Heart of Fire
no oil in the lamp--
after a year's flickering,
the flame slowly dies.
-- anonymous
The hottest flames known to science are made by burning a mixture of oxygen and acetylene. The flame of an oxyacetylene torch can reach a temperature of more than 5972 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt metal even underwater or in the extreme cold of Antarctica.
***
I watch him as he watches her. The expression is partially obstructed by the mask he wears, but I can see it just the same. If ever I saw that look on my Beloved's face I would tear his heart out and leave it for the buzzards, but only if it were not directed at me. The interesting thing is: he doesn't know how to show her that look I see so plainly. His body is awkward around hers-- acting as a shield, but in the same moment drawing away.
I drape my legs over the arm of the chair and concoct wild stories to explain his behavior. She moves gingerly at times, then forgets herself in feats of daring. The outer defenses are still holding against them. The sun will be fully risen soon; the desert will lose its purplish cast. Nothing survives long under the weight of Saharan sunlight. In my idle moments, I wonder if there is a way to concoct a device to focus the power of that light. Weapons of mass destruction were never really my strength, only Father's.
"They are persistent," I say to the man on the table.
"They know better than to give up," he mumbles through lips cracked with thirst.
"It will be the death of them."
"It's their choice."
"Is it?" I look at him intently. He is stripped of everything but the cowl. I was particularly careful to remove anything he might use to escape, including some subcutaneous lock picks. I found them in his wrists, to the left of the rope of veins running there. They looked like track marks. He didn't cry out when I took them out of him. He didn't even twitch. I think in some perverse way he likes the pain. It's penance for some awful thing I can't begin to imagine.
He closes his eyes then, but not before I see them muddy with uncertainty.
Outside, the two fight on. Their movements are slower now and he is less conscious of her presence. That's when the most interesting thing happens. They come together like two fitted puzzle pieces. Side-by-side they are as graceful as synchronized swimmers. I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye and I whip my head around. My Beloved is...smiling. That smile chills me more than anything because there is no joy in it, just satisfaction at a job well done.
"Wind them up and they will go," I say to him, surprising myself with the bitter note that emerges.
"You don't understand."
"Do they?"
"Well enough."
I don't know how he can be so sure. On the monitor they look young and fragile. I close one eye and hold out my thumb and index finger, crushing them. "How can you tell?"
"I know them."
On the monitor, they have finished with the first wave of defenses. I watch him as he watches her. He touches her hand briefly. Their fingers make arcing wings before they part. "I would not be so sure."
His face settles back into its familiar, grim lines. Silence sinks on top of us, heavy and burning like sand.