Spectrum

by Samantha Mina

  And, now, I was about to get thrown into a pit containing millions or maybe even billions of gallons.

  “No! That’s my daughter! Stop!”

  A couple hundred feet away, Mother came running through the packed crowd, hair swinging. She was closely followed by Father, bright purple in the neck, and Caitiff, who was a sick, pale shade of yellow. With one swing of Caitiff’s powerful wrist, five unsuspecting men were knocked to the sand. Amytal flew above them, wings a blue blur.

  “OUT OF OUR WAY!” called Father’s sonic voice. “PUT HER DOWN, RIGHT NOW!”

  In an instant, System mages surrounded my family, lassoing spectrally-fortified ropes around each of their power-sources—Mother’s hair, Father’s throat, my sister’s wings and my brother’s wrists.

  “Decree twenty-five of the System Syllabus strictly forbids the use of offensive magic against innocent townspeople,” the Principal said in a cool tone.

  “I don’t care!” Caitiff yelled, hint of so-called ‘unusable’ throat magic giving his usually-melodic voice a threatening edge. “You’re murdering my sister!”

  “It’s not murder,” the Principal retorted, rather calmly. “The System reserves the right to—”

  “You can’t kill Scarlet!”

  “Resisting the System is punishable by death,” he said, viciously.

  Flames zipped from his hair to the ropes.

  “NO!” I screamed.

  Behind closed eyes, I could see the unspeakable unfold. Yes, I could see my family crying, cursing and thrashing, as they burned alive.

  Hot rage, unlike anything I’d felt before, swept through my body. Spectrum pulsed through my veins like venom, rippling my hair, burning my eyes, flushing my skin.

  The town watched with excitement as the olive-green man held me over the Fire Pit fence. Over and over, my mind—cursed with eidetic memory—replayed the instant my family collapsed in unison, flesh blackened.

  “The termination of Scarlet Carmine July will commence on this twenty-fifth day of July of the eighty-seventh age, by order of System Principal Tiki Tincture.”

  The man’s grip loosened and I slid, flames licking the bottom of my robe. My family fell once more in my mind; it was all I could think about. I didn’t care if I was about to die. I just wanted revenge.

  I opened my eyes, ignited a lock of hair and struck my captor in the chest. He shrieked and dropped me. But, before I could fall to my death, I snagged the fence with another lock and pulled myself over, swooping into the scattering crowd. Then, I spun on the balls of my feet, whipping my hair out, spraying fire in all directions.

  And, that was when I learned my flames weren’t soothing like a handful of Pit Fire. Apparently, my fire, in any quantity, consumed human flesh. Instantly.

  “I told you!” the goateed man from my Circle Trial shouted to the System mages ducking beside him. “Four ages ago, I warned all of you what she could be!”

  Chaos surrounded me. People screamed and ran and pushed and shoved. System wing mages dove from above and shot magically-reinforced ropes around my body. My eyes pumped fire up the bindings and burned their hands right off their arms. Another System officer arrived at the scene on scabrousback, a tank of water strapped to his back, a hose in his auburn hands. He shot a powerful stream directly at my face, but—I couldn’t believe it—my fire ignited the water itself.

  I guessed I wasn’t Useless, after all.

  * * *

  Untrained and young, only about thirty minutes passed before I ran out of photons to keep fighting fire with fire—my eyes went dull and my hair went limp. But, the chase continued for hours thereafter. And, as I ran around, it slowly dawned on me why I was able to hold out for so long, especially when I wasn’t a particularly fast runner (I was a lot swifter in the water than I was on land). Sometimes, it seemed like they just… couldn’t see me. It was like, one moment, they were hot on my tail, and the next moment, they were turning in circles and yelling that I’d ‘vanished.’

  I couldn’t keep it up forever, though. I was outnumbered and, eventually, too exhausted to take another step. By twenty-one o’clock, they managed to seize me, shackle me and throw me in a cell aboard a submarine.

  The System couldn’t kill me, so they settled for deporting me. They never deported anyone before. I was the first citizen they weren’t able to execute when they wanted to.

  The sub headed northeast, across the Fervor Sea and the Briny Ocean, to the peninsular nation of Nuria, a ‘democratic-republic,’ whatever that meant. The only possessions I had were the two robes I’d put on before going outside to find Fair, earlier in the afternoon—I always wore layers before leaving my cabin, because I got cold so easily.

  Nuria. How would I live there? I had no trade and no support system. So, my life would depend on my untrained magic? If so, I was in deep trouble. I clearly couldn’t control my powers too well; my fire ignited with emotions. Oh, Tincture. What was I going to do?

  Slowly, as the night passed, resolve started smoldering in my chest. No, I didn’t need a support network. I didn’t need anyone. Not even a magister to teach me. I’d educate myself. I loved to read and could consume books faster than anyone I knew, even the adults. So, I’d go to libraries, laboratories, research centers and most importantly, mage castles. I’d study every day and learn to control my spectrum on my own. And, I’d be content with knowledge as my only possession. I wouldn’t let myself get weighed down by anything that could be lost, like friends or items of material or sentimental value. I wouldn’t stay in one place either, lest I become attached to my environment. With just the robes on my back and the sundial tied to my wrist, I’d be content. This was my code of life.

  On the twenty-seventh of July—after two days and two nights sleeping on the splintered wooden floor, urinating and defecating in the corner of my cell and eating dragon giblets and rotten taro stems the guards threw at me—we arrived at the southeastern shore of Nuria, in a port of a village called, ‘Alcove.’

  On the way out of the sub, the Captain, whose feet were gnarly and green, read off a scroll: “I, Captain Uncure Livision, declare ten-age-old Scarlet Carmine July, born July seventh of the seventy-seventh age, permanently exiled from the South Conflagrablaze Captive by order of System Principal Tiki Tincture. Such is the consequence of July’s violation of laws seven-two-five and seven-eight-seven, committed the twenty-fifth day of July of the eighty-seventh age. All System decisions are final.”

  And, with that, he kicked me. I wasn’t expecting it, at all. His green foot struck me square in the stomach; I cried out and fell backward. I willed my hair to do something, anything, to fight back, but this time, it didn’t move. A guard’s yellow hands seized me under the arms from behind and dragged me out the door.

  Once out of sight of the Captain, the yellow guard let go of me. I looked up into his brown eyes and thought I saw a flicker of sympathy. I wanted to run, to put as much distance as possible between myself and anyone from the System, but his kind gaze froze my feet.

  “Take this,” he whispered. “It’ll keep you strong.”

  He shoved a rough, ovular, silvery stone into my hands. It caught the light and sparkled like sunlight dancing on water. I’d never seen anything so beautiful before. I stared at it, captivated. I wanted to thank the guard, but when I looked up, he was gone. I watched as the sub sank back beneath the surface of the Briny Ocean.

  Doubt punctured my captivated awe for the rock. Material objects, like people, were always temporary, and when they were lost, pain resulted. I knew what I had to do. I had to get rid of the crystal before I became too attached to it. But, as I held it in my palm, I couldn’t bring myself to drop it in the ocean. It wasn’t just beautiful, it was… well… I felt like it was a part of me. In that wild moment, I decided to break my code, just this once, and keep it. I thrust it into my pocket.

  My eyes fell on the rough, wooden dock. Oh, yes. I was all alone on the shore of a strange and new land—a land, the System mages said, a
s vast as First Earth’s United States of America. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention—not from spectrum, but fear. And, cold. The air was downright frigid. What temperature was this? I’d never felt anything like it before. I shivered and drew my robes tighter around my bony body as I looked in wonder at the sky, which was blue instead of orange. Boy, were the cabins huge around here. As tall as the clouds themselves! And, they were made of some sort of shiny, silver material rather than wood. I ‘zoomed in’ my eyesight and examined the village. Just as I’d hoped, there were plenty of places to educate myself: I learned later they were called, ‘laboratories,’ ‘libraries’ and ‘museums.’ But, no mage castles. How was this possible? I felt like I swallowed a lump of raw, slimy, scabrous-dragon meat. People here wore black jackets over collared white shirts, pleated pants and tube-like skirts. Not robes. They drove self-propelled, multicolored wagons. How did these wagons go without scabrouses to pull them? What was everything running on, if not spectrum? Was there a different kind of energy source here?

  Nuria was no place for a mage.

  But, as I stood, back to the ocean, a burning mix of curiosity and ambition slowly replaced my fear. I wasn’t going to stay ignorant—I’d start my self-education, right away. The first thing I needed to do was get a closer look at ‘Alcove City,’ to get some bearings. Get some sense of my environment. I’d take a walk.

  Many paths—which I learned later were called ‘roads’ or ‘streets’—were lined with candles twenty feet tall. I walked right up to one, staring in awe at the white flame standing perfectly still, at the top. I climbed up the pole, which didn’t feel at all like wax, and reached a lock of hair into the glass frame. I touched something solid and somewhat warm. What? This wasn’t fire! What was it? Artificial fire? Wow. I couldn’t believe it. If only the people of Conflagria could see this!

  My excitement wore off as I slid down the pole. I wasn’t a part of Conflagria anymore; I needed to stop thinking about my old home. I had to separate myself from my past—even if that meant learning to live without Pit fire, without possessions, and without the only people I loved in this world.

  I spent the entire night exploring Alcove City. I was stunned I could just walk around freely without being stopped or questioned by anyone. It felt strange. Exciting. And, terrifying.

  When I saw a street-sign for the first time, I realized the Nurian language didn’t even share the same alphabet as Conflagrian. Only the number symbols were the same. Great.

  At some point in the night, I fell asleep by a giant, smelly, green box of trash behind a big cabin made of rectangular, red blocks. Long snakelike wagons zipped to and from the building, on black, striped tracks. I soon learned this was a ‘train station’ and the big bin was a ‘dumpster.’

  The next morning, my stomach hurt with hunger. It took me by surprise. The previous day, I was too emotional to be hungry. Desperate, I climbed inside the bin and unearthed an apple core that still had a few bites left on it. I scrambled out with my find, dry-retching from the stench.

  I wandered until I wound up at the entrance of a shiny, metallic cabin full of books. I saw from a short distance the doors had no knobs. How would I get inside? Then, when I was just a couple feet away, the glass panels slid apart, on their own. I gasped. I didn’t sense a photon of spectrum in the doors. How did they move by themselves like that? Were they powered by the same stuff as the self-propelling wagons and the hard, lukewarm fire?

  A man pushed past me, bellowing a garble of sounds. So, that was what Nurian sounded like? Tincture. It was like a mouthful of consonants. There was so much to learn! How was Conflagria on the same planet as this strange country?

  It took me twenty minutes just to get past the doorway. I examined the doors as they opened and closed, eyes dissecting their inner workings. And, slowly, I came to understand the basic concept of ‘electricity,’ the Nordic substitute for spectrum. Of course, I didn’t know it was called that until I read the word in a book, later on.

  When I finally went inside, I immediately sought out a librarian. I needed to find out when the library closed so I’d know when to leave and sneak back in. But, when I addressed the elderly woman behind the front desk—in Conflagrian—she stared at me for a moment with disgust and confusion in her brown eyes, then shook her head, pointed to the exit and screeched in Nurian. I shrank away from her, feeling her harsh glare on my back.

  I spotted something on the wall. It was round and had numbers all around it. A sundial, indoors? How did it tell time without shadows? I stared at the numbers. There were thirty-six of them. Thirty-six? There were twenty-four hours in a day. This was crazy. Nuria didn’t even tell time the same way as Conflagria?

  Eager to find answers to my questions—any of them, I didn’t really care which, at this point—I went to a shelf and randomly pulled out a large volume. Books here were so polished, the pages so white and clean. I couldn’t even see weaves in the parchment. Amazing. I stared at the words. Of course, I couldn’t understand a thing. Feeling slightly panicked, I yanked open another book. And, another. Unless the library had something in Conflagrian, I wasn’t going to get very far in my self-education. I ran up and down the rows, eyes scanning spines, and, sure enough, everything was in Nurian.

  Heartrate rapid, I plunked down on a puffy chair with much-too-high armrests—nothing like the wicker rockers or wooden stools I was used to, back home—and breathed with an open mouth. I needed a Nurian-Conflagrian dictionary, or something along those lines. But, if this huge building full of books didn’t have one, would anywhere?

  Conflagria was, what, fifteen-hundred miles away from this country? Nuria was the closest nation to Conflagria on the map, and yet we knew nothing about them, and, apparently, they knew nothing about us. I wondered, why were nations—even neighboring ones—so very ignorant of one another?

  I watched as two boys and a woman came in and sat at the table nearest to me. A mother and her children, perhaps? The woman had short blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and wore what looked like a sparkly crystal on her left hand—it glistened a lot like the one in my pocket, but it was clearer and whiter. One of the boys looked a lot like her. He was lanky and had sandy hair and bright hazel eyes. He spoke with a mellow voice and smiled a lot. The other boy was shorter, louder and had buzzed, light-brown hair. They plopped their knapsacks—which I later learned were called ‘backpacks’—on the table and pulled out strange-looking books lined with silver coils and featherless quills that were oddly narrow and short—‘notebooks’ and ‘pens,’ I soon learned. For a couple hours, I watched, fascinated by the sounds of their language, as the the three of them talked, laughed and read. This was my first clear and prolonged exposure to spoken Nurian. The kids looked, what, twelve or thirteen ages old? Were they doing some sort of school project? But, it was July. Nurians had school in the middle of summer? Well, not on Saturday mornings, apparently, because they were here, in this book-house, instead. In Conflagria, Sunday was the only day Fair didn’t train.

  “When will Arrhyth be back from Oriya, again?” the buzz-haired one breathed. I figured, by now, the boys were probably friends or classmates, not brothers. “Sucks we have to do all this stuff for our project without him. Not fair. ’Specially since we can’t even use his dad’s library as long as he’s away.”

  “They’ll be back on the ninth, Ecivon,” the blonde kid answered. “Arrhyth doesn’t get to go on these trips with his dad too often, so they left a week before the Order’s meeting, to make a vacation out of it.”

  Ecivon snorted. “The ninth! The project’s due the tenth, Nurtic. Figures the son of the leader of the world government would get away with that. Ugh.”

  Nurtic just shrugged.

  Wait, when exactly did their words start making sense to me? And, how? My heart pounded in my throat. I didn’t understand everything, maybe every second or third word. But, still, that was incredible.

  “We got assigned to the same group as the son of the Second Earth Orde
r Chairman,” Ecivon reeled, “and we don’t even get to use his dad’s crazy, home library. We’re stuck here instead.”

  “Stuck here?” Nurtic echoed, laughingly. “This is the National Library. The biggest library on the coast. We’re not exactly starved for resources. And, I don’t think we’d need any of Mr. Link’s international stuff, anyway. This is a science fair project, not social studies.”

  “What ‘social studies’?” Ecivon smirked. “Do the Isolationist Laws leave us any social studies to study?”

  “Heh, good point.”

  There was a pause.

  “I guess, I was just curious to see what kind of stuff Mr. Link has, you know?” Ecivon piped. “Arrhyth’s always bragging about it at school.”

  I sat up straight, gripping my armrests. World government? Isolationist Laws? Second Earth Order? What? It all sounded very important. How come this was the first time I’d heard of any of this, if it was so important?

  The woman looked at the automated sundial on her wrist. “Alright, boys, time to go!” she chimed, smiling the same dimpled smile as Nurtic. “Let’s go get ready for your basketball game!”

  My mind was swimming. So, Arrhyth Link was the classmate of these two buffoons, and the son of the Chairman of a world government called the Second Earth Order. Mr. Link had a home library with ‘international stuff,’ as Nurtic so eloquently put it. These resources were special. Not available in regular libraries. Why? Because of the…Isolationist Laws?

  “Can we stop by Arrhyth’s on the way home, mom?” Nurtic swung his bag over his left shoulder. “I told him I’d leave a copy of the syllabus with his housekeeper, so he can have it as soon as he gets back.”