They carried her in darkness, through the stormy winds that swept across the barren, volcanic slope. Charcoal-gray clouds swirled overhead, hiding the sun from the red-garbed fire priests, but for a sliver of blue sky that rimmed the horizon where the tumultuous cloud bank ended.
Two imposing figures led the solemn procession, their heads, neck, and wrists crowned in blackened bone. Fitted, sleeveless, ember-hued tops—embroidered with volcanic symbolism in varying shades of red—revealed matching fiery tattoos that snaked around their upper arms, curling across their exposed collarbones. More inked patterns encircled their ankles and shins, against which their crimson waist wraps billowed and flapped. The rest of the priests were dressed similarly, their long, braided dark hair swinging in the bursts of wind.
The middle four priests carried between them two sturdy wooden shafts, tied together with palm leaf twine and holding up a large, swaying object between them. The object stirred, and a flash of purple lightning revealed, for the briefest of moments, the ovular, curved face and defined features of a young woman, hands and feet bound tightly to the poles.
Startled by the light, the woman opened one chocolate-colored eye and immediately shut it again. Her head hurt, her arms and legs ached, and everything was just sore all over. She tried to remember where she was and what she was supposed to be doing, but her mind was one fuzzy, chaotic blanket, like the storm clouds she heard rumbling above. Salty, cold wind blew the comforting scent of tropical fruits and lush undergrowth past her nose, so she knew she wasn't too far from home, but...
The air grew warmer and the swaying stopped. The dark-eyed woman felt herself being lowered, felt the cool press of inky volcanic obsidian against her exposed shoulders and lower back. Hazy red shapes moved around her, undoing her bindings, chanting and murmuring ritualistically in what her ears told her was Archaic Tongue.
A ritual. She was part of a ritual, but which one? Flashes of a fire circle, of people chanting and stepping in circles in the sand, of the bright, full moon cascaded through her memory, but everything was as if she was watching and listening through a long, echoey tunnel. She couldn't remember, and that sent shivers through her fingertips.
A tall, honey-colored woman with striking black velvet hair approached the trembling young woman and offered a slender hand. "Come, Farista. It is time." Her tone was soothing as she pulled the woman—Farista—up with powerful ease. Farista could hear undertones of sadness, and beneath all of that, something so desperately familiar to her. The woman's mocha eyes met Farista's chocolate ones for a brief moment before the other woman glanced away back toward the gathering fire priests, who had moved a bit ahead of them. Guiding the young woman forward into the forming circle, the taller priestess stepped back and watched with glowing eyes from beneath her ebony-colored bone headpiece.
A clean-shaven, middle-aged man with a flowing, red, one-shouldered cape in addition to the usual fire priest attire, stepped up, his hazel-golden eyes scanning the procession authoritatively as they filled in around a concave patch of rock worn down by footsteps and lava flows over the centuries. He was flanked by an older, well-statured woman with a long, charred staff curled in her left palm. They clasped hands and raised their voices toward the churning ashen skies, inviting the rest of them to do the same. The woman in the center shivered as the wind picked up, whipping around her legs, which were only covered in a short cloth wrap that reached down to her thighs. Her loose black locks tangled themselves around her face and she reached up to run her fingers through them, touching a laurel-like crown of jagged bone upon her head. For the fourth time since waking, she wondered how she had gotten there and what this ritual's purpose was, although something in the back of her mind told her that she wouldn't know the full answer even if all her memories came back then.
The crackling of the lightning grew stronger, striking a jolt of fear into Farista's heart with every bolt, but the fire priests remained unfazed. Their chanting grew louder still. Farista looked heavenward along with the rest of them and saw the storm clouds beginning to swirl and gather around them. She began to feel an icy chill drip through her veins, despite the fact that they were standing quite near the center of the volcano. When the priests began closing the circle, drawing them ever closer to the rim of the crater, Farista's body kicked into overdrive.
Her foot lashed out at the golden-eyed man who seemed to be the leader of the group with a speed that bespoke of years of training. Surprised at herself, Farista faltered and the elder woman's staff came flying toward her outstretched leg. She drew it back in time to avoid a collision and again locked eyes with the tall woman who had helped her earlier. The woman's intense mocha eyes stared longingly at hers, soft and asking. The tension in Farista's muscles eased temporarily and she let the group lead her toward the edge.
The circle opened up into a "U" formation, giving the young woman the feeling of being trapped between the line of fire priests and the volcano's edge. She leaned over the rim of the crater and could see the pulsating yellow-orange liquified rock below her feet, hear the bubbles of magma seeping up through the earth's core, feel the intense heat radiating from the tranquil pit of fire. She turned to face the group in question, all sense of black dread returning through her nerves. The fire priests' chanting had increased in speed and volume, the winds ever-threatening to knock her off her feet and into a fiery pit of certain death. Something inside Farista whispered ever more terrifying thoughts as her rich brown eyes swept the line, looking for a chance to escape the edge and get some answers.
There. An opening between a shorter, stocky woman and a slender man standing beside her. Farista let her body relax, hiding her intentions until she was ready.
Three, two, one...
Her strong legs dug into the rocky earth as she bolted toward the gap. Ten feet, five feet, two feet... Her head passed the shoulders of the two priests and she grinned. Then she was falling.
Smack!
Her body hit the unforgiving stone first. The stocky woman she had ran at grabbed her by the waist, wrapped her thick arms around Farista and lifting her up before she could injure her head. Farista squirmed and yelled, but the woman held fast and others were joining her, restraining her legs. She managed to scratch a couple of them across the cheeks—then they pinned her arms, too.
"Let go of me! What in kautunga are you doing? Hey! Somebody, listen to me—" She whipped her head around and found the coffee-colored eyes of the woman before, staring intently. The woman held her gaze and murmured something softly.
"This is for your own good."
Farista's eyes widened. She was alone. No one was coming to help her.
~~ * ~~
The fire priests dragged her back toward the steaming hot edge of the crater, the woman screaming and fighting them every step of the way despite recognizing the futility of it. "She warned us this might happen," an authoritative male voice muttered. Farista saw the man with the hazel-golden eyes staring intently at her, sending her brain whirling anew trying to decipher this potential clue, but nowhere did it fit into her splotchy memory. Every step she took toward freedom only resulted in her being pushed two steps closer toward her fiery doom.
The blazing heat emanating from the angry hole in the mountain was almost unbearable now. Amid the wild scramble, Farista suddenly felt her feet leave the ground as her head was tipped sideways. Many hands gripped her weary limbs and suddenly the woman felt the world sway, back and forth, back and forth. Her head was dizzy and white spots appeared in her vision as her body went limp. Back and forth, back and forth... until suddenly she felt nothing at all.
~~ * ~~
She was floating. Rising. The ashen clouds appeared to draw closer, pulsating with life as bolts of lightning crackled through them. The sound was deafening, echoing faintly through the woman's ears as if coming from a long tunnel. Am I dying? Is this heaven?
And then she was falling. Falling down, down... Her hands scrabbled at the empty air above her as if the clouds had solidified into a rocky purchase. The air grew warmer. And then she saw them. The red-rimmed crater where the crimson-robed priests stood lined up. The familiar woman's coffee-brown eyes staring intently into hers before she averted her gaze as the lip of the crater swallowed her up.
~~ * ~~
Her back arched at first upon hitting the bubbling magma. It wasn't totally fluid as she had expected, but more of semi-condensed rock. Though she couldn't feel anything, the woman knew her whole body must be burning with pain as her flesh melted away. Her lungs stubbornly tried to take one last breath as the magma began to close up over her face, but instead, she choked on hot ash. What a way to die... she half-thought, waiting for death to claim her. At least she did not have to endure in pain.
But death did not seem forthcoming. Instead, a slow burning sensation began to emanate from the woman's heart. She gasped—or tried to—but was rewarded with an ooze of hot molten rock trickling down her throat. It pushed its way inside of her, burning through her throat, pouring into her esophagus, and yet she did not die. But the pain was very real now. She tried to struggle, to move even, as the fiery burn from her chest began to quicken through her veins, replacing blood with liquid fire. Her insides became active molten magma; her skin and bones turned to volcanic rock.
The fire, at last, made its way to her brain, searing away soft tissue and replacing it with a living flame that danced in her head, showing her images of all things past and of blurred things yet to come. The rush of information, of knowledge, gave her a feeling of lightheadedness, the sensation of rising.
And suddenly she was rising, her body surfacing with the rolling, boiling magma. She gasped, exhaling dark smoke that burned from the fire within her. The liquid rock responded, releasing a cloud of black ash that rose into the sky in a fiery puff. The volcano trembled.
The woman crouched on the surface of the semi-fluid magma, eyes wide as she studied her transformed body. Gone was the soft, amber flesh that marked her as a human. Gone were her tangled black locks. In their stead, she gazed at fingertips that glowed like embers, hardened skin that cracked like the ebony rocks that plated the volcano, and a bright, burning magma over where her fiery heart resided in her chest. She looked toward the crackling gray skies with eyes that shone like burning coals and roared her pain and confusion. And the volcano roared with her.
~~ * ~~
She was rising fast, her feet glued to the molten rock that erupted skyward as lava spewed from the hellhole in the mountain. Bits of pumice and ash flew in all directions, but nothing could touch her. The lava rolled underneath her feet like an obedient dog waiting for a command. So she gave it one.
The lava rushed forward, spilling over the edge of the crater and oozing down the side of the rocky slope. She stepped onto a ledge, the very same one which she had been thrown off of, and looked around. The fire priests were long gone, but she could still picture all of them—the man with authoritative hazel eyes, the woman with her familiar coffee brown ones—sacrificing the girl she once was to the angry volcano. Her newfound knowledge told her why, but her anger burned through all rationality. She could only picture those mocha-colored eyes boring into her as she fell into the fires of Mount Kara'hi. The transformed woman smiled.
"But I am not that girl anymore," she spoke aloud, her voice rough and burning like the crackling of a thousand forest fires. Raising her arms, the woman chanted in Archaic Tongue, sending tremors through the ground beneath her feet. Magma bubbled up behind her, erupting once again into a column of lava that washed over the sides, splitting the mountain with fiery veins to match the ones on the woman's new body.
Riding a lava flow down the rocky slope, the woman pictured her molten tigers ripping through the tropical forests below with pleasure, racing toward her former self's village. In a trembling voice full of rage, the volcano goddess declared, "I am Ahika'tia! And this ends, today!"
~~ * ~~
Down in the peaceful village of Tahana, the inhabitants heard a rumbling. The covenant of fire priests had just returned from their grueling trek up the volcanic slope, and the village was bustling in preparation. One lone woman stepped up onto a creaky slated porch and ducked inside her home. She sat down heavily on a stool woven of canvas and propped up by two palm logs from the coconut trees, burying her honey-hued face in her hands. Her velvety black hair swept forward to conceal the silent tears leaking out of her mocha-colored eyes.
The woman thought of the golden-skinned, chocolate-eyed girl that she and her fellow covenant had just tossed into the volcano barely an hour ago. She knew it was for the sacred Kara'hi ritual, but still... A remorse as deep as the volcanic vent rose up in her like the eruptions now spewing from the volcano's peak. Farista had known what she was getting herself into, but the pain and confusion that flashed in the younger woman's eyes as she had locked her falling gaze upon her forgotten mother's was a pain this woman could never forget. She deserved what was coming, and she welcomed it.
The woman now rose, wiping the last of her tears with the back of her hand and walked calmly to the door. She stepped outside, passing the watchful golden-eyed head fire priest, to stand in the middle of the path, lined on both sides by the village and families she and her daughter had grown up among. She waited, watched as the red tide of blazing embers grew ever closer like a pack of wild tigers tearing through the tropical forest. The fiery goddess at last came in sight, riding the wave down the side of Mount Kara'hi, eyes burning like terrible coals thirsty to destroy everything in their path. The woman did not close her eyes.
~~ * ~~
The goddess of the volcano saw who she had come for the moment her lava flow reached the edge of the village. She stepped forward, slowly advancing between the ranks of the people, molten rock oozing around her feet and scorching the sandy earth beneath her. The woman who had watched her fall was now staring directly at her. Some part of Ahika'tia's past self felt again a twinge of recognition.
Her instincts told her she was to take one of these villagers to sate her appetite for vengeance so she could protect the rest equally. The choice was clear to her. In a raw voice that spoke of the fiery power beneath the earth, she made her intentions clear."You. Come forward."
The mocha-eyed woman did, walking toward the goddess solemnly but austerely, until they were meters apart. If she was bothered by the immense heat radiating off Ahika'tia's body, she did not show discomfort. The volcano goddess gazed into those beautiful coffee-colored eyes with her own blazing orange ones, oddly searching for something. Something didn't feel right about this ritualistic instinct. Maybe she was still too human.
She had to focus on her rage, her need to fuel her immortal life. But try as she might, she could not sense the sacred knowledge she needed to perform the ritual. Maybe there never was one.
~~ * ~~
The realization washed over her like the salty ocean waters. Ahika'tia stepped back. "This isn't right." The villagers let out a collective gasp, but Ahika'tia ignored them. She was a goddess; she didn't have to be swayed by the opinions of mortals.
"You are my mother." Certainty filled her voice as her vision cleared. Ahika'tia knew what to do. Striding forward, she closed the gap between herself and her mom, wrapping her ensheathed rocky molten arms around her. The older woman embraced the goddess in return, her tears now flowing faster and disintegrating with steamy hisses as they splashed against her daughter's body.
But the goddess's joy was short-lived. Her newfound mother was still a human with the same soft flesh she had once had, which had melted away and been replaced by the viscous magma that now served as her body.
If she was to have her mother, she would have to take her with her.
"Do you trust me?" she whispered to the woman still clinging tightly to her. Her mother nodded, and began to meld with the goddess's body as Ahika'tia pulled her in. The sizzling of flesh as it burned away released foul odors into the air, and the crowd that had gathered began to back up, giving them room.
The woman was now fully merged with Ahika'tia—the goddess could feel her inside of herself. She raised her arms, pulling more lava toward her from the pooling flow she had brought along, and created a swirling orb of it in front of her. She began shaping it with her hands, like a sculptor working on her masterpiece. Slowly but surely, the mass of lava took on a human form into which Ahika'tia channeled her magic and the spirit of her mother.
~~ * ~~
At last, her creation was complete. The goddess dropped to her knees, barely holding upright the fiery woman with one outstretched hand, praying to kautunga her mother's soul would take. The crowd had re-amassed further down the path and was now also staring intently at the magma shell of a human hovering centimeters above the ground. Everyone waited like that for a long time.
~~ * ~~
Defeated, the volcano goddess slowly lowered her arm and let her creation ease to the ground. She had taken a gamble and it hadn't succeeded. Instead, she had broken the woman's trust, done what she had sworn not to—she'd killed a human being, her own mother. Falling to her knees, she pressed her face into her glowing palms, her basalt-black hair concealing the molten tears that dripped from her ember eyes. She felt a rough hand touch her shoulder and looked up into the golden eyes of the male fire priest. He smiled sadly.
~~ ❄ ~~