“I’m confused,” she said as she followed him along the beach, struggling to keep up with his long strides even though he was carrying most of the stuff. “If there’s no port then were are we going?”
“To the sunny part of the island.”
She followed him in silence until eventually he stopped and put everything down. “Here,” he proclaimed, as if declaring the land his.
Amanda put down the things she was carrying and then sat down in the sand. “They didn’t get your stars,” she said sadly. It was a silly thing but she knew how much he liked them and how much it must hurt for his crew, who was basically his family to kick him out like that, some of them at least.
He plopped down in the sand next to her and without a hint of sadness pointed to the sky and replied, “We’ll have real stars.”
She eyed him carefully. Maybe he was in denial. “Okay, I’m still confused. You don’t seem particularly concerned that you’ve lost your captaincy, we’ve been kicked off your ship, and dropped onto a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. Is there something you know about that I don’t?”
“Nope, but look at it this way. I just got a well-deserved break on a tropical island with a beautiful woman and they even left us with a bottle of rum.” He rummaged through the stuff they’d been left with and pulled out a bottle of golden liquid, nearly full.
Amanda wasn’t sure where to start with all those statements. The island was pretty far from tropical for starters. Warm enough to swim sure but not laze about in the water all day warm. Also he’d called her beautiful, more than once now too. She could do hot and sexy, hell most of that just came down to good flirting and perception of confidence, nothing to do with looks. But beautiful? She wasn’t so sure she met that description. The way he said it made her believe he meant it though. Of course she was currently questioning the state of his mind as a whole.
“Tropical?” she started then her eye caught sight of the bottle and she stopped. “Well at least we’ll die happy.”
He grinned.
“But really, what am I missing? Why aren’t you worried.”
He looked serious and thoughtful for a moment and then he remarked, “Shiv’s up to something.”
“Well, yeah, no shit. He just stranded us on a desert island with one day of food and took your ship.”
“No, I mean. He must have a reason for it.”
Amanda stared at him like he’d lost his mind. Had he really just let them get stranded because he thought there was a good reason for it?
“Yeah, he gets control of the boat and rid of the firestarter.”
Sirius shook his head. “Shiv wouldn’t do that.”
“Well he just did. And I saw how the others were looking at me. They were terrified.”
“They’re just scared, uncertain. They could’ve been talked out of it. If Shiv hadn’t… I’m not sure why he did what he did but he must have a good reason.”
Amanda gave him a pitying look. “Or he didn’t want a firestarter on his ship.”
Sirius shook his head. “No, he wouldn’t do that, not for that reason. I can’t figure out what reason is but I trust Shiv.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Amanda told him.
“Look,” Sirius stared her right in the eyes. “You’ve been here less than month. I’ve known Shiv for years. He wouldn’t do this just because you’re a firestarter. Trust me. The fire thing’s not that important.”
He sounded sincere but it contrasted with everything she’d seen so far. The reaction to Michael’s smoking and the rule about candles.
“But you have that no fire rule.”
He groaned and waved a hand. “Yeah but that’s mostly a carryover from the last captain.”
She frowned. “You said the men once tossed a guy overboard for lighting a candle.”
“Yeah, but they let him back on board.”
“But why all the lights? There’s no lanterns.”
“We were all set up and it didn’t seem like much of a hassle to continue it. It’s not a bad rule. Guy knocks over a candle or a lantern in the night it can cause a big problem. Plus I hate smokers…. And…” He trailed off as if considering whether or not to tell her something.
“Shiv’s family?”
He looked at her in surprise.
“Shiv hates firestarters? Because of what happened to his family right?”
“You know about that?”
She nodded. “Bruce told me.”
“Hmm, well, yes and no. He doesn’t like fire, you’re right, won’t even get too close to an open one but he doesn’t hate firestarters. He’s just wary. He knows that was one person, not every firestarter.”
“But we are known for not being very controlled.”
Sirius nodded. “Shiv saw what you can do. Saw the control that took with the sails. Maybe some of the rest of the crew are confused. Some of them aren’t all the sharpest and they have a tendency to tell tales and get carried away. But Shiv’s not that. He’s not stupid or petty. Whatever he’s doing, he’ll have a plan. Maybe he seems silly at times but he does his job and he does it well.”
Amanda shook her head. “You have too much faith in him.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
“I’m pretty good at reading people.”
Sirius shook his head. “Even if you were a mindwalker, which I know you aren’t, you could read every thought inside someone’s head and you still wouldn’t know them. People aren’t singular moments. They’re patterns and I’ve known this one longer. You just have to trust me.”
“And every memory?” Amanda asked. “I’d know the pattern too then wouldn’t I?”
Sirius smiled and then he shook his head. “People aren’t that predictable. Sometimes we surprise even ourselves.”
“Then how do you know what he’s going to do? How do you know his reasons are good?”
He sighed. After a second of thought he replied. “I don’t but I think trusting him makes it more likely.”
Amanda was quiet for a bit. “What if I was a psychic?” she asked.
He laughed. “Psychic’s are all shams.”
“What if I was a good one?”
“Then you’d be hunted for an aristocrat’s pet or locked up in an insane asylum.”
Amanda flinched at his last words.
Sirius studied her with a frown and when she was quiet too long he asked, “Did I say something wrong?”
She shook her head. “It’s just…” She shivered despite the sun, “This place I went to a few years back…”
She was quiet awhile and then he said, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
She looked around the deserted beach. There was nowhere to go. “What else are we going to talk about? Besides you asked me a little while back to tell you something about myself that I’ve never told anyone and I never did give you an answer. I also feel maybe I owe you an explanation since well, since I got us stuck here. You asked how I got so good at firestarting and I didn’t answer that either. Well let me tell you now, something not many others know about me. I’ve got to start a little further back though. And maybe it will explain some other things to you too, like why I started drinking so much and maybe why I still do in a way.” She eyed the bottle of rum he still held in his hand.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
He didn’t follow her eye line. He just stayed looking at her, waiting patiently for her to tell her story.
She took a deep breath. "Yes, my father drinks a bit and I've been drinking since I was little. Not much at first, a sip or two, a can of light beer at the end of a day's ride. I wanted to be just like him.” She paused and briefly her mind flittered to her younger days. She’d loved riding in desert with her dad. “But it sneaks up on you and then with the band, once I became a teenager. I dunno. We just wanted to have fun but there's this other thing you see. When I drank, if I drank enough then I wasn't so afraid."
"Afraid of what?" he asked softly.
"Of this." She turned her palm upward and just like she had the night before she created fire, only this time it had a shape. It looked like a perfect replica of a fiery yellow-orange pegasus. "Don't worry, like I said I've mastered it now. These days I could burn your clothes right off you without touching skin if you stood still enough.”
“I believe you.”
“But I used to have nightmares. I'd wake up and my room would be on fire. A lot of firestarters don't survive their teenage years you know, and the ones that do, don't always have all their family by the end of it. I was terrified of that, of hurting someone. And the drinking helped, and I dunno, learning about other magic, riding horses, exploring places we really shouldn't have, and just taking lots of risks. Lots of stupid ones. I felt like my life was on a timer and I had to fit everything in. I thought school was a waste of time. I lost my virginity at 15 and I have no idea who he was. There's a lot of things I regret. But it's not like you can do it over and some of it was fun. I don't regret everything." She paused then long enough for Sirius to prompt her.
"So what happened then? What changed?"
“Things got more and more out of hand. The drinking, the firestarting, spell crafting, the general risk-taking. I never killed anyone but I came pretty close. Did hurt some people. Cost one kid his memories. It all upset my mother greatly. And I was angry too. Angry and scared. I even set her garden on fire, not completely intentionally, but she loved that garden. It’s grown back now. Most things kind of did eventually. But at the time it was... Anyway eventually my father heard of this place. Somewhere they could teach you how to control your powers. They didn’t know what it was like, my parents. Neither did I. It was just somewhere they might help. So I went.
It wasn’t… a nice place. It was a bit like an asylum in a way, a place where they put people who are a danger to themselves or others, intentionally or not. They had some interesting methods for teaching control, and not all of them worked, at least not for everyone. Some people that went into that place never came out. I know now how controversial what they did was, but back then we just didn’t know what it was going to be like until I was already there. And they were very strict about outside contact, said it would ruin the process. I figure they just didn’t want people knowing what sort of things they were doing.”
“Things like what?”
“One day they took me into a room. There’s this plant that’s carnivorous. It feeds off people but it hates fire. But to kill it you have actually burn the plant. They had this other kid. I don’t know what his powers were or if they were testing him too or even what his name was, but they threw him to the plant and told me to save him. Burn the plant and not him.”
Amanda looked out at the ocean. The pristine water made such a contrast to the images in her memories.
“Did you do it?
“I tried.” She bit her lip. It was hard to forget the screams, the sizzling, the smell of burnt flesh and hair and clothing. She would never forget that smell. Or the look in his eyes before he’d been consumed by the flames. Her flames.
Sirius didn’t interrupt her thoughts this time, although she almost wished he had. She shook off the memories, pushing them to one side, but not out of mind completely. “They did the same the next day. It was the same boy. I recognised him. Revived or perhaps never burnt although I don’t know how they did it if that was the case. And I talked to some kids later who had been necromancied back from the dead though so I figure it was probably that. For some of them their test risked their own lives. Mine never did. It was always somebody else’s life. I don’t know why.”
“Perhaps they picked what they thought would be most motivating?”
She frowned. “What’s more motivating that avoiding one’s own death?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. It was a similar expression to the one she’d been giving him when they’d first been stranded.
“Didn’t you just offer to let yourself be stranded here all by yourself not more than an hour ago. And aren’t you the same person who climbed up the rigging to help cut Brian down when he got stuck?”
Amanda was speechless for a moment. “Well…”
“And you snuck onto an unknown ship and got stuck out at sea all because you wanted to rescue a horse?”
“Pegasus.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She thought about it. “I suppose you have a point.”
“And you burnt that beetle in my arm even though you feared us finding out you were a firestarter.” He paused and then in a softer voice asked, “So did it work for you? That place you went?”
She smiled sadly and in the air in front of them, without using her hands this time she summoned several little flames, neat and tidy little burning balls of fire, forming a pattern depicting the constellation canis major. Quietly she added, “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Better I suppose, except if it didn’t work then they couldn’t justify what they did. Maybe for all the pain they cause… I don’t know.” She couldn’t bring herself to say it had been worth it, and yet, her family was still alive.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. Anyway, now I hate places like that. Any thought of asylums or even hospitals. They just creep me out. Too many reminders.”
“Hospitals?”
“They got a similar feel to them, the whole sterile white walls thing. Plus dad’s a healer so he never really liked hospitals much either. He’s a got a bit with doctors.”
“I thought most doctors were healers?”
“Not as many as you’d think. There’s a shortage of them. You still need a medical degree and to meet a certain standard of healing. There’s more healers who aren’t doctors and and more doctors who aren’t healers than there are healers who are doctors. Plus anyone really smart and talented usually goes into sorcery and you pay through the teeth for one of those or if they fail out then they hook up with a warlock and sell to infusers. There’s better money in healing infusements than there is in working in medicine. Patchie’s not medically trained is he?”
Sirius laughed. “No.” Then he grew serious again. “Can I ask you something else, about your powers?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you carry a lighter if you can just start a fire?”
She looked straight at him. “I told you, it’s sentimental.”
“I suppose there was the possibility it would throw us off your trail a bit too? No one expects a firestarter to have a lighter.”
She nodded. “Some do though you know.”
He gave her a puzzled look so she explained, “Weak firestarters can’t create fire. They can only control it. But to control fire they need a flame to start with. And for stronger firestarters who lack control it can act as a beacon. A lighter is a controlled source of flame. They can’t put a fire out but they can pull it toward another flame source and merge it into to one, make it easier to control.”
“Is that what you use it for?”
She laughed. “No, it really is just sentimental.”
“How come that’s not more widely known? That a lot of firestarters use lighters?”
“I wouldn’t say a lot, just a portion, and well it’s a bit of a crutch isn’t it, like using a wand. Ignoring the embarrassment of needing to use something like that though it’s an obvious weakness. All your enemies need to do is remove your tool and they’ve taken your power or made it dangerously difficult to control, especially for people who are used to it. That’s why I practice a lot not using my hands or even my eyes. I can block my ears, blindfold my eyes, sit on my hands, and still create the perfect flame 100 metres away.”
He hesitated a moment as if unsure if he should ask his next question. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Could you have dealt with the beetles that way? I mean I know you were trying to keep your powers a secret but if you hadn’t needed to?”
“Yes and no. All of my practice is done outdoors. There’s still heat. I can control the direction but it’s got to go somewhere. For small stuff it’s not so bad but the bigger the fire the more heat there is. Plus I still need to know where something is and it gets a lot harder if it’s moving. I could have sat there and done each beetle that came out one at a time but it would have taken awhile. I suppose if I had looked at the layout of everything in advance, every nook and cranny that they could have been hiding in, and assuming we weren’t worried about accidentally temporarily heating up something explosive then I could have made a fire that swept through and just burnt everything between the crates. Wood’s not so bad because it takes a little while to catch and sometimes I can feel that, when I’ve gone just a little too far and then I can pull back. Different materials respond differently but gunpowder’s too quick, almost instant. It would have been very risky.”
“You can feel it?” Sirius asked. “Like what flames are doing?”
“Well,” Amanda hesitated. “Sometimes, maybe, I’m not sure. It could just be my imagination or like me imparting my will upon them and I’m just feeling the options rather than the actual outcome. I don’t know. It’s something I’m working on though.”
“Always trying to get better huh?”
She nodded then looked around the empty beach. “It’s not much help out here though, apart from keeping us warm once it gets cold. And cooking any food we catch I suppose. And maybe flagging a passing ship down with smoke signals.”
“Well, that actually sounds like lots of uses.” Sirius smiled. “Okay, well let me explain some other reasons why I don’t think Shiv just callously left us here to fend for ourselves. This here, this group of islands, they’re called The Sevens. Seven distinct island plus a couple of smaller rocky outcrops.”
“Okay, so you know where we are? How does that help? Are we close enough to row to somewhere else?” she asked.
“Actually we’re pretty much as far from anywhere we can get,” he said with a smile.
She frowned and replied sarcastically, “Well that’s very comforting, thank you.”
He chuckled. “You know you look quite pretty when you scowl.”
Her frown deepened. “Aren’t people usually supposed to say the opposite?”
“Nah, you get these cute little dimples right-” he reached out to point out where.
She tried to scowl at him more but really she just wanted to laugh. He had that twinkle in his eye again. “Do you mind?” she told him. “I’m trying to be mad at you.”
Quick as anything he replied, “And how’s that going for you?”
She gave a half laugh half sob and then with a sigh she gave up completely. She briefly rested her head against his shoulder. She could feel heat radiating off where the sun had warmed his dark coat.
“Anyway, as I was saying, we’re very far from civilization…” He paused to laugh at the look on her face as she raised her head up to look at him and then he continued, “But this island actually gets quite a lot of visitors. An island that’s far from civilization and directly between a couple of very key ports is a smugglers paradise see. This beach right here is known as ‘Smugglers Cove’. A lot of transfers take place here, or temporary dumping.”
“Temporary dumping.”
He nodded. “Sometimes, for various reasons you want to ditch some goods somewhere for a short period and pick it up again later. This is where they dump it.”
“So what you’re saying is that it’s likely another ship will pass through here?”
“Exactly. We just have to wait.”
“For how long?”
He shrugged and then got to his feet. “A few days at most. Come on, we should set up camp before it gets too late.”