Storm Crow

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Catli breathed in the hot scented air at the great entrance into the cavern above the tree line and relaxed, muscles unwinding one on top of the other in a cascade of relief. The stress of dealing with the villagers was almost too much some days. Any time he was able to remove himself to the volcano was greatly appreciated.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t love his village, or his people. Catli was dedicated to his service, to helping his village stay healthy and safe in the shadow of the First God-Child of the Powers. If asked, however, he would tell anyone without hesitation that he preferred Toa above them all. The volcano had no anger, no malice. It didn’t spit hate and anger at him.

The light of Toa’s heart shifted and flowed along the cavern walls as Catli moved deeper into the sacred space. This was why he became a Koah. The position was the only way to gain access to the vast God-Child, to commune with it. To share the churning blaze in his soul with another like himself. In essence anyway, because the volcano wasn’t a being in the same way he was.

A huge, flat escarpment jutted out from the long hallway, barely high enough to make the hot air bearable while he worked. The ancestors carved it quite a few turns of the world ago, before written records existed. Some legends told of the Gods scooping out the entrances of the Fire Stars as a gift to the island peoples and a pointed reminder to keep the volcanoes satisfied with regular visits. Catli was pleased to follow that particular story. Toa was no hardship to spend time with, even though he had no language in common with the great being, beyond its fire.

Catli laid down the traditional offerings for Toa on the very edge of the stone cliff and knelt in the center, on a little rise in the floor. There were no words to offer. Catli raised his hands out to his sides and smiled as he closed his eyes. His magic came in an instant to his call, spreading fire from his core to the palms of his hands and he spilled his power down into the stone around him.

A quake shook the whole cavern. The heat rose by increments until Catli was pouring sweat from his temples, but he found no fear in his heart, even after all these years, as Toa reached back to him, fire meeting fire until the current glowed and circled him. If Catli opened his eyes, he would see a ribbon of magma had filled the rest of the floor, destroying the offerings, but not coming within an arm’s span of Catli himself. The first time, when he was still mostly a boy learning his power, he had squeaked like a mouse and run from the volcano.

After that, once he realized the magma had parted for him and he hadn’t been harmed, he wasn’t afraid. Toa wouldn’t harm him. Then, as now, a razor thin tendril of the volcano’s essence wound its way through Catli’s offered magic.

It burned in the best of ways. Power coursed to every corner of his body and mind, on edge of too much, and the unknowable Toa crooned to him. The tone of Its voice told him all he needed to know. Toa was joyous to find one who was willing to connect and share the vast well of life with It.

Dawn slipped away to midmorning before Catli and Toa broke their connection. The God-Child was careful of Catli’s mortal constitution, keeping their communion short. Once, Catli had protested the exactness of Toa’s time limit, but never again. The volcano had shown him why on Catli’s next visit. He’d been sore, lethargic, addled for days afterward.

Catli beamed at the tiny river of magma as it flowed back over the lip of the stone platform. “Thank you.”

A rumble was his answer, like rocks shifting deep in the sides of the volcano. Catli took the response for what it was, gratitude, and stood. He breathed in the acrid air one last time as he brushed the dust off his shins and went on his way out of the cavern.

While Catli was on the slopes, he planned to harvest some of the uncommon Blue Hearts that grew on the northern side of the mountain. The plant craved the heat of the magma through the stone. He hated the sickly sweet heavy scent of the flowers, but they were best to treat lung sickness. Catli had run out over the last week treating one of the villagers.