Minnoa raced to the group but couldn’t get by. “I’ve scanned this whole area. I need to get by.”
Roeg strained, and he tried to turn but couldn’t. “I’m stuck. The walls are too close together.”
Minnoa ran and jumped. She used Roeg’s bent leg to kick herself over him. She landed with a thud on the other side, and the widget flew from her grasp. “No!”
Tsisa growled fiercely, pushing and straining, but the walls inched closer. She had enough room to twist her head. She saw Minnoa sprawled on the ground beneath her feet. Minnoa reached for the widget but it was too far. Tsisa smiled and kicked at Minnoa, launching her to the widget; she hit it with her nose. She grabbed the widget and held it to the wall.
The widget flashed. It sucked into the stone wall and spun. The ticking stopped. The walls stopped moving, then lurched back, inching farther away from each other.
Roeg walked over to Tsisa and raised his eyebrows. “I saw you smile when you kicked her.”
Tsisa smirked then shrugged her shoulders. “I did what I had to. It helped, didn’t it?” Before she turned, she gave Roeg one of her hard, playful punches.
Minnoa retrieved the widget then walked to Roeg and Tsisa. She gave Tsisa a long, hard look then turned to Roeg. The corners of her mouth slowly crept into a smile. “Can you tell Tsisa thanks? But maybe next time, a nudge will do.”
The stone wall at the other end of the room where the gearwork hung swung open.
Minnoa had the map in her hand as she led the way into the other room. Roeg could hear a series of whistles and pops echoing from the room beyond before he even entered it. As he followed Minnoa in, the source of the sounds became obvious; in place of the solid stone walls were gears that churned and clanked. Steam whistled out of some of them.
Roeg moved to touch one of the walls when a puff of steam blew inches from his face. The heat of the mist was searing. He stumbled back. “What was that?”
Minnoa looked up from her map. “This is the gearworks room, it is what powers everything down here. It is the heart of the ruins. Don’t touch the walls.”
Ookum peered over Minnoa’s shoulders and pointed to the map. “There’s a blue, flashing dot on the map.”
Roeg walked over to the map. “What’s that?”
Minnoa turned to Roeg. “It’s a map, remember?”
Roeg pointed to the blue dot. “No, that.”
“Oh, that’s us. See? We are in the gearworks room. The big box on the map. Next to it is the sleeping quarters, then the secret tunnel that leads to the fire caverns.” She pointed to the big, red circle on the map.
Roeg curled his lip and scrunched his brow. “How does the map know where we are?”
Minnoa reached into her pocket and pulled out the widget. “When we used this to open the keyhole in the first room, it activated. Gnomish charms power the device, and the charms are powered by the gemstones. The charms sense where the widget is and transfer that information to the map.”
Roeg nodded. He thought of the Firestone. Were their gemstones like the Firestone? Why didn’t the Firestone light up in the tunnel? Why did it light up sometimes but not others?
Roeg click-gestured to Ookum, “The blue dot is us. It is gnomish magic. It will help us find our way to the Land of Darkness.”
Roeg circled the room. There were no doors. The pipes and gears seemed to work together in some way. The floor was hard and made of a different stone than he had seen thus far. It was formed from smaller square blocks.
A whistle blasted from a contraption in the corner of the room that he hadn’t noticed before. He walked over to it. It was a device in motion. The pipes and gears rotated and spun. One long pipe central to the unit chugged up and down. It was connected to two gears on either side that spun. Steam blew from a small hole in the central pipe each time it peaked. Roeg stepped closer.
CLICK.
Minnoa snapped to attention. “Don’t move!”
Roeg looked down. His foot was on one of the stone slabs on the ground. The weight of his foot was pressing it down. It sunk below the rest of the floor. The contraption in the corner whistled and shot steam three times. It chugged and whistled faster.
Minnoa ran to Roeg. “Don’t move your foot. You stepped on a pressure plate.” She studied the contraption in the corner, scanning it for a long time before she spoke. “We are in trouble.”
Ookum waltzed over and put his arm around Roeg’s shoulder. “What are we doing? Why are you standing like that?”
Roeg stayed as still as possible. He looked to Ookum, only moving his eyes. “I am standing on a pressure plate. I can’t move. Now you can’t move either.”
Ookum raised his eyebrows. “What’s a pressure plate?”
Roeg huffed. “I have no idea. Minnoa seems scared and told me not to move.”
Tsisa stood still, as though she had also stepped on the pressure plate. “Why can’t we move?”
Ookum tried to strain his eyes to see Tsisa, who stood behind them. “You can move. Only Roeg and I can’t. The heroes of the quest. Together. Forever. Can’t move.”
Tsisa groaned. “You’re an oaf.”
Minnoa looked to Roeg. “This is an incendiary device. Gnomish explosives are tricky. I know how to disarm it, but because it’s gnomish, it’s going to be tricky.”
Ookum had leaned most of his weight on Roeg. Roeg’s legs burned as he tried to still his body. “What do you mean?”
The noise of the device escalated, and it shook violently. Minnoa gulped, then backed away from it. “There are two options. You see those two spinning gears?”
Roeg nodded, trying not to move anything but his head.
Minnoa stepped back farther from the chugging device. “I need to fit my widget into one of those. One is right, and one is wrong. If I pick the right one, we walk out of here. If not… it explodes, and we die.”
Roeg started to sweat. “Ookum. It’s an explosive. Please don’t move.”
Ookum shifted his eyes to Roeg. “What’s an explosive?”
Roeg strained under the weight of his friend. “It’s something that bursts and makes fire. A lot of fire.”
“I don’t like fire anymore,” Tsisa said.
The explosive whistled and wouldn’t let up. It blew steam one last time before it let out a hiss.
“Minnoa, choose now!” Roeg yelled.
Minnoa launched at the bomb and placed the widget in the left gear. The gear clinked and snapped shut around the widget. There was no going back. The widget flashed, and the gear spun faster.
Ookum shifted his weight. “What did she do? Did she fix it?”
Roeg’s legs trembled. Sweat stung his eyes, and his body ached. He felt the heat of the Firestone around his neck. The bomb whistled and chugged, it rattled and shook. The widget spun until it cracked and broke apart.
Hissssssssssssss.
Minnoa turned and ran to Roeg. “It’s going to explode!”
In one fluid motion, Roeg twisted and tossed Ookum behind, where he knocked into Tsisa and they fell to the ground. He bent down and scooped up Minnoa in his arms then leaped to the center of the room onto the collapsed twins in one big heap, Roeg covered his friends with his body.
BOOM!
The room lit up. The explosive burst, blowing chunks of metal and gears across the room in every direction. Fire engulfed the entire space, followed by a thick, black smoke. The friends wailed in pain from the deafening blast, although they were under the protection of Roeg’s Firestone.
As the fire burned, the Firestone sucked the life from Roeg’s body. He struggled and willed himself to hold off the flame until the explosion ended. Searing pain shot through him. He felt the pain in his arm crawl through his body. His knees buckled. Fire tore all around him, consuming him. Everything went black.
ROEG
Firestone
R
oeg ran. His body was heavy. Heat bit at him like a beast that foa
med from the mouth. His feet blistered. Where were his feet coverings? The heat stole his breath. He sucked in, and all he inhaled was smoke; it stung his lungs. His chest heaved as he gasped for air.
Misshapen globs of firewater dripped and oozed from the ceiling. Black smoke billowed and clung to the cavern walls, which were black with soot. Roeg’s chest burned from the ache of the Firestone. He looked down and grasped at it. His hand closed but found nothing. Where was it? It was gone.
The cavern was filled with sizzling and popping noises. A low rumble jostled the black stone. Laughter echoed and rang off the walls. He saw his friends. He ran to them but every time he reached them, they were not there.
The rumbling intensified. Large boulders fell into the firewater. Splashes of the stuff spewed and melted the stone. A fire beast rose from the depths of black smoke, its horns dripping fire. Its black, stone face cracked, its hollow eyes like two caverns of red. Smoke and fire fell from its maw. Something gripped Roeg, and now he floated high above the firewater, then suddenly he plunged and sunk into it.
“You have something of mine, boy. I want it back.”
Roeg gasped as he sat up in the darkness of night. It was that dream again. Was that Ifrit?
“He’s awake! Tsisa said.
Blurry figures emerged in the darkness as Roeg gripped his chest. His breathing was heavy as he gulped for air. “I can’t breathe.”
Tsisa gripped him. “You’re okay! We are okay because of you. You were sleeping.”
His eyes adjusted further. He was in a bed in a small room. The stone-stacked walls resembled the first room they had been in when Minnoa had used the widget. There were rows of beds and small, wooden tables, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Small, dim dancing lights glowed from another room.
Ookum knelt beside the bed. “You’ve been sleeping a long time.”
Roeg dripped with sweat; his bed was soaked. As he moved to wipe his face with his hand, he noticed his hand shook on its way, and it was a struggle to get it there. “What’s wrong with me?” His voice was weak, and the words barely came out.
Minnoa came in from the other room with a handheld container fashioned from metal that had a transparent cover. It held a dancing light. “He’s awake?”
Roeg turned, and a strange pain shot through his body. He collapsed in his bed, his head cushioned by a square cloth filled with something soft. “Ugh.”
“Don’t strain yourself,” Minnoa said as she walked into the room and hopped up on the bed by Ookum. Her small legs dangled off the edge, and she placed the dancing light container on the dusty wooden table. She leaned in. “I found some food and supplies. We can stay here until you get better.”
Roeg closed his eyes. Throbbing pain between his ears ran all the way to his toes and made it hard to hear what was being said. He raised his hands to his eyes and tried to rub the pain away.
“Let’s let him rest. Come on, Ookum, let me show you the map,” Minnoa said as she tapped Ookum and pointed at her map then to the door.
As they walked out of the room, Tsisa didn’t take her eyes off of the pair. “Humph.”
Roeg fell asleep once again.
Roeg opened his eyes. The room was not as bright as before, but his eyes still stung. He sat up. His head didn’t hurt as much as it did in the night. He swung his feet off the bed and put weight on them. Still okay. He stood. Dizziness rushed to his head, and the room spun before his eyes; he sat back down and pressed his hands to his face. He took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes he gasped, “My arm?”
Tsisa sat up and looked at Roeg from the bed across the room. “You noticed it?”
Roeg didn’t take his eyes off his arm. The discoloration that was once confined to his lower arm, now crawled all the way up to his shoulder. He stretched it out in front of him and swiveled it, scanning every crevice of the thing. Once he was satisfied that he had covered every section of it, he tried to raise it. Pain shot up his arm to his neck as he strained and huffed.
Tsisa walked over and sat on his bed. Her eyes lost their usual playfulness. She reached over, not to give him a playful punch but to rest her hand on his arm, gently guiding it down. “Don’t strain.”
Roeg looked at her and nodded as her face blurred from the tears in his eyes. She reached over and wiped the tears off his face with her thumb. She sat for a long time before she jolted up, spun, and paced to the end of the room. She looked back and wore a smirk. “I guess I’ll have to hit your other arm now, hey?” Before she stepped out of the room and called back, Roeg caught sight of a stray tear running down her cheek. “Hurry up. I’m not sure how much more I can take of Ookum and the gnome being all giddy around each other.”
Roeg snorted back a chuckle but failed, and the laugh escaped him, sending a jolt of pain through his body. “Aaaahhh.”
He got up and took a deep breath. I can do this, he told himself as he walked through the door to the other room.
Minnoa and Ookum sat close together on a wooden bench, staring at the map. Ookum had a wide grin as he listened to her talk. She pointed and spoke slowly, repeating words when she noticed Ookum frowning.
“This is called a room,” Minnoa said.
Ookum grinned at Minnoa and said, “Roooom.”
Roeg stopped and smiled. “Ookum, you speak Gnomish?”
Both Ookum and Minnoa looked up from the map. Ookum tore off the bench with one bound and slammed into Roeg, gripping him tight. “You’re alright!” He lifted Roeg in the air and squeezed.
Tsisa called from the other side of the room, “Put him down. He just got up. You don’t want to break him again, do you?”
Roeg looked to Tsisa as Ookum gently set him down, then he scanned the room. It was larger than the room with all the beds and had more dancing lights strung up on the stone-stacked walls. It had shelves with dried food and other things Roeg assumed were also food but didn’t quite recognize. There was a device that had weapons of all sorts lined up and held to the structure. “What’s that?” he asked.
Minnoa walked over to the weapons. “This is a weapons rack. It has all kinds of gnomish weapons. They are free for the taking, I guess.”
Roeg stepped closer to the rack. There was an assortment of all kinds of metallic gears, staffs, and spears. Some had hooks with metal ropes holding them in place. Roeg picked up a hook device. It had a large button that intrigued Roeg. He pressed it. The hook shot out of the device and slammed into the wall on the other side of the room. Stone chipped off and crashed to the floor.
“Wow,” Ookum said.
Minnoa slid by Ookum and removed the gear weapon from Roeg’s hand. “I think we’ve all had enough of gears for a little while, don’t you think?”
Roeg nodded.
He walked over to Tsisa; she was stuffing bits of cooked, hard bread from a bowl of water into her mouth then slurping it down. “Mmmm. Gnomish bread is good.”
Roeg grabbed a chunk, threw it in his mouth, and chewed.
Tsisa’s eyes raised, and she lurched at him. “Shtop!”
It was too late. He bit down. In his mouth was not the soft, squishy bread he thought it would be. In its place was something as hard as stone; it was lightly dusted with a fine, powdery substance that coated his tongue. He rolled it around in his mouth as he tried to position it better, but the bread expanded in his mouth, making it impossible to chew. He looked to Tsisa, who giggled at him, then he spit it on the floor. It fell with a splat, kicking up dust.
“You need to dip it in water first, otherwise its hard as stone,” Tsisa said as she gulped the last bit of the mixture in her mouth.
Unsatisfied with the weapons and the food, Roeg made his way to the bench and plopped down. He rested his head in his hands and let out a long sigh.
The twins and Minnoa watched him then shared a look with each other. No one said anything for a long moment.
“What happened?” Roeg asked.
The room
was quiet, save for a gentle hum that seemed to radiate from the stone-stacked walls.
Minnoa walked over and hopped on the bench beside him. “I chose wrong.”
Roeg looked up, his brows furrowed. “What? I… I don’t remember anything that happened in that room with the gears. I feel weak and dizzy.”
Minnoa looked to Ookum and Tsisa. She wiggled her chin then said, “The room was a trap. You stepped on a pressure plate that was a trigger for a gnomish gearwork bomb. I had to choose where to place my widget to disarm it. I chose wrong, and it exploded.”
Roeg lifted his head in recognition. “I remember some of it. How did we…?” A gentle heat rose from the Firestone. He looked down as the stone gently swung around his neck. He remembered.
The Firestone. Minnoa. Ookum and Tsisa. He had saved them.
He looked to Minnoa and said, “I can explain.”
Minnoa leaned in. “You saved us, I know. Ookum explained to me how the Firestone protects you.” She looked to his damaged arm then added, “And also harms you.”
Roeg looked at his arm and felt the dull ache gnaw at him.
Minnoa breathed deeply. “There is a legend Jexif tells. Do you want to hear it?”
Roeg nodded. He gestured to Ookum and Tsisa to get comfortable. Ookum waltzed over and sat by Minnoa. The bench fit three comfortably; Tsisa looked at it and huffed. She spun and stalked to an empty wooden chair, plopping herself down with a sigh.
Minnoa cleared her throat. “Long ago, Gaia, the great mother of all things, was alone and lonely. The world was an empty sea of water, devoid of life. She longed for a family, for friends, for a beautiful world to live in. So, she birthed two sons: Ifrit and An’nuna’ke. She thought the two sons would help with her loneliness. In the beginning, the brothers loved one another and Gaia.”
Firestone Page 22