Blackrift Gate

by Parijat Mukherjee

  Before us stretched an amazing vista, with the maze of darkness and semi luminous stones, and weird, spiderweb-like structures and arches made out of gigantic rocks, their semi luminous outline delineating them against the darkness.

  This was somewhat similar to the luminous stones and structures we had seen in the caverns in the eastern mounds when shaman used to take us all there, but those were much smaller. Nothing in comparison to this complexity and ominous beauty of this place.

  “Are we in the caverns?” I asked shaman.

  “Yes.”He nodded.”Just through this path you can see better what it actually is. Come.”

  We followed him along a path that ran along the bank of the massive underground river. The river was eerily silent for the massive amount of water that was passing through. It was so massive that could barely see the other end of the river, even though it was fully underground. I remembered coming with shaman along with our tribe to the caverns to see and bathe in the sacred river during the ceremonies, but it was nowhere this massive.

  “Is the the same river you show us when you took us to the caverns in the past?” I asked.

  “Barely. I always took you and the other tribespeople all the way around the boundaries and enter the rear of the valley, through the northeast. That underground river you all see during the ceremonies is the one that feeds into the underground ocean, while this one is coming out from it. All the water that falls into the valley, all the other small streams that come down from the highlands, all that is taken by this river, along with magic that slumbers in the underground ocean.”

  “Should we bath in it, and ask for the blessings of mother Limbaa?”I asked. We always did that when we came to the rivers, and the last thing we needed now was wrath of Gods.

  “No. This water is coming from the underground ocean, over the graves of the Ancients.”Shaman said.”Do not bath in it, and do not drink it.”

  We looked at the silent swathes of water. There was no discernible wave in this water. No luminescent fish. Not even a single turbulence. Deathly silence reigned here.

  “I like the surface rivers better.”Fihy muttered.

  “Once, this was too a mighty surface river flowing across the valley, nourishing and flourishing vast lands beyond the boundaries, empowered by the sacred lake of the valley that now has become the underground ocean.”Shaman said.”Now it is a sad river, as it has seen many death and destruction, and hides much of its haunted past under its water as it silently flows underground, but its potent magic has not been lost. It is still there, stronger than ever. At places where this river closes to the surface, and links to other rivers and lakes and ponds, weird things are found and potent herbs grow.”

  “What was that?”Fihy suddenly said, looking at something in the river, behind my back. We were already having a hard enough time bringing semiconscious Lud with us, and were not listening to half what shaman was saying at this, so when Fihy said something all of a sudden, I was startled too.

  “What was what?”I asked.

  “Something moved in the water! I saw!” She said.

  “Shaman?”I asked concerningly.

  “There can be many things in the river. I do not know half myself. We leave this water alone till we reach the underground ocean. ”Elder shaman said.“Stay away from the river, and let its secrets remain there.”

  After a while, Lud woke up. He did not bother us much this time, and we carried along the path along the riverbank pretty fast. The rocky cave wall towards our right had started to widen away ever since we started, and now a sizable field of rocks, egg-shaped boulders and odd forms that once were something else stood between us in the path and the wall.

  Soon we could see the wall arching further away, and we crossed its limits completely. Now to our right, stood enormous stone pillars, shooting upwards from the rocky floor to the unbelievable heights like gigantic stone-trees. Upwards, they would merge with the rock strewn roof of this underground world, possibly holding up the entire valley from collapsing. The gaps between the pillars would reveal more stone arches and other odd structures of different height. It looked like a forest made out of stone, where life has taken leave forever, but the vastness of this underground space was baffling.

  I did hear that the caverns under the eastern mounds were big, but I did not really understand the implications of what I heard back then. Though, the presence of underground ocean should have been a hint. Could there actually been an ocean in here? If it is only a valley, why not call it a lake?

  I was thinking these, while walking behind shaman, checking at times if Lud and Fihy are doing fine.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden announcement from shaman.

  “We can not go further in this path.”

  I looked ahead to see that another stream of water came from the right of us here, and joined with the main river, cutting our path from the right in the middle. The other side of this stream was riddled with many elevated stone surfaces and arches, and this stream was also coming from one of the gaps between the pillars.

  We had to take a detour, and went along this new stream. There was an arch here, passing across a sidewise pooling of water from this small stream.

  “We have to pass over this arch.”Said shaman, pointing at a large, flat topped arch with his staff. We managed to get on that arch after some attempt and went along.

  “Shaman?”

  “Yes, Fihy?”

  “You know that there is nobody or nothing other than us, right?”Fihy said, looking down to the darkness and the pool of water of the stream.

  “There are not supposed to be any humans here other than us.”Shaman said.”But it is hard to say what is dead and what not. There can be things out here. Be very careful.”

  Shaman did not take long to navigate us out of the forest of stone arches. We soon were walking along the path beside the main river, bypassing the debris and stones along the small stream. The bank of the main river was raising up steadily, till it reached a height where it stopped blocking our sights.

  I could only see some faint illumination on the border of this high embankment, and some soft sounds coming from the other side.

  We climbed up, and saw the land stretched before us slowly getting lower and lower, and the river coursing through it, making a deeper channel that was almost bounded on each side by high walls of the banks. The land ended up in a shore, and a massive body of water, where a soft uncanny glow illuminated its undulating surface from the dark background.

  The underground ocean! I quickly went back to help Fihy, as Lud suddenly tried to walk backwards.

  Dragging him down the slope to the shore, I noticed there were many round stones in this area. The smooth path along the bank was no longer there. We were not walking on sand either, and the surface was made out of a soft rock that I had never felt with my feet before.The river was now confined to the deep track it had carved out of the soft rock as it passed its course along our left, though due to the sheer massiveness of the amount of water passing through it, some of the water was still visible to us.

  In the beach, there were many black rocks that went up from the soft, powdery sand and the peripheral waters. The river also was moving peculiarly in this part, and I could see that something about its flow seemed off, as if it was being moved with some force I could not understand. I followed shaman, as he walked to a particular set of jagged topped rocks that raised their dark, pointy heads from the shore. These looked a bit peculiar, as they looked quire equal in shape and sizes, as if carved out carefully to look that way. But their enormous forms made it hard to believe that they could have been unnatural once. It was clearly not the work of humans, but gods.

  We went through the gaps of the rocks. They enclosed a space inside them, and I could see that the inside was flat and made out of a very smooth soft rock. There were steps in here, wide steps that went down into the water, where some rectangular flat stone platforms were resting.

  Shaman went
to stand on one of those rectangular platforms, and placed his staff inside one of the holes at its end.

  To our surprise, the platform seemed to have dislodged from some underwater mechanism, and floated, even though it seemed to have made from stones!

  We had struggled to get Lud on this.

  “What are these things, shaman?”I asked, as the shaman proceeded to pull and move his staff, making the entire platform move, towards the ocean!

  “What are you doing? We will all sink and die!”Fihy cried.

  “Unless you dive into the water, you will be fine.”Shaman said.”These are magic things the Ancients had used to transport things from the shore to the inner temple, so there is no chance that these can not hold your weight. Even a mammoth would not sink it.”

  He did not listen to us, and pushed on the staff, and the platform just started to move fast towards the open ocean. We noticed that there was suddenly some transparent barrier formed around the platform.

  Fihy and I gently touched this magical barrier. It appeared extremely smooth and see through, like water, but water was not passing through it. There was a lot of splashing of water all around, and the drops of water was rolling down the outer surface of this magical barrier. We could not touch the drops outside, and it looked funny. But the water looked ominous, as undulating lights and shadows and the darkness of the depths made it impossible to see what was underneath.

  As far as our vision enabled us to see in the dimly lit underground world, we saw this water stretching endlessly, over the grim and grey undersurface of rocks, that looked like clouds. At places unbelievable crystal formations hung from the ceiling of this place, and far away, elongated columns seemed to be sticking out from the water. There was very little waves in this water. I have seen oceans before during our southward journeys, but this one was different.

  “How far this water stretches?” I asked.

  “At least almost far as the valley.”Shaman said.”Do not know. I never swam all the way around here.”

  “But oceans are endless, are not they?”I pondered.”If this is just here, why do not we call it a lake?”

  “This water stretches through the caverns and tunnels, and the rivers that branch underground, stretching far beyond the valley. Nobody knows how far it goes. Many secrets lie in its depth, just like other oceans.”

  “Something is ahead of us!”Fihy cried.

  We saw a large structure approaching us.

  “I know. Do not worry.”Shaman moved his staff a bit, as its end was sticking inside that hole in the platform, and the platform changed its course.

  We crossed the gigantic structure on our right, and we found it to be an enormous pillar, which rose up from the unknown depth of this mysterious body of water. Its size was even bigger than that of the ones we saw in the ground. Nobody in the tribe would believe if I was going to talk about these things. Though I feared shaman would not let us talk about these anyway.

  “What unbelievable structure!”Fihy exclaimed.”I would really have missed out if I did not come with you.”

  Suddenly we heard a scream. It was Lud. He went almost insane, jumping to the other side of the platform, not being able to reach the edge as we held onto his ropes tightly. We grabbed him and tried to calm him down, but he seemed to be mortally afraid of something that shaman was taking us all to. We could see an island in the middle of the water, where we were going, and Lud ultimately shrunk down in the opposite end of the platform, sticking his back to the magical barrier and trying to cover his head by burying it into his knees. We looked at the ominous island, with the peculiar dark shapes rising from it over the backdrop of a sky made of layers and waves of luminous stones, and occasional pillars, far away.

  As we sat near Lud, the platform speeding through the waters leaving a white, bubbly trail behind us, I suddenly felt something was off. I felt some sort of presence, and it was in the water. Something that made me acutely aware of the great ancientness of this place, and the sheer insignificance and smallness of us, who were merely insects before these towering structures and the massive swath of water.

  But this presence was different. We who go into the woods, for hunting and foraging often have this when some other creature is around, it is part of the instinct and it saves you from becoming a prey. It has been said, that this instinct, this feeling of unseen and unknown danger that is not apparent is a blessing from mother Limbaa, given to every being to protect it from harm. It is said, that it is only when someone’s time is up, he or she loses this sense. They do not realize that there is a hunting sabretooth or a keen spear is targeting it, till it is too late.

  It was almost the same, but the dread was real. Possibly this is what Lud had sensed earlier? Does not seem so. He was calm now. Compared to Fihy, who seemed quite restless. She was feeling it too, of course. She was an expert forager, and they often relied more on these instincts as they can not move in tight packs such as hunters.

  “You feel it?”

  She nodded.”It is in the water, is not it?”

  I could not see anything in the water. No moving shadows, no fins, no innocently floating wooden logs that would suddenly turn into a crocodile. We only saw some sort of hill arching far down in the depth, making the ocean seem shallow here. It seemed to go around the island.

  “It seems behind us now.”She said after a while, licking her dried lips. “But I am not sure. I have been feeling like we are being followed, you know?”

  “I do not feel anything anymore, but we have to be careful here.”I said.

  We had a sip of water from our gourd each, and stashed the rest as we did not know if we would get any more anytime soon.

  Chapter 6

  We had closed in to the island now. I could see the structures more clearly now, but I had no words how to describe them. The barrier disappeared and we stepped on the peculiar terrain, dragging a kicking and screaming Lud down into the soil. There was a path going out from this part of the shore, and on either side of it there were ruins. What they originally were could hardly be said, and though I was curious, I felt it would not be a good idea. We went along the wide path, guided by shaman and dragging Lud who had been resisting all along to a highland in the middle of the island, where a large structure stood. None of these seemed to be natural.

  Walking under a few unnatural arches and pillars, we reached the large structure, which shaman said was a temple. It was made out of stones, but they were extremely neatly aligned, and I could not know what was holding them together if not magic. It was like a small hill with many tunnels and chambers, with very smooth walls separating them. I could not focus on the external features of this place too much as Lud really gave us a hard time as we went along the stairs. However, as he came in, a spell of fear almost mortified him. Inside the “temple” we saw many figures and pictures depicting things that were beyond our understanding, and humans were not depicted in them. We passed many chambers with smooth walls and smoother floors, and ultimately we came into a large space enclosed all sides with walls. Shaman said this was the central hall of the temple, where in the middle stood a small, perfectly circular pond, as bright and round as a full moon. Flat and perfectly aligned white stones arched around the pond, in stark contrast the black and grey stones that were used in rest of this structure. A perfectly circular hole was present on the ceiling, through which some light was falling upon the pond. The water in the pond was deathly still.

  Behind this was a raised platform, like a stage. It was empty, except a number of shiny pots that were kept there in a line. We took Lud in the pond, which was quite shallow, the water barely reaching our chest or stomach. The floor of the pond was lined with rectangular smooth rocks, which were mildly luminous and semitranslucent. There were small holes in the floor of this pond. As we took Lud in the pond, he seemed to have lost consciousness. We untied Lud here, and submerged him till chest as per direction of shaman. Getting a chance, I looked up into the hole in the ceiling before we got out of
the pond. It was a tunnel, the outer rim of which was lined by small glowing crystals. The rest of this tunnel went upwards, into a pitch black darkness which was really uncomfortable to look at. I felt like I was staring into some endless chasm, where I may fall and never get up, even though it was on the ceiling. Quickly, I got out of the pond.

  “This water is filtered from the ocean, and brought here with magic.”Shaman said.”If something is there that can purify him, it would be this.”

  Shaman began his rituals, though lamented losing a lot of his supplies on the way. He went around the arching path of white stones and picked up one of the shiny pot like things from the raised platform behind the pond. Then he took out that small pouch of glow-eye-snake leather in which he had collected that pungent liquid, and added some herbs to it. He then began with his tinders and started to make a small fire with the herbs.

  As he started chanting, we looked around the temple, though did not leave them too far. There were peculiar figures of stones, beasts and creatures we had never seen. The whole area seemed deserted, but the air felt uncanny. There were no insects in here, not even a fungus or a weed growing around this deathly habitat of not-humans.

  We did not want to miss the ritual, so we came back soon. Shaman had already lit the herbs, and placed the pot on the other side of the pond, towards the side where the platform was. He was sitting in the other side, closer to the exit. Lud was sitting between them, his eyes open and vacantly looking at the hole in the ceiling.

  Spouts of smoke was emerging from the shiny material pot that held the pungent liquid and the herbs. The smokes filled much of the room, surprising for the tiny size of the pot. The smokes were flowing over the pond, rolling out from the pot towards Lud, and crossing over to shaman. Lud helplessly moved his limbs at times as the smokes seemed to make him uncomfortable.

  The smokes came upto shaman, who held his hands outwards, chanting in unknown tongue.