Feather in His Cap

by Keith Gapinski

like the heat of a forge. She planted her lips upon his like a hot brand and Myram squirmed under the long, sizzling osculation. He whimpered, sure his lips were being roasted away as he smelled the sickly sweet odor of burning flesh. He prayed that no tongue was needed to complete the pact.

  “Myram!”

  Vulu broke away from him at the shout. Behind them, just past the archway entrance, stood a figure in shining red-gold battle armor. The figure held forth a tall metallic staff with a glowing ball of golden light at its tip.

  Out of the smooth-faced mask of the suit came Anni’s voice, amplified to a thunderous crescendo. “Stand away from that mortal, foul creature of the pits.”

  Vulu hissed at the figure, throwing more boiling spittle over Myram. “Annihilus! Attack dog of the fire pip-squeak. Come to try and chain me again?”

  “I will do more than chain you, this time, foul one. I will burn you in the cleansing fire of Fuerigos.”

  Vulu smiled an acid smile and spread her arms wide. “Your fire feels a bit chill from way over there, fire-bitch. Why not bring it closer?”

  Annihilus, nee Anni, charged and crashed through the air over Myram like golden lightning. She lashed out at Vulu with the staff, spinning through several roundhouse blows that the demon deflected easily off her armored wrist guards. With a roar of frustration, Anni spun and left her feet with a wild swing. Vulu, ready for the blow, caught the staff in both hands while falling backwards into the air. She dragged Anni behind her, spinning her around and around before hurtling her directly back at Myram.

  Myram dropped and Anni’s heavy, battle-suited form sailed over him with a howling metallic whistle. When he looked up, Vulu was hovering over him again.

  “I can’t believe you brought a friend to our little rendezvous. That makes me so mad I could spit.” Vulu inhaled and with a wet cough spat a wad of liquid fire right at Myram. Anni’s strong hand dragged him backwards as the demon spit splashed the platform where he had been standing.

  “Are you okay?”

  Myram lisped through singed lips. “I wath doing jutht fine until Annihiluth finally showed up! Vulu and I were sthtarting to come to an understhtanding.”

  Anni’s eyes frowned at Myram through the slits in the helmet. “So you kissed her? Really? A demon…made of fire? And you kissed her?”

  “She kithed me!”

  “And I’d do it again,” Vulu laughed swooping up behind Anni. “Way more action than you probably get from your husband the fire-fairy.”

  Anni growled and spun, drop-kicking Vulu and sending her spinning over the edge of the platform and into the air. Vulu’s wings flapped hard, grabbing at the air to stay aloft.

  “Run, Myram!” Anni shouted as she strode forward to the edge of the platform, spinning her glowing golden staff before her.

  “Oh, no, worship-boy, we still have business!” Vulu snapped a hand in the air and sent an arcing whip-line of black-orange flame shooting towards Myram. It wrapped around his calf with a searing bite. Vulu yanked hard and sent him toppling over onto the platform. With hard wingstrokes, Vulu flew backwards and dragged Myram towards the edge of the platform.

  “Help!” he squeaked at Anni as he slid past, clutching at the surface of the platform.

  Anni slashed at the fire whip with her staff, but the staff bounced off the flame with no effect.

  “Hold this!” She slapped the staff into his hands and grabbed the fiery whip wrapped around his leg, pulling hard against Vulu. There was a pop as Vulu extinguished the flame and sent Anni tumbling.

  Vulu swooped at Myram, launching another fire whip from her hand, but Anni was back on her feet in an instant. The fire priestess caught the whip around her armored wrist.

  “Myram! My staff!” She reached back to Myram for it, but a second flaming whip shot down and wrapped around that wrist.

  “Oh, no, Annihilus, dear,” Vulu said, shaking her head, “You won’t be needing that where you’re going.”

  With giant beats of her wings, Vulu carried her off, dangling her over the pit. Anni struggled beneath her, grabbing and pulling the whip strands, trying to lash out at the demon with a fist or leg, but Vulu held her just out of reach.

  Myram struggled to clear his head, clambering to hands and knees, dragging the heavy staff along. He had to get the staff to her. The glowing implement had to be the key, the weapon needed to defeat the demon.

  Vulu threw her arms wide, yanking Anni’s arms out and pulling the whips free. Anni dropped, caught the edge of the platform with one hand, and hung there by her straining fingertips.

  Myram threw himself towards her, reached out and grabbed her hand, trying to find a grip on the slick metal armor to pull her up.

  Anni’s eyes were desperate, beseeching through the armor. “My staff!”

  And then she fell. Her plummeting scream echoed through the chamber. Myram watched her, arms aching after her, as she fell, one hand reaching desperately upwards. She fell until she was a tiny bright spark, consumed by the harsh glow of the magma lake. Finally, there was a splash and a sudden crescendo of flame across the surface of the burning lake.

  Myram lay there, arms outstretched. He waited long heartbeats, hoping against hope for some sign she had not been consumed by the burning pit.

  “When you play with a fire lord, you should expect to get burned,” Vulu gloated, hovering just in front of the platform. “Now where were we before your girlfriend interrupted?”

  Myram rose to his knees and bowed his head.

  “No use worshiping me now. I told you, it’s over between us.” Vulu huffed. “You were unfaithful.”

  “Fuerigos,” he pleaded. “Help me…”

  Myram grabbed Anni’s staff, leaped up, and flung it at Vulu. The burning light of the tip ripped through the air, crashed into and through the skin of the demon, sending her staggering backwards through the air.

  Vulu looked down at the staff protruding from her mid-section with a frown. Then, she began to cackle.

  “You’re a fool!” she said, yanking the staff free and tossing it aside with disdain. Myram watched it tumble away into the depths with the last shred of his hope.

  The hole in Vulu’s midsection oozed with a burning crimson slag that quickly cooled to the glassy volcanic black of the rest of her skin, completely healing the injury.

  “Now,” she glided forward slowly, eyes narrowing to burning slips of barely contained rage, “I am going to burn you down to ash from that ridiculous hat to your worthless toes.”

  With a gulp, Vulu spat a blast of flame at him. Myram ducked as the fireball blew his hat from his head. He reached after the smoldering chapeau as it spiraled through the air, but Vulu snapped a fire-whip around his waist and yanked. He scrabbled at the smooth surface of the platform, struggling to keep her from pulling him over the edge.

  “Oh, don’t be so difficult. When this place goes up, you’ll be incinerated like your girlfriend, anyway…”

  Vulu had a point. No matter what happened, he had failed and everyone was going to die.

  There was a sudden noise, a loud, basso “whoomp” and a flash of golden light fire from beneath them. Vulu glanced down, confused.

  “That’s not supposed to happen yet,” she said, releasing the whip to float up and get a better look at what was going on.

  Below them, the pit was filling with swirling golden light. Like a storm, the golden wind turned faster and faster, becoming a cone, pulling the magma from the lake up into it, churning it into a whirlpool like it was a stew being stirred by a giant hand. As it rose, the fury of the storm began to pull at the lava stream pouring from the dragon’s mouth, drawing it towards the center of the coalescing storm.

  The air around Myram began to gust past him, pulled down into the funnel. He looked up to see even Vulu wobbling in the air, struggling to fly upwards out of the pull of the vortex.

  There was a soft, hollow tolling wavering through the air, like a heavy gust of wind spinning within a stationary bell, and Myram loo
ked down and saw a tiny spark rising through the storm. The spark resolved into a golden figure holding a staff, commanding the winds, calling the storm as it turned slowly through it.

  Anni, the armor-clad Annihilus, rose up next to Vulu.

  “Miss me?” she asked, and then clobbered her with a spinning swing of her staff.

  Vulu spun away, struggling a moment in the air, and then was sucked into the winds of the vortex spinning around her.

  Anni floated over to the platform, staff blazing as she sang a bright and cheerful hymn that seemed to call the wind. The golden tornado spun powerfully in response, crashing through the room just below the level of the platform, which sat in a serene bubble, free from the rushing storm.

  Myram ran up to Anni at the edge, and gazed down into the center of the vortex. The magma lake below them was gone, replaced by a shimmering rip in the very fabric of reality. Beyond the rip was a placid night sky, full of blazing stars. At the very center was a swollen red globe, heavy and round like the sun on the horizon at dusk.

  “The sacred flame, the eye of Fuerigos,” Anni told him, her voice quavering with awe.

  The stream of magma from the dragon’s mouth was dragged down through the air, through the darkness into the hole. In the dark sky beyond it cooled into a chain of giant boulders that floated off into the darkness.

  Myram turned to Anni, started to grab her to hug her, but paused, wary of the steam rising from her armor. “I thought you were a goner. You fell into…”

  Anni tapped her armor with