Episode CIII - Fresh Air

Sarah did not have the luxury of waking when her body wanted to and so the second time she woke up on the stone table in Shadowsmoke's unusual hospital it was to the sight of the creature she had known as Dim-Sum leaning over her, his cold, hard talons clutching her upper arms.

"There, she's coming round," Dim-Sum said to someone off to Sarah's left and she was unsurprised when she tilted her head to see that Frostfire was leaning against a far wall with an air of bored nonchalance.  It was a sharp contrast to the pounding excitement of her own heart at so rude an awakening.

"Get to your feet," Frostfire said in a voice which, for all its gravelly harshness, was barely above a whisper, "you've rested long enough and we have a long journey ahead of us."

"Where are we going?" Sarah asked defensively as Dim-Sum stepped away and she swung her legs round to drop off the stone table.

"Elsewhere," Frostfire replied, before turning away and disappearing out the curtained doorway.

"He's always like that," Dim-Sum said gruffly after a moment or two of silence.

"Can you tell me where we're going?"

"Would it mean anything to you if I did?"

"Probably not and yet it might be some comfort to know what is happening to me when everything else around me is so strange and new and..." she decided not to add terrifying.  Shadowsmoke seemed to have proven that these Stoneskins could be friendly, but she was unsure whether Frostfire was working for her or against her.  She feared that he wanted to use her for revenge against Ellis, for some reason, although the full details of what had transpired in the Silverspire were unknown to her.

"Well," Dim-Sum said, his orange-red eyes seeming to cool a little in thought, "we'll be leaving Ashvault and then travelling into Riddlepike and the other ruined mountain districts that neighbour our own.  From there we head North towards Blizzardale and after that-"

"Dimsun!" Frostfire cut in, his head poking through the curtain in such a way that Sarah was surprised his eyes didn't set it on fire, "Stop talking to the prisoner and get her out here.  I want to be in Riddlepike before nightfall!"

"Yes, Frostfire."

Dimsun - she heard it correctly at last and realised, suddenly, how the name fit the colour of his eyes - glanced down at her briefly, almost apologetically, then ushered her out into the corridor where Frostfire waited impatiently.

"Good," the cool-eyed Spiketail - another term Shadowsmoke had explained for her - said, "you might want to carry her once we're in the magma chamber.  The Shaman seemed to think the heat was too much for her."

Dimsun nodded, and lifted Sarah up with an ease which was both surprising and horrifying, but she realised that there was no point protesting and that the chances of her passing out in the heat of Ashvault were pretty high.  She didn't even want to think about what would happen if she fainted on one of those bridges...

Frostfire led the way along the corridor as always and Dimsun followed closely behind.  They passed Dusty the Mosskind as they rounded a corner, forcing the poor creature to squeeze himself into the available space to avoid being trampled, and continued on without hesitation.  They rounded another two corners and Sarah began to wonder just how big Shadowsmoke's hospital actually was, when she spotted the robed Shaman standing by a door at the end of this last stretch of corridor.

"You're quite sure about all of this, Frostfire?" he asked in his deep, ancient bass voice as the other Spiketail came to a halt before him.

"There is no other course of action to take.  This girl has fallen into our hands and I intend to take advantage of that."

"Remember, Frostfire, that she is a living being in her own right and human at that.  She is just as capable as any of the others and she will not be cajoled into anythign against her will."

"She will obey when it is time.  We will convince her."

Sarah shuddered at icy cool that Frostfire projected as he said those words.  She wondered, however, whether any of the Stoneskins cared that she was there, listening and she was about to make herself heard when Shadowsmoke suddenly addressed her directly.

"Be careful, Sarah," he said, "this one will ask much of you and you must decide for yourself whether or not to obey.  There will be consequences either way, that is always the case, but the choice remains yours.  Do not let him take that away from you."

Sarah found herself staring at him, huddled as she was in the sturdy arms of Dimsun, wondering what it was she could possibly be asked to do that would require such advice.

"There is more to you than meets the eye," he said, "more than there ever was before, but if you don't choose to use what you have been given it will remain forever as untapped potential.  That is my gift to you, little one, the only thing I could offer."

"What are you rambling on about, Shaman?" Frostfire asked, his impatience showing through once more, making something like lightning flicker across the blizzard of his eyes.

"I did what you asked, Frostfire, but I did it my way.  I cannot trust you to protect this girl's interests in this endeavour."  He stood aside and gestured for them to leave.  "Goodbye Frosfire, Dimsun... Sarah, may the Great Feathers guide you in what is to come"

Frostfire shook his head as he walked out, muttering something that sounded like "superstitious nonsense" and which nearly made Sarah giggle as she imagined the same words from her mother's mouth, then Dimsun was carrying her out into the heat of Ashvault and it was all she could do to keep hear head clear and to focus on where they were going.

They passed through the narrow streets she remembered from the day before (or was it two days ago?), filled with creatures she now knew to be Spiketails and Creepers and Grinders, as well as many Mosskind performing errands, hurrying between one carved house and another.  They crossed a bridge to the central spire and climbed several levels before crossing over to what Sarah believed must be the other side of the chamber.  More streets followed, until, without her really becoming fully aware of the transition, they were in a long tunnel, lined with shops and houses carved into the rock on either side, serving as a sort of avenue towards a distant, pale light, which could only be daylight.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of lessening heat they passed through an enormous gateway in the mountain, guarded at either side by armoured Spiketails and Creepers and a pair of particularly enormous Grinders.  Sarah felt their gazes upon her as Dimsun stopped, almost ceremonially, and let her down to her feet so that she might step out into the open air on her own.

She was a little unsteady at first and the view before her was no help at all for it would have staggered her even if she were not weak from the heat of the mountain.  Before her stretched a city of such scale and variety that she could not possibly have imagined it on her own.  It spilled down the slopes of the mountain towards a set of enormous stone walls that seemed to skirt the whole base of the volcano, but the city continued on outside of that wall, spilling over into the valley beneath and up the slopes of other mountains on the other side.  She could see signs of it lapping up against the peaks opposite and pale buildings glimmered on distant plains beyond even that.  Apart from the wall there was nothing to delineate one place from another.  She could see now that Shadowsmoke was right - it was all one city, split only into a thousand districts, each unique.

And yet, more staggering than the scale of what she saw, the impossible endlessness of it all, was the pale green sky above.  Even through the misty clouds of steam and ash that billowed out of the peak behind her, she could see that it was an alien sky, utterly unlike any seen on Earth and only then did it really hit her.  Home was light-years away.

"Oh god," she said.

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