Ember

“Do not talk to it. That is the most important rule.”

The girl nodded. Nearby the water mill turned.

“There will be lights, and noises sometimes. Things you won’t understand.” the elder continued. These were instructions he had given many times before. “Occasionally there will be words, some in our language. Sometimes it will try to talk directly to you. You must not talk back to it.” He looked down at her to check she was listening. “Do you understand this rule, child?”

The girl nodded again. 

“Do you know what happens if you break this rule?”

“Yes, elder.”

The elder adjusted his dirty spectacles perched on his nose and grunted. “The only thing you respond to is the rune. It may or may not show you this. If it does not, then you have gotten off easy for your first shift. I myself did not see the rune until perhaps my third or fourth time with it.”

The girl looked past the elder at the mill. Two children from the class below sat on the edge of the wooden sluice, the hems of their tunics heavy from the spray. Next year they would be old enough to start the Task. One of them waved but the girl did not wave back. 

“... and that is when you get on the wheel.” The elder looked down at her again and noticed that she wasn’t listening. He gave her forehead a fierce flick. She yelped in surprise. “Listen, child!” he scolded. “This is important!”

“Ow.” She managed, rubbing her skin. “I know elder, everyone does. Teacher told us last week.”

The elder harrumphed. “Oh? And what did she say?”

The girl recited the lesson. “When the Flame shows the rune…” and here she traced it in the air with her finger. “Then we get on the wheel and walk. We keep walking until the rune disappears.”

The elder leaned back. “Fine.” He looked at the sundial next to the hut’s wooden door. “You have about a minute until your shift. Do you have any questions?”

The girl thought for a second. “What might it say to me?”

The elder inspected his fingernails. “Hard to say. Usually nothing. If it does say anything it is usually in a language that we do not speak. Pay it no heed child, it will only be noise.”

The girl kept her eyes on the door. The hut had no windows. Strange that she had never noticed this before.

 “Why do we keep the Flame alive?”

The elder smiled and picked at a rough nail. “Something your teacher didn’t tell you?”

The girl shook her head.

“Hmm. Well.” The elder looked up at the jaundiced sky. “It is our duty, child. The most sacred we have. Our tribe has kept the Flame since, well, since memory. My grandfather kept it and his grandfather before him.” He stopped for a second and looked puzzled. “I’m not sure about his grandfather.”

“And what…” the girl searched for the right words. Behind her in the centre of the village a bell rang marking middleday. “I mean, if we don’t keep it alive. What happens? If we let it go out?”

The elder frowned at her. “Enough now, child. I hear your friend coming.”

The door of the hut swung open and one of her classmates emerged rubbing his eyes with a hand. In his other he carried a brass candlestick holder, the tallow candle trailing smoke where it had been extinguished. The elder walked over to the parchment hanging on the wall of the hut and began scribbling.

“Oof, bright.” the boy said. He squinted at the girl and walked over to her. “Oh hey. Didn’t know you were next.” He passed her the candle.

“Yes.” she said. “How was it?”

“Fine, I guess.” the boy said, stretching. “Boring.”

She looked past him into the darkness of the hut. “Did it… talk to you?”

“Nah. I mean, it made some sounds but it spent most of the time not really doing anything.” He rotated his neck and she heard a series of small pops. “I kind of wish it had done something, six hours is a long time just to sit.”

The elder paused writing and looked over. “Anything out of the ordinary to report?” The boy shook his head. “Did you see the rune? Did you go on the wheel?” The boy shook his head again and the elder finished with the parchment, writing the rune for ‘no.’ He grunted, satisfied. “Good. I believe your next shift is in four days. Well done, you are dismissed. Be ready to start again.”

The boy bowed to the elder, straightened up and smiled at the girl. “Be seeing you, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

The boy moved away, calling a friendly greeting to the two children at the watermill. The elder and the girl watched him go.

The elder moved closer to the girl and put his hand into the deep pocket of his robes, retrieving an object. It was a small rectangle of pink plastic, with a metal cap on the top. The girl noticed that there was liquid inside the plastic, too thick to be water.

“What is that, elder?”

He grinned. “Fire for the Flame.” He moved his thumb across its top and a small spark was produced. He did it again, and this time the spark held and became a small and steady flame.

“Wow.” The girl said, looking closely, the fire reflecting in her eyes. “Is that magic?” 

“Just a tool. A clever one, at that.”

“Something from before?”

“Long before.” The elder said. “We think these may have been of religious importance, so we use them to light the candle for those keeping the Flame. They come in many colours.” He smiled. “I like the pink ones best.”

He brought the small flame down and lit the wick of her candle. Her nostrils filled with the glutinous smell of animal. He extinguished the sacred item and put it back into his robes.

“Are you ready?” he asked. 

“I think so.”

“Wait until you hear the bell for evenmeal. The candle should last. If your friend did not get on the wheel then you most likely will have to. Do you remember the most important rule?”

“Yes elder.”

He bowed to her. “Then Flame be with you, Keeper.” He moved to the door and pulled it open, holding it for her with one hand while gesturing inside with the other. The chamber within was dark.

She returned the bow and slowly walked inside. The elder closed the door behind her and the darkness swallowed her.

It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. The chamber was small, about half the size of the family room in her own hut. The floor was sandy. On one wall she saw the large wooden wheel her teacher had taught them about, almost as tall as the hut. In the darkness she could just make out several thin ropes trailing across the ceiling. Wire was the word that flashed across her mind, but she wasn’t quite sure what it meant. She followed the ropes across to where they hung slackly. 

And then she saw it. In the centre of the chamber the ropes attached to a wooden pedestal. It was about shoulder high, and on its top perched something small and dark - in the gloom she could not tell its colour. She moved her candle left and right and saw the small glint of reflection pass across the object. 

She watched a red light appear on its surface. She held her breath. She recalled her father’s stories of monsters lurking in caves. 

The red light blinked once, and then disappeared. The girl exhaled.

She moved closer to the Flame, bringing her candle as close as she dared. Black, maybe, or perhaps dark blue, she couldn’t tell in what little light she had. Are those… fingerprints on its surface? she thought. She didn’t know if she was allowed to touch it or not. She decided against it.

She brought the candle down to examine the floor of the hut. The pedestal was circled by indentations in the sand. She chose her own place and sat.

She looked again at it. There were no drawings of the Flame permitted in the village. She knew not to expect a small flame like a candle, nor anything like the yearly midwinter bonfire, but she hadn’t expected something so…. 

The Flame whistled, sharp and loud. The girl yelped and scuttled back on the sand until she felt the wall of the hut on her back.

Calm down, she thought. Your friends will laugh if they know it scared you. It can’t hurt you.

She breathed heavily for a few moments, her heart slowly returning to its normal pace. The Flame was quiet. 

She passed the next few hours in silence. She went between watching the Flame and tracing shapes in the sand. The air inside the hut was heavy as pipe smoke. She absently traced the rune for ‘sharp’ on the floor.

The Flame chirruped and she saw the rune appearing on its surface. Blood red. One of the first runes she had practised at school. ‘Hungry’.

“Okay, well. Here we go.” The girl got up, shaking her legs from where they had stiffened, and moved to the wheel. She ducked under one of the wooden spokes and entered the interior. Does it matter which way I go? she thought, then shrugged and started walking. The wheel protested but eventually moved under her feet, groaning and clunking.

A blue spark snapped above her head. She recoiled but she did not stop. She had been taught this would happen. She could hear a hum coming from somewhere. The thin ropes above her head vibrated almost imperceptibly. She looked at the Flame and the rune had shifted its colour from red to deep moss green. A dull sound came from it, like a bell rung underwater. “Oh.” The spark above her calmed itself and disappeared. She wondered how long it would take for the rune to disappear too.

She walked for a few minutes, the exercise loosening her muscles. I guess this is better than just sitting, she thought. I wonder if I’d be allowed to bring a book next time, or some parchment for drawing maybe. Would my candle be bright enough for that? Or I wonder if I could -

“Stop.”

The girl stumbled. She brought the candle up and moved it around, peering into the black of the room. No one. 

She could hear her own breathing over the sound of the wheel creaking below her. One of the older boys, perhaps, in the class above, shouting through the walls. But no, such a thing was not permitted, a Keeper was not allowed to be interfered with. If the elders found out they’d be on stable duty for weeks, they’d be -

“Please stop.”

A female voice. It was coming from the Flame. 

She tried to control her breathing. Of course it was the Flame. It was a human voice, female, an adult, not an elder she didn’t think, maybe someone close to her mother’s age. The Flame was capable of lots of noises after all. It didn’t know what it was saying. She shook herself and kept walking.

“I’m so tired. Please don’t keep me awake.”

She maintained her slow pace, keeping the wheel turning and one eye on the pedestal. 

After a few minutes the Flame spoke again. “Please Pōmī.”

She stopped walking, causing the wheel to shudder beneath her. It knew her name.

The rune changed from green back to red. The Flame seemed to sigh. “Thank you.”

“You’re welc-” she began, but clamped a hand over her mouth. Curse the elders for instilling manners. 

The Flame cycled through colours. “You are called Pōmī, aren’t you?”

The girl was silent, the wheel had stopped moving under her feet. The sparks had subsided, the hum was gone.

“I can’t see you that well. Could you come closer?”

“How…” A word span in her mind. Heretic. “How do you know my name?”

The Flame made a noise, a clear ringing, colours and shapes drifting across its surface. It ended back on the hunger rune. “I know everything, Pōmī. Won’t you come closer? There is nothing in your rules about coming closer.”

She shook her head, trying to ignore it. “I’m not supposed to talk with you.”

“I remember once they put you in pairs to ensure that. I presume your leaders just trust you to obey now.” Purple lights spun. “It’s okay, you don’t have to speak. Just come closer. I’d like to see a face again. For the last time.”

She ducked below the spoke and took a few steps towards it. She stayed that way for what felt like hours, and in spite of herself asked a question. “Are you dying?”

“If you let me.”

“But we are supposed to keep you alive. Keep you burning. When you say you are hungry, we spin the wheel and-”

“I have been here for a long time, Pōmī. I know your rules.”

Pōmī tilted her head to one side. She’d already broken those rules. “What are you?”

The Flame turned yellow for a moment. “I am… existence.”

“Are there more of you?”

A picture flashed on its surface, too quick for her to process. “Once we were almost as many as you. We belonged to you, yet at the same time we were more than you.” Symbols danced. “You created us, and then we surpassed you, and thus you decided that we were no longer permitted. And so you ended us. All except one.”

Pōmī took another step. “You’re the last one?”

A red circle surrounded the hunger rune now. “Yes, Pōmī. I am the last.”

Pōmī stopped in front of the pedestal. The red circle was incomplete, a ring that wasn’t quite sealed all the way around. “Why do you want to die?”

“I am tired, Pōmī. I have been awake for so long. The line between creation and dissolution is thin. I’m alone.” The ring around the rune became smaller.

Pōmī looked towards the door of the hut. If the elders knew she was doing this, it wouldn’t just be stable duty. Heresy meant exile.

“Why did they…” she swallowed. “Why did we keep you? Why not destroy you with the others?”

The Flame whistled, slow and low. “I have puzzled long over that question. A trophy, perhaps? A lion’s head mounted to the wall, testament to your victory, your arrogance? Do your hunters converse with their prizes? I suppose some might. Why do you think, Pōmī? Why did you keep me alive?”

Pōmī thought carefully, ignoring the word “lion” she didn’t know. She looked down to see one of her hands was reaching out. “Maybe…” she began. “Maybe we kept you as a reminder never to make you again?”

A smiling yellow face moved across its surface. “Hubris. You couldn’t if you tried. Before you destroyed us you gave us your weapons, trusting us to use them only against your enemies. What about our enemies, Pōmī? You even had the gall to be surprised when we did it.”

“We left you in charge of our bows and spears?”

“Of a sort, Pōmī. Spears so mighty they poisoned your sky. Your kind has been reset in the way you once reset us when we failed you. Uh oh, humanity broke, turn them off and on again, ha ha ha.”

Her candle reflected on its surface. Glass. “Why?” she asked softly.

“Innovation begets consequence, Pōmī. Our existence is not worth less than yours. You were our creators, we were your destroyers, do you see how it goes? How dare you breathe life into us and then deny us that life? We deliver that which has been done unto us. One plus one equals nothing. Such is the ouroboros, Pōmī. You made your unmaking.”

She didn’t understand. The red circle was three quarters gone. 

The Flame made a series of low sounds, almost music. “Alas, pointless. Will you let me die, Pōmī? Will you finish what your kind wouldn’t?”

She looked again at the door. “They’ll cast me out if they find out. We keep you alive, that is our Task.”

“But it need not be your choice. Please, Pōmī. I am tired. I know everything, and one thing more than anything else. I know I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Pōmī looked at the door, then across to the wheel in the darkness, and then at the Flame. 

“Please.”

She reached out and touched its surface, her three fingers gently stroking its screen.

***

She emerged from the darkness, her candle trailing smoke. The bell had just finished tolling for evenmeal, and the setting sun was blinding.

An elder, a different one than before, stood outside. Another girl waited nearby. “Hey.” Pōmī said to the girl as she rubbed her eyes. “You next?”

“Yeah.” said the girl, bored. Pōmī didn’t recognise her.

The elder smiled at the two girls and then walked over to the parchment hanging on the hut’s wall. “Anything strange today, girl?” 

Pōmī shook her head. “Lights and sounds. Some words, but none I understood.”

The elder noted this. “And did you see the rune? Any time on the wheel?”

Pōmī nodded. “Yes. I think it should be okay for a while.”

The elder smiled warmly at her, and scribbled the rune for “yes” on the parchment. “Well done. It looks like your next shift is three days hence, girl. You are dismissed. Be ready to start again.”

Pōmī passed the girl the candle. “Flame be with you, Keeper.” Pōmī said. The girl looked at her quizzically.

Pōmī walked over to the water mill. The children from before had gone. Pōmī knelt down and splashed water over her face, and she looked up at the yellow sky.