Hovering in the air, with his wings spread and his head down, was the serpent’s identical copy. His lava twin was covered with fiery patterns instead of scales. These patterns were deep-violet in places and crimson in others, then turning orange and dazzling-white.

“It’s done. It’s done! Khoronum came!” a strange voice said in Kostya’s head. It took him a while to realize it was the glowing serpentine figure speaking. “The caves have been empty for hundreds of years, waiting for their master. Now the Fiery Mountain has the protection of its patron. No Plasmor will ever be born here. Hail to Khoronum!”

Khoronum. Khoronum. What a familiar name. Kostya’s mind buzzed like a disturbed anthill. Hey. Do they mean my...my Khoronum?

“Asp is here again. But without Ana. Where’s Ana, Kosta? And how did you come to carry Asp?” The strange voice was coming from nowhere, filling his mind.

Asp? The name was strange. Do they mean…the serpent?

The frozen time rang like crystal.

Ana? Who’s Ana? And why Kosta?

Stop. It was the Forecaster who addressed him as Kosta. And, before him, the Shaman of the North Peak.

Then Ana must be…

He remembered sitting in his Golf. Reaching for Anya’s leather band and ripping it off.

Her face petrifying.

The world around them slowing down, just like now.

His hand cutting through the sticky air and clutching the strip of leather as it wraps around his fingers.

Anya, with her face unchanged, shooting her left arm out and tugging at the wheel.

The trees, the clouds, and the road merging into a rainbow swirl, his mind lapsing into a void.

“I see,” the voice said flatly.

Kostya realized that the weird speaker had just scrolled through his memories, seeing what he had just seen. That lava serpent could not only speak without opening his mouth but also hear the unspoken words.

He remembered the Forecaster. Are they all mind readers here?

The voice gave no answer to that question. “Ana and Asp were here thirteen years ago. They helped the metal-taming Volcanites defeat Plasmor. Now you bring Khoronum, the one whom we’ve been waiting for for ages.”

Kostya looked down at the motionless, disheveled boy who had the exact same profile as in Kostya’s childhood photographs.

The boy seemed to have become much older.

The disturbed anthill of his mind was gradually calming down.

The Volcanites? Who are they?

“That’ll be us, the Fiery Mountain dwellers,” the answer came. “Look.”

A series of visions flashed through his mind.

The eye-eating smoke devouring the sky.

The zenith sun looking like a moon through the dark veil of smoke.

The violet-cloaked soldiers.

And the fiery creatures coming out to block the soldiers’ way. They looked like their identical twins made of lava, mirroring every move, every gesture, even the flapping of their cloaks in the wind.

The stronger the soldier’s attack, the stronger the retaliation came. When a sword blade hit a Volcanite’s body, a dark, bulging spot of lava appeared there with a dull thud reaching Kostya’s ears. Instantly, a deep burn mark appeared on the attacking soldier’s body in the same place.

The stench of burned flesh filled his lungs, like back then in the cave.

His eyes were dazzled by the flashes of light that the Volcanites came out of. The loud bangs were not loud enough to drown the screams of pain from the men burning alive.

His armor became red-hot, burning his shoulders, a wave of burning-hot air running over his face as an elusively harmless touch of warmth.

The sensations were so real they became larger-than-life.

Suddenly the picture changed.

The cloaked soldiers were gone.

Creeping down the volcano slope was a giant medusa. It moved through the air smoothly, with deceptive slowness, filling it with a howling sound. Thin tentacles shooting from its jelly-like, silvery body were breaking stones in the way.

The next moment Kostya found himself inside a strange monstrous creature blocking the medusa’s way. The monster was formed by a bunch of strange things—some seeds, amulets, and even a small bag of pebbles—slapped together. His serpent, Asp, was also a part of this monster, with lava running in its vessels, becoming the mortar keeping the disjointed parts together as it cooled down.

The whip in its hand was cracking like thunder. A howling cloud of fiery bullets came from beneath its wings. The monster’s body bulged under Plasmor’s blows, losing its Volcanites. But still, the monster prevailed.

The wounded Plasmor tried to escape into the volcano’s mouth, but the monster jumped in, chasing it, and finished it off at the very bottom.

The pictures changed so quickly that Kostya could barely make them out.

A man with a severely burned face. The clasp of his cloak turning into a pitch-black raven.

Some apes with spears riding horses. Headless horses? No. Not riding.

Kostya remembered his naïve misconception of this world as empty except for himself, Juel, the Shaman with his hairy assistant, and maybe a bunch of handwalkers. And the Forecaster, of course.

He used to believe this crazy place had been made only for himself and Juel, while everyone else was just a nuisance or a helper.

Now, this worldview crumbled to pieces.

An enormous crocodile with a forked nose and a long slit along its broad spine. Two young teens in the slit: a shaggy, tawny boy with sly black eyes and a girl who looked like…Anya? Is it her? What was she doing here?

The visions went on, new ones on top of the older ones, too fast-moving for him to be truly surprised, let alone ask any questions.

Some battles fought by fantastic creatures, his serpent having a part in each, always accompanied by Anya and that sly-eyed boy.

New visions fell on top of the older ones, with more falling over those, like cards being distributed by an invisible dealer’s quick hand.

The boy jumping up to a wounded soldier and opening his throat. The girl walking away.

A giant, as tall as a five-story building, pounding his spiky club on the ground, barely missing Anya.

Finally, they slowed down.

The serpent making mincemeat of the three robbers blocking Anya’s way.

Anya coming to a seashore, its waves a metal gleam in the dawning sun.

A flash of violet flames encircling Anya, making her look like a mere outline of…of a clay figurine on a burning stove. Then the figure disappears. The flames subside, leaving a burned circle in the wet sand that immediately gets licked off by the surf’s foamy tongue.

The pictures stopped.

“Now look there.”

The lava serpent would not point to where while the world remained motionless, but Kostya somehow knew where exactly he should look: at the line of hills on his right.

So close.

Why hadn’t he noticed this spiraling dark cloud before?

It somehow differed from the dark-brown smoky cloud enveloping the volcano’s foot.

Looking closer, Kostya realized what was off about it. The dark funnel consisted of a great many black dots moving with crazy speed in circles until they had been captured by Asp’s freeze-frame. It was a swarm of some insects. He even seemed to remember it from the recent visions.

Kostya’s gaze slipped down to the funnel’s dense black tube and found a tall, wooden figure portraying a large-winged angel with a whip in one hand and a trumpet in another. I’ve seen that too.

By the angel’s side stood a lean, tawny guy in his twenties wearing a brown fur vest, his bottomless black eyes staring straight at Kostya.

Familiar eyes. But Kostya was sure he hadn’t seen this guy in the visions. Only the shaggy boy in a similar-looking vest by Anya’s side.

How long has it been? Thirteen years? Could he have grown up?

“Yes. This is the Tamer. He’s been trying to destroy the Burned One for thirteen years. Ever since Ana’s departure ruined his plan.

“He has gathered an army that swept over Crealia, restoring the Old Order and pressed the Guard back into the Magisterium. But he hasn’t yet killed the Burned One.

“For a month now, the Tamer’s hordes have laid siege to the Magisterium: the last fortress controlled by the remains of the Guard and several scores of their Cerberi. They are holding those walls by the skin of their teeth.

“The Tamer knew about your arrival. That’s why he came here. To see how good you are with the serpent. And to find out which side you will take in the war. Its outcome will be decided by your Asp. Whoever you back will prevail.”

Kostya remembered the burned-faced man from his visions.

The Magister.

He felt no hostility toward him. Nor towards the starry-eyed young man who stood across the hills.

“When you reach the Magisterium, your choice will decide not only Crealia’s fate but also your own fate in your world,” the Volcanite said. “Now hurry, or she will die before reaching the sea.”

These words startled Kostya. Not only had the Volcanite cited the Shaman’s advice almost word for word, they even copied his tone exactly!

But why hurry? Time is still, after all.

He looked back at Juel and Khoronum and was startled to see an old woman in her seventies holding hands with a blind man in his forties.

How come? Why are they aging? TIME IS FROZEN!

“Time is odd here, Kosta,” the Volcanite answered. “Juel has almost none left. Now Stone-Ston will take Khoronum to the caves, and you and Juel must come to the sea. You will meet Khoronum at the cave’s exit at the shore. Juel will call him; he won’t come out unless his mother calls. And don’t you even think about carrying her. Juel’s steps here, on the surface, are guiding Khoronum in his underground journey. If she makes none, he will lose the way and never come to say his last goodbyes to his mother. Nor give you a valuable gift through Asp. Now, hurry.”

The conversation was over. The Volcanite’s figure began to disappear, the red-hot patterns fading right before Kostya’s eyes until there was nothing but rocks enveloped in smoke. To his astonishment, the rest of the world remained still, as though the Volcanite had been merely a hallucination.

Flashing through his mind came the scenarios all starting at the same point: a crocodile-like animal running out of the dark cave in the twin-peaked mountain nearby. Kostya had seen such animals in the Volcanite’s broadcast: one rusty-colored, another dark-green and larger in size. This new animal was smaller than both, its black scales almost indiscernible against the black rocks. Khoronum would climb into the deep slit in the animal’s back, and it would rush back toward the cave, a buzzing cloud of hornets coming up from behind the hills on the right.

Seeing the scenarios of this strange battle, Kostya pulled the trigger, feeling Asp’s body give a shiver as he unfroze time.