I put two and two together and understood what she was saying.
“So you mean that if I accept this quest I might eventually end up regaining my memory?”
“Exactly,” Junaki said.
I nodded. She was right. I accepted the quest.
Junaki stood up, picking up the dead pigeon.
“I think we should bury the bird,” she said. In other circumstances we would have probably eaten the bird since it had only died a few minutes ago. But the history associated with the bird prevented any such thoughts from coming to our minds.
Chapter 17
I dug a small hole into the soft sand of the river bank and into it Junaki placed the little bird. We covered up the hole and placed a small stone above the hole to mark the spot. I wondered briefly if the pigeon would take rebirth. Had it been a player or a true inhabitant of Arun? I reckoned it was the latter. Who played as a pigeon after all? But then, you never know.
“Now how do we cross the river?” Junaki asked, gazing at the fast flowing milk of the river.
“Swimming is not an option,” I said. “We’ll have to think of something else.”
Junaki’s eyes suddenly bulged as she seemed to have sighted something. She instantly pointed at a log of wood floating in the distance— wait, she wasn’t pointing at the log of wood. She was pointing at a strange thing which seemed like the arm of a great octopus complete with suckers as it slowly disappeared into the milk metres away from the wood. A moment later another arm shot up, it grabbed the log of wood and the next second it had pulled down the log into the depths of the river of milk.
My mouth fell open. With fear in my eyes I looked at Junaki, who looked equally stricken.
“There is a monster in this blasted river,” I said.
“Now I wish I hadn’t told you we’d warn the villagers,” Junaki said, rubbing the top of her ears with her paw.
“Well, we can still not warn them,” I said. Junaki shook her head in a disappointed manner.
“You have come such a long way. If you want to get your memory back you must warn the villagers.”
There was sense to what she was speaking, but at the same time I felt quite shaken. I couldn’t imagine any way I could wriggle out of the hold of that mighty arm of the monster that lay in wait at the bottom of the river.
“Who knows we might miss the monster,” Junaki said, trying to sound optimistic.
My mind meanwhile had begun trying to find a solution to cross the river. That log of wood… could we just cut a great tree and use it to cross the river? I put this idea forward to Junaki.
“That is possible,” she replied. “But it wouldn’t be easy to fell a large tree, how about we make a raft instead with smaller branches?”
All the while she was speaking, I had been gazing at her face, recalling the day she had expressed her love to me. She was now almost behaving like that day had never existed. She caught me staring at her, and let out a cough, raising her brows slightly.
I stood up, feeling myself flush.
“Well what are we waiting for then?” I said, brushing my fur of the sand that had gotten attached to it. “Let’s get building the raft.”
Building a raft was by no means an easy task. We decided to deviate from the idea of using branches to make one when we saw that there were bamboo trees growing not far from the river bank. They were easier to fell and very soon the two of us had gathered quite a few long poles of bamboo and placed them side by side on the river bank. The sun was sinking by this time, and it was obvious that there was no way we would be able to cross the river today. Who knew what kind of additional dangers would come up if we attempted crossing the river at night?
One of the main problems that we faced in building the raft was how to tie all the poles of bamboo together. We needed some strong ropes, and neither of us had any idea where to get ropes from. We were also tired, so we decided that it was best to call it a day and work on the raft the following day, as we needed to hunt and gather food so that we needn’t be hungry for the night. We were able to catch two rabbits. We skinned them and cooked them in a fire by the river bank. It was strange but the moment we set up the fire, our hopes suddenly became high again. It had been a pretty good day, I thought. As the fire blazed, I couldn’t help but admire the glow it cast over Junaki. I decided at that moment that I needed to sort out a few things with her. I cleared my throat, preparing myself.
“Um, Junaki,” I began.
Junaki poked the rabbits with a stick.
“I think they are cooked,” she said. She removed the rabbits from the fire. I felt the chance to speak to her slipping away. I didn’t know when I would be able to gather my guts to speak about the matter to her again.
“Um, Junaki,” I said.
“Could you give me your knife please?” she said. “It’s easier to cut the meat with a smaller knife than with a sword.”
The rabbits were smoking and sure looked delicious.
I sighed and took out the knife from my bag and handed it to her. I reckoned it was just not the time to speak to her about the matter. I watched as Junaki cut the meat into pieces and then served the meat on the large leaves of a tree that was growing near the bank. She put a piece of rabbit into her mouth.
“Delicious!” she said. I grabbed a rabbit leg and took a bite of the meat. Even without any seasoning it tasted quite good.
“It’s nice,” I said, a bit half-heartedly.
“Something’s wrong?” Junaki asked me with wide eyes. The stars above reflected in her black eyes. I suddenly put away the rabbit leg. Procrastination could go to hell.
“I wanted to talk to you about what you said to me the other day,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow, like she wanted to ask me ‘which day?’
I grimaced.
“The day we met Mozo,” I said firmly. “Just before we rolled down the hill and ended up in the midst of the snakes.”
Junaki looked away suddenly. She seemed to be blushing. I reckoned she had thought I wanted to talk to her about something else.
“You still remember?” she said very awkwardly, nibbling at rabbit meat.
“Of course!” I said. Was she crazy? It had only happened a few days ago. Besides who forgot a matter of that kind?
Junaki picked up a half-burnt stick from the fire with her free arm and began to absent-mindedly make random lines on the soft sand. Now what was this? I had a feeling that Junaki had taken to her other shy self like she had in the days just before she had expressed her love to me.
“So?” I said, after five minutes had gone in a peculiar kind of silence, Junaki continuing to draw the random lines with a very abashed look on her face.
“Well…” she began. A minute passed by and only then she continued. “Well, I have told you what I feel for you. Whether you accept me is up to you.” She turned her head up and looked me in the eye. “Do you accept me, Kitty?”
My breath got stuck in my throat. I felt my cheeks and ears go hot. I needed to tell her the truth. I didn’t want to make any promises to her… promises that I couldn’t keep, and promises that I might have made to someone else in my previous life.
“Junaki,” I said with much unease. It was my turn now to pick a half-burnt stick and begin drawing random shapes in the sand. “Look, I do like you… but.”
“But?” Junaki asked, suddenly fearful.
“But I am afraid. What if I had a different girl in my previous life? I think it would be wrong to her if I accept you now.”
The fear left Junaki’s face. She let out a small good-natured laugh.
“So you think you had many girls falling for you in your previous life?” she said to me. I pursed my lips.
“I didn’t mean that, but—”
“You don’t need to explain,” Junaki said in a more serious tone, “I understand you. You just don’t want to break any one’s heart. And I think that is noble on your part, I really do. It only makes me like you all the more. I shall help you find your l
ove from your previous life—in the circumstance that she exists in the first place— but if you were a bachelor in your previous life then…” She let her word trail. I knew this was more or less an end to the conversation on this topic at least for now.
A message appeared in my vision.
Congratulations!
Your relationship with princess Junaki has improved! She now respects you!
Well, I guess being honest does pay, doesn’t it?
“Thank you for understanding me,” I said to Junaki. She nodded, resuming to draw the lines.
“Hey, the rabbits are cooling,” I said, changing the subject.
“Right you are!” Junaki said.
***
Chapter 18
The following morning I woke up to see that the sun was considerably high in the sky. I looked around the place. Junaki was nowhere to be seen. A sudden fear seized my heart as I recalled the monster of the river. Had something happened to her? I was up on my feet at once.
The poles that we had gathered yesterday lay nearby and the fire that we had made last night had already died perhaps a few hours back. For a moment, I looked this way and that. Suddenly my eyes fell on the soft marks of paws on the soft sand that were going towards the forest.
I realised that Junaki had gone to the forest herself and no monster had taken her. At the same time, I was the one wearing the bracelet that Mozo had given us for protection against the snakes. Going into the jungle alone was not totally without it risks for Junaki.
Thankfully, next moment, all my worries were put to rest as I heard a noise and turned to see, Junaki emerge from the woods from another part of the jungle. She looked rather tired and she was crying what looked like ropes.
“So you have woken up, eh?” Junaki said, as she reached me, dragging the ropes which seemed like aerial roots behind her.
“Why did you go alone into the jungle?” I asked. I couldn’t help but sound angry. I didn’t want her to carelessly throw herself into a potentially risky situation.
Junaki laughed with some sarcasm, as she threw the aerial roots beside the bamboo.
“Like you would actually wake up when I shake you,” she said. “Damn, I had never seen anyone sleeping so deeply in a long while. I recall my father—”
Junaki stopped short, as if the memory of her father brought her pain.
“Ah, never mind. Anyway, I thought yesterday I had seen a tree with aerial roots when we were coming towards the river. So I went back to get the roots as they can work as ropes to tie the bamboo.”
Hearing Junaki’s words I couldn’t help but realise that I felt quite well rested. I had been in a deep dream-less sleep for sure. I stretched myself.
“Let build the raft then,” I said to her.
It took us about an hour to join the bamboo poles together with the ropes. Finally we were done and I exhaled in relief. We could now cross the river— provided the monster missed to detect us.
We tester the raft in the water—no, milk— near the bank. It was buoyant and floated well. When the two of us leapt onto it, it remained steady. But, we were missing something.
“We need oars,” I said. The flow of the river was pulling the raft along. The two of us leapt down from it and pulled it back to the bank.
We brought a couple of bamboo trees and then flattened their ends by making a series of cuts. Using some of the aerial roots that had been unused we fashioned very crude kind of oars from the bamboo poles. And then we were ready to set for the other bank of the river.
“I hope this works out,” Junaki said, rubbing her whiskers.
“It will,” I reassured her, although in my heart there was a whirlpool of different kinds of fears going on. What if the monster attacked? What if we fell off the raft and the river current swept us away? I swallowed. Be calm, kitty, I told myself. Fear brings nothing.
We climbed the raft and pushed ourselves away from the bank using the oars.
“Remember, we need to use the river current to our advantage,” I told Junaki, though it was more or less to calm my own frantic mind and heart.
The mood of the river of milk could best be described as erratic. One moment it would be very calm, the next moment you are at the mercy of the powerful current of the river, as I had already experienced yesterday after I had dived.
As we got farther and farther away from the bank, the river current seemed to get stronger. Just then, my eyes fell on a bamboo pole that constituted one of the edges of the raft. The rope tying it had loosened—thanks to the milk—and it was certain that the pole would completely detach from the raft in a few minutes. I pointed this out to Junaki.
“My bad,” she said in a guilty voice, “I tied it. Seems like I should have fastened it tighter.”
“I guess we can only push on at this point,” I said. We hadn’t brought more rope with us and there was no option to fix the problem at hand.
We rowed the raft with all our might. We needed to travel in a slanted line so that we wouldn’t need to go against the current.
And just then the river seemed to get wilder. It became harder to even stand on the raft much less row it. As I tried to stand up, my hand slipped on the oar and the next moment my oar had fallen into the milk and floated away. I let out a curse. My heart began to beat faster. This was not going as planned.
“Don’t worry, we still have one more oar,” Junaki said, as she rowed the boat with the oar she had. She almost sounded like she was very desperate to be hopeful. I concentrated on not falling from the raft as the milk kept getting wilder.
As if things couldn’t get any bad, Junaki let out a grunt as she was not able to pull her oar from the water.
“What’s happening?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” Junaki replied with gritted teeth. “Something in the water is pulling the oar!”
Our raft had come to an unsteady halt despite the wild milk flowing all around us. And then there was a great jerk, and Junaki was almost thrown off her feet as the oar slipped away from her hands. I grabbed her just in time before she fell into the river. The oar meanwhile was pulled to the depths of the river of milk by whatever had gotten hold of it. The raft was now at the total mercy of the river and the current pulled it along. Both of us crouched so as to be able to maintain our balance.
“We shouldn’t have accepted the quest!” I cried as we went forward at break neck speed. Junaki grabbed my arm in fear.
Despite the dangers of our situation I found myself speaking,
“Trying to take advantage of the situation, eh?”
Junaki scowled.
“Shut up. We are gonna die,” and she grabbed me only tighter.
The next moment, our raft came to a very abrupt halt, so that we were almost thrown off it. I turned and saw that three tentacles had seized the back of the raft. The monster!
“Take out your sword,” I said to Junaki. We might perish today but we wouldn’t go down without a fight. I myself took out my sword, and in the process nearly made my bag fall into the river.
I lunged towards the place where the raft had been gripped by the suckers of the monster’s arms. Due to the different forces that were being applied on the raft, the ropes binding the bamboo together were loosening and there were times when half of the raft would be under the milk.
I stabbed at the arms of the monster. I focussed on one arm and I saw that the monster had a health of 10000. There was no way we could kill the monster, not even under normal circumstances. Junaki too began to stab one of the arms.
“Wait, let me try paralysis,” she said. She uttered the spell words, and for a split second I thought that the monster’s arms had frozen, but the next moment they seemed to become all the more agitated and more arms began to appear all around the raft. Deep under the river of milk I could the glow of what looked like two red eyes.
One of the arms came near my waist. I tried to cut it with my sword, but it evaded all my attacks with ease such that every time I attacked I onl
y slashed thin air. It made a sudden move and the next thing I knew was that it had wound itself around my waist. A hard pull and next I was in the river, frantically splashing milk in an effort to stay afloat. I did not let my grip on my sword loosen as it was the only defence I had against the monster.
Junaki was still on the raft, and she was trying to avoid the arm of the monster trying to grab her. Even as I was being pulled under the milk by the arm holding me, I watched in my horror as an arm grabbed Junaki’s hand and jerked it such that her sword fell away. Next, another arm grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into the milk.
I was now below the surface.
You are short on oxygen!
You will receive -50 health a minute until you breathe again!
The arm just kept pulling me down and down. I could see the glow of the eyes becoming bigger and bigger, and just below the eyes was a darker shadow. Was that the mouth of the monster?
I struggled to accept my fate. No, I couldn’t just die like this. I cannot die before I regained my memory. I recalled the other day when I had looked into the magic orb and seen the hairy man. I had to rescue that person. That orb couldn’t have lied.
My heart sank further as I realised that I was now mere few metres away from the glowing eyes. And just then, with a burst of euphoria, I recalled something. My reward when I had removed the fish bone from Mozo’s throat: 100 luck.
My health was falling fast, even as my lungs screamed for precious air. How did one use luck? By thinking about it?
“I wish to use my luck,” I thought desperately.
A message popped up. My heart was beating fast.
Would you like to you use the luck you have?
You currently possess 100 luck.
Yes/No?
Note: It is recommended to use one’s luck only when one is in a life threatening situation.
I reckoned being about to be eaten by a river monster was a life threatening situation and I selected ‘yes’.
Catheroes Page 10