Burn, p.1
Burn, page 1
Copyright
Published by
Dreamspinner Press
382 NE 191st Street #88329
Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Burn
Copyright © 2012 by TJ Klune
Cover Art by Catt Ford
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 382 NE 191st Street #88329, Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
ISBN: 978-1-61372-355-5
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
February 2012
eBook edition available
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61372-356-2
For my sister Tori.
Here’s to your comma-induced rage.
I will burn, but this is a mere event.
—Michael Servetus
Prologue
A child is not a vase to be filled but a fire to be lit.
—Rabelais
MY NAME is Felix Paracel, and when I was nine, I became angry at my mother and killed her with fire that shot from my hands.
At this, the beginning of my story, you must understand one thing: I had no control over it. Call it a fight-or-flight reaction, call it an egregious upwelling of adolescent fear, call it the result of the chemical cocktail that was my being finally breaking free from the confines of itself; I don’t know. Looking back, I don’t know that the reason matters. What’s done is done and can’t be undone, as my father likes to say. But I would have you know that for all that is to follow, for everything that will happen, it all started with a child who was unable to control the conflagration burning within him. I would have you know this, at the very least.
The day things changed was one like any one before it. I was home alone with my mother, as was often the case. It was a dusky day in June, and the world seemed such a mighty place, what with the imagination that a child can summon. It’s funny, really: the older you get, the more you know about the world. The synapses in your brain fire at a higher level and quicker function, your knowledge expands. But you lose part of yourself, that part able to imagine great armies that wait for nothing more than your command; the dragon that hides under your bed that only you can see, its long emerald tail flashing in the darkness; the ghost that lives in your attic that only moans at 3:23 in the morning. When you lose that innocence, the world’s hues become dark and muted, and you know that dragons aren’t real. There is no army. There is no ghost in the attic. But when you’re nine? When you’re nine, it’s all probable, it’s all realistic, and even more so, it’s all true. But sometimes it’s possible to lose it all, even then.
“Keep your chin up and eyes forward,” my mother said. “Look straight ahead and focus.”
We were in the middle of one of my lessons. These sessions always took place when we were alone, away from the prying eyes that she said wouldn’t understand. I was never allowed to speak of these lessons, never so much as to breathe a word of it to anyone for fear of her retribution. She told me if anyone found out about what we did, I would be taken away from my parents, I would be locked up and tested on with needles and machines that whirred like the gasps of a metal monster. I would never again see the light of day. My imagination was able to see this clearly, so you can bet your ass I never said anything. To anyone.
“Close your eyes,” she said, “and take a deep breath and focus. Find the space within you, the space where it lives and breathes. Can you find it, Felix? Is it there?”
I nodded, not just meaning to please her, but because I’d actually found it. It was there, in that space. It was becoming easier every day.
I could hear the smile in her voice. “Good. Good. Now, I want you to grasp it gently, and hold it, and feel your hands warm. They won’t burn because it is your fire and you can never be hurt by it.”
Behind the darkness of my eyes, I could see the flare and a tenuous connection was made as my fingers slid around it. It began to coil around my hands, licking my palms, heating my core. My mother was still speaking, her voice low and masculine, but the words were a blur, a haze heard through a filter of smoke. My grip tightened and my world became brighter, a flash in the oily blackness. The burnt afterimage that imprinted on my retinas danced and flitted its way lower and lower until it became my hands, until it became my fire.
I opened my eyes.
Only then (as it always seemed to happen) did I feel the strength of it. My young brain might not have been able to grasp the full implications of what I held, but I understood the idea of it. It was magic, it was imagination, it was something that I could create, something that belonged to me. My mother looked down at my hands, her lips pursed together in a thin line that slashed across her face. Her eyes were alight with what I could only hope was fierce pride. She waited. I waited. This was part of my lesson. This was a test. A bead of sweat caught on the hairs on the back of my neck, quivering until it fell down the collar of my shirt and became absorbed in the fabric. I didn’t know how much longer I could last. My hands rose up in front of my face, my palms raised toward the ceiling. And still she waited. I started to shake.
She nodded. “Now,” she said.
And with that word (oh God, how I waited for her to say it), I flexed something deep within me, squeezing a muscle in my chest, my hands, my core. That constriction pushed it to the surface, and as always, I was outside of myself, watching it happen. I saw a little boy, his teeth gritted together, his blond hair hanging around his bowed head. His hazel eyes flashed, then burned. His little veins rose on his little arms, his hands like claws. He put his left foot back and crouched slightly, his knees cracking with the sudden movement. And then, as always (and forever) I was slammed back into me and the fire came.
It started as a small blossom in the center of my hands, oozing from between the life and fate lines on my palms. I urged it forward, wanting it out of me, to put it on display. I coaxed and pleaded as it grew. It began to swirl, and I could feel the room take on heat. Somewhere, a light flickered and a buzzing began to ring through my ears. There was never any pain, only a feeling of release that felt as natural as exhaling. This is mine, I thought. I created this, and I can do it anytime I want. I pushed harder, and the flames suddenly roared out of me, rising five or six feet in the air.
“Felix.” My mother’s voice a whip-crack of warning.
I resented her then, if only for a moment. Who was she to tell me when to stop? But I obeyed her singular admonishment and flexed again, only this time pulling it back. The roar lessened as the fire dropped until it was the size of a blood orange in each of my hands. I eased back up from my crouched stance and felt the control slowly return. I moved my hands back and forth slowly, watching as the fire followed my every motion. The shakes were gone, the tiny voice in the back of my head silenced.
“Good,” my mother said. And then she smiled. “Good,” she said again.
I created this and I can do it anytime I want.
I DREAMT that night of a terrible storm. I stood on a hill, the world below me stretching as far as I could see, bending subtly at the horizon. The wind whipped through my hair and lightning flashed above me. Water splashed my face as it fell from the open sky. Black clouds swirled overhead, heavy and treacherous. The grass underneath my feet gave a startlingly human moan as the wind moved through it. I heard a groaning roar to my left. As I turned, a tree began to grow, taking shape as it cracked through the earth and rose into the air. I expected leaves to burst forth from the branches, but as it grew larger, I knew the tree was dead. The black trunk looked infected and rotted. The branches began to bend with the wind, reaching for me as it snapped and snarled. It stopped only when it reached a height of a hundred feet (how I knew this, I don’t know). I stood before it, and an urge blew through me: I wanted to touch the tree. I wanted to feel the infection, the rough, calloused bark, the black sap that spilled like oil.
And then it whispered: This is what you will become. This is the shape of the world.
I felt myself begin to flex, and again I was torn from my body. No sound came from my silent scream. I rose high in the air, higher than I ever had before. I saw my right hand lift, palm up, the claw already formed. I tried to ignore the chill that slid down my spine.
Incendia, the Tree whispered. Ignis. Flamma.
I should have returned then, returned to myself to allow the fire to be born, but I couldn’t; I was trapped in the space above the world. I stared transfixed as the fire erupted from my hand and lifted above my head before it swirled down around my back, between my legs. I was never able to do this in reality, and I was shocked at the power behind it, how hungry I felt for it to be mine, how desperate I was to fall back into myself so I could play with the fire. I struggled. Nothing happened.
The Tree spoke again: Ventus. Procella. Omnia.
Those words meant nothing to me. Then, they meant everything.
My left hand rose and vertigo caused my world to spin. No, I screamed. No! She’ll find out, she
Ventus. Procella. Omnia.
As the fire continued to swirl around me (Is it alive? I thought hysterically. Oh my God it’s alive!), my left hand reached its zenith and then I flexed again, only instead of it being in my chest (the birthplace of all fire), the constriction was in my head, and the storm around me died, the wind ceased to howl. And then my greatest secret (that which I kept from everyone) coiled from my hands. The wind began to scream again, but it was coming from me.
No, I whispered.
Yes, said the Tree. You can control fire. But you also control the winds.
As the gale stormed from my left hand, it touched the fire, causing the air to ignite around me. As much as I screamed for it to stop, I couldn’t help but feel the potential of what I was doing, or at least what the other me was doing. Never before had I been able to fully display the faculty I was capable of, the aptitude that I had so long denied myself. I screamed, but now it was in pleasure. I crowed, I bellowed. I begged to go back. I needed to go back. This was my fire. This was my storm.
You, said the Tree. You think this is yours. I am never impressed by hedonism, by the carnality of the human spirit. This is not yours; or rather, it is, but it’s a gift. Something that can never be taken lightly.
At that point in the dream (was it? was it really a dream?) I would have agreed to sell my soul to be able to return to myself. My focus was extraordinary only in the fact that it converged on necessity, a desire unlike anything I had ever known. The Tree could speak of gifts and carnality all it wished; I would have done whatever it asked.
Let me back, I said. Let me go back in. I can do this. I have control.
The Tree sighed. Have you learned nothing, little one?
I’ll learn whatever you want me to. Just send me back!
No. Not until you see what you are capable of.
My heart broke then, if only for a moment, until I felt myself begin to drop to the ground. I don’t know how I kept the joy from tearing apart my face but I did. The Tree had lied. It was going to give me what I wanted. As long as I could maintain the façade, I would be given back to myself and that which I wanted most would be mine. No longer was I concerned whether or not this was a dream, nor was I worried about the warnings that still echoed through my ears. I felt the first sliver of unease as I came closer to the ground and could feel the heat of the Felix in front of me. This was new. In the years since my mother and I had begun our lessons, since I was aware of my singular act of creation, I had never before felt the burn of the flames. How could I, when it came from me? The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as if electrified, and I felt my face grow hot. My feet touched the ground, but still I did not return.
Entranced, I looked upon myself, watching as a flick of my right index finger caused the line of fire to rip up through the air and spin in a hollow circle above my head. My left hand twitched and the wind spun itself upward, filling the void in the middle of the halo. The Felix in front of me looked skyward for a moment, then back at me. His eyes were filled with an empty sorrow, as if what occurred next was inevitable. I raised my hand to touch his face, but he moved just out of my reach.
How? I asked him.
He shook his head and pointed a finger to the swirling halo above him.
It’s beautiful, I told him. Are you me?
The question seemed to confuse him.
He is and he isn’t, the Tree answered for him. This is real and it’s not. Gnopher created the Earth, Salamandeir gave it life. Sylpha gave it breath and Ondine let it flourish. That was their decision, and time may yet reveal that it was also their folly. They made their choice as I have made mine and as you shall make yours. But for all of Creation, there has never been one such as you. And that is why what you will become has brought you here. It is almost time for you to choose.
Other Felix looked sadly at me, a tear drifting down his cheek. The tear reflected the red glow of the fire spinning above his head, turning it to blood dripping down his face. I wanted to comfort him (me. us?) but I couldn’t get my legs to move, to close the last bit of distance between that separated us. It suddenly seemed very important that I stop whatever was about to happen.
What choice? I whispered.
The Tree shook gently, the branches sounding like bones as they knocked together. See, Child of Omnia, Child of Incendia. See what it is you’ve been given. It shook again, and the rattling became louder and stronger until I could feel its roots, entrenched deep in the earth, begin to quake. The Other Felix began to smile, the tears gone. I had never seen such an expression on my own face and cringed as it stretched and pulled, showing more teeth than any human ever had. I didn’t want to comfort him anymore. He was every fear I ever had, every darkness ever made, all rolled into one tiny body. He raised his left hand and his finger twitched again, and I was thrown to the side, my body slamming against the Tree. The roots breached the earth and ensnared my ankles; the branches lowered and wrapped me in a dusty embrace. I could feel the sap sticking against my back, fusing my skin into the trunk.
As the Tree spoke again, I could feel the voice rumble deep from behind me: The choices humans make are like a ripple in a pond. They carry from one to another, bouncing, dancing. Colliding. And still they go on. But you. The choices you make are like a tsunami in the ocean.
An arm of the Tree circled my head, forcing it to turn right. I looked down the hill from where we were perched and saw the lights of the world. Up here, there was a crown of fire that circled the Other Felix; up here, there was a Tree that had become my jailer. But down there, I could feel them all, all the people of the world. They moved with such dark organic grace, each on their own path, their individual lifelines stretched before them. Sometimes they intersected, sometimes they drifted away. Their thoughts began to race through my head, and they were full of love and anger. They hated and worshipped. They saved others, they committed genocide. I screamed at the weight of it all, the weight of everything, but no sound tore from my throat.
Are you ready, little one? the Tree asked me gently. I would show you this one last thing. And you must remember. For everything that I’ve shown you, everything you will see in the time to come, this is the one thing you must remember. While all of you are capable of such compassion, such blind devotion, there is a part of everyone that has the power to destroy.
I don’t want to see! I cried. I want to go home!
It’s too late for that. It has already begun. Watch.
God help me, I watched.
The words came again: Incendia. Ignis. Flamma. Ventus. Procella. Omnia. I heard a grunt and snapped my head to the left and saw Other Felix was raising his hands again, the pressure of doing so appearing almost too great. The nimbus of fire and wind above him broke apart, the fire roiling right, the wind gushing left. As soon as each reached Other Felix’s outstretched hands, they flashed brilliantly and formed eddying coronas, circling above each hand. His arms were completely stretched out in front of him, and he faced his palms in toward each other. The fire became a conflagration, the wind a hurricane as they began to snap and fissure. The flashes lit up Other Felix’s face, and that horrible smile returned.
He spoke: I created this and I can do it anytime I want.
And then the end of the world began.
As the Tree roared behind him, its appendages squeezing me tightly, I was able to make out two other words that Other Felix shouted: Tempestas Ignis. When the last syllable fell from his lips, his hands flared again, and I could feel him flex because it came from within me. His (my) chest constricted and his (my) head contracted, and he slammed his palms together. The sound of his hands striking was anticlimactic; what came from them was not. At first there was nothing, and then what could only be the sun erupted from his hands. It thundered skyward, and as he raised his hands, a great wave of fire rose up behind him. It quickly outdistanced the Tree in its race to touch the curve of the earth and continued higher. I felt my skin begin to blister and soften, my hair ignited, but I couldn’t turn away. I could feel my eyes cooking in their sockets, and my fingernails began to liquefy. I was in hell, but I could not ignore the storm before me.
