Odds are, if you’re reading this, your only trip to such a place will be after your death. However, if you somehow manage to loose your soul from your body and are offered the chance to make a trip to one of these realms, it is highly encouraged that you decline. These realms are dangerous beyond words, placing your very existence at risk every second you spend inside one. Avoid them at all costs.
11
It’s always night in the land of the dead. Campfires roaring, twilight fading, hope flickering in the distance like a far-off thunderstorm in a drought. It is not a place for the living; even light and hope come here to die.
The campfires on the other side of the sky burn a cold blue, flickering like buzzing streetlamps. They give no warmth to the world, no comfort. From across the gulf between life and death, they twinkle like sterling jewels, but here, in the land of the dead, they serve only to draw in the weak like moths. Spirits swarm, too lost or confused to see the land around them for what it is, thinking the lights beacons. They mutter, tell stories, recount lives long gone, hoping for heroes to find them and lead them on to their greater rewards. Waiting for day to break.
For most, the heroes never come.
At some point Colby had stopped flying and begun falling; his guts shifted, innards wrenching and dipping as he fell. He rocketed toward one of the fires, burning cold white melancholy twenty feet high. The spirits around it stared into the glow, ignoring him as he slammed into the ground behind them. Colby stood and approached; he listened close, hearing fragments of tales, some bold and terrifying, others mundane. One woman recounted a recipe for seared fish. Another talked about her son chasing toads.
“Don’t pay too much attention,” said a spirit to Colby from over his shoulder. “Listen too long and you’ll spend eternity like them, muttering about lives that ended aeons ago, lost in stories about nothing in particular, all with the same ending.”
Colby turned and faced the spirit: a large, pale white crocodile, low to the ground, its flesh scarred and leathery, its eyes the milky white of death. It spoke through its large flapping jaw, teeth dull and chipped. “Are you Mandu’s friend?” Colby asked of the crocodile.
“Of sorts,” said the croc. “I show him things. And we have a history.”
“What kind of history?”
“A long and tangled one. Come, I’ll tell you on the way.”
“The way to where?” asked Colby.
“You came for the boy, yeah?”
“Yes! How did you know that?”
“Mandu and I have friends in common, friends who walk in both worlds.”
Colby smiled. “So you’ll show me where the boy is?”
“Yes, I have a pretty good idea where he’s hiding. But it’s a dangerous walk. We have to leave now.” The croc turned, its stubby little legs awkwardly swinging its body around, tail slinging after. Then it ran, a brisk, surging bolt out into the darkness beyond the fires.
Colby followed. Moving was effortless. The air around him felt fluid, as if the world were flowing around him rather than he trying to push through it. He thought forward and he went forward.
“Only the strongest spirits can do that,” said the croc.
Colby giggled slightly, overwhelmed. “I don’t know how I’m doing it.”
“You’re changing the Skyworld around you. Be mindful, though. Too much change and the entire world can go sideways. You can crumple the whole thing up, fold it in on itself.”
“Where are we going?”
“There was once a man named Djarapa,” said the croc.
“Is this going to be a story?”
“Yes.”
“You guys sure tell a lot of stories.”
“History is everything. A place isn’t where something is. It is what happened there. It is what it means to be there. Look around you. What do you see?”
“Nothing,” said Colby.
“Nothing?”
“Well, I see campfires.” Colby looked up at the sky for the first time since he arrived. It was deep and black, spotted with stars. But the stars were orange and flickered more than they twinkled.
“Are those . . . ?”
“Campfires? Yes. So you know where you are?”
“Yes.”
“But you can’t see anything around you, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The croc stopped walking and swung its large head to look up at Colby. “That’s because this is the land where the dead walk. The dead are the history. This land is their history. And you don’t know it. So you can’t see it for what it is. And if you remain ignorant, you never will.”
Colby nodded. “Tell me the story.”
“There was once a man named Djarapa,” the croc said again. “Who though clever, was very lazy. There was much work to be done, but he never wanted to do it. He used to con others into doing his work, and when they got wise to his antics, he began tricking children into doing it, pretending the chores were games. Soon everyone in the village knew what Djarapa was up to, so he had to find another way to get his work done.
“One day he decided that if no one else would help him do his work, he would have to build himself someone that would. So he collected up all manner of strange stones, wood, shells, and straw, and fashioned them together into something tall and manlike. It had the trunk of a fallen tree for a body, pebbles for eyes, straw for hair, stones for teeth, and shells all over it for decoration. Then Djarapa waited, trying to lure spirits into it. But as clever as he was, no spirit would enter such an ugly thing. So he cast rituals and spells, trying to awaken the wood itself, but it would not come to life.
“After three days and nights of trickery, singing, and rituals, Djarapa grew very angry and yelled and screamed at the wooden golem to come alive. But it would not. Finally, fed up with the whole thing, he kicked the golem and swore. Then he walked away, into the bush.
“Just then he heard a great scraping coming from behind him. He turned and listened, hearing crunching and cracking and the sound of wood and stone warring with each other. Then the bushes parted and the great wooden man, Wulgaru, stepped out, chasing Djarapa. Djarapa ran as fast as he could, but no matter how fast he ran, Wulgaru kept pace. Djarapa ran for miles, growing tired from the effort. But Wulgaru, made of wood and stone and straw, never tired, and gained ground on him.
“Djarapa knew there was only one way to lose the golem. He ran to the river, making deep, noticeable tracks in the mud, leading right to the water’s edge. Then he crept lightly away, leaving no tracks at all, and he hid in some bushes. Just then Wulgaru appeared, storming after the trail and plunging into the river.
“Djarapa let out a sigh of relief until a moment later when Wulgaru emerged from the other side, still searching for Djarapa, rampaging into the outback. From then on, the golem attacked and devoured anyone and everything evil it came across, but left alone those of pure heart and good intention. For hundreds of years it did this, roaming the deserts and swamps and rivers and mountains, looking for Djarapa, who was long dead.
“But over time the stones that were its teeth fell out and the straw blew away and the wood finally rotted and cracked. Then one day Wulgaru sat down on a riverbank and was no more, falling apart and crumbling into dust.”
“Did it come here?” asked Colby.
“You are wise,” said the croc. “It did come here. And immediately it set about devouring the evil souls around him. Those that were here saw the danger in this. Skyworld is not a place of either good or evil. It is a place for history of all kind. So the souls here banded together and dug a giant pit ten men deep. Then they lured the golem with evil souls who ran as fast as they could and leapt over the giant hole. Wulgaru chased them, falling in, unable to climb out.
“Now, whenever someone has something they need to hide, to keep out of the reach of evil men, they toss it into the hole, where Wulgaru sits and awaits its chance to devour another evil soul.”
Colby nodded, keeping pace with the white crocodile. “A
nd we’re going to that pit,” he said knowingly.
“Yes we are.”
“Because that’s where the boy’s soul is hidden.”
“Or at least,” said the croc, “that’s where it should be.”
They ran as fast as they could, speeding through the hills and plains of Skyworld. The farther they pressed, the brighter and lighter it became. Soon they found themselves walking through the swamps of Arnhem Land.
“Hey,” said Colby, “I’m starting to be able to see better. Why is it getting light all of a sudden?”
“I told you. It’s always been light. The darkness is your ignorance of the history around you. If this place is lit, then you know where we are.”
“It looks like the outback. We’re near Hammer Rock.”
“Yes,” said the croc. “Imagine that.”
“Croc, who are you?”
“Someone who learned the same lessons as you, but not the way you learned them.” The croc looked around, waving with a single stubby leg. “What do you know of this place?”
They stood at the bank of a river, its water flowing slowly, trickles of blood marbling the surface.
“Nothing. Just that it’s near the rock.”
“That is where I was born,” said the croc. “Across the river, just there. A second time. Third, maybe. Depending on how many lives you think I have.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Once there was a young Clever Man whose tribe asked him to solve a problem. You see, I’d lived along this part of the river for a very long time and had never given his village much trouble. But one day I started acting strange, too strange for them. I had only eaten one person before then, and that had been someone who had gotten too close to my wallow. The villagers had no problem with that. They understood. It was my nature, after all. But when I started running up on land, snatching children from their huts at night, eating men hunting in the bush—well, they decided it was time to put me down.
“Animals like me aren’t supposed to house powerful spirits. We’re not supposed to be that cunning. But I was, so they assumed I must have been possessed, taken by an evil spirit.”
“Were you?” asked Colby, peering across the river to the croc’s birthplace.
The croc nodded. “It was the thing I’d eaten. A man’s soul infused in a piece of meat.”
“A soul infused in . . .” At once Colby understood. “You . . . you’re Koorong.”
The croc nodded its large, bulbous head, smiling with a wicked row of chipped teeth. “I am the Koorong who loved a girl and made a terrible mistake, the Koorong who was justly punished. I am the Koorong who awakened a crocodile that hunted the waters of Mandu’s village. I am the Koorong that sired the boy you murdered and came to find.”
“Warra,” said Colby. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Doesn’t matter what you meant,” interrupted the croc. “All that matters here is what you did. He’s dead.”
“Are you taking care of him now?”
“He doesn’t know I’m his dad.”
“Why not?”
The croc looked up sadly at Colby. “Because he thinks the soulless shell I left behind is his father. And in a way, he’s right. More of a dad than I could be. But that’s also how he ended up here so soon. The dad he’s waiting for will never show up. He doesn’t exist over here. He’s meat. Instinct. Living hate running on an engine that cannot be sustained. Nothing more.”
“What does that make you?” asked Colby.
“The Koorong that is trying to set things right.”
“How did you die?”
“The young Clever Man. He tracked me to my lair, found where I was fermenting my kills. He covered himself in muck and guts and waited for me to return. He lay in wait, watched as I devoured the corpse of his friend, let me fill my belly until I was slow and sleepy. Then he pounced, driving a spear right into my skull. He carved me up, took me home, but first ate a piece of me raw. Claimed my soul right there. From then on, I was bound to him.”
“So you’ve been haunting Mandu?”
“Helping him set this right. Preparing him for the role he is to play in your life.”
“My life?” asked Colby. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Everything,” it said. “You share a powerful friend in common. Come on, we still have a way to go.”
12
Moments later they stood along a ridge overlooking a dark valley pockmarked with fires. In the center of it was a towering gray-green flint plateau, from which lightning bolts shot into the sky, exploding among the flickering orange stars above. Thunder cracked and echoed through the valley, a steady rumbling shaking it from one side to the other.
“What is that?” asked Colby over the dull roar.
“That’s where we have to stop to ask directions.”
“Directions? I thought you knew where you were going.”
“I do,” said the croc, speaking louder over thunder. “I’ve just never been there.”
“Why not?”
“Because Wulgaru eats the souls of the evil.”
“Yeah, but you’re not evil,” said Colby.
The croc looked up at him, speechless. Colby opened his mouth to speak again, but closed it as understanding set in. It hadn’t dawned on him that Wulgaru might try to eat Koorong, but then again, he hadn’t known this was Koorong when he first had heard of it. But then an even more terrible thought occurred to him.
“Croc?” asked Colby. “Is Wulgaru going to try and eat me?”
“Why would he try to eat you?”
“Because I murdered a boy.”
“That’s a good question. We’ll see,” said the croc. “We’ll see. Come. There’s someone you should meet.”
Atop the plateau stood two men. Their soot-black skin was charred and crispy, painted head to toe in long unbroken chalky lines. One man’s skin was painted entirely in white, the other’s in ocher. Both wore enormous feather headdresses and nothing else. And in their hands they wielded mighty hammers, the hafts the length of a grown man, the heads the size of their torsos. They swung their hammers down on the flint in alternating blows, sparking massive bolts of lightning that flew up and away, into the sky.
“These,” said Croc, “are the Lightning Brothers.” He pointed to the one in red. “This one is Yagjabula. And that is his younger brother Yabiringi.”
“Are they making lightning?”
“Yes,” said Yabiringi, interjecting, his eyes still on his hammer. “For the storms back home.”
“Why?” asked Colby.
“Because someone has to. Why not us?”
“Everyone needs a purpose,” said Yagjabula. “Back home we had a different purpose. Here we do much more good.”
“Lightning isn’t good,” said Colby. “It’s dangerous.”
Yagjabula shook his head and swung his hammer. Thunder left the plateau shuddering. “All things have a purpose. Even the things that seem bad at first. Even you.”
Colby narrowed his eyes, grimacing. “I’m not bad.”
“You’re a murderer,” said Yabiringi. “Like my brother.” The earth quaked from another hammer swing.
“You should have kept your hands off my wife,” said Yagjabula. “She was my wife.”
“But I saw her first. And she was beautiful.”
“But she married me.”
THUNDER.
“Only because you were older,” said Yabiringi.
“And better looking.”
“So you’re a murderer and a liar.”
“Keep it up. I’ll take your head off again.”
THUNDER.
“You wouldn’t. You have work to do.”
“I’ll do it on break. Swing so hard your head will pop off.”
THUNDER.
“Sorry to interrupt,” said the croc. “But we need directions.”
“To where?” asked Yagjabula.
“Wulgaru.”
“Oh,” said Yabiringi,
“you don’t want to go there. He’ll eat you both.”
“He will not,” said Yagjabula.
“He will too. Can’t you see the evil on them? Look at the whitefella’s hands. They’re both murderers.”
Colby looked down at his hands. Bloodstains running almost to his elbow. He felt nauseated, guilty.
“But they’re remorseful. You can tell by their eyes.”
“Wulgaru only looks at your hands, not your eyes. And remorse doesn’t keep you from being evil.”
“It most certainly does. That’s the definition.”
Yabiringi put his hammer down for a second, propping himself up on the haft. “You’re only saying that because you think feeling bad about killing me makes you less of a bad guy.”
Yagjabula smiled and swung his hammer, the flint cracking loudly, the bolt splintering eighty different ways in the sky. “Who said I felt bad?”
“You feel terrible.”
“I don’t think that I do.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I mean, it was my wife.”
“I hate you.”
“And you had it coming.”
“You can shut up now.”
“It felt so good taking your head clean off like that in one swing. Just POP—and it was off.”
“Shut up.”
“Kicked it around a little. Made a game of it.”
“You can stop,” said Yabiringi. “I get it.”
“Didn’t feel bad at all.”
“But now you feel terrible.”
“Not so much.”
“But this kid feels awful.”
“He looks it. I don’t think Wulgaru’s gonna eat him.”
“I think he will.”
Yagjabula stopped swinging and smiled at his brother. “Fancy a wager, yeah?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. A proper wager.”
We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories Page 23
