He will recall this scene during their journey when he remarks the creatures’ amazing ability to trek long distances for long periods without food or drink. Theirs is a capacity that will remind him of the camels of his own world, those hardy ships of the desert able to traverse great and prolonged stretches of arid barrens drawing from internal stores of moisture and fatty tissue alone.
The man is discouraged by the closeness and deathly stillness of the tunnel as he continues to dog the tracks of the band and its leader with no sense of direction or apparent destination. He is impressed at how casual and matter of fact the creatures appear and how quickly and easily they have adapted to this oppressive environment.
Suddenly, the leader halts the band and motions them to leave the trail and scatter into the reedy maze. There, they crouch low for further concealment and slow their soft breathing in anticipation.
Soon, the man hears a low snuffling noise and the sound of movement of a large bulk along the open trail.
As the author of these sounds heaves into sight, the man’s breath catches and his eyes widen in amazement. It is only when the creature moves that the man is able to discern its features.
There, its bulk filling the path, stands an aurochs-like beast closely resembling the bison of his world. This is the first wild creature he has encountered since arriving in this unfamiliar world and falling in with the band of fur-covered bipeds.
The aurochs’ most distinctive feature is not anatomic, however; it is cosmetic.
The creature wears a hide of the same deep green as the reedy stalks that surround it, and the man immediately recognizes the advantage of such perfect mimicry.
The band’s leader motions them to remain still until the aurochs passes safely out of sight and sound. Then, the band resumes its journey along the path in the same direction the aurochs has come.
It is not long before they reach a broad plain that opens out before them at the end of the reed-fringed path.
The only other creatures visible on the plain are several of the aurochs grazing along the periphery of the high reeds. Unlike their artfully camouflaged cousin among the reeds, however, these beasts are easily discernible against the backdrop of bare, open land.
They ignore the band as it strikes out into the wide plain.
Chapter 6. Into the Abyss
The band makes it as far as a narrow rift valley when darkness arrives. They work their way down a gently sloping trail to a hidden grotto at its base. Where they shelter to rest and await the return of light.
It is a fateful choice.
The man retreats under the rocky overhang to a place assigned him by the leader on the opposite edge of the grotto from the rest of the band. Consuming another of his dwindling store of MREs and sipping sparingly from his water bottle, he ponders the meaning of the band’s encounter with the aurochs-like beast.
Misreading the unthreatening demeanor of his traveling companions, he wrongly ascribes the leader’s caution to a timorous and fearful nature.
He does not know they were as unacquainted with the beast as he.
He does not know the leader harbored no fear of the beast.
And he does not know the band avoided contact because the beast is not in its singular food chain.
He only knows the leader’s actions demonstrated prudence, and for that he is thankful.
In this grateful mood, the man soon slips into a soothing state of soundless sleep. The protection of the grotto and proximity of the band are reassuring, and his dreams are comforting and hopeful.
But they lie!
He will awaken to his worst nightmare.
It is still and black when the man opens his eyes suddenly, alerted by the rising hairs at the nape of his neck that evil is abroad. As he slowly turns his head, the man is horrified by what he sees.
A long, sinuous arm is reaching toward him from the stony back wall of the grotto. The arm is boney and covered with leprous patches of pale white—mottling, hairless, parchment-like skin—and it extends a webbed paw of curved, spike-like hooks.
As he watches, mesmerized by the flow of motion, the entire wall turns into a mute fury of reaching, grasping, wrenching arms engulfing and drawing him into a slot-like aperture in the wall. The slim opening seals itself silently, and he is entombed in the gloaming.
Captive to a creature or creatures he scarce could have imagined in his most terrifying nightmares.
Immobilized by living manacles of arms and horny paw-spikes, he is borne away into the deeper darkness of a tunnel plunging him ever downward from his berth in the grotto. And from his only hope of rescue, the small band unknowingly slumbering there.
Gradually, as his eyes become accustomed to the dark and the tunnel walls begin to emit a pale and growing glow, he is able to take stock of his surroundings and the loathsome beast dragging him down to its nether world.
The tunnel is damp, slick and stony and, at intervals, there are narrow slits that overlook molten rivers of rock. While these apertures are the source of the tunnel’s light, they unaccountably do not seem to affect the cool draft within the tunnel itself.
It is not the last time he will question the peculiar absence of exothermic heat so close to the moving magma.
The downward slope is gradual and, in many places, transected by rivulets of swiftly flowing water.
The creature carrying him is the incarnation of the fiercest monsters that populated his nightmares as a child.
The countless arms clutching him are like tentacles emanating from the monster wielding them.
It is squid-like in shape, using as many of its arms again as legs propelling it along the tunnel floor. Tactile antennae take the place of eyes, which would be of little advantage in this dark place. A short, barbed sucking-piece is the only evidence of a mouthpart.
Like its arms, the body of the beast is covered in glossy, leprous, parchment-like skin.
Horrified, the man recoils from the creature’s iron grip and is overwhelmed by despair and loathing for the monster which must surely devour him.
But it is when the creature emerges from the tunnel’s end that the man screams in horror!
Awaiting him there, like some obscene hell-scape from Botticelli’s abyss or Munch’s hellish self-portrait, is a serpentine sea of undulating arms and spike-lined paws groping frantically for the offering brought by their parent. If anything, the offspring are even more loathsome than the creature that bore him here to its nest.
And all are clamoring for his flesh.
The creature halts suddenly and, using the arms that impelled him here, projects the man through the air and onto the writhing mass of its brood.
Then, something occurs which the man did not expect.
The brood rejects him, and he is successively pushed across their writhing mass to the side of the nest. Looking up, he discovers . . .
The parent is gone!
He quickly espies several tunnels opening into the cavern and, just as quickly, dashes into one on the wall opposite the tunnel that led him here.
∆ ∆ ∆
The leader awakens to the growing light to find the man has abandoned them in the darkness. Unperturbed by the man’s disappearance, he does not mount a search but bids his companions to continue the journey, unaccompanied, across the broad and open plain.
He has an important mission this day.
The band has not eaten since departing the heliotrope forest, long before the hairless biped joined them, and it is time to feed again. But the bare landscape is not promising. He has seen no river or pond wide and deep enough for the finned creatures which are their staple.
If they do not feed soon, the leader knows, they must perish on this endless plain.
While the aurochs is not their quarry, the leader knows they, too, need a source of water to survive. He resolves to follow their tracks until they lead the band to water.
Many of the ox-like creatures dot the landscape, and it is not long before the leader pi
cks up a well-worn and promising path for the band to follow. They dog it faithfully until darkness overtakes them out on the open plain.
As the exhausted band slumbers, the leader alternates fitfully between sleep and wakefulness. He fretfully weighs the lack of progress in locating a suitable body of water and frankly confronts the lack of prospects in this arid land.
It is when he is just reaching the edge of consciousness from his troubled sleep that the leader senses an evil presence lurking in the darkness around them.
Remaining stock-still, he opens his eyes slowly and turns his head imperceptibly to discover a lupine figure circling the band. As his vision adjusts to the lack of light, he is able to make out its wolfish features.
The great dire wolf slinks on four long legs, its body in a threatening crouch and its thin muzzle armed with sharp, pointed canine incisors. Its lips are curled up into a rictus, and it is snarling softly as it takes measure of the unwelcome intruders in its territory.
Biding time and opportunity, the leader freezes until the wolf circles nearest him. Then, he leaps upon the beast with claw and fang, ripping out the dire wolf’s soft throat.
Rousting the band, the leader and his two huntsmen leave the camp-site and scout the wide surrounding ground beyond its perimeter.
Satisfied and confident there are no more wolves about, the band and its leader slip into a deep slumber until the darkness flees and light unveils its bright welcome to a new day.
∆ ∆ ∆
The tunnel is barely wide enough for the man to squeeze into, and as it opens wider he finds himself treading downward, ever downward away from the horrid nest.
Relieved to be free of the evil creatures, he does not consider the ominous portent of the reddish glare in the distance ahead or the still greater peril that awaits in that downward direction.
The lurid light continues to brighten as he proceeds down the long, open corridor whose walls are as mottled as the coastal grottoes he explored as a child during summer vacations. As caution begins to overtake curiosity, the man realizes his only options are retreat to the evil he has fled or advance to the unknown danger he senses ahead.
As he continues downward, the tunnel walls gradually become a broken patchwork of crevasses through which there is no escape. For beyond every crack, nook and cavity is a sheer wall of rapidly circulating magma.
It is as if the tunnel is suspended in a solution of fiery liquid, with every aperture offering a hellish view. While some unnatural centripetal force keeps it from entering the tunnel.
The breaks in the tunnel wall become wider and more numerous until, finally, they are a lacework featuring more break than wall. Suddenly, the walls are there no more.
Emerging from the patchwork corridor, the man finds himself perched on a ledge looking out onto a sea of magma.
Like the angry brew of a witch’s cauldron, the fiery liquid races by in wide convectional streams struggling in opposite directions. Creating a perfect storm of great crashing waves.
He is a spectator at the edge of hell.
Yet, the air is unaccountably crisp and cool, making him doubt the testimony of his senses. How can that be? he asks himself.
Are the laws of thermodynamics somehow suspended in this strange world?
The magma clearly is emitting intense light, so the exothermic process is apparent to his vision. It is the absence of heat that confounds him.
It is a riddle that will not be solved this day.
Standing on the ledge, the man looks upward and discovers the fiery maelstrom surrounds him, as if he were suspended within a living sphere.
Looking down, the man discerns a narrow linear shadow lancing outward from the ledge to an equally black, but narrow, void in the wall of fire.
The shaft appears to connect the ledge to that dark void, and he drops to his knees and touches it. Contrary to appearance, the blackness has a solid, surface feel, and the man cautiously ventures out onto the shaft in the direction of the narrow void.
He is walking a tightrope through the fires of hell, whose licking flames surround and threaten to consume him at the merest misstep!
It is a slow, fitful, harrowing journey as the tsunami-size waves of magma crash against the man’s senses and threaten to dislodge him from the precarious shaft.
But as he reaches the void, his spirits soar as he recognizes the mouth of a broad tunnel sloping gently upward from the fiery pit.
Chapter 7. Echoes of a Lost Civilization
The leader awakens as light begins to flood the open plain. Slowly turning one full revolution, he is at a loss to divine which direction to follow.
As the dawn brightens, he can just make out a vague, shapeless feature in the far distance. He resolves to follow its promise of relief from the barren emptiness surrounding them.
The man emerges onto the open plain after an arduous but uneventful climb up the sloping tunnel. Stepping into the same dawn that is greeting the far distant band. Spotting the same vague, shapeless feature on the otherwise barren plain, he, too, heads in its direction.
The two suns beat down mercilessly on the weary travelers and, as darkness falls, they make their separate camps—neither aware of the other’s presence—and slip into the deep slumber of exhaustion.
When they awake, darkness is fleeing the plain. The rising suns grow in intensity as the travelers wearily resume their journey.
.
This day passes as uneventful as the previous one and, to avoid the enervating heat of two suns, the travelers separately plunge ahead into the cool night. When they finally stop to sleep, the travelers are unaware of the proximity of their campsites. Soon, all are fast asleep.
∆ ∆ ∆
At first, the man tries to ignore the soft snarls as the product of his dreams. But as the hairs rise on the nape of his neck, he opens his eyes to behold a great, wolf-like creature slinking stealthily toward his campsite. Worse, he sees one of his erstwhile, furry fellow-travelers approaching the wolf. Apparently unaware of his peril.
Leaping to his feet, the man grasps the hand-hatchet and races to intercede between the wolf and the furry biped. He holds out his free arm in a gesture for his companion to stay back, imploring the gentle fellow with his eyes, as the wolf crouches to spring at them both.
Then something occurs the man could not have expected.
As the great wolf springs toward them, the furry biped leaps into the air—morphing into a clawed and fanged engine of destruction—and the giant wolf is dead before it reaches the ground. Its throat ripped out. Its head dangling lifelessly to one side.
Astonished, the man steps back and raises his hand to acknowledge his furry savior. And he is heartened to see the other members of the band approaching, raising theirs as well.
Reunited, the man reflects on this first demonstration of the band’s fearlessness and on the absurdity of his earlier assumption they were timid and defenseless in this savage world.
Clearly, he realizes, their placid and peaceful demeanor masks an awesome menace when threatened.
He is humbled to realize it is he, not they, who is naked, defenseless and vulnerable to any passing predator. And he is grateful for their company.
Crowning their reunion, the travelers watch the rise of two suns on the far horizon and, for the first time, begin to clearly discern the soft edges and general shape of their common destination. Rising out of the nearer distance like some sinister mirage where evil dwells, the feature takes on new definition.
Shapeless no more, it is an immense, walled structure of enclosed towers set upon a high hill. While the band is perplexed, the man knows full well what these unnatural structures portend.
It is civilization of some kind, and he is fearful of the band’s exposed position on the bare and open plain.
As they approach the walled city, no challenge issues from its battlements, no living creature shows itself. There is neither movement nor sound of any kind. It is as still and empty as death.
Nearing the city’s main gate, the man beholds a series of rune-like symbols etched into the grey stones overhead, spanning the open entrance. While he watches, the symbols slowly shift shape into the letters of a word he knows well . . .
R – E – V – E – L – A – T – I – O - N
“What sorcery is this?” he wonders. “And what does its message mean?
“A welcome?
“A warning?”
He will soon find out!
The man is oppressed with dread by the sinister silence of the place as the band passes through the unguarded gate into an open square lined by towering, windowless structures.
Looking up, the man wonders:
How did the massive stone blocks find their way to this hill amidst the rock free, barren plain?
Who were the craftsmen who worked the mortis binding them together?
And where now are the inhabitants of this vacant city?
The leader and his band appear unperturbed by the emptiness around them. They proceed directly to the largest tower and begin inspecting it carefully.
Like its lack of windows, there is neither door nor other aperture.
An urgent cry pierces the silence, and the band rushes to the aid of one of the hunters who appears to have been swallowed by the earth at the base of the tower. When the man arrives, he sees the hunter has fallen down a shallow, symmetrical shaft into a dark tunnel leading beneath the tower’s wall.
When the hunter climbs back into the sun, the band forms a tight, closed circle of crouching figures and begin to utter the soft sounds the man has come to accept as their means of conversing one with another. After hearing each member of the band, the leader gestures toward the top of the tower, and they all rise as one.
Gesturing for the man to follow, the leader returns to the open shaft. With the hunters going ahead and the man trailing behind, the band drops one-by-one into the tunnel below.
The moment he enters the tunnel, the man experiences a sense of overwhelming malice. The lifeless air stinks of mould, decay and death. As he plunges into the stygian darkness, he fears the tangible peril of this place, where the air is fell and evil dwells.
REGENESIS Page 4