Bastet watches as her packleader walks into the light-which-burns. Even this far away, her feathers curl slightly at the heat it’s producing. Packmate Marty makes a quiet sound and shifts in worry. Bastet sends her a feeling of calm, of patience. Though packleader doesn’t always know what he’s doing, he certainly seemed to this time.
Looking up, she sees that the two of Packmate River’s kin who accompanied their pack are staring at the flames, their eyes wide and panicked, their muscles restless. They might run at any moment. Bastet grunts and her pack shifts accordingly to block off the escape routes of the taller creatures.
The leader looks around her pack in satisfaction: they might not be her kind – those her pack leader calls ‘raptorcats’ – but they are good team-mates. Bastet might have taken inspiration from the ‘spars’ and set up a number of exercises to help her group become more accustomed to working together. Cubs learn it when they are small; just because these are no longer cubs does not mean that they cannot learn the same lessons. Bastet recognised that for herself after her body changed and elder Kalanthia reprimanded her. Rightly so.
Settling back down, the raptorcat looks into the fire carefully, trying to catch a glimpse of the tall creature who leads her pack. There. The fire thins enough to show the shadow of a bipedal figure. Then the fire closes in again and he is gone. Bastet feels a hint of relief. Even if she was confident that he would be well, it’s good to have confirmation.
She watches as the burning-light grows bigger and bigger, its tongues licking hungrily at the hunter-trees in an expanding ring – yet only them. There is the sense of intense concentration across the link, of focus that must not be disturbed.
Bastet shifts a little: she is concerned that there might be an attack. While most creatures should be running away from the dangerous heat, there is no guarantee that a panic-stricken beast might not charge straight through its centre.
Yet if she and her group step forwards, they would be immolated like the trees themselves. So she waits.
The fire continues to build. A great wind ruffles the branches of the trees near them, the flames before them sucking eagerly at the air. And then, suddenly, a feeling of summons. A beckoning from her packleader. Towards the tongues-which-bite.
For a moment, Bastet finds herself feeling doubt. Towards the light-which-burns? And not even to follow from a distance, but to enter the roaring-beast itself? Yet she trusts the packleader to keep them safe.
Standing, she orders her pack to gather up, and to walk forwards. As she trusts the packleader, they trust her and obey, despite the fear running through them. The two of Packmate River’s kin are reluctant, but Packmate Thorn’s boney spikes and Packmate Honey’s growls get them moving forwards, their claws tight around their long sticks.
Pace by pace they step closer to the flickering tongues. The heat builds more and more, yet it never reaches the point of singing scales or feathers or fur. The black dust which remains in the wake of the burning-light’s path coats their feet in warmth, but does not sear their flesh.
Fear and dread of being eaten away, until they too turn into black dust, turns into wonder as they step through a world which has been reduced to black, white, and different shades of orange. Bastet keeps her gaze ahead, eyes fixed on the hazy figure which gains more definition with every step.
Finally, they make it to the side of the packleader. His eyes are distant, his concentration so much that he doesn’t even greet them. However, the fact that the flames do not swoop in to consume them must mean that a part of him knows they are there.
Bastet calls a halt among the other packmembers. They are here to protect from anything that might have survived the fire, not to be completely distracted by their surroundings that they almost bump into him. She has to remind one of Packmate River’s kin that as he stumbles over a rock and almost careens into their pack leader. He will not soon forget the feel of her teeth sinking into his scales and dragging him backwards.
Giving out the instructions, they settle into the task. They move forwards at a slow rate, cool air swirling around them from somewhere beyond the flickering light and allowing them to breathe without inhaling smoke or ash.
Bastet cannot say how long it has been since they entered the domain of the burning hunter-trees: it has been both long and short. All she knows is that something has changed. Packleader’s focus has shifted.
She sends a warning to the rest of the Bound: be ready.
*****
Please, I hear, whispered on the wind. It’s almost more concentration than I can spare to listen to it. The fire rages and the delicate balance I have between losing myself to the fire and losing control of it is on a knife’s edge. It’s like I’m on a tightrope which keeps getting thinner the more the fire grows.
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I feel every tree that it eagerly bites into, three turning into ten, turning into fifty, to hundreds, even thousands. I also feel the innumerable other lives the fire has taken – I’ve taken. Animals too slow or too close to flee, insects, fungi, birds, other plants, even a few of those mimic-creatures. I’m not at all regretful about those, though I do feel a faint twinge of it about the others. I’m too at one with the fire to feel more than that. For now.
Fortunately, thanks to my epiphany, I’ve also managed to work out how to transform fire magic back into my own mana. Given that the fire seems to generate its own magic by burning things, it’s an exothermic reaction which keeps feeding me what I need to maintain my control. But that doesn’t make it easy.
Another plus: I’ve succeeded in working out how to control the fire and heat around my Bound, giving them a path through the raging inferno to follow me. Working out how to give them sufficient oxygen to breathe while the fire greedily sucks at any that it could reach was another challenge, but by keeping the area above them flameless, I’m able to indirectly control the draught’s direction and make sure that they get it first.
I only managed that because they joined me fairly early on when the fire hadn’t stretched as far, when I’d had more concentration available for experimenting. Now, the fire is happy to respect my wishes – as long as I continue helping it to grow.
Stopping it will be a different question, but since my epiphany, I no longer have any doubt that I will be able to do so; I just know that it will be hard, perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Please, stop, I hear the voice say again.
“Stop what?” I croak, my voice surprising me with the way it cracks, my lips painful. Liquid trickles from them and I taste blood. I swallow dryly and fight back the urge to cough, suddenly becoming aware of how utterly parched I am.
I ignore it: as long as I’m alive, I should be able to fix any of these things with Flesh-Shaping. If I switch my focus now to heal myself, I might easily lose control of the flames and then I won’t be alive. I was on the verge of losing it a moment ago when I spoke, the concentration required to form words almost more than I could cope with.
You are hurting me, burning me, the voice implores. I can barely spare it any of my attention, but what I can dedicate to the task tells me that something about it feels familiar. That, added to its words, tells me exactly who, or what, I’m speaking too.
Why should I? I ask mentally. If it can project to me, surely it can hear me in return. And I really can’t afford to keep speaking.
Why do you hurt me? It sounds bewildered, but I have no sympathy to spare. How can you hurt me? I am legion.
You threaten those under my protection. And I don’t want a carnivorous forest in my backyard, I grit out. The line of fire stretches even further.
Abruptly, I feel that the next tree to burn is different. It’s not so flammable, not connected by its roots. With a force of will, I prevent those flames from licking forwards. Instead, I spread them a little further in both directions sideways. I’ve reached the other side of the forest? Already?
I do not wish to be consumed, the forest tells me plaintively. Can we not make a bargain?
I inhale and the flames pull more oxygen. I exhale and they spread wider. Another line of trees falls victim to my advance.
Yet part of me is intrigued.
What do you propose?
I will not threaten those under your protection; you leave me to grow as I will, the forest suggests eagerly. I shake my head, the desiccated skin on my neck tearing a little with my movement.
You threaten us with your presence. I don’t have the focus to explain, but shove vague memories of beasts appearing where they shouldn’t have been, driven out by the forest from their usual hunting grounds. Confine yourself to a small area, and I will let you live.
Confine myself?! the forest booms, and through the flames, I feel those I have only recently touched sway and shoot spears in all directions in its fury. It’s far away from where my physical body is so I am unaffected. Never!
I mentally shrug and return to focussing on the fire. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
The forest falls before my advance. I reach the point where I feel like I’m extended to my uttermost, that the next tree will be the last before I lose. And then I’m past that point, yet I remain.
It’s almost like a second wind, like the feeling after having pushed myself to what I thought were my limits in lifting weights and running, only to find that I actually have more to give. That there’s another world beyond the horizon.
The tightrope has not got any wider; the fire has not become more tame. I just suddenly realise that I’m not going to fall, not going to fail. Confidence fills me and I lose some sense of my body as my mind soars through the inferno. But not like before. I still know who I am; I still know I am me. But Me is Fire, and Fire is Me and I understand that like never before.
The flames ripple out, covering new ground faster than ever. They travel through the root network, leap across the gaps to grab the branches. The trees try to pull apart, try to create gaps that the fire cannot span. But they cannot completely detach themselves from the root network. Even a single root is enough to allow a spark to travel through and, fed by my mana, recreate the inferno. And the mana used to feed that spark is returned quickly enough by the fire that consumes the flammable wood of the tree.
It’s a cycle that will guarantee the demise of the entire forest in the not too distant future, despite its size.
And the forest knows it.