Page 25 of Twins for the Barbarians

I can’t blame the Sunnaites for wanting to steer clear.

“The smaller volcanoes along the eastern horizon erupted shortly after the area was evacuated,” Kingo tells me, following my gaze as we sit in the back seat of the buggy. “It’s as if Sunna wanted to cover everything up, to hide the ugliness of what happened.”

“Hence all the ash,” I mumble.

The buggy raises a lot of dust in its wake, causing scarlet swirls to cover our rearview mirror. “Yes. I imagine the towns closer to that hot spot were evacuated long before the volcanoes spewed, but what the lava didn’t kill—”

“The plague surely did,” I finish and sigh deeply. “Oh, those poor people.”

“This used to be among the parts of the kingdom that thrived the most,” Kingo says. “It’s sad to see it reduced to this.”

“You were too young to see what it used to look like,” Helios replies from behind the wheel, slightly amused but keeping his eyes on the road.

“Fair enough, but I’ve seen pictures, and I’ve read the journals of people who lived here. I’ve got a pretty clear mental picture of everything before it ended,” Kingo insists.

Kharo scoffs. “The plague wasn’t the end.”

“The war, then?”

I shake my head slowly, already knowing the answer, but Kharo says it for me. “The end hasn’t come yet. The end will come when we stop fighting for truth and justice and when we simply give up and resign ourselves to our fate. As terrible as the Sky Tribe’s strategy is in regard to human women, they’re still fighting for their own kind of justice. They’re still fighting, so why should we stop?”

“We don’t stop until we find out what happened,” Helios replies. “Everyone, look ahead.”

We do just that, and the sight before us leaves me speechless.

“That’s…odd,” Kingo comments.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Helios replies.

A city rises in the distance, but it’s surrounded by some kind of black mist, blacker than the few towers poking into the air. Behind this strange city, a massive volcano rises, its peak aglow with simmering fires, its ridges made of sharp obsidian and jagged granite clusters that reach all the way down to the base. The sky above it is lighter in color—a peculiar orange. It’s not the suns causing that particular hue. No, something else is at work there.

“It’s active again,” Kingo mumbles, his gaze fixed on the peak. “Kaos. The biggest and fiercest of our volcanoes…it’s active again. Good grief.”

“What does that mean?” I ask him.

Kharo clears his throat, trying to sound calm, but I can sense the worry in his voice. “It means it will erupt for the first time in maybe a thousand years, if not more. And when it does, it’ll be terrible.”

“How so?” I reply.

“Most of our volcanoes erupt once every few years,” Kharo says. “They blow off steam more often, so to speak, and so they render their surrounding regions more habitable. They leave some lava, maybe a toxic cloud, and the occasional earthquake…but that’s pretty much it. The locals are able to safely return to rebuild or fix what was damaged. It’s been like this for eons, so we’ve gotten used to it.”

“But when a volcano erupts once every few centuries or even once every thousand years, it’s way worse,” Kingo adds. “The amount of lava that accumulates over that period is too great. When it flows, it spreads lava far and wide. When Kaos erupts, it’ll probably be the end of Opal City. It will cover at least a hundred miles in every direction.”

“Opal City is your oldest city, though.”

“It is. But there were people who were willing to come back and rebuild it. None of its towers are as old as the actual city. When the last eruption occurred, they rebuilt Opal City atop the ruins of the old city,” Helios says. “There’s no one here to do it again.”

“Technically speaking, Opal City is already a ghost town,” Kingo replies. “The plague saw to it.”

“I’m noticing a pattern here, however,” I cut in. “Red Rock is going to erupt in the coming years, too. And now, Kaos. Do you think Sunna is trying to tell us something?”

Kingo offers a doubtful smirk. “Don’t tell me you believe in the Fire Tribe’s mystical ideology regarding Sunna’s inner fire.”

“A while back, I would’ve answered no, but Cynthia’s experience in the desert three years ago changed my mind,” I reply. “There is something special about Sunna, some kind of connection between the events on the surface and whatever is happening below. That strange stream of orange water she mentioned and the effects it had on her…the awakening of so many old volcanoes at once…there’s got to be something greater at work here.”

“We’ll get as close to the city as possible before we camp for the night,” Helios interjects. “We must be extremely careful approaching that mist, whatever it is.”

Kharo glances back at us, a twinkle of amusement lingering in his eyes. “That’s Helios’ way of changing the subject because he never put much stock in the Fire Tribe’s beliefs.” He pauses to chuckle softly while Helios replies with a tight groan, his grip tightening on the buggy’s leather-covered steering wheel.

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