by BJ Hanlon
“Is that how you became so fast? I’ve seen some Justicars fighting with that speed but they’re terrins.”
“I don’t know, I’ve sparred with Grent, but he’s still faster than me.”
Dorset sat down. They drank from the aleskin and stared into the fire. He turned to the scholar. “I need you to switch boats with Fokill tomorrow,” Edin tried again.
Dorset was huffing. Ale dripped down the sides of his mouth and he wiped it away. He raised an eyebrow but Berka laughed.
“Finally, the creep is getting to you?” Berka said.
“He stares at Arianne, sits near her and… no, I don’t like it.”
Dorset shifted uncomfortably. “I told you, I’m working with Yechill, learning his language. It’s difficult but I think I’m getting the hang of it… I really don’t want to switch. Maybe Henny but I think he likes Yechill too and doubt he’d want to switch.”
Edin turned to Berka. He and the old man had taken turns at the oars. They’d soar ahead and then fall behind when they switched.
“And what, leave that creep with El? You’ve got to be joking. Your woman looks like she can handle herself.”
Edin drank and took the aleskin from Berka. He took a large drink and lowered his head.
“You shouldn’t be mad,” Dorset said. “Casitas tried a lot more… so far all Fokill does is stare.”
“So far,” Edin said. “Wait, what did Casitas try?”
“To get in her chambers a few times. He took her to the theater and around town to dance. At least that’s what I hear.”
Edin sighed again. “Why does this have to be so hard?”
“It just does,” Berka said.
5
The Dead Swamp
The next morning as they were packing, Edin moved close to Arianne. As he was about to talk about Fokill, the creepy guy appeared. Edin just sighed, kissed Arianne and took her hand as they bounded down the small bank to the boats. Arianne took the oars to get them started.
Edin stared at her from the bow.
She was looking backward toward Fokill.
He caught Berka’s look. A knowing look that would’ve said, if you want me to, I’ll beat him up.
At least that was what Edin imagined it would’ve said that, if they were friends.
A short while later, they passed through a vail. A yellowish fog rolled over them like a wave. It enveloped them, giving
him an odd feeling, as if something were missing. A void in the world like an egg with no yolk. The blackness and emptiness were draining.
As they delved deeper, the yellow fog grew thicker where they couldn’t see more than a few yards away. Plants with long spindly arms seemed to reach out from the depths to caress their boat. Ghostly trees appeared as if out of nowhere with hanging gray lichens and long woody vines that reminded him of snakes...
In here, in this different world, he could hear everything, his heart thudded. Things were rustling around in the fog, leaping in and out of the water. It was usually oars, but every now and again it certainly was not.
Bundles of long needle-like grass were folded over and lying on the surface of the water. Tall, leafless trees with crisscrossing roots dipped into the unknown beneath the murky surface.
“I don’t like it…” Arianne whispered.
Edin nodded but said nothing.
A loud splash sent them all turning toward the left.
“What was that?” she asked. But there was nothing out there and no one answered.
Edin could barely make out Berka’s boat ahead of them. He was unable to see Dorset’s in the lead. Just before they entered, they tied their boats together.
It worked on the Great Cliffs, Edin thought. Sort of.
Hours went by in silence. Edin took Arianne’s place and Fokill sat at the bow watching and directing. The only words spoken were left or right or snag. They moved slowly but with the waterscape, he was glad they were on a boat.
Everyone was nervous. The fishing had stopped and they simply looked out for threats in the dead and dying world.
It was almost impossible to tell when night came as the world darkened only slightly. The fog held thick and low. Night animals came out, croaking frogs, chirping crickets, and odd sounding grunts and hisses, the last two’s sources were unidentified and sent chills up his spine.
“Tie up here,” Dorset called from the fog. His boat was near a patch of boney trees on either side of them. Edin noticed the bark on one of the trees was falling off. Peeling like an orange.
To the right there was a small mound covered in a thin layer of groundcover and a single tree reaching up.
Tiny glowing eyes peered at them from a branch above. Edin noticed more appearing, some in the water, others seemed disembodied. Thankfully, none were as large as the serpent he’d seen in the valley.
Arianne slipped up toward the bow as Edin tied up. She shivered and whispered, “I don’t like this.”
“We’ll go somewhere more tropical next time. I hear on Arsleta they serve rum out of coconut husks and eat shrimp on the beach.”
“That’d be nice.” She rested her head on his chest. “Though if it’s hot and sweaty, you’ll need a gallon of perfume.”
“Don’t worry,” Edin said. “I’ll help you put it on hourly.”
She slapped his chest and looked up at him. A moment later, she sank her lips into his. They kissed for a few moments, rarely coming up for air. The boat rocked casually though there was no wake.
Edin glanced past her and saw Fokill at the rudder trying not to stare. They kept kissing until Berka tapped him on the shoulder.
“Enough, you’re making us uncomfortable.”
“I thought your boney butt made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s not boney, it’s sculpted.”
Arianne pulled away slightly. Her eyes darted toward Berka and then back at Edin. She held a grim, scared look as if Berka was the monster in the nightmares. A beast of the swamp.
Edin pulled the bedroll over them and closed his eyes. Arianne began to snore lightly and
for a while he tried to sleep but couldn’t. The noises grew louder as the night wore on. Something large splashed somewhere beyond the veil and it was followed by wings flapping quickly heading another way. Quite a few wings.
Soft voices came from Berka’s boat, murmurs too quiet to understand.
At least I’m not the only one awake. He thought.
At the other end of the boat, Fokill was quiet, his eyes darting around the murky world like a rabbit with a fox nearby.
The night moved slowly and eerily. Edin tried to close his eyes but suddenly something startled him to the left.
Edin’s eyes darted as he looked over Arianne’s head.
There was nothing but the skeletal trees.
Some unknown time later, members of the party began to wake. They snacked quietly as if to make any noise was taboo in this place.
The word was passed down that they were ready to move out. Edin couldn’t agree more, hopefully they’d be out of this soon.
The day was quiet and hot. Odd this far north. It was as if the swamp was in a wholly different universe than the one man resided in. The fog blanketed them as if ropes held it in place.
They continued forward, west Edin thought. He had no idea how Yechill knew which way to go. Maybe he didn’t.
That thought sent a shiver down his spine. Thinking that they could be lost in here, rowing in circles while the food ran out or swamp monsters stalked them was a terrible thing to dwell on.
Hues of yellow and black covered all.
After a few hours, Edin took the oars as Fokill switched to the rudder. His back and arms were sore as he stroked.
Suddenly Arianne called out “left, left…”
A moment later, the stern was swung left but the bow stayed in one spot. It was as if they were a clock hand. Edin tried rowing with just the left oar but it made no difference. They swung for a few moments.
Then
they hit something and the boat rocked.
“Edin!” Berka called out from somewhere in the gloom. “Stop.”
The boat continued rocking and Edin glanced over the gunnel at whatever it was they hit. Nothing was visible above the water though rippling waves expanded outward.
Edin turned toward Arianne, who looked nervous. “The rope?”
“It’s beneath the water… must’ve snagged something.”
The snagging of the rope felt wrong. Definitely more wrong than it already did.
They hadn’t gotten caught on anything since they entered. There were dead and live trees and other foliage in here but it wasn’t hard to skirt around things in their way. Edin carefully stood and reached out for a tree branch that leaned over them like a withered arm trying to grasp the air.
“Switch,” Edin said and Arianne crawled forward. After she was in place, he took cautious steps trying to keep the boat as steady as possible. The boat barely moved with his steps. He lowered himself past her toward the front of the boat.
As he leaned over, he saw the rope delving almost directly into the water. He didn’t see it come back out to the back of Berka’s.
“Berka, are we still tied up?” Edin called out.
“No,” the voice was somewhere ahead of them. “The rope is severed.”
“What does that mean?” Arianne whispered.
He held back a sarcastic comment and gripped the rope. He tried to pull it out. It slipped through his hands but didn’t move.
“It’s stuck on something.” He reached over with both hands.
“Be careful…” Arianne said.
Edin’s heart was racing and a part of him wanted to just yank it out, another said go slowly. Edin went with the latter but again there was no movement. Edin tried swinging the boat and the rope from side to side to see if some other angle may loosen it from their new anchor.
The rear of the boat swung again like a pendulum. It rushed through the water causing a soft wake that spread out over the still swampland.
“We’re stuck,” Edin yelled. In the murkiness, he could see something. Two coal like raindrops in the water. Eyes peering out. Edin yelled and jumped back, he nearly lost his balance but he felt Arianne grabbing him.
“What is it?” her voice quivered.
Edin’s heart was in his throat, his body stiff. He did not want to go up there, he did not want to look again.
“Edin?” It was Dorset’s voice sounding further off. “Was that you?”
“Yes.” He had to shout; he couldn’t see the other boats at all anymore. Arianne squeezed him, hugging him against her chest.
After a few moments, he whispered. “I’m cutting the line.”
Edin extracted himself slowly from her vicelike grip and drew his sword. He held it in his right hand and opened his left palm up trying to summon the ethereal ball.
No light appeared. He paused as he looked at his hand not exactly knowing what was happening. It took him a moment to realize that the orb of light had never come into existence. Edin closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Something rumbled in his stomach, but he knew it was just the food from the night before. Beans.
He looked. No ethereal light.
“What are you doing?” Arianne asked.
“Can you move the wind?”
He turned toward her and saw her concentrating. Her face grimacing. She gasped as apparently she was holding her breath. Arianne shook her head.
“This world is dead of energy,” Fokill whispered. “Legend says it feeds on the energy and on people.”
Edin swallowed, squeezed the hilt and took aim at the rope. It was looped over the front of the boat and tied to a bench. With a quick flick of the wrist, he sliced it and the rope flew over the side like a whip and disappeared with a splash.
The bow lifted slightly almost as if something pushed it. But a moment later it splashed on the water again.
Edin held his breath, his eyes peering into the darkened swamp around them. Nothing but steady black objects in the yellow fog. No wind, no sound, only the putrid smell and the heavy air.
“We should go,” Edin said. “Fokill row, I’ll take point.”
Edin called out to the others. Somewhere very faint, he thought he heard someone.
“Where are they?” Arianne whispered from the rudder.
He couldn’t tell which way they were going or which way they came from. “Berka! Dorset! Henny!” No answer.
Fokill yelled for his tribesman. But it was silent.
“Did they leave us?” Arianne asked.
Edin turned to Fokill, “do you know the way through?”
“I… am not a pathfinder. Some men are born with the skill for the trail. Yechill can always find the way through, he found our new village without ever being there.”
“When you went through the swamp before you knew it was…”
“It is the lesser of two evils. Many were to perish here but all would if we climbed to the mountains where the black demons were sprouting like dandelions in spring.”
Edin understood, though it didn’t make him feel good. “Last I heard, they were that way,” Edin said pointing his arm at an angle off toward the right. “Berka! Dorset.”
Fokill trembled. “I do not know if yelling is a good idea. There are things here…”
“Then let’s try to catch up,” Edin said. Slowly, Fokill took the oars with Arianne at the rudder. They headed toward where they’d last heard Berka. How had they floated so far off as the water didn’t move at all?
They were moving as a leaf does on a puddle. A heavy leaf but a leaf. Edin peered out, spotting dark shapes in the distance. The spindly trees laden with death.
As they reached one tree, Edin sent them toward another in the general direction they needed to go. After about ten minutes, he called out to them.
“Deadly silent,” Fokill said.
“Don’t say that,” Arianne cried from the back of the boat.
Edin swallowed. He had no talent, they were blind in an impenetrable fog, and he began to have the feeling that they were being watched.
When he blinked, he saw those coal eyes peering from the water. They floated as if they had nothing attached to them. Edin was really starting to hate dark water almost as much as heights. At least you could see down if you’re on a cliff. Here… anything below could get you.
Edin swallowed.
They pressed on, switching positions trying the same direction they had been going. Even if it didn’t lead to the rest of the party, it had to lead out somewhere eventually. Right?
Again, the fog darkened and critters clawed their way into the world with their crooked and hair-raising calls.
Wings rustled above them, something long and low darted off a long thin strip of land and into the water to his right. Edin resumed rowing.
“There’s something ahead,” Fokill said.
Edin craned his neck to look, but for a moment, he only saw the fog. Then a large dark wall appeared.
“What do you see?” Arianne asked.
Fokill said. “A wall of vines...”
It was. A wall of thin brown vines that rose up and out into the water with no end in sight. It didn’t look natural. The place felt bad, it looked bad.
“I see stone beneath the vines,” Fokill said. “It’s built right out of the water as if it had once been solid land.
Go right.”
Edin worked his right paddle faster as Arianne turned the rudder. They bumped something, but it was only a large tree root. As they drew closer, he could see white stone, or what would’ve been white a long time ago, covered with moss and vines. For an instant, he saw the top about ten or so feet up. There looked to be iron spikes up there.
The wall took a hard turn after about twenty yards and then again forty after that. They moved slowly, his eyes fixed on the unknown wall next to them.
Who built the place, Edin wondered, and how long ago? How was it still standing with no signs of decay?
The waves from the paddle lapped quietly at the lower stones. Or was it one stone? Edin couldn’t see a crack in the surface or anything resembling mortar. Though every crack could’ve been covered with vines and lichen. Unlikely. Edin thought.
“I see something.”
Edin turned and looked.
In the gloom, he saw the shape of a man standing above the water.
He let go of an oar to grab his blade then felt the oar slipping through his grip. Barely a moment later, he clamped a hand back onto it.
He met Arianne’s eyes, wide and fearful. Edin stopped paddling but their momentum carried them forward. His chest thumped and as he was about to call out to the person Fokill said,
“statue. Not real.”
Edin turned again and saw at the statue’s feet standing on a smooth flat surface barely half an inch above the water. Then he saw another flat surface above that one and behind the statue’s calves.
“Stairs?” Edin asked.
“I think so.”
They reached the wide platform about ten feet across. The statue was gloomy and moss covered. Beneath, he could see the shine of yellow.
“Gold…” Arianne gasped. “And another.”
Edin followed her finger and saw a second statue, it had less of a green drape and the gold was shining despite the terrible light.
As they moved in front of the stairs, they looked in. Through the muted yellow screen, he couldn’t make out anything but what had to be dry land.
Edin pulled the oars in as Fokill placed a hand on the stone step.
“It’s cold. Like ice…” Fokill reached out his right hand toward the golden statue, his fingers brushed a brown leaf.
Edin watched it float down to the surface and sat on the water. A moment later, a bubble rose and it disappeared beneath.
“Um…”
“Ahh,” Fokill yelped. “Too cold.” Fokill yanked his hand back from the statue and stuck his fingers in his mouth.
