Teranesia Read Free Page B

of the trees and ferns.
    It was hard work moving up the sloping ground, but he was shaded by the forest, and the sweat that dripped from his elbows
     or ran down his legs was almost chilly. Blue-tailed lizards darted rapidly out of his way, barely registering on his vision,
     but there were purple tiger beetles as big as his thumb weaving over one fallen trunk, and large black ants everywhere; if
     he hadn’t smelt as vile to the ants as the tiger beetles did to him he might have been covered in bites within minutes. He
     stuck to bare soil where he could find it, but when he couldn’t he chose the undergrowth rather than volcanic rock – it was
     more forgiving on the soles of his feet. The ground was covered with small blue flowers, olive-green creepers, low ferns with
     drooping leaves; some of the plants were extremely tough, but they were rarely thorny. That made sense: there was nothing
     trying to graze on them.
    The ground became increasingly steep and rocky, and the forest began to thin out around him. More and more sunlight penetrated
     between the trees, and the undergrowth became dry and coarse. Prabir wished he’d brought a hat to shield his face, and maybe
     even shoes; the dark rocks were mostly weathered smooth, but some had dangerous edges.
    The trees vanished. He scrambled up the bare obsidian slope of the volcano. After a few minutes in the open, his skin had
     baked dry; he could feel tiny pulses of sweat, too small toform visible droplets, appear on his forearms and instantly evaporate. In the forest his shorts had been soaked through with
     perspiration; now the material stiffened like cardboard, and issued a curious laundered smell. He’d sprayed himself with sunscreen
     before leaving for the beach with Madhusree; he hoped he hadn’t lost too much of it in the water. They should have added some
     UV-absorbing chemical to his mosquito pellet, sparing him the trouble of applying the stuff externally.
    Come the revolution
.
    The sky was bleached white; when he raised his face to the sun it was like staring into a furnace – closing his eyes was useless,
     he had to shield himself with his arms. But once he was high enough above the forest to see past the tallest trees, Prabir
     emitted a parched whoop of elation. The sea stretched out beneath him, like the view from an aeroplane. The beach was still
     hidden, but he could see the shallows, the reefs, the deeper water beyond.
    He’d never climbed this high before. And though his family certainly hadn’t been the first people to set foot on the island,
     surely no stranded fisherman would have struggled up here to admire the view, when he could have been carving himself a new
     boat down in the forest?
    Prabir scanned the horizon. Shielding his eyes from the glare allowed enough perspiration to form to run down his brow and
     half blind him. He mopped his eyes with his handkerchief, which had already been marinated in sea water and an hour’s worth
     of sweat in the forest; the effect was like having his eyelids rubbed with salt. Exasperated, he blinked away tears and squinted,
     ignoring the pain, until he was convinced that there was no land in sight.
    He continued up the side of the volcano.
    Visiting the crater itself was beyond him; even if he’d brought water and shoes, the approach was simply too steep. On the
     basis of vegetation patterns in satellite images, hismother had estimated that the volcano had been dormant for at least a few thousand years, but Prabir had decided that lava
     was circulating just beneath the surface of the crater, waiting to break free. There were probably fire eagles up there, pecking
     through the thin crust to get at the molten rock. They could be swooping over him even as he climbed; because they glowed
     as brightly as the sun, they cast no shadows.
    He stopped to check for land every five minutes, wishing he’d paid more attention to the appearance of various islands from
     the ferry; the horizon was such