World on fire

The world’s on fire. I can’t describe it any other way. Of all the things I imagined, this certainly wasn’t one of them. I wonder if there’s any chance for either me or Kathy now.

We emerged from the tunnel this morning. I know it was morning because, for the first time in ages, I’ve seen the sun. But it’s a small, shrunken thing, and the light it gives off is nothing compared to the light of the flames. That’s what we could see all that time in the tunnel: the light of the fire that’s burning up the world.

Stepping out into it was like stepping into hell. The air is caustic. Hot and tarry. Kathy started coughing straight away; I wasn’t so bad, but then dragons have always been good with fire. I sheltered my human companion under my wing and gazed out across the burning world.

It’s fire from here to the horizon. We’re on a mountainside. By the greatest good fortune, there’s a river between us and the fire. Everything on that side of the river is burning. Everything on this side is all right. So far.

The sky is one great smoke cloud. The sun peeks through occasionally, but mostly it’s shrouded in ash. The heat is almost unbearable. So we’ve done the only thing we can do (short of going back in the tunnel, which neither of us want to do) – we’re circling the mountain, trying to put the rock between us and the fire.

It’s hard going. I’m still reluctant to fly, even though we’re outside. The air is filled with embers and the air currents are treacherous. So we walk, and scramble, and climb. Kathy’s good at this, despite her lack of claws. Her fingers are nimble and strong. The more time I spend with her, the more she impresses me.

I still don’t think she believes any of this is real though. Sooner or later she’ll have to wake up to that fact. That’s going to be a tough day.

So we’re trekking, running from the flames, not really thinking, just working our bodies. There’s something good about that though. And we’re outside at last, however hostile the environment might be. We’re out!

At sundown we’ll rest. By then, I hope, we’ll have left the flames behind. I’m hoping I’ll be able to look into yet another mystery that’s reared up before us, which is this:

I said we were trying to put rock between us and the fire. Well, that’s true enough. The thing is, this mountain doesn’t appear to be made of rock at all. It looks right, even feels right. But something’s wrong.

I think the mountain’s made of wood.