Aedre's Firesnake

by Rayner Ye

  Memories flashed through her mind of:

  Mining selenite in the Shard of Swords.

  Bamdar buying her from Somare and giving her a home in central Rajanakki—a tropical paradise with a river running through its gardens.

  Her eyes fluttered.

  Images of:

  Doing union on her bridge.

  Rain pouring down and using her aurashield.

  Lying on her back and journeying to the Otherworld.

  Lucidity.

  Discovering river and rain travel.

  Her body jerked from something within.

  Recollections of:

  Bamdar raping her, taking her on luxurious holidays, taking her to Sa Sa Ain’s amethyst pyramid.

  The pyramid’s altar with an eight-pointed star indentation.

  Satsang messages in her dream.

  Taking Bamdar’s star-key from his mansion’s museum.

  She had a floating sensation.

  The remembrance of:

  Getting Bamdar’s permission to practice union alone in Sa Sa Ain’s pyramid.

  His guards waiting outside.

  Slotting Bamdar’s antique key into the indentation and following Maharaanee’s instructions.

  Scrolling to -1,000,000 on the star’s dial.

  Akachi called her name in the distance. But as her sensations floated, her mind sank into Roobish’s consciousness.

  She recaptured:

  The scene of walking into the indigo light and appearing blind in another world.

  Light-intensifying goggles giving her sight.

  Mount Alimazi’s pyramid, Artheus.

  Befriending the Satsang.

  Mahaaraanee naming her Roobish.

  Living with them for many years, then returning to Sa Sa Ain’s pyramid to find the guards still waiting and time frozen.

  Looking in the mirror to discover she’d aged.

  Memories from Roobish flooded through Aedre’s mind like the tsunami through Monkey Forest.

  Flashbacks of:

  Searching for another key in Eeporyo.

  Bamdar following her through and making Eeporyovian hybrids slaves.

  The clay people branding her with a pentacle across her original scar.

  The crow woman, Crowleen, saving her from hanging, then healing the blindness in her eye, showing her the cavern, telling her how dangerous the Satsang was, telling her to gather the eight keys so they could destroy them.

  Crowleen giving her a key to hide in Giok, for her future self to use for her return to Eeporyo. Finding a Giokese stonemason to hide the key in a statue.

  Aedre opened her eyes. Her white dress was dark with Akachi’s blood.

  Sweat rolled down his face, catching the light from the two half-moons.

  “I know where the key is,” she said.

  The river flowed under the roof, missing it by inches. How would she and Akachi ever reach the underwater Bee Goddess statue?

  Pyramid and Star-Key

  Distant screams rang out as rain lashed the flooded village, and waves poured into the house below.

  Aedre bit down, grinding her teeth as Akachi aurashield filled with volcanic ash once more. He cleared the aurashield so they could breathe, then ripped off his shirt. Fresh blood gleamed from a gash beneath his heart. He tore strips from his shirt, then fastened them around his chest.

  “Are you going to die?” Aedre asked.

  The ground shook, and he gripped overhanging tiles on the roof’s edge, tightening his other arm around her. “I have a mission to complete. Where’s the key?”

  “Underwater, two streets away. But there’s no way to get there. I’m paralysed, and you’re dying.”

  “I’m not dying! Can we perform your magic travel from here?”

  She held her breath. “Can try.”

  “Who’ll make commands?”

  She attempted to tip raindrops pooling around her face.“What?”

  “Orders for reaching different places and for changing form?”

  “Are you familiar with Mayleedian spyware?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “You make intentions, then.”

  “Where’s the key?”

  “Inside the Bee Goddess statue in Wayang and Komang’s central garden.” Her hair prickled on the nape of her neck, and her breaths burst in and out. Had Wayang and her family drowned?

  “Mustn’t fall off this roof.”

  “Can you tie us?”

  He laid her down, then holding her bamboo ties, he scrambled over the roof and returned. “I’ve secured your ropes to wooden beams.” He tugged. “Should be stable.” He tied himself to her, lay down, and held her hand. They appeared within a small submarine that beamed its headlights at the statue, surrounded by heaps of bricks.

  Aedre chewed on a knuckle. Were Wayang and her family under there?

  Akachi controlled the sub’s robotic hands to grasp the stone bee. All attempts to smash it remained futile as time ticked away. He conjured a giant submarine, and a robotic clamp squeezed the statue until it cracked, then it pulled it apart. A crystal star, the size of Aedre’s palm, fell to the bottom, then appeared in Akachi’s hand. “Wait here.” He climbed through a hatch in the sub’s ceiling, then returned empty-handed and clasped his arms around her.

  They awoke on the roof.

  “I tied the star in the pleats of your skirt.”

  Her neck tensed with readiness, then her head flopped onto the roof. If only she could move.

  “How're we gonna get to the pyramid?” he asked.

  “You can swim for it.”

  “I’m not leaving you. Look! The water levels have gone down.” He took the star from her skirts and slipped it in his trouser pocket, then secured her to his back, climbed down the building, and waded through chest-high water. The road travelled upwards, and he struggled until they reached dry ground. Then, he whipped a device from his pocket, and it transformed into a hoverboard.

  Aedre jerked her head and gawped. She hadn’t seen one since being in Nerthus.

  He pressed a button, and a seat arose under her. “It’s nearly out of batteries.” With her seated and tied to his back, they drifted along the winding road into hills and mountains. They passed crumbled houses and a few scattered corpses as they followed signs to the pyramid.

  “Looks like there’s been an earthquake here,” he said.

  They hovered past destruction in silence until the pyramid loomed from behind a mountain. Even in the rain, ash and devastation, its beauty gleamed in the night. Crowds of people coughed and held cloths over their mouths and noses. Children cried and clung to their mothers’ legs or were cradled in their arms. Men carried injured children or elderly parents. People screamed and wailed around those who’d already died.

  Groups parted to let Aedre and Akachi through, and Gus greeted them with his mother at the entrance to the pyramid. “Where’s my ba?”

  “Dead,” Akachi said.

  Gus’s mother screamed and fell to her knees. “Somare! No!”

  Aedre bit her lip. It wasn’t technically correct.

  “You’re bleeding,” Gus said to her.

  “It’s his blood, not mine.”

  Gus took lifted her from Akachi’s back as the ground shook again. He carried her into the pyramid, and towards its altar, then lowered her to the floor. Akachi followed and pulled her onto his lap.

  A tingling sensation jolted through her as the task at hand became fuzzy in her mind. Although her body remained indifferent, her heart pulsated to have such closeness to a man. His breath warmed her ear, and his scent filled her lungs.

  Akachi opened his long fingers like a flower, revealing the glittering star in his palm. “What shall I do?”

  Roobish’s memories came flooding back. “Slot it into the gap. The silver-coated point must face directly up, then rotate it two notches, clockwise, to point at the hieroglyph for Kuanja.”

  He rubbed a finger around eight symbols etched into the altar, circl
ing its star-hole—a distinct symbol for Plan8’s eight habitable worlds. “Can you read this ancient writing?”

  “No. Learned it through trial and error.”

  He did what she said.

  “We want to appear from this same pyramid in the future, so only need to press the point once. If we press twice, we’ll go to Pengkarang, central Rajanakki.”

  “Why not go there?”

  “The villagers want to stay where their ancestors are buried.”

  He followed her instruction, and a dial with numbers appeared.

  Her heart raced.

  “When in the future?”

  “It can’t be in our lifetime, or we’ll lose our memories.”

  “Two hundred years, then.” He twisted the dial to +200, followed by three blanks.

  An indigo light emanated from the altar and increased in brightness as it filled the pyramid’s interior. The masses waiting outside must have seen it too because their shouts and chatter materialised all around. Akachi carried Aedre to a sidewall as Giokese flooded in.

  “To take the key out, rub the centre with your fingertip, four times anti-clockwise.” She glanced from Akachi to Gus. “Lead them into the light.”

  Gus and his mother ushered a thousand people through the portal. They went slowly because each had to climb the altar’s amethyst block to enter the light. With no panic or stampede, the light must’ve somehow entranced them. Some entered with family members and belongings, while others went alone with their grief.

  Aedre laughed when the final few people waited in line.

  “Wait.” Akachi pointed to two men still dressed in temple sarongs and turbans. He stood and gestured towards Aedre. “Will you carry the key bearer? She’s paralysed from below the neck.”

  “Of course. Did she bring us the key?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll look after her.”

  “No! I’m not going! We’re finding a way out, aren’t we? You have a hoverboard, and there’ll be boats on Giok’s south coast.” The ground shook, and rocks from a neighbouring mountain bashed the pyramid’s outer walls.

  “It’s too dangerous,” he said.

  “But I’ll be trapped in the future.” Her vision blurred with tears, and her voice broke. “I’m supposed to go home to my dad. The government’s buying me a ticket to Nerthus.”

  “You can return after the air’s clear and tremours stop.”

  “Time will freeze here while I’m in the future unless you take the key out.”

  “It’ll freeze for me?”

  “For everyone.”

  His eyes went round. “I’ll feel it? Being frozen?”

  “No. You’ll never know it happened. But your life won’t continue until I return or someone else takes the key out.”

  “I’ll take it out.”

  “But what about me? I’ll be trapped!”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  “No. I’ll be lost in time.”

  “If you don’t go now, we’ll die.”

  “You have your special aurashield. You can save me and take me to southern Giok.”

  “My hoverboard won’t take our combined weight for more than an hour. I’ll die if I carry you anymore. I’m wounded, remember? You’ll live. The future will have better medicine so you might walk again. You go into that light; you have hope. You stay here; we both die.”

  Her head ached from tension. Would the future be safe? “Come with me,” she pleaded. “Let’s go together.”

  He lifted her, then passed her to the strongest-looking man. “I’ll make it on my own, but not if I carry you.”

  She sniffed and rubbed her teary face onto his chest. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Yes, you could have. I’ll contact your father, what’s his number?”

  “022LU6310.”

  He nodded.

  “You didn’t write it down.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A Mayleedian agent.”

  Giok’s Future

  Aran, the man carrying Aedre, waited in line behind a swarm of villagers pushing to exit the baking pyramid. “Where’s your family?”

  “In Nerthus.”

  “That’s far away.”

  “Where are your family?”

  “That’s my brother.” He nodded towards a smaller guy in front. “The rest of my family are in Rajanakki. I’m a migrant from Rajka.”

  “What were you doing in Giok?”

  “I was working in a hotel. Just a pile of stones now, though. Your Innarmuzzan’s very good.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sunlight blazed down on them as they vacated the pyramid. While most dispersed to explore their surroundings, many stayed in small groups, chatting or sitting on the ground, sobbing. Aran carried Aedre to the hill’s edge. Instead of dusty land bordered by rice paddies, jungle stretched in every direction—no roads or paths, only narrow tracks, made by wild animals. A crowd of villagers talked at once, their chatter resonating loudly in Aedre’s ears. Individuals ran from group to group, conversing with other friends, or tending to the sick and vulnerable. Others scrambled down escarpments to venture into the jungle.

  A low-frequency roar, followed by shouting and screams, caused many to run to the plateau’s rocky verge. Aran carried Aedre towards the trouble. A mountain lioness pinned a man down at the foot of the ridge. Her huge paws dug into his chest as she snarled like thunder.

  The victim rasped for breath. With bulging eyes, he stared at the onlookers. “Help!”

  Aedre gasped.

  Everyone froze. No one dared go near.

  “Daddy!” A little girl cried. Her mother held her tightly, resisting the child’s struggle and looking with pleading eyes at a group of men. “Please, someone, help him!”

  Aran rushed to the pyramid. “I’ve gotta help.” He lowered Aedre and frowned when he couldn’t lean her against the pyramid’s wall. Her upper-body fell sideways.

  “Just lie me down. Don’t worry.”

  He lay her down, then went. She strained her head off the ground as he descended the embankment.

  Another roar shook the air. Shouts and cries from bystanders followed.

  “Daddy!”

  Aedre’s pulse banged in her ears.

  Aran scrambled over the slope and returned, shaking his head. “It’s too wild here.”

  “What happened?”

  “The lioness crushed his skull with its jaws. He’s dead.”

  The little girl’s mother wailed loudest.

  “It’s too dangerous.” A woman bet to hug three small children around her legs. “Can’t we go to a different time?”

  Aedre swallowed. Should they go farther into the future? Where had civilisation gone?

  “Look, Mama,” a child said. “There are houses in the clouds.”

  Aedre’s breath stalled, and her lips parted. She squinted into the sky.

  Far above clouds were infrastructure, much higher than any she’d seen before. It didn’t twinkle, but was black, and didn’t seem to be connected by steams like sky cities in Nerthus. Rather than Biluglass stems holding it up, it seemed to hang as if someone had pinned it from above.

  Aedre’s carrier pointed. “That’s where we need to go.”

  “Bet there ain’t no wild animals up there,” the woman with three children said.

  An elderly woman sat by Aedre. Aedre felt nothing when she rubbed her arm. “I can’t get up there with my old bones. Doubt you can either, hey?”

  “No.”

  Some men came close and argued over what to do. Some suggested they build homes on the hilltop and others wanted to split into smaller groups to look for new places to stay. They said a lot had gone over the hill’s edge in different directions, and not returned, while others had planned on bringing back firewood, fruit, water, and materials for weapons.

  Aedre’s gaze searched the throng of people for Wayang, Komang, the grandfather, and kids, but so f
ar, no good. Gus and his mother emerged from the crowd. His face was wet from crying. He looked at Aedre. “Sorry. If I knew you were lying on the ground like this, I would’ve done something. You need shade. Your skin’s burning.”

  “I looked for shade,” Aran said. “But even that pyramid’s not casting shadows at this height of the day.”

  “How about inside?” Gus asked.

  “Can’t you remember how baking it was in there when we came out?” Aedre asked. “That amethyst doesn’t cool like stone.”

  Gus nodded and sniffed, then wiped his remaining tears with the heel of his hand.

  “Been crying?” someone asked Gus.

  Gus nodded and put an arm around his mum.

  “What’s your story?”

  Gus sighed and looked at his feet. “Someone told us my ba died in the eruption.” His mother sobbed again, and he squeezed her closer.

  Aedre swallowed as she thought about Akachi’s lie to hurry them on. Had Somare died?

  “Also,” Gus continued, “my fiancé drowned. Her brother told me. Said her room caved in from a tremor before the tsunami. He had to leave her there to survive.

  Aedre blinked tears down her face. “I’m so sorry.”

  The man who’d asked Gus patted Gus’s back. “Yeah, I’m sorry too, Bro.”

  “Can we go back?” Gus asked Aedre. “Then we can travel to the future again, but further from now.”

  “But there’s sky infrastructure,” Aedre said.

  Gus followed her gaze to the sky. His jaw dropped. “So there is.”

  Aran sat beside her and the elderly woman. “I don’t get why they want to live in the sky and not on land.”

  “For the same reasons as Markaz and Nerthus,” Aedre said. “To sustain wildlife.”

  Gus frowned. “Can we try it? You, me and Ma?”

  “Okay.”

  Gus carried Aedre into the pyramid, and his mum followed. He lowered Aedre at the altar, as Akachi had.

  She blinked. Akachi. Did he survive? Or did his body lay in ashes?

  She searched Roobish memories regarding how to return through a portal without a key in her end. “Put my hand over the empty keyhole.” Gus placed her hand on the amethyst block, its star indentation beneath her palm. “Take us back.”

  Nothing happened.

  Her head pounded. She moaned. “It’s bad enough not being able to move or feel or touch. Someone must’ve taken the key out, maybe Akachi.”