CHAPTER 1
Lord Vulcan growled in anger. He could no longer find his love, his goddess: Idoli.He roared his fury to the black sky, throwing down a challenge to all who wouldhear him. They had taken her away, and from this day, he would roam the earthseeking her. He would kill all who stood in his way: god, man, or beast. "Idoli!" hescreamed "Idoliiiiiiiiiiiii!"
Peter Cashman replaced the book on his side table. It was now 4 a.m., and as tired ashe was, he was unable to sleep. The book had been sent to him anonymously. It was veryold and many of the pages were almost illegible, but it was compelling. The cover notesaid it was prophetic, an encoded tale of Lord Vulcan. Tomorrow he would go through thebook again, download the information, and see what he could find—if there was anythingto find.
The day dawned bright and sunny, a great start to Easter. The roads were packedwith holidaymakers heading away from the city and into the mountains, down to thebeaches, and anywhere else that would take them far from the great rat race. By some sortof unwritten understanding, the opposite side of the highway was jammed with countrypeople heading into the city to share in the delights of theatres, restaurants, and shoppingin the big stores.
Jennifer Bannon, her sister Erin, and her cousin Michael were packed into Jennifer'slittle car heading for the mountains. Their destination was Lake Marnie high on theplateau of Boulder Mountain. The three had spent months collecting camping gear andsaving money for this long weekend.
"Want to stop for coffee about eleven?" Jennifer asked.
"Let's just keep going. We've waited long enough. We can make coffee when we getthere," Erin answered.
Michael nodded in agreement. "Yep. The sooner, the better."
They sang along to the radio while Michael checked his video camera for theumpteenth time.
"This is going to be so much fun," Erin said. "Just the three of us. No parents, nothingfor the whole of Easter!"
Jennifer grinned. "Yeah, just think about it."
At one thirty that afternoon, the road-weary travellers reached Boulder Mountain.True to its name, the mountain was covered in huge boulders all the way down to thevalley floor on one side. The road had been built through this area, as thick rainforestcovered the other side of the mountain.
The little car climbed steadily until finally reaching Lake Marnie camping ground.They piled out of the car and began the search for a suitable campsite.
The lake was beautiful. Most of it was surrounded by thick rainforest, except wherethe road came in. This area was covered in groves of conifers. Jennifer and Erin chose theirsite a little way up the slope on the west side of the lake, about ten metres from the water'sedge. They positioned between two large trees to take in the view across the water. Thetwo girls set up in one room, and Michael went in the other with the packs.
Outside under the fly, they set up their barbecue, tables, and chairs.
It took most of the afternoon to complete their camp, haul water, and locate toilets andwashing facilities. By early evening, they had stretched out in comfortable chairs and weregrilling steaks on the barbecue as they watched more tourists pour into the park.
Michael sighed and said, "This is so good. Just smell that air! It makes me wonder whyI even live in the city."
"Money, by any chance?" Erin offered.
They all laughed.
Over the next three hours, many young people came to their tent to talk, have a drink,or just pass the time. Most came to introduce themselves and find out where the threewere from.
They were very tired young people when they finally rolled into bed at midnight.
Peter Cashman sat crouched over his laptop. The book had been loaded into hiscomputer and he was now working on a variety of codes to try to find out if any existedwithin its pages. He was coming up empty at home, so with his laptop and camping gearloaded into his four-wheel drive, he set off for his father's cabin high on the east side ofBoulder Mountain.
"I may as well enjoy the weekend if I have to work," he muttered to himself.
The cabin was about sixty metres from the lake via a narrow path. Near the cabin,a spring bubbled out of the rocks, one of the reasons his father had built there. The landwasn't owned, but his father had taken a fifty-year lease as part of his job as a seismologist.
It had been very convenient for the family. It meant that while his father was officiallyworking, the rest of his family could enjoy holidays at one of the most beautiful spotson the map. When Peter had grown up and followed his father's footsteps, the cabin justnaturally became part of it. Just as it would when he married and had a family.
Without bothering to stow his gear, Peter threw a meal together and unrolled hissleeping bag on one of the bunks. He was dead tired from lack of sleep and the long drive,but he needed to get this part of the work finished before he could determine if the bookwas a prophecy or just a good story.
As he worked, he slowly came to the decision that in fact the book was just a goodstory. There was no hard evidence to suggest that anything in it could be construed as areal-life happening. Even looking into the past gave him no clues.
He shook his head, exasperated at the work he had done and the fact that there wereno answers. The field was so narrow. People spent their whole lives predicting earthquakes,cyclones, and wars, yet no one had come up with any real information on volcanoes. He,like others in his field, could locate fumaroles and steam vents, make predictions on thepresence of quakes and tremors, or even on the past performances of the mountain, butthere was no real prophetic evidence of what may be.
He plugged the small seismograph into the computer. He walked outside and withina thirty-metre radius of the cabin placed five small echographs. He set up a sonar in thepit his father had dug for just such a purpose. Thermographs would allow for changes inthe soil and air temperatures to be recorded. He had only one paper to write this year, andallowing for lack of practical evidence, he figured he would still be able to present it withsome authority.
The moon was bright silver, the night was warm with barely a breeze, and the soundof happy people floated up to him from the camping ground near the lake. He draggedin a deep breath and then returned to the cabin where, within seconds of falling onto hisbunk, he was asleep.
CHAPTER 2
The sun streaming through the window woke Peter early. He sat up while scrubbingat his short, curly hair. His first job was to put on the coffee pot—"real coffee" hisfather called it. His second was to get water for his shower.
Outside, the world seemed to stand still. Sun poured through the trees, but thereremained patches of fog and mist—soft, white, ethereal. The trees were still. Some weredark and mysterious in their depths while others were adorned with colour as autumn tookover from summer.
Even the birds were quiet, as though not wanting to disturb the absolute peace of theforest.
Peter stretched and yawned; it sounded unnaturally loud.
He filled the hot-water tank for the shower then piled it up with chips from thewoodpile. Soon steam was hissing and spitting from the old heater. Peter went inside andthrew himself under the shower.
He soaped up quickly, as they had done when children, and then he was able to standunder the water until it was gone. He knew from experience that the fire would also beout, but cold water had to be added to the tank so that it didn't buckle with the heat.
He wrapped a towel around his body and headed out the door. As he opened it, helurched. The door swung away from him then came back and hit him hard. "Jesus!" heyelped, and then he was on the floor.
He got to his feet, dragging the towel around him. The computer and printer beganchattering and ticking, demanding his attention. The ping ping of his seismograph told himsomething was happening.
He crossed quickly to the table and checked the readings. Almost as soon as he gotthere, silence reigned. The readouts showed a small bump, and the seismograph detectedonly an echo, a minuscule 2.2. That was odd, he thought, given that he had hit the floor.He shrugged. If it was close to the surface, it could be enough to knock a person over,especially one who had just woken up.
He mentally shook himself then returned to the mundane tasks at hand.
Outside, he drew another bucket of water and poured it through the shower heater. Hedrew more water for the coffee pot and breakfast dishes.
With breakfast over, he decided to check the collectors. He was surprised to see all ofthem showing a reading. This meant that the tremor had been very much localised. Hechecked through his files and read through as much as he could find on Boulder Mountain.There was no evidence.
The mountain had been formed some two hundred thousand years ago and wasconsidered cold and stable. The lake was not at the top of the mountain but on one sidewhere the old explosion had blown out the side. He decided to take some readings on thelake and the surrounding areas throughout the day. Satisfied with that, he headed downthe path for a walk.
The camping ground was alive with chatter and the smell of breakfast. Jennifer, Erinand Michael had showered and were sitting outside the tent in the sun eating.
"How did you sleep Michael?" Jennifer asked him.
"Like a top thanks" he answered "and you?"
"Great I haven't felt so good in years, well, a long time" she sighed.
"What about you Erin?" he asked her "did you sleep well?"
"Well sort of it was bit hard getting to sleep I guess it was too quiet" she said.
They finished breakfast and were washing the dishes when the tremor rolled throughthe camping ground.
The plates rattled and jumped across the table Erin grabbing them before they hit theground. Michael, who had been going into the tent, fell over.
"Hell what was that?" he sounded nervous.
Jennifer grabbed the tent pole and hung on
"It feels like a tremor, I guess some mountains do have them" but she didn't soundconfident not even to herself.
A woman nearby yelped, and a toddler who had fallen over started to cry. Dishes andequipment rattled throughout the camping ground. Then it was gone.
"Phew that was interesting" Jennifer laughed nervously.
"Scary is more to the point" Erin added.
"Yeah both." Michael said.
"Do you think it will come again?" Erin sounded nervous "I hate things I don'tunderstand".
"Hey lighten up it was only a little one, let's enjoy this okay?" Michael grinned at them"who's turn is it to make the coffee?"
Peter strolled under the thick green canopy, it was cool silent and dark. There wasno sound no breeze to play hide and seek through the branches just floating mist andoccasionally soft fingers of sun pushing down through the forest seeking to touch theground and warm it.
He felt alone, he seemed alone, `the last person on earth' he mused.
As he strolled the narrow twisting path to the lake he thought of the years he had spenthere how he, his brother and sister, mother and father had played pretend. They were thelast survivors how would they eat how would they live! They had planted vegetables andfruit trees. Invariably the vegetables had died over the winter but the trees survived andhere and there the odd apple and lemon tree were still to be found bearing fruit.
The nearer he got to the lake the less alone he felt. Sound began to drift toward him.The smell of food cooking, children calling, laughing yellingparents calling their childrenand the almost obscene throbbing roar of a boat starting up on the lake. Soon it wouldbe dragging skiers around behind it and by mid morning it and several others would befighting for space to show off their prowess with their skiers, and high speed manoeuvres.The quiet fisherman in his little `tinny' with an outboard or oars would have to watch hisback or get run over. Children playing in the shallows would be hit by waves from thewash big enough to knock them over. Peter shook his head 'whatever happened to quietfamily holidays, when a small sailing boat or a rubber inner tubes were about the limit.'Progress his father had said and sadly he had to agree. More money to buy more toysmeant more noise yet still those people would tell you it was a 'quiet' holiday.
He came out into the clearing at the top of the camping ground. There weren't anycampers in this area they had concentrated closer to the lake on the sunny side, the northand north west, where the tree canopy was at its thinnest. He surveyed the campingground with his binoculars there were a lot of people here this Easter probably due to along hot and dry summer in the city. The need to get away to the coolness of the countryand in this case preferably the mountains, and memories of past camping trips probablydrove them here. He strolled down to the water's edge and felt the water it was cool andclean he scooped some up to taste it had a satisfying mineral taste that comes from allnatural springs. He continued along the edge of the lake heading east away from the maincamping area.
He headed for a small headland of rocks which jutted out over the water. He and hissister, older by two years, had dared each other to jump from the top of these rocks intothe deep cold darkness. The lake was at its deepest at this end, the assumption was thatthe spring that fed it had it's inlet in this area hence the coldness. He climbed the rockseasily now his long legs stepping over the spots where small rocks and stones had rattledaway under bare feet and small steps all those years ago. The sun was already touching thecamping ground and many people were simply lying about soaking it up. Peter raised hisbinoculars and watched as a beautiful blue and white craft glided around the northern edgeof the lake heading in his direction. It wasn't moving very fast but it was sending twincurling creamy waves up in its wake. The nose was lifted slightly out of the water and itcarried no skiers the driver was simply enjoying the buzz of still water riding. He stoodup straight behind the wheel without a hat or dark glasses the wind streaming through hishair; he was smiling. Peter smiled, he understood the man's feeling of pure pleasure.
He climbed down from his rocky perch and headed around to the northern side of thelake. As he walked around the rocky outcrop he lost sight of the boat, when he got to theother side it was no-where to be seen. He kept walking.
Two hours later he headed back to the camping ground, he had exhausted all the placeshe and his family had visited, played in and generally made their own before the adventof the public camping ground. As he strolled the edge of the lake to where the main bodyof campers were set up he again noticed the blue and white boat. It was listing badly andappeared to be damaged. He walked over for a closer look. The left side of the boat wasscraped and dented as though it had been hit by another boat. Just below the water line hecould make out what appeared to be a hole. The inside of the boat had about six inches ofwater in it. He heard someone behind him,
"This your boat?" he asked conversationally.
The man nodded "yeah it's mine."
"What happened? I saw you coming around the north side of the lake she was justgliding along."
The man shook his head,
"I don't know what happened, one minute I was cruising the next I was doing flips. Iguess I must have hit something in the water a log or something."
Peter shook his head, "no sir, you hit something more than that, that is the sort ofdamage you getting from something big hitting you."
"There wasn't anything in the water that I saw" he looked out across the lake "I amcareful, I have to be you know, I take the kids out with me."
Peter nodded sympathetically "good luck then."
He walked off heading back to the cabin. He was quietly desperate for a good cup ofcoffee and to do some reading and catch up on his paper.
The gloom of the path was now lightened by the sun which had finally managed topush it's way through the canopy. Patches of sunlight where the trees were thinner, glowedthrough the forest floor. Areas where groups of trees had nurtured many young and thennot fallen and had become densely grouped together, allowed no sunlight to penetrate.These groups were dark not just dark green but black within their groves. They remaineddamp and dripping throughout most of the day even hot summers did not change them. Inwinter when the snow came they were cold pockets of thick snow all dayideal for childrenwho wished to build an igloo or a variety of snowmen in different guises. Peter continuedtoward the cabin remembering the fun they'd had scaring his mother who had comesearching for her wayward children calling them for a meal. They would dress up in masksand hide in shadow deep trees only to leap out screaming when she neared them. Theywould hide behind grotesque snowmen and whine and whimper. Their mother took it allin her stride but he knew there were many times when they did scare her.
