Shadows flicker on the painted walls of the shrine. Shadow-petals from the slow-burning lotos candle, perfuming the vaults with its somnolent fumes, essence of summer water-meadows, sun-warmed shallows.
The girl sets the lotos candle down on a ledge.
Petals of rose-white light warm the dank darkness.
Meadows of painted primavera flowers embroider the walls, a constellation of star-daisies, marigolds, nodding windflowers, white and gold and azure blue.
The girl balances the cithara against her shoulder, picks up the quill plectrum… then lets fly a quiver of darting notes, sweet enough to charm the slumbering spirits of the dead from their sleep.
The lotos flame flickers.
The notes falter.
‘Mother…?’
Her soft voice barely stirs the enfolding silence, the dusty, timeless silence of the vault.
The flame burns brighter.
The girl lifts one hand to shield her eyes.
Fire licks at the painted walls, flames burst into flower, smoke curls into the air.
The girl begins to cough on the acrid fumes.
Flames all around her, crackling, roaring. Beams come crashing to the floor. Sparks sting her skin.
‘Mother! Help me!’
She stretches out her hands blindly into the blaze, trying to fumble her way through the searing heat.
The cithara drops to the floor.
‘Ai – my hands, my hands!’
White fire flickers from her clawing fingers, the bones broken sticks of charcoal against the dazzle. The skin is blistering, flaking away in flecks of flame, weeping fiery liquid.
Her mouth twists wide open in a smoke-choked scream of agony.
‘Aiii…’
The air trembles, shifts, re-settles.
No smoke. No flames. No fire. Only the eternal silence of the vaults, the Undercity of the Dead.
The girl slides to the dusty floor, gasping.
Slowly, shakily, she examines her hands, finger by finger, palm by palm.
They are undamaged, the pale skin smooth and whole.