The Crystal Crux: Blue Grotto

by Allen Werner

  The sky above them ruptured and a gathering of menacing dark clouds appeared instantly as the crystal whistled through the air, the kaleidoscope of lively light spinning for miles in every direction. Sinibaldus reached out and caught hold of the Bellerophon Crystal just as the light within the heart faded and died. Thunder shook the earth and a driving, punishing rain began to fall from the heavens.

  “Go now, you bastard!” Herophile screamed over the storm. “Go now, you murderer and monster! Leave Cumae and never return!”

  The tempest buffeted Sinibaldus so resolutely, so fiercely, he could not see or move against it. It was pushing him, forcing him to leave the wall of rock he had been staring at and desiring to climb. He looked at the crystal resting in his large hands and felt comforted. ‘A star,’ he thought. ‘I have captured a fallen star.’

  There was only one way to go. The squall gave him no other options, none but one, a dark corridor, a path less punishing and dimly lit. When he was agreeable and cooperative, willing to travel in that direction, the storm was just pounding rain soaking his already exhausted body. When he veered, or altered his course, the wind lashed him harder, the rain turned to hail and the icy stones cut and stung him.

  Tired and sore, exhausted by the dramatics and loss of sleep, Herophile slowly lowered herself on a wet stone outside the mouth of the cave. The storm had already moved on. She smiled at the warm sun above her, the heat from it drying the few grey hairs on her head. She knew exactly where Sinibaldus was. There was only one storm cloud in the horizon and it was directly over the giant, steering him north, coercing him to leave Cumae and never return. Everywhere else she looked, it was blue skies and green fields, tall mountains and blossoming trees.

  “Embrace your destiny, Sinibaldus,” she whispered. “From this day forward, you are bound to the Bellerophon Crystal, spiritually yoked to it. Only in death can you be spared.” She giggled. “Separated.”

  A premonition unexpectedly flashed through her mind. She saw razor sharp teeth rending raw white meat. She closed her eyes and caught her head in her right hand. She was dizzy and had to inhale a deep breath before speaking again. “Ah yes, it is true. The giant’s death will be bloody and unexpected. It will be scandalous and violent, but a just and righteous consequence for such rapacity.”

  The stones around her started to vibrate and hiss. “Murder. Murder.”

  “Yes, my children,” she replied. “Murder.”

  Chapter 28 – Storm Crone

  Collapsing, falling on all fours in a shallow pool of cold water, Sinibaldus shivered. His shoulders heaved, his chest convulsed and his waterlogged lungs gasped desperately for air. An ocean had fallen out of the sky and landed directly on him. The last few drops of rain slapped him on the back as the haunting cloud dissipated.

  It was over.

  Sinibaldus was wholly unprepared for the torrential downpour he had just endured, completely underdressed. His white skin was red and raw, even bleeding on the top of his head and the top of his shoulders. Streaks of watery blood trickled down around his small white face.

  For seven incredibly long hours, the giant had no rest or relief. He was freezing. He couldn’t recall ever being so cold.

  Harshly, cruelly, unmercifully, the giant had been driven beyond the point of exhaustion, drowning while he walked, blindly exiled from Cumae and the Sybil that lived there.

  Sinibaldus was reluctant to rise. Somewhere out there, somewhere seven hours in the past, he had lost his bag and all his supplies, his science equipment and potions, his food.

  As the air continued to warm, the sun slowly reemerging and reestablishing itself, Sinibaldus opened his enormous right hand and beheld the only thing left in his possession, the thing he valued now more than life itself, the Bellerophon Crystal. ‘It is a gift,’ the old crone cried again from the past, her voice shrieking above the wail of the storm. ‘It is death.’ And then he recalled the picturesque kaleidoscope of rotating color that had emerged from the crystal, blotting out the sun, painting the hills in majesty.

  Sinibaldus sniffled as his worn fingers reached up for his shoulders and untied the leather strings securing the drenched fox pelts to his body. He staggered naked to his feet, his powder blue eyes straining to adjust to the emergent brightness. He had known darkness and rain for so long, it was as if it had been night. Now it was day and it hurt.

  The landscape was desolate, rocky and barren, destroyed. The storm that had delivered him to this place made short work of it, ruining anything a man could possibly want. All that was left was knotted shrubs and prickly thorn bushes. There was nothing to eat here.

  The giant took a step and flinched. His bare feet were bleeding. Until now, he didn’t realize how badly injured the soles of his big feet were. The heartless storm seemed to have had a mind of its own and cared nothing for his comfort. It was a cruel trail the master cut but he found that the more he stayed true to the course, the less he suffered. Sinibaldus was a determined and stubborn sort and obedience to any will other than his own was hard to come by. It took a great deal of coercion to finally elicit his compliance. The storm won out in the end. The sharp stones and unforgiving bramble he was forced to stagger through proved to be far less injurious than the sharp sleet and heavy hail that struck him when he veered off the path. Now the bottoms of his feet were cut and sliced and leaving bloody footprints wherever he walked.

  Lightly, slowly, deliberately, Sinibaldus moved to the edge of the flat stone shelf he had been cast upon. He was high above a wilderness pushing off westward beneath him. He had not a clue where he was but the drop below him was sheer. If he were to fall, he’d be dead.

  Brimming with confidence, ready to make a miracle happen, he opened his right hand and extended the arm out over the valley. The Bellerophon Crystal lay there on the palm of his big hand, translucent and clear, not a single sliver of light at its heart.

  Frustrated, the giant closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to remember if the old crone had done anything special with her fingers, hands and arms, said anything to invoke or summon the light that fired out of the Stone. ‘What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? Was it refractive? Reflective? Must I position it a certain way in correlation with the sun and the universe to achieve such magic?’

  Sinibaldus reached back into his basket of dramatics and waved his free hand over the crystal, focusing his energies, what was left of them anyway, on the clear skin of the Stone. Nothing. He edged his toes to the very brink of the ledge as if the threat of falling off into the gorge might heighten his endorphins and rouse his spirit thereby giving him greater clarity to work. Still nothing happened. ‘Try again,’ he urged calmly. ‘Patience. Try again. You will find a way. You must find a way. Think of stars. Suns.’

  He pulled the Bellerophon Crystal tight to his chest, squeezed it as if inciting it to hatch. Eyes a wonder, he thrust it out over the ledge again. “Light! Let there be light!” Nothing happened. “Merde.” He rubbed the crystal between both hands. ‘Perhaps it is cold or waterlogged. It suffered the storm as I had. Perhaps it is tired.’ He knew he was reaching for a solution now and he didn’t care how irrational any resolution seemed. He had all the time in the world, or so he thought. “Light! Light! Light!”

  Nothing.

  “Merde! Merde! Merde!”

  His patience was gone. Ignoring the pain in his feet, he stomped about the shelf examining his surroundings, seeking a clue as to what he was doing wrong. He hoped something he saw or heard or smelt in the air might trigger that elusive hint. He openly talked with himself, his voice full of iron. “What did that bitch do? Was it all a lie? Was it a trick? Did the bitch con me?” He began breathing deeply through his nose, fuming, turning redder, small wet trails of blood still streaking down his face. “Oh hell, I’m going back to Cumae and make the bitch talk.”

  The giant took one step south and a bright, sinuous bolt of lightning unexpectedly raced down from the heavens, striking a nearby bush, setting the helpless thin
g ablaze.

  “Fuck!” Sinibaldus jumped back just in a nick of time. He turned skyward and watched as a dark cloud that had not been there previously but formed only to shoot that bolt, dissipated. “An elementist,” he whispered. “The old crone is an elementist. I should have known.”

  At La Piscine Vivant, there were a few wannabee elementists experimenting with science but all of them were novices. He himself had toyed with nature’s elemental powers for a while, once learning how to lift small pebbles in the air with the power of his mind and casting them at people who annoyed him. He never took that metaphysical science seriously, however, and used it chiefly for his own amusement. There were elementists who journeyed into their region from time to time, performing tricks and teaching their skills, stirring large waves on a still pond or lake, sometimes thinking kindling to burn without use of flint or fire. The highest elementists, it was rumored, could summon sudden storms from thin air, call forth the four winds to knock down trees, cast darts of fire and turn water to wine. Sinibaldus had never encountered anyone with that kind of power. What the Sybil of Cumae had done, and was doing, orchestrating and controlling some sort of elemental watcher to guarantee that he complied with her wishes and remained forever exiled, was potent. It was difficult being impressed and appalled at the same time.

  Sinibaldus waited a long moment reflecting on the burning bush, cozying up a bit to the warmth it provided, rubbing his hands together over it. A blackened branch snapped off the dying shrub and the flame tired. Several red embers continued to glow as a single thin smoke trail danced.

  ‘My destiny rests elsewhere,’ he conceded. ‘Night is coming. I need to locate a cave, or some sort of shelter - and food.’

  His stomach, silenced briefly by his angry tirade, began to rumble and tumble. He was starving before the storm belted him. Now he was ravenous.

  Sinibaldus dipped his head and bowed politely to the southern spirits and the land of Cumae with lying respect. He hoped the old bitch was watching.

  Gathering up his dripping-wet fox pelts, tossing them over his strong but bleeding shoulder, Sinibaldus walked north. There was no going back from whence he came. He kissed the Bellerophon Crystal and a little light flared up inside it. It was a light he did not notice because his narcissistic eyes were already trained on the world before him.

  ‘I’m going to be rich and powerful. My will. My way.’

  Chapter 29 – Poor Pieter

  The trudge northward was daunting. Sinibaldus thought the Herophile’s vengeful storm that drove him unmercifully from Cumae had been the cause of ruination in the region. He was wrong, dead wrong. The whole land was desolate. Everywhere he travelled, the soil was poor, the vegetation withered and sparse. He felt compelled to stay in the mountains, still highly skeptical of humanity. He couldn’t risk crossing a patrol of armed militia. He was naked and bearing no weapons. He had lost all his tools and supplies during the torrential downpour. He was far too weak and hungry to fight anyone. Every time he got on a rise or discovered a new and higher vantage point, a mastiff overlooking a large swath of earth, his powder blues eyes found that nothing looked familiar, everything alien. It was as if he had been banished to another planet.

  Undaunted, using the fox pelts to bind his injured, bleeding feet, the giant continued to slog over rocks and scurry over boulders, challenge every cliff face to front him. The sores on his head and shoulders had cauterized on their own. The lack of pigmentation in his skin caused him to burn easily, especially when exposed to direct sunlight and only occasionally did he happen upon relief under a tree or shady overhang. He couldn’t even locate a cave or deep cleft in the crags. There was nowhere to cool off, except at night. It was the most torturous, unforgiving landscape he’d ever encountered.

  Sinibaldus was no fool. He could lie to himself only so far. The truth was always there. For five days and five nights, he lied. He lumbered aimless through the mountains, sucking on stones, chewing on wild prickly thistle and bark, ingesting dry weeds, blighted plants and maggots. There were no conies, lizards or snakes, not even birds flying overhead. The whole world could have ended for all he knew.

  On several occasions, suffering from the effects of exhaustion, Sinibaldus slipped and nearly dropped the Bellerophon Crystal. Unless he was dead and it rolled from his cold grip, there was no way he would allow that to happen.

  At random times, for no particular reason, the urgency to ignite the Stone would overwhelm him, and he would try. He’d extend the Crystal towards the sky and swear and curse and demand there be light. Still, nothing. Every time. Nothing. And each new failure only brought with it more dejection.

  ‘I know it’s enchanted. I just know it. I can sense it. There is something blocking.’ Sinibaldus didn’t want to admit it to himself but perhaps there wasn’t anything blocking. Perhaps he lacked the skill to unlock its secrets. Perhaps it was beyond his powers.

  ‘But the damn crone opened it. Fucking elementist! Her powers are superior to mine.’

  No, that did not sit well with him, not at all. Sinibaldus’ ego was too heightened to bend to such self-effacement.

  ‘The crystal is a fake, simply a shiny bauble people in the civilized world would pay a ransom for.’

  Having been reared in The Living Pool among poor and lowly cave-dwellers, Sinibaldus never quite grasped the fascination mankind had with diamonds and crystals, rubies and sapphires. ‘Why would anyone kill for these things? If stones possessed magical properties and could enhance one’s connection with the spiritual realm, then yeah, sure, it would be worth something. But gems are colored rocks, that is all. Perhaps these people were just trying to luck across something unique since they didn’t possess within themselves the fire of discovery.’

  The cave-dwellers were not organized in a fashion that called for a monetary system. No one had need of coins, baubles, rings or shiny objects. They simply bartered and traded everything and anything for necessities. Necessities were all that mattered. Whatever a person kept, he or she kept because it was useful to them; useful.

  On the morning of the sixth day, Sinibaldus became dizzy and lightheaded. There was nothing to drink. He had hardly slept or eaten in a week. His body was breaking down, littered with sores, the sun baking his exposed skin until boils surfaced.

  He studied and stared at the Bellerophon Crystal once more and decided it was time to do something he would have never considered doing before today. ‘I will leave the mountain and treat with a human.’ Sinibaldus was reasonably sure any human he encountered down below the frost line was going to be a Christian. ‘They are fucking everywhere, polluting the world with their condescending, judgmental teachings. Condemning and exiling women, throwing stones at children.’

  Sinibaldus shook, wobbled and caught himself leaning on a stone wall. He remembered Claire. It felt like months had passed since he last thought on her. It wasn’t that he really missed Claire as a person, as a lover or as a mother. He missed the opportunity to fulfill the prophecy, a chance to be the king who could create gods.

  Sinibaldus dashed that thought away, all of it. It would do him no good now, only sink him further into melancholy. ‘Fuck that.’

  The giant forced himself to concentrate on the value of the Stone. ‘It’s larger than the crystals most humans possess. It should fetch a small fortune. And I would be able to eat and drink again.’

  The old crone’s warning cackled. ‘It is death.’

  ‘No, it shall be life when I sell it.’

  Having lost weight, becoming frailer by the minute, Sinibaldus began his descent. There was nothing left in his astounding arsenal of coven-magic to save him.

  At the foot of a long barren hill, Sinibaldus spotted a ramshackle trading post built snugly into a lonely grey rock face. There was nothing else around it but an empty corral. The fact that the corral was empty was a good thing. It meant it was unlikely there were any prospectors, travelers or militia here.

  Staring at the building from a distanc
e, Sinibaldus realized fully what he was about to do. ‘Mercy. Kindness. Charity.’

  He was going to seek from another human the very thing he himself had never bestowed on anyone, though they begged and pleaded with tears in their eyes.

  He slipped a bit on some loose stones and that apparently triggered something in the earth to come to life. He heard the faint whispers again, eerie, haunting whispers. “Murder. Spawn.”

  Sinibaldus made sure it was a quick walk to the outpost, nearly running.

  Without knocking, Sinibaldus eased open the door to the trade post and walked right in, stooping to get in beneath the head. He remained slightly hunched once inside because the roof was that low.

  There was one man in the trade post, a scrubby, gelatinous proprietor seated behind a dusty wood display counter, humming softly to himself, polishing an old bear trap, sipping brown ale from a tall flagon.

  Revulsion gripped the man’s face immediately. He warily scrutinized the enormous naked stranger suddenly standing in his midst.

  “You better have something to trade, Giant, else be gone. I don’t need no trouble from vagrants begging for supplies. You don’t even have clothes for god’s sakes. Wild men don’t frighten me.” He stopped polishing the bear trap and put his hand beneath the counter. “I have the sympathies of the Imperials in this region. They prosper greatly from my posting here. They would consider it an unkindness if I were to be harmed. They’d hunt you down and gut you.”

  Sinibaldus’ hand was large enough to conceal the entire crystal in his fist. He raised that fist near to his mouth and licked the back of the hand. The room was fetid and dry, everything covered in grey and black soot. And there were supplies galore. A host of flies buzzed noisily in one corner, swarming over unskinned hides dangling on several gambrels. The meat inside them was rotting, Sinibaldus could tell from the odor in the air. This was evidently a lazy old man. Those furs should have been dealt with days ago.