If he could find the gateway again, he could mark it and then search for Kerri. She had come for him, so he wasn’t going to leave without her. He walked slowly, not really sure what to look for, but believing Kerri had to be right. It must be here.
Naz sat on Sonny, pinning him to the ground.
‘You’ll come with us to speak with the Big Boss. If you give us your word that you won’t try to escape, then you can walk as a free man or free cat...’ said the boss to Sonny.
‘I’m not a cat, I’m a...’
‘I told you, boss,’ said Naz.
‘If you refuse, we’ll take you back as a cat tied to a pole. If you try to escape, we will catch you, and you’ll also be brought into camp as a cat tied…’
‘I’m not a cat, I’m a...’
‘He’s a liar, it’s obvious he’s a cat,’ said Naz. ‘Don’t trust him, boss.’
Sonny made a sigh of resignation. ‘Why does your boss want to talk with me?’ said Sonny, breathless under Naz’s weight.
‘Because you’re the son of that thieving, lying Duma. It’s for the Big Boss to explain.’
‘Okay, okay, I’ll return with you, but I’ll not do anything to betray my father,’ said Sonny.
Naz stood and went into a deep animated conversation with Jojo, their lowered voices too quiet for the others to hear. Finally a decision was reached and Naz shrugged with resignation.
Jojo turned to the others. ‘You’ve all heard him give his word. If you break it, you’ll be judged by us all,’ he said.
Naz approached Kerri and Casey.
‘The one called Sam invited me to visit your land,’ said Naz. ‘I hope when peace has returned, I may take him up on the offer. Please tell him that I’d like to extend the invitation to him, to visit my land. I have great respect for him.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. He’ll be our King soon,’ said Casey.
Everyone stood in shock.
‘A king... has invited me...’ said Naz stumbling over his words.
‘What happened?’ said Kerri.
‘I’ll explain everything later,’ Casey told her.
‘My people will understand why your children fought against us, and we’ll not blame you,’ said Naz.
He turned, shaking his head, still in disbelief, and headed north at a steady run.
‘I’ll come with you to the border and show you the gateway home, then we must return quickly to my boss, if we are not too late,’ said Jojo
‘Too late for what?’ asked Casey.
‘Come, we’ll talk as we walk, but quickly,’ he said. ‘If it’s not too late for us to get back the crystal his father, Duma, stole from us,’ Jojo said looking at Sonny.
‘I don’t know anything about a crystal,’ said Sonny, but as soon as he spoke, he realised that really he did.
A memory came back to him of a time not long after his father had returned home. He was intrigued by low voices late in the night. He’d moved quietly through the house and saw the door to the kitchen was ajar. His father was at the table; opposite him sat Dray. The candle had burnt low, but his father’s face was filled with a strange glow. A glow emanating from a box his father held. There was a secret being discussed, and his father did not want to hear what was being said.
But it was the look on his father’s face that shocked him. It was a look he’d never seen before. Was it greed? He was rubbing his hands together as if overawed by the sight of something in the box, some thing, which was glowing. He’d never seen his father looking this way before, and it frightened him.
Sonny had stepped back into the shadows, not wanting to be seen, and very quietly returned to his own room. Later, he’d asked his Uncle Dray about their trip, but he’d refused to discuss it with Sonny. Now he realised why his father had changed since he’d returned from the expedition to the Northern Border, changed so much that Sonny no longer recognised him. Now he understood. He was possessed by greed and corrupted by owning such an object.
The three had stopped to look at him. Kerri was the first to speak.
‘And you don’t know anything about this, Sonny?’ she said.
They saw in Sonny’s face that he now believed what Jojo was saying to be true.
‘When my father and uncle returned they said they hadn’t found the border, it was just another failed expedition. Will you tell me what happened when my father arrived in your land?’
Jojo was quiet for sometime, trying to decide where to start his story.
Finally he said, ‘For you to understand what happened, you need to understand how it all began.’
Jojo’s eyes seemed to be staring off into the distance, far away, back to his own land, back to the start of all their problems.
‘They were once men, like us,’ Jojo began, ‘great explorers, great questioners, and great experimenters. They had so much knowledge and understood our world so well.
‘The story that’s been repeated was that they’d travelled far to the east, some say for months or years. There, they’d met a people who were very primitive in their eyes. They had a very small language, very few words. They built no houses, they created no art. They spent their time in temporary shelters, always moving over their land, eating the fruits they found and chasing wild animals to eat. They were a dying race and they seemed possessed.
‘But they owned one thing they all worshipped. An object sacred to them. They said it had been given to them by the stars. It had fallen to them in a sheet of fire. It was a crystal, which gave off a glow that warmed you and drew you closer, and made you want to touch it. Once you’d seen it, you wanted to hold it, and hold it tight. They said because it had strong power they always kept it covered under animal skins. But even so, the glow could still be seen at night.
‘Of course, the travellers had asked to see it, but of course they were refused. It was sacred to them. One night, one of the travellers crept into the tent where it was kept and lifted the skins to look. It was written in their records of the journey that the one who looked always said later he couldn’t stop himself. Well, that was the start of all our problems. Once he’d looked, he wanted to hold, and once he’d held, the guards came in and thought he wanted to steal.
‘The guards attacked him, the other travellers attacked the guards, and then the rest of the people attacked the travellers. Come morning, half of everyone was dead, with the survivors running for their lives westward, with a crystal in their possession and a lot of angry people chasing them.
‘No one understands how they survived, but they managed to keep ahead of their pursuers for days. One day, they found the crystal had started to make a noise, a very low humming sound, which got louder as the day wore on, and it was getting brighter. Then, without any warning to them, there was an enormous flash. They’d passed through what we now call a gateway back into their own lands. What they’d found, what they had stolen, was a key that opened a gateway they could always keep with them. It never crumbled nor disintegrated. They could come and go as they wanted. But they’d also changed.’
‘What did they change into?’ asked Kerri.
‘That’s the tragic part. They’d changed into something that looked like an ape, but they lost everything that resembled human values. They were very mean. And angry. Always angry. And vicious. And..., well, you wouldn’t want to get in the way of one. It’s said they were so mean because they’d become possessed by the crystal. They all wanted to own it. They were always fighting amongst themselves. They just lost any sense of reason. They learnt to change back to men quickly enough, but they didn’t seem to act as men anymore.’
‘But you keep saying, ‘It is said.’ How do you know any of this is true?’ asked Casey.
‘It was all written down, and the books from their journey survive. But I’ve never seen them.’
They’d come to the scorched grasslands and realised that the border must be close. In the east, smoke was billowing high into the air from the burning forest. An ominous sense of danger seemed
to rise with the clouds.
‘What you must know is the more these people used the crystal to open a gateway, the more of their reasoning they lost and the less able they were to change back to men, until the day came when there were no more men, nor women, nor children. Just mean and angry apes.
‘The most dangerous thing is that these things have no sense of danger. They are afraid of nothing. They will attack anyone or anything they meet.’
‘Have you ever been face to face with one?’ said Kerri.
‘No, and I’d be very happy never to meet one. They found our border and opened a gateway to our land to invade us just to cause destruction, simply because we were there. We had nothing they needed, nor seemed to want, except chaos and death. They just seemed thirsty for blood. It’s said they wanted to punish everyone around for their own sins.
‘After years of this destruction, one of our guards, a very brave man called Ran, decided he’d try to stop them. He was bigger than Naz; he was so big they had to make the doors larger. He followed them to the border and saw how the crystal shone, and hummed, and opened a gateway.
‘He thought, if he could take the crystal, they wouldn’t be able to return to our land. So, before the apes had travelled too far from their own border, while the gateway was still open, he rushed through.
‘Because the border was in the forest, it was easy for him to hide. He followed them to their town, which was now falling to the ground because they didn’t care about anything anymore. He found what must have once been a magnificent building. He said there were images of people cut into rock. And stones on the floors that had been made into colourful pictures. And there were books he could read.
‘We were amazed because we realised these ape things must have been men once, the same as us. The same language, the same writing, except they were much more advanced. So he took the books, which were of no use to them anymore. But he also succeeded in his main task. That night, he overpowered the one guarding the crystal and took it. He ran for the border and managed to get home without being caught.
‘What we didn’t know was, because they’d touched the crystal and lived with it for so long, they now had different skills. They had ‘sight.’ They could see across the border, and see us. But of course they couldn’t get through. They were always prowling up and down the border watching us. It’s said the only other sense they had left was sensing the whereabouts of the crystal, and it was driving them mad because they couldn’t get to it.’
‘And did Ran become possessed?’ asked Kerri.
‘No. He was a very strong man. That’s why he’s a hero to us. He knew this crystal would drive us all mad. He’d touched it for only a short time, but he’d felt it’s power. We found that if we placed it in a box made of gold, we were protected from its power. We didn’t want it, but we also didn’t want the apes to have it, because they would attack us again.’
‘And this is the box my father has?’ said Sonny.
‘Yes. When your father and the one called Dray arrived in our land, he was the first of your people we’d met. We welcomed them. We showed them our culture and played our music to them. He heard the stories of our heroes and their adventures. And he heard about the books. It’s said that he read them, and he found out about the crystal. Then he wanted to see the box, just to prove it was real, he said. Then he wanted to look inside. Of course we refused him; we knew the power of it.
‘Our people were never corrupted by it, so we felt there was no reason to guard it. Until the morning we found it was gone, and so was your father. We also saw the apes no longer prowled the forest. They’d moved south. So we knew where the crystal had gone. It was brought here, but it’s too near the forest. They can feel it’s close and it’s driving them mad.’ Jojo looked at Sonny. ‘This is why the boss wants to speak with you.’
‘I know this may mean little to you,’ said Sonny, ‘I am sorry for what’s happened, that your welcome and trust was betrayed. I want you to know, this isn’t the father I grew up with. My people are not like this.’
Jojo suddenly felt sorry for the son who’d lost his father.
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Casey, ‘I thought the border was a force that can’t be seen or broken?’
‘It can with fire.’ said Jojo.
‘So if the forest is burning, does this mean there will no longer be a border?’ asked Kerri.
‘Yes, that’s why I sent Naz ahead, to warn everyone the forest is burning. The prison door is now open and some very evil creatures will be looking for revenge. We must protect the crystal, take it back to our land far from their reach. I fear they’ll come through a gap in the forest, where it’s burnt. And when they do, this land will be lost. But what we should all fear more is if the forest doesn’t stop burning, then these creatures will be free to rampage across my land and yours,’ Jojo said to Casey.
‘You must return quickly and tell your people of what you’ve seen and heard here. And you must tell them to prepare.’
‘Sam’s our leader now, he’ll trust your words.’ said Casey.
‘Tell the one called Sam that we understand now why your children were in the passes. We’ll not blame them for fighting with us. In this coming crisis, we’ll need to be as one people,’ said Jojo.
They reached the grasslands, each of them knowing there was a war about to start.
‘Also tell your King,’ Jojo said, looking at Casey, ‘neither you nor him should return through a gateway. If you don’t have the power to change yourselves into your inner self, you’ll get old and sick very quickly. You may not survive. If you need to send a messenger, send one who has the power to change.’
Casey recognised the marker he’d left close to the gateway when he’d come through.
‘We’re here,’ he said.
Sonny pointed out the circle of shimmering light. ‘There’s your way home,’ he said.
‘But what about the black stones?’ Kerri said in a rush. ‘Are they dangerous? And where did they come from?’’
‘That’s a story for a different day,’ said Jojo. ‘You’ll not be hurt by them. Go now and warn your people.’
Sonny and Jojo stood for a moment longer and watched as Kerri and Casey stepped into their own land. With the last flash, Jojo turned to Sonny, ‘Now we must run,’ he said.
Kerri and Casey stepped side by side into the opaque light of the tunnel. They were about to step through, but Kerri pulled him back. The light was flashing around them; they couldn’t yet see their homeland.
‘What is it, Kerri?’ Casey said.
‘I’m going back. I’m going to find Carter.’
‘Kerri, you must come back with me. We can get more men, get some help. It’s too dangerous on your own.’
‘I won’t be on my own, I’ll be with Carter. He saved me yesterday and I’m not going to leave him there.’
‘Kerri, let me get help first.’
‘He wanted you to know what happened in the Pass. You must go back and tell everyone, and you’ve got to warn our people of the coming danger.’
‘I’m coming back with you, come on.’
‘No!’ she said. ‘You’ll get sick there. You can’t stay in that land. Casey. I love you for always being there for me, for being my big, strong brother when I was alone. But I’m grown up now. You’ve got to let me go. I’ll be okay, I promise.’
‘You can’t promise that. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.’
‘I know, but I know I’ll be okay.’
She kissed his face and said, ‘Let me go, Casey.’
She stepped backwards, leaving him in the gateway.
Casey stepped out of the tunnel and found himself staring in wonder at the beauty of the Northern Plains. It was like seeing it for the first time. He turned when he heard his name called. Ben was running towards him.
‘Where’s Kerri?’ he said.
‘She’s okay, I was with her. She’s gone to look for Carter; they got separated.
Did Sam get back to the Meeting Place?’
‘Not long after you left. But he refused to be carried, and I wasn’t going to argue with him.’
‘Okay, Ben. I need you to stay here, to help Kerri and Carter when they come back. I’ve got to get to the Meeting Place, quick. There’s bad things happening and Sam needs to know.’
‘Can you tell me?’
‘I can, but not now. I’ll come back and explain everything later. I’ll send a runner up here. Let me know when they’re back.’
‘Will do. Oh, Casey, do you know what’s going on over there?’ Ben pointed to the far north, where a plume of thick grey smoke was rising in the air.
Casey looked shocked at the sight. ‘I never realised it’s so close,’ he said.
‘What’s so close?’
‘It’s the forest, it’s on fire and spreading. And if it reaches here, hell is going to follow it,’ said Casey.
He turned to Ben. ‘Keep an eye on it, see if you can judge how fast it’s moving... I’ll be back,’ he said, and ran for the Meeting Place.
Chapter 10
They ran all night without stopping, as a Pride, believing they were invincible in the strength of their numbers. They followed the eastern side of the valley, turning west to climb the foothills onto the High Plains, racing for home. The cats arrived as the sun cleared the eastern peaks, filling a new day with its slanting rays hitting the opposite mountain face. The town was bathed in a stark golden light, bringing the promise of a calm day before the storm arrived.
‘Rouse everyone, get the guards to the hall. Call everyone there now,’ Duma ordered.
He opened the door to the kitchen to find his wife waiting for him. ‘Where’s Sonny?’ was all she said.
‘He betrayed me,’ he spat at her.
‘What have you done to him, where’s our son?’
‘Son? I have no son,’ the venom clear in his voice.
‘Who are you?’ she screamed. ‘You’re a monster, not my husband.’
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