Firestone Key

by Caroline Noe

  Grain’s frown made his grey eyebrows meet in the middle, compounding the churlish expression. He was, however, too old and wise to care much about being naked, except for the ambient temperature.

  “Be cccold,” stuttered Melith, her teeth chattering.

  “Surely,” Harlin agreed, stubbornly crossing his arms. “But ye not having me shift. Be all I have on also.”

  “Who finded Key of Old?”

  “Really not having goodly day,” he sighed, removing the tattered shift and revealing his broken body in all its horrifying detail of burns, scars and deformed bones.

  Melith was levering the filthy garment onto her somewhat differently arranged bulk when she spotted the other naked, hairy man.

  “Drevel, be that ye?”

  “Be so, Melith,” the former dog replied. His own voice sounded strange to his ears, after all those years of barking.

  “Ye not looking day older and still hairly, I see,” she laughed.

  “Melith,” scolded Harlin.

  “Oh, hush childlin,” Melith shot back. “We be naked, that all.”

  “Has she died, yer mother, er the Queen?” wondered Drevel. “We all changing...”

  “Not know,” admitted Harlin, his mind spinning. He missed Elaine’s presence; he desperately needed to talk to her. The heartache was suddenly replaced by an appalling, searing pain, almost as terrible as the agony that he had endured on the torture table. It was as though his head was being gripped by a vice and his limbs stretched on the rack.

  Melith tried to wrap her arms around the writhing young man, but she drew back from the heat emanating from his body. “Childlin, we be here,” she cried out, powerless to help him.

  * * *

  Leila glared at Elaine in utter triumph as a terrible scream echoed through the trees. It was Harlin’s voice and he was obviously in unbearable agony.

  “Ah, that’ll be my son,” said Leila, without the slightest compassion for her estranged child.

  “What have you done?” Elaine’s confusion was rapidly accelerating into dizziness.

  “Exactly what you asked,” Leila replied, her beautiful smile belying the depths of her malevolence.

  Elaine’s vision blurred and pain stabbed its way through her brain. Voices echoed around her; voices from the Project…

  “Careful, Elaine.” It was Neil’s voice.

  “Work, damn you.” That was Leila, from another time, another place.

  Elaine glared up at a woman she knew, and didn’t know. “What are you doing to me?”

  For the first time, Leila looked confused. “To you? Nothing.” She spoke the truth.

  * * *

  Harlin’s unremitting agony had become unbearable to those watching his suffering, even the contemptuous Grain. Whatever sin Gawain’s son had committed, so long ago, he didn’t deserve this torture. Deformed, broken bones twisted and snapped back into place with a horrifying crunch. His fingers, right leg and knee joint snapped and ground their way to their new positions. Bony calluses were absorbed back into his skeleton while an invisible flame reversed the terrible burns to his arm, eating away the scars to reveal smooth skin. Finally, the glissade skin of his face melted, dropped even further and fell away, leaving fresh, olive skin beneath.

  With the process complete, an utterly traumatised Harlin crawled into a foetal ball while sobs racked his changed body. Melith, Drevel and Grain stared at one another in shock until Melith’s kind heart took over. She knelt beside him and gently stroked his hair.

  * * *

  Disturbed by Elaine’s groans, the renders whimpered and growled, pulling at their chains. When the pain appeared to subside and her vision cleared, Elaine found Leila standing over her.

  “Enough stalling,” the Queen snarled, without the slightest concern for her former friend.

  “I’m not stalling,” Elaine told her. “I’ve been feeling strange since I got here.”

  “I don’t care,” was Leila’s succinct response. She held out the Firestone. “Show me, now.”

  Elaine stared at the pebble and back at Leila. She took the offending rock from Leila’s hand with trembling fingers. She had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do, but if she didn’t do something soon…

  There was a rustle, heralding the arrival of a naked man, bursting through the foliage and heading straight for the Queen. His wild eyes mirrored the insanity and hatred burning behind them. Adam was intent on murdering the witch who had ruined his life. He moved so swiftly that he barrelled into Leila before her soldiers had a chance to react. Utter chaos ensued. As the soldiers rushed to her aid, Adam plunged a knife into Leila’s exposed chest and retreated out of reach before her fingers could touch him. He escaped back into the trees.

  Stunned, Leila stared down at the dagger’s hilt, protruding from her body. Trying to stem the flow of blood, she screamed, “Gergan! Loose the renders and get the Firestone!”

  Gergan unchained the renders and moved towards Elaine. Unfortunately, for the High Priest, the renders immediately raced after the fleeing Adam, leaving the soldiers floundering in their wake. Elaine took the opportunity to escape the melee and dash into the trees, heading in the opposite direction to Adam.

  “Elaine, I’ll die without it!” Leila called after her.

  For the first time since their grim reunion, Elaine heard the voice that she knew and hesitated. Looking back at the bleeding Leila, Elaine recalled their years together, but she also remembered the suffering of her new friends. She chose to run. She wasn’t there to witness the hurt in Leila’s eyes morph into seething anger.

  “Get all the priests,” Leila gasped to Gergan. “Take me to the castle. Baal can protect me. Get the Fire…” Leila’s tirade ended when she fainted and was caught by Gergan. He peered around, but there was no-one left to order. He gathered Leila into his arms and carried her.

  * * *

  The newly defrogged Serena was now sporting an over-sized jacket, courtesy of Gwyneth. It may have been far too wide for the statuesque, yellow haired beauty, but it was also too short. Serena yanked on it, trying to adequately cover her bottom.

  “So, Gwyneth, ye be grown,” she remarked, remembering the fat, jolly teenager she had left behind, ten years before.

  “What that mean?” Gwyneth griped, bristling. She had always been jealous of this beauty, particularly remembering how Harlin and Myrrdinus had both mooned over her, when they were young. Even worse, she had seemingly not aged whilst spending the decade as a frog. She still looked twenty six, making her younger than Myrrdinus, now.

  “Ye be older,” Serena explained, in all innocence. “Ye been little thing, last time I seen ye.”

  “Ye been with Harpy all ten year?”

  “In cage. Aye.” Serena looked away. Those terrible years were not something she wanted to dwell on. Pointedly changing the subject, she observed, “Myrrdinus grown into finely man.”

  “Myrrdinus be…” Gwyneth began.

  Serena would not get to know what he was, since footsteps cut short Gwyneth’s tirade. Crouching in the foliage, they watched as Gergan carried Leila into the temple, blood pouring from her chest wound. Gwyneth and Serena exchanged a stunned look.

  “She be young again,” said Serena, voicing their observation. “Firestone?”

  “And bleeding like hog,” Gwyneth stated, frowning deeply. “Why she not healing herself, if having Firestone?”

  They had barely a few minutes to ruminate on that question before the temple door slammed open and a never-ending line of robed priests streamed out, all armed to the teeth with swords, axes, knives, hammers and whips, whilst chanting, “Tanthiay Tanithat Armun. Corescan Mei,” over and over. In their midst, carried on a tented stretcher, was the mortally wounded Leila, Gergan stationed beside her.

  “Where they going?” Serena wondered.

  “Castle?” the younger woman surmised. “Be looking like all of ‘em. Now our chance. We search temple for Myrrdinus.”

  She was up and r
unning without waiting for a reply. Serena yanked down the tunic and trotted along behind her.

  An utterly miserable Elmin was polishing the altar, lamenting his abandonment, when Gwyneth marched straight up to the temple and hammered on the door.

  “Be coming,” Elmin moaned, assuming a priest or two had returned. “What ye forget?”

  He pulled back the internal bolt and opened the door a few inches. In no mood for negotiation, Gwyneth threw all her weight against the door, slamming it into Elmin’s face and knocking him flat. She barrelled inside, tripped over Elmin’s prostrate form and landed full on top of him, crushing all the air out of his lungs. Just as Elmin thought that his day couldn’t get any worse, she repeatedly banged his head on the floor, each thump punctuated by a word.

  “Where…be…me…mam…Mel…ith…and…Myrr…din…us?”

  “Erm, thinking ye best get off him, so’s he can answer,” Serena suggested, noticing that the poor man was turning blue.

  Gwyneth clambered off Elmin’s chest and dragged him to a seated position by his scrawny throat. He wheezed and coughed, to no sympathy whatsoever.

  “Where be…?” Gwyneth began, but Elmin had had more than enough.

  “Snake escaped,” he squeaked. “Big lad taked to Baal’s cage in castle.”

  Gwyneth’s face dropped, causing Elmin to frantically shuffle away from her, straight into Serena’s unfeasibly long legs.

  “Where all priests going?” she asked.

  “Castle. Be trying heal Queen and for Baal protection.”

  Despite her sinking heart, Gwyneth’s brain pedalled like crazy, trying to come up with some sort of rescue plan. She wouldn’t even allow herself to consider the possibility that Myrrdinus might have already been fed to the moat monster. The good news was that her mother had escaped, albeit still in snake form. Gwyneth’s roving eye came to rest on priestly robes, hanging on the wall. “Have idea,” she said.

  Serena followed her gaze and immediately understood what Gwyneth had planned. Turning back to Elmin, Serena smiled. “Be knowing where put ye.”

  Thus, it was, that a thoroughly dejected Elmin peered through the bars of an animal cage whilst his jailors exited the temple, hidden within the cavernous cowls of priestly robes. Hitching up the material, the women ran through the forest until they caught sight of the procession of priests, swaying directly ahead.

  “Not need ye do this,” Gwyneth felt honour bound to tell Serena. “Could go back to villagers. Ye deserve be free.”

  Serena smiled at the young woman. How very like her mother she had turned out to be. “For Myrrdinus,” said the former frog, holding out her fist.

  “For Myrrdinus,” repeated Gwyneth, rapping her knuckles against Serena’s.

  Slinking through the shadows, they tiptoed up behind the line of priests and, oh so quietly and surreptitiously, tagged on the end.

  * * *

  With Adam being pursued by an army of soldiers and two homicidal renders, Elaine was free to sprint through the trees, clutching the Firestone, whilst her brain struggled to recall the way back to the cabin and Harlin. As it so happened, she ran smack into him as he raced from the opposite direction. There was a stunned pause, each staring at the sudden arrival of the other, as though their thoughts had somehow manifested.

  Elaine was the first to burst to life, flinging her arms around him, crying, “You’re safe!” directly into his ear.

  Harlin’s arms wrapped around her trembling body while his newly healed right hand cradled her head “Ye be bane of me life,” he gently scolded. “Not stay in one place ever.”

  Over his bare shoulder, Elaine spied Melith, wearing Harlin’s shift, and two naked men: one being very large, dark and hairy, the other, short, grey and sour-faced. Still clinging to Harlin, she asked, “Melith?”

  “Be me, girly,” confirmed Melith.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Cold and mart scaly.”

  Elaine’s eyes drifted to the dark, hairy man. Something in his smile reminded her of a scruffy, but rather wonderful dog. “You have to be Drevel.”

  “Woof,” he agreed and bellowed.

  “The wound?”

  “Gone.”

  Elaine’s attention moved to the older man. He caught her peering at him.

  “Be Grain,” he told her. Elaine’s expression revealed that she was none the wiser. “Squirrel,” he continued, by way of explanation.

  “Oh. Good shot,” she quipped and then suddenly recalled the momentous news she was bearing. “Your mother, she’s my friend…” Elaine began, pulling back from Harlin’s shoulder and getting an eyeful of the healed version for the first time.

  She was stunned. A silent minute later, she was still stunned. Restored to his youthful athleticism, Harlin was considerably more than handsome; he was magnificent, and naked. Elaine dragged her eyes to his and fixed them there, noticing, for the first time, how much his healed features resembled Leila’s. A nervous stream of consciousness poured from her mouth.

  “The Queen, she’s from my time. I come from the future. She’s Leila. She was my friend. I don’t understand what happened to her. She made herself young.”

  “Using Firestone?” Harlin asked, cutting off the stream.

  “Yes.”

  “If she now have Firestone, why changing all back and healing me?”

  “I asked her to. I said I’d tell her how to get home with it, if she did.”

  “Did ye tell her how?” Harlin asked, his tone carrying an edge.

  “No. I don’t know how,” Elaine insisted. “She’s wounded. Dying. That man at your torture?”

  “Adam?”

  “He stabbed her.”

  “She can heal herself with Firestone,” Melith muttered.

  “She doesn’t have it,” Elaine announced, opening her hand to reveal the rock.

  At the mere sight of it, a shudder passed through all of her friends.

  “I thinked she didn’t have it,” said Harlin, confused by the sudden turn of events. “How ye getting it?”

  When Elaine faltered, Harlin correctly deduced that she was the source.

  “Ye? Ye haved it all along? All time ye be with me?”

  His disgusted expression wounded Elaine and made her angry. “I didn’t know,” she snapped. “It’s just a rock my mother gave me. It’s nothing. A pebble I wear as a necklace. How could I know it was your Firestone?”

  “Not mine,” Harlin snarled.

  Melith rushed forward, waving the joined relic. “Not matter. We have Key of Old. Harlin. Use it. Kill Firestone. Kill Baal. End this.”

  Harlin stared at Melith, then back at Elaine, who was still holding out the Firestone. He hesitated, torn between revulsion and addiction. “I… must not touch it,” he told them, his voice trembling. Even as he spoke the words, his eyes glistened with desire and his newly healed fingers rose, inexorably drawn towards the stone.

  The watching Elaine saw two versions of Harlin standing before her, as though his will and his body were in direct conflict. In this state of turmoil, his frightening resemblance to his mother caused Elaine’s confidence in him to falter. Instinctively, she snatched the Firestone away from his grasp. It was a moment that would seal their fate.

  Dizziness and nausea swept over Elaine. The strange shift in her senses returned, only this time it was magnified tenfold. Harlin lunged towards her, but the pull of an unseen force yanked her backwards. A nerve shattering shriek assaulted their ears and a blinding blue light forced everyone to shield their eyes. Swirling gale force winds whipped leaves into the maelstrom and lashed their hair around their faces.

  “Harlin!” cried Elaine as she was sucked towards the arriving vortex. She launched the Firestone at Harlin, but it hovered in mid air, held in place by the helix. Elaine was lifted from her feet, propelled backwards into the spiralling stream, and vanished. The Firestone hung in the air for a moment longer and then followed her through.

  * * *

  Lying on a str
etcher in the midst of her priestly procession, the mortally wounded Leila felt the going of the Firestone in the same manner that her lifeblood was draining from her body. If she could have spared the energy, she would have screamed.

  * * *

  Leaves floated gently back to earth as the vortex spun out of existence. The faintest of blue tinges marked the spot where Elaine had stood, but then, even that light was gone. A devastated Harlin stared at the empty space. In truth, he didn’t know whether his piercing grief was due to the loss of Elaine or the Firestone. He did know that he would remember the look on her face as she left.

  She not trust me no more.

  Harlin’s silent lamentation was suddenly broken by the howl of renders and they were frighteningly close. Even though he was bewildered by the disappearance of Elaine and the Firestone, he still had his friends’ safety to consider. The renders were almost on them; but renders could not climb trees.

  “Trees!” he shouted, clambering up the nearest bark.

  Although an elderly man, Grain shimmied through the branches as fast as the squirrel he had been, leaving the others scrambling, below.

  With the Key clasped in her left hand and no pockets in which to deposit the relic, Melith found it difficult to grasp the branches. Annoyed that she had not handed the relic back to Harlin, she scraped and scrambled to little effect.

  Drevel arrived beneath her and propelled Melith’s bulk upwards; a snapping render was threatening to skin his own naked backside. Struggling to climb higher, Drevel tried not to look up Melith’s naked rear end. Had he actually done so, he might have caught the Key when it fell from her flailing grasp. Instead, the relic bounced off the skull of one of the renders, below. A distraught Melith was forced to watch as it scooped up the precious Key and bound after its fallen mistress.

  Crushed by the triple loss of Elaine, the Firestone and, now, the Key, when all had been within his grasp, Harlin stared down from his perch as the other render caught up with an old enemy.