Trapped

overhead, their brains weren't questioning anything.

'I like fire,' the Caryatid said. 'I've always liked it. Some children talk to their dolls; when I was young, I talked to the hearth. It worried my parents… but fortunately, one of my schoolteachers realized I didn't have a problem, I had a gift. Something to remember, the right teacher can make such a difference.'

Far from burning out, the match flame had begun to grow — roughly the size of a big candle now. Off down the street, Sir Pelinor knocked the broadsword from the Divian's hand and kicked the weapon down a storm sewer drain. 'Listen to the lady,' Pelinor told the alien.

'Fire loves those who love it back,' the Caryatid said. 'It's very warmhearted.' She smiled. I usually liked her smile — it was the comfortable sort of smile you might get from a dowdy maiden aunt — but when the Caryatid had a flame in her hand, her smile could send prickles up my spine.

She swept her finger through the matchlight again. The flame curled like a cat responding to a caress. 'Fire is a wild animal — not tame, but willing to befriend those who approach it the right way.' One by one, she stuck her fingers into the flame and held them there for a full second; one by one, she removed each finger to show a dab of fire on the fingertip. She smiled girlishly at the fishermen. 'They tickle,' she said, wiggling the tiny flames. 'They're furry.'

Several fishermen whispered phrases Impervia would class as ignorant and rude. The words sounded more scared than angry.

'Would you like to meet my friends?' the Caryatid asked. Without waiting for an answer, she bent to the ground and lowered her burning hand as if she were setting down a pet mouse. Each of the flames hopped off a finger and onto the pavement — five small points of light. 'Go say hello to the nice men,' the Caryatid said.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then all five flames bounced into the air, coming down a pace closer to the fishermen. The Divian squealed and bolted. Pelinor stepped aside and waved good-bye as the alien sped past.

The flames leapt again, another pace closer. Each dot of fire was no bigger than a candle, but the fishermen staggered back, their eyes wide. Three more of them broke from the pack and dashed into the night.

'There's nothing to be afraid of,' the Caryatid said. 'My friends just want to meet you.' The flames took another jump.

That was enough for the remaining fishermen. Clambering over each other, howling in fear, they took to their heels and thundered off down the street… all but one. Nathan, sprawled on the pavement, possibly unable to stand because of Impervia's stomp to his foot, screamed one last obscenity and drew a gun from his sleeve.

It was only a tiny pistol, some modern steelsmith's copy of an OldTech Derringer; half those things blew up in their owners' faces within the first ten shots. Still, this was no time for taking chances — Pelinor was way down the street, Myoko had to concentrate on keeping Impervia in the air, and the Caryatid's little flame friends were still several jumps from the fallen fisherman.

Gibbering with terror, Nathan lifted the gun and took shaky aim at the Caryatid.

Making it my turn to act.

My name is Philemon Abu Dhubhai — Doctor Dhubhai, thanks to my Ph.D. in mathematical physics. I shan't describe myself except to say I was thirty-five at the time and much too inclined to gloomy introspection. Amongst our band of tavern-teddies, Impervia had muscles, Pelinor had a sword, Myoko had brainpower, the Caryatid had sorcery, and I… I had a bulging money-purse. My family was stinking rich; even though I'd put an entire ocean between me and my relatives, they still sent regular pouches of gold so I'd never have to besmirch the Dhubhai name by darning my own socks. Therefore when my friends and I visited the drinking establishments of Simka, I always bought the first round of drinks, tipped the barmaid, and paid for broken windows. My role in bar fights wasn't as glamorous as my companions', but it still came in handy. When all else failed, I could throw money at the problem.

So I heaved my change-purse at the fisherman's head. It was a big heavy purse, filled with several kilos of coins; I'd used it as a bludgeon more than once. It hit Nathan's face like a blackjack to the nose. The man's hand went limp and the gun clattered to the cobblestones.

I picked up my purse and gave it a fond little squeeze. As usual, the purse was utterly undamaged. It was made from some rubbery black material no one had ever been able to identify — not even back in college, when a chemist friend tried to analyze it. The best he could tell me was, 'Airtight, watertight, impervious to all electromagnetic radiation: probably extraterrestrial in origin'… which didn't come as a surprise. I'd inherited the purse from my grandmother, who'd received it herself from the Spark Lords. Rumor said the Sparks got a lot of inexplicable trinkets from aliens in the upper echelons of the League of Peoples. For all I knew, the lining of my purse contained billions of fancy nano-devices for curing cancer, breaking the speed of light, and brewing a good cup of coffee. But if such devices existed, I had no idea how to activate them; so I used this wonder from beyond the stars for holding my spare change.

(Welcome to our modern world! Where OldTech computers serve as footstools, while the rusted remains of jumbo jets get converted to beer-halls and brothels.)

As I stuffed the purse back into my pocket, I checked that Fisherman Nathan was still breathing. He was. A trickle of blood seeped out of one nostril, but nothing too alarming. I arranged his unconscious body in the classic Recovery Position, designed to make sure drunks don't choke on their own vomit when they're sleeping off a bender.

'Thanks, Phil,' the Caryatid said, coming up behind me. Her five tiny flames flickered excitedly, bouncing in a circle around Nathan's fallen pistol. 'Now, now,' she told them, 'leave that nasty thing alone.' She knelt on the pavement and held out her arms to the little fires. 'Come here, darlings.'

All five flames bounded back to her with the enthusiasm of four-year-olds who want a treat They leapt into the Caryatid's hands, then bounced up higher, brushed past her face with happy little kisses, and vanished into her hair. The sight made me queasy — I once set my hair on fire in a university chem-lab and still had nightmares about it. But no fire would be so presumptuous as to singe the Caryatid.

'That woman is spooky,' Myoko whispered to me.

I rolled my eyes. 'Says the person who is holding up Impervia by willpower alone.'

'Sorry. Forgot'

Myoko let Impervia drift feet first to the ground.

'Thank you, Myoko,' Impervia said, adjusting her clothes with casual briskness… or at least attempting to. I couldn't help noticing the good sister winced as she moved; the fishermen had been too drunk to land any truly solid kicks, but there are inevitable cumulative effects of being used as a human soccer ball. Still, Impervia's voice was strong as she told the rest of us, 'I found that most invigorating.'

'The levitation or the fighting?' I asked.

'Are you suggesting I enjoy fighting?'

'I know better,' I answered — and I did know better than to suggest Impervia enjoyed fighting… especially to Impervia's face. 'It just seems odd,' I said, 'how often fights arise in a quiet little town like Simka.'

'The Lord provides for his children,' Impervia said. 'Our Heavenly Father knows my skills would get rusty if they didn't receive constant polishing.'

Without another word, she slapped open the door of the tavern and went back inside. As she passed the bar, the tapman handed her a cup of tea. 'Longer than usual tonight' he said.

The holy sister sniffed with righteous indignation.

2: A NIGHT IN THE LONESOME ZUL-HUJAH

My pocket watch said it was one o'clock. In the morning.

Under cloudy black skies, I walked up the drive of Feliss Academy, gravel crunching beneath my boots. Alone, alone, all alone — my drinking companions boarded in rooms off campus, and didn't plan on returning to musty F.A. till the weekend was over. I, however, occupied a don's suite in the school's residence wing… which is why I was still on my feet, trudging a full kilometer past the town limits, when my friends were already snoring in their beds.

Let me list the pluses of don-ship: cleaning staff emptied my wastebaskets, washed my linen, and occasionally removed the dust coyotes that had long ago devoured the dust bunnies under my bed. Let me also list the minuses: long late liquorized limps from the pub, back to a place where I was required to serve as shepherd, mentor, and surrogate father to twenty teenaged boys, all either wealthy brats, wealthy wallflowers, or wealthy nice-kids whose eyes glazed over at the word 'geometry.'

The academy seemed peaceful as I approached. The calm was due to the season — in the official calendar of the Spark Lords, it was the Month of the Quill, but in the classic calendar still observed by my family, it was Zul-Hijjah: the ash-end of winter, leaving muddy clumps of snow mixed with snowy clumps of mud all over the school's campus. That night, the vernal equinox was a single day away… and while the weather was unlikely to change just because the almanac turned to a new page, I fondly looked forward to the moment I could shout, 'Spring, spring, spring!'

Everyone I knew was sick of winter. The students had long ago lost interest in icy midnight frolics (diving naked into snow drifts or stealing trays from the refectory to go tobogganing down the greenhouse hill); every last kid in our dormitory was now a sweaty stick of dynamite, just waiting to explode in spring madness. One breath of warm wind and kaboom, the school grounds would be littered with teenaged bodies, wriggling under every bush, sprawled on the banks of our local creek, or snuggling in more imaginative trysting spots (up a tree, down a storm sewer, on top of the school roof)… but for now, it was still too cold, too muddy, and too much the middle of term. As summer approached — as holiday separations loomed, and, 'Who knows if we'll both be back in the fall?' — the antics and romantics would sprout behind every bush, and I would…

I would…

I would seethe with envy at their feverish innocence.

Envy was an occupational hazard of teaching — envy and cynical disdain. Teachers affected by such feelings usually went one of two ways: either they acted like adolescents themselves, or else they viewed youth as a disease that must be cured by heaping doses of tedium. Our academy had plenty of both types in the faculty common room: middle-aged men and women dressed in frowzy imitations of youth fashion sitting cheek by jowl with other middle-aged men and women who ranted about 'irresponsible immaturity' and devoted themselves to expunging every particle of teenage joy.

Was I becoming either of those? I fervently hoped not. I'd set my sights on becoming a font of inspiration, guiding young minds and spurring them on to heights of intellectual…