Carpathian 21 - Dark Peril

the remains of an ancient civilization. The Mayans had been farmers, growing their golden corn in the middle of the rain forest, whispering with reverence of the jaguar and building temples to bring sky, earth and the underworld together.

    He spotted the sinkhole, and beneath it the cool waters of the underground river he’d noted earlier in the evening. The jaguar continued without pause until she came to another Mayan site, although this one had been used more recently. The thick growth of tangled vines and trees put the date nearly twenty years earlier, but clearly there had been more modern houses here. A generator, long since rusted and wrapped with thick lianas and shoots of green, lay on its side. The ground wept with the memories of battle and the slaughters that had taken place here. The sorrow was so heavy now, Dominic needed to ease the burden.
    The harpy eagle flew through the canopy a distance away from the jaguar and remained motionless, just watching, as the jaguar made her way through the long-ago battlefield, as if she were connected to the dead who wailed there.

    2

    My life was an anguish, my family ripped from me.
    My rage had sustained me. I’d given up hope.
    Tears fell in rain forest, heart bled in the blood-ground.
    My father betrayed me. I barely could cope.

    SOLANGE TO DOMINIC

    T he rain fell steadily, making the miserable heat worse, a relentless downpour, no light drizzle, but sheets of blinding, endless rain. Birds hid among the thick, twisted branches, high up in the canopy in hopes of relief. Tree frogs dotted the trunks and branches while lizards used leaves for umbrellas. The air remained still and stifling on the forest floor but up above in the canopy, the rain seemed bent on drenching the many creatures living there.

    Through the gray rain and the humid heat, the jaguar padded silently over the rotting vegetation and the fallen trees and through the varieties of lacy giant ferns sprouting from every conceivable crack or crevice.
    The small stream she followed led from the wide, fast-moving river on the outer edges of the rain forest into the deep interior. She had trod this path twice a year for the last twenty years, making her way back to where it had all begun, a pilgrimage when she was weary and needed to remember why she did what she did. No matter how the forest changed, no matter how much new growth had emerged, she knew the way unerringly.

    Flowers burst into bright color, winding up the great trunks, curling around limbs, petals drenched and dripping, alive with vivid beauty through the various shades of green that made up the rain forest. Buttress roots of the emergents—giant trees that pierced the canopy—dominated the forest floor. The twisted, elaborate shapes provided sustenance as well as support to the largest trees in the rain forest. The root systems were massive and came in all shapes, fins and cages and dark, twisted labyrinths providing shelter for creatures desperate enough to brave the insects carpeting the layers of leaves and decay, sharing the space with the small dawn bats that made homes in the huge network of roots of the impressive Kapok tree.

    High above the jaguar, following her progress, flew a great harpy eagle, much larger than normal, the dark wings spread wide, a good seven feet. He moved in silence, keeping pace in the sky, winding through the labyrinth of branches with ease. With two predators on the prowl, the animals hunkered down, shivering miserably. The eagle peered down, ignoring the tempting sight of a sloth and band of monkeys to examine the jaguar’s progress through the tangle of vegetation on the forest floor far below.

    Roots snaked across the floor, seeking nutrients and causing the ground to be a mass of sometimes impenetrable obstacles. Coiled around the massive trunks were thousands of climbing plants of various nature, using the trees as ladders to the sun. Woody lianas, stems and even roots of climbing plants hung like massive ropes or twisted together, tree to tree, providing an aerial highway for animals. Lianas, looped and twisted into tangles, were full of crevices and grooves, ideal hiding places for the animals taking shelter up and down the trunks and in the branches.

    The jaguar hesitated, aware of the large raptor traveling with her. Night was falling fast and yet the great bird continued to trail her progress, sometimes gliding in lazy circles overhead and other times diving through the trees,