by Paul Cude
The next morning, Josh appeared earlier than the previous day, only to find, unusually, his brother up and about, having already bathed in the communal ice cold pool that resided nearby, also having washed his straggly hair, something they all avoided, right until the very last minute anyway.
Heading off in good time to find the first meal of the day for the captive dragon they thought of as ‘Unlucky’, before they even had a chance to leave Man’s portion of the youth development wing, three hulking great guards appeared, stopping them in their tracks. The two siblings stood there, facing off, tiny flakes of ice floating around in the air between them, Josh a step behind his brother.
“You’re to come with us,” issued the biggest of the three to Man.
“Why?” asked the elder of the two brothers.
“Because our leader demands it, and that should be enough.”
Resigned to having no choice, Man took a step forward to accompany the guards. Josh clutched at his arm.
“It’s okay. Go and feed him like normal, and then get off to lessons. I’ll see you later on.”
“I’m...I’m...I’m scared. What’s he going to do to you?”
“Nothing, if he knows what’s good for him. It’ll be fine. I’ll come and find you later.”
And with that, Man turned and, flanked by the three hulking great individuals, headed off in the direction of the leader’s accommodation.
Joy personified, that’s how it felt as the shatteringly cold water whipped through his gills, oxygenating his body, filling him with physical energy, spurring him on to glide through the water even faster in an effort to keep up with his prey. Normally two or three of his kind would group together in an effort to take down a beast like this, but not today. On his own, with the community having been afforded some time to themselves, they’d agreed to convene again in no more than another week. What he had for once, was time, which he’d chosen to spend exploring, and in doing so had come across something his kind thought of as a delicacy. So here he was, propelling himself forward with everything he had, in the wake of a five metre long orca (killer whale to you and me), its huge black body, white underbelly and white patch above and behind its eyes barely visible through the turbulent, bitterly cold water. Of course he had taken out a number of these intelligent and highly evolved creatures before, but only in a group of his peers. This was the first time he’d attempted to do it alone, and it was much, much harder than he had thought it would be. The orca had been outrunning him for nearly an hour now, using all the tricks it knew to try and shake him off its tail. So far to no avail, but exhaustion was threatening his hand. If he didn’t take the beast down in the next few minutes, then the battle would be well and truly over before it began, and that just wouldn’t do. Nobody would hear about it, of that he was sure. Who on earth could be around in this particular part of the Antarctic, from his race, to see the potential failure? NO ONE! But his pride and family heritage demanded that he didn’t fail, and so he gave one last push in an effort to catch up with the monstrous mammal.
Through all of her twisting and turning, and the panic of an unknown predator chasing her down, the orca, a pregnant female, began to suffer from fatigue and instead of swimming out into the open ocean, she opted to head towards land in the hope that she could somehow shake off the terrifying looking creature hunting her down. Knowing the shelves and precarious underwater ice formations of this particular region well, she was confident she could lose her pursuer, if only tiredness didn’t overtake her.
For her shadow, things were becoming desperate. So much so, that he’d almost reverted to using the ancient magic that coursed so freely throughout his snake-like body... almost, but not quite. It would have been, as far as he was concerned, bad form to say the least. His skill and prowess as a hunter should have been enough to see him capture and devour this monster of the seas entirely on his own. To use his ethereal gift would have been nothing short of cheating, and that wasn’t something he wanted to taste when he eventually polished off the mother of all snacks. Snaking this way and that, lithe as a torpedo, he followed the desperate mother-to-be, noticing for the first time the slightest of bulges in her stomach.
‘She’s pregnant,’ he thought only to himself.
Did it make a difference to the chase? Barely! But somewhere deep inside his subconscious, a switch had been flicked, the tiredness he fought forcing him to slow just a little, allowing the gap between the two of them to open out a touch. A thought came to him completely out of nowhere.
‘Do you actually need to eat? Are you even hungry?’
Distracting him momentarily, he knew the answer to both questions. NO! Don’t need to eat. Not hungry. But that wasn’t the point, was it? The hunt was everything, at least that’s what he’d been taught all those years ago. But he was an individual, not anyone’s puppet, and so gliding gracefully to a halt beside a huge underwater ice formation, he knowingly and gladly gave up the chase, wishing the orca well from a distance.
Chasing his tail for a few moments, before swimming alongside the mountainous wall of subterranean ice a few metres below the water’s surface, he noticed a dark foreboding opening, disappearing off in the direction of the snow covered landmass. He took mere moments to decide, as he’d always been inquisitive, a side to him that nothing and no one could contain. So without a thought for his own safety, and nothing but wonderment in his mind at what lay ahead, he dived head first through the gap and kicked his tail out to gain as much momentum as possible. As far as he was concerned, the adventure had well and truly begun.
Rounding a dark, sharp, left hand corner, the three guards stopped where they were, one of them indicating to Man with his outstretched arm that he should proceed without them. He did. It wasn’t the first time that he’d been in his father’s icy chambers, not by a long stretch, but it had been some time since his last visit. As youngsters, he and Josh had spent many an hour playing in the bedecked billet. Although he couldn’t describe those memories as happy, he did miss that time in his life. Everything had seemed so much simpler. There was no right or wrong, no politics, no plan, no magic and the anger, resentment, frustration and fury of this place, seemed not to have existed. Of course he was mistaken. It had always been this way, from the second they’d been trapped here, but because of his age and naivety, he’d just not been aware of it.
Perched on an actual chair made up from an assortment of different pieces of scrap wood, his father, the community’s leader, sat off to one side of the room, carefully running his fingers over a tiny rock formation ingrained in the wall, choosing not to look in his direction as he entered the room.
‘So it’s going to be like that,’ thought Man, knowing that he was not getting off to a great start.
Standing to attention, Man waited for his father to say something. It took a while.
Finally the leader deigned to look in his son’s direction.
“Nice of you to join me.”
“Was there a choice?”
“I suppose you think you’re clever?”
Man knew that if it looked like a trap and felt like a trap, then almost certainly it was a trap. He remained silent.
“You seem to have developed quite a high opinion of yourself around here. Showing up for lessons late, if at all, hiding the abilities that we’ve granted you... It doesn’t paint a particularly good picture, does it?”
There was only one being there that had an overinflated opinion of himself, Man knew, and he was standing directly opposite him. An overwhelming sense of danger and fear continued to keep him quiet.
“The future of every being held against their will here could depend on your actions, even the very planet itself, and you still continue to play these games,” his father continued.
‘The only one playing games is you,’ thought Man, wondering where the hell this was all going.
“Your cooperation is mandatory. Don’t think otherwise. If we need to, we can take what we want from you. It won’t b
e pleasant, but I’m sure it will be possible,” his father gloated. “And then there’s the matter of your mother and sibling. It would be a crying shame if anything untoward were to happen to them. Accidents, as you know, are commonplace in this unforgiving environment... a stray fall here, a catastrophic rock slide there. Fate can prove to be both fickle and unpredictable. It would be terrible if they were to succumb to something so callous.”
For the first time ever, he couldn’t feel the cold because a piercing hot rage filling all of his extremities, burning away any hint of a chill, threatened to break down any barriers of commonsense and self preservation Man had erected. Only thoughts of his brother and mother kept him on the straight and narrow and away from the spark of magic he knew he could conjure up at any time. Thoughts of doing so intertwined with his body, but that tiny little voice we all have screamed at him that it might not be enough.
“Remember,” it said, “just how powerful an opponent he is supposed to be. Recall the stories. They’d been backed up by so many of the others, that there must be something to them. Take care!” And so he did, just standing there, staring straight ahead, giving no outward sign that any of the words had affected him, in a show of complete and utter defiance, at least that’s how he saw it. His father had a totally different take on things, sure that his son had come around to his way of thinking.
Two worlds on totally different paths which would collide at some point in the not too distant future.
It had started off as a bit of fun, an adventure. On entering the cavity, he thought himself an explorer, a fortune-hunter, a trailblazer so to speak, wondering what secrets he would reveal, what treasure he might find. Quickly though, things had gone downhill, in more ways than one. In the blink of an eye, a wide, gently meandering, slow moving subterranean river system had transformed without any notice into a tightly packed, fast flowing, white water nightmare, turning him head over heels, making him lose any sort of sense of direction, throwing him into rock faces, all the time taking him further and further underground. Panic had started to settle in as ups and downs became viciously violent and stomach churning, even for a being such as himself. The final indignity arrived out of nowhere as the underground waterway briefly opened up into a massive cavern on a scale he’d never seen or heard of before, and his kind had spent many centuries scouting out this part of the planet.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have a chance to peruse it in the way he would have liked. Just as he started to take in his surroundings, the water fell away as he tumbled clumsily over the biggest waterfall he’d ever seen in his entire life, easily three hundred metres high, disappearing into a dark hole, the bottom of which was nowhere near visible. A sense of immediate self preservation kicked in and he cast what he thought of as his most powerful, all encompassing shield. Whether it would be enough, only the next few moments would tell, as he writhed and twisted, tumbled and turned, all in mid-air, all surrounded by the icy cold water that he considered his friend. Fleetingly, thoughts of the others washed over him. Terror tortured his mind at the thought of dying here, his friends and family never knowing his twisted fate. And then a fast flowing body of water hit him, knocking the wind out of him, momentarily rendering him unconscious. Dangerous beyond belief, luckily for him thinking on his feet (or tail in this case) in the form of using his ancient magic had at least temporarily saved his life. Sealed inside a magical shell, the thunderous white water propelled him on his underwater journey, bouncing him this way and that, giving him no inkling of exactly where he was, or where he was headed. Slowly he regained his wits, thankful to have survived the massive drop of the waterfall. Delving into all his magic, something only really ever done in a time of need, he figured this applied now more than at any other point in his short life. Conjuring up three brilliant blue balls of ferociously stunning light, through serpent-like eyes he scanned the enclosed underground river ahead, hoping for any kind of way out, or sign of exactly where he was. This continued for some time, with the body of water he found himself trapped in, slowing ever so slightly. Buoyed by this, he flooded his bumps and bruises with a little ethereal power, instantly washing away the pain, still maintaining the shield that had almost certainly saved his life. Free from the distraction of his wounds, and with a clear head for the first time in a while, it was then that he spotted it... a vague and mysterious white light, shining down on the right hand side of the river, directly in front of him. With a flick of his tail, he lowered his shield and glided seamlessly in that direction, hoping to find some form of salvation. If only he knew the momentous effect of what he was about to do would have on history itself. Perhaps then he’d have continued with his underwater journey.
Having been summarily dismissed by his father without injury, Man pondered what he should do. Lessons were a while off starting, and he had little desire to go and hang about the amphitheatre. He supposed that if he hurried, he could catch up with his brother at the prisoner. After all, he’d probably only just finished collecting the food by now. If he got a move on, he’d possibly arrive at exactly the same time. Decision made, he turned and, at not quite a run, headed off into the darkest depths of the icy white prison, to find the friendly face of his sibling, and the unluckiest prisoner in the whole world.
Strolling around the mammoth icy wall that separated out this part of the encampment, if that’s what you could call it, he could just make out the prisoner, curled up as much as possible, in all likelihood asleep. Out of nowhere, a voice from the direction he’d just come startled him, almost causing him to drop the sack of food he was carrying.
“Josh, Josh hold on.”
A small smile crept across his face at the sight of his brother jogging along towards him. Instantly his disposition turned from dark and cloudy, to sunny and hot.
“What are you doing here? I thought you’d be with Father all day. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” panted Man, his frozen breath extending quite a long way out in front of him from his exertions. “I don’t doubt I’ll be back there again in the near future. I’m just glad I caught up with you.”
“Me too.”
“Shall we?” asked Man, indicating with his outstretched arm that they should head over towards the captive dragon.
Josh led the way.
Getting as close as was safely possible, Man spoke up, his words a soft breeze floating on the wind against a backdrop of running water.
“Are you awake, dragon? We’ve brought you some food.”
Slowly, scales moved, wings rustled and eyelids rolled back. It looked to be a very taxing process today.
“I am just about awake... thank you.”
“It doesn’t seem fair that you get to sleep at all,” growled Josh, not the biggest fan in the world of Unlucky.
“Josh!” exclaimed Man. “Enough! I know you don’t like him and begrudge doing these chores, but they’re the ones we’ve been set and it’s our duty to see it out to the best of our ability. What would Mother say if she could see and hear you now? She wouldn’t be best pleased, would she?”
“I suppose not.”
“So suck it up. Good manners cost nothing. You don’t have to like him, or the job, but there’s no need to be rude and insulting. I know you’re better than that.”
Suitably reprimanded, Josh’s face showed just how deeply sorry he was. As Man turned back to face the dragon prisoner, once again he noticed fresh, deep welts covered in a dirty layer of dried green blood. About to ask about the new injuries, suddenly the biggest ‘SPLASH’ in the world, interrupted them, from the direction of the underground river. All three turned to see what had happened.
From out of the ice cold running water that sat beneath the flickering electric light above it, leapt a quasi-humanoid, with a snake shaped body, and a top half resembling a scaly reptilian human. With a tail about six metres long, it rippled with muscle, scale and teeth. Gun metal grey for the most part, tiny blotches of light yellow sat scattered down the
left hand side of its tail, looking as though an artist had flicked paint at it with a brush. Momentarily stunned, not one of them could break the deafening silence that sat over the four of them, against the backdrop of the stream. Crystal clear chilling cold water streamed down the naga’s body (as that’s what he was) mostly freezing before it hit the frosty ground.
Josh was the first to react, and not in a good way. Tossing his sack at the dragon prisoner, he spun around and at great speed, headed back the way he’d come, all the time at the top of his voice, screaming,
“Oh my God, oh my God!”
The two remaining occupants of this awful environment remained calm, both in their own ways excited about this new arrival. Deep within the dragon prisoner’s mind, thoughts of escape and freedom ran riot, hoping against hope that this might be his chance.
For Man it was slightly different. Never having been taught about the varying array of creatures that existed on this planet, the being before him seemed completely alien and different to anything he could ever have imagined. But being the kind, peaceful and good spirited individual he was, there was never going to be anything but a warm and generous welcome.
“Uhhhhh... hi,” was all that he could manage to utter.
Having slipped on the ice on landing, the naga had remained for the most part on the floor, with only its head raised. As Man stood there waiting for a response, it grew to its full height, its upper half weaving from side to side like a deadly, venomous cobra.
