Lost Lands

by Shaun L Griffiths

  Do they know we are here? The thought kept running through his mind. Maybe Holly’s giving away her position to whoever was calling her, to whoever was ordering her to do the things she does.

  He crept forward, Holly’s scent getting stronger all the time.

  Does she know I’m here? Can she sense me? he wondered.

  His answer came unexpectedly. Though he could see nothing ahead through the blowing snowstorm, a voice came to him. ‘I knew you’d come, Carter. You always do.’

  He crept forward a few more steps and saw her, crouched low, staring at him, waiting for him to emerge from the storm.

  ‘Why, Holly, why did you run off?’

  ‘I need it, Carter. The bears will take it from me. They’ll take it back to the Northlands.’

  ‘But it’s theirs, Holly. It doesn’t belong to you.’

  ‘It belongs to whoever holds it. They took it from the apes long ago.’

  Carter lay crouching beside her, his head next to hers, his mouth very close to her ear. He realised this was not the time to argue with her. ‘There are apes all around, and they’re moving behind us.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I can smell them.’

  ‘We’ll be caught if we try to break through. I think they’ve made a line ahead, as if they’re expecting us. Has that voice been calling you again?’

  ‘It’s trying, but I’m getting better at forcing it away. I can stop myself from doing what it tells me now, except when I’m asleep.’

  ‘So why don’t you stop doing this? Stop trying to take the Crystal.’

  ‘This is for me, Carter. It was promised to me by Duma. It’s not for HIM, it never was.’

  ‘We’re not going to get through those apes as there’s too many, and if we don’t move soon, they’ll have us surrounded.’

  ‘I can still pick up our trail from this evening. We can go back to the cave and hide until they’ve passed. They’ll never find the cave in this storm,’ she said.

  ‘No, Holly! Naz and Vin will walk straight into this trap. They’ll never survive so many apes on them. We must go back to warn them. They’re our friends, remember?’

  Holly lay, unmoving, torn between the choices.

  ‘It’s my Crystal, Carter.’

  ‘And they are your friends, Holly. Nothing is more important. That’s why I came back for you, because you’re my friend.’

  ‘But you haven’t seen it, seen how beautiful it is. You haven’t touched it.’

  ‘I don’t want to, but I do want to save you and my friends from dying at the hands of those apes.’

  Carter realised she was crying. For the first time since he ever knew her, she was crying.

  ‘Please, come with me, Holly,’ he said gently.

  Finally, she nodded and turned to look at him. ‘I’m sorry I got you into this mess, Carter.’

  He could see the tears freezing on the fur of her cheek. ‘You didn’t get me into it. I chose to come looking for you. I’m just happy you were there waiting for me.’

  She snuggled up against him. He felt her warmth on his face. ‘Let’s get out of here, Carter.’

  He turned and cautiously led them back the way they’d come, skirting around the apes that they could sense moving all around them.

  *

  Crouching low, Carter led the way back through the rising snow. Stepping carefully, testing each footfall before moving forward, they made slow progress. With snow continuing to fall, walking became more difficult. They had to raise themselves and their legs out of the mounting drifts before reaching forward to make the next step. They could follow the movements around them by following the odious smells, but there was still the possibility of walking into one unnoticed as the winds swirled around them.

  ‘They seem to be walking in circles around us,’ Carter said. ‘I don’t know if they are lost or deliberately looking for us here?’

  ‘I think He knows we are here.’

  Carter looked at her and could see the fear in her eyes. ‘We will get out of this, Holly. Just think of something else, anything. Just don’t think about where we are now, in case He hears your thoughts.’

  ‘I’ll think about Kerri, and all the fun we’ll have again when I get home.’

  Carter smiled for the first time in a long time. ‘I think about her all the time,’ he admitted.

  He could see Holly’s eyes relax and soften and knew she was smiling.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here, Carter, and when we get home, I can’t wait to tell Kerri you think about her all the time and…’

  ‘No! You can’t say that. Listen, we’ll talk about this later. We’ve got to concentrate on getting out of this mess, now Shhh! There’s another one close by. As soon as it passes, we’ll make a dash through. The ape is over there, to the right and coming this way. Now stay low.’

  They both lay flat in the snow. The large sticky flakes seemed to bury them within moments. In the darkness, Carter could create a picture of his world around him from his heightened sense of smell. His senses now on full alert, his heart missed a beat. There was a new presence picked up and it was heading straight at them. It was Naz, unmistakably unique, and he was close.

  Carter and Holly lay buried, unmoving, only the black tips of their noses above snow level, tracking and praying for the ape to quickly move further away.

  Carter raised his head, checking one last time all around them. ‘Come on, we must go now, or Naz and Vin will walk into a trap.’

  They both leapt from their cover below the snow, moving as quickly as the deep snow would allow, slipping between the encircling apes.

  Sensing no more apes ahead of them, Carter took leaping strides to get away. He soon picked up their own trail again. He could also sense Naz and Vin getting close. Raising his head, he could sense movement in the darkness. Moments later, they both stumbled out of the storm, almost invisible with their white fur, lost in the complete whiteout of the storm. Naz was shocked when Carter bumped into him again.

  ‘Am I glad to see you!’ shouted Naz over the screaming wind of the storm.

  ‘There’s no way through, Naz, the apes are everywhere ahead.’

  ‘Do they know you’re here?’

  ‘I think so. It’s like they’re walking in a circle around us. There’s just so many of them.’

  ‘The best we can hope for is for this snow to cover our tracks quickly,’ said Vin.

  ‘How far did you get?’ asked Naz.

  ‘We nearly reached the cave, but I know the apes were ahead and circling around behind us,’ said Carter. ‘There’s just no way through.’

  ‘All we can do now is run. We should give ourselves as much of a head start as we can,’ said Naz.

  ‘I don’t want to be here. If we’re caught they’ll do to us what they did to Duma,’ said Holly.

  ‘That’s not going to happen, Holly. We’ll take care of you. No matter what, Naz and me are gonna get you home,’ said Vin.

  ‘Listen, Vin, if they find Carter and Holly’s tracks back there, and realise whose they are, they’ll be right after us. If this storm stops soon, they’ll find us easily enough anyway by following our own tracks. We’ve gotta run, and fast.’

  Carter and Vin both nodded in agreement, but Holly stood, silently watching.

  ‘I’ve an idea,’ called Carter. ‘Holly, whoever is in your head mustn’t know where we are. Can you try thinking we are somewhere else?’

  ‘What do you mean, Carter?’ asked Holly.

  ‘Could you concentrate your thoughts to make whoever is trying to control you believe that you are nice and warm in the cave again, or sheltering somewhere in the town and you’re happy to be going home soon? Anything except thinking about being out in this storm.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fool him. I promise I will try, but what about when I’m asleep?’ said Holly.

  ‘Let’s worry about that later. For now, let’s give ourselves a head start.’

  10

  Cha
pter Ten

  Boarding the Boats

  CASEY STOOD BESIDE Sam on the dockside. ‘That’s it, that’s the last of the supplies and timbers stored. Everything we need to survive the winter is there. Come springtime, we’re on our own.’

  ‘We can do it, Casey. We’ve done it before. What worries me is finding the border. Otherwise, the lost people won’t live to see the spring.’

  ‘Has Lu said when we’re leaving?’ asked Kerri, stepping off the last boat to be loaded.

  ‘She and Salli have some loose ends to tie up. They’re focusing in on the one who’s controlling the apes and trying to manipulate Holly. They’re just waiting for Him to try to call Sonny one last time.’

  ‘What happened to our simple lives, Sam? Where did all this magic and manipulation suddenly come from?’

  ‘I think it was always there, Case. It was just that we lived in our dream world, isolated from it. It was Duma stealing that Crystal, a million leagues away, that brought it all to our border.’

  ‘He’s got a lot to answer for, that Duma.’

  ‘Let’s go and see what’s keeping Salli and Lu,’ Sam said.

  They walked into the kitchen where Lulu sat at the table. Salli stood, looking over her shoulder into a golden bowl of steaming liquid. Salli glanced up as they came in and quickly held her finger to her lips for them to be silent.

  The rose-coloured liquid was bubbling within the bowl as Salli and Lulu stared into it.

  Salli gripped Lu’s shoulders tight when the liquid became more and more agitated. Sam and Casey moved around each side of the table, but could see nothing but the boiling liquid.

  Inside the bowl, the surface finally settled and became still. The colour turned a deep crimson. Lu fell back in her seat, exhausted from the exertion of trying to project her thoughts through the vortex spinning within the bowl.

  ‘What was all that?’ asked Kerri in wonderment.

  ‘He’s losing his power of control and He’s becoming desperate. He’s made his first mistake.’

  ‘Who is He?’ asked Sam.

  ‘He is the one who’s after the Crystal, the one who’s controlling the apes, manipulating Holly and Sonny, and anyone else who’s ever come in contact with the Crystal.’

  ‘What just happened there?’ asked Casey.

  ‘He tried calling Holly, when she was awake,’ said Salli. ‘And for the first time, Holly has managed to keep Him out. She fought back and refused Him. She’s getting stronger now because she’s starting to understand what’s happening.

  ‘Then He tried to manipulate Sonny. But Sonny has probably drunk the berry juice and moss mixture Lu told Ben to give him, so Sonny is probably incapable of hearing or thinking anything.

  ‘So then He started lashing out at the apes, because they can’t find Holly and Carter. In His anger, He lost control of himself… His mask slipped… He revealed himself!’

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling us,’ said Sam.

  ‘That’s because I’ve only now found out for sure. I always suspected, but never knew for certain. But now I know,’ said Salli.

  ‘Know what?’ said Sam, getting exasperated.

  ‘I know who He is.’

  *

  There was an expectant silence as Salli stood quietly, composing her thoughts.

  Finally, Casey spoke up. ‘Are you going to tell us who He is?’

  ‘For that, I have to go back a long, long way, and I think now is probably the time for Lu to know everything,’ said Salli. She looked at Sam.

  Sam nodded. ‘It’s been hidden for too long,’ he said.

  Salli moved to sit beside Lulu and took her hand.

  ‘Lu, there’s something that’s been kept from you, and it was hidden to protect me. But now you’re Queen, you need to know everything. You see, I’m not from this Clan. I came here as a young girl. Well, “came” may be the wrong word. I was found, by your father. I was in a boat, floating downriver. I was unconscious, without food or water. I’ve no idea how long I’d been drifting, but it was many, many days. I’ve tried to stay hidden since the day your father pulled me ashore.’

  ‘Why are you hiding, Mom?’

  ‘Because I ran away. I escaped from my own land and took something very precious belonging to the people who live there.’

  ‘Is this something we should all hear?’ asked Casey.

  ‘Yes, please stay. You and Kerri should know. This secret has been too heavy for me for too long. It’s time people knew,’ said Salli.

  ‘You see, when I was a young girl, my family were part of the society that ruled over my land. My father was the one who kept the keys to the Treasury. All the most precious artefacts that belonged to the land and the people were stored there. It was his responsibility to account for everything and to ensure everything was kept safe.

  ‘In our society, families would arrange for the marriage of their children. The children can never choose who they wed. Fathers try to arrange their children’s marriage with a family of their own status, and because my father held an important position in the land, he wanted me to marry someone from a family of equal standing. The boy they chose for me was from a family whose father was the Lawgiver of the land. It was understood that this boy would take over his father’s position one day, as the judge of all our people in matters of the law. At that time, we had good and just laws, we had good governance and we had a prosperous society. It was not perfect, but people were generally happy.’

  Sam and Casey joined them, sitting at the table. Sam could see Casey’s jaw dropping further as Salli continued her story.

  ‘Because the boy’s father was the Lawgiver, the father had access to The Book of Wisdom. This book is one of The Three, written and passed down to us by the people who first ruled over our lands. They built the society as we knew it. We only knew them as The Ancients. They gave us The Book of Wisdom, which told us how to rule fairly over all people. It contained the laws, and the reasoning that people should follow, to ensure our society was always free and fair.

  ‘They also gave us The Book of Histories. This book told the story of our birth, the birth of all peoples. It told of the lands The Ancients came from over the sea and how they settled in the new land. It told of their kings, the rulers and lawgivers. It also told why they left their own land to cross the seas. The Books of Wisdom and Histories together taught us How and Why the Lawgivers should always answer to the people, and not the other way around.

  ‘But The Book of Histories was stolen from us by a people who appeared in our land one day, as if out of nowhere. We now know that these people owned a Crystal that gave them powers to cross borders at will. They came, they saw, they destroyed and they pillaged what they could find. One thing they found was The Book of Histories. We now know that this book was then taken from them by Ran, the hero of the Northlands where the Snow Bears live, where Naz and Vin live. It was Naz that told me of his people’s past, and of Ran also taking the Crystal. This is the same Crystal that Vin and Naz’s people kept safe, until it was stolen by Duma and all our troubles started.’

  ‘You said there were three books, Mom, but you’ve only told us of two,’ said Lulu.

  Salli sat for a moment, staring off into the distance, into the past, into a life long ago. She looked again to Lulu.

  ‘The ancients also gave us a third book, The Book of Power. This one was the most important because in it, the ancients told of a Crystal that was given to them by a people from another “AGE”. The Crystal was a gift that could open borders to all lands. It could unite all peoples under one Voice, one Law, one past and one future. When that happened, the book told how to use the power of the Crystal to join again with the ones who’d given the Crystal to us. It told of an unimaginable knowledge and power.

  ‘Of course, without the Crystal, the book was simply words written that couldn’t be used or even understood. To use the power of the Crystal, you needed to have the three books together. You had to know where the Crystal came fro
m, so that you may know where it will lead, what to look for, the wisdom to use it correctly and directions on how to control its hidden powers. It was said that when these three books came together with the Crystal, then unlimited power was possible.

  ‘The Book of Power was always thought to be too dangerous to be read by anyone who didn’t first know the history and with it, the dangers. They also needed the wisdom to know what was just and fair in its use. So, this book was always kept locked away, for the day when the Crystal came together with the three books, and a people judged worthy enough to finally bring them together, to connect again with the past and to form our future.’

  ‘But what has all this to do with you, Mom? You haven’t told us why you must hide, or what you’re afraid of,’ said Lulu.

  ‘It’s because I stole The Book of Power. I have it here.’

  There was a stunned silence around the table. Everyone sat staring at Salli in disbelief.

  Finally, she took a deep breath, ‘It’s a long story and we need to leave. The boats are ready and the people are on board. Come, I’ll explain everything when we are underway. I’ll feel a lot safer when we are moving.’

  *

  They stood on deck, watching the men push the remaining boats off the beach into the gently flowing current. Arms were offered to help the men into the boats. Walkway planks were drawn in and the last of the Clan looked back at the half-moon beach with the meeting place nestling behind.

  This had been the centre of their society for many summers, where they’d sat at nights discussing the Clan’s problems, agreeing on where the Clan would go, laughing and dancing, telling tales of their heroes and their legends. There was not one person on the boats that did not feel a deep sense of loss.

  Kerri stood beside Lulu at the stern of the final boat to leave. Lu reached for her hand and squeezed it tight. She turned to her and said, ‘I promise you, we’ll come back when this is all over and we’ll build a town, a place where we can settle, and learn to grow, a place the families will be proud to call home.’