Dance of Ashes

The city of Pyre did not have seasons. It had accumulations.

It sat precariously on the obsidian rim of the Caldera, a dormant super-volcano that had been sleeping for a thousand years. The sky was permanently choked by a thick, suffocating blanket of stratospheric clouds, filtering the sun into a bruised, sickly purple bruise. And from those clouds, it fell—endlessly, silently, relentlessly.

The Ash.

It wasn’t snow. It didn’t melt. It was the gray particulate matter of the earth’s lungs, mixed with the cremated remains of the civilizations that had come before. It coated the gothic spires of the Upper Ring in a pristine, deadly shroud. It clogged the ventilation fans of the Lower Ring. It tasted of sulfur, iron, and old ghosts.

Varian Kross sat in the corner booth of “The Cinder Box,” a dive bar located in Sector 4, the industrial district where the geothermal pipes hissed like dying snakes. He nursed a glass of synthetic whiskey that tasted like battery acid and regret.

Varian was a “Soot-Walker.” A mercenary who specialized in jobs that required going outside the city’s air-domes, out into the Wastes where the ash drifts were deep enough to swallow a tank. He wore a heavy, leather trench coat reinforced with ceramic plating, and a rebreather mask hung loosely around his neck. His face was a map of scars, the most prominent being a burn mark that stretched from his jaw to his ear—a kiss from a fuel line rupture three years ago.

He was waiting for a client. A man named Silas, a nervous little archivist who claimed to have a map of the Pre-Collapse tunnels.

But Silas was late. And in Pyre, being late usually meant you were dead.

The door to the bar creaked open. The wind howled outside, blowing a swirl of gray dust into the dimly lit room.

The patrons—mostly miners with hacking coughs and factory workers with missing fingers—didn’t look up. But Varian did.

It wasn’t Silas.

It was a woman. She was out of place here. Her clothes were too clean, a high-collared coat of white thermal fabric that was rapidly turning gray from the air. She wore a full-face filtration mask, the kind used by the Priesthood of the Ember. She clutched a heavy, cylindrical container to her chest with white-knuckled desperation.

She scanned the room, her eyes wide behind the glass lenses of her mask. She wasn’t looking for a drink. She was looking for a place to hide.

Varian took a sip of his drink. Trouble, he thought. Expensive trouble.

He watched as she moved toward the back of the room, near the kitchen doors. She was trembling.

Then, the front door exploded.

It wasn’t a kick. It was a thermal breach. The heavy iron door glowed cherry-red in the center, then melted inward, spraying molten slag across the floor.

Three figures stepped through the smoke.

They were massive, encased in heavy, black power armor that hissed with hydraulic movement. On their chests was the emblem of a burning eye.

The Ash-Guard. The elite enforcers of the High Priest.

The lead Guard, a brute whose helmet was customized with a jagged, skull-like faceplate, scanned the room with a red laser grid.

“Seal the exits,” the Guard’s voice boomed, amplified by external speakers. “No one leaves until the Heretic is secured.”

The bar went silent. Even the jukebox seemed to stutter and die.

The woman in the white coat froze. She was halfway to the kitchen. The Guard’s laser swept over the miners, then locked onto her.

“Target acquired,” the Guard said. He raised his right arm. A flamethrower nozzle extended from the gauntlet. “Surrender the Vessel, Heretic, or be purified.”

The woman didn’t surrender. She bolted.

“Burn her,” the Guard ordered.

A stream of liquid fire, hot enough to melt stone, shot across the room.

It would have incinerated her instantly.

But Varian moved.

He didn’t move out of heroism. He moved because the woman was standing in front of the kitchen door, and that was his exit too. If she fried, the door would weld shut.

Varian kicked his table over, sending it sliding across the floor. He drew his weapon—a “Vent-Blade.” It was a heavy, serrated sword connected by a hose to a small, pressurized steam tank on his belt.

He didn’t attack the Guard. He attacked the fire.

Varian slammed his blade into the floorboards and pulled the trigger on the hilt.

HISSS-CRACK.

A blast of super-cooled nitrogen gas erupted from the vents in the blade. It created a thermal wall of absolute zero.

When the liquid fire hit the wall of cold gas, physics screamed. The fire didn’t just go out; it solidified. The napalm turned into brittle, frozen shards of chemical slush that shattered against the table.

The room erupted into chaos. Patrons scrambled for cover.

Varian grabbed the woman by the collar of her coat and hauled her behind the bar counter.

“You picked a hell of a place for a drink, lady,” Varian growled, checking the pressure gauge on his blade. “Who are you?”

“They... they will kill everyone,” the woman gasped, ripping off her mask. She was young, pale, with hair the color of flames—red and wild. “I have the Ember.”

“Good for you,” Varian said. “I have a headache.”

The Ash-Guard advanced. They weren’t shooting wildly. They were walking forward, crushing tables under their boots, sweeping the room with fire.

“Subject is protected by a local,” the Lead Guard announced. “Terminate the accomplice.”

“Stay down,” Varian told the woman.

He vaulted over the bar.

He was unarmored compared to them, but he was faster. He was a Soot-Walker. He knew how to move on unstable ground.

He slid under the stream of fire from the second Guard. He swung his Vent-Blade upward.

He didn’t try to cut the armor. That was suicide. He aimed for the joints.

The serrated edge bit into the hydraulic knee servo of the Guard. Varian pulled the trigger.

A blast of steam injected directly into the joint. The sudden pressure spike blew the seal. The leg locked up, and the Guard toppled over like a felled tree, his flamethrower spraying the ceiling.

The Lead Guard turned to Varian. He didn’t use fire. He drew a massive thermal hammer.

“You are annoying,” the Guard rumbled.

He swung the hammer. Varian dodged, but the shockwave knocked him backward into a shelf of liquor bottles. Glass rained down on him.

Varian scrambled up, coughing. The air in the bar was getting toxic—smoke, ash, and vaporized alcohol.

“The back door!” Varian shouted to the woman. “Go!”

“I can’t!” she screamed. “It’s locked!”

Varian looked at the Lead Guard preparing for another swing. He looked at the container in the woman’s hands.

“Throw it to me!” Varian yelled.

“What?”

“The container! Throw it!”

She hesitated, then tossed the heavy cylinder.

Varian caught it. It was warm. Vibrating.

“Hey, Tin Man!” Varian shouted at the Guard. “You want this?”

The Guard paused. “Hand it over, citizen. And your death will be quick.”

“I prefer the long way,” Varian said.

He twisted the cap of the container. He didn’t open it fully. He just cracked the seal.

A beam of blinding, white light shot out.

The temperature in the room skyrocketed. The ash on the floor didn’t burn; it sublimated. It turned instantly into plasma.

The Ash-Guard’s sensors were blinded.

“Thermal overload!” the Guard roared, covering his faceplate.

Varian snapped the cap shut. He grabbed a bottle of high-proof spirits, jammed a rag in it, lit it with his lighter, and threw it at the Guard’s faceplate.

While the Guard flailed at the flames blinding his sensors, Varian grabbed the woman and kicked the back door.

It didn’t budge.

“Stand back,” Varian said.

He jammed the tip of his Vent-Blade into the lock. He overloaded the pressure valve.

BOOM.

The lock shattered, frozen and then shattered by the force.

They burst out into the alleyway.

The alley was dark, piled high with drifts of gray ash. The cold air hit them like a hammer.

“Move,” Varian ordered, holstering his blade. “If we stay on the street level, their drones will pick us up in two minutes.”

“Where do we go?” the woman asked, clutching the container again.

Varian looked at a grate in the ground, half-buried in soot.

“Down,” Varian said. “Into the Veins.”

He pulled the grate open. It led into the geothermal maintenance tunnels—the city’s circulatory system.

“It’s filthy down there,” the woman grimaced.

“It’s alive down there,” Varian corrected, shoving her toward the hole. “Up here, you’re just kindling.”

As they descended into the darkness and slid the grate shut above them, the wall of the bar exploded outward. The Ash-Guard stepped into the alley, scanning the empty street.

Varian held his breath, huddled in the dark tunnel below.

The heavy footsteps of the Guards faded.

Varian turned on his shoulder light. The beam cut through the dusty air of the tunnel.

He looked at the woman. She was hugging the cylinder like a child.

“Alright,” Varian said, wiping blood from his lip. “You just cost me my favorite bar. You owe me an explanation. What is in the jar, Red?”

The woman looked at him. Her eyes were fierce, terrified, and determined.

“The spark,” she whispered. “The seed of the volcano. I stole the Phoenix Ember.”

Varian stared at the container.

The Phoenix Ember. The legendary heart of the Caldera. The thing that kept the city warm. The thing that, if mishandled, could turn Pyre into a crater.

“Great,” Varian sighed, leaning his head against the rusty pipe. “I didn’t just save a thief. I saved the apocalypse.”