Young Flame

Carefully, I climb down the vertical cliff face. My hands and feet burn into the rocky surface to create handholds as I slowly make my way into the depths.

Far below, Kiko drops a hundred metres before slamming his hand into the stone, jerking to a stop. His actions are so casual that it’s obvious he’s done this a thousand times. I could probably do something similar, but between the intense gusts billowing my outfit around my body where it is loose, and the endless chasm below, it seems like a much better idea to take this slow.

The crevasse is wide and quickly descends into darkness the further down it goes. Is it possible it could be as deep as the massive hole Kalma made in our fight? It is wide, and clearly deeper than anything, so maybe. Though it is hard to imagine, considering just how long we fell before we hit the bottom.

I tear a chunk of rock from the cliff-side and throw it down. My intention was to listen for an echo after it hit the ground, but I quickly realise the folly of that thought; the strong winds deafen all sounds. With arms half penetrating the wall, the glowing molten rock rolling down the cloth catches an eye.

Another idea hits me and I readjust on the wall so I can use both hands, sinking my back ever so slightly into stone. My seated position might not be all that stable if not for the hooks of physical flames I dig through the surface.

I grab some rock, cupping it in my hands so I don’t lose any. In moments, it is molten and glowing bright red. I push it further, raising the rock’s temperature until smoke and vapour pour off it unrestrained, blown upward with the wind. The rock reaches a bright, near-white yellow, glowing like a mini-sun all on its own. It grows less viscous the hotter it gets, to the point it feels almost like water in my hands. Despite it being about the furthest thing from it, the feeling is still uncomfortable.

I throw it all as far from the wall as I can.

The wind spreads much of it as it falls, but some globules stay together. This was my best idea to check the depth of this chasm. I could spread my flames as far as possible, but if it’s anything like Kalma’s pit, it will still be far out of my range. Besides, no need to waste energy where I don’t need to. Also, I’m not sure if Kiko would be fine with the excessive usage, even if he has more energy than I.

Unfortunately, the darkness soon consumes the light and I’m left straining my eyes and guessing whether I can still see the small chunks of molten rock. By how long it fell before I lost sight, the crevasse has to be at least a dozen kilometres.

“Are you coming?” Kiko’s voice snaps me out of my fugue. “It’ll take months to get up the mountain at that pace.”

His voice is laced with the grumpiness he first showed Ignatia. I guess, despite his change in attitude, the crankiness isn’t entirely an act.

Surprisingly, it’s the action of a grand elder telling me to ‘hurry up’ that finally pushes me to jump. I’m not about to let one of these timeless elders to be more impatient than me.

Hmm… maybe there is a better way to state that.

The endless darkness below is still frightening — not even night gets this dark, only the Void Fog — but surely Kiko wouldn’t jump down like this unless it was safe. Or, at least, relatively safe. The grand elder, upon seeing me leap from my safe ledge, does the same. He throws himself far from the wall, where he strangely seems to hover and I quickly catch up to him.

With the wind blowing in my face, the fall is far slower than normal. I don’t even need to grow wings to control my descent. Angling my body, I head toward Kiko. Well, I try to. The wind grows so strong away from the cliff wall I stop falling entirely. It’s like I’m flying, except without wings.

I twist my body, trying to pull myself back to the wall, but suddenly I’m spinning end on end. Hard rock slams into my back, and I grab something to hold on to. Once I stabilise myself, I realise I’ve risen a few hundred metres again. I’m back to just barely below the cliff-ledge.

Below, Kiko angles himself further into the central part of the chasm, only to rocket upward. He slams into the wall beside me, his feet breaking off some of the stone with the impact.

“Stick close to the walls. That’s the only way to cross.”

It would be so much easier if we had a molten mountain conveniently bridging this gap. Unfortunately, no Titan has devastated the land around here to make for easy travel. Do we have to fall all the way to the bottom to cross over?

“Follow close.” He pushes off the wall again, a slight tug on my shoulder bringing me with him.

This time, I’m extra careful to follow directly behind the elder. Despite him acting as somewhat of a windbreak for me, I still fall behind. The rushing air tries its hardest to throw me back, but the moment I mimic Kiko’s stiff form — and add weight to myself for good measure — I race down in his trail.

We’re falling rapidly into the chasm now. The wind slams into my face and shoulders with such power that I’m sure I could cut through it much easier in my bird form. A falcon’s angled beak is perfect for piercing through the air with the least resistance, after all. Unfortunately, if I do change bodies, the slightest exposure of wings would shoot me who knows how high through the air.

Well, it’s not like I need to change myself fully.

In the intense gusts, my face deforms. Burning white flames spread away from the natural state of my head with far too much ease. They realign in the triangular facial structure of a bird, and as expected, the wind is easier to deal with. Rapid air rolls along my face, tempting the flames to burn along them, but still slams into my shoulders. Not much I can do about those if I don’t want to discard my outfit.

Kiko gives me an odd look as he glances back my way, which reminds me I should focus on the dark void below. After the initial troubles, I find falling like this is easy to manage. The stronger winds near the centre of the crevasse push me back to the wall as long as I keep my body straight and the more stable air near the walls gives me a pretty decent control over my fall.

It’s actually pretty enjoyable.

If not for the lack of knowledge of what lies below, I’d probably say this is as good as flying. But that emptiness below is unnerving, and I really shouldn’t get distracted.

“In about ten seconds, we need to stop. Do you need help?” Kiko asks as he pulls back to my side.

The light from my flames is bright enough that I can actually see a fair distance down into the chasm. I can’t see the bottom, but enough of the walls below illuminate that I’m sure I can stop my descent before I splatter over the ground… not that it should hurt me much more than a bit of lost energy. We’re not falling that fast.

“Yeah, should be fine.” I nod. “Will I be able to see wh-“

My words are cut short by the sight of the wall we’ve been hugging all this way down, curving away. Is the cavern widening? I can’t tell what’s happening on the other side. Even with my white flames, the angle of the other side isn’t exactly the easiest thing to see.

And then I see what is almost certainly the cue to cut our fall short. A massive shard of rock bridges the gap between our side and the other.

I burst forth an immense jet of flame. The blaze slows my speed immediately and illuminates everything in the chasm. As I push my body toward the wall, I realise we aren’t reaching the bottom. No, the darkness still extends as far as I can see. Only now, it is not directly below. The entire chasm angles away from the Titan Alps.

Kiko has the energy to do the same, but he flips through the rushing winds, letting the grasping air ever so slowly cut away his speed until he gently lands upon the natural bridge. The sight is graceful, sure, but isn’t he just a little too familiar with these mountains?

I shake my head, returning my face to normal as I make my way down the wall. How does my team handle this crossing? I remember Remus telling me they climb down, so I assume it’s similar to this, but none of them have a way to stop their fall like me, and I doubt they have the same finesse as Kiko. Then again, finesse isn’t exactly necessary. Maybe they use the winds to throw themselves into the wall, like what happened to me earlier.

My unsteady legs carry me across the bridge to the grand elder as I glance up. There’s no light. I’m not sure if we’re down far enough to not see any, or if the chasm bent some during our fall, but if not for our fires, we’d be blind.

The wind slams into my sides, curving around the massive slab, but it can no longer fling me upward. Our bridge cuts right through the worst of it, but it has clearly not gone undamaged by the winds. The centre of the platform is thin and smooth. I don’t know how long it’s been here, but after it fell and got lodged between the chasm’s walls, the gusts ground away at its edges. At some point in the future, the centre will fracture and the bridge will be no more.

I hope there are other ways across.

“Have you ever gone further down?” I ask Kiko as I reach his side, eyeing the darkness.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s a labyrinth of collapsed earth down there. After some time, the tunnels become so tight the wind is insurmountable, no matter what you do.”

“Where’s the wind come from?”

He shakes his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Carefully, we cross the bridge. The solid ground beneath us is enough to grant us safety from the wind, but it still feels like I’m being thrown around despite holding my heaviest weight. The gusts soon calm, but now we have to worry about climbing the massive cliff-face before us. We didn’t fall anywhere near as far as Kalma’s pit, but without Tore’s powerful legs, how are we supposed to get up quick?

Kiko approaches the ledge off to the side.

Oh, right. The wind.

“Come here,” he calls.

Reluctantly, I do as he asks. Falling is one thing, but willingly throwing myself into such an intense stream of air is frightening. I’ll have no way to stop myself unless I can angle my body into the wall. The wind is stronger than any jet of flame I could produce. If anything, I’d probably not be worried if I hadn’t seen what happened when someone went too high into the sky.

I really don’t want to tempt whatever that rotten spreading night was.

“Climb on.” He crouches and gestures to his back. “Going up requires a bit more precision if we don’t want to hit the Nightfall Shroud.”

“Nightfall Shroud?” I repeat, before guessing at what he’s referring to. “You’ve seen the rotten night, too?”

He nods, solemnly. “More than seen it; I’ve been inside. Lost too many over the years to it.”

“What is it?” I ask as I finally get over my hesitation and put my hands over his shoulders. I’m too big to be riding on someone’s back like I used to with Uncle Rivin, and especially with someone not much taller than myself, but I’m not confident enough in riding this rising stream to do otherwise.

Well, I could climb up the wall, but that could take hours, if not days.

“I don’t know. As soon as I entered it, I was disoriented. Didn’t know where I was. It was like the night sky moments before the Ember Moon, but everywhere. Stars lit the darkness all around me, but the ground was no longer below.”

He stands back up, not even bothering to hold me. Though, my physical flames wrapping his chest will stop me falling off.

“I panicked and threw myself backwards immediately. Barely stayed in there a second,” he says, standing right at the ledge. “All of us were grand elders, yet I was the only one to return.”

He throws us off the edge before I can respond. We fall for a moment until he angles us closer to the centre of the chasm. I notice that while our fall immediately becomes a rapid rise, Kiko is careful not to bring us too close to the centre. It is clear why: it took us maybe five minutes to fall this far, that same distance is crossed in a fraction of the time.

After only a dozen seconds, Kiko pulls away to the wall of the chasm before we rocket out into the open air. Kiko angles us away from the crevasse and we slam into the sedentary air, which slows us down rapidly. It almost feels like we hit a solid wall. Soon, all our momentum is gone and we float a few hundred metres above the Lower Elevation mountains.

I let go of the grand elder and morph into a bird, taking advantage of the less turbulent air this far away from the chasm. Kiko falls and has to use fire jets of his own to cut his momentum. The sight of him using his flames — even if it is only his red fire — is gratifying; it’s not great to be shown up so much, so I’m glad he doesn’t have another way to do it here.

Let’s just ignore that I would have gotten myself killed If I’d tried the same thing with the wind.

“So,” Kiko starts as soon as I fly down to his side. “You’ve got that spear for a reason, right? Ready to put it to some use?”

“Definitely.”