by Jason Herc
"Do Seekers meditate? To control their Flame?" I asked.
"I believe they do something similar to what you call mediation, although I'm not exactly sure. It's what they call cultivating their Flame." Ember turned away to scan the surroundings.
I would need to grow my Flame, then, just like growing a real fire from a spark to a blazing furnace. If even this little spark left me feeling like I could conquer the world, I could only imagine what the Flame of those gods had looked like.
I really wanted to find out more about becoming a Seeker.
"You want more, don't you?" Ember asked, turning back to me.
"Do you blame me?"
"No. I want more, too."
"Of me, or the Flame?" I flicked my eyes to the breast I had teased earlier.
"Why not both," Ember replied with an inviting smile.
"You know the deal."
Ember nodded. "Don't worry. I'll get you through the Bog safely." She pointed to more red specks in the distance.
"Fire gnats?" I asked.
She nodded. "We should go soon."
"How long do you need to rest?"
"Not much longer—"
Something crashed against the thin stone pillar, which, remarkably, didn't snap. It swayed instead, and I reached out to grab Ember to regain my balance. She fluttered her wings rapidly to maintain her own balance.
"What was that?" I asked.
"I don't know!" Ember cried out. "One of the many things we don't want to run into here. Hurry! Hold on!"
She rushed to grab me in an embrace again, wrapping me between her legs.
Our mysterious attacker smashed the pillar again, sending both of us over the edge, but Ember managed to take flight before we had fallen too far.
We rose above the pillar and continued upward, but Ember's face was tight and strained.
"Are you hurt?" I asked.
"No, but my wings are tired. I had been hoping to rest a little longer."
I looked back at the thin pillar. A wave of lava splashed against its side, and the pillar shook again. Something within the depths of the lava was clearly attacking our former resting place.
"Where's the next pillar?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," Ember replied. "They're usually spaced fairly evenly through the Molten Bog, as if some great being planted them on purpose."
"To help cross the Molten Bog?"
Ember laughed, although her face was still strained. "No. The pillars are likely the leftover parts of some ritual. Maybe even the ritual that created the Molten Bog itself."
Created the Molten Bog? What were the limits of power in this magical realm? What could I hope to achieve here?
For the first time, I wondered whether I would want to return to Earth.
I would have to meet Crowley's contact, Master Beastley, first, and see if this wasn't all a pipe dream.
It was then that I noticed a buzzing sound over the continuous rumble of the molten rock beneath us.
A large group of red specks was growing closer and closer. I could make out their individual shapes as they approached. Each creature was about the size of a seagull, but instead of a beak, they had a single long needle-like snout, and their wings fluttered too rapidly to see. Dark red scales covered their bodies, and except for their wings, they looked more like a lizard then an insect.
Dozens of the small buzzing creatures jostled about as they flew toward us.
"They're swarming!" I cried out to Ember.
Ember struggled to fly faster, but in her fatigued state, she was too slow to outrun them. The swarm of fire gnats was gaining on us.
I searched for any signs of a landing spot, but there was only roiling lava beneath us now.
"Ember!" I released one arm from our embrace, lowering it to grasp the sword at my belt. I hoped that it wouldn't come to an aerial fight even as I realized the hopelessness of our situation.
"They'll want your blood," Ember warned. "Be careful. Their bite can poison Seekers."
"Only Seekers?" I asked, but the fire gnats had reached us.
The closest one dove at us, trying to spear us with its sharp snout. Ember managed to lash out with her tail, driving the fire gnat away, but another one clipped her wing.
I drew my sword, trying to make sure I didn't stab myself or Ember as we tumbled forward through the air, both of us screaming.
CHAPTER 6
Buzzing wings and needle-pointed snouts swarmed all around us.
Ember swatted the fire gnats with her wings, but she couldn't afford more than a single attack at a time before she had to beat her wings again to maintain our altitude.
I swung my sword wildly at first, but I didn't have a good angle to attack without hurting Ember.
Ember cried out as a fire gnat nicked her.
"I'm going to turn around!" I yelled to Ember over the angry buzzing.
I need to point my sword away from us, and the easiest way to do that was to let go of her and face the other direction. I would have to trust Ember to hold me on her own.
"What?" Ember asked.
"I can't help while facing you. Just don't drop me!"
Ember yelped again in pain. She could have dropped me into the lava below and escaped unscathed. This would be a test of just how important I was to her.
Ember adjusted her grip on me, and I twisted around. She ended up wrapping her arms around my chest like a harness while she wound her legs around my own.
I swung the sword at a fire gnat beneath us. I managed to catch the creature's wings with the tip of my sword. The injured fire gnat plummeted to the lava below.
My Ember yelled again in pain, as she swiped above her with her wing.
I whacked another fire gnat across its head with the unsharpened side of my blade, then stabbed another fire gnat's wings, tearing them.
"Spin!" I shouted.
Ember understood immediately, rotating with her outstretched wings in two directions and my sword in a third. We spiraled twice, scattering the immediate members of the swarm that had been harassing us.
The fire gnats buzzed angrily as they regrouped beneath us.
"Careful!" Ember yelled above their loud droning. "They've caught your scent."
Damn. She was right. The fire gnats stayed below us and began pecking at me, mostly avoiding Ember.
I knocked away more fire gnats and even managed to send a couple more into the Molten Bog, but there were too many of them.
"Shit!" One of the fire gnats had stabbed me in the shin. Its snout had bounced off my shin bone, but it had drawn blood.
The fire gnats let out a high-pitched whine, and they started hurtling toward me with greater urgency. Another one stabbed my left forearm as I raised it to shield my face from another attack.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
The cuts on my leg and arm throbbed with a burning pain. I had been cut with a knife before, but these wounds, which should have been fairly light, hurt far more than I had expected.
I had a decent pain threshold, but the pain in the two cuts grew greater and greater, the burning sensation spreading along my wounded limbs. Was this venom? The poison that Ember had mentioned?
I screamed from the intensity of the burning as it spread across my entire body, but my scream wasn't one of fear or suffering. It was one of anger.
Crush them. Destroy them.
I would squash the overgrown gnats like the insignificant little bugs that they were.
"Aidan!" Ember shouted. "What's happening? I can feel you—"
"Drop me," I ordered.
"What?"
"Drop me and move away. I'll only need a second."
"What are you talking about?"
The swarm was still clumped up right below us, keeping track with Ember's increasingly erratic flight. I pointed my sword at them. "Send me to them. Just don't forget to catch me afterward."
"Aidan…"
"Do it!" I roared. I swung at an attacking fire gnat, slicing it in half, whether by luck or
skill.
Ember released me, and I fell into the swarm.
For a moment, the swarm consumed me, stabbing me in a dozen places, but I ignored the pain, instead focusing on my annoyance and anger. I wanted the gnats gone, and that desire possessed me.
I spun, faster than I thought possible, my blade slashing through flesh the entire time.
"Aidan!" Ember screamed.
Less than a full second had passed. I let my body go slack and pointed my sword downward and away from me. The air grew hotter as I plummeted, by Ember was keeping pace with my fall.
A pair of arms hooked underneath my armpits tugged upward.
We kept falling, but Ember fought to slow our descent. The boiling lava rush up to meet us.
My strength, my will. The rage that had pushed me to the brink of sanity slowly retreated.
We had probably fallen half of our original height by the time Ember reversed our fall and started flying higher again. My skin crackled with pain from the searing heat of the air, but we had made it. I glanced up and behind us.
The swarm was mostly scattered, and only a few fire gnats still pursued us.
I didn't know if I had killed or simply scared off most of them. Or maybe they had tasted my blood and had their fill. More pain blossomed from the fresh cuts across my torso and limbs. Soon, my entire body was wracked in wave after wave of burning.
"Can you handle the rest?" I asked weakly.
"Yes, I should be able to," Ember replied. "But what about you? You're poisoned."
I didn't reply, instead closing my eyes to focus on my mantra, trying to block out the pain.
I visualized my Flame, which was easier than before. As I held the vision of the Flame in my mind, the pain receded bit by bit. I continued reciting the mantra in my mind while focusing on my Flame. Soon the pain was a mere whisper of what it had been.
My Flame flared brighter, but now, something was different. Streaks of black marred my Flame, which had been a pure, brilliant white before. The black streaks shimmered and flickered like they were made of fire themselves. It was as if I had a second dark Flame within my original Flame.
Was this the poison from the gnats?
The darkness within my Flame beckoned me. It had a familiar air to it. I reached out with my mind to touch the flickering darkness, and I inhaled sharply at the sudden rush of emotions that flooded me.
I am a hunter, killer, destroyer. I am unstoppable. I am—
I drew back from the black Flame. That black Flame held a dark and seductive power. And I knew why it seemed familiar. The voice was exactly the same as the one I heard when I grew angry.
No, it wasn't anything new. I had always had it.
I had channeled this black Flame somehow, first when I had killed the drakeling and witnessed dark flames crawling along my blade. That was before the fire gnats.
This second time, when I had scattered the fire gnats, I had tapped into that raw emotion of rage and hatred on a stronger level.
Did the fire gnats poison me, or did they simply bring forth something that was already lurking within me?
I opened my eyes to find Ember studying me.
"Whatever you did, you Flame is different now," she said. "Less sweet. Yet delicious, in a different way."
"I think I…" How did I explain what I had done? "I think I drew the poison into my Flame. But that same poison makes me stronger, too. Does any of this make sense to you?"
To my surprise, Ember nodded. "What's poisonous to one can give strength to another." She nodded her head at the few fire gnats lurking in the distance. "They thrive in the heat of the Molten Bog, while even I would die in its depths."
Why would Seekers avoid this poison, then, if it made them stronger? There had to be something I was missing, a hidden cost or some other drawback.
That damn Crowley must have known what was going on. Ember had said his strength was hidden, like he was a Seeker himself. Why hadn't he explained anything? He could have taught me the basics.
Or maybe he was teaching me. Nothing taught a lesson as well as firsthand experience.
Ember swatted away a lone fire gnat. The remaining creatures seemed to lose interest in us and buzzed away.
The fire gnats had learned their lesson, hadn't they? And I was only beginning to learn mine.
We continued flying across the burning sea of lava.
***
We crossed the remainder of the Molten Bog in relative safety, resting on two more of the mysterious stone pillars along the way. No invisible beasts from the lava attacked us, and we were able to outrun any fire gnats once Ember was well-rested.
After what must have been at least an hour of flying, I spotted something black on the horizon.
Land.
The ground was black, and a gray smoky haze filled the air just above it, different from the Night Fog.
"Is that where we're going?" I asked.
"Yes," Ember said. "The Black Plains. Scorchweed isn't dangerous to most demons, but you might want to stick to the rock-covered paths where they can't grow. Their constant smoldering could burn you."
We approached the edge of the Molten Bogs, which cooled down to solid rock, eventually meeting up with a grass-covered plain. The tall stalks of black grass were nearly my height, and thin wisps of smoke trailed from their tips. Ember set us down on a patch of dirt and rock.
A lingering fire gnat had followed us to the borders of the two regions. It was still a couple hundred yards behind us.
"Will it keep following us?" I asked.
"Only for a short distance," Ember said. "They tend to stay near the Molten Bog."
"Let's hurry, then."
"No, wait. I have another idea. It might help with your Path."
That caught my attention. "My Path?"
"I don't know much about Seekers, but I do know that they collect cores from beasts and demons." She pointed at the approaching fire gnat. "The ones we killed over the Molten Bog aren't recoverable, at least for us. But if we lure that one over solid ground, we can scavenge its carcass for its core."
"Core? What's that? An organ?"
"Beasts and lesser demons like myself can't cultivate our Flame, but we still gather a small amount over the course of our lives. It resides in a core. Seekers can absorb the Flame from these cores."
Absorb Flame and grow more powerful? That sounded like a good idea.
I nodded in agreement as I drew my sword. A dark residue had stained the rusty blade. I tried to flick away the leftover gore, then wiped it on a ripped pant leg.
The fire gnat came closer, the buzz of its wings growing steadily louder.
This time, I tried to avoid letting my emotions take over me, instead focusing on the calming sensation of my original Flame.
My strength, my will.
Ember gave me a questioning look. "Should I…?"
I shook my head. I needed to learn how to use a sword if I was going to survive this place. Eventually, I hoped I could find a teacher, but for now, I'd have to figure out how to hack and slash with this rusty piece of metal.
"Let me," I said.
Ember stepped to the side and behind me. I faced the fire gnat on my own, readying my sword.
The fire gnat shot forward, trying to skewer my head with its spiky snout.
I ducked to the left while slashing through the air with my sword.
We both missed.
Since there was only one fire gnat, I tried something different. I tried to focus on my Flame, visualizing it in my mind, while keeping my eyes open. A gentle warmth flooded my body, but I was distracted for a moment.
The fire gnat tried to spear me again, but I wasn't ready to counterattack and had to roll to the side on the ground. My left hand touched a patch of scorchweed.
"Shit!" I yelled, jerking my hand away from the smoking grass.
Well, that hadn't worked.
Ember rustled her wings as if to attack.
I held up my stinging hand to motion her t
o stop. "I've got this. I'm experimenting."
This time, I didn't try to visualize my Flame. I also tried to avoid letting the darkness take over. Instead, I waited, relaxed and ready for the fire gnat.
When it attacked, I sidestepped neatly and swung upward.
My blade caught the fire gnat in the middle of its body, but the rusty blade wasn't sharp enough to cut all the way through.
I flicked my sword hard at the ground, throwing the half-severed fire gnat away from me.
The fire gnat's wings buzzed for a second, then slowed. It waved its ten slender legs at me like a bug on its back. I stabbed it in its head, and the creature went still.
Clearly, I had much to learn about this Flame business, as well as how to use a sword. I cleaned the sword again on my pant leg and examined the rusty blade.
And it wouldn't hurt to find a better weapon.
Ember came over and knelt by the dead fire gnat. Her finger tips glinted as razor sharp red nails extended from them.
She ripped the scaly skin of the fire gnat apart, then reached into its midbody. She withdrew her hand and shook the wet gore off it before opening her fist.
In her palm was a shiny, spherical object, about the size of a walnut. It had a yellow tinge with streaks of black swirling within it.
"Here," Ember said. "Your first beast core." She placed it in my own hand.
The beast core was surprisingly dense, although its surface was soft and spongy.
"What do I do with this?" I asked.
Ember shrugged. "Seekers can absorb cores."
Absorb? I studied the pattern of black swirls embedded in the light-yellow ball. They reminded me of the specks of black fire within my own Flame.
I wasn't sure if taking the fire gnat's core into me would be the smartest thing to do. Not without more information.
"I need to learn more. I'll hold onto it for now."
I put the core into my left pants pocket, which was amazingly still intact. I noticed that Ember didn't seem to have any pockets either.
I wanted to practice fighting with the sword, maybe collect some more of these beast cores. I couldn't see any more fire gnats near us, though.
Ember seemed to understand what I wanted. She smiled. "Don't worry. They'll always be plenty of chances to kill things in the Abyss."
