Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy)

by J. S. Morin

  No, that was not right. The part of his mind that watched as he slept had seen many things, and had been quite preoccupied last night. He remembered a harrowing walk through a forest, and a feeling of relief at finding out that a friend of his—figment of his imagination or no—was recovering from a nearly fatal injury. He could still see, if he closed his eyes, the stranger with the long, white hair who had allowed them to take shelfter outside his home, and who was tending to his friend—seemingly just a few moments ago, on the other side of his eyelids. It all felt so real, so vivid, that the memories seemed not to fade in the few moments after he awoke, as was common with dreams. He remembered it as well as he could recall the previous night.

  Kyrus drew a shuddering, deep breath to calm himself as he thought back to the events that had taken place in that very room the night before. Had it been a strange part of his dream? Had he fallen asleep before that, only to fall asleep once more within his dreams? Kyrus suspected not, but there was only one way to find out. He stood up and closed his eyes, steeling himself against the possibility that he was right.

  “Aleph kalai abdu,” Kryus calmly spoke, gesturing with his right hand.

  A rush like a cool breeze swept through him. Then he felt the brightness, even through the lids of his eyes. Swallowing hard, he looked to confirm what he already knew in his heart. There was a glow in the air before him. It lit the room better than the rays of sunlight that poked in around the edges of the shutters, and Kyrus hoped that the light outdoors was bright enough that it was not noticeable from the street. He did not want to have anyone inquiring as to what was going on before he himself could figure it out. He needed time to sort things through before anyone else found out about this strange phenomenon. That is, if he was ever going to be ready enough to have the world think he was either a lunatic or a freak.

  That sobering thought brought Kyrus’s attention back to the softly glowing ball of whitish luminescence hanging a handspan in front of his face. He stared at it with a mix of child-like wonderment and an all-too-adult sense of anxiety. He knew that he had created the light, but he was not entirely sure how. It had seemed natural to him, as easily remembered as the catchy tune that children learn to remember their letters or the fluidly sprawling lines of script that flowed from his quill each day: things that had become a part of him through repetition over years and that he could hardly conceive of not knowing anymore. Until the previous night, though, as best he could recall, he had never so much as practiced at such arcane nonsense, let alone had anything of the sort actually work.

  The light remained aloft and stationary under Kyrus’s scrutiny. It became neither brighter nor dimmer. It did not change color or flicker, as would a candle. It did nothing at all and seemed content to remain that way, inexplicably lighting Davin’s old room … somehow. He reached out and passed his hand through it, probing tentatively at first, then waving it about in the midst of the glowing region when he encountered no resistance. Kyrus realized just how impossible the light should have been, burning nothingness, attached to nothing, and hanging adrift and motionless in midair, but he felt strangely unconcerned by how out of place it was. He was far more worried about how he would explain it to someone else, should they happen by, than he was with trying to reconcile it within his own, normally logical, mind.

  Kyrus sat down cross-legged on the floor and stared up at the light, trying to decide what to do about it. He rested his chin on his clasped hands, feeling the fine, rough stubble of his unshaven face as he thought. That subtle reminder that he had just slept through the night on the floor, fully clothed, served to galvanize his thoughts; if he did not come up with something soon, someone would likely stop by the shop and find a crazy man with bloodied head wounds, sitting on the floor of an otherwise empty room, staring at a light that should not exist. Remembering the cool, breezy feeling that had spread through him when he had created the light, and how it had momentarily relieved the awful headache he had woken up with, Kyrus decided to see if repeating the magic would reverse the effect.

  “Aleph kalai abdu,” he spoke quietly as he gestured in the air, mindful that anyone at all might be on the street below his shuttered windows.

  Immediately he felt the coolness wash through him again. Being prepared for it to happen, he noticed subtle nuances the second time through that had escaped his notice previously. It was not a breeze that seemed to blow through his veins and cool him from the inside, but dozens, even hundreds of tiny little breezes, permeating every inch of him and swirling into the very center of his being before they coalesced … into a second ball of light, hanging closer to the floor than the first, just in front of his face as he sat. Fortunately for Kyrus, two of the lights seemed no brighter than one—though that did not make any sense, either—but now he had two of the blasted things to get rid of before someone saw them!

  The feeling that accompanied the creation of the light had momentarily alleviated the stabbing pain behind his eyes and dulled it to the point where he could think a bit more clearly. He realized that the spell—and he knew nothing else to call it by—was something remembered from his dreams. That meant that the answer to getting rid of the lights was probably also something hidden away in the back of his mind, where his forgotten dreams lay dormant till he slept again. His immediate problem was that, aside from his dreams that night, he only remembered very broad concepts from his dreams, not minutiae such as how to dispose of unwanted balls of light. Kyrus spent several moments with his eyes closed, trying to conjure up images from his dreams, but all he could remember was a rain-soaked wilderness hike accompanied by a bunch of grim-faced soldiers, a friend of his who seemed to be injured, and a stranger who acted like some sort of enchanter or wizard like in the old children’s stories. None of them had banished any lights with magic in his dream, so until he could pay more attention in one of his dreams and inquire of someone as to how such a feat might be accomplished, he was on his own.

  Kyrus drummed his fingers against his cheek as he sat there pondering, beginning to grow anxious that he would have to either get rid of the lights or find some way to hide them until he could figure how to manage it. He could not sit here all day without making people suspicious. Someone was bound to stop by the scrivener’s shop sooner or later; Davin saw two or three patrons at least, on most days.

  Abbiley, he thought suddenly.

  Of course someone was going to stop by the shop sooner or later. Abbiley had promised as much the night before when she had spoken to him after his mishap. He could not very well let her see him like this.

  Why, yes, my head feels fine. No lasting effects of smacking it on that light pole and the ground last night. When it bothers me a bit, I can always just poof these little balls of light into being out of nothingness, and it feels better for a little while—What? No, I do not need to lie down. Watch and I will show you: “Aleph kalai…”

  No, that was not going to go over well at all. He needed to come up with something fast.

  He tried concentrating on the feeling that accompanied the spell he used. He tried to imagine the feeling of those tiny little breezes all converging in him, cooling his body and clearing his mind. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and tried to ignore the throbbing that was starting to grow worse in his head, the sounds of the early morning drifting in from outside, and everything else that might distract him. After a moment or so, he began to feel it, slowly at first and then steadily growing.

  Yes, I did it! All right, now what?

  Kyrus opened his eyes slowly, still basking in the pleasant chill of whatever it was that he was drawing into himself—whatever it was that he had made the light out of. He was at a loss to describe it, but he could almost “see” the tiny currents of some unfamiliar wind drifting about the room and “see” some of them being pulled toward him. It was nothing that obscured his vision of the room around him; he could still make out the walls, the floor, his clothes, the two weird glowing balls of light … yet there wa
s something deeper, something that he was not accustomed to being able to see, underlying his vision of the world around him.

  Kryus’s musings about his newfound vision were abruptly cut short when an urgent feeling began to grow inside him. He suddenly felt as if he had drawn a deep breath and needed to exhale, yet he did not know how. The flow of the tiny ethereal rivers as they were drawn into him slowed and came to a halt, and then seemed to try to reverse their course. The feeling that had been cool and pleasant just seconds earlier faded, only to be replaced by one of building pressure and heat, as if something trapped within him was trying to escape. Kyrus began to panic, realizing that he had no idea how to stop what was happening. His vision began to grow hazy, and he felt dizzy. As the pressure within him grew, it became a searing pain, dwarfing the headache he had been suffering already. Kyrus squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced in pain, then collapsed onto the floor.

  His mind began to burn, and he knew that somewhere he had seen this before. There had to be an answer somewhere in his memories. There was little time to act, the sensation was growing stronger by the moment.

  Memories of my dreams … Think, Kyrus, quickly …

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus remembered standing on a battlefield, littered with the bodies of the fallen. There were men in plenty, and creatures shaped like men yet much smaller, and with a rough, greenish hue to their skin that he somehow knew to call “goblins.” He turned his head to look around and saw everything and everyone about him moving far more slowly than they should have been. The thud of spear against shield, the cries of the dying and the victorious, the crackle of the many fires that burned here and there: all seemed to echo from far away, rather than right around him. When he saw a smallish man dressed in soldiers’ garb—minus the armor—trading magical bolts of force with one of the goblins, he recognized this as the place he saw in his dreams.

  He saw the sorcerer, for he knew that was what his friend was, turn one of the goblin’s bolts back at its creator, destroying the creature. Then the sorcerer, whose name came not readily to his mind though he was certain he knew it, collapsed to the ground, clutching at the sides of his head and letting loose an agonized scream. Kyrus tried to race to the sorcerer’s aid, yet it felt like he had been yoked to an oxcart and was pulling a load of stone blocks behind him. He watched goblins approach his fallen friend as he struggled to close the distance. He was too far away to save the sorcerer from the spears of the tiny adversaries that were sure to reach him before Kyrus would. Yet as Kyrus looked on helplessly, the goblins’ eyes grew wide and they tried to turn and run away, then they caught fire and were consumed in less time than it took Kyrus to gasp his surprise. He saw the ground all about his sorcerer friend begin to steam … the morning dew boiling off of it …

  Same problem I am having, but offers no help …

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus’s thought bubbled and churned as he dug through them hurriedly. He saw a vision of a familiar barn, weather-stained brown and unpainted but otherwise in a serviceable state. There were fields all about, and a fenced pass leading up to the front of it. The memory felt so real he could smell the fresh manure and the distinctive scent of cows, gathered in large numbers.

  Someone rushed past him, carrying a bucket, and then another. He recognized them as two of his older brothers, Melluck and Vohn. A third brother, Kedan, slammed into him as he rushed by as well. The older boy was thrown off his stride, and he spared a quick glance back.

  “Sorry, Kyrus,” Kedan said, regaining his balance and rushing off with a bucket as well, water sloshing out the sides from his encounter with his younger brother.

  No, that is one of my own memories. They were rushing to douse a fire that had started in the barn. I do not think dunking my head in a bucket is going to fix this, but it might be worth a try.

  I really need to find something from my dreams. That is where they know how to deal with this.

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus shook his head to clear the last memory, and found himself seated on a small stool in a room with stone walls. There were young children, perhaps half his age, seated to his left and right. There were roughly a score of them, all told, seated in a semicircle around a middle-aged man in very important-looking clothes. All the faces seemed somehow familiar, though he struggled to put names to them. The movements and sounds seemed as strange to Kyrus as they had on the battlefield, but there was something else that felt odd as well.

  Kyrus looked around the room, which seemed to have especially high ceilings, then at the children all around him, then up at the man who was apparently some sort of tutor or instructor.

  How short is this stool? Kyrus found himself thinking, looking down at it.

  When he looked at the stool, he also noticed that he was no larger than the children seated to his sides; he was a child just like them. He was one of the students.

  The lecture being given was nearly incomprehensible to Kyrus. The teacher spoke at length of something called “aether,” which he did not explain well enough that someone who had never heard of it could gather much use from his instructions. But as he spoke of the dangers of the “aether,” Kyrus began to grow interested. The teacher told of how harmful it could be to hold onto more than one could handle without releasing it immediately, and then proceeded to demonstrate the proper and safe way to vent excess aether.

  The teacher drew the students’ attention to a very large basin of water, nearly as wide as a grown man is tall and deep enough to bathe in, which stood in a corner to one side of the room. Kyrus had not thought much of it when he glanced about the room upon discovering himself there, yet it seemed to be central to the teacher’s point. The teacher then muttered some nonsensical syllables under his breath and waited. After a moment of tense anticipation experienced by all the children watching, sweat beaded on the older man’s brow and he gritted his teeth in apparent exertion. The children were startled to hear the water in the basin suddenly begin to bubble and boil, filling the room with steam and obscuring vision.

  When the steam cleared, the teacher stood, at ease and unharmed, with a superior look on his face of someone who has just proven his point beyond argument.

  Aha!

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus rolled around on the floor, trying to find the release for the so-called aether that he realized he had trapped within himself. His eyes were squeezed down into narrow slits as he fought back the pain, but he could see clearly enough to notice that the floorboards were scorched. He knew what would happen to him if he set the building on fire in the condition he was in.

  Scrambling awkwardly to his feet, he stumbled out of Davin’s room and across the hallway into his own. There he found what he hoped would be his salvation. The washbasin that he kept on his dressing table was still half full of water. At a loss for any other means of ridding himself of the aether he had drawn in, he focused on the water and imagined it boiling. He thought of the flows of energy he had pulled into himself and tried to push them back out towards the basin. It was difficult and painful, far harder than it had been to pull it into his body, but he saw steam rise from the water and could feel the pressure easing within him. The aether burned all through his body on its way out of him, but it felt ten times better than the ever-growing feeling of a tea-kettle boiling over that it had replaced.

  Kyrus breathed a long, ragged sigh of relief as the last of the aether was purged from him. He cautiously peered into the washbasin, which was now steaming gently like a fresh bowl of soup. The water was nearly all gone, and the bowl was too hot to touch when he experimentally put a finger to it. Sucking on his mildly burned fingertip, Kyrus crossed the hallway back toward his original problem: the magical lights he needed to be rid of.

  To Kyrus’s great relief, there was only one remaining when he entered the room. The first one he had created was gone, most likely having expired of its own accord. Kyrus calmly and prudently waited several minutes until the other light
abruptly vanished as well, and then went about setting his morning back on path.

  The washbasin had cooled enough to handle again by the time Kyrus got back from the well with fresh water to refill it. He hurriedly washed and combed through his hair—carefully avoiding the painful lumps he had received the night before. He decided against any attempt to trim his beard. His hands still trembled slightly, reminding him of the scare he had just experienced a few moments ago. Kyrus just was not used to being nearly incinerated.

  The newest expert of the Scrivener’s Guild made little attempt to perform actual work that morning. His hand was not yet steady enough to be trusted with any work on behalf of his patrons. Instead he bustled about the shop, tidying things up that had been put in some disarray when Davin had removed his personal belongings from among the vast mess of the shop. The two of them had come to an understanding when it came to clutter. Both had agreed not to move anything from where the other had left it. Since Kyrus and Davin were both gifted with excellent memories, they were able to find anything they needed, so long as things stayed where they were put. The system worked marvelously, but in the process of vacating the shop, Davin and the king’s steward had been forced to dig through piles that contained things both had left there. Kyrus figured that it was as good a time as any to go about finding where everything had ended up.

  Working with an efficiency borne of a desire to drown his turbulent thoughts in the reality of his task, Kyrus set about sorting and stacking the innumerable loose pages that covered nearly every available surface. He found more than a few pages that he had long since given up as lost and since rewritten, as well as the remnants of a number of small projects he had rather forgotten having worked on. There was a collection of ruined invitations to the wedding of Lady Clarissa, which Kyrus had doggedly worked through an awful cough several months ago to complete; many of the invitations had splashes of ink or suddenly scratched lines across them. Another whole stack contained manuscripts that were never meant to be finished works, but rather they were pages Kyrus had written as practice during his early apprenticeship and then could not bear to part with, despite the raw script and poor spacing that his first works exhibited. It served to remind him just how much he had learned from his old friend, when he looked back at how undisciplined his calligraphy had looked just a few short years ago. Kyrus smiled to himself and sighed, then carefully set them aside in their own separate stack where he would not lose them again … at least for a few months anyway.