Jack Strong and the Red Giant

Chapter 34: The Eyrie

Jack clambered into the cave and collapsed.

He was exhausted. His hands were scratched and covered in blisters; his arms and legs were on fire. He'd come so far and yet there was still so much further to go. He peered into the darkness, his bloodshot eyes searching for any kind of light. There was none.

He inched his way in, the cave developing into a long, dark tunnel. The whole thing stank of rotten eggs. Sulphur?

Deeper and deeper in he went, unsure as to what might be waiting for him at the end. Ros, he hoped.

The air began to get warmer, stuffier. Still the egg smell lingered. He half expected to see a stream of lava come rushing his way, but nothing happened. The darkness intensified. He felt like a mole, scurrying underground, blind. His lungs grasped at the thinning oxygen. The tightness in his chest returned.

There were piles of ash everywhere. It got on his clothes, in his air, up his nose, in his mouth. What is this place?

Hours slithered by like snakes.

Just when Jack was beginning to think that the tunnel had no end and that he would be wandering it for all eternity, he saw an eerie, orange glow in the distance. The further on he went the bigger and brighter it became until the whole tunnel was flooded with it, a wave of heat scorching his face.

He was now in a ginormous cavern, in the middle of which was a huge pit of molten lava. It frothed and sizzled, tongues of flame spitting wildly. Sweat streamed from every pore. Several thousand feet above him was the crater's rim, its rough edges obscured by smoke. This must be the place where Vyleria thought she saw Ros, unless the scans were wrong that is...

He skirted the outside of the molten lake as best he could, the path narrow and uneven. One slip was all it would take. The heat was intense. He mopped his brow furiously. The glare was so bright he had to shield his eyes from looking at it. His skin burned and seared. Now he knew how a turkey felt at Christmas...

He hadn't walked far when he came upon a wide platform of rock that jutted out over the lava. At first he thought that it was covered in piles of ash, like the ones in the tunnel, but upon closer inspection he realised they resembled figurines. Their twisted, stuck-in-time poses reminded him of the photos he'd seen of the Pompeii ruins, only these weren't human: one of them looked like the creatures he'd encountered in the valley, its face set in a permanent snarling grimace. There were others too: huge behemoths of claws and tentacles and a ten-legged freak of an insect that was twice the size he was. He reached out a hand and touched one. It crumbled at once, flakes of ash swirling away on a draft of wind. What is this place?

He shuddered and moved on, going deeper and deeper into the ash labryinth, noting the statues and all their misshapen forms: here some kind of barnacled fish-monster, frozen in its death wake, there a three-eyed lizard, its face contorted in pain. Then he saw one that was his size, though its eyes and head were bigger, and its teeth...

He reached out a hand and touched its head. It felt rough, but brittle; like a plaster cast. He rapped it once with his knuckles – it cracked immediately, crumbs of ash flaking to the floor. The skin underneath was a light grey, its surface marked by long green canals. Next he cracked the film of ash that covered its eyes. Two jet black marbles peered back. He'd recognise those eyes anywhere...

Jack furiously began to tap and tug at the ash, ripping it off in huge clumps, revealing first the chest, then the arms, legs, and finally the whole face. When the last of the ash fell to the floor a long wisp of smoke uncoiled itself, before drifting off to the top of the crater. He was just about to check for a heartbeat when the figure awoke with a gasp, teeth clenched and hands clawing for his face.