Dagon Rising(40)

Clark sighed and settled back in his seat as the Learjet began circling the island to prepare for landing.





TEN



The chiefs had left the village a few hours ago on a mission from Josel Buada, the tribe’s Holy man. There was no sign that they’d returned, but Josel had a bad feeling that he’d never see them again.

The whisper of the wind told him so.

Likewise, the pressure he was feeling that was tightening around his skull, his abdomen, was a confirmation.

Josel Buada was eighty-eight years old. He’d lived on Naranu all his life and came from a long line of holy men. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and his great-grandfather’s uncles had all served as the tribe’s holy men. Josel himself had been anointed by his grandfather when he was very young—twenty-three years old. His grandfather told him that it was a great honor to reach such a pinnacle in his spiritual life at such a young age.

But now he wished the responsibility had not come down to him.

Because harboring the knowledge he’d held for over sixty years had taken its toll on him.

Josel was in his bedroom, at the back of the modest little two-bedroom cottage he kept by himself at the out-skirts of the village. He picked up a framed photograph that was old and sepia-tinged. He held it in his weathered hands, focusing on the young lady standing beside the younger version of himself. Yanni Kahote had grown up with him. They’d been childhood sweethearts. Had courted each other by the light of the full moon in the warm summer nights of their young adulthood. His grandfather and father had been away, in the center of the island partaking in very old rituals that they said would protect them from the Japanese, who were intent on raiding all the South Pacific islands during that time of turbulence. The Japanese had come close—they’d taken many of the islands, had fought the Filipinos and Chinese farther north, had engaged with the inhabitants of Australia, but they never captured Naranu. Grandfather said it was due to the rituals and sacrifices he made to Dagon that the island was spared.

Thus had begun a fascination with his people’s religious beliefs that had not waned. His grandfather and father had welcomed Josel with open arms and brought him into the fold. They told him that if he could pass the rigorous spiritual cleansing, he would become beholden to great secrets of the universe.

Josel sighed, the memory of years gone by fluttering through his mind. He’d had to give up Yanni if he was to pursue the priesthood of Dagon. That was a sacrifice he was willing to make, though. The stakes were too high otherwise.

Still, sometimes in the dead of night, when he was lying in bed waiting for sleep to overcome him, Josel would revisit those long ago nights with Yanni. Sometimes the visions would seem so real he could almost feel Yanni’s naked body against his…

If he could only turn back the hands of time and do it all over again…

He would resist the yearning for the knowledge that had been promised to him. He would take Yanni and steal away to one of the other neighboring islands and from there… maybe a trip to Australia, and then later, maybe, England, never to see the South Pacific again.

Because this area of the South Pacific held a monstrous secret.

Naranu was the gateway to R’lyeh…where Dagon lay sleeping.

And his people had served Dagon’s minions for millennia.

And now his people were paying for those thousands of years of servitude.

Josel set the framed photo back down carefully on his bedside bureau. Over an hour before, the nine tribal chiefs had gone to the south side of the island to talk to the Dark Ones. Josel had sent them to try to appease their Elder, who was most angry with them for failing to keep the latest wave of white people from the island. Josel knew that the Elder was to have performed the ritual tonight; the stars were right, were in perfect alignment, a first in thousands of years, probably since the people of Naranu first came to this island. Rituals had been performed for the last year in accordance with this awakening. These rituals were designed to bring Dagon out of his long slumber, which was to culminate in the great ritual to conclude them all—that of the Great Rising, which corresponded with the alignment of the stars that was to take place tomorrow night. At the ritual’s conclusion, Dagon would be woken from his long slumber beneath the island. Josel had known his people had been the guardians of this secret for thousands of years. He’d believed it, known it was true, but he never knew that he would ever live to see it happen.

For a while he held doubts that it would ever happen.

Like any believer, he’d had his moments of doubt. They came on nights when he dreamed of Yanni and wondered if everything he’d been taught was nothing but an elaborate scheme. Sure, the Dark Ones were real. He’d seen them. Conversed with them in their ancient tongue. But were the Dark Ones who they claimed to be? Guardians of Dagon, an ancient god banished to the sunken city of R’lyeh? Josel had held moments of doubt to that claim, but thankfully those doubts had lessened in time. They’d especially lessened when he was brought down to the under-ground catacombs and seen where the Dark Ones lived.