by Amy Alward
Then I get down onto my belly and tentatively shuffle back to the edge of the hole.
It’s pitch black down there. I reach up and turn on my headlamp, frantically scanning the dark. I think I spot Arjun through the dust and smoke sent up by the collapsed earth, curled up in foetal position a few feet below. I want to shout down to him that I’m coming, but I can’t risk the burning gas in my throat again. Instead, I flash the headlamp a couple of times, hoping he gets the message.
I throw the rest of the rope into the gaping hole, glad that for now, I can’t see exactly how far down it is. It’s cumbersome work with the heavy gloves, and I rip one off my hands with my teeth to move faster. It drops down into the darkness. Once I’m fairly certain I’ve done the right knot to be able to abseil down into the cavern, I shuffle to the edge of the hole and throw my legs over the side. With one last sharp tug of the rope for reassurance, my determination to help Arjun overtakes any fear or doubt I might have. I drop my bodyweight onto the rope, and into the hole.
The rope slides through my gloved hand, as slowly and steadily as I can manage it. I keep my focus on a fixed point on the rocky wall in front of me, trying not to spin to the ground and lose my orientation. What I think is a groan from Arjun spurs me on to go even faster, even though I know I don’t have endless lengths of rope.
Thankfully, I have enough. My feet hit the ground with a thud, and I scramble upright, undoing the knot as quickly as I can. I rush over to Arjun and turn him over gently onto his back. His gas mask has been knocked askew, but I can see that he is still breathing. I put the mask back on his face, and he takes a deeper breath. Slowly, his eyes flutter open, and my heart lifts in relief.
I gradually help him up to a sitting position, supporting him with my arms around his back. When he’s upright, he removes his mask, and my eyes widen in alarm. ‘It’s okay,’ he says in a low whisper. ‘It doesn’t seem like it’s as bad in here as it is up there. The wind must’ve carried some noxious gas from somewhere else.’ He lets out a spluttering cough and gives himself a shake. ‘I’m okay,’ he says. ‘Just a bit winded.’
I remove my arms from around him, and he remains upright. I loosen my own mask, pulling it off my mouth so that it sits beneath my chin. I take my first tentative breath, and although the reek of eggs is still there, it’s much more subtle. There’s no fire in my throat, so I take another, deeper breath. We’re alive.
Now we have to figure out where on earth we are.
Arjun turns his headlamp on too, and between us we have a look around the cavern we’ve fallen into. The ground around us gently steams, wisps of smoke curling up from the mud, and when I put my ungloved hand on it, it feels warm. I search around for the missing glove, and am grateful when I see it lying not too far away. There are still plenty of sharp fragments of rock around that I don’t fancy cutting myself on.
‘Holy cow,’ Arjun says. I have to agree with him. The walls are splattered with great swathes of green and yellow rock, some of it luminescent as an oil slick. The walls themselves look as if they’re made of shards of black glass, reflecting back the light from our lamps. Of all the places I’ve been this year, this one is the most ominous. Even the cavern in Gergon can’t compare.
‘Look, over there.’ I point in the direction behind Arjun. ‘There’s some kind of tunnel.’
‘A lava tube,’ Arjun says, craning his neck to confirm. ‘It’s a place where lava once flowed and has carved out its own unique pathway. You can see there’s dried lava on the floor. We might be in luck. If we follow the tube, it might lead us to the crater – just a little bit lower down than we intended.’
Sure enough, when we shine our lamps on the floor of the tunnel, it looks different to the muddy texture here. It looks almost rippled, like black waves that have been frozen in time.
‘I’m guessing you didn’t use a kamikaze knot for this,’ says Arjun, tugging at the rope that I’ve left dangling through the hole.
I bite my lip and shake my head. ‘No . . . I don’t know that one.’
‘That’s okay. It’s dangerous . . . hence the name. It just means we only have my rope left.’
He’s right. The way that I tied my knot means there’s no way to recover the rope. If I’d been smart and thought for even an extra couple of seconds, I maybe could have tied it in a way that we could have rescued the rope afterwards. But that would have involved halving the length of the rope before climbing down, and I wasn’t sure I had enough to begin with. When I think of Arjun lying on the floor, I know I wouldn’t have had the strength – or the courage – to do that.
‘Well, hopefully we won’t need any more rope than this,’ Arjun says, plastering an encouraging smile on his face, even though I know he’s worried. I appreciate his effort all the same.
‘To the tunnel?’ I say.
‘Let’s go.’
It’s much warmer down here than outside, and eerily silent without the wind. But up ahead, I spot something that makes me squeal. My torchlight shines on a long feather, lying on the ground. Well, the spine and tiny spindles of a feather, the actual thing itself is burnt to a crisp. But then, phoenix feathers are highly combustible when exposed to the air – except when they’re attached to the phoenix itself. It’s another reason why they’re so difficult to work with, and why we have to have special jars to seal them in.
‘We must be getting close,’ I say, picking up the spine between my fingers. I place it into one of the jars we’ve brought with us – anything that comes from a phoenix might be useful for the potion. ‘That might mean there’s a nest around here.’ Excitement makes the tips of my fingertips tingle.
‘Look for rocks that don’t belong, that seem out of place,’ says Arjun. ‘A phoenix will bring rocks from other parts of the world with it to form its nest.’
I nod, and we keep on walking, until we come to the end of the tunnel. It opens up onto what we’ve been waiting for: the enormous crater at the very top of the volcano. I can hardly believe that this is the same place I’ve been staring at ever since we arrived in Long-shi. The very peak of the mighty Yanhuo. I crane my neck up and see how tall the sides of the crater are, like someone has lifted the top of the volcano off with an ice-cream scoop. The bright sunshine stings my eyes, so glaring after our time in the dark tunnel. Smoke plumes from the caldera – a gaping hole in the crater that signals the most active part of a volcano.
The lava tube has opened up about halfway up the side of the crater walls, so we still have a little way to descend before we reach the crater floor itself.
The ground rumbles and I grip Arjun’s sleeve. From the smoking hole, we get our first glimpse of the true power of this volcano: spurts of lava thrown high up in the air, a shower of red and gold sparks. If I wasn’t so afraid, I’d call it a Midwinter celebration.
Arjun whistles low. ‘Hopefully we don’t have to go anywhere near that.’
‘Is it safe from back here?’ I ask.
He shrugs, which is far from the most reassuring gesture. ‘Who knows? Let’s look for this phoenix and then get out of here.’
‘Plan.’
We’ve got several terrifying feet down from the entrance of our tunnel to the floor of the caldera. Rather than look down, I scan the perimeter, trying to see any sign of the magical bird’s nest. ‘Over there,’ I say, pointing along the caldera wall. There’s a sparkling patch of rose-pink rock clinging to the wall – it’s too far away to see clearly – but it looks out of place. It might be a nest. Arjun squints in that direction, then pulls out a pair of binoculars.
He’s always so prepared.
He nods. ‘I think you might be right. If we can get over there, then we can set up the fire-traps.’
‘So we need to climb down, then?’ I say with a gulp.
‘We need to climb down.’ Arjun unhooks the length of rope from his belt, then gets to work tying it around a broken column of hardened lava. It doesn’t fill me with confidence – especially when he cuts part of the rope
inside the knot clean through. He looks me dead in the eye. ‘Remember, maintain the tension the whole way down – if you let it go slack for even an instant, it will tumble to the ground. We want that eventually, just not while we’re on it.’
‘You got it,’ I say.
‘I’ll go first, that way I can spot you as you come down.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ I say, relieved that I don’t have to go first and worry about leaving Arjun stranded up here. Maintaining the rope’s tension with one hand, he threads the rope through the carabiner at his waist, then without any further hesitation, starts lowering himself down towards the caldera floor.
He makes it down with ease, though, giving me no more time to think it through. I mentally run through all the steps I need to do, then launch off as well. Within a few short pushes, my feet touch the ground. Arjun steps in front of me and grabs the rope. He lets the tension go and then sharply tugs. The knot at the top unravels, and because he sliced the rope in two at the very top, the majority of it drops down to our feet, meaning we still have most of the length if we need it in the future. Genius.
A rumble deep inside the volcano sends lava spurting from the caldera, and we sprint towards what looked to be a phoenix nest. As we approach it, I can see that we were right: there’s a bunch of quartz crystals melted onto the side of the crater wall that couldn’t have got there by accident, mixed with a tangle of wood and ash, perched between a jutting boulder and the caldera wall. Somewhere behind there will be a cave big enough to hide the phoenix. The wall is almost as smooth as glass, probably melted and cooled repeatedly by the heat of the flames from the phoenix’s tail feathers. There’s no way for us to get up there.
Arjun tries to use his crampons like miniature picks, but the hardened lava is so solid, he can’t even chip into it. ‘It’s no use,’ I say, as he bashes his foot against the wall a third time. He’s only going to break a toe that way. ‘The phoenix might not even be there. They can be gone for days at a time.’
‘I know that,’ says Arjun. ‘We’ll have to call it back.’
Another rumble from inside the volcano brings us to our knees. The smoking hole that seemed so far away from us suddenly seems close as it shoots out a new burst of fiery hot lava. The furthest thrown dollops land only a few feet from us, so close we can hear the lava sizzling as it makes contact with the relatively cooler ground. The hole also lets loose more noxious gas, and Arjun and I cough until we pull our masks back on.
Our eyes are enough to communicate. Arjun’s are filled with undisguised, unfiltered panic – and I bet mine are the same. I put both my hands down on the ground, which is almost too hot to touch, and in my mind I scream the words: ‘HELP US,’ and I picture what is happening in Nova.
I think back to the old legends I know. Isn’t that what being an alchemist is all about? Studying from those who have walked the alchemical path before us, learning from their mistakes but also never forgetting their successes.
The phoenix is a creature with a grand sense of justice.
It hates the abuse of power.
It will not tolerate lies.
It is sentient and older than us. It must make its own decisions.
‘I will use the flame to stop the drain! To stop whoever is trying to take magic that doesn’t belong to them.’
I have no idea if the phoenix can hear me or not, but a roar fills my ears that seems to emanate from the centre of the earth itself.
A bright flare almost blinds me, and I throw my arms up over my face just in time. I stay curled up in a ball on the ground, until I feel Arjun tugging on my elbow.
‘Sam! Sam! We need the fire-traps, quick!’
I look up with a jolt. All around us flickers a bright, unnaturally green fire. Phoenix flame. I scramble to my feet, at the same time detaching one of the jars from my hip. I place it gently on the ground, while Arjun unravels the spool of ribbon we’re using as a kind of fuse.
Once we’re set up, Arjun throws the end of the ribbon into the flame. It catches, and the flame rushes down the trap and into the jar. Arjun jumps on the end and seals it with the lid. ‘Got it!’ he cries out. ‘Let’s move!’
But I don’t want to have come all this way, come so close to a phoenix without actually seeing one.
Even though part of me knows it’s madness, I stay where I am. ‘Please!’ I shout into the air. My eyes sting with the intensity of the smoke that’s billowing out of the caldera.
Arjun is looking around desperately for an escape route, for the place where we can climb out of the crater. He risks taking his mask off and shouting at me: ‘Sam, we gotta go! It’s going to blow!’
I fall to my knees. ‘Please,’ I beg one final time.
There’s no answer but another roar.
Oh, dragons, I think. I’ve pushed my luck.
The hole explodes again, and this time it’s not emerald flame that shoots out but red hot lava. It starts pouring out of the caldera, bubbling over the side like molten gold, spreading all over the crater floor. I’m paralysed at watching how fast it’s moving, how quickly it’s heading towards me. Smoke pours out of the hole like a steam train. Move, Sam, move. Some kind of self-protection instinct finally kicks in and I barrel towards Arjun, my arms pumping as hard as my legs.
He’s already running up a narrow line of hardened lava that only leads about halfway up the crater wall, a natural pathway to nowhere. From there, he starts to climb. I follow him, running as quickly as I can.
I breathe a sigh of relief as I see him scramble over the top of the wall, before turning back around to help me. He lets down a length of rope, which I grab hold of. But he’s not going to be able to pull me up on his own. I’m going to have to climb.
I’m no good at this. I have the upper body strength of a T-rex. Still, I know I have to try. I take off my gloves, jamming them into my pocket, and dig my fingers into the small holes made by the rough, jagged lava, so different to the pillowy smooth kind that was on the crater floor – it’s painful to climb, but at least possible.
The problem is, it’s burning hot. The whole crater is steaming up, and the black lava absorbs the heat faster than anything I’ve ever known.
‘I can’t!’ I scream up at Arjun. ‘It’s too hot!’
‘You can do it,’ he shouts back down to me. ‘Only a few big pushes.’
I grimace and start to climb – my thighs are trembling, every muscle groaning. My hands are slick with sweat, and I swear I can feel the flames that dance across the lava pooling at my heels. I close my eyes, wishing for one second that I could be anywhere but here: clinging to the side of an active volcano’s crater, with the key to saving my sister’s life in my pocket, choosing between pushing my body beyond its physical limits or dying in a molten lava flow.
That one second is all I give myself.
I grit my teeth and scream again, but this time as I scream I push with every inch of power and strength I have left in my shaking limbs. My fingers slip on the rocky wall but I push them further in, begging them to co-operate. Two great heaves from my legs bring me close enough to the edge that I can grip Arjun’s wrist. He grips mine too, and with a huge pull from him and another final push off from me, he is able to haul me over the edge and onto the icy surface of the glacier.
From his backpack, he pulls out two round plastic discs.
‘What are those for?’ I ask, my eyes widening in alarm.
‘We have to get out of here before this entire thing blows,’ he says. ‘And the fastest way to do that?’ He hands me one of the discs, before sitting on his. ‘Is to slide our way outta here.’ Without a second thought he pushes off from the snow and hurtles down the side of the glacier on the plastic slide.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I say, before sitting down and sliding after him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Samantha
ANITA IS WAITING FOR US IN A BIG pick-up truck at the monastery. As soon as she sees us, now half-running, half-sliding down the scre
e hill, she starts up the car. We fling ourselves into the back seat, collapsing on the bench, our bodies wrung out with adrenaline and exhaustion.
‘The warning sirens were going off in the village and I was freaking out! I had to come up here to make sure you were both okay.’ She sneaks a look over her shoulder. ‘Did you manage to get the ingredient?’
I nod, unhooking the jar from my belt and placing it down in the footwell in front of me, protecting it between my heavy boots. ‘We got it,’ I say.
‘Oh, thank the dragons!’ Anita says. There’s an explosion from behind us and a column of fire shoots into the sky from the caldera. We don’t need any more encouragement. Anita puts her foot down on the accelerator, and we zoom down the mountainside. Thick black smoke turns the formerly bright day dark and dingy, as if it’s twilight at noon.
I spin around in the seat and watch the column of fire as we speed away. Even though the brightness of it hurts my eyes and leaves halos of white when I blink, I keep watching. Waiting. Until . . . maybe, I see it: the shape of a bird against the fire – wings flapping, trailing tail feathers and a long curved neck. It could just be my imagination, or wishful thinking, but I believe that the phoenix is there, revelling in the explosion.
With the phoenix’s blessing, its fire on our side, how could we fail?
Unless what we’re up against is stronger, my annoying brain says. We’ve been working on this cure for five minutes. The drain has been raging for months.
That someone would do this . . . it speaks of desperation. A desperate evil.
Well . . . good can be desperate too.
I will go to any extreme.
I will go to any length.
I will do anything to save my sister. My friends. My country.
So, come at me, evil. We’ll see who’s more determined in the end.
‘Hey, are you okay?’ Arjun puts his hand over mine, which are clenched into hard fists.
‘We’re going to do this, aren’t we?’ I ask, staring straight into his dark eyes.
