The Flame of Wrath (26 page)

             
“They must decide for themselves.”

             
When Maven's eyes found Rapier once more, the woman was walking toward a building unlike any the blond had ever seen.

             
Rising high into the sky was an obelisk of such radiance that it seemed to throb with life. Its surface smoldered as the darkest depths of midnight blue, but at the gentlest turn of one's head the inky-blue was glossed by a violet-red. Vines of thick glistening gold grew upward along its surface.

             
The true summit of the obelisk could scarcely be realized. It pointed directly into the heart of night. The sky parallel to it was weighted by twinkling diamonds littering its crown.

             
Stars streaked across the horizon. They fell downward into the shadow of the obelisk. Where they disappeared, light originated as the womb of the universe. The light spread upward and outward zealously, but could never quite reach the blue-black sky above.

             
Maven tentatively took a step forward upon a glittered pathway. Trees lined the path. She watched them in curious wonder. They grew from floundering seed to glorious evergreen giants before wilting and decaying with time's hand. This was done within the spans of moments. Immortality's dance was betrayed over and over again for Maven's newly-seeing eyes.

             
Once at the end of the path, Maven found a beautiful statue of a woman protruding from the doors. Her hands were bound by golden restraints, her eyes were lost behind a black silk scarf. It was her golden hair which fanned outward to crawl around the obelisk as vines.

             
Maven had never witnessed a more breathtaking woman, statue or otherwise. She marveled at the seeming softness of her skin. As she stood in her presence, she thought that she could detect her heavenly perfume.

             
“How do we enter?” Maven whispered.

             
Rapier shook her head. “I don't know,” she said. “I'd been trying to figure that out when you came.” She paused, looking to Maven's spellbound expression. “She's beautiful, isn't she?”

             
The Queen did not answer. Instead, she knelt near the statues base and began to make out the ancient inscriptions. “Offer---” Maven squinted. She slid her hand over the worn words. “Offer something.” She sighed in frustration. “I can't make out what it says after 'offer.' It could even say 'offering'.”

             
In the moment that the word was spoken the sensual lips of the celestial statue twitched. The lips moistened to supple life. Slowly they parted in invitation.

             
Rapier took a step back. Only after a moment of gathering her thoughts was she able to speak again. “We have nothing to offer. We left all our belongings on the other side.”

             
“There is always something,” the Queen muttered. She searched about them, completely distracted from her second. When her eyes caught sight of various flowers blooming before wilting, she crouched before them. She waited until their cycle was repeating again then plucked the flowers from their rich home. Patiently, she enacted a ritual she had not performed since she was a small child. She interwove the flowers, braiding them into an elegant crown. A tiny frown touched her lips. Something was missing.

             
A gust of wind made her golden hair draw her attention. Maven gathered a bit of her silken hair between her teeth. She bit decisively at the tresses, cutting them from her mane. Once the strands were free, she worked them together into a delicate braid. The simple braid was then added to the floral crown as a fragile ribbon.

             
Green eyes smiled before lips ever could. Maven felt a pride in her actions that she had not known since childhood. She rose to her feet then stood before the woman of the obelisk. Gently she placed the crown upon the woman's tongue and watched as a smiling statue consumed the gift.

             
Both, Rapier and Maven stood side by side as the woman pushed a small scarlet key past her lips. Timidly, Rapier moved forward. She whispered words of thanks as she tenderly pried the key from the statue's mouth. As she turned to show the key to her Queen, she noticed the blanching of Maven's face. She frowned curiously. Following the path of Maven's eyes, she glanced over her shoulder. The statue was gone.

********

              The Pyrosians stood huddled closely together with a question looming overhead. What did this key open?

Upon closer inspection of the obelisk, they saw that
there were no keyholes. In fact, there were no longer doors of any kind.

             
“I haven't seen any other doors,” Rapier said at last.

             
“Perhaps it will open a door somewhere else on the isle,” Maven reasoned aloud. She was answered only by a thoughtful nod.

             
Side by side, they walked in the direction of the bridge.

             
Maven's eyes could not leave the scarlet key held within her hand. It twinkled in the light, silently taunting her. Rapier's hand firmly grasping hold of her wrist called her to a halt. She lifted her eyes from the key, wondering why Rapier had stopped. Her eyes widened in surprise as she witnessed the materialization of stairs directly before them.

             
“Where do they lead?” Rapier asked.

             
Maven shook her head slowly. “I don't know, but we're going to find out.” She cautiously moved up the stairs of dancing blue flames.

             
Once at the top of the stairs, the Queen stood thoughtfully upon the landing. The stairs broke off into two sets of stairs, one to the left and the other to the right. The slow moving sky was all that waited at the stairs' summit or perhaps it was so much more.

             
Rapier veered away to the left. She ascended the stairs slowly. In her mind, she had a fleeting desire for the sword she had left behind. With the last stair beneath her feet, she gazed over her shoulder to the blond who also stood at the climax of the neighboring stairs. “What now?” she shouted across to Maven.

             
A low grumbling came as the warning to something unnatural. Its sound rose ominously like the dread creeping up her spine. Rapier turned her brown eyes once more to the top of the stairs. The image of a dark mahogany door wavered violently until its nature solidified, revealing the completion of the portal.

             
The door shimmered in the light like velvety chocolate. A deeply bronzed handle awaited the soldier's touch. It did not wait long.

             
Seized by curiosity, Rapier took possession of the handle then pressed it downward until she heard the distinctive click of the latch. She pushed the door open just enough to feel the mist upon her face. Blinking the beads from her lashes, she turned to look back at Maven, but Maven was no longer at the top of the stairs. Instead there was only a door which remained ajar.

             
“Maven?” she whispered.

********

              The floor beneath her feet might have been the very essence of fall. Burnt orange lived among the fallen leaves of amber and vermilion tiles. Maven was a shadow moving within the warmly-lit cathedral. Her hand lovingly traversed the rich wooden pillar towering above her. From the corner of her eye, she thought she had seen the sparsely placed bodies of people upon the pews. A second glance caused her to realize that only ghostly inhabitants shadowed this church.

             
“Where am I?” she wondered scarcely above a whisper.

             
Her footsteps echoed throughout the cathedral's world of lingering memories. She moved with transfixed eyes toward the front of the cathedral where a stained glass window cast its kaleidoscopic light over all she knew.

             
The stained glass was alive with burning colors. It blazed defiantly with them, but nothing stirred the depths of the soul more than the images possessed by immortal life.

             
Framed in crimson wonders, a vision of beauty and femininity would have once reigned over an adoring room. Her kingdom was small now, consisting mainly of phantoms, but in this moment, her audience was a Queen.

             
Her shapely body was infused by the perfection of unending youth. Its splendors were loosely enveloped by the graceful drapery of fragile silk. Her petite body was immortalized within the grips of seductive movement. She was mid-dance.

             
Life infused her artisan body. The woman within the stained glass fluidly raised her arm from its place at her side. As she did, the air was filled with the sound of scraping glass. The elegant line of her neck held her regal head. She turned her face in the direction of her delicately extended arm. Then slowly, she began to point.

             
Maven tore her eyes away from the face with plump lips and a fine nose. She forced her gaze from the hair which shown like the summer's sun and the eyes which burned as high-reaching fires. Instead her eyes followed the line of the goddess' finger.

             
The Queen gasped.

             
A painting nestled within the shadows throbbed. Its colors were infused with strength then dimmed again. Each beat of life brought out its colors more.

             
Maven rushed as much as she dared toward the painting. Her eyes narrowed in study. The closer she grew to the painting the more its colors grew impassioned.

             
The colors warmed the surface of her face. They hotly danced inside her eyes which widened at the enormity of what her mind was yet to process.

********

              The ocean broke brutally against the jagged rocks beneath her feet. Rapier fought to see beyond the crashing sea foam spitting up at her. She stood paralyzed by some unseen power. The sky was weeping in the midst of its rages. She blinked away the beads matting her lashes. Never in her life had Rapier witnessed the elements so enraged by a mysterious offense.

             
The crackling air warned her not to move. The torrential rains weighting her body had all but robbed her of her sight. She squinted, trying to make out the small light she saw dancing in the furthermost reaches of the horizon. Suddenly the light grew brighter as it drew closer. She crossed her arms across her face, desperate to shield herself from the blinding light which rushed toward her.

             
When at last the approaching light had ceased its movement, it hovered as an innocent baby with smiling eyes.

             
The child's skin was luminescent and golden. A halo of radiance encircled its cooing form. Ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes with honey-sweet skin and frosted lashes, it was clear that no child ever lived which shined so brightly either outwardly or within.

             
“Who,” Rapier started. Her voice faltered. A clap of thunder quaked the sky. She began again, this time her voice above the rains. “What,” she corrected, “are you?”

             
The angelic voice did not come from pouting infant lips. It came from the ocean, from the sky above, from the very air which roared inside Rapier's ears.

             
“I am a dream.”

             
Rapier frowned in confusion. “A dream?” she repeated. “Whose dream?”

             
The infant's infectious giggle echoed throughout eternity.

             
Rapier watched as the child's light pitched upward. It stretched in every direction. The light changed form before her eyes. She would have screamed had her voice not locked itself within her throat. She jerked her vision away, not daring to see the massive creature unveiling itself to her. She was blinded by its light, quaking in its love, but oh so fearful of its wrath.

             
“Journey to the jungles where the sun sleeps,” came the voice.

             
The world around Rapier began to tremble. It rocked violently. She wanted to ask questions. She wanted to ask what the jungle held, but all she could do was run for her life's worth toward the door which had brought her here. She lunged for the door with her heart pounding inside her tightening throat.

             
As Rapier ripped the door open, she stared outward to the world beyond. She could glimpse a blanch-faced Maven leaving the threshold through which she had ventured. With all her might, she screamed, fearful that she was about to be consumed by the elemental magic alive around her.

             
“Maven, go to the jungle where the sun sleeps!” she cried.

             
Maven felt her heart stop. She could see the world collapsing at Rapier's back. “Rapier!” she screamed. She rushed down the stairs, sprinting toward the set of stairs which would lead her to Rapier.