Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Walk of Fire

I rode my Harley through the downpour and stopped for provisions in town. The rain came to a surprising halt during the ride home, and the sun peeked its head through the dissipating clouds around the time I pulled into the garage.

Seeing the sun again was nice, and I decided to take a chance by setting up camp on the beach. I kept my head below the level of the boardwalk lest I be seen by spying neighbors, and then I freed my Kesemanetow from its imprisonment inside my pocket.

“The All-Father’s cards are each connected to the sunset.” What a pleasant surprise. I thought of screaming out something sarcastic to Isabel, but I was too excited by Auntie’s clue.

In front of me the sun set the water alight, a scarlet fire burning a path out toward Coucher Island and beyond. The Island of the Setting Sun seemed vibrant and alive in the soft glow of sunset.

The island’s one stone lighthouse, set in the middle of a burnished field of phragmites, caught the sun’s final light so the blue stone was transformed to copper. All the currents of my life became tuned to the fire of that sun.

Instinctively I climbed down from the boardwalk and walked across the stony beach toward the waterline. The electric hum of the Kesemanetow grew stronger as I approached the water’s edge. It developed a rhythm that pulsated with my heartbeat. Its pulse became stronger than my own, and the tombstone cold transformed to near-scalding heat. I struggled not to drop the card.

As I looked at the pattern inscribed within the card, I could not believe I had not seen it earlier. The Fire Walker’s head was the circle. The arched bridge to his right, which I had not really studied previously, was the horizontal line. The water’s edge toward which he stared was the diagonal. The three symbols formed the mark of the True Path.

The Fire Walker’s head rose in response to this recognition. He walked toward the sun’s path of fire within the card and then turned toward me, encouraging me to do the same. I should have been shocked to see the Kesemanetow come to life, but in some secret recess of my mind I knew the card would do exactly this. It was not simply a painting. It was a gateway and more.

The river within the Fire Walker’s world began to churn tumultuously. The card was slowly coming to life, piece by piece.

The sun in my world flashed brighter, and I looked across my waterfront. The sky became molten gold as the day drew to a close. The very air shimmered above the sparkling bronze sea, as if in the sun’s final light, the many spokes of life connected for one brief moment. The sun then became a blood red nebula. A fiery path was painted upon the water, joining the beach in front of me with that of Coucher Island. I took off my shoes.

The path of fire in my world joined that within the Kesemanetow. As the two suns connected, the black-robed figure became three-dimensional. He reached his hand toward mine. I took it.

My first step was neither warm nor cold but was simply quite pleasant. In the back of my mind I knew I had stepped through a doorway into a different world, but that thought seemed unimportant. The soft, surprising scent of jasmine reached me from a far-off breeze. The Fire Walker disappeared from sight, or rather, he had become part of me. Our worlds had become one, and I walked toward the water’s edge.

The surface sparkled with light, and I spied a treasure of rubies twinkling just beneath me. The lonely crashing of waves became distant and insubstantial and had been replaced by the gentle whooshing sounds of the wind. Somewhere off in the distance arose the music of stringed instruments, distorted and melancholy.

The sea became scarlet beneath my feet. I lost track of my surroundings with each step, the sound of my footfall obscured by the wind rushing past my ears. The thrill of what I was doing was almost too much to bear. I wanted desperately to look back to see how far out I had walked upon the bay, but I dared not. Something told me loss of concentration here might prove deadly.

A certain clarity sharpened the distant vibration of strings as I walked the Path of Fire created by the sun on the surface of the water. My feet felt incredibly warm and alive, caressed by the red and orange embers of dusk. I lost all sense of time but became increasingly aware of the light that connects all life. Streaks of magenta glittered beneath golden sunlight.

I walked toward the island, into the sunset, step after step, mile after mile, oblivious to time or distance. The fire of the sun’s path grew more vibrant until the waters of the bay flamed garnet and copper, current rendered to light. The living sea reflected the entirety of the sky so that the sun seemed to set the bay alight from beneath the clear green waves. The fire’s warmth climbed into my legs and belly. The sensation increased in intensity until my muscles began to burn and my bones filled with the entire spectrum of light. My eyes were blinded to everything but the light. I drowned in that fire and I was…

I was eleven years old on the coarse sands of Lake Michigan, throwing a Frisbee with my stepfather during one of his rare moments of humanity and paternal warmth. We were both smiling and carefree. Hope and promise filled that moment as if life could be made whole. The image receded, filling me with longing and regret but it was replaced by another. I was...

I was making love with Billie on a hammock hung between two trees in our backyard. The night sounds of the bay filled our ears as the starlight shone gently upon us through the quivering leaves of an ornamental elm. She was alive, and my eyes filled with tears at the thought of how inseparable our lives had become. I was…

I was holding Gabriel’s hand as we crossed the street to get ice cream from Custard’s Last Stand. He tripped, but I caught him before he fell. The terror in his eyes quickly turned to laughter. I gave him a huge bear hug, but he disappeared.

I was back on the Path of Fire that connected my world with the one beyond the bay. Slowly the island loomed larger until I could make out individual red stones and coral shells gleaming in the fire’s glow. The despondent and beautiful scent of jasmine filled the air.

My first step on the shore felt no different from those upon the water. The excitement of what I had just done was beyond words. I walked a little farther, but a frightening thought stopped the celebration cold. Was I dead?

I looked up and down the beach and sensed a deep, amber beauty that marked this world as separate from the one I knew. The sound of waves breaking gently on shore created a percussive melancholy perfectly in tune with the cry of the seagulls overhead. Somewhere in the distance church bells rang a somber chorus like the wind agitating the rigging of an invisible schooner. That sound had touched my ears before ...

“Fire Walker,” a soft and feminine voice called from behind me. “I am most impressed that you have walked the Path.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end at that name. The thousand cords tied to my soul began to pull as they had before. I turned back toward the water and beheld her.

She stood tall and mature, a flawless beauty dressed in a thigh-length buckskin dress. Her eyes were dark and intense, revealing the soul I once knew as Isabel. As she walked gracefully toward me, the sun-bleached feathers of her long headdress glowed red in the sunlight. I marveled at her perfect features, her long black hair, her regal air. Her deep brown eyes penetrated deeply, and she walked with the power of a fierce warrior.

“You look hot, Izzy,” I told her. She shook her head and sighed, troubled no doubt that someone as inexperienced in this world as I would place importance on physical attributes.

I knew not what world I had walked into. I was not sure if I was hallucinating, but I felt a sense of longing as if I needed this world to be real. Having it be real seemed more important to me than hospitals or torn black coats.

“Does Fire Walker refer to the journey I just made?”

“That and more,” she replied. She studied my face intently, her gaze penetrating and inquisitive.

“Why are we here, Izzy? Where is ‘here’?” The questions began to pour out of me. I wanted to know how she arrived. Did she truly suffer at the end? Was I still alive at the other end of the fiery Path? She gave no reply. She simply stared into my eyes, searching for something.

“Where do you think you are, Paul?” she asked after an eternity.

I was not going to get easy answers from her. I wondered if her job in the universe was to make my life more difficult.

“I am across the bay,” I replied with intentional vagueness. I wanted to see how she liked it. She frowned, not the slightest bit amused by my answer.

“Where do you think you are?” she repeated.

I looked around the beach, at the red and orange Path setting the turbulent waters alight, at the tree tops now taking on a violet hue as the sun continued to set over the island.

“I am in that place where the Path of Fire meets the setting sun.”

Isabel’s face lit with a bright smile. “Yes, Fire Walker, you are close to home.” She closed the distance between us, moving effortlessly over the rocky shore, taking hold of my hands and embracing me. She was surprisingly warm. We then both turned to face the infinite bay.

“There are many islands that surround the center. You have found exactly the one I intended.”

“It is so beautiful here,” I commented, as much to myself as to her.

“What else do you feel?”

I followed the fading light toward the shore I recently departed. I listened to the somber music of the seagulls flying noisily overhead. The distant ring of church bells sounded desolately across the bay. Thin wisps of cloud painted the magenta sky. I then turned around to look at the forest. The loosestrife and blazing star now seemed more brown than violet, as if in the fading sunlight the fragile blooms lost their will to live. The smell of decay emanated from a distant ridge. A silent tide receded from the depth of woodland, and I sensed an inland pond just beginning to freeze.

“There is sorrow here, Izzy,” I told her. “Something is wrong, I feel it. What happened?” The island was slowly dying before my eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered, “you do see it now. Essence and appearance are the same to those who see with their heart.” She seemed greatly relieved I had noticed these things. I imagined I had not been one of her better pupils.

She followed my gaze over the straggly stalks of chicory into the deepening gloom beyond us. “The souls of several innocents have been trapped in the bay. One for each new moon since the Pillar of Tyranny was reawakened. The ninth will cast the world in darkness.” She continued to stare somewhere into the distance and sighed mournfully.

A wet breeze blew from the bay, causing Isabel’s hair to ripple like the surface of the water. The mineral smell was stronger now, and it combined with a vague hint of something rancid like dead fish. A red glow continued to light the soft owl feathers of Isabel’s headdress, but it lost intensity. Her face held a pallor I had not noticed earlier.

“I am honored you chose me to fight with you, but there are so many things you haven’t told me.” I was tempted to be far more sarcastic but now that I saw her, I had nothing but love for the young woman who had sacrificed her entire life to this war.

Her face softened, the harsh lines disappearing from the corners of her eyes. She smiled at me maternally, a beautiful smile upon an ageless face.

“You cannot help the eight,” she said with sadness, “not yet anyway. I have seen the face of one of the nine children. I need you to bring him home.” She said this as if the task were as easy as picking up a loaf of bread from the market.

“How do I find him? How do I bring him home?”

“The boy’s name is Isaac. There is something about him that Umbra doesn’t know. Isaac is a dream walker. I can make contact with him. I will ask him to find you. You need only bring him across the bay. To the Center.”

“I’ll do it Isabel, you know I will. Teach me how.”

“You are a man of logic and science.” She shook her head. “You must embrace a new language …” Her voice trailed off as she became distracted by the escalating melancholy of the church bells from across the water.

“We’ve little time.” She stared at the darkening horizon. Shadow stirred in the bay’s green depths.

“To cross a Path of Fire is to walk between two worlds. When you have learned to walk the razor’s edge, you will save the child,” she continued. The church bells tolled a third time, their tintinnabulation now urgent. A strong wind blew a great elemental tune from across the water, chilling the evening air. It smelled of winter and more so of death.

“The months are passing rapidly, even as we stand here. October marks the ninth new moon since Umbra sacrificed his first child. Isaac’s soul will be lost to us if we haven’t rescued him by then. You must start with this.” She handed me a Kesemanetow. My second. The diminutive painting was cold to the touch, but its subject was simple. A long stone pier projected out into the green waters of a great and violent sea. At the end of the pier stood a tall red lighthouse with a single beacon of light projecting toward the viewer. My attention was suddenly drawn back toward the gathering darkness surrounding us.

The sun disappeared behind the island. The violet depths of forest seemed menacing. Shadows flitted between dark trees. Footsteps neared from invisible hunters.

“Farewell for now,” she called out in a near panic.

“But Izzy,” I yelled over the howling wind, “I have so many questions.”

“You must go!” she shouted. “The razor’s edge. Embrace it.” Her voice sounded distorted and odd, as if it reached me across a great chasm. The color of dusk now consumed the beach so I was no longer able to make out Isabel or the details of the shore. The wind blew in violent circles around me, the sky darkened, and the forest beyond grew black.

I sprinted across the stony beach to the water’s edge and leaped onto the receding yellow path. The fire was leaving the water’s surface as the sun disappeared and the trail grew faint and more fragile. I raced upon its insubstantial surface toward the church bells, looking down all the while at the fading yellow light. The sky overhead became black, and my feet began sinking into the gossamer-thin layer of spent fire. My heart raced as I sprinted onward, toward the fading bronze song.

I ran until my legs stiffened and my lungs burned. I ran until the last ember of fire disappeared from the water’s surface and I descended into the gaping jaws of the bay. The icy waters pulled me toward their murky depths. A dark wind howled as the violent waves slapped against my head. I struggled as my last remaining strength waned and I lost to the will of the sea.