The Flame of Infinity

Temperance burst into the old pub, her rain-wet brown hair and clothes were jointing in her face and body and the warmth of the place was a relief. 

Several candles placed on each table and a medium-sized fireplace lit the room dimly, but well enough to see through. People were gathered in small groups around the room, chatting loudly. Some men sitting on the counter eyed her up and down as she entered. Soon, a tall, gray-haired woman came rushing toward her holding up a white towel. She enveloped Temperance with the towel and a worried expression appeared on her oval, wrinkled face.

“What are you doing here, Tempe? I thought your mother was sick.”

The girl took the towel from her hands and answered in a serious, determined voice.

“She is. That is why I am here, Viola. I’m looking for him.”

Viola’s grayish eyes widened.

“You mean Alden, the foreigner? Why?”

“He has what I need.”

“What… What do you need?”

Temperance merely glanced coldly at her, turning around in the room, searching the chipped wooden tables and people, until her eyes rested  on a tall figure robed in orange. Sitting alone, too close to the side of the fireplace to have any light cast upon him, while he sipped from a little glass, lost in thought.

Someone called for Viola at the bar and the girl didn’t think twice before walking toward him, her chin facing up and her high-heeled boots clicking firmly on the floor. 

She placed her hands on the chair in front of his table and stared at his aged nut-brown face.

“Alden Harter.”

He smiled at her, placing the empty cup on the table and lifting his droopy brown eyes.

“And you are?”

She rotated the chair, so that the back was placed toward her and sat on it abruptly, her legs entangling it.

“I’m Temperance Fowler.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Fowler. You look rather wet. Would you like a hot drink? Viola, please.”

The old waitress seemed to have anticipated this because she already had a platter on her hands, supporting two small glasses and a bottle full of a steaming topaz tonic with orange bubbles. She served them skillfully and left with reluctance when, once again she was called from across the room.

“You know they really have to hire somebody else to help her”, said Alden, as he drank from his glass in a gulp and sighed.

“Gingercane. My favorite. Although, it’s a bit strong. But you should drink, it may keep you from catching a cold.”

“I didn’t come here to drink.”

“It’s a pub. What else could you want?” He chuckled. “You didn’t come here just to see me, did you?

“I believe you have something that I want…That I need.”

“Who me? I’m just a traveler. What could I possibly…?”

“Cut it.”

She stared at him, hoping her beady blue eyes would intimidate his shell of amusement.

“You have the flame of infinity.”

His hand stopped halfway to his mouth, holding up the glass.

“You, you are not supposed to know anything about that. Who told you that?”

“Oh, the people in this town don’t have much to do, it’s tiny you see. They spend a lot of time gossiping. Every new traveler that comes around this place has a new story about you. How you are supposed to be this great adventurer, who goes around the world slaying dragons and chasing untraceable magical artifacts…”

His usually laid-back expression blended in with shock, as he placed his glass on the table again, staring at her.

“How much do you know about the flame?”

“It can give the beholder anything he or she wants.”

He seemed to relax at the sound of that.

“Not quite, Ms. Fowler. First you must be the master of the flame. And it can only give you one thing.”

“Explain it to me.”

“Now, why would I do that?”

She looked down. Her legs were aching from the contact with the wood. Everything else in her ached from the things going on her mind at that moment. She needed to tell him the truth.

“My mother is terminally ill. Father and I have tried everything, every doctor say is beyond magic and her brain is deteriorating and she could die at any moment…”

Temperance felt an urge to cry but refused to let the tears come. He reached out an arm as squeezed her hand.

“I’m very sorry. I do have it, but I’m not sure if it’s the best thing for you to do.”

She looked up at him, full of hope.

“I’ll do anything. I’m a great sorceress. I mean I know it doesn’t seem much considering the size of this town and we only have one small school, but all my teachers keep telling how great I am, specially at handling materials…” , she was trying the best she could to convince him that she was capable of mastering the flame. 

“Sorceries won’t help you with this. It requires bravery.”

“I am brave”, said her.

“You have to touch it and then kiss it. And trust me, it will burn. Worse than any burn you’ve ever had.”

“How come you don’t have any burn marks?”

“Lidocaine potion.”

She frowned.

“That powerful?”

“It’s rare, but I found a really great apothecary in a village on the east. I think I still have some, but there’s more to the flame than that.”

“Like what?”

“Let me tell you my story. See, like you, I had always heard wonders about it. My father used to tell me how great it was and how it would give me everything to be happy. I believed him, of course, and maybe out of greed, maybe out of a genuine despair to be happy when my family was taken away from me…”

“Your family was taken away from you?”

“ When I was a couple years younger than you, the church people took my parents and my older brother. I had gone out to the market and when I arrived everything was tarnished. I knew I had to run away. I was such a coward.”

“You couldn’t have saved them.”

“That’s what I told myself. But I searched from the flame, wondering if it could ever bring me back to them.”

“And you found it.”

“A month ago. Its previous master had passed away and the rumors finally led me in the right direction. And yes, he had a dragon guarding it. He was dead, but didn’t want anyone else with his precious finding. Luckily, I had learnt everything about dragons. It was a Greek Green. I killed it with a high speed sword…”

“That’s the one that guides your arm and points at the right direction really fast?” He nodded. Temperance was impressed.

“Made only by druids?”

He nodded again.

“Weren’t we talking about the flame? I thought that was what you wanted to know.”

She had forgotten her motives for listening to the story. Reality hit her like a bombshell and she decided to listen quietly, fearing he wouldn’t want to give her the flame if she interrupted again.

“Right. Sorry. Go on.”

“Once the dragon was dead, I found the flask with the flame under its corpse. I opened it, and did what I had to do, including putting it back on the flask to contain it. When I opened it again, it had gained the form of a human face, in flames of course. It considered me one wish, and I asked for my family back, as you would expect. But the flame wasn’t as wondrous as its tales. It told me it couldn’t bring back the dead. Or give me anything. 

“I had to choose between health, love or money. And once one was chosen, it would be the greatest. But the two others would slowly disappear. I thought of not choosing anything, but the flame said I needed to, or it would be free to consume the entire world. So I chose and my choice led me to this place. After the choice is made, the master must carry it in the flask, and if its released again, it will no longer answer to me. It will need a new master. ”

He drank more from his glass and glanced away from her, somewhere on the other end of the room. She felt it was safe to speak again.

“So it’s a curse? And I can’t use it to save my mother?”

“Well, actually”, he said in between sips, “You can. The wish is bound by blood. When you hand and lips burn, your blood speaks to the flame. And it will extend most of the wish to those with your blood, leaving the curse for you only, since, obviously, that is a part of your blood that is only yours. I believe it could heal your mother, yes, if you chose health, but you must ponder on this, Temperance, you would be giving up on a lot.”

She breathed in, considering what her future would be like. She would live a long life with her mother and father, who would be perfectly free of curse and happy. As for herself, no money after a while. But she was great at magic and she could get most things she needed or wanted through it. She could still have her dream career of traveling the world as a healer. Alone. There would be no love life either. She wondered if she would mind. In her nineteen years of age she had had two, maybe three boyfriends and they seemed fun, but she always felt she could do well without someone around her all the time.

“I can do it. It’s the only way.”

“Are you sure?”, he seemed surprised and worried.

“Yes.”

He, reluctantly, opened his jacket and removed a small, transparent flask. A vivid red flame inside the flask illuminated the area around them and it seemed to pulse and breath, yearning to climb out, but trapped  by a mud-colored stopper. 

The second he revealed the flask, several things happened at once. Temperance heard a platter and glasses falling on the floor and suddenly  she felt a hand pushing her hair and smacking her face in the hard wood of the table. She was tossed carelessly to the floor and felt her entire face pulsing and a familiar taste of iron in her mouth. She thought about concentrating on an enchantment, but the sound of many feet moving deviously toward her was too intense for her to focus. She felt kicks on her legs and waist and heard yells, but she couldn’t make sense of what they were saying…

CRACK!

Something smashed heavily on the floor nearby her and she felt the room get warmer. The steps were now running away from where she laid. She forced herself to sit up and open her eyes.

The room was blurry and she guessed her eyes must have been bleeding to. A brown and white mass was running toward the door and out of the pub. She notice the walls were now oddly turning into an intense, red…

Fire! The pub was on fire, a breathing, pulsing fire, spreading fast and consuming things quickly and seemingly knowing what it was doing. Firing up all the walls, and the door. The door was on fire. But it wasn’t falling off, it was made of fire. The room was visibly empty.

“Help!” She heard Viola’s voice and noticed a white hand sticking out from a pile of wood. She attempted to get up, but Alden was faster, quickly bringing the woman back around, tossing the wood away with a  wave of his hand. Their faces were also blurred, but she could spot a few cuts and tiny burn marks across their faces, as they walked toward her, Alden’s arms wrapped around Viola’s waist, to help her walk.

Temperance got up slowly, still confused and having difficulty in unbending her knees. Alden spoke to her, and she noticed a hint of despair in his firm voice.

“You must master the flame or it will consume us all. The door is trapping us. Hurry.”

That was what she was afraid of. She wanted to capture the flame for her mother, but now that she felt its heat, even indirectly, she was afraid of what it would do to her. But she didn’t have time to be afraid. She had to save them. 

A piece of the flame danced around the corner of the table where she was talking to Alden previously, as if knowing what she was about to do. She grabbed it, thinking that if she did it fast, it wouldn’t hurt as much. An ugly scream escaped her mouth as the flame consumed her hand. It wasn’t like a normal burn at all. It was worse than putting her hand in a bonfire. She felt her hand being ripped off, layer by layer of skin, muscle and bone. Her eyes watered, her entire body froze and she didn’t feel her hand anymore. She leaned toward the flame and miraculously smacked a kiss in it. Her lips started to peel out as well and her scream came out as a loud, ugly squeak. Alden handed her a different flask and she placed the flame in it robotically. It seemed to obey her command, and all the fire around the pub reached out to her hand, entering the container. As the fire ceased completely, Alden placed the stopper on the opening. That was the last she saw before everything went black.

She woke up to cold pieces of cotton all over her face and hands, which made her feel less sore, even laying against the hard floor of the pub.  She forced her eyes to open and saw a little old man standing above her. He was wearing a white doctor’s gown and drenching cotton into a boiling indigo mixture.

Tilting her head to the side, she notice Viola laid beside her. Alden was sitting next to her, also drenching cottons, but in a pearl colored potion.  Temperance looked back at the dwarf and recognized him as one of the doctors who were treating her mother. She sat up quickly, not minding the cottons that fell off or the sudden piercing pain in her back.

“How is she?”

The man looked at her sadly. She anticipated the worse.

“She just passed away. Your father is still with her. I thought I’d look for you and let you know.”

Temperance couldn’t have felt worse if the flame of infinity had burnt her entire body. Before she had time to control, multiple and heavy tear drops fell across her face and she numbly felt Alden’s arm across her shoulders in what he must have thought to be a comforting attitude.

The doctor was still talking, maybe trying comfort her as well.

“I arrived here and you and Viola had fainted. You had severe burns and Alden gave me this Lidocaine Potion, despite my efforts to tell him I had one, and this really is a much better potion. And then he asked me for something for Viola’s bruises and I gave him my…”

“I understand”, she cut him. “Alden, what happened before that?”

He was still holding her and she couldn’t bear to think about her mother, so she asked the question.

“Apparently, many people in this pub tonight knew what I was doing here and that I had the flame. The moment they saw it they made an attempt to catch it. I was caught off guard, so I couldn’t help you. I tried to protect the flask but there were to many of them. They jumped on top of me and it fell. The flame covered most walls immediately. I meant to leave, but you were still on the floor and I couldn’t find Viola, so, I think you know what happened next.”

She nodded. Then she realized that the flame was hers now. And that it didn’t matter anymore.

“Do I have to…”

“Choose?” He finished the question for her. “No. You don’t have to reopen the flask, but its frail, even more then the last one. The flame wouldn’t be kept in a flask protected by magic, it feeds off it. I don’t know how you would be able to…”

“I’ll burry it with my mother. Put an end to this curse. This thing is foolish and so is the quest for it.”

He agreed.

“I’m going to be dead in less than an year.” And he glanced back at Viola, who was holding Temperance’s hand weakly with her own.

“And I have nothing but the clothes on me.”

She looked up at him. He was staring at the older woman and she was staring back.

The dwarf doctor got up and went to the bench where he had left his backpack and started to organize his things in a slow, methodical movement, oblivious to the atmosphere of the room.

“So you think you’ve made the right choice?” She finally asked Alden.

He smiled sadly.

“Yes, but you’ve made a better one.”

She nodded again. Her mother was dead. The flame of infinity couldn’t save her. It was too late. Life would never be the same again and she doubt that she and her father would ever be truly happy again. They loved her mother too much. The tears came back to her. It was all over.