13

Caleb and Mallory strained under the weight of the fire sprite. They had broken it into pieces and divided it into two Chorus carts that they were hauling across the open pastureland. Mallory felt her heart racing, partly because of the labor, but mostly she felt nervous turning her back to the dark woods—especially at this hour as the sun began to sink behind the tree canopy, and the forest’s long shadows reached out for them across the pastureland. She could feel the temperature drop as the darkness overtook them, and she glanced furtively behind her, half expecting a pack of gray creatures to be bounding after them, fangs bared. There was nothing behind them except a single silver culture sprite standing guard. Another was spaced five-hundred feet to the North, and another five-hundred feet beyond that, all the way around the city. The Culture Co-op had no way of controlling the sprites to take these positions, but after the attack on the herds, the sprites had just headed to the pastureland and taken up guard positions on their own. Only about half the culture sprites were left in the city for agricultural purposes, and they were struggling to keep up with food production and grooming services like lawn care. The City Council had voted to impose rationing at the Farmer’s Market, and the entire city was now living on sustenance rations only. Apparently, the culture sprites’ duty to protect the cattle was a higher priority in the Dikaió than feeding the citizens.

Mallory’s stomach growled and then seemed to flip over in her abdomen at the thought of food. She had never known what real hunger was in her entire life. There had always been food available in her house and in the market, and she was surprised at the effects of the feeling on her: At times, she felt utterly exhausted like she could sleep forever, and at other times she felt irritated at the slightest offense. Just minutes before they started trekking across the pastureland, Caleb had told her to be careful in lifting the fire sprite’s nozzle into her cart, and she had yelled, “Shut up! I’m not incapable, no matter what you think!”

He had just stood there blinking like he had looked into the sun for a second too long, and then turned back to loading some more sprite pieces into his cart, murmuring under his breath, “Okay, crazy lady.”

Mallory roared at him and threw the nozzle into the cart hard enough to crack a bit of its tip off. Caleb sucked in his breath hard, and Mallory looked away from him, peering deeper into the dark woods. That’s when she saw it: There was a glint of metal that she could see by one of the trees in the distance. She started walking toward it, and Caleb was by her side in an instant with his hand on her arm. “Mal, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please, don’t go deeper into the forest. We’re too far from the culture sprites already. C’mon back.”

She brushed his hand off her arm and said, “I know, but look.” She pointed in the direction of the metallic object.

He saw it too, and he picked up a large piece of sprite steel to use as a club, if needed. “C’mon. Stay close beside me.”

 Mallory grabbed her own piece of sprite steel and walked close to Caleb. They picked their way through the undergrowth of the forest, swinging their sprite steel like machetes to get through particularly dense sections. Then the metal took shape: Yet another giant fire sprite stood in the midst of the trees, nearly identical to the one they had just finished dismantling. Rust had punctured holes in its sprite steel, and the forest had grown in and around it as if it had been sitting there for centuries. While Caleb rooted around this fire sprite, Mallory peered farther into the forest, and she spotted another one—though that one was laying on the ground under a fallen tree. The tree looked to have gotten the better of the rusted fire sprite as bits of the sprite were scattered all over the forest floor. Beyond that, she could barely make out another metal something, and she assumed it was another fire sprite. Each fire sprite was about five-hundred feet from the next. She could tell that they were that far apart because when Mallory narrowed her eyes and looked out of the dark woods toward the pastureland, she could see that they were lined up perfectly with the culture sprites.

“Caleb,” she pulled him away from his investigation and showed him the other fire sprites, and then pointed to the culture sprites in the pastureland behind them. “They look like they’re facing each other.”

“Huh?” Caleb scratched his head, glancing from the fire sprites to the culture sprites and back again. “I wonder why.”

Mallory bit her lip and tilted her head in thought. “Maybe the culture sprites are trying to make up for the lack of fire sprites in pushing the dark woods back? Maybe that’s why they’re lined up where the fire sprites should be standing. I guess they could use their spinning blades to trim back any dark trees that try to root themselves in the pastureland?”

Caleb scratched his head some more and then shrugged. “That could be, I suppose. It’s odd that the fire sprites are facing the city, though. Why wouldn’t they be facing the woods?”

Mallory did not have time to process the question as Caleb let loose a hoot and a whistle. “Look, this one has a nozzle that you haven’t broken yet!”

Mallory glared at him. “What!?”

“Well, uh, I mean, if we’re missing parts on one, we can come and get them off another. Maybe between a few of them we can get a couple up and running.”

Mallory answered him with a glare, and Caleb squirmed nervously before her icy gaze until finally he shrugged helplessly and laughed. Mallory felt her rage subside momentarily, and she finally chuckled, too. Then they had pulled the nozzle off the second fire sprite and walked back to their carts.

Now, in the pastureland as they breathed heavily, hauling their carts toward the city, Mallory’s joviality had passed. They had spent too much time looking at the ruins of the fire sprites, and the sun was sinking fast. The sky was turning purple, and the reddish-orange rays of the sun barely shone out from behind the trees at their backs. Trudging over the pastureland struggling with the weight of her cart had ignited the hunger in Mallory’s stomach once more. She felt both scared and angry, and if she was honest with herself, she wished that things could go back to normal. She was tired of living life without the Dikaió. Even if she could not use it, everything had been easier when there were others around her that could. She thought of how Alex was always trying to fix her problems with a little magic, and she understood Alex so much better now. Mallory’s desire to know the power of the Dikaió was even greater now that there were so many people who were helpless without it. She wished she could just say a word and fix the city’s problems quickly without so much hard labor.

To his credit, Caleb seemed to be thriving in the hard work of the Dikaió-free environment. He seemed to really enjoy rolling up his sleeves and getting lost in a project, using just his intellect and brawn. The boy who used to slough off even the hint of work—back when work was as easy as learning the right words—seemed to be quietly enjoying physical labor. In this outdoor classroom, he appeared to be growing bigger and more imposing both in body and mind every day beneath the weight of this new Dikaió-free education. He trudged across the pastureland, one foot in front of the other, never looking from the right to the left, absorbed in his single-minded determination.

“What are you thinking about?” Mallory asked.

“Hmmm . . . ?” Caleb muttered.

“What are you thinking about?” Mallory repeated.

“Oh, I was just remembering my grandfather telling me stories when I was little,” he said.

Mallory waited for him to continue, but he seemed to have fallen back into deep contemplation. Finally, when it seemed he really was not going to elaborate, she said, “My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days too. Even some about your grandfather.”

Caleb looked at her now. “Like what?”

“Like how he stopped a fire sprite from destroying the city when she was a little girl.”

Caleb tilted his head to the left a little, and his eyes drifted up toward the sky as if he were watching the scenes of his childhood play out on the backdrop of the evening’s crimson clouds. “Yeah, he told me that one too.”

“My grandmother said he was amazing—fearless even—confronting the sprite even though he might have died.”

“That’s not the way my grandfather told the story.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes when I was little and I got scared, I would go find my grandfather and talk to him. He used to sit in the big recliner by the fireplace in the Governor’s house, pull me up on his lap, put his hand on my shoulder and look right into my eyes. Then he would say, ‘Caleb, I remember being scared when I was your age. There are a lot of things that are unknown in this world when you’re young. The older you get, the more you know, and the less you have to be scared of—but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to be scared of when you’re old.’

“‘Like the fire sprite?’ I asked.

“My grandfather smiled, but then his eyes drifted to the fireplace. The fire burned in his irises, a reflection of those houses burning on that distant day. As the blaze in his eyes deepened, his grip on my shoulder tightened—not enough to hurt—but enough to be uncomfortable. His mouth worked wordlessly, and his tongue dampened his dry lips. Long, worn worry lines deepened, and his shoulders slumped; he seemed to wither like a stalk of grass without water. Then he spoke, ‘It must have been twelve-foot tall, at least tall enough to reach the tops of the houses. It glowed like the embers in the fireplace,’ he pointed at red-hot coals below the logs and then continued, ‘Fire sprayed from the spouts on its arms in bright arcs, like a rainbow after a storm. Droplets of fire fell from the arcs into the street, running in raging rivulets down toward the gutters. I could feel the heat from their streams mixed with the heat from the burning houses rolling over me in waves.’

“He broke out in a sweat despite the chill in the room. His eyes darted around the fireplace tracking the fiery phantoms. His voice quivered as he continued, ‘The crowds were growing as the city gathered around. The smoke had drawn them, and the giant sprite spraying hot death all around it kept them there—transfixed. They had their own heat, pressing forward on every side. As more came, they pushed against each other, vying for a glimpse of what had caused the commotion. Children clung to their parents’ legs. Some were crying. Some were screaming. No one turned away. Even the City Council with the Matriarch and the Administrator were there—our entire city’s leadership drawn to danger like moths.

“‘I could not blame them. Fire is an ancient magic that preexisted even the old magic still in the city, and that sort of power mesmerizes us. Its heat and light provide much of what we need to live, but fire can quickly extinguish that same life. We can barely contain it much less control it. Yet, that sprite wielded the ancient magic like a child’s toy, haphazardly burning everything around it. I tell you, Caleb, there was intent in that sprite: It burned those houses on purpose, and it did not care if there were people left inside them or not. I don’t know how I could tell, but I could just sense an aura of evil about the thing.’

“He shuddered and then lifted his withered hands, palms facing each other, trembling slightly, then he started moving them together slowly as if about to clap. ‘The sprite continued to move toward the crowd, and the crowd thronged toward the sprite; the citizens in front were pushed forward by the curiosity behind them. I could see that eventually the two were going to meet in a fiery collision, and that a lot of citizens would not be able to get away alive.

“‘I yelled for them to get back, to run away—but the crowd was so loud already, the fires were roaring, and then there were the shrieks of the sprite every time it sprayed fire into the sky, like metal slowly scraping across metal. The Administrator signaled to his magistrates, and they aimed their weapons at the monstrosity. I could see the flashes in their muzzles, and some tiny sparks flashed on the hull of the sprite, but even the normally loud booms of the magistrates’ weapons were washed out by the din of the crowd and the sprite. If it noticed the projectiles, it did not indicate concern. Instead, it continued its onslaught of the neighborhood, slowly advancing toward the crowd.

“‘I could tell that the people needed something to get their attention—some way to quiet their shouts—so they could hear my warnings. I stepped a few feet toward the sprite. I figured my foolishness would make them hush, and it did. The noise of the crowd ended immediately. I intended to turn around then and repeat my orders, but--.’ His hands froze in place, and he looked from one to the other. His eyes were wide. His dry, cracked lips parted slightly, and he licked them, but it did not seem to relieve them. ‘The sprite noticed me. It locked me in its horrible gaze. That blazing countenance measuring my fear: the same fear that now froze me in place, face-to-face with blazing death.’  

“I shifted my weight on his leg and leaned toward him, ‘And that’s when you said the words?’

“He nodded, ‘Yes, I said the words.’

“I jumped off his lap then and pointed at the inferno in the fireplace: ‘DIKAIÓ FIRE CEASE!’ My voice echoed through the house, but the fire continued to crackle softly.

“My grandfather grabbed me from behind and turned me around violently. His eyes were wild. ‘Stop it!’ he yelled. ‘I said the words and the fire sprite stopped, but if it hadn’t . . .’ His wild eyes turned slowly toward the fire. ‘If it hadn’t, none of us would have survived. How could we have stopped it? How could we? The old magic has been lost for so long, and those boys summoned what ought not to have existed. We destroyed it in the molten depths of the Rookery. Every evil piece of it. But if we hadn’t; if it hadn’t stopped--.’ Tears flowed down his cheeks, and he let go of me to cover his face with his hands.

“I stumbled backward, looking up at my hero—the city’s hero—and feeling uncomfortably embarrassed. I was embarrassed because he made me think I had done something wrong in celebrating his victory, but also embarrassed for him, old and cowering before a distant memory. No, my grandfather was no hero. He feared even the memory of the fire sprite.”

Mallory had been growing more and more uneasy as Caleb told his story. They were near to the relative safety of the city, but she stopped pushing her cart and whistled to Caleb to stop. It took him a moment to break free of the memory, but he turned to look at her. “What?”

“What do you mean ‘what’? You’re telling me that your heroic grandfather was terrified of these things, and you want to go put them together?”

Caleb set his Chorus cart down. He pointed back toward the dark woods, the details of which were now completely obfuscated by the darkness of night. “Those woods are the threat now. Those monsters that tried to kill the cow are the threat. I am not my grandfather. I’ve—We’ve been through fire. The loss of City Hall shows what kind of danger we’re in without the light—without the Dikaió. I am not my grandfather, Mallory. Fire can be controlled.”

Mallory fidgeted, and she glanced back at the woods. She felt them return her gaze, but was it the woods or the giant sprites in them that were watching her?

“What if you’re wrong, Caleb? What if we’re making the same mistake those boys made all those years ago? What if, without the Dikaió, they can’t be stopped?”

“That’s a lot of ‘what ifs,’ Mal. Here’s one for you: What if those creatures come in the night and start attacking children instead of cows?”

“The culture sprites will stop them.”

“What if they don’t? These are things we need to be thinking about as the future leaders of the city. As the Governor’s heir, I’m going to put together this fire sprite to protect the city, not to harm it. Are you with me, Mal?”

Mallory bit her lip and tucked her curly locks behind her ear. There was more that Caleb was not telling her. She had known him long enough to know when he was keeping secrets. Still, the sprite parts in the Chorus cart called to her, and when she looked down at them, she could see how they might connect together. Caleb’s challenge merged with the puzzle of the work, and Mallory felt herself giving into the magnetic draw of both. Whether Caleb was right or wrong, deep down, she wanted to build a fire sprite and bring it to life.

“We’re going to need the book from the Book Club.”

Caleb nodded and picked up his cart and started walking toward the city again. “Alex got out of the hospital today. We’ll stop buy and pick it up tomorrow.”

“Alex is out of the hospital? Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?” She grabbed her cart and hurried after him.  “Let’s go see her now.”

“We can’t. Her family is with her now.”

“So?”

“The Administrator is with her.”

“So what? I’ve been with Alex when the Administrator is around.”

“Things are different now, Mal.”

Mallory thought about the conversation she had overheard in the hospital hallway. “Because he wants me to pay the price for the loss of the Dikaió?”

“And the fire at City Hall, but it will never happen. The Matriarchy holds as much sway over the City Council as the Administrator, so long as there’s hope for . . .” Caleb trailed off.

“Hope for what?” Mallory demanded.

Caleb spoke quietly, “The return of the Dikaió.”

Understanding began to dawn on Mallory. “Without it and the christening, there’s no need for the Matriarchy? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying it, Mal. But it is being said. Your mother is a tough one, though. She’s put the Administrator and my father through the paces. I’ve heard them go round after round arguing about what to do with you.”

“And what does my mother want to do with me? Does she want me to be Matriarch?” Caleb was silent, and his silence was all the answer she needed. The City Council, the Governor, the Administrator, and now her own mother had decided that her unborn sister would be the Matriarch, and even without the Dikaió, that decision was not being reconsidered. Mallory asked another question, “Does she want me to marry you?”

“My father says it will protect the traditions if we marry; it will protect the Matriarchy. He thinks the Administrator is planning on using the crisis to consolidate the power of their house and edge out the Triad. He does control the magistrates, and there would not be much we could do to stop him,” Caleb said.

Mallory bit her lip, tilted her head slightly, and looked at the parts in her cart with a dawning understanding. Then she said, “But a fire sprite could stop him if it came to that.”

Caleb’s shoulders tensed and his voice was low and menacing: “Yes, yes it could.”