by B. C. Harris
The more I look the more that I’m convinced it’s the remains of an abandoned world. Many of the buildings look like they’re framed in snow or ice.
I shudder. The air around me is freezing.
It must be Shinti. We have discovered the ancient world.
“It’s Shinti,” I say in a hushed tone as though we have discovered Atlantis or some other famous lost world.
“How will we ever get there?” Jasmin asks.
Although there is a large area of calm water adjacent to the far shore, we would have to cross a section of raging rapids to reach it.
“What happened to our boat?” I ask.
“Must have floated downstream,” Michael says. “There’s no way for us to get it now.”
I wonder if I could build another boat, or has Frank overcome her fear of water enough to fly us over the river to Shinti?
“I think we need to rest for a few minutes,” I say, unsure what we’re going to do next. The others look relieved by my suggestion. Even though we can see Shinti sitting across the river from us, the question is how are we going to get there? I wonder if we hadn’t lost the map if it would have provided some other route that would have avoided the waterfall and led us directly into Shinti.
My attention drifts back to the waterfall. I remember visiting Niagara Falls a few years ago and seeing an advertisement for a walk behind the falls.
Could there possibly be a path behind these falls? I say to myself.
“There might be a path leading to Shinti behind the falls,” I mumble.
“Tell me you’re joking,” Jasmin says. “We can’t possibly go back up the river to the waterfall.”
“Don’t worry,” Drew says to Jasmin. “I’ll help you.”
Oh brother, I think. So much for the sweetness of Drew’s lips lingering on mine.
“Why don’t I fly to the falls and see if I can get behind them?” Radwin offers.
“Great idea,” Jasmin says.
I’m not sure whether she really thinks it’s a great idea, or whether she’s relieved that she can spend a few more minutes in Drew’s arms.
“Over here,” Michael shouts.
I turn in the direction of his voice. He has wandered away from the rest of us. He has walked along the shoreline towards the falls.
“There’s a path here,” Michael says loudly, trying to raise his voice above the roar of the water. “It looks like it goes towards the waterfall.”
We walk towards Michael.
My friends are shivering.
Michael is correct; there is a path leading towards the waterfall.
As I look at it, the question that keeps popping up in my mind is, Why does a path exist when Shinti has supposedly been abandoned for the last thousand years?
- 27 -
THE SECOND DOOR
Walking along a narrow path leading towards the waterfall fills me with terror although I’m not quite sure whether my fear is the result of almost drowning in these waters, or whether it’s related to what might be lurking behind the crashing wall of water.
Drew quickly moves ahead of the rest of us even though he’s carrying the heavy backpack. I notice through the swirling mist that Jasmin is limping as she hangs on to him. I wonder if she’s now playing the helpless victim to gain his further attention. I recall Drew’s kiss of life. I feel a warm tremor ripple throughout my body.
Michael and Jamie are walking together slightly ahead of me. What an unlikely pair, I think. Who would have ever guessed that they might become friends as I watch them talking animatedly together?
Although I can’t see Frank or Radwin, I guess they have flown ahead of us. I assume that Squirt must be in Frank’s pouch.
As I continue to walk on the slippery path, being careful not to fall, I notice the roar of the waterfall increasing in intensity. Soon the pounding noise of the water and the heavy mist enclose us, making it impossible to communicate with each other, and making it difficult to see Shinti on the plateau overlooking the far side of the river.
A small break in the white blanket of fog gives me a glimpse of Drew and Jasmin. It appears that they’re looking intently at something on the ground.
What is it? I wonder.
I’ve fallen behind the others. I feel alone. A chill runs down my spine as I sense something is following me.
My steps become quicker even though the rocks are wet and treacherous. I know I’m beginning to panic, even though I realize that my fear is irrational. My mind is warning me that at any second something is going to reach through the blinding mist to attack me. For a split second I lose sight of my friends through the dense fog that has swallowed us.
Unexpectedly, something grabs my shoulder.
I scream, but no one can possibly hear me through the ferocious roar of the falls.
I turn abruptly, expecting the worst, only to discover that it’s Squirt who has jumped onto my shoulders.
“Squirt, you almost gave me a heart attack. Where did you come from?”
Squirt looks at me with his customary silly grin as if to say, “How could I ever frighten anyone?”
Once my heart stops pounding, I approach my friends who have stopped walking. They’re absorbed with something on the ground. Frank and Radwin have joined the group. What is it?
Michael is the first to speak. “I think we’ve got another problem.”
So what else is new? I think.
“What’s the problem?” I ask as I scan the faces of my friends. They seem to have fear painted on their faces, even Drew which is certainly not a good sign.
“Look,” Michael says as he points to the ground. “There are tracks in the mud.”
They look like they’re from a very large dog, or perhaps a bear would be a more realistic possibility based on their size. As I look closer at the indentations in the ground, there are sharp edges around each paw mark as though they were made with the blade of a knife.
“Notice anything unusual?” Michael says, his voice inferring that I’m missing something.
I continue to look at the tracks. I shake me head.
“Count them,” Jamie suggests.
I count six paw marks. The spacing of the tracks and the pattern indicate that they might all be from the same animal. Is it possible that there’s a six-legged creature nearby?
“A six-legged animal?” I anxiously say. “Like a giant spider.”
I’m not sure I hear an answer from any of my friends.
There’s nowhere to go if we are attacked. To one side of us are rocky outcroppings that rise high into the mountains. There’s no way we could climb these jagged rocks. On the other side of us is a roaring river. If there’s a ferocious animal nearby, we’re trapped.
Suddenly Jasmin screams, “Look up there!”
Slowly appearing from behind the rock is a menacing green creature about the size of a very large lion but looking more like a mutant ant.
“It’s a gorgan,” Frank says, her voice shaking with fear.
“A gorgan? What’s that?” I ask.
Before Frank can answer, Michael says, “Look. They’re everywhere.”
There are dozens and dozens of the fierce looking creatures in the mountains beside us.
“Run!” I shout. “Head towards the waterfall.”
As we race for our lives, the path is so slippery that we’re constantly sliding into each other.
Jasmin is the first to fall hard on the rocky path. “My leg,” she groans, her voice managing to rise above the din of the waterfall. “I don’t think I can stand on it.”
Drew tosses the backpack to Michael and snatches Jasmin into his arms.
I focus on reaching the waterfall, but every once in awhile I have difficulty seeing through the increasing white mist.
Whenever I’m able to see the mountains above us through a break in the fog, I tremble at the sight of countless ant-like creatures. During one such look I see the sun glistening off the razor-sharp pincers of one of the terrifying ani
mals.
Squirt’s paws dig deeper into my shoulders, reminding me to run.
The roar of the falls is deafening. The fog is blinding. I lose sight of my friends scrambling along the perilous path. I scream to get their attention, but the noise from the thundering falls is so great that I can’t even hear my own voice.
Radwin flies through the swirling mist, his lights flashing. He motions for me to follow. My heart is racing like the wings of a hummingbird as I set out after him.
In a few more steps I am behind the falls. The mist disappears although the earth shakes underneath me from the booming water. I’m in a very large cavern.
My friends are above me on a wide ledge.
Before I know what is happening, Frank arrives and pushes me onto her back. Just as we leave the ground, a vicious gorgan jumps out of nowhere at us.
It misses. Barely.
As we approach the ledge where the others are waiting for us, Michael and Jamie turn towards an opening at the back of the ledge. It appears that it might be a tunnel. Have they found a secret passageway that leads to Shinti?
As soon as I depart from Frank’s back, I rush after Michael and Jamie.
A short tunnel leads to a large door that looks like a block of ice. Jamie and Michael are standing before it.
“Isn’t the door supposed to be in Shinti?” I ask.
“Capurni didn’t exactly say it was in Shinti,” Jamie answers. “He said that we had to find Shinti before we would find the door. I guess we accidently found the door before we actually reached Shinti.”
“Any ideas?” Michael says to Jamie.
“Not yet,” Jamie responds.
This door is different than the first door we encountered. I think it’s transparent, although the more I look at it, the more I realize that I can’t see through it.
As Michael touches the door, he says, “It feels slimy.”
Squirt, still tightly perched on my shoulders, repeats, “Slimy, slimy, slimy.”
Radwin is flying around the edge of the door trying to find some clues for opening it.
“Are there any words or symbols on it anywhere?” I ask Jamie and Michael.
They both shake their heads together.
“I can’t see anything on the door that is going to help us,” he says, his voice trembling.
I clear my mind of the gorgans. Focus on the door, I keep telling myself.
Slowly, my mind begins to drift to some other place. Staring at the door creates a peaceful feeling for me. I am calm. It’s as though nothing else exists, except for the door and me.
The more I gaze at it, the more it seems to absorb me.
Slowly, the door starts to change its appearance as though it’s a cloud of constantly changing colors. The flow of patterns is hypnotic. The roar from the falls vanishes. I’m transfixed by a spellbinding array of fabulous colors.
Some words appear on the door. I read them to myself. “Touches are the code.”
A piercing scream from Jasmin brings me back to the reality of our situation.
“The gorgans have almost reached us,” Drew shouts from the mouth of the tunnel. “There’s no way we can stop them from attacking.”
I reach out and touch the door, but nothing happens.
“What are you doing?” Michael asks.
“Did you see something?” Jamie adds.
“I saw words that said ‘touches are the code’.”
Touches are the code.
Michael and Jamie frantically start touching the door. It’s no use. The door isn’t opening.
Drew, Jasmin, Frank and Radwin all appear, looking terrified.
Behind me, I hear the ugly sound of pincers striking the rocks at the mouth of the tunnel. The gorgans are closing in on us. We’re trapped in the tunnel.
“How can we solve the code?” I say.
Michael answers my question. “There might be another message within the words that you saw. All we need to do is find a pattern or a key for solving it.”
“Try something simple,” Jamie says. “Like taking every second or third letter.”
Jasmin groans loudly. Looking at her, I see the fear on her face. The legs of her pants are ripped apart. One of her legs is covered in blood.
Hearing the pincers once again striking the rocks, I look back into the tunnel. Several hideous ant-like heads appear. Their bulging eyes are wild with hunger. Their fang-like teeth are ready to rip us apart.
One of the gorgans lifts its front legs into the air. As the angry creature waves its pincers, four or five claws that look like razor blades emerge. We’re about to be shredded like a slab of meat under a butcher’s knife.
There’s a brief silence as Jamie and Michael focus intently on the door.
“Three?” Jamie yells. “Touch the door three times!”
Michael touches the door three times. It begins to swing open.
“Go!” I shout.
Jamie, Michael and I burst through the opening, crashing into each other. Frank bounces past us as Radwin flies above.
As I turn my head, I see Drew grabbing Jasmin and in the same motion he snatches the backpack from the ground. A gorgan screams behind them as Drew drags Jasmin and the backpack through the open door.
Five or six gorgans leap in our direction. Just as they reach us, the door closes, squashing several of the shrieking creatures.
“We’re safe,” I cry out. “How did you ever solve the puzzle?” I ask Jamie.
Proudly smiling at his accomplishment, he replies, “If you start with the first letter in the sentence you gave to us, you have a ‘t’. Now, count four more letters after the ‘t’ and you have ‘h’. Count another four letters and you have ‘r’. After the ‘r’, count another four letters and you have an ‘e’. Then count another four letters and you have another ‘e’. Put these five letters together and you have the word ‘three’. In your sentence was another clue that we needed to touch the door, and within that sentence was another secret message telling us that we needed to touch it three times.”
I spontaneously hug Jamie in gratitude. As I step away from him, I notice that his glasses have fogged over.
- 28 -
A DANGEROUS JUNGLE
Before us is an endless display of lush vegetation leading to another range of mountains, a complete contrast to the barren world we have exited.
The hot air hits me like a blast from a furnace. It’s a dramatic change from the cold we were experiencing a few minutes ago.
“Let’s have a snack,” I say, realizing that we need a break. It has been a long day so far. Although we have successfully made it through the first two doors, it has not been easy. I guess that our journey to the next door will be no different. We are now in a tropical valley in between several mountains. Without a map, we don’t know where we’re going next. I know we need to pause and eat a little food, if for no other reason than to tend to Jasmin’s injured leg.
“Looks like we’re not going to explore Shinti,” Jamie says to me, sounding disappointed.
“Guess not,” I say, sensing his desire to explore the lost world. “Maybe on the way back,” I offer. The moment I say these words, I realize that the dangers we have faced so far in our journey will be repeated after we complete our mission in the Land of Shade. Returning back to Lattisan is likely going to be as dangerous as our journey to Shade.
Drew opens the backpack and gives us some soggy fruit and nuts. Although we have a little water remaining in the backpack, we need to refill the bottles with some fresh water; otherwise we will soon use up what we have.
As Jasmin eats some fruit and gulps some water, she groans about the pain in her leg.
Jamie walks over to her.
“Let me take a look,” he says as though he’s a doctor.
Jasmin rolls up one leg on her torn and bloodied jeans to show Jamie her worst cut, the result of crashing into a jagged rock as we raced away from the gorgans.
Even though Jamie looks younger than he
actually is, he acts older. It’s sort of like he’s an adult trapped in a kid’s body. In any case, he’s quick to offer his diagnosis as he adjusts his heavy glasses.
“I think it’s a surface wound. In spite of the amount of blood on your leg, I’m sure you will be able to walk on it without causing any further damage.”
Although I tend to think that there have been times in our journey so far when Jasmin depended too much on Drew, I have to give her some credit. More than anyone else, she has had some serious falls and never once have I heard her say anything about giving up.
Jamie takes some gauze from a first aid kit in our backpack and wraps her injured leg. Blood quickly seeps through the white bandage making the wound look a little more serious than perhaps it actually is.
I turn my attention to the valley before us. There is a large grassy area in front of us. This leads to a jungle of huge trees and twisted vegetation. After the jungle is another large plain of tall grass that leads to a mountain range.
I can’t see any evidence of a trail, nor can I see an actual destination that we can set as a goal to reach. My best guess is that we’re going to have to reach the mountains on the far side of the valley. In order to do that, we’re going to face a difficult hike that will take us directly through the jungle.
My imagination is already beginning to create images of huge snakes and deadly spiders that might be waiting for us in the jungle, although I realize that dangers could also be waiting for us in the tall grass before we reach the jungle.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead. It’s much hotter here than it was in the previous parts of our journey.
“Anyone have any thoughts on where the next door might be?” I say hoping that someone has a better solution than what I envision doing.
Michael is the first to reply in a voice that reflects some fear, “It looks to me like we’re going to have to walk through the jungle to reach the mountains on the far side of the valley.”
Unfortunately, this is exactly what I think as well.
I stare intently at the jungle. Once we’re actually inside it, we won’t be able to see where we’re going because the thick vegetation will be like a wall towering above our heads. The only way we might get successfully through the jungle would be for Radwin or Frank to fly ahead of us and try to lead us.