Element. Flame of Elisar

The glance Yoos gave to Truvle who was trying to reassure me was too skeptical and yet he said no word.

“We got to discuss it with your Mammy, she knows better. And, Ricka …” Trawl hesitated, as if pondering over something, and went on, “we have to tell you something else. I do not want you to learn it from people on the street…”

“What?” I sat on the bench at the wall getting prepared.

“You just…” he paused, “…just don’t take it too close to your heart.”

“I don’t get you,” I turned my eyes to Yoos who was still silent with a stony face expressing completely nothing.

“There is more…” Truvle hesitated and ran his hand through his hair as if collecting his thoughts. But Yoos stepped in there, “The explosion rolled all over the northern part of the valley and reached… It got to Mount Eagle…”

I felt a chill of some bad premonition crawling inside my chest, but I remained silent, waiting for more.

“The fortress is intact,” he said hastily, “but those who were on the gate and the walls at that moment…” he stopped short and fell silent again.

“What… what happened to them?!” I squeezed out the words still not knowing what they were getting at.

The men exchanged glances.

“They’re dead,” Trawl turned away.

I froze, staring at them my eyes open wide.

“How many?” I said with a voice that was not mine. Tears caught my throat.

“Eleven… And five more are with the healers now. Burnt badly.”

I could not hold my tears.

I killed eleven people! Eleven innocent people! How could this ever be possible? What was it going on with me? This is not right, no… it can’t be like that. Like I … I am a monster!”

Apparently, I involuntarily pronounced the last part loud since Yoos was right there next to me. “Listen! You are not a monster! Look at me, Ricka. You aren’t to blame for this. You had nothing to do with all that.”

I raised my eyes, full of tears and obedience, and looked into his weather-beaten face. As our eyes met, I realized he was lying to me. Both to me and to himself. It was my magic power that killed them, and nothing else. Our lives, Elcha’s and mine, had cost them theirs. And Yoos had known many of those people. I could read lots of pain in his gray eyes. And Captain of the Karun guard could not hide it, no matter how hard he was trying. I could also see he blamed himself. Not only he, by the way. Truvle was biting his lips every time he thought that no one was looking at him.

“Ricka, it’s all my fault!” Nargara entered the room, “and please…”

“No!” I jumped up, driven by anger and despair. “Don’t you ever lie to me! It’s all me! I killed them! I’m a monster! A killer!”

All of a sudden I could see my closest people’s faces get filled with fear. Truvle stepped forward stretching out a hand in a warning gesture.

But Nargara’s cold voice stopped him, “Truvle, don’t even try!”

I looked down at my hands and saw fire tongues crawling along, getting bigger and bigger. I tried to shake the flames off yet they went on spreading stubbornly over the skin, as if sticking to its master.

Suddenly, the room got freezing, and a white frost pattern crept across the floor and the walls. It was approaching me, stretching forward its curls as if begging for help.

“Ricka, calm down!” Mammy’s tough voice ordered. “Ricka, can you hear me, my girl? Please, don’t…”

I took my gaze off the fire and looked at her. Nargara’s eyes glowed somewhere deep

inside. His hair swayed as if supported by an invisible air stream. And only then I noticed that the same was going on with my hair, only my curls were sparkling with golden flames. A flow of heat was running from me to her outstretched hand, and turned into ice as it approached her.

Nargara is using her magic against me, I realized. And as I got it, I felt my anger and indignation taking another surge and kindling the flame anew. It enveloped me all over again, the euphoria was growing and spreading through my entire body.

It felt like it was not me but someone else. All my senses got dull, there was no more fear, and only my power was increasing. I felt fear coming off the people standing in front of me, and I saw confusion on their faces. However, for some reason I didn’t care a spit about it… My new self could no longer put up with anyone daring to suppress me with magic, and it stirred another wave of indignation inside me.

“Don’t? You really mean it?” my voice sounded mocking already as a wry smile touched my lips. “Don’t what?”

“We don’t want anyone else to die,” her quiet reply came.

The witch’s words seemed to freeze me and turn into an ice cube, even without magic. The fire went out instantly, and I slid down the wall, burying my face in my hands.

All the three rushed to me. I felt strong arms take me up and seat in a chair.

“Water,” Nargara ordered, and Yoos arrow-dashed to the kitchen coming back a couple of seconds later with a glass of water in his trembling hands.

“Okay, it’s over, my girl. You calm down, everything will be fine,” Mammy said while giving me a hug and stroking my hair.

“Block it… block the flow, like you did before… Please, do. I don’t want it again!” I began to scream through sobs.

“Can’t do it anymore,” she said softly, hugging me again and pressing my head against her chest, “your source is too strong. You have to learn how to control it. It’s all… All that happened in the Fortress was just an accident. Don’t blame yourself,” her quiet voice came.

I clutched at her arms, as hard as I could, and gave way to my loudest sobs, as if it would bring any salvation from all the horror I had gone through.

The Secrets Long Past

As I calmed down a little and began to come back to my senses, Mammy gave me a drink of elixir. I could not tell which exactly since a veil of tears had filled my eyes. However, it sent some nice warm feeling spreading all over my body further bringing a slight relaxation bordering on indifference.

“Baby’s sleep,” I realized. If taken in a small dosage, it worked as a sedative, while a full dose turned it into a sleeping drug.

They pushed my chair closer to the fire, which seemed angry as it was cracking and roaring at the wood that would not submit to its tongues. The everlasting fire in our home included thirteen logs – seven in the master fireplace in the hall, four in the kitchen, another two resting in the stove on the second floor. That was good enough to heat the house even through the worst winter colds. In summer though we never put it down either, only removed a few logs, which left us with an inevitable bit of special comfort. I was looking at the fire, feeling much surprised that after all that had happened I could still enjoy its warm and peaceful crackle. Apparently, it was because the fire in the fireplace was different from the magic fire on my hands.

Meanwhile, the conversation in the living room went on – the men were arguing again about what to do next, leave or stay.

Elcha was sitting next to me, looking into the fireplace, too, and biting her lower lip silently.

She already knew about everything.

Awakened with the fuss downstairs, she jumped out exactly the moment I had just been put in the chair. For a while, my sister sat beside me squeezing silently my fingers until the elixir took its effect. Her hand was bandaged up to the shoulder and rested in a sling on her chest. Her face was pale, eyes sunken and shining of some tough determination. She was no longer that very noisy and fussy girl that would chatter incessantly a day before. Now she had her lips tightly pressed, and her gaze totally focused. She seemed to have grown a couple of years over a night. Then, as if making a decision, she got up and addressed everyone sitting in the living room.

“Well, why don’t you start telling us something at least? I still believe you do know much more than we do,” she curved her eyebrows and pierced everyone with one of her most inquisitive looks.

“What is it you wanna know?” Nargara asked and moved her tired glance onto me.

“First,” Elcha started, “who were the beasts? Second, why is it us they wanted to get? Third, how did they find us?” she was walking as if measuring the room as she darted the questions. “And fourth, if it was so dangerous, then what the he… Mammy, why did you ban us from using magic?!” she turned sharply to face Nargara while her eyes were beaming with so

much ferocity that even Yoos, so gloomy a minute ago, started smiling as he looked at the witch expecting her to respond. But she remained silent.

“And another, just one more thing to ask,” she stopped for an instant thinking over something and then went on with the interrogation, “Who of you were there, on the northern slope, the night before last. I could hear and see two of you, and now, after all that happened, I guess it was us you were talking about.”

Mammy’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Elcha, and her confusion was so manifest she couldn’t have hidden it even if had tried. The moment was so ripe that I jumped right in concluding my sister’s shower of questions, “Enough of your secrets. Looks like they may cost us too much.”

The men looked at each other, puzzled, both moving their eyes at Nargara thus giving her a free hand making the decision.

She exhaled trying to pluck up her courage.

“If we answered your questions now, that would bring around even more of them, and we cannot explain everything…”

“Why?” Elcha immediately asked in the most assertive manner.

“Because we are all bound by the oath of Erion,” Mammy replied quietly.

Now it was our turn to exchange glances.

“Any level to it?” I tried to clarify once I managed my shock.

“First,” Nargara answered in even a lower voice, and fixed her gaze on the fireplace.

We were perfectly aware what it meant; read about it in the Book of Elements.

Erion was a sacred oath with three levels and a great conquering power. It was somewhat different for each of the Elements, yet the point was always the same.

The third level oath was an oath given in words, and if broken it would inflict physical cripple on the guilty party. For life.

The second level oath – magic; if broken, would cut off all the sources taking away the magic powers.

The first level – and the most dangerous – oath on blood. It would kill if violated.

Elcha’s emotions ceased immediately and she sat on the bench at the wall, with some absent-minded expression on her face.

“Any time constraints?” unless expressed that question would have blown my mind.

“Seventeen years… Over in a year’s time” Truvle answered, at the same time answering my next question even before I could ask it.

Silence fell on the room, except the fire cracking monotonously. Nargara broke it first.

“The oath was taken in a small circle of folks, and you weren’t there with us then.”

“So we can’t tell anyone else, that’s the worst part,” Yoos added.

“You mean there are some secrets that concern us, yet we are the ones who won’t learn them, right?”

Yoos nodded.

“That’s the paradox,” Elcha frowned.

“Yes, that’s the side effect we couldn’t have predicted. And there was no need to do so, actually,” Truvle said while stroking the scrub on his chin.

“But there is at least something you can tell, right?” even though the things took quite an unexpected turn Elcha was still not going to give up meekly and unconditionally.

“I can tell you everything in a year, no earlier. But I think I’ll try to explain something…” Mammy said after some thinking, still featuring her typical confidence in the voice. And then slowly, as if tasting every word first, she began it.

“Those creatures… They are called Goortans. They are very dangerous. They’re bloodhounds, and they feel magic with their manes, much like dogs smell with the nose. But they do not act on their own, there serve forces much stronger, and they…” her voice fell silent for a moment.

“I can’t,” she stammered, and a painful expression covered her face.

Truvle came up to her chair, sat down on the floor and took her hand silently thus offering her support.

“Goortans don’t hunt you both, just Ricka. They need the older one.”

“As long as the first is alive, they don’t need the other one…” my sister said, and everyone looked at her in surprise. She smiled shyly and spread her arms.

“There, on the northern slope, it was me, and I want to know now what exactly you could hear from that conversation,” Nargara gave her a look of reprimand.

That made Elcha blush a little, yet she still could give quite a smooth account of what she had managed to eavesdrop.

“Yeah, that’s definitely not that little,” Truvle hemmed.

“Well, it may even be all for the better,” Yoos added.

“The man you spoke to, who was he?” Elcha asked showing the same inquisitiveness as earlier.

“He plays on our side,” Mammy replied evasively and, waiting a little, she added, “A friend, a good’n old friend.”

But there was so much sadness and pain in her voice it was clear immediately that the man was anyone but a friend… They usually talk like that about someone so dear yet lost forever.

Besides, I could see Truvle frown, as if even the mention of that man was too much of a trouble to him. However, he could quickly pull himself up and put some mask of indifference on his face.

“And you, there, you talked something about a gift… Was it about me?” I asked carefully. I don’t know why but that was the part that caught my attention most in Elcha’s story.

“Yes, it was about you. I blocked your gift then, when you were still a child. Not because I was afraid of it, Ricka, no. But because for them it was like a beacon, so that could make us an easy prey to them, in any of the four Worlds. They know the trace your magic leaves.”

“How come?!” my question escaped my lips even before I could know it.

Nargara tried to say something again, but stopped and waved her hand slightly through the air, so making it clear I would get no answer to that one. It was all about their oath.

A moment later she continued, “I hope you get now that the ban on magic is not just my whim. I have kept you hidden for so many years. I muffled down your source, and took you from place to place, and I mixed elixirs for Elcha to drown her magic background… Where… Where did I go wrong?” she uttered with anger and disappointment, throwing aside her handkerchief that she was twisting nervously in her hands.

I searched through my mind and could recall some elixirs she used to give to Elcha. Yes, Mammy gave her, from time to time, some kind of potion, saying that it was just good for overall health. Some bitter and smelly brew that Elcha would not drink anyway, only pretended, and so it

had gone on for at least two years.

I also could remember that my sister’s gift began to grow stronger a couple of years ago, which made her just itching to use it whenever she could grab a chance. She gathered any bit of knowledge that might be useful; she hid books, wrote spells, adjusted them to the Element of Fire, sometimes even trying totally incomprehensible combinations. Of course, most of them never worked. But I could only admire my sister’s perseverance seeing her go on experimenting and studying day after day.

And then it crossed our minds! We could see where Nargara had gone wrong. She gave too much of her care to me, while leaving my sister with none of that, and the latter grew, just like her magic skills did. While up to her ears in other stuff, Mammy just lost the sight of Elcha’s mischief – that which now inflicted a lot of suffering and trouble upon the lot of us.

“We have got relaxed, spent way too much time in Karun,” Captain said, “we believed there was nobody hot on our tails, so we took our guard down. Just failed to recognize.”

“No, Yoos, I don’t think so,” Mammy said in a calm voice and looked at us. “And now, my girls, here is the last question I want to ask you. For fifteen years I have been keeping your abilities secret. Now, how come they found us?

We looked at each other and sank our heads into shoulders. But there was no use trying to conceal anything.

And then Elcha said quietly, nearly in whisper, “It’s me. Yes, it’s my fault. They found from our magic print. I led them straight to ourselves, I did some magic,” she exhaled and pressed herself into the bench taking her head in her hands.

Yes, you did lead them, I thought, more than once, actually. And it was Nargara who saved us from being torn into bits that night. Once she said she had sealed the valley that meant the valley was not just sealed but from then on it was stronger than any fortress.

The witch nodded seeing her worst fears prove true.

“So, young Lady, how long have you been playing with fire?” Yoos inquired slightly leaning forward.

“I don’t know,” she was confused, “Well, I…”

“Had it been just a couple of times they wouldn’t have got the smell,” Truvle shared his observations.

“Well, the milk is spilt now, no way back,” Nargara looked at Elcha, “but I think you are using the source just all-anyhow, which exhausted it so fast. By the way, what were your patterns there? Have never seen anything like that before.” She gave us an unexpected smile that brought so much comfort to the entire place.

“Oh, yeah! I think that was the first time I saw fire employed so stupidly,” Yoos added still keeping his eyes fixed on my sister.

“I learnt it from water sorcery, for beginners. Just used their schemes and got something from the Book of Elements.”

“Water sorcery? You mean you did manage something out of it?” Truvle whistled in surprise. “Okay, then. Hey, Captain, guess you got to apologize for saying something like stupidly.” Truvle wagged his finger at Yoos as the latter spread his arms in a gesture of apology.

“The major thing now is what we do next,” Nargara was fast to get everyone back down to the earth.

“Just live like we lived,” I repeated Truvle’s idea, still not much sure it was any possible.

“I think there is nothing else left to us. And all we have to wait is another year,” Yoos was lost in his thoughts as he was saying it.

“And what happens in a year?” I asked finally the question that would not let me stay calm.

“You are turning 21 in a year’s time, and then one of the most amazing events in your life is coming,” the witch said while her face lit up with some kind of unique delight, as if she had just recollected something.

I was ready for more explanations but all the three were looking at the fire silently. It felt they were making it clear that I had to wait to get the answer… for a year at least.

The Last Chance

In the morning, Nargara announced she had to leave for a couple of days just to sort something out, yet never said where exactly she was going. And then she reminded, “We live the way we did before, as if nothing had happened.” And instructed us, “Girls, please, just stay out of harm’s way, okay? No more trouble. Quiet as lambs. And no magic whatsoever!”

Finally, apparently to keep us busy, she gave us a whole list of chores to tackle.

However, it was no longer possible to live as before, at least because the entire city was buzzing like a bunch of angry bees discussing the recent events.

There were more people than ever on the marketplace, and of course the major thing under discussion was the battle of the fire people and the burnt down desert instead of green meadows at the path leading out of the valley.

“Where are the guards looking?! We have to comb through the city. They still may be walking among us, and we don’t even have the least idea! What the heck brought them here? This is our World and we don’t want any of their stupid fights. Get them roll outta here and burn their own place, we don’t care!” someone was shouting as the crowd roared with approval.

I pulled my head into shoulders as I passed by, and walked even faster.

The scrap of paper that Mammy gave me had a whole list of foods and various glass vessels for elixirs to get at the market.

As I approached a counter with vegetables I saw two women standing there, one of them whispering, “I hear the news has reached the capital… They say people in the Palace are very much worried about all this!”

“They should be, I guess,” the other one replied, “those fire folks have gone too far this time! How could they ever do that in our lands? And it killed our guards! Earlier that might have ended in huge conflict between the Worlds. But now you can’t say a thing to anyone. Just look at what is going on here in our own World. Complete mess!”

As I walked on, two men passed by, both discussing still the same thing, and I could only catch a bit of that, “Poor Kold… So young, just a boy. And this…”

As the name reached my ears I froze and nearly got crashed into by a woman. I knew the one they were talking about – Tonar, Kold the Baker’s son. The guy who would always treat me all those buns after each training session.

I remembered that he had just been put on duty at the Eagle’s Nest fortress gate. And then he fell prey to that terrible night. I felt everything inside clench with pain and guilt, and before I knew it my legs were already taking me to the southern part of the city, getting faster and faster with each step.

The bakery was closed, and the shelves ever-smelling of fresh and hot buns and bread were empty. But I still had the courage and knocked on the door. The door swung open a moment later, and Mr. Kold appeared in the doorway, his face pale, and dark areas under the eyes.

He tried to smile, as always, but it turned out too forced. Running his hand over his face, he waved to me inviting me in. I followed and even wanted to say something, but a lump in the throat would not give way to even a sigh.

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