There was no pathway, and his new map was certainly not helpful in more than a general sense, so Roger started following the stream-bank. Everything was in the backpack now, besides the map. The map was in his hands less because it was useful and more because it was a very strange thing to puzzle over. It was either magic or sufficiently advanced technology to the point that he might as well be interacting with a magic map. Neither one made him keen on getting it wet. Every step or two he paused and glanced at the paper. It was slowly getting more detail around where he walked, sharpening the blurry treescape to show a little trickle of blue that seemed to be the stream. Poking at the paper didn't seem to do anything at all, much as he wished the map maker had taken a cue from touch-screen computing. No zoom feature that he could make out, no scrolling, and no waypoints besides the red X that marked his position, crawling forward as he walked to keep pace with his exploration of the river. It didn't take long for this to become boring. Folding it up and glancing at it every five minutes to make sure that the stream hadn't gone off course was enough. As a map, it really failed to do a good job, though he supposed if he walked around the whole place it might be a bit useful.
The scenery itself was more interesting than the possibilities of the map, however. It was a forest with a stream in the typical sense, leaves and dirt and trees and the murmur of water. There was another layer of something on top of it all as he kept walking, something he couldn't quite put a thought on until he stopped to peer into the shady places away from the jagged crack of sunlight above the stream. It was mostly silent. No animals besides the fish he'd seen in the pond, and the wind wasn't rustling branches and playing with the tall grass. The deserted feeling of the place sent a sharp chill down Roger's back as he started walking again. A place like this should have some life, surely. Animals were essential to a healthy ecosystem, and if there weren't any and it was still able to thrive, it would be more crowded with plants. It wasn't an empty looking forest in that respect, but the plants left room to walk around without pushing through bushes or squeezing between trees.
His map said he had made it about a third of the way to the campground by the time two or three hours passed. Keeping track of time by the sun's height was not his specialty, so he couldn't get an exact estimate. Clocks had ruined those senses throughout his years. The river had started to lilt off southward, so he was about to make his way into the darker forest proper. Some apprehension held him back for a moment, though. The stream made noise, and the noise was peaceful and natural. Away from that would be a pure silence and darkness. Well, not pure darkness, he could see small breaks in the leafy canopy that let shafts down intermittently in the deeper parts, but nothing like the bright cleft that the stream made through the swathe of green that his map assured him went on and on. Still, the sun itself was dropping lower, and he would rather not be alone in the forest if he could help it when it finally completed its descent. That thought propelled him on.
A minute and he couldn't hear the stream. Just a minute of walking, since the trees opened up away from each other. Less water, less trees it seemed. It almost felt like the trees were keeping their distance, trying their best to keep silent in peace, secluding their trunks while their branches wove themselves into a near-solid roof of dappled yellow-green. If Roger had to guess what type of trees they were, he would have said oak, though they wouldn't fit the pattern any other oak tree he had seen made in his mind, at least not exactly. The leaves were too large, the size of his face, and the trucks had a grey hue to them, darker near the top to a light grey at the bottom that approached white. In the midst of it, he heard a rustling above him. He looked up to see a bright white cat creature, more like a panther than the domestic cat, and ever so shimmery, like you would picture a unicorn soaked in oil to look like, constantly shifting in spots that light reflected off of, but otherwise the flat white that absorbed away the detail of the short hair.
"No, don't mind me, I'm just here to spectate, you see."
"Beg your pardon?"
"Mmmm, yes, well, you may have my pardon." It was certainly a cat, by the way that it talked, thought Roger, though he hadn't heard a cat talk before.
"What are you spectating, though?"
"The competition, of course. Nothing else to watch here anymore. You're one of the contestants, I presume? You must be, she doesn't let others in. A bit early, though."
"I honestly have no clue what this is about, so anything you could say would be helpful." Roger wasn't sure how he had so casually started talking to a cat, but talking was preferable to being eaten. Wild cats of that size were supposed to be hunters, and he certinly hadn't seen anything else that it could eat.
"Dishonsetly, I would love to help you. Alas, I can't be favoring one of you before I've seen all the rest, I'm afraid. What if there were a more. . interesting fellow who showed up a bit later." He noticed the cat's tail lazily swinging back and forth behind it, partially obscured by the leaves and branches. He was having a hard time craning his neck up to get a good look at the cat. "You are right though, everything I say is just going to help you. . ."
"Why not tell everyone the same thing so as to make it fair then?" It would be about as annoyingly useless as the map if the first talking thing he found in magic-land happened to tell him nothing at all. He certainly hadn't learned anything yet.
"Oh, but that would be such an effort. All of you most certainly won't come in through the waterfall, not with the way things tend to shift here. And my tree won't be right in the way of the next one's path thanks to that. No, I think I'll just watch." The cat was worse than the map, he decided. At least the map gave him some general direction.
"Well, I'd best be off, then."
"Yes, well, if you do pass by again, and you aren't one of the more. . .boring ones, I'll be happy to not eat you." He finally caught sight of the cat's eyes, peering down at him. They were as white as the cat's fur, without the oily shimmer, devoid of any color besides white, in fact.
"That would be lovely." Roger was walking slightly faster than when he'd first heard the cat. And by slightly it averaged to about double the speed.
"Mmm, Yes. I hope the next few are going to be more entertaining, what with her telling me I can't eat all of you."
A half hour later and Roger was surprised to find that he was almost at the campground in the hurry he'd obtained after his meeting. Maybe the cat was the reason for the lack of animals in that part of the woods. Catching sight of a stream, most likely the same one, on an intersection course with his path, he was sad he didn't take the detour with it.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Garden of the Gods: Part 3
The pool was clear, letting in the sun's rays down to the slippery stones that sat at its bottom. A small current pulled Roger back towards the water-pillar, through a swarm of bright yellow fish that split apart and reformed into a school behind him. It was silent under the water, the deep pool insulating his ears from the noise of the water splashing off rocks as it ignored all laws of nature in its ascent of the cliff. The noise came back as he breached the surface, along with the chirps of birds from the woods surrounding. A few strokes brought him to the shore where he collapsed onto his back.
Immediately he regretted his decision and rolled onto his stomach, face full of grass and soaked for the second time that day. It was a sunny patch at least, so his shirt and shorts would dry. It was normal ground, from what he could see. Normal grass. The water felt the same as most water did. The fish were bright colored, but they weren't that odd looking from what he'd seen. And yet the water went up. Roger had to sit up and actually look at the cliff face to see it again. Seeing is believing, he thought to himself, but he kept staring.
The bacon in his Winnebago seemed very far off at that moment, and his stomach was quick to point it out. Still, there wasn't much he could do. Maybe touching was believing, actually. Walking over to the fantastic phenomena, he affirmed the lack of any real handholds or hidden paths back up in the stream water or the nearby vicinity. He stretched his hand out into the flow, but it wasn't strong enough to lift his arm, much less his whole body, not that he would risk it with the way it bounced off the rocks in a spray of mist that settled in a sparkling halo around the pillar of water. he couldn't do much about hunger, but dipping his head into the vertical stream he managed to quench his thirst. If he was lost, and the answer had to be that he was, considering the lack of anything like this on maps that he had seen, he might have to find food of his own, the fish perhaps. Well, maybe. They could be poisonous he supposed. That was what bright colors meant, right? And if they lived in the big open pool where birds should have easily gotten a free meal...better not to risk it. So that left exploration as the next best option. Sticking his tongue out at his reflection in the water pillar he turned back towards the streams entrance to the pool.
It took a minute to walk around the side, it being on the exact opposite shore, and when he got there he made a rather pleasant discovery. Dry, unattended, obviously not accounted for clothes were a warm, fuzzy blessing from beyond. They were a plain, white t-shirt and some blue jeans, no labels, and they looked like they would fit him. They were folded neatly atop a green bath towel, also folded, which itself sat atop a slightly curved rock that was just the right height to sit on and think. He did think, some about the clothes, and some about the backpack that was leaning against the rock. No brand name on that either. His clothes hung over a tree branch close by, soaking up the sunlight with the towel.
He hadn't opened the backpack. He wasn't sure he wanted to open the backpack. The clothes fit well. They fit like they'd been tailored for him. They were either a very very unlikely magical coincidence, or there was something fishy going on. Which brought him to the stranger who he had hosted last night as the impetus of all this. If he sat really still, he could feel a bit of the terror, the dread down deep inside of him, just sitting there like a lead marble. It wasn't usual, and even if he wasn't the cause, he was probably related. What are the odds that You go crazy in the woods, hit your head, and then make your way to a place where water doesn't obey gravity? Well, the crazy part sometimes happened. Not that badly though. Nothing to make him that scared had happened in a long time, and certainly nothing that made him that scared and that active. Maybe he was being kidnapped by aliens, and this was their little terrarium where they were waiting to see how long he would wander around and if he would try to get out. Maybe he had stumbled through into an alternate dimension where everything he thought was real was a lie. Maybe things were still normal and he had just hit his head harder than he thought. His back was still sore from the water impact though. Maybe there was bacon in the backpack.
His gaze alighted on the zipper. Would whoever put this here stuff it with some unspeakable evil after giving him new clothes and a towel? Well, maybe. Odds were against it, hopefully, and if they weren't, he'd at least know what type of place he was stuck in when he started running for his life. He nudged it with his foot. Nothing. So he pulled it between his legs and opened it. No unspeakable evil popped out. No smell of bacon either, though that may have been a bit too wishful thinking. Some sandwiches though. Looked like salami and swiss through the plastic baggy. Under those was what looked like a remote control, some rope, a knife, halfway between an army combat knife and a steak knife, a folded up map, and a note. First he ate the sandwiches, all three of them. If he cared to speculate, he would say that falling off things burnt a bunch of calories, along with being cold and walking around for half the day without breakfast. Not the best sandwiches he had tasted, honestly. The mayo was warmed up too much, and they could have used some tomato, but they were food.
The note read as follows.
"Dear Sir,
You, as a contact of Mr. J. Carmillion, participant in the upcoming event to take place in this Garden" Roger was not sure why garden was capitalized, or if this place was really a garden at all, "have been chosen to accompany and assist him in his upcoming test for the greater good of the realm.
Good Luck,
M."
This wasn't exactly helpful, he thought. He didn't even know a Mr. J. Carmillion. So that left two obvious options: the writer had in fact nabbed the wrong person to participate, or that he hadn't seen the last of the stranger. At this point, he was inclined to hope for a third option. Maybe a prank by some vagabond, stuffing some drugs into his stew earlier that night. Unlikely though, he tended to keep a close watch on his cooking pot. The map then? Maybe he could find out where he actually was.
It unfolded into an 18 inch square filled with a bunch of green, and some specks of brown, mostly. A small aerial view of the pool that was a good deal more useful than the rest of the map was along the right border of the map, complete with a red X labeled "you are here." It was not very big at all in comparison to the rest of the blurry map.
Perhaps it was water damaged? Nobody could think that this thing would be useful at. . .oh hello there. Roger blinked. The center of the map had resolved focus a bit to reveal a brown patch that some invisible hand helpfully labeled "campground." Well, at least he had a direction to go in. This would be a long walk, and from the scale, it might take until sundown. Maybe there would be bacon there, though?
Immediately he regretted his decision and rolled onto his stomach, face full of grass and soaked for the second time that day. It was a sunny patch at least, so his shirt and shorts would dry. It was normal ground, from what he could see. Normal grass. The water felt the same as most water did. The fish were bright colored, but they weren't that odd looking from what he'd seen. And yet the water went up. Roger had to sit up and actually look at the cliff face to see it again. Seeing is believing, he thought to himself, but he kept staring.
The bacon in his Winnebago seemed very far off at that moment, and his stomach was quick to point it out. Still, there wasn't much he could do. Maybe touching was believing, actually. Walking over to the fantastic phenomena, he affirmed the lack of any real handholds or hidden paths back up in the stream water or the nearby vicinity. He stretched his hand out into the flow, but it wasn't strong enough to lift his arm, much less his whole body, not that he would risk it with the way it bounced off the rocks in a spray of mist that settled in a sparkling halo around the pillar of water. he couldn't do much about hunger, but dipping his head into the vertical stream he managed to quench his thirst. If he was lost, and the answer had to be that he was, considering the lack of anything like this on maps that he had seen, he might have to find food of his own, the fish perhaps. Well, maybe. They could be poisonous he supposed. That was what bright colors meant, right? And if they lived in the big open pool where birds should have easily gotten a free meal...better not to risk it. So that left exploration as the next best option. Sticking his tongue out at his reflection in the water pillar he turned back towards the streams entrance to the pool.
It took a minute to walk around the side, it being on the exact opposite shore, and when he got there he made a rather pleasant discovery. Dry, unattended, obviously not accounted for clothes were a warm, fuzzy blessing from beyond. They were a plain, white t-shirt and some blue jeans, no labels, and they looked like they would fit him. They were folded neatly atop a green bath towel, also folded, which itself sat atop a slightly curved rock that was just the right height to sit on and think. He did think, some about the clothes, and some about the backpack that was leaning against the rock. No brand name on that either. His clothes hung over a tree branch close by, soaking up the sunlight with the towel.
He hadn't opened the backpack. He wasn't sure he wanted to open the backpack. The clothes fit well. They fit like they'd been tailored for him. They were either a very very unlikely magical coincidence, or there was something fishy going on. Which brought him to the stranger who he had hosted last night as the impetus of all this. If he sat really still, he could feel a bit of the terror, the dread down deep inside of him, just sitting there like a lead marble. It wasn't usual, and even if he wasn't the cause, he was probably related. What are the odds that You go crazy in the woods, hit your head, and then make your way to a place where water doesn't obey gravity? Well, the crazy part sometimes happened. Not that badly though. Nothing to make him that scared had happened in a long time, and certainly nothing that made him that scared and that active. Maybe he was being kidnapped by aliens, and this was their little terrarium where they were waiting to see how long he would wander around and if he would try to get out. Maybe he had stumbled through into an alternate dimension where everything he thought was real was a lie. Maybe things were still normal and he had just hit his head harder than he thought. His back was still sore from the water impact though. Maybe there was bacon in the backpack.
His gaze alighted on the zipper. Would whoever put this here stuff it with some unspeakable evil after giving him new clothes and a towel? Well, maybe. Odds were against it, hopefully, and if they weren't, he'd at least know what type of place he was stuck in when he started running for his life. He nudged it with his foot. Nothing. So he pulled it between his legs and opened it. No unspeakable evil popped out. No smell of bacon either, though that may have been a bit too wishful thinking. Some sandwiches though. Looked like salami and swiss through the plastic baggy. Under those was what looked like a remote control, some rope, a knife, halfway between an army combat knife and a steak knife, a folded up map, and a note. First he ate the sandwiches, all three of them. If he cared to speculate, he would say that falling off things burnt a bunch of calories, along with being cold and walking around for half the day without breakfast. Not the best sandwiches he had tasted, honestly. The mayo was warmed up too much, and they could have used some tomato, but they were food.
The note read as follows.
"Dear Sir,
You, as a contact of Mr. J. Carmillion, participant in the upcoming event to take place in this Garden" Roger was not sure why garden was capitalized, or if this place was really a garden at all, "have been chosen to accompany and assist him in his upcoming test for the greater good of the realm.
Good Luck,
M."
This wasn't exactly helpful, he thought. He didn't even know a Mr. J. Carmillion. So that left two obvious options: the writer had in fact nabbed the wrong person to participate, or that he hadn't seen the last of the stranger. At this point, he was inclined to hope for a third option. Maybe a prank by some vagabond, stuffing some drugs into his stew earlier that night. Unlikely though, he tended to keep a close watch on his cooking pot. The map then? Maybe he could find out where he actually was.
It unfolded into an 18 inch square filled with a bunch of green, and some specks of brown, mostly. A small aerial view of the pool that was a good deal more useful than the rest of the map was along the right border of the map, complete with a red X labeled "you are here." It was not very big at all in comparison to the rest of the blurry map.
Perhaps it was water damaged? Nobody could think that this thing would be useful at. . .oh hello there. Roger blinked. The center of the map had resolved focus a bit to reveal a brown patch that some invisible hand helpfully labeled "campground." Well, at least he had a direction to go in. This would be a long walk, and from the scale, it might take until sundown. Maybe there would be bacon there, though?
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Garden of the Gods: Part 2
There was a bird, somewhere up above him, tweeting away on a rock or in a tree just loud enough that Roger registered the animal. He might have felt the cold more, at first, and heard the stream running its course over and around the smooth river rocks much like the ones pressing into his belly. The bird was more real though, more cutting in the tone he heard lying there with his eyes closed. It was peaceful, tranquil, and the first living thing that he had encountered since the man at his campfire. It was the realization that he was not filled with the deepest dread his body had ever had the misfortune to hold. Just lying there was enough for him as the bird sang, the chill of the water less unbearable than the thought that moving an inch would set it back at his heels, nipping away at his sanity. Sunlight crept into the gully that the stream ran through, touching on his back to let him know that it was there, and finally the bird flitted away, leaving only the stream and the cold.
As apprehensive as Roger was, the calm stayed behind, even as he sat up, pulling his face from the dusty stones on the riverbank and opening his eyes on his resting place. It was an empty gully, not much in the way of larger plants, only little weeds poking out of gaps in the stone, some dangling from the steep walls that stretched up to where he had undoubtedly fallen. he took a moment to look around, eventually turning his gaze to the stream and catching a reflection of his water-drenched form. It was messy, sure, little bits of plant and sediment clutching at his t-shirt and shorts, poking out from the curls of his drying hair. The thing it wasn't was bloody, which puzzled him a bit. He checked the back of his head and under his clothes and was not able to find so much as a scratch. Skyward, his fall should have done more than that, even if he had washed downstream for a while, the cliff wall staying steep and tall for as far as he could peer down the relatively straight meanderings that the stream had carved. He wasn't sore, though that might have been the numbness the water had granted him. Roger had heard of hypothermia, but he wasn't quite able to remember the signs that it was happening. Just to be safe he disrobed and squeezed as much water out of his clothes as possible, hoping they would dry the rest of the way on his walk.
The walk was upstream for the purpose of bacon. The was some back in his Winnebago, just inside the fridge he had and combined with the pan that was lying on his bed last he checked, he would have breakfast, for he was hungry. Thus resolved, and with a quick look around, he began the easy journey beside the stream. If he hadn't drawn blood on anything, the fall must have been shorter than he remembered, exaggerated in his mind, and if he found the place he could likely climb back up and start making his way back to the road. His surety in the notion waned as the sun rose higher and the cliffs stayed higher still, looking down at him from heights that looked injurious, if not deadly.
An hour of walking and Roger was starting to debate which would be the greater miracle, not drowning on his entire float down to where he beached, or falling from such a height and not breaking anything. He was fairly sure about the not breaking anything part. He had stopped to check his limbs and ribs a few times just to be sure, but none of them was bending the wrong way, and as the sun warmed him and dried his clothes he didn't feel pain over and beyond the poke of his finger when he probed for injuries with confused disbelief. That he hadn't drowned, well, the pokes and a pinch at some point meant that he could feel, and he wanted the bacon more than brains, so he was fairly sure he was alive. It could be the afterlife, he supposed, but what kind of afterlife wakes you up soaking wet in a cold stream in the middle of nowhere? From what he was custom to believing, there would have been a bit more fanfare if something like that had happened.
So roger kept on walking as the sun rose, not sure exactly what to think, but rather amused with his own confusion. A net positive, he felt, though he wasn't sure exactly how since he was still hungry and without bacon. The stream bed, if a little barren, had a certain charm to it. Clear water hustling by towards the sun calmed him with its low mumble, seeming to entreat him to really look at the plants and the rocks and the sky, and, if he wouldn't think it vain of the stream, to even take a look at the water as it passed. Roger wasn't crazy, it was more like he was good at inventing character in things. Overactive imagination that on many an occasion had terrified him at least had the decency to drop him some enjoyable thoughts as he walked around in nature.
Around when Roger was noticing his shadow had shrunk down to cower under him, he heard the waterfall. Well, he heard the sound of a waterfall. A small waterfall. Not a large thing, crashing about with loads of white water, but enough of a flow to hit the ear from relatively close by. It was a sound hat he felt confident enough to say came from his stream, and perhaps from a waterfall that was around a small jog in the stream just up ahead. Putting a little more speed into his legs, Roger hurried forward to see it, rounding a bend in the rocks. At this point he felt a familiar, if strange sensation. He was falling. It was a long fall. Looking around, he saw a great big forest down below him, nice and green and filled with trees, a bit of a stream coming out of it to make a pool that happened to be under where he was dropping through space. As his momentum twisted him around, for this was a rather large drop, he saw the waterfall he had heard. Well, waterfall-sound creator. The water was falling up, rising as it were, hitting stones that protruded from a rocky cliff and eventually making a sharp turn to disappear over the edge that he had previously been standing upon as he rounded the corner. Roger hit the water on his back. It hurt, and he was seriously reconsidering his afterlife theory.
As apprehensive as Roger was, the calm stayed behind, even as he sat up, pulling his face from the dusty stones on the riverbank and opening his eyes on his resting place. It was an empty gully, not much in the way of larger plants, only little weeds poking out of gaps in the stone, some dangling from the steep walls that stretched up to where he had undoubtedly fallen. he took a moment to look around, eventually turning his gaze to the stream and catching a reflection of his water-drenched form. It was messy, sure, little bits of plant and sediment clutching at his t-shirt and shorts, poking out from the curls of his drying hair. The thing it wasn't was bloody, which puzzled him a bit. He checked the back of his head and under his clothes and was not able to find so much as a scratch. Skyward, his fall should have done more than that, even if he had washed downstream for a while, the cliff wall staying steep and tall for as far as he could peer down the relatively straight meanderings that the stream had carved. He wasn't sore, though that might have been the numbness the water had granted him. Roger had heard of hypothermia, but he wasn't quite able to remember the signs that it was happening. Just to be safe he disrobed and squeezed as much water out of his clothes as possible, hoping they would dry the rest of the way on his walk.
The walk was upstream for the purpose of bacon. The was some back in his Winnebago, just inside the fridge he had and combined with the pan that was lying on his bed last he checked, he would have breakfast, for he was hungry. Thus resolved, and with a quick look around, he began the easy journey beside the stream. If he hadn't drawn blood on anything, the fall must have been shorter than he remembered, exaggerated in his mind, and if he found the place he could likely climb back up and start making his way back to the road. His surety in the notion waned as the sun rose higher and the cliffs stayed higher still, looking down at him from heights that looked injurious, if not deadly.
An hour of walking and Roger was starting to debate which would be the greater miracle, not drowning on his entire float down to where he beached, or falling from such a height and not breaking anything. He was fairly sure about the not breaking anything part. He had stopped to check his limbs and ribs a few times just to be sure, but none of them was bending the wrong way, and as the sun warmed him and dried his clothes he didn't feel pain over and beyond the poke of his finger when he probed for injuries with confused disbelief. That he hadn't drowned, well, the pokes and a pinch at some point meant that he could feel, and he wanted the bacon more than brains, so he was fairly sure he was alive. It could be the afterlife, he supposed, but what kind of afterlife wakes you up soaking wet in a cold stream in the middle of nowhere? From what he was custom to believing, there would have been a bit more fanfare if something like that had happened.
So roger kept on walking as the sun rose, not sure exactly what to think, but rather amused with his own confusion. A net positive, he felt, though he wasn't sure exactly how since he was still hungry and without bacon. The stream bed, if a little barren, had a certain charm to it. Clear water hustling by towards the sun calmed him with its low mumble, seeming to entreat him to really look at the plants and the rocks and the sky, and, if he wouldn't think it vain of the stream, to even take a look at the water as it passed. Roger wasn't crazy, it was more like he was good at inventing character in things. Overactive imagination that on many an occasion had terrified him at least had the decency to drop him some enjoyable thoughts as he walked around in nature.
Around when Roger was noticing his shadow had shrunk down to cower under him, he heard the waterfall. Well, he heard the sound of a waterfall. A small waterfall. Not a large thing, crashing about with loads of white water, but enough of a flow to hit the ear from relatively close by. It was a sound hat he felt confident enough to say came from his stream, and perhaps from a waterfall that was around a small jog in the stream just up ahead. Putting a little more speed into his legs, Roger hurried forward to see it, rounding a bend in the rocks. At this point he felt a familiar, if strange sensation. He was falling. It was a long fall. Looking around, he saw a great big forest down below him, nice and green and filled with trees, a bit of a stream coming out of it to make a pool that happened to be under where he was dropping through space. As his momentum twisted him around, for this was a rather large drop, he saw the waterfall he had heard. Well, waterfall-sound creator. The water was falling up, rising as it were, hitting stones that protruded from a rocky cliff and eventually making a sharp turn to disappear over the edge that he had previously been standing upon as he rounded the corner. Roger hit the water on his back. It hurt, and he was seriously reconsidering his afterlife theory.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Garden of the Gods: Part 1
Roger sat, staring at the flames for a while. He'd been up all night, but he didn't feel it. The touch of the sun on his back only made him restless. The fire pit was down to one log, bravely sputtering in the dawn air, white ashes a testament to its former heat. Inside his Winnebago, back toward the road there was food for breakfast, but Roger didn't make a move to get up yet. Shifting his gaze to the side, he looked at the fallen tree stump where his visitor had sat last night.
It had been abnormal, in a way. Nothing about the man himself had surprised Roger, but the feeling in the air that things were not quite right afterwards had kept him up. As he had talked with him, Andrew he had been called, a growing sense of panic had grown inside him, mentally yelling at him to run away, to flee the area, to douse the flames and set off into the forest. Even after his visitor had departed hours earlier, wandering off into the darkness, Roger still sat frozen, resisting the pounding of his heart. It wasn't the first time he had felt an urge to leave a place, spending his money that had at one time been for college on the Winnebago and driving off, away from home. This time held a different tone of urgency though. Instead of his own inner voice that couldn't stand the life he was living, buckling under the pressure of society, he could feel the otherness in the voice that plagued him this night. It felt like the strange man who had showed up to share his fire, warming up against the cold, autumn night before wandering off. It wasn't the same voice, just a feeling. The man had been pleasant, charming, entertaining in his affect.
The shakes in Rogers hands worsened as he thought back to it. He needed to leave, to get away, to shake off the presence that was haunting him. Maybe a short stroll would do it, giving in enough to throw off the sense of dread that had gotten hold of him. Maybe it wouldn't be like the Winnebago, one step of fear that he never had the courage to come back from, to face them again after stepping out that front door two years ago. He headed over to the water spout by the road, filling a bucket and dousing the flames before he did anything else, letting the plastic bucket fall to the wayside next to the rock he had been sitting on before setting his sights on the forest in front of him.
It wasn't a trail, but it felt like the right way to go. He stepped forward, brushing a branch out of his way and staring deeper into the morning shadows of the woods. The dread spiked behind him and he broke into a jog, barely noticing the ground sloping up as he ran. He was out of shape from his driving, living on cheap pasta and what he could get from his shows when he hit a city. Roger felt his breath giving way to gasps, stopping to lean on a tree before looking back. The forest was all the same, dark and cold away from the campfire, a feeling of dread still emanating from that direction, confirming it to be the way back. Roger walked some more, keeping the feeling behind him, wondering if it would go away and leave him lost, or stay there and drive him away from the campsite.
He didn't notice the ledge. He didn't register the feeling of falling until the ground whizzed by his face and his stomach finally transmitted that lifting sensation that always happens. He didn't realize how screwed he was until he saw the bright light of the sun flashing off a river from below him. He didn't remember anything until he heard the burble of water in his ears and felt the cold, chilly wetness that soaked him from behind closed eyelids, unaware of how much time had passed.
It had been abnormal, in a way. Nothing about the man himself had surprised Roger, but the feeling in the air that things were not quite right afterwards had kept him up. As he had talked with him, Andrew he had been called, a growing sense of panic had grown inside him, mentally yelling at him to run away, to flee the area, to douse the flames and set off into the forest. Even after his visitor had departed hours earlier, wandering off into the darkness, Roger still sat frozen, resisting the pounding of his heart. It wasn't the first time he had felt an urge to leave a place, spending his money that had at one time been for college on the Winnebago and driving off, away from home. This time held a different tone of urgency though. Instead of his own inner voice that couldn't stand the life he was living, buckling under the pressure of society, he could feel the otherness in the voice that plagued him this night. It felt like the strange man who had showed up to share his fire, warming up against the cold, autumn night before wandering off. It wasn't the same voice, just a feeling. The man had been pleasant, charming, entertaining in his affect.
The shakes in Rogers hands worsened as he thought back to it. He needed to leave, to get away, to shake off the presence that was haunting him. Maybe a short stroll would do it, giving in enough to throw off the sense of dread that had gotten hold of him. Maybe it wouldn't be like the Winnebago, one step of fear that he never had the courage to come back from, to face them again after stepping out that front door two years ago. He headed over to the water spout by the road, filling a bucket and dousing the flames before he did anything else, letting the plastic bucket fall to the wayside next to the rock he had been sitting on before setting his sights on the forest in front of him.
It wasn't a trail, but it felt like the right way to go. He stepped forward, brushing a branch out of his way and staring deeper into the morning shadows of the woods. The dread spiked behind him and he broke into a jog, barely noticing the ground sloping up as he ran. He was out of shape from his driving, living on cheap pasta and what he could get from his shows when he hit a city. Roger felt his breath giving way to gasps, stopping to lean on a tree before looking back. The forest was all the same, dark and cold away from the campfire, a feeling of dread still emanating from that direction, confirming it to be the way back. Roger walked some more, keeping the feeling behind him, wondering if it would go away and leave him lost, or stay there and drive him away from the campsite.
He didn't notice the ledge. He didn't register the feeling of falling until the ground whizzed by his face and his stomach finally transmitted that lifting sensation that always happens. He didn't realize how screwed he was until he saw the bright light of the sun flashing off a river from below him. He didn't remember anything until he heard the burble of water in his ears and felt the cold, chilly wetness that soaked him from behind closed eyelids, unaware of how much time had passed.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
A brief argument upon a hill, in which a resolution occurs.
Slanting rays of sunlight drew long shadows across the overgrown stone path to the well that wound around the tallest of the short hills that dotted the plains. Small gusts of wind blew the pink petals of the already blooming trees in and out of the long shadows that cut across Mikau's path as he walked, shivering in the brisk morning air. If he were a better monk he might have been contemplating the duality of sun and shade that he found himself experiencing, warm in the sun for a moment before dipping back in the too-cool morning shadows. Neither the light nor the darkness would fill the buckets, he thought to himself, and the well water was essential for the morning porridge, which was good enough by monastery standards. At least the founding brothers had built close to groundwater. If the walk was longer than the half a mile it already was, one way, than he might be seriously thinking of running away to join the gypsies instead of just wishing he were one. It wouldn't have been hard to find some, what with the well being a popular stopping point for caravans that didn't follow the river.
The trouble would be convincing anybody to take him with them. Monks of the Iron Branch were not looked upon kindly by most of the plains-dwellers, which explained the distance between the monastery and the well. The founders had been thoughtful enough not to park themselves right next to it so as not to drive away travelers. Mikau knew enough history to know that it was more of a fear of having the place burnt to the ground by angry caravans. That type of thing hadn't happened in a century, though, according to Father Path. Mikau had to admit, when he came across travelers at the well in the mornings, they didn't kill him or rob him, so things had improved from the time of the heresy wars.
When Mikau heard voices from up ahead, drifting out of the trees with the bird songs, he was quite sure that it was just another band of travelers passing on to Kuelnas or heading on towards the Raviule river. When he broke the treeline, walking up the last few steps to the flattened hilltop, he didn't notice anything in particular about the travelers, though they seemed a bit off from the usual crowd. The horses they rode were midnight black, surely from the southern edge of the plains where the horse-tribes kept their winter homes. This in itself wasn't too out of the ordinary, since more established travelers tended to buy horses from the horse-tribes if they could afford them. Kuelnas horses were heartier for fieldwork, but the horse-tribes had bred the best traveling horse there was, and the second best which they would consent to trade to outsiders. The fact that the men rode expensive horses meant that he could count on a bit of class prejudice, so Mikau decided to ignore them, get his water, and head back to the monastery without staying a moment to catch his breath and watch the rising sun for a minute or two. Mikau's plans had a tendency of getting spoiled quite often. This didn't stop him from making them, it just meant that he wasn't all that surprised when one of the five men who were seated around a morning cook-fire yelled over at him.
"Ey, monk."
He was a bit attached to this particular plan of his, if only because he had been having a very bad week recently. He kept walking, aiming for the well.
"I said hey."
Mikau looked up, half-admitting defeat. he hadn't said anything yet though, so maybe he could get away with silence still.
"Which way's the nearest farm out here?"
The man had a red beard, cropped short to his face, which had something halfway between a scowl and a smile exposing his whiteish teeth. Mikau pointed out towards the west, then started hooking his bucket to a rope attached to the well.
"How far, around?"
Mikau made a face to himself in the water below, barely seeing his tongue stick out in the dark water.
"A day or so, maybe."
"Damnit, Acadia, we will lose too much time going off that way," said a second, deeper voice from the fire.
"Well, I need a squire, okay?"
Mikau was happy that he wasn't part of the conversation anymore, especially since he could sit and eavesdrop on what might be an interesting piece of gossip to bring back. The other young monks listened to him when he had interesting gossip at least.
"You don't need a squire to climb a mountain."
"Venjorious is right, it would only slow us down so that other knights could get there first."
A third voice, higher pitch, probably from the blonde, skinny one.
"But what if there's a dragon at the top? You two have your squires even."
"That's because they begged to come along, not because we need their help."
Deep voice again. Mikau finished filling one of his two buckets.
"Yes, the prophecy foretold a date a week from now, and if we're not at that mountain we are not going to have a chance at it."
High voice. Maybe even the older monks would care about a new prophecy, they had been muttering about stars lately.
"I just don't want you two to have an advantage here, since we've formed a fellowship on this, y'see."
"Well, maybe you should have thought of that before we came and got a squire from the city."
High voice.
"You two were the ones who rushed us out without letting me check if I was missin' anything. This might be the last bit of land left with much chance of finding anybody before we hit the mountain, so why not a tiny little side-trip? We should be there in time anyway."
"Because it could take longer than we anticipate to actually climb the mountain is why."
Deep voice again. Mikau finished filling the second bucket, getting ready to head back down the path.
Deep voice continued, "really, if you're so set on a squire, why not just take the monk?"
Mikau froze, an icy feeling flowing through him, even beneath the morning sun.
"Yes, he looks sturdy enough, probably just waiting for an adventure."
High voice.
"Hmm, I take your meaning, even if he is a monk. And the monastery would just get laughed out of the magistrate's court if they say we kidnapped him."
"Precisely, though I'm sure even those old heretics would appreciate the glory of our quest. Might even make for a redemption verse or two in the epic poem they'll write about us."
Mikau's heart was beating quite fast now. He was sure that he was about to go on a very interesting trip, whether he wanted to or not.
The trouble would be convincing anybody to take him with them. Monks of the Iron Branch were not looked upon kindly by most of the plains-dwellers, which explained the distance between the monastery and the well. The founders had been thoughtful enough not to park themselves right next to it so as not to drive away travelers. Mikau knew enough history to know that it was more of a fear of having the place burnt to the ground by angry caravans. That type of thing hadn't happened in a century, though, according to Father Path. Mikau had to admit, when he came across travelers at the well in the mornings, they didn't kill him or rob him, so things had improved from the time of the heresy wars.
When Mikau heard voices from up ahead, drifting out of the trees with the bird songs, he was quite sure that it was just another band of travelers passing on to Kuelnas or heading on towards the Raviule river. When he broke the treeline, walking up the last few steps to the flattened hilltop, he didn't notice anything in particular about the travelers, though they seemed a bit off from the usual crowd. The horses they rode were midnight black, surely from the southern edge of the plains where the horse-tribes kept their winter homes. This in itself wasn't too out of the ordinary, since more established travelers tended to buy horses from the horse-tribes if they could afford them. Kuelnas horses were heartier for fieldwork, but the horse-tribes had bred the best traveling horse there was, and the second best which they would consent to trade to outsiders. The fact that the men rode expensive horses meant that he could count on a bit of class prejudice, so Mikau decided to ignore them, get his water, and head back to the monastery without staying a moment to catch his breath and watch the rising sun for a minute or two. Mikau's plans had a tendency of getting spoiled quite often. This didn't stop him from making them, it just meant that he wasn't all that surprised when one of the five men who were seated around a morning cook-fire yelled over at him.
"Ey, monk."
He was a bit attached to this particular plan of his, if only because he had been having a very bad week recently. He kept walking, aiming for the well.
"I said hey."
Mikau looked up, half-admitting defeat. he hadn't said anything yet though, so maybe he could get away with silence still.
"Which way's the nearest farm out here?"
The man had a red beard, cropped short to his face, which had something halfway between a scowl and a smile exposing his whiteish teeth. Mikau pointed out towards the west, then started hooking his bucket to a rope attached to the well.
"How far, around?"
Mikau made a face to himself in the water below, barely seeing his tongue stick out in the dark water.
"A day or so, maybe."
"Damnit, Acadia, we will lose too much time going off that way," said a second, deeper voice from the fire.
"Well, I need a squire, okay?"
Mikau was happy that he wasn't part of the conversation anymore, especially since he could sit and eavesdrop on what might be an interesting piece of gossip to bring back. The other young monks listened to him when he had interesting gossip at least.
"You don't need a squire to climb a mountain."
"Venjorious is right, it would only slow us down so that other knights could get there first."
A third voice, higher pitch, probably from the blonde, skinny one.
"But what if there's a dragon at the top? You two have your squires even."
"That's because they begged to come along, not because we need their help."
Deep voice again. Mikau finished filling one of his two buckets.
"Yes, the prophecy foretold a date a week from now, and if we're not at that mountain we are not going to have a chance at it."
High voice. Maybe even the older monks would care about a new prophecy, they had been muttering about stars lately.
"I just don't want you two to have an advantage here, since we've formed a fellowship on this, y'see."
"Well, maybe you should have thought of that before we came and got a squire from the city."
High voice.
"You two were the ones who rushed us out without letting me check if I was missin' anything. This might be the last bit of land left with much chance of finding anybody before we hit the mountain, so why not a tiny little side-trip? We should be there in time anyway."
"Because it could take longer than we anticipate to actually climb the mountain is why."
Deep voice again. Mikau finished filling the second bucket, getting ready to head back down the path.
Deep voice continued, "really, if you're so set on a squire, why not just take the monk?"
Mikau froze, an icy feeling flowing through him, even beneath the morning sun.
"Yes, he looks sturdy enough, probably just waiting for an adventure."
High voice.
"Hmm, I take your meaning, even if he is a monk. And the monastery would just get laughed out of the magistrate's court if they say we kidnapped him."
"Precisely, though I'm sure even those old heretics would appreciate the glory of our quest. Might even make for a redemption verse or two in the epic poem they'll write about us."
Mikau's heart was beating quite fast now. He was sure that he was about to go on a very interesting trip, whether he wanted to or not.
Friday, July 12, 2013
An Eye on God's Mote.
Glazed with frost that deformed the perfect, blue sphere, the eye of Anuzil sat waiting atop its pedestal. The view was grand from the mountain peak, any mortal eye able to pick out the shimmering surface of the Raviule river winding its way across the Raviule plains many miles into the distance. Most any way that one could look was the Raviule plains, surrounding the lone peak with golden-green fields, flashing sunlight back upwards. This day was a calm day, the weather stayed its hand from molesting the eye of Anuzil, though other days it tried with fervor to wrest it from its stone perch that was itself perched upon the grey stone of the mountain, both lightly crusted with the same frost that clung to the eye.
Nothing, in fact had moved the eye in a very long time. A full millenia had almost arrived where it was unseen in the outside world. Not for lack of knowledge, at least in the early years. The eye had seen kings with their pavilions and splendor parked at the base of the mountain, striving with the might of their kingdom to reach the peak, to reach it, but each took a different route to cold, icy death. The lucky ones eventually made it back down to the ground for burial. Kavnequeth the Bold still lay at the bottom of a pit whose mouth opened half a mile from the top, forgotten by the world, along with his entire lineage. The eye still recalled him, could remember the glint in his eye on seeing that pedestal framed in the morning sunlight on a day much like today, watched in pity as he stepped forward onto the snowfield and plummeted out of sight. It was a first at the time for anyone to get close enough to meet the eye's gaze.
Some others made it closer, after a time. One even reached the carved stone dais from which the pedestal rose. He had tried for days to wrench the eye free, hammering at the frost , pushing, finally scratching with his bare hands until he died of the chill. His body had been thrown off the mount by the winds a week later, bouncing off new fallen snow, leaving a dotted red trail all the way to the bottom. Nobody mourned his passing, and the eye never heard his name mentioned on the wind. The only thing passers by called him was "poor soul" or "unlucky bastard" on their way to their own doom among the crags.
For all this time, the eye was content to watch and wait, to bide its time. The wizard who had put it there had promised that after a time and an age and an era there would have to be some needy fool to claim the eye. Some talented person with just enough luck and brains and skill to reach the top and slip the eye free. It had not yet been an era, the eye thought, so it was content to wait a while longer. It would wait atop its mountain of stone and ice and bone for a true owner to appear again, like the wizard had been. It was patient, even through its loneliness.
Nothing, in fact had moved the eye in a very long time. A full millenia had almost arrived where it was unseen in the outside world. Not for lack of knowledge, at least in the early years. The eye had seen kings with their pavilions and splendor parked at the base of the mountain, striving with the might of their kingdom to reach the peak, to reach it, but each took a different route to cold, icy death. The lucky ones eventually made it back down to the ground for burial. Kavnequeth the Bold still lay at the bottom of a pit whose mouth opened half a mile from the top, forgotten by the world, along with his entire lineage. The eye still recalled him, could remember the glint in his eye on seeing that pedestal framed in the morning sunlight on a day much like today, watched in pity as he stepped forward onto the snowfield and plummeted out of sight. It was a first at the time for anyone to get close enough to meet the eye's gaze.
Some others made it closer, after a time. One even reached the carved stone dais from which the pedestal rose. He had tried for days to wrench the eye free, hammering at the frost , pushing, finally scratching with his bare hands until he died of the chill. His body had been thrown off the mount by the winds a week later, bouncing off new fallen snow, leaving a dotted red trail all the way to the bottom. Nobody mourned his passing, and the eye never heard his name mentioned on the wind. The only thing passers by called him was "poor soul" or "unlucky bastard" on their way to their own doom among the crags.
For all this time, the eye was content to watch and wait, to bide its time. The wizard who had put it there had promised that after a time and an age and an era there would have to be some needy fool to claim the eye. Some talented person with just enough luck and brains and skill to reach the top and slip the eye free. It had not yet been an era, the eye thought, so it was content to wait a while longer. It would wait atop its mountain of stone and ice and bone for a true owner to appear again, like the wizard had been. It was patient, even through its loneliness.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Not Kansas
The floor wasn't much of an improvement from the hospital tiles. It was still cold, clammy, and stretched out in a long hallway. Waking up in a cave had been a bit disconcerting to say the least. Go to sleep one place, wake up another, wonder where some slippers would be.
It wasn't a dream, he thought. The floor proved that with the cold, and the wall proved that with his stubbed toe. He even felt the warmth of the torch that had been set in the wall next to where he woke up. It was an alcove carved into the stone, much the same as the countless others that lined the hallway. Torches were in holders above them, but none had been lit besides his own. All the rest of the alcoves had been empty too. He could have sat and waited, he supposed, but he was more of an adventurer at heart.
Well, until his heart had given out on him and landed him in the hospital. He was rather resigned to boredom after that, but he felt much better after he woke up today. That was an upside. The downsides were the cold floor, not knowing where he was going, the outdated technology of the torch he had that flickered and spit off sparks every once in a while, and the sinking feeling that maybe atheism had been the wrong choice after all. It wasn't exactly what he would have expected for an afterlife, and he didn't remember hearing about any religions like this.
Still, it wasn't non-existance, it wasn't a dream, and it probably wasn't aliens. Aliens would have been more high-tech. It was boring though. It felt like he'd been walking for hours, and the corridor just kept on going straight ahead, little alcoves off on either side every few feet, large enough to lay a human body down in. Besides his torch it was all dark as well, which created a closing in sensation that tugged a bit at his claustrophobia. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.
It was not a feeling that let up when he slumped against the wall in exhaustion a few hours later. It accompanied a growing gnawing at his stomach. Maybe he could eat the torch-wood if it came to that? He felt his eyelids growing heavy, struggled against them, set the torch in a holder near him, tossing the unused torch aside, then was claimed by sleep. He did not dream.
When his eyelids opened, he felt rested, confused, and thought that something might be poking his leg. The hunger had not gone away, though. The ground was still cold. He could make out a shadowy figure, cloaked in black in the blackness in front of him. It was not in fact holding a scythe, though the staff it did have in its dry hands did give him that impression at first. He would have jumped up, but the adrenaline wasn't pumping quite yet.
"Haven't seen one of you earthlings in a while. Get up and follow me. Take the torch."
The hooded figure turned and started walking. It was back towards where he had first appeared.
"What's going on? Who are you? Where am I? What..."
"Less questions, more walking."
The voice was raspy, like sand flowing down a sheet of metal.
"But I..."
"Quiet, earthling."
"No, really, wha..."
The figure stopped and turned.
"Fine, waste your time, waste your energy, as is you may not make the walk already, and I'm certainly not carrying you."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Good, now follow me earthling. I can give you a few facts to chew on, as the saying goes, but little else. There are laws that I must follow."
The figure started walking again. The sliding of the dark robe on the floor accompanied by the staff's thump echoed down the path.
"If you want to call this place something, you are in Caspieth's, my, hallway in the land of Whence. All names you earthlings gave, by the way. This extends in length sixty miles, and we are almost at the halfway point."
The light from the torch flickered, shying away from his mysterious guide.
"I do not deal with you earthlings much, I just walk the length of my tunnel, showing such as you the right direction. The other way leads to a bad place for mortals. A good place for the slavers though. Do not ask what my business is, just walk. I know you are curious, but it really is best to just imagine things and then find out when we arrive."
"Ok."
The figure tsk'd up ahead, and kept walking.
"On our walk, your torch will not go out, you will tire and hunger, but it is still possible to overcome. You will be a skeleton when you get there, only flesh and bones, but you will arrive. You look determined enough."
He wondered how the figure could tell, having not turned around. He did feel determined though.
"It was the footsteps."
Another five steps.
"No, I'm not."
Three.
"I don't lie, you earthlings are just predictable."
Twenty more steps.
"Five hundred years, and more came through here in the past. That is the last I will say."
Just the swish of cloth on cold stone, the beat of a staff, and his own footsteps as company. It was a long walk. Caspieth slowed down a bit as he tired, but he kept pace as best he could. Before long it became a mindless exercise of one foot in front of the other. The end of the tunnel finally grew a small light. There was the smell of salt water, though no real breeze came into the tunnel. Then the exit seemed to spit the two out into the sunlight. He slumped to the ground, looking around. All around him was a giant beach, sand everywhere, and behind him a giant mountain, one in a range that stretched back as far as he could see.
"Welcome to whence, deadman. You'll want to take a left."
he just sat and stared around. Caspieth walked forward, pulling a bottle from beneath his robes. Clear and glass and ornamented with small jade figurines he couldn't pick out as the cloaked thing walked to the sea, submerged the bottle before corking it and stashing the thing back where he had hid it before.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I has a tunnel to walk again."
And the figure disappeared into the blackness.
It wasn't a dream, he thought. The floor proved that with the cold, and the wall proved that with his stubbed toe. He even felt the warmth of the torch that had been set in the wall next to where he woke up. It was an alcove carved into the stone, much the same as the countless others that lined the hallway. Torches were in holders above them, but none had been lit besides his own. All the rest of the alcoves had been empty too. He could have sat and waited, he supposed, but he was more of an adventurer at heart.
Well, until his heart had given out on him and landed him in the hospital. He was rather resigned to boredom after that, but he felt much better after he woke up today. That was an upside. The downsides were the cold floor, not knowing where he was going, the outdated technology of the torch he had that flickered and spit off sparks every once in a while, and the sinking feeling that maybe atheism had been the wrong choice after all. It wasn't exactly what he would have expected for an afterlife, and he didn't remember hearing about any religions like this.
Still, it wasn't non-existance, it wasn't a dream, and it probably wasn't aliens. Aliens would have been more high-tech. It was boring though. It felt like he'd been walking for hours, and the corridor just kept on going straight ahead, little alcoves off on either side every few feet, large enough to lay a human body down in. Besides his torch it was all dark as well, which created a closing in sensation that tugged a bit at his claustrophobia. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.
It was not a feeling that let up when he slumped against the wall in exhaustion a few hours later. It accompanied a growing gnawing at his stomach. Maybe he could eat the torch-wood if it came to that? He felt his eyelids growing heavy, struggled against them, set the torch in a holder near him, tossing the unused torch aside, then was claimed by sleep. He did not dream.
When his eyelids opened, he felt rested, confused, and thought that something might be poking his leg. The hunger had not gone away, though. The ground was still cold. He could make out a shadowy figure, cloaked in black in the blackness in front of him. It was not in fact holding a scythe, though the staff it did have in its dry hands did give him that impression at first. He would have jumped up, but the adrenaline wasn't pumping quite yet.
"Haven't seen one of you earthlings in a while. Get up and follow me. Take the torch."
The hooded figure turned and started walking. It was back towards where he had first appeared.
"What's going on? Who are you? Where am I? What..."
"Less questions, more walking."
The voice was raspy, like sand flowing down a sheet of metal.
"But I..."
"Quiet, earthling."
"No, really, wha..."
The figure stopped and turned.
"Fine, waste your time, waste your energy, as is you may not make the walk already, and I'm certainly not carrying you."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Good, now follow me earthling. I can give you a few facts to chew on, as the saying goes, but little else. There are laws that I must follow."
The figure started walking again. The sliding of the dark robe on the floor accompanied by the staff's thump echoed down the path.
"If you want to call this place something, you are in Caspieth's, my, hallway in the land of Whence. All names you earthlings gave, by the way. This extends in length sixty miles, and we are almost at the halfway point."
The light from the torch flickered, shying away from his mysterious guide.
"I do not deal with you earthlings much, I just walk the length of my tunnel, showing such as you the right direction. The other way leads to a bad place for mortals. A good place for the slavers though. Do not ask what my business is, just walk. I know you are curious, but it really is best to just imagine things and then find out when we arrive."
"Ok."
The figure tsk'd up ahead, and kept walking.
"On our walk, your torch will not go out, you will tire and hunger, but it is still possible to overcome. You will be a skeleton when you get there, only flesh and bones, but you will arrive. You look determined enough."
He wondered how the figure could tell, having not turned around. He did feel determined though.
"It was the footsteps."
Another five steps.
"No, I'm not."
Three.
"I don't lie, you earthlings are just predictable."
Twenty more steps.
"Five hundred years, and more came through here in the past. That is the last I will say."
Just the swish of cloth on cold stone, the beat of a staff, and his own footsteps as company. It was a long walk. Caspieth slowed down a bit as he tired, but he kept pace as best he could. Before long it became a mindless exercise of one foot in front of the other. The end of the tunnel finally grew a small light. There was the smell of salt water, though no real breeze came into the tunnel. Then the exit seemed to spit the two out into the sunlight. He slumped to the ground, looking around. All around him was a giant beach, sand everywhere, and behind him a giant mountain, one in a range that stretched back as far as he could see.
"Welcome to whence, deadman. You'll want to take a left."
he just sat and stared around. Caspieth walked forward, pulling a bottle from beneath his robes. Clear and glass and ornamented with small jade figurines he couldn't pick out as the cloaked thing walked to the sea, submerged the bottle before corking it and stashing the thing back where he had hid it before.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I has a tunnel to walk again."
And the figure disappeared into the blackness.
Friday, July 5, 2013
A Drinking Problem
She stared at the red liquid, careful sealed in a bottle that occupied the low table in the center of the room. Hunching over to get a closer view for a few minutes, then leaning back into the brown, fuzzy couch, then leaning in again. It was a deep red, opaque in the clear bottle, close to what she'd seen once in blood-bags at the hospital when her father died. It was flat, once single color, no floating, flowing bits to take away from the big, red homogeneous nature of it. The stuff was more than the standard street version that got passed around in the upper-lower class. That stuff didn't do squat, tasted terrible, and cost more than a years worth of water.
She glanced at the door, then at the wall clock, remembering she had until six in the afternoon before the other people got back, so about an hour before she had to do something with the bottle. She knew what she could do with it, how to administer it, what the properties likely were, and where to go if there were some bad side effects, but she hadn't quite decided on if she wanted to use it yet. It would likely clear up her acne, that was standard on most all of them. There would likely be some meddling with her health, fixing some things that she didn't know she even had. That might be worth it all in itself. She could also end up with a tail, or show-wings, or even cat-eyes. Those probably wouldn't be all that great to have. People would start asking questions. It wasn't really likely that there wouldn't be some sort of body mod in it, that was the latest fad these days. Least current that she could really hope for would be a permanent hair color mod, and she could explain that away with hair dye.
She wasn't that scared of the downsides though, those would work themselves out, even if most of the people would be jealous for a long while afterwards. Her real indecision lay in the fact that it would probably sell for a lot more than she would make in the next few years combined scavenging some of the abandoned towns. To the right buyer it might even be worth enough to set her up on the track to a more middle-class area of a city. Not this one, but maybe the next one over. Too many people knew here here, and she would just be dragged back down to the lowest station of people if she stayed around. People asking for favours she couldn't in good conscience deny, people stopping by to chat who just happened to eat a little more than she'd planned on offering. Middle class people who would see the relations and snub her for her roots. No, she might be able to get out of this life for the price of a bottle of nano-juice. Maybe. There was no guarantee. It could be an off-brand or she could get ripped off by the buyer, or she might even get mugged before she got to finding a buyer. As time went on, the less and less likely she was to get a good deal out of her find. Really, the fact that it was sitting in a plastic bag lying under a bridge, just out there, led her to believe that it must not be top-class stuff. It would almost certainly not be worth the risk to keep it long to sell it. Probably.
Forty-five minutes until six. She Was looking at it, pondering her future, thinking about what it might do, still on the cusp of a decision, as she had been for the past three hours since she had gotten back with it, stowed in her bag. She was back early because of it. That in itself was going to raise some eyebrows, and either they'd have something to find on her, or they'd find her with something new on her. That was the choice, she thought. Keep it and have it split up, or use it now. For all her dreams of betterment, there really wasn't any chance that she'd be able to hide it from the rest of them. People were nosy, and this was a cramped house. The only reason people weren't there was they had to be doing something in order to have a chance of surviving, and there was nothing to do in the hose but sit and sleep and talk, and you could talk while you were scavenging.
She decided, or really she just acted on the conclusion she had made minutes after she had found the thing. With a quick motion, she grabbed the top of the bottle and twisted. A small crack, plastic snapping off, and the top opened revealing a thin metal tube covered by a clear plastic baggy. She tore the baggy off, lifted the bottle to her lips and sipped from the tube. It wasn't thick, a little bit more viscous than water, but not by much. Once it started coming in, sliding down her throat, it wouldn't stop. Slowly it sped up, a warm dribble turning into a full on stream. The bottle emptied itself, red liquid crawling out of it into her mouth, then down her throat into her stomach. It would take about half an hour to get fully absorbed. She lay down on the couch. It was done now, all that was left was the waiting. Each time she looked over at the clock she swore it was slow, it had surely been more than two minutes between when she had checked last.
Finally it was quarter 'til, and the second stage of the juice transformation would start. It set up relays as it spread through the circulatory system, marking out exactly what the body was, and exactly what it had to work with. Now the relays activated and synced, miniature communication networks opened up, each little nanobot a worker and part of a larger, analytically whole that would direct the process. It came on in a sensitivity that was almost like being tickled all over, but from the inside of the skin. She twitched a bit, closed her eyes, and waited. The tickling exacerbated, stretching deeper, turning more to an itch everywhere. She caught herself starting to scratch at her skin. It probably wouldn't do anything to, but better safe than with an unplanned side-effect. Just before the door opened, six o' eight, the itching subdued. It was still there on some level, but it was just a kind of warmth at that point. She didn't notice anything different.
"Ey, what's that ya got there Krissy?"
"Umm, what's it look like, Stan, jeeze."
"You found a nano-juice? out here?"
"Well, it was empty. Cast off stuff. Who would leave a full one out here, right?"
"You're right about that, pretty much all that's worth anything is the stuff to get recycled."
"Yeah, the are over near the Green bridge is pretty much picked clean. I got a few things but I wasn't having any luck."
"Came back early then?"
"Yeah."
"River still running down in that part?"
"Not in this season, no rain up north for a while."
"Heard they got some a week back though."
"From Hungry Willy?"
"Mhmm."
"He's full of it, though."
"Not all the time."
"Only has a good eye for cards, everyone knows that."
"Well, yeah, but he was talkin' to me about that rain while we were playing cards, so maybe it translates."
"No way, Stan. You just wanna go fishin' real bad."
"Is it too much to ask?"
"With the way this place has been drying up? I'd say so. You can't even really eat half the fish though."
"More like a quarter."
"Well, half of them set off the detector."
"A little bit of radiation never hurt anybody."
"Tell that to the Jones' Kid."
"Okay, but he had a condition before that."
"Mhmm."
"Anyway, I got this cool hubcap down south of the steeple."
"Show it to me later, I'm tired."
"But it's really cool Krissy, c'mon."
"I said later."
"But it's all swirly and junk, like a hypnosis wheel."
"...fine, but it had better be cool."
At this point she sat up to look at his "cool hubcap." It wasn't the first time he'd found something that he thought was cool that just wasn't, but she would just keep getting bugged about it if she didn't look, and she could barely feel and warmth now at all. The shock showed on her face when she noticed that instead of the normal Stan that she was used to seeing, she also somehow saw layers and layers of meat-stuff inside of Stan that undoubtedly was his brain and his lungs and his heart and his. . .she looked back up.
"I told you this thing was cool."
"Right, yeah, great, umm, hubcap, Stan.
She glanced at the door, then at the wall clock, remembering she had until six in the afternoon before the other people got back, so about an hour before she had to do something with the bottle. She knew what she could do with it, how to administer it, what the properties likely were, and where to go if there were some bad side effects, but she hadn't quite decided on if she wanted to use it yet. It would likely clear up her acne, that was standard on most all of them. There would likely be some meddling with her health, fixing some things that she didn't know she even had. That might be worth it all in itself. She could also end up with a tail, or show-wings, or even cat-eyes. Those probably wouldn't be all that great to have. People would start asking questions. It wasn't really likely that there wouldn't be some sort of body mod in it, that was the latest fad these days. Least current that she could really hope for would be a permanent hair color mod, and she could explain that away with hair dye.
She wasn't that scared of the downsides though, those would work themselves out, even if most of the people would be jealous for a long while afterwards. Her real indecision lay in the fact that it would probably sell for a lot more than she would make in the next few years combined scavenging some of the abandoned towns. To the right buyer it might even be worth enough to set her up on the track to a more middle-class area of a city. Not this one, but maybe the next one over. Too many people knew here here, and she would just be dragged back down to the lowest station of people if she stayed around. People asking for favours she couldn't in good conscience deny, people stopping by to chat who just happened to eat a little more than she'd planned on offering. Middle class people who would see the relations and snub her for her roots. No, she might be able to get out of this life for the price of a bottle of nano-juice. Maybe. There was no guarantee. It could be an off-brand or she could get ripped off by the buyer, or she might even get mugged before she got to finding a buyer. As time went on, the less and less likely she was to get a good deal out of her find. Really, the fact that it was sitting in a plastic bag lying under a bridge, just out there, led her to believe that it must not be top-class stuff. It would almost certainly not be worth the risk to keep it long to sell it. Probably.
Forty-five minutes until six. She Was looking at it, pondering her future, thinking about what it might do, still on the cusp of a decision, as she had been for the past three hours since she had gotten back with it, stowed in her bag. She was back early because of it. That in itself was going to raise some eyebrows, and either they'd have something to find on her, or they'd find her with something new on her. That was the choice, she thought. Keep it and have it split up, or use it now. For all her dreams of betterment, there really wasn't any chance that she'd be able to hide it from the rest of them. People were nosy, and this was a cramped house. The only reason people weren't there was they had to be doing something in order to have a chance of surviving, and there was nothing to do in the hose but sit and sleep and talk, and you could talk while you were scavenging.
She decided, or really she just acted on the conclusion she had made minutes after she had found the thing. With a quick motion, she grabbed the top of the bottle and twisted. A small crack, plastic snapping off, and the top opened revealing a thin metal tube covered by a clear plastic baggy. She tore the baggy off, lifted the bottle to her lips and sipped from the tube. It wasn't thick, a little bit more viscous than water, but not by much. Once it started coming in, sliding down her throat, it wouldn't stop. Slowly it sped up, a warm dribble turning into a full on stream. The bottle emptied itself, red liquid crawling out of it into her mouth, then down her throat into her stomach. It would take about half an hour to get fully absorbed. She lay down on the couch. It was done now, all that was left was the waiting. Each time she looked over at the clock she swore it was slow, it had surely been more than two minutes between when she had checked last.
Finally it was quarter 'til, and the second stage of the juice transformation would start. It set up relays as it spread through the circulatory system, marking out exactly what the body was, and exactly what it had to work with. Now the relays activated and synced, miniature communication networks opened up, each little nanobot a worker and part of a larger, analytically whole that would direct the process. It came on in a sensitivity that was almost like being tickled all over, but from the inside of the skin. She twitched a bit, closed her eyes, and waited. The tickling exacerbated, stretching deeper, turning more to an itch everywhere. She caught herself starting to scratch at her skin. It probably wouldn't do anything to, but better safe than with an unplanned side-effect. Just before the door opened, six o' eight, the itching subdued. It was still there on some level, but it was just a kind of warmth at that point. She didn't notice anything different.
"Ey, what's that ya got there Krissy?"
"Umm, what's it look like, Stan, jeeze."
"You found a nano-juice? out here?"
"Well, it was empty. Cast off stuff. Who would leave a full one out here, right?"
"You're right about that, pretty much all that's worth anything is the stuff to get recycled."
"Yeah, the are over near the Green bridge is pretty much picked clean. I got a few things but I wasn't having any luck."
"Came back early then?"
"Yeah."
"River still running down in that part?"
"Not in this season, no rain up north for a while."
"Heard they got some a week back though."
"From Hungry Willy?"
"Mhmm."
"He's full of it, though."
"Not all the time."
"Only has a good eye for cards, everyone knows that."
"Well, yeah, but he was talkin' to me about that rain while we were playing cards, so maybe it translates."
"No way, Stan. You just wanna go fishin' real bad."
"Is it too much to ask?"
"With the way this place has been drying up? I'd say so. You can't even really eat half the fish though."
"More like a quarter."
"Well, half of them set off the detector."
"A little bit of radiation never hurt anybody."
"Tell that to the Jones' Kid."
"Okay, but he had a condition before that."
"Mhmm."
"Anyway, I got this cool hubcap down south of the steeple."
"Show it to me later, I'm tired."
"But it's really cool Krissy, c'mon."
"I said later."
"But it's all swirly and junk, like a hypnosis wheel."
"...fine, but it had better be cool."
At this point she sat up to look at his "cool hubcap." It wasn't the first time he'd found something that he thought was cool that just wasn't, but she would just keep getting bugged about it if she didn't look, and she could barely feel and warmth now at all. The shock showed on her face when she noticed that instead of the normal Stan that she was used to seeing, she also somehow saw layers and layers of meat-stuff inside of Stan that undoubtedly was his brain and his lungs and his heart and his. . .she looked back up.
"I told you this thing was cool."
"Right, yeah, great, umm, hubcap, Stan.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Silent Tears Unshed
Sunlight just began to heat her neck as she rode up the frosty trail. Her horse had begun to show signs of tiring, surely overworked after the ride through the night that she had taken across the plains. Even with her vision limited to starlight, the rotting fumes of the battlefields around the area had kept on reminding her why she rode, and the grim consequences of being caught, of failing, of not getting word through.
All the other passes were guarded, watched, and certain doom to try. Few knew of the old trail through the vale of mist, and fewer still would dare pass it. She herself had never thought to go up the trail, warned off by talk of ghosts or other unnatural sightings around the area. Most of it wasn't true, she kept reminding herself, the armies behind her were more of a monster than any child-snatcher that haunted her childhood nightmares.
Perhaps the horse was just tired from the ride, and so it slowed its pace, perhaps it sensed her unease, or maybe it too wasn't quite so anxious as to travel too much farther up the path. Would she have dared to go through the pass in the night, if she had arrived earlier? Would she have waited until the sun rose higher? Did she even now wish that more light accompanied her on her journey? Well, of course.
She had a duty, or a mission as it were, to bring news of the army. The capitol city would need to know, and she didn't guess any of the army had made it back. For the calamity of war to fall upon two unsuspecting farmlands that fall would have been too much to bear. She hadn't been able to do anything as her fields burned, as her family bled into the dirt. A horse and her clothes were all that was left. The crunch of hoof on snow turning to a clop of hoof on rock woke her from her memories.
Ahead the snowy path gave way to a hard, jagged black stone, warm to the touch and devoid of snow. The sides of the canyon leading upwards into the mountains had edged closer together until she could touch both sides of the sheer walls with her hands. Turning in the saddle, she saw the smokey plain, covered with bloody mud and ashes more than a small layer of snow that came weeks past. Her eyes tried in vain to form a tear, dehydrated as they were.
A snort from the horse, and the trot onward continued. Before long the trail reached zenith, sloping downwards between the mountain sides. There was a deep silence over the area; no birds to chirp, no wind to rustle the strange vines grasping at the cliff walls, and even the sound of the horses hooves were muffled in the mist that filled the vale like water in a glass. The pathway widened, expanding outwards slowly until a two well-traveled lane pulled away from the center, hugging the cliff faces. Her horse stopped. The question of who, or what, had been making trails in the vale disturbed her, but the stone held an imprint for a long time, and so she hoped they were not recent, were not pathways leading to a monster's den, be in two-legged or four.
Still waiting for a direction, the horse snorts, as if voicing it's own disapproval of the place. They go right. Forward and down, straining her eyes at shaped in the mist which, invariably emerge as rocks or hanging vines, or small bushes nestles into cracks in the black stone. A quarter mile of riding more and at last they reach the vale floor, flat for the most part, but sloping downward towards the center. Still widening, though she knows it more as a feeling, the sun's track vague and hazy through the mist, when she can pick it out at all.
Off on the left a small glimmer, bushes and vines giving way to a flat expanse. Water, a lake, the vaunted lake of the vale of mist. Thirst and caution, and the horses thirst wins out against her own caution, though after dismounting, she waits to see if the horse is dragged under by tentacles or slimy hands. Popular myth loved to switch between a troll and a sea-beast that got stranded in the mountains. The water is warm, a tasteless warmth that slips down her throat, as silent as the rest of the vale. No rest beyond the drink, she must go on. Were it a regular stop the horse might have protested more, but it seems as eager to continue as she, sore and weary as she is.
Hoof-beats echoing across the lake's surface, still muffled by the mists, the silence wears on, and wears on her. Putting the water behind her helps little. The similarity past the midpoint is eerie, the paths finally meeting on the other side of the lake, black walls pressing in once more. Where the ride not so short she would have claimed to have turned around, and so she rides on, up and out of the mists.
This time she does not glance back, seeing the hilly country on the other side. Down from the black hills, onto snow and dirt again. She still feels the warm-nothingness taste on her tongue, a puzzled look on her face when she thinks on it. No matter. She must make haste. The land must be warned of the armies. Down she rides into the setting sun, hoof-prints leaving silent tracks in the new-fallen snow.
All the other passes were guarded, watched, and certain doom to try. Few knew of the old trail through the vale of mist, and fewer still would dare pass it. She herself had never thought to go up the trail, warned off by talk of ghosts or other unnatural sightings around the area. Most of it wasn't true, she kept reminding herself, the armies behind her were more of a monster than any child-snatcher that haunted her childhood nightmares.
Perhaps the horse was just tired from the ride, and so it slowed its pace, perhaps it sensed her unease, or maybe it too wasn't quite so anxious as to travel too much farther up the path. Would she have dared to go through the pass in the night, if she had arrived earlier? Would she have waited until the sun rose higher? Did she even now wish that more light accompanied her on her journey? Well, of course.
She had a duty, or a mission as it were, to bring news of the army. The capitol city would need to know, and she didn't guess any of the army had made it back. For the calamity of war to fall upon two unsuspecting farmlands that fall would have been too much to bear. She hadn't been able to do anything as her fields burned, as her family bled into the dirt. A horse and her clothes were all that was left. The crunch of hoof on snow turning to a clop of hoof on rock woke her from her memories.
Ahead the snowy path gave way to a hard, jagged black stone, warm to the touch and devoid of snow. The sides of the canyon leading upwards into the mountains had edged closer together until she could touch both sides of the sheer walls with her hands. Turning in the saddle, she saw the smokey plain, covered with bloody mud and ashes more than a small layer of snow that came weeks past. Her eyes tried in vain to form a tear, dehydrated as they were.
A snort from the horse, and the trot onward continued. Before long the trail reached zenith, sloping downwards between the mountain sides. There was a deep silence over the area; no birds to chirp, no wind to rustle the strange vines grasping at the cliff walls, and even the sound of the horses hooves were muffled in the mist that filled the vale like water in a glass. The pathway widened, expanding outwards slowly until a two well-traveled lane pulled away from the center, hugging the cliff faces. Her horse stopped. The question of who, or what, had been making trails in the vale disturbed her, but the stone held an imprint for a long time, and so she hoped they were not recent, were not pathways leading to a monster's den, be in two-legged or four.
Still waiting for a direction, the horse snorts, as if voicing it's own disapproval of the place. They go right. Forward and down, straining her eyes at shaped in the mist which, invariably emerge as rocks or hanging vines, or small bushes nestles into cracks in the black stone. A quarter mile of riding more and at last they reach the vale floor, flat for the most part, but sloping downward towards the center. Still widening, though she knows it more as a feeling, the sun's track vague and hazy through the mist, when she can pick it out at all.
Off on the left a small glimmer, bushes and vines giving way to a flat expanse. Water, a lake, the vaunted lake of the vale of mist. Thirst and caution, and the horses thirst wins out against her own caution, though after dismounting, she waits to see if the horse is dragged under by tentacles or slimy hands. Popular myth loved to switch between a troll and a sea-beast that got stranded in the mountains. The water is warm, a tasteless warmth that slips down her throat, as silent as the rest of the vale. No rest beyond the drink, she must go on. Were it a regular stop the horse might have protested more, but it seems as eager to continue as she, sore and weary as she is.
Hoof-beats echoing across the lake's surface, still muffled by the mists, the silence wears on, and wears on her. Putting the water behind her helps little. The similarity past the midpoint is eerie, the paths finally meeting on the other side of the lake, black walls pressing in once more. Where the ride not so short she would have claimed to have turned around, and so she rides on, up and out of the mists.
This time she does not glance back, seeing the hilly country on the other side. Down from the black hills, onto snow and dirt again. She still feels the warm-nothingness taste on her tongue, a puzzled look on her face when she thinks on it. No matter. She must make haste. The land must be warned of the armies. Down she rides into the setting sun, hoof-prints leaving silent tracks in the new-fallen snow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)