Flame Caller

by Jon Messenger

  The Italian Wind Warrior turned away, his black ponytail trailing behind him. Thea placed a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and began to step away but stopped when she realized the Irishman wasn’t coming. Patrick’s scowling gaze remained affixed on Sammy.

  “Not now,” Thea said harshly, her permanent frown deepening as she stopped beside the redheaded man. “There’ll be time for this later.”

  Patrick turned but quickly shrugged off Thea’s guiding hand. He stormed back to the graves and pointed at Sammy.

  “She doesn’t belong here,” he said angrily. “This was a sacred event and it didn’t deserve to be sullied by her kind.”

  Xander wiped away the tears with a brief swipe of his loose sleeve.

  “Her kind?” he said. “She betrayed ‘her kind’ to save our lives. Giovanni, my grandfather, and I would have all died if it hadn’t been for her.”

  “Aye, she did. And for what? Because she loves you? After you’ve known her for only a few weeks? After she already tried to kill you once?”

  “So what if she does?”

  “She’s a Fire Warrior, you daft bugger. You don’t just stop being a member of your caste. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing was staged just so she could get close enough to kill us all.”

  Thea grabbed Patrick’s arm roughly and started pulling him away. “This isn’t the time for this,” Thea said.

  “Keep away from us,” Xander yelled.

  “Why don’t you tell them the truth, lass? Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Thea pulled him away until they both disappeared around the corner of one of the island’s empty houses.

  Xander fumed, staring angrily at the retreating Irishman long after he had disappeared from view. When he glanced over at Sammy, she stood with her mouth agape as though still contemplating the right response to all Patrick’s accusations.

  Angrily, Xander took her hand and led her away from the funeral.

  Xander and Sammy walked in silence.. He shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned deeply. He glanced over at Sammy but she refused to return his gaze. She stared off into the distance as she walked by his side and a faint flush rose to her cheeks.

  His stomach churned as his emotions rolled between sadness for his loss, anger at Patrick, and sympathy for the displaced Fire Warrior.

  “I’m sorry about what he said back there,” he said, reaching out for her hand. She slipped it into his. “He was way out of line.”

  Sammy shook her head and sighed. “We both know he wasn’t. I don’t really belong here. No one actually likes me here. Giovanni and Alicia only tolerate me because of you.”

  She squeezed his hand and looked over with tears in her eyes. “Maybe I should just go.”

  Xander’s heart dropped in his chest. “No.”

  Sammy arched an eyebrow as she waited for him to say more.

  Xander stopped walked and turned her toward him. “Sammy, I made the mistake of letting you go once before. I’m not going to do that again.”

  He pulled her close and slid his arms around her waist. She leaned in closer and rested her head against his chest.

  “Everything that’s happened,” he continued, “has been some crazy whirlwind ride.”

  Sammy chortled at his unintentional pun. He felt her shoulders shake with suppressed laughter and forced a smile.

  “Laugh if you want but very little about all this makes sense to me. I barely understand my powers. I barely know my aunts and uncles but they all look to me like I’m some prodigy... like I’m supposed to change the world. Right now, you’re the only thing in my life that makes sense. You’re the only thing I actually understand. I can’t do this without you. If you leave, so do I.”

  “It’s sad that I’m the only thing that makes sense to you,” she replied, “since I’m the only one here that’s tried to kill you.”

  Xander sighed. “Yeah, but at least I know where I stand with you.”

  Sammy laughed weakly again. He could still feel the tension in her body and the obvious sadness and indecision that coursed through her.

  “Don’t you worry about ‘us’, though?” she asked.

  Xander stepped back from her so he could look into her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  Sammy tried to smile but the mirth fell far short of her eyes. “Patrick was right about us, too.”

  “No, he wasn’t—”

  “You just don’t want to admit it to yourself, Xander, but he was,” she replied adamantly. “Think about it. We’re from opposing castes. For God’s sake, I tried to kill you.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Xander asked angrily. He didn’t understand where all this was coming from or why she would chose this painful day to bring it all up, but he just wanted the conversation to end.

  “I want you to admit that something is off about our relationship,” she said. “I don’t think it’s wrong, exactly, just strange. I spent my entire life training for the sole purpose of eliminating the Wind Warriors and razing the Earth. Yet the second I meet you, I’m willing to throw away the life I knew. And you, you immediately forgave me for attempted murder. I don’t know about you but when we were apart, you were all I thought about; all I thought about after only a couple weeks of knowing each other. I was trained to be physically tough and emotionally distant. You broke through nineteen years of training in an hour.”

  “Maybe love makes us do strange things,” he replied flatly.

  “Is that it, Xander?” Sammy grabbed his hand and squeezed it, the entire time her eyes never leaving his. “Can you honestly tell me right now that you love me?”

  He wanted to tell her he did but those words had never come easily for him. He finally shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s really love or not. But I do know that Patrick isn’t right. We have something special. Call it an infatuation or an obsession. Call it whatever you want. I don’t really care what we call it, so long as we’re together.”

  Sammy looked away and turned toward the sea wall surrounding the island. He stood behind her and lost himself in the wave of curls that fell from her pinned-up hair.

  Xander was surprised when he heard Sammy laugh. It was a nervous laugh. “God, we’re so messed up. What kind of future can we possibly have together?”

  He hadn’t lied to her when he said he didn’t know if it was love between them. What he did know was that now that she was in his life, he couldn’t imagine how he survived without her. Maybe that made him blind to the truth. At this point, with so much loss, he just didn’t care if he was blind, just so long as he didn’t lose her as well.

  Xander slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. She rested her back against his chest and they stared at the glistening waterspout.

  “Whatever future we want,” he finally replied. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy but the feelings I have for you aren’t suddenly going to go away.

  “Patrick wasn’t right, no matter what doubts you might have in your mind,” he reiterated. “If he wants to force you off the island, he needs to be ready for me to go as well. You’re stuck with me. Where you go, I go.”

  Sammy turned back to him, her face streaked with tears. “You’re a good man, Xander Sirocco. I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “We’re going to find out… together.”

  She stepped into him and buried her face in his chest once more. Xander smiled and leaned forward, kissing her softly on her perfectly coifed hair.

  “Do you have plans for the rest of the day?” he asked.

  “You’re stuck with me, too,” she replied. “I go where you go.”

  “Then there’s someone we need to go see.”

  They walked down one of the cobblestone streets that led off from the central dome of the island. The roads were all laid out like the spokes of a wheel, converging at the rounded building. The dome towered over the nearby structures, reaching four stories into the air at its pinnacle. It was large enough to house the city hall building
of White Halls but it was inhabited by only a single man: his uncle Robert.

  Xander had only seen Robert once before. The man had a destitute appearance; his long hair and unkempt beard accentuated his pasty complexion. He was cared for by the other aunts and uncles, since he was unable to leave the cushioned seat on which he rested.

  Robert controlled the waterspout that surrounded the island. His unconscious mind kept it aloft even during his sleeping hours. Likewise, he kept the island floating hundreds of feet above the surface of the ocean below. His task was repetitive but necessary. Keeping the island so high in the air ensured any Fire Warriors that sailed nearby couldn’t detect his outpouring of elemental power, since the elemental wielders could only detect the individual, not the result of their power.

  Xander and Sammy turned before they reached the dome and walked to one of the more squat outlying buildings. A thin tarp had been pulled across the entryway, keeping out the misting rain and glaring sun but letting through the day’s cool breeze.

  Alicia stood in front of the thin veil, smiling at the approaching young lovers. Deep wrinkles carved across the surface of her face and deepened considerably as she smiled. Her back was slightly stooped from age and her silver hair was pinned up into a loose bun on the top of her head. She looked grandmotherly, though Xander knew her looks were very deceptive. As one of the last Wind Warriors, she wielded considerable abilities.

  “How is he?” Xander asked matter-of-factly.

  “He’s as good as can be expected,” Alicia replied. “He’s still sleeping.”

  Xander frowned. Though she called it sleeping, he knew his grandfather was actually unconscious, as he’d been ever since being attacked by General Abraxas.

  “Should we come back another time, then?” he asked. “I don’t want to wake him up.”

  Alicia shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about waking him up. It’s better that you come to see him.”

  She pulled the cloth tarp aside, revealing the cool darkness of the one-room building. Xander looked to Sammy, who only shook her head and gestured for him to go inside. She knew as well as Xander did that this was something he needed to do without her.

  Xander stepped past Alicia and was swallowed by the deep shadows in the room. His eyes strained to adjust to the dim light; a single lantern was the only light source in the room. As his eyes came into focus, he saw his grandfather lying on the room’s sole bed.

  The elder man’s chest rose and fell unevenly as he clearly struggled for breath. The left side of his face and part of his exposed left arm were heavily bandaged in white linen but Xander could see spots of red and yellow, as the fresh burns oozed through the wrapping.

  Xander fought the urge to throw up. The emotional turmoil within him reached an apex as he stared at the man he had loved his entire life. His grandfather had lived with him and his parents since he was a child. Though Xander had never known the Wind Warrior secret his grandfather had harbored, he had always shared a special kinship with the old man. To see him injured and—though Xander was loathed to admit it—dying on the bed left an unending ache in his chest.

  Alicia closed the tarp behind her as she followed him into the room. She moved wordlessly past Xander and retrieved a bowl of water from a nearby table. Dipping a rag into the cool water, she patted his grandfather’s forehead.

  “How… how is he?” Xander stammered.

  Alicia looked up at him and smiled meekly. “He’s dying, Xander. He’s a strong man, one of the strongest among us, but he’s old just like the rest of us, too. His body just can’t take abuse like this.”

  Looking around, Xander found a chair nearby. He pulled it over to the bedside and sat down heavily. Reaching out, he took his grandfather’s uninjured hand and squeezed it tightly.

  “There has to be something we can do,” he whispered, without looking up at his aunt. “Take him to a hospital or something. There’s a really good burn hospital in Texas, I think.”

  Alicia shook her head sadly. “If it were an option, we would have done it. He’s just too weak. He’d never survive the flight. To be honest, I’m surprised he made it all the way here. He’s obviously holding on for something important. I’m assuming that something is you.”

  Xander leaned his head forward and rested it on his grandfather’s arm. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as a tear rolled off his eyelashes and fell to the floor.

  “You guys keep saying that,” he muttered. “I’m not special. I’m just a kid trying not to lose the only family member he has left.”

  He didn’t hear Alicia move from the far side of the bed but she placed a compassionate hand on his back.

  “You are special, Xander. There’s a reason you were chosen to be a Wind Warrior when it seemed like our time was done. Even if you don’t believe in yourself, you’ve ignited something in the rest of us that we all thought had died. You’ve given us hope for the future, not just our own but all of humanity’s.”

  Xander lifted his head and turned it toward his aunt. “You may believe that but the rest of them are still ready to lie down and die.”

  “Give them time,” she replied. “They’ll come around.”

  “We don’t have time. The Fire Warriors are coming for us.”

  Alicia sighed and retrieved a second chair. She placed it next to his and sat down so they were eye level with one another.

  “Xander, dear, you have to remember that we’re old and stubborn. We’ve been Wind Warriors for decades now. We became warriors back in a time where there were literally hundreds of us living on this island alone, and we were only one clan of many throughout the world. Over the years, we’ve watched our loved ones, our friends, and our fellow warriors die of old age. We’ve seen so many of our kind simply fly back to their homes to live out their days alone. And all because we knew our time was coming to an end. We spent so much time being Wind Warriors that we never stopped to consider starting families. And those of us who did start families never had our children activate.”

  Xander was surprised to see her reach up and wipe away a tear. He’d been so saddened by his own loss that he had trouble remembering how painful this must be for everyone else.

  “We all knew the signs,” she continued. “Our time was coming to an end. That was probably the most painful thing of all. We knew what it meant when we were gone. It meant that nature had decided humanity wasn’t a good fit for the Earth any longer. It meant that… that it was time to wipe the slate clean and start again.”

  Xander sat in silence, letting the weight of that realization sink in. He remembered how surprised he had been when he found out what would happen when the Fire Warriors rose to power. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to have that realization while actively a Wind Warrior; to realize that the world had suddenly decided you were obsolete.

  “Then why didn’t you fight back?” he asked. “Why didn’t you do everything you could to stop the Fire Warriors?”

  Alicia laughed softly. “Oh child, you sound so much like your grandfather. That’s exactly why he became our leader.”

  Xander frowned at the implication. “So you did fight back? But it didn’t work, did it?”

  “Humanity had progressed too far beyond our help. We were its spiritual guides but humanity no longer had a need for spirituality. The world prayed to technology and cared less and less about its impact on the world around it.”

  She stood and moved her chair back against the wall. “You have to appreciate that we’ve had years to realize that we were going to die and no Wind Warriors would take our place. I guess, eventually, we just gave up trying. That’s why you’re getting so much resistance from the others. They were content thinking that this was the end for them. They were resolved in the thought that they were going to die and there wasn’t anything they could do to change the world for the better.

  “And then you came along. You’re giving them hope, but that hope has to break through some pretty resistant barriers.”
>
  She slipped her hand under his arm and helped him to his feet. “Just don’t stop trying, okay? Give us a chance and we won’t let you down. It’s what he would have wanted, out of you and out of us.”

  Xander looked over at his grandfather before turning back to Alicia. He wrapped his arms around the elderly woman and pulled her into a tight embrace.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “My pleasure, dear,” she replied as he released her.

  Xander looked back at his grandfather once again, taking in the sorrowful image of the wounded man. He hated to see the older Wind Warrior that way and just wished there was something he could do to make him better.

  “Promise me you’ll let me know as soon as he wakes up,” he told his aunt.

  Alicia nodded. “On my honor.”

  Xander nodded and walked back out through the draped tarp. He had to squint momentarily as he was assaulted by the glaring sunlight. As his eyes cleared, he saw Sammy watching him intently from beside the doorway.

  “How did it go?” she asked pensively.

  Xander managed a faint smile. “It went well.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “I’m going to fight back,” he said sternly, finding a strength in his voice he hadn’t heard in a while. “I’m going to train and I’m going to convince the other aunts and uncles to help me.”

  Sammy stepped up beside him, a beaming smile on her face. “I’m so glad to hear it. There’s something I didn’t tell you before but I think you need to hear it now. You’re something special—”

  “Don’t you start with that, too,” he interrupted.

  Sammy shook her head. “I’m serious. You told me before that you didn’t see the point in fighting since one Fire Warrior did so much damage. But that Fire Warrior was one of the strongest and deadliest I’d ever seen. And you’re fighting at a disadvantage since your caste was created only to bolster our abilities. But when you and General Abraxas faced off, he threw some of the most powerful fire attacks I’d ever seen and you stood your ground. You were able to tap some reserve of power, even without any real training.”