Free El and Onine by K. P. Ambroziak

front and
stirred the flame within. She leered at me, as she prodded me for proof of my
gift. I closed my eyes, though I wanted to look at her forever, and was
grateful she remained in the darkness. When she pulled her scepter from me, she
laughed.
    “Excellent,” she said. “Saturnia’s sister has done
well.”
    The goddess released her retinue from rapture and
dismissed each of us with an order to return at the rise of Jupiter. As I
exited the solarium, I saw Midan for the first time. Until then I had only
heard the rumors of his grotesque shape, but as I passed him then he greeted me
with a flick of his forked tongue. Though wearing Venusian apparel, his scales
showed in the light of the solarium. He ignored my flame but we exchanged
looks.
    The wait for the rise of Jupiter was long. My
apprentice pledged himself to me when he was told he was unfit to go with us. I
promised I would send for him if successful. In the meantime, I assigned him to
keep an eye on the newcomers.
    “You will report back to me when I call,” I said.
    “If the dark passage is safe and the planet hospitable,
will it replace Venus?”
    “Nothing can replace home.” I reassured him our stay
on the other planet would be temporary. We would never give up Venus.
    “What does Terra mean?” He had heard me speak the name
we had given the twin planet.
    “It is named for its substance,” I said. “The matter
that coats its surface.”
    “It’s not lava then?” My apprentice was eager but unskilled
in many ways. He was fanned into being around the time I was, but only because
his lineage boasted a line of gifted masons. He proved less capable than his
ancestors and was assigned to be my disciple shortly after my talent became
renown. “Is there a forge on Terra?”
    “Perhaps we will need to make one,” I said. “Once our
settlement is secure, you will be given your place.”
    “With you?”
    “Our goddess will oversee her retinue just as she
does here,” I said. “We will certainly need to construct a solarium and temples
befitting Kypria.”
    “Will Terra change us?”
    No truer concern had been voiced. My apprentice knew
the answer despite his inability to know the truth. “Let us speak of other
things now,” I said. “How will you ingratiate yourself with the ambassador?”
    “Through the jade trader.”
    “Yes, he will do.”
    My apprentice stirred the lava and I poured in the
bromine, as we discussed his plan of espionage. The dark red fumes rose from
the crevasse and colored his flame—his aspect had never looked so sinister.
I was relieved when he smiled and said, “Will you send for me?”
    I promised him I would, though I was uncertain of my
return. I feared our descent to the cold, uncharted planet, but making an escape
back to Venus worried me even more.
    ***
    The first expedition to Terra proved successful, and
difficult. Our celestial bodies were jettisoned to the watery planet through
the dark passage located with Ur’s coordinates. We suffered an icy quarantine
that snuffed out several of the younger guards. For those of us who did survive,
the journey was painful. Our forms mimicked the stars, as we traveled past them
in space. We morphed in and out of bodies, lighting up the universe, as we trailed
through the opening to the twin planet. We hung in the sky above the lush
plains of wheat—auroras in the darkness—before plummeting to the
edge of Terra’s horizon and dropping into its soil.
    From microscopic bursts of space static to
clay-covered beings, we multiplied our spirits and rose a dozen Kyprian strong,
decked out in the flesh that would keep us from succumbing to the planet’s atmosphere.
We learned to breathe Terra’s air and expel unwanted waste from our new form,
which I will admit was the most difficult to get used to.
    The terrain was vast but sparsely populated. Before
we touched down on the cold soil, our goddess lit the landscape on fire and
melted the seed down to gold. Everything