"We can almost see the city," the bearded man, named Alistar, said. "You ever been?"
"Once," Jolyon said. "Just traveled through." The two sat in their small room in the airship. "It's quite the sight."
"Aye sir, it is. I always like seeing people's first time laying their orbs on it. It's like they're seeing a miracle."
"It could be," Jol responded. He checked out the small port hole. "We're hitting cloud level now. Should be less than thirty minutes."
"I'm going topside," Alistar said. "Join me?"
"All right." Alistar left the room, and Jol buckled on his sword. His vision out the window was obscured by a white cloud. He joined Alistar in the airship's hallway.
"Jol, we've gotten to know each other pretty well, haven't we?" Alistar asked.
"Sure. Hard to spend two weeks in a room together and not."
"I've always wanted to ask about your sword. Why have it? I mean, nobody really uses them anymore. They have a bit of romance attached I understand, but..."
"It's a family heirloom, passed down from father to son, and so on. I've got a pistol, too-" Jol patted his holster "-but I'd feel strange without having my sword with me."
"I get it. Like it's a part of you."
"Exactly," Jol said, smiling.
They found their way to the top deck of the airship and went to the windows. Families with children, young couples, and more stood trying to penetrate the clouds the airship floated down through. "Shouldn't be long now," Alistar said. "It already looks like most of the clouds are steam."
Jol watched out one of the windows, thinking about what he was going to do. A bodyguard he might be, but never on this level. He supposed it was just a matter of him doing a bang-up job, and finally getting a rich benefactor. He was moving up in the world!
Without noticing, he played with the pommel of his sword, which stuck over his right shoulder. Sunlight began to strain through the clouds as the airship dropped under them. The city wasn't visible yet, but it was a matter of moments. He wondered if someone would meet him at the docks, or if he'd have to find his way around on his own. He remembered passing through the city the first time, and the confusion which came with such a complicated area. He was lucky if roads only dealt with two dimensions.
"Here we go," Alistar, next to him, said.
The clouds peeled away, and the city of Tern showed itself. People all around the deck of the airship gasped. Metal spires rose and fell like trees. Long lines of steam-powered rail cars chugged around the brass pyramids holding shops, homes, and more. Long metal planks, almost like hangers, opened to greet the airship as it clanked home. Below them, the metallic city thrived. Steam, and pulses of grinding gears, drove the city's many pieces of machinery. Under them, boats languished on the surface of the ocean bordering the city.
A siren warned the airship's occupants to brace, and it clunked to a stop. Slowly, it lowered itself to rest against the bottom of the dock. A child pointed with excitement at a small version of the airship, holding a solitary pilot and hoisting a machine gun. The personal ship flew past, checking for dangers. A flight attendant entered and asked them to disembark.
Soon Jol stood on the docks alone. It'd been four years since he'd been to Tern, and even in that short time it looked different. The only thing which looked the same was the Mayor's house, which, while not very big, was easily identified by the glowing lights on its roof. If no one came to get him, he'd probably just have to ring the doorbell.
Thankfully, a man in official clothes approached. "You're Jolyon of the Flame?"
"That's me," Jol said. "Who are you?"
"My name is Remison, from the Mayor's household," the man said, sticking out his hand. Jol shook it in two quick pumps. "I could tell because of the sword. Do you have everything?"
"Just the bag," Jol said, knocking it with his foot. "Light traveler."
"Allow me." Remison picked up the bag. "The Mayor thanks you for responding on such short notice. I'll take you to the house immediately."
"I was happy to help," Jol said as they left the open dock area and made their way to the ground level of Tern, which was more often than not covered in roofs, buildings, and rail cars. "I'm surprised the mayor reached out to me for a bodyguard instead of promoting from within. That's what people normally do, from what I've seen."
Remison laughed. "Sir! You won't be guarding the mayor! You'll be guarding his daughter!"
Jol looked at him, confused. "But the message said-"
"I know what the message said, sir. In fact, I sent it. However, you must realize something about the mayor. As much safety as he wants for himself, his daughter is his treasure. Asking you to be her personal bodyguard is a sign of high esteem."
"Well...I suppose that's all right."
"I'm glad you think so, sir. Here, step in." They'd reached a small, idling rail car, and Jol pulled himself into one of the seats. Remison sat next to him, and put Jol's bag in the compartment over them. "This will take us right to the Mayor's house."
"I was here a few years ago," Jol said, as the rail car started chugging forward. "The city's changed quite a bit. From the airship it looked like it had grown. Up and out."
"Quite," Remison said. "The mayor is a fan of expansion. The city's become a bastion of commerce. Though I should say the city is swelling with humanity, as well as dolling itself up for the Lighting."
Jol turned away from the window as the car rose over crowded streets. "Sorry? The what now?"
Remison looked surprised. "You haven't heard! Goodness! It's why you're here!"
"What is it?" Jol asked.
"It's a ceremony that's held every ten years. You see the top of the hillside there?" Remison pointed at the highest spot in the city, nearly a mountain of iron and brass. "There's a lighthouse up there. Most nights it just has the standard warning light, for airships. However, every ten years for a week the leader of the city holds a ceremony to give it a special red color. It's the anniversary of several things: The city's founding--but we don't celebrate it every year--it's also to commemorate when some miners were digging in the hillside, and found..."
The man talked away. Jol listened when he could, but he felt better looking over the city. He could see decorated points on the city, but it was sometimes hard to tell. He craned his neck to look forward of the rail car, and saw the mayor's house growing. After a few moments, he realized Remison was winding down.
"What does the mayor do during the Lighting?" he asked. Remison smiled.
"Ah! That's where you come in, sir! It isn't much of the mayor's work, actually. He presides over the thing, but he isn't doing much. It's several young ladies from the city who will be taking part. Traditionally, a woman from the mayor's house takes part, and his daughter was picked this year."
"So...when you say young ladies..."
"The mayor's daughter is ten years old today. The eve of the Lighting. The other girls range from eight to maybe sixteen. I see that look in your eye, though. You're going to be quite busy. You won't have any time to socialize."
"Has there been a threat on the mayor's daughter?" he asked, worried. Then he added: "They're a bit young for me, anyway."
"No threat. That's...not entirely what you're here for." Remison paused. "You know, it's rather difficult to explain. Eh..." He rubbed his hands. "Perhaps I'll let the mayor tell you. He knows a bit more." Remison checked the scenery. "Nearly there. I'll take you right up to him."
A minute later the rail car slowed and stopped, and the door hissed open. Remison handed Jol's bag to a servant, and waved Jol with him. They proceeded up a set of white stone stairs to the entrance of the house.
It had looked small, but now Jol couldn't count the parapets, towers, and windows. "Big place."
Remison held a hand toward the door as it opened, and Jol entered. They went up another flight of stairs to the second floor, and a final door was opened. Inside the room was a crowded area with chairs, couches, and tables. Bright light from a sun-ward window lit it, and several men and women turned to look as they entered.
"May I introduce Jolyon of the Flame. Jolyon, Lord Ferian the Mayor of Tern."
"Jolyon, welcome," a man said, coming forward. His coat's buttons strained outward, and the bald spot on his head gleamed in the light. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Please, come and meet my advisers." The mayor led Jol into the center of the room. "This is Lady Evelyn, Civil Advisor-" A woman with long brown hair bowed "-and this is Sir Wesp, my political adviser." A short man with a beard nodded. "Here is General Etscoomb, my military adviser."
"Lots of free time right now, thankfully," Etscoomb said, shaking Jol's hand.
"Last, my fine wife, Yelana Ferian," the mayor said.
"A pleasure," the woman said. She had her graying hair tied at the top of her head, and wore a slim dress.
"There are others, of course, but these three make up my closest allies. My wife, of course, is present due to the proceedings with my daughter. Please, sit." The mayor gestured at a red, plush chair. Jol sat gingerly. "You know why you're here?"
"Mr. Jolyon has not spent much time in the city," Remison, by the closed door, said. "He's unaware."
The men and women in the room exchanged glances. The mayor nodded at his wife, who stood and went to Remison, and began to whisper to him. Jol felt himself growing cautious.
"You will be guarding my daughter during the Lighting ceremony," the mayor said.
"Does someone wish her harmed?" Jol asked. The mayor shook his head.
"No such thing, in fact. Many people would say it's quite important that she stays well."
Jol narrowed his eyes. He didn't like the way this was going. "And why's that?"
"You...really don't know anything about the Lighting?" Lady Evelyn asked. Jol shook his head. "Dear me."
"Jolyon, it's very important that you know what is expected of you. I suppose Remison told you about the history of the Lighting?"
Jol tried to recall what the man had said in the rail car. "He...mentioned a bit, yes."
"One of the things that the Lighting commemorates is when several miners found a deposit of strange metal under this very hill." The mayor stood, and began to pace. "They dug down, mined it out, and began to sell it. It was found to have several useful properties: conductivity, durability, strength. It is partially responsible for the great city you've just passed through--it was well sought after and provided the city a great boost in trade and funds."
The mayor took a deep breath, and the feeling of the room changed suddenly. To Jol it felt like he'd gone into a calm before the storm.
"The...metal...was there for a purpose, and we didn't understand that until it was too late. It took ten years for us to notice. By then, the metal had been used in machines, or sold. We had already begun to replicate its chemical makeup on our own. Ten years after it was all mined--that would have been what, Remison?"
"One hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow, mayor."
"Quite." The Lord Mayor, sitting on one of the chairs, looked at his feet. He seemed weak. "So, one hundred and forty years ago, a beast--seemingly made of lava, and rock, and all angry as a volcano, emerged from the old mine. It laid waste." A cloud passed between the room and the sun. "Homes were burned, men and women slain. The city was nearly destroyed."
Jol said nothing, only waited. "It took less than a day for everyone but soldiers trying to stop it to be evacuated. They were nothing against it. It towered over men, boiling and furious!"
The mayor paused. "Hope was gone. The soldiers were told to run. Many of their families had stayed, against their wishes, but we are a resilient folk here. The last boat was leaving, filled with survivors, their wives, and their children."
"Aloyce, please let me finish," the mayor's wife said, laying a hand on his shoulder. He nodded, pale. Yelana looked at Jolyon--took him in. "Many of the children snuck to the rear of the ship to get a look at the monster...they had been told to run before being able to see it. Over a dozen boys and the same number of girls watched, horrified, as the monster began to forge into the water. Steam rose in huge blasts, but the monster pushed through. Worse, it was faster than the boat. They would be caught, and surely killed."
The woman tilted her head. She talked calmly, not like the emotion-filled speech of her husband. "Do you know what happened, Jolyon of the Flame?" Jol shook his head. "A miracle. Witnesses say that ten of the girls present on the ship began to glow. The monster seemed to slow in the water. Sudden, invisible forces shot from the ten girls, sending harsh waves across the water's surface. The forces struck the monster."
"It was killed?"
"No--at least, not quite. It retreated, clawing its way out of the water, up the burning hillside, and into the hole it had come from."
Jol tilted his head, like Yelana, but his expression was doubtful. "People came back," the mayor's wife went on, "and went to the hole it had come from. It was gone--but the metal hadn't returned. In ten years time, it would wake up again, but this time preparations had been made.
"A lighthouse had been constructed on the hillside, to serve a dual purpose. The first was simply to warn away the airships that were starting to take the skies. The second was to serve as an entrance to the mine, so that the monster could be defeated again."
"Wait," Jol said, leaning forward. "Do you mean to tell me that even after finding out that the hill held a monster that wanted to kill everyone and everything, you stayed? You built the city again?"
"The monster wasn't stopped. Not by our weapons, or the weapons of the world," Yelana explained. "And, every ten years, it would begin to wake up again. So, the same ten girls were gathered, now grown to women, and some with their own families. The monster reappeared...but the women couldn't stop it."
The people in the room, aside from Jol, shook their heads. "The city was evacuated again. But this time, during it, ten other girls began to glow with the same light. They were quickly gathered, and the beast was stopped with less destruction than before. Over and over, it happened. Each decade, ten women were chosen from the city, seemingly at random...with one exception. A woman from the leader's family was almost always chosen. When we became a city-state, it was constant. Most of the time it was daughters, or nieces, but sometimes older women."
Jol put his face in his hands. He felt dizzy. "So you send these ten girls into the mine every ten years to stop the monster?" Yelana, and the mayor, nodded. "You haven't found any way to kill it?"
They shook their heads. "Not that we haven't tried," General Etscoomb said. "There are entire books in the mayor's house that contain everything so far."
"Unless you have any other questions, we'll bring Hanna in to meet you."
"How do you know which girls are able to stop the monster?"
"We discovered that the women from the last Lighting can pick them out," Lady Evelyn said.
"And why do you call it the Lighting?"
"The populace...doesn't know," the mayor said. Each word came out slowly. "To tell them...they would run! No one would be left, and there's a chance the monster would run free. They think it's a ceremony to remember an 'eruption'--actually the monster--and the city's founding."
"So you...lie to them? Put them all in danger?" Jol asked, astounded. "What about the girls? Do they know?"
Sir Wesp nodded. "The girls and their families are told, and instructed not to reveal anything. There is a high price for doing so."
Jol sat back. "Good Lord. You people..."
"We know what we do," the mayor said. His voice crept across Jol. "And there is a price with holding such knowledge, as well. That is why, we suspect, someone from the mayor's household is chosen each time. To make sure it is not misused."
Jol said nothing. The new information clanked in his mind, getting stuck like hard bread being swallowed. "What do you need me for?"
"Only protection," the mayor said. He rose, and straightened his coat. "Each girl is given a protector, funded by my office. This is to protect them in the mine, and against the monster."
"What?!" Jol snapped to his feet. "I'm going in there with it?! What if I refuse?"
"Then I ask one of my soldiers to accompany my daughter--my only child!--into a dangerous mine to face a monster that would destroy the world." The mayor glared across the room at Jol. His wife mirrored the look. "I asked you to attend me because of the stories told about you. You understand what it means when I ask you to help me?"
Jol remembered what Remison had told him, before they got to the rail car. "I know. It's an honor."
"So do you accept?"
Jol stood, nearly swaying on the spot. The entire room stared at him. Out the window, he could see the lighthouse, high on the hill Tern had swallowed. He gazed at it, breathing slowly through his mouth. "I'd like to meet your daughter before I decide."
"So be it," the mayor said. He nodded at Remison, who slipped out of the room.
Jol waited for ten minutes, sitting and staring at the ground. The story he'd been told was almost too much to believe.
It was similar to one he'd heard before. He played with the pommel of his sword.
Remison knocked lightly, and re-entered. "The young miss Hanna." He moved aside to let in a small girl. She already looked like her mother, with a small face. She took a few steps forward, and curtsied as Jol stood.
"Hanna, this is Jolyon. He may very well be your bodyguard during the Lighting," Yelana said, as she came to stand next to her daughter. Hanna looked up at Jol, and the light glinted off her hair, so blond it was almost white.
"He's big," Hanna said to her mother. Yelana nodded as Hanna continued to inspect Jol. He went to one knee before her, inspecting her back. "What's that on your back?" she asked, pointing at the pommel of his sword. He smiled, and slowly revealed it.
"It's a family heirloom. My father had it before me. It's very special to me."
"You use it to fight?" Hanna asked.
"Sometimes." Jol replaced the sword. "Mostly I use my pistol, though."
"How good are you at bodyguarding?" she asked.
"No one I've ever guarded has died," Jol said. "I'd say that makes me pretty good."
Hanna nodded, creases appearing on her smooth forehead, making her seem momentarily older. "What's that?" She pointed at the emblem keeping the straps of his sheath together around his chest. It was a simple, swirling flame.
"Comes with the sword," Jol explained. "It's my family's crest. I am Jolyon of the Flame."
Hanna looked up at him with her head cocked. A moment passed when the two of them looked at each other, and then Hanna nodded. "Okay. You'll be my bodyguard. Won't you?"
Jol moved his head back, surprised. But, even as he frowned, he realized he would. Like he knew he would fall after jumping off a cliff, he knew he would follow this girl into the mine and keep her safe as she tried to stop a monster from killing again.
"I will." Jol stood. "What now?"
"Little," the mayor said. "Remison will show you to the library. You should study the Lighting and the history of the monster. Once you're done there, you'll be shown to a private room for you to rest. The Lighting is tomorrow at sundown. You should get as much rest as you can," he said before turning to his wife.
Jol stood on the hillside, watching the sun brush against the far mountains. His shadow had grown behind him for the last hour as he sat on one of the stone steps leading up to the giant lighthouse. It was built from shimmering metal, and the distant clank of machinery could be heard.
He, the mayor's family, Hanna, the other girls, and their guards and families had been at the lighthouse since about noon. They'd spent the time talking to each other, laughing and chatting and trying to forget about what they were going to do. Many of the girls were nervous, something Jol didn't fault them in the slightest.
Some of the other bodyguards--mercenaries, some contracted soldiers--knew about Jol. He even knew some of them back. They talked about their adventures, sometimes with an audience. Jol found himself looking at the lighthouse's height during the talking, and saw several other people doing the same. One girl started crying, overburdened by her task; Hanna sat next to her and talked to her. Jol didn't hear what was said, but the girl looked better afterward.
Jol stood and walked across the hill's grass to Hanna, who was eating a piece of candy. She smiled at him when he got close, and he smiled back. "Are you worried?" he asked her. "We're going to be going up soon."
She took the time to lick her fingers, then shook her head. "I know you'll protect me. You've protected everybody else, remember?"
Not against something like this. "I'm glad you have such faith in me. Do you wish you didn't have to do this?"
"Yeah," Hanna said. She was sitting with her knees against her chest and her arms around her legs. "I want to be riding my horse and playing with the other girls." She shrugged. "But I have to. I knew I would."
Jol saw the mayor coming toward them. "Time to go," he told her. "Here comes your father."
"It's time," the mayor said. The other girls and their protectors were gathering in the entrance of the lighthouse, and disappearing inside. "Are you ready?" he asked Hanna. She nodded, yet he didn't move. He seemed unsteady on the slanted hillside. He cast a sidelong glance at Jol, then leaned close to his daughter. "We could run," he told her. "We could use my private airship. You don't have to do this."
Jol was too stunned to say anything. Hanna shook her head. "It's the right thing to do."
The mayor straightened, took in a great breath, and nodded. He held his hand out, his daughter took it, and they walked toward the lighthouse with Jol trailing them.
Soon everyone was in the big lobby of the lighthouse. Jol expected to go to the top, but the only staircase up was blocked off. Instead, the girls were arranged in a circle around the center with their bodyguards behind them. Their families stood against the wall, holding their breath. The mayor stepped forward.
"Thank you, everyone. What's about to happen is no small sacrifice. It comes with a great risk, even if it does succeed. You brave girls know what will happen if you fail, yet you remain." Jol thought it a strange reversal of what he'd just told his daughter. "Again...what happens here can't be revealed to anyone. Is everyone ready?"
The girls all nodded. The bodyguards all stood resolute. "Everyone please come stand in a circle here," the mayor said. He moved out of the way as the the twenty people who would descend went into the center of the room. Jol felt his senses beginning to tune up. The mayor nodded to a guard who stood against the wall, and the guard used a key to open a panel, revealing a level. He pulled it.
Jol felt the floor shift, and Hanna grabbed his hand, stifling a cry. The mayor rose out of sight as the room's center disk lowered to a basement. They all stepped off quickly, and when they were free, the disk rose up again, sealing off their escape.
It was less a basement, more a cavern. Small lights were set in the wall around them, leading down into the mine proper. Hanna flicked on her flashlight, followed by the other girls. Jol pulled out his own. He held it in his left hand, leaving his right free.
"It'll be just like any other time," Hanna whispered. Jol thought she'd said it to herself, but everyone was listening. "We go down there, stop the monster, and come back up. We pull the switch in the wall and the disk comes down." She paused. "That's all."
"I'm scared," one of the girls, younger than Hanna, said in the low light.
"Don't worry Shel," the man next to her said. "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." It seemed to placate Shel.
Jol scanned his light over the rough, dark rock. "Everyone stay together. We can't risk getting lost in here. Let's say...groups of four at the smallest, but stay in a big group if we can."
"Who made you leader?" one of the bodyguards asked. He sounded young, and almost as afraid as Shel.
"None of that," an older voice said. "He's right. Staying as a group is beneficent, splitting up will only make things more dangerous."
"But we could be down here for days!"
"We have food and water. If we take too long, the monster will wake up, and it'll be easy to find." One of the flashlight beams hit Jol's feet. "Lead on, Jolyon."
Jol nodded--an unseen gesture--and took his first steps into the mine shaft.
An hour later the group was still together. They hadn't seen or heard anything from the mine, and terror had given way to boredom, at least for the girls. The bodyguards were pulled tight, worried about things in the dark. One of them, the old one who had defended Jol, walked next to him.
"I read up on the Lighting in the mayor's library," Jol said to the other, whose name was Mas. "The mine is big, but we should be able to find the area where the metal was without too much bother."
Mas hummed his agreement as twenty flashlights roved the walls, floor, and ceiling of the mine. Thick struts were put up to prevent break-ins, and Jol guessed the mine was inspected for damage frequently. "What do you know about the monster?" Mas asked.
"Not much. Nobody does. Just a big beasty that likes to make trouble, that's all." Jol scanned the ground quickly. "I hope we find it before it finds us."
Almost on cue, they heard a bodyguard call out. "I say! Here! I've found a tunnel!" Jol, Mas, Hanna, and Mas' charge hurried ahead and discovered a large opening in the mine wall, which lead in and down to a cavern. "Let's see what we have," the bodyguard said, walking in. His girl, an older one of about fifteen, followed him with small steps, nervously glancing around her. "It's all right, dear, it's empty. Come on down! Nothing here right now, but it could be the place!" he called. Jol and the others followed him in. They found a large, hollowed area with a hole in the center. Jol went up to it and peered down, seeing nothing.
"This sounds like how the books described it," he said. "Girls? Do you feel anything?"
Nobody did. Jol scanned the walls with his light. There was nothing else.
"Maybe not," one of the bodyguards said. "Nothing here but-"
He stopped. Jol stopped. Everyone froze in their places. They'd all felt the minuscule but sudden rise in temperature. Jol felt like something was vibrating. His heart sped up and he scanned the hole.
"Back away, back away," Mas said. They all moved toward the walls of the cavern away from the hole. "This is it all right. Stay strong now, Teri, you'll do all right." The girl, Teri, had her eyes closed and was nodding.
It got hotter. Jol took his sword out and gripped it. He didn't know how much help it would be. Twenty feet away, one of the girls fell to her knees and got sick.
The hole exploded, spitting fire and rock, and heat blasted them. Before anybody could move, a red hand shot out and crushed the sick girl and her bodyguard against the wall, turning them into smears. Hanna screamed and Jol pushed her behind him.
"Now would be a good time to use special powers!" he shouted over the rush of hot wind, baking in the shifting red light. Shadows flashed and danced on the walls behind them. A form appeared out of the fire, turning into a rough humanoid shape with a hunchback and long, snake-like limbs rolling on the ground. Jol and Hanna stepped back from them. "Girls!"
Hanna pushed a hand at it, but nothing happened. No light, like the mayor described, come from her. Jol brandished his sword at the form as it continued to take shape; it seemed a pitiful thing compared to the red, shifting form.
It took its first, lurching step from the hole, and six of the duos ran back to the main shaft, leaving Jol and Hanna, Mas and Teri, and another two.
Mas pulled out his pistol and fired two shots. They struck the monster and did nothing more than splash bits of rock. The monster took notice, and just as Mas pushed Teri away, a fist came down, crushing him. Jol picked Teri up, and followed the other three out the entrance. A shattering roar followed them out, and heat surged past them. Hanna screamed.
"Find a place to defend ourselves!" Jol shouted at the fourteen in front of him. "Girls, please start doing something! Anything!"
"We don't know how!" one shouted. "It always happened by accident!"
"You can't control it?!" They shook their heads. "There wasn't anything like this written in the books! It always just...happened!"
"Maybe we just need to wait," Hanna said. She looked behind her, at the entrance. They heard the monster shuffling, and gusts of hot air went past them.
"Whatever it is, we can't panic." Jol looked over the people still present. Thankfully, none of them had turned tail. "Let's get a position we can try and defend ourselves with, and give the girls some time."
The other bodyguards all nodded, and weapons held in hands were held tighter.
They moved back toward the entrance of the mine, the three destroyed bodies, out of reach, were left behind.
"You said you'd read about the Lighting?" one of the bodyguards asked ten minutes later. They were set up at the end of a long mine shaft, which also rose steadily. Against an army it would have been a powerful defensive position--but not against a monster. They hadn't seen or heard the monster since retreating, but they felt the heat. Hanna and the remaining girls talked amongst themselves. Teri stood quietly next to Hanna.
"That's right," Jol said. It was the bodyguard who had found the entrance to the cavern, named Lowie. "The mayor had a library with information about all of them, or as much as can be remembered. I spent all day yesterday reading."
"Was there anything about what the monster was?" Lowie asked. "Perhaps if we knew something like that-"
Jol shook his head. "No, nothing. It had a retelling of the people finding the special metal, and the monster's first appearance, and the ups and downs of figuring out what to do every ten years, and the tragedies, and this mayor, or that mayor, and this girl, or that girl...but nothing about the monster." Jol brushed hair out of his eyes. "We'll have to make do."
"Can you remember anything that could help us?" a bodyguard named Isaac asked. "Anything at all?"
"There was nothing! Nothing could stop it except for the light from the girls and...and the metal that the miners found." Jol dropped his head. "That's all."
"Maybe that's true," Lowie said, "but it's still a creature of this world. We might not be able to kill it, but we can push it over if we have to." He patted the cannon hanging from a strap by his hip. "My friend here will be able to give us some time."
"What if we were to knock the mine's ceiling on top of it?" a bodyguard named Piln asked.
"We could just as easily trap ourselves," Jol said. "Who knows if it would even be able to stop the monster? It seems made of fire. It might be able to melt the stone." He looked over at the nine girls. "Is anybody willing to act as Teri's protector? I'll do it if no one else will."
"I can do it," a big bodyguard named Yoff declared, pushing off from the wall. "There's enough of me to go around." Yoff left the group to talk to Teri, who looked up at him with almost as much fear as at the monster. Jol reminded himself they were just children, all of them. He joined Yoff and the girls.
"Any luck?" he asked, kneeling. "I hate to rush you, but we're running out of time."
Hanna shook her head and didn't look at him. "We can't make anything happen. We don't know how to try."
"All right," Jol said. What do we do?
Twenty minutes passed, and the heat got worse. The bodyguards were restless, and fiddled with their weapons. "It'll be appearing any minute," Lowie said. He had his personal cannon resting on the ground, pointed at the bottom of the slope. "Anybody have any ideas?"
"Just give us time, Lowie," Jol said. Lowie nodded and he went to the girls. "I know you feel scared," he said to them, "but I don't want anybody giving up. Got it?" The girls answered yes, in the way slaves responds to a master.
"Jol!" one of the bodyguards yelled. "Here it comes!"
"Everybody ready!" Jol shouted, running to where Lowie was set up. "Need any help with this thing?"
"I fought off a dozen bandits on the South Dori highway on my own with this. Don't need your help!" Lowie answered, which was what Jol hoped he'd say. Jol took out his sword. The metal was hot to the touch.
A red glow appeared at the end of the shaft, and began to grow brighter. The heat increased, and flashlights moved frantically around the walls of the mine, their presence dimming as the red glow grew stronger. Jol heard a whimper from one of the girls, but nobody ran.
The glow got brighter until a slur of heated stone and frantic fire appeared around the corner, held together as a strange humanoid shape. It forced a long, straggling growl out of its dripping mouth, and started pushing itself up the slope. "Lowie!" Jol shouted.
The cannon went off, and something struck the monster, knocking it off-balance. Lowie dumped a shell and started forcing another one inside. Jol looked over his shoulder. The girls still lacked the angelic light Jol had read about over and over. He shifted his sword to his other hand to cool off.
Lowie fired another shot at the monster, which was still struggling to keep its feet. It toppled when the second shot hit, and dust rained from the ceiling when it hit the ground. "It won't stay down long," Jol said. "Keep pestering it," he told Lowie, who nodded. Jol looked at Yoff and another, named Clark. "Ready?"
Yoff, who carried a long rifle, nodded. Clark, who as far as Jol could tell was mute, did nothing. He carried nothing more than a strange gold-colored pistol. The two would help Lowie keep the monster back if it got close.
Even then the monster was on its feet and taking steps. Lowie aimed another shot.
Time halted as the monster jumped. Over the cannon's blast it floated, soaring as if tossed by a gentle wind. It spanned the distance between itself and Lowie in a moment, and came crashing down.
"BACK!" Jol shouted, smashed to one side by the crashing vibrations and heat. Jol heard Lowie scream, and he heard a splat. "Yoff! Clark!"
Yoff brought his rifle to bear and spat bullets at the monster, which stuck into its magma flesh or bounced off rocks. Clark aimed his pistol. Jol kept his sword between him and the monster. It followed him with its eyes, ignoring Yoff's attacks. A rock, thrown by one of the girls, bounced off its head.
Clark fired his pistol, and a beam of penetrating light boiled out of it, painting the wall behind the monster with a grotesque shadow. Steam erupted from its body.
Jol had a disbelieving stare on his face. Clark simply spun the chamber and aimed again, using just one hand. Teri and Yoff's other girl ran to him with smiles on their faces. Jol watched them run in slow motion.
A red limb snaked out, stretching through the steam. The limb struck and smashed Clark, Yoff, and Yoff's original charge, slamming them against the wall. It grazed Lowie, sending him rolling over the ground to rest at Teri's feet with a long burn on his shoulder. Teri shrieked, and the girls went into a frenzy. Some wailed, some cursed the monster, and others began picking up rocks to hurl at it.
Jol hoisted Teri off her feet and helped Lowie get up. Eight. We're running out of girls. He thought--a scattered voice in his brain.
Then another voice appeared. Give me back.
He let Teri go, and turned to look at the monster. It was glaring at him again, motionless. The moment held no sound, and no action; the two watched each other. The heat forced air past him, ruffling his hair. Shifting lights from the monster's hide shone off his sword's metal.
He turned and ran to the girls and remaining bodyguards. Two of the older girls were wrapping a bandage around Lowie's arm, which was covered in melted flesh and bubbling cysts. Blood dripped from Lowie's lip where he bit on it.
"We can't do it, Jol!" Hanna said when he appeared. "Nothing we do will stop it!" Jol saw tears in her eyes. "We can't get anything to happen! First Sandy, and now Emma, too!" She sniffed and latched onto Jol, weak arms around his middle. Jol took a shaky breath.
"We can't stop trying, Hanna. There are too many lives at stake for us to stop. Understand?" he said quietly. A flashlight passed over his face. Hanna nodded and then looked up at him with a wet face. He smoothed her hair and looked at everyone else.
For the girls, their worst nightmares had come true. To a one they looked upset and scared. Jol knew the older ones where trying to stay strong for the younger ones, but he knew what he saw in their eyes in the bluish glow of the flashlights they carried.
The mercenaries talked about their next strategy. Many of them had been in dangerous situations before and made it alive, but never a situation like this one. Jol certainly hadn't ever.
"Jol," Lowie said. "Any other bright ideas?"
"I'm sorry if what I suggested hasn't worked," Jol muttered. "Does anyone else have a suggestion?" Nobody spoke. "I didn't think so." He looked around their dwindling group. "Keep the girls safe. Teri and Emma shouldn't have run to Yoff until we were sure the monster was down."
He looked around their current position. It was a round bubble in the passage leading back to the elevator to take them into the lighthouse. It was big enough to hold them all, but if the monster got to them they would have to retreat. There were six bodyguards left, including him. Their weapons, hardly a help before, were getting fewer. The girls still had no magic aura, no bright glow from fairytales full of salvation and deep emotion.
Jol sat with his sword over his lap. The blade's metal was hot to the touch and had a slight red tint. Jol looked at the walls and ceiling and found they had the same. Again, always again. It'll come until we stop it.
"Give me back."
Jol looked around, stunned. There was no one close enough to be the source of the voice he'd just heard. It was clear and light, like the ring of a bell. He stood, head in one hand and sword in the other, momentarily doubting his sanity. No great stretch of the imagination--underground with a dozen scared people and an unstoppable monster.
He looked down the mine shaft, leaning against the rock, blessedly cool. At the very end of the straight path they were on, he could see a stronger red on the wall. It's down there, somewhere, he thought.
So when he heard a cry from behind him, and turned to see it rolling toward the group from behind, his mind didn't understand. It was only after Hanna shouted his name did he break into a run. The girls ran behind him and the other bodyguards.
The murky red glow from the monster reflected off Jol's sword as he held it in front of him. "Lowie?"
"I don't like it, Jol," Lowie said. "Why did it flank us? Is it trying to get us?"
"Yeah!" Isaac said. "Why didn't it just make for the surface?"
Jol and the monster watched each other.
"Girls," Jol shouted over his shoulder. "I want you to go back to the cavern that the monster came from. This isn't a place we want to fight. That spot will give us a much better chance. Lowie, you and Isaac go with them right now. The rest of us will catch up once you're a little ways away."
Lowie and Isaac left their group and hustled the girls back the way they'd come.
"What do we do, Jol?" one of the remaining bodyguards asked. He held a pistol in one hand. Its nose quivered. The monster wasn't moving.
"I think the best thing to do is just back away," Jol whispered. "Keep ready to fire, but more ready to run. Good?"
Nobody answered. Shifting red shadows played over their faces. "Piln and Hogar, head back. Slowly. Maybe it won't notice."
The two bodyguards on the end of their small line inched backward.
A scream dug into their ears from behind; they froze. The wailing rose and rose, clearly one of the girls. It got louder and more painful to hear until cutting off abruptly. When it stopped, Jol realized his eyes were pressed shut. He opened them and found the monster looking at him. "Piln. Hogar." Keeping his eyes trained on the monster, he heard two sets of footsteps echo away. It was him and one more. "Go on, Tuomas," he said. "I'll bring up the rear."
"Jol..." Tuomas whispered. He was an older man, and visibly sweating.
"Go."
Tuomas hesitated, then turned and ran, trying to move quietly.
Jol was left alone with the monster. It dwarfed him by dozens of feet, and its hot head nearly touched the ceiling, hunched even as it was. What Jol took for its head was pointed at him. Small depressions with tiny points of lava, like eyes, watched him without blinking.
"Are you speaking to me?" Jol said out loud. "Are you the voice I hear in my head?"
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he thought when the monster didn't answer. "Why didn't you just head to the surface, like you did all those other times?" I don't even know why I'm asking these. I won't get an answer. "You tricked us into thinking you were down the mine. You wanted to surprise us. But...you didn't hurt us." He shifted the grip on his sword.
"Give me back."
"What do you mean?!" Jol shouted after hearing the voice, like it was spoken in his ear by a lover. "Tell me! If you want something from me, I can give it to you! I don't want anymore to die!" He took a step back; the monster's eyes followed him. No voice was heard. He shook his sword at it. "If you won't give me any answers, why don't you just head back to your hole!"
The monster's eyes bobbled up and down.
Tilting his head, Jol stared at it. With one hand on his sword, he held it out to the side of his body. The monster's eyes watched it. "You haven't been looking at me at all, have you? You've been looking at my sword," Jol said. After a moment, he chuckled. "Well, I'll be."
He looked up at the monster. "I'll be going back to your hole now. I'll give you back what you want if you follow me and don't hurt anyone else." He lowered his sword. After taking a few careful steps backward, he turned and started walking down the path the others had taken. When he'd gone about twenty feet, he looked behind him. The monster slurred its way after him, keeping its distance. Each step sounded wet, slopping against the stone floor. Jol nodded to himself and continued.
He turned the corner at the end of the shaft and found a pool of lava. Lying horrifyingly next to it were two small, charred legs. Jol's mind replayed the awful scream they'd heard, and hoped it wasn't Hanna. The stench of burnt flesh made his eyes water, and he covered his mouth when he rushed past.
Some time later he got to the cavern the monster had first appeared with a red glow behind him. The others--minus one girl--waited. Hanna ran up to him and gave him a hug. On the faces of the girls, Lowie, and Isaac, he saw horror.
"Everyone get to the back of the room," he instructed. "I know how to stop it."
"How?" Hanna asked.
"I'll explain once it's done. Everybody get to the far wall, and nobody attack it."
"It...followed you?" Isaac asked. "Why did it do that?"
"The same reason it didn't make for the surface," Jol answered. "It wants something from me." He held his sword out.
"Your blade?" Tuomas said. "Why?"
The red glow behind him got brighter, and the monster came around the corner. Hanna stepped away. "Go on, everybody back!" Jol said. He followed Hanna around the center hole. The monster entered the cavern, stretching up to its full height.
"All right." Jol licked his lips. "You did what I asked, and I'll give you the sword. Here it comes."
Stretching back, he hurled the sword over the hole.
The monster leapt like it had before, meeting the sword in the middle and letting it sink into its body. With a flash of light and and final blast of stunning warmth, it fell into the hole and out of sight.
Jol went to the edge of the hole and looked down. He caught the last traces of a receding glow.
Then, he saw nothing.
You have stopped but one of me. In other worlds, I live yet. Already one poor soul knows my touch, and he shrinks inside his world, like a flower at twilight. Soon I will appear in other places and times. As you have laid fire to rest, so will ice, and wind, and rock, and fate, and all the other parts of your world COME ALIVE. Eventually, there will be enough of me to join into one crushing whole. Your metal will not stop me again, Jolyon of the Flame. Even now, I sense your world crumbling under your feet. Yes. SUCH A THING IS REAL.
"Jol?" he heard. After the grinding, smoking, hating voice rending the fabric around his brain and grinding him to dust, the voice he heard now was sweet and pure and full of love. He found himself looking down at a face which watched him with fear.
"Are you all right?" he heard, and then the face's mouth moved in a slurring, cloudy fashion, all its motions blended together in one grimace.
Jol blinked, and felt dizzy. He stumbled backward and fell over, smacking his head on the hard surface under him. The world stayed blurry. Faces shifted into view in a ring around him. The sounds they made were a single keen.
The next he knew he was moving, bouncing gently on something. Lights danced around uneven surfaces. He reached for them, but they kept moving, away from his hands.
"He's awake, Hanna," Yelana said to her daughter. "You can go in and see him."
Hanna nodded and put down her book. She opened the door to Jolyon's room slowly. He was sitting up in bed with a bandage around his head. He smiled when he saw her.
"I'm glad you're all right," he said. She ran to him and gave him a hug. "Careful! I'm still not all there!"
"I'm sorry," she said. "What happened? You threw your sword at it, it disappeared, and then you didn't do anything." She frowned. "And when I asked you what it was, you fell over!"
Jol smoothed the bedsheets. "I...I can't really say. I'm not sure." He looked out the window over her head at the steamy sky. Night had passed while he was asleep.
"What about your sword?" Hanna asked. "Why did you throw it?"
"It was made of the metal that was there originally," Jol said, keeping his eyes on the sky. "I didn't know. It's been in my family for generations. I remember my grandfather once saying it was made of a magic metal, but I thought that was just a story. The monster wanted it all along. That might have even been what it was trying to get all those other times."
"That couldn't have been all the metal," Hanna said. "My father said there was a lot more than your sword."
Jol nodded. "Maybe it was just enough. Maybe it will come back in ten years. I'm sorry. I don't know."
Hanna shook her head and hugged him again, then went to the door. She waved before she left. He waved back as she closed the door, and put his head back against the pillow.
He licked his lips. There was something more than a simple monster in the mine. He knew it for a fact. He rang for a servant.
"Yes, Mr. Jolyon?" Remison asked, sticking his head in the room. "I'm glad to see you awake, sir."
"I'm glad to see you too, Remison. Could you fetch me a few books? There's some reading I want to do."
"Once," Jolyon said. "Just traveled through." The two sat in their small room in the airship. "It's quite the sight."
"Aye sir, it is. I always like seeing people's first time laying their orbs on it. It's like they're seeing a miracle."
"It could be," Jol responded. He checked out the small port hole. "We're hitting cloud level now. Should be less than thirty minutes."
"I'm going topside," Alistar said. "Join me?"
"All right." Alistar left the room, and Jol buckled on his sword. His vision out the window was obscured by a white cloud. He joined Alistar in the airship's hallway.
"Jol, we've gotten to know each other pretty well, haven't we?" Alistar asked.
"Sure. Hard to spend two weeks in a room together and not."
"I've always wanted to ask about your sword. Why have it? I mean, nobody really uses them anymore. They have a bit of romance attached I understand, but..."
"It's a family heirloom, passed down from father to son, and so on. I've got a pistol, too-" Jol patted his holster "-but I'd feel strange without having my sword with me."
"I get it. Like it's a part of you."
"Exactly," Jol said, smiling.
They found their way to the top deck of the airship and went to the windows. Families with children, young couples, and more stood trying to penetrate the clouds the airship floated down through. "Shouldn't be long now," Alistar said. "It already looks like most of the clouds are steam."
Jol watched out one of the windows, thinking about what he was going to do. A bodyguard he might be, but never on this level. He supposed it was just a matter of him doing a bang-up job, and finally getting a rich benefactor. He was moving up in the world!
Without noticing, he played with the pommel of his sword, which stuck over his right shoulder. Sunlight began to strain through the clouds as the airship dropped under them. The city wasn't visible yet, but it was a matter of moments. He wondered if someone would meet him at the docks, or if he'd have to find his way around on his own. He remembered passing through the city the first time, and the confusion which came with such a complicated area. He was lucky if roads only dealt with two dimensions.
"Here we go," Alistar, next to him, said.
The clouds peeled away, and the city of Tern showed itself. People all around the deck of the airship gasped. Metal spires rose and fell like trees. Long lines of steam-powered rail cars chugged around the brass pyramids holding shops, homes, and more. Long metal planks, almost like hangers, opened to greet the airship as it clanked home. Below them, the metallic city thrived. Steam, and pulses of grinding gears, drove the city's many pieces of machinery. Under them, boats languished on the surface of the ocean bordering the city.
A siren warned the airship's occupants to brace, and it clunked to a stop. Slowly, it lowered itself to rest against the bottom of the dock. A child pointed with excitement at a small version of the airship, holding a solitary pilot and hoisting a machine gun. The personal ship flew past, checking for dangers. A flight attendant entered and asked them to disembark.
Soon Jol stood on the docks alone. It'd been four years since he'd been to Tern, and even in that short time it looked different. The only thing which looked the same was the Mayor's house, which, while not very big, was easily identified by the glowing lights on its roof. If no one came to get him, he'd probably just have to ring the doorbell.
Thankfully, a man in official clothes approached. "You're Jolyon of the Flame?"
"That's me," Jol said. "Who are you?"
"My name is Remison, from the Mayor's household," the man said, sticking out his hand. Jol shook it in two quick pumps. "I could tell because of the sword. Do you have everything?"
"Just the bag," Jol said, knocking it with his foot. "Light traveler."
"Allow me." Remison picked up the bag. "The Mayor thanks you for responding on such short notice. I'll take you to the house immediately."
"I was happy to help," Jol said as they left the open dock area and made their way to the ground level of Tern, which was more often than not covered in roofs, buildings, and rail cars. "I'm surprised the mayor reached out to me for a bodyguard instead of promoting from within. That's what people normally do, from what I've seen."
Remison laughed. "Sir! You won't be guarding the mayor! You'll be guarding his daughter!"
Jol looked at him, confused. "But the message said-"
"I know what the message said, sir. In fact, I sent it. However, you must realize something about the mayor. As much safety as he wants for himself, his daughter is his treasure. Asking you to be her personal bodyguard is a sign of high esteem."
"Well...I suppose that's all right."
"I'm glad you think so, sir. Here, step in." They'd reached a small, idling rail car, and Jol pulled himself into one of the seats. Remison sat next to him, and put Jol's bag in the compartment over them. "This will take us right to the Mayor's house."
"I was here a few years ago," Jol said, as the rail car started chugging forward. "The city's changed quite a bit. From the airship it looked like it had grown. Up and out."
"Quite," Remison said. "The mayor is a fan of expansion. The city's become a bastion of commerce. Though I should say the city is swelling with humanity, as well as dolling itself up for the Lighting."
Jol turned away from the window as the car rose over crowded streets. "Sorry? The what now?"
Remison looked surprised. "You haven't heard! Goodness! It's why you're here!"
"What is it?" Jol asked.
"It's a ceremony that's held every ten years. You see the top of the hillside there?" Remison pointed at the highest spot in the city, nearly a mountain of iron and brass. "There's a lighthouse up there. Most nights it just has the standard warning light, for airships. However, every ten years for a week the leader of the city holds a ceremony to give it a special red color. It's the anniversary of several things: The city's founding--but we don't celebrate it every year--it's also to commemorate when some miners were digging in the hillside, and found..."
The man talked away. Jol listened when he could, but he felt better looking over the city. He could see decorated points on the city, but it was sometimes hard to tell. He craned his neck to look forward of the rail car, and saw the mayor's house growing. After a few moments, he realized Remison was winding down.
"What does the mayor do during the Lighting?" he asked. Remison smiled.
"Ah! That's where you come in, sir! It isn't much of the mayor's work, actually. He presides over the thing, but he isn't doing much. It's several young ladies from the city who will be taking part. Traditionally, a woman from the mayor's house takes part, and his daughter was picked this year."
"So...when you say young ladies..."
"The mayor's daughter is ten years old today. The eve of the Lighting. The other girls range from eight to maybe sixteen. I see that look in your eye, though. You're going to be quite busy. You won't have any time to socialize."
"Has there been a threat on the mayor's daughter?" he asked, worried. Then he added: "They're a bit young for me, anyway."
"No threat. That's...not entirely what you're here for." Remison paused. "You know, it's rather difficult to explain. Eh..." He rubbed his hands. "Perhaps I'll let the mayor tell you. He knows a bit more." Remison checked the scenery. "Nearly there. I'll take you right up to him."
A minute later the rail car slowed and stopped, and the door hissed open. Remison handed Jol's bag to a servant, and waved Jol with him. They proceeded up a set of white stone stairs to the entrance of the house.
It had looked small, but now Jol couldn't count the parapets, towers, and windows. "Big place."
Remison held a hand toward the door as it opened, and Jol entered. They went up another flight of stairs to the second floor, and a final door was opened. Inside the room was a crowded area with chairs, couches, and tables. Bright light from a sun-ward window lit it, and several men and women turned to look as they entered.
"May I introduce Jolyon of the Flame. Jolyon, Lord Ferian the Mayor of Tern."
"Jolyon, welcome," a man said, coming forward. His coat's buttons strained outward, and the bald spot on his head gleamed in the light. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Please, come and meet my advisers." The mayor led Jol into the center of the room. "This is Lady Evelyn, Civil Advisor-" A woman with long brown hair bowed "-and this is Sir Wesp, my political adviser." A short man with a beard nodded. "Here is General Etscoomb, my military adviser."
"Lots of free time right now, thankfully," Etscoomb said, shaking Jol's hand.
"Last, my fine wife, Yelana Ferian," the mayor said.
"A pleasure," the woman said. She had her graying hair tied at the top of her head, and wore a slim dress.
"There are others, of course, but these three make up my closest allies. My wife, of course, is present due to the proceedings with my daughter. Please, sit." The mayor gestured at a red, plush chair. Jol sat gingerly. "You know why you're here?"
"Mr. Jolyon has not spent much time in the city," Remison, by the closed door, said. "He's unaware."
The men and women in the room exchanged glances. The mayor nodded at his wife, who stood and went to Remison, and began to whisper to him. Jol felt himself growing cautious.
"You will be guarding my daughter during the Lighting ceremony," the mayor said.
"Does someone wish her harmed?" Jol asked. The mayor shook his head.
"No such thing, in fact. Many people would say it's quite important that she stays well."
Jol narrowed his eyes. He didn't like the way this was going. "And why's that?"
"You...really don't know anything about the Lighting?" Lady Evelyn asked. Jol shook his head. "Dear me."
"Jolyon, it's very important that you know what is expected of you. I suppose Remison told you about the history of the Lighting?"
Jol tried to recall what the man had said in the rail car. "He...mentioned a bit, yes."
"One of the things that the Lighting commemorates is when several miners found a deposit of strange metal under this very hill." The mayor stood, and began to pace. "They dug down, mined it out, and began to sell it. It was found to have several useful properties: conductivity, durability, strength. It is partially responsible for the great city you've just passed through--it was well sought after and provided the city a great boost in trade and funds."
The mayor took a deep breath, and the feeling of the room changed suddenly. To Jol it felt like he'd gone into a calm before the storm.
"The...metal...was there for a purpose, and we didn't understand that until it was too late. It took ten years for us to notice. By then, the metal had been used in machines, or sold. We had already begun to replicate its chemical makeup on our own. Ten years after it was all mined--that would have been what, Remison?"
"One hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow, mayor."
"Quite." The Lord Mayor, sitting on one of the chairs, looked at his feet. He seemed weak. "So, one hundred and forty years ago, a beast--seemingly made of lava, and rock, and all angry as a volcano, emerged from the old mine. It laid waste." A cloud passed between the room and the sun. "Homes were burned, men and women slain. The city was nearly destroyed."
Jol said nothing, only waited. "It took less than a day for everyone but soldiers trying to stop it to be evacuated. They were nothing against it. It towered over men, boiling and furious!"
The mayor paused. "Hope was gone. The soldiers were told to run. Many of their families had stayed, against their wishes, but we are a resilient folk here. The last boat was leaving, filled with survivors, their wives, and their children."
"Aloyce, please let me finish," the mayor's wife said, laying a hand on his shoulder. He nodded, pale. Yelana looked at Jolyon--took him in. "Many of the children snuck to the rear of the ship to get a look at the monster...they had been told to run before being able to see it. Over a dozen boys and the same number of girls watched, horrified, as the monster began to forge into the water. Steam rose in huge blasts, but the monster pushed through. Worse, it was faster than the boat. They would be caught, and surely killed."
The woman tilted her head. She talked calmly, not like the emotion-filled speech of her husband. "Do you know what happened, Jolyon of the Flame?" Jol shook his head. "A miracle. Witnesses say that ten of the girls present on the ship began to glow. The monster seemed to slow in the water. Sudden, invisible forces shot from the ten girls, sending harsh waves across the water's surface. The forces struck the monster."
"It was killed?"
"No--at least, not quite. It retreated, clawing its way out of the water, up the burning hillside, and into the hole it had come from."
Jol tilted his head, like Yelana, but his expression was doubtful. "People came back," the mayor's wife went on, "and went to the hole it had come from. It was gone--but the metal hadn't returned. In ten years time, it would wake up again, but this time preparations had been made.
"A lighthouse had been constructed on the hillside, to serve a dual purpose. The first was simply to warn away the airships that were starting to take the skies. The second was to serve as an entrance to the mine, so that the monster could be defeated again."
"Wait," Jol said, leaning forward. "Do you mean to tell me that even after finding out that the hill held a monster that wanted to kill everyone and everything, you stayed? You built the city again?"
"The monster wasn't stopped. Not by our weapons, or the weapons of the world," Yelana explained. "And, every ten years, it would begin to wake up again. So, the same ten girls were gathered, now grown to women, and some with their own families. The monster reappeared...but the women couldn't stop it."
The people in the room, aside from Jol, shook their heads. "The city was evacuated again. But this time, during it, ten other girls began to glow with the same light. They were quickly gathered, and the beast was stopped with less destruction than before. Over and over, it happened. Each decade, ten women were chosen from the city, seemingly at random...with one exception. A woman from the leader's family was almost always chosen. When we became a city-state, it was constant. Most of the time it was daughters, or nieces, but sometimes older women."
Jol put his face in his hands. He felt dizzy. "So you send these ten girls into the mine every ten years to stop the monster?" Yelana, and the mayor, nodded. "You haven't found any way to kill it?"
They shook their heads. "Not that we haven't tried," General Etscoomb said. "There are entire books in the mayor's house that contain everything so far."
"Unless you have any other questions, we'll bring Hanna in to meet you."
"How do you know which girls are able to stop the monster?"
"We discovered that the women from the last Lighting can pick them out," Lady Evelyn said.
"And why do you call it the Lighting?"
"The populace...doesn't know," the mayor said. Each word came out slowly. "To tell them...they would run! No one would be left, and there's a chance the monster would run free. They think it's a ceremony to remember an 'eruption'--actually the monster--and the city's founding."
"So you...lie to them? Put them all in danger?" Jol asked, astounded. "What about the girls? Do they know?"
Sir Wesp nodded. "The girls and their families are told, and instructed not to reveal anything. There is a high price for doing so."
Jol sat back. "Good Lord. You people..."
"We know what we do," the mayor said. His voice crept across Jol. "And there is a price with holding such knowledge, as well. That is why, we suspect, someone from the mayor's household is chosen each time. To make sure it is not misused."
Jol said nothing. The new information clanked in his mind, getting stuck like hard bread being swallowed. "What do you need me for?"
"Only protection," the mayor said. He rose, and straightened his coat. "Each girl is given a protector, funded by my office. This is to protect them in the mine, and against the monster."
"What?!" Jol snapped to his feet. "I'm going in there with it?! What if I refuse?"
"Then I ask one of my soldiers to accompany my daughter--my only child!--into a dangerous mine to face a monster that would destroy the world." The mayor glared across the room at Jol. His wife mirrored the look. "I asked you to attend me because of the stories told about you. You understand what it means when I ask you to help me?"
Jol remembered what Remison had told him, before they got to the rail car. "I know. It's an honor."
"So do you accept?"
Jol stood, nearly swaying on the spot. The entire room stared at him. Out the window, he could see the lighthouse, high on the hill Tern had swallowed. He gazed at it, breathing slowly through his mouth. "I'd like to meet your daughter before I decide."
"So be it," the mayor said. He nodded at Remison, who slipped out of the room.
Jol waited for ten minutes, sitting and staring at the ground. The story he'd been told was almost too much to believe.
It was similar to one he'd heard before. He played with the pommel of his sword.
Remison knocked lightly, and re-entered. "The young miss Hanna." He moved aside to let in a small girl. She already looked like her mother, with a small face. She took a few steps forward, and curtsied as Jol stood.
"Hanna, this is Jolyon. He may very well be your bodyguard during the Lighting," Yelana said, as she came to stand next to her daughter. Hanna looked up at Jol, and the light glinted off her hair, so blond it was almost white.
"He's big," Hanna said to her mother. Yelana nodded as Hanna continued to inspect Jol. He went to one knee before her, inspecting her back. "What's that on your back?" she asked, pointing at the pommel of his sword. He smiled, and slowly revealed it.
"It's a family heirloom. My father had it before me. It's very special to me."
"You use it to fight?" Hanna asked.
"Sometimes." Jol replaced the sword. "Mostly I use my pistol, though."
"How good are you at bodyguarding?" she asked.
"No one I've ever guarded has died," Jol said. "I'd say that makes me pretty good."
Hanna nodded, creases appearing on her smooth forehead, making her seem momentarily older. "What's that?" She pointed at the emblem keeping the straps of his sheath together around his chest. It was a simple, swirling flame.
"Comes with the sword," Jol explained. "It's my family's crest. I am Jolyon of the Flame."
Hanna looked up at him with her head cocked. A moment passed when the two of them looked at each other, and then Hanna nodded. "Okay. You'll be my bodyguard. Won't you?"
Jol moved his head back, surprised. But, even as he frowned, he realized he would. Like he knew he would fall after jumping off a cliff, he knew he would follow this girl into the mine and keep her safe as she tried to stop a monster from killing again.
"I will." Jol stood. "What now?"
"Little," the mayor said. "Remison will show you to the library. You should study the Lighting and the history of the monster. Once you're done there, you'll be shown to a private room for you to rest. The Lighting is tomorrow at sundown. You should get as much rest as you can," he said before turning to his wife.
Jol stood on the hillside, watching the sun brush against the far mountains. His shadow had grown behind him for the last hour as he sat on one of the stone steps leading up to the giant lighthouse. It was built from shimmering metal, and the distant clank of machinery could be heard.
He, the mayor's family, Hanna, the other girls, and their guards and families had been at the lighthouse since about noon. They'd spent the time talking to each other, laughing and chatting and trying to forget about what they were going to do. Many of the girls were nervous, something Jol didn't fault them in the slightest.
Some of the other bodyguards--mercenaries, some contracted soldiers--knew about Jol. He even knew some of them back. They talked about their adventures, sometimes with an audience. Jol found himself looking at the lighthouse's height during the talking, and saw several other people doing the same. One girl started crying, overburdened by her task; Hanna sat next to her and talked to her. Jol didn't hear what was said, but the girl looked better afterward.
Jol stood and walked across the hill's grass to Hanna, who was eating a piece of candy. She smiled at him when he got close, and he smiled back. "Are you worried?" he asked her. "We're going to be going up soon."
She took the time to lick her fingers, then shook her head. "I know you'll protect me. You've protected everybody else, remember?"
Not against something like this. "I'm glad you have such faith in me. Do you wish you didn't have to do this?"
"Yeah," Hanna said. She was sitting with her knees against her chest and her arms around her legs. "I want to be riding my horse and playing with the other girls." She shrugged. "But I have to. I knew I would."
Jol saw the mayor coming toward them. "Time to go," he told her. "Here comes your father."
"It's time," the mayor said. The other girls and their protectors were gathering in the entrance of the lighthouse, and disappearing inside. "Are you ready?" he asked Hanna. She nodded, yet he didn't move. He seemed unsteady on the slanted hillside. He cast a sidelong glance at Jol, then leaned close to his daughter. "We could run," he told her. "We could use my private airship. You don't have to do this."
Jol was too stunned to say anything. Hanna shook her head. "It's the right thing to do."
The mayor straightened, took in a great breath, and nodded. He held his hand out, his daughter took it, and they walked toward the lighthouse with Jol trailing them.
Soon everyone was in the big lobby of the lighthouse. Jol expected to go to the top, but the only staircase up was blocked off. Instead, the girls were arranged in a circle around the center with their bodyguards behind them. Their families stood against the wall, holding their breath. The mayor stepped forward.
"Thank you, everyone. What's about to happen is no small sacrifice. It comes with a great risk, even if it does succeed. You brave girls know what will happen if you fail, yet you remain." Jol thought it a strange reversal of what he'd just told his daughter. "Again...what happens here can't be revealed to anyone. Is everyone ready?"
The girls all nodded. The bodyguards all stood resolute. "Everyone please come stand in a circle here," the mayor said. He moved out of the way as the the twenty people who would descend went into the center of the room. Jol felt his senses beginning to tune up. The mayor nodded to a guard who stood against the wall, and the guard used a key to open a panel, revealing a level. He pulled it.
Jol felt the floor shift, and Hanna grabbed his hand, stifling a cry. The mayor rose out of sight as the room's center disk lowered to a basement. They all stepped off quickly, and when they were free, the disk rose up again, sealing off their escape.
It was less a basement, more a cavern. Small lights were set in the wall around them, leading down into the mine proper. Hanna flicked on her flashlight, followed by the other girls. Jol pulled out his own. He held it in his left hand, leaving his right free.
"It'll be just like any other time," Hanna whispered. Jol thought she'd said it to herself, but everyone was listening. "We go down there, stop the monster, and come back up. We pull the switch in the wall and the disk comes down." She paused. "That's all."
"I'm scared," one of the girls, younger than Hanna, said in the low light.
"Don't worry Shel," the man next to her said. "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." It seemed to placate Shel.
Jol scanned his light over the rough, dark rock. "Everyone stay together. We can't risk getting lost in here. Let's say...groups of four at the smallest, but stay in a big group if we can."
"Who made you leader?" one of the bodyguards asked. He sounded young, and almost as afraid as Shel.
"None of that," an older voice said. "He's right. Staying as a group is beneficent, splitting up will only make things more dangerous."
"But we could be down here for days!"
"We have food and water. If we take too long, the monster will wake up, and it'll be easy to find." One of the flashlight beams hit Jol's feet. "Lead on, Jolyon."
Jol nodded--an unseen gesture--and took his first steps into the mine shaft.
An hour later the group was still together. They hadn't seen or heard anything from the mine, and terror had given way to boredom, at least for the girls. The bodyguards were pulled tight, worried about things in the dark. One of them, the old one who had defended Jol, walked next to him.
"I read up on the Lighting in the mayor's library," Jol said to the other, whose name was Mas. "The mine is big, but we should be able to find the area where the metal was without too much bother."
Mas hummed his agreement as twenty flashlights roved the walls, floor, and ceiling of the mine. Thick struts were put up to prevent break-ins, and Jol guessed the mine was inspected for damage frequently. "What do you know about the monster?" Mas asked.
"Not much. Nobody does. Just a big beasty that likes to make trouble, that's all." Jol scanned the ground quickly. "I hope we find it before it finds us."
Almost on cue, they heard a bodyguard call out. "I say! Here! I've found a tunnel!" Jol, Mas, Hanna, and Mas' charge hurried ahead and discovered a large opening in the mine wall, which lead in and down to a cavern. "Let's see what we have," the bodyguard said, walking in. His girl, an older one of about fifteen, followed him with small steps, nervously glancing around her. "It's all right, dear, it's empty. Come on down! Nothing here right now, but it could be the place!" he called. Jol and the others followed him in. They found a large, hollowed area with a hole in the center. Jol went up to it and peered down, seeing nothing.
"This sounds like how the books described it," he said. "Girls? Do you feel anything?"
Nobody did. Jol scanned the walls with his light. There was nothing else.
"Maybe not," one of the bodyguards said. "Nothing here but-"
He stopped. Jol stopped. Everyone froze in their places. They'd all felt the minuscule but sudden rise in temperature. Jol felt like something was vibrating. His heart sped up and he scanned the hole.
"Back away, back away," Mas said. They all moved toward the walls of the cavern away from the hole. "This is it all right. Stay strong now, Teri, you'll do all right." The girl, Teri, had her eyes closed and was nodding.
It got hotter. Jol took his sword out and gripped it. He didn't know how much help it would be. Twenty feet away, one of the girls fell to her knees and got sick.
The hole exploded, spitting fire and rock, and heat blasted them. Before anybody could move, a red hand shot out and crushed the sick girl and her bodyguard against the wall, turning them into smears. Hanna screamed and Jol pushed her behind him.
"Now would be a good time to use special powers!" he shouted over the rush of hot wind, baking in the shifting red light. Shadows flashed and danced on the walls behind them. A form appeared out of the fire, turning into a rough humanoid shape with a hunchback and long, snake-like limbs rolling on the ground. Jol and Hanna stepped back from them. "Girls!"
Hanna pushed a hand at it, but nothing happened. No light, like the mayor described, come from her. Jol brandished his sword at the form as it continued to take shape; it seemed a pitiful thing compared to the red, shifting form.
It took its first, lurching step from the hole, and six of the duos ran back to the main shaft, leaving Jol and Hanna, Mas and Teri, and another two.
Mas pulled out his pistol and fired two shots. They struck the monster and did nothing more than splash bits of rock. The monster took notice, and just as Mas pushed Teri away, a fist came down, crushing him. Jol picked Teri up, and followed the other three out the entrance. A shattering roar followed them out, and heat surged past them. Hanna screamed.
"Find a place to defend ourselves!" Jol shouted at the fourteen in front of him. "Girls, please start doing something! Anything!"
"We don't know how!" one shouted. "It always happened by accident!"
"You can't control it?!" They shook their heads. "There wasn't anything like this written in the books! It always just...happened!"
"Maybe we just need to wait," Hanna said. She looked behind her, at the entrance. They heard the monster shuffling, and gusts of hot air went past them.
"Whatever it is, we can't panic." Jol looked over the people still present. Thankfully, none of them had turned tail. "Let's get a position we can try and defend ourselves with, and give the girls some time."
The other bodyguards all nodded, and weapons held in hands were held tighter.
They moved back toward the entrance of the mine, the three destroyed bodies, out of reach, were left behind.
"You said you'd read about the Lighting?" one of the bodyguards asked ten minutes later. They were set up at the end of a long mine shaft, which also rose steadily. Against an army it would have been a powerful defensive position--but not against a monster. They hadn't seen or heard the monster since retreating, but they felt the heat. Hanna and the remaining girls talked amongst themselves. Teri stood quietly next to Hanna.
"That's right," Jol said. It was the bodyguard who had found the entrance to the cavern, named Lowie. "The mayor had a library with information about all of them, or as much as can be remembered. I spent all day yesterday reading."
"Was there anything about what the monster was?" Lowie asked. "Perhaps if we knew something like that-"
Jol shook his head. "No, nothing. It had a retelling of the people finding the special metal, and the monster's first appearance, and the ups and downs of figuring out what to do every ten years, and the tragedies, and this mayor, or that mayor, and this girl, or that girl...but nothing about the monster." Jol brushed hair out of his eyes. "We'll have to make do."
"Can you remember anything that could help us?" a bodyguard named Isaac asked. "Anything at all?"
"There was nothing! Nothing could stop it except for the light from the girls and...and the metal that the miners found." Jol dropped his head. "That's all."
"Maybe that's true," Lowie said, "but it's still a creature of this world. We might not be able to kill it, but we can push it over if we have to." He patted the cannon hanging from a strap by his hip. "My friend here will be able to give us some time."
"What if we were to knock the mine's ceiling on top of it?" a bodyguard named Piln asked.
"We could just as easily trap ourselves," Jol said. "Who knows if it would even be able to stop the monster? It seems made of fire. It might be able to melt the stone." He looked over at the nine girls. "Is anybody willing to act as Teri's protector? I'll do it if no one else will."
"I can do it," a big bodyguard named Yoff declared, pushing off from the wall. "There's enough of me to go around." Yoff left the group to talk to Teri, who looked up at him with almost as much fear as at the monster. Jol reminded himself they were just children, all of them. He joined Yoff and the girls.
"Any luck?" he asked, kneeling. "I hate to rush you, but we're running out of time."
Hanna shook her head and didn't look at him. "We can't make anything happen. We don't know how to try."
"All right," Jol said. What do we do?
Twenty minutes passed, and the heat got worse. The bodyguards were restless, and fiddled with their weapons. "It'll be appearing any minute," Lowie said. He had his personal cannon resting on the ground, pointed at the bottom of the slope. "Anybody have any ideas?"
"Just give us time, Lowie," Jol said. Lowie nodded and he went to the girls. "I know you feel scared," he said to them, "but I don't want anybody giving up. Got it?" The girls answered yes, in the way slaves responds to a master.
"Jol!" one of the bodyguards yelled. "Here it comes!"
"Everybody ready!" Jol shouted, running to where Lowie was set up. "Need any help with this thing?"
"I fought off a dozen bandits on the South Dori highway on my own with this. Don't need your help!" Lowie answered, which was what Jol hoped he'd say. Jol took out his sword. The metal was hot to the touch.
A red glow appeared at the end of the shaft, and began to grow brighter. The heat increased, and flashlights moved frantically around the walls of the mine, their presence dimming as the red glow grew stronger. Jol heard a whimper from one of the girls, but nobody ran.
The glow got brighter until a slur of heated stone and frantic fire appeared around the corner, held together as a strange humanoid shape. It forced a long, straggling growl out of its dripping mouth, and started pushing itself up the slope. "Lowie!" Jol shouted.
The cannon went off, and something struck the monster, knocking it off-balance. Lowie dumped a shell and started forcing another one inside. Jol looked over his shoulder. The girls still lacked the angelic light Jol had read about over and over. He shifted his sword to his other hand to cool off.
Lowie fired another shot at the monster, which was still struggling to keep its feet. It toppled when the second shot hit, and dust rained from the ceiling when it hit the ground. "It won't stay down long," Jol said. "Keep pestering it," he told Lowie, who nodded. Jol looked at Yoff and another, named Clark. "Ready?"
Yoff, who carried a long rifle, nodded. Clark, who as far as Jol could tell was mute, did nothing. He carried nothing more than a strange gold-colored pistol. The two would help Lowie keep the monster back if it got close.
Even then the monster was on its feet and taking steps. Lowie aimed another shot.
Time halted as the monster jumped. Over the cannon's blast it floated, soaring as if tossed by a gentle wind. It spanned the distance between itself and Lowie in a moment, and came crashing down.
"BACK!" Jol shouted, smashed to one side by the crashing vibrations and heat. Jol heard Lowie scream, and he heard a splat. "Yoff! Clark!"
Yoff brought his rifle to bear and spat bullets at the monster, which stuck into its magma flesh or bounced off rocks. Clark aimed his pistol. Jol kept his sword between him and the monster. It followed him with its eyes, ignoring Yoff's attacks. A rock, thrown by one of the girls, bounced off its head.
Clark fired his pistol, and a beam of penetrating light boiled out of it, painting the wall behind the monster with a grotesque shadow. Steam erupted from its body.
Jol had a disbelieving stare on his face. Clark simply spun the chamber and aimed again, using just one hand. Teri and Yoff's other girl ran to him with smiles on their faces. Jol watched them run in slow motion.
A red limb snaked out, stretching through the steam. The limb struck and smashed Clark, Yoff, and Yoff's original charge, slamming them against the wall. It grazed Lowie, sending him rolling over the ground to rest at Teri's feet with a long burn on his shoulder. Teri shrieked, and the girls went into a frenzy. Some wailed, some cursed the monster, and others began picking up rocks to hurl at it.
Jol hoisted Teri off her feet and helped Lowie get up. Eight. We're running out of girls. He thought--a scattered voice in his brain.
Then another voice appeared. Give me back.
He let Teri go, and turned to look at the monster. It was glaring at him again, motionless. The moment held no sound, and no action; the two watched each other. The heat forced air past him, ruffling his hair. Shifting lights from the monster's hide shone off his sword's metal.
He turned and ran to the girls and remaining bodyguards. Two of the older girls were wrapping a bandage around Lowie's arm, which was covered in melted flesh and bubbling cysts. Blood dripped from Lowie's lip where he bit on it.
"We can't do it, Jol!" Hanna said when he appeared. "Nothing we do will stop it!" Jol saw tears in her eyes. "We can't get anything to happen! First Sandy, and now Emma, too!" She sniffed and latched onto Jol, weak arms around his middle. Jol took a shaky breath.
"We can't stop trying, Hanna. There are too many lives at stake for us to stop. Understand?" he said quietly. A flashlight passed over his face. Hanna nodded and then looked up at him with a wet face. He smoothed her hair and looked at everyone else.
For the girls, their worst nightmares had come true. To a one they looked upset and scared. Jol knew the older ones where trying to stay strong for the younger ones, but he knew what he saw in their eyes in the bluish glow of the flashlights they carried.
The mercenaries talked about their next strategy. Many of them had been in dangerous situations before and made it alive, but never a situation like this one. Jol certainly hadn't ever.
"Jol," Lowie said. "Any other bright ideas?"
"I'm sorry if what I suggested hasn't worked," Jol muttered. "Does anyone else have a suggestion?" Nobody spoke. "I didn't think so." He looked around their dwindling group. "Keep the girls safe. Teri and Emma shouldn't have run to Yoff until we were sure the monster was down."
He looked around their current position. It was a round bubble in the passage leading back to the elevator to take them into the lighthouse. It was big enough to hold them all, but if the monster got to them they would have to retreat. There were six bodyguards left, including him. Their weapons, hardly a help before, were getting fewer. The girls still had no magic aura, no bright glow from fairytales full of salvation and deep emotion.
Jol sat with his sword over his lap. The blade's metal was hot to the touch and had a slight red tint. Jol looked at the walls and ceiling and found they had the same. Again, always again. It'll come until we stop it.
"Give me back."
Jol looked around, stunned. There was no one close enough to be the source of the voice he'd just heard. It was clear and light, like the ring of a bell. He stood, head in one hand and sword in the other, momentarily doubting his sanity. No great stretch of the imagination--underground with a dozen scared people and an unstoppable monster.
He looked down the mine shaft, leaning against the rock, blessedly cool. At the very end of the straight path they were on, he could see a stronger red on the wall. It's down there, somewhere, he thought.
So when he heard a cry from behind him, and turned to see it rolling toward the group from behind, his mind didn't understand. It was only after Hanna shouted his name did he break into a run. The girls ran behind him and the other bodyguards.
The murky red glow from the monster reflected off Jol's sword as he held it in front of him. "Lowie?"
"I don't like it, Jol," Lowie said. "Why did it flank us? Is it trying to get us?"
"Yeah!" Isaac said. "Why didn't it just make for the surface?"
Jol and the monster watched each other.
"Girls," Jol shouted over his shoulder. "I want you to go back to the cavern that the monster came from. This isn't a place we want to fight. That spot will give us a much better chance. Lowie, you and Isaac go with them right now. The rest of us will catch up once you're a little ways away."
Lowie and Isaac left their group and hustled the girls back the way they'd come.
"What do we do, Jol?" one of the remaining bodyguards asked. He held a pistol in one hand. Its nose quivered. The monster wasn't moving.
"I think the best thing to do is just back away," Jol whispered. "Keep ready to fire, but more ready to run. Good?"
Nobody answered. Shifting red shadows played over their faces. "Piln and Hogar, head back. Slowly. Maybe it won't notice."
The two bodyguards on the end of their small line inched backward.
A scream dug into their ears from behind; they froze. The wailing rose and rose, clearly one of the girls. It got louder and more painful to hear until cutting off abruptly. When it stopped, Jol realized his eyes were pressed shut. He opened them and found the monster looking at him. "Piln. Hogar." Keeping his eyes trained on the monster, he heard two sets of footsteps echo away. It was him and one more. "Go on, Tuomas," he said. "I'll bring up the rear."
"Jol..." Tuomas whispered. He was an older man, and visibly sweating.
"Go."
Tuomas hesitated, then turned and ran, trying to move quietly.
Jol was left alone with the monster. It dwarfed him by dozens of feet, and its hot head nearly touched the ceiling, hunched even as it was. What Jol took for its head was pointed at him. Small depressions with tiny points of lava, like eyes, watched him without blinking.
"Are you speaking to me?" Jol said out loud. "Are you the voice I hear in my head?"
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he thought when the monster didn't answer. "Why didn't you just head to the surface, like you did all those other times?" I don't even know why I'm asking these. I won't get an answer. "You tricked us into thinking you were down the mine. You wanted to surprise us. But...you didn't hurt us." He shifted the grip on his sword.
"Give me back."
"What do you mean?!" Jol shouted after hearing the voice, like it was spoken in his ear by a lover. "Tell me! If you want something from me, I can give it to you! I don't want anymore to die!" He took a step back; the monster's eyes followed him. No voice was heard. He shook his sword at it. "If you won't give me any answers, why don't you just head back to your hole!"
The monster's eyes bobbled up and down.
Tilting his head, Jol stared at it. With one hand on his sword, he held it out to the side of his body. The monster's eyes watched it. "You haven't been looking at me at all, have you? You've been looking at my sword," Jol said. After a moment, he chuckled. "Well, I'll be."
He looked up at the monster. "I'll be going back to your hole now. I'll give you back what you want if you follow me and don't hurt anyone else." He lowered his sword. After taking a few careful steps backward, he turned and started walking down the path the others had taken. When he'd gone about twenty feet, he looked behind him. The monster slurred its way after him, keeping its distance. Each step sounded wet, slopping against the stone floor. Jol nodded to himself and continued.
He turned the corner at the end of the shaft and found a pool of lava. Lying horrifyingly next to it were two small, charred legs. Jol's mind replayed the awful scream they'd heard, and hoped it wasn't Hanna. The stench of burnt flesh made his eyes water, and he covered his mouth when he rushed past.
Some time later he got to the cavern the monster had first appeared with a red glow behind him. The others--minus one girl--waited. Hanna ran up to him and gave him a hug. On the faces of the girls, Lowie, and Isaac, he saw horror.
"Everyone get to the back of the room," he instructed. "I know how to stop it."
"How?" Hanna asked.
"I'll explain once it's done. Everybody get to the far wall, and nobody attack it."
"It...followed you?" Isaac asked. "Why did it do that?"
"The same reason it didn't make for the surface," Jol answered. "It wants something from me." He held his sword out.
"Your blade?" Tuomas said. "Why?"
The red glow behind him got brighter, and the monster came around the corner. Hanna stepped away. "Go on, everybody back!" Jol said. He followed Hanna around the center hole. The monster entered the cavern, stretching up to its full height.
"All right." Jol licked his lips. "You did what I asked, and I'll give you the sword. Here it comes."
Stretching back, he hurled the sword over the hole.
The monster leapt like it had before, meeting the sword in the middle and letting it sink into its body. With a flash of light and and final blast of stunning warmth, it fell into the hole and out of sight.
Jol went to the edge of the hole and looked down. He caught the last traces of a receding glow.
Then, he saw nothing.
You have stopped but one of me. In other worlds, I live yet. Already one poor soul knows my touch, and he shrinks inside his world, like a flower at twilight. Soon I will appear in other places and times. As you have laid fire to rest, so will ice, and wind, and rock, and fate, and all the other parts of your world COME ALIVE. Eventually, there will be enough of me to join into one crushing whole. Your metal will not stop me again, Jolyon of the Flame. Even now, I sense your world crumbling under your feet. Yes. SUCH A THING IS REAL.
"Jol?" he heard. After the grinding, smoking, hating voice rending the fabric around his brain and grinding him to dust, the voice he heard now was sweet and pure and full of love. He found himself looking down at a face which watched him with fear.
"Are you all right?" he heard, and then the face's mouth moved in a slurring, cloudy fashion, all its motions blended together in one grimace.
Jol blinked, and felt dizzy. He stumbled backward and fell over, smacking his head on the hard surface under him. The world stayed blurry. Faces shifted into view in a ring around him. The sounds they made were a single keen.
The next he knew he was moving, bouncing gently on something. Lights danced around uneven surfaces. He reached for them, but they kept moving, away from his hands.
"He's awake, Hanna," Yelana said to her daughter. "You can go in and see him."
Hanna nodded and put down her book. She opened the door to Jolyon's room slowly. He was sitting up in bed with a bandage around his head. He smiled when he saw her.
"I'm glad you're all right," he said. She ran to him and gave him a hug. "Careful! I'm still not all there!"
"I'm sorry," she said. "What happened? You threw your sword at it, it disappeared, and then you didn't do anything." She frowned. "And when I asked you what it was, you fell over!"
Jol smoothed the bedsheets. "I...I can't really say. I'm not sure." He looked out the window over her head at the steamy sky. Night had passed while he was asleep.
"What about your sword?" Hanna asked. "Why did you throw it?"
"It was made of the metal that was there originally," Jol said, keeping his eyes on the sky. "I didn't know. It's been in my family for generations. I remember my grandfather once saying it was made of a magic metal, but I thought that was just a story. The monster wanted it all along. That might have even been what it was trying to get all those other times."
"That couldn't have been all the metal," Hanna said. "My father said there was a lot more than your sword."
Jol nodded. "Maybe it was just enough. Maybe it will come back in ten years. I'm sorry. I don't know."
Hanna shook her head and hugged him again, then went to the door. She waved before she left. He waved back as she closed the door, and put his head back against the pillow.
He licked his lips. There was something more than a simple monster in the mine. He knew it for a fact. He rang for a servant.
"Yes, Mr. Jolyon?" Remison asked, sticking his head in the room. "I'm glad to see you awake, sir."
"I'm glad to see you too, Remison. Could you fetch me a few books? There's some reading I want to do."