Fire Sea

by Margaret Weis

  “I don't hold with books,” the king remarks bitterly to his son, whose footfalls I can hear, walking at his side. “Baltazar spends far too much time among the books.”

  Perhaps anger feels good inside the old man, warm and bright, like the fire of the lamp.

  “It was the books told us that they were going to return to us and look what came of that! Books.” The old king snorts. “I don't trust them. I don't think we should trust them! Maybe they were accurate centuries ago, but the world's changed since then. The routes that brought our ancestors to this realm are probably gone, destroyed.”

  “Baltazar has explored the tunnels, as far as he dared go, and he found them safe, the maps accurate. Remember, Father, that the tunnels are protected by magic, by the powerful, ancient magic that built them, that built this world.”

  “Ancient magic!” The old king's anger comes fully to the surface, burns in his voice. “The ancient magic has failed. It was the failure of the ancient magic that brought us to this! Ruin where there was once prosperity. Desolation where there was once plenty. Ice where there was once water. Death where there was once life!”

  He stands on the portico of the palace and looks before him. His physical eyes see the darkness that has closed over them, sees it broken only by tiny dots of light burning sporadically here and there about the city. Those dots of light represent his people and there are too few of them, far too few. The vast majority of the houses in the realm of Kairn Telest are dark and cold. Like the queen, those who now remain in the houses can do very well without light and warmth; it isn't wasted on them.

  His physical eyes see the darkness, just as his physical body feels the pain of the cold, and he rejects it. He looks at his city through the eyes of memory, a gift he tries to share with his son. Now that it is too late.

  “In the ancient world, during the time before the Sundering, they say there was an orb of blazing fire they called a sun. I read this in a book,” the old king adds drily. “Baltazar isn't the only one who can read. When the world was sundered into four parts, the sun's fire was divided among the four new worlds. The fire was placed in the center of our world. That fire is Abarrach's heart, and like the heart, it has tributaries that carry the life's blood of warmth and energy to the body's limbs.”

  I hear a rustling sound, a head moving among many layers of clothing. I can imagine the king shifting his gaze from the dying city, huddled in darkness, to stare far beyond the city's walls. He can see nothing, the darkness is complete. But, perhaps, in his mind's eye, he sees a land of light and warmth, a land of green and growing things beneath a high cavern ceiling frescoed with glittering stalactites, a land where children played and laughed.

  “Our sun was out there.” Another rustling. The old king lifts his hand, points into the eternal darkness.

  “The colossus,” Edmund says softly.

  He is patient with his father. There is much, so much to be done, and he stands with the old man and listens to his memories.

  “Someday his son will do the same for him,” I whisper hopefully, but the shadow that lies over our future will not lift from my heart.

  Foreboding? Premonition? I do not believe in such things, for they imply a higher power, an immortal hand and mind meddling in the affairs of men. But I know, as surely as I know that he will have to leave this land of his birth and his father's birth and of the many fathers before him, that Edmund will be the last king of the Kairn Telest.

  I am thankful, then, for the darkness. It hides my tears.

  The king is silent, as well; our thoughts running along the same dark course. He knows. Perhaps he loves him now. Now that it is too late.

  “I remember the colossus, Father,” says his son hastily, mistaking the old man's silence for irritation. “I remember the day you and Baltazar first realized it was failing,” he adds, more somberly.

  My tears have frozen on my cheeks, saving me the need to wipe them away. And now I, too, walk the paths of memory. I walk them in the light… the failing light….

  1 From Baltazar, Remembrances of My Homeland, a journal chronicling the last days of Kairn Telest kept by the necromancer to the king.

  CHAPTER 2

  KAIRN TELEST,

  ABARRACH

  … THE COUNCIL CHAMBER OF THE KING OF THE REALM OF Kairn Telest is thronged with people. The king is meeting with the council, made up of prominent citizens whose heads of household served in this capacity when the people first came to Kairn Telest, centuries before. Although matters of an extremely serious nature are under discussion, the meeting is orderly and formal. Each member of the council listens to his fellow members with attention and respect. This includes His Majesty.

  The king will issue no royal edicts, set forth no royal commands, make no royal proclamations. All matters are voted on by the council. The king acts as guide and counselor, gives his advice, casts the deciding vote only when the issue is equally divided.

  Why have a ruler at all? The people of Kairn Telest have a distinct need for propriety and order. We determined, centuries before, that we needed some type of governmental structure. We considered ourselves, our situation. We knew ourselves to be more a family than a community, and we decided that a monarchy, which provides a parent-figure, combined with a voting council would be the wisest, most appropriate form of government.

  We have never had reason to regret the decision of our ancestors. The first queen chosen to rule produced a daughter capable of carrying on her mother's work. That daughter produced a son, and thus has the reign of Kairn Telest been handed down through generation after generation. The people of Kairn Telest are well satisfied and content. In a world that seems to be constantly changing around us—change over which we apparently have no control—our monarchy is a strong and stable influence.

  “And so the level of the river is no higher?” the king asks, his gaze going from one concerned face to another.

  The council members sit around a central meeting table. The king's chair stands at the head. His chair is more elaborate than the other chairs, but remains on a level equal with theirs.

  “If anything, Your Majesty, the river has dropped farther. Or so it was yesterday, when I checked.” The head of the Farmer's Guild speaks in frightened, gloom-laden tones. “I didn't go by to see today, because I had to leave early to arrive at the palace on time. But I’ve little hope that it would have risen in the night.”

  “And the crops?”

  “Unless we get water to the fields in the next five cycles’ time, we've lost the bread-grain, for certain. Fortunately, the kairn grass is doing well—it seems to be able to thrive under almost impossible conditions. As for the vegetables, we've set the field hands to hauling water to the gardens, but that's not working. Hauling water is a new task for them. They don't understand it, and you know how difficult they can be when they're given something new.”

  Heads nod around the table. The king frowns, scratches his bearded chin. The farmer continues, seeming to feel the need to explain, perhaps to offer a defense.

  “The hands keep forgetting what they're supposed to be doing and wander off. We find them, back at work on their old jobs, water buckets left to lie on the ground. By my calculations, we've wasted more water this way than we've used on the vegetables.”

  “And your recommendation?”

  “My recommendation.” The farmer glances around the table, seeking support. He sighs. “I recommend that we harvest what we can, while we can. It will be better to save the little we have than to let it all shrivel up and die in the fields. I brought this parfruit to show you. As you see, it's undersize, not yet ripe. It shouldn't be picked for another sixteen cycles, at least. But if we don't gather it now, it'll wither and die on the vine. After the harvest, we can do another planting and perhaps, by that time, the river will have returned to its normal—”

  “No,” calls a voice, a voice new to the room and to the meeting. I have been kept waiting in the antechamber long enough. It is obvious
that the king isn't going to send for me. I must take matters into my own hands. “The river will not return, at least not anytime soon, and then only if some drastic change occurs that I do not foresee. The Hemo is reduced to a muddy trickle and, unless we are indeed fortunate, Your Majesty, I believe it may dry up altogether.”

  The king turns, scowls in irritation as I enter. He knows that I am far more intelligent than he is and, therefore, he doesn't trust me. But he has come to rely on me. He's been forced to. Those few times he did not, when he went his own way, he came to regret it. That is why I am now necromancer to the king.

  “I was planning to send for you when the time was right, Baltazar. But,” the king adds, his frown growing deeper, “it seems you can't wait to impart bad news. Please be seated and give the council your report.” From the tone of his voice, he would like to blame the bad news on me personally.

  I sit down at a chair at the far end of the rectangular meeting table, a table carved of stone. The eyes of those gathered around the table turn slowly, reluctant to look directly at me. I am, I must admit, an unusual sight.

  Those who live inside the gigantic caverns of the stone world of Abarrach are naturally pale complected. But my skin is a dead white, a white so pallid it appears to be almost translucent and has a faint bluish cast given by the blood veins that lay close beneath the skin's thin surface.

  The unnatural pallor comes from the fact that I spend long hours shut up in the library, reading ancient texts. My jet black hair—extremely rare among my people, whose hair is almost always white, dark brown at the tips—and the black robes of my calling make my complexion appear to be even whiter by contrast.

  Few see me on a daily basis, for I keep to the palace, near my beloved library, rarely venturing into town or into the royal court. My appearance at a council meeting is an alarming event. I am a presence to be feared. My coming casts a pall over the hearts of those in attendance, much as if I'd spread my black robes over them.

  I begin by standing up. Extending my hands flat on the table, I lean on them slightly so that I seem to loom over those staring back at me in rapt fascination.

  “I suggested to His Majesty that I undertake to explore the Hemo, track it back to its source, and see if I could discover what was causing the water to drop so severely. His Majesty agreed that this suggestion was a good one, and I set out.”

  I notice several council members exchange glances with each other, their brows darkening. This exploration had not been discussed or sanctioned by the council, which means that they are, of course, immediately against it.

  The king sees their concern, stirs in his chair, seems about to come to his own defense. I slide into the breach before he can say a word.

  “His Majesty proposed that we inform the council and receive their approbation, but I opposed such a move. Not out of any lack of respect for the members of the council,” I hasten to assure them, “but out of the need to maintain calm among the populace. His Majesty and I were then of the opinion that the drop in the river level was a freak of nature. Perhaps a seismic disturbance had caused a section of the cavern to collapse and block the river's flow. Perhaps a colony of animals had dammed it up. Why needlessly upset people? Alas”—I am unable to prevent a sigh—“such is not the case.”

  The council members regard me with growing concern. They have become accustomed to the strangeness of my appearance, and now they begin to discern changes in me. I am aware that I do not look good, even worse than usual. My black eyes are sunken, ringed by purple shadows. The eyelids are heavy and red rimmed. The journey was long and fatiguing. I have not slept in many cycles. My shoulders slump with exhaustion.

  The council members forget their irritation at the king acting on his own, without consulting them. They wait, grim faced and unhappy, to hear my report.

  “I traveled up the Hemo, following the river's banks. I journeyed beyond civilized lands, through the forests of laze trees that stand on our borders, and came to the end of the wall that forms our kairn. But I did not find the river's source there. A tunnel cuts through the cavern wall and, according to the ancient maps, the Hemo flows into this tunnel. The maps, I discovered, proved accurate. The Hemo has either cut its own path through the cavern wall or the river runs along a path formed for it by those who made our world in the beginning. Or perhaps a combination of both.”

  The king shakes his head at me, disliking my learned digressions. I see his expression of annoyance and, slightly inclining my head to acknowledge it, return to the subject at hand.

  “I followed the tunnel a great distance and discovered a small lake set in a box canyon, at the bottom of what once must have been a magnificent waterfall. There, the Hemo plunges over a sheer rock cliff, falling hundreds of footspans, from a height equal to the height of cavern ceiling above our heads.”

  The citizens of Kairn Telest appear impressed. I shake my head, warning them not to get their hopes up.

  “I could tell, from the vast dimensions of the smooth plane of the wall's rock surface and from the depth of the lake bed below, that the river's flow had once been strong and powerful. Once, I judge, a man standing beneath it might have been crushed by the sheer force of the water falling on him. Now, a child could bathe safely in the trickle that flows down the cliffs side.”

  My tone is bitter. The king and council members watch me warily, uneasily.

  “I traveled on, still seeking the river's source. I climbed up the sides of the canyon wall. And I noticed a strange phenomenon: the higher I climbed, the cooler grew the temperature of the air around me. When I arrived at the top of the falls, near the ceiling of the cavern, I discovered the reason why. I was no longer surrounded by the rock walls of the cavern.” My voice grows tense, dark, ominous. “I found myself surrounded by walls of solid ice.”

  The council members appear startled, they feel the awe and fear I mean to convey. But I can tell from their confused expressions that they do not yet comprehend the danger.

  “My friends,” I tell them, speaking softly, my eyes moving around the table, gathering them up, and holding them fast, “the ceiling of the cavern, through which the Hemo flows, is rimed with ice. It didn't used to be that way,” I add, noting that they still do not understand. My fingers curl slightly. “This is a change, a dire change. But, listen, I will explain further.

  “Appalled by my discovery, I continued traveling along the banks of the Hemo. The way was dark and treacherous, the cold was bitter. I marveled at this, for I had not yet passed beyond the range of light and warmth shed by the colossus. Why weren't the colossus working, I wondered?”

  “If it was as cold as you claim, how could you go on?” the king demands.

  “Fortunately, Your Majesty, my magic is strong and it sustained me,” I reply.

  He doesn't like to hear that, but he was the one who challenged me. I am reputed to be extremely powerful in magic, more powerful than most in the realm of Kairn Telest. He thinks that I am showing off.

  “I arrived eventually, after much difficulty, at the opening in the cavern wall through which the Hemo flows,” I continue. “According to the ancient maps, when I looked out of this opening, I should have seen the Celestial Sea, the freshwater ocean created by the ancients for our use. What I looked out on, my friends”—I pause, making certain I have their undivided attention—“was a vast sea of ice!”

  I hiss the final word. The council members shiver, as if I'd brought the cold back in a cage and set it loose in the Council Chamber. They stare at me in silence, astounded, appalled, the full understanding of what I am telling them slowly working its way, like an arrow tip lodged in an old wound, into their minds.

  “How is such a thing possible?” The king is the first to break the silence. “How can it happen?”

  I pass a hand over my brow. I am weary, drained. My magic may have been strong enough to sustain me, but its use has taken its toll. “I have spent long hours studying the matter, Your Majesty. I plan to continue my researc
h to confirm my theory, but I believe I have determined the answer. If I may make use of this parfruit?”

  I lean further over the table, grab a piece of parfruit from the bowl. I hold up the round, hard-shelled fruit, whose meat is much prized for the making of parfruit wine, and—with a twist of my hands—break the fruit in half.

  “This,” I tell them, pointing to the fruit's large red seed, “represents the center of our world, the magma core. These”—I trace red veins that extend outward from the seed through the yellowish meat to the shell—“are the colossus that, by the wisdom and skill and magic of the ancients, carry the energy obtained from the magma core throughout the world, bringing warmth and life to what would otherwise be cold and barren stone. The surface of Abarrach is solid rock, similar to this hard shell.”

  I take a bite of the fruit, tearing through the shell with my teeth, leaving a hollowed out portion that I exhibit.

  “This, we will say, represents the Celestial Sea, the ocean of fresh water above us. The space around here”—I wave my hand around the parfruit—”is the Void, dark and cold.

  “Now, if the colossus do their duty, the cold of the Void is driven back, the ocean is kept well heated, the water flows freely down through the tunnel and brings life to our land. But if the colossus fail…”

  My voice trails off ominously. I shrug and toss the parfruit back onto the table. It rolls and wobbles along, eventually falls over the edge. The council members watch it in a horrible kind of fascination, making no move to touch it. One woman jumps when the fruit hits the floor.

  “You're saying that is what's happening? The colossus are failing?”

  “I believe so, Your Majesty.”

  “But, then, shouldn't we see some sign of it? Our colossus still radiate light, heat—”

  “May I remind king and council that I commented on the fact that it was the top of the cavern only that is rimed in ice. Not the cavern wall. I believe our colossus are, if not failing utterly, at least growing weaker. We do not yet notice the change, although I have begun to register a consistent and previously inexplicable drop in the average daily temperature. We may not notice the change for some time. But, if my theory holds true …” I hesitate, reluctant to speak.