by J. M. Wilson
Slate grey, with a cold flat face, the wall of rock rose into the air.
A mist of water droplets saturated the air around them.
A waterfall perhaps, responsible for this mist?
Whether it fell from the top or out of the face somehow, they didn’t know.
They couldn’t tell.
The spume of the waterfall, mixed with the haze of cloud fogged everything, making it impossible to see what was what, or how high the cliff face was?
In silence they stared at it, and then at each other.
The unspoken question on their minds was, ‘how do we get up that?’
“We fly!” said Dena, matter-of-factly, to the unspoken question.
“We can’t even fly through ‘The Wood’. The air is too wet” returned Silverton.
“I can’t do it Dena.” Said Berty, sounding pitifully exhausted and sore.
Dena opened her cylinder, and handed it to Berty to drink.
“You can, and you will Berty. Our friend needs us.”
Turning to Silverton, she said,
“We’ll keep resting! There will be ledges all the way up. We’ll rest as we rise!” Silverton’s eyebrows rose on his interestingly pleasing face.
The interesting face thing caused Dena to pause, just for a second, before she replied, “Do you have another idea?”
Silverton smiled and said, “No! No I don’t!”
In normal circumstances, flight happened with little conscious thought.
However, here it required every bit of thought they had.
Intense concentration, at all times, was required!
Slowly they rose.
Each minute felt like an hour.
Their bodies felt heavy from the moment they left the ground, and as they rose, they felt even heavier, their movements getting slower and slower.
Ever in their line of vision was the cold slate grey of the rockface.
They did not know how far up the cliff-face they had managed to travel, because they still could not see the top of the cliff, and they could now no longer see the ground. They did not know how far they had to go.
‘Perhaps that was a good thing’, thought Dena, as she registered that the tops of the trees looked pretty far away now. If Berty had thought that he had the same distance to travel again, he just might have given up. Dena could see her brother was struggling.
The three hovered at the side of the cliff face searching for a place to rest.
All of them were feeling the tiredness, and the strain in their heads.
Their minds were in charge of this movement, and as with all things, when the mind is not properly rested, watered, and fed, it doesn’t always work too well.
They all had to concentrate. Berty was worn out, so both Silverton and Dena had taken an arm each, to help carry his weight.
Finding a good spot, the intrepid three sat on a ledge, hundreds of feet, they figured, from the floor.
The view in front of them was breathtaking. The forest canopy lay like a carpet of green below them, like a mowed lawn.
The smell from the forest was ripe with plant life. It even smelled green.
The three rested on the ledge, their bodies heavy and wet.
Their minds were fuzzy and tired.
“Cannot be far now Berty,” Silverton said, as he tried to motivate his small companion.
He then spoke to Dena in an urgent tone.
“We don’t want to be here in the dark Dena, so I suggest we move on.”
Dena knew Silverton was right. This was their third stop, and now she was unsure how long they had been travelling?
With Berty holding Dena’s hand, they all began to rise up the front of the cliff face again. The cold vastness of the cold cliff wall was both imposing and intimidating.
The water from the fall was like vapour in the air, falling thick and icy onto the three Manushi, making their bodies heavier to lift, and straining their tired minds.
Berty began to shiver.
His whole body was suddenly aware of the wetness, and the coldness, something none of them had ever known before.
These thoughts consumed his mind, impacting on his ability to concentrate on flight. Berty’s grip began to weaken, and then he began to slip from his sister.
Dena struggled to keep hold of him, but the slipperiness of their hands made it impossible.
Before she knew it, she had lost her grip on him, and he began to fall.
And fall fast!
Dena watched.
She screamed in horror as her brother tumbled out of control, and away from her. Silverton, who was leading upfront, swirled around.
Startled by Dena’s fearful cry, he followed the direction of Dena’s horrified stare, and saw Berty plummeting to the Earth.
Without thinking, he dived in Berty’s direction.
Going down was easier than going up, his mind only concentrating on his speed. Although it felt like ages, it was in fact only seconds before Silverton swooped to Berty’s rescue. Grabbing him at first by the arm, he immediately felt the weight of the child. Now this was hard.
Silverton had never struggled with anything in his entire life, due to his superior brain’s ability, yet he struggled today.
Silverton felt desperate to keep them both up. His mind wavered, and momentarily he doubted his own ability, a feeling he was not used to. He thought they would both fall. However, this was just a moment of weakness. His mind, as do all superior minds under extreme pressure, changed gear, calling upon all possible solutions.
Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, as his breathing became laboured under the strain.
‘Remember to use your head,’ Pickles Mellowmarsh’s words rang out.
From nowhere, he thought, ‘It’s all in the mind! This isn’t real’.
As he thought it, he believed it!
And the weight of Berty became instantly lighter!
I can fly! We can fly!
With each positive thought process challenging this situation, Berty became lighter and lighter. As Silverton got the hang of challenging his senses, the ascending journey into the clouds, towards Dena, became easier.
By the time he got to Dena, who was slowly on her descent, Silverton had the situation under control. Although Berty was exhausted, and had literally passed out, Silverton shouldered Berty’s weight easily.
Silverton upon reaching Dena, was quick to share his nugget of wisdom with her.
“Use your head Dena, use positive thoughts!”
The pressure of the journey was relieved by Dena’s ability to think positively.
Instead of concentrating on how hard the task was, they concentrated on the task of getting to the top. He continued to carry Berty whilst they both, slowly but surely, rose to the top of the cliff.
This charged her with a new resolve and belief in their abilities as a team, to find Ruby.
They finally discovered where the water was coming from.
They passed the roar of the water, as it exploded out of the side of the rock-face.
The top of the cliff, the end of this obstacle course, was then in sight.
Once at the top, Silverton settled Berty down. They took this opportunity to rest, whilst Berty recovered.
Silverton was beginning to regain his strength.
Whilst resting, he turned his thoughts to himself and the knowledge of his own selfwill, his inner strength and overall abilities.
As he did this, the strength sapping cold, and the weight of the air that had engulfed them, began to diminish. His belief in his capability in finding Ruby strengthened.
Dena and Berty were still resting. Dena had wrapped herself around her brother to keep them both warm.
Silverton looked at them as they slept and thought about the time.
It must be getting on, but he had no idea what time it might be?
This place rendered him at a loss. Time did not seem to follow any rules, so they had taken to listening to their stomachs. Beca
use they had not been eating well, their stomachs’ hunger signals were pretty much constant, so this did not help much. He could not rely on how they felt.
It would have been useless gauging anything on how tired they were, as everything they did left them feeling exhausted.
Silverton was concerned.
He did not want them to be out in the open, and exposed through the night.
If there was going to be a night?
He looked at Dena holding her brother close to her.
Silverton was struck by Dena’s beauty.
Of course he’d been interested in girls for a while now. There were plenty of attractive girls about, but there always seemed to be something missing as he got to know them. With Dena he was finding that the more he got to know her, the more he wanted to know her. Silverton brought his mind back to order as he surveyed the top of the mountain for a dwelling or a pathway.
He was not surprised that nothing so obvious existed.
What he saw was a barren wasteland that appeared to stretch out for eternity.
Turning back to his friends, Silverton considered that he too had better top up on his rest.
It looked like they had a longer journey ahead of them.
CHAPTER 11
A FRUITFUL DAY
“After violent emotion most people
and all boys demand food!”
(Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936)
How long they had slept, they did not know.
With an excited cry, Berty woke them. “Look!” he exclaimed.
To Silverton’s utter amazement, what lay in front of them was a summery scene, complete with a cherry orchard, ripe with fruit!
The fruit hung from the branches rich in redness, glistening and teasing the three hungry Manushi.
Was it lunchtime or suppertime? They didn’t know?
All they knew for sure was that they felt very hungry. Berty was starving.
Without any regard for manners, the three just ploughed in and ate.
The cherries were sweet and meaty.
They popped with each first bite, exploding with flavour.
They gorged, and laughed, as the juice dribbled down their chins.
Hunger had them stuffing their mouths and over-filling themselves, they were so ravenous!
With their hunger addressed, their mouths and chins wiped, and a renewed sense of fullness, their mental strength got a boost.
The three wandered beyond the orchard, looking for direction.
In the far distance shone a castle-like structure.
It was like nothing any of them had seen before, old or new, Manushi, or Human.
For a brief time they stood in awe of this magnificent vision looming in the far distance, sparkling like a treasure find.
After a moment Dena said,
“That’s where she is! Let’s go get her!”
As the words left Dena’s mouth, a swirl of wind, at first gentle in its passing, seemed to blow, not at them, but past them, stroking at their skin as it moved beyond them, and onward into the orchard, coming from the direction of the castle?
The gentle rustling coming from the orchard, fast turned into the creaking and cracking of branches.
The three rescuers were bemused by the winds lack of pressure on their bodies.
They could have continued on their walk, but were utterly transfixed to the spot! They turned back to watch the cherry tree branches arch and bend backwards under the strength of the wind accosting it.
The wind howled and whistled as its ferocity picked up, and assaulted the orchard. Berty, Dena and Silverton were mesmerised at what they were witnessing.
Then, as if a door had been slammed to keep the wind out, everything just stopped! No creaking, no howling, no wind.
As if in slow motion, the three clicked on to what was going to happen.
With nothing now holding back the branches in their arched positions, a whipping motion sprang the trees back to their upright position!
All three braced themselves and raised their hands in protection.
The fruit was propelled through the air, catapulting towards them, sharply, and cruelly assaulting their bodies.
It twanged and splattered like paintball fire, then added to this painful infliction by pelting them with the expelled pips, that pinged off each other, the floor, and anything else that was around them. One at a time the branches released and expelled their fruit, shooting the three Manushi with their fleshy bullets.
Darting behind a rock, the three wounded sheltered, as the fruit and pips darted and pinged over the top of them.
The onslaught gradually stopped.
Sore, sticky and splattered, the three sat in bewilderment at what had just happened? What else could this land of madness throw at them?
Dena was the first to raise her head above the rock, and look back at the orchard.
“It’s gone,” she simply said.
Berty and Silverton jumped up to look.
It had gone and it didn’t shock them.
They were getting used to the lack of reality in this world of ‘FarFrom.’
“Well would you believe that! An orchard that has just assaulted us with its fruit, has just upped and disappeared. Well I never!” Berty said in mock disbelief.
“Well, if you think that’s strange Berty, what do you think to this?” Silverton asked in a serious tone .
Dena and Berty turned back to look at what Silverton was pointing to.
“Oh what!” The pair blurted out together.
The gleaming structure was now further away and the groundcover in between them and it, had become hazardously rocky. Spiked, sharp rocks now the ground-cover, lay ahead, as far as their eyes could see, tall ones, short ones, thick and thin, every concievable shape and size.
As they tried to imagine what might be going on, a thick grey fog appeared in the distance, tumbling over the rocky terrain, as it headed towards them.
“If I was a cynical person, I would be thinking that FarFrom was behind all of this!” Dena said.
“I think you are right Dena, and it also makes me think that he does not want visitors!” Silverton quipped.
With obvious sarcasm, Dena said,
“No, but we have travelled all this way, we can’t just go home now without seeing him!”
The cold from the fog hit.
It had travelled at lightening speed across the vast expanse of jagged rocks.
It soaked through their clothes, chilling them into silence.
Once more a new onslaught began to challenge their minds.
Dena reminded Berty that it wasn’t real.
“You must think beyond the cold, the rocks and the fog, and only think about flying.” She encouraged, and this gave him confidence, telling him,
“We fly together, holding on to each other.”
As they travelled, the cold pierced through their clothes and pricked at their skin.
Breathing meant they took the cold air into their bodies.
Was this an illusion, challenging their senses?
It felt very real.
It was hard for them to ignore how it was making them feel. Again the three found themselves travelling in silence, conserving their energies, and trying to focus their thoughts.
Silverton stressed, that no matter how hard this was, it could get a whole lot more intense if they allowed their minds to wander from the task of flying, and onto the misery of the conditions,
“It’s negative thinking that fuels FarFrom’s ability to control and manipulate us.” Silverton stressed.
Berty found concentrating hard at the best of times. At the worst of times, like now, he was doing incredibly well. Each time he faltered and doubted his own ability to carry on, the cold grabbed at him like a frozen steel hand, pushing him down hard towards the rocks below. Dena seemed to know when he was faltering, and would boost Berty’s confidence by telling him how well he was doing.
“Come on Berty! That’s it! Look
at you getting through this. We’re getting through this. That’s it Berty!”
Like a white sheet enveloping all senses, the journey was disorientating and claustrophobic. There was no place to rest with only the sharp rocks below, so their pace had to be slow, steady, and constant.
They could not see very far in front of them, and so had to be careful. Very quickly into this new challenge, they realised odd sharp rocks protruded higher above the others. This posed another potential danger. The flight across was going to be tedious.
The rocks were volcanic and stank of sulphur. The smell choked their ability to breath. Rotten eggs. A lack of oxygen is not good for the brain, and not good for the body either, so breath they had to, and yes, smell they did.
Berty tried squeezing his nose so he couldn’t smell it, but then he had to breath through his mouth. When he did that he could taste the stink.
He didn’t know which was worse!
On any other sort of a day, Berty may well have belly-laughed at his sister, at Silverton, and even at himelf as they boaked at the foul smell. Today there was no smile on his face. With their mouths over-spilling with mouth juice and their eyes watering, today he was so far away from laughing, no-where near smiling, and indeed much closer to crying.
It was a never ending stream of vile, awful, bad.
His stomach turned.
There was no sounds to be heard only the noise of muffled quiet, oh!, apart from the occasional boake-sound from one of them. But Berty, his sister and Siverton knew they couldn’t concentrate on these things. They had to think positive.
As his eyes rolled into his head, his mouth watered uncontrollably, and his stomach lurched, threatening to conjure up the cherries he had recently eaten.
He practised his positive thinking.
‘One day,’ he said to himself, ‘we’ll all laugh about this!’
It was the strangest thing he had ever experienced, feeling so poorly and thinking so, well, ridiculous.
No-one said he couldn’t think ridiculous!
Eventually the temperature began to change.
Slowly, as they continued on, the fog started to disperse.