The Brazier

Sam led Sol through the woods towards the clearing where she performed her growth rituals. “Think of the cast iron plate I used for mixing the ingredients for the medical spell, but one hundred times bigger,” Sam explained while they marched along the path that was so familiar to her.

Only two days had passed since she had walked Sol out of these woods, but Sam was able to spot the changes to the trees immediately. They were larger. A few days ago, the trees had been only about two inches in diameter and about as tall as Sam was. Their bark had been smooth, a texture more like an oversized stick than that of a tree. Now, Sam could identify the new roughness and colors of the trees’ bark as they matured.

The growth rituals caused the fast-growing grasses to take over the path, since Sam hadn’t been maintaining the trail for the past few days. She made a mental note to herself that she would need to come out tomorrow and cut down the trail if she wanted the ritual site to be easily accessible. Maybe she could even enlist the help from the big excitable thing that had distracted her from the task in the first place, who was following close behind her.

For now, the trail was easy to follow, if slightly overgrown. She led Sol to the small clearing, which was the most magical place in the world to her, and perhaps literally the most magical place for miles.

“Here we are,” Sam said as she stepped into the clearing. Grasses and wildflowers were flourishing, graciously lapping up the sun that was allowed to hit them directly after Sam had cut away the trees to keep the clearing open. It was around ten paces from one side to the other, bordered by the young trees that made up the surrounding forest.

She watched Sol walk into the clearing and run his hands along the top of the cluster of white flower heads that composed queen Anne’s lace. “You must love being out here, it’s so peaceful.”

“I do,” Sam nodded as she gazed around the clearing and thought about all the rituals she had performed in the past few months, and the dead forest landscape she was greeted with when she had first arrived. She enjoyed coming here on her days off, carefully pruning back trees and trimming away invasive plants, before eating her lunch and just enjoying the scenery.

“I love it more than any other place in the world. It’s magical, you know. Not just because of the rituals either. Just... Everything.”

Sam walked to the center of the clearing where a large, oiled canvas was covering what appeared to be some sort of large table, just slightly bigger around than Sam could spread her arms. “This though, is where the actual magic happens,” she said as she grabbed the corner of the canvas and pulled.

Sol gasped when she revealed it, which was a fair response for what he was seeing. It was a giant, concave metal disc with a slight sheen from repeated oiling to protect it from the elements. It sat on a massive slab of stone which was imbedded in the earth. The stone had been carved away into a stand, and on the side closest to Sol and Sam was a shelf that could be used as a workspace for preparing materials for rituals.

“You should have seen how many guys it took to get this thing out here. The one Tim had used was ancient, and since it had been neglected for the last few months of its life, I got approved for a new installation. Isn’t it magnificent?”

“Yeah,” Sol breathed, “this thing is amazing,” he seemed to be having trouble finding adequate words.

Sam smiled, happy that Sol was so interested, and stepped up to the disk to share more knowledge about it, hoping Sol would appreciate it. He followed close behind.

“You see this curvature of the disc?” Sam ran her hand across the mellow concave of the textured, slightly oiled surface of the iron. “It directs the energy of the reaction up into the atmosphere.” she said as she looked up at the foggy sky. “They call it an aeroritual, because it propels the reagents into the sky for them to act on the atmosphere.”

Sam paused, and looked at Sol to see if he was still interested. When she saw that his eyes were still focused, and he nodded encouragingly, she continued, “The reaction isn’t all that different than the one I used to heal your hand. This one just happens to be much more powerful. Just like the starch from the potato helped bind the paste to your hand and allow it to heal, salt can be used to bind to the smog in the air, and then a couple other ingredients are used to transform it into harmless water vapor.”

Sam walked over to a wooden chest that was hidden from view behind the iron plate. She opened it to reveal several large bags of salt. She selected one and heaved it up onto her shoulder, set it onto the disc, and then cut off the corner with shears from the chest. Salt poured out, and she walked around the plate, distributing the contents evenly until the bag was empty, resulting in a mound of salt forming a ring around the perimeter of the bowl.

She opened her bag and removed a couple of travel pots holding reagents that she had prepared that morning and set them to the side. Then she pulled out her pestle and mortar and positioned them on the shelf in front of her. She also pulled out the small bag of core crystals and combined them inside the mortar with a white powder from one of the pots. The powder would help slow down the violent reaction of the core crystals being crushed.

“This will happen fast,” she informed Sol.

She wrapped her left hand around the stone base of the mortar to ensure it wouldn’t move and gripped the pestle securely in her hand. Then she drove the stone tool firmly with her palm and started pulverizing the brilliant orange gems into dust.

The sound was piercing, it sounded like dragging a piece of glass along a chalkboard. The crushed gems also started to give off a subtle hissing sound as soon as they began to break apart. Even though the orange crystals were mixing with the inhibiting dust, a violent heat was still coming from the bowl of the mortar. Sam had the crystals reduced to powder in only ten seconds. By the end, it felt like she was sticking her hand over a burning fire. The dust was an even more striking shade of orange than the crystals it was derived from, and it was glowing.

Sam had to stand up on her toes and stretch to empty the glowing contents of the stone bowl into the center of the metal plate. She grabbed a metal pusher with a flat face and a long metal handle and used it to spread the ever-brighter glowing powder into thin channels that were built into the center of the dish. The pattern of the powder on the black metal looked like a glowing orange spiderweb on the backdrop of a night sky. She emptied another binding reagent on top of the web and smoothed it with the pusher. She started to feel the heat from outside of the disc, as the core crystals were breaking down the inhibiting powder.

Sam asked Sol to stand back at the edge of the clearing, and then grabbed another larger pusher from beside the stone stand. She worked her way around the entire device in a circle, pushing the mounded ring of salt to cover the reaction in the middle. Once she had worked all the way around, the salt was left as a thick layer covering the inner contents of the dish.

Sam looked back to see how Sol was doing. He was standing wide-eyed at the entrance of the clearing. His face told Sam that he had many questions that he was refraining from asking until she was finished, probably not wanting to be a distraction.

She took one more look at the surface of the reaction in front of her and went through a mental checklist of the things she had just done, before she turned away from the hot magical brazier and joined Sol at the edge of the clearing.

“Is that it?” Sol asked, with the slightest hint of disappointment in his voice, maybe because Sam had explained to him before that the reaction would be powerful.

“That’s the end of my part. Now we wait.” She sat down on a log that she had drug into the clearing just for this purpose, leaving enough room for Sol to sit down next to her, and they watched the reaction unfold.

As the reaction burned hotter and she started to see the faintest white glow beginning to appear in the middle of the salt, Sam remembered the first time she was allowed to see a large-scale growth ritual.

She had still been in school, maybe thirteen years old, when the class had gone on a field trip to teach them about the work ritualists did to keep food on the table for everyone, and how they kept nature beautiful. A group of kids including Sam had been sitting on a bench at the edge of a clearing not much bigger than this one. It was in the middle of Ash Park in downtown Mosel.

A tall, slender man had been standing in front of the brazier and said ‘Hello’ to them. He had been wearing a long tan peacoat and had messy medium-length brown hair and his face bore a look of excitement, even though he had likely done this demonstration many times before. After he had given his brief introduction about the importance of rituals in keeping the land of our city healthy, he passed around some of the not-so-dangerous reagents that ritualists worked with for the kids to touch and look at up close. Finally, after everyone had settled down, he pushed his glasses up on his face and performed the same ritual that Sam performed in front of Sol today.

That demonstration inspired Sam all those years ago to obsess over rituals, to beg her parents to get her an outdated version of a ritualist’s book from the thrift store, and to try out the spells in her back garden. It had led her to this moment when she would hopefully share that same joy with Sol sitting right next to her.

The salt started to glow a bright white like that of the full moon at the height of a clear night. It got brighter and brighter as the reaction continued, until it was hard to look at, even though the evening sun was still illuminating the forest. Then the brazier started to sing. It was how Sam imagined the sound angels might make coming down from the heavens, the sound of light and purity. Then the singing also increased in intensity until it drowned out any other sound that could be heard in the forest. It would have been difficult for her to hear Sol next to her even if he was shouting.

Then the intensity of the reaction began to subside. The glowing and the singing both died down, until there was only a slight glow coming from the center of the salt. The clearing was silent. All the birds and animals were waiting in anticipation, not wanting to make a sound. When Sam glanced over, Sol was silent too, and appeared to be holding his breath, waiting.

Then it happened. The singing started again, and the light erupted from the reaction. The entire disc was enveloped as the light shot up into the heavens as a massive column. The beam pierced into the sky and straight through the smog that covered the landscape. It stayed as a constant force for only a few seconds, but those seconds felt like an eternity. The dark clouds slowly started clearing from the middle, and a gap continued to grow larger that let the blue sky shine through. Finally, the light began to fade once again, until the brazier in front of them was finally left completely empty, except for the heat emanating from it.

Sam didn’t look away until the reaction was over. When she looked over at Sol, she expected to see the same excitement on his face that she had when she saw this ritual for the first time. Instead, what she saw Sol curled forward, tensely gripping his legs in what looked like pain.

“Sol! Are you alright?” Sam shouted out and grabbed his shoulders. His muscles were tense, and he barely reacted at all when she touched him.

Sam continued urgently asking if he was okay, and tried to see if he was hurt in some way, but she couldn’t find any trace of injury.

Eventually, he relaxed slightly and looked at her. His eyes, which had always looked too golden to be natural, were now glowing a bright orange in a striking resemblance to the glow of the core crystals Sam had crushed just a few minutes ago.

Sam’s jaw dropped, dumbfounded. A few moments passed, and she pulled herself together. She repeated, “Sol... Are you alright?”