warm any more. It was hot. I had no idea at what depths the earth’s core grew warm, but had I descended far enough for the temperature to have risen twelve degrees since coming down into this God-forsaken place?
Ahead lay a curve in the shaft and as I rounded the bend and lifted my torch-hand, I saw a dark shape slouched against the wall where the road through the mine forked in two. A dim flicker of light outlined his body in the illumination from a single small candle too little to be a twenty-four hour candle. The smell of burning flesh reached my nostrils, turning my stomach.
“Ryan!” I screamed, a tumult of emotions pouring out in that single cry. Adrenaline shot through my bloodstream, making my limbs ache. Relief that I’d found him rushed through me. Panic too, as I couldn’t tell from a distance whether he was alive or dead. And hot fury filled my head like a nuclear explosion as I recognized the cocky angle of his head and neck, even as he lay there letting himself roast.
Unmindful of the rubble scattered across the floor and the bruises in my feet, I sprinted to him, chest heaving. Skidding onto my knees, I barely registered my skin tearing open. I set the jar of water down beside his hip and lifted his drooping head. He was far too hot for any human being to touch. Pressing my fingers deep into the skin under his jaw, I searched for a pulse.
Twenty-Two
Live and Let Die
The moment my fingers touched his baking skin, a rush of fire charged from my torso into my head, concentrating itself in my eyes. My internal lantern’s glow illuminated Ryan’s features, startling me, as I’d not consciously manifested evanescent vision. My head and body remained unlit but my eyes hardened. My vision sharpened to x-ray.
The bones in Ryan’s face came visible through his skin—ghostly white circles where they were closest to the surface—and his eyes glowed like banked coals beneath closed lids. Heart thudding almost painfully, my gaze dropped from his face to where his fire sizzled away, consuming his insides.
His heart pulsed faintly but audibly and emerged to my sight as a thick and throbbing muscle, partially aglow, and partially black. Curved lines with sparking edges crawled slowly across the surface of his heart and other organs, leaving a trail of cracked and blackened terrain. The process of his Burning revealed itself to me: the darkness of burned flesh—much worse than smokers’ lungs—contrasting with the glow of what was yet to be consumed.
Transfixed, I worked out an estimate of how much time Ryan had before death would take him. It was like the simple calculation one might make while watching storm clouds advance across the sky. One could reasonably assume based on the speed of the approaching weather how much time one had to reach shelter before the rain fell.
“You were right,” I whispered to Ryan’s still form in dull amazement. “A Burned mage can manage a Burning.”
Ryan’s head moved in response to the sound of my voice, his lips opened as though to speak, but only a curl of smoke escaped. A faint, cracked moan reached my ears. His eyes remained closed.
“You think you are so clever, but there is still time to save you. You won’t die, but you won’t become Burned either. All you’ve managed to do is torture yourself for several hours.” I reached for the jar of water, feeling almost giddy at the outcome.
Ryan’s left arm jerked, moving as though it was detached from his body. Fire smoldered through the length of his arm, illuminating his hand. A crack echoed through the cavern, making me jump.
I grabbed for the jar. In one sickening moment, most of it fell away. Glass shattered on the mine floor. Water splashed in the dust and sizzled against Ryan’s hand and wrist. My heart leapt up my throat where it perched, quivering in astonishment.
“What have you done?”
A chain clinked. It was then that I noticed the handcuffs, the chain leading from the cuff to loop through a blackened rough-cut hole in the wall. Ryan had fastened both cuffs around one wrist, locking himself here. Inspecting the cuffs, I discovered they were made of hafnium, he had to have stolen them from the academy. An Unburned mage could never generate the heat required to melt them. They were Ryan’s method of self-restraint when things got too painful.
I shook my head as panic threatened to steal away logic. I took a breath and stood, stepping back from Ryan. Pacing at his feet as the evanescent vision drained from my eyes, I watched as his bones and roasting internal organs closed from view.
Ryan wasn’t trying to die, his objective had always been to lure me here to administer water within that small window of time. So why had he spilled the water? There could be only one reason.
Because, I had arrived too early.
By my calculation, Ryan had at least another hour before the status he desired was within reach. But he’d just destroyed the only water for miles. Even if I ran with fire-power—limping on the soles of my bruised and naked feet—I wouldn’t make it back to the teahouse and return in time to save his life.
“You’re going to die after all,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Are you happy? You’re going to break Gage’s heart, not to mention your parents’. You’re going to traumatize Basil, and ruin the reputation he’s worked so hard to build. I could have saved you. I would have saved you, even though you don’t deserve it.”
Maybe it was better this way.
I checked my thoughts. There was no maybe about it.
This way, I knew that I had done all I could. I’d simply failed. Ryan’s trap had failed. If he thought that I could rescue him now, after luring me miles underground with no apparent way out except to go back—
My mind paced along with my feet, back and forth in front of where Ry
an lay dying. His fingertips and the tips of his ears now burned with growing black spots. The thin stream of smoke drifting from his mouth was unbroken.
It was better this way, I said to myself again. Ryan was one of the most immoral and selfish people I’d ever met. What would he become if he had been successful? Surely his present character would only degrade further, as Basil so adamantly affirmed sometimes happened. He’d be destined for terrible things. All that remained to do now was to carry his corpse out of here for his family to bury. After that, I’d be left to pick up the pieces of Gage’s heart as he mourned the loss of his beloved twin, assuming he didn’t blame me for failing to save him. Or maybe Gage would go home to be with his parents after the tragedy, and I’d lose him.
A waft of cool, salty air drifted past my skin, lifting a damp curl away from my forehead. A soft shush came to my ears, then another, then another, drawing me out of thoughts as though waking me from sleep.
Waves.
I turned my face into another soft gust of fresh air.
We were near the coast. Of course, all tunnels led to the coast. I almost laughed from pure bitterness. Instead, my lip trembled and my words came out on a half-sob.
“Fat lot of good that does you.”
Salt water was useless. On a tide of irony, exhaustion seeped into my bones.
Ryan’s hand jerked. When it stopped a finger pointed along the seam between the floor and wall. A soft moan issued from his throat. If he was trying to say something, it was incoherent, and it smelled like burnt flesh.
Gaze following the line of the floor, I caught the glint of something shiny beyond a dark mass. Igniting a fire-ball, I went to look. The dark mass was a garbage bag with a few rose petals still inside. The glint beyond that came from two, empty glass bottles. One was a pop bottle, the other was a jam jar with a slightly larger mouth on it. Neither had labels or lids.
I stared at them in a stupor for what felt like forever, trying to make sense of their presence. Had Ryan been pointing at these? They were the only thing in the cave besides the garbage bag, the candle, and the cuffs.
I knelt for a closer look and realized that the jar with the larger mouth was not totally empty. Inside was a small, folded piece of paper. Dumping it out into my hand, I paused as the sound of the waves lured understanding out of me, even before I unfolded what I knew was a note. My heart lurched into a sprint as I realized how I could save Ryan’s life. Angry tears welled in my eyes. I sobbed and brushed them away. I dropped the note without opening it.
“You bastard!” I yelled, even as I grabbed the pop bottle and ran past him in the direction of the sound of the ocean. “You complete and utter asshole!”
Teeth grinding, I emerged at the mouth of the mine several moments later. Cold night air rich with sea spray peppered my face and body as I looked down into the dark water. Inky waves licked against the base of the ghostly cliff some thirty feet down. A glance up revealed at least ninety more feet of rough chalk cliffside ending against an endless blanket of black sky.
The wind whipped the skirt of my dress and lifted my hair into wild tangles, coating my skin in sticky salt. Heart pounding like a thoroughbred straining for the finish line, I deposited the bottle down my neckline where it sat trapped between the fabric of my dress and my skin.
Dropping to my knees, I examined the surface of the cliff’s face, eyeing any and all available holds. There were not many, but I was Burned. I could do this.
With an intake of breath to calm my quaking joints, I fired up, sending heat and power oozing into my toes and fingers as I dropped over the side.
Had there been an audience from a passing aircraft, they might have seen the faint glow of an illuminated human figure as she descended the slick surface of a vertical white cliff-face. A human spider, gleaming in the night. Her dress a black blotch and her limbs bright.
I went as quickly as I was able, conscious of holding the slow-burn power in the digits of my hands and feet. As I closed the gap between myself and the beach, freezing water slapped and sizzled against my legs, then against my torso, taking my breath away. Looking down, I calculated a good ten foot drop to the pebbly beach.
I let go.
Cushioning my landing with fire, my toes dug into pebbly sand. I pulled the bottle out from the neck of my dress and waded further into the unsettled sea, holding the bottle under. Cold water slapped against my legs and soaked my dress.
When the bottle was full, I dropped it back down my neckline, wedging it firmly as I looked up. The cave’s entrance was a dark smudge against the ivory expanse of Dover’s famous cliffs.
Taking a deep squat and keeping my gaze up, fire-power detonated in my lower body, shooting me straight up to cling to the wall. Fingers, toes, and limbs glowing, since concealing would be an extra effort I didn’t have the energy for, I scaled the wall twice as fast as I’d descended.
Reaching into my dress to plug the mouth of the bottle with a thumb, I pulled myself over the edge, rolled across my back and onto my feet, wet curls slapping me in the face. I caught a whiff of my own smoky stink as I entered the cave at a run.
Continuing to hold the water in with my thumb, I sprinted past where Ryan lay unmoving, his life draining away. Snatching up the other bottle, I turned them both parallel to the floor. Seawater splashed out of the bottle I’d just filled, but that couldn’t be helped. I had to let half the water out of the pop-bottle before I began the process.
Inserting the mouth of the pop bottle neatly and snugly inside the mouth of the other jar, the glass tinkled against one another as my hands shook. I couldn’t do this standing up, I was too upset. Too frightened. Too angry. Settling cross-legged on the floor a few feet from Ryan, I steadied my breathing to steady my grip.
Holding the bottles firmly together so no steam would escape, I sent fire down an arm and into the pop bottle, now less than half full of water. I heated it just enough to set the water to boiling, not enough so the glass might break. Chest and heart resuming a sustainable rhythm, I watched the desalination process begin and ground my molars.
Ryan had won. I already knew. He’d done it.
Drawing the building heat out of the second jar with my other hand, I watched condensation formed along its insides. The seawater bubbled as I boiled it, evaporating and distilling, captured in the second bottle as clean, drinkable water.
This process could not be rushed, no matter how much power or control I had over my fire or the temperature of the glass bottles in my hands. Distillation was not a fast process but it would be fast enough. All Ryan needed was a couple of mouthfuls. I recalled the moment water had first flushed into my system during my own Burning, how the heat immediately receded.
I glanced at his slumped form, considering using evanescent vision to see what stage his Burning was at. But with a curled lip, I looked away. Why bother?
In half an hour I’d have enough water to save his life.
In half an hour, I could administer the saving elixir and could honestly look Gage and Basil in the eye and tell them I had done everything that I could.
In half an hour, Ryan would join the ranks of the Burned.
Twenty-Three
The Long Walk
Twenty minutes, which felt like twenty hours, later, I used evanescent vision to look into Ryan’s body. His heartbeat had slowed markedly and the black had spread across most of his insides. His breathing was shallow and the smoke puffing from his mouth was thick. It drifted in a cloud to gather against the ceiling, swirling in the gloom of the single candle like gathering fog. I couldn’t wait for more water, another minute and he would die.
Righting the bottle with the distilled water in it, I held it up. An inch sloshed in the bottom. It would be enough. It had to be enough. Heart throbbing and angry tears running down my cheeks, I crawled over to Ryan. Cursing him under my breath but relieved that Gage wouldn’t lose his twin today, I tilted Ryan’s chin up.
Depressing his jaw, I held the mouth of the bottle to
his lips and tipped the liquid in, letting it trickle steadily so he wouldn’t choke on it.
I watched with a dread fascination as the liquid left a pale blue trail of light that could only be described as magical. It ran down his esophagus and into his stomach where it bloomed like a flower, spreading in all directions. Soothing scorched tissues as the hydration leeched throughout his torso, dousing the smoldering flesh, Ryan’s fire congealed into the place it would always be when at rest, just below his stomach and behind his belly button. The job was done. As his insides cooled, my evanescent vision faded. It was like something inside of me knew that the danger had passed.
As I sat there on the floor beside him, I wept, recalling the vivid details of my own Burning. The agony, the terror, the unknown, the awakening after it was all over. I’d lost consciousness after I was rescued and given water. Had woken in a strange bed an unknown amount of time later feeling like my insides had been tenderized with a meat mallet. But I’d healed quickly, had inherited stunning abilities, and lost all of the pain. If Burnings were all the same then Ryan was in for a rough couple of days, but he’d be fine after that. Finer than he’d ever been, at least in his own eyes. What he’d be to the rest of us, I dreaded to find out.
The sound of an electronic tune wrenched me from my memories, making me gasp with fright so violently that I almost swallowed my tongue. Heart throbbing, I looked up the mineshaft toward the sound, half expecting a person to materialize with a smart-phone in hand. The chime bounced off the chalk walls and filled the tunnel with eerie echoes.
Getting to my feet and wiping my face, I moved toward the sound. I found Ryan’s phone tucked into a crevice in the wall. I turned off the alarm and stood there holding it, staring at it stupidly. Ryan had set an alarm? The implications were disturbing but too complicated to consider right now.
I returned to Ryan’s unconscious form, wishing I could pepper him with questions. Another glance at the phone revealed that it was only 11pm. It was difficult to take in that it had been less than three hours since I’d entered the mine. It felt like three days.