Mountain of Fire Page 5

  A silent shiver of agitation rustled around. This was most unusual. A group always performed the ceremony. Why was Pak Eko doing it alone?

  The Guardian of the Merapi bowed in front of the group, took the ceremonial plate from a shocked Pak Irlandy, and a fire lamp. He seemed to vanish almost instantly, swallowed up by the folds of the mountain. All they could see was a flickering light in the distance, slowly becoming smaller, till it disappeared completely.

  Fitri was at a loss and frustrated. The group had made enough noise to mask the sound of the two children following them. Following the old man alone was asking for trouble. The man’s hearing was supposed to be fantastic – that allowed him to hear the sounds deep in the volcano. She tugged at Agus’ hand and gestured that they should return, before the group turned around.

  Agus shook his head. He wanted to stay.

  “Agus, we shouldn’t. Ayah and Ibu may reach home before us,” Fitri whispered.

  “It’s fine. Then we will tell them the truth. I want to know what Pak Eko is doing. Why did he go up alone?” Once again, Fitri thought her little brother was braver than anyone could imagine.

  The group of people slowly turned and started their descent. The kids could hear their parents too, animatedly discussing Pak Eko’s strange decision. When she was sure that everyone was clearly out of earshot, the two came out from behind the bushes.

  They started walking up the mountain path, past the watchtower for what seemed like the hundredth time that week. Cautiously the two kids walked across the gurgling stream. The water felt cold splashing on their feet. They stopped there unsure of what to do next. The full moon had blanketed the forest with a pale light, and there was no Pak Eko in sight. The children had a torch with them, but did not dare to turn it on.

  “Maybe he didn’t see it,” said Agus.

  “Maybe he’s down there, waiting for us to come in,” whispered Fitri. “And catch us red-handed.”

  They peered down the hole, to see if they could hear anything. But dead silence greeted them. Agus walked down the steps tentatively.

  “Shine the torch here, Fitri.”

  Fitri did not feel good at all. It was unusually hot. It should have been cooler at this time out on the mountain, but she realised she was sweating. And she felt that the smell of sulphur was definitely stronger.

  “Agus, get out of there. We should go,” his sister said. “Let’s cover the hole and go. If Ibu and Ayah find out... ” Her voice trailed off and she let out a loud shriek.

  A hand had clutched at her shoulder and a voice behind her said, “Finally! It’s been long enough.”

  NINE : TAUFAN FINDS THE KINGDOM

  AGUS came running out of the cave as Fitri shrieked. He saw his sister struggling with a flurry of white. Fitri’s torch had fallen and rolled down the mountain road and was now moving back and forth, throwing a bizarre beam of light on the gurgling stream. The man had a white turban around his head, a long drooping moustache, and hard eyes.

  “Agus, run!” Fitri yelled.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Agus,” the man in white snarled. Agus saw a flash of metal in the man’s other hand. He had one arm around Fitri and was holding a knife in the other.

  “Stop struggling,” the man hissed at her, raising the knife menacingly. Fitri stopped immediately.

  Even if he had wanted to run, Agus couldn’t have. His legs seemed to have stopped working and he stood rooted to the spot.

  “Now, listen, both of you, and listen well,” Taufan said. “I have come a long, long way to find the treasure. I need you to go inside that cave and take out everything you have found.”

  “Agus, don’t do that!” Fitri spoke out.

  Agus, keeping his eyes firmly on the knife, managed to stutter, “Who... who are you?”

  “My name is Taufan but it doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is who the two of you are. You are the descendants of the Priestess Aini.”

  “No, we are not!” Agus yelled out, hoping and praying that if he yelled, someone might hear them. “You’ve made a mistake.”

  A slow smile snarled across the man’s face. “Well, well... this is interesting. Your parents did not tell you about your grandmother?”

  Both kids fell silent. Their grandmother? What did she have to do with any of this? And why was the man calling her a priestess?

  Taufan spoke up again. “I don’t have the time to waste filling you in on your family history.” He gestured to Agus. “Go on, take out whatever you have found and don’t lie to me about it. I know you have found some things made of gold. I want them all.”

  “They are not here,” Fitri said. “We have hidden them away.”

  Taufan pressed his arm harder around Fitri’s neck till she started choking a little and whispered menacingly in her ear, “No, you haven’t. I have been following you for two days and you haven’t hidden anything away. It is all right here. If that stupid fat boy had not interrupted things with his stupidity, I would have finished this off today.”

  So Fitri had seen someone in the forest earlier that day! It was Taufan. Aditya, unknowingly, had saved them.

  Taufan pushed Fitri towards the cave entrance and gestured to Agus with the knife.

  “It’s just a few things,” Agus stammered. “A few coins, spoons. Why do you want it?”

  “It is enough for me. Enough for me to get away from that infernal tribe, the Petuluk, and live in the city. Buy nice things, live in a proper house.”

  The Petuluk! He was from the tribe of their grandmother!

  “Why don’t you just leave then?” Agus said.

  “Oh, but I can’t really leave without any money. You see, our people don’t have any money. I have been waiting for a long time for the location of this kingdom. Our priests – and your grandmother – knew that you would find it one day. And here it is!” he said.

  “Enough chitter-chatter. Go in there and come out with the gold.”

  Agus looked at his sister’s terrified face. There was nothing he could do. The man had a knife and there was no one around to help. Where was Pak Eko?

  Agus gestured to the torch, saying he needed to pick it up to see. Taufan nodded and Agus started to go towards the torch.

  It was then that they heard the first rumbling sounds in the distance. Something was coming down the mountain.

  Taufan and the children froze, listening. “What is that?” Taufan whispered.

  The noise seemed to have gathered speed and strength, and was now getting much louder. They looked up towards the mountain and heard the rocks tumbling towards them before they saw them.

  Small and big boulders were hurtling towards them at great speed! Agus yelled, “Fitreeeee! Run!”

  Fitri could see that Agus was saying something, because his mouth was moving, but she could not make out the words.

  She felt Taufan’s grip on her neck slacken. She glanced back at him and saw that he was petrified too and staring at the approaching disaster. She made a split-second decision. She jabbed her elbow hard into Taufan’s stomach. He grunted and doubled over, dropping his knife. Then she gave him a good hard push and the man yelled out, lost his balance and fell.

  Fitri grabbed her brother and pushed him down the steps, into the cave. “There is no time, Agus. We can’t outrun those rocks. We will get killed!”

  They crouched on the floor, with their arms covering their heads, as the rocks thundered past their hiding place. Dust and stones fell into the hole. Then, just like that, as suddenly as it had started, the falling rocks stopped, followed by silence. The children waited, with their heads still bent down. Fitri had been shielding her little brother with her body. Coughing and blowing away the dust, she slowly looked up but could not see anything. The entrance seemed pitch black.

  “Fitri, has it stopped?” Agus spoke softly, scared that he would set off something again if he spoke too loudly. “Where is that man?”

  “I pushed him and he fell, so... ” she paused, not saying what she was
thinking.

  “Did he get caught in the avalanche?” Agus asked quietly.

  “I don’t know.”

  Why was it so dark here? Fitri thought. There should have been some light filtering in. She walked up the steps towards the entrance but something seemed to be blocking the opening.

  “Wait here,” she told Agus and slowly went up the steps, feeling her way in the dark till she neared the end of the steps. “Is the torch still around?”

  Agus fumbled around behind her and a light came on. He had found the torch. At least, they had some light. He came up the steps and shone the light at the entrance.

  A rock was blocking the way out!

  Fitri pushed at it with all her strength. Agus joined in as well. But it was no good. The boulder was too heavy for the kids to move. It did not even budge an inch. They were stuck in the hole. No one knew where they were, not even their parents. They had no food or water. The children sat down on the steps, holding hands, tired and cold, and very, very scared.

  “Fitri, are we going to die here?” Agus asked in a soft voice.

  “Of course not, Agus! Someone will see we are missing and come to find us,” she said. She was glad that he could not see her face and the tears in her eyes. What had she done? She should have known better than to roam around the mountainside at this dangerous time. And now she had put herself and her brother in danger, almost got them killed. And what about that dangerous man, Taufan! What if he were still around?

  If they got out of here alive, she thought, her father would surely kill them.

  The kids shouted out loud, hoping someone would hear them. But so far no one had come to help. The site was far from their village and unless someone wandered over to the path, it would be difficult to hear them. And who would wander up the mountain path at this time?

  About an hour passed by but the kids felt like they had been stuck forever. They tried pushing the boulder again but it was no use. They were slowly losing hope when there was a sound outside. Thud... thud. It sounded like someone digging.

  Fitri shone the torch around the cave: no shovel. They must have dropped the shovel outside the hole. She called out, “Hello, is someone there?”

  No one replied. There was just the sound of a shovel hitting the earth. Then the digging stopped. There were more sounds and then some kind of clanging noise. Clang... clang. Then the sound of more digging.

  “Fitri, is it that man, Taufan?” Agus said quivering.

  She could barely see his face, but she could feel him shivering a little next to her. Fitri did not say anything. If it was, they were really in trouble.

  And then slowly, very slowly, the boulder slid a little and started to shift. Someone was grunting and moving it away. The kids waited, not sure of what to do next. Who was this person outside?

  A little bit of light came into the hole. Fitri tried calling out once again. “Hello, who is there?”

  Still no one answered. The children waited for what seemed like an eternity, but it must have been only a minute. They waited for Taufan to come down the steps, but he did not. Before Fitri could stop him, Agus ran up the steps and out into the open.

  Sitting on a rock, trying to catch his breath, was the Guardian of the Merapi. Holding the fire lamp in one hand and a long stick in the other. Pak Eko!

  “Selamat malam,” he said. Good evening.

  TEN : PAK EKO SAVES THEM

  AGUS, completely forgetting that he had just been through a horrible, ghastly ordeal and almost died, yelled out, “I knew it! I knew you had superhuman strength. You lifted that boulder with your bare hands!”

  Pak Eko smiled. “Actually, I did not. I dug around the rock with this shovel, stuck a smaller rock under it and pried it loose with this metal rod.” The long “stick” he was holding was a long metal rod.

  “And it wasn’t that big a rock anyway. It was just stuck in the branches you kids put here. To cover that hole.”

  “You know about that cave?” Agus asked.

  “Of course, I do. This is my mountain. I know everything about it. The two of you have been up here all week, fidgeting around.”

  He looked at Agus. “You are the one they call Raksasa, are you not?”

  Agus nodded vehemently. He didn’t seem the least bit upset that Pak Eko had just called him a demon. Through a haze, Fitri noticed that Agus hadn’t tried to cover his mouth once. He seemed delighted that Pak Eko even knew who he was.

  “And you are also the one who hides behind my hut, snooping around,” the old man continued.

  This time Agus’ nod was a little less enthusiastic. “How did you know we were here, Mbah?” Agus decided to change the subject quickly.

  “Well, for one, you were shouting a lot,” said Pak Eko. “Yelling at the top of your voices till I was worried you would start another avalanche,” he said.

  The avalanche! Taufan! Her village!

  She spoke up for the first time. “Is everyone okay? Ayah? Ibu?”

  “Ah, yes. The rocks rolled away from the village. But I think a few chickens got quite a fright,” he said, opening his eyes wide and waving his hands.

  Agus started laughing and Fitri could not help but smile. Pak Eko was nothing like what she had imagined. He was funny! They were talking to the Guardian of the Merapi in the middle of the night in the forest! This was too weird.

  Agus laughed but Fitri was somber when she asked, “There was a man... He caught us.”

  Agus piped up, “Aaaah, yes, he was up to no good. He wanted the treasure and then Fitri hit him like this!” He jabbed his elbow in the air, trying to show Mbah how hard his sister had hit Taufan.

  “Yes, yes, I know the man,” Pak Eko said. His face became serious. “Greedy and a troublemaker.”

  “Where is he, Mbah?” Fitri asked.

  “He got hit by a boulder. Probably broke his leg. We won’t see him again. The polisi will look after him.”

  Fitri remembered the policeman she had seen Pak Eko talking to earlier in the day and, slowly, something started dawning on her.

  “You knew about Taufan? That’s why you had the policeman in the group?”

  “Yes, I knew about Taufan. When the two of you found the lost kingdom, I knew it would not be long before he showed up to make trouble. But the avalanche...”

  He paused and wagged his finger at the two of them, his face serious. “Do you have any idea of how lucky the two of you are?”

  Fitri was beginning to feel braver and more confident. She asked, “If you knew about the secret place, why didn’t you tell anyone, Mbah?”

  “Because it is not my adventure. Not my story to tell,” Pak Eko said. “This one here wants to be the one to tell people,” he said pointing at Agus. “Because people must know that Raksasa is a very brave boy. This is his story to tell.”

  Agus went red in the face and looked like he was going to burst with joy.

  Pak Eko got up from the rock he had been sitting on. “Aaah, I am too old for this. To go about saving children who get into trouble in the middle of the night,” he said with the slightest twinkle in his eye.

  “Wait,” Fitri said. There were too many unanswered questions floating around her head. Pak Eko knew about Taufan; he knew he would show up. How was that possible? “Taufan also said something about our grandmother. What does this have to do with her?”

  “That’s a long story. You should ask your parents, your mother, about her. She is a priestess in the Petuluk tribe. The two of you are a lot like her. You have her gift – her vision – and her bravery.”

  Agus piped up, “You knew our Nenek?”

  “Yes, I did. Lovely lady and very intelligent.”

  Fitri asked, “What do you mean by her gift? What gift do we have?”

  “Well, has the Merapi been telling you things?”

  “I don’t know... I’ve been having these weird dreams. They seemed so real... ” She stopped, trying to think of what she should tell the old man. Somehow, she didn’t feel stupid talkin
g about this to Pak Eko. Suddenly she felt like she could tell him anything.

  “I think I saw the eruption that buried the kingdom, and then there was another dream where the forest and the village were destroyed. It was horrible.”

  The old man’s face looked grave. “I know. We have made peace with the mountain. It is time to leave now.”

  “Leave! So the Tapak Bisu did not work!” Agus cried out.

  “Let’s hope it did and the mountain is quiet and safe again. But for now, we must leave,” he said. “When we come back, the two of you can decide whether you should continue working with the mountain.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Fitri, puzzled.

  “Sometimes the Merapi decides who the Guardian, the Spirit Keeper, should be. You are an intelligent girl, you do well at school. You understand the world of science. Your brother already knows many things about the Merapi. He likes the mountain. He knows it and understands it too. Together, you two could take my place. The rest is up to you. You will have to control your temper though. We can’t have the Spirit Keepers of the Merapi throw people into anthills and set monkeys on them,” the old man said, his eyes twinkling.

  The two children stared at each other. Had they heard Mbah correctly? Did he just say that they could be the Spirit Keepers of the Merapi?

  Fitri shifted her feet uncomfortably. Was there anything this man did not know?

  He wagged his finger at them and said, “We are going home. No more wandering around in the middle of the night. I have to tend to some police business.”

  Dazed, tired and a bit numb from the day’s events, the two children followed Pak Eko back home. As they straggled into the village, the first stirrings of panic began to hit Fitri. The two of them had broken all kinds of rules: left the house at night without permission, followed villagers on the Tapak Bisu, and basically got captured by a stranger. What will their parents say?

  Groups of people were waiting around shop stalls, sitting on wooden benches sipping hot cups of coffee, waiting for Pak Eko to return from the ceremony. Lights came on in many darkened homes and a shimmer of anxiety went around the village.