by K. T. Tomb
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; by beating, by booby trap and by gunfight and by being buried alive in rock, he hoped he had not survived all those trials only to be consumed by lava. It surely 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 spot 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 profusely. Not that he had any medical training, although he was sure that Kang had, but Manny felt sure that if they didn’t finish this 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 way funnier than it should be in these dire circumstances.
“I don’t believe it, Kang. There I was, thinking that you were the most humorless bastard on the face of the Earth, and here you are joking about having a hole put through you. You’re crazy, man.”
The chuckling fit was contagious, and both men laughed long, lying down on the side of a soon to be erupting volcano. 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 driven from them.
It had taken them half an hour to get to 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 in 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 a 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 into 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’s not fought us fairly at all 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 supposed. He cocked it, ready to fire, despite Kang’s warning, and made his way to confront the Governor of Montserrat 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 blackness 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 in the cave was a vision of 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 immediately sick from the vapors, the heat, and the exhaustion, to the extent that he retched drily; spluttering, he tasted the vomit at the back of his throat, which given he had not eaten since the terrible food on the plane, surely just bile. He wished he had a shred of his shirt left for something 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 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, 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 in his chest. If he lived past the next challenge, he would still have to make the trip again. As if to reinforce this fact, the volcano spat lava and rock high into the air again. It seemed clear to him now that if he didn’t leave immediately he would be consumed in 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 to 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 round, blocking his view. Quincy could not be seen, but that did not mean he was not 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 it 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 h
it 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. He swore to himself that if he ever got out of here, he would never enter another cave as long as he lived. He had seen enough 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 ones that are left 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 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 it’s just 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 face was twisted in 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. You might be wondering about the box.”
Manny could have cared less about the chest now, except that he’d quite like to brain the Governor with it. Quincy was smart though and was keeping his distance so Manny could not use it as a projectile.
“Tungsten was a fairly new thing when this was forged, so it must have cost Captain Marlowe quite a few of his doubloons to get hold of it, unless of course he took it from someone else as pirates were wont to do. It puzzled me how anything could have survived here after the last eruption, so imagine my surprise to find this. He was clearly a clever man, Captain Marlowe, as he must have known that Tungsten steel would survive the heat of the volcano’s lava. You saw our streetlamps in the town, and the cores of some buildings no doubt. Tungsten, all of it.”
Manny nodded.
“Thanks for the science lesson, but you couldn’t find another person on earth who cares less than me. I’m here to stop you. I came here looking for this treasure, sure, but that’s not why I was sent here. You might get to keep the gold or whatever is in this box, but your time is coming to an end, Quincy. You know why? Because you lack compassion. I know, because I might have turned out like you one day, and my grandfather saw that, but you don’t. You’ll never change and, one day soon, it’ll catch up with you.”
Manny was being ushered back out towards the path over the lava.
“Touching, very touching,” Quincy said, and Manny could see him from the corner of his eye dabbing his forehead with a pocket cloth. “That’s the folly of youth, my dear boy; too many emotions. Only capital matters; well, capital and the power to wield it. I have that power, and you never will, because you are weak. Now, be so kind as to move onto the walkway, and keep the chest held high so I can see it.”
Manny moved slowly over the terrible liquid rock once again, hoisting Marlowe’s treasure high over his head. He knew he was dead if he let Quincy reach the other side, but he could do nothing with a gun at his back, and hands in the air, on a narrow path over lava. Kang’s words were ringing in his mind again.
“Don’t fire your weapon in there. Whatever you do, do not shoot! “
What had he known that Manny did not? Don’t fire… Was it his gun that wouldn’t work, had it been damaged and he missed it? Or was it all guns? Manny reached half way, and turned around, lowering the chest. He had to yell to be heard over the roar of the rising lava.
“I’m not taking another step, Quincy. You might kill me, but I’ll be damned if you use this chest to make anyone else’s life a misery while you get rich.”
Quincy spat in his face, the liquid was near boiling point.
“You’re insane, kid! I’ve got the gun. Be a good boy, and move… or die here.”
Manny stared him in the eye, and threw the chest into the lava below. It landed on the surface of the viscous molten rock, and true enough the tungsten did not start to melt, but instead it slowly sank, swallowed by the earth itself.
“NO!” screamed Quincy, who stepped closer to Manny, and at point blank range, pulled the trigger.
Manny understood now. Nothing happened. Kang had been right on the money. The temperatures in the volcano chamber were so high that the shotgun shells had melted in their magazine. The gun itself was tempered steel, like Captain Marlowe’s chest, so it would work fine, but the ammunition was something else. Quincy tried to fire again. Manny smiled at the dead mans click.
“You’re not as smart as you thought you were, Quincy,” he shouted over the din, “Kang outsmarted you. He figured out why the guns won’t work. But this will.”
Later, Manny would wish that he could have been more skilled in attacking Quincy; more like Kang had been in the prison fight. It didn’t matter, his quite reasonable straight right punch connected with the bridge of the governor’s nose, staggering him. The left hook slammed him in the ear, and Quincy was finally finished with a thunderous uppercut that sent him tumbling, head over heels off the narrow stone walkway and into the lava, screams rising as he went from pain to what must have been impossible agony.
Manny did not watch him die; for all his evil, he could not watch Quincy die that way. He turned, and sprinted away. The lava was rising fast, and he had no time to ensure that his footing was careful like on his first trip across.
On reaching the entrance to the volcano, he found Kang, still unconscious. Lava rose and lurched like a drunken man, splashing where Manny’s feet had been moments before. He managed to raise Kang onto his shoulders in a fireman’s lift, then he ran as fast as he could; feeling the heat on his back like a whip. At the lip of the cave, he tasted cleaner air for the first time in what felt like an eternity, and with no regard for what happened next he launched both of them into the air, over the sheer drop of the mountain side. They slid over rocks already covered in a thick layer of ash, bouncing, tumbling, and Manny felt at least one rib break as the wind was knocked out of him. Kang spun away from him, still senseless as they flew to the bottom of the slope and into the forest edge, stopping only when they crashed into young trees and bushes. For the second time that morning, Manny blacked out.
Chapter Fourteen
An hour later, Manny and Kang were headed north.
Kang was still suffering with the pellets embedded in him, but if anything his shoulder was looking a lot better when Manny had patched it up with leaves and vines. Fortunately for both of t
hem, Kang had been brought round by his headlong slide into the forest, and was able to crawl to Manny and wake him up. From where they stood, perhaps two miles north of the Soufriere Hills Volcano, they were nearly deafened by the explosion of the eruption when it blew. Chunks of ejected rock flew far over their heads, but the pyroclastic flow only seemed to be running down the east and south sides of the terrible mountain, both directions leading the lava straight into the sea.
Filthy, exhausted, and bleeding, they had to kick their way through some dense jungle before eventually finding a road, one that was well worn, presumably by the vehicles carrying tourists to the volcano observatory. With any luck, Kang reasoned, a vehicle might come this way to ensure the volcano was not a threat to the rest of the island.
Manny told the tale of the events in the Volcano, and the death of Quincy. For the first time, Kang actually looked impressed.
“So you threw away the treasure, without knowing what it was? It could have been a fortune.”
“Well,” Manny replied, “I figured once we reached your side of the bridge over the lava he would have tried to shoot me, or club me to death with his gun if that failed. I couldn’t let him get away with it, you know? After all that he put us through… I mean, I did get myself arrested, so I probably could have avoided going through all of this, but I did. I made the choice, though I was doing it for myself. I threw the treasure away because I realized that it was never the treasure I was supposed to get. Padraig wanted me to learn a lesson. He could have just told me I was an ass when he was still alive. Now I’ve learnt way more than I think he ever intended me to, and I can’t even go and talk to him about it.”
Kang had a thoughtful look on his face.
“For what it is worth, I think you made the right choice.” Without Quincy, his operation here will collapse. It’s only one part of the problem, but it will be a big help in shutting down the illegal arms trade in my country. For that you have my thanks. You know, I forget who has saved who’s life more now, I think it’s still with you, so thanks for my life, as well.”