Мария Снайдер - Fire Study - Study 03

Before I could fully explore my intentions, we stopped outside their gate. Marrok accepted our detour without concern.

“Should I wait here?” he asked.

“Yes. I won’t be long.” I left Kiki with him.

As I approached the door to their house, Opal came out of the factory. She hesitated, but drew nearer, eyeing Marrok and me with suspicion.

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked me.

I had forgotten all about my hair. At least I knew my disguise worked. I smiled for the first time in days.

She squinted at me. “Yelena?” Then she glanced around in concern. “Come inside! There’s a price on your head!” She ushered me into the house.

“Thank goodness you’re okay.” Opal squeezed me in a quick hug. “What happened to your hair?”

“It’s a long long story. Is your family around?”

“No. They went into town. Father received a shipment of sand that was full of rocks so he went to complain and Mother—”

“Opal, I need more of your glass animals.”

“Really? Did you sell the bat?”

“No. However, I discovered I can use your animals to communicate with other magicians far away without using my own magic. I’d like to buy as many as I can.”

“Wow! I never knew.”

“How many do you have?”

“Six. They’re in the factory.”

She set a quick pace as we crossed the yard and entered the factory. The heat from the kilns sucked all the moisture from my mouth. I followed her through the thick air and roar of the fires. Lined up on a table by the back wall were half a dozen glass animals. They all glowed with an inner fire.

Opal wrapped the animals and I counted out coins. Another idea flashed in my mind when she handed me the package.

“Can you show me how you make these?” I asked.

“It takes a lot of practice to learn.”

I shook my head. “I just want to watch you make one.”

She agreed. Picking up a five-foot-long hollow steel pipe, she opened the small door to the kiln. Bright orange light and intense heat emanated from the doorway, but, undaunted, she dipped the end of the pipe into a large ceramic pot inside the kiln that was filled with molten glass. Turning the pipe, she gathered a taffylike slug and pulled it out, closing the door with her hip. The slug pulsed with a red-hot light as if alive.

“You have to keep the blowpipe spinning or the glass will sag,” Opal said over the noise. She rolled the slug over a metal table to move the glass off the end of the pipe and shaped it so the pipe looked as if it had a clear ball attached to its end.

Her motions quick, Opal then rested the pipe on the edge of the table and blew into the other end. Magic brushed my arm as her cheeks puffed. The glass on the opposite end didn’t inflate with air. Instead, a thread of magic was trapped within its core.

“It’s supposed to expand, but mine never does,” she said as she went back to the kiln and gathered another slug overtop the first. She took the pipe to a bench designed to hold it and other metal tools needed to shape the glass. Buckets of water sat within easy reach.

Opal grabbed a pair of steel tweezers and pinched and squeezed the slug with her right hand while rolling the pipe with her left hand the whole time. “You have to move quickly because it cools fast.”

Within seconds the ball transformed into a cat sitting on its back legs. She stood and put the cat back into the kiln, but this time she just spun the pipe above the pot. “You have to keep plenty of heat in the glass or you can’t work with it.”

Sitting back on her bench, Opal exchanged her tweezers for another set. These were bigger and as long as her forearm. “Jacks, a great all-purpose tool. I’m putting in a jack line so I can crack the piece off the pipe.”

When the groove was to her liking, she took the tweezers in hand again and dipped them into the bucket of water. She dribbled a few drops into the jack line. “You have to be careful not to get water onto your piece. So you move from the pipe down.” The glass hissed and a spiderweb of cracks spread over the glass on the pipe.

She carried the pipe to another oven close to the kilns. Shelves of trays had been stacked inside and Opal banged the end of the tweezers on her pipe. The cat fell onto the tray. She closed the door.

“If the glass cools too fast, it’ll crack. This is an annealing oven.” Opal pointed to the tracks underneath the oven. “To slowly cool the piece, the oven is pulled away from the kiln over the next twelve hours.”

“Why do you blow into the pipe if the glass doesn’t expand for you?” I asked.

“It’s a step I have to do.” She made a vague motion with her arms as if casting about for the right words. “When Mara does it, she makes beautiful vases and bottles. Mine always ends up looking like an animal and if I don’t blow into the pipe it doesn’t look like anything at all.”

She cleaned up her work area, taking the tools from the water and drying them before replacing them. The bench needed to be ready for the next project, and working with glass didn’t give you time to search for tools.

“I love creating things. There’s nothing like it,” she said, more to herself than to me. “Working the glass. Turning fire into ice.”

I thanked Opal for her demonstration and rejoined Marrok. He leaned against Garnet.

“I think your definition of ‘won’t be long’ doesn’t match mine,” he said by way of a greeting. “Did you encounter another change in plans?”

“Yes. You might as well get used to them.”

“Yes, sir!” He grinned.

“Sarcasm? You’ve been hanging around with Leif too long. What happened to the tough old soldier who mindlessly follows orders?”

His demeanor sobered. “He lost his mind. And when he found it again, his priorities had all been rearranged.”

“For the better?”

“Only time will tell.”

We mounted and headed to the western edge of the Avibian Plains. Once in the plains, Kiki and Garnet broke into their gust-of-wind gaits and flowed over many miles. We camped outside the plains at night. I hoped our passage wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention. My thoughts lingered on Opal’s glassmaking skills. Better than giving in to the deep despair that threatened to overwhelm me whenever I thought of Valek.

Our journey to the rendezvous location lasted three days. During that time, Marrok had spotted signs of a large army that had crossed from the Avibian Plains and turned north toward the Citadel. At night, the glow of many fires lit the distant sky and wood smoke tainted the air.

We had agreed to meet Moon Man and the others in Owl’s Hill, a small town within the Featherstone lands. According to Leif, the Cloverleaf Inn’s owner could be trusted not to report us. “He owes me one,” had been Leif’s explanation.

Owl’s Hill was located on a small rise about three miles northeast of the Citadel. The four towers of the Magician’s Keep were visible from the road into town. A bright orange radiance shone from within the Keep’s walls. The Fire Warper’s home fire?

Still disguised as Krystal Clan traders, Marrok and I entered the town. Situated near the main crossroads, the Cloverleaf Inn’s common room bustled with activity, but the stable was only half full. The stable lad suggested we arrive early for dinner as the inn was a popular stop for caravans.

“One less night of road rations,” the boy said as he helped me rub down Kiki. “And the merchants prefer camping near here instead of overnighting in the Citadel.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“The rumors have been wild, so I don’t know what to believe. But the merchants who do come back say everyone is afraid of these new Daviians and they say the Daviians have convinced the Council to prepare for a war.”

“With Ixia?”

“Don’t know. They’ve drafted every able-bodied person. Benn said the Daviians are in league with Ixia, and once a person’s drafted they hypnotize him. They plan to use them in the army to turn Sitia into another Ixian Military District. MD-9!”

The boy regaled me with even wilder speculation. I knew the Commander wasn’t in league with the Daviians, but the possibility of using the Sitian army against Sitia sounded like a Vermin tactic.

When we finished with the horses, I entered the inn. Marrok had already paid for two rooms for the night.

“We’re running out of money,” he said.

“Are the others here?” I asked.

“Ari and Janco are in the dining room. Leif and Moon Man haven’t arrived yet.”

That worried me. It had been thirteen days since we had left to rescue the hostages. Plenty of time for them to discover anything about the Keep’s emergency tunnel.

In the back corner of the inn’s common room, Ari and Janco held court. Drinking from tankards of ale, they were surrounded by a group of merchants. Serious expressions gripped all their faces and they peered at us with suspicion.

Marrok and I picked a table on the far side of the room. Eventually, the knot of people disbanded and Ari and Janco joined us. Ari had dyed his hair black and both of them had darkened their skin.

“Janco, do I see freckles?” I asked, failing to suppress a snicker.

“Don’t laugh. It’s this southern sun. It’s the middle of the cold season and it’s sunny! Bah.” He looked at me. “Although, I’d rather have freckles than be bald!”

I put my hand to my hair. “It’s growing.”

“Enough,” Ari said, and the mood around our table immediately dampened. “Were you successful?”

The question stabbed into me as if his words were flaming daggers. I struggled to collect my thoughts; to shoo my emotions away from the black, burning grief that refused to die down. Marrok saw my inability to answer and he told them about Tauno, the rescue and about Valek. To see my pain and shock reflected in my friends’ eyes became unbearable. I excused myself and went outside.

Taking deep breaths of the cool night air, I wandered through the town. A few people walked along the dirt streets, carrying lanterns. I felt a tug on my cape as my bat landed on my arm. He stared at me with a sense of purpose in his eyes then flew off to the left. He returned, swooping around my head and again flew to the left. Getting the hint, I followed him until we reached a dilapidated building.

The bat settled on the roof as if waiting. I pulled the warped door open with trepidation, but the interior held a collection of discarded barrels and broken wagon wheels. When I turned to leave, I stepped on a wooden ball. A child’s toy. I picked it up and examined it. My bat wanted me to find or see something in here.

I squashed my growing frustration and concentrated on using my other senses. Closing my eyes, I inhaled. The musty smell of decay dominated, but I detected a faint whiff of lemons. I followed the clean and pure scent—not easy as I tripped and banged my shins on the clutter—until I stood in the back corner. There a tingle danced on my skin, raising the hair on my arms. Instinctively I whispered, “Reveal yourself,” and opened my eyes.

Gray light bloomed before me and transformed into a young boy. He sat on one of the barrels.

A ghost. A lost soul.

“Where is my mother?” he asked with a thin, tentative voice. “She was sick, too. She went away and never came back even when I cried for her.”

I moved closer to the boy. The light from him illuminated the room. The rusted remains of a bed frame and other items indicated the area had been used as the child’s bedroom long ago.

My bat fluttered in and circled above the boy’s head. I waved it away and muttered, “Yes, yes, I know. I get it.”