Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 25: Tabitha

"He is the wall," Mathias had mused, just before Tabitha had left him to go and find this wayward apprentice.

She marched into the fields, following the irrigation trenches a few hundred feet from the pipes that should be billowing flame. She grumbled in irritation with every step through the sodden, loamy fields she was forced to trudge through.

"He is the wall," Mathias had said, driving a spike into Tabitha's convictions with four abyss-touched words.

This boy, this fool apprentice, had joined the army to study the Gloam, had intimate knowledge of a secret that could rip the City into pieces.

And the City could not afford weakness. It could not afford to be anything less than ready, at all times, for Golems to smash the walls and let the Gloam drown the districts.

Weakness would plunge the City into night; and if there was a dawn after that, the only witness would be the power behind the Gloam.

Yet her evaluator, a man she couldn't help but respect, hesitates to put the knife where it deserves to go?

"Slagged pig-iron in a cauldron of bile flavoured with simmering shit. Abyss-touched shadow and his idiot timing," Tabitha muttered.

She kept marching, until she reached the dead pipe. A quick touch with the tips of her fingers confirmed that the Coldstone cap had been set. An easy thing to fix; she doubted that Gerald would have to maintain his craft for much longer.

At the thought, her eyes fell on a speck of flame, smaller than an apple, that seemed to perch on the ground.

Tabitha approached it, and found her irritation swept away like a tendril of smoke in a hurricane.

The small form that perched on the ground was the hazy, warm colour of a small cooking fire, and radiated its gentle heat so carefully that Tabitha could barely feel it even as her own heat haze pressed against the craft. The form was smaller than her fist, and had two fragile wings set on the sides of a small, feathery body. The small creature had two eyes on the sides of its head, and the tiny face had a small, nearly life-like beak.

"I'm impressed by your attention to detail," Tabitha said to the small bird. "The shape of the feathers is exquisite, Gerald."

The bird turned its head and glanced at her with one of its beady red eyes. It blinked at her once, and Tabitha nearly chuckled.

Tabitha saw a flash of fire appear by her feet, several swirling sparks cut into the ground, leaving a trail of ash that formed letters in a neat, precise script.

You are not the Crafter that accompanied Colonel Cavilla.

"No, I'm not," Tabitha said, as she marched away, following the pipe to the next flame up ahead. "Do you know who I am?"

The next flash of fire appeared just ahead of her. She looked down and smiled.

Crafter Tabitha a'Loria.

Tabitha smiled. "That's my name. Now, if I'm here, what does that tell you about Sergeant Varnell's confrontation with Colonel Cavilla?"

As Tabitha spoke, she walked past the next craft that Gerald was using to hold the Gloam back. To her surprise, and despite being only forty yards from Gerald's last craft, this one was also in the shape of a small songbird.

Ahead of her, another flash of fire indicated Gerald had written his response.

The fight is over. Crafter Adams regards your talent in the Craft as peerless.

"Adams is a featherweight in the craft," Tabitha said dismissively. "I have peers in strength, and skill. But you're right, the fight is over. I've ended it. The fire should flow soon."