Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm

her mother
     had died.
    Riley placed one foot carefully in front of the other, circling her mother’s resting
     place, allowing the peace to seep into her bones. She sank into that field of white
     flowers, and placed her hands on either side of the gift remaining from her mother.
     The stalks and petals reached for her. The soil moved over her, rushing around her,
     welcoming her.
    The connection hit her like a fireball, storming through her body, unfurling in her
     brain, the earth reaching out to her, welcoming her daughter, sharing her gifts. Knowledge
     grew fast, spread through her veins, into her bones, pressed into every cell. From
     the core of the planet, she felt the heartbeat, heard the whispers of truth, of creation.
     The plants close to her reached to wrap tendrils around her, to touch her. Trees bent
     without wind, dipping low to honor her. The wind touched her face, breathing cool
     air across her warm face.
    The soil poured over her bare fingers, and as it did, she felt the easing of her terrible
     grief. The lump burning in her throat lessened, giving her relief. As her fingers
     dug deep, searching for that last connection with her mother, she felt a ripple in
     the ground, a subtle echo of evil. Her mother’s consecrated resting place pushed that
     whisper, that last gasp of evil away, but Riley’s stomach lurched. Everything her
     mother had told her about her past and the volcano was true. Triumph permeated the
     soil, harsh glee that her mother had been brutally murdered, leaving evil to once
     again emerge and roam free, feeding on innocents.
    Her heart stuttered. The evil faded back in the direction of the volcano. A sense
     of urgency assailed her. She had to get to the mountain and seal it before whatever monstrous thing was held prisoner
     could escape. Quickly she pulled her hands from the soil, and turned her head to look
     toward the smoldering mountain.
    Riley reached down into the bed of white star flowers and lifted the heirloom from
     the blossoms, a gift given by Mother Earth to her long-dead ancestor. Her fingers
     trembled as she ran the pad of her thumb over the fine silver in the shape of a large
     dragon with eyes of fiery agate. The claws held an orb of obsidian. She stared down
     at the piece, remembering all the times her mother had shown it to her, hidden there
     like treasure around her neck, guarded beneath her clothing. The thin chain was gone,
     so Riley slipped the gift into her pocket and zipped the pocket closed.
    Gary held out his hand to her and Riley allowed him to help her up. For the first
     time she looked around at her fellow travelers. They all wore sympathetic expressions
     and were watching her closely. She realized that the forest had obscured their vision
     of her and what she was doing, branches reaching out, both brush and trees, to hide
     the purification ritual from interested eyes.
    “We need to tend to those wounds,” Gary said.
    “I have to go,” Riley said. “There’s no time.”
    Gary shook his head. “You know you can’t take chances. Disinfect the bites and scratches
     and we’ll gather everything and get going.”
    The others one by one filed past Annabel’s resting place, touching Riley’s shoulder,
     nodding at her, some murmuring a prayer. The three guides performed their own ritual.
     Riley, as Gary turned her battle wounds into streaks of fire, looked around for the
     porters.
    “It wasn’t his fault,” she said. “Capa. It wasn’t his fault.”
    Miguel turned to look at her. “Thank you for that.”
    “Don’t you feel the difference? That awful droning buzz is gone,” Riley pointed out.
     “Ouch.” She pushed at Gary’s hand. He ignored her and continued dabbing on some fiery
     liquid. “Don’t you feel lighter? The dread is gone. All the tension. Two people just
     died and we should all be very tense, but instead, that horrible feeling of impending
     doom has disappeared.”
    Ben, standing close, answered her. “I noticed that, too. The professor and his students
     want to turn back. And the volcano is definitely waking up. I don’t know how much
     time we’ll have before it blows, and we won’t want to be anywhere near it when it
     goes off.”
    Riley shook her head. “They can turn back, all of you can, but I have to keep going
     and I have to get there fast. There’s no time to lose.”
    Ben frowned. “The volcano is a real problem we can’t just overlook, Riley.”
    “I can’t explain it, but