The Volcano

It was the dark of the night. Cordelia, Cassel and I were hiding in bushes near the volcano. The moon illuminated the ground in front of us.

I thought that arriving at night would be perfect for gathering the sulphur in secret, but it seemed that Cassel had other plans.

I noticed movements in the area, and was confused. “Wait… why didn’t you tell me they’d be here?”

“Shh,” Cassel explained. “You need to see this. We’ll wait until after the ritual to extract everything.”

Gathering around the volcano, a noblewoman with navy-blue robes was walking at the head of a group of nearly a hundred commoners. She had a few guards around her, and a few other members of the nobility were gathered.

I didn’t understand the first thing about magic, but I could sense that there was something important about her. Her guards looked far better equipped than the ones from the fortress, and the gold of her necklace gleamed in the moonlight.

“I presume you have all been selected here as lottery entrants? If any mistakes have been made, or you are losing heart, feel free to leave now”

The group of commoners said nothing, instead looking at her with a surprising expression of determination.

There was little that they had in common. They seemed like they came from a variety of different backgrounds and occupations, but the only thing that unified them was a strong sense of will. A strong sense of hope. And above all, a strong lust for life.

“They look pretty brave for people who got dragged to a volcano against their will,” I whispered.

“It’s not against their will,” Cassel replied.

“What?!”

“The lottery is entirely optional,” explained Cassel. “The people of the country can sign up to enter. Everyone who loses will get their life force drained until they lose their vigour and become a shambling, miserable mess. But if you win…”

Cassel smiled, as if he was embarrassed with himself.

“Well, they teach you some basic magical arts, and induct you into the minor nobility. Mages can only drain magical life force if people accept it. And so the entire system of power is based on people offering their lives on this lottery.”

“They kill the losers?!”

Cassel scoffed. “If you lose, you’re dead in every way that matters. A few people manage to fill themselves with enough hope to gamble themselves away again. But for the majority of people, losing your life force sends you to the depths of despair. It’s no way to live.”

I clenched my fist. “Offering their lives? It’s ridiculous. They’re forced into desperate measures because the nobility are so cruel. I’m going to kill that noble right here!”

I gripped my pistol, but Cordelia grabbed my arm.

“Seraphine, don’t!”

“So risking my life in the Colosseum was heroic inspiration for the rebellion, but this is too far?!!”

Cordelia trembled as she looked into my eyes. Seeing the fear in her gentle eyes, the grip on my pistol weakened.

“Killing one person isn’t going to do anything to change this. You can’t fix the world by being one good person, and you can’t fix the world by removing one bad person. We can only make change together.”

“She’s right,” added Cassel. “You said you’d join the rebel organisation, but we’re a team. We don’t rush ahead carelessly. Stick to the plan, Seraphine.”

I sighed a little. Looking out to the scene at the foot of the volcano, I watched the mage noble raise a wand.

“Fortunates, unfortunates, all shall be decided by magic! Commoners, raise your souls aloft!”

The wand glowed a fluorescent blue so bright that I had to cover my eyes. There was a loud fizzle, and then the sound of an explosion. As I reopened my eyes, I saw all of the lottery entrants slump onto the floor like ragdolls. Their eyes stayed open, and in the uneasy atmosphere I could almost swear that one was staring me right in the eye.

And yet, from the mass of collapsed bodies, one tall man rose to his feet. A guard stared at him, and then addressed the noble.

“Audra! There is a Fortunate!”

Audra’s face twisted into a cruel smile, as she pointed her wand at the man, and walked in a circle around him.

“Interesting… haven’t I seen your face before?”

The man bowed deeply.

“I cast myself before this lottery five years ago… In my failure, I allowed my life to fall into ruin. But I regained a hold of myself… Over the years, I regained my will, and began to feel like a human once more.”

“And you staked it all again for impossible odds?”

“I don’t want to live a life with the regret of not having chased the impossible, your Excellency!”

Audra laughed, taking out a fan, and fanning herself. “My my, what a bold man! I think I shall take you on as my apprentice personally. Come, let us leave these pathetic commoners to their fates.”

“Yes, your Excellency.”

I watched in disgust as the guards, Audra, and her new apprentice walked off, leaving the unconscious masses lying on the rocks. I was so desperate to run out of the woods and shoot her, but as I turned to Cordelia, she shook her head, and began to speak.

“I know that woman,” whispered Cordelia.

“Really?”

“She’s the one who ordered my imprisonment… She’s one of the Archmages of Great Leyth. She’s the one who ordered me to go to jail!”

“How can you remember?”

Cordelia looked at me with an anger I’d never seen before. “You think I’d forget things and make them up, just because I was five at the time? Do you think I could ever forget someone like that marching me into the palace and turning my life upside down?”

“Do you really think I could ever forget her, even once? Do you think I-”

Tears began to dribble from her eyes, and I pulled her in for a hug.

“I’m so sorry, Cordelia, I had no idea… I wish I had just gone up and shot her for you…”

Cassel rose to his feet. “No time for sharing our feelings, I’m afraid. The nobles have gone, so we need to make use of all the time we have and gather enough sulphur.”

“We’ll have other opportunities to come back here, right?”

Cassel shrugged. “Well, we don’t know. Usually the rituals have a schedule, but they do some random ones, too. We should be quick.”

“What about the bodies on the floor?”

“Leave them,” said Cassel. “They’ll find their own way home.”

“But we need to help them!”

Cassel ignored me, putting on his gloves, and getting to work extracting the sulphur from the volcano. I grumbled, and turned to Cordelia.

“Come on. Let’s try and save them.”

I walked to the mass of bodies, and noticed that they weren’t unconscious at all. They were simply lying on the ground, often with their eyes open, still blinking. One of them moved his arm slightly, and seemed as if he was looking at me.

“Come on, Cordelia. Let’s lift this guy up.”

I placed my hand on his arm, and Cordelia grabbed his other one.

“One, two, three!”

We lifted at the same time, and the man stumbled forwards slightly. As he rose to his feet, his legs began to wobble. He looked us in the eyes

“Don’t bother. We’re not here because we’re forced to.”

I grabbed him by the shoulders. “What do you mean?! You’re all just lying there! What did she do to you?!”

The man shook his head weakly. “What’s it to you? I had a hope, we all put everything on that hope. And now it’s over. I was just being an idiot, thinking I’d get to be a mage.”

“You don’t need to be a mage! You can join us! There’s so many people out there looking to take them down!”

“You really are some dreaming kid, aren’t you? I piled my entire life on this, and it’s all over. Stop pretending you can take them down. If she can do this to us in a second, then what hope do you have?”

“I have a weapon that can stop them!”

The man spat on my shoe.

“You play the hero, yet you wouldn’t even save average people like me. You’re no different from them. You only care about power.”

I grabbed my chest, and slowly felt tears drip down my cheeks. He was right. If I was a hero, I was meant to save everybody. So why did I let myself hide in the bushes whilst these people lost their life force? The man’s despair in front of my eyes… it was my fault!

I could have shot Audra right there… I could have saved a hundred people. What right did I have to play the hero?

“Leave her alone!”, yelled Cordelia. “You’re blaming her just because you’ve given up! If you feel that strongly about something, then why don’t you stand up on your own two feet and do something about it rather than being horrible to her?”

“Stupid woman,” grumbled the man, as he slumped back on the ground, laying down.

The princess hugged me, and held my hand. “Ignore him. I was the one who told you not to do anything. If you need to blame someone, blame me. Not yourself.”

“Cordelia…”

I smiled as I felt Cordelia’s comfort, but the moment was broken up by a yell from Cassel.

Part of me worried about whether the people lying on the floor might inform Audra of what we were doing… but they seemed too hopeless and apathetic to do anything of the sort. I could only frown.

“Oi! You two! Get to work!”

And so, we worked tirelessly throughout the night to extract as much sulphur as we could in secret before the sun rose. Before long, we had enough to supply an entire militia.

The next step was turning it to real firepower.