Excuse Me, but Who Are You?
Black flame swept through the Ilshikgyo safehouse on the Big Island.
The enormous black flame threatened to swallow the house whole, and the believers came running.
"What is going on!"
"We don't know! It appeared out of nowhere!"
The man in charge of the safehouse poured sweat.
"The Eclipse God's grace, this vast—what in the world…!"
He could not finish. He too had received the Eclipse God's grace, but never a blessing this thick, this overwhelming.
"Don't tell me the Eclipse God has come in person!"
"Oh! Eclipse God!"
"Bless us!"
At the words he had blurted without thinking, the believers bowed their heads. A small ring of bodies closed around the black flame.
"Eclipse God!"
When the man in charge cried out, the black flame slowly guttered and spat people forth.
"Khack!"
"Guh!"
"Aaaagh!"
His eyes went wide. The figures rolling wretchedly across the ground were his brothers.
"Get the brothers on their feet!"
"Yes!"
The believers who had burst from the black flame were in a sorry state. Bruises mottled their skin, and their whole bodies were blackened, as if they had rolled through charcoal.
"Brother. Thank heaven you are here."
A faint voice reached his ear, soft as birdsong at dawn. The man in charge dropped to his knees.
"I greet the Saintess."
"No. Please, rise."
The Saintess smiled, small and thin. Looking at her, he gasped.
"Saintess, are you all right!"
"I am fine."
She let out a labored breath. She looked no different from the believers who had come tumbling out of the black flame.
No. She looked worse. The Saintess's eyes had shriveled, as if the fire had burned them down.
"Saintess, what in the world happened?"
She hung her head. Droplets struck the earth.
"We met a great trial. A trial we had no hope of overcoming."
"…I see."
That the Saintess, once so unyielding, should be shaken like this—the shock was no small thing.
Her weakness stirred the people around her.
"Saintess, please compose yourself. Can you explain it so that we may understand?"
"…Very well."
She told it carefully, in detail. From the Saintess's point of view, of course. The red-haired woman had become a demon who insulted the Eclipse God. The green-haired father and son had turned into frogs spewing a vicious light. Another woman had become a witch wrapped in fire. The tiger had changed into the Cerberus of hell.
Not one of the believers who heard it could keep from trembling.
"God damn it!"
The pure believers swallowed every word as it stood, but the seasoned man in charge sifted the account down to its point. Put simply, they had lost.
He was Ilshikgyo all the same. No one anywhere would rejoice to see their own people hurt.
"They are fouler than those vicious heretics crawled up out of hell! Saintess! Give me the hammer of judgment, and let me punish them!"
"Ah. Thank you, brother. Your anger comforts me."
The Saintess held him back. When she lifted her head, she was once more the radiant leader they had always known.
"That I have been reduced to this is partly the work of those vicious demons. But there was also the Eclipse God's stern teaching."
"Teaching…?"
"Yes. Punishment, for being incompetent still, and for seeking the Eclipse God first without a thought."
She brushed the skin around her eyes, seared by black flame. Her sight was unchanged, but the burning pain had not left her.
"We have tasted a great trial. Brother, it is the force that will make us grow, and at the same time a deep pit that can cast us into ruin."
A halo kindled. From the Saintess's back a sun of seething black flame blazed bright.
"Ah! Eclipse God!"
Before that majestic sight the believers could not open their mouths. One after another they fainted in piety, and plenty more gasped and heaved, unable even to breathe.
"Brothers who witnessed the trial at my side. Have you savored the Eclipse God's mercy to the full?"
"We have savored it, Saintess."
"I will not forget your sacrifice."
"Thank you."
"Let us meet in the new world."
"May the Morning Star bless you."
"May the Morning Star bless you."
The Saintess looked at them with sorrowful eyes.
"Ah—no…"
The believers who had followed her turned to ash and vanished.
"Saintess, this is…"
"That we escaped that place at all was the Eclipse God's mercy. But even mercy is not without a price."
The man in charge prayed for their rest.
"May the Morning Star bless you."
"May the Morning Star bless you."
The believers who had grasped the situation bowed their heads in silence.
The Saintess gave her order.
"Summon the scattered order of knights. The gathering place is Mauna Loa."
"Understood. I will send word at once."
"And prepare for all-out war by every means we can use. Convey this to the Church Lord."
"…!"
The man in charge started. For an instant he wondered whether he ought to stop her.
The Saintess drove her foot into the ground.
Boom!
A massive crater opened. With the strength she had once possessed, it would have been impossible.
"Our brothers have been sacrificed, and a great demon has appeared to bar the Eclipse God's way."
The Saintess's eyes burned. Literally.
"What are you hesitating for? Do you mean to make our brothers' sacrifice meaningless?"
"N-no!"
He bolted off in a scramble.
"Move. The Eclipse God desires the fire of Mauna Loa. Prepare the rite."
"Yes, Saintess."
The believers scattered in every direction.
"Eclipse God."
The Saintess pressed her hands together. Something vast writhed inside her.
"Do you desire the demons' blood and flesh?"
"I will offer it. Even if I must stake everything."
The vast presence closed its eyes.
"Demons. Wait."
I will become a reaper, and I will come for you.
Magma there. Magma here.
Everything I could see was red.
I wanted to thrash, but the pressure of nature was crushing my whole body, past compression and into ruin. Skin burned. Bones snapped. My waist folded in on itself.
"Damn it. I never should have come in."
I regretted the dive I hadn't been able to resist. A phantom thief may be a genius of escape, but even genius has its limits. How was I supposed to break out of a prison made of nature? Heaven's bindings had been kinder. I hadn't known nature could be this terrifying.
"Ah. Ugh."
Every time I opened my mouth, magma came in. That strange mouthfeel, like gum and like water, refused to grow familiar. My stomach had burst long ago, between the magma scorching me from the outside and the magma sliding down my throat.
"If I could prove this, I'd be famous as the first man who ever ate magma."
And as the first man to dive into a volcano, too, probably.
"First I have to get out…"
Ironically, I was somehow making my way toward where I wanted to go. An ant's crawl would have been faster.
"Somebody help me."
I shouted without meaning to. I was so pent up I just let it out.
Rumble.
"Oh."
With that uncanny sound, the magma began to move. What had been stiff as stone slowly stirred, and at last became a violent current.
"Now that's more like it."
I rode it. Fortunately, the current was heading exactly where I wanted.
The ride was anything but smooth. Magma flooded my eyes until I couldn't see ahead, and a stone flying out of nowhere beat my body to a pulp. I slammed into a wall of living rock and squirmed like an insect, and the moment I barely tore free, the pressure of nature burst me open.
Fwoom!
Pain stacked on pain, and at last I was out. The magma jetted like a fountain and hurled me clear.
"Ghk!"
I slammed into the ceiling and dropped to the floor.
Thud!
"That almost killed me!"
I shook the magma off my clothes. The sticky slime sloughed away and cooled.
"Where am I?"
The magma at my back lit what lay ahead. A hidden ruin.
"And what is this supposed to be?"
A place like this had never been described in the original. It wasn't in the setting book, either.
I approached with care.
Fwoosh.
At that, fire stirred back to life in a torch lying tumbled across the path.
"…Not an ordinary place."
Light found the dark ruin, and the ruin showed its face.
"Wow."
It was grander and more ancient than I had imagined. The exterior held its shape stubbornly against the weathering of ages, and the barrier of black stone looked sturdy above all else. I swallowed and stepped inside.
The instant I crossed the threshold, an enormous mural greeted me.
"Whoa…"
The sheer size of it shrank me where I stood. In the mural, a vast goddess who cradled a volcano was looking this way. She let hair black as lava spill to either side, and her skin was like a sun in full blaze. Her gaze was straight and godly, and the gold of her pupils was holy. Even painted on a wall, her rank made itself felt.
"…?!"
An unknowable voice sounded in my head.
"I am Phantom."
I offered the greeting with every courtesy I could muster. I had no idea where the voice was calling from, but it seemed to belong to the master of this place.
"Excuse me, but who might you be?"
I asked it brazenly.
The voice was silent.
"Hello?"
Slowly, the voice opened its mouth. I leaned in to a sound so faint it seemed about to break.
"Yes. Please, speak."
"Yes?"
Had I misheard?
"Don't tell me…"
In that instant the mural's eyes flashed. Golden light flooded the hollow.
I am Pele.
Pele.
The goddess of Hawaii.
She opened her eyes.