The visions that the glacier gave him became more real and frequent. Even though he knew he would lose an entire day, he spent that day in deep meditation attempting to control the onslaught of visions he was receiving. If he were to be hit by one of the endless visions during a battle with that younger Aelaar, he would not hesitate to end his life, and Graen was in no hurry to fall even after so many centuries. While the cold or wind did not bother Graen he found a safely hidden spot from view and the blustery cold to perform his much needed task. While he was immune to the bite of the wind, his equipment and gear were not and would blow away after hours of the unyielding bluster. The sun shined brightly into his small shelter of ice creating a soft blue hue all around him.
He laid out his equipment around him in an almost ritualistic manner. He breathed in the chilled air deeply feeling the ancient air rising from the glacier fill his lungs and bring him into an almost euphoric state. There was something about the ancient days that just felt better to an Aelaar, the modern day was not the same, almost as if the Aelaar mattered less than they had so long ago. Graen had survived for over a thousand years and in that time he has felt the world change. From his elders, he learned the change was even more drastic than he could hope to understand.
He planted himself firmly on the ground with his legs crossed and began taking slow and rhythmic breaths. The cool air and the calm breaths sent tingles through his body as he felt himself begin to separate from his fleshy self and into the beyond. That is when the visions came unbidden and terrible.
His mother, sickly and weak with her black skin so thin and close to the bones of her body. He licked her wiry fur on her huge paw trying to rouse her from her slumber. He knew she would die and he grew saddened. She needed to drink, with the terrible cataclysm from the wars that surrounded his home, water could be difficult to find. But he must. He padded softly to the edge of the cave out into the world which grew colder with each passing moon and saw that the battles had calmed. He looked up at the purplish blaze of the sun high above…
Graen shook his head and concentrated harder on blocking out these visions. He cleared his mind but could not shake a purple sun in the sky in his vision. It was so clear, there was no mistaking that it was the purple sun, Rythan. Rythan had not revealed itself in many ages, he could not quite place the last time the cycle of suns had brought Rythan back into view. But it was many ages before Graen himself was even born as a human.
The woods before him and beyond. The scorched trees stood all around him as he padded through the dried and blackened leaves. This war will be the end of the world. He was so young, he barely understood what was actually happening but what he did know is the small people who glowed were battling the giants who seemed to grow forth from the mountains. He was unsure who was winning the war but he did see the little people rise after being defeated by the giants. After a long run he found it, a hollowed tree and a reddish, muddy pool of water. He knew this water would save his mother’s life. In one of his mighty clawed paws he lifted the hollowed log filled with the dirty water. On three legs he galloped back to his mother.
Graen gripped his head, squeezing so hard he thought his head would burst. The visions were not horrible or terrifying, they told a story of a scared being many eons ago while the Aelaar and the mighty Colossi battled for supremacy over the world. But the pain that accompanied the visions was horrible and they tore through his head like knives. The battles with the Colossi were long ago, perhaps two hundred thousand years in the past. Long before the Aelaar were what they are today. It was strange after reading the legends and learning the histories that in this place he could, for the first time, see how it all occurred. He could see the world and watch the battles. A vision took him over again causing him to scream in pain as he writhed on the ground in agony.
Running and trees. Almost home. Small drops of water dripped from the hollowed log as he galloped in the forest trying to rush to return home to his mother. He stopped suddenly, sniffing the air. He looked around but saw nothing and moved in a slow trot to return home. His legs betrayed him suddenly as his hind legs were locked together and he fell roaring loudly as he spilled the life saving water to the ground. His eyes went to where the water soaked into the parched, charred ground. The pain of watching the last thing that he hoped could save his mother made him ignore the reason he had fallen in the first place. When the last drop was swallowed by the hungry earth he looked down at his legs. A thick rope with heavy weights had hit him and tangled his rear legs. Three of the glowing people stood above him then. He snarled and bit at them wildly, a large one, whose glow was not white like most other glowing ones, but dark and terrifying, smacked him with the back of his hand. The power behind the blow was unimaginable and his mind shattered into a thousand pieces. His mind was foggy for a long time but one memory remained with him as he felt them begin to drag him away, his mother, laying shriveled and dying on the rocks of their cave. He had no strength to struggle, all he could do was whimper and stare in the direction that he knew his mother was with her labored breathing and heart beat which slowly faded. He knew he would never see her again.
Tears streamed down Graen’s face as he struggled to control the barrage of visions that assaulted his brain. The memories were tearing his mind apart! Where were these memories coming from, who was sending these visions. The horror struck him at the same time as a massive wrack of pain contorted his body.
In a dark cave with many other beasts locked in cages of a strange, cold rock. It was shiny and was perfectly straight. His teeth were not strong enough to budge the hard, straight, round rocks. They held him there securely so he could not move within his cage. He had long abandoned thrashing and roaring as his thrashing only hurt him and his roaring fell on deaf ears. The three glowing ones who took him could be seen yanking another beast from a cage while it jumped and reared trying to escape. He had never seen a beast such as this. Thick scales covered its body with horns protruding from its head, it would have made fabulous prey for his mother and him. Food that would have sustained him for a long time. It squealed and fought as they brought it onto a flat stone. The two white glowing ones held the giant beast down while the third, the dark one hovered his hands above the beast. His hands touched the beast on the stone and a small part of his glow moved from his hands into the beast which immediately began to shake and twist. It screamed in pain as it writhed back and forth and its wail became louder and louder. Its scream made all the beast’s within these odd stone cages shy away and cry in unison. The three glowing ones did not seem to mind, they stood there watching the beast lurch and scream and die. And they did not care. They simply plucked the beast up and carried it outside. Delicious blood streamed from the beasts mouth making his mouth salivate as hunger was slowly taking him. When the three glowing ones returned they pointed at him and with absolute terror he began thrashing once again.
Graen was gaining control. He had no idea how long he had been here, but darkness was slowly growing over the land. With his screaming he was lucky no one had found him. He was succeeding in his goal, however, and soon he would be able to stop the onslaught of these visions and continue his mission. The pain was slowly subsiding and his mind was becoming his once again. He wondered if the other Aelaar was suffering from the same attacks as he. He may not yet be old enough to see the world the way Graen sees it. So these visions would be ignored by him and by all of the humans who now inhabited what Graen has decided is an evil place, and before the end they would all know why. Just when the calmness of the moment was at its greatest and Graen had finally relaxed it struck him again like passing through the center of a great storm it began again in full fury.
He screamed, as the last beast had, and tried to get free of their inescapable clutches. Lurching and lunging and screaming they held on as if he were nothing but a baby. He was slapped down onto the blood covered flat stone and was pinned so solidly that only his eyes could move. They raced around in terror trying to take in th
e scene around him. The two white glowing ones stood over him, their faces were emotionless and the third dark one stood over him with terrible eyes. He had a thick black beard and eyes that were totally black, no whites, just black.
“Welcome little creature. I am Bregidonnon. I am going to give you a gift, a gift you could not possibly imagine in your feeble little mind.” Bregidonnon stared at him and could immediately tell that his eyes held understanding. “This will be unpleasant, but in the end you will be greater than you could have ever dreamed.”
And his hands were on him, and the pain began. A cold pain. A pain that spread through his body like nothing he had ever felt. A million thorns entered his flesh, the pain pierced him and made him scream. The entire room flashed before him, his vision went black and came back a thousand times in a second. The pain increased and the thorns now felt like spears piercing him thousands of times over his entire body.
As quickly as the pain began, it ceased and he slumped onto the flat stone completely limp. His limbs were paralyzed, even his eyes were unable to move. Slowly, feeling began to return to eyes and mouth and finally his body. It was replaced by a feeling of a million pins piercing his skin but it was not painful.
Bregidonnon cast a wicked smile onto his creation, it was a smile that never touched his eyes. So many of the creatures had perished, at long last he had found one that could withstand the transformation into Aelaar. “Rise beast! And tell me your name.”
He felt different. He felt more. He looked at his paws in awe. He glowed like them. He was them. And when he spoke, a deep clear voice came forth that he knew would bring fear in those before him. “I rise… Azarah.”
That name etched into Graen’s mind, it was too much, Azarah burned into his mind and he knew at once his horror from earlier was true. These were not random visions, perhaps Graen had seen more than the sender had intended, but these visions were being sent to him. Sent to him by something ancient and powerful, it wanted him to know that he was here. Azarah, the mere thought of the name brought him pain and the sound of that voice speaking it made his heart shutter.
Graen was on his hands and knees with sweat running down his body, the darkness of night had encased the world but none of that mattered to Graen. A jataka, a jataka here on this very land could be the end of them all. If this was truly a jataka of the ancient days then this being that is among the ice is over two hundred thousand years old.
“What have we walked into?” He said aloud with a quivering voice.
Graen wavered on all fours and collapsed to the ground. The blackness took him immediately as his mind could no longer handle the intense visions that rampaged within. Although, for Graen, the darkness was not a reprieve from the experience as the pain continued through the night. Visions of Azarah, the giant black beast, danced through his dreams as he watched this beast slay some of the most powerful beings in existence. And soon this monster would rest his eyes upon Graen and the unknown young Aelaar who haphazardly approached his doom.
When Graen next awoke it was morning and the visions were gone. He knew he must stomach his fear and continue with his mission. But with a being such as Azarah waiting within the ice, he did not know even if his Aelaar resolve would be any match for the fear that may consume him.
The team burned through many torches before the company was called to halt. They lowered their gear and sat on the cold ground resting their sore legs and bruised soles of their feet. The torch light bounced off the reflective ice as they sat taking small bites of dried meat. Devyn savored the saltiness of the dried flesh, feeling it re-invigorate him as it hit his stomach. Two things have been a steady theme on this trip, it was beyond freezing and he was always very hungry. Although Bola’s army supplied food they very rarely supplied enough to fill a grown man. His stomach growled and rumbled all through the night as the only dreams that seemed to fill his mind were of the bridge, of his Rana and the girls, of delicious food he would get from Rana or the Ice Chest in Northspire. It made Devyn sad that the tavern had been most likely destroyed when the wave struck the town, so many good memories were had in that place. It was the place where he first met Rana and Dorm. Rana and Devyn celebrated their wedding “feast” in the tavern. And the Ice Chest provided for them all through the hardest winters when the snow was ten feet high and the only roads worth carving were from your home to the Ice Chest. He knew Northspire would never be the same. Never before had two factions had an all out war within the middle of the town. Many citizens were cut down in the streets from the battle, some of the only able men to survive were those conscripted by this war band.
Devyn watched the light flicker and dance along the contours of the icy cavern trying his best to wash his mind clear of Northspire and focus on the mission at hand. His mission was to survive, so he could be one of those families which escaped the brutal memory of the slaughter at Northspire. While he knew he would always be victim to the warlords trying to take him from his family, it would buy him some time. Devyn shook his head from side to side, trying to rid his mind of the emotions flowing through him.
Devyn twisted his neck to stretch it before he intended on resting his head back to sleep for a some time. When his head stretched downward he caught sight of something that would peak the interest of every man on this trek. The light only caught it when it was just right and would only remain there a brief second. Devyn could have sworn that deep below him he caught the glint of gold. He sat there tilting his head at odd angles attempting to catch the sight again. This quickly drew the interest of Dorm who approached.
“I knew it. This would break you. Devyn, you’ve gone daft.”
Devyn raised his gaze to his friend with a wry look. “I saw something. I thought I saw something shining.” He kept his voice low but continued to angle his head to catch anything. Devyn was so tired of walking and seeking, he was very excited to potentially be met with some success.
Dorm walked over to his friend and looked down. A slight gasp escaped his lips as he looked down.
“Torches, we need torches over here.” Dorm shouted in a voice that could be heard echoing down the vast cavern.
Dorm was met with confused stares as he kept waving like a mad man for them to come over. Lazily the men got up as Devyn was rubbing his elbow on the ice to try to clear it up.
“It’s down there, its pretty deep but its down there we both saw it!” Devyn exclaimed.
It wasn’t long before Asvald came over to find out what all the commotion was about. He shoved the men who gathered around aside so he could get a better view.
“What’re you all on about?” The effects of the whatever intoxicated Asvald were fading from him and it was obvious the after effects were making him slur his speech and rub his eyes.
Dorm spoke before Devyn could say anything. “There is something down there. Another cave. This may be what we are looking for, I could have sworn a moment ago that I saw gold.”
Asvald gave the men a strange look, he obviously did not believe them that they saw anything of value. This is not the first cave they had seen on their hours of marching through the dark cave. But it is the first time anyone had claimed to see something beneath other than more cave.
“Fine then. Start digging.” Asvald finally conceded. “It is better than walking forever. Half of you chip away at the ice while the others remove the ice you’re breaking. Don’t bring the whole blasted cave down.”
With that Asvald moved away and the rest of the men removed their packs and laid out their equipment. Pick axes and shovels were laid out along the ground. The torches were laid around the cavern to give the men consistent lighting. Devyn and Dorm took on the first round of mining the ice along with three others, Eskor, Bakli, and Munin. As their backs strained to break the solid ice below them the men behind cleared the way for their next hits. It was painstaking labor but with every strike Devyn knew this adventure was one more step to being at an end.
The work continued for a long time with little p
rogress. With only three or four of them working at any time things were progressing very slowly. They clearly needed more men. Devyn stopped to take a short break, a cold sweat poured down his face and his hair was matted to his head. He took a long draught of their ever diminishing water supply and leaned against the ice wall of the cave. A lounging Asvald immediately took notice of this and took this as his cue to approach.
“What goes on here? Hrodny’s new pet needs a rest?”
Devyn ignored him and took another drink of his water. Asvald decided being ignored was not going to be tolerated and he nudged Devyn hard with his shoulder making him spill a bit of his ice filled water.
Devyn’s eyes darkened. Dorm and the others immediately took notice of the encounter and stopped their work. Their interference was not in time to stop Devyn from opening his mouth. “I believe these men grow tired of running interferences here.” Asvald towered over Devyn but he closed the distance quickly staring into his eyes. “We’ve been digging for hours with no progress. We need more men and a bigger operation here before we can actually cut through this cave.”
“I believe you men are just weaklings.” Asvald felt the need to add.
“Perhaps if you were helping we’d have gotten further with your giant like strength.” Devyn retorted dripping with sarcasm.
Within the Ice Page 13