Heart of the Volcano

by Imogen Howson

  Aera reached another portcullis, stopped to deal with it, and her mind came back to the present with a jerk as if it had been pulled by wire. Forgetting Coram had been the hardest thing, a constant struggle and hurt over the first two years she’d been at the temple, but she had done it. She’d not thought of him in years, and yet now here he was, vivid and belligerent as he’d always been, standing defiant, legs astride, arms folded, in the middle of her memories.

  She swallowed, took a deep breath, the cold metallic smell of the labyrinth filling her nose as she went under the portcullis and it complained itself slowly shut. It was the journey doing it to her, this last journey towards her test. The priests had told her of this, told her that on this final walk her mind would play tricks on her in a way it hadn’t since the first time she entered the labyrinth. Had she not already seen that? The slip into blasphemous thoughts, the unaccustomed panic, the sudden, unsummoned memories flooding into her head in a way they had not done for years?

  “I will not think of them!” Without meaning to, she said the words aloud, and her voice in the stillness made her jump, her heartbeat picking up, so close to her lungs it seemed to cut off her breath.

  She fought the panic, forcing herself to breathe slowly, making her hands relax. Think of something permissible. Think of something safe.

  The criminal. Strange that it should be a safe thought—the thought of the condemned man who waited in the labyrinth eye, knowing the next person he saw would be his executioner. All the same, it was. Something steady amongst all the swirl of fear and emotion, something she was sure of, something she knew how to do.

  “A man. A blasphemer,” was all they’d told her. That was all she needed to know. She was grateful she would never be called on to punish petty thieves, pickpockets, shopkeepers guilty of short-changing their customers, women who’d broken their marriage vows. Only murderers would come to her, rapists, men who’d seduced women out of their virginity…and blasphemers, the worst of all lawbreakers, whose sin could only be scoured from the world by volcano fire.

  Once she had passed her test, once she had risen from the labyrinth, that would be her task, forever. Every one of the most despicable criminals would come to her, and she would give them death, all her life until the day she died.

  What had he done, the man who waited for her now? Spoken against the god? Tried to wield one of the unholy gifts? Defiled—she shuddered—one of the priestesses?

  It didn’t matter. She brought him mercy. A clean death, enough to wipe out his sin and leave him scoured clean as he passed into the next world. Almost any touch from her, once she’d shifted into her other form, would do it—burn through flesh and bone, sending the heat through his veins, into his body to stop his heart. But she’d been taught even surer, quicker ways. Her hand around his throat or through his heart would kill him before he could begin to feel the pain. Unlike the sacrifices, who leapt into the volcano itself, making the god an offering of their terror as they fell, he would have no time to think, no time to fear. He would die with his eyes full of her, the blazing golden fire-priestess. A good death, a holy death that would honour him, and her, and all their people.

  She’d passed the last few portcullises scarcely noticing. Now, beneath her feet sand rasped, a gritty texture against her soles. Remnants of the lava that had last passed through here—she remembered it from her previous journeys. She was not far now: just a short way ahead waited her test, her inheritance.

  The panic had left her. She felt only a strong, sure excitement, a knowledge that this was what she’d been born for, this was the task she’d waited her whole life to do.

  She quickened her pace around the last tight coils of the labyrinth, and daylight sprang up before her, as bright as direct sun after the darkness she’d been travelling in. She had to pause for a moment, wait for the dazzle to die down, for the winking sunspots to disappear from her vision, before she could see clearly enough to notice the final portcullis in front of her, its teeth sunk deep into the floor.

  Beyond it lay the eye of the labyrinth, a coldsteel-lined shaft wide enough to build a house in, and high enough to fit five houses. At noon, when the sun rose overhead, it would flash silver, unbearably bright. Now, in the waning afternoon light, it drowned in soft silver-grey shadows, the scant daylight filtered still further by the ceiling grille far overhead.

  The grille, like the portcullis, was customary. Both were easy enough to open from outside. But from within the eye… Once she had passed this final portcullis it, like the others, would slide shut, trapping her. The grille was set to open automatically, driven by clockwork, but not until dawn, ready for her to ride the lava-flood up through the shaft and out to her new life.

  Grille, portcullises…more than enough to keep a prisoner confined. It seemed, however, that this prisoner needed more.

  A dome of coldsteel rose from the centre of the floor, a silver pupil in a silver eye. Chains, the dull grey of iron rather than the gleam of coldsteel, snaked from it to the huddle of dust-brown cloak that showed where the criminal lay.

  Chains, as well. Huge chains, at that, as thick as her wrist. The little cold claw returned to tickle her spine. They feared him, then. Did he have gifts of his own? Unholy gifts, which had condemned him? A shifter, maybe. The gift that aped hers, but which forced people to turn animal, abandoning their true, god-given forms, rather than changing them into the purity of molten flame. It would explain the chains; shifters were strong.

  But I am stronger.

  She pulled the lever that put the portcullis mechanism in motion, waited till it rose, screeching painfully against the walls, then went forward, the lava remnants scratching her feet, full of a rising awareness of power, like song, within her.

  The criminal lay still, one arm shielding his head so she could not see his face. She would have felt uncertain—he should be waiting for her, on his feet to face his death with dignity—but she had ritual words to say, and they gave her the confidence, the sureness, of a well-rehearsed performer.

  “I come in the name of the god.” She pitched her voice to carry over the screech of the portcullis as the clockwork went into action, bringing it sliding back down. “I come to bring you the mercy of justice.”

  He raised his head. The folds of cloth fell back, and from across the space that separated them, his dark eyes fixed on her. She met them with a jolt—executioner, looking into the eyes of her victim—but she had been warned about that too. She drew the ritual about her like a cloak, like a shield, resisting the deceptive pull that said I don’t deserve to die. Spare me. Give me the mercy I want, not that I deserve.

  “Rise,” she said. “Stand to meet your god.”

  He laughed. Meeting his eyes had jolted her, but his laughter shook through her whole body as if the ground had quaked. In the face of death, he was laughing.

  “And are you my god?” he said, and if the laughter had not been enough, his voice mocked, mocked her, his fate and his salvation.

  “I come in the power of the god—” For the first time her voice faltered and she checked, appalled at how easily she was thrown off course.

  “To kill me. Yes, of course. Then I think I’ll not stand, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “It’s not all the same—” She checked again. A priestess did not argue with the victim. By the god himself, she could well believe this one was a blasphemer.

  Anger lent ease to her transformation. She drew on it, let the heat rise through her, burning in her hands, her wrists, blazing through her belly, making her quiver, building and building…

  She went towards him, knowing what she looked like, half god herself, something from the pit of the volcano, limbs glowing through the fabric of her dress, her hair turning from black to rust to incandescent gold. In a moment flames would lick out from her eyes, her hair and body would become molten, blazing too bright to look at. He would look at her, and know her, and die.

  He did so now. She saw herself in his eyes, a ti
ny fiery figure, and she reached out to give him the mercy he did not want but would nevertheless receive.

  From out of nowhere, his leg struck out, swinging around to slam into her ankles, knocking them out from under her. Caught in the beginning of the shift, she had no time to react, no time to save herself. She fell, hearing his chains clank and scrape as he threw himself back against the wall—fell hard, on hip and elbow, parts of her that were still unchanged, still ordinary, sensitive flesh.

  She gasped, an unpriestesslike, undignified noise, almost a shriek, trying to orient herself, trying to get back up, and he leaned over her, dragging the chains with him. No, oh no! Shock and fear jabbed through her, wiping out what she knew so well, that no one but a madman would try to rape a lava-shifter. He is truly a blasphemer—the worst kind, the kind that would try to defile the priestess-elect herself!

  He didn’t grab at her. All he did was drag one of the heavy lengths of chain over her fully shifted arm. The metal sizzled, spitting instantly molten flecks over her unshifted flesh, spattering her with points of razor-sharp pain. The chain melted like butter. He was—he was using her to free himself.

  She really shrieked now, a shriek of fury that left no room for fear, and whipped her hand up, fingers clawed, at his face, at his eyes. This is my test—you will not make me fail!

  He jerked back, back and away, springing to a standing crouch, and she saw that although a chain fastened his ankles, and a longer chain ran from that to the centre dome, now his hands hung free. The broken ends of the chains that had bound them, still red hot, brushed the hem of his short toga-tunic, swung against his thighs, and he drew in a hiss of breath, flinching away, holding his hands out to the sides, away from his body.

  She came back to her feet, boiling with rage. “You—how can you think to resist the god? Do you want your crimes condemning you to darkness forever? This is the only way through to holiness!”

  “Holiness.” Incredibly, he laughed again. “No. I’m done with believing that. You can call it justice if you like. I’m calling it murder—and I’m going to make you fight for it.”

  Although her hands had not—quite—touched him, they’d come close enough to scorch his face. Marks sprang up on the flesh now, raw and vivid. There were bruises all down his arms, too—of course he’d resisted arrest, as he was resisting execution. He could carry on fighting, but he was doomed, and he knew it. Still he stood defiant, arms holding the scalding chains out away from his body, legs astride—

  Memory flashed up before her, so clear that for a moment it blocked out the present. Her next breath stuck in her throat, as if she’d turned to not molten but solid stone. She went cold, as cold as seawater, as cold as grief.

  “Coram?”

  Chapter Two

  In her head his name sounded as a shout, a cry of disbelief, but it emerged as a whisper. The coldness was inside her, in her throat, freezing it so she could hardly speak. He hadn’t heard her, and now the cold was so intense she couldn’t speak at all, and he wouldn’t realize. He would think they were still fighting. In a minute he would attack and she couldn’t defend herself, she couldn’t, because this was Coram and he couldn’t be a criminal, he couldn’t be the person she was supposed to kill—

  “No.” His voice, too, came out as a whisper. He stepped back, farther away, eyes fixed on hers. “No. The god is cruel, but not that cruel, not that cruel—” His voice cracked, weakened as hers was weakened—by the shock, by something she’d never visualized happening, had never thought to prepare herself for.

  “I thought you were dead,” he said.

  She stared at him, at the blank shock on his face. His words hardly seemed to make sense. He couldn’t be here. She couldn’t have been sent here to— Not him. Of everyone in the world, not him.

  “Your family,” said Coram. “They never spoke of you, and I thought the training had killed you. I thought you’d burned yourself up, or refused and been—” his voice cracked again, “—been thrown to the volcano. Five years. All the time I knew you might be dead and I would never be told, I would never know.”

  The lava had left her, driven out by cold. If she still knew how to cry she didn’t think she’d be able to. Everything inside her felt frozen, even her thoughts moving like something congealed. When she opened her lips they were stiff.

  “This—it can’t be happening. You can’t be the—the—”

  He said nothing, just watching her, still in that stance, ready to try to protect himself. Or maybe just caught, like her, not knowing what to say or what to do until it started to make sense.

  “Coram.” The word seemed to cut her as it left her throat, leaving her bleeding, not numb even through all the cold. “This can’t be right. You’re not a blasphemer.”

  He gave a little laugh, not mocking this time. “No. I was a devout child, wasn’t I? I believed in the mercy of the god, in what was fair.” One shoulder went up in a shrug. “Not any more.”

  “No.” What he’d said—that did sound like blasphemy, but she couldn’t believe it. Not Coram. She remembered him in the temple, face lit with worship, or arguing—in the god’s name—that the other children had a duty to be kind to her. “Coram, you’re never here because you blasphemed. What happened? Is it a mistake?”

  “A mistake.” That laugh again, so devoid of warmth or mirth it sounded like a bark. “No, that it’s not. Come, Aera, you’re the executioner now. You must know what your victims are.”

  What they are. Not what they’ve done. “No,” she whispered, scarcely out loud at all. The answer was there now, in front of her, but she refused to look at it, refused to believe—what had he said?—that the god could be that cruel.

  “Yes. Two years ago. So much later than it normally happens that my father had ceased to fear it for me, had stopped praying I’d be spared.” He let his arms relax a little, muscles shifting under the skin. “I got my devoutness from him, no doubt. Do you remember him? Do you remember how faithfully he served the god?”

  She nodded. She did remember, now—another thing she’d forced into the past. Coram’s father was the gentlest man she’d ever met. If it had been Coram’s own courage that enabled him to defend her, it had been his father’s example that impelled him to do so. Coram’s mother had died years back, and Coram was his only son, loved as no one but an only child can be. She hadn’t known he’d feared the unholy gifts for Coram. She’d been fifteen, caught up in her own concerns. She hadn’t thought of someone like him having any fears at all.

  “He helped me hide it,” said Coram. “My father, committing blasphemy for me. When they came for me I lied, of course—said I’d kept it from him, said he’d never known.”

  Of all the people in the world, I am the last he should be confiding that to. Did he know she should tell the authorities? Did he think old loyalties were worth anything to a fire-maiden?

  Coram was still speaking, his voice harsh. “But it destroyed him all the same. To believe he’d sinned so damnably… Once he knew it was all for nothing, that he’d failed anyway…” He stopped, swallowed. “He died two days after they came for me. His whole life, living for the god, for what he believed was right, and he died thinking he’d damned himself, put himself beyond redemption, trying to save his freak son—”

  “What—?” The word came out as a croak, but he heard her and stopped.

  “You want to know what it is? Will it make it easier to know? Easier to kill me, when you see the abomination I’m hiding?”

  “No.” Nothing will make it easier to kill you. But she couldn’t say that aloud, standing here as they were, priestess and victim.

  He shrugged. The chains swung down as his arms fell against his body. They brushed his legs and she flinched for him—they could not be cool enough yet, to touch him without pain—but he appeared not to notice. “Very well. Watch, fire-priestess, servant of the volcano-god, standing with all your power in your very own labyrinth. See the path laid before me.”

  And he chang
ed.

  She was looking into his eyes, and change came there first: a swirl of grey spiraling out from his pupils, swallowing up the colour, spreading to transform the whole of both his eyes into the lifeless stare of a statue.

  Then it poured over the rest of him like water soaking through fabric, a tide of grey washing from his face down over his neck and chest and arms, hardening every angle of bone and curve of muscle until they looked like contours on a cliff face. He’d been big at fifteen, and bigger still now he was grown up, but as the stony colour seeped over his skin, his chest and arms grew visibly even larger, muscles bulging under the folds of his toga-tunic.

  He moved, just a little, and it made a horrible grating noise, stone on stone. His head went down, his shoulders tensed, then wings unfolded, huge, stone-feathered wings, arching above their heads like a temple roof.

  When he spoke even his voice sounded different, hollow, echoing, like the wind blowing through empty caves. “Blasphemy or not, then, priestess? Do you believe it now?”

  Of course it was blasphemy. Terrible blasphemy, the worst kind, the kind that was a travesty of her own gift. Turning, not to fire that came from the god, that purified and destroyed sin, but to something less than human, even less than animal. She’d not seen or heard of it before—what is he? Does the gift even have a name?—but she knew all the holy gifts, the fire gifts, and this was none of them. Yet, all the same…

  It’s like my gift. Living stone. Like me. And he’s—oh, I cannot say it to him, but he’s beautiful.

  The words swelled inside her, hurting her chest, making her breath catch. She’d never imagined anything like the way he looked, never imagined that stone, her own substance, the thing she thought she knew so well, could look like this, all smooth grey planes, every line of his body somehow more defined than it had been in flesh.