Chapter 277: The World Fire
Riptide found the current first.
It ran along the rocks on their side of the crossing, passed beneath the pale line and continued beyond it. Riptide waited near its entrance while Ren drew a narrow stream of water from storage and sent it ahead, low over the surface.
The stream thinned as it crossed the burn. By the time it reached the far side, much of it had gone to steam.
Ren watched the current carry the remaining water onward, then strengthened the covering over Ward’s flank. He did the same for Anvil, keeping Balm sheltered against the shell, and checked the others before signaling them forward.
Ward entered the current, and the pack crossed together.
Heat pressed against the covering along the whale’s whole length. Ren kept supplying water as it boiled away, adjusting the flow around Anvil and the smaller shapes following them. He could maintain it, but it took more attention than the road outside had needed.
Beyond the line, he kept the covering in place. The pale burn continued across the water ahead.
Spear crossed beside them in its blue Lawfire, clear of Ren’s cold water. Its flame drew closer to the rocks as they passed through, then stopped in the shelter of a headland. Ren had Ward follow rather than carry the group straight into the open burn.
Spear manifested beside its flame and pointed past the headland toward the volcanic cones. The landing stones farther along the road were lost beneath pale fire. It studied the glass marker Ren offered, then looked back toward the cones and chose their direction from those.
— • —
They stopped at a sheltered rock short of the volcanic ring, and Ren divided the pack.
Snap, Bolt, Mosaic, Saber, Ribbon, Lantern, Knock and Hearth stayed on its lee side, where the rock broke the worst of the heat. Lantern spread her silk toward their approach to mark the way back. Ren checked the water around them before taking the smaller group ahead.
Ward carried Keep. Riptide followed the outer current, with Anvil close behind and Balm still spread over the repaired shell. Spear guided them along the rocks without entering the passages between the cones.
They stopped at three accessible mouths. At each, Ren placed one of Keep’s spores on a sheltered rock before moving on. The reports would give him a delayed check on those positions; he would have to watch any immediate change himself.
He waited for the first marker’s response before placing the next. By the time it reached him, the current beside that rock had already changed. He looked back to check the water rather than relying on the report.
From the last stop, they returned to a landing overlooking the nearest passage. Ward settled beside it while Ren climbed up. Behind them, Lantern’s silk remained visible against the sheltered rock.
He turned toward the basin.
— • —
Five cones stood clear of the smoke, with more rock rising indistinctly beyond them. Water ran between their slopes into a basin where pale fire burned across a circulating current. Each eruption sent a fresh surge along the passages, shifting the fire and dragging smoke over the water.
Near the middle, an exposed vent rose on a bare outcrop. A narrow thread of white fire extended from it into the smoke.
Ren watched it while wind flattened the flames closer to the landing. The thread remained upright, white at its core, its edges barely distinguishable from the surrounding glare.
A cone across the basin erupted. Pale fire spread along the channel beneath it, and the current changed where the surge entered the basin. Smoke rolled over the next passage and hid its far end.
Ren followed as much of the movement as he could. The vents were feeding the same water, and a change at one reached the passages around it.
[CLASSIFICATION: PLANETARY LAW PHENOMENON.]
[CENTRAL FOCUS DEFENSE: NEGLIGIBLE.]
[DANGER TO HOST: EXTREME.]
He read the middle line again, then looked at the thread. There was no armored body around it, no chest plate to break before he could reach the fire. There was an entire basin between them instead.
Ren opened his right hand. The numbness from testing Deepsnap was gone, and he remembered what the second shot had done to the stone. He needed a clear approach before spending that charge here.
[THE STRONGEST PRESENCE: THE WORLD FIRE.]
[IF IT FALLS, THIS WORLD’S CORE MAY BE CLAIMED.]
The people at Tide hadn’t agreed to enter his world. He still needed to keep their road open.
Ren let the panels fade and watched the nearest passage until its far end emerged from the smoke.
— • —
An eruption threw stone across the center of the basin.
Most fell short of the exposed vent, striking the water around it. One small fragment passed through the thread.
The white fire bent and narrowed around the stone. A strip of pale burn running from the vent toward the nearest passage dimmed briefly, then brightened again.
Ren leaned forward. Another eruption sent smoke across his view, and he stayed where he was until it cleared. The fragment was gone. The thread rose from the vent as before, with pale fire spreading across the surrounding water.
He watched through the next surge, looking for any remaining break. None showed.
The focus had yielded where the fragment struck it. Ren could work with that, if he could get an attack close enough. But the stone had come down from within the ring; he had yet to send anything through the passages guarding it.
He climbed down to Ward and took more water from storage.
— • —
They tested from the outer mouths they’d already visited.
Riptide stayed beside the rocks, following the currents returning from the basin. Anvil braced near Ward, with Balm pressed against the sheltered part of its shell. Keep remained in the cradle. Spear watched from a separate landing, its Lawfire in the water beside it.
Ren sent a narrow stream along the surface of the nearest passage, keeping it in contact with the sea. He held its shape as it passed between the banks.
Before it reached the vent, the leading edge greyed and hardened. Stone spread back along the stream, weighing it down until the working broke and sank beneath the pale fire.
Ren stopped feeding it and waited for the surface to clear. The new stone remained visible just below the water.
At the next mouth, he sent a stream of similar size along the same low path. It traveled between the rocks, then vanished from the passage.
The pull on his control shifted. Riptide turned, and Ren saw water spilling out of the third mouth to their left. It struck the outer rocks and scattered before he could bring it back together.
He knew that kind of change. At the Riftfire’s gate, a body had entered one flame and emerged from another. Here, his water had come back out through a passage it hadn’t entered.
They moved to the third mouth.
This stream traveled farther. Ren kept it against the surface until its advance began to slow. He waited, holding the supply steady, and saw it creep past a notch in the bank. Beside it, exposed rock greyed and flaked, dropping thin pieces into the water.
The Stillfire keeper had slowed falling stone. The Agefire had crumbled a wall while people fled behind it. Both effects were operating along this approach, and Ren couldn’t see how far either extended.
He released the stream and returned to the first mouth for another test.
This time he lifted the water clear of the sea. The narrow ribbon passed above the place where his first stream had hardened. Ren followed its tip until green flame rose from below and engulfed it. Water fell through the burn in scattered drops.
He lowered his hand and waited for the green to subside. He hadn’t reached the vent, but lifting the water had carried it past the earlier obstruction.
The passages gave him different problems. Contact with the sea appeared to matter too. He looked toward the third mouth again; that was where his first approach had gone farthest.
— • —
Ward took position outside the third passage while Riptide settled in the returning current. Anvil braced beneath an overhanging section of rim, leaving open water beside its shell. Spear moved back to the sheltered landing behind Ward, clear of the escape route.
Ren checked the covering over the forward group. Farther back, Lantern’s light still marked the waiting rock, and Keep’s latest report confirmed the others there.
"Stay at the mouth. I’m coming back this way."
He waited for Ward’s acknowledgment, then gathered water beneath his feet.
The sheet carried him into the passage. He kept it near the middle, with a thick covering around his shoulders and arms, and watched the rocks where his stream had slowed. Heat stripped water from the outer layer as he advanced. He replaced it while keeping enough attention on the entrance to check his way back.
Ward remained visible between the banks.
Ren approached the notch his stream had barely passed. The water ahead began to harden.
Grey spread across the passage from the far end, joining one bank to the other. He checked his movement before the sheet reached it. Darkness covered the stone and swallowed the pale glow beyond, hiding the vent.
A golden flash crossed the dark from bank to bank. For a moment he saw the edges of the new stone, then the light was gone again.
Behind him, pale fire spread from the banks onto his return path.
"Come out, Ren."
He was already turning. Ren called the withdrawal and drove the sheet back toward Ward, angling away from the fire advancing across the surface.
The cone above that stretch had stopped erupting, but the strip of flame below it remained in place. Water moved through it without carrying it away. Ren had to bend his route around the burning strip while the opposite bank pushed more fire toward him.
The entrance was still open. He could see Ward’s back and Keep’s cradle, with Anvil braced above the gap beside them. A piece of rim broke loose and struck the outer edge of Anvil’s shell. It caught there, clear of Balm, while smaller fragments fell into the water.
Ren’s covering thinned over his shoulders. He fed more into it, but the layer over his left sleeve broke, and heat caught his arm before he could close it again.
He kept the sheet moving. At the mouth, the returning current caught beneath it, and Riptide drew him through the gap alongside Ward.
Ren brought the sheet level with the whale’s back and stepped across beside the cradle. His wet hand slipped on the first grip; he caught himself with the other and planted both feet before letting the sheet fall apart.
His sleeve was scorched through. He pulled the cloth clear of his arm and restored the covering, then looked toward Anvil.
The fallen piece slid from the shell as Anvil backed out from under the rim. Balm remained in place. Ren waited until both were beside Ward before directing the group away from the entrance, with Riptide steadying the water around them.
He’d barely approached the place his stream had reached, and the passage had answered with stone, darkness and fire spreading behind him. He couldn’t yet tell which part of his advance had triggered the additional responses.
As Ward turned, Ren caught a glimpse between the cones. The white thread still rose from its vent, untouched by anything he had sent.
Behind them, pale fire joined across the passage.