Fiery Skies
I was born from the Sixth Pillar of Pain, ejected naked from the mighty tower of living obsidian, its surface steadily oscillating and reaching towards the fiery sky. The light of the living world blinded me, and when I regained some of my vision, I felt compelled to look up and gaze toward the skies. There, burning with an unholy flame I could see the heaven and at that moment realize what I was staring at. For even with my mind of a newborn, I knew then that I was looking at the terrible being that had created me, that I was staring at the horrifying visage of what I would always worship as my god.
It was only later that I would learn of the history of the thing, of the being that had slain the old blue sky and taken its place, of how the beast had twisted all that was and remade it in its own image. But even now some ancient instinct within me was whispering the hints of those things, some ancient fragment from the old world that even the beast had not managed to extinguish. It was whispering me those things and telling me to run away, run as far from the burning sky as I could; but I knew I could never flee from the beast that had brought me to life. And I was not afraid, for I knew if it wanted to take my life it would, and then I would go without pain and before even realizing it.
This is my earliest memory, the memory that all those living under the unholy sky will always carry the deepest in their hearts: the memory of birthing.
The Phoenix
Mielea closed her eyes, silently drawing a deep breath. As she did so, the sharp, pungent smell of the volcano’s toxic gases made her throat and nostrils burn, the acrid feeling spreading down to her lungs. For a long moment, she held her breath, savoring the pain. Then she exhaled, the gas burning almost twice as much as it made its way over her throat again.
Slowly she opened her eyes, surveying the surroundings. The volcanic vapors made her eyes water and smart, adding to the pains already emanating from all around her body.
Lava and hot magma ran freely all around her, the rocky outcropping she was standing on protecting her. Her body was riddled with burns: minor blisters on the neck, deep wounds finding their way to the nerves on the legs and arms.
“From the fire we came,” Mielea spoke, her voice rasp and hoarse. She would have wanted to swallow, but her throat was dry. “In fire we are all shaped, in fire do we grow. I give my greetings to the purest of this power of creation, the cleansing and renewing heat of the volcano.”
She drew a deep breath and continued. “Through pain comes growth, and without pain, there can be no birth. I give myself as a sacrifice to the essential element of fire, the essential element of pain.”
Slowly, Mielea took off the simple sandals she had been wearing. Taking support from the stones so she wouldn’t lose her balance, she lowered her left foot into the stream of lava. Inhaling sharply as the searing pain shot through her leg, she killed the reflex to withdraw it through sheer force of will.
She paused for a moment, struggling to bring the pain under control. Her foot was sinking into the hot lava, leaving it immeresed in the magma halfway up the knee. A long, torturous moment later, she found enough willpower to lift her right foot into the stream, as well.
The agony was overwhelming now, but Mielea still suppressed the impulse to scream. Her mouth was wide open, the toxic gases filling her lungs, her quickly-weakening legs soon giving away. She stared in front of her, but her eyes no longer saw, her mind too possessed by the pain to pay the surroundings any attention anymore.
Then she blinked, and for a moment Mielea saw again, a huge flame building up at the top of the volcano. The brightness was painful to behold, but in the face of what she was already enduring, it was a drop in the ocean.
The flame formed, took shape – it was a man, a monster, a child, a beast, a woman. It held her gaze, it dominated her mind. It surrounded her, enveloped her in heat, but now it was a pleasant heat, a comforting, healing warmth. It passed over her wounds, fading away their pain. It caressed her, pleased her – it was a sensual, longing feeling, a feeling of having returned to one’s origins.
‘You have done well, child,’ a voice so soft Mielea couldn’t tell if she’d really heard it or not, a voice echoing in the crackle of the fire.
“Like a phoenix,” Mielea whispered and lost her consciousness, plunging head-first into the hot, moldering lava.
Consciousness was slow to return, elusively playing on the edge of her mind. She was chasing the wind, trying to step on her own shadow.
The flame-beast still watched her. The afterimage of it had been burned on her retina, her constant companion in the dreamscape. But no matter what she did, she couldn’t place a form on it – it was constantly changing, so subtly she couldn’t even see the change before it had already taken place.
‘Be diverse’, the wind whispered. ‘Be shifting, flexible, and you will never be destroyed.’
The sun was bright in the sky, and Mielea raised her hand to cover her eyes. When she looked away from the sky, she saw her own shadow, frozen in place.
She raised her foot and stepped on her shadow, and the dreamscape faded…
Gerdian
Gerdian smiled as he watched his prey. It was a cruel, savage sort of smile, the one you’d expect to see on the face of a bullying brute. Yet, the narrowed, sharp eyes betrayed an intellect far greater than something you’d expect to see on a common bully. He was surrounded by a definite air of command, something that seemed deeply ingrained in every part of him. It was most clearly visible in the proud, defiant way he held himself erect even in the middle of the raging blizzard. The cold, freezing wind that was sweeping through the valley and forcing Gerdian’s companions to cover behind him wasn’t even enough to make him cover his face.
Dressed in a wolf’s fur, he held his hands and face without any cover, seemingly oblivious to the temperatures that would’ve dropped a weaker man dead in an instant. His hands, clenched in fists, had a bright red color from the cold, many large bulging veins running over the muscles. They were not the delicate hands of a thief or a master craftsman – they were the well-worn, hardened hands of a warrior, of a killer who did all of his slaying with his bare hands. They were bulging muscles that had been exposed to the freezing temperatures of the Icy North for all of their existance and never needed to suffer from the weakening, softening warmth.
Dropping on all fours, Gerdian gave the lone traveler below him one, final evaluating glance, and then leaped. There was an almost inhuman grace in his movements, muscles and nerves moving in perfect coordination. For a heartbeat, he seemed almost frozen in the air, an illusion which broke as he landed in front of his prey. He sliced at the man’s throat as he did so, the claws in his hands drawing blood even through the traveler’s thick clothes, spelling a certain doom. Around them, Gerdian’s pack followed him and leapt through the air to surround the traveler, denying the man any remote chance of escape.
As the man fell, Gerdian gave each of his followers a challenging glance, all of them submitting and looking down from him. With the earned rights of the leader, he tore his claws into the traveler’s flesh, being the first one to sink his teeth into the man’s warm, fresh flesh.
It would’ve been an understatement to call him the leader of the pack. He was the pack, and none of them would survive without him.
That Old Man
The only thing we ever knew him as was “that old man”. Our parents might have been able to tell us his real name, but none of us really cared. He wasn’t that interesting, really – he’d just sit on a bench, basking in the sun and rarely paying us children any attention. He wasn’t of the “nice, child-loving grandpa” type, but on the good side, he wasn’t of the “awful, child-hating bitter old guy” type, either. All in all, well, we pretty much ignored him, like he was a piece of furniture or something.
Amy was the one who noticed, the day he’d disappeared. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and it was really odd that he wasn’t sunbathing like always. When I asked my mother about it, she said that the old man had had a heart attack and been taken to a hospital. We found this exciting, and even a little bit scary – was the old man going to die? Could we have a heart attack and die, too? Some of the older boys tried to convince us that yes, any of us could have a heart attack and die right now, and while we tried to ignore them, the thought was more than a little discomforting. I slept with lights on for the next two weeks, afraid a heart attack would sneak up on me and catch me unawares.
Well, the old man never came back from the hospital, and over time we forgot all about him. We grew up, went to school, got our own lives. By the time we finished high school, I was the only one who remembered him, and even my memories of him were vague. I think that was the last time I thought about the old man in many, many years.
Time goes on and on, and nothing ever stops changing. I married, had children. I watched them grow, fly out of the nest. My wife died before me, leaving me alone in a house far too large, the house where we’d raised our children, the house we had never wanted to move out of. It was more than just a house – it was home, and it held far too many precious memories. I couldn’t move out of there any more than I could stop my heart from beating.
Now that I’m alone, I find my thoughts constantly returning to the days of my youth. I remembered the old man for the first time in years, and the more I think of him, the more curious I grow. Was his tale anything like mine? Had he had a family once, or maybe he’d never found his true happiness? What crossed his mind when he watched the children play, or did he care at all? Did he, like me, relive the days past, or was he just content to sit in the sun?
Now I can’t help but feel a deep sadness when I think of him: I’m sad that I never talked to him, never found out his story when I had the chance. As I watch the children play outside, I feel a feeling of companionship, bonding with that long-dead man. Maybe he’s still somewhere, watching over me, still watching the children that always played in front of his eyes.
I feel my age weighing on me – I don’t have much more time here. Maybe I’ll get to meet him again soon, ask him for his story. Then we’ll have a good time together, share the stories of our lives. But there’s still a while before that.
In the meanwhile, I’ll go sit in the sun. The warmth feels good on the old bones.
This work by Kaj Sotala is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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