He is about to step between the trees onto the river’s bank when Davina abruptly grabs his arm and pulls him back. As he opens his mouth to protest, she places two fingers over his parted lips and whispers:
“Shh. Listen!”
The faint gurgle of water is barely discernible. And it is not coming from the river. It is coming from a large, upturned boulder at the forest-side of the dense cluster of trees they are sheltering in.
Warily approaching the boulder, they stay within the protective girdle of thick tree-trunks until they have a clear view of the stone’s opposite side. There, they see . . .
A narrow patch of black. Indistinct from where they stand. But raising the possibility of a cave whose narrow entrance remains barely hidden behind a thin curtain raining down from a watercourse at the top of the boulder.
Davina is first to react. Kneeling, she collects a stone from beside the nearest tree and tosses it with force into the black void behind the waterfall.
Seconds later, they hear the hollow clang of stone upon stone in an open space whose reverberations suggest here is the very escape route they seek. This slim hope is eclipsed by the shadows of wide wings darting from the treetops after the missile she threw toward the cave.
The pursuit is too swift for them to sprint across the open ground from their hiding place. They simply would not make it in time.
They need a distraction, Noah decides, like the hunters that decoyed the creatures on his previous passage through this canopied realm.
Whispering hurried instructions to Davina, he leads her back to the river side of the woodland thicket. There, they gather as many small stones as each can hold in one hand. Pausing at the open edge of the dense trunks, they both . . .
Leap out onto the open path and begin attacking the winged guardians!
The bat-like creatures are momentarily stunned by a hail of stones. Then, they retreat from the combined assault of two screaming figures poking long lances in their direction. Meantime, every winged guardian in the neighborhood hastens to join the battle on the river path.
Noah and Davina back slowly toward the dense trees. Holding their lances outward as they feign making a stand there.
But as soon as the forest behind them is clear of winged guardians, the lance-wielding figures on the river path vanish!
It is a mad dash to the opposite edge of the dense trees. They erupt from the closely packed trees at top running speed. They are fully halfway across the open ground to the cave behind the waterfall when the first shadows of wide pursuing wings appear behind them.
The guardians are much swifter and, despite the couple’s head-start, the race will be a near thing.
Throwing themselves through the black opening, Noah and Davina tumble several feet into the dimness of the cave when, suddenly . . .
The light goes out!
The entrance is covered by a multitude of wide wings as the pursuers futilely attempt to squeeze past its narrow lip.
“This is our bolt-hole,” Noah exclaims. “Our back door out of the canopied realm of death. The winged creatures cannot follow us here. We surely will be better off following wherever it leads!”
As if to confirm his encouraging words, the wings withdraw from the entrance. Bathing the cave in dim light once more.
Noah turns his steps away from the entrance as his mate matches stride toward whatever unforeseen perils await them in the thick gloaming ahead.
In his exuberance, Noah fails to pause and consider what manner of creature might make its home in this dark place. And what manner of worse creature might prey upon it.
Here in the twilight of the underground.
Brushing themselves off after tumbling headlong into the cave, they are at once struck by the peculiar texture of the walls all about them. They are honeycombed with layers and folds, a geologic feature unfamiliar to the geologist. Reminding him somewhat of the striations he observed on the surface of towering termite cones when he was doing field work in west Africa.
But the stony folds in the wall of this cave form the lips of narrow vertices penetrating deep into the solid rock.
Peer as intently and listen as closely as he may, Noah neither sees nor hears any sign of life. And, so, dismisses the texture of weaving slits and fissures as some geologic oddity among so many others on this strange moon.
It is a presumption he shortly will rue!
Badly shaken and exhausted from their skirmish with and narrow escape from the winged guardians, the couple agree they must rest before attempting to navigate the strangely textured cave. They curl up on its open floor and are asleep at once.
Davina is the first to wake, disturbed by the slide of smooth, slick skin across her thigh and alarmed by the sinister sound of soft hissing.
Her waking eyes are greeted by the impossible vision of walls stirring all about them. Writhing, shifting, climbing, falling and pooling toward them in an undulating mass.
Sitting bolt upright, she clutches her lance and shakes Noah. Grasping his lance as well, he whips it in a sharp circle. Its point severing the spade-like heads of nearby serpents.
But the entire floor of the cavern is thick with the creatures. Blocking retreat in either direction.
The closest raise their wicked heads unfurling wide, ominous hoods and baring long curved fangs dripping with an oily substance Noah recognizes as a cocktail of death.
Soon, the couple are trapped in an ever-diminishing circle of high, hooded adders. Advancing irresistibly toward them in spite of the terrific toll of their lances. Slashing coiled bodies in every direction as spade-shaped heads are left dangling tenuously from limp and lifeless corpses.
There are just too many. Fight as they will, back-to-back, Noah knows they cannot long survive the venomous onslaught.
That is when the couple hear the first intimations of soft growls from deep within the cave!
Suddenly, the air around them is filled with flashing bodies of fur as the vipers are attacked by a pack of predators leaping on them from all sides.
It is like watching a harvester threshing wheat, as the snakes are literally mowed down by the lightning movements and gnashing fangs of creatures closely resembling the mongoose of Noah’s world.
It seems no time at all when the cave is cleared of live serpents, as the slithery survivors quickly melt back into the walls. Abandoning their dead and dying cousins to be devoured by the mongoose mob.
Holding their lances between themselves and the mongooses, Noah and Davina slowly back deeper into the cave. But the furry predators pay the couple no heed as they greedily feast on the flesh of their familiar prey.
Making their way deeper into the tunnel, Noah is relieved to see its walls regain a more natural, seamless consistency. He knows they have escaped the realm of hidden serpents and fierce mongooses.
He now reflects on the warning he ignored when nocturnal sounds called to him in the open night. When he and Davina lay in a bolus of the high heliotrope forest.
It is a warning he vows not to ignore again!
Chapter 45. A Day Behind
The band’s descent is smooth and easy. They soon find themselves on the level plain stretching away from the mountain slope toward the frozen, light-filled land ahead.
It is a barren, eerie landscape. Made harsher by scouring winds that appear suddenly and race across its snow-mottled surface.
It is as if the howling fury of the mountain pass has stalked them down the slope to its level base. Seeking to drive the interlopers back into the windswept heights they just escaped.
Thick fur shields every member of the band as they march, single file, toward the distant light. Backs bowed and faces turned away from the biting wind.
There is no sign of other life on the frigid steppes. As the band struggles mightily against the force of the unrelenting wind.
They soon tire, and the leader calls a halt for sleep on an open patch of stone scooped out of the surrounding rock. Forming a shallow concave depress
ion offering scant but welcome shelter from the fierce wind.
Members of the band huddle together so their fleshy faces, hands and feet are turned inward away from the cold. Only their furry bodies remain exposed to the wind. Fatigued from fighting the heavy gusts, they fall asleep at once.
Waking from a profound and restorative sleep, they rise to a very different world.
Gone is the harsh wind.
Gone is the bitter cold.
It is as if the mountains have vented their anger at the band’s intrusion and, having gotten in a last shot, will now let them proceed unmolested. The leader’s relief is brief for, as he looks back at the mountain slope, he discovers they have made precious little progress.
Indeed, the base of the slope lies within a very short march from where they slept the night.
Fearing the wind’s return, the leader orders the band to pick up the pace. Moving quickly and easily over the smooth, rocky terrain, they soon leave the mountain slope far behind.
The march is as effortless this day as it was arduous the day before. It seems no time at all when they emerge from the margin of cloudbank into a world of bright, open sky.
It is not the same sky that was blotted out by misty fog when they entered the cloud-shrouded southern polar region. When, having consumed one sun, the violet-red-yellow sky-monster was stalking the sun that survived.
The lost sun has returned, and the monster has fled!
Every member of the band is heartened as they step directly into the open world under two suns in a clear sky.
By the time the second sun begins its descent and shadows lengthen, the sierras behind them are melting into the horizon and foothills are emerging in the distance ahead.
The leader detected only a very faint, short-lived hum as they crossed the tundra. He correctly surmises they are leaving by a very different route from the way that led them to the remote valley they briefly called home.
They sleep two more nights on the frozen tundra before nearing the piedmont range leading to the cascading falls and the elevated heliotrope forest.
It is not until they arrive at the rainbow pools on the third day that they realize their erstwhile companion is on the trail ahead of them. And that he is accompanied by another whose footprints, while more petite, are nearly identical to his own.
The leader also observes that these tracks are recent. That the two travelers are a day, perhaps two, ahead of the band.
He follows their prints as far as there is still light to see.
Darkness is again pooling over the land, and the leader halts the band at the foot of the falls. As the last dancing rainbow winks out at the approach of night, the leader falls into a shallow, restless sleep.
He has a visitor this night, and again the visitor comes alone.
It is the Old One, and he bears a riddle that will link the band’s destiny to the fate of those whose footsteps they follow.
“Your path leads to those before you,” the Old One counsels.
“It is he you know, and she who shall be the last of her race and the first of theirs.
“Their destination is not your destination. Yet, you can know no destination until theirs is secured. You can return to me only when those you follow establish dominion over the lands that are theirs.
“Evil is on the march. Your footsteps will lead it to them. But not from the direction you travel now.
“You shall confront the evil that stalks them. You shall defeat the evil that threatens us as well.
“You shall eradicate the evil and forever assure the future of the world.
“That is your mission. Your purpose. Your destiny.
“Rest now.
“Tomorrow, you begin the long journey that will lead you back to me.”
With these final words, the Old One vanishes.
Left to himself, his thoughts mired in a quandary of contradictions and puzzles, the leader strives vainly to make sense of the Old One’s riddle.
It is an exhausting mental effort. Leading not toward the light but to even deeper darkness. As he finally sinks into welcome sleep.
Both suns are climbing the far horizon when the leader rousts the band and announces they will continue to follow the two pairs of footprints. One of the hunters motions that the tracks follow the sloping incline leading to the heliotrope forest above.
They set out, single file, to follow them there. The same hunter ranges ahead, his wide eyes constantly scanning the heights of the towering trees lining the banks of the river trail.
The heliotrope flora cast a reddish-purple haze as the band marches through a dewy mist. Bending the early light of descending sunshine as the moisture vainly strives to ward off the arid heat that will suck it dry.
The mist quickly evaporates, and the air becomes bright and clear.
The rising suns light their way as they track the fresh footprints along the river path. But they know what terror lurks in the treetops above, so they proceed cautiously. Casting wary glances at the tree-line and encroaching limbs.
The scouting hunter pauses and kneels as the canopy begins to close over him and, marking the footprints ahead, he returns to report their progress to the leader. The band proceeds as a body to the edge of the canopy. The leader motions them to hug the tree-line as they advance single-file deep into the realm of the winged guardians.
There, both sets of footprints veer off into the tree-line and disappear. Search as they will, the band’s keen-eyed hunters are unable to pick them up again.
It is as if both travelers have vanished in air. The leader wonders whether they were borne away by the winged creatures guarding this place. If so, the forest has since regained its silent serenity.
There is no sign of life. The band is surrounded by the stillness of death.
What they do not suspect is that those they seek are even now crossing their path.
Many fathoms beneath their feet.
∆ ∆ ∆
The retreating echoes of hissing serpents and growling mongooses grow fainter with each footstep leading Noah and Davina deeper into the bowels of a hidden world. Soon, they are walking in gloomy silence, the pulsing sighs of their breath the only sound in this black, endless corridor.
So lengthy is the trek, they lose track of the countless sleeps they spend in this dark deep of the world.
The tunnel itself is transected by a slowly moving stream. Cut deep into its stone floor. Providing both fresh water and an abundance of fish to sustain them on their underground journey.
While they cannot know it, the subterranean tunnel is taking them across the high desert and through the dense grasslands above to a most unexpected destination.
After many sleeps, the couple sense the darkness is thinning as they are able to discern the shadows of the forms around them. The slow movement of the stream. The motion of their walking. Even the still, silent ridges and convexities in the cave’s bulging high ceiling and walls. While the air remains cool, the tunnel ahead resolves itself into a tiny pinpoint of light.
Davina tightens her grip on Noah’s arm, uncertain of what the distant glow may portend.
Indeed, the bright pinpoint widens as the couple advance.
Soon they are standing on a ledge at the end of the path.
Opening out onto a sea of fiery magma!
While her mate has encountered this scene before, nothing in his description has prepared Davina for the surreal, breath-taking grandeur of the Hadean scene before them.
Swiftly sluicing strands of streaming magma meld into chromatic ribbons of scarlet, yellow and orange. Crashing through an immensity so vast it seems to occupy the entirety of this inner world.
It is eerie to stand in a world with no horizon. Where up is down, and down is up.
A world on fire. Flaming into an intensity of light.
A world of energy. Where long-pent geologic forces rage in violent clashes of molten rock.
A hidden world. Concealed from creatures roaming the s
urface lands and seas above.
The ledge itself is a dead-end, the small stream at its center cascading into the fiery maelstrom below. Only to rise again in clotting clouds of steam.
Davina’s sense of awe turns to shock at the realization they have truly reached the end of their journey.
There is no way forward. Only the bitter prospect of retracing their endless steps through the black tunnel behind them.
That is when Noah shares a discovery that makes her hopes soar.
“Look, Davina, there is an opening behind this final bulge of wall. A concavity that appears to open to a tunnel away from this place!”
Abruptly disappearing, he calls for her to follow him into the hollow space and onto a path that leads gradually downward. The walls on one side are pocked with apertures of various height and girth, providing both light and observation portholes overlooking the magma sea.
Soon, the openings become sparser and then disappear altogether as the cave’s walls take on a seamless consistency and the lights wink out.
Once again, the couple are following a path into stygian night. Only, this path is dry as dust.
But they press on with renewed optimism, relieved to be following a route away from the fiery maelstrom. Even the gnawing pangs of hunger and thirst fail to disturb their first sleep on this dry path.
While they awaken fully rested, they know they must find water at least or they will perish. They can only hope a source of water, and hopefully food, lies ahead. There is none of either in the direction they have come.
Despite his rigorous conditioning from crossing an alien world, Noah soon feels the stress lack of water is placing on his body. But his concern is not for himself. It is for his mate, whose body he fears is not so conditioned.
What he does not know is that Davina is harboring the very same concern for him.
While they make good progress on the second leg of their trek through this tunnel, Noah is nearing his physical limit when he suggests they stop for sleep. As they lie down together on the stony path, Davina senses her mate’s desperation through the forced strength of his embrace.
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