REGENESIS

by D. Scott Dickinson

  The cool vibrant colors are a welcome change from the monotony of the bleak wastes they have traversed.

  But the change comes at a price.

  Their progress is slowed as they must take extra precaution owing to the instability the upturned ice belies.

  And their endurance is tested by the daunting zig-zag course they must take through the icy labyrinth.

  It is a trek of many weary, exhausting days. But their steps are lightened and their hearts lifted by the stunning beauty of the crystal pillars. In whose glow they pass by day and sleep by night.

  The farther they advance, the more brilliant the giant crystals become in the growing light ahead.

  It is a brightness that continues to increase until, gradually, Davina is forced to blink her wide ice-blue eyes against its glare.

  That is when a change comes over Davina her mate did not expect!

  As her dilated pupils gradually contract, they shift shape. Into narrow oval slits. Their altered shape is lovely in itself and, if anything, only accentuates the beauty of her striking eyes.

  Cat’s eyes! he realizes.

  In the brighter light, his mate has grown cat’s eyes. He finds them infinitely alluring in one so feline of movement and form. It is an allure that will remain for the rest of their lives together.

  Eventually, the upended pillars of ice begin to thin. Returning the travelers to a vast, featureless polar wasteland once more.

  That is when they hear the peals of impending doom!

  To Noah they are like endlessly ascending repeating-rifle shots, one over another. Whose reverberations are a thundering drum-roll of sharp-edged echoes splitting the thin air of the open wastes.

  The earth scientist knows there is no mistaking what that portends.

  Abandoning all caution, he urgently grasps Davina’s hand and they race toward the gathering light. Theirs is the flight of panic and, unwilling to lose the time required to probe the path ahead, Noah can only hope the ice-sheet beneath their feet continues to support their weight.

  As they sprint forward, a great fissure cracks through the ice to their left and continues to widen as it snakes through the surface. In a direction convergent with their own.

  Noah squeezes his mate’s hand in a gesture of alarm, and soon both are literally hurtling across the snow. In a mortal race against the lengthening crack.

  It is a race they cannot win. As the fissure accelerates and lances across the ice in front of them!

  Undeterred, the couple race on until they reach the edge of the widening precipice ahead and, without hesitation, they . . .

  Hurl themselves across the void, their momentum carrying Noah to its rapidly receding farther edge. While Davina falls short and can only reach it with outstretched hands. Her body swaying perilously over the widening gulf.

  Her grip loosens on the slick ice, and her hands begin to slip.

  That is when Noah grasps her wrist and yanks her to him with such force they both wind up on the solid surface in one tangled jumble of bodies. Where he showers her with kisses, and she responds in kind.

  But with the fissure expanding ever wider, this is not a time for pause and, so, the couple are on their way without further delay. Toward the brighter light and away from the now-impassable break behind them. The continued, thundering peals of rending ice urge them on.

  A grim reminder of the great sloughing bergs calved from the ice-sheet. Fated to drift endlessly over the open blue-green sea.

  Nearly asleep on their feet from exhaustion, the couple soon stop for rest. And that is when the world suddenly goes still.

  The thunder ceases abruptly. Silence reigns. The world is serene once more. And the travelers are soon fast asleep in its reassuring calm.

  Not even restorative slumber can prepare them for the conflicting emotions they will experience the next day!

  Fully awake, they do not rise right away but instead hold one another in joyful relief. At their narrow escape from the yawning fissure and the continued silence signaling the end of its threat. When they do rise, they celebrate by sharing the last of the fish and wash it down with snowmelt in their cupped palms.

  Then, they resume their journey toward the light.

  They have not gone far when a grinding shriek breaks the silence and, looking back, they see the world behind them disappear!

  The immensity of ice stenciled by the fissure they so narrowly breached sloughs downward into the waiting ocean. Creating a vast gulf of churning sea.

  The momentum sucks swathes of margin along with it. Including the lingering impressions in frost of their sleeping forms. Like snow angels. Falling into the depths below.

  They are shocked by the realization that could have been them!

  As they watch in fascination, the rent ice-mass rises again. Shivers with a hollow groan. And begins to move visibly away from the main ice-sheet.

  It is a berg of vast dimension. Now free to roam the waterways of the great ocean.

  The couple squeeze hands as they change course away from the encroaching sea while maintaining steady progress toward the lighter horizon ahead.

  That is when time and distance seem to collapse.

  The light begins to appear rapidly closer. As though the horizon is marching toward them even as they are traveling toward it.

  Soon, they encounter the first rocky formation since leaving the once-forsaken shore at the start of their journey across the icecap. It is a smooth, slick surface of stone. Mottled with snow and half buried in ice.

  The nearer they approach the light, the more prevalent the rocky outcrops appear. Until, in the brighter reflection, the ice disappears altogether.

  That is when Davina makes a shocking discovery!

  The clouds, which swaddled her childhood and blanketed her every horizon, are endless no more. There is bright, open, direct light ahead. And she is excited by the promise it holds.

  But that is the promise of another day, as fatigue catches them near a rocky outcrop under the shadow of the cloudbank. This time, there is shelter at hand.

  The outcrop encases a small cave, scoured out of the moraine by a retreating glacier in some distant past. Scree at its base piles up to an elevated shelf at its entrance. Keeping the shelter high and dry.

  They spend a restful, uneventful night in its protection.

  Tomorrow, Davina will enter a different world.

  Chapter 39. The Moaning Mountains

  Twelve bestial brutes enter the high mountain tunnel. One falls prey to the web-creatures. And now there are eleven.

  Cowering in the shadow of the rocks, Gruk growls in hushed tones: “Shut up! Do you fools want to alert every foul thing in these mountains?”

  The brutes are trudging, single-file, along a narrow defile between cliffs of sheer, bare rock on either side. The acoustics are unsettling to their leader. As every small sound is magnified and echoed between the stony surfaces.

  They have traveled many leagues inland in their attempt to find a way around the heliotrope forest. The only source of encouragement has been the stream they are following. With its sweet water and endless stock of the fish they eat.

  Still, they are spooked by the unfamiliar terrain and frustrated by the elusive nature of the way ahead.

  They have traveled many days to avoid the realm of the winged guardians. They wonder now if there is any way around that accursed forest.

  Gruk’s brutality has risen in direct proportion to the hunters’ whining discontent. For he knows the danger to himself of mutiny if their recalcitrance is not ruthlessly suppressed.

  Many is the thick skull now blistered with the painful scars of the leader’s cudgel as, like the whipped curs they are, the brutes grudgingly press on.

  Only one welcomes the hardship and discontent.

  Only one harbors hope they will cause the others to rise up, fall upon the leader and slay him.

  While his companions sullenly gripe and grouse, Grak silently plots and schemes.

>   The narrow stream falls away as the path turns toward the opposite side of an elevated embankment of loose scree they cannot cross.

  The brutes grumble loudly as they witness their source of food and water flow steadily away. But Gruk’s cudgel soon quiets them, and they shamble on in an even fouler mood.

  The sheer cliffs come together far above them, and they enter the black depths of a high, narrow tunnel. While the errant stream wends its way completely out of sight.

  The path remains straight and true as the brutes blindly proceed, hand-to-shoulder. The impenetrable darkness raises the hair on the nape of their thick necks, as they go warily through the inky void.

  But it is not the dark alone that spooks them!

  It is the faint moaning sound ahead. Lancing fear into every brutish breast. The louder the moaning becomes, the deeper the fear strikes.

  The eerie moans conjure up dark images of pain, agony and death.

  The superstitious brutes are afraid of many things they can see and of some noises they know well. But the growing wail of unseeable, unknowable suffering invades their imagination. Driving them to a frenzy of fright.

  They do not credit the natural means of the mountains to make music.

  In fact, the sound they fear is no more menacing than wind whistling through crags and crannies of stone. The dirge-like moans are mere echoes on the wind. Amplified in the enclosed confines of the tunnel’s smooth, polished surface.

  The frightened hunters are on the verge of bolting when Gruk announces there is dim light ahead. Relieved, they do not yet know that turning back were the wiser course.

  It is not innocent light from the end of the tunnel Gruk sees.

  It is the pale, probing pulse of peril!

  As they near its source, they are spellbound by the hypnotic throbbing rhythm of the light. As it splashes out of a side tunnel. Crosses their path. And illuminates the opposite wall of stone.

  The enchantment is deepened by a familiar gurgling sound from around the corner of the light-emitting tunnel.

  It is the welcome melody of the stream returning with its bounty of fish. Relief washes away their fear. Until, stepping around the corner . . .

  They walk straight into evil!

  The spider-like forms of strobing web-like creatures cover every surface of the side tunnel. And more are creeping from the stream below.

  Even Gruk is unable to feign courage against the flood of web-like creatures pouring toward them.

  Some are firing waves of shock, stunning fish to the river’s surface.

  Others are clutching smoldering fish in their deadly embrace, thin wisps of smoke rising above flesh as it melts in an acid brew.

  All are flashing pale light.

  And all are advancing on the hunters.

  Grasping their plight at once, Gruk and his fellows back quickly into the main tunnel. But not before the web-creatures cut off retreat.

  There, the brutes are appalled to find the strobing lights emanate from a seamless mesh of the beasts. Spread entirely across the main passage behind them. Tentacles latch onto the floor, walls and ceiling in that direction.

  The brutes are forced to flee in the untraveled direction they have been following.

  But the prospect of escape in that direction is fast disappearing as well. As the web creatures clamber up the walls and ceiling of the corridor ahead.

  That is when inspiration comes to Gruk. Glancing slyly at the panicked hunters, he waits until their attention is turned away from him and then strikes.

  Reaching a leg out in front of the nearest hunter, Gruk propels him toward the clambering mass ahead, and the hunter receives the combined shock of them all. The nearby creatures immediately fall upon the stunned hunter and begin dissolving his flesh with their caustic acid.

  Seizing the opportunity, Gruk pushes past the distracted mass, followed closely by the remaining hunters.

  It is a flight into darkness as the ghostly, pulsating lights wink out behind them and the tunnel ahead remains as black as death

  The echoes of the moaning mountains fade quickly as an eerie stillness and silence reign.

  The brutes walk on in dour despair. Grieving the loss of the stream. Dreading the drear, dust-dry distance ahead.

  Their gullets are parched, and hunger haunts the empty promise of slaves and riches. The prospect of acquiring neither salts the wound of their privation.

  As if reading their thoughts, Gruk mutters:

  “Pity the slaves, my warriors, for when we have them, they will pay dearly for the trouble they are causing us. Red welts across naked backs will salve the sting of our sacrifice!”

  His renewed promise of slaves is enough to quell the mutinous thoughts of his comrades, as they shuffle blindly along the black corridor. But it is not long before the moaning sounds return, rising in volume with every step they take.

  Soon, exhaustion overcomes their hunger, thirst and fear, and they fall out in the middle of the tunnel and sleep. It is not the last time they will slumber in this dark void. And each time they welcome sleep as a brief escape from their parching thirst and the spine-chilling moans that dog their every step.

  Gruk knows they must find water soon, else they will perish.

  After the fourth leg of their treacherous trek under the mountains, as the others sleep, Grak alone remains awake, scheming. Meditation on his vile, murderous design is broken by a barely audible vibration. Nearly muted by the mountains’ moaning, it is the welcome song of trickling water.

  Leaping to his feet, Grak feels his way along the tunnel’s wall until he comes to the unmistakable rush of water coursing down its surface. Into a deep, softly pulsing well pounded through the stone floor by its ageless hammering blows.

  Drinking his fill, the sly sneak slinks back to the snoring forms of his sleeping comrades. Remaining alert for the first stirring of wakefulness.

  Soon, the two hunters farthest from Gruk begin stretching. As they do, Grak announces loudly:

  “Arise my fellow hunters for I, Grak, will lead you to water.

  “I, Grak, will slake your thirst.

  “I, Grak, will preserve you from death!”

  The throat-parched hunters are on their feet at once. They eagerly follow Grak’s trailing assurances.

  Only Gruk hangs back, his face an unseeable mask of indignation and rage.

  When he catches the others, they are greedily scooping up the streaming rivulets and drinking their fill. Standing to one side, Grak smiles smugly. Basking in their gratitude. Savoring their let-down by the ‘so-called’ leader.

  Smugness turns to cold fear when Gruk sidles up to him and, between gulps, hisses:

  “You take much upon yourself, Grak. Do not let it become a weight too great to bear.

  “Know your place and keep it. Know also I have eyes on you.”

  Grak cringes at his leader’s naked threat. He fears Gruk and feigns innocence.

  Smiling inwardly at the leader’s expression of concern. A thinly veiled admission that he, Grak, poses a threat.

  Knowing in his devious heart that his turn will come.

  Chapter 40. The Land of Clouds

  Blinking at reflected light streaming off the slick stone walls of the valley, the leader stretches his furry arms. He looks out from the entrance of his cave at the wide ice field flanking the glacial floe from the reach of the near mountain to the ocean below.

  It has been many sleeps since the band moved into their new home, and he is thankful for its many provident advantages.

  The sheer valley walls provide a multitude of high, dry caves, and every member of the band is safely domiciled in this protected place.

  Both earth and sea are docile here. Where there is no fire and the ground is still.

  The band’s depleted strength has been restored with the birth of the two who will replace the Old One and the hunter consumed by the mud-lurkers.

  The blue-green sea provides ample bounty. Their ice-locker is so full it will
be a very long while before they must hunt again.

  The hunters have ranged far afield to scout any danger in the area. And have found none.

  The leader has every reason to celebrate their good fortune in this place that is so much like the valley home they fled.

  Still . . .

  He is troubled.

  The Old One is ever in his dreams. Visiting him in his sleep and beckoning him to leave this place. The alarming urgency of his ghostly gestures portend great misfortune here.

  And the leader cannot shake his frequent visions of the Chosen Place they have left. Where the ancestral spirits of his band dwell forevermore.

  The frantic urgings of the Old One and visions of the neatly arranged markers of the departed gnaw at his conscience and tug at his soul. Theirs is the siren song of home. Of cherished bonds and indelible memories.

  Home is not where the band is, he now knows.

  Home is where the band yet must go.

  Only there can they consign their own spirits to a new Chosen Place.

  Only there can the band be whole again.

  As if confirming the leader’s epiphany, the earth beneath him . . .

  Moves!

  It is a temblor, and it shakes the leader to his core.

  He has experienced the quaking ground before. And the ensuing cataclysm that destroyed their ancestral home. That cast the band into the wide world.

  Now, that evil has followed them here!

  Other members of the band, jolted awake, gather at their leader’s cave. They are instructed to collect food from the frozen larder and march quickly away from this valley.

  Shouldering what food they can, the band proceed at once up the gentle acclivity sloping down from the near mountains.

  The leader’s immediate objective is the mountain pass, the closest high point from the valley they are leaving.

  The pass is a saddleback in the high mountain range. The majestic sierras are huge pillars reaching up to and supporting the massive, unbroken bank of clouds.