Kindle the flames so our lives may carry on

Tend the garden so the world will know our song

Bathe in the rivers, touch the seas, and wander far

Speak to the wind and it may tell you who you are

-Stanza from a poem of the Lost Skald of Graoungers

Nearby

On his grandmother’s twisted staff, Oscar slowly and unsteadily walked forth from the hospital.

No one made a move to stop him, although the nurse waiting by the door said that he wasn’t yet well enough to walk. Worry not, she won’t stop you, his grandmother’s distant voice assured him, and he didn’t raise a hand. Stepping out into the early light – he felt the warmth of it against his skin – he turned to the west. You’ll find the Reaper not far from here, his grandmother said. She and her master, and not far to the south her brother, they all think they’re too busy with the city’s defense to hear what you’ve to say. But they will hear you. They must.

The journey was slow with his still-healing legs, with his body stiffened by weeks of stillness and learning, once again, how to walk. He frequently had to stop alongside the wall of a building and hold his open hand against the side-stones, taking one slow step forward at a time with the assistance of the staff. Still, the voice of his ancestor was a welcome presence, one that kept him moving bit by bit overland. In truth, the Reaper and Sower Monasteries were not far from the old house he’d been moved to. The perpetual watch – a nurse assigned to make sure Oscar didn’t die or start raving insanely, he guessed – wasn’t going to keep him confined, although they might advise him to stay where he was.

Outside, the city was mostly quiet. Oscar heard some birds flitting from tree branch to tree branch, felt a sharp breeze cut through the air around him and stir the corners of his cloak. He huddled a bit against the wind – his body still weak after all this time recuperating. Once Oscar had prided himself on his strength and endurance – but then, he’d also been proud of his eagle-eyes, yet now he could not see the wall of the building beside him.

He knew that it was not far to the Reaper Monastery, and he remembered the smell of the courtyard when he’d been brought from his first resting place to the temporary dwelling. That smell was still far off, though, and the flames of life were distant in his mage-blinded eyes.

There was almost no one out, now. Distantly Oscar “saw” a set of four flames near one another, dancing together. One of them seemed familiar – a small flame, flickering wildly and casting off little tongues into the pervasive darkness around, swaying as a thin pine in the plains’ strongest wind. Oscar remembered the young, quiet-voiced boy who’d sat by his bedside soon after he first awoke. But the other flames were unfamiliar to him – they were strong, they were chaotic in their dance, and Oscar did not remember them.

The small swaying flame departed from the others and Oscar continued to walk, picking up his pace, leaning on his staff. It was distant, but not so distant he’d lose the feeling of where he needed to go. Any familiar life was enough for him to know – that was likely the place.

There were other flames in the city, though few. One, bright and viciously burning but hesitant, paced the city. If Oscar listened close and leaned on his staff, cupped his ear to the gnarls in the staff like the gnarls of his grandmother’s aged hands, he could almost hear the whispers. Whispered steps on cobblestones. A click, mechanical, weapon-like. He thought of the Wypsie mercenary whom the King of Graoungers had paid to watch the council as they decided Oscar’s fate. Click the nervous tic of the guardian as he opens the slide of his gun and checks the bullet in the chamber, fwip the hand running along the gun’s stock. Nervous, yes but spring-ready and sharpened to deadly efficiency.

Oscar reached out with a hand and ran his fingers along the wall. Even though he knew now where he was going, it was still slow. Every once in a while, Oscar nearly tripped over a rock or a small bush on the ground – the life of the plant too faint for him to pick up in the ambient vital noise of the city. He would have laughed aloud if he had been out for a casual stroll, if he hadn’t been going somewhere so urgently. Oscar began to use his grandmother’s staff to test the ground in front of him before he stepped, moving his feet to meet the end of the staff where it touched the ground.

The Reaper Monastery was close and the ambient heat of life within began to resolve itself into flames. He recognized Hilda Zelenko’s flame there too – flickering, fading, never dying, but dancing away from his ‘sight’ every time he focused close on it.

The flowers were nearby – he could smell them now, faint. Although his nose had never been keen he drank deep of the air and shut his eyes against the flames and tilted his head away from the staff and focused, and in that air was the aroma of the same flowers he’d felt outside the Reaper Monastery. The wall of the tall building aside him was replaced by a chest-high stone wall, and he ran his open hand along the top of that wall.

He heard rapid footsteps on the cobbles, approaching him from nearby – behind? Away? Oscar turned and tilted his head and saw a flame – rapid and chaotically pulsing and dancing toward the eyes. The flame was furious, like the other, and it moved quickly – whoever’s it was, that person was rushing through the streets with abandon. Oscar heard the click, the fwip, and felt a jolt run through him. He jolted again when he heard the first of the sirens, and stopped walking, huddling around the shaft of his gnarled staff.

“Who’s there?” Oscar called out, turning his face away from the flame – so bright, so deadly. “Who’s out there?”

“You don’t need to know,” the voice said as the flame approached. Even turning away, Oscar couldn’t shield himself from the bright glow. “You shouldn’t be out here, old man.”

“What’s going on?” Oscar asked aloud. “Are you with the militia? The sirens – what’s happening?” He glanced toward the west. Though he asked, though he spoke, he already knew this was not one of the militia. Do not run, or she will kill you, said the voice of the staff. Do not try to fight, either. You must outwit her.

The voice paused, and a set of footsteps approached Oscar. “Yeah,” said the voice in a clear Gaurl accent. “I’m with the militia.” Oscar would have chuckled at the obvious ruse, but instead he kept his mouth shut and nodded quickly.

“That is good, that is good. Well. I am lost, I’m afraid. I wish to speak with a Reaper, a friend.”

“You want me to take you to the Monastery?” the false militia-warrior asked. “I suppose I could do that.” There was a slyness in her voice, and Oscar did not need the whisper of the staff – she will seek to take you as a hostage to capture the Monastery – she knows nothing of your abilities. We can use this to our advantage. “Just take my hand, here.” A hand bumped against Oscar’s body.

He nodded and took the hand with his free hand, continuing to push against the ground with his staff. Together they began to walk, the soldier and her would-be captive. “You said the Reaper is your friend,” she said. “What’s her name?”

“Her?” Oscar asked. “I didn’t say –“

He felt himself roughly shoved against the wall, heard the mechanical clicking as the rifle was raised, and found himself staring right into the brightest flame he’d seen since his eyes were stolen.

“What is her name?” the Gaurl voice shrieked, accent growing thicker. Each word was stressed on the last syllable, and the pitch of the voice rose, and Oscar stared into the flame that he knew was in reality a gun barrel aimed directly at him.

“Hilda…” Oscar murmured, stunned beyond resistance. “I wanted to talk to Hilda, about something I… dreamed…”

It was almost familiar to Oscar now, the feeling of having his body pierced by a weapon. Huh, I haven’t been shot with a bullet before – so small but it hurts just like a spear – was his first thought. The voice near him screamed, screamed over the buzzing in his head as he clutched his shoulder. He heard his staff clatter to the cobblestones nearby and, crumpling on suddenly weak knees, he found himself leaning against the chest-high stone wall outside the Reaper Monastery.

The soldier’s eyes were wide, almost terrified. Oscar, pierced by a mad urge, looked up at the soldier pointed to his staff. “The sun…” he whispered, “shines…” His fingers touched the staff and he tried to pull it into his grip. But his fingers slipped and the staff rolled further away. “even on traitors… soon it’s time for you to come with me…”

He gasped out a breath as the hot, wet blood ran over his fingers. At the edge of consciousness, he breathed slowly and reached out toward where his staff had fallen. He could not reach it, and there it lay out on the road as the soldier ran through the garden.