City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market))

by Yep, Laurence

  Scirye

  Scirye exhaled slowly, hardly believing she had survived the wild ride.

  Kles’s head turned from examining himself to his mistress. “I think your hair’s singed. Yikes!” he yelped as Pele stamped her foot angrily, making the slab rock up and down like a teeter-totter.

  “My charms work good,” the goddess declared.

  “Of course, of course,” Kles agreed hastily.

  They were floating in a huge lake of lava in the center of the crater that they had seen from the air in the eastern half of Roland’s island. Smoke and steam rose up in streamers, soaring up into the ball overhead so that it was possible to see across the crater. Surrounding them were the crater’s black walls, about a quarter mile away on all sides.

  The lava on the shore of the lake had partly cooled and solidified, forming a crust of twisted, jagged stone. But there were plenty of holes through which smoke and lava oozed in ribbons, mixing with other streams so that the lake’s rim was framed in a flaming net.

  About ten yards beyond the lake’s rim rose a ring of cones, some twenty or thirty feet high, from which lava fountained in a brilliant spray of light. It was, thought Scirye, like being surrounded by fireworks or dazzling flowers that were forever changing their shapes.

  The lake itself was rougher than anything they’d been on so far. The molten rock churned about them like the waves of a storm-tossed sea. Patches of dark, half-solidified lava rode the surface like crumbling rafts. A constant low, bubbling rumble filled the air, punctuated every now and then by the ugly gurgle of gas exploding, scattering flaming rocks the size of footballs and gobs of lava about.

  The group might have been in serious trouble if Pele had not slapped her foot against the surface. “Behave!” Instantly the lava calmed down. “Roland’s wizards are controlling the lava with such a powerful system of spells that even I’m having trouble making the lava do what I want. I’m trying to keep it quiet”—the goddess’s face wrinkled with strain, as if she were wrestling with an invisible opponent—”but the lava keeps wanting to move.”

  “We’ve got company,” Bayang said, pointing to the east at a giant woman some twenty feet tall with yellow skin and red hair that had been twisted into braids. On her head was a horned helmet, and she was dressed in coveralls with a leather apron and boots. Fortunately, she had her back to them.

  “Muspeli,” Bayang whispered to her companions. “They’re fire giants from the north. I once had a mission at Muspelheim, their home. Roland must have hired them and brought them here.”

  The female fire giant certainly seemed at ease in the midst of the volcano. She swung her huge sledgehammer with quiet efficiency, shattering some lava that had begun to cool and solidify along the sides of a channel. Lava flowed along the huge trench from the lake and out through a gap where the crater wall had been shattered and the debris heaped on either side. A rolling sheet of steam rose in the distance where the lava met the sea, hardening and widening the island.

  In between blows, the giant yelled instructions to a half dozen fire elementals. Larger and more intelligent than the elementals that resided in lanterns, these generally resembled globes with tentacles, though their shape changed for what the task required and they could even take on human shapes if their employer demanded it. Fortunately the entire crew was too absorbed with their tasks to notice the intruders.

  Near the fire giant was a fifty-foot fire salamander with black and yellow stripes nosing among the rocks as it looked for some tidbit. It’s grazing, Scirye thought, just like some ox. Around its great head was a halter of some iridescent metal and slung over its back were panniers of the same material to guard against the smoking debris from the channel.

  Bayang reached out cautiously. Scooping up a pawful of the hot mud, she shaped it into a globe. Then, drawing back her arm, she whipped it at the salamander’s rump.

  The lava ball didn’t burn the tough hide, but it startled the creature so that with a loud bellow it bolted across the rocks away from them, scattering boulders in her wake like pebbles.

  Throwing down her sledgehammer, the fire giant gave chase, calling for the salamander in some foreign tongue while the fire elementals trailed after her.

  “Good. That will keep them busy,” Pele said, still laboring to keep the lake flat. With another motion of her hand, a lava current picked up the board obediently and carried it toward the shore.

  At the last moment, Pele swung the board broadside so that its side bumped against the lake’s edge. “Be careful. Sometimes the rock crust is thin. If you break through in the wrong place, you can fall into lava.” Crouching, she held the slab steady against the stony shore. “Get off now.”

  Koko tested the surface gingerly before he finally clambered off the board and the others quickly followed. As she climbed onto solid ground, Scirye felt the stone crunch under her feet and saw the hundreds of tiny needles along its surface.

  Pele was the last on board the slab and as she got off, she gave it a kick that sent it spinning out onto the lake, which had already begun to boil again. Without Pele’s protective power, their board began to crumble along the edges, its rocky sides melting to join the lava already in the lake.

  Pele jabbed a finger at Koko and commanded, “Kupua, change into a fire giant.”

  Koko turned so that they could not read his lips as he said the spell. His outline blurred and then became a creature like the giant, widening quickly but no taller than he had been as a human boy.

  “Is that as big as you can grow?” Pele giggled as she looked down at Koko.

  “I can’t grow any larger because I can’t change my mass,” Koko said, irritated.

  “It’s a question of taking what you need from your surroundings and adding it,” Bayang said. Her own outline waved and then expanded upward twenty feet. The next moment it grew sharp again and a female fire giant was standing before them. “In this case, there’s plenty of fire to use for padding.”

  “Show-off,” Koko grumbled.

  Pele patted Koko on the top of his head. “What’s the matter, kupua? Did you flunk your transformation lessons?” In the blink of an eye, she had swelled thirty feet high, becoming a fire giant herself. Then, after squinting up at the sun, she nodded to their left. “This way west.”

  Lava fountained from a nearby cone, spraying dabs of lava on them, but so powerful were Pele’s charms that they might just as well have been raindrops.

  Fine gray strands drifted through the air and Leech tried to catch one. “What’s that?”

  “They look like something from a giant spiderweb,” Koko said nervously.

  “They call that my hair.” Pele tugged at the strands on her own head.

  “Some of the lava is like molten glass,” Bayang added. “When it falls apart in the air, it stretches out into fine threads.”

  With the goddess leading, they began to trudge across the lava slowly, toward the crater wall a quarter mile away. The lava here had solidified in wrinkled lumps that would made walking difficult, and jets of steam and gas hissed from fissures so that it sounded to Scirye like they were inside a giant tea kettle.

  Pele scanned the rolling, lumpy surface, and listened intently to the noises around them. Every now and then, they detoured when she told them the crust was too thin ahead of them.

  They came to another section of cones some thirty feet high that rose around them like giant tents. Fortunately, these cones didn’t seem to be active so perhaps they belonged to an earlier stage of the lake.

  As they rounded one of the cones, they suddenly came upon a man on a platform. His robes were covered with magical symbols that must have protected him from the fire, the heat, and the gases. Apparently they didn’t work against falling rocks because he was also wearing a dented football helmet on his head.

  The platform was covered with a complex pentagram with various devices at the points. One looked like a star constructed out of animal bones and feathers. Another was a pyramid constructed
with bubbling tubes. At a third point was a crystal globe in which a shadowy blob writhed and twisted.

  In the center, the man looked very harassed as he tried to monitor the devices and at the same time stir a cauldron filled with a bubbling white fluid like melted marshmallows. With a twist of his paddle he sent the fluid surging to one side.

  A fire giant some forty feet tall stood next to the platform, providing excellent shade. “First you stop the lava. And then you send it too fast, wizard.” So the wizard was working the spells that made the lava flow so furiously on the lake.

  “I told you that I don’t know what happened before. Suddenly the stuff in the cauldron went all stiff. We’ve got to make up for lost time, Surtrson. We’re already way behind Mr. Roland’s schedule,” the wizard argued. “We’re supposed to add ten feet a day to the island.”

  “Do we backtrack?” Bayang asked Pele softly.

  The goddess shook her head. “No, we have to hurry. What if Roland’s only here a short while? We could miss him. Let’s see how good our disguises really are.”

  “Perhaps you should let me do the talking then,” Bayang whispered to Pele. “I don’t think there are many Norse giants with Hawaiian accents.” Pele nodded.

  Surtrson tugged at his belt, which was ringed with a variety of hammers. “The plan was made up by wizards who never left their homes. It never took into account that the more the island grows, the farther the lava has to travel.”

  “Go ahead and tell Mr. Roland that,” the wizard dared him, swirling the fluid even harder. “As for me, I try to do what I’m told.”

  Surtrson scratched his cheek. “Maybe we should open up another chan—” He stopped when he caught sight of Scirye and Leech. “What are human children doing here?”

  With the pleasantest smile she could manage, Bayang said, “A sorceress’s family came here to buy one of the homes on the west side, but these children wandered off and got lost. We’re just taking them back, sir. Lucky their mother gave them such powerful charms or they’d be charcoal by now.”

  The wizard squinted at Koko. “Hey, aren’t you a little small for a fire giant?”

  Koko dipped his head respectfully and then added several more bows for good measure. “I’ve been a little sick—the Shrinking Influenza.” Koko gave a cough in illustration and then tried to look pathetic. “I’ll get bigger as I get better.”

  Surtrson scratched under his horned helmet. “I never heard of that.” He stared at Bayang and then Pele. “And how come I’ve never seen you two before?”

  “We just got hired,” Bayang said, trying to look like an eager new employee.

  That was when Pele drew back a huge foot, and with a kick demolished one leg of the platform. Instantly, the magical apparatus tumbled off the platform and smashed onto the crater floor.

  “Are you crazy?” the terrified wizard screeched from the middle of the debris.

  Instantly, the crater floor began to tremble. Scirye couldn’t help looking behind her and gave a yelp herself when she saw the lava flooding out of the lake so that the shore was crumbling like thin pie crust.

  “What’re you doing?” Scirye asked, shocked.

  “Running,” Pele said. She had already scampered ten yards away.

  Bayang smiled weakly. “My friend’s always playing practical jokes. What a card, huh? She’s the life of the party.” She would have started after her but Surtrson blocked her way.

  “Who are you?” the fire giant demanded, taking a hammer in either hand.

  “We don’t have time for this,” the wizard shouted. “Let’s get the fire salamander. Maybe we can get it to plow a trench to stop the lava from flooding in this direction.”

  Surtrson, however, stayed where he was. Looking suspiciously at Bayang, he waved a hammer toward the oncoming tide of lava that washed toward them. “That would just be a hot bath for real fire giants, but fake ones might burn their tootsies. Let’s see what happens.”

  Bayang, though, trusted to the charm that Pele had given them. “That’s fine with me. Frankly, that one”—she jerked a thumb at Koko—”could use a good wash.” She nodded down to Scirye and Leech, who were still in her arms. “But I think Mr. Roland wants more than their ashes.”

  Squatting, Bayang grabbed a broad rock and nodded for the children to get on. Then she raised it to the level of a huge boulder, where they slipped off.

  “What’re you doing?” Scirye asked in a low voice.

  “Just watch,” Bayang said, and strode toward the surging lava. “Could a fake fire giant do this?” she inquired. Stooping, she made another lava ball and flung it straight at Surtrson. “Or this?”

  With a laugh, he ducked, and the missile splattered over the rocks behind him. “Hey, no fair. I haven’t got any ammunition.”

  “Too bad,” Bayang said, sending another lava ball his way.

  Surtrson tried to dodge, but stumbled over the uneven rocks and caught the fireball squarely on his belly. The force knocked him backward and he broke through a patch of thin crust so that steam and gases shot upward around him. Surtrson tried to rise but couldn’t. “I’m stuck. Help me up.” He stretched out a hand as big as a wheelbarrow.

  There was a ripping sound as Bayang hauled the giant to his feet.

  He twisted his head around and looked behind him. “Whoops. Excuse me while I make some temporary repairs.” The fire giant unbuttoned his coveralls so that the top half hung down like a skirt. By now, he was laughing so hard that little amber tears were falling from his eyes. “I haven’t had this much fun since I left Muspelheim. What’s your name?”

  “Sigrid,” Bayang said. “Sigrid Eriksdotter.”

  “Well, Sigrid Eriksdotter,” he said, picking up the hammers that he had dropped when he had fallen, “I like a prank as much as the next guy. But I’m afraid our boss doesn’t have any sense of humor. I’ll have to report your friend.”

  “Ingeborg Bjornsdotter,” Bayang supplied quickly.

  The giant nodded. “Maybe I’ll see you in the cafeteria later. The cooks make sure the meals are hot enough for us, but the flaming venison loaf is a little too peppery for my taste.” He marched toward the widening lake as the wizard ran to keep up with his strides. “But for now I’ve got an island to save.”

  Bayang got the flat rock again and held it so Scirye could get on again.

  As Leech joined her, he said, “That wizard didn’t seem too powerful to me.”

  “No, he’s probably just an average one,” Bayang said, “but he’s using a set of spells and charms and devices created by a legion of the best wizards. All he has to do is operate the setup—just like someone driving a car that’s built by someone else.”

  Next to them, Koko hopped up and down on the steaming rocks. “Hey, hey, how about giving me a lift, too?”

  “Don’t you want to stay behind and help Surtrson?” Bayang grinned as she added him to her armload.

  “No, thanks. I’m allergic to work,” Koko insisted.

  Leech asked, “Why did Pele knock over the cauldron?”

  A siren began sounding an urgent call. “To make such a big mess that most of Roland’s employees are going to have to come here. It wouldn’t surprise me if she turned on the alarm herself.”

  “She’s using us as part of the distraction,” Koko groused. “She really made patsies out of us, all right. She might as well have painted targets on our backs.”

  As she balanced on the rock in Bayang’s hands, Scirye shook her head in hurt puzzlement. “Why did Pele desert us like that?”

  Bayang started to walk west again. “She never promised to stay with us.”

  Scirye frowned in disappointment. “But she seemed so honorable.”

  “Just because she’s done us some favors doesn’t mean she’s our friend,” Bayang explained. “Tumarg is for humans. Goddesses live by their own rules. You might keep that in mind about your Nanaia, as well.”

  Scirye had never been a particularly devout person but she thought she shoul
d defend her goddess. “She’s just as angry about the museum as we are.”

  “I’m just warning you against blind faith,” Bayang said. “I trusted the dragon elders and look where it’s gotten me. Whatever Nanaia wants you to do may not be in your best interests.”

  Scirye had thought Kles would side with her, but the griffin conceded, “True, but as I see it, we have no choice now but to go on.”

  Scirye was still reluctant to think the worst. “You don’t really doubt Nanaia, do you, Kles?”

  “I just wish you had asked my opinion before you made that rash vow,” her griffin replied. He relented a little when he saw how uneasy he and Bayang had made his mistress. “But since you’ve given your promise to Nanaia, I’m here to help you keep it.”

  “It may all work out for the best,” Bayang said, “but it would be wise to watch out for any nasty surprises along the way.”

  As if in answer, the smoke and vapor suddenly stopped rising to the ball above and began to swirl across the crater floor, blurring everything.

  “Pele must have gotten to the wizard controlling the smoke,” Bayang said. “She’s trying to sabotage all the magic holding this island together. But that would create a catastrophe for all of Hawaii.”

  “Well, that does it,” Koko huffed. “As of today, she’s off my Christmas card list.”

  Bayang

  As the smoke and gas swirled around the crater floor instead of rising into the air, their pace became even slower. And without Pele to show them where there was solid footing, their progress slowed still more because one or the other of Bayang’s feet sometimes broke through a thin spot in the crust and she would have to stop to extricate it from the hole. Most of the time it was only empty air beneath but once there was lava that burned the sole of her boot. And both of her legs were gashed by the sharp edges of the breaks in the crust.

  Leech glanced overhead to see that the volcano’s vapors no longer gathered into a ball overhead but were spreading outward in a roiling black cloud. “More of Pele’s sabotage, I’ll bet,” he said, pointing above them.