Fire Sea

1

“Father, we have no choice. Yesterday, another child died. The day before, his grandmother. The cold grows more bitter, every day. Yet,” his son pauses, “I’m not certain it is the cold, so much, as the darkness, Father. The cold is killing their bodies, but it is the darkness that is killing their spirit. Baltazar is right. We must leave now, while we still have strength enough to make the journey.”

Standing outside in the dark hallway, I listen, observe, and wait for the king’s reply.

But the old man does not immediately respond. He sits on a throne of gold, decorated with diamonds large as a man’s fist, raised up on a dais overlooking a huge hall made of polished marble. He can see very little of the hall. Most of it is lost in shadow. A gas lamp, sputtering and hissing on the floor at his feet, gives off only a dim and feeble light.

Shivering, the old king hunches his shoulders deeper into the fur robes he has piled over and around him. He slides himself nearer the faint edge of the throne, nearer the gas lamp, although he knows he will extract no warmth from the flickering flame. I believe it is the Comfort of the light he seeks. His son is right. The darkness is killing us.

“Once there was a time,” the old king says, “when the lights in the palace burned all night long. We danced all night long. We’d grow too hot, with the dancing, and we’d run outside the palace walls, run out into the streets beneath the cavern ceiling where it was cool, and we’d throw ourselves into the soft grass and laugh and laugh.” He paused. “Your mother loved to dance.”

“Yes, Father, I remember.” His son’s voice is soft and patient.

Edmund knows his father is not rambling. He knows the king has made a decision, the only one he can make. He knows that his father is now saying good-bye.

“The orchestra was over there.” The old king lifts a gnarled finger, points to a corner of the hall shrouded in deep darkness. “They’d play all during the sleep-half of the cycle, drinking parfruit wine to keep the fire in their blood. Of course, they all got drunk. By the end of the cycle, half of them weren’t playing the same music as the other half. But that didn’t matter to us. It only made us laugh more. We laughed a lot, then.”

The old man hums to himself, a melody of his youth. I have been standing in the shadows of the hall, all this time, watching the scene through a crack in the nearly closed door. I decide that it is time to make my presence known, if only to Edmund. It is beneath my dignity to snoop. I summon a servant, send it to the king with an irrelevant message. The door creaks open, a draught of chill air wafts through the hall, nearly dousing the flame of the gas lamp. The servant shambles into the hall, its shuffling footfalls leaving behind whispering echoes in the all—but-empty palace.

Edmund raises a warding hand, motions the servant to withdraw. But he glances out the door, acknowledges my presence with a slight nod, and silently bids me wait for him. He does not need to speak or do more than that nod of the head. He and I know each other so well, we can communicate without words.

The servant withdraws, its ambling footsteps taking it back out. It starts to shut the door, but I quietly stop it, send it away. The old king has noticed the servant’s entrance and exit, although he pretends that he doesn’t. Old age has few prerogatives, few luxuries. Indulging oneself in eccentricities is one of them. Indulging oneself in memory—another.

The old man sighs, looks down at the golden throne on which he sits. His gaze shifts to a throne that stands next to his, a throne done on a smaller scale, meant for a woman’s smaller frame, a throne that has long been empty. Perhaps he sees himself, his youthful body strong and tall, leaning over to whisper in her ear, their hands reaching out to each other. Their hands were clasped together always, whenever they were near.

He holds her hand sometimes now, but that hand is chill, colder than the cold pervading our world. The chill hand destroys the past for him. He doesn’t go to her much, now. He prefers memory.

The gold gleamed in the light, then,” he tells his son. “The diamonds sparkled sometimes until we couldn’t look at them. They were so brilliant they’d make the eyes water. We were rich, rich beyond belief. We reveled in our wealth.

“All in innocence, I think,” the old king adds, after some thought. “We were not greedy, not covetous. ‘How they’ll stare, when they come to us. How they’ll stare when they first set eyes on such gold, such jewels!’ we’d say to ourselves. The gold and diamonds in this throne alone would have bought a nation back in their world, according to the ancient texts. And our world is filled with such treasures, lying untouched, untapped in the stone.

“I remember the mines. Ah, that was long ago. Long before you were born, My Son. The Little People were still among us, then. They were the last, the toughest, the strongest. The last to survive. My father took me among them when I was very young. I don’t remember much about them except their fierce eyes and thick beards that hid their faces and their short, quick fingers. I was frightened of them, but my father said they were really a gentle people, merely rude and impatient with outsiders.”

The old king sighs heavily. His hand rubs the cold metal arm of the throne, as if he could bring the light back to it. “I understand now, I think. They were fierce and rude because they were frightened. They saw their doom. My father must have seen it, too. He fought against it, but there was nothing he could do. Our magic wasn’t strong enough to save them. It hasn’t even been strong enough to save ourselves. Look, look at this!” The old king becomes querulous, beats a knotted fist on the gold. “Wealth! Wealth to buy a nation. And my people starving. Worthless, worthless.”

He stares at the gold. It looks dull and sullen, almost ugly, reflecting back the feeble fire that burns at the old man’s feet. The diamonds no longer sparkle. They, too, look cold and dead. Their their life is dependent on man’s fire, man’s life. When that is gone, the diamonds will be black as the world around them.

“They’re not coming, are they, Son?” the old king asks.

“No, Father,” his son tells him. Edmund’s hand, strong and warm, closes over the old man’s gnarled, shivering fingers. “I think, if they were going to come, they would have come by now.”

“I want to go outside,” the old king says suddenly.

“Are you sure, Father?” Edmund looks at him, concerned.

“Yes, I’m sure!” The old king returns testily. Another luxury of old age—indulging in whims.

Wrapping himself tighter in the fur robes, he rises from the throne, descends the dais. His son stands by to aid his steps, if necessary, but it isn’t. The king is old, even by the standards of our race, who are long-lived. But he is in good physical condition, his magic is strong and supports him better than most. He has grown stoop-shouldered, but that is from the weight of the many burdens he’s been forced to bear during his long life. His hair is pure white, it whitened when he was in his middle years, whitened during the time of his wife’s brief illness that took her from him.

Edmund lifts the gas lamp, carries it with them to light the way. The gas is precious, now; more precious than gold. The king looks at the gas lamps hanging from the ceiling, lamps that are dark and cold. Watching him, I can guess his thoughts. He knows he shouldn’t be wasting the gas like this. But it isn’t wasting, not really. He is king and someday, someday soon perhaps, his son will be king. He must show him, must tell him, must make him see what it was like before. Because, who knows? The chance might come when his son will return and make it what it once had been.

They leave the throne room, walk out into the dark and drafty corridor. I stand where they may be certain to see me. The light of the gas lamp illuminates me. I see myself reflected in a mirror hanging on a wall across from them. A pale and eager face, emerging from the darkness, its white skin and glittering eyes catching the light, looming suddenly out of the shadows. My body, dad in black robes, is one with the eternal sleep that has settled on this realm. My head appears to be disembodied, hanging suspended in the darkness. The sight is frightening. I startle myself.

The old king sees me, pretends not to. Edmund makes a swift, negating gesture, shakes his own head ever so slightly. I bow and withdraw, returning to the shadows.

“Let Baltazar wait,” I hear the old king mutter to himself. “He’ll get what he wants eventually. Let him wait now. The necromancer has time. I do not.”

They walk the halls of the palace, two sets of footfalls echoing loudly through the empty corridors. But the old man is lost in the past, listening to the sounds of gaiety and music, recalling the shrill giggle of a child playing tag with his father and mother through the halls of the palace.

I, too, remember that time. I was twenty when Prince Edmund was born. The palace teemed with life: aunts and uncles, cousins by birth and by marriage, courtiers—always agreeable and smiling and ready to laugh—council members bustling in and out with business, citizens presenting petitions or requesting judgments. I lived in the palace, serving my apprenticeship to the king’s necromancer, A studious youth, I spent far more time in the library than I did on the dance floor. But I must have absorbed more than I thought. Sometimes, in the sleep-half, I imagine I can still hear the music.

“Order,” the old king was saying. “It was all orderly, back then. Order was our heritage, order and peace. I don’t understand what happened. Why did it change? What brought the chaos, what brought the darkness?”

“We did, Father,” replies Edmund steadily. “We must have.”

He knows differently, of course. I’ve taught him better than that. But he will always go out of his way to avoid an argument with his father. Still, after all these years, striving desperately for love.

I follow them, my black slippers make no noise on the cold stone floors. Edmund knows I am with them. He glances back occasionally, as if relying on my strength. I gaze at him with fond pride, the pride I might have felt for my own son. Edmund and I are close, closer than many fathers and sons, closer than he is to his own father, although he won’t admit it. His parents were so deeply involved with each other, they had little time for the child their love created. I was the boy’s tutor and, over time, became the lonely youth’s friend, companion, adviser.

Now he is in his twenties, strong and handsome and virile. He will make a good king, I tell myself, and I repeat the words several times over, as if they were a talisman and would banish the shadow that lies over my heart.

At the end of the hallway stand giant, double doors, marked with symbols whose meanings have been forgotten, symbols that have, with time and progress, been partially obliterated. The old man waits, holding the lamp while his son, muscular shoulders straining, shoves aside the heavy metal bar that keeps the palace doors shut and locked.

The bar is a new addition. The old king frowns at it. Perhaps he is remembering a time, before Edmund was born, when there was no need for a physical barrier. Magic kept the doors shut then. Over the years, however, the magic was needed for other, more important tasks—such as survival.

His son pushes on the doors and they swing open. A blast of cold air blows out the gas lamp. The cold is bitter, fierce, penetrates the fur robes. It reminds the old king that, chill as is the palace, its walls and their magic offer some protection from the blood-freezing, bone-numbing darkness outside.

“Father, are you certain you’re up to this?” Edmund asks worriedly.

“Yes,” the old man snaps, although my guess is that he wouldn’t have gone if he’d been alone. “Don’t worry about me. If Baltazar has his way, we’ll all be out in this before long.”

Yes, he knows I’m near, knows I’m listening. He’s jealous of my influence over Edmund. All I can say is, Old man, you had your chance.

“Baltazar has found a route that takes us down through the tunnels, Father. I explained that to you before. The air will grow wanner, the deeper into the world we penetrate.”

“Found such a fool notion in a book, I suppose. No use lighting the damn thing,” the old king remarks, referring to the lamp. “Don’t waste your magic. I don’t need a light. Many and many are the times I’ve stood on this colonnade. I could walk it blindfolded.”

I can hear them moving through the darkness. I can almost see the king thrust aside Edmund’s proffered arm—the prince is dutiful and loving to a father who little deserves it—and stalk unhesitatingly through the doors. I stand in the hallway and try to ignore the cold biting at my face and hands, numbing my feet.

“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.. . .