The Cipher

by Kathe Koja

But not now. Nakota hanging on me like the leech she was, I could feel the pant of her excited breath, and again without effort I pushed her away, shook her off, pushed in the door and a great vast scream of heat, like throwing open the door to a blast furnace, like Shadrach in the fire I advanced, careless, welcome, I could dance like Vulcan in a cindering flame, I could dance with Randy’s sculptures and one advanced upon me now, its metal limbs flung wide in fractured greeting, where had I been for so long? The leak of my hand gleamed, I understood the motif of silver now. Pressing my hand to the melting metal, a hissing sizzle like the boil of steam, but this steam was molten, this steam was iron. Fusing me to the metal. Pulling me like a magnet to the Funhole where the heat burned so delirious that I thought it would burn me alive, the ancient suns rising about me like a mantle, my arms reaching to embrace the fire as they embraced the sculpture’s living metal and through the burn an echo, the bubbling thrum, thrice loud: the mask. My hand. The Funhole. Me, myself, and I. And I giggled at the joke, so warm, my sweat like metal and my pupils scorched wide and at once the sculpture’s grasp fell from me, and sorry, I turned to see figures, bodies, walking toward me, weak silhouettes against the pallor of the hallway, and I said, “Who goes there?” and in the speaking saw at once the unmistakable scarecrow tilt: Nakota.