Good Mountain

Fire

The night air was cool and dry, and it blew softly toward the east—a breeze at this moment, but gaining strength and urgency with the passage of time. Years ago, a tidy little city had grown up on this ridge, but then the sun vanished, and the city had died. Homes and shops quickly became piles of anonymous rubble. But the worm station must have survived for more years. The facility was only recently stripped of its metal, but otherwise it had been left intact. Only a few saprophytic weeds were rooted in the softest planks, while the damp faces of the main building were painted with a rough fungus. Regardless of color, every surface glowed with a steady red light. Jopale read “Kings Crossing” on the greeting arch, painted in a flowing script that was popular back when he was a child. Behind him, the other passengers were slowly stepping onto the platform, talking in breathless whispers. He didn’t hear their words so much as he listened to the terror in their voices, and Jopale did nothing for the moment but stare at the planks beneath his feet and at his own trembling hands. Then when he felt ready—when no other choice seemed left for him—he forced himself to breathe and turn around, staring wide-eyed at the burning world.

Jopale once toured a factory where precious iron was melted inside furnaces built from equally precious ceramic bricks. He remembered watching the red-hot liquid being poured into thin syrupy ribbons that were quickly attacked by the artisans in charge. He decided that this wildfire possessed the same fierce, unworldly glow. It was crimson and brilliant enough to make eyes tear up, and it seemed as if some wickedly powerful artist, inspired by his malevolent urges, must have pulled molten metal across the entire eastern horizon.

Every passenger had left the confines of the worm. Most of the caretakers were busy breaking into a nearby warehouse, presumably under orders to claim any useful supplies. “How far away is that?” a young fellow asked. Jopale couldn’t gauge distances, but others gladly threw out numbers. Optimists claimed the fire was just a few kilometers behind them, and it was really quite small. While Rit admitted that the flames were enormous, but trying to be positive, he thought they might be as far away as World’s Edge.

“Oh, it’s closer than that,” the old caretaker called out. “As we stand here, Left-of-Left is being incinerated.”

With a haughty tone, Rit asked, “And you know that how?”

Swollen eyes studied the horizon. Master Brace had been crying again. But he had dried his face before joining the others, and he managed to keep his voice steady and clear. “I was listening to broadcasts, where I could find them. From spotters near the fire lines, mostly.”

Every face was sorry and scared.

“That quake we felt? As we were crawling out of World’s Edge?” Brace shook his head, telling them, “That was an old seam south and east of the city. It split wide, along a hundred kilometer line. I didn’t know this till now… but so much gas came from that rupture, emergency crews didn’t have time to dress. They were killed, mostly. And the methane kept bubbling out. For a full cycle, it was mixing with the air. Then something… a person, or maybe lightning from a thunderstorm… made the spark that set the whole damn mess on fire.”

“What happened to the city?” Jopale asked.

Brace glanced at him for a moment, then stared at the planks. “I talked to a spotter. She’s riding her balloon east of World’s Edge. The city’s gone now, she says. Including the ground it was sitting on. From where she is, she sees open water where millions of people should be…”

“Open water?” Rit asked. “Does that mean the fire is going out?”

Brace hesitated.

Do-ane said, “No.” The woman looked tiny and exceptionally young, her boots back on her feet but still needing to be buttoned. Clearing her throat, she explained, “If too much methane saturates the atmosphere, and the local oxygen is exhausted or pushed aside… there can’t be any fire…”

Jopale closed his eyes, seeing the beautiful station and the black-haired woman with that lovely, lost voice.

Brace nodded, saying, “There’s two fire lines now. One’s racing east, the other west. In the middle, the water’s bubbling up so hard, huge chunks of rotten wood are being flung up in the air. So the methane… it’s still coming, yes sir. And the spotter told me that our fire… the one that’s chasing us… it just now reached to the fringes of the Tanglelands… and then I lost her signal…”

Some people wept; others appeared too numb or tired to react at all.

Two drivers were standing near the worm’s head. One of them suddenly called out a few words, her voice barely legible.

The other caretakers had vanished inside an unlit warehouse.

Master Brace turned to the drivers. “The full dose, yes,” he shouted. “Under the vestigial arm.”

“But the flames don’t look that tall,” said the wealthy woman. She shook her head, refusing to accept their awful prospects. To her companion, she said, “Perhaps the fire’s just burning off the forests.”

Her young man muttered a few agreeable words.

But Do-ane said, “No, you’re confused. It’s the smoke that fools you.”

“Pardon me, miss?”

“That land is definitely burning,” she said. “Huge volumes of green wood are being turned to smoke and ash, which help hide the tops of the flames. And of course that scorching heat will lift everything.” She pointed at the sky, asking, “Can you see what I see?”

Jopale hadn’t noticed. But the eastern half of the sky had no stars, a dense black lid set over the dying world. Flood this landscape with daylight, and half of the heavens would be choked beneath a foul mass of boiling, poisonous clouds.

“Are you certain?” the old woman asked doubtfully. “What do you know about any of this?”

Do-ane hesitated.

“The girl’s a scientist,” Rit interjected. “She understands everything that’s happening to us.”

“Is that so, miss?”

Do-ane glanced at Jopale, eyes narrowed, as if blaming him for making public what she had told him in the strictest confidence.

But he hadn’t said one word.

“She and her friend here thought that I was napping,” Rit confessed. “But I wasn’t. I heard every word they said.”

Do-ane looked embarrassed, shrinking a little bit, and her tiny hands nervously wrestled with one another.

Jopale tried to find a reply—gentle words to help deflate the palpable tension. But then a hard prolonged shock came through the ground, everybody’s legs bending, and the land beneath them fell several meters in one steady, terrifying moment.

When the falling sensation ended, the old woman asked Do-ane, “Would you explain that, dear? What just happened?”

“This ridge,” Do-ane began, opening her hands again. “We’re standing on the last slab of the Tanglelands. It’s the largest slab, and it reaches back to the east, deep underwater, ending up under Left-of-Left.” Like a teacher, she used hands to help explain. “As the ground above is burned away, and as methane rushes to the open surface, this land’s foundation is being torn loose.”

As if to prove her words, the ridge shook again.

Jopale looked over his shoulder, but Master Brace had slipped away. He was standing beside the worm, he and the two drivers busily manipulating a leather sack filled with some kind of dense liquid. The sack was connected to a hose, and the hose fitted into a needle large enough to push through two grown men. The trio was having trouble with the work, and noticing Jopale, the caretaker cried out, “Sir, would you help us? Just for a moment. She knows we’re up to something, and she isn’t cooperating.”

The others glanced at Jopale, surprised he would be called, and perhaps a little impressed.

The worm had stopped against the trail’s closer edge. But there were still a few steps of greased ground to cross. Generations of worms had laid down this thick impermeable oil—the same white gunk that its wild counterparts used to lubricate their enormous tunnels. On soft-soled shoes, Jopale let himself slide down to the creature. He hadn’t touched a worm since he was a boy, and he didn’t relish touching one now. He could smell oil and worm sweat—a rich mingling of distinct odors—and he looked up at the vestigial limb, crooked and thin and held flat against the huge gray body.

“Take this extra wand, sir,” said Brace. “Like I’m doing. Just stroke her belly, if you will.”

The rubber wand ended with a metal electrode, batteries strapped to a spicewood handle. The drivers had set a tall ladder beside the worm, spikes driven through the oil and into the ground. The woman driver climbed quickly and her colleague followed—a boyish fellow carrying the enormous needle as if it was a spear. The ladder was topped by a narrow platform. The woman grabbed the limb and pulled hard, and Brace ran his wand back and forth against the worm’s slick belly, small blue flashes producing what must be a pleasurable tingle.

The woman forced the limb to extend.

“Why there?” Jopale asked, mimicking the old man’s motions.

“It’s a good blood-rich site,” he said quickly, as if speaking one long word. “And besides, there’s no time to open the usual veins.”

The other passengers had come to watch and listen. Except for Do-ane, who drifted to the far end of the platform, studying her magnificent fire.

“Is this a drug?” Jopale wanted to know.

“I like the word ‘medicine,’ ” the caretaker admitted. Patting the sack, he said, “We keep this stuff for drivers more than for the worm. Of course, there’s enough in this sack to kill a thousand people. But what it is—”

Somebody cursed, and a second voice shouted, “Watch out!”

The long needle fell between Jopale and Brace, landing flat on the oil.

“It’s a stimulant, sir.” The caretaker picked up the needle, and with a quick voice explained, “It will make our girl faster, and she won’t need sleep, and it may well kill her. But of course, we don’t have any choice now.”

“I suppose—”

“Two more favors, sir. Please?”

“Yes.”

“Take the needle up. All right?” Then he asked for a second favor, promising, “It should help quite a lot.”

Jopale had never enjoyed heights, but he didn’t hesitate. There were twenty rungs to manage, and the breeze seemed to grow stronger as he climbed higher. Over his shoulder, he saw the rest of the crew returning from the warehouse, nothing worth stealing in their hands. Then Jopale was standing on the narrow platform, and the driver had the vestigial limb extended as far as she could, and her assistant took the needle with both hands, starting to jab its tip into the exposed flesh while shouting, “Now!”

A tiny pump began to sing.

“The hand, sir,” Brace called out. “Please, sir.”

The worm’s arm was tiny compared to its enormous body, but it was far longer than any human limb. Perched on the end of it were three fingers fused into a knobby extrusion and a stiff little finger beside it. And there was a thumb too. Not every worm possessed thumbs; Jopale had read that odd fact once or twice. And more unusual, this particular thumb could move, at least well enough to curl around his hands as he clasped hold of the worm. Then he squeezed its hand as tight as he could, trying to make certain that his grip was noticed, letting the great beast feel a little more ease, at least until the medicine found its home.