Flame Caller

by Jon Messenger

  “I think it’s her,” Xander replied excitedly. “I think it’s the Wind Elemental trying to tell us how to find her.”

  An explosion from outside rocked the front of the house. Jessica screamed and stumbled away from the window.

  “I think we’re out of time,” Sean said. “When do we leave?”

  Xander arched an eyebrow. “We’re not leaving. You’re staying here.”

  Jessica stepped beside Sean and pointed toward the front window. “I don’t think staying here is an option anymore.”

  “My abrasive and annoying companion is right,” Sean added. “We can’t stay here. If you’re going to Iceland, I’m coming with you.”

  “We’re coming with you,” Jessica corrected.

  “Neither of you are coming with me,” Xander replied. “You’ll find somewhere else to hide until all this blows over. It’s way too dangerous for you to come with us.”

  “It’s way too dangerous to stay here,” Sean said, “even if we found somewhere else to hide. Anyway, you need me.”

  “Do I?”

  Sean reached over and turned off the computer monitor. The world map immediately vanished, replaced by a black screen.

  “I know how to find Iceland without relying on the internet,” Sean explained. “Can you, Xander?”

  Xander frowned. Another burst of flame licked the front window and he heard the glass crack under the heat.

  “You can’t leave us here,” Jessica said, surprisingly humbled and concerned.

  “All right,” he conceded. “If you’re going, let’s go.”

  The trio rushed to the door. Xander put his hand on the door handle and felt the heat through the metal. It wasn’t unbearable but it was clear fire had struck the door more than once.

  “As soon as I open the door, stay very close to me,” Xander ordered. “As soon as we’re clear of the building, we’ll be airborne. You two understand?”

  They both nodded, though Sean’s nod seemed far more enthusiastic than Jessica’s fearful response.

  Xander threw open the door and ran into the front yard. Most of the grass was blackened and the remaining trees burned freely. He was surprised how many dark-clad Fire Warriors were strewn across the yard and the street, most face down and unmoving. The aunts and uncles looked singed to varying degrees, with Alicia holding her arm protectively to her side. In the distance, he could see more Fire Warriors emerging from the side streets, rushing toward the dilapidated and smoking Tri Delta house.

  “We’re leaving,” Xander yelled over the din of combat. “Let’s go.”

  Xander kicked off from the ground, his pocket of air surrounding both Sean and Jessica and pulling them along. They rocketed skyward, eager to get out of the reach of the Fire Caste’s pursuing flames.

  With a quick glance around, he saw all four of the others flying close by. Despite the danger, they had all emerged from White Halls relatively unscathed.

  “Where to?” Giovanni asked.

  Xander smiled, glad to finally have good news to share with everyone.

  “Iceland. We’re going to Iceland.”

  The land around the California desert was severely changed from what Sammy remembered. The sky was stained black from raging fires all around them. The few scrub brushes that spotted the desert were charred and dead.

  The desert itself was what had changed the most. Massive upheavals from the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions had driven limestone and obsidian rock from the ground. They rose toward the dark sky like massive spearheads, tearing through the sandy ground.

  General Abraxas turned the car sharply, avoiding the crumbling edge of the road. One of the many caverns underneath the desert had obviously collapsed and a sinkhole was quickly swallowing part of the asphalt road as it spread. Sammy’s stomach turned as she saw the dark maw of the sinkhole staring at her as they drove past.

  Everything about the desert looked alien and deadly. The edges of the rock formations seemed abnormally sharp and threatening. She could count more than just the one sinkhole forming across the desert surface as more of the fragile cavern passages crumbled from the tectonic shifts.

  Unexpectedly, Abraxas slammed on the brakes and the car skid to a halt with an overwhelming smell of burnt rubber and brake pads. Sammy looked around at where they had stopped but didn’t recognize the area. Regardless, the other Fire Warriors climbed wordlessly from the car and opened the passenger door for Sammy to emerge.

  She climbed out without resistance and turned toward the General. A short, jutting plateau just beyond the edge of the road distracted Abraxas. He barely offered an acknowledgement as Sammy walked up beside him.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  General Abraxas turned toward her with a smile. His sharpened teeth were far more unnerving on his desiccated face.

  “We’re home,” he hissed. “Don’t you recognize it?”

  Sammy turned back toward the plateau but nothing looked familiar. General Abraxas stepped off the edge of the road and walked briskly toward the rocky outcropping. Sammy hurried to keep up until she was able to match his long stride.

  From behind a seemingly smooth rock face on the plateau, a Fire Warrior emerged. Abraxas led the group toward the man before storming past the single guard. The three Fire Warriors, with Sammy in tow, were quickly engulfed by the cool darkness within the concealed cavern entrance.

  Sammy looked around quickly as they paused inside the dark interior and ignited their personal flames. The walls were smooth and looked carved by intense heat. She assumed they could have once been lava flow tubes but it seemed far more likely that the Fire Warriors themselves had carved these tunnels. She thought suddenly of the sinkholes and the collapsed tunnels underneath. There was no telling how much damage had been done to her clan’s kingdom during the ground-shattering earthquakes. It was likely that new tunnels had to be carved after their original tunnels were destroyed.

  One of the Fire Warriors shoved her from behind as they started down the gently sloping path. The carved tunnel quickly converted to a natural cavern passage. She chose her steps more carefully as the ground became uneven. Much like the desert above her head, slivers of stone jutted from the path. What had begun as a simple walk underground quickly became an adventure that involved climbing over, around, and through crystalline spurs of stone.

  Sammy was forced to focus on the moment, instead of letting her mind drift to what was to come once they arrived at her father’s castle. Except it wasn’t her father’s castle, she quickly corrected. The Fire Elemental was pulling the strings, including controlling Lord Balor.

  “Watch your head,” the Fire Warrior behind her ordered.

  Sammy ducked beneath a rocky shelf that would have struck her across the bridge of the nose had she not been warned. She quickly realized again that she needed to pay attention instead of letting her mind wander.

  Once beyond the maze of stone spears, the tunnel smoothed out once again and began to look familiar to her. The passageway through which they walked slowly widened as the heat in the tunnel increased. Sammy hadn’t been away from her birthplace for that long but the heat seemed suddenly stifling. It felt like she was standing in front of an open oven as waves of heat rolled over her.

  As they made a sharp turn in the tunnel, the stone path gave way to a giant, stonework bridge. The walls of the tunnel fell away to either side, forming the distant walls of the cavernous chamber. The vaulted cavern was illuminated by a combination of burning fires and a harsh glow coming from far below the bridge.

  Beyond the bridge, her father’s obsidian castle loomed overhead. The sight of the keep made Sammy’s knees go weak. She feared seeing her father again but she knew even meeting with the intimidating lord was just a precursor to being dragged in front of the Fire Elemental once again. Even though her encounter with the draconic eye had been so brief, it had haunted her ever since. If given the choice, she knew she’d never want to come face to face with that creature again. Unfortunat
ely, she knew she didn’t really have a choice. If she resisted, they’d drag her in chains down the narrow tunnel that led to the monster concealed at its end.

  General Abraxas stepped gingerly onto the wide bridge. With a sigh, she prepared to step onto the bridge after him but a firm hand fell on her shoulder.

  “Wait your turn,” the Fire Warrior demanded.

  Sammy was surprised to see the General moving with such caution onto the large-stone bridge. A quick scrutiny of the full length of it revealed why. Near the far end, a section was missing. She couldn’t imagine what could have possible destroyed so thick a bridge until her eyes drifted upward. The ceiling of the cavern was covered with massive stalactites. She had never paid much attention to the stalactites when she lived here because they were as much a part of the environment as the walls themselves. Looking up, though, she was sure at least a few of the enormous stone teeth were missing. It seemed like even her clan’s home hadn’t remained unscathed from the damage to the rest of the world.

  The General skirted far from the gaping maw of a hole in the bridge and arrived at the main entrance into the obsidian keep. She didn’t need prodding by the Fire Warrior behind her this time. She stepped onto the bridge and began making her way toward the large, stone doors.

  Sammy had walked on the bridge hundreds of times before in her youth but couldn’t remember her steps ever being so unsteady. She wasn’t sure how much of her hesitation was the shifting of the large stones beneath her feet, and how much was the unsteadiness of her own legs, but every step left her teetering on the edge of collapse.

  As the hole approached, a brief thought of jumping through its gap ran through her mind. While she knew she couldn’t follow through with such a brash plan, the thought of being dragged before the Fire Elemental was almost strong enough to drive her to suicide.

  She stepped to the edge of the chasm and looked down, admiring the swirling reds and blacks of the lava river far below. The heat from the magma felt like a blast furnace roaring through the wide hole. She could practically feel the heat melting the mortar holding the already weakened bridge together.

  “What are you doing?” General Abraxas yelled from the far edge of the hole. “Quit wasting time.”

  With a sigh, Sammy stepped away from the hole and walked around its edge. When she was close enough, Abraxas grabbed her arm and pulled her to the relative safety of the stone platform on the far side of the bridge.

  They waited for the other two Fire Warriors to cross the unsteady overpass. When the second was halfway across the bridge, Sammy heard a rumble echoing through the stone passages that surrounded the main cavern.

  The aftershock struck the chamber and drove Sammy to her knees with its force. She clenched her teeth together to keep them from rattling in her head.

  She raised her head as she heard a man scream. The nearest of the two Fire Warriors fell backward as the large stone beneath his feet gave way and tumbled into the hole on the bridge. For a brief moment, she locked eyes with the panicked man before he disappeared from view. The echoing rumble of the quake swallowed even his scream.

  A loud crack drew here attention to the far wall. A sheet of stone calved from the wall, falling into the lava below. She wasn’t sure how many aftershocks had struck the castle but she was sure their entire home was on borrowed time.

  As quickly as it had begun, the quake came to a stop and the cavern fell into silence. Abraxas roughly grabbed her upper arm and pulled her to her feet. He led her through the open stone doors and into the keep proper.

  “Come now, girl,” General Abraxas said with a malicious smile. “There are lots of people who are looking forward to seeing you again.”

  The edge of the horizon was boiling with angry, black clouds, a nothingness that slowly devoured the steely gray of the evening sky. Despite flying far south of the hurricane, Xander could feel it pulling on him, tugging at his clothing as they approached land.

  Patrick led the group lower until they skimmed over the top of a cliff face and touched down on the lush grass at its crest. Xander collapsed onto the damp grass, exhausted from carrying Sean the entire flight. He rolled over on his back, ignoring the moisture that seeped through his T-shirt.

  The other Wind Warriors sat down beside him and caught their breaths.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jessica remarked as she looked around the sloping countryside.

  Below them, they heard the waves crashing into the rock face like thunder. The air was crisp without being overly cold and was filled with the scent of the ocean.

  “Where are we?” Xander asked as he propped himself up on his elbows.

  Patrick took a drink of water and cleared his throat. “Ireland. My home.”

  “That’s a little ways away from Iceland, isn’t it?” Jessica asked as she rubbed her exposed arms for warmth.

  “About a thousand miles, give or take,” Patrick replied.

  Patrick pointed at the dark horizon to the north. “We can’t fly through that. Even with all our power combined, a stray gust of wind would blow us all right into the ocean or worse, into a cliff like this one. We’re far too exposed in the air without an anchor to keep us grounded. So we’re not going to fly there. We’re going to sail there.”

  “I hate to be the voice of reason—since I so rarely am,” Sean said, “but what’s going to keep us any safer in a boat?”

  “I grew up on these waters. The boat will ride the waves no matter what we do,” Patrick explained. “Knowing that, we can focus on keeping the hurricane from tearing the boat apart. That’s a much easier task for the five of us than trying to stay in the air and defend against whatever wild debris the hurricane has picked up. I’m the last man that wants to see a large fish or shark flying through the air at me.”

  “I loved that movie,” Sean said with a smile.

  “What movie?” Patrick asked, genuinely confused.

  “That doesn’t explain how we’re going to find a boat,” Xander said, ignoring their sidebar conversation. He stood up stiffly and stretched his aching lower back. He felt far older than his twenty years. “There’s not a boat captain alive who would risk sailing into that insanity.”

  “Oh, I think you’d be surprised to find that there are one or two out there.”

  Patrick pointed to the lights of a small town glowing below them. The street lamps were just beginning to shine as dusk quickly approached. A few lights flickered in the windows of the tightly packed houses. On the far edge of town, barely visible in the dimming light, Xander could see the buildings give way to a small dock jutting out over the ocean.

  “Is that your home?” Xander asked in amazement.

  The town was smaller even than White Halls, with only a single main street cutting through the fishing community.

  “Ardara, Ireland,” Patrick said with a broad smile. “Home, sweet home. Come on. We don’t want everyone to go to bed for the night or get three sheets to the wind before we have a chance to talk to them about a boat, do we?”

  The Wind Warriors swooped through the valley that led to the outskirts of the town. The sun was nearly set, turning the rest of the sky a mirror to the stormy clouds. Xander got unnerved as he looked north again. Twinkling stars were emerging above him, filling the sky with shimmering brilliance. To the north, though, there were no stars. The inky blankness of the sky seemed to absorb the light from the sky around it.

  It was dark enough by the time they arrived that the Wind Warriors were able to fly around the outside of the town without worrying about being seen. They arrived shortly at the far end of the docks.

  With the storm brewing violently off the coast, most of the boats were dry-docked. Only a few still sat in the water, owned by those either brave enough or stupid enough to risk fishing in the turbulent ocean.

  The boats in the water looked covered and tied tightly to the docks, obviously packaged for the night. Only one ship still had a light burning in its cabin. The owner stood on the dock, checking the moto
r as it was propped out of the lapping waves. With a push of a button, the redheaded man turned on the boat’s engine and watched as the propellers started spinning quicker than Xander’s eyes could follow.

  Patrick stomped down the dock and the others hurried to follow. The sound from the motor was deafening, drowning the noise from their approach. As they got closer, Xander could see the boat owner’s mop of red hair waving in the cool evening breeze. The man’s back was turned but he was large, built like a man who had spent his entire life doing manual labor.

  “Oy, wanker!” Patrick yelled over the rumble of the boat’s engines.

  The redheaded man quickly turned off the engine and spun sharply, glaring at the gathered group of Wind Warriors. Upon seeing Patrick, his face split into a toothless grin.

  “You bloody Mick bugger,” the man yelled. “You’ve got to be daft, coming back here.”

  The two men stepped toward each other before embracing in a massive hug. Xander could hear the rush of exhaling air as the two men squeezed one another.

  Sean leaned toward him. “Do you have any idea what they’re saying?”

  Xander shook his head. “Only every third word or so.”

  The two men separated, each smiling broadly. The older man slammed his hand onto Patrick’s shoulder.

  “What brings you back here?”

  “We need a boat.”

  “Seems a long way to come just to find a boat. Don’t they have those where you’re living now?”

  “They do, but we also need a captain.”

  “Aye, those usually help with boats.”

  “We need a captain crazy enough to take us north.”

  The man’s smile faded. “Toward Iceland? Are you staring up your own arse? There’s bad weather that way. No one’s crazy enough to take their boat up that way.”

  “You are, Seamus.”

  Seamus stroked his stubbly chin. “Bollocks. These others with you, are they like you?”

  Patrick gave a quick glance to the odd assortment of Wind Warriors and humans. “Aye, for the most part.”