Crown of Vengeance fie-1

by Stephen Zimmer

  “We are far enough off the shore. I know this lake well. It’s got good depth right off the shoreline. What’s this all about?” Kent said incredulously, anxiously looking over the side of the boat.

  Janus joined him at his side.

  Through the light from the front of the boat, he could see that they had effectively lodged the boat into an expanse of extremely shallow water.

  For the next few moments, Derek tried to get the boat moving but it soon became very evident that it was fully immobilized in the muddy, shallow bottom.

  “Great. That’s all I need,” Kent stammered.

  Janus knew that Kent was thinking of his father, and how he would react to the news of having his boat run aground. Janus knew that any hopes that Kent still harbored of beers and rest had evaporated from his mind.

  Kent looked towards the shore, several paces away. He announced with obvious unease, “Well, I’m going to find out where we are, at the least.”

  “Hey, be careful,” Derek cautioned, stepping forward as Kent swung his legs over the side of the boat.

  Kent’s feet splashed into the cold water of the lake, but his weight was held up. He sloshed forward, examining the bow of the boat before looking back towards the others, his face illumined by the glow of the boat’s headlights. “See, it’s solid, and shallow. We can find out where we are, and maybe work on pushing the boat back out in a minute.”

  Kent stepped away then, trudging through the water as he made his way over to the shore. Striding up out of the water, he turned and gave the others a half-hearted smile that was accompanied by a thumbs-up gesture.

  “It will just take a second, I’ll find out where we are at,” he called.

  Turning his back to them, he walked up the shore and away from the water’s edge, his form soon swallowed by the mist.

  Derek and Janus sat patiently in the boat, the ponderous silence continuing its hold around them. They could hear nothing from the direction that Kent had gone.

  The minutes continued to increase, one streaming into another without sight or sound of anything else. Janus finally placed his hands on the side of the boat, looking towards the shore.

  He glanced back at Derek. “How long should we give him?”

  “A few more minutes,” Derek replied tersely, his features stoic and unreadable.

  Janus knew that underneath it all, Derek was growing as concerned as he was. Kent had a jocular manner, but was not the reckless type of individual to indulge in trivial games during a situation such as this.

  “Kent! Hey Kent!” Janus called out loudly, cupping his hands about his mouth. The shout broke through the still air with the equivalence of booming thunder.

  There was no answer forthcoming.

  “Kent! Hey! Where are you?” Derek yelled, even louder than Janus had.

  The cumbersome silence around them remained, unrepentant and defiant.

  Janus looked back towards Derek, his features grim. “I’m not liking this at all. Not one bit. I think I’d better go to the shoreline. What if he’s tripped on something and hit his head, or something like that?”

  “We shouldn’t get completely split up,” Derek advised. “We can leave the boat here. I don’t think it is going anywhere for the moment.”

  Grabbing the side of the boat, Derek pivoted on the spot that his hands clutched as he jumped nimbly over the side of the vessel.

  “Here, wait a second, let me test something,” Derek said.

  He brought his arm back over the side of the boat, just behind the wind-shield, braced himself, and tried to push it backward. After a moment, he changed his grip and tried the other direction.

  Veins stood out on his forehead, and his muscles bulged with the considerable exertion. A muffled grunt escaped as he finally gave up the effort.

  “Whatever we’ve managed to do, we’ve lodged it really good. I don’t know how we’ve managed to get it stuck this firmly, but it is, and there’s no sense disputing the reality of it. But as for our immediate worries, I don’t think it is going anywhere, anytime soon. There’s no current to speak of on this lake anyway,” Derek remarked between rapid breaths. “Like I said, if we go after Kent, then I think we should stick together.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan to me,” Janus readily agreed, not feeling eager to wander off into the engulfing mists by himself.

  Janus swung his left leg over the side of the boat, holding onto its edge as he swung his other leg up and over. His feet plopped down with a splash as he came to stand in the ankle-deep water.

  Derek and Janus walked towards the shoreline, calling out for Kent as they distanced themselves from the boat. They stopped for several moments to listen for a response, but the eerie quiet persisted. Janus found himself growing extremely worried. Something was simply not right about any of it.

  “This isn’t like Kent at all,” Derek said curtly, glancing back to where the boat was lodged. “But I tell you what, I’m not going to be very happy at all if Kent is messing with us.”

  “That makes two of us, but I don’t think that he would joke about something like this,” Janus said. “He’s a joker, but he’s not a fool.”

  “For his sake, I sure hope so,” Derek said, his snapping attitude revealing the great apprehension that was growing inside of him. He fixed his gaze forward. “Let’s go!”

  Their socks and shoes were soaked, weighing their steps down as they emerged from the lake and continued up the shore. The grass-covered land quickly inclined at the edge of the denser fog.

  Derek used his hands to brace himself as he crept up the rising embankment through the fog. He proceeded very slowly, exercising extreme caution within the incredibly low visibility.

  Janus emulated Derek’s tactic and followed close behind. Their visibility had shrunk considerably again, which did little to allay Janus’ worries.

  After a brief, albeit steep, incline, the ground leveled out again and allowed for them both to stand up.

  “Where do we go from here? We can’t see anything,” Derek commented, as Janus took a step forward to stand beside him.

  The boat and the lakeside were no longer visible behind them. They were enveloped fully in the mist again, a world of gray with a patch of grass directly underfoot.

  “Kent!” Janus called out one more time, the query proving naught in eliciting any clue as to Kent’s whereabouts or condition. He turned towards Derek, “Let’s go on.”

  He took a slow step forward, followed by another, as he proceeded cautiously through the fog. After he had taken several more steps, he noticed that his visibility was increasing again. The fog appeared to be thinning, and he wondered if the bulk of its density was concentrated closer to the water.

  Ahead, there was a brighter luminescence that seemed to beckon to Janus. It increased in intensity with each and every step forward that he took.

  With the rising visibility, he picked his pace up more confidently. He felt relieved that he could see for at least a few steps, just as the first shards of broad daylight burst suddenly through the last vestiges of the fog; daylight that came from a stunning, greenish-blue sky.

  Janus halted immediately, standing in a maelstrom of astonishment and wonder at the edge of the fog bank. He did not so much as move or speak, even as Derek drew up next to him a moment later.

  Derek was equally speechless as he perceived the extraordinary sight. A remarkable and unexpected view was spread to the far horizons before them.

  The land that was brilliantly revealed to their eyes flowed in a harmony of gently rising and falling contours, consisting of broad swathes of higher grasses that were broken up here and there by a few thick copses of trees. Off in the distance, towards the east, was a blurry, continuous line that signaled the beginnings of a vast forest that stretched beyond sight.

  The strange hue of the sky compounded the shock of the unexpected scene unraveling before them. Janus finally turned about, the last wisps of fog vanishing at the edges of a modest river, glidi
ng by along soft currents a few strides behind them.

  The lake and the boat were nowhere to be seen.

  “Janus! Derek!” cried out a very familiar voice to their right.

  A couple of hundred yards off, running hurriedly towards them, was Kent. He closed the distance quickly, nearly tripping over his own feet in his fervent haste to get to where the other two were standing.

  Janus’ heart leaped as he saw Kent suddenly jump off to the side, as a loud, piercing screech erupted from the ground level.

  A small lizard-like creature leapt up, startled from its hiding spot. Janus’ eyes caught a brief flash of its greenish exterior as its scaly body caught the sunlight. Its powerful legs pumped desperately as it bounded away from Kent.

  Janus watched the strange creature race into the distance, moving with incredible speed and agility. He had seen nothing like it in his life.

  Janus looked back quickly to Kent. His expression was of outright fear, mingled with a wave of consummate relief at having found them. He stumbled forward again, quickly covering the last stretch of ground that still remained between them.

  “You came out of nowhere, I thought I’d lost you guys forever,” he stammered, wide-eyed and dangerously close to hyperventilation.

  He looked to be on the cusp of hysteria. His eyes looked back in the direction where the lizard-creature had run, returning his attention a moment later towards Janus and Derek.

  “You couldn’t hear us calling for you?” Janus asked him.

  Kent appeared perplexed, as his brow furrowed. “I didn’t hear one word from you. I looked back, and I couldn’t see you or the boat either. Then the fog had thinned enough so that I could see the river that’s there now. You two were nowhere to be seen.”

  “Impossible. This is impossible,” Derek said pointedly, pacing around in a circle and shaking his head. He opened and closed his eyes several times, as he stared around at the sights around them.

  A soft breeze tossed some strands of hair into Janus’ face, as he looked up into the teal sky in absolute incredulity. He had no inkling regarding an explanation for had just happened, his mind spinning as it tried to come up with a rationale.

  “Where are we? What is this?” Kent asked Janus hurriedly, panic manifest in his tone and face.

  Janus gave a pained smile, as he lowered his gaze towards Kent. He spoke gently to his friend, “Kent, can we all have just lost our minds? I don’t think so, but I don’t have any idea what this all is, or means.”

  “We are in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing out here, nothing at all! Wherever you look, nothing!” Kent declared.

  He gave a wide, dramatic sweep of his hand as he spoke, the gesture taking in the full immensity of their unfamiliar environment. Janus’ eyes followed Kent’s gesture, and he could not deny that there was not one singular sign of any human presence or activity. It was a totality of open wilderness, beautiful and daunting at the same time.

  “What is this place?” Kent prodded again, as if the others might actually know the answer. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know, and Janus doesn’t know!” Derek declared tersely.

  Janus had never before seen Derek looking so exasperated, but like himself he knew that Derek was entirely devoid of answers. That cognizance alone was enough to add further to Janus’ own increasing trepidation.

  “I don’t know either, Kent,” Janus added quietly.

  His nerves had already been frayed, and his emotions had long been spent, so there was little left within him to cope with the inherent shock of the moment.

  There was no other way around it. Unless they were all suffering from a homogenous, mass hallucination, the impossible had become possible. His first inclination was that they had literally stepped right out of their own world, potentially into a world of a different time and place. The scope of that notion was at once overwhelming, and mind-boggling. It also seemed totally absurd, and a part of Janus immediately dismissed the thought as a momentary shred of hysteria present within himself.

  It was ridiculous to think that the stuff of dreams and fantastical tales had somehow manifested into a bold new existence, but there was a hard and undeniable reality to everything around them. Janus knew that whatever the case might be, they were at the mercy of something far beyond his comprehension.

  “I’m going crazy… man, I am going crazy!” Kent said, his eyes gleaming with fear, moistening as tears of helplessness came into them.

  He looked as if he were about to come apart at every seam.

  Without a word, Derek walked with quick, purposeful strides over towards Kent. Derek reached out and grabbed him forcefully by the shoulders, bringing Kent around to face him directly as he waited for Kent to look back up.

  “Come on Kent! Get a grip on yourself!” he said firmly. His gaze seemed composed of iron, as if compelling Kent to take some strength from it. Though he spoke to Kent with a commanding tone, Janus heard the strong sympathy and compassion underlying the words. “I don’t blame you for feeling what you are feeling. But whatever all of this is, we are all in it together right now. And we have to work with what we’ve got.”

  Janus had nothing to add to Derek’s statement, and he did not want to do anything to rattle Kent. He decided to demonstrate calmness while Kent’s faculties swayed on the edge. Janus lowered himself down on the ground into a sitting position near to the other two.

  He rested his arms across his knees, his right hand clasping the wrist of his left as he silently looked out over the quiet, grassy land. The breezes created gentle waves and undulations along its surface.

  Derek slowly released his hold upon Kent, his voice coming low and much more gently, “Okay? Are you with us now? Come on, keep your cool now. We are going to need you.”

  Though a few tears had escaped and left tracks down his cheeks, and although he choked back a couple of muffled sobs, Kent at last nodded in agreement to Derek’s words. Janus was watching out of the corner of his eyes, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the reaction. Kent was still in a fragile state, but he was anchoring himself.

  “Sit down, and get your breath,” Derek advised Kent, gesturing towards the ground.

  Kent took a seat near to Janus’ side, and took several deep breaths as he struggled to regain his composure.

  “No matter what, we’ll have to deal with what we know, and what we have to work with,” Derek iterated to Kent, sitting down to the other side of Janus.

  Derek’s words made good sense. No matter what, even if they were somehow sharing a strange dream together, they found themselves in an entirely unfamiliar location. Janus was not quite ready to accept what his heart was telling him, hoping instead that a rational explanation would emerge at any moment.

  If Janus’ first impressions, those resounding in his heart, were accurate, the lands around him were located nowhere within the state that he and his friends resided in.

  The impenetrable fog that had covered their passage into this strange place was entirely dissipated, and Janus had no intimation as to how they could return back to the lake and the boat, much less his home.

  In other circumstances, the extraordinary hue of the sky above them would have been a thing of majestic beauty to gaze upon, and the strange, lizard-like animal an object of great fascination and interest. As it was, Janus was far too unsettled to appreciate the unusual sights.

  Even more daunting to their immediate prospects, they had no supplies of any kind, or even weapons.

  Until something, or someone, familiar manifested, they had to act as if they had been set into the middle of a foreign wilderness, without any foreknowledge of its contents or environment. They had already seen a representative of the local fauna, and it was not illogical to believe that there might well be other unfamiliar species lurking about, perhaps some that were very dangerous.

  At the moment, any signs of civilized society would be extremely welcome. An airplane in the sky, power lines, or even the sound of a car
engine would be glorious music to Janus’ ears.

  The troubling prospects left him feeling very naked and highly vulnerable, as he sat in brooding silence with his friends on the grass, each of them trying to collect their thoughts together.

  Janus did not try to interrupt Kent, and nor did Derek, even when they noticed that he had closed his eyes, and that his shoulders bobbed up and down with silent sobs.

  The outpouring of emotion was no sign of weakness, nor any indictment of Kent’s strength or courage. Janus knew in his heart that Derek did not hold it to be such either.

  Kent had been fully and brusquely immersed into an incomprehensible and overwhelming situation when he had been separated from the others. If anything, Janus was astounded that Kent had not entirely lost his mind. The mere fact that Kent was holding somewhat together, albeit shakily, instead testified to a considerable strength within him.

  As Kent let his terrors and panic ebb through the sobs and tears, Janus contemplated Kent’s ordeal.

  Kent had entered this strange new place entirely alone when he had walked up the shore and away from the boat. He had endured a brief period where he had not known whether Derek or Janus would ever be reunited with him. For all Kent knew, he had been cast suddenly into an entirely strange place, and abandoned to face his fate alone.

  If there was one small comfort remaining to Janus, it was that he and Derek had not been severed from the sense and bonds of familiarity and friendship that they shared with each other. In an inexplicable experience such as the one that they were now facing, such bonds were a tremendous boon, if not vital.

  Janus knew that their bonds of friendship would now be about the only thing that they all could grasp onto. It was a very sobering realization, and it was abundantly clear to Janus that the welfare of the other two was indispensable to his own continued survival.

  Reaching over, he patted Kent gently on the back.

  LEE

  “It’s all around us now,” Lee observed with fascination.

  The fog had fully enveloped Lee, Ryan, and the entire restaurant. Looking behind him, Lee had been slightly unnerved to discover that he could not see the front facing of the restaurant anymore. There was not even a hint of it, walled off as it was by the opaque mists.