by Law, Lincoln
Whether it was the daze of hitting the ground so hard, or the sheer heat of the explosion, Faulkner thought everything seemed to fall into slow motion for a moment. The flame billowed upwards from the now-decimated house, black and crimon, as bodies went flying everywhere. Some were thrown further in his direction, others slammed into the wall opposite, while others were too quickly immolated to even move before their bodies were obliterated by the flames. The fire consumed the houses next door, and parts of the houses next to them, the fire spreading as if it were burning dry grass and not wood and brick.
In the distance, a far mightier explosion smashed its way through the air.
It came from the Architect’s Tower.
*
One minute,Ophelia thought, noticing the last of the gas powered lamps across the path from her, closer to the tower than the others.
There were no other lamps nearby, so she kept her gas stick burning to force away the fiends that had begun to circle her. They stayed some distance away from the fire, but still appeared more curious, more willing to approach the flames than before.
You’ve done this a million times before,she thought, as she felt her heart race, her hands turn sweaty, her mind transmuting into a tumbling mess of confusion. The stakes were higher this time—that she knew—but it had to be done.
There were only another ten steps to go before she was in the lamp’s light. She would be safe.
And then the flame at the tip of her gas bag went out.
The fiends circled in around her, gathering into the newly created shadows, seeming to vye for the right to maim the human before them. They snapped and snarled at her, revealing rows of sharp teeth and silvery claws.
It was a fiend that looked very much like a bear that attacked first.
It leapt at her, throwing all of its weight onto her. She crashed to the cold, wet ground, feeling one of her wrists break beneath the creatures paws. It roared at her, its breath like rancid flesh, saliva dripping onto her face. She screamed loudly. This was the end of her.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the scratch to tear her face off and crush the bone. She prepared for the momentary taste of blood before death took her.
Instead, she got howls and hisses, as the weight of the fiend was lifted from her. She opened her eyes slowly, confused. Behind her was a light. A soft, warm flame from a lantern hanging at the end of a pole.
It was a boy. No, a young man, dressed in blue, his eyes hidden by the cobalt hood of the LampLighter’s uniform. He pulled away the hood, and she knew in a second who it was.
“You!” she gasped. It was the man from the canal, the one who had helped her lift Faulkner to safety. He was a LampLighter, and he was now risking his life to save her. He was the one helping her! He smiled warmly at her, keeping the lamp hanging over her, its light soft, but powerful enough to keep the fiends at bay.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I saw you from my window. I had a feeling I might be needed, so I thought I’d put out a few gas lamps.”
“What are you doing out?” she asked.
“I saw you putting lamps out, and I thought I could help. Come on.” He smiled and held out a hand. “Let’s find somewhere safe to hide until it’s safe to go back through the city.”
She wasn’t the only brave one in the city now. Someone had shown her kindness, and concern for the city they lived in. It was a strange notion, to know that she wasn’t the only citizen brave enough to face the danger before them.
He took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. The half of his face illuminated by the lantern he had hanging on his cane was that of a young man her age, with deep brown eyes and hair. He pulled back his hood, the other side of his face suddenly illuminated by another light. She looked to the left of her, noticing a hearthfly flying towards them both. She looked up, noticing that hundreds more were beginning to converge around them, spiralling above in a slow, smooth motion. A hundred souls, a hundred hearts, all present to take witness to this single, beautiful act of kindness.
Around them both, fiends crumbled and melted beneath the light of the hearthflies, but Ophelia didn’t notice. For now, it was her, this young man, and the lights, keeping them safe.
“Thank you,” she whispered, taking his other hand with her unbroken hand so that they now shared the weight of the lantern in their grasps. “Tell me your name.”
“Sawyer,” he said quietly, leaning in to her, taking his arm away from her hand to rest it on the middle of her back. “And you’re Ophelia. I recognised you from the paper.”
She felt herself blushing. “Thank you, again,” she said, throwing her arms around him to embrace him.
At that moment, though, the clock chimed four.
No! Ophelia’s mind roared.
Around the city, she caught sigh of four mushroom shaped plumes rocketing into the air.
But how? she asked herself. I extinguished all the lamps.
Then, behind her there was a rumbling noise, as the lamp she had not gotten to exploded. First there came a pop as the gas-flow regulator broke from the pressure, and then a mighty explosion as fire and glass and metal sprayed outwards. She threw herself against Sawyer, pushing him onto the ground, and covered the top of her head with her hand. She looked up to the lamp, watching as a mighty jet of scarlet flame rocketed into the air, filling the space around her with a brilliant golden light. Fiends around her cried in agony, their skin blistering, their fur burning in the warm light. The fiends clambering the Architect’s tower illuminated by the flames fell from the stone walls, crunching atop one another as they fell onto the floor.
As she watched this, she noticed the flames atop the Architect’s cauldron, noting the way it seemed to flicker as if it wasn’t flowing smoothly.
Or as if the gas-flow regulator is buckling.
She looked around her, at the hearthflies and then at Sawyer.
“Run!” she roared, taking his hand, dashing from their quiet space as the rumbling grew louder, like an earthquake or storm building in power. Behind them, the hearthflies gathered, creating a wall of fire and flight, squeezing together as tightly as they could to protect the pair. They backed all the way to the wall, leaning against it as the hearthflies closed in around them. Between the cracks, she could see the tower, and the flame at its top. She let out a scream as it exploded, shooting into the air in a long beam of crimson fire, and then let out another cry as the fire, no longer blocked by the gas-flow regulator, burnt downward through the tower, causing an explosion in the pipes, blowing them outwards. Bricks shot away from the tower at a massive speed, seeming suspended for a moment by a column of blistering, hellish light. Rubble flew outwards, burnt red by the sheer heat, rocketing over the walls like comets. She could already feel the first few crashing through rooftops, combusting on impact in a spray of rock and fire. Before the pair, hearthflies left their posts, throwing themselves into the line of fire, stopping the massive bricks in the air. Both brick and hearthfly fell to the ground, unmoving.
“No,” Ophelia whispered, resting her head in Sawyer’s chest as a wall of heat blew over them. She was nearly knocked off her feet by the sheer force of the tower’s explosion, but the wall and Sawyer’s arms held her in place. Bricks and windows slammed into the five surrounding Vindicator towers, rocketing out the other end, breaking the foundations as easily as bullets through flesh. The hearthflies stayed, though, intercepting boulders before they could strike, withstanding the wall of infernal heat as it blustered against him, falling one by one to stray bricks or metal spikes.
They’re dying for us, Ophelia thought, feeling tears come to her eyes. Why would they die for us?
She remembered, though, that hearthflies was the souls of humans and their hearts. All that was good burned in the flames of the cauldron, held aloft by the dragonfly-like creatures. They were lost souls, freeing themselves into the next life the only way they knew how.
To die.
Almighty crashes sounded around them as what remai
ned of the Architect’s Tower, and the Vindicators’ Towers crumbled to the ground, shaking the foundations of the city with the sheer force. Sections of the wall broke beneath the force, while houses close to the wall were crushed by the toppling towers.
How many people hadn’t been fast enough?she thought. How many were dying beneath the fallen towers?
The more important matter remained, however; how had sections of the city still burst into flames?
“The Architect had a backup plan,” she thought aloud. “He must have prepared the Vindicators for it.”
Hearthflies were picked off quickly, their numbers dwindling from hundreds to only a handful in a matter of seconds. Each of the pure human souls sacrificed themselves for the pair, and all the while Ophelia and Sawyer embraced in the light of the fire, protecting each other .
The five Vindicator Towers shook the earth as they toppled to the ground.
“Come on,” Sawyer said. “We have to get through the city before it all burns down.”
By now, there were only three hearthflies left, all of them small and surely too weak to carry them. The others laid about the lawn, crushed beneath bricks, their flames burnt out, or impaled by stray bits of metal. There was no blood, though. Only the squished bodies of the insect-like beings, and smoke that rose from their extinguished fires.
One of the Vindicator towers that had toppled had smashed an entire section of the wall, allowing them to clamber over the rubble quite easily. At the highest point of the pile, though, Ophelia saw Castore, burning brightly. Dozens of sections of her city now had flames rising from them, licking the heavens, sending up dense black smoke.
He must have planned this all along.
“It’s spreading quickly,” Sawyer said. “We have to run. How is your wrist? I saw the fiend came down pretty hard on it”
“I can’t feel anything,” she said, rubbing her left wrist. “I’m too…numb.”
“Well let’s go.”
He took her by the hand and pulled her along, guiding her through the streets. As they passed through a courtyard, they both gasped at the Castoro statue, shattered into hundreds of pieces. Some lay broken upon the cobble grounds, while others were imbedded in nearby walls or rooves. These pieces had caught alight, too, though, so many of these houses had small flames rising from them, or the thick, black smoke that came before a fire ignited.
“We’re going to lose the city by the morning, aren’t we,” Ophelia said.
Sawyer gave no reply. He simply kept running, and Ophelia followed behind him, pulled along by the arm. The three remaining hearthflies stayed close.
The city burned around them, the smoke and heat carried on the wind. The road was littered with burned bodies, red and blistered flesh oozing with blood and serum from those that had crashed into walls in the explosion. She prayed that none of these were Faulkner.
As they turned a corner into the next street, they both let out a loud sigh. It was completely and utterly burning, every house falling in on itself as the wood that held it up crumbled to ash.
“Where do we go?” Ophelia asked, as she glanced back and noticed that one of the houses they had passed was now burning. They had to act quickly, because it was only a matter of time before it spread into the next one.
“We can’t go back. All those other streets lead directly into some of the more major fires. If we can get through this, perhaps we’ll be okay.”
She nodded, fearful but trusting. He nodded to her. “Let’s go,” he said, guiding her forward.
She had to wince as the heat buffeted against her in waves, as the houses were consumed by the flames, but she endured. It was like a tumultuous storm of fire within the houses, as everything—memories, possessions, perhaps even people—were lost to the flames.
The pair ran and Ophelia looked ahead of her through tightly shut eyes, sobbing quietly with each wave of heat against her skin.
In the light of the inferno, though, she caught sight of the puddles from the fiends that had been too slow in the flames. Slowly, as more and more flames spread about the city, and the shadows shrunk, they would all be consumed. Even those below water wouldn’t have been safe, thanks to the draining. She was sure, in fact, that if she went through the slums now, she would be able to see the bottom of the city lake, and whatever people had hidden below it. Perhaps she would even see the mechanism used to pump the water in the natural gas chamber beneath the city.
They emerged on the other side of the flames, puffing, sweating and in pain, but safe enough.
“We’re getting close to leaving,” Sawyer said assuringly. “Only a few more minutes until we’ll be safe across the wall.”
“You know about that?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “A man came to my door and told me of what was about to happen. I was the one who got a lot of my street away before I went out to join you. I already had my uniform on from earlier in the night. I had seen you on the streets only a few minutes before the man had come, so I knew what you were doing. I thought I might be able to help.”
Faulkner!Ophelia thought. I hope he is safe. And my mother!
“And it certainly seemed I needed it,” she said quietly, as they turned a final corner, arriving at the square of the Tyndibar Well. All of the fiends were dead, their bodies blistered and burning on the cobbles. Where gas lamps had once stood were tall columns of bright, crimson fire, jetting into the air only to dissipate a number of metres above.
“We’ve made it,” she whispered, stepping slowly through the courtyard and into the Well. Together, they waded through the Well, and togther they emerged on the other side to applause from the hundreds of people gathered. It was all a blur; the cheering, the faces before her. She tried to find Faulkner’s or Elenor’s, but everything fell out of focus.
Fatigue finally caught up with Ophelia, and her legs buckled beneath her. She never felt the splash of water, though, as she had expected. Instead, she felt strong arms.
A kind stranger’s arms.
Sawyer’s arms.
The Beginning
Once the flames have cleared, and the blood washed away; the fiends are destroyed, the slime of my city evaporated; the souls of those we’ve lost freed, and my own heart purified, I hope and pray that the twin cities can become a single city once more. I have high hopes for these LampLighter. They can save the city. Perhaps even purify it. But that might not happen for some time. Should I survive, I do have a hope that my brother and I can rule together; brothers on a single throne as our father always intended.
Ophelia heard voices around her, felt a cloth bathing her bare skin, and cold, clean water against her body.
She opened her eyes slowly, letting her eyes adjust slowly to the light.
She was still in the Tyndibar Well, but she was below a bright blue sky, with the sun high above. She moved her eyes but not her body. It hurt too much, particularly her left wrist. Beside her was a man she didn’t recognise, but somehow she felt safe, as he lifted handfuls of water and splashed it over her face. He looked down at her, his expression kind and warm, as his smile welcoming.
He lifted her head from the water, helping her to sit upright. She noticed now that she wasn’t naked as she had initially speculated, but rather wearing a simple cloth dress, the colour of cream.
How did I get changed,she thought. More suddenly, though, Where did all the people go? Time must have passed since she had passed out.
“You’re awake,” said the stranger. “Good.”
Who is he?She thought. His face looked somewhat familiar.
He was young, but his eyes had a wizened age to them that suggested his body didn’t display his true age. He had dark hair, almost black, and he spoke with a slow, soft voice.
As her senses came back into awareness with the rest of her body, she realised that the air she was breathing was not entirely fresh. In fact, she could smell smoke.
Everything that had happened the night before came rushing back to her
.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Pollock,” he said, “leader of Pollror, and now, it seems, Castore.”
She was surprised at her own lack of excitement. This was, after all, the true Architect. She was too tired at present to do much more besides talk, though.
“What are you doing to me?” she asked, as he washed another handful of water over her.
“I’m taking away your contract,” he said. “I was able to stop it before your hearthfly was released. Don’t worry. I’m nearly done.”
He muttered a few words after this, splashing the water upon her face. She blinked, looking up the sky wondrously. She had rarely seen the sun, and feeling its warmth against her skin was a strange experience. It reminded her of a smile; kind, warm, inviting. But at the same time, she thought of the fire that had consumed the city of Castoro. She thought of the dead hearthflies, and the dead fiends and the dead people incinerated in their homes. She let a few tears fall in their memories—the people and the hearthflies, that was.
“I have some questions,” she said.
“Ask what you please,” he replied. “I will do my best to answer.”
“Why is it you put contracts into people?” she asked. “Especially when you knew what it did.”
“At the beginning, I knew nothing of fiends. I thought it was just that in order for the contracts to be binding, we had to seal them in people. After we separated, though, I stopped putting contracts into people, and so instead Blessed them with no Obligaturgy. Those worthy of Blessings should hold no ties. It was my brother’s mistake in upholding an archaic ritual. Once he knew what broken contract would do, he should have stopped it. But in his arrogance and foolishness he refused to.”
She nodded. “So what will happen to Castore? To everyone’s homes?”
“The wall will come down, and the Well allowed to flow once more on both sides. It was my brother’s selfishness that caused the Well to dry up on his side. He redirected the flow of the water to his tower, and killed a man in cold blood in order to cover up his actions. Claiming the Well was tainted was simply a scapegoat. I hope that I can have the other side of the city built quickly, but for now we have emergency accommodation that people can live in until they’re ready to return home. It will be a long, hard task, but I think we can rebuild the city. In time.”