He couldn’t even help those last thoughts. They just came. All of them in his memories, to be read all at once.
Once again the entire chamber rumbled and rocked. Bits of dark stone fell down from temporary fissures that opened in the ceiling above. “Yellow Fire
live
. Altin Love new human make water. Yellow Fire die?” She sent along with the thunderous boom of her words the reflected image of Doctor Marks Bryant back at him. She’d pulled that right out of his memories along with all the rest. “Not make Yellow Fire die.”
There came after that a series of ideas, and by the end of it, Altin realized that Blue Fire had already turned hope into a somewhat perverted form of quasi-misery. In seeing that there was a chance that Yellow Fire might be killed, it seemed she’d rather live knowing that he was marginally alive, lying as he was in a perpetual state of dormancy, than return to the knowledge that he was actually dead. She’d found hope, and now she was going to cling to it forever, even if it was hope in an emaciated state.
Altin groaned aloud, and he felt her withdraw some from his thoughts after reading them.
Orli Love hate Blue Fire. Blue Fire alone
. These came straight into his mind again, and he had to fight to not let even more exasperation through.
“By the gods, creature! Orli Love does not hate you. I will never hate you. And you have to let us try. For all we know, he’s in there hoping we’ll hurry up so he can come back to you. Love is a hopeful thing, my friend. Love requires faith.”
“Yellow Fire no die. Blue Fire love.” She rumbled the words through her colossal stone body.
“But you don’t have him now. He isn’t really yours. Not yet. It’s just as Altin Love was once lost to me too. Do you remember? Remember the poison that took her love away?”
Blue Fire projected back an image of Thadius Thoroughgood. It was the human face of poison to her. The symbol of it. The cavern rumbled violently, but shaped no words.
“Yes,” Altin went on. “Exactly. I hated losing the love of Altin Love. Thadius’ poison stole her love away, even while she lived. And that’s what the flare of that sun did too. The star called Fruitfall flared, and its fire took your Yellow Fire’s love away. But he too still lives. And maybe we can bring him back. Like I got Altin Love back. You must at least let us try.”
His mind filled with unspoken fear, terror that showed him the gray, smoky image of the pulsing heart of Yellow Fire, and slowly the gray smoke grew thick and the purple light went out, replaced by the face of Marks Bryant with water running down his face. Then he saw Orli weeping, and then himself as the image of Orli went away, obscured like the heart of Yellow Fire by graying smoke.
Altin sighed. “Yes, it’s true,” he replied. “We might end up killing him. It is possible. You saw that in my head. But how long do you want to remain alone?” He paused, frustrated. Floating above the ground with a spell that wasn’t his added to his sense of helplessness. “This is what I know, the one thing I can tell you for certain: as long as there was any possibility that I might get my Orli, my Altin Love, back, I never gave up on her. I never would have. I never will. No matter what happens. In the end, she is all that matters to me. But, in the end, it is up to you to decide what you want to do about Yellow Fire now. I won’t let them touch him if you say not to. The choice is yours.”
Again there was a long and cavernous silence. He waited so long that he wondered if she had forgotten he was there. But finally she spoke again.
“Water cut. Heart stone kill.” It came with the image once again of Professor Bryant sitting there, tears pouring down his face.
“Yes. The water saw might kill his heart.”
“Water cut kill Blue Fire heart?” It was clearly an inquiry.
“No. Of course not. Why would it?”
“No.” The cavern shook for the barest moment with the violence of her frustration with human words. She presented him with the image of Professor Bryant working in her own heart chamber, the narrow place with the glowing yellow walls and the patch of green that she had called the Father’s Gift. He saw the geologist there, and then he saw the gray smoke fill it and snuff out Blue Fire’s heart stone. “Water come Blue Fire. Kill Blue Fire heart.”
With a jolt he realized what she was asking him. And he adamantly refused. “Absolutely not,” he said. “We will not come kill you.”
She rumbled all around him again, still frustrated apparently. “Yellow Fire die. Blue Fire die,” she said. She showed him the purple heart fading out, then the green heart that was her own following in kind. “Yellow Fire live. Blue Fire live. Orli Love promise keep.”
Altin frowned, but he understood it well enough. His first thought was to refuse again, but then he considered all that she had been through. He considered all that he had been through as well, and in doing so, he realized that what she was asking would be the only kind thing left to do. Her misery had already lasted so long. So, so long. So, with another long, sad sigh, he agreed.
“Fine,” he said. “You have my word. If it doesn’t work, if Yellow Fire dies, then I promise I will make them come here and cut out your heart too. If there can be no peace together in this lifetime, then the two of you can find peace in eternity.”
She filled him with a swell of gratitude that was so enormous it made him cry. He was still crying when he suddenly found himself back on Prosperion, in the teleportation chamber in Calico Castle’s central spire.
Apparently Blue Fire wanted to be alone.
Chapter 18
T
he Incredible Spectacularo stood upon a stage that groaned beneath his weight, so much so that the boards creaked at even the least movement with his hands. The stage lights were too bright, and he hated how these damn electrical things blasted their glare at him. He’d long ago stopped squinting into them trying to see out into the crowd—if one presumed to call it such. Oh, for the first two months or so, the room had filled up fairly well, but then the numbers had died away. But, as usual, there were a few patrons here tonight, a smattering of sweaty faces staring up at him, waiting for his next trick, the pittance he gleaned off their working-class salaries enough to keep hunger away … and the authorities.
“For my next trick,” he said, doing his best to force some stagecraft energy, “I’ll need a volunteer.” He scanned the mangy group, looking for a rising hand. Of course none came. These people were only barely alive.
He walked up to the front of the stage, raising a hand to shield his eyes, and peered into the gloom. Children were the best, if he could find them at the right age. They at least, unlike their slack-jawed parents, could find some level of excitability.
There were no children in the crowd.
“Come on now, people,” he said again, propping up a smile on his face. “Are you not curious about the dark arts of soul stealing, and the secrets of moving time?”
This perked a few of them up, but a woman in the front row, whose needle-thin body was a dark green mess of old tattoos, yawned and shook her head, whispering to a friend who looked just like her in the seat beside. They both laughed dry laughs that scratched along the backs of their throats like wooden benches being dragged across a flagstone floor.
“Well, how about you, then?” The Incredible Spectacularo pointed to a young man perhaps not too far beyond his teens. He had the same glassy-eyed look that the rest of the dregs in this part of the city had. It was the drugs they took. Things most of them made themselves in their rat-infested apartments, apartments that were little more than old shipping containers, whole neighborhoods of them, stacked like the boxes of some giant lady’s shoes. “Come on, then,” he said encouragingly. “Surely you’re brave enough to travel just a bit of time. Come along, then. It’s all good fun. You don’t look like the type who is too easily afraid.”
Two young men seated on either side of the youth laughed at him. One punched him in the arm while the other called him a pussy, and between the two, they got him to get up and approach the stage.
“Ah, there we go, my good friend,” said The Incredible Spectacularo through a smile as greasy and uncared for as was the hair upon the young volunteer’s head. “So what is your name, my friend? And, please tell us what you do.” It was difficult to keep the smile going in the bright lights. He had to force his lips to shape it, gritting his teeth and driving his cheeks up with conscious and ongoing effort. All of it made the outer corners of his eyes ache.
“Reggie,” said the youth. “And I’m a ’lectrician’s assistant. Lookin’ for work.”
“Ahh,” cooed The Incredible Spectacularo, “what a noble trade.” Of course he was looking for work. They all were. The magician had no idea what the career so described was, his command of the language still not spectacular, but he had no interest in finding out anyway. He only knew that in these first five seconds with Reggie the volunteer, he was already developing an incredible hatred for the lad.
“And so, my dear Reggie,” he went on anyway, “have you ever traveled through time before?”
“Like,
duh
, dude. What do you think?”
Well, there it was. Finally a laugh from the crowd. For Reggie, of course.
The Incredible Spectacularo summoned all his will and pushed the smile even closer to his ears. He let go several notes of a laugh, “Hah, hah,” adding, “What a great wit you are, Reggie.” The smile died entirely for a moment as he whirled around for effect, grabbing the edge of his tatty black silk cloak by its even tattier red silk lining and giving it a flourish as he spun. “But now, friend Reggie, it is time for your first trip. Come up here, please.”
As Reggie climbed the three stairs leading up to the stage, The Incredible Spectacularo went to a small plastic table near the back curtain, carefully avoiding the cracked board it straddled—Slick Danny was going to get that fixed soon, or so he’d said. He picked up a large round clock lying on the table, a flat one of the sort these people often hung on their walls. With a cursory sideways glance to another clock offstage to see what time it was, he spun back around with yet another elaborate flourish, so violently, so sped by the growing hatred of having to endure this indignity, he nearly lost his fuzzy black top hat.
He reached for it, catching it with both hands, including the one holding the clock, and both hat and clock twisted awkwardly and nearly fell. The audience laughed again. He fought back the derision that would have made a hate mask of his face. Or perhaps “a hate window” would be more accurate.
He got the hat and clock in order again, then handed the clock to his volunteer with a saccharine smile. “Good, brave Reggie, I have here a clock for you. Please show it to the audience so they can all see what time it is.”
Reggie halfheartedly lifted up the clock, holding it in both hands, arms out and moving ever so slightly side to side.
“So, my friends in the audience, as you may recall, our dear volunteer was seated right over there.” He pointed to Reggie’s empty seat. “Raise your hands, friends of Reggie, please.”
Reggie’s two friends raised their hands and let out a series of uncultured
whoop
s.
“Please take note, everyone, of where Reggie was,” said The Incredible Spectacularo. He gave the audience time to do so. “And now, without further delay, observe as I take us all back in time, back to only a few minutes ago. Keep your eyes on our friend Reggie here, and try not to blink.”
Offstage, Slick Danny flipped the switch that played a drumroll, the sound crackling ominously from the speakers mounted on either side of the stage lights.
The Incredible Spectacularo closed his eyes and began to chant a litany of words. “Oh great spirits of the underworld,” he intoned, “oh to the servants of devils long gone and those yet risen. Reach out and open the portals of all time to us that we may send Reggie through.”
He risked a peek out through barely open eyelids and saw that, at least for a moment, the dullards out there were all watching at least semi-anxiously.
“Friend Reggie,” The Incredible Spectacularo asked, “are you ready to travel back in time to the moments before you came up onstage?”
Reggie laughed. “Yeah, dude. Whatever. Just hurry up; I have to piss.”
More laughter from the crowd.
“Are you sure you are ready for this, the greatest if briefest adventure in your life?”
“Bring it.”
“Watch the seats behind you, my friends,” he told the audience, “for what you are about to see will astound you and change you forever.”
The magician then began the chant for real. He spoke the words easily, having spoken them hundreds, perhaps thousands of times before. He wove first a careful illusion upon the clock in Reggie’s hands, all but casting it complete, and then he made the teleport, wrapping the ready and willing Reggie in an envelope of mana and sending him right back to his seat. In the instant after he sent the youth on his way, he finished the illusion on the clock, making it appear to read three minutes earlier. “There!” he proclaimed, pointing to the back of the theater where Reggie had just appeared. As an added bit of finesse, he quickly cast a second illusion, this one on Reggie himself, adding for all who had just turned to observe—all but Reggie and his two friends—the illusion of the one fellow punching Reggie in the arm just as he had done before Reggie got up.