Trial By Fire (Going Down in Flames)

by Chris Cannon

  “You won’t need it.” Miss Enid retrieved the key and pocketed it. “The locks are meant to keep people out, not trap them inside.”

  “Are you sure?” Bryn asked. “The universe seems to have a strange sense of humor when it comes to messing with me.”

  “True.” Miss Enid pointed down the staircase. “But the trapdoor is the only way in and out of this area.”

  “The blueprints of the library showed vaults under all four corners of the building,” Valmont said. “Does this lead to all of them?”

  “It leads to the area you’re allowed to access.” Miss Enid emphasized the allowed part. “Do not push your luck right now searching for something which may not exist. I applaud your quest for knowledge, but the Directorate is on high alert. Do not give them a reason to doubt your grandfather’s loyalty.”

  It was on the tip of Bryn’s tongue to say her grandfather had nothing to do with this, when she remembered her grandmother saying everything she did would reflect on them. “I’ll be careful.” That was the only promise she was willing to make.

  “Let me go first.” Valmont drew his sword. “As Miss Enid said, these are strange times.”

  He descended the stairs. As the sole of his boot hit each step, the rim of the next step lit up, providing enough light to see the step in front of him, but nothing of what lay beyond. The stairwell was so narrow Valmont’s shoulders almost brushed the stone walls.

  “Were people smaller when they built this?” Bryn asked.

  “It’s probably for defensive purposes. Any battles would be one on one. No group could sneak up on whoever was guarding the stairs.”

  “Good thing I’m not claustrophobic.” The stairs curved back on themselves five times before they reached a stone landing four feet wide where a wall sconce shaped like a torch flared to life. “Nice theatrics.” Bryn inhaled stale air that made her mouth taste like dust. “We should have brought bottled water.”

  “I doubt drinks are allowed in the archives.” Valmont moved forward down the hall, which was wide enough for them to walk side by side.

  The stone of the floor and walls were mortared together with something that sparkled, like ground-up diamonds. What was that about?

  The hall ended in a large wooden door with iron hinges.

  Valmont touched the hinges. “Look familiar?”

  Bryn nodded. “Looks like the magical Maintenance door on the first floor. I don’t suppose you see any weird cryptic messages.”

  “Not this time.” Valmont grabbed the handle and turned, pulling on the door. It opened without making a sound. “I expected those hinges to creak loud enough for the entire campus to hear.”

  The lights in the room beyond lit up, revealing floor to ceiling bookshelves and glassed-in cabinets containing museum qualify artifacts.

  Valmont pointed at a saddle with an intricate pattern of frozen flames created from embedded silver. “I want one.”

  “I’ll remember that next Christmas.” Bryn investigated the next glass case, which held a sword with the same frozen flame pattern etched onto the blade. “You might want to check this out before you make your list for Santa.”

  Valmont came to stand by Bryn and stared into the case with a longing that almost made her jealous.

  “Would you like some time alone with your new girlfriend?” Bryn teased.

  He backed up a step, shaking his head like he was trying to clear it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He pointed at the sword. “I’d swear there’s some sort of magnetic pull from that sword, like it wants to find a new knight.” He held his hand toward the glass. “Can you feel it?”

  Bryn moved in closer and stared at the sword, putting her palm flat on the glass. “No. I mean it’s beautiful, but I don’t feel the need to possess it. Let’s investigate the bookshelves and see if we can find the information for my paper and something about hybrids.”

  Valmont pointed at the old-fashioned mahogany card catalog. “Do we start there?”

  “I guess.” Fifteen minutes later Bryn had a newfound respect for anyone who’d done research before Google. “Why isn’t lineage under L?”

  “Did you try Directorate Lineage checks?”

  “Yes, and marriage and laws.”

  “What does lineage check for, in the simplest sense?” Valmont asked.

  Bryn racked her brain. “They talk about checking bloodlines.” She moved over to the B drawer. Halfway through blood-related titles, which there seemed to be a disturbing amount of, she found “Bloodlines: Lineage Checks.”

  “Finally. This card says the books start with number 762 and go through 894.”

  “That narrows it down,” Valmont headed for the bookshelves. After staring at a row of books, he sighed. “Did the card catalog tell you where the numbers were located on the books?”

  “They’re not on the spine, like normal library books?” Bryn moved to the closest shelf and grabbed a green leather bound book. The spine was bare. No title. No number. “It feels like the Directorate is mocking anyone who finds these books, like maybe you found our secret stash, but we removed all the titles to spite you.” She flipped the book open to the first page, The Best of Botany. She slammed it shut. “There has to be an easier way.”

  When Valmont didn’t respond, she glanced up. No knight. “Valmont?”

  “Over here,” he called from the other side of the ginormous card catalog. “You need to see this.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Goose bumps broke out on Bryn’s upper arms. “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t a good thing?” She walked around the card catalog and found Valmont staring at the wall.

  “Can you see it?” he asked.

  “I’m going to go with no, since all I see is the wall.”

  “It’s the same as upstairs. ‘Only those who have given their all may enter. Those who have taken everything must give to see.’”

  “And it’s just written on the wall?”

  “No. There’s an outline of a door.” He held his hand out to her. “Come here. I want to test a theory. I think the message refers to a knight and his dragon.”

  She moved closer and held his hand even though she didn’t like how the description made it sound like the knight gave while the dragon only took. “Okay. Now what?”

  He unsheathed his sword. “I think it want’s your blood.”

  She did not like where this was going. “Like in Mr. Stanton’s class?”

  He pulled the hand he held toward the wall. “I’ll hold the sword. You touch it.”

  It went against her instinct to willingly touch the razor sharp weapon, but Valmont would do it for her, so she slid her finger down the edge of the blade, flinching as it sliced through her skin.

  The sword glowed red as Bryn’s blood trickled down the blade.

  “Touch the wall right there.” Valmont pointed at a blank piece of stone four feet off the ground with the tip of his sword.

  A tingling sensation started on Bryn’s scalp the closer her finger came to the wall. When she touched the stone, an electric shock made her wince. The smell of hot copper filled the air. And the wall was gone. In its place was a wooden door with iron hinges. “No way.”

  Valmont grabbed the handle and pulled. This door did creak from disuse. No lights came on, but the scent of dust and decay drifted out to them.

  “I don’t think anyone has been here in a long time.” Bryn produced a fireball in her right hand and leaned in the doorway, scanning the area for anything dangerous.

  A long wooden table took up the center of the room. Books were stacked on the table and spilled over onto the floor.

  “Seems safe enough.” Valmont crossed the threshold batting cobwebs out of his way. He pointed at a fat candle in a sconce on the wall. “Light that.”

  “Sure.” Bryn lit the candle with her flame. The sound of creatures scurrying across the floor made her shiver. When something scrambled over her foot, she jumped backward.

  “It�
�s only a mouse,” Valmont said.

  She might be a kick-ass shape-shifting dragon, but a mouse crawling over her foot still gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  Valmont laughed, like he knew what she was thinking.

  “Shut up.” As the flame on the candle grew, light filled the room. How was that possible? And then she saw it. The wall behind the sconce held a large mirror, which directed the light across the room to another mirror, where it bounced across the room again. “That,” she pointed at the candle, “is ingenious.”

  “And probably a bit magical,” Valmont said.

  From the table, Bryn picked up a dust-covered book. Scrawled inside, she found names, with lists next to them, like a family history of greed, malice, and cunning. That was weird. Did the person who made this list consider those positive or negative traits? The elements symbol, a circle with the four triangles representing the elements, was drawn at the bottom of the page. Family names were written in under the different elements. If this was Directorate property, had there ever been a time when that symbol didn’t mean treason? She tried to turn the page, but it crumbled beneath her fingertips. “Crap. Should we get Miss Enid to look at these? She might be able to preserve some of them.”

  “Are you sure you want to share the existence of this room?”

  “If anyone else discovered it and found out we already knew, we’d be labeled as disloyal. We’ll tell Miss Enid when we go back upstairs, but for now, we investigate. Sound good?”

  Valmont checked his watch. “We have time.”

  The room held books in varying states of decay. A glass case on the wall contained leather bound scrolls. Another case held daggers. Using the tips of her fingers, Bryn picked up a scroll and gently laid it on the table. Touching the edges, she unrolled it, becoming more confident as the scroll unwound without breaking. “This is so cool.”

  She scanned the handwritten report detailing Clan members that were allowed to marry and those that weren’t. “I wish this told us how they tested the bloodlines. There’s a drawing of two dragons touching some sort of maze or plate.”

  “I might have found that.” Valmont carried what looked like an oversize metal dinner plate. He placed it flat on the table so she could see it. “Careful, the rim looks razor sharp.” A channel started on both sides of the plate and then turned into a maze, which met in the center.

  “Do you think they actually bled on this and did some sort of scientific test?”

  “Maybe.” He cocked his head to the side. “Do you hear that?”

  Bryn listened. “I hear the disturbing sounds of tiny scurrying feet which will probably haunt my dreams tonight. That’s about it.”

  Valmont pointed toward the back of the room. “It’s coming from over there.”

  Bryn followed him around the table to what appeared to be a box covered by a tapestry. He flung back a corner of the cloth to reveal another one of the glass display cases. Inside rested a sword etched and decorated with a red metal that created a design which looked like fire and some bluish metal embedded alongside it to resemble frozen flames.

  “Holy crap.” Here was physical proof hybrids had existed in the past. “No one would make a sword with both elements on it unless they were bonded to a hybrid dragon.”

  Valmont didn’t respond. He was too busy running his hands over the case.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This has to open somehow.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Bryn asked. “There could be booby traps.”

  “Not against a knight who serves a Red-Blue Hybrid,” Valmont said like he was 100 percent certain. “Ah-hah.” He pushed on something, and the side of the case swung open.

  Bryn could feel something like Quintessence pulsing from the case. “Be careful.”

  “It’s meant for me.” Valmont reached in and grasped the pommel, which was decorated with red and blue stones. Whoosh. Magic pulsed through the air like a wave.

  With great reverence, Valmont removed the sword from the display case and held it up to the light. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  The red and blue etchings seemed to pulse in the light.

  “It is.” Bryn noticed something else. “I think it comes with its own carrying case.” She reached in and pulled out a black leather scabbard. Since Valmont didn’t seem inclined to set the sword down, she buckled the black leather belt around his waist. “There you go.”

  “I’m not ready to put it away yet.” He looked like a five year old with a brand new Star Wars light saber.

  A thought occurred to Bryn. “We need to head upstairs and share this with Miss Enid.”

  “I’m not sharing my sword,” Valmont said in a tone, which sort of sounded like he was joking.

  “I doubt anyone will try to take it away from you. As for the rest of this,” Bryn indicated the dusty old books and scrolls, “she’s probably the only one who can read the books without destroying them.” Something caught Bryn’s attention. Amid the dust on the far wall, something twinkled. “What’s that?”

  Valmont turned to see where she was going. “What’s what?”

  “The sparkly thing.” As Bryn walked toward it, the light winked out. “Where’d it go?”

  “Where did what go?”

  Had the sword scrambled his brain? “The light on the wall.” Bryn hurried forward and scanned the items on the back shelf. There were boxes of paper and blank scrolls. Empty wooden boxes sat with their lids propped open.

  A strange warmth started in Bryn’s chest. Wait, not in her chest, on her chest. She pulled on the golden chain, which held the gold key with the red and blue stones. The key itself felt warm…far warmer than her body temperature.

  “I think the key is attuned to something in here the same way you were attuned to that sword.” Taking great care, she pulled the chain over her head and let the key dangle from it. Even though there was no breeze in the room, the key swung forward and to the right.

  “It’s like a magical magnet?” Valmont asked.

  “I guess.” Bryn advanced in the direction it indicated, taking care not to step on the books, which lay scattered about on the floor. It seemed to be leading her to a shelf, which held intricately carved wooden boxes.

  “Before you try to open any of those, we should make sure it’s safe,” Valmont said.

  “The same way you made sure that case was safe when you were trying to reach the sword?”

  “Point taken.” Valmont joined her by the boxes. “I believe this falls under the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do rule. Which box does the key want?”

  Bryn extended her arm, holding the chain out so that the key dangled in front of the boxes. It swung forward and landed on top of the box in the middle. Leaning in close, Bryn blew on the top of the box, scattering layers of dust. She used her sleeve to gently wipe away years of residue, revealing a keyhole surrounded by red and blue stones.

  “This could be big,” she told Valmont.

  “It could, but be careful.”

  Afraid if she picked the box up it might fall apart, she placed the key in the box and gently turned it to the right. The lid slid sideways rather than opening like a normal treasure chest.

  Nestled in blue silk, lay a thick gold cuff bracelet with red and blue stones. She picked it up and stared at it before attempting to slide it onto her left wrist. It didn’t fit, so she tried her right wrist where it slid on and fit like a second skin. The metal of the bracelet felt cold, but then warmed to her body heat. Magic pulsed up her arm making her suck in a breath and then the bracelet stung her… It felt like two fangs had sunk into her wrist. She gasped as a wave of dizziness hit.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  One minute she was looking at Valmont in the secret room, and the next minute she was surrounded by darkness. “Valmont?”

  She could hear him saying her name, but he sounded far away.

  “If you want to wield the bracelet, you must survive the Trial By Fire,” a disembodied voice spoke in Bryn’s m
ind. “Prove your worth or burn.”

  Okay, she hadn’t signed up for this. Time to put the psycho bracelet back in its box. She tried to move but was frozen in place. Crap. She tried to shift. Nothing happened.

  Out of the darkness, she could see the bracelet. Red fire and Blue frozen flames swirled around within the gold and then shot up her arm, wrapping around and around and writhing like a red and blue boa constrictor that wanted to eat her whole. Her heart pounded as the fire and ice constricted. The twin flames worked it’s way up her shoulder to her neck, tightening as it went, and then the snake reared back, flame fangs exposed before it struck, biting her carotid artery. Fire and ice shot through her veins, taking her breath away, but it didn’t burn. “You are worthy,” the disembodied voice said. “Wield the power well.”

  Fire and ice shot from her palm in a long thin stream and then froze in place creating a sort of sword.

  “Wow.” She felt the weight of the sword in her hand, like it was real.

  And then she was back in the secret room with Valmont calling her name. “Bryn?”

  “I can hear you now.” She turned the sword, admiring the flames.

  “You’re all right?” Valmont stared at the sword.

  She nodded.

  “You’re sure?” he asked. “Because flames are shooting out of your hand, and that’s not normal.”

  “No, but it is cool.” She told him about the voice and what it had said to her.

  “What would have happened if a dragon with the wrong lineage tried it on?”

  “According to the voice, he would burn.”

  “Makes me thing we should be a little more careful with what we find down here.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” she asked.

  “Let’s try a little test.” He picked up a piece paper. “Hold still.” He dragged the piece of paper over the blade of Bryn’s sword. It sliced right through it like it was made of air. “Yep, it’s a real sword.”

  “This is so cool.” Bryn grinned at Valmont and struck a fencer’s pose. “En garde.”

  He laughed. “I don’t think there’s enough room in here for a proper duel.”