Aleira Brightleaf's Arc

Chapter 2 of 18

Aleira reached the base of the lava tower and called for the fairy. No answer came. She turned in a circle, scanning the hot air where the wings should have flashed blue. The fairy had ridden her shoulder all the way here, whispering about the thing inside. Now the small guide was gone. Aleira pressed a hand to the tower's dark stone. It pulsed like something alive. She needed to know what waited within, and the one voice that knew had fallen silent. "Don't touch that," a new voice said. "It bites back." Aleira spun. A girl stood a few steps off, half her height, drowning in a purple robe and a pointed hat. Twigs poked from the hat's brim. She gripped a crooked wand and pointed it at the tower like a nervous soldier. She was no elf and no fairy. A witch, then, alone in Hell, looking as lost as Aleira felt. "Who are you?" Aleira asked. "Hazel." She lowered the wand, then jabbed it upward. "I can help. Watch." She muttered words and flicked her wrist. A spark shot from the wand, curved wrong, and struck a crack in the tower. A gout of lava belched out. Hazel yelped and dove behind Aleira's legs. "That was not help," Aleira said. "It usually goes better," Hazel said, brushing ash from her hat. "Mostly. Sometimes." She stared up at the tower. "You want to go in there? A thing lives in that place. Big. Round. Legs everywhere." Aleira's chest tightened. The fairy had said the same, then vanished. Here stood someone who had actually seen it. "You've been inside?" "I got close. Then I ran." Hazel wrung the wand in both hands. "But I know a spell to open the wall. A real one. I think." Aleira weighed the choice. This girl's magic had nearly cooked them both. Yet the fairy was gone, and Hazel was flesh, present, and willing. One clumsy ally beat no ally at all. "Show me," Aleira said. Hazel planted her feet. She chanted, slow this time, and touched the wand to the stone. The crack widened. Rock peeled back with a groan, opening a dark mouth in the tower's side. Heat and a strange smell rolled out, warm and greasy, like burnt bread. "See? It worked!" Hazel grinned. Then the smell moved. Inside the dark, something huge shifted its weight. Many jointed legs scraped the stone. A round body slid into the opening, its top crusted gold and dotted red like a cooked pie. A mouth of teeth gaped beneath two wet eyes. The creature fixed both on the two figures at its door. Aleira drew back. She had found her ally and found the thing at once. The tower was open now, and it could not be closed. "You said it had legs," Aleira breathed. "You did not say it looked hungry."