Fire Heart

by Dan Avera

  She laughed—a high, lilting noise that both made the man melt with desire and recoil in horror at the same time. There was something about her voice, something strange...like catching a faint smell of rot beneath the scent of roses. Or lemons. “No, I suppose you don't,” she said with a smile, exposing perfect, even teeth that glistened wetly in the dim light. She stretched, and the innkeeper's eyes were drawn to her body once again—a body that was clothed in a strange, clinging leather outfit that seemed only to cover the most vital areas of her form. She crossed her legs, and the man's eyes flicked down to the bare, pale flesh of her thigh. He swallowed nervously.

  “Well,” he gasped after a moment, “I am off to bed now. If you need anything, do not be afraid to call for myself or Fadoré Galliston.”

  She stood then, holding him in place with her gaze, and walked toward him like a predator on the prowl, sliding her hand along the back of the pew as she came. “Do you know,” she breathed, her voice hitching with the barest hints of a chuckle, “I've just caught a scent on the wind.” She closed her eyes lightly and ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. The hiss of her skin against the wood sounded disturbingly like a snake preparing to strike. “A taste, too. 'Tis old, and powerful. Very powerful. Have you any idea what it might be?”

  The Fadoré's eyes flicked nervously from side to side. “Ah...I, ah...”

  “Of course you don't,” she continued. By then she was at the aisle, and she turned and sat on the edge of the pew with her back to the man. The Fadoré had not moved, and she leaned toward him, her muscles taught beneath her flawless alabaster skin. That strange scent flooded his nostrils once more, and now he was sure of it—lemons. “You've all forgotten the old ways,” she purred, reaching up and running her fingers lightly through his hair, and then she did chuckle—a high, nightmarish sound that reminded him of a touched woman he had seen wandering the streets once. “But 'tis time you remembered them, I think. Do you know what you need?”

  “N-No,” he whispered. Her beauty was no longer captivating, but disturbing. He was suddenly very, very afraid of this woman.

  “You need,” she breathed, pulling his head toward her and licking his ear, “a touch of madness.”

  There was something in her other hand, he realized—something dark and bulbous, insubstantial in the dim light of the candles and flickering like a shadowy flame. It quivered in her palm, a low growl emanating from deep inside it, and then it pounced. The Fadoré flinched away, instinctively raising his hands to cover himself, and he felt something tap him lightly on the brow. He heard the woman chuckle, and after a moment he slowly uncovered his head. She was walking away, the soles of her boots clacking against the stone floor, and then she disappeared out the front door without another word.

  The last thing the man remembered was the sight of her receding backside and a burst of lemon scent; then, with a sharp tug on his mind, he was catapulted screaming into a nightmare filled with rending claws and razor-sharp teeth.

  Nineteen

  When the Titans finally assaulted the Black Fortress, nothing could stand in their way. What little remained of the Dark One's horde was swept aside like so much dust, and the few that survived fled to the dark reaches of the world.

  Soon only Keth remained, seated upon the Throne of Shadows deep inside the fortress.

  “Brother,” he hissed when the Titans entered the throne room, and his eyes were for the souls of Koutoum alone. “You have betrayed me yet again.”

  “No,” said the Phoenix Empress. “It is you who have betrayed yourself.”

  “You started this,” the Dark One snarled.

  “To our everlasting shame,” the Dragon King admitted sadly, “we did. But your madness has forced our hand.”

  “Would that there had been another way, Brother,” the Phoenix Empress said, and a tear rolled down her cheek. For a moment the darkness clouding Keth's face cleared, and he blinked in surprise. But it was back a moment later, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Enough of this,” Forod said. “He must be punished for his crimes.”

  “You,” the Dragon King and Phoenix Empress snarled together, “will be silent. You four are to blame for this as much as he is. We will no longer stand idly by and allow your blind rage to govern his fate.”

  Then they turned as one to Keth, who stiffened and shrank back in fear. But before he could flee into the shadows the flames burning within the Fire Hearts ignited, driving away the darkness and bathing the Black Fortress in blinding light.

  “Keth,” they said in unison once more, “for your crimes against the Titans, the Void, and the Mortal Realm, you are sentenced to stand trial. May mercy find your soul, for you will not find it in ours.”

  ~

  The first blow shook the entire City, sending Will on a drunken stumble across the slick coral. The second blow swept away what little balance he had regained, and he crashed to the floor in a jumble of rattling armor and colorful curses. Clare landed atop him a moment later, and his vision flashed with stars as her armored forearm whacked him smartly across the temple.

  A deafening wail tore through the air from outside—a nightmarish, primal scream that made Will clap his hands over his ears in agony. It continued long and unabated, and somewhere along the way his own scream joined the mix, though it was drowned out amid the thunderous cacophony.

  When it finally ended he could only lay there for a long while, dazed and deaf, the high-pitched ringing in his ears all he could hear. Borbos' face swam into view, and the Titan started yelling something at him that he could not understand. He saw the Sea Spirit over Borbos' shoulder, its kelp body churning alarmingly fast. The blue glow in the cavern seemed to have intensified as well, and Will found himself distracted by the dancing lights overhead.

  And then his head whipped sharply to the side; he felt his neck crick, and his cheek stung fiercely. He looked back up to see Borbos, the Titan's hand poised for another slap.

  His hearing came back abruptly, just in time for the third impact. The City shook again, and dust and tiny animals began to trickle and tumble down from the ceiling like some kind of freakish rain. Borbos' hand soared toward Will's face a second time, but Will caught his wrist at the last instant. The Titan nodded grimly and pulled him to his feet.

  Clare looked groggily up at Will and shook her head as though to clear it of cobwebs. He helped her stand, but then almost fell again when the City shook once more. The tremors subsided a moment later, and he released his grip on her arm when she nodded her thanks.

  “Borbos,” Will asked frantically, “how much more of this can the City take?”

  “A lot,” the Titan replied with a grin, though it looked forced. “Fear not, lad. The City in the Waves designed itself to be a bastion against the Behemoth. And it won't be long now until—ah, perfect.”

  Will was about to ask what he meant when another earth-shattering roar split the air. This one, however, was different—deeper, stronger, enraged like a plains lion protecting its cubs. Will stumbled over to the long window just in time to see, some distance away, an incomprehensibly massive wake plowing through the sea toward them. He caught a glimpse of an armored shell and an enormous tail before it disappeared beneath the waves. An instant later, however, water erupted upward in a massive torrential geyser that reached almost to the bottom of the window, and Will saw, for the first time, the Leviathan in its entirety.

  It roared again, its gaping maw filled with row after row of serrated teeth, and its two pointed, crab-like front limbs rose high into the air, the ends level with Will's field of vision. Water fell from its body in great sheets, pouring down to the waves below like a monsoon. Its cry reverberated through the air, ending in a low, menacing growl that Will felt as much as heard.

  And then, perhaps a quarter of a league away, the water began to churn, swirling and collapsing in on itself to create a giant whirlpool. From its center emerged something straight out of a nightmare—the Behemoth. Its flower-petal maw opened wit
h an ear-splitting screech, and the roping, snake-like tentacles in its mouth writhed and lashed at the air. A putrid stench rolled off of its tubular body, like carrion that had sat out in the sun for far too long. Will gagged and covered his mouth and nose, trying desperately to hold back the gorge that had risen in his throat.

  The Leviathan struck first, scything its front limbs down through the air and plunging them deep into the Behemoth's gaping maw. The Behemoth screamed in pain, but then wrapped its tentacles around the Leviathan's legs and craned backward with all its might. The beasts engaged in a colossal tug-of-war, pulling back and forth in a struggle to gain the upper hand, their bodies kicking up waves that would have toppled the mightiest ships like pieces of driftwood.

  And then, to Will's complete disbelief, the Leviathan lifted the Behemoth bodily out of the water and swung its writhing form through the air toward the City.

  “Get down!” Borbos shouted, and Will dove to the ground just as the monster slammed into the tower of coral. The impact this time was so strong that the ground literally bucked beneath him, tossing him into the air so that he landed hard on his shoulder. He winced in pain as his arm twisted awkwardly beneath him, and behind him he heard a thump and a choked wheeze. He rolled over, shielding his face from the shattered shards of coral that tumbled and shot through the air, and saw Clare gasping for breath and trying to stand. He scrambled to his feet and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, and she looked at him in confusion and pointed at her ear. He repeated his question, shouting it this time, and she nodded.

  “Borbos!” Will cried. “We have to get out of here! This whole place is going to come down around our ears!”

  The Titan, who had righted himself and was watching warily at the window—which, thanks to the Leviathan, was now much larger and rimmed with jagged stumps of broken coral—shook his head and made a shooing motion with his hand. “This be the safest place short of land right now, lad!” he yelled back, his words nearly drowned out as the monstrous combatants loosed another synchronized roar. Will took Clare's hand and pulled her, stumbling, over to Borbos. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a mass of thick, flailing tentacles before they disappeared from view, leaving in their wake a demonic shriek of pain. The sickening stench of rot wafted through the air, and Will gagged once more.

  “Father,” the Sea Spirit's voice intoned, “I am forced to think that this is no longer a safe place to be. The Dragon King is correct.”

  “Agreed,” Borbos growled after a moment's hesitation, ducking as the City shuddered from another mighty blow. “Quickly—to the inner sanctum. We can watch the battle from there.” He stood and trotted away from the window with Will and Clare in tow.

  At the back of the room was a low hallway curtained by long, thin strands of some kind of weed, which Borbos held back and motioned for the others to go through. The Sea Spirit had once again formed into the semblance of a human body, and it trotted down the hallway, its kelp strands quivering in agitation. Will followed close behind, still holding Clare's hand, and as they passed beneath the weed curtains a dim, blue-green light began to emanate from the coral on the other side. As soon as Borbos passed through and let go of the weeds, he dashed ahead of them.

  “This way,” he called, stumbling slightly as another tremor shook the City's foundations.

  He led them down a maze of tunnels that branched seemingly without rhyme or reason. Will had seen the insides of a termite mound in the Southland plains once, and the constant twisting and turning of the City's highways made him think of the tiny pathways inside the hill. The notion was rather disturbing, and he half-expected giant insects to begin swarming across the walls toward them. You know, he thought ruefully, I wouldn't even be surprised.

  The blue-green glow followed them wherever they went, lighting their way and illuminating the countless organisms that called the coral home. Gradually, as they went deeper into the hive city's innards, the sounds of battle faded away and the tremors became little more than faint rumbles beneath their feet.

  “This place is huge,” Will said as they went. Before, when he had seen it from afar, the scale of the City had not truly registered in his mind. Inside of it, however, its immensity awed him beyond measure.

  “'Tis,” Borbos agreed. “You see now why the City be in no danger of destruction, not even from the Behemoth. The coral has had millennia to grow, and it will never stop. A more sturdy structure has never been designed.”

  “It feels...empty, though,” Clare said.

  Borbos sighed sadly. “Alas, another thing I be sorry for. You should see the place during peacetime. If you think the forest folk can throw a grand party, you've never met an Islander.”

  The tunnel opened then, widening abruptly into an enormous cavern. The blue-green glow was brighter here, more powerful, and the sky-blue lights of the Sea Spirit mingled and danced with it, basking in its radiance. A pool of water, glassy and undisturbed, lay in the very center of the cavern. Borbos slowed as they neared it, and then came to a halt at its edge. Will was filled with an overwhelming and inexplicable sense of reverence, as though he had just stumbled across the graves of the first Titans themselves.

  “What is this place?” Clare asked in a hushed voice, looking around in awe.

  “The very center of the City,” the Sea Spirit answered. “Its heart. It is also the source of my power.”

  “What about Borbos?” Will asked; he would have directed the question to the Titan himself, but Borbos seemed to be paying them no attention. Indeed, he appeared to be completely preoccupied with something in the depths of the pool, and was staring at it intensely.

  “He is the source of its power,” said the Sea Spirit. “It also draws strength and life from the Void where Beros' spirit dwells, very much like Feothon's forest and Serah's city Falcos.”

  “What about Leyra?” Will asked.

  The Sea Spirit gave a strange, burbling noise which Will took to be a chuckle. “Dinn is a creature of hard logic and cold practicality. Her home is a simple fortress in the far north. She relies on the biting cold and the might of her Northmen to keep Horoth safe, and her trust has never been misplaced. Horoth has never fallen, not even in the first days—not even during the Great Fall. The gollom saw to that.”

  “Ah,” Will said. An image popped into his mind of Leyra backhanding the Fallen into submission, and he smiled. “And...what about me?” he asked, the thought occurring to him suddenly. “Do I have a home like that?”

  “In the shifting sands of the Kahara Desert lies the Dragonskeep, an immense fortress built by the first Dragon King,” the Sea Spirit replied. “It is neither an inanimate castle nor a living thing like the Dark Forest or the City, but something in between. I have never been there, for it is too far from the water, but I can feel its presence in the Void—like a bonfire in the night. It is powerful beyond imagining, as is Castle Phoenix to the south.”

  “I see,” Will murmured quietly. He moved forward and peered into the pool's glassy depths. It seemed rather unremarkable; there was nothing on the bottom save for more coral, and its only peculiar feature was its surface, which continued to remain completely undisturbed despite their footsteps.

  “Please,” the Sea Spirit said, holding out one kelp-fingered hand, “do not stand too close. If you touch it, there is no telling what might happen.”

  Will backed away several steps. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “So long as only Borbos or I interacts with the pool, the City will live. If an evil soul touches it, however, the City will die, and I along with it. The corruption would be too much for us to withstand. I do not know what would happen if another Titan touched it, but...I would rather not find out.”

  Will nodded, shaken. The whole City—and the Sea Spirit—depended on this meager little pool for their continued vitality? “That sounds...tenuous,” Will said. “It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult for an evil something to get in here...”
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br />   “Normally the City is rife with activity,” the Sea Spirit replied. “Its more powerful denizens would spot an intruder in mere moments. However, as you know, it has been evacuated. I am sorry that you could not see it on a normal day. It is a wondrous place.

  “In addition, however, a malignant entity would have to pass through countless wards to get here. You did not feel them as we came because Borbos willed it. Had he not, however, even the Dragon King would have had a difficult time getting to this place alive.”

  Will looked back at Borbos, who continued to stare into the pool's glassy depths. “What's he doing?” Clare whispered, echoing Will's thoughts.

  “Creating a viewing plane, I believe,” said the Sea Spirit, and as if to add credence to his words the water began to bubble and froth at its center, and then rose in a twisting, swirling column, tracing little tendrils through the air as though questing for something. After a moment it spread out in a line, slowly filling out into the rough shape of a window pane.

  The whole process took only a few moments, and when it was over the water hung suspended in the air like a sheet of glass, its edges wavy as though seen through heat-distorted air. Borbos turned back to them. “Now we can watch,” he said. “Without the constant fear of death, I mean.”

  The water shimmered slightly, and then an image came slowly into focus.

  It was a view of the City's base seen as though from the bow of a ship moored perhaps half a league away. The two colossal beasts continued their duel, sending water cascading into the air and shattering the pristine white coral into clouds of dust and razor-edged shards big enough to break a galleon in two. Great chunks of the City tumbled through the air, landing far off in the sea where they might as well have been pebbles in a very large pond.