CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nobody
XII
“KABLOOEY!” Wilburn shouted, jumping and up and down and flapping his arms wildly for Ez, Gramma, and Thoralf's benefit. “You guys, I bet you never saw anything like it! I mean, the whole temple just—BOOM! And I was like, Whoooaaaa! And then I was like, Man, I’m gonna die. But then I was like, Wait, no I’m not! And then I was like, Sweeeeeet! You know when you get the bath too hot and you stick your foot in and it almost feels kind of cold? That’s how getting blown up by a volcano feels, but even colder! I mean hotter! I mean—it was so hot, it felt like I was freezing! Hey Mom, are you freezing?”
“Wh-who m-m-me?” Ez chattered, hugging her wet self as the wind sawed through her.
“Yeah,” Wilburn said, innocently. “You look kind of cold.”
Ez wasn’t sure if her son was being serious or not. Wilburn wasn’t a slow child… but he could be astonishingly oblivious at times. And who do you suppose he inherited that from? Ez thought to herself; it didn’t get much more oblivious than missing the fact that your lover was a wizard. She tamped down her sarcastic impulse for what felt like the hundredth time that day, and said, “Y-y-you were r-r-right Wil-b-burn, I was c-c-crazy to go s-s-swimming.”
“Yep,” Wilburn said. “So can we make the fire huge, or what?”
“D-d-definitely,” Ez agreed, backing away and beckoning the others to follow. This time, to her great relief, they did.
XIII
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
For a sliver of a second, the scene within the temple was revealed by an apocalyptic orange glow: rubble and dead chanters appearing to fall upward on the forefront of the blast wave. Then the world became fire—a thundering, pummeling geyser of lava, a heat so hot it felt like ice, piercing Wilburn’s bones, as he flipped and tumbled in a blind panic, the voice of fire roaring in his ears.
IDDO! IDDO! HELP!
Steady on, my boy. Iddo broadcast peace across the mental airwaves.
IDDO! HELP ME, I’M—I’m… Oh. Wilburn righted himself in the current with a small kineturgic shove.
That’s the ticket, Iddo thought. You were hoping to try lava-swimming… well, this is more like lava-flying, but it comes to nearly same thing, wouldn’t you say?
I guess so. Wilburn felt a little sheepish. It was still hotter than all get-out, but he could now appreciate that the intense sensation was not a painful one, really; though to call it pleasant would have been a stretch. There was beauty in this churning, blazing world of orange—a wild purity in the unbridled tempest of destruction.
“Grab on!” Alfajean cried, catching a glimpse of Wilburn through a gap in the spraying lava; their voices were barely discernible over the roar of the eruption. Wilburn swam-flew to the angel, whose hands were busy: one clutching the wizidex, the other towing the gibbering Buttrom by the scruff of his shirt. Wilburn seized a fistful of Alfajean’s uniform just as the three of them broke through the apex of the volcanic geyser. Suddenly, Iddo was there, standing on nothing, yet pacing them with ease. Alfajean pumped their wings, and the fountain of lava fell away below, as they continued to ascend through smothering black smoke.
“Farewell, Master Bungflower!” the angel called.
“Ta ta,” Iddo said, waving a hoof.
“Touching, Wilburn? Touching, Buttrom? Good!”
Wilburn looked up, and straight through the back of the transparent wizidex, to see Alfajean’s golden thumb press down on the far side of the glass. A tingle crawled over his body.
Remember to harness the absurdity, my boy.
I will, Wilburn thought, as everything disintegrated into swirling particles of color. As it happened, Wilburn would not remember to harness the absurdity, because within the minute, he would forget all that had transpired since his arrival at the crossroads—until the next day when Iddo helped him to untangle his memory rope, that is.