by Doug Kelly
Nearby, a low shadow drifted on the lake and parallel to the shore. He struggled with his vision to see what was floating on the water, but it was like peering through warped glass, distorting his sight. Aton focused his eyes on the floating specter and quickly realized that it was the missing lifeboat from the mysterious dark ship. Images of the skeletons he had just walked past came back to his foggy memory, and his heart nearly stopped. This very island where he stood was where those sailors from the dead, black ship had met their demise. To Aton, it was like a message from beyond the grave. He desperately knew that they had to leave this place, or they both would surely die, too. On that abandoned lifeboat, he saw a dark figure rise upward like a cadaverous mast from the center of the floating craft. Hiding in the shadow of its hooded black cloak, the face was a dark spiraling vortex. The thing, which looked like a messenger of death, raised an arm, and a boney finger protruded from the sleeve’s opening and beckoned Aton to come closer. Aton closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them, the mysterious ship’s abandoned lifeboat was still there, but a dark cloud seemed to be disintegrating around it. The specter was gone, but the vessel was rocking side to side as if something had just been standing in it.
Hauk had created a distance between himself and their boat during his imaginary sword fight. He had his back turned to Aton, both hands gripped tightly on his sword, ready to defend himself from a paranormal enemy.
“Hauk, it’s not real. You’re imagining things.”
Hauk spun around and maintained his defensive stance. With wild eyes and bared teeth, he replied to Aton, with the face of a warrior engaged in battle. “It’s my master. He has found me.” He slashed at some apparition, only visible to him, and screamed, “No! I will never return!”
“Hauk! It’s not real. I promise you.” Aton urgently gestured to his friend, waving his hand to summon him to their boat, desperately wanting to expedite their escape. He tried to smile, to reassure Hauk, but he had also begun to feel the increasing hallucinogenic effects of the noxious gas. From behind him, Aton thought he heard someone tauntingly call his name, so he turned and looked over his shoulder. In Aton’s delusional mind, he saw Lanzo Brill with Esina, standing high on the hill and laughing at him, calling him a coward. Esina’s apparition reached up with both hands and pressed her palms onto the sides of Lanzo’s ghostly head. She pulled his lips to her mouth and gave him a passionate kiss. Aton stared as if he believed that what he was looking at was real, and he felt his heart break again. When the kiss ended, the couple turned back to face Aton, and their lips were red with glossy blood. Each of them exposed a set of sharp fangs, and they hissed like animals. The horror of that vision shocked him back to reality. He summoned all of his wits and grabbed Hauk to drag him back to their boat. Stumbling as they went, they did make it back, slowly and awkwardly, but at least they were making progress with their anesthetized bodies, against all the hallucinations.
With all the strength he could summon, Aton pushed Hauk into their vessel and struggled to launch her from the beach, because the weight of Hauk’s body made it more difficult to push across the sand. As he continued to push their boat closer to the horrid black water, he saw immense curling flames, stretching out like endless serpents, weaving, winding, rolling over each other. As the demonic flames played, he stopped to stare at the smooth, calm surface of the deadly water. Suddenly, all the flames gathered into a one bright sphere, and shone like the full moon. In a rush, the fiery ball ascended into the air, then plummeted to the water before disintegrating into long streamers, like a thousand spools of flaming thread had unraveled, disappearing into the dark lake. Hauk put his hands over his eyes and screamed, “No!” Aton had seen it too; this was not a hallucination. Volatile gases had ignited from static discharge. In this state of compromised intellect, Aton could not summon the mental strength to segregate all fact from fiction, but he knew he had to leave this place quickly, or they would both die a ghastly death. They would end up adrift on the lake like the mummified sailors on the ghost ship, who had plundered their way to the ruins of this old city hidden under the swamp and had found this death trap, too. He knew they had to leave fast. Hauk, still holding his hands over his head, as if it were going to explode, collapsed to the floor of their boat.
After glancing at the furled sail once more, Aton realized that the flames had not even scorched the canvas, so it should work, but they needed a breeze. Aton pushed the boat across the black sand the remaining distance to the gloomy water and paused to catch his breath when he was ankle deep in the Grim Reaper’s cocktail. Still panting from the exertion, his hot breath baked his dry tongue, which felt like rawhide. While Hauk lay moaning at the bottom of the boat, Aton pushed again, and he got her completely past the sand and floating on the shallow water. He tightened his grip on the boat, gave it another push away from the shore, and he was waist level in the lake. Then he felt cold, wet tentacles wrap around his legs and contract, trying to pull him below the surface of the ghastly water. He had imagined a hungry lake monster that had been dwelling in the depths of the lagoon, but had risen to hunt for human flesh. A shrill cry for help erupted from his throat. He hooked his arms over the side of the boat and thrashed his legs to stop the constricting death grip, but when he looked down, nothing was there. It had been just another hallucination. Now fully convinced more than ever that their lives depended upon immediate departure, he gave their boat a final push into the lake, and pulled himself into the boat. To his delight he felt a faint breeze rising. It was cool on his forehead, but the light wind would not be enough to fill the sail. He rowed with all the strength he had, desperate to remain alive. The breeze seemed to come from exactly the opposite direction from where it had previously blown, somewhere in the east, he supposed. Working as hard as he could, Aton got the boat to move, but slowly. It seemed as if the black water was thick and clung to the hull, impeding their progress, but they did move. In time, they left the island’s dark cloak, which disappeared behind the luminous haze. Uncertain as to the direction that they should go, and still disoriented from the toxins, Aton decided to trust the wind, which he was certain blew from the opposite direction that it had blown during their initial approach to the island, and so would push them to safety. The stars remained hidden by a mist that hovered over this section of the lake like a roof.
The wind was rising, but in unpredictable flurries. Regardless, he hoisted the sail and floated slowly with the breezes. Extreme lethargy hovered over his body like the mysterious mist that had domed over them and the boat. He watched the demonic flames playing over the oily surface of the water and forced himself to remain conscious. The dark clouds that had accompanied them to the shore were fading away, and the cooling wind empowered him to cope with his parching thirst. His hope was to reach the part of the lake that was clean and beautiful, and rid themselves of this horrid swamp.
The dim evening light terrified him because he thought it was possible to hit and ground the boat on a concealed sandbank, trapping them on a lake of flames forever, smothering the life from their listless bodies. Twice they passed islands, only distinguishable as dark masses on the water. While the twisted flames played up to the shore, and the luminous vapor overhung the ground, the receding island appeared as a black mass, covered with the same dark residue that had polluted the surface of the hull and sail. The wind slowly became steadier, and the boat went swiftly over the water. Their hope for survival increased. Aton sat up to get a better look at his surroundings. Suddenly, the boat shook as if she had struck a rock, and she trembled from one end to the other and then stopped for a moment. He sprang up and grabbed the mast to steady himself. The jolt of adrenalin seemed to heighten his senses. At the same instant, a bellowing noise reached them from below the boat, followed by an awful belching and roaring, as if a volcano had burst forth under the surface of the water. He looked back, did not see anything, but at that moment, a dome of noxious gas erupted from under the boat and almost capsized her. Hauk
remained curled on his side, laying in the fetal position, and his body had shifted like a boneless mass of flesh when the boat had gyrated from the turbulence. The putrid odor brought Aton to his knees, and his guts convulsed with dry heaves. As he had bent over to vomit, he saw a dead, bloated fish that the noxious gas had propelled onto the deck. Its eyes were black. When he grasped the fish to toss it overboard, an orb of blue flame floated from its mouth. The boat had not touched ground, and she continued to sail as rapidly as before.
A hydraulic shockwave hit the boat again, as if some violent monster beneath the water was forcing itself up, ascending with frothy bubbles that were churning as they rose, hideously roaring. Fortunately, this disturbance was at a farther distance from the black island, but before it went silent, the aquatic demon was resurrected a third time. Aton felt the boat rise, and he was aware that a large wave had passed under them, followed by several more. They were without crests, not caused by the wind. They had come from deep below the water. Soon afterward, the boat moved quicker, and he detected a strong current in the direction they were sailing. During the retreat from the shore, Hauk had remained unconscious, but maybe his dreams would turn into hallucinogenic nightmares. Aton could not tell if Hauk was suffering in his sleep, because Hauk’s unconscious body was limp except for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. His unsheathed sword lay by his side on the floor of the boat.
The lake remained calm. Aton felt better and less dazed, but his weariness and sleepiness increased every moment. He imagined that the serpent flames were less brilliant and farther apart, and that the luminous vapor was thinner. How long he sat at the tiller he could not tell. He noticed that the night seemed to have gotten darker, the demonic fires faded away, and the luminous vapor was followed by something like the natural gloom of night. He finally saw a star overhead, and joy overcame him. At that moment, he knew that they would live, and in the next instant, he reclined in the boat and fell asleep with the tiller tucked under his arm. His sleeping body held the rudder’s position tightly, retaining it in a steady position so that the boat hurried on with belated swiftness. The boat would have struck more than one of the sandbanks and islets had it not been for the strong current under her hull. Instead of carrying the boat against the banks, the current directed her away, because it drew her between the islands in the channels where it ran the fastest, and the undertow, where it struck the shore, brought her back from the land. Impelled by the swift wind, the boat swept onward steadily to the northeast. After a while, the boat passed the boundary of the black water and entered back into the muddy lake. After another passage of time, all trace of the black marshes completely disappeared, and the last faint glow of the vapor vanished. After a short while, the dawn of the coming day appeared, and the sky became a lovely sapphire blue. The boat sailed on, but they remained asleep.
As the sun rose, the breeze gradually fell away, and in no time, there was only a light wind. The boat had left most of the islands and was approaching the open lake, but when she passed almost the last of the isles, the sail caught the overhanging branch of a tree that had begun to lean away from the shore. The boat swung around and grounded gently under the leaning tree’s shadow. For some time, the little wavelets beat against the side of the boat, but slowly faded away as the beautiful water became still under the slowly rising sun. Fatigued from the journey and sluggish from the narcotic effect of the toxic fog, they slept until nearly noon.
Aton awoke startled, and quickly sat up. A bass struck at the water’s surface, and two seagulls darted out of the lake into the grass on the shore. A thrush was singing nearby, red-winged blackbirds were busy in the bushes, and swallows swept by overhead with the greatest aerobatic dexterity, as they searched the air for a meal of insects. Aton drew a long deep breath of intense relief and filled his lungs with fresh air. It was like awakening from a nightmare. His mouth felt like dry leather, so he leaned over the side of the boat and drank the water as if he were inhaling another deep breath of fresh air, then washed his hands and threw water on his face. When he tried to stand and move, he found that his limbs were almost powerless. He wobbled like a child, his muscles had no strength, and his legs tingled and still felt numb. He was so weak that he crawled on his hands and knees to the mast, and used it to try and stand, but he could not. The soft grass of the shore called to him, so he leaned over the boat and fell into the shallow cool water and dragged himself ashore. The instant he had fastened the mooring rope to a branch so the boat would not float away, he collapsed onto the tall grass and clenched a handful of it. Just to touch green grass after such an experience was pure enjoyment.
From his supine position on the ground, he looked up to see a flock of ducks traveling in their characteristic V formation and lake birds singing to each other accompanied the sight. From under the shrubbery by the shoreline, frogs croaked loudly in an aquatic melody. Lying on the grass, he watched the curves traced by the swallows in the sky. From behind a stand of lake grass came the lonely cry of a seagull, then a goldfinch went swiftly by, looking for thistle seed, which had dried since last autumn and was now ready to eat. A meadowlark watched him lie there from the margin of the beach where the sand met the short grass. The curious meadowlark approached him across the scruffy grass, but it quickly flew away when he tried to slap a pestering fly and missed, startling the bird. He relaxed on the soft ground as if he had never rested before. His body and mind needed a reprieve from the toxic exposure that they had survived, and they finally attained that. It was some time before he rose and crept on all fours back into the boat for food. There was only enough food left for each of them to have one meal, but that gave him no concern now that they were out of the marshes. Here they could hunt, fish, and live off nature’s bounty. He climbed into the boat and prodded Hauk with an oar.
“Hauk.”
Hauk groaned.
“Hauk, wake up.”
Another groan, then the boat rocked back and forth as Hauk clumsily stood in it, his back turned from Aton as he looked at the island to which his friend had secured the boat. The light hurt his eyes, so he narrowed them to slits, squinting as if he had looked directly at the noon sun.
Aton’s mind was becoming clearer, and his vision was improving. Now he saw what he had not completely noticed during the night. The boat was black from front to back. The entire hull was black, and so was Hauk. The stain did not come off with the swipe of his hand. It seemed burned, exactly like the shipwreck with the dead sailors. Hauk turned his tired body around.
“You’re black!” exclaimed Aton.
“So are you…and the boat. Filth covers everything, like the stranded ship.”
Aton dragged his fingernail across the boat’s wooden planks and found the normal color of lumber underneath. As he leaned over the side to dip his hand into the water, he saw his reflection, and it startled him. His face was black; his clothes were black, and his hair black with oily soot. When he had been so eager to quench his thirst the first time, he had leaned over the side of the boat and had not noticed anything in his reflection. His vision had still been blurry. Contact with the oar and ropes must have partially removed the stain because his palms were less dark. He washed again, but the water did not seem to have much effect on the removal of the dark film from his hands.
“Everything is stained,” Aton stated flatly.
“My head…oh…my head hurts like I drank a barrel of ale and demons are pounding inside my skull.” Hauk sat down and leaned forward, resting his face on the palms of his dirty hands, and he moaned from the throbbing headache.
“Let’s eat,” Aton suggested. “We don’t have much, so we’ll have to hunt.”
“Oh, my head!” Hauk moaned again. “I just can’t do it. I need to rest.”
Aton handed him half of the last piece of bread. “Here. Eat it, and then let’s rest on the island. Breathe in the clean air and drink the fresh lake water. I need to recover, too.” He could not help but think that they looked like supernatural
messengers of death.
After eating, they went to the grass and rested again. It was not until the sun was sinking that they felt any life return to their bodies. Still weak, but now able to walk, leaning on a stick like a crutch, Aton began to make a camp for the approaching night and Hauk made a fire. They had only a few scraps left of their last meal, so they ate what remained. Long before the owls and muskrats began their evening rounds, Aton was sleeping on his hunter's hide and Hauk had curled next to the warmth of the crackling fire.
The next morning, they found that the island was small, with clusters of trees, and it was sandy in some places. Rubbing abrasive silt on their stained skin did not do much to bring back its natural color. For shelter, Aton created a domed hut with flexible willow branches and used grass for a thatched roof. They decided to stay a few days until their strength returned because they were lethargic, both mentally and physically.
By stealing hatchlings from the nests of ground-dwelling birds and noodling for fish around the shore, they ate very well and soon recovered. After two days, the discoloration of the skin faded. The boat’s blackness faded a little, too, but the darkness of the discoloration remained. By rubbing the tarnished coins that he had carried away from the ancient city, Aton found some were silver, and the design on one side was a woman in full stride, enveloped in folds of a flag, with her right hand extended and branches of laurel and oak in her left. The reverse side featured a majestic eagle with shield, an olive branch in the right set of talons and arrows in the left. Black filth covered the gold coins he had found on the toxic ground. He rubbed one clean to see that the design on one side was the full-length figure of a woman with flowing hair, holding a torch in her right hand and an olive branch in her left. The reverse side featured a male eagle carrying an olive branch, flying above a nest containing his mate and their hatchlings. The value of the coins must be very great, but he knew all too well how dangerous it would be to reveal them to anybody. Aton regretted now that he had not searched further, and cursed at himself for dropping the wooden box that held other coins and jewelry. He thought that he could have found other valuables, but he quickly scolded himself for his greediness, and was thankful that he had escaped with his life. They already had an abundance of loot from the mysterious ship. They did not need any more, and they were rich if they could ever spend what they had already found. Now that Aton’s wits were coming back to him, he began to marvel at what the two of them had done, because the ancient fables had said that almost all who had ventured into the forbidden area had vanished, or more accurately, had died.