Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 11, Part 1: Adrian

Adrain was ripped from sleep and tossed straight into wide-eyed terror. He rolled out of bed and dropped off the side, reaching for his uniform just as Sergeant Varnell entered the room.

"Recruit Raeth!" Sergeant Varnell barked, her wrathful gaze fixed on the small desk in the corner.

Gerald, to Adrian's surprise, was awake, dressed, and standing at attention by that desk. "Aye, ma'am?" he asked, impressively impassive. Adrian couldn't help but admire his friend's reserve, at this moment. Sergeant Varnell's indignation was a frightening thing.

"What in the burning hell before the world are you doing awake? You're wasting ink and lantern oil when you should be preparing for the ordeal I'm going to put you through," Varnell said.

The lantern was already dark. If Adrian had to guess, he'd suspect Gerald had extinguished the light out as soon as the door opened.

"Writing, ma'am," Gerald said.

"That's a bad habit to get into, recruit," Varnell chided him, as she stepped beside him and glanced at the desk. "Show me what you were writing."

Adrian couldn't miss Gerald's hesitation, as his hand lingered over the small stack of paper on the desk.

"Relax, recruit," Varnell said. "I'm only going to read this out loud. Unless you're confessing your passionate desire for a sweetheart back in Central, you don't have anything to be ashamed of."

Varnell took the top page and scanned it, absent-mindedly hanging a torch in a nearby bracket.

"Hope for his sake it's someone back in Central," Farah said from beside him. He was surprised to see that she was already dressed, with her boots laced-up and her jacket on. "If it's for you, I won't let either of you will live it down."

"And if it's for you?" Adrian asked her.

"I'll try to put him down gently. It'll show he has good taste, though," Farah reflected.

"It normally demonstrates a reluctance to pass closer than sixty feet. Distance does not vary for shifts in weather or wind or the time of day." Varnell read, the smirk slowly fading from her face. "Military regulations for pilot lights suggest this reluctance does not hold during an invasion."

"Your poetry isn't worth the ash burning that page would leave," Farah laughed as she said, but Adrian didn't share her mirth. Varnell's expression had gone flint-hard, an expression that seemed to promise wrath and pain.

"Observations during scheduled maintenance note the range it holds from a pilot light can decrease dramatically if the pilot light is inconsistently lit. It's withdrawn to expected distances appears reflexive. When advancing, it will draw to within a dozen feet of a pilot light, and will withdraw rapidly if that flame is advanced," Varnell said, reading the next paragraph.

She looked up from the page to Gerald. "You're writing about the Gloam."

The room turned deathly quiet. Farah's amused smile melted from from her face, and Adrian clutched at the bedpost beside him, not breathing.

"Burn me!" Farah hissed, quietly.

"Aye, ma'am. I am," Gerald admitted.

Varnell stared at him with an expression that could have shattered stone. "There is quite the taboo against researching it," Varnell said, softly. To Adrian, it sounded like the first crack of stone before a cave-in. "The City has executed its own citizens for this."

"I am aware, ma'am," Gerald admitted.

"Were you working on this before you enlisted?" Varnell asked, each word louder and harsher than the last. "Is this why you enlisted?"