Enthalpy of Fusion

III.

Boiling ash and belched brimstone swallowed us all. I turned the ship further into the high winds. It lurched, but held. Through a roll of thunder and too bright flash, we steadied each other, and I laughed as the lightning rods gathered the gods' fury and threw it to the engines. We surged onward, inward, downward.

Tradition has it that ships are named after women, but not my ship. Lysander swallowed their danger and spit it out in distance because he is my beast, my beautiful boy tamed to my hand. The crew by then should all have been gone. Packed into the escape balloons and jettisoned high into the atmosphere, above the smoke and cinders. That had always been my plan. The captain goes down with her ship. The precious cargo we carried was too important to leave to chance, to fate. It had to be seen through to the end.

More lightning tore the black clouds, ignited breaths of fire. Steam and smoke, and my own sweat gathering beneath my leather suit. Exposed skin would turn to blisters and char. I have never been so hot, never feared so much just to breathe.

This eruption will be the end of us. Not in heat, but in cold. That is what the scientists tell us. Beyond the thin, protective shield of my glasses, all I could see was rage. Clouds churned with dust and rock—gathering storms and fury and death. Jerrold took a photograph on the approach, and it was beautiful, terrifying. It was the still image of the old gods, tossing their heads with a glower in the eye and a laugh on their lips. One volcano, and yet their destruction filled the skies.

The cabling to the envelope shook, strummed by shear. It would not take much more. Then it would fray, snap. Beneath my feet, I could feel the ship groaning under the pressure. The hull, lined with insular jelly for the task, took much of the heat. But it would not last. Already he was fatigued. Each assault from above or below broke rivets I had carefully placed. They were the tendons, tearing. I held the wheel tighter.

Amidst the cinders and steam and smoke, a ghost coalesced into an impossible, improbable form. Lysander swung hard against the air, and I braced, heaving, holding steady. The form stumbled into solid being, and it was Corven, mummified in his gear, just looming goggles and gas mask marching through a shower of orange sparks.

He waved, beckoning, because he is a fool. And I threw a signal his direction, both denial and dismissal. He struggled forward, gripping railings. If I'd had anything to throw at him, I would have, for his stupidity.

Something deep in the ship's belly coughed and turned, and for a sickening second the world dropped. A cable slashed whiplike from above.

Corven gripped my arm, shouting something through the roar of weather and storm. I shook my head, eyes forward, clenching my teeth. He tugged, I shoved him back with violence and motioned to the escape vessel. "Go! You shouldn't be here!" I shouted just as pointlessly back, knowing he couldn't hear.

He rushed me, impacting heavily, unhooked his mask, and yelled in a single breath, "We have to go! Now!" He hooked the mask back closed and shook, coughing at the fumes.

I could not go. I had my place, and my place was here. I knew how this would end. The ship's hull will crack and he will fall into the caldera—he will save them all. He will die alone.

Suddenly Corven's arms clamped around me, and I had to kick him off, fight him off, as he tried to deny me this last act. Desperate, I grabbed at the hose from his mask, breaking it free. Sulfurous fumes and scorching ash brought him to his knees, and I was sorry, so sorry to have done that to him. But he needed to leave, to forget me and just go. Angry tears made my vision worse, but the glow before the prow was the only compass I could need. Steady boy.

The heat intensified, and while I had noticed the growing effect on my arm, it suddenly tipped over the point of pain and became a brand. The brass soaked the heat, and like a switch flicked, everywhere flesh and metal touched burst into blisters, even the wires threaded to my very nerves.

I screamed and shook my arm on instinct. That would not, could not help. But it seared so badly. I had expected to die, but I hadn't expected this.

I bit through my lip, stamping my foot, and forced the hand to the wheel, leaving black finger marks. I tried to stand straight while my body fought to curl around my pain. Betrayed. My limb was dying a second time, and I howled because it was a traitor.

Corven fumbled blindly for the hose and when he could breathe finally pressed himself to his feet, hands on his knees. I could imagine the look of him beneath the suit, his green eyes wide with hurt. He came to my side slowly, rocking with the jolts of the ship, and I had to look at him, the rims of his goggles bright, frightening, alienly round. He looked down the deck, then back at me. I imagined he performed a harsh kind of calculus and determined that of my two loves, he was the lesser. His body bowed in the way it does when he's angry, and he stepped behind me. I braced for an attack, but he simply gripped the wheel, his hands next to mine. My brass fingers lit small flames on the wood as I moved them away.

Surrounded by heat, our leathers nearly combusting, roasting in our own juices, I felt a cold bolt through my stomach. He could not mean to stay. Surely, I thought, he could not mean to stay.

Lightning struck the ship, and as it slung forward, I was pressed, shaking in agony, into Corven's body behind me. It was unthinkable, and I suddenly hated him.

I shoved him off, but he came back, and I shook as I shoved him again, punching my hand toward the escape vessel.

I tore off my own mask. "Go! For the love of God!" And held the mask back on before my skin scorched off.

He answered in kind. "Not without you!"

"Corven!"

He shook his head.

"I can't leave him!" I screamed over the roar and bent in pain.

He stared at me, drawing so close I could see his eyes, lit by the volcano's glow and errant thunderbolts. He took a breath from the mask, pulled it aside. "Please! Dorothy, you can build another!"

I shook my whole body in denial, and Lysander made a groan that rose from the hull and quivered the cabling. I stared up at the envelope. "It won't be the same!"

Corven took my upper arm. "It never is!"

My beautiful boy.

He tugged at me, and I stared at him, still holding the wheel. It was my duty. But he would stay also, because that was his, and the emptiness cracking open my ribs told me that I could not lose them both. What a terrible thing to love.

I followed him for a step and then stopped, shirking my holster to get the belt. I had to secure the wheel, preserve the heading. The volcano would know the extent of our will, it would fall silent before our technology. It had better.

And then we ran, down the deck to the aft pod. Every few steps Corven turned to check my progress, to be sure he had me still. And then he was jumping down into the gondola and stretching both arms up.

I paused.

Violence in the air buffeted the ship. The engines howled, hell bent on the volcano's maw. And I couldn't see far for the ashes. But I could feel it. Pressure and heat building, overflowing. I could feel him shuddering to hold together, to keep me aloft. A bolt of energy crackled through the storm cloud, and Lysander jumped forward chasing it, straining himself too far. He screamed.

It was a scream of twisting metal and shattering glass as the beams that were his bones snapped. As his back broke.

I couldn't see anything, only feel the vibrations up through my legs, settling in the hollows of my body.

He was going to save us all.

Corven shook his hands at me in a panic and stood, waiting at the precipice of escape.

I jumped, and brought with me most of my heart.