76

Lighting the Fuse

Lottica couldn’t move. Complete stillness. Her limbs frozen. Yet her senses reached out. She was aware of Nick at her side, motionless as well.

However, across the chasm, there was strange and chaotic movement. Lottica strained to perceive what appeared to be a large black bird flapping its wings furiously. The bird squawked and capered perilously close to the edge of the chasm. She watched the strange sight, detached. Almost amused. Then she began to understand.

Beilla in his silly cape, she thought. He's angry with us.

Then she heard Nick. Though she wasn’t sure if his voice came to her from outside or inside her head. His words refused to form pictures in her mind. What did he want her to do? The words were gibberish. She tried to focus on what he was saying, but that didn’t work.

Something was flashing in her hand. Beilla’s ring was pulsating wildly. So was the pool of water where they had placed the ring of the Kareima. It had turned into a stroboscopic searchlight shooting to the far reaches of the cavern roof high above. Lottica wondered if they were directly below the "hands" of Mount Breima.

Nick was shouting now. She needed to concentrate. “Thriiing! Thriiing!” he seemed to be yelling. Focus. Focus!

His urgent words became suddenly clear. "Throw the ring! Throw the ring!"

At the adjacent lava pool where Lottica was supposed to fling Beilla's ring, fiery magma was heaving and overflowing pool. It inched towards the dark chasm separating them from her parents and Beilla. Likewise, in the pool where she and Nick waded, the lower right ventricle if Nick’s metaphor was correct, the water began to bubble like carbonated soda.

It tickled her legs and she felt that if she closed her eyes, she might sink into herself. Compress until she could go no further. Then explode.

Like a supernova.

That was the answer. Lottica had figured out her piece of the puzzle. They were moving from Anatomy 101 to Astronomy 101.

A singularity. A time beginning.

A new existence would start here. All the activity around her was randomness and order would establish itself when…

"Throw the ring, Lottica! Throw it NOW!"

The panic in Nick's command jolted her back to unreal reality. Across, the chasm, which was now a fiery expanse of light, an almost comic struggle was taking place. Her father was grappling with Abzeig. Abzeig’s gun was aimed at her. Beilla was wrestling with her father. Her mother was tugging on Beilla’s cape. It was ridiculous and hellish, and Lottica wanted to stop it. Control it.

How could she?

Control.

It came down to that. Everything that had happened since her parents were blown up that August evening had left of her out of control. That’s what she’d been missing. A sense of control.

Like in endless dead-parent stories. In losing their parents, the kids lose the biggest part of themselves. They face dark times. To finally move on and succeed those kids have to take back control of their lives. To climb out of the darkness and remake themselves.

That’s what Lottica realized she had to do.

It all boiled down to a question of heart. Like all kids who lost their parents, did she have the heart to go on? Like her family, did she have the heart to sacrifice? And, like her ancestors, did she have the heart to light the way?

Lighting the way.

The Starstone.

The Astreima.

In her hand, Beilla’s ring pulsed urgently, and she knew what she had to do. She fought against the paralyzing force in her limbs. Her hand trembled. She had to take control. She had to act.

Inwardly, she shouted to herself. I'm Lottica Breima. I'm twelve years old. This is my hand. I'm in control. I have the heart of a Breima!

To her surprise, she suddenly felt a surge of force run through her. Nick was squeezing her other hand tight. Her brother. The two of them. Like the image in the missing piece. Both of them. Together. Linked.

It freed her.

It never was just up to her. To one person. That was the real missing piece. She was not alone. As a human, at heart, she was never alone. If she reached out. And connected.

Like Nick taking her hand.

The revelation jolted her with a massive dose of adrenaline. Energy coursed through her being. Up went her arm. Her palm. Out catapulted Beilla’s ring, launched in a perfect arc. The fiery ring of the Fareima landed directly in the heart of the upper lava pool.

Mount Breima held its breath.

All activity in the pools around her ceased. The entire chamber fell still. Lottica felt as if she could now move freely, but she dared not. Stillness had been ordained and to break the silent command of Mount Breima was unthinkable.