by K. T. Tomb
It felt surreal to be standing there, covered in dirt, another mans blood and gunfire residue, discussing ancient Chinese poetry. Kang didn’t seem to mind and Manny had the impression that the discourse was helping him ignore the agony his wound must be causing him.
Kang motioned for Manny to walk, and without a word on that topic, they set off towards the volcano.
“That is only half the passage. The verse ends;
The Master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky.”
Kang had clearly memorized much of this book. Manny guessed it must be popular in China.
“What it means,” Kang continued, as they made their way over the streets covered in volcanic rock, “is that your grandfather knew you better than you thought. Desire is the enemy of compassion, it destroys it utterly. You can desire to do good things, but it will eventually just feed your ego; this is not the path. By living in the world and regarding it, you can grasp it. You cannot run from it, or from life, and stay on holiday forever. You must find yourself, who you are.
“To trust your inner vision is to prevent your external reality from telling you how to think, how to feel. By trusting in this, you are in control of your reality, and then you will be able to open your heart to the sky and achieve true compassion. Do you understand?”
Kang strained the last words; he looked exhausted from the effort.
Manny nodded.
“I think so. It means I have been waiting to receive something I never earned, and that I’ve been more interested in having fun than using my life to make a difference, right?”
He felt despondent, annoyed with himself for his lifetime of laziness.
“It is, as you say, a two-edged sword. Yes, you are being admonished for laziness and desire. But I do not think your ancestor would have given this task to you if he did not think you had the potential to do good things. You did, after all, show compassion to a stranger. You came back and saved my life. For that, I am grateful to you, Manny McMillan.”
At these words, Manny felt an overwhelming sense of appreciation for this strange Chinese man. Yes, he saw now, he had lived his life selfishly. He made a silent promise to himself, his grandfather, and the mysterious man with someone else’s name; if they made it out of this alive, things were going to be different.
As the two battered men stumbled away from the sunken town, they passed into an area of great beauty. New life had taken hold all around them, away from the structuring, rigid cornered world of mankind. With the enforced exclusion of humanity by the active volcano, trees and wildlife had made an unfettered return. Orioles regarded the humans below their dark trees with curiosity, and brightly colored lizards nested where they wished, invisible to the human eye, sleeping through the calm Caribbean night.
If it wasn’t for how badly bruised he was, Manny might have thought himself in a paradise. Dawn was rising in the east, illuminating the sides of the smoking mountain ahead. The moon fled before it, dropping right down into the lip of a cave about halfway up the side of Soufriere Hill.
“Kang, I know where Quincy is,” Manny pointed to the cave “That is Selene’s Bedchamber.”
Kang nodded.
“Good. Now we must catch up with the Governor and kill him. It is the only way he can be stopped from continuing this evil business.”
Despite their wounds, it felt like they were walking on lighter limbs now, with the quarry in sight. They redoubled their pace, intent on vengeance and murder.
Chapter Twelve
In spite of their injuries and the substantial head start that Quincy had following the collapse of the volcanic chamber, Kang and Manny made good time on the overweight Governor.
The older English diplomat was not physically cut out for trekking through jungle and climbing rocks; by the time he had reached the entrance to Selene’s cave, Kang and Manny could see him from the foot of the path. It seemed from their position that Quincy had been forced to double back on himself several times, zigzagging up the steep slopes to avoid particularly difficult rock formations and the steeper proportions along the path.
Their eyes were drawn to the summit. In Manny’s mind, the volcanic activity was definitely increasing. He had not regarded the mountain from quite so close, so it could be a trick of the morning sun breaking over the summit, and the more acute angle he was now standing at in relation to it. Even so, Manny felt sure that even from far away the small blazing boulders that were now being spat from within the mountain were very much noticeable. Kang saw it too, and looked grim, although it could have been the pain of his wound as they began to go up.
The temperature seemed to be rising with every step, the air seeming to burn inside his lungs and aggravate Manny’s over-wrought limbs and anaerobic blood. The strap from the shotgun dug into his shoulder. Even though there was only one shell left and absolutely no doubt about the ineffectiveness of his aim, he felt slightly better just having it. He hoped they would not have to kill Quincy in the end.
Kang certainly had no doubt that one of them would need to do it, and in his condition, Manny wasn’t sure if the agent would be able to complete the mission alone. He held onto the hope that maybe he could convince Quincy that it was over. They could take him to the police, if there were any who would not obey their Governor, or maybe they could get word of his corruption to one of the other islands.
The hope was almost certainly futile, and Manny knew it when he considered the options in his mind. The image of the man he had killed less than two hours ago still lingered. It must have been easily read on his face, because Kang seemed to know his thoughts, too.
“If you had not killed that man, what would have happened? We killed two more when we caused that cave in, you know.”
Manny had forgotten all about Quincy’s other guardsmen. More deaths on his conscience. How would he be able to meet his father’s eye, now that he was a killer three times over?
“I don’t know, Kang. I guess he would have killed us, or one of the others would have. I know it was him or us, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me. I’m not like you, I’m not a spy, or whatever it is you are. I’m just a dumb kid who’s done absolutely nothing with his life.”
He helped Kang climb a particularly tricky boulder, at which point they had to turn back, facing the sun across the mountainside to continue their ascent. The volcano glowed in the dawn, orange-tinted smoke billowed from the top.
Manny had to change the subject of their conversation. He couldn’t go and face Quincy with this burden of guilt on him.
“I think we may be in trouble. This volcano seems to be firing up for something big.”
As if to punctuate his words, the volcano spat out the largest boulder yet, and for the briefest moment, Manny could swear he saw lava actually fly into the air along with it. This was insane. He didn’t want to take another step, but he knew that if nothing else, even if he himself did not get Marlowe’s gold, he had to stop Quincy at all costs.
Kang watched the boulder land in the forest below, flattening several trees.
“Yes, it’s been building up pressure for a few days, according to the captain of the boat I arrived on. The Exclusion Zone will protect the inhabitants of the island. Perhaps we also will be lucky.”
Of all the ways Manny had avoided death so far; beating, booby trap, gunfight and or being buried alive, he hoped he had not survived all of those trials only to be consumed by lava. It had to be the most agonizing death imaginable.
Manny shivered, despite the rapidly increasing temperature from the combined forces of the rising sun and the raw power of the fire that lived in the very earth itself. It was not a death he wanted, nor would wish on anyone. He willed his aching legs to keep moving, and dragged Kang up steep incline after steep incline, until they were drenched in sweat, parched in the throat, and exhausted. They were now only perhaps fifty feet from the spo
t where, from down in the valley below, they had seen the moon ‘enter her bedchamber’.
Kang was breathing heavily, and was very pale. Manny uncovered the wound, and saw that despite cleaning and binding it as best they could with rags of their clothes it was still bleeding. It would need cauterizing and stitches to stop. Not that he had any medical training, although he was sure that Kang had. Manny felt sure that if they didn’t achieve their goal soon, Kang would not be leaving Montserrat alive.
“I promise you, my friend,” Kang said, “it looks worse than it feels.”
Despite himself, despite the volcano, despite Quincy, despite everything else, Manny laughed, almost madly. It seemed far funnier than it should have under these dire circumstances.
“I don’t believe it, Kang. There I was, thinking you were the most humorless bastard on the face of the Earth, and here you are joking about having a hole through you. You’re crazy, man.”
The chuckling fit was contagious, and both men laughed long, lying down on the side of a volcano that promised to erupt soon. The restorative power of laughter invigorated them both, and within a few moments they were back on their feet, thoughts of pain and death and thirst having been temporarily driven from them.
It had taken them half an hour to reach this point. Half an hour, in which Quincy had had the advantage of knowing what secrets had lain hidden in Selene’s bedchamber for two centuries. It had occurred to Manny that even if they managed to defeat Governor Quincy, if the treasure was heavy it was unlikely they would be able to carry it out given the condition he and Kang were in.
The heat was beginning to become unbearable and became even more so the closer they came to the cave entrance. Ten feet. Five feet. With one last effort and a grunt of exertion, Manny hauled himself, and then Kang, over a dipping bluff at the mouth of the cave. Standing up, the cave was an impossible mix of perfect blackness and molten red. Nothing could be seen, at least by Manny.
Kang moved towards him instantly as the shotgun boomed in the darkness. “DOWN!” he screamed, and physically shoved Manny to the ground and then he was screaming in pain. Manny felt his weight on top of him as he hit the cave floor, and by the light of dawn that was now flooding the lip of the cave, he saw that Kang had been hit by the buckshot. His back, buttocks and upper legs were peppered with puncture wounds. As his eyes adjusted, he could see Quincy running as fast as he could further into the cave. He must have seen them approaching, and waited to ambush them. Fortunately for Kang, he had misjudged how much the shot would spread when he fired it. At close range, the weapon would have cut both of them in half.
Manny rolled Kang onto his back. Kang moaned in pain.
“Dammit! I should have known that sneaky bastard would pull something like this, he hasn’t fought us fairly since we got here!”
Manny unslung the shotgun from his back, all thoughts of mercy for Quincy driven from his mind. Kang grabbed his arm.
“Don’t fire your weapon in there. Whatever you do, do not shoot!”
The last words were a ragged gasp, as Kang blacked out.
What did that mean? How was he supposed to fight if he couldn’t use the gun?
Manny hefted the shotgun. He could always beat Quincy to death with it. He cocked it, ready to fire, despite Kang’s warning, and made his way to confront the Governor and finish the path set out by Padraig McMillan; he now knew that it included exacting his revenge for the injuries Kang and he had suffered.
Anger and determination welled in him, and he felt for the first time in his life, the true urge to kill.
Chapter Thirteen
Manny walked into the pitch black cave alone, but unafraid. The cave had an opening at the far end, through which Quincy had disappeared. Following in his footsteps, Manny left Kang by the entrance. There was nothing he could do for him; he just had to hope that Kang’s wounds were superficial and that his friend would still be alive if and when he returned.
The world through the opening of the cave was a vision from hell itself. From outside, the volcano looked ominous, threatening and impossibly big. Inside the core of the mountain, it was all Manny could do to prevent being overcome by the sulphuric fumes. He found himself on a narrow path that led out over the very heart of the volcano. A mere thirty feet or so below him he could see lava bubbling and spitting.
Fear gripped him as the incalculable forces at work below the surface vomited up a chunk of semi-molten rock that battered its way through the air. Manny involuntarily followed its trajectory up, and up, as it soared out of the mouth a hundred feet over his head and disappeared. He felt sick from the vapors, the heat, and the exhaustion, to the extent that he retched drily. Spluttering, he tasted vomit at the back of his throat, which given he had not eaten since he had been on the plane, was mostly bile.
He wished he had a shred of his shirt left to use as a mask to filter the acrid, poisonous air. He almost went back to see if there were any minimally blood-soaked rags, but he concluded that Kang would be needing them more.
The walkway over the fire was only about six feet across at its widest point, and it curved away to his left to what seemed like another cave opening. Manny saw the briefest flash of Quincy’s now torn and filthy suit disappear into it and without another thought, he set out onto the narrow path.
Every step was a horror. He could not look away from the all-consuming wrath of the lava below. Every inch of his body was drenched in sweat, his nostrils burned, his eyes watered, and the smoke made it nearly impossible for him to see, in the all-encompassing orange glow, where his feet were landing. A misstep would be fatal. The path could collapse at any moment and Manny found it nothing short of miraculous that it had survived the eruption twenty years previously.
By the time he reached the end of the path, his heart was pounding rapidly in his chest. If he lived past the next challenge, he would still need to make the trip back again. As if to reinforce this fact, the volcano spat lava and rock high into the air again. It seemed clear to him that if he didn’t leave immediately he would be consumed by the eruption. Better to be blown away by Quincy than that. It was surely now or never.
This time, however, Manny made sure to not present a clear target for the villainous governor. The cave was a much shallower alcove than the one that led in from the outside, but he could see it bending around, blocking his view. Quincy could not be seen, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lying in wait, ready to strike.
The glow of the infernal volcano lit Manny from behind, so he tried to make his frame as narrow and small as possible. He tried to slide along the walls, but the rock was too hot to touch. He noticed the rubber on his shoes was melting away, and the stock of his shotgun was similarly blazing. He dared not touch the barrel, he knew it must be as hot as a poker in a fire.
Moving sideways, stepping softly, one foot creeping up to the other to minimize noise and hopefully present a limited target, Manny was reminded of the way Kang had moved during the fight in the prison cell. The way he had kept his center of gravity low; Manny thought he understood a little of what made him such an effective fighter. Not that this would do him any favors at this late hour.
The thought of Kang sparked another memory. He looked at the shotgun in his hands. A bead of sweat rolled off of his nose and hit the metal barrel, where it hissed and spat. Maybe Kang was right, the weapon might be completely unreliable in these temperatures. Reaching the corner, Manny took a peak. More red-tinged darkness loomed before him. He swore to himself that if he ever made it out of here, he would never enter another cave as long as he lived. He had seen enough of them for a lifetime.
No sooner had the thought entered his mind than it was extinguished by a dull glint, not from Quincy’s weapon as he might have expected, but from a small chest, fashioned from some kind of grayish-white metal. He was almost disappointed. Was this Marlowe’s treasure? It didn’t look like much. He couldn’t see Quincy anywhere, so he edged closer to the chest, and spat on it to check if it was hot. Nothing
happened.
“It’s made of tungsten. And it’s locked.”
The cultured English voice came from behind Manny, somewhere to the left. He spun on his heel, and a good chunk of his shoe split completely under the strain.
“Quincy,” he said, trying to keep his voice level, “We know what you’re doing here. What’s a Governor doing running coke? That’s a shady thing, you’re messing around with a lot of peoples’ lives here.”
“Screw the people,” Quincy spat, “half of them left after this volcano blew the last time, and half of the people who remain now work for me, whether they know it or not. If I lose my diplomatic post here with the new government, I’m going to need a fall back career. I could go back to England, but the weather is shit and the people are boring.”
He smiled, as he raised his gun, pointing it at Manny’s chest.
“Now drop your gun, and pick up the box. We’re going to walk out of here, and if you’re a good boy, I’ll let you and your chink friend live.”
Manny flinched at the derogatory slur, but he did as he was instructed. He needed time to think. His gun clattered to the ground. He tried to stall for time. He was sure both he and Kang were dead once they reached the other end of the path over the lava.
“So this is all about money? You know if Kang dies, the Chinese will want to know how, right? And if I die, people in the States will come to look for me.”
Manny was sure Quincy had an answer, but he didn’t care, he needed to keep him thinking he was in control. He knelt, and picked up the tungsten box. Quincy’s fat red face was twisted into a sneer.
“Of course it’s about money and if you should happen to die here, that’s exactly what I’ll tell the Americans and the Chinese. You needed money. You tried to rob our dear friend Mr. Kang, and you ended up killing each other in a fight. Of course, I will be most upset that such a tragedy happened on my island, but what could I do? We only have a small police force, who can’t be everywhere.” The fat man looked pleased with himself for having come up with such a clever story. Satisfied, he changed the subject. “You might be wondering about the box. Why it hasn’t gotten unbearably hot in here.”