The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong

by Bolz, Stefan

  There was a pause that in Joshua’s mind seemed to stretch into infinity. Too much hung in the balance for them to fail now. The stakes were too high for them not to succeed.

  “So be it.” The frog’s thoughts reached them quietly.

  With that, Broga hopped in between Krieg and Grey and up the incline toward the Wall. Joshua and the others followed slowly. When the peeper reached the Wall he went along it feeling with his hands for something in the stone. Then he stopped. It was hard to see exactly but it seemed that he pushed against the wall and a tiny piece of the rock moved inward. It looked like a door that was barely high enough to let the peeper stand up in. It was miniscule. Broga entered. What occurred next was as astounding as it was unbelievable. It looked as if the tiny peeper pushed against the rock. Nothing seemed to happen at first. Then suddenly a straight vertical crack appeared above the peeper that went up at least ten feet. Broga pushed. And now the entrance moved. It was a massive slab of solid rock. The little peeper pushed it and it seemed to slide to the side leaving an opening.

  Joshua was the first to enter. He realized that the gate was as thick as it was wide, solid granite. The tiny peeper moved the boulder and even though Joshua could see the strain in Broga’s features, he could not believe that he was actually able to push it. Grey entered next, followed by Krieg. When the three of them were inside, they watched as Broga slowly pulled the gate closed. There were no good byes. When the door shut and it once again became invisible as if it had never existed in the first place, Broga sat down outside under the head of the lioness at the edge where the earth met the stone and thought about his life and what he had accomplished. He had opened the gate to the one who was destined to enter the mountain. He had fulfilled his life’s purpose. He closed his eyes and became very peaceful. After a few minutes he drifted off and fell into a deep sleep from which he never woke up.

  18. SUBMERGED

  There was no sound when the door closed. Joshua expected it to be pitch black but instead there was a slight glow that emanated from the surface of the tube-like tunnel they stood in. It was just high enough for Krieg to walk upright. Its surface was smooth and solid, similar to the outside of the mountain. Joshua followed the tunnel with his eyes but could not see the end of it. It disappeared far into the distance.

  “Are you ready?” Grey asked.

  “No,” Joshua answered truthfully and began to walk into the tunnel.

  There seemed to be a slight downward pitch to it. The sound of their steps on the ground echoed through the semi darkness as they made their way ever deeper into the mountain. If the others had any thoughts they kept them to themselves. Krieg was limping slightly. The deep oozing cuts from the vulture had gotten more infected and Joshua was afraid the infection would spread the longer they walked. The low glowing that came from the surface of the stone around them illuminated the wounds and made them appear almost black. Krieg also couldn’t lift his head as the height of the tunnel didn’t allow it. Grey seemed fine. Nose to the ground, he concentrated on picking out any smells he could detect.

  Joshua had lost all sense of time. He couldn’t tell if they had been walking for hours or just minutes. His talons began to hurt. The smooth granite was hard and unforgiving. He began to feel thirsty. He hoped they would get through this tunnel soon even though he had no idea what to expect on the other side.

  “There is water ahead,” the wolf proclaimed. And only a short while later they came to a large puddle. Joshua gratefully drank from it. The horse and Grey did the same. While he drank Joshua looked down the long tunnel. He realized something that almost made his heart stop.

  “Grey, how far can you see down into the tunnel?” He asked quietly.

  Grey looked ahead, so did Krieg. The three of them saw it at the same time. The surface of the water mirrored the slightly glowing ceiling. The further they looked into the tunnel the closer the surface seemed to come to the ceiling. Far in the distance the surface of the water and the ceiling met. From then on the tunnel was submerged.

  Joshua’s heart sank. He looked at his companions. But before he could form a clear thought and communicate it with the others, Krieg began to walk into the water.

  “Jump on my back, red one. There is no use standing here. Forward is the only way to go.”

  Joshua flew on the horse’s back. He had to drop his head and crouch down so he wouldn’t scrape along the ceiling. Grey began to swim next to them. Joshua watched him. Was this where their journey together would end? In a tunnel somewhere deep inside a mountain? Fear crept up inside him, tightening its grip around his chest. He had almost drowned twice. It was probably the worst experience of his life and he did not look forward to experiencing it again. As they drew closer to the point where the water met the ceiling, he tried to push away the overwhelming feeling of sickness that welled up in him. He had trouble breathing.

  “Joshua,” Grey had a tendency to interrupt his thoughts at exactly the right time. “I will go first and see what’s down there and come back. Krieg will not be able to turn around in there.”

  Before Joshua could give any thought to this, Grey disappeared into the blackness. The horse’s head stuck out of the water just enough for him to breathe. They waited. And waited. After what must have been an eternity Joshua couldn’t take it any longer.

  “I will be right back,” he thought to the horse and with that, he jumped. Once under water, he began to use his talons to push forward but remembered very quickly that they were useless down here. The water was pitch black. The light on the tunnel’s surface was completely swallowed up by the water. He felt a moment of panic, but then he became very still. It was as if his mind stopped its activity. He forgot about the question of what would happen if he didn’t find an air pocket somewhere. He stopped thinking about Grey and he stopped thinking about his own life. And suddenly it was very clear to him. It was clear that he could do only one thing now. He opened his wings and pushed them downward and back, moving his body forward. After a couple of strokes, Grey appeared in front of him. His thoughts were panic stricken.

  “Follow me!” Joshua told him.

  He turned and swam back to where he came from. He felt the wolf behind him but the connection to him was fading fast.

  “We’re almost there, Grey, hold on!” He thought as he came up from the water. The wolf barely made it and when Krieg realized that Grey was in trouble he put his head under the wolf’s belly and pushed him upward. The wolf hung there, miserably trying to get air into his lungs but he was alive and that was all that counted at the moment. Joshua realized that he was able to somehow keep his head above water. At least for now.

  “I’m going back,” Joshua thought.

  “No, Joshua. Let me rest a while and I’ll go back.” Grey replied, still gagging from the water in his lungs.

  “You can’t go, Joshua. It’s too dangerous,” Krieg added.

  “There is no other way. I will try to reach you. Keep your mind open.”

  Joshua went under. He figured he would do five strokes with his wings and see where this got him. If he didn’t see anything he would turn back. He looked for some light or at least a glow indicating that part of the surface of the tunnel walls were not under water. When he was at the sixth stroke of his wings, he decided to turn around. He thought he did but it was so dark that he didn’t see at all where he was going and suddenly he slammed into the tunnel wall. Panic rose in him. He was uncertain which way to go. He decided to go left thinking that this was the way back to the others. Four more strokes, but he still couldn’t see anything. Two more and he felt that his lungs were about to burst. The blackness around him was complete and he tried desperately not to panic. But it was too late. A wave of dizziness enveloped him. His last wing stroke was already very weak. The impulse to take a breath was overwhelming. Before he passed out he saw a glimpse of a low glow in front of him.

  He came back to life lying on the horses head. He couldn’t breathe at first but then he realized th
at he wasn’t under water anymore and that he could take a deep breath and fill his lungs with air. At the same time it occurred to him that they weren’t back where they had started from. His head was close to the ceiling. Grey was treading water next to him. They were inside an air pocket that barely fit the three of them. There was a small space between the water’s surface and the tunnel ceiling.

  “How did you get here?” Joshua asked.

  “We couldn’t let you go by yourself,” Grey answered.

  “We certainly couldn’t,” Krieg added. “Try to hold on to my back. If I let the air out of my lungs I can walk under water. We must be about half way between where we started and the other side.”

  “I hope so.” Joshua was not convinced. He felt numb and weak. He just wanted to rest and escape the feeling that they were buried inside a tunnel deep inside a mountain.

  They waited a few more minutes to catch their breath. There was no turning back from here. They would either make it onto the other side together or they wouldn’t. It was as simple and as terrifying as that. When Krieg let Joshua gently into the water he felt the cold seep into his body. Then the horse’s head disappeared and Joshua went under. The wolf was first. Joshua held on to the horse’s back as much as possible, thankful to have Krieg there with him. He knew they only had a very limited window of time and only one shot at this. There was a certain rhythm to the horse’s movement that was very reassuring. At least for a while. Until Joshua realized that the horse was in trouble. It felt like a convulsion in Krieg’s back. The strain of walking under water and the fact that he had to let out half of the air in his lungs weakened him rapidly.

  “…can’t hold breath much longer…,” was what Joshua heard. A second convulsion went through Krieg’s back. Joshua couldn’t distinguish anymore between his own and the horse’s dizziness and the attempt to squeeze every ounce of air they had out of their lungs got weaker and weaker every second.

  “LIGHT!” Grey shouted in his thoughts. And then they saw that the surface of the water mirrored the glowing walls of the tunnel ahead. Part of Joshua’s mind registered that Krieg’s movement had slowed down. He was about to lose consciousness. If that happened, the horse would most certainly drown.

  “Krieg, we’re almost there. You can make it!” With that, Joshua dug his talons into the horse’s back and with his last ounce of strength pushed his wings backwards. Once. Twice. They moved slowly toward the light. One more time and the horse’s head came out of the water. Joshua let go and came up as well. They swam as quickly as they could to the water’s edge and when Joshua reached it he looked back and saw that Krieg had collapsed. Only his head was out of the water, resting on the stone. The wolf stood there shivering miserably.

  “Are you okay, Krieg?” Joshua thought.

  For a while there was no answer, other than the massive chest of the horse moving up and down as he labored for breath.

  “Krieg, are you going to be alright?” Joshua was too weak to move.

  “I will be okay,” Krieg’s thought reached Joshua faintly. “I will be okay.”

  Joshua’s last thought, before he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep was of Alda and of how she possibly could have known that a rooster needed so desperately to learn how to swim under water.

  * * *

  For a long time there was darkness. Wind could feel the bodies of the spiders under her when they carried her deep underground. Through tunnels that have never seen the sun, through ancient passage ways that never ended. The sound of hundreds of feet crawling over the ground, dampened only by the web that was tightly wrapped around her head was the only thing she heard. She could hear the spiders’ feet far ahead and far behind her as they brought her deeper and deeper toward their lair. They did not stop. They did not rest. As if lead by an invisible command that left them no choice but to respond, they carried their precious cargo until they reached their destination.

  The cave was not very high but expansive in length and width. Its floor and ceiling had sharp, spear like crystals sticking out of them. Most of the crystals were covered in spider webs. There was a light source somewhere whose origin Wind could not determine. It illuminated the bizarrely shaped growths and cast long shadows on one side of them. The stench that lay in the air was of acid and decay and the unthinkable.

  The massive vulture sat on one of the jagged pillars, her head cocked to one side. Below her sat two of the hyenas. One had half of her fur missing. It was scraped off exposing the raw skin and flesh down to several partially decomposed ribs. Her dead eyes were blood shot. Small veins stood in the sclera and what had once been white had taken on a yellowish tone. The other had flesh and skin hanging from her jaw bone and worms crawling in and out of what was left of her ear. Her teeth were bared revealing black gums.

  As fast as the spiders had wrapped Wind in their first encounter on the surface, they now loosened her ties with hundreds of pincers tearing through the silken thread until all of it was gone except one thick piece tied around each wing and secured to one of the crystalline growths. When she stood up a wave of dizziness washed over her. Her legs weak, she had trouble standing. Spiders covered the ground and ceiling as far as she could see. At least a dozen of them sat right above her, their eyes peering at her waiting for the smallest command from their master.

  “We meet at last,” the vulture’s thoughts brought with it the full impact of her malice. Wind could not escape the darkness, hopelessness and despair they induced in her. She felt utterly alone.

  “Yes!” The vulture exclaimed triumphantly. “Alone is what you are and far from home. So far that never again will you reach its comfort, never again stand on familiar ground, never again touch kinship or brotherhood. It will forever be outside your reach. And death will only claim you once you have realized that even then peace will never find you. You will always be searching it even in the afterlife.”

  The vulture jumped from her perch and landed in front of her. She was a head taller than Wind even on equal ground.

  “I will lay the marks of death upon your soul and it will burn with them. The poison will sink deep into it and there it will fester and make it its home.”

  The vulture’s head was now close to Wind’s. Her one dead eye looked into hers and suddenly the vulture let out a loud cry. At the same time she screamed at Wind in her thoughts. Wind moved backwards, trying to avoid her gaze. For an instant Wind thought she saw the slightest hint of fear in the vulture.

  “LET ME EASE YOUR PASSING THROUGH THE GATE!” The vulture screamed. With that she jumped onto the back of the Pegasus and dug her talons deep into her skin. Wind’s screams echoed through the subterranean lair. They never reached further than that.

  * * *

  Joshua thought that he must have slept for quite some time for when he opened his eyes his feathers were almost dry. Krieg stood a few feet away looking down at him. Grey sat on the other side.

  “How long did I sleep?” Joshua shook himself. Besides a chill that still lingered, he felt surprisingly good.

  “For a while,” Grey replied. “We all did. And now we should get out of here.”

  “Well said,” Krieg added.

  They began to walk away from the water and up the slight incline of the tunnel. Joshua saw that Krieg’s cuts from the vulture looked much better. The infection seemed to have gone completely and the wounds were beginning to heal.

  “You are healing well,” he told the horse.

  “Yes. I feel much better. The pain in my side is gone almost completely,” Krieg replied.

  “There must be something in the water that counteracts the vulture’s poison,” the wolf remarked. Grey’s thought stirred the somber memory of their captured friend in them. They all, in one way or another, tried to keep the thought of Wind’s fate away from their hearts. The place where it would lead them was too dark, the sorrow over what would become of her too deep. But as much as they tried, they could not escape the gruesome images their imagination bestowed on them
. Joshua could only hope that the images were wrong and just a cruel trick his mind played on him. Krieg who had experienced the vulture’s razor sharp talons first hand took it especially hard.

  They walked in silence for a long time until the light slowly began to increase. Its source came from the end of the tunnel. It still lay in the distance but was now visible as a small opening that grew larger the closer they came. When they reached it and stepped through it onto a plateau that was covered in thick green moss, they could not believe their eyes.

  The platform they stood on was suspended high above a deep chasm. Far below and to their right, a waterfall disappeared into the darkness. The falls were illuminated by a beam of light from high above. On the other side of the crevasse across from where they stood was another platform similar to this one. Beyond it was an opening leading further into the mountain. Both platforms had a narrow tongue of stone reaching toward each other. The middle part was missing. There was a gap easily fifty yards wide.

  The three friends stood at the edge looking across, dizzied by the sheer drop. They could not see the bottom of the abyss. Joshua thought that he would very possibly be able to make it to the other side. He had gained some strength in his wings since he had left the pen. Krieg should be able to make it also. But there was no way the wolf could.

  “Why don’t you two go? I’ll stay,” Grey thought to them.

  “We can’t leave you here,” Krieg replied.

  “You can’t stay here with me either. That would do nobody any good. You have to go and find Wind, Krieg. And you have to fight the Vulture and get her back. I will be happy to stay here knowing that you will find her and free her.” The wolf’s thoughts hung there like a sword, Joshua felt. He could not imagine going on without Grey by his side.

  “Do not be concerned with me, red one. For you have yet to find your full strength and go far beyond yourself. You will not be able to do this if you stay here.”