Faculty of Fire

by Alex Kosh

  “Now there’s no way you’ll get away from us,” said the troll behind my back. “This collar is connected to a control ring that I’m going to keep. If you try to run away or do anything else stupid, I’ll send the command, and the collar will choke you.”

  Wonderful! Oh, I was so right when I thought about that comparison with a dog ... I didn’t have any idea how Shins and I could get away from the trolls before, but now the problem was a hundred times worse. I just hoped they wouldn’t put one of these things on the Craftsman. It seemed like I was the only one they thought was “swift”.

  “And now we’ll go and check the teleports,” the troll declared, just to make me feel better. I noticed he had a gold ring on his finger.

  Interestingly enough, the trolls didn’t take me to the teleport through which we had arrived. They led me deep into the heart of the storeroom. On the way, remembering what Shins had said, I somehow managed to pick up a few small objects left on the floor after the destruction caused by Kelnmiir and the golem.

  Soon we reach an entire array of teleports, about ten of them in all.

  “Which of them aren’t working?” the troll asked me.

  “I need to examine them,” I replied.

  “You didn’t examine them before,” the troll remarked.

  They were getting a bit too clever, these stoneheads.

  “That was before,” I said angrily. “Now I need to examine them.”

  I walked up to the first teleport and threw a small pebble into it. And I was obliged to make a few passes with my hands as well ... so that things would look right ...

  The stone disappeared in a white flash.

  So that teleport was working. But of course, that didn’t mean that it could transport me. It only told me that the teleport wasn’t completely drained.

  When I threw a little stone into the next teleport, it disappeared in a red glow with a terrible whistling sound.

  “This one’s broken,” I said delightedly.

  Well, at least I had increased my chances of survival a little bit. ...

  “And the others?”

  “The others are working,” I said with a shrug.

  “Go through that one,” said the troll, nudging me towards one of the teleports. “And wait for me. If I come out of the teleport and don’t see you, the collar will choke you. Understand?”

  I nodded. What was so hard to understand about that?

  I stepped up onto the platform, squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to think about the fact that I could disappear in an instant ...

  When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was on a residential floor.

  “A few more trips like that, and I’ll have a nervous breakdown,” I said out loud and laughed nervously.

  “Zach?”

  I turned toward the voice and saw Chas running towards me.

  “Chas?”

  “Are you all right?” Chas roared, crashing into me and giving a hug that made my poor bones crunch in protest.

  He was alive! He was unhurt! That meant Alice must be okay too ... but ...

  “Chas! Hide, quick, a troll’s going to appear out of that teleport after me at any moment!”

  “A troll?” Chas stepped back from me, took out something that was obviously heavy from behind his back and smashed it into the teleport with all his strength ... several times

  On closer inspection the heavy object proved to be the iron leg of a chair, so the teleport platform suffered rather badly.

  “You broke the teleport!” I screeched. “What have you done? Now what’s going to happen to me? Now they’ll ...”

  “Zach!” Alice came running out of one of the corridors.

  Every thought in my head immediately evaporated.

  “Ali ...” I was knocked off my feet before I could get the phrase out.

  “Are you all right?” the vampiress exclaimed.

  “How can I put it,” I hissed. “Apart from the fact that you’re almost crushing me ... and ignoring this iron collar, which is going to choke me very soon ...”

  Alice instantly jumped to her feet and lifted my up by the scruff of my neck. Again! First the trolls, now Alice, I’d had it with being lugged around like that ... did they take me for a puppet, or what?

  “I thought it was a fashionable piece of jewellery you were wearing,” Chas remarked. “So get that thing off, if it’s so dangerous! And how’s it going to choke you anyway? And what are doing wearing a Craftsman’s livery?”

  “That’s a long story, guys. But I’m afraid I won’t have time to tell you it. First of all we have to get away from these teleports and take the collar off. The trolls will show up here soon ...”

  “That’s no problem,” Alice declared in a strangely happy voice. “We’ll move on to the next floor. They won’t find you there, I hope.”

  That was, of course, if they were planning to look for me at all. Maybe they’d decide it was simpler just to choke me with the collar ... only then they would have started me already... But there was nothing choking me just yet.

  “But how will we get to another floor?” I asked.

  “Well, not through the teleports,” Chas laughed. “Follow me.”

  Alice took hold of my hand (wow!) and led me after Chas.

  “Did you notice what floor we’re on now?”

  I looked round at the plaque.

  Forty.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  “Oh, that’s simple,” Chas replied.

  “We tied curtains together and climbed down them from floor to floor.”

  Way to go ... I remembered that we’d had the same idea, only it required time and considerable willpower. Dangling over a precipice on a bundle of rags was pretty frightening.

  “So now you’re suggesting I should climb down some rags from the fortieth floor to the thirty-ninth?”

  “Exactly,” Chas agreed. “We’ve got them all tied together and anchored already. So all we have to do is climb down ....”

  All we have to do is climb down? They had to be joking, may a dragon take them ... when I had Kelnmiir’s back to hold on to I almost lost my mind, but this time I’d have nothing but my own arms to rely on.

  “Just take a look,” Chas declared when we reached the window. “It’s an absolutely ideal arrangement.”

  That was when I really started feeling frightened. The “ideal arrangement” consisted of a long bench with a “rope” of curtains tied to it, so that any weight on the rope should wedge the bench tight against the wall on both sides of the window. What a nightmare!

  “And will this arrangement definitely hold us?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Why, of course,” Chas replied in surprise. “Alice and I have come down ten floors like that and we’re fine ... still alive and well. And, please note, there’s no wind outside the windows, because we’re completely cut off from the outside world, and without any wind it’s a lot easier. Now, if there was a wind swirling around ...”

  “Okay,” I said, flapping my hand at him. “Let’s get crawling quick, before I change my mind.”

  Chas went first. When he reached the thirty-ninth floor, he tugged on the rope to let us know that the next one could go down.

  “I’ll go with you,” Alice announced. “Just to be sure. Chas and I are used to it, but it’s your first time.”

  Alice began climbing first, and I followed her.

  I wanted to talk to Alice, tell her... about how worried I’d been about her ... but the moment I found myself dangling in space I forgot all about that. Fear took my breath away, my hands cramped convulsively and a sudden curse escaped from my lips.

  “Thrilling, isn’t it?” Alice asked from somewhere below, as if she was mocking me.

  “Thrilling,” I squeaked quietly.

  I could just barely manage to move my hands and was quite incapable of doing anything else. Except for thinking the one thought that kept hammering away in my head ... about the collar. Why hadn’t it started working yet?
Maybe it was because the troll was in the Museum, and the Museum didn’t have any windows? That is, because the whole space of the Museum was insulated. After all, Distant Mountain stone didn’t allow magical impulses through, so maybe the signal from his control ring couldn’t reach the collar. But did that mean that the iron collar would choke me as soon as the troll moved to a floor with windows?

  “Alice, let’s get a move on,” I said to the vampiress.

  What if the collar suddenly started to work while I was dangling on those curtains? I wondered what would happen first ... would I choke or would I be smashed to pieces? No, I had to drive these stupid thoughts out of my head ...

  But the collar did start to work before I set foot on the thirty-ninth floor, after all. I had just one yard left to crawl, Alice had already jumped in through the window, and at that very moment I felt the collar starting to tighten hard round my neck ...

  I tried to shout to my friends, but I didn’t have enough air. Coloured rings appeared in front of my eyes and my hands released their grip of their own accord ...

  Alice grabbed me and pulled me in the window at the very last moment.

  “Zach, what’s wrong with you?”

  They said something else too, but I didn’t hear what it was. The whole world was transformed into a red haze ...the last thing I saw before I passed out was Alice’s face, with her sharp fangs reaching towards my neck ...

  A small bat appeared in front of my eyes, fluttering its little webbed wings. And the bat was flying quite fast, even though it was clutching in its little paws a huge iron sword and a broom that were several times larger than itself ...

  “Zach! Wake up!”

  I slowly opened my eyes.

  My head hurt very badly. And my neck. The pain in my head was a kind of dull ache, but the pain in my neck was as sharp as if someone had run a hacksaw across it.

  “Did she bite me?” I asked, saying the first thing that came into my head.

  “Idiot,” Chas laughed. “She gnawed through the iron collar with her fangs.”

  So that was it ... but my neck had obviously suffered from her fangs as well. That was why it was hurting...

  “How could she do that?” I asked, suddenly remembering what had happened. “With her teeth? An iron collar? Where is she, anyway?”

  Chas thought for a moment: “Well ... I’d guess she’s in the bathroom...”

  “In a bathroom?”

  “She had to wash the blood off, and by the way, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to do the same.”

  I looked at myself and gasped in horror. I was covered in blood down to my waist!

  “Whose blood is it?” I asked in a trembling voice.

  Chas thought for a moment again.

  “Hard to say. I think about half and half. Half yours, half Alice’s. “Chewing through iron is hard, even for a vampire.”

  “Was she hurt very much,” I gasped in horror, instantly forgetting my own pain and jumping to my feet.

  The world immediately started spinning around me, but I managed to keep my balance nonetheless. Mostly thanks to Chas, who jumped over and helped me up.

  “To be quite honest, I haven’t got a clue.”

  I slowly ran my right hand across my face, trying to wipe off the blood. Just how much blood had been spilled?

  “Chas, let’s go and find Alice.”

  “I think we’ll find her easily enough from the tracks,” said Chas, nodding at the red smears that led off along the corridor.

  My head was still spinning, but we reached the bedroom at a run. The entire floor was occupied by classrooms, so naturally there weren’t any bathrooms as such. But there were communal restrooms.

  Just inside the door of the restroom there were washbasins and Alice was standing at one of them, washing herself off carefully.

  “Alice, how are you?” was the first thing I said.

  “Fine,” she replied without turning round.

  “Alice, you’re a real beast.” Chas started jabbering . “Chewing through iron, that really takes some doing ...”

  “That’s right,” I agreed. “Thank you, Alice, you saved my life.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Come on Zach, you get washed too,” said Chas, giving me a nudge. “Alice is already as good as new, and you look as if you’d been bitten by a vampire – no offence to Alice intended.”

  “I wouldn’t say I was as good as new,” said Alice, turning toward us with a sad smile.

  Too right ... broken fangs, torn gums and lips ... How terrible!

  “Alice ...” I said in a voice suddenly hoarse.

  There was nothing else I could say, so I walked up and hugged her tight.

  I don’t know how long we stood like that, but when I looked at the door, Chas wasn’t there any more. He must have gone to check out the situation on the floor.

  “You know,” I whispered quietly to Alice. “I was terribly worried about you ...”

  “Do you think we weren’t worried? You were grabbed almost right in front of our very eyes ...”

  “Heh ... grabbed.” I couldn’t help smiling. “That was the least dangerous of my adventures. So many things have happened to me in the last couple of hours ...”

  “Couple of hours? It’s actually eight hours since we parted,” the vampiress pointed out.

  Eight? Really, I hadn’t noticed.

  I looked closely at Alice ... and I just couldn’t help it: very gently, trying not to hurt her, I kissed her on the lips.

  “Well, well,” said Alice, unexpectedly laughing. “I had to gnaw through an iron collar to get you to kiss me at last ...”

  “I ...” again I didn’t know what to say.

  I was saved by Chas bursting into the restroom.

  “Now look,” he said indignantly. “You still haven’t cleaned up, and you’ve got Alice all dirty again. Clean up quick and come with me. I’ve found a stash with someone’s supper in it. And I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely starving.”

  Scene 7

  We sat in an auditorium for more than an hour. During supper I had time to give Alice and Chas the short version of how I’d spent the eight hours since we parted. How strange people (and vampires) are – they were simply green with envy! Of course, I could understand them, after all, tying curtains together and then climbing down, one floor after another, isn’t exactly an agreeable and interesting way of passing the time. And from the outside my adventures looked a lot more interesting than they really were. They took the fact that the Craftsmen had believed (or still did believe) that I was a spy quite calmly. Of course, Chas immediately declared that of all those present in the auditorium, I wasn’t the one who looked most like a spy. That was his tactful way of hinting at Alice’s mysterious vigils on the Craftsmen’s floor ...

  Chas particularly enjoyed what I told them about Kelnmiir, and when he learned that the vampire had been hiding and living in the same room as Alice ... It still amazes me even now that Alice and I didn’t tear him into tiny pieces for the sordid thoughts that were plainly written on his sneering face.

  I told them about my mission and said that without Shins, assuming he was still alive, we didn’t really have a chance. We all said nothing for a while, thinking about what we ought to do now.

  Incidentally, Alice and Chas had at least eaten normally. When I saw the food, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t eaten since the morning shift in the dining hall. I was really hungry ...

  “What I suggest is this,” Chas began. “We go down to the twenty-first floor ...”

  “Do we have to?” I asked, interrupting my friend. “I’ve just eaten so well, and you suggest we go dangling on curtains again ...”

  “Yes, we have to,” Chas said firmly. “In the first place, we might meet someone on one of the floors ...”

  “Trolls, for instance,” I suggested.

  But Chas was adamant.

  “And in the second place, it’s best for us to be close to the
floor where the Craftsmen are imprisoned ... and to the first floor too. Who knows what might happen? Besides, we could set up an ambush beside the teleports on the twenty-first floor. Maybe we could rescue Shins?”

  “Oh yes,” Alice said admiringly. “Rescue Shins. How do you plan to pull that off?”

  “We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Chas said blithely, jumping up off the bench. “Let’s go and tie some curtains together!”