The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong

by Bolz, Stefan

  They decided to rest for a short while. Wary of what lay ahead, Krieg insisted that they might need their strength, and all of it, before this was over. At first it seemed odd to Joshua that the horse did not want to charge forth and confront the vulture head on. But then he realized that Krieg, as much as he wanted to see Wind again, was frightened of the condition in which he would find her. It was an impossible situation for the horse and Joshua wished he could do something about it. Sometimes avoiding ones worst nightmares, he thought, seemed as daunting a task as confronting them.

  During their brief rest, the wolf caught a few fish in the stream, Krieg grazed on a patch of grass and Joshua was able to still his hunger on what he found in the soft soil. As they walked out of the old mining town on the opposite side of where they had entered, Joshua considered that, under normal circumstances, the landscape here would probably be worth exploring. He wondered if the large pillars were cut by hand as part of the mining operation or if they had been here, built up over eons and eons of time. He also wondered about the light source and its origin. How had the hyenas come back to life? And the spiders? He had yet to lay eyes on the vulture. Only in frantic images that he received from Krieg had he seen her. Going toward what could easily be his own death was not something he looked forward to.

  It was a somber walk through the valley for the three companions as they passed a seemingly endless number of pillars that rose from the ground far up toward an invisible ceiling. The light source receded into the distance behind them and, as they continued to move ever deeper into the massive cave, Joshua suddenly realized that it had gotten significantly darker. When they eventually climbed a small hill and stood on its crest looking forward, it appeared as if the massive cave ahead swallowed the light completely. A relatively small distance away from them, the path they were walking on disappeared into utter darkness.

  “Grey, how far can you see into the cave?” Joshua asked.

  “Not very far at all,” Grey answered.

  “I don’t like this,” Joshua added. The thought of not knowing where the next step would lead was frightening enough under normal circumstances. But they also had to think about the possibility of an ambush at any moment. Before Joshua could fully picture hundreds of glowing spider eyes in the dark before him, the wolf cut into his thoughts, reminding him once again not to go where he was about to go.

  “I will be right next to you,” the wolf’s thoughts reassured him.

  “And I will be on your other side,” Krieg added.

  “Then what are we waiting for?” He thought, looking up at them. The wolf smiled in his thoughts. Joshua took one hesitant step forward and then another and another after that. Grey and Krieg followed, taking their places on either side of him as they descended from the hill and rejoined the path. To anyone watching, it would have seemed as if they simply disappeared into the darkness.

  20. AWAKENING

  His sleep was deep and in it he created worlds beyond worlds and he went far into them and he lost himself in them. For centuries he slept, weaving dreams that spun in all directions. They took him to places of deepest darkness and brightest sunlight. He felt the winds of the plains take him and he flew high above the land and reached far beyond the stars. He sailed on solar winds through the emptiness of space. He watched whole civilizations come and go and rebuild themselves only to be destroyed again. He saw the summit of creation and he felt the depth of despair along with the heights of peace among men. He was free and the longer he slept the further his dreams took him. And he saw places so ancient they had existed before time and he glimpsed futures that had not yet been realized, but soon would come to life. Then he awoke.

  He became aware of his deepest core first. He felt his heart beat against his massive chest. It transported his blood through silver veins—blood that was of darkest blue. One drop of it could kill all forms of life within a hundred yards. He began to feel the extension of his limbs, the cold in his extremities, the movement in his scales when air streamed into his lungs. He felt the heat of his breath as it scorned the air in front of him. When his eyes opened, his pupils adjusted to the light, deep green irises contracted into small slivers.

  He saw everything at once: the beam of light that pierced the darkness from somewhere high above in the crystalline ceiling; the body of water to his left, its surface reflecting its surroundings in shimmering light; the blackened soil in front of him. He saw the claws in his powerful front talons that could cut into stone; that could carve pillars out of granite. He felt the power returning to his limbs and all the way to the tip of his leathered wings.

  But something was wrong. He could not name it until he heard it. It was just a whisper at first, then two, then five, then a dozen voices murmuring, sighing in an ever returning rhythm. The whispers slowly turned into sounds, indistinguishable at first until they became small feet on charred ground, hairy limbs rushing against each other. The light. That was what was missing. It was too dark in here. The light source in the crystallite ceiling on one side of the cave was completely blocked. When his eyes looked up he saw them. And before he could command his powerful legs to push him off and to burn them into oblivion with his fiery breath, they descended upon him.

  The spiders came and while they overtook his stirring body they wove their web and covered him with it. He fought them. He pushed off with his hind legs, extended his wings far to either side. He lifted off but only for an instant. From afar it was an image of terrifying beauty. In the semi darkness of the cave, the massive dragon fought for his life – fought to lift off the ground. But there were too many. The more that fell off of him, the more that jumped onto him from the ceiling. In the end he lost the battle and was soon covered in a web that left him no choice but to watch what was about to happen.

  He saw the ivory coat of the Pegasus before he could see what she was. And when he did, when he saw the spiders carrying her while others built a web in the air between two pillars; and when they lifted her lifeless body up and fastened her to the web that spanned easily a hundred yards across; and when he saw her beauty in the beam of light that gently rested upon her he also saw the deep and dark red markings, the inflamed and festering cuts all over her body. When he saw it all he wept for her. And where his tears fell to the ground, penetrating the charred soil, small flowers began to grow in the darkness underground. And if someone would have visited the abandoned cave only a few years later she would have seen a sea of flowers covering the dragon’s den and the area where he had slept.

  But now there was only death. The dragon, who could no longer distinguish between his dreams and the lives before he slept, thought he remembered the Pegasus as they fled deep into the mountain a thousand years since passed. They were freed in the mines by a small group of sky people who had no choice but to seal the caves forever. He knew then, in an instant, the whole of Wind’s past, what she thought was her betrayal of her own race and her subsequent choice to be petrified in stone until the mountain would take her or the elements would diminish her into oblivion.

  And he saw her gaining her freedom, born out of the sheer pain of the war horse for her imprisonment. He saw the rooster and the wolf and through her he saw their companionship with each other. And what he had dismissed many lifetimes ago in exchange for an existence in solitude began to stir deep within him and thoughts of friendship and of the hope it brought came to him through her and it lifted his heart high above, even though his body was bound to the stone.

  And he knew that she was alive. That the poison of the vulture had only slowed her heartbeat to a point of seeming death but that she still was there, faint perhaps and not for very much longer, but still alive. He held on to this thought. Lying there, tied with thousands of threads, held tight against the floor, he felt a surge of power coming through him. He thought that he would let it build up until he would no longer be able to contain it and then he would free her and himself, and his fury would know no limits.

  At that moment th
e vulture landed in front of him. And when she looked into his eyes he could not help but see his own death and the shattering of all the hopes he ever held inside. And even though he could feel the life of the Pegasus slowly leaking out of her, he could not muster the strength to oppose the vulture’s glance that told him unmistakably of his demise. But that was not what he was afraid of. What he feared the most was just one thing. And when he allowed the thought of it to come into his mind he knew it could not be undone. He knew the vulture saw it clearly within him. She would not kill him. She would leave him here in the darkness, alive. But she would take his dreams from him and she would exchange them for nightmares that would last for an eternity.

  21. THE LONG DARK

  The night came silently, overtaking Joshua and the others slowly as they walked along the path and into the blackness of the cave. In the beginning, they could still see the landscape around them. But soon all they saw was shadows within shadows. And then, from one moment to the next, all that was left was darkness. The wolf was the only one who was able to make out the faintest glow of the path ahead. Joshua and Krieg were blind, wrapped in darkness so complete, Joshua decided to close his eyes as it did not matter whether they were open or shut. He felt the coolness of the air around him and the warmth of Krieg’s body beneath him. He heard the horse’s hooves on the soil below and the wolf’s slow trot but the sounds seemed to dissipate somewhere into the vastness of the cave.

  Joshua was glad he had decided to fly onto Krieg’s back when it was still light enough. It would have been impossible for him to do so now. Feeling Krieg’s warm body under his talons gave him comfort at first, but then he began to feel the horse’s nervousness. Not being able to see was something Krieg had always feared and Joshua received images from him of large crevasses ahead into which they could fall without warning. It began to make Joshua himself uncomfortable. Grey tried to reassure them that even though it was just a faint shimmer, he did see the path in front of them. But being told something and experiencing it were two completely different things. There was nothing to do but to trust that Grey would see where they were going. They walked in silence along the darkening path until the rest of the light was swallowed up as well.

  “I can’t see anything anymore,” Grey thought quietly to them. “Not ahead and not behind me.” There was no warning in his thoughts. Just the simple recognition that they were now completely blind to their surroundings. “I just hope that whoever else is in here won’t see anything either.”

  “Can you still sense the path, Grey?” Joshua asked.

  “I think so. The ground seems to be getting sandier though. Soon, it will be hard to find the path at all.”

  The wolf’s thought trailed off leaving them with a void that was soon filled with the dread of what lay ahead. From now on, every step brought with it the fear of it being their last. They walked for close to a day and did not want to stop even though they were exhausted, for each minute they spent in the dark without moving was a minute more that deprived them of the light. At some point they just couldn’t walk anymore. They lay down and slept right there. When Joshua opened his eyes a few hours later, he was disoriented at first and sure he had gone blind.

  “Grey?” He thought into the darkness.

  “I’m here,” the wolf answered. “The next half mile at least we are clear.”

  “You went ahead?” Joshua could not deny his concern for the wolf.

  “Yes. I still have my nose, remember?”

  “And we are glad for it,” Krieg added. “Have you found anything beyond the path?”

  “No. It dissolves into an open field of sand and rock. I’m afraid from there we won’t have much to go on. Not much at all.”

  There was a moment of silence between them.

  “But there is one good thing,” Grey added.

  “What’s that?” Joshua asked.

  “From now on, it can only get lighter.”

  Joshua saw the wolf smiling in his thoughts. Krieg made a noise that sounded much like laughter and Joshua couldn’t help but smile as well. And for a moment there was light in their minds and the darkness that surrounded them didn’t seem so impenetrable. And for a while they walked with certainty of step and with less fear inside their hearts. Twice they almost ran into one of the pillars. It was only the wolf’s sense of what was in front that stopped them. Once Grey reported that they had passed a certain spot before and they realized that they had gone in a circle. They did not speak about this but they knew that they would not be able to keep this up much longer. Traveling in complete darkness through potentially treacherous terrain pulled on their strength and Joshua could feel the horse’s exhaustion beneath him. Grey was always moving ahead, nose to the ground and trying to find a scent of something that could help. But he was approaching the end of his endurance as well.

  When Joshua was close to suggesting that they give up, they heard a sound. They couldn’t pinpoint its location at first and went in the wrong direction, moving away from it. Soon they found they could not hear it at all and they had to turn around until the sound came back. After a while it got louder and they could sense where it came from more clearly. They could not contain their relief. It was water. A small trickle, possibly a brook, maybe even the continuation of the stream they had encountered in the mining town. When they reached it they all took a long time to still their thirst. Joshua did not realize how thirsty he was until he had water. For a while they did nothing but drink, taking in the cold, fresh elixir of life.

  “We can follow it,” Grey suggested. “At least while it flows on the surface.”

  They all agreed and they walked along the stream for what must have been half a day until it was suddenly gone again. It silently disappeared underground and with it, its comfort left them as well. For the last hour before that, Joshua had gotten bits and pieces of strange images. From where he did not know. They were incomplete and most of them were undecipherable. But subsequently one image appeared that was so clear and so strong, Grey and Krieg saw it at the same time: There was a light beam coming from high above. It illuminated a large spider’s web that was spun between two pillars. Wind’s lifeless body was tightened into the web. She was covered in blood from deep cuts all over. Krieg’s first impulse to run toward her—wherever that might be—was only countered by the wolf’s and Joshua’s strong plea not to do so. Finally, the horse gave in.

  “We have to be careful about this,” Grey explained. “Obviously this is a trap and designed to create exactly the reaction you just had, Krieg. We don’t know where the images came from. Joshua, do you think they stem from the vulture?”

  “I wouldn’t know. The image of Wind wasn’t the only one I got. There were others and they were strange and… otherworldly. Like remnants of dreams someone had. Now that I think of it, I do not believe these are the vulture’s dreams.”

  “Why do you think that?” Krieg asked.

  “Because they were filled with joy,” Joshua answered.

  “Was there anything else you saw?” Grey asked.

  Joshua thought for a moment. It took him a while to sift through the chaotic images but there was one partial image he got that now came back to him. It was that of a large body of water that seemed to be on the periphery of the image that showed Wind in the spider web. When he told Krieg and Grey about it they were both quiet for a moment.

  “We must guard our thoughts about this,” the horse thought. “We cannot think of this again. It might be the only chance we have to fight the vulture. We have to somehow get her into the water.”

  “If there is water, there might still be hope for Wind as well. If we get her into it, she might come back to life.” Krieg’s thoughts spoke of hope—a hope Joshua did not share. He was certain the Pegasus was dead. He kept his thoughts about it as quiet as possible but he knew that some of it must have been leaking out and Krieg probably had a sense of what he was thinking.

  “I know your thoughts, Joshua,” Krieg answered. �
�But I do not share them. I cannot. I dare not. If there is the slightest chance that she lives, I cannot think of her as dead. And I hope you will join me in this for I do not wish to sentence her to death in my thoughts.”

  “I’m… sorry, Krieg. I cannot help it. My thoughts will not leave me even though I try to push them away.”

  “Do not concern yourself for you have done nothing wrong. But guard your thoughts and guard them well for otherwise we will not stand a chance. Without the water we will have nothing to use against her.”

  “Then let us go now,” Grey added. “And let us be swift.”

  The others agreed and for the next few hours they walked in silence and as fast as they dared through the blackness of the cave.

  * * *

  At first, Joshua thought it sounded like a wave. Then it turned into wind rustling through tree tops. Whatever it was, it came closer with immense speed and Joshua could suddenly feel Grey’s coat stand up. They stopped where they were. A low snarl escaped the wolf.

  “Brace yourselves!” Grey told them quietly.

  The wave washed over them and for a moment it seemed to come from all sides. Then it stopped.

  “What was that?” Krieg asked.

  “I do not dare to think it, but I know,” the wolf answered.

  Joshua heard a low humming sound generated by the scraping of thousands of feet on the rocky ground. The spiders had surrounded them. Joshua sensed their dead eyes peering at them through the dark. They had left a small buffer between themselves and the area where Joshua and the others stood. For a moment nothing happened. The three friends didn’t move; didn’t dare to. But suddenly the spiders, as if lead by an invisible command, moved toward them from their left side. They had no choice but to go in the other direction. When Krieg and Grey started walking, the spiders began to move as well. The sounds their feet made echoed eerily through the vast blackness. Joshua shivered at the thought of being enveloped by countless bodies of large spiders in complete darkness.