The Gods of Lava Cove Read online

  The Gods of Lava Cove

  Bonegarden #2

  Karsten Knight

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Karsten Knight

  Bonegarden #1

  THE GODS OF LAVA COVE

  Bonegarden #2

  Copyright © 2019 by Karsten Knight

  www.karstenknightbooks.com

  First edition: April 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real events, people, and locales, past or present, are used fictitiously. All other elements are products of the author’s imagination.

  1

  I was going to die on this plane.

  At least that’s what I was convinced. Sure, I had flown in big commercial airliners a few times before when my family went on vacation.

  But this was a small pontoon plane, barely larger than my bedroom. I felt like I was hurtling through the sky in a minivan with wings. Except for the pilot, I was the plane’s only passenger as it flew over the Pacific Ocean at a hundred miles per hour.

  Storm clouds pressed in around us. One of the propellers whirred just outside my porthole window. I imagined it flying off and sheering the whole plane in half.

  Before this story takes a dark turn, I should probably spare a moment to tell you a little about myself and how I ended up on this tiny plane—while I’m still alive to tell the tale.

  My name is Kalon, and I’m twelve years old. I’ve spent most of my life growing up in a small town in Maine, where the biggest risk I face on a daily basis is being bored to death.

  So you can imagine how excited I was when my Aunt Samira, a famous archaeologist, invited me to visit her on the tropical island of Caldera.

  It sounded like a dream come true. I’d grown up watching movies about famous adventurers like Indiana Jones. Why read about history in a textbook when I could be out living it?

  While my teachers in school droned on in class, I daydreamed about exploring a lost pyramid, dodging booby traps until I discovered a tomb filled with treasure. With a priceless artifact clutched in my hands, I’d flee the angry mummy I’d just awakened from centuries of slumber.

  I guess you could say I have an overactive imagination.

  Over the loud hum of the propellers, the pilot shouted, “There it is!” He pointed out the window.

  I pressed my face to the foggy glass and peered out. The island rose dramatically out of the churning ocean. Caldera was known for three things:

  The strange purple sands that colored the beach.

  The archaeological sites of the ancient people who had settled there two thousand years ago.

  And, of course, the fiery volcano.

  Even through the rain, I could see the dark cone rising out of the jungle and the plume of smoke drifting out of the crater at the top. Aunt Samira had assured my mom that the volcano was perfectly safe to be around.

  I didn’t think adults were supposed to lie.

  “We’ll be landing in just a couple of minutes,” the pilot assured me. “I just need to find—”

  He never finished his sentence. As I watched through the window, a bolt of lightning lanced out of the storm clouds. In a blinding flash of light, it struck the propeller.

  The bang it made was deafening. I couldn’t stop myself from shrieking.

  I watched in horror as the propeller sputtered and then stopped spinning altogether.

  Then the plane started to tilt toward its nose.

  We were going down!

  2

  “Hold on!” the pilot yelled.

  In a matter of seconds, we entered a steep nosedive. The speed of our descent flattened me against the back of my seat. My stomach lurched into my throat. I felt like I was on a roller coaster careening down the tracks—only at the bottom, we wouldn’t just harmlessly coast up another hill.

  “Come on, come on …” the pilot muttered as he pulled up on the throttle. The plane rattled around us as though it was about to break apart. The ocean below grew closer until I could see only blue out my window.

  Just when I was about to give up hope, I heard a heartening sound. The propeller outside coughed, then sputtered back to life. The blades began to spin again, picking up speed until they became invisible to the naked eye.

  I exhaled a sigh of relief as the plane leveled out. A few moments later, the pontoons skimmed across the water. The plane coasted over the choppy waves until we slowed to a stop near the beach.

  The pilot turned back to look at me, a huge grin under his thick mustache. You’d never know he’d just escaped a near brush with death. “Piece of cake,” he said. “My landings are always smooth as butter.”

  “What kind of butter do you eat?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  His laughter echoed through the plane.

  I couldn’t wait to get out of the rickety metal death trap. I heaved open the door.

  With shaky legs, I jumped down into the shallow water. It was much warmer than the frigid ocean I was used to back home.

  The first thing I noticed about the island was the violet beach—sand as vibrantly purple as grape jelly. The beach transitioned into a dense, green jungle that covered most of the island.

  But the feature that really captured my attention was the volcano.

  The pilot must have seen me looking up at the smoking crater because he clapped a big hairy hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you worry, mate,” he said. “Mount Caldera only erupts once every thirty years.”

  I relaxed a little. “How long ago was the last eruption?” I asked.

  “Twenty-nine years and three quarters!” He threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

  “Very funny,” I replied. The captain had already started walking toward the beach with my suitcase, so I called after him. “You are joking, right?”

  As I splashed through the water behind him, I spotted a woman standing on the purple sand, waving at me. It had been a few years since I last saw Aunt Samira, but she hadn’t changed a bit. She had the same light brown skin as me, and jet black hair pulled into a frizzy bun. She wore a matching khaki shirt and shorts and a wide-brimmed hat that made her look like she’d just completed a safari.

  Aunt Samira spread her arms. “Welcome, Kalon,” she said. “Welcome to Caldera.”

  Behind her, the volcano rumbled ominously.

  3

  The beach trembled under my feet. I opened my mouth to express my alarm, but my aunt just ignored the earthquake and smothered me in a hug.

  “You’re nearly taller than me now!” she commented. When she saw how freaked out I still looked about the volcano, she waved a hand. “Oh, the tremors? Those happen a hundred times a day,” she assured me. “You’ll get used to it. The volcano is like a stomach—sometimes it ru
mbles when it gets a little gassy.”

  I laughed and put on a brave face as I followed her down the beach. The purple sand was hot under my bare feet. Walking over it felt like journeying across an alien planet.

  At one point, I scooped up a handful of the strange sand and let it run through my fingers.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” my aunt said. “The purple color comes from tiny shellfish that dwell in the water around the island. Over time, the tide breaks down their shells into billions of shards that wash up on the beach.”

  It was pretty cool here. Maybe adventure did await me on the island.

  As long as I didn’t get buried alive in a wave of lava first.

  We turned down a path through the jungle. The canopy overhead was so thick that it blocked out the sun. What few rays of light penetrated the leaves took on a dark green tint.

  A parrot swooped in front of me, a blur of red and blue feathers. The caws of hundreds of them echoed through the jungle.

  “You might want to put your sandals back on,” my aunt called over her shoulder.

  “So I don’t step on rocks?” I asked.

  “So you don’t step on snakes,” she replied calmly.

  I shuddered and immediately slipped back into my shoes.

  Eventually, the jungle opened up into a small clearing. My aunt pointed to a cluster of tents. “This is where you’ll be staying,” she said. “It’s not exactly a four-star hotel, but the mosquito nets are mostly effective.”

  “Are there snake nets?” I asked hopefully.

  She waved a hand. “Nah. The snakes here are way too smart for that.”

  Finally, she led me over to the one thing I had been dying to see—the very reason I had agreed to fly halfway around the world for my vacation:

  The Lost Temple of Tagalo.

  We stood at the edge of a giant hole that my aunt’s archaeological team had excavated. At the bottom of the chasm stood a remarkable structure built of stone pillars and wood beams. It had a tall triangular roof, though sections of it had collapsed over time.

  Aunt Samira placed her hands on her hips and grinned proudly down at the sacred structure. “This temple was buried under volcanic ash during an eruption more than a thousand years ago,” she explained. “We discovered it after a tremor from the volcano caused a landslide, revealing the tip of the roof. The rest we had to dig out ourselves.”

  We walked down steps that had been carved into the soil. My aunt handed me a hardhat, which she said was “in case the rest of the ceiling collapsed.”

  I was too excited to worry about a cave-in. After a lifetime of watching adventure films, I was finally getting the chance to enter an ancient ruin myself.

  As we approached the entrance, I noticed that the pillars had all been carved with the same creepy face. The figure had the eyes of a lizard and the mouth of a shark. Rows of pointy teeth grinned at me from all sides as I walked through the ruins.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” I asked my aunt, pointing at one of the sinister faces.

  She lowered her voice. “The infamous trickster, Tagalo. Part man, part animal, all trouble. In the sacred stories, he was always stealing from the gods and causing mischief among mortals.”

  Torches lined the inside of the temple. Firelight flickered against the walls that had been painted with colorful illustrations. I examined one of them, which depicted a giant octopus tearing apart several canoes with its tentacles. Terrifying and cool at the same time.

  At the head of the room stood an altar. Sunlight shone down on it through one of the jagged holes in the ceiling.

  Illuminated in the middle of the altar, suspended in the air, was a wooden mask.

  It had the same shark-like grin as the pillar carvings. Even though it was smiling, its narrowed eyes radiated pure evil.

  I felt hypnotized by the mask’s gaze. I found myself walking toward the altar without even thinking about it.

  I didn’t see the rope until I tripped over it.

  I hit the temple floor hard. With a groan, I started to peel myself off the ground—but I paused when I discovered I wasn’t alone.

  Someone was lying on the floor beside me.

  When I lifted my gaze to the man’s face, the dark, hollow eye sockets of a skull stared back at me.

  4

  I let out a shriek that echoed through the temple. I jumped to my feet.

  The skeleton wore a tattered cloak that had disintegrated over time. It knelt with its head and its hands pressed to the tile in front of it, as though it had died mid-prayer.

  “Ah,” my aunt said, coming up behind me. “I see you’ve met Steve!”

  “Steve?” I repeated. “W-was he a co-worker of yours?”

  For some reason, this made my aunt laugh hysterically. “No, Steve died centuries ago. He and his friends were worshipping Tagalo when the eruption buried the temple in ash.”

  As she said ‘friends,’ I finally noticed the other three skeletons arranged in the same position, kneeling before the altar. I had tripped over a length of rope that had been tied in a circle around them, probably to prevent klutzes like me from disturbing the site.

  “Steve wasn’t his real name, of course,” my aunt continued. “We just named the bodies after some of our interns.” She winked at me. “If we find another corpse, I promise we’ll name him after you.”

  “That … would be an honor,” I said, then added, “I think.”

  Now that we were closer to the altar, I realized the creepy mask wasn’t actually floating. A series of thin ropes suspended it from the rafters. Every time a draft blew through the room, the mask would twitch on its wires, as if it were alive.

  Something had been nagging me since we entered the temple. I had read a lot of books about Polynesian culture and mythology leading up to this trip, and I knew immediately there was something weird about this place. “Aunt Samira,” I said. “From what I’ve read, sacred sites in the islands were usually open to the air, to be closer to the heavens. But this temple has four walls and a roof.”

  My aunt leaned back and smiled at me. I could tell she was impressed. “Someone did their research. You’re absolutely right. The great news is that the answer is illustrated right here on these walls.”

  Aunt Samira led me back over to the wall of paintings. She grabbed a torch to give us better light.

  “As I said, Tagalo was always stealing from the gods,” she explained. “He made a lot of enemies, taking their most prized possessions from them.” We stopped at the illustration of the giant killer octopus. “This is the sea god, Kanaloa. What do you notice?”

  At first, I saw the same thing I had before—the tentacled creature destroying a fleet of canoes.

  Then I looked beneath the painted waves. At the bottom of the ocean, I spotted a small figure with the same shark-like head carved into the mask over the altar. While Kanaloa was distracted above the water, the trickster stole a pearl from an open oyster shell beneath it.

  I moved to the next painting. In this one, Tagalo ran from the underworld holding a bone, while Hine, the goddess of death, pursued him. Another showed the trickster filling up a jar with lava taken from the volcano goddess Pele. She cast a barrage of burning rocks at him as he fled.

  When we reached the final picture, Tagalo’s luck had run out. The three gods surrounded him. They forced him to climb into a casket.

  “Eventually, the gods grew tired of his mischief,” Aunt Samira continued. “They wanted to punish him and stop his thieving ways once and for all. So Kanaloa stole the trickster’s bones, and Hine stripped away his skin, and Pele collected his blood. Without a body, the trickster’s soul was banished to this structure so that he could never escape again.”

  I suddenly understood what my aunt was getting at. “You’re telling me this isn’t a temple after all?”

  My aunt shook her head. The firelight flickered over her face. “No,” she replied. “It’s a prison.”

  5

  Part of me was
terrified at the thought that I was standing in the prison of a scheming trickster. He must be pretty sour after having his body taken from him and his soul confined here for eternity.

  However, I reminded myself that no worthwhile archaeologist flinched in the face of an ancient evil. All the best treasures in the world were hidden in dangerous tombs around the world.

  Besides, the gods of ancient myth were just made-up stories …

  Weren’t they?

  I clapped my hands together. “So,” I said. “What do you need me to do?” I pictured her sending me into a crypt crawling with snakes, ducking under poison darts, and swinging across quicksand pits on a vine.

  “Wow, I wish some of my interns were as eager to work as you are,” she said. “Fortunately, I have the perfect job for you!”

  To my surprise, she led me out of the temple and back up to the camp. She pulled aside the flaps to one of the tents. Inside, there was a long table cluttered with a bunch of dusty objects.

  Aunt Samira guided me over to the table. “This is a very special task,” she explained. “We’ve found hundreds of objects at the dig—pottery, idols, and even spearheads. It’s all covered in centuries of soil and ash so we need you to dust it off.”

  Instantly, I felt my dreams of exploring an unknown tomb deflate. “You want me to … clean stuff?” I asked. I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice. Being a “duster” sounded an awful lot like a chore, and I had plenty of those waiting for me back at home.