Haliden's Fire

by Chris Sendrowski

  Haliden sighed. “A son must first know of these so-called crimes. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Proust huffed. “Birds were sent… as is our way. But there were no replies.” He looked to Wend’s ax with its razor-sharp edge. “If you had only come home and made reparations for the crime, your name would be clean.”

  “My name is clean!” Haliden shouted.

  Proust unsheathed his sword. The steel was pitted and burnished, but its edge glinted in the waning light.

  The knight held it up before Haliden. “After the shark riders plucked me from the Acid, I spent ten turns in their care, learning their ways, even rising so far as to become a pod master.” He rotated the pitted blade, examining its edge. “This was given to me by the Grey Rider, leader of the southern clans. A prize for hunting down a shark poacher who had roamed his sea for nigh on three turns.”

  Haliden shrugged. “And your point?”

  Proust pressed the tip against Haliden’s throat. “That poacher was my father. The same howling fool who plagued the Grey Rider’s seas for nigh on three turns.”

  Haliden’s heart sank. “He survived?”

  Proust shook his head. “The man, but not my father. Whoever rescued him would have done best to put a harpoon through his heart.” He looked down at the blade, his expression as cold as the burnished steel. “Do you know what I did when we caught him?”

  Haliden could feel the tip digging deeper into his flesh. “No.”

  “I took his head off. My father… the same man who raised and nurtured me. Who pushed me to be more than a whaler’s son. You see, Stroke, justice is a delicate thing. It must be protected and upheld… even when it hurts.”

  Haliden stood silent, his heart pounding in his throat.

  Proust laughed. “No words, eh? Perhaps you understand then.” He turned to a group of men standing at the edge of the platform. “Bring it up!”

  The men ran over to a canvas covered wagon and rolled it up a wooden ramp onto the platform.

  “Go on,” Proust said. “Uncover it.”

  Haliden hesitantly took hold of the brown canvas and tore it free.

  By the gods!

  A garna-barra chamber sat nestled inside the wagon. Its smooth, oval surface was dented and scratched and a rust line marked where its ancient crusher seal had been. Haliden marveled at its design. It wasn’t the largest garna-barra he had ever seen, but such a thing would still be prized amongst any collector.

  But how did they acquire such a thing? he wondered. A minor garna-barra such as this could fetch at least twenty thousand coinage on the Ixian black market. That was more wealth than all of Moss Town combined.

  “Judging by your expression, you understand what this is,” Proust said, smiling.

  Haliden nodded. “How did you get it?”

  “Like anything else: sweat and gold.” He ran a hand across its smooth, Tritan steel surface. “Gold trickled into a vault by three generations of hardworking Moss Town folk. And all in preparation for that…” He pointed to the top of the basin where the fire’s glow flickered above the surrounding pines.

  Haliden felt a sudden chill tickle his spine. Why show me this? A garna-barra was no trinket to be paraded about; men fought and died over such treasures. The wealth and knowledge of an entire village could be stowed in such a device, protected against all threats. Most especially the Breath.

  “You say you want your innocence,” Proust said. “You say you just want to finish your run. I can give you both, artist. But there’s a price.”

  Haliden stared at the man. They’re preparing to gift themselves! By the gods, the entire village?

  “It’s your venermin, isn’t it?”

  Proust nodded.

  Most larger villages had one: a container or hideaway in which the records of its people, culture, crops, crimes, and laws could be kept in times of danger. Generations of history protected and stored for the day Dracon’s Breath returned.

  But someone has to deliver it to the Block, Haliden thought. A tradition upheld since the time of Bren Pelimin, the very first runner and architect of the Block.

  “You will be our runner,” Proust said. “An honor wasted on a godless dreg such as yourself. But there are none here who wish to leave family and friends behind.”

  Haliden swallowed. It was more than a hundred leagues to the Block. And that was on horseback, unhindered by a wagon weighed heavy with a priceless, five hundred pound garna-barra.

  “Best your man Wend here just chop my head off,” Haliden said. “Any man who thinks he can outrun the Breath chained to that is dead already.”

  Wend grabbed Haliden and thrust him back onto the rock. “He’s as worthless as his paintings! Let’s just send him on his way and find another.”

  Proust knelt beside Haliden. “We must keep law here, Stroke. Is Wend right? Are you as cowardly as your father?”

  Haliden groaned as Wend pressed his face against the rock’s bloodstained surface. “My father… was no coward! If he stuck a blade in that monster… he did us a service. One I… would gladly do myself!” He looked up then and met Ember’s eyes. She stood not more than ten footfalls away, her expression distant and cold.

  “Did my father so wrong you, Ember? Did he not free you from turns of torment and abuse?”

  Ember stood silent, her eyes trembling.

  “You know I would have done the same. For you and no other, I would have killed that bastard!”

  Ember suddenly rushed forward and knocked Wend onto the ground.

  “Let him run!” she shouted.

  Wend scrambled onto his feet, his face red. “I knew you would go fluttering back to him.”

  “He’s mine to deal with now, Wend!”

  The axeman frowned. “His own blood murdered your father! Does that mean nothing to you?”

  “Go back to your logs,” Ember said. “Today your ax tastes sap and nothing more.”

  Wend turned to Proust and huffed. “So the fire dissolves our laws as well, eh?”

  “You’re excused,” Proust said.

  The axeman grumbled to himself as he marched off into the basin.

  Proust turned to Ember. “He runs, Ember. And if he doesn’t, it’s on your head. Understood?”

  She nodded.

  “Very well. Make sure he is ready to go on the morrow.”

  When they were finally alone, she turned to Haliden and sighed. “You are more trouble than you’re worth.”

  Haliden laughed. “Trouble is all that’s left to us now.” He stood and brushed himself off. “So… what’s next?”

  Ember took a deep breath. “You’re my responsibility. And there’s only one place I can take you.”

  Haliden smiled. “Lead the way.”

  4

  Ember came loud as Haliden thrust deep inside her.

  “You’re mine now,” she whispered, her breath warm against his chest. “And this time I’ll never let you go.” She moaned, her lips parting to reveal the whites of her teeth. “Fuck me, Haliden.”

  Haliden obliged, thrusting harder and faster.

  She pressed his hand against her breasts. “By the gods… I’ve missed you.”

  He held her tight, the closeness of her breath exciting him, until he, too, finally came inside her.

  She kissed him long and passionately, her hair dancing across his chest like a hundred little fingers.

  “Every woman I’ve known stood in your shadow,” he whispered. Hearing himself speak the words aloud somehow made it all the more true.

  When they were done, she lay silent beside him, tracing a heart across his stomach with her finger.

  “Why didn’t you ever come back?” she finally asked.

  Haliden tensed. He had dreaded this moment since he first spotted her atop the wall.

  “I lost myself, I guess. To the world, to my work. I built a name and rode the tide of fame until…”

  “Until it washed you back here.”

  Haliden sighed as he looked do
wn at her. Her gray-streaked hair lay across his thighs as her warm breath danced across his chest. She smelled of sweat and honey, and her skin was as soft as silk.

  I should have returned to you, he thought. I should have been the one to drive the dagger into that lout’s heart. But he hadn’t and there was no changing that now.

  He suddenly thought of his father. What had it been like for him, losing his only son? Perhaps a part of him wanted me to go, he told himself, to protect him from what had to be done.

  By the gods, I miss you, Father. He wondered where he lay now. Strewn across some bramble field, his sun bleached bones covered in a layer of ash? Or perhaps at the bottom of some ravine, broken and lost amongst the rocks?

  Ember took his hand and smiled. “They can’t hurt you now. You know that, right?”

  “I’m not worried about that.”

  By vouching for him, she had claimed his burden. But his shame would be hers as well now. Perhaps its best the fire approaches, he told himself. Otherwise they would both be ostracized and hated.

  “Don’t ever leave me again,” she whispered. “There will be another who can make the run. Let yours end here. With me. At home.”

  Haliden sighed. Home. The word twisted a blade in his gut. He hadn’t known such a place for a long time. Not since Milane rode off into the ashen night.

  “It’s your religion, Ember, not mine,” he said. “No righteous god would send fire as a gift to us.”

  Ember’s expression saddened. “Why do you deny everything we’ve ever been taught?”

  “Because no god or demon told me it was so. Only drunken Bren, may the gods rest his soul.” Haliden hadn’t thought of the firewalker in some time. He had been Moss Town’s preacher for almost thirty turns. Until he lit himself on fire for the love of a woman, that is, Haliden thought.

  “He was our walker. Our savior.”

  Haliden laughed. “He was no savior, cousin. He was an insane drunk. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll leave this place.”

  Ember sat up. “I won’t ever run. Dracon chose our generation to gift, and I will accept the honor.” She stared at him, her eyes cold and emotionless. “And so will you. If you value your head.”

  Dawn arrived slow and sad, its golden wash muted by cloud cover and ash.

  Haliden slowly awoke. His bruised body ached as he rolled onto his side. He had been dreaming of Milane again. But a voice woke him before she could leave again.

  “We are here, Dracon!” the voice sang. “We stand proud before your breath. We gift ourselves to the light! Thank you, almighty Dracon, for your honor, for your glory!”

  Haliden stepped from Ember’s tiny rock home and listened as the words echoed across the basin.

  “That’s Aldridge Thren,” a voice said from behind him.

  Haliden turned. Ember stood in the doorway. She was dressed in leather breeches and a crimson tunic, her gray-streaked hair flowing down her right shoulder.

  “He was the first to spot the fire and has refused to leave the tower ever since.”

  Haliden shielded his eyes as he gazed up at the tower’s crown. The man stood silent between two crenellations, his gaze fixed south.

  Toward the fire.

  “So where does he shit?” Haliden joked.

  “He sleeps and takes all his meals up there,” Ember said. “It’s was once a great honor, to be watcher.”

  “But why watch for something when you know it’s already here?”

  Ember sighed. “Come… I want to show you something.”

  “What is it?”

  She touched his arm. You’ll see.”

  The jailer’s tunnel wound deep into the limestone basin, a smooth, wormlike tube carved by countless turns of flooding.

  Haliden ran his hands along the walls as Ember’s torch shimmered before him. “How far down is it?”

  “Frightened of the dark, are we?”

  “This kind of dark, yes.”

  She laughed. “That’s why I always loved this place. No one could ever find me here. Not even father.”

  Haliden coughed as smoke from her torch wafted into his lungs. They had been walking for almost a call, and the walls were beginning to close in around him. “Woman, my legs ache. Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.” After a few more twists and turns, she ducked through a small hole on the right side of the tunnel. Haliden followed her, scrambling on hands and knees until the tunnel finally opened into a vast, cathedral-like chamber.

  “By the gods!”

  The ceiling arched overhead like a starless night sky.

  “No one knows of this place but you?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  The walls were flat and polished like marble, stretching at least a hundred footfalls into the darkness above.

  “But what is it?”

  “A venermin—the entire vault,” she said. “And it’s mine.”

  Haliden stood dumbfounded. Such a place was of immeasurable value, a prize few kings could even boast of.

  “I found it a turn after you left,” she said. “Father took to one of his moods so I ran. Past Wend. Past the jailer. No torch… nothing. And when I could run no more, I lay down and cried in the dark. And that’s when it happened. “

  “What?”

  Ember stepped into the center of the room and smiled. “This.”

  She clapped her hands and hundreds of torches burst to life.

  Haliden’s eyes widened as the flames bathed the chamber in an eerie blue light.

  “This can’t be!” he breathed. In all the realms, all the continents he’d visited, he had never witnessed such beauty. Intricate murals covered every inch of the vast ceiling: depictions of forgotten battles and empires; the Breath itself, roiling across an ashen plain in all its fiery glory.

  “Watch this,” Ember said. She knelt down and lifted a small brass ring from the floor. Seconds later, a loud rumbling filled the chamber.

  Haliden stepped back as the floor rose beneath her. “Ember!” he shouted. But it was too late. The house sized block had already carried her at least twenty footfalls toward the ceiling.

  “Ember?”

  When it stopped, there was a loud boom. Moments later, a door opened in the side of the obelisk and out stepped Ember.

  “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Haliden cried.

  ”Come,” she said. “I have a gift for you.”

  The garna-barra was immense, wrought from solid Tritan steel.

  Nothing could harm this, Haliden thought as he ran a hand across one of its meridium-speckled walls. Not the Breath… not even the end of our world.

  Dozens of iron shelves stood in the center of the chamber, each containing various mechanical oddities: a spherical representations of Retrac Daor with the sun and stars positioned around it on rotating bars, a metal bow with a brass scope mounted near the arrow shelf, a five-footfall silver harp with gold strings and six pedals mounted at its base. And paintings. Paintings of every of kind and shape stacked six layers deep against the impregnable walls.

  I never dared to think I would see such beauty, Haliden thought as he thumbed through the many frames. There were papyrus sketches, oil on canvas paintings, and charcoal sketches. There was even a set of ornate, amber panels that might have once adorned some lord’s castle. Every style and medium Haliden had ever known was represented. Including a few he had only read about.

  Ember gestured toward hundreds of small chests locked with cage-like, Tritan crusher seals. “Amazing, isn’t it?” she said. “I’ve only been able to open a handful. But you should see what I found inside.”

  “You do know what you’ve found, right?”

  “Moss Town’s first venermin,” she replied as she reached into a chest and withdrew a fistful of gold coins. “Moss Town’s ancient heart, forgotten and lost… until now.”

  “There’s enough here to buy sanctuary for the entire town,” he said as he stared at the coins. They were stamped w
ith portraits of Alimane’s first ruler, Hendri Galindo. The Gold King. The very same king who’s mines opened the Wound a thousand turns earlier.

  Ember took his hand. “Choose something—anything—and it’s yours.”

  Haliden turned to her. It wasn’t gold or trinkets he sought. He wanted the Block. And Milane. But if he could take one thing, he knew what it would be.

  “You,” he said. “Join my run.”

  Her smile quickly faded. “This is my home. I can’t run when it needs me most.”

  “Needs you most? What about when you needed it? Did anyone put a stop to your father when he beat you to an inch of death? Did anyone refuse to give him drink whenever he staggered into the Swaying Pine? No! So take whatever you can carry from here and join me. Leave this madness behind.”

  “Is it so mad to follow one’s faith?”

  “I have no faith. Not after the things I’ve seen.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Those damn zealots out there are burning anyone they find. Even those preparing to gift.”

  “So then I will face them with or without you.”

  Haliden lowered his head and sighed. She was as stubborn as she had been twenty-five turns earlier.

  He thought of their final climb to the top of the tower. Clouds had been gathering over the basin, distant thunder whispering of a storm’s approach.

  The storm of my life, he thought.

  They made love that day, even as rain hammered their backs and lightning streaked across the sky. And when they were done, when the passion transformed into the calm that only true lovers know, Haliden showed her the letter.

  “What is this?” she asked, her eyes trembling.

  “My letter of credence. To be presented to my teacher upon arrival in Alg.”

  She stared at him. The love that had once emanated from those beautiful green eyes was suddenly replaced by envy. And anger.

  “So this is it?” he asked when her silence became too much to bear. “This is how we part?”

  “You promised you would never leave me!”

  “I would stay here forever if I could. You know that. But it’s done. If I forfeit my passage now, my father will loose everything.”