and beautiful angular face filled my mind suddenly, seeming so much more right than the underwear-model perfection of Apollo.
'Drink from the cup of the sun and see if you shall be tested,' Apollo said, leaning forward to give me a goblet. His voice was deeper, and older-sounding than I had expected it to be. I took a sip from the cup, and yelped and dropped it as searing hot liquid covered my tongue.
Heat, as though I'd just stepped into an oven, engulfed me. I groaned as I looked about myself and the hall shimmered. I'd just found my second test.
The world came back into focus and I found myself standing on a bridge, bright blue sky above me. Instinctively I gripped the thick rope handrails either side of me, and looked around, sweat gathering fast at the nape of my neck. The bridge I was on crossed some sort of wide crater, and as I looked down dread gripped my whole body. Between the gaps in the wooden slats of the bridge I could see lava. I was standing over a fucking volcano.
The deep red liquid bubbled and oozed below me, areas glowing bright orange and even white with heat. The boiling surface was alarmingly close, no more than fifty feet down. The more I stared at it, the more my body became slick with sweat, and the more oppressive the heat became. I turned as carefully as I could, looking both ways down the bridge. It just led to a narrow path that lined the inside of the crater. But could wooden slats survive this heat? If they gave out, I was toast. Literally.
A gong sounded, accompanied by the commentator’s voice.
'Five minutes begins now!'
Five minutes? That didn't seem long. Rather than comforting, I found the shorter length of time distinctly unnerving. Something awful was going to happen if I only had to spend five minutes here.
Taking a deep breath of hot, sulfurous air, I lifted one foot. Except it didn't move. My sandals were glued to the planks, and panic fired through my blood as I pulled harder. An ominous creaking sounded from the bridge, and I froze in my attempt to free myself. Did I really have to just stand here, while the heat burned away the wood beneath me? I'd die, surely?
As my heart beat faster in my chest, I tried to take deep breaths, assessing my situation. Sweat was running down my spine now, as well as the backs of my knees. I could hear the lava gurgling below me. If the bridge was already here, then surely it was resistant to the heat, I thought, rationally. A cracking sound drew my attention to the end of the bridge, just in time for me to see the last plank burst into flame. My breath caught.
Another sound cracked behind me, and I spun at the waist to see the plank at the opposite end go up in flames too.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
This was an endurance test, I told myself, as the next plank along caught alight. The idea is to frighten the participant into giving up. Not to actually kill them. I couldn't move from where I was, and there was nowhere to go. Which meant I had to hold my ground, no matter how close the flames got.
It turned out that was a lot, lot, easier said than done. By the time the planks four or five from mine were bursting into flames there was no part of me not drenched in sweat. I felt like I was suffocating, the heat a real, tangible, weighted thing bearing down on my entire body, crushing me. Every breath was hard, the temperature burning my lungs. And every plank that cracked and caught fire added to the heat and my mounting fear. My vines couldn't help me here. My healing couldn't help me if I dropped into the searing lava below. This was all about courage, and I was running out.
A plank three away from me on my right crackled with heat, then orange flames crept over it slowly at first, then burst to life, engulfing the dry wood. I turned slowly, knowing the opposite plank on my left would go next. Sure enough, fire flickered to life across the wood. Five minutes. I had to hold my nerve for five minutes, but I was estimating I only had about thirty seconds before the planks ran out and mine would go up in flames. And I had absolutely no