Firestone Key

by Caroline Noe

  She led her horse across the river to mask her scent from the renders. Hiding behind a large rock formation, she waited until the entire army of soldiers had passed by, before continuing on her mission.

  She was far away when that army descended on the castle, vastly outnumbering the desperate villagers; far away when slavering renders launched themselves into the fray; far away from chaos and carnage. When Baal broke loose from his captors, spraying fire in all directions, she was on her knees in the earth, digging.

  * * *

  Sworder slumped on a wooden stool in the castle kitchen, gnawing on a leg of mutton which he had appropriated from the annoyed cook. He had been silently lamenting having handed over the Key of Old to Gergan, only to have the High Priest duly dismiss him and take all the credit with the Queen. Not that he would have considered crossing the narcissistic Gergan. All that would have gained him would have been a nasty magical disease. He didn’t particularly care that he was the only soldier left in the castle. If truth be told – and it never had been - he had never wanted to be a soldier in the first place. He was also well aware that he was a perpetual source of amusing ridicule for the army he was meant to be leading. Being stuck in the castle, whilst every other soldier was out hunting Elaine, was hardly going to improve the situation, particularly since his last effort had ended in a freezing swim.

  He was consoling himself by munching when all hell suddenly broke loose in the castle, with all manner of priests shouting and running in every direction. With the leg of mutton still swinging in his hand, he made his way up the stone staircase, dodging the hyperactive priesthood, until he managed to glean that rebels had arrived on the battlements in some sort of flying thing and were assaulting the gatehouse. Gergan had, apparently, abandoned the Queen and was gathering up every last piece of ill-gotten gains he could carry. Sworder was still processing this peculiar change of fortunes, when the Harpy limped past him on her way to the stables.

  “You’re in charge,” she croaked, completely unconcerned about the castle and its occupants or, indeed, anything except regaining the Firestone.

  Out of a loophole, Sworder watched Elaine gallop away from the castle with a strong sense of deja vue. No doubt the Queen would soon be following behind. He hadn’t the first notion as to how to defend an already overrun castle, so he decided to let them fight it out on their own. He sat himself down on a bench and took another bite of mutton. After all, he was in charge.

  * * *

  Having watched Elaine gallop away with their future in her hands, Harlin and the others were trying to fight a battle in the midst of another form of war.

  “Ye think I fatling!” Gwyneth shouted at Myrrdinus.

  “Ye think I dimly!” Myrrdinus hollered back.

  “Ye be dimly, arnus!” Gwyneth positively screamed. “Not caring that I saving yer life, nor that I be bravely and kindly. Not caring who love ye, only that she beautily!”

  “Ye be beautily!” Myrrdinus yelled. He stopped short, surprised by the truth of what he had just said.

  “Ye sayed I be ugly, fatling lump!” she reminded him.

  Her proud parents, Asher and Melith, found the time to give Myrrdinus a very sour look, before continuing to fight.

  “Be trying make her leave, ‘fore she getted hurt,” Myrrdinus shouted at them, by way of explanation. “Fearly for her. Not able losing her.”

  “Then stop shouting at her,” Serena interrupted, patience gone. “Be ye wanting marry her?” She ducked as a knife flew over her head. Drevel promptly felled the thrower.

  “Sposing,” Myrrdinus replied, testily.

  “Ye agreeing?” Serena yelled at Gwyneth.

  “No!” she replied.

  Everyone sighed and fought on.

  “Why not?” a miffed Myrrdinus hollered.

  “’Cause ye not saying like ye mean it!” came the annoying response.

  A sudden shout of terror ended the exchange and rendered it academic. “Soldiers!” yelled a distraught villager. “Returning with renders!”

  Gazing at an army of soldiers, slavering renders ripping his people to shreds and ominous bursts of flame, a desperate Harlin glimpsed a horse galloping past, carrying a weak, but determined rider. His heart sank. His mother had escaped, again. Now, any future at all rested in the hands of his Elaine.

  Should have telled her that I love her.

  * * *

  Holding tightly to her mount, a pain-racked Leila galloped away from the scene of carnage, leaving her followers and enemies, alike, to perish beneath the sword or burn under the wrath of Baal. From her vantage point, high in the castle, she had seen Gergan lose the Key and witnessed Elaine ride out. Using most of her remaining strength to lift herself into a saddle, Leila had ridden in pursuit.

  When Elaine reached the Firestone’s burial site, the shattered Harpy was a mere step behind, guided by the desperation of her dying abilities and the Firestone, itself. Somehow, the stone sensed its own mortal peril.

  “Give me the Firestone,” Leila croaked, hobbling slowly into view. She was too tired and weak to attempt aggression. All that was left was the truth. “You were my friend, once. Give it to me or I’m dead.”

  Leila stopped in her tracks. Elaine was gazing up at her without fear, loathing or even pity. The expression on her face most closely resembled shock.

  “Leila,” she murmured, her voice shaking. “What have we done?”

  The old, haggard, dying witch took a few more tentative steps towards Elaine. “What are you talking about?”

  Elaine rose, but attempted no attack. “Look!” she said, pointing into the hole. “Look!”

  Dragging her feeble body towards Elaine, Leila peered into the freshly dug hole. Bright sunlight reflected off the surface of the Firestone, which was still lying where it had been buried. Leila’s eyes lit up with greed and desire. Seeing this, Elaine quickly retrieved the stone.

  “Look underneath,” she insisted.

  Whilst mustering what little remained of her energy in preparation for a struggle, Leila glanced back into the hole. She saw a bright flash of luminous blue. Intrigued, she leaned closer. Recognition brought with it a wave of horror. She knew what this was. She had been there when it had been installed. She had insisted on its thickness and power. She was staring at a gigantic power cable, the order numbers still visible, impressed into the thick blue plastic. It was buried in a direct line to the castle.

  “Leila, we didn’t go back,” Elaine told her. “This is from the Project. We must have come to the future, not the past.”

  Inside her warped mind, Leila’s thoughts were in cascade. For years, she had told the Firestone to take her forward to Caleb, when, all the time, he had been in the past. The mistake was so simple, yet so fundamental. Armed with the truth, she could heal herself and return to his side. All that she had suffered, all this tragedy, need never take place.

  “Let me have the Firestone,” Leila pleaded. “I don’t want to conjure with it. I only want to live. You killed Neil and left the Project in cascade. You gave me no choice, but to follow you into the vortex or die. This is all your fault!”

  Elaine had heard this argument before, in her own heart. Although what Leila said was truth, she was resolved to end the evil. Keeping out of the reach of Leila’s foul touch, she held the Firestone in one hand and took the Key from her pocket with the other.

  “This has to end, Leila. I’m sorry.”

  “Wait!” Leila cried. “If you kill the Firestone, you’ll also kill Harlin!”

  “You’re lying,” Elaine replied, but she hesitated, nonetheless.

  “The Firestone was made fully active with Harlin’s blood,” Leila insisted. “He’s a part of it. If it dies, so does he.”

  Elaine stood utterly still, frozen by the appalling dilemma assaulting her mind and heart. She knew that the death of the Firestone was the only way to save her friends. But to kill the stone might take from her the only person she had ever truly loved.

  T
ime marked its passing in the pulsing of blood through her veins, its unholy throbbing pounding in her ears and hammering against her brain. If she gave Leila the Firestone and let her heal herself, let her return to the past, who or what would be going home? And what of her own behaviour? She had allowed Neil to die and betrayed her friends in their moment of greatest need, all to return to this time. She was no different to Leila.

  Silencing the screaming grief inside her mind, Elaine did what she should have done before: she did what she knew to be right. She plunged the Key on top of the Firestone. The two halves of the Key instantly locked onto the sides of the pulsating stone and began to crush it. Fault lines shot through the black surface, running along the edges of the blood-red spirals and releasing drops of liquid into her hands. Elaine cringed with disgust and horror as she realised that the Firestone was bleeding.

  Leila lunged forward, snatching the crumbling Firestone out of Elaine’s hands. She was so intent on claiming her prize that she barely felt the Key of Old slice a deep gash into her palm. Backing away from her hated friend, Leila gleaned enough power from the dying rock to loose one last blast of supernatural strength.

  Elaine barely noticed. Her mind was wailing, Is this Harlin’s blood on my hands?

  * * *

  Inside the courtyard, stunned soldiers and villagers watched in amazement as the renders dissolved before their eyes. Clinging to the wall of the castle, Baal faded away with a roar, leaving a puff of flame to dissipate in the breeze.

  With their Queen and her conjured beasts gone, and the Firestone obviously destroyed, the Priesthood of Magikers abandoned their posts and fled, leaving the soldiers to face a straight fight for supremacy in the domain.

  Harlin suddenly ceased to battle and let loose a terrible cry. It was a primal howl from the very depths of his soul. The sound sent a shiver down the back of all who heard it… for it was the voice of a render.

  * * *

  With the Firestone crumbling in her hand, Leila held the ruin high and shouted, “Take me back to the past, back to Caleb!”

  Elaine lunged at her, trying to snatch away the stone, but she had already vanished…

  Chapter 22

  “Cal!” Leila had cried, in anguish.

  “Go!” he told her.

  In agony, Leila had thrown herself into the vortex, leaving him behind to die… or that’s what she thought.

  Leaping across phone lines, computer servers and power grids, country wide, the ravenous Project drew power from every conceivable source, surging exponentially. Cities plunged into darkness as their power was siphoned into the giant cables, every system governed by computer being infiltrated and stripped. Having exhausted the entire nation’s energy, the Project searched further afield, moving from country to country, sucking them dry in a microsecond.

  Two seconds after Leila abandoned her time, the Project reached critical mass and the vortex exploded, sending an overwhelming surge of slipstream back to every source of power. Across the globe, technology turned on its maker with lethal force. The resulting explosions wiped out those unlucky enough to be within range. Billions perished, but not a single burial took place; there was no-one left to carry them out.

  Those on the periphery of the wave, those living far from the technology, were caught up in the surging slipstream and scattered throughout future years. Some found themselves a mere three hundred years into the future, others a millennium, but all were transported to a world where flora and fauna had held sway for centuries. Cities were gone, blown away by the force of the wave. The ruins had, long since, crumbled to dust.

  Finding themselves alone in an alien environment, the scattered survivors soon realised that the technology, which they had so blithely relied on, was gone. They next discovered that very few possessed the skills necessary for this New World. Worse, the disease, which had begun the search for time travel in the first place, soon took even more victims, leaving only the seemingly immune. Humankind, without books or other ways to learn, without the means of travel, soon reverted to tribal culture, blaming one another for the disaster. It would take centuries to restore any semblance of society and many travelled far across the ocean in search of it. Few doctors remained and drugs were non-existent. The farming of crops, hunting of game, all had to be re-learned. Any useful skill was passed down by word of mouth or manually taught.

  When, much later, the method of paper-making was re-discovered, the language of literature, the spoken word and the nature of story had, of course, altered considerably.

  * * *

  “Go!”

  The sound of his own voice was still echoing in his ears when he was gripped by a mighty force and flung into the air, spinning round and round, his body twisting back and forth in the spiralling maelstrom. He screamed in horror, every cell of his body feeling as though it was being torn apart at atomic level.

  Then, suddenly, as though a mighty supernatural hand had flipped a switch, the vortex threw him into a blazing light and burst out of existence. He lay still, feeling hard stone beneath his body. Groaning, he opened his eyes and squinted against the piercing glare of sunshine, which was reflecting off a polished metallic surface.

  “Hylo. Be carm for nover time? Grending bout all?”

  He peered up at the concerned girl, who was bending over him. He heard her words, but could not understand her meaning. Rolling over, he placed his hands on cobblestones and pushed himself up to a sitting position, a manoeuvre which brought into view a pair of huge, metal feet. The vortex had dropped him at the foot of an enormous statue.

  Leaning backwards, Caleb traced the line of the flowing sculpture all the way up to its head. It bore a face that was far from flawlessly rendered, but it was also a face that he recognised; a face bisected by a scar.

  * * *

  Left behind in an empty world, the Project went into meltdown. The restraining bolts, still hanging above the spiralling helix, twisted and shrank under the onslaught, forming what would later become known as the Key of Old. Soaking up Neil’s spiralling, air born blood, the helix finally imploded, crushing the bones of his corpse and melding them into the plastic covered stone flooring. For a microsecond it all hung suspended in time, awaiting its fate.

  * * *

  The Hunter was bored. It had sat, imprisoned within its frozen hatred from the dawn of time. Indeed, it knew no concept of time, having been conceived before any Universe existed to receive it. When the swirling vortex from a miserable little realm had the audacity to invade its dimension, the Hunter almost flung it out with a twitch of its malevolent finger. Boredom, however, fed a minor curiosity and it decided to observe the insignificant arrival.

  As it watched, it recognised two of its favourite hobbies - tragedy and pride – swirling together in a mix of blood, bone and machinery. Sensing an enjoyable opportunity to ruin another inconsequential little species, the Hunter poked a finger into the vortex, spat a drop of venom into the recipe and gave it a stir.

  When the pathetic little invasion was over, the Hunter went back to being bored.

  * * *

  For two thousand years, the tiny, compacted remnant of the Project lay where it had fallen, gradually covered by dust and invading plant-life. Gently moving with the shifting earth, the remains patiently awaited the arrival of a moat-builder and a new life as the Firestone...

  Chapter 23

  “Harlin? What matterly?” shouted Melith.

  The battle continued all around her, clearly tipping in favour of the rebels, but Harlin had suddenly ceased to fight. When he let loose that appalling howl, there was a momentary lull in the fighting, due to shock. Violence recommenced in earnest once Harlin recovered from, what he knew to be, the death of the Firestone.

  The young man calmly surveyed the chaos, identifying Melith through the melee of flailing limbs. Placing his fingers in his mouth, he mimed a whistle. Melith took the hint and duly delivered a volley of her ear-piercing best.

  “Stop!” Harlin yelled a
t the curious crowd, whilst sprinting up a flight of stone steps to raise himself above courtyard level. “Stop! Truce!”

  As Harlin’s word was relayed throughout the castle, fighting gradually ground to an edgy halt. Men and women twitched, eyeing one another with suspicion, but they also deigned to listen to a man who was finally carrying the mantle of his heritage.

  “Hear me!” Harlin shouted, staring down at upturned faces. “Baal and renders goed. Firestone goed, forever. Queen no longer have power and soonly be died. Her reign be over. Time, now, build future for us all, not fight. No more need die. Them that been soldiers, lay down yer swords. I promise ye not be hurt, if wishing to stay. Priests and magikers, and anybone wishing to go, ye have ‘til sundown tomorrow be leaving domain. After that, ye be killed. Go, now!”

  Having already reached a similar conclusion, most of the Queen’s old forces dropped their weapons, preferring to trust in the word of the new leader and stay, rather than leave the domain. Villagers quickly gathered up the discarded weaponry. Those left from the Priesthood of Magikers, who had not yet fled the castle, swiftly exited. They may be banished from their homes, but they had not expected to escape with their lives.

  Harlin looked out over the people, his eye landing on an elderly, sour-faced old man, covered in soot and crispy around the edges. Experiencing an unexpected surge of relief and affection, Harlin could not prevent a joyful laugh from escaping his lips. Grain’s thunderous expression grew even darker.

  “All hail Harlin, son of Gawain, leader of our people!” shouted a gleeful Asher, one arm lifted in salute, the other tucked around his wife’s ample waist.

  A mighty cheer followed this pronouncement. A few former soldiers even joined in. An exuberant Myrrdinus threw his arms around Gwyneth. She promptly stamped on his foot. His howl of pain and outrage was swallowed up in the people’s vociferous relief.

  Harlin, peering down at the rejoicing crowd, suddenly experienced a cold blast of reality. It was now his job to lead, to bring about a permanent peace and to restore the glory of the domain…and he hadn’t the first idea how to accomplish it.