Lying still as the minutes passed failed to ease the feeling of unease which had steadily grown upon him. It came not so much from the possibility of injury, but from another source; one he could not quite put his finger on.
Opening his eyes in order to discover the source of his unease caused bile to rise in the back of his throat. He quickly discarded the thought. If visual inspection of his surroundings was out of the question, then perhaps a tactile one might prove beneficial. With that thought in mind, he turned his attention to the floor upon which he lay.
To his utter amazement, neither stone nor wood comprised the surface beneath him. In fact, there was no surface at all. Holk extended his arm to its fullest reach and still encountered naught but empty air. Panic took over and forced his eyes open causing an intense spell of nausea. By sheer strength of will, he snapped his eyes closed once again.
No floor, no walls, no ceiling; it made no sense. He didn’t feel as if he was falling. There was no sense of motion. In fact, there was little in the way of sensation of any kind. Inhaling brought no scent, not even that of his stomach’s contents that had recently been expelled. He felt neither hot nor cold. Had he been falling, there would be a rush of wind; instead there was complete and utter stillness. Truly, he must be mad.
In his right hand, he could still feel the heft and weight of his sword, though it felt a bit odd. There was something… then it hit him. The sword was not being pulled toward the ground, merely retaining its current position all by itself. He could move it to and fro, up and down. But when he brought the sword to a halt, it remained still.
About to give in to the belief that his mind had finally been overcome, Holk felt the presence of another. Power, ageless and terrible, washed over him stealing what wits he had left. Gibbering in fear, he sensed that the presence was aware of him.
Human.
More a thought than voice, the single word coursed through him like a jagged knife, leaving behind a swath of pain and agony.
You have not that which we desire.
Each word increased his pain and terror. Screams, uncontrollable and filled with madness, filled his ears. Somewhere in the nether recesses of his mind, he realized they were his own. A moment later the intensity of the presence increased and left his mind bereft of all reason. Before Holk slipped into blissful unconsciousness, a thought penetrated the dark halls of madness.
Perhaps another might find you of use.
Consciousness returned, not by the slow steps of normal human recovery, but in an abrupt manner such as might occur after one was doused with a bucket of water fresh from a snow-bound mountaintop.
A single scream erupted from a deep primordial place. Using the full measure of his lung capacity, the cry wrenched him from madness and returned him to reality.
He was not where he had been. The surface beneath where he lay felt smooth as glass and cool to the touch. Cracking open an eye revealed a sky, ruby in color with wisps of what he would think of as clouds if they had been white instead of a deep orange.
Turning his head to the side brought a field of silver into view. The silvery “ground” upon which he lay extended to the limit of his vision in absolute flatness without hill, tree, or any other obstruction marring its smooth perfection. Though unnaturally smooth, the surface had a grittiness that Holk found disturbing.
Fear still held sway within him, although its mastery diminished with each passing heartbeat. A shaky hand settled upon the hilt of his sword. The cold steel gave comfort and aided the return of his courage.
Dizziness assailed him as he sat to get a better look at his surroundings. The landscape looked nothing like anything he had ever seen before. Ruby-red sky, orange clouds and silvery ground; truly, he must have lost his mind.
Recent memories sought to return, but with them came fear. Feeling his fleeting courage waning beneath this renewed onslaught, Holk fought to banish the memories. Home; mother; father; upon these he concentrated until the burgeoning terror had at last been vanquished.
Once able to calm his mind and turn it to the problem at hand, he climbed to his feet and took in the featureless landscape.
Where am I?
It was clear he was no longer in the subterranean complex of mirrors and caverns. Where he was exactly…well…that escaped him at the moment. But with everything that he had recently experienced, he wasn’t nearly as overwhelmed as he once would have been.
The orange clouds above floated by on an unfelt current. The air around Holk remained static; just one more incongruity of this strange, alien land.
Figuring the answer to his whereabouts and how to depart from this place would not be found by remaining where he was, Holk once again scanned the horizon. Every direction looked the same with nothing but unremitting, silvery flatness. Unnerved to say the least, he set out across this foreign landscape.
Two steps into his trek, a dark object appeared on the horizon. It appeared to be an upright, rectangular construction; what exactly it was couldn’t be determined from such a far distance. Intrigued, Holk set out toward it.
Each step brought him closer to the object than a man’s stride should have been able to accomplish. Half a dozen paces covered a distance three times that and it soon became apparent that what Holk was heading toward was a cage.
Narrow bars set close together formed a prison of sorts. It measured roughly four feet by five and rose to a height over an arm-span taller than Holk. The most curious aspect of the cage, aside from the fact that it had no door, was the lack of any seam. It appeared as if it had been constructed all of one piece.
Within the bars sat an armored man slumped against the side of the cage. At first, Holk believed the man may yet live, but upon drawing nearer to the cage, realized life no longer remained. The eyes were sunken and its skin had drawn tightly against the bones beneath.
Light from the red sky overhead reflected off an impeccably polished breastplate and shield. Both bore a yellow sun on a golden field. Bony fingers still gripped the hilt of a longsword that made his sword look like a pig-sticker.
The weapon looked to be made of steel, but bore an unusual sheen that Holk was at a loss to identify. It gave the weapon a slight shimmering appearance. A red stone the size of an egg had been set into the crossbar of the hilt; it may have been a ruby though he couldn’t be certain. The overall appearance of the weapon was that of master craftsmanship.
Holk wanted that sword. He felt that with it in his possession, his ability to survive whatever trials lay ahead would be increased dramatically. Reaching through the bars, he dislodged the sword from the skeletal grip and pulled it from the cage.
The balance was perfect and weighed only half that of his. Being of comparable size, it slid easily within his scabbard. He laid his old sword next to the dead man in the cage. Not the most equitable of trades, but he figured no one would complain.
Drawing his new blade, Holk made several passes through the air. The weapon moved effortlessly and took relatively little strength to wield. He gave the unusual sheen a closer inspection but failed to discern anything about it other than it made the surface of the blade shimmer, similar in nature to heat radiating off a heated surface; only there was no heat. All in all, a most curious weapon. Sheathing it once again, he returned his attention to the cage.
How had the man come to be within if there was no seam or point of entry?
Holk tried rattling the cage in an attempt to unveil the cage’s secrets, but it failed to give them up. Finally realizing his energy could be better spent, such as working on getting him back home, Holk returned his attention to the unnatural landscape.
Silvery, unchanging desolation stretched from one horizon to another. The only aspect of this entire place that varied from one moment to the next were the orange clouds high overhead. Drifting along in the upper atmosphere, they at least provided some point of reference; “upstream” and “downstream.” Turning toward the point where the clouds originated, Holk decided to follow the
clouds “upstream.”
As he moved from the corpse in the cage, he kept his eyes peeled for any sign of other breaks in the monotony of this silvery land. Ten steps into his upstream trek, he glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to find the cage now to be a far distance away.
Holk didn’t like this place and wanted nothing more than to leave it behind. Continuing upstream, another five paces brought an object into view. As fast as he had left the cage behind, he proceeded to advance on what quickly proved to be another cage identical to the first; complete with a slumped over, armored individual wearing the exact same style of armor. Only this time, there was no sword gripped in its skeletal hand. Instead, the sword remained sheathed.
Again, the cage proved to be seamless and without point of entry. If not for his inability to open the dead man’s prison, Holk would have availed himself of the armor; for the dead man looked to be roughly his size. Armor of such superior craftsmanship would assuredly prove to be vital. Sighing, he moved off from the cage and continued his trek.
Another cage came into view some distance farther upstream and to his right. Before closing half the distance, another appeared on the horizon to his left. Holk continued to the one on his right. When it proved to be identical as the first two, seamless and with a dead man slumped against the side wearing armor of the same design, he made for the one on the left.
Three more dark silhouettes appeared farther upstream before he reached the third cage. After a cursory glance at the long-deceased, armored individual caged within, Holk continued toward the fourth, then to the fifth.
With each cage visited, more dark silhouettes came into view farther ahead. As he went, the number of cages appearing on the horizon increased. Soon, there were over a dozen within his field of vision. Each held an armored, dead man.
Why would anyone spend time to construct individual cages? Wouldn’t it have been better to create a single large one? Holk merely shook his head as he progressed into an ever growing forest of cages.
Another incongruous aspect was that the cages were spaced some distance apart. None were less than ten paces from their neighbors. Pausing next to one while pondering that fact, his attention was drawn to movement off on the horizon.
It moved laterally at the limit of his field of vision for several heartbeats, during which time, he saw similar motion to his left and right. Glancing behind him through the bars of the cage, he saw movement out that way as well. They were too far away for him to make out clearly, but whatever they were, they had him surrounded. Drawing his newly acquired sword, he put his back to the cage and waited to see if they would be friend or foe.
Minutes passed and the dark shapes appeared content to maintain their current position. Moving back and forth, they reminded Holk of soldiers on guard duty. That thought gave him little comfort for what kind of soldiers would there be in a place like this? Were they comrades of those within the cages? Or were they the ones who put them there?
When it appeared they did not mean to approach, Holk figured he’d best try to beat a hasty retreat. Planning a route through an area containing the most cages, he made for the mid-point of a gap between the two most downstream of his position.
He took one step away from the side of the cage and…
Wham!
Faster than an eagle in flight, all four objects that had been moving along the horizon shot toward him and came together in a resounding clash. The objects had been quarter-sections of a cage, a cage in which he now found himself.
The construction was seamless and resisted his every attempt to bend, hack and smash his way through. He was trapped!
Chapter 16
Time couldn’t be measured when nothing changed. In the silvery land with the red sky, night never came. The only way in which Holk could gauge the passage of time was his growing hunger and thirst. What few healing mushrooms were left in his pack he conserved like a miser would a hoard of coins.
Thrice he had fallen asleep. Each time upon awakening he would consume only a single mushroom. They did much to revitalize him and ease the ache of hunger, but their effects didn’t last long. Hunger would quickly return.
With naught else to do, his attention inevitably turned toward the nearby cage and the dead man within. Being of average height and bearing what at one time must have been fair looks, the man would have passed unnoticed on the streets of Holk’s hometown. In this alien landscape, the dead man’s normalcy felt wrong though Holk couldn’t explain why.
Sometime after his third sleep period, motion from off in the distance drew his attention. At first he thought it might be more of the cage sections moving about, but that notion was soon dispelled as a mass of gigantic proportions gradually made its way through the forest of cages toward him. Drawing his sword, Holk came to his feet and watched.
It would pause at cages, though not all of them. Remaining motionless for several minutes before each, once as long as ten, it would then move on to the next.
As it drew nearer to the cage containing Holk, its features failed to become clearer. Translucent and bulbous, its shape was in a constant state of flux. Perhaps the most unnerving aspect was how there was little transition from one shape to another. It would go from being very tall and towering over the cages to squat and bulging like a short, fat man.
Whatever this was, it had no discernible appendages, head or anything else one would think to find on a living creature such as eyes, nose or mouth. It slithered…though slithered would not be an entirely accurate way to explain its mode of locomotion. Slithering would indicate a gliding and undulation along the ground. This had none of that. Its lower end did not appear to move, yet it did.
During its pause at a cage forty paces away, Holk noticed something within the creature. Though unclear from such a distance, it grew to clarity when the creature continued its movement through the forest of cages and drew closer. It was a landscape.
Stunted trees and misshapen buildings of an unnatural construction could be seen within the creature. But as the creature moved, so too did the scene within it change. It wasn’t until the creature paused at the cage next to his that he realized what he saw could not be within the creature.
When the creature moved, the scene failed to move in sync with the creature, yet still changed as would a coastal scene viewed through the porthole of a ship traveling upon the ocean; the body of the creature being the porthole.
Holk didn’t have time to ponder this new revelation. The creature had moved from the cage and was coming toward him. Fear welled and he held his new-found sword between them.
“Back!”
The creature failed to respond and continued its ponderous approach.
Thrusting the blade through the bars of his cage, Holk again cried, “Back! Come no closer.”
Either unaware or unconcerned with Holk’s warning, the creature pressed forward. It came to within several feet from the tip of the sword before coming to a halt.
The scene within the creature was now in stark clarity. Beings half the size of humans bearing a dog-like bestiality moved among house-like structures situated among hills and trees. Despite the proximity of such a massive creature, Holk couldn’t help but have his attention drawn to the scene playing out within its bulbous mass.
The beings wore clothes, walked on two legs, and smaller versions of the dog-like beings raced as if in play among the buildings.
Houses? Could they be houses? Had they been humans, he would have thought the scene portrayed the humble life of a small village.
A ripple coursing through the bulbous creature ended his contemplation of the village. Though there were no eyes gazing upon him, Holk knew that the creature was aware of him. Backing to the rear of the cage, he held his sword at the ready and waited.
The creature approached until it practically touched the bars of the cage. Suddenly, red light flared from the gem in the sword’s crossbar. Bright, warm and comforting, the radiance instantly dispelled his fear and renewed hi
s courage.
The moment the light sprang to life, the creature vanished only to reappear twenty feet away. So quick had been the transition that Holk almost hadn’t seen it happen. He grinned at the creature, brandished his sword and stepped forward until the glowing gem had passed through the bars and shone unobstructed upon the creature.
“You don’t like this, do you?”
Time passed as the glow radiated forth. The body of the creature continued changing from one aspect to another, all the while as a whole seeming to remain motionless. After an unknown number of heartbeats, the creature moved off toward a nearby cage and the glow faded to nothingness. Holk watched as the creature wended its way through the cages. When it finally passed out of sight back the way from which it came, he turned his attention to the sword and the gem it held.
Whatever power the gem held, it kept the creature from him when active. The hope that he may make it from this place blossomed anew until his gaze fell upon the skeletal warrior within the cage nearest his and the sword identical to his that was gripped in its bony hand. Obviously, the power of the sword would not affect his escape from this cage, since those who met their doom throughout this land had been unable to do so. Still, he could keep the creature at bay and that was something.
Settling down with back leaned against the bars, Holk glanced periodically toward the horizon into which the creature disappeared. Had it been his captor? Or could it have merely been an inhabitant of this land that just happened by?
The way the creature had paused near the cages unsettled him. What could it have been doing? He had felt nothing when the creature stopped before his cage. It could have been that the power of the sword prevented the creature from causing him harm. Of course, the creature could have been nothing more than a visitor similar to those that would frequent Killery’s Menagerie of Fantastic Creatures that came to his hometown when he was a boy. He, too, would stop before different cages to view odd and fascinating animals.
Portals Page 18