The Beacon: Prologue (3)
Episode 3: "The Fire Inspector"
“Good afternoon, Mister Pyke,” said Mistress Amulee Parado, dipping a polite curtsy to the stocky man making his way along the sidewalk toward her. He stopped and tipped his hat to her as she bustled past, her billowy white dress and her large-brimmed white hat suggesting a small cloud hurrying across the ground. Though several years past his prime, Morgun Pyke could still admire a fine-looking woman as she walked away from him. Despite how well-made Mistress Parado was, she was certainly not available to him as a potential wife, having been happily married to Councilman Standis Parado for twenty-seven years. She also had a small brood of children and now grandchildren. Besides, a confirmed bachelor and a man set in his ways, Pyke was not in the market for a wife.
Returning to his strolling pace, Pyke slipped the curved handle of his cane into a pocket, plucked off his hat, and wiped his bald head with a handkerchief. He had repeated this action so often it had become habitual—and had he known it, one Shipton’s urchins mimicked to peals of childish laughter. At least once a week, in his duties as the town’s Fire Inspector, he walked up and down every street to check for fire hazards and remind citizens of the importance of fire safety. Since most of the town’s buildings were made of wood—even the sidewalk he trod was wooden—a careless fire raging unchecked could cause untold disaster.
Approaching the town’s eastern edge, he stopped to peer down the narrow alleyway between old widow Fransen’s boardinghouse and the recently renovated Mardot’s Cabinetry Shop. During every inspection tour, Pyke paused at this spot, often glaring with just-suppressed anger at the ridiculously close proximity of the two buildings, and one of them was full of wooden cabinets, furniture, lumber, and even a few caskets! It was a bonfire waiting to happen, especially since Jem Mardot used all sorts of stains, shellacs, and mineral spirits in his work. Granted, the cabinetmaker was as fine a craftsman as Pyke had ever known—he owned a piece or two of the man’s work—but Mardot had turned a deaf ear to the Fire Inspector’s argument against buying this property for his shop. Truth be told, Pyke had wanted the place torn down to provide a firebreak, but the town council had not shared his opinion.
Pyke’s temperature lowered a notch or two when he realized he could see through the alley to the next street over. He could see a small pack of boys running after a ball as they flashed by the far end, their high-pitched yells and laughter rising and fading away. At least Widow Fransen and Mardot had complied with his suggestion that they keep the alley clear. With a satisfied, “Humph!” he continued his walk.
Once past the Widow Fransen’s place, his demeanor softened, and his pace picked up. He was approaching one of his favorite spots in town, the far eastern edge of the small plateau on which the founders had built the town. Here, several large boulders had made the area unsuitable for buildings of any sort, so a town council of many years past had set the land aside for a small park. Trees and bushes had been planted, paths cut and smoothed, and a bench or two set up in the most scenic spots, as it boasted fine views of the farmlands to the east. Every week, Pyke took a short rest in the park, as it marked the halfway point of his inspection tour.
He took the path leading most directly to a shaded bench set above a steep drop-off. On sunny days like this one, it was among the coolest spots in town, as a light breeze often blew up from the valley floor. From this promontory, a person could see many miles into the surrounding countryside, and a clear-sighted individual could even make out people traveling on the winding eastern road.
Pyke sat down and wiped his sweating head, laying his hat on the bench beside him. Pulling a small flask of water out of a jacket pocket, he took a quick swig, swished it around his mouth, and spat it out. Then he drank more deeply. Satisfied for the moment, he leaned forward and relished the view of the wide lands before him, moving his head slowly from left to right in a long panorama. As always, he told himself how beautiful this country was and how glad he was he had come here from the capital as a young man looking to make his fortune. That fortune had never materialized, but the prosperous town and its simple pleasures were gains of a better sort, to his mind.
The valley below him appeared as peaceful and verdant as always. This far south, the climate was temperate for a good part of the year, so the farmers grew crops in all seasons. Most of the wheat crop had already been reaped, and the maize—the sophisticates in Palisade called it “corn”—looked ahead of its normal summertime schedule, and no wonder, since the area had received goodly amounts of both rain and sun. His mouth watered at the thought of fresh maize muffins, warm from the oven and melting a pat of butter.
His roaming eyes picked up movement on the eastern road, but at this distance, he could make nothing out clearly. To him, it looked like a smudge of yellow against a background of waving green, but beyond that, he could see no detail. Could Pietro be returning to town? His wagon was the only one in Pyke’s experience that sported such a bright hue. The singing tinker often visited Shipton twice a year, staying for a week or two, so it could well be his wagon on the road. It will be nice to share a glass of wine with the old man again, Pyke thought. And he’ll probably sing a song or two for the guests at the inn. He always does, and everyone always loves it.
Another flash of movement caught his eye as he gazed down at the yellow blur in the distance. Beyond the wagon came a ripple through the sea of cornstalks, reminding him of a low wave that refused to crest and break. It had a wide, curved front, as if a pebble had been dropped into the far-away center of a still pond, and the signs of the surface’s disturbance had radiated out in a single broad, sweeping undulation to reach them near its edge. The ripple moved steadily but not fast, and it appeared not to be harming anything as it passed over the land. While he watched, it swept up to and through the little yellow wagon, which kept moving as if nothing had happened.
The wave continued into the fields of maize at its unrelenting pace. Pyke suddenly realized that, unless it stopped on its own or was otherwise diverted, it would pass directly through Shipton. A thrill of excitement ran up his spine. At the inn tonight, there will surely be a lot of conversation—and probably not a few arguments—about this strange thing. What could it be? Some kind of earth tremor? To him, that seemed to be the most logical explanation—some kind of rippling of the land from some distant catastrophe. Yet, such things would surely cause destruction, and from his elevated perspective, this anomaly seemed fairly benign. Perhaps one of the other regulars would come up with some other rational explanation.
After contemplating what it could be for a few minutes, he checked the ripple’s progress again, and now he could see a second one on the horizon, long and rounded like the first but curved in the opposite direction. This development made him scratch his head until he realized he was seeing, not two separate ripples, but one large, connected ripple—a vast ring. It acted like no water ripple he had ever seen, as the entire circle, maintaining its size and shape, was moving almost directly southwest, seemingly unhindered by the topography. The back half of it passed the now-stationary yellow wagon without incident. Pyke pulled his gaze back to take in as large an area as he could, and he thought he could see the whole of the huge, sliding loop or bubble. Whatever it was, it stretched for about a mile.
It had drawn much closer now, coming straight toward the town. He pulled his flask out again and took a long swallow as he watched the phenomenon close on his perch at the plateau’s edge. Stowing the nearly empty flask in his coat, he pulled another one containing a much stronger liquid—the kind he regularly ordered at the inn—out of an interior pocket, taking a generous swig of courage. After another mop of his head, his preparations complete, he settled back to watch the circle’s approach.
It took far less time to reach him than he expected. The mysterious loop moved at an constant pace and without change of direction, undulating in conformity to the rises and falls of the land. In its passing, it made no sound, and the birds and beasts it encountered seemed unfazed as it passed through them.
The rippling ring encountered the plateau’s base and without hesitation climbed upward, taking mere seconds to reach the flattened top and sweep over the bench on which Pyke sat wide-eyed and sweating. But he felt nothing unusual as it passed through him from his toes to his bald pate. Not even a tingle or a pulse of energy, he said to himself, somewhat disappointed. The earth under him had not rocked even the slightest. No breeze, warm or cool, had wafted over him. All things considered, the spectacle, as he considered it, was a bit of a bust.
Deciding he had taken enough of a break, he took up his hat and cane and trundled down the path toward the park entrance. On a slight rise of the path between two boulders, he spied the Widow Fransen’s boardinghouse and Mardot’s Cabinetry Shop beyond it, and a small spark of anger reignited in his mind. It really burned him when people put so many others at risk of a major fire. A large fire on this end of town, where we have the town’s oldest homes, and most of them made completely of wood, could burn down an entire block! How many lives would that ruin? How many lives would such a fire take? It would be a disaster!
Mardot should have listened to me. Pyke had vigorously advised against his taking that property. In fact, a perfectly good brick building had been available across town, but Mardot had wanted a shop closer to the main road. Convenience over safety! It was always something like that. Well, maybe Mardot needs a little object lesson.
Fallen branches always littered the ground in the little park, so Pyke picked up a few smaller ones as he marched purposefully toward Mardot’s shop. He turned into the narrow alley and up to the shop’s back door. A glance to either side showed that no one was around. He piled the sticks next to the door, and, pulling the stopper from his whiskey flask, emptied it over the wood. Fishing for a matchstick in his vest pocket, he whistled an old tune he remembered old Pietro singing just last year at the inn. Striking the match, he dropped it onto the alcohol-soaked sticks, which immediately flared to life. The fire swiftly ran to the whiskey-splashed door, igniting the green paint and the sappy pine underneath. In half a minute, the whole door was burning, and the frame and the surrounding siding would soon succumb to the flames.
Pyke’s eyes reveled in the dancing yellow, orange, and red tongues of fire. As he laughed, tickled with Mardot’s comeuppance, the door burst open at a blow from a sledgehammer wielded from inside the shop and toppled outward, hanging from its lower hinge. A quick second blow removed the door completely. Seconds later, water from a bucket flew toward the remaining flames, followed by another dousing. With a wet towel in hand, Mardot jumped through the doorway and beat out the last of the fire.
Then he noticed Pyke standing a few feet away, his face displaying a superior, I-told-you-so look. With a snarl, Mardot stepped back inside, reappearing almost immediately with a partially turned table leg gripped in one large hand. Without hesitation, he swung his improvised weapon at the fire inspector’s head, a blow Pyke barely avoided with a hasty step back. But that move put his back against the wall of Widow Fransen’s house, making him unable to dodge the heavy fist that plunged into his ample stomach, folding him over. The table leg came down on his back, laying him out in the dirt. Mardot kicked him once in the side and then raised the table leg over his head for the telling blow.
At that moment, the back half of the strange, rippling ring flowed through them. Mardot stumbled back as if the weight of the table leg were too heavy for him, and he let it fall to the ground. Pyke moaned as he pushed himself up to his knees, grabbing his side where he had received the cabinet-maker’s kick. Bewildered, the two men stared at each other.
Mardot spoke first. “Why did you try to burn down my door, Morgun?”
“Why did you try to kill me for it?” Pyke answered.
“This isn’t like us, even if we do disagree,” said Mardot. “You don’t set fires, and I don’t go on homicidal rages. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what came over me,” Pyke said, pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his head. “One minute, I was happily walking out of the park, and the next, all I wanted to do was burn your shop down. It was completely irrational of me. I’m sorry, Mardot. I’ll pay you for the damage.” He reached into his jacket for his wallet.
“No need,” Mardot said, waving a hand. “I reacted just as badly, so I’d say we’re even. I can fix this in a few—”
But he never finished his sentence, for that was when they heard the screams.
A note:
Among the first towns founded in the southwestern part of the kingdom after Margonne’s conquest, Shipton had existed for more than a hundred and fifty years by the reign of Lorens III. Its first settlers farmed the lowlands and built the town behind the higher, safer promontory that jutted out over the plain like a ship’s prow. Thus, it received its name, “Shipton.” While the fertile plain made its sweet corn the envy of farmers elsewhere, the hills and mountains to the west provided abundant lumber. The town was known across Margonne for its well-made furniture, such as the kind made in Mardot’s Cabinetry Shop. For its remote location, Shipton’s industrious citizens had developed a lucrative economy, making it a fine place to live and raise a family.
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Pesky building codes! Who needs fire safety anyway??
Shipton will never be the same again!