Fiasco Heights

by Zack Archer

  Off in the distance.

  A wall of fire that stretched from the ground up to the top of the cavern.

  The flames danced in the wind, creating a barrier between us and what lay on the other side.

  “All this for nothing,” I said. “There’s no way we can make it through that thing.”

  Aurora mad-dogged the fire. “Get out.”

  “What?”

  She looked over. “We walk from here.”

  “But how—”

  “Get out of the sled now, Quincy,” Aurora said, her voice gaining an edge.

  The wave sleds powered to the ground and then Aurora keyed the active camouflage application on both, concealing them. I wanted to ask why we weren’t continuing on in the sleds, but Aurora didn’t seem to be in the mood for a discussion, so I let it go.

  Satisfied that they wouldn’t be seen, and that the Morningstars weren’t anywhere in sight, we checked on Atlas who seemed to be sleeping comfortably.

  “We’re not gonna leave him are we?” I asked.

  “He’s alive and we don’t have a choice,” Aurora said.

  “But what if—”

  “There’s no other way,” Quincy,” Aurora said. “He’d do the same with any of us if the roles were reversed.”

  Realizing there was no other way to accomplish the mission, we picked up our gear and padded across the sand toward the wall of flames.

  Aurora tossed me the trap bottle as we drew closer to the firewall.

  Even with my protective singlet, the heat from the fire was intense, causing my eyes to water, singeing the tiny hairs on my knuckles.

  I turned to the others. “Who’s up for walking through a wall of flames, because Ricochet is a little hesitant.”

  Splinter’s nose scrunched up. “Wait … what’s a Ricochet?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s kinda my new superhero name.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says yours truly.”

  Kaptain Khaos shook his head. “That’s not how it works, Q. You don’t get to choose your name.”

  The others nodded. “Besides, we were thinking something more along the lines of ‘Refraktor’ or ‘Vibrator,’” Lyric said. “Right, Lib?”

  Liberty nodded, and I groaned. “But those sound like names for sex toys.”

  The ladies winked at the same time. “Which is why they suit you.”

  Great. I’d become a sex toy for two incredible superheroines. I mean, I was completely fine with that, but still. The names just weren’t working for me.

  “Well, I’m not down with those,” I said. “I demand a cooler name.”

  “NIGHT FIRE!” a voice boomed.

  I flinched and looked back and there he was.

  Striding out of the dust.

  It was Atlas.

  Big as life and twice as intimidating.

  He was alive and standing at an angle, favoring his right side (the one that bore the brunt of his wound). His chest was still shiny from his injuries, but the bloodstains were old ones. Suffice it to say, he looked much better.

  “Your power comes from harnessing the energy which is strongest when the darkness comes, so your name, if you choose to accept it, is Night Fire, Quincy.”

  I didn’t think Night Fire was as dope as Ricochet, but hey, I’d take it.

  “Thank you,” I said softly. “Are you okay?”

  Atlas nodded. “I’ll live.” Then to the others, he said: “The question is, why are you hesitating?”

  I stabbed a finger in the direction of the wall of fire.

  Atlas snorted. “The moment we decided to come down here, the die was cast,” the big man said. “The time for clucking tongues is over. We either go forward or we end it here, but there is no going back.”

  “So, which one of you has the power to walk through fire?” I asked.

  Nobody responded.

  “Should we go back and get somebody else?”

  “We don’t need anybody else,” Aurora said. “And Atlas is right. We’ve come this far. I’ll show us the way to the other side.”

  She moved forward and I, with much trepidation, followed her. Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to take another moment of the heat, that I might burst into flames, the air grew cooler.

  Indeed, once we drew to within twenty feet of the wall of flames, the searing heat vanished.

  “It was an illusion,” Splinter said.

  “Tell that to my knuckles,” I replied, holding up my fist to show that the hair on my fingers had been scorched.

  “A very effective illusion,” Liberty added.

  “Designed to scare off those who were never meant to be here,” Lyric said.

  I shot her a look. “Which is probably us if you think about it.”

  “We were meant to be here,” Aurora said, holding up the tiny crimson bottle at the end of her necklace. “After all, we have a key.”

  Before I could ask what she was talking about, she’d pried open the lid on the bottle and flung a portion of the red liquid at the flames.

  As soon as the liquid splashed the fire, the flames roared, howling like a pack of wolves.

  I watched Aurora studying the path forward, whispering to herself. Then she closed her eyes, made a sign on her chest with her fingers, before charging headlong into the wall of fire!

  I gulped, closing my eyes, certain she’d be turned to ash, but the strangest thing happened.

  There were no gasps or cries of anguish. Nothing was uttered, and when I opened my eyes I saw the tail-end of her, disappearing into the flames as if plunging down into a pool of water.

  Her frame, her outline remained visible, however, appearing like a ghost on the other side of the fire.

  Her hand suddenly reappeared through the flames and beckoned us.

  We traded a long look, and each of us knew what had to be done. Aurora had found a way through the wall of flames, which meant it was time to save the fucking universe.

  Atlas nodded at each of us. “Alright, we’ve chosen our madness,” he said. “We make a run through the wall of fire to save everything. The time for deliberation is over. Let’s do this.”

  We steeled ourselves, held hands, and then we ran into the flames.

  33

  Seconds before we reached the wall, an opening appeared in the middle, a doorway, a flap of sorts that was barely large enough to dive through. I realized this was the reason we hadn’t flown in on the wave sleds.

  We pulled up and jumped through the flap, which felt like squirming through a waterfall of warm gel.

  I closed my eyes as I slotted myself through it, then fell onto the other side.

  I lay next to Kaptain Khaos, the two of us wiping away the gel from our faces. Glancing back, I saw that the flap had closed shut.

  “They say the man who goes in through a door is never the same as the one who comes out the other side,” the Kaptain said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea at all. But it sounds kinda appropriate given what we just did.”

  He stood and extended a hand and pulled me to my feet. I looked around to see that we were on a rocky escarpment that sloped down to a roiling river of lava. The escarpment and river were housed inside another cavern, although this one had fluted columns pressed into the distant walls that made it appear as if we were standing inside what was left of some massive religious temple.

  Thankfully, there was a source of light far overhead, almost like a battery of LED lanterns, that snapped on with every forward step we took. I assumed the Elementals had created this space and put the lights in place in case anyone was brave enough—or stupid enough—to venture this far.

  I inched forward to see that at the end of the escarpment was a colossal overpass.

  “That’s it,” Aurora said. “That’s the Bridge of the Requiter.”

  We strode forward in hushed silence, taking in the bridge, which was an engineering marvel without any pillars or suppor
ts of any kind. A single piece of uninterrupted alien alloy that rose up at a nearly impossible angle, connecting our position to another cliff on the other side of the river.

  I looked around, but besides the bridge and the river, there was nothing in sight, and nothing stirred.

  “This doesn’t look so bad,” I said. “What happened to all the monsters?”

  Splinter slapped me on the shoulder. “What’s that old saying from your world? Just because you don’t see any ripples, don’t mean there aren’t any crocs in the water.”

  “Let’s go,” Aurora said. “Our time grows short.”

  I moved up and walked alongside her and pointed to the glass bottle which was still in her hand. “That was a helluva key you had back there.”

  Aurora nodded, looking down at the bottle that held the remaining portion of red liquid. “The one thing that could open the doorway. The blood of an original Elemental.”

  “Whose blood?”

  “Greylock’s. It was given to me upon his death.”

  “Why you?”

  She smiled tightly. “Oh, didn’t you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “I’m his daughter.”

  Boom.

  Fuck no, I didn’t know that, and the news struck me like a punch to the gut.

  I mean, I had abso-positively no idea that she was kin to the big cheese himself, but standing there, jaw agape, it all made sense. There was a reason why Aurora was so committed to the mission. There was a reason she’d repeatedly risked her ass (and everyone else’s) to come this far. This wasn’t just some ordinary job for her.

  In my heart of hearts, I knew it was, in a way, payback for the murder of her father.

  It was personal.

  Aurora moved toward the bridge, and I just stood there, watching her go. “I fear she carries the weight of the universe on her shoulders now,” Atlas said, striding alongside me, his gaze fixed on Aurora. Even though he appeared to have recovered, the whole ordeal had cost him some of his vigor. His lip quivered, his color was bad, and it seemed as if he’d aged ten years in the last thirty minutes.

  “I didn’t know about her dad.”

  “The others guarded him, but I was one of Greylock’s strategists for many years. He was already old when she was young, but they had an uncommon bond. A real ‘flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone’ kind of thing. There was no one closer to him than her.”

  “And now she wants to preserve his legacy.”

  Atlas pursed his lips. “She wants to do what’s right, just as you’ve done. Speaking of which, I never did properly thank you for saving me.”

  I smiled. “We’re even. After all, you hooked me up with a pretty sweet superhero name: ‘Night Fire.’”

  “I know how important a good one is,” Atlas replied. “Originally I was going to go by something that more closely related to my feat.” He held up his mighty fist. “But ‘The Mighty Fister’ just doesn’t have the same ring as ‘Atlas Jackson.’”

  I laughed, and Aurora whistled, urging us to double-time it as everyone handed out and munched on a handful of Macro Cubes.

  “What’s the plan?” I called out as we approached her.

  “We go across the bridge, defeat anything that challenges us, and find the Light Breaker,” Aurora replied.

  “Just like that?”

  She nodded. “Just like that.”

  “And when we find the Light Breaker?” I asked. “What are we gonna do with it?”

  “Dispose of it,” she said.

  “How?”

  “Why don’t you let us worry about that, Quincy.”

  I could tell by her expression that she didn’t want to discuss the matter further. We shuttled up onto the bridge. It was smooth and wide enough to allow two of us to stand, side by side. There was no railing on the bridge, so we had to move quickly, yet gingerly. I looked down over the side only once and then wished I hadn’t. The lava that was fifty or sixty feet below us was churning and bubbling, casting plumes of sulfurous smoke that pricked my nostrils.

  I leaned over and the trap bottle squirted out of my hands.

  Shit!

  I bobbled the thing, managing to grab it even as my momentum took me over the edge of the bridge when—

  Hands grabbed me and pulled me back.

  I collapsed in the middle of the bridge. Liberty was there, her hand still clutching the back of my singlet.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She leaned down, smiling, wiping a line of grime off my cheek. “That’s what friends with benefits do for each other, right?

  I nodded, watching the others walking up over the bridge. “Look, about what happened back there with the Wench in the hut,” I whispered to Liberty.

  She waved a hand. “What happens in Stygia stays in Stygia.”

  I smiled, relieved that she wouldn’t be spilling the gory details to Aurora, Lyric, or any of the others. “But I won’t forget about us,” she said. “Even though we were under the witch’s spell, it was real.”

  I nodded at the truth of that.

  “And don’t worry about Lyric,” Liberty continued. “She’s very understanding.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “And she loves to share,” Liberty said with a wink. “But only with me.”

  Even better!

  Liberty reached down and squeezed my dick and gave me a full kiss with plenty of tongue. And then we hustled off after the others.

  Up and up we climbed, trudging over the highest point on the bridge until we were descending its backside.

  The bridge was incredibly slippery.

  Splinter was the first one to lose his footing.

  He slipped and fell, tumbling into Liberty, and in a flash, she slipped and bumped into Lyric, and now all of us were sliding down, screaming, trying not to fall off into the goddamn lava.

  We ended up on the other cliff in a pile.

  I was lying splayed across Aurora, my face lodged between her breasts. “Somehow I always envisioned this moment with dim lights and soft music,” I said with a smile.

  She shrugged me aside, and I peered at the ground.

  A face peered back.

  A skull.

  A skull and a full skeleton lying partially submerged in the grit.

  “What the hell is that?!” I exclaimed.

  “What’s left of the last asshole who was stupid enough to come this way,” Splinter said. He pointed, and I could see that the area ahead of us resembled a reef composed entirely of white wood.

  “Look closer,” Splinter said.

  I did and bit back a scream.

  The white wood was, in fact, bones.

  A shit-ton of bones.

  34

  Whole and partial skeletons carpeted the ground.

  The bleached corpses of humanoids and gigantic, misshapen things that lay in all attitudes of death.

  The others began inspecting the bones.

  Splinter held up the skeletal remains of a massive wing.

  “Hey! A Hell-Bat!” he shouted, stretching out the wing for all of us to see.

  “And I’ve got a Typhon over here!” Lyric exclaimed, holding up an elongated skull that was the size of a flat-screen TV.

  “What the hell is a Typhon?” I asked.

  “And there’s a bunch of ‘Serks!” Kaptain Khaos said, ignoring my question, kicking over a skull that was actually two skulls grafted together.

  “Coolness!” Splinter said, looking over. “I haven’t seen a Berserker in forever!”

  I bent and ran my finger over the outline of the two skulls that were freckled with dried, black blood. I traced the impressive jaw-line on the skulls. “Okay, so this is definitely not a good sign.”

  Liberty flung me a look. “Did we forget to mention that the rumors, the legends, said that the Empty Quarter was largely a boneyard?”

  “Yes, you absolutely fucking did!” I shouted.

  “Deal with it, Quincy,” Splinter said. “Bones can be a
good thing.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Because bones ain’t living,” Kaptain Khaos said. “Bones means the bad shit is dead.”

  I looked up. “But what kills and eats monsters?”

  The Kaptain opened his mouth, but no words came out. His brow furrowed. “Yeah, that’s a good question,” he finally said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  The others shrugged and headed out as I stood there, trying to count the number of calcified bodies under my feet.

  I bent and picked up what looked like a bone from a large creature.

  I ran a finger down the curvature of the bone and noted the unmistakable groove left by a bite mark. Something much larger had apparently killed and eaten the beast.

  This was definitely not good.

  Somebody whistled, and I nearly jumped out of my boots. I looked up to see Splinter waving at me. “Any day, Night Sweats!”

  “That’s Night Fire!” I shouted, running after them. “Y’know, the guy who’s vital to helping you save the universe!”

  We moved briskly in a ragged line across the boneyard, following Aurora, who was guided by the map implanted by the Polymath.

  “We’re close,” Aurora said. “No more than three or four thousand paces away.”

  “We’re golden,” I whispered to Lyric, feeling emboldened after our uneventful trip across the Empty Quarter. “The way I see it, the Kaptain is right. I mean the fact that there are so many bones means all the bad things have killed each other off.”

  “You really think so?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. We’re gonna waltz right into this place, snag the antimatter, and beat our feet faster than you can say…”

  I trailed off because I’d started to notice something.

  The horizon seemed somehow…elevated.

  And from where I was standing, at the back of the line, I could see over Aurora’s head. I set the trap bottle down on the bones and it began rolling forward. Something was absolutely, positively wrong and—

  Something moved under our feet as I grabbed the bottle.

  I couldn’t tell how far down it was, but something was fucking undulating just below the surface.