by H Waters
“I am not asking him. This screams trap,” Scarlet protested, raising her hands in disapproval.
“I’ll do it,” I said, trying to sound confident of my decision.
I handed my bag to Scarlet and began walking towards the old man, my hand on the hilt of the sword hanging from my hip. “Come on, you killed Grekal — what’s the worst a skinny old man could do?” I said out loud, trying to reassure myself. As I grew closer I could begin to make out more of the old man’s features. His long gray beard had speckles of black running through it, his thin gray hair was slicked back atop his head and his skin was tight around his ribs, like he had not eaten in weeks. The strangest thing about the crazed old man was his eyes. One of the eyes was bright green and the iris was a perfectly shaped circle, while the other was more oval shaped and a dark brown.
“Excuse me, sir!” I hollered, trying to sound as calm as possible. He turned to look at me, completely calm and un-startled.
“Yes, dear?” he said with a crooked smile.
“What exactly are you doing?” I asked, now only a few meters from him.
“Collecting shells!” the old man enthusiastically replied.
“I think those are just rocks,” I told him, motioning to the thousands of rocks lying around us.
The man looked to his small wicker basket, disappointment growing across his face. “It appears you are right,” he sadly said, dumping all of the rocks he had collected back onto the ground.
“How did you get out here all by yourself? The nearest town has to be days away,” Scarlet asked from behind me.
“Oh, I am not from a town, I rather live off the land,” the old man replied, with a dumb smile on his face. “My house is not too far from here, actually.”
“Could we possibly have shelter? We do not have much, but I am sure we have something to trade,” Alaric asked, setting Lucy down.
The old man looked us all up and down. “No need for payment, I could use the company,” the old man said dramatically, throwing his wicker basket to the ground. “Follow me,” he ordered, stepping off the path.
“Do you want your basket?” Scarlet asked while she handed me my bag.
The old man ignored us and kept on walking. “Guess not,” Alaric laughed, following the old man into the forest. The trees were covered in a black bark and had small pointed leaves that did not seem to be falling like they were in the rest of the woods. The rocky ground here was strikingly bare.
Lucy followed me closely, growing noticeably more tired as she tried to traverse the gravel-filled soil. “I bet you wish you were five years younger,” I told Lucy, giving her a reassuring pat on the head.
“Do you have a name?” I yelled to the old man, who was surprisingly fast for his age.
“The name’s Ralph,” he hollered back.
After that it was silent for a long while. No one spoke a word, the only sounds came from the crunch of rocks under our feet. The sun seemed to drop at every step, and with it the temperature. “Not much longer! We just have to cut through these woods here,” Ralph declared, pointing to a strange-looking forest up ahead. The trees began to twist into painful looking directions, the small leaves were now accompanied by red prickly fruit, about the size of plums . “Do not eat the fruit,” Ralph laughed, before stepping into the woods.
The further we walked into the woods the scarier it got. The trees creeped and howled, almost as if they were speaking to each other. Strange noises were coming from all around us, likely from some sort of bugs or birds. By now the sun was completely gone, and there was no trail — we just wove our way through thick, thorny brush.
“Great, we followed a drunk old guy into the woods and now we’re just going to die out here!” Scarlet said. Her voice echoed through the woods, followed by a strange clicking.
“I do not touch that poison!” Ralph hollered back. “I only ingest the shrooms of the forest,” he added. His words were again followed by the strange clicking.
“Drunk, high, I do not care!” Scarlet screamed. “You lead us to our deaths!”
There it was again: right when she finished yelling, the clicking happened. “Hey, shut up,” I whispered, cutting Ralph off.
“Scarlet, yell and then listen,” I ordered.
Scarlet yelled as loud as she could and then stopped. As soon as she was done, another round of clicking happened. Scarlet’s eyes grew wide, like she had seen a ghost. In sync Scarlet and Alaric yelled one word: “Boden!”
“Old man, take us to your home now or we will actually die,” Alaric yelled.
The old man listened, taking off in a full sprint through the woods. Alaric followed first, then Scarlet, Lucy and I. We trudged through the thick brush as fast as we could, branches cracking and breaking as we flew through them.
Then, abruptly, I felt weightless, and I began to fall. I could see my friends still running, not even noticing that I had stopped. The dim light from the moon had gone and I was falling through pure darkness. There was no way to tell what was on either side of me or what I was going to hit once I reached the ground. Time seemed too slow — it felt as if I had been falling for hours — and then splash, I hit water, but it felt like I was hitting cement.
Trying my hardest not to drown, I forced myself to swim up, until I broke the surface of the water. All around me was darkness. I could hear, see, feel and smell nothing but the cool water wrapping itself around my skin and the stench of sulphur. I swam in one direction until I hit something hard, and using the last of my strength I pulled myself onto what felt like a rock. I slung the soaking wet bag off my back and set it to the side; it must have weighed at least three times its original weight. I slowly leaned back until my back was resting on a rock face, and breathing heavy I tried to calm myself down and figure out what had just happened. The sound of agitated water hitting rock was surprisingly comforting.
“Hello, my dear,” a loud man’s voice echoed over the water.
Startled I stood, drawing my sword, not sure where to point it.
“Put that toothpick away, I called this meeting on a friendly basis,” the voice calmly stated.
“Not until you show yourself!” I screamed, so anxious my hands were shaking.
“As you wish,” the voice sighed. As he finished a wave of light flooded the cave, forcing me to shield my eyes. Once it had died down I removed my hands, and the cave was as bright as day. A pool of swirling blue water filled the entire middle of the cave, surrounded by remarkable rock ledges that seemed to circle up forever. On top of the water, in the center of the pool, stood a large white deer with golden hooves and large, curly, golden horns.
“Great, now I am having a conversation with a glowing deer in the bottom of a cave,” I muttered, sheathing my sword.
“Addax — I am an Addax, not a deer,” the creature angrily replied.
“When I heard of a warrior possessing the key and heading west, err, not to be harsh, but I was picturing someone a little more, err, manly,” the Addax said. “My first guess was one of those heathens, those self-proclaimed Saints,” he added.
“I killed Grekal!” I stated proudly.
“So I have heard,” he agreed, pacing around, looking me up and down.
“Whose side are you on?” I asked nervously.
“Side? There are no sides in this war. You are stepping into a fight that has been going on for millennia. You are catching the tail end, and I hope for this godforsaken planet’s sake you can finish it,” said the Addax, who was now lying down on top of the water.
“And how would I go about doing that, oh wise, glowing deer?” I said, sitting back down next to my bag.
“Do not mock me, girl,” the Addax bellowed. “You possess the key, and that key is the last piece to a weapon older than time. Your first priority should be keeping that key out of the hands of those crazed demons.”
“You mean the Black Bloods? So you are on the Saints’ side?” I asked with a smirk.
“There are no sides. We just s
hare a common interest,” the Addax replied, closing his eyes as he took a deep calming breath. “Have you been experiencing anything strange carrying this key?”
“Well, not too long ago I passed out and relived one of Alaric’s memories. Does that count?” I asked, taking a long sip of water and a bite of salted meat from my bag.
“Yes, of course that counts,” the Addax answered, rolling his eyes. “The source of that memory is the machine sending a sort of energy pulse to that key. I have pinpointed the source of these pulses to a wretched place. Deep in the mountains. It used to be a place of education and new beginnings in the old world, but now it is harboring that machine and more than likely some of those demons. They call it the University,” the Addax continued as he began to slowly pace back and forth. “They must be using that machine there. Bringing the use of that machine to an end should be your second priority.”
“So that sounds all well and dandy, but my first and second priority is finding my son,” I sternly declared, standing and slinging my bag over my back.
“I will go look for your son,” the Addax said.
“Why would you do that?” I asked, confused.
“Our hands are dripping with blood and it grows thicker every day those demons run freely, using that machine at will. If the only way to get you to wash our hands clean is to find this boy, then that is what I shall do,” he proudly answered. He followed up with a mysterious chant, then white light flashed again, blinding me.
When my vision returned I was sitting behind a rock in the woods, the sound of that familiar clicking all around me. I breathed heavily, trying to get my head straight. “What the hell is going on? Was that all real?” I whispered to myself.
I grabbed at my backpack, and surprisingly it was dry. I twisted around to face the source of the clicking. Using what little strength I had, I pulled myself up over the rock to get a better view of what was going on. The dim moon lit up the forest, and about fifteen meters from me was a small wooden shack. It was in pretty rough shape. The boards were peeling from the walls, and the slanted tin roof was faded into a dark gray, but inside was a light and signs of movement.
To the left was the source of the clicking. Four large creatures were fighting over a piece of mangled meat. Their black scaly skin and rows of cold reptilian eyes glistened in the moonlight. They kind of looked like the Komodo Dragons from a nature book we had in Kata, but much scarier. I slumped back down behind the rock.
Okay, my best bet is to find a way into that cabin, I thought to myself. I undid my pack and set it against the rock. I was now carrying nothing but the sword on my hip and the key in my pocket. If I lived until morning I would come back for my bag. Quickly but quietly I crawled through the brush. The lizard creatures seemed far too occupied with the bloodied meat to care about the odd stick creak or leaf crunch I produced while crawling.
Now soaked with dew, I finally got to the cabin wall. I crawled along the cabin walls until I found a large hole with light peeking out. Whatever was in here had to be better than those lizard things. I forced my way through the hole. As I got farther into the cabin the light seemed to dim; there was a small table or cot above me.
I crawled until I was at the edge of the cot and looked around the cabin. There, Alaric sat guarding the front door, petting a visibly nervous Lucy. Scarlet paced the floor, occasionally looking through small holes in the walls. Excitedly I crawled out from under the cot. Once I was out I quickly jumped up — to find Alaric pointing his sword at me and Scarlet her staff.
“Echo?” Scarlet whispered, sounding very surprised. “How? We thought you had died!”
“It’s a bit of a weird story,” I admitted. Scarlet just smiled and hugged me. It was odd seeing her show any emotion besides a cold seriousness. Lucy followed suit and jumped on me.
“So where is Ralph? That guy was kind of growing on me,” I asked, scanning the room.
“Did you by chance see the Boden outside?” Alaric asked.
“You mean the creepy lizards?” I replied. “The ones fighting over some scrap meat?”
“That scrap meat was Ralph,” Alaric replied sadly.
“Why was he out there alone?” I asked, taking a seat on the cot.
“The crazy old bat wanted to defend his land, so he ran out there with a broomstick,” Scarlet explained.
I looked to the ground, forcing myself to hold back tears. “What exactly are those things?” I asked.
“They are called Boden, Gout’s personal hunters. Awful vision, but incredible hearing. That clicking they do is some sort of echolocation,” Scarlet replied with disgust in her voice.
“That means Gout is at most two days behind us,” Alaric said nervously.
“So what do we do?” I asked Alaric.
“We stay quiet and hold up here until morning,” Alaric explained. “Boden that small cannot survive direct sunlight. So at daybreak we continue west, hopefully leaving this wretched forest behind us.”
I nodded in agreement, unbuckling the sword from my belt. I lay down on the surprisingly comfy cot, every muscle in my body screaming in pain. Staring at the ceiling, unable to relax I began to think again about everything the Addax had told me. One of the things he said lingered in the back of my mind more than the rest: “Our hands are dripping with blood and it grows thicker every day.”
Why would he say something like that? What hand did he have in all of this death? I let my eyelids drift shut. The night air was cool, and the worn walls of the cabin did a poor job of keeping it out.
X
The sound of barking echoed through my head, and my eyes shot open to a wet pink tongue excitedly licking my face. “Stop,” I laughed, shoving Lucy to the side.
“Morning,” Alaric said, throwing my bag onto me. “Found this by the rocks out there,” he added.
“Thanks,” I replied. Sitting up, I felt my pocket to make sure the key was still there. So much death for one little thing, I thought to myself.
“You passed out as soon as your head hit the pillow,” Scarlet laughed.
“It was a long night,” I shot back. I put my backpack on and re-fastened my sword to my belt.
“The map says there is a fairly simple route west, it looks to pass some sort of large pond,” Scarlet said.
“Well, let’s get a move on then!” Alaric ordered, as he forced the rusty hinges of the front door open.
We began to walk back to the last spot where we’d seen something that maybe resembled a path. The spot where the Boden had been fighting was now nothing more than a messy patch of dirt. There was no sign that Ralph had even existed. Had anyone even known he was back here, living all alone?
The morning sun lit up the dark forest, making the bent and broken trees seem a touch more inviting. We slowly followed Alaric back to where the path was, wading our way through thick thorns and brush.
“This way seems different,” Scarlet said.
“It is,” replied Alaric. “We’re taking a shortcut — in theory we should come out right next to this pond,” he added, pointing to a small circle on the map.
“Oh great, we’re going to get lost again,” Scarlet growled.
Even though the sun was at its peak in the sky, the forest seemed cool, with a breeze. “So how far away is this Gout guy?” I nervously asked.
“Well, considering our fun little run-in with his pets last night, he will likely catch up to us in a day’s time,” Scarlet answered.
“And can we kill him?” I asked.
“Alaric might be able to,” she replied, with uncertainty in her voice. We kept trudging through the bush, Lucy’s ears perking up with every sound in the vast forest. Eventually we came up to the end of the woods. The bent trees were traded in for large patches of brown grass and a gravel trail.
“Here we are!” Alaric proudly announced. “If you just follow this trail left, you will hit the pond. Wait for me there, I need to take a breather,” Alaric said, slumping down onto a large rock.
“Alright, do not take too long,” Scarlet warned, taking off down the trail.
After Alaric was out of earshot I asked Scarlet, “How well did you know this Gout guy?”
Scarlet sighed, like she’d known the question was coming. “Not very well,” she replied. “We fought alongside each other a few times, but nothing more. Honestly, I think he even creeped Grekal out.”
I laughed uncomfortably. Oh great, we were going to have to fight something that made even Grekal uneasy. We walked the rest of the way in silence, Lucy jumping out for the odd mouse or other rodent, keeping us pretty entertained. Lucy finally tired, giving the field mice a well-deserved break.
“There it is,” Scarlet hollered from ahead.
As we approached the small lake the air grew warmer and wet. The lake was smaller than I had pictured, and the water looked like it was almost at a boil. “Why is the water bubbling?” I asked Scarlet.
“It’s a geyser. The water comes from below the ground,” she responded, filling up her water bottle. “Good to drink,” she added, then stepped back a few meters. Lucy stopped drinking and followed Scarlet.
“Why are you backing up like that?” I asked Scarlet, confused. She responded with only a smile.
Whoosh! A loud noise came from behind me, and I spun around to find a wall of water twenty meters high. I screamed as the water came crashing down, soaking me from head to toe.
“You, little bit—!” I screeched at Scarlet, but was cut off by the distant sound of Alaric yelling. “Scarlet, stop laughing, I can’t hear what Alaric is trying to say,” I said. She wiped her tears away and looked over at the clearly troubled Alaric. “He sure is fast,” I said.
“He is a Saint. What do you expect?” Scarlet replied, almost sounding proud.
As Alaric got closer his yelling got louder.
“What is he saying?” I asked Scarlet, very confused.
“Gout. He is saying Gout,” she replied in a low, angry voice. “I hope you are ready for a fight.”
“Not really,” I replied, nervously.
Alaric finally caught up to us, completely out of breath. “Gout,” he muttered. “He is following me.” He fell to the ground.