Crown of Vengeance

by Stephen Zimmer

  “It looks like we are going to have to wait,” Janus added. “I don’t like it either, but you might as well settle in, Kent.”

  Kent slumped back down into his chair, shaking his head in disbelief at the sour turn of fortune. “I guess that we are stuck.”

  Janus leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The moist air brushed against his face, and if they had been under any other circumstances he would not have found the feeling to be altogether unpleasant. In fact, its touch under other circumstances would have been rather soothing.

  There was not much that he could do for the moment, and his strained emotions had already exhausted him considerably. The sustained idleness quickly added to his weariness, and he felt himself begin to slide towards unconsciousness. With an extended yawn, he slumped his chin down to rest. The tranquil refuge of a dreamless sleep tugged ever stronger at the edges of his lingering consciousness.

  Consummately drowsy, he did not know whether he had momentarily fallen asleep, when Kent’s sharp, raised voice roused him back to full wakefulness.

  “It’s thinning!” Kent exclaimed excitedly, from where he was still perched at the bow.

  Janus leaned back up in his seat, and opened his eyes, feeling a heavy lethargy rooted throughout his body.

  As Kent had indicated, the visibility beyond the sides of the boat had now increased to about fifteen feet. They were still surrounded by an outer boundary of dense fog, and could make no sign of the shore through it in any direction.

  “Wanna go for it?” Kent queried impatiently.

  “We can, but we’ve gotta be really careful, Kent, and do it my way, with horns, calls, and a very, very slow rate of speed,” Derek said with manifest caution in his voice. “We do it systematically.”

  Janus had the sense that Derek much preferred to wait and see if the fog thinned out even further.

  Kent nodded, “We’ll do it your way, but let’s get out of this.”

  Derek frowned slightly as he turned the key again, and the motor rumbled back to life. Slowly increasing the power, Derek set the boat forward once again. They were barely creeping along the water’s surface. That much appeared to relax Kent considerably, who pulled back from his perch on the bow to come over to stand by Derek.

  Kent, Janus, and Derek kept their eyes fixated upon the water just ahead of them. Janus could see that Derek’s senses were on full alertness. His friend maintained a firm grip on the throttle, ready to cut the engine off at a moment’s notice. Derek honked the horn frequently, to warn any others that might be in the immediate vicinity. They elicited no manner of response in return, and the only sounds to reach Janus’ attentive ears were that of the boat itself.

  The absence of any kind of response struck Janus as being very peculiar. He fully expected that their soundings would invoke at least a yell or call-out from a reveler or two, reacting to their horn signal from a party at one of the lake houses. Janus strained to hear even the slightest sound of music or talking, knowing that they were passing by houses on both sides of the narrow lake.

  “Next problem,” Derek then brought up suddenly. “How are we going to know where exactly we are supposed to go? We might be able to see ahead of us, and avoid crashing into somebody, but we can’t make out any landmarks or houses. Unless, of course, you are really, really good at guessing, Kent.”

  “Once we pass under the main bridge, we know that we are close. And by then, the fog will probably have thinned enough so that we can get a glimpse of the shoreline,” retorted Kent. “We just need to get in the vicinity. I need only a brief view of the dock areas, as I know most of the houses that are near to my dad’s. I will only need to identify one to tell us exactly where we are.”

  “Well, then it won’t be very long,” Janus remarked with a little relief. He pointed off of the port side of the boat, “There’s the shoreline, right over there.”

  “There we are. Easy enough,” replied Kent enthusiastically. “All we have to do is follow along that shore, and we’ll get there eventually. Take it in closer, as the water drops off deep right off the shore, all the way down the lake.”

  Derek steered the boat over a little closer to the shoreline. Janus observed that the visibility had increased by another few feet, even as Derek accelerated the watercraft.

  Kent’s face was filled with an expression of sheer relief. Yet as Janus looked at him, Kent’s mien suddenly changed to one of shock as Janus felt the boat lurch to an abrupt halt.

  Janus, Kent, and Derek all fell forward with the sudden stop. Kent’s face was now a mask of confusion and fear.

  “We are far enough off the shore. I know this lake well. It’s got good depth right off the shoreline. What’s this all about?” Kent said incredulously, anxiously looking over the side of the boat.

  Janus joined him at his side.

  Through the light from the front of the boat, he could see that they had effectively lodged the boat into an expanse of extremely shallow water.

  For the next few moments, Derek tried to get the boat moving but it soon became very evident that it was fully immobilized in the muddy, shallow bottom.

  “Great. That’s all I need,” Kent stammered.

  Janus knew that Kent was thinking of his father, and how he would react to the news of having his boat run aground. Janus knew that any hopes that Kent still harbored of beers and rest had evaporated from his mind.

  Kent looked towards the shore, several paces away. He announced with obvious unease, “Well, I’m going to find out where we are, at the least.”

  “Hey, be careful,” Derek cautioned, stepping forward as Kent swung his legs over the side of the boat.

  Kent’s feet splashed into the cold water of the lake, but his weight was held up. He sloshed forward, examining the bow of the boat before looking back towards the others, his face illumined by the glow of the boat’s headlights. “See, it’s solid, and shallow. We can find out where we are, and maybe work on pushing the boat back out in a minute.”

  Kent stepped away then, trudging through the water as he made his way over to the shore. Striding up out of the water, he turned and gave the others a half-hearted smile that was accompanied by a thumbs-up gesture.

  “It will just take a second, I’ll find out where we are at,” he called.

  Turning his back to them, he walked up the shore and away from the water’s edge, his form soon swallowed by the mist.

  Derek and Janus sat patiently in the boat, the ponderous silence continuing its hold around them. They could hear nothing from the direction that Kent had gone.

  The minutes continued to increase, one streaming into another without sight or sound of anything else. Janus finally placed his hands on the side of the boat, looking towards the shore.

  He glanced back at Derek. “How long should we give him?”

  “A few more minutes,” Derek replied tersely, his features stoic and unreadable.

  Janus knew that underneath it all, Derek was growing as concerned as he was. Kent had a jocular manner, but was not the reckless type of individual to indulge in trivial games during a situation such as this.

  “Kent! Hey Kent!” Janus called out loudly, cupping his hands about his mouth. The shout broke through the still air with the equivalence of booming thunder.

  There was no answer forthcoming.

  “Kent! Hey! Where are you?” Derek yelled, even louder than Janus had.

  The cumbersome silence around them remained, unrepentant and defiant.

  Janus looked back towards Derek, his features grim. “I’m not liking this at all. Not one bit. I think I’d better go to the shoreline. What if he’s tripped on something and hit his head, or something like that?”

  “We shouldn’t get completely split up,” Derek advised. “We can leave the boat here. I don’t think it is going anywhere for the moment.”

  Grabbing the side of the boat, Derek pivoted on the spot that his hands clutched as he jumped nimbly over the side of the vessel.

&nb
sp; “Here, wait a second, let me test something,” Derek said.

  He brought his arm back over the side of the boat, just behind the wind-shield, braced himself, and tried to push it backward. After a moment, he changed his grip and tried the other direction.

  Veins stood out on his forehead, and his muscles bulged with the considerable exertion. A muffled grunt escaped as he finally gave up the effort.

  “Whatever we’ve managed to do, we’ve lodged it really good. I don’t know how we’ve managed to get it stuck this firmly, but it is, and there’s no sense disputing the reality of it. But as for our immediate worries, I don’t think it is going anywhere, anytime soon. There’s no current to speak of on this lake anyway,” Derek remarked between rapid breaths. “Like I said, if we go after Kent, then I think we should stick together.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan to me,” Janus readily agreed, not feeling eager to wander off into the engulfing mists by himself.

  Janus swung his left leg over the side of the boat, holding onto its edge as he swung his other leg up and over. His feet plopped down with a splash as he came to stand in the ankle-deep water.

  Derek and Janus walked towards the shoreline, calling out for Kent as they distanced themselves from the boat. They stopped for several moments to listen for a response, but the eerie quiet persisted. Janus found himself growing extremely worried. Something was simply not right about any of it.

  “This isn’t like Kent at all,” Derek said curtly, glancing back to where the boat was lodged. “But I tell you what, I’m not going to be very happy at all if Kent is messing with us.”

  “That makes two of us, but I don’t think that he would joke about something like this,” Janus said. “He’s a joker, but he’s not a fool.”

  “For his sake, I sure hope so,” Derek said, his snapping attitude revealing the great apprehension that was growing inside of him. He fixed his gaze forward. “Let’s go!”

  Their socks and shoes were soaked, weighing their steps down as they emerged from the lake and continued up the shore. The grass-covered land quickly inclined at the edge of the denser fog.

  Derek used his hands to brace himself as he crept up the rising embankment through the fog. He proceeded very slowly, exercising extreme caution within the incredibly low visibility.

  Janus emulated Derek’s tactic and followed close behind. Their visibility had shrunk considerably again, which did little to allay Janus’ worries.

  After a brief, albeit steep, incline, the ground leveled out again and allowed for them both to stand up.

  “Where do we go from here? We can’t see anything,” Derek commented, as Janus took a step forward to stand beside him.

  The boat and the lakeside were no longer visible behind them. They were enveloped fully in the mist again, a world of gray with a patch of grass directly underfoot.

  “Kent!” Janus called out one more time, the query proving naught in eliciting any clue as to Kent’s whereabouts or condition. He turned towards Derek, “Let’s go on.”

  He took a slow step forward, followed by another, as he proceeded cautiously through the fog. After he had taken several more steps, he noticed that his visibility was increasing again. The fog appeared to be thinning, and he wondered if the bulk of its density was concentrated closer to the water.

  Ahead, there was a brighter luminescence that seemed to beckon to Janus. It increased in intensity with each and every step forward that he took.

  With the rising visibility, he picked his pace up more confidently. He felt relieved that he could see for at least a few steps, just as the first shards of broad daylight burst suddenly through the last vestiges of the fog; daylight that came from a stunning, greenish-blue sky.

  Janus halted immediately, standing in a maelstrom of astonishment and wonder at the edge of the fog bank. He did not so much as move or speak, even as Derek drew up next to him a moment later.

  Derek was equally speechless as he perceived the extraordinary sight. A remarkable and unexpected view was spread to the far horizons before them.

  The land that was brilliantly revealed to their eyes flowed in a harmony of gently rising and falling contours, consisting of broad swathes of higher grasses that were broken up here and there by a few thick copses of trees. Off in the distance, towards the east, was a blurry, continuous line that signaled the beginnings of a vast forest that stretched beyond sight.

  The strange hue of the sky compounded the shock of the unexpected scene unraveling before them. Janus finally turned about, the last wisps of fog vanishing at the edges of a modest river, gliding by along soft currents a few strides behind them.

  The lake and the boat were nowhere to be seen.

  “Janus! Derek!” cried out a very familiar voice to their right.

  A couple of hundred yards off, running hurriedly towards them, was Kent. He closed the distance quickly, nearly tripping over his own feet in his fervent haste to get to where the other two were standing.

  Janus’ heart leaped as he saw Kent suddenly jump off to the side, as a loud, piercing screech erupted from the ground level.

  A small lizard-like creature leapt up, startled from its hiding spot. Janus’ eyes caught a brief flash of its greenish exterior as its scaly body caught the sunlight. Its powerful legs pumped desperately as it bounded away from Kent.

  Janus watched the strange creature race into the distance, moving with incredible speed and agility. He had seen nothing like it in his life.

  Janus looked back quickly to Kent. His expression was of outright fear, mingled with a wave of consummate relief at having found them. He stumbled forward again, quickly covering the last stretch of ground that still remained between them.

  “You came out of nowhere, I thought I’d lost you guys forever,” he stammered, wide-eyed and dangerously close to hyperventilation.

  He looked to be on the cusp of hysteria. His eyes looked back in the direction where the lizard-creature had run, returning his attention a moment later towards Janus and Derek.

  “You couldn’t hear us calling for you?” Janus asked him.

  Kent appeared perplexed, as his brow furrowed. “I didn’t hear one word from you. I looked back, and I couldn’t see you or the boat either. Then the fog had thinned enough so that I could see the river that’s there now. You two were nowhere to be seen.”

  “Impossible. This is impossible,” Derek said pointedly, pacing around in a circle and shaking his head. He opened and closed his eyes several times, as he stared around at the sights around them.

  A soft breeze tossed some strands of hair into Janus’ face, as he looked up into the teal sky in absolute incredulity. He had no inkling regarding an explanation for had just happened, his mind spinning as it tried to come up with a rationale.

  “Where are we? What is this?” Kent asked Janus hurriedly, panic manifest in his tone and face.

  Janus gave a pained smile, as he lowered his gaze towards Kent. He spoke gently to his friend, “Kent, can we all have just lost our minds? I don’t think so, but I don’t have any idea what this all is, or means.”

  “We are in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing out here, nothing at all! Wherever you look, nothing!” Kent declared.

  He gave a wide, dramatic sweep of his hand as he spoke, the gesture taking in the full immensity of their unfamiliar environment. Janus’ eyes followed Kent’s gesture, and he could not deny that there was not one singular sign of any human presence or activity. It was a totality of open wilderness, beautiful and daunting at the same time.

  “What is this place?” Kent prodded again, as if the others might actually know the answer. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know, and Janus doesn’t know!” Derek declared tersely.

  Janus had never before seen Derek looking so exasperated, but like himself he knew that Derek was entirely devoid of answers. That cognizance alone was enough to add further to Janus’ own increasing trepidation.

  “I don’t know either, Kent,” Janus
added quietly.

  His nerves had already been frayed, and his emotions had long been spent, so there was little left within him to cope with the inherent shock of the moment.

  There was no other way around it. Unless they were all suffering from a homogenous, mass hallucination, the impossible had become possible. His first inclination was that they had literally stepped right out of their own world, potentially into a world of a different time and place. The scope of that notion was at once overwhelming, and mind-boggling. It also seemed totally absurd, and a part of Janus immediately dismissed the thought as a momentary shred of hysteria present within himself.

  It was ridiculous to think that the stuff of dreams and fantastical tales had somehow manifested into a bold new existence, but there was a hard and undeniable reality to everything around them. Janus knew that whatever the case might be, they were at the mercy of something far beyond his comprehension.

  “I’m going crazy … man, I am going crazy!” Kent said, his eyes gleaming with fear, moistening as tears of helplessness came into them.

  He looked as if he were about to come apart at every seam.

  Without a word, Derek walked with quick, purposeful strides over towards Kent. Derek reached out and grabbed him forcefully by the shoulders, bringing Kent around to face him directly as he waited for Kent to look back up.

  “Come on Kent! Get a grip on yourself!” he said firmly. His gaze seemed composed of iron, as if compelling Kent to take some strength from it. Though he spoke to Kent with a commanding tone, Janus heard the strong sympathy and compassion underlying the words. “I don’t blame you for feeling what you are feeling. But whatever all of this is, we are all in it together right now. And we have to work with what we’ve got.”

  Janus had nothing to add to Derek’s statement, and he did not want to do anything to rattle Kent. He decided to demonstrate calmness while Kent’s faculties swayed on the edge. Janus lowered himself down on the ground into a sitting position near to the other two.