Sword of Fire (Through the Ashes Book 1)

by J. A. Culican

  "What is it?" Jaekob asked from right beside her, but she didn't open her eyes. She fought to locate the void’s source, focusing on it with all her will. Her forehead grew damp from the effort. And then she sensed it again, this time longer and stronger. It definitely came from somewhere down the collapsed tunnel. The void didn't feel wrong, not like something that shouldn't be there. Whatever it was, it belonged there, but the idea confused her. Everything had a place in the order of things, but not this void. Wherever this thing was, it owned its space. The image of a king on a throne flashed through her head.

  She smiled. "It's down this one."

  "That's just a collapsed tunnel," he said, stating the obvious.

  "No, it isn't. There's something down there, something strong. It's absorbing my senses when I cast them that way, no matter how hard I focus on it. And though I'm not a dark-dweller fae, like some in Asia, I don't feel like this stone is damaged. I think it's just a crevasse, not a collapsed tunnel. Or they only made an entryway to the crevasse and the new entry collapsed but the crack beyond it is fine. It goes on farther than I can cast my senses."

  He frowned, looking confused. His aura was tinged with brown, confirming he was.

  "What's got you baffled?" she asked. He might well have known things she didn't, and she decided it would be best to find out before she charged down a long crack in the heart of a volcanic mountain.

  "I was just trying to see if what you said made any sense, and well, there are no glyphs and symbols around this one. No markings of any kind. Why would they do that?" He paused, then grinned and snapped his fingers. "That must be where the soul pool is."

  "The what?"

  Jaekob pursed his lips and paused, and she sensed his aura outlined in faint yellow. He must feel fear, or maybe doubt. She fought the urge to ask more questions, instead waiting for him to decide on whatever hesitation had given him conflicting feelings.

  He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "Well, there's no harm in telling you, I suppose, but don't go spreading it around. It's an open secret that dragon settlements each have a soul pool. Safeholme has the largest one in this world, of course. Soul pools are where our spirits go when we die, always to the nearest one. Our souls fly to the pool and merge with it. The energy from those souls is what gives dragons all our powers, including summoning our dragon forms, runecasting, the Wards, and our ancestor artifacts."

  Bells stared at him wide-eyed. Soul pools? Ancestor artifacts? Runecasting? "So, what happens to the souls that get used to power up your mojo?"

  He smiled at her and patted her head gently as if she were an amusing child. She glowered at him. That only made him smile more. He replied, "Nothing happens to the souls. Their power is endless, the only limit being what we can do with that energy and how fast. More souls, faster use by more dragons.”

  Actually, she realized, it wasn't much different than what happened to fae when they died. Fae believed their souls got absorbed by the living world around them. It was the living world that gave fae their powers, just like the soul pools for dragons. The Earth might be just one big soul pool, but for fae.

  “Then,” Jacob continued, “when an egg reaches a certain point in development, a soul leaves the pool to merge with the dragon inside the egg. That's when they begin to commune with their mother and absorb her knowledge, skills, and memories. Why, when do fae do that?"

  "Do what?" It was her turn to feel confused.

  "Commune with your mothers? Absorb what you'll need to survive and thrive after you hatch. I mean, after you're born."

  Bells stared at him, dumbfounded. After the long pause started to feel awkward, she broke eye contact with him and figured she should say something in reply. "Sorry. I don't mean to stare. We don't commune with our mothers. None of the Pures do. Well, except for you, I guess. I didn't even know that was a thing."

  His mouth opened in surprise. Then he said, "So... How do you learn what you need to survive when you're born?"

  "We don't, silly. Our mothers take care of us until we can walk and talk—"

  "—Just like dragons do."

  "Yeah, but the difference is that we learn what we need by learning it. We study, we teach each other, we practice. We hear the trees whispering to us the history of our clan. The grass tells us about the fungi and insects and worms, the life below the surface. The crops tell us how to water them, what to put into the soil for them, how to harvest them, and how many seeds to set aside. We memorize it, but it's all after we're born."

  "You can't talk when you're born?"

  "Can you?"

  Jaekob nodded. "Yeah. This is interesting, but let's talk about that later. What's down this simple crack?"

  She gave him a lopsided smile. "There's only one way to find out."

  He shrugged and squeezed into the crevasse, and she followed. Together, they wiggled their way forward, yard after yard. When they got to the last glowshroom they could see—which Jaekob seemed to think was odd because they usually grew naturally throughout a cavern system, never growing close to another one but filling every available space down here—he pulled his knife out and sliced the mushroom from the wall. "Into the unknown," he said, handing the glowing fungus to her as she took the lead.

  Long after they passed beyond the reach of the final glowshroom on the wall far behind them, holding up the one Jaekob had cut off for her, Bells said, "See anything?"

  "You're in front."

  "Yeah, but all I see is rock. It can't be in a place like this, can it?"

  "I don't know, but this was your idea if I remember—" Jaekob started, but before he could finish, they emerged into a rough, natural-looking cavern complete with stalagmite columns. "Didn't you sense this chamber? You could have warned a guy."

  "No, I didn't. It just felt like the crack kept going. What does that mean?"

  He furrowed his brow, staring ahead blankly, but then looked back at her. "I think it means this is entirely natural. You only sensed the crack in the wall because of the glowshrooms, right? After that, we had to rely entirely on what we could see with our eyes?"

  "Yes. I guess that makes sense. Maybe this cavern was the void I sensed."

  Jaekob shook his head. "I doubt it. After all, you didn't sense a void in the crevasse at any point, and we went through maybe half a mile of it."

  Bells tossed the glowshroom into the cavern's center, lighting up the entire room. It was small compared to the one they arrived in, no more than fifty feet across. Four columns were evenly spaced around the cavern, the upper stalactites and lower stalagmites having grown together long ago. Otherwise, the cavern was entirely empty. It was also humid, and she realized as she wiped her brow that it was horribly hot.

  Jaekob seemed not to notice the heat, though, and walked around examining the walls, ceiling, and floor, looking calm and cool.

  "Aren't you hot?" she asked.

  "Nope. Heat doesn't bother us, you know, but if it bothers you too much, just take off some layers of clothes. And it's hot here because we're in the heart of a volcano."

  "I’m good." She had known it was a volcano, but she hadn't expected to be so close to the magma. Or maybe there were lots of cracks like this one throughout the mountain, some full of magma rising. It was an unsettling thought. "So, where's this sword? It's supposed to be here. I know it is."

  "Maybe, but I don't see it. No altar, no display case, nothing. I don't sense any illusion hiding it, either."

  Bells closed her eyes and focused on feeling the unique vibrations that enchanted items created but found none. "I don't know. Maybe more light would help." She walked up to the glowshroom on the floor and over it, she began weaving a simple pattern in the air over and over again. The pattern glowed faintly at first but brighter with each pass of her hands. She muttered under her breath, but as the light grew brighter, her voice rose louder.

  When she stopped chanting, she thrust her hands out to her sides, palms facing upward. The glowing glyph hung in the air and then
drifted down onto the glowshroom, merging with it. The room was suddenly bathed in bright light—not just a glowshroom's weird glow but real light, as bright as day. Bells smiled at Jaekob, but he stood motionless, tense, eyes narrowed and locked onto something. She followed his gaze—and froze. In the light, the four natural columns were semi-translucent. Within one was the unmistakable shape of a sword.

  "No flipping way," Jaekob muttered. She couldn't have agreed more. "Do you see what I see?"

  "Yeah," she said and walked up to the column. "How'd they get it inside this stalagmite? Or is it a stalactite?"

  "When they grow together like this, they're called columns. And I have no idea. Maybe they stuck it into a stalagmite and the column grew around it. I'm not sure how long that would take, though."

  "I guess it doesn't really matter. So, what do we do? Shatter the column?"

  Jaekob walked around the column, touching it with his fingertips lightly. "That would be a shame, but it might be required. I would never have found this without you—not that I'd even be looking for it if it weren't for you."

  "I can't believe it's this simple. I guess you're right, we're going to have to smash the column to get it out." She stepped away from the column to give him room. "Hulk, smash."

  He grunted and pulled his spear from its sheath. He held the tip to the side of the column and stepped back, gripping his spear like a baseball bat. "One. Two. Three—" He swung his spear hard, the tip making a whistling noise through the air, and it smashed into the column.

  Shards of stone flew in every direction as it came apart in a dozen big chunks, and the sword clattered to the stone floor, its metallic ringing echoing off the walls.

  Jaekob whistled. "Oh, wow. Look at that thing. It's beautiful."

  Bells looked down at it, hesitant to touch it. It didn't look like much for such a mythological weapon. How disappointing... "What's so special about this?" she asked.

  "Everything. I mean, look at the shape. It's a scimitar all right, but not like any I've seen. And see the grain in the guard? It's not Damascus steel, as the humans call it, but it sort of looks like it. More like the grain of wood from a tree, really. And the whole thing is roughly made, like something crafted far before its time. Look at how beautiful the grip is. That's got to be ironwood. Maybe African? It doesn't look like Persian ironwood, and none of the species from North and South America were available when they forged this thing. I guess it could have been available—dragons can fly around the world, of course—but I doubt it. No one knew of the Americas at that time according to the records."

  "Does it matter where the wood is from?" Bells scratched her head.

  "Not really, except that it's a beautiful weapon. I just appreciate what it took to forge this sword back then. It doesn't look nearly as polished as the blades we make now, but—hey! Look at that, there are glyphs etched into the blade along the spine."

  Bells gasped. "They're glowing a little."

  He moved to look at it from different angles. "You're right. I don't even know how powerful those must be to glow now, outside of battle. That's incredible."

  Bells looked more carefully and saw the sword had a weird, mottled look along the spine, the side opposite to the cutting edge. "What's that splotching? I don't even have a word for what that looks like."

  He nodded, his eyes lighting up faint red. "I do. 'Morbilliform.' That's what molten metal looks like when hammer-welded onto another piece of metal. It can even be done with two different kinds of metal altogether. It's beautiful, even if the effect gives people a vaguely creepy feeling."

  She didn't think the "morbilliform" was beautiful. The sword looked crude, like some kind of fire demon had dripped sweat onto the weapon while forging it—though she, unlike her father, knew very little about blacksmithing. Or demons. To be polite, she nodded.

  "Well," he said, "you wanted it and now you have it. Grab that thing and we'll be on our way."

  She hesitated. "You're a warrior. I've never trained for battle. I think it'll do more good in your hands."

  He shook his head, jaw clenched. "No. First, it was a group of other Pures who told you about this thing and I don't trust them. Second, I told you I'm not fighting. This world deserves what it gets as far as I'm concerned. You want to fight? Then you do it."

  "I thought you'd changed your mind," Bells replied. What a waste. He was one of the best warriors in both worlds. What could make a man like him become so jaded? But she'd seen many of his memories when they linked and it made a certain kind of sense. He'd lost so much due to others fighting and now he tried very hard not to care. It was more likely that he used not caring as an armor to protect himself from getting hurt again.

  He made no move to pick up the sword.

  Fine, someone had to take it if they were going to save the Earth. Maybe even save the other side of the Veil, for that matter. She bent down and grabbed the scimitar by its hilt. "So this is Shmsharatsh, huh?" She turned it over, examining the construction. It seemed crude but effective, not nearly as polished as the swords her village forged. "I thought something earth-shaking would happen when I picked up the mighty Sword of Fire."

  "Apparently not. Let's get out of here and try to make it home before dinner." He smiled and walked with her toward the crack in the wall that would take them back to the main chamber and then up to fresh mountain air.

  The hairs on her neck stood and she paused, startled. Something felt wrong. She thought about it for a moment and finally it came to her. "Is it hotter in here than when we came in?"

  "I don't think so. But then again, I'm not the best one to—" He paused, too. "Did you feel that? Like the ground moving? Not shaking, exactly. More like... I don't know, vibrating."

  She shook her head, but both of them turned to the columns when their glowshroom-powered light shifted from a sort of yellow-brown into a reddish color. Beads of sweat formed on her neck and forehead, and the chamber was hot enough to make her feel lightheaded. "I think we should get out of here," she said, already moving toward the crack.

  They didn't waste time talking—the temperature still kept rising. It was becoming hard to even breathe, the air was so hot. Then she smelled something odd, like fermented eggs, and her eyes and lungs began to sting.

  Her leg buckled and she went to one knee. She saw Jaekob bending over her but couldn't make out his words. Ignoring him, she tried to get up again to keep moving, but her vision grew dim and panic washed over her. Suddenly, the ground rushed up at her—

  She blinked rapidly, the wind bitingly cold. She was lying on something cold and wet. She tried to move but her body just wouldn't obey. Snow, she realized. She was lying on snow. What in Creation had happened?

  Jaekob! Where was he? She moved her head to look around, frantic, but found him kneeling beside her. She became aware that he was holding her hand. His eyes were closed and his mouth was moving, but all she heard was a bird-of-prey cry far above them, and a deep rumble from below. The mountain was shaking. She sat bolt upright, but he put one hand on her chest and pushed her back down.

  This time, when he spoke, she heard his words. "Stay down a moment, I'm not done yet." He went back to muttering something.

  The biting pain in her eyes and lungs faded and her vision, which had been narrow to the point where she could only see a bubble of light in the middle of a black cloud, widened slowly until the black frame around her field of vision disappeared.

  He let go of her hand and slumped, head dropping.

  "Jaekob, are you all right? What's going on?" She scrambled to her feet and wrapped herself around him from behind. "Jaekob?"

  He didn't answer, staying motionless on his hands and knees with his head hanging down. At least he was alive, though.

  She stood and looked around, trying to get her bearings. The sight of lava moving slowly through the entryway startled her. It flowed out through the arch and slowly downhill. She and Jaekob were about one hundred feet away, far enough that she could just feel the hea
t on her face and arms. Noxious smoke billowed out the entry and up into the sky, seeming to go up for miles.

  The volcano had erupted. Dragons were immune to all but the most extreme heat, could hold their breath for many minutes, and could breathe air that would kill other Pures. It was a side effect of living underground since the dawn of history, but Jaekob had obviously reached the extent of his abilities.

  "I need water," he croaked. She gathered snow into her hands, already slushy from the heat when she gathered it, and let it finish melting. Then, she poured a little from her hands into his mouth. When the little swallow of water was gone, she got more.

  After she'd done that three times, he smiled and held up one hand. "Thanks. I'm okay, now."

  She wrapped her arms around him again and buried her face in his neck. "Thank you, you idiot. You saved me, didn't you? Instead of just running, you carried me out. Why?"

  "You needed help," he said with a raspy, dry voice.

  Everyone needed his help, but he'd helped her alone. She grinned, face still in his neck and shoulder. "Thanks."

  He took a ragged breath. "If you hadn't noticed the heat first, I wouldn't have known until I smelled the gas. We made it out with only seconds to spare. I think we saved each other."

  She helped him to his feet, then grabbed the sword from where it lay in the snow and handed it to him. He shook his head, hands held out. She said, "I don't have anything here to strap it to me, and when you summon your dragon, it'll transform with you, right? Let's not drop it over Montana, shall we?"

  He huffed but took the sword and strapped the sheath to his belt. "Okay. Whoever said we should get out of here if we're going to be back in time for dinner was right. I'll be so hungry I could eat a horse."

  Bells laughed to discover it wasn't just a human figure of speech. She just hoped he didn't eat the horse at the dinner table. A dragon devouring a big animal was a pretty wicked sight.

  As Jaekob finished his third barrel roll, Bells closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of the light breeze. She had asked him to allow a bit to reach her as they flew. She'd been nervous to fly the first time, but to her surprise, she discovered it was a crazy rush and insanely fun.