“What thou hast seen is past, friend; we only wish to know our enemy and find his lair.”
“That I can help thee with. The Shaffu are devils incarnate. They claim to be gods among men—the children, they say, of Asharru, who stole one of the daughters of Kyeshob—he who made the first bow.”
“I have heard the story of the birth of our world and of the Seven Fathers of Tremn, but I have not heard this narration.”
“It is concealed from the people by the corrupt and self-serving theocracy. Dost thou think that they will allow men to hear that which subverts their religion?”
“It is our religion, too, friend.”
“The Right Religion of the Holy Tamitvar is not what those priestcrafters teach.”
“We have been taught that he who seeded this world was the Him, called Cumi in Vocatae and Inta in Tremni. He it was who planted the first seeds of life at the dawn of time. He waited for an aeon and then returned to Tremnad, the middle land, carrying a white sack which he laid upon the ground. Having rolled out the contents of the sack, there lay upon the ground seven men, who were his seven sons, the fathers of our race; Kyeshob, Mael, Kven, Nub, Avis, Ril, and Itffa. He set them to work, labouring in the fields and tending livestock, but they grew frustrated. They saw that all creatures had a partner save them. Inta laughed and unrolled another white sack containing seven women, the most beautiful beings they had ever looked upon. These were the seven mothers of Tremn: Kvena, Tika, Sorumi, Tam, Ivana, Ffash, and Namffa. Kyeshob was married to Kvena and had three sons and two daughters. The daughters were Vela and Shifa. The husbands of these daughters are well-known.”
“There was another—Naiva. One day, she was walking along the edge of a river when a man, handsome and resplendent, appeared before her. She was enamoured and lusted after him, and the man lay with her. In the morning, she saw that the man she had slept with was neither fair nor beautiful but, rather, his skin was dark grey and his eyes red, like a phantom. His teeth were like jagged knives. She repented and tried to flee but was captured and dragged into the depths of Ffushkar. This being was actually Asharru in physical form. From him the Shaffu were born, as well as the clay men. Some say that the shan were his daughters. All evil came forth through Naiva’s womb and Asharru’s loins. This is the origin of the Shaffu.”
“What of their weapons and defences?” asked Shem.
“They carry axes and long, jagged blades. They wear black robes and chiefly move at night when they celebrate their satanic rituals and festivals. They fight in groups but are easier to defeat when isolated. The two of you must be careful to avoid being surrounded. If ye are taken captive, there is little hope that ye shall escape. Your friend may already have met his fate. If ye pursue this course, ye shall stand on a plain between life and death. One or the other shall overtake you.”
Chapter XIV.
Worm Grove
“It’s time to leave,” said Jyoff.
Ifunka and Shem were kitted out with food supplies, swords, throwing daggers, and other necessaries. Their host had also given them new staffs and shields, such that they could not be more prepared for their mission. Their thoughts were focused, their mettle tried, their goal distilled within the compass of their minds.
It was dawn. They had performed their ablutions and completed the kashroim, as well as supplementary prayers for protection and preparation for death. They donned leather gloves and gisht-wool head-scarves which they wrapped over their faces to conceal their identities. They pulled up their hoods—taking the appearance of bandits or brigands. Then they bade farewell to Jyoff, who had given them clear directions to the lair of the Shaffu. He gave them one final warning:
“Ye shall pass through the maff of the tree worms—the ffaika or ffanyake-metvelatv (i.e. ‘forest-worms’)—which are as tall as a man—nay, taller—and twice as long, and the forest is inhabited by all manner of beasts, including the shan. The worms of that forest are not as large as the ffanyak-padku, the lake worm, but they are quicker and fiercer. Moreover, they have deadly teeth and are seldom alone, so take heed. If ye survive, the Great Spirit be praised; if ye die, be it on the head of Afflish the Accursed. I bid you farewell.”
They turned from Jyoff, he who had prepared them so well for their journey and headed out in the depths of the forest—even unto their final destination. And what destination is truly final? The thought of death loomed more truly in Ifunka’s mind than the thought of victory—if victory were a final destination. But death and victory, life and the cessation thereof, are both prongs of one fork, and neither of the two monks had any say over which would be their terminus, though both are, indeed, a destination. Finality and originality are both, in the eye of the wise, the same, for whatever begins has its pre-existence and whatever ends only changes, leading to a new beginning. The trees which surrounded them, embraced them within their living network—a conglomeration of intertwined spirits of the vegetable kingdom, breathing softly their unreasoned breaths of subtle energy, from branch to branch and root to root, as they set foot to path and paced on within the shade of their lofty boughs. How much Ifunka longed for the peaceful transcendence of the trees, their ignorance of form and meaning, of good and evil—bliss in utter abstraction from the pain of material existence.
Shem was focused on the beauty of his surroundings, the folds of bark on each sturdy bole, the warbling of wultva-budgies and ffubishes above them, the gentle rustling of ffigs as they rolled to and fro along the leaf-blanketed forest floor. Each footstep’s crunch was like music in an eternal symphony of nature, which ever resonated within the theatre of the mimra, watched only by the seldom few who passed through uncivilized expanses and wilderness and the great Watcher of all, who is the Great Spirit.
They walked on for hours, until the time for kashatvin—the midday prayer—when they paused to perform ablutions with water from their skins, and then performed the obligatory prayer as custom and their faith demanded. They snacked on some ragvi-nuts, which Jyoff had packed in their rucksacks to keep their energy levels high as they progressed. After prayers, they continued on their journey and, as they marched on, the dense forest of zeff and kaptitv trees, with occasional limbatves, gave way to a rare and unusual variety of trees called zasht-willows, flaming radiant red trunks with hanging, soft-flower-bud-laden branches, thin like wisps of silk moving this way and that as the breeze listed—a vibrant display of ruddy brilliance, luminescent through some internal energy, conquering the otherwise-gloomy atmosphere of the forest of Ffushkar. The red light cast its bloody ruminescence on the green faces of the stalwart monks. Their eyes gleamed like gleeds of flame in the midst of a roaring hearth-fire.
“What magic is this?” asked Shem, his voice lowered in awe of the bursting-red surroundings.
“Zasht-willows!” Ifunka exclaimed. “Red like the zasht-willow! Didn’t the poet, Hashpa, known for his vivid metaphors and similes, wax lyrical about his love’s ruddy cheeks—ruddy like the zasht-willow?”
“Ah, yes,” said Shem. “I remember: ‘Eynim kont, unka tvaon ffairffulish envash / Zasht anaokshin patrik shoztayenghivt / Ramtiffavt kaldoge metvelatvshiv kakshuffash / Shand tvaon hoikavt gashte patrik ffairyenghivt (‘Mine eyes, they cast upon her ruddy cheek / With passion’s flame like the zasht-willow / glowing brightly in the forest depth / Her bosom heaves with buds of ruddy fire’).”
“Well-remembered,” said Ifunka with cheeky grin. “Perhaps too well-remembered for a monk?”
“You are one to talk, Ifunka,” Shem retorted. “I’ve seen you gaze at the imprints of Yishga in the Tale of Yishga and Yemna, the unrequited lovers.”
“Perhaps you could refrain from criticizing my penchant for great literature, brother.”
“If you would do the same,” Shem replied.
Ifunka felt the glowing bole of a zasht-willow; its branches dangled down and caressed his tangled, red hair and beard.
“It’s w
arm,” asked Ifunka. “A warm tree? How is it warm?”
“I’m no scholar or physician, so I cannot say,” replied Shem. “Only I think it has the element of fire within it. Perhaps the soil we tread on is rich in fire, just as some soil is rich in water, air or iron.”
They continued to walk deeper and deeper into the glowing heart of Ffushkar. The ground beneath them became softer, covered as it was with discarded zasht-buds. When crushed, they emitted a fragrant odour, like a cross between rose-water and musk, which the monks delighted in. Screeches could be heard from the canopy, and figures could be discerned leaping from tree to tree and branch to branch. A rare species of meish, the red-backed, green-bellied finda-lemur, which feeds on the fruit of the zasht-willow, as well as the succulent red sap which bursts out of its many nooks and crannies. The ground became increasingly uneven; Ifunka tripped and Shem caught him, lifting him up.
“Bloody ant-hill!” Ifunka shouted.
“Ant-hills?”
Shem bent down to examine what appeared to be a muddy tube protruding from the ground.
“This doesn’t look like an ant-hill.”
“We’re getting distracted,” said Ifunka.
“But look, brother,” Shem urged him. “This is a tubular obtrusion.”
“A worm-hole?”
“Too small.”
The tube started shaking, without warning, and expanded at the base. The bulge moved upwards while the tube glowed red at its apex.
“Get back!” Ifunka cried.
Shem fell backwards. As the bulge reached the opening, a spherical globule, dark brown like liquid mud, shot upwards and into the forest canopy, while bits of effusion splattered the two monks’ faces. The end of the tube glowed and bulged again, spurting forth more globules, again and again. The ground beneath began to rumble all around them as more and more tubes became visible. A sea of globules burst forth all around them, bathing the red forest in a myriad brown, liquid spheres.
“They’re some kind of globule-thrusters,” said Ifunka cautiously. “Living tubular organisms which consume the earth and spit it out.”
“Uh... If that’s true, Ifunka,” said Shem. “Then why are the spheres floating upwards and not falling downwards?”
“I don’t know. They change the soil somehow, but let’s continue. I think they’re harmless.”
“If the Great Spirit wills,” added Shem.
They proceeded through the maze of jetting protrusions, deftly avoiding the globules as they were able, until they suddenly seemed to reverse themselves, gravity took hold and they rained down upon the hapless monks; yet there was no splash, no wetness, nor any explosion. The blobs simply bounced off them and fell back into the tubes from which they had emerged.
“Most peculiar,” Shem remarked. “What a wonder of nature!”
“Indeed,” agreed Ifunka. “But I’m sure this is the least of our worries in this bizarre place.”
They hurried on, hoping to reach their destination by nightfall, in order to avoid facing yet more shan. The redness of the forest was mesmerizing. The two companions felt as if they were in a dream, drifting along a landscape of eternal fire. Their senses were overwhelmed by the bleeding light which spoke to the inner essence of their hearts, like blood churning in the midst of a boiling cauldron.
A whirring sound, loud yet intermittent, woke them from their reveries, yet they could not discern whether it were real or a mere product of their invigorated imaginations. Its whirred and stopped, whirred and stopped, like a myriad fans all moving at top speed before hastily ceasing their revolution, only to start again in an endless cycle of repetition. Ifunka and Shem exchanged concerned glances as they kept walking, the noise appearing to increase relative to their approach. Whirr—pause—whirr—pause—whirr—pause, it continued. The globule thrusters had receded from view as the monks now saw a host of spinning ‘things’, rotating from a root fastly-fixed in the ground. When it paused, they discerned that the entire creature was a sturdy root-like vegetable, with a central hub rotating around the root which was attached to it, around which were affixed eight vanes or ‘blades’ which, together with the hub, formed a kind of fan or propeller.
“In all my days,” Shem gasped as the fan whirred into motion.
“In all your days?” Ifunka remarked. “We’re not that old, brother.
“But have you seen the like of this, Ifunka? What are these blades which move around a central point?”
“I do not know; what wonders nature produces! What mysteries the forest depths conceal! We have entered a realm beyond our feeble imaginations.”
Shem placed his hand over one of the spinning roots as it spun. Air was being sucked from the forest canopy and into the fan. Insects, leaves and other detritus hit Shem’s hand and bounced off into the vanes before being sucked into tiny vents at the base of the root.
“Mouths!” Shem observed. “It’s sucking insects into these openings at the base of the root. Look, brother!”
“Fascinating,” said Ifunka. “But we have no time for scholarly observations. Let’s move on!”
“How shall be avoid being thrashed by these creatures?”
“We’ll cut them with our blades as we rush through.”
This they proceeded to do, slashing and thus harming, the silent carnivores as they ran on, for some minutes or so, until they appeared to dip into another valley, descending rapidly down a slope until they reached the bottom.
“This is it,” said Ifunka solemnly. “We’ve reached the heart of mighty Ffushkar. We cannot be far distant from the home of the Shaffu—the accurséd sons of Asharru.”
“Well, then,” Shem replied. “Let’s hurry until we reach the edge of their domain, so we can observe whether our brother be still alive.”
“Even if he be not,” said Ifunka, his voice tremulous with anger and anticipation. “I intend to strike a blow at the heart of their tribe and see blood pour like flooded water over the paths and ditches of their untouched land. Let them ever fear for their safety and rue the day that they offended Ifunka Kaffa.”
“You sound like one possessed.”
“I am possessed—with righteous indignation.”
“Careful, brother, remember Tvem’s warning.”
“My heart boils, though I remember what he said. Fear not, I can control my wrath.”
Just then, Ifunka stepped into something warm and soft. Shem heard the plopping sound and they both looked down at once to find Ifunka’s foot heel-high in a soft, foamy white ball of cream—or what looked like cream.
“Afflish’s forkéd tongue!”
“Ha, brother!” Shem laughed. “It looks as though you’ve stepped in it this time!”
“Stepped in what?”
“A ball of white cream—or perhaps an egg?”
“There are no eggs this size and girth.”
Ifunka bent down and poked the ball with his finger. Collecting a small amount on the tip thereof, he brought it to his nose.
“Hardly any smell.”
He tasted it.
“Agggg!” he exclaimed. “It is foul beyond words.” He gagged.
“Let me see.”
Shem knelt down to look at it.
“Remove your foot,” he requested.
Ifunka lifted his boot, which reluctantly exited the ball, covered in a layer of white filth which was painted a ruddy shade of red due to the glowing trees all about them.
“It seems soft but not liquid—rather like a secretion of some kind.”
“What could possibly be big enough to secrete a ball of this size? Surely it isn’t excrement?”
“If it be, it comes from an enormous creature.”
The ground rumbled, as if a stomach deprived of sustenance, and seemed to move beneath their very feet.
“Brother!” Ifunka cried. “We’d be
tter move!”
“The worms—it must be the worms!”
“That was worm excrement!”
As these words left their lips, the trees shook and leaves fell off the branches. A mound of earth lifted up in front of them as they rushed forward.
“Back!” Ifunka cried.
Like a spout of water, the soil lifted up to a point and then gave way to an enormous mouth, a pallid, coarse tip—phallic yet grotesque—eyeless, blind, a figure of death and senseless malice. Its body lifted up and, succumbing to gravity, thwapped down sharply on the forest floor like a piece of meat slapped onto a butcher’s slab. Its slit-like mouth opened wide to reveal three rows of sharp, knife-like teeth, brilliantly-white, within a pink, fleshy interior. Breathing holes on the side of its head sucked deeply and a hot, pungent breath came belching out of its hideous, deadly orifice. Snake-like in its movements, it came charging after them, its head as big as a man’s chest and each tooth a finger’s length from base to tip.
“Run!” Ifunka screamed as they darted around it and onward through the valley. The worm, a ffaika or ‘forest-worm’, slithered after them at great speed, only hindered by the jerk-like oscillatory motion of its movements, causing it to crash, ever and anon, into tree boles and rocks. Undeterred by these perpetual mishaps, it continued on, gaining ground on the hapless monks, who had no recourse but to keep running and hope for some deliverance from their fate—a fate, indeed, terrible to imagine. Death by worm is, truly, a horrible thing; to be sheered in half by razor-sharp fangs and slowly devoured through many feet of digestive juices which gradually reduce one’s flesh to a pulp-like mush, until suffocation or blood loss causes one’s heart to beat no more—such is the fate of the worm-devoured.
The ground beneath them began to tremor and shake violently like the sheets of a troubled sleeper’s bed, tossing to a fro. Two mounds of earth sprung up before them and hideous, sickly heads burst forth to reveal their gleaming teeth. Flailing violently and slapping one another, they lifted themselves up and crashed down onto the leaf-bestrewn floor. The two monks involuntarily dispersed, Shem to the left and Ifunka to the right, such that the worms, in violent contortions, raced in both directions, with two on Shem’s tail and one on Ifunka’s. Yet this was not enough! Three more mounds of soil welled up like bubbles spewing forth lava from the mouth of a volcano, hurling clods of soil to and fro—two to the right of Ifunka and another to Shem’s left. The odds were now well-and-truly against them. The last strands of hope seemed to be drifting from their grasp. The worms’ mouths snapped together like so many lobster claws slicing victims from head-to-toe. At last, as their legs began to seize up through over-exertion, and they panted what seemed to be their last, Ifunka came upon a path of stones, each one ground flat, of a large circular circumference, the one placed after the other in a straight line heading towards what appeared to be a ditch some okshas away in the distance. Ifunka leapt onto the first stone and then continued running. The worms followed along, to the sides of the path, being unable to go through stone and unwilling to go on top of it—perhaps natural instinct to avoid exposure to enemies.
The Rise of Plant Man, Lord of War, Conquest and Revenge: Green Monk of Tremn, Part II (Coins of Amon-Ra Book 2) Page 3
