Heart of the Volcano

by Imogen Howson

  We’re stronger when we shift. I can’t melt the coldsteel, but maybe I can break it.

  Again, there were only two options. The portcullis or the shaft. Whichever she chose would be followed by yet more obstacles. If—if—she broke through the portcullis, she would meet another five, all as thick, all as strong. And then the door—the heavy door at the far-away entrance to the labyrinth.

  The shaft… She squinted up at it, tears stinging at the assault of the reflections on her eyes. She would have to break toe- and hand-holds in it, most of the time while she clung like a lizard to its sheer surface. Then, at the top, she’d meet the grille.

  If only I could see how thick it is. But from where she stood it was nothing but a shadow-pattern.

  So, exhaust herself by trying to break through portcullis after portcullis, or equally exhaust herself by trying to break hole after hole in the side of the shaft, climbing up all the while, then reach the grille only to find it was thicker even than the portcullis and she had no hope of getting through…

  Almost she found herself sinking back to that state of frozen, panicked despair where she’d be able to do nothing but cry and shiver and wait to die.

  No. No. I have the power to deal with this. Think.

  Think. What are my other choices? What else do I know?

  She found herself staring at the side of the shaft, at the bland gleam of the coldsteel. It looked seamless, as if carved from a single piece, although she knew it was made of hundreds of sheets of the stuff, hammered painstakingly over the rock beneath…

  Her thoughts stopped dead.

  The coldsteel around her, impregnable though it seemed, was no more than a gleaming skin covering rock. Normal rock.

  Rock I can melt.

  Elation charged through her, wiping out fatigue. She had to wait, deliberately slowing her breathing.

  I must take care not to burn up too much energy, to use only what I must.

  Concentrating, she focused heat into her palm, let it spread into her fingers, up to her wrist. Her hand flamed, molten, her own weapon.

  Not the god’s power. Mine.

  She pulled her arm back, waited a moment, balancing herself, then drove her fist at the wall.

  Pain exploded through her arm. For a moment of terror she thought she’d shattered her elbow, her shoulder. She couldn’t even draw enough breath to scream. Blurry with pain, she didn’t even dare to look. I’m broken. I—oh, I’m broken.

  The pain ebbed. In a daze of panic she did look down—don’t be broken, don’t be broken!—and found her arm undamaged, the molten glow of her hand only a little dimmed.

  Stupid. Stupid. I should have thought. My normal form can’t take that kind of blow.

  She waited, cradling her throbbing arm, and when the pain ebbed further she let it go, focused again on the heat within her, letting the lava travel up past her wrist, into her shoulder, spreading as far as her chest and throat, turning all the fragile bone to molten rock.

  The heat swallowed the pain, as if it were burning it out of her. All at once she knew that when she changed back the bruises would be gone, as Coram’s burn mark had gone. She gathered herself and drove her fist again into the wall.

  The shock shook through her, but this time it didn’t hurt, and where her fist had struck the wall it split into a little spider web of cracks about three inches across. She hit it again: shards and flakes of coldsteel tumbled out to clink and scatter on the floor. Beyond it—she staggered, off balance, as her fist sank into the wall as easily as into soft sand. She pulled it out and stood, looking at the hole she’d left. The hole, the first of the hand-holds that would help her climb out.

  It was, at first…not easy, but not unthinkably hard, either. Memory, five and more years old, took her back to times when she and Coram had climbed the crumbling city wall near her part of the city. She remembered how to bring her body close to the wall to prevent her own weight dragging her downwards, how to establish a firm hold before leaning out to look where to make her next hole.

  Again and again the shell of coldsteel cracked and splintered. Again and again she plunged her hand into instantly melting rock, let it cool enough to touch then fitted her foot or hand in it and climbed just a little farther.

  After an hour, sweat pouring off her aching body, shivers running from her shoulder down her back and up over her scalp, she knew she had to rest.

  She’d driven holes halfway up the shaft, climbing, clinging while she drove her fist yet again at the wall. She’d managed to ignore her growing thirst—it doesn’t matter, I’ll be out soon, I just have to keep going—but now it had grown to a constant, nagging distraction. Her lips were dry and cracked, her throat stiff. Soon, now, she would no longer be able to control the lava. She’d have to rest.

  But, as thirsty as this, she’d not be able to sleep. And she still had the other half of the shaft to deal with. And…oh, the grille, I’m never going to be able to manage the grille.

  The screeching, the metallic grating sound came this time with a vibration through the wall she clung to, shuddering through her fingers, making her body quiver as the wall was quivering.

  The portcullis? The grille? Either way made no difference. They were coming back, and she was spent.

  She put her cheek against the cool wall of the shaft and waited, everything narrowing to a last single thought: Please, make it quick.

  Another screech protested through the shaft, and vaguely she knew the quality of the light had changed. She eased her head back in order to look up. Sunlight poured, unhindered, into her eyes. A segment of the grille had opened, grating on the hinges that, from beneath, were so impossible to lift. They were coming down for her, then. Why? To drag her out for a different punishment, or to throw her back down? Coming to chain her so she had not even the slightest hope of escape?

  Whatever they intended, she no longer had the strength to fight them. They could kill her with their bare hands now, throw her to the volcano, let the maenads tear her apart. She was nothing but another blasphemer, another monster to destroy, another helpless victim of the religion they would lie and cheat and kill to preserve.

  No. I am still the fire-priestess. I have one last weapon.

  Control didn’t matter now. If she burned herself up it no longer mattered—it had become not a terror but an escape. And if I do it as they reach me, if I take them too, that doesn’t matter either.

  She shut her eyes, and for the last time drew on the heat, the lava, willing it to rise through her, to burn and burn and burn…

  Instead darkness came, a black veil over her eyes, the chill of deep water freezing her limbs, numbing her fingers where they clung to the wall.

  She’d left it too late. The fire had gone and, after all, she had no last weapon.

  Her fingers began to slip. She was going to fall, plummet downwards to the rock-hard floor. If she was lucky it would smash the life instantly out of her body. If not…I’ll be broken, at their mercy. I must summon the lava! I must!

  But the lava had gone. Her body froze and, with a last despairing clutch at her vanished power, a last attempt to make her numb fingers obey her, she fell.

  The ground hit her far sooner than she’d thought. She felt her body jolt, but—of course, my body must be almost entirely numb now—it hardly hurt.

  I must be broken, though. I’m just flesh now, just human, I must be…

  She started to rise. Through the shadows in her eyes she saw the walls slide by.

  That’s not right. That can’t be… Her mind couldn’t hold onto the thoughts: they slid away from her, smooth and slippery like the shaft walls. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense…

  Then she was out of the shadowed shaft, out into sunlight. The light slanted straight into her eyes, fell warm on her skin, and her thoughts swam in it, floating motes of dust, collecting, finally making sense.

  It’s not the ground holding me. It’s…

  She turned her head away from the light, turn
ed it and saw Coram.

  As before, as almost a day ago, in this same place, all words left her. She stared at him, becoming slowly aware that his arms clasped her, that the beating of his stone wings vibrated in her ears, that they were still rising, through the golden sunlight, up into the hot blaze of the sky.

  Eventually, when words came, they were silly ones. “But I saw you go.”

  His voice, with the stony echoes in it, wove into the beating of his wings. “I came back.”

  They banked in the air. One wing came round in a great curve above them, and they slanted downwards through the slanting sunlight, towards the sand dunes where they dropped away to the cliffs and the edge of the ocean.

  They landed in a flurry of sand, near a clump of scrubby trees and a shallow spring that oozed up through the sand at their roots. She thought she could smell the water, a cold, transparent scent, and her head spun. No, that’s foolish.

  When he let her go she slid, boneless, onto the soft sand under the trees. Its heat struck up through her, like warm oil on dry skin, soaking through the chill and the numbness.

  “Here.” As if he’d known how the liquid trickle of the water called to her, he pushed a twisted-leaf cup into her hands. She took a mouthful, and the cool, green-flavoured liquid was better than anything she’d ever drunk. She gulped again, feeling it ease her sore throat, flow through her body.

  “No bracelets,” he said.

  “They took them off me.” Her voice creaked, and she gulped more water. “They—they knew I hadn’t killed you. They were going to pretend I’d failed, make it so no one would know I’d rebelled and still passed the test.” As she said the words the horror, the sheer panic of those moments in the labyrinth, came roaring back. She screwed her eyes shut, not wanting to say it, needing to tell him…

  “What is it?”

  She kept her eyes tight shut. It was easier to say if she pretended she wasn’t really there, pretended it was someone else’s voice saying the terrible words. “They…they were going to starve me. Until I could not shift—then let the lava through to wipe out the evidence.”

  “I see.”

  She heard the stony rustle of his wings lifting. Panic got her by the throat. Her eyes snapped open. “Don’t! Don’t leave me!”

  “Never.” He smiled. “I’m putting the grille back.”

  “You—how did you reach the controls? They’re back at the entrance, guarded—”

  “I didn’t need them.”

  “You broke it?” Her voice went shrill, uncontrolled. “Coram, I told you, they’ll know—” If the priests knew she’d escaped would they still conceal it? Would her family still be safe? Will they take revenge?

  “They won’t know. They never made it to withstand gargoyle-strength—not from the outside. I bent it only enough to lift it out of its hinges. Once I put it back, if they’re going to let the lava through they’ll never know you escaped.”

  “They’ll think I…”

  “They’ll think you died just like they wanted.” He smiled again, a blazing triumphant smile that warmed her as much as the sunlight, as much as the sun-hot sand. The memory of horror, of panic and loneliness, seemed to melt beneath it, ocean-mist melting in the sun. “Wait, Aera. I’ll return.”

  He rose, a shadow between her and the blaze of the sky, then, as the brightness dazzled her and she had to look down, a shadow that curved and dipped, following the contours of the sand dunes as it raced away.

  She waited, in the sun and the heat, lifting the leaf-cup to her lips, letting the water wash away the thirst, the panic and despair. The priests will think I died. They were going to conceal my rebellion—no one will know, my family won’t suffer. They’ll think I died, but in a holy death, trying and failing to please the god. They’ll grieve, but they’ll not be ashamed.

  The thoughts bloomed, a hundred candle flames lighting in her head, and happiness broke over her like sunrise.

  And I… I’m free.

  But the candles burned no brighter, the happiness seemed no deeper. It even seemed to dim a little, as if, somehow, that thought did not glow but guttered, wavering, drowning in its own wax.

  I’m free. And Coram. But…

  Overhead, a shadow soared, and a second later Coram landed, to kneel beside her, changing shape, becoming once again his human form.

  “Your family?” he said. “If the priests are going to put on a pretense about what happened…?”

  “Yes. They’ll be safe. I—I am free to go…”

  His voice tightened. “You hardly have a choice any more, do you? Even if you regret all this.”

  “I don’t.” She looked up at him. “I regret nothing. I would escape with you whether I had choice or not.”

  “But?”

  “All those others. The girls who came before me—who had no winged lover to rescue them. Girls still to come, who’ll fail or rebel, who’ll face death in that accursed labyrinth. Or who won’t fail and have to live with that. How many of the fire-priestesses hated themselves their whole lives, as I would have hated myself if I’d killed you? Or other people like you, who found themselves unclean without ever meaning to be. Or like your father, betraying their religion out of love, never forgiving themselves for it.

  “Nothing’s going to change. We’re all monsters in the eyes of the priests—whatever gifts we have, we’re all monsters. They don’t treat us like people and they never will. You and I can escape, but it’ll go on. It’ll go on forever.”

  She put the cup down, and had to force herself not to do it so hard the water would spill. “I passed the test,” she said, hearing the fury jump into her voice. “The part of it that mattered. I survived the lava. I am the fire-priestess, this is my city. They should be doing what I say.”

  But she was still too weak to hold onto the anger. It seeped from her, leaving her limp. “I have to leave. I want to leave. But the thought of abandoning all these people—our people—at the mercy of the temple…”

  His voice came from above her bent head. “Do you want to know why I came back?”

  To rescue me. And I know—I’m acting as if it’s nothing, hurting you. “I…”

  “I didn’t know they’d found you out,” he said. “That’s why I lingered up here. I didn’t want to be seen. I was going to wait till night and fly to the temple, look in through every window, try to find you. Aera—” his fingers, dusty and roughened, came under her chin to lift her face to his, “—yesterday, when they brought me to the labyrinth, I was going to fight. I said it, remember? I was going to make my executioner work for my death, and I was going to do my best to escape. Then my executioner turned out to be you, and everything I’d planned got lost. And all my plans changed.

  “But when I’d left you…” his voice trailed off for a moment, and his hand cupped her cheek, “…I remembered—I’d meant to fight. Not just because I needed to in order to escape, but because it—everything, all our rules—they’re wrong. They deserve to be broken. They deserve to be fought.

  “That’s why I came back. To tell you we should never have given up so easily. To tell you we had to fight. By myself, I’d had no hope I could change anything. But with you, with all the power of the volcano that you wield…”

  She found herself shivering, and pulled away from him. “You’re mad. Me, fight the temple? You don’t understand—when the priests shut me in I knew it was to kill me, I was terrified, and all I had to do was touch them to melt the flesh from their bones… but I didn’t. All my power, and I didn’t even think to use it until it was too late. They know my gift better than I do—they’ve understood it for years, I only understand what they let me know. Ever since it came to me, they’re the ones who’ve controlled it. I—” She stopped, getting hold of herself. “Coram, believe me. If I tried to fight them, I would lose.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t know!” she flared at him, ashamed and furious, hating to admit weakness to him. “How can you understand?”

&
nbsp; “Because, when they came, I let them take me. I, too, spent all my life believing they were right, they had control because it was given them by the god. They came, and I knew they meant to kill me, and yet still I did what I was told. It wasn’t till I was imprisoned, and they’d told me my father had died…” His eyes met hers. They held shame, and at the sight she felt her own fade. “Yet still, when I see them, I… I no longer even believe in their god, yet I expect him to strike me, every instinct tells me to submit to them…” He swallowed. “Aera, neither of us can fight them yet.”

  “Then what?”

  “We go north, like we said. We look for sanctuary. We look for those like us. We find them—and when we do, we raise an army.”

  “An army…” Her voice trailed off, but not in disagreement. A picture opened in her mind: hundreds of gifted men and women—holy gifts, unholy gifts, gifts she’d never even imagined—coming, with all their combined powers, against the temple. “That’s—When you came back, that’s what you were coming for?”

  “I was coming back for you. I was coming to persuade you that you’d not be abandoning your family forever. It’d be for a while, that’s all, then we’d come back, we’d remake the world the way we want it.” He stopped, looked away. “I didn’t know if you’d come, still, but I couldn’t leave without trying—”

  “Coram, I couldn’t have. I couldn’t have taken the risk. My family—”

  His eyes came back to hers. “And if you didn’t come, I wanted you to know I’d do it myself. I’d find an army, I’d come back for you.”

  “You… Really? After I’d put my family before you?”

  “What else?”

  Tears stung her eyes. Five years without crying, and now, every moment… She tightened the muscles around her nose and jaw, forcing the tears back.

  “But now,” said Coram, “no one will know. Your family is safe. Aera…” And he said the words he’d said once before, when there was no hope. Before the night when the whole world changed. “Aera, come with me.”

  She opened her mouth to say yes, and found the words had gone. She reached for him instead, fighting the stupid tears, fighting to give him his answer…