Liquid Fire

The clouds are alive. They ebb and flow, and shift their shapes according to the world around them. They can gather to become one, or wither away into whisps. They experience emotion, crying large, powerful tears, or roaring in anger, ripping strikes of lightning up from the ground in a fit of rage.

Clouds offer respite from the beating sun, shielding you from the heat with their own forms. Sometimes, they let the sun peak anyhow, snickering to themselves about their little prank.

They can tell stories to us, just by taking the shape of a creature or object in the sky. Children will call out, “It’s a bunny!”

“Look, a sunflower!”

“I see a dog!”

“Ah! A ghost!”

The parents will laugh and spur the children on, asking them to tell more, show more!

How little they all know about the clouds.

Oftentimes, I will watch the clouds from my cottage overseeing the village. I can hear the children calling out what they see, and my eyes frantically search for the objects they see.

I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when I can’t find them, or when I see they’ve simply mistaken a rabbit for a chick in the shapes.

I sit upon the hill today, eyes drifting lazily over the sky above me. I feel the warmth of my tea in my hands, the sturdy, almost uncomfortable chair beneath me, and I sigh.

The children are shouting again, playing with each other in the fields below. There are not many clouds today, and so the children simply ignore those that are there.

I hear the shuffling of feet on the gravel that leads to my home, and look at who is deciding to visit me today.

“Good morning, Rhoda,” says a cheerful young lad, many deca-cycles younger than me, his eyes round and blue, his face round and red, forehead shadowed by his blonde bangs. His name is Hanson, and he often brings me my fresh batch of herbs. Today, unfortunately, he isn’t yielding much.

“Hm, slow day, boy?” I ask bemusedly. His kind features drew in apologetically, but I wave off his concern. “No mind, I still have plenty from last time. Thank you, as always.”

The smile returns, and Hanson places the basket next to me, before finding his usual seat on the lower steps of my porch. I crinkle up my nose, always a little miffed when he decides to stick around. However, today, I was accepting of him staying. I return my gaze to the sky, and can almost feel Hanson do the same.

“What do you see today?” Hanson asks curiously, most likely unable to decipher anything on his own.

“The clouds do not speak today. It has been quiet,” I reply, and gesture to the three above us. “These three have been here for a few hours now. They’ve drifted a bit, but have given me no conversation.”

“That’s a shame. To be expected though, yes?” The lad always has the infliction of a question in his voice, as if he understands nothing. I do not believe he does.

“Or a blessing disguised,” I say, shrugging my shoulders as I sip my tea.

“Have you been on the porch all day, Rhoda?” Hanson says, his voice now directed at me. I can tell he is no longer looking at the clouds. The question seems funny to me, as if the answer should be obvious, but I can’t help but feel uneasy about it.

“Yes…and why do you ask, boy?”

“Then have you not seen the few clouds obscured by your awning?” Hanson rises as I turn my gaze to him, and I frown deeply.

“Perhaps I’ve gotten lazy with the clouds. They haven’t been particularly interesting these days,” I murmur, and rise slowly myself. My knees are bad, crackling in protest to being roused, but I still push through and follow Hanson to the back of my home. The kind boy stays close to me, as if offering himself if I should need sturdiness. When we stop, I take his offer and wrap my arms around his for support.

“See there, Rhoda? Those just above the mountain top,” Hanson uses his free hand to point to three ashen clouds above Mount Liara, all three in a vertical row, with the bottom most obscured slightly by the tip.

I frown even deeper than before, and study each one. These were dark like storm clouds, but far smaller yet somehow more menacing. I can feel Hanson now looking at me, but I continue to read the clouds.

They are shaped, unlike their cottony brethren I’ve been watching all day. These are shaped like snakes, reaching up and out of the earth before flattening over the sky. The way the head and tail are shaped makes it look as though the clouds were connected at some point, and willingly separated somewhere along their journey.

“Rhoda?” I’m broken from my trance as I feel Hanson gently tugging my arm to get my attention.

“Hanson, fetch the elder. Those are not clouds.”

“Smoke? You’re sure of it?” The elder was stroking his long, brown beard, his eyebrows curled into a deep furrow of frustration and concern. It took Hanson well over an hour to get to and from the village with the Elder, and in that time, the sky was half smoke now. Even the three cotton clouds were overtaken by its much darker counterpart.

“I’ve no doubt, just as you shouldn’t,” I snap, and the elder waves off my brashness.

“Then the mountaintop is on fire?”

“Of that, I’m not certain. I cannot see where the smoke comes from, only the smoke,” I say under my breath, though I know the elder can hear me.

“I can send some men to look around the other side. Perhaps there’s a forest or grass fire. I’ll send another to the keep nearby, and have them send help to try to stop it,” the elder says with a shrug, and I can’t help but feel a little agitated.

“And if it isn’t a fire, Elder?”

He gives me a look of bewilderment. “And what else would it be then, Rhoda? Perhaps there’s a group of trolls on the mountain top sharing a roll of grass?” He laughs at his joke, and I notice Hanson shift uncomfortably. I do not make a scene for his sake.

“Very well then. At least keep me informed,” I murmur in a hastened reply, and turn my back to the bumbling fool, returning my eyes to watch the clouds.

“Indeed. I will take my leave-” The elder begins to speak, and is suddenly interrupted by a deep rumbling in the earth. It is enough to make me lose my balance, and Hanson quickly grabs me to keep me from tumbling over. The elder, however, is on his backside, eyes widened in fear.

“What in the blue devil is this? Is the earth…shaking?”

Hanson cannot reply, only stammer in disbelief. I myself am having a hard time believing it as well. The shuddering finally slows, though we can all still hear it, and our eyes drift to the mountain top.

The smoke is billowing now, threatening to swallow the entire sky, and I gasp as I see a new development - a bright red and yellow substance sliding from the same place the smoke comes from.

“Fire!” The Elder yells, noticing the river of light only seconds after me. I shake my head, snapping back at him.

“What fire do you know of that moves like that? This is something else entirely.”

“You’re barking, woman. I know a fire when I see it - I don’t need clouds to tell me that.”

“Then why are you here asking me for guidance, impudent-”

“I do not think now is the time to be arguing!” Hanson breaks all social boundaries by shouting at the elder and myself, and is quick to help me start shuffling toward the village. I do fight him, though.

“What are you doing, boy? My home is here, not the village!”

“Your home and the village are likely to be swallowed up! At least in the village, you’re protected better than here!” Hanson tows me along, until I finally muster enough to pull from him, then crack him in the shin with a kick.

“I will take my chances. Elder, you bumbling idiot, get your men out here immediately to begin setting the sandbags walls. We’ll need all of them.”

“You needn’t tell me twice,” The elder replies, and is already bounding for the village, gone without looking back. Hanson eyes him, and then turns warily to me.

“You go too, Hanson. They will most likely need your help,” I murmur, apologizing for kicking him with my eyes. He shakes his head, standing firmly in place.

“I will not leave you alone, Rhoda. If the fire gets too close, you won’t be able to leave quickly enough on your own,” the boy grits his teeth, looking as though I’ve refused to give him a cookie. I sigh inwardly and gesture for him to accompany me.

“Then we should prepare to leave, should it come to that.”

Unsurprisingly, the elder and his men return from the village much quicker than Hanson had the first time, and make their way past my cottage and into the field further past. Hanson is watching from the window, a knapsack of my bare essentials draping over his back.

I am watching opposite of him, from my own window, eyes wide with horror. The fire-like river wasn’t burning things normally, and just by looking at the scorch marks around it, it was eating away at everything very quickly.

My eyes drift to the Elder and his cavalry accompanying a series of large carriages, filled to burst with bags of sand. Something deep in my heart told me that this wasn’t going to be enough to stop the fire.

“We need to leave, now,” says Hanson, tugging on my arm gently as we now peer through the same window. I’m inclined to believe him, but the dread in my heart tells me we’re already too late.

The wall of liquid fire is almost upon the barricade of sandbags built to hold it back - and to make matters worse, the men do not have enough. There are still multiple feet of the river of fire on both sides of the wall, ready to spill over and continue its path.

“Rhoda!” Hanson shouts and I turn to glare at him.

“Don’t you see, Hanson? This is the coming of Tetra. She is splitting the earth of spilling the fires of hell from her gate. When it is empty, she and her followers will ride out with her. We’re doomed. I’d rather die here than meet her,” I growl in response, standing firm and crossing my arms in defiance. The boy’s eyes are wet with tears, threatening to spill into two paths like the river of fire.

I reach up and caress his cheek and seem to surprise him with my gentleness. But he accepts it calmly and sighs, “I do not want to leave you alone.”

“I have been alone a long time, Hanson. You are young. At least try to survive,” I reply solemnly, and after moments of looking in my eyes, Hanson drops my bag of goods on the floor, and then turns to the window.

“If what you say is true, then it won’t be survival. I’d rather not delay the inevitable.”

As if replying to him, the earth begins to shudder yet again. Objects fall from their places on my shelves, and clay bowls shatter on the tough rock flooring. This one is far more intense than the first, and after a few seconds of shaking, there is a large, deafening thunder clap. Hanson greets the noise with a bellowing scream.

“The mountain top! It…It’s spewing the liquid fire!”

I peer out of the window, using Hanson as shaky support, and my eyes soak in the sight. I can see the air filled with smoke, the river still flowing feet away from the sandbags - and now, large balls of liquid fire falling down in the field.

It lands indiscriminately. Trees, rocks, the men who had laid the sandbags, now sprawling on the ground due to the shock of the earth shaking. For a moment, I swear I can hear them screaming over the thunderous sound of the quaking.

Then, shortly after that, Hanson and I are shocked by the sound of something hitting the earth, very close to my cottage. The boy dashes quickly to my eastmost window, and then quickly back again. He scoops up my back, and scoops me over his shoulder - without permission - and pushes us through the door.

“What in the blue devil do you think you’re doing, boy? Put me on the ground…now…” My voice trails off as I see the cause of his outburst. A large collection of the liquid fire was about sixty feet from my home, drifting down the hillside away from it.

Hanson stops quickly, a shadow overhead causing both of us to look up. We see another collection of falling liquid fire, and watch as it plummets over us and into the pathway to the village only thirty feet before us.

“Gods damn! What do we do here?” Hanson says, panic and defeated desperation in his voice. I can see it in his eyes - he knows we are going to die. I do, too. I am half tempted to tell him to simply toss me into the liquid fire and end it quickly, but I shake the thought from my head.

“Keep moving toward the village!” It is not my voice that replies, but the elder’s, who is now barrelling towards us on his horse. He pulls to a stop, and reaches down, taking me from Hanson’s arms and seating me in front of him on the saddle. I quickly look to Hanson, ready to help weakly to pull him up, but I see his jaw set.

“Take her, Elder! I will make the run myself! We can’t weigh down your horse!”

“Don’t be an idiot, boy! There is plenty of room on the-” the elder is cut off when a collection of the liquid fire comes barreling in - and directly onto Hanson. The impact is enough to launch myself and the elder off of his horse, and I can feel my shoulder breaking from contact with the hard pathway.

Then, another sound - muffled screaming. I raise painfully to see Hanson, his skin melting and pulling from his bone, trying to pull himself out of the puddle of liquid fire that has engulfed him. He reaches out for me, and I raise my good arm to him, before he falls, and is completely swallowed by the fire.

My eyes are wet. From pain, from heartache, from fear, and now, from the smoke that billows from where the kind young lad who brought me my tea herbs met his final moments. If only it had killed him from the impact. He suffered, and my heart is splitting at its seams.

I am jostled by a sharp pain piercing my arm, and realize the elder is pulling me to my feet, tossing me over his shoulder and sprinting toward the village. Already I can see that the village has been impacted as well, smoke rising from different sectors. As we get closer, I start to hear screams - men, women, and children alike.

“Gods, what is happening?” The elder is asking me for guidance again. In my heart that I simply do not know, but it is the only plausible answer. Somehow, we angered the gods. For something now, the gods are punishing all of us.

“We will not know until we meet our end,” I reply, simply. My eyes drift up to the sky, glazing over against the smoke. I continue to watch, jostled by the movements of the elder carrying me to the village, to a feint of safety. And I can see it coming.

I watch it exit the top of Mount Liara, moving toward, then parallel to, then away from the smoke in the sky. It is special, made specifically for the elder and I. Even if we were to try to dodge it, it would find its target. It belongs to us. We belong to it.

I know the elder isn’t aware of the danger falling toward us. I refuse to tell him. We are delaying the inevitable, my thoughts ring out. I count it down.

Five.

I think back to simple days, watching clouds overhead and interpreting them. Most of the time, I would just tell the people of the village that they would have a bad day. That was the worst of it. Their own fretting made it come true.

Four.

The children knew what the clouds looked like. I would hear them calling it out every day, and soon enough, I took their little stories to heart. Despite all that, I still never actually saw the shapes in the clouds myself.

Three.

Perhaps this is why we are being punished. Perhaps it’s because I decided to play a god, pretend as though I could see things in the clouds. I made money off of it, it was how I met Hanson and was given free tea herbs. The village would come and barter with me for fortunes of the clouds. I lied to them for dinner.

Two.

None of them ever doubted me, except for the elder. Even still, he didn’t ever say it out loud, to anyone but myself. I wonder if he thought, despite that I was lying and conniving, I was bringing some small joy to his people. I wonder if I was bringing joy to them. I hope I was.

One.

The elder screamed as we were engulfed in our coffin, built of liquid fire.