The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong

by Bolz, Stefan

  They met in mid air high above the ground and even though Krieg was bigger and his anger fueled by the pain of what happened to Wind, he had no chance against the vulture. She ripped her talons into the side of his neck and down toward his belly. The only thing that saved him were his powerful hind legs. He hit her once and pushed her away from him.

  “You cannot defeat me in the air, war horse!” Her thoughts screamed at him. “This is my home. Up here you are nothing!”

  Krieg had trouble staying in the air, his right wing suddenly flooded with pain. He sank fast barely making it to the ground without crashing. When he landed next to Alda, the vulture flew low over their heads, her cries penetrating deep into their souls.

  “You will die and in death you will feed me and my army and make us more powerful than we have ever been before. Darkness will take you and never let you go. You will stay in its icy claws until your life gives way to death and then you will belong to me forever!” The vulture made one final low swoop and disappeared from their sight. Krieg stood panting, blood dripping from his side.

  “Krieg I’m so sorry, I should have remembered. I could have warned you and the others. It comes in bits and pieces and fades again soon thereafter. There was something about the dreamer of light and that…by his very dreaming, he somehow awakens his dark counterpart… But this is my fault. I lead Wind straight to her. How could I have missed this? How could I have forgotten this?”

  “There was nothing you could have done,” Krieg thought to her. “We just have to find the entrance to the mountain and somehow get her back.”

  “Go, fly to your friends. I can’t make it into the mountain. No entrance will be big enough for me.”

  “I shouldn’t leave you here—”

  “You must go, Krieg! I have lived here for a thousand years. I know how to defend myself. But you must go and bring her back. Do you hear me? Bring her back to me!”

  “I shall.”

  Alda’s and Krieg’s forehead touched for a brief moment. Then Krieg turned and galloped over the meadow until he had enough speed to take flight. Aware of the waves of pain in his side and his right wing, Krieg pushed through it and despite it gained height and speed.

  “Bring her back…” the turtle’s thoughts trailed off until they were gone. It was an hour’s flight from here to Joshua’s and Grey’s last position. Krieg just hoped he would not encounter the vulture on his way there for he would not be able to fight her again today.

  17. BROGA

  When Joshua saw it, he stopped and turned around. It was, at first only a dot in the landscape but it came closer fast.

  “What is this?” Grey asked and stopped as well.

  They had made good progress and were about three quarters of the way between the Lake of Tears and the pond below the Great Wall. Grey had discovered a narrow path that did not follow the river but cut a relatively straight line toward the pond. They had stopped only once and only for Grey to catch a few muskrats by the river and for Joshua to find some berries. They had been starving. Joshua thought that if they could maintain their current speed, they would have about half a day of walking left until they reached the water. From there it was just a matter of figuring out how to find the entrance. He didn’t have any illusions about how hard it would be. It was put in place by the sky people who didn’t want anyone to gain access to the mountain. Another thought that kept coming back to him was that the entrance may have simply collapsed over time and because of it, there was no way into the mountain at all anymore.

  “It’s Krieg!” Grey saw him first. The war horse ran in full gallop toward them, pulling a dust cloud behind him. Before he caught up to them, they could hear his panic stricken thoughts. “Wind. Taken. Spiders,” were the only fragments Joshua could decipher, so erratic were the horse’s thoughts.

  “They took her,” Krieg’s thoughts poured out of him when he arrived and his emotions hit Joshua and Grey like a battering ram. “They took her into the mountain. I came too late. They captured her.

  “Who captured her?” The wolf asked.

  “Spiders. And a Griffon Vulture,” Krieg replied.

  “Spiders?” Joshua was surprised. “I thought they were harmless.”

  “They were,” Krieg answered. “They were harmless until the vulture resurrected the dead ones. She said she will wait inside the mountain for us. She wants to exchange Wind for you, Joshua.”

  They looked at each other. Krieg’s right wing was lifted up showing the deep blood filled and infested markings the vulture had left. Joshua could sense Krieg’s pain.

  “You fought her?” Grey asked.

  “Yes,” Krieg answered. “I had no chance against her in the air. Alda mentioned something about a dark counterpart to the dreamer of light. I think she meant you, Joshua.”

  “Me?” Joshua was surprised. “I don’t understand.”

  “The eagle has told me about her,” Grey thought.

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Joshua asked.

  “I didn’t want to upset you,” the wolf answered. “Also, I thought it a myth, not a reality.”

  “A myth? What kind of myth?”

  “The eagle spoke about a dark counterpart to the dreamer of light who was awakened the same time as the dreamer.”

  “A counterpart?” Joshua had trouble grasping the idea and its full implications.

  “Yes. The dreamer who sets out to find the three feathers inevitably awakens the dark counter part of himself. If you are on one tipping point of the pendulum, Joshua, the Griffon Vulture is on the other side. She is the darkness to your light. She is your opposite.”

  Joshua thought about this. Why hadn’t he heard of this before? There were other legends he had known of or heard of in the past. Not this one.

  “Krieg, I’m so sorry about Wind.”

  “We have to find her and get her back,” Krieg answered. “I cannot bear to think about her being captured like this when she had just escaped her prison a few days past. The time of freedom that was given her was too short. Far too short… We have to find her and free her.”

  “We will, Krieg. I promise you,” Joshua was surprised at the strength this thought evoked in him. He felt fear, yes, but he also felt something else deep inside him that stirred, that moved, small still but there nevertheless. It was the image of the lioness that brought forth this response in him.

  “We will find her, Krieg. And when we do, we will save her.”

  “Then let us go and find the entrance to the mountain and let us be swift,” the wolf answered. “Krieg, can you fly?” Joshua thought.

  “I don’t think so. The claws of the vulture must have severed a muscle or at least injured it in such a way that I can’t use this wing for long. But I can run, Joshua. Come on my back.”

  Before Krieg could finish the thought, Joshua had already jumped up and the horse began to trot. Grey ran in front of them and both found a speed that they could sustain for a while. Joshua could almost physically feel Krieg’s pain. The cuts were deep and infested and each step caused his wing to brush against them. But the pain in the horse’s body was nothing compared to the pain he felt for Wind in his heart. Joshua knew that the mighty war horse had at last found an enemy that he did not wish to meet in battle: the notion that he had lost Wind and that she would not survive.

  They ran the remainder of the distance without stopping for water or rest. Joshua still had no idea how to get inside the mountain. And another question rose inside him. It was the question as to how the vulture would get Wind into the mountain. If the entrance was sealed and if the Porte Des Lioness was the only way in… But maybe there was another entrance and one they could also find. Joshua kept looking ahead toward the pond that was now clearly visible in the distance. There was nothing but the sheer cliff of the Great Wall above it, with no sign of an entrance whatsoever. Until he saw it.

  Just like up in the tower room when he saw the head of the lioness jump out at him, it suddenly became visible. And b
ecause the path they took lead straight toward it, it was hidden to them up until now. Joshua realized that they did not go toward the head of the lioness. They were about to go into its mouth. They were walking towards a massive outcropping of rock that jutted straight out of the wall and was shaped like the head of the lioness. Joshua could see the outline of her head and ears and, from where they stood, it looked as if the path lead straight into the open mouth. This was not a man made sculpture but the shape of the rock was unmistakably recognizable as the head of a lioness.

  Grey and Krieg slowed down as they now stood almost directly below the upper part of the mouth. Joshua estimated that it was at least eight stories above him and from here it was nothing more than a large overhang in the cliff. In front of them, in the shadows, lay the pond. It was covered in lily pads. The blue color they had seen from the distance was not water, but the surface of the lily pad leafs which emitted a dark blue hue. As they entered the mouth of the lioness, Joshua realized immediately that there was no visible entrance into the mountain itself. Where the pond ended was a slight mound going uphill until it met the rock in the back of the mouth. The rock itself was smooth like the rest of the Wall. There was no indication of an entrance whatsoever.

  Joshua flew off Krieg’s back as they walked around the pond. The sound of a single peeper frog was the only thing they heard. They looked closely at the surface of the rock but there was absolutely nothing there. Joshua couldn’t even begin to think of where to start looking. It would take days, weeks even.

  “Maybe we have to go back and into the spider holes,” the wolf’s thoughts cut through the silence. “That might be the only entrance. Deep underground.”

  “If this is what it takes, what are we waiting for?” Krieg’s thoughts were filled with impatience.

  “No, Krieg. There must be a way. We came this far. I do not believe that we should go back to the holes of the spiders.” Joshua tried to sound convinced, much more so than he was in truth. “The entrance must be here somewhere. We just have to find it.”

  Joshua began to walk along the Wall looking for any sign of a door, an opening, something out of the ordinary. Grey sniffed the ground around the pond. Krieg seemed to have lost all hope of ever finding it. He stood, his head low, waves of misery radiating from him.

  “If we do not find it,” he thought to them, “all of this was for naught. Everything we did up until now will have amounted to nothing. And I wish I would have died at the hands of my captors before you found me. For that is how I feel in my heart.”

  Joshua looked at his friend and felt his heart break for him. Grey walked over and lay down next to Krieg. Joshua did the same. There was nothing to say. All three of them felt the other’s pain, felt the sudden end to their journey come nearer with every breath they took. Joshua dreaded the possibility that they would have to go through the spider holes. But maybe it was the only way into the mountain. He let the thought stand in his mind for a moment to see if it would gain strength.

  “There is a way in.”

  Neither of the three reacted at first. They were too immersed in their despair.

  “And I know it.”

  “What was that?” Grey thought to them.

  “I heard it too,” Joshua replied.

  “I thought it was you, Joshua,” Krieg thought.

  “It wasn’t me,” Joshua answered.

  “If it wasn’t you, who was it?” Grey got up.

  “It was me.”

  The three of them looked around. The thought was quiet, not so much a whisper but rather from someone who was very far away.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Neither of them could see anything.

  “Where is this coming from?” Joshua thought. “Hello?”

  “Would you please tell the mighty war horse not to move his front hooves? I’m right next to them and I do not wish to be trampled.”

  Joshua walked over to Krieg and looked around his hooves. Krieg’s head was down and he was sniffing the grass.

  “Here you are.” It was Grey who found him first.

  It was the peeper frog. He sat next to one of the horse’s front hooves. He was so small, the three of them had to come very close to see him.

  “You must be either very young or you are just very small,” Joshua thought to him.

  “I am neither,” the peeper replied, looking up at them. “I am neither young nor small. For I am Broga, the guardian of the Porte Des Lioness.

  “How old are you, Broga?” The wolf asked. “If I may ask.”

  “If you must know and I know you must, Grey, wolf from the Ice Forest, I was present when Alda was born.”

  The three of them looked at each other in disbelief.

  “She was born right here in this pond under the protection of the lioness. I saw her fight her way through the thick shell of the egg she grew in. In fact I heard her singing before she came out of it. She sang then and she has never since stopped singing.”

  Joshua felt hope returning into Krieg’s heart and into his own. He had no explanation for this. Nevertheless, this tiny little peeper had, within moments, given them back all the hope they had lost.

  “Why should I not give you hope, my feathered friend?” The tiny frog looked up at them. “Have not you given hope to some, much larger than yourself? Hope does not judge your size and neither should you. Never doubt, never doubt that anyone with a fierce belief in his own destiny can’t reach for the stars, as far away as they might seem to be.”

  Grey was the first to break the silence induced by Broga’s thoughts. “The vulture has captured the Pegasus, and the spiders she has resurrected have brought her deep into the mines below Storm Mountains. She demanded from us the exchange of the Pegasus for Joshua. We cannot agree to this, but we will and we must find Wind and free her and with her complete our journey to find the three feathers. For my friend has set out to find them and we have agreed to help him in his quest.”

  All was quiet. All eyes were on Broga, the little frog, who looked from one to the other.

  “Since the mines were sealed by the sky people, no one has entered them and it has been my task to guard the entrance since then.”

  “How can the vulture get access to the mountain if she cannot come through here?” Krieg asked.

  “The entrance was sealed so that no one was able to ever enter the mines again.” Broga’s thoughts were quiet, as if what he had to say was too important to be thought louder. “This gate, the Porte Des Lioness, was for the living. But in order to seal the entrance for the living, another entrance had to be opened … And that one is only for the dead.”

  It took a few moments for them to grasp what this meant, what this would mean.

  “Are you saying that in order for Wind to be brought into the mountain, she has to be dead?” Krieg’s calm thought betrayed the sense of despair that welled up inside him.

  “Yes.”

  The finality hit Joshua full force.

  “We should try to get to her before the vulture takes her through the gate,” Krieg thought.

  “I do not think this wise,” Broga answered. “For you will never reach them in time and if they are through the gate already, then you cannot pass through it yourself. You would have to come back here and then you would have lost too much time.”

  “Broga, can you show us the way into the mountain?” Joshua asked.

  The peeper looked at them. “I have been guarding this gate for over a thousand years. It has since then never been opened.”

  “Has anyone ever asked you to open it?” Joshua asked.

  There was a pause.

  “Broga, has anyone ever asked you to open the gate before?”

  “No. No one has ever asked me. Many have come here in their search for the entrance but left a few days later.”

  “Because they didn’t know it was right here. They didn’t know the entrance was only visible from the Refuge and only if you were to stand right between the eyes of the lioness looking
through the westerly window and beyond the small crack in the glass. No one knew where the Porte Des Lioness was. The ones before us were only guessing. Am I right? Broga, am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “THEN TELL US HOW TO GET INTO THE MOUNTAIN!” Joshua was surprised over the strength of his outburst. “We cannot wait any longer. You MUST show us the entrance. Too much is at stake and we are worthy… Are we not? We are worthy.” With that last sentence Joshua seemed to collapse into himself. As if once he had thought the words, he no longer could believe them.

  “You are worthy, Joshua. We are worthy,” Grey thought to them.

  “We are worthy,” Krieg thought quietly.

  There was silence. The thoughts echoed for a while in each of them. They had never spoken them like this before, never dared to. There was still a part within them that did not believe this to be true, but they did not have a choice. They needed to believe they were worthy. Joshua looked at his companions and saw the same determination in them that he felt in himself.

  “I will show you the entrance, Joshua from the Great Lake,” Broga thought to them. “And I will open it for you. But you must know that once you are inside the mountain, there is no way back for you. You must face whatever awaits you inside. You cannot go back for I will neither be able to hear you nor will I be able to open the gate more than once. You must realize this and fully. If you do, I will open the gate for you right now.

  “Do it,” Grey thought.

  “Open it now,” Krieg replied.

  “I want you to open it, Broga, Guardian of the Gate. In the name of the lioness I want you to open the door into the mountain,” Joshua answered.