The journey across the choppy waters of the channel took several hours, slowed by the casting of the nets occasionally, but at last they came in sight of a bleak landscape, and the captain ordered a small craft to deliver them to shore.
"There's no village," Marco protested.
"You're better off without other folks around," the captain sniffed. "The people of Arima aren't much to deal with. You just hit the shore and go wherever you're going," he advised.
They were rowed to shore, and walked inland from the sandy dunes, crossing a windy, treeless plain.
"How will we find a ship to take us back to the mainland?" Cassius asked.
"We'll figure that out when the time comes," Marco replied.
By mid-afternoon, as they left the oceanside behind, they found the ground grew snow covered, and a few scattered cottages were evident on the landscape. Marco urged them to move on, and they passed the opportunity to stop and warm themselves by the fireplaces whose chimneys released steady columns of smoke.
When night fell, they entered the ruins of an abandoned wooden barn, which provided shelter from the wind and the snow.
“Does the plumbing here provide hot water for a bath?” Kate asked with longing in her voice.
They posted guards to mount a watch throughout the cold night, and the three who were not on guard duty slept huddled together in the same sets of blankets, sharing body warmth.
The next night they were close to a small cluster of homes when night fell, the closest thing to a village the travelers had seen in the empty lands of Arima. All four of them mutually agreed to walk among the buildings to see if there was a place to stop and eat a meal of warm food.
Most of the buildings were clearly small homes, build with stout walls and small windows and doors. “These people seem prepared for the worst,” Marco observed.
One building at the north end of the settlement seemed to be larger than the others, and a dim square of light fell out of a large window and lit the trampled snow in front of the doorway.
“Tell me what you sense,” Marco whispered to Pesino as they approached the entrance. Marco ungloved his right hand, prepared to take action with it if needed, though he didn’t know what action he would take, in the event of a hostile reaction by the occupants of the public space.
He opened the door and stepped across the threshold, leading the others into the building. As he became visible to the occupants inside, there was a flurry of motion, as men rose out of their seats and grabbed weapons that were laid on the table or floor near their spots.
Panicked, Marco reacted instinctively, and his hand flared into a bright beacon instantly, not so bright as it had been when it had blinded Pesino, but bright enough to make the men all shout in fear and cover their eyes.
“We mean you no harm!” Pesino shouted as she stood next to Marco just inside the doorway. “We don’t want to fight!” she shouted. “Put your weapons down,” she added a third effort. “They’re scared Marco, not angry,” she spoke softly to her putative husband.
Marco forced his hand’s light to diminish, and stood expectantly. There were more than a dozen men in the room; the building was just a single room, with a fireplace at one end, and a stock of kegs and barrels along another wall gave evidence that they were in a tavern that had its supply of ale stocked for the winter.
“Who are you? What was that light?” a single voice called from the area where the bar and the single lantern were placed.
“We’re travelers heading north, and we stopped in to see if there’s any warm food available,” Marco answered. “We don’t intend any harm to any of you or anyone in this village.”
“You don’t sound like you’re from Arima,” another voice said. Marco turned to see the man who was speaking, one who had a beard that was longer and shaggier than any of the others in the room. “Who in the world ever heard of a traveler come from the outside land to travel north in Arima, in the winter time?” he asked.
“We’re on a quest,” Cassius spoke. “We’re going to find and slay the Echidna.”
There was a moment of silence, and then bedlam erupted in the room, as voices were raised in protest and disbelief.
“Quiet!” the barkeeper shouted finally, so loudly that he overcame the voices of the others, and silenced the various conversations.
“Come in,” he said to Marco and his friends. “Even if you’re bringing women into the men’s bar, come in and tell us more about this impossible death wish you have.”
“You can’t kill the Echidna. No fool even talks about that. The best anyone can do is avoid the monster; and if we all thought we could get our families off this godforsaken land, we would so we could evade the creature too,” the man with the long beard said as Marco and the others moved to the end of the bar and stood there under considerable scrutiny by the others in the room.
“I was given a quest, by a spirit that I must obey,” Marco answered. “I was told to acquire a scale from the Echidna. I’m not making this journey thinking that I’ll have to kill it – if I could get a scale without ever seeing the monster I would – but I expect we may have to confront it.”
“That spirit didn’t like you much, did it?” a man asked, making the room smirk with suppressed laughter, and breaking the tension.
“It may not be my best friend, but it has taken care of me in the past, and I’ve got good friends with me now who I know will help me,” Marco responded.
“They’re listening,” Pesino said softly.
“So is there a hot meal we can buy?” Marco asked, though his hopes were dim. There was no smell of cooking food in the room, just the odors of ale and men.
“My wife has a big pot of mutton stew over the fire at our home,” one man said. “You can come with me and we’ll fill you up.”
“Tuck, you go with them,” the man with the long beard told another man, a man who appeared to be the oldest in the room, with a beard and hair that were pure silver. “Tell them your stories,” the younger man ordered.
The greybeard stood up. “I’ll go with them, just to see such a pair of pretty gals for a few minutes longer than the rest of you!” he drew a round of laughter from the others.
The man who had offered food stood up as well, and just minutes after entering the tavern, the quartet of travelers left the building again to walk down the snowy way to one of the closed homesteads on the village.
“Mother!” the occupant of the home called loudly as he worked the door open. “I’ve brought you guests – strangers – here for some of your stew.”
“What nonsense are you spouting?” a woman’s voice called from inside as the homeowner opened the door and entered a dim space beyond.
“Oh!” the wife’s voice expressed astonishment a second later as Pesino entered the room, followed by Marco and then the others. “Who are these people?” she queried her husband.
As the man explained, Marco looked around the living space, which was a combination single-room cottage and also store room. The walls were lined with goods that were kept indoors, and it was evident to Marco that the people of the land lived their lives under fear of being besieged by the Echidna; he didn’t need to ask Pesino to know that their hearts were full of fear.
They soon had wooden bowls of stew in their hands and ate the proffered meal gratefully, then settled in to sit on the floor and hear the brief tale of the old man who had joined them.
“My name is Tuck, and I am the oldest man of this village,” he began. “My grandfather told me a tale when I was only a young boy, so the story must be from a time four or more generations in the past.
“The Echidna came to our village one morning before dawn, on a spring morning, and it broke in to a house, through the roof. It grabbed a girl, one who was young – and pretty and full of life – it plucked her right from where she slept, and it bit her in two as it sat in the middle of the village. The whole village heard her screams, but they were brief, and then the monster was gone, leaving he
r remains there where everyone saw them.
“The girl,” Tuck continued, “had been full of life. She had been kind and funny and always ready to laugh. She made everyone who was around her feel better. And she was engaged to be married, just a week later, on mid-spring eve.
“The young man she had been engaged to went crazy. He shouted and screamed in grief for three straight days, never sleeping, never eating, never doing anything but mourning the death of the girl he loved. And at the end of his three days spell, he announced that he was going to go get revenge on the Echidna.”
The man looked around at his audience, who all sat looking at him with interest in his story. “My grandfather said that everyone tried to talk him out of such a crazy idea, but the man had nothing left to live for, and he had lost his will to live. So the next night the man left the village and started hunting for the Echidna.
“He came back five days later, and the whole village gathered around to hear what had happened. He looked terrible; his hair was singed off and he had blisters all over his body. He told them he had found the entrance to the lair of the Echidna. It was a vast cave opening that was littered with bones all around. It was set about a quarter of the way up the mountain on a volcano, one that was covered by ash, with noxious fumes that nearly made him pass out a time or two. He had gone searching for another way into the cave, trying to find a way to sneak in and confront the monster without being caught.
“He told the villagers he found a different cave entrance, one down below, at the base of the mountain, a way that went behind a waterfall of red-hot molten rock, a stream of lava that fell from up higher. There was a cave behind the falling stream, and it went into the heart of the mountain. So he came back to get extra weapons, and then he was going to go back and go in through the hidden cave and find the monster and slay it.
“He slept in the village that night, and then he left the next morning, and we never saw him again,” the man stopped talking in the dim room, and silence filled the air for several seconds.
“Do you think his way into the mountain was a true way to get in there, to sneak up on the monster in its lair?” Cassius asked.
“I think that perhaps it was, that perhaps he truly did have his chance to get to the Echidna, but that he fell in battle against the monster,” the old greybeard stood up. “Thank you for sharing the warmth of your home and your stew with us tonight,” he told the host couple. “Please let me return the favor someday.” He let himself out into the cold outdoors without comment.
“Do you plan to spend the night in our village?” their host asked, the man who had led them from the tavern. “If so, you are welcome to stay in our home and share our warmth,” he said graciously.
“And if, in the morning, you realize how foolish your mission is, and you decide to turn around and return to your safe lands elsewhere, we will think you are wiser than you sound tonight.”
There were no further words spoken, and they all turned in for the night, only to awaken two hours later to the sound of the housewife screaming in fear.
“Where is it?” Marco shouted, pulling his sword off the ground and looking up at the roof as he leapt to his feet. He expected to see the Echidna tearing through the roof,
“There, by the fireplace,” the woman shouted and pointed.
Next to the fire, flittering wildly to and fro, was Gawail.
The others were awakening as well, looking about in confusion and alarm.
“Gawail, come to me,” Marco called, as he slid his sword back into his scabbard.
The pixie floated up to Marco and settled in on his shoulder. “My apologies, blessed one. I thought I could enjoy the heat of the fireplace quietly,” the small figure told Marco.
“This is our friend and companion, Gawail,” Marco told the astonished couple. “He was only trying to stay warm by the fire. He is no threat; he is our ally, and a useful one. Please do not be alarmed.”
“You have a familiar with you? Did he help you cause the magic you showed us in the tavern? The glowing hand? Are you a sorcerer or a warlock?” the man from the tavern asked.
“You brought a sorcerer into our house? We’re going to die!” his wife began to scream and sob again.
“I’m not a sorcerer,” Marco reassured the woman. “I am just a traveler who is on a quest to take a scale from the Echidna.” He looked at Pesino, who gave a discreet nod to reassure him that the situation was safe.
“I’m married to this man, and I tell you he is good,” she spoke up. “He will not harm you, nor anyone in this village. We’re simply grateful for your hospitality, but if you are uncomfortable with us here, we will leave now,” she offered.
“No, oh no, you shouldn’t have to go out in the cold!” the wife immediately felt contrite and sought to be hospitable, satisfied by the offer to leave that she was safe with the visitors.
Marco and Pesino cuddled back together in their corner of the room, as Kate and Cassius returned to another, and the residents climbed back into their bed, after throwing another log on the fireplace coals. “They live with so much fear,” Pesino said sadly as she and Marco tried to return to their slumbers. “They miss so much of the joy in life because they are always afraid. I never knew life could be so empty of joy and so full of dread. When I was a mermaid life was so pleasant. If the humans or the great sharks weren’t around, I never thought there was anything to do but sleep and play and eat. Life isn’t that easy, is it?”
“Maybe,” Marco said carefully, “maybe we can make their lives better. Maybe we can beat the Echidna and make their world a little safer.”
“Oh, I hope so Marco,” Pesino leaned over and kissed his cheek, then rolled over and fell asleep, and Marco began to hope that he could not only steal a scale, but truly defeat the mother of all monsters.
Chapter 23 – The Echidna’s Cave
When they all awoke in the morning the travelers politely said their farewells, then left the house and started north. Residents of the village poked their heads out of their doorways to watch the inexplicable quartet walk by, leaving a story that the village residents would be certain to talk about over and over again for years to come – the strangers who wanted to find the Echidna, who had a glowing hand and a pixie to boot!
For Marco’s group, the journey north proceeded for another two days. The direction to follow was easy, as mountains appeared on the horizon, and one large mountain released a steady plume of smoke that visibly rose during the slowly lengthening winter days, while a sullen red glow was visible at night.
They reached the foothills of the mountains, and found that the footing grew trickier as loose cinders and ashes rolled beneath their feet, hidden underneath the slushy snow they walked over. Along the course of their walk they debated their best course.
“That old man believed the story he told, about the man who found a tunnel behind a waterfall of fire,” Pesino told Marco.
“But whether his grandfather told him the truth is a different matter,” Marco stated.
They started to climb up the side of the tallest volcano, one of a handful of mountains that had no snowy head.
“Marco, there’s a big cave up there!” Cassius pointed out as they began to ascend the lower slopes without great difficulty. He pointed upward to where a darkness was evident partway above them.
“It’s getting to be nightfall,” Kate pointed out. “Why don’t we take shelter for the night and take the next step starting tomorrow morning?”
“That seems like a good idea,” Marco agreed readily, and they all traipsed towards the left, where a large copse of trees offered cover and protection. They made no fire, but sat close to one another and ate their evening meal quietly, until they heard a hair-raising sound out on the mountain. It was a rasping, slithering, moaning symphony of noises that blended together to strike fear in their hearts.
“No one make a move,” Cassius whispered, as they all sat still and watched an enormous dark shape pass by their woody patch, mov
ing rapidly downhill. The sound faded into the distance as the monster left the volcano’s slopes, on its way out into the world to hunt for prey.
“Was that it?” Kate asked when the sound had faded away.
“I think it was our quarry,” Marco answered.
“Will it be gone all night?” the girl asked. “Should we stay here, or try to find some place further from its return path?”
“Let’s try to move away from this area,” Marco agreed with Kate’s fear; he didn’t want to be too close to the Echidna’s path. He wasn’t sure how he was going to fight the creature, and he didn’t want to confront it without some plan. He’d thought on and off during much of the trip about the need to have a strategy, and had never developed one, beyond hoping that his enchanted sword and his magical right hand could help him somehow.
Yet the sound of the monster’s passing had put into perspective just how large the creature was, how pitifully small Marco would be by comparison to the monster when it came time for a confrontation.
He picked up his pack and then led the group slowly to the left through the trees, moving carefully in the darkness. “Gawail!” he suddenly called as he stopped in place.
The pixie flew out of the front of Kate’s cape. “Yes, blessed one?”
“Is it warm enough for you to survive outdoors around here?” Marco asked. “Could you go scout ahead for us and make sure there’s another safe place for us to hide in this direction?”
“I can do this. The air is not so painful for me here. I will return quickly.” The pixie said, glowing with only a faint light, and then he whizzed away from them all, leaving them standing at the western edge of the small patch of trees they had taken shelter in.
“This is getting real now, isn’t it?” Pesino asked in the middle of the silence. “It’s not just a journey anymore.”
“It’s been a tough journey, but a good one,” Kate said softly, giving Cassius’s hand a squeeze.
“It’s not over yet,” Marco answered. “We still have the whole journey home to think about. Hopefully we’ll be down south on a nice warm, sunny beach in a few weeks!”
The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice) Page 30