Because of my current work, the first thing I looked at was the bone-tar canister. I felt a flash of cold sweat roll over me when I saw black liquid leaking from one corner and running down the worktable’s leg to pool on the floor. The thick timber of the table’s leg was almost entirely eaten away, and I heard a light popping and crackling as the liquid pooling on the floor began to boil. All I could think of was Kilvin’s statement during the demonstration: In addition to being highly corrosive, the gas burns when it comes in contact with air….
Even as I turned to look, the leg gave way and the worktable began to tip. The burnished metal canister tumbled down. When it struck the stone floor, the metal was so cold it didn’t simply crack or dent, it shattered like glass. Gallons of the dark fluid burst out in a great splay across the workshop floor. The room filled with sharp crackling and popping sounds as the bone-tar spread across the warm stone floor and started to boil.
Long ago, the clever person who designed the Fishery placed about two dozen drains in the workshop to help with cleaning and managing spills. What’s more, the workshop’s stone floor rose and fell in a gentle pattern of peaks and troughs to guide the spills toward those drains. That meant as soon as the container shattered, the wide spill of oily liquid began to run off in two different directions, heading for two different drains. At the same time it continued to boil, forming thick, low clouds, dark as tar, caustic, and ready to burst into flame.
Trapped between these two spreading arms of dark fog was Fela, who had been working by herself at an out-of-the-way table in the corner of the shop. She stood, her mouth half open in shock. She was dressed practically for work in the shop, light trousers and a gauzy linen shirt cuffed at the elbow. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a tail, but still hung down to nearly the small of her back. She would burn like a torch.
The room began to fill with frantic noise as people realized what was happening. They shouted orders or simply yelled in panic. They dropped tools and knocked over half-finished projects as they scrambled around.
Fela hadn’t screamed or called for help, which meant no one but me had noticed the danger she was in. If Kilvin’s demonstration was any indication, I guessed the whole shop could be a sea of flame and caustic fog in less than a minute. There wasn’t any time….
I glanced at the scattered projects on the nearby worktable, looking for anything that could be of some help. But there was nothing: a jumble of basalt blocks, spools of copper wire, a half-inscribed hemisphere of glass that was probably destined to become one of Kilvin’s lamps….
And as easy as that, I knew what I had to do. I grabbed the glass hemisphere and dashed it against one of the basalt blocks. It shattered and I was left with a thin, curved shard of broken glass about the size of my palm. With my other hand I grabbed my cloak from the table and strode past the fume hood.
I pressed my thumb against the edge of the piece of glass and felt an unpleasant tugging sensation followed by a sharp pain. Knowing I’d drawn blood, I smeared my thumb across the glass and spoke a binding. As I came to stand in front of the drench I dropped the glass to the floor, concentrated, and stepped down hard, crushing it with my heel.
Cold unlike anything I’d ever felt stabbed into me. Not the simple cold you feel in your skin and limbs on a winter day. It hit my body like a clap of thunder. I felt it in my tongue and lungs and liver.
But I got what I wanted. The twice-tough glass of the drench spiderwebbed into a thousand fractures, and I closed my eyes just as it burst. Five hundred gallons of water struck me like a great fist, knocking me back a step and soaking me through to the skin. Then I was off, running between the tables.
Quick as I was, I wasn’t quick enough. There was a blinding crimson flare from the corner of the workshop as the fog began to catch fire, sending up strangely angular tongues of violent red flame. The fire would heat the rest of the tar, causing it to boil more quickly. This would make more fog, more fire, and more heat.
As I ran, the fire spread. It followed the two trails the bone-tar made as it ran toward the drains. The flames shot up with startling ferocity, sending up two curtains of fire, effectively cutting off the far corner of the shop. The flames were already as tall as me, and growing.
Fela had worked her way out from behind the workbench and hurried along the wall toward one of the floor drains. Since the bone-tar was pouring down the grate, there was a gap close to the wall clear of flame or fog. Fela was just about to sprint past when dark fog began to boil up out of the grate. She gave a short, startled shriek as she backed away. The fog was burning even as it boiled up, engulfing everything in a roiling pool of flame.
I finally made my way past the last table. Without slowing I held my breath, closed my eyes, and jumped over the fog, not wanting to let the horrible corrosive stuff touch my legs. I felt a brief, intense flash of heat on my hands and face, but my wet clothing kept me from being burned or catching fire.
Since my eyes were closed, I landed awkwardly, banging my hip against the stone top of a worktable. I ignored it and ran to Fela.
She had been backing away from the fire toward the outer wall of the shop, but now she was staring at me, hands half-raised protectively. “Put your arms down!” I shouted as I ran up to her, spreading my dripping-wet cloak with both hands. I don’t know if she heard me over the roar of the flames, but regardless, Fela understood. She lowered her hands and stepped toward the cloak.
As I closed the final distance between us, I glanced behind and saw the fire was growing even faster than I’d expected. The fog clung to the floor, over a foot deep, black as pitch. The flames were so high I couldn’t see to the other side, let alone guess how thick the wall of fire had become.
Just before Fela stepped into the cloak, I lifted it to completely engulf her head. “I’m going to have to carry you out.” I shouted as I bundled the cloak around her. “Your legs will burn if you try to wade through.” She said something in reply, but it was muffled by the layers of wet cloth and I couldn’t make it out over the roar of the fire.
I picked her up, not in front of me, like Prince Gallant out of some storybook, but over one shoulder, the way you carry a sack of potatoes. Her hip pressed hard into my shoulder and I pelted toward the fire. The heat battered the front of my body, and I threw my free arm up to protect my face, praying the moisture on my pants would save my legs from the worst of the corrosive nature of the fog.
I drew a deep breath just before I hit the fire, but the air was sharp and acrid. I coughed reflexively and sucked down another lungful of the burning air just as I entered the wall of flame. I felt the sharp chill of the fog around my lower legs and there was fire all around me as I ran, coughing and drawing in more bad air. I grew dizzy and tasted ammonia. Some distant, rational part of my mind thought: of course, to make it volatile.
Then nothing.
When I awoke, the first thing that sprang to my mind was not what you might expect. Then again, it may not be that much of a surprise if you have ever been young yourself.
“What time is it?” I asked frantically.