The swamp had become a lake by this time. We could not see much in there, but we maintained distance. Far away into the water, we sometimes thought we saw giant shapes, or waves, enough to make us nervous. It was following us.
It was already afternoon when we came along the end of the lake. Beyond this point, the lake had vanished, and jagged rock formations came into place on our right side, and steeply rising ground with the woods on our left side, leaving a path that was uncannily flat, which we were following. We were almost certain that we would be safe after we cross the swamp and the lake, but it was right at that moment it happened. Perhaps it had understood that it would soon lose its prey. Suddenly, the vile guardian of the swamp raised itself from the water like a leviathan, and crawled out into the dry ground. Water was dripping from its frog like head, and the tentacles, and the legs, that propped itself up to a height almost twice that of a mammoth. It eyes were glowing as it came out of the water. It was actually emitting light, unlike other creatures who’s eyes simply shine. This monster looked around here and there, and it blinked a few times.
We stood still for a fraction of a moment. It was still away from us. It was possible for it to ignore us, or to not notice. We slowly tried to go towards a few rocks that were starting to appear around the edge of the lake. We needed to take cover before it could see us. Apparently it seemed nocturnal, so would have trouble adjusting to the daylight.
Or so I thought. The luminance of its eyes dimmed down soon, and it started to come towards us. It was walking in a weird manner, but it was not slow by any means.
“Run!”Said the elder shaman.
We tried, but it was so big that it was of no use. It was pursuing us with ease.
Besides, it was right now Lud was being as stubborn as possible. Pointing at the beast as we were dragging him away. He was just looking at this beast. In each moment the beast was gaining on us. Frustrated, I left his rope, and grabbed my spear.
“It is no use trying to run like this. I will try to harm it or kill it! If it goes back from that, then we might have a chance.”I said, as I looked at the giant frog face, looking straight at us with its yellow eyes. I was aiming my spear at its eyes, waiting for it to come a little closer. Right then, Lud suddenly ran towards it!
“Lud! You lunatic!”I cried.
The beast made a grotesque sound and ran towards us in a most jumbled, uncouth, but blazingly fast motion. Its tentacles were swinging and waving, and its mouth was gaped open. It looked like if a chameleon and a tree frog were blazingly fast, and had a bunch of living seaweed or bag of worms stuck on their back, it could somewhat mimic the movement.
Cursing Lud, I ran too, towards the beast. I was now trying to aim for the open mouth, and get close enough to grab Lud back. My heart was beating as if it was going to come out, and I was terribly mad at Lud, even though he was a lunatic. I should have ran opposite way, leaving him to it, as he had clearly deserved to die, but still I could not manage to go towards him. He did not know what he was doing and he was about to be trampled by the beast.
But the frogfaced six legged beast stopped short of Lud. It closed its mouth and looked at Lud. He was still tied at his waist but his hands were free. He came closer, approaching it, he raised his hand. As if he wanted to touch the head. As if it was an innocent frog.
The beast lowered his head. In a moment, it would simply chew him off.
I was about to throw the spear, when I felt the ground was shaking. Elder shaman was standing behind us, and chanting something. The wind started to blow again. The fogs were all moving away. The beast did not like it. It shook its head, and horizontally blinked. It appeared to be disoriented. In the meantime, I grabbed the rope that was lying behind Lud, and dragged him close to me, and retreated to the elder shaman. The elder shaman was clenching his teeth as he was shaking in his place.
I realized he would not be able to keep this up much longer.
He made some gesture with his hand, and took out a small pouch, all the powdery content of which he threw into the sky, and cried out something I would never be able to pronounce. With that, without any intimation, a bolt of lightning fell from the sky. Hitting the beast squarely.
I still can remember the uncanny sound it made, and how it reminded me of the sounds made by the horror in the cave.
I thought the beast would die instantly, but instead, it just jumped into the lake. Elder shaman was shaking at this time, and fell down. He was having a seizure, and gasping. I dragged him away from the lake into the woods, and went as far as possible. After a while, he was able to open his eyes, and slowly walk. When we were at the pass through the highland walls of the eastern mounds, he was weak, but still functional.
“I could not believe what you did.”I told elder shaman. “The beast must be mortally wounded!”
“I seriously doubt that, my boy!”The elder shaman said.”It was something of last resort, even that failed to kill it. But we are all still alive, that is what matters.”
I sighed. I knew me and Lud would both be dead if elder shaman did not show up there at the swamp, but somehow, I hoped if he would stay with Fihy or brought her with him. Sure, he did not know that the beast was coming, but still…
“We will get in the pass and then camp.”He said.
I nodded and stared to gather firewood. The pass was narrow, a canyon, like a crack in the boundaries of the eastern mounds, which were in a valley surrounded by these highlands. The canyon like pass we were going through was once maybe one of the streams of the river, the main of which now flows underground, and only in some parts comes to the surface such as lakes and ponds. Here in the canyon, still a small stream of water could be seen, which was good since we needed it.
The crack was narrow enough to stop that giant frog faced guardian of the swamp from passing. Besides, eastern mounds were sacred. It was unlikely that beast would be able to come here..or even in its path.
The night was going to be tense, being so close to the swamp. I was awake, and waiting for the sun to shine, and could not really rely on poor elder shaman for this. But due to tiredness, I think I might have dozed off. Suddenly, just before daybreak, I was awake. Something was off. I felt alerted and looked ahead, and behind. Towards the lake, there seemed to be something coming towards us. It was shambling through the fogs. It was coming to us.
Chapter 4
I grabbed by spear tight,and became ready. It was not that giant, and most likely it was those creatures with bald head I had encountered in the swamp.
As it came closer, I gave no sound. I was ready.
“Fihhy!?”
I could not believe my eyes. Elder shaman also woke up, and so did Lud. But I was most delighted, even though I was not sure if it was she in flesh or her spirit.
“Huj!”She ran towards me.
I also ran towards her. Then we hugged. After that she snapped.
“Why did not you even wait for me? Do you know how hard it was for me to come after you?”She was quire furious, and indeed had every right to be so.
“You are alive!”
“Barely!”
I could see that she was really starving as she followed us. Due to us being constantly on the move, she could not forage enough with the fear of losing our track , and as we were moving eastwards, going back to the tribe would mean going alone. She never got close to us enough to give a shout.
“How did you survive?”
“I was on the donkey and tried to run away from it…when it came! I did not know anything so vile and big!”She said, as horror crossed her poor shrunken face for a moment.”It came from the swamp. You have seen it, have not you?”
“Yes I have.”I said, almost shivering at the thought.”I thank Mother Limbaa and mighty Rtur that you are safe. Do not worry, from now on, I shall not let you be in such danger.”
“I came on my own Huj. I knew there could be dangers. ”Fihy said.”Now, I am starving, so do you have something to eat?”
I gave her s
ome of the food we had foraged yesterday. A lot was left as I did not really want to eat much with how things were looking back then.
She dove into the food right away. We had only a little water with us in a small leather bottle that shaman had with him, and she drank almost half of it before regaining sense and stopping.
“I..I will forage more food for us.”Fihy said, a bit anxious.”But I drank too much water. We do not have a lot.”
“Do not worry about it. I know what to do about the water. I have been in this way many times. You have been through a hard time, so now after you have eaten, rest up.” Elder shaman said, placing his wrinkly hand on her head. She smiled, just as she used to when she was a little girl, and would visit the shaman often for stories or dried berries. All little children of our tribe loved him.
We started early in the morning. We had to cut our clothes to make a leather bag of sorts, and carry some water in it. There was a clear path ahead of us, along the canyon, which followed the river upstream. The stream was not big, and from the look of the vegetation growing in the canyon, it seemed like it is usually like this all around the year. There was some mist ahead of us, which was passing through the bushes and other plants that were growing in the shady paradise.
“It is a beautiful path.”Fihy smiled.”There are many berries and things we can eat along too.”
“That is the path I planned to take initially, but we would not be going along the canyon all the way.”Elder shaman said.”We would go up, along the hillside, to get on top of the highlands. That way, nothing from the lake and swamps could follow us.”
Hearing this, we collected some fruits and tubers that we could see. Fihy was an expert in this, and with her guidance we collected quite a good amount of food even as we walked. It could have been even better if Lud did not start to walk right in the opposite direction time to time. He had a certain reluctance in walking along the canyon for some reason.
We went along the canyon for a brief while. Seeing the smooth, spherical rocks around us, and the soil, I felt like this entire canyon was once a river bed, but the small trickle of water that passed beside us was not even worthy of calling a river.
Even though we were in a fix, Fihy was looking bemusedly at the high walls of rock on both of our sides. It was slightly reddish rock, with many lines of yellow and orange mixed with it, as if it was some fatty flesh of some gigantic corpse, which has been cut by some very sharp rock. There were many broken surfaces jutting out from the sides, but I could not have seen the path unless elder shaman would have pointed it out to me, even though I took pride in my tracking skills.
It was going up the hills on right side. It was uncannily unnatural, and smooth, though at places there were broken edges, and some dangerous cracks sometimes passed through them.
When asked, the elder shaman said that it was made by the ancients, but did not tell anything else. I knew we were already knowing things only a shaman apprentice would be knowing so I did not press the matter. We climbed and walked along the path, and soon, we were travelling along a parallel path on the right side hills, that followed the canyon, except it was tens of trees higher, looming dangerously on our left side.
Lud was giving us trouble in this path. So far he had not been offering us much resistance, and would generally come as we would pull the rope along his waist. But now, he was sometimes fussing and stopping, and I would have to pull him. It felt he did not like this path at all for some reason.
The mist was getting thicker in here. It was not getting any easier to track the dangerous cracks, and even though elder shaman seemed to know this path, I was not trusting his old eyes too much in this thick mist.
Going further, we came to a part where the hill went down a cliff on our left side, and we could hear odd sounds coming from below, from the canyon, now wholly obscure with clouds and mists.
“What is that sound?”I asked.
“Something we wanted to avoid here.”Elder shaman said.”That is why we are up here. Now do not talk and come with me. Make no sounds. They could hear us.”
I noticed earlier that the hillside on the opposite end had great number of small caverns in the sides, and presumably there were also some birds that lived there. We could see them fly.
“What kind of birds are they?”
“They are no birds.”
“What do you mean?”
“They are things that I have heard in legends. Those are beings that were not seen by anyone in my lifetime.”Elder shaman said anxiously.”But now, things have suddenly changed. Things that should not be are happening, and these things are awakening.”
“How are we supposed to go back?”Fihy said, apprehensively, staying close to us as I kept my spear at the ready. Lud was with us, and we kept a close formation as we walked along the path that took us upwards. Shaman told us to keep quite, and as the mist thickened around us, we saw fell shapes and unnatural sounds coming out from the depths. Sometimes mist thinned out, and I could see shapes emerging and floating in the air, coming out from the many caves on the opposite side of the hills. One of these flied past us, quite close, but fortunately did not notice us. I saw the spherical head, the giant tadpole like body and many snake like tendrils, and a waft of stench hit my nose. It was nothing like I had encountered.
As we went further, the road slowly rose up, but shaman did not go any further. There was a peculiar looking rock on the side of the hilly road, on which he activated some magic, and the rock shifted. To our astonishment, the rocks gave way, and revealed a cave to the inside of the rocky walls of the sacred barrier highlands, that guard the eastern mounds.
“What is this cave?”I exclaimed.
“I would not tell a soul but my apprentice about this, if I had one.”Elder shaman said.”You all shall not utter a single word about what you are seeing, you understand?”
I nodded, though I had serious doubt if Lud would understand anything. But he seemed particularly animated about this cave. He snarled and scoffed and made unintelligible sounds with his mouth, and apparently was not planning to get in at all. I kept on gently convincing him with my fists, and eventually he gave up.
“Is it safe in there?”Fihy asked, looking at the darkness inside.
“Safer than here.”Elder shaman said, looking at the lurking shadows in the mist.
We entered the path, and with some magic, elder shaman closed the gate behind us.
As we got a bit accustomed to the cave, it was evident that this was not natural.
“The walls are so smooth! I have never seen a cave like this before!” Fihy exclaimed. Indeed, the walls were carved from the rocky core of the hill were smoother than any we could carve. This disturbingly reminded me of the smooth surfaces of the cursed northern cave, and the odd semi luminance that made us able to see in this supposedly pitch black cave made me feel uncomfortable with this. However, there were striking difference of this tunnel from that cave.
There were small chambers carved out of the rocky walls.
These were peculiar chambers, with straight lines going vertically upwards from the floor smooth as fresh mud after a field is flooded. The upper part of the chambers were arched, which converged into a point. All the chambers were equally distanced from each other and were of same size.
They were all empty. The walls were carved very diligently, for they were smooth, but there was no cave painting.
“Who lived here?” Fihy asked elder shaman.
“Ancients.” He sighed. “I am not supposed to tell you these at all, but now that we are already living a forbidden prophecy, I think there is not point in keeping secrets.”
“Who were ancients?”
“Nobody knows, or nobody knew anyone who did.”Shaman said.”They walked the earth when the world was young and our tribe was not there yet. They left many wonderful and dangerous things in the world. Not known to many. It is only few shamans that knows about it.”
“Does second shaman too know about these?”
I could agree with that. Lud had been becoming difficult at times in this tunnel, and not really liking the chambers for some reason. I did not want to explore any of them, though most of them seemed empty.
We walked along the tunnel for a while, where we came across a distinct opening, as if something had bore into the smooth surface from below. Large chunks of smooth stones were lying around, leaving a dark, round gap in the left wall and floor. The tunnel that opened into the gap was different from this one. The walls that we could see faintly in the semi-light, were layered and uneven, like molten beeswax, like a gigantic tunnel or burrow made by some monster of a mole rat or a worm like creature. The present tunnel with its uncanny smoothness and semi-luminant walls continued as far as we could see into the rocks straight ahead. A fine draft was coming out from this tunnel.
“What is this?”I asked.
“Something that went wrong.”Elder shaman said.”This tunnel is not part of the tunnel of the ancients. We must avoid it at all costs.”
We crossed it, and went ahead bit more. It was then, we first heard it.
A cracking sound. Initally I thought it was my mistake, but elder shaman seemed alerted. He stopped,and placed his hand on the rocks, feeling them.
There was another faint tremor in the rocks. Something broke far away.
“Let us go back.”Elder shaman said.”We will have to get in by that forbidden tunel.”
“Are not we supposed to avoid it?”
“It is better to avoid them
Elder shaman stopped,and took out a torch from the bag on his back. He had made a few when he was keeping watch at night. He began lighting it, and from the looks of it, he seemed to wish to go in the dark cave.
“You want to get in there?”
“We will have to. But the torch will have to be carried by the last one, else we will all choke.”
I took the lead, since the elder shaman would not do well at such a low light. Then was the elder shaman, Lud was put between him and Fihy, while she held the torch.
Blackrift Gate Page 14