Without another word, Josel turned and scurried down the tunnel, Keoni close behind him. Edward held the cigarette lighter aloft and lurched after them, followed by Jennifer, Susan, and Wade. Josel had been right. The downhill grade of this tunnel was noticeably steeper. They had to slow their pace now, resorting to a brisk walk as the downward momentum of the tunnel propelled them deep into the earth. Jennifer gripped the back of Ed’s billowy Hawaiian shirt and she felt Susan’s fingers touch her left arm. Jennifer took Susan’s hand and she felt Susan’s fingers squeeze. They were on the same wavelength now.
She sensed Wade behind Susan, imagined he was probably holding onto the back of Susan’s shirt. Their being connected this way physically helped keep Jennifer in tune with their entire party. They moved fast, as one solid unit. And as they descended into the depths of the island, Jennifer wondered if the rest of them began to get the same feeling. It crept into her the deeper into the earth they got. It crawled over her slowly, inexorably, sinking its tendrils into her, wrapping its fingers around every fiber of her being. She couldn’t place the feeling; it wasn’t exactly fear but it was something like it.
It was more like dread.
TWELVE
The boy was halfway to the other side of the island, leading the Dark Ones through the bewildering network of underground tunnels, when he felt a subtle shift in the air. The ground thrummed beneath his feet. He was clutching the knife he’d used to gut the scientist he’d killed earlier in the day. His hands were still sticky with the man’s blood. He felt a sense of bloodlust, a sense of purpose.
He’d been quietly watching Josel over the past fort-night. The man was slipping. He’d become lazy in the last few years. It wasn’t so much a physical laziness, but a mental and spiritual one. Where in his earliest memories Josel had been full of knowledge and possessed a sense of spiritual authority unlike anybody he had ever known, now the old man seemed less sharp, less devout.
The boy had known Josel all his life. His earliest memory was of attending ceremonial dances in the center of the island where Josel presided over rituals. At that early an age, the boy did not understand the significance of these rituals. He’d recalled the images of the Dark Ones they’d carved into the bark of trees and on the rocky walls of the mountain. He remembered being told by his father, one of the nine tribal chiefs, that if he ever saw a stranger on this island he was to report the sighting to him or the other chiefs immediately. Mainlanders were not allowed on the island; if they arrived, they were to convince them to leave. Drive them off physically if the opportunity arose. His father had done this in the past, or so he’d related in evening soliloquies to Dagon. For the most part, mainlanders, as well as other Island people, stayed clear of Naranu. For thousands of years they had done an excellent job in keeping interlopers off the island and they’d been rewarded handsomely.
It had only been within the last two years when his father began teaching him the old language and he began to understand the nature behind the rituals. It was highly likely that his father was dead now, slain by the Elder during the massacre. The boy was almost certain of this; he’d crept to the edge of the jungle after having followed the chiefs and the tribe’s soldiers to the beach to meet up with the Dark Ones, and witnessed the tail end of a mass slaughter. The boy had bit back his anger and anguish and summoned all the strength he had within him to make his pitch to the Elder.
And now he couldn’t back down. He had to prove to the Elder that he was capable of being a leader. The boy wanted to impress the Dark Ones. He hoped that he and perhaps a few others of his people—if any were left alive— would be spared.
His first step was to take the Elder to Josel’s house. The boy knew all the tunnels of Naranu like the back of his hand. He’d traversed down their outer paths as a young boy when he accompanied his father on various secret trips beneath the island. What his father and the other tribal chiefs never learned was that the boy explored the inner tunnels numerous times on his own. He’d done this hundreds of times by his count. He’d learned much from these secret trips. He’d also learned much from the secret writings he’d sneaked a peek at that were hidden in his father’s quarters, back at the house.
It was from these writings that the boy learned the secrets behind the Dark Ones.
And the Secret Order of Dagon.
And along with those revelations, the purpose of his people. Unlike neighboring islands, they had resisted the worship of the female deity, Eijebong, in favor of the one true god. Others might strive to go to Buitani when they died. The boy’s people were content to travel to the Great Deep and become one with the waters there.