by Julian Cheek
SLAP
“Sam.”
SLAP
“is.”
SLAP
“such.”
SLAP
“a.”
SLAP
“baby.”
SLAP
“and must.”
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“grow UPPPPPP!”
SLAP
Steel eyes and determination mixed with self-loathing and anger combined to create a cold, calculating monster in front of him in the mirror as he watched. He was powerless to stop him and his red, ruddy cheeks throbbed in protest at the recent assault, but he was beyond caring right now. I deserve it, he thought. I deserve everything coming to me.
Sam breathed deeply, gasping for air in huge, half-sobbing lunges, but he had control of his “weaker self” and he did not allow himself to cry, to be human. Oh no, that was for other folk. Not Sam. Not Sam who let his own brother die.
He sank down slowly against the side of the bath. Feeling the bathroom mat under him, the reassuring warmth of the radiator pulsing against his body. He brought his legs back under him and gazed up at the ceiling light. For once, letting the fight ease out of him. Sensing, once more, that what had happened was a process he needed to work through. Necessary, but painful, nonetheless. He just sat still, feeling his chest move up and down with the exertion and his eyes never leaving the burning light from the ceiling…
The Gathering
For one brief moment, he was sure that the light had got noticeably brighter and bigger and he focussed his attention on looking at what had caused the fluctuation. Instead of a ceiling light, he was now gazing directly at a large and very real looking sun, dappled as its rays filtered through a mist bank which appeared to cover the whole visible area in front of him. Sam was also aware now of the smell. A heady sappy smell of wood surrounded him and invaded his senses. “What on earth…” he began. Looking around, his face almost immediately came into contact with incredibly large and very wet fronds of forest fern and scrabbling back in panic, his hands groped for purchase on beds of damp leaves and mud. Where am I? was all that escaped his befuddled mind. Panic, which had been slowly bubbling under the surface, erupted out into his consciousness and the only thought he had was to flee. Anywhere! Somewhere!
Pushing blindly through the lush foliage, Sam started to shout out for help, hoping that someone was within earshot who could come and rescue him from this bizarre place. Only deep and impenetrable silence returned his pleas and he soon gave up, concentrating instead on trying to gather his wits about him and work out where the hell he was!
That’s weird! he thought, pushing yet another large fern branch out from is path. This mist is everywhere, and yet behind me, it is as clear as day. This announcement opened a padlock in his mind and he smiled to himself in relief. I know where I am. Dreaming. Again. He allowed himself to relax now that he started to get his bearings, but this lasted only for a brief moment as he remembered the other elements of the last dream he had had regarding this place. Death and destruction, strange people and animals rushed through his mind’s eye and he resolved to take things very carefully for the next few minutes so as not to stumble on any more strangeness.
Sam continued on his way, slowly forging a path through the branches and fern banks until he started to be aware of the sound of running water ahead of him. Slowly he drew nearer to the source and, after a final push through the last tangle of branches, he emerged next to a pond into which a small waterfall tumbled, the source of the noise. It took some time until he noticed that the pond and the surroundings, the rocks and trees around him were now all visible. The mist, prevalent up till now, had disappeared and he saw the whole area as one. It was majestic! Majestic, and also very very dangerous, he realised with a start, as he recognised exactly where he was. As if for confirmation, he looked past the pond and the waterfall and looked intently at the edge of the forest beyond. Sure enough, Sam saw a clear carved line off across the other side of the pond. A line carved through the mist beyond. A line made by someone. Him!
“This is THAT pond!” he exclaimed with fright. He quickly ducked down and scanned the area in case the creature he had first encountered was lying again in wait to scare the shingles off of him. Today, however, all was quiet and peace settled in the area like a warming blanket. Sam relaxed and breathed out his angst.
Still, Sam was resolved to move away from the setting, just in case, but also knew that if he followed the route he had originally made, he would eventually find the path. And the path, he remembered, introduced him to a man he had met later. A man he had no interest in meeting any time soon. Warrior, or something like that, he remembered.
Sam stood up from his hiding place and, gazing out for inspiration, decided to head in the opposite direction to the route he had first made. Cutting through the tree line, he now headed uphill to see what other as yet unencountered parts of this world awaited him.
His route took him up through the tree line and occasionally he intersected a river which, he assumed, fed the pond below him. As he travelled further, he started to think about the mist that always seemed to be present and yet, never closed up behind him. Why is it, he thought, that this mist is always here and yet refuses to act as mist should act? Curious, he decided to cut in a different direction and sure enough, the mist path now forged the same route as he was travelling. Almost as if it were following him. “This is a bit creepy,” he commented to no one in particular. He soon came out into a clearing where the trees were less dense and the grasses more prevalent. The sunshine filtered through the mist banks and formed many strange patterns as it was refracted by the mist above. Sam was noticing this when his eyes fell on a change of texture beyond. Another path cut across his field of vision. As before, this dust path was well worn and tracks were evident criss-crossing the surface. A route well travelled, he thought. He moved towards it until he was centrally positioned on the path and stopped. Hands on hips, he looked in both directions deciding which direction to go but there were few clues to go by. He turned left. Despite his encounters so far in this dream space, he still recognised that it was best to try to find some form of civilisation and a path must eventually lead to someone or somewhere.
Sam continued walking along the dirt track, senses heightened and alert for the merest sound of things beyond. Today, however, peace seemed to reign in this particular neck of the land. The track undulated over fields and through more fern banks dotted here and there. Things are so silent here. In fact, since coming here, I don’t think I have heard or seen a single bird! This made him look up from his wanderings to scan the skies beyond, but there was nothing. Only a long, meandering track to who knew where, fields, and nothing else. Not that he could see anyway. Slowly the track started to go downhill and, after a bend in the road, Sam stopped. Quickly. Beyond, and just visible through the shifting folds of the mist banks, he thought he could see a largish body of water. The sunlight, he saw, seemed to glint off the water and send welcoming shafts of light up towards him. There were no waves evident so he assumed it was perhaps a lake. Closer towards him was the source of his focus, causing him to stop in the first place. A small hamlet of huts and shanty houses nestled along the bank of the lake, smoke wisping lazily upwards from a few fires within. The houses were all made of timber spars, he noticed. Felt and peat roofs were standard here and occasionally, he noticed a few of the houses were built of stouter rock. The path he was on wound its way down an incline and through the centre of this scattering of huts, pausing at a larger square within the community. A square which had a number of people sitting together, or standing to one side or another chatting to each other. He felt a sense of peace pervaded the area. Here there were no rebels, no death or destruction. Just a community going about its business. Sam carefully moved down towards the village, ready to bolt if the need arose.
The first person to spot him was a young boy of about 10 who bounced out of a hollow in the rocks just off the path in front o
f him, intent on a game he was playing. Sam gasped involuntarily, which in turn attracted the attention of the youth who stopped his “game” immediately and just stared at Sam with wide eyes, mouth open in shock and hands still grasping the bent stick he had been playing with earlier. The boy’s face was streaked with sweat and dirt but his eyes shone through this self-made mask with clear intensity as he appraised Sam from his vantage point. He was clothed in rags and wore a short pair of trousers. His shirt still possessed a few buttons and a pocket, out of which, Sam noticed, a small snout poked, sniffing the air carefully to appraise this new potential danger. The boy’s eyes roamed over Sam like a watch dog, and, curiously then, also around the space that Sam occupied. He appeared to be puzzled at something, scratching his head in some confusion as if weighing up what he saw with what he thought he should have seen.
“Where is your Padme?” the boy asked with the innocence of youth, rubbing a grubby arm across the face of his nose and sniffing at the same time… “Is he hiding in your cloak, mister?”
Sam had no idea who or what a Padme was and was at a loss how to respond. Instead, Sam asked the youth, “Where exactly am I and what village is that over there?” pointing down into the hamlet below, shrouded slightly in the mist.
The boy appeared unfazed that his question had been ignored and, squinting down towards the village, replied, “That’s Baradin. I live there. Do you want to come and visit?” Sam was not expecting that invitation and at first was at a loss what to say, but he was rescued from further speech when the boy jumped off the rocks and without waiting for an answer, bounced off down the path, beckoning Sam to come and at the same time, looking back over his shoulder to make sure Sam was following.
Sam followed! With some trepidation he argued that it was better to enter a village with someone the inhabitants recognised than alone and as a potential stranger.
The boy waited for Sam to catch up, but his boyish curiosity meant that the waiting was more like bouncing back to Sam and then circling him like a predator looking at prey he did not yet realise was going to be his dinner. All the while, the boy was looking Sam up and down, and more than once, his gaze roamed over Sam’s clothing looking for something, and scrunching up his face in confusion when what he was expecting to find wasn’t where it should be. Occasionally, as if to seek some reassurance, his gaze slipped off of Sam and roamed the surrounding fields and the skies above, looking in vain for something that Sam had not the slightest idea was supposed to be there. “Where do you hide him then?” he said. “Is he invisible?”
Now Sam was the one to scrunch up his face as he wondered what on earth this boy was asking him. “Sorry, ummmmm.” Sam thought it was wiser to change the subject so he asked the youth what his name was and waited for an answer.
“Pit!” said Pit, jumping between puddles on the path, almost distracted by new found things to occupy his world. “I am Pit. Who are you?”
“Sam,” said Sam. Better, he thought, to keep where I am from and what I have experienced to myself for the time being. I can’t afford for Pit to go screaming off down to his folks in fear before I have had a chance to introduce myself.
By now, they had reached the outskirts of the small village. Typical noises of someone cutting wood, or hitting things to make implements, or babies crying and mothers cooing to them filtered through the normal sounds attributed to any rural village he was familiar with. He was able to see more of the activities now that he was close enough for the mist to play little part in cloaking things. The village looked beautiful. Peaceful. Something settled softly into his comfort zone locked deep within him. “Baradin. I like this place,” he declared to himself.
Ahead of him, some people were sitting around a log fire which was burning grandly in the centre of a clearing. Odd groups of people sat or stood together, discussing or chatting about life, he assumed. Elsewhere either mothers or fathers were jostling with various children who were either running around them, or dancing between them with laughter. Further beyond the clearing, he noticed the water’s edge of the lake which now appeared to have a deep sky blue hue rather than the normal greeny-blue of cold water lakes he was used to. In fact, the more he looked, the more he was sure that the lake itself seemed to have some sort of glow emanating from within. Something to enquire about at a later time, he reminded himself. The houses all had that well worn appearance as if they had been built a great while ago. Lichen and moss grew from out of timber spars and roof shingles and the buildings spoke of strength and community. Of welcome and of security. Sam felt at peace in this place.
Sam’s sixth sense managed to awake a strange curiosity in him as he slowly became aware that everywhere he looked, animals of all shapes and sizes were either running with the people here, or were being carried, or slept comfortably next to the folk. In fact, he was sure he had not seen this anywhere else, ever!
Pit by now had disappeared, looking for his parents, Sam assumed, and it was not long before a small crowd formed off to one side of the village square, jostling around an excited small form, Pit. Pit was gesticulating, and his body tried to reinforce what his fingers were describing. Many times he looked up and pointed towards Sam and slowly, the crowd started to move towards him as he hovered at the edge of the village fire. As the villagers got nearer, some started to raise their hands to their faces, others pointed at Sam, turned to their neighbours and spoke in hushed tones, seeking an answer to their questions. Sam sensed that he was being inspected and dissected like an insect, and instinctively took a few steps backward in defence. By now their voices had reached babbling proportions as they all started to appear to discuss and argue amongst themselves, almost ignoring Sam in their debates. Almost!
Snippets of sentences came floating over to him. “How can you say that, Marika? It surely cannot be…”
“It is He. I swear it!”
“…Tread warily…”
All this and more jostled for attention as the crowd gazed at Sam in shock, disbelief or horror, it seemed. Pit, whose initial excitement was of being the one to introduce Sam to his village, now was fighting with conflicting emotions as he sensed and heard things that scared him. His parents didn’t normally act this way when other people came to their village.
One of the older men, after looking at a few of the elders for agreement, stepped out from the crowd and the people fell silent. “I am Niko, leader of the Baradin,” he proclaimed. “We welcome you here in peace, stranger, although we have some who feel it is their right to make pronouncements before you can introduce yourself!” This said, pointedly as he looked at some of the crowd, who shrunk back for a moment. “Our son,” he continued, resting his hand on Pit’s head, who beamed from underneath it, “often brings curious things back to the village and it would appear that today he has outdone himself for indeed, what we see before us is both curious and a portent. We must ask who you are and what brings you to our humble village.”
Sam heard all this but the way the man asked him these questions, seemed odd. Why am I a portent? he asked himself. Why the strange greeting?
“My name is Sam,” he began. “My name is Sam and to tell you the truth…” He got no further as voices took over for a second as a clamour from within the knot of people gathered around Pit and Niko.
“You see? I told you…”
“It cannot be I tell you. He was lost to us…”
“Has he returned to save us?…”
“Where is his Padme?”
“That word again,” Sam said, amongst the other feelings shooting through his mind.
“Still!” ordered Niko. “Be quiet, all of you. All will be made clear when Sam is allowed to speak…” Looking directly at Sam, he then asked, “I have lived many years and seen things I wish never to see or experience again. I have heard of things both impossible and amazing to consider. Of news from the distant corners of our empire. Of death and destruction as the Ethereals were decimated by the hand and direction of ‘The Nameless One’. I have h
eard, as well, of one who came and stood and brought to an end, the power of him. I have heard and seen all this, and yet today, of all days, one stands before us who is recognised and seen. But this cannot be. For he was lost to us and lost forever. You cannot be! And you travel without your Padme. All this is too much to understand, so we must ask, are you indeed, ‘Sam of the Shades’ and have you come to stop that which must be stopped? Or are you a spirit?”
Sam sprang back in shock. There is that name again! he thought. Where have I heard “Sam of the Shades” before? And then he remembered a previous encounter where someone had called him that also, shortly before knocking him out with a massive club!
Sam, who, a few moments before, thought that Baradin was perhaps the most beautiful and peaceful village he had ever visited, was now thinking that these people were affected by some mental blight and he resolved, yet again, to leave this place as soon as possible.
He looked first at Pit, who was now looking at him from under deep and dirty eyebrows, then at Niko as he stood fierce and determined in front of his people, then at the people themselves. Many of them, despite Niko’s instruction to be quiet, were talking angrily behind him, pulling shirts and dresses for attention and casting furtive glances over to Sam to check he was still really there.
Sam straightened up and looked at Niko, saying, “I am afraid I have absolutely no idea what you are on about! I do not know what a Padme is and I am definitely not from any Shades. Furthermore, it does not matter. You will all soon disappear anyway!” Sam said this last as an attempt to make light of what he thought was quickly becoming a bit of a farce. It had the wrong effect!
The people suddenly all stopped talking and looked at him in fear. Some started to move back into the safety of the village and others made glances back to their huts and houses for possible weapons that might be necessary. They started to speak amongst themselves asking whether this person was actually here to destroy them. As panic increased within the throng, a movement started towards the back of the crowd and slowly but surely, a “bubble” moved its way forward, people parting as it moved inexorably onward, despite all the frightened and, at times, angry comment coming from these people. An old lady emerged from within the protection of the people, and they, on recognising her, started to quieten down until there was absolute silence.