Heart of the Volcano

by Imogen Howson

  They’d seen the eruption, and she’d come down to them stinking of sulphur, the ends of her hair crisped by the too-sudden transition she’d had to make. They could not doubt she’d passed the test.

  Yet…

  Yet, as she was directed through the rituals, as she drank and washed her filthy face and limbs in the water they brought her, as she knelt before the standing stone that cast its shadow across the sand, she felt their gazes on her like the chill of the labyrinth, and in her head, louder and louder, she heard the words: They know. They know you failed. They know you betrayed them.

  And fear grew, sliding up through her bones, making her clumsy so that her hand shook—obvious, far too obvious—as she lifted the cup of water, making her stumble as she got up from her kneeling position, making her gaze flicker when she tried to meet theirs.

  They know. They know I failed. What will they do to me? Then, even worse: What will they do to my family?

  And then it was time for her to perform the final ritual, to fit her hand amongst all those others, to summon enough heat to melt her imprint into the stone.

  She passed the knife back to the waiting hand of a priest, left the standing stone and walked back down into the shadows. The labyrinth door stood open once more, but this time the darkness beyond it breathed hot dry air over her. The lava had rushed through so fast it had not had time to stick and set, blocking the passageways, but it had left behind both heat and a thick, airless scent that caught in her throat and made her shut her lips against the desire to cough.

  She reached the threshold, the stone pillars, raised her hand—

  “Not yet.” The high priest’s voice came from behind her and, even standing in the dragon-breath of the labyrinth, she grew cold.

  She took her hand down, but she couldn’t turn, couldn’t look at him.

  “Back to the eye first, priestess.” The words were bland, even reverent, but as she stepped into the labyrinth’s hot mouth the fear became a prickling wave of panic. There was something wrong, she knew it. She’d betrayed herself somehow. Or, no matter how impossible it seemed, they’d seen Coram fly away. Or they— They have some magic, maybe? What do I know of their secrets and their powers? I’ve been wrong about everything. Thinking I had the greatest gift, the greatest power—what if I was wrong about that too?

  The labyrinth passages were narrower than before, the floor a nightmare of uneven hillocks and unexpected dips, where the lava had slowed, stuck and cooled. Later it would be chipped away, carted out and the labyrinth polished smooth once more. Now, she stumbled through it, the darkness blinding her eyes as the fear blinded her mind. If they know, what will they do? What will they do to me?

  The sun had risen to directly overhead by the time they reached the eye, and she walked almost instantly from choking darkness to scalding, merciless light. The cold within her stayed untouched, and she knew she was moving stiffly, like someone in the grip of pain or fever.

  “Where did you kill him?”

  The priest’s voice seemed to slide through her like the cold. She pointed at the dome.

  “How?”

  “With—with my hand.” She set her teeth, willing her voice not to shake, picturing it as if it had happened. “I shifted, and thrust my hand through his chest—”

  “What did you say?”

  “I—I bring you the mercy of the god—”

  “What else?”

  But the only words that came to her now were Coram’s words. Are you my god? he’d said. And later: You can call it justice if you like. Then later still, spoken in the darkness: Aera. Love.

  She opened her mouth to reply, trying to think what to say, and the priest hit her.

  It was an open-palmed slap, straight across the face, hard enough to snap her head back and shoot pain up through her nose, exploding into her skull. She staggered back, hands flying automatically up as if to hold her head together.

  “You lie.” His voice was now not just cold but vicious, sharp as poison. “You lie, you little slut. You let him go.”

  “No,” she said, frantic. “I didn’t. I killed him—”

  This time she saw the blow coming, and flung an arm up to protect herself. It made no difference: he yanked her arm away and struck her again with the back of his other hand, a blow that felt as if it would crack her cheekbone in two.

  “Liar. Do you think we can’t tell? Do you think we don’t see the difference in the face of the fire-girl who goes into the labyrinth, and the one who comes out born again, sanctified? Do you think it wouldn’t show in your face if you’d killed during this last night?”

  As simple as that, then. If she’d murdered Coram it would show. Not to anyone else, maybe, but to these men, who made murder their lives’ work—it would have shown to them.

  Then I’m glad I didn’t— The pain of the next blow, on the other side of her face, knocking her sideways and starting her nose trickling blood down into her mouth, shook the thoughts from her head, leaving her deaf, gasping, nothing more than a wounded, mindless animal trying to cower from the next blow.

  It didn’t come. Instead, he yanked her arms up, held them in a grip that felt it would go through the flesh and fasten onto the bone. The other priest took out a curved, bright-edged knife.

  She screamed, then, tried to struggle, but the first priest held her still. The second priest fitted the point of the knife in between the skin of her left arm and the coldsteel bracelet she couldn’t melt and Coram had not been able to break, the bracelet she was meant to wear until her death. A swift upwards movement, the harsh sound of metal on metal, and the knife jerked up through the bracelet, leaving it to fall, hanging open from its hinge, to clink and bounce on the ground.

  The second bracelet followed it. She looked down at them, symbols meant to last forever, broken and discarded. Around her wrists the skin showed pale, the unhealthy white of something grown in the dark. It was like being stripped, being forced to stand naked before them, and automatically she gathered a fold of her robe up around her hands, concealing the exposed skin.

  Then she looked up at the priests, met their cold eyes, and the shame drowned in returning fear. The bracelets had marked her as chosen, beloved of the god, inviolable. If they were gone, what was she? What had she to do with this place, one of the sacred places of the volcano-god, if she no longer belonged to him? Why had they brought her here?

  “Do you think we can afford this?” said the priest who’d hit her.

  She flickered a glance up at him, trying not to let herself shrink from the hard gaze, from the expectation of another blow. “Afford?”

  “Afford to have our fire-priestesses rebel against us, against the god. Afford for them to try to deceive the god and yet survive the lava?”

  The answer sounded in his voice, gleaming in his eyes as he watched her face. Of course they could not afford it. Fire-priestesses were not chosen by mistake, the gift was not meant to descend at random, on those who did not deserve it. It was sent by the god, and the god could not make mistakes.

  It was one thing for fire-priestesses to try but fail, to weaken and burn themselves to ash, or to panic, give into human weakness, declare themselves unworthy. Everyone knew the path to holiness was hard: not everyone who the god set on it would reach the end. But for a fire-priestess to deliberately rebel, to use the gift for something other than the god’s will…and to succeed…

  For a moment anger rose over fear. “It’s happened before,” she said. “Hasn’t it? Other fire-priestesses—they’ve chosen something other than the path you wanted them to take—”

  “Hold your blasphemous tongue. The path the god wanted them to take—”

  “I don’t believe it!” she flared at him. “If this were known your whole religion would crash down around you! You’ve lied, and lied—”

  “And will lie some more.” His voice cut through her temporary rush of courage. “Stupid little girl. Do you think you’re the first we’ve had to deal with?”

&nb
sp; The sunlight reflecting from the walls of the shaft seemed to harden, turn brittle and sharp, closing her in. She’d known it all along, of course, but now it came home to her, concrete, inescapable: the labyrinth eye would no longer be just the place of her betrayal, but the place of her death.

  They could not let it be known that she’d rebelled and still survived. She’d ridden the lava from the labyrinth, she was the proven fire-priestess, the nearest thing to the god incarnate. It was she who could bring their religion crashing down. If they let her.

  “You’ll be just another failure,” the priest said. “You will have died here, too weak or too afraid to change, subject to the fiery mercy of the god.”

  “You can’t. The other priests saw me—” She stopped at the half smile that came onto his face. “They all know. All of them. They know you’re deceiving everyone, concealing the truth—”

  “Some things are more important than truth.”

  “But my mark. I melted the rock when I fell—”

  He laughed in her face. “You think we’ve never done this before? Trust me, we can erase your mark as we’ll erase you. You’ll leave no memory to break our people’s faith, to prevent other fire-priestesses following the will of the god.”

  He’d stepped back as he spoke, and she became aware she was standing alone in the glaring-bright, empty eye, both priests retreating to the darkness of the corridor they’d come through.

  Up inside the ceiling of the corridor, metal grated against metal. They were lowering the portcullis. They were leaving her here, trapping her.

  And she, with all the power of the volcano in her blood, she was letting them.

  She ran for the entrance, fire breaking through her body so fast she was fully shifted before she reached it.

  Too late. She crashed into the portcullis, sparks splintering around her, lava rising into her eyes so she was momentarily blind—and an instant later heard it clank down. Shutting her in.

  Through the bars—too narrowly spaced to get through, made of the one substance she couldn’t melt—the priests regarded her, their faces impassive.

  “You dare not leave me.” Her voice hissed with the sound of the lava, all the fury of the volcano seething into her head, her ears, making her deaf. “I am the chosen of the god—”

  The foremost priest’s lip curled. “Whom you betrayed, remember?”

  “I’ll burn you. I’ll kill you—”

  “You won’t.” His gaze fastened on her, dead and cold. “We’re starving it out of you, Aera. Your gift is going to go, return to the god, wait for the next—worthy—recipient. It’s going to leave you. And when it does we’re going to let the lava through.” He leaned a little closer. “You failed the test, Aera. And now we ensure you face the penalty.”

  They turned away. Their pale robes dissolved into the darkness, their footsteps echoed away down the corridor, and they were gone.

  Chapter Five

  Aera clenched her molten fists on the portcullis, the metal heating around them, and shook it with all the extra strength of her shifted body. But it did nothing. Locked hard in the rock, held down by its own weight, the portcullis scarcely moved.

  It had to. It had to. With all her power, she couldn’t be caught like this. She couldn’t let them do this to her.

  I will not die here! Sparks flew out around her. Lava ran rippling over her body as she drew on all the power she’d taken for granted, the power she’d thought would always be hers, clamped her fists around the bars and shook them until she felt as if the labyrinth were shaking around her, until it seemed that her molten body would come apart.

  But nothing. Nothing at all.

  Starving it out of you.

  She’d explained it to Coram. To regain expended power, she needed rest and food. For a while, just rest would do. But if she had to go longer, a couple of days, a week, without food, eventually her body would not have enough resources left to summon her gift. She’d be…

  She’d be like anyone else, ungifted, ordinary…helpless.

  And then… We’re going to let the lava through.

  The consequence, merciless and inescapable, of failing the test. As well as the perfect, the only way to conceal her betrayal. To everyone—the girls at the temple, the people of the city, her family—she would be just another fire-priestess who’d failed at the final hurdle, who’d not had the strength to survive the lava. And to Coram, if he ever heard, if he ever found out…?

  He—oh, he said he’d wait for me. She should have told him not to. She’d known that, and she’d been too selfish. And now he’d wait and wait until he heard, and he might not ever hear, he might wait forever and all the time she’d be—

  Dead. I’ll be dead.

  Terror wiped the last of the fire out of her. Her lava froze and her own body came back, pale, shivering, her hands bruised where they clenched on the bars. They’d leave her here, without food or water, getting weaker and weaker, tormented by thirst…

  Then the lava would come.

  No. She fought against the shivering, forced it down into the marrow of her bones, making it wait till later. She would not panic yet, and she would not give up.

  She let go of the bars, looked around herself, forcing herself to take stock. She had no water, of course. The almost-empty water pot had been wiped out, like everything else, in the lava flood. Nor did she have food. But she was not yet in need of either, and once she’d rested a little her full powers would return.

  But what use are they, when I cannot fly, cannot use them to break out of this prison?

  No. She would not let herself give in to despair. Not yet. Not until she must.

  She narrowed her eyes against the sunlight and stared up at the glaring-bright walls of the shaft. Climbing? It seemed impossible. The surface was sheer, polished smooth. But if she were in her other form…if the molten substance of her hands could cling to the walls of the shaft…?

  Part of her—a panicking, squashed-down part—remembered how the lava slid frictionless over the coldsteel surfaces and screamed that it was hopeless. She refused to listen. There must be a way. If not that, then another, but there must be a way. She would not, she would not die here.

  She couldn’t try it yet, though. She was weak from the multitudinous shifts she’d made, cold all the way through to her bones. If she risked shifting now she’d risk losing control, burning herself to death.

  Unbidden, the thought came: If it comes to it, letting myself burn up will be a kinder death than starvation. Or than waiting for the lava to do it for me.

  No. No. She would not think like that, yet, either.

  Although every nerve, every muscle, demanded that she move, do something, save herself, she forced her legs to kneel, forced her body to relax as far as she could. After a moment fatigue helped her, making her head droop and her hands fall, heavy, into her lap. She must think, and conserve her energy while she did so. She must think what to try if her first plan failed, think what would get her free.

  Two exits, both equally impossible. The vertical shaft, or the handspan-thick portcullises, strong enough to keep the most powerful prisoner in, made of coldsteel so she couldn’t melt them.

  There has to be a way out.

  Underneath, where she refused to look, she knew the thought was a lie, a fiction to stop herself having to face the knowledge that there was no way out, that she would die here.

  I can’t get up the shaft. I can’t get through the portcullises. There must be something else. There must be another way.

  A familiar, cacophonous grating sound jerked her out of her attempt at ordering her thoughts. The portcullis. They’re coming back.

  But it wasn’t the portcullis. The sound, ringing and vibrating in the shaft, came from overhead. As she squinted to look upwards, the sunlight was overlaid by lines of shadow, bars slicing the light into blazing, silver stripes.

  They were lowering the grille. The grille that was meant to confine criminals, hold them while they awai
ted their deaths. They were lowering it to confine her.

  She sat still. If they’d looked down—were they looking down?—they’d have thought her still bowed, beaten. But in her lap her hands no longer lay heavy and helpless. They’d clenched into tight, hard fists. And within her rose… Anger, but not just anger: a burning, a white glare behind her eyes.

  They’re treating me like a monster. As they treated Coram—as they treated who knows how many others. As they treat—

  As she began that thought her mind seemed to snap open, like a trap unlocked.

  Anyone with power. That’s what they do to us. Tie us to the temple, doing their work, always in submission to them. Or if they can’t do that—if they have no use for us, or if we rebel—they destroy us. Anyone with power. They destroy us.

  As if the snapping open of her mind opened it, too, to other thoughts, she realized something else. She was at the bottom of a shaft no one could climb up. Yet they’d returned to lock the grille across it. Which meant…

  Which means they have reason to. For five years they’ve circumscribed my power—I don’t know how much else I can do with it. But they do. They’ve lowered the grille because they need it to keep me in.

  Her hands were shaking, but not with fear, with excitement, with energy that built and built. It didn’t blind her to how trapped she was—if they were using that grille it was because they knew it would work, knew it would keep her imprisoned. But this gift is mine. They’ve controlled it because they fear it. They may understand it better than they’ve allowed me to understand it, but it’s not theirs, they can’t feel it in their bones—no one, no one but me can know how powerful it is.

  She waited. The screeching noise of coldsteel on coldsteel had stopped, the grille segments locking into place, but until she was sure they’d gone she dared not make a move.

  Finally, after listening to the silence for what seemed like an hour, she got to her feet, nervous energy still racing in little shivers through her veins. The portcullis was still unmeltable, the walls still sheer and smooth as glass, but now she heard Coram’s voice: that’s not strength, that’s melting point.