Free The Raging Fires by T. A. Barron Page A

is gone. Or never existed? Oh, but it did! I can still call it back, still see its glow. Luminous. Eternal. First light on the clouds, radiant footsteps ascending the sky. A gleam on the horizon, a flame on the candle, a tremble on the star. And another kind of light, bright in the eyes: Rhia laughing, Mother knowing, Cairpré probing.
    Still, darkness pulls on me, coaxes me to sleep, to let go. Why fight for the wavering flame? So easily it fails, returns to the dark. So gracefully the night ever follows the day. Darkness is all; all is darkness.
    Light! Where are you? I am so lost . . . so frightened . . .
    Third, stillness.
    As long as I can move, I am alive. As long as I can feel—the wind against my cheeks, the earth under my toes, the petal between my fingers. Yet all I feel now is hardness. Everywhere. Closing in, crushing me. Move, fingers! Move, tongue! They do not respond. They do not exist. Gone are my bones. My blood. My flesh. Squeezed into nothingness.
    I cannot move, cannot feel, cannot even breathe. Whatever is left of me is pressed and condensed. I long to snap like a whip, to spin like a leaf. Yet, even more, I long to rest. To be still.
    Now I hear only silence. I see only darkness. I feel only stillness. I begin to accept, to understand, to become. I am solid and strong; I have the patience of a star. I am ageless, unyielding.
    For now I am stone.
    Almost. Something remains of that former self, that former me. I cannot touch it—cannot name it—yet it stays with me still. Down, deep down, in the center of my core. Too small to see; too large to hold. Snarling. Flaming. Twisting. It prods me to remember. To escape if I can! I have a longing. A life. A self. Yes, I can still hear my own voice, even as another, ancient voice swells around me, urging me to let go of all the rest.
    Be stone, young man. Be stone and be one with the world.
    No! I am too much alive, even now, encircled in rock. I want to change, to move, to do all the things stones cannot.
    You know so little, young man! A stone comprehends the true meaning of change. I have dwelled deep within the molten belly of a star, sprung forth aflame, circled the worlds in a comet’s tail, cooled and hardened over eons of time. I have been smashed by glaciers, seized by lava, swept across undersea plains—only to rise again to the surface upon a flowing river of land. I have been torn apart, cast aside, uplifted and combined with stones of utterly different origins. Lightning has struck my face, quakes have ripped my feet. Yet still I survive, for I am stone.
    And I answer: I want to know you. Nay, more than that, I want to be you! But . . . I cannot forget who I was. Who I am. There are things I must do, living stone!
    What is this strange magic that surrounds you, young man? That makes you resist me? You should have succumbed to my strength long ago.
    I know not. I only know that my own self clings to me still, even as clusters of moss cling to you.
    Come. Join me. Be stone!
    I yearn even now to join you. To feel your depth; to know your strength. And yet . . . I cannot.
    Ah, the stories I could tell you, young man! If only you would release yourself completely, allow yourself to harden. Then I could share with you all that I know. For a stone, while separate, is never far from the mountains and plains and seas of its birth. A stone’s power springs not from itself alone, but from all that surrounds, all that connects.
    I want to learn from you, living stone. Truly, I do. Yet I want still more to live the life I was born to live. Though it may be futile, and fleeting—it is nonetheless mine. You must set me free!
    You are a strange one, young man. Although I have very nearly destroyed you, I cannot seem to consume you. There is something in you I cannot reach, cannot crush. That leaves, I am saddened to say, but one possibility.
    What is that?
    It is not the best for you, nor the best for me. Yet it is, alas, my only choice.

9: S MOKE
    With a