Page 49 of Tiger's Destiny
The lava tube was rounded and smooth as if a giant earthworm had tunneled it out for us. It was easily twelve feet in diameter, and two of us could walk comfortably side by side. We journeyed downward about a mile or so.Surely we are well below sea level by now.I heard a rushing sound ahead and wondered if some of my ocean water was still running through the tubes.
We came upon a broken section that glowed with an orange light. We stepped closer, and a rush of heat instantly dried the sweat all over my body.
Ren held me back, but the three of us craned forward to see into the opening. A hundred feet below, a river of lava flowed. Its rocky edges were dark and sluggish, but the middle was bright orange and moved quickly. A cooled dark skin cracked and floated on the surface in different places, making the lava look like a reddish-orange pudding left uncovered in the refrigerator.
Kishan pulled me away from the spectacle, and we continued downward through the maze of tubes until we finally came to a dead end. I placed my hand onto the coarse surface of a rock wall.
“I don’t understand. This is the place,” I murmured.
Ren placed his hands on the wall and brushed them over the surface, dusting off the grit. Kishan and I helped. My fingers sank into a slight depression, and I swept my hand over it, digging out the powdery dust. Loose gravel fell at my feet, and a moment later I called out.
“It’s here. The handprint!”
I placed my hand into the depression and let the crackling sparks pour into the rock. My henna drawing surfaced and glowed, illuminating my hand from the inside out. The cavern shook, and the rock wall shifted. As dust rained down on us, Kishan grabbed me and pressed my head into his chest, covering me with his body. The stone groaned and rocked back and forth, then slowly rolled to the side and stopped. I wiped some feathery dust away that tickled my cheek and stepped through the opening.
We were standing on a ledge that overlooked a giant underground forest.
“Trees? How can there be trees here?” I asked in disbelief.
“I don’t think those are normal trees. This must be like Kishkindha,” Ren murmured, “an underground world.”
“Yeah, except this world is hotter than Hades.”
When Ren found a series of stone steps, we began to make our way down. As we moved along, I marveled at the beauty of the woodland. Thick, sooty trunks supported a vast canopy of limbs covered with leaves that softly flickered like the embers of a dying fire. Curly golden tendrils grew out of the branches and moved in our direction as we walked.
Ren watched them warily and removed thegadafrom his backpack, but I strode forward fearlessly and held out a finger. A small tendril stretched toward my hand almost hesitantly, and then slowly, gently, it wrapped around my finger and clung to me. Warmth reverberated through my body, and the amulet around my neck began to glow.
“Kelsey?” Ren stepped toward me.
I held out my hand to stop him. “It’s okay. It’s not hurting me.” I smiled. “It’s drawn to the power of the amulet.”
Another thin vine with two quivering leaves brushed against my cheek. Kishan approached the tree, but the leaves flickered colors of alarm. I stroked the trunk to reassure it.
“They won’t hurt you. You have nothing to fear from us.”
The tree seemed to recover and let Kishan touch a limb.
Shivering delicately, the fire tree stretched out another vine with tiny buds that sprang open into bright orange petals with gold leaves.
“It’s beautiful,” I exclaimed.
Kishan grunted, saying, “They seem to like you.”
The leaves trembled and turned toward us as we made our way down the slope.
We saw flickering ferns and fiery flowers that burst into radiant bloom as we walked by. Ren and Kishan found tracks and spied a red-orange animal that looked like a rabbit. The forest seemed to enclose us in warmth but spared us from the devastating heat of the volcano. The air was dry, and the ground was rich and dark like the most fertile potting soil. Thick glowing mosses in a variety of orange and red shades grew on black rocks and tree trunks.
We sat on a fallen trunk and ate a lunch made by the Golden Fruit, quietly talking of the strangeness of the place. Trees often stretched out curly vines to touch my hair or my arm. The amulet glowed upon contact, and warmth spread through my limbs. I felt as if they were recharging my batteries, and the heat no longer bothered me.
Though the forest was ablaze with light, the sky was dark and without stars. We started up a rise and, upon reaching the peak, Ren pointed at the distant horizon.
“Can you see them?”
“See what?” I asked.
“Over there. It’s a mountain range. It’s hard to see because the mountains are black on black.”
Kishan said he could make out the outline, but all I saw was blackness.
