Into the Fire

by K. Gorman

  Aiden wouldn’t do that. Not ever. As far as he was concerned, he was only responsible for defense. It was the Westran people, of which Lyarne was the seat of government, who were responsible for keeping the war out. Once his crystal neared depletion, he would exit a less-than-quiet exit, and the city would learn that—yes—the fire mage’s old spaceship still worked.

  The prospect was looking more and more tempting every day.

  “Something wrong, boss?” Buck Thierbach, facing Aiden, had the misfortune of looking like his name. A large man, he filled out his clothes, and was tall enough to find some door frames short. He kept the crew-cut the military had given him, and preferred non-descript dark clothes. Abroad, he wore his gun in a shoulder holster; now, reclined in a black leather armchair perpendicular to Aiden, his holster lay on the floor beside him. A book was open on his lap, face down.

  Even in the dim light—only a single bulb hung from the ceiling to supplement the soft glow of the engine’s dashboard screen—Aiden could see the sharpness in Buck’s gaze. The man was a master at observation and reading nuance, and those quiet eyes picked up everything. It was a quality Aiden liked about him, but only when he was not observing Aiden.

  Joanne Abernacky, seated on the ratty couch beside him, was not as quick as Buck, but became quite intent when something pointed her in the right direction. Her black, coiled hair was pulled back from her brown skin in a tight bun. She was slighter than her partner, but made up for it in attitude and aggression. Despite—or perhaps to spite—the room’s dimness, she cleaned her gun. She looked over, the whites of her eyes a stark contrast to her dark skin.

  Aiden glanced between them. After a moment, he straightened in the chair.

  “At this rate, the shield will fail in a month. Technically, I can rewire it to the second crystal in the ship, but I’d rather not.”

  The former soldiers continued to stare. Aiden’s index finger tapped against his thigh.

  “Never mind. I’ll deal with that.”

  “Anything we can do, boss?” Buck asked.

  A small silence filled the room. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ignore the ache that was starting to rise in the back of his head. Both Buck and Jo were former soldiers, hired on as part of a government requirement that he be escorted everywhere. When first introduced, some eighteen years previous, it had been a thinly veiled attempt to keep tabs on all mages. Now, with mages integrated into Terran life, the Transition period violence behind them, and a new war distracting the civil government, the policy had become a simple formality.

  Buck and Jo didn’t escort him anywhere. Instead, they ran errands, acted as near-useless bodyguards—with his fire magic, he could out-fight any non-magical combatant—and read paperbacks on the city’s dime.

  “Have you guys done a sweep, yet?”

  “One of the magic sweeps?”

  “Yeah.” As Elder Kenmin had predicted, the local population had begun to evolve their latent magic abilities. So far, they’d mimicked the Lurian elemental system and remained primitive and unrefined. About a month ago, Mersetzdeitz had handed him a modified Lost Tech device and instructed him to do periodic sweeps of public areas with the thing.

  As if he didn't have enough on his plate.

  Buck glanced at his watch. “Not yet today, no.”

  “Ah. Then perhaps we should do that.”

  He needed to get them out, anyway. They’d spent too long in here with him, and it had been a long couple of days. He felt cagey. Needed some alone time.

  “Do another sweep. Hit the main hub, then maybe go through some of the more far-reaching stops. Have you done Lower Lyarne at all?”

  “No, sir,” Buck said.

  “Well, maybe do that today, then.” He made a vague, waving gesture and stifled a yawn. “I’ll stay in here.”

  They glanced to each other. Neither of them moved.

  “Aiden,” Jo said. “It’s one o’clock.”

  He winced. “P.M.?” he asked hopefully.

  “No,” she said.

  Oh. Shaking his head, he tossed his glove down on the side of the engine and nudged the crawler out of the way with his foot. “Then let’s get out of here. I’ve done more than my due diligence here.”

  Metal clicked together. Without looking away from Aiden, Jo reassembled her gun.

  Buck made to get up. “We’ll do the sweep tomorrow, then.”

  As they left, Aiden switched off the light. Only the glow of the dashboard, with its filaments forming the graph, filled the room. A tinge of power brushed the edge of his elemental senses from the crystal spirit, then dissipated. That happened on only rare occasion, usually when he’d spent a long time in close proximity with the crystal. The spirit’s way of saying goodbye, he figured.

  He closed the door, locked it, and followed Buck and Jo up the stairs.

  Chapter Four

  October 24, 2002 — Transition, Year 19

  Meese had missed first period, and wasn’t responding to Robin’s texts.

  Robin cradled her forehead in her palm, fingers edging under her beanie. The classroom’s fluorescents strained her eyes as she sat sideways at the too-small desk, feeling the chair’s wooden back jab into her ribs. Around her, a steady, hushed conversation filled the room. Her phone rested on her thigh, safely hidden behind the desktop. Staring absently at its screen, Robin overheard a few snippets of gossip:

  “—Really? Ben and Jessica? Have they fucked yet?”

  “—got her wallet stolen.”

  “Devil Bitch Murphy is on phone-conquest again.”

  She looked up at the lastone, spotting Mrs. Murphy at the front of class, erasing the chalkboard, and her hand curled protectively over her phone. The teacher’s confiscating habit had earned her a few nasty nicknames over the years.

  It was a mid-sized classroom, smaller than what she was used to for the rest of her classes, but the Life Planning class never needed much space. By the front window, the classroom’s taxidermic Cooper’s hawk reeled on its wire, dead wings outstretched. It lorded over a shelving unit filled with animal skulls, textbooks, and wilted plants—the room doubled as a second Biology lab. She watched as the bird slowed its spiral and paused, as if to consider escaping through the window. A draft pushed it into an opposite spin.

  Glancing back down, she swiped her phone’s screen before it timed out.

  Meese was a lot more fragile than she’d let on. Though Robin had long suspected it, yesterday had clinched it. Perhaps both of them had been content to pretend that wasn’t the case. Pretending was good. There had been some good times.

  But pretending was a thin way to live, and there was something about her friend that grated in her head. She suspected things might not be all right.

  And how could she have been so stupid? Of course the ‘temple’ was a memorial. How hadn’t she seen that? After Meese had pointed it out, it seemed obvious.

  And all those burning words on the wall? Those had been names. A lot of names.

  The mages had lost more than ninety percent of their population.

  Meese had seemed oddly at ease with it. Yesterday, they’d parted ways on good terms, with a promise of eating lunch together today. She’d even smiled.

  Missing class was very un-Meese-like.

  Had something happened?

  Robin’s eyes wandered away from her phone again, sliding along the projects and posters that crammed the classroom. The periodic table curled away from the wall behind a TV set that was probably older than her mom.

  “Oh great, career day,” someone said.

  Robin jerked her attention back to the front.

  On Meese’s behalf, Robin stiffened.

  A woman had entered in full military dress uniform, although she had elected for the pencil skirt as opposed to the slacks Robin normally saw. Medals glinted on her left breast, and her bright blonde hair was pulled back into a tight bun under the black-rimmed red beret she wore. On one hand, a smal
l purse swung by her side. In the other, she carried an easily-recognizable, squarish case that was three times as long as it was wide.

  A rifle.

  As Robin watched, she put both on the front table and, laughing with Mrs. Murphy, began to set up for a presentation.

  Meese shouldn’t see this.

  Quickly, Robin turned back to her phone and opened a new message. Meese hadn’t replied to her other messages, but there was no harm in trying.

  Don’t come to class.

  She hit send, sliding the phone further up her thigh. Glancing between the officer and the classroom’s door, tension gripped her shoulders. The room felt colder. The hawk slipped to a stop for another moment, its glass eyes on her. Then its gyre moved on. She huddled further into her hoodie—the same one from yesterday—and sank into the seat.

  The bell rang.

  On its tail, Meese walked into the room.

  She faltered a few strides in, eyes locking on the officer. For a moment, the redhead froze.

  It took visible effort for her to thaw enough for her to walk up their aisle and find her seat.

  Meese slid her backpack down to the floor. Robin relaxed as she sat and began to unpack her binder and textbooks. Her friend’s fingers were still red with cold.

  The officer pulled the rifle out of the bag.

  Meese’s hand froze in mid-air. As the officer propped the rifle in a stand, that hand went to the edge of the desk. Tendons tightened over Meese’s knuckles, turning the skin white. A few seconds passed. Then, with another great effort, Meese relaxed enough to release the desk.

  She began to repack her bag.

  The officer turned around with a bright smile and a salute.

  “How’s everyone today?”

  The smile faltered as Meese stood up, drew her hood over her orange hair, shrugged on her pack, and turned toward the classroom’s back. For the first time that day, Robin saw her face. The skin around her cheeks was blotchy and red, and there was a puffiness around her eyes that, combined with their staring, red-tinged quality, made Robin suspect her friend had not slept well that night. She met their gaze for a moment. Meese’s mouth had stiffened into a hard line.

  The moment passed as Meese walked by the last of the desks. The class heard the back door open, then close.

  The officer stood at the front, her mouth open. Her beret had a coquettish tilt. She stared at the door, blinked once, and refocused on the class.

  “I guess she won’t be joining up, then, hey?”

  No one laughed. The silence was a stoicism Robin had learned early on in school: shut up, keep your head down, and you’ll get through till the final bell.

  Unfazed, the officer continued:

  “Did everyone see that bomb yesterday?”

  Yeah. It was probably a good thing Meese had left.

  Robin’s phone buzzed loudly against her thigh. Some of her peers looked around as she clamped it against her jeans, hurriedly swiping at the screen. The hawk swept its gaze past her. Mrs. Murphy had gotten up to turn off the lights.

  She looked at the message.

  Thanks. Why is she here?

  She glanced at the officer again, who had wheeled the TV set to the middle of the classroom.

  ‘Career Presentation,’ she replied, careful to put the quotation marks in. Meese would appreciate that.

  A small, polite cough made her look up. Mrs. Murphy’s keen eyes looked down on her.

  “Your phone, Ms. Smith.”

  Chapter Five

  The outside air was crisp, and it settled over Mieshka like a cool blanket. Her cheeks were already numb, and the cold bit into the corners of her eyes.

  Pressing a tissue to her nose, she turned up the volume in her headphones until a heavy techno drowned out the world. She didn’t want to think just now, instead keeping a forward tilt toward Uptown’s skyscrapers. Soon, the shadows of the great, giant buildings enveloped her.

  The streets remained shadowed, though the sun glinted white-gold on the tops of the buildings. Where Mieshka walked, frost still covered parts of the concrete. Some cars, likely coming from the mountainside, drove by with a capping of snow on their roofs. She paused at a corner, watching a magpie flit onto the traffic light. A second one joined it.

  It occurred to her that she was skipping school. And that she was strangely okay with it. Shivering, she jammed her hands into her pockets, her breath misting in front of her.

  She had a lot of time to kill.

  The light changed, and she resumed her walk. No one gave her a second glance. She didn’t stop again until the subway stair opened in the sidewalk—the same spot she and Robin had stopped yesterday. Pausing at the lip of the stair, she looked at Lyarne’s valley down the street’s eastern slope.

  There was no bomb today. The Sisters, two mountains that formed the two highest, most-noticeable peaks on the western border, stretched up in the background, their rugged slopes skirted by a translucent haze. A third of the valley was still in shadow.

  What was the worst that could happen? The school wouldn’t expel her. This was her first time. Nothing ever happened to the other students who skipped. Except for a few panic episodes in class, Mieshka had a stellar record.

  Dad would get a call, though. There was an automated system for that.

  Her jaw tightened. The cold numbed the anger, but it brewed at the top of her mind.

  She checked her phone, seeing that Robin still hadn’t replied to her last text.

  Guess I’m on my own, then.

  She stepped down into the tunnel, and the wind pulled her the rest of the way. She followed it down the stairs, her knees stiff and hard with cold. In a minute, she paused, considering the first gate.

  She couldn’t go home. Her father would be home. There would be questions.

  Other gates opened on the left side, some leading to other tunnels. Pop music briefly overpowered her techno as she passed a stairwell leading up. Overhead was a mall.

  On the floor, colored lines organized each destination.

  Mieshka ignored them all.

  Her eyes landed on a newspaper stand. Yesterday’s bomb took the front page in mid-explosion. A small flare had been caught, illuminating the shield’s outline.

  Magic.

  She’d heard that mages could stop bullets, too.

  Her jaw tightened again, and she forced herself past it. The track changed on her player, the subway’s boom rising in the seconds’ silence between songs. She kept walking.

  By the time she stopped, the gates were gone, along with the mid-morning crowd. The stores on either side were closed, their advertisements six months expired. She took her headphones off, hearing the tail end of a far-off announcement snake up the tunnel. Tinny-sounding music blasted from her neck.

  The stone sides of the memorial’s outer archway matched its inner pillars, carved to look like thick, twisted rope. A hundred threads marked their surface. At the top, the cross-piece was formed of carved branches, stemming across the arch.

  The dim light danced inside. She saw the first of the monsters glare out from the dark. From behind her came the echoes of people, the screech and bang and howl of arriving trains, the loudspeakers that coordinated them.

  Ahead of her, the memorial was silent.

  She stepped inside. As she passed the arch, darkness fell around her like a curtain. The air thickened, the stone walls closed in. Quiet hushed her every step.

  Soon, she heard the sound of water.

  Her music jarred with the peace. She turned it off, taking her time. She had lots of it.

  Orange light shone on the wall up ahead, and she paused. What was she doing? Shouldn’t she be avoiding places like memorials?

  Her hand clenched in her pocket.

  God, this is probably the worst place for me to be.

  But avoiding things hadn’t worked so far.

  She followed the curve into the main room. There she paused, feeling her mouth tighten into a grim line.

&
nbsp; There were a lot of names.

  Emotion dragged at her eyes. The room burned into a bright orange haze. A few blinks brought it back into focus.

  It had to be magic. The words burned like neon, except they weren’t confined to a tube. As she watched, the characters fluctuated, moving through shades of red-yellow-orange like glowing embers. One briefly combusted before returning into a spider-thread-thin line of text.

  Their Cyrillic shape was familiar. Her mother had tried to teach her the Russian alphabet once, part of her family’s legacy, but she’d run out of time. Uncle Alexei had promised to pick up where she’d left off, but she doubted he could keep his word. Her mother’s death had hit them all hard.

  Her throat closed on the memory. She pulled out another tissue, brought it to her face, and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her eyes squeezed shut, and her jaw gritted closed. The tissue dampened silently.

  A minute passed. It took a couple of tries to get the room in clear focus again. Her right hand followed the wall, feeling the stone etching bump underneath her touch. The wall glowed above her.

  At least no one else was here.

  She had been to Terremain’s memorial, where her mother’s name was carved into black marble and inlaid with gold. Her mother hadn’t been the last on the list. There were others below her, and a lot of blank space under that. Mieshka remembered staring at that emptiness, seeing her reflection in the polished stone. Her father had stood to her left, a tense hand on her shoulder. Her uncle to her right. They’d all looked dead in the marble.

  She closed her eyes, ground herself, counted to ten. Afterward, she leaned against the wall. A monster, some kind of tree spirit with scratching claws and pointed teeth, dug into her side. Her backpack pressed into her shoulders. She pinched the tissue to her nose. When she blew, its snotty echo bounced about the room.

  She almost laughed, but the burning light was too sobering for that.

  There were a lot of names. None she knew. None she could even read. These people had died in another world, four years before she had been born. These weren’t her ghosts.