Ragnarok

Chapter 13 - Ascension

Rei's eyes recovered quickly from the initial dazzling glimpse of brilliant gold, raging heat, and a dancing blue flame that emerged from the crucible where the two were joined. What was left was something she was even less prepared for.

The blue flame had congealed into the third guardian, who stood looking somewhat skeptically at the floating girl before her. It was another woman, or program, or goddess she supposed, but looking even more alien than Fortuna. This was the warrior goddess, an avatar of fire, destruction and rebirth. Her skin was blue, and stretched taut over a lean, powerful body that was clothed in bright gold and seething reds. More panthress than human, and with eyes that burned like the exposed belly of the volcano itself.

"What may I call you, oh fiery one?" Rei asked, unsure of the protocol with this particular pantheon. She seemed vaguely Indian, but incarnations could be picky about how their names were pronounced.

The blue-skinned goddess regarded her for a moment with her burning eyes, then turned her gaze outwards. "You may call me Lakini, young one. Now before I show you my realm, look out upon how far you've come."

Rei did as she was asked, involuntarily drifting a bit away from the edge when she realized just how high above the steppes she had risen. From the third level, she was four miles above the rusty desert that surrounded this most forbidding of peaks. Even looking down on Fortuna's garden, she could not help but calculate that she had somehow flown two miles straight up. She was glad she did not need oxygen, or she would be feeling even more light-headed.

"Watch out," Lakini said casually. Rei jumped a bit, and turned around to see a strange construct of what looked like solid gold, carrying a smelting pot full of liquid metal. Its expression did not change, but its posture seemed to indicate a definite glare as it stamped back towards the forges.  Rei noticed the constructs had not even paused to acknowledge her until she got in the way.

"They're made of the mountain itself," Lakini said, curling her finger to show Rei the way. "Solid gold wrapped around a skeleton of titanium alloy, and powered by the same fusion that keeps your sweet Micah and his human lover alive." She waved at a furnace that seemed to lead deep into the mountain itself, tapping the geothermal veins that ran through the dormant volcano. "Such minor flames as this are as playthings to them, so they naturally make the best smiths."

Rei tried not to look too long into the forge, but it was fascinating, watching raw heat shape and change what seemed so solid and immutable into liquid to be reshaped. And she thought she could see faces shimmering within both the flames and the metal itself, and knew that the metal delighted in becoming as much as the smiths did in helping it get there.

And somehow, both were watched over by the fire itself. Within the deepest heart of the flames, she thought she could see another woman, with hair and skin both made of liquid fire. And the woman noticed her, as well, smiling at her with lips like molten stone.

"I won't warn you again," Lakini said without inflection. Without realizing it, Rei had drawn closer to one of the forges, and though a quick glance around showed her that she hadn't gotten directly in the way of the golden constructs this time, they were definitely giving her dirty looks with their expressionless masks. They looked like classical depictions of dwarves, with heavy brows and beards of silver.

"Mortals," Lakini scoffed, pointing towards the next stairwell, guarded by additional constructs shaped like gilded dragons with spread wings. "Always distracted by the most brilliant of flames, never realizing that the truth waits higher yet." She hesitated, then pressed an almost feverishly hot hand against the cool metal of Rei's bangle. It grew warm, encapsulating her in a bubble of heat. As Rei cast her eyes upwards another two miles at the next landing, she understood why.