Blaze (The High-Born Epic) (20 page)

             
He found another tree in the distance.  He couldn’t see it well, but he decided to try something.  He called to the source of his fire, and the top of the tree suddenly came into focus.  He released the power and the tree seemed to shrink back into the foreground.  He closed his eyes and listened.  He pushed the fire to his ears, and soon he could hear an incredible mixture of noise.  It was difficult to separate, but he realized that he could hear nearly all of Foxx Hole. 

             
He could tell it would take a little bit of practice to master, so he just let it go, deciding to try later.  He found the tree again.  It was quite some distance away, but he knew since he controlled his power in a different way now that he could make the air-burn.  He focused, and appeared in the top of it.  The scenery in front of him immediately adjusted itself and he was looking at Foxx Hole from about the angle of road number ten.  He was almost a mile from the border of the circular town, and about a hundred yards to his right was where he and Sarah were yesterday afternoon.  He found another tree at the top of town and zipped to it.  He looked around a little more, but found that the scenery didn’t change that much.  He was careful to check with his enhanced vision around his air-burn points, but he soon made his way around the entire perimeter of Foxx Hole, and was back in the tree where he had started.

             
He leaped down out of it, and decided to try something new.  He found a stick that looked similar to Cooper and Scott’s swords.  He called to the heat and surrounded the stick with fire.  He focused intensely and the fire around the stick began changing colors from red to blue, but he forced the heat to stay where it was and did not allow it to escape.  However, he kept it away from the stick as well and made the stick the focus of his power.

             
He found a young tree about the size of his leg.  He pulled more power into the barrier around his pretend sword and he leaped through the air toward the tree.  The heat seared through the tree as he swung.  He air-burned towards another tree, spinning and slashing as he dropped to one knee, and it fell in two pieces.  He flashed high into the air to a branch in the top of a near tree.  He swung and the branch fell and he air-burned back to the ground.

             
He could see the branch falling and he pulled fire into the palm of his hand and stepped forward.  Billowing flames rocketed toward the falling branch and consumed it.  He closed his palm and the fires that he had started came to him and swirled around him like a flock of fireflies.  He doused his stick and the swirling points of fire disappeared as well.  Harold appeared in the top of a tree and stood there, looking out across the detection grid at Colonel Foxx’s house and the skyscrapers far in the distance. 

             
He stayed there for quite some time just lost in his thoughts.  Scott’s secret base came across his mind, and he looked towards its general direction.

             
He jumped down out of the tree and walked to town.  It did not take him long to get to the blacksmith shop, and he found Sarah and her father both sitting at the front desk.

             
“Hey there, Harold,” Willie said.  “How are you today?”

             
“I’m good, sir,” Harold replied.  “And you?”

             
“I’m a little tired today,” he replied.  “But I got all the work for the day done, so it’s been a good day.  Got a lot of food for it.”

             
“When are we eating?” Harold smiled.

             
Willie laughed, “Whenever you want to, my boy.”

             
“Hey, Sarah,” Harold said. “You wanna’ go for a walk?”

             
“I would love too,” she replied, eyeing her father.

             
“Go on, Sarah,” he answered.  “We’re done here today, anyways.”

             
“Thanks, Pa,” she said.

             
He nodded and the two of them left the shop.  They took each other’s hand and leisurely strolled towards the woods.

             
“What do you think it used to be like?” Harold asked.

             
“What do you mean?” she puzzled.  “Before the High-Born?”

             
“Yeah,” Harold answered.

             
“I guess there used to be a lot of cities like the one over there,” Sarah urged her head towards the city in the distance.

             
“That’s what I think too,” Harold said and thought a moment.  “What do you think the people were like?”

             
“Who knows,” she shrugged.  “I guess they didn’t know what they had.  Else, we wouldn’t be like we are now.”

             
“That’s pretty thoughtful, Sarah,” he reached down and kissed her on the cheek.  “I’ve heard the old folks say that before the AIR War you could even leave town back then.”

             
“Yeah,” she said as she kissed the back of his hand.  “I heard Mr. Lewie talk about that one time.”

             
“That would be nice,” he answered.  “Well, come on, I’ve got something to show you.”

             
“Okay,” she said, and Harold began pulling her in a light jog.

             
Once they were safely inside the woodline, and away from prying eyes, Harold pulled her close, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

             
“Hold on,” he said and fire whirled around them...

             
...They appeared quite some distance away, and flashed again...

             
Sarah’s eyes were wide with excitement, “Whoa, that was really fun.”

             
“I know,” Harold said, and they flamed out of sight again.

             
After several careful air-burns, Harold found the tree that marked Scott’s secret base.

             
“Your brother is such a clever little thing,” Harold said, and Sarah smiled as she cocked her head.  “He found this place.”

             
“What is it?” she asked as Harold revealed the staircase to her.

             
“I don’t really know,” he answered.  “But let’s find out.”

             
Harold took her hand and they walked down to the door.  With a quick pull, Harold opened it and they walked inside.

             
“It sure is dark down here,” Sarah said.

             
“I’m about to take care of that,” Harold said as he clenched his fists in front of himself.

             
The puff of flame sounded and rays of light shot through the darkness, illuminating the entire room.  Seeming fireflies flittered from Harold to the torches on the wall, and fully lit the remaining darkness.  Sarah smiled as she walked around.

             
“Check those shelves over there,” Harold said.  “I’m going to look over here.”

             
“Okay,” she said and walked to her side of the room.

             
Harold looked over the dust-covered shelves, and they were surprisingly bare.  He was careful to control his flames when he grabbed a cardboard box and peered down into it.  There was nothing there.  He saw a few open aluminum cans that used to have food in them, but they had long since been picked clean.  He walked over to the partitioned beds and could see that they had been thoroughly slept in, but were also very old.  He was close to the door at the rear and he walked around the table and went through it.  It was everything he had expected:  Just an empty, but fairly large bathroom.

             
“I guess a family lived in here for a very long time,” he said as he stepped back into the main room.  “You find anything?”

             
“Yeah, there are a few books,” Sarah said as she shook the dust off a large piece of tattered cloth.  “And this.”

             
She grabbed each end of it and held it up for Harold to see.  It was too large for her to show him the entirety of it, and he walked over to help her.  He controlled his fire and grabbed one corner of it while she held the other and they stretched it between them.  It was ragged and had a few holes in it, but it was mostly intact.  It had red and white stripes running across it, but there was a large blue square on the end Sarah was holding.

             
“This thing would’ve been pretty when it was made,” she said.  “I love those stars in the blue part.”

             
“I wonder what it is?” Harold asked as he began counting the stars.

             
“I don’t know,” Sarah said as she began pointing at each of the stripes.

             
“Best that I can count,” Harold said.  “There are fifty stars.”

             
“And thirteen stripes,” Sarah answered as her finger stopped on the top stripe.  “If I cleaned it up, it might make use for a table cloth or something.”

             
“Nah,” Harold said.  “Let’s just leave it here.  There’s no telling what the High-Born might do if they saw it.  It’s got to be something from the Old World.”

             
“Yeah, you’re right.  It could be dangerous.  It’s sad though,” she said as she began folding it.  “Such a pretty thing like this gone to waste.”

             
As she put it back on the shelf, Harold looked over the books.  One of them had 9
th
Grade History written on it, and there was one that had Calculus written on it.

             
“I am going to take these though,” Harold said.  “They will be interesting.”

             
“If you say so,” Sarah shrugged.  “But you better really be careful with them.  The High-Born would kill you if they found out.”

             
“I know,” Harold said.  “But I’ve got a good place to hide them.”

             
“I say just leave them here,” she said.  “And come here to study.”

             
Harold thought a moment, “Yeah, you’re right.  We’ve got to be careful.”

             
He placed the books beside the red, white, and blue cloth and then he and Sarah left, and walked back to Foxx Hole.  He ate supper with Willie, Annie-Jane, Sarah, and Scott again that night, and then returned home.  He did not stay out of his bedroom for long, and soon he lay down for the night.

             
Suddenly, Harold could see only darkness, and he gazed at a great shadowed nothingness all around him.  He turned and looked and could only take in the enormity of the darkness around him. 

             
However, he could hear something far in the distance.  It sounded like wood falling on wood, and the muffled screams of children.  As it faded again into silence, he heard the wind howling, and then he felt a light breeze against his face.  A light source appeared behind him, and he turned.

             
It was as if someone opened a light-filled door far in the distance.

             
Something was spinning inside the light, but it was difficult to make out.  It began growing in size, and he soon realized that it was coming straight towards him.  The light breeze became a steady wind as the spinning light got closer.  And, soon, the wind was blowing furiously all around him.  From the source of the brightness burst forth a spinning whirlwind of light.  It began rushing towards him, and he took a step backwards, but just before it hit him, it stopped. 

             
And it sat there, beaming and twirling.

             
Harold stirred to life and as the dream rapidly faded, he thought he saw a shadow rise behind the whirlwind.  He tried to focus on it, but it quickly escaped his grasp.

C
hapter 18

             
Harold, Aunt Nean, Cooper, Ollie, and Scape all walked toward the town circle.  Harold was glad to see that he had finally returned.  Cooper was very excited as Scape ran circles around him, half-barking, half-yowling.  Every so often, Scape would look at Harold and raise his ears, then take a few steps away.  Harold just laughed under his breath.

             
Ollie held Betsy out in front of her almost seeming to dance with her as they moved down the road.  Aunt Nean walked silently, occasionally looking at the children.  She seemed a little bit sad tonight, but Harold thought it was because she was tired of the weekly meetings and speeches of Colonel Foxx.