FADING HEART: Chapter Six, The Crumble

Chapter Six: The Crumble

(Reilly, Lottie, and her family, are in the Vantage Post following the main Embassy election. Something looks suspicious and Reilly uses his Fireglass to look through one of the scopes.)

     Reilly stepped to the scope in the center of the room. The music from the band below had stopped, and the crowd had dispersed. All was silent.

     He tilted the scope slightly downward, and aimed it toward the East Forest. He opened his Fireglass again, and waited until the Stelladaur whirred around the surface in a shiny blur. He brought the Fireglass into position, directly in front of the eyeglass of the scope, and peered into the treasure Eilam had given to him.

     He drew in a quick, deep breath and adjusted the focus on the scope. “Oh, no!”

     “What is it? What do you see?” Quin demanded.

     “Sir, the tree homes in the East Forest have been invaded! Every lift has been compromised and there is no support remaining!” He continued to adjust the focus and move the scope and the Fireglass simultaneously to get a closer look. “The auras are blackened—there’s hardly any color. A tremendous Crumble is coming!”

     “Sound the alarm!” Quin commanded Dillon. 

     The boy ran quickly to the far end of the Vantage Post and struck a brass gong, hung from two ornately carved jade beams, with a hammer that resembled the bone of a large animal. A shrill-pitched tone reverberated off the Embassy walls.

     Reilly stepped away from the scope to cover his ears, but then dropped the Fireglass and, crouching, cupped his hands over his right eye.

     “Reilly, are you all right?” Lottie ran to him and held him up at his elbow.

     “My eye,” he groaned. “It feels like it’s on fire!”

     “Quick! Mother, get cold water! And call an Infusionist!”

The ring from the gong continued to sound. Dillon stood by, not knowing what to do, and Quin looked through the scope Reilly had used, but left the Fireglass on the ground, where Reilly had dropped it. Brigid soon returned with a bucket of water.

     “Splash water on your eye, Reilly,” Lottie said.

Reilly bent over the bucket splashing handfuls of water on his face until the bucket was half emptied. “It still burns,” he said, lifting his head.

     Lottie gasped. Brigid shrieked. Quin stepped away from the scope.

     “My dear young man, whatever happened?” Quin asked.

     Reilly’s right eye was charred, leaving a black ring around the socket, and his eyeball oozed tarry black pus.

     An Infusionist hurried into the Vantage Post carrying a flask, a mortar, and a pestle. “Drink this.” He lifted the flask to Reilly’s mouth and tilted his head back. “All of it.”

     Reilly coughed and sputtered from the bitter taste, but drank the entire flask. Quin pulled up a chair and guided him to sit down. “Now hold still,” he said.

     The Infusionist ground a mixture with the mortar and pestle and used his fingers to smear the ointment over Reilly’s right eye. “This should alleviate the pain quickly and heal the wound.”

     “Thank you,” Reilly whimpered, exhausted from the intense pain.

Lottie stroked Reilly’s hair while Brigid repeatedly told him to lie still. Within a few minutes he relaxed, and the skin around his eye became normal. He blinked. Everything looked blurry. He blinked again to focus his vision.

     “Are you all right now?” Lottie asked.

     “Yes, I think so. The burning is gone. I only feel a dull ache.”

     “That Fireglass is a dangerous device,” Brigid said. “We must dispose of it at once!”

     “No!” Reilly shouted. He bolted from the chair and picked up the treasure. “A trusted friend gave it to me! He told me that it could be used to accelerate passage through any portal. Maybe the East Forest is where I will find the portal back to Seattle.” He tucked the Fireglass into his pocket. “But my friend also said, ‘The same fire that consumes a forest with only one spark also ignites a display of beauty that transcends all doubt.’ He said the Fireglass helps you welcome change. The East Forest will soon be consumed by a tremendous Crumble and the Decpetors’ bonfire will grow bigger than ever. But somewhere past that forest, beyond the destruction at the Cliffs of Black Castle, there is beauty. We have to allow change to occur if we are to discover the beauty.”

     Brigid dipped a cloth into the bucket of water and placed it on Reilly’s forehead. “There, there,” she said.

     Reilly brushed her hands away. “I’m fine now, thank you. Please listen to me.”

     “But, Reilly, see for yourself,” Quin said as he stepped to the center scope, shaking his head in confusion. “Things looks normal in the East Forest.”

     The gong had stopped, but a loud hum of alarmed voices below the Vantage Post indicated a growing group of citizens responding to it.

     Reilly looked through the scope. “I don’t understand. This isn’t what I saw before.” He adjusted the focus and shifted the scope on its axis, then looked again. “This is different.” He moved quickly to another scope at his right, and aimed it directly at the East Forest. “I don’t get it!” He jumped to peer through the next scope. “It must be a trick. Maybe the Deceptors have synched the scopes or something, like they do to the lifts.”

     “But we have someone on guard at the scopes around the clock,” said Quin. “Are you suggesting an Embassy member is …?"
     “Could be,” Reilly interrupted. “I don’t know. I only know what I saw through my Fireglass, and we’d better—”