“My god,” Fletcher whispered, hope flooding through him like a drug. “I think we did it.”
The wisp had turned into a column of black smoke, widening as it rose into a mushroom of gray that was lost in the ether’s skies. Beneath it was a single peak, jutting from the ground like a vast pyramid, layered with a topping of green forest and dark volcanic soil. The orange glow from the zenith became visible as they neared, the molten lava illuminating an enormous caldera. The lava lake was as large as Vocans’s atrium, and the bowl of earth in which it centered was twice that size again.
As Lysander swooped down toward the crater’s edge, the heat hit them like a wave. The hairs on Fletcher’s forearms shriveled as they landed, and then boom: Fletcher turned his head away as a fresh blast radiated from the volcano, beating his face with its force.
There was a thick band of steaming soil around the lip that their moccasins could barely stand, strewn with boulders that sported surfaces like candle wax. The red-orange pool of lava bubbled and popped, flinging droplets of molten rock that sizzled on the earth. The earth they stood on leaned in an incline toward the deadly lake, and Fletcher’s mind reeled with the irrational fear that they were being sucked in toward the incandescent center.
“How could anything grow in a place like this?” Sylva said, raising her voice so it could be heard over the roiling roar of the lava.
“We need to spread out,” Fletcher said, summoning Ignatius. He knew it was a risk, after what had happened last time the little demon had been near lava.
Still, the Salamander was made for this search, able to approach the hottest areas that they could not reach. He guessed he could yank the demon out again using a kinetic lasso, as he had done the last time.
Lysander’s claws could not take the soil’s temperature, nor could Athena’s, so the two demons settled on the rim for a well-deserved respite. The Griffin was dead on his feet, the grueling nights of hard flying and intermittent sleep leaving him to sprawl on the cooler soil, his eyes closed with exhaustion.
Ignatius ran ahead of Fletcher as he and Sylva parted ways. They were forced to shelter behind boulders as they rounded the edges of the caldera, darting from rock to rock to protect themselves from the radiating heat as they hunted for the elusive flowers. Nothing could be seen but raw, fuming earth.
Despair began to set in as Fletcher slowly surveyed the volcano’s caldera. Nothing. Just dirt, and rock, and fire. They were going to die in this world, choking on the poisonous air as their paralyzed lungs lay stricken in their chests.
Sylva must have yelled, but the tumult of the lava meant he realized it only when he glanced up and saw her waving from the other side of the lava pool. It took him five minutes to work his way around; hissing with pain each time he braved the space between boulders to shelter behind.
His heart dropped when he saw what Sylva had found, the image blurred as his eyes teared up from the oppressive dryness. A patch of broken stalks were all she had found, growing in the lee of a large boulder. The buds had been removed, torn roughly from their seats. A fragment of yellow petal remained here and there, broken and insubstantial, but enough to confirm these were the plants they were looking for.
“I tried healing them,” Sylva yelled, her face stricken. “It didn’t work.”
“There might be another patch nearby,” Fletcher replied, looking around in desperation. Ignatius was approaching them from the other side, having searched the area he and Sylva had not. The demon yapped, and Fletcher could sense the demon’s frustration. Nothing there either.
He fell to his knees and scrunched his eyes tight. They had been so close.
“I thought Jeffrey’s journal was going to save us,” Sylva growled, her voice barely discernible over the roar of the volcano. “All it’s done is waste the little time we had left.”
She picked at the remaining fragments of yellow, arranging them in her palm until they were in the shape of one intact petal. Then she brought them to her mouth and chewed slowly.
“This is Euryale all right,” she said, shaking her head with disappointment. “Five hours’ worth.”
Her low voice was barely audible over the volcano’s noise, but Fletcher wasn’t listening. Jeffrey … his name had sparked a memory. In a perverse way, the traitor had helped them get this far. Now, he would unwittingly aid them again, with the spell he’d taught them on their first day in the orc jungles. The growth spell.
“Wait.” Fletcher raised his soil-stained hand and etched in the air.
A symbol gradually formed, shaped like an oval leaf, complete with the webbing of veins through the line bisecting the center. Fletcher fixed it in place, then aimed it at the patch of withered stalks.
“I hope this works,” he prayed, filling his body with mana.
A stream of green-tinged light flowed from his hand, making a beeline for the broken stalks. His mana drained from him faster than ever before, but the effect was nearly instantaneous. The stalks erupted into bloom: fat, waxy petals unfurling and twisting into a conch-like bulb.
“Fletcher, you genius!” Sylva screamed, wrapping him in a fierce hug. For a moment she forgot herself and clung to him, and it was only Fletcher’s hesitantly returned embrace that made her pull away.
Embarrassed, she avoided his eyes and plucked a bulb from a stem. Detached from its base, the petals separated into a pile on her hand. There was a dozen of them. Looking at the twenty-odd flowers, Fletcher calculated that they had bought another—
“Ten days,” he said, thinking aloud. “That’s not enough.”
“No, Fletcher, don’t you get it?” Sylva said, grinning from ear to ear.
She had already removed most of the flowers, stuffing them into her pockets. Fletcher joined in, mystified.
She lifted her own fingers as the last of the petals were poured into the satchel. This time, she etched the growth spell in the air herself, pointing it at the plants they had just deflowered. Understanding dawned on Fletcher as another flash of green made them bloom once more.
“Twenty days,” she winked, bending to harvest them again.
Fletcher stuffed a few more bunches into his pocket. Then he froze … something was wrong.
“Ignatius.”
He spun, only to see the mischievous Salamander haring toward the lava, wading through puddles on the borders of the main pool. Fletcher leaped to his feet and sprinted after him, ignoring the blast of heat that enveloped his body as he left the shelter of the boulder.
“Stop!” he yelled, his voice hoarse with the dry air.
He whipped out a kinetic lasso, but the Salamander was already too far. Ignatius hurled himself aside, easily evading the translucent line of shimmering mana. Fletcher skidded to his knees. This was the second time one of his demons had disobeyed him. They didn’t have time for this.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, grasping his mind’s connection with Ignatius and ordering him to stop. But the demon’s consciousness was slippery as an eel, evading his mental grasp.
“Fletcher, what are you doing?” Sylva shouted.
Ignatius was in the very center of the lava pit now—Fletcher could see the demon’s burgundy head bobbing along, like an otter swimming in a lake. He’d never be able to reach that small, distant target with a kinetic lasso.
Worse still, he couldn’t move any closer, it was too hot—his feet were burning hot, even through the leather, and he could barely keep his eyes open as the dry heat crashed over him.
Perhaps the shield spell, to protect himself from the heat? Then, to his surprise, the head disappeared. Ignatius had dived.
There was nothing Fletcher could do for him now. All he could do was wait.
He staggered to his feet and turned back, the oppressive temperature so powerful that he felt as if his eyebrows were being burned from his face. Cursing, he ran back to the shelter of the boulder and collapsed in its shadow.
“Goddamn mischievous little imp,” he growled. “He’s gone for a swim
in the lava again.”
Sylva was stuffing petals back into her pack. Strangely, she had dug out each plant, to unearth the stems and clods of soil with their root networks exposed. She caught his expression and shrugged.
“I’m out of mana, but we’ve got thirty more days in the ether now,” she said, then pointed at the unearthed plants. “If we take these with us, maybe we can regrow them later.”
“Won’t they die without the volcano’s heat?” Fletcher asked. “Maybe I should use up my mana to regrow them again too; Ignatius is just going to drain it all anyway.”
But he never heard Sylva’s answer.
Fear. Sudden and all-encompassing filling his body. Athena had seen something, and the pink overlay of his crystal came into stark focus as he sought the source. He froze.
Wyverns. They were heading straight for the volcano, already so close that Fletcher could make out the colorful riders on their backs and the long tails that lashed behind them. Leading the pack was the pale form of the white orc, astride the smaller Ahool.
“Sylva, they’ve found us,” Fletcher said, frantically scooping the plants and petals into their satchel. “We have to leave now!”
It was all so obvious. The stripped flowers—few demons would brave the heat and height of the volcano to eat them. It had been the orcs. They had come here to harvest and lie in wait, knowing the fugitives would need them eventually.
There was a thud as Lysander landed beside them, hunching in the shelter of the boulder. His plumage was singed and smoking—he had flown directly over the center of the volcano.
Athena leaped down from his back, and Fletcher swiftly infused her. Her added weight would do them little good. Weight …
“Get on,” Sylva yelled, mounting Lysander with the satchel slung over her shoulder. “We’ll come back for Ignatius later.”
But Fletcher couldn’t. On a good day, Lysander was faster than the Wyverns, maybe even the Ahool and the dozens of lesser demons in the Wyvern’s entourage too. But with their combined weights on his back, in his current, exhausted state? Not a chance.
“We’ll never make it,” Fletcher said, the words like stones in his mouth. “Not the two of us. He’s dead on his feet.”
Fletcher saw the understanding in Sylva’s eyes, but she shook her head, as if to dislodge the truth of his words.
“You’re wrong,” she said, and Fletcher could see a tear cutting a trail through her soot-stained face. She glared at him defiantly.
“I can’t leave Ignatius,” Fletcher said, almost gently.
At that moment he knew. Perhaps he had always known, deep down. Khan would never personally lead his entire air force on a dangerous mission into the ether for a mere five fugitives. Or at least, not for this long, nor this far.
He was here for a prophecy. For the Salamander that had been seen in the battle in the pyramid, the same one that was engraved on the walls of their most sacred place. He was here for Ignatius.
The Wyverns would arrive any minute. He slapped Lysander on the rump, and the Griffin leaped into the air like a started horse.
“Look after my mother,” he yelled.
“I’ll come back for you,” Sylva shouted, her words half-lost in the air.
Then they were gone.
CHAPTER
15
FLETCHER DIDN’T BOTHER HIDING. Instead, he moved farther from the lava, where the air was cooler and he could hear himself think. If he was lucky, the orcs would stop here, instead of following Sylva. She needed as much time as he could get her.
He could feel Athena struggling within him. She wanted to be summoned, to fight alongside him. He refused—better to keep the injured demon safe within him.
As for Ignatius, this time the Salamander was using up Fletcher’s mana as swiftly as the lava pit beneath the pyramid, but somehow gaining it even faster from some unknown source. It was as if the demon was converting the volcano’s heat into mana.
Fletcher loosened his khopesh in his scabbard and pulled his pistols from their holsters. Three shots—relatively useless against the armored skin of the Wyverns, but they might take out a shaman, if he aimed well. Perhaps even Khan himself.
He’d save Blaze for that one—the longer, rifled barrel would give him a more accurate shot. Then his death wouldn’t be for nothing.
At the thought of his death, Fletcher felt a tight knot of fear in the pit of his stomach. He fought to ignore it, even as it seemed to swell within him.
The first Wyverns swooped in on the other side of the lava pool, their dark shapes shimmering in the hot air. They must have been able to see him, yet none approached. Instead, the shamans dismounted and spread in a half circle across from the bubbling lake, giving Fletcher a wide berth. Too bad they were out of pistol range.
It did not take long for Khan to arrive. He had only been waiting for them to secure the perimeter. Fletcher watched him land, his pale form stark against the black volcanic soil.
To his dismay, a single Wyvern and what looked like the entire flock of Shrikes, Vesps and Strixs flew on overhead, high above him. They had spotted Sylva—he only hoped she had enough of a head start to lose them.
Fletcher tried to power up his shield spell, but the pull of mana from Ignatius was too strong, so much so that even Athena’s supply had already been drained. Spellcraft would not help Fletcher now.
He heard Khan bark an order, and saw something strange was happening across the lava. White light was streaming from the shamans, twisting across the earth and around the pit toward him. It was like a flood of opaque water, flowing a few inches above the ground. Shield spells.
Fletcher retreated, but in seconds it had reached him. For a moment he thought the wave was going to engulf his body, but then it reared up a few feet away and wrapped around him like a bubble, leaving him contained in a sphere of translucent light. He was trapped.
Athena would be able to break through it—the demonic energy that demons were composed of tore shields apart—but it would take a few seconds for a demon of her size to get through one so thick. He sheathed Gale, his double-barreled, shorter pistol, and curled his hand into a fist, so that his pentacle tattoo was hidden. It was the one card he had left to play.
It was only when the shield completely encompassed Fletcher that Khan began his approach, walking casually along the outer rim, his skirt fluttering in the hot air. He was holding the largest macana war club Fletcher had ever seen.
It was almost as tall as a man, but thinner than the broad clubs that orcs normally used, with a single handbreadth of width rather than two. Instead of the usual rectangular shards of obsidian embedded intermittently along the sides, this club’s shards were aligned to leave a single sharp edge all the way around. It was a deadly weapon, and the orc handled it with practiced ease, resting it on his shoulder as his long legs carried him onward.
Fletcher’s breath caught in his throat, and he forced each one down in tight gulps of air. This was his enemy. His nemesis.
This was it.
The gun was slippery in his hand, though whether the sweat was from the heat or his nerves he could not tell. All he knew was that the shield that surrounded him was too thick to penetrate with a gunshot. He leaned his forehead against its wall, feeling the slippery cool of the spell on his skin.
All eight feet of the albino orc stopped beside the shield. He towered so high that Fletcher had to crane his neck to see his face. The red, baleful eyes stared down at him, with the twin tusks on either side of his mouth framing a cruel smile.
To Fletcher’s surprise, Khan dropped to one knee, so that the orc’s face was but a few inches from his own. Then, the orc spoke.
“Just a boy,” he growled, the words guttural in his mouth.
Fletcher gaped, and the orc unleashed a deep, throaty laugh at his captive’s expression.
“Yes, I speak your tongue,” Khan chuckled.
His speech was better than the matronly Mother’s had been; the smaller tusks he sported were
less of an impediment.
“How?” Fletcher asked, the question leaving his mouth before he could bite it back.
“The woman you stole from us,” Khan said, pointing a finger accusingly at Fletcher. “A useful teacher,” the orc continued, scratching his chin. “She thought we had her baby, so I said I would kill it if she refused. That was enough. Of course, when she outlived her usefulness, I told her we had killed it anyway. I’m sure you’ve seen what that did to her.”
He laughed again, but Fletcher saw he never broke eye contact. The orc was goading him. The words cut Fletcher to his very soul, but he forced down the anger. He needed the orc to lose his temper, lower the shield. Just long enough for him to get off a shot.
“My name is Fletcher Raleigh, and I am that child,” Fletcher said defiantly. “I slaughtered your goblins and buried your shamans’ demons in the rubble of your most holy place. I copied your keys to the ether and stole your slaves. Me. Just a boy.”
It was his turn to laugh, though it felt fake and forced.
Khan’s face was expressionless, but Fletcher could see he had struck a nerve, for the orc’s hand had tightened on his macana. Fletcher pressed on.
“You brought all of your Wyverns to hunt me down. I bet our forces have been running rampant across your homeland, while we’ve led you on a merry chase across the face of another world. I bet—”
“Enough!” Khan slammed his fist into the side of the shield. It cracked ever so slightly. “Your mother was a dog that we fed on scraps,” he hissed through the shield, spittle spraying from his mouth. “She barked for us and slept in her own filth. We beat her for the joy of it until she lost her senses, then we beat her some more. I piss on her memory.”
Fletcher recoiled from the sudden torrent of hatred, all pretense of his bravado forgotten.
As if surprised by his own outburst, Khan raked aside his long hair and stepped back. There was a mad gleam in his eye and he broke into a smile.
“Where is your demon?” he asked.