The Cult of Loving Kindness
“Nyangongo, in the days before its most recent eruptions, rose eleven thousand feet out of the valley floor. The main cone of it was rarely climbable, because of the constant fog of poisonous gases at the top; even halfway up a change of wind could always bring a trace of some debilitating odor. Toward the top the angle of ascent exceeded sixty degrees, and the vitrescent rock was sharp and smooth and sheer. In those days the mountain was still growing, and new lava seeped out regularly from a s...plit in the narrow crater. At night the summit of the mountain glowed through a cloud of mist, its contour described by a small tracery of fire.
Halfway down the western slope, the old crater bulged out of the mountain’s side. Long collapsed, long extinct, impressive, isolated, easily defended, it had become over the months of summer a place of refuge for the faithful, a meeting place, a gathering place. Thousands of people from all over the old diocese of Charn had made the trip up through the woods for Paradise Festival, and they had brought liquor and marijuana and coffee and imported goods to swap or sell.MoreLess
Halfway down the western slope, the old crater bulged out of the mountain’s side. Long collapsed, long extinct, impressive, isolated, easily defended, it had become over the months of summer a place of refuge for the faithful, a meeting place, a gathering place. Thousands of people from all over the old diocese of Charn had made the trip up through the woods for Paradise Festival, and they had brought liquor and marijuana and coffee and imported goods to swap or sell.MoreLess
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