Obloe's Arc

Chapter 20 of 8

The living water had brought Obloe back, but it had not been tested. His fire was a young thing again, freshly lit. He flew south over broken land, and every wingbeat asked the same question. Would the fire hold, or would it gutter out and drop him into the rot below? He could not know until it failed. If it failed high, he would not reach the grove. Woga Dimples ran beneath him where the ground allowed, antlers cutting the gray air. The jackalope in the dark suit had already saved him once with a flask. Now he pointed with a white glove toward a low structure ahead, its wooden arch carved like fairy wings, crystals hanging from its eaves. "Land there," Woga called. "Test your fire on solid ground. Not in the sky, where a stall kills you." Obloe dropped to the retreat's clearing. His chest heaved. He breathed a thin line of flame at a dead branch. The fire caught, then thinned, then coughed and died. The branch smoked. His fire was weaker than he knew. In the air, that stall would have been the end. A delayed step scraped the stone behind him. Daath came from the shade of the arch, the undead elf who had read his empty seed once at the ancient oak. Her limbs moved a moment after she willed them, catching up late. She held a curved metal thing under one arm, a segmented demon shape of red plates and glowing runes, cold and heavy. "Your fire is hollow," Daath said. She set the metal thing down. "I studied rot in trees for twelve years. I know hollow when I see it. You need heat you did not make yourself." She tapped a rune on the machine's flank. It sparked. "This holds stored fire. Occult work, old. Breathe into it. It will feed your coal until it burns on its own." Obloe distrusted the thing. But he trusted the grove less to its rot. He lowered his head and breathed his thin flame into the automaton's open jaw. The runes flared. Heat ran back up the line into his chest. The coal there swelled, then roared. He felt his fire settle deep and steady, no longer a guttering thing. He turned to the dead branch again and breathed. Full flame poured out, white at the core, and did not thin. It held as long as he willed it. His fire was tested now, and it answered. "Better," Daath said flatly. The machine had gone dark, spent. "It gave what it had. It has no more." Obloe spread his wings and lifted clean off the clearing. No sway. No stall. Woga watched him rise, then bolted south along the ground. "Fly true," the jackalope called. "The seed is close now." The fire held through every wingbeat south. His grove waited below the horizon, its heartwood seed still creeping with gray. But now Obloe knew his fire would carry him there.